Aaron Gadberry

“When the Government Fears the People, There is Liberty; When the People Fear the Government, There is Tyranny”
- Thomas Jefferson

“Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
- Benjamin Franklin

Since September 11th, 2001, we have attempted to purchase safety with more liberty than ever before. Our freedom is spent but the seeming threat has only grown.

“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.”
- James Madison

People, it’s already happening. Iraq, Iran, and the lineup will continue as long as any of our rights persist.

“The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.”
- James Madison

Still think torture in Guantanamo Bay is ok? It’s only a matter of time before it’s showing here too.

“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States.”
- Noah Webster

“But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.”
- John Adams

Do you actually think they will stop the illegal wiretaps when the war ends? Think again.

“We should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections.”
- John Adams

“It is a common observation here that our cause is the cause of all mankind, and that we are fighting for their liberty in defending our own.”
- Benjamin Franklin

“And it proves, in the last place, that liberty can have nothing to fear from the judiciary alone, but would have everything to fear from its union with either of the other departments.”
- Alexander Hamilton

I am equally afraid of the Executive branch having the other’s beneath it’s thumb.

“The great leading objects of the federal government, in which revenue is concerned, are to maintain domestic peace, and provide for the common defense. In these are comprehended the regulation of commerce that is, the whole system of foreign intercourse; the support of armies and navies, and of the civil administration.”
- Alexander Hamilton

So the federal government isn’t supposed to run my life?

There is no specific method for NULLS FIRST (default is NULLS LAST), but you can still accomplish this through the expression api.

You can simply append some sql to the end of your ordering field expression and it will take care of it for you.

For example, if you are ordering by the name then this would put the nulls last (default):

This code could be ammended into the following to put nulls first:

It’s that easy.

McCain on Iraq by parocks.com

I’m a fairly average American citizen. For my entire life I have felt like the good old days of America passed long ago. Don’t get me wrong…this country rocks, but we’ve become so dominated by government and business that it’s only a matter of time until freedom as we know it is extinct. You may look around and see a free country, but you need to realize the first freedoms are always the hardest to take away. Like anything, it’s the small compromises in the beginning that open the door to the large concessions later. As a nation we made these small compromises long ago, and as a result we have no control over the large concessions, such as the indefinite suspending of Habeas Corpus or warrentless wiretapping.

The loss of liberty during my lifetime alone has been astounding. Business is running to other countries to avoid SOX compliance, we’re told how we may and may not punish our children’s and police brutality is worse than ever. Above the freedoms we have lost individually, the country has lost it’s own sovereignty as well. The United States is subject to the authority of the WTO and is facing a $100 billion potential fine for banning internet gambling and sanctions of unspecified billions for cotton subsidies. We now live in a country where our government is limited by outside organizations. So much for being top dog.

If recent years are telling a tale of what is to come, then we are indeed entering troubled times. In societies throughout the world, once rights are revoked they are rarely restored. If they are returned then they are typically again removed through a different avenue. Our freedoms are an extremely limited natural resource and should be guarded with our lives. We have come to a point, however, where the average American citizen can do nothing within reason to protect individual liberties. With this conclusion, it is only a matter of time until we have none left, and our country will have traded the ways of Democracy for those of Socialism (or Fascism, depending on whether you believe government or business will take over). I estimate this to be within 50 to 150 years. Is that the country we want to live in and leave for our children?

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What the hell? Such a great season with so much promise ends with a complete disaster. Seemingly random abilities are somehow developed as a result of major evolutionary steps, although the children of the evolved do not carry on the ability of the parents, meaning they somehow evolved in a different way??? In line with the fantasy element of the show, I am willing to accept that seemingly random person x has seemingly random power y and they can wield it at will. However, blatant contradictions are just stupid. How can a script writer not remember the rules of his own universe?

1) Hiro just runs up to Sylar and stabs him. If we remember, Hiro tried this before while time was frozen and still failed. And Hiro would have had his head in the game much more than Sylar, because Sylar had just killed his own mother. What a ridiculous decision not to have Hiro freeze time to stab him, or do like DL and teleport the sword directly into Sylar. It might as well have been Ando with the sword after all.

2) Nathan has to carry off Peter to save NY? That makes no sense at all. The first power Peter found was his ability to fly. He could have flown himself anywhere, anytime. Alternatively he could have frozen time and run away, teleported to a desert or the sky where Nathan carried him, or just learned to control the power like Ted and Sylar did. Are they suggesting that Peter, with the most powers of anyone, and was trained in how to control them, was inferior at controlling them compared to Sylar and/or Ted? Nathan did not have to die. Not to mention, Claire could have just shot him in the head/chest and he would have regenerated. Niki could have knocked him out. There were literally hundreds of solutions, even suggested ones in the plot, that did not involve Nathan dying needlessly. They completely failed to justify why Nathan carrying him off was the best solution.

3) Peter met Ted in the middle of New York. Peter knew he was going to be the exploding man. He was going to leave for Nevada. He never followed through on this and no reason was given why. On top of this he met Ted in downtown NY. Talk about stupid. Not only that but he met Sylar there too.

4) Planning this series of events would not only have been improbable, but completely impossible. Even the notion that Linderman, Angela Petrelli and Charles could have known about what was going to happen before Isaac painted it is unexplained. To somehow conclude that they planned for this to occur and there was “nothing that could be done about it” starting as far back as Claire’s birth and Niki and DL getting together is absolutely ridiculous. There were so many ways to stop NY from exploding that almost happened or could have happened that the line “there is nothing you can do to stop it” became the biggest farce in the entire show.

I really really liked the show as a whole, but the last episode was inexcusably bad.