A little Atlas Shrugged for you to digest. Warning, lengthy, but worth it. If you haven’t read the book, it should be required reading for everyone.

Mr. Edwards, no one is stopping you from giving your money to the government. No one forces you to build 28,000 sq ft homes.

And you don’t get the tax increases because your money is in investments. You aren’t earning it anymore, so it isn’t taxed as income.

Congratulations. Hypocrite of the year and we’re only one month in.

2007-01-26

Carolina Journal Exclusives

Edwards Home County’s Largest

By Don Carrington

RALEIGH - Presidential candidate John Edwards and his family recently moved into what county tax officials say is the most valuable home in Orange County. The house, which includes a recreational building attached to the main living quarters, also is probably the largest in the county.

“The Edwardses” residential property will likely have the highest tax value in the county,- Orange County Tax Assessor John Smith told Carolina Journal. He estimated that the tax value will exceed $6 million when the facility is completed.

The rambling structure sits in the middle of a 102-acre estate on Old Greensboro Road west of Chapel Hill. The heavily wooded site and winding driveway ensure that the home is not visible from the road. “No Trespassing” signs discourage passersby from venturing past the gate.

Don Knight, Orange County building plans examiner, told CJ that, including the recreational building, the Edwardses’ home would be one of the largest in Orange County.

Knight approved the building plans that showed the Edwards home totaling 28,200 square feet of connected space. The main house is 10,400 square feet and has two garages. The recreation building, a red, barn-like building containing 15,600 square feet, is connected to the house by a closed-in and roofed structure of varying widths and elevations that totals 2,200 square feet.

The main house is all on one level except for a 600-square-foot bedroom and bath area above the guest garage.

The recreation building contains a basketball court, a squash court, two stages, a bedroom, kitchen, bathrooms, swimming pool, a four-story tower, and a room designated “John’s Lounge.”

Edwards was the Democratic candidate for vice president in 2004 and a former N.C. senator.

Thursday afternoon, the Edwards for President press office was unable to provide information on any additional buildings planned for the estate.

Don Carrington is executive editor of Carolina Journal.

Are you paying attention?

Good.

I’ve been mulling over this for a couple of days, deciding on whether or not I should post about it, or just go out on the street corner and shout it out. After discussing with Phil Wilson and Scott Freeman, I decided that writing it on a blog probably would give me a least a little time for the message to get out before I’m killed by angry mobs.

America can’t win the War on Terrorism.

That’s right, America CAN’T win the War on Terrorism.

Now, before you dismiss me as a Liberal schmuck, I offer you this disclaimer. There was a time in the not too distant past, when I would have gone of the handle just reading those words. I was super Republican and I let everyone know it. I was knocking down commies and hippies at every corner of the web.

Then something changed. I realized that when Christ says that we are to love our enemies, he’s not just talking about the guy that is trying to take your job at work, or the teacher who has a beef with you for no reason. He’s talking about people who want to harm you, steal from you, murder you. He’s talking about Islamofascists, Nazis, Gangbangers, and Communists. And there is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY to love a person if you want them to be killed. None. So I gave up war.

I haven’t set out to protest any of the conflicts we’re in around the world, though. I know that Governments are going to do what they will do, and I will disagree with that, but my job is not to make the government “Christian” (because it can’t be), but to show Christ to everyone that I meet.

Which leads me to my original point. America can’t win the war on terror.

We are generally a nice group of people. In most cases, we don’t bomb people indiscriminantly (though some feel Iraq was unjust, and I can sympathize with that position) and we send aid to others, and we let people worship freely. We allow many things that many other countries don’t. Freedom of speech, press, right to bear arms, etc. We are a free nation.

And because we are good, we fight wars differently than others do. We attempt to fight fair. We will do our absolute best to keep civilian deaths as low as possible, even if that means losing some of our own men.

And that is why we can’t win the war on terror.

There is no way to defeat a guerilla army, one that hides among commoners, straps bombs to their chests, and blow themselves up, without complete and total annihilation. It just won’t happen. Just as fast as we can kill these people, more are joining their ranks (or cult, if you will) because they become angry (understandably) that we are killing their countrymen. It’s happened before in history if you recall. There was a King named George and a group of colonies who didn’t like being treated as second class citizens. They rose up, but they didn’t fight conventionally. They hid in bushes, they set traps, they didn’t line up in rows in a pasture and shoot at each other. Cause they couldn’t win that way. And eventually, the American forces defeated the British and won their independence.

Those same tactics are at work here, except, the stakes are much higher. No longer do people fight wtih muskets and cannons but with nuclear bombs and biological weapons. Guerilla Warfare has changed and it will defeat us. Maybe not in the conventional way. They won’t come in and take the White House and cut off our President’s head… but as soon as someone gets a nuclear or biological weapon to detonate in this country, its gonna be 1984 for all of us, and that will be the end.

This country that started off with high hopes of Liberty and Justice for All will become just another tyranical state, dictating all sorts of decisions that you take for granted at this time. And its going to be bad.

And my message for everyone is simply this. Do NOT put your trust in a country, a creed, or even in an ideology that is not Christ. America cannot save you from the principalities and powers that work against us. Only Christ can. And he will, eventually, save us all. But if you put your hope in this country, your faith in this country… when it falls, its gonna be a hard fall for you.

I pray that people relinquish their faith in the system to solve all our ills, and put their faith in Christ and his lifestyle that leads to a cross, but also to salvation.

His critic of a socialist leaning media reform group is stellar. Enjoy.

Today, my hours got cut at work.

Today, millions upon millions of people will try to live on less than a dollar a day, what I make in roughly 6 minutes.

Perspective?

“Justin’s Big Boobs”

 No comment.

Just the next step in our society being destroyed.

No spanking laws in California?

I’m still at work. I was supposed to leave 40 minutes ago, but as I approached my car, I realized that I didn’t have my keys. For anyone who’s experienced that before, its certainly not a good feeling. I can’t adequately describe it… but I can tell you, more often than not it involves explitives running through your mind if not being screamed from deep in your lungs.

 So, I’m updating tonight from my computer at work. My poor fiancee is having to drive up here from Murfreesboro (for non Nashvillians, its a good 30 miles) to unlock my car so I can go home. The bad thing is, I can’t see my keys in the car. I’m not 100% sure that they are in there. They could have fallen out of my pocket somewhere and I just had no idea. I had the keys at 5 when I went to my car to get my chapstick, but I don’t have them now.

Anyway, on to things that don’t involve me being angry at myself… American Idol. If anyone watched last night (and I’m assuming you did, Something like 25 million people watch that wretched show) you witnessed some of the meanest things I’ve ever seen on television. Not just Simon, but Paula and Randy as well. Several socially awkward guys tried out and were absolutely demolished by the judges. Not neccesarily because they were bad singers (they were) but because they were fat, or ugly, or just plain socially slow. This show is supposed to be (mostly) about singing. I understand that an “American Idol” probably needs to be somewhat attractive, which means in our culture, probably not obese and definitely some sort of proportional facial features, but the first couple episodes are purely about making fun of people. And I can’t handle it.

In the interest of full disclosure, I do make fun of people a lot. Its wrong. Its something I am trying to fix, and its difficult. But there’s a key difference in my making fun of someone in my head and American Idol specifically bringing in non talented, awkward people to Simon, Randy, and Paula.

“They’re not specifically brought in Justin, you idiot,” you might say. You would be wrong. Have you thought about how long it would take for those three to audition all 10,000 people that show up at each audition city?

 They can’t. They pick these bad people out of the crowd to humiliate them. Sure they signed contracts, relinquishing their rights, but I think its only a matter of time before someone kills themself and the Idol train flies off the tracks.

 Edit: Found my keys after an hour sitting at work. I’m an idiot.

The Weather Channel is owned by Ted Turner. Is it obvious?

If you think science is on your side, why do you feel the need to silence people who disagree with you? If they are a bunch of idiots, why do you have to shut them up? And a better question, why do you always need to mention the other guys funding from oil companies when your side gets as much or more funding from every anticapitalist group out there, the sierra club, and every other environmental group?

A man keeps a preteen boy in his home for 4 years, seperated from his parents….

A freak ice storm paralyses oklahoma…

The Iraq war wages on without an end in sight…

A parcel of land to be devoted to housing for the homeless is shot down by people with an irrational fear of those that don’t look like them….

 What are we to do?

 As much as we can, as often as we can.

When you see a homeless man on the street, talk to him. Don’t look at him (or her) as a project, someone to convert. Don’t talk about Jesus like he’s going to make this person not homeless anymore. Just be Jesus. Love the man, just as much as you love the friends that are around you. Shake his hand, ask his name, help him any way you can.

Make a conscious effort when you pass a hispanic family, not to think “illegal” but think “human being”.

When you watch the news and see troops dying…. love the people that killed them just as much as the troop wearing your flag on his arm.

 Love scandalously. Love despite what the law of the land says. Love despite what your peers might think. Just love unconditionally.