Going wireless

My home operates on a system of computers hooked up via cat5 and wireless connections. It's very easy to do using a wireless router -- what I do recommend is you buy a router that will do both, offer wireless and hardlined connections. This way you have the option. My tower as an example has the ability to be wireless but it's much easier to connect it through ethernet. No matter what, make sure you secure your wireless connection, while the neighbors might appreciate the ability to connect, others may have a bit more nefarious ideas in mind.

Is Originalism Libertarian

Mikołaj Barczentewicz pens Is Orginalism Libertarian - It's a recommended read - part of which:

What is originalism?

Originalism is a method of interpreting the Constitution, apart from that there is no simple answer to the question "what is originalism?" The main reason is that there really is a variety of "originalisms." Historically, the first version of originalism was "original intent" originalism and it was based on an assumption that "constitutional interpretation should be guided by the original intentions of the framers." Of course, many questions arise as to what the "intentions" are, whose intentions we should be concerned with and so on. Overwhelming and arguably conclusive criticism rendered original intent originalism dead and buried in the eyes of academics.

However, this critique did not bury originalism for good. In 1986 Antonin Scalia called for changing the label "from the Doctrine of Original Intent to the Doctrine of Original Meaning." This event marks the advent of "New Originalism" or "original public meaning" originalism. New Originalism is not concerned with intentions or expectation of the Framers. Instead, it tries to establish original public meaning of the Constitution (as amended). What does it mean in practice? Usually, it means a tedious research in 18th-century dictionaries, newspapers and legal treatises in search of the meaning that was shared by users of English at the time of ratification.

Beyond Libertarianism

Peter Orvetti has a blog post over at the Moderate Voice, Beyond Libertarianism that struck a few chords with me. We share a similar history as far as not knowing where we "fit in" as far as the political spectrum. I also find his suggestion that a strong political ideological alliance can be based on personality to be one that may merit consideration.

Part of this recommended read:

The more time I spent in the libertarian movement, the more uncomfortable I became about defending positions I did not honestly hold. The first year of the Obama presidency was a breaking point, as the collapse of the financial sector, the rancor over healthcare, and the hateful tactics of the president’s adversaries made me realize I could no longer keep that company.

In point of fact, I have always been less a libertarian than what might be termed a liberal-tarian. I am wary of deficits and excessive spending, and fear the role of ever-larger government agencies that seek to regulate personal behavior. I fear the so-called “Nanny State” that seeks to ban things simply because those things may not be “good for you” — rather than letting personal liberty guide these decisions. But I also see a role for government, even big government, when it comes to the basic well-being of the citizens of a wealthy industrial nation.

Sunpower for lights

Not long ago we were debating what type of low voltage path lights we wanted to use since I wanted more than the traditional light on the porch. We looked at several of the different options and decided to go with solar lighting, at first I wasn't sure how bright it would be and if the lack of wiring would create a theft temptation. This was a valid threat considering someone has stolen our expensive energy saving bug light bulb right from our porch more than once. However a month into the solar lighting being placed, no thefts and it does provide some nice lighting with no electrical wiring or costs.

Jail tips for Lohan

Perhaps while Lindsay Lohan is in jail, since it's clear from the below post she needs to learn a bit more about the law, if the law library at the county lock up is not up to par...She could concentrate on writing a quick weight loss diet book based on her jail days. "Ninety days to a sober and slimmer you" could be a suggested title.

The special treatment the rich and famous get compared to regular citizens is something that should be stopped. If the law is truly the law...

Lindsay Lohan cites Cato

This was amusing - from the Washington Post:

To the surprise of anyone who actually studies crime and punishment, Lindsay Lohan weighed in on the subject Wednesday night via Twitter:

"It is clearly stated in Article 5 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights that ..... 'No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.' " She then quoted from a 2002 Cato Institute paper by legal scholar Erik Luna decrying unfair sentencing guidelines: "Scores of federal defendants sentenced under a constitutionally perverted ..... system that saps moral judgment through its mechanical rules."

The folks at the D.C.'s libertarian think tank were tickled by the unlikely shoutout, but Cato senior fellow Walter Olsen says the jail-bound actress missed the mark.

"She needs to be more careful in her legal research -- too much time in bars and not enough in law libraries," he told us. The Supreme Court struck down those sentencing guidelines in 2005, and the UN declaration has nothing to do with her case. "Not now or ever has the Geneva Convention protected the right to flip off the judge."

The faux revolution...

It's interesting that Rand Paul is still being marketed as a libertarian, when the reality is he's not. What's also interesting is that some of those who claim to lean libertarian are advocating violent positions that few who truly believe in libertarianism would support. Washington Post example of behavior no one should support:

The Republican wave carries along a group that strikes a faux revolutionary pose. "Our Founding Fathers," says Nevada Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle, "they put that Second Amendment in there for a good reason, and that was for the people to protect themselves against a tyrannical government. And in fact, Thomas Jefferson said it's good for a country to have a revolution every 20 years. I hope that's not where we're going, but you know, if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies."

Angle has managed to embrace the one Founding Father with a disturbing tolerance for the political violence of the French Revolution. "Rather than it should have failed," enthused Jefferson, "I would have seen half the earth desolated." Hardly a conservative model.

But mainstream conservatives have been strangely disoriented by Tea Party excess, unable to distinguish the injudicious from the outrageous. Some rose to Angle's defense or attacked her critics. Just to be clear: A Republican Senate candidate has identified the United States Congress with tyranny and contemplated the recourse to political violence. This is disqualifying for public office. It lacks, of course, the seriousness of genuine sedition. It is the conservative equivalent of the Che Guevara T-shirt -- a fashion, a gesture, a toying with ideas the wearer only dimly comprehends. The rhetoric of "Second Amendment remedies" is a light-weight Lexington, a cut-rate Concord. It is so far from the moral weightiness of the Founders that it mocks their memory.

Folic acid is the focus...

One of the main reasons prenatal vitamins are recommended, especially in advance of becoming pregnant for those who are trying to conceive is folic acid. While many food sources contain folic acid, the March of Dimes has reported that the synthetic form of folic acid is more easily absorbed than the natural form. It's something you should keep in mind when searching for the best prenatal vitamin. Look carefully at the recommended dosage of folic acid and what that particular vitamin product contains.

No wonder why I can't sleep...

After I read this from the National Sleep Foundation:

The bedroom should be visually pleasing and very comfortable. One should use the bedroom only for sleep, sex, and changing clothes, pleasant activities, and if awake in the night should leave the bed and bedroom and spend "unpleasant" times awake in another room. "Waking" activities such as working on the computer, talking with one's partner, talking on the phone and watching TV should take place out of the bedroom.

Not only is our television in the bedroom, but it's where my "office" is so that I don't have to deal with the noise and distractions from the rest of the household. It makes me wonder how many others who turn to the sleeping pill solution are in the same boat, or should I say...bed?

Ron Paul Hints The Re”love”ution May Live Again In 2012

The catchy title alone is worth giving some kudos to Mediaite though at age 76, despite the fact Ron Paul may find it fun to run for president...I think that train has left the station.

“It is probably hard to believe, but I look at it a little bit differently than others,” Paul said in an interview during his recent visit to Iowa. “I don’t expect to be president. I don’t expect to be. That doesn’t mean I won’t run for president, but I am really energized when I think we make inroads … to broaden the outreach on the philosophy I have been talking about for 40 years.” [...]

“I am very serious about thinking about it all the time,” Paul said about his possible presidential aspirations. “My answer is always the same thing: You know I haven’t ruled it out, but I have no plans to do it.”

The rebirth of Friedrich Hayek

Recommended article from across the seas - Friedrich Hayek: Darling of the right is reborn in the USA.

What is especially interesting is we have had these arguments before...

Friedrich August von Hayek was born in Vienna in 1899 to a family steeped in academia, and became a polymath whose learning spanned psychology and the law as well as philosophy and economics.

Working at the London School of Economics in the Thirties and Forties, he became the most persuasive of all the "Austrian school" of economists who advocated for limited government, a classical liberalism that is today more commonly described as libertarian.

They passionately opposed central planning of whatever political hue, from Nazism to Communism, and that included opposing the nationalisations and Keynesian demand management that took hold in social democratic Europe after the Second World War. It was a lonely position for much of the post-war period.

In a vivid way, it mirrors the intellectual clash between Hayek and another dead economist, John Maynard Keynes, who argued for governments to step in with big spending programmes to prevent a recession from spiralling into a depression. It was Keynesian policies, lashings of them in every major country in the world, that pulled the global economy back to growth after the financial crisis.

Keynes declared himself in "deeply moved agreement" with The Road to Serfdom, but he had a sting in the tail of his praise. He declared that the philosophy was of no practical use. A minimalist government, which left people to fend for themselves, was unconscionable, he said, and no matter how seductive it appears on the printed page, no one would support its introduction in the end.

Our right to sue when injured...

How much responsibility legally do companies have when it comes to items or products that are later proven to cause a health risk? That's one of the things I've always wondered about when you start reading about types of diseases and finding a Mesothelioma Lawyer. There was a time when asbestos was not deemed as a health risk, then there of course came the time period when it was known that it does cause that type of cancer. There are of course a variety of variables, when the manufacturer of a product knew the concerns were possible, what steps did they take, what protections were offered. Now you can find a Mesothelioma Attorney who will know more about your legal options.

Despite how long ago problems were known about asbestos, it still is having a large impact on the lives of many others...When reading more about Malignant Mesothelioma you can learn how some have survived the disease longer than doctor's expectations. It does not promise a cure, has provided hope as far as answers for some.

More fun with Rand Paul comments

We are now like the Roman empire, about to fall, according to Rand Paul:

"In the latter days of Rome, the economy was crumbling, the emperor ... would placate the mob with bread and circus -- food and entertainment to placate them since the economy was in shambles and dwindling around them," Paul, said, the Louisville Courier-Journal reports. "Now in our country, as our economy is in shambles, they give us Cash for Clunkers and a stimulus check and they tell us to go to the mall and spend your money and everything will be OK ... That's not how you become prosperous as an individual or a country."

At least this time his comments have not created some of the response from his civil right commentary - (link)

Calories in - Calories out not quite that simple...

An over seas study written about in the journal Obesity, by Y. Li and colleagues claims a low-dose multivitamin caused obese volunteers to lose 7 lb of fat mass in 6 months, mostly from their abdominal regions when compared to a placebo. The results also claim that the volunteers saw their LDL reduced by 27% and HDL increased by 40%. They also reported increased resting energy expenditure.

The results have created some controversy as to could nutrients play a larger role in weight loss. Skeptics point to the small volunteer base and the differences in diet from China to the U.S. as being factors that need to be weighed. While this is debated, it is interesting to take a look at some of the information out there on the diet industry at websites like, http://www.weightlosspills.net. The controversy has also increased the discussion of the "calorie in - calorie out" belief system that many believe is too simplistic for those who are considered clinically obese.

The mattress mangle...

Evidently when our house was built, people did not have anything other than twin or full size beds, it is not humanely possible to get a king or even a queen size bed mattress upstairs or into the basement. It is possible depending on the type of queen size mattress to mangle it into what we've called the "taco bend" to get it upstairs, but it's not possible to have a queen sized box spring upstairs. Thankfully the explosion of access to platform beds has made that not a huge issue. We spent the first several months with just our queen size mattress on the floor until we found a reasonably priced platform bed.

Libertarian candidates help Democrats win?

This is actually one of the consistent arguments used against third party candidates, that Libertarian candidates take votes away from Republicans and Green Party candidates take votes away from Democrats. It's the basic focus of this Texas Tribune piece.

I understand the argument, but it's also a scenario where if the best candidate is a Libertarian, Green Party or other third party, or even an independent, it creates the public impression that these candidates should not be considered since they can't win.

They can win, if people vote for them.

Libertarian National release on Gun Ownership Court ruling

Libertarian National Committee Chairman Mark Hinkle issued the following statement via e-mail:

“We are very pleased that the Supreme Court has ruled that the Second Amendment protects individuals from state governments wishing to violate their right to own handguns.

“Libertarians have always firmly supported the individual right of self-defense.

“Now there is some hope that Chicago’s horrible violent crime problem can be reduced by law-abiding citizens who will now be able to deter and resist criminals. More guns = less crime.

“It is disturbing that four justices voted to uphold Chicago’s gun ban. Their position is an attempt to pursue a policy goal from the bench, not to apply the Constitution — and to make matters worse, it is a policy goal that would be very harmful to the people of Chicago, and potentially to everyone in America.

“This ruling follows the District of Columbia v. Heller ruling, which overturned D.C.’s ban on handguns. That case was originally brought by Dick Heller, Libertarian Party member and treasurer of the D.C. Libertarian Party.

“We hope that this ruling will lead to further court decisions that reduce the government’s ability to infringe on gun rights with burdensome restrictions and red tape.

“Republicans and Democrats both deserve blame for violating gun rights. While Republicans often position themselves as Second Amendment defenders, it is worth noting major examples to the contrary:

“Republican 2008 presidential nominee John McCain received an F- rating from Gun Owners of America;

“Republican president George W. Bush supported a program called Project Safe Neighborhoods that sought to toughen and federalize prosecution of gun control laws;

“When he was running for Massachusetts Governor in 2002, Republican Mitt Romney said, ‘We do have tough gun laws in Massachusetts; I support them; I won’t chip away at them; I believe they protect us and provide for our safety.’;

“In 1991, former Republican President Ronald Reagan announced his support for the Brady federal gun control bill.”

The Libertarian candidate for New York Governor, Warren Redlich, has commented that the ruling will affect New York gun control laws. On June 28 Redlich wrote, “This landmark ruling will require New York State to take immediate action to amend its gun laws so they do not violate the constitution. It is a striking victory for gun owners and for anyone who believes in the fundamental rights the constitution provides.”