The Illusion

A few years ago, I worked for a company that appeared to be a real financial opportunity. Everyone thought so. However, I looked at the overhead costs and never felt that way. I felt uneasy about it and often made suggestions for projects that would increase efficiency and lower this overhead. Management always rejected these ideas, feeling that they were unnecessary. When I explained that we were operating at a loss; that it costed us more to offer our services to customers than the market would be willing to pay for, their resposne was "we'll make it up in volume".

Make it up in volume?

Are you kidding me?

All that means is that we go deeper and deeper into debt and only appear to be doing well. They, like many companies, could do some creative accounting and put things on the books so that it would appear that with our ever increasing revenues, that the company was strong and had a great future.

They made it look as if even though we weren't profitable, that with increased revenues, we soon would be. And of course, it was all an illusion.

That company, in the wake of the realities revealed with Enron, soon went Chapter 11, just as Enron did. Hundreds of thousands of 401(k) plans took the brunt of the losses. It was a horrible thing. It was a preventable thing.

All that said, this is the same thing that we are doing with our economy. And the saddest part is, the people in charge, Democrat and Republican alike, have no clue that they are going down the same paths. In fact, they plan on using trillions of your dollars to make the problem worse. Essentially, they hope to "make it up in volume".

Cutting past the shell game that they've turned this all into, the fact is, it all boils down to spending more than you bring in. All roads regarding this economic disaster lead back to spending more than you make.

Sub-prime mortgages; bottom line is that people were buying homes that couldn't afford them. As long as we were "making it up in volume", in essence, keeping the collective spending going, the illusion kept everyone happy and things could continue on. Underneath though, the fact is that it was an illusion and the money wasn't there. The value in the economy wasn't there. It was a myth.

And contrary to just blaming all the Wall Street guys, the fact is that these bad loans were packaged and sold as mortgage backed securities. Those securities were bought in good faith on Wall Street, as they were valued according to rules that Congress set up. Congress allowe these worthless pieces of paper to be valued as if the mortgages were those of people able to actually make the payments. Those worthless pieces of paper made victims of a lot of Wall Street guys too. They bought paper that everyone should've known they were bad, yet they were valued according to "the rules".

People say that regulation would've fixed this problem, but they're wrong. It might've fixed some of the problem, but the fact is that regulations existed, but just didn't apply to Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Government wanted them unfettered by regulation, and now they're blaming those that want to deregulate, as the ones that created the problem. The fact is, most of those in government are guilty even if they claim they're not.

People can point at the business men and say "greed". That greed was the issue. Well of course it was, but it was greed on every front. There were people in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that got huge bonuses for makingt hose ridiculous mortgage deals. However, they did so from encouragement from Congress, who were greedy for re-election and they didn't care that people couldn't afford those homes. It was all about votes. The greed was with government. The greed was with the people taking out mortgages knowing there was no way they could pay.

The government was greedy in another way, with overall spending, spending so much more than they brought in with tax revenues, and as a result, rather than to cut spending, just printed more money to pay for their ridiculous spending. Their spending was for things that would get them re-elected; that gave them power. There was greed there too.

And all that government spending ... the printing of money to pay for it ... just devalued the dollars that were in your pocket, and throughout our entire economy. It made the economy overall less valuable, although no one (except a few of us) realized it.

The "experts" on economic affairs, were schooled on the theory that debt didn't matter, and that with a consumer driven economy, that all they had to do was to keep consumer spending up, and things would be okay. But they never stopped to realize that this was still just another way of saying "we'll make it up in volume". You could never keep this thing going forever. There would come a day of reckoning.

During the Clinton Administration (and I'm not blaming Clinton) they reformulated the way that calculate the overall output of the economy (what we used to refer to as the GNP (Gross National Product). They came up with a new name the GDP, or Gross Domestic Product or the GDI (Gross Domestic Income) and with this new formula, was able to make everyone think that the economy was doing better than ever. Of course, no one considered that a part of this "new" economy was the DotCom bubble which burst in those years. That in itself, should've been a warning, as it showed that the Dot Coms were a false economy. How could people not see that a lot of the rest of the economy was built on false illusions as well?

Part of the calcuation for GDP includes government spending, including the spending into debt. So it's an indicator of output of our economy, when in reality, there's a major portion of the calculation that is actually losses. How can you be telling how strong your economy is by counting losses as value? There's no value in a loss. PERIOD. You can play with accounting rules and suggest depreciation and all sorts of creative accounting, but the bottom line is that a loss is a loss.

It is not a benefit. It is a loss. It is not a value, it is a liability. And that's what our economy has been built on.

So to try to remedy this most recent economic upheaval, the geniuses in government, still drunk with spending our money, wont admit that they might've been a part of the problem, want to spend more of our money, to try to get the economic spending machine (the consumers) to buying again. The theory is that if they can just restore consumer confidence, that they can get the charade moving again, and we'll be back in the mode of "making it up in volume" without having to pay attention to the fact that there is less and less value to the economy.

The spending the government is looking at, is in the trillions. It will essentially, devalue what money we have left, even more. So our economy will be worth even less than it is now, but people wont realize it because there'll be revenue flowing

in the economy. They will continue to calculate GDP and tell everyone "look, we fixed it". But they didn't fix it. They made it worse.

Geotagging Photos

Ever since I first heard about geotagging photos, I have been intrigued with the idea.  This was especially so after being on sites like flickr that allow you to associate each photo or a series of photos with a position on a map (geotagging).  The thing is, this association was being done manually by selecting a series of photos, and then placing a link on a map position.

I kept reading that eventually, cameras would have built-in GPS units capable of doing this geotagging automatically.  In addition, I found that the EXIF data that is available in most jpg files include longitude and latitude, although most are blank because this information isn't available unless the EXIF is manually edited.

Well, I recently bought a Amod AGL3080 GPS Data Logger.  This little device is only a couple of inches in size.  It's light and inexpensive.  I clip it to my camera bag, but some photographers clip it to their belt.  It is a GPS unit without any screen or read-out capability.  It merely makes a GPS log that can be later retrieved via a USB interface, to get the logs onto your computer.  Then with the help of some software provided with the unit, the photos will be matched up to the longitude and latitudes from the log, via their timestamps; this works if you make sure to set the time in your camera within reasonable accuracy.  The software will make a reasonable approximation and match with the GPS log.

I read about the process and figured that it was too good to be true, but it isn't.  It actually works and it's pretty seamless.  The only thing that would be simpler is if it were built in and plugged the EXIF inside the camera.  Until that day, this process is working fine for me.

Photography with media credentials

IMG_3398_1600x1067
Originally uploaded by Les_Stockton

Lastnight's game between the Tulsa Oilers and the Wichita Thunder was the first game I was able to photograph with "full access" via media credentials. I now have a press pass from ProHockeyNews.com. This access allows me to photograph from areas I have not been able to photograph from before, and I can move around inside the arena to shoot from different locations. It is a learning experience though.



In the past, I've typically done my photography from my season ticket location (Section 101). For this game, I was at my seat for the first period. In the second period, I shot from a location on the 3rd level where the press sit, which allowed me to shoot from a vantage point I usually don't have. It was up high, shooting down, and I didn't think about it until later, but shooting down on the ice allows a lot more reflection back to the camera than I'm used to. This meant that the majority of my shots from the second period are a bit over-exposed. I usually have experimented and gotten the settings I wanted, and then just used them from game to game; which was fine, because I was always shooting from the location. Now that I'm moving around, I'm going to need to adjust, and I just didn't think about that this time.

This photo was taken in the first period, from my season ticket seat in Section 101.
I think the exposure is reasonably set, but my shots from the second period, the ones from above, are a bit washed out.

This photo was taken in the 3rd period in the area where the opposing team enters and leaves the ice. This area is just to the right of where I would normally be sitting in my season ticket area. I like it because the glass is not scuffed up as much and the bottom portion of the glass doesn't have an ad banner along the bottom 10 inches or so.

I plan to shoot from other areas in future games (there's another game tonight)(hopefully we'll win this time). Even with the media credentials, I feel a bit timid. I'm not one of those people who can just walk around as if I owned the place. Wearing the press pass still feels foreign to me. I feel more comfortable when I have my friend, who is a long-time writer for Pro Hockey News, is also standing there.

Oh, and I forgot to mention the other adjustments for me is that I don't get to sit down. I stand everywhere, except when I'm up in the press/media area. In addition, I already miss my friends, and I can tell them miss having me there too. I overheard one of them say "it's not the same without Les here." He continued, "There's no one to yell 'Stick lumber in his ear!!!'"

Not Quite a Greeny

I never have thought of myself as a greeny (but then again, I've never seen a complete definition of what a greeny is. Nonetheless, I find myself sympathizing more and more with the "green" side of various topics nowadays. Why is that?

First of all, I should state that I live in the country. My wife and I bought property in a rural area. We moved from the city. We moved to a rural area not to bring the city with us, but to leave it behind. All to often, we are frustrated with people who move nearby and then they talk to the town trustees about getting paved roads, and they want street lights. If they had their way, there'd be sidewalks out here. There'd be stop signs on every corner, cross walks, and lots of city ordinances telling us what we can and cannot do.

We notice people moving from the city that get out here and the first thing they want is to cut down trees. It's wooded in our area. Why would you move here if you don't want trees on your property? This is the woods. Why not buy property where there aren't trees?

Every time we've had any kind of work done on our property, it seems like people almost jump with glee at the chance to break out a chainsaw and cut down trees. Why is that?

I read today that NASA has published that the ratio between human beings on earth and trees, is approximately 1 in 66. So, there are 66 trees for every human being, but consider that there are lots of areas with lots of human beings, where the ratio isn't nearly that. The 1/66 ratio is for the entire earth.
Even at that, it is pointed out that 1/66 isn't enough of a ratio to be adequate for production of oxygen. I have to agree. Although I'm not a card carrying "greeny", at the same time, I have to stress the importance of trees in keeping human beings alive, and the fact that even more than climate change (which trees would play a part in preventing), we should be concerned about not having enough trees, and especially so knowing that so many are being cut down every day so that the land can be "developed".

All too often, hundreds of trees are downed at a time, and the developer plants baby trees after the development is complete, acting as if these few baby trees make up for what was lost. The trees that were gone might be 50 to 100 years old, and certainly produce more oxygen than the few baby trees planted afterwards. It can't be justified.

My wife and I are building on our property. We have cut down a few trees, but we've planted many more than we've downed. I think that in reality, we've only maybe killed one tree. We found a place that was relatively open and that's where we built our current house. We didn't pick a place and cut down trees. We found a clear spot and built there. It costed maybe one tree.

I'm not saying that my wife and I are better than anyone else, and I'm trying not to be arrogant about it, but I am saying that we practice what we preach. We have tried to avoid cutting down trees. We have built around what was here, but in anticipation of the need for more trees, we started planting in our pasture years ago. Some of those trees are now big enough to provide decent shade in the summer.

I would hope that as housing developments continue, that there'd be an effort to build around trees, rather than to doze the land and build, and then re-planting afterwards. That replanting takes decades to return to the production of oxygen that existed before the development. We can't keep cutting down trees and lowering the ratio as far as oxygen producing trees and human beings. We've got to start being a little more careful about how we develop, rather than just going for a quick fix to the problem of urban sprawl.

Why Work So Hard?

I'm really beginning to question if I'm losing the will to work.  During the time that I took off for a couple of months, we tightened our belt
and were able to live off my wife's salary with no perks.  We were fine.  I got a lot of progress on our house project.  Now that
I'm working, little progress is being made on the house, and I'm looking at the political climate as far as prospects of being taxed
more for working hard.  I'm starting to think that the stress of work is too much.  Why work if the government is just
going to steal what little reward I get, so that they can give it to someone that doesn't work as hard as I do?

I had been thinking about taking a second job to get some extra money, but then that makes little sense if it's just going to allow
them to steal more from me.  Why do it?

And as far as the investments I have, I'd rather pull it out of stocks and just keep it in money markets; which don't pay as much
but are more secure (relatively speaking).  So what if not investing in stocks means fewer jobs.  So what.  If the
government doesn't care and the 30% out there that don't pay taxes don't care, then why should I care?

My new job is more stressful than the last.  I'm being paid a little more, but I'm stressed a whole lot more.  I'm
starting to feel like the stress is too much and the rewards aren't going to be worth it in an Obama economy.

I'll flat out tell you that I'm frustrated with the bailouts.  This last bailout protected a number of US corporations from
stock shorting; but all that did was make those guys find new companies to short, like the companies I have a little bit of stock
in.  So the bailouts took money out of my pocket to give to the execs that drove Wall Street into the ground, and so they
can continue to give bonuses (how are bonuses awarded in a company that virtually went bankrupt?).  They took money from
me and made what I had left in my pocket less valuable.  And now those companies are protected from stock shorting, but my
companies are not.  Guess what, my companies, who looked promising before, now are virtually worthless.

So why work?

I don't believe Obama for a second when he says he'll only tax the rich (those that make more than $250,000 a year). 
His website says $200,000.  Which is it?

Joe Biden says $150,000.  SO which one of those figures is it?

Bill Clinton told us the same thing when he was campaigning, and in the end, his protecting the middle class hit my wife and I
with the biggest tax increase I can remember.  I have no reason to trust Obama.  I have no reason to trust Biden.

I don't know if I can trust McCain, but at least he isn't promising a tax increase with a moving threshhold.  Maybe he'd
raise my taxes too.  I just don't trust Obama when he says that he wont.  And the idea of working and sacrificing like
my wife and I have been doing these last few years, seems fruitless if it's just going to be stolen from us to give to people
that wont work and wont sacrifice.

And give me a break when you want to suggest that those folks out there are going to get 'their fair share' from the rest of us,
have been sacrificing.  I don't know any that work two jobs.  And I remember when my little company couldn't make
payroll and when we were issuing stock to employees instead of payment.  I remember when we tried to give some of these
potential opportunities to people (poor people) and they wouldn't take them.  They wanted cold hard cash, with no risk
on their part.  I took the risk and sacrificed.  And now that it's about to pay off, they want to share in the rewards. 
Pardon the expression, but that's bullshit.  That's not their fair share.  That's Marxism and it's flat out wrong.

So under an Obama Administration, I do not intend to work hard.  I do not intend to sacrifice or invest.  I intend to
hold onto what little my wife and I have.  If jobs suffer because of it, I think those 30% of the freeloaders that voted
so that they could get "their fair share' can just whallow in it.  They got it and now they'll suffer the most, because it'll
be their jobs that will go first.

MCC Relief Sale: We had a good time

Rachel  & I went to the annual MCC Relief Sale in Rocky Ford, Colorado this past weekend (Friday and Saturday).  It’s for a good cause.  Our sister-in-law Deanna was running the Ten Thousand Villages booth (actually a small building within the Rocky Ford fairgrounds),  and so we decided to be there to help out.  It was our second time in two years.  They needed help unpacking and setting up various home décor and crafts items to be sold.  These are items handcrafted by people in various countries around the world.  The money pays these folks a living wage, and in return, we make a little bit of money to be added to the relief effort.

I can’t claim credit for a lot of work, but we helped out for a day.  Deanna and her husband Calvin did a lot even before this weekend.  A lot of people did more than we did, but we contributed and it all helps.  I think Deanna appreciated having the help.  Last year was particularly difficult.  This time, we had more help and the work went faster.

The main part of the sale is the auction, which raises the bulk of the money from the event.  Various items are donated and then auctioned off.  The sale stated off with a brief prayer and then the first item auctioned was a loaf of handmade bread.  It went for  $1850 and then we immediately donated back to be auctioned off by the slide.

The next two buyers bought a slice of bread and a jar of apple butter.  The price was $525 each buyer.  I lost track of what the other slices went for, but the loaf of bread raised over $3200 in total.  It was a great start to the auction.

Various items were sold in the auction, but the higher ticket items are typically the quilts.  That’s what everyone waits to see.  My father-in-law bought three of them, and I believe one of my brothers-in-law also bought three.

Calvin donated beef and pork for the sale.  He had it processed and then loaded freezers (which he also had to round up and haul to the sale) packed full to be sold off.  This stuff luckily goes pretty fast.  Rachel & I bought $100 worth went the sale started Friday evening at 17:00.

Among items sold besides things at the auction or at Ten Thousand Villages, were hamburger meat, sausage, pies, apple butter, apple cider, cakes, cookies, various potted plants, handmade craft items, nuts, fruit, ice cream, soda pop, sausage sandwiches, you-name-it; all proceeds going towards the total relief fund.

I took lots of photographs during the weekend.  Some were on the way to Rocky Ford and some were on the way home.  Some were on Calvin and Deanna’s farm, most were at the sale.  Some were family and/or friends.  Some were of total strangers.  I hopefully got some good ones out of the weekend.

Rachel & I took a different route home so that we could avoid some construction on the road between Lamar, Colorado and Boise City, Oklahoma.  In retrospect, it still would’ve been faster if we’d stuck to that route, but we drove east through Kansas instead.  It was a fun drive, but it took longer and it wore us out.  I’m still recovering.

We drove through Greensburg, Kansas, that was virtually wiped out by an EF5 tornado May 4, 2007.  http://www.kansas.com/static/slides/050507tornadoaerials/

We remembered driving through Greensburg many times in the past, and what we saw was devastation not unlike that of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.  We had heard of a lot of “green” rebuilding, but we didn’t see it.  I guess if we’d driven around town more we might’ve seen it, but we stayed on the main road through town and never saw anything we recognized except for a tire storage building that seemed to have weathered the storm due to its rounded shape and low profile.

Most of my photos of Greensburg didn’t come out well as I was shooting from a moving vehicle and had a slow shutter speed.  It was a bit of a disappointment, but most disappointing is not seeing any signs of the “green building” efforts.  We saw lots of prefab temporary buildings, including those used as the town hospital.  About the only thing we recognized was the high school, that somehow managed to remain after the storm.

I could go on about Greensburg, but there’s no point.  We do hope to return when there’ll be more signs of progress in the rebuilding efforts.

We drove through Dodge City, which is where my brother-in-law Bob and his family live.  I photographed some earth homes just west of Dodge, and a bit disappointed that the photographs weren’t better.  Somehow, the camera was set on that slow shutter speed and it really impacted my photo efforts.  If we hadn’t been in the car, I would’ve probably spent more efforts in making sure my camera settings were better.

We drove through Harper, Kansas, which Rachel has some family history there.  Her family lived there for a while, and her brother Bob built and lived in a geodesic dome (in a tree row on the farm)(with a dirt floor) which still stands today.  Most photos taken in Harper didn’t come out well because of car movement and slow shutter speed.  I did get a photo of a pretty church just east of town.  Somehow, that came out better, although not pristine.

Despite my photography mistakes on the way home, I had great photographic success in Rocky Ford, and so from a photography perspective, I considered it a success.  I hope to return to Greensburg and Harper in the future.  I hope it won’t be a distant future. (See http://www.flickr.com/photos/les_stockton/sets/)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/les_stockton/sets/72157608187289572/


http://www.flickr.com/photos/les_stockton/sets/72157608195740787/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/les_stockton/sets/72157608189035696/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/les_stockton/sets/72157608189035706/

On the way to Rocky Ford, we passed a wind farm west of Ft. Supply, and then we found another north of Springfield, Colorado (if I remember right).  We briefly stopped to change drivers and I noticed a truck that had a couple of blades on its trailer that it was obviously hauling to the wind farm.  I managed to get a couple of good photographs (just for fun).  Seeing these on the ground, before they’re lifted into the air, you see how truly large these wind turbines can be.  On the ground, these blades seem huge. 


Oh, a side-note: if you’re ever in Boise City, Oklahoma, try to get some of No Man’s Land Beef Jerky.  I normally got the hottest stuff I can, but in this case, the mild has such a fantastic flavor.  I recommend this jerky.  It is the best that I have found, other than what we occasionally make at home.  They have a website and it can be ordered on-line if you can’t find it in a local store.  I do know it’s available in Boise City because we bought some and thoroughly enjoyed it.  (http://www.nmlbeefjerky.com/)

There is another MCC Sale scheduled in early November.  This one will be in Enid, Oklahoma and we are actually considering attending this one.  We have so many things going on, that I’m not sure if we can work it in, but we’d like to go.

500mm mirror lens

IMG_0864_1600x1067
Originally uploaded by Les_Stockton

This is a shot of my 500mm mirror lens sitting next to a 75-300mm zoom lens. The zoom, oddly enough, is the longer lens. The mirror lens is much more compact and less conspicuous. The thing is, 500mm is harder to steady and to take good photographs with, unless you have a monopod or tripod, or else a really high shutter speed.

I bought the mirror lens because I was hoping to get around a restriction at some of the concert halls, where they see the longer lens and decide that it's "professional" equipment and wont let me in with it. They seem fine with the standard 55mm lens, and since this mirror lens is just a tiny bit longer than a standard prime lens, my hope is that I'll be able to get into concerts with it.

The lens has great power, obviously. I have an extension tube to double it's power to a 1000mm, but to-date, I have not tried that.

From what I can tell so far, the lens isn't quite as sharp as a standard lens, but this is because of the distortion due to the mirrors.

I have been spoiled to using the newer lenses that have automatic focus and automatic aperture features. This lens is a fixed aperture lens, and it's manual focus. So to use it, I'll need to manually focus and use manual settings for aperture and shutter speed. In a concert hall, I don't have much issue with this. In the old days of 35mm film, I worked manual all the time.

Click here to view a set I took with the 500mm lens.  The first portion of this set (up until and including the electric meter) was taken with the 500mm mirror lens.

So Far, I Like My New Job

I started a new job on October 1st.  It's a little early to tell how the job will be, but I'm optimistic.  The company is considered to be one of the top 100 best places to work in the US.  So I feel privileged.  I thought I'd start keeping a few notes on my initial observations this week, and I'm listing these in order of how I observed them.

The office I have is a nice big office.  It's not a walled office, but a cubicle type, but it's large.  It's about 4 to 6 times the amount of space that I've had on any of my previous jobs clear back to when I was a supervisor at the Williams Companies.

I don't have windows, but there are plenty of windows within eye of my office if I step out into the hall.  There is a skylight directly above my desk, so I"m getting natural light.  They draped fabric over the skylight to tone down the amount of light (and presumably heat) that comes through.

My phone is a Cisco 7961 IP Phone.  It's tied into the network and any voice mail messages are automatically routed to my e-mail so that I can get them there.  This could be an advantage, I would think, if I were not at the office and were remotely connected to the network and able to check e-mail, but not right there to access the phone.

There is a fingerprint scanner on my laptop pc.  This is cool because it is used to log into the computer.  There's no need to type in a username and password.  That's very cool.

One thing that I don't like on this job is that it is the first employer that I have had that strictly filter what websites I have access to from my workstation (the laptop).  I can't check my private e-mail (because they don't allow access to gmail).  They do allow access to google, but there are a lot of sites they don't allow access to.  It's frustrating because some of these are forum sites that I often use to get answers to technical questions dealing with software development.

I understand them filtering twitter, identi.ca, and other social networking sites; but I wish I at least to access my e-mail.  Their reasoning isn't to restrict the workstation to work-related things only; but to protect the workstation from virus infection.  Their theory is that these viruses often appear on computers due to external e-mail sights, forum sites and sometimes social networking sites.  So they are blocked.

Supposedly, there are pcs located in "public areas" in the building, but so far, I haven't found these pcs.

This employer is the headquarters of a convenience store chain.  They provide free soda to the employees.  When I heard this, I wasn't too excited, because I figured they didn't provide the kind of soda that I drink.  I try to have Diet Mountain Dew, because it's a diet drink, but it's a diet drink that tastes good to me.  Diet Pepsi, Diet Dr. Pepper, Diet Code, etc do not taste good to me.
To my surprise, they have Diet Mountain Dew available in the soda machine on the first floor.  So a couple of times during the day, I take a walk downstairs and avail myself to this privilege.

Currently, I am on a 90-day contract to hire arrangement.  That means that if things work out, they will hire me as a full-time employee in early January.  This will be a good thing, as their benefits are very good.  One bad thing is that they hold a dress code standard with what the store employees adhere to.  This means no beards and no ponytail.  I'll have to shave my beard and remove my ponytail.

I'm allowed to have a moustache, but I'm not sure I see a point to that.  My whole reason for having the beard is so I wouldn't have to shave it, because that part of my chin seems to be cut every time I shave.  Shaving above my mouth really isn't a problem for me.

Shaving is one of those things that I looked forward to as a kid, but as an adult consider to be a curse.  Losing the pony tail isn't really that big of an issue.  I knew the day would come sooner or later, that I'd take a job where they'd want me to cut my hair.  It's a small price to pay in order to work for such a good company.  It will be a bit of culture shock for me, I think, as I have had my hair long for the last 20 years or so.

I figured out that although I can't hit ping.fm, twitter or identi.ca, that I can make status updates periodically during the day (for benefit of friends that follow me on those sites) by sending to ping.fm either by my smartphone (which I hate typing on), or via the ping.fm e-mail interface (which is sometimes a bit delayed from when I send the e-mail).

The office is roomy and so is the entire floor that my office is on.  It's quiet compared to other offices I've been in that are this big.  I think they have room to grow, because a lot of the offices seem to be empty.

In a week or so, the group I work in will be spending two days out of town (Joplin) for an annual group outing.  They will have a few meetings, but there'll be golf, paintball, wine tasting, shopping and other activities to participate in.

Yesterday afternoon around 15:30, I heard people talking in the testing lab, which is just around the corner from my office.  The doors were open and I saw most of the team in there standing around talking.  It was casual.  They were having a few beers and talking.  This was for someone's birthday.  They limited the beers and stopped at 16:00, to give people time before 17:00 when they'd be driving home.

I think that's nice that they do this for the employees.  A lot of companies would be too uptight to allow beer, much less to allow them to goof off for a birthday celebration.

Oh, somehow I forgot to write this earlier, but as far as dress code, I've seen jeans, tennis shoes, flowery shirts, t-shirts and shorts in the office.  It seems to be a fairly casual and comfortable atmosphere to work in.

Bailouts Are Bad

I could be wrong, but I think these latest bailouts (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG) are a bad thing. We're told that it would be super bad for the economy if we didn't bail them out, but it seems to me that the economy is suffering pretty badly by bailing them out and that the only people that seem to gain out of this is the people running those failed companies.

Obama is buying votes, by suggesting that we should also bail out those 5 million home owners that are being foreclosed on, and suggesting that its the fault of corporate greed. I agree that it's greed, but not just that of big business, but also of the jerks that took out loans for homes they knew they couldn't afford in the first place.

Why should we bail them out? We aren't doing anything for the poor guys still living in apartments; the ones that were responsible and knew they couldn't afford to buy homes. What are we doing for them? We're going to hurt the economy that they struggle in already, to bail out people that don't deserve to be bailed out.

I could be wrong, but it just seems to me that we shouldn't be bailing out the big guys or the little guys. Not only that, but I have trouble with the notion that executives at these failed companies are walking away with multi-million dollar compensation packages; while the company fails. This is wrong. If they have the money to pay these guys that, then they don't need my bailout.

I repeat; we're told that it would be catastrophic if we let those companies fail. It seems to me that it's pretty catastrophic by bailing them out. We just further devalue the dollar, running up the cost of oil (because we buy that on the international market that now wants more dollars for the same oil). That seems pretty catastrophic to me.

Are the Voters Really That Uninformed?

Like many Americans, I am seeing the recent announcements of failures in the financial markets of this country, and the subsequent bailouts; and having a general disgust about it.

Furthermore, I'm frustrated that the CEOs of these failing organizations have been allowed to keep their multi-million dollar retirement packages and compensation in the millions of dollars, while the American public suffer the consequences.

Government plays a part too.  Chris Dodd and others in the Senate have been taking money from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, as well as other failed institutions; and have been taking this money for years.  Dodd has been taking money from the organizations he's supposed to be overseeing.  In fact, Dodd has received more money from them than anyone else in the Senate.

The second place goes to Barak Obama, who has barely been in the Senate his first term.

There goes the mudslinging.  Obama has the nerve to point at McCain and associate him with Bush, and suggest to the American people that voting for McCain would be voting to further the "same old failed policies".  The reality is that voting for Obama would be voting for the same old policies.

Obama's resume is inflated.  People are finding this out, but what gets me is that they seem to be ignoring it and falling for what he says.  Dodd, you'd think, would have people after him with a noose and a long rope, but instead, they're listening to him as he blames Bush for everything (even though he's been the head of that same committee in the Senate for nearly two decades), while Bush has only been in office for 8 years.

Don't get me wrong.  Bush deserves a heavy slap on this one too.  He appointed that guy that oversees the SEC.  That guy knew that AIG was buying up bad loans.  Did he tell the American people or sound any alarms?  No.  And millions of Americans, who have 401(k) plans invested in AIG, were affected by it's failure.  And Bush's appointee knew it was happening and did nothing to stop it.

Consider with all the fingerpointing, that in 2006, there was a bill proposed to pull in the reins a little bit on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  The alarm was being sounded that a failure could occur.  The measure was voted down though.

Who proposed this measure?  It was Senator John McCain.

There are a host of people to blame about this.  Greenspan got it wrong.  Dodd should resign.  Barney Frank should resign.  Obama should resign.  Others should as well.  Bush is rightfully to blame as well.  McCain had it right over 2 years ago; I just wish he'd been more persistent in letting the American people know.

The truth is, the American people didn't want to know.  That might've required people to not take ridiculous home loans that they knew they couldn't afford.  It might've required people to deal with an economy that was drastically inflated in its true value.  No one wanted to do that, and to be fair, politicians can't be elected, or re-elected, trying to get the notice out.

Are the voters really that uninformed?  Possibly.  Probably.

Mudslinging and the Political High Ground

Barak Obama has been virtually given a pass from the news media since he began running for president.  Hillary Clinton found this out when they turned against her during the election.  Pro-Obama folks (not directly linked with his campaign) would sling dirt about Hillary and this allowed Obama to maintain the high ground.

In some cases, Obama even stooped to telling people what his opponents would say, even before they said it.  And then when Hillary (and later McCain) would engage in the debate on the topic, they were immediately attacked for racist remarks or otherwise not being sensitive to Obama's heritage.  Even Bill Clinton was accused of "going too far" when he tried to challenge a ridiculous claim that Obama had made against Hillary.

Now that it's between Obama and McCain, the pro-Obama forces, those in the media as well as ultra-left bloggers, have slung mud on McCain and now Palin daily.  Any time that McCain or Palin try to defend themselves or fight back, they are accused of mudslinging, while Obama gets to sit on political high ground, not having done any of the dirty work himself.

Consider that during the democratic primaries, Obama, as well as other democratic candidates, met with the leftwing bloggers' group (on the left coast).  Even Hillary Clinton had reservations about this meeting, as it would legitimize these people.  Obama had no qualms about meeting with them.

And they were the first to attack Palin's family, and although Obama came out the next day with a statement that family is "off limits", the fact is that he never denounced these supporters who have continued on their mudslinging campaign against Palin and McCain.  And Obama continues to maintain the political high ground.

The New York Times are printing half truths, lies and intentionally misleading the public, actually quoting bloggers are "sources", knowing that these bloggers have no journalistic integrity and that you can write anything on the web; and it only has to be copied a few times elsewhere on the web to be picked up on google and it becomes defacto truth, when it isn't at all.

I am frustrated to see that truth isn't being allowed to prevail, and that they have been working hard to dig up any dirt they can on Palin, while they didn't spend a day looking into the past of Barak Obama.  They still haven't made him face issues of lying to get votes when he said he'd renegotiate NAFTA and didn't even try.  They haven't faced him with his own links to lobbyists, but they allow him to make accusations about Republicans and lobbyists.
And they've given a complete pass to Joe Biden who has strong links to the biggest credit card company in the United States, and has voted this way to prove it.

They've given a pass to Obama and to Biden when it comes to lobbyists and their recent votes to let telecommunication companies be immune from prosecution if they cooperated with the government in wiretapping (illegal or otherwise).
At first, Obama was against immunity for them, but someone must've pointed out that AT&T were contributing heavily to the DNC, because the next thing you know he had no problem voting for it.  He didn't vote against it like he said.  He didn't vote "Present".  He voted for it.

Several websites have sprung up supposedly for the purpose of setting the records straight and getting at the truth; but what they really are is just another means of distorting the truth and continuing just enough of the half truths against McCain and/or Palin, to essentially promote the illusion of truth coming from Obama.  It's intellectually dishonest.

I saw 7 or 8 instances of this today and it gets to the point where you just can't set the record straight on every one of them.  There are more of them out there, spreading more and more lies or half-truths, to get to all of it.
And plus, in some instances, McCain and/or Palin actually have distorted the truth to suit their own needs.  For instance, there was a lot of discussion for a couple of days over something so trivial as to whether or not Sarah Palin actually sold the Alaskan governor's jet on ebay.  Well, the point of it is that she sold it and helped get rid of some of the waste, unneeded perks and ridiculous spending and abuse going on in the governor's office.

The truth is, as she stated this, is that it was "put up for sale on ebay the next day".  This is true.  The fact that after a period of time, they weren't getting the bids they had hoped for and so they regretfully allowed a broker to handle the final sale of the plane.  The plane did get sold.  The money to the taxpaper was saved.  The abuse was cleaned up.

But the left went on and on about it not being sold on ebay, failing to mention that it was "put on sale on ebay", but was ultimately sold by a broker.  They only mention that it wasn't sold on ebay, giving the reader the feeling that Palin lied.

This is just one example, but it is a ridiculous example.  The whole point isn't whether or not she sold the thing on ebay or craigslist or anywhere else.  The point is that she sold the plane, she got rid of the governor's personal chef, as well as getting rid of the limo and driver that the governor had.

And the news media seems eager to do a 'fact check' when it's a statement by McCain and/or Palin, but they are frequently giving a pass to anything Barak Obama or one of his supporters writes or says.  The coverage of this election is clearly meant to influence.  There is little journalistic integrity.  And MSNBC has given up on journalism entirely, and have gone for propaganda and comic relief (same with Comedy Central).  They don't even hide it.

Charlie Gibson interviewed Sarah Palin.  During his interview, he was trying to trip her up; something he never did with Barak Obama.  He asked about the Bush Doctrine.  The fact is, the Bush Doctrine hasn't been defined.  It'll be defined either by Bush or by the historians.  It wasn't a legitimate question, but it was enough to trip her up.

Gibson also made a big deal about earmarks.  On the surface, it sounds like an inconsistency, but then again, you have to go back to the definition of earmarks.  Her, being a governor, would have no control over how money is appropriated in Congress.  It is her responsiblity to ask for federal dollars and to seek them for her state.  There's nothing wrong with that as long as it's not wasteful spending.  And the fact is the bridge to nowhere was ultimately rejected by Palin, a fact that her detractors easily ignore.

The definition of an earmark is funds that are snuck into an unrelated bill by a legislator.  Someone in Congress would put an earmark, funding for something in their home state, in a bill that probably has nothing to do with that spending.  It's a way to sneak pork by and get it passed along with something legitimate.  It's something that Palin fought within legislation in her state, and that McCain has fought in the Senate, and in fact, in all of his years in the Senate, never pursued any earmarks.

So if Palin asked for federal dollars for infrastructure within her state, she had no way of knowing how the Senator or Congressman in DC would come up with those dollars.  Believe it or not, but governors seek federal dollars from time to time and get it through legitimate avenues.  It happens.

This is a fact this is carefully overlooked in all of the discussion by the media; because they have an agenda to make her and McCain look badly, while giving a free pass to Obama and Biden; who have both pursued earmarks.

And the whole earmark discussion is with regards to the fact that the money is being appropriated in secret, hidden from the public so that no one in Congress is voting for it directly.  If these sorts of practices were out in the open, it would be different, but to secret these "earmarks" within other bills, it is essentially commiting fraud against the American people.  That is the discussion, not whether or not a state or municipality asks for federal dollars.

I don't have a problem allowing the truth to be known and let the chips fall where they may, but it seems to me that this is not what is being allowed to happen.

Taxes and How To Fix Things

The politicians are talking, but either they really don't understand, or they really don't care.  I'm not sure which, but I heard Sen. Dodd say that he was frustrated and wanted to "know more" about the Freddie Mac & Fannie Mae bailouts, and yet he's the head of the banking committee and helped write the law that allowed those bailouts.  He's the one that wrote things up so they were allowed to make those irresponsible banking practices and the CEOs get to keep their millions.

On taxes, almost half of the people you see on the street every day, actually don't even pay taxes (they are refunded everything they pay in); and they don't care that the system is screwed up.  Obama wants to actually give these people a tax refund, which is actually taking money out of hard-working Americans' pockets to give to these folks; essentially buying votes for himself with our money.

Now if they really want to solve the tax problem, they don't need to increase capital gains taxes.  If anything, they need to reduce them.

I'll explain.

Literally, a million jobs (over that) have been off-shored.  Can we not bring these jobs back?

Literally billions of dollars have been off-shored to avoid taxes.  Can we not bring these back by lowering the taxes that motivate this off-shoring, as well as removing the loopholes that allow it?

There are  over 66,000 pages in the tax code.  Why is this?  It's too much for the IRS, itself, to keep track of, but I guarantee you that the big money guys have accountants and tax attorneys that can keep track of it; and they're using it in their favor.

If you want to fix the economy and if you want to fix taxes, don't raise taxes the 50% that are paying taxes already, but close the loopholes (and maybe ease taxes for some of us)  and they'll get more tax revenues in the process.

Worked on utility trenches. Worn out now.

I took the day off to work on the utility trenches. I rented a jackhammer to make the job easier, but I'm worn out more than I have been in a very long time.

The jackhammer made the work go faster, but I worked hard having to pick the machine up and move it around. The boulders had to be cut through though, and this area of the property probably has the biggest boulders we have. They were thick and wide.

At the end of the day, Rachel asked me if this was the right tool for the job. I said that "for this job" it was, because of having to be careful and not damage existing utility lines and the well. However, if it hadn't been for those, the right tool for the job was a backhoe.

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Proposed Taxing of Capital Gains

Recently, Barak Obama has proposed taxing of capital gains the same as income.  I have to wonder if he really doesn't understand how capital works, or if this irresponsible stance is a means to get votes from poor people who don't understand how capital works, and that it's somehow some class war thing against the rich.

I had my fears concerning this, so I sent an e-mail to a friend of mine who knows much more about the economy, how it needs and uses capital; much more than most people.  This guy has made me a lot of money in the past, and so I trust him.

Here's what he said:

The economy would be dead in its tracks. The fastest growing economy in the world at the time (Japan) at our urging added a massive capital gains tax in place of none. The Jap economy has never recovered from this. As in debt as our country is we might never recover. This could speed us along on our journey to becoming a third world economy. Got to balance the budget and work on our massive debt before it is too late.

So as bad as the economy has become under George W. Bush, if Obama were allowed to carry out this irresponsible act, it would be devastating to this economy.  In essence, the poor people voting for this would be cutting their own throats.

As bad as things were for Japan, they weren't in nearly as much debt as we are (and the average Joe has caused his own debt as much as George W. Bush and Congress have to the government debt), Japan had the US to help them out economically.  Who will we get help from?

My experience with capital gains was an education.  Less than 10 years ago, I barely knew what the words meant.  In practice, I didn't really know at all, as financial matters bored me and since I wasn't rich, didn't figure any of this stuff would ever mean enough to me for it to matter.  So I didn't care to know.  I think this is how most people are, and that's why there isn't an outcry from people (even Democrats) about the proposed taxes on capital gains.

I once did work for a small startup company.  They filed and became incorporated and I owned stock.  I got stock in place of payment in a lots of cases, and for the final two years that I worked there, didn't get paid at all.  And the company struggled to survive.

Years went by, and that stock was worth very, very little.

If I could've sold some of it immediately after the company went public, I would've made a lot of money, and of course, since I had the stock less than a year, it would've been considered income.  I would've paid income taxes on it just like any other income.

However, I was considered "an insider" and couldn't sell stock at that time.  I ended up not even being able to sell stock for a year, and when I was able to sell, the stock wasn't worth much.

Years went by and for a brief moment a couple of years ago, it was actually work a couple of bucks a share (it aint now).  I was able to sell and get some money that I needed.  However, since years had gone by from my original investment (one of many investments that helps this economy run by providiing capital), it was considered capital gain, not income.

I finally understood what made capital gain and income different.  I also saw how unfair it would be to have expected me to put money into this economy, with no guarantee of any return at all, and then years later, be hit with the same tax as a guy that didn't invest anything into the economy and was able to get his paycheck that Friday after he'd put in his work.

I also think it is unfair to ask someone to put up risk money to run this economy, tax them just like income for this risk (that no one else puts up), and then tell them they can only write off $3000 of capital loss.  Essentially, we're saying that the guy puts up the risk to help the economy, but that he doesn't get any rewards for years, or maybe never, and we'll punish him for this, and that he gets very little credit for any losses.

How do you suppose this will help the economy?

Will there be any incentive to invest if this occurs?

Where will the jobs come from?  Where will the growth come from?

Where do all those college students that vote for this, think their jobs will come  from when they graudate?

Later, in asking my friend why Obama might propose this, trying to see if there were any logic in debating this issue.  There is no debate and Obama even admits this.  He admits that it will hurt the economy, but he thinks it will be "fair".

Hmm.  He forgot to add "stupid".

I only hope that someone comes to their senses on this matter.

Political Views Have Gotten Nasty and Divisive.

Politics has gotten nasty.  It has turned family against family and friend against friend.  It is turning neighbor against neighbor.  Citizens have a certain dividing line and they have staked out their claim.  They feel they are not only righteous, but that the "other side" is not only wrong but that they are either evil or they are feable and a product of too much "kool aid".

I have a reasonably high IQ (155).  I'm not an elitist and often learn from people I read about or that I talk with that I know have an IQ lower than mine.  Having a high IQ doesn't make a person better than anyone else.  It does allow a person to make evaluations and judgements that are clearer (although a person with a lower IQ has no way to know when they're wrong) and of course, the guy that has the higher IQ isn't always right.  Sometimes the other guy is right.

Now that's out of the way, I have noticed that lately I am having to almost laugh in silence, for being told by people that have a lower IQ than me, that I am feable, stupid, uninformed, etc, etc, etc.  I'm told this because I don't agree with them.

I have been told twice this week that I was a "kool aid" drinker and that I didn't have my facts straight.

Consider that I read all the time (not just in election years) and that I read from different sources (not just those that I agree with all the time)(and I don't even have Fox News on my satellite television line-up).  So I get my news from various sources, and the another guy gets his from NPR; and somehow he's right and I'm wrong.

And although I read all the time and am keeping in touch with what's going on even when it's not an election year; whereas another guy has only started reading about these issues in the last six months, he's somehow more informed than me and that I'm a product of the right-wing conspiracy propaganda machine.

Wow!

And for the record, once again, although this guy doesn't know it (yet), he was wrong and I was right.  I looked up our disputed facts from a number of sources.  So it seems that he's been drinking the "kool aid" and didn't even realize it.  He'll never admit it though, and that's my concern.

No matter how this election plays out, citizens are increasingly choosing sides for more than just who they'll vote for or what they're voting for.  Now people are choosing sides; and the other side is the enemy.

When I was growing up, I often heard the phrase, "I might not believe what you believe, but I will fight for your right to say what you believe".  Well, I haven't heard that phrase since the late 1980s.  No one seems to care about freedom of speech and thought, unless of course, it agrees with their own.

My personal opinion is that no matter which party gets in office, the country will survive.  We've survived over 200 years and I think we can survive 4 years of Obama or of McCain.  What I think dooms us more than 4 (or even 8) years of either of these choices, is that political thought has become so divisive and the hatred grows.  It is an uncomfortable feeling to be in a room with people that you like, but that you disagree with politically.

I do have to laugh about being told that I'm a kool aid drinker.  The truth is, I've known I was smart most of my life, but since I wasn't a part of the "in-crowd" or otherwise popular kids, I was told that I wasn't as good as the others.  It has been this way most of my life so I don't really let that bother me.  I was shocked, however, to be attacked personally by someone that is supposed to be a friend of mine.

Since when did a personal view on whether or not we pay this tax rate or that tax rate, suddenly make a friend turn against a friend?  (I'm paying 40% in tax now and don't really want to pay any more; if anything, I should be the one getting angry, not the other guy).

What has made people so divided that they hate their friends and hate their own family?

I know the answer.  I'm just venting out of frustration, because I have no one to talk to about this.  The truth is, people are frustrated (on the left and on the right).  They feel that their government (who is supposed to be working for them) has abandoned them instead; and that when questioned about it, lies to them.  So people are frustrated and they have an emotional attachment to their own political views.  At this point, facts don't mean anything.  A fact that doesn't line up with a person's thinking is going to just anger them and make them hate the other side even more.  And there are loads of opinions published on the internet (in the form of blogs) that will line up exactly with their political viewpoints, and feed them whatever facts they want to hear, even if it's a lie.

So I look at this and feel that this is what is going to be the downfall of the nation.  It wont be which party is in charge or which person is elected President of the United States.  It will be that people are just so frustrated and at the same time, are letting emotion lead them into a hateful stance against anyone that disagrees with them; and of course, the politicians love this because it leaves them with no accountability.  This is better than having a war (an enemy) to fight.  Even if the war ends, there's always going to be a war at home to fight; and that will keep people's eyes off the people they're paying to fix our economy, our government, our roads, our bridges, our schools, etc, etc, etc.

McCain's Nomination Speech

I watched McCain's nomination speech lastnight; all of it.  It was long and mostly boring.  There were a few moments during the speech, but it was mainly preaching to the audience he had there.   He could've easily cut the speech in half and been just as affective.

The first half of the speech seemed mostly the kind of rhetoric that all politicians say.  Vote for me and I'll do these things.  It's what conservatives wanted to hear.  They cheered.  However, they didn't cheer when he pointed the fingers at corruption, and sometimes regarding those in the Republican party.  They didn't really cheer for that.

The audience didn't cheer when he said that they need to put party politics aside and not worry about who gets the credit for fixing something; and just work together and share the credit.

McCain put country above party.  That was good.  There was a clear distinction and a record to support that notion.  There's nothing like that from Obama, and so in that respect, I have more confidence that he will do what he thinks is right for the country, versus trying to do things as a strict conservative Republican would expect them to be done.  He said several times that he wouldn't play party politics and I believe him.

I thought it was good that he said that he'd have democrats and independents in his cabinet.  There weren't many cheers from the audience on that one; and this morning, conservative talk radio were blasting the man for that portion of the speech.

They have a point on one side; Obama would never have a republican on his cabinet.  They aren't likely to reach across the aisle for anything.  Every time I've seen a democrat talk about putting party aside, they always expect the republican to vote with the democrats.

So I see their point.  However, this position of President of the United States isn't about party.  It's about getting things done and about working for the people of the country, not for the party and not for special interests.  So what McCain is saying makes more sense to achieve those goals than in making talk radio conservatives happy.

McCain's speech wasn't nearly as inspiring as Obama's, but McCain isn't as eloquent a speaker.  He admits that.  Palin was much more interesting to listen to.  However, the guts of what McCain was saying, was inspiring, and it's what Americans want to hear.  And he has the history to prove that he's not just saying it; but that he lives it.

I'll be interested to see how the debates go.

Playing the Fear Card

The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country...Herman Goering

The left points to this quote from an infamous nazi, to suggest that this is all we're seeing now.  They have no answer to the fact that McCain is obviously more qualified to be in command in chief.

The left can discount McCain with this quote if they want, but they're running from reality.  Just because you can manipulate people with fear, doesn't mean that there isn't anything out there to be afraid of.  And it's not like the left aren't playing the fear card.  They are telling the elderly that they're going to be thrown out into the street if McCain is elected.  They're telling mothers that McCain is going to send their sons off to war.  They are telling the poor that they will starve to death of McCain is elected.

It seems to me that Goering was right, but I think that the wrong people need to be quoting Goering.  It's the level-headed Americans that need to be reminding people who is playing the fear card.  The terrorists are real.  They want to kill us.  They have killed people in other countries since 9/11/2001.  Those people would be killing Americans on US soil if they could.  Reminding people of this is not playing the fear card any more than what Obama is doing with his issues.

If you honestly do not believe that there are enemies out there, then might I suggest that you have no need of locks on the doors of your house; and that we have no need of a police force to protect our homes.  Do you really believe that?  Would you really want a mayor that told you it was all a myth and that your homes are only in danger because of the previous mayor?  Would you really want a mayor that wanted to cut the police force?  Would you really feel safer?

Impressions of Palin

Sarah Palin was announced as the republican candidate for vice president a few days ago.  I had read about her a few times over the past few months, not knowing that she'd ever be on the radar for consideration as vice president.  When I heard who the pick was, however, I was delighted.  From what I know of her record, she's an excellent choice.  However, I have a few concerns, and so far, only a few have been put at ease.

I listened to the rhetoric from the left, as far as her not being qualified.  And of course, she's more experienced than Barak Obama, but that doesn't enter their logic.  Comparisons have been made with the governor of Virginia who Obama had on the short list for vp.  At the time, Republicans suggested that he wasn't experienced enough, and so they (the left) make this same comparison with Palin.  However, they aren't comparing apples to apples.  The fact is that Palin has accomplished a lot more during her time as governor of Alaska.  In addition, she was governor of an energy producing state, and a state with quite a bit more natural resources to manage.

Palin took on the big money interests and beat them, even with them vastly out spending her.  She took on corruption in her own party, even with a sitting governor of her own party.  She stood up to big oil a number of times as governor.

All this said, the governor of Viriginia is hardly as qualified for an executive position as Palin.  The left don't see this because they don't want to see this.  However, if she were a democrat, it would be different.

I liked her speech on Wednesday night of the RNC.  It had a bit of "red meat" in it, but so did Joe Biden's when he gave his a week earlier.  And to be fair, that is what these speeches are supposed to be.  The VP is supposed to go on the offensive against the opposition.   This allows a more diplomatic, more inclusive speech from the nominee for president the following night.  I haven't heard McCain's speech yet, obviously, and so I can't comment on that.

One thing that I'll say is that I am impressed that Palin can think on her feet, rather than relying on a teleprompter to do her thinking for her.  In fact, during her speech, the teleprompted had a malfunction and so she did the bulk of her speech without its aid.  That speech was given from the heart.

I feel that Palin did a reasonably good job of introducing herself to the public, especially those that haven't read as much about her as my wife and I have over the past few months.  However, one thing that I didn't get out of the speech, was a clear view of how well she would stand up to a sinister leader such as Vladimir Putin.  This man is a former KGB leader, and for all practical purposes, has kept that organization alive, although in a different name now.

If John McCain is elected, and he were to keel over during his presidency, then Sarah Palin would become President of the United States.  Our enemies will test her, as they will test McCain or anyone else who becomes President.  They will test to see what they can get away with.  The terrorists will do it.  Putin will do it.  Chavez will do it.  The list goes on.

Judging from her history with dealing with the big money interests (with billions at stake), I have a feeling that Palin would do fine standing up against our enemies.  However, nothing in her speech said that to me.  I will be watching the upcoming debates to see how well she goes up against a "bitter old man".

Many people describe Joe Biden as a bitter old man, and in some respects, he is.  He certainly can be.  He can be very diplomatic and presidential in discussions, but I have noticed over the years that he becomes easily frustrated if the facts catch him in an inconsistency or a lie.  At this point, he can become agitated and nasty.  He tends to start making things up, or making personal attacks in order to "change the subject".  I had a lot or respect for Biden a decade ago, but less in more recent years.  I do respect him as far as being a tough opponent in a debate,  and in my opinion, he is probably the toughest person in debate that I have seen of the four current players.

So these debates are going to be very crucial for me level of comfort regarding whether or not Sarah Palin could step in as President if something were to happen to John McCain.

The Media Are Campaigning For Obama

I've said for a long time that the media have become active participants in the Obama campaign.  Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann definitely have a man-crush on Obama.  Even Hillary Clinton, who had always gotten a pass from the media before, was suddenly upset because now they were backing Obama, and she wasn't able to combat it.  They were against her, rather than just reporting the news.

In the past, John McCain has had friendly press.  This is mainly because he wasn't the typical Republican.  While others would surround the wagons and tow the party line, McCain would break with party and try to get things done.  He would join forces across the aisle and passed much legislation in favor of the American people, but not always with the approval of the party.

During this presidential campaign, there was a shift as soon as McCain got the nomination.  Suddenly, they turned on McCain.  They published unfounded rumors with no journalistic integrity, whereas they refused to publish unfounded rumors of any kind regarding Obama.

Even early in the primaries, the media refused to publish any unfounded rumors regarding marital infidelity on the part of John Edwards; and that turned out to be true.  There were facts.  It's not like it was unsubstantiated.  It's pretty bad when the National Inquirer can beat the New York Times to a substantiated story.

On the other hand, unsubstantiated stories were released regarding the Republicans.  First, there were accusations of infidelity on the part of John McCain, which turned out to be nothing.  They have remained unsubstantiated.  How does a legitimate news organization publish stories they can't substantiate?  Unless of course, they're a part of the political process on one side or the other?

And as soon as it was announced that Sarah Palin would  be the vice presidential candidate for the  Republicans, there were vicious unsubstantiated stories published about her.  They suggested that she wasn't the mother of her youngest baby, and that it was really her teenage daughter that was the mother.  How could a story like this be published with nothing more than suggestion?  No journalistic standards were observed in reporting this.

And when it turned out to be bogus, due to the fact that the teenage daughter was pregnant, the news media, instead of just shutting up about it, published this story.  They brought the family into the public even though the Obama camp had supposedly said that "family is off limits and not a part of the political process".

Essentially, Obama can afford to take the high road, because he knows the media are going to take the low road.  He even met with elements of the leftist fringe media when warned not to.  They have started a lot of these rumors against Palin, and yet Obama hasn't distanced himself from these groups.  He just plays like he's not a part of it and remains to take the high road.  This is much the same as how George W. Bush allowed Karl Rove to do his dirty work, and claimed no knowledge of it.

Is this Obama's meaning for "change" and a "new kind of politician"?

It aint new.

If Sarah Palin's daughter had an abortion, I'm assuming that the media would've not published her name or the story, because they have a sympathetic view of abortion rights and the right to privacy.  However, evidently, this right to privacy isn't afforded to a young teenage woman if she chooses to let the child live.  When have we seen the news media publish stories about teenage daughters of candidates, or about any teenage girls having children out of wedlock?

Again, Obama took the high road (after the fact), but he could afford to do this.  The story had already been made public; and of course, the news media is doing his dirty work for him.

And during the Democratic National Convention, we saw all kinds of divisive speeches.  Biden's was one of the worst.  That's a part of the process and to be expected.  However, during the Republican National Convention, the news commentators have gone on and on about how divisive the speeches have been during the convention; but they made no mention of this when it was the Democrats.  And they have even gone so far as to interview Joe Biden and allow him to rebutt some of the speeches.  And he actually had the gall to suggest that the speeches were "divisive".

Let's tell the truth here.  John McCain is one of the least divisive people in either house of Congress.  He is the one that has consistently reached across the aisle on behalf of the American people.  Obama never has.  Biden rarely, if ever, has.

And now the Republicans have a vice presidential candidate that is much like McCain.  She has reached across the aisle on behalf of the citizens.  She fought corruption in her own party.  She fought big oil.  She did it all when under funded in relation to her opposition.

On the other hand, Biden and Obama both have been a part of the political machine in Washington, that protects their own; rather than working on behalf of the American people.

Do I think that Sarah Palin walks on water?  No.  Of course not.  It's too early to tell much about her, although I've read a reasonable amount about her over this past year or so.  I do like the idea of someone that comes from an energy state, and knows energy and environmental issues.  These are things that Biden and Obama only know how to talk about from the party line; not from real experience.

I'm hoping that Palin turns out to be genuine.  What I've seen during the convention is consistent with what I've read about her for several months.  I think that McCain did a good job in picking her.  It was quite a surprise; especially for the media, who are definitely working on behalf of the Obama campaign to neutralize her affect to the McCain campaign.

I noticed that before Guiliani spoke at the convention, a CNN reporter asked him about negative statements he'd made about McCain during the primary race.  I have noticed that Biden, nor any of the other speakers during the DNC were ever asked the same thing.  And the fact is that Biden made some very harsh remarks about Obama during the primary race.

This is nothing really new.  I remember that when Bush (sr) was running against Bill Clinton, Dan Rather ran a story on "economy in jeopardy" at the end of every broadcast.  As soon as the election was over, he never ran it again.  You can't tell me this wasn't an attempt to influence the election results.

The news media are working hard to affect the election.  I've seen so many cases of this.  It is certainly different from how these same people covered the DNC.

Politics: So Tired of the B.S.

I'm tired of the bs. The rhetoric on both sides of the political spectrum, has gotten so thick that I need boots to wade through it. And I'm learning towards getting some taller boots with a boat attached.

This week, the democrats had their national convention, to officially declare their candidate for President of the United States. The Republicans will do the same for their candidate next week. The reality is that both parties could do us all a favor and condense this all down to one day.
They wont do this though. This is their time to give some of the privileged few their chance to voice their feelings and/or to vent and/or to make themselves heard and seen in hopes of getting enough attention for future political ambitions. No serious discussion of the issues is done here. It's all cheerleading. It's all rhetoric. It's all lies, distortions, half-truths.

This week, Hillary Clinton spoke about her pet issues. She mentioned jobs being sent overseas, making it sound like it was Bush's fault. After all, everything is Bush's fault. The crowd lapped up her every word. The truth is, she was lying. It was her husband that signed into law the tax credits for companies like IBM to off-shore jobs. It wasn't George W. Bush. It was Bill Clinton.

Joe Biden, the running mate for Barak Obama, chose his own rants against McCain as well as the Bush Administration. It's not like some of the rants aren't deserved, but what Biden was doing was putting it on extra thick, with no serious imparting of the facts. It was all rhetoric again.
Biden had suggested that McCain was wrong because he was for keeping troops in Iraq, and now the Bush Administration as well as the Iraqi government as discussing a time table for troop redeployment. Biden suggests that he was right and that Obama was right, and that McCain was wrong. On the surface, that seems like a good argument. But wait a minute. According to this argument, Bush was right as well. However, lets go further into the issue. The whole reason there is any discussion by the Bush Administration or by the Iraqi government about troop redeployment, is because of the troop surge. McCain was for it. Biden was against it. Obama was against it. So in that line of thinking, Obama was wrong. Biden was wrong. Bush was right. McCain was right.
It all depends on how you look at it.

The bottom line is that we all wish that we hadn't gotten into the war to begin with. Everyone agrees with that. However, unlike Obama, Biden voted for the war. So how much credibility does he have in bringing up the issue?

And then there's Bill Clinton. Slick Willie was at his best again, doling out the soundbites. Anyone on the left lapped them up unquestioning. Everyone else were hoping for an enema.

Clinton suggests that just as it is suggested that Obama was too young and inexperienced to be president, that they had said the same thing about him; how much of an argument is that really? For one thing, Clinton had been a two-term governor. Obama hasn't. And, to tell the truth, Clinton did nothing to curb al Qaeda, and the result was no response regarding repeated attacks on Americans, including an attack on a US battle cruiser, the Cole.

Clinton points to his own foreign policy in dealing with tyrants, and the fact that he made peace agreements with countries like North Korea. However, he fails to point out that after the agreement, North Korea violated the deal in secret and were developing nuclear capability. So how affective was his policy? He calls the Bush policy a failed policy, but his certainly was no better.

And while we're talking about foreign policy, it was during the Clinton Administration that over 750,000 innocent civilians were murdered in Rwanda while the Clinton Administration sat by waiting for the UN to do something. The UN did nothing. In fact, the UN did have a few soldiers in Rwanda, but when the massacres went on, the UN (Belgian soldiers) ran away. The civilians were slaughtered. Do we really consider this to be a successful policy?

And Clinton points to the deficit. Yes, this is something I agree on. Bush spent worse than any Democrat (to date) had. However, if Obama gets all the things he says he wants, the spending will be even worse. So how could Clinton even suggest that this policy would be any different?
Clinton went on to talk about the tax cuts for the rich. What he was mostly talking about is the capital gains taxes. What he fails to mention is that the reduction in capital gains taxes is what boosted investment and helped the economy after it was slumping during the end of the Clinton years and into the Bush years. That slump was due to the failed dotcom era and little investor confidence in the tech sector. The cuts in capital gains provided additional revenue into our economy, as well as additional jobs that had been on the decline.

Hint.  This economy grows because of investment.  Investment brings capital into the economy.  Without it, there is recession.  The economy grows with capital, not with taxes.

Clinton went on to talk about the economy, which I agree could be better if not for Bush's spending out of control, but again, the democrats want to spend more. They want to take away the incentive to invest. They want to take away the incentive to create real jobs (not government jobs). And in addition, during the Bush years, the growth rate has still been a higher percentage above the overall economic output of the nation, in comparison to that of the Clinton years. So as bad as the Bush economic policy has been, Clinton's was worse and he knows it.

Clinton mentioned education as well as did Biden. Ted Kennedy mentioned it briefly as well. The thing is, none of them pointed out that Bush spent more on education than any president previously (including Clinton). In addition, Bush not only gave Sen. Kennedy the education bill that he wanted, but even gave him additional funding for it. And to hear them talk, it's not enough. If true, then they're failures too and certainly a part of the problem.

Several of the speakers mentioned the torturing of prisoners, eluding to prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay. These are men that would kill Americans if given the chance. Some have already killed Americans. These politicians seem very concerned about the rights of these men, but show no concern for the rights and well-being of unborn babies in this country. They're not even on the radar because it's not politically correct.And to be truthful, was McCain not one of the Senators opposed to torture? So how serious is this discussion really?

The purpose of these speeches, for the most part, was to fire up the audience and to get them excited about being at the convention. However, the real purpose of the convention was to tally the delegate votes to determine who the candidate would be, and we knew before the convention who that would be. Did we not?

AT&T gave millions of dollars to the democrats (to the republicans too). In return, (including a vote by Barak Obama who at first was opposed), they voted to keep telecom companies from being sued if they had co-operated with government investigations regarding wire taps. Is this the kind of change this candidate speaks of? It seems that he has become what he has been preaching against. He has catered to the privileged few who have the money to buy from government what they want.

The truth is that neither party leaders really understand the average person on the street and what we want in a government. They are both selling us out as far as our economic and territorial sovereignty. Neither show any concern for the average working man in this country. They just talk about it.

When Obama was running for the Senate, he got organized labor's support because he said that he'd renegociate NAFTA. After he got into office, the subject has never been mentioned again. Is this the sign of a man that represents change? If its a change in what he'll do versus what he'll promise in order to get a vote, then yes, it's change. Is it good for the country? No.
The truth is that in every election, these guys just want to get elected. They talk about a few key issues that they feel people are interested in. These include the military (if we're at war), education, the economy, civil rights, the environment, etc. And to tell the truth, the environment is only an issue on election years. The rest of the time, it's business as usual. If you don't believe me, start watching your typical liberal and what cars they drive, how they drive, and what they're really concerned about as far as air pollution, global climate change, natural resources, etc. You'll see that it's just an issue to "talk" about but in reality, only a few people really care enough to live what they say.

There are probably people in both parties that actually care about one or more of these subjects, but they typically have a different approach to solving these problems, or they have a different priorities on which problems should be solved first (and how much money should be spent). For the most part, this is little difference between the leaders of both parties, as these are politicians first, party second and American's third. (I could say elite American third, and American citizen fourth). That's their priorities.

The Republicans will have their convention next week. I have no reason to believe that the rhetoric will be any different. I have lost hope that it will.

Where are the statesmen (and women)?

Soundbites Rule / Solutions Fall On Deaf Ears

Soundbites rule nowadays. Politicians only care about getting elected or re-elected. No real solutions are pursued.

Goals without plans are just wishes.

Obama used a soundbite from T.Boone Pickens recently, in discussion the energy problem and oil. He quoted Pickens as saying "Drilling isn't the answer" and then proceeded to demonize anyone that suggests that we should have more domestic drilling. This is the perfect example of the soundbite, because the audience nodded their heads in agreement, even though the fact is that he intentionally misquoted Pickens.

What Pickens actually said is "Drilling alone, isn't the answer". In an interview after the Obama speech, Pickens made a point to re-iterate his original statements, and to clarify that he feels that every reasonable avenue of energy exploration should be pursued, but that any one solution is not a solution at all. That's what he said, but that's not a soundbite. Soundbites get easy votes. Explanations fall on deaf ears.

Soundbites make people smile. The win elections. They don't solve problems.

Wouldn't it be nice to get a politician that didn't care about being re-elected? Of course, these aren't politicians. They're called statesmen. It's really hard for a statesman to be elected, because people want soundbites. They want some simple little blurb that makes them feel better, and that makes them feel smarter and/or more virtuous than people they disagree with. Feelings don't provide solutions. They never have. They never will.

Ungrateful (So-Called Adult) Children

I thought my wife and I were alone, but we're not. The more we compare notes and read what other parents' experiences are, we realize that we're not the only ones with an ungrateful adult child. Isn't that an oxymoron? Adult child? Of course it is, but it is an accurate description, nonetheless.

Today we were given yet another account of a young woman who's parents are in an almost constant state of woe for the past couple of years. It seems to get worse for them, not better.

First, this young woman is living with this guy that wont work, and has told her from the very beginning that he will "never" marry her. He says that he "doesn't believe in it". Evidently, he doesn't believe in supporting his family either, because he'll barely keep a job.
Recently, he had minor surgery while by all accounts, he should be back to work within a week. Instead, he is riding this gravy train for all it's worth and is staying off work for three weeks. And this is three weeks that he will not be bringing in a paycheck for this young woman, and their infant child. He doesn't care. If he can't pay the rent or feed the family, the grand parents will have to chip in like they've been chipping in for the last couple of years.
Last month, their phone bill was over $200 and was in arears, so the phone service was cut off. To get it back on, the grand parents paid, and this month, there's another $200 bill.

In addition, this young couple has had transportation issues, and so the parents lent them a car, and even filled the tank with gasoline for them (you do know what gasoline prices are right now?).
Well when told this over the phone, this young woman said to her mom, "On your way over here, could you stop and get us a large pizza with everything on it?"

When is enough enough?
These people are not wealthy people. They are strapped for cash but are helping their daughter, who has an infant child and is living with this deadbeat that wont support them. They're providing them a car and even filled the gas tank and was bringing the car over to them; and yet it wasn't enough. I couldn't believe she had the gall to ask for a large pizza to be brought over.

When you're poor and living on a budget, you buy groceries and cook and eat at home as much as possible. This is crazy.

Well, upon getting home, I began to reflect on these ungrateful kids. I did a google search, just out of curiousity, and I was amazed at the number of parents that are having to put up with ungrateful adult kids. There's even a whole discussion group for it (at http://www.eons.com/groups/topic/849237-one-out-of-the-bunch).

I'm not going to say that we feel lucky after hearing about what these other people are going through. It tends to make me angry that we're having to put up with (in our own home) the abuse that we do from our own grown child. However, being a parent, you have to ignore the anger adn the disgust, and figure out a way to be a parent; not to coddle, but to motivate. We have made our son's life too comfortable and he is abusing us. We're cutting that off, and I urge every parent of an ungrateful adult child to do the same.

Next Generation: Why So Spoiled?

I'm trying to figure out what is wrong with the next generation? Is this a right of passage when you hit the age of 50? It seems that my parents must've had this same question. What is wrong with our kids?
The reason I'm having this question, is that my wife and I work very hard and sacrifice in order to have what we have. We believe we have provided a good example for our son, but it wouldn't appear so by his behavior. He seems lazy with no interest in working to better himself or to provide for a family in the future. He has none of the values and virtues that my wife and I have tried to provide by example. What have we done wrong?
Our son has told us, more than once, that he does not intend to work as hard as we do. I could buy this if he were born and raised as a rich kid. He was not. So how does he think he's going to get by in the world, if not by his own labor? Does he think the grand universe out there is just going to bring him frankincense and myrrh?
And it's not just our son. We have seen many kids his age saying the same things about their parents. They are not interested in working and sacrificing the way that their parents did. They like the comforts and privilege that those labors provide, but they don't seem to be motivated to actually do the work, and they have no concept of sacrifice. How did so many parents go wrong? How did we go wrong?
I look at how our country got where it is today. Despite a low approval around the world, there are still more people trying very hard to move here from other places in the world, so we must be doing something right here. We must still be a good place to live. So how did this country get this way? It seems to me that the answer is the hard work and sacrifice of those that went before us.
I know that our forefathers weren't perfect, and that not all were truly virtuous, but still, the general concept of being an American, working hard and providing a better life for yourself and your family, is still the American Dream. It is still an admirable goal, and the goal is still within reach of those willing to put out the effort and sacrifice, even for those of the lower incomes of our society. If you want it bad enough, you can have it.
My wife and I do work hard. We haven't treated ourselves to a vacation or anything like that in several years. It's time overdue, but we've been working towards the goal of getting our dream home built. If we were rich, we'd just hire it done and pay for it all. If we were the type to want immediate gratification and unwilling to work hard and sacrifice and be patient, we'd just get a loan for house we couldn't afford (like many people, and figure we'd get bailed out when our day of reconning came). We didn't do that. We chose to build as much as possible on our own, and pay as we go. We're not rich and so our house is not quite even halfway built. It's probably a 3-year project. When it's done, my wife and I will take a vacation.
We are focused.
Our son isn't interested in working. He wants the vacations. He wants the comforts. He wants the luxuries, but isn't willing to put out the effort for even a small portion of his standard of living. You'd honestly believe that he must've been the son of a multi-millionaire, because he seems to have no concept of work and sacrifice.
So what did we do wrong? I'm not comletely sure because I've seen other people who work hard and their kids are much worse than our's. Compared to them, our son is a real do-it-yourselfer.
As I right this, the small dog yard that we have, which is smaller than the standard yard at a home in the city, is a foot high in grass and weeds. One of the few chores we have for our son, he has repeatedly put off and not done. He seems to feel that his primary daily chore is to feed himself. He wont even get up until 1 or 2 in the afternoon, and we keep wondering how you can seriously be looking for a job when you refuse to change this schedule.
My wife and I have decided to give him the boot at the end of the month, with no choice. Maybe if life is uncomfortable enough, he'll finally get his nose to the grindstone, at least enough to pay rent and pay for groceries. The car he's driving is one that we're going to have to give him, because he never would budget and save for one, and to move away from us and get to work, he'll need some kind of transportation. So we'll sign it over to him, because we can't trust that he'll actually insure it. If left in our names, we'd be sued if he had an accident. So he's being rewarded for being lazy, but at the same time, kicking him out is a significant financial savings for us each month. I'm sorry it came to this. Why couldn't he have worked? Why couldn't he have done even one thing that would've shown an attempt at changing his ways? Why wouldn't he work to at least pay car insurance?
It's not like he's 14 years old and we're asking too much. He's 29 years old. Why is 29 too young to be expected to be an adult? How old do you have to be before growing up? I don't get it.
One thing is clear to me. If the next generation is this spoiled and unmotivated, the nation is in trouble. The pioneer spirit of our forefathers, that got us this far, isn't in the next generation. The American pop culture has been "pussified" (if that's not a word, it is now).