Michigan Militia Increases Tactical Training for 2008 Elections

The Michigan Militia has launched a 10-Week Project Contest in preparation for the 2008 elections. The group begins arrangements over concerns for public safety in the ten week period between the conclusion of the national elections and the proclamation of the president. The contest aims to get members and non-members involved in the preparation, training and planning for the potentially tumultuous time.

The 10-Week Project Contest calls for essays that detail the exact strategy to be undertaken by concerned citizens in the event of turmoil during the ten weeks before the president is officially sworn in. Preparations include the accumulation of food, first aid training, transportation and the preparation of gear. The essays required are persuasive in nature, asking contributors to delineate why they feel the need for these measures to be taken.

The Michigan Militia is a long standing organization based in Michigan that is composed of several smaller militia groups. The group has recently resurfaced and made its presence known on the Internet by having its own MySpace page, YouTube account and Facebook profile. Most of these were put up and are being managed by the subgroup called the Southeast Michigan Volunteer Militia.

There are monthly tactical training courses given by the Michigan Militia. Often these are held on the first Saturday of each month in Camp Stasa in Bancroft, Michigan. Members of the Michigan Militia train people in the handling of weapons, first aid and give them safety instructions.

Most of the Michigan Militia’s training focus on guns and weapons as well as combat training for different climates and terrain. They have regular activities which are open to the public and announced on their website and their profiles on social networking sites. Some of their most notable activities include the Snow Dog Winter Training and Survival Weekend as well as the Militia Field Day.

The Militia Field Day allows members and non-members to practice their target shooting using different caliber weapons. Children as young as 10 years old are taught to handle guns and practice target shooting. Contests are also held wherein the participants have to practice accurate and speed shooting.

The Michigan Militia prohibits the bringing of alcohol, illegal substances and weapons on the premises of any of their activities. The East Central Volunteers of Michigan and the Southeast Michigan Volunteer Militia facilitate most of their activities.

Originally called the Michigan Militia Corps, the group was originally established in 1994 and has enjoyed a rise in membership after the September 11 attack on the World Trade Buildings.

Black and White on Grey Matters: War

This is awesome. This guy is a great analyst, but he presents the data in an incredibly entertaining and compelling format. This guy rocks!

Black & White on the Grey Matters 2 (War)

Find more videos from Grey Matters here.

Australian Scientist Warns about Coming Ice Age

Phil Chapman is a geophysicist and astronautical engineer. Phil was the first Australian to become a NASA Astronaut. Phil’s worried about global cooling.

Phil documented his concerns and some of the reasoning behind them in Sorry to ruin the fun, but an ice age cometh, which was published earlier today in The Australian.

The article is a great read and is quite well documented:

All four agencies that track Earth’s temperature (the Hadley Climate Research Unit in Britain, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, the Christy group at the University of Alabama, and Remote Sensing Systems Inc in California) report that it cooled by about 0.7C in 2007. This is the fastest temperature change in the instrumental record and it puts us back where we were in 1930. If the temperature does not soon recover, we will have to conclude that global warming is over.

Why is this global cooling occurring? Sunspot activity. Sunspots follow an irregular 11 year pattern, but this time the pattern has fallen behind schedule. The last time this happened was in the 1790’s and it resulted in several decades of cool Summers and bitterly cold Winters.

But that’s not as bad as it could get. Phil also writes about the odds of our planet returning to a more historically “normal” climate:

The bleak truth is that, under normal conditions, most of North America and Europe are buried under about 1.5km of ice. This bitterly frigid climate is interrupted occasionally by brief warm interglacials, typically lasting less than 10,000 years.

The interglacial we have enjoyed throughout recorded human history, called the Holocene, began 11,000 years ago, so the ice is overdue. We also know that glaciation can occur quickly: the required decline in global temperature is about 12C and it can happen in 20 years.

The article is a good read and it’s great fun to send to your friends who are still worried about global warming.

What Kind of World Do You Want?

John Ondrasik and his band Five For Fighting have set up a great web project which they call What Kind of World Do You Want?

Thus far, the site has raised $328,281 for charities such as:

• Operation Homefront
• Augie’s Quest
• Autism Speaks
• Fisher House Foundation
• Save the Children

Unlike George Clooney’s fake Darfur charity, What Kind of World Do You Want gives approximately 90% of money donated to the listed charities.

The system works like this: Donors sponsor videos and agree to pay $1 for every view that the video receives.

The effort has attracted large donors such as Safeway, TriWest Healthcare Alliance, Houston Community Jewish Foundations, Specialty Financial Corp, and Precision Wire Products. The site has also attracted many donors who are able to give as little as $5.

Visit the site. Enjoy the great music videos from Five For Fighting. Consider donating to keep the project going.

The Human Rights Foundation

The Human Rights Foundation is a private foundation dedicated to improving human rights in the Americas.

The foundation defines these basic human rights to which all humans are entitled as:

• The right to speak freely
• The right to worship in the manner of their choice
• The right to freely associate with those of like mind
• The right to acquire and dispose of property
• The right to leave and enter their countries
• The right to equal treatment and due process under law
• The right to be able to participate in the government of their countries
• Freedom from arbitrary detainment or exile
• Freedom from slavery and torture
• Freedom from interference and coercion in matters of conscience

The foundations work currently focuses on the worst violators of human rights in the Americas: Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia.

Iran Teaches It’s Children to Hate

Discrimination and Intolerance in Iran’s Textbooks is a careful scholarly analysis of the teaching material which the Iranian regime is using to instill bigotry and hatred into it’s children from an early age.

The study was conducted by a team of native Farsi speakers, led by Dr. Saeed Paivandi.

This report is based on a detailed assessment of 95 compulsory school textbooks used by students in grades one to eleven.

According to the report, the Islamic government of Iran is teaching the country’s children to discriminate against women and minorities, to view non-Muslims with suspicion if not contempt, and to perpetuate the regime’s theocratic ideology.

With propaganda like this used as early as the first grade, it is not at all surprising that freedom and prosperity in Iran have been steadily declining since the violent 1979 takeover of the government by Islamist radicals.

We can only hope that the good men and women of Iran are, at home, teaching their children better values than hatred and martyrdom.

For more information on freedom in Iran, visit Freedom House’s Country Report on Iran.

Jeff Jamaleldine - American Hero

Spiegel Online recently published a fascinating article, An American GI from Berlin, on Jeff Jamaleldine - a real American hero.

Jeff was born in Berlin and even participated in anti-American demonstrations as a teenager. But as Jeff grew up he came to appreciate freedom and respect those who make it possible.

Jeff moved to the United States to attend school and in 2005 he joined the United States Army.

Jeff is happily married and have two sons, Aron and David. Jeff says “How can I say to my sons, stand up for something, fight for what you think is right, if I don’t do anything myself?”

Jeff has been shot in battle twice. The first time he was hit in the chest, but his bullet resistant vest stopped the round from penetrating. On the next occasion, Jeff was not so lucky. He was hit in the chin with a rifle round and nearly killed. His chin had to be surgically rebuilt — a long and painful process.

In addition to his service in the U.S. Army, Jeff donates 10% of his Army pay every month to UNICEF.

Jeff Jamaleldine is a real American hero.

Ron Paul Supports Totalitarianism

Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives voted on a resolution calling on Communist China to end its crackdown on Tibet and release thousands of Tibetans whom they had imprisoned for nonviolent political demonstrations.

The measure passed by a vote of 413 to 1.

The one dissenting vote was Congressman Ron Paul.

In the past, Congressman Paul also refused to condemn terror attacks against Israel.

One might come to the conclusion that Congressman Paul is simply against the American government supporting American outside of our strict borders.

However, this analysis fails completely when you consider that Paul voted to condemn terror attacks in Egypt and to tell the Romanian government how they should handle child welfare

What can we deduce from this bizarre voting pattern?

It appears that Ron Paul is completely fine with terrorists murdering Jews, but is opposed to terrorists murdering Egyptians.

It appears that Ron Paul is completely fine with telling Romanians how to raise their children, but is morally opposed to speaking up for the citizens of Tibet — whose country has been invaded and occupied by the brutal and totalitarian Chinese communists.

Ron Paul won’t speak a word to support freedom for the people of Tibet. This brings to mind a quote from Elie Wiesel:

There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.

And another from Dante Alighieri:

The hottest seats in hell are reserved for those who, in time of great moral crises, choose to do nothing.

Barack Obama on Guns

When the Independent Voters of Illinois (IVI) asked Barack Obama if he supported a “ban [on] the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns” — he responded “yes.”

On the Illinois State Legislative National Political Awareness Test, Obama wrote that he wanted to “ban the sale or transfer of all forms of semi-automatic weapons.”

Barack also personally told John Lott “I don’t believe that people should be able to own guns.”

In addition to all of these statements, Obama served as a board member for the Joyce Foundation, a virulently anti-freedom organization which funds front groups such as the Violence Policy Center (VPC) and Handgun Free America.

The Obama campaign is currently attempting to “spin” Obama’s previous statements to make him more acceptable to American voters. This involves both denying past statements and making new statements which directly conflict with past statements. Where I come from, we have a very clear term for such shenanigans: lying.

If Obama is elected, which Obama will rule as President? The Barack who has believed all his life that only the government should possess the right to self-defense, or the new Barack that his campaign has invented over the course of the last few months? Which Barack do you believe?

The Skeptic’s Annotated Qua’ran

I was looking for a Sura I remembered and Google introduced me to The Skeptic’s Annotated Qua’ran.

The site displays each sura of the Qua’ran, along with analytical study notes giving a plain-English analysis of important verses.

Verses are also marked with a useful legend highlighting specific attributes:

Injustice
Intolerance
Cruelty and Violence
Absurdities
Good Stuff
Women
Contradictions
Sex
Interpretations
Science and History
Family Values
Language
Homosexuality

For example, Sura 9:29:

9:29 Fight against such of those who have been given the Scripture as believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, and forbid not that which Allah hath forbidden by His messenger, and follow not the Religion of Truth, until they pay the tribute readily, being brought low.

Fight against Christians and Jews “until they pay the tribute (the Dhimmi) readily, being brought low.”

This web site also features The Skeptic’s Annotated Bible and The Skeptic’s Annotated Book of Mormon, so be ready for some equal-opportunity analysis.

I strongly encourage every American to read the Qua’ran.  Only by reading this book can we truly understand why modern day Muslims are murdering innocents across the globe.