Demovention: Monday

Oh, man.
The dems are hitting the "the same failed republican policies" line mighty hard at the convention.
I'm typing to keep from getting enraged.

They are showing a short film showing "the lessons learned" from Katrina.
NO mention of the city and state government (democrats) blowing it. Only blaming George Bush.
Jimmy Carter is narrating/starring in this film. He actually said that "the federal government couldn't take care of its own people" -- since when does the federal government take care of us? It's not only not their job, it's illegal. He's talking about how we saw that there were so many impoverished people, mostly african-american... well, how could THAT be in a city and state under democrat control for generations? Why, Jimmy just said that the Democrats are the party for ordinary citizens... look at your own movie, ya moron! The Democrats created huge ghettos in flood-prone areas... Oh yeah, and siphoned off all the money meant to maintain the levees. But it's George Bush's fault because he didn't... umm, what, call God on the phone and ask if he'd send Moses down to part the Mississippi?

Nancy Pelosi, in her speech actually said "we need a president who recognizes that health care is a right, not a privilege." Really? a RIGHT? I have a RIGHT to health care? By that logic, I have a right to groceries, a house, and clothes (since food, clothing and shelter are the true basic necessities, eh?). Where's my free house? My free food? My free threads?

They just played a sound bite from Barack saying that the most important thing to him is his family. Well, Mr. Multimillionaire, let's tell that to your brother in Kenya living in a tin shack.

Oh geez. A half-sister of Barack's is going on about nothing in particular and they just got a camera shot of some college-age girl in the audience wiping away a tear. I think I'm going to puke.

Wow, that's something, she just said that her students (she's a history teacher and has taught in both NY and HI) -- they've never traveled beyond their own neighborhoods because they "were afraid they'd be treated as an outsider"... HUH? What a load of crap.

heeeree we go... Jesse Jackson jr. is pulling the "Dr. King is looking down on us..." hmmm... and he just said that Barack Obama would be nominated to be the president of the United States... no Jesse, he'll be nominated to be the party's candidate. He still has to get elected.
OK he's calming down a little now.. I'll give him props for a nice riff on "the well-being of the 'we' depends upon the well-being of the 'he' and the 'she'..."I guess he's taking the rhyming cue from daddy.
This guy, if he can shake the stigma of being jesse jackson's son, may rise pretty high... he's got the look and the speechifying skills like obama... and apparently that's all it takes!

weird. I guess CSPAN isn't allowed to show the entertainers. Soemeone (can't tell if it's actually Lenny Kravitz or not) just performed "Are you gonna go my way" and they never showed the performer at all. Just really old people trying to sway to the beat. Wow. I thought it was Republicans that weren't supposed to have rhythm. I wonder what this break is all about? Let's see, this has to be some sort of "house band".

Hey, Spike Lee's in the crowd. Is he a delegate? Or does he think he's at a Knicks/Nuggets game?

meh. this is pretty much what I expected. I'm turning it off. Oh, wait, what's this... Working families, living wage, health care, retirement ALL in the same sentence from some union stiff. Nice. The "working families" can't afford 4 more years of the same failed policies... this is so ridiculous.

Hey, this new reality show looks like fun bunch of city folk on a boat... better than speeches from blowhard politicians any day.

Happy Anniversary to my folks

So, August 19th, 2008 will be my parents' 52nd anniversary. Can you believe that?

With the marriage statistics being what they are, this seems a monumental feat. But, if you ask my parents (and the majority of people from their generation), they don't think it's anything but perfectly natural.

When my parents celebrated their 50th, we (the kids) had a big party for them, and many, many of their friends attended. I noticed that some were widowed, but ALL were still married. As a matter of fact, I can't think of a single couple of my parents' vintage, in their circle of friends, who went through a divorce. Seriously. I'll give you one huge reason for this: My parents, and their circle of friends, are Christians. The second reason: They're old. I don't mean that in a mean way, I mean to say that when they were tying the knot, the vows meant what they said: Til Death Do Us Part.

After the festivities had wound down during the 50th celebration, I asked my folks "So, what's the secret?" After a couple of silly answers (such as "I can't imagine training another one"), they both said "We take our vows seriously." How simple is that? I will guarantee that if I asked either of them (I wouldn't waste the breath) "So, how did you manage to stay faithful all these years?" the answer would be exactly the same.

Thank you, God, for blessing me with such a beautiful example of what marriage is meant to be.

By the way... when your folks get to a certain age, they don't need more 'stuff', so it's difficult to find gifts for them (well, the ol' Cracker Barrel gift card never goes to waste). I was bumping around the card aisle looking for something fun, and found the most ridiculous card I've ever seen. I had to get it! This thing said "Congratulations on your..." and ended with "Anniversary" -- but in between, there was a cut-out window, and behind this was a wheel with all the different years on it (I didn't see where it started & ended, but 52 was in there!). The message inside was typical greeting card drivel. Couldn't resist.
I also included a deck of cards. It's symbolic, get it?

I love these guys.

A small quote from a story from AFP:

More than 30 people died in the worst weekend of violence this year in the northern Mexico state of Chihuahua, the scene of daily drug gang turf wars, police said Monday.

Drug-related violence in Mexico has killed 2,682 people since the start of the year -- nine more than in all of 2007 -- with nearly half in Chihuahua state, daily El Universal reported Saturday.

And this from AP:

Federal inspectors at U.S. border crossings repeatedly turned back filthy, disease-ridden shipments of peppers from Mexico in the months before a salmonella outbreak that sickened 1,400 people was finally traced to Mexican chilies.

Yet no larger action was taken. Food and Drug Administration officials insisted as recently as last week that they were surprised by the outbreak because Mexican peppers had not been spotted as a problem before.

But an Associated Press analysis of FDA records found that peppers and chilies were consistently the top Mexican crop rejected by border inspectors for the last year.

And yet, if we try to control our border, we're racist xenophobes.
Bush was a no-show on the border issue, and whether we get McCain or Obama... well, it'll be a free-for-all.

Drug runners, poisonous produce, tuberculosis, gang members, unsafe/uninspected trucks on our highways...
Yeah, Mexico is great. Well, if you don't get kidnapped.

And if our border guards shoot a drug dealer? 10 years in prison.

What about Mexico's military crossing our border? That's called an act of war anywhere else in the world, but we let it happen (repeatedly) and don't let our guys engage -- don't want to "upset our neighbors to the South".

We've got a great country, for a little while longer. I don't know why the people we've elected to protect it seem so hell-bent on ruining it by any means necessary.

Can ya tell I'm in a sour mood today?

Unemployment is High? Blame Pelosi.

So, the American People supposedly "sent a message" in the 2006 Congressional elections by putting Democrats in control. The Democrats basically claimed that they were going to fix everything, ever wrong, everywhere. With all the promises and all the hype, it turns out that the Democrats did very little to address anything. No surprise there. (I'll save the rant on them bugging out instead of voting on energy policy while Gas is nearly 4 bucks a gallon)
One "accomplishment" they tout was that they increased the minimum wage. Woo hoo! Now you are forced to pay an unskilled employee, no matter what the job, 6.55/hr. By 2009, it will be 7.25. On the face of it, that always sounds great. Especially since the media and Liberals have made phrases like "living wage" and "working families" (no matter how meaningless they are) part of every sound bite regarding wages or taxes.
Right-thinking folks have always warned against raising the minimum wage because of the unintended consequences. A wage is an agreement - the employer is willing to pay it, and the employee is willing to work for it. Forcing one side to pay an arbitrarily set rate ruins the market force of supply and demand. It's economics 101.
Now, the Democrats have been crowing about this wonderful victory for "working families"... however, if you look in recent economic news, you'll see that jobless claims are at their highest point in four years. Huh? What? How can this be?
Well, what happens in the Summer? Tons of students try to find Summer jobs. Think some of those are minimum wage jobs? As an employer, can you hire the same number of students for the summer if you have to pay them more? Let's see. Gas costs a fortune. That, coupled with other factors, has caused the prices of supplies, raw materials, etc. to increase. Again, as an employer, with ALL of your costs skyrocketing... can you hire all those kids you were going to?

Umm, no.

When wages are artificially, and arbitrarily increased by our lovely Congress, it makes for great sound bites. They can talk about how they have the interests of the "working class" or "working families" at heart. How they have provided (as if by magic!) "a living wage".

Except, they haven't. All they've done is contribute to higher unemployment, lower profits for small businesses, higher prices for consumers, and even lower tax revenues for local and state governments when people buy less.

Oh, but the Democrats are the party of "the little guy". Not like those "evil Republicans" who are "in the back pocket of the evil corporations"...

It makes me want to puke. Seriously, next year, when some teenage kid (who's basically looking for iTunes money) applies to take out trash and sweep the floor in your tiny restaurant that barely allows you to pay rent... is that job gonna be worth 7.25 an hour? Are you going to be able to pay that? And keep your doors open? Or not have to raise your prices? Hmmm?

And we're supposed to elect one of these geniuses to the Presidency? A boob who is now touting "A 1000-dollar energy credit" to "working families" to be paid for with... wait for it... "Windfall profits" of the oil companies. What is this, Venezuela? 1940's Italy? Since when does the government get to "take" profits from anyone? Sure, they do it through taxation (BTW, the oil companies pay more in taxes than the lower third of EVERYONE in the United States), but Barry O. has even dropped the euphemisms. He wants to "take the profits" of... now, to be fair, Hillary was the first to use that rhetoric back before the primaries. You didn't think Obama actually had an original idea, did you? But seriously, folks... if they can come after oil companies because their profits are "obscene" (their percentage of profit is so low that it would be considered an abject failure in most industries), who's next? WalMart? McDonald's? You?

I can only hope and pray that by November, people have paid enough attention to realize that if the Dems reach a 60-40 majority in the Senate AND get the presidency... the downhill race for socialism will be ON. And God help us all should that happen.

Forcing the Race Card

This week, trying to make the point that John McCain doesn't have anything to say about himself, Barry Obama said

"But, since they don’t have any new ideas the only strategy they’ve got in this election is to try to scare you about me. They’re going to try to say that I’m a risky guy, they’re going to try to say, 'Well, you know, he’s got a funny name and he doesn’t look like all the presidents on the dollar bills and the five dollar bills and, and they’re going to send out nasty emails."

So, Obama is making predictions that John McCain is going to play the race card, the xenophobe card and that he's going to send out nasty emails. Beautiful. Who's playing the race card, Barry? John McCain has never done such a thing (he fired a staffer who once got close). Let's see. Who, although he is half white, called his own grandmother "a typical white woman"? Implying that she couldn't help but be racist even though her own grandson is half black... that wasn't McCain (can you imagine if McCain had ever referred to anyone as a "typical black person"? whoo boy!)

Worse, in an earlier version the same day of these "he doesn't look like" comments, he actually said

"You know, he’s new, he’s... doesn’t look like the other presidents on the currency, you know, he’s got a, he’s got a funny name."

The OTHER presidents? What arrogance. Note to Obama: You're not a president yet. You don't get to lump yourself in with "the other presidents". And this guy is supposed to be the sublime speaker.

On the same subject, I just happened to catch a talk radio host named Leo Terrell actually try to pull a racist slant out of the McCain campaign's recent stupid ad featuring Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, and Barry O. If you haven't seen it, it was making the point (sloppily) that the fascination with Obama is based on fluff, not substance, as it is with Hilton & Spears. But what did Mr. Terrell see? Nothing less than an insidious plot to turn white voters against Obama by subliminally linking a black man with white women "which is a big no-no". HUH? Moron. IF there is anyone dumb enough to hold that view and at the same time shrewd enough to catch this subtle, diabolical subterfuge, well... they weren't ever gonna vote for Barry anyway.

People say and do racist things in fairly obvious ways -- and when they do, they get called on the carpet. You've got to have a lot of time on your hands (and a pretty big chip on your shoulder) to ferret out fantasies of a "Birth of a Nation" contingent running around this country... and the ludicrous idea that McCain would be pandering to them.

By the way, since Obama said this stuff, and the McCain camp responded by saying "He played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck" (that'll become a cliche someday), he has responded by saying something along the lines of "What I meant was, I don't look like I came from Central Casting for presidential candidates. Race had nothing to do with it..." wha? What is it about you that makes you look so different from previous presidents, B.O.? Your ears? Check Lincoln. Your youth? Check Clinton. Your elitist ways? Check Bush 41, FDR, JFK, et al. Face it. You meant your skin color. There's nothing else you could have meant.

For a guy who is supposed to "transcend race"... he sure seems to make sure we're painfully aware of it.

I'm not thrilled about the idea of McCain as president, but I'll be pulling the "R" lever this go round.