Steve-O & Pontius: "Ten Times We Could've Died!"

Outside of Johnny Knoxville, the two people I wouldn't've expected to have the happiest "earn your happy endings" of any of the Jackass/Wildboyz/Camp CKY crew are Steve-O (who looks genuinely happy nowadays) and Chris Pontius (who seems to still have that 'devil may care' attitude these days)...its' especially contrasted w/the decline of Bam Margera and the early 2010's death of Ryan Dunn (which seemed to be the beginning of Bam's decline).

Founders' Quote, 8 March 2025

Equal laws protecting equal rights; the best guarantee of loyalty and love of country. - James Madison, letter to Jacob de la Motta, 1820

Madison's right; when everyone plays by the same rules and the same things apply to everyone, a country will thrive. Simple as that.

Founders' Quotes, 6-7 March 2025

(1) Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom. - John Adams, Defense of the Constitution — 1787

(2) Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge; I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers. - John Adams, Dissertation on Canon and Feudal Law — 1765

Education is an important part of what makes (or should make) America that shining beacon on the hill, in that only an educated people can understand, respect and revere the freedoms and liberties we Americans take for granted. Of course, there's always a debate on what should be taught; that isn't new...what is new is that for decades the Left had a near-monopoly on education and only in the past few years have conservatives begun making inroads back into the educational sphere.

Happy Sabbath, 7 March 2025

May the Lord's blessings comfort and provide as we enter His most holy period, the Sabbath.

Starship Suffers Second Consecutive Launch Failure

We know a few things from today's flight: (1) Booster 15, the Super Heavy used today, successfully returned from launch and was caught by the "chopsticks" on Orbital Launch Mount 1 (OLM-1), (2) Starship Ship 34 did reach the 8 minute in the flight as it did on Flight 7, but (3) once again there was a failure of the rocket at this point; unlike Flight 7, this one appears to be an engine failure of some sort (that's my guess; the FAA and SpaceX haven't said anything yet) and (4) this is the second straight failure of the Block 2 Starship.

Now, what could explain the failure of Ship 34 here? That's a good question; best guess at the moment is that harmonic vibrations in the attic section of Shiop 34 (where the engine & fuel lines are located) caused something to fail there, which then led to failure and/or explosion of one of the engine bells, which cascaded into total loss of Ship 34. Remember this is a test flight, the eighth of the Starship era and if anyone remembers the path Falcon took through Falcon 1 and now Falcon 9/Falcon Heavy, you know nothing is ever 100% certain in flight testing. That's why flight testing is as extensive as it is, but two consecutive failures of Starship?

Founders' Quotes, 4-5 March 2025

(1) We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately. - Benjamin Franklin, at the signing of the Declaration of Independence — 1776

(2) Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. - James Madison, Federalist No. 10 — 1787

On the first point: consider the circumstances of the Declaration's signing. Had the Revolution failed, anyone found to have led or helped lead would've likely faced either a long prison sentence or a one-way trip to the gallows bar. Thus Franklin's words were a reminder to the others that if either they succeed and America becomes its' own nation or they hang together in failure.

On the second point: Madison reminds us that America is not a democracy as many like to tout but a constitutional republic w/democratic features, limited powers, and rights guaranteed by God to the people thereof not to be traded and dealed out as favors but as rights guaranteed by law.

I Agree...

...with HotAir; last night's Trump speech to a Joint Session of Congress was a raucously great speech that exposed the Democrats as sourpuss nanny-state busybodies who couldn't be moved to appalaud even the heart-warming parts.

Thank God I voted for Trump in 2024.

Apologies...

...for the early slips in posts; I help my neighbors with scrap and salvage hauling and yesterday and Monday were busy days. Such is life in the scrap business, folks. ;)

YAF's Going After of DEI

At its' core, DEI treats people not as individuals with unique abilities and interests but as plug-and-play groups, to be looked at only in those terms. It is pernicious and one group is going after colleges and universities still continuing their racism-disguised-as-DEI....

(Townhall) Colleges that defy President Donald Trump’s executive order on DEI nonsense will not go unnoticed. We know some rebels think they’re above the law because they believe their feelings give them that license—not the case. 

People are watching, and one of those groups is Young America’s Foundation, which announced it was filing multiple complaints against higher education institutions nationwide that violated the order. YAF communications chief Spencer Brown announced the multi-pronged assault aimed at excising this woke cancer from these schools:

NEW: @YAF is expanding its nationwide offensive to root out radical and discriminatory DEI programs that violate Title VI, Title IX, and @POTUS executive orders.

On Monday, we filed complaints with @EDcivilrights against four additional schools.🧵

— Spencer Brown (@itsSpencerBrown) March 3, 2025

Go read the tweet thread; I'll be shocked if legislators in those states - particularly Kansas and Tennessee - don't take these universities (especially the Volunteer State's flagship school) - to the legal woodshed over this. Worse, once the Big G gets their hooks involved, its' effectively over but the crying.

Founders' Quotes, 2-3 March 2025

(1) They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose. To consider the latter phrase not as describing the purpose of the first, but as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which may be good for the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please...Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. It was intended to lace them up straightly within the enumerated powers and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect. - Thomas Jefferson, Opinion on National Bank — 1791

(2) These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. - Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, No. 1 — 1776

On the first point, Jefferson is right: where does it say in the Constitution that the federal government can create a "National Bank," even if needed. The Constitution lays out the powers Washington has and meddling in the financial affairs of the country in that way isn't one of them. The Federal Reserve applies here too, though if it were merged with teh U.S. Treasurer's Office and the Mint I'd have no problem with it.

On the second point, its' one thing to speak on the events of the day. Its' quite another to actually put your lives and sacred fortunes on the line; its' easy to talk but can you back it up? If so, good. If not, stop prattling on.