Lakota Spent $100,000 on Nothing: and now they are asking for more money

The article below is what is appearing in the Cincinnati Enquirer July 8, 2011. I gave a brief interview at the close of the meeting. There isn’t any reason in the world why the Lakota School Board should put a tax on the ballot. S.B.5 became law on July 1st which is why all the unions rushed to pass their contracts during the spring, to get those contracts grandfathered in. The school boards now have a tool to deal with the budget short-falls in the coming years, yet they don’t think in terms of cost reduction by way of wages and benefits renegotiated with Senate Bill 5, only cost expansion. The financial crises is self imposed. When a school board votes to spend 50K on a superintendent and pay her 165K yet overlook the guy who was doing a good job for only 105K, blowing a total of 100K on costs they didn’t need, it is clear that these administrators just don’t get it. No wonder all the school board knows how to do is ask for more money. It is very disappointing to see that the school board is putting up three options, which is essentially playing good cop and bad cop by making the smaller number look more digestible to voters. It’s very disingenuous and insulting.

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LIBERTY TWP. – Residents may see a tax hike ranging from 4.5 to 7.5 mills on the fall ballot if Lakota school board members agree on a millage amount.

The board is scheduled to choose a final school operating tax millage – 4.5 mills, 6.5 mills or 7.5 mills – to propose to voters in November. It will pick one of the tax options at its next meeting on Monday.

Regardless of the tax size, it became clear during Thursday evening’s board work session that the third tax issue in a little more than a year is headed for the Nov. 8 ballot.

Annual school tax cost increases for a $100,000 home would range from $137 for a 4.5-mill operating tax to $199 for a 6.5-mill tax to $229 for a 7.5-mill tax.

It took four tries in 2004 and 2005 before voters in Liberty and West Chester townships last approved a new operating tax. An operating tax helps pay for daily operations of the 18,300-student district, including employee salaries and benefits.

But voters in 2010 twice rejected operating taxes, and the defeat in May 2010 was by one of the largest margins in Lakota’s 54-year history. In November 2010, voters defeated a 7.9-mill operating levy.

Lakota is among the nearly half of Southwest Ohio’s 49 school systems that are considering or planning to put a tax issue on the Nov. 8 ballot.

Despite cutting $10.2 million in personnel and programs for the upcoming school year, Lakota faces a budget shortfall of $14.6 million by 2015 and requires more local tax revenue to remain solvent for the five-year projection required by the state for all public school districts, said Lakota officials.

Jenni Logan, treasurer of the Butler County district that is the second largest in Southwest Ohio, told the board that “we are still in a spending deficit” even with recent and extension budget cuts.
Board President Joan Powell said “deficit spending is an untenable position”.

In the last school year, the board has made historically deep cuts including eliminating busing for thousands, renegotiating its teachers labor contract and freezing almost all types of pay.

As the seventh-largest school system in Ohio, it is also the biggest district in the state to earn a top rating of “Excellent With Distinction.”

Laurie Clark, of West Chester Township, said one of her two children will lose bus service when classes start in August.

“I’m worried that without a levy there will be bigger classrooms and we’ll see more teachers go. This is such a great school district, and I want to keep the quality as high as it has been,” said Clark.

But Rich Hoffman, spokesman for anti-school tax group “NoLakota,” said the board needs to look at further cuts rather than residents’ wallets. He said Ohio’s SB5 law, which curtails public school workers’ powers of collective bargaining, is in place and should be used to further reduce Lakota’s expenses.

“”SB 5 became law (and) school boards now have a tool to deal with the budget shortfalls in the coming years,” said Hoffman. “Yet they don’t think in terms of cost reduction by way of wages and benefits renegotiated with Senate Bill 5, only cost expansion.”

The board is scheduled to make the first of two state-mandated votes to put a tax issue on the fall ballot at its meeting 7 p.m. Monday at Lakota’s Central Office, 5572 Princeton Road, Liberty Township.

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I won’t be at the meeting when they make their final selection of one of the three choices, because I know they have already chose the smaller number, hoping that it will not be such a hard number to digest. I have other plans for that particular evening which are far more important. So I’ll look forward to another good fight to defeat that next levy.

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Over a Million Signatures to Repeal Senate Bill 5: Gained from an emerging police state

The following article should be viewed like a movie. The videos here are extensive, and in the order presented, tell a compelling tale. That tale may have truth, they may be filled with conspiracy theory and thus paranoia, and the opinions many be in the context of such paranoia. However what cannot be disputed is that in 2011 the police and all authority have a lot more power and intrusive capability than they did a decade ago. They are also more expensive as wages and pensions are destroying budgets everywhere. Politicians hungry for the FOP vote are quick to add more and more police to make tax payers feel safe, but the subtle strategy is to create so many government employees through union membership, that politics can be steered where desired.

Police officers and other public union employees in Ohio gathered up more than a million signatures to put a repeal of S.B.5 on the November ballot, a bill that would give communities more management control of their costs. For anyone concerned with a smaller, less intrusive government the union control of public sector employees is deeply concerning. The sheer volumes of public employees that don’t want any changes are displayed in the above and below videos. In fact this very issue is the primary topic of my new book tentatively called, Tail of the Dragon due out in 2012, where politicians use public employees and their families, to shape policy. They do this with excessively high pay which turn republican’s employees into democratic votes due to the luxury of the rate of pay. These public employees no matter how dangerous the job or any other condition is making an average of 30% more than the private sector job, and that buys votes. This is why the public sector unions do not want S.B.5 to stand as law and will fight with everything they have to maintain the status quo.

In some way or another we all know that the status quo is spiraling out of control. Everyone wants police officers to protect them from criminals, but that doesn’t mean we want bored cops parked on the side of the road to pull us over for speeding tickets, seat belt violations, or DUI check points. And lets face it, for every police officer hired, that officer is going to be expected to do something, and if there isn’t a lot of crime in a neighborhood, who is to say how many police officers even need to be on the payroll of the tax payer.

But according to the FOP union, there isn’t a limit. They want an infinite amount of officers and will always ask for more. This is why S.B.5 is needed, so that management can control this tendency somewhat, because over-staffing is causing budget deficits. And to justify the over staffing, law makers (politicians) keep inventing new jobs for these positions which ultimately push up against constitutional limits.

The following video is why it is entirely possible to have too many police officers, and just how dangerous it is to give them too many rights to “protect and serve.” Do you want Mr. Wesley Cheeks to have the right to break down your door in the middle of the night just because he suspected you of a crime? I’m sure Mr. Cheeks is a nice guy but is he worth 60K per year to be a cop, or even a 100K per year with unlimited overtime? Should Mr. Cheeks be given any level of authority over any of us? How many cops are on the current staff in your neighborhood that is just like officer Cheeks?

When Cheeks was pressed about the validity of the law he started to say dumb things, the kind of things that were really on his mind deep down inside, particularly when he says this “isn’t America anymore.” It might have been an accident what he said, but he revealed his political inclination. Do you think this officer would vote politically in a way that his FOP president didn’t tell him to do? Do you think this guy is capable of independent thought at all? I don’t and that makes him dangerous, because he is simply a soldier that will carry out his orders and he gets his orders from politicians, and we know they can’t be trusted. So this is the essence of the problem looked upon without emotion.

Here’s another case of police abuse over political motives. Listen to this guy. This is a separate case from the one above, yet it is so similar. Why do these police seem to be protecting the Obama Presidency? It’s an FOP condition, and Obama is friendly to labor unions. It’s that simple. So here you have a case were police officers are using the law to influence elections. It may be in just a small way, but if hundreds of officers, or even thousands across the country are all doing the same thing, the impact can actually be a percentage point or two in election participation or actual voter results. It’s harassment intended for a political objective.

It does my heart good to see people like the V-Man putting on a mask and protesting some of the police abuse that is going on in his community. Now, who can argue with The V Man? Is he wrong? In my experience, when police need a levy passed, that is when they do the drug raids. That is when they start the campaign of showing how much work they do. That’s when whatever dangerous situation they participate in gets reported in the paper. The trouble is, the police always know who the drug dealers are. They always know where the crimes are committed, but they often put it on the back burner until they need to use their endeavors to gain a political advantage. There will be a lot of that kind of behavior as the vote for S.B.5 gets closer. But the V-Man brings up what the police do most of their time, hang out at the station and wait for something to happen. And when we hire too many cops there are a lot of cops to sit around waiting for something to do.

So if people are starting to fear the law enforcement, if the TSA is reaching for union protection, which only increases the number of union voters that will shape public policy, which is incredibly dangerous, it can be concluded that the United States is already in a police state. We know that the Indiana Supreme Court recently voted to allow for unmolested entry of police officers into homes of suspicion. That means that if a law enforcement officer wishes to enter you home you have no right to prevent them from doing so. Here is a reasonable argument that the United States is now a police state.

Now have a look at a full length documentary called Police State 4, which the V-Man referred to above from Alex Stone. It’s over two hours long, so you might want to grab some popcorn. It’s a well done documentary that brings up a lot of great points. You don’t have to believe everything in it. But if you watch it critically, you must recognize that we have a dangerous trend in America.

Here’s another documentary called Invisible Empire also produced by Alex Jones. The facts are hard to dispute because the behavior we have seen over the last decade prove how quick certain factions of government were prepared to expand the police powers from what they used to be to what we are seeing today. This documentary is also over 2 hours, so you better grab more popcorn.

The war is happening all around us, as shown in this Alex Jones radio broadcast where he talks about Ron Paul going after the TSA. It’s a shame that Ron is virtually alone in this endeavor.

There is without any question a dangerous expansion of law enforcement and the intrusions by them upon America. They are becoming more and more a branch of military service intent on controlling our population. The problem with the conspiracy theories is that they often appear to come from radicals, so the message gets lost. I do not think that the government planned 911 so they could expand government police power into a new world order, gradually taking away the freedoms of Americans so they are more equal to other nations throughout the world. Because the trouble with these global advocates is that if everyone wants to move to the United States, and doesn’t stay put in their home countries, then globalism will never take root. Global government needs to frustrate the plans of the freedom lover who climbs in a boat and rows to America to flee their tyrannical home governments. So taking away the freedoms of Americans helps control the aims of the world in this way.

We know that the CIA and the FBI and who knows what other organizations are funded by the America tax payer use manipulative tactics to achieve an objective. I think with 911, globalists probably working as sleeper agents within the United States government, and had been fanning the flames of Muslim extremists hoping for an attempted terrorist attack that would be caught before the deaths occurred. The intent all along by the globalists would be to expand government with a branch of government such as Home Land Security. If such a thing happened it wouldn’t be the first time subversive groups like the CIA got caught with their foot in their mouth. America has propped up many current terrorists in a subversive fight with other nations that the our relationship with the United Nations prevented, but the desire for nation building was still present. It is naive to consider that such tactics are not being done on us all, just as it has with other nations.

Whatever the reason, police powers are expanding, and the unions that protect them are not allowing for staffing adjustments, or wage reductions that can allow management bring not only their costs in line without raising taxes, but also to reduce the amount of officers needed for a community or city. There are so many union regulations and inefficiencies, and so much dramatization going on with these law enforcement positions, that true staffing levels cannot even be considered. Instead, under union, and political motive, law enforcement just continues to grow perpetually. S.B.5 is a bill that will help with some of the wage level issues that we are seeing, but it doesn’t go near far enough in preventing the rapid expansion of government employees that we are seeing and the justification of those positions by trampling over the constitutional rights of American citizens. The window for doing anything about controlling this emerging police state is closing where such action can still be done peacefully, with just a simple vote.

The question is how willing are Americans to let their freedoms erode before they say enough. If they declare it now, they can do themselves a favor later. But if they wait too long………………………………………it won’t be a good thing.

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Home Away From Home: Beach bums, hippies, and strippers with their socialist dream

The difference between those who love capitalism and those who love socialism are displayed vividly while I stood on the balcony of our condo in Florida at Cape Canaveral. In our unit and units all along the coast are people who own the units to rent out to NASA personnel, or own them outright as second homes, a place to visit away from their primary residence. In some cases, the owners of the condos have made these paradise palaces their year round homes.

This year we had to be in Gainesville for a wedding anyway, and I was up against a writing deadline for my Tail of the Dragon novel, where my editor wanted a chapter breakdown with intended themes spelled out for production meetings, to make it easy for all the people who haven’t read the book to understand the direction of the editorial content. So the decision was to combine a sort of vacation while I accomplished that editorial task down at the condo.

The following video is something I shot while at that fine place, as a rolling storm moved in.

I spent a lot of time on this trip working on my tasks while looking out over the Atlantic to the south where frequent storms were brewing over the horizon of the Earth in the proximity to the Bahamas. It is easy to put things in perspective from such vantage points. I know many of the people who are in these units all up the coast experience similar emotions, that’s why they come, and that’s why they work hard to have a second home, because they want to have these perspectives, to relax from the rigors of their professional lives.

These condo units are only a building deep in this particular location. Down the coast at Cocoa Beach where hotel chains take over, there are more tourist oriented shopping along the primary roads. But up at the Cape, the area between the condos and the main road is a complex grid of single story homes and much smaller, less luxurious, residences. Typically the people who live in these homes are the people who work in the service of the various restaurants, hotels, and shopping centers. Some of those people are just beach bums, and they are that way by choice. They chose to spend their day surfing, riding skate boards around and smoking cigarettes.

All over this resort area are stores that sell memorabilia that have the “peace” sign on them. T-shirts, medallions, stickers for cars, magnets, you name the merchandise, there are plenty such items with the peace sign on them. If you look closely, and a lot of the people who stay in our condo unit don’t, as is the general rule all up and down the coast, these beach bums, skate boarders, strippers who are working at the gentleman’s clubs and sun themselves professionally all day long, that share the beach with the rest of us, are open socialists.

Many of those people don’t know they are socialists. Most of them don’t even know what country they are in. Most of them don’t even know much about the NASA space program except for the occasional rocket that takes off roaring into the heavens. What they know is that they have bought into a “hang loose” life style that is popular at all beaches. They like to “party” which involves frequent intoxication, and they like carefree sex. They despise commitments, and steady jobs.
From my balcony I watched these people pass beneath me to gain access to the beach, and I savored the fact that our condo kept me above all that activity. I couldn’t help but think that if the government offered these people free government jobs, free college, free housing, free food, they’d all take advantage of the programs and they’d freely vote for the politicians that gave them those things. They don’t want to work for nice things, but they are happy to receive nice things if someone in the government wants to give them something. I also noticed the jealous looks up at our balcony as my wife and I would look down upon them, or as my daughters would walk passed them in their journeys to the beach. They would look at my daughters like hungry dogs knowing that the women were well out of their league, and desiring to be equal in some way.

Studying these people for a couple of days it was very obvious that these beach bums were socialists. They would be very attracted to a government that came and told them they could also have a nice condo with a beach front view, that somehow they could be elevated to the level my family was experiencing because somehow they deserved to have the same thing we had by some socialist default.

It doesn’t matter to a socialist what it takes to have a home like those condos. They simply have nothing to lose. When they purposely make decisions in their lives to have nothing, to have no commitments, to have a “hang loose” attitude toward life they cannot expect to have the same things in life as a person that works 60 to 100 hours a week. Yet they do expect to be equal. And by experience, most people have some streak of laziness in them, which is why at this beach front property, the ratio is clear. There are more of the lazy types than the people in the condos. Because there are fewer people who want to work hard so they can have their own condo.

Now if they chose to live their life in this fashion it’s not for me to judge them. But the problem occurs when it comes time to vote, because these people will vote for candidates that will give them something for nothing just to purchase their votes. And that something given is something generally taken from someone like me, and to me that is robbery.

Personal decisions will lead a life to the sum of its exploits. But political tampering artificially props up people who would otherwise fail miserably at life, and would be forced to alter their lifestyle into something more constructive. I couldn’t help but notice in those jealous eyes the desire for welfare, and health care while they rot their days away as beach bums wearing the “peace sign” and singing hippie songs on the beach at night while smoking marijuana and thinking the whole of their existence is authentic. It’s not. Those lives can only continue because the government takes from those in the condos and gives it to those in the shacks even though the people in the condo’s worked hard to earn it, and the people in the shacks chose to live the life of the poor and un-ambitious.

Back home these differences aren’t so obvious. The people in the suburbs generally work harder so they can have a small palace outside of city limits. The un-ambitious tend to take up residence where the government gives them things and usually that is far enough away from the ambitious to not cause too much analysis. This is why there is a dispute with Hamilton County at expanding public housing, because nobody wants to live near public housing, just like people don’t want to live near a dump. And this is why we should have school choice because a parent who doesn’t want their kids to be surrounded by kids with parents who lack ambition should not imprison children trying to work their way out to a better life, so they can have a house in the suburbs some day, or maybe even their own beach front condo. But government won’t do that for them, and it won’t do it for the beach bums either. Government will only succeed in robbing those who live in the suburbs and the condos by giving that wealth to the socialists so that politicians can maintain their addictions to power in public office.

Remember wherever there is the sign of peace; it’s indicative of a political socialist. Like all sinister things in life, the truly dangerous are camouflaged with good intentions, like the idea of world peace that the hippies, beach bums and strippers find so appealing.

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

College is the Root of an Evil: Call it what it is, an excuse to expand government.

Ok, school administrators, you did this to yourself. Up to now I have played this game lightly; I’ve allowed the rhetoric that your types have openly spouted without really digging into the real source of the public education mess. I have heard one too many times from a superintendent of a school system the funding crises so eloquently exhibited in the below chart by Henry Payne of The Detroit News.

I received a note in the mail of that cartoon from a friend of mine who sent me a copy of The Mackinac Center’s Impact newsletter which had that cartoon, so I had to take a picture of it to use here, because it shows exactly what school districts and public unions have been doing to the tax payer. The charts seen on this page can be found at:

http://www.educationreport.org/pubs/mer/article.aspx?id=12096

Much of the cost that is being twisted around to justify school funding is in teacher and administration wages, which has been covered in great detail at this site. But the reason for these highly paid employees have their roots in the necessity for college education. We are told that because of state law, which the public sector unions have lobbied for, that teachers with masters degrees and doctorates will be compensated for those degrees by contract, regardless of the real market value of those degrees. And the need for these types of educators is to prepare children for college, which is turning out to be an epic scam within the society of America. Colleges in our culture are proving to be destructive, financially, and culturally, and that bubble is about to burst. John Stossel did a fantastic documentary on just how that bubble is collapsing.

College is one of those topics that most Americans have bought into, and they have done so looking for that promise that their children wouldn’t have to suffer when they grew up, that their children would have a better standard of living than the parents had, and in this process one of the greatest scams in world history has been perpetrated.

This scam is shown in great detail in the very good documentary called Indoctrinate U.

For your convenience, you can now see the complete film Indoctrinate U right here. I have it listed below in 9 parts. Take the time to watch the whole film.

So if college is such a destructive force in our society, why are we spending so much money to support it? Why are we preparing our children in the 7th and 8th grade for it and spending money in public education for something that is a rather passive choice for unmotivated children to find their way in the world? Why should we pay for the ignorance of parents who believe that they can purchase success for their children and make up for all their bad parenting?

I have a list on this site that has tens of thousands of hits which proves the most successful people in the history of the planet never went to college, or dropped out of college. There is a tremendous amount of evidence which proves that college actually hold kids back from achieving success.

Colleges have tried to claim they are the creators of original ideas. Most of the time, innovators have to leave college to let their ideas grow. Most often, colleges succeed in allowing people to delay their lives while they find themselves pursuing a degree they pay way too much for, in order to get their foot in the door to a job interview. Colleges are not making American society better. Yet we are spending an enormous amount of money to prepare our kids for these places. Why?

Much of the rhetoric about why we must fund public schools at the level we currently do is for college preparation, and the facts are beginning to come in that college will change in the years to come. College is not for everyone. College is needed for the sciences, and advanced mathematics and perhaps literature. College is needed for perhaps only 10% of the entire American population. In the years to come, many schools will fail. The college bubble will collapse very, very soon. The advancement of it now is purely for the prop up of the big business aspects of education, and that is the source of the upside down presentation of funding needs by trickster education advocates. College, like much of public education is a scam used to obtain an enormous amount of money for the employees of that business offering services that are ghostly thin in their relevance. College is a hindrance to innovation and is simply an adult child care service for parents and their children to delay the hard decisions in their lives just a few years longer. College is simply allowing our youth to be immature longer, and we are paying fortunes to allow them to do so. And the cost of that immaturity is devastating to the American economy in lost GDP and innovation.

So school administrators, people are beginning to see through your presentation for what it is. Your demands for more funds from an already over-taxed society is arrogant, and functions on the presumption that people are truly stupid, and you are about to get a dramatic wakeup call that will be very painful. Because the bubble is bursting and you are riding on the surface, and will soon find your support completely evaporating under your feet.

Modern education is all about creating government jobs and advancing the policies of FDR. And it’s a scam. Call it what it is.

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

The Fireworks Superstore on Exit 141 in Tennessee: a pillar of freedom

On a trip that had the main computer system of our mini-van go crazy on us while visiting a ghost town in Florida, had an accident with a crazy woman from England when she backed into the front of us at a stop light in Cape Canaveral, blew a tire in Georgia, and had the ABS system fail completely just north of Atlanta we had our share of transportation problems on our most recent trip through the south. And all day long while driving back to reality my son-in-law wanted nothing more than to stop and get fireworks from a dealer for a Fourth of July, 2011 celebration at our home when we got back. Because of all the trouble with the car I wanted to set a goal for the last really big place on our way home on I-75, a place I had taken my kids when they were very young, and it stuck in my mind as embracing everything that reminded me of just how great America is. It’s the Fireworks Superstore at exit 141 in Tennessee, a palace of patriotism!

Predictably, the place was wonderfully cheesy and had been kept up in the same manner as I had enjoyed some 20 years before. A quick glance around the store revealed many names that are rooted in rebellion and danger, because in many ways that’s that fireworks represent. And before buying fireworks, you need a general understanding these days of what they do.


Open circuit	An incomplete electrical circuit
Orange book	The United Nations publication for classification and testing of dangerous goods
Oxidant	The component of an explosive that supplies oxygen for the reaction of the product
Palm burst	A color break with palm tree core
Parallel circuit	An electrical circuit in which the current is divided between several igniters. Less easy to test for breaks.
Paste	Commonly used to cover shells to enhance their burst
Pattern shell	A shell of fewer stars that creates a pattern rather than a sphere
Pellet	See Star
Peony shell	A shell whose stars do not leave any trails
PIC	Plastic Igniter cord
Pigeon	A specialized type of firework which travels to and fro along a horizontal rope
Piped match	Raw match enclosed in a paper or plastic tube
Pistil	The central core of a shell. Often a complimentary or contrasting colour to the main burst
Plug	See Bung
Portfire	A thin walled tube filled with slow burning composition used to light other fireworks
Propellant	Composition used to produce force e.g. A rocket motor

Punk	Slow burning lighter for small fireworks
Pyrotechnic	Generic term for any item which react in a self sustaining chemical reaction and generally produces a light effect. Pyrotechnic articles are different to fireworks and generally are used for stage and theatrical uses
Quickmatch	Raw match enclosed in a paper or plastic tube
Rack	Apparatus for firing rockets or mortar tubes
Rain	Shells containing long burning stars that fall all the way to the ground.
Raw match	Black powder coated thread used for linking fireworks
Repeater shell	Usually a cylinder shell with timed bursts at regular intervals
Ring shell	An aerial shell that produces symmetrical rings of stars often have a rope tail to control orientation of the break
Rising effect	Often a tail effect on a shell but can be external attachments to a shell that break off during the rise to create special effects
Rocket	Aerial effect propelled by a motor
Rocket cone	A device for firing flight rockets
Rocket motor	The power unit behind a rocket. Typically made by pressing black powder into a choked tube
Roman candle	A cardboard tube with a stack of timed comets or bombette units
Round shell	A shell in the form of a sphere usually containing colored stars
Safety area	The area around a fireworks display site between the spectators and fireworks. Not including a fall out zone
Salute	Report or loud bang
Saturn shell	A chrysanthemum break with an outer ring of a contrasting color
Saxon	A bar with centre pivot with drivers at either one or two ends which make the bar spin on a central point.
Screecher	A whistle unit with a hole through the centre. This increases the burn speed and therefore the sound
Sequence	The pattern in which fireworks are detonated in a display

Series circuit	A circuit arranged so the current runs through each igniter in turn. This enables and breaks to be detected
Serpent	A spinning tube used in candles and shells. Usually with a report unit
Set piece	A ground firework. Generally static
Shell	The most spectacular of fireworks propelled with a lifting charge from a mortar and a bursting charge that charge to a star composition in the air after a predetermined delay
Shell delay	See Delay fuse
Shell of shells	An aerial shell that contains smaller shells ignited when the main shell bursts and subsequently produces small secondary bursts
Short circuit	The accidental completion of a circuit which causes the current to not flow through the igniter
Shot	The single functioning of a roman candle or cake
Smoke	Air suspension of particles from incomplete combustion of a composition
Smokeless powder	A powder containing nitro-cellulose and nitro-glycerine as it does not produce much smoke
Spark	Typical effect caused by incandescent particles ejected form the surface of a burning composition
Sparkler	Wire coated with pyrotechnic composition that gives off small sparks
Spider shell	A shell containing a small number of large stars producing a symmetrical burst. Sometimes called octopus shells
Splitting comet	A comet with an internal charge of flash powder which when ignited splits the comet into several pieces.
Squib	Electric igniter
Star	A pressed unit of composition usually spheres or cylinders used in shells, mines, rockets and roman candles
Storage	The holding of fireworks prior to their use. Premises must be licensed for amounts above a certain quantity
Strobe	A pulsing on off star effect fired from candles and shells and ground based effects
Tail effect	A comet star secured to the outside of a shell to give a tail to the rising shell
Tiger tail shell	A shell made up of a solid ball of composition to produce a substantial tail effect. Sometimes with a small shell break
Titanium	A silver metal used in the production of maroons and grebes
Top fused	A shell where the shell delay is lit separately from the lifting charge. Often found in large Maltese shells
Tourbillion	See Serpent
Transportation	The process of consigning a load of fireworks. Subject to heavy legislative control
TREM card	Documentation required when transporting fireworks of any quantity. Transport emergency card. Provide information for emergency services
Trunk	A large tail unit often used on palm and willow shells

UN classification	The assignment of a packaged firework into the UN classes for fireworks
UN compatibility group	The G or S of 1.3G or 1.4S. The compatibility group indicated what a particular item may and not be transported with
UN Hazard code	See UN number
UN Mark	A complicated mark assigned to a particular packing box for dangerous goods
UN Number	A four-digit number assigned to hazardous goods. Explosives always start with a 0 e.g. 1.4G fireworks are UN 0336. Used to identify a dangerous item in the event of an emergency
Volley	A mass firing of rockets or shells
Water firework	Aquatic fireworks e.g. shells or water gerb
Water gerb	A floating gerb with a weight and cork float.
Water shell	See Aquatic shell
Waterfall	A curtain of coloured or silver sparks that falls vertically. Composition is made from an aluminum alloy
Weeping willow	See Willow shell
Wheel	A rotating piece attached to a post in the form of a saxon bar or wheel with driver units
Whistle	A tube containing composition of potassium benzoate and potassium silicate. On burning the composition creates oscillation in the tube and creates a whistle effect which is amplified in the tube
Whizzer	See Hummer
Willow shell	A shell containing charcoal based stars with a long burn time which often fall to the ground

Fireworks and participating in controlled destruction is important to the celebration of any July 4^th ceremony. And cheesy fireworks stores only enhance the celebration. As I walked through the store I contemplated why that was, why one of my favorite towns of Gatlinburg, which is far from the sophisticated wine county of the Bay Area, has so much appeal to me. So much so that I feature the town in my new book, Tail of the Dragon so prominently, and the reason is, that such cheesiness is uniquely American. Shops like the fireworks store with all their contents are loud proclamations of businesses that are not subjected to state control by the government. They, like the stores in Gatlinburg Tennessee with the multitude of t-shirt shops, the large amount of Ripley’s Believe it or Not’s that line the street, are ideas in someone’s head that have been translated into reality and they are unique in the world.

There are places in the world like Niagara Falls, Canada, and areas in Hong Kong among a few others that have attempted to take a page out of the American handbook in their tourist spots to capitalize as we have, and I always find it refreshing to see. Because in such places, capitalism is trying to pop its head out and grow.

But in the United States, we take it for granted that our nation’s highways are filled with these types of things, and while the progressive high brow, European lover may frown down on this activity, it is because they fundamentally embrace socialism, and they know such places are a threat to their attempt to manipulate the United States into a country of their vision. For me, such places as the Fireworks Superstore on exit 141 are the epitome of freedom and the polar opposite of progressive vision, so they are like temples of independance.

John Stossel understands this too, and did a wonderful segment recently exploring this topic.

Gaudy flashing lights are wonderful and I enjoy them wherever they exist. I may not enjoy the moral position behind them, but I do enjoy the freedom of the entrepreneur to have the opportunity to come up with and implement an idea, no matter how ridiculous it is.

That is what we celebrate on the Fourth of July, freedom to come up with an idea no matter how gaudy, and the freedom to explode stuff and pay homage to our past rebellion which allowed us to form the greatest country on Earth, the United States of America. So when you pass a fireworks stand on the highways of America, salute them for the freedom they represent. They are an important reminder of just what America is and what it can be, and are a part of that thin line that exists between tyranny and freedom.

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Top Twenty Useless College Degrees: Why are we paying so much for college?

Here’s a great little article; the top twenty useless college degrees. Click on the link for the source article. http://www.thedailybeast.com/galleries/2011/04/27/20-most-useless-degrees.html

I’ve put them all here for your convenience. Special note, look how many graduates each year graduated with these degrees, each spending 50K to 100K for their educations only to find out there aren’t jobs in those fields of any value.

Just think about the number on the chart, over a million kids entering these fields that are virtually useless degrees. There are either an over-abundance of jobs in these fields, or the jobs don’t pay enough to justify the cost of the education. In same cases it’s both issues.

1, Journalism

AP Photo

Median starting salary: $35,800

Median mid-career salary: $66,600

Change in number of jobs, 2008-2018: -4,400

Percentage Change in number of jobs, 2008-2018: -6.32

Undergraduate field of study: Communications

Number of students awarded degrees 2008-2009:: 78,009

2, Horticulture

Getty Images

Median starting salary: $35,000

Median mid-career salary: $50,800

Change in number of jobs, 2008-2018: -15,200

Percentage Change in number of jobs, 2008-2018: -1.74

Undergraduate field of study: Agriculture and natural resources

Number of students awarded degrees 2008-2009:: 24,988

3, Agriculture

Getty Images

Median starting salary: $42,300

Median mid-career salary: $59,700

Change in number of jobs, 2008-2018: -9,100

Percentage Change in number of jobs, 2008-2018: -0.88

Undergraduate field of study: Agriculture and natural resources

Number of students awarded degrees 2008-2009:: 24,988

4, Advertising

AP Photo

Median starting salary: $37,800

Median mid-career salary: $73,200

Change in number of jobs, 2008-2018: -800

Percentage Change in number of jobs, 2008-2018: -1.71

Undergraduate field of study: Communications

Number of students awarded degrees 2008-2009:: 78,009

5, Fashion Design

AP Photo

Median starting salary: $37,700

Median mid-career salary: $72,200

Change in number of jobs, 2008-2018: +200

Percentage Change in number of jobs, 2008-2018: +0.81

Undergraduate field of study: Visual and performing arts

Number of students awarded degrees 2008-2009:: 89,140

6, Child and Family Studies

Getty Images

Median starting salary: $29,500

Median mid-career salary: $38,400

Change in number of jobs, 2008-2018: +36,100

Percentage Change in number of jobs, 2008-2018: +12.33

Undergraduate field of study: Family and consumer sciences

Number of students awarded degrees 2008-2009:: 21,905

7, Music

Getty Images

Median starting salary: $36,700

Median mid-career salary: $57,000

Change in number of jobs, 2008-2018: +19,600

Percentage Change in number of jobs, 2008-2018: +8.16

Undergraduate field of study: Visual and performing arts

Number of students awarded degrees 2008-2009:: 89,140

8, Mechanical Engineering Technology

AP Photo

Median starting salary: $53,300

Median mid-career salary: $84,300

Change in number of jobs, 2008-2018: -700

Percentage Change in number of jobs, 2008-2018: -1.45

Undergraduate field of study: Engineering technologies

Number of students awarded degrees 2008-2009:: 15,112

9, Chemistry

Getty Images

Median starting salary: $42,400

Median mid-career salary: $83,700

Change in number of jobs, 2008-2018: +2,100

Percentage Change in number of jobs, 2008-2018: +2.48

Undergraduate field of study: Physical sciences

Number of students awarded degrees 2008-2009:: 22,466

10, Nutrition

Getty Images

Median starting salary: $42,200

Median mid-career salary: $56,700

Change in number of jobs, 2008-2018: +5,600

Percentage Change in number of jobs, 2008-2018: +9.24

Undergraduate field of study: Biological and biomedical sciences

Number of students awarded degrees 2008-2009:: 80,756

11, Human Resources

AP Photo

Median starting salary: $38,100

Median mid-career salary: $61,900

Change in number of jobs, 2008-2018: +12,900

Percentage Change in number of jobs, 2008-2018: +9.61

Undergraduate field of study: Public administration

Number of students awarded degrees 2008-2009:: 23,851

12, Theater

AP Photo

Median starting salary: $35,300

Median mid-career salary: $59,600

Change in number of jobs, 2008-2018: +16,900

Percentage Change in number of jobs, 2008-2018: +10.88

Undergraduate field of study: Visual and performing arts

Number of students awarded degrees 2008-2009:: 89,140

13, Art History

AP Photo

Median starting salary: $39,400

Median mid-career salary: $57,100

Change in number of jobs, 2008-2018: +500

Percentage Change in number of jobs, 2008-2018: +11.46

Undergraduate field of study: Liberal arts and humanities

Number of students awarded degrees 2008-2009:: 47,096

14, Photography

AP Photo

Median starting salary: $35,100

Median mid-career salary: $61,200

Change in number of jobs, 2008-2018: +17,500

Percentage Change in number of jobs, 2008-2018: +11.54

Undergraduate field of study: Visual and performing arts

Number of students awarded degrees 2008-2009:: 89,140

15, Literature

AP Photo

Median starting salary: $37,500

Median mid-career salary: $65,700

Change in number of jobs, 2008-2018: +30,900

Percentage Change in number of jobs, 2008-2018: +9.37

Undergraduate field of study: English language and literature

Number of students awarded degrees 2008-2009:: 55,462

16, Art

AP Photo

Median starting salary: $33,500

Median mid-career salary: $54,800

Change in number of jobs, 2008-2018: +88,100

Percentage Change in number of jobs, 2008-2018: +10.57

Undergraduate field of study: Visual and performing arts

Number of students awarded degrees 2008-2009:: 89,140

17, Fine Arts

AP Photo

Median starting salary: $35,400

Median mid-career salary: $60,300

Change in number of jobs, 2008-2018: +25,800

Percentage Change in number of jobs, 2008-2018: +11.62

Undergraduate field of study: Visual and performing arts

Number of students awarded degrees 2008-2009:: 89,140

18, Psychology

AP Photo

Median starting salary: $35,300

Median mid-career salary: $62,500

Change in number of jobs, 2008-2018: +19,700

Percentage Change in number of jobs, 2008-2018: +11.59

Undergraduate field of study: Psychology

Number of students awarded degrees 2008-2009:: 94,271

19, English

AP Photo

Median starting salary: $37,800

Median mid-career salary: $67,500

Change in number of jobs, 2008-2018: +30,900

Percentage Change in number of jobs, 2008-2018: +9.37

Undergraduate field of study: English language and literature/letters

Number of students awarded degrees 2008-2009:: 55,462

20, Animal Science

AP Photo

Median starting salary: $34,600

Median mid-career salary: $62,100

Change in number of jobs, 2008-2018: +500

Percentage Change in number of jobs, 2008-2018: +13.15

Undergraduate field of study: Biological and biomedical sciences

Number of students awarded degrees 2008-2009:: 80,756

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

The Far Reaching Schools: DO NOT QUESTION AUTHORITY BECAUSE THEY WILL FIND YOU

If society is looked at without emotion, like an archeologist examines a civilization long over with neutral observation, then it is easy to see the problems. Since my love in life puts science first, before anything, then it is not difficult to look at our current civilization and detect where we are going wrong.

Doc Thompson did a great segment on the far-reaching culture of modern public education, where they attempt to extend their authority well into the private lives of children, all in the name of “protecting” them from bullying, or even from their own parents. Listen to that broadcast here.

When I see adults blindly submitting to authority, such as when they are pulled over by a police officer, it’s almost like a switch goes off in their minds that when they see the uniform of a police officer, they immediately revert into a mode of submission. The officer says, “Put your hands up where I can see them,” and automatically the hands go up without any conscious control. The same thing happens when an officer pulls over a speeding driver, the cop puts on the lights, and the immediate reaction is for the driver to pull over. To some extent, it’s probably good that this mechanism is in place, because society would probably have more conflict involved. But on the other hand, the same tendency that makes human beings become compliant to police officers also makes people prone to believe all symbols of authority, which includes politicians and spin doctors.

This is very bad, because even though people like the President of the United States are seen as leaders to the rest of the world, people tend to listen to him as though he actually carried a level of authority. If the President calls for war, there are people in the military that will carry out the order even if it means their deaths. If the President says society needs to care for the poor, then suddenly people will become more aware of the poor. This tendency is consistent all the way down the chain of command all the way down to a child’s local soccer coach.

The adults I know do not question enough what is going on in the world around them, and this is happening because they were taught very early to respect authority. In American culture what is required to maintain an honest republic is a respect of authority, but independence and free-will must be embraced by the culture even above authority in order for it to last. American children are learning to respect authority from their parents, their family, their siblings, friends, and public education.

Public education is spending too much money, and too much time teaching children to respect authority in my opinion. They are creating a society of grown-ups that automatically freeze up in the face of authority figures, and this is a very bad thing. As I said, a little authority is good, respect for mankind and others in general is important, but blind obedience is terrible for the sustainability of any culture. It leaves society vulnerable to tyrants.

This move by public education to intrude into the personal lives of the students we send to these schools is reprehensible and must stop. And it will not stop until parents demand it to stop. It’s not just an economic factor, because more teachers require more asserted authority, and we not only pay for those teachers, but we pay in how they teach our children to blindly accept authority and not embrace the nature of freedom.

The bottom line behind most everyone that pursues the life of an authority figure is that they wish to position themselves in a lucrative paying field of endeavor, where they can make a very good income, while also satisfying some inner inferiority complex that resides within them. They often are not people who should be followed under any circumstance what-so-ever. They should be despised and ridiculed for what they are, and that’s tyrants. So they need people to believe that their authority is needed to hold society together. But what they are really doing is destroying the very fabric of what makes American society unique, and fruitful.

So long as there is a fear of authority in American society, the republic from which that society is built will be flimsy, and easy to topple, which is how they want it. Because to the tyrant, they only care for gratification of the moment, and there are a lot of tyrants wondering about in positions of authority.

It sickens me each time I see people complying without question to the demands of an authority figure. And that process begins when the teacher tells a young child in public school not to run down the hall. The nail to the coffin is driven home when a teacher has the ability to reach into the private life of the child and police what the child says on Facebook, or even what they say on a private web-site. Once the child accepts that type of authority they will grow up and become weak-kneed adults that believe easily what a sappy politician tells them. Those adults will become terrible, over-emotional voters that will not know what’s good from bad, because their decision-making skills are tainted with the corruption of compliance.

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Educate Ohio and The Original Argument: My Speech and a Special Gift

A friend of mine gave me a new book. Every time I get a new book, I have a good day. This particular book was The Original Argument, by Glenn Beck and Joshua Charles, at an event I was speaking at called Educate Ohio.

The event had about 30 to 40 school board members, teachers and education reform advocates where I gave a presentation on how excessive wages under union contracts are bankrupting school districts.

After the meeting I learned how the book came into my friend’s possession. The book had just be released and a woman had bought 50 of them and was passing them out at the Lebanon Racetrack, a popular meeting place for the Lebanon Tea Party, and she gave my friend 5 of them and told her to pass them out to people who would do something with the book. My friend then gave me one of those 5, which is a treasure to me greater than gold.

I read the Federalist Papers and the Anti-Federalist papers last summer. They were respectfully hard reads because of the old dialogue, but it was those books that inspired me to start this site, Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom. I wanted this blog site to be a kind of modern Federalist Papers using all the tools of the modern age to paint the picture of America’s situation. I had heard that Beck and Joshua were attempting to update the Federalist Papers into modern language that everyone could understand, and that’s what The Original Argument is. It is wonderful that finally every day people will be able to read this book and actually understand how the American government is supposed to be.

One of the speakers before me at the Educate Ohio Conference was Paul Lambert from Columbus, who said something in his presentation that made me connect the two things together, Glenn Beck’s new book, and this education event. He said, “Schools are one of the last things in our republic that we still actually control locally.” He was right; our school districts are one of the last bastions of America that are left. We elect our school boards locally, and we pay for them locally, at least for the most part. And we see that our schools have gotten away from us, they are being run by large unions that have their eyes on state and federal money that they can turn around and use indirectly to manipulate the political process, and it’s happening right under our noses.

When I gave my speech, there were many people there that were from Pickerington, Ohio where the new superintendent for my school district of Lakota comes from. This has been another issue that has exploded on the scene over the last couple of days and I am deeply disappointed in our school board’s decision to hire this person. Here is a preview of my comments that will appear in the Pulse Journal this coming Thursday. Click on the article to go to the I-Team Investigation video on double-dipping superintendents and learn the real story behind the scam. Click here to hear the radio broadcast done by that same reporter on 700 WLW. This is important!
____________________________________________________________________

I thought Ron Spurlock was doing a great job as superintendent of Lakota. He was innovative, energetic, had the ability to unite people, and he was cheaper. So it is baffling to me why the school board elected to hire a double-dipping superintendent from just up the road for $165,000, about $50,000 more than they were paying Ron, and they spent 50K to find her. Didn’t anybody learn anything from the Channel 9 I-Team report we did in May?

I’m sure Mantia is a nice lady. I’m willing to give her a chance, so long as she doesn’t ask for more tax money. My problem is in the absolute preposterous understanding of economics. The school board spent $100,000 dollars that it didn’t need to. Why?

Did the school board think that getting a superintendent from outside of the district like Mantia is what the No Lakota Levy people wanted? She’s more of the same. You’re personnel costs are too high, and decisions like what was made in hiring Mantia perfectly exhibits the folly. You had a guy right in front of you and you hired a woman playing the system. And we are supposed to believe we should increase our taxes even higher than they are now to pay for this lack of understanding?

Lakota doesn’t need more revenue to fund their inflated ideas about what education is. It needs to dump its high dollar, ineffective teachers and administrators, keep people like Mr. Duff, but dump the ones you plainly know do not deserve 75K per year, and replace them with ambitious, cheaper labor fresh out of college. Don’t tell me you don’t know the difference between a good teacher and a bad one. Here’s a hint, the bad ones are working just for money, and just like superintendents that retire the minute they turn 55 then seek to be rehired so they can double-dip. Let those bad teachers go to another district. It will create a job vacancy for us.

If Lakota wants to stay excellent, it can’t just tread water. It’s has to become sustainable over time.

_____________________________________________________

The arrogance of the school board to play politics in plain site is an obvious sign of disrespect. The people I talk to are aware of it, but aren’t sure what to do about it, because things have always been this way in their lives. People are only now waking up to it because the money is running out, and it’s not so easy to just toss money at corrupt people anymore to just shut them up. People are finally starting to look at how things are supposed to be.

As I packed up all my notes, and presentation material from my speech, I looked at the book that was left for me in the back of the room under my camera tripod, The Original Argument, by Glenn Beck, given to me by someone that had it given to them, who simply wanted to wake people up so they can understand how to defend themselves. A woman that bought 50 copies of the book with her own money and gave them away in all hope that someone would learn, and just possibly one person out of that 50 would do something to stop the madness.

As my wife and I left the building into the hot June sun, I thought about Paul’s words about how schools are the last things we still can control, and the woman who hoped that the foundations of the country would be re-learned. I watched the people leaving the Educate Ohio Conference and I saw that the battle lines were right in front of me. This is the stand that must be taken, and it must be defeated before any government reform can precede, this debate over school funding, and education content.

I ran my fingers over the cover of that book and took a moment to be grateful that such a literary achievement could even be published, and purchased, and brought to my hands with the best of intentions, because it’s not too late for an army of thought to gather in order to combat the massive tyranny that has hid itself in complicated legislation and ancient language. Holding that book gave me the feeling of rebirth in America, and that good would triumph over pure evil.

After my speech I thought of several people who had approached me, and as I unlocked my car to get in and drive away I reflected about what I said to them. “What are we to do, how can we stop this massive corruption?”

I told them, “They’ve already lost. They hide like cockroaches because they have to. They can’t talk about the facts because they rely on your emotions to control you. If you do like you’re doing, come to conferences like this, read, and pay attention, you will beat them sooner than you can imagine. Just keep focused, stay with the truth, and give them no place to hide. And you’ll get your country back.”
We’ve already won. The trouble is, the bad guys don’t know it yet because they’re too stupid and arrogant to see that they’ve been caught. All people need is the truth, and it will literally set them free in every way possible.

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Lakota’s New Superintendent is a DOUBLE DIPPER: It’s all about plunder…I mean kids

All it took was one guy from our No Lakota Levy group to show just the slightest inclination to break away from the main group before the district fluffed their wings and assumed that an opening was available to sneak on a school levy in November. This news came on the heels of Lakota’s new superintendent announcement of Karen Mantia. As I listen to Mantia and her priorities I can’t help but wonder why her primary focus is on our children’s retirement.

She has a reputation supposedly of thinking outside the box, but most of what she’s said so far sounds rather typical. How does she know that retirement will even be an option for the children of tomorrow? With all the life extension methods that are up and coming in science, retirement could be pushed to over 100 years old by then. People may live to well over 100 maybe even 150 years old. Retirement is a baby boomer idea that is quickly proving unrealistic. People just aren’t dying at 70 any more like they used to. So that seems like a strange priority. I would think that if she’s so well-educated, she’d be aware of these scientific advances. But she’s new, maybe she was just nervous and said the first thing that came to her mind.

It looks however that she is a double-dipper. Click here to watch a special report done by Channel 9 on this very issue. She retired from Sycamore in July 31, 2006 – likely after having 30 years of service. If she was 55 when she retried, her retirement is 66% of her salary. If she was making $100K when she retired, she will be bringing in $231K and that’s not counting the other benefits that are undoubtedly in her contract. If that’s the case, that’s a major issue with me, as a tax payer I’m paying for her retirement package, indirectly, but the money still came from somewhere, and now she is being paid by Lakota $165,000 per year, which is more than the last superintendent that I thought was paid too much. Lakota also spent 50K to find her, and she was just up the road. It doesn’t make sense to me.

But I’m happy to give her a chance. She’ll be alright with me until she asks for more money.

As to the article in the Pulse Journal where the Pro Levy people exploded in exhilaration that Mark Sennet showed signs of defecting. Read that article here:

‘No Lakota’ group split on next levy

Some would OK ‘conservative’ levy in November; others don’t want any levy.

Staff Writer 11:32 AM Thursday, June 16, 2011

LIBERTY TWP. — Members of the No Lakota group are in disagreement about whether they would support a levy if Lakota puts one on the ballot.

West Chester Twp. resident Mark Sennet spoke to the board of education Monday, saying the No Lakota group would support a “conservative” levy in 2012 if the board would bypass the election this November.
However, No Lakota member Rich Hoffman, who has typically spoken on behalf of the group, said no discussion had occurred at a meeting about supporting a levy, and he was holding fast to his stance on never supporting a levy.

Hoffman said there may be a split in the group, but he thinks the 50-and-older crowd will stand with him.
Sennet said Lakota officials have made “a valiant effort to try to work and control spending,” but people still need time to recover from the economic crisis. He said he and several developers would be on the board’s side if it waited for November 2012.

“We acknowledge that there were changes made,” he said. “The businesses had to make changes. The citizens had to make changes, and we were glad to see the union and teachers and board agreed to a pay freeze. But if the levy were to pass, then I guess that would be good for the community.”

Board member Ray Murray said he was pleased the business community is recognizing the district’s transparency and how it is listening to the community.

“There are going to be people who are not going to ever say yes to anything, and there’s nothing you can do about it,” he said. “We’ve got to generate more revenue. We can’t survive on a 2005 budget.”
Former For Lakota levy chairwoman Sandy Wheatley said the board and district representatives have been mending fences with those in opposition since the last election.

“Everyone has kind of stepped up to the plate to do their part,” she said. “Now, with all those pieces in place — because this is the only way Ohio has left us in terms of ways to fund schools — I think the community will see this as now it is time for us to put the last piece together by doing our part to support the tax issue. … Perhaps the residents now will be better critical thinkers around if what they are hearing is accurate information.”

Board president Joan Powell said the board will meet for a work session at the end of the month to study an updated five-year forecast and discuss options.

__________________________________________________________________

Mark and some of the other developers in our group have always been about trying to reduce the rates of tax on the properties they are holding that aren’t making any money in a tough economy. Mark just wants to get through a tough year and he’ll probably support a levy. I’ve always known that defection of a few of these guys was inevitable. They were welcome to ride along as long was we all fought for a common cause. We have many supporters of many different degrees of belief.

I do take offense however at Ray Murry’s comments where he says some people, (like me) will never support a levy.

Why would I support a levy when I can see in the light of day that labor costs are the number one problem at Lakota, and the teacher’s unions are the primary culprits that drove up those costs? Why would I think that a silly contract agreement that freezes actual step increases is enough? That’s only a three-year band-aid. Heck, three years ago I remember the teachers union in 2008 threatening a strike demanding higher wages. That wasn’t that long ago and I remember it vividly. When the union did that, I decided that public sector unions had no place in any tax payer organization. So there is no reason to even discuss a levy when so much money at the top is used on union activity. Unions drive up the labor costs not just for a couple of exceptional employees, but for everyone! There are no controls over how much a teacher can make. They are free to get a degree which immediately drives up their salary regardless of whether or not their degree actually contributes to a child’s education, because I don’t think it does. Unions just cost too much, so while they are in place, and I don’t want my money being scrapped off the top by them, why would I support them? If the union was out-of-the-way and the community could see the actual cost of what education costs, then I’d be more inclined to support a levy. I already pay a lot in taxes each year, so it’s not like people who don’t want more taxes on their property don’t support their schools and the kids that go to them. People like me don’t support public unions.

If that is a radical position, too bad, but it’s the facts. People like Mr. Murry are trying to justify why the school board has not been acting as a management protection, because they can’t. They are just figureheads. Lakota will attempt another levy because they have a new superintendent, they think our No Lakota Group is split, and they don’t know how to do anything else. Like Ray says, “We’ve got to generate more revenue. We can’t survive on a 2005 budget.” I’d say, “Why not?”

$10K per child is too high for poor performance, and the United States is not in first place in the world education market, and Mrs. Mantia’s Global Program won’t do anything to help. It’s just another way of dressing up what kids are already supposed to be learning in school.

But the state is cutting funding. The federal government is cutting money too! Hey, folks, get used to it. The gravy train the unions used with all the free money that was lost in bureaucratic nonsense is gone, and the expectation is that local communities are going to cover the difference. No, we won’t be. That’s simply not going to happen.

What’s going to happen is that schools are going to have to cut back their real costs, their wages, or they will become extinct. Property owners are not going to cover the cost of the outrageous expectations the unions have negotiated for themselves. Unions took advantage of government, as they always do, of the fact that nobody had any real skin in the game. When state and federal money is coming, it was easy to divide up the spoils, and they did. As a group, the teachers unions got greedy. Now that is coming to an end as states try to balance their budgets. And property owners do have skin in the game……their property!

So if Lakota chooses to put a levy on the ballot this November, or even in 2012, without cutting the wasted cost in excessive wages schools are enduring, then the No Lakota Group will be there to fight them.

During the last levy attempt of 2010 we held back. I personally had a lot more to throw out, but for the sake of the community, I held back a lot. If Lakota elects to go after the tax payers again with another levy before the teachers union reduces the wages for their top wage earners by 30%, or while superintendents like Karen Manita draws retirement from Sycamore where she retired at exactly 55 years old, then turned around and took another job so she could double-dip, then quit that district to come to Lakota, get a 20K raise then stand in front of everyone and tell the residents of the district is “for the kids.”

Hiding behind kids, exploiting the hard work of property owners to create lucrative jobs for themselves does not necessitate a levy request until the run-away costs are controlled, and if that means getting rid of the union, fine. If that means the union takes a pay cut, but stays put as an organization, fine. If S.B.5 gives school boards the ability to dramatically cut their labor costs, then fine. But it is not acceptable to ask for more money from the tax payer to cover the cost of lost state and federal revenue. We are not picking up the bill when the unions took too much, and they did in 2008. It’s time for them to give back, or move along so we can hire cheaper teachers, that will still keep Lakota one of the best schools in the state. Because failure, of any kind, is not an option.

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Do You Believe in Spies: Review of the film SALT and how sleeper cells have corrupted America

A society’s mythology is absolutely essential to the sustainability of any culture. And in American culture, it is our movies that communicate the concerns of our population. Love stories tell the stories of the heart, comedies tickle the social taboos not realized in everyday life, and adventure films take us to places most of our mundane lives cannot transport us to without wrecking ourselves. Within that genre of action-adventure films comes spy stories, which are attempts by the creative community to ease the tensions we all feel when dealing with a globe of competing enemies seeking to undermine each other in the eternal quest for victory. For the free world, James Bond, the master spy set the standard for millions of men who looked to the ultimate man, who never panicked while trying to defend the free world from world domineering elites seeking to enslave the world. For me the start of Moonraker is one of the best openings of a James Bond film.

Since the golden age of Bond, at the height of the cold war in the late 70’s and early 80’s, James Bond has become softer, more progressively complex and has lost much of what made him the gem of Ian Fleming’s books. Daniel Craig’s version of Bond in the last two films presents a guy that is ultimately more realistic, but destroys much of the mythology of what the character of James Bond represents.

I have not enjoyed many spy films for about a decade, including the Borne Identity films until my wife coaxed me into watching Salt with Angelina Jolie. If there is one actor in Hollywood that my wife likes the most, it’s Angelina Jolie. So for her sake I agreed to watch it. By the end of the movie, I was glad I did.

Not only were the car crashes and action scenes fantastic, but the story was extremely compelling. It’s a topic that I had been thinking about a lot lately, since I have learned that labor unions were founded by communists, and many layers of our current government seem to be working against constitutional principles. In fact, it seems George Soros reminded me of almost every James Bond villain as I was growing up, but in real society saying such a thing is ridiculous, because in our culture, our myths tell our stories, but in politics, we put a layer of cake icing over the reality and avoid talking about the obvious. In such places the villains of our age hide in plain sight. When we see movies, we dare to ask the questions, but when the movie is over, we return back to our political reality and stop daring to ask the hard questions. However, in the film Salt, the uncomfortable question is addressed; are there sleeper cells in the United States, and are they at our highest levels of government? I think they are based on the videos I’ll show you below. In fact, there’s overwhelming evidence that American culture has been penetrated by many enemies from many countries since World War II when America proved to the world that beating America in a war with technology is too costly, and unpredictable. America is too good at thinking outside the box so a war with America needs to happen from within, using sleeper cells of spies to not just attempt to gain intelligence, but to undermine the foundations of emotional strength America stands upon.

Sleeper cells like the group recently busted in the United States have been operating for decades in plain sight. They hide behind issues of racism, gay rights advocates, feminism, and many other liberal positions. One good way to spot the beginning of a sleeper cell is to look for groups that advocate the “Peace” sign.

Sleeper cells from the Soviet Union hid their true intentions behind the hippie movement where KGB agents became leaders of the hippie movement and advocated communism, but hid their sinister intentions behind the sign of peace. This isn’t a new strategy. Pirates of the Caribbean (not the movie, the real pirates) used to fly the flags of whatever nations ship they were attempting to attack, and once they were close enough to fire their cannons, they’d run up the “Jolly Roger.” The Trojan Horse strategy is not a unique strategy when one attacker that is inferior in power attempts to overthrow a power of superior strength.

Just like the woman at the beginning of this article, where James Bond is making out with the woman on a plane and the woman turns out to be a spy, the mythology of that scene is one we all recognize. Women make particularly dangerous spies because even intelligent men who are masters of every part of their lives tend to be vulnerable to sex. Meet Anna Chapman, real life Russian spy every bit as active as Marta Hari was.

She is considered so dangerous that she is imprisoned under solitary confinement.

Here is Anna Chapman before she was caught; it’s interesting to hear about her impression of America. There are no opportunities for a woman like her in Russia. She admits as much. In America all she has to do is use sex and she can get next to the most powerful men in American culture.

These are modern spies, but this game has been going on for a long time. Here is a former KGB agent who gives an interview in 1983 about ideological subversion and how it was installed in public schools. This is an actual KGB agent from the 60’s and 70’s who defected from the Soviet Union in favor of the freedom offered in America and the conclusion that the Soviet Union would fall under its own power. Meet Yuri Bezmenov:

Here Yuri Bezmenov teaches a class how the process of subversion is implemented to undermine America. What’s important to understand is that our local government, our school boards, councilmember’s, trustees, etc are not KGB spies. But what they often are the plants that spring from the seeds that were planted in the college courses they studied, thus the strategy is revealed. Yuri will explain the process.

Yet when such an accusation is brought up by someone like me, those in positions of authority will scorn such a statement because they will say, “that’s crazy, I was not trained by a Soviet spy! I was taught by my professors in college.” What Yuri explains is that the way to reach a majority of America’s population was to get them in school, where their parents were not around to protect the children.

Subversion of a culture is far less expensive to fight than open warfare. It’s less costly than nuclear war for sure. So, under the sign of peace, of avoiding nuclear disaster, agents penetrated American culture to eliminate the threat in a long-term strategy designed to eliminate the will to fight in the future. The Soviet Union was planning on keeping military pace with America until the generations they had infiltrated in public school had grown up and lost the will to fight. That was their goal. What they didn’t count on was that Reagan would force them to go bankrupt well before their plan could be fully realized. Yet the “Peace” sign is the direct result of Soviet sleeper agents operating in the United States and using college campuses as their pawns in the great chess game.

The Peace Sign is one of the most widely known symbols in the world, in Britain it is recognized as standing for nuclear disarmament —and in particular as the logo of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). In the United States and much of the rest of the world it is known more broadly as the peace symbol. It was designed in 1958 by Gerald Holtom, a professional designer and artist and a graduate of the Royal College of Arts. He showed his preliminary sketches to a small group of people in the Peace News office in North London and to the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War, one of several smaller organizations that came together to set up CND.

Source article
http://www.docspopuli.org/articles/PeaceSymbolArticle.html

In the film Salt it is a great movie that explores the role of sleeper agents in America and does it in an entertaining way. The character of Salt is very contemporary because she is not necessarily loyal to the United States or the Soviet Union. In the end she stands for what is right, which is very, very difficult to see in a world of espionage, corruption, power grabs, and normal politics. I found the story very intriguing. I thought it was one of Jolie’s boldest performances. The film left me thinking for days after I saw it.

This next video shows that Russian spies wanted to work for the CIA. It’s the plot of SALT, but for real. The goal of spies is most often not just to uncover secrets but to undermine a culture from within.

Now, in this article I’ve focused on Russian spies because that was the plot of the film Salt. But consider that America has many enemies, all every bit as dangerous as Russia. China has spies; Iran has spies, in fact just think of how many radical Muslim elements are already functioning from within our country. That’s how 911 happened. Every major country is doing the same thing to each other, and the United Nations is absolutely unable to do anything about it, and they never will. This is because treachery is part of the human race. War will always be a part of our existence. There will always be a threat to the security of a peaceful people. Greed cannot be socially engineered out of mankind.

Gaining an advantage over an opponent is part of the human makeup. Look at what Bill Bilichick did for his team the New England Patriots when he was caught cheating to win football games, the NFL couldn’t protect other teams from a head coach looking for a competitive edge. The United Nations will never be able to stop this activity. The only protection anybody has is mutual respect, and a document like the Constitution that limits the power and reach of a government, because man is prone to corruption and subversion. And the more complicated something is, the more opportunities for spies to attempt to subvert one culture so their culture can thrive.

As for James Bond, I miss the old Bond. The new Bond is too weak, and emotional. The old Bond portrayed by Sean Connery and Roger Moore, and even at times by Pierce Bronson were welcome fantasies in a world gone mad were we could go see a movie and believe that such characters could fight the forces we feel are working against us, and be successful. Movies like the old Bond films are worth more than box office results, because they at least make people ask questions about the world around them, and even if the fictional circumstances seem far-fetched in reality, at least the skepticism is healthily exercised in the mind of the viewer. Because in reality, there is more truth than fiction and society needs to understand the possibilities expressed in popular mythology.

So if you haven’t seen Angelina Jolie’s film Salt, treat yourself to the film and enjoy yourself and the ideas it springs up. Because that is what mythology is tasked to do, is make us think. Think of even the improbable, and painful, and help it go down with a good healthy dose of action.

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

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