Ivory Dome

We’ve got plenty of energy in America. What we don’t have are statesmen willing to let the free market here capture it, process it and sell it.

Instead of wisely utilizing our abundant energy, America has been strangled by various federal government bureaucracies, untold reams of burdensome government regulations and counterproductive policies, corrupt environmental special interest groups, and professional politicians who will bend whichever way the prevailing political winds blow.

These are the reasons America hasn’t built a new oil refinery or new nuclear reactor in thirty or so years. Instead, as billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens accurately stated the other day, we are transferring hundreds of billions of our national treasury to other nations. Even to our enemies. Truly bizarre.

Call me crazy, but I thought the goal of America was to be independent. It’s time to call a spade a spade. We are energy slaves to lesser countries. They own us. And unless we resurrect that unstoppable, mighty spirit of rugged independent individualism of our forefathers and throw off the energy shackles, these nations can permanently cripple, if not kill, our economy. The situation is that grave.

I’m not concerned whatsoever that America doesn’t have vast reserves of ingenuity, entrepreneurship, and intellectual capital that could make us energy independent. My concern is that we have become so reliant and dependent on Fedzilla (aka the US government) to solve all of our problems that we will once again rely on the bureaucratic blob in DC to solve this problem, too. That could be a career ending injury.  more

Some of you might have seen this e-mail going around in various re-incarnations. Read on and decide for your self if fact or fiction.

Talk about putting your most valuable where your mouth is! Apparently this was not “newsworthy” enough for the media to comment about. Can either of the other presidential candidates truthfully come close to this? … Just a question for each of us to seek an answer, and not a statement.

You see…character is what’s shown when the public is not looking. There were no cameras or press invited to what you are about to read about, and the story comes from one person in New Hampshire.

One evening last July, Senator John McCain of Arizona arrived at the New Hampshire home of Erin Flanagan for sandwiches, chocolate-chip cookies and a heartfelt talk about Iraq. They had met at a presidential debate, when she asked the candidates what they would do to bring home American soldiers -soldiers like her brother, who had been killed in action a few months earlier.

Mr. McCain did not bring cameras or press. Instead, he brought his youngest son, James McCain, 19, then a private first class in the Marine Corps about to leave for Iraq. Father and son sat down to hear more about Ms. Flanagan’s brother Michael Cleary, a 24-year-old Army First Lieutenant killed by an ambush … a roadside bomb.

No one mentioned the obvious: In just days, Jimmy McCain could face similar perils. ‘I can’t imagine what it must have been like for them as they were coming to meet with a family that ……’ Ms. Flanagan recalled, choking up. ‘We lost a dear one,’ she finished.

Mr. McCain, now the presumptive Republican nominee, has staked his candidacy on the promise that American troops can bring stability to Iraq. What he almost never says is that one of them is his own son, who spent seven months patrolling Anbar Province and learned of his father’s New Hampshire victory in January while he was digging a stuck military vehicle out of the mud.

Two of Jimmy’s three older brothers went into the military. Doug McCain,
48, was a Navy pilot. Jack McCain, 21, is to graduate from the Naval Academy next year, raising the chances that his father, if elected, could become the first president since Dwight D. Eisenhower with a son at war.

I chose to share this with those who I believe will pass it on, to others who will pass it on. We hear so much inflated trash out there. How about a simple act of kindness … and dedication to others placed above oneself?

Has anybody heard if Barack Hussein Obama has served in The American Armed Services?

This is for all you Barack voters.

From Barack’s book, Audacity of Hope:

“I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.”

HE DID NOT SAY STAND WITH AMERICANS!!!!!

Every word about McCain and his sons are true and can be verified.

But truth or fiction, snopes and other sources say Obama’s words in this e-mail are false or fail to mention the Obama part at all.

Here is what Obama actually said in his book with the critical parts highlighted by me, and one addition made in brackets;

“Of course, not all my conversations in immigrant communities follow this easy pattern. In the wake of 9/11, my meetings with Arab and Pakistani Americans, [Muslims] for example, have a more urgent quality, for the stories of detentions and FBI questioning and hard stares from neighbors have shaken their sense of security and belonging. They have been reminded that the history of immigration in this country has a dark underbelly; they need specific assurances that their citizenship really means something, that America has learned the right lessons from the Japanese internments during World War II, and that I will stand with them should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.”

Every one can make their own decision, and his words were condensed to the essentials and slightly modified in the e-mail, but to me it looks like the quote about Obama in the chain e-mail is true. Dead on the money.

Whatever you believe about what Obama said and what his intent was, it is fact that one of McCain’s son’s has served in Anbar Iraq, and another may soon serve. He more than most alive today can tell you about the brutality of war. He and one of his sons have served in a real and dirty shooting war and another may soon follow. His other son much older also served his country. Only one has not served.

You can bet your booties Obama’s daughters will never serve.

And one more thing. Wesly Clark, your a freaking traitorus idiot. Not worthy of the sacrificies made by present and past American servicemen. Here’s hoping you join Ted Kennedy on his very short trip to hell.

Read the history of a real man Clark your little more than a POS compared to him.

Vietnam

In June of 1967, McCain (by then a lieutenant commander) set out for Vietnam from Norfolk, Virginia aboard the USS Forrestal. The carrier was in the Gulf of Tonkin on July 29, its crew preparing for the second launch of the fifth day of striking enemy targets in North Vietnam, when one of its own bombs detonated on deck. McCain narrowly escaped the resulting conflagration that killed 132 crewmen, with two others missing and presumed dead, and injured 62 more. It was one of the worst military accidents of the war.

A little less than three months later, on October 26, McCain was making his 23rd bombing mission over North Vietnam when his plane was hit by an antiaircraft missile. Forced to eject, breaking both arms and a leg in the process, he landed in a lake near Hanoi and was captured. He spent the next five and a half years as a prisoner of war (POW) at the sarcastically nicknamed “Hanoi Hilton.”

Injured and ill, McCain was denied medical assistance until his captors learned that he was an admiral’s son, and even then treatment was rudimentary. His father’s position also prompted the North Vietnamese to offer him early release in June of 1968. McCain refused, as the U.S. Military Code of Conduct required that prisoners accept release on a first in/first out basis, and there were more than 100 POWs ahead of him. His refusal resulted in a round of torture that included knocking his teeth out, hanging him by his broken arms, and beating him almost around the clock for a week. Although the abuse never succeeded in convincing McCain to accept early release, he did break down and sign a confession that he was a “black criminal” and an “air pirate.” The shame of the confession led McCain to contemplate suicide at the time, and stayed with him years after the fact. “The only thing I can say is that the code says you will resist to the best of your ability,” he told Pierce in 1998. “But I failed myself. I failed my fellow prisoners. I failed my family, and I failed my country. Is there anybody else?” Most did not judge McCain as harshly as he judged himself; many, indeed, found his ongoing determination to remain in prison heroic. He was finally released on March 14, 1973, and returned home with a Silver Star, Bronze Star, Legion of Merit, Purple Heart, and the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Source.

Probably not. Anyone who has seen the Ken Burns special on the civil war, providing they have at least one brain cell would have to be impressed with grandeur, and scope he detailed concerning the greatest tragedy to ever befall this nation.

While all of the documentary was impressive, the one thing that caught my attention the most was the absolutely beautiful, almost poetic letters wrote by the men from both sides of that ugly conflict, to their loved ones back home. And what made these letters even more impressive to me, was the fact that these were not letters just from officers, and others who would have been highly educated, but mostly from the enlisted men in the trenches. Just kids really straight from the farms and ranches and polluted cities of that time.

It was hard to believe that so long ago the writings and vocabularies, of these troops exceeded almost everything wrote today. Their ability to communicate such vivid and emotional experiences through words was amazing.

Well today I stumbled across something that explains why. I frequently comment on the poor quality of education today. I point out the dumbing down of lessons, so that they more closely match the dumbest of students.  A multi-cult effort that makes all feel equal. I often compare today’s school system and the resulting near morons being turned out on the streets, the day they finish being pushed through the 12th grade, to what and how I was taught in school over 35 years ago. But after reading what I’m about to post I realize that even in my time the dumbing down process had already begun.

This is the eighth-grade final exam* from 1895 from Salina, Kansas. It was taken
from the original document on file at the Smoky Valley Genealogical Society and Library in Salina, Kansas and reprinted by the Salina Journal.

Grammar (Time, one hour)
1. Give nine rules for the use of Capital Letters.

2. Name the Parts of Speech and define those that have no modifications.

3. Define Verse, Stanza and Paragraph.

4. What are the Principal Parts of a verb? Give Principal Parts of do, lie, lay and run.

5. Define Case, Illustrate each Case.

6. What is Punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of Punctuation.

7-10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.
Arithmetic (Time, 1.25 hours)

1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.

2. A wagon box is 2 ft. deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?

3. If a load of wheat weighs 3942 lbs., what is it worth at 50cts. per bu, deducting 1050 lbs. for tare?

4. District No. 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?

5. Find cost of 6720 lbs. coal at $6.00 per ton.

6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.

7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft. long at $.20 per inch?

8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.

9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance around which is 640 rods?

10.Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt.

U.S. History (Time, 45 minutes)
1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided.

2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus.

3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.

4. Show the territorial growth of the United States.

5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas.

6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.

7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton, Bell, Lincoln, Penn, and Howe?

8. Name events connected with the following dates: 1607, 1620, 1800, 1849, and 1865?
Orthography (Time, one hour)

1. What is meant by the following: Alphabet, phonetic orthography, etymology, syllabication?

2. What are elementary sounds? How classified?

3. What are the following, and give examples of each: Trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals?

4. Give four substitutes for caret ‘u’.

5. Give two rules for spelling words with final ‘e’. Name two exceptions under each rule.

6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each.

7. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word: Bi, dis, mis, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono, super.

8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and name the sign that indicates the sound: Card, ball, mercy, sir, odd, cell, rise, blood, fare, last.

9. Use the following correctly in sentences, Cite, site, sight, fane, fain, feign, vane, vain, vein, raze, raise, rays.

10.Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation by use of diacritical marks and by syllabication.

Geography (Time, one hour)
1. What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?

2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas?

3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?

4. Describe the mountains of N.A.

5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia, Odessa, Denver, Manitoba, Hecla, Yukon, St. Helena, Juan Fermandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco.

6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S.

7. Name all the republics of Europe and give capital of each.

8. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same latitude?

9. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to the sources of rivers.

10.Describe the movements of the earth. Give inclination of the earth.

The top of the test states > “EXAMINATION GRADUATION QUESTIONS OF SALINE COUNTY, KANSAS
April 13, 1895 J.W.Armstrong, County Superintendent.Examinations at Salina, New Cambria, Gypsum City, Assaria, Falun, Bavaria, and District No. 74 (in Glendale Twp.)”

According to the Smoky Valley Genealogy Society, Salina, Kansas “this test is the original eighth-grade final exam for 1895 from Salina, KS. An interesting note is the fact that the county students taking this test were allowed to take the test in the 7th grade, and if they did not pass the test at that time, they were allowed to re-take it again in the 8th grade.”

Reference here and here. This is a massive collection of articles on the condition of todays schools and the increasingly socialist Government.