More good quotes

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." -- Theodore Roosevelt

"When facism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross." -- Sinclair Lewis

"If our nation is ever taken over, it will be taken over from within." -- James Madison

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." -- Abraham Lincoln

"It is a quite special secret pleasure, how the people around us fail to realize what is really happening to them." -- Adolf Hitler

"When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty." -- George Bernard Shaw

"Liberty means responsibility, that is why most men dread it." -- George Bernard Shaw

"We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home." -- Thomas Jefferson

"A society whose citizens refuse to see and investigate the facts, who refuse to believe that their government and their media will routinely lie to them and fabricate a reality contrary to verifiable facts, is a society that chooses and deserves the police state dictatorship it's going to get." -- Ian Williams Goddard

"The evils of government are directly proportional to the tolerance of the people." -- Frank Kent

"A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves." -- Edward R Murrow

"Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear." -- Harry Truman

"When tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign foe." -- James Madison

"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home." -- James Madison

"A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny." -- Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Not MIA, I promise...

Work has been incredibly hectic, and my stint of jury duty started yesterday. I'll have more to say on that topic coming this weekend, when I've had time to collect my thoughts on the subject a bit more.

Quote of the Day

Once slavery in America was not seen as radical. It became, instead, a revolutionary idea that slaves should be freed. When we have lived under a pernicious power long enough, no matter how oppressive, we grow so accustomed to the yoke that its removal seems frightening, even wrong. — Gerry L. Spence, "From Freedom To Slavery"

Anyone who has ever tried to convince a non-believer that no government, or even smaller government, would be a positive change can surely relate to encountering that knee-jerk reaction of fear of change.

The spiders are back

So, over the course of two days, I had the daylights scared out of me by three large spiders, two of which were exceptionally large.

I'm generally not a squeamish, girly sort of person (except in incidences such as this), but spiders freak me out. My past holds too many instances of them popping out from under the bath mat when I'm naked and ready to shower, and too many occasions involving running into their outdoor webs with my face while walking around my parents' house. I can hold my desire to lose all motor control long enough to squish and flush the bastards, but afterwards, I must be careful to indulge my heebie-jeebies (which, by the way, aren't covered by health insurance).

My ability to hold back long enough to identify the offending spider is, well, severely lacking. And I discovered today that, to my detriment, I probably won't be identifying any of my local spiders anytime soon. Why? Because the best, most accurate method of determining which of several species native to this area is to look at the pattern and spacing of their eyes!

Now, these gigantic spiders that have been gleefully tormenting my waking hours lately are large--with legs, they're probably two inches or more in diameter. And through their size and appearance and the miracle of the Internet, I've narrowed their identity down to a handful of likely suspects, one of which is believed capable of a nasty bite and aggressive temperament. But they're not large enough for me to recognize their eye pattern from, say, the safety of the other side of the room (and the safety of the opposite side of the room would be questionable if they were that large).

I just wasn't meant to be any kind of sane, calm, rational arachnophile, one who maintains poise and dignity while trapping the intruder in a clear jar for later study of their fascinating markings. So, for the time being, I've resigned myself to keeping a catalog or magazine nearby and the knowledge that my curiosity won't soon be sated.

Unless one of those calm, sane, rational folks wants to come over and identify one for me before I flatten it.

From the "You're kidding me" files

State looks into price hikes of military haircuts

A deputy in the antitrust division wrote that some barbershop owners in Tillicum, including her, might be violating state and federal laws by participating “in illegal price-fixing of haircuts.”

The office says it has evidence that some of them might have agreed prior to Jan. 1 to raise the price of a military haircut from $6 to $7....

The increase didn’t bother some soldiers who were in the shops Thursday for haircuts.

"It’s still cheaper than other places I’ve been," said Spc. Ray Manning of the 4th Squadron, 6th Cavalry Regiment. "The quality is better off post."

I'm SO filled with warm fuzzies at the knowledge that the money stolen from me each year is going to investigate the fairness of military haircut pricing in Tillicum.

As to the question of whether the Attorney General's office has anything better to do, the answer is a resounding "No." It has nothing better to do than to remind the peons of its legal superiority and authority.

School indoctrinates kids against property rights

Private Seattle school tells kids: Property rights are bad, m'kay?

According to the article, the students had been building an elaborate "Legotown," but it was accidentally demolished. The teachers decided its destruction was an opportunity to explore "the inequities of private ownership." According to the teachers, "Our intention was to promote a contrasting set of values: collectivity, collaboration, resource-sharing, and full democratic participation."

The children were allegedly incorporating into Legotown "their assumptions about ownership and the social power it conveys." These assumptions "mirrored those of a class-based, capitalist society -- a society that we teachers believe to be unjust and oppressive."

They claimed as their role shaping the children's "social and political understandings of ownership and economic equity ... from a perspective of social justice."

(emphasis mine)

It's garbage like this that make me fantasize about having a child enrolled there just so I could give the school's staff a good verbal lashing and pull my kid out of their manipulative hands. What communistic crap, and how despicable to indoctrinate children with it. Of course, they'll be much more pliable taxpayers later.

This is even worse than "Why Mommy Is A Democrat". And in my own back yard no less. I feel nauseated.