Sunday, August 29, 2010

Deficits, Debts and Unfunded Liabilities: The Consequences of Excessive ...

I found this video while researching material for the trifold which I hope to have ready shortly. It will not only be available online, but can be printed out for folks to share with those who are either not adept at working the internet or on principle don't use it. I think you will find it worth your while.



You've probably already heard and read about the Republican State Convention yesterday. Yes, it was a long day but the undercurrent of excitement kept one from being bored or impatient (unless you were held up in the registration fiasco) and between talking to old friends, sharing stories and experiences it was time well spent.

One piece of good news this week. The UAW has demonstrated common sense in that they worked with Navistar Casting in Indianapolis which was scheduled to close before the end of August will be back in production by summer's end. Chalk one up for the good guys.

The bad news on the union (Teamster's) front was that as a result of not allowing Mexican trucks into the United States even though they have passed muster on the safety front, has resulted in tariffs being put on more American goods--so the unions have benefited again while other farmers and production folks suffer.

So figure. Have a good week.
God bless.........

Thursday, August 26, 2010

I Want Your Money Trailer (2010) HD



I just put this on to see if I could do it.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Where to Start? Mosques? Tea Party? State Convention? Pundits?

CALL it chutzpah - there's no other appropriate label for Tea Party people who think that because they are getting a lot of press and no one can get elected without them, they think the world is their oyster. And in some ways it is. We've always said we are really glad to see so many people interested in the world of politics. Better late than never, but those who think they can come off the street and run for Secretary of State or Attorney General must have stars in their eyes and need to come back down to earth.

Up until now they have been content to probably vote, sort of know what is going on in Lansing and DC and complain quite a bit. Then the 2008 election was the straw that broke the camel's back and they are out in force. They are ready to throw out the baby with the bath water and are looking to replace all the volunteers in several counties. The elections for Republican Executive Committees is in November with elections of officers in December or January. At that point, excuse the expression, all hell may break loose.

Not that anyone is indispensable, it just doesn't seem that it would be a productive exercise to toss out several hundred years of experience and service to the political/governmental structures which, whether they like it or not, are necessary to keep certain services running efficiently. I guess it could be likened to term limits on steroids when everyone has to leave at the same time. Let's wait and see.

Not much to say about mosques that hasn't been said already, but to actually have a piece of an airplane land on the roof of that building and the possibility that some body parts may also have landed there and decomposed before being found makes any arguments about proximity moot. On top of that, they didn't even talk about a Cultural Center until there were some voiced objections. The holier than thou elites are having their opportunity to feel superior as always.

AS FOR the "Is the President a Christian?" question, may I point out that we do allow courts to convict criminals on circumstantial evidence. How does this grab you? His pastor of 18 years made a habit of damning America; He cancelled the National Day of Prayer; followed by his participation in Muslim ceremonies; he announced to the world that the United States was no longer a Christian nation; so what are we to think? Doesn't the Bible have references to "go out to all the world and spread the good news?" I'd say he appears to be doing the opposite. But that's just what we can see. We can't see into his heart, and he has made it difficult for us to believe the White House press release. Actions speak louder than words according to my mom.

One more thing: his book (or prop) carried when leaving the golf course one day was "Age of Unthinkable" with pundits noting that a companion volume was "Survivor's Club." What the heck?

THOSE same pundits are about as insulated as the politicians they seem to think they know all about how they think. My opinion: they all have one thing in common: they don't have a clue what middle America and the anyone west of Washington may think about any issue. Some day they ought to let some of us draw straws to appear on those talking head shows and I'll bet they'd come closer to the truth. They keep putting words in our mouths that are incredible. Whatever happened to their memories of growing up? Please don't tell me they all came from New York, New England, Chicago and California......

Republican State convention coming up Saturday. I have no clue how that will go. Don't even want to predict except for one thing. There will be many, many sore backs from sitting in bleachers all day long. Whose idea was that? We'll talk next week.

God bless.........

Sunday, August 15, 2010

UAW Planning to Double Their Membership?

According to a recent article in WARD'S Auto World that is just exactly what they have in mind and the game plan has to do with the foreign car makers in the U.S. who are not as yet unionized, but the workers have now reached an average age of 43 which gives the UAW the idea that they can be tempted to unionize given the bait of pension and retirement benefits.

For the last 25 years this has been an impenetrable goal because the Japanese have worked very hard to make the benefits available to employees without going through a strike process. However, with the Obama administration having made the National Labor Relations Board much more friendly to the unions, one never knows what avenues they will travel to make inroads.

Bob King, the new president of the UAW "has Toyota in his cross hairs." Since that company has had more than their share of bad press along with recalls he apparently figures they are in a weakened position and it may be time to "strike" while the iron is hot. Rumor has it that the UAW is organizing protests at the dealerships which are targeted toward putting pressure to the point of driving away business.

The writer, John McElroy, is guessing at a 50-50 chance of success. I'm thinking on a personal level as we have discussed before that those of us who were stung by GM and/or Chrysler via the payback to unions by the Obama administration, that it is time to change the effort just a little.

My first impulse was to either buy Ford or any foreign car that is actually Made in America. At the first sign of a demonstration by the UAW at a Toyota or other foreign car maker, I will probably have to take Ford off the top of my list. If the minority which is composed of auto workers thinks they can change the face of the automotive business I am wary that this would be one more example of the minority winning out over the majority. We have watched this happen in so many different venues of late that I can only pray that folks who have watched their own freedoms being lost will rise up and fight back against this kind of thuggery.

Michigan cannot afford to lose any contests for the good will of potential customers of their product at this point. If they are depending on unemployed auto workers to do the protesting I would hope they see the futility of such a move and we could all benefit from some common sense. If they "rent mobs" on the other hand, we probably don't stand a chance. It's a sorry state of affairs when the rank and file faithfully pay their dues so their leadership can not only take home six figure salaries but can put the remainder of their jobs in jeopardy.

Next, I'd like to put out the word on Ann Rice, an author who has had great success in the past, but obviously she needed a new way to pad her bank account. Maybe her latest vampire books (I started to read one once, but my 50 page rule--if it doesn't grab my attention in 50 pages I don't spend any more time on it--) weren't selling as well as earlier stories, but she has spent about 7-8 years recently saying she had gone back to her roots in the Catholic church, wrote a few books, had reviewers, clergy, and the public eating it up. She milked that market and just a short time ago she dumped her Christianity, turned back to atheism and made the announcement on Facebook. How shallow can you get?

Can you spell h-y-p-o-c-r-i-s-y and g-r-e-e-d? Can you see any logic or anything other than grasping at straws for reasons in the following rant? "In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refer to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen."

For anyone with a triple digit IQ there is no credibility in the above cry baby effort. She makes assumptions that can only be called diametrically opposed to each other and her final conclusion. How in the world can she equate saying "in the name of Christ" I am no longer Christian. Go figure.

And finally, maybe we should call this the "Quote of the Week" we tell the story of Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn) who proposed that borrowers be required to make a minimum 5% down payment in order to qualify for Fannie or Freddy loans. The proposal was rejected 57-42 on a party-line vote because, as Senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn) put it, "passage of such a requirement would restrict home ownership to only those who can afford it." And we still haven't had an investigation into Fanny and Freddy and their effect on the country's meltdown. And we sent these people to Washington.

Have a good week-looks like it will be cooling off a bit-
God bless...........

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Weekly Wrap-up

Second thought time: Sunday evening is the better time for gathering information rather than Saturday.

First priority: I would like to make a suggestion that we all touch base with friends, family and the candidates strongly suggesting that unless they make a pledge NOT to pass detrimental lame duck legislation they will not get our vote. Not sure how much good it might do, but like chicken soup, probably wouldn't hurt.

Second priority: Now that we have nominated the gubernatorial candidates, we know their differences. For instance, for the pro life people, even though it is my understanding that Rick Snyder's position is weakened by support for embryonic stem cell research. The first thing we do is pray that we can change his mind on this, but bottom line, that is far superior to Virg Bernaro's extreme pro abortion position.

Next, if you read this early enough, there is a rally sponsored by the Americans for Prosperity meeting at the tanning salon just north of the CVS pharmacy across the street from Schauer's office at West and Ganson. There will be a counter demonstration so it would be helpful if you could join the crowd.

One of my resources just returned from a few days vacation in Europe with his son who is stationed in Germany. He reported that probably because of the large Muslim influx they found Al Jezeera television with English subtitles in all the hotels. The most interesting show he ran across was a critique of Al Gore which was anything but flattering. Interesting, right?

Have a good week--
God bless.........

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Notice of Change of Frequency of Posting

It seems as though there is so much repetition and campaigning ad nauseum and such lack of credibility that the news of the day any more is trying to put a different slant on the same old, same old. It is b-o-r-i-n-g!

When I had a website from 1998-2004 it was posted on a weekly basis and the hits were generally in the 2500 per month range. At that time the reports were so detailed that you could tell where they were coming from, how long it took them to read the material (or at least how long they stayed at the site) and individual email addresses. It was easy to print out and compare information which helped in formulating what kind of information was accessed and what was largely ignored. This is no longer the case unless you want to pay for it--pretty much everything has a commercial value on it now.

For that reason since the fields of candidates has been winnowed down for the general and within a couple of weeks the State Conventions in Michigan will take care of a few more races, it seems we just won't need to try to find different ways of saying much the same thing any more.

Therefore, I plan to post on a weekly rather than daily basis--we're close to 700 postings and frankly, that's enough.

If I find a subject such as windpower or rare minerals or some of the other topics we have covered before they were "common knowledge" or if there is new info about things we have already discussed, that is what you will find plus anything I think that you may not have already read about in a dozen other places.

I just don't want to waste your time, or mine, any more. I'm thinking I will probably post on Saturdays but that is not cast in stone. I hope and pray that you will have a pleasant last of summer and fall and that we all benefit from the mid term elections.

God bless.......

ps-the big difference as I see it between websites of the early days and today's blogs are the ability to comment. I have looked at others and some folks write paragraph after paragraph which I doubt anyone reads in its entirety, but every once in awhile you find a nugget of wisdom that no one else has thought about yet. I hope we find a few on this blog. Please feel free--

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Counterfeit Government?

Watched an informational story today which was a warning against identity theft of children too young to buy anything on credit thereby having a clean credit record. The Social Security numbers are stolen and given to adults with poor credit and merged with theirs to make a positive uptick. And they called them counterfeit cards.

Then the little ones turn 18 and they find they have a lousy credit history and consequently have trouble developing a decent credit rating. These things really do present a problem which takes long delays and time spent unproductively for everyone concerned.

Then on the evening news there was a story about counterfeit goods such as handbags, accessories and anything that can be sold from a kiosk or more easily than anything needing a fitting room. Plus the fact that ICE (immigration and customs people) were spending lots of time tracking them down in high end marketing cities. I realize this is theft similar to a copyright or patent, but they haven't gotten that far yet and I'm thinking if you see a vendor selling Gucci bags you know they are a knock off and if you have no problem using an inferior product at a lesser price, why should it warrant the time of ICE officers when people in border communities have to deal with assaults, home invasions, etc. where, if I were President, would set my priorities.

It occurs to me that we have several counterfeit individuals working in our government presently. Napolitano declares the borders are safer than ever. Just tell that to the survivors of a murder, or the guy in the hospital after being beaten by a member of a drug cartel. Sec'y Sebelius who is to protect the health of our country's individuals, staunchly supports abortion. Where's the protection? Geithner is supposed to make laws and recommendations concerning monetary matters but cheats on his taxes. How does that figure?

We could go on with the Rangels, the Waters, any of the others who support any and every way to shortcut the system by being just a teeny tiny bit unethical. Not hurting anybody?

What a mess!

God bless...........

Monday, August 2, 2010

Same Old, Same Old

On the news front we had more stories about ethics infractions, their effect on elections, the Prez trying to make veterans think he really cares about them with promises and more promises, and the ads and robo calls continue ad nauseum.

Sorta reminds me of the old days when coaching summer time swim teams. The practice time, watching strokes and timing comparisons--you know the serious work. Finally you put the team together with each kid slotted where he or she can do their best so you kick back, relax and watch it happen. Oh, yeah, you cheer them on, but coaches are not allowed to get close enough to interfere with lane judges, timers, etc. so it's time to relax.

At that point in time you pray for perfect strokes, turns, touches and knowledge of the rules about being overly exuberant after the final relay and hope it's your turn to get tossed into the pool--that's like the football coach getting doused in Gatorade.

The primary is like an Invitational, but it's only mid season. The big one, the State or even National Championships are still to come in November, but there is much to be learned tomorrow.

Don't forget to vote and if you live in Summit Twp, a vote for Public Safety would be appreciated-
God bless..............

Sunday, August 1, 2010

CBS Sunday Morning Show Disappoints Big Time!

Usually there are some pretty good pieces on the show--it's one that you can read the Sunday paper and watch at the same time and lose little content from either, but today it was horrendous.

Item: They did a lengthy promo about not using air conditioning in order to make kids sweat and lose weight along with a/c units sending heat into the streets making it hotter outdoors with snide remarks done in baby talk on other points. I paid particular attention so I could see what organization took responsibility and guess what- there was none. It was strictly a part of the program and their efforts at controlling general behavior.

Item: The interview with Obama was nothing more than an infomercial putting him in the best possible light with much misleading information and conclusions with the obvious intent to make folks feel good about him leading up to the primaries. In fact, the second part will be aired on the CBS Morning Show. Does the Prez ever owe them!

Item: The featured story was about Hugh Hefner who took credit for helping influence Roe v. Wade, women's liberation and many other topics. He was so proud of his achievements and all I could think was that he should also be credited with a good share of broken homes, divorces and millions of children growing up without the loving guidance of two parents in one home. And since he brought it up, I have no qualms for giving him the credit for millions of abortions including the fact that nearly 70% of the abortions are performed on African American women who are less than 15% of the population. Now tell me, shouldn't he be given credit for genocide as well?

Item: Commentary about the possibility that with the war going badly Obama may get competition from his left in the next election. Observation that they don't want to install a Jeffersonian Democracy in Afghanistan, they just want to stop the war. You and I both know that there would be a slaughter that would make Vietnam look like kid's play if we pull out before the civilians can defend themselves from the Taliban. We have spoken before about plowing up those poppy fields and starting other businesses before we can conscientiously walk away.

Last thought: And this is not CBS' fault, it just happened to be in their time frame: Like Mother, like Son. A political ad for Kwame's mom featured lots of people thanking her for her service and ended with her thanking them for their support. But guess what was missing? The disclaimer at the end which has the candidate saying "This is _____ and I approve this message." It's the law, Mrs. Kilpatrick, but then you and Kwame think you are above it, right?

What a way to start a week.
We need God's blessings........