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Terry’s Tidbits

Independence Day

Terry Gray

strider1@insightbb.com

Yes, there are some of you walking America’s soil who don’t know that you’ve just been raped again by the Supreme Court.  You are the ones who will grumble when you find out, but you’ll just turn up “The Price is Right” and have another candy bar.  “How does this affect me?”  Then there are those of you who already know, who will shrug and say, “Oh well, there’s nothing I can do about it.”  You’ll work to make your house your home and when Big Brother comes to take it you’ll indignantly scream, bow your heads, pack your bags, and continue your existence as a slave to government.

Just days after the Supreme Court decided that individuals have no property rights when corporations want their properties “for the common good”, outspoken patriots are screaming from east to west.  Rights oriented groups are challenging the decision.  City “leaders” are rubbing their hands gleefully, hands that have long been loosely tied, are now free to push the pen that removes you from your home.  Police stand ready to escort you physically away from what was once yours but allowing your memories and sweat to remain.

Six year old Julie’s footprint in the concrete sidewalk that you poured 20 years ago is jack hammered to dust to make way for a parking lot.  Rusty the Labrador’s grave, dug after the 14 year old family friend licked your hands and said goodbye, is unearthed and hauled off to a landfill.  Billy’s special spot for viewing the stars with the telescope he got for his 10^th birthday, the spot where he asked questions of existence and God and you did your best to provide him answers to age-old questions still unanswered for you, is to become the spot Mr. Cash will take over to sell pipe dreams to those who still believe in dreams.  The tree you planted 30 years ago still stands strangling and lonely, surrounded by a concrete sea.

And the strangers that walk the land where your home once stood know nothing of the ghosts that remain, screaming incognito in desperation from beneath the “common good”. 

Arthritic hands load onto the U-Haul the last of what is left of your life.  A glance backward with sunken eyes as you watch the new owners of your past-life welcome progress; a new America devoid of whom and what we are.   

Chief Justice David H. Souter sided with the Supreme Court’s recent decision that private property rights depend on economics.  If your home is more valuable to your community as a hotel, gas station, or sewage treatment plant then government can steal your home from you and give it to someone else.

Justice Souter may be eating what he has just handed us little folks.

Logan Darrow Clements, CEO of Freestar Media, LLC has notified the code enforcement office of Towne of Weare, New Hampshire that he is seeking to start the application process to build a hotel at 34 Cilley Hill Road.  Coincidentally and ironically, 34 Cilley Hill Road is the home of David H. Souter.

Mr. Clements maintains that Towne of Weare would realize better economics if that property were the home of a hotel instead of just a home.

The Supreme Court decision of late has placed every home in this country that is used as a private residence in danger.  Not one private home is as profitable as it could be if used as commercial property and as such, every home in America is economically obsolete and subject to eminent domain laws.

Send an e-mail to logan@freestarmedia.com indicating your interest in getting a copy of our business plan and offering memorandum when it is ready. Include your name, address, phone number and amount of capital that you are able to put at risk. This is NOT an offer to sell securities.

Volunteer to help if you are a lawyer or architect or if you can donate time to help with research on the Internet.

USA Patriot Act Against Americans

Dell is an innovator in home computers and their placement in American homes.  Though I don’t need another computer and wouldn’t finance it if I did, I was curious about their financing process.  I opened the web page to check it out and where it asked for my SSN I saw this:

“Why Dell Asks for SSN

It's wise to be cautious about sharing your social security number or any other personal information. Dell Financial Services takes the privacy and security of our customers' information very seriously and we don't ask for information unless we absolutely need it to offer you financing in the quickest and most efficient manner.

There are three reasons we require you to furnish your social security number.  (Two of the three don’t matter.  Here’s the one that does matter.)

Why does the USA Patriot Act want to know if I’m opening an account with Dell?  I can’t wait for the coming revolution.

Independence Day?

Soon to be renamed “USA Patriot Act Day”.  Independence is a thing of the past; now we need to take your freedom in order to make you feel safe.  We won’t really make you safe but you’ll have that warm and fuzzy feeling that only Uncle Sam can give you.  You have no need to worry any longer about Granny Jones boarding a plane in Omaha and exploding it over Peoria.  We’ve got your backs.

Sam Adams said that from this day forward, referring to 1776, fireworks will be heard across the country on this day.  He didn’t know that fireworks would be illegal in most of the country.  He also didn’t know that most of the citizens of this country would be ignorant of what Independence Day is all about.

I think that with every sofa sold during Independence Day “sales events”, a pocket Constitution should be included with the sofa.  For every fireworks purchase one must know the basics of the Bill of Rights.  For every flag flown one must know something about what the flag means.  For every car sold at “deep discount” a television car hawker must be shot with a red, white and blue bullet.

At noon on Independence Day, the top 10 finishers in the race to remove our rights should be hanged, shot, hanged again, drawn and quartered, tarred and feathered, and their remains removed from this country’s soil along with any written record of their existence.  We would only need have this contest and subsequent “freedom celebration” once.  Well, maybe twice, simply because most of our politicians are too stupid to understand the meaning.  Then of course there would be those politicians who would push to have this celebration banned.  Okay, that was redundant.  Redundancy has to be repeated in order to get the message across.

Let’s start with Justice David H. Souter.  I wonder what kind of ideology his kids have about freedom in this country. 

Mars Rovers All Wet?

The Mars Rovers, sent to the red planet some time ago, have found no life yet.  Scientists at NASA think that carbon elements, the basics of life as we know, it may exist on Mars and may be definitive proof that Mars had life at one time.  The second search on Mars is for water, another much needed element for life.  With this in mind, why did NASA send the two rovers to the deserts of Mars?  I don’t look for ice cream in a shoe store.  Pictures of Mars indicate snow and ice on the poles of Mars.  Why didn’t we go there?  Just curious.

Urchins Be Gone

Georgia just passed a smoking ban.  Everyone is complaining, from smokers to anti-smokers.  Everyone is waking up and saying, “how did this happen?”  It happened the same way that all government regulation happens – apathy.

Georgia’s smoking ban is a little different than most, however.  The state grants local governments the right to a couple of options. (I like that.  “Grants” local governments the right...  The whole concept of granting a right is an assumption that local governments or the people don’t have the right in the first place.  It assumes state authority and if unquestioned and unchallenged the practice becomes routine.)

Businesses have the option of banning kids or banning smoking.  Antismoking forces are livid.  “How dare you mess with our kids and their right to go places.”  Hey, I’ve been calling this for a long time.  Antismoking forces use kids in their prohibition campaigns, pulling our heart strings with the age old liberal whine, “It’s for the kids.”  Puke.  Now they are screaming that their kids have fewer places to go and it is unfair.  I told you people that begging for government regulation was nothing more than begging for your own rights and other stuff to be taken from you.  I warned you over and over.  You got your way; now adults have the option of kids or smoking.

Antismoking forces are also whining that this new law completely overlooks the health risks of second hand smoke on Joe the bartender.  This ideology assumes many things.  It assumes that Joe can only get a job as a bartender and than Joe can only get a job as a bartender in a smoking environment.  This is an insult to Joe.  Besides, no one asked Joe.  Antismoking forces have long used the argument that hospitality workers should not have to seek employment elsewhere should tobacco smoke pose a problem for them in the work place.  This is merely another weapon in the antis’ arsenal of reasons to ban smoking.  Several months ago in Michigan, 4 workers from the firm Weyco were fired for refusing to quit smoking.  More specifically, they were fired for refusing to take a test to see if they were smoking.  This had nothing to do with smoking in the workplace, but instead it banned employees from smoking, period.  Where were the employment conscious, right-to-work antismoking groups then?  Did they defend the smokers’ rights to work?

Another whine coming from Georgia is that this legislation will kill small diners and other Mom and Pop businesses.  When seeking a complete ban, antismoking forces didn’t seem concerned with the demise of small local businesses.  In fact, they stated over and over, and still do, that there will be some casualities associated with smoking bans but they won’t have a big effect on the economy.  In other words, Mom and Pop are expendable and the corporate chains will be just fine.  This is the kind of mentality used by Mike Scanlon, Lexington vice Mayor and Applebee’s mogul.  He used his political position to push for a smoking ban specifically to put small restaurants out of business so that he could strengthen his market share.

On the good side of all of this – no more screaming kids in restaurants in Georgia.  They should have been banned long ago.  When I’m trying to enjoy a $20 steak, the last thing I want is a screaming kid, picking his nose and sassing his mother, to ruin my dinner. 

The feedback from Georgia has been mixed.  Many restaurant owners have banned kids in their understanding that kids don’t pay the check nor do they tip.  Smokers do.

Fine Big Tobacco?

Health Nazis now want to fine Big Tobacco if smoking rates fail to decline.  Okay, and let’s fine Ford for every SUV sold. 

Tobacco companies have been raked over the coals to the tune of billions.  This money has been earmarked for farmer buyout, antismoking education, and salaries for Nazi crusade leaders.  The responsibility for getting people to quit has been delegated to antismoking groups via TONS of money and power and they have readily accepted the money and power but refuse to take responsibility. 

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