One of the pillars of Phi Alpha Iota fraternity is Bernardo O'Higgins . O'Higgins liberated with San Martin and Bolivar, Chile from colonial Spanish rule. We used to have his pure silver medal of St. George, I used to wear it to my classes in college- but I gave it to a girl at college. Luckily, she still has it in her counseling office in Philadelphia. Anyway, his story is part of my family story and explains why I am always harping about Latin America and Jeffersonian Pan-Americanism so I am happy to share his song with you.....

.....this is about how I think the strong and responsible should care for the weak in the natural order of the universe. Though as a libertarian I do not advocate violence, or any type of fighting, I understand this is sometimes necessary to protect those without a protector from the cruel and vicious: This is your weekend watching to learn about the natural order. The Lesson: Get you act together and create a better tomorrow by teaching both tolerance and virtue. You do not need to be perfect to be good, but you have to have virtue to strive for what is good. If people see the people who break the rules in every field rewarded for their violations, how can you expect to maintain, "....Justice, insure Domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, Promote the general welfare and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity....." or ever expect them to even try to be good? They will be too busy trying to make everything perfect and like a theater that ...

Is it me or do women today have as many if not more tattoos then men? Now don't get me wrong there is nothing sexier than a 20 something wearing a tube top with tattoos all over the right places, but wow the phenomena seems to have gotten out of control. Last time I was working in Thailand I saw a woman tattooed from the top of her head to the soles of her feet. After first vomiting my papaya salad on the ground and wondering what had caused such a lovely young lady to choose such a radical approach to body modification, I realized she was just an extreme example of the tattooing trend. What is the psychological need that causes one to completely change their body in this way. So I read up on it and and found this: http://tattoos.com/katzen.htm An interesting thought. But an even more extreme example from the Italian Blog spot : Generale Tatuaggio record Ecco il tatuaggio total body esibito da una modella al festival del tattoo in corso a San Pietroburgo : voi andreste ...

No, this is not a Mike Castle post, but I couldn't resist the tag line in order to discuss [get ready for it]: Cindy Sheehan in Egypt! Al Jazeera interviewed the now-globe-trotting Sheehan in Cairo , where's she's protesting the trial of members of the Muslim Brotherhood. Amazingly, like a blind squirrel, Cindy occasionally finds a nut (instead of being one): How can [Democratic Speaker of the House] Nancy Pelosi say unequivocally that water-boarding is torture and that Bush and [Richard] Cheney, the US vice-president, should not only be impeached but they should be charged with war crimes when in 2002 she herself was briefed on water-boarding and shown video of the rendition places where water-boarding happened? The globally astute Sheehan then explains why she's in Egypt (although she's theoretically running against Nancy Pelosi): But what does the US have to do with a military trial in Egypt? Egypt is a major recipient of US foreign aid, and there is no relatio...

This from Faith Central at TimesOnline , regarding a Bluetooth innovation that somebody is going to hell for: O no. The evangelists have got a new gadget, to be unveiled at the Heart of England Christian Resources Exhibition next month (21-23 Feb 08). It is the Gabriel Communicator. It takes up no space but uses Bluetooth to beam text messages to all mobile phones within a 100-metre radius. Txxtouch managing director Nicholas Maguire says 'This is a culturally relevant way to contact people regardless of their age.' Coming soon to a railway carriage near you. Be very afraid. R U SVD? Txt JXT fr SALV8TN The mind races with ideas: first responders being controlled almost effortlessly from a central hub ... viral advertising committed by winos who would otherwise be wearing sandwich signs you could ignore ... Some doors shouldn't be opened, should they?

This from the Official blog of the Libertarian Party [and what I want to know is why haven't we privatized it?]: I celebrated Christmas yesterday with my family back home in South Carolina. While a seemingly innocuous event, my celebration of Christmas may come as a great shock to people like Dinesh D'Souza, because I am what you may call. . .a libertarian. According to D'Souza, who recently blogged about Christopher Hitchens' appearance at a Reason magazine Christmas event, "many libertarians are basically conservatives who are either gay or druggies or people who generally find the conservative moral agenda too restrictive." Because D'Souza believes libertarians embrace "much wider parameters of personal behavior," he sees most libertarians as hedonistic atheists, and uses a tipsy Hitchens as the chief example of our disdain for morality. As a devout Southern Baptist, I was taken aback. After all, I am neither gay nor a drug user, and consid...

I thought small towns in America were bad for putting the elderly to work at low wages to pay off their property taxes.... Now it seems that the unemployed in India are going to be put on "workfare" to castrate crazed monkeys (a troop of whom actually killed the deputy mayor of New Delhi last month). My first reaction was to visualize a lot of guys in rags with very small, curved scissors running around saying, "Here, monkey, monkey, monkey...." Then the conservationists began opposing the plan as unscientific and (therefore, in the way of environmentalists) EVIL. And they're right. All you have to do is remember that famous quote from Edmund Burke: "The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do neutering." OK. Sorry.

Years ago, I served in the military with a guy named Dave who had nn earthly idea how to do his job (which sucks, because his job was evacuating wounded and injured soldiers), but man he could get a name or a phrase to catch on. It was amazing. He had this sixth sense for what people would be willing to repeat. I could never do that, and I still can't. But I haven't given up trying. Maybe some day at least one or two people will begin using terms I've coined. These are my best efforts here, to date: Demopublican: the dual manifestation of monopolistic political organization in the US. The Republican Wing of the Demopublican Party: primarily funded by Big Oil, Big Corp, and Big War for the purpose of insuring that everybody around the world hates us enough to keep up demand to purchase new military hardware. The Democratic Wing of the Demopublican Party: primarily funded by Big Union, Big Entertainment, and Big Soros for teh purpose of insuring that American society is ...