Missing a few days

Sorry, I had to take a few days off to go and get my new ride. I traded my V-twin Yamaha Road Star for a new Honda Goldwing. It looks just like the one in this picture. I found a dealer in Palestine, Texas with a great sale on some 2008 models still in inventory, so I decided the time was right. Palestine is 483 miles from my house so I had to try and find a window in the weather. The dealership, normally open until 5:00 PM. was going to close at 3:00 PM.

Saturday was the only day in the weather forecast without the possibility of rain. I packed my gear for a hard ride and set out at 6:30 AM. My old Road Star didn't let me down. Nine short hours later with stops only for gasoline and comfort, I arrived in front of the dealership. I reached them by cell phone and they agreed to stay until I arrived to give me an estimate on my bike. The estimate was within the acceptable range so I told them I would see them on Tuesday. They are closed on Sunday and Monday. An old FBI buddy of mine was there to help broker the deal. I followed him another 50 miles to Tyler, Texas and parked my cycle in his garage. He is 77 years young and had just purchased a used Honda 1300 cc adventure bike to go with his Goldwing Trike.

We visited friends from years past and told war stories. Most of them still have some semblance of the truth, but as the years have passed the legend has become the authority. It rained on Sunday night and turned cooler. On Monday I rode Harold's trike and he rode his new adventure bike. At the halfway point in the trip we switched rides and headed for a local motorcycle shop and burger bar. The burgers were great and we got to look at all the latest in riding accessories before we headed home.

In the evenings we watched the news and both agreed we are in deep aaaah, well, you know. I could feel some future posts rumbling around in the back of my brain. But, my main concern for the next day was the weather. Rain and further cooling were in the forecast.

We awoke on Tuesday morning to a cool and cloudy day. I put on most of the clothes I brought with me and we headed back for Palestine. Harold took most of my gear in his car and I rode the Yamaha. Even with the layers of clothing I was cold when we got to the dealership. We spent the morning doing paperwork and making the new bike ready. I had to get a short course in all the instruments and buttons on my new ride. The dash looks like the cockpit display on a 747. It has navigation, radio, heated seats and handlebars, and a variety of other features I've yet to figure out. The clouds continued to build and by the time I left at noon they looked down right leaky. The air was definitely getting cooler. I looked like the little brother in the seasonal favorite, "A Christmas Story" with all my layers of clothing topped by my "Frog Togs" rain gear. I had to get help to get my leg across the saddle of the bike. I left just after noon and headed south. I hoped to get half way before I stopped. The first fifty miles were dry.

Soon the rain started to hit my windshield and a cold northwest wind buffeted me from the right side. The Goldwing's heated seats and handle bars sure felt good. After a hundred and ten more miles I was numb. The rain was getting harder and I decided to tuck it in for the night. I found a budget motel with a large overhang on the front and pulled in. The desk clerk had to put a towel down on the counter when I signed in. I unloaded my gear and stripped down to only one layer and turned the heater in the room on high. I had articles of damp clothing hanging on every chair in the room. I called home and told Bebe and the girls I had stopped for the night. I was without covered transportation in a relatively small town and the rain wasn't going to stop until morning. I made a pot of coffee and ate my last cereal bar. My daughter called a friend she knew who lived in the area and he brought me a burger meal from a local restaurant. By the time he arrived, I had moderated the heat in the room, showered, and put on my last set of clean clothes. I thanked him for his considerate treatment of the elderly and after he left I finished off my meal and settled in for the night.

It was cold and dry the next morning and I packed up and headed south. The rest of the ride was dry and without incident. I listened to the radio through my headset in my helmet and enjoyed the quiet smooth ride of my six cylinder Honda. After I unpacked, I sat down and opened my e-mail to find 129 new entries. Thanks for all the blog comments. I will be trying to decide which area of concern needs further examination.

"President Obama was shown in photos Friday smiling with the couple who crashed his state dinner. The photos showed the husband, the wife and the president. If it's a crime to talk your way into the White House without a background check, all three of them could face charges." --comedian Argus Hamilton

I'm Going Green.

Once again Louisiana and Arkansas tip the scales in favor of socialism. Two Senators bought off for their vote. 300,000,000 dollars to the sink hole known as Louisiana for the vote of Mary Landrieu. Blanche Lincoln I don't understand. Her constituents in Arkansas were overwhelmingly against the bill, so I guess she doesn't want to return to the Senate for another term. Just make a list of the ones who voted to move this monster of a bill forward and make sure they never darken the door of any other legislative forum. In fact it would probably be a good idea to just clean out the entire barrel and start over. Even the Chinese communists knew enough to council Obama against proceeding with this legislation.

"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go." - Oscar Wilde

Let's Investigate

Who's ruining the U. S.? It doesn't take a congressional investigative committee to figure that one out. It is mostly liberal Democrat lawyers, politicians, and judges. There are complicit Republicans who bowed to the pressure, but for many many years, the government work force has been watered down by the insane press for diversity, equality, and a don't ask/don't tell attitude in hiring and promotion.

Should there be a black in this or that position? The correct answer is sure, if they are the best qualified for the job and competed on an equal basis for it. Should there be a woman president? Should there be a Latina supreme court justice? The questions are absurd. If any one of the named protected classes are the best qualified for the job and competed on an equal basis for it, then most right thinking Americans would answer with a resounding yes.

That hasn't been how the scenario played out. All questions designed to ferret out critical information essential to making sure the most qualified person gets the job were prohibited in job interview situations. Law suits and legal rulings prevented hiring panels from asking personal questions designed to get beyond the fluff of a resume. Upper level government management received bonuses at the end of the year for filling quotas in hiring and promoting of protected classes. To many it didn't matter if the candidates were qualified as long as they fit the list from which they could pick for some extra money. Now a president can occupy the highest office in the land while hiding his entire background from the U. S. voters. He can appoint large cadres of Czars who do not have to be cleared by our legislators before going to work. That's how you get pin heads like Barack Hussein Obama and Eric Holder.

Who's responsible for the massacre at Fort Hood? The very people who claim to be investigating it are responsible. We are fighting a war with Islam. Muslims everywhere are active participants in the world wide jihad. They all have different roles. Some are terrorists and warriors, while others are silent partners. Make no mistake. They all have the same goal. The destruction of all who don't believe as they do. None should be allowed to come to, or stay in this country. None should be allowed to participate in any role related to the military, or any other job that involves security or access to government documents.

We can't afford one more government program. All government spending bills should be taken off the table until we regain control of our debt. All TARP monies and stimulus money not already spent should be recalled and added back to the U. S. Treasury. All funds that go to support illegal aliens should be withdrawn and all illegal aliens in this country should be deported. They should no longer be referred to as immigrants. Immigrants are those who go through legal channels to gain entry into the United States. The others are illegal aliens.

All enemy combatants currently housed at Guantanamo should stay there and be tried by military tribunals. No money should be spent to move, house, or try these terrorists in a civilian court on the mainland. Our pinheaded Attorney General should be run out of office for inability to handle the job. Our president should immediately resign his position for the same reason. This whole election process and subsequent nightmare is an embarrassment to the voters in the country. I know there wasn't a clear cut choice, but I feel many wish they had not voted as they did. Had they known what a Bozo Obama would turn out to be they would have voted differently.

If this administration is not going to support our troops, we need to get them all back here until we can fill the position of Commander in Chief with someone who is qualified and motivated to do the job. The circus is not fun and should be shut down immediately. If any legislator (Republican, Democrat, or Independent) does not do his dead level best to stop this run away train they should be recalled.

We don't need anymore blame shifting investigations to tell us what we already know. Our leadership let us down and a terrorist was pushed through the ranks until he found an opportune time to fulfill his holy Muslim mission of killing as many infidels as possible. Get rid of all of them now.

I've Been Thinking

I was just sitting out in the jungle the other day after an invigorating romp in the treetops thinking that perhaps we have over evolved. Somewhere along the line we passed the pinnacle of common sense and critical thinking and now we are headed into the nether land of open minded nothingness.

Programs, speeches, books, and lectures are now unnecessarily long because of all the dalliance we have to do in trying to include all the buzz words, and trying not to offend anyone in the every increasing list of protected classes. Every statement must be proceeded by phrases like, "I realize there are exceptions". If you didn't, even though every one should know there are exceptions, some watchdog of politically correct speechifying would challenge your very right to be on the planet.

Are we not able to recognize each others differences? Apparently not. Our federal government has come up with a check list of various classifications on all its forms to make sure we can place ourselves in the proper pigeon hole. I have studied the list and am tempted to check "other" at the bottom, but the small line they give you to explain your non-classification is so small I can't get it all in. Some classifications are on skin color, some on sir name and linguistics, some on historic continental origin, some on facial features, and other. If you happen to be a combination you can choose which group you want to be in. Some of the classes have been determined by the courts to need special help so they are given preferential treatment to make things fair. So, if you are a mixture it pays to choose the group receiving the most benefits. Now we've added certain aberrant sexual choices to the mix and granted these folks additional protection under the law in addition to whatever pigeon hole they were already in.

How did we do it in the old days? How did people decide who they were comfortable with? As I remember we hung with people who were in the same socio-economic strata as we were for one. We felt comfortable with one group above us, and one group below us. Strictly on a socio-economic scale we felt uncomfortable going outside these parameters. Further we tended to group together based on cultural and moral practices. People who worked hard for a living and taught their kids the value of hard work, responsibility, and self reliance tended to group with others who did the same. Within these groups, cultural and racial groups might further form communities based on their cultural practices, but they felt comfortable mingling with those of different faiths, ethnicities, and physical differences in the larger pool who shared many of the same goals for social behavior.

These diverse but related groups might not spend a lot of time mixing, but they respected and felt comfortable living in close proximity to each other. Think about it. How much time do we spend mixing outside the parameters previously mentioned today? I can tell you. Very little. Some people force and contrive situations to make it appear as though we do, but in reality we don't. Every time the federal government tries to artificially balance the scale they end up creating imbalance and resentment. The result is a further separation of the groups they are trying to bring together. It is unfair to those, who by hard work and proven responsibility, have moved themselves into a position to be recognized as sharing universal values of acceptable behavior to be lumped by some artificial classification with those who don't work, and whose behavior is outside legal and acceptable social standards.

Hard working, right acting people everywhere distance themselves from those who aren't willing to contribute. It is not their language, skin color, or continental origin that makes some unacceptable.

We must be able to speak in plain language when talking about the enemies of our great nation. Religions, like Islam, who have as a basic tenet of their religion the annihilation of all who don't believe as they do must be banned from our nation.

We must call terrorists by their real names and not some euphemism.

We must apply the rules of war to captured terrorists and not the rules granted to citizens of our country when they have their day in court.

We must realize that aberrant sexual behavior does not deserve protection under the law. These people already have protection under the law because they are citizens of this nation. No citizen deserves any special consideration not afforded all citizens. That's why hate crime legislation is so unnecessary. I predicted, and it has been realized, that other aberrant sexual deviants would seek the same protections. Pedophiles now have been added to the list. Why? Because homosexuals are very active in trying to gain a following. If they have children in the home you can be assured these children are being taught the same aberrant behavior. Aberrant sexual behavior is a learned response. Because of our fear of offending some groups we have taken it out of the psychological diagnostic manuals as a psychological problem. That doesn't mean it's not one. We register some sex offenders including pedophiles, and then give them special protection under the law. How stupid is that? Believe me when I tell you others with more disgusting sexual practices will be added to the list if we continue on this path of ignoring what we know to be right and wrong. In case you are asking yourself, I do believe there are clear and binding rules for human behavior.

It is time to stand and be counted. I believe there are more of us than there are of them. We must push back and push back hard at every opportunity to do so. We must support the media sources who tell the truth and ignore those who don't.

He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.
- Chinese Proverb

Another Failed Presidency

Dr. Hunt is a social and cultural anthropologist, who has had nearly 30 years experience in planning, conducting, and managing research in the field of youth studies, and drug and alcohol research. Currently Dr. Hunt is a Senior Research Scientist at the Institute for Scientific Analysis and the Principal Investigator on three National Institutes on Health projects.

Another Failed Presidency
By Geoffrey P. Hunt


Barrack Obama is on track to have the most spectacularly failed presidency since Woodrow Wilson. In the modern era, we've seen several failed presidencies--led by Jimmy Carter and LBJ. Failed presidents have one strong common trait-- they are repudiated, in the vernacular, spat out.

Of course, LBJ wisely took the exit ramp early, avoiding a shove into oncoming traffic by his own party. Richard Nixon indeed resigned in disgrace, yet his reputation as a statesman has been partially restored by his triumphant overture to China .

But, Barack Obama is failing. Failing big. Failing fast. And failing everywhere: foreign policy, domestic initiatives, and most importantly, in forging connections with the American people. The incomparable Dorothy Rabinowitz in the Wall Street Journal put her finger on it: He is failing because he has no understanding of the American people, and may indeed loathe them. Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard says he is failing because he has lost control of his message, and is overexposed. Clarice Feldman of American Thinker produced a dispositive commentary showing that Obama is failing because fundamentally he is neither smart nor articulate; his intellectual dishonesty is conspicuous by its audacity and lack of shame.

But, there is something more seriously wrong: How could a new president riding in on a wave of unprecedented promise and goodwill have forfeited his tenure and become a lame duck in six months? His poll ratings are in free fall.. In generic balloting, the Republicans have now seized a five point advantage. This truly is unbelievable. What's going on?

No narrative. Obama doesn't have a narrative. No, not a narrative about himself. He has a self-narrative, much of it fabricated, cleverly disguised or written by someone else. But this self-narrative is isolated and doesn't connect with us. He doesn't have an American narrative that draws upon the rest of us. All successful presidents have a narrative about the American character that intersects with their own where they display a command of history and reveal an authenticity at the core of their personality that resonates in a positive endearing way with the majority of Americans. We admire those presidents whose narratives not only touch our own, but who seem stronger, wiser, and smarter than we are. Presidents we admire are aspirational peers, even those whose politics don't align exactly with our own: Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Harry Truman, Ike, Reagan.

But not this president.. It's not so much that he's a phony, knows nothing about economics, is historically illiterate, and woefully small minded for the size of the task- all contributory of course. It's that he's not one of us. And whatever he is, his profile is fuzzy and devoid of content, like a cardboard cutout made from delaminated corrugated paper.

Moreover, he doesn't command our respect and is unable to appeal to our own common sense. His notions of right and wrong are repugnant and how things work just don't add up. They are not existential. His descriptions of the world we live in don't make sense and don't correspond with our experience. In the meantime, while we've been struggling to take a measurement of this man, he's dissed just about every one of us--financiers, energy producers, banks, insurance executives, police officers, doctors, nurses, hospital administrators, post office workers, and anybody else who has a non- green job. Expect Obama to lament at his last press conference in 2012: "For those of you I offended, I apologize. For those of you who were not offended, you just didn't give me enough time; if only I'd had a second term, I could have offended you too."

Mercifully, the Founders at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 devised a useful remedy for such a desperate state--staggered terms for both houses of the legislature and the executive. An equally abominable Congress can get voted out next year. With a new Congress, there's always hope of legislative gridlock until we vote for president again two short years after that.

Yes, small presidents do fail, Barack Obama among them. The coyotes howl but the wagon train keeps rolling along. Hopefully, we will all have the will to make sure this will be a one-term presidency as I don't think we can survive two terms.

"This country and this people seem to have been made for each other, and
it appears as if it was the design of Providence that an inheritance so
proper and convenient for a band of brethren, united to each other by
the strongest of ties, should never be split into a number of unsocial,
jealous, and alien sovereignties." --John Jay, Federalist No. 2

Doctor Debt

I am not a Democrat. I am not a Republican. I am an American citizen who votes for people who share my values and beliefs. Since Reagan, I have voted for Republicans in National elections. Not because they were Republicans or believed just as I did, but because the National Democrat Party is so far removed from everything I believe that I was forced to vote against them. We have not had a real strong conservative candidate since Reagan. The Republicans were given a mandate by the core of freedom loving Americans, but they squandered their power by caving in to the pressure of the liberal left who mocked their conservatism. Some were morally bereft, others pandered to special interests, and others couldn't take being called mean spirited because of their fiscal and moral conservatism. All the policies that would have led to a strong economy and responsible populace that were introduced by Ronald Reagan were chipped away at by succeeding presidents and legislatures until virtually nothing remains.

We impeached the worthless piece of trash from Arkansas, but he was never removed from office as he should have been.

During all that time, the Democrats lied, denied, and made counter allegations to alter the public's perception of things their leadership deemed as worthy of consideration in light of their situational view of morality. When the Republicans had the reins, the Democrats were obstructionists. When they had the reins, they blamed the Republicans for all manner of evil in spite of clear and plentiful evidence that they were the ones who caused everything to go to the dogs.

They still roll out the "Bush is to blame" banners to divert attention from their current efforts to sell us into slavery to the global system. They continue to wreck our economy. President Bush recently apologized for his actions that allowed the Democrats to spend trillions of dollars to bolster an economy they caused to crash. He said his actions in relation to the TARP funds went against his beliefs in capitalism. Our current president refuses to let anyone examine and verify his past and spends millions to keep it a secret. He is aided in these efforts by the National Democrat Party and the unvetted presidential appointees in the cabinet.

I recently read a commentary on the lack luster efforts of our current president and his "War Council" which tried to draw some parallel between the lack of response by this administration in Afghanistan and the response of president Bush to hurricane Katrina. Now that's a stretch.

A natural disaster of mega proportions hits the southern Gulf Coast of the U. S. and does immense damage. Mississippi is severely damaged. The U. S. government is in no way responsible to respond. However, we are a benevolent country and that's what we do. The logistics of just getting into the region are difficult. I know, I was trying to get there to check on my relatives. All along the Gulf Coast people are in dire straights. However, the only people who are screaming that they have been neglected are the people in New Orleans, Louisiana. These people were warned, but refused to leave until it was impossible to get out. Then they showed us all why they were unable to get out by continuing their irresponsible behavior after the storm. Their mayor, Ray Nagin, got on the air and proved to us all just how stupid he is. (The brilliant citizens of New Orleans re-elected this moron after the storm.) Their Democrat governor's response was equally inept. The standard racist hate mongers, Jessie Jackson, and Al Sharpton showed their asses to the American people by blaming white people for the flooding that resulted from the hurricane's rains and storm surge. In reality, the people of Mississippi suffered far worse than those in New Orleans. They were mentioned only in passing by the State media. My point. The response was as fast as anyone could reasonably expect the Federal government to act. It had nothing to do with the president at the time and only the race mongers made it appear so. Of course the politicians on both sides were only too willing to open investigations and assign blame to some of the appointed chiefs in various government agencies who handle such matters while distancing themselves from any knowledge of the whole matter.

Now to Afghanistan. Our troops are at war with Muslim jihadists from a variety of sects and in need of backup. This president is probably the most inept person to ever be elected to the office of president in recent history. I think he even tops Jimmy Carter. However, his allegiance to the Muslims of this world is preventing our troops from getting the help they need. This is in no way comparable to the government's benevolent and extensive response to the victims of hurricane Katrina. President Bush helped us in many ways after September 11, 2001 and he made tough decisions with the information he had available. I recall that everyone in this country was behind him until it was safe for the Democrat cowards to crawl out of their rat holes and start making political hay again. We are not fooled by your desire to destroy this country and give it to the globalists. We will see you at the polls. Like the idiots in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana you are showing us your stupidity on a daily basis. Keep it up and you won't win one seat. If you are Republican and siding with this group, the same goes for you. We will get someone to represent us fairly and honorably even if we have to make up some new party to get them on the ballot.

The will to be stupid is a very powerful force, but there are always alternatives.
- Lois McMaster Bujold

Islam

I was watching a portion of the Bill O'Reilly Show on Fox News last night while waiting for the next episode in the C.S.I. trilogy. Bill and some News Babe were discussing remarks made by Pat Robertson concerning Muslims. Pat basically stated that Islam was not a legitimate religion as we understand religion, but a world political ideology set on taking over and ruling the world. Bill and associate thought Pat's position extreme and his comments not good for our current situation. Bill went on to comment about good Muslims. In case you don't know me by now, I don't blindly follow anyone on Fox News or anywhere for that matter. I can only take these news types in very small doses. I get my information from a number of trusted sources, and I process the information through my life hardened thought processor.
I happened to agree with Pat Robertson's assessment on this occasion. There is something telling about the photo above that troubles me. Let me break down my reasoning for you.

All over the world followers of Islam are killing innocent people by the millions to foist their cult rooted system of belief and government on all who refuse to knuckle under.

All follower's of Islam follow the same rules and laws, and are indoctrinated in the same belief system as those who actively carry out these acts of terror and genocide.

We were attacked in our own country most recently (this past week) in Fort Hood, Texas by an Islamic jihadist posing as a U. S. Soldier.

We were attacked most memorably on September 11, 2001 by numerous Islamic terrorists operating without impunity in our own country.

We have been at war with the warriors of this oppressive world terrorist force on numerous fronts since.

The funds from all Muslims world wide are funding the efforts of terrorists everywhere. They may be operating in what appear to be legitimate circles and occupations, but they are terrorists set on taking over, and they use the legitimate to mask the acts of their warriors.

I think Bill O'Reilly and others are overlooking some very obvious clues that will eventually kill us.

Things I've gleaned from people who have worked with the middle eastern Muslim populations;

They have no qualms about lying to your face and stabbing you in the back. It is not a violation of their religious tenets to lie to infidels (that's everyone who is not Muslim).

They prefer sneak attacks rather than face to face confrontation.

Historically, they have done the same to rival factions within their own brotherhood.

They plan to overpopulate the existing non-Muslim populations as another means of gaining control.

They are not "nice" people, and they certainly aren't people who lover's of freedom would want as their task masters.

We will never be able to cease our war efforts against them.

Regardless of how much we rebuild and reeducate, we will not win them over or turn them away from their stone-age beliefs. As long as they remain true to Islam, we are going to have a huge problem with them.

I think those who separate good and bad Muslims are naive. I think they are ignoring glaring obvious clues. I believe there is very good evidence to support my thought that the highest office in our land has been infiltrated. Go back to the comment about Muslims having no qualms about lying to infidels and I think you have a good explanation for the actions of our current president, Barack Hussein Obama.

You cannot formulate an effective military strategy for success in a war against Islamic terrorists when the enemy is helping you with the strategy.

We need to wake up and take control of the situation by rooting Islam out of the United States of America. All Muslims should be forced to leave this country and go to countries where the predominant religion is Islam.

We should either make our military goal one of inflicting as much damage as possible in the areas where terrorists are trained for as long as it takes, or get out all together. We should not rebuild anything. Muslims are never going to be our friends. I know that reality doesn't fit our westernized Judeo/Christian sensibilities, but this problem requires thinking outside the box. If we fail to take a strict course of action like this, then we will fall to their onslaught.

The greatest mistake is trying to be more agreeable than you can be.
- Walter Bagehot