Anna Quote

Anna (age 5) said:

I wonder how princesses can be so pretty when they don't have any tights on.

Limited federal government means less lobbying influence

If the federal government doesn't control education then there would be no education lobbyists in Washington D.C. and lobbyist would have a much harder time lobbying the thousands of school boards or even the 50 state governments.  In effect it would take influence from lobbyists and give it back to the people.  The same is true for other areas of the federal government also. Limited federal government gives the power back to the people.

Imagine: Local control of schools

Imagine what it would be like if your local school was controlled locally instead of federally.  Instead of "one size fits all" (for the whole nation) your school would do what is best for your local needs.  How could central planning of education produce better education than local, customized planning?  If there are problems you could easily call up your local school board members but you can't very easily talk to the leaders in the Congress, White House, or Department of Education.

Will party opinions on the wars change?

Now that Democrats will be in charge of the wars will Republican support for the wars decrease because "the Democrats didn't handle them correctly" and Democrat support increase because "the wars are now being run correctly"?

Term limits

I am not sure that I think term limits are a good thing because they also limit the choices of the people. (Of course incumbents have advantages so that needs to be equalized.) Maybe a good compromise is to limit consecutive terms.

A federal officer is not eligible for re-election for a position after holding that position for the previous 8 consecutive years.

That would basically be in line current persidential term limits, would limit senators to 2 consecutive terms, and limit house representatives to 4 consecutive terms. It would not limit someone from holding those positions more -- they would just have to find something else to do for 1 session. It could encourage going back to the private sector.

Comments?

Nuclear fission questions

Instead of sending a neutron into an atom nucleus what would happen if a proton and electron (bonded together) were sent to the nucleous? Can only radioactive atoms be split? Can an atom be split and not produce (harmful) radioactivity? Would an ionized atom be easier to hit the nucleus?

Rally for the Republic

Yesterday I got to be a volunteer for the Rally for the Republic! It was a great event and as a volunteer I got to go backstage, see everyone up close, and shake a few hands! There is much more to say but I have to get caught up on my work. :-)

Mini-blog posts

I haven't had many posts recently but that doesn't mean that I have not had anything to say. I have found that Google Reader shared items are a great way to comment about news and blogs. Check out what I have been saying at James Stauffer's shared items. One downside to this is that I can't share by topic so it will be more broad than this blog (feel free to skip the programming stuff).

House idea: Improve A/C efficiency with cold water

Can the cold water coming into your house be used to make your air conditioning system more efficient?

Consider a system like the following:
When the cold water comes into the house it goes into a tank (like a water heater) and the A/C system heats up that water to a set temperature (only to the point where it was still cool). So instead of having cold water at the tap you would only have cool water.

Notes:

• The A/C system would have to work less because it is more efficient to pump the heat to the cold water than to the hot air outside.
• The hot water heater would work less because the cold water was already warmed some.
• Maybe there could be one hot water unit with 2 tanks -- one for the cool water and one for the hot water. The A/C system would warm both(to different temperatures) and there would be a normal heater for the hot water when the A/C system didn't heat it enough. There could also be one tank for hot water and the cool water could be made by mixing some hot water with the cold water.
• Some of the cool water would still need to be cooled but probably very little of it (drinking water in the refrigerator, ice cubes, etc).

How much would this help? Is there a better way to use the free "coldness" of the cold water.

How is money created?

As amazing as it sounds, most money is created from debt! Banks actually get to create money and they create much more money than the government does!
Watch the video below for an explanation. There is also more info on wikipedia.

Joel Amos

Joel Amos Stauffer was born at 1:00 AM on April 22nd.
He is 6 lbs 7 oz and 19 in. long, Joel and Annette are doing well.

Uncle again

See pictures and statistics at http://web.mac.com/dmstauffer1. Click on the left photo for more pictures.

WI 3rd congressional district candidate: Paul Stark

Paul Stark is running for the 3rd congressional district in WI.

Inflation

This says it all:

Cool Cakes

My sister-in-law, Sarah Mannon makes really cool cakes. Take a look at Sarah's cake album.

Wisconsin Primary

If you live in Wisconsin, don't forget to vote today! I'm planning to vote for Ron Paul.

A real conservative is still on the ballot

This speech should get any conservative excited!

Morality: Government vs. Church

Government can and should "legislate morality" in certain cases. I think everyone agrees that murder should be illegal.
The church (or any non-governmental) group should handle other morality issues because the government can't reach the heart of people. i.e. "Love your neighbor".
Some issues should be handled by both (murder) but all issues should be handled by the church -- the church should handle all moral issues and the government should also handle some of them.

The questions is: How do we decide which issues should be handled by the government and which should be left to the church? (The answer may vary by level of government but for this post I will consider all levels as one).

Questions that might help us answer the question:

• Is the issue easy to define and judge? (murder vs. hate)
• Does the issue affect the rights of other people?

I don't know the exact answer to this and I would appreciate your comments.

A Presidential candidate in Minnesota on Monday

On Monday, February 4th, a presidential candidate will visit Minnesota.

Ron Paul is coming to Minnesota to participate in a rally at the University of Minnesota, Monday, Feb. 4 @ 7pm.

Lest you think he is just a bit player, more money was given to him than any other GOP candidate in the 4th quarter of 2007. Romney has a higher quarter total because he gave over $18,000,000 of his own money. He also has more cash on hand than any other GOP candidate. More details are at opensecrets.org.

Stimulating what economy?

"foreign creditors will lend us the money to send rebates to families, who'll go out and buy more foreign goods"

Stimulus Stupidity

Someone I know is running for Mayor of Hudson, WI: an Knudson

Someone I know is running for Mayor. I have met him a few times when he was chairman of the Republican party of St. Croix County. If you happen to live in Hudson, WI take a look -- He seems like a good guy for the job.
Dean Knudson for Mayor of Hudson, WI

A conversation with Joseph

This is an actual conversation between Joseph (Age 2) and Annette:

Joseph asked "Did Papa take our car today? Did Grandpa take him to work? Or did he take Auntie Sarah's car?"
Annette answered that he took Auntie Sarah's car.
He said, "oh good. Now we can go to Gymboree today."
She asked him why he wanted to go there.
He said "to watch the movies and stuff."

Annette had not mentioned Gymboree that day at all.