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Apparently this series of videos has been around, but being the culturally deprived sort that I am I've only just found them...



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Pretty sure we’ll see this one before SCOTUS

The full story, - Published Saturday by the Associated Press, may be found at: ACLU considers lawsuit in small-town flag dispute

The history of improper use or destruction of the U.S. flag to protest perceived injustices, and the misbegotten deeds of the authorities in reaction to the offensive but completely legal action is long and checkered. Looks like we’ve opened another can of worms with this Wisconsin case.

WAUSAU, Wis. -- An American flag flown upside down as a protest in a northern Wisconsin village was seized by police before a Fourth of July parade and the businessman who flew it -- an Iraq war veteran -- claims the officers trespassed and stole his property.

As could be expected, the Wisconsin branch of the American Civil Liberties Union is pondering legal action against the little (population 1,000) berg of Crivitz for violating Vito Congine Jr.'s' First Amendment right of free expression. ACLU Executive Director Chris Ahmuty says, "It is not often that you see something this blatant."

This all started about a month ago when the 46-year-old Congine (pronounced kon-JEE-nee) hoisted his flag upside down outside the restaurant he wants to open in the village. An inverted flag is, by tradition, an accepted way to signal distress. Congine’s distress, so he claims, is the potential of bankruptcy due to the village board’s refusal to grant him a liquor license after he spent nearly $200,000 to buy and remodel a downtown building for an Italian supper club.

Others in the village did not take to his protest as he must have hoped, and just hours before the town’s Fourth of July parade, as neighbors watched, four police officers entered the property and removed the flag. One neighbor Steven Klein, could not believe what he was seeing. He asked them, "What are you doing?", but they told him "It is none of your business." The cops returned the flag the next day, and Congine promptly hoisted it upside down again.

Marinette County District Attorney Allen Brey, on whose advice the cops took the flag, declined comment. Marinette County Sheriff Jim Kanikula said it was not illegal to fly the flag upside down but people were upset and it was the Fourth of July. "It is illegal to cause a disruption," he said. Village President John Deschane, age 60 and an Army veteran who served in Vietnam, called Congine’s actions “disrespectful,” and said "If he wants to protest, let him protest but find a different way to do it.”

For his part, Congine, a Marine veteran of Desert Storm, intends to keep flying the flag upside down. "It is pretty bad when I go and fight a tyrannical government somewhere else," Congine said, "and then I come home to find it right here at my front door."

Poor taste and ignorance of tradition are not violations of law, but neither do they negate individual, constitutional rights. The village's action was wrong, and SCOTUS will likely see this case in the future.

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…an emphatically Christian government

Article 7, Section 1 of the Texas Constitution states:

"A general diffusion of knowledge being essential to the preservation of the liberties and rights of the people, it shall be the duty of the Legislature of the State to establish and make suitable provision for the support and maintenance of an efficient system of public free schools."

Thus we have the Texas State Board of Education, with the constitutional mission of establishing suitable schools for Texas children. Unfortunately, our current Governor, secessionist Rick Perry, has spent the past nine years ensuring that our State Board of Ignorance [HT] meets the lofty, theocratic standards of the Christian Right, and the knowledge diffused to Texas school kids is subjected to a “Biblical litmus test”.

Credit for the title of this post goes to TxSBOE board member Cynthia Nowland Dunbar, a conservative Republican elected from a district that stretches from just outside of Houston all the way up to Austin. The Biblical litmus test quote is hers too. Both come from her book, One Nation Under God: How the Left is Trying to Erase What Made Us Great, in which she argues that our founders created “an emphatically Christian government” and that government should be guided by a “biblical litmus test.” Her book campaigns for a belief system in which “any person desiring to govern have a sincere knowledge and appreciation for the Word of God in order to rightly govern.”

Good stuff, huh? And the book is chock full of entertaining little ditties. For instance, I found it interesting that a Board of Education member would refer to public education as a “subtly deceptive tool of perversion.” Dunbar, who home schooled her own children, calls the establishment of public schools unconstitutional and “tyrannical,” because public schooling threatens the authority of families, granted by God through Scripture, to direct the instruction of their children. All of this is very curious, since the TxSBOE was established under constitutional authority.

The book is not Dunbar’s first literary effort. She has dropped several piles in the past. Last year during the Presidential campaign, she unleashed an online tirade repeating, among other misguided opinions, the stier ausscheidung that Obama was a terrorist sympathizer. Her ignorance and extremism come honestly though. You see, she is a graduate of Pat Robertson’s Regents University law school.

Now, gentle reader, I suspect you are asking why I rant so about this obviously misguided woman and her baffling beliefs. Well… until today she was rumored to be the top candidate to replace Don McLeroy, another extremist whose gubernatorial reappointment to the Chair of the TxSBOE was blocked by the Texas State Senate. After McLeroy was shot down, the pundits predicted Dunbar to be the next duck in the shooting gallery.

Not to worry though, because had Governor Goodhair been so arrogant I’m pretty confident the Senate would have been sensible enough to see through the smoke, and she would have been shot down. Even our normally wingnut legislature would have to wonder how a person who is bent on dismantling our public school system should be allowed to chair the body entrusted with advancing public education. Perry likely doesn’t have the good sense to understand this, so his advisors must have given him a clue.

And thus Perry has appointed Gail Lowe, R-Lampasas. To many, myself included, this will be no better. Lowe is another social conservative right wingnut Christian of the same stripe as Dunbar, but she is on the quiet side and little more than a follower. Honestly, she is a political milksop who will go with the right wingnut flow, following directions like a good little sheep.

Texas is little better with Lowe wearing the badge than if McLeroy had been reconfirmed last year, or Dunbar appointed in his stead. Last September Lowe was marching in lockstep with the Republican theocracy crowd, signing and distributing an email encouraging public schools to use the disputed Bible curriculum in science classes; one which legal experts predicted would land them in court.

"It's absolutely jaw-dropping," said Mark Chancey, a professor of religious studies at Southern Methodist University, speaking of the e-mail circulated by board members Terri Leo, R-Spring, Barbara Cargill, R-The Woodlands, Cynthia Dunbar, R-Richmond, and Gail Lowe, R-Lampasas. "It would be challenging for any school district to teach a Bible course in a way that satisfied all its constituencies, but this particular course is especially troubling.”

Texas is in the same deep doo doo as much of the rest of the country when it comes to this kind of actions. Science is holding on, but only by the sheerest of threads. The Christian right marches on and the forces of ignorance have not rested in their efforts to subjugate the citizens of this country under a Christian theocracy. Their goal is to chain us to Biblical law; science be damned.

The lure of the dark side must be powerful and the mental fog created by the faithful blinding, as electronic communications have made the world a smaller place and knowledge of dreadful acts perpetuated by theocratic dictatorships is forever in our faces. We must wonder how the theocrats fail to see the folly in such ideas. One has only to look at the Islamic theocracies in the Middle East and Africa to understand the danger.

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Road trip pics

jeg43 asked that I post photos of my recent road trip. Riding and aiming a camera don't mix, and it was raining much of the time, so I really didn't take a bunch, but here are a few and a little commentary.

I'll start out with a map...

This is the area I traveled. Although I've spent many an enjoyable hour exploring much of Colorado by scooter, 4-wheel drive and sitting a saddle, it has been several years since I've done so. This was a much needed trip, and I'll not let time slip by again before taking similar trips.


The brother's house in Boulder. Notice the "for sale" sign in the yard. A sad sight for me, as I remember when he first bought the place (1969) and the time we spent wrecking out the old plaster and lath getting it ready to be restored. It was hard but rewarding work, and as you can see... the place is spectacular.


It rained all but one day of my trip, but rain is not always a bad thing. This double rainbow was shot over Boulder.


This is a view of Mt. Meeker taken from out in the Front Range farming areas. Views like this are particularly spectacular at sunrise on a clear day. Unfortunately I had only one clear day, and as you can see, it was still hazy.

I wonder if the farmers ever look up from their fields and wonder at the majesty of the Rockies.

Mt. Meeker from a bit closer in, taken with 4X zoom from the Peak to Peak Hwy.


Boulder Creek just below Boulder Falls. In my youth we would tube all the way from the falls into downtown Boulder. As you can see, it could be challenging... and painful if you were unlucky enough to bust a tailbone on one of those rocks.


The Cascade Creek was one of my more favored places for hiking and camping. Recent rains have kept the creek flowing, but light winter snows may lead to the creek drying up as summer wears on.


Just above Lyons, Colorado. Long's Peak is visible in the distance.


Long's Peak through the trees.

At 14,255 above sea level, Long's Peak is a pretty majestic sight. Many moons ago, while taking pilot lessons, I had the opportunity to fly over Long's Peak in a Cessna 270.


The Stanley Hotel was built in 1909 by F.O. Stanley, the inventor of the Stanley Steamer automobile. Stanley had tuberculosis, and his physician recommended he go to someplace high and dry. He and his wife settled on Estes Park as a vacation spot in an effort to ease his misery. It worked. His health improved and they decided to stay and invest in Estes Park's future.


The northern Front Range as seen from in front of the Stanley Hotel, Estes Park.

Fuel prices at the least expensive station I could find in Estes Park.

The Big Thompson River flows through the Big Thompson Canyon (duh). This is the river that flooded back in July of 1976, wreaking havoc and killing 144 people. Up to 16 inches of rain fell in a dramatic thunderstorm that started at dusk and continued well into the night. Most residents had no warning of the impending disaster, and nothing like it had happened in that area before.

The flood nearly wiped Estes Park off the map. It scoured the canyon walls, moving tremendous amounts of rock and debris downriver, overrunning crowded campgrounds and wiping out riverside cabins. Bridges throughout the canyon became temporary dams, which quickly backed up then broke violently, creating a series of flood surges that worsened the devastation. Houses and cars all just became a part of this "flow."




The vast majority of those killed were determined by the county coroner to have been crushed before they could drown. Several victims were never found.

The Big Thompson flood is known to flood experts all over the world. Although it is considered to be a rare event, if such a flood were to hit Boulder the results would likely be far more devastating, as so many more people live at the mouth of that canyon.

My brother and I participated in the rescue efforts. This was perhaps the event that caused me to enter EMS as a career.
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Independence Day post redux

I am so uncultured. How was I to know that the Penn & Teller video I linked to yesterday had roots in popular television. Here, apparently, is the origin of the act.



You gotta love it...
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My Independence Day blog

Lots of bloggers have done really spectacular posts on the meaning of today. I fear I am not eloquent enough to compete, but then I found this wonderful video on You Tube by Penn and Teller. I only wish I was so talented and could present my feelings so eloquently.

Happy and joyful Independence day, y'all. Love what you have... cherish it and protect it. Few in the world are so fortunate.

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A gal named Becky...

Becky writes one of my favorite blogs. JUST A GIRL IN SHORT SHORTS TALKING ABOUT WHATEVER. If you don't read her, you should.

My more liberal friends may find much with which to disagree on Becky's blog, but for myself... I only find some with which to disagree. She is conservative/libertarian while I am liberal/libertarian.

Go figure.

Anyway, she has written a most wonderful piece on the state of dumbness in America. This is a piece that would make Carl Sagan weep. I'll reproduce it verbatim here, but you really must visit her blog to see the artwork with which she has decorated the piece. The artwork makes a good post even better.

The Dumbing Down of America.

During the presidential campaign Barack Obama would often use a catch phrase to rebut McCain and Republican talking points--- “the American People aren't stupid.”

I am sure Barack Obama is quite aware that is not true at all—Americans are dumber than dirt and susceptible to all kinds of manipulation--- whether it is the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, or that it is somehow possible to drastically increase federal spending and reduce the crushing national deficit at the same time.

The Goldwater Institute commissioned a study to find out if recent Arizona high school graduates had the requisite knowledge expected of naturalized American citizens. The result was that, except for the fortuitous circumstance of having been born on American soil, only 6.4% of public high school graduates would be entitled to the benefits of American citizenship.

Most of these scholars were unable to identify the first president of the United States, or the name of the Ocean located on the East coast of America.

When I was young and naive I used to think there had to be an explanation for Jay Leno's “Man on the Street” shtick. I always thought the participants were nervous, intentionally attempting to get their thirty seconds of fame on the Tonight Show, or that one of Jay's producers passed them a couple bucks.

But the explanation is much simpler—America is the land of the dumb and dumber.

Americans are much better versed in the composition of the Homer Simpson family than they are with the Constitution.

A study found that about 1 in 4 Americans can name more than one of the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment (freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly and petition for redress of grievances). But more than half of Americans can name at least two members of the cartoon family.

They found that 22 percent of Americans could name all five Simpson family members, compared with just 1 in 1,000 people who could name all five First Amendment freedoms.

Europeans have long joked that "War is God's way of teaching Americans geography.”

But it was not until the advent of modern scientific polling that it has become clear what spectacular dumbasses we really are—and how rapidly we are becoming even dumber.

In a book, called Just How Stupid are We?, destined to never become a bestseller, historian Rick Shenkman stares into the deep abyss of American Ignorance and directly confronts the continued legitimacy of the cherished notion of the wisdom of the people.

And the sad thing is while there is greater participatory democracy, and unprecedented access to information, as a society we are getting dumber and dumber.

As the American voter dumbs down they are increasingly misusing, abusing, and
abdicating their political power.

The end result is the erosion of freedom and liberty, and everything that made America special. Since we are so stupid and uniformed we are increasingly willing to hand over all decision making and power to the federal government and it's apparatchiks.

Indeed, nearly half of Americans think that the president has the authority to suspend the Constitution.

In the end dumb dumbs get what they deserve—tyranny.

As Thomas Jefferson observed:

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."

Becky has it straight. I deal with kids daily who cannot spell and haven't a clue about grammar. Ask them about recent news and they get a glazed over look.

They know Al Franken, but couldn't identify Norm Coleman... and they wonder why you would put the two in the same question. They probably recognize the name of the country, but couldn't find Afghanistan on the map.

The untimely death of Michael Jackson is the only current news they know or care about.

What is most unfortunate is that many of the ignorant have ascended to seats of political power, and those of us who actually read and pay attention to the news see and recognize the disturbing inconsistencies these dumb asses spout. The dumb and dumber in the electorate don't, and are fooled by the shrillness of the fear machine into reelecting the idiots time and again.

... and the sheep have not a clue just how dangerous that is.

Go read Becky's blog. Take my word for it. You will love this gal.
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