Banning Pocket Knives?

My husband sent me a link to Knife Rights. It looks as though the US government is attempting to ban virtually all pocket knives. This ban is not through a law. It is through policy. And redefining (the liberals seem into that whole redefining thing). This time the redefining is of switchblade and is coming from the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP). It appears that whatever they define a switchblade as becomes the standard for the country. Their definition so broadly written that it could include virtually all pocket knives.

Comments are only allowed on this until the 21st of this month. If you are concerned about this (and you should be), take the time to call your congressman and/or write a letter to:

U. S. Customs and Border Protection
Office of International Trade
Regulations and Rulings
Mint Annex
799 9th Street N. W.
Washington, D. C. 20229
Attn: Intellectual Property and Restricted Merchandise Branch

Priorities

I learned yesterday that Texas likely got its new booster seat law idea from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The NHTSA claims that if all states followed through on this about 450 kids would be saved from moderate to fatal injury per year across the United States. (Note this number includes kids that might be hurt and kids that might die.)

Now let's look at how many kids (babies) would be saved if the nation implemented an ultrasound policy that required the mother be offered a chance to listen to the babies heart and see an ultrasound before making a decision to abort. Focus on the Family claims that 63,000 babies have been saved during the past four years of their Option Ultrasound campaign. What would the results be if this was available to every woman in America? I don't really know. But my guess would be that abortion rates would drop 15-25%. Let's say that I am wrong and it would only be 10%. That is 100,000 babies' lives a year in the United States.

So my question is this: Why did the booster seat law make it into law and the Texas ultrasound bill never made it to the final vote? Actually I know the answer. The dang Democrats filibustered about voter ID so that the ultrasound bill (and several others) could never make it to the final vote before the session was over. Maybe a better question is this: What does this say about our priorities as a nation?

Unfunded Mandates

Here in Texas, a law was recently passed that all children under 8 (unless child is over 4' 9") must be in a booster seat. The old law was 38" regardless of age. We had just recently ditched the car seats of our kids (now at 40" and 44"). So, in order to be lawy-abiding citizens, we ordered boosters from Amazon.com for about $50 (for both) including the free super saver shipping. They got here yesterday. The kids really like them so far.

My husband, on the other hand, is rolling his eyes at the unfunded mandates. He says that they should count as tax payment (though Texas doesn't have income tax, but property tax instead).

So any recent unfunded mandates in your part of the country?

Money Factory (Homeschool Happenings V.2 )

My kids and I went to the Money Factory here in Fort Worth. This is the actual place where our paper money is printed. It was a fascinating tour. For one thing we found out that there is a top secret change going on with the 100's. So that whole area was covered in tarps and all the windows were boarded up. There was also the press that is printing the new purple fives. But the most interesting part was the amount of money they print daily: close to 3 million.

That's right folks, 3 million dollars a day, five days a week, with some days like Christmas off. (and there is another similar facility like ours in Washington, DC) The tour guide's explanation about why we had to print so much money was that the Federal Reserve destroys old money and then orders that amount to be printed. Well I don't buy it. I don't trust the Federal Reserve . It made me think again about Ron Paul's Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2009. According to the Federal Reserve, they order money to be made based on the amount they think the public will demand and also the amount destroyed. They also claim that the amount in circulation is almost 800 billion. I guess the rest of our money is all digital. If the world goes more digital and the Fed keeps producing the same amount of money, what does that do to inflation? Just wondering.

Scary

There has been much buzz about Mr. Lou Prichett's open letter to President Obama. I heard about it from AFA, but I am sure there are many others sites and blogs talking about it. Snopes verified it. It is called the "you scare me" letter and has some interesting points. Some of my favorites were:

You scare me because I do not know how you paid for your expensive Ivy League education and your upscale lifestyle and housing with no visible signs of support.

You scare me because you want to replace our health care system with a government controlled one.

You scare me because you will not openly listen to or even consider opposing points of view from intelligent people.

You scare me because you prefer controlling over governing.

Finally, you scare me because if you serve a second term I will probably not feel safe in writing a similar letter in 8 years.

Homeschool Happenings V. 1

My kids (on the way to 1st and 2nd) are really into anatomy (or as they say "bones and innards"). I found this website with all kinds of free games for anatomy called Anatomy Arcade. The games are a little hard for my kids, but they enjoy watching me do them and whacking the bones with the little hammer. You do have to watch a commercial (the one I saw was for trash bags) before playing and there was an advertisement for a werewolf video game on the side bar. But if you don't mind those, I thought the games were great. There are games or puzzles for bones, muscles, and various other body systems. I think this site is a great resource.