Me and Glenn Beck

Restoring Honor Rally

2010-08-28T12:35:00.000-07:00

I just watched the Restoring Honor Rally on the Internet coming from Washington DC. Very few political comments. I did not hear one speaker attack the current president directly. I saw no violence or hatred for any race or nationality or religious group. No signs, no banners other than flags.

I was flabbergasted as a CNN reporter was talking, on air, about all the tea party flags and banners. As he was speaking they panned the crowed and other than the Stars and Stripes I saw a few Gadsden Flags, some shirts saying Faith Hope and Charity. Are these tea party flags? If so I must be a tea party member as both fly at my home. Shows you how distorted the view is in the lame stream press. No police cars burned or turned over. No poor old black man beaten by union goons like other rallies. Just patriotic Americans showing their love for God and Country.

I also saw some of the MLK rally in the same town. Signs calling Glenn Beck names, Speakers calling GB and conservatives names. Union banners and signs supporting just one political party. Do these raciest think the ideals expressed by Martin Luther King belonged to just one race? Do they also believe that the ideals and deeds of Abraham Lincoln just belong to white people? They accused Glenn of hijacking MLK’s agenda. Do just these few own MLK? His niece spoke at the GB rally as did many many folks who were there on that original momentous day. We must all embrace the ideals expressed by MLK, all races and faiths. Is that OK with you Rev. Sharpton or do we have to ask for your permission to speak?

At the GB rally they had speakers representing all. They pointed out that all parties have made mistakes and what really matters is that we are all Americans and we have to help each other. There were over 240 clergy of all faiths from Christian, Muslim, Jewish and others gathered on stage behind GB. They linked arms and pledged their support. The press will downplay this event and probably ridicule the folks that were there. John Stewart will mock GB as he always does showing his dislike for real American values. He used to be funny before he drank the Obama kook-aid and became a hit man for uber liberalism.

There were 300 to 325K estimated by the media. It does not matter as there were a lot of folks there who want government to listen to the people and turn the government around. Return to the constitution and get off our backs.

Get on your knees folks and pray for our country. That is what Glenn was saying. Ask God to help our leaders and our country and ask for courage for all of us to do what is right. Show Faith Hope and Charity to all.

God Bless America.

For the Birds!!!!

2010-07-02T11:46:00.000-07:00

This story was passed on to me by a blog reader and suggested I post it as an entry so here it goes.

I bought a bird feeder. I hung It on my back porch and filled It with seed. What a beauty of a bird feeder it was, as I filled it lovingly with seed. Within a week we had hundreds of birds taking advantage of the continuous flow of free and easily accessible food.

But then the birds started building nests in the boards of the patio, above the table, and next to the barbecue. Then came the poop. It was everywhere: on the patio tile, the chairs, the table ..Everywhere!

Then some of the birds turned mean. They would dive bomb me and try to peck me even though I had fed them out of my own pocket.And others birds were boisterous and loud. They sat on the feeder and squawked and screamed at all hours of the day and night and demanded that I fill it when it got low on food.After a while, I couldn't even sit on my own back porch anymore.

So I took down the bird feeder and in three days the birds were gone. I cleaned up their mess and took down the many nests they had built all over the patio.Soon, the back yard was like It used to be .... quiet, serene.... and no one demanding their rights to a free meal.

Now let's see. Our government gives out free food, subsidized housing, free medical care and free education, and allows anyone born here to be an automatic citizen.Then the illegal's came by the tens of thousands. Suddenly our taxes went up to pay for free services; small apartments are housing 5 families; you have to wait 6 hours to be seen by an emergency room doctor; your child's second rate class is behind other schools because over half the class doesn't speak English.

Corn flakes now come in a bilingual box; I have to 'press one ' to hear my banktalk to me in English, and people waving flags other than 'Old Glory' are squawking and screaming in the streets, demanding more rights and free liberties. Just my opinion, but maybe it's time for the government to take down the bird feeder.

If you agree, lets kick the current officials, in Washington DC out of office, when we can.

If you don’t agree, just continue cleaning up the poop

Can this country be saved?

2010-06-05T10:57:00.000-07:00

I really hate to see what has happened to this country. I know what you are going to say, “stop living in the past”, “things were not that great in yesteryear”. But just in my life time, I have seen a country that had an attitude that said we are the best, smartest, hardest working, and freest country in the world. A country that put a man on the moon who now has to rely on others to do the heavy lifting.

Now we are being told that we have gotten rich, fat and lazy. We produce very little and more and more folks are depending on government for their daily living. Generations have been brought up on government handouts and subsidies becoming a way of life for families, for generations. More than half of the population really pays no income taxes at all. Oh yah, they take money out of your weekly pay check but when you total all the income taxes you paid against what your income tax return is after April 15th, many get more back than they paid in and those folks no matter how they look at it, pay no income taxes to live in this country.

Most of these government handout were never intended or even thought of by our founding fathers. Nowhere in the constitution does it say that a living is to be provided by the federal government. Most current government programs like Social Security, Welfare, Unemployment Insurance, and even the collection of Federal Income taxes has happened in the past 90 years.

My family for the most part and I have traced it back in most lines to before 1700, were poor farmers. We lived and prospered without these government handouts. When I was a kid we were poor. My father was poorly educated and his employment was very limited, yet he nor my family would have ever accepted or sought out any government welfare type programs.

My dad picked fruit, chopped wood, sold door to door, worked as a handyman and any other legal thing he could find when he was out of his normal line of work. Many holidays and hard times churches, fraternal organizations and other charities would leave food, clothing and other things at our house to help our family. Our extended family, grandparents etc. also helped in lean times. We did it without government charity just the charity of folks who cared to do a good thing.

I used to see folks using food stamps or cashing welfare checks at the grocery store and look away in embarrassment for those folks. I thought how ashamed they must be to have others see them forced to take a handout. Now it is kind of a normal thing and nobody even notices.

I know what you are saying, you are old and probably getting social security checks. Yes I am. I did not want to participate in social security and in fact worked for quite a time for employers who did not participate in the program. Try to find that today. Anyway I was forced to take part and paid my money. Now the government had taken some of my freedom away and some of my self reliance. Instead of planning and saving for retirement I had the government doing it for me. I did save in addition but many folks have nothing but social security these days. Once you are trapped in a government program it is very hard to get out of it and that is the plan in my opinion.

Today folks like us would be lined up outside the welfare office looking for a government handout just like our moms and dads did, as did our grandparents. Children are being raised with this expectation. They think this type of life style is normal and they get accustomed to the life. They accept that there is little need to try as the government will take care of them. They think they are entitled to have government take care of them. But deep down inside there is resentment and the feeling that “the man”, is keeping them poor and down.

In my opinion, this is building a kind of class status in this country. The lower class welfare witch, redneck trailer trash society. Cruel words aren’t they, but most people have said them at times to describe these folks. Then you have “the put upon” middle class who are just hanging on to keep from slipping into the lowest class. Then of course you have the rich. I guess the rich are those people who make more than you do and are to be hated. Instead of working to be like them we think it is the duty to make them share what they have with us less fortunate folks. In fact we elect political representatives who say they are going to get them and tax them and make them show charity to us poor folks.

I realize it is discouraging to see the guy driving by in his new BMW going to his multi-million dollar home and know there is no way in hell you will ever be like that at your age. I know that there are many folks who would love to have a good job, any honest job that would at least make it possible to acquire those things for our families that make life really worth while without getting government handouts. But after years of looking and trying those good jobs are just not there anymore. The question is Why?

Tell me why in your opinion this is the case if it is the case. In my next blog entry I will tackle the WHY.

Sticks and Stones

2010-05-23T13:31:00.000-07:00

The saying goes “sticks and stones my break my bones but names will never hurt me”. Well that is not quite correct in my view. Names do hurt and they are being used a lot these days by people to try to defend their point of view when they have no other defense.

Let me start off with a little scenario or analogy. Lets say I am a father of a large family. We are walking along in a nice neighborhood. A much nicer neighborhood than what my family lives in or will ever have. We see a very attractive house and during the night, we decided to break in and set up our stuff, kids, pets, and other belongings in the homeowners living room.

Next morning the homeowners come down from their bedrooms and sees my family camped out in their living room and say, “ What are you people doing her”? I reply “well we were walking along, saw this wonderful house that is more than you need and decided that you should allow us to live here as well”.

Of course the homeowner would say, you have got to leave, this is my house, you are breaking the law, I paid for this house and if you don’t go I will call the cops. At which point I say, "I will do your yard work and clean you car. My wife will do the house work and other work you do not want to do, so it is a fair trade and we are staying".

The homeowner calls the cops and tells them what is going on. The local police say this is a federal problem to call them. The homeowner calls the feds and they say will look into it, but do not have the time until sometime in the future, probable after the elections or something to that effect. The home owner calls the local police and says that feds will get to it but until then it is a local problem. The local police say they do not have the money or manpower and can’t do it. They are broke.

The homeowner turns to me and says you have got to leave I do not want you here. At that point I say (…..Now here is my point in this ……) I say as the illegal alien in his home. “Well you just don’t want us here because you are a racist and a bigot”. There you go use an inflammatory term that has nothing to really do with the situation but labels the real victim here the homeowner as the one with the problem.

If you disagree with anything to do with gay rights or practices you hate gays or you are a homophobe. I saw a bumper sticker the other day, it had a gay pride sticker on it and the words stop the hate. As a heterosexual man I disagree with a lot of gay culture, but I nor anyone I know sit around and talk about how we hate gays.

If you disagree with the current administration, you are a racist because the president is black I guess. If you are afraid of the way the country is going, and give your opinion about what you see as wrong, you are a fear monger.

Can we no longer just have a difference in opinions without calling each other names? Can we just listen and then say “well your point is well taken, but here is my opinion on the subject”. We do not always need to agree, but we should be listening to each other without calling names. We should have stopped doing that in grade school.

I Pledge Allegiance

2010-03-14T14:13:00.000-07:00

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

That is the pledge of allegiance that we all have taken from time to time, well at least most of us have. What does it mean? Well it is not as old as most think it is, and it was not done by the founding fathers but a socialist minister. Nobody is put in jail for not saying it in public and I have known Jehovah’s Witnesses like my childhood friend who would not even stand for the pledge. That is fine in my belief. It was an expression of is particular faith and the freedom he enjoys in this country. My own faith would encourage me to take the pledge but I respect anyone for what ever reason who does not want to take the pledge. That is freedom and liberty.

In my view it is something we should all do to reaffirm what we believe in as far as the values of this country. No the founding fathers never wrote these words, but I am sure they would approve.

Most of the current upset about the pledge has centered on the term “under God”. Those zealots who crap their pants any time the word God and the United States are even in the same paragraph have done their best to get it thrown out but recently the appellate courts have ruled that it is not unconstitutional to have it in the pledge.

Do we not believe in liberty? Do we not have an inbred awareness of justice? What is liberty anyway? I define it as the ability for a citizen to live their lives free of government interference. I believe that is what the founding fathers wanted as well. A small federal government that did just those things that the local community could not.

We have in recent past sold our liberty to a bigger and bigger federal government. Many of our citizens have sold their freedom and liberty to the government by accepting and building a lifestyle based on having the government “take care of us”. Slaves were taken care of not freemen.

I like to take the pledge, but I am afraid we do not really have a republic anymore; they do not listen to us at all. We are not one nation; we are apparently Democrats and Republicans. Most do not believe in God and we are very divisible as progressives and conservatives. Justice for all really means, “How can I get more for me and mine” not justice for all.

There are grassroots organizations sprouting up all over the country. Groups like the Tea Party and the 9-12 projects. Contrary to what the main stream press is trying to say, these are not Republican supporters but people of all political groups who want real change. I feel they want to influence both national political parties to return to the values and principles this country was founded upon. So that this country can again be the best hope for the world. Find a group locally and take part in returning the government to and by the people. November 2010 will be a good start of a new beginning.

First Year Evaluation, the Results

2010-02-23T11:10:00.000-08:00

In my last blog entry I asked you readers to list the positive things our President Mr. Obama had done. Here are the results.

Well I don’t know what to say. There has been a big lack of posting on the blog or many emails coming to me about the yearly evaluation of our President. I asked for everyone to list the positive things he has done. As you can read on the blog there have been a couple of comments mostly just foolishness, but I will accept some of the comments as positive and ignore the profanity and out right crap. Looking at the number of folks that hit the blog there should have been many more comments about the programs and tasks the President has accomplished. Maybe like a lot of folks I know they don’t know of anything he has done.

I had 9 of my friends contact me with their remarks but as most of my friends have the same view as me, they had very little to offer other than what I had already said last month about him.

One comment that kept coming time after time was that he has toned down the cowboy shoot first ask questions later mentality. Maybe too much but that was seen as a positive.

Anther was that he seems to evaluate things, in some cases longer and maybe too long, and reach a decision with more thinking behind it. But most felt he is painfully slow and does not stick to what he and his team decided. You could not say that about President Bush. He stayed the course no matter what, maybe even when it was the wrong thing to do and should have been changed.

He does use a Teleprompter but even with that he is easier to listen to and even if he is not conveying a message correctly and his message is not convincing, he puts on a good show. President Bush stammered and stuttered and was not easy to listen to or see as he made grotesque facial gestures.

He has inspired many minorities and maybe encouraged them to make more of their lives.

But nobody has talked or noted a program that he has implemented. Yes he has tried, but so far he has gotten nothing done. We are no better off than when he came into office as far as NEW programs he has put in place. He has changed some policy but what new programs?

I think he should be very humble and admit he has made some mistakes even if he had good intentions. He should concentrate on getting the economy back in good shape, forget most of the rest of the stuff until we have more people employed.

Stop all social engineering and tell the country that we are going to have to stop the spending, cut many many programs. This will hurt but is need if we are going to ever recover. Stop talking about how we got there but what we as citizens need to do to get ourselves solvent again.

Mr. Obama is a bright young man and we all thought he would be a president with new ideas and that we would see change that we could count on. Well he was a great campaigner and he sounded good, but he is stuck in campaign mode and can’t seem to stop comparing himself to President Bush. Who cares about that? His supporters are dong the same, they are looking to blame someone else, the Republicans, the conservatives, the talk show hosts, anyone but Obama. As Harry Truman said “the buck stops here”. He has got to listen to the people. The people are upset and are trying to tell him what they want and expect. They were the same people who voted and believed in him. Why will he not listen?

In my opinion he is being advised by guys with an agenda that is way out of step with the American people. They are very progressive folks. Only about 19 percent of the voters last time think of themselves as progressive. (liberal) The rest were people who were much more moderate, but the Presidents advisors somehow think the election was in support of far left progressive principles but it was not. He has got to rid himself of these folks and replace them with more moderate advisors who are closer to the real citizens.

He is our only President, and we must hope that he can wise up and lead, not just follow some failed ideological fantasy that he seems to be bent on doing. If he does not change he will just be another Carter/Nero on history. That would be tragic for our country.

First Year Evaluation

2010-02-03T13:24:00.000-08:00

President Obama has been in office for a little over a year. I want to give him his yearly evaluation. After all he is my employee and I always gave my employees a yearly evaluation. But before I can evaluate his actions and accomplishments, I have to know what he has done. If I hear that it is all Bush’s fault one more time I am going to have blood shoot out of my eyes. I didn’t hire him to make excuses, I hired him to fix things. He was a Senator and must have known what was going on so his play for pity is not valid anymore.

In my opinion there have been plenty of mistakes, and I am not going to list them here. There are a few things I will give him in fairness.

He did inherit a mess of an economy. President Bush and Congress took a couple of years off so things got out of hand real quick. Remember the Democrats were in charge of congress after the 2006 election and they did absolutely nothing. I mean nothing but fight with each outer as they are currently doing with the health bill and budget. They could pass anything they want, they had the power and did not need the Republicans at all. The excuse of calling them the party of NO is ridicules. They did not have the power to say no.

He did win the Nobel Prize after just 2 weeks on the job, I will give him that, but I think Howdy Doody would have been awarded it as well as it was just awarded to the people of the US for not having President Bush anymore.

He is a nice young man with a nice family. He is a good speaker especially with a teleprompter. He seems to have a good personality and most people like him as a person. I think he has inspired many minority folks and given them inspiration to try to achieve things they might have thought were beyond their grasp.

TO DO LIST

Now my readers I want you to list on this blog or send an email to me listing specifically what things President Obama has done. I am not talking about warm and fuzzy things, I am talking about specifics. Hint-----seniors like me got a $250.00 check to compensate us for not having a tax cut like the other 95 percent of the folks. But be careful I don’t see this as a good thing. I would have rather had the money go to reduce the deficit and not to just meet some stupid campaign promise. So in you answer list why overall it is a good thing.

OK list here :

1.
2.
3.
Etc.

I will respond to your input and either agree with it or give you what I see as problems. Here is my main point; "I DON’T THINK HE HAS ACHIEVED ANYTHING". I may be wrong and I hope I have missed something but try as hard as I can I can't think of anything he has done. Some things are on the horizon but as of this day there is nothing I can find. Prove me wrong, please. I will listen with an open mind. Please do the same for me.

Remember these are to be the positive things, not what he did wrong. I have a long list of those and do not need any help….No just the good positive things like HR6567 giving all big fat old men a new BMW free….

I am an OLD Man

2010-01-21T10:52:00.001-08:00

Ok, I am an old man. I know it is not that good to live in the past but if we do not learn from the past, like they say we are doomed to repeat our mistakes.

In reviewing my life I have seen many things change. Some for the better and some, in my opinion, for the worse. I was brought up in a small town. Population was bout 7 thousand souls. That same town is now about 40 thousand people. I do not live in that town anymore but the one I do live in has had a similar growth. I am going to briefly list some of the changes I have seen in my life.

The town I lived in had one main street, called, you got it, “Main” street. There were other streets of course but they all branched off of Main. People parked their cars on the street and there was plenty of parking spaces. There were no parking meters. There were a lot of people walking up and down main street shopping at the variety of stores on the street.

There were no shopping malls or strip malls or Walmarts. No supermarkets of any kind. If you wanted meat, you went to the butcher shop that had saw dust on the floor and maybe 20 or so deer hanging ready to be cut up and wrapped to be placed in cold storage. That of course depended on the time of the year. Nobody had freezers and real refrigerators were not that abundant.

There was a bakery with all kinds of fresh made goodies. Women usually made their own bread, but occasionally as a treat, we would get store bought bread. Most of the time it was not sliced, but finally some bakeries started slicing the bread for their customers. Our bakery had gals in little Dutch girl outfits that I remember. Sometimes they would sneak a treat to one of us kids just for fun and hope that our moms would let us have some of what ever they were selling. Boy the place smelled heavenly.

Most women did not drive cars. Most women did not work out of the home. My mom did as my dad’s construction occupation was mostly seasonal. Unfortunately our bills went on all year long, thus mom worked.

When you went to one of the car dealerships on main street they were nothing like what we have today. Just a store front, with maybe 3 or 4 cars on the floor, and a service bay in the back. If you wanted a new car you looked at the models they had in the store and you ordered one in the color and style you liked. It would be delivered sometime later. There was an alley on both sides of main street and if you had to get your car serviced you had to go down the alley and into the service department of the dealer.

Most men were embarrassed if they had to take their car in for services as most men could repair their own cars and it was kind of a knock on a guy if he had to have someone else do the work. Of course there were folks like doctors who just did not have the time.

There were no rows of cars on a lot out front. There were no used cars either. There were some used car lots on the outskirts of town, but the new car dealer did not deal in them. Most folks bought used cars from private parties or the cars were passed down to family members. People kept their cars for a much longer time than they do these days. Most people I knew saved and bought a car cash. This was especially true in my family. However my family never had a new car until long after I was married. Most families had only 1 car unless you had a business or lived on a farm where you may need a truck or van. My uncles had new cars as they were traveling salesmen and made a lot of money. Maybe as much as $10,000 a year. I wanted to go to college so I could make that much money some day.

There were service stations (gas stations) that really gave you service. When you drove up someone would rush out and ask you what you wanted. He or she would wash your windows, check the tire air pressure and fill your tank. You got real service and if you were a regular customer sometimes the companies would through in some gift like stake knives or dishes to encourage you to do business with them.

A lot of people had telephones in my town, in fact most people did. But most people were on what was called party lines. Maybe 3 or 4 other families had to share one line. You could tell if it was you line by distinctive rings. One ring and a pause, two rings and a pause etc. If you were snoopy you could listen to other peoples conversations. If you had to make a long distance call to relives in a far off place like the Midwest, usually the most experienced person in the family, in my case one of my grandfathers would contact the long distance operator and made the connection. It was very expensive to us and all the kids were expected to be quiet and talk clearly and concisely so as not to run up too large a phone bill. Phones were for serious conversations not toys as they are today.

There were no freeways, toll ways and few multi-lane roads. Most roads between cities were merely two lane roads. If you got behind a logging truck or something, you had to pass and take your life in your hands. A trip to my grandfather in Salem Oregon was a two day trip on mostly a two lane road. Today I can do the same trip in about two hours. Gas was about 19 cents a gallon, but consider that my father made thirty five dollars a week, so still that was a lot of money in those days. My mom did not drive when I was very young and if we had to go to a city for shopping we took the bus. That was the normal mode of travel in those days. Most cities had trolley cars and busses and people used public transportation even more then we do now. In the West because of the great distances most people had one car, but many people shared rides to and from work.

There was no TV and no Video games of any kind. I did not have a TV until I was a senior in high school. We would go to the old movie house maybe twice a year or so and us kids would play out what ever the movie was about for quite some time until we saw another movie. Many times we played pirates or cowboys, or soldiers or monsters from the black lagoon or what ever caught our attention. When us kids got home, no matter rain or shine, we would quickly get our chores done and go out to play until a mom would call us in for dinner. After dinner we were at it again until one of the moms would call us in for the evening. We had to do our homework then and maybe listen to a show on the radio. The only thing that would stop us from this routine was if we were sick or had to go someplace or were being punished by our parents. We could play late into the evening in perfect safety as we never heard of children being murdered or kidnapped or worse as it is today.

There were neighborhood schools. There were no portables and each class was small enough that one teacher could keep it orderly. Children who had special needs were sent to the special needs school. Everyone spoke English and we walked to school in most cases. If the school got over crowded, the citizens just built another small neighborhood school building.

There were many churches in my little town. Almost everyone went to one or the other. I attended two churches as my mother and father were of different faiths. Us kids traded off going to each church. In the summer when we were not working in the fields as most kids did then, we would go to vocational bible school. The one we went to was one that another kid in the neighborhood went to and we enjoyed going there. People did not seem to be so segregated and separated by the building they went into. God was God and he loved us no matter which building we went into.

My little town is now about 40 thousand people. “Main” street is dilapidated and run down. The stores are either empty or are junk (antique) stores. The city fathers try to encourage new business to locate downtown, but with every family having 2 to 3 cars, if everyone were to go downtown there would be no place to park.

There are shopping malls, strip malls and every kind of big box outlet you can think of. Traffic on main street is just awful and you can sit for a long time trying to get down "Main" to get to one of the malls. The town looks like one large used car lot with every brand you can think of. Everyone is in a hurry and the few people you see on the street have a phone up to their head or are text messaging each other.

The little shops and stores are all gone. There is little personal contact with the people working in the malls. Just get what you want, swipe your credit card and go home and play a video game or watch pro sports on your 60 inch hi-def TV. Kids don’t work or play, unless the interact with some caned game. We have kid here in our neighborhood now and they only time I see them outside even on nice days is when they are waiting to get on the bus to go to school.

I miss my little quiet town….

My understanding of GOD

2010-01-01T13:04:00.000-08:00

I have talked a lot about my political and social philosophy. Both of these subjects can bring forward strong feelings from the reader. As ever, I do not ask you to agree with me, just read and if you have any other views please leave them on the place for comments on the blog or via direct email to me. I really appreciate it.

To live my particular religious flavor, so to speak, is very hard. My time, money and daily efforts are spent actively practicing my faith. To me it is a way of life and I really take seriously the phrase “do unto others as you want others to do unto you.” I do not push my denomination on anyone nor do I publicly advertise it. If you were in my home and asked me about it, I would gladly share with you. However, my intent, contrary to what many feel, is appropriate is to live and practice my religion in such a way as to be an example so that others may want to know and simulate my example.

I am defiantly not without sin. I have done many things that I am ashamed of and if I could do them over again, I would hope I would do them better. To anyone I have wronged or offended in the past I am truly sorry and I offer my apology. However there are people who I feel have offended me and I will gladly forgive them but first they must offer their apology to me. Not for my welfare but for what I see as their eternal progression and road to repentance.

Basically I believe, and these things may be in contradiction to my particular denomination, the following points.

There is a God ---- Heavenly Father--- Supreme Being --- or what ever you want to call him.

Everyone is born with a belief in God. Oh how about all those atheists or agnostics etc.? Well let me explain. If you believe in God as is described in your particular scripture and organizational denomination, that is how you understand God to be and you can call him by what ever name you like. Including Allah. If you believe that God is a myth and only superstition, and there is and never was such a thing well that is fine, but you still have a God that you are staking everything on and lets call him NoGod.

So if those who believe in the traditional God are correct when they die, if there is no God well I guess that is it. If there IS a God they will be rewarded for their faith. Now those who do not believe and die. If there is no God all is well, BUT if there is a God you are in deep doo-doo. One of the basic sins in all religions is the sin of denial of God….Look it up. So would it not be smarter to at least believe with reservations? I think so. So I still maintain that everyone has a God, either the traditional one or the modern NoGod.

Another point I believe in is, that even if you do not believe everything your religion preaches, would not, or is not, your life, and how you lead it, better than what it would have been if you had no moral training, standards at all? I know the life I was leading before I adopted my faith was on a very destructive path and honestly I feel I would not have been alive today and I am certain I would have not been married all these years to the same woman.

Unfortunately in today’s world religion and modern life are at odds with each other in many ways. The practice of most religions takes time and effort. You got to get out of bed and go to church or wherever you go for your organization. Many of us have so little free time and to sacrifice part of a day, or if you practice the principle of keeping the Sabbath Day holly it is all day. For many it is more than they can do. It is not that they do not believe, they are just running as fast as they can. They will get into their religion when they are old before they die…right!!!!!

Also for many and I think the young in particular, their life style tends to put them at odds with what they have been taught by religion and the root of the problem for them is the big G word and that is GUILT. Nobody likes to feel guilty. We grow up into adults and we do not want mommy, daddy or God telling us that what we are doing is wrong. So we don’t go to church and justify our actions to ourselves and others and say we are not religious. But deep down many know they are really fooling themselves and if they had the strength of character they would change their lives.

Many have participated in their particular religion in the past have felt hurt or wronged by what went on in the past. Maybe a clergy, or other member or some event has done something to cause this hurt. People in religions are human and thus make mistakes and commit sins. Condemning religion because of the actions of other people is very destructive and hurtful to mostly ones self. It is not religions fault but the fault of people in religion. Many times these hurt people stop attending church, and that is a loss to them. Most religions teach repentance and forgiveness and in my belief I feel we should go that path before giving up.

Many folks get caught up on the scientific and religious contradictions in today’s world. In the statement to follow I want to say that my particular denomination is at odds with my personal belief. There is the contradiction between creationism and the big bang theory. The smart crowed knows with no room for wiggle that the world was created by some scientific principle and that all on earth have evolved from that point and we continue to evolve. The earth is much older than what the scriptures say and that cavemen and dinosaurs prove that there were creatures on the earth much older than what is taught by religion.

Let me put what I believe, not my religion, believes here. The stories of creation in the old testament were past down from early times by way of mouth and then later put to paper. They were not really written by Moses and are not literal. They are stories meant to illustrate how man understood the process of creation when their scientific knowledge was not sufficient to understand what had happened. They have no concept of time, as we still don’t understand the difference of what I call God’s day and what we call a day. I believe that God’s day in our time may be millions of years or billions of years.

As all things on earth are done, they are done in an organized and defined way. No clapping of hands or thunder but in a scientific and specific organized method as all things on this earth are done now. Erosion, earth quakes, volcanoes, storms, and many other things that are in place that change or evolve our world in a normal explainable way.

God is not that mysterious, and he wants us to know and understand his ways. Science is his way of allowing us to discover how he did what he did. Many scientists feel they will be ridiculed by their friends if they slant to the religious side, so they go along with the mainstream. They ignore the things they can not understand or explain away in scientific methods. Yet they have seen so many things happen that the doubt lingers.

One of my professors said it best and I remember it well as I was studying to be an MD. Neither creationism or evolution can be proved as a law. They are theories and you should never assume they are cast in concrete.

Those Asian People

2009-11-25T12:42:00.000-08:00

Have you ever noticed that there is no NAAAP? (National Association for the Advancement of Asian People) Or that when you go into Home Depot, Wal-Mart, Safeway and other places that there are no signs or directions in any Asian Language?

My grandson was honored along with many other grammar school kids by the Local VFW for writing an essay on how we should appreciate veterans who have fought and died for our country. Just looking at the beautiful faces of these kids and hearing their names, it was obvious that almost half of the 40 to 50 kids that entered the contest were of Asian ancestry. Most were first generation Americans and their parents or at least grandparents came to this country and have fully assimilated into society.

We have a lot of Asia people who live here in the northwest. I went to school with many. Most, at that time, were Japanese and had been born in concentration camps or were put in them when they were kids. I never heard any of those kids talk about that time or ever complain, and they had a right to do so in my opinion.

I enjoyed their culture and would visit their homes as they visited mine. They and their parents could speak other languages but used English in everyday communication. They wanted to be treated just like any other American. No better no worse. They did not expect people to bend to fit what they brought to the country but wanted to be like every other ethnic group who came before. Other people would refer to them hyphenated. Like Japanese-Americans, Korean-Americans, or Vietnamese-Americans. But I never heard them say they were such, unless asked where they or their parents came from. They were just plain old Americans. I like that. I never refer to myself as an English-American, or German-American. How dumb would that sound?

Still many ethnic groups who have been in this country longer than most Asians still feel compelled to hyphenate their background. In most cases their ethnicity is obvious so I never know if they are bragging or complaining.

Many Asian folks here have built strong businesses in our community. Their kids have studied hard in school and many time they are the top students in our high schools. I drove school bus for 5 years after I retired and to be honest, I can never remember having to discipline any Asian students. It is not to say they did not have fun like other kids. They liked to dress and have crazy fads just like the rest, but they were always respectful. When I was a manager of a large computer center, I had many Asian employees and they were some of my best workers. They watch out for each other and have little groups of friends, but they seem to welcome everyone in as well. When I was a kid you would have to tell me the Asian kids I ran around with were different. I did not notice, they were just my crazy buddies. My wife had the same experience and she lived in a community where there was a very high degree of Asian kids. The pattern in her school was the same great kids and friends.

The reason I am singling out the Asians in our society is because how they act, and fit into society should be a model for all. You can bring you culture into the country, continue your traditions while striving to melt into the rest of society. They do not expect or want any special privileges. Just a chance to work hard and do their best on their own without complaint. When I compare them against some hyphenated groups, I just shake my head and wonder why they can not be like the Asian population in my community. Demanding rights will not get you as far as society giving you rights because of respect.

Unions Part 1

2009-11-14T10:39:00.000-08:00

In the beginning Unions were needed to represent workers in the face of tremendous disadvantages imposed upon them by employers and in some cases by the government. Many workers bravely stood up to these folks and risked their future for some kind of equality. They were not looking for some special right just an equal right to share in the American Dream.

There were workers forced to work in unsafe conditions for little or no pay. Ending a month owing more to the company store than the total of wages for the month paid. There was little if any government regulation, OSHA, or the Fair Labor Standards Act. had not been put in place, but now they have and the need for union protection is really not a valid need anymore in my opinion.

My father was a member of a union and really believed that the union was the only way he could be represented and that if it were not for his union he would have much worse working conditions and much lower pay for what he did. He was fiercely loyal and would do and vote exactly as his union leaders told him. I worked in two union shops. In both cased I could not have gotten a job without joining the union. In both cases, I paid my dues for protection and benefits. In both cases when I had issues the union did exactly zero for me and simply said that was acceptable under the current contract and I would just have to live with it. I did what any sane person would do, I took my skill to another employer and saved the dues. In the early days of the labor movement some of the impressions of my father may have been correct but Oh how have things changed.

We have gone from a time when unions worked for the benefit of their members to a time where they will sacrifice their members for more power and political influence just for the union leadership. This, not even considering the noted and obvious racketeering and corruption that has infected many unions to this day. These days labor unions have become powerful political machines. They no longer look upon traditional American ideals like capitalism, free choice and competition with favor but actually work against members who show any leanings to these principles. They will, and regularly do, sell out to political machines and perform goon tactics for them as well.

Most Americans when polled by various organizations, would rather not work in a union shop, if they are given a choice. Less than 8 percent of all employees working in non governmental employment currently are union members. Union membership is way down these days in relation to the hay days of the mid 40s. Once a union is in place, it is almost impossible for someone to quite or a business to stop being forced to interact with one.

Politically, what do you think is the makeup of labor unions? Somewhere close to a 50/50 split as the general population is with the split between democrats and republicans? If you feel this assumption is correct you would be wrong, very wrong. In our most recent election of 2008 if you gauge monetary contributions, to support, you may be shocked, that this year and the past 10 straight years the communications workers, teachers, auto workers, and aerospace workers unions gave a big fat zero amount of money to republican party candidates. Contributions from other labor unions were so small they were laughable.

Labor unions are no longer organizations for workers but Political Action Committees, PACs. Working for the election or re-election of only democratic candidates. Democrats have stabbed the union members in the back many times, but union leadership in attempts to maintain their positions, control, and wealth, have distorted the truth to say the least. Are these union members actually being duped into thinking the political machines (democratic) are really looking out for the members or are they thrown under the bus after they have served their purpose?

Please explain this strange riddle:

1. Labor unions fight for more jobs and higher wages by overwhelmingly supporting Democratic politicians.

2. Democratic politicians overwhelmingly support lax immigration policies.

3. Lax immigration policies clearly result in more illegal workers.

4. More illegal workers inevitably result in fewer available jobs and lower wages.

During the 2008 general presidential election, the then candidate Obama, promised that he would offer a more union-friendly administration. Unions rewarded him big time. Just one union the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) contributed more than $80 million to support democratic candidates. Much of this money went right into the coffers of the Obama campaign. We are now beginning to see the fruits of this seeding appearing in the actions and policies of the Obama administration. As we have seen that union membership only represents a small portion of the population, yet because of contributed money and goon tactics, the influence of this small part of society outweighs the majority. Is this the true American way? I am afraid it is becoming more and more the accepted way and not enough of us care. Again minority rules the majority.

In my next posting “Unions Part 2” I will talk exclusively about the SEIU.

Political Parties

2009-10-22T09:13:00.000-07:00

I know most of my blog entries have something to do with politics. I promise to write more about non-political topics in the future. But as an individual, there are only a few things a private citizen can do to try to change things they see as wrong.

One is to vote for the candidate of your choice after listening to what they say and what they have done in the past. Some are great talkers but their past and current actions do not reflect what they are actually doing. Another way we can change things is to worn others and inform them of what is going on in the world that will have great consequences for them in the future. People have busy lives and many do not have that much spare time to really investigate the positions of those running for office, so it is up to us who do have the time to tell our friends. This is the main purpose I do this blog. I want to inform my friends.

John Adams said that if the government ever got into a situation where there were parties or groups who divided themselves from others based solely on narrow points of view and voted and worked as a block, that our form of government would be doomed. Thomas Jefferson was one of the first who felt and worked for what we now know as political parities. He and some southern politicians felt that they must work together to protect policies they felt critical to their views. Most of the first party members were connected together because of what they saw as the need to continue slavery.

Most northern politicians were apposed to slavery but others felt it was mandatory to maintain the way of life they enjoyed. This was not the only issue, but it was by far the one major issue that brought our nation to the point of being divided into political parties. I think political parties are one of the main problems with our representative government.

If I were all powerful and could with a swish of my magic wand, I would do away with political parties. Wouldn’t it be nice to investigate candidates for office without the R or D or I after their names? As it is now we end up with only candidates, one Republican against one Democrat. Why not just the two best people?

As it is now the candidate supported by their party are the only choices we have. The last presidential election is a prime example. Were these two guys really the best candidates in all the land to lead our government or were they the ones who had the party machine behind them? When ever there is an issue now days even if a representative feels a certain way they only vote in most cases as other members of their party vote and not as the people back home would want them to vote. They are not loyal to those who put them in office. They are loyal to their party, the hell with what we the citizens want.

I think it is time for another constitutional amendment to change the time in office for all politicians and to remove any reference to those in office by party. In other words make all elected offices non-partisan. Fat chance this will happen as those in office would have to get the movement started and they enjoy the gravy train as it is now and would not willingly change the status quo.

Please my friends, click on the Follow button on this blog and let others know you are one of the many who are reading this blog. I get private email but few are formally following or posting opinions at the bottom of each post.

The re-election circus

2009-09-29T09:17:00.000-07:00

The founding fathers never meant for our type of government to mutate into such a monolithically constructed monster as it has become.
To the left is a picture of my relative President John Adams.
The founders felt that the honor bestowed upon them to represent their fellow citizens was reward enough and that they served at the will and behest of those people. Many did not accept any monetary compensation at all and worked in other occupations to allow them to do so. George Washington, for example, even with his personal wealth very badly diminished, did not accept any compensation for his service as the general of the armed forces or as the President of the United States. Many others paid all their own expenses even when their homes were destroyed and their personal fortunes lost.

Benjamin Franklin, for one, felt that public services was never meant to be a perpetual activity but that many citizens would oblige themselves to serve as they could. He felt that if a person was in political office very long, our form of government would evolve into a form of monarchy where little kings or monarchs ruling segments of the country. He also felt that there should never be a spirit of completion between candidates for public office. If there were, he felt that the vanquished would work against those who had defeated them and only work to avenge the defeat rather than work to support those currently in office.

Consider this with what we have today with the two major parties divided and actually working not for the good of the country but to protect their party looking for some favorable position so as to win election the next time. Also consider that some have been in office for generations even considering that the areas of the country they represent have done poorly and these persons have done little for the people they represent but have enriched themselves greatly.

Consider that many of these political folks have never held high paying job outside government in their lives, but now after being in office for years have somehow amassed large fortunes. How can that be, considering that to be elected requires great amounts of money and the pay for those political positions is no way near close to the sum of what they should have been given as payment for their service?

Some have represented areas with high unemployment and poverty yet the citizens keep electing them year after year. For heaven sake some are in cities that have professional sports teams that have replaced the coaches many times yet their incompetent representatives remain. How tragic is this?

There are members of congress who have abused their office and betrayed the folks who have supported them. Many have been caught taking money or payments from organizations or companies for favorable votes for those payments. They have been discovered many times and still voters continue to vote them into office time and time again. Sometimes they are censured but are very seldom actually removed from office or voted out of office.

Remember this at every election. Do your best to get term limits in place. There are some good folks in congress, but we have got to get people of true American values with ethics back into running our country. As it is now the extremists in both parties are running the show and tragically bringing our beloved country down. Let’s do something about it at election time, both locally and nationally.

People in congress do not fear or respect us anymore. They fear the loss of funding and support from their parties for re-election much more than those of us who put them in office.

Join me in doing what you can to change this abysmal situation.

The President’s Health Care Speech

2009-09-13T14:08:00.000-07:00

I do wish that anyone in this current administration would stop with the obligatory “I inherited such a mess” introduction. Very seldom does anyone on the president’s team ever start any interview without saying something like this, as if anyone in the US does not know there were and remain many problems. To me it is kind of like trying to rebuild your marriage by slapping your wife in the face to start a conversation.

I watched the president’s speech the other night about Health Care Reform. All was going well and I agreed with most of what he was saying up to when he said he wanted a public option as part of the proposed insurance exchange. I wish someone would tell me how a public program no matter if it is not subsidized by the government, will not have an advantage over a private (for profit) insurance company.

You see the problem is that a private insurance company is a corporation and has stock holders and must make a profit to stay in business. A government plan would not need to make a profit and if it is anywhere near as good as the private coverage and is lower cost, it will drive the profit driven companies out of business. How can any profit driven business compete against a non profit entity? Why is this so hard to understand?

The President and others say over and over that the public option must support itself, but they neglect to mention that it will not have to make a profit and thus it is unfair to say things will be equal. Seems to me that those who are pushing for the public option do not care and would just as well drive those evil corporations out of business. Never mind that they probably work for a corporation and that our system is built on capitalism.

Another thing I find counter productive is to say that Republicans just want to say no and do not want health care reform. I think both parties want reform, but there are other ways to get the job done. I am absolutely against the public option. All the rest of the major points the President brought forth, I do agree with. BUT BUT BUT… Here is the big kicker.

How are we going to pay for it? This is what I have heard is the President’s method to pay for the plan. Cut waste in Medicare and eliminate the Medicare Advantage program and charge insurance companies a fee for their luxury plans for the rich policy holders. My wife and I and millions of others on Medicare are in the Advantage program. It will cost us a lot more for comparable coverage if this program is eliminated. If there is waste and corruption in the current Medicare system, then stop it now and show us the saving for a few years and then go ahead with the changes.

Here is what Dr. Ezekiel Emmanuel, a top advisor to the Obama Administration’s health reform efforts, wrote in the Feb. 27, 2008, issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA): "Vague promises of savings from cutting waste, enhancing prevention and wellness, installing electronic medical records and improving quality of care are merely 'lipstick' cost control, more for show and public relations than for true change." I believe he is telling the truth and we should take him at his word.

The president says that he will not sign a bill that adversely affects the national debt. And if it does he will make cuts to adjust for the extra costs. More cuts to Medicare????? Medicare is in big trouble and in my opinion one of the behind the door advantages of the rush to change the health care system is to fix the Medicare mess on the backs of current and future Medicare recipients.

The Van Jones Brouhaha

2009-09-08T11:19:00.000-07:00

The title of this Blog is Me and Glenn Beck. As I have said before that is the title of the blog but it is really not about Glenn Beck or his show. I admit I am a fan and I do watch his show regularly, as I do much of the programming on Fox News and other Fox broadcasts. With few exceptions I think their coverage is by far the best.

I do not care for Sean Hannity that much as he is a biased Republican and never sees anything worthwhile in any Democrat living or dead. I am a Conservative now, but have been a Democrat most of my life until the Democratic party took a sharp turn to the left, my support departed with that event.

If you do not believe the power of Fox news, what other network has even the President noted as talking about other things, bringing up fear tactics and other derogatory remarks? Nobody not even the President of the US likes people criticizing them. President Obama, is very thin skinned and does not take to anyone in the press saying anything other than complementary statements.

Fox News tells it like they see it and he can not stand that. He seldom calls on their reporters for questions during speeches he makes on TV. He has had ABC and NBC in the White House and given exclusive interviews. Why not Fox News? Is he afraid they will ask some hard questions?

If I were him, I would have them in and talk about the issues and explain to that audience why he feels like he does. I would ask for their input and what I could do to represent their audience better. Wouldn’t that snuff out the fuse if he actually asked for their help? He could shut up some he disagrees with during that time. I can not understand why he ignores the critical media instead of meeting it head-on. Is he afraid?

The recent brouhaha over Green Czar Van Jones is a perfect example of why I like Fox News and Glenn Beck specifically. Why in the hell did it take so long for people in Congress and the main stream media to uncover this radical advisor to the president.

Until he resigned under pressure, much of the nation had not heard of him and his background. Glenn had been doing everything he could to bring his past to light for weeks with video of Mr. Jones’s speeches and links to his other activities.

Where was the mainstream press in all this. After he resigned I watched the Sunday morning news shows and they finally talked about him and asked others notable people their opinions about him. Some of the main stream media tried to paint him as a minor player, with little influence. Also that he made all these statements a long time ago in his youth. Bull crap, he made many of them recently.

Calling Republicans assholes. Saying that WHITE PEOPLE had purposely poisoned people of color with pollution. That WHITE PEOPLE had knowingly sprayed emergent workers in fields with pesticides. That the Bush administration had conspired in the 9/11 attack and had approved it.

He admitted that he got in with other black radicals while in jail and after that he was a communist for 10 years. 10 years from the date he said that would be 2005, not really in his youth is it? But the press, Howard Dean, and even Joe Biden our VP said the loss of Van Jones in the administration was a loss to the country.

Can you imagine what would have happened if even a low level advisor to President Bush had a background something like this man had but on the other side. Lets say he had been a member of the Klu Klux Klan in his youth. While in jail he met white supremacists and for 10 years had been a white extremist. He claimed that Democrats were assholes and that black people where sending poison into white areas of the city and killing emigrants by spraying them with chemicals. And that Bill Clinton had encouraged the bombing of our embassies.

The networks would have found him, put permanent satellite feed trucks outside his home. Identified every living and dead relative of this person. All the talking heads on the nightly news and morning shows would have sermonized for hours about this national menace. Nightline would have probably had a 2 hour special. Time magazine and Newsweek would have had his photo on the cover and the New York Times would have his picture on the front page with exhaustive remarks about him and his close ties to the Bush administration.

Now of course the media is not giving positive remarks about Glenn Beck or Fox News. They are still painting him as a lunatic and fear monger. They are not apologizing about their ineptness but they must be embarrassed that with all their supposed expertise and investigatory resources that they blew it.

Just consider this fact. You can at this time go to the NBC official gift shop and purchase Obama, merchandise of all kinds. I know you can get a Chea Pet head of our great leader, along with tennis shoes, T-shirts, basketballs, and many other items. Do you remember all those same things for George Bush? Ya right!!!

I have blogged about this before, and no need to talk about it anymore, but the mainstream media of all kinds are just lap dogs to Obama. They ask him softball questions, and offer mostly positive stories and features. Even when something is obviously screwed up they put a positive spin on the event.

I will continue to watch Glenn Beck. Some things he says I do not agree with. Some things he talks about are a little out of context and over the top, but many many things he investigates I have checked out myself at other resources I have found and he is right on with most of what he talks about. He is sometimes over the top, but his show is supposed to entertain as well as inform so I have no problem with some of the things he does.

I Have Deep Concerns

2009-09-01T08:57:00.000-07:00

My family for as long as I can remember have been Democrats. My father was always in a labor union. I used to look in his union magazine especially around election time to see who the union was pushing for offices both nationally and local. They always favored the Democratic candidate. I asked my dad if he was going to vote for the candidate and he said he was. I asked him why and he told me the Democrats were for the little guy the working man. I said are there no Republicans who are for the little guy? He said as long as his union wanted him to vote for a candidate he was bound to vote that way. I said something like even when guys heading your union are known gangsters? He said guys like Dave Beck, and Jimmy Hoffa had done a lot for him and he would vote for who they suggested even if it were a horses ass. End of discussion.

I made a promise to myself that I would never blindly follow just one party and I would research a candidate and vote based on their past, education, and what their plans for the future were, not just party. However, I have supported Democratic candidates most of the time. I now consider myself to be an independent and vote for candidates nationally who will value and protect the constitution. I want a smaller federal government, one that will let states and local governments do the heavy lifting and do just those things that MUST be done at a national level.

I saw a new face in 2004 at the Democratic Convention making a sterling speech. He was an articulate and charismatic speaker and I was sure that in a few years as a US senator, he would make a good candidate for President. Evidently other people in politics felt the same way. Even if he has little experience, the powers to be pushed and supported him and now he is in fact the President. I feel he is just the masthead of the group. I feel he represents what in my estimation is a truly evil group of ultra liberal, socialist people in the world who want to change our country from what it was intended to be into a European style government.

What happened to the Democratic party I remembered? We used to be more moderate and a little right of moderate. Now we are in the grips of far left extremist as bad as what I used to be upset about in the far right of the Republican party. I want the party back but I do not know how to get the course correction without voting everyone out and starting over. The DNC ( Democratic National Committee ) controls the purse strings for members of congress and if you want TV money to campaign, you must go along with what the party heads say or they will not give a candidate the funds to campaign and they will be defeated. This is blackmail, and to be honest I do not know what to do about it. It is in both parties and that is why for the past few decades there has been more and more polarization and little compromise between parties.

I am scared for the country I love and my family has been involved with from about 1630. I list here a write up by Lou Pritchett a former vice president of Procter & Gamble. Pritchett worked for that company for 36 years. I agree with his concernes and hope you will read them and if you disagree or have suggestions please leave your comments. You do not have to leave your name. I am very interested in why you do not agree.

Dear President Obama:
You are the thirteenth President under whom I have lived and unlike any of the others, you truly scare me.
You scare me because after months of exposure, I know nothing about you.
You scare me because I do not know how you paid for your expensive Ivy League education and your upscale lifestyle and housing with no visible signs of support.
You scare me because you did not spend the formative years of youth growing up in America, and culturally you are not an American.
You scare me because you have never run a company or met a payroll.
You scare me because you have never had military experience, thus don't understand it at its core.
You scare me because you lack humility and "class," always blaming others.
You scare me because for over half your life you have aligned yourself with radical extremists who hate America and you refuse to publicly denounce these radicals who wish to see America fail.
You scare me because you are a cheerleader for the "blame America" crowd and deliver this message abroad.
You scare me because you want to change America to a European style country where the government sector dominates instead of the private sector.
You scare me because you want to replace our health care system with a government controlled one.
You scare me because you prefer "wind mills" to responsibly capitalizing on our own vast oil, coal and shale reserves.
You scare me because you want to kill the American capitalist goose that lays the golden egg which provides the highest standard of living in the world.
You scare me because you have begun to use "extortion" tactics against certain banks and corporations.
You scare me because your own political party shrinks from challenging you on your wild and irresponsible spending proposals.
You scare me because you will not openly listen to or even consider opposing points of view from intelligent people.
You scare me because you falsely believe that you are both omnipotent and omniscient.
You scare me because the media gives you a free pass on everything you do.
You scare me because you demonize and want to silence the Limbaughs, Hannitys, O'Reillys and Becks who offer opposing, conservative points of view.
You scare me because you prefer controlling over governing.
Finally, you scare me because if you serve a second term I will probably not feel safe in writing a similar letter in 8 years.

Lou Pritchett

I am a mob member

2009-08-25T13:13:00.000-07:00

I went to a town hall meeting today so I guess I am a member of an angry mob.

Jackie and I traveled to Lakewood Washington to join other mob members there to hear our congressman Adam Smith hold his town hall meeting. We left our home in plenty of time and arrived at the High School football stadium in Lakewood where the town meeting was to be held. We found a place to park and thought we were some of the first to arrive.

As we walked around a building that was blocking our view we saw that the grandstands were just about full. As we snaked our way to the entrance there were are lot of folks handing our printed materials. Most were in favor of the single payer proposal and some other groups like anti-abortion groups etc. As we tried to find an empty space we noticed that there were many folks in the front with professionally made signs who were in favor of the Reform Now and Single Payer all over them.

They occupied the front of almost all the seats. But there were many other folks with the same signs all through the audience. It was quite obvious that the people with the signs were part of a union turn out. The signs even said they were printed in a union print shop.

Jackie and I found a couple of seats up quite high next to one of the guys with the union signs. He was there with his daughter. Another guy saw my tee-shirt that I have had for some time that said “I Have Issues” in big letters on it and he asked if I would allow his wife to take a picture of us together. His shirt said “Gun toting Liberal” It was all in fun and the crowd got a laugh out of seeing us together. I told him that I am a gun totter myself and that I normally shoot and eat liberals but this time I will make an exception. We had a good laugh over that as well.

The homemade signs were apparently just from, what Nancy Pelosi calls, the Astroturf folks, part of a mob, thugs and many more derogatory names that apparently the folks we have in DC think of anyone who disagrees with them.
There were just normal folks many of which were older but many young folks as well. Some of the signs were very funny but looking back now one advised Ted Kennedy to go to Canada for his care. Of course nobody there knew at the time that he had passed away. It is not so funny in retrospect. There were also some people who had a professional banner that read “ Single Payer and Health Care Reform” on it. In a little smaller letters it said it was sponsored by American Socialists. So I guess Socialists like the government option for healthcare. They were booed very vigorously by everyone.

It was very obvious that the party was stacked with folks who were told to be there by their union. I do not know why unions are in favor of the government option. One of the guys there told me they were paid to attend. After the meeting started the Astroturf mobsters like me were quiet loud but respectful. The others just sat there like they really were not that interested. Maybe they, as union members, are less passionate about the issues than us rabble.

After being in the stands for a few minutes Rep Smith came to the podium on the sidelines of the football field and started to address us. As rep Smith stated to speak someone suggested that we start the meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance. Adam then lead us in the pledge. He then stated a few ground rules and we listened and for the most part followed his direction.

He gave a short speech about many issues and bills he is working on that part of the talk was really quite informative. The last issue he talked about was of course health care reform and the current bill HR 3200 that is in the house.

There were about 3000 folks in the stands with only 2 microphones so it was obvious that everyone who wanted to speak, was not going to be able to do so. People held up there hands and the guys with the microphones tried to get to one person after another. Many just gave comments, but there were some questions as well. Some statements were nonsensical and had little to do with the issue and in my opinion, were a waste of time.

There were other that were very to the point. To be honest I can not remember any of the obviously union folks even asking a question. Even though it seemed like the group was evenly split, most of the questions came from the mob group that I am part of.

I had my hand up and tried to get a question in and the microphone was on it’s way to me but a lady just in front of me got the mic and it never got close to me again during the evening. My question would have been something like this. “We currently have private for profit insurance companies covering many of us. The government is proposing a not-for-profit government plan. Is it not obvious that a for profit company will not be able to compete against a non profit plan, and that they will eventually be driven out of business by the government? A young many who was very articulate asked that question later so I got my answer. I will list what I felt the congressman said below.

All in all it was a good experience. The only blemish on the evening was when some young man held up a large poster with President Obama as the joker on it. The congressman told us to ignore him as that is what he wanted but some others jumped him and ripped the poster apart. There was a short fight and the guy was escorted out by police. We all cheered as he left. People on both sides did not like actions like that and it was uncalled for.

The congressman said or at least left the impression that:

1. He will not support the bill HR 3200 as it is currently written.
2. He will not support a bill with paid government abortions.
3. He feels as the bill is written now, it will in fact drive private insurance companies out of business.
4. Funding must be found that will not cause the deficit to get larger.
5. He will not support the reduction of current Medicare benefits.
6. He does not support the end of life counciling by the government, it should be only between doctor and patient.
7. He does not seem to favor the single payer system, which was applauded by the Astroturf crowed.
8. He stated that he does not feel there is enough support for single payer but we must find a way to cover those who have no insurance.

He talked about many other issues in health care like the need to find a way to provide continuing coverage if a person change jobs, move to another state, or have a pre existing health problem. He is also in favor of price controls for services and medications but said it is a very complicated issue.

I did not see any real mob action contrary to what we have seen on TV news. Maybe us folks here in Washington State are just more polite, I do not know, but we were able to get some answers to our questions and I am sure that rep Adam Smith got a feeling as to what we want.

He said that he knows that these town hall meeting are a truly American way of getting the things we want done. He expressed his thanks to us and assured us that he will try his best to get what we have told him done.

Education OMG

2009-08-17T20:45:00.000-07:00

My kids and grandkids are always saying (OMG) Oh My GOD. When I think of that term for anything I think of education of today, and this is why I am submitting this for your appraisal!!

Now education is something we all have in common. Most of us look back at those times, if you are about my age or at least done with your formal education with nostalgia. When I started my education it was at old Frank R. Spinning School. Here is a photo (below left) of the old part of the building today.The same school and building that some of my grandkids go to today. They live on the same street I lived on when I was a kid. Kind of cool huh? It has been quite a time from when I finished my education but in many ways it seems like it was just a short time ago. After I stopped working full time I traveled but after awhile I got bored staying home and watching TV so I drove a school bus to make a little money and just to have something to fill my time. I have always liked kids and this seemed like a natural for me as the bus yard was just across from where I lived and I could walk to the yard if I wanted.

What a cultural shock it was for me. When I was a kid the first couple of grades were kind of an extension from home. The kindly teachers were more like your mom. Very kind and comfortable. We respected them as we did our parents. In my town there were about seven thousand citizens. We had one junior high school and one senior high school. There were five grade schools in the city limits. Our school, Spinning, had about 175 kids. There were 25 or so kids in each class. There was a principle, a secretary, 2 cooks, 2 janitors and one teacher for each of the 6 classes. First grade through sixth grade. There was also a librarian who helped remedial reading and a nurse. There were music teachers for band and string instruments when students were past the third grade but they were not stationed at each school, but traveled between the schools. Each teacher was also expected to lead the children in singing and music appreciation. The teachers watched us on the playground during recess and some of the teachers coached us in organized grade school sports programs. The first grade and first few grades concentrated on reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic, geography, music, and some science. We had a small library, a nurses and principles office, a combination basketball court and indoor play area, and a stage. As well as janitor areas and the kitchen. No portables, or other buildings on the grounds.
Compare that with the same school my grandkids go to today. The same old building is there, but it is now mostly just use for a staff area. There is a teachers lounge, multi-media room. School store, and copy center and administrative offices of all kinds. In my day if the teachers had an lounge they just hang out in one room or the other and had their coffee if they had a break at all. There is a new section of the school that is at least three times larger than the old school. There are dedicated areas for most things including rooms for music and art. I have not been in all the rooms so I can not say what they are all used for. Now there is not just one first grade or second grade there are 1A, 1B etc for each grade. There are teaching specialists for all kinds of activities. Each teacher has an aid. They have days off for conferences and time to grade papers. Our teachers were expected to do those things on their own time. There are many portable outbuildings that are other classrooms. I have no idea how many kids go there, and I know there are now 3 or 4 junior high schools and 3 or 4 high schools maybe more. I do not live there anymore and have lost count. The city is now about forty thousand citizens. So it is a much larger place. When I went to that school we all walked to school because most of the kids lived within a few blocks of the building. Now there are busses as nobody wants to walk and everyone is afraid their kid will get snatched away on the way to school. Most parents drive their kids or at least walk them to school.

Here in this picture is what our old school book looked like that we started reading out of. It was used in the first and second grade. It was about “See Dick run”. See Jane”. “See Puff”. We loved that old book and the characters in it.When I went to school kids would be kids. Sometime a kid would act up in class and the teacher would walk him, I never saw a girl, down to the principles office where he would get a swat with the rubber strap on the rump. The kid would come back crying. The ones who were really punished were the rest of us, because we lived in fear that we would be marched down the hall. Believe me we behaved very well.
By the time we got to high school were very well behaved kids as it had been drilled into our heads and know we were old enough to value our education. Still very occasionally someone would do something wrong. You would not get a swat but you would get suspended for some time and have to make the time up in the summer, or in the worst cases actually expelled from school. In that case you parents would have to try to get you into another school in another district if they could. That was not a good alternative because nobody wanted to start over with new friends. I never knew of anyone who was expelled but I did know one boy who had been expelled from another district. We took the discipline very seriously. We respected the teachers and the administration.

Now in my bus driving experience that I did for 5 years. The kids have no respect for anyone or anything. I know what you are saying…All kids? Well of course not all kids but so many that it makes it hardly worth talking about. I did not drive in my old hometown school district but the size of the cities is almost exactly the same today and I am sure the kids are about the same. Today the schools are way way overcrowded. The government put so many requirements and restrictions on schools that they are really not able to be effective. They are scared to death about law suits. They are not supported by the parents and the teachers are not supported by the administration. They are unionized and union rules like tenure that make it hard if not imposable to get rid of poor teachers which diminishes productivity and moral of good teachers who want to do better for their kids. The kids for the most part just want to do what they want to do. There is no real discipline. They give them slips to go home to their parents to sign but they are a joke as there is nobody checking to see if the parent signs the note of just another student. They barraged on the bus about how many they got. Many don’t care what their grades are. You can not hold a student back unless the parents allow it and most will not. If the teachers call a parent in because of a discipline problem the parent is all over the teacher and just defends their child. Don’t even ask me about minority kids. The race card comes out first thing. I know that sound racist, but I am sorry that is the way it is. They teach them a valuable lesson in life doing that don’t you see? If my dad would have been called to the school I would have asked to be kept at the school, because my dad would have killed me and that is not just a figure of speech. I thought I would have a rewarding and enjoyable time driving busses for school kids. I drove all levels from kindergarten to through high school. I had grade school kids told me more about sex than I knew when I had been married for a few years. Kids told me about finding their moms drug stash and the guys their mother’s were sleeping with when they got home from school. Very few had a home that had not been broken up by something like divorce or one of the parents going to jail or drug rehab. Fathers who had just left them or how many fathers they had and that all the kids in the family had different fathers and sometimes they were not sure who their real father was. So no wonder kids are crap, families are crap. Depressing isn’t it? When a real winner family shows up it is so refreshing you feel like hugging them and taking their essence to spread around. It is so so so so depressing. I know all generations feel their kids are disrespectful and good for nothing, but really they did not bring guns to school, and kill people. We never had to have guards and locker checks to find drugs. We did not have teachers sleeping or raping students. We did not have kids that were active gang members and dress and act like gangs in schools. At least not in my part of the world.

Much of the rest of the world just laughs at us. Our kids know all about video games, and who is on MTV or how to text message and listen to the I-Pod or phone. They do not know about much else. They have a hard time doing even the most rudimentary mathematics. Their understanding and appreciation of history and geography are absolutely appalling. We give these people the vote. In a recent TV show I happened to see someone was asking young people who had just voted who they voted for. Most said Obama. They asked them if they voted for Joe Biden? They did not know who he was and said “no”.

Our children are not competing against each other here in this country. They are competing against kids in India, Pakistan, China, and many other areas of the world where those kids only hope of ever having anything is understood by them to be from their education and they spend their time studying when our kids are fooling around. I used to interview and hire young persons for jobs. Some were entry level but well paid positions in a computer data center. Let me tell you that the most demanding and less qualified applicants were invariably white middle class or upper class kids. When they found out they may have to work nights or weekends and holidays at times they just could not have their lives disrupted like that and would hold out for a bank president position or something like that where they could start at the top and work their way down. The emigrant kid or the kid who had studied and had it hard during their younger lives most appreciated the opportunity and worked the hardest to make something of themselves. I hate to say that about my own race but it is true. We are way to pampered.

What would I do if I were captain of the world:

1 All Children would receive physical punishment in early years for misbehaving in school. Not beatings or hitting, but a formal uniform punishment like a supervised swat.

2. All Children would wear a cheap, clean, uniform attire to school. All clothing would be the same in a school district.

3. Teachers would be graded by pears in other districts and raises given based on that grade each year. Teachers consistently rated at the bottom would be dismissed.

4. No unions NO tenure.

5. Teachers would be paid at about ½ as much more as they do now and outstanding teachers could make more than those administrating them. Much more.

6. Schools building would be uniform as mush as possible and be cheap and easy to build. They would house no more than 200 students and be in neighborhoods. Busses would only be used in vary rural areas of the country and then not more than 10 miles to the next school even if it was in the middle of a field somewhere.

7. Students would not be classified by grade or year but by an accumulative score. Lets say 15,000 points to graduate from high school no matter how many years you were in school. A breakdown somewhere would divide between Grammar, Middle and High School and building would change when that level was reached. At the beginning of each year, a new teachers on each subject would be assigned to each student so that a student would not be stuck with a poor teacher for more than a year.

8. Children with special needs would be educated in a special needs school and sent to a regular school when they, their parents and the school administration felt they would be competitive in the regular school system.

9. Allow for Charter and Home Schooling as long as those students could pass the tests administrated at the public schools so that they could be awarded graduation points each year.

I could think of many more things but we are to lazy to even get this done and the all powerful ACLU would never let us try.

The Once Proud 4th Estate

2009-08-11T20:36:00.000-07:00

This is Max Amann Propaganda Director for the Adolph Hitler. I will introduce you to him later.

People in my family have been very involved in this country for many generations. On almost all sides I can trace my family tree back to the earliest times for this country. Many of the so called Puritans are related to me. In fact at least two presidents are in my family. My great grandmother’s maiden name was Adams so that should give you a hint. Many have fought for our freedoms from the time of the revolution. Some have been so recognized as to be given what would have now been called the Congressional Medal of Honor. I am not saying these things to brag, but because I feel I have inbred in me, love of freedom and democracy.

This is just one of the many reasons I am so upset about the direction of our country of late. In fact I feel we have lost our way. We have veered onto a socialist path form which we seem to be unable to come back. The economic mess we are in and the presidential election are horrid examples of how ill we, as a nation have become. The failing of the once proud 4th estate is one of the most tragic events in our free society. Below is a good definition of what the 4th estate is if you are not familiar with the term.

The term Fourth Estate refers to the press, both in its explicit capacity of advocacy and in its implicit ability to frame political issues. The term goes back at least to Thomas Carlyle in the first half of the 19th century. Novelist Jeffrey Archer in his work The Fourth Estate made the observation: "In May 1789, Louis XVI summoned to Versailles a full meeting of the 'Estates General'. The First Estate consisted of three hundred clergy. The Second Estate, three hundred nobles. The Third Estate, six hundred commoners. Some years later, after the French Revolution, Edmund Burke, looking up at the Press Gallery of the House of Commons, said, 'Yonder sits the Fourth Estate, and they are more important than them all.'"

The fourth estate or press, serves a vital roll in our free society in that they investigate and report to the people about issues mostly political so that those engaged in noteworthy or elicit acts can be found out. The public must put great trust in those so engaged in the press as to expect absolute unbiased investigations and reporting. The press has a difficult job in being unbiased and balanced in their actions an activities. As our old fictional detective Joe Friday would say “ Just the facts mam, just the facts”. Any reporting would be done in an unemotional professional way. Not leading people in interviews and editing in such a way as to bend or distort what the person being interviewed was or was not saying. In other words they would be fair to all, no matter if the reporter personally agreed of disagreed with that person being interviewed. Even beginning journalism students should understand these simple standards for the profession.

In the recent past, persons calling themselves journalists have become nothing more than puppet propagandists in the worst sense of the word or at best grossly incompetent. Some folks of the national media used to exhibit a degree of professionalism, but of recent they have somehow been transformed. I am not sure what has caused this metamorphic transformation on their part. Maybe they wanted to be cool, young, hip, I don’t know only they could tell you. Even senior newscasters that have for years toiled on the evening news have succumbed to this malady. I suspect but this is only conjecture on my part that a new Max Amann (pictured at the top of this posting) has once again appeared from the grave in many of the newsrooms around the country. A hint on looking up Max ( look under Hitler media mogul). Propaganda is the rule these days not the exception. It is a disgrace of the highest order. We as citizens apparently can no longer trust the press. Their noses are getting longer and longer and no matter what Geppetto, does he can not get them to stop telling tall tales to meet their ends and unlike the story we can not send them to Donkey Island until they grow up.

All and all, he manipulated the people. He would play on different interests to appeal to different groups, and because of his charisma and dramatic speeches, he won support throughout the world. But most of the support came because he gave these people hope and someone to blame. He convinced the people that the others were evil, and by eliminating them, he would solve all of their problems. Most important, he offered a change, and since the present system wasn't working, a change was quite welcome.

Referring to Adolph Hitler after WW2. Does that sound like Barack Obama to you?

Unfortunately it does to me. For some unknown reason to me, the Max Amanns of the news rooms of MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC and CNN wanted him to be president over anyone else. They even did a masterful hatchet job on Hillary Clinton, who, in my judgment, should have been the Democratic candidate. The tears she shed were shed because she knew about the shoddy treatment she was getting in the press. They even lambasted her tears as theatrics. When Ms. Palin came on the scene, they were in a fit of panic to find some way to convince women not to go over to the McCain camp so they selected ridicule. The trick worked and the gullible public bought it hook line and sinker.

How many times did we see the asinine Palin ridicule on Saturday Night Live? Yes they did put a ridicules Hillary skit on the tube and a diminished Joe Biden on as well, but let there be no doubt that Sarah Palin was the star. Later they started to make fun of the Democrats, but knowing their evil has already been done they put on this effort to somehow prove they are balanced in their fun making. The horses had already been let out of the barn and they had achieved their goals of convincing women that Ms. Palin, was not worthy of their vote. They could then afford to be generous and make fun of the other side. How magnanimous of them. To the right and below, is the notorious fake photo of Ms Palin holding a rifle. Look at the pose and then look at the pose Tina Fye is doing in the above photo from SNL. Even places like www.snoops.com reported this as a fake. No wonder normal people thought Ms Palin was a loon.

NBC Dan Rather lost his job for doing blatant false reporting just before an election. Do you care?

Every woman, let me say it again, every woman in American should be outraged about this. They have made their case that a normal, or a little above normal woman with children who is a governor of a state should be a subject of ridicule and not to be taken seriously. As it is got closer to the election we got an extravaganza of ridicule from SNL as it was on Thursdays along with regular Saturday showing of excellence in comedy. How convenient. Now a man even if he has had zero foreign affairs experience, not to confused with many domestic affairs, that came from a small southern state, famous for chickens and plays the saxophone, was just fine. And he was less than a heart beat away from the president, he was running for president, but then again he was a man, and lets face it, far superior than any woman.

Many independent organizations have reported on just the supposed humor or jokes that have been pointed at McCain and or Ms. Palin during the last election. At last count Jay Leno alone had 328 on the republicans and only 18 on the democrats. How funny, how funny in the worst way. There are many places to find the statistics on biased reporting and joke telling on the internet. One real good place to look at this analysis of the subject is out of George Mason University. They produce interesting reports on this subject. Snopes.com reported that there were 10 major articles on the Internet about Ms. Palin. All but one of them was false. MSNBC reported that she thought Africa was a country not a continent. That was just made up and after the election the reporter admitted he made it up and thought everyone knew it was tongue in cheek. Another report by a CNN reported stated that an article in the National Review was not favorable to her, and when they were challenged made a brief announcement about their error but never apologized or made any real attempt to correct the impression they had made to the public.

I really believe we need to do what ever is required to bring pressure on these folks to bring them back on the correct path of good journalism. It is too late for this election, but maybe if they learn anything, future elections may be conducted better in the press. Almost all of the media outlets did a poor job, but certainly MSNBC and NBC were the worst of the lot. Here is some background information. NBC Universal is a media and entertainment company formed in May 2004 by the combination of General Electric's NBC with Vivendi Universal Entertainment (part of the French Media Group, Vivendi Universal (now Vivendi SA)). This is Jeffrey Immelt. He is the CEO of the General Electric Corporation. GE owns 80% of NBC Universal with the remaining 20% owned by Vivendi SA. The company develops, produces, and markets entertainment, news, and information to a global customer base. NBC Universal owns and operates a United States television network, numerous cable networks, a group of local stations throughout the country, motion picture companies, a number of television production companies, and multiple theme parks. Universal Music Group was not included in the 2004 deal and is not part of NBC Universal. MSNBC is a joint venture between NBC and Microsoft Corporation.Jeff Zucker was named president and CEO of NBC Universal on February 6, 2007, replacing Bob Wright, who remains chairman of NBC Universal and vice chairman of General Electric.
Zucker previously served as chief executive of the company's television operations. The logo of NBC Universal is a combination of the NBC peacock logo and the Universal Studios globe and text. To the right is a photo of Mr. Zucker.

Maybe it is the French Media group that is the Max Amann here. (He was the German Nazi at the top of this post), I am not sure. I know the French are mad at us for catching them with their hands in the oil for food scam in Iraq. I would hope they would not be that petty, but only they know for sure. What I do know is that television stations and networks as part of their licensing must provide log books detailing their efforts to balance their reporting and to show they are not biased against any group or favoring any group. Maybe we need a Senate investigation into this matter and possible license review or modification by the FCC.

As for me, I will buy nothing from General Electric or it’s affiliated companies. I will never again watch SNL or the “Nightly News with Brian Williams” ever again. I really thought and hoped that he would continue on in the tradition of Huntley/Brinkley but apparently he too has lost his integrity. I would suggest that you do the same and maybe they will get it. I do not mind investigations, in fact I appreciate them. I love humor and satire and see nothing wrong in pointing fun at politics. That comes with the territory. But the yellow hatchet job done by the main stream press is shameful.

Again review the photo below and and tell me if you think the media did a fair and honest job of just reporting the news or did they allow a division of a major TV network to slant what was seen on our televisions each night not so much to entertain but to sway public opinion and paint persons as loons or kooks and crazies. What a shame, what a shame.

Homosexual Issues in the World

2009-08-11T09:46:00.000-07:00

Ok GOD loves all his children no matter if he is disappointed in some of our actions. But he allows us to make our own choices and those choices are between us and our Heavenly Father.

It is not for man to judge, I suppose, but I feel compelled to offer my feelings, not as condemnation but as honest opinion.

I am not a homosexual. I have no current friends, that I know of, that are homosexuals. I have had friends and employees who were and I assume are, and I can honestly say I have liked them. They have never tried to convince me to be a homosexual or really did anything that was what I will call really out there or stereotypically gay. You know with really wild gestures, clothing and actions that seem to fit what we see on TV these days. In my opinion these things make them clown like and are counterproductive to their causes.

I know many gay people live very productive and positive lives and contribute to society in many way. Many important people in our history of the world were gay. I can not say I understand their feelings and as hard as I try, I just can not agree on all their arguments.

I have known people, one man in particular, who thought he was gay, and was in a gay relationship for years, but came to the conclusion that he was convinced he was gay by an older gay man when he was young. In fact the man was really heterosexual all the time. He is now happily married to a woman and has had children with her. I also can not understand how a person can be in a sexual relationships with men and women at the same time. Is this gay, or just horny? Like I say I can not understand some things about the subject.

I try to have sympathy and compassion for those who have attraction to persons of the same sex. They have not asked to be the way they are and have done nothing in their past lives to cause this. I suspect that most have had these feeling all their lives, with few exceptions. There are some who are not really homosexuals and have been convinced that they are, as my example of my friend I offered. But most have struggled and tried to change to what society thinks is normal. Their families have struggled and suffered with shame and guilt as well. There is nothing to be ashamed about as long as the effected persons live a respectable and honorable life.

There are however some issues I have that I offer as suggestions.

Do not compensate by being over the top as I talk about above. It only serves to alienate others.

Seek lawful quiet changes in laws being respectful of the rights of others.

Homosexuals are a minority not the majority in our society and even though every right should be granted to them, those rights can not trample the rights of the majority without causing harm to ones self.

I feel many of the sexual practices of homosexuals are sins. I am sorry but my own religious research and belief tells me this is so. There is no room for argument here but I will not preach to you about it, as I expect you not to preach to me on religious grounds that it is not a sin. We must agree to disagree on this issue. It is not my place to condemn anyone, that is for God to decide.

I can agree that homosexuals should have all the same rights that other members of society have, up to an including, marriage. However homosexuals should not be allowed or expect to be included in any religious group who feel that they are unworthy to be included in their congregation or group. There are civil and other religious organizations that would perform marriages and to bull headedly seek or force those who oppose inclusion is morally and ethically inappropriate. Respect of views is a two sided street.

You get my point I hope. I will say it again, I am not bashing anyone who is a homosexual. It is a matter of personal choice to those who feel they are homosexual.

Recently there has been a great hubbub about gay marriage. There have been groups on both sides of the issue. Marriage to me is a religious ceremony sanctioned by organized religions to recognize the commitments of a man to a woman for the purpose of procreation. Most, but not all religious denominations look at homosexuality as a grievous sin. Some sects do not see it that way and that is fine, but many do. I am for homosexual rights, but what about those same rights for religious groups? Should they be forced to marry homosexuals (sinners) in their facilities? Do these religious people have rights to worship as they see fit?

Now if an arrangement is not really what is wanted and homosexuals just want to ram the issue down the mouth of those against it, based solely on principle, well then I guess the fight is really about homosexuals wanting to take away other religious persons rights. Trying to force this on religion is way way way into the 1st amendment of the US constitution and we had better stay away form that issue. That amendment thought to be so important as to be the first one adopted, is not really about separation of church and state but that NO LAWS are to be adopted that will restrict the rights of citizens to FREELY practice Religion. Most of the founding fathers were rich old men and very very religious.

Homosexuals have done many nasty, in my mind, things over the past few years against people who have disagreed with them. To disagree and state your opinion is an American right, but things like posting names and addresses of people who donated money to fight against gay marriage is cowardly and shameful. What would happen if every person who was on the other side was identified and spotted as well. religious people could have done so but did not to their credit. That would be very unfair, but homosexuals on the other side thought it was not only fair but their duty. Very shameful.

It seems to me that those who scream the most about being discriminated against are the most intolerant folks against those who have a different view. They never for a moment think that “ hay! maybe those folks, even if I do not agree with them, have a right to their opinion”. These folks just blindly go on bashing and never consider the golden rule. But hay that is a religious concept and they do not believe in religion, but they want a religious ceremony of marriage. Go figure, really crazy.

The Economic Mess of 2008

2009-08-09T11:11:00.000-07:00

I include here below an abstract of an article that appeared in the New York Times in 1999 quantifying the problems so far.

Fannie Mae Eases Credit to Aid Mortgage Lending
By STEVEN A. HOLMES Published: September 30, 1999 New York Times

In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.
The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit, is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring. Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.

In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called subprime borrowers. These borrowers whose incomes, credit ratings and savings are not good enough to qualify for conventional loans, can only get loans from finance companies that charge much higher interest rates -- anywhere from three to four percentage points higher than conventional loans. ''Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990's by reducing down payment requirements,'' said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae's chairman and chief executive officer. ''Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market.''

Demographic information on these borrowers is sketchy. But at least one study indicates that 18 percent of the loans in the subprime market went to black borrowers, compared to 5 per cent of loans in the conventional loan market. In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's. ''From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.'' Under Fannie Mae's pilot program, consumers who qualify can secure a mortgage with an interest rate one percentage point above that of a conventional, 30-year fixed rate mortgage of less than $240,000 -- a rate that currently averages about 7.76 per cent. If the borrower makes his or her monthly payments on time for two years, the one percentage point premium is dropped.

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, does not lend money directly to consumers. Instead, it purchases loans that banks make on what is called the secondary market. By expanding the type of loans that it will buy, Fannie Mae is hoping to spur banks to make more loans to people with less-than-stellar credit ratings. Fannie Mae officials stress that the new mortgages will be extended to all potential borrowers who can qualify for a mortgage. But they add that the move is intended in part to increase the number of minority and low income home owners who tend to have worse credit ratings than non-Hispanic whites. Home ownership has, in fact, exploded among minorities during the economic boom of the 1990's. The number of mortgages extended to Hispanic applicants jumped by 87.2 per cent from 1993 to 1998, according to Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies. During that same period the number of African Americans who got mortgages to buy a home increased by 71.9 per cent and the number of Asian Americans by 46.3 per cent.

So we can see from this article that the seeds of this cancer where well under way in the Clinton administration. It was done for very admirable reasons to give the “American Dream” to millions of Americans. I don’t think there was evil intent in this, they just wanted to do something to help low income folks by making sub prime loans available during what seemed to be good times economically for our country. How could we tell that the bubble was going to burst so soon? Well as was stated some experts did see the possibility of trouble ahead but with the resources of the government behind the scheme, only the “scaredy-cat banks objected.
Banks had been accused of a practice called Red Lining.

From Wikipedia
Redlining is the practice of denying or increasing the cost of services such as banking, insurance, access to jobs,[2] access to health care,[3] or even supermarkets [4] to residents in certain often racially determined[5] areas. The most devastating form of redlining and the most common use of the term refers to mortgage discrimination in which middle income black and Hispanic residents are denied loans available to lower income whites. The term "redlining" was coined in the late 1960s by community activists in Chicago. It describes the practice of marking a red line on a map to delineate the area where banks would not invest; later the term was applied to discrimination against a particular group of people (usually by race or sex) no matter the geography. During the heyday of redlining these areas were most frequently black inner city neighborhoods. Through at least the 1990s this discrimination involved lending to lower income whites but not to middle or upper income blacks.

Obviously this is a very despicable practice and should never have been done and certainly never done in the future. There were several law suits filed by individuals and firms to stop this practice in the mid 90s. One of the organizations fighting to protect these wronged folks was the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). ACORN has several sub-groups. One group works for economic and educational opportunities of the poor inner-city people. During the 90s one of the lawyers working for ACORN was Mr. Obama. He was only a support lawyer but did a competent job for the organization. One of the other wings is the political action group.

During the early part of this century after the time Fanny Mae had reduced the strict requirements to get a home loan; there was still a lot of resistance by bankers to actually give home loans to folks with less than excellent credit and job history. This is when the political wing of ACORN went to congress and the banks to put pressure on them to get loans. In 1992 Obama took time off to direct Project Vote, the most successful grass-roots voter-registration campaign in recent city history. When Mr. Obama says he was a community organizer this was the work he was involved in getting out the vote amongst poor black people and putting pressure on banks and politicians to acquire these sub prime loans for people in the black community in Chicago.

Who were the folks at ACORN’s political wing working with in congress to try to acquire loans for these people?

From Wikipedia
The responsibility of oversight of banking is the general is handled by The United States House Committee on Financial Services (or House Banking Committee) oversees the entire financial services industry, including the securities, insurance, banking, and housing industries. The Committee also oversees the work of the Federal Reserve, the United States Department of the Treasury, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and other financial services regulators. It is chaired by Barney Frank (D-MA) and the ranking Republican is Spencer Bachus (R-AL). During the first part of the Bush administration the Republican Party was in control of the house so the chairman was a republican, but the ranking Democrat was Barney Frank D-MA.

From Wikipedia
Mr. Frank has been outspoken on many civil rights issues, including gay rights. In 1987, he spoke publicly about his homosexuality for the first time. He said in a 1996 interview: "I'm used to being in the minority. I'm a left-handed gay Jew. I've never felt, automatically, a member of any majority." In 1990, the House voted to reprimand Frank when it was revealed that Steve Gobie, a male escort whom Frank had befriended after hiring him through a personal advertisement, claimed to have conducted an escort service from Frank's apartment when he was not at home. Frank had dismissed Gobie earlier that year and reported the incident to the House Ethics Committee after learning of Gobie's activities. After an investigation, the House Ethics Committee found no evidence that Frank had known of or been involved in the alleged illegal activity.[2] Regarding Gobie's more scandalous claims the report by the Ethics Committee concluded, "In numerous instances where an assertion made by Mr. Gobie (either publicly or during his Committee deposition) was investigated for accuracy, the assertion was contradicted by third-party sworn testimony or other evidence of Mr. Gobie himself."[3]

Frank was and remains a stalwart defender of Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac, which recently participants in government bailouts. Frank has derailed efforts to regulate the institution, as well as denying it posed any financial risk. Frank’s office has been unresponsive to efforts by the Business & Media Institute to comment on these potential conflicts of interest.

According to an article by Kathleen Day in the Oct. 8, 2003, Washington Post, Frank opposed giving the Bush administration the right to approve or disapprove business activities that “could pose risk to the taxpayers.” He told the Post he worried the Treasury Department “would sacrifice activities that are good for consumers in the name of lowering the companies’ market risks.” Just a month before, Frank had aggressively thwarted reform efforts by the Bush administration. He told The New York Times on Sept. 11, 2003, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s problems were “exaggerated,” a gross miscalculation some five years later with costs estimated to be in the hundreds of billions. “These two entities – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” Frank said to the Times. “The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.” Frank has also reaped campaign contribution benefits from Fannie Mae and its counterpart Freddie Mac. Frank has received $40,100 in campaign cash over the past two decades from the GSEs.

Frank is ranked 16th on a list that includes both houses of Congress and fifth among his colleagues in the House. Political action committees financed by both Freddie and Fannie have contributed $3,017,797 to members of Congress since 1989. The two entities have spent a whopping $200 million to buy influence – including not only campaign donations to members of Congress, but also presidential campaigns and lobbying efforts. In the Wall Street Journal Editorial Page July 23, 2008 Editor Paul Gigot put the blame for the GSEs’ collapse firmly on the members of the liberal establishment who took money from Freddie and Fannie. “Fan and Fred also couldn't prosper for as long as they have without the support of the political left... This includes Mr. Frank and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) on Capitol Hill, as well as Mr. [Paul] Krugman and the Washington Post's Steven Pearlstein in the press.” Frank was asked by CNN’s John Roberts on the Sept. 22, 2008 “American Morning” about this and his opposition to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Originally, he claimed he didn’t think the two GSEs were facing any problems when the issue first surfaced in 2003. He instead blamed the Republican-controlled Congress for their ultimate fall, failing to mention his friendly relationship with Fannie Mae and the contributions it had made to his campaign over the years. Nor his position on the banking committee as ranking member, that ultimately became the chairman when the Democrats gained majority. “Yes, I did not think we were facing a crisis in 2003, but that didn't mean we didn't have to have reform,” Frank said when confronted with the question. “Here’s the deal, the Republicans controlled Congress from 1995 through 2006. They did zero to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.” He and his friends did quite a bit of reforming or should we call it restructuring to a ultra liberal position.

However, on Sept. 17, 2008, former Bush administration Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove elaborated on the Bush administration’s efforts to curb abuses at the two GSEs in 2003. He said that Frank was among the most aggressive opponents of White House attempts to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. “All of this bad stuff on Wall Street happened because people got greedy and the greed started at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,” Rove said. “And I know this because five years ago, the administration was alerted by the regulator, James Lockhart, that there was insufficient authority and that these institutions – particularly Fannie – were out of control.” Rove said the Bush administration’s efforts to reform Fannie and Freddie were opposed by congressional Democrats – specifically Frank and Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn. “And I got to tell you, for five years, I was part of an effort at the White House to fight this and our biggest opponents on the Hill who blocked this every step of the way were people like Chris Dodd and Barney Frank. And Fannie and Freddie are the $200 billion contagion at the center of this.”

Frank has been quick to blame deregulation for some of the problems in the financial environment, as he did on Bloomberg television’s Sept. 19 “Political Capital with Al Hunt.” However, as earmark crusader Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz. pointed out – it’s not deregulation, but it was the structure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that had been guarded by Frank and other members of Congress. “Some people point at deregulation,” Flake said to the Business & Media Institute on Sept. 23. “It’s not deregulation at all. We have for far too long shielded Fannie and Freddie for example, with the implicit and now explicit guarantee. I just found it humorous.” Flake specifically named Frank as one of the members behind letting allegations of transgressions at the two GSEs for slipping by without oversight from Congress. “Just a few minutes ago, a reporter was asking me about this and saying, ‘Barney Frank is saying that’s just – because there were allegations,’ correct ones – ‘that Fannie and Freddie have been the playground for politicians for years and now the other side is saying Fannie and Freddie were just a small part of this and this goes far beyond.’ It does, but these same people a couple of weeks ago said, ‘You got to bail out Fannie and Freddie because they touch everything out there. And because of that explicit guarantee – that we would come and bail them out, nobody has been subject to market discipline. Frank claims differently, according to a letter to the editor published in the Sept. 17, 2008 Wall Street Journal. Frank noted that in 2005 he supported regulating compensation for Fannie and Freddie executives. “In fact, my reform efforts had begun when we were still in the minority. In 2005, I joined Michael Oxley, then chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, in supporting legislation to increase the regulation of Fannie and Freddie that passed the House by a vote of 330 to 90,” Frank wrote. “When former Congressman Richard Baker proposed to examine the compensation structure of Fannie and Freddie's top executives, and some members of Congress tried to block him, I explicitly spoke out in support of his right to do that and our right, as a Congress, to examine the GSE’s compensation practices.”

The red flags were raised long before the government bailed out the two GSEs in August 2008. The first egregious scandal involving Fannie Mae occurred in 2004. A 2004 Wall Street Journal editorial was first to point out claims in an OFHEO report that showed accounting malpractices by the GSE. “For years, mortgage giant Fannie Mae has produced smoothly growing earnings. And for years, observers have wondered how Fannie could manage its inherently risky portfolio without a whiff of volatility, the Oct. 4, 2004, editorial, “Fannie Mae Enron?” said. “Now, thanks to Fannie’s regulator, we know the answer. The company was cooking the books. Big time.”

In Summary Naturally, the Democrats, led by The One, Barack Obama, made it a point to blame George W. Bush and his administration. But when we dig deeper into the cause and effect, we see the real culprits are our good friends in the Democratic Party. Let us step into our Way-Back Machine and set the dial for 1997.Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae, under pressure from the sub-prime debacle, turned to the heads of the House and Senate Committees overseeing them, led by Barney Frank in the House and Chris Dodd in the Senate. The bail out was encouraged by them to the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve. Now, to be fair & balanced three Republicans are also involved in the financial meltdown. Former Senator Phil Gramm, and Congressmen James Leach and Thomas Bliley. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 knocked down the regulatory wall known as Glass Steagall. This wall prevented mortgage banks from dabbling in the investment banking world, and vice-a-versa. It should be also noted that GLBA got bipartisan support and was signed into law by Bill Clinton. Glass-Steagall had been the law of the land since 1933, and prohibited the two major types of banks from engaging in each others territory. During the 1990s, about 1000 banks had gone under. GLBA was seen as a way to let free-market forces play out and reward well-run institutions. But, needless to say, the bank lobbyists, like Hunter Biden, son of Joe Biden, were not going to let them fail. Tougher bankruptcy laws were passed and the bailouts continued. Banks like IndyMac, who did not have well-connected allies in the Congress, were left to fail. Lehman Brothers came to the table too late, the Treasury was tapped dry.

Pictured above is Barney Frank, Charles Schumer, Chris Dodd, and
Henry M Paulson Jr congratulating each other and talking to the press about the bank bailout or TARP. Congress along with the Bush administration authorized approximately 750 billion dollars for the effort to prop up banks that were failing. The Bush administration spent about 350 billion of the funds but left the rest for the Obama administration. Prior to the passage of the authorization many Republicans protested and it was in doubt until Nancy Pelosi got it passed in the house over the objections of the Republicans. In my personal opinion at lest a couple of these fine folks should not only be put out of office, but should be sent to jail….but then again that is just me.

The New Slavery

2009-08-09T09:06:00.000-07:00

"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

Theodore Roosevelt said that over 100 years ago. Have our values changed? Roosevelt was the father of much of today’s secular progressive movement, but still his ideas on immigration ring true.

Now days when you think about slavery, you of course think of black Africans who were brought to this country against their will to work on plantations in the South and other places. But I submit to you that was not the first or last act of slavery in the US and in fact it is very much still alive today.

In Colonial America, some settlers used indentured service to obtain passage for an initial settlement, then were forced to work to pay off other debts and that was called bonded labor or slave bondage. A person enters debt bondage when their labor is demanded as a means of repayment of a loan, or of money given in advance. Usually, people were tricked or trapped into working for no pay or very little pay (in return for such a loan), in conditions which violate their human rights.

Invariably, the value of the work done by a bonded laborer is greater that the original sum of money borrowed or advanced and there was a promise of eventually paying off the loan but many times death came before full repayment. Many poor people found themselves in this condition early in our countries history. Poor people who could not afford land of their own often were relegated to working on others farms just to stay alive. People often found themselves in prison just because they could not pay their debts. Even today one could find themselves in prison for not paying such debts as child support or taxes.

Of course during this time there were the slaves working on plantations in the South. Many people assumed that slavery was done away with the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation but it did not end really until the Thirteenth Amendment on December 18, 1865. And, all that did was make it supposedly illegal but it did not really stop as I will explain.

With the expansion of the country west came the construction of the railroad systems. Much of the hard work was done by immigrant Chinese workers. These simple men were paid much less than white men of the day and were worked 6 days a week from sunup to sundown. Food, clothing and other supplies along the road, were purchased from the railroad at high prices thus forcing again a form of slave labor. They were paid but at such a rate that it really was slave labor.

Children and uneducated immigrants from other parts of the world found themselves working in poor and dangerous conditions for almost nothing. The practice in the textile and garment industries was so disgraceful that laws were finally passed putting a somewhat end to it. There are still cases of people being brought over to the USA thinking they are going to get a new life and job but finding themselves working in a sweathouse instead.

Today the slave owners or overlords are much smarter and have the backing of the government. They realize that they can’t legally get anyone to work for pennies a day here in the US, so they look for slaves to do the slaving in other poor countries. Places like China, Malaysia and Mexico come to mind. The slave owners (business men) point out that they are paying a good wage in that country and the people are happy to have the job. Well the businesses are happy to enjoy the profits on the backs of the slaves as well. The real losers here are the workers in our country who lost the job they should have had. We can make all kinds of economic arguments about why we need to do this, but no matter what is said, we are still not compensating someone for the work they are doing and to me that is not only slavery, but very unethical and dishonest and we should be ashamed of ourselves.

The biggest pool of slave labor today is the Mexican immigrant that are streaming over the boarders of our country. Don’t think for a minute that we do not, as a country, want this to happen. Oh you individually may think it is bad but the farmers and business people in the states that boarder Mexico talk a good talk, but they want that cheap labor that can’t easily complain working in their fields and stores. The politicians bluster and huff all the time about it, but they really know that they are not about to cut off their big farm constituents by really stopping the practice.

The workers are hard working good people and we do need them. We need them to get a fair wage for their work, get benefits, and most importantly pay Social Security and other taxes. Being illegal now they are just takers of the system not givers. We pay for their emergency health care, educate their children, and many other things that they should and would contribute to if they could afford it. They have no recourse but to be overworked at very low pay because if they complain they will be kicked out of the country.

Let’s face it, as a father I know how I would feel. You look across the Rio Grande River and see a US born child playing with a toy that cost more than you make in a year. You see how healthy and happy and what a life the US child has in his future and look at your own children and know that he or she will never ever be so blessed. I know I would do all I could to get that life for my kids, and I bet you would as well.

But becoming a US slave is a poor way to do it. We need to actively build a wall that they can’t get over. I am talking about having everyone in the country prove they are citizens. Issue citizens identification that can’t be, or at least very very hard to counterfeit. The penalty for counterfeiting could be a long prison term and or deportation. It may be just as easy as giving your SS number when you apply for a job. A data base could be accessed and if the name you give does not match the name and photo on the card against the data base you could not be hired. Fingerprint technology is already in place so that each persons fingerprint profile could be encoded on the ID card. When the person came in to apply for a job a simple device could scan the fingerprints of the person and if they did not match the encoded profile you would know you had a forged or stolen card even if the picture matched the applicant.

The hiring of non documented people could be made a crime and if convicted you could lose your business plus a fine and prison time. Believe me this would stop the practice. If the illegal's could not get a job the flow would finally stop. Like Teddy Roosevelt said they must be made citizens and have allegiance to only one country the USA, they must learn English and take all tests and fill out all papers in English. All broadcasts of entertainment and all business including banking must conduct business only in English. This is only fair and the best thing to do to inspire them to learn English. My ancestors were German. Nobody printed signs and labels at Wall-Mart in German just to get their business. There are other nationalities coming into the country and we are not bending over backwards to let them keep their language, only Spanish speaking people. This is discrimination at its worst. It is driven by economic selfishness.

However speaking in Spanish is not a bad thing and should be encouraged. For heavens sake, there are millions of people south of the US and around the world who speak Spanish. Speaking Spanish is a fact of life and will be from now on in the US as far as I can see. It is unrealistic to think it will stop and should it? Why not teach all our children Spanish in schools from kindergarten through college. Kids would pick it up and use it in a flash. Us older folks would have to put a lot of effort in it, so lets teach it to the young first. They could have the class completely in conversational Spanish. At my age I would love to learn Spanish and still may find a way to learn it. I have tried and failed in the past, but I am still looking. If all citizens could speak both languages there would be no problem and we would just except either language as normal conversation. We would be a richer nation for the effort. We still need to have English as our official language but have the use of Spanish if we so desire.

But we still have to concentrate on a way to have an absolute barrier to stop people from entering the country by crossing our boarders. For heavens sake what are we thinking? We have a department of Homeland Security, we are spending millions of dollars tracking terrorists, but a simple Mexican could just walk across the boarder with anything they wanted to bring into the country including a bomb or bomb making materials. What makes us think, if we can’t stop that, that we can stop a really bad group from coming here? We spend millions inspecting ports and airports, but they could just fly to Mexico and walk over unchallenged. Terrorists must be laughing their asses off at us stupid Americans.

What are we going to do about it? Our need for slave, Mexican labor, is allowing us to have a very great possibility that one day we will see a mushroom cloud over Disneyland. How are you going to like that? If we don’t get our do nothing representatives in government, to stop listening to the lobbyists and start doing what is good for the entire country we are going to see that some day, you can count on that sooner or later.