Friday :: 03 July 2009 :: 09:36 PM
175 days to Christmas!
Fourth Of July Fact
Why do we celebrate Independence Day on July 4?
All kinds of history books and reference books will explain that the federal holiday celebrates the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring our independence from Great Britain. However, while that day is celebrated as the day of independence, it really is not. Our nation officially became independent on Sept. 3, 1783, when the British King George III and the American leaders signed the Treaty of Paris.
-- from Land Line magazine, published by OOIDA. July 2007 page 106.
This next commentary is from the same magazine and page. It is an excerpt from an article by Pete Rigney, the Silver Fox:
". . . Every time I read the original document [Ed - Declaration of Independence], I get goose bumps. I think about a little remembered delegate named Richard Henry Lee, a farmer from Westmoreland County, VA. Lee took on the whole British Empire when he introduced a motion that declared we were free from all allegiance to the British Crown on June 7, 1776. Talk about guts!
"John Adams seconded the motion. Thomas Jefferson penned the first draft based on Lee's outline. Ben Franklin and Adams made a few more changes and we were on our way with the noble experiment. Eventually we would become the most powerful nation in the world.
"Thank you, Richard Henry Lee. Thank you, signers who put it on the line for all of us. . ."
Random Humor: Tribal Wisdom And Government Policy
Dakota tribal wisdom says that when you discover you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount. However, in civil government they often try other strategies with dead horses, including the following:
1. Buying a bigger whip.
2. Changing riders.
3. Saying things like "This is the way we always have ridden this horse."
4. Appointing a committee to study the horse.
5. Arranging to visit other sites to see how they ride dead horses.
6. Increasing the standards to ride dead horses.
7. Appointing a tiger team to revive the dead horse.
8. Creating a training session to increase our riding ability.
9. Pass legislation declaring that "This horse is not dead."
10. Blaming the horse's parents.
11. Harnessing several dead horses together for increased speed.
12. Declaring that "No horse is too dead to beat."
13. Providing additional funding to increase the horse's performance.
14. Do a Cost Analysis Study to see if contractors can ride it cheaper.
15. Declare the horse is "better, faster and cheaper" dead.
16. Form a quality committee to find uses for dead horses.
17. Revisit the performance requirements for horses.
18. Say this horse was procured with cost as an independent variable.
19. Blame the horse farm on which it was born.
20. Promote the dead horse to a supervisory position.