Warning: NSFW language.

I am happy to admit that my pessimism regarding the Heller SCOTUS case was a bit off the mark. The Supreme Court issued its ruling today which upholds the right to keep and bear arms as an individual right. So, for lunch today, I will be having a heaping helping of crow.

…to all those waiting on the USSC’s Heller case:  the five anti-freedom judges who struck down the right to own property (Kelo v. New London) are still on the bench.  Keep this in mind as you wait for the ruling.

Content warning: NSFW language.

As the price of energy continues its ascent into the stratosphere, the talk of finding alternative sources of energy has increased. This is only natural, as the world - especially the U.S. - has been hooked on oil as its primary energy source for more than a hundred years. It is used to make gasoline for our vehicles, heating oil for our homes, natural gas for both cooking and for heating, and even for the plastics that can be found in every home and office.

Unfortunately, reliance upon oil is not a viable long-term strategy. Apart from being limited in supply - there can only be so much oil in the world, after all - it is a valuable commodity, and thus a powerful economic weapon. Take OPEC, for example, much like Colombian drug lords, this cartel has the power to economically strangle those nations with whom it disagrees.

Venezuela is another example; its economy is so dependent on its oil that it would be in serious trouble should other nations stop buying Venezuelan oil. Given that the U.S. is one of only a few nations capable of refining Venezuela’s low-grade, sulfur-laden sludge, Venezuela may be in for some hard times should Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez continue to promote at hostile attitude.

The current energy crisis only highlights the need to reduce dependency on oil, both foreign and domestic. Alternatives to oil-based energy exist, but have yet to be perfected. This lack of effective alternatives is, ironically enough, a direct result of our oil addiction.

So what are these alternatives that can help the U.S. kick its oil habit? Nuclear, wind, and solar energy have long-term viability, but the short-term viability is limited.

Nuclear power in the U.S. is a concept that is long overdue. With today’s technology, we can build nuclear plants that are safer and far more efficient than the few we currently have.

Wind power is another viable alternative. While it may not take as long to build wind farms, they are not currently capable of matching the energy output of other methods. Steps have been made in the right directions, though. Currently, a massive wind farm is being built in West Texas, and if there’s one thing that West Texas has in abundance, it is wind.

These methods will help with the country’s long term energy needs, but what do we do for the short-term? The only answer anyone seems willing to consider is “Drill here, drill now”, all the while not considering that, if we were to start drilling now, we would not reap the benefits of that drilling for at least ten years. This is, of course, in addition to the shortage of refinery capacity as no new refineries have been built in the U.S. in more than 35 years.

Unfortunately, there is no viable short-term option. We must simply bear up under the current conditions until the other alternatives are viable. So, we’re just going to have to tighten our seat belts until this wild ride is over.

…think again.

The youngest person to be awarded the Medal of Honor since the Civil War has passed away.  From the article:

Jack Lucas, who at 14 lied his way into military service during World War II and became the youngest Marine to receive the Medal of Honor, died Thursday in a Hattiesburg, Miss., hospital. He was 80.

Lucas had been battling cancer. Ponda Lee at Moore Funeral Service said the funeral home was told he died before dawn.

Jacklyn “Jack” Lucas was just six days past his 17th birthday in February 1945 when his heroism at Iwo Jima earned him the nation’s highest military honor. He used his body to shield three fellow squad members from two grenades, and was nearly killed when one exploded.

“A couple of grenades rolled into the trench,” Lucas said in an Associated Press interview shortly before he received the medal from President Truman in October 1945. “I hollered to my pals to get out and did a Superman dive at the grenades. I wasn’t a Superman after I got hit. I let out one helluva scream when that thing went off.”

There is not much more I can say about this other than Semper Fi, and thank you for your service, Mr. Lucas.

Will someone please explain to me the cult of Barack Obama?  It makes absolutely no sense to anyone with more half a functioning brain cell.  When Obamites start speaking of their Messiah candidate, they get this look on their faces that is as vacant and rapturous as the looks on those who undulate in orgasmic self-deception at Charismatic Christian churches.  Unlike the Charismatics who speak in tongues, the Obamites’ mantras are “Hope” and “Change”.

However, for those of us not enraptured by Barack Obama’s supposed charisma, all the hopenchangetudeness that surrounds him does little to assuage some very important and lingering questions about Obama’s character and judgment.  Obama is obviously a very smart man; one does not get to be head of the Harvard Law Review by being an idiot.  But one would imagine that someone with Obama’s intelligence would be more, well, discriminating in those with whom he associates.

One, maybe two questionable associates could be understandable.   Everybody has friends or associates that may have questionable moral character, but seldom are these questionable characters in a position of influence.  For example, one does not sit in a church for 20 years, get married and have one’s children baptized at that church, or donate more than $20,000 to the church unless one agrees - for the most part - with what is taught from the pulpit.  Obama’s church has shown to have racism and divisiveness preached from its pulpit by several different pastors, yet Obama appears to have sat in the pews and bobbed his head in agreement with the message that was being conveyed.  Only after repeated glimpses into the rhetoric being issued forth at the church came into public view did Obama choose to disassociate himself with that church.

Then we have Tony Rezko, a known slum-lord with mafia ties.  Rezko has been on trial for corruption charges, and was convicted this week on multiple counts.  Only after the verdict was handed down did Obama disassociate himself with Rezko, stating “This is not the Tony Rezko I knew”.

So the question is this:  if Obama is incapable of judging the character of those close to him, how can we - the American people - reply upon judgment that has proven to be faulty, at best?  Or are we to assume that Obama knew the about his associates’ flaws, and simply chose to ignore them, or even worse, exploit them for his own political advantage?

If the latter is true, then it calls into question Obama’s commitment to “Hope” and “Change”, as Washington already has enough people who are willing to exploit others (even their own families) in exchange for some scrap of political power.  Where is the “Change we can believe in” when Obama appears to be doing the same thing that every other politician in Washington is doing?

There is an old saying, “Never attribute to malice when incompetence is sufficient explanation.”  Regardless of whether Obama is doing all this out of either incompetence or malice, he has proven that he cannot be trusted to make decisions that are in America’s best interests.

I do not normally cuss overmuch on this blog, but sometimes there is no other term that is capable of fully describing a situation than “clusterfuck”.

Over the last couple of days, there has been a huge buzz about the internet regarding the explosion at The Planet’s H1 datacenter facility.  The Planet, by the way, is the company at which I work, so I have a bit of an insider’s view at what happened, and it is not pretty.  It also happens that I live only a few blocks away from the building in which the explosion occurred.

I spent the better part of today working in the damaged building, trying to facilitate the moving of servers to an area that was still functional or to our other Houston datacenter.  At one point during the day, I snuck back to the area where the explosion had taken place.  My experience in firefighting and damage control (courtesy of the U.S. Navy) was enough to tell me that this situation could have been much worse.

I cannot go too deep into details because of privacy restrictions, but I can put some of the following rumors to rest:

It was not an FBI raid.

The building was not blown up in an insurance fraud scam.

The building was not attack by aliens (as far as I know).

There was no experimental project testing mutagenic particles on humans.

Anyway, if anyone wants to know the official story, you can check out the forum in which all updates are being posted.