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I’m sorry for exposing this to you guys but it’s too funny. Now I just have to get this song out of my head before I go crazy…

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
Independence Day – The best free videos are right here

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY EVERYONE!

This video made me laugh so pronking hard

Congress Debates Merits Of New Catchphrase

So I’ve had quite a bit of free time on my hands lately. I’ve been waking up earlier and earlier each day as I get older and older, mostly to stop feeling like I’m letting time pass me by. I’ve found myself reading almost every word in the newspaper, but mostly I’ve been watching movies. Two movies I watched recently, Pay it Forward, and Evan Almighty both had similar messages that made me think of an incident with a co-worker a few days ago.

First, let me start by saying both of these movies were awful. Each had a redeeming quality, namely Helen Hunt and Jonah Hill, but it was the message behind both of these movies that struck a cord. The general message was about changing the world for the better, not with huge steps, but with small random acts of kindness.

A few days ago at work, a co-worker of mine in her early 60’s was leaving for the day. The weather was unforgiving, raining for a good 30 minutes. She did the half-run out to her car, as if that stops you from getting too wet, and jumped in only to discover her car wouldn’t start. As I was passing the window, I noticed her plight and ran out to see if I could jump start her car. Unfortunately, the battery was beyond dead and would not start at all. We ran back inside, both huddled under the same umbrella and began trying to call local car shops. It was 4:30 on a Sunday, you can imagine how that went.

Her husband made his way up to the store and I tried to help him unhook the battery to take it to the Autozone, a few blocks away. A man in his early 70’s with horrible breathing problems, her husband was dreading making the walk alone. At that moment, a man in his early 30’s was also doing the half-run into the store hand-in-hand with his young daughter when he passed us, probably looking baffled with the car hood propped up in the pouring rain.

He stopped to ask if we needed help, but being the prideful men we were, we said no. Luckily, he didn’t believe us. We explained that the battery was dead, and he said “well lets go get you a new one.” He walked the old husband over to autozone, picked out and paid for the correct battery, walked back and installed it. When my co-worker and her husband both tried to pay him, he refused any money and would not leave until he made sure the car was running correctly.

As he walked back to his car, obviously forgetting what he was coming to the store for in the first place, his little daughter turned to him and asked him why he did that. I didn’t get to hear what he said, but he leaned in and whispered something in her ear that I can’t help but think was profound and will stick with that little girl for the rest of her life.

It’s these random acts of kindness that are the only things that will change the world for the better. It’s easy to get jaded sometimes, as I often do in dealing with the public on a daily basis, but just as I find myself losing faith in my fellow man, incidents like these occur that make you stop and take note. I still witness more acts of rudeness and incompetence everyday, but as long as I know there are people like this mystery man out there, it will stop me from totally losing faith.

The excellent Freakonomics blog has a story about an interesting idea concerning the Airline Industry.  Apparently, ads for a fake airline, Derrie-Air, have been spotted in some newspapers.  Derrie-Air takes the combined weight of yourself and you luggage and charges you by the pound.  This is perfect for someone like me who is both skinny and tends to pack lightly.  A government study said that Airlines where spending $275 million more dollars on fuel because of the 10 pounds the average American has packed on since 1990, and this was written in 2004!  Airlines are already cutting the weight of everything else, are passengers next?  Personally, I’m all for it. In fact, a lot of talk has been given about how the airlines have cut down on all the services they used to provide but I think, the more the better.  I’d rather make and pack my own sandwich than get those “free” pretzels anyway.  And if the TSA would let me, I’d take my own bottle of Mountain Dew instead of getting a half cup thats full of ice.  I’m more than willing to pay the 2 bucks in the terminal to get a Dew from the vending machine.  I think we are too spoiled now.  We can’t even sit down for 2-3 hours without wanting a TV in front of us to show us a crappy movie or sitcoms from what ever network the airline has teamed up with.  I guess all I want to do is pay for seat on a plane and thats it.  I don’t want pillow, I don’t want a blanket (if i did, i’d bring my own), i don’t want a drink, i don’t want headphones, and i definitely don’t want to subsidize the fight of the obese person sitting next to me who’s butt is overlapping into my seat.

I just wanted to share this with our readers. This optical illusion made me crazy for half a day. I first heard about it on the Freakonomics Blog. The illusion is a right brain/left brain test, but beyond that, it is just crazy. It is a silhouette of a dancer spinning. But apparently she can be seen spinning clockwise OR counter-clockwise, depending on which side of the brain you use. When I first looked at it she was definitely spinning counter-clockwise, and it was impossible that she was spinning the other way. Then I used my superior brain power to force myself to see the dancer spinning clockwise. It took a good four or five minutes to make it happen, but when it did, it kind of blew my mind.

I thought our readers may enjoy a good optical illusion. If you can figure out how to see it both ways, it will have you thinking about it for a lot longer than you might think. Maybe no one else will care at all about it, but this thing had me frazzled for a hot little minute.

Illusion Link

Apparently Barack Obama’s pastor (now former), Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is a big issue in this election. We all know by know about his bombastic statements such as “God damn America”, “chickens coming home to roost”, and his assertion the government spread AIDS through the black community. The media, liberal and conservative, have asked the question over and over about whether or not Barack shares Wright’s values, and if he didn’t, why didn’t he leave the church? Well as far as I can tell Barack and Wright are different people and from listening to him and observing his works throughout his life I don’t think he shares Wright’s ideals. As far as why he didn’t leave the church, I guess we are just going to have to accept his answer that he just didn’t know about Rev. Wright’s sermons.

There is however a question the media has missed that should have arisen from this controversy. That question to me is why did he join that church in the first place? I mean honestly who joins a church and knows nothing about the pastor of the church or the sermons he preaches. Well, apparently Barack Obama! But the main explanation I’ve heard from Mr. Obama is he was a fan of the programs the church ran. Sorry but I’m not going to completely buy that because almost every Christian church I’ve ever known has some type of program to feed the hungry and help the poor. And even if he couldn’t find a church with his beliefs that had those programs there are certainly organizations out there with no religious affiliation that take on those issues. Why couldn’t he work through those organizations if those were the things he cared about at that time?

I’m still wondering why he joined that specific church though. The best guess I’ve got left is it was for his career. Before he was in national politics trying to clean it up Mr. Obama was playing politics in a city known for its sometimes shady politics, Chicago, and guess what he wasn’t an instant success like he is now. He wasn’t from Chicago and didn’t know the political movers and shakers of the area so it really isn’t a surprise he didn’t succeed right away. Any political scientist or consultant can tell you the need for a base of support to work from when trying to win elected office. Maybe this is where Trinity United Church of Christ comes in. One of the largest churches in Chicago, whose members included some of the most influential people in Chicago, at one point Oparah Winfrey was a member and I don’t think anyone would question whether she wields influence.

So reasonably I’ve come to this question Mr. Obama, did you join Trinity United Church of Christ to advance your political career? I think that is a fair question and thus far the only conclusion I can draw is yes. Maybe I’m wrong but it sure seems to be a logical explanation considering the usual explanations for joining churches so far haven’t applied to you. And if you did join for no other reason than for political advancement, how is that so different from the Washington politics you want to change, where politicians make decision based purely on their political future? I leave everyone out there with this thought, if Barack Obama is going to run on CHANGE, I’d sure like to know how he plans on doing it since he couldn’t even change politics in Chicago.

A few days ago, my family and I were faced with a tough decision. Our family dog, all of 12 years old, was in intense pain. She had suffered from cancer that had gone mis-diagnosed for more than a year, and during that year it had spread into her bones, and joints. The veterinarian said humanely euthanizing her would be our best option to end her suffering and pain.

Although the reality of no longer having my first childhood pet around hasn’t quite sunk in yet, it got me thinking about death; not necessarily in a morbid way, but in a self reflective way. In my 25 years I have been very fortunate to have never lost anyone truly close to me (a quick pause while I find some wood to knock). Sure, grandparents have been taken by old age, infections, and heart disease. An uncle’s life was cut too short due to colon cancer, and a high school acquaintance was killed when an old man had a heart attack behind the wheel of his car, died, and his out of control car hit hers head on. But, separated by literally a vast ocean, and a few years in school, I was never truly close to these people.

We all cope with the death of loved ones in a way which is unique to each of us, yet sometimes we fail to realize what is the best for others. While long suffering animals are often humanely put to sleep, this practice is illegal in the United States on human beings, and the infamous Dr. Jack Kevorkian has spent time in prison for assisting terminally ill patients in committing suicide before death would occur naturally.

The right-to-die debate is an interesting one. While certainly not as polarizing as the death penalty debate, it is certainly a debate worth having. Feel free to make your feelings known in the comments section.

I am sick and tired of this left-wing media hoisting up the Democratic candidates as if they are Greek gods. Some people like to act as though the media is not biased at all, I call those people retards. Do they realize that there were two days worth of analysis based on a blurred image in a photograph of a fly-fishing pole that was on Dick Cheney’s sunglasses? The left-wing talking heads claimed it was a naked lady that the veep was looking at. The man is an outdoors-man, it is proven by that goofy hat he was wearing whilst said photograph was taken. Not to mention, he’s a grown-ass man; if naked ladies are walking around, he is going to look. And yes, he would most likely smile also.

As for the negative media coverage the Democrats are receiving, or lack there of, it took drastic foul-ups for CNN to even mention something negative about Hilldog or Obama. Hillary finally got some negative attention when she mistakenly said she was taking sniper fire when she landed in Bosnia. She claimed to just misspeak, but I know it was just a lie that even CNN couldn’t ignore. Although, I too, sometimes say “sniper fire” when I actually mean to say “sunshine and roses.” The media had no choice but to report on this “gaffe.” I think they were really sending a warning message to Clinton. What they were saying was: “Look babe, we are in your corner, we got your back. But can you dial it down just a notch, it’s kind of hard ignoring a blatant lie about snipers trying to score a head shot on the First Lady. Lie about anything you want, but keep it somewhat reasonable.”

As for Obamamama, I finally heard something possibly negative about him that didn’t have to do with a senile pastor. After this long, hard battle for the Democrat nomination, and all of the negative stories ignored (he has two black kids!) MSNBC finally had a negative story about Obama. You know what it took for MSNBC to run something bad about B. Hussein? He had to give the middle finger to Hillary Clinton and the entire American constituency. He was taking questions about some socialist ideal, and in the middle of his answer he stopped, looked right into the camera, raised his right hand and flipped-off 300 million people. THAT is what it took for the media to say something bad about Ollama.

Finally, exhibit C, ABC just had their debate the other night. But I ask: When was the last time John McCain was even allowed in a presidential debate??? The media is so biased, they wont let a Republican in any of their debates. Its ludicrous!!

One can only hope that Rupert Murdoch will one day be able to cure us of this wretched media bias. With his Fair and Balanced approach that is copied by none, I can only assume that I will never see a mainstream media without a tilt to the left. I just hope my children will be immune to this insipid disease that plagues our airwaves.

Until next time; onward and upward…