Are democrats like having a conversation with our wives?

The question came from out of the blue. While watching the ballgame, my daughter’s boyfriend hits me with the question greater than the origin of the cosmos. More puzzling than the meaning of life. Yes, that question. Understanding women. Holy impossibility Batman!

So I went with the experience angle. My wife and I have been together for 23 years now. That doesn’t happen without learning a thing or two along the way. Specifically what brought us to this point today was the fact that my daughter’s boyfriend has been trying to work out what my daughter means when she tells him he never listens to her.

Ever heard that one before boys? Yeah, most of us have all been there. He said, “she always says I never really listen to her”. I told him how I learned to look at it. You see, it isn’t that we don’t listen. And don’t ever say the big mistake. Honey, I just didn’t hear everything you said. Wrong answer! Then you will hear, “see, you only hear what you want to hear”.

Truth be told is that men involved in long-term successful marriages have learned that we don’t hear what they say. We hear what they mean. Huge difference. While we may be accused of selective hearing or not paying attention to exactly what they said, we learn to figure out over time what is really behind the words.

It then occurred to me how this describes the democrat party of today. The party of symbolism. The party of idolatry. The party of making policy based upon feelings rather than rationale. The party absent of foundational principles choosing the dynamic whims of society instead. They want you to believe in their good intentions rather than unrealistic reality.

They want you to listen to what they say, not what they mean. They are professional politicians. So are they really like my wife? Of course not, she has a soul. But I still know what she really means when she tells me I don’t really have to get her cards or flowers anymore 🙂 🙂

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Climate change you can believe in

Yes, it’s true. Not the hoax of global warming, a real climate changing event may be upon us.

Icelandic volcano could trigger Britain’s coldest winter EVER this year!

Weathermen say the effect in the UK could be nothing short of catastrophic if an explosion is strong enough

Jonathan Powell, of Vantage Weather Services, said: “There is a definite potential knock-on effect and with an eruption looking imminent, this is fairly worrying.

“Particles can also be picked up by the jet stream ands spread globally, a large amount can have a significant effect on the weather, the first could be an exceptionally cold winter this year.

“But the effects can last for many years, even decades.”

The strange thing is that global warming believers tend to blame virtually every event these days on it. Storms, droughts, rising sea levels, you name it and the fossil fuel industry is responsible for it. Yet I haven’t heard them lay claim to volcanic eruptions. You know, those pesky little things that truly do have a massive effect on the climate both short and long-term.

Just another inconvenient truth? The fact that a volcanic eruption vastly outweighs human impact on the climate? The only sure thing is that this eruption, should it be as devastating as some predict, won’t change any minds. Both sides will use it to reinforce their position.

In the meantime, invest in snow shovels.

Already bored with the ice bucket challenge? Try this bucket on for size

So the ice bucket challenge is everywhere but it’s already getting old, wouldn’t you say? Time to up the ante. People need to step up from a tiny little bucket with a few ice cubes to something a little more visually stimulating. Like this.

 

 

The Benghazi investigation is officially closed (or should be)

There are two kinds of people when it comes to investigating the Benghazi terrorist attacks of 2012. Those who want the truth and those who are playing politics. Determining what category one fits in is easy. Simply utilize the attack timeline. If their focus is the attacks themselves, the response or the aftermath, then the agenda is politically driven. If the focus is the lead up to the attacks and why they ever occurred to begin with, then the truth is the goal.

It’s why the endless charade of committee’s and reports concerning Benghazi are of little value except that of political fodder for the 2016 election. And it should come as no surprise to anyone with even a passing interest in what really happened there. Both major political parties would be indicted should the truth ever come to light. Tis why we’re highly unlikely to ever see it. Sorry to those of you holding out hope that Trey Gowdy is the guy to get it done. Not gonna happen.

That’s not to say that the GOP won’t keep it alive as valuable political points are still at stake simply by showing Obama and Clinton as inept at handling the response. But the entire explanation lies in the covert weapons/Jihadist fighter ops the U.S. had undertaken prior to the attacks. And nobody on either side of the aisle ever wants to see that truth come to light. So it will remain in the midst of conspiracy theorists.

Makes one wonder if the little people (meaning you and I) are even capable of ever wrapping our heads around the truth that it really is us against them. Party affiliation or other various intricacies that would lead one to believe that your side is behind you and really trying to root out the other side is a very functional way to do business. Most of us buy into it.

For those of you who truly see the light, bravo! Congratulations! Resisting to the end is still the best way. I don’t know if our conscience gets left behind at the grave, but I don’t want to find out the hard way if it doesn’t. You can still lead a pretty darn good life here in America just by being sheeple and going along for the ride. I certainly know quite a few people who fit that category. But I won’t be one of them.

Heed the warnings! Behold the power of lightning

If you’re like me, you probably became fascinated with lightning as a child as it was fun to count the seconds between a lightning strike and the bolt of thunder to follow. Or watching a far off storm on a summer night with its display of ‘heat’ lightning. Those were neat experiences that never seemed threatening.

I did, however, listen to my parents to get inside to shelter when the t-storms were near and the possibility existed of getting hit by lightning. I never really knew until now that even the safety of your home or your car with its rubber tire isolation may not be enough.

Recently, my mother experienced this firsthand. Her house was virtually destroyed by lightning and it wasn’t even a direct hit. Lightning struck a tree in the backyard. From there it traveled to her well and blew up the well casing. It followed the water line into the house burning the deck along the way. Siding was blown off the house with insulation strewn about.

She has heavy steel Bilco entry doors leading to her crawlspace underneath the house. Despite being shut, those were blown open. The lightning traveled under the house and blew up her well pump and furnace. The paint cans stored under the house had their lids blown off and the paint spilled all over.

It then actually ruptured the floor supports (later we found out 22 floor joists had been split) and cracked the walls and ceilings. The house had actually been moved 4 inches off the foundation. Everything was knocked off the walls and a heavy china hutch and dining room table were lifted off the floor and slammed back down breaking their legs.

My mother was standing in the kitchen when the lightning hit. She was actually lifted off the floor some inches when the floors ruptured. Luckily, she was fine physically. A neighbor had been watching as it hit and witnessed three fireballs roll across the lawn from the well and travel into the crawlspace.

The fire chief and insurance adjuster that have been out have both said they have never seen anything like it. Her home resembled being hit by an earthquake and was damaged from end to end.

Insurance will take care of the house as it has to be condemned but it could easily have been much worse if she had been standing in the wrong spot.

So make sure you take those warnings seriously. Thinking your safe in a storm by simply standing under a pavilion or overhang just isn’t true.

Which right is more important than the rest?

At the risk of alienating every reader this blog has ever had, we have to continue discussing human rights where water is concerned. In the eyes of the United Nations, water is literally at the top of that list.

In November 2002, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights adopted General Comment No. 15 on the right to water. Article I.1 states that “The human right to water is indispensable for leading a life in human dignity. It is a prerequisite for the realization of other human rights”. Comment No. 15 also defined the right to water as the right of everyone to sufficient, safe, acceptable and physically accessible and affordable water for personal and domestic uses. http://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/human_right_to_water.shtml

A prerequisite for the realization of other human rights? Well, it’s certainly one of the prerequisites for life. As is food, air and possibly shelter from the elements depending upon where one lives. Beyond that there are far too many variables to make a blanket statement that anything is a requirement to sustain life.

The larger question here is can the various definitions of what is a right coexist? Unalienable rights, social contract, natural rights, etc., etc. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “rights structure the form of governments, the content of laws, and the shape of morality as it is currently perceived.”

As it is currently perceived? Can rights be devoid of principle? If a right is changeable based upon the whims of how it is currently perceived, there is no foundational value to it. In other words, it is nothing more than populist opinion.

The Stanford definition would be more appropriate to say the ends justify the means when it comes to rights. For a right to exist in perpetuity in its original unaltered form, it cannot be open to interpretation. It cannot come with a cost, not even an “affordable” one as is the argument concerning clean, safe drinking water. It cannot be implemented by any governing body, nor taken away by one.

Those are commonly called privileges. They may be based in ethics or morals, they may be formed out of compassion or charitable means. Governments may use them as a basis for law, human rights organizations may draw upon them to establish their charters. It doesn’t matter. If any human or group or government, any entity whatsoever, can take it away, then it is not a human right. A human right absolutely must exist for all under any conditions.

This is an extremely important distinction. Understanding the concept of what a true human right would require serves as a reminder that prioritizing the collective above the individual surrenders whatever claim to rights we ever had.

I would challenge you to prove otherwise. This isn’t meant as an attack on the Founders. They simply got it wrong. Not that didn’t debate it thoroughly. They did. Article 9 only came about after a tremendous back and forth for this very reason. Enumerating certain rights comes at the peril of excluding others.

Isn’t that why Thomas Jefferson laid it out in the Declaration of Independence that governments are instituted by men to secure our rights and if they fail, it is our right to abolish them? Securing rights doesn’t mean granting them.

Getting back to the idea that water is some sort of human right. It isn’t the only essential we have to sustain life. Nor is it any more important than the others. The notion that the U.N. should randomly determine that it is a prerequisite to all other rights is presumptive at best and more realistically just flat out wrong.

This argument needs to be debated because it isn’t about insuring the human race isn’t denied its right to water. It is about empowering the collective to decide the rights of the individual. We have already heard the blame game in full effect. Global warming is to blame. Conservatives who wish to disband the EPA are the cause. The farmers and their fertilizer runoff are the culprits.

I’ll give the progressive’s a freebie they haven’t even hit on yet. Blame capitalism. After all, it was the invasion of the Great Lakes basin by the zebra mussel that is behind the recent rise in algae blooms. It was the global economy at fault as European vessels dumping their freshwater ballast in the Great Lakes that brought us the zebra mussel invasion. Bad capitalists!

Blaming zebra mussels isn’t very sexy though. Besides, algae blooms have a long history in the Great Lakes. They were just as big a problem in the 1960’s and 70’s before global warming was even on the radar. Creating fear from water supply toxins is far more effective at getting individuals to hand over their rights and let big government take over. Rallying residents against the big and rich over shutting off their water supply when they don’t pay their bills is another slam dunk.

Ensuring that every human being has access to clean, safe water is a noble cause we should all pursue. Handing over the reins to government to make it happen is probably the surest way to guarantee that cause will fail.