John McAfee Update

Software pioneer John McAfee, who earlier this year was being chased around Belize by police, is being chased again, this time as a “person of interest” in the death of his neighbor fellow ex-pat American  Gregory Viant Faull.

Apparently the men had a dispute about McAfee’s dogs,  after which several of the dogs were poisoned.
McAfee denies having anything to do with Faull’s death saying in a cellphone interview: “Certainly he was not my favorite person and I was not his. He was a heavy drinker and an annoyance. But the world is full of annoyances; if we killed all of our annoyances, there would be nobody left,”
McAfee says he believes it is the Belize government that has poisoned the dogs.
“I don’t want to be unkind to the gentleman, but I believe he is extremely paranoid, even bonkers.” said Dean Barrow, the nation’s prime minister.
He said McAfee was only wanted for questioning and that he should report to authorities.
The one silver lining in this, is that McAfee chose Belize rather than Newtown Square.

Sack Lunches

Hat tip Cathy Domizio
I put my carry-on in the luggage compartment and sat down in my assigned seat. It was going to be a long flight. ‘I’m glad I have a good book to read. Perhaps I will get a short nap,’ I thought. 
 
Just before take-off, a line of soldiers came down the aisle and filled all the vacant seats, totally surrounding me. I decided to start a conversation. 
 
‘Where are you headed?’ I asked the soldier seated nearest to me. ‘Petawawa. We’ll be there for two weeks for special training, and then we’re being deployed to Afghanistan  
 
After flying for about an hour, an announcement was made that sack lunches were available for five dollars… It would be several hours before we reached the east, and I quickly decided a lunch would help pass the time… 
 
As I reached for my wallet, I overheard a soldier ask his buddy if he planned to buy lunch. ‘No, that seems like a lot of money for just a sack lunch. Probably wouldn’t be worth five bucks. I’ll wait till we get to base.’ 
 
His friend agreed. 
 
I looked around at the other soldiers. None were buying lunch. I walked to the back of the plane and handed the flight attendant a fifty dollar bill. ‘Take a lunch to all those soldiers.’ She grabbed my arms and squeezed tightly. Her eyes wet with tears, she thanked me. ‘My son was a soldier in Iraq ; it’s almost like you are doing it for him.’ 
 
Picking up ten sacks, she headed up the aisle to where the soldiers were seated. She stopped at my seat and asked, ‘Which do you like best – beef or chicken?’ ‘Chicken,’ I replied, wondering why she asked. She turned and went to the front of plane, returning a minute later with a dinner plate from first class. 
 
‘This is your thanks.’ 
 
After we finished eating, I went again to the back of the plane, heading for the rest room..  A man stopped me. ‘I saw what you did. I want to be part of it… Here, take this.’ He handed me twenty-five dollars. 
 
Soon after I returned to my seat, I saw the Flight Captain coming down the aisle, looking at the aisle numbers as he walked, I hoped he was not looking for me, but noticed he was looking at the numbers only on my side of the plane. When he got to my row he stopped, smiled, held out his hand and said, ‘I want to shake your hand.’ Quickly unfastening my seatbelt I stood and took the Captain’s hand. With a booming voice he said, ‘I was a soldier and I was a military pilot. Once, someone bought me a lunch. It was an act of kindness I never forgot.’ I was embarrassed when applause was heard from all of the passengers.. 
 
Later I walked to the front of the plane so I could stretch my legs. A man who was seated about six rows in front of me reached out his hand, wanting to shake mine. He left another twenty-five dollars in my palm. 
 
When we landed I gathered my belongings and started to deplane… Waiting just inside the airplane door was a man who stopped me, put something in my shirt pocket, turned, and walked away without saying a word. Another twenty-five dollars! 
 
Upon entering the terminal, I saw the soldiers gathering for their trip to the base. 
I walked over to them and handed them seventy-five dollars. ‘It will take you some time to reach the base. It will be about time for a sandwich. 
God Bless You.’ 
 
Ten young men left that flight feeling the love and respect of their fellow travelers. 
 
As I walked briskly to my car, I whispered a prayer for their safe return. These soldiers were giving their all for our country. I could only give them a couple of meals. It seemed so little… 
 
A veteran is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote a blank check made payable to ‘The United States of America ‘ for an amount of ‘up to and including my life.’ 
 
That is Honor, and there are way too many people in this country who no longer understand it.’ 

Cryptowit

By William W. Lawrence Sr

Sgt oy huxt zu robk, tuz zu vxkvgxk lux rolk.
Huxoy Vgyzkxtgq
Answer to yesterday’s puzzle: “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” 
― Winston Churchill

Cricket Bars — Recipe Of The Day

Cricket bars are a yumalicious snack for the kids or anybody.

1/4 Oz live crickets
112/ Cups unflavored whey protein
1/2 Cup rolled oats
1/2 Cup unsweetened shredded coconut.
1/2 Cup water
2 Tsp vanilla extract
1 Cup unsweetened almond butter
Put the crickets in the freezer for a couple of hours to kill them, then roast them in a skillet for one to two hours at 200 degrees F.
Put the crickets in a ziplock bag and crush them with a rolling pin until a corse powder. Blend by hand all ingredients in a mixing bow. Press the mix into a 8-inch square baking pan. Refrigerate for 30 minutes and cut in bars.
Yum.
Hat tip Tim Ferriss and Outside magazine.

Off The Internet– Obituary

Courtesy of Mickey Rair

In 1887 Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the
University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the
Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior:  ” A democracy is always
temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent
form of government.  A democracy will continue to exist up until
the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous
gifts from the public treasury.  From that moment on, the majority
always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from
the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally
collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a
dictatorship.” 
“The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the
beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200
years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence: 
From bondage to spiritual faith; 
From spiritual faith to great courage; 
From courage to liberty; 
From liberty to abundance; 
From abundance to complacency; 
From complacency to apathy; 
From apathy to dependence; 
From dependence back into bondage.”
The Obituary follows:
Born 1776, Died 2012  
It doesn’t hurt to read this several times. 
           
Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law in
St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning
the last Presidential election: 
Number of States won by:           Obama: 19              McCain: 29 
Square miles of land won by:       Obama: 580,000       McCain: 2,427,000 
Population of counties won by:     Obama: 127 million   McCain: 143 million 
Murder rate per 100,000 residents
in counties won by:                    Obama: 13.2            McCain: 2.1  
Professor Olson adds: “In aggregate, the map of the territory
McCain won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens
of the country.
Obama territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in low
income tenements and living off various forms of government
welfare…”
Olson believes the  United States is now somewhere between the
“complacency and apathy” phase of Professor Tyler’s definition of
democracy, with some forty percent of the nation’s population
already having reached the “governmental dependency” phase.
If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million
criminal invaders called illegal’s – and they vote – then we can say
goodbye to the US A in fewer than five years. 
If you are in favor of this, then by all means, delete this message.
If you are not, then pass this along to help everyone realize just how
much is at stake, knowing that apathy is the greatest danger to our
freedom..
This is truly scary

What Really Happened On Staten Island

A first-hand report from  web journalists Joanne Stocker, Kenneth Lipp and Dustin Slaughter sheds light about what has happened on Staten Island.

What Really Happened On Staten Island

Let Chester-Upland Die, Joe

Joe Watkins, the pastor and conservative talk show host who has been tasked with trying to save the Chester Upland School District, is recommending staff cuts, school closings and tax increases to accomplish this goal.

He hopes to regain the students and their subsidies lost to charter and cyber schools.
Here’s a better idea: close all the district’s schools and make all the students attend charter and cyber schools.
Here’s even a better idea: take the state subsidies the children get  and apply it to vouchers for the kids to attend any school that will take them.
When things are improving i.e. children leaving broken schools for working ones, don’t stand in the way.
Any tax increase to help that district is throwing good money after bad and wasting desperately needed resources.

Cryptowit

By William W. Lawrence Sr.

“Ackkmaa qa vwb nqvit, niqtczm qa vwb nibit: qb qa bpm kwcziom bw kwvbqvcm bpib kwcvba.” 
― Eqvabwv Kpczkpqtt

Answer to yesterday’s puzzle: Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.
John Lennon

A Message From The GOP City Committee (Philly)

Courtesy Carol Klein

Now that we’ve had a few days to digest the 2012 election please allow me to give some initial thoughts about moving the Conservative agenda and this Party forward.   First, I congratulate John Taylor for another successful election.   My thanks to all our other candidates, you ran good campaigns against long, long odds.  I want to meet with all of you to review what you did, what you learned and what you see as important for our future. 

We did more work this year than any I have ever seen, and I’ve been involved working elections since 1974.  Our Victory Centers made more calls and knocked on more doors than any Philadelphia Republican organization has done in memory.  Everyone should be proud of the work we did.  And, we got smoked.

How did we lose to a very weak incumbent in both the presidential and senatorial elections?  We lost because we have allowed the left to control the debate for years.  We’ve made progress and it hasn’t been enough.  I’ve asked people why they voted for Obama and the answers all are based on what we know to be half truths or outright falsehoods.

This means we’ve allowed elections to come down to personalities and sound bites.  If your personality doesn’t come through strong in the beginning of the campaign, if you make a silly statement or misquote a fact, the other side brands you before the real campaign ever begins.  Those of us who understand the fundamental principles on which this country was built can see past those personality quirks.  For us, the individual doesn’t matter as much as the principles on which he or she stands.  Understand the principles and you are far better able to sort through the media blather and find the truth.

But none of us were born knowing those principles.  None of us came into the world understanding the God-given rights we brought with us.  None of us were born knowing that our precious individual rights and responsibilities were given by the Creator and not by some government.  We had to be taught.  In order to change the outcomes we need to do the hard work of mentoring an entire electorate.  That job in Philadelphia will be long and hard.  And if we want to elect quality people no matter what their personality quirks that’s what we are going to have to do.

Next year we have elections for District Attorney, Controller and Judges and we need quality candidates for all of them.   We also need to build on the work done this year by Annie Havey and elect Minority Inspectors in every division in the city.  In addition, we need to begin identifying candidates for future elections.  Waiting until the year of the election to choose candidates is never going to work. 

And, while we are doing all those things, we need to begin an education process that teaches the principles we understand and are sorely lacking in the majority of the electorate.  We have our work cut out for us, and we can do it.  We need to start now when the noise of an election is just a memory.  We need to be ready to respond to every falsehood we see or hear in the Philadelphia media.  Eventually our message will get through, the truth always does.
  

Sincerely,

 

Rick Hellberg

Chairman, Republican City Committee

Tax Rebate Deadline Looms

The deadline to apply for the 2011 Property Tax/Rent Rebate program is Dec. 31, reports State Rep. Jim Cox (R-129).

If you’ve already applied and/or received your rebate check for 2011, please note that applications for the 2012 program will not be accepted until next year, probably in mid-February. 

Eligible participants can receive a rebate of up to $650 based on their rent or property taxes paid in 2011. The program benefits eligible Pennsylvanians who are 65 years or older, widows and widowers 50 years or older, and those 18 years or older with permanent disabilities. 

Eligibility income limits for homeowners are set at the following levels, excluding 50 percent of Social Security, Supplemental Security Income, and Railroad Retirement Tier 1 benefits: 

•

$0 to $8,000, maximum $650 rebate (homeowners and renters).

•

$8,001 to $15,000, maximum $500 rebate (homeowners and renters).

•

$15,001 to $18,000, maximum $300 rebate (homeowners only).

•

$18,001 to $35,000, maximum $250 rebate (homeowners only).