Try Occupying A Job

Posted on November 12, 2011 by J.R.

The death toll for the OWS protests in North America is now up to seven. Health conditions in many camps have deteriorated so far that public health officials are demanding their closure to prevent an epidemic. In the absence of proper waste facilities many choose to just relieve themselves in the street where they sleep. These societial underlings have told their fellow protesters to not report the repeated sexual assaults and rapes in their camps to the police. They should instead “police their own” (we see how well that is working). Violence and rampant drug use have become the mainstay with police warning others that the camps are not safe after dark. So what are they protesting against? If it is income inequality then why wall street? The top four Hollywood personalities make more money than the top one hundred CEOs. Professional sports athletes make millions of dollars for the task of handling a ball for a few months a year. None of whom are tasked with running a company or employing hundreds, if not thousands of people. The original Tea Party was a stand against tyranny, against the excessive taxation of an overbearing government. They wanted limited government so as to pursue their own economic goals through free markets. This is quite contrary to the OWS protests. They are not protesting a lack of opportunity or a job shortage. No, they demand the confiscation of wealth of others through “economic equality.”  Why Wall Street? Their simple minds are lead to believe that Wall Street, not their own lacking drive or work ethic are to blame for their societal woes. They blame the evil CEOs yet give a free pass to the politicians who propagate crony capitalism and drum up the class warfare rhetoric. They deserve no more voice than my 17 month old son when he throws a fit for not getting what he wants. The liberal establishment media, all too eager to assist in the deflection of blame from the overbearing, failed government policies of the current administration, are quick to support the narrative. They did their best to paint the Tea Part movement as a bunch of violent racists despite no evidence. We are lead to believe a grandmother holding a copy of the Constitution, waving an American flag at a rally is an extremist while the street defecating, drug using, property damaging OWS protester represents main stream society and their woes. The societal producers who continue to prop up these miscreants through their own hard work and unwavering work ethic are growing tired of these games. We are coming to a head in society, but not one the liberal political class is going to expect or enjoy. As for the OWS crowd, they shall get no attention or love from me.

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Salzman Custom Sawing and Slabbing

Posted on November 8, 2011 by J.R.

Pardon a bit of shameless self promotion.  I’ve recently decided to go online and start publicizing my custom sawing business. I am operating my LucasMill and Slabber across Minnesota and Wisconsin doing custom sawing and slabbing .  Whether its barn boards, rough sawn lumber or building timbers there is nothing I will not saw.  I also buy logs and timber and sell large slabs and rough sawn lumber.  I also have the ability to surface slabs up to 60″ wide with my special Lucas planer head.  Later this winter my dry kiln will be up and operating with the capability of drawing 3,000 bdft of 4/4 lumber.   For more information and to see a gallery of my work check out my new website at www.logboy.com

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British Amputee Soldiers on Top Gear

Posted on September 27, 2011 by J.R.

I was watching the season finale of Top Gear tonight (it is Monday after all) when this bit caught my eye.  A group of British Soldiers – all of them amputees wounded in Afghanistan – are training in preparation for one of the worlds most grueling races, the Dakar Rally.  What the rest of the world will not understand is that for wounded Veterans like us challenges like this are actually therapeutic.  Each little battle won is another step toward getting on with our lives as amputees.  Best of luck to my fellow wounded Soldiers overseas.

Posted in Amputee, Military | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Radical Liberal Assaults Wisconsin Lawmaker

Posted on September 16, 2011 by J.R.

Remember a couple months ago when Wisconsin Liberals protesting in Madison said they would be on their best behavior and set an example in civility? Yeah, me neither.  Well it looks like they’ve decided to step it up a notch and start assaulting lawmakers directly.

A report from the Madison Police Department identifies the victim as a 43-year-old state lawmaker from Burlington, a description that matches Rep. Robin Vos (R-Burlington), co-chairman of the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee. Vos’ office confirmed he was the victim but would not say anything else about the matter, since it was being investigated by police.

The incident happened at the Inn on the Park, 22 S. Carroll St. Witnesses said a man came into the tavern and swore at three lawmakers, calling them criminals. A bartender said the man used the words to the effect of “money” and “damn Republicans,” according to the police report.

Another man was recording the incident with a video camera when the bartender asked him to stop. That’s when the person who had been yelling dumped the beer on Vos’ head, according to the report.

The police report says beer splashed onto two other lawmakers, Rep. Scott Suder (R-Abbotsford) and Rep. John Nygren (R-Marinette).

Vos told police that the man has been harassing him since February, though previous encounters had not involved physical contact. The representative did not know the suspect’s name, but a female State Capitol employee, who was with the group, gave police a name and said Capitol Police would have his contact information, according to the report. Police believe he’s a 26-year-old.

Police said that when they find the beer pourer, he will likely face a tentative charge of disorderly conduct.

The protestor has been identified as Miles Kristan, a model of liberal civility.  Apparently he is well known around Madison for his violent left-wing behavior.

A source present at the incident and who wished to remain anonymous has identified the perpetrator as Miles Kristan, a well-known fixture of the recent protests in Madison and elsewhere in Wisconsin. Kristan is also well known to the MacIver News Service. He has harassed our interns and our investigative reporter in attempts to prevent us from providing coverage of events in Madison and Janesville.

UPDATE – The MacIver News Service have discovered a video, posted online, of Kristan and another protester harassing Representatives Vos and Suder just last week. In the video, which is apparently shot by Kristan and can be seen here, the representatives leave the Capitol and head over to check into the Inn on the Park. This video corroborates allegations that these two individuals have repeatedly harassed Vos, Suder and others.

“I am somebody and you will listen to me,” the agitator screams at one point in the six-and-a-half-minute video. Earlier, he warns that he was giving Vos “five business days to respond.”

The video was posted on September 9, five days before last night’s incident.

   I’m still waiting for just one Madison liberal to condemn the assault on an elected official.  Unfortunately all I could find was liberals rooting for him. This must be the new civility we’ve been hearing about. Jim Hoft at Gatewaypundit has more.

 

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AttackWatch.com

Posted on September 14, 2011 by J.R.

From the Washington Post:

As the 2012 presidential campaign heats up, President Obama’s campaign team has set up a new Web site, AttackWatch.com, to challenge negative statements about the president made by Republican presidential candidates and conservatives.

Obama for America national field director Jeremy Bird told ABC News that the site’s goal is to offer “resources to fight back” against attacks. Mostly, that means fact checking statements from the likes of GOP presidential contenders Mitt Romney and Rick Perry and conservative commentator Glenn Beck and offering evidence to the contrary. The site is designed in bold red and black colors, and uses statements like “support the truth” and “fight the smears.”

The response to the site has been less than stellar.

Less than stellar?  When you use the same design theme as a Communist propaganda poster and encourage people to snitch on others, how do you think it will come across?  Still, I think attackwatch.com needs something to help get the word out. Something to let the world know, big brother is here to help. Being the good citizen that I am, I decided accept that responsibility.  Feel free to post the following posters wherever you see fit. We can still win the fight!

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UW-Madison’s Diverstity Problem

Posted on September 13, 2011 by J.R.

Apparently the folks at UW-Madison are up in arms over a perceived threat to the perfect diversity they have created at The People’s Republic.”

Whites and Asians aren’t getting a fair crack at being admitted to the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

That’s what two studies released late Monday night by the Center for Equal Opportunity indicate. The organization states in a press release accompanying the studies that there is “severe discrimination based on race and ethnicity in undergraduate and law school admissions” at Wisconsin’s flagship institution of higher education.

The CEO — a conservative think tank based out of Sterling, Va., that pushes “colorblind public policies” and backs the elimination or curtailment of existing racial preference and affirmative action programs — reports that UW-Madison gives “African Americans and Latinos preference over whites and Asians” in admissions. The studies, which initially were embargoed until Tuesday morning, were released late Monday on the CEO website.

Just how far off is it? A bit more than you might think.  I like the odds playing the quarter slots at the casino better.

A CEO press release states the studies outlining discrimination at UW-Madison “are based on data supplied by the schools themselves, some of which the university had refused to turn over until a lawsuit was filed by CEO and successfully taken all the way to the state supreme court.”

The CEO studies found that the “odds ratio favoring African Americans and Hispanics over whites was 576-to-1 and 504-to-1, respectively, using the SAT and class rank while controlling for other factors. Thus, the median composite SAT score for black admittees was 150 points lower than for whites and Asians, and the Latino median SAT score was 100 points lower. Using the ACT, the odds ratios climbed to 1,330-to-1 and 1,494-to-1, respectively, for African Americans and Hispanics over whites.”

The CEO adds that for law school admissions, the “racial discrimination found was also severe, with the weight given to ethnicity much greater than given to, for example, Wisconsin residency. Thus, an out-of-state black applicant with grades and LSAT scores at the median for that group would have had a 7 out 10 chance of admission and an out-of-state Hispanic a 1 out of 3 chance — but an in-state Asian with those grades and scores had a 1 out of 6 chance and an in-state white only a 1 out of 10 chance.”

CEO chairman Linda Chavez said in a news release that “this is the most severe undergraduate admissions discrimination that CEO has ever found in the dozens of studies it has published over the last 15 years.“

I’m still trying to understand why UW-Madison would want to hide the statistics on their “diversity.” Usually when someone in Madison is hiding information from the rest of the state it’s for good reason (you cant let those ignorant Wisconsin tax payers know how their money is being spent, those mindless rubes wouldn’t understand). Perhaps this is yet another case of “social justice” run amok that sought to “protect diversity” at whatever the cost.  The irony of “protecting diversity” by systematically discriminating against another race is perpetually lost on these people.  Well, the reaction from the Madison crowd is to be expected when its a conservative organization pointing out the errors of the liberal utopia.

“These organizations have as their mission to systematically dial back the gains from the Civil Rights era,” Damon Williams, UW-Madison’s vice provost for diversity, told a group of student leaders Monday night at the Red Gym in a segment recorded by WKOW.com.

I’m honestly surprised they didn’t find someone to claim that conservatives are “trying to bring back slavery.”  Then again, this story was just published at 1:30 am.  I’m sure they’ll find someone tomorrow.

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A Decade After September 11

Posted on September 11, 2011 by J.R.

I was sitting in class at the Dunwoody Institute of Technology in Minneapolis. It was a regular Tuesday morning, and the professor was lecturing about some web development assignment. Being the not-so-studious student that I tended to be (I was barely 21), I was chatting on AOL Instant Messenger with a friend of mine in New York City. We had met when ESPN’s Great Outdoor Games were held in Lake Placid, New York, and she worked for the media company in charge of the website covering the event. She worked four blocks from the Empire State building. We occasionally chatted, talked about random stuff, and swapped e-mails back and forth. This morning was different. Around 8 a.m. (my time) she started frantically sending strange messages. “We’re under attack! New York City is under attack!” I thought she was joking. I asked her what she was talking about. “They’re flying planes into buildings! Go look on CNN!” I try to go to CNN.com, or any other news source I could think of. Nothing. The entire Internet had clogged from the sheer number of people trying to find out what was going on. It had bottle-necked to the point of shutting down almost completely. I told her I couldn’t get anywhere, so she e-mailed me a picture. It was a grainy image of a large passenger plane flying into the World Trade Center. I couldn’t believe what was happening.

My professor and my fellow classmates were oblivious to what was happening. I felt the need to say something, so I interrupted his lecture. “Mr. Haluska, I’m sorry to interrupt you but I need to tell you something. New York City is under attack. They are flying airplanes into buildings. I’m not making this up. I have a friend in New York City who I have been chatting with. They are under attack. I’m not making this up.” He didn’t believe me. He tried to check the Internet for information on what was happening. Nothing. When he said he couldn’t find anything, I carried my laptop to the front of the class and showed him the picture my friend had sent me. After that he said, “All right, everyone take a 10 minute break.” I ran downstairs to the student lounge where there was a TV. A large crowd had gathered. On the screen was the World Trade Center with smoke pouring out of it. Everyone was in disbelief.

We went back upstairs to class, and the professor attempted to get back into his lecture. My friend kept relaying information from New York City. For a while she was saying that a plane had hit the White House. It was later revealed that it had hit the Pentagon. A friend sitting next to me told me when the first tower collapsed. Shortly thereafter my friend in New York said that they were evacuating her building and she had to leave. As bits of information became available it spread around the classroom like wildfire. Eventually the professor gave up on lecturing and sent everyone home early. He said he couldn’t focus anyway and wanted to find out more information on what was going on. As we walked out to the parking lot, I said to a fellow classmate “This is fucked up man.” He replied, “Shit… you’re telling me man.”

As I drove through downtown Minneapolis, I remember staring up at skyscrapers like the IDS Tower, the Wells Fargo building, and all the other spectacular buildings that made up the skyline. Downtown Minneapolis was like a ghost town. Other than a couple city buses, I was only car on the road. All the buildings were empty, having all been evacuated earlier. I turned on my radio to 93X, and heard a short speech by Governor Jesse Ventura asking people to remain calm and cool in this difficult time.

I would spend the next five days and nights glued to the TV, living on the couch of the rundown campus house that we rented. The next day when I drove to class there were F15s circling Minneapolis. The Federal Reserve building that I drove right by every morning was now surrounded by concrete barriers. To uparmored suburbans were parked on the perimeter. There were men in suits and dark sunglasses carrying fully automatic machine guns.

Nothing had hit me quite like this. I was another naive, bulletproof, twenty-something college kid. Nothing affected me in my world. Before 9/11 history was only in the past. Now I was living it.

————————————————————————————–

In the past I have followed the above with a description of how the event spurred me to join the military.  On this 10 year anniversary of Sept 11, it is important to stress that it is not about my, or any one individual’s sacrifice. Its about the lives who were lost, the heros of the day, and the attack on America that awakened the sleeping giant.  My heart and prayers go out to all those affected by 9/11.

 

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10 Years of Blogging

Posted on September 10, 2011 by J.R.

Somewhere along the line I forgot to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of my blog. How long ago did I forget? Well, I think its been 11.5 years now since I started blogging so I guess it slipped my mind.  A lot has changed here in the last decade. When I started blogging no one even knew what a blog was.   Evan Williams was a lowly programmer hosting a computer out of his house in California.  When he made updates to the Blogger code he posted a notice on the webpage saying the site would be down for a couple hours.  When it was time to upgrade computer equipment or add a second server he raised funds any way he knew how. I still have a blogger tshirt in my closet somewhere when Evan was raising funds for a database server.  Don’t know who Evan Williams is?  Well you probably know his latest creation. Its a little app by the name of Twitter.

My blog has gone through a number of changes over the last 10 years.  The posts are spread across no less than four databases over the years, fracturing the integrity of my blog history each time. Now you know why half of them are missing. Its never been very high on my priority list to add them all back. Maybe someday. At the very least I want all of the posts from Iraq added to the database.

As you might have noticed, I have done very little blogging over the last year or so.  This was mostly due to the schedule and time constraints of finishing my teaching degree and being a new parent. But part of it was because of a clash of ideology.  You see, I was told by a number of individuals that if I ever expected to get a teaching job in Wisconsin I needed to shut up and pretend that I am a Democrat.   I was told to bite my tongue and nod my head in acceptance whenever politics came to light.  We were warned by school administrators visiting my college that young teachers should expect to be Googled and have their past dredged up.  Anything that showed up would be fair game in the hiring process.  So I did what any naive unemployed teacher-in-training would do: I censored myself.  I went through my blog and hid any posts that were overtly conservative in nature. I hid direct criticism of Democrats.  I made it look generically military with little political affiliation.  I bit my tongue. I withheld stats and facts that popped into my head whenever someone tried making a dishonest claim about how much teachers make, or how much “the rich” are taxed, or any of the other outrageous claims that were freely propagated. I sat idly by and said nothing when teachers were arrested for making death threats, or got phony doctors slips so they could skip off to protest in Madison. I was appalled by the lack of moral fiber present in the behavior of those who are supposed to be the most morally upstanding people in our society.

After a lot of self reflection I finally realized that if I have to pretend to be someone else, if I have to pass a political litmus test, if I have to constantly be censored, if I have to constantly look on and bite my tongue to pursue a teaching career then perhaps this career path is not all it is portrayed to be.

Now please understand me here. I’m not looking for the opportunity to slander or badmouth teachers for the sake of disagreement. I’m not looking for the opportunity to air dirty laundry or disagreements with faculty or administrators. I do not have the right to resort to personal attacks on another person’s character.  But I do have the right to engage in friendly, civil debate without being called an asshole, a “Walker plant,” a “Koch sucker,” or have my chances at a career threatened, or the tires on my car slashed, or my personal finances and political donations printed off from the internet and passed around school like a rap-sheet for pedophilia.  If I cannot engage in friendly debate, be respected for my own views, or be hired and employed on my own merit and not on my political affiliations then perhaps I chose the wrong career path.  And perhaps this whole teaching thing is not the all inclusive, multicultural, and benevolent endeavor that it is portrayed to be.

Posted in Blog, Democrats, Education, wisconsin | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Project Healing Waters

Posted on May 20, 2011 by J.R.

A Soldier from my old unit recently informed me that my photo was gracing the front page of Andrew Breitbart’s Big Hollywood. There is a writeup on Project Healing Waters, the organization that consumed much of my time and effort during my 9 month stay in Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and a fundraiser to create a documentary about the organization.

As Memorial Day weekend approaches and we make plans to celebrate with family and friends, there are so many who will not be celebrating. They will, instead, be visiting Arlington Cemetery and hundreds of other cemeteries across the country where their loved ones, who paid the ultimate price for our freedom, have been laid to rest.

And then there are the “lucky ones” who made it home.

Go read the whole thing.

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Busyness

Posted on May 17, 2011 by J.R.

I know I haven’t posted in forever.  I’ve been busy trying to finish up my teaching degree without going insane from the work load. On the plus side I’m almost done. On the downside I’m rolling (pun intended) into log rolling season. So unfortunately I will be trading one set of busyness for another. Yes, I am glutton for punishment.

 

I’m tired of my plain old website that has sat unfinished for years now. I may do something with it. Don’t be alarmed if it changes.

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