News 2010:

Miss you, Shadow!

My buddy Shadow and I are at the top of North Pack several years ago...
Sadly, Shadow is no longer with us, leaving us in late 2010
at 15 years 4 months of age.
 

• Fell Through The Cracks!  This one has been out on the site for a while but not hooked up to anything!  Enjoy the "Ten Years of MONEYPIT" video.

• The Glimmer Room releases "I Remain".  Andy C. decided to get back a little to TGR's roots.
  
  Have a listen: Click www.theglimmerroom.co.uk and go to the Listen page
  CD and Download:  www.a-framemedia.co.uk, www.downloadplatform.com/aframe_media

• March:

  The US:  100 Years in the Breaking...

  Establishment of the Federal Reserve...Federal income tax (that some say was never properly ratified)...The New Deal...Making hard currency illegal and forcing fiat currency on the country..."Police Actions" (undeclared wars), foreign aid, and endlessly "forgiven" foreign loans...Social Security...Medicare/Medicaid...Amnesty I, Amnesty II...Freddie/Fannie...Strong-arming banks into making bad loans, then bailing out the banks that failed as a result...Artificial tinkering of interest rates (helped cause the housing bubble)...Endless "apologizing" for the United States...Buyout of the American auto industry, including snubbing the bondholders of those companies...TARP...ARRA...A 3000-page health care bill that includes government takeover of student loans (!!??) and expansion of the IRS (the US Government's thugs), passed against the will of the people using arm twisting, lies, and bribes...And soon:  Amnesty III, Cap and Trade...along with plenty of noise about other things soon to be proposed that will affect the economy, jobs, personal freedom, and the ability to actually keep what you earn. Did all of these things put into place over the last 100 years in the US achieve the desired result?  Or did these things benefit some people in terms of power or wealth at your expense? National Debt:  Growing, cannot be paid back without extreme and painful measures. Unemployment:  Not really falling, is it, despite billions of dollars spent on "recovery acts" and "jobs bills".  Wasn't unemployment supposed to stop at 8%? Dollar:  Tanked.  Could that be because it's backed by nothing but the word of the US government? Receivers vs. Producers:  Those with no skin in the game who receive government benefits without adding to the wealth of the country is about 50% and rising. Businesses:  Jobs moving overseas, including non-manufacturing jobs.  Even the IRS subbed out to overseas companies!  Companies like Caterpillar, AT&T, and more are now computing how much "Health Care Reform" will cost and have started to notify employees (who were happy with their insurance before) how much their benefits will be slashed. The People of the US:  Pretty well divided right now along economic lines but even more along the lines of what it means to be an American in a traditional sense vs. what the country has become and is moving toward.  Freedom eroded, burdens increased. The Outlook:  Right now the model is unsustainable in an economic sense.  A rising tide raises all boats.  Taking buckets of water from one side of the bay and dumping them in the other side of the bay (what the government does) will not raise any boats, and evaporation means it cannot go on forever.   AMERICA IS NOT ABOUT "REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH", BAUCUS! Senator Max Baucus (D-Montana) declared that part of "Health Care Reform" was to shift wealth from the upper to lower classes because the wealthy are apparently too wealthy.  Even though 20% of the people in the US (those "wealthy" people) pay 90% of the taxes and deserve relief, apparently that isn't "fair", so their burden will be increased.  This is the very definition of Marxism! The United States is about "equal opportunity":  using your own skills, brains, cleverness, guts, and determination to find opportunities to improve your life and your community.  If you fail, you fail, and you get up and try again.  Success is rewarded, and everyone benefits.  Failure is respected and learned from--"do it better".  And people get behind you and help the underdog in this country and want you to do well!  Those who believe in "equal opportunity" want EVERYONE to succeed. However today's politicians seem to think it's all about "equal result".  In this twisted state of affairs, if you build a business and create wealth, or if you contribute to a successful effort and make a salary, you must give that up to people who are not as successful (or those who just sat at home and did nothing).  There is no incentive to create wealth and as a result create jobs that benefit ALL.  So much for the rising tide raising all boats.  It seems the "equal result" they are going for is equal poverty--except for those "more equal than others":  those who run the show.  Rather Orwellian, isn't it? The animosity created by the forced "equal result" has already caused a stir among those who still believe in the Constitution.  This will only grow. What to do? BECOME EDUCATED.  BECOME ACTIVE.  SPEAK OUT.  VOTE.  If you don't, someone else will do it for you, and you've already seen the results. Downsize DC * The Libertarian Party * Americans for Limited Government The Natural Truth of Michael Graham * Free State Project Use Downsize DC and Americans for Limited Government as a quick ways to contact your rep and senators--get the e-mail newsletters from those sites.  Michael Graham's humor will keep you sane (mostly).  The Libertarian Party is "The Party of Principle"---the principles of America's Founding Fathers.  The Free State Project is keeping thousands of liberty-minded families in touch as they move to New Hampshire to keep that state free.

  
   

• February: 
  Further down the rabbit hole.  Our employees (Senators, Representatives) voted to put an additional burden of tens of thousands of dollars onto all of us, their employers, by raising the national debt ceiling and putting the United Socialist States of America into pretty much unrecoverable debt.  Meanwhile it was revealed how the private sector has lost millions of jobs yet the federal government payroll has grown as the debt was rising...with part of that debt going, yep, to "jobs programs" (government "jobs" are unsustainable and do not mean economic growth).
   

• January:
  President Obama continues to make us smell what he's cooking.  During Obama's first State of the Union political stump, those in the United Socialist States of America were greeted with themes of punishing banks, taxing producers, the touting of successful "stimulus plans" (that have been failures), assurances of executive orders being passed to just get things done, extreme pressure to pass "health care reform" and the massive carbon tax ("cap and trade"), government hand-outs for "alternative energy" (ethanol subsidies, anyone?), and doing something about deficit spending (next year, not this year).  This sorry hour of world-wide prime time was topped off by a direct attack on a proper Constitutional decision by the Supreme Court, seated directly in front of Obama's pulpit.
  
  The only reason Obama even bothered to mention the middle class at all in his speech was how burned the Dems got in Massachusetts.  "Hey, wait a second...those voters are angry, and they actually replaced Democrat fixture Ted 'I never met a tax I didn't like' 'Hasta la victoria!' Kennedy with a <<cough, cough>> Republican?"
  
  Democrats lose...In Massachusetts?  Democrat Martha Coakley ran such a poor, negative campaign that she lost out to Republican challenger Scott Brown in the bid to fill "Ted Kennedy's" Senate seat...or "The People's Seat", as Brown correctly stated.  This has been a shock to the Democrats as they now seek to backpedal a little and at least attempt to hear what voters have been saying.  As if.
  
  And, no, Scott Brown is just another side of the same Republocrat/Demopublican coin.  Real hope and real change comes in the form of Small Government, not entrenched parties.