Welcome to E D Skinner's Website

Here’s the time-line to keep in mind.

1. British citizens settled in the New World over a couple of centuries.
2. Britain’s King George, strapped for cash, taxed the colonies to help pay the country’s bills, but did so without consulting his citizenry in that New World – he effectively made them non-citizens.
3. The settlers rose up (1776), kicked the British out and created their own country under the terms of its first “Articles of Confederation” (ratified by the states in 1781).
4. That government failed (was deemed unworkable) on several fronts.
5. A “constitutional convention” then created what we know today as the Constitution of the United States (ratified by the states in 1789).
6. Fearful of the power of the government thusly created, however, that same “constitutional convention” immediately proposed twelve (12) Amendments for consideration by the states.
7. The first two (2) of those were rejected but the remaining ten (10) were approved by the states.
8. “Article the Fourth” in the original proposals, after taking out the two rejected proposals, therefore became the “Second Amendment”.
9. Because they list inherent rights, those ten amendments are known as the “Bill of Rights” – they state rights not granted by governments but, instead, which belong to everyone regardless.

Here is a copy of “Article the Fourth” in the original proposals – click for a larger version.

When you awaken in the middle of the night and your fears take over, that’s the wolf, and its his time. He embodies your worst fears, those you cannot stop, the ones that doom you. Try as you might to banish the wolf and get back to sleep, no more than a moment’s peace comes before his canines flash and he lunges for your throat again.

John McAfee, founder of McAfee, Inc, the first company to distribute anti-virus software via the “shareware” model, is an interesting and, by his own somewhat jaded definition, very “human” individual.

On April 1st, Jim Henderson wrote on Facebook:

Here’s some text before and then after making changes suggested by a writing aid, Hemingway App.

Lemi Shine has been questioned as a cleaning agent for brass because, in some circumstances, it seems to turn the brass pink.

This quotation, spoken by Kevin Costner in the 1994 semi-biographical film, Wyatt Earp, may not have been voiced by the real Wyatt Earp, but it certainly captures a philosophy many believe he would avow.