Bad Guys

There are way too many media outlets such as movies, television, and so forth that try to portray life in the most simplistic terms available, so as to make one side, to be all good, whereas the other side is all bad.  Of course, in these types of situations it is fairly easy for those watching or participating to sanction whatever treatment that the bad guys get, because, well they are bad.  Unfortunately, it is because of this type of simplistic and specious reasoning that there is not now, nor will there be ever, peace on earth, because as long as you aggregate to yourself, as the good entity, that you have the right to annihilate what you have designated as bad, you are no longer good.

America is a great military power, both within as well as without, so that the same mindset that we take to war with our foreign enemies seems to be the exact same mindset that we take to war on our domestic foes.  For instance, whatever country that we seem to have a dispute with, the mainstream media makes sure to march in lockstep with the military-industrial complex so as to portray this foreign country or insurgency as something that is less than human, or less than civilized, and of an imminent danger to the world at large.  While there may be some truth in this portrayal, it is typically only a small sliver of truth, whereas the biggest issues of the day, of justice, of economic opportunity, education, and so forth, are left far behind.  In regards to our domestic foes, America so often prefers to militarize things so as to portray that drastic and strong actions by the State or its agencies are necessary to interdict drugs, or whatever, and that therefore basic civil rights, basic justice, and basic civility, must be push aside, for the greater need of stopping the bad guys.

All of the forgoing is intellectually dishonest as well as being directly subversive to the principles of our Constitution as well as our Declaration of Independence. Today, in far too many instances, government and its agencies have aggregated onto themselves the godlike belief that they are the sole arbiters of what is good and what is bad and subsequently that they will do whatever that they deem to be necessary to deal with the problem of the bad guys. 

The thing is that justice carried to the extreme, is injustice.  And every bullet pumped into a bad person, should have been a bullet used only because the exigencies of the situation mandated it.  So too, every country that we carpet bomb, assassinate their high officials, interfere in their domestic affairs, and disrupt their normal day-to-day activities, should be a country that clearly is a meaningful menace not only to its own people but to the world at large.

The easiest thing for all these authorities to say to us each and every day is that they spend all of their time searching, targeting, and destroying the bad guys, and because of their great patriotic duty they have made the world a safer and better place.  In fact, they haven't done anything of the sort, except in the most extraordinary of circumstances; instead, they have kicked aside the principle of human empathy and of being a good neighbor, and have forgotten what our greatest President told us, "Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?"

Arrest Warrant Issued for a common Traffic Ticket -- Really?

It is a shame, that the law is so often used in America as a hammer to keep the poor, dumb, unorganized, unenlightened, and immature under the thumb of the State.  It is absolutely a disgrace that a mere common infraction, such as getting a ticket for speeding can lead to jail time but it can and it does.  The first mistake that most people are unaware of is that a traffic violation is a much more serious offence than might be imagined, in fact it is often considered by the State to be a criminal offence, although classified as a petty offence or an infraction which is a special category in which it is classified as neither a misdemeanor or a felony.    I suspect that this special classification for an infraction in the criminal code was probably done so that those receiving such traffic violations would not have to own up to having a criminal record, so that when asked by a prospective employer on a job application as to whether: "have you ever been convicted of a crime other than a minor traffic violation," the answer is straightforward.  In addition, the other strong hint that a traffic violation is a criminal offence is the fact that should you chose to dispute your ticket; you are allowed to confront and to cross-examine the police officer in a court of law.

All of the foregoing leads up to the very unfortunate aspect of getting a ticket, which is over and beyond the fact that a traffic violation will cost you monetarily in both the infraction cost as well as the increase in your insurance premium, is that the failure of paying such in a timely manner and/or failure to make your court appearance will often lead to a bench warrant being issued for your arrest.  The fact that one mere unpaid traffic violation allows any police officer to arrest you for "failure to appear" is one of the most insidious features of the police state that we live in.  There are very few people that would welcome being arrested at any time, and there are very few people that would believe that a minor unpaid traffic violation should allow the State to arrest you to begin with, but they can and they do.  This again points to the seriousness of an infraction, because that infraction starts the process by which if you do not obey the dictates of the State, you will be subject to incarceration.

Further complicating the manner, a simple unpaid traffic violation, can and often will escalate to a higher fine and penalties for that non-payment, in addition to a bench warrant being issued against you, which can easily morph into additional crimes, such as the very likely suspension of your driver's license, which is a criminal misdemeanor offence, itself subject to fines, penalties, revocation of car insurance, and jail time.

None of this should ever be allowed to occur in a country as rich and as favored as America, but that is the way that it is, and the weight of this justice is unfairly placed on the very citizens that really can't afford to pay the fines and their attendant penalties, to begin with.  While it is one thing to pin a traffic violation on a given driver, it is completely unfair, unequal, unjust, and arbitrary to pursue an unpaid fine by leveraging the massive State resources against an individual for a relatively small amount of money and to place that person behind bars. 

A lot of this is caused because the police and court forces of so many cities often rely far too heavily upon those very fines to support their institutions and infrastructure, and thereby have a vested interest in seeing that the public is ticketed often and that they pay those fines or suffer dearly for their lack of obeisance.

USA Drug War and Corruption

America has been in a drug war since the Nixon Administration in 1971, a battle that has clearly gone in favor of the drug purveyors, since all the drugs that America traffics in are readily available and have been so for nearly fifty years.  According to rand.org, utilizing 2010 dollars for a national survey in January, 2012, that:  "… national estimates of market sizes for four illicit drugs: cocaine (including crack), heroin, marijuana, methamphetamine (meth)," it was estimated that " … that drug users in the United States spend on the order of $100 billion annually."  In addition, as estimated by huffingtonpost.com that: "… the U.S. government spent between $40 billion and $50 billion each year fighting the war on drugs."  This signifies that all the king's men and all the king's horses has produced little or no lasting damage to the infrastructure and trafficking of illicit drugs in this country, despite the sophistication and experience of our drug and police forces, as well as America having a robust and respected rule of law.

So too, this implies strongly that there are really only two distinct possibilities, for the war on drugs to have been such a complete and thorough failure in America, to which the first is that our policing, our drug interdiction forces, and our justice, are completely ineffective in the tasks assigned to them, by virtue of the fact that the drug lords have more money, weaponry, and are more sophisticated in their trade, which is a theory that is absolutely absurd.  The second possibility, and the only real possibility, is that the monies involved in successful drug trafficking are so great, so high, so wide, so prevalent, and so pervasive that those that are in the position to stop, to prevent, and to interdict drugs, find that the lure of easy money or its equivalence is a siren song that cannot be resisted.

The bottom line is that the corruption of drug money in America reaches into the pockets of so many of those that have the authority and knowledge to do something significant about it; that those very people are the ones that have been compromised, willingly or not, in such a way that their abiding interest is now in seeing that the drug flow continues and is sustained because their lifestyle depends upon it.  It is that lure of making a quick and easy buck that makes so many of the enforcers in the drug trade turn the other way, because they cannot resist the benefits of their illicit gains.

The drug war in America will never effectively end, because the two sides that ostensibly oppose each other, are actually intertwined with each other, and because each side benefits greatly, at the expense of the good taxpayers, good health, and of those that play by the rules, the drug peddlers are permitted free reign to ply their trade as long as they pay tribute and abide by certain rules that are sanctioned by the drug overseers wearing governmental and policing hats.

It is not possible in a country as rich, as sophisticated, and as brilliant as America, that drug traffickers can have the run of this country, unless those that can stop it, discover that the monies involved are just too rich and lucrative to refuse, and why not, just as long as the users of such, are principally the dregs of society, and far, far away from the imperial money elite.

The Luxury Tax in Sports

In the major American sports leagues, there are three leagues, the NHL, MLS, and the NFL, to which there are hard salary caps on player salaries, which means of course, that payroll for players cannot exceed that amount of money which has been contractually agreed upon, period.  This means that having a hard salary cap in those sports is great for the owners, and unfair to the players, since it limits the players in receiving what the market will bear for their services.  In the NBA and MLB there are no hard salary caps, instead, they have put into place, a luxury tax, which if the nominal salary cap is exceeded, a penalty is assessed to each team that exceeds that cap in salaries.  As you might expect, the luxury tax is a fairly recent invention, beginning in 2003 in baseball, and 2002-03 in basketball, to which, it is stated that the purpose of the cap is to assure greater parity in their respective sports, which sounds egalitarian and almost fair, but as expected, hides the real truth of the matter.

The thing is, if a luxury tax in a given industry or a salary cap for that matter seems like a good and fair business practice, why is it, that there aren't any luxury taxes on labor whatsoever on some of America's biggest multi-national conglomerates such as Apple or Microsoft or ExxonMobil?  The reason that there isn't a luxury tax on these entities is that it doesn't make any sense as nobody is putting a gun to anybody's head, insisting that so-and-so Manager or CFO or whatever, must have a certain salary, as pretty much, these companies compensate the people that work for them, what they feel or what has been approved through the Board of Directors or management as fair and reasonable in their employment compensation packages.

The bottom line for sports is that there should not be an arbitrary salary cap or luxury tax applied when it comes to player's salaries, rather the players should not be limited in receiving what is fairly due to them for providing the sports entertainment to begin with.  The whole purpose of the luxury tax is basically to protect the owners from "overspending" on labor, and thereby to in aggregate, improve the bottom line for them and them alone, in a given sport.  This is a great deal for the owners, but an unfair one for the players of the sports, to which their careers can end or be terminated at any moment, with little or no possibility of ever being able to command the type of salary that they have received by playing their particular sport, outside of that world of sports.

The issuance of salary caps with or without a luxury tax is in reality, a form of legal collusion by the owners against the players; despite the way most media outlets try to spin it.  To say, that the purpose of a luxury tax is to create a level playing field is senseless, since the payroll for a team in NYC as opposed to Milwaukee, should not now or ever be close to the same amount, as the media and advertising rights, the wealth, and the overall worth of NYC is second-to-none, and thereby the salaries of NYC players should naturally be appreciably higher.

The luxury tax is in essence, a way for billionaire owners, to protect themselves from themselves, at the expense of the real value of the labor that makes the sport to begin with.

The Inflation-Adjusted SAT

The SAT is one of those very important, seminal tests that measures aptitude and intelligence which is especially pertinent for those students seriously considering going on to college.  The roots of the SAT began back in the 1930s and early 1940s, to which its popularity and need for college admissions and eligibility increased significantly over time so that the SAT test score soon became the score for high school students to master, and to demonstrate their worth.

While it isn't surprising that test questions have changed over the years, it is surprising that the amount of time given to answer test questions has also changed from year-to-year, additionally an essay section was added to the SAT but later dropped as a requirement to it, and it is especially surprising that test scoring itself has changed from year-to-year.  All of these changes, means in effect, that a SAT score for somebody in 1950 is not equivalent to the exact same SAT score in 2015.  Perhaps that is the way it should be, that is that testing evolves and changes over time, but one can make a very strong argument that the true purpose of the SAT or any testing for that matter, should be to measure the mastery of certain subjects such as math and reading, and the requirements for that demonstration of mastery, should be fairly constant and not in a state of flux.

What a lot of people, may not recognize, especially parents that recall their own SAT scores from back when they were in high school, is that the SAT board, for spurious reasons, decided that in April of 1995 that SAT scoring needed to be "recentered".  Of course, in America, you can always count on words being utilized and applied in ways that seem to obfuscate the true meaning of what is going so, such is a word like recentered, to which those giving the SAT scores, decided that since SAT scores were in a dramatic freefall, and because they felt that the true center or average for a given SAT score for those taking it, should be 500, they changed the scoring of such, to reflect that desire.  This means, for a parent comparing their pre-1995 score to their child's post-1995 score, that comparison will not be between apples and apples, since scores have been uplifted since 1995.  For instance, in 1992, the average math score was 476 and the average reading score was 423, whereas in 2015 the average math score was 511 and average reading score was 495.  To the unaided eye, it would appear that students had gotten appreciably smarter since 1992, but in fact, those scores, once the recentering bias is removed, are in fact, not meaningfully different. 

The long and short of it is, that the SAT scoring, test questions, and time allocated for such, have changed so meaningfully and been distorted by design that a grand illusion has been foisted onto the American public, to which this illusion purports to show that American high school students are smarter than their parents.  Unfortunately, that isn't true at all, at best today's high school students aptitude and intelligence are equivalent to their parents and at worst they are a sad reflection of the greatest generation and their progeny.

The Auto Insurance Accident Claim Repair Game

Getting into an auto accident is never a fun thing to be involved in, especially if there are bodily injuries and the like, however, sometimes, the accident really comes down to damage just to the car and not to the body of any individuals within the cars.  The biggest surprise people will get for just about any accident, especially those accidents which appear to be "minor", such as a dented door and broken window, is that the cost of repairs of a vehicle are almost always considerably higher than you expect.

Although there are lots of recommended procedures in taking care of a claim for an accident, in one form or another, you are most likely going to have to contact your insurance carrier.  When doing so, you might find that nowadays there are apps available which allows you to take pictures of your car and the damages, so that a repair estimate can be formulated, or at least started, just from those photos.  Another thing, is that your insurance company often has a depot to which if you drive your car in, they will write up the paperwork, give you a general idea of the repair work involved and then they will drive your vehicle over to their authorized collision repair center for a comprehensive repair analysis and cost which they will email to you, all typically accomplished within 24 hours.  If you, as the insured, accept this quotation, your insurance company will take care of the repairs, logistics, and whatnot and your vehicle will be repaired. This means that as a consumer, you don't have to run around town getting two or three quotes, that if you so desire, you can simply let your insurance company handle everything.

As might be expected, there is a price to be paid for convenience.  On the good side, you save time, further since you aren't responsible for monies paid for your repair above your premium, the overall cost of the repair is pretty much immaterial for you.  In addition, most repairs come with guarantees, even lifetime warranties, which may be of value, or of questionable value, once you look underneath the surface of what a lifetime guarantee actually covers.  Additionally, this cozy relationship between the repair shop and your insurance company exists for a reason, and the primary reason it exists is because insurance companies can drive in a lot of business to a given collision center, in return to which, they expect the collision center to use parts that may be refurbished, recycled, after-market, and non-OEM in order to effect the repairs, all of which are typically buried deep within the terms and conditions of the repair.  Also, if you as a consumer desire to go outside their "pre-approved" repair facilities, which is your prerogative, you may find the whole insurance process in regards to time, approvals, reimbursement, timely payments, and whatnot, are all working against you, not to mention the fact that with the possible exception of "gear heads" most people don't have a preferred body shop to effect car repairs to go to in the first place.

While it is true that auto insurance companies do want to see that the repairs made to your vehicle are competent, they are at the same time, bottom-line conscious companies, so that their overarching goal is to see that your vehicle returns to its "pre-loss" condition, a term which allows them to save money on parts and possibly labor, while you on the other hand, are paying for the full freight on your car insurance policy, regardless.

Statute of Limitations on Credit Card Debt

When it comes to getting money, most credit card issuers are not interested whatsoever in their being any sort of statute of limitations for them to collect on their money.  Further, to complicate the waters about the actual statute of limitations on credit card debt, this statute varies from State-to-State, to which the issuer of the credit card may successfully argue in court that the statute should be based on the State that the credit card issuer so designated upon issuance, rather than the State that you reside in, or whichever favors the issuer of credit to begin with.  The bottom line, whether you've moved or not since the credit card was issued, is that the determination of which State's statute of limitations applies, has more to do, with the party that has the power, as well as maximizing the length of the statute for the benefit of the collector, above all.

Consumers should care a great deal about the statute of limitations for credit card issuers or their designated assignee for the collector of such, because that length of time can vary from as short as three years to as long as ten years from the date the credit card payment was due and no payment was made to it.  That time is important, because once a credit card company debt exceeds the statute of limitations, the creditor no longer has recourse to the collection of the debt throughout the court system, which means that they no longer have the legal right to sue you and collect on a judgment, against you.  This doesn't mean that they will necessarily stop trying to collect on the debt; it fundamentally means that they have lost the power of the court to legally compel you to do so via summary judgment.

However, whether a debt has exceeded the statute of limitations is still something that must be judicially decided in a court of law, as the statute of limitations, varies from State to State, varies from credit card to credit card, and this statute expiration must be either successfully proved in a court of law, or conceded by the creditor.

When it comes to the statute of limitations, there is still one more hurdle to overcome, which is, as mentioned before, the statute begins running from the initial due date that you missed your payment on your particular credit card debt, which is quite straightforward, if you can find that statement or have documentation through the credit card company of that date, or from a credit score report.  However, if since you missed that payment you have made any payment whatsoever towards that debt, the statute of limitations typically re-sets from that payment that you made, so that, if you missed payments for six months, and then decided under harassment or whatever, to make a payment, and then stop paying once again, you have moved the statute of limitations six months further down the road.

This means from a credit card debt standpoint, that you must be very careful when deciding that you wish to pay the debt, as every time that you make some sort of payment towards it, the statute re-sets, and this payment itself, encourages the debt collector to believe that you wish to or have the means to make good on the debt, signifying that they will be less inclined to cut you a good deal on it.

Credit card debt collectors count on you not knowing your legal rights, nor understanding correctly the statute of limitations in your particular circumstances, and will exploit this knowledge against you.  As a consumer, it pays to be well informed, as that knowledge properly applied, will afford you the opportunity to extricate yourself from inconvenient, uncomfortable and seemingly unending debt situations far better than those who simply give up or don't pay attention.

Revolutions

The governments of the three most powerful countries in the world today, which are: America, Russia, and China all had violent revolutions, while there are different reasons for each of these revolutions, the bottom line was wars of independence were fought, lost, and won.  This most definitely proves the somewhat obvious point that in order for a violent revolution to overcome its opposition, that you need both men and weapons.  So that one in general can conclude that when those in power are in lockstep with the military and/or paramilitary of that country, that unless there is a coup within that leadership, or alternatively a tremendous amount of strategic help, arms, personnel, and outside assistance, that it would appear nearly hopeless for any revolution to replace those already in power.

Yet, there have in fact been revolutions that have occurred in which the regime changes from the hands of those in power and control of military forces and weaponry to the people that have demonstrated effectively against these particular regimes, such as in India, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.  This clearly demonstrates that revolutions can be successful through the route of non-violence, especially when the resistance is broadly base, with a strong moral force behind it, and with a high level of civil disobedience against laws, powers, and principalities that are both arbitrary and capricious.

This means that revolutions can be successful through either violent or non-violent means, while keeping in mind the very valid caveat, that revolutionary upheavals are also often unsuccessful in their violent or non-violent opposition.  In either case, whether violent or non-violent in their resistance, people's lives will invariable change, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worst, which presupposes the very valid point which is that any opposition, that any revolution, should have a clear agenda of what they are trying to achieve and it is that agenda that they must live up to, as demonstrated In such seminal documents such as our Declaration of Independence.

 The thing about revolutions is that it is always far easier to destroy what already is, yet it is far more difficult to build up what should be.  That is to say, it is natural for people to have valid complaints, and further it follows that those same people believe somewhat simplistically that everything will be just fine if those certain people in power were removed.  However, often times the very problems that one thinks will be corrected by a regime change are instead found to be so intractable, so systemic, that there are no easy solutions to such to correct them, and virtually all the efforts in a revolutionary cause have come to naught, as the new boss is the same as the old boss (paraphrased from the Who).

It does take a strong man to face down the barrel of a gun and not to flinch in their vulnerable position, and often times to gather that strength comes from a strong, moral core, which understands and knows that non cooperation with evil is the basis of all that is good, and the opposite of such is treason

Refined Carbohydrates, Sugar, and Acne

There is plenty of advertising thrown about that either states or implies that your diet has little or nothing to do with the condition of your facial skin, particularly in adolescence, when so many people are prone to developing acne.  The thing is that your diet and acne most definitely have a correlation, we intuitively know this by virtue of the fact that diets that consist of a lot of refined carbohydrates and/or high sugar concentrations such as white bread and white pasta, most cereals and processed foods, candy bars, and most sodas, provide the body plenty of calories but also hits the body with insulin at a rapid rate which has a high correlation to weight gain, other physical ills, and the onset of diabetes over an extended period of time.  This signifies that your diet most definitely has a material impact upon your body, which logically would include the human skin and your face.

Treatments to take care of acne via over-the-counter medicines and prescriptions are big business for the purveyors of such, to which, these treatments are typically and fundamentally treating the symptoms of acne but not the underlying cause with media often selling the canard that the development of acne is simply a rite of passage, whereas like many things in life, you as individual, have significantly more control of it, than you might at first imagine.

In America, too often we are taught that in order to correct things, we simply need to pop a pill, or slap on some ointment, and so forth, whereas a lot of times through good common sense, and the proper understanding of nutrition, hydration, and cleanliness we can do much more to aid ourselves rather than spending our hard-earned money on things that don't do all that much for us, except to deplete our funds.

The thing about acne is its prevalence amongst cultures that have "advanced" to the point where instead of eating whole grains, fruits, and protein such as in meat or fish, they have migrated to the eating of foods that have been processed for ease of transportation, shelf life, and consumption -- the attendant result is that the corresponding incidence of acne has gone up considerably.   That is to say, studies have shown that in cultures in which the incidence of the westernization of the diet has not occurred, such as in the diet of the people on the island of Kitava, that there is no occurrence of acne, whatsoever. 

The modernization of America has on the one hand eliminated deadly diseases such as bubonic plague, typhus, and malaria, whereas on the other hand we have seen an increase in heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, all of which are debilitating and/or the cause of death.  Too often, we are under the wrong assumption that if something tastes good that it must be good, or at least, not bad for our body, but this is simply not true.  What we consume into our body does make a difference to our overall health, and when going through adolescence and the massive hormonal changes of that age, it would be wise to recognize that our skin tone and our complexion correlate strongly with our diet, and that an improper balance has ramifications that include but are not limited to the onset of acne.

Psalm 49: 6-7

We read in Holy Scripture that: " They that trust in their wealth, and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches; none of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him." (Psalm 49:6-7).  America is perceived as a material world of which money and power most definitely are highly effective to those that are able to utilize these knowingly.  While, no doubt, there is a certain satisfaction in seeing money applied so as to relieve someone else from a particular debt or a difficult legal situation, signifying that money in of itself has value here on earth, it does not reach, however, beyond it.  This means, that no matter the power or riches that you have been gifted with, and/or the influence that you are able to display in this material form through this wealth, your wealth ends, when you or your beneficiaries come face-to-face with God at your respective judgments.

You cannot buy God, while that seems rather obvious to most, the lives that people live on a day-to-day basis belies this common sense knowledge.  For far too many people, that are used to seeing that their influence, their power, their money, or their knowledge, in conjunction with other attributes are able to change the course of events, believe that in themselves, that such power as this, can be called upon at any time for any situation, but it cannot.

The purpose of this above psalm is to remind each and every one of us that the true treasure that we earn in this world, will be with us upon our physical demise, so that it can be said, that in this world, although your reach may indeed be far and secure, beyond it though, your power is meaningless, without form and void.  God does not now or has ever been impressed with material wealth, especially with those that have determined by their actions and their mindset that the god that they will truly serve is the god of mammon.

The main problem with wealth is that so often it distorts one's view of the world, mainly because wealth is able to apparently resolve or ameliorate so many problems in this life, so that it may then appear that wealth is the answer to everything when in fact, it's never the answer, it is at best, a sidestep. However, those that take the bread of life, and bless that bread with the foreknowledge of He who is the benefactor of life, will discover that those loaves have often multiplied so as to provide an easing of the yoke that so many are burdened with, a continual blessing for those of the true faith.

Do not waste your precious time in the pursuit of material gain, as that is the illusion sold to you by the opposition, perhaps playing on your fear, or on your belief in the false security that money will provide all that you may ever need, but instead acknowledge that those that pursue God with an unending passion, have gain all, and drink of the living water that refreshes the soul and has no beginning and no end.

Individual Sovereignty

Each person should be sovereign over their own self, which would include not only our physical body but also our mind, yet in many ways today we are not sovereign over ourselves, as this sovereignty has been wrongfully taken by the State, other government authorities, family members, or possibly even our employers.  The most important document in all of American history, is the Declaration of Independence, which makes it very clear that each of us, by our birth, by our humanity, by our Creator, have inalienable rights, and that amongst these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The purpose of government, the purpose of society, the purpose of family, is for the opportunity for sovereign individuals to band together, so as to secure these rights, and that these entities that are joined together are instituted amongst man, deriving their just powers from the consent of those so governed by them, and further whenever any form of governmental or alliances in general become destructive of these ends, the people, as well as specifically individuals has the right to alter or to abolish them.

Unfortunately, in America, we have come a long way from these noble sentiments and now live in a country to which our individual sovereignty is under assault each and every day, on virtually every level that one can think of.  Not only are our powers to basic movement and the decisions that we make, subject to all sorts of arbitrary law, this present government in conjunction with certain favored industries, subject us to endless propaganda that are in direct opposition to the very principles of the founding of this great nation.

While it certainly makes sense when bands of people group together, that a rule of law be created, that rule of law itself must be impartial, fair, just, and sensible, and in sympathy with individual sovereignty.  It is not for the government to take upon itself, to be dictator of what we can or cannot do as sentient beings with our own mind and body.  It is one thing entirely to create laws that arbitrate between what one person has done to another, but it is an entirely different thing to create laws that punish what one person does, advocates, or does not do to himself.

While the State and the people should have an interest in you as an individual, that interest cannot and should not extend to punishing you for acts against yourself, that others somehow have determined to be worthy of some sort of punishment.  An individual, any individual should be entitled to do whatever that they want to do with their own body and mind, as that is part and parcel of having inalienable rights to begin with and as long as in so doing, they are not interfering with another person's sovereignty over their own bodies and minds or violating the property of others, they should be left free to choose the actions that please them.

The main issue that is far too common in today's society, is the overreach generated by so many people and governmental agencies; while it is true that on the one hand we are our brother's keeper, that duty is based on the love of one's neighbor and not aggrandizing to ourselves the right to punish those for whom we disagree with in regards to their doing and believing.

Abortion, Feticide, and Infanticide

Even though the law of the land signifies that abortion is legal under certain terms and conditions throughout America -- a woman's right to choose as to whether to abort her fetus is something that is still both vociferously debated as well as being a highly emotional and moral issue.  The ramifications of abortion of demand is fraught with medical controversy, as it is possible that the same medical doctor that you attend to for the birth of a given newborn child, is also the same medical doctor that performs abortions, to which, there is an inherent moral and professional conflict between these two distinct activities, to which one is about the celebration of newborn life, while the other is about the premeditated taking of life.

Of course, for a female to even consider having an abortion in the first place, that female must be pregnant, yet, despite the fact that never in history has there been so many ways to prevent pregnancy such as through options as in birth control pills, IUDs, injections, condoms and so forth, there are around one million abortions performed in America each year, to which it is surmised that very few woman having abortions, actually desired to be placed into the unenviable position of aborting their own fetus to begin with.  This would strongly imply that because abortions are legally available for females, that logical and straightforward steps to prevent an unintended pregnancy are forsaken, perhaps under the mistaken notion that pregnancy is always something that happens to the other female, not you.

A pregnancy occurs when upon conception an embryo is created within the woman's womb, which later gestates and graduates into a fetus, typically considered to be accomplished at eight weeks after conception, and this fetus will later be birthed at typically 37 to 42 weeks from conception, although fetuses as young as 22 weeks have been successfully delivered.   This means, depending upon the time table of when an abortion is performed, that the doctor performing it may be killing either a human embryo, or a human fetus (feticide), or even a viable fetus inside or outside the birth canal (infanticide). 

The semantics and politics of those that are pro-abortion like to spin things in such a manner so as to emphasize two points: one is that it is the woman's body and she alone, should have preeminence over it, and that the State or any moral authorities, should therefore step aside.  The other is that those that perform or participate in an abortion do not want to, or refuse to admit that an abortion is anything other than essentially aborting "products of conception", which sidesteps the real issue and is intellectually dishonest.

What is lost during all this abortion talk and action, is the fact that humanity and the sanctity of human life, itself, essentially takes a back seat to the selfishness of those that are alive at the expense of those that would have life.  Abortion is in essence, the euthanasia of the defenseless, it is feticide, it is infanticide, to which a great nation can never be a defender of, and instead the highest court of our land in order to be considered a legitimate authority must recognize that its chilling precedence has done more to destroy the fabric of this storied nation, than any foreign enemy America has ever faced.

TSA K-9 Units

Anyone that has to travel via public airlines, has as a part of that travel, to deal with security elements of airports, to which virtually all major airports in America, use the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and their primary duty is to make sure that at airports, cargo, along with its associated personnel and passengers, comply with all TSA regulations.  Of course, it isn't real clear that the TSA even understands their own regulations, as mission creep seems to be part and parcel of virtually any Federal agency created, and is certainly the case for the TSA.

Take for instance, the fact that airports now have TSA canine (K-9) units, which upon the first time that you see one, takes you somewhat aback.  Typically, most people associate K-9 units with actual police officers, to which TSA "officers" most certainly are not, which begs the question, if TSA agents are not police officers, why are they, as opposed to actual police officers, utilizing canines on behalf of their duties?

The answer given by the government would typically fall under that the canines are being utilized by the TSA to detect for explosives which is one of the most significant reasons for the TSA to exist in the first place.  If this is truly the case, though, this type of work seems beyond the scope of TSA agents, as a "positive" from a canine, would seem to necessitate taking actual action against a person or persons, to which having the legal ability to arrest, be armed, and a good understanding of Constitutional safeguards, all seem prudent for exactly this type of situation, because the fact of the matter is that most "positives" are not going to be real, actionable events at all and thereby need to be handled by those that have both the experienced and the training to deal with these situations in such a manner so as to not unwittingly upset the citizens that are supposed to be protected, but not unduly harassed without probable cause.

Another issue with TSA K-9 units is that the policy of where these units are deployed seems haphazard and logically inept.  For instance, there are security lines to enter into the actual airport terminal to which all personnel and passengers are subject to these lines in one form or another, but somehow you will find TSA K-9 units on the other side of the security window, that is to say, in the passenger debarkation and embarkation areas to which they will roam about, which begs the question, if you are going to have TSA K-9 dogs after passengers have already gone through security, what is the point of the security lines to begin with?

That is to say, once you decide that TSA K-9 units can go anywhere, than why not on the airplanes themselves before they take off, or while passengers are in the runway to board the airplane, or in the bathrooms, or the smoking rooms, or on the tarmac, or in the parking lot, or in the parking lots of facilities that are for longer term parking but are off premises, or at passenger's houses just before they get into their car. 

The bottom line is that TSA K-9 units are completely ineffective, all flash, no substance, a waste of the taxpayer's money and a disgrace to the principles of this great nation.

The Ticking Time Bomb Torture Fallacy

There are far too many people that watch scenes in movies and television shows depicting enhanced interrogation or whatever and believes gullibly that these stories truly reflect the realities of the real world, where in virtually all cases they do not.  In the movies, the producers of such, often want you to believe that for good to overcome evil, that good has to sometimes take a play from the bad guys' playbook in order to put him down, and that this action is of course justified, often because the bad guy has done all sorts of terrible, horrible deeds, that are far beyond what the good guy has done in return.  The result, is good triumphs and evil is defeated, and thereby all is good.  What rot!

The United States is a signatory to international treaties that specify that torture is forbidden, along with the fact that torture is outlawed in the country of the United States to begin with, yet America does torture certain suspects time and again, no matter what semantics it may use, and then uses their worldwide power, influence, and jurisprudence to argue that what has occurred isn't really torture, but "enhanced interrogation techniques" and other creative phrases that disgrace this country.

America sells the lie that torture is necessary against certain enemies because there are bad guys that do horrible things to America and its infrastructure, and thereby America needs to respond in kind, all in order to protect its citizens, its institutions, and its country.     The very fact that America endorses the torturing of anybody for any reason is the very test of a country's constitutional government to begin with and our ignoble failure to such reflects that America is itself, a rogue State.

Certain clever pundits like to propose, ridiculous scenarios, such as the one about a certain evil person who has been caught and he alone has vital information that if extracted in time, will prevent an atomic bomb from detonating in NYC or similar, so that even a pacifist, so to speak, would recognized that in this type of dramatic situation, that surely the violation of one bad guy's civil rights, would be worth the saving of millions of lives.  The problem with this type of fallacious reasoning is that America is trying to put forth the lie of "the ends justify the means", but in actuality the truth of the matter is, that the ends will reflect the means, so that those that believe safety lies in the torturing of others, will find that they have reaped what they have sow, when the blowback of such torture haunts them and their country to its very core.

The thing is that within any true justice system there is a road, that every country must have the determination to take, and those that veer from the straight and narrow path, to endorse circuitous reasoning, unequal justice in all of its many forms, aren't patriots, but are, in fact, the enemy within, and are therefore at mortal and moral odds with this last best hope of mankind. 

Life itself, may only give you one or two true tests of your real character, and those that fail those tests, have lost all.

The Hypocrisy of the Witness Protection Program

Many, many people struggle on a day-to-day basis simply finding the means to consistently pay the bills and to keep their lives in order, so that despite the fact that they work hard, their livelihood and well being is in constant jeopardy, until the very day that they breathe their last.  In fact, it is estimated that about half of American citizens have zero net worth, to which the majority of these impoverished people, are good Americans, just trying to get a taste of the American dream.  On the other hand, there are murderers, embezzlers, drug dealers and other assorted criminals, that get to enjoy their lives on America's dime, with a new identity, no less, simply because they testified against notorious low-life degenerates.

While many people are aware that there is a Witness Protection program in America, what they may not recognize is that besides the fact that these members of crime organizations or similar get new identity papers, a new location, U.S. Marshall protection, subsidized housing, they also often receive supplemental payments that as reported by howstuffworks.com: are "… on average of $60,000 per year."  Remember this very important point, these people that are getting "do-over's" are typically criminals themselves and/or part of criminal enterprises, yet they are getting a fresh leash on life, with all of the necessary ingredients to be successful, such as consistent monetary benefits, job training, new identity papers, at a new locale, whereas good citizens of the United States are treated as if they are the refuse of America.

The message that is clearly sent to the public is that crime most definitely pays, if you are willing to snitch on your fellow criminals.  The bottom line is that if you rat out your fellow crime-lord, America jurisprudence will protect you and reward you for having done so.  While it is claimed that these sorts of deals are necessary in order to convict criminals to whom without having the testimony of a former confidant, means that there isn't the means to convict someone, the truth of the matter is that this is faulty reasoning, and really just plain laziness or indifference on the law officer's part as there are myriad ways to penetrate and to unearth incriminating evidence without having to give up the company store to do so.  The thing is that people that are engaged in criminal enterprises don't have a lot of good options available to them when the pressure is on, so that, the American justice system does not need to provide them with witness protection, money, and significantly reduced incarceration or elimination of such to induce them to switch to the other side. 

The deal that is given to these particular criminals in exchange for their testimony is far too good for them and the benefit to America is far too small for the witness protection program to exist at all.  America should not be making deals with criminals which allows them to get off and to enjoy the good life at our expense, while good citizens that play by the rules, struggle each and every day.   This type of perverse reasoning is what is wrong with America today, as crime should not be rewarded by the State, it should, be punished for what it is.  Those that think that drying up the Witness Protection program, will somehow dry up criminals wanting to rat out other criminals in order to cut themselves a better deal when it comes to their particular punishment, don't understand human nature, because there are many men that will run to the American justice system, make whatever deal that they can make, when they believe that the alternative to them not doing so, is torture and/or death. 

America should not be in the business of rewarding those that would subvert its institutions, while ignoring those that don't.

The Exportation of the Armaments used for War, Conflict, and Terror

The world is full of armed conflicts, especially in the Middle East, Africa, and other Asian countries, to which in order to inflict damage upon their avowed enemies, arms are used by one party against the other, or one country against the other, or one ethnic group against the other, creating deadly havoc and destruction to all that lie in the paths of those determined sides that are engaged in warfare.  It is rather obvious, that the more lethal the weapons, as well as the more sophisticated the technology, the more destruction that will be wrought.  The thing is, somewhat lost in all the drama of these conflicts, is that weapons do not spring out of thin air, they must be manufactured by companies within countries that are skilled at this craft, bought, and exported/transported to those that have the means to purchase them.

While it is not particularly unusual for countries that are involved in armed warfare to have access locally to some weapons capacity, for the most part the best weapons and arsenals come from the most advanced military nations, themselves.  Additionally, considering that armaments more than mere words carry far more impact in the field of battle, all of these military and paramilitary groups are eager and desirous of getting armaments that are lethal, effective, and more advanced than their opposition, because more often than not superior weaponry is the telling factor than any other separate thing in battles.

The two biggest arms manufacturer exporters by far are the United States and Russia, which means, whether America has a direct or indirect presence in some of the conflicts around the world via boots on the ground or similar, for almost a certainty their weaponry most definitely is used by one side or the other, either by deliberate intention or not.  The thing about most weapons is that although they may be legally exported from America to the desired designated country, is that once these are sold and out of American hands, these weapons can easily find a home just about anywhere globally.

This means that American soldiers can be and have been wounded and killed by arms manufactured in America that are in the hands of those that we are in battle with, so that it can be said, that American weapons sold overseas have been used by our avowed enemies against American soldiers to kill them.  It is deeply disturbing that American weapon manufacturers, stockholders, and exporters of such are able to reap the revenues and profits of war, while ignoring that there is something fundamentally wrong with American soldiers having to face up against this very same American sophistication in weaponry turned against them.

The American government, likes to believe or purports to believe, that the situations in which our arms get into the wrong hands is simply the cost of doing business in a complicated world, in which, for instance, the arms were initially sold to one group or country, that had misrepresented itself or got defeated or corrupted or changed leadership, and/or the arms were sold to a legitimate country, but unbeknownst to the United States, additional arm trades were made so that the arms ended up in the hands of our opposition.  However, that it is sliced, none of this would ever occur, if instead of kowtowing to the military-industrial complex of America, that America understood the direct correlation of the more arms it sells and exports overseas, the more Americans will thereby be put into harm's way, and therefore the more Americans that will die, in a trade of their patriotic blood for true blood money.

The Death Penalty v. Law Officer's Deadly Force

From 1977 through 2015 there have been 1,422 inmates executed via the death penalty in the United States, which while regrettable, at least these victims were theoretically duly tried with an impartial jury and judge, permitted defense council as per Constitutional law, and were in due course sentenced to capital punishment as duly prescribed by law, with depending upon their particular circumstances also given the opportunity to appeal such a verdict.  It can be said that of those given the death penalty and executed within the United States, that they probably were afforded a reasonable opportunity to defend themselves.

There are virtually every day in the United States, suspects, if even that, and criminals, no doubt, that are for lack of a better word, executed by law officers in their line of duty.  By definition, none of these victims have been duly tried or convicted of whatever offense that they are alleged to have been involved in at that moment, and while there are specific rules in regards to the use of deadly force, it would seem, that those rules are permanently bent in the favor of law officers to do whatever that their discretion believes need to be done in these types of situations.  While, there is no argument that officers of the law, should be permitted to meet fire with fire, it should however be recognized that their overarching aim should always be to protect and to serve their constituents, and that they should not be permitted to be judge, jury, and executioner of suspects and thereby become their own law, thereupon trumping and negating proper jurisprudence of this great nation.

The fact of the matter is that http://www.killedbypolice.net informs us that law officers killed 1200 people in 2015, nearly the same amount of people that have been executed via the death penalty over the last 40-odd years.  Now, no doubt, the real world has some very bad people in it, people that put other citizens and police officers in harm's way, to which, one reasonable response by a law officer would be to engage that suspect in deadly fire.  However, that is one response, but typically, although not always, there are alternate responses to deadly force that could be used or should at least be considered being utilized.

The one thing that cannot be argued about today's police force is that the weapons that they have in their extensive arsenal are extremely lethal, while on the one hand, that might be considered to be a good thing, on the other hand, deadly force, is not something that can ever be retracted, so that it probably would behoove police departments in general, to seriously consider other viable options other than the most deadly ones.

It is not easy to be a good police officer, nor is it easy to exercise proper restraint and discretion in situations to which things are chaotic, unclear, frightful, and dangerous.  So too, it must be stated, that it is easy to second guess another person's decision, yet, quite candidly, true justice does not ever come at the barrel of a gun, or the end of a rope, or other lethal means, it never has, and it never will.

Sports Owners and Vertical Integration

The individuals and companies that own the biggest sports franchises in America are already an exclusive club of very rich and very powerful people, pretty much without exception.  This means that these individuals and companies have access to and take advantage of the very best lawyers and accountants so as to maximize their "investments" in these franchises.  Not too surprisingly, when you are use to getting your way, you pretty much are not interested in any obstacles that will negatively impact your assets.

The thing about sports is that you have the actual sports franchise, the stadium or arena for the events, ticket sales to the actual games, along with television and radio access to them, to which all of these things when integrated together create synergy and that synergy helps to create or to improve cash allocation and to increase net worth.  There are very large media companies that have owned sports franchise such as Disney and Comcast, as well as individuals that have owned their own teams along with their own network, such as Turner Broadcasting, in addition to sweetheart deals that have been constructed for sports owners and the actual stadiums that are built for their team to play in, such as Jerry Jones and the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

The bottom line for sports ownership is that in one way or another, no matter how it is structured, they have an abiding interest in seeing that they as owners benefit the most, while sticking taxpayers and assorted governmental sycophants with subsidizing their grandiose dreams.  For sports owners, it is all about having total control or the abiding influence of the product that they are peddling to the public so that they can maximize their revenue while sticking others with responsibilities that don't negatively impact them, so if a stadium is built to house a particular sports franchise at taxpayer's expense, owners are wont to re-negotiate contracts in such a manner so as to benefit them, lest they find a better deal elsewhere, and thereby stick the taxpayers with a "white elephant" and unserviceable debt.

The sports owners know that a symbiotic, partnership, or ownership relationship with a leading media company, allows them to control the product for their benefit.  That is to say, when a media company has a vested interest in certain sports franchises this fundamentally means better and more complete exposure of that team, maximum control of content distributed throughout all media channels, so that dissenting views are never allowed the light of day, and the ability to apply leverage on advertisers of all sorts for the betterment of the sports owner/media company.

The franchise of the sports owner doesn't belong to the city, it belongs to the owner of such, which is why stadium and arena deals are often structured so poorly for taxpayers and are so beneficial to the actual owners of the team.  The media outlets need product, which in conjunction with the sports owner they are able to integrate in such a manner so as to benefit both parties, by having exclusivity to each other, and thereby freezing out of the market territorial upstarts.  This means for a fan that the control of your favorite local team is never in your hands, but that instead the content is brought to you as one carefully designed, slickly produced, and wholly integrated product, to which, the public relations of it all is to sucker you into believing that the product being displayed is your team, when in fact, that is the very last thing that it is.

Should you flush the Toilet every time that you urinate?

In an era in which we should show more consideration for our environment and the resources that we use, the flushing of our toilets each and every time that we use them seems to be both a waste of water as well as adding to the overall burden and expense of sewage. While there is something quite valid to be said about sanitation and cleanliness, the mere fact that we choose not to flush every time that we urinate, especially in regards to toilets that are not typically available to guests, or other people roaming around the house, seems sensible, and except for the possible odor or staining issues, seems practical. 

From an economic standpoint, the less water that your household uses, the less of an expense that you will have in paying your water bill, in addition, the less wastewater that you create, the more efficiently that you treat the environment, so that if you can overcome the possible issues of grossness or nastiness, the fact that you don't always flush after you urinate and/or make it policy to flush just once a day for your urination is beneficial both for your pocketbook as well as the environment.

The fact of the matter is that water is a resource, of which good and plentiful water is not always readily available to the public, as a significant amount of communities will have drought or drought-like conditions from time-to-time so that those that make adjustments in their lifestyle that really are relatively minor, should go ahead and do so, including when it comes to toilet habits.

Now it could be for certain people, that no matter how you address the issue, they simply find that each and every time that they urinate in the toilet, that they must flush, that is fine for what it is, somewhat understandable, so that perhaps while you may not be able to save water in that situation, perhaps there may be another area of savings that can be made that is agreeable to both parties.

The non-flushing of the toilet after urination, is one of those things that some people may never warm up to, unless under the most dire of circumstances, perhaps that is the way it should be, although logically one would expect to see some flexibility on the issue, such as, for instance, being able to urinate at night without flushing, and then upon the morning activities, taking care to flush at that time, as obviously a little bit of savings, beats absolutely no savings at all.

So the flushing of the toilet for urination, really comes down to individual and/or family preference, to which it must be added that the act of flushing really does use a resource, and that resource is neither free nor without capacity/maintenance upkeep or issues.  This means that this is a reasonable issue to have a discussion on, to which, some will be more amendable to it, than others.

Settling a Credit Card Debt--the Upside and Downside

In today's economy there are a multitude of jobs that just don't pay a real good salary to begin with, couple that with the inevitable problems that will crop up, such as car or medical issues, or an unexpected lay-off or termination, and people's budgets that were once tight and barely manageable, revert to unsustainable, and thereby unable to service debt for credit cards.  This means, that there are millions of Americans that fall behind on their credit card bills and become delinquent on them, each and every year, to which some of these people are eventually able to right the ship and make good on their credit card bills, whereas many others simply sink under a sea of debt, and have their credit card accounts closed, their credit rating decimated, and still be on the hook for their credit card debt, credit card interest, and credit card penalties.

The thing is, circumstances do change, and financial situations can improve, so that some people that were unable to make credit card payments find later on, that though their monetary circumstances while not robust, have improved to the point to which they can address past due credit card debts.  However, for most people, by the time this occurs, their credit card debt has been processed and sold at a discount to a "professional "debt collector so that now the consumer no longer owes their debt to the original issuer of such, but to a debt collector, that specializes in buying consumer debt at a low price, and applying pressure as well as the legal means to collect from debtors the full amount.

A given debt collector will try all sorts of means to collect on the debt, and not just limited to harassing phone calls or letters, they are quite adept at using legal means, such as the courts, to request and get rendered judgments against the debtor, in the hopes of ultimately placing a lien or garnishment upon your wages, or your home, and so forth.  Of course, in America, there are two sides to every story, to which every debtor, no matter how bleak the situation appears to be, must avail themselves of fighting back against the debtor by writing, or in court, or essentially by any means necessary, because if you do not do so, your rights will atrophy, and basically the court will rule against you, if you fail to assert your consumer rights.

While debt collectors strongly prefer for you to give in to their demands and/or ignore their court summons, they do respect a debtor that fights back and asserts their rights, so that, in these types of situations, they will look to mediate the debt amount in question with you.  Not too surprisingly, the absolute best and cleanest way for a debtor to settle is to do so at a reduced amount of the total debt, with payment for that amount made in full, so that all of the paperwork reflects that the debt is satisfied and closed at that point of time.

However, typically, most people do not have that extra sum of money sitting in their pockets, so that the next best thing to do is to settle your debt at a reduced amount, with a payment plan which is agreed upon by both parties.  While the basic terms of that settlement plan are usually quite straightforward, such as a payment of $50/month for 24 months, there is a very important caveat that debtors need to pay attention to which is that the debt collector representative is either a lawyer himself, or has standard boilerplate paperwork drawn up by a lawyer and it is those extra terms and conditions that can create significant havoc in your financial life, so that if you fail to meet your payment terms, this will legally create an avenue for the debt collector to collect the full amount of the debt, with penalties, against you, and thereby also gives the debt collector the legal power to place a lien or garnishment against you.

This essentially means, that when you settle a credit card debt at a discount with a debt collector, you as a debtor want to be very sure that you can fulfill your obligations to this legal contract as agreed upon, or else your situation will be appreciably worst than what it was when you first began the settlement negotiations to begin with.