Mr. Rangel soon admitted having failed to report rental income of $75,000 over the years. First he blamed his wife for the oversight because he said she was supposed to be managing the property. Then he blamed the language barrier. “Every time I thought I was getting somewhere, they’d start speaking Spanish,” Mr. Rangel explained.

"We in the academy, we have to know that our people, those of us who practice African American Studies, have to know that our people are under assault!  Newt Gingrich and company, that Contract for America is serious.  You know what those guys have said?  While somehow while we were asleep all you white women and all you black people got into the middle class!  We are not sure how it happened (laughter) but the first thing we are going to do is shake the tree and any of y'all who can't hold, y'all going back (laughter)!  And the second thing we are going to do is set up barriers so that no more of y'all can get in here.  And what we're trying to do is end your mama and your daddy criticism which is what African Americans quite frankly mastered in for over 250 years.  We're also trying to end what we used to call the 'one n***** syndrome', you know 'this place ain't big enough for more then one of us."

1. Tiger Woods, #1 since 2006
2. Michael Jordan, #2 in 2008, #2 in 2006, #3 in 2007
3. LeBron James, highest and only second time on list
   (#6 was Jeff Gordon, the first white person on the list)

1. Serena Willams, #1 in 2007, #2 in 2008 and 2006
2. Venus Willams, #3 in 2007 and 2008, #1 2006
3. Danica Patrick, #1 in 2008, #2 in 2007

1. Barack Obama (first year on list)
2. Jesus Christ
3. Martin Luthar King Jr.
4. Ronald Regan
5. George W. Bush

1. Denzel Washington (3rd year in a row)
2. Clint Eastwood
3. Tie - John Wayne / Will Smith

While ideal there is no realistic way to eradicate racism.  We should strive toward that goal however just to keep bad things from creeping back into the society.  One thing to note here. Society is where the racism lies and this is where the work has to be done.  Barriers have been broken for a long time, so why are the academics convinced that racism is still seeped into the prevailing mindset of Americans?  The above runs contrary to that assumption as it clearly shows a rich diversity among the top held positions of admiration among sports, entertainment, and personal leaders society looks up to.  The problem lies not with the general public, but with the mass media and the portion of the minority communities who refuse to let go of the hatred and inflammatory rhetoric.  How many positive news and documentary materials highlight positive examples of minorities in America?  How many minority leaders are reaching out to their communities with positive messages and mentoring to show positive life paths in our society?  Remember perception is reality, when we see gang bangers killing each other, illegal aliens getting access to public hospitals and schools, and race baiters chasing ghosts long since dead we all feel there is a problem when the above quick research shows the problems are much less ingrained in people's views.

We people like to separate and classify things, its how our brains work, its called organization.  This is not to say it is right to lump people together based on race, sexual preference, or religion but it is hardwired into our brains in a way that is against our nature to think about.  Maybe that is the next step on our evolutional ladder but I doubt that as our entire though process relies on this and our world would not function without separating and classifying items this way.  We are seeing that we can look beyond this as the above indicate, but we all need to look past it, not just the majority.  Our race problems have instigators on both sides; the issue will not go away until both sides work at the problems and meet in the middle on an agreed path to coexistence.

The African American community has to listen to the likes of Bill Cosby and move out of the 1950's mindset.  They need to abandon the entitlement and 'woe is us' attitude that is what is holding them back.  They need to hold themselves accountable, have visible fathers, and work hard instead of taking the easy way out of gangs and drugs.  Just as whites need to not assume all young black men are in gangs, young black men need to ridicule and stop others from joining gangs and stop making excuses for them.  The real solution is work, hard work and accepting hard truths.  White America has done a lot, mostly through white guilt, to accommodate the minorities, public awareness months, incorporating history outlining the struggles and hard truths of the past into public school teachings, entertainment that highlights the issues; it’s all out there and put out there by people who are accused of conspiring against the races.  Its time the minorities, all minorities, get off the entitlement and 'we are owed' mentalities and get into the present of the here and now.  That does not mean you have to abandon your culture.  It means you have to stop using the culture cop out as an excuse.  Race relations in America are much healthier then people are led to believe.  Its time we look past the problems and to the real solutions.  For Obama he benifited by his race, it was not his "hope and change" people voted for because if so his policy approval would not be in the toilet while his personal approval is still high, a disconnect.  Gates and his race bating ilk, Sharpton and Jackson etc. all profit off of bad race relations.  If the were no more reace issue they would be out of a job, be less significant, become ancient history and they can't have that.  Gate's arrest just highlights the old way of thinking is still alive and well in the minority community, the majority keeps talking but who else is listening?

A huge new income surtax. The bill's main financing comes from another tax increase on top of the increase already scheduled for 2011 under Mr. Obama's budget. The surtax starts at one percentage point for adjusted gross income above $350,000 in 2011, rising to two points in 2013; a 1.5 point surtax at incomes above $500,000, rising to three in 2013; and a whopping 5.4 percentage points in 2011 and beyond on incomes above $1 million.  (But we were told the tax was only going to be on millionaires, what is going on here, how can those making $350k/year pay for this, they aren't millionaires, are the Democrats starting to tax the middle class to pay for all this bloated crap?)

This would raise the top marginal federal tax rate back to roughly 47% or 48%, if you include the Medicare tax and the phase-out of certain deductions and exemptions. With the current top rate at 35%, this would be the largest rate increase outside the Great Depression or world wars.  (Wow, largest increase in taxes in over 60 years, way to go mushy middle America, this means your guy is going to tax you... and this is JUST for the healthcare, add in TARP, Stimulus, Card Check (forced unionization), Cap & Trade energy subsadies, and possible Stimulus 2.0... yea sure we can spend our way out of debt, just better pray to that atheist god you all believe in that China does not call in all thise bonds, they now own America, China is the largest holder of American bonds, making it the majority debt underwriter of America, not the tax paying citizens, way to go Obama supporters, its all on YOU!)

The average U.S. top combined state-federal marginal tax rate would hit about 52%. This would be higher than in all but three (Denmark, Sweden, Belgium) of the 30 countries measured by the OECD. According to the nearby table compiled by the Heritage Foundation, taxpayers in at least five U.S. states would pay higher marginal rates even than Sweden. South Korea, which Democrats worry is stealing American jobs, would be able to grab even more as its highest rate is a far more competitive 38.5%.  (And the hits just keep on coming!  I came to China for personal reasons, to start a family, but have benefited in now being employed by an American company, that just re-listed as an Irish company to releave its tax burden because it is an outsourcing company employing tens of thousands of Indians, which Obama is saying is wrong and evil.  Well, it isn't, it is business and business will not tolerate all these high taxes and crapy business climates Obama is creating, get ready for a massive brain and employer drain because when this passes they will flee like rats from a sinking ship, and yes the ship is sinking.)

House Democrats say they deserve credit for being honest about the tax increases needed to fund their ambitions. But then they also claim that this surtax would raise $544 billion in new revenue over 10 years. America's millionaires aren't that stupid; far fewer of them will pay these rates for very long, if at all. They will find ways to shelter income, either by investing differently or simply working less. Small businesses that pay at the individual rate will shift to pay the 35% corporate rate. When the revenue doesn't materialize, Democrats will move to soak the middle class with a European-style value-added tax.  (In the bad old days of the Carter administration the Democrats tried to rais taxes in a recession, all it did was force millionaires from investing in existing companies, new companies, or creating new businesses and spending money at home, donating to charity and arts, and in local communities and put it in tax shelters, of just move overseas.  I wrote about the fleeing millionaires from New Hampshire and Vermont and the tax revenue plummit they experienced, well when this goes national those with the means and oppertunity will flee the nation and take their money and tax revenue with them, benefiting their new host nations and local economies, Reganomics and trickle down economy does not work huh, well when there is no source it will surely work less, way to go Democrats!)

Phony numbers. Democrats will have to come up with something, because even the surtax puts their bill at least $300 billion short of honest financing. The public insurance "option" doesn't even begin until 2013 and the costs are heavily weighted toward the later years, but the tax hikes start in 2011. So under Congress's 10-year budget window, the House bill is able to pay for seven years of spending with nine years of taxes. Andy Laperriere of the ISI Group estimates the bill would add $95 billion to the deficit in 2019 alone.  ($95,000,000,000.00 in 1 year alone, for 1 program... and they say cut military spending by 10%!  This will dwarf the military budget when adding in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and budget over runs that are a sure bet with anything the government touches, not counting on the massive inflation expected due to our reclkess printing of money and selling of bonds to the Chinese, and Russians calling for a new global currency that may devalue the dollar and cause the Chinese to call in all their bonds at once - the US would then become Mexico of the 1970's with so much massive debt to one nation that we can never get out from underneath it... and we all thought it would be the Japanese who owned the country in the '80's, right idea wrong country.)

Then there's yesterday's testimony, from Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Director Doug Elmendorf, that ObamaCare's cost "savings" are an illusion. Mr. Obama claims government can cover more people and pay less to do it. But Mr. Elmendorf told the Senate Finance Committee that "In the legislation that has been reported we don't see the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal spending by a significant amount. And on the contrary, the legislation significantly expands the federal responsibility for health-care costs."  (How can we get more for less?  Outsourced labor, meaning earning wages will have to go down, yet the minimum wage keeps going up over the next 4 years - thanks Nancy.  So the only way to get more for less is to have the dollar crash.  What is the Democrats end game here?  It isn't health-care, cap and tax, or even socializing the country, think about it.  The end game seems to be bringing down the country from the number 1 spot by dismantling the spending and consumption power of the nation.  Think I am crazy, look at the cause and effect of the legislation being force through now, why are they doing it?  It isn't to make our lives better or to make the nation stronger, its to entrench a liberal idology perminately and to establish an intellectual elite minority to govern the majority through dependancy and ultimate social controls.  All of this can only be done if we are no longer the leading country in the world.  We are passing off the largest wealth and prosparity transfer in human history, and it is going to the oldest nation on the planet, China.)

Further on the public plan: "It raises the amount of activity that is growing at this unsustainable rate."

No matter, Speaker Nancy Pelosi is whisking the bill through House committees even before CBO has had a chance to score it in detail. As Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan put it to us, "We will not have read it, and we will not have a score of it, but we will have passed it out of committee."  (This is what I mean by 'ruling intellectual elite', the few ruling the masses because the masses are too ignorant and unaware of how to run their own lives, only the ivy league rich Democrats can know what is best for us, we have just sold off our independance to the likes of Obama, Reid, and Pelosi, good job folks.  And people wonder why I have spewed such venom and hatred to this group, because I could see their play, too bad more people didn't.)

A new payroll tax. Unemployment is at 9.5% and rising, but Democrats will nonetheless impose a new eight percentage point payroll tax on employers who don't provide health insurance for employees. This is on top of the current 15% payroll tax, and in addition to a new 2.5-percentage point tax on individuals who don't buy health insurance. This means that any employer with more than $400,000 in payroll would have to pay at least 25% above the salary to hire someone. Result: Many fewer new jobs, with a higher structural jobless rate, much as Europe has experienced as its welfare states have expanded.  (I guess more then 50% of new businesses will fail in the first year, 3 years, and 5 years now, unless they have no employees...)

Other new taxes, including an as yet undetermined levy on private health plans. This tax, which Democrats say could raise $100 billion or so, would make it even harder for private plans to compete with the government plan, which would already benefit from government subsidies and lower capital costs. For good measure, the House bill also gets the ball rolling on tax increases on foreign-source corporate income.  (There goes the ability to have a presence outside the borders, McDonalds, Coke, Yum Foods, Kraft, GE, American Autos, etc. will now have to pay American style taxes on foreign income, being taxed twice because the nations these companies are in WILL require them to pay the nation's local taxes as well, so you could see a foreign branh of Bank of America pay 80% tax on income from a Denmark branch, BoA will close all those branches limiting competition and placing American businesses overseas at a disadvantage preventing any competition, way to go!)

We could go on, and we will in coming days. But the most remarkable quality of this health-care exercise is its reckless disregard for economic and fiscal reality. With the economy still far from a healthy recovery, and the federal fisc already nearly $2 trillion in deficit, Democrats want to ram through one of the greatest raids on private income and business in American history. The world is looking on, agog, and wondering why the United States seems intent on jumping off this cliff.

The problems with health care in America is not having insurance, it IS insurnace.  HMO's, insurance companies providing insurance to doctors, hospitals, clinics, etc. at insanely high rates because of insanely high jury awards and trial lawyers seeking massive payouts and settlements to avoid trials.  The greed of the HMO's who ration care and seek out profit for their investors instead of provide cost savings for their clients and doctors and modest returns for their investors.  The patent laws that make drug companies charge through the nose to pay off all the research and development costs of new drugs in short order before generics strip off their market share.  The lack of oversight and protection of hospitals that have resulted in the closure of most non-profit and charitable hospitals and flooded the market with for profit hospitals who have high operating costs due to insurance and payroll because the hospitas and its employees have different insurance policies.  The problem is not that 5 million illegal immigrants don't have health insurance, 9 million Americans who make over $75,000 a year don't have helath insurance, or 18 million Americans under 35 not having insurance, many of which are part timers or between jobs.  No the problem is miss managed HMO's who can kick out clients for getting care without any penalty.  The problem is all the overhead and increases passed on from middle man to middle man to middle man and finally passed onto the customer.  The whole industry has gotten too focused on profits and gains, much like the financial sector.  The issue needs to be addressed by looking at price restructing and incentives, not by selling off the future of 3 generations of Americans to the Chinese!  You can't spend your way out of this problem, they money flowing in will only cause higher prices because of the increased taxes in the industry will make those in charge charge more to compensate.  The president needs to stop calling for an alternative and look at the reasons why the prices are so high.  Democrats love to control people and lives so much, why don't they take the zeal and furvor they did against Wall Street and apply that to our Health Care system?  Want to regulate something, regulate healthcare.  Throwing money at it is like letting the fox guard the hen house.

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/apollo.html

 

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/index.html

 

http://www.nasm.si.edu/collections/imagery/apollo/as11/a11.htm

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31814200/ns/entertainment/

Well, not a motor scooter but faster transportation then the mountain bike I have.  Today I received my Chinese, Shanghai Municipal drivers license enabling me to drive cars and motorcycles.  I mentioned a few weeks back about starting the process, well today I took the written exam, on computer, and passed with flying colors.  So for those interested here is the saga of getting a driver’s license in China.

First you have to go to the police station that holds the DMV, its busy but not as busy as in large cities in the states, and yes they make you take a number.  I was lucky to get help from an agency that took care of all the extra paperwork we foreigners have to go through.  I presented Chinese certified copies of my Wisconsin driver’s license, Passport with Visa, Work and Residence permits, lease agreement, and vile of blood (just kidding on the last part). 

After presenting all they you have to go to various windows, fork over fees for this and that, get your picture taken, and then get a physical.  In the states the physical is just a simple eye test and color blind check.  Not in China, I had to get weighed, measured, hearing check, eye exam, color blind exam, blood pressure, and general health questionnaire (diabetes, epilepsy, anything that may cause a seizure or incapacitate you).  Then it was back to the admin building to get all the paperwork reviewed, stamped, and made official.  Then its off to the testing building where they give you a study guide and schedule the written test.  As I have an existing license valid for more then a year they did not require a practical exam.  My test was 2 weeks away.

Today I took the test, 100 questions and was informed by the computer I had passed with 3 questions left, meaning I missed 2.  From there it was getting the test results certified, stamped, and then going back to the administration building.  Here we got more stamps, certifications, paid more fees, got some more stamps, and then sat in a basically empty room waiting on the number to pick up the license.  20 minutes later I received my brand spanking new license, renewal card, and nifty vinyl case to keep it all in.

Here are some differences to note.  In China you can’t smoke when driving, legally.  Despite what happens on the roads you can’t creep through an intersection or ignore traffic lights legally.  You are not supposed to honk, flash your lights, or use high beams when you encounter the millions of things you will see (people in the road, bikes, mopeds, cars going the wrong way, people stopped between lanes trying to figure out which way to go).  Shanghai has restrictions on the elevated highways, you have to get a city sticker and registration to use them during the week days, I don’t have that for the wife’s car so we can only use the elevated roads on weekends and holidays.  There are more but I will discuss that later, as I get some driving time under my belt.

Its been 3 years since I drove, tonight I got lost on purpose to learn the area around our apartment a little better.  Driving here is a huge difference due to the bikes, mopeds, motorcycles, and pedestrians who are always in too much of a hurry to obey any sort of law, rule, or common sense.  Next are the buses.  Shanghai has over 1,000 bus routes, and the drivers have high turnover so you have to watch out for their suicidal lane changes and running of red lights.  Shanghai’s taxi corps is everything except patient and forgiving, they will honk, cut you off, and act like they will hit you if you show weakness, they drive offensively.  Finally are the regular drivers who have little in the way of reference of driving as they are the first generation to have this much access to cars.  They are learning and the roads are wide and great, but they are anything but sticklers for following the rules of the road.  My biggest fear is not getting into an accident, 20 years of defensive metro driving and dodging deer in the country are burned in my brain, no my fear is I acclimate to the Shanghai way of driving.

Next up, get a car seat, a luxury item and rarely here, a road breakdown and first-aid kit, service up the car and then its learning the surface streets and elevated rings.  It feels great to have the freedom of driving again, but in a city of this size its a little of mixed blessing as parking is a premium and gridlock is a guarantee.  Wish me luck and get ready for new adventure and travel blogs as we start to explore the areas around Shanghai!

45,700,000 uninsured according to 2007 estimates or 15.2% of our total population

18,300,000 are between 18 and 35 (mostly part time workers) or 6% of our total population

11,900,000 are eligible for some form of government coverage or 4% of our total population

  9,600,000 are immigrants (5,600,000 est to be illegal immigrants; who will now get coverage) 3% of our total population

  9,100,000 are in families with total income greater then $75,000 per year or 3% of our total population

The past month has been extremely busy in all aspects of life for me, including my online activities.  Before I get started with the ranting I would like to take a moment for blatant self promotion.  June 30th marks the re-opening of this blog in the present format, June 30th 2005, so for 4 years now I have been trying to get to the bottom of our views, perceptions, and beliefs.  One of my strengths is my passion for arguing, politics, and framing an issue in a way to persuade or force one to justify proof for their views.  I am not perfect in this, but I am not too shabby either.  Over the years the focus on sharing views into my life and experiences has fallen off.  Apologies for that for those who liked the personal interest side, I will try harder to spread the topics but I can’t abandon my hard stance on politics at this crucial moment in my nation’s history.  This has been a light blogging month.  I have covered a pure example of media bias where 2 similar murders were covered in such a way that it highlights the clear split in American society and the ensuing class warfare initiated last year.  China decided to slam the door on internet communications for the June 1989 anniversary and as of today twitter was down, thanks to a huge riot resulting in 800 injuries, 150 deaths, and 300 arrests.  With this out of the way…

Domestic Issues – The number 1 issue in America, transcending politics, religion, and ideology is the mired economy.  The murmur from the conservative fringe has bleed into the mainstream media with growing questions, concerns, and worries the largest economic policy in human history isn’t gaining any traction.  While the administration continues to put on a brave face and argue voodoo jobs figures the reality on main street is our unemployment is still growing.  The buzz words of the campaign and inauguration like ‘shovel ready’ have proven to ring hollow for the swelling ranks of jobless Americans.  Despite the trillions of dollars, cranking up the printing presses, government takeovers of private sector employers the net truth of the matter is hiring is stuck in the mud.  Former president Bush said the problem was credit markets being ‘frozen’, that has been resolved and nothing has happened.  President Obama has stated the government spending would resolve the problem and rushed the legislation through Congress to his desk, nothing has happened.  California, America’s most populous state and equal in GDP to the 13th position in the world economy, is facing a massive dept that will have to result in the shedding of jobs from its largest employer, the state itself.  While times are bad they are still nothing compared to the 1930’s Great Depression that say unemployment, lack of capital, and largest rate of private sector business failure in American history, of course this is of little comfort for the citizens facing bills minus a source of income.  The main question is, what did we get for selling out futures Mr. President?  It has been discovered nearly all Congressmen and women never read the omnibus bills, stimulus bills, or the spending measures they passed and now we are stuck with the bill for there costs.  The protections, oversight, and administration of spending is lacking with estimates of $50 billion being wasted as blasé because is is such a small faction of the overall tally.  Think of it, $50 billion wasted, this is larger then the GDP of many nations!  It would wipe out the dept of California with some left over.  This estimated waste, from a Deloitte Financial Services Advisory review, is most likely going to be above that on the $787 billion released funding.  This is just below 10%, can you accept any financial situation that bleeds 10%?  What if 10% of your pay check disappeared each month, what if your mortgage bill came up 10% off at the end of the year requiring you to fork over more?  This is why we need the oversight, opposition, and challenges to ensure only what is truly needed to be spent is spent and the money makes it where it is supposed to go.  We were promised infrastructure jobs that would net job results in 6 months, well unless we can employ 4 million people in the next 30 days we will still have a net job loss falling well short of campaign promises we conservatives were screamed at to give the policy time to work, tick tock tick tock Democrats.

One of the great perks of the Presidency is their ability to nominate Supreme Court justices.  One of President H.W. Bush’s biggest blunders was the nomination of David Souter, and not Obama is going to replace him with Sonia Sotomayor.  This equates a large net nothing, replacing a big liberal with another will not change the face of the court or its decision projections.  Now I have not weighed in on the farce of Sonia’s nomination on this blog.  Her selection was a pure political trick, so thinly veiled that if it were not for the blinded eyes of the main stream media everyone would know about it.  Beyond the playing Latinos for fools by nominating a person who did not pronounce her name with its ethnic flare until 2 months ago we are seeing how weak of a candidate she is.  I am not speaking about her comments in public or her abrasive side, I am talking about what counts, her experience and record.  The Supreme Court this month overrode her distinct court judgment on the Connecticut firefighters that was a blatant decision on the side of affirmative action.  Now her track record is gaining much needed light.  Now she will be confirmed but seeing she is overturned 60% of the time by the Supreme Court it truly makes you sit back and ask why she was selected, was there no better candidates available?  There are tons of circuit courts justices, federal judges, and constitutional law Democrats who lean far more to the left then Sonia and have not been overturned 2/3 of the time by the very court she is nominated to.  We see Obama is a firm believer in affirmative action as Sonia is.  He nominated New Mexico governor Bill Richardson to the Commerce Head, Bill withdrew thanks to his shady dealings.  Obama is looking to trump Bush’s Attorney General Alberto Gonzales (whom was skewered by the left and Latinos for his work) and buy votes from the Latinos for his party.  The shame of this is the Latino community in the US is accepting the “pay for play” proposition the Democrat party has made.  Latino’s are a natural conservative minded people, fiscal responsible, family values, religious, lack of government involvement in their lives yet the Democrats resonated with the vast majority of them better, we need to ask why, the Democrats don’t have a better immigration plan, they are going to raise taxes on the poor through cigarettes, alcohol, soft drinks, foods with high carbs and fat so what gives?  Instant gratification!  Liberals will give away high profile tokens to gain favor, but the real power they never give away.  This nomination was nothing more then buying votes by showcasing a token that the masses can identify with.  In the end the Liberals will do little to help the Latinos, just as they did little and failed to help the blacks, American Indians, Asians, and others they love to laude in their concept of ‘rainbow collation”.  Sotomayor has a bad record, colored judgments that are overturned 2/3 of the time, and is not the most scholarly Constitution reviewer on the left, she was picked for one sole reason, to buy votes and its as obvious as the Sun in the sky.

International Issues – Dum dum dum dum, the drums of war are beating and they are getting louder.  Our Dear Leader is about to get schooled in gumption by the original Dear Leader, Kim Sung Il.  Over the month we saw how effective ‘aggressive diplomacy’ worked in containing them.  Wait, did I miss something?  I can hear you thinking as you read that, North Korea did not get away with anything, really you think that?  Let’s look at what North Korea has done over the past month.  They have dissolved the cease fire that halted the Korean War, fired off volleys of short and mid range missiles, and confirmed they are enriching more uranium to make nuclear war heads.  They have also thumbed their noses at the UN resolution that was to better enforce the previous UN resolution that was passed to punish them for their First nuclear detonation.  Since Obama has taken office they have fired off a long range 3 stage delivery vehicle (though it did fail), detonated a Second nuclear detonation, and the above items that all took place in 1 month.  North Korea is testing our dear President and ladies and gentlemen, he failed.  How, well part of the resolution, as toothless as it is, states we must ask permission to board suspect ships for possible weapons shipments, we did not do this.  It states member states not harbor suspect ships unless boarded and cleared, this did not happen.  Obama even came out publically and stated “we will not board that ship”, and what did North Korea do, turn the ship around.  How is that a failure?  Despite all the wackiness of Il and the DPRK, they are not total idiots.  They know how to play chicken.  They know how to play politics in the Asia region.  They know weakness and fear when they smell it.  The DPRK picked a ship they knew was suspicious, loaded it with nothing in particular but in a suspicious manner, sent it out on a way to a fellow military dictatorship, and waited for America to take the bait, or blink.  Il painted us into a corner and there was no way out.  Board the ship and find nothing and you prove his insane claims about our intent.  Ignore the ship and our hard work at the UN is wasted and meaningless.  Shadow the ship and say nothing, its all a big snipe hunt.  Tip our hand and say essentially “we give up” and you get the equivalent of a game of chicken, we blinked and turned, they didn’t.  Know the DPRK knows where the weak link is.  Now Bush did not succeed in achieving much with North Korea, but he did make much more then what we have seen in the past 5 months.  North Korea will not negotiate with a lesser power, they will dictate to weaker foes, and now we have become that.  What should we have done?  Forced the ship into a Chinese port for a search, not do it ourselves, but force the DPRK and the Chinese to work out the issue, because we all know they are as close as “lips and teeth”.  They forced our hand and we folded, we should have turned the tables by getting another country that the DPRK does not see as hostile and their tune will change, we failed.

June marked the largest moment in American military history over the last 6 years, and where was the Commander in Chief?  While Bush was extremely premature in his infamous “Mission Accomplished” aircraft carrier speech/gaff, Mr. Obama signaled his distain and disrespect for the very troops he is in charge of by being obviously absent in celebrating the largest American troop withdraw in Iraq and the first time the cities of Iraq were handed over to their own military since the Iraq war started!  Now we all know what I have been screaming about with the Democrats and their views on the military.  Obama never accepted the fact the surge worked, and all he did was to take down the page criticizing it on his official government page, quietly.  Obama stated time and time again the surge failed, yet this month we have turned a majority of the country’s security over to their own forces.  So does this mean the war is over, mission accomplished, did we win?  Obama is now knee deep in his own surge in Afghanistan yet he is barely making a peep on this.  We are still on the time table negotiated by the Iraqi government and the US government of the last administration.  And the results?  Time will tell but my belief is that all the violence the Democrats were blaming on our troops being there will not go down one iota.  My big question is simply this; the Democrats hated the Iraq war, they wanted out of it for the past 6 years, so why did they not laude it when we started the process of getting out of it and by handing over a country to a sovereign country and their military in a better state then it has been since the war started?  Where are the press conferences with the President marking this major milestone he kept complaining about last fall?  Why is he, the leader of the military, not out there publically lauding the work, sacrifice, and accomplishments of the fighting forces and their first major step in closing this war out?  They hated this war and will not acknowledge its successes.  I hope they don’t go the opposite route and re-enact the Vietnam war in Afghanistan as Democrats so like to do when they get into a position of starting or taking over a war.

Financial items – Our US House of Representatives, led by insane Nancy Pelosi (hey if the left called Bush, Chaney, Gingrich, etc. idiots and worse for 8 years plus I can do the same to their leaders now) passed the ACES act, better known as Cap & Trade, or as I like to call it the largest tax increase in world history.  The bill is now half way to the big O’s desk.  Now up is the Senate.  The larger problem is that the heat of the mid term elections is starting to be felt.  The longer it is out there the worse this cap & trade bill looks.  If you get your electricity from coal, oil, etc. you will see massive energy increases.  Heat your home with oil, prices way up, electricity, way up, wood, you better bet they will find a way to tax that.  This bill, like all others in Washington, needs to be looked at closely and we need to follow the money.  The governing body that will oversee the carbon commodities market, where is the funding for it going to come from?  All the windmills and solar cells, new transmission lines, where is the funding for it going to come from?  Remember Obama promised not to raise any new taxes on anyone making less then $200k single and $250k families, well its going to come from us all, that is ‘spreading it around’.  Remember the new taxes on smoking, drinking, sodas, etc. well are you exempt from them if you make less then the above annual income, nope.  The regulations will require the increases of prices of ALL existing energy outlets to subsidies and fund the new energy programs, its coming out of increased prices passed on to us the consumers.  And when this is found to be grossly short, as Warren Buffet and others are now screaming, where will the money come from, you guessed it taxes and hidden fees.  Going to fly in a plane, carbon tax.  Going to buy something plastic, carbon tax.  Going to plug in that new electric car, carbon tax, road access tax, fuel tax recover tax, and it will go on and on and on and on and on and on.  If the Senate passes cap & trade, even with the clown Frankin, then we all deserve to pay ALL the associated costs of it, anticipated at about $6,700 more per year for a family or four, as just consumers.  Add this to healthcare, SCHIP, stimulus repayments, new stimulus, bailouts, inflation, etc.  Welcome to liberalville, it all dependency all the time.

The good natured East coast Democrat elite are beginning to learn a valuable lesson in regards to irresponsible tax policies.  The millionaires on the East coast are disappearing.  Sure they were hurt bad by the stock market fall, credit crisis, Barney Madoff, etc. but they still have much more money then we normal people do.  So why are the liberal states on the east cost seeing tax revenues falling by 23% or more?  They increased taxes on the rich to fund their nanny state lunacy and now they are left holding the bag and trying to make up budget shortfalls, not as bad as California and Wisconsin, but pretty bad.  All that projected tax revenue they believed they would have evaporated when their base assumption of rich people just accepting the taxes would stay put, well it didn’t happen.  The people who were taxed the most finally found the line and they up and moved to a state with less income and capital gains taxes.  How un-American of them, as Joe Bidden stated during the campaign.  Well, part of being American is the life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  Nowhere does it state you have to pay taxes in one state if they are less in another.  We have the freedom of movement to go where we please when we please.  The company I work for, a major player in many markets and one of them being outsourcing, has been chased to Ireland due to this massive tax climate that is materialize.  If a fortune 500 company that generates millions of tax dollars a year is going overseas to avoid repressive taxes why not people who have and make millions a year?  They can move the easiest and have the means and methods to do so, so why are we burdening them excessively and expecting them to take it?  The harder the Democrats squeeze the more will slip through their fingers.  The real causalities of this new class warfare will be us, the common person, ultimately.  The people who are the venture capitalists, investors, bankrollers, etc. of new businesses that employ us all will soon begin to migrate to better places and will spread that opportunity they used to share with us to others.  It will never happen the liberals say, well not the liberals in Maryland who say 30% of their top earners leave.  California is already seeing millionaire flight in anticipation of excessive taxes.  With them will go the money for new business start-ups, investments, donations to local arts, parks, and programs, scholarships and college donations, all the multitudes of those who facilitate their lifestyles (gardeners, pool cleaners, dry cleaners, drivers, maids, lawyers, doctors, contractors, landscapers, golf course employees, wineries, spas, mechanics, etc.).  Now I am not a fan of the money wasting of the rich, but they are rich for a reason, and if it were easy to get there we all would be there.  Our system rewards by compensation with money, if we penalize by taking away money it will only lead to a rational conclusion that those with it will go where they won’t be penalized, be it in another state or country.  So before you feel the taxes to pay for all this socialism we are seeing going on will be gladly shouldered by the rich tomorrow and the next year, think again, for when they leave that yoke will fall on our shoulders, the middle class. 

Science items – This year marks the anniversary of America’s greatest scientific accomplishment, one which we repeated a few times and unless it falls out of favor of socialistic policy will return to again in 5 to 10 years.  I am talking of course about landing on the moon.  There is much talk about this but there is just as astonishing thing going on in our space exploration program, the Mars rovers.  Originally designed to last for 6 months these two most advanced remote control cars ever made are marking there 5th year of service on a neighboring planet.  While 1 is in trouble and the other’s extent of usefulness is hotly contested we should take stake of what these two little rovers have done and demonstrated to us.  First of all, there is a reason we stopped at the moon with manned space exploration.  Dangers, cost, and unknown variables.  We have sent things to Mars since the 1970’s but the rovers are the most promising to providing a clear step for our breaking out of the womb of our own planet.  Through the proxy of machines we have demonstrated we can conduct long term scientific and basic exploration of alien bodies through space and make much better judgments on to whether we should endanger people to go there or not.  We have also demonstrated the durability and longevity of our technology well past its intended use.  This will mean we can scale up our ambitions, send over rovers what could mine, service other rovers, conduct larger scale experiments, etc.  In the mean time we can try to overcome the issues with shallow space travel; oxygen, water, bone density loss, cosmic radiation exposure, etc.  As we look back at the accomplishments of 40 years ago we should also look at what we can do to advance such scientific feats in the future.  Japan, China, and India are all in a race to the moon, each have sent probes, Japan and China have seen successful completions to their missions and are ramping up next phases.  Our national leaders are in the process of hamstringing our industrial sector, energy sector, healthcare sector, and banking sector so we need to shift focus to something that can not be outsourced or produced by competitor nations for a fraction of the cost, science innovation is one of the few.  Space exploration is one of the few things we have that transcends politics, religion, and instills pride, and nationalism that we have lost since our devotion to humanism and modernism.  At this stage in our history we have seen a chasm between our citizens widen to the point of becoming nearly unbridgeable.  Only through a transcending act of nationalism can we all rally behind to remind us of our common cause and common desire as a nation and a people.

For many months I have been writing, digging on dig.com, and discussing with everyone about the failing theory of global warming or as the radical liberals call it global climate change (because we have not seen global temperature increases in a decade).  Scientists have been jumping ship in droves because the holes and faux science generating the theory of global warming has been exposed.  Despite the best efforts of CNN, MSNBC, Salon.com, Huffington Post, etc. the great lie of global warming is overcoming the alarmist lies we have had to endure for 20 years now.  Now what this rant is about is not the faulty science or growing consensus of scientists against global warming, no I am going to rant about conservation verses economic dismantlement and future prosperity.  The radical left have been using slick media avenues to generate massive fear and disgust toward technology and society with the implicit goals of changing our national lifestyle in a radical way without any avenue for opposition.  Conservatives do not believe in pollution, environmental poisoning, or advancing economic policies ahead of the environment we all live in.  There is a middle ground here.  There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that we need to clean up our environment.  We have achieved cleaner standards on our own then countries ties to Kyoto although we have done so emitting more carbon.  This is the issue.  We have cleaner air, water, and soil then countries attached to Kyoto.  Our regulations on water quality are global leaders, we have cleaned up the air in our most polluted cities in 10 years more then those sold on global warming have done in 20, and many were done before global climates were even a thought.  We also have the cleanest coal, oil, gas, and trash recovery power generation on the planet.  So with all the existing regulations on the books, all the positive environmental work accomplished, do we need to go 20 steps further today?  Why not take the next 19 steps in line first?  We still have much work to do, cleaning up the Great Lakes, Mississippi River, Yucca Mountain, etc. so why focus our attention on making electricity produced from coal 60 times higher to make it the same price as solar and wind energy?  We do not have any proof on our effects on global climate so why destroy our prosperity under the assumption the faulty science may some day turn out to have a kernel or nugget of scientific fact buried underneath all the crap?  So we produce more carbon, we also innovate more, discover more, create more, and invent more because of it, we pollute less because or it, and we prosper more because of it.  We have direct impact and suffer the most from our direct environment.  If we want to clean up the neighborhood we should clean up our own yard first, not do things that will radically alert the neighborhood.  We should continue our work on cleaning up our cities air, water, and waste disposal.  We should continue our work on reducing harmful emissions on power and manufacturing in phases that will be sustainable and within market absorption rates.  If we shift our focus away from clean air and water and to carbon and CO2 then we will see declining local environment and atrophied business and manufacturing productivity that will be completely erased by China and India.  Is it in our national and social best interest to trade prosperity and leadership for chasing a dream based off of false science and ideology or should we continue to clean our nation at a sustainable pace while learning how we, as a people, impact the planet as the real science, pointing to the sun and planetary mechanics, progresses and matures.  We just may find we can’t influence the planet that much to matter or if we do we may be breaking a link in the natural chain of our environment therefore wreaking the natural order of things and natural ebb and flow of climate on this huge spinning rock.

Sports items – The Detroit Tigers are 3.5 games ahead in the American League Central division.  The Pistons fell apart, the Red Wings let a championship slip through their fingers, and the Lions, well the stink is still pretty strong from Ford field.  In June there is little going on in sports, baseball is in full swing, the NBA is drafting, NASCAR is going well, and well I don’t pay much attention to tennis, soccer, golf, or those other things you see on ESPN when baseball or racing isn’t going on.  The NFL is keeping itself in the news with discussions on lengthening the season, playing games overseas more, etc.  Having been away from the country for 3 plus years now my distance from sports at home is growing.  The ESPN I get here is cricket and soccer or snooker and ping pong and the time difference makes following sports an internet only activity, which I don’t have much of seeing this post is a few days LATE!  One topic to discuss, as sports will only have one this month, is that of idolizing of sports figures.  I have bloged on hero worship of athletes when related to cheating by taking drugs but not about the place as heroes.  When I was young, in the 70’s, sports heroes were still seen as something of an elevated position.  In this day of instant information dissemination and our sensational appetite for drama and the gutters of the human condition, it is a shame we have lost the ideal of being a better person.  Sports figures who can do things normal people can’t and then go out and continuously try to prove they are just like everyone else cheapens their gifts and abilities.  Michael Jordan is not a normal person.  Tiger Woods is not a normal person.  These people have a special ability to focus on one thing and do so with such dedication and drive to excel beyond the point of regular people, so much so they are paid, and paid too well, to play a sport most people pay to play anyway!  So the yoke of responsibility for hero worship is part of the secondary effects of this success of physical ability.  People will naturally look up to these sports figures.  We facilitate their grossly excessive pay to play games that kids play, that does not mean we expect them to act like kids.  People in the public spot light are held to a higher standard, that is part of being in the public spot light.  We should reject their push back and attempts to state they are just ‘regular people’ because if they were then we would all do what they do for a living and their pay would be regular pay.  Regular people don’t get put on Wheaties boxes, Nike poster, or Gateraid bottles.  If you can accept that part of our fame you should accept the responsibility of realizing you have elevated influence over people in our country and use that to help improve the human condition by highlighting the things that matter to us, telling kids to stay in school, gangs are bad, don’t drink and drive, charity is good, you know things like that.  They should also have enough maturity and responsibility to think twice before doing the line of coke and getting into a car with a hooker.

Political items – Have you ever heard the expression “like shooting fish in a barrel”?  Stop and think about that saying for just a second.  First, which fish would you shoot, next if you miss and hit the barrel what will you do with all the leaking water?  This is what I am facing with politics since November.  Too many fish and that darn barrel may leak all over my floors!  For this month I have 2 topics that go to the core of why the radical left is not the answer to our political dissatisfaction.  First off, does anyone know who Evan Thomas is?  Here is a hint, MSM.  Mr. Thomas is the editor of Newsweek, a major weekly news magazine that reaches and influences the decisions of millions of American’s weekly.  Well Mr Thomas jumped at the opportunity to help fellow lefty hack Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s Hardball in reviewing our President’s speech to the Muslim world in Cairo Egypt.  During the color portion of the review of the speech and its impact and importance Thomas stated: “Well, we were the good guys in 1984, it felt that way. It hasn't felt that way in recent years. So Obama’s had, really, a different task We're seen too often as the bad guys. And he – he has a very different job from – Reagan was all about America, and you talked about it. Obama is ‘we are above that now.’ We're not just parochial, we're not just chauvinistic, we're not just provincial. We stand for something – I mean in a way Obama’s standing above the country, above – above the world, he’s sort of God. He’s..." WOW.  Now I know the liberals are all smitten with themselves over electing a half black man as president, but this is getting into really bad territory here.  Liberals hate God, that is why they have went on, or silently been complicit with, the waging of all out war against religion (Christianity) in America.  Now our country should not promote one religion above another but we should not erase religion from our society either.  If these radical left wing liberals had went to church on Sunday instead of plotting against the church they may see the warning signs of this sort of human worship.  Obama is being lauded as a savior, an answer, a prayer answered (by people who don’t pray).  This paints him into the role of a false profit.  Obama did not descend from Haven to deliver the US from all out misguided ills, if so he would be pissed at their Godlessness.  No he assented from the political cess pool of Chicago politics, to dismantle all things capitalist, conservative, and successful in our country.  What is more concerning to me is not someone on the far left calling Obama godlike but that no one outside of the right wing extremists calling him out on it.  Why didn’t the serious news outlets not jump on this and open the national dialogue on why someone in the media will go so far as refer to a political figure in a religious context.  First off I know that Thomas did not literally mean Obama was “sort of God”, he was trying to make a point about Obama being more ‘big picture’ about global politics then Regan, he just used a really bad analogy to do so.  Matthews of course just agreed and continued the discussion, but this remark should make us all take a pause and see how Obama can be likened to such a position to be a god.  This goes to the blatantly obvious attempts by the left to place Obama into a realm above all us mere mortals when he is much more flawed and corrupted then we average Joes of the world.  Obama is not above anything, he has not even proven he can meet his campaign goals by breaking most of his pledges and failing to meet his own pledges of openness and accountability for a ‘new’ government.

Continuing on the god trail, Obama pulled off a political stunt no party in power would have dared to even attempt in the past 30 years.  He had a publically funded full on political infomercial to push an ideology with full acceptance and complicity by the press.  I am referring to Obama’s ABC program on selling the healthcare bill.  First, he is the president, he has full notice by the American people, even those of us who do not agree with 95% of the things that come out of his mouth.  He even has the power to preempt prime time programming on all major networks to talk to the nation.  So why would he chose ABC, the faux news style, and gloss that he did for this flawed legislation that the down payment alone is more expensive then all American wars combined?  Why were opposition views not invited to engage in a debate, or even to buy equal air time to view viable alternatives to his plan?  Maybe he is like a god and is just modestly evoking his power in a way we stupid mortals can understand.  This administration has such an air of urgency around all the items on their plate.  Cap & trade, we have to do it 10 minutes ago yesterday, no time for debate or anyone who poo poos is an ignorant obstruction hack.  Stimulus, budgets, bail outs, all of it is getting passed with little to no public review, no voting congress members even reading the papers they are voting on, knowing good well a god is only going to send them perfect and wonderful legislation with no review necessary.  Now we are hearing of a second stimulus bill in the works, and we won’t pay off the first for at least 10 years!  Obama’s wonderful healthcare infomercial is based off of a white paper.  Obama is in campaign mode, not leadership mode.  He is stifling opposition instead of looking at the opposite position and weighting the pros and cons and then offering a compromised bill that will get the support he is requesting.  This all of nothing attitude is coming from the same place the god like comment from Newsweek’s Thomas came from.  Obama believes he is actually above it all.  He believes he is the teacher, a morale authority, a transcendor.  Obama transcends nothing, he is a polarizer.  Obama is the anti-Bush.  All things liberals hated about Bush they love about Obama.  All the things Bush stood against Obama stands for.  They are opposite sides of the same coin.  Look at the parallels between the two in policy and you will see they are 180 degrees opposed, so if you hated Bush you must love Obama.  The problems are at least Bush had administration experience in business and government.  Obama has no experience in anything more then organizing a neighborhood to change a local zoning policy, or passing a bill that makes medical infancide legal in Illinois.  Both figures are polarizing in that people fall into only 2 camps with them, there is nearly no middle ground.  The ABC stunt highlights the same arrogance to domestic issues Obama has that Bush had with the world that Obama’s camp deplores.  His lack of engaging the conservatives and taking the best ideas from all sides is not only going against his own words and rhetoric but against the very pledges he made that resulted in his getting elected.  What is more troubling then the spending of more money then all previous presidents combined by Obama is that he always says he wants to see alternative conservative plans, then he locks the door when policy is drafted, ignores the views when presented, or just insults them without reading them, as no Democrats read any legislation sent to them by their own admission.  Obama likes to dump amendments to bills he sent to Congress just a few hours before a vote is called.  This is not open and honest government, maybe in Chicago but not nationally.  This is going to result in the same sentiment and feelings we saw over the next 3 and a half years we just got out of over the past 8 years, where is the hope, change, and uplifting?  Its hard to uplift when you are jamming all opposition in the toilet.  The only change I have seen since November is we have traded one Bush for another. 

Seeing how ACORN is under investigation in numerous states for vote registration irregularities and they have been discovered to be part of the mortgage mess I don't feel they should get any federal monies or participate in the 2010 Census where they could influence districting and shifting power, counting illegal aliens as citizens, etc.  Please investigate the facts and then think about it, if you feel as I do ACORN should not be even close to the Census please call your representative and voice this and sign the below petition or others stating the same goal.

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I wanted to draw your attention to this important petition that I recently signed:"Stop ACORN from Accessing Taxpayer Dollars" http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/TaxDollars?e

I really think this is an important cause, and I'd like to encourage you to add your signature, too. It's free and takes less than a minute of your time.