Just One Thing After Another

Flash! They're patting people down at airports. "It's ok. It's legal. We've always had discretion to inspect what's going aboard our airlines."

Flash! You have to remove your shoes before boarding airliners. "It's ok. It's legal. "Shoes are a good place to hide things."

Flash! They're groping genital areas and women's breasts at airport checkpoints. "It's ok. It's legal. What if someone hid something there?"

Flash! Random searches of bags at New York subways. "It's ok. It's legal. Anybody can leave the subway and not be searched.

Flash! They're searching every bag at the subways. "It's ok. It's legal. What if a terrorist carries a bomb to another subway station?"

Flash! They're setting up checkpoints at random locations on the streets to search bags and persons. "It's ok. It's legal. What if the terrorist wants to bomb a building?"

Flash! They're incarcerating war protesters at Gitmo. "It's ok. It's legal. We don't want our wonderful political system held up to ridicule by the world's media."

Flash! They're putting American citizens of Arabic descent in camps in the Arizona desert. "It's ok. It's legal. President Roosevelt did it with the Japanese in WWII. Worked like a charm!"

When I heard about the data mining being done by this and prior administrations, some time ago, the first thing I thought about was "mission creep." Government programs tend to gradually get larger and slip into other areas than those originally intended (allegedly).

When GWB began sucking up our long-recognized civil liberties beginning immediately after the destruction of the World Trade Center, I automatically knew that these usurpations would mirror those of the so-called "War on Drugs" and that they would flow together and gradually become more and more all-encompassing.

I'm looking for the "National ID Card" which is being sold to us as a federal-spec state driver's license, to become necessary "papers" for travel on airlines (done deal), trains (done deal), busses and taxis. I'm also expecting, at some not-too-distant point in time, "papers" checkpoints for travellers in private autos on the open highway.

GWB makes this happen by simply declaring that this particular travesty "is legal," because I say it's legal, and "it's not a violation of individual privacy" because I say it's not.

This is the kind of Government by Men (not Government by Law) the US Constitution was adopted to prevent--obviously unsuccessfully!

"People Should Not Be Afraid Of Their Governments. Governments Should Be Afraid Of Their People." --V

They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Rights of Passage

It looks like I was right all along. According to the California Department of Education, the only requirement on California youngsters to achieve a high school diploma is the fact of attaining the age of eighteen years, and have their butts in the seats a certain number of times a year for twelve long, endless, boring years.

After some parties actually interested in seeing California kids get something resembling an education, pushed for the CAHSEE (California High School Exit Examination), and it was finally adopted, there was an expectation (among some) that California kids might actually finally begin to benefit from government schools.

The first crack in the dike appeared when high school teachers left off (to some extent) teaching the curriculum and started coaching for the Exit Exam.

Now, what I've heard termed a fifth grade-level exam, is just too tough for many poor and disadvantaged students. A lawsuit has been filed, and one of California's many utterly unqualified judges has indicated he plans to place an injunction against the test based on "equal protection" concerns.

I've written many times that I regard government-operated schools little more than children's prisons (observe the architecture of newer school campi), designed to warehouse children to keep them off the streets, and to indoctrinate them in political correctness and compliance with social(ist) norms far more than to actually teach them to reason, to be creative, to learn the 3 r's, to have an historical perspective and a real appreciation of the arts.

In short, government schools are child abuse.

The CAHSEE is irrelevant. If a youngster wants to learn, he'll learn. Try and stop him! Actually, it seems that the California Department of Education is trying to stop him! With all the time and opportunity available in school, most kids should exit in twelve years with an education well beyond that we normally expect of a Bachelor's degree. Today's schools actually do more to inhibit learning than they do to facilitate it.

Fast food outlets have for years now replaced the digits on cash registers with pictures of the food items! Who has time to figure out those incredibly difficult Arabic hyroglyphics, anyway? Many high school grads are unable to make change or to balance a checkbook.

Aside from accelerated and college prep curricula (which are a little better), most kids are kept down to the level of the slowest in any given class.

Many teachers are unqualified to teach the assigned subject. One youngster about whom I have personal knowledge was "taught" algebra by a football coach. When he found the subject difficult, and started asking questions, the "teacher" got angry, told him to study the book, do his homework and the problem would clarify itself. The boy dropped, went into a basic math class, and slid out of the college prep curriculum. The lad did graduate high school as scheduled, has yet (after several years) to take on the challenges of "higher education."

As it turns out, were he in high school today, he would have to do nothing to get a diploma but show up each day.

Remember, VOTE FOR NO INCUMBENT!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Pulling Our Punches

I've long thought that the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq were fought poorly. When I say poorly, though, I mean POORLY! Criminally poorly! Secretary of Defense and Joint Chiefs of Staff should go to prison for criminal negligence poorly!

Before I go any farther, I hasten to assert that, while I agree with the need to go after Osama Bin Llama and his al queda gang, and to lay waste to Afghanistan if said dictatorship gives him safe harbor, I think the attack 'pon Saddam Hussein, evil emperor that he was, is frivolous at best, a pure waste of lives, time and money at worst.

As was stated by many a pundit of the more rational (read, less listened to) class, the administration of Iran was, and is, the philosophical leader of the revolt against reason and civilization that was and is the cause of islamic funny-mentalist ire. I suspect that, if and when the truth ultimately becomes known, Osama Bin Llama recieved much of his logistic aid from the administration of Iran.

The US military pulled every punch. They fed the enemy while they were fighting them. They avoided certain locations for political reasons. They gave the mullahs a pass. We don't know exactly what happened, but we know that most of the mullahs are still at large, acting as coarse sand tossed into America's military gears. When they had Bin Llama cornered at tora Bora, they decided to take a day off and let him go.

Troops are still in Afghanistan, doing who knows what, one of them occasionally getting killed or injured--for what?

As bad as Afghanistan seems, Iraq is, by comparison, what we veterans used to call a colossal clusterfuck. I don't care if the troops over there all claim that they're doing fine and really, really love helping the Iraqis put their utopia together in the image of the USA. Our own troops have been turned into half social workers and half sacrificial lambs.

Note the early months, after Baghdad was "secured," when the troops began taking casualties from "terrorists" in hiding, when the troops were ordered to exercise restraint. When they were fired upon by Iraqis from the shelter of mosques, troops were not allowed to destroy the mosques to get to their attackers. Had the troops leveled a single mosque, which was being used as a refuge for snipers, no mosque would ever be used that way again.

When the troops sealed off and "neutralized" Najaf, amid criticism from the world's MSM, they backed off asap and let Moqtada al-Sadr and his gang of killers leave (to come back and fight another day). I'm not sure exactly how all of that went down; there's a lot of conflicting verbiage in the reports that've been released, but suffice it to say, the troops didn't even try to win a decisive victory over Sadr and his band of merry men.

And now, they're ba-ack!

Again, I think our having invaded Iraq was utterly unnecessary, and a bad idea. But, having written that, we have to observe that every one of America's (unnecessary) wars and other military actions since WWII, has been fought with one arm tied behind "our" back. Not good.

Perry de Havilland, writing at Samizdata, observes some of the problems with restraint in warfare: more Americans (and allies) get killed.

Shelby Steele's article on "White Guilt and the Western Past," offers part of the reason why America pulls its military punches. The white West, guilty over the fact of white supremacy around the globe since the Renaissance, has no will to be accused of white supremacy now, in the wake of the many third world revolts against the white west, and of America's Civil Rights revolution. The US government lacks any sense of moral authority that can counter worldwide condemnation of its actions--not only in war, but in immigration control and other international debates.

Steele has some of the answer, but not all of it. American politics is a rudderless ship They have no morality and guiding principes beyond getting re-elected. The philosophy that built America is completely unknown to them--even, nay especially on conservatives. That's obvious by the fact that when al queda destroyed the World Trade Center, the first acts of the Bush administration were to limit the civil liberties of Americans. That trend continues to this day, and shows no signs of letting up.

Back to the subject, while the US government has to fight al queda, after its many attacks on this country, there is no such need to involve ourselves in the political/religious quagmire that is Iraq.

Better we should, claiming the moral high ground of self defense, attack al queda with all our strength, with an eye toward finding a way to neutralize Iran as necessary.

Remember, VOTE FOR NO INCUMBENT!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

The Greater Good

Politicians, many of them members of the conservative persuasion, who command fat salaries for, in essence, extract by force pieces of our lives (often the whole of someone's life) to use for their own ends, love to cite "the greater good" as the goal of their thefts. "For the greater good" is also cited as the reason why certain individuals make sacrifices to the benefit of such nebulous concepts as "humanity," "my country," "future generations," etc.

"The greater good" is very often an euphemism for "god" or "god's will," as decreed by a priest or witch doctor, or such. One should always take "the greater good" to mean the good of the individual who makes the pronouncement. Because that's what he means when he invokes the phrase (whether he'll admit it or not).

One might observe that, for example, nearly all of those who praise American military men and women for contributing to "the greater good" are beyond eligibility to enter the military, and most of them have never done so.

I reject any notion of "the greater good."

The greatest possible good is what's good for me. Depending 'pon the context, that might also mean what's good for those about whom I care.

While most of the world is writhing in an orgy of self-sacrifice, the truth comes out: the world works best when each individual takes care of himself. For those relative few who have periods of need, there are friends, relatives and private charity can provide relief. In the absence of the all-consuming vortex of "the greater good," each of us can easily deal with those relative few who hit rough periods.

The sooner each of us can dispose of these silly concepts and learn to truly enjoy his own life, the better for the world and every one of us.

They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Roswell, Texas?

My all-time favorite science fiction author is L Neil Smith. I actually grew up on Robert A Heinlein, and continue to re-read his stories occasionally, and I enjoy many other S-F authors as well, but I find myself watching and waiting for El Neil's next.

El Neil builds the worlds in which I would most like to live. From his first novel, The Probability Broach, which is currently in print both as a print novel and as a graphic novel (Art by Scott Bieser), is the first in an alternative history series that begins during a quirk of history during America's Revolutionary War. I could go on about the several subsequent novels Smith has written, including a couple of S-F/pirate swashbucklers, but nobody wants that!

What's new now is a graphic short story which is being serialized at Bighead Press. Roswell, Texas is another alternative history story, a "sci-fi western romantic comedy," based on a quirk of history during the Siege of the Alamo. Reading the first several pages reveals it to be a very interesting story, at least for me! I'm waiting impatiently for the next installment.

Remember, VOTE FOR NO INCUMBENT!

Warm Regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

While El Alcalde is Away, the Peones Will Play

There was a very large pro-immigration rally in many cities today. I, in one of my drives about areas of Southern California, found myself Cruisin' Bristol this afternoon. There were literally hundreds of Hispanics, mostly young folks, cruisin' in their cars up and down Bristol Avenue, Santa Ana, flying Mexican flags and generally making noise. It was a trip.

Santa Ana is home to more Hispanics than any other group, including, I think, we of the northern European persuasion. It's the county seat of Orange County is located pretty much in the center of the county.

Some time I'm going to have to ask why an expatriate Mexican, driven out of his country by the spectre of poverty, poor medical assistance an early death following an unfulfilling life, why he still reveres the country that, in effect, threw him out. If the United States ever finds a way to make me want to leave, I triple gawdamm guarantee I won't be flying the stars & stripes ever again.

Meanwhile, Senor Antonio Vinaigrette, El Alcalde del Pueblo de Los Angeles is out of town. Very convenient, being out of town when the events of the day are such that he doesn't want to dis the peones, nor does he want any photographic evidence of his support of them. Of course, the trip to Houston to meet with officials of the National Football League to see about a new football team for LA, was planned decades ago, and the timing has nothing to do with this day of protest, but his heart is with the Hispanic folk just trying to make a living in the good ol' USA.

There are future campaigns, after all!

I say, if they can find work, fine. We pay many people not to work by means of various forms of social welfare, and somebody has to do that stuff!

Conservatives claim that these folks ought to get citizenship the legal way, like "our ancestors did." What they forget is that the rules were very different fifty, a hundred, a hundred fifty years ago. The immigration system, however flawed, worked.

Today, INS is so lazy and smothered in its own bureaucracy that prospective immigrants grow old and die waiting for the process to work. Much easier to overstay one's visa and just get the best job you can.......

Remember, VOTE FOR NO INCUMBENT!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Starting Their Own Jihad

Fearing the fact of being outdone in the world's headlines by islamic funny-mentalists over the publication of 'toon images of Mohammed in the newspapers and web pages of the more civilized portion of the world, the vatican announces a boycott on the movie "The Da Vinci Code."

One has to wonder whether the continuing demonstrations over immigration will, like a tidal wave, overwhelm the vatican's pronouncement and leave theater-goers at peace to enjoy the film in suburban mega-plexes. I've noticed that our local cardinal, Msnr Mahoney, after singing the praises of the immigration reform demonstrations for lo! these many weeks, has suddenly begun to admonish government school inmates to stay in their classes and resist the temptation to escape and join the festivities. Might this have something to do with the upcoming actions regarding the premier of "The Da Vinci Code?"

Will there be bands of marauding catholic youths keying cars in Hollywood with their rosary crosses? Will scientologists be burned at the stake in Malibu? We non-catholics must be on our guard, for one never knows what evil lurks in the hearts of funny-mentalists!

Meanwhile, one has to also wonder how long it'll take for historical scholars to prove that the new testament was made up from whole cloth by monks in the 4th century, and how the vatican will react to that news!

They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Driving around at $3.239 a Gallon

Last weekend, Debbie and I attended the 19th Annual Seal Beach Classic Car Show, putting the new (to me) '57 Bel Air on display for the first time. There were, according to the officials, about 450 cars entered. They were parked diagonally along Seal Beach's Main Street and three or four of the intersecting side streets, which were closed to allow pedestrians to walk freely among the cars and have access to the several shops and restaurants.

We had a great time, met a few fellow classic car folks and enjoyed a couple of bands, one of which was an old-timey instrumental surf band. We walked up and down the street several times, admiring the hotrods, stock classics, race cars and muscle cars.

We drove home by way of the scenic Pacific Coast Highway to round out a pleasant, sunny day.

Remember, VOTE FOR NO INCUMBENTS!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Ignorance of the Law Is an Excuse

How could it not be? I defy any attorney, legislator or judge, right up to Chief Justice John G Roberts, Jr, to accurately name the number of laws in existence. In other words, each and every one of these august ladies and gentlemen is ignorant of some, probably most laws.

If they, who propose, advocate, debate, affirm, argue and adjudicate these laws can't even maintain an awareness of them, how can those of us whose most complicated life endeavor is cooking a great steak on a Weber, keep track of more than three of four of them. Half the time, I don't even know the speed limit of the street 'pon which I'm driving (nor do I care).

Which brings me (finally) to my topic du jour.

Tens of thousands of these laws are merely attempted repairs to previous laws that didn't achieve the desired result. Tens of thousands of more laws are attempts to protect the government from its citizens. Tens of thousands of more laws are attempts to protect special interests from the citizenry at large. This includes laws that protect corporate entities from liability. Tens of thousands of more laws are attempts to protect the citizenry at large from the real or imagined excesses of protected corporate entities, as they go about the business of selling us stuff.

I don't suppose I've really scratched the surface yet, not being an attorney myself (thank the Ravens of Odin for steering me away from that kind of waste of a life) but the part of the law that actually benefits real individuals is fairly simple.

Real individuals need THREE (3) LAWS.

First, and most important, there has to be a law against murder and physical assault. Since one's ultimate property is one's very life, agencies of protection must defend the lives of individuals most effectively, and bring those responsible for murders and assaults to justice without fail.

Second, and related very closely, must be a law against violations of the property of individuals. Since the property of an individual is the product of the thought and action of that individual, it actually rises in importance to equivalency to the individual's very life. The main difference that comes into play is the fact that the wronged individual can be made whole by his attacker. Agencies of protection should bring the culprit to justice by requiring him to fully repay the damages.

And third, each individual depends upon the honesty of others in order to be able to facilitate the achievement of his values. In a complex society based on interpersonal relations and the trading of values, the terms of a contract must be upheld. Agencies of protection must analyze contracts, both verbal and recorded, and award judgements to wronged parties.

Obviously, further expansion of definition is necessary to make these three laws clear, but there need be no more laws than these. Until this has been established, individuals are living under tyranny.

None of us should be willing to accept that.

Remember, VOTE FOR NO INCUMBENT!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

....But I Don't Own New Orleans....

For months now, we've been hearing all manner of suggestions as to how to rebuild New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina vanden Heuvel. There are many websites to which one might contribute money to help--still! The incapable (as has become painfully obvious) federal government has a website that has a long list of links for victims to seek aid, and for donors to offer goods, services and funds. The inept Mayor Nagin unjustifiably makes himself look much the hero on the City of New Orleans site. And Louisiana's equally incompetent Governor Blanco maintains yet another site that belatedly tries to close the barn door so we can't see that the horses have long since escaped.

Hurricane Katrina was named after Katrina vanden Heuvel, Editor of The Nation, because of their very similar dispositions. But, I digress.

I heard an announcement on the radio today calling for architectural ideas for the rebuilding of the city. I missed the details, and they're not important, because it only served to make me wonder: Why are we discussing rebuilding New Orleans?

Why are we discussing rebuilding New Orleans??

Like most of the area to which we fondly refer as the Unites States of America, New Orleans is largely privately owned. Individuals and firms own homes, condos, apartment buildings, businesses, strip malls and shopping centers. We don't actually have anything to do with it. Unless by some happenstance one or two of you happen to own a bit of property there, neither you nor I has any interest in New Orleans--of course, I mean any real financial interest there.

Many of us might have made some sort of donation to one of the many charities committed to providing one or another kind of aid to the unfortunates effected by the storm. Fine.

But the task of rebuilding the city is really the task of each property owner to rebuild his property, however he sees fit. It's his property. It's not ours. New Orleans does not belong to us.

Each and every one of the property owners that comprise the city of New Orleans has the responsibility to either procure insurance, make other arrangements (in advance) to be prepared to rebuild, choose to live elsewhere, or just risk it.

Wherever each of us lives, there are risks. It's the responsibility of each of us as individuals to prepare for the possibility of disaster as best we can.

Debbie and I have fire and earthquake insurance. The house is on fairly high ground, not very near a body of water that's likely to flood severely. What with these and various other precautions, we think we're pretty secure against just about anything but the theft often authorized by eminent domain.

America needs to re-privatize. All of us ought to look at the United States as a huge patchwork of bits of private property, owned and controlled by individual owners.

They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!

Warm Regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

El Alcalde del Pueblo de Los Angeles Trashes the Police

Eschewing the very notion that the city might be able to redirect some of the confiscatory taxation of its peones from wasteful and harmful projects to areas in which most Angelenos rely on city services, Alcalde Tony Vinaigrette has decreed that los peones shall pay for the addition of more LAPD storm troopers by means of a more-than-doubling of the monthly fee for trash collection. El Alcalde proposes to raise the monthly fee from $11 to $28 for single family dwellings, according to this story on LA's CBS News affiliate.

Where's Zorro when we need him?

It's true that LA has fewer cops per capita than any other large city, but the reasons for that are several, and tripling a tax won't do much to solve many of them. Cops don't like to work in LA. If they start in LA, they move to a different city as soon as they can get another job. Why? They get second-guessed about everything they do. Management won't back them. Too much racial politics. The law isn't always the law, or, some people are more equal than others.

El Alcalde faces a fight to get this fee (tax) increase through, and if he does, an awful campaign fight in the future.

The real question is, why can't the outrageous taxes Angelenos already pay cover the number one most important mandate cities have? The answer is an easy one. Los Angeles has fifteen City Council members, each of whom are paid nearly $150k a year and numerous perqs. Each and every one of them has a long list of really important projects that have to be funded, not to mention absolutely necessary junkets and fact finding trips to places like Hawaii and Paris each year. That, and all the Angelenos (legal or not) who really need help.

And, of course, there are the children. We must help the children. There's no shortage of plots and plans by any and all of the Los Angeles City Council members to spend millions and millions on the children. We'll tax the parents to death for the children.

One of the chief reasons the City of LA took over trash collection from private firms in the first place was because they said a uniform, city-wide trash collection system would be more efficient and cost less. Angelenos ought to have seen the fallacy when paying for the service was made mandatory. You can't take your own trash to the landfill, nor stay with the private firm. Well, sometimes you can, but you still have to pay the fee to the city.

Now, we see.... Let government take over any needed good or service from the private sector, and they'll invariably hold it over your head like a club. Instances of this are clear in government schools and in city water departments.

If Alcalde Vinaigrette has his way, trash collection by the city will certainly no longer be cheaper than if it were privately done.

They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

An Invasion of Illegal Aliens

This past Thursday there was a story on all of the MSM outlets about a Canadian goose which, from a perch atop a Toys R Us store, flew down repeatedly and attacked passers by. The female goose was later found to have built a nest atop the store.

While no one was severely injured by the goose in the repeated attacks, several shoppers were startled and had to run for the door to escape the animal.

But there have been a number of these kinds of events in recent years, though none as attention-grabbing as this one.

After doing a reasonable amount of research on the subject, a number of important facts come into view:

1.) The animals in question are feral Canadian geese. Foreign geese.

2.) These geese fly repeatedly across the Canada-United States border without subjecting themselves for inspection or identification.

3.) The United States Border Patrol has done nothing to deal with this blatant disregard for our national borders, thus destroying our sovereignty. When pressed, the Border Patrol insists they've thus far received no direction from their supervision to address this invasion.

4.) Border Patrol officials state that there is no mandate from Congress to deal with these illegal aliens.

5.) The Department of Fish and Game reprtedly requires that the American people go through an expensive and rigorous screening process to be allowed to defend themselves against these creatures, should they invade private property.

So, we see that our federal government does not have the will to protect us against this scourge, and at the same time refuses to allow us to protect ourselves.

My sense tell me that this inaction, this Congressional impotence, will cause adjustments in the Congressional makeup in the next election, and in subequent elections, until something is done about illegal alien geese!

Remember, VOTE FOR NO INCUMBENT!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

No Child Left Alone

I'm a man nearing retirement age, though still healthy and enjoying my career, I could quit if I wanted. Some could call me a dirty old man, but they'd be wrong. I wash occasionally.

As a more than mature guy, I often take a walk around the neighborhood; a walk somewhere between a stroll and a power walk, to augment my sporadic exercise program. It was during one of these walks that the following event occurred.

She was a cute little girl, about six or seven. She was playing in the front yard (planter) with a toy shovel and bucket. Pretending to garden like her mother, I suppose. As I walked along the sidewalk, she looked up at me. I said, "hi!" and smiled.

The little girl dropped her toys and ran screaming around to the rear of the house. "Mmmmommmmy!!!" I shrugged and continued walking without further event.

Later, I thought about the incident. How sad that a friendly greeting from a stranger, just passing by, should frighten this child so.

I guess I can't make light of the fact that parents are worried about child abductions, sexual abuse and/or murders. It happens, and parents need to care for their kids. It saddens me though, that this has to mean that children are made to be closed and fearful of all people they don't know.

Years ago, when I was ice skating, I'd often be approached by children--sometimes small children who wanted me to teach them how to do certain skating moves. I know, I'm not that great a skater, but I look pretty good to those who can't skate well, e.g. kids. So, I often worked with them a little.

I don't do that any more. I don't think I'd like having the jack-booted thugs show up and start questioning me about why I, a grown man, am playing with little kids. I have, on a couple of occasions, taught little kids to skate backwards or do hockey stops, etc, but only if one of their parents are there and I've spoken to him/her.

It's sad. I like kids.

There's something rotten in the world, and I think I'm just beginning to figure out what it is. There's way too much government and religious forgiveness of individual failings that injure others. People are very often not held accountable for their transgressions. They may be fined, even jailed, but the punishment doesn't directly connect to the crime. Criminals need to pay the victim back entirely to help them understand the magnitude of what they did. In short, there's a problem connecting actions to consequences.

In addition, parents have to teach their children to deal with danger. Themselves. The sooner the better.

Many views of the future include hardship and strife. Some include life-and-death situations on a daily basis. The governments of the world, including ours, are pursuing a path that must include some kind of forced direction change, possibly soon. Social Security faces a serious crisis, quite possibly in my lifetime. Foreign military adventures, which seem like they'll intensify rather than diminish, will drain our productivity and impoverish all of us. The welfare state penalizes productivity and rewards sloth. Government controls over individuals and business approach and sometimes surpass Soviet levels prior to the fall of the USSR.

It's scary.

Parents have to teach their kids to be able to defend themselves, in every way possible. Kids need street smarts and they have to be able to recognize evil and react to it. They need to learn to recognize danger and evaluate it and react with an appropriately measured response. They have to be able to tell friends from foes, sometimes in an instant.

They can't just go running to mommy.

They've killed Freedom! Those Bastards!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

....But, it Ain't All Bad

I know that much of my writing here tends toward the negative. Just about everything government does tends to make life harder than it might otherwise be, and there is a lot of that continually being imposed on all of us. On the other hand, after many of my readings, I marvel at just how bad life seemed to have been for those alive in the past.

There has been positive progress in the lives of those of us who are fortunate enough to live in the "free" portions of the world. If we wish to continue this trend and perhaps increase it, we should advocate and work toward an increase in freedom and a diminishing of government interference in our loves.

The article that prompts my feeling of optimism is here, written by libertarian philosopher Tibor Machan and published in the Yuma Sun.

Progress continues in the high-tech areas. Computers keep getting better, smaller, less expensive. Government, always short on brain power (though long on brute force) hasn't learned to deal with hi-tech yet, although not for want of trying.

Medical progress is still being made, slowly, constantly battling against the FDA and other government agencies who are bent on returning medicine to blood letting and leachings. One can only imagine the paradise in which we'd be living but for all the malevolent meddling by the power mad.

Increases in our communications ablilties (the internet, radio and telephone tech) is undeniably our best reason for optimism. Note how government shenanigans hit the internet almost instantly, and the MSM then has no choice but to go with the story. Note how individuals of manner of philosophical opinion have access to the new hi-tech form of pamphleteering. 'Twas pamphleteering that aided the American Revolutionaries begin the great experiment that is America.

The experiment is floundering a bit under the shackles of a more and more oppressive government, but communication and activism can help remove obstacles from each of our paths.

So, FAA, won't you get out of the way so I can have my flying car?

Remember, VOTE FOR NO INCUMBENT!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

The Orange County Great Waste(of)Land

Several years ago, there was a Marine Corps air base in the middle of Orange County, MCAS El Toro. When the Navy decided to close the base and give the land away, well, you had to be here.

Let's talk about competing governments: every city in the area, the county, the state, several federal agencies and a number of private concerns were all jockeying for position to GET THAT LAND!! Several people were killed in the fracas, not to mention the severely maimed county supervisor and over a dozen assorted bureaucrats rendered wheelchair-bound. Just kidding.

The Navy decided to give the base to the county.

That was only the beginning. Before the actual closure of the base in 1999, came the battles over what was to be done with the 4700 acres of once-prime agricultural land. The orange groves and strawberry fields surrounding the base in the 1970's had mostly given way to residential development. Housing prices were on the increase, as they still are.

One fairly large special interest group centering in Newport Beach, a group with a fair amount of pull with much of county officialdom, argued for turning the base into a commercial airport. Of course, those who lived in the new developments near the base were not terrible enthusiastic about having airliners taking off and landing all day every day. They (at least those who could get their hands on a microphone) wanted a huge multipurpose park.

It ended up an arm-wrestling match between these two factions. There were campaigns. There were referenda. There were arguments on local news and talk shows. There were radio and tv ads.

The only thing that was never brought up was the very thing they ought to have done with the land: they should've sold the land to developers to build more houses, apartments, condos, light industrial areas and commercial.

We don't need another park. We don't need another airport. More usable, private land would have eased the upward pressure on house prices and rents.

Parks and airports ought to be private concerns, decided by entrepreneurs and placed according to the perceived markets. Real estate--same thing. The need for new houses, condos and rentals in southern Orange County is here and now, and a no brainer.

That's probably why the county has finally decided that it's going to be a park. A huge, 4700 acre multi-purpose park in the shape of a great white elephant.

It'll be beautiful for a few years, until maintenance gets sloppy (as it has in most other public parks) and taggers start marking it up and stealing and breaking things. Thugs and deviants will take it over and it won't be safe at night.

I don't think I'm the only one who can see this.

Remember, VOTE FOR NO INCUMBENT!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

The Perpetual Campaign

For months now, the MSM have been talking, polling, speculating and complaining about the Presidential election coming up in....November of 2008!? It's like the Christmas season. It starts earlier every time.

Anyone who has the desire to run for President has to already have campaign donations lined up, and has to have a portion of his campaign team put together. Already.

While most of us who are interested are just beginning to think about the election of our HR members and state assembly members this November, along with a third of the senators, there are a half-dozen or so power-mad individuals are setting up for a run at the Presidency.

It's two-and-a-half years until the Presidential election.

Well, who cares what these self-important dopes do with their time, right? Not if they already have a job.

Many of these individuals are state governors and federal senators.

Who's going to be doing the senating and governing while these slackers are flying from state to state (I'm sure they'll find a way to make much of it "official," >>nudge, nudge, wink, wink<< style="font-weight: bold;">VOTE FOR NO INCUMBENT!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

You Can Stop Rock and Roll!

I don't know how many people with whom I've chatted on the subject of music, but it's in the manys. Almost every one of them has the following characteristic: He/she is absolutely certain that the music that was being played while he/she was in high school and college--roughly about age thirteen to, oh, maybe twenty-five--was the best music ever.

I don't think I know (or have known) more than four or five individuals that like popular music that don't fit the above description.

I grew up during the very beginnings of rock & roll. My early favorites were (and still are, sort of....) Elvis Presley, Eddie Cochran, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, the Beach Boys, and many others in that period.

As time passed and rock & roll grew and fleshed out, rather than remaining stuck in the "American Graffiti" era, I started listening to the music of the "Hippie" era. Many of them were hard to listen to, but I liked (and still like) Buffalo Springfield, the Beatles, Cream, and a few others.

I listened to Heavy metal, New Wave and Punk (a little). I was prompted by a friend to revisit classical music, then I spent some time looking for the roots of rock, which caused me to listen to blues, jazz, big bands and even back to Cole Porter and Scott Joplin.

I'm not stuck in the fifties.

I don't like most of the music they're playing today. Maybe I ought to say I like the music of the twentieth century.

There are a lot of "classic rock" stations on the radio. They play the same tunes they played ten years ago. Almost without exception.

There are a couple of stations that play current pop and what passes for rock (for some), but if I hear one more pop millionaire singing, no, whining plaintively about how lonely he/she is, I'm gonna swear off radios (I probably won't).

Rap? Not on a bet. I kind of liked Tone Loc and a couple of others, but it seems as though more recent rappers seem to have reverted to a form of prehistoric savagery.

I've been listening to more classical music lately. I find I like Strauss waltzes. I like Mozart and Beethoven. If I knew more about classical, I could name more. I'm learning.

After many years of staying away from country music (music for dumb people), I've actually started to listen to country some. It doesn't any longer seem to be all of that "I Got A Duck Sittin' On My Hand And I'm Feelin' Down" stuff. It actually seems like a sort of light rock that you can understand the lyrics, sung by nice-looking people whose parents taught them how to dress. Oh, crap! I've just proved that I'm getting old (dammit)!

Well, this has been a fairly long, rambling entry, signifying I'm not sure what, but I've put too much into it to delete it. The point is, (yes, I did start with a point in mind) if you like music, there's way too much of it to allow yourself to become stuck in a single decade. Some bit of every genre is really good, and the rest is mediocre to lousy; it becomes the task of each of us to make the choices.

They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!

Warm regards,
Col. Hogan

".....Not a Single Incidence of Patriot Act Abuse...."

Thanks to Radley Balko, the Agitator, for pointing out this abuse of the evil Patriot Act.

It seems that, in Virginia, four pro-US Iraqi Kurds are being persecuted by being prosecuted (under the provisions of the Patriot Act) for having sent some funds to charitable organizations in the old country, without a license. A license??!!? Since when do you have to have a license to give money to charity? Answer: since the Patriot Act.

Perhaps some of the jack-booted Patriot Act thugs ought to read the words on the obverse of every US FR note: "This Note Is Legal Tender For All Debts, Public And Private."

These unfortunate victims of a government gone mad have had their homes raided, their money seized, their applications for citizenship cancelled, and they face deportation. As usual, the MSM are hiding under the couch, or busy interviewing vapid high school truants in LA.

Now, I ask you.....Who are the terrorists?

They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

A Collective Guilty Conscience

I guess I'm a little stuck on the movie V For Vendetta. I liked it. I plan to see it again. And again.

Although the movie is set in near-future Britain, the parallels here in the United States are hard to ignore. President Bush's administration seems hell-bent on putting an end to any and all privacy here, and in spending to (and beyond) the point that the next administration will find it very easy to justify a reactionary tax increase.

Note that, while the miniscule tax cut he pushed through was welcome, it was nowhere near big enough, and it was accompanied by less well-known tax increases not often acknowledged. Increases in fees, etc. It ought also to have been accompanied by cuts in spending, and wasn't--GWB's spending eclipses that of any previous administration. We only occasionally hear a faint mention of making those meager tax cuts permanent, and hardly ever hear mention of spending restraint. And, dammit, my car needs a new muffler.

Meanwhile, the insidious "Patriot Act," aka the Ripping the Bill of Rights to Shreds Act, has been renewed, guaranteeing that whatever rights GWB fails to destroy, his Democrat successor will have plenty of time to finish off.

Back to the subject, I've noticed that nearly all libertarians I've read like V. Libertarian reviews are full of positive comment and show agreement with the movie's view of the direction the world is heading. On the other hand, reviewers of conservative bent, every one, despise the film and, in some cases without having seen it, make their attacks focus on the terroristic element of the bombings and the assassinations.

The individual I particularly remember in this regard is Michael Medved, who apparently saw only terrorism in the movie--as did Sean Hannity.

As one of America's dumbest living politicians exclaimed, They "played on our fears!"

Why would conservatives so roundly condemn a work of art that so clearly favors a return to freedom and a hatred of tyranny? Could it be a reaction to the niggling complaints of what little is left of their consciences? Might they be remembering, with a sense of denial and embarrassment, that conservatism once, not long ago, claimed to champion capitalism and individual rights--however inconsistently? Does this movie point out a conflict that they're loathe to face?

The movie implied that America warred and spent itself into receivership, leaving us at the mercy of our not-so-benevolent allies. Not really much of a stretch, as things look from the here and now. GWB's excesses will hand a very difficult set of problems to the next administration. And the next administration will take it out on us.

"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people."

Remember, VOTE FOR NO INCUMBENT!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Have Faith, and Hand Over Your Wallet

I just sent a letter to the opinion/editorial editor of the Orange County Register in response to a letter from a "Republican" California State Assemblyman who has submitted a bill to create a department which assigns state grants to charitable organizations, both religious and secular. Possibilities (certainties?) of corruption are endless. Need I even state that it's utter insanity that funds be confiscated from productive individuals to give to charitable organizations, even those of which they may not approve? In a rational society, this thief would be hanged.

March 26, 2006

Editor,

The thing that Assemblyman Leslie forgets when he proposes the establishment of an “Office of Faith Based and Community Initiatives, (AB2704)” is that he’s proposing doing it with my money, and of course, that of every other Californian, rich or poor.

The first thing that’ll happen will be the staffing of the office with way too many high-salaried civil servants. This will come out of my pocket. Then, these civil servants will hand millions of Californians’ hard-earned dollars to “charities,” many of whom won’t be carefully checked, and many of whom will steal or waste these funds. News stories abound, telling tales of poor accounting practices and lost or stolen grant money.

If Mr. Leslie, indeed is a Republican, which seems like a stretch, he’d favor lowering the level of California’s state tax bite so that each Californian is able to keep and control more of his earnings. We can then, among other things, donate effectively to charitable organizations we check out and deem worthy ourselves.

So, Mr. Leslie, I ask you. How much confiscation of our earnings is enough? How long will California’s War on Productivity last? How many productive individuals must leave California before you guys’ll get the point? When everyone’s on the dole, who’s going to pay your bloated salary?


Thank you,
*Col. Hogan*

Remember, VOTE FOR NO INCUMBENT!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Ice Skating in Vicksburg

For many years, in my travels, I've always carried my skates with me. Even back in the 1970's and '80's, when I did a fair bit of motorcycle touring, I always had them with me, even given the limited space in a motorcycle saddlebag. Any time I had any time, or could make time, I'd look up the local ice rink and go skate there.

Since the mid-'80's, I've had much less time available for travelling, but I still make every effort to find a rink and skate in every city in which I happen to find myself, with a little time.

The best ice 'pon which I've skated? I think the name was Ice Palace, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in 1982. The worst ice? A small, undersized rink about a quarter-mile from Disneyland in Anaheim, California. The rink, and the building in which it was housed, made way for yet another resort hotel several years ago.

The very nicest skating experience I've had has been reprised several times. The rink, called the Redwood Empire Ice Arena, in Santa Rosa, California, belongs to the estate of Charles Schultz (Peanuts). It also has the best in-rink restaurant (the Warm Puppy) I've ever experienced. Take note, Ice Scribe! Several times, I've gone up to Santa Rosa with my primary focus 'pon a skate at Redwood Empire.

I've skated at the rink in Paramount, California, in which Frank Zamboni developed his first ice resurfacer. A very nice rink, oversized to accomodate speed skaters.

In 1994, I was sent to study soil permeability and shear strength at the US Army Corps of Engineers Waterways Experiment Station in Vicksburg, Mississippi. I brought my skates. I asked where was the nearest ice rink. Ice rink? What's an Ice rink? Don't you mean an iced drink? I ended up gambling aboard one of the faux river boat casinos on Ol' Muddy.

One thing I hope to do, is visit New York in winter, so I can skate at Rockefeller Center. So far, every trip I've made to New York has been in summer.

Remember, VOTE FOR NO INCUMBENT!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Remember, Remember the 5th of November

I saw Serenity, loved it. I've seen dozens and dozens of movies with positive messages of freedom with strong, uncompromising heroes and heroines over a life of enjoyment of movies of many types. This is why I tend to like action movies. I can sit back, relax and observe a straightforward view of an individual trying (and usually succeeding) to make his part of the universe a better place. Some of these stories are explicitly pro-freedom and others address a single injustice of some sort.

Gladiator, for example, was one man's battle against a failing government, though the story had very limited political significance except to illustrate the extent to which a mad dictator will go to enforce his will.

The Last of the Mohicans (the more recent release), was one man's struggle to live his life independently, in the midst of a war between two oppressive governments, in which efforts are made to draw him into a military battle.

V For Vendetta is a man's battle against an oppressive government that destroyed tens of thousands of lives during its drive to solidify its hold on the individuals who lived within its boundaries. A grave injustice was done to this individual, along with his fellow victims, for which he plans to destroy the oppressive regime.

Along the way, he saves the life, then falls into a tragic love with a young, heroine. To add much more would be to spoil the event, should any of you decide to see it. Suffice it to say that the story begins with Guy Fawkes, and appears to bring the story into being in a fictional future world. Fictional, but not unbelieveable....

"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people."

Addendum: Since this isn't a review, but merely a recommendation, I'd suggest you read Scott Bieser's apt review of V for Vendetta here. I've just seen the movie once (so far) and was far too emotionally wrapped up in the story to give a good assessment. I find Scott's comments match my thoughts quite closely.

They've killed Freedom! Those Bastards!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Hitler's Intellectual Heirs Live in Calabasas

There's a great fear across the City of Calabasas. It is the fear that someone, somewhere across that vast metropolitan area, someone might be enjoying himself.

I smoked cigarettes (and occasionally, cigars) for about twenty-two of the years between 1960 and 1992. I quit for the final time in '92 because I thought I was getting too old to abuse myself like that anymore, and it was getting expensive.

I still like the notion of smoking and kind of enjoy watching someone smoking, if they're enjoying it.

I never believed, nor will I ever believe, that "second-hand smoke" is as harmful as actually smoking--as it's put forth by the anti-smoking nazis and pipelined through the news media. Too many variables: Second hand smoke in a closed room? In a car? No ventilation? Yeah, that would be a problem if one is in such a place with several smokers for several years, but there's no chance that the occasional whiff one might catch in the open air of a sidewalk restaurant is going to be an issue in the milieu of deisel, gasoline, coal and wood smoke fumes that we breathe every day.

So the city of Calabasas has made smoking illegal everywhere within the city limits. Exceptions? Private dwellings. In a car with the windows rolled up. Designated smoking areas scattered about the city, like they do at Disneyland (Disneyland is private property).

The City of Calabasas has this decreed that, even though you might nominally, own your home, automobile or place of business, the City of Calbasas is going to control what you do there--just as various other jack-booted government agencies control how various other private places of business deal with themselves and their clientele.

Adolf says, "My work here is done."

They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!

Warm regards,
Col. Hogan

An Impromptu Diplomatic Coup at a Pub

There's an interesting restaurant near where we live, called The Old Ship. They had a costume contest there on Halloween night, I won first prize for my homemade Hagrid (Harry Potter). The prize was a $40 gift certificate.

Tonight was the night we finally decided to cash in the prize.

Debbie had fish & chips and I had bangers and mash. The food was, as usual, not spicy at all (I like spicy foods) but was very good. While we ate, we noticed that a fairly large group of men seemed to be really enjoying themselves in the pub. They were singing the kind of songs to which just about everyone knows the lyrics. They were singing loudly and with a great deal of enthusiasm. They were having fun!

As we finished dinner, I commented to Debbie, "We should thank those guys for the entertainment."

So, we did.

And found ourselves in a three-hour conversation.

Seems three of the men were from London. They were here to attend the funeral of their brother, who had recently passed away. All the other members of the group were local friends and co-workers of the deceased. They had been drinking, reminiscing about the deeased, and celebrating his life. Many of these men were leaving as Debbie and I finished dinner, so as we made our way to the pub, there were only six men left, including the three brothers.

When we thanked the remaining group for the, actually pretty good, singing, we were suddenly members of the group.

We introduced ourselves to the first of the three brothers, who explained the situation: that they were celebrating the life of their brother. Both Debbie and I were taken aback by this news. Neither of us expected it.

We chatted about the US, England, football, rugby and even curling. We compared Margaret Thatcher with GW Bush, Tony Blair and Bill Clinton-Rodham. We discussed tourist sites in both England and the US, with a bit of discussion about Scotland, Wales and Ireland. Then, one of the party, a New Zealander, set up a "communal dinner" with three big orders of fish and chips.

The fifth member of the group (not including Debbie and I)was a Scot. When I asked the meaning behind Guy Fawkes Day, the English guys explained that it was the celebration of the failure of Fawkes to blow up Parliament. The Scottish guy (two-and-a-half sheets to the wind, at this point) argued that in Scotland, the holiday was a celebration of the attempt, and a lamentation of his failure.

I think that puts me in the Scottish camp (Ar, ar!)

We ate the food (Debbie and I ate very little, just having finished our own dinner) drank our drinks, including several toasts to the deceased and to many other things, and parted friends, having exchanged email addresses during the course of things.

You know, you just never know where and when you'll meet new friends!

Remember, VOTE FOR NO INCUMBENT!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Get a Cold, Go to Prison

An article by John Berlau here informs of Legislative mission creep in the "Patriot Act," seems to indicate a melding of the falsely-named "War of Terror" with the equally nefarious, and equally falsely named "War on Drugs." Many of us know, but few of us care, and even fewer of us know what to do with the information that non-prescription cold medications contain chemicals that can be used to make crystal meth.

At government prompting, we've been hearing for many months from the mainstream news and conservative punditry, in one of a very few instances in which they agree, stories about the evils of crystal meth. Stories of wrecked lives, mayhem and losing weight.

Thus, we are prepared for yet another assault on our rights: the right to purchase relief from the symptoms of the common cold. Rumor has it that airline passengers will now be strip searched for Sudafed.

The Berlau article warns of pending legislation, but this article tells us that, once again, the future is now, and that George Orwell only had the year wrong. The fascist-inspired US Congress has smuggled anti-drug legislation into the evil Patriot Act. Not only will we have to buy cold medication the same way we used to have to buy condoms, but we'll have to sign for it. Our name then goes into the "Potential Crystal Meth Manufacturers Data Base."

Dear friends, I find that not particularly comforting.

They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

"There Aren't Enough Prisons!"

A young woman, drunk, was wandering about the streets of New York City at 4AM. A bouncer, working for the pub in which the woman did much of her drinking, allegedly followed her, accosted her, tortured, raped and killed her, then hid her body. Her body was found a few days later.

We subsequently learn that the bouncer was a felon, an ex-con out on parole. According to local law and parole rules, a) the pub owner should have done a background check prior to hiring the man and, after learning of his background, should not have hired him at all, and b) the man's parole officer should have, in his capacity of observing the behavior of this man, had him arrested and returned to prison as soon as he learned of his parole violation.

This entry has more to do with the nation's prisons and penal systems than it does with this particular crime (the man in question has yet to be tried for the woman's murder), than it does with this particular crime, but it's my opinion that the pub owner(s) and the parole officer should share personal responsibility for the damage they caused. The felon, should be returned to prison for his parole vionlations and if convicted of the woman's murder, should remain there, without amenities, for the rest of his life.

A degree of blame belongs to the government and police agencies of the United States for promoting the disastrous notion that it's unnecessary and undesirable (and illegal) for individuals to have and use weapons of self defense. Had this young woman been carrying a firearm and been competent in its use, there's a very good chance she'd be alive today. In no instance would she be any worse off! Because I regard drinking beyond the point of self control stupid to the point of being comparable to suicide, I'm not prepared to deal with the notion of a "drunk chick with a gun."

Were Americans in general aware that a large percentage of the American public are armed and capable of self defense, there'd be much less of this sort of thing attempted. An armed society is a polite society.

By way of finally getting to the real point of this entry, one of the news shows reveals (as has been said many times by many individuals) that the reason these admittedly very dangerous convicts are paroled so cavalierly is that there's a shortage of prison space.

There are a number of problems with this. We can briefly examine a fraction of these problems.

The prisons are full of innocent individuals whose most serious shortcoming is that they happen to have been involved in the use, possession and/or sale of illegal substances--mostly drugs. Many of these laws have mandatory minimum sentences that have no relation to the severity of their damage to any individual or group. Thus, the sentences of these convicts often take precedence of the sentences of murderers, thieves and arsonists, etc, which usually have no minimum sentences, or more flexible ones. Thus, the innocent pot farmer must remain in prison for the full X years while the real criminal often gets an early out, sometimes (often) to continue his/her reign of destruction.

The first solution: put an immediate end to this huge, immoral, unConstitutional War on the Bill of Rights, often called (by the disingenuous) "the War on Drugs." Let all those poor saps out of prison today (those who didn't commit real crimes as part of their life in the world of drugs) and repeal all of the unConstitutional laws against the right to own things and the right to ingest things in accordance with the judgement of each individual. This should make quite a bit of space for criminals who have actually harmed people.

The second solution: build more prisons. The big problem with that is that prisons cost a lot of money. And they do, if they're built the ridiculous way prisons have been built. Prisons should be privatized and run on a for-profit basis. Prisoners should work, not only to supply labor for the construction of the prisons themselves, but to do any kind of productive work to a) pay their own keep in the prison, b) provide restitution to their victims, and c) to learn a trade that can be used to begin a career after their imprisonment ends.

The goal of prison ought to be primarily restitution, not punishment. When the convict makes his victim whole, as nearly as is possible, his sentence is over (obviously, the rules must be different in the case of a death, in which no restitution is possible). The murderer should never see the light of day again. As for those who pay (literally) their debt to their victim(s), his incarceration should end that day. His own property should be returned to him--including his gun, if he owned one. An ex-con has the right to defend himself, too! He should be released back into society with no further prejudice, as long as he keeps his nose clean.

Remember, VOTE FOR NO INCUMBENT!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan

Yet Another in a Long List of Gas-Guzzlers

For the past couple of years, I've been driving Col. Hogan II, and occasionally, the Bomber. The Bomber always needed work and was costing me more money than was comfortable. Col. Hogan II has always needed cosmetic work, but always ran well and was both fun and comfortable.

Neither of them gets very good gas mileage.

About a month ago, I sold the Bomber. This week, Col. Hogan II goes up for sale. Why, you ask? Oh, you didn't ask. I'll tell you anyway.

I just bought a new guzzler. Since one of my favorite pastimes is driving--I even enjoy driving in heavy traffic, although I often mutter when I see someone reading while driving, or talking on a phone instead of driving, etc.

Debbie and I took the Amtrak up to Thousand Oaks Saturday morning and picked the car up, then drove it home. It was a thoroughly enjoyable drive. We also went for a drive up to LA yesterday--another very pleasurable outing.

I like this car pretty much the way it is, but there are a few things I plan to do to make it mine own--what car buff has no such plans?

Now, if they can just start drilling for all that cheap oil off the California coast......

They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

The Golden Age of Hitchhiking

My dad, in his youth, spent a year or so of his life riding the rails. It was the tail-end of the Great Depression, and many men wandered the country looking for greener pastures. Some were looking for adventure. Unfortunately, he never got around to telling me the details of the places he'd been and the things he'd done, so the episode will remain lost.

Later, as I edged into manhood, I had my own needs for adventure and experience. My childhood friends and I did a great number of things that I look back fondly upon. Many of these were things that would make today's overprotective parents blanch into a permanent verklemptitude, and probably wouldn't please my own more realistic parents very much, but they seemed to me like the thing to do at the time.

Having observed the soldiers and other migratory individuals thumbing their way through town to places that just had to be more interesting and more fun that Grand Forks, North Dakota, their mode of travel piqued my interest.

I tried my thumb going back and forth across town several times. Just about everyone who gave me a ride knew me or knew my dad. "Do your folks know you're dong this?" I thumbed my way to Crookston a couple of times and to Fargo.

I didn't do a lot of hitchhiking while in high school, because I had a car, a job and a girlfriend. Most of my time was accounted for.

While I was in the Navy, things were different. I couldn't afford a car, and had no place to keep it. I had a lot of free weekends. I was stationed, initially, at the training center in Waukegan, Illinois. I came up with the crazy idea to hitchhike from Waukegan to Grand Forks on the occasional weekend. It worked well. I'd get off base at about three pm and get to Grand Forks early Saturday morning. Sleep a little, run around with the guys, have a date, sleep in Sunday, start back by early afternoon, be back on base in time to catch three to six hours of shut-eye before Monday reveille.

I did that several times during the year-and-a-half I was there. I usually outran the buses.

I was transferred, after my engineman training, to an aircraft carrier in Mayport, near Jacksonville, Florida. During my time there (when we weren't at sea) I hitchhiked to New Orleans several times (a girl), to Miami several times (another girl) to Grand Forks three times, and from New York City to Grand Forks once.

I rode with many cross-country independent truck drivers, vacationing couples (usually the guy had been in the Navy himself), travelling businessmen, and the occasional drunk.

I got picked up by a lonely girl in Iowa once. I stopped to visit every time I went through there, after that. I rode with a drunk guy who crashed his car into big rig. He was killed in the crash; I suffered a broken ankle.

I ate in truckstops and diners all over the East, in a wood-burning Ozark diner, cafes in the bayoux of Louisiana, Mom & Pop diners, and many, many Denny's-style places. The ex-military guys would often pick up the tab, which was really cool.

I saw the southern cities and towns with the white side and the "colored" side. I saw the gas stations and restaurants that had "white only" bathrooms and drinking fountains. I was never turned out of a black-owned business (I was too naive to know that I wasn't supposed to be there) although most white-owned businesses either didn't serve blacks or had a special entrance in the back. I'd never seen anything like it.

I was rained on, snowed on and once spent a couple of hours on the highway in Bemidji, Minnesota when the temperature was 56 below zero. A Canadian trucker picked me upon his way to Winnipeg.

I wouldn't trade these experiences for the world. I met and talked to hundreds of very interesting, generous individuals. I spent time in towns and cities I'd only fly over today. America was a much freer, and less homogenous society (or assemblage of societies) back then. Things could be found in one part of the country that were really not found elsewhere. Sometimes, the local dialect was very hard to understand. Sometimes, local customs were very different from those to which I was accustomed.

Those days are gone, never to return. Nor should they, I guess. We were freer then, and able to do many things that are no longer possible.

You can't hitchhike anymore.

They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

If This is Reality, I'll Take Fantasy

A few years ago (who can remember?) a show called "Survivor" debuted on national network tv. They say it was (and still is) a successful show. I don't know. I've never watched it. It was so successful, that it's spawned literally dozens of clones that put (usually) young, photogenic and athletic men and women through a host of trials and embarrassments with the end result being that one contestant wins a pretty good prize.

The winner of "Survivor" gets money. A million bucks, if I'm not mistaken.
The winner of "The American Idol" gets a record deal.

And on and on. Who can keep track?

After avoiding these shows for a long time, I finally followed "'70's House." The daughter of a friend, a very talented aspiring actress, was a contestant. She did well for a few episodes, but was ousted because she couldn't perform in a roller disco bit. She'd never learned how to skate. For shame!

Speaking of skating, I just finished following "Skating With Celebrities." The award episode is still to come, but my impatience won't allow me to wait through the time-wasting that has already accompanied the waning eons of the show. It was better when there were more contestants. My curiosity as to which couple will actually win has been soundly trounced by my boredom at watching all the phony complements and the interminably stretched out dialogue.

I watched a few episodes of "Dancing with the Stars" (I don't know which stole the idea from the other.), and found it to be the very same show, with tall pumps in place of skates. The female dancers were in a contest to see who could best shake their cute little butts. I don't remember any of the guys. After two hours of pure inanity, punctuated by short periods of butt shaking, they finally awarded the win to the girl with the best butt.....and the guy she was with.

Meanwhile, I was reading libertarian blogs, looking up occasionally at the scarce watchable moments.

So, I'm an ice skater, and an ex-hockey player. That's what got me into watching this stuff. Now, I'm cured. "Fear Factor" will have to do without me.

They've killed Freedom! Those bastards!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

Any Port in a Storm

I don't like to treat symptoms. While some of my solutions might seem to some to be pie-in-the-sky fantasizing, mental meanderings into some kind of idealistic dream world, I see them as cutting through the bureaucratic layers of crap and the justifications of layers and layers of an impossible patchwork of quick fixes and pragmatic political payoffs.

I see them as ways to fix it once and fix it right.

Politicians and their apologists are quick to use the excuse, "this decision is just like that decision. That decision was judged Constitutional by the Warren Court in 1959." Well, if the problem is looked at with the eye of a non-receiver of government paychecks (or payoffs), and compared directly to the Constitution as written, in light of the opinions of the Founders as written in the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers, it's very clear that it's not Constitutional at all.

Let's try an example. The so-called "War on Drugs," (truthful name, War on the Bill of Rights) has been ratified by all and sundry politicians, both Republican and Democrat, from local Chiefs of Police to the President of the United States. Cases run through courts from local through the US Supreme Court and the answer is always the same: the "War on Drugs" is Constitutional. Warranted and warrentless searches of individuals' homes, computers, medical records and financial records is routine when the word "drugs" is breathed. Yet, point to me the phrase in the Constitution that gives gevernment the prerogative/mandate to control that which any individual may ingest. G'ahead. I dare ya.

How about another? How about the current port flap?

I think it's less a problem than do most. I don't care who's managing the eastern seaports as long as they're good at their jobs. I don't care who's pullin' dat barge, as long as they're good barge pullers.

The problem isn't with who's contracted to manage the ports, it's who owns the ports. Government should not own nor have anything to do with the ports. Why? Because government can't do anything right. Note the confusion: government announces that it'd be easy for a "terrorist" to hide a WMD in a container and ship it to the US. Then, almost without taking a breath, they admit that they can only inspect 3-5% of the containers that arrive at the ports!

It's the Coast Guard and Customs that are responsible for inspecting the ports. These are government agencies. The one characteristic that unites all the employees of all the government agencies is laziness. They're not going to do anthing unless it'll hurt not to--and managers, because of civil service rules (the Coast Guard' military rules are a little better, but not much) can't enforce much discipline.

The incentive needed to run a good seaport, like just about anything else, is ownership. Full ownership, not that quasi-ownership in which business fronts the capital and government makes all the rules, but absolute, for profit ownership. No government agent should be able to enter the property unless he has a warrant signed by a judge who can be disembenched for signing frivolous warrants.

Profit incentives will force owners and their managers to work effectively. If the owners of a por continually has problems such as explosions and lost shipments, shippers will use other ports and the problem port will go out of business, close and be sold, presumably to enrepreneurs who will do it better.

There is some Constitutional justification for government meddling in international trade, and I recognize that. I disagree with the two-plus century-old reasoning behind it--it's merely a bit of mercantilist baggage that sneaked over here in an uninspected ship from 18th Century England. It can be eliminated by Constitutional Amendment.

Remember, VOTE FOR NO INCUMBENT!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

The Shot Heard 'Round the World

Y'know, I have to think that Dick Cheney's having shot Harry Whittington on their quail hunting expedition was an accident. As a firearms enthusiast, I also have to think that the whole thing was Cheney's fault for not taking the moment to know where all the members of the hunting party were. All that's pretty much established, and pending any unexpected further revelations, the story's over.

What was really strange and really funny is the way the whole thing went down with the MSM press. Obviously, the reporters in the White House Press Corps--reporters whose photos are in the dictionary illustrating the meaning of the word "pompous"--expected Cheney to put down his shotgun and pick up his cell phone and call them, even as the unfortunate Mr Whittington lay bleeding in the dry grass.

In movies and stories of yore, we learn that the job of a news reporter is to go out, find the individuals involved in the story, interview them by hook or by crook. They might have to go to strange places; dangerous places and research the facts. They might have to eavesdrop, spy, develop ruses, pay bribes or even outright lie to get to the truth of the matter.

Not any more. You'd damn well better call a press conference and give all the reporters from all the newspapers, newswires, news magazines, radio and tv reporters and retired tv talking heads all the facts and answer every question fully until they decide they've heard enough or you, my dear politician, are dead meat. Unless your name is Clinton or Kennedy.

Why, you might ask? Because if you delegate this solemn responsibility to a mere private citizen, who'll tell it to a cub reporter on a local paper, of course they'll get it all wrong. Such unschooled oafs are not to be trusted with real news! Just ask David Gregory. He'll tell you. And tell you. And tell you.

Now, hold up your hands if you know the answer, children: How many times have we seen a big story, when told to us by Geraldo Rivera or Newsday's Tom Brune--or any of the others, for that matter--change from hour to hour, from day to day? Not changes that develop, mind you, but factual changes. Changes in which the reporter rushed off a quick story to get a scoop, before he had the facts, and was subsequently shown to be exaggerated or incomplete, or just plain wrong?

Having read news stories about which I had personal, first-hand knowledge, it happens a lot!

I heard Cheney's shotgun referred to as 28-caliber several times before I finally heard 28-gauge, for example. The press, as I've mentioned before, changes the spelling and pronunciation of Arabic words and names every couple of weeks or so. Nobody seems to understand the necessity for news people to have some degree of real-world knowledge before sending them out of the halls of ivy.

There were thousands dead, more thousands raped and robbed, hundreds of bodies floating in the New Orleans streets after the Katrina hurricane, until others were able to get into the area and give a little perspective. Yet almost no one in the MSM reported the fact that the military and the police were going house-to-house confiscating residents' legally-owned firearms, in complete violation of their Second Amendment rights. But, I digress.

I only saw bits and pieces of that embarrassing press conference in which the entire press corps tried to rake the Pillsbury Doughboy over the coals because of the "delay" in the reporting of the accident to their tender, pampered ears.

Had I been the doughboy, and were I being verbally assaulted by the likes of those dolts, I'd have closed the meeting, then told them to have their bosses send a new set of reporters: reporters who can be civil and polite while asking the tough questions. Reporters who can keep their personal psychoses and biases under wraps while working in the supposedly neutral third estate.

Were I the editor of any one of these news media, I'd have reporters actually digging and finding out what's really going on, rather than relying on what the White House dorks are being spoon-fed.

I don't trust the Administration any farther than I can throw it. I'd like somebody to find out what's really going on in that den of iniquity, so we can go back to being a Constitutional Republic once again.

Remember, VOTE FOR NO INCUMBENT!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California