Constitutional Freedom

“The Boston Tea Party was a direct action protest by colonists in Boston, a town in the British colony of Massachusetts, against the British government. On December 16, 1773, after officials in Boston refused to return three shiploads of taxed tea to Britain, a group of colonists boarded the ships and destroyed the tea by throwing it into Boston Harbor. The incident remains an iconic event of American history, and has often been referenced in other political protests.” - Wikipedia

I love to fly.  I even enjoy going to the airport just to see the airplanes take off.  Airplanes are amazing engineering feats.  They take us safely, thousands of miles and manage to arrive within minutes of their planned time.  Airplanes rely on global navigation systems to determine the direction and speed they need to go, to accomplish this amazing task.  However, pilots and airplanes make mistakes, for example:

“In 1979 a large passenger jet with 257 people on board left New Zealand for a sightseeing flight to Antarctica and back. Unknown to the pilots, however, someone had modified the flight coordinates by a mere two degrees. This error placed the aircraft 28 miles (45 km) to the east of where the pilots assumed they were. As they approached Antarctica, the pilots descended to a lower altitude to give the passengers a better look at the landscape. Although both were experienced pilots, neither had made this particular flight before, and they had no way of knowing that the incorrect coordinates had placed them directly in the path of Mount Erebus, an active volcano that rises from the frozen landscape to a height of more than 12,000 feet (3,700 m).

As the pilots flew onward, the white of the snow and ice covering the volcano blended with the white of the clouds above, making it appear as though they were flying over flat ground. By the time the instruments sounded the warning that the ground was rising fast toward them, it was too late. The airplane crashed into the side of the volcano, killing everyone on board.” See Source

Just a few degrees altered the fate of all of those on board of this flight.  Truly this was an historic tragedy for New Zealand and a powerful lesson to us all.

Over the last 200 years, events have occurred in our nation that have altered the course of history a few degrees this way and that way.  Some of these changes have led to great improvement in the way of life for so many citizens.  Some have led to tragedy and death.

The tea parties set for tomorrow April 15 might be one of those events.  If you would like to learn more about these tea parties go to http://www.teapartyday.com/

From The Political and Financial Markets Commentator

The Obama Administration Has Faced Its First Test And Failed

I have been talking about this announced North Korean missile test ad infinitum, and it has now taken place. The North Koreans, in the face of international demands not to fire this missile test/satellite, have done it anyway. The Obama administration has come out over the past few weeks saying that the test should not be done as it is in direct violation of specific U.N. resolutions. I suppose that North Korea was not impressed by that argument.

In the same way that countries like Iran will not abide by any resolutions from this anemic body, neither will North Korea. If the U.N. is to be the basis for our foreign policy actions and decisions, we are in trouble. Face to face talks and signed treaties are all great as well if it comes to that, but the overriding problem is that despite any public relations benefits these talks may have, you still need both parties to any agreements to follow them. And we all know that is not the case.

In any event, here are some excerpts from the President and the State Department concerning this missile firing:

President Barack Obama said North Korea should refrain from further provocative actions after that nation’s government made good on their promise to launch a long-range rocket.

The president’s statement came from Prague, the Czech Republic, where the president was to make a speech Sunday on nuclear proliferation.

The United States will take “appropriate steps to let North Korea know that it cannot threaten the safety and security of other countries with impunity,” said State Department spokesman Fred Lash.

Rep. Howard Berman, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the launch would raise tensions unnecessarily.

“It is alarming that North Korea carried out this missile launch in direct defiance of the international community,” said the California Democrat. “The test is an unnecessary provocation that raises tensions in the region, and I urge the North Koreans to stop using their missile and WMD programs to threaten their neighbors and the rest of the world.”(Daily News)

We hopefully have some more tricks up our sleeves than just rhetoric.