Freedom Lives

September 30, 2008

Happy New Year

Happy 5769

Posted by Starhawk at 08:41 AM | Misc. | Comments (0)

September 28, 2008

little by little

Made some progress yesterday.
sawed , burned and then repeat.

Our front garden and the pathway to my front door are now free, YAY.

Pictures later today, between more burning.

Posted by Starhawk at 07:57 AM | Ike | Comments (0)

September 27, 2008

The Sounds of Texas

We were out early today starting a fire to burn more of our beatiful oaks,

In the distance you could hear the sounds of the early morning in every direction, chainsaws everywhere.

Our own chainsaw guy arrived a little bit later.

Posted by Starhawk at 10:11 AM | Ike | Comments (0)

Fema man comes by

A man from Fema came by after work Friday.
He was very professional.
Walked around the yard and looked at the roof and all the downed trees.
Went inside and measured where we pulled up the carpet.
Took our information including Insurance and said they would get back to us.
Pretty much like the Insurance guy did last Sunday.
Now we have to wait and see.
Latest quote on tree removal is $11,000,

Posted by Starhawk at 05:53 AM | Ike | Comments (0)

September 21, 2008

Defensive Driving

Spent from 8:30 to 3:30 at a defensive driving course so I could get the ticket I got last month for speeding dismissed.

Hate to spend Sunday like that but I guess it was worth it.

Posted by Starhawk at 09:30 PM | Misc. | Comments (0)

No gas problems here

People in Nashville seem to be having gas problem according to Glenn

We had gas lines earlier in the week and a lot of stations were closed but we seem past that.
I filled up at the HEB station today with no wait and the wife did the same at the station outside of Walmart.

Posted by Starhawk at 09:08 PM | Ike | Comments (0)

September 20, 2008

More Ike Updates

DR. MELISSA CLOUTHIER has been doing some posts about Ike.
she lives in the Woodlands.
I live abour 4 miles from the west side of the Woodlands so our area are very much alike.

Read abut it here and here.

Posted by Starhawk at 01:37 PM | Ike | Comments (0)

A Little progress

We got the people here today to get the tree off the house finally. Wow do they charge a ton of emergency removal. There goes my deductable plus some.

Need to get the roof fixed still.

Been burning leaves and oak parts in the yard all morning.

Posted by Starhawk at 01:14 PM | Ike | Comments (0)

Dems threaten Jewish nonprofits

Even more from the anti-iran debacle.
According to this post on Merryl's site the Dems threatened their tax-exempt status.

The groups sponsoring the rally against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaking at the UN were reportedly told, “it could jeopardize their tax exempt status” if they had Palin and not Clinton or Democratic VP candidate Joe Biden on hand.
Posted by Starhawk at 10:30 AM | War on Terror | Comments (0)

More on anti-Iran Rally

Why am I putting more space to this issue? Because it is important. It shows the type of pettiness that is going to get a lot of people killed if we don't stop it and get together as americans.

This ia aquote from Sarah Pallin


"This should be an issue that unites all Americans. Iran should not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons, period," Palin said. "Unfortunately, some Democrat partisans put politics first and now no elected official can appear. This should not be a matter of partisan politics."

Damn right.

And what do the wussies say in response. Well their publicist says

In order to keep the focus on Iranian threats and to ensure that this critical message not be obscured, the organizers of the rally have decided not to have any American political personalities appear

Funny they didn't have a problem when sen. clinton was going to appear.
Some of our worse enemies are those that are already here.

Posted by Starhawk at 07:23 AM | War on Terror | Comments (0)

Yes this is part of the War

I am talking about the disgraceful disinvitation of Sarah Pallin to the anti-Ahmadinejad rally. These people are so politically paritsan they they would rather see the country go down the tubes than have Sarah do anti-thing that might save it.

Cute but true comment from the Volokh Conspiracy:


A reader comments: What's the difference between [Malcolm] Hoenlein [who invited Palin, and then disinvited her under pressure from Democratic activists] and Ahmadinejad?

Ahmadinejad isn't intimidated by the Democrats.

Posted by Starhawk at 07:18 AM | War on Terror | Comments (0)

September 19, 2008

Undefended city

New from Bill Whittle

Against all of that stand these two.

No wonder they must be destroyed. Because — Sarah Palin especially — presents a mortal threat to these people who have determined over cocktails who the next President should be and who now clearly mean to grind into metal shards the transaxle of their credibility in order to get the result they must have. Truly, they are before our eyes destroying the machine they have built in order to get their victory. What the hell is so threatening to be worth that?

Only this: the living proof that they are not needed. Not needed to govern, not needed to influence and guide, not needed to lecture us on our intellectual and moral failings which are visible only from the heights of Manhattan skyscrapers or the palaces up on Mulholland Drive. Not needed. We can do it — and do it better — without all of them.

As with all of Bill's stuff read the whole thing

Posted by Starhawk at 06:11 PM | Other Bloggers | Comments (0)

Politics of Wind

I just got a call from a Telemarketer working for T. Boone wanting me to call my congressman in support of T.B.P.'s wind farm scam. I did call me congressman and informed his office of the call and that I thought it was a scam and that I wanted him to oppose this bid by Boone to become even wealthier from the taxpayers hard earned money.

Posted by Starhawk at 03:56 PM | Politics | Comments (0)

Talk Like a pirate day

Once again it is Sept. 19 which is Talk like a pirate day!

Avast, me hearties!

Posted by Starhawk at 10:58 AM | Misc. | Comments (0)

September 18, 2008

Advice for Gov. Pallin

When you get asked about Foreign Policy experience don't shy away, you have nothing to be sorry for. What is important is not how many leaders you know the names of.

the most important quality is having a clear understanding of America's place in the world and a vision of how we can create a better world for every one.

The American dream is why people still come here in droves and not china or Russia or even France. Make the US as good as it can be and the world will follow our lead.

Posted by Starhawk at 05:47 PM | Politics | Comments (0)

Serves me right

Just when things were going well I lost phone service and internet again.
Sending this from the local Denny's which has wifi.

Got to love this country, get to work remotely, eat lunch and even smoke a cig. at the same time.

Posted by Starhawk at 11:52 AM | Ike | Comments (0)

Trump Endores McCain

Not that this is a big deal or anything but I was stuck by this snippet from the Larry King show.

TRUMP: I'm endorsing McCain. I am basically very strongly — you have to understand: I've known him. I like him, I respect him.

KING: So you're endorsing him?

Well yes Larry he just said that. I would be the last to suggest that Larry's hearing is going so perhaps he was just in total shock at this point.

It continues.


TRUMP: I think he's going to be a great president.

KING: So you're endorsing him.


Duh! Larry must be in shock or else like bettlejuice he needs to have the Donald say it three times.

TRUMP: Sure, I'll endorse him on your show.

KING: You just endorsed him.

TRUMP: I endorse him.

Finally King gets it. The fact that he was regarded as the "King" of talk for so long just shows how thin the field was back then when CNN had things all to itself.

Posted by Starhawk at 08:37 AM | Politics | Comments (0)

Houston TechFest 2008

We are going to reschedule the Houston TechFest which was supposed to happen last saturday but was Iked.

We can not get a date until Jan 24th however. Since I would still like to have one in Sept. 2009 we are still going to call this Houston Techfest 2008, especially since I had the programs and shirts already printed.

Go the the web site for more information as it happens. We should be able to have at least the same number of sessions (60+) as we were going to have last week and we will try to do other stuff to make it even better.

Posted by Starhawk at 08:13 AM | Houston | Comments (0)

Getting back on the Horse

Either because of Ike or the election it looks like I am posting more once again.

Looking around I am dismayed at how much clean up I have to do.

I no longer have an annex since EV1 went bye bye and I will have to find a new place for all those sound files. It may be that I do it next month when I go to Europe (my first trip) or maybe not depending on how much of a distraction I find France.

I will post some Ike pix to Flickr soon and put the links here.

Posted by Starhawk at 07:54 AM | Housekeeping | Comments (0)

Last nights

I noticed that we all went to bed earlier when the power was off.

Today we hopefully get the tree off the house and I have to burn a lot of fallen oak .

The BW is very upset. Losing 8 old oaks is something wee can't fix in out lifetime even if we lived another 100 years.

Posted by Starhawk at 07:47 AM | Ike | Comments (0)

McCain Blogs

I have added the McCain Blogs logo to the sidebar and urge everyone to vote for him.
This is a very important election, actually every one is, but I am not happy that Obama will take the country in a good direction if he is elected.

Posted by Starhawk at 07:40 AM | Politics | Comments (0)

Livni wins in Israel

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni won the Kadima Party's primary election Wednesday. She could become the first female leader of the nation in 34 years.

The Kadima party was founded by Ariel Sharon who in case you are interested is still alive though he is in a coma. I am not sure where Sharon is on the list of people who have hung on but he is probably gaining on Franco if he has not already beaten him.

Posted by Starhawk at 06:55 AM | The World | Comments (0)

September 17, 2008

Let there be light

We have power!!!!!!

Yay!!!!

Posted by Starhawk at 02:10 PM | Ike | Comments (0)

September 16, 2008

Ike aftermath

Well we ended up getting pretty battered early Saturday morning. About 10 big old oaks are now laying on the ground. One punched a hole in my roof and another is laying on the power lines.
We are all ok and that is what counts even though this is going to screw up my budget for a long time to come.

There are worse things.

Power is still off but I got the generator working finally, just got DSL back, which is why I am able to send this.

Gaslines lines are awful, as soon as someplace has gas cars lines up and they all have gas cans to fill.

I got smart and filled up Friday and this morning I was able to find a place where I only had to wait 30 minutes to fill up.

The day after only Walmart was open and had power. Yesterday Denny's got power and opened up so I took the family out to dinner.


I will post some pictures in a week or so when things get back to normal.

Posted by Starhawk at 10:29 PM | Ike | Comments (0)

September 13, 2008

Very interesting

Dr. Melissa who is about 9 or 10 miles from me sort of eastward is getting a lot of high winds.
It is starting to rain now here and the wind is picking up.

Posted by Starhawk at 12:37 AM | Ike | Comments (0)

ho hum

Still nothing but we expect the rain to start shortly.

Posted by Starhawk at 12:22 AM | Ike | Comments (0)

September 12, 2008

8 oclock and all is well

Nothing much ahppeneing yet though the wind is starting to pink up.
I cleaned out the yard of most of what couldn't be tied down and discovered that my garage door was broken.
Just one of those days.

Posted by Starhawk at 08:04 PM | Ike | Comments (0)

In Ike's Path

Well we thought it was going to miss us but now it looks certain it is on its way.
Still sunny and 85 but already the wind is picking up.
My place closed early and so did the wife's.

Nothing much to do but wait it out now.

Posted by Starhawk at 12:04 PM | Ike | Comments (0)

September 06, 2008

Palin Power

While I was not surprised at her speech I still thought it was awesome.
Why was I not surprised?

Come on, she beat a sitting governor in the primary and then did the same to a two time former governor in the general, that told me and anyone who really thought about it that there was something special about our next vice president.

Unless I miss my guess she is headed for the top slot as our first woman President and I don't think Hillary or anyone else is going to stop her.

From here she just will get better.

Posted by Starhawk at 11:46 AM | Politics | Comments (0)