Dangers of Socialism

One of the most powerful speeches warning against socialism that I have ever heard!!!

My Apology to the Nation

80+ hour work weeks. Half my time in Asia, away from my family. Severe lack of sleep. Continually fighting a cold or some other bug. Holding a serious revenue target in Asia so my U.S. company can continue to employ dozens. Stress out the wazoo.

But man... I apologize, folks. I'm apparently not working hard enough. Nor am I "patriotic" enough. I hereby solemnly commit under an Obama administration to work harder, be more patriotic, and spread the wealth (yeah... right!!!) around.

What messed up economic thinking!!! How can ANYBODY support Obamanomics???!!!

The best economic greaser is capitalism; socialism has left nothing but failed states littered throughout history.

For a very good preview of what we have in store, see this Wall Street Journal article.

McCain Supporter Beaten; Liberals and Media Yawn

A little more than a week ago, a liberal friend of mine sent me an e-mail, all excited that some McCain supporter yelled out at a rally, "Kill him!" - referring to Obama. My liberal friend couldn't believe such an outrage. Nor could the media. They jumped on this story like white on rice (uh oh... I mentioned "white" and will certainly be branded a racist now). As it turns out, the story was completely false. Nevermind that, liberals still talk about it like it actually happened.

But then a true outrage DOES occur (DA's complaint shown herein), with a McCain supporter being savagely beaten by an Obama supporter. Do I hear from my liberal friend(s) - any of them? Do I hear this in the mainstream media? No... together, they all collectively yawn.

Now... I'm not going to do as a liberal would do, and extend such evil to the party/movement as a whole, but I will ask this: Where is your rush to recognize and call out evil when evil exists, and cry out against it? And I actually WILL lay this charge against your party leadership in general: The liberal leadership's inability to recognize and deal with true evil absolutely frightens me.

Biden's Fantasy World

Joe Biden lives in a complete fantasy world, tells HUGE whopper lies in the VP debate, and gets a COMPLETE FREE PASS by the Obama-adoring press. If this had come from the other ticket, it would have been an above-the-fold front-page story on EVERY newspaper in the country. But this story, below, gets stuck deep in the editorial pages of the October 6th Wall Street Journal.

Not even mentioned in this article, either, is Biden's completely bogus Iraq versus Afghanistan costs. He flatly declared that we spend more in Iraq each month then we spent in seven years in Afghanistan. Really??? The FACT is that we have spent $700 billion in Afghanistan in seven years, and we spend $10 billion a month in Iraq. Real math, not fictional Biden math, shows that it would take 70 months in Iraq to equal what we have spent in Afghanistan. An error of 70:1 proportions.

But don't let those pesky little facts get in the way. For if you did, blind Obama-devotees, you would realize that this Democrat ticket should have NO place in our foreign policy!!!

Biden's Fantasy World
Sarah Palin may not know as much about the world, but at least most of what she knows is true.

In the popular media wisdom, Sarah Palin is the neophyte who knows nothing about foreign policy while Joe Biden is the savvy diplomatic pro. Then what are we to make of Mr. Biden's fantastic debate voyage last week when he made factual claims that would have got Mrs. Palin mocked from New York to Los Angeles?

Start with Lebanon, where Mr. Biden asserted that "When we kicked -- along with France, we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, I said and Barack said, 'Move NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don't know -- if you don't, Hezbollah will control it.' Now what's happened? Hezbollah is a legitimate part of the government in the country immediately to the north of Israel."

The U.S. never kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, and no one else has either. Perhaps Mr. Biden meant to say Syria, except that the U.S. also didn't do that. The Lebanese ousted Syria's military in 2005. As for NATO, Messrs. Biden and Obama may have proposed sending alliance troops in, but if they did that was also a fantasy. The U.S. has had all it can handle trying to convince NATO countries to deploy to Afghanistan.

Speaking of which, Mr. Biden also averred that "Our commanding general in Afghanistan said the surge principle in Iraq will not work in Afghanistan." In trying to correct him, Mrs. Palin mispronounced the general's name -- saying "General McClellan" instead of General David McKiernan. But Mr. Biden's claim was the bigger error, because General McKiernan said that while "Afghanistan is not Iraq," he also said a "sustained commitment" to counterinsurgency would be required. That is consistent with Mr. McCain's point that the "surge principles" of Iraq could work in Afghanistan.

Then there's the Senator's astonishing claim that Mr. Obama "did not say he'd sit down with Ahmadinejad" without preconditions. Yet Mr. Biden himself criticized Mr. Obama on this point in 2007 at the National Press Club: "Would I make a blanket commitment to meet unconditionally with the leaders of each of those countries within the first year I was elected President? Absolutely, positively no."

Or how about his rewriting of Bosnia history to assert that John McCain didn't support President Clinton in the 1990s. "My recommendations on Bosnia, I admit I was the first one to recommend it. They saved tens of thousands of lives. And initially John McCain opposed it along with a lot of other people. But the end result was it worked." Mr. Biden's immodesty aside, Mr. McCain supported Mr. Clinton on Bosnia, as did Bob Dole even as he was running against him for President in 1996 -- in contrast to the way Mr. Biden and Democratic leaders have tried to undermine President Bush on Iraq.

Closer to home, the Delaware blarney stone also invited Americans to join him at "Katie's restaurant" in Wilmington to witness middle-class struggles. Just one problem: Katie's closed in the 1980s. The mistake is more than a memory lapse because it exposes how phony is Mr. Biden's attempt to pose for this campaign as Lunchbucket Joe.

We think the word "lie" is overused in politics today, having become a favorite of the blogosphere and at the New York Times. So we won't say Mr. Biden was deliberately making events up when he made these and other false statements. Perhaps he merely misspoke. In any case, Mrs. Palin may not know as much about the world as Mr. Biden does, but at least most of what she knows is true.

Chihuahua - Huh???

Here's a light-hearted rant today...

I was SHOCKED to read that the new movie, "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" took top billing at the box office this weekend, pulling in nearly $30 million. Based on previews I've seen, outside of Al Gore's "A Convenient Lie," this looks like THE MOST STUPID MOVIE OF ALL TIME!!!

Wow... what has become of today's movie-viewing public???!!!

The Current Economic Crisis - Whose Fault?

I am really quite sick and tired of the blame game on who/what caused the current financial crisis in the United States (and extending to the rest of the world). So what am I going to do? I'm going to contribute to the blame game.

...but not really. I'm doing it a bit differently, because truthfully, I don't believe ANYBODY (at least from what I read about) has ever pointed the finger at the right source. And I really am tired of both parties trying to blame the other (although this blame game is played almost exclusively by the Democrats; watching CNN on this today in a hospital waiting room made me want to throw up - perhaps they would have admitted me, too).

First of all, THIS IS NOT POLITICAL!!! Let me be clear about that. This is not the fault of politics, nor politicians, nor political policies.

Although, that argument could effectively be made. For example, according to an October 3, 2008 article in the Wall Street Journal,

Beginning in 1992, Congress pushed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to increase their purchases of mortgages going to low and moderate income borrowers. For 1996, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) gave Fannie and Freddie an explicit target -- 42% of their mortgage financing had to go to borrowers with income below the median in their area. The target increased to 50% in 2000 and 52% in 2005. For 1996, HUD required that 12% of all mortgage purchases by Fannie and Freddie be "special affordable" loans, typically to borrowers with income less than 60% of their area's median income.

So... the argument could effectively be made that it WAS political policies that led to the current crisis, but I'm not going to go there. Instead, I'm going to point the finger right at the very thing that caused our Congress to act in such a manner:

FINANCIAL CONSUMERS!!! That's right, when pointing fingers at who/what caused the current fiscal crisis, I want us ALL (including myself) to look in the mirror. It was US, we the people, we who consumed financial products, who drove these policies, and demanded such things. We wanted more home than we could afford. We wanted even high risk borrowers to be able to afford homes. And then we wanted to fill that more-home-than-we-could afford "estate" with high definition televisions, the fanciest furniture, and so on. Oh... and don't forget the Lexus in the driveway; we had to have that, too!

So we demanded more home than we could afford, and more things than we could pay cash for. And we demanded the financial instruments to meet these "needs."

All the market did was provide what we were demanding. So it wasn't the greed of Wall Street, the greed of bankers, the greed of politicians... it was CONSUMER GREED.

Until we as consumers recognize it and do something about it, no amount of "bailout" will ever permanently fix this problem. Neither party has the courage to admit that it's OUR fault we're in this mess, so I will.

Welcome to My Rants

"Now... I don't mean to get off on a rant here........"

Yes, I quote the famous Dennis Miller above. I've got my own share of rants, so I decided to create this blog to express those rants. We'll see what this ends up being, but I have a feeling that much of it will be about politics, since it would seem that's the area I most like to rant about.

And keep in mind that, also paraphrasing Dennis Miller, these are just my opinions; I could be wrong.

(but not likely)