Aimee meets Santa

So we've been with Greg's fam in so cal for Thanksgiving. Aimee loves being around all her cousins and aunts and uncles. She's going to be sad when we get back to Utah and it's just us again. I have TONS of pics to upload and a few stories to share. But for now, I'll just post this picture of Aimee meeting Santa. She just stared at him!! It was hilarious.

Some updates

It's been a while since I've posted anything. Not a ton of stuff is new (with me anyway). Aimee is over 5 months old now! She has reached some big milestones over the last few weeks. She is mastering the art of rolling. Within a few seconds of being put on her back she flips right over. She is also into grabbing whatever is in her reach. Mostly things she shouldn't have: camera, remote, cell phone, pens, my toothbrush, etc...

How do they know??? It's weird. 

I thought about writing more, but Aimee's crying. I'll eventually get around to it. 

America, a unique experiment.

Our culture is being fundamentally altered to reflect the top down regimes you can find anywhere in the world from South America to Asia to Africa to Europe. It is only in America that we revere the idea that government derives its power by consent of the people. We, the people, allow the government to do certain things. One of the greatest dangers of illegal immigration and legal immigration for that matter is the legal sponsorship of the mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, in-laws of each immigrant. Conservative estimates of family members that enter the country under sponsorship of an immigrant puts the number at 19. Now one of the greatest pressures on the newly enforced liberal congress is to pass an amnesty bill. This is frightening because Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham are in the pocket of the illegal amnesty hordes.

We cannot fault those who come into this country legally or illegally. Who could blame them? The greatest problem beside the unsustainable numbers is that those entering are not being assimilated to the aforementioned idea of freedom unique to the United States. Quite to the contrary, democrats and liberal republicans like McCain and George W Bush dangle the carrots of government incentive in front of these people as well as our other citizens.

Just as an example, the health care reform bills are talking about 47 million uninsured people in the country. These are not all citizens, many are illegal immigrants. What will happen to our borders when we start to guarantee the most sophisticated health care in the world for free to anyone who happens to be here? As someone who has experienced health care on three different continents, I can tell you that that is almost incentive enough to do anything it takes to get here.

Those who enter this country, and those who live here already for that matter, must understand that the reason people immigrate to, flee to, and escape to the United States is because of the liberties that they cannot get anywhere else in the world. These liberties are established and maintained only by virtue of our system of government run by the constraints of a wholly inspired Constitutional document. The more we change that document and the system of government, the fewer liberties and opportunities we will enjoy.

President elect Obama has expressed his views that the Constitution is a flawed document, that the courts need to examine redistribution of wealth (not in the Constitution), and has compared the ideologies of WWII United States with those of the 3rd Reich. How can this man fulfill the obligation of the president which is faithfully uphold the office of the president and to the best of his ability "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution"? He has in the past criticized the Supreme court for refusing to "break free from the essential constraints placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution".

The president elect, Congress, and the people who voted for these people are either too ill informed, or too dumb (or maybe they just don't care) that the very things that give them freedom to live their lives as they choose are being eroded by the people that they continually place into office. There are plenty of republicans who participate in this great tragedy. If we do not return to the things that make this country free, we will soon find that our experiment failed, not because it was flawed, but because the people chose to trade liberty for government constraint.

Cool website for editorisl cartoons

Aimee and the Mirror

So, finally a blog not about Greg's political rantings! :) 

Here is a fun video of Aimee kissing the baby in the mirror. Enjoy.

Most amazing declaration of conservatism I have ever heard.

Friends,

I was reading some of the works of Ronald Reagan and came across this speech from 1964 that he gave during the campaign to elect Barry Goldwater. It has been a long time since I have been so inspired. I was amazed that a speech given almost half a century ago could be so relevant today. I am posting the link here and would highly encourage you to read the transcript in its entirety. Better yet, there is video of the speech on YouTube here and Google Video here. No wonder Reagan won his elections in historically large fashions. This is a true conservative. In the most recent elections the GOP, not the conservative movement, was given a drubbing. This has produced some great purges in house and senate leadership, making way for a new wave of highly committed conservatives. The GOP chair will be up for grabs between Michael Steele and Newt Gingrich. The GOP would be fortunate to have either. Fred Thompson is also considering a senior chair position in the party. Let's get Jeff Flake (AZ) and Duncan Hunter (CA) in the mix and pave the way for a return to what gave this country the longest period of peace and economic prosperity we ever experienced. We will have a great opportunity to get large gains in Congress in four years, perhaps even two as president elect Obama will not be able to make good on his claims of health care reform or withdrawing from Iraq. We will probably even get gains knowing that if he makes good on his pseudo tax cuts then jobs will be lost and the American dollar will tank in value. If he does not make good people will know that he is your typical politician with no more intent to keep his promises than Jimmy Carter. This makes the path for a Sarah Palin, or Bobby Jindal, or Mitt Romney more likely. Yes I know I left out Huckabee, remember, I am for conservatism, not Machiavelli in stetson.

Free Speech Threatened by Democrat Controlled Government

I hate hearing on the news and from many political pundits that the election is over and that we have to get behind president elect Barack Obama. I think this is the stupidest thing that I have ever heard. For the last 7 years we have heard nothing but vitriol toward President Bush (much of it deserved) and none of the main stream outlets advocated a united approach then. Barack Obama is not and has never been a centrist. He is a radical leftist with an atrociously liberal voting record (that is when he had the guts to vote something other than present). I defy anyone to claim that this is an historic gesture proving that race is not an issue in this country anymore. Aside from the losers and bigots for whom race will always be an issue, we have had nothing to prove for a good number of years. The issue was a radical political agenda. There are some who are genuinely happy about the election results because of race, but the main stream media uses that as an outright lie to mask why they are happy. That is because they can expect a far left of center agenda like they have been pushing for years. If there was a referendum on race it would have come out during the disgusting proceedings surrounding Justice Clarence Thomas, or during the election involving Maryland Lt. Governor Michael Steele. The MSM literally dismantled the reputation of these great black men because of their political ideologies. The liberals had nothing but contempt toward Colin Powell before he became a useful idiot to the democrats this election cycle. I feel it unfortunate that an American hero like general Powell caved to the empty and mindless rhetoric constructed by the Obama campaign.
Now the most egregious desires of the liberals are coming to light. The suppression of free speech is quite visible on the horizon. To be fair the sub par candidate forced upon us by the republican machine is a major contributor to the silencing of political debate vis a vis the McCain-Feingold Act. The first amendment to the Constitution states that, "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech." And yet we have law after law after law abridging freedom of speech. Now, not all speech is protected. Pornography and speech that results in the direct harm of others is not protected. What is expressly protected is political speech. Buckley v. Valeo is probably the most clear example of this. Now the most intellectually lazy members of congress including Charles Schumer (NY) and Diane Feinstein (CA) are running their collectively stupid mouths about the return of the Fairness Doctrine. Schumer, the idiot that he is, compared conservative talk radio to on air pornography. The most incompetent speaker of the house of all time, Nancy Pelosi, said about conservative talk radio that people are often mobilized with too little information. Well if that isn't the mantra of Obama's campaign, I don't know what is.
Here is the fact of the matter. The Fairness Doctrine is a blatant attempt to limit the amount of political discourse in this country. NPR, which is federally funded, is a notorious leftist station. Air America, the failed experiment of liberal democrats, had the funding to run, but no market. Air waves do not belong to the government. The mere fact that they issue licensing has no bearing on our right to express political speech and go to fora where we can hear it. If anyone tells you the Fairness Doctrine has any semblance of legality or constitutionality they are either unencumbered with intelligence, actively ignorant, or in pursuit of control over the free flow of political discourse and information. All are scary propositions, and all are advocated by most of Barack Obama's cabinet appointees. Govern from the center? America would have to be stupid to believe that. Of course, Obama is the president elect.

This morning

This is what we woke up to. I would say that "winter has arrived" but it all melted this afternoon! It is definitely cold though. To all of you in warmer climates - I am jealous!

Happy Halloween!

Well everyone, Aimee's costume was a success! I was quite pleased with the end result. Here are some pics we took the day before Halloween (good thing too, because it was kind of rainy for the real deal).

(notice my death grip on her arm)

On Halloween night we took her up to our ward's trunk or treat. She was SO excited when we got there. She started kicking her legs, ooing, and smiling. She absolutely loves to watch kids and be around people. Towards the end, I think it was sensory overload. She was a really good sport about the whole thing though. I'm glad we took her, she had a good time and we got out of the house for a while.