Lecture Series | Mariners’ Museum

Lecture Series | Mariners’ Museum.

I only just found out about this lecture series when I read the link on my earlier post on The Project. It will be part of this Lecture Series. It sounds like a pretty cool thing to do if you’re in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia.

Each lecture has a presentation by the author and a Q & A session afterwards. They have them almost monthly and they pick some good ones. The Project about pirates sounds great. They have one on sea monsters coming up Oct 10 that sounds good too.  🙂

Check the link for more information. The website for the museum is www.marinersmuseum.org . Its FREE! 🙂

Book Review: A Captains Duty

http://www.maritime-executive.com/article/Book-Review-A-Captains-Duty-by-Captain-Richard-Phillips-2013-09-09/

OK, I haven’t read this book yet, but it looks like a good one and I’ll be looking for it when I get home. Sailors, merchant ships, pirate attacks, Navy SEAL teams to the rescue, WOW! It should be pretty intense 😉

This is the true story of the attack of the container ship Maersk Alabama by Somali pirates and the response of the crew.

I remember when it happened and I felt like, oh, so NOW people care. Its only because its an American ship. The pirates had been attacking ships for years and holding hundreds of sailors hostage and nobody did diddly til a US ship got attacked. It still pisses me off.

It’s something I never want to be involved in but can relate to for sure. So far, I’ve been lucky. I’ve never been attacked (yet) I’ve gone through the Suez Canal and the Malacca Straits a few times which are both areas with plenty of real life pirates. They’re NOT like Johnny Depp!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the movie with Tom Hanks starring as Captain Phillips of the Maersk Alabama is due out next month. I’ll try to catch it, but the book is always better than the movie IMHO 😉

Let me know how you liked it.

The Double Standard of Smoking Marijuana

The Double Standard of Smoking Marijuana – Arts & Culture – Utne Reader.

This is an article from Utne Reader on a new book, “Marijuana is Safer”. Well, duh, YES, it IS! MUCH safer! I could say I can’t believe how we have spent so much time, effort, money, to keep it illegal in this “free” country. But I do believe it since I know the history of how it was made illegal in the first place.

Federal marijuana prohibition is the direct cause of the continual violations of our 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th amendments and the filling up of our prisons. First of all, the prohibition was not legally passed by congress like alcohol prohibition was. They did not make any constitutional amendment to make marijuana illegal. Instead, they listened to the lobbyists for DuPont, Hearst and their puppet doctor. Congress was bought off by those who just plain didn’t want the competition that the marijuana plants (and hemp) would give their companies making paper from trees and artificial fibers such as nylon. Watch the movie “Hemp for Victory” (put out by the federal government to encourage farmers to grow the weed to help with the war effort) and you will get an idea of just how useful the marijuana (and hemp) plants are. Of course, the prejudice they stirred up against blacks and Hispanics didn’t hurt any either.

I want to know, how many MILLIONS of people do we have to put in prison, how many lives to we have to completely destroy? before we will come to our senses and legalize weed??? I am going to come out and say it, it is a RIGHT! Rights which we enjoy not only under our constitution, (which only says our federal government was formed to PROTECT those natural rights we had BEFORE there was ever any government), rights we have due to the fact that we are human beings. We have allowed “our” government to get its foot in the door, due to prejudice and greed, and of course FEAR, and now we are paying the price. They have used this so-called War on Drugs, which is really a war on US, to take away our rights and destroy our country. 

I am sick and tired of having to listen to people who don’t know what they’re talking about tell us all that we need to continue the ‘drug war’. NO, we do NOT! We need to STOP it asap! I hope lots of people will read this book and learn the truth about the issues, STOP listening to the politicians, they do NOT do anything that is not in THEIR interests, they do NOT represent US anymore, if they ever did.

Libertarian Futurist Society

Libertarian Futurist Society.

This is a listing of all the past Prometheus Awards. They’re awarded for the best Libertarian science fiction of the year. I’ve read and enjoyed quite a few. I like books that make you THINK and these sure fit the bill! I’ve already read a lot of these books and seeing the list now makes me want to read some more of them 🙂 Some of my favorites on the list (I didn’t even know about the list when I read them)…

2009- Little Brother- Cory Doctorow

2011- Animal Farm- Hall of Fame- George Orwell

2009- Lord of the Rings- Hall of Fame- J.R.R. Tolkien

1998- Time Enough for Love- Hall of Fame- Robert Heinlein

1984- Farenheit 451- Hall of Fame- Ray Bradbury

1983- Atlas Shrugged- Hall of Fame- Ayn Rand

LoneStarCon 3 – 71st Worldcon in San Antonio, Texas

LoneStarCon 3 – 71st Worldcon in San Antonio, Texas.

Jeeze, sorry I’m so late on this one. I got the news in an email from the Advocates for Self Government but I didn’t really get around to reading it til this morning. If anyone is in San Antonio, they can probably still get there in time to check it out in person.

If I wasn’t getting ready to go back to work already, I would LOVE to go to this event. I love reading, especially science fiction! I’ve never been to anything like this but I bet it would be loads of fun. Film festival, exhibits, Hugo award ceremony, astronaut to meet, etc…  Its also being covered online so if you can’t make it to San Antonio, you can still see what’s going on.

Texas Police Hit Organic Farm With Massive SWAT Raid

Texas Police Hit Organic Farm With Massive SWAT Raid.

This crap is going on every day now, all over the country, see the references in the article to SWAT raids on gay bars, organic farms, BARBER SHOPS???!! We now live in a police state and I can NOT figure out why more people are not up in arms about it. It is almost too late. When are people going to wake up enough to put a stop to it? If this keeps up much longer, something like this WILL happen to YOU! Remember what I said the other day: there are so many ‘laws’ on the books NO ONE in this country can go through a day without breaking at least one of them. Read the book Three Felonies a Day by Harvey Silverglate! You people who think ” if they’re not doing anything wrong, they have nothing to worry about” are just plain refusing to see the truth in front of your eyes.

Saving Democracy with Civic Literacy in America 101

Saving Democracy with Civic Literacy in America 101.

I liked seeing this article (in Utne Reader) and I really agree with pretty much everything they said about the need for civic education. I remember we used to have classes in civics in elementary school. I still remember a lot of what I was taught then and I still really believe in all that stuff. I am a strong supporter of the constitution and wish more people around me were. I think people need to have a good understanding of the constitution and the principles behind it. I do disagree with the writers when they say that what made our country great was BIG government! WOW!! I totally disagree with that! In fact, I think its the complete opposite. We became great because we had the FREEDOM that having a SMALL government gave us! We are still living off the productivity those years provided. Now we are losing our freedom, our prosperity, our strength and influence in the world because we have strayed from our founding principles and our government has become so huge it has taken over everything here. You can’t do ANYTHING here anymore without government somehow being involved. You can’t get though a day without breaking at least one law anymore. There’s a book out, its called “Three Felonies a Day” by Harvey Silverglate. I haven’t read it yet but just the title makes it sound like something I would really get into 😉

Share At Your Own Risk

Share At Your Own Risk.

I liked this article. I get it (I think)