Real Texas Freedom

GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN

2011-04-03T13:48:00.000-07:00

Ezra Klein is an excellent journalist/economist who writes for the Washington Post. This is my comment on his piece about the possible government shutdown. Sam Nettles I wonder if anyone has calculated how much money is available for debt reduction if the total holdings of all Americans, especially the wealthy, is used. David Walker uses a percentage of government debt to GNP. Government debt is now just a means of holding on to a redundant status quo. It's like a man using debt to pay his bills when he has money in the bank to handle it. Posted 4/1/2011 11:23:42 AM CDT

Dyslexia?

2011-02-01T14:26:00.000-08:00

News reports of Health and Human Services latest efforts to build their control of the American Society by beginning a move to limit salt intake by Americans is disturbing and probably dangerous. Because of my wife's heart attack a few years ago, I have been very familiar with salt requirements of the human body. My wife went to the emergency room 3 times because of low salt ( hypo-leukemic ). One of her water pills was reduced to once a week and she has had no problems since. Memory and mental confusion result from low salt.

Linked with other efforts by HHS to gain inforcement powers over what people eat, drink and smoke looks like terrorists have infiltrated the agency or employees suffer from dyslexia and get their benefits and dangers reversed.

Why Insurance?

2011-01-14T06:54:00.000-08:00

The fight over health care insurance continues building on the false premise that insurance companies are untouchable in the United States. My contacts from Canada on the internet tell me that they pay $100.00 a month to the government and all medical services are covered. Payments for doctors, hospitals, drugs, dentists, eye doctors,etc. are the equivolent to the U.S. The Canadian government administers and regulates the system. Socialism means government ownership. The Canadian system is not socialized medicine.

Co-payment, premiums, cost sharing and taxes have become outrageous. Insurance company profits have rocketed to the moon. Still, Americans love insurance!!!!!

Inflation

2010-11-17T07:20:00.000-08:00

In speeches before various groups when I was young, I used to say that I would rather have a hundred dollar bill in my pocket when bread cost a hundred dollars than nothing in my pocket if bread cost a nickle. An extreme example of recession and inflation, of course, but then stagflation came along where inflation with high prices was right alongside a recession.

A true, competitive, free market economy would not allow this to happen. Economists have always used recessions and depression to combat inflation because they could. A status quo power structure will always try to protect itself and too many voters do not understand economics. Fear of inflation has been a successful motivating force for money-power controllers. Cheap labor and unemployment results from Big Business, without competive forces, taking inappropriate action. Inflation can be curbed by many methods other than recessions and depressions.

UT Longhorns

2010-10-16T17:00:00.000-07:00

Hook'em Horns!!!!!

Fed Plans

2010-09-21T13:45:00.000-07:00

The Federal Reserve should inject money into Social Security checks instead of financial institutions. This would do more good for the economy than anything they have planned!!!!!

Fighting Back- Good Link

2010-07-15T10:35:00.000-07:00

http://fightingback.homestead.com

DINNER WITH BILL GATES by Michael Shermer

2010-02-24T03:54:00.000-08:00

MY COMMENT IN eSKEPTIC: Should have asked Bill Gates if he thought it was fair for the taxpayers to pay for all the space operations that have made computers, cable TV, etc. possible while the government has farmed out the commercial interests to its chosen controllers so one has to buy a multitude of gimmicks just to use the product. When we bought radios, we got all the signals possible because the airways belonged to everybody. Broadcasters were paid by advertisers. Computers, TV and other signal requiring products should be the same. Consumers are paying twice.

AMERICAN MINDSETS

2010-02-12T09:45:00.000-08:00

To: mwernimont@gmail.comCC: samnett@msn.comSubject: RE: American MindsetsDate: Sun, 7 Feb 2010 15:23:40 -0700

Hey Mark, Thanks for the e-mail. Notice that I didn't mention democrats or republicans. Liberals and Conservatives were both admonished. I don't know how old you are but I was born during the great depression. I remember the depression, WWll, The GI Bill, the 90% tax bracket for the extremely wealthy (used to fight off Marxian economics predictions and a third world status for the US), Social Security implementation, AFDC, APTD, AB, OAA, Nursing Home development, Mental Health facilities, one worker families, $25.00 College Tuition, fair medical cost, no mandated insurance (Auto, Medical, Housing, business or any other), no sales tax, Medicare, Medicaid, Civil Rights, $20.00 fines for barroom brawls on Saturday night, limited problems with drunk drivers, politicians that cheated for you instead of against you, statesmanship when facing an ignorant public, legal drug use and tolerance of illegal use, banks and financial institutions that were fair, loan sharks that were cheaper than current credit card companies, and on and on and on.

I also remember the "wonderful" Eisenhower years when I couldn't find a job and the beginning of the current crisis when Ronald Reagan went back to the 20's for his economic structure. Until the money supply equals the value of idle resources, including the labor supply, plus balanced pricing and production capability and maintains the money flow cycles, the slow growth boom bust condition will doom capitalism and the free market. The problem is too big without government direction. We are currently locked into a system that won't work in this century.

American Mindsets

2010-02-06T21:41:00.000-08:00

I haven't written much in the last year. My wife has been recuperating from a heart attack. Not that I haven't wanted to but I have priorities. Besides, it's hard to get the truth out with all the sidetracking phony issues now being considered. The least I can do is try to break down some of the mindsets that have created our present circumstances;

To begin with, socialism means government ownership, not government control. Conservatives have been screaming "socialism and communism" ever since they screwed up the world with their economics during the 1920's and attempts were made to correct their mistakes.

A bibical approach to economics would be to take care of the poor. When the poor spend money, it flows throughout the economy. The religious "right" seems to overlook this basic truth.

Conservatives would rather take care of the rich. Liberals tie everything to what is best for the community and forget about the individuals.

Freedom is not a question of positioning. There is no aristocracy. Freedom is for the great and the small with justice for all. Money-Power control is not justice for all.

America is a representative democracy, not a pure democracy. I suppose that with the computer, everybody could vote for every law and action by all levels of government but I certainly hope not!!! Purity would surely kill us all under a system like that.

I suppose that a devine advice for American voters would be, "Your free choice will provide what you deserve."

Sam Nettleshttp://realtexasfreedom.blogspot.com/

MY NEWSVINE COMMENT ON SS ARTICLE

2009-05-12T16:27:00.000-07:00

If SS money was paid out as collected and the insurance companies were out of the health care business and credit card companies were not allowed to rip off consumers - we would not be in a recession. Bubble bust bank lending still remains a phoney cure instead of a major cause. No matter what SS does the recession will not last forever but if it does recipients can do with less.

Gian Terci of Italy

2009-03-12T03:37:00.000-07:00

A great mind has passed on. Go to forces.org for details and some of his writing.

Sam

More Credit and Debt Stimulus

2009-03-09T09:53:00.000-07:00

Hope everything works but probably will not. Wish all those great minds would come up with a new system instead of attempting to fix the current bubble-bust cycle. A GI Bill for everybody might work!!!!!

ANOTHER GREAT DEPRESSION?

2009-03-02T12:01:00.001-08:00

The current approach will lead us to a Great Depression. Short of an all-out war the alternative of high wages and gov spending in the right places will work. Banks and further debt will not work. Insurance companies are sure losers now.

Automakers Not Really To Blame

2009-02-28T10:49:00.000-08:00

Stupid approaches to Capitalism and government inaction caused our economic problems. Auto companies just provided what people wanted and what credit allowed. Debt kills growth and a money supply distributed from the top down just feeds debt. Proper resources and a labor supply did exist.

EU LEADERS WANT A REGULATED WORLD FINANCIAL SYSTEM

2009-02-22T12:47:00.000-08:00

EU leaders want to save a system that cannot work in the modern world whether regulated or not. All economic problems are connected to American consumers whose credit is maxed out. Americans will buy if they can. If Europe wants to help the world economy they should send some money straight to American purchasers and forget about the banks. LOL

Establishment at the Funny Farm

2009-02-19T21:58:00.000-08:00

0

Should be some good stories here for media people interested in the truth.

http://fightantismokertyranny.blogspot.com/

Sam Nettles

CAMBRIDGE SECOND HAND SMOKE STUDY ON NBC

2009-02-14T21:29:00.000-08:00

Been smoking since I was 10. NOW 72!!! 3 packs a day in a motor home. More second hand smoke than primary. Promoting junk science in the media is damnable and unforgiving. Good luck for the ignorant will not last. Wrongs do not make a right. Hopefully you will reverse your spin on second hand smoke and stop at the truth. Obviously the truth does not matter to you on this issue. Investigate. Start with the scientific method first step of OBSERVATION.

WASHINGTON POST COMMENT ON OUR ECONOMIC FUTURE

2009-01-21T08:26:00.000-08:00

Best accountability possible in material assets but very little for intelligence - imagination - creativity - wisdom and knowledge. Lenders need to reformulate and forget about loaning money strictly because of asset appearances.

TRUTH AND FREEDOM ON THE LINE IN DALLAS

2008-11-16T00:35:00.000-08:00

Sam Nettles - mailto:samnett@msn.com Real Texas Freedom - http://www.realtexasfreedom.net RTF Blog - http://realtexasfreedom.blogspot.com/

From: BSR71555@aol.com
Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2008 00:53:34 -0500
Subject: Re: TRUTH AND FREEDOM ON THE LINE IN DALLAS
To: samnett@msn.com

Great article!!!! I have posted it in Ohio and Indiana.

In a message dated 11/16/2008 12:38:42 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, samnett@msn.com writes:

IPCPR Says Dallas City Council Badgered by Well-funded Anti-Tobacco Forces

DALLAS, Texas November 15, 2008 – Discussions at Monday’s meeting of the Dallas City Council are expected to include possible expansion of the city’s smoking ban and both sides of the issue are actively campaigning for their respective positions – especially the anti-tobacco forces.

“Nobody likes to say anything negative about the American Cancer Society, but they are pouring money on a problem that doesn’t exist and their contributors should question how they are spending their money,” said Chris McCalla, legislative director of the International Premium Cigar & Pipe Retailers Association.

The Cancer Action Network of ACS recently mailed full-color brochures against secondhand smoke to local citizens. McCalla says the material misrepresents the issue because “contrary to their twisted tall tales, evidence overwhelmingly supports the benign nature of incidental exposure to secondhand smoke.“

The IPCPR represents some 2,000 retailers and manufacturers of premium cigars, including Dallas-based Up In Smoke cigar stores, the ownership of which is urging its customers to attend Monday’s meeting in opposition to the proposed extension of the smoking ban.

“The Surgeon General’s report is consistently misrepresented regarding the effects of secondhand smoke the evidence of which the report found ‘inconclusive. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration does not position secondhand smoke as a significant workplace issue. A report on secondhand smoke by the Environmental Protection Agency was vacated and declared null and void by a federal court because it misrepresented false conclusions that were based on poorly conceived and badly executed research… and so on,” McCalla said.

“But the anti-tobacco forces repeat their lies about secondhand smoke so often that the public has accepted them as the truth. It was Mark Twain who said ‘There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics.’ Those anti-smoking groups fabricate secondhand smoke statistics to suit their purposes and use illogical arguments to defend their otherwise indefensible positions,” said McCalla.

He also cited the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States as giving business owners the right to decide whether or not to allow smoking on their premises and for employees and customers to have the right to work or patronize these businesses.

“Piece by piece, governments are taking away our constitutional rights. Smokers and non-smokers alike in Texas and everywhere should battle against all such efforts,” added McCalla.

###

Contact:
Tony Tortorici
678/493-0313
tony@tortoricipr.com

QUESTION FOR OBAMA AND McCAIN

2008-09-05T22:51:00.000-07:00

My guestion for both - "Do you think the insurance companies deserve the control they enjoy over the medical industry and the economy in general?"

EXCESSIVE PROFITS PROBLEM?

2008-08-01T09:42:00.000-07:00

Sam Nettles - mailto:samnett@msn.com
Real Texas Freedom - http://www.realtexasfreedom.net
RTF Blog - http://realtexasfreedom.blogspot.com/
Subject: Constituent Response From Senator Kay Bailey HutchisonFrom: senator@hutchison.senate.govTo: samnett@msn.comDate: Tue, 29 Jul 2008 18:28:06 -0400
Dear Mr. Nettles:Thank you for contacting me regarding our nation's energy policy. I welcome your thoughts and comments on this issue. I support a comprehensive energy strategy that combines conservation, the development of alternative sources of energy, and an increase in domestic oil and gas production. We are increasingly dependent on foreign sources of energy - importing over sixty percent of the oil we use today. Preliminary research data suggests there may be as much as 125 billion barrels of oil and over 565 trillion cubic feet of natural gas located in designated production areas of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) combined. The domestic oil reserves in both the OCS and ANWR, when coupled with existing U.S. reserves of 21 billion barrels, are more than Iran’s total oil reserve of 136 billion barrels. However, Congress has enacted a moratorium on production in these areas. In order to bolster domestic production and reduce our reliance on foreign sources, I cosponsored the American Energy Production Act of 2008, which repeals current misguided policy and provides access to America's domestic energy supplies in ANWR and the OCS. The bill also allows access to alternative sources, such as one trillion barrels of shale oil in Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah. These sources, which presently sit unused, are equal to three times the reserves of Saudi Arabia. I have also supported numerous initiatives to encourage alternative energy use through market- and incentive-based approaches. On March 28, 2007, I introduced the Creating Renewable Energy through Science and Technology (CREST) Act. It promotes the research and development of renewable energy sources, including wave, solar, wind, geothermal, and biofuels. I am very proud to say that Texas is the nation’s leading producer of wind energy, illustrating our state’s commitment to alternative energy production.Our nation’s energy policy must be proactive instead of reactive. Some of my colleagues in the Senate believe that imposing a windfall profits tax on oil producers or suing the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is the solution to our country’s energy crisis, when, in fact, neither of these proposed plans produces one more ounce of energy. The burden of this tax would be passed down to the consumer, causing record-high fuel prices to rise even higher. Additionally, a windfall profits tax would discourage oil companies from increasing refinery capacity and furthering exploration and production of our own domestic resources. These are not solutions. Instead, a comprehensive energy policy that combines conservation, the development of alternative sources of energy, an increase in domestic oil and gas production, and a safe nuclear energy program will lower energy costs and help our nation become energy independent.You may be certain I will keep your views in mind regarding any energy legislation offered in the 110th Congress. I appreciate hearing from you, and I hope that you will continue to keep in touch on any issue of concern to you.Sincerely,Kay Bailey HutchisonUnited States Senator284 Russell Senate Office BuildingWashington, DC 20510202-224-5922 (tel)202-224-0776 (fax)http://hutchison.senate.govPLEASE DO NOT REPLY to this message as it is not a valid e-mail address. Due to the tremendous volume of mail Senator Hutchison receives, she requests that all email messages be sent through the contact form found on her website at http://hutchison.senate.gov/contact.cfm .If you would like more information about issues pending before the Senate, please visit the Senator's website at http://hutchison.senate.gov . You will find articles, floor statements, and press releases, along with her weekly column and monthly television show on current events. You may also sign up to receive Senator Hutchison's weekly e-newsletter by emailing her office at newsletter@hutchison.senate.gov .Thank you.

SPAM?

2008-07-31T20:54:00.001-07:00

This blog has been accused of spamming. This is for readers who log on. If you don't like what you read, send me an e-mail. I don't send this out and I don't spam or receive compensation.

Sam

ALASKA DRILLING

2008-07-03T14:03:00.000-07:00

I think it's a phony issue. It's those who want higher prices for alternative energy development against those who want a controlled supply in order to maintain high prices. I was told by people in the oil patch that all the oil in Alaska goes to Japan, regardless of its percentage of total supply.Whatever we produce and import goes into the same pot which is distributed to our allies as well as to ourselves. Geologists told me that there's plenty of oil in the world so I don't care where it comes from as long as the price is right. Since the beginning of the oil supply and demand lies as a basis for pricing, I have thought that the oil should be used up and alternatives worked in gradually, no matter whether price controls are at work or a fair free market is at work. Consumption has had enough so far and if the oil isn't there in the future, some money hungry industry will find a substitute. Meanwhile lower prices are in order. Alaska is a diversion and a side tracked false premise.

GAS PRICES

2008-06-30T15:42:00.000-07:00

Not a single leader, journalist or businessman has mentioned the only way to lower gas prices, that being a price rollback. The oil and gas industries were regulated from WW ll till the 70's. Free markets with supply and demand factored in do not exist without competition. Major oil companies and the cartel have destroyed competition and can now charge what they will, whether it kills the U.S. economy or not. America has always controlled industries that can charge whatever they want. A surge in free enterprise propaganda during the last several years has poisoned the minds of Americans and further enriched Big Business, where free enterprise flourishes while the rest of the nation dwindles and dies.

MORE DISGUST

2008-03-08T00:46:00.000-08:00

Smoking Bans and other dysfuctional government actions:Loathing Nausea Distaste Repugnance Offensive Abhorrence Revulsion Detestation Antipathy Upsetting Foolish Trifling Insignificant Vacant Vapid Simple Witless Silly Fatuos Inane Stupid Asinine Dull Unreasonable Foolhardy Irrational Thoughtless Nonsensical Pointless Preposterous AND Misinformed
Sam Nettles - mailto:samnett@msn.com
Real Texas Freedom - http://www.realtexasfreedom.net
RTF Blog -

DISGUST!

2008-03-08T00:29:00.000-08:00

Disgust‏

Washington economic advisors commenting on the labor stats and corporate actions yesterday.

American Leaders

2008-02-08T22:59:00.000-08:00

I thought Mitt Romney gave an excellent speech when he dropped out of the presidential race. I wanted to punch him in the nose, though, when he started in on that conservative Ronald Reagan Rush Limbaugh crap.

The latest Republican phrase coined by the spin artists is "hard working Americans." Every one of'em from Bush on down uses it in all their public utterances. It's almost as bad as the Democrats' "for the good of the community." Well, there's not enough hard working Americans and everything the Democrats want is certainly not in the best interests of the community. Economic idiocy and loss of individual freedom while money accumulates in fewer and fewer hands doesn't help anyone, not even the wealthy.

Romney may be right about the country needing a military leader at this time, regardless of who's to blame. If the troops don't mind, I certainly don't.

Letter to City of Tyler, Texas

2008-01-21T04:01:00.000-08:00

Regarding the City of Tyler's approach to smoking bans, please consider that this movement is a world-wide attempt to undermine the United States, democracy and freedom itself. Behind the movement is a well financed junk science propaganda scheme tailored for the uneducated, ignorant and downright stupid. The validity of common sense is mired in false premise and money-power political designs. A quarter of America's population has enough kidneys and livers to handle the toxins of the world without any help from local, county, state and federal governments. This generation needs to learn from history and economic textbooks the idiocy of Prohibition and oppresisve government controls.

Sam Nettles
Hutto, Texas

Alabama Spin Garbage

2008-01-15T21:24:00.000-08:00

American Cancer Society Study‏
From:
sam nettles (samnett@msn.com)
Sent:
Mon 1/14/08 10:42 AM
To:
dparks@bhamnews.com

Your story on the above named study in Alabama is spun the wrong way. Second hand smoke studies have all been firmly established as junk science. ACS methods have been questioned and funding has suffered. Go to nycclash.com for details.
More than a quarter of Americans smoke cigarettes. All efforts to scientifically prove the dangers of second hand tobacco smoke have failed. Even if the dangers did exist, smoke is not smallpox or the bubonic plague and governments unconstitutionally meddle with individual rights. The unwinding accumulation of government intrusions leaves out free choice and freedom itself.
A free society is dangerous but an oppressive government is totally destructive.

Sam Nettles - mailto:samnett@msn.com
Real Texas Freedom - http://www.realtexasfreedom.net
RTF Blog - http://realtexasfreedom.blogspot.com/

Canadian Freedom

2008-01-13T01:09:00.000-08:00

A few comments from last week:

Thanks Sam

You sure have a 'way' with words..What a 'gift':)

Tom Laprade

I don't consider you negative, Sam.

I consider you as truthful.

Bill Murawski

Answer to Gian Turci:

Yes, I sent you a copy but I haven't heard from the Edmonton Journal. I did write "When."

Also, I think I'm older than you so I have less confidence in the "Majority." :) Neither did America's founders when they wrote the constitution!!!
Oh well, people figure things out sooner or later so I shouldn't be so negative:) :)

Sam

Very nice letter! Did you send it to them?

Also, I don't even believe that the "uneducated, etc." IS the majority. The majority is utterly indifferent, in my opinion. It is a vociferous fanatic MINORITY that rules.

Gian

From: samnett@msn.comTo: letters@thejournal.canwest.com

Norman Temple's letter justifying smoking bans and other government intrusions demonstrates what happens in a democracy when the uneducated, ill-informed, biased and ignorant majority manages to gain control with the help of money and power interests.

Responsible leaders who allow such nonsensical actions in the name of social improvement are the true anti-freedom movers. Historical condemnation of these fools is the only force now capable of reversing this fast moving band wagon which is slowly destroying freedom and democracy in the world.

Sam Nettles

Picking A Presidential Candidate

2008-01-05T00:48:00.000-08:00

Well, the presidential campaign has been going on for a year or so and there remains many voters left out of candidates to vote for and issues to be resolved:

Enfranchised

1. Illegal immigrants
2. Corporate Interests
3. Gun Control
4. Anti-Smokers
5. Tax Cuts for the Wealthy
6. Off - Brand Religions
7. Bring the Troops Home
8. Invalid Community Action
9. Unfair "Fair Tax"
10. Prohibitionists
11. Constitutional Changers
12. Uneducated Activists
13. Energy Profit Interests
14. Supply Side Economics
15. Welfare Myth Makers
16. Big Money Medical Industries
17. Insurance Companies
18. Loss of Freedom Promoters

Disenfranchised

1. Consumers
2. Property Owners
3. Smokers
4. Drinkers
5. Gamblers
6. Speeders
7. Drug Users
8. Drivers
9. Checks and Balances Gun Owners (The Ultimate Constitutional Protection Against An Oppressive Government)
10. Students
11. Middle Income and Poor Tax Payers
12. Social Security Beneficiaries
13. Veterans
14. Economic Truth
15. Workers
16. Religious Truth
17. Small Business
18. Freedom Truth

Sam Nettles - mailto:samnett@msn.com
Real Texas Freedom - http://www.realtexasfreedom.net
RTF Blog - http://realtexasfreedom.blogspot.com/

Ron Paul and Rote Memory

2007-12-22T00:46:00.000-08:00

I watched Ron Paul's talk at the Politics and Eggs breakfast in New Hampshire and now know why he never impressed me before he started rising in the polls and money raising. I couldn't even remember what he had said when I watched him before. It occurred to me that he does have a good mind but like so many medical doctors, he has trouble diagnosing. Rote memory minds learn what they are exposed to but are not creative and have the tendency to twist what they have learned to fit the false premises of their experiences. Paul is very good at talking about economic policies that don't fit the 21st century. The Gold Standard, for instance, won't allow you to do any more than the amount of gold you have will allow you to do. A Production Standard, however, creates power and wealth beyond the amount of gold you might possess and allows you to pursue objectives like space travel, much too costly for a gold standard. He also stated that Social Security might be without funds when youngsters reach retirement age, which is an impossibility. He said that government financing of health care is socialized medicine. Regulation and financing is not socialism. Socialism means government ownership. Governments regulate all interaction between individuals, from robbery and murder to business transactions. That's not ownership. It's responsibility. He's worried about the value of the dollar when the U.S. is the most wealthy and powerful nation to ever exist. All the U.S. has to worry about is maintaining the middle class and providing consumption monies for everybody. Only top heavy societies crumble historically. He went on and on with his organized nonsense, like an elementary student reciting dates and happenings without understanding what it all means.

Sam

Global Fiduciary Keys

2007-12-18T01:51:00.000-08:00

U.S. Comptroller General David Walker appeared before the National Press Club yesterday on C-span and impressively addressed the state of the U. S. economy in accounting terminology. He is very intelligent and knowledgeable. He discussed the Congressional General Accounting Office, Social Security, Annuities, Medicare, budgeting, Global Alliances, Politics, Economic Indicators and other complicated subjects in an interesting and informative manner. He ended his presentation with the suggestion that future Global Fiduciary Keys will be needed to insure the financial integrity of various economic units throughout the world. If that system worked like the current economic indicators work in America, the world is in deep economic trouble. Not because it isn't a good idea, but because it would depend on who set the standards and enforced the policies. He did say that there is no SS trust fund and that the government's practice of purchasing government bonds with SS money (money that should be paid out every year as collected ) and then spending the money on other government programs, would be criminal in any other enterprise. He implied that medicare will need to be worked into some sort of Universal Health Care plan. Accountants are a valuable component of society. They want to put their sticky fingers on every penny that moves, however, and sometimes create more problems than they solve.

Sam

Social Security Cost of Living

2007-12-15T17:26:00.000-08:00

I have received my cost of living notice from Social Security. It's been calculated at 2.3 %. I don't guess groceries, gasoline, medical and heating were included. My figures range from 6% to 10%. Of course, I use 6th grade percentages, not rip off accounting numbers from SSA.

Sam

Congress on Light Cigarettes

2007-12-02T20:17:00.000-08:00

I sent this to Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey after watching his hearing on C-span. It was just him and "Bridge to Nowhere" Sen. Stevens of Alaska conducting the hearing. They are trying to regulate tobacco through the FDA, whose Reps said they didn't have enough information.

First, an appropriate quotation:

The United Pro ChoiceSmokers Rights Newsletter
November 16, 2007 - Issue #459

"By means of shrewd lies, unremittingly repeated, it is possible to make people believe that heaven is hell - and hell heaven. The greater the lie, the more readily it will be believed."
- Adolph Hitler

Sam
Sam Nettles - mailto:samnett@msn.com
Real Texas Freedom - http://www.realtexasfreedom.net
RTF Blog - http://realtexasfreedom.blogspot.com/

Regarding your hearing on the effects of light cigarettes on smokers, it is obvious that tar intake will increase with more smoking. The whole hearing was redundant.

Smoking in general, was discussed with a good knowledge of junk science with no opposition.

I've been a heavy smoker since I was 10 years of age. At 71, along with millions of others, I have no health problems associated with smoking. I now am forced to roll my own, because of the price. A quarter of Americans smoke. Most have been brainwashed, like you, about smoking. Please don't allow this anti-smoking propoganda to undermine our great democracy. The truth will come out in time but meanwhile, health nuts are doing their best to destroy America for purposes of money and power.

The Response:

Thank you for contacting me. Due to the volume of e-mails, I can only respond to constituents with New Jersey mailing addresses. If you need further assistance, please contact the Senator from your home state.
Thank you

Halloween and Christianity

2007-11-03T02:09:00.000-07:00

Lots of judging going on. Clearly a biblical no-no unless you're for sure about what God will do (Judge not lest you be judged.)

----- Original Message -----
From: sam nettles
To: CHET GLASS
Cc: samnett@msn.com
Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2007 7:28 PM
Subject: Re: What Does The Bible Say About It? FYI!

Not a biblical issue. Halloween is fun. The same people who would consider this an issue are the same ones who would arrest Jesus for bootlegging when he performed his first miracle making wine at the wedding.

Sam

----- Original Message -----
From: CHET GLASS
To: Undisclosed-Recipient:;
Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2007 10:48 AM
Subject: Fw: What Does The Bible Say About It? FYI!
Subject: What Does The Bible Say About It? FYI!

Halloween . . . What Does the Bible Say About It?

Terrell L & Brandy

This article will tackle the controversial question, "Should Christians observe Halloween?" With no direct references to Halloween in the Bible, resolving the debate can be a challenge. How should Christians approach Halloween and is there a biblical way to observe this secular holiday?
The dilemma over Halloween may fall under the category of a Romans 14 issue, or a "disputable matter." These are matters that lack clear and specific direction from the Bible. Ultimately, Christians must decide for themselves and follow their own convictions regarding the observance of Halloween. Together we will explore what the Bible has to say about Halloween, providing food for thought as you decide for yourself on the issue.
Current StatusChristian perspectives on the observance of Halloween are strongly divided. Some believers feel complete freedom to observe the holiday, others run and hide from it, many boycott or ignore it, a number celebrate it through more positive and imaginative observances or Christian alternatives to Halloween, and still others choose to take advantage of Halloween's evangelistic opportunities.
HistoryHalloween has pagan roots stemming from the ancient Celtic festival, Samhain. This harvest festival of the Druids ushered in the New Year, beginning on the evening of October 31, with the lighting of bonfires and the offering of sacrifices. As the Druids danced around the fires, they celebrated the ending of the summer season and the beginning of the season of darkness. It was also believed that at this time of year the invisible "gates" between the natural world and the spirit world would open, allowing free movement between the two worlds.
In the 18th century, Pope Gregory III moved All Saints Day to November 1, officially making October 31 "All Hallows Eve," as a way of claiming the celebration for Christians. However, some of the pagan beliefs and practices associated with the celebration have persisted.
Ephesians 5:7-12 Don't participate in the things these people do. For though your hearts were once full of darkness, now you are full of light from the Lord, and your behavior should show it! For this light within you produces only what is good and right and true.
Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness; instead, rebuke and expose them. It is shameful even to talk about the things that ungodly people do in secret. (NLT)
Many Christians believe that participating in Halloween is a form of involvement in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness. However, many consider the modern-day Halloween activities of most to be harmless fun.
Are some Christians trying to remove themselves from the world? Ignoring Halloween or celebrating it with only believers is not exactly an evangelical approach. Aren't we supposed to "become all things to all men so that by all possible means" we might save some? (1 Cor. 9:22)
Deut. 18:10-12 For example, never sacrifice your son or daughter as a burnt offering. And do not let your people practice fortune-telling or sorcery, or allow them to interpret omens, or engage in witchcraft, or cast spells, or function as mediums or psychics, or call forth the spirits of the dead. Anyone who does these things is an object of horror and disgust to the Lord. (NLT)
Well, these verses are pretty clear on what a Christian should not do. But how many Christians are sacrificing their sons and daughters as a burnt offering on Halloween? How many are calling forth the spirits of the dead? The verse does not say that "trick or treating" disgusts the Lord.
However, what if you have come to the Christian faith from a background in the occult? What if, before you became a Christian, you did practice some of these deeds associated with witchcraft and sorcery? Perhaps refraining from Halloween and its activities is the safest and most appropriate response for you as an individual.
Rethinking the IssueThere are many other Bible verses similar to these two, but nothing that specifically warns against observing Halloween. Rather than providing an answer, the purpose of this article is to cause you to ask yourself questions and think about your convictions on this issue.
As Christians, why are we here in this world? Are we here to live in a safe and protected environment, guarded against the evils in the world, or are we called to reach out into a world filled with dangers and be the light of Christ? Halloween brings people of the world to our door step. Halloween brings our neighbors out into the streets. I can think of various creative ways to seize this opportunity for developing new relationships and sharing my faith.
Is it possible that our negativity toward Halloween only alienates the people we seek to reach? Can we be in the world, but not of the world?
ResolutionI close with a recommendation to give serious thought about the appropriateness of judging another Christian for observing or not observing Halloween. We do not know why another person participates in the holiday or why they do not. We cannot accurately judge the motivations and intentions of another's heart.
I believe the most appropriate Christian response to Halloween is to study the matter for yourself and follow the convictions of your own heart. Let others do the same without condemnation from you. Perhaps the answer to the Halloween dilemma is - there is no right or wrong answer! I believe one's unique convictions about Halloween must be individually sought, independently found and personally followed.
www.MIProductions.org
(Source: Written by Mary Fairchild of Christianity.About.com)

Oil At $90.00 A Barrel

2007-10-18T22:26:00.000-07:00

Comment in USA Today:
This is a result of deregulation of the industry in the 70's, which was supposed to lower gasoline prices. When you don't regulate crooks, you get crooked results.

http//realtexasfreedom.blogspot.com/

Sam Nettles - mailto:samnett@msn.com
Real Texas Freedom - http://www.realtexasfreedom.net
RTF Blog - http://realtexasfreedom.blogspot.com/

Electric Cars

2007-10-15T20:22:00.000-07:00

I haven't had time to watch but about half of the electric car video but I remember California's efforts well.

I'm all for development of the electric car, have been since I watched battery powered fork lifts operate in the 50's, when middle class Americans bought new cars every two years. Gas was only 17 or 18 cents a gallon and new cars were a couple thousand dollars. Manufacturers bought up the rights to all money saving inventions. One guy in England used gas made from manure from his flock of chickens. Even then, people were concerned about money and companies were fighting new money saving inventions.

My main concern has always been for the production of a small, cheap vehicle that can run me around town, without concern about clean air, smog or other concerns. I'd like to see the reintroduction of the Model A Ford. The Model T would be better but you have to crank it. All you needed to work on them was some wire and a pair of pliers. I think the elimination of leaded gasoline was a mistake. Not enough oil in the world to damage the atmosphere but I know the world is against me!!!! I did use an electric scooter to run to the store with my flight bag a few years ago in Ft. Worth. Only cost around a hundred dollars.

I guess now that hydrogen power is next and the status quo can be maintained till the cost comes down. Then it will probably go to sound waves from Rap Music creating energy, which will maintain the status quo even longer.

Whatever, the 1955 chevy I bought with my dad's signature, right after I graduated High School, was the best car ever made

Sam

----- Original Message -----
From: Bill Murawski
To: sam nettles
Sent: Sunday, October 14, 2007 9:32 AM
Subject: Re: Global Warming - USA Today
Thanks for responding . . . I agree with you, Sam.

It certainly appears to me that the political hacks -- whomever they may be -- have found three issues to undermine our freedoms here in America. The three groups are the "environmentalists" (and now Gore is leading the way), those who believe that all second hand smoke causes all of the cancers in the world; and the "animal activists" (such as PETA and the ASPCA) who line their pockets with using carriage horses as their "poster children".

As a person who is more than likely the most staunch defender of the environment, if people would only wake up and take the bull by the horns, I believe the reliance on non-renewable resources would be greatly decreased. For example . . .

Who Killed the Electric Car is a movie about the electric car industry that was effectively shut down in California by this administration. You can watch it at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5977085690337730430&q=who+killed+the+electric+car&total=292&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=1

So now what is the push? Hybrids! How wonderful that they are using the food of the poor to fuel the bellies of the rich?

And don't get me started about the smoking bans . . . . ;))))

Sincerely,

Bill

Al Gore

2007-10-15T06:11:00.000-07:00

No, I haven't seen the movie. Regardless of the good that might come out of it, if any, I just have a gut feeling about the guy. Anybody that would single handedly break the tie in the senate to tax Social Security and state in news coverage that second hand tobacco smoke contributes to global warming, has got to be goofy.

My personal opinion about global warming is that it does exist but is part of nature. Not that we shouldn't do something about it, if possible, but, so far, scientists have not proven that human activity has anything to do with it. Until it's proven, I don't think governments should take any kind of action to disrupt related human activity.

Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize - My Comment in USA Today

2007-10-13T03:20:00.000-07:00

I had to change "crap" to "garbage" before USA Today would publish, even though the national TV news reporters use the word regularly. The newspapers are behind the times!!!

COMMENT:

I recently wrote a friend of mine about Global Warming: Tom, I've been watching National Geographic and the scientific worries about the rising sea level has me puzzled. I thought maybe you could help me since you are now interested in global warming and may have come across something on the subject.Now, I wasn't a good chemistry student but I remember something about volume displacement and the formulas involved. I can't remember once when a drink overflowed as the ice melted. Of course, the scientists say the sea level MIGHT rise and destroy our coastlines but they aren't sure. Ocean surges might create some problems but what happens to the void when the glaciers break off and float to the ocean? If you keep adding too much ice to your drink, it'll overflow, but if you could immediately freeze the overflow and add it to your ice bucket, the supply of constant water would allow you to drink till you passed out without spilling a drop. The same is true if you used the overflow to pour into the ice bucket. You'd probably pass out before the ice melted but maybe you get my point. I know the scientists can't calculate for sure what might happen, but what do you think?Tom wrote back that it was all hysteria, a bunch of garbage. It seems that the Nobel Prize bunch is turning against us along with most of the rest of the world. Water increases volume with freezing and returns to size when melted. The consequences of melting glaciers can't affect shore lines that much. Also, not one scientist testifying before congress, even though they believed human activity contributes to global warming, stated that there was scientific proof that such is the case.Gore has said in news reports that second hand tobacco smoke contributes to global warming. It's hard to believe that Gore now has backing for a run for the presidency!!!!!!http://realtexasfreedom.blogspot.com/
Sam Nettles - mailto:samnett@msn.com
Real Texas Freedom - http://www.realtexasfreedom.net
RTF Blog - http://realtexasfreedom.blogspot.com/

STIRRING THE COW MANURE

2007-10-06T00:46:00.000-07:00

American pioneers learned that dried cow pies make good fire wood but stirring the manure creates a stench worth avoiding. Congress, the Bush Administration and the media seem to think the stench makes the real issues unnoticeable.

The main real issue is forcing the wealthy to pay their fair share, like they did during WW ll and afterwards, in order to direct proper resources toward solving the many problems our country faces. There was a 90% tax bracket for the extremely wealthy. There's more wealth now than then.

The manure should be burned, not stirred.

Sam Nettles

Secondhand data on secondhand smoke

2007-10-02T04:08:00.000-07:00

Secondhand data on secondhand smoke

10/8/2006

HELVETIA, W.Va.--The fed- eral government's 30-year anti-smoking crusade has been so successful that there are now more ex-smokers than smokers in the United States. But about a quarter of the population continues to smoke cigarettes, and over the past decade a new health hazard has been fabricated and publicized.

The news media have parroted the idea that secondhand smoke is harmful, and a recent survey finds that more than 80 percent of adults now believe this. But the secondhand-smoke scare is based largely on speculation reminiscent of superstitions from the Middle Ages, before the discovery of the scientific method.

The 2006 surgeon general's 709-page report "The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke" further promotes this sham. The report claims that even brief exposure to secondhand smoke can cause immediate harm and cites reports that estimate secondhand smoke causes approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths and tens of thousands of heart disease deaths among nonsmokers each year.

It concludes that there is no risk-free level of exposure, and recommends "smoke-free policies" to eliminate all indoor smoking. Surgeon General Richard Carmona himself stated at a June 27, 2006, press conference, "The science is clear: [secondhand smoke] is a serious health hazard that causes premature death and disease in children and non-smoking adults."

The Environmental Protection Agency, American Lung Association, American Public Health Association, and American Cancer Society all concur. The California Air Pollution Authority has labeled secondhand smoke a toxin and the EPA has initiated a "Smoke-Free Home Pledge Campaign."

Marriott has announced that its 2,300 hotels will become totally smoke-free by October 15 of this year. In June, a California state Senate committee approved a bill to ban smoking in private cars with children.

But the science is not "clear." In fact, there is no credible scientific evidence to support any of this. Whereas the association of cigarette smoking with heart disease and lung cancer in epidemiologic studies is strong--an increase of 100 to 300 percent and 900 percent respectively--the association found between secondhand-smoke exposure and heart disease and lung cancer in the studies cited by the surgeon general is very weak, an increase of about 30 percent for each.

In addition, the report cherry-picks studies that support its claims and ignores other important ones that do not. For example, it cites a 1993 EPA meta-analysis of 30 studies, that has since been discredited, and ignores an excellent 1998 World Health Organization large single study that showed a reduced association for children of smokers and no association for spouses and co-workers.

The largest single study of all, a 39-year analysis of over 35,000 Californians published in 2003 in the British Medical Journal, found no connection between passive smoking and mortality. It was not cited.

Epidemiology is the study of disease in populations. Epidemiologists collect data using poorly controlled observational studies and evaluate it by using statistical methods.

These methods are not adequate to test the hypotheses required by the scientific method, so epidemiology can never prove or disprove anything. It uses "relative risk" to report its findings of association. An RR of 1.0 is average, while an RR of 3.0 or more--a 300 percent increase--is required to suggest causation.

The epidemiologic studies cited by the surgeon general's report cannot determine causation largely because they are unable to control for inherent systematic errors. These include measurement errors, confounding factors, and at least 56 different biases, including "recall bias."

In the studies cited by the surgeon general, not only do the researchers have no control over the exposures to secondhand smoke, they don't even know what the data are.

A weak association is a fortuitous finding. Converting it into a causal link bypasses the scientific method, and has been termed "statistical malpractice" in the literature.

This unethical application of statistics to the imperatives of health policy is a common occurrence in politically motivated science.

The report claims that the weak statistical associations found in the studies "were not determinant" in making causal inferences, but instead, "judgments were based on an array of considerations." What these considerations were, and why they were more important than the results of the studies cited, is not apparent.

Finally, a basic principle of toxicology is that "the dose makes the poison." The surgeon general's report admits that secondhand smoke "is rapidly diluted as it travels away from the burning cigarette," and that it cannot be defined or measured.

It takes many years of persistent exposure for cigarette smoking to cause disease. For example, a patient's smoking one pack of cigarettes (22 cigarettes) a day for 10 years alerts a physician to search for lung disease. But even in the smokiest of smoke-filled rooms, nonsmokers inhale only a fraction of one cigarette a day.

To be beneficial, public policy must be based on good science. Bad science inevitably leads to bad public policy.

All government bureaucracies have one hidden agenda--to increase their funding and power. This leads to misrepresentations like the secondhand-smoke scare.

The 2006 surgeon general's report reminds us that one ongoing peril for citizens is being misled by government bureaucrats seeking to expand their power.

We need to shape our policies on the basis of good science, instead of shaping the science to fit the policies.

Read: http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2006/102006/10082006/227373/index_html?page=1

TEENAGERS

2007-09-26T15:23:00.000-07:00

I don't find teenagers any different today than they were back in the fifties. Society deals with them differently. Building jails and turning kids over to bureaucrats seems to be the most popular way, today, but I don't remember the same situation back then.
I went to high school in a town of 7,500 in Taylor, Texas. Nothing like the "Happy Days" series on TV, Taylor had barbque stands and beer joints on every downtown block. There were six dance halls, two movie theatres, a drive-in, a teen den, at least ten pool halls, a country club, a baseball field, a city park and swimming pool, a nearby lake, numerous churches, three soda fountains (frequented by elementary school kids mostly), a river a few miles away and a world of teenage imagination. I didn't need my fake ID unless I went to Austin or Houston.
Real life sports heroes were high school kids that mingled with their public on a daily basis. Stands were full at all events. The daily newspaper never reported when kids got in trouble and their elders always managed to help them out. One kid had to go to Father Flanagan's Boys Town, but that wasn't so bad. He was special to those that knew him.
A song we used to sing best describes teenage life in the fifties in Taylor, Texas. Sung to the tune of the Notre Dame fight song, the song went like this:

BEER, BEER FOR OLD TAYLOR HIGH,
SEND ALL YOUR PRAISES UP TO THE SKY,
SEND A FRESHMAN OUT FOR GIN,
DON'T LET A SOBER SOPHOMORE IN.

WE'LL NEVER STAGGER, WE'LL NEVER FALL,
WE'LL SOBER UP ON BLOOD ALCOHOL,
ALL YOU SONS OF TAYLOR HIGH,
WE'RE OUT ON A DRUNK AGAIN.

Sam Nettles - mailto:samnett@msn.com
Real Texas Freedom - http://www.realtexasfreedom.net
RTF Blog - http://realtexasfreedom.blogspot.com/

OVERVIEW

2007-09-23T21:49:00.000-07:00

Murder, rape, robbery, sexual obsession, phony community betterment, bans, government intrusion, dominant money interests, self righteous power, arrogant and immature leadership, unfair taxation, uneducated control, idolatry, prejudice, bias, smokescreen issues, complacency, economic idiocy, disrespectful patronage, meaningless protocol, spinning free speech, deaf to truth ears, prohibition, false prophets, Godless interpretations of the Word and invalid instruction about what God wants, all endanger America and perhaps the entire world.

Surely God is lurking behind the crack in the Liberty Bell.

Sam Nettles - mailto:samnett@msn.com
Real Texas Freedom - http://www.realtexasfreedom.net
RTF Blog - http://realtexasfreedom.blogspot.com/

Free World Transformation To Slave World

2007-09-22T23:36:00.000-07:00

Nothing to discuss. People have gone nuts. No common sense and no valid thought. Smoking bans have destroyed reason. Mind Control and junk science have proven how stupid the great majority of people are. Millions of old smokers prove how ignorant bans and the believers are. To argue about how to deal with the ignorance is to squirm around in a mixture of money, quicksand and cow manure.

Sam Nettles - mailto:samnett@msn.com
Real Texas Freedom - http://www.realtexasfreedom.net
RTF Blog - http://realtexasfreedom.blogspot.com/

Smoking Bans

2007-09-10T22:48:00.000-07:00

Comment

Smoking bans reflect the most ignorant of all human endeavors. Fads such as what's best for the community are destroying freedom in the modern world. Junk science and health fools have joined forces to impose a political force unequaled to any in history except for the "Big Lie" anti-smoking effort of Adolph Hitler, who was able to play on the biased stupidity of the German people to almost control the world. Vigilance and a watchful, educated eye must exist to curb those who use prejudice to gain money and power. Common sense and observation techniques do not always exist in the minds of the general public.

http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070909/NEWS01/709090319/1002

_________________Sam Nettles mailto:samnett@msn.com Real Texas Freedom - http://www.realtexasfreedom.net RTF Blog - http://realtexasfreedom.blogspot.com

Up and Down

2007-09-03T08:20:00.000-07:00

Bush and Bernanke Prop up Market

Up and Down

Volatility indicates that there is too much money to invest and not enough places to go with it. Maxed out credit leaves consumers with further problems even if more credit is made available. Broke businesses and monster mergers indicate off pattern patchwork that won't hold up. Bernanke and Bush can't be trusted.

Taxing the wealthy and using the money to prop up government responsibilities by hiring more people is the best short term answer. In the long term, the government needs to stop giving printed money to the Federal Reserve and simply deposit it and use it. The Fed is interested only in padding the pockets of financiers and increasing the debt of the government and the people.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/markets/2007-08-31-wall-street-friday_N.htm?csp=

Get in shape!!!!!

2007-09-02T00:47:00.000-07:00

Get in shape
----- Original Message -----
From: Doug Jenson
To: sam nettles
Sent: Sunday, September 02, 2007 12:34 AM
Subject: Re: USA Today Columnist Krantz on the Federal Reserve
we are many... they are few... we have good air down here... the air is thin up there... if the top is too heavy it always falls... when it does... we will forgive them all... but could I please just take a few of them out back of my place and settle it man to man... where I come from... we don't like people who sell out their ownsam nettles wrote:

In short, return to a 90% bracket for the extremely wealthy and deposit printed money in the Federal Reserve and use it, instead of giving it to private banks and borrowing and taxing to cover what belonged to the American people to begin with.

Sam Nettles - mailto:samnett@msn.com
Real Texas Freedom - http://www.realtexasfreedom.net
RTF Blog - http://realtexasfreedom.blogspot.com/
----- Original Message -----
From: sam nettles
To: Jack Ritchie
Cc: samnett@msn.com
Sent: Friday, August 31, 2007 7:03 AM
Subject: Re: USA Today Columnist Krantz on the Federal Reserve
Don't forget, there wouldn't be as many taxes and as much debt if the printed money, calculated to handle the production, was deposited instead of being given to the private banks. They can still make money off deposits, just like they make a lot of money when the money is free The system was created to allow big private banks to control the economy. The Federal Reserve is not a national bank. It is a collection of the largest private banks in the nation. The Congress does what the Fed tells them to do.

Seems "Big Government" is a little small on basic responsibilities these days, ie: nature, war, engineering, roads, education, bridges, law enforcement, immigration, general welfare promotion and everything else it's supposed to do.

Sam
----- Original Message -----
From: Jack Ritchie
To: sam nettles
Sent: Friday, August 31, 2007 6:02 AM
Subject: Re: USA Today Columnist Krantz on the Federal Reserve
Sam,

This lady is off her rocker....thinks she knows something about economics. The Federal Reserve was the first and most powerful regulatory agency Congress/A Past President ever set up. It is what made big government possible. It loans to government and other smaller banks, and at a call from Congress will even print money to give to Congress. In a sense it is like the super banks of Europe, but they avoided calling it a bank because at the time it was created (and secretly I might add), because there was a lot of opposition in this country to the concept of a national bank.

Its primary purpose is to give money to government and maintain adequate control over the money supply to keep the country from economic collapse (depression). In reference to credit you are correct, credit is not free...money is made off the borrower. Generally a way of looking at it is that for every dollar a person borrows, he pays back three. So in a case of a person being heavily in debt, most of that persons money goes to banks/financial institutions
toward repaying loans/debts. Of course one might think that saving would beat the system, but not so, taxes and inflation would still be greater than the gain(s) but at least you'd outright own what you own (except for land, you only lease that ....taxes are lease payments, default and you loose it).

Its all very complex and uses a lot of financial mechanisms such as the discount rate, etc. but in short the above is what is involved.

JR
Houston, Tx
Looking for a deal? Find great prices on flights and hotels with Yahoo! FareChase.

USA Today Column on the Federal Reserve

2007-08-31T01:43:00.000-07:00

This article in USA Today this morning had only 2 comments. The Federal Reserve is the most important part of the American Economy. Either readers don't care or they don't understand!!!!!

I still think the printed money should be deposited instead of given to the private banks. There are many ways to fight inflation without using recessions and depressions. Cheap labor helps no one except the financial world and that is temporary.

Real Texas Freedom - http://www.realtexasfreedom.net
RTF Blog - http://realtexasfreedom.blogspot.com/

http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/columnist/krantz/2007-08-30-fed-add-cash_N.htm?csp

barbara deheus wrote: 14h 43m ago
The more money consumers borrow, the bigger the debt... Unfortunately, consumers are borrowing more than they can pay back. Are we headed for another recession or an all out depression? The consumers are the ones who should benefit from any influx of cash to the system but the real beneficiaries are the bankers who charge the interest on the loans and when people get stuck with variable rate mortgages, they end up the losers.
My Comment
The question was, "Who benefits?" Since the printed money (by the government) goes to the Federal Reserve, banks and the financial world in general benefits. Consumers benefit only by having more money to borrow. Even the government borrows from the Fed, even though the government (the people?). gave the printed money to the Fed to begin with. If the consumers could spend without going into debt, the economy would be in a lot better shape. Financial world numbers don't make sense to the man who has lost his job and can't pay his bills, no matter what the numbers say about how good the economy is. Without consumer purchasing power, businesses will lose after consumers quit buying and stocks will be worthless. There is currently no balance in the system and supply side economics is self defeating. Your investment won't pay off if consumers don't have spending money.

Smoking Ban on Track - Article in Houston Rag

2007-08-28T20:49:00.000-07:00

Your spin on the above - named subject demonstrates a total lack of understanding of bottom-line Texas freedom requirements: economics, culture, objectivity, government, science, bias, power, promotions, money, responsibility, law, investigation, history, medicine, politics, literature, biology, geology, lies and ignorance.

A quarter of Americans smoke, down from 90%. I remember when asthmatics smoked special cigarettes for their condition without the mental attacks currently in vogue over second hand smoke.

If you want to become a viable journalist, you certainly have your work cut out for you!!!!!

Sam Nettles - mailto:samnett@msn.com
Real Texas Freedom - http://www.realtexasfreedom.net
RTF Blog - http://realtexasfreedom.blogspot.com/

USA Today Article on Reduction of Smoking Because of Taxes - My Comment

2007-08-12T02:28:00.000-07:00

Smoking bans are just another way to keep the government from going back to a 90% income tax bracket for the extremely wealthy. Making smoking a dangerous habit is just another way of shifting the tax burden to the poor and the middle class. There are too many old chain smokers in the world, including myself, for the tax justification. People are just too stupid and vulnerable to question the junk science behind smoking bans and they follow their preconceived notions instead of their common sense. Sometimes the world remains flat and nobody has been to the moon.

The Mindset

2007-07-28T05:29:00.000-07:00

What did Christ say, once? There is no deafer man than who does not want to hear? It applies to women too! :-) Don't forget that antismoking is a religion!

Gian

What I know for sure is that there are many, many old smokers at the casino on Senior Day and they are all going to die of something:)

Sam
----- Original Message -----
From: Gian Turci
To: sam nettles ; elaine motes
Cc: * Michael McFadden ; cantiloper ; Samantha Phillipe
Sent: Sunday, July 22, 2007 4:16 AM
Subject: Re: SAM, GIVE ME YOUR OPINION OF THIS

The problem with these anecdotes is the reverse attribution. The objective fact (in this case, gasping for air) exists, and it is ATTRIBUTED to what we BELIEVE is the cause, but the causality is not PROVEN, so the belief becomes the proof!!! We then turn to somebody in AUTHORITY to CONFIRM our beliefs -- and in case authorities disagree, we believe the one who agrees with our preconception, usually externally imposed, like in the case of cigarettes, and dismiss the other authority with some easy explanation à la "it has been paid by..." (write your beef here).As it can be seen, it is a chain of belief systems which has nothing to do with a scientifically demonstrated causality. In the specific example, if the brother-in-law would have been gasping for air and was a non smoker, the belief mechanism would have shifted to the next, most immediate "cause" offered by a "credible authority" to quickly and cheaply explain the phenomenon -- pollution from the factory next door, or something like that - and in that way justify the emotions tied to the non-acceptance of the unpleasant fact. The easy ideological bate is that the phenomenon (i.e.: gasping for air) WOULD NOT OCCUR unless there was a cause (that can be prevented and eliminated). Stretching this mentality we can easily state that death and disease would not occur if we were able to prevent all the causes. Here is the cheap dream of immortality packaged in cigarette format. :-) If we tax the cigarette we punish the smoker. If we punish the smoker people will smoke less and live longer, happier lives because they don't want to be punished, and cigarettes are EVIL (obviously Americans have learned nothing from the abysmal failure of the war on drugs).WRONG. Cigarettes are GOOD because they make you ENJOY whatever life you have before facing the INEVITABLE grave in which you'll go because of an INEVITABLE disease. Any other enjoyable choice of life is good for the same reasons. Which brings up the famous phrase of Thomas Szasz, the great American psychiatrist: "When all the causes of death will be eliminated, what will people die of"? :-)Time to wake up to reality, la-la land never existed but in our little heads. Taxation and prohibition never prevented death and disease - ever. But they sure always prevented people from being free and happy.GianAt 03:23 22/07/2007, sam nettles wrote:
You're right on about the presidents and the congress but the electorate is also to blame. Too many lies that have been believed. Can't buy the bad lungs from smoking. Happens to non-smokers too. I've known too many old healthy chain smokers. If the anti-smokers were right, they would all be dead. It doesn't take but a few to debunk all the junk science behind smoking bans. There are millions in the world. Tobacco smoke just can't cause cancer. Go to the above Cc addresses for all the info. info@smokersclub.com cantiloper@gmail.com gianturci@forcesitaly.org

Sam
Sam Nettles - mailto:samnett@msn.com
Real Texas Freedom -
http://www.realtexasfreedom.net RTF Blog - http://realtexasfreedom.blogspot.com/

----- Original Message -----
From: elaine motes
To: sam nettles
Sent: Saturday, July 21, 2007 5:26 PM
Subject: Re: SAM, GIVE ME YOUR OPINION OF THIS

Sorry to step on toes, but I watched my brother-in-law gasp for breath because of bad lungs from smoking, my brother-in-law was a worker, he liked to be working everyday, he would work for a while, gasp for air for awhile and my brother is on oxgyn part of each day because of it. But I feel if you want to smoke jump right on it.
I still feel we have a worthless congress and have had for several decades and the Presidents has been right there with them. I would like to get a pay araise like they get. I could vote myself one heck of a raise, couldn't you?

Elaine

----- Original Message -----
From: sam nettles
To: elaine motes
Cc: samnett@msn.com
Sent: Saturday, July 21, 2007 3:57 PM
Subject: Re: SAM, GIVE ME YOUR OPINION OF THIS

Sorry to hear that you are against smoking. I've been a heavy smoker since I was 10 years old and am now 70 and in good health. Congressional lung cancer would be great but it won't be because of tobacco smoke. More than likely it would be because of the industrial giants they protect.

Thanks for your thoughts,
Sam
----- Original Message -----
From: elaine motes
To: sam nettles
Sent: Saturday, July 21, 2007 12:07 PM

Subject: Re: SAM, GIVE ME YOUR OPINION OF THIS

I am against smoking also, but I would rather wear a gas mask than have Hilary or John in the White House. Besides that cancer of the lung couldn't happen to a better bunch of people than the ones we have in congress and the white house for about the last 40 years.

Elaine

----- Original Message -----
From: sam nettles
To: Elaine Motes
Cc: jritchiejr ; samnett@msn.com
Sent: Saturday, July 21, 2007 10:33 AM

Subject: Fw: SAM, GIVE ME YOUR OPINION OF THIS

I just liked McCain because of his father and grandfather being admirals and his military record, both active and social!!!
----- Original Message -----
From: sam nettles
To: Jack Ritchie
Cc: samnett@msn.com
Sent: Saturday, July 21, 2007 10:27 AM
Subject: Re: SAM, GIVE ME YOUR OPINION OF THIS

Glad to learn that!!!!

----- Original Message -----
From: Jack Ritchie
To: sam nettles
Sent: Saturday, July 21, 2007 5:58 AM

Subject: Re: SAM, GIVE ME YOUR OPINION OF THIS

Hi Sam,

Both Hilliary Clinton and McCain have always and still are strong anti-smokers. The first act Hilliary had done was to ban smoking on the White House premises when Bill Clinton was elected, and McCain has been in the forefront and a champion of every negative legislation against people who smoke.

JR
Houston, Tx

Social Security

2007-07-28T01:56:00.000-07:00

Three more days after a February death??? Corrective action is in order, not an explanation. If Mr. Breen, the Assistant Regional Commissioner for Processing Center Operations, can't take immediate action, then the whole system needs revision.

Sam

Sam Nettles - mailto:samnett@msn.com
Real Texas Freedom - http://www.realtexasfreedom.net
RTF Blog - http://realtexasfreedom.blogspot.com/

----- Original Message -----
From: Jackie Ellis
To: sam nettles
Sent: Friday, July 27, 2007 8:07 AM
Subject: Re: Social Security

I did receive a reply the next morning....

Ms. ,

We have obviously created a confusing situation with multiple notices and unclear language. I will have your case reviewed and someone will contact you in the next several days with a better explanation of what is happening and why. I will also let the local office manager know about your experience in the West Fresno Office. Is there a telephone number where you can be reached during the day?

Steve Breen

sam nettles wrote:

This, of course, is a direct result of the Feds picking up the state programs back in the 80's and attempting to work them into the SSA. SSI was supposed to be handled by the General Fund, not the payroll tax, which was exclusively for eligible SS recipients. Tricky accounting allowed SSA to pretend SSI was not funded by the payroll tax but it was and is.

Your problem is also illustrative of the total lack of good management in both Government and Business. It's hard to get anything done over the phone these days and even when you find a live body somewhere, they don't know what they are doing. Forget finding an office nearby and again, the people don't know what they are doing when you do go to an office.

Maybe a change in Government Personnel is in order.

----- Original Message -----
From: Jackie Ellis
To: sam nettles
Sent: Thursday, July 26, 2007 11:20 AM
Subject: Social Security

Sam, here is something of interest on how our Social Security Administration works...
This is a letter I wrote, I have removed all the personal info from the original e-mail that I had sent

Jackie For Corey
Weathermaker .
CA
Claim Number:
Western Program Service Center
P.O Box 2000
Richmond, CA 94802-1791
Date: July 25, 2007

Stephen Breen
Assistant Regional Commissioner,
Processing Center Operations
steve.breen@ssa.gov

Hi my name is Jackie, Mother to the DESEASED Rebecca . On June 28, 2007 I was at the Social Security office @ Clinton , CA and filled out a request to be selected as Payee for my grandson Corey , who is a minor child.. Corey has no living parents. Previously his mother, Rebecca was his Payee until her death in Feb., 2007. Your system does show that was reported on Feb. 8, 2007. Prior to her death Rebecca had changed her mailing address from P. O. Box CA to Weathermaker CA. with the US Postal Service and also Social Security Administration, by mail.

I am receiving mail from the Social Security Administration addressed to Rebecca with the letter head showing her P O Box address, then put in a manila envelope, with the hand written address of the Weathermaker address. Rebecca is DESEASED and should NOT have any Social Security mail addressed to her.

Why I am witting you is the confusion that has taken place by
the Social Security Administration regarding Corey, the survivor in this matter.

1.The first letter addressed to the DESEASED Rebecca dated: June 11, 2007 Claim Number:
states: We are witting to give you new information about the child's benefit's which COREY receives on this Social Security record. You will soon receive a check for $7,706.00 because of a returned benefit check. (I was told by the Social Security office on Clinton , Ca. that it was a returned benefit check from May, 2007)

2. Second letter addressed to the DESEASED Rebecca dated: June 26, 2007 Claim Number
states:Based on information we have, we cannot pay benefits beginning June 2007

The person who received your payments will no longer be your representative payee. We are looking for another qualified person to receive your payments and use them for your needs, (HUH, the person who receives your payment?? that was the person with whom you addressed the letter to. I've heard of talking to the dead, but I hardly think so in this case!!)

3. The third letter addressed to the DESEASED Rebecca Dated: July 2, 2007 Number: states:
We have decided that it would be best for COREY if we continue to pay his Social Security checks to REBECCA . (How does one DESEASED do banking??) by proxy??

4. The fourth letter addressed to the DESEASED Rebecca dated: July 6, 2007 Claim Number:
states: Based on information we have, we can pay benefits beginning June 2007, you will receive $561.00 around July 14, 2007 This is the money Corey is due through June 2007

5. The fifth letter received addressed to me, Jackie dated: July 9, 2007 Claim Number
states: We have chosen you to be COREY'S representative payee. You will receive $561.00 for July around August 8, 2007

6. The sixth letter addressed to the DESEASED Rebecca dated: July 9, 2007 Claim Number:
states: We decided that it would be best for COREY to have his checks sent to another payee. (Do you really think a DESEASED person will read these letters??)

I have called Social Security's local office on West . , CA this is the office that serves my area also the 1-800-772-1213 on July 17, 2007 and July 18, 2007 and talked with a representative following up on papers I had filled out and dropped off at the above address regarding utilizing the Social Security Express Service on Request for Direct Deposit. I was told by the local office representative that the request express service IS NOT processed the same day as stated on the form. She proceeded to take my bank account number and said she couldn't help me any further, that I would have to call the 800 number. I called the 800 number and the women that helped me was very helpful. She answered all my questions, also entered my bank account number for direct deposit as it showed it wasn't input into the system. (Was I just doing a trial run with my local office??) Now I was told that ALL the returned checks would be re-issued and be here no later then the 23rd of July. As of this writting NOTHING!!.

Do you not have interlinking computer systems so that you all are on the same page?? And can retrieve the same information??? The person/persons who are sending out these letters evidentley are not doing the research that is required before making their desicions.

I have done everything that I was asked to do as a payee, ie. opened a special bank account for COREY and have forwarded that information to the Social SecurityAdministration

In the mean time we have a minor child with NO LIVING PARENTS and not receiving monies due him.

The reason that I am contacting you is that the letters received were ALL personally signed by you.

I expect an investigation into this matter and a reply to this e-mail in a timely manner.

Jackie
Payee for COREY
JackieJackie

Sam, Give Me Your Opinion Of This

2007-07-20T20:31:00.000-07:00

I don't have much of an opinion. I know that a strong list of candidates is really necessary in these trying times but it seems they are all using the same old political appeal to whatever they think the voters want to here. The media seems to look for ways to promote whatever agenda they want and spin accordingly.

I liked McCain initially but Sandra doesn't like him, mainly because of his stand on illegal immigrants. He doesn't seem to be able to weather the storm. Maybe he'll come back. He's just in the wrong party and can't get the nomination with big money in control.

Hillary Clinton is a menopausal flip flopper. Barak Obama quit smoking for the stupid anti-smoker vote. Edwards is appealing but he gets $400.00 haircuts. Guiliana was great after 9-11 but everything else is off base. Thompson is an actor and we certainly don't need any more actors in the White House after dummy Ronald Reagan. Mit Romney is undecipherable. Bloomberg should understand that he will keep his money no matter what happens and quit promoting the robbery of everybody else. The few times I've heard Ron Paul say anything on TV left me an amnesiac. He's so wrong he can't be understood or remembered. Bill Richardson is an immature stupido. None of the candidates understand Social Security or the Health Care System.

Until the voters overcome all the lies they've been fed over the last several years and demand the truth from the candidates, and the candidates are able to communicate that truth, I guess we'll be stuck with more mediocrity.
----- Original Message -----
From: SBMCMAKIN@aol.com
To: samnett@msn.com
Sent: Friday, July 20, 2007 10:23 AM
Subject: SAM, GIVE ME YOUR OPINION OF THIS
isnt it amazing that the leading candidate with the voters and the only one that adheres to the constitution is completely ignored by the so called conservative party, makes you wonder what direction they really want us to go doesnt it
Rudy Takala July 19, 2007 NewsWithViews.com
With the decline of John McCain’s campaign treasury comes the accentuation of a spectacle worth noting. McCain currently has $2 million available in his campaign bank account; that puts him in fourth place among Republicans after Ron Paul, who has $2.4 million.
A couple of months ago, Saul Anuzi, chair of the Michigan GOP, petitioned to have Ron Paul banned from future debates. The reason, to summarize, was because he was doing better in polls regarding debate performance than any of the “top three” candidates. “I think Congressman Ron Paul … doesn't represent any of the Republican Party base” and is “getting in the way of the real debate of how to move our party” forward.
In a logical world, now that Paul is in the top three of everything except for media-controlled polls, Anuzi would petition to ban now-second-tier candidates like McCain, and pro-abortion candidates such as Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani, who are no longer contributing anything to the party. But for some reason, that isn’t happening.
By every possible measure of grassroots support, Ron Paul is a top-tier candidate for the Republican nomination. After the money, nothing points to that more than the most recent straw poll out of New Hampshire, conducted by the Coalition for New Hampshire Taxpayers. Paul won with 65% of the vote. Giuliani came in second with 8%.
On the social networking site Facebook, members are able to express support for their favorite candidate. Currently, Barack Obama is first with 35,000 votes. Giuliani is second with 13,000. Hillary is third with 11,000, and Paul is fourth with just over 10,000. Thompson is fifth, Romney is sixth, and McCain comes in at a stunning 9th.
As of June 27th, more than 18,000 people subscribed for Ron Paul updates on the video site YouTube. Barack Obama was second with 8,500. McCain was ninth with 1,400.
In order to prevent a conservative from winning the Republican primary, the media is looking for more contenders they can ordain as “top-tier” and who can actually stay in the top eight for more than a week. Sean Hannity lent a helping hand to unannounced contender Fred Thompson a while back, described in a June 8th column of Robert Novak’s. Thompson began to say something that seemed to hint he supported abortion:
“‘I would not be and never have been for a law that says, on the state level, if I were [a senator] voting on this… that, if they chose to criminalize a young woman, and --.’ Co-host Sean Hannity then interrupted: ‘So, states rights for you?’ Thompson replied: ‘Essentially, federalism. It's in the Constitution.’”
The month before, a caller to Rush Limbaugh asked him to support Ron Paul. In the midst of talking about how it wouldn’t be ethical for him to influence the primary process because he alone could determine the outcome, he said Paul didn’t have “a snowball’s chance” and said his views on foreign policy were “not realistic.”
To someone who’d likely say we should only support “electable” candidates, and who defines electable as being whomever he happens to support, it’s another way of endorsing the “anybody but Paul” candidate.
If Paul received a quarter of the media support the other candidates received, he’d be equal to Barack Obama. That a member of the U.S. House could hold third place in a presidential race is unprecedented in modern times. Even with the wrath of Saul Anuzi and every Republican media pundit in the country coming down upon him, he still wins every poll regarding debate performance. His popularity among those who see and hear him persists, even as every powerbroker in the party and in the media opposes him.
Given his level of support, I like Pat Buchanan’s suggestion. “By all means, throw out of the debate the only man who was right from the beginning on Iraq.” The effort to do so will betray what insufferable, depraved, self-righteous, power-mad, psychosis-stricken morons are leading our party.
A friend of mine who works for a Congressional representative has been muttering frequently as of late, “Light shines brightest in the darkest places.” By all means, let the darkness continue. That metaphor is the singular explanation for Ron Paul’s meteoric ascendancy. He is the northern star personified.
© 2007 Rudy Takala - All Rights Reserved

Dog Fights

2007-07-19T07:22:00.000-07:00

The News is overwhelmed today with Michael Vick, the Atlanta Falcons QB, and dog fighting. I've never been to a dog fight and wouldn't go if I had the opportunity. I've loved too many dogs in my lifetime. There is the exciting memories of elementary schoolyard dog fights and even the human skirmishes. Combat is always fun to watch. However, killing is not, except for fighting chickens.

I fooled around with fighting chickens when I was a kid, mostly banty roosters, and knew some chicken fighters. I went to a few chicken fights after I was grown but two of them were raided by law enforcement officers and a third was raided by God when a tornado broke it up. I hate to see New Mexico and Louisiana outlaw the sport, even if I don't plan on going to another one, legal or illegal.

Human nature is loaded with impulses and activities that need to be controlled. Animal rights activists, however, turned me off when I saw them protesting the harmful use of rattlesnakes. We don't need rattlesnakes. They should be extinct.

I hate to walk past a house with pit bulls growling and barking by a flimsy fence. I used to carry a stick when I went to the liquor store a block away from my house in Ft. Worth. Recent stories about dog attacks on people are very disturbing. People do funny things. I used to know a woman that carried her African lioness around with her in the car.

What concerns me most, since a free society is a dangerous society, is our incredible ability to control just about everything in the modern world. Busting up institutions is the way to set up new societies. I'm just not sure we need a new society.

My Comment T ABC News

2007-07-12T01:04:00.000-07:00

My Comment to ABC News

Sam Nettles - mailto:samnett@msn.com
Real Texas Freedom - http://www.realtexasfreedom.net
RTF Blog - http://realtexasfreedom.blogspot.com/

Sent: Monday, May 07, 2007 5:27 AM At 70 and a heavy smoker since I was 10 years old, I can't buy any of the smoking ban garbage. For the national media to get hooked on junk science is awful. For God's sake, read the constitution, study state, local and the federal government. Draw the lines. Learn what your country is all about. Check out medical books and social history. Learn why this country is great and stop doing your best to destroy it. Sam Nettles - Real Texas Freedom

2007-07-10T05:08:00.000-07:00

Al Gore Doesn't Have A Chance!!!

Sam, My second hobby is Global Warming and Al Gore is a nut case:)

Recent research by Henrik Svensmark and his group at the Danish NationalSpace Center points to the real cause of the recent warming trend. In a series of experiments on the formation of clouds, these scientists have shown that fluctuations in the Sun's output cause the observed changes in the Earth's temperature.In the past, scientists believed the fluctuations in the Sun's output were too small to cause the observed amount of temperature change, hence the need to look for other causes, like carbon dioxide. However, these new experiments show that fluctuations in the Sun's output are in fact large enough, so there is no longer a need to resort to carbon dioxide as the cause of the recent warming trend.The discovery of the real cause of the recent increase in the Earth's temperature is indeed a convenient truth. It means humans are not to blamefor the increase. It also means there is absolutely nothing we can, much less do, to correct the situation.

Thomas Laprade
480 Rupert St.
Thunder Bay, Ont.
Ph. 807 3457258Canada
If the links don't work then paste them in your browser
http://environment.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn11462 http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,288195,00.html http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=927b9303-802a-23ad-494b-dccb00b51a12&Region_id=&Issue_id=&IsTextOnly=True http://www.worldclimatereport.com/http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/06/opinion/06fri1.html?hp http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070705191403.gahmdtoi&show_article=1 http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070705/greenland_dna_070705/20070705?hub=SciTech http://www.abc.net.au/westqld/stories/s1971899.htm?backyard

2007-07-09T03:30:00.000-07:00

AMERICA'S FUTURE - COMMENTARY FROM ROY HENLEY

On June 21, 2007, I submitted an op-ed article I wrote to the Austin American-Statesman
newspaper, hoping they would run it. It was originally 1,456 words in length. The editor emailed me back the next day to tell me he liked it, but couldn't use an editorial commentary of that length. He asked if I would consider editing it down to "...somewhere in the vicinity of 750 words?" Without losing too much of the originally intended message, I managed to accomplish that task, and they published it on Independence Day, July 4, 2007. I'd like to share these thoughts and feelings with each of you. Some of you may have read it already, but I'll send it to you anyway. If you feel this piece has any merit, please feel free to share it with others. If not, just delete it. Thanks.Roy A. Henleyhttp://www.blogger.com/COMMENTARY:
Make America's future as glorious as its past
Roy A. Henley, LOCAL CONTRIBUTOR
Austin American-Statesman
Wednesday, July 04, 2007

I sometimes get a sad feeling when I think about what's happening in
our nation today. There's so much dissension everywhere, and pride for
our country has diminished. I miss the great times we once had, and
wish something could be done to restore them.

Newspaper and television reports aren't much help, with so many stories
about crime, drug abuse and disregard for human rights. Disrespect for
one another and the laws of our society seem to be growing, too. And
through it all, the movies we watch and songs we hear often encourage
such behavior.

To make things worse, partisan politics is threatening many crucial
issues, but across the country, our legislators and judges seem
possessed by a disregard for public opinion. The sad part is, we're the
ones allowing this to happen.

What became of our government of the people, by the people and for the
people? In school, we were told we live in a democracy where the
majority rules. What ever happened to that?

Now we're faced with another dilemma: the immigration issue. This
further confirms my beliefs about political disregard for the will of
the people. Though most of us have no objections to anyone coming to
our country seeking a better life, we still want our borders secured.
We simply want immigrants to come here legally, learn our language, pay
taxes and assimilate into American culture.

We're also threatened by an insidious enemy whose combatants are
cowardly religious fanatics spreading terror around the world. For
them, killing innocent people is not for love of country; it's done in
the name of Islam. Sadly, the Silent Majority watches from the shadows
as the foundation of our nation crumbles.

Another sign of political disregard is the ease with which our
electorates have given in to the demands of certain extremists. As a result,
any mention of God or Christmas, displaying the Ten Commandments or
praying in school will invite judicial wrath.

And would someone please tell me why we hold our so-called celebrities
in such high esteem? How can they possibly have more value to us than
our real heroes; those who dedicate their lives to keeping us and our nation safe, educated and healthy?

I heard a song recently by country singer Merle Haggard. It asked this
question: "Are the Good Times Over for Good?"

While listening to the words, I thought of all the things gone wrong in
our country. We're frustrated by people killing and robbing one another. We've witnessed the horror of Sept. 11 and we're worried about our safety. But for years we've "kicked" God out of our lives, and now we're left wondering what's happening to our once civilized world.

Are the good times really over for good?

I'd like to believe they're not. I still have faith in the roots of America, and pray that someday, somehow we'll regain our senses. This can only happen, though, if we stand up for our rights, and demand that
our politicians provide the leadership they promised. It's time for
them to start listening to the people again, or expect to be replaced
by someone who will.

Inviting God back into our nation isn't a bad idea, either. Only then,
I believe, can we ever hope to bring back common sense, and as a
nation, begin to live and let live again.

Respecting the rights and beliefs of others, without trying to instill
our own into their lives is only right. However, I don't want extremists forcing their beliefs on me, and I certainly don't want them changing our time-honored traditions or threatening the sanctity of our nation.

Like most Americans, I love this country, and it's troubling to realize
we're losing our status as the world's leader. This isn't going to
change, though, until we all get involved in our future.

It's time to stand tall, and before it's too late, demand that our
leaders return to us a government we can all live with. The world's
respect for us is fading fast, and if we continue the way we're headed,
it may soon become just another memory.

God bless us all, and God bless America.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Roy A. Henley, who lives in Spicewood, TX is a retired Houston police officer and a past president of the Highland Lakes Writers Clubin Marble Falls, TX.)

Money for cartoonists being laid off from newspapers

2007-07-06T00:20:00.000-07:00

I've been watching C-span. Forget newspapers for the future. Sell ads like they do, set up a web site and concentrate on all the items currently put on the editorial page. Contact Congressman Lamar Smith of Texas, former head of the appropritate committee in Congress, for legalities. Split profits among assoc. members and contributors. Make sure editors and publishers don't have a say about content above and beyond what the assoc. wants.

Article in Armed Forces Journal - Dream Warriors

2007-07-05T02:41:00.000-07:00

The article is probably right about everything but there's a few things that need to be added. Mark Twain's observation of mobs in Huck Finn, when a mob was dispelled by a single individual with a shotgun pointed at the leaders, for instance. There's also a general belief in universal truth, though this belief varies in different cultures and depends on what is swallowed by the masses. As far as Islamics go, I remember when my Muslem friends insisted I get some pornographic movies for them to see from my connections in the early 60's. They made copies. I guess that's a universal truth, sexual desire I mean. Hatred of Israel is universal but only in the Arab nations of the Middle East. Our leaders just have to concentrate on REAL universal truth.

Comment Published in Australia's Sun Herald

2007-07-05T02:18:00.000-07:00

The worldwide smoking ban issue just proves that people in general are gullible and stupid and need God and intelligent worldly leaders to guide them. Education is not enough, not even for democracy. Human beings are selfish and ignorant. Smoking bans prove it.
Posted by: Sam Nettles of U.S.A. 6:32pm today

Removing Old Cars From the Road-USA Today

2007-06-18T07:41:00.000-07:00

This is a perfect example of building on a false premise, that being that testing is not needed now nor has it ever been. Seventy years without testing cars did no damage. What needs testing is airlines, buses, trucks, refineries and other industrial pollutants. Testing should have begun there, not with cars. Another example of stupid voters allowing testing to begin with. This shifting of blame to the general public from the real culprits, industrial giants, is common.

New Mexico Smoking Ban

2007-06-17T06:42:00.000-07:00

Well, things hit home yesterday here in Ruidoso. The state-wide smoking ban went into effect Friday. Casinos are exempt but one place I like to eat banned smoking anyway. The buffet at The Inn of the Mountain Gods has been non-smoking but I never had time to smoke anyway. At least you can eat in the bar and smoke. K-Bob's Steak House sold out a couple months ago. The Western Steak and Grill took over and went non-smoking ahead of schedule. They also did away with one of the best salad bars I've ever come across. I left without eating the last trip and haven't been back.

I don't know how things are going to work out but I foresee a lot of anger, frustration, resentment and a tremendous loss of tourist trade. Smokers are in the minority now, but this is a smoking, drinking town. I feel like I've done all I can. When the media, the politicians and the stupid part of the public is against you, free speech, what's left of it, doesn't count for much. Ruidoso means noisy in Spanish and there used to be bars and dance halls on every block. Now, there's a 2 drink limit at the race track bars and no drinks in the casinos. I guess it's prohibition by degrees. My parents and their generation knew how to deal with it but this is the American Idol generation and entertainment rules at all costs. I'm very disappointed at how smokers have reacted. Americans, it seems, just don't care anymore about anything but spending their economically unsound money and getting fat off the temporary prosperity. Paris Hilton gets more play than something as important as the freedom issues surrounding smoking.

If it was just smoking, I'd quit, just like I've done before, contrary to the addiction theory. Habits are easier to break than addictions.

What I'd like to do is what I did at our church camp when I was in the 6th grade. The camp was for kids 8 to 18 from area churches. A tattle tale followed me behind the rest room where I normally went to smoke. After he told on me, I took his pants off and ran them up the flag pole. I told the camp officials that he was too little to beat up so I took his pants off and ran them up the flag pole. I'd like to show off the ignorance of ban proponents in the same way.

High Gas Prices

2007-06-07T16:03:00.000-07:00

Contact With CaliforniaGasPrices.com

One point not brought out about gas prices is the true cost of crude oil. Once producing, the cost of reading meters and moving the oil from the well is not worth calculating. The cost of crude makes no sense. Oil wells are like water wells except they aren't regularly replenished. Until it's used up, there is no excuse for projecting what's going to happen when it's gone. Crude oil should cost no more than water. Even during drought conditions, $60.00 a barrel is too much for water. So much for free enterprise and competition.

USA Today Article - Sam Nettles Comment

2007-06-04T23:09:00.000-07:00

Gas prices are budget busters for many

Demand is constant now and in the past. So is supply. Oil companies are showing massive profits while we are at war and struggling at the lower end of the economy. Free enterprise foundations, such as competition and balanced pricing, are missing in the oil and gas industries. Supply and demand do not deserve mention in articles about high gasoline prices.

Al Gore and Politics

2007-05-23T23:53:00.000-07:00

I learned a long time ago about how politics causes those involved to pick issues the voters know little about to demonstrate superiority and capture that ignorance. Al Gore is the best example of this trickery.

No definite scientific proof that human activity contributes to global warming but Al Gore writes books about it and makes movies. He has even stated that second hand tobacco smoke contributes to global warming. This plays to anti-smokers but is total absurdity, which destroys what little credibility he might have with the learned.

Tuesday night on Larry King Live, Gore out did himself. Playing to young workers, Gore answered a question about what he would do if he was president by stating that, though impractical, he would lower the payroll tax by taxing polluters and moving the money to the payroll collection. This would hurt those workers in the future as polluters met standards and quit paying the tax which would help all those current efforts to destroy the SS system. After all, Gore broke the tie in the senate which started taxation of SS benefits. When he was running for president, a question from the audience about income taxes on unemployment benefits prompted an answer that he didn't know about it but would check into it. I haven't heard anything about it since, from him or anyone else in the public eye.

Al Gore doesn't belong anywhere in an American leadership position.

Electronic Age Humor

2007-05-22T18:00:00.000-07:00

My wife and I went to the Family Dollar Store here in Ruidoso, New Mexico, to pick up a few things before we went to KFC to pick up their Tuesday $1.99 chicken fried steak special. We're saving up for the start of the horse racing season next weekend.
When we got to the front door of the Dollar Store, a handwritten sign said, " Closed - Cash Register Broke."
Anyone who has trouble checking out anywhere should understand. Always the first sign of arithmetic problems in our educational system. I think business owners should take a chance, though, if their registers don't work, but they probably can't operate without a computer either.

Texas Smoking Ban and Other Issues

2007-05-20T23:21:00.000-07:00

Senator Ogden is chairman of the Texas Senate Finance Committee.
----- Original Message -----
From: sam nettles
To: Samantha Phillipe
Cc: samnett@msn.com
Sent: Sunday, May 20, 2007 8:11 AM
Subject: Texas Smoking Information And Other Issues
After several attempts to contact the State Senator representing Williamson County, Steve Ogden, regarding power lines scheduled for construction in the cornfield behind my son's house and other issues, I was contacted by phone by a member of his staff a few days ago. She said the 130 toll road route didn't have enough eminent domain ownership available on both sides of the road. I told her that I had been up and down the road and plenty of space was available on both sides of the road and that eminent domain was going to have to be utilized no matter where the route went. I told her that perhaps Governor Rick Perry, who appoints the Public Utility Commission, should be asked to use his influence since the commission will make the final determination. I fussed a little about the state going with privatization on road construction and she said it was because of the loss of federal funds. I said, "I wonder why?" and then told her Texas has always had the best roads in the country until recently and suggested that a state income tax for the wealthy was the best answer, even though the general public is against it. I explained that the leadership responsibility rested with our public officials to explain the benefits of a state income tax over the regressive sales tax which robs the poor and the middle class. Of course, I'm sure the toll road owners are against the power line construction alongside 130, no matter what happens to the citizens of Hutto. I'm sure the Governor and the Commission don't want to offend the toll road owners.
She wasn't aware of the recent news about 1/3 of the bees in the U.S. dying every year which may be caused by power lines. Additional costs shouldn't be a factor with burying the lines. Current research is only done in Europe, not in the U.S. and it appears that Big Money interests in America just don't care.
I also complained about the absolute ignorance of the Texas House in passing the smoking ban and that it reflected a much deeper intellectual problem with Texas leadership at this time. The second hand tobacco smoke danger problem is totally non-existent and all subscribers are either making money out of it or they are unaware of the dangers to the country and its freedoms and the junk science involved. She said the ban appeared to be dead in the water before reaching the senate.

Sam

Sam Nettles - mailto:samnett@msn.com
Real Texas Freedom - http://www.realtexasfreedom.net
RTF Blog - http://realtexasfreedom.blogspot.com/

Review of the WW ll Domestic Situation

2007-04-07T20:34:00.000-07:00

Many of the U.S. domestic policies are currently being ignored, even though everything is interconnected. I remember well what went on during WW ll. Born in December of 1936, the war period drug on forever between my 5th and 9th birthdays.

Prices, wages and rent were frozen. Production was geared to the war effort and no cars were produced. Tires and gasoline were rationed and equipment and parts were hard to get. Butter was switched to margarine and sugar was rationed while substitutes were used for tea. Gum was available only occasionally and was stuck under tables and bedposts overnight for chewing the next day or until a new supply came to town.

My maternal grandparents were farmers so we had plenty of the hard to get items, including gasoline. Farmers had just about anything they needed. My father was an automotive parts jobber and traveling salesman. He also managed a store. Rationing never bothered him and he said he liked volume sales and he worked on a percentage of his sales so when prices went up, he made enough to cover price increases, which he did after the war. I remember one month during the war, he earned $2500, quite a check in those days. He bragged that he didn't hike prices above the frozen level and concentrated on volume sales of the smaller goods he had available. As a jobber, he could sell at factory, distributor, jobber, wholesale and retail prices, depending on who was doing the buying.

Tin foil, string and other household items were saved for recycling. Flour and water made a good paste and right shaped tree branches and broom sticks were guns and horses. Limited metal toys were available. I did get a little red wagon one year but I don't remember whether the tires were rubber or synthetic.

War bond stamps were sold at school and we used our extra nickels and dimes to buy them. I managed to buy a new bicycle after the war. Victory gardens were grown so that more food production could go to the troops. Soldiers were everywhere and my father ordered me to return the money they gave me as they usually gave money to kids before being shipped out. Volunteer homes were used for troops on the move and my dad had a case of whiskey in the closet for those and our personal friends in the service. He and some of his friends failed their physicals but did their share of entertaining for those doing the fighting.

We were told that the war would be over soon and that it was just a matter of time. I was still a little afraid. It went on for too long and I wondered about what to do in case we lost. The best I could think of was to live up and down the San Gabriel River and steal from the enemy. All I knew was what was in the movies and on the newsreels. None of it was pretty and all the kids on the streets in Europe and the blown up buildings made me think that it could happen in America.

When it was over, newsreels showed brand new tanks, trucks and jeeps being driven over cliffs into the ocean for economic reasons. I never understood and still don't. I would have liked to have had one of those jeeps. I started driving at the age of 10. Our parents didn't need the government or anybody else telling them how to raise their kids.

I suppose the whole story can never be told no matter how many books are written and films are shown. The Russians acted up afterwards and then there was Korea and Viet Nam. Now we have Iraq and Afghanistan and a few others were in between. Since war seems never ending, the least we can do is to straighten out our domestic situation. It needs a lot of work.

Sam Nettles - mailto:samnett@msn.com
Real Texas Freedom - http://www.realtexasfreedom.net
RTF Blog - http://realtexasfreedom.blogspot.com/

Gerrymandering - Not Supposed To Be

2007-03-13T01:18:00.000-07:00

May 16, 2003 - Not Supposed to Be: During the 1950's, the intellectual elite wrote papers, taught government classes in colleges, made speeches and generally promoted the idea that gerry-mandering was wrong. As a young student at the University of Texas in Austin, I disagreed. It was clear to me that rural areas were in power and that area representation was just as important as representation for greater numbers of people. I found that rural people were more sophisticated. I never knew a Red Neck from the country. They were all from the city working in factories or warehouses or whatever. Urbanites banded together like birds of a feather with no real understanding of why they needed to get together. Rural people were diverse, knowledgeable, and full of wisdom. I hated to see all the efforts being made to deal with the gerrymandering problem. Well, most of the family farms are gone. Small businesses continue to perish on a daily basis and the country has become the suburbs with Red Neck city folks taking over everything. Our congressional districts snake around like a sidewinder rattler. Both political parties continue to abuse the system and dish out blame for what each is responsible for. Politics can be fun as well as dangerous but until our leaders get off the polarization mindset, we will never solve the representation problems created by gerrymandering. All efforts to fix the problem have failed.

Congressional Insight - Written March 9, 2005

2007-03-12T09:55:00.000-07:00

CONGRESSIONAL INSIGHT
To: Lamar Smith
I just got a notice that your message might be junk mail and I had to check a spot saying it wasn't. I hope I'm right!!!!!!!!!!! I think you are on a committee that can do something about the overreaction to spam and other unwanted E-mail. I have no problems and just delete what I don't want.
Regarding SS, it's protected as long as over 12 percent of the better part of the national payroll is paid to eligible beneficiaries every year. It becomes problematical when SSI enters the picture.
Did you consider that Baby Boomers will be dead in 30 years? Not all Baby Boomers are eligible now. I'm all for helping the elderly whether they're eligible for SS or not. I'm too old to care where my money comes from, Welfare or SS, but I think most SS recipients want what they paid for and the young folks don't want to set up a welfare program for themselves.
Investing SS money in the stock market makes no sense. You can use compound interest, simple interest, dog pound interest, pound cake interest, sledge hammer interest or credit card interest and SS beats'em all. I paid in a total of $15,000, most of it paid in the last few years before retirement. I have received more than $67, 000 in benefits. I am 68 years old and receive $875 per month SS and a small private pension. I would receive more if the SS program paid out what it is supposed to pay out. If employers want to project low wages in the future, or outsourcing most of the better jobs, (the SS administration could never do that. could they?), then the whole economy will turn sour and not just SS recipients will be short changed. We'll do just fine if we get what we're supposed to get every year. The idea of a "trust fund" was never in the cards from the getgo.
If you really want to protect SS, do something for the American working man. Big Business has a way of squeezing out the little guy every time they write legislation for you guys in Congress.

Sam Houston

2007-03-12T03:34:00.000-07:00

Circulating around the Texas History crowd at UT back in the 50's, was a story about Sam Houston that may or may not have been true. I heard it first from a Texas History professor in the classroom. He didn't tell the story in a flattering way but the rift between Stephen F. Austin and Houston was alive and well then and the teacher was for Austin.
It seems that Houston was sitting with a bottle of whiskey, drunk at the curb in front of the Governor's Mansion, when somebody scolded him for his behavior. Houston replied, "Since when is it against the law to be drunk on the streets of Austin?"
There were other stories about his use of opium and how the battle of San Jacinto and the capture of Santa Anna, resulting in the establishment of the country and eventual statehood of Texas, was due to his use of opium. Of course, all great minds have always needed something under stress, even wine. I think of Sam Houston every morning here in the mountains of New Mexico when the ravens, his Indian name was Raven, start fussing and screeching at each other.
New Mexico's Governor, Bill Richardson, who has been running for President of the U.S. for years, has managed to tax cigarettes and liquor to pay for everything and proudly brags that he didn't have to raise state income taxes and was able to do away with the sales tax on food, New Mexico being one of the few states to tax food. The State Health Department puts out TV commercials with Richardson dressed as a cowboy ordering milk in a saloon. The slogan, "You drink, you drive, you lose," ridiculed by the national media, continues daily on TV in a variety of constitutional defying situations while wasting tax dollars. Health Department lies about the dangers of second hand tobacco smoke, the only way the government can constitutionally control tobacco, flood the media.
I don't know what Richardson thinks would happen to the government and the economy if everybody quit smoking and drinking but I'm sure of one thing, his intellect is not of presidential caliber. I just wish there were some Sam Houstons around.

Entitlements

2007-03-12T03:20:00.000-07:00

More entitlement B.S. The article is certainly right about the Medicare drug plan but entitlement lies with the involvement of the drug companies and their massive profits, not with the recipients who pay both the government and the companies. Hell, I can't even get a card from my provider and can't contact them either. Nothing but recordings. They want me to pay for the medicine and get reimbursed, it seems. I also get calls all the time about adding to my coverage for a few more dollars but the callers can't believe I don't even have a card. I don't see all the shortcomings of the Canadian system, that provides complete medical coverage and drugs free of charge for everybody. There's certainly no problem there about the entitlement program endangering the Canadian economy and coverage is complete and entitled. Of course, they don't use insurance companies, which cuts the cost in half. I just use over the counter stuff when needed.
Granted, the U.S. Census Bureau reports that 11 babies are born every minute in the U.S. while only 8 deaths occur, which indicates problems for the future but also lots of workers. If the population surge ever levels off, there will be more retirees than workers but prices will adjust to spending or businesses will go broke. So, there is no entitlement danger possible, only profit levels for Big Business. They will just have to go for volume instead of immediate unfair pricing and that won't be for another 100 years or so, unless they are properly regulated before then.
My only entitlement is Social Security, which I paid for with the governmental contract that I would receive my share of whatever is collected every year. 12 and a half per cent of most of the national payroll is plenty, regardless of what's happening. If it isn't, the American economy is doomed and no amount of conservative preservation of Big Business control can change anything.

Sam Nettles - mailto:samnett@msn.com
Real Texas Freedom - http://www.realtexasfreedom.net
RTF Blog - http://realtexasfreedom.blogspot.com/

----- Original Message -----
From: SBMCMAKIN@aol.com
To: samnett@msn.com
Sent: Monday, March 05, 2007 9:58 AM
Subject: INTERESTING
The Coming Entitlement Meltdown
March 5, 2007 David Walker, Comptroller General at the Government Accountability Office, appeared on the show “60 Minutes” last evening to discuss the federal budget outlook. If you saw the show, you know that he painted a very sobering picture regarding the federal government’s ability to meet its future obligations.
If you didn’t see the show, Mr. Walker’s theme was simple: government entitlement spending is like a runaway freight train headed straight at American taxpayers. He singled out the Medicare prescription drug bill, passed by Congress at the end of 2003, as “probably the most fiscally irresponsible piece of legislation since the 1960s.”
When it comes to Social Security and Medicare, the federal government simply won’t be able to keep its promises in the future. That is the reality every American should get used to, despite the grand promises of Washington reformers. Our entitlement system can’t be reformed- it’s too late. And the Medicare prescription drug bill is the final nail in the coffin.
The financial impact of the drug bill cannot be overstated. Government projections that the program would cost $400 billion over the next decade were a joke, as everyone in Congress knew even as they voted for the bill. The real cost will be at least $1 trillion in the first decade alone, and much more in following decades as the American population grows older.
The Medicare “trust fund” is already badly in the red, and the only solution will be a dramatic increase in payroll taxes for younger workers. The National Taxpayers Union reports that Medicare will consume nearly 40% of the nation’s GDP after several decades because of the new drug benefit. That’s not 40% of federal revenues, or 40% of federal spending, but rather 40 % of the nation’s entire private sector output! The politicians who get reelected by passing such incredibly shortsighted legislation will never have to answer to future generations saddled with huge federal deficits. Those generations are the real victims, as they cannot object to the debts being incurred today in their names.
The official national debt figure, now approaching $9 trillion, reflects only what the federal government owes in current debts on money already borrowed. It does not reflect what the federal government has promised to pay millions of Americans in entitlement benefits down the road. Those future obligations put our real debt figure at roughly fifty trillion dollars- a staggering sum that is about as large as the total household net worth of the entire United States. Your share of this fifty trillion amounts to about $175,000.
Don’t believe for a second that we can grow our way out of the problem through a prosperous economy that yields higher future tax revenues. If present trends continue, by 2040 the entire federal budget will be consumed by Social Security and Medicare alone. The only options for balancing the budget would be cutting total federal spending by about 60%, or doubling federal taxes. To close the long-term entitlement gap, the U.S. economy would have to grow by double digits every year for the next 75 years.
The answer to these critical financial realities is simple, but not easy: We must rethink the very role of government in our society. Anything less, any tinkering or “reform,” won’t cut it. A good start would be for Congress to repeal the Medicare prescription drug bill.

2005 Piece

2007-02-15T23:11:00.000-08:00

Reply to a reader from Canada
Agreed. However, Conservatives like Mayor Bloomberg in New York City, continue to use the issue to their advantage. Your Government recently dodged a fall but what would you have if it did fall? Throw all the rascals out!!!!!!!
Until conservatives are willing to pay their fair share and liberals stop taking money from anywhere they can get it, our lifestyles will suffer and statesmanship will continue to breathe with a death rattle, and it won't be because of tobacco smoke.
For all the reasons, the majority of Canadians has been wrong on just about everything. Ventilation should be a decision for property owners only. It would be nice everywhere but I still like smoky old pool rooms, bars and restaurants.
There's always been smoking restrictions but working from the false premise that property owners can be forced to apply restrictions that free choice dictates otherwise, is just wrong. We got along fine with a common sense application.

I suppose there are many cover up issues, each group having their own list. Major air polluters are happy to blame tobacco smoke. So are doctors who have a culprit to blame when they don't know what they are doing. Airlines, who started the major federal involvement, saved millions when they switched the cabin air intake system and didn't have to worry about a smoker backlash. There are many reasons to blame tobacco smoke and a ready made prejudice made it easy for all. If you are a non-smoker, you just don't care and if you are an anti-smoker, you don't like the smell.
Of course, the money and political parts are all encompassing. The polarizing effects are enormous and easy to capitalize on.
The other possibility you mention covers a lot of ground. My first wife was a Registered Nurse and I studied one of her college textbooks, Tabor's Medical Encyclopedia, pretty extensively. Nicotine stimulates the pituitary gland, which regulates all the other glands. It cuts back hormones when there are too many and adds hormones when there aren't enough. There's enough medical stuff there to make doctors and druggists cringe with worry over medicating losses. The drug Wellbutrin, an anti-depressant, works like nicotine and was developed during one of the smoking studies. A pill can't replace the action of smoking, though, and the drug's side effects are enormous and dangerous. Smoking only causes a constriction of blood vessels robbing oxygen from the body. Too much oxygen will give you a headache, anyway.

I could go on and on but I really believe that human genetics holds all the answers and will answer all the questions shortly, if they'll stop spending all the money on anti-smoking studies.
Sam

BABY BOOMERS INSIGNIFICANT

2007-01-26T00:50:00.000-08:00

BABY BOOMERS INSIGNIFICANT

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the U'S. population topped 300 million January 26th. The Bureau's Historical National Population Estimates - July 1, 1900 to July 1, 1999 reported in 2000 that the population in 1946, the beginning of the WWll Baby Boomer growth, was 141,388,566. In 1956, the end of the boomer period, the population was 168,903,031, an increase of 27 and 1/2 million. Where does the regularly published figure of 78 million baby boomers come from? Lobster claw regeneration or cellular division? Many of the 27 1/2 million are dead. Many never fulfilled their 10 year work requirement to obtain eligibility for SS.
The 300 million figure is a result of normal population growth, economic growth, immigration and other factors, not baby boomers. Semantics can't hide the efforts to destroy the SS system and place eligible beneficiaries in the poverty category.
The payroll tax may be the best way to keep employers from passing the cost on to consumers but it belongs to eligible SS recipients only. The government needs to find another way to fund itself. With a projected national debt of 11 trillion dollars, much of it owed to current SS eligibles, not SSI recipients or other retirees, only the truth should prevail. Robbing the elderly won't solve long term economic problems. The elderly deserve what they paid for NOW.

End of History - Politics of Poerty

2007-01-16T03:48:00.000-08:00

This is a reply to a talk by NYU profesor Mead on C-span.

I caught your talk on C-span and have a few comments:

History won't end as long as there are people, pencils and paper around.

We may always have the poor with us but most are pushed through the cracks rather than falling and poverty can be dealt with fairly.

To assume that the impoverished have no political power is to assume that the power of the pen and the power of the ballot box are redundant.

Welfare reform was a joke for knowledgeable people and dope dealers.

The U.S. has handled the violent predictions of Marx and others successfully so far. Hopefully, conservative thinking and power will not change the direction.

Issues And False Premises

2007-01-04T03:12:00.000-08:00

Listed below are current issues to be considered by the federal government:
Lowered interest rates for student loans - There shouldn't be loans to begin with. Tuition for state schools was always reasonable, even for those who worked their way through college, like I did, before the tax rate for the wealthy was lowered.
SS reform - Money for eligible SS recipients is there. Using the money for all other government endeavors is illegal, morally wrong, and certainly criminal. The only change needed is to pay current beneficiaries what is owed to them and to stop holding back money that is supposed to be paid out as collected, as the program was originally designed to do. Making illegal aliens eligible after only 18 months, compared to 10 years for legal Americans, is just another way of robbing the elderly of what belongs to them.
Increase in the minimum wage - If employers can't pay their employees what it takes to live on, they shouldn't be in business. Dollar amounts are relative only to the condition of the economy at a given time.
War in Iraq - This war was started on 9-11. After 6 years, it's time for the U.S. to move its bowels or get off the pot.
Political ethics - Investigations can't discover all the unethical behavior and an entire administration can't be impeached or charged.

Letter to Joe Chernoy- Smokefree Leader

2006-11-18T13:46:00.000-08:00

Your leadership in the anti-smoking movement is part of the ignorant, uneducated, junk science, power grabbing, culture destroying, mindset manipulating, economic illiterate, propaganda lying force that is destroying America. It's time for you fools to get your thinking straight.

Texas 2006 Elections

2006-11-03T02:25:00.000-08:00

With the invasion of illegal aliens, creepy Califorians, anti-smokers, religious fanatics, anti-drinkers, electronic age investers, professional mindset manipulators, predjudicial educators, economic hit men and jail building law and order social destructionists, Texas, the friendly state, has turned primative.

Texans have come to hate each other, as well as hating anyone outside the state who disagrees with them.

In times like these, I like to remember when my son, now close to 40, was 3 years old. My mother told him to brush his teeth while he was getting ready for Sunday School. Later, she checked his tooth brush and told him God didn't like little fibbers. With toothpaste foam dripping out of his mouth, my son replied, "Well, God made little fibbers."

Blame

2006-10-04T12:35:00.000-07:00

Leadership and the electorate always share the blame when things go wrong but for a nation like the United States to embrace lies and propaganda, is very worrisome. For the first time in history, Americans have proven just how stupid they are, at least those who have placed the current leadership in power are stupid.

Protecting the People

2006-09-29T20:53:00.000-07:00

Regardless of what is said,the only protection being provided the American people at this time is for the wealthy, corporations, drug companies, insurance companies, government agencies and politicians.

None of these protections are worth a single drop of American military blood. We are at war. Millions are without medical care. Eligible SS recipients are being ripped off. Homeless people are everywhere while vacancies trouble the housing industry. Incomes and purchasing power are rotten while investments are at record highs. Federal government debt is being handled by foreigners and SS recipients.

JFK lowered the tax bracket for the wealthy from 90% to 70% while proclaiming loopholes still kept the wealthy from paying taxes. He didn't get the chance for corrections. After WWII,the Marshall Plan, the GI Bill, funding of state governments and other Federal Spending set up the country for years of prosperity, spin and political propaganda destroyed the minds of the voters and the economy. It's time for another 90% tax bracket, a tougher inheritance tax and removal from office all those who have contributed to the growing demise of the American way of life.

Contact With Austin American-Statesman-Spin

2006-09-18T07:56:00.000-07:00

Your story about Ann Richards and her cancer, in which you spinned a strong link between cancer and smoking and drinking, just furthers the lies and power play politics used by junk science and constitutional illiterates. There's too many old smokers and drinkers around!

Even Ann Richards was 73 and didn't drink or smoke for 25 years. I know our educational system is faulted but I am wondering, "Where did you go to school?"
______________________________________

Mel Gibsom And Driving

2006-08-05T21:07:00.000-07:00

Sounds like Mel was driving pretty safely. 87 mph while drunk?

Mad Mothers, Anti-Smokers, Vegitarians, Health Nuts, Media Fools and other idiots are having a field day. Many of my Jewish friends wanted to change over to Christianity but I told them not to. The most favorite drivers when I was young was the drinkers because they were the the smartest. I'm old but I appreciate Mel and people like him. I drink whiskey but I ========= sorry.

Real Texas Freedom

2006-08-02T00:52:00.000-07:00

The Middle East has to be on everybody's mind at this time. I had many friends from Lebonan, Syria, Egypt, Indonesia, Saudia Arabia and other countries in the area while attending U.T. in the 50's and 60's. I am very aware of all the arguments about Palestine.

I didn't know they were my enemies at the time but I decided later that Jesus was right, in that I should love my enemies. I was what they might have considered to be an infidel. Too many teachers I liked, I guess. I was searching. I didn't know that they wanted to kill infidels. I just knew that after I set up a pornagraphic party, they didn't care!!!

In my old age, I appreciate God very much. I'm an individualist but I'll do anything for God. Everybody has to have a boss.

Crashed

2006-07-26T22:42:00.000-07:00

<

There's lots to write about since last Feb. but thanks to good media coverage and general growth in public awareness,the world is finally taking shape, hopefully round and solid, not square and empty.

My signal in the mountains is not always reliable but I'll try since my computer is no longer crashed. Previous comments have pretty well covered everything going on and people are starting to catch on to what has been done to them by the government over the past few years. Real Texas Freedom has been right about everything for the last several years!!!

Onward Hitler Soldiers

2006-02-16T03:15:00.000-08:00

Anti-Smokers in Virginia, a major producer of cigarettes for 400 years, have once again used the Big Lie propaganda on second hand smoke to convince the state legislature there to ban smoking in all public places. The Senate passed the legislation by 3 votes but it isn't expected to pass in the House and whether or not the Governor will veto if it does pass is not known.

Backers of the bill cited health issues and public pressure as reasons for the action. It was determined that the public health issue is the only legal way to establish a ban. It's the most successful victory for junk science since Hitler's persecution of the Jews.

Sadly, the anti-smoking movement endangers the very foundation of American democracy. Junk science can put just about anything Americans do in the health category. Common sense and respect for the rights of all Americans, in spite of majority opinions, is necessary. To not like a smell or a certain group of people are not reasons for legal action and health reasons must be based on true science that includes the entire general public. Individuals who endanger their own health without endangering the general public, have lost out in this new era of Hitler rule. Onward Hitler Soldiers and destroy American Democracy!

Laying the Groundwork

2006-02-09T00:57:00.000-08:00

Cashflow and Economics

The Bush Adminisration included in the budget presented to Congress 2 cuts in SS that don't seem like much. They want to do away with the much publicized $255.00 death benefit for SS recipients and payments for eligible children after the age of 16 if they aren't in school. The death benefit covered funeral expenses when it was set up but has never been increased even though the money is there. The children's benefit has been provided for children until the age of 18 unless they are in school. Then they receive benefits until the age of 21. Children have to eat at 16 even if it's harder to get a job at 16 than 18.

The Bush Administration seems to think that the payroll tax can be used by the government for anything. Cutting SS is just another way of using the payroll tax to cover government spending instead of using the income tax. The payroll tax belongs to eligible SS recipients only. With trillions being withheld and used to operate the government, cuts in SS are criminal at the least. Even Tommy Thompson, former head of HHS, saw this and chose to to get out of it. Current head, Leavitt, hand picked by Bush, continues to push for the stubborn effort to gradually do away with SS.

SS recipients don't burn the money they receive, they spend it. The program was set up with the provision that all money collected was to be paid out as collected, with no more than one year of projections. Money spent helps the value of stocks, small businesses, big businesses, investments and the general public economic well being. Any other approach is sloppy and stupid. Projections into the future are manipulative and criminally inspired. Anyone in Congress who disagrees should be removed!!

The State of the Union Truth

2006-01-30T22:08:00.000-08:00

There's 40 million Americans without health care. The government says it's okay because of free enterprise for the insurance companies, drug companies and the medical industry. Monopolistic practices no longer count.

There are record profits for oil companies while the general public suffers.

The middle class is slowly being removed from the economy.

Massive layoffs are reported every day by giant corporations.

Cheap labor is the chief motivation of business interests.

Illegal aliens have overrun the country.

Foreign policy is based on war and outsourcing jobs.

People are borrowing on their homes to maintain their life styles.

New bankruptcy laws have made it impossible for people to start over.

Credit card companies use loaning practices that used to be illegal.

With 11 trillion dollars held back from current SS recipients to cover the baby boomers in 2 years, and spent to cover government debt, the SS solvency issue is actually an issue of Federal Government solvency. The SS Administration owes current recipients and the government owes the SS administration. At $45,000 for every man, woman and child in the country, and several hundred thousand for eligible SS recipients, there can't be a problem with the baby boomers coming on board.

Politicians are no longer interested in the truth and retiring Fed Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who speaks with words they don't understand, is their hero.

Sam Nettles -"Real Texas Freedom"

http://www.angelfire.com/tx5/realtexasfreedom or http://realtexasfreedom.blogspot.com/

WHO and Scare Tactics

2006-01-10T04:31:00.000-08:00

The UN agency World Health Organization continues to gain finances by warning the world of pending health problems.

A discussion on C-span tonight with a panel of writers and a doctor concluded that the possible Flu Pandemic is in trouble because the government won't produce the vaccine and drug companies can't see any profit until after the Pandemic arrives.

Three cases in Turkey don't justify the WHO's money making warning promotions but that's what they do.

Smoking In Canada

2005-12-18T04:14:00.000-08:00

This is written by my friend Frank.
The fact that the Edmonton Journal printed it says alot.

http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/letters/story.html?id=aeeb5657-1cbc-4013-8bcf-010de771a3dc

Demonizing smokers

The Edmonton Journal

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Smoking at the Alberta legislature: This is yet another example of the extreme and disturbing direction the war on smokers has taken.

What exactly is the message Les Hagen and other anti-smoking zealots are trying to convey? Is it that the mere sight of a smoker will traumatize children for

the rest of their lives? That smokers are vile, evil people who should be quarantined or, at the very least, be kept out of sight? That contact with smoke from a pipe, cigar or cigarette means instant death?

If so, Alberta should import a series of television ads condoned and paid for by the province of Ontario that portrays smokers as being incredibly stupid and dirty, filthy people. One of the commercials graphically illustrates that smokers stink like dog poop.

Isn't it time the media, politicians and the general public take a step back and begin to question just how far the deliberate campaign to denormalize and demonize smokers has gone? In the name of all that is decent, it's the right thing to do.

Frank Zaniol, Niagara Falls, Ont.
© The Edmonton Journal 2005

Supply and Demand

2005-12-09T22:12:00.000-08:00

The most redundant statement any modern corporate executive can utter is an excuse for raising prices related to supply and demand.

Giant corporations control prices on all goods and services at all levels. All the traffic will bear!!! There just isn't any competition.

Weather, war or whatever doesn't slow them down. They take all they can get away with, whether they destroy their markets or not.

Cattlemen have fussed about having to feed their cattle because the market won't provide a profit, while a good steak costs over $20.00 a pound at the grocery store. Ground meat went from 69 cents a pound six months ago, to over $3.00 a pound now. Gasoline prices were lowered because of consumer disgust, not supply and demand. Then there's medical care, insurance, drugs, energy, groceries, cheap labor overseas products and just about everything else.

Supply and demand sucks.

Twisting the Truth - Parden My French

2005-12-08T19:25:00.000-08:00

Marx predicted that when money accumulated in too few hands, the workers would revolt and set up a communist state, which is a government owned dictatorship. All efforts to deal with this possibility do not constitute a communist state. Far right efforts to misinterpret American actions that clearly deal with the possibility, just make the possibility more viable.

Since Joe McCarthy, right wing garbage has done more damage to capitalism and free enterprise than socialism has. This junk is total B.S. except for the Federal Reserve part. The system provides free money to banks. As the economy grows, the money supply must increase but it shouldn't be increased at the expense of we the people.

These right wing bastards are worse than anti-smokers!!!!!!! Taking them out of government would certainly put the constitution back in gear. The shit for brains Supreme Court is dominated by the right wing and appointed by Republicans who have succcumbed to the idiots on the right just to get elected by a confused electorate.

Sam Nettles -"Real Texas Freedom"
http://www.angelfire.com/tx5/realtexasfreedom or http://realtexasfreedom.blogspot.com/

Karl Marx stated in his Communist Manifesto that the following 10 planks are a TEST as to whether a country has become communist or not. If they are all in effect and in force the country IS communist.

1. Abolition of private property and the application of all rent to public purpose.

The 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (1868), and various zoning, school & property taxes. Also the Bureau of Land Management. Kelo v New London and the 6500 residents of Riveria Beach, FL currently being evicted by local Government who have sold out to Condo Developers.

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

Misapplication of the 16th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, 1913, The Social Security Act of 1936.; Joint House Resolution 192 of 1933; and various State "income" taxes. We call it "paying your fair share".

3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.

We call it Death Tax, Federal & State estate Tax (1916); or reformed Probate Laws, and limited inheritance via arbitrary inheritance tax statutes.

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

We call in government seizures, tax liens, Public "law" 99-570 (1986); Executive order 11490, sections 1205, 2002 which gives private land to the Department of Urban Development; the imprisonment of "terrorists" and those who speak out or write against the "government" (1997 Crime/Terrorist Bill); or the IRS confiscation of property without due process.

5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.

We call it the Federal Reserve. A credit/debt system nationally organized by the Federal Reserve act of 1913. All local banks are members of the Fed system, and are regulated by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). This private bank has an exclusive monopoly in money creation and is directly responsible all inflation

6. Centralization of the means of communication and transportation in the hands of the State.

We call it the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Department of Transportation (DOT) madated through the ICC act of 1887, the Commissions Act of 1934, The Interstate Commerce Commission established in 1938, The Federal Aviation Administration, Federal Communications Commission, and Executive orders 11490, 10999, as well as State mandated driver's licenses and Department of Transportation regulations. There is also the postal monopoly, AMTRACK and CONRAIL.

7. Extention of factories and instruments of production owned by the State, the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.

We call it corporate capacity, The Desert Entry Act and The Department of Agriculture. As well as the Department of Commerce and Labor, Department of Interior, the Evironmental Protection Agency, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, Bureau of Mines, National Park Service, and the IRS control of business through corporate regulations.

8. Equal liablity of all to labor. Establishment of Industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

We call it the Social Security Administration and The Department of Labor. The National debt and inflation caused by the communal bank has caused the need for a two "income" family. Woman in the workplace since the 1920's, the 19th amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, assorted Socialist Unions, affirmative action, the Federal Public Works Program and of course Executive order 11000. And I almost forgot...The Equal Rights Amendment means that women should do all work that men do including the military and since passage it would make women subject to the draft.

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the population over the country.

We call it the Planning Reorganization act of 1949 , zoning (Title 17 1910-1990) and Super Corporate Farms, as well as Executive orders 11647, 11731 (ten regions) and Public "law" 89-136.

10. Free education for all children in government schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc. etc.

People are being taxed to support what we call 'public' schools, which train the young to work for the communal debt system. We also call it the Department of Education, the NEA and Outcome Based "Education".

Austin Bars Fight Ban

2005-12-06T22:56:00.000-08:00

City tries to smoke out bars
In first test for ordinance, several bars face court dates
By Asher Price
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Tuesday, December 06, 2005

At Clicks Billiards, customers are not encouraged to smoke, but they're not exactly discouraged, either. There are no ashtrays in the club, and there's a "no smoking" sign on the front door. If patrons do light up, they are asked to sign a note that reads, "I have been informed that smoking on Clicks premises is NOT permitted, and that if I smoke, I must leave." But the note also says, "It is house policy that if you do not leave, we will not force you to leave, nor will we call the police."

In the first major test of how sharp the teeth of the city's new no-smoking rules are, Clicks and another bar, Mickey's Thirsty I Lounge, face criminal misdemeanor charges in municipal court on Dec. 14. A third establishment, Rack Daddy's pool hall on Riverside Drive, has also been charged with a misdemeanor, but no court date has been set.

Matt Rourke
AMERICAN-STATESMAN
(enlarge photo)

Greg Robbins of Austin lights up as Richard Hernañdez, left, and Jeff Roberts smoke Friday at Mickey's Thirsty I Lounge on North Lamar Boulevard. Mickey's will face criminal misdemeanor charges in municipal court after the city says it violated the no-smoking ordinance.

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If convicted, the bars could be forced to pay fines of up to $500 for each citation they face, said Bob Flocke, a spokesman for the Austin/Travis County Health and Human Services Department. According to city records, Clicks' two locations, on Oltorf Street and North Lamar Boulevard, have received nine citations since Sept. 1, when the smoking ban began; Mickey's was given one citation; Rack Daddy's, three.

The citations at the two Clicks locations include failure to remove ashtrays and failure to take reasonable steps to prevent a person from smoking, according to Carol Sahm, a compliance coordinator with the department's environmental and consumer health unit.

Lawyers who have fought the ordinance said the municipal court hearings are another opportunity to challenge the underlying lawfulness of it.

"This is a test of the policy," said Marc Levin, a lawyer who is advising Clicks. "There's an opportunity to challenge the constitutionality of it."

On Thursday at 2 p.m. there was precisely one patron sitting at the bar at the south location of Clicks, a well-lit, large pool hall, and he was smoking. He had signed the policy, and a waitress passed him a plastic foam cup, ostensibly to put out his cigarette. He tapped the ash from his Marlboro Light into the cup and smoked some more.

"This is the only bar I'll come to now," said Michael Lewis, the customer and a former bartender at Clicks. "It's about ambience."

Clicks invested $70,000 in a specially ventilated room and another $23,000 in an air filtration system in a bid to gain an exemption before the ordinance went into effect, but according to Dale Bearden, a manager at the North Lamar branch of the pool hall, the city said that the room was installed too late and that the filtration system is inadequate. (Flocke said Clicks did not get the permit to create a specially ventilated room in time for the exemption.) The room remains largely unused.

"I realize it's a law, but I just don't see it as a just law," Bearden said. "It's not a smoking issue; it's a freedom of choice issue."

He said that shortly after the smoking ordinance went into effect, the bar's sales fell by 31 percent. Then, a month ago, after a federal ruling that largely upheld the smoking ban, Clicks shifted gears and began asking smokers to sign the form.

Nick Alexander, the president of Clicks, which is headquartered in Dallas and has 21 pool halls across the country, said the form was drafted with an eye to testimony given during last month's federal case. He said the city testified that to comply with the ordinance, a bar or pool hall had to put out no-smoking signs, pick up ashtrays and ask patrons not to smoke. He said city officials also said businesses should follow their own house rules when dealing with patrons who refuse to put out cigarettes.

"According to our house rules, we do not let people sit on our pool tables, but if they do, we're not going to physically remove people or call the police," he said. "We're complying with the ordinance as set forth via the testimony" in the courtroom.

Sales are still off 19 to 20 percent. The club has been in the red since September because the smoking ordinance has kept customers away, Bearden said. In the 17 years he has been a manager at Clicks, it had lost money in only about three months, largely because of end-of-year discoveries of accounting errors, he said.

"People are either driving farther to go to the outskirts of the city where they can smoke, or they're staying at home," Bearden said.

According to mixed beverage tax records kept at the state comptroller's office, the smoking ban does appear to have had an effect on business, at least at Clicks. The two Clicks branches paid the state $19,144.30 in mixed beverage taxes in August. The mixed beverage tax is 14 percent of mixed beverage sales. The next month the two Clicks branches paid $16,349.34 in mixed beverage taxes.

But during the same reporting period, mixed beverage sales appear to have increased at the Rack Daddy's location, rising from $8,205.40 to $8,312.22.

At Mickey's Thirsty I Lounge, about "99.9 percent of the customers are smokers," said Mickey Leathers, the bar's proprietor. He said his staff has a hard time asking them to put out their cigarettes because "they're pretty mean."

The Austin ban, which passed in May with 51.8 percent of the vote, prohibits smoking in most public places, including most of the city's bars and restaurants. It has more or less withstood attempts by bar owners to keep the ban off the ballot in the first place and repeal it once voters approved it. Bar owners did persuade a federal judge in October to reduce fines from $2,000 to $500 and prevent the city from being able to revoke licenses of businesses without judicial review.

As of Nov. 28, 96 complaints against establishments had been called in to the health department, and investigators decided that 54 of those complaints were founded.

"Generally speaking, the first violation we'll work with them, and the second violation we'll work with them," Flocke said. "After that, they'll get a citation."

The bars that face charges are "habitual violators," he said.

asherprice@statesman.com; 445-3643

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href="http://realtexasfreedom.blogspot.com/2005/12/real-texas-freedom_06.html">Real Texas Freedom: Real Texas Freedom

Real Texas Freedom

2005-12-06T16:45:00.000-08:00

Press Release
For Immediate Release: December 5 , 2005

Do Smoking Bans cause a 27 to 40% drop in admissions for myocardial
infarction in hospitals?

December 5, 2005

Antismokers claim that studies have shown that bans bring about an immediate
and drastic decrease in heart attacks among nonsmokers exposed to smoke at
work.
This claim was never true to begin with - the cited studies never separated
and analyzed nonsmokers as a separate group - and it has now been pointed out
in the pages of the BMJ that even the claim of saving lives among the
combined population of smokers and nonsmokers might be worthless.

While many making that claim may have believed their information to be
accurate, it is now obvious that its basis has been thrown strongly into question.
As Jacob Sullum noted in a December 1st reaction to the announcement, "An
effect this dramatic (i.e. an immediate and pronounced drop of hospital
admissions for heart attacks) should have been noticed all over the country..."

Just a week before the Chicago Aldermen were due to vote on a citywide
smoking ban, two independent researchers working together, David W. Kuneman and
Michael J. McFadden, unveiled a new study covering a population base roughly
1,000 times as large as the previous town-based studies. The new study
indicates strongly that rather than a 30% decrease in heart attacks, statewide
smoking bans seem to have literally NO EFFECT AT ALL on heart attack rates.
Incredibly the data even indicates that California's statewide heart attack rate
went UP by 6% in the first full year of their total smoking ban!

The data for the study and the basis of its design have been backed up and
expanded by well-known antismoking researcher Michael Siegel who has come out
in support of the researchers' approach as providing "compelling evidence that
brings into question the conclusion that smoking bans have an immediate and
drastic effect on heart attack incidence." His observation is echoed by
researcher Kuneman who asks, "Ever wonder why you didn't hear about post ban
heart attack declines in New York City? Or in Minneapolis or Los Angeles? Now
you know!"

On December 4th the British Medical Journal entered the fray with the online
publication of a Rapid Response by Mr. McFadden outlining the new research
and posing sharp criticisms of the earlier studies and of the refusal of the
authors of those studies to respond to previous criticisms and questions.
McFadden points out that the data in the Kuneman/McFadden study are fully open
for public examination and far less selective than the data in the earlier
studies and notes with pride that he and his co-researcher have been quick to
respond to all queries posted about their methodology on Dr. Siegel's web blog.

He also poses the wider ranging question of whether studies commissioned by
the "Antismoking Industry" should begin to receive the same cautious reception
accorded those commissioned by "Big Tobacco." The current study, as well
as an earlier one by the duo, were unfunded and neither researcher receives
grants for their work from either interest group. Kuneman sharply asks the
question, "Why the difference between the studies? For one thing we weren't
dependent on antismoking-targeted grants!"

At this point there appears to be very little, if any, real scientific
support for the claim that protecting nonsmokers from normal levels of exposure to
secondary smoke prevents any heart attacks. And it is this claim that has
always provided the impressive numbers upon which ban advocates have pressed
legislators to pass smoking bans.

Without those numbers proponents of extreme bans are left with little other
than the widely discredited EPA figures relating ETS to lung cancer and a few
isolated instances of hospitality workers who have come to believe that their
own cancers were caused by working in smoking establishments. Samantha
Phillipe, editor of the longstanding smokersclubinc.com newsletter, notes that
while it's always a cause for sadness when someone becomes ill that it's even
more sad when they are misguidedly advised to blame family and friends for
their illness.

Without a compelling body of scientific evidence backing them up, smoking
bans are an unnecessary and overbearing intrusion of government into the spheres
of free choice, private property and free enterprise. And the
Kuneman/McFadden study points up just how uncompelling even some of the strongest and most
publicised evidence actually is.
References:

Article:
_http://kuneman.smokersclub.com/hospitaladmissions.html_
(mip://033eaf30/="http://kuneman.smokersclub.com/hospitaladmissions.html")
2)Mike Siegel's blog analysis and followup comments:
_http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/2005/11/new-study-casts-doubt-on-claim-th
at.html_
(mip://033eaf30/="http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/2005/11/new-study-casts-doubt-on-claim-that.html")

3) BMJ Response:
_http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/eletters/328/7446/977#123038_
(mip://033eaf30/="http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/eletters/328/7446/977#123038")

4) Jacob Sullum's REASON column:
_Hit and Run_
(mip://033eaf30/="http://www.reason.com/hitandrun/2005/12/the_vanishing_m.shtml")

###

Press Release Approved by Samantha Phillipe
President
The Smokerâ€™s Club, Inc.
PO Box 814
Center Conway, NH 03813
info@smokersclub.com
http://www.smokersclub.com

Michael J. McFadden
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"
Mid-Atlantic Regional Director of SmokersClubInc.com
web page:
_http://pasan.thetruthisalie.com/_ (http://pasan.thetruthisalie.com/)
Email:_ Cantiloper@aol.com_ (mailto:Cantiloper@aol.com)

Real Texas Freedom

2005-12-06T16:31:00.000-08:00

Anti-Smoking tactics:
AS tactic #1) Don't debate---distort! If your opponent makes a valid point about flaws in your science, ignore it. Don't even read it. Then, mischaracterize his entire argument.
SOUNDBITE: "Oh, I guess if it says secondhand smoke is harmful, it MUST, in your twisted world, be a bogus study."

AS tactic #2) Employ, very liberally, the fallacy of question-begging. While you're ignoring the junk-science debate, pretend there is no debate.
SOUNDBITE: "Freedom? To do what? Give other people cancer?"

AS tactic #3) Spew glib enthusiasm like a brainwashed cultist! Keep repeating cheerful, exuberant slogan-type sentiments about the "smoke-free future"; combine the sunny optimism of Heaven's Gate with the raving of a demagogue mad on world conquest. Do this over & over again. You'll give your opponents a headache.
SOUNDBITE: "December 8. No more secondhand smoke in bowling alleys, bars, and restaurants. Yes!!! That will be a great day. I can hardly wait."

AS tactic #4A) Insult them! It's very important to hammer home the message that smokers, as a group, are fair game for denigration, insult, and general abuse.
SOUNDBITE: "i hope all you smokers get banned ... you are filthy and disgusting ... p.s. you stink."
SOUNDBITE COMBINING TACTICS 3 & 4A: "December 8 will be a great day. In fact, I'm thinking about writing to Gov Gregoire to suggest that Dec 8 be made a state holiday. I will suggest calling it 'Smokers Can Kiss My Ass Day.'"

AS tactic #4B) Smear them! Waste no opportunity to call your opponent a liar, hypocrite, or shill. Don't say he's mistaken or misinformed---say that he's a deceptive con-artist who's muddying the waters.
SOUNDBITE: "So Melle the Deceiver and Gomez the Distorter have been joined by Saprobe the BSer."

AS tactice #5) While accusing the other side of lying, spread lies shamelessly and repeatedly. Remember, a lie repeated often enough becomes the truth!
SOUNDBITE: "Every credible, peer-reviewed legitimate scientific study has found that secondhand smoke kills."

AS tactic #6) Resistance is futile! Take a page from the totalitarians. Promote your arguments on the ground that your side's victory is inevitable. Pretend that political clout is a mark of virtue (in blatant contradiction to all of human history).
SOUNDBITE: "States that allow smoking will fall like dominoes, very quickly. No one likes to be behind the times. The ease and speed of passing smoking bans will increase exponentially."

AS tactic #7) Link your opponents to the tobacco industry, based on the most tenuous connections. If a bartender has accepted Camel promos, smear him as an RJ Reynolds employee! If a researcher worked at 7-Up while 7-Up was owned by Philip Morris, say that he used to work at Philip Morris---and if someone posts his research, dismiss it as "Big Tobacco-funded." Et cetera.
SOUNDBITE: "I think we can now safely store Fuzed's posts in the 'Big Tobacco Bullshit Artist' file."

AS tactic #8: Link your opponents to the tobacco industry based on no connections of any kind. So you know nothing about the person you're arguing with. Why let that stop you? Write as if he's linked to Big Tobacco.
SOUNDBITE: "Melle is reading straight from his Philip Morris crib sheet."

AS tactic #9) If you lose an argument, never fear---just pretend you've won! So your opponent backed up his position reasonably & consistently, with adequate references, and you have nothing to say. Just start saying you won the argument! There may be some inattentive and/or retarded readers who will accept this at face value, and their votes count too!
SOUNDBITE: (wait until the argument you lost is a day or two old) "You had neither facts on your side nor debating skills. Simply put, you were out of your league."

AS tactic #10) Shoot the messenger. Should your opponent quote the local police chief saying the ban won't be enforced, simply ignore the fact that he's quoting. Treat him as if he, & he alone, invented the idea of non-enforcement. In the same vein, should he quote a prominent epidemiologist who says risks below 100% are "insignificant," ignore the authority of the epidemiologist---treat the whole thing as your opponent's personal opinion. You may succeed in misleading some readers---see #9.
SOUNDBITE: "On reading all your angry, defeated, drivel, 'Fuzed', there is only one thing significant enough to be worth knowing. Exactly what are YOUR plans for breaking the law?"

AS tactic #11) For God's sake, keep your mouth shut!!! The anti-smoking movement has come this far without ever addressing certain subjects---e.g., the epidemiological weakness of the science, the lucrative smokefree-nicotine market, the fact that nonsmokers' rights groups and Big Tobacco both lobby for the same legislation---and we're not about to start now! If the opposition breathes a word on these subjects, shut up, shut up, SHUT UP! (If you really want to say something, throw them a cheap insult.)
SOUNDBITE: " ... "
ALT. SOUNDBITE: "What's your agenda? Making sure the air is dirty? Hmm, stupid much?"

From: The Stranger Forums

Antis: Who they are

Antis: How to fight

Antis: Ban Alerts

Disgust - Americans Losing It

2005-11-22T07:49:00.000-08:00

I've been reading the newspaper reports from the Houston, Corpus and MacAllen
publications concerning the Smoking ban elections in those areas. I'm drinking whiskey but as an old drinker told me years ago, honesty comes out when you're drinking and you should never take an insult from a drunk as trivial.

Dumb S.O.B.'s don't fit the "They know not what they do," category. They are either money hungry politicians, evil religious idiots, propaganda prone government officials or stupid scientists.

Common sense has never been so confused in the minds of Americans than now. Tobacco smoke as a killer is disgusting. I may be old and unable to fight like I would like to but I am starting to hate anybody who thinks second hand tobacco smoke is a killer. I know that most people don't care if I hate them or not but I may matter some day.

Common sense, the most important part of the American makeup, is failing us regularly. The most disgusting element of the smoking ban movement is the backing of medical doctors. Not an exact science, they continue to promote a campaign that undermines their credibility. As I told one friend recently, they are F- heads.

I'm sorry to reveal what I think but hatred is important when it comes from someone like me! The very essence of American survival rests on this issue. If we can't smoke, what the hell can we do?

Outsourcing Jobs and the Stock Market

2005-11-22T01:21:00.001-08:00

Many business reporters defend moving jobs overseas by citing the advantages of cheap labor and cheap building costs. During the last 20 years, 2/3 of America's manufacturing jobs have disappeared. Some blame many businesses for not recognizing the profit potential of moving the jobs. This short sighted view loses track of the ultimate effect on the value of stocks and on the purchasing power of American consumers. Without an American capability to buy the goods, companies will lose sales and find the value of their stocks shrinking.Third World countries certainly can't afford to buy American production, even when the products are manufactured in the Third World.

Continuing layoffs, company mergers, lowered wages, reduced benefits and restructuring may temporarily increase the value of stocks but when the consumers can no longer make purchases, a worldwide depression is inevitable.

Ruidoso, New Mexico

2005-08-07T01:36:00.000-07:00

I'll leave this morning. New posts will be sporadic. Back to Texas in the fall.

George Will on Stem Cells

2005-08-05T03:52:00.000-07:00

Letter

Thanks for explaining how Frist and Bush are both wrong.

Sam Nettles