January 2014 – Truth is Reason

The Book Thief

“I have hated the words and I have loved them….”

But the words were made right.

I just finished reading The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak. When you read it — and perhaps you already have — you’ll probably understand what my introductory words mean, and perhaps you’ll even feel the way I do, a mixture of anger and joy, sadness and hope.

Books like this are why for me reading is a cherished pastime, a form of enlightenment and entertainment that far excels the feeble, shallow attempts of most modern media.

Set in a small town in World War II Nazi Germany, The Book Thief is possibly the most unique book I have ever read. The story’s narrator is, to say the least, highly unusual — yet absolutely appropriate, and the narrator’s manner of speech is extraordinary.

“… like a slice of cold cement.”
“… the falling chunks of rain….”
“… the young man’s voice was scraped out and handed across the dark like it was all that remained of him.”
“Her words were quiet, close to motionless.”
“The rubble just climbed higher. Concrete hills with caps of red.”

But more moving than how the story was told, is the story that was told.
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Armed neighbors apprehend burglars

Reported By blog.al.com on 2014-01-31

“Residents of a … neighborhood took law enforcement matters into their own hands, holding a burglary suspect at gunpoint until lawmen could arrive…. Neighbors had seen three men trying to break into [a] home, and confronted them. All three ran away, but neighbors chased them into nearby woods. They managed to hold one of them, a 17-year-old, at gunpoint. Two others fled on foot but were captured more than a mile away….”

Love, War and Wealth Redistribution

I was sitting on an airline flight the other day, looking at all the empty seats around me, and this wonderfully “progressive” idea radiantly dawned upon my consciousness.

Why waste empty airplane seats??? Give them away to the poor! And save the world! No more half empty fuselages fuming fossil fuels for a fraction of the freight!

After all, it isn’t fair that the poor cannot afford to fly, and it is a travesty that fat cat corporate kingpins can get away with wasting our precious natural resources, including our limited supply of airplane seats.

Right? I mean, Left? I mean, are you with me? You do want to be fair, don’t you?

As the old saying goes, all’s fair in love, war and wealth redistribution. Isn’t it?

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I, Pencil

By Leonard E. Read, originally published in the December 1958 issue of The Freeman, this essay should be required study material for every freshman in high school.

I am a lead pencil—the ordinary wooden pencil familiar to all boys and girls and adults who can read and write. Writing is both my vocation and my avocation; that’s all I do.

You may wonder why I should write a genealogy. Well, to begin with, my story is interesting. And, next, I am a mystery—more so than a tree or a sunset or even a flash of lightning. But, sadly, I am taken for granted by those who use me, as if I were a mere incident and without background. This supercilious attitude relegates me to the level of the commonplace. This is a species of the grievous error in which mankind cannot too long persist without peril. For, as a wise man observed, “We are perishing for want of wonder, not for want of wonders.”

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Control: Exposing the Truth About Guns

You’ve heard some or all of these arguments before: “Gun control works in other countries”, or “More guns mean more murder”, or “The Second Amendment is about muskets”, or “Mass shootings are becoming more common.”

The anti-gun crowd will say anything, ignore facts and stretch or totally disregard the truth in order to push their disarmament agenda. Unfortunately, the average American is ill-prepared to counter their rhetoric.

Fortunately, Glenn Beck’s book Control: Exposing the Truth About Guns, is a great way to arm yourself with data, facts and logic to counter leftist anti-gun propaganda.

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Al Sharpton in denial

Reported By player.theplatform.com on 2014-01-04

Sharpton accuses “right-wingers” of being in denial about global warming. I find it funny that the alarmists call us skeptics “deniers”. They are the ones who are now denying that weather patterns and cooling trends have destroyed their pet theory. They are the ones denying that all their wild predictions have turned out to be bunk. They are the real deniers. They even changed their crusade from “global warming” to “climate change” to obfuscate their error. (Based on the video, I don’t think Sharpton got that memo.)

Trapped in ice that is supposed to be melting

Reported By The Blaze on 2014-01-04

“Responding to a request from Russia, China and Australia, a U.S. Coast Guard heavy icebreaker will leave Australia for Antarctica on Sunday to rescue more than 120 crew members aboard two icebreakers trapped in pack ice near the frozen continent’s eastern edge, officials said….” [The icebreakers got trapped in the ice attempting to free a trapped research vessel that had set out to prove that global warming is melting Antarctica ice. You really can’t make this stuff up….]

Polar vortex to bring dangerous record-breaking cold to much of US

Reported By Fox News on 2014-01-04

“As much of the country digs out from a powerful winter storm that buried parts of the Northeast, tundra-like temperatures are poised to deliver a rare and potentially dangerous blow to the Midwest, with forecasters predicting a near-record or historic cold outbreak…. Meanwhile, some cities saw record lows on Friday. In Wisconsin, a record low temperature was set in Green Bay, where the mercury dipped to minus 18. The National Weather Service said that topped the 17-below-zero mark last recorded in 1979….” [Hmmm… Wasn’t it back in the 70s when chicken-little doomsday scientists were predicting the next ice age, and radical political activists were striving to get governments to take drastic measures to stop global cooling????? Yep.]