Justice at Last

Here's what I call Justice!

Talk about punishment fitting the crime.

Looks Like MN Needs the IN Voter ID Law

From John Hinderaker:

Minnesota makes no serious effort to prevent voter fraud. It has been reported that one-quarter of all the votes cast in Hennepin County, the state's largest, were same-day registrations. In most instances, not only are voters not required to show identification, it is illegal to ask them for it. So we have no way of knowing how many non-citizens voted; or how many students from Wisconsin voted there, then crossed the border to vote again in a college town in Minnesota; or how many people voted in another state and also cast an absentee ballot in Minnesota, or vice versa; or how many felons voted; or how many fictitious people registered by ACORN, the voter fraud organization that put on a major push in Minnesota this year, ostensibly showed up to vote; or how many residents of nursing homes voted without having any idea they had done so; or how many voted in two or more Minnesota precincts; or how many people voted for themselves and also for someone who they knew had died or moved out of a precinct by election day; or how many Franken ballots were slipped into voting machines by Democratic election judges when no one was looking. There is no way, at this point, to separate the legitimate ballots from those that were cast illegally. The legal and the illegal, the real and the fake, are being counted with equal precision.

The larger question for me is, how can it be possible that Minnesota would even consider electing Al Franken to the US Senate? It would seem that the cold (no global warming in those north woods, I can attest) has frozen their collective brains. Even if Norm Coleman is a jerk (and I have no information on that question one way or the other), how could anyone possibly believe Stuart Smalley is a legitimate replacement?

Then again, they did elect Jesse Ventura to be their governor once. Incomprehensible.

Incarcerated in the Zoo

The celebration moves into full swing, as an apparent majority of the population seem to have received their wish - full Democrat control of government.

So the celebrating individuals now feel free to examine me and the shrinking number of people like me, trying to figure out how any reasonably intelligent human being could possibly be disappointed or even frightened as the Messiah prepares to take over the government.

For what it's worth, here's the perspective of this oddity from the Zoo.

First and foremost, my objection is moral.

The "Freedom of Choice Act" is a nightmare. Fortunately I don't have any daughters, because all parental consent laws regarding abortions for minors will be wiped off the books nationwide. As will waiting periods, counseling, and any other measures passed by the states in an attempt to offer alternatives to women who think they might want to vacuum their developing baby out of their womb. My tax dollars will be used to help poor women kill their unborn babies, and quite possibly the occasional baby born alive by mistake. Any and all public expression of opposition will be harshly prosecuted.

Gay Marriage is a direct assault on Christianity. Because the movement, at it's root, isn't about marriage at all. Gays can get together right this moment with a group of friends and make any promises, personal or contractual, they want. No, it's about telling Christians that we dare not breathe a word of the most mild suggestion that the behavior is wrong. And it's about forcing all employers through the force of law to provide benefits to same-sex partners. It's fundamentally about supressing freedom of thought, expression, and the right to hire and fire people based on a moral standard.

Universal Healthcare will kill the healthcare system. I do not disagree there's a massive problem with healthcare in our country, but the problem is high cost, not the lack of government control. If the government provides my healthcare, then they also can deny me healthcare. I want the problem of cost solved so healthcare is accessible, but the voters said they want the government to confiscate money from those who have and give to those who have not. I struggle to keep up with my own crippling healthcare costs, but the last thing I want is for the government to swoop in and rescue me with their new freedom-sucking plan.

Socialism is government control over the citizens' lives. It replaces the corporate fat cats with a new group of government bureaucrat fat cats, leaving everybody else worse off than they were under free enterprise. Because, you see, socialism sucks all incentive and work ethic out of the population. Why should I work my tail off to get the exact same government check as the guy next to me who is drunk most of the time and produces practically nothing? Socialism knocks the rich down several notches, but actually knocks everybody else down a few notches as well, all in the name of "fairness". But of course, don't dare peek at the lifestyles of the political party bureaucrats, who somehow manage to maintain lavish lifestyles for themselves.

We've already lost the country envisioned by our Founders. Congress ignores the constitution with impunity. And the Messiah President will soon stack the courts with judges who will make sure that can continue through the next two generations.

Solving the Big 3

Evidence of the sheer stupidity of the Big 3 CEO's, riding their Gulfstreams to DC to beg for cash, is the additional fact that they didn't really have a case to make.

Unless you call "please bail us out, we're going under" a case.

Here's an idea.

Federal Government, just say no.

Big 3 shareholders, fire your boards of directors and CEO's and put actual intelligent businesspeople in charge.

Management, get in a room with the UAW and hammer out a deal. They give back on some salary and benefits in the short run in return for employee ownership in the company. If and when the company makes money again, so will the union membership.

Make more deals with the union in the areas of quality and productivity. The more productive each union member and the better quality of the product, the more they stand to make from improved sales. Actually ask the Union bosses to allow the company to cut loose the dead weight.

Not to mention cutting loose the dead weight in the executive suites and the engineering departments and the administrative departments.

That sounds to me like a company that could survive and prosper.

Instead of the company that's asking the government for billions in bailout dollars that will end up funding union pensions and management golden parachutes.

America, where have ye gone?

Repeating History

Back to the future.

Economic troubles are so similar to the 30's it's amazing. Even more amazing is how few of our leaders in Washington seem to understand anything about our conditions. They certainly don't seem to have learned anything from the experiences of the "Great Depression". Mostly they seem be focused on making sure they and their buddies prosper, not caring much at all about the country as a whole.

And we've elected a president who fancies himself a pacifist version of FDR.

Only those able to pay off all their debt as soon as possible have a chance at survival over the next dozen years.

Personally, I have to try everything I can to keep income going. I know a regular job isn't going to happen, so I've got to find every possible way to keep the business bringing in revenue. Then make the payoff of the mortgage #1 on the agenda.

Maybe I'll have to actually start farming.

New Airport Over the Top?

I got my first look at the new Harvey Weir Cook International Airport when my flight got in late Friday night. It is certainly an impressive new facility for Indy.

I can't help but wonder just how much in tax dollars went into this new showpiece for the Indiana capitol. Was the old airport really that bad? I didn't think so.

I'm pretty happy that they named it after the old WWI Ace H. Weir Cook. It's refreshing that Indiana can actually remember their heroes from that far in the past.

They're certainly saving money on TSA employees, as I observed on Sunday as I flew out of the new airport on Sunday. The new combined security checkpoint has maybe 8 or more (I didn't count) security lines, but only had 2 open Sunday. So instead of my usual 5-10 minute trek through security at the old airport, this time it took almost 30 minutes. And I was in the new "expert traveler" line.

Woo Hoo.

I must also adjust to the fact that walking to the terminal from the parking lot is no longer an option. The new parking lots, which seem to go on for miles, are pretty much inaccessible to or from the terminal on foot. So waiting for the bus, then waiting as it stops at every shelter in the lot, is no longer optional.

Some things that made me chuckle a bit:

After only a few days, the carpet near the gates and on the jetbridges is already stained. Won't be long before it's every bit as disgusting as the carpet at the old airport.

The terminal is somewhat reminiscent of Detroit's on the inside, albeit a bit smaller and without the train. Like Detroit, there are flat-panel televisions on the walls. But unlike Detroit, they're small flat-panel televisions you can't really see unless you get very close. It's pretty clear somebody decided to save money on the TV's but might has well have saved all of it, since nobody can watch them anyway.

The bottom line for me is there's this beautiful new airport that takes longer to drive to, longer to get into from the parking lot, and longer to get through security.

They call that progress?

Like Conspiracy Theories?

Here's one that's about as plausible as any.

Just imagine that the current financial crisis was carefully planned and executed by the government, with willing accomplices among a few key CEO's from Wall Street.

Paulson, Bernanke, Cox, Reid, Pelosi, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Franklin Raines, and several others conspired to create a financial crisis by strong-arming major banking and investment firms into making a high number of bad loans. Included in their arm-twisting was an implied promise that when all came tumbling down, the powerful government leaders would see to it the executives involved would escape with very sweet parachutes.

Why was this crisis engineered?

Here's where the conspiracy theories really come into play.

The obvious motive: Destroying the public's confidence in capitalism to usher in a statist/socialist government controlled by the same people named above.

But how about this one: Decimating American's 401K's and Pensions to head off a Social Security crisis just when the peak of the Baby Boom generation are reaching retirement age. Millions of people who were planning to retire in the next 5-10 years have lost an average of 40% of their retirement assets, and the volatile stock market may move even lower.

So all these baby boomers are rethinking their retirement plans because they no longer have the money they counted on to see them through a comfortable retirement. Millions will have to postpone retirement, thus delaying their applications for Social Security Retirement Benefits.

There's a story running around that the new President Obama may introduce a plan that would offer Americans a sort of guaranteed defined benefit retirement pension in return for what's left of their 401K or IRA accounts, representing a massive government confiscation of the personal savings of the American population. I'm not yet sure whether it's true.

Sound plausible? I think it's frighteningly plausible.

When Empires Fall

The best civilization in the history of the world may soon die.

Founded by a small group of incredibly courageous and brilliant leaders, it's been overall a great 233 years for a nation carved out of the wilderness. No society in history has seen the heights of prosperity and military might of the place known as the USA. Never has there been a place where people from all four corners of the planet yearned to emigrate for a life unimaginable in their home countries.

But democratic rule has become mob rule. Anyone feeling a slight from this open society, whether real or imagined, finds a government receptive to granting them special treatment. Instead of encouraging and helping lift those on the bottom of the economic ladder, we make sure they don't succeed by redistributing wealth to give them a meager subsistence, while keeping their government-run schools abysmal.

Now the government moves to "rescue" the nation by taking over private industry, starting with the banks. The mob installs political leaders not based on their efforts for the good of all, but for the goodies they promise to take from others and hand out.

And the once-mighty military will be decimated by naive leaders without any apparent understanding of history or of the enemies who are bent on the destruction of this country.

In the meantime the population is lulled by hedonistic entertainment, hyped sporting events, and celebrity worship.

When the safety and security of the USA is gone, it will be too late.

My concern isn't much for myself. I've lived my life in the greatest era of technological and living standards progress in the history of the world. But what will my children be left to face within their adult lives? I fear the next decade or two will not be pleasant.

But I fervently hope and pray that somehow those fears will not be realized.

Trying to Avoid Election News

But it's very hard. Even listening to music on the radio during my drive to Nashville did not protect me from election reporting. I got to my hotel room and decided to just watch ESPN, but even there I have to hear at least a little bit about the election.

I did a quick channel surf and noticed that CNN and MSNBC were already celebrating an Obama victory with only two states called (KY for McCain and NH for Obama). All they're missing are the party hats and streamers.

Think Happy Thoughts. Before we descend together into the new Dark Ages.

Another Airline Misadventure

I'm increasingly in favor of letting these major airlines collapse under the weight of their own incompetence. Which leads me to my latest story of my own maltreatment by Continental Airlines.

We finished early on Friday. Checking online, it would cost me $400 to book an earlier flight, so I thought I'd try standby. So I headed to the George Bush International Airport, turned in my rental car and took the overcrowded rental car bus to the terminal.

Checking in, I paid the $50 fee for the priviledge of standing by for the 4:10 flight to Indy, endured the TSA shakedown, and trekked to the gate. I grabbed some lunch and settled in for the wait for my flight.

Finally the gate agent boarded the flight, but never made any announcements regarding standby passengers. So I approached her as the last few passengers boarded and showed her my standby document. She checked the computer and couldn't seem to find my record, then shrugged and told me the flight was full.

Just full. No apologies, no explanations, no eye contact. She then took off down the jetway to send the plane on its way.

So I'm used to rude gate agents, and didn't think twice about her appalling lack of customer service skills. Disappointed, I made my way to the other concourse to settle in for the 3 hour wait for my originally booked flight.

The agent working that 7:15 flight was somewhat friendlier and more helpful than the previous one. But when I gave her my documents and she looked for me on the computer, she frowned and said, "I can't seem to find you in here".

A few more keystrokes later, she found me. "This shows your standby cleared on the earlier flight. Were you late or something?".

Of course, I told her no, I wasn't late. That the agent told me the flight was full and turned me away.

She shook her head and sighed, asked me where I would like to sit, and printed me a boarding pass for an exit row aisle seat.

I got home after midnight instead of early evening because of a Continental Airlines employee who was uncaring and incompetent.

Would I care much if Continental ceases to be a viable airline?

The answer is obvious.

Campaign Weariness

Just let it be over, please.

I'll go vote on Tuesday, for whatever it's worth.

It's hard to imagine anybody who really doesn't know the difference between Obama and McCain, or between their congressional Republican and Democrat candidates by now.

Does anybody really make a voting decision based on a political ad? I certainly hope not.

How many Obama voters have the slightest idea who the guy is, and what he stands for? I wonder, because I've had to really dig to just come up with the most likely profile for the guy. And I can't guarantee that profile is correct.

On the flip side, how many voters don't know all they ever wanted to know about McCain? He's been a Senator forever and might be the easiest politician in the country to research.

Yet we're told there's this huge group of voters out there who swing like an open gate in the wind. Obama today, McCain tomorrow, maybe Obama the next day - decisions, decisions. Who are these people? People lacking any personal convictions? Maybe simply ignorant and easily swayed by any persuasive influence that gets their attention? I don't think I've met any of them yet, but they must be out there.

My impression of the Obama voter comes down to this very basic theme. The typical Obama voter first and foremost hates Bush and wants the Anti-Bush. She thinks she will get goodies from Obama for free, like tax rebate checks and free heathcare. He thinks Obama will end the wars and make the world a peaceful place. They both think Obama will end the dreaded Global Warming, punish evil rich people, and get them a raise at work.

These people are going to become extremely disappointed. I'm not sure how long the Obama administration will be able to get away with, "be patient, this mess was all Bush's fault, and will take some time to turn around". I suspect they'll only get away with it for about 18 months, before people start figuring out who has really killed the economy and depressed their wages or lost them their jobs.

Obamamaniacs love Europe, even though they've never been there. Too bad they will soon find out what the average European lifestyle looks like.

Lemmings

I wonder if some lemmings don't really want to jump off the cliff, but have no choice. Could it be they have to join the rest of the lemmings simply because they'll be trampled if they try to leave the mob?

The American lemmings are already jumping off the cliff. Those of us who watch it happen are powerless to stop it, so we go over the cliff with everyone else simply because we have no other choice.

The financial crash we're experiencing now has no parallel since the 1929 crash, which led to the Great Depression. The house of cards built over the past 30 years finally fell down under the weight of Fannie and Freddie.

Our two Presidential candidates presumably wish to don the mantle of FDR, who created an alphabet soup of socialist agencies and entitlement programs. Many Americans revered him for "saving" them by giving them subsistence level jobs.

There's Bad - John McCain, who is so tone-deaf that he proposed more bailouts to a nation fed up with the idea that the taxpayers have to bail out the criminals who caused the problems and got rich in the process. In the last debate, he seemed to be trying to out-Democrat the Democrat. He seemed completely out of touch with the mood of the people and completely lacking any ability to concisely define the problem or propose any innovative solutions.

Then there's Worse - Barack Obama, who offers nothing but rhetoric suggesting Bush is the Herbert Hoover of our age and McCain is simply another Bush. McCain's plan may have been a bad one, but Obama doesn't even offer one. Worst of all, this approach has worked wonders for his campaign - polls suggest he's going to win the election running away.

At such a critical time, to have Dumb and Dumber running for President and Dumber winning ..., well, back to the lemmings analogy.

The cliff we're running over is the loss of America. Obama (aka Dumber) will gladly abdicate our soverignty to the New World Order, a globalist socialist government that will make the freedoms we have long cherished in the United States of America a thing of the past.

I don't fit the profile

I'm becoming somewhat surprised lately that the profile of the Obama voter doesn't fit me at all, but still it seems I'm outnumbered.

I can't vote for Obama, because I don't belong to his constituency.

I am not

Black
An angry minority
A socialist
A communist
Ignorant of American History or the Constitution
A Hollywood Celebrity
A guilty-feeling blueblood
An atheist
New-Age or Pantheist or Pagan
A vegan
A PETA member
A modern Christian who would recreate God in My image
A narcissist
A bureaucrat
A government dependent
A pacifist
A Muslim Terrorist
A Weather Underground Terrorist
An infanticide supporter
Naive
An ACLU member or supporter
Anti-American
A Bush hater
A La Raza (The Race) member or supporter
An illegal immigrant
A flag burner
Anti patriotic
Ready to see America humbled
A Trial Lawyer
A College Professor
A Teacher's Union Activist
A Union Leader
A felon
A single urban woman
A gay, lesbian, bi, trans ... or otherwise deviant
Prepared to bestow preferential rights to people based on a deviant behavior
A disciple of the Nobel winning climate scientist Al Gore
A Kos or HuffPo contributor
A megalopolis denizen
Prepared to abdicate national soveriegnty to a New World Order
A "journalist"
Influenced by Mainstream Media propagandists
from the Chinese government

Americans, meet your new ruling class.

Does any of this ring a bell?

Do these sound familiar?

1. Abolition of Private Property
2. Heavy Progressive Income Tax
3. Abolition of Inheritance Rights
4. Confiscation of Property from Emigrants and Rebels
5. A Central Bank
6. Government Control of Communication and Transportation
7. Government Ownership of Factories and Farms
8. Government Control of Labor
9. Corporate Farms, Regional Planning
10. Government Control of Education

The principles from the Communist Manifesto as defined by Marx and Engels are worth another look.

Does it frighten anybody else to read these again and discover how many of these have already happened in America, and that a major political party is seeking the power to implement the rest?

The Death of Objectivity

The evidence is overwhelming. From Fannie and Freddie to Lehmann and AIG, no major news outlet has yet taken the time to investigate the root causes of the meltdown and report back to the American public.

Where are the multi-part investigative reports on the news that cover the history of Fannie and Freddie, the conditions that caused the mortgage mess, why they happened and who were the key players?

Has anyone answered to your or my satisfaction these basic questions? --

Why were mortgage brokers allowed to sell mortgages to unqualified borrowers?

What was the role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the buying and selling of these mortgage-backed securities throughout the financial industry?

Who ran Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Since they were quasi-government institutions, who in the government was responsible for their oversight?

Was there anyone on Wall Street or in the Federal Government who saw this meltdown coming and tried to sound the alarm? If so, how did authorities respond? If not, how could that happen?

What Federal Agencies were responsible for regulating Fannie and Freddie? Did they discover the problem and try to do something about it? Or were they stopped by politicians higher up the ladder?

Instead of independent investigations giving the public facts on these and other questions, all we see is a megaphone handed to Obama with a slap on the butt and a "go get 'em tiger!".

And that's the answer to the basic question I've posed. If such an independent investigation were to take place by reporters who are willing to report the truth, no matter how it might reflect on one candidate or the other, it could kill the candidacy of their own favorite candidate.

Objective journalism appears dead, and with it American democracy. When the press becomes monolithically partisan and chooses to withhold the truth from the public if it might reflect badly on their chosen candidate, the dream that was America is lost.

Did you know?

These things about Obama -

Jeremiah Wright was his pastor until a couple of months ago?

Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers are his neighbors, political sponsors, and friends?

That he padded his resume?

That he's closely tied to a radical left voter-fraud organization known as Acorn?

Obama's stand on late-term abortions where babies are born alive?

That he interfered with negotiations to wrap up the war in Iraq?

That he got help buying his home from friend and convicted felon Tony Rezko?

In Search of a Clue

It's sobering.

While the stock market plunges, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are absorbed by the government, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch fold or are absorbed into other giant financial mega-corporations, the presidential candidates seem to be completely clueless.

Instead of thoughtful and substantive ideas about what can be done to clean up this mess and get the American economy back on its feet, the candidates focus on the inane.

Obama: McCain's old. He doesn't even know how to use email. Palin is, well, so many distasteful and offensive things I can't even bring myself to print them.

McCain: Obama's a lightweight. He's no reformer, he's just a puppet of the Democrat/MoveOn machine.

OK, so I tend to agree with McCain. But he still can't seem to verbalize anything that makes any sense about his ideas for reining in this financial mess, other than something like "changing the way government works".

Funny, I thought congress created Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, appointed Bill Clinton pals to run them, encouraged them to fund mortgages for the less fortunate (read: bad credit risks), then pretended to be caught by surprise when it all came crashing down.

Now they seem to support nationalizing everything. Fannie and Freddie - already owned by the Feds. Bail out Lehman and Lynch? So far it looks like the answer's going to be No (thank goodness). Bail out GM/Ford/Chrysler? Please let that answer be No.

How about some fresh ideas?

Get rid of Fannie and Freddie. Lenders should make loans based on the qualifications of their customers. Period. They will be more responsible if they are actually taking the risk for borrowers with bad credit.

Increase Energy Production. I'm an all-of-the-above person. Our economy is based on energy, despite the desperate hopes and dreams of leftists everywhere. Go get all the oil, gas, shale, wind, solar, hydro, non-food organic ethanol you can find. Stop messing around and make a deal with Iraq - we get to buy as much of their oil as we want at a discount, and we'll keep them safe from their enemies. Get us into a place where we're getting all of our energy either domestically or from countries that don't hate us.

Cancel CAFE standards on the Car Manufacturers. Let them build and sell any vehicles for which public demand is high, and stop telling them what they can and can't build.

Enforce Anti-Trust Law for a change. Competition is the way to get business booming. Stop letting the mega-corporations gobble up everybody so they can own their market. Let the companies that made bad decisions go bankrupt, then open up the market to start-ups who will compete with each other to provide better services to consumers.

Congress is clueless. The presidential candidates are clueless. The voters are clueless sheep.

I need to do something tonight to get away from this and get my spirits up.

Object Lesson in Propaganda

It's a very old cliche.

You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig.

Obama used it in a speech to his adoring Democrat followers to describe John McCain's economic policies. The crowd clearly latched onto it as a backhanded slap against the GOP Veep nominee, who was famous for her joke about lipstick being the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull. Therefore the cliche drew a standing derisive ovation from the partisan audience.

The other campaign seized on this apparent slight with amazing speed and created a YouTube ad questioning the judgement and character of the Democrat candidate. Other leftist partisans managed to add fuel to the fire with overtly slanderous comments comparing Gov. Palin to Pontius Pilate against Obama's Jesus and suggesting her only qualification for VP was that she hasn't had an abortion.

So Obama decided to respond to the McCain campaign's response to his lipstick cliche with his own outrage, suggesting that they were unfairly characterizing an innocent comment. He angrily called out the opposing campaign as outright liars for making a campaign issue out of something that he claimed never happened (i.e. calling Gov. Palin a pig).

Obama's sycophants in the media immediately set out to echo his outrage, showing multiple politicians (all Republicans, of course) using the overused lipstick/pig analogy, ending with the piece de resistance, McCain himself using it.

The whole incident is rather comical, but more instructive in the fact that both parties seem to view the American public as a mass of sheep who are easily fooled. I mainly wonder how many were fooled either way.

The conclusions about the phrase itself are pretty easy for any objective person. Just take the facts:

Obama's statement clearly was referring to McCain's economic policies and never mentioned Palin, even tangentially.

The crowd obviously connected the lipstick on pig to the lipstick on pit bull, thus the derisive standing ovation.

Did Obama intend the linkage? Maybe not, but certainly he understood the audience's linkage. For him to pretend otherwise is disingenuous. The projection of outrage against the opposing campaign for feigning their own outrage is sort of an outrage itself.

The opportunistic ad run by the McCain campaign was pretty effective, if misleading. It was a great example of taking something out of context to convey a message completely different from what was actually spoken.

Guilty of propaganda? Both sides.

Did it work? Hard to say, but it might be safe to assume the true believers on each side believed their own side's version of the story. I wonder how many understand the whole story. Those who do won't find anything on either side worthy of their support.

Government Mismanagement

The quasi-governmental Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were taken over by the Federal Government in an attempt to stop the bleeding in this major mortgage mess.

Following congress' strong desire to make home ownership more accessible to citizens, they actually created the monster that has so damaged the financial markets through massive mortgage defaults.

In an age of 100% home loans routinely made for borrowers that clearly had no ability to pay, congress has little right to point fingers at irresponsible lenders. They and their politically-appointed cronies at those government created monsters are at least equally to blame with the lenders and borrowers that simply took advantage.

I was thinking about my grandparents' generation. They lived through the Great Depression, and their remarkable frugality was often puzzling to me. Here were people who had, at least from my young perspective, plenty of cash and no debt. Yet they drove old cars, made sure no lights were on unnecessarily, were careful with their grocery budget, and would never consider buying luxury items.

We seem to have forgotten those lessons. The people and their government spend recklessly, don't save, and borrow as much as a lender will allow. So many people, including those making decent salaries, are leveraged so badly that if there is any lapse in income, they will face immediate bankruptcy.

Working with employers and seeing data on their employee's 401K retirement funds, I've been shocked at the high number of people who raid their retirement for more spending money. Many people participate to get the employer match, then take the maximum allowable loans so they can spend the money. For those people, there's no retirement nest egg, but a debt that must be repaid or they'll be faced with penalties and interest.

The government is no different. They spend way beyond their tax collections and borrow the difference. Now we have a federal budget that has to spend a significant amount of tax collections on debt service. Republicans were supposed to be the fiscally responsible party, but when they got control of congress, they somehow forgot. Democrats make no pretense of fiscal responsibility, but promise to raise taxes to cover their planned massive spending increases.

It seems our entire country is on the verge of bankruptcy, and there's nobody even close to doing anything to stop it.

Theme Songs

I just realized that the easiest way to describe the choices between our candidates is in the theme songs of each candidate and their larger party philosophies.

McCain and the Republicans: God Bless the USA (Proud to be an American) - Lee Greenwood

Obama and the Democrats: Imagine - John Lennon

Listen to the two songs and perhaps you'll agree with me. Little more needs to be said.