If you are a reader of this blog, you know that I like to use day-to-day analogies to get my point across because I believe they allow us to put the bigger world in perspective and maybe see where we are going wrong.  Well today is no exception. 

   To start, let me first say, I am already tired of "Obama-mania" and he hasn't even entered office yet.  I have cast off NBC as the National Barack Channel, ABC as the All-Barack-Channel and CBS the Covering-Barack-Solely ( okay that last one was a stretch ).  I am probably going to keep the TV off tomorrow as the swell of giddiness by their news anchors will probably make most people nautious if watched for any exteneded period of time.

   While I understand the need to celebrate an inauguration ( its a tradition going back to George Washington himself), we need not go overboard and make more of this than needed.

   Let me put it all in perspective.  Imagine, if you will, you are the owner of a small company (say 20 employees).   You have grown this company over many years and have hired every person yourself from the janitor on up.  It so happens that all your employees up this point have been white (maybe you live in an area where there just are not many people of other enthicities).  With each new employee you have "celebrated" their start of employment with you by taking them and the whole company out to lunch at a local diner and paying to entire tab.  Now you are looking for a new sales person.  You interview 30 people for the job and after many weeks of finding the best person for the job you decide Jim Jackson is the best person for the job and that is ALL that matters to you.  The day he starts he comes in and you bring all the employees together and you say the following:  "Attention everyone, I want you to meet Jim Jackson, he is our new sales person.  To celebrate his first day of work, we are going to take the day off, play a round of golf,  go out to dinner and then come to my house for drinks afterward all on company expense  When someone asks why the extra expense, you say its because Jim is the first black employee of the company and you feel an extra level of celebration is required.

   How would that make the other employees feel?

   How would that make Jim feel?

   Would that help or hurt their relationship with their new co-worker?

     Now I have nothing against Barack Obama.  He ran a good campaign.  He raised millions of dollars and spent that money effectively.  He seems like a nice person and I believe he is an intelligent and rational person ( though I still feel he is not vetted for the job).  I wish him well in his job, but I will oppose him with every blog I write if I feel he is trying to move our great country towards new forms of socialism that will bankrupt my children and grandchildrens' future.

    Some have said we should hope he succeeds as president because if he fails, we all fail.  To that point I beg to differ.  My success does not depend on his success.  Nor does your success depend on his success.  Obama may fail, but the United States of America will go on.  That is the beauty of the USA.  Our country rises and falls on itself!  We have done well under both and bad and good presidents.  The US goes on despite who we elect as our "leaders".  What if Obama's successfully gets passed every whim he puts before congress.  Is that a success even though those laws and policies bankrupt our nation 20 years down the road?  We often do not know the success/failure outcome of our presidents for 50, 60, or even a 100 years after they are gone.  My hope is that President Obama will succeed in the only ares he is truly responsible for as president.

Listen to the oath
I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God

   As you can see his main job is to defend the Constitution against foreign and domestic enemies.

   His main jobs are actually quite simple:
    - Approve or Disapprove laws passed by Congress
    - Meet with leaders of other countries in order to form friendships and treaties
    - Be Command-in-Chief of the armed forces

    He is not to be the:

   - Chief Financial Officer of the US
        - trying to manipulate the free markets by writting checks to various financial institutions or corporations

   - Chief Technology Officer of the US
        - trying to dictate what types of cars we should make or drive
        - trying to dictate what forms of energy we will develop or use
 
    We need to come to our senses and realize that we are only installing a president. Not at KING. Not a DICTATOR.  Not a MESSIAH.  He eats like us, breathes like us, goes to the bathroom like us, laughs, cries, LIES, CHEATS and LUSTS like the rest of us. Yes he is black, but I hope that is not the only reason he was elected. Otherwise we will find ourselves travelling down a long dark road of filling the presidential vacancy every 4 or 8 years with yet another "First _____ President ever" and not looking at who is best suited for the job. 

We are after all Americans, and we are above that pettiness and trivia.

    Well, as I predicted to my wife last night, Wall Street (WS). did not take too kindly to the Obama election.  Never has WS responded so negatively the following day after an election by dropping an astounding 500 points!  Of course the alphabet channels will minimize this as just another re-adjustment to the bad economy.  But I do not think so.  I think WS is sending our dear president-elect Obama the message that he better think twice (if not 3 times) before he messes with the tax code.   If Obama doesn't listen soon they will start sending bigger messages (drops) that he is NOT the one calling the shots. 

    My prediction is that Obama will not be changing the tax code anytime soon. He will undoubtedly say that given the current economic conditions that they will have to postpone (if forget it altogether) until things improve.  Frankly I don't think Obama ever intended to change the tax levels but only used it as a way to buy votes from people who are uneducated about such matters (free money always buys votes from un-educated low-income people).  These people will continuely be used by the democrats who love to play the "class warfare" card on them.  As Fred Thompson said, "I'm not taking water out of YOUR side of the bucket, but the OTHER side of the bucket".
 
   We need to educate our country that there is no such thing as a "corporate tax".  Tax the corporations and they either

   1) pass the cost on to us as either price increases (so we pay the tax)
   2) job layoffs or moving jobs overseas to save money
 
    We need to clearly communicate how taxing so called "rich" people effects us all by:

   1) laying off more workers (or at least not expand which screws the young people entering the job market)
   2) not buying our products and services (and a consumer market needs rich people spend spend spend)
   3) not investing (which indirectly affects our 401K's and other investments).

    McCain failed miserably to communicate these problems with the Obama-plan and this is where are left today.

     Well the American people have spoken and they have decided that a single party system is what they want.  Yesterday was the United States last day as a true democracy and it was a good run while it lasted.  The American people decided that RACE was more important than SUBSTANCE.  That having someone to CHANGE the constitution was more important than having someone who would DEFEND the constitution. That having the media in bed with a political party is not a problem.  We let our emotions make the decision in the booth and left our brains at home.  We turned a blind eye to all that is wrong with this candidate as a form of national "appeasement" or maybe so as not to appear "racist".   We lowered the bar for becoming president to an all time low (2 years in the Senate??).  We lowered the bar for what we call hard journalism and turned the presidential race into a political "American Idol" by sending candidates on shows like Leno, Letterman, The View, Oprah, Ellen and the like.   We ignored all Obama's past associations just like the German people ignored Hitler's "Mein Kamph" and saw only a great speaker.  We let so called "polls" make up our minds for us (its the everyone-wants-to-vote-for-the-winner mentality) instead of having internal fortitude for what we know and believe is right and true.

     But alas, democracy has ended in the USA and we should all now start refering to ourselves as "comrads" instead of citiizens and the USA as the USSA (United Socialist States of America).  The media will be the watchdogs of this administration, but they won't be watching THEM, but instead they will be watching US.  They will be running defense for the Obama administration and will be investigating all who dare to speak the truth and point out what's wrong.  Remember what they did to Joe-the-plumber for asking a simple question.  Government powers will be used to investigate people like Joe and no one will be safe.  There will be "black lists" (or maybe in an Obama world they will be called "white-lists") in the media and people on those lists will not have access in Washington (Obama alread started this 3 days before the election and there is no doubt this will continue).  News agencies like Fox News will dry up, because they will be left out in the cold (if not cut off from the air-waves altogether).  They will investigate Republicans but not Democrats.  If a Republican even dares "Jay walk" it will be a major concern but the other side will be allowed to cheat on their wives and their taxes.  The Department of Education will become the Department of RE-Education and will begin teaching our children what the Constitution "should say" and not what it DOES say (remember Obama's 2001 interview).  They will insure that the future generations will have the proper perspective on what governement is for and what we as comrads are entitled to.  They will be told that true Patriots pay taxes without hesitation no matter how much and to question Obama's abilities as president is racist or un-fair. The media will parade a long line of benefactors of the Obama administration. People who, on their own, would have suffered immeasurably if it had not been for the gracious and ever expanding arms of Obama to embrace them and make their lives better.  We will be told that the answer to all of our problems is to relinquish more and more of our freedoms (and our money) to the government since goverment will be the answer to all our woes in life.

   My only hope is this.  That like the mythical bird the Phoenix, our nation will be re-awaken by another great depression.  Where "conservatives" (note: I did not say Republicans since I believe that party will not last) will re-emerge and bring back to this country:

  - Self Reliance
  - Self Government
  - Self Control
  - Respect for borders
  - Respect for faith
  - Limited government
  - Fair taxes

   But it will be a hard sell to the American people, who will become used to having the government dress them (housing reform), feed them (food stamps), kiss their boo-boos (free healthcare)  and pander to their every whim and desire like spoiled rotten children.

It will be a long rough road ahead.
  

    In the Dr. Seuss childrens book "Horton Hears a Who", Horten faces a constant barrage of assaults from those around him who don't hear the tiny voice coming from the small spec of dust being held by a flower.  The other animals think he's crazy and even go to the extent of tying him to a tree.  He knows (or rather hears) better than all the rest and comes to the conclusion: "A person's a person no matter how small".

   We, like Horton, are made fun of for making an issue out of something as silly as marriage.  We are told to "get with it" and to stop being "bigoted" or "narrow minded".  We are told that marriage is meaningless anyway so why not let homosexuals marry? 

   The reason for me is quite simply this.  Because society matters to me and it should matter to you as well.  Our children are watching us and they are also deciding what is important and worth saving and what is not important and not worth saving. The left doesn't get criticized for saving the spotted-owl, yet we are lambasted for saving marriage? 

    What is marriage for anyway?  It's simple for this reason:  "If we won't stay together for love, then do it for the children who need you".  We are imperfect creatures and driven by our own desires to take only look out for ourselves and not others.  As one writer put it, "Marriage holds you together even when love alone won't and keeps you together until love comes around again".  It's for the children we have marriage.  Because nature says children do better being raised around both sexes.  Now I know that the left will undoubtedly pull out some same-sex "family" and show that "all is well" (maybe even better) in same-sex-families.  But let us not forget most social changes take years (even decades) to see their true ramifications.  Just look back at the 70's when psychiatrists and socialogists were promoting the idea that its better for families to divorce than to have children in homes where there is conflict.  Now today we look back and say that was wrong.  That actually its better for children to learn how families deal with difficult issues.  That we don't just up and run away when things get tough.  But to bad for those families that listened to the diatribe of the left and took their advice. 

   What will be the outcome of same-sex marraiage?  The left says nothing will change, but I beg to differ.  If we trash our national parks when we take our families camping, do you think our children will do more or less of the same?  Will they respect and love nature more or less?  If we say marriage is only a "contract" signed between "Party A" and "Party B" do you think our children will think more highly of it or less highly of it?  To me, marriage will become meanlingless and only a excuse to have a big party and go on expensive weeklong vacations.

To the left the discussion of same-sex marriage is a small issue. but to them I say "an issue is an issue no matter how small they make it and will affect the smallest in our society.... the children".
 

     If you are from Sacramento and someone says the words "Game 6" you will instantly get an angry response from them.  Why? Because Game 6 of the 2000 Western Division NBA Championship is regarded as the WORST officiated game in NBA history.  A game where if the Sacramento Kings even "breathed heavy" on Shaq or Kobie they would be slapped with a foul.  Fans could see that the fix was in for LA by the league officials because they new more money could be made by forcing a game 7.   Now, years later, we find out that we were right.  That officials were on the take and being told by the front office what to do.  Many Kings fans today still detest the Lakers for this very reason.

    So why do I bring this up?  Because it applies to our nations election process. That's why!   Just like in our sports, we demand that those who are officiated the games be objective and fair.  Nothing angers sports fans more than knowing that it way 2 against 1 on the field of play and you had little or no chance of winning.  When it comes to our elections, the news agencies (newpapers, magazines, TV, radio) are to objective and fair to both sides.  But we have not seen that this time.  It is transparent to all who is on whose side.  The alphabet channels discuss lame poll after lame poll to disuade the right from voting.  They would rather talk about Palin's wardrobe rather than Obama's Marxist tendencies.  They would rather talk about a "rif" in the McCain campaign by some "unknown source" than talk about Obama's ties to terrorists and other radicals.  They would rather talk about how Joe is not a licensed plumber than discuss Obama's lack of experience to be Commander-in-Chief. Let's face it people!  The gloves are off and in terms of large media outlets, its 9 against 2.

 Obama supporters    McCain supporters
-------------------    ---------------------
ABC                        Fox News (although I think they have played pretty straight)
NBC                        Talk Radio
CBS
MSNBC
CNBC
CNN
NY Times
Time Mag
Newsweek

And this is only the beginning.  With Obama in office,  democrats like Nancy Pelosi are going to enanct their own version of the "Fairness Doctrine" which will shut down talk radio,Fox News and internet blogsites like this one altogether.  Once they do this it will be GAME OVER for the Republican party.  

WE THE PEOPLE need to demand fairness from our media outlets in our elections and the only way to do that is to boycott their sponsers and/or their shows all together.  (Remember this: their CEO's love money more than they love politics and they answer to their stockholders)  

WE THE PEOPLE need to have our own "Declaration of Independence" from the media and like our forefathers, know that the battle will get ugly before it gets better.

Ways to do battle with the media giants:
  1) Stop watching those channels altogether. (there are plenty of other cbannels to watch these days such as History or Discovery)
  2) Stop buying products from the main sponsers of these channels (and let the sponsers know it)
  3) TVo the shows and let the sponsers know that they are wasting their money advertising on these channels as you will be skipping over them

 

      A few years ago the company I work for was getting pressure to hire more diverse workers (mostly women and african-americans).  Given that my company is a high tech developer and most of our department is engineering related, it was difficult to fill those demands.  During one hiring ramp, I interviewed 2 people for a position. Candidate A was a white male and candidate B was a black female.  I used my standard set of 8 tech-engineer questions that I had used for several years.  Candidate A answered all the questions correctly and had a good understanding of the job he was being interviewed for, while candidate B could only answer 2 of the questions to any degree at all.  Later in the day I met with the HR person to go over the interview results.  We spent over an hour arguing over why B would not make a good choice and would require too much effort to train (the 8 questions were BASIC questions that would show the person could LEARN the job).  The HR person made it very clear to all of us in the meeting that our company needed to make concessions and lower our standard for certain job applicants even if it meant it might impact a project.

      Today, we are seeing how this same mindset is not only effecting our corporations but also our elections.  Diversity training has caused us to look at the skin color of our presidential candidates and not at their character, their associations and their policies (which oddly enough is the OPPOSITE of what diversity training was supposed to do).  Our mainstream-media news agencies have failed to vet Senator Obama out of fear of being called "racists" or "bigots".  More concerned with his outward appearance (even his charm and somewhat good looks) we have now developed a double-standard for our president.  

Let's look at how the 2 candidates have been "interviewed" for the job as President:

OBAMA:
   - Not investigated about Bill Ayers and his long association him.
   - Not investigated about Tony Rezko and what dealings he had with Obama and his early political career.
   - Not investigated about Rev. Wright and what so-called "seramons" Obama has been witness too.
   - Not investigated about ACORN and Obama's work with them as a trainer and funder.
   - No issue made of his tax policies (ie - socialist views)
   - No issue made of using cocaine (did he sell cocaine to his friends?)
   - No issue made of his voting history (or lack there of by voting "PRESENT")
   - No issue made of his decision to NOT use public funding though he PLEDGED he would
   - Lauded by talk shows like: "Oprah" , "The View" and "Letterman"

McCAIN
    - Called OLD by many in the media
    - Called Bush-II by the media
    - Investigated about connection with racist pastor who was NOT his pastor
    - Investigated about his connection with Savings and Loan scandel (which he was aquitted)
    - Cindy McCain slandered by the NY Times about former misuse of pain killers
    - Gov. Palin slandered with lies about her faith, her family, her politics.
    - Gov Palin asked "trick" questions by interviewers like Charlie Gibsona and Katie Couric to make her look stupid
    - Grilled by talk shows:  "The View" and "Letterman" (and NOT interview by Oprah)

     Double standard???  You betcha!

     So now the run for the presidency has become equivalent to the "Miss America Pageant" where every year a new "barrier" is broken by having the first black winner, the first latino winner, the first native-american winner, the first deaf winner and the list goes on and on. While there is nothing wrong with the "Miss America Foundation" wanting to use their platform as a way to bring light to a diverse group ( that is their prerogative).   But let us not forget that person we are electing will have as their first order of duty to "Protect our country and our constitution" and not just represent us at some U.N. "beauty pageant".

    I believe that with  Obama the diversity-lane will become the Express-Lane to the Presidency with each subsequent candidate having a shallower resume than the one before them (and looking at Obama's resume that's not saying much either).

It’s embarrassing to see our media go after average people like “Joe the plumber” when THEIR candidate of choice is threatened.  So Joe asks a simple question of “the ONE” and gets an answer that shows his REAL agenda and Joe is the one who gets attacked!  How nice!  Have you ever watched a movie where the powerful bad guy is guarded by a group a nasty looking Doberman-Pinchers?  To him there just a bunch of nice little pooches who lick his face when he bends down to them.  But make any "threatening" moves on him and they quickly become vicious and scary looking until the owner whistles for them to calm down.  That's how it is today with Obama and media.  ANYONE who dares attack him and threaten his campaign will have the media pounce on them and tear them to shreds. 

My heart goes out to Joe (and all like him who find themselves in the media's cross-hairs).  He did NOTHING wrong but ask a question of “the ONE”.

All this is to cloud over Obama's answer to that question.  An answer that shows his true intents on becoming President and that is to socialize our country and "play God" with our incomes and our lives.

You've heard the phrase from the old commercial, "It's not nice to fool Mother-Nature!".  Well the saying couldn't be more appropriate than today with our financial crisis staring us squarely in the face.   You may ask, "What in heck are you talking about?".  The answer is quite simple. Our capitalist system is modeled after nature itself.   We know that nature left to itself, does very well in the long run.  Every species is doing their absolute best (although some may have arguments about the the human race) to live as LONG as it can (in order to reproduce) using the LEAST amount of energy (the Law of Cosmic Laziness).  Nature tries many solutions simultaneously to solve this problem, each with unique answers for their unique situation.  Our capitalist system is very much the same.  We allow any person with an idea to bring it to the market and try to solve basically the same problem: Make the MOST MONEY for the LEAST AMOUNT OF WORK.   Some of those solutions are good and some not so good.  In the case of nature we know what happens to bad solutions: they die.  The dinosaurs are good examples of this.  At the time they were the best solution available. One problem, they ate too much.  When food was scarce due to things that were not under their control, they died and were replaced with smaller and less food-hungry animals.  What if some "intelligent beings" from another planet had visited us during the critical time of the dinosaurs when food was scarce and gave them food to keep them going?  Answer: We would not be here today, the dinosaurs would have gotten even bigger and even more in danger of extinction than before.  Today we have the same situation occurring in our market place.  We have well intentioned "intelligent beings" (congress.... pun intended) trying to keep these misguided dinosaurs alive.   FannieMae, FreddyMac, AIG and many others made bad choices and the market place is saying they should die and be replaced.  But our government is "fooling mother-nature" by propping them up with BILLIONS of our hard earned tax dollars.  Have you ever tried to make a house-of-cards?  When you do, do you ever think the house is NEVER going to fall down?  Of course not.  You know that the higher you build the more un-stable it becomes and the more likely it will come crumbling down.  Our national debt is that house-of-cards.  This is not FREE MONEY.  This is OUR money.  Our CHILDRENS money.   The taxpayer is getting multiply-screwed.  First they get sucked into mortgages that they cannot pay (some were just plain stupid), then they see thse companies go bankrupt and their pensions which are built on investments in these various institutions go down.  Then they see government pump BILLIONS of dollars they don't have into these companies which of course will be paid by TRILLIONS of dollars more taxes (to cover all the interest we will pay China and other countries we borrow from). 

   What we need to do is let nature takes its course.  Let these companies fail.  Punish the CEO's who made these decisions.  Don't reward them.  There is a famous saying:  "That which you reward you get more of".  By rewarding these corporate heads with buy-outs you are only encouraging others like them to be reckless with other peoples money.  Governments job is to make sure that there are adequate PENALTIES for bad behavior to keep the system honest.  In the great depression, government put together the SEC to make sure companies were accurately and timely reporting their earnings (something that was not being done prior).  The government's job is to be the referee and make sure the playing field is fair to all, but not to make sure everyone wins.   Some win. Some die.  But in the end we will have a better answer.