Tag: overmanwarrior

The Magic of Pirates: Spending Mother’s Day at the Hoffman House

In my family naval battleships from the 1600’s through the 1800’s have a special place in our hearts. I’ve always been a fan of pirates, and that love has trickled down to my wife and kids over the years. Why do I like pirates so much? Well, Tenochtitlan which was the capital city of the Aztecs that sat in the middle of a lake which resided where modern-day Mexico City is started my love of pirates. It was a monstrously large city at the time of over 200,000 people divided into nobles and commoner groups. In Aztec culture, much like the modern Progressive, they lacked an inherit understanding of science so they relied on sacrifice to the gods hoping that magically the spirit realm would shine on their society and grant them life. They were such a foolish culture that over a four-day mass sacrifice in 1487 the Aztec king Ahuitzotl butchered 80,400 prisoners by shifts of priests working four at a time at convex killing tables who kicked the lifeless bodies of victims down the sides of their temple pyramids. (to see what this looked like click here) This established a killing rate of 14 victims a minuet over a ninety-six hour bloodbath. The Spanish encountered this group of Aztecs, saw that they were rich with gold, but lacked science, so Cortez took the city using superior technology and wiped out the Aztecs completely. So much for the gods saving Aztec culture, even with all the sacrifice.

Spain having wiped out the Mayan culture and now the Aztecs suddenly was very rich with gold, which scared the crap out of England and France. Those two countries hired “privateers” to intercept the Spanish vessels returning to the home country with the gold, so they could also have a share of the “new wealth.” This is a version of “redistributing the wealth” 1660’s style. Today we call them tax collectors.

Once much of the gold had been looted from Central America the three countries decided to be at peace with each other so they put a stop to their privateering efforts against one another and banned the practice with new laws. The only problem was those privateers were making good livings intercepting Spanish vessels from Central America. These were now sailors committed to living away from the “mother countries” so they had no real psychological commitment to a king or queen, so they decided to thumb their nose at their kings and become pirates. This was the start of the golden age of piracy.
It would be pirates who laid the foundations for America in breaking away from Europe. And it was on a pirate ship that democracy was first implemented, and concepts such as insurance were invented. In fact the very first law suit in the history of the world involved one of my personal mentors; Henry Morgan in a libel suit against Alexander Exquemelin who had written a book called The Buccaneers of America, based on Exquemelin’s adventures with Morgan, which exploited Captain Morgan as a ruthless cutthroat.

But Morgan had the king’s ear, and had made the man very rich in his spoils from Spain, and serving the king as a correspondence of sorts between Morgan, who had a base in Jamaica, and the king in England was none less than the philosopher John Locke, who Thomas Jefferson would base the Declaration of Independence off of Locke’s written work just a century later. There is without a doubt that the founding fathers held the book, The Buccaneers of America in very high esteem as a way to envision what freedom would look like. Many of the revolutionaries in the times of the founding fathers were sons of former pirates since New York had been a pirate haven once piracy was outlawed and those out of work privateers merged into legitimate fields of endeavor.

So anyone that knows me well knows that I love pirates, and the art of the swashbuckler. Here is video of the real pirate ship The Black Pearl firing its cannons.


A few years ago a game came out from Wiz Kids that combined model building, which I like, with military strategy, which I like a lot, with history, which I love almost as much as the air I breath, and touched on the fantasy of high adventure and pirate exploits on the high seas complete with treasure hunting, monsters, and supernatural events, all draped over actual historical context. So I introduced my family to the game and it became a family favorite.

The first release of the game was called The Spanish Main. Here is the original promotion video from that release.

Then Wiz Kids came out with a second series, with approximately a 150 new ships all themed around the period of the Revolutionary War.

The game combines the fun of model building with the historical facts that more mature players enjoy, and allows young players and older players to join together in a battlefield that everyone can enjoy together. It has not been uncommon from my son-in-law, my daughters and father-in-law and my wife to play a game at a big table for hours at a time, during an entire Saturday afternoon. My father-in-law who is a geology teacher for high-school students and lover of history in his own way enjoys telling my kids historic facts while they get the chance to blow up his ships and steal his gold. It doesn’t get any better than that for a young person. Here is what a pack of cards looks like when you buy them from the store and begin the process of building the ships.

The game has some simple rules, but the strategy is rather complex, involving thousands of decisions and possible variables. Here’s how the game is played.


There have been many releases over the years and literally thousands of ships to collect and build. These are just a few of the types of ships available.

So with this little introduction to put things in context my wife and I were out shopping yesterday for Mother’s Day. I wanted her to pick out a gift for herself, to treat herself to anything. My wife is the only person I know that can buy items from Victoria Secret, (She is really picky about this stuff, and Victoria’s Secret is the only quality she really enjoys as far as under garments.) then turn around and go over to another one of our favorite stores, Sci Fi City! It was her option to pick up a new bathing suit for the summer or to buy something from Sci Fi City, and she picked Sci Fi City. This is what she wanted The Pirates Constructible Strategy Game Expansion from Wiz Kids.

This is a role-playing expansion to the game we’ve played for years and opens things up a lot. Seeing how excited she got over this book made me proud to have her for a wife, because her priorities are clear. The pictures above are how we spent Mothers Day, enjoying her new book with the people she cares about most.

My daughter asked me yesterday, “What should we get mom?” I told her to come over, and bring your pirate ships for a day of adventure and probably some LaRosa’s Pizza. Nothing more is needed.

A few years ago Wiz Kids came out with an online version of the game which allowed people to play other players online using the same rules of engagement. This video will give an idea of how the game is played and how it looks in the minds of the players. The thing I don’t like about the online game is that you buy ships like you do in real life, but they only exist online. It is quite fun to build an actual ship and hold it in your hand and do battle. My family has spent many Saturday afternoons in comic book stores, book stories, gaming gatherings, looking for new decks of cards. The fun of these afternoon adventures is you never know what you’re going to get in a pack. I’ve bought hundreds and hundreds of ships, and I haven’t run into the problem of getting very many doubles of the same ship, so that gives some idea just how many ships were built for the game. Among my family, all of whom have hundreds of ships themselves, most of us have ships completely different from each other. The ships are broke down by color code, red (common), silver (uncommon), yellow (rare) and black (super rare. I have managed to get a fair number of rare ships and even a couple of super rare boats. Some of the most fun days we’ve all spent as a family together have been days were we’d find a fresh shipment at a comic store, a whole box, and we’d buy everything they had, and we’d go home and spend the rest of the day building ships, then the rest of the night playing.
Here’s what the action looks like online.


For people who are unfamiliar with the world of strategy gaming it’s very popular in an underground sort of way. When I was at Sci Fi City with my wife yesterday they have a gaming area in the back that was packed with about 30 people of all age brackets and demographic groups playing these games. I saw a mother and her daughter playing Magic the Gathering and the mother was well into her 60’s. Here’s video of Origins from the summer of 2010 in Columbus, Ohio. Origins is a big gaming convention done each year in Ohio. Some will make fun of these people, but let me provide a disclaimer. I’ve sat in front of some of the most powerful people in the country, or people who think they’re powerful anyway. I know the mind of people who wield great political power. And I know the power of people like this. I’ll pick them any day over the people who run the country currently.For all the reasons articulated in the book Atlas Shrugged, the people who play these games are much more intelligent, and able to construct a reasonable strategy than many of the people currently working in the White House and Pentagon. The difference between these people and those political types is that the people at Origins don’t wish to have limits placed upon their minds. So in strategy gaming their minds are free and not confined to “politics.” That’s why I’d pick these people as my friends any day of the week. The quality of their minds is superior to those who chose status quo complacency. I treasure knowing these types of people.

Here’s my family playing the game. This video was done by my son-in-law. We went as far to build actual three-dimensional islands replicas with great detail.

It’s a game that inspires imagination and to me that is the most important attribute to any form of entertainment.

So when we travel and visit a ship yard whether it’s in this country or another one, and one of these old ships fire their cannons there is a special place that I hold for them in my heart. Not only in the context of history, but in the memories of many battles fought with my family, where the mind does not know the difference between real or fiction because in this type of gaming, it is the minds process of thinking that is important. The Wiz Kids Constructible Strategy Game does all that at many levels, and it is a treasure to anyone that plays the game. For lesser minds, such as your typical politician, where they are always out for the end result, the better mind, the one of the strategy gamer, is out for the opportunity to think freely, without limit for the sheer process of doing so. The end result is secondary. That’s why it is not important to those gamers if people laugh at them for walking down the hall of a hotel dressed as a pirate or a dragon slayer, because they have freed their minds to engage in limitless possibilities, where the rest of the world is stuck on the rules and the achievement of victory. So when I see a sight like this:

I swell with pride in knowing that such minds exist out there in the world and it was such minds that conceived of the ships and the warfare they were intended for in the first place, that were given birth in the realm of imagination, where all great things humans truly enjoy emerge into the world either to be shared by many, or the sole gamer on a quest to solve the puzzles of their mind with limitless possibilities.

Rich Hoffman

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

Wanted: New School Board Members at Lakota–Apply at www.NoLakotaLevy.com

Lakota announced that they intend to vote on the placement of a new levy at the August 27th School Board Meeting of 2011. Apparently the school board, who I had been hoping would work with us in the community, has not received the message. They simply cannot see past the end of their nose. They only seem to know how to spend money in spite of the fact that most of their excessive costs bankrupting their budget is in their wages. Nobody on any side of the education issue at Lakota has shown any desire to deal with the issue at hand, so the school board is resorting to the only thing they know to do, and that’s ask for money.

Doc Thompson covers this issue and some of the “cultural diversity” that school systems are spending money on that is not something people like me find necessary to proper education of a child. I simply don’t want to spend good money on teachers that are teaching aspects of social behavior that are the jobs of the children’s family. The Cultural Center at Lakota is not something that is necessary as a funding option. Any employee that works on that program should be dropped for budget reduction reasons, because it is not something that a public school should even be involved in. Listen to Doc’s broadcast here as he breaks down the new levy attempt and a breakdown to the cultural sensitivity issues going on in our public schools, Lakota specifically.

Matt Mayer always has great information at the Buckeye Institute. He has an article that shows the origin of this behavior that we are being asked to pay for in school levies. Click onto this link to see his report and a copy of the magazine that the Ohio Education Associate sends its members. This tells you all you need to know about the social agenda of the OEA.

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/02/27/s-b-5-would-have-saved-1-3-billion-in-2010-yet-the-oea-says-its-teachers-will-suffer-when-the-average-teacher-makes-55k/

So the real question is do we want to pay for this kind of stuff? I don’t. This is why I don’t want any of my tax money to go to union activity. I would like to vote to not have that kind of behavior taught in my school district because I don’t support all this cultural stuff. When a school does this, they are crossing the line to what is my responsibility as a community member and parent.

The Lakota School Board should first look at cutting these kinds of non-essential social programs well before they come to the tax payer for funding beyond the allocated budget. This is an old game that is not only socially corrosive, if you’re a non-progressive person such as myself, but is extraordinarily expensive and people are forced to pay for the whole deal instead of just the portions they support.

The No Lakota.Com group had a meeting on this issue last week, in anticipation that the school board would attempt to pass another levy in 2011 well before they attempted to fundamentally change the way they do business, which is extraordinarily arrogant on their behalf. So the No Lakota Group decided to change our strategy a bit. Instead of just defending the tax payers from further increases in their taxes, as we’ll still do, we will now start taking applications from members of the community to become the next school board members. There are two seats that are up this year on the school board and in the next couple of years the remaining three seats. The No Lakota Group will be seeking to replace each seat that votes in favor of a levy starting with the vote in August established by the Lakota School Board. If all the school board can do is ask for more money, they are useless, and must be replaced. So the No Lakota Levy.Com group will not only be committed to defeating the next levy, but they will actively elect the next school board members.

So if you’d like to be a school board member and would like to serve your community and have a non-progressive, business oriented background contact us at NoLakota@roadrunner.com so we can add your name to the list of people we are assembling for our strategic replacement of school board members who vote in favor of more taxes instead of the more difficult management aspects of a school boards responsibility. We have two issues that are driving up the cost of education that a school board needs to have the courage to tackle. First is the foolishness of union contracts to not manage their step increases which are bankrupting the district. The second is the failure to filter out social teaching programs that if parents want their kids to be “culturally diverse” they can pay for it separately. The community at large should not be forced to pay for education measures that they don’t agree with. Social Justice is an elective that should be up to the parent. It is not essential education for young people to live their lives. Social Justice Education is something that should be independently funded, and its removal from the classroom could dramatically reduce education costs to the tax payer. Again, if a parent wants that type of teaching for their children they are free to pay for it elsewhere, or as an added fee in the school. But it is up to the school board to separate these costs before ever considering another levy attempt.

I’ve heard from many of you over the last several months. Now is the time to act, so contact us today!

www.NoLakotaLevy.com

Rich Hoffman

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

THX-1138 A GREAT MOVIE: Where our current education system is taking us

“Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: if it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”

Ronald Reagan August 1986.

Politicians have to have something to do. They have been elected to a job, and to their small minds, small because they crave the power of a position, but in order to perform that job they pass laws and regulation so people hopefully see through the smoke screen they create to hide their true intentions. Rules and regulations are created to prove that politicians are doing something valuable or at least perceived to be important. And when they don’t have rules to create, they attempt to change American ideology.

A free society cannot endure this type of corruption and history proves it. Creative people, like George Lucas, George Orwell, and Ayn Rand have taken history and projected the results into the future. That’s been done in books like Atlas Shrugged and Brave New World, and in films like THX-1138.

If you haven’t seen THX-1138 you have missed a great film. It’s available on Netflix under Science Fiction. The film directed by George Lucas well before Star Wars hit the screen is a great look at a future that we will have if we leave our fate in the hands of politicians and avoid the responsibility of handling our own lives. If our society trades freedom for security we will see a society very much like THX-1138.

Most people know THX as the sound system that is a Lucas property, and yes, the origin of that name comes from that epic, break-through film. Here’s a trip down memory lane for movie lovers.

When the film came out, Warner Brothers hated it. They had no idea how to market the picture. It was a strangely dark film that involved thinking so it was a bit too cerebral for Warner Brother executives back then, which is a usual story for any project that is forward thinking. The creative mind creating something new is often on a lonely island of understanding and it may take years for people to gain an understanding of what the visionary was trying to say. That’s the case with this film. Released in 1971 it was taken away of Lucas’s control out of sheer anger from Warner Brothers who proceeded to cut 5 minutes from the film just to show Lucas that they could. The experience was so bad that Lucas started Lucasfilm so he wouldn’t have to rely on Hollywood to make the movies he wanted to make. Thank goodness he did, because we would have never had Star Wars and Indian Jones. Hollywood is incapable of making films like that on their own for all the reasons they cut 5 minutes of film from THX-1138. It was all about politics and control.

The THX-1138 hatred from Warner Brothers pushed Francis Ford Coppola into financial ruin because he produced the film. It also put the production of Apocalypse Now in jeopardy, which eventually got ironed out to become the classic Vietnam era film. Coppola revived his reputation with the Godfather series. Lucas saved his image with American Graffiti and Star Wars, so it wasn’t talent that was the problem. The people involved in THX-1138 were the best that the field of filmmakers had to offer then and even to this very day.

THX-1138 had problems because it hit too close to the fears people have about the culture of spoils and looting that goes on in politics. It makes people inwardly who participate in this diabolical behavior feel guilt. That’s why the Warner Brothers executives didn’t like the movie. That’s why the audiences didn’t like the movie, initially. It’s not a movie that desires to make people feel good and eat popcorn. It’s a warning of a possible future of which we are quickly heading.

It is a warning that if America continues to trade away our freedoms, as we have been…if we continue to tax ourselves heavily which is the same as regulating our freedoms….if we continue to hold back our business development because each and every politician wants to include their “two meaningless cents” on every matter available trading their integrity for a vote, we will become what is shown in vivid detail the life of THX-1138. That is the future that we seem unwilling to prevent in a mindless pursuit of security and laziness.

We’re not all fighting for the same thing in America. Whoever wins decides the future.

 

 

Rich Hoffman

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

The Start of Collective Bargaining: FDR and his Second Bill of Rights

Few people really understand, because it’s now been a couple of generation’s old, but life in America is not supposed to be as it is, and two definitive dates have moved America toward a socialist system that has greatly hampered the explosive growth that made our nation great. Those dates are the year of 1913 when the Federal Reserve was created, and income tax was implemented. The second is 1944 where a king seeking president in FDR created with great audacity the thought of a Second Bill of Rights.

The first Bill of Rights were an appeasement to the Anti-Federalists after years of arguing about the Constitution and the impact of a large centralized government. The Federalists made some concessions that became The Bill of Rights.

In 1944, FDR was fulfilling a long sought after promise of progressives, which his cousin Teddy Roosevelt helped begin, to create a better, more fair world, which were a direct play-book from socialist thought. FDR like his cousin, whom I admire because of his energy and intelligence, suffered from a desire for power, and a belief that he was one of the elites that were enamored by God to help the less-fortunate.

So FDR created his own Bill of Rights that reflected directly the Communist Manifesto and attempted to implement it. He had no right or authority to do it, but he did it anyway, while the nation was at war, which we are still feeling the impact of those drastic, and un-American concepts.

American exceptionalism is unique because the people who fought and survived in this growing nation bred children that reflected the tenacity of the pioneers that worked hard, were inventive, and loved freedom. But as more and more immigrants came from Europe, with European ideas those ideas began to compete with the ideas of our Founding Fathers, which were working dramatically, as is evidence in the great number of inventions and rapid expansion of our cityscapes in a very short time, even while the nation was still reeling from the Civil War.

Progressivism came from Europe. It was loved by the Roosevelt’s like Teddy, and FDR, because they liked European politics, unlike our Founding Fathers, and thus the Second Bill of Rights was initiated.

Walter Lippmann, the hero of modern media, was a progressive and advocate of The Second Bill of Rights. It was a young Lippmann that sat in Teddy’s home in the last days of TR and attempted to coax Teddy to continue the progressive march, which TR had lost interest in after Taft left the presidency. TR primarily became a progressive to fight his old friend in President Taft because he felt pushed out of the Republican Party. But younger cousin FDR was a true blue progressive which is a fancy word for a socialist and the New Deal was a socialist concept.

A much older Walter Lippmann stated at the time that the New Dealers would “Rather not have a recovery if the revival of private initiative means a resumption of private control in the management of corporate business…the essence of the New Deal is the reduction of private corporate control by collective bargaining and labor legislation, on the one side, and by restrictive, competitive and deterrent government action on the other side.” That statement embodies most everything that the press speaks to this day, and socialist leaning union members, film makers, and politicians that hide their beliefs in socialism behind the Democratic Party, or under the more encompassing term, progressive.

Here is FDR reading his Second Bill of Rights from 1944. Just like a king from a far away land, he consults his subjects in a similar manner, which is fundamentally an incorrect American philosophy. Unfortunately, for those in society that have a tendency to be skittish by nature, socialism is an attractive idea because they naturally lack courage. Those are the kind of people who embraced FDR and his New Deal policies.

“The Economic Bill of Rights”
Excerpt from President Roosevelt’s January 11, 1944 message to the Congress of the United States on the State of the Union[1]:
“ It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth—is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.

This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.

As our nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.”[2] People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.
Among these are:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
The right to a good education.
All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.
Americas own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for all our citizens.
For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.

FDR attempted to hang on to his presidency by running for 4 terms. It is because of him that the United States began term limits for the presidency, like a king that seeks the meaning of his existence in an elected position. It was easy for FDR to continue getting elected, because the weak side of human nature will always like the person that gives them things, and FDR was giving away things that weren’t his. He is most responsible for the budget mess that we are currently in. And he wasn’t the end. Today, the progressive tradition is alive and well in financiers like George Soros, Presidents like Barrack Obama, and appointments to the Obama administration such as regulatory tzar, Cass Sunstein.

Cass Sunstein is working toward a different kind of America. People like me completely reject what Cass proposes.

This is a video from Cass Sunstein during 2006, long before he was Obama’s regulatory tzar. He is exactly why the FDR’s Second Bill of Rights would never work, because people like Cass are weak-kneed intellectuals that would rather have price fixes instead of allowing competition to drive the market.

My mind has been emancipated individually, so Cass is wrong, completely wrong. In fact, he’s so far off base he’s not even in the same city of the team he thinks he’s playing for. If he had things his way, to put it in everyday terms, if you let Cass Sunstein manage the NFL, every player at each position would have to weigh the same, would have to run just as fast, would be able to bench press the same amounts, the QB’s would have to be identical, because neither team would be allowed to have an advantage over the other team. That is basically the world FDR, and Cass Sunstein have been trying to create for the United States. It is socialism. Pure and simple.

The ghosts of these follies continue to resonate in the minds of people everywhere. It is these Second Bill of Rights that are uttered in union protests. They want the promises made by a man who had no right to squander American Ingenuity by robbing private industry and giving it to all those who are too lazy to match the task, yet had the power of the vote. So the man in FDR gave people something for nothing and took from those that had something at the expense of the future, and he did it for his quest of kingdom, the oldest, and most primal desire known to man.

I can say that I recognize nothing in the Second Bill of Rights. If it isn’t in the Constitution it doesn’t exists. I will continue to pay my income tax, which progressives are robbing from me. I will pay my Social Security, and my Medicare which progressives are robbing from me out of respect for the law, even though I believe the minds behind the law are no better than insects. But I will never take a check from the government. I will never cash in on a “pay day” of spoils provided by “the system.” I want nothing to do with it, and once they’ve robbed me of my money, that money is corrupted by their corrupt hands and I no longer want it.

Progressives and their collective salvation disgust me to my very soul. They will never be qualified to advise me, or help me in any way, shape or form because the value of what they have to offer is only a diminished quality of what they took from me to begin with.

Thus, that is the essence of taxation and the term “collective bargaining.”

Rich Hoffman

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

Osama bin Laden is dead but his Legacy will Live on: How the TSA and Homeland Security will honor him.

I’m glad that after 10 years, Osama bin Laden is finally gone.  He brought it on himself.  But, the impact on our airline industry will forever live in memorial to that black-hearted terrorist. 

To give a bit of a preview into what promises to be a major story breaking on Channel 9 at 6 pm one week from today, on May 9th 2011, I’m providing you with a look into the work of Brendan Keefe.

Brendan, the I Team reporter does some great reporting. One of his stories that I feel most passionate about involves transportation. Anyone familiar with my site here knows that I’m a tremendous supporter of Skycar Technology, which will dramatically reduce congested roadways. But one of the other big reasons is that the airlines are too highly regulated, and now with the TSA becoming too aggressive coming alarmingly close to becoming unionized, options seem limited. Airports since 9/11 and the creation of the TSA along with Homeland Security have become a real pain in the neck.

Well, it doesn’t need to be. In fact, many of us have watched this whole transformation occurring right before our eyes, the kinds of things that brought us Social Security, Medicare, and even the IRS are happening to our airline industry right now by panicky politicians. Their motive is to obtain a vote from a terrified public by clamping more and more regulations onto air travel to the point where flying is no longer enjoyable. In fact, it’s to be dreaded. It is now normal to catch a flight to Chicago which is only a 4 to 5 hour drive by car, arriving at the airport an hour and a half before the flight, to ensure that you can get through security. Then by the time you are seated, the plane taxi’s to the runway and you actually get into the air, make your flight, land, taxi into your terminal, pick up your luggage, you could have driven your car and arrived at the same time and not had to deal with intrusive TSA agents or lost luggage.

Instead, this clip by Brendan Keefe is how flying is supposed to be. People that need to be in New York, or Chicago for a morning meeting don’t need their time wasted by government bureaucrats. Bureaucrats make their living wasting time, so that is why they don’t value it. The people in the clip below should be able to get to the city of their destination, have their meeting, do some shopping, and be back home for dinner with their families without any trouble what-so-ever. The only difference between the traditional airlines and the clip below is the government regulation and interference which they impose on everyone under the guise of “protection.”

Terrorists have accomplished what they intended scaring our policy makers into over-reacting like cowards at every dropped pin, taking every precaution of a useless neurotic to further expand the intrusion of government. But for the movers and shakers of the world, where time is valuable, government openly wastes their energy in lines like cattle to be processed, when in reality they should arrive at the airport, park their car, get on the plane and be in the sky within minutes. Anything less is unacceptable.

Instead, this is what air travel has been reduced to. Here is a clip of former Miss USA being groped by TSA agents. Not only is her time wasted in the lines, but she is physically molested. Is this what the value of her ticket buys her?

The function of flight is the same between the large airport with the major airlines and the smaller airport with the smaller, individually owned planes. The only difference is government interference, and nothing displays the complete failure of government endeavor better than this obvious difference shown in the clip by Brendan. The function of flight is to get where you want to go and to get there without your time wasted. It is not acceptable to endure extra pain or suffering because our government couldn’t do its job to begin with failing to recognize the role of radicals in the world and how to spot them in an airport.

I’ve thought about the 9/11 hijackings a lot over the years, which is what started all this mess. The terrorists used box cutters to run airplanes into the World Trade Center buildings which caused so much devastation to the American psyche it’s almost unfathomable, even to this day. I can say that if I had been on that plane a knife would not have held back a whole plane full of people from stopping the terrorists. I mean a knife cuts, but there’s ways to deal with that, even with multiple attackers. I can only offer that people were so shocked by the act that they were frozen with surprise. If America should have learned anything from 9/11 it’s how to deal with that kind of situation in the future, and that instead of complying with a terrorists demands, two or three of the passengers would overwhelm the attackers before trouble got out of control in the future. Not what has happened, which is to avoid every possible danger in every possible circumstance, and to stop being Americans.

The terrorists succeeded.

Americans need to stop being wimps that just take this kind of stuff without a fight. It’s not a big deal to get 20 or 30 stitches if you can stop a plane from crashing. If the pilots are killed, the tower can talk down a bold passenger into a large river or lake for a controlled crash landing. But the key here is in being bold. There are still bold people in America. But, because of the TSA rules, they’ll fly themselves instead of being inconvenienced by the larger airlines which isn’t good for business.

So once again, government hurts business. The movers and shakers of the world will stop flying first class and just get a private plane. The strong will find some other form of transportation. That leaves everyone else to travel with the traditional airlines and to put-up and shut-up to follow the ridiculous rules of the TSA which is just one more nail in the coffin of freedom.  That coffin was buried at sea long before the body of Osama hit the water. 

Rich Hoffman

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

Earthday and Progressive Threats to Break the Law: Trumka, Obama and spring break kids want you driving electric cars

In Cincinnati gas is $3.83 per gallon for one reason, because a certain percentage of our government has listened to special interest green technology lobbyists who have prevented the use of oil in our own country. On Earthday, which is today, if you want to see where we’re going and why the economy is having trouble, and why gas prices are going up, read the book Atlas Shrugged. You’ll learn how thieves like the woman on Doc Thompson’s show have shaped public opinion to achieve the economic situation we find ourselves in. We are being “nudged” to green technology by the same tactic that government seeks to combat smoking and alcohol consumption, and that’s through increases in cost. Listen to the mind of such a person, captured here for your amusement on 700 WLW.

I’m not sure who she’s talking about, but there isn’t anybody smarter than me to make decisions off in some far away land. But that’s how progressives think, that somewhere out there, there’s people more qualified to make decisions on our behalf. No they’re not. There isn’t anybody on this planet that I I’d seek advice from, certainly not some goofy politician in Washington. I enjoy talking to other intelligent people, but they often come to the same conclusions as I do because right is right and when you know the right answers everybody that knows it can see it. They may not agree word for word with the things I do or say, but I don’t look to them to guide me in any way. The chick in that interview is a big government progressive and is useless to American society.

My wife and I took my daughter car shopping today and I made sure she didn’t pick some electric car that had trouble running under 100 MPH. My mind was on the recent reports on electric cars while we looked. The day before today’s Earthday show on WLW the Nissan Leaf won the 2011 World Car of the Year award at the New York International Auto Show, beating out the short list of three finalists — the Audi A8 and the BMW 5 Series. The Leaf was the first electric vehicle to win the award.
According to the jurors, Nissan‘s electric car has a lot going for it:

“The Leaf is the gateway to a brave new electric world from Nissan. This 5-seater, 5-door hatchback is the world’s first, purpose-built, mass-produced electric car. Dropped onto a unique platform and body, the Leaf’s lithium-ion battery modules and electric motor generate 108hp and 206 lb ft of torque, propelling the hatch from zero to 60mph in 11.5 seconds and a top speed of 90mph. It has a range of over 100 miles on a full charge (claims Nissan), takes around 8 hours to recharge using 220-240V power supply and produces zero tailpipe emissions. Its low center of gravity produced sharp turn-in with almost no body roll and no understeer. The good news? It feels just like a normal car, only quieter.”
Read the rest of the article here:

http://www.theautochannel.com/news/2010/09/08/495418.html

Is it any surprise that our government, which is pushing green technology isn’t doing anything about the extortion of fuel prices, so that Americans go out and buy cars like this stupid “Leaf.”

I’ve driven for many years electric-powered forklifts. They work well enough and similar to propane powered lift trucks without the emission. The biggest downfall of electric vehicles is the battery technology. It takes too long to charge them and they run out of power too fast. And they aren’t new. It’s been over a decade with millions and millions of dollars of research done and battery technology still can’t last much longer than 8 hours with constant use on a shipping dock. And a car that only goes 100 miles per 8 hour charge is not a replacement for oil powered vehicles. Not even close!

100 miles won’t even get you from Cincinnati to Lexington. What good is that in the United States? If someone drives from Cincinnati to Columbus and they go 100 miles, do they plug in their car to their business power supply? 8 hours later, they can drive home, is that how it works? Because who is paying for the power station, the persons employer? What happens when the government nudges everyone into electric cars? With gas prices being as high as they are, I have to conclude that the government under the Obama and the gang intend for everyone in America to buy electric cars, which is why the government swept in and bought General Moters, so they could build the “Volt.” What happens when everyone plugs in their cars when they get to work and everyone has to unplug them when it’s time to leave and return home?

I currently have employees that drive over 50 miles to get to work. What if their battery doesn’t fully charge, because I’m not going to let them plug the vehicles in at work? They will have to plug them in at home. Having a fully charged battery is their responsibility. So what if they get to work but don’t have the power to get back to their house? Will they have to stop by Burger King on the way home and plug into some outside power outlet? Then will they have to wait for 8 hours to get a full charge, because if they short-cut the charge, they’ll shorten the life of the battery. If they plug-in for an hour, just enough to get home, they’ll screw up the battery capacity. Then, how do they pay Burger King for the power? Who pays for that portion of the electric bill?

And nobody has explained to me how this electric car saves emissions, because the power plant is still producing the energy of the combustion engine, it is just producing it in stored energy that is manufactured at a central location. The energy created is actually lost along the line of moving from the power plant to the outlet of your house. The energy produced in a combustion engine is more efficient because there is less lost in the drop off of an immediate explosion as opposed to the manufacture and distribution of creating electrons. The process of creating power still comes from a process of turbulent, explosive energy converted either to the force of driving an engine piston, or the creation of an electron to travel down a power line to a power outlet hundreds of miles away.

Then another problem emerges; a 220 outlet is not a typical outlet. That’s what you might run a washer and dryer off of. So to charge up the car, you’ll have to have a special outlet in your garage. A standard outlet is 110 so people won’t be able to do like I suggested at Burger King and sneak the power away secretly from an outside outlet.

All those things are bad, but the worst of all is the name of these stupid electric cars. In America we have names for cars like Mustang, Charger, Firebird, Thunderbird, that’s what American’s like to buy. What did they call this stupid car……………….a Leaf? A LEAF! Who wants to drive around a car named after a plant? Leaves are something that decays and blows away. Whose stupid idea was it to name a car after something fragile like a leaf?

That is a typical government type of name for a product. These are the same type of overly specialized fools that conceived that the solution to the unemployed in Florida was to buy people who didn’t have job capes. What a brilliant marketing idea by clueless, useless people, the same type of people who came up with the name “The Leaf.”

So, what kind of mind created those types of people? What are the students that go to college and learn how to brain-storm and come up with names like “The Leaf” and capes for the unemployed like? Have a look at what students do in their leisure time to understand how they’ll behave in business when they graduate. Here are tomorrow’s keepers of the world taking a little downtime from the hard studies of university. Progressives think all this behavior is good and healthy for young people.

While you watch the gas prices go up, know in your mind the type of fool and thief that is creating policy that is hurting your pocketbook on half-baked, thoughtless endeavors suitable only for a drunk. That is what the Leaf is and the stupid cape ideas are and the nudging of American society into electric cars while we function with our hands tied behind our backs with regulation is an attack on Americanism. Meanwhile, the Obama administration will grant Brazil a deep-sea drilling license to help that country economically and distribute the wealth of our nation and allow our economy to crumble…..on purpose.
Here are those spring break kids all grown up. These are the people who stand in the way of American growth and economic development. They are parasites that loot our taxes and fill their pockets. These are the progressive groups behind the electric car push.

These are the people who are distracting us with their progressive agenda while the Federal Reserve has robbed all American’s of 21.4% of the value of the dollar over an 8 year period. Do you know what that means? That means each dollar you make is only worth .79 cents on the dollar over an 8 year period. Why? Why are we worried about unions and pensions for public employees and collective bargaining while the Fed is openly robbing us, and our government won’t let our nation drill for oil while driving up oil prices to push people to buy electric cars?

Here Obama calls people like me, that want government to be smaller, radical. This is the “soft sale” where he sits down with a bunch of kids and sells a progressive agenda, which he has no right to perpetuate. Yes, people like me do appear to be radical from the view-point of the radical left, that is hell-bent on a progressive government.

See, here’s the problem. I don’t want the world those idiots are selling us. I don’t like what Obama is doing. I don’t like the green movement for all the reasons shown in the interview with Doc Thompson. And I will not put up with union officials breaking the law to advance a progressive philosophy that they expect us to pay for with tax payer dollars all the while the Fed is lowering the value of our money to reduce the wealth of the United States to be redistributed to Brazil and China. We are at war ladies and gentlemen. Progressives against traditionalists.

So here’s how it’s going to work, and this is a note to progressives. You better respect the law because once you eliminate it, such as what the union boys of Trumka and his thugs are doing, you create a free-for-all environment where the rules can be broken the other way too.

And I’m quite good at playing that game………………………………..better than any of you.

So bring it on all you goons, punks and freaks. I will not allow you to advance a progressive agenda and you will not be able to stop me. Attack all the big media names and networks, but it won’t matter. Because you are on the wrong side of the law right now and you leave yourselves open to retaliation with your lack of legal respect and manipulation.

This kind of fight does not require armies of people, just the truth. For every cent of fuel increase, you are breaking the law more and more, because you are stealing from us all in so many ways that everyone now realizes that we’re being taken advantage of. So call us radical, but that’s calling the kettle black. I’m like many of the so-called radicals that just want you fools out of our lives while the progressives are involved in a massive social engineering experiment that I want no part of. And once you involve me, and you have, you started a fight you won’t win.

As to those silly little electric cars, 90 mph isn’t fast enough to be relevant on the highway. I’ll leave a fair warning to stay in the slow lane or I’ll run right over them with my motorcycle. Better go back to the drawing board and rethink that whole concept, because electric cars are underpowered and useless in American society and are not part of the future of this country.

Oh, and good news while I’m writing this: the book Atlas Shrugged is now number 4 on Amazon.com’s sales list. That’s great news. People are learning how the game is played, and they’re primed to take the nation back from the clueless progressive.

Rich Hoffman

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

Fletcher Finnegan Will Teach the World to Begin Again

Fletcher Finnegan will show the world how to begin again: The picture is of the back cover to my 2004 book The Symposium of Justice. The smoking skull represents the burning life that most people live through half dead only to be manipulated by powerful interests into a life of enslavement under the guise of freedom.

When I came home from work today my wife was busy in the garden and was eager to discuss with me the necessity of getting some mulch. For what reason? She was pulling out the weeds that had planted themselves over the winter and wanted to prevent the growth of weeds from choking off the nice flowers and other plants she wanted to nourish.

With all the discussion recently about John Galt it has focused my mind on a project I’ve been working on for several years now. It’s a work of philosophy that I’ve adjusted and added to as I apply thoughts and concepts to the forges of life. Well before I ever read a word of Ayn Rand I wrote a book called The Symposium of Justice. I wrote it for my kids primarily, and had a deal with a Wild West Arts distributer to carry the book that fell through and critical reception of my book were of a nature that nobody knew what to think of it, so sales weren’t very good. I had some trickle in over the years, but nothing all that dramatic, which didn’t bother me because I had achieved much of what I wanted with the book already just in writing it. The character, in my book, Fletcher Finnegan is a hero that essentially is focused on removing the weeds of the world from the growth of what is good. And the purpose of the story is to figure out what the definition of “good” is.

When the Tea Party movement arrived I was relieved to see other people finally getting on board to the kind of fights I had been engaged in for years. That’s when I ran into Atlas Shrugged, from fellow Tea Party members. When reading it, I was shocked I hadn’t run into the book earlier because it was so similar to my way of thinking for many years. Although my Symposium of Justice is a much smaller book than Atlas Shrugged, and written with a pulp-fiction style of dialogue, many of the characters were shockingly similar to my own work, and the situations were amazingly parallel. In Symposium I have a literal band of “hit men” that work directly for the government to enforce new rules for a society moving in a progressive direction. The book begins with the attempted rape of a young girl, set in motion by the town mayor as a way to inflict fear in the population and make the residents want “protection” and to seek more government interference in their lives. My story involves a series of “social engineering” experiments designed to perpetuate a progressive government and this was well before Barrack Obama was even a senator.

When I was reading Atlas I was shocked at the weapon revealed in the third part of the book which is a sound wave weapon that can destroy targets with just waves of sound including flesh. In the Symposium I had a water tower in the town that emitted a radio wave that affected the pituitary gland in people and made them more impulsive, wanting to buy more items, encouraging them to have more sex, and be spontaneous. In this way the government was able to control the population as it desired.

It’s not just in the science that I was shocked in the similarities, but in the character’s. Misty Finnegan was heavily involved in politics and working as a spy to feed her husband information needed for their small rebellion. Fletcher Finnegan is working as a grill cook at a fast-food restaurant so he can get information about the local happenings from the young people who work with him, particularly drug dealers and other social parasites. Mayor Goodman in the Symposium is remarkably similar to the Wesley Mouch character in Atlas. But what is most strikingly similar is that attempt by myself, and Rand to paint the picture of characters that are larger than life, striving to be “good,” and everything that is involved in that process, the Overman known in German as the “ubermensch.”

I was relieved to read Atlas Shrugged, because I thought that with Symposium I was attempting to go in a direction that society was not prepared to go. I have been working on the ideas for the next step in Fletcher Finnegan’s story and his fight for a needed revolution for many years now. And it was in the words of Ayn Rand that I realized that there is a hunger for this type of story.

Fletcher Finnegan is different from John Galt in that Fletcher is taking on the role of a freedom fighter that takes the fight to the “destroyers” of the world as opposed to John Galt who seeks to remove the food of the destroyers so to starve them out of existence. The similarities between the two characters is remarkable, and was not intentional. I can only conclude that when it is thought out, what the solution to the modern problems of our age is to be, then a character of such a nature is what’s needed. The world needs John Galt’s and Fletcher Finnegan’s, and the creative mind can see it. John Galt’s way is to choke off the weeds of the world by not watering them. Fletcher Finnegan’s way is to fight them directly and pull them from the ground by the root one by one till they are eradicated from existence.

The complicated part of the story is in exploring the morality of such a position. It is a tight rope to walk and could easily become a radical ideal similar to that of the radical Muslim, who believes that all non believers are infidels and deserve to die. That is not the way of Fletcher Finnegan.

It is obvious however that the world has forgotten how to live, if it ever really knew it at all. It appears that only small visions of enlightenment have permeated though our art to find itself to the minds of the very few who understand it. So it will be the mission of Fletcher Finnegan to teach the world to live again, but this time for good, and not to be easily forgotten. And that process will start by removing the weeds in the garden.

Stay tuned………………….

Rich Hoffman

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

Kasich’s Epic Clash with the Voice of the Common Man

It is rare that any state, locality, or federal entity runs into a politician that is competent and intelligent. It is rare to find a politician that is a self-made man not looking at politics as a stepping stone to career advancement. It is rare that a politician actually puts the honor of their office first, before anything else. It is rare to meet a politician that has the guts and fortitude to endure the criticism of special interest.

It also is rare to see a politician that will take on an old-time friend and conservative that prides himself as the conservative voice of the common man, and in the times when it really counts between those two old friends, it is obvious who meant what they said over the years and who was all talk.

That’s what the State of Ohio has in Governor John Kasich and it’s evident in this video shot at 700 WLW when Kasich was on the Bill Cunningham show for a fiery showdown of ideas over the casino issues, retirement and the controversial stance the governor has taken on “collective bargaining” specifically the S.B.5.

I’m not one that tosses praises around easily. So it is with great merit that I say that I can’t recall a politician in my lifetime that matches the passion of their mouth with actual action. John Kasich is a rare person that has greater ability in management than he does in his ability to speak, which is exceptionally good. I was deeply impressed with this exchange between Kasich and Bill Cunningham.

I suspect that Kasich is like many in Ohio and he doesn’t want casinos in the state. That would explain his behavior toward the casino deal that Cunningham is so against. I can remember when Cunningham in the mid 90’s was completely against the casinos so that would explain why Kasich is so surprised in Cunningham’s defense of a socially liberal concept, such as casinos are.

Kasich should be representing the position that all businesses have an equal opportunity even if he doesn’t like them. There is a Hustler of Hollywood store near my house that I can’t stand. I think it ruins the small town of Monroe, Ohio with its presence. But, every time I drive by it, it’s full of people looking for their pornography fix and all the tax collected through each sale is paying taxes. I don’t agree with the pornography, but I vote by not going, and I won’t be going to a casino in Cincinnati for many of the same reasons. If the business model fails, it fails. I’d be happy about it, but I won’t do anything to bring it about either, because it’s a business that has the right to attempt. If it finds a market, even if that market is evil, so be it. It’s not for me to decide what’s evil for someone else.

Kasich needs to have the same position on the casinos. You can’t expect to tax them out of existence like we attempt to do with cigarettes and alcohol. Those are all anti-business stances. But, that does not ruin the great banter that Kasich engaged in. It was refreshing to see such a person in the position of a governor.

This clash of ideas is something that will resonate for quite some time because of the truths revealed. And we are better for it.

Rich Hoffman

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

Atlas Shrugged is Coming: Obama and Lakota need to see it to learn about economics

It took me a full day for the anger to steam away from my mind once I took three showers and spent hours reading to relax from the most audacious speech I can recall hearing from a president of the United States. The president’s speech was very telling, and ignorant. It is everything warned to us by Ayn Rand over 50 years ago.

Rand warned us in the epic book published in 1957 called Atlas Shrugged of everything the president said in that speech and more.  And finally, a movie is hitting the big screen from that prophetic work.  That movie comes out April 15, 2011. GO SEE IT!!!!!! What is most infuriating with the way the president stood up in front of a room full of people and declared that taxes must be increased to pay for a great America, is that he was simply saying the same mindless rhetoric that our local politicians throw our way when they are trying to pass a school levy. The thought from these people is that money equals success, so we must raise taxes to achieve more success……………………………..

………………are you freaking serious????????????????????


Where do these people come from? Obama is a so-called academic, yet did he take a single class on finance, or don’t they teach that to kids anymore?

I recently spoke about these topics but focused on the local issue of the Lakota School District finance issues to Pulse Journal reporter Lindsey Hilty which she composed in the below article.

The theme of the article was that Lakota is operating with fewer administrators than the state average, so doesn’t that mean they are operating more efficiently than other school districts?


No. Statements like that, just like the president’s speech, is full of smoke and mirrors designed to justify excessively high costs of an out-of-control government at all levels, hoping that people will be foolish enough to just look at the smoke and not at what causes it.
Read that article here:

Lakota has 58% fewer administrators per pupil than state average, report says
By Lindsey Hilty, Staff Writer Updated 1:43 AM Thursday, April 14, 2011

LIBERTY TWP. — At a time when finances of the Lakota Local School District have come under intense scrutiny from voters, officials say state data shows they are running a lean operation.

The district has 58 percent fewer administrators per pupil than the state average, and 20 percent fewer administrators than similar districts, which are categorized by size and demographics, according to the latest report released from the Ohio Department of Education in March.

In the 2009 report, Lakota had 43 percent fewer administrators than the state average, Interim Superintendent Ron Spurlcok said; however, “with our recent budget reductions and consolidations, we have seen that number grow.”
While that number may be touted as a good thing for the bottom line, he warned that it puts a strain on operations.

Assistant principals are responsible for discipline and also must sit in on all individual education plan meetings for students with disabilities.

“We realize economies of scale by running larger buildings, so we can economize where possible,” Kursman said.
However, fewer administrators in larger buildings means a bigger demand for their time, whether it is handling parent concerns, analyzing student data or reviewing teacher performance.

Many buildings now share assistant principals, she said, if the principal is called away for a meeting or to direct traffic due to transportation cuts, there is no one left to manage the building.

Levy opponent Rich Hoffman said he isn’t impressed with the numbers.
“I don’t believe any of the stats they give me anymore, because the reality is that they could do a lot more with a lot less if things really get pushy,” he said.

Hoffman said administrators could be reduced more, but they aren’t the issue.

The problem, he said, is “I think Lakota has drowned itself in salary obligations, and when you’re trying to cover 22 buildings when management of those salary obligations has been bad, it turns out to be a catastrophic mistake. Administrators get paid a lot, but there aren’t so many of them that it affects the bottom line costs, so their damage to the budget is negligible.”

There are too many employees netting more than $65,000 annually, he said, and that is the crux of the problem. He pointed to the salary lists recently published in the Pulse-Journal, and said the increase in employees in just one year who reached the $65,000 plus benchmark is unsustainable.

“You have to get the costs in line, but the costs are your salaries … None of us can afford it anymore.”
Hoffman called for tough negotiations as the board as the Lakota Education Association reopen the 2011-2012 school year contract, and said many in the community would stand behind the board as long as it was aggressive in controlling costs.

In fiscal year 2010, Lakota spent $96 million on salaries. In 2011, that number dropped $2 million due to retirements, no increase to the base salaries and a reduction in force. Employees still earned close to $2 million in step raises, Treasurer Jenni Logan said, but one third of employees, who are at the top of the pay scale, saw no step increase.
As details from legislation like SB 5 keep the district in a holding pattern, Logan said, “Inside the walls of Lakota, we’re focusing on the job at hand, which is educating our students.”

This isn’t just centered on the Lakota School District. Not even the President of the United States seems smart enough to understand the basics of finance. These people who think that showing some false numbers like “Lakota has fewer administrators,” will convince people who all the money we send their way will be spent wisely, are sadly mistaken.

Only a fool thinks that, and in the last Lakota Levy there were many fools that blindly spouted phantom facts because they were too lazy to think about the real problem. Just as the President of the United States received rounds of applause for embarrassing our nation in the eyes of anyone that has any sense throughout the world. Their collective belief is that money will make something better, when all it really ever does is compound the original problems.

It is my hope that when Atlas Shrugged Part 1 comes to the big screen that people intimidated by the length of the book will begin to understand the complex nature of freedom and the value of it.

Rich Hoffman

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

Put Back a Few Cookies: Lakota Teachers took too many and didn’t leave enough for others

When you were a kid did your mother ever make cookies and put them in a cookie jar, only to have her catch you taking too many? “Now don’t eat all those cookies,” she would have said. “I made those for you, your brothers and sisters and all your friends. If you eat them all there won’t be any for the rest of them.” Well, at Lakota that’s what the teachers have done, they’ve taken too many cookies for themselves, and they’ve told the community through the teachers union that if you want to make us all happy, then you’ll just make more cookies. Problem solved. But the problem isn’t solved, because while we’re making all these cookies, we’re not being productive in other ways, when the reality is that all we need to do is exercise some common sense and fairness.

It is encouraging, yet there is still plenty of room to be skeptical, that the Lakota School Board appears to be looking for some room to gain much ground by voiding the second year of their contract with the teachers union.

The contract was voided because of the following clause: This contract shall become effective on the 1st day of July, 2010 and shall expire on the 30th day of June 2012. Contingent upon the District’s legal ability for the Board President, Treasurer, and Superintendent to sign the R.C. 5705.412 certificate. In the event that the Board Representatives are unable to sign the R.C. 5704.412 certificate the second year of this Agreement then agreed to between the parties related to the second year shall be considered null and void.”

The 412 certificate (see link: http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/5705.412 ) basically says that the District has to declare that it has sufficient revenues to meet its planned expenditures. This is Lakota’s press release: http://www.lakotaonline.com/news.cfm?story=2754

According to the Pulse Journal the move allows the board to void its contract with its teachers’ union, while at the same time, giving it flexibility to create a more sustainable long-term plan for the district, board President Joan Powell said.
“In the past three weeks as this information started coming to us from Columbus, it has become apparent that to maintain the future viability of this district, we need to look deeper than just the proposed budget reductions,” she said.
“Some fundamental changes to the contract are needed, and we have a window of opportunity to do so,” Powell said. “In light of the negative impact of this proposed state budget, we must take that opportunity. Our financial reality today is different than it was last November or last August when we executed this contract.”

Lakota Education Association President Sharon Mays said the union will continue to work cooperatively with the board to find the best solution for students and teachers, but the process now will take longer.

“I’m anxious to see the forecast, because we have not been able to look at it,” she said. “We feel as though we’ve been cooperating and collaborating, and have given up a lot of things in those memorandums of understanding. And to change direction this late in the game — now everything is slowed down.”

Treasurer Jenni Logan said deficit spending next year is expected to be $22 million, up from $13.9 million in 2011.
A $28 million negative cash balance is expected in 2013.

The stress to the budget, Logan said, is coming from three areas: the state is reducing tangible personal property taxes starting next year, Lakota is expecting less money locally, and federal stimulus dollars have gone away.

The $22 million deficit is something that has been a concern for a long time, and it is driven by one primary factor, wages. If you haven’t seen it yet, click here to see the type of wages we’re talking about. It is my sincere hope that the Lakota School Board will take this opportunity to drive those wages down. No other measure will be acceptable because no other budget cutting device will bring costs in line properly taking into account that federal money will not be there and the reductions in the personal property taxes. The days are gone where the teachers union could just blindly demand the incredibly high wages that put us in this trouble to start with.

During this next round of negotiations I proclaim that I will stand behind the school board fully if they’ll not allow the union to dictate terms to our community. I don’t want to hear any threats of any strikes from the teachers union. I don’t want to hear any threats at all. If the teachers of that union truly want to be a part of this community, they’ll dig deep and consider themselves lucky to work in such a nice district. We’re not asking teachers to work for free. But an average wage of over $62K per year is not acceptable. They asked for too much, broke the back of the community in the process, and now it’s time for them to come to the table and give back enough for Lakota to balance its budget. No other measure is acceptable.

For those that just want money, go to another district. Because soon that district will be going through the same problems Lakota is going through. So run from district to district like a thief in the night and collect your money. But for those teachers that want to work for Lakota, and want to be a part of our great community, work with us and we’ll work with you. But don’t even think of a strike or any other public relations stunt. There are people this time that will be there to expose you for what you truly are.

With all this encouragement, I hope that there isn’t some phantom intention to place another levy on the ballot in August or November, because the money isn’t there and such a thing would be incredibly arrogant. Higher taxes in our community in any capacity would be economically devastating in light of the increase in fuel costs, rise and in food costs which is directly influenced from increases in transportation costs. The amount of income that is required to purchase a $250,000 dollar home, which is what most homes cost in the Lakota School District along with the dollar shrinking in value and facing tax increases on their property is prohibitive. The only room for meeting the budget needs comes in reducing the impact of the wage costs of the employees.

The teachers took too many cookies and the community is done making cookies. The teachers need to put some of those cookies back so there’s some left for all the other teachers. Our budget is just under 160 million dollars, not a small amount. So there should be plenty of cookies for everyone. The only reason there’s not is because some teachers took too many cookies, which is robbing others from having a cookie. So do the responsible thing and put the extra cookies back in the cookie jar and play nice teachers union. Don’t be greedy. Don’t be vain. And don’t throw a fit of rage like some child that didn’t get their way. Help our school board balance their budget and do your part to make sure everyone gets along. But more (cookies) taxes, are not the solution.

Rich Hoffman

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