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Archive → February, 2013

Texas Oil & Gas Companies Gone Wild – Part 1

Imagine my disgust and fury when out with my son on our hunting camp the other day we discovered four fresh survey stakes with gobs of ribbons placed on our property. No one had permission to enter our heavily posted, heavily surveyed property that adjoins PA State Forest.
Yes, I had been in discussion with a Texas-based company to come and explore the property, but we had signed nothing and they were in the process of negotiating.
So, finding the four stakes, which marked planned drilling and blasting locations, strategically placed around the property, but far enough away from the cabin that we were less likely to find them, conjured up the worst stories we have heard and seen about rogue Texas oil companies that trample on private property rights.
Luckily, I wasn’t present when the “surveyors” trespassed on our property. Had I encountered them, I would have held them at gunpoint until the State Police arrived to cite them for trespass. And I can tell you from personal experience, confronting trespassers out in the woods is uncomfortable and potentially explosive. Unless the trespasser does everything the landowner legally demands, which is a lot, the potential for gun fire is extremely high. People who defiantly trespass are probably violent, too. So the landowner has to be aggressive and controlling, ready to defend himself at any second.
I contacted the company, and their representative told me that — no kidding — my boundary is wrong and he will be happy to have a surveyor come out and fix it.
I am not lying about this. He actually said that.
Our boundary with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has been surveyed by both my surveyors and the state’s surveyors, many times. It is clearly marked and has Posted No Trespassing signs along it, closely spaced so that no one can say they didn’t see them.
Interestingly, their stakes were conveniently placed so that they were least likely to be found. And whoever placed them had to walk past a bunch of big yellow Posted signs.
I am preparing the civil lawsuit and the criminal complaint as I write this, and hopefully the company will make good, so I don’t have to rub their thieving name in the dirt.
See, they stand to make a lot of money by finding out what is under my property, but they don’t want to work with me on it, so they tried to steal the information, instead.
And it is sad, because I love Texas.

School Safety TV Debate: Never Mind the Crazy Headline

Josh takes on gun prohibitionist CeaseFirePA and “Obama Cop” police chief Tom Hyers in this live broadcast TV debate from last week. Never mind the crazy anti-gun headline, dreamt up by some anti-Second Amendment activist…Cut and paste the link below:
http://video.witf.org/video/2335658815

Josh versus CeaseFirePA and Obama Cop

Josh versus CeaseFirePA and police chief Tom Hyers.
http://m.video.witf.org/video/2335658815/

Josh appearing on WITF tonight

Josh will be appearing as a guest on tonight’s live WITF Smart Talk TV program hosted by Nan McCormick Abom. On Channel 33-5 in the Harrisburg, the show runs from 8:00 pm to 9:00 pm and will take calls.

Will CeaseFirePA Join the Militia, Please?

“When the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually…. I ask, who are the militia. They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers. But I cannot say who will be the militia of the future day. If that paper on the table [the Constitution] gets no alteration, the militia of the future day may not consist of all classes, high and low, and rich and poor….”
–George Mason, Founder of America, 1788

Dedicated to Shira Goodman

“I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people except for a few public officials.”
–George Mason, Founder of America

“A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained in arms, is the best most natural defense of a free country.”
-James Madison, Founder of America

“For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.”
-Thomas Jefferson, Founder of America

“What, Sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty. Whenever governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins.”
-Elbridge Gerry, Founder of America, refused to sign the US Constitution because of the creation of a federal army

Take It From The Pro

Nothing like hearing from professionals on a subject.
Dr. Benjamin Carson at a prayer breakfast with Obama, speaking about health care. Carson is a neurosurgeon.

Patriot News Article on Eastern Outdoors Show Cancellation

“The British didn’t understand Americans in 1776, and they don’t understand us in 2013″…my favorite quote ever.
http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2013/02/assault_weapons_tactical_ban_b.html

Downton Abbey’s American Roots — Of Course

For the other Downton Abbey addicts and aficionados out there, here is an interesting article I enjoyed reading this morning. All about the family connection between the TV show Downton Abbey, the real Highclere Castle, and Wyoming, America. By the way, the state of Wyoming was named after Wyoming, Pennsylvania; it means “Great Grassy Plains” in the Delaware Indian language.

http://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/downton-abbey-close-to-wyoming-rancher-s-heart/article_11965d2e-5c28-11e2-8c45-0019bb2963f4.html

The Joe Paterno Empire Strikes Back

The family of late Penn State University football coach, icon, leader, and hero Joe Paterno has struck back at the “investigative” report by former US FBI director Louis Freeh.

Releasing an analysis of Freeh’s report that is similar to one posted on this blog last year (https://joshfirst.com/blog/2012/08/16/the-sandusky-disaster-kids-lose-penn-state-loses-ncaa-loses-theres-still-no-lesson-here/), the Paternos have taken an important step in regaining lost ground.

Lost ground was rapidly created by an uncritical press, willing to serve up maudlin caricatures of what may have happened around convicted child rapist Jerry Sandusky, rather than carefully scrutinize the facts and evidence we have in front of us, and then wait for the facts and evidence that we do not have but yet expect to see come out in the upcoming trials of Spanier, Curley, and Shultz.

A rush to judgment has never been so well documented, and then so well defended by a sea of armchair quarterbacks using 20/20 hindsight. Analyzing the comments on internet sites, like Forbes, ESPN, and any other reporting or opinion venue, you’d think that Joe Paterno was the real culprit, and not Sandusky.

Freeh’s report is as bad as a report can get. It is more representative of a Kremlin kangaroo court than the best America has to offer. After a career-start seven-year stint in Washington, DC, spent writing federal policy and law, my take on the Freeh report is that it is outrageously flawed.

Its worst defect is its use of wild conjecture (e.g. relying on hearsay in one email from Tim Curley to Graham Spanier and Gary Shultz about an unnamed “coach”). Nowhere does it say “While key facts are lacking or presently unknown, it is prudent to await casting judgment….” Rather, Freeh’s report is judge, jury, and executioner all at once, and it clearly aimed to destroy one person: Joe Paterno.

Importantly, Freeh’s report exonerated the sitting PSU trustees, most of whom had sat idly by and never challenged Spanier, even when one or two trustees began to ask him hard questions. Were those lazy trustees culpable? Why not?

Most important, Freeh was used by PSU and the NCAA to lower the standards bar, to decrease expectations in college football, rather than to elevate them. By arguing that Joe Paterno was deeply flawed and a hypocrite, Freeh made the classic morally relative argument that we are all pathetic losers, that there are no real heroes, that there are no really good men, and that no one should expect any to show up anytime soon.

Finally, if the PSU trustees fell down on the job and used the Freeh report to cover up their failings, one cannot escape the sense that at least some of the Paterno family members do not grasp the positive way that Joe Paterno is still viewed by many of us Nittany Nation members.

Last year, while communicating with one of the Paterno kids, I was struck by his inability or unwillingness to recognize the breadth of Joe’s legacy. That is, if Joe Paterno left a legacy, then it is beyond the family to solely claim, because it is carried by his believers. Joe’s legacy belongs to all of us, because he was representative of all of our values, hopes, and expectations, and our support is not about the family, but about the symbol that was Joe Paterno.

To that end, wouldn’t it be refreshing to see the family rally the troops, rather than look so deeply inward. Casting the Freeh report as a culture war attack on rare core values, rather than on a person, would more accurately frame this subject.

Unlike the vast majority of people with an opinion on this subject, I have actually read the Freeh report. It sucks. It is unprofessional. It is unworthy of Louis Freeh’s name, and it is unworthy of Penn State University’s name. It is nearly useless in understanding all of what happened with Jerry Sandusky, and how he continued to molest and rape little boys when some adults around him either suspected or had been told he was a pedophile. Shedding light on 33% of an issue raises more questions than it answers. Truth is not what was sought, but it is what is at stake. Bigger truths, like traditional core values that are under attack everywhere, suffer from this.

So, it is my hope that the Paterno family, and former governor and US Attorney General Dick Thornburgh, will continue their efforts, and also expand them to encompass the bigger picture. Good luck, folks, we are standing with you.