Bird Watcher

Our first cat, Ralph, was a true hunter. Even in winter, he dreamed of being out there, catching prey.
Ralph died about four years ago of squamous-cell carcinoma--caught from too much sun exposure. Well, actually he was dying from it when we had him put to sleep. But he was a great cat with superb feline reflexes.
This is looking out the south window of our house. The trees are quakies, and I believe the birds are finches.

This was me, just after finding my first geocache. I'm looking kind of bald in this picture, but it's only because my Peruvian hat was pushed back. This is in Arizona, on the slopes of Mt. Graham.

Out Near Middle-of-Nowhere

This is near my home in Middle-of-Nowhere. The mountains in the background are the Oquirrh Mountains, and the mine is Bingham Copper Mine.

This is Scout.

Scout was named after the little girl in "To Kill a Mockingbird", one of my wife's favorite films. Scout's actually a pretty cool cat--she rarely brings home mice, but I think our previous cat did more than his share in that area. Anyway, in this picture, Scout is looking out our front window.
More pics to come.

Conservatives Are Nicer Than Liberals

Okay, okay. I know you're out there cursing at me, saying how ignorant I am about the reality of it all. I mean, don't conservatives want to keep the poor from getting food and shelter? Don't conservatives want to take away rights for gays to get married? Aren't conservatives more often than not, in favor of capital punishment? Well, the answers are a bit more complex than that. Conservatives want to feed the poor, but they want to do it by private donations, not tax dollars. We believe that the best form of charity is that that is given willingly, and not forced upon us by a tax increase. In my second example, yes, conservatives are much more in favor of not changing the definition of marriage to include two people of the same sex. Marriage, by definition, is the union between two members of the opposite sex. On the other hand, most conservatives are in favor of extending gay couples all the legal rights that married couples have--a position with which gay entertainer, Elton John, concurs.
Finally the third example--capital punishment. Yes, conservatives by and large, are much more interested in seeing vicious murderers, or even child rapists, killed. Conservatives are much more interested in using punishment to "fit the crime" instead of using it to rehabilitate the offender.
So that brings us to, why I think liberals are meaner. This is why: because they use every means possible to push their agenda upon the country--including enlisting the press. Despite contrary protests, it is a given fact that there were more positive news stories about Barack Obama, and more negative news stories about John McCain in the days leading up to the recent Presidential election. Liberals also regularly complain about their rights being violated, but when a majority of citizens of California voted for Proposition 8, the liberals on the left were the first to try and take away these citizens rights to vote for something they believed in. Liberals are in favor of free speech, as long as it's their free speech and not conservative free speech--just see how many of them want the "Fairness Doctrine" implemented.

I think Americans as a whole worry too much about what the rest of the world thinks of us---and the vast majority of Americans focus too much on the press and how it interprets the way things are going in the country. Worrying too much about a national self-image is going to lead to the demise of our country. We need to forget about it.

It's Crunch Time

Thomas Jefferson once said, "And to preserve their independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude." How true that appears now, as we look back with perfect vision hindsight. Did the Founders have vision to last through the ages, or was the document and nation they created, an entity destined to last only a couple of centuries? I've watched the march through history, the increasing intrusiveness of the welfare state, the plodding toward the removal of "freedom of speech" from our society, the steady trudging away from that divine document, and toward a "living and breathing" interpretation which allows for nearly any kind of change of the original intent.
Sad to see that our nation, once proud and free, is quickly becoming a mirage of her former self, our freedoms ripped from us with ever increasing frequency as we march toward socialism with slumbering steps. Should we haste its demise with a poor election choice, or try to slow the collapse with a one that might not be perfect, but might stall the slippage of our liberty. You make the call.