Supreme Court 101

Tis the season for Supreme Court rulings, and this season is abound with confounding rulings. Let’s begin at the top. Headline "Guantanamo Bay Detainees Get Habeas Corpus". Well to most Americans, and I do mean most, this means "what?". And then when that particular American is asked how they "feel" about the ruling they say "I think everyone should have the right to the court system". Well not everyone is entitled to our court system, specifically non-citizens. The effect of this decision is that "any" foreigner now has access to our court system. Think about that for minute. Someone detained in let’s say China by our military protecting our athletes who happened to have a bomb strapped to his or her side now has a right to be heard in a US court. Remember Helsinki? That has huge repercussions. Our constitution is for American Citizens ONLY.

Then we have this so called "Child Rape" law that stems from a Louisiana law that imposed capital punishment for child rape cases. Now I must say that I am in favor of capital punishment for hoodlums stealing grandmas pocketbook. But I would need to be a resident of state that voted for a state law imposing capitol punishment for unnecessary anguish inflicted on a person of age...and that is what is called “States Rights”. Now I may be a little beyond what the constitution would allow in my example but the fact of the matter is that capital punishment is a states’ rights issue. Can you impose the death penalty for littering? No, that would be considered unusual punishment. But violently raping a child? Maybe a close call for capital punishment, maybe not. So the court should by default not stomp on the states right according to the 10th amendment. This opens the door for other, and maybe even more important egregious usurping of other states rights. My point is that the media has missed the point on this one. It is a matter of states’ rights, not whether a child rapist should be fried.

Decision number three, the second amendment. Believe it or not I think this decision is scary. The court ruled that there is an individual right to own a gun. WoooHoo Yaaahooo and so on. I applaud the court and I think Justice Scalia’s written majority opinion was genius. My problem with this one was the dissenting opinion and that fact that four of them signed on to that opinion. Look out for the balance of power on this issue.
PS. I am definitely exercising my right in my new home before it is taken away….

Why the electorate is ignorant

In looking at the news Sunday morning, as I usually do with my vente bold, I came across this story in the Washington Post by Jobi Warrick. The headline and first two paragraphs are copied here along with a link to entire story.

Smugglers had design for advanced warhead
Draft report says ring acquired blueprints for nuclear weapon

An international smuggling ring that sold bomb-related parts to Libya, Iran and North Korea also managed to acquire blueprints for an advanced nuclear weapon, according to a draft report by a former top U.N. arms inspector that suggests the plans could have been shared secretly with any number of countries or rogue groups.

The drawings, discovered in 2006 on computers owned by Swiss businessmen, included essential details for building a compact nuclear device that could be fitted on a type of ballistic missile used by Iran and more than a dozen developing countries, the report states.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25169704/

It is quit comprehensive and in-depth, so why am I pointing this out? Well first of all this is buried deep in the website I use to get my primary news and information. It is listed as one of the top home pages in the world. The top stories today are Tiger Woods, The Making of the Housing Bubble with a big red foreclosure sign, and the continuation of the un-timely death of Tim Russert. Now I can tell that I think it is very appropriate on Father’s Day to continue the life story of who I regard as a great American in Tim Russert. I think that a report on the housing bubble might be an interesting read. I think Tiger’s come back yesterday was remarkable. But a story of a “compact nuclear devise” possibly being in the hands of just about everyone who hates us is almost not noticeable?

We are ignorant and it is in part due to the fact that the media in general gives us the news they think will get more readership, plain and simple. And even more so today when instantaneously web statistics are available to the media outlet that is so detailed they can tailor the information exactly to the demographic that the statistics bear out.

Don’t judge a book by it’s cover, but all we do is read the cover.

Update! About one minute after I posted this I had gone back to my home page and now this story is "above the fold" so to speak. Maybe there is hope after all.

Update #2. I have not seen or heard of this since Sunday.

Greg

Fathers Day

My Fathers Day gift from Janet. It will hang in my new garage next to the fishing pole rack just above the cooler.

Marinated Chicken Wings

Now anyone who has enjoyed the Goss family "secret" BBQ chicken wings knows how good they are. Well they just got easier to make. I happened across some chicken wings that are packaged in individual vacuum packs. See picture.

So I got this neat idea to marinate the wings. I have an injector, see picture, and I just poke that into the package and inject the marinade right into the package. This has many advantages. One I use much less marinade and two I can have several different marinades. No mess and if your only cooking for yourself or maybe two it is so easy to just inject one package.

I actually mixed my marinade in a tall glass, so easy. Now I can experiment with different marinades using less liquids and ruining fewer wings.

Enjoy!

Proud Dad

Yesterday the 11th of June was my daughters 13th wedding anniversary. First of all I think it is commendable to be married for 13 years in today's society, so congratulations for that! It also turned out as the day the Staff Sargent Surina was placed on the promotion list to Gunnery Sargent Surina. Now I can't tell you how proud that makes me feel. I love this country and all it stands for and I thank anyone who chooses to serve it with their lives. The sacrifices that Stacey and Jeff have made in the service of this country is truly something that needs to be recognized and honored.

Congratulations Jeff, and we thank you both for all you do.

Love Dad

http://thesurinas.blogspot.com/

Obama vs McCain and a history lesson.

Well did you think I would start a blog and not get political?

So the dems have done it, or at least it seems so as of today. Remember Hillary has only "suspended" her campaign just in case Barack "steps in it", and he may very well do just that. If you watch closely you will realize that the guy is not very smooth when the teleprompter is off. Then of course there are the people associated with Obama, William Ayers, Antoin Rezko, Jeremiah Wright, Jim Johnson, who resigned yesterday, and there could be others. The link is from CBS news, not really a conservative news organization, to give you just a hint of what is in store for BHO.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/06/05/ap/politics/main4158180.shtml

Then there is Michelle's thesis, or not. It seems that she has had it embargoed until after the election. Not sure why, do you? Speaking of embargo's, so is Burack Hussein Obama's birth certificate. Now why would that have to be a big secret? Can you imagine if McCain's birth certificate was embargoed?

Well lets get to the title of this blog, Obama vs McCain. How in the world did we end up with these two? Well some of you were not around when Jimmy Carter was elected. I said the same thing back then, how did we end up with these two? Carter and Ford, what a choice huh? Now after thinking about how we got to that choice back in '76 I started thinking the unthinkable, Obama can win this? I didn't think so up until yesterday.

I happen to be a member of the "best and brightest", at least that's what Jay Severin calls the people that listen to his show. A 16 year old named Dan, I think, called in with this history lesson of how we got to the '76 choice and he hit it right on. We had Nixon in office, and I had painted a sign on the front of our house "Nixon Thru in '72" and then walked around saying "don't blame me I'm from Massachusetts!" for a few years, but I digress. Nixon was not liked very much and he made the republicans look bad so it was one of those years that "any Democrat" could get elected and he did. President Jimmy Carter. Fast forward to '08 and we have a republican in office that hasn't made the party look so bad since Nixon and McCain really doesn't bring any change to the table.

I can't vote for McCain even if it means Obama wins. And that may not be a bad thing anyway. If were are going to repeat history by electing just "any Democrat" then we may just reapeat history by electing a great president after Obama like we did in 1980 when we elected President Reagan after the four horrifying years of Jimmy Carter.

So we have either the third "Bush" term or the second "Carter" term, you decide.

How many times do you sign your name when closing?

I will tell you later. As some of you already know Janet and I have bought a home together in Hudson NH. We both loved the house on the first drive by. Friday the 13th is our lucky day as we are closing in the morning. I will be sure to count how many times we have to sign and initial documents. (I wonder how long it would take if we read all of them...?) Anyway email me if you'd like to take an internet drive down our street and see how beautiful it is.

We are going to let the current owners live under a rental agreement for 30 days. So it looks like moving week will be the 13th of July. We will let you know when the first party will be! We do know that there will be one October 11th, we will tell ya later what for....

Greg & Janet






Janet and I signed our names 27 times and intialed 3 each.