Honoring an Astronaut - First Man on the Moon

Washington: Historic misquote? Neil Armstrong's famous quote "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" uttered by the American astronaut after becoming the first person to land on the Moon in 1969 had a small error, according to a new study. Many listeners think he left out the "a".  However, as Armstrong himself pointed out many times, the sentence is meaningful only if he says, "That's one small step for "a" man  ...one giant leap for mankind." - as he lowered his foot from the lunar module to the surface of the Moon, otherwise, there is no distinction between a single individual and all of humanity.

The researchers have taken a novel approach to deciphering Armstrong's quote by studyingOne Small Step For A Man how speakers from his native central Ohio pronounce "for" and "for a" and results suggest that it is entirely possible that Armstrong said what he claimed, though evidence indicates that people are statistically more likely to hear "for man" instead of "for a man" on the recording ...and this is the true factoid!

Many quotes and tales labeled "unattributed" or "unconfirmed" are disregarded as worthless rumours, better some should be credited instead to "anon".  Deservedly so, ones always worth retelling should be elevated to loftier heights such as folklore, tales, urban legends or mythologies. The following story has no doubt travelled many more miles via the internet than Armstrong's two-way moon trip:

On July 20, 1969, commander of the Apollo 11 Lunar Module, Neil Armstrong was the first person to set foot on the moon. His first words after stepping on the moon, "That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind", were televised to Earth and heard by millions. But just before he re-entered the lander, he made the enigmatic remark: "Good luck, Mr. Gorsky." Many people at NASA thought it was a casual remark concerning some rival Soviet Cosmonaut. However, upon checking, there was no Gorsky in either the Russian or American space programs.

Over the years many people questioned Armstrong as to what the "Good luck Mr. Gorsky" statement meant, but Armstrong always just smiled. On July 5, 1995, in Tampa Bay, Florida, while answering questions following a speech, a reporter brought up the 26 year old question to Armstrong. This time he finally responded. Mr. Gorsky had died and so Neil Armstrong felt he could answer the question.

In 1938 when he was a kid in a small Midwest town, he was playing baseball with a friend in the backyard. His friend hit a fly ball, which landed in his neighbor’s yard by the bedroom windows. His neighbors were Mr. and Mrs. Gorsky.

As he leaned down to pick up the ball, young Armstrong heard Mrs. Gorsky shouting at Mr. Gorsky. "Sex! You want sex?! You’ll get sex when the kid next door walks on the moon!"

On November 28, 1995, Neil Armstrong wrote, "I understand that the joke is a year old. I first heard it in California delivered by (comedian) Buddy Hackett." Although Armstrong himself debunked this story, it is still worth retelling - after all, that's how lunar legends live on beyond the moon forever. 

National Security Agency - Truman's Legacy

In June 1952, President Harry Truman (that would be president number 33, the same guy who authorized the only nuclear weapons releases during wartime) signed a secret order that formed the National Security Agency, NSA, which in and of itself was an outgrowth of the Armed Forces Security Agency (AFSA), formed in 1949, which was to coordinate the communications and electronic intelligence activities of all the US military intelligence units.

The formation of the NSA under Harry Truman took this a step even further to a national level, and extended its reach beyond the armed forces into the civilian population.

The mission of the NSA, by US law, is limited to monitoring foreign communications, whether it is electronic intelligence (ELINT) or signal intelligence (SIGINT). The CIA, by comparison, mainly acts on human intelligence gathering (HUMINT), and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) primarily uses satellite space imaging as their main assets.

So, while the NSA's legal charter limits them to foreign communications, in reality, foreign combatants (terrorist organizations and state-sponsored entities) will have used US-based systems to conduct their operations. The US Patriot Act has made NSA wiretapping on US soil something of a gray area, particularly now that the NSA, the CIA, and the FBI freely exchange information with each other in the interests of national security.

NSA started with radio transmissions and analogue telephone signals as the world went digital.  It wiretaps the internet. PRISM simply extends that wiretapping to not just the traffic moving across the "pipes," but now, presumably, directly into the databases of the providers hosting the most widely-used applications and services in the cloud which include intrusive private emails and online activities.

If these new technologies were not available, would we have got "Geronimo" on Zero Dark Thirty? It's difficult to say, but easy to assume that they certainly didn't hinder surveillance activities either. Many say they're happier and will sleep better at night knowing that the NSA and our executive branch have these tools at their disposal.

The times have and are ever-changing rapidly with morphing technologies' advances. I must add that, first and foremost, our Constitutional rights must be constantly updated to include them as we utilize these newer weapons in our terrorist espionage arsenal.

Therefore, the law of the Patriot Act must be revisited for defining search warrants to prevent unspecified dragnets and random fishing expeditions trawling unfettered for criminal activities everywhere. The way the warrants are written or rewritten under collabortive judicial oversight and filed in the courts determine how judges develop opinions for jurisdiction and decide whether they are to be classified or non-classified cases.

At issue against FISA courts is their clandestine legal process that is not adversarial since it only requires the filing agency and the judge and it is at the judge's option to include or not a third party representing the defendants. Under this FISA court system an individual does not necessarily have any "legal standing" to even file an action or "constitutional recourse" to reverse actions or seek civil satisfaction in any Federal court of law.

To then balance fairness, FISA courts should include an outside, independent ombudsman representing the rights of citizens in challenging all authorities about warrants being filed or after proceeding as a conduit to seek entry into a court to hear an individual's civil rights case seeking protection and remedy under Federal law statutes. 

The Executive branch of government has usurped tremendous powers beyond its Constitutional laws and now Obama's own actions have proved out how this political abuse does happen. The Patriot Act itself must be reined in now on how this law of the land has been distorted and administered by the current President using Homeland Security.

Shrine of the Times - Mt. Rushmore

A show on MSNBC was debating whether or not Barack Obama should be on Mount Rushmore is like a bunch of fat kids debating whether or not to eat cake - Just dispense with the formalities and start carving already.

It was announced today that some people are pushing to add Obama's head up onto the Keystone National Park, SD monument at Mt. Rushmore.

Imagine and picture the exploded head of Barak Obama included along with Ferdinand Marcos, and the Great Sphinx of Giza. (The other two are missing noses, ears and teeth.)  After Obama gets done fighting in his last term in office, he just might look like them too.

Reality check: There is not enough room on Mt. Rushmore for another sculpted head. Besides, only dead Presidents appear on currency and monuments. 

Ego & Effigies - The Test of Time

The stone head Ferdinand Marcos constructed of steel rebar and concrete was built on the side of Mt. Pugo, a mountain in La Union Province north of Manilla, Philippines to honor his Mt. Rushmore-like ego. It crumbled from neglect, graffiti and vandalism since his 1986 ouster.

BeforeAfter - 25 years later

Ferdinand Marcos, a lawyer, a member of the Philippine House of Representatives (1949-59) and the Philippine Senate (1959-65), Ferdinand Marcos became the president of the Philippines in 1966, a post he held until 1986, when his people rose up against his bloody, corrupt, twenty year dictatorial rule and he fled. Marcos, his family and his associates had embezzled billions of dollars from the Philippine economy through various corrupt practices: cronyism, nepotism, pay-offs, bribes, embezzlement, complicit politicians, imprisonment, murder and executions.

Obama's Taxing Problem - 501C4 Scandal

"The power to tax is the power to destroy."

This quotation comes from the words of DANIEL WEBSTER and those of JOHN MARSHALL in the Supreme Court case, McCulloch v. Maryland, 1819 Supreme Court ruling.

Statesman Daniel Webster, (1782–1852), in arguing the case, said: “An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy,” 17 U.S. 327 (1819).

In his decision, Chief Justice Marshall said: “That the power of taxing it [the bank] by the States may be exercised so as to destroy it, is too obvious to be denied” (p. 427), and “That the power to tax involves the power to destroy … [is] not to be denied” (p. 431).

The Department of Treasury through the Internal Revenue Service, for two election cycles, did trample on Constitution laws by blocking and abridging the rights of over 500 conservative groups from establishing non-profit organizations. The IRS partisan political classifications suborned illegal activities to prevent all of these organizations from obtaining tax-exempt status, a 501C4 designation, thereby blocking donors from contributing funds as tax-free donation write-offs actively discouraging participation and promotion of conservative political activism to educate and inform the public for a better, more knowledgeable electorate. It effectively blocked nearly all opposition against the Obama presidential campaigns.

"I will not tolerate this kind of behavior in any agency, especially the IRS!"

"Denial ain't just a river in Egypt." - Mark Twain In order to get ahead of all the news releases, Obama's loud-mouth Nixonian bellicose outrage is feckless. As a continuing series of revelations about the IRS scandal and other misconduct by members of the Obama administration have escalated, they're costing Obama much more of his party's support and personal political caché. Obama goes forth denying anything is his fault and further blames Rush Limbaugh for his ongoing troubles - Really, Mr. President?

"Mr. President, who's going to jail over this scandal?", asks Speaker John Boehner.

As American as Apple Pie - Cinco de Mayo

With the immigration issue on everyone's mind and how to solve the problem of citizenship and assimilation into American culture, it is natural for new Americans to embrace their ancestral culture with pride, but must also remember they have now pledged their allegiance to the United States of America as U.S. citizens.

Although Tacos, Pizza & Chocolate Cookies were invented in Mexico, Italy and the United States, respectively, some things are not what they seem. "Cinco de Mayo es no hecho en Mexico" - Cinco de Mayo was created in the U.S. for the U.S.  In fact, many Mexicans don't know why we crazy Americans call their national day of Independence as May 5. It has no association with Mexican Independence, but does commemorate a battle on May 5, 1862, in which the Mexican army defeated the French forces of Napoleon III.  It has been uniquely an American way to identify the Hispanounidenses, the "Hispanics of the United States."

Memo: El Grito, every 16^th of September since 1810 is the Mexican Fiesta par excellence! On this day Mexicans all over the world celebrate Mexico’s independence from Spanish rule.

Over a century later, the Chicano movement has picked up the "Cinco de Mayo" Independence Day as an expression of their demands for civil rights which did more to just make it laughably even a more American celebration.  It was a clever choice  because it didn't carry the risk of pitting different Hispanic nationalities against one another under the single banner of Mexican culture. After all, there are over twenty Spanish-speaking countries, mostly Mexico, but also Cuba, Puerto Rico, El Salvador, Nicararagua, Guatemala, Dominican Republic and others in the Hispanic Melting Pot.

To the contrary, a racially prejudicial movement, “La Raza" (the race), Upside down US Flaghas undermined Hispanic assimilation into U.S. citizenship by teaching that the United States stole the southwest from Mexico, that the Pilgrims brought plagues to intentionally wipe out indigenous peoples, and that Thanksgiving should be changed to a day of atonement for the evil that the U.S. perpetrated on the Mexican people. La Raza demands that the United States return the southwest states back into Mexico. What we have here is something  insidious and used to teach disdain for the United States and the overthrow of our government. “Sowing of seeds of hate” has nothing to do with ethnic pride; it is an attempt by socialist radicals to use our Hispanics as pawns in their war against capitalism and the existing power structures. The ultimate La Raza disrespect: The US Flag flown on Cinco de Mayo upside down under the Mexican flag on an American High School flag pole in Montebello, California.

The Tucson School District offers a course: Mexican-American Studies, formerly known as “La Raza" (the race) Studies. Read this jaw-dropping excerpt, “An Epic Poem", from the course textbook which states:

I shed tears of sorrow, I sow seeds of hate
The force of tyranny of men who rule by farce and hypocrisy,
In a country that has wiped out all my history, stifled all my pride….
My land is lost and stolen, My culture has been raped
Poverty and city-living under the colonial system of the Anglo has frustrated our people’s culture
One note, especially to those young Chicanos, hard drugs and the drug culture is the invention of the gringo because he has no culture.
We have to destroy capitalism…The Declaration of Independence states that we the people have the right to revolution, the right to overthrow a government that has committed abuses and seeks complete control over the people. This is in order to clean out the corrupted, rotten officials that developed out of any type of capitalistic systems.

Obama at a La Raza speechSay President Obama, shouldn't these kind of La Raza textbook materials under the Federally funded Schools' curriculum be exposed during the current Senate Immigration System Debates? 

We are a land of immigrants and that fact has made us strong as a country. What unites us as a nation is the idea that we are all Americans, with allegiance to and pride in this country, even as we honor and respect the many cultures and countries that our families came from, La Raza supporters are not, they suborn treason.