Another week has passed and the lottery commissions have once again chosen the wrong numbers!  I give them chances, week after week to get it right.  How long can this go on?  I NEED that $100M+ jackpot!  My farm and ranch are waiting to be bought!

On the positive side, I've been working out in my mind what I will do when I win.  The only surprise will be the winning itself.

Meanwhile, in my newly retired state, springtime will see the establishment of a garden here at the homestead.  I have not yet decided what form it will take, but I've the winter to read up and plan.  Chickens sound good until I think about going camping.  Going camping for a couple of weeks, or even the weekend is not the way to raise animals.  Most campgrounds, even the ones that take pets, would not be fond of a visiting flock of chickens!

Perhaps I need to clone myself.  Then I could be two or three places at once, and accomplish all the contradictory things that I would like.

Pin that!

The last eight years have apparently passed without my being particularly aware.  Actually, the total is probably somewhat more than that.  At least, in some aspects.  Internally, I feel as though I should be thirty something.  Or forty something.  Certainly NOT sixty-eight years old!  Which is ancient, in most ways of thinking.  I can remember when my paternal grandparents were 68, and I quite clearly recall how ancient that seemed at the time.

I have seen a lot, and experienced many things.  I have lived!  But, I have so much more to do, to accomplish than my three children, six grandchildren, and one great-grandchild would seem to indicate.  I've been to all fifty states, and resided in ten of them, for a total, so far, of 38 different addresses.  I've been to most of the Canadian provinces, and to the Crown Colony of Bermuda.

The bucket list has a lot checked off, but seems to be getting longer and longer!

Things come and go, but my ME seems only to be going, and there's so much more to do before I'm gone!  On the other hand (OTOH), one might argue that since I'm planning on living to 125, there's still a ways to go.  How much of that will be a life during which I can accomplish something remains to be seen.

Let's go!

The Abortion Debate, Revisited.

It occurs to me that the approach to this debate is wrong.  Emotions are driven higher, and reason abandoned because of this erroneous beginning.  Abortion is spoken of as if it was a single issue.  It is not!  The present debate encompasses at least four separable issues.

1. Does the Federal government have the power (as defined by the ruling document, the Constitution) to involve itself in abortion?
2. How do you define life and when does it begin?
3. How should the State define life?
4. Does the majority have the philosophical and legal right to impose its morality on the minority?

The answers will likely be different for each person.  I will not attempt to answer them all, but to forward some thinking points for your consideration.

There are specific, enumerated powers granted to the Federal government by the Constitution.  Powers not mentioned specifically are reserved to the States and the People.  These powers can be added to or removed by the Constitutional Amendment process, and in no other way.  While the Declaration of Independence recognizes an individual's God-given right to life, the Constitution does not.  That power is reserved to the States.  While the Congress may have made laws concerning murder outside of the District of Columbia and the Army and Navy, they are currently un-Constitutional.

Each State has its own laws about murder.  This then, not the Federal, is the arena in which laws concerning abortion should be considered.

How do you define "life" and when does it begin for humans?  This is the question most people get hung up on, that generates the most heat, and is least important.  This is a question of science, philosophy, religion, and morality.  It should not be a question of politics or law.

The legal question should be properly phrased: "How should the State define 'person'?"  Does a "person's life" begin at the moment of conception?  Do you really want the State involved from that moment onward?  Do you want the State to monitor your pre-natal diet and nutrition?  Your exercise?  Your stress?  Your financial condition?  Your visits to the doctor?  Once you let that camel's nose under the flap of your tent, you'd better plan on the entire camel sharing your bed!  Will it become a felony to have one beer?  A nutritionally unbalanced meal?  Too many snacks?  To go swimming?  To ride a bike?  To go skydiving?  You might be endangering the life of a "person" for whom the State has legal responsibility.

I suggest that the point of the State's commencement of responsibility is the real question here.  It might be defined as "at birth" or "after the second trimester of pregnancy."  Whatever point is decided upon, it will have little to do with the definition of life, and more to do with the degree of intrusion by the State that we will accept.

Sharia Law, for instance, demands death for more than just first degree murder.  Indeed, it demands death for some offenses American law does not even recognize.  This is an obvious indication of the variations in the value of human life and morality that exist in our society today.  There is a philosophical question to be answered.  Does the majority have a right to impose its will on the minority?  In all cases?  Or is there a line?  Should we, the majority, decide that a woman must wear a veil in public, so that no man not her husband can see her face?  Should we rule that a raped twelve year old girl must carry the loathsome evidence of her victimization to term and give birth?  Do we have the right to impose our morality upon everyone else, regardless of the fundamental beliefs of their religion?  Would you have the same answer if you were in the minority?

I am not the Oracle of Delphi. But, I do have answers to all the above questions.  Were I the Emperor of the World, I could solve this problem now and forevermore in a New York minute.  Turns out, to my considerable disappointment, I am NOT Emperor of the World.  So, make up your own darn answers.  Just don't treat this issue as a simple question, because it is not.  There is not ONE answer.  And the answers you have may not be the same as mine.  And until someone dies and leaves you as Emperor of the World . . .

Backsliding

Reading Edmond Morris's biography, Colonel Roosevelt.  About, you know, the good cousin, Teddy.

Good book, but disheartening.  Theodore Roosevelt faced, during and after his Presidency, many problems in their infancy that we face today full blown.  Despite the passage of a hundred years and the convulsions of two world wars, problems have changed little except for the names of the guilty, unless it is to get worse.

We still have spineless politicians who would cede our sovereignty and our freedom to a World Court. 

We still have the battle between individual rights and the soullessness of large public corporations.

We still see the battle between seventh century Islam and twenty-first century rest-of-the-world.  Exacerbated by the aftermath of nineteenth and twentieth century colonialism.

I greatly admire T.R. and the things he was able to do, and wanted to do.  He was not a perfect man, but then who amongst us is?  Hint: far fewer than believe they are -- none, in fact!

One can see but faintly from the distance of a hundred years, clear as it may seem.  If I were to guess at how much mankind has progressed in that time, my guess would be zero.  Or a little bit less.

I'm just glad it's only half past seven of a Michigan evening, and still light out.  If I waited until eleven at night to write this I might have gotten really gloomy!

WiFi vs Trees?

A preliminary study gaining fame on the internet seems to suggest a relationship between wifi signals and tree illnesses in an urban area in the Netherlands, the Wall Street Journal reports.  The fellow conducting the "preliminary experiment", Dr. van Lammeren says, "we cannot draw conclusions."

Think that'll stop anyone?

I would like to advance another hypothesis for tree death in the Netherlands.  It's the Muslims.  Look at all the Muslim countries around the world.  What do you see?  Treeless mountains and desert.  I'm telling you, plants are allergic to Muslims!

We'll see how much traction that one gets!

Lincoln the Prophet

"At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide."  -- President ABRAHAM LINCOLN, address before the Young Men’s Lyceum, Springfield, Illinois, January 27, 1838.

As a nation today, I visualize us as standing with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel.

The Buck Stops . . . Where?

Looks like Barack Obama is clearing out the Oval Office, and moving that pesky sign of Harry Truman's to the courts.  In what may be the "Stupidest Lawsuit Ever", executive control of federal agencies is apparently being ceded to the courts.  I guess the buck stops . . . over there, somewhere.  BTW, loosen up your wallet.  We'll be footing the bill for this insanity, and only the lawyers will win.