Tag: Stupid in America

American Air Supremacy: But do we have the courage to keep it?

Zero’s Kates and Vals appeared over the crowd as explosions went off everywhere in the blistering July heat. The heat index was 115 degrees on the runway and the sun was relentless as the roar of World War II piston engine craft filled the sky with an unmistakable pulse. The re-enactment of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was underway by a group of stunt pilots flying restored fighters in a pyrotechnic reminder of just how badly governments of the world have desired to extinguish the power of personal liberty known as the United States. The show known as Tora! Tora! Tora was just one of the many shows displayed at the 2011 Vectren Dayton Air Show, but for me it was the best because of my love of piston engine aircraft. You can see my personal video of that show and other highlights here:

I’ll have to give Michael Emoff (Chairman U.S. Air and Trade Show Board of Trustees) credit; the seats from The Chairman’s Club were as good as it gets for a show of this magnitude. The catered food all morning and into the afternoon was wonderfully refreshing, as was the constant supply of 6 different beer selections. But the truckloads of bottled water were essential, and made the show a comfortable success. I cannot argue that the entire show took place in my lap from that vantage point, and it was a delightful endeavor. On the other side of the fence, the massive hoard of a crowd packed in close to see the action, and it looked hot over there, with no room to breathe for many people.

The Chairman’s Club is a section set up for exclusive guests and many in the aviation business comfortably packed the tables in front of the gigantic mess hall tent, which did lower the temperature considerably with its high vaulted ceilings that allowed the hot air someplace to go, and to cool. It was a good design. The ice cream prior to the Thunderbirds show was a nice touch even if it did melt in a matter of minutes. As is the custom, many of the pilots and parachutists come to The Chairman’s Club to refresh after their portion of the show and meet some of the guests who help put their planes in the air. It is a chance for both sides of the aviation business to meet each other up close and personal. I told one of the guys who had drug his parachute into the area to repack after he had landed just moments after falling from 16,000 feet, “Bet you wish you were still up there.”

He looked at me and laughed, “It’s about 50 degrees up there. It’s a scorcher down here.” Sweat dripped off his forehead as he folded his pack over tightly.

The F/A-18 pilots came and took turns taking pictures with many of the GE employees present. For many of them it was a moment of pride to see the Super Hornet’s take off from the tarmac and go almost instantly vertical. The clouds dotting the sky prevented long runs at the airstrip, so the F/A-18’s kept their speeds under the speed of sound, but the vibration and roar of those F414-GE-400 engines brought a line of high level employees to the pilots when they showed up for some relief from the heat and to provide the customary pictures and autographs.

It was obvious that even from the pilots faces that The Chairman’s Club was an oasis upon that landscape of blistering heat that was closest to the flight line and the first stop to recharge their bodies.

But even with all the high performance displays of the F/A-18’s, the Thunderbirds in the F-16’s, The B-1B Lancer with its 30,780 pounds of afterburner thrust, the fantastic modified stunt plane by Oracle called the Oracle Challenger, specially built for Sean D. Tucker and his fantastic aerobatics with jaw-dropping stunts, it was the World War ll era fighters that I found the most attachment to.

There was a Corsair in the air which set my mind back to the heroics of Tex Hill, after Hill completed his tour of duty with General Clair Chennault and the Flying Tigers over China. There was a B-25 Mitchell that I’ve always loved, the sound of the 2 Curtiss-Wright Twin Cyclone engines pushing out 1,700 hp each punching the air with American brutality. It was the B-25 that made up the 16 bombers who took off from an aircraft carrier to bomb Tokyo five months after Peril Harbor on a mission known as The Doolittle Raiders. I had the opportunity to get up close and personal with this plane during the show which I included in my video because of the distinctive sound of its engine. The plane is the prototype of what would become the fantasy of The Millennium Falcon in Star Wars, and it’s a favorite of mine. It was the display of Tora! Tora! Tora! That captured my attention the most.

During that re-enactment of the bombing of Peril Harbor the planes flew in multiple trajectories, crossing each other in complicated ways through smoke and explosions. Many of the planes made bombing runs 20 to 30 feet over the runway multiple times, which was impressive. A reminder of what governments are capable of cannot be ignored when anybody attending this air show can witness firsthand the power at play through the machines of aviation in defense of freedom.

America without any question invented aviation, and that birthplace was Dayton, Ohio, which gives the Dayton Air Show added meaning. It was the Wright Brothers who using good-ol’ America horse-sense invented flight with a kite like plane built on the principles of a bicycle. It was the bravery of people like Chuck Yeager, Tex Hill, The Doolittle Raiders and Howard Hughes who pushed what flight could accomplish in war to advance aviation to the levels seen in this show. Case in point, the B-2 Bomber made an appearance; it took off from Arizona that morning, arrived at preciously the correct time just a few hours later in Dayton. It made two passes of the air field blasting its engines on the second pass, then heading to Peoria, Illinois for another air-show just 45 minutes away for that craft, on schedule of course. The B-2 would then land back at its home base, it’s pilots home in time for dinner after traveling all over the United States in the course of the day. The B-2 is the culmination of years of bravery and technical innovation. It is evident when attending air-shows like this, that if an enemy of the United States wanted to attack America, like the Japanese did at Peril Harbor, and the Soviet Union attempted to do in the space race economically, and failed, that the heart of America, the spirit that advanced aviation to the modern levels of the B-2 bomber would have to be removed. No country in the world can compete with the United States because of America’s development of aviation.

If one cares to understand the mind of the enemy, and America will always have enemies, they will read what the enemy does. The most recent is the radical Islamic elements in the middle-east, those old empire builders of the Persian Empire who still despise America for its role in dividing up the Middle East after the Treaty of Versailles, or the Chinese communists who fought America in Korea through support of North Korea, and Vietnam with Russian support. There is no question that in many palaces and luxury meeting rooms all across this world the topic comes up, “How do we get rid of America.” It is clear in the Sun Tzu classic, which I personally studied for over 10 years, The Art of War, that the best way to destroy your enemy is by prevailing over those who have already lost. That is the essence of that classic piece of literature which is currently studied aggressively by Chinese and Japanese military, government and business leaders. And the way to beat America is to convince Americans to strap themselves down in debt, so they do not have the money to spend on their wonderful aviation and technological development.

The Space Shuttle Program just ended. Under the Obama administration NASA along with the Joint Strike Fighter have both been targeted for elimination because America has spent itself into catastrophe, and is no longer making investments into aviation like it has over the last century, culminating into the B-2 Bomber.

The F135 Joint Strike Fighter has also hit the chopping block, at least it’s back-up GE/Roll Royce engine. It is easy to see who America’s enemies are because they are against the construction of this next generation aircraft.

It is interesting to hear what people on the political left think are appropriate in debating budget negotiations. Listen to this simple-minded person talk about the budget battle taking place, and what is appropriate in that conflict. Obama and his people are big union supporters, and Lockheed Martin, GE and most in aviation that are behind the Joint Strike Fighter are giant unions, yet there are many who subscribe to the theories of cutting defense spending and NASA to pay for the destructive entitlement programs created by politicians to purchase votes. Those same people believe that the right thinks just as devious as the left. They are all off the mark in my opinion, but aviation to me expands America in every possible way, and should not be negotiated with by either side as some type of bargaining chip. Everyone wins in aviation no matter what the political affiliation left, right or middle. The only losers are other competing countries.

What is the RT? That’s an English-speaking progressive channel that stands for Russia Today. That’s why the temperature in Moscow is listed in the bottom corner. They are a propaganda arm of modern Russia, and if you think they don’t still have a grudge against America, they were one of the few countries to not accept the full title of the recent Hollywood film, Captain America.

As I watched the Dayton Air Show it was apparent to me that many of the enemies of America are now attempting to destabilize the United States not with stealth weapons, or even spies. They are trying a much more sinister weapon called progressivism, which is designed to lower American defenses, drain our wealth and keep us from spending money on the kind of technology on display at the air show, because the enemies of the United States cannot reach that level of technology. All they can really do is corrupt our youth into becoming lost adults who don’t remember Pearl Harbor or people like Tex Hill.

Progressives are attempting to inspire the youth culture to live aimless lives with an un-heroic pretense. Those enemies will do everything they can to topple the United States from the inside out, because that is the only way they can rule the planet, and their respective portions of the world. For now, they’ll use the United Nations for their own agenda, but once America is gone, and the money it puts into supporting world peace with it, the tyrants will have a new day and chance at spreading their tyranny across the face of the plant.

How can I say such a thing? Entertainment is always a great measuring stick to the values of a culture who produces it.


In some future air show, people will attend and wonder how a civilization who built such fantastic ancient machines like the Joint Strike Fighter, and the B-2 Bomber simply disappeared and stopped the technological advances that America seemed poised to create.

As I watched the F/A-18F pilots stand with a group of people in The Chairman’s Club under the elite protection of all the elements present, the people who build the planes and the pilots who fly them, I wondered how many of those people really understood the fight that was really happening outside those protected confines, out beyond the crowd of burnt up citizens scanning into the heavens at the fantastic aerial display going on in the sky, or the small children buying toy air planes from a vender proudly holding the toys as if they were treasures more valuable than gold, because the toys themselves represent power, and freedom. Who among anybody really understood the games being played and the stake of the games, which with all the proud patriotic celebration of the past that the future is in such jeopardy, did anybody really know?

I don’t believe many of those people out of the thousands around me really put much thought into it. As long as the beer was cold, the catered chicken and beef cooked to perfection, and the side dishes were immaculate, the politics of the day were other people’s problem. The air show was to be enjoyed and once over, we would all return to our VIP parking spots right outside the fence and be on Highway 75 before most of the other people would be headed to the vast parking lots packed with cars over a half a mile away. And of all those masses, the focus was on the past, at what we had done in that past both distant and recent. But the future is in jeopardy if that same American spirit that put those planes in the air does not survive the peril of progressivism, given to the United States from foreign enemies by spies and double-agents using the long proven instructions spelled out in Sun Tzu’s, The Art of War.

Rich Hoffman

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

S.B.5 IS UNDER ATTACK: Do you have the courage to keep it?

That video created a hail fire of anger among the public sector union class over the weekend because it was evidence to them that the side protecting Senate Bill 5 is able to muster up the support of high-profile national names too, like they have been doing.  Unions hate competition!

The public union sector class, which is what we should call them, as they claim to be the entire middle class for voter identity, was able to gather 1.3 million signatures to repeal Senate Bill 5 after John Kasich signed the bill into law that went into effect on July 1st 2011.  It is because of S.B.5 that the OEA (Ohio Education Association) all over the state of Ohio scrambled to pass their teachers union contracts, so they would be grandfathered in when the bill became effective.  The union knew that they needed to appeal to the masses if they hoped to successfully repeal the bill in the fall election by putting on a softer, more cooperative face.  But even more important, they needed to protect their members from budget cuts before S.B.5 could be used against their tyrannical grip on local tax budgets.  The effect of these contract negotiations placed districts like Lakota, which is the 7th largest district in the state of Ohio into financial solvency again where before the contract negotiations the finances were grim. 

That is just a sample of what S.B.5 as a bill will be able to do for the tax payer.  The out of control costs that are currently at play in all government positions, especially teaching positions, can be managed finally by the local district.  There is a lot more costs that must be managed which will continue to make school districts fiscally viable. 

The same people against Senate Bill 5 are used to push environmental issues. Notice how it’s always about children.  Progress Ohio, who has produced many videos like the Anti S.B.5 videos shown here is a progressive group which seeks to “progress” society into the progressive trends that we have been traveling down, and they are at the front of the labor movement politically.  You can learn a lot about these types of people by studying what they think is important.  The children are put in the front row used as props, and the topics are always emotional.  This is why these people cannot be allowed to give themselves pay increases, which is what has been happening.  They have no monetary discipline.  It’s ok to hire people like this to be a park ranger, but they are an overly emotional group that exaggerate everything, and are not capable of firm business decisions.  Anytime money is at play, business decisions must be firm, and understood.  

Saturday I received this email from a friend of mine with thoughts about the upcoming Lakota levy, which even though the school board solved their immediate problems with the new contract is looking to cover the cost difference lost in state funding and federal allocations in the upcoming years, and they seek a tax increase instead of the options sent to me in the email by my friend.

_______________________________________________________________________

Rich,

I hope you are well.  I continue to track the ridiculous actions of your district.  What is not making sense is why deficit spending platform is not the main theme against a levy.  In addition, there is no need for a levy, even under their current June assumptions until 2014.  Therefore, there is more time to make them:

1.       Updated and renegotiate health care and not continue to carry such egregious increases in assumptions upwards of 9.5%

2.       Change the split of health coverage with employees

3.       Remove pickups for employees

4.       Remove administrators raises

5.       Remove step raises

6.       Look more closely at their revenue assumptions

a.       2010 the district collected over $75.6 million – 2011, they say they will only collect $71.4 million.  Ask for a “BUDGET TO ACTUAL” NOW THAT YOU HAVE YEAR END TO SEE IF THEY UNDERSTATED REVENUES BY $5.1 MILLION.

b.      If they understated revenue in 2011 by $5.1 million, you need to carry that forward for 5 years and you pick up $25 million in revenues

7.       Benefits are not impacted at all, yet the community is suffering.  That MAKES NO SENSE

My thoughts for your day.  Let me know if I can help!

________________________________________________________

I have a lot of people who work in various education positions all over the state who send me information like this.   They are frustrated with the way the system works and want to see changes made.  This guy is one of them. 

My response to him was that until school boards use S.B.5 to bring their costs down, the real costs such as what he assessed in his email to me, then this school tax levy game will continue.  As of right now, the school board knows the unions will never go for removing step increases, taking real pay cuts to bring labor wages in line with the private sector, change the health care coverage, the union won’t agree to even one thing on his list, let alone all of them.  That is why Ohio needed S.B.5, because collective bargaining has driven up public employee costs since 1983 to such an extent that now it is abusive to the tax payer, and has been for some time. 

It is these same public sector unions who have tried to label John Kasich as a Wall Street Stooge, as though Wall Street were the ultimate evil in the world.  And they of course hate Newt Gingrich who is a presidential candidate who has advocated unpopular big government warnings. 

Many forget, because their memories are shallow that it was Newt and Kasich who balanced the budget in the 90’s in the Federal government which Bill Clinton reluctantly went along with.  And these are the guys who are involved in solving Ohio’s budget problems which can be seen as a microcosm of the nation’s problems. 

The public union, big government types know this and they have their own weapons they plan to use.  Of those, is Bill Cunningham of 700 WLW who has for a long time considered himself a libertarian/conservative, but is mysteriously in favor of big public unions.  Bill is the guy at the end of the above Kasich video shaking his hand.  Cunningham seems to only advocate change so long as it doesn’t interfere with his income where his real allegiance appears to be his law practice, which of course employees many public employees who work hand in hand with public sector union employees every day and has made him personally wealthy.  One of those is his own wife, who is a current judge in Cincinnati.  Sheriff Jones of Butler County, who is my neighbor and a fellow Tea Party supporter over immigration reform, is one of the charismatic Republicans who the unions have targeted to help lead the march in repealing S.B.5 this fall.  The TV spots are being planned for this as I write this article featuring all the great feats that your local police and firefighters are doing for your community, kissing babies, helping old ladies across the street, and why they need S.B.5 repealed. 

Sheriff Jones is the same guy who has openly stated that he doesn’t understand where all the jobs in Hamilton have gone, as he marches to the FOP drum of union brotherhood.  So economics is not his strongest topic, but using emotion to win elections is.  After all, this is the same guy who wants to sue Mexico for all the illegal drugs coming into America.  Here’s a hint Sheriff Jones, they left because union wages closed down Fisher Body in Hamilton, Norwood and other places.  The union’s wages and benefits were just too steep to cover those costs, so they left.  My grandfather worked there, and I know what kind of pension he had, and even when I was a little kid, I wondered who was paying for him and his friends when they were in retirement.  It didn’t add up.  In fact many people in my family were or are union people.  And they are wrong to blindly follow union mandates just to protect their pay check.   They’ve all been told. 

The union strategy of course is they think people like Bill Cunningham, Bill Seitz, and Sheriff Jones who are Republicans with connections to Fox News can somehow offset swing voters into doubting the validity of S.B.5 into a repeal.  What is forgotten is that these Republicans are the types who have built their lives around public sector service, so they do not have an objective opinion.  To them politics as usual is the only politics there is. 

To people like me, politics as usual is simply too expensive, and cannot endure.  It is a shame that the police and firefighters unions have jumped in front of the teachers unions to shield them and muddy up the fight for reform, because it will also expose how bloated those services are  in the dispute.  Emotion will not win this battle, this time.

Listen to Glenn Beck explain the pension pyramid at about the 7 minute mark to understand the beginning of the problem.  Glenn Beck is 100% right when he says that these problems can only be sustained for one generation.  Politicians like Sheriff Jones and Bill Cunningham are part of that generation who voted for the whole thing, and it is difficult for them to admit to themselves that they brought us to this terrible crises.  So they defend their mistakes just like a person caught in a lie tries to justify what they’ve done.  But the facts are the facts. 

There is no question with 1.3 million signatures public union membership has tipped the balance of power perilously close to ending what the American republic was founded on.  When employees can vote themselves raises, which public sector unions have notoriously abused at the expense of the tax payer for years, even the big government President FDR himself cautioned us against it.  President Kennedy was the man who through executive order, made public sector unions legal, which should have never been done. 

Click here to read President Kennedy’s fatal error:

If you want to know the truth, of why these public sector unions want to maintain the status quo, all you have to do is follow the money. 

Click here to see what West Chester police and firefighters make, which is within Butler County, Sheriff Jones’s territory and FOP brothers, to see what they are protecting…………………

…………..go ahead, you want to know the truth don’t you.  CLICK HERE:

And Lakota, one of the largest schools in the state of Ohio also located in Butler County.   Why do you think the OEA wants S.B.5 repealed?  Go ahead, CLICK HERE:

It will take a very high voter turn out to protect Senate Bill 5.  Nobody is asking anybody to take a rifle into a field and defend their liberty from tyranny……….not yet.  You still have the opportunity to protect yourself from an ever-expanding government by simply showing up to vote.  The unions will certainly show up, because their income which they get exclusively from the tax payer depends on it.  So they will be there.  It must be expected that they will have almost 2 million voters who will show up and cast a ballot in November.  This is why it is dangerous to have too many government workers.  When they outnumber the tax payers, they can enact policies on their own at tax payer expense.  They can vote themselves raises, which is why they make so much money, and management is powerless to do anything about it, because Ohio Revised Code created under union lobby power has prevented management controls and driven up the costs.  

So in November, If you don’t see through the smoke and mirrors and allow yourselves to be conned, you will not only be responsible for higher taxes which will come your way in order to pay for all these elaborate public employee salaries and pensions as the system collapses on itself, but you will have turned away from an opportunity to march toward the America as it was intended to be in favor of an American headed in the direction of Europe.  And it will be your fault, because John Kasich along with the house and senate did exactly what they said they would do, and that is stare the problem in the eye and do the hard thing even when the status quo makes threats and harasses them. 

Click Here to read about how the SEIU threatened Ohio Senators in a restaurant, to attempt to threaten them into not voting in favor of S.B.5.  CLICK HERE!

They gave Ohio S.B.5.  The question is now, as a tax payer, do you have the courage to keep it?

Rich Hoffman

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

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

Me………..Too Hard on Cops: The buffoons of politics

The people who have read my early draft of Tail of the Dragon, my new book due out in 2012 all have had a common reaction, “Great story, but wow, you really hate cops!”

No, it’s not that I hate cops. I hate politics, and police officers enforce the law of politicians. I see many of the laws that are currently on the books in any city, state, or federal ledger to be simple work creation measures designed to give law makers something to do, a way to justify the enormous amounts of money we pay them in public office. Sometimes, the police that are hired to enforce, “the law” have legitimate claims to danger such as bank robberies, drug busts, and armed confrontations. But most of the time and we all know this, police offers don’t have a whole lot to do, so they become the minions of the bloated politician and the rules they have created who have lost all common sense. Case in point, the video below is of a group of young girls who want to raise money to go to a water park by selling lemonade. The police shut down the stand because it is against “the law.”

The permit process is largely created under the guise of authenticating an endeavor. The original thinking is that if people will take the time to get a permit, then some measure of control can be enforced by whoever issues the permit, and that is for the public good. But like all things in politics, permits have become a cash cow and a form of abuse culminating into complete breakdowns of rationality, such as what happened to these poor little girls.

But it doesn’t end there. Police are law enforcement created to enforce the law. They are not law contemplators. They take orders like blind machines and do not question the authenticity of their superiors. If a law is bad, they have no opinion. If a prosecutor or some other law-maker wants to twist the wording of a city ordinance for their own ends, then the police can be called in like a private army to wreck the lives of whomever is at fault, whether those at fault are even aware of their illicit deeds. Because nobody can claim ignorance to the law, even if the wording is something you think you understand. If the prosecutor “interprets” the wording differently than you do, then you will be in court to battle out the definition and case-law will be created off your case. This is the situation with the woman in this next video; she is building an organic garden under what she believes to be the law. But a politician looking to make a name for himself doesn’t like it, so he is shutting it down, or trying to.

A common occurrence in dealing with any large organization private or public is that accountability is often less enforced because of the sheer number of people employed. This makes dealing with them a real problem especially when a mistake is made on their end. In the video below the homeowner went to jail and lost everything because of a bank error and it was the police who showed up and put him in jail. Because the interpretation of the law almost always favors lawmakers and those lawmakers are closely tied to those who give them campaign donations for their elected office, the police can be made to completely serve the needs of those with power.

Meanwhile it is all of us who pay taxes that fund the entire enterprise. We are funding our own demise.

Without some sort of check’s and balance system which is what court is supposed to be, the law will grow itself out of control. Small ordinances created with good intentions will shut down the lemonade stands of little girls trying to learn to become entrepreneurs, or people participating in self-reliance by growing their own food. Or homeowners who get stuck trusting the system and being caught in the middle of an error, spending the weekend in jail and having their assets seized while a bunch of public employee buffoons try to figure out what to do and how to cover up their mistake. It is the police that these public officials use to perpetuate their activity. We are headed toward this type of situation which can be seen in Greece, where secret police dressed in plain clothes are able to arrest people from the crowd, because “the law” states it’s for the public good.


So is my story, the Tail of the Dragon anti-cop. No. But it does question the validity of law enforcement and the entire process from which law is created and then used against the tax payers who paid for it. All too often what we discover in any reasonable investigation is that the law was used to make somebody wealthy, and law enforcement was there like a personal army to advance the strategic position of those in power to gain an advantage over those they seek to crush.

Police are needed to some extent to keep some order in the world. But how much is too much, and what power should they be given? For me, as a general rule, if a cop has time to sit on the side of the road and pull people over for speeding, or for not having on a seat belt, then that is one cop too many. If that is all that officer has to do but harass the public for more money, then we are wasting our money on that employee. Because it’s such people who will come to your house to arrest you for some run-in with the law, whether it’s your child setting up a lemonade stand, or you not growing in your front yard what the politicians think you should be, or worse and most likely, you’ll find yourself in the middle of a bank error. It will be the cop who’s doing nothing on the side of the road who will be on call to serve the needs of corrupt politics, and the scam is ultimately on you, the tax payer. Because it was you who put that cop on the street to begin with, with a great salary, and attractive pension under the watchful care of a public sector union, the FOP, which is so closely tied to politics they might as well be the same thing. No, I’m not too hard on the police in my book.

Just hard enough……………………

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

Casey Anthony is Walking Free: But the real murder is far worse than a drunk party girl

This is another one of those articles where the video is just as important at the text. So take your time.

No matter what you think about the Casey Anthony trial and her being found not guilty of murder for her 2-year-old daughter in Orlando, Florida there is more at stake than just the freedom of a Casey Anthony. The emotions of this case have proven to be too much for many people to take.

Interesting how the Judge went lighter on that lady after she claimed to be bi-polar and under medication. When Casey was found not guilty, the opinion of most in society was anger as a collective gasp swept the nation.

Casey was a party girl like so many young girls these days, and her paternal instincts were seriously compromised. Her priorities were obviously vacant in the events that led up to the death of her child.

Even Skyline Chili in Clearwater Florida is openly upset about the not guilty verdict and are protesting in their small little way.

700 WLW did a fantastic job of covering this trial, and once the verdict was read, the outrage emitted from the 50,000 watt flamethrower of the Midwest. Darryl Parks had some particularly riveting analysts.

Casey Anthony is a persistent liar. So much so, there is almost no way to tell which thing she says has any semblance of the truth.

The real trouble with this verdict is the indication that society, which the jurors represent, is having more difficulty thinking critically when given evidence that requires firm decision-making skills. This is a shocking tendency among young people who have been raised in a progressive society to expect experts to do their thinking for them. Listen to this juror explain her thinking. Imagine a room full of people just like this juror, who have been bred to accept what is told to them through commercials, TV shows, newspapers, tabloids and online media, they have lost the ability to think critically.

Here the prosecutor for the case speaks on The View about how shocked he was on the not guilty verdict.

I feel sorry for the retiring prosecutor. I’ll say what he refused to acknowledge, and that the system is irreparably broken. Casey, a young woman with her priorities obviously misplaced, coming from a family of poor value thinks nothing of telling lies. What good is she on the stand swearing an oath to God? If she doesn’t believe in God, or care about the ramifications of a lie, what good is her oath, and word on the stand? The jurors aren’t much better than Casey, they are people collected from across the state and sequestered and represent to the best ability of the law to provide a fair jury of Casey’s peers, but they have obviously lost that good old fashion sense of right and wrong, of the ability to make a moral decision, because they have been infected with progressivism. And the court system which is a good ol’ boy game of politics and manipulation proved completely inept for not the first time. It’s a tangled mess of broken people trying to find the truth in darkness but without a flashlight.

This trial looks to cost taxpayers over $4.5 million to achieve nothing. It was a trial in pursuit of the truth, that had a mountain of evidence, but even with all the money spent, and nearly three years of investigating, it lacked jurors who could ascertain the information and pass judgment. And that is the real crime which has been revealed and that criminal is progressivism. Every character in this drama is a victim of progressivism, a prophecy predicted by Ayn Rand in her book Atlas Shrugged. The very same neglect these jurors showed to the mountain of evidence presented by the prosecutor is the same neglect citizen’s show toward the government tendency toward socialism, or property owners toward their schools and the union manipulation of their tax dollars. When people lose faith in themselves, and look to professionals to tell them what to do, and in the Anthony trial it was two combative attorneys who told jurors conflicting stories, the jurors proved they had lost the ability to make a decision without being spoon feed the facts. And that is the travesty of this trail.

Casey Anthony will be back on the party circuit grinding away the night with other young sluts and their dyed hair, tattoos and alcohol fueled neglect as they seek to fill the spiritual emptiness of their lives with other empty people equally lost because progressivism has lied to them. They will therefore lie to everyone else, honor is no longer valued, and murder has little value because life has been cheapened by progressivism.

This all comes back to the opening comments of Bill Cunningham of 700 WLW. This party girl was putting her little girl to sleep with chloroform so she could party it up with her friends. In doing so it appears that the prosecution proved that Casey killed her little girl in this process, probably by accident. The dead girl was put into the back of the car and driven around for over a month while Casey tried to figure out what to do about the body. In the meantime, Casey was out partying, getting “wasted” and having sex with multiple partners, again, according to the prosecution. So the moral outrage from the general population is how Casey could do such a thing. And from the youth culture, people under age 35 who have been taught in public education that collective consensus is best over individual decisions, and that going to college means lots of cheap sex and excessive drinking while responsibility in life can be delayed until their mid-twenties. These young people are more and more just like Casey Anthony, liars, cheaters, and morally bankrupt children of a progressive nation who are numb to murder because their goals in life are focused on the party, and not the responsibility of living. That’s why this case is a case of national relevance and a thermometer of our current moral state.

Most of the viewers in this case are just as guilty as the woman who shouted out in court then pleaded with the judge to go easy on her. She wanted attention in a big national case for her own selfish reasons, but lacked the courage to stand by her convictions and fell to her knees before the law withering under the pressure of the law which only has the power to regulate the weak while the truly evil walk free to tyrannize again. So shout at the TV, protest at Skyline, and talk among yourselves about the injustice of this case, but when real courage is required to prevent these murders well before they ever happen, you will be the morally bankrupt souls that supports through your inner demons people like Casey Anthony, and contribute to the evil that rots our society. Casey killed her daughter with neglect, but American’s are doing the same to their country with the same type of neglect. So in the end, everyone is guilty, and that’s why Casey Anthony is being set free.

Rich Hoffman

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

Suggested Reading:

http://afewcentsaday.com/Store.html

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

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

___________________________________________________________________

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rich Hoffman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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









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

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

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

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

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

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

Rich Hoffman

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

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

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

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

   

Open circuit

An incomplete electrical circuit

Orange book

The United Nations publication for classification and testing of dangerous goods

Oxidant

The component of an explosive that supplies oxygen for the reaction of the product

Palm burst

A color break with palm tree core

Parallel circuit

An electrical circuit in which the current is divided between several igniters. Less easy to test for breaks.

Paste

Commonly used to cover shells to enhance their burst

Pattern shell

A shell of fewer stars that creates a pattern rather than a sphere

Pellet

See Star

Peony shell

A shell whose stars do not leave any trails

PIC

Plastic Igniter cord

Pigeon

A specialized type of firework which travels to and fro along a horizontal rope

Piped match

Raw match enclosed in a paper or plastic tube

Pistil

The central core of a shell. Often a complimentary or contrasting colour to the main burst

Plug

See Bung

Portfire

A thin walled tube filled with slow burning composition used to light other fireworks

Propellant

Composition used to produce force e.g. A rocket motor
   

Punk

Slow burning lighter for small fireworks

Pyrotechnic

Generic term for any item which react in a self sustaining chemical reaction and generally produces a light effect. Pyrotechnic articles are different to fireworks and generally are used for stage and theatrical uses

Quickmatch

Raw match enclosed in a paper or plastic tube

Rack

Apparatus for firing rockets or mortar tubes

Rain

Shells containing long burning stars that fall all the way to the ground.

Raw match

Black powder coated thread used for linking fireworks

Repeater shell

Usually a cylinder shell with timed bursts at regular intervals

Ring shell

An aerial shell that produces symmetrical rings of stars often have a rope tail to control orientation of the break

Rising effect

Often a tail effect on a shell but can be external attachments to a shell that break off during the rise to create special effects

Rocket

Aerial effect propelled by a motor

Rocket cone

A device for firing flight rockets

Rocket motor

The power unit behind a rocket. Typically made by pressing black powder into a choked tube

Roman candle

A cardboard tube with a stack of timed comets or bombette units

Round shell

A shell in the form of a sphere usually containing colored stars

Safety area

The area around a fireworks display site between the spectators and fireworks. Not including a fall out zone

Salute

Report or loud bang

Saturn shell

A chrysanthemum break with an outer ring of a contrasting color

Saxon

A bar with centre pivot with drivers at either one or two ends which make the bar spin on a central point.

Screecher

A whistle unit with a hole through the centre. This increases the burn speed and therefore the sound

Sequence

The pattern in which fireworks are detonated in a display
   

Series circuit

A circuit arranged so the current runs through each igniter in turn. This enables and breaks to be detected

Serpent

A spinning tube used in candles and shells. Usually with a report unit

Set piece

A ground firework. Generally static

Shell

The most spectacular of fireworks propelled with a lifting charge from a mortar and a bursting charge that charge to a star composition in the air after a predetermined delay

Shell delay

See Delay fuse

Shell of shells

An aerial shell that contains smaller shells ignited when the main shell bursts and subsequently produces small secondary bursts

Short circuit

The accidental completion of a circuit which causes the current to not flow through the igniter

Shot

The single functioning of a roman candle or cake

Smoke

Air suspension of particles from incomplete combustion of a composition

Smokeless powder

A powder containing nitro-cellulose and nitro-glycerine as it does not produce much smoke

Spark

Typical effect caused by incandescent particles ejected form the surface of a burning composition

Sparkler

Wire coated with pyrotechnic composition that gives off small sparks

Spider shell

A shell containing a small number of large stars producing a symmetrical burst. Sometimes called octopus shells

Splitting comet

A comet with an internal charge of flash powder which when ignited splits the comet into several pieces.

Squib

Electric igniter

Star

A pressed unit of composition usually spheres or cylinders used in shells, mines, rockets and roman candles

Storage

The holding of fireworks prior to their use. Premises must be licensed for amounts above a certain quantity

Strobe

A pulsing on off star effect fired from candles and shells and ground based effects

Tail effect

A comet star secured to the outside of a shell to give a tail to the rising shell

Tiger tail shell

A shell made up of a solid ball of composition to produce a substantial tail effect. Sometimes with a small shell break

Titanium

A silver metal used in the production of maroons and grebes

Top fused

A shell where the shell delay is lit separately from the lifting charge. Often found in large Maltese shells

Tourbillion

See Serpent

Transportation

The process of consigning a load of fireworks. Subject to heavy legislative control

TREM card

Documentation required when transporting fireworks of any quantity. Transport emergency card. Provide information for emergency services

Trunk

A large tail unit often used on palm and willow shells
   

UN classification

The assignment of a packaged firework into the UN classes for fireworks

UN compatibility group

The G or S of 1.3G or 1.4S. The compatibility group indicated what a particular item may and not be transported with

UN Hazard code

See UN number

UN Mark

A complicated mark assigned to a particular packing box for dangerous goods

UN Number

A four-digit number assigned to hazardous goods. Explosives always start with a 0 e.g. 1.4G fireworks are UN 0336. Used to identify a dangerous item in the event of an emergency

Volley

A mass firing of rockets or shells

Water firework

Aquatic fireworks e.g. shells or water gerb

Water gerb

A floating gerb with a weight and cork float.

Water shell

See Aquatic shell

Waterfall

A curtain of coloured or silver sparks that falls vertically. Composition is made from an aluminum alloy

Weeping willow

See Willow shell

Wheel

A rotating piece attached to a post in the form of a saxon bar or wheel with driver units

Whistle

A tube containing composition of potassium benzoate and potassium silicate. On burning the composition creates oscillation in the tube and creates a whistle effect which is amplified in the tube

Whizzer

See Hummer

Willow shell

A shell containing charcoal based stars with a long burn time which often fall to the ground

Fireworks and participating in controlled destruction is important to the celebration of any July 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/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Being a Hero: The greatest gift you can give to a child

I will make some people very angry with what I’m about to say, because as we’ve discussed at this site on many occasions, the education bubble is bursting, the housing bubble has burst, the tolerance of federal police powers is bursting, and another bubble, a much larger bubble is about to not just burst, but will explode, and that bubble is the value of family and the ability of third parties to fill the role of a strong parent or family mentor role.

Human beings have a gestation period of growth that extends well beyond their time in a fetus. Human beings do not just plop out of their mothers like a small calf, find their footing and start eating. Human beings are complex creatures that require at least 13 years of constant parental nurturing. And in many cases it takes even more than immediate family members to contribute to those children’s success in life, because being a mentor is what young human beings need more than even water.

In our family, I am that uncle that every kid wants to be near, because I know what being a mentor is all about. In life I am a lot of things, a professional businessman, a writer preparing a manuscript for a national release, a political watch dog, a commentator, a Wild West Arts advocate, an adventurer, my list could go on for some time. But what I am most and my kids know this, my wife understands this, and all my nieces and nephews and brother and sister- in-laws have come to expect, is that I am a family mentor. I am that person who when those young people are out there in the world doing whatever, they think of to bounce what they are doing against what they want to achieve.

One of my nephews wanted me to be the Best Man at his wedding recently because I had a tremendous impact on the young man growing up. For me it was an odd experience because with him it was as if he were grown up and graduating from life close to an equal, while in the audience of my best man speech at the reception were many other young people who I am currently just as important to and I take that role very, very serious.

I’m writing about this on the 4th of July for a reason. Our society has come to believe that public education, college, day care, neighborhoods, sports, and many other social programs can give young people what they need to become successful adults. They can’t. The progressive dream of “it takes a village” will only make a village of idiots and followers. Psychology and psychiatry are such new fields that they have been recklessly incorporated into society with incredible relevance, and have contributing to that expanding social bubble that is about to burst. The reason that social bubble is unstable is because it was built with flimsy, careless ideas and not supported with the value of heroes.

One of the greatest faults of the progressive is the notion that “I’m not perfect.” Or “I am no expert.” Progressives, for their own vision of social order desire a world of socially trained experts in a particular field of endeavor, just like in a village, where there are hunters, basket weavers, people who build the fire for cooking, those who cook, that kind of thing. In our society we have lawyers, doctors, teachers, fireman, police, accountants, and we teach people to move into one of those fields of endeavor and to know everything about their learned field, but those same people are expected to not know anything about other people’s responsibility. This is why unions get so mad at people who can see through their scams, like with public education. They are the professionals and the society at large is supposed to take everything they say without question.

Well, if you’ve ever studied the way young people learn from adults, they learn by copying. This is such a powerful tool that kids born in the south will develop a southern accent purely on copying the speech patterns of the people around them. When you throw a child into education methods, and child care, then deny them an adult to look up to, you’ve doomed that child to a life of misery. There will always be exceptions of course, but most children if they are surrounded by adults who refuse to be mentors to their children, will doom those children to a miserable life when they grow up. If a child grows up to become a bad person, where they don’t know how to balance a check book, they can’t maintain a stable relationship, where they turn out neurotic and psychologically flimsy it is the fault of their parents.

Parents these days have bought into the lie that they can be bad, shallow people and still raise good kids, because those parents have bought into the lie that the village can raise their children better than they can. They cannot.

A young man wants the men in his life to be the best, the strongest the fastest and smartest at everything. The young boy has an innate instinct that this is important to their development because a young person knows that the value in learning something should come from the best so they have the best chance at success. Young girls want to know that their mothers are the, prettiest, and wise creations that have the answers to everything. Moms must be experts on everything. And fathers must always know what’s best. This is the key to the successful raising of children.

A child does not want to hear from his parent that they are incompetent fools who are scared of something in life. Children want to believe their parents are immortal, larger-than-life, supermen and women of high quality because that is who the child is going to copy and the child wants the chance to be all those things themselves.

At the wedding mentioned, as is the standard for my involvement in any wedding, I do not attend bachelor parties. I do not indulge in drunkenness. I do not sit with strippers in Vegas, even when my own brother was married and every male member of my family went to see naked women, I did not. I didn’t because I would ask the young people who look up to me not to do such things, and if I want for them a good life, I must do my part and stay away from any kind of mortal revelation that indicates weakness. You have to lead by example. You can’t send children to public school and hope you can “cheat the system,” while you’re off doing bad things. Kids will see through it. You cannot have a “do as I say, not as I do approach.”

Children expect their parents to be living gods on Earth. They expect parents to know it all, this is why when children hit their teenage years, and the parent has given them a mundane outlook on life and the teenager gravitates to their friends, to spite the parents who let them down with low expectations, the child will go through an excessive rebellion phase. The parent is expected to have high expectations in their children, but the parent is expected also to lead by example. If the parent does not lead by example, the child will lash out in a last-ditch effort to save themselves, which will most often accelerate the failure.

On our way to Kerr City last week, a ghost town in the middle of Florida’s rugged interior, far away from the tourist spots, my niece was with me, my daughters, my son-in-law and my wife. She received a phone call from a friend of hers that was upset that my niece was spending the day with us instead of wanting to do something with the caller.

“You want to hang out with your family? That’s weak,” said the caller in a frustrated voice. “I thought you were my friend?”

My niece tried her best to appear conciliatory, “My family is cool, and we’re looking for a ghost town. I’ve lived in Florida for 7 years and I didn’t even know there was a ghost town and my Uncle Rich is taking me to see it.”

“You sound like my mom,” the caller retorted. “You’d rather hang out with your family than your friends. You’re becoming just like my mom.”

The call ended as my niece looked out the window for a moment. I watched her through the rear-view mirror for a moment until she regained her composure.

“She’s just jealous that I have a good family and she doesn’t,” my niece said finally.

My wife looked at me from the passenger seat then turned around to address my niece. “That’s right honey, if your friend was given the same chance, to go with us, she’d become suddenly very supportive.”

And that’s been my experience with young people. When my kids were growing up, our house was always filled with their friends who preferred to come to our house and spend time because at our house those kids were getting what they were looking for, someone to emulate.

Family is very important, much more so than progressives want anybody to believe. So as we celebrate the Fourth of July, it is important to know that enjoying freedom today is good, but it will evaporate tomorrow if there aren’t people who believe they are heroes entrusted to guard it. And those people are our young people today. They need adults to look up to so desperately, they need to believe in something and that belief must come from their family.

I’ve always thought these things, but now that I’ve seen my behavior translated over a twenty year period in open opposition to the progressive movement which I’ve fought against for longer than that, the evidence is coming out dramatically in favor of my beliefs. And when my nephew who was now 26 wanted his Uncle Rich to be his Best Man when he had plenty of options, particularly from people his own age, I consider it a high honor, and even more telling, just how important all the things I taught him were. My teachings endured through all the hard teenage years, the drinking years, the girls, the friends, the social propaganda, to the most valuable foundations the young man wanted to remember before embarking on the adventure of marriage. That’s how important being a mentor is to young people.

So before you busy people reading this scurry about your lives in selfish pursuits, going to that gentleman’s club while on that business trip while your wife drops the kids off at day care so the two of you can make really good money, play golf with your friends and go out to eat every weekend, think about what you’re doing. When the young people in your family ask you a question, they expect an answer, and if you aren’t confident enough to live up to their expectations, they will resent you because you are their gateway to adulthood and if you give them crap, they will grow up and become crap, and it will be your fault, not theirs.

The future is in the hands of each and every one of us, and when the bright eyes of a child looks up to you and asks a question, make sure you have the answer. The fate of our nation depends on this very trait, the extended gestation period of the human child continuing to grow outside the womb so it can observe the world around it and adapt however required to the conditions of its survival. If the child is surrounded by fools, it will grow up to become a fool. If it is surrounded by heroes, then it too will grow up to become a hero. The choice is yours…………………….

 

Rich Hoffman

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