Lance Armstrong?)... didn't win, but he trusted fools...

Lance Armstrong, had cancer, then went on to ride bicycle races - and was an important, very much so, part of the team from America that raced and won him the Tour d'France. He trusted doctors for his cancer, he trusted machines and team mates and some witch doctor thing called blood doping from the best of Soviet Sports medicine (?). And thinking it was what helped him win, at all costs, he forgot that he was the one pumping those pedals, leading the team in tactics and unity to win, seven years in a row. He decided to side with the Devil and lie about it, sure that only God knew the truth - and I am sure that God does know the truth - because Lance was still the one pumping all those miles on those bikes, and Lance was sure he was cheating to win and once you betray yourself, everything else is just in the degree.

I am sure that Lance rode all those miles, sprinted and paced and set records, there are video tapes of the pack behind him. I know that the authority, that has written the terrible expose of his foul methods wasn't pedaling behind him, couldn't have caught him even if they had his super witch doctor blood brew and has justified their handicap by exposing his. He didn't trust in the Lord. He trained harder than most other cyclists and he wanted to win so much more that he thought he had to do anything to win.

He has no honor, he didn't honor his parents, his sport nor his following public. He didn't honor the Lord. I am not a bicycling fan, but I have competed poorly in endeavors a various times, enjoying the competition and the challenge and accepting what I earned, and truly appreciating how hard one has to train to get that little bit of edge to win. There is no doubt in my mind that when I was in the military I worked very hard to win on the battlefield, not always the way my leadership would have loved, but to the goal in my mind it was the best. As good as the godless Communists of Korea and Vietnam were they didn't get me or the units I was with for my shortcomings, although luck has much to do with that. The Iraqi Army had their idea of God, but didn't trust their equipment nor their instructors and never learned how to fight and win, losing and living was okay in their mind.

The idea of Honor has really gone away from the general culture in America, it was once what all men were judged by - by their women and other men. But in those days we had a real relationship with the Lord above, and then with everyone of his creatures on earth which we were to care for...

So, I see what happened in Libya and the Ambassador his staff and the CIA security, and the White House staff. It wasn't the President, nor the Secretary of State, but the fools surrounding them making decisions beyond their pay grade - not to have too military a presence, or to overkill any threats, to pretend that when the dawn broke life would be wonderful and this would be long forgotten. The President and the Secretary of State come into the story strongly only after the questions arose. Not that they have been answered. Just that now you know, if you are away doing the government's business - you will not be supported nor saved if politics say the safer course is elsewhere. No Honor.

This is not new, the reason the 300 Spartans and their King is still told as a story, is that they had Honor, and so many others didn't. The reason that Caesar had to die at the Senate was the Legions and the people would follow him and not the politicians of the Senate. Cincinnatus is a remarkable story in that absolute power didn't corrupt absolutely - at least in that man. Honor, one has to cultivate it to improve it. If Lance had only counted his blessings, and trusted in the Lord, and pedaled just as fast and hard - he still would have won. But then we would have had another useless agency like the AFTE that has no honor - without a victory, having to bend and twist and torture people to get evidence and convictions.

Facebook is gone!!!! or just my computer can't hang...

Seriously, I am better now, thank you for your concern.

Just finished the last episode of The Slave Hunters, a Korean Historic Drama, which I recommend to all adventure and Liberty loving peoples everywhere. I would spend the hundred and twenty some dollars for a fine subtitled copy for my home, but I think the power is going to go out with the world implodes because not one is serious about making the future better, only about feathering their own nest. Well, back to curling up in a quilt and drinking more fluids and pretending the world is made of wonderful people with ethics and morals. Then I catch a glimpse of a politician or an entertainer that hasn't a clue.

God loves you, even when those empty folks don't. Be very good out there, and make every shot count.

Ahhh, I am ill, and free at last, good Lord, free at last.

I think I am getting better, but my wife is sure I should go to the hospital and I am sure I won't. But I love that she loves me. Turnip soup, ginger tea, medicines and more sleep will conquer all my ills.

No, the part about free at last is the lack of interest in the election, now that our votes are being counted and off our table. I have had Fox News on, and I don't care for the chatter so I mute it much as I look for something much more worthy. I read blogs and forwarded some to Facebook with a little comment - I am happy other people in the world are doing wonders with words and pictures, and always hoping that their lives are blest. Reading well written blogs is an education in what matters... and not for commercial compensation. For Entertainment I watched 'The Slave Hunters' episode 22, two more to go. I love that story - different culture, long ago, and still stirring in all those Red blooded American ways of HONOR, Courage, Liberty and Justice for all. I will be buying my own copy for those lonely blue days with gray skies. After a couple thousand rounds of 30-06.

Still working on the business card logo - solid on the business, and then in the how to improve Earl quest I have returned to something that my mother would be proud of, my father, too, and I like surprising them positively so I will be working on it, seeing what needs done, how it will work together. That is the teaser for today... it won't get anyone to read this - but it is the writing that is my reward, comments and conversations about my points are like a bonus. It is all good. Thanks!

Don't we know why America works? is it fate?

Nah, we are just lucky - right? Okay, for you religious folks - God made it so. Or an honest hard working self sacrificing people stood up and fought against authority that they didn't believe had their interests at heart, won the war, and then wrote rules for a government to protect them, and enable them into the future. These were intelligent, moral and loving folks. They did a pretty good job and what they created and sent to us in the future had things to correct, and they worked on those things. Somewhere, the idea came along that more was possible, more needed done, that the government could replace God the Father, giver of everything.  I will not tell you that idea has any merit, God is and government isn't even godly, or even Good. God is Good.

The reason I bring this up, there was a piece by Gail Collins in The News Tribune, titled "Rapid-fire answers to gun control, but quickly off-target" (remember that editors get to title the writing). Ms. Collins did a fine job of worrying how the Presidential contenders failed to answer the fears of Nina Gonzalez who asked Mitt Romney and Barack Obama about gun control.

Now, they are politicians, they don't shoot that I have ever heard of (Ryan and Biden have) so I wouldn't think they have any real interest in solving gun control. But what I did understand from the article was that they aren't correct about the 2nd Amendment of the Constitution, even most gunnies aren't correct, but that could go back to a poor education and that silly thing about rights not exercised are lost.

The Constitution was designed by people to do those things they would like a government to do for them. I strongly recommend reading it, reviewing it annually. But the part that addresses gun control is written into the 2nd Amendment. A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. This is where I get to point out that the first part says a well regulated Militia is necessary to the security of a free State - very important thought. The citizens should be armed, awake and aware and responsible for the security of a free State. The National Guard is not the militia, it is a fine organized force for the state, which can be activated into Federal service - but it has never been expected in the Constitution, nor in reality to defend the security of a free State. The National Guard is  responsible for the security of the powers that be in charge - they will attack the people, have done so in the past, I expect they will do so in the future, I don't want them to, but I do expect that being in an organized military formation, with uniforms and orders from officers above them they will do as ordered. If they were in a militia made of their families and neighbors, electing their own officers and having real names they might behave differently.

The government has taken the fears of the governing and many of the governed to infringe upon the people's right to keep and bear arms. Yes, all the way to now - and that is so wrong. Artillery and machine guns are expensive, but they are arms that are fine for the people to keep and bear. If you remember that responsible adults with moral values and common sense are far outnumbering the criminal, insane and totally stupid folks. I have some experience and know that using machine guns, mortars and artillery isn't easy - which is why most movie makers, criminals and terrorists get it so wrong. The original idea was that the citizen really would be the first defender of his home, community and our country. The original concept was that most of the military formed up would be made of those militias and their mobilization, only after Napoleon and his drafting of French men to fill his battalions for his wars and the unpopular war - the Civil War, was draft extended in the United States to fill the regiments of the Union and the Confederacy - the responsible adults of common sense could see that modern war was not a great way to live long and prosper. I am almost sure that the draft isn't Constitutional, but haven't time to research nor worry about it.

The problem I see is the death by firearms of the victims, normally the innocent, and that begins the whole foolish notion that gun control will stop those from happening. It is like pretending a Judge issuing a restraining order, which will cause the person restrained to be deprived of their firearms, will protect the potential victim. But having a law against murder won't protect them, it will allow the state to punish properly a murderer (if they have evidence and want to). Gun control is hitting your target, safely. The term gun control used in reference to the efforts to keep guns from the hands of anyone, at any time is impossible and wrong. A controlled substance is one that is in control, but when used for a prohibited substance it doesn't work.

My whole point is that no one looks at how the United States of America began, expanded and grows without returning, over and over to revolt and rebellion, without killing off most of those that don't look or speak like all the rest of us.  You can look around and still see fools worrying about race, riches, class and classification - and always POWER. But due to limiting the government's power, real and perceived, the people's potential is always growing testing limits and expanding where the government has been unaware and far away.

We should all mourn the death of the innocent, but we don't blame the cause - which will often be a human being out of control, insane or incompetent. Personal responsibility is ignored at our peril. It is our country, our leaders, our representatives and our duty to make it work well. Not the government's responsibility to make me work for it well.

Have looked at surviving the coming collapse...

lots of people will, some will never even know it happened. Just think of all the different countries in the world, and most of us know nothing about them. Same thing on when it all goes south, the higher one is on the food chain, the quicker one becomes rotting flesh. Sickness or more likely starvation, the more complex will die back, down or totally off. Some may get protection from natural barriers, but as seen with the Pacific Island birds - that can go fast after technology catches up. All that science overcome by biological activity...

Not important but I think I have my new business - mission or purpose, the name (the logo hasn't really been designed yet). As soon as I get the logo I will make the business cards.

I am reading "We Have the War Upon US; The Onset of the Civil War, November 1860 to April 1861" by William J. Cooper.  The nation has ignored good sense before, the stakes are even higher this time.

Happy Halloween (all Hallows eve) or....

I have been a bit ill, and will blame it on a cold virus, but am in the second day of coffee withdraw, and that isn't helping. I have been driving deep into sleep (fighting my illness or just lazy).

Have been reading "Ghosts of Manhattan" by Douglas Brunt - very interesting to see foreign cultures almost made me want to find the book about the man that worked at Goldman Sachs, that left because he found a true lack of leadership and ethics. Hmm, I can wait upon the library, can't I? Sure.

Halloween suffers much of the same attack by commercialism and stupidity that Christmas does. It has some traditional purpose before Christianity, and the early missionaries seemed to label it as the last chance for evil before ALL SAINTS DAY.  There are bad things to fear going bump in the night. But my Halloween growing up was a children's holiday to dress up in costume and go around asking for candy and treats at the neighbors. Yes, there were some adult parties, but not so serious.

Along the way insane folks started trying to hurt the children, by poisons and pins and just totally bad popcorn balls. They were sure they were cool, but I did mention they were insane, criminally so. The media spread the word, and built the fears - so popcorn balls, fudge, brownies and cookies were no longer wonderful, and the big harvest of goodies and goodness from the neighbors we all knew by their names was followed by a concerned parent search of everything for whatever the boogieman had filled the bags with. Flame proof costumes, and bigger displays of sugarful candies at the stores increased the commercial success. Wiccan began to become serious new religion based on old gods and spirits. Much more to exploit. They reclaimed Halloween by saying they were first. This alarmed the Evangelical Christians, so the conflict to de-glamorize Halloween began.

Having met too many of the real monsters in the world, and having all my own personal nightmares I am sure that the original Halloween of my childhood was wonderful. I also know that the ugliest monsters that molest children and youth are often the ones we would live quietly beside, because they weren't always that way and went insane, probably incurably. Anyway, the Christians have gone to Harvest Festival, although many of us no longer near enough to a farm to harvest nor appreciate it. So, I have been elected by the security volunteers of the English Language Ministry as their captain for parking lot and bathroom patrol - looking for looters and pedophiles.... What I expect that I will see is a lot of happy children, with a mandatory Christian outreach starting program, before the games, activities and Trunk or Treat. The world keeps changing, I am always happy to stand up for good times, children and against the terrors in the minds of adults. Someone must - can't all be playing Halloween on CastleVille on Facebook - some of you have real lives.

Maybe we can't see the whole picture,

by pinpointing our concerns we can miss the whole picture. I have no job, so I look at the economy and miss the wonder of being able to exist on what I earned long ago and far away.

I know nothing about women that I can share - never wanted to live in a world without them, never thought they weren't as able as I, certainly not as a MAN. My very best as Earl they surpass constantly. One thing I am very positive about, no two women are ever represented by one view point.

So when the Playboy Philosophy and NOW tell me the same thing about women, that my mother would say is stupid, sexist or exploitative. I will go with my mother's good sense, about women and their issues. The next time some fool tells me that the law is right and abortion is a good thing, I hope I get to send them to the Hell without Love. I think one of the greatest evils is the idea that sexual gratification takes priority over the life conceived in the course of its activity. I am certain that the government doesn't need to have anything to do with sex, except to protect life. There isn't enough love in government to help in anything else. I often wonder if they do teach science, because if you really understand science, and human reproduction - then you do know that life begins at conception - and pregnancy isn't as easy, ask any of the thousands of women that have miscarriages, as it seems on television or in the text book.

That is the little picture, problems over Women's (Reproductive?) Rights in the National dialog. But the lack of a value of life, and living it in Love and for the best God has given us and of our neighbors and ourselves is the real problem. If you read my words carefully, you realize that all my views are little ones, looking for the target and fixing my sights upon it... in the end I know the government, under any political system or party, does not love its subjects, citizens or unborn.

I also know that my friends, family and neighbors have a higher regard for my life and betterment, than the government in its best goodness (which shows up so seldom). But even they have difficulty creating a world so great and beautiful that I will never see it all, and they will hesitate to die for my sins and stupidity - but I know that someone did, and I will never be that worthy.