..the collection of (mostly) young people protesting against banking corporations in Manhattan. This movement started September 17th and has spread to 70 major cities in the US and 900 cities world-wide. OWS focuses on three aspects: social/economic inequality, corporate greed, and political lobbying by the financial sector. If you want more facts, feel free to check out the wikipedia entry, as it’s really a waste of my time and yours to regurgitate it all here.

Last night, a very appropriate special was on PBS, entitled “Free or Equal”. This one-hour show took a look at Milton Friedman’s economics and, specifically, the series he hosted in 1980 called “Free to Choose”. For those that don’t know, Friedman was the economic advisor to Reagan and received the Nobel prize in 1976. He was a very smart man that influenced nations and individuals. In this special last night, the host, Johan Norberg, visited the places that Friedman had influenced in the 70s and 80s and took a look at what they are now. Honk Kong, Chile, and Estonia (directly, to name a few) have all benefited greatly from the free market capitalism that Friedman brought with him. In the case of Chile, the new freedoms in the marketplace directly translated to a yearning for more freedom in society and politics. Within a short time, the dictator, Augusto Pinochet, was forced to resign and a democratically-elected president took his place.

Hong Kong, however, met a different fate. Soon after Friedman’s work there, it fell under Chinese rule. Seeing the great prosperity by what was once a refuge town, the Chinese adopted a laissez faire attitude towards Hong Kong economically. Hong Kong was free to trade internationally without restriction, tariffs, and government interference. In turn, it would be silly to lobby or appeal to the government, as it held no control over the market.

Estonia was also a victory for the free market, as a poverty-ridden former-USSR state was transformed into the wealthiest country that resulted from that breakup.

So let’s back up a little..

Free market capitalism, by definition, is free from governmental interference. Trade is conducted locally, nationally, and internationally, without penalty or restriction. Competition becomes fierce and companies/individuals must rely on innovation, competitive pricing, or tremendous customer loyalty to succeed. Those who do, turn a profit. Those who don’t, lose money and have to refactor what they are doing. This naturally forces advancements in almost all business sectors and increases the demand of producers in a system. Costs go down and both the buyer and the seller, ultimately, win. Granted, that’s a simplified overview, but this is, after all, a blog.

Tying this in to OWS..

1) social/economic inequality. Friedman made a very keen observation that what some people (in this case, OWS-ers) want is an equal finish line.. this is a wrong mentality to have. The equality should be the starting line. He argues that in a system, freedom and equality are not necessarily one and the same. By its very definition, freedom will allow some to succeed and others to fail. Both those who fail and those who succeed have an incentive to win. In an “equal” (economically) system, there is no incentive to do anything, as the successes are split with the losses. You might ask.. “Doesn’t that sound like socialism?” Right you are, my friend. This is exactly the direction that a country takes when it’s leaders decided to start redistributing wealth.

2) corporate greed. If a company makes money, it has the right to spend it how it wills. Breaking the down a little bit– if the owner of a company decides to take a massive paycheck at the expense of his workers, that is his/her prerogative. Employees are free to leave and work for a different company and, before long, that first company will drown by the owner’s own greed. The successful company will be one that balances and moderates itself. You and I should feel no claim to the profits any company claims unless that company is owned by us. How is demanding banks repay our loans for us any different then the greed they display themselves? If they are greedy, so be it. If it’s their money, they have a right to it.

3) political influence. If you remember back to the example of Hong Kong, in a truly free market economy, the government has so say, so lobbying has no effect. Once government interferes with tariffs, subsidies, restrictions, subsidies, penalties, subsidies, taxes, subsidies, and employment meddling (gender/race quotas, etc), companies and industries are free to lobby for their benefit.

So you see..

By saying, in essence, “down with capitalism”, you’re making a stand against your own point. You rally against an economic philosophy that benefits everyone as a general populous, incentivizes everyone to succeed by their own hands, and increases quality of life… the very economic philosophy that eradicates the negatives you list..

Two hundred years ago, our forefathers hated, condemned, and swore off everything that the monarchy stood for. The rule by one person invariably leads to oppression, social classes, and the economic ruin of a nation. Kings ruled with iron fists, commanded their armies out to war, and taxed their citizens into poverty. The hostility of a king towards his rivals was matched only by his anger. The king used various ways to crush insurrection from his people.

Thankfully, future-king William will have none of these powers.

But our President does.

People are being stupid right now, so let’s just reiterate the facts and touch on some things we should take away from this (sources inline).

1. Rep Gabrielle Giffords was shot, along with 19 other people this weekend. She, herself, is recovering, but 6 people died, including a Federal Judge and a 9 year old girl who was born on 9/11/01.
2. The shooter, instantly identified as being a Tea Partier is, in fact, an anarchist, a 9/11 truther, and a democrat who made numerous death threats against authorities in recent days
3. Sheriff Dupnik (lead investigator) almost immediately pinned the blame on the Right, most probably to deflect the blame off himself and the glaring mistake he made
4. Jane Fonda and many other reporters, anchors, pundits and bloggers decide that its the Tea Party’s fault, when there is no connection at all. Most of this vitriolic emotion comes from the astounding midterm election upsets and the fantastic display of both bipartisanship and priorities on the first day of HoR session this year. While some Democrats walked out and others passed out earplugs, some Dems stood up to the plate and even took part in the reading of the Constitution. Rep Giffords read the 1st Amendment.
5. The rabid left is now deflecting the disgust its receiving for trying to make a martyr out of Rep. Giffords by decrying the usage of rhetoric and imagery involving violence (target symbols on pictures, words and phrases in speech and print, etc).
6. In a stunning bit of irony (see the last sentence of point #4), Rep Robert Brady is now trying to make illegal the usage of such speech and imagery against Congressmen and Congresswomen. Violation of the 1st Amendment much? So instead of taking responsibility for jumping to conclusions trying to villainize an innocent group of people, the Dems try to save face by looking like they are preventing this from ever happening again. Instead, Bob Brady ends up looking like a wuss who can’t face opposition.

So now, what happens when Obama incorporates violence into his next speech? If this is applied to Reps, why is the rest of America left out? What of President Truman? Somehow when Obama uses violent rhetoric, it seems contrived and makes him sound weak- like the tall skinny kid at school who talked a big game, but was too lanky to land a punch. Outlawing violent rhetoric is silly and unconstitutional. Instead of trying to save face,

“To be clear, if you’re using this event to criticize the “rhetoric” of Mrs. Palin or others with whom you disagree, then you’re either: (a) asserting a connection between the “rhetoric” and the shooting, which based on evidence to date would be what we call a vicious lie; or (b) you’re not, in which case you’re just seizing on a tragedy to try to score unrelated political points, which is contemptible. Which is it?” – Glenn Reynolds

Lets focus on the families of those that were killed, not parade around in this circus of which party’s fault it is or who is subliminally to blame. Jared Lee Loughner shot those people. He pulled the trigger. He is to blame.

Thank God that Rep Giffords is alive, despite initial reports that she had died. Thank God that 13 other people made it through with only injuries. For the other 6 people, pray for the families as they have to grieve for the outcome of this despicable act.

**Warning: Due to the nature of this post, the links may include content that may not be suitable for all viewers. Use your discretion**

What started out as a series of posts on twitter has prompted me to write a blog post! You know things are srs when a blog post is produced!

The Issue

Words cannot express how outraged I am at the TSA’s actions over the past few weeks- the government sexually assaulting young and old, and most disappointingly, the president behind it all, condoning and encouraging these actions. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want pics of me stored on TSA computers and inevitably leaked, molested if I refuse the scanner, and fined $10k and subject to legal action if I refuse both. So by virtue of you refusing the TSA’s services to make sure your children aren’t smuggling guns in their underwear, you are presumed guilty and fined. Ten. Thousand. Dollars.

What Happened?

1. Obama approves $1B to be used by the TSA to install, train, and use new scanning devices (if you want to learn more about them, search for backscatter and millimeter wave scanners)
2. TSA spends time joking and more joking
3. Kids are molested (the paternal instinct in me would have had me bashing heads)
4. Passengers are threatened with legal suits for refusing both the scanner and gropings (and offering to leave the airport)
5. TSA computers are found to have had 35,000+ saved pictures on just ONE scanner (and subsequently leaked via FOIA)

Starting to get the picture? The TSA (and more and more government entities lately, it seems) is out of control and we have no one but ourselves to blame for it. Our passivity, our election day choices, and our desire to have safe, bubble-wrapped lives have brought us to this point.

The Deeper Issues

So what exactly are the underlying issues here?

1. Feel uncomfortable even when a doctor has to examine you? Now realize that the TSA is seeing you naked and you probably didn’t even think twice. Invasion of privacy much? I’m pretty sure the photographing of a person.. indecently.. is illegal. But its the government.. Who cares, right? Since when has trusting them to not misuse technology been a bad idea? That’s not even the point. They shouldn’t have access to pictures of you, me, your child, your grandparent naked. Period.
2. If you find yourself refusing the scanner, the TSA will leave no part of you physically unsearched. If a stranger performed the same search on you? Sexual assault. If a friend or relative performed the same search on you? Most likely, sexual assault. So how does the TSA justify searching a most-probably innocent person to a greater degree than a person in the process of being arrested? DEAR TSA: AT LEAST AFFORD US THE DIGNITY OF READING US OUR RIGHTS?
3. If you’ve managed to deal with the harassment of the TSA and refused both the scanner and the search, more than likely, you have on the order of a dozen armed TSA agents and police officers surrounding you. By this point you’re thinking, “No flight is worth this. I’m leaving.” Sorry, but no, you have to fill out a report and then prepare to be served a $10,000 fine, be subjected to legal procedings, and possibly barred from airline travel. Sounds like the TSA is trying to be judge, jury, and executioner, while presuming that you’re guilty until proven innocent.
4. Unless there is probable cause (and as invoking the 5th amendment doesn’t constitute probable cause, neither should refusing the scanner and search), there is no basis for the unlawful searching and detaining of a passenger in the first place. Perhaps more accurately reflecting this concept- refusing a sobriety test does constitute probable cause; however, in order to administer the sobriety test, an officer will have already had some suspicions that a driver was drunk. Still, this is a far less invasive operation. So what the TSA is saying, is that everyone passing through the security checkpoint has a default, inherent level of suspicion and you must prove yourself innocent. Well guess what TSA! I’m suspicious of YOU.
5. Health concerns regarding the backscatter scanners are warranted!

So What Can You Do? Nothing. Well, realistically nothing. Welcome to bureaucracy and a President who loves big government. Thank you population who voted him in and let him reach far, far beyond his Constitutional power.. but that’s ok, because even though he swore to uphold it, he calls it an imperfect and flawed document. Thanks to the post-9/11 terrorism-threat shroud that covers the airline industry, the government can exercise its power more and more. And believe this if you want– but there are no post-9/11 reports of airport security measures actually stopping a terrorist. Sure, there have been the random failed shoe bombers, but they were on board. Yes.. there were rigged packages destined for a synagogue, but that was a cargo plane. Can you imagine if Thomas Jefferson could see what was happening 200-some years after his “Founding Father”-hood and presidency? I bet he would be crying… weeping for his country that he dedicated his life to making. Instead we have idiots in Harlem voting back in Charles Rangel (apparently so they could watch him be found guilty of financial misconduct?). Yes.. Thomas Jefferson would be broken hearted, but he would have the guts to stand up high in the airport and proclaim the liberties afforded to us by the Constitution (Wait, I said Jefferson and not Ron Paul, right?)- a document written to LIMIT government and protect the people from government expanding beyond its bounds. At which point, he would be arrested, I’m sure.

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock and dodging health insurance companies about getting a plan, you’ve probably heard of the passing of “Obamacare”, the gajillion dollar healthcare plan that increases federal funding to hospitals and doctors for abortions, c0ntrols what vital services people can and can’t have under the public option, and does everything in its power to increase actual insurance company premiums (gee golly, I thought it was supposed to do the opposite). In addition, it makes it downright illegal to *not* have insurance and you can be fined and prosecuted if you don’t.

I’ve railed against this many times on Facebook, so it might be getting old, but the fact is: this is an issue worth fighting for- and the Senate and House Republicans feel the same.

All night long last night, the republicans used every tool in their toolbox to stop and reverse the legislation voted on and approved by 50.3% of the house on Sunday. Eventually, two items were found to be in violation of Senate procedure. Republicans have launched a massive attempt to not only shut down, but amend the bill if the former doesn’t work. They’ve proposed 29 amendments that really don’t have much hope of succeeding, but each takes a really good shot at the legislation and would “unbalance” the legislation. Like it was balanced to begin with…

Now, most of this info is just regurgitated from the cnn.com website, but they had some … interesting …  quotes from Dem legislators. FTA:

“It’s unconscionable,” said [Sen. Carl] Levin, who as chair of the Armed Services Committee was supposed to conduct a hearing with a top U.S. military commander in Korea who had flown in for the hearing. “Our national security cannot be held hostage to disagreements over a health care policy.”

What about meeting with him on your own time? You know… maybe earn that pay raise you suddenly feel yourself deserving.

[Sen Claire] McCaskill had planned an oversight hearing on problems with contracts to train local police departments in Afghanistan. She said the Senate rule that allows the minority party to block committee action was “really dumb” and should be dropped.

“Disagree with us, debate us, vote no,” she said. “But to use a rule to stop us from working — that dog just doesn’t hunt from where I come from. That doesn’t even makes sense. That’s why people in American think we are clueless here.”

The only thing “dumb” about this is your apparent lack of vocabulary, odd idioms, and a disregard for the “rule”s which were put in place for situations exactly like this. If we must suffer under this law, lets make sure it conforms to the rules as all laws should (disregarding the fact that it doesn’t conform to the law, the Constitution).

Carl Levin continues, “It seems to me this is an example of how the obstructionism around here has gotten mindless.” Oh, yes, good sir. This is mindless. Please keep in mind that merely 39% of Americans polled were in favor of Obamacare and 59% opposed in a CNN poll this week (also setting aside the issue of representatives actually representing their constituents instead of the party line seems to be quite a thing of the past). The only mindless people are the 5% polled who have no opinion and the Dems who stop at nothing to make sure this succeeds: letters and phone campaigns, overwhelmingly negative polls, a clear breach of Constitutionality, etc.

With the recent surge in HSA-backed high deductible health care plans, health insurance can be affordable for just about everyone. That, my friends, is real reform- not adding a tax-payer backed insurance company into the mix that seeks to own everyone’s health.

This is a dangerous time, my friends. Know how your representatives voted and remember that in November.

Its strange seeing a good number of people reacting negatively to the NYS Senate’s decision against legalizing gay marriage, but not many people at all reacting favorably, especially considering the ratio was greater than 3:2. Its also surprising given the definite left-leaning tendencies of the state. So what gives? O…ut of touch senators or vastly vocal minority?

Today is Oct. 22nd, marking the official release to the public of Windows 7. I’ve posted before the cheapest ways to obtain it (also, there is a 3-license Family Pack available on Newegg for $149.99)

Today marks a very historic day.. the first highly-lauded Windows release since 2001!

There has, however, been a bit of a snafu. Those of you who purchased and downloaded the copy of 7 from windows741.com may run into a problem about folder permissions upon running the installer. Gathered from here, follow these steps:

1. From within XP/Vista 32-bit, I downloaded the 64-bit version of Win7 Professional upgrade.
2. Used the installer to extract the files, but received above mentioned error.
3. Checked the file size of the folder “extendedSetup” and noticed that it was 3.01 GB.
4. Moved extendedSetup folder to root (C:\)
5. Downloaded this file and placed it into C:\WINDOWS\System32: http://www.sevenforums.com/attachmen…-l-oscdimg.zip
6. Bought up command prompt and typed the following: oscdimg -bC:\expandedSetup\boot\etfsboot.com -h -u2 -m -lWIN_EN_DVD C:\expandedSetup\ C:\7.iso
7. Burned ISO with ImgBurn (freeware)
8. Booted, installed, and activated

I’m trying that as we speak, so I’ll keep you posted as to if it works. Happy Windows 7 day!

EDIT: Command line syntax error.. -1 should have been -l. Its fixed above now

I’ve heard a lot of comments over the past days, about how he amazing he his and how awful he was. Regardless of what you think of his actions in life, it is undeniable that he revolutionized music in many ways. Some of the comments along the lines of “good riddance” and such sadden me.. Now, don’t get me wrong, I didn’t exactly admire the man for the things he died in his personal and public life, but we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that he was human. He had family, he had loved ones, and in as much as he was a person, his death is a sad event, especially with the question of his eternal state in mind.

Farrah Fawcett has, in my mind, been fairly rudely shoved aside. This women struggled for a while with cancer, yet stayed strong and decided that she would show the struggle involved to the public. It seems that such a remarkable fight and death (which brings to mind qualities of the classic/epic/tragic hero) has been overshadowed and its force lessened.

There was one death that we haven’t heard much about, though. A death that could alter world politics and the course of a nation. A death so tragic and so vivid that I still can’t get the video out of my mind. You’ve probably heard about the election turmoil in Iran- how the sitting president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad basically said “Oh hey guys.. Don’t worry about the election. I won.. really I did, and if you protest, I’ll arrest or shoot you.” Talk about Democracy, right? So this Ahmadinejad guy is a pretty rough guy- calling for the destruction of Israel, denying the occurrence of the holocaust, and flaunting his power via threat of nuclear weapons.

So protests have been illegal in Iran in re: the election, but yet thousands still do. Riot police are called and things tend to get out of hand, but protestors have rallied behind a girl named Neda Agha. Sadly, this girl has been dead since Saturday. Caught in traffic due to the protests, she left her car to get some fresh air and within minutes was struck by a bullet from a government sniper. What happened next was shocking and sad, because someone nearby had a camera and recorded from that point on. The video is available on youtube in several places and, due to it being pretty graphic, I won’t embed it- only link to it here.

The government in Iran has gone so far as to make illegal mourning for this poor girl, as mourning in the Iranian culture actually has vengeance-based retaliation times scheduled in its 40-day cycle. President Obama condemned the actions of the Iranian government and now Ahmadinejad has demanded an apology.

Here we are now, on the brink of something possibly devastating… Will democracy prevail and western relations restored with Iran or will we see tensions with a nuclear power increase? As hard as it is to say it, from a nation-building perspective, this is a good place to be. The people are rising up and the structures are in place for a nation to truly become democratic (in its modern interpretation). A regime change could mean many good things for a country that, frankly, scares me.

Sadly this video has embedding disabled, but here’s the next best thing:

Okay, even if evolution, as evolutionists urge, is simply an alteration and adaptation of genetics over time due to stress from the environment, we have to say: we’re done evolving. Also, one may have to deduce backwards-evolution is explicitly as much of a possibility as forward-evolution is. Without stress on our spoiled American lives, diabetes from a sedentary lifestyle seems to be more of a trend than growing eyes on the back of our head or those laser-fingers we’ve always dreamed of having. So if we are ‘done,’ have we really arrived to our most optimal state? It is mainstream idealists who suggest our ‘recent’ descendents in a sort of simplistic, barbaric and animalistic light, though praise our current state of comeuppance as though we’ve taken our place as masters of the universe. Have we really grown über so quickly, especially with a decrease in environmental stress? Humanism is scary; sounds more like Excusism. Even without any greater supposition than an accidental existance, evolution as a theory seems like one of those things that will regardless come to a “well that was dumb” status when looking back through the annals of history and science.

100 Million > 3.5 Trillion

A famous Mark Twain quote my grandmother use to use comes to mind when I think about the recent coverage of President Obama’s budget cut: “Figures don’t lie, liars figure.”  This type of lying using figures always seems to come up when the government starts using really really big numbers. Most recently Obama told his cabinet to reduce their combined budgets by 100 million dollars. The media hailed this as grand fiscal responsibility and told us that Obama had listened to the tax day tea parties and was giving the people what they want. American’s all across the country hear 100 million and think, “holy cow that’s a lot of money.” Truth be told, yes it is a lot of money, but compared to 3.5 trillion it’s chump change. A discerning person will recognize the difference between million and trillion, however, it is easy to fall into the trap of seeing that 100 > 3.5 and they’re both “illions” so this must be a good thing. Realistically this comes down to a lot of zeros and even if I write the numbers out as follows, it still seems like 100 million is a lot.

         100,000,000
3,500,000,000,000

You could take a minute to stop and realize that just one trillion is the same as a million millions and that since 100 millions is a lot smaller than 1 million millions that should give you pause, however even that makes things hard to comprehend. 100 million is 0.0029% of 3.5 trillion, which means that it would be the same as having 29 out of 10,000 of something. Realistically that’s really stinking small. To give you a better idea of scale I was going to put together a picture full of pixels each representing 1/10,000th together but somewhere along the line I got lazy and by now really you should be getting the point. Obama is cutting a minuscule fraction of the budget but making sure that it sounds like it’s a lot.

To put it another way: imagine you make $100,000 per year and in the 2009 year you expect to spend $134,000 (the ratios are analogous to the current government budget situation). You decide you want to be fiscally responsible and cut some spending so you decide not to have your $3 coffee. The thing is, you’re deciding that you don’t want your $3 coffee once, on one day – that’s it. You cut $3 out of a 34 thousand dollar deficit and then tell all your friends you’re being responsible.

General Electric -> NBC/Universal

My post is long enough already but since yesterday was Earth day and you’ve probably been spammed with all kinds of “go green” initiatives on radio, TV, the Internet, and even at work and school. NBC/Universal has been running commercials all week about going green. We’ve been encouraged to recycle, plant trees, use less electricity, and most importantly of all use fluorescent light-bulbs and switch to wind power if we can and so desire. News stories, TV shows, and commercials all say the same thing and NBC and it’s affiliates are pushing all of it stronger and harder than anyone else.

It might be interesting to know who owns NBC. If you don’t already know it’s GE, the company that makes all those fluorescent light-bulbs and wind turbines. The company that has positioned them perfectly in recent months to gain government bailouts, the company pushing cap and trade legislation and the company that stands to make billions (that a thousand millions) if the whole country puts its faith in environmentalism.

Personally I have no problem with you believing in man-made global warming or save the whale campaigns or you want to keep the oceans clean or protect the rain forest. Those are all well and good, but if your company stands to profit in the billions by particular initiatives and then uses a TV station to help spread propaganda I start to get a bit angry at you. I happen to like several shows on NBC but I can’t stand when the characters on those shows have to tell me why I’m evil and destroying the earth. I know they’re not the only TV station to do “public service” commercials for the environment, but they’re really the only one profiting if we follow them and their ideas.

Really though, don’t pay attention to that man behind the curtain, I’m sure he’s not manipulating anything at all.

You see the tea parties weren’t about taxes on April 15, 2009. They were about the taxes next year, the year after, and for generations to come. They were about uncontrolled government spending both the stimulus and bailout bills of the present and the proposed spending measures of the future including but certainly not limited to universal health care. The parties were about a federal government that has taken too much power and failed to abide by the 10th Amendment. They were about the hypocrisy of the Republicans and the Democrats and the corruption and lies that permeate both political parties. They protested the media and it’s harlotry with one Party and its failure to report truth on even the simplest issues. These Tea parties, in large, were organized by everyday folk like you and me and were filled with people who are ticked off about their government’s trek towards tyranny no matter who gets in power. The parties were reminding each other that capitalism is the life-blood of our economy and that our president is leading the nation down a path towards socialism.

Our founding fathers saw this coming and they worked hard to create a constitution that would keep our republic squarely between the extremes of anarchy and tyranny. They were so concerned about having an oversized federal government that our first constitution, The Articles of Confederation, so stripped the central government of power that it nearly collapsed altogether. The Constitution as we know it today has been interpreted into oblivion, however, and we have set ourselves in a position opposite of the Articles of Confederation that we risk collapsing on the other side of the pendulum. Thomas Jefferson warned us of the exact position we are currently if we are to “preserve our independence” we would do well to heed his call and return to the principles of this nation’s founding.

“I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and in our comforts, in our labor and in our amusements. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.” — Thomas Jefferson

That being said there is at least a little hope. A similar poll taken at the end of December 2008 showed that “70% of U.S. voters say a free market is better than one managed by the government” with only 15% undecided and 15% suggesting that a government managed economy is better. The question that we must ask is whether or not the discrepancy of these two surveys has to do with a change in mindset or if it has to do with the definition and understand we as a nation have for the words capitalism and socialism. I hope it is the later and that people seem to understand that a ‘hands off’ approach by the government is the best.

I fear that public opinion has simply changed. We have seen little public rage about the president firing the CEO of a private business and yet have seen plenty of rage when a private business decided to honor it’s prearranged contracts. We aren’t just approaching socialism anymore we are embracing it and with it we are embracing the policies of the great socialists of the past: FDR, LBJ, Woodrow Wilson, Vladimir Lenin, Hugo Chavez, Joseph Stalin, Fidel Castro, Benito Mussolini, and Adolf Hitler. While some of these men were not “socialists” by name (although many were), they all share the same basic economic principles and it is these principles that are diametrically opposed to ours. The progressives of the early 20th century hailed Mussolini just the same way the progressives now hail Chavez and Castro. We stand on the edge of a cliff and we can choose to follow the economic failure of some of the worst scum on earth, or we can follow the example in our own country where we have prospered in the free-market and miserably failed when we forsake it. If this poll is any indication, we are moving in the wrong direction.

To prove that not all of my statistics are made up on the spot you can feel free and check out the poll here.

All seems to be working so far, so consider this a test. I really like having a standalone application to do this

Along the same lines of trying out new things: over the past 8 years, we’ve had a president who, regardless of your thoughts on him, must admit that he was at least a courteous and respectful gentleman. You know what this means, of course… CHANGE

Over the past few speeches and conferences that Obama has partaken in, I’ve started noticing a disturbing trend. Watch below and see what I mean:

In case you didn’t catch it, it seems our President has a tendency to insult and poke derisively at the very people he calls out because they don’t bridge the gap over to the left..

Please keep in mind that I don’t disapprove of spunk and strength in the Presidency… All of the men memorialized on Mount Rushmore showed it and deserved their places up there (yes, that includes Roosevelt who pushed for universal health care and insurance towards the later part of his presidency). Being a good president doesn’t rest squarely on “the issues”, but also in the man’s character- his courage, his compassion, and his morality. Sadly, in all four areas, he seems to be lacking.

Last Sunday, HT"’s dad preached at my church. He said very graciously and very accurately how regardless of what we think of him or in what areas he doesn’t perform well, we have an obligation to love this man and his family and to pray for them. I was a bit convicted in that- frankly- I didn’t. I realized I had a bit of a plank in my own eye to get rid of.

So that’s my post, exactly 3 days late.