Why Work? Sue your way to financial freedom!

---by Micheal

The latest wave of suits brought against companies smacks more of piracy and brigandism than anything resembling legal justice. All you have to do is become financially successful, gain some public notoriety and BLAMO, you can expect to get sued by someone, for something -- no matter how inane -- in hopes of forcing you to provide them with a hefty windfall.

Dan Brown makes tons of money off his book. A couple of less successful authors sue him trying to get a chunk of it for themselves.

Apple makes millions off its iPod. Failed rivals sue on trumped up patent infringement cases, trying to get a chunk of the millions for themselves.

MySpace.com makes millions with its social networking gimmick. A mother sues MySpace because her daughter was assulted by a 19-year old MySpace user.

These are just three recent examples, but the list is long. The lesson is clear. Don't waste your time working for a living, just wait for someone else to amass a pile of coins, then try to snatch some away.

It reminds me of two pirate or brigand stories from history. First are the more famous Pirates of the Caribbean. The lesser known are the robbers along the Natchez Trace.

Pirates: Rather than work hard for pay, (or build, or invest, or whatever) some greedy but lazy folk in the 16 and 1700s had figured out an easier way for a buck. Instead of working, they would lay in wait behind small Caribbean islands. They waited for the treasure ships bound for Spain. That old Hollywood nonsense about pirate ships sailing the open seas for ships to rob was, well, nonsense. That was too much work, for too little prospect of success. Instead, the REAL pirates just sat and waited for the loaded treasure ships to sail by. THEN they would row out quickly and take them by force. Why work? Just wait for someone ELSE to scrape together a pile, then steal it from them.

Robbers: In the early 1800s, Natchez Mississippi was a commerce port. It's on the Mississippi river, just north of the Louisiana line. Boats would bring trade, goods, people, cash, up the river from New Orleans and the gulf. Rather than continue up the river, many goods, people and cash traveled inland, through Nashville, to the Ohio and Cumberland rivers. That wilderness road was called the Natchez Trace. Much like the lazy pirates of the Caribbean, robbers along the Trace knew that money and goods were going to be coming along, so they would just sit and wait to ambush the travelers. Why work? Let someone ELSE make the stuff, or earn the cash, then steal it from them.

All these fluffy lawsuits smack too much of modern-era piracy. Ever notice that no one sues a struggling company or poor sot? Caribbean pirates didn't attack west-bound ships. They were empty. East-bound ships usually had gold bound for Spain.

Perhaps what our court system needs is a legal equivalent of the US Navy. In the late 1700s and early 1800s, the (few) warships of the US Navy patrolled Caribbean waters looking for pirates. They fought and killed quite a few. We need a modern lawsuit pirate buster to roam the courtrooms and blast those who are bringing bogus suits in an effort to take a stash from a wealthy victim. (not that the wealthy are only victims, some of them need busting too)

Maybe then, we can get Americans back to work -- doing something constructive -- and not just laying in wait to steal what someone else has produced.

Some Thoughts On...

---By Ron Dupuis

…How we treat prisoners; The American Civil Liberties Union complains that the prisoners incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay are not only held illegally, they are mistreated to the extent the goes beyond “cruel and unusual”. If civil liberties are some sort of divine right and not instead something we as Americans fought for, I’m sure the A.C.L.U. will jump all over Al-Quada for the brutal way they treated the two brave, young American prisoners last week.

…Illegal Immigration; There are times when a compromise is necessary. Many conservatives feel that the only way to solve the illegal alien situation in this country is to send all 11 million back to where they came from. Tempting, to be sure, but not very practical.

I wish our elected Representatives in Washington would consider the “In My Humble Opinion” solution.
First, and most importantly, close the borders. You cannot resolve the illegals problem with four or five hundred a day sneaking across in order to plunder our liberal social programs designed to help the needs of our own citizens.
Next, require every illegal alien living in the United States to register with the government. They will be allowed to continue living peacefully and un-bothered in order to get their affairs in order, as long as they are model citizens, pay their taxes, and not arrested for any crimes. However, and this is a big however; they will be required, within six years, to return to their country of origin and apply for re-entry. Aliens who complete this requirement the first year will be at the top of the list for entry. Second year applicants will be placed further down the list, so forth and so on. The number of aliens applying legally will always have priority.

No one has a better understanding of the immigration problem facing this country then syndicated columnist Phyllis Schafly. Please read her thoughts on the 14th amendment and encourage your congressman to take the appropriate action.

Click hereto review “American Citizenship is Precious.”

…Weapons of mass destruction: “Bush lied, people died” We’ve been listening to this propaganda for at least three years from the obstructionist left wing of the Democratic party. Now the WMD’s have been found, no one wants to talk about it.
The truth of the matter is that Saddam “Insane” did have stockpiles of lethal gasses that he used on his own people and was capable of probably getting ready to us them on Americans.

The truth of the matter is that there was an Iraq/Al-Quada connection before the war. And the truth of the matter is that Democrats will say anything, even lie, in order to advance their cause in regaining political power.

Lee Slocum Passes

-- by Ed Naile

I was just coming back into NH by truck from Iowa and a Stihl Timbersports event I was working when I learned from my wife by cell phone that Rep. Lee Slocum was killed in a traffic accident. It still has not sunk in completely.

Lee was a CNHT Director before he was elected to his first term and was still on our e-list as an adviser. I remember driving around Amherst stuffing newspaper tubes with his election material in 2002 several days before he won. When we heard Lee was elected to the House we were ecstatic!

Lee had swatted more than a few political hornets nests in his area during a stint on the school board and with his well-reasoned (liberals hated that) letters to the editor.

He was a perfect gentleman and you had to be on the lookout for his wry sense of humor. He was one of the smartest people I have ever met. At Lee's funeral Rep. Mirski said he downloaded and saved all Lee's e-mails. I will be doing the same. He will be missed for a long, long time by our gang.

Voter Apathy May Be Curmudgeonliness

---by Micheal, the curmudgeon

Sometimes, it seems there's no getting-along with the vast bulk of the human race. There's always someone in your face bombasting at you about how wrong you are. Rather than continue to endure that contradictory chorus, some people opt to chuck it all and live alone as a curmudgeon-hermit. Being a curmudgeon-hermit is almost a New England tradition.

New England's first curmudgeon-hermit may have been William Blackstone. William left England in 1623 to escape the petty tedium of the "Lord Bishops". He chucked the cushy life for wild New England, as an assistant chaplain for a settlement expedition.

That expedition landed near what is now Weymouth, Mass, but it was tough going. Most of them wimped out and returned to the comforts of England within two years. William was no "mountain man" survivalist type, but a rough life of peace and quiet looked better than comfort amid bombasts.

William dragged his library (186 books!) north to a sunny hillside on the unpopulated Shawmut peninsula. He built himself a little house near a cool spring, planted a garden and grew an apple orchard. For many years, it was just William, his books, his garden and 800 acres of peace and quiet. Not a bad life.

All that changed in 1630. Ships of the Massachusetts Bay Colony arrived. Settlers set up the town of Boston on William's once-peaceful hillsides. The new neighbors proved far too similar to the Lord Bishops. Within five years, William had all he could stand. He packed up his books and trekked south.

Leaving bombastic 'civilization' yet again, he found another sunny hill, this one beside the quiet Pawtucket river, just north of Narragansett Bay. He built himself another house and planted another orchard. He spent much of his time studying his books. Happy Hermit, round 2.

Not long after that, however, Roger Williams showed up with his religious exiles from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. They all set up the town of Providence just a few miles south of Blackstone's new idyl. "Oh maann," William might have said. "There's just no escaping these people." He was getting too old to start over again, so kept pretty much to himself, the refugee curmudgeon-hermit on a hill north of town.

When it comes to politics, a lot of people feel like William Blackstone. Self-important "Lords", irritating opinion-monopolists, and far too much angry shouting. It's enough to drive almost anyone into becoming a curmudgeon-hermit. Today, however, we don't have Blackstone's option. All the real hills are taken. So, people retreat inside their homes and don't answer the door, or the phone.

Voter apathy may be a misdiagnosis. They might be refugees on virtual hillsides. Any candidate or party looking to woo more voters won't lure them with louder shouting and hotter rhetoric. Those would-be voters will just do like Blackstone did, pack up and find a quieter hill someplace else.

Ding Dong Zarqawi's Dead

---by Micheal

Some of the press reports sound almost as giddy as the chorus of Munchkins singing over the death of the Wicked Witch of the West. Yes, the removal of Zarqawi from the hostile soup of Iraq is unquestionably a good thing. We need to avoid undue euphoria, however. It will only turn on us.

The death of Zarqawi is good for Iraq because he was interjecting a wider, and very savage, element of jihadism into an already tense national-birth situation. Many Iraqis would rather that American forces were not in their country. They would rather run things themselves. A fellow like Zarqawi didn't want things to stabilize in Iraq. He and his followers wanted massive unrest and chaos for their own ideological agenda. They were using Iraqis. It seems the Iraqis finally reallized they were being used, and whispered where a few bombs might do a world of good.

What we, in the US, need to avoid, is the undue optimism that the death of Zarqawi has removed the heart of the insurgency. I think we Americans tend to overgeneralize our villains. We thought that removing the Kaiser would "end all wars" back in 1918. It didn't. We thought defeating Hitler would end facist oppression. It didn't. We were elated that the fall of the Soviet empire would herald an era of peace. It didn't.

Terrorism didn't die with Zarqawi. Nationalist resistance to US forces won't cease. Radicals who believe suicide bombs are the way to do things, are still with us (such as in Toronto). If we talk ourselves into thinking the death of Zarqawi will make all things good again, we'll just be in for yet another huge disappointment. After all, those singing Munchkins were pretty quickly reminded that the Wicked Witch of the West had a very angry sister.