Digging out Truth

Lies and Manufactured Issues

2012-02-16T18:48:00.003-05:00

The time has come to get real on the fake contraception debate.

The Left is accusing the Church of creating this as a bogus issue for political reasons. That's demonstrably false, because Catholics were initially supportive of Obamacare. The issue is about religious liberty and the clear first amendment violation. A particularly apt comparison has been made that this Obamacare regulation makes about as much sense as the government mandating that Kosher Delicatessens sell pork, using the absurd defense of the policy that most Jews don't keep kosher anyway.

Besides the obvious unconstitutional and anti-religion, anti-freedom outrages embodied in this rule, I am particularly offended by the spin being attempted by Obama's left-wing echo chamber. His sycophants at MSNBC have been touting a false narrative suggesting Social Conservatives in general, and Rick Santorum in particular, would pursue a goal of outlawing contraception altogether. They're quite coordinated in this horrible mischaracterization of their opposition, and are demonstrating that the truth matters not at all when it comes to election season.

I'm not interested in banning contraception either, although I would like to see abortifacients pulled off the pharmacy shelves. The other lies I've heard from the President and his HHS Secretary are that these drugs are beneficial and crucial medications in support of women's health.

Wrong on all counts.

How about some actual facts for a change:
The CDC established a clear link between availability of contraception and the incident of STD's.

Easily available contraception increases pregnancy rates because of high failure rates and the simple fact that it increases the frequency of sexual intercourse. Studies in Europe proved that with increased availability of contraception came vast increases in abortion rates.

The Pill is a class 1 carcinogen. This is sort of ironic given the recent flap over the relationship between Planned Parenthood and Susan G Komen's breast cancer organization.

Abortion creates a very high risk and is indisputably most closely tied to incidents of breast cancer in women.

Prolonged use of synthetic hormones often lead to cervical and breast cancer, and often render women infertile at whatever point in time they finally decide they're ready to have children. We all know women who focused on establishing their careers, then sadly discovered they were unable to conceive when they finally became ready for children.

The fundamental question boils down to this: Why is Obama and his Democratic party so hostile to children? Obama has a history of not only supporting the barbaric practice called "Partial Birth Abortion", but also has openly supported killing babies born alive when the attempted abortion failed. Kathleen Sebelius has demonstrated the same hostility toward infants.

Why do they hate babies so? Why do they force such harmful drugs on women, knowing that those drugs will most likely cause infertility and cancer? Why do they refer to contraception as "preventative medicine", as if a baby is a disease to be prevented? Why does a black president support and promote abortions which are disproportionally performed on black women, just as intended by Planned Parent's founder and chief eugenicist Margarat Sanger?

Why are liberal women who won't eat meat and demand only "organic" fruits and vegetables so willing to pop synthetic hormones that are much more likely to kill them than a cheeseburger?

The Catholics have it right, not just because they believe that God's will is more important than ours when it comes to the family and that sex is reserved for married couples for the primary purpose of producing offspring, but that monogamy without artificial contraception is truly the healthiest option for everyone.

Is it now too much to expect that our partisan discourse at least argue their positions without lying to us?

Is This the Generation?

2012-02-03T18:13:00.002-05:00

The prophetic words of Ronald Reagan were, "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction". Now the question is, has that generation arrived?

History shows that socialists and communists have used mostly the same tactics in the past to gain power. Demonizing the rich, and telling the poor that the rich are responsible for their misery.

Now we have more than half the citizenry dependent on the government for all or part of their livelihood. And those folks are unlikely to vote against maintaining those government benefits. Soon the government will go bankrupt, and when they can no longer cover their social welfare obligations with debt, they will confiscate the assets of all producers (not just rich ones) and begin making large spending cuts that will bring the dependent class to the streets in violent protest, as we've seen in Europe.

Hopefully it won't degenerate into a repeat of the purges of Stalin and Mao. But it easily could. I'm not as concerned for myself, but for the next generation. It's the next generation that will decide whether they want freedom or a dictatorship. I hope they have the courage and strength to choose freedom.

Warming Up

2012-01-24T20:27:00.002-05:00

It's pretty nice to get to the south for a couple of weeks and shake off the winter chill. But the healthy soup & salad I ordered for lunch has messed me up tonight, so now I'm hoping not the nauseous by the time I have to show up for work tomorrow morning.

Gonna have to skip the State of the Union tonight, because it will only increase the nausea level. It's difficult for me to know enough of what's actually been going on that I can immediately know when the pres is spinning or outright lying.

Folks of the opposite political philosophy from mine used to say that about our previous pres. Problem is, those folks have to be delusional to think W was lying. I had my own issues with W, but they never stemmed from a delusion about his motivation in fighting the war on terror. My problems with either president have always been policy related.

W frustrated me on Immigration, Medicare Prescription Drugs, No Child Left Behind. Iraq made me uneasy, but I always believed he was pursuing that course solely because he saw it as a necessary step in protecting our country from terrorism.

I can't spend an hour listening to the liberal messiah tells us everything's going to be great if we just get rich people to pony up, and get conservatives to stop bucking his healthcare program. He'll never find a reasonable explanation linking improvement of the lives of the middle class to soaking the rich with high taxes. The math will never add up to support his message that he can transfer an extra 5-10 percent from earners to the non-productive and somehow magically achieve that utopian society his marxist/socialist friends have been working to institute in America for generations.

I would enjoy tuning in to hear Mitch afterward, though. Mitch's plain-spoken midwestern common sense will be a refreshing contrast to the president's lofty, vague and misleading rhetoric.

Sports Fix

2012-01-22T23:26:00.003-05:00

OK, I can't prove anything, but my Super Bowl picks were both right. I did share them verbally with a couple folks, but admitted at the time that I wasn't at all confident in the picks. Turns out both games were very close, and the teams on their way to Indianapolis could very easily have been the other two.

I don't have a pick for the Super Bowl itself just yet. Brady/Manning for the second time could be fun. It's just too bad that Indy is about to get invaded by huge crowds representing the rudest and least civil cities in the world, New York and Boston. That's my opinion based on personal experience, anyway.

The Colts fan in me will be rooting for Peyton's little brother to knock off the evil Patriots. But I have lots of respect for Brady, and know better than to take him lightly.

It was sad to see that JoePa passed this weekend. When he lost his job over the Sandusky molestation scandal, my first thought was, "this will kill him". Unfortunately it seems I was right. The shortness of time between his dismissal and passing was stunning. I feel very sorry for him and his family. Although I was never really a Penn State fan, I always believed Joe to be a man of integrity. That judgement is affected little by the Sandusky mess.

Joe absolutely should have made certain that the proper authorities were brought in when the molestation reports first came in. Instead, he chose to keep it "in-house", and trusted his colleagues within the University to handle the case properly. The fact that they chose not to do so isn't specifically Joe's fault, but I do believe he made a huge mistake by not insisting that law enforcement outside of the University be informed. They should have been made aware of the report, and the chips allowed to fall where they may.

The likely emotionally compromised Penn State basketball team weren't able to overcome the Hoosiers today, who had just completed a dismal 3-game losing streak. I'm enjoying the Hoosiers this season for the first time in years, as bringing Cody Zeller on board has actually made them interesting again. I find it amazing the dramatic impact they realized through the addition of that one freshman to the roster.

The Hoosiers are still ranked for the time being, and will most likely get an NCAA tournament bid this year. They're probably a year or two away from joining the elites again, but there's plenty of room for optimism. I'm not completely sold on Tom Crean's coaching ability just yet; I just get the impression he's more about motivation and energy than stressing fundamental basketball. But his progress is indeniable, and I'm optimistic he'll bring the Hoosiers back to their legacy position as one of the top basketball programs in the nation.

The Butler Bulldogs don't have anybody to take the place of their stars who helped them get to back-to-back national final games. Heyward, Mack, and Howard are all gone, and there's nobody on the sqad who can take over their scoring and leadership. My impression of this year's team is that it's a great bunch of team contributors, but nobody on the team can take over a game like Heyward, Mack, and Howard could.

Maybe Stevens has a great recruit or two waiting in the wings to come in and have the impact on next year's Bulldogs that Cody has had this year on the Hoosiers.

Even the Pacers are getting more interesting this year. They didn't tinker too much with last year's roster, but the small pieces they added have fit in wonderfully. The Pacers aren't going to make the Finals this year, but they do seem destined to a pretty nice run through this shortened season.

Predictable Republicans

2012-01-11T18:41:00.002-05:00

Ronald Reagan was an aberration. He was the first Presidential candidate I paid any attention to in my younger days. I remember being in college when Jimmy Carter was elected. I was old enough to vote, but didn't. I remember lots of professors and politically-oriented students were celebrating his victory. I knew nothing about his politics, and probably cared less.

Until I graduated and found out just how dismal things were in the outside world. It's fair to say that today we're repeating Jimmy Carter's term in almost all respects with Barack Obama. So I voted for Ronald Reagan in my first visit to the voting booth in a Presidential election.

My life got much better during the Reagan years, and that's when I abandoned my father's Democrat party to become a Republican.

Each election since then has followed a pattern. George H. W. Bush, then Bob Dole, then George W. Bush, then John McCain, and now Mitt Romney all have the same elements in common. They're all squishy moderates, and were all foisted on Conservative Republicans by the party elite.

Now it's Mitt Romney's turn. The constant media drumbeat is the same for Romney as it was for the Bushes, Dole, and McCain. He's the only candidate that is electable because he's moderate. Independents won't vote for another rock-ribbed conservative in the mode of Reagan. Everybody else in the field is too extreme or too zany.

As someone who actually pays attention, I'm somewhat demoralized by the success of the party elites in ramming another squish down our throats. Once again, by the time the primary gets around to Indiana in May, Mitt will already have been anointed. In fact, the elites anointed him a long time ago.

Even though I much prefer Rick Santorum. I even find Newt a bit more attractive than Mitt. I even like Michelle, who got drummed out of Iowa. Rick and Newt are all I have left in the race, and they're hanging on by their fingernails.

So once again, the election will come down to the media incessantly hammering all of us with the message that the race is between the heartless Republican Wall Street millionaire against the caring man of the people. At least Mitt's better looking than Dole and McCain, which in our image-obsessed society matters more than pretty much everything else and might get him more votes from women. Just maybe they'll put him over the top just like they did Bill Clinton twice in a row.

So nobody's talking about the most important issues of our time, except Newt now and then. Nobody's even proposing a reasonable fix to our crisis-level problems. We're saddled with the radical socialist Obama or the mushy moderate Romney, neither of whom will lead the country out of our fiscal and national security crises.

The best we can say is that at least Mitt won't be as bad a president as Obama.

That's not saying much.

Ch-Ch-Changes

2012-01-08T19:03:00.003-05:00

It's making me feel old, looking at the trends and attitudes of the next generation.

This summer, after several weeks working mostly fulltime with a single client, I began to notice just how radically things have changed. I worked with lots of folks at this client and began to get to know them on a personal level.

One day it dawned on me that a distinct minority of the folks on our project team were part of a traditional nuclear family. Nearly all of the women fell into one of two categories; they were either single parents, or they were living with a man who is not their husband. Most of them have children, and may or may not have had the children with a husband.

The realization hit me sort of hard, and made me sad. These people don't have the security of a promised lifelong relationship. Most of them have to know that their boy or girlfriend might pack up and move out at a moment's notice without consequence, yet they continue to tolerate the uncommitted relationship. I wonder why?

One of the women is raising her boyfriend's kids. She's like an unpaid nanny and housekeeper and provider of certain other services for her boyfriend. Why would she tolerate such a situation?

Another woman has been living with the same guy for almost a decade. She said they talk about getting married, but just never got around to it. They're a married couple in all other respects, including owning a home together. They also have no children, nor any plans in that respect. She acknowledged getting some grief from her parents about the situation, but doesn't let that concern her.

In our own family, the next generation is very different from ours. By the time our generation was the age our children have reached today, most of us were long married and already had multiple children. Our next generation has very few married 20-somethings, and even fewer children. They're all focused on establishing themselves in a career and/or holding out for Mr./Ms. Right.

What's happened to us? The marital promises no longer hold meaning for our next generation. Sexual mores have been completely abandoned. Children are not valued or sought after. God holds little interest for them.

I don't think it's just me being a narrow-minded old guy when I so firmly believe that we've raised a generation that's purposely missing out on what life is about. I wish I could find a way to fix it, but how do you convince an entier generation to consider a change in attitude?

Coarse and Ignorant

2011-12-29T16:44:00.002-05:00

I just deleted a crude comment from one of my posts that ironically proved the point of the post. Folks like my commenter proudly wear their profane ignorance like a badge of honor. My curiosity is what exactly in that post did he (I assume it was a male based on the profanity) found so personally objectionable.

When reading through articles on the web, I often scan some of the comment postings. It's sort of shocking but fascinating to read through the coarse language used by those who disagree with the premise of the posted article. I find both ends of the political spectrum capable of some disgusting ad-hominems, but it seems to me the most profane spew from the keyboards of leftists.

A strongly-held belief of mine is that profanity is the refuge of those who lack the vocabulary to make a compelling argument. That's certainly true of the web. How many of these folks would use the same language if they were discussing an issue face-to-face? I'm guessing not many.

Indiana's bringing back the Right to Work legislation. The union left is convinced those evil Republicans are bent on forcing a return of sweatshops, rock-bottom wages and 80 hour workweeks. The business-friendly right is convinced that unions exist only to enrich the union bosses and fund Democratic Party candidates in elections.

Those who work in a vanishing union shop certainly appreciate the employee benefit packages negotiated by the unions. Who wouldn't like the extra paid time off and the Cadillac health plans?

I take the issue at face value. If you get a job with a unionized company, the new law says you can decide whether or not you want to join the union. Individual choice in such matters seems to me to be a very American value. Opponents way that people will choose not to join for the sole reason that they'll get a few bucks more in their paychecks, even though they will still be represented by the union.

I've been there as a beginning teacher. I had the choice to join the union or not, and chose not. Teacher salaries had bottomed out back in those days, and I couldn't live on the paltry salary (which is why I only taught for one year). I wasn't eligible to get union representation or assistance on any issues I might have had with the school district, but I did get to take advantage of whatever employee pay benefits the union had negotiated. I didn't believe anybody in the teacher's union had the right to brag about that pay schedule or the barely-there benefits. Mostly I just didn't think I could afford the union dues.

Posting a rude comment calling me nasty names because I don't have a problem with Right to Work isn't going to change my mind. A well crafted rebuttal explaining exactly why Right to Work is a bad idea might at least have a chance of affecting my attitude on the subject.

Looking for a Leader that Doesn't Exist

2011-12-28T16:36:00.002-05:00

Most conservative types in the country, including me, are disappointed in the field of presidential candidates. I think I have enough insight to be able to describe that "perfect" GOP candidate.

The conservative base wants a candidate with
Michelle Bachman's energy
Mitt Romney's smoothness
Newt Gingerich's wit
Rick Santorum's integrity

They don't want Mitt because he's too liberal.
They don't want Newt because he's got way too much moral baggage.
They don't want Bachmann because she's been Palin-ized by the media.
They don't want Perry because he's not very good in debates, and is way off the reservation on illegal immigration and the forced innoculations of little girls against STD's.

Based on ideology and personal features, my guy is Rick Santorum. But nobody seems to be willing to get behind him because they think he's a loser. One pundit called him a whiner.

Romney's being pushed by the "establishment" as the only guy who can beat Obama. I'm far from sold. He seems like just another northeastern liberal, who seems only a little bit right of the president. He still says he's proud of the Massachusetts healthcare law that forces citizens to purchase insurance and has placed a very high and expensive burden on the people of that state. Obama loves to praise it as the template for his healthcare law. I don't think we should be forced to purchase insurance or any other product or service; auto insurance mandates included. (Although I think it's OK to be required to post a bond if you choose to be self-insured against automobile accidents).

I think the main reason for our current economic distress is the over-reaching government. It's clear that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and their sponsors in Congress are at the root of the mortgage meltdown. Global Anthropogenic Climate Change is merely a pseudo-scientific theory dreamed up by New World Order types to push a global socialism agenda.

My choice for president is the person who can and will roll back the entire Obama/Democratic Party agenda, gut unnecessary federal agencies, and give everyone the freedom from over-regulation to once again be productive, innovative, and prosperous.

I don't care whether the "rich" pay 40 or 50 percent in Federal Income Taxes, and think the entire argument was created by Obama to change the subject. The false message that if only the rich paid their "fair share", we wouldn't have all these budget problems, is designed to mislead the ignorant and trap the envious.

The spectacle they treated us to right before Christmas, when the Republican House balked at the Senate "deal" to extend Social Security withholding rate reductions was nothing but a Democrat pander. The night Boehner came out and announced the House was going to "cave", I saw the CNN talking heads crowing about the tremendous political victory scored by Obama and the Democrats. Not a word about the wisdom or potential impact of the deal, just the political "win" was all they cared about.

The core problem in the country's messaging in this campaign season is its complete lack of serious discussion of imporant issues. The networks mislead us into focusing on individuals instead of issues. Philandering by Newt, "extremism" by Bachmann, bumbling by Perry, and the constant drumbeat that all the Republican candidates are extreme, stupid, or both dominate the conversation. If only to avoid actually having to confront the country's decline and hopelessness, because such is a direct result of the current president's leadership or lack thereof.

Where's the candidate with the spotless record, both politically and personally, who can step forward and enunciate a positive vision for the future? I'm still looking for him (or her).

Rich

2011-10-30T15:12:00.003-04:00

Flipping channels the other night, I heard Chris Matthews say it on his Hardball show. To paraphrase,

"The rich achieved their wealth on the backs of the poor and middle class"

This is one of the cardinal beliefs of the Left. But is it true?

Mathews and his Democrat colleagues would argue that when a businessperson chooses to maximize profits through layoffs and paying most of his workers minimum wage, he's indeed making his fortune at the expense of the people who make his company successful. When a Wall Street firm buys up companies then closes them down and sells off the assets to pocket the difference, that also qualifies. When companies shut down their manufacturing plants in the US and move the operations to China or India or Mexico, that certainly qualifies.

To the extent that those things happen, I can sympathize with those who decry the capitalist system that permits them. Certainly I have been concerned about the dramatic loss of our country's manufacturing base over the last 30 years. Even in my own experience, where I am able to see firsthand the hourly margin between what the company that helps me find my consulting contracts and the leftover amount I actually receive for my efforts, it's tempting to rail against greedy and unreasonable profits. But then I consider the alternative those on the Left would propose to address them, and am convinced we're seeing how their solution leaves us much worse off.

How do you make a business owner pay his employee fair wages? The minimum wage already sets the floor, then the business is able to pay whatever the labor market will bear. Stop the under-the-table use of illegal immigrants to stay below market wages, and I think that will solve much of the problem. A good economy is the ultimate solution, when employers must compete in the labor marketplace for good employees.

How do you keep these investor groups from buying and liquidating companies? You can't, unless you want to give bureaucrats the power to decide what business owners are allowed to do with their own enterprises. Government control over this activity is frighteningly dangerous, and smells like tyranny. What Democrats don't understand is that in order for any worker to get paid, he or she must deliver a higher value for their efforts than the employer is paying them. A "living wage" isn't available just because someone thinks it is fair, but is given in exchange for the value provided by the worker to the employer. If there is no profit in the activity, there's no point engaging in that activity - ie, no job at any wage.

How do you stop companies from moving their operations overseas? I'd even extend that question by asking how do you stop companies from importing foreign workers to displace Americans? Government can't and shouldn't stop it, but could limit the number of foreign workers allowed based on reasonable labor market criteria.

The alternative that the Left is proposing only guarantees more severe economic suffering, while Obama and his army of bureaucrats replace the corporate titans as those who control the country's wealth and power. Given the choice between continuing to be a free agent, able to offer my services to any company willing to hire me, or becoming a ward of the state, with a bureaucrat making most of my life decisions for me, my choice requires not even a second of contemplation.

The next question is, can we solve these problems without Obama's transformation to Socialist government control? I believe the answer is never completely, but we can definitely do things that will reduce their prevalance and impact.

We can certainly begin taking AntiTrust laws seriously again to encourage competition. We can implement stronger and fairer trade policies and stop giving away the store to China and India. We can cut back on excessive regulation, especially in the EPA, to make it easier to start and expand business of all kinds.

And we can change welfare programs to incentivize and reward self-sufficiency instead of dependence.

I only wish we were hearing these kinds of thoughtful arguments from our candidates.

Paying Attention

2011-10-26T21:04:00.002-04:00

The ongoing search for understanding about how it's possible that there are still loyal Democrats out there that polls suggest may still turn out to re-elect Obama next year has gradually uncovered some insights.

First and foremost, they aren't really paying attention. The typical Democrat has never heard of Solyndra, Fast & Furious (they think it's a movie), the EPA crackdowns gone wild, Obama's unilateral authorization to wage war against Gaddafi (which I thought Democrats were adamantly against when the President's name was Bush). They don't care to hear about them either ("you probably heard that on Limbaugh")

What they actually believe is a laundry list of Democrat talking points that they accept completely and without question. Just a few of them:

If it hadn't been for the Stimulus, we'd be in a Depression.

The 1% have all the money because they somehow stole it from the 99%, and they don't pay their fair share in taxes and deserve to be punished.

We can solve the budget problem tomorrow if the GOP just stops blocking Obama from hiking the taxes on the rich. By the way, the economic problems wouldn't even exist if the GOP would just stop blocking Obama's policies.

Republicans want people to lose their retirement, healthcare, homes, and food to make themselves richer.

High energy prices aren't Obama's fault, but the fault of the greedy oil companies who are just overcharging because the Republicans enable that.

Republicans hate everybody who isn't like them and want to persecute them. The list of targets of Republican Tea Party haters includes blacks, hispanics, gays, unions, and single mothers.

There's a willful blindness among these folks to the degree that I'm convinced if Obama announced tomorrow that terrorism is over, the economy is booming, the debt is wiped out, and everybody can get Social Security and Medicare starting at age 50, they'd cheerfully believe him and denounce anyone who would dare suggest otherwise.

Willful ignorance by a plurality of the citizenry is the cause of our country's decline.

Colts Really a 1-Man Team?

2011-10-24T21:03:00.003-04:00

It would seem so.

During the Peyton Manning era, the Colts defense was only good in the latter part of the Super Bowl winning season with Bob Sanders playing so well at Safety and pulling his teammates to a new level. Otherwise, the team has relied on Peyton to simply outscore the opponents.

The other guys scored 28 points on the Colt defense? No problem, Peyton will get 35.

Still, to be hit with the harsh reality of just how awful this team is without Mr. Manning at quarterback is rather stunning. Against the Saints, the team did something I never expected to see - they quit.

Most everyone has the same list of questions:

Are they really that bad without Manning?

Is the fundamental problem a lack of talent or coaching?

Why did Bill Polian, with the genius reputation, allow all these years to go by without even trying to find a quality backup at quarterback?

Let me take a stab with my own theories.

The fundamental problem is coaching. On both sides of the ball, but especially defense. We've suffered through the first half of the season watching the same scenario play out with the Colts defense time and time again. They make 2 stops and get the opponent into a third and long. The opposing quarterback then simply drops back and pops a quick pass over the middle to his tight end or running back, who only had to curl around behind the linebackers and in front of the safeties to get wide open and snag the first down toss.

Game after game, the Colt defense hands first downs to their opponents like candy to a baby. Are they physically incapable of making the read and covering receivers in that void in the middle of the field? Actually, it has to be coaching - the players have 2 arms and 2 legs and are reasonably athletic, so why would they make the same mistakes over and over and over again, game in and game out, unless the coaches were at fault?

But its not the coaches who gave up this week against the Saints. (Or who knows, maybe they did). I'm surprised the players don't show just a bit more pride. Aren't they humiliated at hearing from just about everyone with an opinion that the only reason the team used to be good is Peyton Manning? Shouldn't these guys be a bit insulted by the implication that they're just the supporting cast for the superstar?

Ultimately the responsibility is Jim Caldwell's. He's got to figure this out or turn in his resignation. He shouldn't go so far with this dismal performance that he waits for the pink slip. He should challenge his team in the same way - tell every player that if they're not willing to give maximum effort, he will waive him and find somebody who will. His job's at stake, and he should make it clear that therefore so is the job of every player on the team.

He should fire Larry Coyer and hire somebody who knows how to coach a defense. He should shuffle his staff to find somebody who can effectively get Curtis Painter and the offense executing better.

Peyton should not come back and play this year until or unless the team turns around. At least the Offensive Line.

Will the Colts boot the rest of the season, or will they find their pride and at least compete the rest of this year's Sundays?

Fans can only hope.

I'm Still Here

2011-09-21T11:45:00.009-04:00

It might seem I've been missing in action for awhile, as I haven't posted anything in quite some time. The reasons are nothing more than the fact I've been extremely busy and mostly out of town all summer.

I still don't really have time for posting, but thought I'd do something quickly while I have about 15 minutes before my next conference call.

The main thoughts I've had lately on the national scene are pretty easy to summarize:

The fact that Obama is an absolute disaster as president seems to be dawning on more people every week, but I'm still somewhat amazed at the percentages pollsters still report are doggedly hanging onto that sinking ship that is the Obama administration and Democratic senate.

But so far I have mixed feelings on the current Republican field. Romney continues to fail to prove he deserves the job. Perry's done more to suppress my enthusiasm than encourage it. I really like Bachman's boldness, but now and then she drops a rhetorical bomb that makes me cringe. Ron Paul's simply out of the question. As is Jon Huntsman. Newt is a lot of fun to watch in the debates, but he's got way too much baggage.

My favorite ideologically happens to be Rick Santorum, but even if others begin to notice him, I fear the press is determined to keep him from gaining traction. Ignoring a candidate may be a more effective means of removing him from the race than attacking him - and it's working very well in Santorum's case.

I wish Mitch Daniels were in the race. Even though he has flaws of his own, I believe him to be the most level-headed, intelligent, experienced and honest choice. I respect his decision to protect his wife by staying out of the race, but find it a sad commentary on the political process that he had to worry about that.

Time to get on the next teleconference. I will try to be back soon to write about something that interests me - probably getting away from politics for awhile.

A Matter of Faith

2011-08-26T11:36:00.006-04:00

To be clear, I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy.

- Jon Huntsman

In just one of the latest statements that echoes those made by the American political Left. (I know, Huntsman is running for the GOP nomination, but for reasons that escape me.)

The key phrase so often repeated is "I believe".

It seems to me everybody believes in something. Even atheists.

According to Hebrews 11:1,

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

So faith or belief is a personal assurance that something is true, even though that something cannot be scientifically proven. Ergo, Jon Huntsman has faith in the theories of evolution and anthropogenic global warming.

When Huntsman or Gore or Chris Matthews/Rachel Maddow or any other person you care to name on the atheist Left heap scorn on superstitious believers in God who are also skeptics about claims that each of us is descended from ancient primates that descended from more ancient amphibians that descended from unimaginably ancient single-celled organisms, isn't their faith in the origin of life springing up all by itself from nothing at all requisite of just as firm a faith in the unprovable as that faith others of us hold that there was a designer involved?

When there is a very large and growing crowd of climate scientists presenting cogent arguments that "global warming" is wildly overblown and more attributable to cyclical climate patterns than to human behavior, isn't a closed-minded commitment to the climate change theory more about faith than science?

I admit that science was my worst subject in school. But I do remember the fundamental mission of science is to gather knowledge about the nature of the universe through observation and experimentation without bias.

When there is no evidence of evolution of one species into another new species through gradual mutation, science cannot claim it as fact. But those who desperately wish to erase God from the human experience do so because of their own biases and indeed a sort of anti-faith that closes off completely from even a possibility of a creator and designer that might be greater than they.

Democrats put their faith in an all-powerful government, led by themselves. The foundation of their faith is that if only the world would put them in charge, they'd do a better job than anyone else in creating a utopian society by making most of the important decisions for the rest of us, resulting in their fantasy of having heaven on earth. But history shows that that heaven is realized only by and for that ruling class, who only succeed in creating a heaven on earth for themselves while imposing something closer to hell for everyone they keep out of their politburo clicque. They think they're the "cool" people from high school who form an exclusive club to rule the school, demeaning and belittling everyone else who fails to live up to their artificial standards of what constitutes coolness.

Conservatives put their faith in God and the moral code He gave us. The government should limit itself to protecting us from the barbarians, building roads, and locking up our criminal deviants, but otherwise keeping their noses out of our business.

Science requires evidence. My faith does as well, but faith in general does not. I would say there is more than enough evidence to satisfy my faith in God and his earthly son, the Christ. Jesus' life has more documentary evidence than most other famous historical figures, and his resurrection affirmed by hundreds of eyewitnesses. His Church has thrived for over 2,000 years. That's faith that is far from pure superstition.

Who's more superstitious, Huntsman or me?

Debate Night Impressions

2011-08-11T22:22:00.004-04:00

Chris Wallace is quite the provocateur as the main questioner in tonight's GOP debate. He asked questions designed to create newsworthy responses, and certainly should be loved by Rupert Murdoch for creating an entertaining evening.

I'm just looking for a candidate.

Strictly based on debate performance, I'm ready to go with my personal rankings from tonight:

1. Santorum

2. Gingerich

3. Bachmann

4. Cain

5. Paul

6. Pawlenty

7. Romney

8. Huntsman

I admit to having a positive predisposition toward Rick Santorum, but even so, his sincere fealty to social conservatism mixed with economic conservatism are closest to my own perspectives. But even though the panel relegated him to the background by assuming he's destined to be an "also-ran", when he did get his chances, I thought he communicated very well.

Gingerich was also strong and brought down the house with his challenge to Chris Wallace to get away from "gotcha" questions and bring serious questions. He also did his best to bring in specific solutions to the conversation, even though it's nearly impossible to communicate anything specific in this format.

I like both Bachmann and Cain, and could very easily have flipped their positions. Even though I thought some of the Wallace-bating negative comments from her fellow Minnesotan were rather petty, I also thought they still stung her a bit. It was interesting to see her get a bit uncomfortable with the question about wives submitting to their husbands.

I hesitated to rank Ron Paul as high as I did, because some of his libertarian ideas are beyond the pale for me. There are lots of attractive ideas from Paul, but also some very uncomfortable ones. Even a bit frightening when he tosses aside Iran's nuke program as inconsequential and scoffs at the notion they might use them against Israel.

Pawlenty I've honestly wanted to like, but find that I don't. He took Wallace's bait to go after Bachmann but was a bit softer when later offered the chance to go after Romney. It made him look petty. He never showed the slightest personal appeal over the course of the evening, and to me increasingly seemed the generic shallow, pandering politician. Ron Paul may scare me at times, but at least I know he's genuine.

Romney remains too smooth and tries so hard to stay above the fray that he doesn't seem like a real person. There's no connection, no identifiable personality, and I just don't feel I can trust him.

Huntsman is the worst of the bunch and deserves his last-place ranking.

If Romney's indeed the party's choice and they foist him on the rest of us, I'll vote for him. Although more enthusiastically than when I pulled the lever last time for McCain, not because I think he's that much better than McCain, but that Obama's that much worse.

My ranking is about my perception of the debate performance. It certainly doesn't mean I've picked my candidate. This post I made sure to write without seeing or hearing anything from anyone else, just to make sure my impressions aren't influenced by anybody.

Then again, if we could move the election up to tomorrow, I'll gladly pull the lever for any one of these 8 just to get a merciful and much-needed end to the awful reign of Obama.

When the Argument Loses Me

2011-08-08T18:59:00.003-04:00

Flowing from the argument over raising the debt ceiling to the argument over downgrading the country's credit rating, it's reaching the stage that is not about losing the argument, but where the argument is losing me.

The DOW crashes today about 635 points. So Obama goes on TV, supposedly to calm everyone down and says ... nothing. All he had to say was, let's see:

S&P was just wrong.

It's the Tea Party's fault.

We still need the rich to chip in more to save us.

Nothing new. Nothing specific. So the DOW plummeted even faster with his silly talking points.

I try to be fair whenever there's an argument, and at least try to understand the other side of the argument. OK, on the debt ceiling, the other side said everything the government is spending is necessary - there is nothing to cut, in fact they think the government should be spending more. As far as the debt problem, they just deny it exists and say fix it by raising taxes on rich folks.

OK, that I can understand. I think they're terribly and obviously wrong, but I also know that party consists mainly of government employees and government dependents, and understand they won't stand for any attempted solution that involves cutting or eliminating their salary (or benefit checks).

But with the new, seemingly obvious consequence of the failure of the government to do anything serious to solve the problem, the other side seems to be just burying their head in the sand and pointing at the Tea Party.

It has been so bizarre to watch how Democrats have united together to brand the Tea Party as the enemy. Interestingly, they're never specific about what's exactly wrong with the Tea Party, because if they actually tell the truth about them, more people would probably flock to Tea Party rallies.

The only common goals of the Tea Party are focused on helping elect candidates who will shrink the size of the Federal government, get spending and debt under control, keep taxes low, and return to founding Constitutional principles. What's so sinister about that? If you don't agree with those principles, then exactly what principles would you proposed to replace them?

Where can we find a single lawmaker or even candidate who has put forward a proposal that even starts to roll back the excesses of this era? Ryan's budget was no more than a down-payment, and he was attacked viciously and unfairly by even some in his own party. Boehner sold the plan that Obama signed to trigger the downgrade which had only pretend spending cuts. Did Boehner, Reid, Obama, and Biden actually believe they could trick the country into believing they even tried to solve the problem? If so, every citizen who realizes the whole thing was a trick should express their frustration at the polls to turn them all out (too bad it's another 6 years before Nevada gets a chance to turn out Reid).

I experienced Jimmy Carter. Until the last few months, I was noticing that, policy-wise, Barack Obama is the second coming of Jimmy Carter. Now it seems that Obama has succeeded in leaving his pal from Plains, GA in the dust as the most hopelessly inept and destructive president of the last 50 years, perhaps even in the country's history.

The only hope is for the second coming of Ronald Reagan to win through in November 2012. Nobody seems fit to wear that mantle among the current crop of candidates, but perhaps one will step forward in time.

The Only Way

2011-07-16T10:15:00.005-04:00

As nearly aspect of American life continues to tumble into the abyss, I've tried to make use of this blog to suggest root causes and point out the only way out. That only way out of course is a return to Christian principles by the plurality of the country, but I realize that I can't make that argument without preaching to the choir. So instead, I must try to make the point from a practical, commen sense approach to make the point to the current plurality of Americans who can be classified as only marginally Christian or non-Christian.

The lessons I was taught as a child came from my parents, grandparents, and sunday school teachers. It's difficult to find people who still teach or even marginally acknowledge these lessons. That's why we're all spiraling into Hell together here on America's earth.

As children, we were taught to aspire to being faithful, hard-working, caring, strong, honest, and responsible. Our careers were important, but only as the means to provide for our families. Life's priorities were clearly defined: God first and foremost, then family, then neighbors, and down ths list until we got the end of the list, where sits self. The definition of a good man is simple and easy to understand, yet anathema to today's American sensibilities.

The lesson that is now called "hate speech" is that the family is the foundation of a good society, the man is the head of the family, and the extended family gathering together in the Church forms the most important and effective institution for peace and happiness.

A man finds a woman with whom he wants to partner to create a family. They participate together in the sacrament of marriage, where each makes a series of solemn promises to each other, to their extended families and friends, and to God Himself that are binding on both for life.

I've never been to a wedding ceremony where caveats were added to the vows of "better or worse, sickness and health, till death do us part". Nobody has ever said,

"Unless she nags too much"
"Unless he is a slob who leaves his underwear and socks all over the floor"
"Unless somebody cuter and sexier comes along"
"Unless she keeps maxing out the credit card on clothes and shoes"
"Unless he starts neglecting me to hang out with his buddies every night"

or the one that seems to be the favorite these days,

"Unless we just fall out of love".

A man of character takes his promises seriously and doesn't invent rationalizations to get him off the hook if he wearies of his wife.

But today it's even worse than the appalling divorce rate and tragic level of broken and single-parent families. Today men don't even feel a sense of responsibility to care for their own children. Young men pursue the self-centered lifestyle with multiple partners and convince their girlfriends to cohabitate without a marital commitment, then seem to have no compunction over moving onto the next shack-up while leaving his children to be cared for by the State.

Likewise, young women have taken the feminist message to heart that they "can have it all". Who needs a man other than as a sperm donor. Women now who never married live with their four children by four different sperm donors in a State-subsidized home, eating meals bought with food stamps, and getting free taxi rides to the free medical care for her children. Meanwhile the sperm donors are gone and forgotten, and don't know or care about their illegitimate offspring.

Even those in the older generations still living who taught me these principles have succumbed to the culture of "me first". Ask any senior about Social Security and Medicare going bankrupt, and you're likely to get an angry response something like this:

"I worked my whole life and paid into those programs. Now that I'm retired, I've earned my share."

The attitude can at least partly be attributed to the dishonesty of government when they sold those programs originally, gulling our "greatest generation" into beleiving they were contributing to their own retirement with that lifetime of payroll taxes, when in reality their money was simply being siphoned off to pay other benefits and whatever other government programs needed funding at the time.

But it's not just the abandonment of family values at fault. Business and professional leaders have redefined ethics to be how far they can go without getting punished by the government, rather than what's right or wrong. Profit is king, and if destroying the lives of hundreds or thousands of your employees by moving their jobs overseas can contibute another 10 percent to the bottom line, then get it done today!

Our elected representatives in government increasingly seem to be representing those who fund their expensive campaigns with money they use for advertisements designed to fool enough voters with false promises to buy enough votes to keep them in Washington another term. Many high-level elected officials have demonstrated that they would open the gates to barbarian horde invaders if it benefits them personally to do so, yet they somehow manage to mislead enough folks to hang onto their office the next election cycle.

So today we have passed the tipping point, where government dependents have outstripped private wage earners. Those dependents vote, and they vote for the candidates who make the empty promise to keep and increase their gravy train. So men can continue to impregnate as many women as will have them and let the State raise the children, women can get a life of leisure courtesy of the State, and the shrinking population of faithful and responsible families are called evil by the President of the United States as rich, greedy, and uncaring about the poor, only because they oppose massive tax hikes and continued government excess.

There is no politician who can save us, and no man for that matter. There is no solution to our problems short of a major old-fashioned Christian Revival that shakes everyone up and opens their eyes to the truth. Only when men become real men of faith and character again will we begin to solve our problems.

When accepting charity becomes a stigma, not a "right" to get free stuff just because you're poor. When those who accept charity do so with humility and a determination to use it to become independent and someday pay it back or "pay it forward".
When illegitimate children are scandalous, not a feminist ideal.
When charity returns to communities and churches and is designed to help people get on their feet rather than perpetuate dependency.
When the nuclear family once again becomes the rule, not the exception.
When love and sex are no longer confused as meaning the same thing.
When business leaders treat their employees as people to be treated fairly and with respect.
When employees dedicate themselves to providing a fair day's hard work for a fair day's pay.
When medical professionals put healing first and personal profits last.
When patients act on their responsibility to remit fair compensation for their medical treatments.
When legal professionals dedicate themselves to justice, not trolling for deep pockets to sue.

When men put themselves last instead of first.

Cynical Manipulation

2011-07-13T20:04:00.002-04:00

So far the ongoing arguments over federal budgeting and debt ceilings have drawn little interest from me. With Dems in control of the presidency and senate and GOP the house, neither can get their way. So both sides instead are choosing to play the issues for votes.

The GOP likes to talk a lot about a balanced budget amendment as the main thing they want to get in return for agreeing to extend the debt ceiling. Not that such a constitutional amendment wouldn't be desirable - of course it would. But there's no way it will happen. From my perspective it's like negotiating with a mugger, saying "you can have my wallet now if you promise never to rob me again". Completely meaningless.

On the other hand, the outrageous rhetoric from the Democrats is led by none other than the President himself, who never seemed to get the memo that American presidents are supposed to be above such extreme partisan demagoguery as threatening to withhold Social Security checks if he doesn't get is way.

Which reportedly led to seniors flooding the phone lines of congressional republicans, scaring the digested and undigested waste from their bowels by demanding they don't let Obama's threat become a reality.

It seems pretty clear at this stage that those ideas popular on the right will simply not happen in this divided government. There won't be a balanced budget amendment, which can only pass the house. Spending won't be cut to levels that allow the debt limit to be held at current levels. Obamacare won't be repealed to help cut its trillion or two from spending projections. Paul Ryan's proposals won't see the light of day in the senate.

All the GOP can hope to accomplish is a modest package of spending cuts with some so-called "tax reform" that closes some loopholes but doesn't increase anybody's rates. And nothing substantial will take place to fix the underlying problem.

The Democrats on the other hand won't get their tax increases on the evil "rich". They can't lean on their favored dishonest definition of spending cuts, which to them is defined as deciding not to increase expenditures quite as much as they hoped.

Something will get done that will turn out to be mostly meaningless. Then the campaign season will kick off in earnest, with each side's message already set:

Democrats will campaign by saying that if you elect the Republican, seniors will lose their social security and medicare, kids won't be able to pay back their student loans, children will starve and catch terrible diseases because the republicans won't let them see a doctor.

Republicans will campaign on the 9.2% unemployment rate, the horrible Obama economy, oppressive government regulation, and a free-spending Democrat party machine that will bankrupt the country and drive us into anarchy while exposing us to a terrorist invasion.

Whether or not the problem is actually solved and the average American's life has a chance to improve instead of decline in the rest of the decade depends on whether there are enough voters who cut through the bull excrement and vote in the person more likely to help solve the problem instead of make it worse.

Which for me means anybody who is not Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Schumer, Durbin, or their partisan friends. The recent special election in New York, where the false characterization of Ryan's Medicare proposals actually worked to elect the Democrat doesn't seem to bode well.

Shallow

2011-06-21T20:19:00.002-04:00

I know I'm not brilliant, unusually wise or extremely knowledgable. So why do I increasingly get the feeling most everyone I encounter is incredibly shallow in their ideas and beliefs?

Most current events fall into that category, but a good example today seems to be the arguments over Afghanistan.

Before I get into my illustration, my up-front statement is that I'm personally undecided about my position on the topic. The reason I haven't settled on a specific opinion is that I don't have enough information.

So why does seemingly everybody else think they have all the information they need to hold a strong position either for or against continuing the fight in Afghanistan? Do they somehow know more about it than I do? Or do they make their decisions as simply parrots of whichever prominent political figure they trust and admire?

Here's what I want to know before I make a decision. Tell me if these questions have been answered definitively somewhere, and I've somehow just missed them.

One argument is that we need to stay until we win the war, finish the job, defeat the Taliban, or whatever interchangeable phrase anyone wishes to substitute. Fine, I agree with the sentiment. But I want to know:

What is the job there? How do we know when we're done? How do we define success? After we win, what does Afghanistan look like?

The other argument is that we need to get out now. Declare victory and leave, bring the troops home safely, stop nation-building, take care of our own and stop foreign adventures that are none of our business, or whatever interchangeable phrase anyone wishes to substitute. Sure, that sounds kind of good too. But I want to know:

If we abruptly pull out, what will happen to the Afghans who worked with us? Are they strong enough to protect themselves from the Taliban now, or will the Taliban slaughter them shortly after we leave? How likely is it that Afghanistan will once again become a safe haven from where a fresh 9/11 attack will be planned and carried out? Do we bear any responsibility if the Taliban reassert their power and once again kill, oppress, mistreat, and take away the freedom we helped their women realize for education and freedom?

I also need help understanding how our leaders plan to overcome the incredible obstacles to victory. Guerilla warfare is difficult enough to overcome with conventional military means, let alone when the Taliban can strike our forces from the mountains then simply run across the Pakistan border where they're apparently harbored. If we can't pursue them across the border out of some sort of diplomatic agreement with the Pakistanis, how will we ever defeat them? If the entire region is full of radical muslims who sympathize with or support groups like the Taliban and Al Quaeda, how will we ever succeed at pacifying what seems to be a never-ending stream of enemy combatants?

Everybody else seems to think they already know the answers to these questions, or they don't think beyond the surface to even consider the questions, or they completely trust those from their "side" and attribute evil motives to the other side so the questions don't matter.

If someone wants to argue this question with me, they would first have to prove they have access to inside information. Except for absolute pacifists, who hold that war is never permissible under any circumstances, which at least is a respectable position but leaves no room for debate on any factual information.

The only persons who might qualify to influence me to take a position on this topic would be those who are directly involved in the conflict itself and have the intelligence and strategic knowledge to tell me honestly the answers to all of my questions.

My Candidate's Speech

2011-06-13T19:30:00.003-04:00

The speech I need to hear from the presidential candidates would go something like this.

[Intro]

The first question people ask of a presidential candidate is, "Why do you want to be President?"

My answer is this: in any other time, I would never consider applying for the job. I like what I do in the private sector, and would rather stay there than take a relatively low-paying, thankless job that requires full attention 24/7, the responsibility for making difficult decisions that can affect millions on a daily basis, and being hated by half the world seemingly just for holding the title with either an 'R' or a 'D' next to your name.

But over the last 3 years I've seen my country go through a shockingly rapid decline because we chose to hand power to a bunch of naieve and irresponsible adolescents. It's past time for the adults to come back home and clean up after our home has been trashed.

You've heard the old story about the teenage kids who manage to convince their parents to take a nice vacation and leave them at home alone for awhile. "We can handle it", they said. "We promise we'll be responsible and take good care of the house for you while your gone".

So the parents go on the vacation, even with that uneasy feeling they just might be making a decision they will come to regret. And sure enough, Mom and Dad come back home unexpectedly to find their home trashed. The kids threw a huge party, and the gangs of teens that showed up looted everything of value and destroyed everything else in your beautiful property.

So the parents do what any parent would do. They try to use the experience to teach their children a lesson about responsibility. In the meantime, they get to work cleaning up and recovering from the disastrous losses that happened when their naieve children invited people to their party who didn't have good intentions and ended up looting everything.

I am asking the adults of the United States to join with me to clean up the mess created by the adolescent goverment we put in charge over the past few years. I am asking that you help me teach those adolescents the lessons they need to learn, such as

There's no such thing as free healthcare. You can't pass a massive new government-controlled medical plan designed to move us to a mythological "univeral" healthcare program without having it bankrupt the country.

The economy doesn't grow by punishing job creators with high taxes and threats of high taxes combined with oppressive government regulation.

Energy independence doesn't happen by shutting down all untapped sources of domestic energy reserves while promoting expensive government boondoggles and pipe dreams euphemistically called "clean, renewable energy".

Effective foreign policy and National Security are not achieved through the force of any president's personality.

I can promise one thing above all others. That I will be honest with you. And this basic honest truth is that I can't clean up this mess by myself. You all need to join me. We all need to work together to help America remember how great we once were, and how we can become even greater as soon as we realize those things that make us great.

First and foremost, we all must participate and contribute to the success of our country. We literally can't afford to continue the trend where more folks of able bodies and minds sit at home collecting government checks funded by the labor of the rest of us supplemented by loans from China.

We must move our social safety net closer to those most in need instead of administered by high-paid bureaucrats ruling from the comfort of their Washington stone and marble palaces.

When government gets involved in helping the poor and sick among us, shouldn't the goal be to help them become self-sufficient and healthy? It seems that government agencies are incentivized to keep their clients on the rolls rather than getting them off the rolls. Why not change all of our social programs to reward success by defining success as reducing the number of sick and needy that must be served?

In my experience, people with good jobs don't need public assistance. So why can't government focus on helping everyone find a good job instead of handing out homes and food and medical care to create and maintain a huge and growing dependent class?

Tax rates don't have to go up to solve the budget crisis. When people get good jobs, we won't need to spend as much taxpayer money taking care of them. When those same people get good jobs, they not only no longer need government assistance, they become taxpayers themselves. Government should spend no more than is required and tax no more than is required. Government must spend only what it brings in. These are not difficult ideas for anybody, except apparently so many who live within the beltway.

I'm a supporter of all Americans. My constituency as president isn't designed to favor big business over labor unions, trial lawyers over physicians and drug companies, blacks or latinos or asians over whites, women over men, or any group over any other group. Such political games are horribly devisive and must stop.

My administration will be a friend to all Americans, period. I don't care what economic level, race, creed, or association - every American citizen is a friend of my administration. That doesn't mean everybody gets whatever they want - in fact, pretty much everybody will find they no longer can get benefits for their special interest group that elevates them at the expense of anybody else.

All policy is about lifting all Americans and what's best for America. Nobody gets special priviledges. Crony Capitalism will go into the history books. Equal opportunity and a color-blind society without preferences to anyone will be the rule of the day. Integrity, honesty, fairness, and civility will be a quality of America at which the world will marvel.

This vision for the re-emergence of the America we all know and believe in will not happen because I'm elected President. Instead, it will happen because each and every citizen buys into the ideals of America. We all do our part, we all strive to pull ourselves up and give others a hand up along the way.

All of us men can and must take responsibility for ourselves and our families. No more making our girlfriends pregnant and walking away to leave our families to be cared for by the government. Women can and must take the same responsibilty by never choosing to have sex with men with whom they would not have children. When we both make those marriage promises to each other, "till death do us part", we have the integrity to consider that a promise worth keeping, "for better or worse, in sickness and in health", instead of casting each other aside the moment we spot a little greener patch of grass somewhere.

Liberal or conservative, we all want the same thing in the end - a better life for ourselves and our families. Join me and let's work together to solve our problems and I guarantee we will all find that better life.

Another Sign of the Apocalypse

2011-06-08T20:30:00.002-04:00

The disgusting case of Anthony Wiener isn't something I care to get into, but the poll that got reported this week is at least equally disturbing as his depraved behavior.

The poll seemed to suggest that a plurality of his constituents don't think he should resign.

The New Yorkers that elected him don't care. It seems that as long as he remains a crusader for the cause of progressivism, they'll overlook any depravity. Which since he's also a lying sociopath, means they'll also overlook any issues of corruption that are reasonably predictable from his obvious lack of character.

The Republicans who got caught falling down morally resigned immediately, including Wiener's own colleague from upstate, who quit even before his story hit the media. And as far as I can tell, all he was doing was trolling for love online with a picture of himself shirtless. Gone.

The guy from Fort Wayne, Sauder, was discovered to have had an affair with a staffer. He quit. It made me wonder at the time how many other congressmen, if they were honest, have been or are currently guilty of the exact same offense?

The Democrat twisted logic is that somehow when Republicans do this stuff they deserve whatever they get because their sin isn't the sin, but hypocrisy. Since Democrats don't really have any moral standards, there's no reason for them to face any consequences (remember Bill Clinton?).

The sign of the apocalypse? That Wiener's still in congress, and his constituents don't care.

Random

2011-05-24T20:29:00.002-04:00

Just a few random thoughts for a Tuesday.

Caught Netanyahu's speech to Congress. It made me wish there was a candidate for the American Presidency with his bearing and forthrightness. Still hoping somebody like that steps up, but haven't seen him (or her) yet.

Tornado season is pretty awful this time around. Barely catching our breath from Joplin, there seem to be a rash of new tornados running through Oklahoma.

Which somehow brings me to the end-time subject. I sort of feel sorry for the guy who predicted the "Rapture" this past Saturday, but can't really figure out what motivated him.

Just walking through some basic stuff in that area: The Bible's pretty explicit that we won't know the day or hour, thief in the night, and all that stuff. So if he is a committed evangelical, why did he overlook that?

Then, just suppose for a moment that he had some sort of divine inspiration that it was happening on Saturday. Think about it, whether he was right or not, his widely publicized predictions were widely and pretty much universally mocked and ridiculed, as was he. So even if he did predict it correctly and all the worthy followers of Christ disappeared from the earth Saturday. The only possible motivation he could have had for warning everyone about it in advance would have been the hope that one or two people out there would have taken him seriously and got right with God in time for the event. But from what I hear, he sort of seemed to expect to just be vindicated, sort of like "ha, ha, nya, nya, I was right and you're left behind to suffer the Great Tribulation!" That's not really very Christian either.

Then there's the little problem that as I understand it, most theologians think the whole "Rapture" concept is sort of bunk, just made up by misreading and out-of-context interpretations of various passages in the Bible. Oh well.

It's intriguing to see those sensationalist programs on the History and Discovery channels about end times prophecy, tying apocalyptic prophecies together to conclude they all have similar end of the world stories and all seem to point to it happening by next year.

Intriguing, but not important. As a believer, I'm looking for Christ's return like anybody, and understand I should try to be a solid citizen of the faith regardless of whether it happens in my lifetime. But it doesn't make sense to get all absorbed in the whole thing - we all need to live our lives as best we can and let what happens happen.

Looking around the world, it's still easy to be a bit concerned with all the stuff going on. We're in the middle of the disintegration of America, Iran seems likely to have nuclear weapons very soon that they can't wait to lob into Israel, the so-called "Arab Spring" seems more likely to turn the rest of the region into little Irans with the same goals, the little Communist Chavez in Venezuela is reportedly setting up missiles he's aiming at the United States. Tornados and earthquakes and volcanos, Oh My! The country is broke, gas costs 4 bucks a gallon, food prices are skyrocketing, our kids graduate from high school without being able to read a newspaper or balance a checkbook, more people now live off the government than by private means, and half the country is more interested in arguing about whether gay people should get married.

Put them all together, and the end of the world seems inevitable. Maybe the Rapture would be a good thing, but then again only if I qualify and can somehow get my loved ones to jump the line and come with me.

Maybe that's it - the guy was right about the Rapture happening on Saturday! It just turned out that Jesus arrived but couldn't find anybody worthy enough to take to Heaven, so he just called the whole thing off.

Obama All In

2011-05-21T10:08:00.002-04:00

The fitting analogy comes from the ubiquitous televised poker tournaments, where a player about to lose decides to go "All In", betting everything he has left on the current hand, knowing he'll either lose and be out of the tournament or win and have a chance to keep playing.

Even though it seems a bit early, Obama seems to be going All In right now, presumably as part of his re-election campaign. In only the last couple of weeks, he's taken stunning leftism to new and unprecedented levels.

He's been demagoguing the immigration and energy issues, shamelessly lying and distorting both issues in the apparent belief that you can fool just enough of the people to get re-elected. Claiming to be championing expanded domestic energy production and declaring the borders secure when everyone knows the opposite is true would have the media screaming "liar!" if he were a Republican.

We're all (except perhaps the most hard-line Leftists) happy he allowed the Seals to take out bin Laden, but he seems to have used that PR victory as impetus for pushing boldly ahead with his incomprehensible foreign policies. This guy the Left holds up as the smartest President decides on his own that Israel should unilaterally pull back to pre-1967 borders to appease the Arab world, as if that will magically pacify Hamas and Hezbollah and all the other groups bent on wiping them off the map.

That's either naive in the extreme or he's playing for the other team. I'm rapidly coming to conclude that it's the latter.

Then there's the healthcare mess and the government spending mess and the explosion of regulation, crises he and his party refuse to even acknowledge. Take a look at this article for the latest on the disaster that is Obamacare.

What is most difficult to understand is how polls still seem to show that half the country still supports the narcissist-in-chief. I realize there isn't a clear and strong leader out there yet, and it will be next summer before one emerges. Still, if you're not to the point yet of supporting anybody but Obama, you're either a card-carrying socialist/communist revolutionary or you're just not paying attention.

Book Review

2011-05-11T08:44:00.003-04:00

Actually, this post might more accurately be described as a commentary more than a review of the autobiography by Dick Van Dyke called My Lucky Life in and Out of Show Business.

I picked up the book on my Kindle because I'd always sort of admired Van Dyke as an immensely talented entertainer, mainly through his original TV show with Mary Tyler Moore and his amazing performance in Mary Poppins. I wanted to find out whether he really was as nice a guy as he seemed to project on screen, and just to get an idea of who the man was away from the camera.

My conclusions are mainly these: Yes, he apparently is a very nice and appealing person in real life, but sadly is also another one of those cliche'd Hollywood narcissists. While if I ever had the chance to meet him, I'm certain that I would find him likeable and engaging, I'm disappointed in how little he's seemed to learn over his long and blessed life.

Dick was a very well-grounded man of integrity through much of his life, until he fell victim to Hollywood. He was a devoted man of God, an elder in his church until the day his developing liberal sensibilities were insulted by one or two of his fellow elders. Their offense was in opposing an idea he proposed for some kind of racial church exchange program between his upscale Brentwood congregation and a black church from Watts.

Rather than being patient and understanding of what obviously was an expression of fear by his colleagues in the church, Dick stormed out of the meeting and never darkened the door of that or any other church again.

What happened in his life after that major turning point is interesting.

He became an alcoholic, even though previously he had never even touched alcohol.

The man who admitted having a crush on Mary Tyler Moore made a point of doing nothing about it because of his commitment to his marriage. But by severing that anchor that was his Christian faith, he changed that particular principle when he became attracted to the younger woman during his inevitable mid-life crisis. He left the wife with whom he had raised four children and broke his solemn vows to her, God, and everyone else so he could live out an adulterous affair with the younger woman, Michelle Triola of "Palimony" fame.

His clumsy rationalizations for his adultery used every cheap Hollywood line you'd expect to hear. They'd just grown apart, they both changed, they both wanted different things from life, he was experiencing a new chapter of self-discovery, the new girl (Michelle) understood him so well, blah, blah, blah. Megan Fox could invent more intelligent rationalizations. I would have appreciated him more if he'd just been honest; pure and simple, he got bored with his aging wife and hooked up with an exciting younger model.

Dick's religion these days appears to be Liberalism, although I don't get the sense that he's obnoxious about it like many of his colleagues. Instead of gaining wisdom with age, he seems instead to have regressed. He comes across as the typical shallow California liberal; as long as he supports liberal candidates and causes, he can assuage his guilt over his wealth and success.

I had hoped to find someone in this book I could admire as a man who overcame his mistakes and personal failures to emerge as a great example to the rest of us of wisdom and integrity. Instead, I just found a likeable and very talented entertainer that is sadly just as narcissistic and self-absorbed as seemingly every other talented entertainer. That's disappointing.

This post didn't start out with the intention of being as hard on Dick as it turned out. I still think I'd like him a lot if I ever got to meet him. It is striking to me that he never seems to have made the connection that's so obvious from his own book; every one of his life's biggest problems, except for the tragic loss of his teenage granddaughter, happened as a direct consequence of his abandoning God and the Church. My prayer is that God finds a way to hold up that mirror for him someday before he passes.

Handicapping Early Debate

2011-05-06T08:43:00.003-04:00

I checked out the too-early debate last night with five of the GOP presidential hopefuls. It seems to have been an opportunity for the lesser-known candidates to get exposure, and because the top contenders didn't show up, it was also a chance for top-tier candidate Tim Pawlenty to test his debate chops.

From my perspective, Pawlenty succeeded. He seemed poised and confident, and provided plenty of red meat for the Republican audience in South Carolina. His performance ranked him first on my scorecard.

The sneering Left will accuse Fox News as being too cozy with the candidates, but the panel did a great job feeding tough questions. This was no softball MSNBC-hosted Democrat debate, nor was it Chris Mathews and Keith Olbermann throwing 'when did you stop beating your wife' spitballs. The Fox panel asked pertinent and challenging questions, sparing no one and following up to demand substantive answers from the candidates.

Ron Paul is certainly consistent, reprising his role in the debate as the maverick libertarian in the race. I know he excites a certain segment of young libertarians, but he's still a little too far out there for my tastes.

Herman Cain is an interesting candidate, and I thought he did well in the debate. He's the exact sort of black conservative we'd love to see running against Obama to put the lie to the constant drumbeat over the course of Obama's presidency that conservatives who oppose his policies do so only because of racism.

Rick Santorum tried to convey strong convictions and the mythical "fire in the belly" as the social conservative champion. But I thought he seemed nervous, and had some difficulty putting the right words together; I felt like I could see him fighting an internal losing battle with himself to suppress those nerves. I've heard him speak before and like him, so I could tell he wasn't totally on his game on this important stage.

Gary Johnson turned in the worst performance of the night, to the degree that he's the one candidate of the five I've already scratched off the list. Besides my disagreement with many of his ideas, I wasn't impressed with him in the way he looked or talked, and was irritated at his carping over not getting enough attention from the panel.

When the rest of the field gets in, I don't look forward to the cattle-call debates. When you get much beyond last night's 5 candidates, debates don't really work, because there's no way anyone can have enough time to give people a true sense of who they are and what they believe. I wonder how future debate organizers will address that problem, or if they will even try.

At least there will be something for everyone in the Republican field. Ron Paul the libertarian, Santorum, Huckabee and Michelle Bachmann the social conservatives, Pawlenty and Mitch Daniels joining Romney as the fiscal conservatives downplaying the social angle to court moderates, Herman Cain the anti-Obama, Sarah Palin and Donald Trump the celebrity candidates.

I'm not ready to support anybody yet, willing to let things play out. Although I do profess a strong leaning in favor of Daniels just because I know him as my home state's governor.

Polling suggests it's Romney's to lose, in a race with Huckabee, Trump and Palin. But I think those polls are more about name recognition than anything else at this point, and don't really believe those are the main contenders. Not to mention I'm not all that comfortable with any of those top-polling candidates.

My prediction is that the race will eventually come down to the establishment candidates, who will have the party machinery solidly behind them. Romney, Daniels, and Pawlenty are the three most likely to win the nomination in my opinion, with Huckabee the dark horse. Despite all the buzz around folks like Trump and Palin, I don't see them appealing to a broad enough base of GOP voters to succeed.

Now we'll see who proves me wrong.

Seeing Both Sides of an Argument

2011-04-18T10:36:00.002-04:00

When an argument takes place between two people, I've mostly felt that if I can understand each position well, in the end I can understand and empathize with both sides. The exception to this rule is when one side is not dealing honestly, which I find frustrating and disappointing when I learn that one side of the argument is distorting and lying about their position in a dishonest attempt to wring personal benefit.

Which brings me to my search for cogent arguments from the Democrat side of the budget arguments.

Reading several left-wing articles, I was unable to find an honest argument in favor of continuing annual trillion-and-a-half dollar deficits. The only cuts they are willing to embrace are in military spending, while the only other solution to deficit cutting is increasing taxes on "millionaires and billionaires".

Neither will succeed in solving the problem, and the so often repeated line about "millionaires and billionaires" is fundamentally dishonest. Obama's tax increases target everyone making over $200K, so last time I looked, 200 thousand is only 20 percent of a million. And if they really wanted to close tax loopholes so that companies such as General Electric would actually pay something other than zero on their multi-billion dollar profits, wouldn't they have already closed them in the tax code they themselves wrote the last 4 years? Meanwhile, GE is the poster child for the modern phenomenon called "Crony Capitalism".

The ideological position of the Obama/Reid/Pelosi Democrats is otherwise pretty clear. Socialism is the easiest way to summarize the ideology. It includes high tax rates designed to "level the playing field" by transferring wealth and narrowing the gap between rich and poor. It means shutting down "dirty" energy no matter how much it hurts average people. It means forcing people to cluster in the cities and give up their cars to ride government-subsidized mass transit to and from work (or the welfare office).

The only conclusion I can reach is that their ideology trumps everything else. Their sacred cows are Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and now Obamacare, which must be protected at all costs. Even if those costs mean bankruptcy.

There is no middle ground in this argument. Either we adhere to founding principles of liberty or give in and become a fiefdom of Red China.

For me, that means there can be no compromise on these issues. If we fail to stop the outrageous spending and regulation of Obama and company, we lose everything. I'm not worried for myself so much as for my children and future grandchildren, who will never know the faith, freedom, and prosperity of America that I got to experience.

Religion is Based on Understanding Human Behavior

2011-04-14T10:51:00.002-04:00

Something I always understood at a basic level, but has become increasingly apparent in what many are now calling the Post-Christian Era, is that Judeo-Christian Religious rules are solidly based on a clear understanding of human behavior.

The story of Moses is a great example. Moses obviously recognized the need to establish laws to manage his very large contingent of former Egyptian slaves. I don't dismiss the biblical account of God writing the law on stone tablets on top of Mount Sinai, but what better way to introduce laws to an unruly mob of thousands of ex-slaves suddenly set free than to obtain them directly from God on the mountain-top?

A recurring theme used by modern gay rights advocates is that we wouldn't stone them for their sexual behavior today, therefore why would we place any credence in the old Mosaic laws condemning that behavior? It's a specious argument that could be applied to any illegal behavior; if their contention about gay activity is accepted, then wouldn't it also apply equally to adultery, polygamy, even murder?

Harsh punishment was deemed necessary for the nomadic Hebrew tribes to keep them from destroying themselves from within. Adultery in that infant society might lead to inter-tribal wars, therefore a strict law was imposed to make it clear that the leadership would handle violations so the tribes would not be tempted to seek revenge themselves.

Homosexual behavior, not to mention heterosexual promiscuity, has always come with an extremely high risk of disease. Therefore as a practical matter, strict rules favoring monogamy and punishing risky behavior make a lot of sense.

In the Exodus accounts, the Israelites were constantly losing faith and falling back on their old, bad habits. And they always suffered the consequences.

Just listen to "Doctor Laura" on the radio for ten minutes, and you'll get a modern real-life example of what happens universally to those of us that make bad choices. How often are the bad things that happen to us today directly traceable to our own poor judgement? Sure, it's possible to be victimized by unscrupulous business people, and there are many diseases that are not tied to our behavior. But the vast majority of people's problems these days are self-inflicted by a simple abandonment of commonsense morality.

The fundamental point is about the value of morality coming from God. Those who seem to have succeeded in removing God from America bear the greatest blame for our country's decline. Because without God, there's no reason to behave.

Apply the most obvious example, smoking. The health risks of tobacco use are well known, so why do so many people choose to smoke? Because they attach no moral stigma to the behavior.

Isn't the same true of illegal drugs, promiscuity, homosexuality, reckless driving, insurance scams, welfare fraud, theft, murder? If there's no God, no heaven, no hell, and no severe punishment for behavior that's destructive to ourselves and others, then why not do whatever makes us feel good?

This is the place America has arrived. I am certain that a horrible catastrophe is near, which was the only way to bring the ancient Israelites back to God, is the only way to bring America back to God.

Budget Cutting for Dummies

2011-04-13T09:26:00.003-04:00

It's stunningly easy if those who write the tax law aren't influenced by the obvious quid-pro-quo.

Going back to the law I feel most strongly about, but will never happen because it takes away their job security. It probably has to be a constitutional amendment. The law is simply this: No tax, and likewise no tax credit, deferral, deduction, or any other adjustment may be passed without every citizen being eligible. No tax exemptions for specific corporations, members of congress, or individuals. No targeted tax credits, exemptions, deferrals or deductions.

Taxes apply to everyone equally, likewise tax reductions are available to everyone who chooses to take advantage of them.

That takes care of the revenue side.

On the spending side, again it's easy.
Either shut down or reorganize these agencies into a small shadow of what they are today:
Education
Arts
Agrigulture
EPA

Reorganize and consolidate duplicative agencies.

Convert Commerce into a trade association with federal support, fully funded by its members' dues. Members of course would be any company that wants to export products and services.

Cancel anything called "Corporate Welfare". This is most easily accomplished by the first solution.

Stop funding Planned Parenthood and Public Broadcasting and all other unnecessary organizations that can continue to operate on their own as NFP's.

Cut federal salaries by 5 percent across the board. Maybe exempt those earning less than $40K, if there are such folks out there.

Convert all Federal Defined Benefit Pensions into 401Ks.

Restructure Medicare into a simple health insurance program with affordable premiums for seniors.

Take Medicaid away from the Federal Government entirely, because it's duplicative with State programs.

Repeal Obamacare, of course.

Open American oil and natural gas resources to American energy companies through auctions. Use tax incentives to help make sure most of those resources stay at home to meet domestic demand instead of being sold on the world market.

Remove all the uncertainty in government tax and regulatory policy, giving American companies the confidence to move forward with their plans without holding back for fear of unpredictable costs of Obamacare, taxes, and arbitrary federal regulation.

Gradually move Social Security from a welfare program to an actual retirement and insurance program, where every citizen has an individual cash-value account. Those who live their working lives on welfare won't have a retirement account, and can either rely on family or care in a modest group home or nursing home subsidized by the State, not the Feds.

Put some teeth into trade policies. Any country that wants to sell their goods in America must give equal access to their own market to American goods in return and must demonstrate reasonable control over theft of American inventions, art, and intellectual property.

Washington Theatre

2011-04-11T13:32:00.002-04:00

The most disappointing thing about the theatrics in Washington about the battle over the budget and possible shutdown of the Federal government was the realization that hit me while it was underway.

The so-called "leaders" in Washington think we're all a bunch of ignorant fools.

Pretending like 38 billion dollars in budget cuts is a big deal. Sure to all of us, that's an awful lot of money. But compared to just the amount of the budget deficit for this year, it's barely noticable.

Democrats screaming outrageous nonsense about mean Republicans, from the mildest accusation of taking away "women's health services" to the most strident "killing women".

I was hoping somehow that Planned Parenthood would be defunded. But calling abortion "women's health" is like Animal Control claiming that putting down stray dogs and cats is "pet care".

The GOP side is telling its conservative base to be happy that Boehner got Obama and Reid to compromize from a budget cut of zero to 38. At least he got something done in the right direction.

Do both sides really think we're all drooling idiots? Balancing the budget may not be easy to do all at once, but it can be easily done in only a few years. Send me to Washington and I'll have that budget balanced without breaking a sweat. All it requires is an emptying of the featherbeds and revamping of the tax code.

Serious Analysis of Education

2011-04-08T09:26:00.002-04:00

Indiana's in the midst of a bitter dispute about education vouchers. Teachers unions are fighting tooth and nail, and the Democrats fled to Illinois for over a month to deny a quorum in a failed attempt to halt the legislation.

In the 32 years since I was a public school teacher, I've watched as schools have received massive increases in funding to solve the problem of declining student performance. Now at least our failing schools look terrific on the outside and teachers get a pretty sweet deal financially.

None of that has resulted in improving the outcomes for kids.

There are basically two solutions being put forward by the two political ideological sides. Democrats and the teacher unions suggest we just haven't given them enough money yet, or pretend there is no problem. Republicans push for voucher programs that let lower-income families escape the dysfunctional public school in favor of a quality education in a private or parochial school.

While clearly the teachers unions simply have a goal of keeping the status quo for their members - tenure, high salaries, free health insurance, and generous pensions - Republicans at least sincerely want to find a solution.

But are vouchers the right solution?

I'm not so sure.

I don't like the idea of government handing out money to private institutions of any kind. What the government subsidizes they also control. And I don't want any hint of government control in Catholic or Christian schools.

It's very easy to imagine the next step after vouchers are instituted, which will be couched under "educational standards". The government can and I think will impose strings to those voucher payments, beginning with a "tolerance" curriculum that glorifies immoral sexual behavior to elementary school children.

Another concern I have with this idea is in the area of capacity. Vouchers are nearly certain to create an overwhelming demand of families applying to get their children out of the unsafe and failing public school, but there's not enough capacity in the local private schools to accomodate them all.

So what criteria are used to select students that will get the priviledge of escaping the bad school? A lottery? Some sort of merit or need-based formula set by the state? Let the private school choose?

No matter what the method, there are two bad outcomes to this process: Government dictates which students are to be considered for enrollment at the private school, and deserving students will inevitably be left behind in the failing school.

And those failing public schools won't get better - they'll get even worse. Because the first students they lose will be those whose parents care enough to fight to get their children a better education. And that means the best students will be the first to take advantage of vouchers to escape the failing school.

As the private schools add capacity, they'll seek out the best teachers for their added classrooms. The best teachers are likely to accept a slightly smaller compensation package in return for better working conditions, which can be assumed to include better school administrators and better motivated, better behaved students.

Republicans suggest this will force the failing public school to change its ways or shut its doors. I agree that a failing school should be shuttered, but am having difficulty understanding what happens to the students during the school's waning days, and where the students go after it closes.

So the question becomes, what is the solution? Everything that's been done over the past 30 years has cost taxpayers too much and produced no apparent improvements, so if vouchers aren't the answer, what is?

Thinking through every conceivable option, I keep settling on this one:

Privatize.

Sounds kind of radical, I know. But if it's done right, it can be great for everyone.

Let private companies bid for the existing school facilities and a per-student rate. Let them advertise and attract students based on their individualized programs. Parents choose the school they think is best for their child based on location, curriculum, and results. Companies compete for students by offering great programs, whether in the sciences, arts, athletics, or whatever. The companies are licensed by the state based solely on fundamental academic curricula - no social, religious, or political agendas (except perhaps teaching violent jihad) will be considered in granting of licensing. Of course, these schools have to be open to any and all applicants, except violent offenders.

Put antitrust safeguards in place to make sure there is plenty of competition among education companies, and any company can open a school in the area as long as it meets licensing standards.

Source of Polarization

2011-04-07T09:24:00.003-04:00

Whether it's the frightening battle for dominance in Wisconsin or the budget showdown in Washington, I believe the country has never been more politically polarized in my lifetime. It seems likely we haven't seen this level of polarization since the Civil War, aka The War Between the States, aka The War of Northern Aggression, aka The War to End Slavery, all depending on the polarized points of view of those on either side back then.

From an historical perspective, I'd have been completely on the side of the North in that war if it were about ending the evil of slavery. But take out the slavery issue, and I have plenty of sympathy for the perspective of many in the south, who viewed the war in terms of freedom. Abe Lincoln was determined to use the Federal government to bigfoot the states, imposing the will of Washington on all of the states whether that will was appropriate for a given state or the citizens of a state wanted that Federal control.

These days, the states have seen most of their power to govern themselves confiscated by Washington. In many cases, Washington has accomplished this by addicting states to federal money. In other cases, Washington has used the courts to discover new rights and grant unfettered extraconstitutional authority to itself. In still other cases, the US Congress has simply taken that authority for themselves.

It was just a matter of time, and now that time has come. We're polarized once again in a fight that threatens to become violent.

The moral issue of slavery is replaced by today's fights over abortion and gay marriage.

The states' rights issue has resurfaced in today's fights over the size and scope of the federal government.

It's the Socialists against the Constitutionalists.
It's Trial Lawyers against Business.
It's women against men.
It's non-white races against white races.
It's atheism and Islam against Christianity and Judaism.
It's wage earners against welfare and social security dependents.
It's homosexuals against Christians.
It's abortionists against Hypocratic Oath physicians and pharmacists.
It's Socialists against Business.
It's Mega Corporations against Entrepreneurs.
It's Environmentalists against Manufacturing Business.
It's city against country.
It's the coasts against the heartland.
It's illegal immigrants against citizens.
It's revolutionary change against rediscovered founding principles.
It's pacifists against homeland defense.
It's government is the answer against government is the problem.
It's guns kill people versus people kill people.

The Left is in charge and has run the country off the cliff. They want us to give them more time to achieve their vision for utopian society.

The Right is on the ascendancy and wants us to accept them as our saviors. But last time they were in charge they became drunk on their power and were irresponsible - therefore the country ran them out.

The Republicans holding office cover a specturm of political beliefs, ranging from left of some Democrats to Conservative Purists.

Democrats claim to cover a similar spectrum, but the so-called "blue dogs" voted in lockstep with their party while they bankrupted the country to funnel money to constituencies that they hoped would keep them perpetually in power.

Votes on important issues in congress illustrate the polarized divide. Democrats passed the destructive healthcare law without a single Republican vote. The Republican budget bill passed the House without any help from even the Blue Dogs, who are supposed to care about spending and debt.

It's time to find principled lawmakers who vote for what's right, not what their party leaders demand. I fear that ship has sailed.

Real Problem-Solving or Grandstanding?

2011-04-06T09:57:00.002-04:00

Awaiting what now seems to be an inevitable "government shutdown", it's interesting to take a step back and look at the whole fight from a distance.

The current argument is about setting the budget for the remainder of the year. Republicans proposed cutting either 61 or 71 billion through the end of the year, but so far I'm not completely clear on which number is right. Democrats countered with a reported cut of $33 billion, but in typical Washington sleight-of-hand, they count their cuts against Obama's proposed budget instead of the current spending levels. Which some say is no cut at all in comparison to this year's reality.

The fight is over more than the numbers themselves. The Republican plan targets liberal sacred cows long hated on the right, specifically Planned Parenthood and Public Broadcasting. Democrats have promised to fight to the bitter end to protect those two pillars of liberalism.

Then there's the EPA. The GOP proposal rolls back Obama's unilateral imposition of suffocating fossil fuel restrictions enforced by the EPA through the concept that they now have the right to control CO2 emissions as a pollutant. Yes, that's the gas we all emit when we exhale. The bill strips the ability of the EPA to restrict, shut down, deny permits, and otherwise harrass energy companies in the pretense of saving the planet from global climate change (formerly known as global warming).

Obama's publicly dead set against having his EPA restrictions rolled back. The usual suspects, led by Reid and Pelosi, are already predicting widespread deaths from disease and starvation because the evil GOP somehow desires to shift money from the
"safety net" into the pockets of fat cat corporate types.

When in the end, the current fight is between an actual drop in the water bucket versus an imaginary one.

And the debate has barely started over the next budget, just unveiled by Paul Ryan and his GOP budget committee colleagues. Think fighting over CO2 regulation, Planned Parenthood and Public Broadcasting is tough? Just wait to see the fight that breaks out over the dismantling of Obamacare, shifting of Medicaid to the States, gradual increases in the retirement age, and pay freezes for Federal Employees.

Which of those will make Democrats angriest? I think it's close, but I'd pick a narrow victory of the Federal Pay Freeze over killing Obamacare. Because they'll always put their personal interests above their ideology - ergo the biggest fight will be to keep their own pay and benefits rolling in.

It's quite ironic to hear Obama blast the Republicans for being ideological in what he characterizes are their unwillingness to compromise. Does he really expect us to believe that he's the non-ideological, practical problem-solver adult in the room? Wow.

Falling Back into Recession

2011-04-05T09:40:00.002-04:00

I'm not a researcher, and I don't have macro-level information to back me up, but I'm fairly convinced that we're already slipping back into another recession.

Plenty of folks probably think we never left the last one, and it certainly feels that way. High unemployment and even higher underemployment, a disastrous housing market, rising prices and our Federal, State and Local governments teetering on bankruptcy sure doesn't feel like a recovery.

I remember during the Bush years when the unemployment rate was in the 4's, some Bush-hating Democrats I know used to claim that the country was in dire financial straits. Their logic was based on a trumpeted Democrat talking point that said, sure, it may seem like there are plenty of people with jobs, but those jobs stink. The logic said that the average worker's effective wages were declining while the captains of big business were rolling in it. You know, the old rich-get-richer while poor-get-poorer theme.

So we put Democrats in charge. They celebrated a decline in the unemployment rate to 8.8 percent this week. While job losses have slowed, and some folks are returning to work, the underlying statistics suggest that 8.8 is a misleading number. Because so many have simply given up on their job search, so they get dropped from the statistics. Others take part-time minimum-wage jobs even though they obviously prefer a full-time job but can't find one, and they're also dropped from the statistics.

All of these statistics lag behind what's happening today. My personal feeling, based on the companies I work with around the country pulling back again and gas getting back around $4, tells me we're entering another recession period.

I am familiar with companies that will soon be going through layoffs. I know of companies that are cancelling capital projects because orders are slowing down. I know of companies that are scaling back because they can't get financing in a very tight loan market.

Executives openly talk about the only thing they think can get the economy back on track; an Obama defeat next year. And these guys aren't necessarily hyper-partisan types. They are very clear about the reasons they believe it's so critical to replace the president with someone to roll back the specific policies that are destroying their businesses.

The health care law, the suffocating regulations affecting many of my clients' businesses directly, the shutdown of all energy development in the country, the investment-killing budget deficits and debts being piled up, and the willful destruction of the dollar are all specific reasons behind their strongly held belief that removing this president is the only way to reverse this economic disaster.

It seems to me that people voted for Democrats thinking that somehow they'd make their employers pay them better. Instead, they destroyed their jobs by destroying the companies that used to employ them.

I tend to agree that the only real hope for better days lies in electing a new president next year, but I'd add to that the need to replace enough left-wing Senators to roll back the Obama agenda. Even then, recovery is only possible if we find and elect the right people to lead, with common sense, intelligence, and the integrity to put the country first; especially above their contributors and benefactors who hope to gain personal benefits by getting their guy (or gal) to Washington.

Chiming in on Education Vouchers

2011-03-30T17:08:00.002-04:00

One of the reasons Indiana's Democrats ran away to Illinois for over a month to deny a quorum at the statehouse was their close ties to the Teachers' union, which was strongly demanding they do whatever it takes to stop the school voucher program being pushed by the newly minted GOP majority.

The basic concept is that those who want to escape a terrible public school and actually go somewhere else to get an actual education, but don't have the means to pay private school tuition, will now be able to apply for the State of Indiana to contribute a defined amount of cash to whatever school they choose to attend.

The teachers are scared to death by this initiative, and are convinced it will eventually lead to the collapse of the public school systems. The opposite side of the argument is that it will provide competition and incentive for school administrators and teachers to step up their game and improve the quality of education in their schools to keep those students from bolting to a private school.

The fundamental question comes down to whether or not the idea will work. Ultimately the only way we can find out is if we try it, which I'm willing to do. Because there's no question that public schools in general, and the big city schools in particular, are an unmitigated disaster. Why must we continue to throw money at the schools and teachers until we're almost bankrupt, only to see the quality of education decline year after year?

Look at the Indianapolis Public Schools. They have wonderful football stadia and fantastic basketball arenas. But their students can't manage an SAT score good enough to qualify them for any of the state universities (unless they're a blue-chip athlete, which is different).

We hear more and more frightening tales about the dangers and outrages taking place in the hallways and restrooms of these taj mahal buildings. Bullies assault kids for not being cool enough. Underage couples have sex in the alcoves and bathrooms, and we can't be sure how often it should be classified as rape or assault. Illicit drugs and gangs selling them in the stairwells are a serious problem. Teachers hide in their classrooms or the lounge because they're afraid of being assaulted themselves if they take the chance to roam the halls alone during the school day.

Do you want your kid to go to these schools? I can't imagine any sane parent who would.

Yes, there's a pretty good chance that the schools in IPS might lose enough of their funding and students with this program that they'll have to be closed. But unless the administrators and teachers are willing to step up and demand standards of discipline and behavior in their schools and take back the hallways and restrooms, perhaps they deserve to close.

I'm not insensitive to some of the challenges these public schools are facing. They tremble in fear that a parent will sue them if they dare to discipline an unruly student. They fear that their best students will be the first to take the vouchers and escape to the private schools, but who can blame them?

Only boldness, dedication, and determination by the teams of principals, deans, counselors, and teachers can turn the disastrous schools around. Students in the cities come from poor, broken and disfunctional homes where there is little to no caring adult supervision are the most difficult to reach and inspire.

But our country's future depends on someone finding a way to do it, and if our public schools can't, maybe the private schools can.

Is My Perception Accurate?

2011-03-29T11:31:00.004-04:00

I didn't really want to, but somehow ended up watching Obama's speech on Libya last night. What has me thinking this morning isn't about what he said, but how I perceived his speech.

Unless I've missed it, I don't see others (at least on the Web) who share my perception of Obama's speech. Has my perception of the speech been influenced by a deep mistrust and ingrained negative perception of Obama himself, or is my analysis of his speech accurate?

Time to describe the speech and my interpretation: Obama was the angry stepfather scolding all of us for being too stupid to understand his greatness.

Throughout the speech, it seemed his attitude and bearing came across as angry, defensive, condescending, and superior. His main point was that Gaddafi was a bad guy who was killing his own people, therefore we have a moral responsibility to step in to protect those innocent victims. The point was delivered with an air that said, you're all such idiots for not understanding this and forcing me to be here to explain.

Then lest anyone have the temerity to point out his naked hypocrisy based on the similar case made by Bush for Iraq, he made sure to petulantly point out that unlike (the evil) Bush, he successfully convinced the United Nations to sanction the effort and created a coalition with NATO and a couple of Arab countries.

The natural follow-up question to his attempt at moral superiority over his predecessor is, what if you failed to get the UN to go along? (Actually, his success was in getting the dissenting members of the security council like Russia and China to abstain rather than vote no). Would that make the mission still morally imperative, even if the United States had to stop Gaddafi from killing his own people by ourselves?

But asking silly questions like that of the Narcissist-in-Chief is beside the point. He failed to even try answering the main complaint about Libya, which is that he's bound by law to ask Congress for their approval before beginning such a foreign military adventure.

Please tell me, does the perception I get from this President as a spoiled brat narcissist whining at his detractors on National Television instead of making a sober and reasoned case for his Libyan war accurate? Does anyone else perceive him the same way, or have I somehow been blinded by my opposition to his other policies?

My own conclusion is that yes, I am sometimes influenced by my strongly negative opinions of Obama's policy priorities, nearly all of which I couldn't be stronger in my opposition. On the other hand, I have to believe that any honest and unbiased analysis of the speech would have to agree with my own assessment.

Final Four is Set

2011-03-28T14:21:00.004-04:00

This is an historic final four in many ways, most of the firsts due to Butler and VCU. That's just part of what makes it fun. Saturday's Butler regional final game against Florida had to be put on hold (via DVR) while we went to church. Florida looked like they were poised to blow the game wide open, but somehow Butler was able to recover and catch up within a point at halftime. So I felt somewhat hopeful as I set the DVR and headed out.
Then I came back home, had a bit of dinner, then headed back to watch the second half. I was able to avoid any news on the game, and could pretend I was watching the second half live - except for the ability to blow past commercials.
Once again, things looked grim midway through the second half, as Florida once again seemed to be taking over the game. But out of the blue, Brad Stevens sent in Crishawn Hopkins, a freshman who I don't recall having played in any of the previous games. Hopkins contributed energy to help his team, as well as a steal, a great assist, and a 3 pointer. He also turned the ball over on a bad pass and was taken out of the game, but the boost he gave the team was evident.
Matt Howard probably would have sealed the victory by winning his second free throw at the end of the game, and it surprised me that Florida chose not to try feeding one of their big men under the basket for the win where they'd been so dominant most of the game.
Instead, the semi-desperate 3-point shot at the buzzer bounced off and the game went to overtime. Butler looked fresh and feisty in overtime, and played like they sensed a victory. The clock was winding down within 30 seconds with a 1-point Bulldog lead when my DVR recording ended. Of course! Overtime went well past the scheduled end time for the game, so I wasn't going to see the last half minute.
Dad called at that precise moment when the recording stopped, asking what I thought about the Butler game. I told him I thought the game was very exciting, but I just wish I knew what happened in the last 30 seconds of overtime. He threatened to leave me in the dark, but then sort of filled me in on the Butler win, sealed by Mack.
I didn't mean to be disrepectful of Virginia Commonwealth in the previous post, and now they're Butler's opponent in the national semifinal game next weekend after shutting down Kansas. I saw that game, and my overall impressions were these: VCU clearly played with more energy and desire than Kansas, they shot the lights out from the 3-point arc, they played fast and didn't allow Kansas' shooters good looks from outside.
Kansas looked sluggish and bewildered as VCU ran out to a huge first-half lead, but seemed to right themselves early in the second half as they closed the gap to 2 points. I thought VCU would fold once Kansas caught them, but they managed to recover enough to stay ahead, fending off every Jayhawk run until they were in position to shoot free throws to seal their Final Four berth with a 10-point final margin.
It seemed that Kansas may have taken the game for granted, and just didn't have enough gas in the tank to fight back from that stunning first half.
It seems to me that Butler can and should beat VCU. My first hope is that VCU gets a case of nerves as they experience the awe of actually playing in the national semifinal game, while Butler's already been there and should know better how to deal with the situation.
VCU is a team that lives on an emotional energy, and the way to beat that energy is to play tight defense and frustrate them into turnovers early. If Butler can get ahead of VCU early, turn them over a few times and beat them on the boards, I think they can get VCU to begin giving into the pressure with more turnovers and bad shots. That could allow Butler to gain a runaway win.
But that also might be wishful thinking.
Based on what I've seen of the teams on the other side of the bracket, my pick for the final game from that other semifinal is Kentucky. If we get Butler and Kentucky into the championship game, anything can happen. Everything could also go exactly opposite of my predictions.
It's part of the fun of this tournament.

NCAA Basketball Update

2011-03-26T11:37:00.002-04:00

My bracket's busted, and I suspect those who seem to be winning right now must have cheated. Who except Kentucky fans had them beating Ohio State? That was a surprise to me.
Who figured Duke would get shot down so convincingly by Arizona?

The only teams still alive for me are Butler, Kansas and UConn. At least I picked one upset right, but only because I'm a Butler fan.

Today Butler's going to have to beat Florida if they want to get back to the Final Four. It would seem to me that they're going to need a healthy Andrew Smith to have a chance. If he's hobbled by the ankle sprain he picked up against Wisconsin, it's going to be very tough for the Dogs to contain the Florida bigs.

Even if Smith is hobbled, it would be a mistake to write them off. I think Donovan knows that as much as anybody, and he won't let his team take them for granted. My pick was BYU to beat Florida, and it would have been fun to see a Butler-BYU matchup because I think they're similar teams. But so far Butler's been able to find a way to win, and my hope is they can do it again, whether or not Smith's ankle cooperates.

Since Ohio State's gone, I'm not even going to try to pick the national champ. Most everybody in the Elite 8 seems capable, although I'm not completely sold on VCU yet.

It's been a fun tournament. I've been missing the Hoosiers, though, and am still a little upset with them for all the bad decisions they've made in the years since the sham firing of Bob Knight that turned them from one of the top basketball schools in the country to a mediocre also-ran.

Final Four

2011-03-24T15:08:00.002-04:00

This year's NCAA tournament has been fun to follow, mainly because of Butler's second straight bracket-busting run.

Even without my kid who's now a Butler alum, I still would be a fan. Partly because they're from Indiana, but mostly because it's the sort of team I can admire. These guys aren't the types who went to college for only one year and only pretended to be students while they auditioned for the NBA (see Kentucky).

They're solid students and solid citizens who just happen to play basketball really well. Look at guys like Shelvin Mack and Matt Howard and Ron Nored, who seem to be both great basketball players and great guys. Look at their coach, Brad Stevens, and you'll understand the truth about how great teams are a reflection of their leaders.

Can they make it back to the Final Four? Sure.

Will they make it back? Who knows.

But to get this far the second year in a row when everyone still wrote them off as a fluke has been really fun to watch. If they lose to Wisconsin tonight it won't take away from what a terrific achievement it's been for them. I believe they've overachieved this year to an even greater degree than last year, because this year everyone they played knew better than to take them for granted.

But they still win every game by a whisker. I'll have to stay up late to catch every minute of the game, and hope they dispose of Wisconsin and move on to meet BYU (my pick) for the opportunity to play in another Final Four.

Notes on NFL

2011-03-24T09:09:00.003-04:00

Those who know me also know I'm a pretty big sports nut. I've been a Colts fan since before they moved from Baltimore (when Ted Marchibroda coached them the first time around), and even kept tabs on them during their horrible years in Indy.

So you might be surprised to find out my attitude on the current contract dispute between the NFL and the players. I don't really care.

Not that I won't miss the NFL if they don't play in the fall, of course that would be disappointing. But I don't expect that to happen. There's too much money at stake for both sides, so it seems silly and stupid for them to lose a season arguing over their respective slices of the pie.

If you've been reading my posts about the union fights happening in various states, I hope you didn't make the mistake of assuming I'm anti-union, and therefore somehow favoring the NFL owners over the NFLPA. Not at all.

The players are certainly free to form a union to bargain for the best possible deal for their members. Since nobody forces me to pay for their salaries and benefits, I don't care how rich their contracts get. Forces of basic economics will be applied if the package is too rich - people will simply quit buying tickets and merchandise if the prices get too high, and if the NFL network charges too much in subscription fees, even big fans like me will simply choose not to subscribe.

Owners want to set specific terms for the contract that have nothing to do with actual revenues. In other words, they want to fix the costs they must pay out to their players rather than have to share a percentage of revenues. That's understandable, and they have every right to make such demands.

Players want to guarantee a baseline of compensation, then get a cut of revenues on top of that. They want the owners to assume all the downside risk, but make sure they share in the upside. That sounds like a pretty good deal for them if they can get it, and they did get it in the previous contract. They have every right to make such demands.

What makes it harder to get an agreement in the NFL as opposed to pretty much any other private business concern is the fact that the NFL is a monopoly. Players have a short shelf life, and the NFL's the only game in town. So if there's any leverage in these negotiations, it would seem to rest with the owners.

If the stalemate gets really bad, I suppose the players could all chip in and start a pro league of their own. Wouldn't that be interesting?

If the two sides refuse to budge and there isn't a 2011 season, it will turn off the fans. People will get disgusted with both sides, seeing billionaires arguing with millionaires over a game. They'll find other sources of entertainment for the lost NFL season, and may not come back when the league finally opens for business next year.

Sure, I'll miss the NFL if the lockout stretches through this coming season. But all I have to do is switch my attention to other things, like high school and college football, which are much more deserving of my attention anyway.

If I Were Liberal

2011-03-23T13:34:00.002-04:00

I'd be extremely upset with my president right now.

He failed to close the Guantanamo terrorist prison.
He failed to raise taxes on the rich.
He passed a disastrous healthcare bill that failed to deliver universal, medicare-style healthcare for every citizen.
He took his sweet time winding down the Iraq war with policies undistinguishable from the evil Bush.
He failed to push through Card Check, and now newly elected Republican state governors and legislators are moving to destroy what's left of our labor unions.
He failed to pass meaningful environmental laws, especially Cap & Trade, and with $4 gas returning it may be too late.
He failed to naturalize the 12 million or so illegal immigrants and open the border, and now there might not be enough votes out there to keep Republicans from taking over completely next year.
He failed to make gay marriage the law of the land.
Now the economy is destroyed and he's being blamed, but things would be getting much better if only he'd just been bolder with our agenda.
Now the Republicans just might succeed in defunding NPR and Planned Parenthood and maybe even much of the EPA, which will be a horrible disaster for us.

Worst of all, he just committed us to war against Libya without even asking Congress for their opinion. At least Bush went to Congress for permission before he invaded Iraq and Afghanistan (even though as a liberal I would still believe he lied to them to get that permission).

Must be tough to be a liberal these days.

Redistricting

2011-03-21T11:09:00.002-04:00

Some recent stories have helped explain why the Indiana Democrats still won't return to the statehouse. Apparently their tactic is focused on more than union issues; they also are seeking a way to stop the Indiana assembly from completing their once-a-decade job of redistricting the state's congressional seats.

The last decade's redistricting task was completed with the Democrats in charge. All it takes is a glance at the map to understand the degree of gerrymandering that took place last time around.

Districts 1, 2, 7, 8 and 9 were designed to be "safe" Democrat districts. But the backlash election in 2010 had the effect of moving the more moderate 8th and 9th districts back into the Republican column.

What are the Republicans promising to do this time around? Eliminate gerrymandering and keep communities together, stopping the practice of splitting cities by drawing lines in the same town to maximize the possibility of creating a "safe" Democrat congressional seat.

Republicans announced a series of open meetings across the state to get people's input on the new district lines. They've hired outside consultants to help them draw the lines with the stated purpose of eliminating partisan advantage and keeping communities together in the same district.

On its face, it sounds completely reasonable, and it's certainly transparent. But Democrats are going to fight to the bitter end to stop it from happening. Apparently because they believe this approach puts them at a disadvantage.

They will argue that their gerrymandering gives their constituencies (presumably poor, minorities, and urbanites) a better chance to be represented in congress, because a partisan-blind district boundary subjects Indiana to what they see as a tyranny of the majority. In making this argument, they seem to be admitting that the majority of Hoosiers live on the Center-Right side of the political spectrum.

It's a very simple and fundamental question: Is it fair to draw districts without any attempt to engineer a desired political outcome, or is it fair to "protect" minorities by drawing districts that allow them to send one of "their own" to congress?

I'm sort of offended by the idea that anyone needs to be "protected", and especially that any group of citizens would look at things in terms of being represented by "one of their own". How paternalistic and condescending can some folks get?

Would the Democrats currently hiding out in plain sight in Illinois prefer the Republicans create their own gerrymandered districts to cut the Democrat advantage down from, say, 5 to 3 "safe Democrat" districts? Either way, they should be making their arguments from Indianapolis instead of continuing their game of hide and seek in Illinois.

When the Leader Can't Lead

2011-03-17T11:03:00.003-04:00

There's an undercurrent surrounding the meltdowns around the world, from the literal one in Japan to the figurative ones in the Middle East and a growing number of states here at home. The underlying theme is the palpable lack of leadership from the one person we normally expect to step forward - our country's President.

In Japan, while the historic earthquake and accompanying tsunami devastated their island, our President was playing golf and thinking about his NCAA brackets. His traditional Saturday radio address was phoned in from before the disaster so he could take the weekend off, and was just about one of the Left's favorite topics - equal pay for women.

The pattern is more important than the appearance that he cares more about his tee time, getting on ESPN to share his basketball tournament picks, vacationing in Rio, and throwing bones to the left-wing base than about stepping up to help solve the world's problems. The pattern is clear and undeniable.

Egypt and Syria: He cheered the ouster of Mubarak in Eqypt, but did nothing about it other than express his support after it became apparent that the protesters would succeed. Likewise, he's stated that Gaddafi must go, but has done nothing to help make it happen. Regardless whether it was a good idea to support the rebels in Libya, he failed miserably in even the simple expression of a comprehendable policy on the matter.

Japan's Nuclear Problem: He sent the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan. He promised to help with shipping relief and nuclear engineers. He expressed condolences. But Japan desperately needs help with those melting reactor cores, while the President's actions implicitly communicate that it's not his problem. A true leader would have recruited and appointed the best nuclear scientist to head up a team to go help Japan solve the problem, backed up by every piece of technology they require. He would have started building this team as soon as the disaster happened (giving up his tee time to do so), and immediately met with Japan's Prime Minister and the Power Company to pave the way for his team of experts to hit the ground running.

Growing Strife at Home: From the budget fight to the individual state battles, one might call what he's done leadership. That is, if you consider fanning the flames of protest by directing his PAC, Organizing for America, and affiliated organizations like MoveOn.org to load up busloads of folks and pay them minimum wage to go protest in what's now something like 8 states and growing. A true leader would put his partisanship aside and travel to each of these states to invite the statehouse Republican and Democrat combatants and attempt to serve as a peacemaker, trying to help find the middle ground that helps them solve their problems. A true leader would have put out a federal budget proposal that takes deficit reduction seriously, but he chose instead to send a budget that makes it far worse. Then he has been conspicuously absent from the debate, basically telling congress to give him what he wants or he'll use the veto pen.

Energy: The alarming run-up in energy cost seems to fit his agenda, as he strongly suggests $4 gas is a good thing, because it somehow will help us accelerate our transition to "clean and renewable energy". Only the far left would consider his action (or inaction) on this problem leadership. He arguably has worked hard to make sure abundant North American energy sources including oil, coal, and natural gas are shut down. It would seem he's immune or uncaring about the economic disaster these rising energy costs and associated food costs is already taking form.

We desperately need a leader. 2012 may be too late to find one.

The Purpose of Polls

2011-03-14T10:08:00.002-04:00

We can't watch a news program or ready an article without being fed poll results. Polls turn out not to be so much about gauging people's attitudes and opinions and more about influencing those attitudes and opinions.

It's all in the questions asked. Just look at the recent fight in Wisconsin. At issue, should government employees have the "right" to collective bargaining?

So the "pro" side on collective bargaining (read Democrats) run out and poll everyone, asking the generic question something along the lines of "Do you support a right of workers to form a union for the purpose of negotiating salary, benefits, and working conditions?"

Most people, something around 80 percent if I caught the poll results right, said yes. To the specific question above, I'm part of the 80 percent as well. But when the Democrats trumpet the 80 percent as proof of universal approval on the side of the public employee unions, they're wrong. Because after careful consideration and study of the underlying facts, I concluded that Wisconsin is doing the right thing.

The other side cites similar numbers when asking the public questions about whether it's reasonable for government to ask their employees to contribute something from their own paychecks to their pensions and health insurance.

Polls are used as sort of a bludgeon to convince average people that they must support the teachers' union because if they don't, they must belong to the 20 percent of idiots who don't support a right to collective bargaining. Or the flip side will tell average people that if they support collective bargaining for teachers, their government will go bankrupt while teachers live like leeches in a cushy Florida retirement condo.

The polls themselves are highly effective tools used by both parties to influence public sentiment, ultimately so those behind the polls can gain and keep power. It leads me to think that maybe it's time for the general public to end the manipulation.

A suggestion for a new movement - the anti-manipulative pollster movement. Whenever you get called by a pollster and given a question that's obviously crafted to elicit a response that can be used to support a political agenda, just say no. Refuse to participate unless asked a relevant question.

At least it will skew the results enough that it might discourage irresponsible polling.

Arguing with a Democrat

2011-03-07T10:01:00.002-05:00

Its rare when I actually have a discussion of politics with a Democrat, but did so over the weekend. The experience was enlightening, if painful. Enlightening not in the sense I was won over - far from it, but painful in the sense that if you want to maintain a pleasant relationship with someone who lives on Democrat Island, it's probably best to avoid the subject of politics.

First and foremost, a Democrat lives on their feelings and perceptions, and perhaps most surprising to me is fiercely loyal to their party. Democrats feel things deeply, and it seems that's the primary reason they choose to be Democrats. They believe with near-religious fervor that their party is the only hope for the poor and middle class, and Republicans are evil Barons bent on acquiring obscene levels of wealth without the slightest regard to and at the expense of their fellow man.

If I believed all that, I suppose I'd be a Democrat too. But I don't because I'm intensely curious, analytical, and my life is ruled by studying the facts and making what I believe to be reasoned conclusions. And I'm not at all loyal to Republicans, which seems to be something a Democrat can't understand about me.

Some of the things my Democrat friend tried very hard to convince me:

Why we had $4 gas a few years ago? Bush taking care of his cronies in the oil companies. Why is it back to $4 now? Same greedy evil oil companies. The GOP is just making it hard for Obama to break up the oil barons' club.

What was the Iraq war all about? Bush's gift to his oil industry buddies, especially Halliburton.

Opinion of the Democrats fleeing to Illinois from Wisconsin and Indiana? Enthusiastic support. If the evil Republicans get their way, we'll be back to 80 hour workweeks in unsafe sweatshops for only a few bucks a day, maybe even child labor.

What caused the financial collapse? Greedy bankers. And Republican government giving incentives to industries to move their operations offshore.

How to solve the budget crisis? Tax the greedy bankers and greedy oil companies.

Bill Clinton's impeachment? A trumped-up vendetta orchestrated by evil Republicans who wanted payback for Nixon. (That one really blew my mind).

When I tried to suggest that these simplistic and fantastic theories were not supported by the facts, unfortunately I offended my Democrat friend. Even though this friend had just finished informing me that I have been brainwashed by some right-wing propaganda machine and there are two sides to every story, my response attempting to offer some factual evidence to refute or leaven some of these opinions was taken as condescension.

My biggest revelations in the conversation were two:

A Democrat has a self image that says something like, "I'm right, you're evil". Notice in the litany above that every belief included a reference to an evil, greedy Republican, or Oil Company, or Banker. There's this sort of black and white, us versus them mentality. I'm sure there is some of this mentality on the Right, but I haven't encountered it nearly to the level of this Democrat or those on TV.

A Democrat finds facts irritating and irrelevant. Introducing factual information as an attempt to introduce some reason to the argument was the point that induced offense. Facts are discarded as mere right-wing propaganda.

Something that is consistent nearly every time I hear a Democrat speak about an issue is that they are more likely to demonize the proponents of the other side of the issue than to present strong arguments for their side. My failure to engage any discussion of a specific issue without having my friend move immediately off the topic to demonize someone on their hit list seems to have proven the point.

The thing that concerns me after my conversation is the use of offense to shut off the conversation. Like Democrats did in Wisconsin and Indiana, when they stop communicating and charge the others with being offensive, it's impossible to arrive at common ground.

You see, this Democrat might be surprised to find we agree far more than we disagree. Is there corruption and greed in the world? Of course there is. Does that make all conservatives corrupt and greedy? Does that suggest that Democrats are never greedy or corrupt? That's ridiculous.

What I prefer is to talk about solutions. I don't want to argue about Whether Clinton was more corrupt than Nixon, or Obama more than Bush. A Democrat will defend Obama to the end, while I don't care to defend Bush except when the charge is false or unfair. I took issue with many Bush policies, but take issue with nearly all Obama policies. Those differences aren't because of party affiliation or the slant by the media, and certainly not race. They're based solely on my study of those policies which led to a sincere belief that those policies do terrible harm to our country.

The Democrat thinks it's the job of the Federal government to take care of people. I think it's the job of government to protect people from fraud and harm, but that it's the responsibility of people to take care of each other.

Such is the essence of the difference between the Democrat and me.

Rational Conclusions

2011-03-01T10:58:00.002-05:00

Indiana Democrats decided to follow Wisconsin's example and fled to Illinois in protest of the Republican's introduction of a Right to Work law. Indiana's issue isn't the same as Wisconsin's, even though both involve unions.

There's been plenty of time and plenty of available information for the rest of us to understand the nature of the conflict. My own evolution of understanding has followed a path which started with some agreement with both sides, but ended with solid support of the right (or Right) side.

Allow me to share my analysis of some of the arguments.

Wisconsin's budget bill features a change in the relationship between the state and the teachers union. That's why the Democrats fled to Illinois, and that's why the Wisconsin state house has looked more like Eqypt than America the last couple of weeks.

The teachers union argues that they've already agreed to the governor's proposed increases in their contribution levels to their health insurance and pension. Therefore, they argue, there's no need to "take away their collective bargaining rights".

On its face, the argument seems reasonable. If they union will agree to adjustments in their contracts to help solve the state's budget crisis, then why take the extra step of cutting back on their bargaining power?

First of all, contrary to the message most of us get from the nightly news, the governor isn't disbanding the teacher's union. Nor is it accurate to characterize the bill as "taking away collective bargaining rights". What the bill actually proposes is to limit collective bargaining to wages only, letting the state set benefits. It also allows each teacher a choice whether or not they wish to be represented by the union.

That second change, shared with Indiana and generally called "Right to Work", is anathema to unions everywhere, both public and private sector. Because the unions believe that if rank and file employees are permitted to make their own choices on union membership, many of them will say "no thanks".

According to one of the articles I've read on the subject, unions grab between $800 and $1200 per year from their members, through direct payroll deductions. Young teachers especially have a hard time parting with that much in dues, which could be 4 or 5 percent of their income. So whether or not Governor Walker and the Indiana GOP are targeting closed shops out of a clear end-game objective of killing the unions altogether, it is fair to assume such a law will make it much more difficult for union leaders to keep their organization intact.

I have never begrudged the idea that people could get together as a group to negotiate better pay and working conditions with their employer. That fundamental principle has seemed to be a positive development for folks in the past, helping make workplaces safer, wages better, and helped establish the 40-hour workweek.

But today's unions don't seem to be in business for those basic purposes. The mob moved in to make unions their own personal piggy banks, and it seems that may not have changed much. Today's major unions are the primary source of funds and political action for the Democrat party, to the point where an entire political party stands as the government representative of the union and bureaucrat class.

Why does Walker want to cut back on teacher's union power in his state? Because despite the union claims that they're willing to accept changes to their contracts to go along with his fiscal plans, their contracts aren't with the State. Their contracts are with their individual school districts. Walker's point is that the effect of the inextricable partnership between the Teacher's Union and the Democrat Party is that the school boards negotiating the contracts were put in place by the union, therefore the contract negotiation ends up the functional equivalent of the teachers union sitting down and writing the contract to fulfill its own desires.

If Walker and his GOP legislators back down and drop the union provisions from the bill, there's a high likelihood that many of the school boards still holding majorities of teachers union cronies will ignore the budgetary revisions and may keep or expand the existing contracts.

There's another way he might be able to accomplish his goals without the union bargaining provisions - just tie state education funding to local school districts to those school districts meeting the state's budgetary standards. But I understand and now basically support his goals.

Then there's the Right to Work issue in Indiana. What I suspect lots of Hoosiers don't know is the fact that that particular bill has already been pulled off the table, and apparently the governor has tried to appease the missing Democrat legislators by promising it won't be brought back this session.

So why are the Democrats still hiding out in Illinois? Because they want more. They are now demanding that 11 bills be taken down, some of which have already passed both houses. They're no longer using this tactic over the Right to Work issue, but have decided to make it a standard tactic to try to kill any and all bills they don't like. That's not good.

On Right to Work in general, my take is that closed union shops are unconstitutional. States like Indiana that permit closed union shops are in violation of Freedom of Association. I believe that if you talk about rights, there is no right for unions to force all workers in a company to join their organization as a prerequisite to holding a job with the company. Every worker should have the choice whether or not to belong to the union, and every union member should vote on their level of dues and how those dues are spent.

Those are the real freedom issues.

Rental Cars

2011-02-28T17:27:00.003-05:00

Time for the Car Rental post.

Yet again another industry that's suffering from consolidation, but overall that consolidation hasn't hurt the service as much as it has the airlines. At least not so far, and not from my perspective.

All I want from a rental car company is a clean, functioning vehicle that doesn't take me too long to pick up and return.

I've used the big 2, Hertz and Avis. I also use National quite a bit, and have experience with Enterprise, Alamo, Budget, and Dollar. But the majority of my experience has been with Avis and National.

If I'm correct (I could check to be sure, but don't care that much), Enterprise owns National and Alamo. Budget and Dollar have faded substantially, and seem to be disappearing from many airports.

Recent news reports about shoddy maintenance at some of the companies notwithstanding, I have never been stranded by a rental car breakdown.

Only once did I show up at my destination to find out Avis was out of cars; they'd had a weather event that slowed returns and stopped deliveries. I was pretty unhappy at first, but just had to hang out in the airport for a couple of hours until a delivery of cars arrived, then they gave me a premium vehicle for my trouble. So in the end, it wasn't too terrible.

The best experiences with rental cars are at airports where the cars can be picked up in the parking garage right across from the terminal. Smaller airports where they're parked in a lot right outside baggage claim are preferred as well.

But many big airports, especially those with an offsite rental car facility that can only be reached by bus, make the rental car pickup painful. Chalk up another reason I don't like the northeast - Philadelphia, Boston, Washington DC are the worst places in the country to have to pick up a rental car. In those airports, buses might not show up for 20 minutes, while renters crowd the sidewalk and fight for a space on the bus when it finally arrives.

In those cold-weather cities, returns often have to be made outside in the rain and snow, where returning rental customers shiver in the cold while waiting for the agent to finally get you checked in. Just my luck, when I've had to wait to be checked in the longest, the agent's likely to run out of paper on his little portable receipt printer or the battery will die. It's unspeakably irritating to have to go inside to check your car in after you've already been waiting in the cold for the agent.

The best situation I've found when on a longer-term project, where the rental agents get to know me. It seems that once they recognize me and begin to call me by name, I notice I get checked in a bit quicker, and they're more likely to give me a better upgrade. Another advantage of the smaller airports over the giant ones.

Like hotels but perhaps worse, government's favorite place to collect outrageous taxes and fees is the rental car. Just last week I was in Minneapolis, renting from the MSP airport. I got a pretty good deal on a full-size car for the week, only $205.

But wait, $205 is just the rental rate. When I returned the car, I was actually charged almost $290. The extra 80-plus dollars? Taxes and fees. Assessments from the state, the city, the airport authority, and I suppose everybody else who has a palm that needs greased. Legalized theft is the only way to describe a 40 percent tax rate. Because most of us renters are from out of state, so we can complain all we want, but we don't vote for the officials who dreamed up all those taxes and fees.

The best rental car experiences can be found at a limited number of airports around the country. In those places, you walk out of the terminal and into the garage, where you see your name on the board and walk up to your car, hop in and drive to the exit, show your drivers license to the guard, and you're off. The company automatically upgraded you to a nice vehicle that's clean, has no strong odors (neither cigarette smoke nor disgusting air fresheners), has some power on the interstate, and gets you around nicely and in relatively decent style. Then when you return to the garage, the agent's there at your door as soon as you park, scanning the bar code and giving you the receipt just as you've pulled your bags out of the trunk and are ready to walk into the terminal.

The best thing about renting cars is that best experience actually does happen now and then.

Union Wars

2011-02-22T20:13:00.002-05:00

Looking at the mess in Wisconsin is interesting. One of the things I discovered that seems pretty typical is that it took a couple of days before I could find out what the actual proposed Wisconsin law included. Instead, everywhere I turned in the news I was hammered with messaging, mostly from the union/left making it sound like Wisconsin's governor wants to destroy teachers' lives.

Now that I know what it's about, I'll leave it to others who are already arguing about whether it's fair or unfair. Instead, I'd like to focus on the longer view ramifications of the events.

The Wisconsin Democrat Senators have run away to shut down the ability of that house to vote on the new law, because they have no way of stopping it. It would seem that their hope is to delay the vote long enough while using out-of-state protesters to shout loudly enough that just maybe they can change the minds of Wisconsin's general population. Because, whatever any of us think of the merits of the law itself, my best understanding right now is that Wisconsin's people support it by a fairly large margin.

I'm hearing today that Indiana is trying to repeat Wisconsin's walkout. If true that Indiana's Democrat lawmakers have fled to stop a vote on my own state's law (I don't know yet if they're running from Mitch's Education Reform package or the newly introduced Right to Work Bill).

It seems to me to be outrageous that all these Wisconsin teachers skipped out of school for a week (did the schools re-0pen there this week? I haven't heard). Regardless of the reason, were I a governor in a state where teachers shut down the schools for a week, I wouldn't have allowed it. After 2 days, I would have announced that the teachers have to be back in their classrooms the next day, or will be terminated for cause. I'm not sure whether a governor has the authority to do so, but if he doesn't, I think he should.

Right to Work laws like what was proposed this week in Indiana weaken the union, because lots of folks will decide to keep their dues, which I heard range between $800 and $1200 per year. If somebody doesn't think all that money buys them much, or objects to the way it is spent, they're going to opt out.

Some are arguing whether or not there's even a need to have union representation for public employees. Why do teachers need a union at all these days? I suppose to answer that, we'd have to have some idea of what teachers would face in terms of salary and benefits were it not for their union.

There are those who suggest there's a sort of soft corruption at work here. When Democrats get to run state and local governments, they have the incentive to give lots of goodies to teachers, because teachers unions give millions of dollars to Democrat candidates.

I heard one of the MSNBC talkers suggest that if Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, and other states succeed in passing their union-weakening legislation, the ultimate result will be a weakening or destruction of the Democrat party. It will certainly weaken the party in terms of fundraising if unions become weaker and less able to fund their candidates, but I don't think for a second it will destroy liberalism.

The numbers haven't changed. A third of the population is liberal, a third is conservative, and the remaining third are somewhere in between. The left and right aren't fighting over their own voters, they're fighting over the impressionable middle. Obama and the Dems won in 08 because the folks in the middle were tired of W and the folks on the right weren't impressed with McCain.

Now we find out what the Obama and the Democrats really want, and two-thirds of us ran away from that agenda as fast as our legs can carry us. We went back to the right with the hope they could bring some sanity back to government, and the new guys are doing exactly what they promised.

If it works, they'll stay. If it doesn't work, they'll get replaced. I don't think we'll get the Left back in charge anytime soon, though.

I wonder if the states have anything in their constitutions that provides for action against lawmakers who purposely deny a quorum during legislative sessions to try to hold up legislation? Maybe it's time for such action: Arrest, impeachment, some sort of action that makes them think twice next time.

It will be interesting to see this play out. My fear is we're sliding rapidly into chaos, and am worried about what will happen or is already happening in the Muslim world while we're fighting with each other.

Hotels

2011-02-21T20:20:00.002-05:00

Today's road warrior post is about hotels.

Unlike airlines, hotels generally must compete for our business. As a business traveler, I am very experienced with the various hotels that exist in the market space known as "business class" lodging.

My two favorite families are Hilton and Marriott. Both are fairly consistent and predictable in quality, cleanliness, and service. Others are pretty good as well, but no matter where you're going, you're likely to find a decent option nearby that's part of one of these two families.

Something I find interesting lately is that the old traditional "premium" hotels, including the big Hiltons and Marriotts, are not my first choice.

For example, I was recently in a DoubleTree, which is a relatively high-priced Hilton hotel that's more traditional, sort of upscale. I didn't like it much.

Marble and brass fixtures don't impress me much, especially when there's mildew on the shower curtain. Add in the limited channel selection on the flat screen TV that doesn't have any HD, and I'd prefer to get a room in the La Quinta down the street.

My favorite hotels that I'll take whenever it's even remotely an option are the Homewood Suites from Hilton and the Residence Inn from Marriott. I like the apartment-style hotels with the full kitchen, and wish it was an option more often.

After those, I like the Embassy Suites.

Where I am most likely to be these days is the Hampton Inn. Country Inns are pretty common. And I often have to suffer with Quality and Comfort Inns, which are cheap and favored by my clients but mostly blue-collar places.

This is another of those things that changed over the years. In the 90's I stayed in lots of suite hotels, Holiday Inn's Crown Plaza, JW Marriott, and a variety of resort and luxury hotels. These days I hardly ever get to stay in those places, while the clients save money.

The things I hope for in a hotel and am happiest when I find them include these:

1. Clean room (especially bathroom) and comfortable bed
2. A good breakfast buffet or restaurant with fast service and good food
3. Either a decent restaurant in the hotel or 2-3 good restaurants nearby (preferably in walking distance). Room service available for those nights I'm working late.
4. Decent selection of channels, HD, and flat-panel TV
5. Reliable internet access without extra charges
6. A decent work desk with plenty of power outlets and a comfortable office chair
7. USA Today under the door in the morning (although I'm getting more of my news online and this is becoming less important)
8. Fast, friendly check-in
9. If not a kitchen in the room, at least a fridge and microwave
10. Comfortable chair - I really like rooms with a recliner.

Hilton and Marriott both have pretty good frequent stay programs. Lately I've been mostly using Hilton for vacations, and they're pretty good about availability (unlike the airlines).

Temporary Sidetrack on Budget

2011-02-16T18:50:00.003-05:00

The news on the federal budget arguments got me too disgusted, so I feel the urge to break into my road warrior series to expound a bit.

We're way past due for a conversation about the appropriate role of government. And getting the federal budget mess to some sort of reasonableness is the place for that conversation.

Let's put this into a series of questions.

Homeland Security & the TSA: Can anyone prove that building this massive new bureaucracy has made us more safe from terrorists than we were before 9/11? Is there any evidence that this new organization has been a positive addition over the existing law enforcement and intelligence organizations it has duplicated?

Education Department: What is one single federal initiative from the Department of Education that has improved education for any kid in America?

EPA and Energy Departments: What have these bloated bureaucracies favored by Obama done to improve anyone's ability to get and use energy? Is there any positive program out of these massive agencies that have made any of our lives better in any way? Why are we quietly accepting their massive handouts to Democrat-friendly corporations (ie General Electric) using our tax money?

Public Broadcasting: If this organization is truly by and for the people, why are we forced to support them through federal taxation? To be truly "Public", shouldn't it be up to the public to support and maintain?

Healthcare: Who decided citizen healthcare was the business of the federal government? Why have we allowed the government to take 3.5 percent of every bit of all our earned income to give to the healthcare industry to pay for medical care and drugs for our retirees after skimming a very large percentage off the top to pay the bureaucrats? Why does the federal government have a Medicaid program for the "poor" that is duplicative and and unfunded mandate that is bankrupting every state in the union? Why did we allow the corrupt bureaucrats in DC to create this mess?

Fannie & Freddie: Why do these federal government poster children for massive corruption still exist at all?

Foreign Aid: Why do we keep giving billions to countries that hate us?

Can the budget be balanced? Sure, but only if we can invent a sanity drug that we can put in aerosol form and spray over Washington DC, suddenly curing everyone in the district of their mental and ethical diseases.

Airlines

2011-02-08T10:56:00.002-05:00

My perspective as a frequent traveler on airlines and air travel is admittedly a bit jaded. Beginning in the late 80's, I was flying on a fairly regular basis, which became a constant from '93 through today.

Much has changed over those decades, as I have the experience to attest.

In the beginning, I found the experience of air travel reasonably pleasant. From the gate agents who checked me in to the flight crews on the plane, once upon a time I was made to feel like a valued customer. Service was generally pretty good, airline employees were friendly, security screenings were much less intrusive, and we received actual meals during most flights.

Now the ground agents are more likely to be surly and put-upon, security is a personal violation, seating is more cramped and uncomfortable, flight attendants are less attentive, and you're lucky to get a watered-down Coke and a half-dozen peanuts even on the longer flights.

From my perspective, I'd also have to point out there also more misbehaving passengers.

The obvious change happened after 9/11. Now the government owns the security screening franchise, and does what is very predictable whenever they are in charge. They can't use smart screening methods that identify and screen folks more likely to have evil intentions; instead they choose to expose literally everyone and their grandmothers to intrusive high-radiation scanning and/or embarrassing pat-downs.

The long lines and requirements to strip off shoes and jackets and belts combine to make the security screening process a major disincentive to flying. Trips I would have taken in the air before I now choose to drive - I'll get a rental car and drive up to 8 hours away before I'll subject myself to the TSA.

We can't really blame the airlines for TSA. But I can blame the airlines for many other sins, some of which have been committed with full knowledge and cooperation with that same over-intrusive federal government.

First and foremost, consolidation of the airlines has led to virtual monopolies and practically no competition in the industry. For many destinations, there's only one airline that can get you there. And that airline can charge whatever they like for the trip.

Name another industry in the world (except maybe the oil industry), where the companies in the industry employ practices designed to gouge and mistreat their best customers. Airlines mistreat their best customers, the business travelers, through multiple policies that, were there any competition available, would have frequent travelers flocking to the upstart airline that simply chose to stop gouging them.

Change fees is one of the most unfriendly policies to the business traveler. Say you're in a city for meetings, and things wrap up a day early. Only a few years ago, you simply call the airline and ask for a seat on an earlier flight. If there's a seat available, you're on the flight, no problem.

No longer. Same scenario, including the fact there are plenty of seats available on the earlier flight. But to get on the flight, you have to pay the Change Fee, which could be a couple hundred dollars, but that's not all: In addition to the Change Fee, you also have to pay the "Fare Difference".

Say when you booked the flight, the fare was $500. Now you're calling to move your return trip up a day, and you agree to pay the Change Fee. Then the agent tells you that the fare for that same flight is now $1,000. So you have to pay the additional fare on top of the change fee. In many cases, the change in your flight plans has cost you more than the original ticket.

Which brings me back to the monopoly issue. The few airlines left that control the marketplace are American and Delta. Beyond those two behemoths, there's United (merging with Continental) and US Airways. Then there are the regional and economy carriers, most notable among them Southwest.

The airline I've been flying pretty much exclusively is Delta. I'm not a fan of Delta, but was a Gold level flyer with Northwest before the merger, so it pretty much locked me in unless I wanted to start over with one of the other big boys. American's frequent flyer program is the poorest among the carriers and United is a horrible airline all-around, so there's no reason to switch.

Southwest is only a good alternative on certain routes. If you can get a direct flight on Southwest to the city you need to visit, it is a good alternative. Although they have no first class, their coach seats are roomier and more comfortable than the other airlines. They've partially improved their open seating by boarding group, but I still don't really like not having an assigned seat. Unless you check in extremely early, you're going to board last and probably have to squeeze into a middle seat.

Otherwise, Southwest doesn't play the games with fees and other hated practices of the others. Their staff is more friendly, but the amatuer comedian flight attendants can take their act a bit beyond appropriate levels.

US Airways is the only choice for many northeastern destinations. Since I don't particularly like the northeast (as I've written about in the previous post), I don't fly them often. The experience I do have with them rates about even with Delta.

I actually sort of liked Northwest until Delta gobbled them up. Even though everyone was angry with management for the past few years before the merger, their gate agents and flight attendants I found to be very friendly and helpful. Their frequent flyer program was also very good for me, contrasted with Delta's.

Frequent flyer programs are judged on how many miles it takes to get a free flight, then how easy (or difficult) it is to actually redeem that flight. Northwest was the best program on these counts. When Delta took over, those benefits were lost almost immediately.

Here's what Northwest typically didn't do to me, but Delta does (and I understand American and United also do to their frequent flyers): You want to take a family vacation, and have planned ahead a few months. The base miles you need for a coach ticket anywhere in North America is 25,000. So you try to redeem 50,000 miles for two coach tickets, say to Florida.

You find out there are no seats available for frequent flyer miles. So you try alternate dates around the general time period you want to take the trip. Still no luck. But if you will give up 50,000 miles per seat, you can get on a flight. So it ends up requiring 100,000 frequent flyer miles instead of 50,000 miles for the two of you to take that vacation.

Why do they do that? Because they can. Here's how to find out just how abusive their system is: Sign on and start the process of booking that vacation flight without trying to use miles. Don't purchase the flight of course, but go far enough to pull up the seating chart for the flight you're looking to book. You'll see the seating is wide open - there might be no more than 8 or 10 seats reserved so far.

What Delta has done is set a super-secret limit on the number of 25,000 mile seats they will make available on each flight. When those seats are gone, it goes up to 50,000 miles per seat, also a super-secret number. When those seats are gone, just forget using miles for that flight.

Makes me angry just writing it.

I'd like to start a new airline. On my airline, every seat is a first class seat. Pricing for every flight is clearly published. Discounts and specials will be available, but clearly published with easy-to-understand deadlines and requirements. Meals are served on all flights over 800 miles. Our non-union employees will be given an incentive-based pay structure that guarantees them a share in profitability for helping make and keep the airline in the black. The frequent flyer program allows redemption on any flight that's not sold out 14 days before departure. Frequent flyer miles do not expire. Flight attendants are friendly, luggage delivery is the most reliable in the industry, nobody ever gets bumped from a confirmed flight, check-in is easy and fast. A free priority screening program would be provided (got to figure out how to get that through the TSA) that lets our passengers bypass the long lines and allows them to obtain a card exempting them from the radiation or pat-down.

Business travelers, and probably lots of other folks, would flock to my airline.

Characterizing America

2011-02-02T16:22:00.002-05:00

The beginning of my travel theme is a discussion of the character of different regions of America. I've been to every state in the union, except Alaska, Idaho, and Vermont. I've met and worked with people from the remaining 47 states, or I might suggest 48 if one considers DC.

First I should make clear that these are general impressions and observations based on personal experiences. This post should not be taken as an indictment of everyone in a given region, nor a blanket hug to everyone in another. There are always exceptions, and many times I've encountered some of those exceptions to the general characterization I've assigned to various parts of the country.

Now where should I start? I'll begin with the places I find most hospitable and friendly.

Although I choose to live in Indiana and it has been my home for the vast majority of my life, unfortunately it doesn't make the cut for hospitality and friendliness.

The place I've found most friendly? Texas.

Texans are terrific hosts, very friendly, and overall wonderful folks at work. When in Texas, I've been invited to social events and parties and even to family homes for dinner after work. That happens pretty much nowhere else.

Texans seem sincerely interested in getting to know me and making me comfortable while visiting their communities to a degree I've found nowhere else in my travels. At work, they tend to be rather laid back, in many ways like most of the folks in the South. But unlike folks in the southeast, Texans are focused on getting the job done on time - they just choose not to get stressed over meeting those deadlines.

The rest of the "Old South", that is all the states east of Texas and below the Mason-Dixon line, also are friendly and laid back. In hospitality terms, they may not measure up to Texas' standards, but definitely come in second.

Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Georgia and the Carolinas are filled with polite and pleasant folks. They're taught civility and respect, and still refer to each other with "sir" or "ma'am". I don't hear much course language in those states, and they're also more likely than other regions of the country to be considerate and hospitable to out-of-state visitors like my, even though I am a "yankee".

I actually believe I can pick out the various southern dialects. Naturally I can easily differentiate a Texan from a Carolinian or Georgian. I also believe I can pick out the Cajun drawl from the Louisiana bayous over their southern neighbors.

Oklahoma is sort of like Texas, and Arkansas seems to straddle the line between the OK/TX personality and LA/MS.

Florida doesn't really fit with the rest of the southeast. So many in Florida are transplants that I can't characterize the sunshine state as a whole. The panhandle is more Alabama, the interior seems sort of midwestern, Miami is Cuban, and Palm Beach to Lauderdale are sort of like New York City South.

The southwest, Arizona and New Mexico, I group into a separate category from the hospitable Old South. Phoenix is full of transplants from everywhere else, therefore I can't really assign it a specific character. I've encountered folks from California and Utah, the midwest, Mexico, and miscellaneous other places who've settled in Phoenix, although the proportion of hispanic immigrants seems to have exploded in recent years. Perhaps part of the reason for the recent immigration controversies there.

I've enjoyed my time in New Mexico, where I've worked with many native folks, or American Indians to be more descriptive. They're generally friendly enough I suppose, but seem a bit wary of outsiders.

Working my way up the West Coast, I have to start with California. Southern California is to me like visiting a different country. Their economy, overcrowding, smog, and "diversity" sets southern California apart from everywhere else in America. I wouldn't consider Southern California a hospitable place, having few experiences where folks were anything more than focused on the business at hand.

Once in Los Angeles, I received this unsolicited statement from one of the managers of the company I was consulting with:

"We (hispanics) have taken control of Los Angeles. This city belongs to us."

I hadn't made any statements or asked any questions to prompt her statement, but apparently she had a message she felt she needed to share with the white guy from out of state.

Northern California is very different from Southern California. Getting away from San Francisco, I feel like I could be back home in the midwest, albeit with mountains and better weather.

I can't characterize San Fransisco any differently than this: "strange". Not everyone is strange there, of course, but I have to say I've met more folks in San Fran than anywhere else that leave me a bit dumbfounded. They're so different from me in nearly every respect that it's easy to suspect they may have dropped into SFO via some other planet.

Oregon, and to a somewhat lesser degree Washington, are places I would describe as Yuppie Paradise. They're full of trendy folks who look like second-generation hippies. People in Oregon especially seem very much into the latest fads, gave birth to exotic designer coffees via Starbucks, eat strange vegan stuff, and are rabid environmentalists.

Otherwise I find them a bit aloof and elitist.

Let's move onto the midwest. There are certainly differences between Chicago and Detroit, between Indianapolis and Kansas City, between St Louis and Columbus (Ohio). It could take a book to go into those finer points, but I still will generally lump the midwest together.

The midwest is still largely farm country, and I may be most comfortable with the farmers. They plant and harvest crops, raise livestock, love meat and potatoes, and are common-sense, no-nonsense folks.

Midwesterners tend to be taciturn and not very gregarious. They're focused on the job at hand, and don't really spend much time thinking about being hospitable to their out-of-town visitors. They're not inhospitable necessarily, just very practical.

I'll wrap up with my least favorite part of the country - the NorthEast. The one place I will only go if there isn't work anywhere else is New York City.

The people that have given me the most grief over my years consulting? New Yorkers.

New Yorkers are rude, use foul language, and have made a sport out of figuring out ways to cheat. The ones I've worked with in the past are most likely to dispute an invoice, making up reasons that range from irrelevant to completely false.

Where people in most of the rest of the country are essentially fair and will back up their word or honestly do business on a handshake, those characteristics do not apply in New York. I have learned to never deliver anything to a New Yorker that hasn't been specifically contracted in writing ahead of time, even if he "gives his word" that he'll honor the verbal agreement. When the bill comes, he'll deny ever having the conversation.

Not all the Northeast is as bad as NYC. I generally like the folks in Upstate New York, places like Buffalo and Niagara Falls. There are some folks in New Jersey that are pretty good to work with as well, once you get away from the greater New York area. I've enjoyed Maine and New Hampshire, but would prefer to avoid Boston. Cape Cod is a place I always enjoyed visiting.

I haven't dealth with Virginia (which I like) or DC (which is a mixed bag). There's lots more I could get into about the regions of the country, like the differences and rivalries between the Wisconsin cheeseheads and Chicagoans. But I've been typing on this post too long already.

Right now, I'd just like an assignment somewhere warm to get away from this awful winter weather!

Travel Blog

2011-01-24T18:44:00.004-05:00

I'm often asked what its like to travel all over the country. After getting stranded overnight in Atlanta (again), it occurred to me to use this blog to answer that question.

There are so many things that can be said about the life of a road warrior. Today I'll start with a basic overview.

I've been traveling extensively as part of my profession for nearly 20 years. The experiences over those years have constantly changed, as business and the travel industry have changed. Some changes for the better, others for the worse.

For those who think it's some sort of exciting and glamourous life, I'd respond you better not look for a road warrior job based on that myth.

Sure, there are lots of great features in this lifestyle. Automatic airline upgrades, hotel perks, car rental upgrades, seeing sights and cultures, some pretty good restaurants, and meeting all kinds of people are all very nice advantages.

On the other hand, the first thing those of you on the outside looking in may not understand is a key fact that it's far from a continuous vacation. Sightseeing is generally limited to the highways and skylines on the way to the office every day. Flight delays and cancellations, TSA harrassments, unethical businesspersons, frequent long hours, bad hotels, bad food, bad weather, loneliness all too often provide an offset to the upsides of the road warrior profession.

There are lots of topics available to me, and here are a few I will consider posting over the next few weeks or so:

Characteristics by Regions of the Country
Air Travel
Hotels
Rental Cars
Driving vs Flying
The Efficient Traveler
Maximizing Frequent Traveler Programs
Booking Tips

There may be more topics to develop as things move along. I'll go with my impressions of the country first, where each region can be described with certain characteristics. I definitely have my favorite regions and other regions I actively try to avoid.

Check back later for my favorite and least-favorite places to visit in North America (yes, I'm going to include Canada).

Using the Liar Charge

2011-01-20T17:36:00.002-05:00

I haven't been paying a lot of attention to news stuff lately because I'm too busy. Even so, I still can't avoid a continuous drumbeat coming from Democrats about the Republican efforts to overturn the healthcare bill mainly known as "Obamacare".

One thing you can't say about Democrats is that they're unfocused in their messaging. Everywhere I turn this week, I'm hearing a message that goes pretty much like this:

"Republicans are lying when they say (Obamacare) is a government takeover of healthcare".

This is a statement that should be analyzed by itself. Which is true - Obamacare is essentially a government takeover of the healthcare system, or isn't it?

If you are a Democrat, I suppose your perspective comes from the difference between what Obamacare is and what you wish it were. Since the leftward part of the Democrat party wants something they call "Single Payer", I suppose anything that falls short of that goal doesn't qualify as a government takeover.

If the standard for goverment takeover is that all Health Insurance companies go out of business and all healthcare services are paid for directly by the Federal Government, the Obamacare bill certainly fails to meet that standard.

On the other hand, if you're a Republican, the massive regulations and mandates included in Obamacare absolutely represents a government takeover of the system. Just a few components that could be interpreted as "takeover" are these:

Mandating everyone buy health insurance
Mandating what the health insurance has to cover or not cover
Mandating how much each of us must spend for our insurance premiums
Mandating who every state must cover and what they must cover in their Medicaid programs
Giving Kathleen Sebelius full power to create and enforce all healthcare regulations without congressional oversight (or oversight by anybody else)
Giving Kathleen the full power to create a central committee to decide what treatments are covered and not covered for patients based on statistical tables (what Sarah Palin called "Death Panels")
Giving HHS (Sebelius) the full power to decide which drugs are approved and not approved, apparently based on economic considerations and not clinical results.
Mandating what corporations can and can't offer their employees in their health plans
Taxing employers on health plans they provide their employees
Choosing which Insurance Companies will be allowed to participate in the new "Insurance Pools"
Taking away state-based programs and high-risk pools in favor of the Federal system

Is there a liar in this story? Is the liar a Democrat or a Republican? If you think it's me, please demonstrate to me which of the above examples is incorrect (and prove it), and I'll be happy to rescind the example.

Teenagers

2011-01-18T11:31:00.002-05:00

The problem is arrested development. We're a country run by folks who are stuck in the teenage developmental stage.

Any of this sound familiar?

A teen considers a weekly allowance a right. Earning it is a foreign concept.
A teen gets all their costs of medical care, dental care, orthodontia, and hair stylists covered by Mom & Dad.
A teen expects Mom & Dad to provide a car at the 16th birthday. Plus gas money, repairs, insurance.
A teen expects lunch money every day, because only losers eat in the school cafeteria.
A teen rails against all rules and personal responsibility, whether in after-school behavior, dating, curfews, limits on TV and video games.
When a teen gets caught doing something wrong, the first defense is to blame somebody else.

See the parallels with any specific political rhetoric these days?

If you don't, perhaps you're a teenager as well.

Fear on the Right

2011-01-11T21:53:00.002-05:00

When I heard the news about the shooting in Arizona, even before I knew any details beyond "Democratic Congresswoman", my first reaction was, "Here we go".

Whether the shooter was a right-wing lunatic or not, I expected that the Left would jump all over it as proof that the Right inspired him.

It's sad just how right my prediction turned out to be.

Even though the guy's about as far from a right-wing nutcase as you can imagine. But that doesn't matter to those who continue promoting the message. He shot the congresswoman and a number of other people, not because he's a murdering nutcase, but because of Sarah Palin, the Tea Party, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck.

All kinds of political and celebrity types are going on television to decry the hateful and mean-spirited tone of our political discourse. At first, it seems like they mean from both sides, but it only takes a couple of minutes before you find out they're only including those from the Right.

So let's examine a few things we know about the murderer. He's likely a schizophrenic who smokes a lot of pot, has a weird satanic altar in his backyard, is an admirer of Marx and the Communist Manifesto, thinks Bush blew up the World Trade Center on 9/11, and hates Jews.

So the Left thinks we should shut down Fox News, lynch Palin, and ban all the conservative talkers from the radio airwaves. Based on nothing.

Let's see. If we try to follow their logic, then I suppose we should also lock up all pot-heads, Marxists, 9/11 Truthers, Satanists and other weird pagan occultist types, and Jew haters.

Oh yes, apparently also we need to ban guns.

It's frightening, when considering that these people are seeking the power to selectively oppress more than half of the American population, for no discernable reason other than the fact they oppose liberal policies.

If we want to cool down the rhetoric, may I suggest we start with that rhetoric that suggests that everyone who happens to hold a right-of-center philosophy is a potential lunatic mass murderer.

Colts Season Wrap

2011-01-10T20:00:00.002-05:00

The loss to the Jets was disappointing, but not surprising. It actually was somewhat encouraging to see the Colts fight through to be in position for the victory. But their special teams, specifically the kickoff team, let them down in the end.

Of course, the defense also failed to stop the worst quarterback in the playoffs from completing the clutch passes that put the Jets close enough for an easy chip shot field goal winner as the clock clicked down to zero. The pass rush disappeared during that final drive in the final minute, probably because the Colts coaches decided to only rush 3 and try to cover.

But the 4th and 5th string defensive backs couldn't cover.

For the Colts to be back next year, it's clear they need to get their starters back healthy, but they also need to fill some holes.

They need safeties and linebackers on defense. They will give up on Bob Sanders, who has collected too many millions over the last 3 years for watching from the sideline. Gary Brackett was embarassed by the Jets' offensive line in the playoff game, and his time might be at an end.

They need offensive linemen. I love Jeff Saturday, but he couldn't block the Jets' defensive line. The tackles can't open holes for the running game, and can't give Peyton the time he needs to pick defenses apart.

They need to draft a wide receiver that's got the size and talent in the mold of Terrell Owens or Randy Moss without the baggage. (I know, like every team isn't looking for the same thing). I suspect that Reggie Wayne has lost a step. I hope Dallas Clark is able to come back healthy enough to reclaim his place at the top of the league, and combined with Tamme will make the Tight End position the best ever.

Certainly bringing in a running back or two to challenge Joseph Addai is a good idea. But I'm willing to consider that the problem with the running game this year may have had more to do with the O line than the backs.

Will the Colts fill the right holes and get and keep the other guys healthy to be back in the hunt for the Super Bowl next year? Or will they fall into mediocrity?

That's the thing about sports. Nobody knows.

Otherwise, the season's pretty much over for me. I still have a mild interest in seeing the Bears do well, and they seem to be a decent bet to make it to the NFC championship game. But I would be surprised to see them make it through to the Super Bowl.

And please, somebody must beat the Patriots. I'm no Jets fan, but will be this coming weekend, one game only.

Solving the Budget Crisis

2011-01-04T19:24:00.003-05:00

Cynics point to the Tea Party folks and other conservatives and derisively challenge them with, "OK, genius, what are you going to cut to balance the budget?"

Not professing to be a genius, nonetheless here is my answer:

First, the low-hanging fruit. Eliminate every non-essential federal program and agency. Easy ones are the NEA, PBS, Education, and every other agency and bureau that contributes nothing of value to the country.

Then, slash other agencies. Reorganize Homeland Security and eliminate the TSA. Let the transportation system pay the freight for airport security and take funding away from the taxpayers.

I'm fairly convinced that we could cut money from the military by focusing on readiness and security and eliminating the ability of influential congress members to fund and maintain unnecessary weapons systems simply because they directly benefit their district or key campaign donors.

Entitlements are the toughest nut to crack. Medicare is in the most trouble, followed by Social Security. Unemployment is also a big problem. Here's a solution with heart.

Wean the government off of Social Security revenue by actually beginning to separate it out of the main federal budget. It can't be done right away, but over the span of the next 20 years or so, gradually convert the Social Security system from it's current transfer payment entitlement to an actual retirement & disability fund maintained in each citizen's name.

Something like this would make it solvent: Start with everybody under 50 getting 2% of their annual payroll tax deposited into an interest-bearing account with their name on it. The investment of this money would be in government bonds or money market funds, or while the debt is being paid off, the government can borrow from our accounts at a market interest rate. We simply can't touch the money until we retire, then it becomes a source of our retirement income. Since the percentage goes up 1% per year, within 15 to 16 years, 100% of the payroll tax is now going into the fund, and by the time those entering the workforce today retire, they will have a sweet nest egg that will fund their monthly retirement income and can be willed to their heirs at death.

Medicare's another story. The fact is that seniors need the most expensive medical care, and the cost of that care exceeds the annual income of the vast majority of these retirees.

How to escape this seemingly impossible problem is to use an approach with a philosophy that mirrors what I've written about many times before. Again, gradually over the next generation, we will gradually wean everyone off the Medical Welfare program called Medicare in favor of a realignment of the way the healthcare system pays for treatment.

Gradually change the system so that insurance is separated from both the government and the employers, and is purchased individually on the open market. Some insurance companies may choose to offer comprehensive plans that pay for prescriptions and routine care, but the most attractive policies will be what we used to call "Major Medical".

Those insurance policies cover everyone, regardless of age, for surgeries, inpatient procedures, and major illness. Employers can offer payroll deductions or even kick in contributions toward these plans if they want to, but ultimately everyone buys their own.

What will happen is providers will have to compete for patients, will have to post their rates so people can compare and make their own decisions on the best use of their available healthcare funds. No prescription drug insurance means pharmaceutical companies will no longer be able to get away with charging $100 per pill on their brand-name drugs.

Finally, Unemployment Insurance. I'd like to separate this from government entirely as well. Instead of Federal and State taxes on the employer, let the employer opt out in favor of a simple 2 percent savings plan. The employer can put 2 percent of each employee's salary into a tax-deductable, interest-bearing account. The employee can elect to contribute up to 2 percent of their own salary into the same account, using pre-tax dollars in the same way they can save for retirement in a 401K.

If the employee loses his or her job, for any reason, the cash value of their unemployment account immediately becomes available. The employee can take the money, pay the tax on it at normal marginal rates, and spend it as they see fit. Or they can choose to take it in a weekly payout to tide them over while they look for a new job. Or they can roll it over into their IRA, just like they can roll over their 401K when leaving an employer. Or they can roll it over into the Unemployment Fund at their next employer.

All these ideas represent freedom, help provide security for people, and still give us all the ability to make our own financial decisions.

If someone chooses not to buy the major medical policy, if they get very ill or severly injured, they're on their own. The providers will still treat them, but can take all their assets. But the individual has the freedom to make that choice.

If someone gets laid off and cashes out their unemployment account, then goes to Vegas and blows every last dollar, that's their choice. But there's no help for them from the government. They are bankrupt by their own choice, and must make their own decision on where to go from there.

Some might say that we have to take care of even these irresponsible folks who make the wrong choices and end up broke. I'll only agree to a point - the rest of us can and will have compassion toward these folks, but that doesn't mean we all chip in to give them a free house, free medical care, free food, etc. I think they should always have a place to go where they can get a roof over their head and food to eat, but if able-bodied, they should return some service for those handouts.

More about that some other time.

But imagine that the government is no longer in the business of handing out Social Security checks, Unemployment checks, or checks to our parents' doctors and hospitals. Suppose we cut them out of the process, in essence removing the "middle man" who skims way to much off the top.

It will not only solve our government's budget crisis, but result in better lives for all of us.

Colts Playoff Prospects

2011-01-03T11:20:00.003-05:00

My pessimism showed yesterday, when Dominic Rhodes fumbled the ball and appeared to hand a victory to the Tennessee Titans late in the fourth quarter. The Jacksonville loss already assured, we knew the Colts were in the playoffs regardless, but handing a close game to the Titans wasn't the way I'd hoped to see them earn the spot.

The Titans' gift of a fumbled center snap assured the Colts of the 3rd seed over Kansas City, which is theoretically a better route to another hoped-for Super Bowl appearance. But realistically, it would take a miracle for this year's version of the team with the horseshoe to make it that far.

The Colts get the Jets at home next weekend, which may be preferable to the Ravens. But these Colts will be hard-pressed to win against either of those teams.

If somehow they can overcome the Jets, the Colts then will have to travel to Pittsburgh to face the Steelers in their icy stadium. This game is certainly preferable to having to face New England in their similarly frigid venue, but again would seem to require a combination of the Colts playing above their heads while catching more than a couple of breaks to escape with a win.

Finally, assuming they overachieve and win against both the Jets and Steelers, taking the AFC championship from the hottest team in the NFL would seem impossible.

If Peyton and his makeshift offense can be productive, eliminate turnovers and penalties, and get guys like Garcon and White and Tamme to play out of their minds, maybe they have a chance. If the Colts defense can find consistency, stringing together 3 good stops in a row instead of 2, shutting down the run and the pass, maybe there's a slim chance.

One thing I can say definitively; if this Colts team makes it to the Super Bowl, it will exceed their previous Super Bowl accomplishments. Even if they lose in the Super Bowl, just getting there with this team is more impressive than the other two trips, when they were expected to make it and win. Nobody expects this team to get there.

The pessimist in me thinks next week's game against the Jets will end their run for this year. But I'll still maintain a faint hope that they can somehow overachieve and find their way to Dallas for the big game next month.

Thoughts for the New Year

2010-12-31T08:24:00.002-05:00

On the last day of 2010, I look back on a busy but generally good year, and forward to a year that holds lots of questions.

Will 2011 be another good year personally, or will hard times come?

Will the country pull back from the brink politically and at least begin to restore reason, or will it be business as usual?

Will terrorism, Iran, North Korea, Russia, China, Venezuela, et al threaten us, or will we keep them at bay another year? If we are attacked again, will our leaders choose to do anything about it, or seek to pacify our enemies?

I'm hopeful the Obamacare constitutional challenges will succeed. It is clearly unconstitutional. But what concerns me is that most of what today's Federal Government does today is also unconstitutional, so how can we go after one unconstitutional element of the Obamacare law (insurance purchase mandate), while we ignore all the other agencies and laws that are also unconstitutional but have stood for decades?

Unconstitutional federal things abound, here are just a few off the top of my head:
Social Security, Medicare, Federal Unemployment
The departments of Health & Human Services, Agriculture, Education, Energy, Housing & Urban Development, EEOC, and Labor
Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

Boosted by FDR and the New Deal, the feds have siezed extra-constitutional power and the citizens have made no move to stop them.

Whether or not you believe some of the agencies and programs created in Washington since the 1930's serve a useful purpose, they are not permitted by the constitution. If we can't draw the line somewhere, there is no line.

The result is an overbearing, Big Brother government.

Our choice is clear in this new decade: We can either choose to take the crumbs from the government table so we at least don't starve to death, or we decide to risk starvation in search of freedom - life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Happy New Year!

The Simplest Constitutional Question

2010-12-14T20:26:00.002-05:00

With the latest ruling in Virginia declaring the health insurance purchase by all citizens under Obamacare unconsitutional, the only question should be why it took so long. The ruling is simple and evident.

If the feds can force us to buy health insurance, then why can't they also force us to:

Purchase an electric vehicle
Replace our Coal, Oil, or Gas furnace with Solar Panels
Stop buying things they think are bad for us, like soft drinks and french fries
Apply for permission to travel out of our state
Give up our home and move if the house is bigger than they think we should have

Wait 6 months to a year for the surgery that can save our life, while we hope we can live that long?

No, this isn't a stretch. Obamacare is the definition of government oppression and tyranny.

It needs to be ended, now.

Core Principles

2010-12-08T08:42:00.003-05:00

It is puzzling to hear the angry denouncements against the president by most of his party over their belief that he "caved" on a core principle in agreeing to the tax compromise.

What exactly is the core principle, and why is it a core principle?

I'm searching for an answer to that question that makes sense, but the search is in vain. I simply can't figure out why Democrats hold as a core fundamental tenet of political philosophy the requirement that people who make over 200 thousand have to fork over 40% to the government instead of 35%.

Angry Dems are suggesting that Republicans are hypocrites for decrying deficits, while refusing to consider increasing tax rates to at least try to close that gap. Of course, Republicans respond that it's not a tax problem, but a spending problem.

The larger question is why, while the Democrats had the majorities in both houses of Congress, didn't they simply pass a tax plan that fits their philosophy? Why is it that less than 2 weeks out from the expiration of the current tax rates, they suddenly discover their core prinicples, which appear to be based on little more than the old Robin Hood myth?

If a Democrat who defines their core principle as one that taxes the "rich" at 40% instead of 35% happens to be reading this, would you please help me understand by answering these questions?

1. How does it help the failing economy to raise the top tax rate to 40%?
2. Do you earn more or less than $200K? If more, why don't you voluntarily send the extra 5% to the Treasury to help out the government? If less, explain how making those other people pay extra taxes make your life better?
3. What exactly do you think the government will do with the extra tax revenue? Have you heard anybody in government say that it will be earmarked for unemployment benefits only? Or do you just want it to go toward deficit reduction?
4. The "deal" apparently includes reinstatement of the inheritance tax. How do you feeel about a government policy that prohibits you from inheriting the family business or family farm, because the inheritance tax burden forces you to sell out?
5. What if the "rich" decide not to participate, by simply capping their annual income at $200K, so almost nobody pays the 40%? What has it achieved?
6. If you had your way and could dictate tax rates, what would your brackets and rates be, and why?

I'm sincerely curious, and hope somebody answers my questions.

Pacers Monday

2010-12-07T11:01:00.002-05:00

Nick said he had to work late, so Claudia and I braved the freezing temperatures and made the trip to Conseco to take in the Pacers.

You've got to give the organization credit in several areas. Despite their struggles to put a decent team on the court in the post-Reggie Miller era that doesn't include a bunch of delinquents, the Pacers organization is finally showing signs of life.

They're pushing a bunch of promotions to get more people in the fieldhouse, such as the one that I used to get a pretty good deal on Club-level seats last night.

They're doing their best to make the games a fun and family-friendly experience, with lots of entertainment promotions during breaks in play.

And most importantly, they've got a team that might actually be competitive. The Pacers are only a game out of first in the Central division, and would make the playoffs if the season ended now. The team seems to be playing better than even the earlier game I visited, sharing the ball better on offense and playing a bit tighter on defense.

If anybody wants a family-friendly evening of entertainment at a reasonable price, this is a good year to catch the Pacers.

Boy is it Cold Out

2010-12-06T14:04:00.002-05:00

Better not try that global warming line on me this week. It's hard to get warm this week.

I'm not really very interested in the stuff going on in the Lame Duck session in Washington. It's sort of surreal that they can't get something as seemingly simple as extending the tax rates for 2011.

The thing that's a bit puzzling about the heated rhetoric on the topic comes from the Democrat side, who keep saying Republicans are holding up tax breaks for the middle class by insisting on massive give-backs to "millionaires and billionaires".

A couple things interesting about that argument:

First, the fact that nobody's talking about giving anybody an actual tax cut - not middle class or millionaires. All they're fighting about is whether or not to keep the existing tax rates in effect.

Second, my first-grade arithmetic tells me that 200 thousand is about 800 thousand short of 1 million. So how exactly are they defining a millionaire?

At least the GOP's message is simpler. Keep the tax rates the same permanently.

The only problem with that is the "permanent" idea. It seems to me Congress can no more make tax rates "permanant" than keep it from raining in DC in April.

I'm a bit puzzled by the Democrat rhetoric, embodied by some overwrought woman I caught on MSNBC the other night. Her impassioned speech decried this "massive handout to the rich, while so many middle-clase Americans are suffering".

Huh? Is she suggesting that keeping the top income tax rate at 35% instead of increasing it to 40% (OK, 39.6%, if you must be precise) is going to somehow cause millions of unemployed Americans to starve to death?

Unless she's suggesting a linkage between that 5% tax increase and the extension of unemployment benefits past 99 weeks. The only problem is that nobody has suggested earmarking those tax revenues for that purpose.

Otherwise, how is it that having people who make more than you pay more in taxes or not pay more in taxes affect your well-being one way or the other? And I haven't even moved into the fact that tax policy affects behavior of the taxed, which means it's unlikely the projected income to the government expected from this tax increase will materialize.

Probably the most disappointing aspect of the argument is that our partisan leaders have so little respect for the intelligence of their constituents.

Extend the tax cuts or don't. Besides the rhetoric, I think both parties know how it will impact the economy.

No Glee

2010-12-03T07:34:00.002-05:00

I watched 'Glee' for the first time.

The musical performances are outstanding.

Everything that happens in between performances is trash. Nothing redeeming whatsovever.

The only way I watch again would be to DVR the show and skip over everything except the music.

If this is supposed to represent the attitudes and mores of high schoolers, we're even worse off than I thought. And I already thought things were pretty bad.

An Alternative Perspective on DADT

2010-12-01T08:25:00.003-05:00

The military policy called "Don't ask, don't tell" was a compromise that was crafted during the Clinton administration. The Left wanted gays to serve openly in the armed forces, while the Right wanted to maintain the longstanding traditions banning homosexuals from military service.

My beef with Democrats is mainly the fact that this issue is front-and-center as a policy initiative, while they ignore the truly important issues. The country's bankrupt, healthcare is being destroyed, unemployment is approaching depression-era levels. Yet what is the President and his friends in Congress focused on? DADT.

Besides that, I'm forced to deal with the issue itself.

My personal philosophy is pretty well aligned with the existing policy. How somebody might feel or think about their sexuality should no more be a disqualification from service than their religion or political affiliation. Rather, that disqualification should absolutely take place if they act on those feelings, whether it's beating up another soldier because he's a member of the other political party, spying for jihadists, or propositioning other soldiers for sex.

I've read conflicting accounts of the military's current enforcement of DADT. Activists who want it repealed claim that gays are purposely harrassed and drummed out even when they try to abide by the policy. Alternative sources suggest that in most cases, known gays are allowed to remain as long as they are not flamboyant or militant about their orientation.

In cases like this, I tend to assume that both characterizations can be true, and it depends on the people involved. It's not difficult to imagine that there's one unit that is hyper-sensitive about gays, and will aggressively move to drum out all those who may be suspected of that orientation. It's also easy to imagine there are units with known gay folks, where nobody cares and there's no effort to discharge them as long as they do their job and don't damage the unit's cohesiveness.

The fear is that allowing gays to serve openly might create a culture and atmosphere that might actually be repressive of heterosexuals in units. The fear is that it will result in widespread same-sex harassment, break down unit cohesiveness with divisiveness between the straight and gay components of the unit, and lead to the creation of "pink" barracks, units where heteros are discriminated against and sexual behavior is rampant.

I'm actually so old-fashioned in my thinking that I still oppose women in combat. My position on that would seem tbe be supported by reports of frighteningly high incidences of pregnancies among women during tours of duty on naval ships, reports of widespread sexual harassment, unreported and unprosecuted instances of rape, and unchecked fraternization that flies in the face of military regulation.

The fear of many is that repeal of DADT will explode the problems of harassment and rape and violence among military units, adding the component of HIV epidemics in close quarter deployments. There may become widespread "pink barracks", with units made up primarily with gays that will not be open to heteros. That there will be pockets in the military of unrestricted same-sex behavior, bringing shame and disrepute to the reputation of military branches.

Ultimately I believe that congress and the courts should stay out of this policy altogether. The military leaders know best what's best for their troops, and should be premitted to implement the policies they need to accomplish their mission without meddling from outsider politicians who know nothing about what it's like to send soldiers to war.

Faith in a Paragraph

2010-11-29T19:49:00.002-05:00

The author is Amy Welborn, writing about Pope Benedict XVI in today's USA Today.

The thing is, he really believes the stuff. Really. He believes that God exists and we exist because God loves us. We're free to love him back, or not. So the basic job of the church is to be Christ in the world, inviting human beings to find love and truth. To find themselves.

Exactly.

Happy Thanksgiving

2010-11-23T12:07:00.001-05:00

It's the time of year to take a break, spend time with family, and count our blessings.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Ranking the Twelve

2010-11-18T11:18:00.003-05:00

Sort of like the twelve disciples, Fox is looking at a group of potential candidates for President on the Republican side. I'm not sure how they picked these twelve exactly, but it's an interesting list.

Just for grins, here's my ranking of the 12 as of today.

1. Mitch Daniels - He's what we need. A no-nonsense CEO of America. Plus he's a Hoosier.
2. Mike Pence - I really like Mike. He's a decent guy and has Reagan's quality of an ability to disagree without being disagreeable. He also is an unabashed Christian, which will earn him vilification by the media if he becomes the nominee.
3. Mike Huckabee - Tough call, but again I think he's genuine and honest. Not sure he has the foreign policy chops, but he'd still be better than the guy sitting in the Oval Office today.
4. Newt Gingerich - Smart guy, you should find a way to catch a policy speech from this guy. Way too much personal baggage, and the press hates him.
5. Mitt Romney - I actually have serious issues with him being too moderate. But he might have the best chance to win in the general election, so we have to consider him.
6. Sarah Palin - She's in my top half partly to tweak all the Palin haters out there. I like the lady, and find it weird that she's hated so viscerally by the Left. I'd prefer someone higher on the list, but again, she's still way better than the current guy.
7. John Thune - From here on down I don't see much difference. The little bit of exposure I've had with him is positive, so I decided to give him the first pick in the second half.
8. Tim Pawlenty - He's got good reviews for his job as Minnesota Gov.
9. Chris Christie - Come on, he's from New Jersey. I can't help but wonder if he's being overrated.
10. Bobby Jindal - Another governor who seems like a decent guy.
11. Haley Barbour - Another southern governor I must admit I know very little about.
12. Jim DeMint - Seems like a great guy for energizing the conservative base, but I have trouble picturing him in the top spot.

Maybe I'll come back in 6 months and resequence the list after we start learning more about all these folks. I admit to putting our Indiana guys first, partly because I know them best and partly because I'm being loyal to fellow Hoosiers.

It will be interesting to see how it shakes out. Somehow I hope we can avoid the stupid process of last time, when the party cooked the process to make sure we didn't get to choose anybody but McCain.

Indy Teams

2010-11-17T11:18:00.002-05:00

I took in a Pacers game last night, the second in this early season. They may be mariginally better than last year, but if they manage to make the playoffs, I doubt they survive the first round.

My assessment of the team is middle of the pack. Danny Granger and Mike Dunleavy are their main guys, and both were inconsistent in the two games I saw. Granger's a decent player, but isn't built to carry a franchise. Dunleavy's a streaky shooter who wasn't hitting much in the two games I've seen.

Roy Hibbert shows tremendous promise in the middle. He looks at times like a big man who can dominate. Then on other times he looks lost. Coaches should work with him every day on post moves, and make him shoot 100 hooks a day. Get him playing with some consistency, and develop a couple of go-to post moves, and he could be a star. But not this year.

Collison is a good looking point guard with obvious skills. But he doesn't seem to know when to pass and when to take the shot. I saw him run a number of fast breaks, where there were two defenders ready to stop his drive to the basket, but teammates running the floor with him. In every case, instead of dishing to the big man for the dunk, he decided to take on the two defenders. Sometimes he drew the foul, and the other times he turned the ball over. I also observed him missing open guys on the pick and roll, again while trying to force his own shot. Collison seems to need badly to learn that winning is better than personal stats.

Tyler Hansbrough tends to play like a rookie, but I appreciate his hustle. He plays hard and hungry, and makes plays through force of will. Like Hibbert but in a different way, he shows promise for the future, but probably won't take the Pacers to a competitive level this year.

The entire team stinks on the defensive end. They're burned on weak-side rebounds so often I wonder if they've ever heard words like "weak side help" from a coach. They're embarassingly easy to break down off dribble penetration by their opponents' point guards.

Moving on to the Colts.

I'm not sure I want to put myself through the pain of watching the Colts play New England this weekend. The crippled team barely survived the Bengals last weekend, a game the Colts of the past several seasons would have blown out of the stadum.

Jacob Tamme is playing bravely in place of Dallas Clark, but alas is no Dallas Clark. Pierre Garcon drops more passes than he catches. The Colts are down to their fourth-string running back, which doesn't give them much punch there either.

All defenses have to do is double-team Reggie Wayne and contain Tamme, and they can shut down Peyton.

The only questions left for the Colts this year are, how many starters will be back off the injury list this season, and when they come back, will they be able to ramp back up in time to make the Colts a Super Bowl contender?

It doesn't look like a good sports year in Indy.

Root Causes - Education

2010-11-15T09:30:00.003-05:00

There was an article in today's Republic that, without realizing it, represented just one more direct linkage between a major societal problem and it's root cause.

We're a nation of people who insist on burying our collective heads in the sand, failing to recognize that almost every serious problem we face today can be linked directly to our precipitous moral decline.

Today it's about education.

I wish I could link to the article, but can't locate it online. Substantially the story outlined the results of a study of failing students. In a result that surprised me not one bit, it discovered that children without stable homes and parents are most likely to fail in school.

The story went on to describe the "typical" dysfunctional family, for some reason most prevalent in cities. Child is born to an unwed mother, who most of the time is still at least friendly with the child's father. He might even provide some financial support, and sometimes lives with mother and child. For awhile, anyway.

But there's no marriage tying the couple together, so pretty soon Dad's gone. Interstingly, the article suggested that lots of those Dad's want to stay involved with their child, but go away when Mom hooks up with a new guy.

The most shocking finding was that most of these women were likely to have a few more children by different Dads within the first 5 years of that first baby's life.

These kids are confused, angry, undisciplined, and get worse with each turn of Mom's revolving door. Not to mention that some of the guys going through her revolving (bedroom) door will abuse her children, which naturally makes things even worse.

Education is a big topic in Indiana, and Republicans have the power to implement their will. They want to build lots of new Charter schools, implement a merit pay system for teachers, and possibly begin experimenting with vouchers.

But the fundamental question comes down to this: If a kid isn't being raised by parents who care even a litle bit, how could any of these programs make a difference? If a child comes to school angry, hungry, abused, and broken, you can't fix it with any teacher or special school - you need a miracle worker.

Maybe it sounds harsh, but if these irresponsible and narcissistic mothers aren't separated from their children until they decide to grow up and become a parent, nothing is going to help their children succeed in school. If nobody's allowed to mentor children and try to instill basic values in them without facing a lawsuit from the ACLU, who is going to teach them right from wrong?

When will people pull their heads out of the sand and realize that all of our problems - Education, economic, healthcare, crime, etc., all boil down to the same root cause?

The only way to solve a problem is to understand it.

Defining My Version of Conservatism

2010-11-11T18:53:00.003-05:00

Whether or not this attempt to explain my personal views succeeds in finding agreement, I somehow seem to have failed thus far with this blog's total body of work in getting across the fundamental definition of my personal conservative beliefs. So let's give it a shot:

Social: Conservative
I don't think there's any question that I'm a Social Conservative. I believe that what made America great is its founding under Judeo-Christian fundamental values. And that America's decline is due to its abandonment of those values.

However, you are badly mistaken if you think that means I think the government should somehow impose those values on its citizens. And there is no contradiction in that statement.

Government can and should be thankful and friendly with Christian churches across the country, but should not either hand out taxpayer dollars to those churches or invite church leaders to set the legislative agenda directly.

However, tax exemptions for churches and their charities should remain. The government should step in on behalf of those who must fight constant ACLU lawsuits that seek to intimidate them from expressing their faith in public; whether at public school events or on their city hall lawns.

Because the historically proven source of the best and brightest citizens of our country is the nuclear family, the intact, undivorced, committed family unit should be the first to benefit from tax incentives. That policy will pay for itself many times over with well-adjusted, intelligent, and productive citizens from one generation to the next.

I do not believe that gays should be persecuted by anyone. Neither do I believe that gays have the right to take federal benefits out of my pocket for their partners. I have what I think is an interesting solution in this area, which if you missed it can be found here.

Healthcare, education, welfare, and any related social programs now run by massive Federal bureaucracies are outside the mandated constitutional role of the Feds, and should be solely the province of the individual states.

That does not lead to the common Democrat charge against people who hold that view that I don't care about the poor. States have every right to tax their citizens as they see fit to fund these programs in whatever forms they choose. If New York and California want to be havens for the chronic poor, that's their choice. If the heartland prefers to develop welfare-to-work programs such as those that proved so successful in the 90's, that's also their choice.

I believe that nobody should be given preference over anyone else because of their race, gender, sexual preference, religion, country of origin, eye color, hair color, weight, favorite movie or what car they drive.

If our society wishes to find ways to lift people out of poverty, I believe everyone in poverty should have access to the means to pull themselves out, and individuals who care should be encouraged to help guide them. Simply handing them money, patting them on the head and tut-tutting about how poor and unfortunate they are destroys them.

Economic: Conservative to Moderate?
I suppose the label for my economic beliefs depends on definition.

Some on the Right would call me a moderate for my view that completely unfettered capitalism is not ideal.

I support strong enforcement of AntiTrust law. I believe a lack of attention to these laws played a big role, along with government meddling, in our current economic crisis. There should be no American companies "Too big to fail", ever.

I also believe importing foreign workers simply because they work cheaper than their American counterparts approaches un-American. Our companies should be first-and-foremost Americans.

Being a realist, I know we can't simply dissolve the departments of Education, HHS, Agriculture, Homeland Security (an unnecessary and duplicative organization), and other expensive and counterproductive bureaucracies cannot be done overnight.

Neither can we simply cancel Social Security and Medicare.

But if enough people can be educated about the excesses of Washington, perhaps we can begin the siege and chip away at the walls little by little.

Let's take Social Security as an example. Start by admitting it's not a retirement and disability insurance program for all of us, but a plain and simple wealth redistribution from current working Americans to retirees, disabled, and dependents of deceased Americans.

Then start a program to transform the program from what it is today to an actual retirement savings, disability, and life insurance program with a cash-value account for every American. The account earns a guaranteed annual rate from the Federal Reserve, who uses those funds in place of bond sales or just as a giant money-market account with guaranteed returns.

Current retirees and those retiring in the next 10 years would see no change. Those retiring each decade following would see a gradual shift from the transfer program to individual accounts, until eventually the program covers everybody directly in individual accounts that they can will to their heirs with whatever remains unused at their death.

Oops, I didn't mean to go off on a tangent of specifics like that.

Let's back up to basic economic policy.

We need to balance Free Trade with Fair Trade. Our trade negotiations should be focused on opening the US market to foreign traders to the same extent those partners are open to US products.

Regulation of US business is necessary to protect employees and consumers from abuse and fraud, but must be reasonable and not unnecessarily onerous on employers.

Employees have the freedom to organize into unions if they choose. Union books should be subject to audit and scrutiny by members and open to prosecution if fraud is found. Union members should have a say in whether their dues are used to support political parties or candidates. Nobody should be forced to join a union.

Employers should be offered an exemption from Unemployment Insurance if they provide their own funded version of unemployment insurance: They fund an interest-bearing account with 2 percent of each employee's wages. When the employee terminates, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, they receive the proceeds from that account, and may choose either a lump sum or an annuity. Or they can roll it into an IRA or roll it into their Unemployment account at their next employer. If the employee chooses, they can contribute up to 2 percent of their earnings into the same account tax-free, just like a 401K. Simple solution, easy to administer by employers, and a great benefit for employees.

Close Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Stop using tax dollars to subsidize government cronies who pretend to be developing "Clean Energy". Open up the oil fields wherever they exist for exploration, under reasonable safety regulations. Open up all domestic sources of energy, whether natural gas, coal, oil shale, etc. If on Federal land, simply auction the rights. This is the path to true energy independence.

There's much more, but I'll end with a major one that I've proposed before: Pass a constitutional amendment regarding tax policy.

All taxes imposed on citizens, companies, or other organizations must apply to all equally without exceptions. Likewise all deductions, credits, deferrals, and abatements offered to any citizen, company, or organization must be available to any and all based on criteria that may be met by everyone if they choose to do so.

See, if you take away the ability of congress to provide special tax favors to constituents in return for campaign money, you solve a big piece of the campaign finance mess.

So much more, but if I kept going I'd be typing for days.

Projection

2010-11-04T13:28:00.002-04:00

Flipping channels, I happened on Crazy Eddie, or Ed Schultz on MSNBC. I held it there for a minute to see how he reacted to the election. The main thing I got from the minute of Crazy Eddie's ranting was that John Boehner might need to take out a restraining order.

It sort of illustrated a psychological problem of the far-left folks like Ed, Olbermann, Behar, and Maher. Even Obama projected when he strongly suggested that the Republicans need to discover civility, even while he called them "enemies", and proclaimed they needed to be "punished".

Sure, folks like Limbaugh are the flame-throwers on the Right. But I've never heard Rush wish horrible illness and death on any liberals. I don't hear him viciously attacking people personally like Ed did with Boehner yesterday, or like Behar did with Sharon Angle.

I used to visit CNN and MSNBC a bit more often, back when I thought I would get serious policy discussions that would help me learn more about the arguments from the Left.

But even though I have tried to do that for a few years, I can't say that I've ever heard a reasoned, logical argument explaining why the policies of the Left would be good for the country as a whole. It seems the arguments always degenerate into personal attacks on the right-wing villain of the day, and I never get to hear the policy argument.

Most of the social arguments seem to be misleading at best.

Gay Marriage: People need equal freedom to choose who they love. (Huh?)
Abortion: Women have the right to control their own body. (Doesn't a baby have a body too?)
Legalize Pot: We can tax it! (That's your argument, really?)
Illegal Immigration: They just want a better life. (So why don't we invite everybody in and forget about our immigration laws?)
Voter ID Laws: They are designed to disenfranchise voters. (What voters? Illegals and Convicts? Dead people?)
Taxes: The rich don't pay their fair share. (What exactly is anybody's "fair share"? Fair share of what? If 35% isn't a fair share, what percentage is? Who is rich?)
Obamacare: It's good because it forces insurance companies to cover people and not drop people who get sick. (What about the massive new bureaucracy, Federal control of the entire system, Federal decisions about what companies are priviledged enough to be chosen to offer insurance, and the unconstitutional mandate?)
Deficits and Debt: Those were Bush's fault. (How is it that tripling it after Bush left office makes it still Bush's fault?)

Weak arguments devolving into ad-hominem incivility, then projecting that incivility onto your opponents is the rule of the day for Democrats.

It's very much like the bully who beats up a kid every day and steals his lunch money, so the victim gets some self-defense lessons and fights back one day. Then the bully screams to an adult, "He punched me!".

And the poor kid who was only fighting back gets punished.

What Happens Now?

2010-11-03T08:27:00.002-04:00

The House went big time GOP, the Senate not so much.

My main objective in voting yesterday was to fire Baron Hill. Mission accomplished.

Disappointments were Barbara Boxer and Harry Reid, both of whom I thought were the most deserving of a pink slip.

But California is way too blue.

And reports are that the Casino bosses demaded that all their employees get out and vote for Reid. Plus rumors that there was a massive push to get illegals registered and voting. In a close race, all the Dems have to do is cheat, I suppose.

Which brings me to Washington State. It's too close for Rossi to win, given his own experience in the governor's race a few years back. King County (Seattle) miraculously "found" a few hundred ballots after the counting had Rossi winning the Governor race, they just happened to be enough to put his opponent in front, and what do you know, every one of them was for the Democrat!

Alaska is weird, with all the dirty tricks pulled against Joe Miller in the last couple of weeks. And Murkowski, who seems to believe it's her personal right to hold that Senate seate. What's strange is that Alaskans appear to have agreed with her and failed to recognize how they were manipulated into doing so.

The House will have a strong enough majority to make a difference, and even though Dems hold a smaller majority in the Senate, they will be forced to work with Republicans in both houses to get anything passed.

So I'm thinking that Obama's agenda is toast. Bush tax cuts will probably get extended. The budget will probably get pared down, but not enough. The House will vote to kill Obamacare, but the Senate won't go along. So the House will vote to defund Obamacare, but the President will veto, which could lead to an interesting fight and possible government shutdown.

It will be interesting, but I think better for the country in the long run.

Football Sectional

2010-10-30T10:07:00.004-04:00

For once I was home on Friday, and not sitting on an airplane somewhere. Both Columbus teams were playing in their respective Sectional SemiFinal games right here in town, and I had my first chance since they played each other way back in the second game of the season to catch a game.

I was tempted to visit the closer team on the East side, but decided to stay with the team I've followed for so many years, including those years my middle son was a team member, and head up to the North side.

The game opened up with an impressive touchdown drive by the North squad, leaving me the impression that this game could go pretty well. Then the opponents from Bloomington North got the ball and marched it down the field in the opposite direction for their own touchdown.

It was beginning to look like a shootout. Bloomington got up two scores, 28-14, but a nice Columbus touchdown drive followed by a quick Bloomington turnover and score brought the teams even at halftime, 28-28.

The third quarter was where things began to unravel for the Columbus team. Not at first, as Bloomington's first possession was stymied by a rededicated Columbus defense for a 3-and-out, and the Columbus offense drove down the field for what looked like the go-ahead score.

But a fourth down scramble by the quarterback, Kyle Kamman, was brought back on a holding penalty I didn't see from the stands. Now I'm generally a pretty good observer of such things, and if there was an obvious hold on the play, it seems I would have seen it. In any case, I didn't see it, but have to assume the referree did.

Instead of a go-ahead touchdown, Columbus North had to punt.

And Bloomington North scored almost immediately on their next possession. A short sideline pass led to a 66-yard scamper to the end zone that made the hapless Columbus defense look embarassingly like the Keystone Cops.

Columbus' offense struggled to regain momentum in the quarter, and would never be able to catch the Bloomington team, which seemed to get stronger as the second half wore on.

As in the drive-killing holding penalty, the officials contributed to the outcome at least twice more.

During the extra point following Bloomington's first third-quarter touchdown, a Columbus player dove across in front of the kicker to attempt a block and fell to the ground just in front of the holder. The kicker saw his opportunity and let his momentum carry him forward so he tripped over the crumpled Columbus player, drawing the "Roughing the Kicker" penalty.

Assessed on the kickoff, Bloomington went ahead and called for the Onside Kick, which was a low-risk, high-reward call. The onside kick was successful, but at least 3 of the Bloomington kickoff team members were clearly and obviously offside on the play. There was no official watching the kickoff line, so no penalty was called.

Bloomington North promptly scored again to go up by 2 touchdowns.

Then the Columbus speedster Trace Fetterer(sp?) caught the next kickoff near the goal line and raced the length of the field for an apparent touchdown that would have put his team right back in contention.

Except for the flag. Another holding call on Columbus North, again for what seemed to me a phantom hold, as I saw nothing of the sort.

In the end, that call was all that was needed to assure a Bloomington North victory. Columbus' defense was missing its two starting linebackers, and Bloomington could run the ball easily through the Columbus defense and run out the clock.

Columbus managed a late touchdown, but much too late, dropping the game by the final score of 45-35.

Crosstown rivals Columbus East were embarassed by Whiteland by a score too outrageous for me to reproduce.

So there will be no Columbus-based Sectional Championship game next week. At least I picked the better game of the two to shiver through on Friday night.

While I'm Tilting at Windmills

2010-10-27T19:31:00.003-04:00

I might as well go ahead and post some other crazy ideas.

What if -

Everybody bought health insurance like they buy car insurance? And the government had nothing to do with it.

We could solve the massive budget and national debt problem by eliminating every federal agency and project that is not specifically and constitutionally their responsibility?

We capped government spending so it can never exceed, say, 20 percent GDP?

We changed welfare programs to cover only those to sick or otherwise disabled to function?

Churches help out their parishioners when in need as a front line of defense instead of government programs?

Those able-bodied persons who don't want to join a church and can't find employment can fall back on the government, but not for cash. Show up anytime you want and you can be given a minimum-wage job, baby sitting for your children if needed, and maybe some referral services for temporary housing and other assistance until you get on your feet?

Social Security was transformed into a personal account, gradually over the next generation. Then when you retire, it's your money. When you die, you can pass it on to your heirs?

Government configured tax policy to favor only the nuclear family and undivorced parents?

Government was friendly to the Church, recognizing it as the most important agent for solving poverty?

Congress is made up of ordinary people from our communities who go to Washington for no more than 4 years, then come home and resume their normal lives?

Government actually enforced important laws, such as AntiTrust and Immigration, for two examples?

The tax code was reduced from the corrupt mutli-thousand-page monstrosity to a simple law no more than 20 pages long?

Tax returns for everyone were 1 page long?

Mega Corporations get no more or less preferential treatment from the government than any other business or individual?

Calling people of the opposition party "Enemies" is an impeachable offense for the President or any other elected official?

I've got lots more, but that's all I feel like posting for tonight.

My Vincennes Debate Adventure

2010-10-26T14:07:00.004-04:00

A few weeks ago I caught wind of the Indiana Debate Commission's request for voters to submit questions for the Senate candidates. I happened to be sitting down at the computer at the time, so I dashed off a question.

Last week, I received a phone call from a member of the commission asking if I would present my question at the debate Monday night in Vincennes. I had to do some schedule rearranging, but freed up Monday afternoon and evening to make the long drive to Vincennes University last night.

My question was related to the following information I came across about 2010 H1B Visa Applications in Indiana.

Rank Company H1B Applications Avg Salary
1 Purdue University 548 64,001
2 Cummins 539 69,546
3 Indiana University 455 56,733
4 IUPUI 441 60,037
5 Eli Lilly/Notre Dame 264 92,426
6 Lac 211 58,245
7 Access Therapies 181 52,193
8 Kpit Infosystems 177 54,389
9 Pyramid Consulting 170 49,625
10 Pyramid Technology Solutions 131 48,377
11 LHP Software 105 60,822
12 Ryan Consulting Group 90 51,515
13 Satyam Computer Services 80 61,724
14 Midwest Independent Transmission Sys 61 75,701
15 Workhorse Custom Chassis 58 72,026
16 White Lodging Services 56 39,440
16 Ball State 56 56,381
18 IUPUI 54 59,769
19 SV Technologies 51 49,314
19 Thomson 51 77,296
21 ArcelorMittal USA 50 73,199
22 UST Global 49 56,757
23 Brite Systems 43 59,198
24 Conseco Services 42 71,074
25 Dow Agrosciences 38 90,543
26 Zimmer 37 74,492
27 Bucher and Christian Consulting 36 101,388
28 CVS Pharmacy 35 103,057
29 Q Edge 34 42,839
30 Kindred Rehab Services 32 50,490
30 Depauw University 32 53,310
30 Indiana State University 32 50,583
33 IBM 31 84,785
33 RCR Technology 31 72,669
35 Kindred Technology Nursing Centers 31 62,400
36 Telamon 26 42,987
37 Hill Rom 25 75,174
37 Cook 25 63,862
37 Interactive Intelligence 25 72,282
40 International School of Indiana 24 43,787
40 F1 24 49,875
40 Infosys Technologies 24 60,148
40 Boston Scientific 24 67,186
40 Carrier 24 66,371
40 Sabic Innovative Plastics 24 81,372
46 Redcats USA Management Services 23 89,065
46 MED Institute 23 69,234
46 Delphi 23 73,782
49 TheraCare 22 42,976
50 Novistar 21 69,261
50 Diverse Staffing Services 21 61,650
50 Fujitsu Consulting 21 69,828
54 Cummins Emission Solutions 20 71,656
54 Genesis Business Solutions 20 51,437
56 Intelligence 19 63,126
56 Gyansys 19 57,389
56 Aegis Therapies 19 72,894
56 EagleCare 19 74,453
56 Mphasis 19 60,963
56 University of Southern Indiana 19 56,016
56 Swift Solutions 19 55,326
63 Ospro Systems 18 57,800
63 Cognizant Technology Solutions 18 59,122
63 General Electric 18 81,818
63 Ibiz Group 18 52,070
63 Covance 18 75,541
68 Indiana Math and Science Academy 17 37,243
68 Lincoln National 17 93,548
68 Medical Specialists 17 183,885
71 Creative Health Solutions 16 74,100
71 IU Health Inc 16 137,668
71 Caterpillar 16 71,222
74 Clarian Health Partners 15 53,257
74 Rose Hulman Insititute of Technology 15 61,153
74 Saint Margaret Mary Helthcare Centers 15 156,883
74 Roche Diagnostics 15 75,523
78 Pegatron Technology Service 14 38,909
78 Tata Consultancy Services 14 54,700
78 Indiana Health Centers 14 123,822
78 Hoosier Wheel & Stamping Mfg 14 55,000
78 Adesa 14 77,486
78 Healthcare Therapy Services 14 61,054
84 Butler University 13 59,823
84 ATT 13 73,641
84 Mead Johnson 13 92,208
84 St Vincent Hospital 13 76,408
88 Rolls Royce 12 70,700
88 MedFocus 12 64,385
88 Proficient Business Systems 12 49,790
88 V Soft Consulting Group 12 56,750
88 Atlas Rehabilitation 12 54,080
88 Amatra Technologies 12 59,089
88 Apogee Medical Group Indiana 12 185,000
96 Autocar 11 78,230
96 Hook SupeRx dba CVS Pharmacy 11 50,003
96 Ernst & Young 11 61,189
96 Inventiv Clinical Solutions 11 61,669
96 Niagara Lasalle 11 77,850

The only candidate who gave me a definitive answer to my question was the Libertarian, Rebecca Sink-Burris. She said there's no problem with this, and it's really a positive thing. Strangely, she also cited some study that said for every foreign worker hired under H1B, there are 5 more positions filled in "Support".

I take that to mean Americans can't handle these professional, technical, programming, and scientific jobs anymore? That we're now reduced to "supporting" the foreign professionals brought in to do the jobs we can't do? Does anybody find that the least bit offensive?

Dan Coats verbally patted me on the head and dismissed me. "Go off and play so the adults can talk". H1B is a "side issue", according to Coats, and if we just get the government out of the way there will be plenty of jobs for everybody.

Brad Ellsworth was patronizing. He must have been thinking along the same lines as Ms. Sink-Burris, because he turned his answer into a need to improve education. Again the theme that we Americans are too, what, stupid, lazy, greedy? Importing professors into our colleges who can't speak clear enough English to be understood is helping education?

The guys from the Commission and the moderator, Ann Ryder, couldn't have been nicer. The candidates made no effort at all to meet our small group of 7 questioners after the debate, which I think speaks volumes. Neither did a single member of the press.

I sort of ended the night feeling foolish.

I Get to Ask a Question

2010-10-24T22:28:00.002-04:00

I've been invited to ask a question of the Indiana Senate candidates Monday night. It's kind of exciting, and I'm curious to find out how they will answer. I think it's a unique, challenging, and important question nobody's been talking about in this campaign cycle.

Tune in Monday night to hear my question and the debate.

I'll post the question, the more detailed reasons for the question, and a paraphrase of the candidates' responses after the debate.

It should be an interesting evening in Vincennes.

Uncivil War

2010-10-15T08:37:00.003-04:00

The wierd story of the two liberal ladies on the View walking off the set in a huff during a discussion with O'Reilly combines with a couple of big debates this week to illustrate that there's a chasm between conservative and liberal philosophies that cannot be bridged.

The two debates I noticed were senatorial debates in Nevada and Delaware. I caught a bit of both, and both highlighted the stark differences in left and right philosophies. Harry Reid and Chris Coons espoused govenment-centric control to restore "fairness", which they claim will eventually help the economy recover. Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell espoused freedom and smaller government to allow the private sector to restore prosperity through business activity.

On economic, social, environmental, national defense, and foreign relations issues, conservatives and liberals are diametrically opposed. Which makes me wonder about self-identified "moderates", because there is no real middle ground in most of these topics.

You prefer socialism or capitalism. You're for or against gay marriage and abortion. You think a strong national defense and secure borders are vital, or you believe we need to open the borders and show our enemies that we're really nice people. You want to develop all available energy options or drive the cost of carbon-based energy beyond affordability in the hope that "clean" energy will come along to replace oil and coal.

I suppose a moderate agrees with conservatives on some issues and with liberals on others.

The difference between the two camps is in their approach. My observation is that the conservative candidates are focused on policy. Liberal candidates are focused on slinging mud.

Points of proof: The View walkout, Jerry Brown's unapologetic defense of his staffer calling Meg Whitman a "whore". Everybody on the Left and their willing "journalist" friends going on TV to deride Christine O'Donnell, Sharron Angle, and Sarah Palin (who isn't running for anything) as idiots.

The country is reaping exactly what it sowed. The question is whether or not the citizenry can figure that out in time to make a correction.

Weary of Arguments

2010-10-13T08:20:00.002-04:00

Up to this point, most of the arguing has been about the economy. The party of corporate fat cats versus the party of government fat cats.

As if that wasn't getting tired enough, along comes New York's gubernatorial candidate, Palladino, saying he didn't want children indoctrinated to regard gay relationships in a moral equivalency with traditional nuclear families.

I don't find the statement all that controversial, but it's got the gay community screaming. I saw Ron Reagan briefly on CNN so angry he seemed to be about to cry. You would have thought Palladino called for having Ron and his gay friends hanged in Times Square.

Another divisive issue is immigration and the Arizona law. Again, what Arizona did I don't consider controversial at all. They merely passed a law permitting local law enforcement to assist in identifying and holding people here illegally and holding them for ICE processing.

I saw a panel of regular folks arguing about that, and as with the gay issue, those on the pro-illegal side of the argument were extremely angry and hostile to Arizona and the others in the room on the other side.

Is it really necessary for me to go into the simple truth of each issue?

Gay rights are not about the "right" for gay people to love whomever they choose, which is a silly statement clearly designed to obscure the issue. It's about benefits. The basic question here is whether I should be forced to submit my tax dollars to provide government benefits to homosexual partners.

Since my moral equivalence is not between gay couples and married couples, but between the gay lifestyle and Tiger Woods' skirt-chasing lifestyle, my answer is no.

Supporters of rights for illegal aliens contend that they're hard workers, and are only here illegally because it's too hard to obtain legal immigration approval. The basic question isn't whether illegals work hard or want a better life; it's about whether or not we choose to uphold our country's laws and secure the border.

Our choice is to either open up the borders for everyone and stop trying to enforce the law, or to seal the border and solve the problem once and for all. My answer is solve the problem.

Palladino apparently has a reputation for being very non-PC. Will this anti-PC comment lose him the election? In deep blue New York, perhaps. Politically, he probably shouldn't have said it. But his honesty is sort of refreshing for a politician.

I just heard Palladino was apologizing for his comments. That's too bad. Apologizing would seem to mean he's had a change of heart on the matter. It won't win over anybody he's apologizing to - they will reject the apology as politically expedient. So it doesn't seem like a productive response.

Defining Evil

2010-10-12T09:56:00.002-04:00

Channel surfing in the hotel room, I picked up on the current political story about campaign funding. The Democrats, led by the President and Vice President, have gone after Carl Rove and the Chamber of Commerce, suggesting that they have raised millions to support Republican candidates from questionable sources.

I've noticed that when a party or candidate is having trouble attracting enough support to keep their office, they will typically turn to demonization of their opponent. I suppose if they can make everyone think the other guy is worse, the people will either reluctantly vote their way once more, or just stay home.

It's rather unseemly for the President and Vice President to drop down into the mud. I don't recall this degree of raw partisanship from any President, at least as long as I've been paying attention.

It's also more than a little dishonest for the President to decry the big money going to Republicans from oil companies and Wall Street, when he was elected with big money from George Soros, trial lawyers, unions, and quite possibly Chinese "bundlers" (they caught one spreading Chinese cash around for Hillary in 2008, but we never heard much about that case).

From my side of the political spectrum, I have to admit at least a suspicion of evil about certain characters. My jailhouse lineup would be headlined by Barney Frank, and include Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, Barbara Boxer, and Alan Grayson.

Although I would quietly celebrate if Nancy Pelosi loses her gavel, I don't actually put her in the murderer's row above. Not because she's not guilty - she certainly is; but my impression is that she really believes in what she's been doing. From my perspective, she is terribly dangerous not because she's corrupt per se (although she certainly may be corrupt); but because she's clueless and immensely powerful.

I also don't necessarily consider the President evil. I'm appalled by his callous attitudes toward abortion, including partial-birth abortion. And I am suspicious that he may have a supremely corrupt motive in pushing Cap & Trade. But I also think he truly believes in a socialist/communist utopia. Simply reading his biography makes that abundantly clear; his parents, his education, his Chicago cronies, his mentors, all are far-left socialist/communists. I'm not convinced he even knows or understands the perspective of anyone right of center.

Evil or not, we should begin right now as a country holding our politicians to the highest standards. We should not overlook corruption simply because the corrupt politician happens to belong to the correct party. We must never again permit our representatives to sell themselves to the highest bidder.

All that requires paying attention. Many more folks are starting to pay attention now, because they're feeling the pain of government malfeasance. The only way we can avoid the next meltdown is to shut down any possibility that such malfeasance can ever happen again.

Choices

2010-10-05T20:10:00.002-04:00

In less than a month to the elections, it seems likely that most folks are already settled on their candidates. As far as I can tell from everything I've read, the difference is likely to come down to turnout.

The energized conservative base can't wait to vote against all that's happened over the last two years. Many independents didn't get what they thought they were voting for two years ago. The core liberal base will turn out for their candidates even though they're unhappy for different reasons.

Even though it typically makes me nauseous, I've been checking out the left-wing messages to try to find out what they're thinking. Like conservatives, they're upset with the Democrats who have been in charge for two years. Unlike conservatives, their unhappiness isn't about what the Democrats have done, but what they have failed to do over that time.

CNN likes to have left-wing commentators on to speculate about those weird Tea Party folks, as if they're some sort of isolated tribe. Following their tradition, I've set out to try to understand who these Democrat activists are, and what it is they want.

Here's what I think I've learned.

The Left Wing has a vision of their ideal America that looks something like this:

They don't like ObamaCare, but want Medicare for everybody. Basically nationalize the system and insure everybody under Medicare. (Interestingly, in some ways I actually think that would have been better than the awful boondoggle of ObamaCare)

They believe the rich became so at the expense of the poor. In their world, a rich person in some way stole their money from poor people. Strangely, they generally seem to exempt politicians, pro athletes, trial lawyers, union bosses, entertainers, and George Soros.

Their definition of freedom is abortion on demand at any point in the pregnancy, legal weed, and government benefits for gay couples. At the same time they have no problem with banning firearms, dictating what we are allowed to eat or drive, and banning Christianity completely.

They think national security is irrelevant. If we're just nice to our enemies, they'll be our friends. The military is evil, but maybe if they repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", maybe they'll be just a little less evil. As long as they recruit plenty of openly gay folks and illegal immigrants then never send them anywhere they might possibly come under fire.

They don't understand why we can't just open up the borders and let everyone in who wants to come. And those who are already here illegally are just ordinary people looking for a better life, right? So we should just let them become citizens, and just make sure they are registered to vote, as long as they promise to pull the Democrat lever.

Their definition of fairness is that if somebody (other than the exempt groups I mentioned earlier) makes more than they do, the government must confiscate it and give it to them.

More simply stated, the average Democrat votes for whomever they believe will deliver the most goodies. It's all about them, and (insert expletive of your choice) everybody else. (By the way, have you ever noticed that Democrats have filthy mouths?)

That's why this election is so important. I just haven't figured out whether there are enough folks left who understand that and will show up to vote accordingly.

What Makes a Good Year?

2010-09-30T21:29:00.002-04:00

Going into October, I did a quick projection for 2010. And it would appear this may be the best year since I became an independent businessman. At least in terms of gross revenue.

It got me thinking, was this a good year?

The earnings haven't made a difference in my life in any way I can identify. I suppose it's helped me cover the spiking healthcare expenses and some home repairs, which were all just things that were needed regardless.

I haven't spent anything on myself. Actually, I've been hoarding cash like a miser because it's scary to watch the overall economy tank.

There hasn't been much free time, because of course I can't have a great earnings year without working. And I've been working much harder than normal this year. Summer went past and I barely noticed.

That hoard of cash (don't get any ideas that it's such a big hoard, because it's not) is going to have to take a really big hit, because I also just realized I'm going to have to send a major percentage of it to the government this month or they'll be coming after me. So even that's not such a great thing.

It seems I should feel great about my successful business year.

Instead I feel guilty.

Guilty for failing to appreciate being busy when so many are out of work.

Guilty for being absent.

Guilty for losing track of what's really important.

Maybe I need to force a break in my work schedule to re-evaluate. Or should I just toughen up, keep making hay while the sun shines, and put enough back to relax when the tough times hit?

Balanced News

2010-09-27T19:38:00.002-04:00

On a rare occasion, I took in the Fox News Sunday program this weekend. For those who would claim Fox News is merely the conservative opposite of MSNBC, Chris Wallace proved that false; at least when it comes to Sunday shows.

Wallace had Boehner on to talk about their newly released outline of promises if the GOP gets returned to power. He was tough on Boehner, asking good questions that Boehner mostly ducked.

Then he had on the Democrat Hoyer, and proceeded to ask him equally tough questions. And of course got Democrat talking points in return.

So neither really answered the questions; Boehner ducked them and Hoyer prevaricated.

The panel discussion was balanced with representatives of both sides of the political divide, which was actually fairly interesting.

It's simply wrong to suggest Fox is the same as MSNBC, just the other side of the same coin. MSNBC is populated with certifiable crazies and offers little to no balance. Every Fox program, except maybe Beck, brings on people to express both sides of most every issue. (And Beck's program is really not comparable to anything anywhere else)

Wallace should have a higher profile. I want someone who doesn't take sides, and asks tough questions that need to be asked no matter who comes in.

We can learn from that.

Missing the Point

2010-09-23T17:14:00.003-04:00

It seems like most everybody's missing the point. It's sort of disappointing, because those missing the point are the ones who are being hurt most by everything that's happening.

What point am I talking about?

Well, primarily it's morality. But it's also common sense.

What's better for everyone -

Being sensitive to gay people's feelings or securing the country against its enemies?

Rewarding and honoring those who behave irresponsibly and neglect the next generation, or rewarding the nuclear family, from which come the most responsible and productive citizens?

Confiscating hard-earned dollars from people who work to give it to people who dont?

Disrespecting Christians and making sure all our students are converted to the religion of Atheism, or honoring our First Amendment freedoms that built the foundation of solid families and honorable citizens?

Trying to impose goverment control over every aspect of our lives, including what we can eat, drive, where we live, and what we can do with our own property; or giving us the freedom to live our lives as we choose without bureaucratic interference?

Are business people to be regarded as greedy money-grubbers who abuse the poor, or the engine of a vibrant economy who need to be encouraged to innovate and expand?

Hasn't anybody these days read anything about the fall of the Roman Empire? History is indeed repeating itself.

Poison Pills in Politics

2010-09-22T09:06:00.003-04:00

Harry Reid used a cynical and obvious ploy his position as Senate Majority Leader permits to stuff unrelated poison pills into the Defense Authorization Bill. The DREAM Act and repeal of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'.

Harry knows he's going to lose if he can't figure out a way to energize the Democrat base. So his desperate attempt to prod gays and hispanics to the Nevada polls is an example of why people across the country are sick of the process.

Unfortunately, Indiana's own Dick Lugar is a co-sponsor of the DREAM Act, which serves as further evidence that Lugar is out of touch. It seems he's either been in Washington so long that he doesn't even know how folks in Indiana think anymore, or he's old and senile and his office is being run by insider Washington staffers who couldn't find Indiana on a map.

The DREAM Act is merely a form of amnesty for illegal immigrants combined with financial benefits for their offspring. An aspect that would seem to be unpalatable to Liberals and Conservatives alike is the promise it makes to illegals who sign up for the military.

"Hey, illegal immigrant, want a chance to become an American citizen? Go fight in Afghanistan for a few years, and you've got it!"

Then of course it forces the dwindling numbers of us who still pay taxes to cover college tuition for illegals.

Who supports this law actually? Maybe just those who don't know about it?

"Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is a Clinton-era policy that represented a compromise. Prior to that policy, the military simply would not allow homosexuals to serve. It's perhaps a simple way of avoiding the obvious problems that can happen with a bunch of guys in close quarters and in combat.

Gays have been pushing in the years since to repeal the policy, because they want to be allowed to serve in the military and be open about their orientation. I don't really understand why, since acting out sexually in the military, no matter what your orientation, will get you busted and dishonorably discharged if it continues.

My reading of the current military practice of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is pretty loose. The military won't discharge those they know are homosexual unless the individual happens to be flamboyantly or militantly so. Which seems practical to me in an organization where teamwork and unit cohesiveness is life-and-death.

What disappoints me about both of these issues is that there were Republicans who would have supported them, and all but two Democrats went on record for them. That's abusive to the general public.

Popularity Double Standard

2010-09-17T10:37:00.003-04:00

In the wake of the political earthquake of the Delaware Senate Primary, I've been noticing a pretty amazing double-standard when it comes to female politicians.

We all know how much the Left despises Sarah Palin. The list of hated conservative women is growing to include Sharon Angle in Nevada and now Christine O'Donnell in Delaware. What's somewhat new is the anger being shown by GOP establishment types who have openly derided the young lady who knocked the old man from Washington out of the race.

O'Donnell isn't the first insurgent Tea Party candidate to unseat a party favorite. We only need to look at the very recent result in Alaska, where a new guy named Joe Miller dumped the incumbent Lisa Murkowski. Miller hasn't received the vitriol from the party leaders.

OK, so Miller's going to win the Alaska seat unless something truly horrible surfaces about him. O'Donnell will supposedly need a miracle to get Joe Biden's old seat in deep blue Delaware. Point made.

But what's beginning to show is a sort of sexism. What is the biggest complaint of those who don't like O'Donnell, Palin, and Angle? They're all painted as airheads. Dumb blondes (even though as far as I can tell, only Angle is actually guilty of being blonde). Unserious thinkers.

Why is it that the stupid charge only applies to conservative female candidates?

When's the last time you heard the Speaker of the House say anything remotely intelligent? And to be fair to both sexes, might I also place into evidence the Vice President?

I didn't really know the name Christine O'Donnell until a couple of weeks ago, and it would be unfair to offer any opinion on her mental capacity. Same holds for Angle.

Palin is an undeniable force in this political season, something you have to credit, which seems to give at least some lie to the stupid charge.

Here's my working theory on how O'Donnell might actually pull out a win and give the party establishment their wish, making Mitch McConnell the Senate Majority Leader:

O'Donnell's campaign reportedly got over a million dollars immediately after she won the primary. She's energized not only Tea Party folks, but also people across the country who find it refreshing that a regular person was able to break through the wall for a nomination in spite of the establishment.

She's running against a guy who calls himself "The Bearded Marxist". Even in Delaware, I would be surprised if even the blue Democrats would be comfortable pulling a lever from an avowed Marxist.

First, the energized conservative base in Delaware, plus "moderates" who sort of like the idea of an insurgent candidate, turn out big on election day.

Second, the soft and disgruntled Left and the left-leaning folks who don't like O'Donnell, but aren't enamored with the bearded Marxist either, just stay home.

Not only in Delaware can this happen, but also in Nevada, and California, and Washington, and in many other races that currently are polling somewhere between "Toss-Up" and "Leans Democrat".

Which means that if O'Donnell wins that seat, I think every other federal congressional office within shouting distance also tips Republican.

We'll see.

Debating Ideological Purity

2010-09-13T18:00:00.002-04:00

The biggest arguments Republicans are having with each other these days is focused on the Delaware Senate Primary. It happens to be the race to choose a senator that will take Joe Biden's place.

The argument is about ideological purity, and I find it fascinating.

Should conservatives go ahead and vote through the veteran lawmaker Mike Castle, who most believe would win Biden't seat easily, or vote for the "true conservative" and Tea Party favorite Christine O'Donnell, who the Republican establishment in Delaware have been trying to discredit ostensibly because she can't win?

It would seem that Castle would idealogically fall somewhere between the two ladies from Maine and Alen Specter, which naturally causes conservatives lots of heartburn. Castle might sink a hoped-for Republican ascendancy to the majority in the Senate by aligning himself with the Democrats on key legislative issues such as national healthcare and cap & trade.

Republican muckety-mucks say it's better to have a "moderate" Castle in the Senate as perhaps the seat that tips the scale for the GOP than to lose the seat, and thus the majority, by nominating O'Donnell.

O'Donnell supporters insist she is eminently electable, and decry the smears against her from her own party establishment as sexist and perhaps even driven a bit by corrupt motives. Delaware may be a Blue State, but the voters already know the Democrat candidate as a big-time tax & spend guy, and are ready to choose a new direction, they claim.

I'm not from Delaware, nor can I say I even know anybody from Delaware. So I can't make any judgements at all about the character, ideology, or electability of either candidate versus the Democrat. But given a choice between a RINO that hands the Senate Majority over to the GOP and a True-Blue Conservative that may end up losing to the Democrat, I'd say it's a tough call.

But I expect if I were voting in Delaware's primary, I'd probably go for the fresh blood and let the chips fall where they may.

Delusion as Policy

2010-09-12T10:42:00.002-04:00

The irony of today's headlines side-by-side is striking. One is about Obama's pleading with everyone to separate Islamic terrorism from the Islamic faith, while the other is about the number of people who died in violent protests over the cancelled Quran-burning event in Florida.

Is Obama practicing an official policy of delusion, when he proclaims all followers of the Prophet Mohammed to be peaceful in the face of such extreme reactions over a non-protest by a hayseed in Florida?

His delusion seems evident in all of his related policies. Iran is moving their nuclear weapons program forward at an accelerated pace while they perceive the weak American president will do nothing to stop them. While the President begs them to negotiate, they proclaim their peaceful intentions while the nuclear bombs are being constructed in plain sight. And for all the President's rhetoric, they must be stunned at his naivete.

He badgers Netanyahu and Abbas to agree to talk, even though there is no way either can or will be able to achieve even minimal progress on Israeli/Palestinian peace. Abbas is a weak leader over a people who are largely committed to the utter and complete destruction of the State of Israel, even if Israel gives them all of Gaza and the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Israel's last unilateral concession toward peace, when they abandoned much of Gaza to the Palestinians, was repaid by daily rocket and mortar attacks across the border.

The official delusion is that anything at all can be accomplished through negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. The only available solution to the problem is an imposed solution. It would require cooperation, or at least acquiescence, of Israel's neighbors. It would require an end to the arming and financing of Hamas from Iran and the Saudis. It would require a permanent multinational force protecting Israel from Palestinian terrorism with an iron fist.

That won't happen.

If the President has any desire at all to put substance ahead of style, he should be working hard to win the support of as many countries as possible toward forcing the Palestinians into negotiations that include guarantees backed by the military might of the world that will protect Israel from attack in exchange for granting a permanent Palestinian State with clearly defined borders and no chance of ever attacking their Israeli neighbors.

Otherwise, the only thing America can do, or maybe should do, is continue to support Israel with the means to defend itself. And keep working on Israel's neighbors, using America's markets as the carrot and allies as the implied stick, to achieve the cooperation needed to move the region toward a hoped-for future peace.

But a delusional President may be incapable of practical solutions to problems.

I didn't want to comment on this, but ...

2010-09-08T22:29:00.002-04:00

Once again I find myself with a completely different take on the Quran (Koran) burning preacher than all the silly pundits who have so badly overexposed the story.

First of all, why did the pastor from Florida with a congregation reported to be around 50 even make the local news? He represents pretty much nobody outside his little congregation, and if the 50 number was ever accurate, I can't help but wonder if all the negative publicity has trimmed it down to 5.

On the other hand, if his point was to expose the silliness of the arguments about the Ground Zero Mosque, just maybe he might be brilliant. The whole mosque argument is about the perception that the Muslims behind it's intention is to rub 9/11 in the faces of the country by building a big place named after the Cordoba Mosque (see my earlier post on the history of the Cordoba Mosque). The Left, who are notorious for blocking anything Christians want to do, suddenly find an opportunity to demonstrate their tolerance and peaceful intentions by campaigning in favor of the mosque and wagging their fingers at those who find the act of building the mosque and opening it on the 10-year anniversary of 9/11 provocative and disrespectful.

Now the same folks are challenged by this little hayseed pastor from Florida to step up and show their boundless tolerance and understanding when he decides to perform his own public spectacle with the Quran burning event this 9/11. Am I the only one who sees this stunning inconsistency? It doesn't take too much of a brain to see the hypocrisy.

I have to wonder if the pastor has something surprising in mind. Maybe when Saturday rolls around and all the cameras gather to record his symbolic event to return insult for insult, he will suddenly pull a switch and find a great way to convey a different message. Something that expresses to the world the fact that Muslims can wreak all the murder and mayhem they like, but Christians will continue to pray for them and demonstrate the contrast between radical Muslims' interpretation of Mohammed's teachings and the incontrovertable teachings of Jesus the Christ.

I suspect such a changeup will enrage the media who show up to cover the event even more than the Muslims who don't need any help being enraged.

Football Season

2010-09-08T14:45:00.002-04:00

Just in time for the first games in the NFL, it's time to do my annual prognostication.

Will the Colts find their way back to the Super Bowl this year, fall short once again, or just be an also-ran?

First of all, we know Peyton Manning simply won't allow them to be a bad team. But neither can he win a Super Bowl all by himself.

Peyton has some pretty good depth around him at wide receiver and tight end, and even injuries to the starters at those positions shouldn't hurt the team much. Of course, a season-ending injury to Peyton would be disastrous.

Preseason games seemed to suggest to me that Brandstater might be a slightly better backup QB than Curtis Painter, but Painter held on to the clipboard-toting job. Past history has shown Peyton's perhaps the most durable QB in the game, so the odds are pretty good that he'll be there for the season.

The question on offense is the O-Line. Even without the injury bug to linemen in the preseason, there are lots of questions about whether the line is good enough. None of the injuries appear to be serious, and although Jeff Saturday may not make the first game against the Texans, he should be around for most of the season.

If we see the O-Line springing Addai and Brown for lots of rushing yards, I think that's the measuring stick we can use to determine whether they're good enough. The preseason didn't give me a good feel for that question one way or the other. The Texans game this Sunday will.

Defense is supposed to be better. Again, with the Colts, it's almost impossible to judge that fact, because the Colts use preseason to evaluate players, not to polish the starters. But they would seem to be in good shape for this season, with healthy ends Freeney and Mathis and Bob Sanders back to join an already solid group of Safeties.

I haven't been sold on the linebackers the last couple of years. They have seemed susceptible to getting pancaked by blockers from teams with solid running games. The rookie linebacker from Iowa shows some promise, and we will see if the unit is stronger this year.

The interesting thing about the new season is that nobody really knows what's going to happen. A win against the Texans might have been a pretty good bet in previous years, but this year the Texans look like a better team. I can't say I would be surprised if the Texans were able to beat the Colts in game 1. Disappointed, sure, but not surprised.

That's why we watch.

Let Me Explain

2010-09-01T19:02:00.002-04:00

Just in my own way of trying another angle to somehow help more people understand what's wrong and why it's so wrong, how about an explanation?

Morality: I'm not always harping on morality because I want America to become a "Theocracy". Here's why morality is a good thing, regardless of whether you accept my brand of Religious philosophy or not:
Committed, "till death do us part" marriage between one man and one woman, produces children who are more responsible, better educated, better adjusted, and overall better contributors to American society. Promiscuity, "Alternative Lifestyles", multiple marriage and divorce, having children out of wedlock, etc., lead to children who are either killed before they even get a chance at life or are abandoned to the world while their amoral and self-absorbed parents seek their own "fulfillment".

Government: The government exists to keep invading marauders from killing us, make sure we don't kill or cheat each other, and maybe build some roads. Whenever they do more than that, they consume far more resources than they return in value, and they chip away at our personal liberty. The founding fathers had it right - the Federal Government needs to stay out of what is clearly the business of the States and Individuals.

Welfare: Charity has always done the best job of helping provide the basic necessities for the neediest among us. Government institutionalizes neediness by giving people enough to live on, so they don't have to use their own initiative to take responsibility for their own lives. The only government welfare program I could get behind is locally administered, and is strictly measured on their achievement of a primary mission: getting their clients off Welfare and into self-sufficiency.

Economy: The President and his fellow travelers have been lamenting, why are all the companies just sitting on their money? Why won't they hire some people, invest in new projects, generally help the economy get back on track?
Seriously, our super-smart President can't understand this? What business is going to make major investments in hiring new employees when they're about to get hammered with major new taxes, skyrocketing healthcare costs, skyrocketing energy costs (via Cap & Trade), and a significant increase in their marginal personal income tax rates? What, they're willing to risk bankruptcy just to help out the President?
Want to reinvigorate the economy? Just roll back everything you passed the last 2 years and cut federal spending by a trillion dollars. There ya' go.

Healthcare: Inserting the government at the top of the existing healthcare system does nothing but drive up cost and lower quality. Really want to fix healthcare? Stop trying to insure everybody for everything. Let us all pay out of pocket for everything except hospitalization, major illnesses or injuries. We can all buy our Major Medical plans in the open market, which is open to every insurance company that meets certain minimum standards and wants to compete for our business. Otherwise, we'll pay the doctor, the pharmacist, the lab with money from our own pockets - with tax-free money would be nice. For the poor and elderly who really can't afford it, they can apply for financial assistance locally, but the money goes to them and not the medical provider - even they are responsible for paying their own bills.

Immigration: Simply shut down the border. Enforce the laws and don't be so lax on people overstaying their visas. Stop letting companies import workers from abroad, whether legally or illegally, just because they think they will work harder for less money than their American-born workforce. If companies managed better, set their standards, and rewarded excellence, they will have no problem. When America returns to full employment, then we can talk about how many foreign workers we need to fill open jobs. People here illegally, first of all shouldn't have a job, because employers should have a strong disincentive to hire and keep them on the payroll. Secondly, rather than doing some massive nationwide round-up, once we've solved the border issue and the employer issue, all we have to do is send them home as we find them. Pulled over for speeding - deported. Caught selling weed - deported. Driving without a license or insurance - deported. Those that don't leave on their own will understand what's happening and mostly will go home on their own.

National Security: I like old Teddy's famous quote - "Walk softly and carry a big stick". That's a pretty good foreign policy. We simply let everybody know how great it is for them when they're our friend. And how horrible it is if they choose to be our enemy. Our friends help us and we help them in return, while our enemies find themselves surrounded by our friends and us, all carrying extremely big sticks, until they realize the error of their ways.

Get it yet?

The Gathering of a Quarter Million Subversives

2010-08-31T14:17:00.002-04:00

The fascinating result of an event in Washington that was organized by Glenn Beck caught my attention. The event was called "Restoring Honor", and was a gathering of a huge crowd in the Mall, led from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

Checking out the theme of the event, I found it studiously avoided overt political rhetoric, but rather was about returning to the values upon which our country was founded and became great. As far as I can tell, Sarah Palin was the only speaker who flirted with the political line, with some unsubtle references to the current anti-constitutional government attitudes.

The Left is apoplectic. To them, it was nothing but a large gathering of angry white racists converging on Washington to express a shared hatred of the President.

The only problem is that nobody on the stage ever even mentioned the President, aside from Sarah's indirect references.

The event seemed mostly like a Christian Revival Meeting, exhorting everyone to rediscover their roots of faith, honor, family, responsibility. To find fault with that message and use name-calling against those who attended is pretty absurd and insulting. Not to mention the horrible aspersions being cast on Martin Luther King's niece, who was a prominent speaker at the event and has been shunned and destroyed by those who consider her a traitor to her race.

The President himself showed utter disdain for these folks and everyone else who shares their values. He dismissed us all by calling us a bunch of folks ginned up by Beck, then went further in his attempt to discredit a major segment of the population with a bad joke about walking around with his birth certificate plastered to his forehead.

The event itself gives me hope that perhaps enough folks have been awakened to the the left-wing agenda enough to undo that damage in November. But it also disappoints me to see the President so clearly dismissing and attempting to marginalize so many people for simply standing up and exhorting Americans to restore the greatness through reviving our own sense of honor and morality.

It was an opportunity for him to show leadership, but he failed miserably. What if he had said, "I completely agree with those who came to Washington this weekend, that faith, family, honor, and integrity are the most important qualities of Americans. I'm all for those who would remind us of those American qualities."

But his hatred for Beck and the conservative Christian Right he is helping to awaken trumps any ability to reach out to them.

So my hope is that change happens in November, that repudiates the Obama government and gives our country at least a chance to pull ourselves out of the terrible hole we're in.

A Different Perspective on Cordoba

2010-08-25T18:30:00.003-04:00

The big flap over the so-called "Ground-Zero Mosque" has seemingly become a political fight between the oh-so-tolerant liberals and the islamophobic conservatives.

My preference is to bypass the Red/Blue civil war and get down to what I find much more interesting. And that's the fundamental questions of:

Why exactly do they want to build it there?

Why do they want to name it the "Cordoba Mosque"?

So checking out my history, it would seem that the Cordoba Mosque in the city of the same name in Spain was build in 784, after the Muslim Berbers from north Africa invaded and conquered most of the Iberian peninsula from the Christian Visigoths.

The Cordoba Mosque was built on the site of what was previously a Visigoth Christian Church in part to celebrate the victory and dominance of the Islamic kingdom and it's victory over the infidels. The mosque was an elaborate piece of architecture, expanded on over the years of Islamic domination.

The Spanish Reconquista eventually recaptured the city more than 4 centuries later, and sort of remodeled the mosque back into a beautiful cathedral.

Which has me wondering, what's the significance of naming the NYC version the "Cordoba Mosque"? It seems no explanation makes more sense than the obvious one: The Cordoba Mosque is a celebration of an Islamic victory and dominance over an infidel kingdom.

Islamists around the world would seem to agree. The Cordoba Mosque to be built 2 blocks from Ground Zero is to be a symbol of their great victory on 9-11 over the infidel American empire. It's been reported that Islamic folks everywhere are referring to it openly as a "Victory Mosque".

I wonder whether the hyper-tolerant elites who would suggest those who find this particular project offensive are, let's see, bigoted, intolerant, racist, or anti-American, are ignorant of this easily discovered historical information? Are they choosing to ignore these inconvenient facts, or denying their veracity? Or are they simply bending over backwards to accomodate those Islamists who celebrate 9-11 and are happily using their tolerance and naive pacifism against them?

I also find it rather interesting that the same folks who pride themselves so much on their tolerance toward Islam can be found campaigning to remove every vestige of Christianity from public view. I can't wait to hear that particular contradiction explained, but so far the explanation has eluded me.

Isn't it also rather strange that this Islam-embracing crowd has nothing to say about the intolerance and even violence that accompanies Sharia, while they loudly decry Christians for, say, mildly suggesting that adultery and homosexuality might be morally ill-advised? Let me get this straight - Christians are evil people for wanting to help folks find the joys of moral clarity through simple persuasion, while Islamists who will execute the same folks for the same sins are just observing a cultural practice we need to respect?

The contradictions are dizzying.

A World I Don't Recognize

2010-08-23T15:24:00.003-04:00

I don't have occasion to listen to Public Radio very often. Having it on for awhile this morning turned into an astounding shock for me, giving me the idea I really have lost touch with the world.

NPR was doing a story about birth control. The focus of their story was on a product called Yaz (if I'm spelling it right). A birth control pill that I never heard of before the story, which I guess is my out of touch strike one.

So apparently it has really messed up some of the women who were taking it, and its producer was supposedly guilty of misleading their customers on its properties and benefits. Key among them a claim that it can not only help avoid pregnancy, but also clear up acne.

Then came the major shock. They brought in a subject of their story, a young woman who developed serious blood clots and claims to have nearly lost her life because of taking Yaz. But that's not the shocking part.

I was shocked when the young woman explained that she was 16 when she went to her Gynecologist and cajoled her into prescribing Yaz, because she believed the advertising that it would help clear up her acne.

Later, the woman's mother appeared in the interview to express her notion that the company misled her daughter about the acne and failed to properly communicate that those who have a high clotting factor shouldn't use it.

The program never once mentioned anything about the appropriateness of a sexually active 16 year old who goes to her gynecologist to demand the hip new birth control pill. Or why the mother seemed to support her daughter's behavior, which can reasonably be claimed to have proven dangerous to her health.

It felt like an episode of The Twilight Zone.

How to Tell Who is Corrupt and Who Isn't

2010-08-17T18:20:00.004-04:00

There was a very small and mostly unnoticed announcement that Tom Delay will not be charged with any violations stemming from the Jack Abramoff scandal of a few years back.

Apparently, Delay is still waiting for resolution on charges brought against him in Texas.

Apparently, he's been fighting these things for six years. The combination of them drove him from office and I would imagine has cost him a fortune on legal aid.

So the Justice Department, after six years, apparently just quietly said, "never mind".

And there's no progress on the Texas case in sight. That one brought by a Democrat activist named Ronnie Earle, who boasted to a group at a Democrat event that he was going to bring Delay down.

I never really did catch onto what that case was all about. Something about DeLay raising money and spreading it out to various Republican candidates. I remember being puzzled about the charge at the time, thinking, "haven't pols in both parties been doing that for years?".

So was DeLay corrupt, or was he victimized by unethical persecution by Democrats in positions of power? How can we find out? Does the announcement by the Justice Department give us a hint?

So I was thinking about other cases. Blago for example - all that fuss about him trying to sell Obama's Senate seat, and he gets convicted on one count of lying to prosecutors. I'm confused - did he try to sell the seat or not? What was he offered for it, and by whom? If all he did was crudely complain to people on wiretapped phone calls that he should get something for the seat, does that by itself qualify as a crime?

Most of all, the deal-making obviously involved some people I would like to have heard from, including the current President, his Chief of Staff, and the person he wanted to take over that seat, Ms. Jarrett. Then there was Jesse Jackson Junior, who was supposedly trying to make his own deal to snag the appointment. Blago made a big fuss about calling them as witnesses, but somehow changed his mind when the trial actually came about.

Then he didn't even get on the stand himself, because he didn't need to.

Did Blago break the law or didn't he? If he didn't, why did the government spend all that time and money to prosecute him? If he did, why didn't the government uncover the evidence of who offered how much and when?

So was a deal cut to protect the President? Will we ever find out?

Then there's Rangel and Waters, and apparently more to come. Rangel and Waters sound pretty guilty, based on the information made public so far, but both are fighting to the end. Will they make a deal and go free, or will they face the music?

There are supposed to be several others on the list. Will we find out their names and what they did? Will they face justice? Will whether or not they face justice depend on their party affiliation?

The reason Sarah Palin cited for quitting her job as Alaska Governor early was the lawsuit and investigation mania that surrounded her during and after the presidential campaign. Nothing stuck, so they all seemed pretty obviously politically motivated.

How can we ever know whether a corruption charge and investigation is legitimate or a political vendetta? How many innocent politicians can be destroyed by false charges, versus how many corrupt politicians skate because they happen to belong to the party in power?

Washington, do you have any clue yet why all of us folks out in the countryside have lost faith in you?

This is Pretty Close

2010-08-16T20:12:00.002-04:00

This article is pretty close to my views on the solutions to our economic problems.

Where I would tend to differ a bit from this economist are in two fundamental areas:

First, although I support the idea that we should end our foreign adventures and the whole nation-building nonsense, I would not support an abrupt withdrawal of forces. That's a humanitarian position, as it seems more than apparent that abrupt withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan will be a death sentence for untold thousands of Afghanis that supported or cooperated with us during our occupation. I also believe it would signal to our jihadist enemies that we've tucked our tails and run away, emboldening them to ratchet up their attacks on us.

Second, none of it works unless we rediscover the basic foundational values that made America great in the first place. Without self-reliance, work ethic, morality, strong families, and honest government, nothing will help us return to our traditions of exceptionalism, innovation, and prosperity.

It's all up to the new generation, in my view. The young people have to drive this revolution, or it simply won't happen. Because it will take a generation to reverse the course we've spent over a generation traveling.

I know they can do it, but I don't know whether they will want to.

Stunning Facts about ICE

2010-08-12T09:36:00.003-04:00

You have to track back from this PowerLine post to the original article to learn the extent of government malfeasance in the illegal immigration (non) enforcement issue.

It's stunning.

A Curious Report

2010-08-09T19:02:00.003-04:00

In the airport this weekend, I caught a bit of Wolf Blitzer on CNN. They were covering a Court-Martial case against a Lt. Colonel who refused his deployment orders on the grounds that the President has not proven his eligibility to hold the post of Commander-in-Chief.

His one-man protest is either very brave or very stupid, depending on your point of view of his particular line of reasoning.

But my post isn't so much about the defendant as it is about the reporting.

Based on the apparent fact that Lou Dobbs lost his job at CNN for covering the "Birther" story, it would seem to be dangerous for the Wolf's career to do any story at all that touched on the topic.

But the report actually delved into the story enough to get into why this guy, who doesn't seem the least bit crazy, would be making such an outrageous stand against the President. They interviewed his lawyer, asking why his client was taking this stand, given that the Birth Certificate has been posted online since the Obama campaign?

His answer was that the birth certificate posted online is not the "long form" version, and actually does not qualify as the official certificate required for things like joining the US Military, getting a drivers' license, or applying for a US Passport.

I was pretty amazed that Wolf dared to go that far with the story. But then he failed to ask the obvious question of the reporter:

"So why won't the President simply put this controversy to rest once and for all by permitting the release of the official, long-form birth certificate?"

Even though I am not all that engaged in this particular crusade against the President, I do think that is a legitimate question. I wonder why Wolf couldn't come up with that question himself? Isn't that what a "real" journalist would do?

Will we ever see anybody actually work to get an answer to that question? It would appear there are either no journalists left with the courage to ask the question, or perhaps they're all too invested in this President to allow anything that might harm him to come to light.

Time to Recap

2010-08-08T18:07:00.002-04:00

My posts tend to be topical. But I don't do much in the way of outlining my overall worldview. So, if anybody's interested in what little ol' me thinks about today's hottest arguments, here's a recap.

Economy:
I believe that business and free enterprise are the engine that drives prosperity. To the extent they are given the freedom to innovate and compete with the goal of making a profit by attracting enough customers, everyone wins.

I think the current government is made up of leftist idealists who hold a disdain for business and free enterprise. They believe it is unfair for anyone to profit and become wealthier than everybody else. They think it is fair to take those profits from business to "spread the wealth" to those who have not been able to reach their success.

Basically I believe that in our current environment, the best possible economic stimulus plan would be to lock in current tax rates across the board, repeal the healthcare law, drop "Cap & Trade", and scale back the bureaucracy.

Not that I think business should be completely unfettered. I believe firmly in trade agreements that require trading partners' markets to be equally open to US goods & services as our market is to theirs. I believe government policies should incentivize US companies to keep their operations here, rather than moving them offshore. I believe workers are entitled to basic protections in commonsense regulations of wages & hours and workplace safety.

Healthcare
I remain strongly opposed to "ObamaCare". Socialized medicine is not the right answer to spiraling healthcare costs.

I believe the problem can be solved with a commonsense, long=term plan with these principles: Insurance is for serious illness or injury only.

Routine medical care and prescription drugs should be paid out-of-pocket by the patient.

Employers should not be the primary source of Health Insurance. Everyone should purchase their Health plans on the open market, just like they purchase their auto, life, real estate, and other policies.

Closing the borders and solving the illegal immigration problem is part of the solution, as is
Reforming the Tort system to work for those who were truly harmed by negligence, while punishing abulance-chasers who bring frivolous suits against good physicians.

Social Policy
I'm opposed to Gay Marriage, on the grounds that it actively seeks to destroy one of the most important of God's institutions. But I'm not singling out homosexuals. I am equally opposed to affording special recognition and benefits to any sexual partnerships, whether common-law marriage and cohabitation or bigamy.

I fear I will soon be treated as a criminal for holding the simple moral viewpoint that any kind of sexual promiscuity is wrong. Not for solely religious reasons, but practical reasons as well.

No, I'm not advocating laws that require those breaking these moral laws be arrested or prosecuted, or even fined. But I strongly object to the campaign by those who engage in such behaviors to marginalize and possibly even criminalize me for my beliefs on the subject.

Obviously I'm strongly Pro Life. Not that I don't understand how difficult it certainly is for young unwed mothers, especially teens, who have learned too soon one of the consequences of that promiscuous behavior I discussed previously.

I believe strongly that the first and foremost solution to the abortion problem is better parenting by the adult generation. Besides the media glorification and obsession with promiscuity, parents have too often abdicated their most basic responsibilities. If parents simply taught their children right and wrong, monitored and restricted their activities in a reasonable way, and stayed engaged with their children instead of abdicating control to an amoral secular educational institution, perhaps we wouldn't be in quite this mess.

Then again, the real education that has to take place from coast-to-coast is all about the facts of child development. Instead of teaching kids how to use condoms and that it's fine otherwise to do whatever you want with whomever you want, how about teaching them about the development of a baby in the womb? And tied it in with the simple fact that, if you're an average female having intercourse with an average male, you're almost guaranteed to get a baby out of the process.

We need to wake up as a society to a very simple truth. The truth of the abortion argument, when you get past all the overwrought rhetoric, is that the so-called "woman's right to choose" is about a sort of sexual license. Proponents of abortion must admit, if they choose to be truthful, that they're support for infanticide is based on the fact that they want the option open to themselves because of their own irresponsible lifestyle.

Immigration
I believe it is far overdue to solve the problem of illegal immigration.
For those who want to argue about how many poor folks from south of the border should be permitted into the country to "do the jobs American's won't do", that's an argument we can have later.
First we need to build a dam and stop the flood that is drowning us. Once the flooding is stopped, then we can talk about how many folks from foreign lands can and should be allowed to come to our country to work.
My solution has been posted before in this blog. The simple recap is this: January 1st of 2011, the media airwaves are flooded with the message, "if you are in this country illegally, regardless of where you're from or your circumstances, you have 6 months to return to your home country."

"During this 6 month period, you may make application for a legal temporary work visa. If you demonstrate that you have an Employer sponsor or independent means of support for you and your family, you may acquire your work visa and re-enter the country."

In the meantime, the borders are secure. Employers are required to use e-Verify for all hires, and will be subject to severe fines on the first and second offense, and imprisonment on the third offense of knowingly hiring illegal immigrants.

Foreign Relations
The Iraq war was either a good idea or it was not. We're almost beyond the point of arguing any more. It happened, the majority of Americans supported it initially, then many of them forgot that fact. Now it would appear it was successful, with a semi-stable government in place and our gradual draw-down in forces.

We face many existential challenges from outside our borders, and some now within our borders. Our current President would seem to prefer a pacifist approach, offering unilateral peace to enemies that revile us and our way of life.

I strongly disagree. I've always believed that our country is the only hope for peace and security for not only our own citizens, but the rest of the world as well.

My foreign policy would be based on a very simple message, extended to every country on the planet:

"We want to be your friend. If you accept our friendship, you will find us to be the best friend you could ever have imagined. We can offer you unlimited markets for your products, protection from those who may want to do you harm, and our technology and knowledge to help your country grow."

"However, if you choose to be our enemy, we will be your worst nightmare. We and our friends will make sure you are isolated, and you lose access to those things you cannot acquire inside your own borders. If you strike at us militarily or through terrorism, we will annihilate you. That is, if your own citizens don't revolt and remove you from power first."

The current policy that seems to offer friendship to our enemies (Iran, Russia, Venezuela) while slapping away the hands of our real friends (Britian, Israel) only makes us more vulnerable and destroys our coalition.

However, we must ask our friends to step up and partner with us. We can no longer afford to be the world's policeman, with our mighty and overpowering military allowing places like Europe and Canada to disarm and trust us to protect them with our own money and resources. It's time those partners began taking on more of their own responsibilities for self-defense.

Overall, some might find my opinions a bit tough. They may sound strong, but really they aren't. I feel a great deal of compassion for the plight of people. But then again, I believe their plight is fundamentally self-inflicted. From the bad decisions that lead to abortions and welfare mothers to the bad decisions that put Marxist idealogues in office who grasp at their personal power over the well-being of their citizens, we as a nation are in a well-deserved fix.

And only we can get ourselves out of it. By overcoming governments that would oppress, by taking responsibility for our actions and behaviors, and by rediscovering our own abilities and pride in work, family, and faith.

Black-Robed Tyrants

2010-08-05T19:08:00.000-04:00

The Senate confirmed an unqualified nominee to the Supreme Court today. It was disappointing to see that Dick Lugar from my own home state joined the Democrats to vote 'Yes'. Apparently his argument is something along the lines that if Republican presidents want the Dems to allow their nominees to take the bench, somehow Dick's willingness to allow Obama's picks confirmation is enough goodwill to get Dems to vote for the next Roberts or Alito.

I considered it a priviledge to be able to see much of John Roberts' confirmation hearings. I learned more than I ever had about constitutional law in that session. Especially enjoyable was the way he made the Senators on the committee reveal themselves for the incompetent and ignorant fools they really are. The funniest part was they didn't even know how incredily clueless they were proving themselves to be with their inane questions.

I don't really get Dick's argument at all. I certainly see no evidence that Democrat Senators will use Dick's example to vote for a future Republican president's nominee.

Should Kagan have been voted down on the basis of her political views? No.

She should have been voted down based on her (lack of) qualifications. She's never been a judge, she's reported to have never written anything of substance about the law, and she has no apparent experience that would qualify her to sit in judgement of cases brought to the highest court in the land.

Then there's her attitudes and knowable beliefs about the US Constitution and the role of a Supreme Court Justice. It's pretty clear that her judgements on the court will reflect her personal preferences and ideas, and not any interpretation of the Law or the Constitution.

To Kagan and her compatriots, the Constitution is irrelevant. It's how she feels about the issue before the court that matters most. How much she identifies with the principals on one side or the other will hold more sway in her decision than what the Law says.

Just like the recent Arizona Immigration decision. And the California Proposition 8 decision. Neither decision seemed to even make an attempt to understand or apply legal principles, precedent, or Consititutional frameworks. The excerpts I've read from both decisions read more like a Democrat candidate speech.

When the courts become run by these agenda-driven political hacks, our very freedoms and protections are destroyed.

And Dick Lugar is an enabler.

Weekend Quick Thoughts

2010-08-01T18:10:00.003-04:00

A prayer offered in Church this weekend was "for the more equitable distribution of wealth". I'm very uncomfortable with the wording of that one, and wonder who wrote it, and what he/she was thinking. I think there's a sort of dangerous movement that's co-opting churches to think Christianity is called to socialism, when clearly we're called as individuals to be charitable - not to encourage our government to take money from other people to give to the poor.

Was reminded of something from the days of the crumbling Roman Empire. They successfully kept their citizens' minds off the corruption and abuses of their government by feeding and entertaining them. Bread and Circuses. Isn't that sort of what our own government is doing to keep us pacified right now?

Left the cellphone at home. Must have been half-asleep going out the door to the airport at 5AM, and didn't notice it was gone until I was almost to the airport. Gonna be a difficult week.

Reading interesting books by Lee Strobel, making pretty good arguments about the evidence for real existence of Jesus Christ, his crucifixion, resurrection, and why the Christian faith has endured for over 2,000 years. I don't need such evidence to bolster my own faith, but find it helpful to learn more about the positive arguments in favor of Christ being real and tangible, and more likely than not to have pretty much done what the gospels report.

Admittedly not a legal scholar, it still seems painfully obvious to me that the judge that stopped Arizona's immigration law did so for political, not legal reasons. And of course the 9th circuit rejected the appeal for the same reasons. Is the Supreme Court the only hope left for States' ability to protect themselves when the Feds refuse to do so? Or has the Left successfully packed the courts with judges who will reliably put leftist politics above the Law?

I noticed the President was touting GM (Government Motors?) and the new Volt electric car. If I get this straight, it's a car that goes 40 miles on a charge, costs something like $41,000, and when the battery wears out, you have to replace it and it's hazardous waste. And to charge it, you have to plug it in for four hours to be charged by your electrical service that comes from coal-powered plants, which Obama has promised to put out of business as soon as he gets his energy bills passed.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only person who wonders if there are any sane people left.