Tuesday, November 30, 2010

New Pastor

Well, I did a little praying about whether the interim Pastor should continue as our head Pastor and I do believe that God put it in my heart to vote Yes to bring him on board as the full time Pastor. The vote was close. So close that I might have been the deciding factor. We almost didn't go to Sunday evening services. It was a crazy weekend. The furnace went out, went to Portland for Thanksgiving, and few other issues sprang up this weekend. But we knew we needed to be there. He needed 75% of the ballots cast and my vote put him over the number needed.

It was close but I wasn't as surprised as I thought I would be. The previous Pastors had been long time men of God, in their late 50's when they come to the church with years of experience prior to arriving. Our new Pastor hasn't yet reached 30 and this will be his first church as the head Pastor. So there was some concern about his age. There was also concern that the new Pastor is married to the daughter of one of the congregation’s most prominent members. They met in college and moved to the Eastern USA after they got married. Some felt this member might have undue influence over the Pastor. As a side note, I am honored to call both of them my friends.

I really hope this will not cause a division within the church. We are there to worship God and give Him glory, not to get all caught up in petty church politics.

FYI: the furnace issue wasn't that big of a deal. The condensation pan needed to be dried. Once my oldest son and I took care of that, the furnace worked like a champ. But it was cold in the house for several hours after being out for nearly three days and the weather was the coldest so far this year.

Gov't Take Over

I don't really consider myself a conspiracy theorist, but are some things happening now-a-days that are really starting to concern me. Over the past couple of years I have seen the Federal Government begin to take over or severely regulate sectors of our economy and our lives that give me a moment’s pause. It makes me stop and ask myself, "what are the goals of these efforts to regulate and control?"

The beginning of the end of truly free markets and limited government began with the New Deal under FDR (Some would say it really started with W. Wilson). I am over simplifying things a bit but when the feds decided that individuals couldn't grow their own food without congressional say-so, that really took a bite out of our freedoms and the decline started. And it has been going downhill ever since. There have been a few, if narrowly focused, attempts to change things around such as Reagan's repeal of the so-called fairness doctrine. But the loss of freedom has been mostly by little steps (FDA, Dept Edu, etc) and a few big ones (Great Society, Health Care reform)

Here are a few of the areas the federal government has decided are too important to allow the free market and already existing regulations to control:

1. Wall Street Reform. We were told this bill needed to be passed so that the collapse of Wall Street wouldn't happen again. We are told this bill will protect us and keep us from harm. I think if you look a little closer at the bill and ask yourself, "why would the Wall Street giants support this bill?", I think you'll discover this bill isn't so good for you and me

2. Health Care Reform (Obama Care). What a SNAFU this is turning out to be.  Remember when Nancy Pelosi said "we have to pass the bill so you can find out what’s in it"?  Well, we're beginning to find out what is in the bill and more and more people do not like it one bit. I think at last count 21 states have filed suit arguing the constitutionality of the bill

3. Government Motors (GM). Does anyone really think that the US government won't still be in the car business two years from now even though efforts are being made to sell stocks? And does anyone really think that Obama isn't going to use GM to further his green economy at tax payer expense? And does anyone think the individual investors in GM will ever get their money back? The purchase of GM was a cluster-grope from the word "go".

4. Student Loans. By removing the middle man Obama and company completely destroyed an entire industry.  Was this a proving ground for his desire to destroy the coal industry? A little off topic so I'll save it for another post, but this is just another example where liberals who are in love with government control think that the government can do something better than the private sector. I don't think it will take long for us to discover how false this is. Unless corruption and waste is the goal, and there isn't a private industry that hold a candle to the feds when it comes to wasteful spending

5. Mortgage business. Another example of an industry wiped out by federal intrusion and the desire to control a sector of the economy. If you just look at the surface numbers, mortgage businesses going out of business might not seem like much. Not a whole lot of people were impacted and the job losses probably didn't even cause a blip on the unemployment rate.  But it goes deeper. Up until a few years ago, buying a house was considered the best investment someone could make. People bought a home to lay the foundation for a retirement nest egg, as collateral for a college education, and other things. A lot of money and individual freedoms were tied up in home ownership. What economy-controlling and individual liberties-hating liberal wouldn't see this as a chance to further intrude and control the individual? It was just too much for them to pass up.

6. The soon to be passed "Food Bill". Health care, college education, home ownership, your investments, and now your food. Do you see a pattern here? Gain control, dictate how, what, where, when. Freedom lost. While I have not read through the entire bill (too much lawyer-speak), I have picked up on how Congress and the FDA want to control food production and processing down to the individual.  Home gardens will be regulated.

Over the next few days and weeks I will attempt to cover some of this from my perspective. I will be doing some more research. I will do my absolute best to avoid this but I will probably inadvertently quote someone without credit.

I truly hope the Rep control House will be enough of a bulwark against this tide until 2012 when the conservative movement is able to gain control of the Senate and the WH.

Monday, November 29, 2010

If You Blame Bush for Katrina, Then Obama is at Fault for the BP Spill

From the comments:
you didn't get mad when we let a major US city, New Orleans, drown.

My response:
  You people must think that George Bush is omniscient. I guess you believe that if Obama or Kerry had be President that they could have made the storm turn and hit some place else. The head of NOAA told the mayor of New Orleans that Katrina was going hit the area at a level 4, possibly a level 5 and recommended that evacuations begin very soon. The dunderhead who is still that mayor (should be in jail) declined the advice and 1,500 people died in New Orleans. Unlike Governor Perry (TX - Rep) who ordered the implementation of existing evacuation plans of Houston and Galveston as Hurricane Rita approached, the New Orleans mayor and LA Governor Blanco (LA -Dem) didn't initiate the Congressionally ordered (and available) evacuation plan for New Orleans and southern LA as Katrina approached. I’d say the responsibility lies at the feet of the Mayor Nagin (Dem), much more so than the Bush Administration.

  And I have noted that none of you left-wingers ever really took Pres. Obama to task as the Gulf oil spill disaster was taking place. The Governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, tried several times to get the Feds to act, to do something to help out, and was met with resistance at almost every turn. Where was the outrage in the MSM over this lack of inaction? It was only later, once the damage couldn't be ignored any longer, that the MSM finally started asking a few tough questions.

  Has Obama done anything to help those that he has put out of a job with his lack of action during the spill and the moratorium on drilling in the Gulf? I know the moratorium has been lifted by the courts a couple of times, but the damage was done with the drilling rigs moving to other parts of the world. At least the Bush administration tried to help out the folks who lost their jobs or were displaced due to Katrina. As someone who is currently looking for work I have submitted my resume to several locations. Almost every time I submit my resume I am asked if I am a Katrina refugee. But have never been asked if I am looking for work because I lost my job due to the events in the Gulf and the inaction of the current administration.

  And before any of you start blaming Bush for the lack of oversight of the Gulf rigs, please dig a little deeper. You will note this oversight problem extends back even before the Bush Administration. The issue of possible corruption or just plain laziness shouldn't just be laid on Bush. Could he be blamed for the lack of effort to make changes in the agency charged with oversight of this part of the economy? I would have to give a tepid “yes”. But so could previous administrations, and Obama’s administration.

  Lastly, you hardly ever hear about holding responsible the company that designed and built the blowout preventer value. I do recall (can’t find though) reading during the first few days of the event that there was little need to worry, this value was designed to shut off in case of an event just like what happened. It obviously did not work as intended. Was it a design flaw? Was it safety checked and passed when it shouldn’t have been? And since this piece was under 5,000 feet of water could it be the function testing systems were flawed, giving incorrect readings with no real way to check the accuracy of the function test system?

Terrorism comes to the PACNW

By now, and unless you are sitting in a cave somewhere, you have all heard about the attempted bombing during the Christmas Tree lighting ceremony in downtown Portland last Friday evening. The lighting ceremony is an annual event that goes back as far as I can remember. I personally have only attended one lighting ceremony because I am not a big fan of crowds.

One of the things that concerns me the most about this whole event is that Portland Oregon decided to excuse itself from the fight against terrorism. A few years back the Portland City Council voted 4-1 to disengaged the Portland police department from the FBI' task force on terrorism. I guess they thought if they weren't envolved with taking Muslim terrorist down, the terrorist would leave them alone. It is my deepest hope that Portland takes these events seriously and understands that no matter what we try to do, the stated mission of the Muslim terrorists is to bring down western civilization, regardless of whether we are all touchy-feely or destroying them in their home areas.

This event has hit close to home for me. While I don't attend this event, one of my sisters and her daughter attend every year. They have been going since my niece was little one. As I was watching the breaking news story, my heart sank a little bit to think that some of my family members could have been killed by this Muslim nut-job.

Several of the web sites that I follow have great stories on the events and what each of the writers is thinking. I'll list a few here.
http://michellemalkin.com/2010/11/27/just-another-bomb-plotting-jihadist-yelling-allahu-akbar/
http://boortz.com/nealz_nuze/2010/11/another-terrorist-attempt-anot.html
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/a-dark-day-oregon-bomb-suspect-made-a-video-sheik-osama-style/
This last one has a video that is a little chilling.

I have seen a few news stories about how this guy was entrapped, and basically led him to make this attempt. If you bother to read about this event a little bit, you will see that he made the efforts and the FBI was able to step in and keep this from being a disaster. Not withstanding the views in the comments section, the Oregonian, a VERY liberal newspaper, did a good job of reporting the facts. My hats off to the law enforcement efforts. I hope this guy gets charged with 1,000 counts of attempted murder.

So Sorry

Been out of town for the past few days and didn't have easy access to a computer. Watched A LOT of football, saw my Ducks destroy Arizona, next stop OSU. I think after OSU was wiped out by Stanford (the best one loss team in the nation), I think my dad (OSU, class of '59) will be pulling or the Ducks, at least a little bit. Chance to for an in-state school to play for all the marbles might be a little too tough to pass up.

Glad that BSU lost. If Auburn had lost (Still can in the SEC championship game), then OU would be playing BSU for number 1. I really do think that OU has a great chance at beating Auburn because they don't have the defense to stop OU's spread-option. But BSU might of had the horses to make the Ducks work for it, kind of like Cal a couple of weeks back. With BSU out of the picture, it comes down to TCU and Auburn. Of course, the Ducks still have to get past OSU, no small feat when you consider this is the Civil War game and OSU would like nothing more than to ruin the Ducks season. Plus the Beavers are playing for bowl eligibility.

Ate way too much food. My mom is an awesome cook. Nothing fancy. Just typical meat and potatoes kind of food. The kind of food that sticks to your ribs. Turkey sandwiches that evening and the next day are the bomb.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Chasing Bin Laden

The one liner from the commet
You didn't get mad when we didn't catch Bin Laden.

My response:
Do you really think Gore or Kerry could have done better? Pull your head out of the sand. Obama has made Afghanistan his focus and he has had two years and hasn’t even gotten a sniff.

And while we’re doing the blame game why don’t we take a short walk down memory lane. Former Pres Clinton had two shots at him. Once, we the government of Sudan had Bin Laden in custody, they asked if we wanted him and the Clinton White House said “no”. Then again, after Bin Laden had moved to Afghanistan, Clinton could have had the military send in a cruise missile to take out the camp where Bin Laden was living; again they passed that opportunity up. Twice Clinton had Bin Laden in his crosshairs and twice he didn’t take the shot.

Lawyers - Are they really lower than whale...?

I ran across this in the comments section of an article about how a NJ town has outlawed public sleeping.  The late Paul Harvey deserves the credit for the following article.

If there is a stain on the record of our forefathers, a dark hour in the earliest history of the American Colonies, it would be the hanging of the “witches” at Salem.

But that was a pinpoint in place and time–a brief lapse into hysteria. For the most part, our seventeenth century colonists were scrupulously fair, even in fear.

There was one group of people they feared with reason–a society, you might say, whose often insidious craft had claimed a multitude of victims, ever since the middle ages in Europe.

One group of people were hated and feared from Massachusetts Bay to Virginia. The Magistrate would not burn them at the stake although surely a great many of the colonists would have surely recommended such a solution. Our forefathers were baffled by them.

In the first place where did they come from? Of all who sailed from England to Plymouth in 1620, not one of them was aboard.

“VERMIN.” That’s what the Colonist called them. Parasites who fed on human misery, spreading sorrow and confusion wherever they went.

“DESTRUCTIVE.” they were called.

And still they were permitted co-existence with the colonists. For a while, anyway. Of course there were colonial laws prohibiting the practice of their infamous craft. Somehow a way was always found around all those laws.

In 1641, Massachusetts Bay colony took a novel approach to the problem. The governors attempted to starve the “devils” out of existence through economic exclusion. They were denied wages, and thereby it was hoped that they would perish.

Four years later, Virginia followed the example of Massachusetts Bay and for a while it seemed that the dilemma had been resolved.

It had not, somehow the parasites managed to survive, and the mere nearness of them made the colonists skin crawl.

In 1658, in Virginia, the final solution: Banishment; EXILE. The “treacherous ones” were cast out of the colony. At last, after decades of enduring the psychological gloom, the sun came out and the birds sang, and all was right with the world. And the elation continued for a generation.
I’m not sure why the Virginians eventually allowed the outcasts to return, but they did. In 1680 after twenty-two years, the despised ones were readmitted to the colony on the condition that they be subjected to the strictest surveillance.

How soon we forget!!

For indeed over the next half century or so, the imposed restrictions were slowly, quietly swept away. And those whose treachery had been feared since the Middle Ages ultimately took their place in society.

You see, the “vermin” that once infested colonial America, the parasites who prayed on the misfortunes of their neighbors until finally they were officially banished from Virginia, those dreaded, despised, outcasts masters of confusion were lawyers.


From “Paul Harvey’s” The rest of the story.
Paul Harvey was a national talk show host

I sometimes wonder if Lawyers are even a bit concerned or even aware of how most of the general population feels about them.  I guess they are a necessary evil, but lawyers were the ones that created the need for lawyers.  There was a time in the USA when a man’s handshake was enough to seal the deal and if someone tried to screw you, you basically hunted them down, told them to return what was rightfully yours.  Or you shot them.  Ah, simpler times.  Not that I was around then, didn’t claim to be, and really don’t know if handshake was all it took.  But it is a nice fantasy.

It's Snowing, Part Duex

The other day I mentioned the snow falling up in the mountains nearby. We, it has become cold enough for the white stuff to fall here. We have about 2 inches on the ground. It sure makes things look pure. There a few simple pleasures better than finding an open field with nothing but an animal track or two. I’d post some pictures but my lovely bride needed the camera for her work.

It has created some traffic problems, and tragically, there have been 3 deaths attributed to the poor road conditions. The roads were snarled most of the day.

A couple of years back we had a Dec (2008?) for the record books. Depending on where one is living in the Puget Sound area, there was between 12-18 inches of snow on the ground that lasted for a couple of weeks. This created all kinds of havoc, especially in the city of Seattle. For supposed environmental reasons, the city mayor at the time wouldn’t allow deicer (chemical or salt) to be applied to the road ways. And since there was concern that sand would wash into the Sound, it wasn’t used either. It created lots of big problems for several days. There were some sections of the city (Queen Anne) that didn’t have bus service for at least a week.

I point this out because the PACNW doesn’t have a clue on how to handle snow when it falls in the low lands. It just amazes me to see people try and do the same things with snow on the road ways and when it is dry. And some of the biggest idiots are the dudes in their big, jacked up 4x4s. Don’t get me wrong, I love a big 4-by as much as the next guy. But at least I am smart enough to realize that while the extra set of wheels giving you traction to get moving and will help you out in a pinch, the extra set of drive wheels don’t help you to stop. While running a few errands today, I noticed several tire tracks up past the curbs and it seemed that at least half of them were from over-sized tires. Taking corners too fast I suspect.

Several years back I was stationed in the upper Midwest (lots of snow). In the Midwest, you never saw the traffic troubles that you seen here when a little snow falls. I can recall only once was school canceled. That was for a huge storm just days before Halloween that dumped about 10 inches of wet, heavy snow before the trees had dropped all their leaves. This brought large tress down onto power lines and power was out for many days due to the wide-spread damaged. But here, we get 2 inches of the stuff and all heck breaks loose.

A report from NOAA/NWS earlier this mentioned we are going into a La Nina period. This could mean lots of snow in the lower reaches. The report mentioned as much as 25 inches of accumulated snowfall could fall this winter, maybe more the further north you go.

The same winter as all the traffic issues (2008), our family decided to head to the Skagit River Valley to do a little eagle watching. New Years (2009) day we headed up there, drove nearly to the end of the road (close in winter through Cascades National Park), found a cabin resort as a base camp, then went and observed the birds. The owners of the cabins mentioned it had been a long since the last big snowfall. Boring, I know. But just thought I’d point out that we seem to be getting a little more snow in the low-lands over the past few years.

Here is an image of some of the cabins along the Skagit River.  We didn't stay in one of these. Too pricey for our budget.

Skagit River Valley Cabins

Monday, November 22, 2010

Housing Market Collapse

One liner
You didn't get mad when lack of oversight and regulations from the Bush Administration caused US Citizens to lose 12 trillion dollars in investments, retirement, and home values.
My response:

Actually I get mad when I think that when the Bush Administration tried to reign in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac back in ‘05/’06 and Barney Frank told them to go pound sand. Bush actually tried to talk about how the policy of guaranteeing these loans was going to impact the economy and was going to come back and bite us in the backside. But Frank wouldn’t listen, feeling the pillars were secure.

I get mad when I think Clinton made it some sort of goal to try and get everyone to own their own home. I think the policy was called to Community Reinvestment Act.

And I get mad when I hear about the stories of people who shouldn’t have purchased a home (or more than they could afford) walking away from the mortgages. I get mad everyone month when I write my mortgage check on a loan that I probably owe more on then my house is worth. I get mad when I think about how much money was wasted on companies like AIG and General Motors through government bailouts. And before you go all gaga over the money they paid back you might want to do a little digging. Did you notice the commercial that GM put on the air a few months ago disappeared as quickly as it appeared? Did you every question why? They were using another pot of government loans to pay back the original loan. A little fishy. And when word got out about this little slight-of-hand, GM quickly pulled the commercial.

The whole economic downturn can be traced to the collapse in the housing market, which was over inflated by the very policies enacted by Bill Clinton, strengthened by Frank and his cronies, and enforced at the banks and loan institutions by the thugs from ACORN and NAACP (scare tactics to get the bankers to loan money to people they couldn’t like implying charges of racism). The collapse of Wall Street can also be tied to the housing market with the bad derivatives bundled together when the “bad” loans were bought and sold.

Does Bush deserve some of the blame for the collapse of the markets? He does to a degree. He should have been more forceful with Frank and his group by telling Congress to turn down the spigot a little bit. He should have told the Senate Republicans to fix this since they still have a majority at the time. But to put this squarely on his head is wrong and misguided and smells of partisan hackery.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Pastor Candidate

A couple of months ago our long-time Pastor decided to resign to do some church planting in another state. So our church is looking for a new Pastor, sort of. The associate Pastor has been doing the services ever since the old Pastor departed. Tonight was his candidate night. After the evening services he was given a list of questions drafted by the Deacon's board. As you might expect, most of the questions centered around his pastoring philosophy. After the board questions were finished, the general membership was given an opportunity to ask a few questions. Some of the questions were very good others not so much. There did seem to be just a small bit of concern from one or two people. But I personnaly mark that up as fear of change. The old Paster was well liked and very good at preaching.

The Pastor candidate is a little on the young side and I think that gives a few of the members a moment pause. The two previous Pastors were older by a considrable amount, so I think there is some hesitation from some of the older, long time members.

Even with some of the lingering doubts, I do think that he will be choosen by the congregation to be our new Pastor. He is dynamic, speaks well, and seems to know the Bible well. His focus on the teenagers is a good thing since that is the future of Christianity. To continue to grow the young must be reached.

I will pray about it, but I am pretty sure that I will vote for him to be Pastor.

Friday, November 19, 2010

Income Redistribution

Here is the original line item:
You didn't get mad when we gave people who had more money than they could spend, the filthy rich, over a trillion dollars in tax breaks.
My Response:
Here we go again with the class wars. What about all the tax breaks that now exist for not-so-rich? Do you know that almost 48% of Americans don’t pay anything in taxes? Yes, everyone pays out of each paycheck, but when these 48-ers file their tax returns, it all comes back. In fact, a very large percentage get back more than they paid in. I know someone who last year paid around $5,500.00 in taxes but their refund check came back at nearly $6,800.00. Where did that extra money come from? Why the “filthy rich” of course. The top 1% in income pays nearly 20% of the taxes. The top 40% pay almost the entire tax bill. How much more do you want? Based on your comments, I’d guess you’d like the Dems to take even more and give it to you in the form of income distribution. You basically want to receive something you did not earn.

Regardless what you might read or what you might see on TV, most of the wealth in this country is not what could be called old money (handed down through the generations). Think about some of the wealthiest people in recent years. Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Steve Jobs, George Steinbrenner, Phil Knight and many others started off with little or nothing. These people are self made. They had the ideas, they took the risks, they worked the LONG, LONG hours to get their products off the ground and into the people’s hands. As they were doing this, they were making other people wealthy. Bill Gates created approximately 10,000 millionaires. All of these people created jobs, many of them well-paying.

Why is it that other people they have some sort of right to the money these people earned through hard work? And who determine who has enough money? Most of these people are philanthropists or the first order. Gates has given more than $33B of his fortune to his foundation that assists education, health care and other charitable causes. Buffet has stated publically that he plans on giving his entire fortune to charity and he has already started with a huge $30B donation the Gates’ foundation. Knight gives his money to the University of Oregon.

Some people will say why they don’t give the money to government so bureaucrats can determine where the money should go. Do you really think that the government can do better with the money? If so, then you really are in love with government. I would be willing to bet that if you asked each of these people why they don’t give the money to government for spending determinations and they’d probably laugh at you. The government is no where nearly as efficient at spending money as private individuals are. Why would you want the government telling you how to spend you paycheck? Just think about that for minute. They would tell you what kind of car to buy, what to buy at the grocery store, the clothes you could purchase. Do you really think you’d have money left over? As someone who spent several years in the federal government, there was no incentive to spend money wisely. In fact, if you budgeted X-numbers of dollars to spend for the fiscal year and you could come in under that by finding items below what you originally budgeted, not only would your next’s budget be chopped, but it would be cut back below what you actually spent. In other words, if you saved 5%, the next year you’d actually be reduced by 10%. Spending money wisely and efficiently is not the federal governments DNA.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

It's Snowing

Well, not here at my house in the lowlands, but it has been falling fast and furious up on the passes.  Stevens Pass and White Pass have not yet given snowfall totals but the web cams show lots of the white stuff on the ground.  I wonder if this keeps up if the areas will be able to open by Thanksgiving.

Really looking forward to taking the boys up skiing this year. One of the best treats for my boys and I is that my wife (and their mother) comes with us although she is not a skier. She'll stake out a place in the White Pass lodge, giving us a base of operations. Armed with a book or needlepoint, she'll spend the day chatting with the other mothers, and occansional father, who do the same thing. We'll have cooler with sandwich makin's, probably some fruit salad, and drinks. We have to purchase some of the hot and greasy fries of course.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Adirondack Chairs (A shameless plug)

Forgot to mention that I have also begun to build Adirondack Chairs for sale.  I will start to post images of my projects in the very near future.  If you are interested in one of these very comfortable chairs, please let me know.

200,000 deaths due to lack of health care?

Here is the original line item.
You didn't get mad when over 200,000 US Citizens lost their lives because they had no health insurance.
My response:
200,000?
 If I had to take a guess the writer got these numbers from MoveOn.org.  Kind of like the 5M Iraqis who have been killed by US troops that has been thrown around by the MSM on occasion.
  Let’s look at the numbers.  According to the census there are approximately 47M people without health coverage of some sort.  If you read into the report a little you will discover this number is only a snapshot in time and includes the number of people who might go without health care for a period of time while they search for employment, or transition between jobs.  Based on the numbers provided, it looks like about 40% of the uninsured get health care coverage within four months  Bit we’ll stick with the 40M just for the sake of argument.  Of those number there are 9M illegal aliens (probably a conservative estimate).  Another 18-20M who are under the age of 35 and have not purchased insurance or are under-covered by choice (home purchase, buy that new car/truck, etc.).  So we’ll go with a number around 10M who are not insured (this number is also probably low).  That leaves about 2% of the population who are dying EACH YEAR from lack of insurance.  So basically what you are saying is since Clinton’s attempt failed 17 years ago 3.4M people have died due to lack of insurance.  I think a lot of people would consider that an epidemic.  Since Aids was statistically tracked from 1981 (30 years ago), just a shade under 600,000 have died from contracting aids and at that rate the CDC determined this was an epidemic.
  If the liberals would move beyond the truth stretching done at MoveOn.org and the Center for American Progress and do a little independent research they’d find the 200,000 deaths is greatly exaggerated.  A recent Harvard study (certainly not a center of conservative thinking) puts the number somewhere near 45,000.  While this number is still a tragedy, it is not the 200,000 deaths the merchants of fear like to bandy about.
  Facts are stubborn things.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

WHEN DO YOU GET MAD?

The other day I ran across an article on one of the major search engine home pages that discussed the chilly relationship between Sarah Palin and the sore loser of the Republican primary.  It was fairly one sided, only taking quotes from Murkowski.  I decided to read through some of the comment posted and ran across an interesting one that I thought deserved a response.  Below is a copy of what he posted in the comment section.  Over the next several days, I will post my responses to this guys line items.  I would imagine that no one will actually be reading this, but just in case, if you are troll, please minimize the personal attacks.  If you'd like to discuss these line items as I respond to them, I am more than willing to hear you out, but not if you are going to act like a lot of the liberal trolls out there by attacking me personally.  It doesn't necessarrily offend me, I have thick skin.  But when I go into a battle of wits, I like to know that I am not beating on an unarmed person.

Not sure who the author is since I can't find the article or who posted the comments below and as origianlly posted (did not edit):
You didn't get mad when over 200,000 US Citizens lost their lives because they had no health insurance.
You didn't get mad when we gave people who had more money than they could spend, the filthy rich, over a trillion dollars in tax breaks.
You didn't get mad when lack of oversight and regulations from the Bush Administration caused US Citizens to lose 12 trillion dollars in investments, retirement, and home values.
You didn't get mad when we didn't catch Bin Laden.
You didn't get mad when Bush rang up 10 trillion dollars in combined budget and current account deficits.
you didn't get mad when we let a major US city, New Orleans, drown.
You didn't get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a President.
You didn't get mad when Cheney allowed Energy company officials to dictate Energy policy and push us to invade Iraq.
You didn't get mad when the Patriot Act got passed.
You didn't get mad when we illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us.
You didn't get mad when we spent over 800 billion (and counting) on said illegal war.
You didn't get mad when Bush borrowed more money from foreign sources than the previous 42 Presidents combined.
You didn't get mad when over 10 billion dollars in cash just disappeared in Iraq.
You didn't get mad when you found out we were torturing people!!!!
You didn't get mad when you saw the horrible conditions at Walter Reed.
you didn't get mad when Bush embraced trade and outsourcing policies that shipped 6 million American jobs out of the country.
You didn't get mad when the government was illegally wiretapping Americans.
You didn't get mad when as a result of of the reckless BUSH administration massive harm to the country, we migth never be able to recover from this one.

College Football Rocks

In my opening I told you that I would give you some background information on my odd choices for the teams that I follow.  Well, not that you asked, but I'll explain anyway.

Back when I was a kid and at the age when you start to follow sports teams, both the Ducks and the Beavers really stunk up the joint.  It always seemed they were mired at the bottom of the PAC-10 (PAC-8 in the old days).  In the age of BC (before cable) there were only 3 channels on the boob-tube (a few more if you lived near a major metro area) and it seemed like the Huskers were on the TV every Saturday.  So I became a fan.  As luck would have it later on in life I wound up being stationed in Omaha NE when the Huskers were running off three National Championships and competing for two others (curse on the Seminoles).
  As for being a fan of both the Ducks and Beavers I know that seems a little strange.  Not sure how I can explain it.  Maybe it was because the Ducks started to become a better team before the Beavers.  My Dad is an OSU grad and he thinks it blaspheme that I would root for the Ducks.  Makes for interesting times during the annual “civil war” game.  Early on, the game really meant nothing more than who would be at the bottom of the PAC-10.  But lately it has had some meaning.  Last year the winner would go to the Rose Bowl.  This year it could really make things tough for my dad and me.  UO wins out the rest of their schedule and they play for the National Championship.  But OSU needs this game to become bowl eligible.  In the past, my dad has had to weigh the impacts of each team winning and losing.  So last year he was quite upset when the Beavers lost and Oregon went to the Rose Bowl.  This year is a little different.  UO wins, hello BCS Championship Game, but no bowl game for OSU. OSU wins this weekend and the civil war, then will go to El Paso (mostly likely) and OU would head to LA and the Rose Bowl (they beat Stanford earlier this so they own the tie-breaker).
  For a team like Oregon a chance to play for all the marbles doesn’t come around often, if ever.  For teams like Nebraska, Alabama, Florida, Notre Dame, USC, they have to build an extra wing just to hold all the SWAG from the championship runs, there really is a “wait ‘til next year” feeling around their programs. This opportunity may not come around again in my lifetime.

College football in general is just more fun to watch than the pro game.  I like seeing an individual dominate game the way a guy like Mike Rozier (NU 1983), or Tim Tebow (UF, 2009) can.
 I have a theory on the reason why someone can take over a college game but that level of dominance doesn’t translate to the NFL.  It has to do with skill level.  When a guy is an NFL skill level player he is going against a few guys that might be at the same or nearly the same level.  But for the most part, the players on the field are not as good so the individual’s skill outshines the majority of the players.  He is the best of the best.  But when he reaches the NFL, he is now playing against guys that were the best players on their respective college teams.  No longer is that one guy the dominate player of the field because of his speed, strength or agility.  When he gets to the NFL he is now playing alongside and against guys that are as fast, and as strong, and as agile as he is.

 Of course there are those transcendent players like Brown, Montana, Rice, Dorsett, Unitas, White, and Baugh who are even better than the best of the best.  There is a reason why there is a Hall of Fame and only a very select few make it.  It is reserved for the “transcendent few”.

New Blogger

Hello everyone, I am a new blogger.  A little behind the times I guess.

A little about me I guess:

Retired Military, 27.5 years as an Enlisted man in the US Air Force.  Reached SMSgt (E-8), the second highest rank attainable in the enlisted ranks.

Married, 3 kids, 1 girl, 2 boys.  The girl is grown and on her own making her way in the big world.  Studying to be a nurse.  The boys are teenagers and act like it.  Not a brain cell between the two of them.

I'll be blogging about pretty much anything that comes to mind:
Family; as stated above.  I'll update as necessary or when I feel like it.

Life; It is good up here in the Pacific Northwest.  Before joining the service back in 1983 I was pretty much born and raised in Oregon.

God; Born-Again of course.  I make no bones about my beliefs when asked, but I won't overburden everyone.

Politics; I am an unapologetic conservative.  I will be blogging about this subject. Living in the PAC NW does make it a bit interesting for me.  One thing I will have to say about Washington is while they are liberal (sometimes stupid about it), they curb it with some pragmatic values.  Take taxes for instance.  Washingtonians don't like to be taxed.  I like that. 

Sports:
College Football (Ducks, Huskers, Beavers).  I know, it seems a bit strange to be a fan of all three.  See further posts for a little background.

Baseball; LONG TIME Oakland A's fan, Reggie, Catfish, Blue Moon, Rudi, Sal Bando.  They were on the TV all summer long during a few years when my dad got transferred to northern California in the early ‘70s.  So I became a fan and never really stopped even though Seattle got a team several years ago.

Model Railroading; This hobby of mine has ebbed and flowed for many years.  I will cover it in more detail later on.

Skiing: Been a skier since my parents got me an all inclusive, lift, lessons, equipment, transportation package a long time ago.  Learned to ski on Mt Shasta in northern California at the old Shasta Ski Bowl.  It no longer exists since it was wiped out by an avalanche several years ago.

Coaching:
 Over the last several years, I have coached baseball, soccer, football, and softball.  My boys have been involved with their sports, sometimes at a high level.  The oldest plays baseball and has been on traveling teams.  The youngest was a soccer stud for a few years but has moved on to football, which his temperament is better suited for.  My wife and I have played on co-ed soccer and softballs teams over the years.  Playing soccer is no longer part of my life (a little too old and little too fat).  I still play softball though.  Last year on our church team.