Tag: philosophy

Matt Clark and the Sails Filled with Adventure: Slaying the beasts that reside under the surface

If there is one aspect of human endeavor that absolutely disgusts me, it is that of the politician. I can’t stand them! I hate politics. I hate family politics. I hate corporate politics. I hate neighborhood politics. And I hate elected politics. I hate the entire concept. Politics is the ultimate failure of Greek society. It should not be celebrated in any fashion. It should not be endorsed, propped up, or even passively accepted as a human attribute. Politics is far more dangerous than all the guns in the world, nuclear disasters, or environmental catastrophes.

So my comments about politics radiates from these pages, and the things I say in a fashion that is more aggressive than what is generally accepted. There aren’t many people who understand my extreme dislike of politics, because most people find themselves wrapped up in the political system to one degree or another and may agree with me, but in practice they simply can’t because their lives are built around politics, even if it’s just within their family structure. However, like minds are naturally bound to find each other in this vast sea of human experience because unlike politics which hides their true intentions below the surface, to sneak up upon their victims like carnivorous sea creatures just trying to feed their bellies, men of thought, of history, of philosophy prefer to sail upon the open sea, above all that nonsense. And such vessels at sea can easily spot each other upon the open water, above the murky depths of politics. This is how I met Matt Clark, a young man more youthful than me, so he is a newer vessel of a similar design, but none-the-less he is another vessel of knowledge sailing the seas of life, studying the depths below him, and pursuing life as an adventure with his sails open to the world and the wind that propels it. As fate would have it, he invited me on his weekend show to discuss the dangerous sea creatures that are eating each other below our vessels and we discussed the balance of power that is emerging in politics.

Matt is running that WAAM show out of Ann Arbor, Michigan from 1 to 3 on Sunday’s as tens of thousands of listeners grill out in their back yard, men change the oil of their cars in their garage, and avid boaters sail the open waters of Lake Michigan and Lake Erie and contemplate the musings of a young historian uttering the ridiculousness of the politicians who just insist on eating each other in the murky water of politics. The Clarkcast, as Matt has named it is competing for air time with the big radio names of Glenn Beck, Laura Ingram and many others on the Fox Radio Network and he’s holding his own. But what Matt has that the others don’t is the freshness of his voice, of his experience, of his generation. He is not a fallen star, but a rising one, and if he’s smart, he can stay that way. There is simply no reason for thinking men to be failures at some point in their life in order to gain wisdom. Wisdom comes from the observance of experience, and experience does not have to be earned from the murky waters of the deep.

So many young people in their twenties these days believe they have not lived until they’ve gotten a tattoo, or colored their hair, or had vicious and promiscuous sex with strangers in some dirty dungeon. Or gotten drunk with friends and shared indiscretions which they believe bond their friendships for life. All that activity is in reality simply the life of sea creatures, the acts of the underworld beneath the surface of life in those murky depths of politics. It was the politician who invented this perception, and created for themselves food to feed on. It is their desire for the masses of society to remain small fish so they always have a food supply. Those same predatory fish eye those vessels like Matt Clark sailing on the surface of the water with jealousy because Matt is traveling where the politician cannot go. Matt and all the other people of the mind are above them and free of their power and intimidation.

I always have felt this way about politics. Even as a young boy with barely any memory, at 4 and 5 years old. In kindergarten, my teacher Ms. Mays, an old sea hag, most likely former siren of the sea chastised me for not following her specific instructions on an art assignment. I remembered thinking even then, that her way looked wrong, and I couldn’t bring myself to do the wrong thing, especially in art. Art doesn’t have definite rules. I didn’t know that at the time, but I felt that there was something wrong with what she was telling me. It was politics. Ms. Mays was so furious with me that she called my mother in and chastised her for my insolence to her instructions, a process that would be repeated until I was too big to stand over in a chair sometime in the 8th grade when my English teacher noticed one of my drawings in the newspaper from a contest I had won and cut it out and showed it to the class admiring my artistic ability.

I learned from Shakespeare that humans were essentially broken beings at heart, obsessed with politics. Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, all the Henry’s, The Tempest, Romeo and Juliet, and my favorite of all, Titus Andronicus, spoke to me of the depths of human failure, and my love of history told me that this behavior wasn’t specific to the late 1500’s to the early 1600’s. Shakespeare had learned to be one of those vessels in his life who rode upon the surface and observed the bizarre tendencies of the creatures of politics and how they pray on one another. I rejected politics because of Shakespeare, having no desire to swim with the sharks of this world. I’d rather catch them like a hunter and display their savaged jaws upon my headboard to look at when adventures in bed are called for.

What I see in the young Matt Clark is one of those thoughtful people who have discovered the joy of fishing into the depths of politics and exposing those treacherous creatures to the light of day, of cutting them open to expose all that they’ve eaten, and studying them the way a historian examines all of history, with curiosity and wonder at what motivates such barbaric tendencies. There is always a bit of sadness that those beasts of politics cannot be taught the merit of life above the depths, and Matt has that same compassion. But at an early age he is not fool enough to jump in and attempt to save them from themselves for that is not his job. His job is to catch them and eat them himself, and possibly save the smaller beasts from the larger ones, so they can have a chance at living even if their life is limited to the treacherous depths of ignorance and politics.

All adventurers young and old hold reverence for one another when they meet on the open sea where Matt Clark and I shared a few stories on a Sunday afternoon, then parted to our separate ways to go hunting and observing once more the behaviors of those tyrants of the deep, those ignorant fools of politics, who hide in the darkness and consume everything in their path with mindless abundance, until they are caught by someone like Matt Clark and his Clarkcast radio program during the hours of 1 to 3 pm every Sunday, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The winds of adventure fills his sails and the revelations permeate the minds of others who desire life above the sea who might wish to quit that tragic life of politics and live the life of a thinker and enjoy the freedom of the open sea where wisdom has the answer to everything and the fate of mankind is clear to the Earths horizon.

http://www.clarkcast.com/

Rich Hoffman

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

TAKE AWAY THE CREDIT CARD OF CONGRESS: Yes, Obama actually blamed the current congress for the debt crises

If you are concerned about the direction of this country, and want to contribute to the solutions, the first thing you should do while reading this article is give yourself the time and watch all these videos completely at least once.  Then take your time and let it soak in.   Then send this link to your friends in an email and spread the word. 

I started my Saturday morning like almost all of them, at 4:30 AM where I catch up on my reading, emails, news I missed, etc.  My daughter sent the a picture she took of herself before she and her friends went to see the new Harry Potter film on Thursday.  In the picture she is magically levitating all her favorite things, the mask her mom and I gave her from the Yucatan, a can of Coke, a toy of Yoshi, and her XBox controller.  Her picture was intended to be fun but it made me think of President Obama, how he seems to believe that everything can be solved with the wave of some magic wand.  I spent some time reviewing material from a friend of mine in Ann Arbor, Matt Clark who does a radio show on WAAM and was hitting some very good points on his podcasts about the federal problems with the debt limit, which can be heard below.  Then Darryl Parks of 700 WLW really impressed me with his dead-on take of the same situation.  I mean he nailed the situation precisely!  Listen to that here:

While I was listening to Darryl, I received an email notification by David Plouffe on his new blog post from the White House website.   View it for yourself:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/07/15/compromise-isn-t-dirty-word?utm_source=email121&utm_medium=graphic&utm_campaign=compromise

It told me to watch a video that President Obama did several months ago where he was sitting down with a group of students to explain the merits of compromise.  In that video I saw a man who shows what he is really good at, being a teacher.  And that’s where he belongs. 

What is happening in that video is The White House is trying to do damage control to the mess the President has created for himself.   They dusted off a video from a few months ago where the president is very likeable, and speaking honestly, and they released it today to build him up politically so he can establish consensus against the Republicans in this most recent budget battle.  What the video, and blog post is in essence is more of the same kind of politics that have buried this nation in debt with smoke and mirrors and side-show acts.  The facts cannot be ignored with emotion, which is what The White House is attempting on the heels of the very arrogant press conference given by the President yesterday. 

Did he really say that? Obama at the beginning of the press conference below said that congress had run up the credit card so the debt ceiling needs to be raised? What congress is he talking about, because that debt hasn’t been ran up in the last 6 months? How misleading…………………………

President Obama wants to raise taxes on the rich and he thinks that he is one of those “rich guys.” Twice in the President Obama’s speech Friday, July 15, 2011 he stated in his official statement regarding the debt ceiling negotiations “A person in my position,” as though the wealth he has he created himself. He thinks he is equal to all the job creators out there who actually take risks with their money to create an industry. There is a vast difference between a well paid politician like Obama, and a job creator, and he doesn’t understand that difference.

This tendency of politicians to believe that they are “special” in some way, or even equal to people who actually create jobs is preposterous. At Hollywood parties, which tend to lean toward the left politically, people like Steven Spielberg and Jeffery Katzenberg usually donate large sums of money to the presidential campaigns of people like Obama. And what they pay for with their donations is the ability to be close to the President. They get to sit up close in fund-raisers, and they get to shake hands with him, and usually get a picture taken with him.

Back in the 90’s Bill Clinton used to rent out the Lincoln Bedroom to his celebrity friends as a way to raise money for the DNC. The cost of that access is expensive. The problem is the White House is not the Presidents to sell, especially for political reasons. It wasn’t under Clinton, Bush, or Obama. The White House is the people’s house, and we let the President live there while they do the countries business.

One of the problems in America is this tendency of the rich and powerful, to desire to be close to a powerful politician. This doesn’t make any sense. Because the rich and powerful like Spielberg and others who create things from nothing, and employee thousands and thousands of people with their efforts are different from the politicians, and under no circumstances should have to pay to see their elected representatives.

America goes wrong by letting Presidents like Obama think they are royalty of some sort. When powerful people pay money to see a President something is wrong.

Could President Obama produce a film like Transformers? Could President Obama run a manufacturing facility? Could he even make payroll for the employees who count on him to make good decisions for their livelihood. No.

Obama should be the one to pay to see people like Spielberg. President Obama doesn’t make anything, he doesn’t do anything. He doesn’t even make decisions. Why do we honor him by throwing money in his direction? What does he have of any value but the title of President?

How valuable is the title of President?

It’s not valuable at all. It’s ceremonial, but otherwise virtually worthless. Politicians do not create jobs. Presidents don’t, governors don’t, no senators or congressman, none of them do. They are simply managers hired by the public to manage. They are not leaders. They are not lords, or elites. They are certainly not royalty. Anything they do make they take from a tax payer. It is not “they” who make it. It is someone else. The politician simply gives it away.

It is laughable that Barack Obama thinks that somehow he is equal or even superior to the other wealthy people he is calling for to pay the taxes he wants to increase. How hard is it for Barack Obama, who gets paid to do a management job, to ask for more money? The money comes easy to people like Obama now that he’s president. And like a lot of politicians, they have lost touch with reality because real money makers throw money at politicians hoping for a legislative favor later. That is because the politician has the power to legislate, to create new rules.

Those new rules are often the kind we don’t need. The politician makes legislation to pay back his contributors. Where the process fails is that the politician believes that there is value in their legislation. They begin to believe that they actually produce something, which of course they don’t.

Nobody should be idolized who creates nothing. Yet this is the culture of politics. When you shake the hand of one of these creatures, they almost seem to expect you to kiss their hand. They all sound like Barack Obama when he says, “I’m one of the elites. I’m willing to make the sacrifice. I’m not asking people to do anything I’m not willing to do myself.” They are willing to make that sacrifice because they didn’t earn the money to begin with. Everything they have has been given to them by someone else and they are like spoiled children who arrive at adulthood without a concept in their brains of the value of anything, because everything came easy to them.

It is easy for such valueless people to insist on more taxes because for them, all they have to do is agree to let Steven Spielberg take a picture with them and they generate millions of dollars. What they forget is that they are no different from the parent who pays money to have their child take a picture with Santa at Christmas, or the Easter Bunny. They are just props of authority that have symbolic meaning. They are employees in a costume and that costume can be taken off and put on another without the children being any wiser.

The President of the United States does not have a right to demand taxes for the rich. Nobody can even make a case for why tax payers should fund the current level of government. I’m looking for a tax cut, not a tax increase. How is the President taking money from me and giving it to some program that supports his political base my responsibility. That’s theft. All this talk about people paying their “fair share” is coming from the type of people who have no value and steal money from people to begin with, then tell us that the richest of all must pay more…………….for what reason, to pay for what? Medicare fraud, Social Security retirement benefits when the age of retirement is going to be going up for my generation to 70 perhaps 80? To pay for a Department of Education that is a complete waste of money, or an EPA that is driving up the cost of energy, a Department of Justice that is abusive and is picking winners and losers? What about the FCC who is advocating Net Neutrality. Why would I want my hard-earned money spent on any of that government waste? Why is supporting that waste my responsibility in paying my “fair share?”

Only a person who has no value for anything can make such requests. And President Obama is such a person. He’s a token representative of the same value as the guy we hire to play Santa Clause at Christmas time. The trouble starts when Santa starts believing that he actually lives in the North Pole and can circle the globe in a single night giving everyone presents. President Obama is suffering from his own delusions believing that he has such power and it is sadly revealing to hear him speak with an attempt at authority. Why doesn’t someone tell him he’s wearing the clown costume and is in a circus, and he’s only being laughed at. Because he doesn’t seem to know that’s what he actually is. He at least needs to understand the occasion that he’s entertaining for. Because his idea of raising taxes in even the slightest degree belongs in a carnival with the rest of the scams of a summer time festival complete with cotton candy, popcorn and hot dogs.

I hate to rub it in, because a lot of people in the establishment do not like John Kasich, who is the current governor of Ohio.  But you balance a budget doing what he has done, granted he’s not very popular, but then again most real managers aren’t. 

It doesn’t take magic, it just takes guts, and the will to do the hard things even when they may be unpopular, or hurt people’s feelings. The nation needs politicians to do what we hired them for, and that’s to manage the government, not think about how they can keep a job on the gravy train to the carnival.

Rich Hoffman

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

Liberty Twp Tea Party Turns Two Years Old: The Rise of a New Guard

The evening July 11,2011 sun beat hard upon the converted barn at the Niederman Farm where the Liberty Twp Tea Party met to celebrate their 2nd year.  There have been a lot of battles over the last couple of years, and as we gathered for the pot luck dinner it was evident that there would be a lot more. 

As this meeting was taking place Obama and the local Speaker of the House John Boehner were battling over the budget and the debt ceiling.  Obama is approaching the negotiations as though various sides, Tea Party Republicans, moderate Republicans, Rhino Republicans, Blue Dog Democrats, Progressive Democrats, and far left radical Democrats all are committed to 100% of their particular positions, and must be prepared to give a little so everyone can agree.  As I scooped up some potato salad that my wife had made I wondered how a person like Obama could ever become president and even say such a thing.  There’s only one right answer, and the president is missing it.  There isn’t money for the programs his party have given away to buy votes.  That’s the bottom line folks.  All those various politicians have for years purchased votes using our tax money, and now those fools are stuck trying to explain why they’ve bankrupted the system. 

The people around me at this gathering are all there for the same reason, we recognize that the government has let us down and taken the nation on a path it doesn’t want to go.  Not everyone has come to that realization yet, because they still hope that somewhere, there is a magical golden egg that will be laid by some golden goose.  Increasingly, these elected representatives are being seen not as leaders, but as con artists and thieves who have stolen from each of us and sold us back bath water claiming it to be an elixir of life. 

While the various ceremonies of this event were going on the Lakota School System was voting for yet another school levy attempt literally right down the road, not more than 3 miles from our location.  In this meeting, everything that is wrong with the government can be seen in the microcosm of public education funding.  Public sector unions, politicians using their education support for votes, and school administrators hoping to use school boards as a political launch pad to become noticed by leaders of one of the two parties have bought into Keynesian economics, like the rest of the government, and they were wrong. 

When John Keynes introduced his Keynesian economics model from the ever-increasing socialist tendencies of the rest of the world, politicians saw an opportunity to exploit that model for their own accents to public supported power.  Keynes was wrong, and every system using it is failing, including schools.  The correct answer is not more of the same theory, but something else completely.  In schools, the task is to convert over to that system without destroying the opportunities of the kids and parents who support the school.  But in education, just like all things in government, the prices of labor, of the services created by labor, and the revenue which supports the entire foundation are artificially inflated, because competition is not allowed to kill off the waste, because government protects those enterprises.  This drives up the costs everywhere for everybody.  And presidents like Obama and school boards like what we have at Lakota, only know to close that inflated value with increased taxes.  They can’t understand any other option because their brains are not wired to accept anything else. 

At Lakota they are going for a tax rate that is less than what they’ve asked for in the past. This is consistent with President Obama’s comments to Speaker Boehner, “You can’t get everything you’ve asked for.”  In the minds of these people bending a little on their political position is what the process is all about. 

But it’s not.  There is only one right answer, not a mixed drink of many tastes.  With something like a budget deficit whether you’re talking about a local school district, or a Federal government, there is a way you got there, and to get out, you must do the opposite of what put you in that position.  That’s the only way.  If you spent a lot of money-making political promises that you didn’t have the authority to commit the tax payers to, or you are a school district that allowed a public sector teachers union to drive up your labor costs recklessly, then you have to admit that you were wrong, that you spent money that wasn’t yours just as a person addicted to gambling must admit that they have a problem before they can get help. You can’t throw more money at the addict, because they’ll never get better.  You have to take away their money so they can’t go to the casino anymore to throw away our money on some jackpot they hope will fix all their problems. 

As I sat among friends and family I thought about the worst issue in the news of them all, and that’s the case of the murdered little girl in Florida, the Casey Anthony trial where the mother appears to have accidentally killed her little girl with an overdose of chloroform and drove around Florida with the body in the trunk for everyone to smell the decomposing body.  The girl was a reckless young woman, and the prosecution went for the death penalty for the severity of the crime.  Last week, Casey was found not guilty; the jurors didn’t have the inner compass of morality to be able to pass judgment on a peer.  Society has lost their ability to judge. 

Most have anyway, except for the people having diner in a country barn with me on that hot July evening. Of American society, these people who the radicals advocating Keynesian economics, progressive global government without borders, and idealists who have never found their way out of the soviet fueled radicalism of the 60’s, those people call my friends here “teabaggers.”  “Teabaggers, meant to be a term of peer pressure, of insult, an attempt by those who are advocating evil openly, to keep society functioning with their eyes closed and hope that somehow their failed theories will somehow come true in the final hour, and if they don’t, they’ll be remembered for their compassion, and not as the thieves they truly are. 

I feel privileged that after two years, the Liberty Twp Tea Party is still here, and it’s growing.  And it refreshes the soul to partake in these events, as the aroma of barn yard animals and community prepared food mixes in a unique waltz of perpetuity.  Because this is how it was in the beginning, and this is the way of the American, to always be ready for a fight, to roll up the sleeves and eat well before a hard day’s work, or the battle that looms on the horizon.  Because only by the path of those in this barn, is the path to liberty and freedom.  And the only right answer in the entire nation is present on the tongues of those in attendance, because they are the last of their kind and Americais waiting for them to fix the nation that has been hijacked by tyrants of good intention.

Rich Hoffman

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

Stacy Schuler is Bait in the Water: The greatest scam in 100 years is who holds the pole

As I was preparing this article Stacy Schuler, the Mason teacher covered extensively at this site confessed to the sex charges filed against her, by reason of insanity.  Since her arrest till now, most of the guilty parties who knew about the incident have left the Mason School District for jobs elsewhere.  Why?  Because it’s not the crime of sex that is the problem with that case of Stacy Schuler, it’s the cover-up.  And what is behind that cover-up is what this story is all about. We’ll cover Stacy in more detail later.  She’s not going anywhere. 

A friend of mine sent me the below list of the National Education Association resolutions established for the 2010 Convention held in New Orleans.  These are real strategies that the teacher’s organization is so popular for supporting. 

I was thinking about these issues as news came that Lakota, and Fairfield, along with many other school districts around the Greater Cincinnati area was going to pursue tax increases this upcoming fall.  Those huge national issues were on my mind as I did an interview with Doc Thompson on 700 WLW about the new Lakota Levy which you can hear at his link:

During that interview I received news that an out-of-town customer had showed up to see me in my office, so I found myself split, needing to be in two places at the same time.  Once the smoke cleared a few hours after that interview and my meeting my mind fell to these below resolutions from the NEA.  It is apparent to me that this NEA organization is openly supporting communism, even though they sell themselves as freedom fighters.  What they fail to understand is the freedom they are fighting to free themselves from is freedom from capitalism.  Whether the average member in the NEA realizes it or not, they are fighting capitalism and running toward socialism and much of the money that we are spending in education is supporting a structure that funds that war against the United States.   

_________________________________________________________________

The NEA’s Legislative Program that was adopted at the 2010 Convention in New Orleanssets forth the marching orders for NEA lobbyists and the authority for political donations. Here are some of the NEA’s major objectives:

_______________________________________________________________

Now, I’m sure you as the reader will ask, “What are those people thinking?  Don’t they know what they are advocating?  After all, they are part of the education class, they are supposed to be well-educated and wise…..right?  Here’s the deal, they are no different from most everyone else, who will compromise their personal belief system for the benefit of their income. 

Think about your own job, where your boss tells you to do something, or to wear something to satisfy the conditions of your employment.  Just about every human being who works on this planet experiences this.  The teachers of who belong to the public sector unions like the NEA are no different.  They are willing to trade away their personal beliefs for a well-paying job.  It’s that simple. 

The NEA knows that unless the teaching profession is extremely lucrative, where their members can make a great deal of money, then the employees are less likely to protest their membership.  Members will pay their union dues without complaint because they already make a lot of money, so a few bucks for their dues aren’t a big deal.  And just a few weeks ago the NEA passed a tax on their members, ten dollars to be exact to re-elect Barack Obama.  It doesn’t matter if every teacher who belongs to the NEA supports Obama or not, the NEA is taking their money to elect that big labor president.  The NEA knows that because teachers are making approximately 30% more than those in the private sector, any complaints will be kept to their members, because the teachers have summers off for the most part, a less strenuous work day, and extra money to actually take nice vacations.  The NEA have negotiated what equates to a pay-off of their members to convince them to turn the other way while the NEA advances their socialist agenda on the backs of their members. 

Guess who pays the teacher’s salary? 

We do. The greatest scam of all is that these teacher salaries have been artificially propped up with tax levies to fulfill a political agenda that is anti-American, and the property owners who simply want to educate the children of their community have been tricked into fulfilling the socialist agenda of these labor unions. 

The facts are right in front of us all, however, many people just don’t have the back-bone to do anything about it.  They would rather pay off a thug to avoid a fight, than to do the right thing and that’s to question the whole process, or better yet, to cut the financial support to this massive organization.  What is the real cost of educating a child in America?  We don’t know, because labor union costs using the money you give them for the kinds of agenda items seen above, have driven up the education cost to a level of inflation unprecedented in the history of any free people.  And just like the NEA uses it’s teachers to cover for their socialist march to the destruction of America and hide like cowards behind those members, the teachers themselves hide behind your children as they seek to hide their own intentions of a very comfortable living that isn’t nearly as difficult as they pretend. 

It’s a terrible game that is destructive to our culture in so many ways and it’s not going to go away, so long as people put up with it.  The first step is in recognizing the facts and not lying to themselves about the intentions of education. It can’t be fixed if we don’t have an honest conversation about it, and honesty, the NEA is a socialist organization.  That’s not an inflammatory statement.  It’s a fact, even if they don’t call it by that name.  All one has to do is understand the definitions to know what the facts are.  But the facts are hard to swallow, which is why these school boards just continue to ask for more and more money to support the whole structure, with no plan in sight to ever give anything back to the community or stop that socialist march.  If left unchecked, they’ll just ask for more money forever until nobody has anything left.  That’s the union way, take all the wealth till nobody has anything and use the greed of their members to undo America for their own socialist plans, so once the destruction has happened, the world can be rebuilt with their vision.  That’s what you do when you vote to pass a levy, or to repeal S.B.5.  You are putting another nail in the coffin of America, and you’re doing it with the belief that you are doing a good thing.  Welcome to the scam of the century!  You pay good money for your own demise.    

While we all work hard to pay all this money to our schools, people like Stacy Schuler, and her bosses are having a grand ol’ time, having sex with students and sending naked pictures of themselves to each other, like Stacy and her boss the assistant principal George Coates were doing.  He moved to a job in North Carolina, the Superintendent Kevin Bright took an assistant superintendent job up in Cleveland to avoid the embarrassing trial of pulling all these people into a court of law and embarrassing one of the most prestigious school districts in Ohio.  It’s all about the cover-up, so the money keeps on flowing.  The cover-up is to protect the funding that finds its way into the pockets of the NEA, even if that means hanging former teachers on the hook as bait while the real crimes continue, funded by our tax dollars.  

If I’ve learned anything about politics in over 40 years it’s that Stacy Schuler is nothing but bait in a nasty game played by those with phantom intentions.  And to see those phantom intentions, all you have to do is pay attention, and connect the dots.  And anyone who doesn’t think the legal profession isn’t part of the game, you’re kidding yourselves. 

No employee who takes tax money for their employment wants to see a public employee drag the whole system down the drain while on the stand.  Guilty by reason of insanity is the best chance to keep this case just about Stacy Schuler and not the gigantic machine that is politics and the funding that supports it.

Rich Hoffman

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

Why Gordon Ramsey is Great: quality, honesty, tenacity and fun

One of my nicknames from people who deal with me professionally is the Hoffmanator. This name comes because most people don’t enjoy dealing with me when they are trying to pull something over my eyes or, they are having a difficult time meeting the production demands of whatever project we are working on. These tendencies of mine are well-known to my family. About a year ago my kids told me, “Dad, you should watch Gordon Ramsey on TV, you’d like him a lot!”

I sort of grumbled that most things on TV are a waste of time, and I have better things to do with my time than watch some chef cook a bunch of French cuisine. My impression of chef’s was that they were flakey, liberal, and socially worthless. However, my wife finally did get me to watch a few episodes of Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares and I’ll have to say, Gordon is my kind of guy!

For many of the reasons I have come to like Chef Ramsey can be seen in this interview.

Ramsey makes it a habit of going into a restaurant that is failing, and within a week identifying the weaknesses of the business and turning things around dramatically. It takes tremendous confidence to do this, and a unique ability to understand every aspect of a business which Gordon Ramsey excels at, and accounts for his meteoric rise to fame. He is uniquely talented, yet humbly approachable. Being one of the best in the world at what he does has not removed Ramsey from his working class roots. As seen in this next clip he is quick to cut to the chase and focus on the immediate faults that are holding back a restaurant from achieving success.

Gordon is primarily about quality. He is not afraid of hard work and despises people who take short cuts to avoid work. He is a relentless pursuer of quality as seen here where he shuts down a Mexican restaurant. His definition of quality is precisely what Robert Pirsig was conveying in the excellent book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The pursuit of something good cannot be achieved by those who scramble to hide themselves in the cover of the crowd, to live a mundane existence complacent to the world around them. Quality starts first with the mind and transcends to the actions of the individual. A person of poor quality in the mind will of course transfer all that into their daily actions. Since Gordon is a person of inner quality, it is easy for him to spot the faults of others who allow their inner faults to translate into material faults in the restaurant.

Ramsey because of his background, an abusive father who beat his mother regularly, a brother who fell to drug abuse, an athlete who almost made it pro, has the unique ability to have learned everything there is to know about food. He did not waste his life away on drugs, reckless pursuits, ego driven social status, he set out to be the best he could be, and as a result, he knows everything there is to know about his field of endeavor. He can sit down even when the cooks in the kitchen are trying to pull the wool over his eyes and immediately identify the troubles with their preparations.

In this next clip I can’t even report how many times I’ve had to do something just like this, even with people who “outrank” me, for the sake of saving whatever endeavor we’re working on. The human mind is a tricky playground, and the kinds of things that motivate people are infinite. However, a bully, a man of small inner value who seeks to redeem himself by forcing the submission of others to his rule is extremely common to varying degrees. In the case of this next clip the manager of a restaurant has allowed his own ego, his need to be in control, to get in the way of the needs of his business. To this man everyone but him is to blame, yet the ultimate problem, and all the employees know it, but are afraid to reveal it, is the bully himself…..the manager. Once Gordon learns this, he deals with it honestly.

We all know people who buy the fancy sports car to deal with male erectile dysfunction, hair loss, or whatever failing indicates a personal loss of testosterone or even personal pride. We all know the type of man who wishes he were a playboy, where women are falling all over him because he wants to be the “stud” of the herd, to live the life of Hugh Hefner, which is only an image. Such people often seek political office or ownership of stores and restaurants so they can achieve a respect that they believe will attract women to them. A dead give-away is a gold bracelet, or necklace, a hand with multiple rings on it, that kind of thing. Men like that are weak behind their flashy exterior. As a general rule, if they were happy with themselves, they wouldn’t be attempting to project a false image. There are millions of them out there, and it can be a terrible experience if you find you are the employee to a person like this.

Many times the person participating in this arrogant behavior isn’t aware of their fault. They live in a state of self-delusion where easy gold-digging women have helped them build that illusion. They often don’t have many quality people in their lives, because they push them away to maintain the illusion. That’s why when Gordon Ramsey spots it in someone; he tells them how it is. He doesn’t do it to hurt them personally, but to actually help them. People who are suffering under their own delusion need to hear it, for the sake and quality of their own lives. So Ramsey will oblige.

Ramsey has been so successful, because his unique combinations of first class knowledge and unpretentious demeanor have let millions of people into the world of culinary art. What is quite remarkable is that Ramsey has had his success in socialist countries such as England yet the principles of success do not care about political philosophy. Success only knows success. Ramsey has had so much success that he is doing multiple shows now. Here he is on Master Chief talking to another guy I like a lot and that was Albert.

I was really rooting for Albert on that show. I know a lot of Albert’s in the world and I like them very much. They are honest, do not hide what they are, and are wise because of their survival of hard living. Ramsey enjoys people like Albert too, but Albert was only a few dishes deep in creativity and to be true to the intent of the show, favoritism without results has no place.

Chef Ramsey is not some stuffy old elite. He’s an energetic boy who loves to play and have fun. He is an infinite source of energy that people find themselves drawn to. My thoughts on his success is that he has managed to find a market niche in a field that government doesn’t understand, so he has been able to apply free-market principles to restaurants. Nobody has gotten in his way because food is an industry that every human being on Earth enjoys, and other than safety regulations it has very little government interference. So the opposition to quality and creativity are not in place. I notice that the restaurant employees of America and in Europe are different. The American’s talk back a lot more. I would love to see a show where Ramsey comes up against the Culinary Union Local 226 in Las Vegas, where they refuse to do certain things he demands because of union rules. But refreshingly, in the culinary world, the kind of labor nonsense that we all have to deal with in public sector unions and other organizations are vacant, allowing people who are truly talented like Gordon Ramsey to excel.

I’m glad my wife and kids talked me into giving Ramsey a chance. I have more faith in television as a result, that everything on it is not some brain-dead monstrosity hell-bent on a progressive agenda. I’ll watch just about anything with Chef Ramsey in it these days. He has even given me an appreciation to what my wife does in the kitchen every day and night as I have been looking over her shoulder to study what ingredients she’s using in her own culinary masterpieces.

Ramsey does what any person of good quality should do, and that is selflessly improve the world around them with honesty, valor, sincerity, and innovation while enriching themselves with everything they can. As Gordon Ramsey improves on his $100 million dollar empire, he deserves every bit of it, because in his wake he builds the world up instead of tearing it down, and shows people how a simple thing such as food can improve the lives of people 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

Obama, Keynesian Economics, and Public Labor Unions: Lakota Schools try for another levy

John Boehner In a statement released by the Ohio Republican Saturday night — just a day before talks with President Barack Obama — Boehner said the “White House will not pursue a bigger debt reduction agreement without tax hikes.”

Tax hikes………………….the only way out for groups of politicians who have promised, and promised, and promised so much to so many, yet know they do not have the money to pay it back without more taxes. For those types of politicians the English economist John Maynard Keynes provided them with a way to loot money from the public in the appearance of good will, and still purchases political power for themselves. About the same time another economist named Friedrich Hayek came on the scene to refute Keynesian economics and this battle has been going on for nearly 100 years.

That video is a very clever way to articulate the two economic theories. Here is a bit more about these two economists at an economic conference. There was a time in the 70’s, when Jimmy Carter had used Keynesian economics to spiral the nation out of control, that Keynes was dismissed as relevant. Ronald Reagan had used the philosophy of Hayek to resurrect the economy in the 80’s with Reaganomics, much to the dismay of Keynesian fans who are typically Democrats and Progressives.

It is these two economic theories that are at play in these recent school battles where public schools claim to be broke and believe that spending is the way to improve education, solve all social problems, and maintain an infrastructure of expanding government by teaching into the very young the principles of Keynesian economics, submission to authority, and the role of big organized labor in the fabric of social engineering. So it comes as no surprise that on this day of July 11th 2011, the Lakota School District, the 7th largest district in the state of Ohio and one of the wealthiest decided to put another levy on the fall ballot. Being an institution of education structured by their labor unions around a Keynesian economic model, the school board understands nothing else. They have as a district done exactly what the federal government has done on a national level, and that is spend themselves into oblivion leaving tax hikes as the only way out.

It’s funny that Hayek doesn’t get any respect in these videos because in real life he doesn’t, even though his economic theories are proven more relevant, and far superior. The reason for the lack of popularity of Hayek is that politicians don’t like him. Politicians looking for a vote like to give things away in order to buy those votes and Keynesian economics provide them with the excuse to do so. Public schools are absolutely no different. Schools give away college electives, busing, and school sports in a political trade for an endless supply of tax revenue to support their Keynesian economic views.

This is the reason a school district like Lakota believed that if they spent $50K on a search for a new superintendent, and then paid that superintendent $165K per year over the assistant superintendent who was making only $105K per year, that they would have success in balancing their budget deficit. The school administration believes that if they spend more money, they will automatically get better results.


This belief system of course comes from the union labor influence, where they purposely take advantage of not just the administrator’s economic ignorance in matters such as these, but also the tax payers. Unions are big government advocates who subscribe religiously to the Keynesian model. Hayek’s economic theories are a severe threat to them.

Schools are currently facing a bust cycle, because the cost of education is artificially high. Facing this bust cycle in Ohio, Governor Kasich signed Senate Bill 5 into law to help school boards deal with this natural cycle and still maintain the level of education services that are needed for our society to function. This has drawn national attention from of course President Obama who is very friendly to union labor and Keynesian economics. Over the 4th of July holiday the NEA (National Education Association) voted to pass a $10 tax on their union members to support the Obama reelection bid.

Source article:

http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/obamas-price-10-tax-for-union-teachers–you-pay/question-1945813/

This isn’t just happening on a national level; in Ohio the OEA (Ohio Education Association) is mandating a $50 fee from all its members to fight Senate Bill 5 in order to raise 20 million dollars to repeal S.B.5 in November. Firefighters are demanding $100 from their own members. All that money comes from the taxpayer indirectly. Artificially high wages for these public sector jobs makes fees of this kind feasible to be used against the tax payer in lobby power purchased from these massive public union memberships and that’s a big problem.

Source article:

http://www.redstate.com/laborunionreport/2011/04/07/ohio-unions-to-mandate-more-money-from-members-to-fund-sb5-campaign-fight/

What the unions are doing, and Obama is perpetuating in his refusal to deal with the Republicans demands to cut spending, is trying to prevent the natural bust cycle that is facing the nation by throwing more money, (our tax money) at the situation to maintain the promises they have made to themselves and their members for decades.

The average teacher at Lakota makes over 60K per year, which is much more than the tax payers who pay their salaries. This is justified by state law citing that various degrees obtained by teachers in the state of Ohio must be compensated accordingly. It does not matter that the residents of Lakota do not need kindergarten teachers who have master’s degrees, and are being paid by the community for those degrees even though the market cannot support such concepts. The union lobby using membership funds have shaped the law to suit their Keynesian economic model which is a severe flaw that is detrimental to anyone who pays taxes.

So again, our community will be in for another fight against the Lakota School System as organized labor have embedded themselves into our politics so deeply that they can dictate what type of economic strategy our elected officials use to deal with the financial realities of our times.

The difference between now and in the past, where the NEA, the OEA and presidents like Obama and many other progressives have pushed Keynesian economics to satisfy their political deals, is now people are learning about the tricks that have been played on us all for many years. The millions of dollars of lobby power, the fear mongering that money spent equals success, the strikes to artificially drive up wages, all that is coming to a close because people are learning.

And my response to this recent attempt by Lakota to pass yet another school levy when the tax payers of the district are already heavily taxed, just as we are nationally, it is the expectations that must be attacked, and will be exposed heavily in this next campaign which I look very much forward to fighting this fall. The fight is over a failed economic theory by Keynes and the economic intelligence of Hayek. That battle is underway and there will be a lot of broken hearts in the meantime, but the fight must be fought because without the fight, there will be no tomorrow as we know it or expect it. Depending on the victor of this battle tomorrow may or may not be left to our decisions. And I will fight this battle on the side of Hayek!

Good luck Lakota, you’re going to need it!

Rich Hoffman

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

The Kentucky Speedway: The Dream of Jerry Carroll

I used to run a manufacturing line that built Corvette fascias in a Mason, Ohio plant which would require me to travel to the Corvette manufacturing plant in Bowling Green Kentucky every so often to inspect the rejected fascias for defects and process improvements. The fascia was the entire plastic front end assembly that contained the headlights, parking lights and basic connections for electronics. The fascias were the most visible part of that assembly and was to be built-in such a way that it could be taken straight off a rack and put onto a car. If you drive a Corvette from 1994 to 1997 chances are, I built the front end of that car. Take off the fascia and you’ll see that you have my signature there because I signed every one of them.

As that contract was being completed for the last model year of that particular design, the Corvette Plant wanted a lot of these fascias so I worked 2nd shift and 3rd shift every day 7 days a week for approximately a year and a half to meet the contract demands, those shifts being the most difficult to staff with quality labor. Yes, I worked 16 hours a day for that entire span every day of the week except for holidays. I did much of the work myself, including fab opts, basic trimming, quality control, transportation to the paint line, paint line inspection, and liaison to the Bowling Green plant, all while managing three to four employees per shift just for that particular line. One of the ways I kept everybody’s head in the game was to perpetually run broadcasts from 700 WLW, which filled the long work hours with entertainment.

It was during this time in the mid-90’s that Jerry Carroll was lobbying to build the Kentucky Speedway down in Sparta which officially started in 1999 and spent a lot of time on WLW promoting his massive project that would bring NASCAR to the Tri-State. Many of those broadcasts were like the one heard here by Darryl Parks as he covers the historic opening of the raceway after a decade long battle to bring such high-profile racing to reality.

I had the opportunity to watch Sparta, which is about 40 min to the south of Cincinnati turn from a field of empty land next to Interstate 71 where the property wasn’t even being farmed into a world-class racetrack that is attracting hotels, restaurants, casinos and shopping centers, and possibly even an airport.

It was the vision of one man and his mind that brought all this activity to life. In the interview below, when Jerry talks about the small mindedness of NASCAR, it must be remembered that he had to take NASCAR to court to even get their attention. His goal was to bring a NASCAR race to Kentucky. End of story! How he got there and who he had to run over to achieve that dream was not a consideration. That makes him a great American!

This is why the Kentucky Speedway is such a magnificent and epic story. It is truly about the vision of one man who defied the odds to make a dream come true which then creates true economic activity to a region that didn’t have it before. America was built by people like Jerry Carroll. His fight is the same fight that education reformers are fighting, Tea Party advocates, tax reformers, anybody who sees that there are possibilities, but come up against powerful monopolies, and government is a powerful monopoly, and tries to get the fools to see that they are standing in the way of real growth.

The video below shows just how far-reaching this dream has spanned. Richard Petty, The King, showed up to bless the new track, and when Petty shows up, you know that the dream has been achieved.

The kinds of fans that come to a NASCAR event are unique. The fans are as innovative on a small-scale as Jerry Carroll is on the large.

Government is no different from NASCAR in that the decision makers are often gun-shy and comfortable, and unwilling to take a chance. This doesn’t make them bad people, but it does make them unqualified in the realm of being a dreamer, and in America they have no right to regulate the dreamer.

It is the dreamer, the risk-taker, the innovator who should always rule in America. They should be listened to intently with the highest honor for they are the people who move the world. They are the people who can end poverty, who can increase revenue, who can bring changes that benefit all of mankind.
The typical progressive who finds NASCAR racing barbaric and crude are missing the symbolic meaning of the sport, and that is in a lawless rejection of progressive policies when prohibition ruled and the good ol’ boys from the hills hit the road to outrun the law. When they weren’t running moonshine they raced each other, and NASCAR was born. The races of NASCAR improve automobile technology in complex ways that defy measure and are important events that have improved the lives of every single citizen in the world who drive a car. When a car crashes in NASCAR at over 150 to 200 MPH nobody expects the driver to die anymore. The safety equipment that protects these drivers has found their way into our family cars.
But nothing happens without dreamers like Jerry Carroll. Nobody in government would have thought to do such a thing as building a track where he did. Government does not create; it just consumes and gets in the way of the dreamers who actually make a difference where those difference really matter.

The Belterra Casino is in Indiana, but it would have never located there unless they anticipated the future business of the Speedway, just up the road. As the years come to us by way of the future, that road from Belterra to the Speedway will become something that will rival Las Vegas and it all started with the will of one man, a man I listened to intently late at night with sweet pouring off my face as I built parts for a Corvette Plant in Kentucky and dreamed of things that had not yet come to be through the radio broadcasts of 700 WLW.

Rich Hoffman

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

Thanks Glenn Beck: Good luck on the path of authenticity

Glenn Beck is one of those unique individuals, who no matter how he arrived at where he’s at is truly an authentic person. Because of his lack of willingness to play politics, social games, and his hunger for knowledge, he has been able to say and do on television what few people in the history of mankind have been able to achieve, he’s been able to pull out of civilization the good in their nature instead of playing to their fears. Tyrants typically achieve the kind of popularity that Beck has by playing to the worst in human nature. Beck has done the opposite, he has gained mass appeal by bringing out the good, and to me that is a phenomenal achievement.

It didn’t come as a surprise to me when Beck made the announcement that he wanted to back off. I saw him in Wilmington and he seemed tired. I couldn’t blame him; after all there had been so many people who threatened him and his family. Who in their right mind would want to put themselves out there like he has for all this time? But during his last episode when he spoke about why he wanted to leave his Fox show, he stated he wanted to leave with his soul, and I thought that was incredible.

Soul preservation has always been extremely important to me. I have made all my major decisions in my life with that concept in mind, including quitting college for the third time, because I did not feel I could be authentic to myself by kissing the ass of the college professors who controlled my grades. In my professional life I’ve done the same, I do not kiss ass, play games, or suck up in any way to people who consider themselves my superiors. I never have. Any success I have had is by default, where everyone else had failed and I was the only one standing that had a solution. And once the solution was presented and people are making money again, those services are highly sought after. But I never did it by playing golf with the boss, or telling the president he had on a nice tie. As a matter-of-fact, it was just yesterday that the president of a company that I have to deal with told me, “You are a piece of F**cking work, you know that!” He was furious with me because I do not pump his ego, which is something he is used to. I speak to him like he’s any other employee I have ever dealt with. I dread dealing with losers like that guy, because they are power-hungry fools that acquire those positions by default, by playing politics. Not by talent, but by the networks they build through socializing, and they disgust me. So I deeply appreciate a person like Glenn Beck who says, “You know, I’m at the top of my game, but I don’t want to lose my soul, so I’m going to take a chance to retain my creative ambition and not just settle into complacency because the money is good.” I wish every person in the world was like that. I’ve always been like that, but aside from Glenn Beck, and my wife, and maybe a few other people I’ve known over the years, nobody else is.

So I will miss Glenn Beck at 5 pm each day. But I wish him well on such an ambitious project such as what he is about to do in launching his own online network. I love what he is trying to do. I think giving up the Fox platform is a mistake, but I love his honesty and ambition.

[kyte.tv appKey=MarbachViewerEmbedded&uri=channels/451373/1363672&tbid=279961&p=1011&height=384&width=320]

Only time will tell how successful Beck’s future endeavors will be. If he stopped right now and retired, the world would be far better off than it was, so anything he does in the future will only make it better, because the man himself is a good one. He may feel guilt about his past mistakes, but he has more than redeemed himself in his gifts to mankind. For too many years it has been the extremists on the far left that have moved The Overton Window so far to the left as it is today. And now because of Beck, whether he continues to have success or not, have pulled that window a bit more to the right, where people like me and an army of others can continue to drag the political spectrum back to the center where it has always belonged.

[kyte.tv appKey=MarbachViewerEmbedded&uri=channels/451373/1397207&tbid=279963&p=1011&height=384&width=320]

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

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 4th 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/
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www.overmanwarrior.com