I think I need to offset my typically critical and pessimistic tone here. It goes without saying (here) that I take issue with the direction of our country and those leading the way. It’s simply my personality type to point out needless clutter, especially when it aims to overtake other serene areas of life. Just mentioning it, getting it out of my head, helps me deal with the tempestuous storm of nonsense thrown around every day. Unless I learn to ignore it, or no longer continue to find value in discussing it, I’ll keep doing the same.

I don’t mention the good stuff enough. It’s there, and plenty of it, but I tend to cherish it privately.

This morning I find myself at home, coffee in hand, working on a demo for my latest software package. I’ve enjoyed this project, as it’s allowed plenty of creative authority from both the architecture and design perspectives. I work from home mostly, which lends itself ideally to having a toddler. I hear music leading through the foyer as a backdrop to my son executing his first grasps at language. Every few minutes I hear his mother speak to him, verifying the truth of his statements and telling him how much she loves him. I’m adding value to a business using skills that I enjoy, and the most important entities on earth are only 10 steps away.

I can hear my lab’s toenails clicking on the floor when he swings by for a morning visit. He’ll report to our bed shortly for his morning nap… without his naps, he simply wouldn’t be able to make it.

The walls of my office are lined with guitars, ones with my name on them. Looking down at your instrument on stage and seeing a logo that you spent many years thinking about is a very rewarding experience. Music has been a strong ally for the past 12 years. My son now knows the word guitar and will eagerly strum the guitar when held in front of it - the one with his name on it. The music he heard in utero now serve as lullabies. John Coltrane, Blue Highway, George Winston - he likes them all.

My new shop is finally setup for production, now I just have to be creative with my time. I’ve years worth of orders still in the queue, very patient yet eager customers on the waiting end. I can’t wait to get each of them their guitar.

I spend about an hour, 200 rounds, $20, per week at an indoor firing range near my office. I verify reliability of my carry pistol, and work on drills. Hopefully this practice will make the difference in life or death for myself or my family in the unfortunate event that I’m ever forced to defend us. Shooting is a violent series of sincere tributes to man’s mind, with the lurking reminder of the evil that instigated the art form - an exhilarating mixture of pride and resentment. Having a weapon on my hip as I greet my son after travel assembles such an ironic event. The awe of beautiful, innocent life, and the reality that there are those who don’t properly value it.

My life is very fulfilling. I have a deep respect for reality, a strict sense of right and wrong, and a mental faculty that adheres to both. I enjoy using my mind, and I’m rewarded for doing such. I have a lovely, intelligent and tolerant woman that has accepted and started a family with me. The joy of our son is incomparably overwhelming. I have a family that continues to muster affection for me, overlooking my petulant tendencies. I have serious and part-time hobbies that I enthusiastically pursue, which satisfy my creative and inventive urges. I have friends with which I enjoy warm coffee, cold beer and intriguing conversation.

Life is good.

An interesting illusion is discussed in the context of the left/right brain dichotomy.

If you see the dancer spinning clockwise, the story goes, you are using more of your right brain, and if you see it moving counterclockwise, you are more of a left-brained person. The typical characteristics of each hemisphere are:

Left Brain

Logical

Sequential

Rational

Analytical

Objective

Looks at parts

Right Brain

Random

Intuitive

Holistic

Synthesizing

Subjective

Looks at wholes

I found it interesting that I saw the girl twirling counter-clockwise as the page loaded and up until I started to read the text of the article. Then, immediately my peripheral vision caught her change directions after reading only the first half of the first sentence. As I then resumed focus on the image, her rotation shifted back to counter-clockwise. As quickly as I can focus on her, or process the text, she’ll rotate accordingly.

For many years I’ve been charged by friends/family/coworkers that I’m neither wholly left or right brained, maybe this supports that concept.

Yet we don’t hear the “price-gouging”, “greedy-executive” monkeys screaming about Apple’s financial numbers.

Why is that? Could it be that a computer is a trendy luxury item who’s value is more emotionally appealing than the gas we pump into our cars? Where evasive perception and consensus trump the fact that both offer immeasurable value to our lives. Or, could it be simply a symptom of altruism’s decay on our culture - one’s need of a product invoking a sense of entitlement which results in many emotional manifestations voicing that irrational claim. People don’t want, they need gas more than computers.

Interesting to note also that the computer industry is one that is virtually unregulated in comparison to the energy market, which becomes obvious when you consider the rate of innovation and increase in value that freer market has displayed. I mention this in context of the cyclical nature of irrationality it illustrates. Entitlement inspires envy and hatred. The market is demonized, regulated, tweaked - all which drive up the price, which ignites more emotional chaos, which incites more do-gooding regulation. The cycle goes on. If only big-oil could market itself as trendy and hip! On the flip side, with some variance in degree due to more emotionally fulfilling aspects of computers, that industry is doomed to the same dichotomy of an existence subject to interference in direct proportion to the value it adds. I contend that as soon as computers are “needed”, the pioneers of the field will be clubbed just as oil execs.

“The tax code is a rotting, evil-smelling stew made up of the arbitrary bones that Congress has at one time or another decided to cast towards various constituencies, the competing requirements of various aspects of the tax code that most filers neither know nor care about, and the legalistic phraseology made necessary by the fact that every single bit of this mess is encoded by law. And you, the tax payer have to read through all this — or hire someone who you have to hope is competent to do so — because Uncle Sam has a gun pointed at your head, demanding your money or your freedom based on what this mumbo-jumbo says you owe him, so you will pay attention to all of it.” — Gus Van Horn

“The difference between death and taxes is death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets.” — Will Rogers

I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents…. — James Madison

This [preparing my tax return] is too difficult for a mathematician. It takes a philosopher. — Albert Einstein

When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income. — Plato, The Republic

The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax. — Albert Einstein

You can talk about “social justice” all you want. But what death taxes boil down to is letting politicians take money from widows and orphans to pay for goodies that they will hand out to others, in order to buy votes to get reelected That is not social justice or any other kind of justice. — Thomas Sowell

The same prudence which in private life would forbid our paying our own money for unexplained projects, forbids it in the dispensation of the public moneys. — Thomas Jefferson

If you would not confront your neighbor and demand his money at the point of a gun to solve every new problem that may appear in your life, you should not allow the government to do it for you. — William E. Simon

People who relieve others of their money with guns are called robbers. It does not alter the immorality of the act when the income transfer is carried out by government. — Cal Thomas

It’s income tax time again, Americans: time to gather up those receipts, get out those tax forms, sharpen up that pencil, and stab yourself in the aorta. — Dave Barry

The government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it. — Ronald Reagan

Again, why must the voicemail prompts of major wireless carriers offer those time-wasting instructions for leaving a message?

Since heaven is supposed to be a realm void of pain, suffering or sadness, would its residents have awareness of loved ones who failed to make the cut?

Price gouging and windfall profits are phrases that can only be uttered by a mind under emotional assault.

At a wedding I attended this past weekend, the pastor, in one sentence, highlighted the significance of the bride and groom choosing each other from the billions of people on earth, then nullified that significance by claiming god was responsible for the choice.

Why would any rational people perpetuate something so tritely decorative at the cost of such discomfort and inconvenience?

How many people who routinely use the phrase “Bless you” in response to a sneeze have ever investigated its origins?

How should we regard the endorsement of Barack Obama by the prime minister of Hamas?

How long will it be until GovCo. sinks its taxing fangs into the internet?

Yaron Brook gives a brilliantly candid assessment of our government’s insatiable taxation frenzy, and the sickening scope of it’s detriment to our lives.

Tax policy works by attaching financial incentives to a long list of values deemed morally worthy. If you want to maximize your wealth come tax time–and who doesn’t?–you must look at the world through tax-colored glasses, “voluntarily” adjusting your behavior to suit social norms and thereby qualifying for tax breaks. In this way, the social engineers of tax policy preserve the impression that you’re exercising free choice, while they’re actually dispensing with your reason and your judgment.

Ironically, those who attempt to navigate the tax sea adeptly are demonized for “not paying their fair share” enabled by “loopholes for the rich”, which serves as an added bonus for the social engineers, who can use the wealth envy to fuel more class warfare, higher progressive taxes, and leverage to buy votes. It’s a cyclical game, and taxes are their unmatched wildcard.

Clearly, we have slid a long way downhill from this nation’s founding, when political leaders respected individuals’ ability to make rational decisions for themselves about how to pursue their own health, wealth and happiness. Today, it is commonly accepted that Uncle Sam has a right to reach not only into your wallet but into your soul, through tax policies that substitute some version of the “public interest” for your own rational desires.

Sam has degraded from a freedom-loving pioneer into a condescending tyrant.

If government were restricted to its proper functions–police, courts and a strong military to defend individual rights against physical force and fraud–our 66,000-page coercive tax code would be a thing of the past. What’s more, a great burden would be lifted, not just from the economy, but from our lives.

The whole article is an excellent read.

In a truly heart-warming ceremonial speech our president enlightens us to his definition of freedom.

Here in America you’ll find a nation of compassion. Americans believe that the measure of a free society is how we treat the weakest and most vulnerable among us. So each day citizens across America answer the universal call to feed the hungry and comfort the sick and care for the infirm.

I guess the phrase “answer the universal call” means “submit to mandatory income redistribution”. Compulsory compassion, how noble of us.

In a world where some see freedom as simply the right to do as they wish, we need your message that true liberty requires us to live our freedom not just for ourselves, but “in a spirit of mutual support.”

In other words, one can’t be truly free unless he’s bound by the shackles of, and to the extent he panders to, the collective. In a single paragraph, he reveals the glob of contradiction that suffocates this country.

Individualism, justice… bad. Collectivism, injustice… good.

Here in America, you’ll find a nation that is fully modern, yet guided by ancient and eternal truths. The United States is the most innovative, creative and dynamic country on earth — it is also among the most religious. In our nation, faith and reason coexist in harmony. This is one of our country’s greatest strengths, and one of the reasons that our land remains a beacon of hope and opportunity for millions across the world.

If pure dissonance can still be considered harmonic, then yes. Completing the metaphor, to the extent that we embrace reason we will resolve.

As John Galt put it:

The good, say the mystics of spirit, is God, a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man’s power to conceive—a definition that invalidates man’s consciousness and nullifies his concepts of existence. The good, say the mystics of muscle, is Society—a thing which they define as an organism that possesses no physical form, a super-being embodied in no one in particular and everyone in general except yourself. Man’s mind, say the mystics of spirit, must be subordinated to the will of God. Man’s mind, say the mystics of muscle, must be subordinated to the will of Society. Man’s standard of value, say the mystics of spirit, is the pleasure of God, whose standards are beyond man’s power of comprehension and must be accepted on faith. Man’s standard of value, say the mystics of muscle, is the pleasure of Society, whose standards are beyond man’s right of judgment and must be obeyed as a primary absolute. The purpose of man’s life, say both, is to become an abject zombie who serves a purpose he does not know, for reasons he is not to question. His reward, say the mystics of spirit, will be given to him beyond the grave. His reward, say the mystics of muscle, will be given on earth—to his great-grandchildren.
“Selfishness—say both—is man’s evil. Man’s good—say both—is to give up his personal desires, to deny himself, renounce himself, surrender; man’s good is to negate the life he lives. Sacrifice—cry both—is the essence of morality, the highest virtue within man’s reach.

This speech is especially crafty in that it effectively breaches the collectivist fence that separates the the soul/body dichotomy by bragging of our mental sacrifice to the supernatural, and our physical sacrifice to the needy. Not many people can bridge the two camps as eloquently as it is done here.

Gus Van Horn recently listed ten beers worthy of his praise, and I’d only had a few on his list. It makes me realize that I’ve really strayed from my course as a discerning beer enthusiast. Although I’ve become rather fond of a few over the past 12 years, there’s one that’s clearly my undisputed favorite.

Who would’ve guessed that after only a year together we’d become so close. There are many things from 1996 that I reminisce, but this beer, the winner of Sam Adams yearly homebrew contest is at the top of this list.

A few other favorites are:

Leinenkugel Sunset Wheat

Dos Equis Amber

Saris Trnavy (Dark)

Poor, poor bureaucrats. Those pesky individual rights are so tricky to grasp… they keep trying, but just can’t seem to get it.

In Florida, a measure soon to be signed into law would allow legally permitted individuals to possess firearms on their employers premises, regardless of the property owners discretion. I’m all for removing all barriers to concealed carry except for those imposed by individuals in pertinence to their property. This is a clear violation of property rights and a perfect example of the ends not justifying the means. Interesting that GovCo. is perfectly fine with individual rights to property being violated for the sake of another individual’s self-defense, but only in areas where GovCo. sees fit.

So, in this chaotic blob of mob-rule spooge our nation has become, you can carry a gun on your employers property despite their wishes and legal right to specify that you don’t. But, you cannot carry in a restaurant where as little as one molecule containing alcohol is sold, despite the owners legal right to decide for themselves. In other words, they can mandate where you can carry against the property owners will, and they can mandate where you can’t carry regardless of the property owners will. I think the message is clear, they presume ownership of everyone and everything.

Of course this does fit the template of failing to see a business owner as himself an individual. Without that identification, the faceless nothing is much easier to sacrifice on the altar of the collective.

It’s very strange hearing a politician mention the sanctity of property rights, especially one with a ‘D’ beside their name. I’m sure if the issue were minimum wage, eminent domain abuse, or smoking bans, he’d lose the individualistic spirit. Selectively supporting rights based on whim or consensus is much more effective in buying votes.

On another note, this article and others mention the support of the measure by the National Rifle Association, although I cannot verify to what extent if any. As an NRA supporter , I must contend that any support of this measure would be an ignorant and self-defeating blunder, considering the right to “keep and bear arms” is only derivative to our rights to life, liberty and property. Condoning such an encroachment would essentially be them cutting off their foot to paint their toenail. Their involvement in this issue will likely determine my future support of their cause.