Somewhat surprisingly, watching the Indiana Senate Debate last night didn't settle my choice for me as I expected it would.
My preconception about Lugar was that he'd be showing his age and have some difficulty communicating effectively. Although I found myself thinking, "What did he mean by that?" on occasion, he generally spoke well.
Having no real preconceived idea about Mourdock, I think he did a decent job expressing himself in the debate. But nobody will ever be able to accuse him of a charismatic personality.
It was a bit disappointing to me that the debate never touched on issues of interest to me. I want to know how Lugar defends himself on being the Senior Senator from Indiana who hasn't lived in the state for 35 years and seldom makes an appearance. I also wanted to hear Lugar defend his anti-second-amendment voting record, his affair with cap-and-trade, his support for Obama's radical Supreme Court appointments, and his sponsorship of the Dream Act.
For the issues that were raised, the only Lugar position I have a problem with is his steadfast support for ethanol subsidies. Personally, I believe that industry needs to be weaned from those artificial government supports and allowed to succeed or fail on its own. Otherwise, Lugar and Mourdock spend most of the evening agreeing with each other.
My jury is still out. I still think Lugar's out of touch with the people of this state and should retire. I also don't think Mourdock has sold me on his ability to beat Donnelly in the general election, even though I found very little disagreement with the principles he voiced last night.
I may just have to decide when I'm in the booth.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Indiana Senate Decision
Tonight is the only debate scheduled for the Indiana Senate primary. Six years ago, Dick Lugar was unchallenged, both in the primary and the general. I thought he should have been challenged, and still do. He hasn't had a home in Indiana since the 70's and has become an aged creature of the Washington beltway who can no longer recognize a Hoosier.
The yard signs around town say "Retire Lugar", a sentiment I continue to share. Even so, I remain undecided on how I'll vote in this primary.
Richard Mourdock seems to be closer to me in terms of conservative philosophy. During Obama's tenure, Lugar has been identified consistently as a member of the club of RINOs in the Senate, falling only slightly behind the two ladies from Maine in his proclivity to buck his party and vote with Democrats.
So the choice should be easy for me, right? Not necessarily.
Mourdock hasn't closed the sale for me yet. Lugar's been trying to walk back his liberal record somewhat during the campaign, because he obviously wants to keep his cushy and powerful position for at least 6 more years. So I'm hoping to catch the debate tonight to see what it can teach me about Mourdock and get a feel for just how far Lugar's willing to swing rightward to earn conservative support.
My hope is that the debate will be substantive enough to help me make my decision. Mourdock's got to sell me before I'm willing to push his button in the booth. Lugar's got to convince me he's seen the light before I'll get behind him this time around. A Lugar promise to make his home in Indiana from now on would help his cause.
The yard signs around town say "Retire Lugar", a sentiment I continue to share. Even so, I remain undecided on how I'll vote in this primary.
Richard Mourdock seems to be closer to me in terms of conservative philosophy. During Obama's tenure, Lugar has been identified consistently as a member of the club of RINOs in the Senate, falling only slightly behind the two ladies from Maine in his proclivity to buck his party and vote with Democrats.
So the choice should be easy for me, right? Not necessarily.
Mourdock hasn't closed the sale for me yet. Lugar's been trying to walk back his liberal record somewhat during the campaign, because he obviously wants to keep his cushy and powerful position for at least 6 more years. So I'm hoping to catch the debate tonight to see what it can teach me about Mourdock and get a feel for just how far Lugar's willing to swing rightward to earn conservative support.
My hope is that the debate will be substantive enough to help me make my decision. Mourdock's got to sell me before I'm willing to push his button in the booth. Lugar's got to convince me he's seen the light before I'll get behind him this time around. A Lugar promise to make his home in Indiana from now on would help his cause.
Microcosm of Political Misdirection
The Trayvon Martin case has become the quintessential allegory for the modern political strategy favored by the Democrat party.
Obama's campaign strategy is divide and conquer, relying on the short attention spans and gullibility of the general population. The Trayvon Martin story has become one of the major tactics being pushed for the racial division branch of that strategy.
The initial storyline was about an innocent teenaged kid who was an honor student going out to buy some candy for his little brother. The poor kid was targeted and shot to death by George Zimmerman, a racist neighborhood watch leader who hunted him down and shot him for no legitimate reason. The story went on to tell us that the police chose not to arrest Zimmerman and simply turned him loose at the scene.
So the flames of racial animus were stoked by NBC, MSNBC and the New York Times, among other media outlets which chose to promote the theme they set in the initial story. We now hear about threats from Al Sharpton and the New Black Panthers who are demanding a public lynching of Zimmerman or suggest violent retribution from the black community will be the response. Even Barack Obama has chimed in to help stoke the flames with the comment that if he had a son, he'd probably look like Trayvon.
In the meantime, the original story seems to be slowly unraveling. New facts are surfacing bit-by-bit that would seem to refute the story line. Photos of Trayvon that portray an innocent and fresh-faced young man turn out to be about 4 years old, and current photos look nothing like them. Photos of George Zimmerman are also dated and seemed to have been selected by the media to cast him in as negative a light as possible.
The same news outlets reported that a recording seemed to capture Zimmerman calling Trayvon a "f***ing c**n", which was picked up and reported as fact by other news outlets.
Trayvon was hardly a model student, but turns out to be troubled and difficult at school.
The eyewitness reported that Trayvon was on top of Zimmerman, beating him severely before he was shot.
Zimmerman was arrested and questioned at the police station for 6 hours before being released.
NBC edited the 911 call from Zimmerman in a way designed to try to illustrate the theme that Zimmerman was stalking Trayvon because of his race. When called on the fraudulent edit, NBC spent over a week "investigating" themselves, then lied that it was edited only for time.
There was also the video that news outlets claimed "proved" that a Zimmerman video showed no injuries, but after the video was enhanced and analyzed, it showed the opposite to be true. So the media's response was to simply stop talking about the video.
Now that the facts of the tragic event largely refute the original storyline, you would think those media outlets would be trumpeting the new information to clear the record. You would think wrong. The original theme continues to be pushed on the networks, where they prefer to push the racism theme over the truth.
The allegory is eagerly used by the media to push a theme that suggests Zimmerman is representative of Republicans. Some commentators have shamelessly attempted to create ties between Zimmerman and Romney, suggesting that Romney's goal is oppression and even murder of innocent black men.
The same tactics are being employed in the "war on women" that has been manufactured by the Obama campaign. This tactic didn't even bother to find a factual basis, but rather was an invented lie tied to nothing any candidate ever suggested. Now there seem to be armies of single women up in arms because they now believe a manufactured Obama campaign lie that charges the Republicans will outlaw birth control if Romney is elected President.
Obama is counting on winning re-election with a false message about Republicans: They hate black people. They hate hispanic people. They will empower the super-rich to steal from the poor. They will take medical care away from the poor and seniors. They will destroy Social Security.
Every one of those messages is an absolute lie. But Obama lies every time he gives a speech, and half the country believes the lies while the other half lacks the courage to call him on them.
I believe that Obama's plan is to follow Hugo Chavez' example to consolidate power and "transform America" into a communist dictatorship during his second term, then declare himself President for Life. The November election is our last chance for freedom.
Obama's campaign strategy is divide and conquer, relying on the short attention spans and gullibility of the general population. The Trayvon Martin story has become one of the major tactics being pushed for the racial division branch of that strategy.
The initial storyline was about an innocent teenaged kid who was an honor student going out to buy some candy for his little brother. The poor kid was targeted and shot to death by George Zimmerman, a racist neighborhood watch leader who hunted him down and shot him for no legitimate reason. The story went on to tell us that the police chose not to arrest Zimmerman and simply turned him loose at the scene.
So the flames of racial animus were stoked by NBC, MSNBC and the New York Times, among other media outlets which chose to promote the theme they set in the initial story. We now hear about threats from Al Sharpton and the New Black Panthers who are demanding a public lynching of Zimmerman or suggest violent retribution from the black community will be the response. Even Barack Obama has chimed in to help stoke the flames with the comment that if he had a son, he'd probably look like Trayvon.
In the meantime, the original story seems to be slowly unraveling. New facts are surfacing bit-by-bit that would seem to refute the story line. Photos of Trayvon that portray an innocent and fresh-faced young man turn out to be about 4 years old, and current photos look nothing like them. Photos of George Zimmerman are also dated and seemed to have been selected by the media to cast him in as negative a light as possible.
The same news outlets reported that a recording seemed to capture Zimmerman calling Trayvon a "f***ing c**n", which was picked up and reported as fact by other news outlets.
Trayvon was hardly a model student, but turns out to be troubled and difficult at school.
The eyewitness reported that Trayvon was on top of Zimmerman, beating him severely before he was shot.
Zimmerman was arrested and questioned at the police station for 6 hours before being released.
NBC edited the 911 call from Zimmerman in a way designed to try to illustrate the theme that Zimmerman was stalking Trayvon because of his race. When called on the fraudulent edit, NBC spent over a week "investigating" themselves, then lied that it was edited only for time.
There was also the video that news outlets claimed "proved" that a Zimmerman video showed no injuries, but after the video was enhanced and analyzed, it showed the opposite to be true. So the media's response was to simply stop talking about the video.
Now that the facts of the tragic event largely refute the original storyline, you would think those media outlets would be trumpeting the new information to clear the record. You would think wrong. The original theme continues to be pushed on the networks, where they prefer to push the racism theme over the truth.
The allegory is eagerly used by the media to push a theme that suggests Zimmerman is representative of Republicans. Some commentators have shamelessly attempted to create ties between Zimmerman and Romney, suggesting that Romney's goal is oppression and even murder of innocent black men.
The same tactics are being employed in the "war on women" that has been manufactured by the Obama campaign. This tactic didn't even bother to find a factual basis, but rather was an invented lie tied to nothing any candidate ever suggested. Now there seem to be armies of single women up in arms because they now believe a manufactured Obama campaign lie that charges the Republicans will outlaw birth control if Romney is elected President.
Obama is counting on winning re-election with a false message about Republicans: They hate black people. They hate hispanic people. They will empower the super-rich to steal from the poor. They will take medical care away from the poor and seniors. They will destroy Social Security.
Every one of those messages is an absolute lie. But Obama lies every time he gives a speech, and half the country believes the lies while the other half lacks the courage to call him on them.
I believe that Obama's plan is to follow Hugo Chavez' example to consolidate power and "transform America" into a communist dictatorship during his second term, then declare himself President for Life. The November election is our last chance for freedom.
Monday, April 02, 2012
No Imagination
I have been noticing that supporters of the Obamacare law repeat a consistent theme promoting a message that Federalizing healthcare is the only viable means of making it available to everyone.
To the degree those promoting that point of view are not the power-hungry bureacrats who lust after the power and weath the law promises them individually, it seems the only way to explain support for such a totalitarian approach to healthcare is a thorough lack of imagination.
States already have programs in place that allow those who can't buy health insurance in the private market to sign up for the State subsidized high risk plan. Not to mention the fact nearly all of us understand, which is that hospitals must provide emergency treatment for all who show up regardless of ability to pay.
Imagine for a moment that tomorrow the Federal and State governments made the announcement, "Our Medicare and Medicaid programs are bankrupt. Everyone from now on must find non-governmental solutions to pay for their own healthcare."
What would we do? Would millions of people die because no Doctor will treat their illnesses or perform lifesaving surgery?
Of course not. Americans would pitch in and find solutions on our own. Employers unencumbered by government regulation would design great new healthcare plans for their workers. Families would find a way to help their loved ones get the treatments or surgeries they need. Doctors and surgeons would offer payment plans and reduced rates to patients to help them cover their treatment costs. Drug companies would implement programs to help make their prescriptions more affordable for the poor.
The Left's been arguing that the Supreme Court can't overturn Obamacare as unconstitutional, because if they do, similar arguments could be used to overturn Medicare and Medicaid, which also mandate redistribution or wealth to cover seniors and the poor for their health care.
My suggestion is that we begin using our imagination and unleash our natural American predisposition toward helping those who truly need help. As individuals, churches, charitable organizations, companies ...
Imagine there was no such thing as government healthcare, but we all truly worked together as Americans to solve the problem by ourselves. Imagine doctors didn't get sued for millions every time an outcome was less than ideal, but instead were subjected to a medical practice review if suspicion of malpractice is provable and lost their license instead of having their insurer pay the complainant enough money to go away.
Imagine office visits that cost $30-$50 instead of $150. Imagine prescription costs for seniors at less than $50 per month instead of $500 per month. Imagine blood and urine testing costing $25 instead of $100. Imagine surgery costing $5,000 instead of $50,000.
I believe all this is possible if we all just imagine healthcare without the interference of Barack Obama and Kathleen Sebelius.
To the degree those promoting that point of view are not the power-hungry bureacrats who lust after the power and weath the law promises them individually, it seems the only way to explain support for such a totalitarian approach to healthcare is a thorough lack of imagination.
States already have programs in place that allow those who can't buy health insurance in the private market to sign up for the State subsidized high risk plan. Not to mention the fact nearly all of us understand, which is that hospitals must provide emergency treatment for all who show up regardless of ability to pay.
Imagine for a moment that tomorrow the Federal and State governments made the announcement, "Our Medicare and Medicaid programs are bankrupt. Everyone from now on must find non-governmental solutions to pay for their own healthcare."
What would we do? Would millions of people die because no Doctor will treat their illnesses or perform lifesaving surgery?
Of course not. Americans would pitch in and find solutions on our own. Employers unencumbered by government regulation would design great new healthcare plans for their workers. Families would find a way to help their loved ones get the treatments or surgeries they need. Doctors and surgeons would offer payment plans and reduced rates to patients to help them cover their treatment costs. Drug companies would implement programs to help make their prescriptions more affordable for the poor.
The Left's been arguing that the Supreme Court can't overturn Obamacare as unconstitutional, because if they do, similar arguments could be used to overturn Medicare and Medicaid, which also mandate redistribution or wealth to cover seniors and the poor for their health care.
My suggestion is that we begin using our imagination and unleash our natural American predisposition toward helping those who truly need help. As individuals, churches, charitable organizations, companies ...
Imagine there was no such thing as government healthcare, but we all truly worked together as Americans to solve the problem by ourselves. Imagine doctors didn't get sued for millions every time an outcome was less than ideal, but instead were subjected to a medical practice review if suspicion of malpractice is provable and lost their license instead of having their insurer pay the complainant enough money to go away.
Imagine office visits that cost $30-$50 instead of $150. Imagine prescription costs for seniors at less than $50 per month instead of $500 per month. Imagine blood and urine testing costing $25 instead of $100. Imagine surgery costing $5,000 instead of $50,000.
I believe all this is possible if we all just imagine healthcare without the interference of Barack Obama and Kathleen Sebelius.
Friday, March 30, 2012
Constitutionality
Obamacare is unconstitutional. On its face. The decision to overturn should be 9-0.
I'm no law professor, but everything I've ever understood about America's founding, our history, and our constitution tells me unequivocally that the federal government overreach in that outrageous and unpopular law we know as Obamacare is anathema to the founding principles as defined in the Constitution of the United States.
But the liberal justices were reportedly arguing the merits of the legislation from a point of view that they think it's solely about helping poor people get access to healthcare. Although that seems to me either an ignorant or purposely misleading line of argument, what really floors me is the fact that the Supreme Court's role is not to argue whether or not they think a given law is or is not a good idea; their role is to decide whether or not the law is a permissable exercise of governmental power over the citizenry.
The constitution is not a Democratic or Republican document, and its meaning does not change based on the reader's political ideology. But sadly, instead of a dispassionate reading of the constitution leads to a mandatory repeal of the Obama healthcare law, we have at least 4 justices who believe their decision must be based solely on their personal views about the law itself.
Sotomayor and Kagan both made it abundantly clear during their confirmation hearings that they will rule on cases placed before them not based on constitutional principles, but their own personal opinion and wisdom. Ginsburg recently stated that she is not a fan of the United States Constitution she is bound to uphold, because she feels it's unfair to the poor and minorities.
So rather than the sane outcome of a 9-0 ruling that Obamacare is unconstitutional, it seems we will end up with a 5-4 decision that we can't be certain results in the law being overturned. Everyone believes that the single swing vote is Kennedy, whose line of questioning in the hearings seemed to indicate he was likely to side with the Constitution in this case. But we won't know how he voted until the decision is released sometime in June, even though the justices themselves decided the case this morning.
A decision to uphold the law I view as disastrous. Because such a decision would signal that there will be absolutely no limits imposed on the government by the court, and they may implement whatever law their whims and lust for power can imagine without any opposition. Upholding government-run socialized healthcare means the government has carte blanche to proceed with laws that regulate how much and what kind of energy we may use, where we may live, what we may eat, where and when we may travel, and virtually every other aspect of our personal lives the left wing dreams of controlling.
The reality of today's Obamacare law is that if I get sick, I will be placed at the mercy of Washington DC bureaucrats to make decisions on what treatments I am allowed that may alleviate my symptoms or even save my life.
For Kagan, Sotomayor, Ginsburg, and Breyer, the Constitution is irrelevant. Kennedy seems to just want to be liked, so he'll uphold it if he thinks it will gain him personal favor. Only Thomas, Alito, Roberts, and Scalia seem to respect their solemn vows to uphold it.
I'm no law professor, but everything I've ever understood about America's founding, our history, and our constitution tells me unequivocally that the federal government overreach in that outrageous and unpopular law we know as Obamacare is anathema to the founding principles as defined in the Constitution of the United States.
But the liberal justices were reportedly arguing the merits of the legislation from a point of view that they think it's solely about helping poor people get access to healthcare. Although that seems to me either an ignorant or purposely misleading line of argument, what really floors me is the fact that the Supreme Court's role is not to argue whether or not they think a given law is or is not a good idea; their role is to decide whether or not the law is a permissable exercise of governmental power over the citizenry.
The constitution is not a Democratic or Republican document, and its meaning does not change based on the reader's political ideology. But sadly, instead of a dispassionate reading of the constitution leads to a mandatory repeal of the Obama healthcare law, we have at least 4 justices who believe their decision must be based solely on their personal views about the law itself.
Sotomayor and Kagan both made it abundantly clear during their confirmation hearings that they will rule on cases placed before them not based on constitutional principles, but their own personal opinion and wisdom. Ginsburg recently stated that she is not a fan of the United States Constitution she is bound to uphold, because she feels it's unfair to the poor and minorities.
So rather than the sane outcome of a 9-0 ruling that Obamacare is unconstitutional, it seems we will end up with a 5-4 decision that we can't be certain results in the law being overturned. Everyone believes that the single swing vote is Kennedy, whose line of questioning in the hearings seemed to indicate he was likely to side with the Constitution in this case. But we won't know how he voted until the decision is released sometime in June, even though the justices themselves decided the case this morning.
A decision to uphold the law I view as disastrous. Because such a decision would signal that there will be absolutely no limits imposed on the government by the court, and they may implement whatever law their whims and lust for power can imagine without any opposition. Upholding government-run socialized healthcare means the government has carte blanche to proceed with laws that regulate how much and what kind of energy we may use, where we may live, what we may eat, where and when we may travel, and virtually every other aspect of our personal lives the left wing dreams of controlling.
The reality of today's Obamacare law is that if I get sick, I will be placed at the mercy of Washington DC bureaucrats to make decisions on what treatments I am allowed that may alleviate my symptoms or even save my life.
For Kagan, Sotomayor, Ginsburg, and Breyer, the Constitution is irrelevant. Kennedy seems to just want to be liked, so he'll uphold it if he thinks it will gain him personal favor. Only Thomas, Alito, Roberts, and Scalia seem to respect their solemn vows to uphold it.
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Where March Madness Comes from
Those who don't partake in this, the best month of the year for sports, may not fully appreciate why so many guys like me are happy to shut outselves up with a television set for 3 weekends in march watching a bunch of other tall guys play with a round orange ball.
I can almost understand those who have never played or otherwise been involved with James Naismith's brilliant indoor court game may be a bit puzzled at our zeal for the NCAA Tournament. So I thought I'd create this post as an attempt to explain.
The NCAA has been able to capitalize on the natural human tendencies to seek out heroes, root for the underdog, and gain a sense of belonging. Wherever we went to college, it can be exciting to discover our alma mater was chosen by the selection committee. Playing in the annual spring collegiate tournament is a validation of your favorite team's hard work over the course of the season. Most collegiate Division 1 conferences are only allowed a single participant in the event, so that single school has to win their conference's season-ending tournament to qualify. The so-called "power conferences" like the Big 10, Big East, ACC, and SEC usually get a handful of schools from their conferences invited, depending on each team's performance.
Realizing that a little school like Butler actually has a chance to line up against the traditional basketball giants like Kentucky, Duke, and North Carolina with an equal chance at capturing the National Championship captures the imagination. Butler's miraculous runs through the last two years of the tournament to the championship game made a more compelling story than any fictional silver screen entertainment, plus it took a full season and over 3 weeks of alternating excitement and anticipation for the story to play itself out. I still daydream a bit about what might have happened had Gordon Heyward actually made that halfcourt shot at the buzzer against Duke 2 years ago.
Already this March we've seen little-known Lehigh send Duke home early. Norfolk State likewise ended Missouri's hopes, proving that David doesn't just beat Goliath once every few thousand years, but at least a couple of times every March.
A game I particularly enjoyed was last night's match between Virginia Commonwealth University and Indiana. Although Indiana was the higher seed (#4 to VCU's #10), VCU was a cinderella story from last season that dropped the national semifinal game to Butler in a heart-stopping game.
Indiana is back in the tournament for the first time in about a decade. Beginning way back in 2000, when Indiana's President Myles Brand decided he'd had enough of his colorful and controversial basketball coach, but lacked the courage to simply fire him, he tried to humiliate Knight by publically announcing his probation. Sure enough, within a couple of weeks a student yelled something at the coach and the coach naturally stopped to demand respect from the student. Suddenly something that didn't even qualify as an "incident" was immediately leveraged by Brand as cover to fire the university's iconic coach.
That began Indiana's decade-long sojourn in the basketball desert. Knight's assistant managed to guide that first team all the way to the national championship game that season, but was ineffective in subsequent seasons. So a new Athletic Director decided to hire Kelvin Sampson from Oklahoma, who he already knew was being investigated for breaking contact rules in recruitment of players but signed him to a big contract anyway.
Sampson destroyed the program, and Tom Crean arrived the following year to start from scratch with a roster full of freshmen and walk-on players. For 3 seasons, the team was like a High School JV team trying to play a full varsity schedule. But they did improve gradually from season to season, adding more talent and beginning to form a nucleus of promising players.
This year one new freshman came to Indiana, Cody Zeller, who is the baby brother of two outstanding collegiate centers with Notre Dame and North Carolina. Zeller turned out to be the cog that was needed to bring Indiana back to varsity status, and they finally won more than 20 games and earned their way back into the tournament for the first time in 10 years.
I've followed Indiana basketball since I was a kid, when a player from my hometown of Goshen, John Ritter, was a 4-year starter at the beginning of Bob Knight's tenure. They were finally interesting again, beating top-5 teams like Kentucky, Ohio State, and Michigan State during the season.
All that history is just meant as a background to last night's game. VCU is a highly athletic and well-conditioned team that prides itself on forcing turnovers against their opponent. They certainly did so last night, but Indiana spent most of the game matching them shot-for-shot and turnover-for-turnover.
Watching an exceptionally close and competitive game such as this one, I can nearly feel as if I'm somehow on the court with the players. Ghost memories course through my muscles, feeling the jump shot from the elevation to releasing the ball off my fingertips with the snap of the wrist and the extension of the elbow, to following through as the ball rotates gracefully through the air to rip through the nets.
It's almost as if that wasn't Jordan Hulls hitting that 3, but his body inhabited with my spirit.
I'm there with Cody Zeller and Christian Watford each time they extend upward as high as their legs can push them, stretching every inch to outjump the VCU player for a chance to grab the rebound.
I'm sounding like my old high school coach when I see that nobody covered the back side when Watford and Zeller converged to double-team the VCU shooter.
"Watch the weak side!".
I'm breathing with Oladipo as he bounces the ball on the free throw line and sighting the game-tying foul shot. It's almost as if I can feel the release and the simultaneous joy and relief he felt, knowing the ball was going through the net as soon as he let it fly.
Name me any other spectator activity that can so absorb someone as this tournament does me.
I can almost understand those who have never played or otherwise been involved with James Naismith's brilliant indoor court game may be a bit puzzled at our zeal for the NCAA Tournament. So I thought I'd create this post as an attempt to explain.
The NCAA has been able to capitalize on the natural human tendencies to seek out heroes, root for the underdog, and gain a sense of belonging. Wherever we went to college, it can be exciting to discover our alma mater was chosen by the selection committee. Playing in the annual spring collegiate tournament is a validation of your favorite team's hard work over the course of the season. Most collegiate Division 1 conferences are only allowed a single participant in the event, so that single school has to win their conference's season-ending tournament to qualify. The so-called "power conferences" like the Big 10, Big East, ACC, and SEC usually get a handful of schools from their conferences invited, depending on each team's performance.
Realizing that a little school like Butler actually has a chance to line up against the traditional basketball giants like Kentucky, Duke, and North Carolina with an equal chance at capturing the National Championship captures the imagination. Butler's miraculous runs through the last two years of the tournament to the championship game made a more compelling story than any fictional silver screen entertainment, plus it took a full season and over 3 weeks of alternating excitement and anticipation for the story to play itself out. I still daydream a bit about what might have happened had Gordon Heyward actually made that halfcourt shot at the buzzer against Duke 2 years ago.
Already this March we've seen little-known Lehigh send Duke home early. Norfolk State likewise ended Missouri's hopes, proving that David doesn't just beat Goliath once every few thousand years, but at least a couple of times every March.
A game I particularly enjoyed was last night's match between Virginia Commonwealth University and Indiana. Although Indiana was the higher seed (#4 to VCU's #10), VCU was a cinderella story from last season that dropped the national semifinal game to Butler in a heart-stopping game.
Indiana is back in the tournament for the first time in about a decade. Beginning way back in 2000, when Indiana's President Myles Brand decided he'd had enough of his colorful and controversial basketball coach, but lacked the courage to simply fire him, he tried to humiliate Knight by publically announcing his probation. Sure enough, within a couple of weeks a student yelled something at the coach and the coach naturally stopped to demand respect from the student. Suddenly something that didn't even qualify as an "incident" was immediately leveraged by Brand as cover to fire the university's iconic coach.
That began Indiana's decade-long sojourn in the basketball desert. Knight's assistant managed to guide that first team all the way to the national championship game that season, but was ineffective in subsequent seasons. So a new Athletic Director decided to hire Kelvin Sampson from Oklahoma, who he already knew was being investigated for breaking contact rules in recruitment of players but signed him to a big contract anyway.
Sampson destroyed the program, and Tom Crean arrived the following year to start from scratch with a roster full of freshmen and walk-on players. For 3 seasons, the team was like a High School JV team trying to play a full varsity schedule. But they did improve gradually from season to season, adding more talent and beginning to form a nucleus of promising players.
This year one new freshman came to Indiana, Cody Zeller, who is the baby brother of two outstanding collegiate centers with Notre Dame and North Carolina. Zeller turned out to be the cog that was needed to bring Indiana back to varsity status, and they finally won more than 20 games and earned their way back into the tournament for the first time in 10 years.
I've followed Indiana basketball since I was a kid, when a player from my hometown of Goshen, John Ritter, was a 4-year starter at the beginning of Bob Knight's tenure. They were finally interesting again, beating top-5 teams like Kentucky, Ohio State, and Michigan State during the season.
All that history is just meant as a background to last night's game. VCU is a highly athletic and well-conditioned team that prides itself on forcing turnovers against their opponent. They certainly did so last night, but Indiana spent most of the game matching them shot-for-shot and turnover-for-turnover.
Watching an exceptionally close and competitive game such as this one, I can nearly feel as if I'm somehow on the court with the players. Ghost memories course through my muscles, feeling the jump shot from the elevation to releasing the ball off my fingertips with the snap of the wrist and the extension of the elbow, to following through as the ball rotates gracefully through the air to rip through the nets.
It's almost as if that wasn't Jordan Hulls hitting that 3, but his body inhabited with my spirit.
I'm there with Cody Zeller and Christian Watford each time they extend upward as high as their legs can push them, stretching every inch to outjump the VCU player for a chance to grab the rebound.
I'm sounding like my old high school coach when I see that nobody covered the back side when Watford and Zeller converged to double-team the VCU shooter.
"Watch the weak side!".
I'm breathing with Oladipo as he bounces the ball on the free throw line and sighting the game-tying foul shot. It's almost as if I can feel the release and the simultaneous joy and relief he felt, knowing the ball was going through the net as soon as he let it fly.
Name me any other spectator activity that can so absorb someone as this tournament does me.
Monday, March 12, 2012
Root Cause Analysis
Trace any and all of our modern problems to their root cause, and you'll end up with a single answer:
The destruction of morality and the family.
What happened before Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid?
Families took care of their own. Grandparents lived with their children, families took care of healthcare expenses themselves, churches ran hospitals with family payments and member donations.
Now we've been trained to expect the government to take care of our elders.
Most young adults aren't getting married. Most young women who have children birth illegitimate bastards. Adultery is no longer considered a sin, but is celebrated.
Those second, third, and fourth generation bastards can't relate to traditions like marriage, the nuclear family, or living lives of faith and values. So they abdicate all responsibility for their own llives and demand the government provide for them. Hence the current debate over free contraception and so-called Gay Marriage "rights".
The bastards slide through public school learning nothing of value, but somehow manage to become thoroughly indoctrinated in socialism. "Fair" means you get whatever you want regardless of your own bad life choices. Narcissism is the preeminent "ism" of modern society. Government exists to provide all your needs, from housing to nutrition to healthcare and abortion.
Those of us who have managed to escape the values of Barack Obama are rapidly becoming the oppressed class. We're asked to work harder every year so the government can take more of the fruits of our labors they use to buy the loyalties of the bastards.
Using the word "bastard" to describe the dominant class may seem harsh and possibly offensive to some. My defense is that such a term is not libel if it's true.
Sadly it is all too true.
The destruction of morality and the family.
What happened before Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid?
Families took care of their own. Grandparents lived with their children, families took care of healthcare expenses themselves, churches ran hospitals with family payments and member donations.
Now we've been trained to expect the government to take care of our elders.
Most young adults aren't getting married. Most young women who have children birth illegitimate bastards. Adultery is no longer considered a sin, but is celebrated.
Those second, third, and fourth generation bastards can't relate to traditions like marriage, the nuclear family, or living lives of faith and values. So they abdicate all responsibility for their own llives and demand the government provide for them. Hence the current debate over free contraception and so-called Gay Marriage "rights".
The bastards slide through public school learning nothing of value, but somehow manage to become thoroughly indoctrinated in socialism. "Fair" means you get whatever you want regardless of your own bad life choices. Narcissism is the preeminent "ism" of modern society. Government exists to provide all your needs, from housing to nutrition to healthcare and abortion.
Those of us who have managed to escape the values of Barack Obama are rapidly becoming the oppressed class. We're asked to work harder every year so the government can take more of the fruits of our labors they use to buy the loyalties of the bastards.
Using the word "bastard" to describe the dominant class may seem harsh and possibly offensive to some. My defense is that such a term is not libel if it's true.
Sadly it is all too true.
Tuesday, March 06, 2012
Played for Fools
The bizarre events of the past couple of weeks served as proof of my operating theory that the President and his party rely heavily on public ignorance and dishonest demonization of their opponents to keep power.
There was a strong and growing outrage throughout the country when Obama and Kathleen Sebelius announced that all organizations, including faith-based schools and hospitals, must offer in their health insurance plans provisions for free contraceptive coverage, which includes chemical abortions.
People were beginning to understand that the issue created by these mandates wasn't the relative merits of contraceptions, but the violation of the first and most important constitutional principle of our country's founding; The freedom from government intrusion into matters of faith.
So the Obama machine decided to counter with a campaign of misinformation designed to present a false narrative painting the religious right as uncaring Taliban types who would deny women access to critical healthcare services. Initially, Rick Santorum was their straw target, because he has been unwavering in refusing to abandon his personal faith or adherence to Catholic teachings. They tried to extend that moral stand to a false meme accusing Santorum of intending to outlaw all artificial birth control should he become President.
That may or may not have been gaining traction, but then Rush Limbaugh stepped into their trap with both feet. The trap was laid with the law student from Georgetown, an previously unknown Planned Parenthood activist named Fluke, who was given a podium by Senate Democrats to advocate for the Obama mandate by presenting a false argument suggesting contraceptives were too expensive for college students.
Rush sprung that trap by analyzing her rhetoric to suggest any woman spending $3,000 per year as Fluke was claiming had to be having sex more often than could be imagined. Therefore, by extension, Fluke must be a sex-obsessed woman, and he used common slang terms our culture commonly uses to describe women of such loose and easy sexual behavior.
The trap was sprung, as all her Democratic supporters immediately expressed outrage that Rush would use such terrible and insulting language to attack the poor Georgetown student. All of a sudden, the core issue faded into the background and morphed into a caricature tying Rush to all other conservatives who are mean, judgemental, and medieval in their sexual attitudes.
Clearly, this mandate and many others packaged into Obamacare will suppress Americans' access to healthcare as well as impinge on our freedoms. Our religious freedoms and economic freedoms are being destroyed by this president, which is the real problem being obscured today.
Beginning next year, employers who cannot in good concience be accessories to the destruction of children through chemical abortion will have 3 choices:
1. Refuse to offer those drugs or abortion services to their employees and refuse to acknowledge the fines from HHS. The larger organizations will be bankrupted by the fines if their acts of civil disobedience fail. The Catholic bishops are united against the policy, and are willing to suffer imprisonment before giving in.
2. Drop health insurance altogether. Obamacare's fines for organizations who simply drop all coverage are much lower than those that would be levied for refusing to add these coverages to existing plans. Then the employees would be forced to go to Obama's "Exchanges" and buy their own policies, which of course cover the mandated services.
3. Close the doors. Rather than fighting, some organizations may simply close down rather than knuckle under to these fascist policies. Some believe this was one of the objectives of Obamacare in the first place, closing down all private healthcare and education institutions as soon as possible, because the Left has a goal of removing all such institutions from the private realm and replacing them with universal government-run institutions.
The only way these can be rolled back is through the November elections. Obamacare will not be repealed unless Obama is defeated and Republicans take 60 seats or more in the Senate. Replacing Obama is inexplicably a 50-50 proposition today, and Senate control looks impossible. All because far too many are easily manipulated by false narratives such as this one, too many like having the government provide their living and will vote to keep the checks coming, or are Marxist true believers who are cheering Obama on in his agenda to destroy America and transform it into a Socialist Republic.
Those of us who still have faith and a brain must pray without ceasing for a miracle, because that's our only hope of bringing America back to a free and prosperous society.
There was a strong and growing outrage throughout the country when Obama and Kathleen Sebelius announced that all organizations, including faith-based schools and hospitals, must offer in their health insurance plans provisions for free contraceptive coverage, which includes chemical abortions.
People were beginning to understand that the issue created by these mandates wasn't the relative merits of contraceptions, but the violation of the first and most important constitutional principle of our country's founding; The freedom from government intrusion into matters of faith.
So the Obama machine decided to counter with a campaign of misinformation designed to present a false narrative painting the religious right as uncaring Taliban types who would deny women access to critical healthcare services. Initially, Rick Santorum was their straw target, because he has been unwavering in refusing to abandon his personal faith or adherence to Catholic teachings. They tried to extend that moral stand to a false meme accusing Santorum of intending to outlaw all artificial birth control should he become President.
That may or may not have been gaining traction, but then Rush Limbaugh stepped into their trap with both feet. The trap was laid with the law student from Georgetown, an previously unknown Planned Parenthood activist named Fluke, who was given a podium by Senate Democrats to advocate for the Obama mandate by presenting a false argument suggesting contraceptives were too expensive for college students.
Rush sprung that trap by analyzing her rhetoric to suggest any woman spending $3,000 per year as Fluke was claiming had to be having sex more often than could be imagined. Therefore, by extension, Fluke must be a sex-obsessed woman, and he used common slang terms our culture commonly uses to describe women of such loose and easy sexual behavior.
The trap was sprung, as all her Democratic supporters immediately expressed outrage that Rush would use such terrible and insulting language to attack the poor Georgetown student. All of a sudden, the core issue faded into the background and morphed into a caricature tying Rush to all other conservatives who are mean, judgemental, and medieval in their sexual attitudes.
Clearly, this mandate and many others packaged into Obamacare will suppress Americans' access to healthcare as well as impinge on our freedoms. Our religious freedoms and economic freedoms are being destroyed by this president, which is the real problem being obscured today.
Beginning next year, employers who cannot in good concience be accessories to the destruction of children through chemical abortion will have 3 choices:
1. Refuse to offer those drugs or abortion services to their employees and refuse to acknowledge the fines from HHS. The larger organizations will be bankrupted by the fines if their acts of civil disobedience fail. The Catholic bishops are united against the policy, and are willing to suffer imprisonment before giving in.
2. Drop health insurance altogether. Obamacare's fines for organizations who simply drop all coverage are much lower than those that would be levied for refusing to add these coverages to existing plans. Then the employees would be forced to go to Obama's "Exchanges" and buy their own policies, which of course cover the mandated services.
3. Close the doors. Rather than fighting, some organizations may simply close down rather than knuckle under to these fascist policies. Some believe this was one of the objectives of Obamacare in the first place, closing down all private healthcare and education institutions as soon as possible, because the Left has a goal of removing all such institutions from the private realm and replacing them with universal government-run institutions.
The only way these can be rolled back is through the November elections. Obamacare will not be repealed unless Obama is defeated and Republicans take 60 seats or more in the Senate. Replacing Obama is inexplicably a 50-50 proposition today, and Senate control looks impossible. All because far too many are easily manipulated by false narratives such as this one, too many like having the government provide their living and will vote to keep the checks coming, or are Marxist true believers who are cheering Obama on in his agenda to destroy America and transform it into a Socialist Republic.
Those of us who still have faith and a brain must pray without ceasing for a miracle, because that's our only hope of bringing America back to a free and prosperous society.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Income Tax Analogy Viral
Talking with someone recently, he started telling me about a blog post to check out. Turned out to be one of mine. It was my income tax analogy post, which is by far the most popular item among all the many posts I've generated over the past several years.
Sort of cool to be referred by someone to your own blog post. I didn't tell him it was mine - not sure why.
Sort of cool to be referred by someone to your own blog post. I didn't tell him it was mine - not sure why.
Retirement
I've reached the age where retirement has to become more of a focus. To the extent I ever had a plan, it was always to retire gradually. For a long time, I imagined taking a part-time teaching job at a local community college as I neared retirement age, and use it to keep busy and pay for groceries for a few years as I transitioned into retirement.
As I've been working as an independent consultant, it dawned on me that I could simply begin scaling back on the projects I accept a little at a time. It seems reasonable that I may be able to gradually reduce those consulting assignments until I don't feel like continuing.
Retirement communities and senior trailer parks in Florida have never held a lot of appeal for me. But that doesn't necessarily mean I won't end up on one eventually.
Like everybody else, except for those who have company-provided pensions, the retirement issue for me has to be based on financial status. Pay off the mortgage, do some remodeling or upgrading on the house, buy a decent car that might see me through most of the post-retirement years, and hopefully have enough cash left to live above the poverty line through the golden years.
Some folks have retirement forced on them, either when their company dumps them in favor of a younger and cheaper employee, or when their health fails. I'm unlikely to fire myself, but there's a risk that the consulting work could dry up. And of course nobody knows when the health issues might crop up; I suspect I'm nearly due for my 60,000 mile engine overhaul.
Met a retiree several years back who told me about his retirement goal held for his latter working years. He wanted to play golf every day when he entered retirement, and when the day came, he immediately hit the links. Problem was, within the first month he grew bored with playing golf every day. He suddenly found himself adrift, with no idea how he was going to spend his time.
I don't have specific ideas for how I want to spend my retirement years. But I hope to have some fun and do some liesure travel. And maybe finish the work I started on my family tree research. If grandchildren arrive on the scene, I hope to have the opportunity to catch many of their activities, whether their talents lie in sports, music, or other things.
Now after writing all this stuff about retirement, it's making me feel old. So I think I'll wrap here.
As I've been working as an independent consultant, it dawned on me that I could simply begin scaling back on the projects I accept a little at a time. It seems reasonable that I may be able to gradually reduce those consulting assignments until I don't feel like continuing.
Retirement communities and senior trailer parks in Florida have never held a lot of appeal for me. But that doesn't necessarily mean I won't end up on one eventually.
Like everybody else, except for those who have company-provided pensions, the retirement issue for me has to be based on financial status. Pay off the mortgage, do some remodeling or upgrading on the house, buy a decent car that might see me through most of the post-retirement years, and hopefully have enough cash left to live above the poverty line through the golden years.
Some folks have retirement forced on them, either when their company dumps them in favor of a younger and cheaper employee, or when their health fails. I'm unlikely to fire myself, but there's a risk that the consulting work could dry up. And of course nobody knows when the health issues might crop up; I suspect I'm nearly due for my 60,000 mile engine overhaul.
Met a retiree several years back who told me about his retirement goal held for his latter working years. He wanted to play golf every day when he entered retirement, and when the day came, he immediately hit the links. Problem was, within the first month he grew bored with playing golf every day. He suddenly found himself adrift, with no idea how he was going to spend his time.
I don't have specific ideas for how I want to spend my retirement years. But I hope to have some fun and do some liesure travel. And maybe finish the work I started on my family tree research. If grandchildren arrive on the scene, I hope to have the opportunity to catch many of their activities, whether their talents lie in sports, music, or other things.
Now after writing all this stuff about retirement, it's making me feel old. So I think I'll wrap here.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Lies and Manufactured Issues
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?
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?
Friday, February 03, 2012
Is This the Generation?
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.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Warming Up
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.
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.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Sports Fix
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.
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.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Predictable Republicans
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.
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.
Sunday, January 08, 2012
Ch-Ch-Changes
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?
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?
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Coarse and Ignorant
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.
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.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Looking for a Leader that Doesn't Exist
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).
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).
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Rich
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.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Paying Attention
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.
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.
Monday, October 24, 2011
Colts Really a 1-Man Team?
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.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
I'm Still Here
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.
Friday, August 26, 2011
A Matter of Faith
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?
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Debate Night Impressions
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.
Monday, August 08, 2011
When the Argument Loses Me
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.
Saturday, July 16, 2011
The Only Way
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.
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.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Cynical Manipulation
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.
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.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Shallow
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.
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.
Monday, June 13, 2011
My Candidate's Speech
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.
[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.
Wednesday, June 08, 2011
Another Sign of the Apocalypse
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.
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.
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