Notes from the Nevada Highlands

To Eat or Not to Eat

2010-02-18T14:50:00.000-08:00

To eat or not to eat, that is the question! I have often wondered and struggled between getting the enjoyment of eating whatever and whenever I want versus doing the right thing for my body and not eating after 10pm, watching what I eat, etc. At one extreme would be super healthy habits but a loss of much enjoyment and at the other extreme would be unhealthy habits but mucho food enjoyment. I want my chocolate after 10pm!! Wonder where others come down on this enjoyment versus self-restraint issue?

Great Song by the Beatles

2010-01-26T16:35:00.000-08:00

Can't buy me love, love
Can't buy me love

I'll buy you a diamond ring my friend if it makes you feel alright
I'll get you anything my friend if it makes you feel alright
'Cause I don't care too much for money, money can't buy me love

I'll give you all I got to give if you say you love me too
I may not have a lot to give but what I got I'll give to you
I don't care too much for money, money can't buy me love

Can't buy me love, everybody tells me so
Can't buy me love, no no no, no

Say you don't need no diamond ring and I'll be satisfied
Tell me that you want the kind of thing that money just can't buy
I don't care too much for money, money can't buy me love

That Part of My Life is Over......

2009-08-11T10:42:00.000-07:00

...and happy that it is! I am born again, new life, fresh starts, good stuff!!! The storm seemed to be an unending hell at times, but everything must happen for a reason and it has made me stronger. A fall from grace can actually be liberating! Losing everything can actually be gaining all. That part of my life is over and on to new beginnings!

Terrorism, the Government and the Law

2009-02-10T23:08:00.000-08:00

There is a very strong temptation...for government forces to act outside the law, the excuses being that the processes of law are too cumbersome, that the normal safeguards in the law for the individual are not designed for an insurgency and that a terrorist deserves to be treated as an outlaw anyway. Not only is this morally wrong, but, over a period, it will create more practical difficulties for a government than it solves. A government which does not act in accordance with the law forfeits the right to be called a government and cannot expect its people to obey the law. Functioning in accordance with the law is a very small price to pay in return for the advantage of being the government.--Sir Robert Granger Ker Thompson, Defeating Communist Insurgency: Experiences from Malaya and Vietnam (1966)

My Life

2008-08-24T10:54:00.000-07:00

Wisdom tells me I am nothing.
Love tells me I am everything.
My Life flows somewhere in between.

West-Central Nevada Loop Trip

2008-07-24T10:48:00.001-07:00

Is Barack Obama a Left-Libertarian?

2008-02-12T22:34:00.001-08:00

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/019355.html

Looking Across the Divide of Human Living and Animal

2008-02-07T14:12:00.000-08:00

Free Will on a Cosmic Scale

2007-12-16T21:01:00.000-08:00

CHANGE THE WORLD!

"DECIDE WHETHER WE SHOULD SHOW UP!"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Whoever transmitted this translated message to you is irrelevant, and should remain anonymous in your mind. It is what you will do with this message which matters !

Each one of you wishes to exercise her/his free will and experience happiness.

These are attributes that were shown to us and to which we now have access. Your free will depends upon the knowledge you have of your own power. Your happiness depends upon the love that you give and receive.

Like all conscious races at this stage of progress, you may feel isolated on your planet. This impression makes you sure of your destiny. Yet, you are at the brink of big upheavals that only a minority is aware of.

It is not our responsibility to modify your future without you choosing it. Consider this message as a worldwide referendum! And your answer as a ballot!

Who are we ?

Neither your scientists nor your religious representatives speak unanimously about the unexplained celestial events that mankind has witnessed for thousands of years. To know the truth, one must face it without the filter of one's beliefs, however respectable they may be.

A growing number of anonymous researchers of yours are exploring new knowledge paths and are getting very close to reality. Today, your civilisation is flooded with an ocean of information of which only a tiny part, the less upsetting one, is notably diffused.

What in your history seemed ridiculous or improbable has often become possible, then realised, in particular in the last fifty years. Be aware that the future will be even more surprising. You will discover the worst as well as the best.

Like billions others in this galaxy, we are conscious creatures that some name "extra-terrestrials", even though reality is subtler.

There is no fundamental difference between you and us, save for the experience of certain stages of evolution. Like in any other organised structure, hierarchy exists in our internal relationships. Ours is based upon the wisdom of several races. It is with the approval of this hierarchy that we turn to you.

Like most of you, we are in the quest of the Supreme Being. Therefore we are not gods or lesser gods but virtually your equals in the Cosmic Brotherhood.

Physically, we are somewhat different from you but for most of us humanoid-shaped.

Our existence is a reality but the majority of you does not perceive it yet. We are not mere observations, we are consciences just like you. You fail to apprehend us because we remain invisible to your senses and measure instruments most of the time.

We wish to fill this void at this moment in your history. We made this collective decision but this is not enough. We need yours. Through this message, you become the decision-makers ! You personally.

We have no human representative on Earth who could guide your decision.

Why aren't we visible ?

At certain stages of evolution, cosmic "humanities” discover new forms of science beyond the apparent control of matter. Structured dematerialisation and materialisation are part of them. This is what your humanity has reached in a few laboratories, in close collaboration with other "extra-terrestrial" creatures at the cost of hazardous compromises that remain purposedly hidden from you by some of your representatives.

Apart from the aerial or spatial objects or phenomena known about by your scientific community, that you call 'UFOs, there are essentially multidimensional manufactured spaceships that apply these capacities.

Many human beings have been in visual, auditory, tactile or psychic contact with such ships, some of which are under occult powers that "govern" you. The scarcity of your observations is due to the outstanding advantages provided by the dematerialised state of these ships.

By not witnessing them by yourself, you cannot believe in their existence. We fully understand this.

The majority of these observations are made on an individual basis so as to touch the soul and not to modify any organised system. This is deliberate from the races that surround you but for very different reasons and results.

For negative multidimensional beings that play a part in the exercise of power in the shadow of human oligarchy, discretion is motivated by their will to keep their existence and seizure unknown.

For us, discretion is motivated by the respect of the human free will that people can exercise to manage their own affairs so that they can reach technical and spiritual maturity on their own. Humankind's entrance into the family of galactic civilisations is greatly expected.

We can appear in broad daylight and help you attain this union. We haven't done it so far, as too few of you have genuinely desired it, because of ignorance, indifference or fear, and because the emergency of the situation did not justify it. Many of those who study our appearances count the lights in the night without lighting the way. Often they think in terms of objects when it is all about conscious beings.

Who are you ?

You are the offspring of many traditions that throughout time have been mutually enriched by each others' contributions. The same applies to the races at the surface of the Earth. Your goal is to unite in the respect of these roots to accomplish a common project. The appearance of your cultures seems to keep you separated because you substitute it to your deeper being. Shape is now more important than the essence of your subtle nature. For the powers in place, this prevalence of the shape constitutes the ramparts against any form of jeopardy.

You are being called on to overcome shape while still respecting it for its richness and beauty. Understanding the conscience of shape makes us love men in their diversity. Peace does not mean not making war, it consists in becoming what you are in reality: a same Fraternity.

To understand this, the number of solutions within your reach are decreasing. One of them consists in contact with another race that would reflect the image of what you are in reality.

What is your situation ?

Except for rare occasions, our interventions always had very little incidence on your capacity to make collective and individual decisions about your own future. This is motivated by our knowledge of your deep psychological mechanisms.

We reached the conclusion that freedom is built every day as a being becomes aware of himself and of his environment, getting progressively rid of constraints and inertias, whatever they may be. Despite the numerous, brave and willing human consciences, those inertias are artificially maintained for the profit of a growing centralising power.

Until recently, mankind lived a satisfying control of its decisions. But it is losing more and more the control of its own fate because of the growing use of advanced technologies, which lethal consequences on the earthly and human ecosystems become irreversible. You are slowly but surely losing your extraordinary capacity to make life desirable. Your resilience will artificially decrease, independently of your own will. Such technologies exist that affect your body as well as your mind. Such plans are on their way.

This can change as long as you keep this creative power in you, even if it cohabits with the dark intentions of your potential lords. This is the reason why we remain invisible. This individual power is doomed to vanish should a collective reaction of great magnitude not happen. The period to come is that of rupture, whichever it may be.

But should you wait for the last moment to find solutions ? Should you anticipate or undergo pain ?

Your history has never ceased to be marked by encounters between peoples who had to discover one another in conditions that were often conflictual. Conquests almost always happened to the detriment of others. Earth has now become a village where everyone knows everyone else but still conflicts persist and threats of all kinds get worse in duration and intensity.

Although a Human being as an individual, yet having many potential capacities, cannot exercise them with dignity. This is the case for the biggest majority of you for reasons that are essentially geopolitical.

There are several billion of you. The education of your children and your living conditions, as well as the conditions of numerous animals and much plant life are nevertheless under the thumb of a small number of your political, financial, military and religious representatives.

Your thoughts and beliefs are modelled after partisan interests to turn you into slaves while at the same time giving you the feeling that you are in total control of your destiny, which in essence is the reality.

But there is a long way between a wish and a fact when the true rules of the game at hand are unknown. This time, you are not the conqueror. Biasing information is a millenary strategy for human beings. Inducting thoughts, emotions or organisms that do not belong to you via ad hoc technologies is an even older a strategy.

Wonderful opportunities of progress stand close to big subdual and destruction threats. These dangers and opportunities exist now. However, you can only perceive what is being shown to you. The end of natural resources is programmed whereas no long-term collective project has been launched.

Ecosystem exhaustion mechanisms have exceeded irreversible limits. The scarcity of resources and their unfair distribution - resources which entry price will rise day after day - will bring about fratricide fights at a large scale, but also at the very heart of your cities and countrysides.

Hatred grows bigger but so does love. That is what keeps you confident in your ability to find solutions. But the critical mass is insufficient and a sabotage work is cleverly being carried out.

Human behaviours, formed from past habits and trainings, have such an inertia that this perspective leads you to a dead end. You entrust these problems to representatives, whose conscience of common well-being slowly fades away in front of corporatist interests, with those difficulties. They are always debating on the form but rarely on the content.

Just at the moment of action, delays will accumulate to the point when you have to submit rather than choose. This is the reason why, more than ever in your history, your decisions of today will directly and significantly impact your survival of tomorrow.

What event could radically modify this inertia that is typical of any civilisation ? Where will a collective and unifying awareness come from, that will stop this blind rushing ahead ?

Tribes, populations and human nations have always encountered and interacted with one another. Faced with the threats weighing upon the human family, it is perhaps time that a greater interaction occurred.

A great roller wave is on the verge of emerging. It mixes very positive but also very negative aspects.

Who are the "third party" ?

There are two ways to establish a cosmic contact with another civilisation: via its standing representatives or directly with individuals without distinction. The first way entails fights of interests, the second way brings awareness.

The first way was chosen by a group of races motivated by keeping mankind in slavery, thereby controlling Earth resources, the gene pool and human emotional energy.

The second way was chosen by a group of races allied with the cause of the Spirit of service. We have, at our end, subscribed to this disinterested cause and introduced ourselves a few years ago to representatives of the human power who refused our outstretched hand on the pretext of incompatible interests with their strategic vision.

That is why today individuals are to make this choice by themselves without any representative interfering. What we proposed in the past to those whom we believed were in a capacity to contribute to your happiness, we propose it now to ... you!

Most of you ignore that non-human creatures took part in the exercise of those centralising powers without them being neither suspected nor accessible to your senses. This is so true that they have almost very subtly taken control. They do not necessarily stand on your material plan, and that is precisely what could make them extremely efficient and frightening in the near future. However, be aware that a large number of your representatives are fighting this danger ! Be aware that not all abductions are made against you. It is difficult to recognize the truth !

How could you under such conditions exercise your free will when it is so much manipulated ? What are you really free of ?

Peace and reunification of your peoples would be a first step toward the harmony with civilisations other than yours.

That is precisely what those who manipulate you behind the scenes want to avoid at all cost because, by dividing, they reign! They also reign over those who govern you. Their strength comes from their capacity to distillate mistrust and fear into you. This considerably harms your very cosmic nature.

This message would be of no interest if these manipulators' tutorate did not reach its peak and if their misleading and murderous plans did not materialise in a few years from now. Their deadlines are close and mankind will undergo unprecedented torments for the next ten cycles.

To defend yourselves against this aggression that bears no face, you need at least to have enough information that leads to the solution.

As is also the case with humans, resistance exists amongst those dominant races. Here again, appearance will not be enough to tell the dominator from the ally. At your current state of psychism, it is extremely difficult for you to distinguish between them. In addition to your intuition, training will be necessary when the time has come.

Being aware of the priceless value of free will, we are inviting you to an alternative.

What can we offer ?

We can offer you a more holistic vision of the universe and of life, constructive interactions, the experience of fair and fraternal relationships, liberating technical knowledge, eradiction of suffering, controlled exercise of individual powers, the access to new forms of energy and, finally, a better comprehension of consciousness.

We cannot help you overcome your individual and collective fears, or bring you laws that you would not have chosen, work on your own selves, individual and collective effort to build the world you desire, the spirit of quest to new skies.

What would we receive ?

Should you decide that such a contact takes place, we would rejoice over the safeguarding of fraternal equilibrium in this region of the universe, fruitful diplomatic exchanges, and the intense Joy of knowing that you are united to accomplish what you are capable of. The feeling of Joy is strongly sought in the universe for its energy is divine.

What is the question we ask you ?

"DO YOU WISH THAT WE SHOW UP ?"

How to can you answer this question ?

The truth of soul can be read by telepathy. You only need to clearly ask yourself this question and give your answer as clearly, on your own or in a group, as you wish. Being in the heart of a city or in the middle of a desert does not impact the efficiency of your answer, YES or NO, IMMEDIATELY AFTER ASKING THE QUESTION! Just do it as if you were speaking to yourself but thinking about the message.

This is a universal question and these mere few words, put in their context, have a powerful meaning. You should not let hesitation in the way. This is why you should calmly think about it, in all conscience. In order to perfectly associate your answer with the question, it is recommended that you answer right after another reading of this message.

Do not rush to answer. Breathe and let all the power of your own free will penetrate you. Be proud of what you are ! The problems that you may have weaken you. Forget about them for a few minutes to be yourselves. Feel the force that springs up in you. You are in control of yourselves !

A single thought, a single answer can drastically change your near future, in one way as in another.

Your individual decision of asking in your inner self that we show up on your material plan and in broad daylight is precious and essential to us.

Even though you can choose the way that best suits you, rituals are essentially useless. A sincere request made with your heart and your own will will always be perceived by those of us whom it is sent to.

In your own private polling booth of your secret will, you will determine the future.

What is the lever effect ?

This decision should be made by the greatest number among you, even though it might seem like a minority. It is recommended to spread this message, in all envisageable fashions, in as many languages as possible, to those around you, whether or not they seem receptive to this new vision of the future.

Do it using in a humorous tone or derision if that can help you. You can even openly and publicly make fun of it if it makes you feel more comfortable but do not be indifferent for at least you will have exercised your free will.

Forget about the false prophets and the beliefs that have been transmitted to you about us. This request is one of the most intimate that can be asked to you.
Making a decision by yourself, as an individual, is your right as well as your responsibility !

Passivity only leads to the absence of freedom. Similarly, indecision is never efficient. If you really want to cling to your beliefs, which is something that we understand, then say NO. If you do not know what to choose, do not say YES because of mere curiosity. This is not a show, this is real daily life, WE ARE ALIVE ! And living !

Your history has plenty of episodes when determined men and women were able to influence the thread of events in spite of their small number.

Just like a small number is enough to take temporal power on Earth and influence the future of the majority, a small number of you can radically change your fate as an answer to the impotence in face of so much inertia and hurdles ! You can ease the mankind's birth to Brotherhood.

One of your thinkers once said: “Give me a hand-hold and I'll raise the Earth".

Spreading this message will then be the hand-hold to strengthen, we will be the light-years long lever, you will be the craftsmen to ... raise the Earth as a consequence of our appearance.

What would be the consequences of a positive decision ?

For us, the immediate consequence of a collective favourable decision would be the materialisation of many ships, in your sky and on Earth.

For you, the direct effect would be the rapid abandoning of many certitudes and beliefs.

A simple conclusive visual contact would have huge repercussions on your future. Much knowledge would be modified forever. The organisation of your societies would be deeply upheaved for ever, in all fields of activity. Power would become individual because you would see for yourself that we are living. Concretely, you would change the scale of your values !

The most important thing for us is that humankind would form a single family in front of this "unknown" we would represent !

Danger would slowly melt away from your homes because you would indirectly force the undesirable ones, those we name the "third party", to show up and vanish. You would all bear the same name and share the same roots: Mankind !

Later on, peaceful and respectful exchanges would be thus possible if such is your wish. For now, he who is hungry cannot smile, he who is fearful cannot welcome us. We are sad to see men, women and children suffering to such a degree in their flesh and in their hearts when they bear such an inner light.

This light can be your future. Our relationships could be progressive.

Several stages of several years or decades would occur: demonstrative appearance of our ships, physical appearance beside human beings, collaboration in your technical and spiritual evolution, discovery of parts of the galaxy.

Every time, new choices would be offered to you. You would then decide by yourself to cross new stages if you think it necessary to your external and inner well-being. No interference would be decided upon unilaterally. We would leave as soon as you would collectively wish that we do.

Depending upon the speed to spread the message across the world, several weeks, or even several months will be necessary before our "great appearance", if such is the decision made by the majority of those who will have used their capacity to choose, and if this message receives the necessary support.

The main difference between your daily prayers to entities of a strictly spiritual nature and your current decision is extremely simple :

we are technically equipped to materialise!

Why such a historical dilemma ?

We know that "foreigners" are considered as enemies as long as they embody the "unknown". In a first stage, the emotion that our appearance will generate will strengthen your relationships on a worldwide scale.

How could you know whether our arrival is the consequence of your collective choice ? For the simple reason that we would have otherwise been already there for a long time at your level of existence ! If we are not there yet, it is because you have not made such a decision explicitely.

Some among you might think that we would make you believe in a deliberate choice of yours so as to legitimate our arrival, though this would not be true. What interest would we have to openly offer you what you haven't got any access to yet, for the benefit of the greatest number of you ?

How could you be certain that this is not yet another subtle manoeuvre of the "third party" to better enslave you ? Because one always more efficiently fights something that is identified than the contrary. Isn't the terrorism that corrodes you a blatant example ?

Whatever, you are the sole judge in your own heart and soul ! Whatever your choice, it would be respectable and respected ! In the absence of human representatives who could potentially seduce into error you ignore everything about us as well as from about those who manipulate you without your consent.

In your situation, the precautionary principle that consists in not trying to discover us does no longer prevail. You are already in the Pandora's box that the "third party" has created around you. Whatever your decision may be you will have to get out of it.

In the face of such a dilemma, one ignorance against another, you need to ask your intuition. Do you want to see us with your own eyes, or simply believe what your thinkers say ? That is the real question!

After thousands of years, one day, this choice was going to be inevitable: choosing between two unknowns.

Why spread such a message among yourselves ?

Translate and spread this message widely. This action will affect your future in an irreversible and historical way at the scale of milleniums, otherwise, it will postpone a new opportunity to choose to several years later, at least one generation, if it can survive.

Not choosing, stands for undergoing other people's choice. Not informing others stands for running the risk of obtaining a result that is contrary to one's expectations. Remaining indifferent means giving up one's free will.

It is all about your future. It is all about your evolution.

It is possible that this invitation does not receive your collective assent and that, because of a lack of information, it will be disregarded. Nevertheless no individual desire goes unheeded in the universe.

Imagine our arrival tomorrow. Thousands of ships. A unique cultural shock in today's mankind's history. It will then be too late to regret about not making a choice and spreading the message because this discovery will be irreversible. We do insist that you do not rush into it, but do think about it ! And decide !

The big medias will not be necessarely interested in spreading this message. It is therefore your task, as an anonymous yet an extraordinary thinking and loving being, to transmit it.

You are still the architects of your own fate...

"DO YOU WISH THAT WE SHOW UP ?"

you are free to publish, reproduce and copy this message as you like !
on the contrary, you are invited to do it...

but don't modify or cut the message, please.

The Liberty Papers

2007-08-19T21:08:00.000-07:00

Here's a cool new blog: The Liberty Papers.

Hiking--Boundary Peak, Tahoe and Misc.

2007-06-02T22:53:00.000-07:00

Here are a few pics from some recent hikes. Some are from Boundary Peak Wilderness (Boundary is the highest peak in NV) and some are from Tahoe (near Diamond Peak). There are also some miscellaneous pictures from places between Reno and Boundary, including Mono Lake. The Juniper tree is one of the largest I've EVER seen; it looks like a Sequoia at the base!

Global Warming

2007-04-15T10:08:00.000-07:00

Although the Earth's Global Warming may be a combination of man-made and natural causes, the scientific evidence is incontrovertible that our species is playing a major role tracing back to the Industrial Revolution. I don't have time to post a list of links to scientific studies here but many are readily available and easy to find on the internet.

Sierra Loop Trip

2007-03-29T22:51:00.000-07:00

Hi there. I've recently been predisposed with nurturing the seed of my new business. Here are some cool hiking pics I took in a recent loop trip around the Sierras (across 80, down 99, up Kern River Canyon, by Lake Isabella and back up 395).

Words du Jour

2007-02-01T21:50:00.000-08:00

Here are some interesting words I came across recently:

Invidious: tending to cause discontent, animosity or envy.
Forsooth: in truth.
Portmanteau: a word or morpheme whose form and meaning are derived from a blending of two or more distinct forms (as smog from smoke and fog).
Morpheme: A distinctive collocation of phonemes having no smaller meaningful parts.
Phoneme: any of the abstract units of the phonetic system of a language that correspond to a set of similar speech sounds which are perceived to be a single distinctive sound in the language.
Zeitgeber: an environmental agent or event (as the occurence of light or dark) that provides the stimulus setting or resetting a biological clock of an organism.
Dreadnought: one that is among the largest or most powerful of its kind.
Disclimax: a relatively stable ecological community often including kinds of organisms foreign to the region and displacing the climax because of disturbance especially by man.

Christmas 2006 Pics

2006-12-25T11:24:00.000-08:00

Mount St. Helens Blows off some Steam

2006-12-19T20:46:00.000-08:00

Mount St. Helens got a little overheated today. Ahh, from the Bowels of the Earth, good stuff.

Cool California Coastal Pics

2006-12-13T21:48:00.000-08:00

Hi there. I've been super busy lately trying to get a new business set up but I did manage to slip in a trip to the California coast recently. These pics were taken at a beautiful spot between Monterey and Big Sur; hope you enjoy. The slot-looking pics are the view out of a cave looking back toward the ocean.

Mexican Strife

2006-11-30T19:33:00.000-08:00

Mexico has been in the midst of quite a bit of turmoil lately. First, they had a very contentious and disputed election in which the winner was elected by a 0.57% margin. The whole scene was eerily reminiscent of the events that unfolded in Florida in 2000. The new President is to be inaugurated tomorrow, December 1. Then, a teachers' strike in Oaxaca led to protests, police crackdowns and rioting, which continues as we speak. Here's a brief history of the situation in Oaxaca.

Ode to Idealism

2006-11-21T16:58:00.000-08:00

I found these words that I wrote when I was a teenager and wanted to post it as a tribute to idealism:

"You were the first, purely ideal love of my soul,
When I looked in your eyes I felt it.
I thought I saw something:
That capability of deep emotional thought
That all-too-sparse ability
To look beyond the horizon of our everyday experience,
The feeling
That there is something more to life than what is seen,
Some underlying truth,
Some ever-pervading beauty that links us all.

And although I never really knew, whence the ardor grew
It was there--it was inescapably there.

But all my days were trances
And all my nightly dreams
Were turned aside it seems
By you--the one who deems that we must avoid extremes.

Well, what I felt was nothing but extremes
At what I thought was here
The one I needed, the one I heeded, the missing hemisphere.

You say it's just not real,
This world in which I feel,
But is it not true,
That blue is not blue,
And all that we see
Is all that we knew?
Is it not true
That we all lack a clue,
And all that you see
Came from within you?

It is true that I am an idealist,
But I can hear reality's ever-approaching gallop;
Experience is steadily turning me into a realist.

Being an idealist,
I lack tact, it seems so artificial.
I have more faith in intuition
Than I do in practical values.

As for the passing of the day,
I'll find solace in the sunset
and the beauty of each ray."

Scary Historical Quote

2006-11-02T15:39:00.000-08:00

"It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything."--Joseph Stalin.

This is even more scary considering all of the electronic voting machines without a paper trail that are being used.

Consolidation of Power-any thoughts?

2006-10-29T09:26:00.000-08:00

Hi there. I just wanted to post a quick (albeit undeveloped) thought on an issue of current-relevancy and was wondering if anyone would like to contribute a quick thought or two.

The current trend of consolidating power in our society (e.g. political environment) is anathema to one (or more) of the better qualities of our system of government. Let us not forget the original ideas and the thoughts and prayers that were put into our system and let us study its foundations to remain vigilant and steadfast against encroachments to our liberties and freedoms.

Politicization of the Judiciary

2006-10-10T21:07:00.000-07:00

I worry about the trend of judges being increasingly subjected to political pressure. This could establish a path toward eventually undermining the independence of our judiciary, as established by our constitution. Have you heard of SCOTUS 01-521, Republican Party of Minnesota v.Verna Kelly? The case challenged rules that were established to help guard against politicization by disallowing judicial candidates from publicizing their political views. The SCOTUS ruled 5-4 that this violated freedom of speech. Since then special interest groups have been trying to shape the judiciary by using questionnaires to gauge how much a particular judge's viewpoint coincides with their own. There was an interesting article about this today on All Things Considered.

Chief Justice Joseph E. Lambert of the Kentucky Supreme Court wrote another good article about this in which he said: "The right of citizens to a judicial decision-maker who is independent of improper influence is of fundamental importance." And it is. Courts should be protected from politicization. Attorney George Patton, in the All Things Considered article, sums it up pretty well when he speaks of a blurring of "...the lines between the role of a lawmaker, who should act on his principle, and a judge, who should evaluate each case objectively."

We all have an obligation to be aware of and speak out against any and all attempts to consolidate power and undermine the independence of the three branches of our government, as established by our constitution and which has worked relatively well for us for some two hundred plus years.

Sweet Home Nevada

2006-10-04T23:13:00.000-07:00

Now that's what I love about Nevada!

Gas Prices

2006-09-20T19:21:00.000-07:00

Am I just being cynical? Does anyone actually believe the recent drops in gas prices in the run up to the elections is coincidental? Is it coincidence that Utah is one of the reddest states in the political spectrum and their gas prices have barely even moved? Check it out.

9/11

2006-09-11T08:22:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to post a quick thought for 9/11. I would like to throw out there the thought that the thing the passengers on Flight 93 did by taking matters into their own hands and averting another plane being used as a missile to inflict more damage was heroic and a shining example of the importance of normal, everyday people taking matters into their own hands and making a difference. It shows that sometimes this can and must be done. The people can make a difference and must act to do so because we often cannot rely on the government to do everything for us; sometimes the people must act on their own to make things happen that need to happen. I believe, this is an example that can be extrapolated to be a relevant lesson for many other issues facing our world today.

A little about me

2006-09-02T15:45:00.000-07:00

Here's a little about me for anyone who's curious. I moved to Reno from Wichita Falls, Texas in January of '94 to go to UNR. I fell in love with this area for its wide-open spaces, lack of fences and abundance of public and accessible land (the latter two of which were such a contrast from where I lived before). After I graduated, I ended up staying here and in '02 moved up to Storey county. However, I do commute, almost daily, down to my office in Reno, just north of the Truckee River about midway between Downtown and Keystone. One thing I love about living up here in the Highlands is that I can watch the horses, deer and bobcats pass through my yard as their lives come a little closer to mine (or vice-versa as the case may be). I'm not exlusive though to the wide-open spaces up here in the mountains and also enjoy a nice Friday-evening urban hike exploring the Downtown area of Reno. Although a transplant, I consider myself a true Nevadan now and have 3 young sons who were born at St. Mary's.

Brand New

2006-08-23T12:55:00.000-07:00

Hi. I'm brand new to the blogging thing but have a lot of ideas to share and hope to link up with some like minds out there and exchange ideas. After all they say "ideas rule the world" in today's day and age. Here's to the rules of the world and lofty, idealistic goals!