Monday, July 28, 2008

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Executive summary

I know that some of you don't like to read long drawn out missives...so here's the executive summary.........

Congress Military
John McCain 26 Years 22 years
Barrack Obama 143 days 0 years

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Preview of Obama health plan

The phone rings and the lady of the house answers, "Hello."

"Mrs. Sanders, please."

"Speaking."

"Mrs. Sanders, this is Doctor Jones at Saint Agnes Laboratory.
When your doctor sent your husband's biopsy to the lab yesterday, a
biopsy from another Mr. Sanders arrived as well, and we are now
uncertain which one is your husband's. Frankly the results are either bad or terrible."

"What do you mean?" Mrs. Sanders asks nervously.

"Well, one of the specimens tested positive for Alzheimer's and the
other one tested positive for AIDS. We can't tell which is your
husband's."

"That's dreadful! Can't you do the test again?" questioned Mrs. Sanders.


"Normally we can, but Medicare will only pay for these expensive tests one time."

"Well, what am I supposed to do now?"

"The people at Medicare recommend that you drop your husband off
somewhere in the middle of town. If he finds his way home, don't sleep with him."

They're giddy

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Another place the liberals won't let us drill

Don't take this as Gospel, Google Bakken Formation.
Seriously! Go to Google, type in Bakken Formation and read Wikipedia.
1. I did, and it BLEW my mind. The U.S. Geological Serviceissued a report in April ('08) that only scientists and oilmen knew was coming. It's a revised report (it hadn't been updated since '95) on how much oil was in this area of the western 2/3 of North Dakota; western South Dakota; and extreme eastern Montana ... check THIS out:
The Bakken is the largest domestic oil discovery since Alaska 's Prudhoe Bay and has the potential to eliminate all American dependence on foreign oil. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates it at 503 billion barrels. Even if just 10% of the oil is recoverable... at $107 a barrel, we're looking at a resource base worth more than $5.3 trillion.
'When I first briefed legislators on this, you could practically see their jaws hit the floor. They had no idea.' says Terry Johnson, the Montana Legislature's financial analyst. 'This sizeable find is now the highest-producing onshore oil field found in the past 56 years,' reports The Pittsburgh Post Gazette.
It's a formation known as the Williston Basin but is more commonly referred to as the 'Bakken,' and it stretches from Northern Montana, through North Dakota and into Canada. For years U.S. oil exploration has been considered a dead end. Even the 'Big Oil' companies gave up searching for major oil wells decades ago however a recent technological breakthrough has opened up the Bakken's massive reserves... and this country now has access of up to 500 billion barrels and because this is light, sweet oil those billions of barrels will cost Americans just $16 PER BARREL! That's enough crude to fully fuel the American economy for 41 years straight.
2. If THAT didn't throw you to the floor then this next one should, because it's from TWO YEARS AGO!
U.S. Oil Discovery- Largest Reserve in the World! Stansberry Report Online - 4/20/2006 Hidden 1,000 feet beneath the surface of the Rocky Mountains lies the largest untapped oil reserve in the world, and has more than 2 TRILLION barrels. On August 8, 2005 President Bush mandated its extraction. What is going on? They reported this stunning news: The United States has more oil inside its borders than all the other proven reserves on earth. Here are the official estimates: -8-times as much oil as Saudi Arabia -18-times as much oil as Iraq -21-times as much oil as Kuwait -22-times as much oil as Iran -500-times as much oil as Yemen and it's all right here in the Western United States .
HOW can this BE? HOW can we NOT be extracting this? Because we have not DEMANDED Legislation out of the Congress in Washington, allowing its extraction, that's why!
James Bartis, lead researcher with the study, says we've got more oil in this very compact area than the entire Middle East, more than 2 TRILLION barrels. Untapped. That's more than all the proven oil reserves of crude oil in the world today, reports The Denver Post.
So, you don't you think 'Big Oil' will drop its price even with this find? Think again! It's all about the competitive marketplace and if they can extract it (here) for less, they can afford to sell it for less - and if they DON'T, others will. It will come down! It has to. ---- Got your attention yet? Hope so! Now, while you're thinking about it ... and hopefully you're pissed off, do this:
3. Take 5-10 minutes and compose an e-mail; fax or write a good old-fashioned letter to the elected officials in Washington D.C. and their respected leaders.
We'll start with them. You can send your elected Congressmen a letter, e-mail or fax, DEMANDING the immediate Legislation for an Energy Plan. Mention that this plan should call for tapping into the U.S. Petroleum Reserves, as well as allowing for drilling in the U.S. offshore waters and U.S. Continental Shelf including Alaska .
Technology is not what it used to be. Have you ever had arthroscopic surgery? They can "surgically" extract the oil, and get us on the way to at least some measure of energy independence.
If you don't take a little time to do this, then you should stifle yourself the next time you want to complain about gas prices because by doing NOTHING you've forfeited your right to complain!
Some links:
http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakken_Formation
http://www.nd.gov/ndic/ic-press/bakken-form-06.pdf
http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/markets/industries/energy/samson-oil--gas-drill-bakken-formation-north-dakota/

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Another take on change

An editorial from the Richmond Times Dispatch.

Each year I get to celebrate Independence Day twice. On June 30 I celebrate MY independence day and on July 4 I celebrate America's. This year is special, because it marks the 40th anniversary of my independence. On June 30, 1968, I escaped Communist Cuba and a few months later I was in the US to stay. That I happened to arrive in Richmond on
Thanksgiving Day is just part of the story, but I digress.

I've thought a lot about the anniversary this year. The election year rhetoric has made me think a lot about Cuba and what transpired there. In the late 1950's most Cubans thought Cuba needed a change, and they were right. So when a young leader came along, every Cuban was at least receptive. When the young leader spoke eloquently and passionately and denounced the old system, the press fell in love with him. They never questioned who his friends were or what he really believed in. When he said he would help the farmers and the poor and bring free medical care and education to all, everyone followed. When he said he would bring justice and equality to all, everyone said "Praise the Lord." And when the young leader said, "I will be for change and I'll bring you change," everyone yelled, "Viva Fidel!"

But nobody asked about the change, so by the time the executioner's guns went silent the people's guns had been taken away. By the time everyone was equal, they were equally poor, hungry, and oppressed. By the time everyone received their free education it was worth nothing. By the time the press noticed, it was too late, because they were now working for him. By the time the change was finally implemented Cuba had been knocked down a couple of notches to Third-World status.

By the time the change was over more than a million people had taken to boats, rafts, and inner tubes. You can call those who made it ashore anywhere else in the world the most fortunate Cubans. And now I'm back to the beginning of my story.

Luckily, we would never fall in America for a young leader who promised change without asking,

WHAT change?

How will you carry it out?

What will it cost America?

Would we?

Manuel Alvarez, Jr

Monday, July 14, 2008

Winning Isn't News

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted Monday, July 07, 2008 4:20 PM PT Iraq: What would happen if the U.S. won a war but the media didn't tell the American public? Apparently, we have to rely on a British newspaper for the news that we've defeated the last remnants of al-Qaida in Iraq.

London's Sunday Times called it "the culmination of one of the most spectacular victories of the war on terror." A terrorist force that once numbered more than 12,000, with strongholds in the west and central regions of Iraq, has over two years been reduced to a mere 1,200 fighters, backed against the wall in the northern city of Mosul. The destruction of al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI) is one of the most unlikely and unforeseen events in the long history of American warfare. We can thank President Bush's surge strategy, in which he bucked both Republican and Democratic leaders in Washington by increasing our forces there instead of surrendering. We can also thank the leadership of the new general he placed in charge there, David Petraeus, who may be the foremost expert in the world on counter-insurgency warfare. And we can thank those serving in our military in Iraq who engaged local Iraqi tribal leaders and convinced them America was their friend and AQI their enemy. Al-Qaida's loss of the hearts and minds of ordinary Iraqis began in Anbar Province, which had been written off as a basket case, and spread out from there. Now, in Operation Lion's Roar the Iraqi army and the U.S. 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment is destroying the fraction of terrorists who are left. More than 1,000 AQI operatives have already been apprehended. Sunday Times reporter Marie Colvin, traveling with Iraqi forces in Mosul, found little AQI presence even in bullet-ridden residential areas that were once insurgency strongholds, and reported that the terrorists have lost control of its Mosul urban base, with what is left of the organization having fled south into the countryside. Meanwhile, the State Department reports that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government has achieved "satisfactory" progress on 15 of the 18 political benchmarks — a big change for the better from a year ago. Things are going so well that Maliki has even for the first time floated the idea of a timetable for withdrawal of American forces. He did so while visiting the United Arab Emirates, which over the weekend announced that it was forgiving almost $7 billion of debt owed by Baghdad — an impressive vote of confidence from a fellow Arab state in the future of a free Iraq. But where are the headlines and the front-page stories about all this good news? As the Media Research Center pointed out last week, "the CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News and CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 were silent Tuesday night about the benchmarks" that signaled political progress. The war in Iraq has been turned around 180 degrees both militarily and politically because the president stuck to his guns. Yet apart from IBD, Fox News Channel and parts of the foreign press, the media don't seem to consider this historic event a big story.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

The lawyer party

The Democrat Party has become the Lawyers' Party. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are lawyers. Bill Clinton and Michelle Obama are lawyers. John Edwards, the other former Democrat candidate for president, is a lawyer, and so is his wife, Elizabeth. Every Democrat nominee since 1984 went to law school (although Gore did not graduate). Every Democrat vice presidential nominee since 1976, except for Lloyd Bentsen, went to law school. Look at the Democrat Party in Congress: the Majority Leader in each house is a lawyer.
The Republican Party is different. President Bush and Vice President Cheney were not lawyers, but businessmen. The leaders of the Republican Revolution were not lawyers. Newt Gingrich was a history professor; Tom Delay was an exterminator; and, Dick Armey was an economist. House Minority Leader Boehner was a plastic manufacturer, not a lawyer. The former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is a heart surgeon.
Who was the last Republican president who was a lawyer? Gerald Ford, who left office 31 years ago and who barely won the Republican nomination as a sitting president, running against Ronald Reagan in 1976. The Republican Party is made up of real people doing real work. The Democrat Party is made up of lawyers. Democrats mock and scorn men who create wealth, like Bush and Cheney, or who heal the sick, like Frist, or who immerse themselves in history, like Gingrich.
The Lawyers' Party sees these sorts of people, who provide goods and services that people want, as the enemies of America . And, so we have seen the procession of official enemies, in the eyes of the Lawyers' Party, grow.
Against whom do Hillary and Obama rail? Pharmaceutical companies, oil companies, hospitals, manufacturers, fast food restaurant chains, large retail businesses, bankers, and anyone producing anything of value in our nation.
This is the natural consequence of viewing everything through the eyes of lawyers. Lawyers solve problems by successfully representing their clients, in this case the American people. Lawyers seek to have new laws passed, they seek to win lawsuits, they press appellate courts to overturn precedent, and lawyers always parse language to favor their side.
Confined to the narrow practice of law, that is fine. But it is an awful way to govern a great nation. When politicians as lawyers begin to view some Americans as clients and other Americans as opposing parties, then the role of the leg al system in our life becomes all-consuming. Some Americans become "adverse parties" of our very government. We are not all litigants in some vast social class-action suit. We are citizens of a republic that promises us a great deal of freedom from laws, from courts, and from lawyers.
Today, we are drowning in laws; we are contorted by judicial decisions; we are driven to distraction by omnipresent lawyers in all parts of our once private lives. America has a place for laws and lawyers, but that place is modest and reasonable, not vast and unchecked. When the most important decision for our next president is whom he will appoint to the Supreme Court, the role of lawyers and the law in America is too big. When lawyers use criminal prosecution as a continuation of politics by other means, as happened in the lynching of Scooter Libby and Tom Delay, then the power of lawyers in America is too great. When House Democrats sue America in order to hamstring our efforts to learn what our enemies are planning to do to us, then the role of litigation in America has become crushing.
We cannot expect the Lawyers' Party to provide real change, real reform, or real hope in America .. Most Americans know that a republic in which every major government action must be blessed by nine unelected judges is not what Washington intended in 1789. Most Americans grasp that we cannot fight a war when ACLU lawsuits snap at the heels of our defenders. Most Americans intuit that more lawyers and judges will not restore declining moral values or spark the spirit of enterprise in our economy.
Perhaps Americans will understand that change cannot be brought to our nation by those lawyers who already largely dictate American society and business. Perhaps Americans will see that hope does not come from the mouths of lawyers but from personal dreams nourished by hard work. Perhaps Americans will embrace the truth that more lawyers with more power will only make our problems worse.