Fourth of July Video #1
Happy Independence Day! This is the first of what will be a day of patriotic videos. I will post a new one every hour. If you missed some, you can click on the "Holidays" category in the left side menu near the bottom.
Enjoy the day. It is brought to you through the sacrifices of millions of men and women who have fought for this country since 1636 when the first National Guard unit was formed.
Take a moment and remember that sometime today.
Where the heck is Matt?
Where the Hell is Matt? (200 
from Matthew Harding on Vimeo
This is strange. Not sure why I feel compelled to share it. I just do.
How Republicans should respond to McCain fundraising letter
Directions on how to fill our your GOP fundraiser letter to promote small government, low taxes, and a strong national defense.
[COLUMN] Court ruling a victory for liberty
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday scored a victory for liberty when it correctly struck down a 32-year-old Washington, D.C., law banning handguns and ruling for the first time that the Second Amendment is a personal right and not a right of the states to maintain militias.
In other words, the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution means exactly what it says: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
This seems obvious to me. After all, why would Congress and the states create a Bill of Rights for the people and include in it a right for the states to form militias?
That would make no sense.
The Bill of Rights was meant to recognize some of the rights of the people, not of the government. The amendment even specifically states "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Seems pretty specific. Additionally, the phrase "right of the people" is used several other times in the Bill of Rights and in the unamended Constitution.
Read more!
A real choice
From the Barr campaign: "On November 4, 2008, give liberty a chance. This election doesn't have to be between the lesser of two evils. Americans need a choice, and Liberty needs a voice."
Read the court's gun decision
If you are interested in reading the Supreme Court decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, you can click here, courtesy of SCOTUS blog.
It is a well-reasoned opinion. Justice Antonin Scalia, whose opinions are almost always well-argued, outdid himself with this one.
Supreme Court strikes victory for liberty
The U.S. Supreme Court today handed a victory for liberty when it correctly struck down a 32-year-old Washington, D.C., law banning handguns and ruling for the first time that the Second Amendment is a personal right and not a right of the states to maintain militias.
"Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of our nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security and where gun violence is a serious problem," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote. "That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct."
It is the most sweeping Second Amendment ruling by the court in U.S. history. Scalia was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Clarence Thomas, who are all conservative voices on the court. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, usually a swing vote, also joined the majority. Liberal Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth David Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer, all voted to restrict Americans' freedoms.
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French winemakers going berserk
Wine growers throw stones at riot police after a demonstration in Montpellier, southern France Wednesday, June 25, 2008. Wine growers demonstrate for a better income. (AP Photo/Claude Paris)
Those crazy French vintners. This is what socialism and an overreliance on government aid does to people. They don't know how to live when faced with obstacles:
Winemaker protests in France
MONTPELLIER, France (AP) -- Winemakers in southern France have burned two police cars and vandalized supermarkets during protests to demand government aid.
Vintners in France's Languedoc-Roussillon region have been protesting plummeting prices for their regional wines as well as rising fuel costs.
Top regional official Cyrille Schott says protesters broke windows at the courthouse in the city of Montpellier. In nearby Montagnac, protesters wielding baseball bats chased police from their vehicles and set the cars on fire.
Schott says protesters damaged four bank buildings.
At three regional supermarkets they sacked the wine aisles. Schott says two police were slightly injured in the protests Wednesday and early Thursday.
Mia Jorris: Where was the father when this was happening?
STORY: Father sues Children Services over daughter's murder
This story is unbelievable. If the father is suing Children Services for failing to protect his daughter, then I might have to sue Gilberto Ugalde for the same thing.
This sickens me.
This is really the result of more than a half-century of America's nanny state where we can't do anything without government approval. We have become a nation of sheep, brainwashed by a government-run education system that tells us we should trust the government to protect us. Trust me, if I had even an inkling that this was happening to a child of mine, I would not be waiting on Children Services to protect that child. That is the role of a parent and other family members, not the state.
I suspect Ugalde is nothing but a money-grubbing fiend who should be in prison along with his estranged wife for allowing this to happen to his children. This man apparently didn't give a damn what was happening to the children until one was killed and he saw an opportunity to make a buck.
I hope I am wrong, but I doubt it.
My two new weblogs
My activity here the last week has been minimal because I was busy creating two new personal weblogs.
Lucente su Vino: This is my personal weblog on all things wine. I am doing this just for fun, so I don't expect my blogging will be excessive, probably no more than once or twice a week. I plan to talk about news in the wine world as well as reviews of wines I drink. This won't be a technical blog on wines, just my impressions in plain language. I may also talk about specialty beers and homebrewing as well as making wine at home. The URL for the new weblog is http://wine.lucente.org.
Jus Sanguinis: This is a chronicle of my quest for dual citizenship with Italy. Under Italian law, I have been a citizen since birth. However, because I was born in the United States, I have to go through the process of having my Italian citizenship registered with the proper authorities. This will also be a low traffic Web site as I will only be updating it as things happen in this long process. The name comes from the philosophy that permits this citizenship and is Latin for "Right of Blood" This weblog will probably have little interest outside myself or other Italian-Americans interested in having their dual citizenship recognized. Still, if you are interested, the URL is http://italian.lucente.org.
Links to the two new Web sites can be found in the right sidemenu on this page. Your login here will be valid there, as well.
[COLUMN] Libertarians should oppose Obama
What a topsy-turvy world we live in when libertarians begin to support a socialist for president.
More and more I am seeing libertarians voice support for Sen. Barack Obama. Web sites are springing up and libertarians on Internet forums are arguing for Obama. Having not yet settled on a candidate, I have tried to understand their reasoning. Unfortunately, like socialism and Obama, there is only a pretty façade and no real substance.
I understand their frustration. Libertarians hate President Bush, mostly because of the war and his constitutional abuses.
Libertarians such as myself were opposed to the war from the beginning. It was a stupid endeavor and made no sense politically or militarily.
So, if we are keeping a scorecard, Obama gets one point for opposing the war, even if his opposition to it was tepid at best in 2003.
That is, however, where the lead ends.
I don't want to defend Sen. John McCain. He is the worst kind of Republican, a big-government liberal. However, if we are to compare McCain to Obama, it is clear who is closer to the libertarian viewpoint when it comes to issues beyond the war.
Read more!
A small quiz for you
In the June edition of ABA Journal there was a small article about how judges make mistakes because, like most humans, they are intuitive rather than cognitive in rendering their decisions. In other words, they tend to go with the obvious, quick answer rather than the correct, logical answer.
To prove this, 295 Florida trial judges were given this three-question quiz developed by professor Shane Frederick of the Massachusetts Institution of Technology. Only 15 percent of the judges got all three answers correct and 31 percent of the judges got all three wrong.
The judges should not feel bad, while that rate was below students at Harvard, it was better than the students at the University of Michigan.
Take the following test and see how you do. If you get all three right, that means you are cognitive. If you get all three wrong, you are intuitive. Post your answers in the comment box. Don't be ashamed. This is not an intelligence test. Lots of very smart people get these wrong. This is about how you think, not how smart you are.
I will post the answers later in the week. Have fun!
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