-Your Host, Mark Blackburn

Ainsley, Xander, Makayla

My 3 favorite kids on Earth!

"I cannot comprehend how any man can want anything but the truth."   -  Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

Quotable: 

I refuse to believe corporations are people until Texas executes one!  -  democracyisforpeople.org

"If we make peaceful revolution impossible, we make violent revolution inevitable." -- John F. Kennedy

"A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people."   John F. Kennedy   // My take:  perhaps Julian Assange & Wikileaks should be commended for sharing the truth about the questionable activities of our government,   not condemned as a traitor.  He may be the "Superman" of the 2000s fighting for TRUTH, JUSTICE, and the AMERICAN WAY.  Senator Feinstein of CA says he is a traitor and should be tried for espionage.   Yet, Congressman Ron Paul said, "We need more Wikileaks!" 

"I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution or that have failed their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is "needed" before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents "interests, " I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can."  --- Senator Barry Goldwater in his Presidential Campaign Bid in 1964.  (Today, you will NEVER hear such concern for liberty from our corrupt single party duality.  You WILL hear it from the Libertarians, however, and certain other independents.  Friends tell me I'm crazy for voting Libertarian.  I think people are crazy for voting for Democrats or Republicans).

"You know the world's gone mad when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, the tallest guy in the NBA is Chinese, the Swiss hold the America's Cup, France is accusing the USA of arrogance and the Germans don't want to go to war!"  - Comedian Chris Rock

The leading cause of death for Americans under the age of 45 is going to the doctor" -US Dept of Health - December, 1999  (Related Article)

In spite of government programs to make us all wealthy and protect us from every calamity, the average US family is less than 90 days away from financial failure in the event of a job loss.  Is the low savings rate a reaction to or a consequence of  the government's  illusory 'safety net?' 

"The weather is HERE, wish you were BEAUTIFUL!"  Jimmy Buffet

All truth goes through three stages. First it is ridiculed.  Then it is violently opposed. Finally it is accepted as self evident. --  This gives me hope!

"Everything that can be invented has been invented." --Charles Duell, Commissioner of the U.S. Patent Office, advising President McKinley to close that office in 1899.
"Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it." -- George Bernard Shaw

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken

If God had intended men to go to sea in fiberglass boats, he would have planted fiberglass trees.  --unknown

 “Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.”  William Feather

"A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government...." Thomas Jefferson First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801

“What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.”  Thomas Paine

“Better to be wise by the misfortune of others than by your own.”  Aesop

When a Man talks Dirty to a Woman - It's Sexual Harassment. When a woman talks Dirty to a Man - It's $ 2.99 per minute.

"I think legislative assaults on motorcyclists are totally emotionally, disproportionate and totally unfair....they're instigated and implemented by people who know nothing about motorcycling, but have a prejudice.  It's easy to curb the freedoms of others when you see no immediate impact on your own." --Malcolm Forbes, Sr.

"It is not the function of the government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error." - U.S. Supreme Court

TIME Quote of the year:  "No Viet Cong ever called me nigger"
Muhammid Ali commenting on his principled, heroic refusing of his draft selection - April 30, 1967

As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler: solitude will be not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty nor weakness weakness"  - Henry David Thoreau

"This country is a one-party country. Half of it is called Republican and half is called Democrat. It doesn't make any difference. All the really good ideas belong to the Libertarians."
-- Hugh Downs

"News is what someone wants to supress.  Everything else is just advertising."   Reuven Frank, former President of NBC NEWS.

"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
       --George Orwell

To the eternal chagrin of politicians and the press, most Americans pay little attention to politics and even less attention to government. To most, government is like the weather: omnipresent, uncontrollable, potentially
annoying and not infrequently threatening. It can indeed prove an interesting spectacle, but, like the Weather Channel, it's an acquired taste. - Jerry Taylor, Cato Institute

“The only thing that saves us from bureaucracy is its inefficiency.”  Eugene McCarthy

“The United States is a nation of laws:  Badly written and randomly enforced.”  Frank Zappa

"Freedom is the societal condition that exists when every individual has full (i.e. 100%) control over his own property." A. J. Galambos

"Son, when you grow up you will know who I really am. I am just a child like you who has been forced to act responsibly." -Rod Byrnes

"Sir, if you were my husband, I would poison your drink." --Lady Astor to Winston Churchill 

"Madam, if you were my wife, I would drink it!" --Churchill's reply

"By a continuous process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. The process engages all of the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner that not one man in a million can diagnose."  John Maynard Keynes, 1920

When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.  When the government fears the people, there is LIBERTY.  -- Thomas Jefferson

Mark's Recommended Books on Health & Diet

Spring 2011 I particiapted in the Toastmaster's International Speech Contest winning my local club, area, and division contests to become one of 8 finalists in the Hawaii State Speech Championships.    In 2012 I was one of 8 finalists in the impromptu "table topics" contest.  I have met some truly fantastic friends through Toastmasters, and have really benefitted from my participation

Sailing along on San Francisco Bay