Last week, my wife and I were in Las Vegas on vacation. We have a time-share and used a week in Las Vegas. Our time-share room was great. We had two bedrooms, a large living room and a kitchen/dining area. That was way more room than we really needed. It was our first time to really spend time in Las Vegas.

It is amazing how little there is to do in Las Vegas for people who do not use alcohol or gamble. Most of the shows have performers who use profanity. That eliminated most of the shows from our list of things to do.

We did go to the Lance Burton magic show one night. It was great, especially because he used kids from the audience as part of his magic show. That made the performance more family oriented. Part of his show was poorly done, but most of it was excellent.

We were told that the food in Las Vegas was excellent. We found the food to be especially bad. We went to the buffet to enjoy that feast and found the price was very high. Back when I traveled through Las Vegas regularly, I would eat in the buffet at a very reasonable cost. Because of the cost, we ate at some of the restaurants in the casinos. The prices were better than the buffet, but not by much. The quality of the food was poor in those restaurants.

Las Vegas used to be cheap for lodging and food. The casinos used to pay part of the fees that the hotels and restaurants needed for operation. Now, each operation stands on its own. That makes the rooms and food very expensive. It does eliminate a large part of the American public from visiting Las Vegas, unless they have a time-share.

The shopping reminded me of the shopping in New Orleans around Mardi Gras. Everything seemed to be tailored to a vulgar audience. As a result, we were put off from buying much. If they had more family oriented things for sale, I am sure they would sell more clothing.

We did get in a lot of reading. Both of us are avid readers and love to read. We both read at least three books. That was fun and I learned a lot. We had no access to a computer. That bothered us for a couple of days. Two computer addicts without a computer were lost. After a couple of days of anxiety, we were content to read and shop. It was easier than I thought to go back to the old days of not having a computer.

We stopped at Hoover Dam on the way home and took the tour. That was interesting. We got to see the tunnels that were dug through solid rock. My wife enjoyed the tour more than I did as her father did similar work for the Dept. of Interior, USGS. I worked for USDA and spent my time with farmers and ranchers. Building tunnels is not my thing.

We did get to go to the temple in Las Vegas. That was a great experience. It is more modern than our temple here in Arizona. I think it lacks some of the unique features that make our temple so interesting on the inside. Ours is simple on the outside, interesting on the inside. The Las Vegas temple was modern on the inside and outside. There were many features I liked better than our temple in Mesa, but I still prefer my usual temple. I am sure most people feel the same.

The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill that Congress is debating is a road map to disaster. I think they just Xeroxed the reform bill from 1985 and called it the new reform bill. There are a few cosmetic tweaks, but the same basic idea is in place. First, make all the illegal immigrants, legal. Then, promise border security while doing nothing to secure the borders.

Immigration reform needs to be handled in two stages. The first stage is to secure the borders. Do not talk about what to do with illegal immigrants until this stage is completed. They are talking of a 700 mile fence passed last year. The new bill throws that out and substitutes a 360 mile fence. The border is over 2000 miles long. They should add the 360 to the 700 miles. Then we would have a major portion of our southern borders secure. The remaining border would have to be as secure as the border with the fence. The fence would most likely force illegal immigrants to areas that lack a fence. We would have to be able to catch everyone who enters the country at all times of the day or night. In my humble opinion, it will take more than 1000 miles of fence to achieve what I am talking about.

When the fence is completed and the flow of illegal aliens into the country from the south has been stopped or at least drastically reduced. Then it is time to discuss what to do with the illegal aliens already here in the US. The first rule is that they should gain no benefit from being here in the US. People that are following the law should be given first crack at becoming a legal resident of the US. That would mean that if they want to become legal residents of the US, they would have to travel back to their home country and apply for a visa.

To make sure that the person is applying in person for the visa, a finger print should be obtained at every visit they make to file documents. If a fingerprint cannot be obtained, a photograph should be taken of the individual filing the paperwork. The reasoning is that people will try to stay in the US and file by mail. Filing by mail should not be allowed. Only people who file in person will be given priority.

With the first stage or maybe the second or maybe between the first and second, we need to make it more difficult to hire illegal immigrants. This can be done with establishing a card with bio-information on the card. This card can be made available to legal immigrants who then can be hired. Illegal immigrants would not be able to get these cards. We may have to go to some sort of national ID card to solve the problem, I am not sure.

Doing these actions will cause the situation to be self-correcting. Securing the borders will stop new illegal immigrants from entering. Making it difficult or impossible to hire illegal workers would cause illegal immigrants to leave and to back home. Then, making them apply for entrance into the country from their home country would also insure that they would leave the country. Would all of them leave? No, but almost all of them would leave. The ones that would stay would probably have nefarious plans that the FBI would be interested in.

That is my look at illegal immigration. Unfortunately, my two Senators have been directly involved with the negotiations of this terrible immigration bill. I hope that Jon Kyl will see the light and understand how terrible this bill really is. I have no hope for John McCain. He is lost in the importance of his brilliance. Jon Kyl at least can be talked to and there is some hope that he will understand what the problem is.

The NBA made some poor decisions after game 4 of the Suns/Spurs series. There were two incidents that had the potential of becoming a problem and the league solved the problem two ways.

The first incident had a Spurs player dunking the ball. A Suns player then accidently knocked the legs of the Spurs player. Tim Duncan of the Spurs ran onto the court all the way to the free throw line and had to be restrained by another Spurs player. The league decided that this was not a problem and so no action was taken. Tim Duncan obviously had bad intentions when he went onto the court. He had to be restrained by another player before he could complete his intentions.

The second incident has had more press. Near the end of the game, Robert Horry of the Spurs knocked Steve Nash into the scorers table with a well placed elbow. Steve Nash lay crumpled on the floor for several seconds. Raja Bell of the Suns confronted Robert Horry and received another elbow to the face. Boris Diaw and Amare Stoudemire of the Suns leapt off of the bench and took a couple of steps toward Steve Nash and Robert Horry. Assistant coaches stopped them after a couple of steps and no-one will ever know if they got up to check on Steve Nash or to bash Robert Horry. They were not part of the overall incident, they just happened to move toward the incident a couple of steps too far.

The league looked at both incidents. They looked at the second incident on their own. They looked at the first after the Suns complained. They took the action to suspend Robert Horry one game for each elbow thrown. That was a reasonable punishment for the action taken. They also decided that Boris and Amare went too far from the bench and suspended each one for one game. In the first incident, the league decided that there was no overall altercation, therefore no penalty would be given.

In my opinion, the league rewarded the Spurs for rough and illegal play. They have rewarded them all series for their rough and illegal play. When a Spurs player is accused of rough play that is considered illegal by the league, the league always determines that it is within the flow of play and no action will be taken. When a Spurs player comes on the court and has menace on his mind, the league determines that there is no overall problem. When a Suns player makes one step too far from the bench, throw the book at him.

It looks like the league wants the San Antonio Spurs to win the title or at least make it as difficult as possible for Phoenix to win. If the league applied the rules the same to both teams, the Spurs would have trouble fielding a team for game 5. They would have been without Tim Duncan and the player that restrained him, I believe was Bruce Bowen. I am not sure who restrained Tim Duncan. Both players were starters on their team. If the league were fair, they should have applied the rule the same in both incidents. If Tim Duncan was not suspended, then Amare Stoudemire should not have been suspended. This is a misapplication of their rules. Neither Tim Duncan or Amare Stoudemire played any real part in either incident. Tim Duncan played a bigger role in the first incident than Amare Stoudemire did in the second incident. If the wanted to suspend players for making an emotional reaction, then making a mental recalculation, then they should have suspended them for regular season games next season. That would have been much more reasonable than what they did.

Debate two for the Republicans is now in the can. In the leading three candidates, Rudy and Mitt helped themselves. John McCain did not help or hurt himself. In the second tier candidates, Duncan Hunter helped himself a lot. Ron Paul showed that he is good on social issues and a disaster on foreign issues. The others were stuck on their Johnny one note messages.

The most exciting moment was when Ron Paul showed that he has no idea that we are in a war with Islamo-Fascists. After making absolutely foolish statements that any second grader would know were completely false and stupid, Rudy jumped in with his comments. Rudy distinguished himself in this response. He responded as the Mayor of New York City during 9/11. When he is in that mode, Rudy is absolutely fabulous. If the entire election were about that one thing, Rudy would win the nomination without any serious competition. Unfortunately for him, the election covers more issues than that one issue.

Overall, Mitt Romney showed that he is the most knowledgeable about all of the issues. His answers were completely thought out and showed a vast knowledge of each issue. The other candidates relied on talking points. In this, Mitt was the PhD. The rest were just high school debaters, when it came to overall understanding of all the issues.

My overall impressions on the debate are that Mitt Romney was clearly the best prepared and articulate candidate in the field. His command of the issues was tremendous. He also happens to agree with my positions on most of the issues, which helps. Rudy was great when it came to national security. Rudy was poor when discussion abortion. I am strongly pro-life and will have a very hard time voting for an anti-life candidate.

John McCain showed why he cannot be trusted with the Presidency. He is so right on so many issues, he just cannot be trusted. If it were entirely on the issues, my choice would be a difficult one between John McCain and Mitt Romney. But the choice is not just the issues. You have to be able to trust your President to do the right thing. I cannot trust that John McCain will do the right thing if put in a pressure situation.

Duncan Hunter was impressive. It is a shame that he has no chance to be chosen as President. His only shot would be as a Vice-Presidential selection. He is strong on all the right issues and is trustworthy. He just cannot get traction. I do not see him surviving all the way to the primaries.

Ron Paul showed why he should not be chosen to be President. He is great on the Constitution. He knows social issues and is great at reducing the size of government. But that is not all the President has to deal with. There is this little issue of Islamo-Fascism. We will have to deal with these evil people for a decade or more. We cannot have a President that thinks that the Islamo-Fascists will go away if we leave the world. That would just make them bolder and stronger. We would be facing a much stronger and better armed enemy at our borders and in our towns. People like Ron Paul cannot be put in positions of power until the Islamo-Fascist problem is eliminated.

The debate did not change my mind on my candidate. It did solidify my decision that some of these candidates should be eliminated from further consideration. My opinion is that any future debates should have Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Duncan Hunter and maybe one more. The rest should have to prove they are worthy of further consideration. Right now, they are showing that they are not worthy of further consideration.

Tonight is the second Republican debate. Also in the same town will be a rally for the Fair Tax. I hope that the Fair Tax rally brings out a big crowd. That would tell the Republican nominees that the Fair Tax would be something they could support and get support from large groups of people. Right now, the candidates have been coy when discussing the Fair Tax.

The Fair Tax is the way we should go in raising money to run the government. It allows everyone to pay “their fair share”. It puts a tax on goods. You only pay tax when you buy something. If you have no money and do not buy much, your tax burden is small. When you have a lot of money and buy a lot of stuff, you have a large tax burden.

To make sure that the “poor” do not pay any taxes, there is a “pre-bate” built into the program. The “pre-bate” will send out to everyone a check for the amount of tax they would pay if they were poor. When the poor then spend money for things, they would pay tax. But the “pre-bate” would take care of their tax burden for them.

In my mind, one of the biggest benefits of the Fair Tax is the elimination of the IRS. The IRS rules through fear and intimidation. Everyone is afraid of the IRS. Eliminating the IRS will greatly reduce the fear of the Federal Government.

People on the left will not like the Fair Tax. They like to play the class warfare game. They like to say they are going to raise taxes on the evil rich. They never define who the rich are. To a liberal, the rich are anyone who makes more than the federal poverty level. Of course, to a liberal, all money belongs to the government. To a conservative, the money belongs to the person who earned the money.

The Fair Tax will allow me to take home more money. It will allow me to keep more of my money. It will enable me to pay off loans and bills that have piled up. The only negative thing I can think of is that it will also allow the liberals to keep more of their money too.

What is wrong with the Giuliani campaign? They seem bent on self destruction. He was attempting to blur the lines between his positions and the Republican base. But, for some reason, he has decided to throw caution to the wind and go for broke.

Will the strategy succeed? It could succeed. I am not so sure that it will. Rudy has been the front runner even with positions on basic issues like abortion that are out of the main stream. People have been willing to forgive him because of his actions as Mayor of New York City after 9/11. He has tried to blur the lines to allow more people to get on his band wagon. This attempt to blur the lines has made Rudy look bad in some radio and television interviews and at the first debate. He looked unsure of what his position really is.

His campaign has decided that he needs to state his position without apology. That will turn off many social conservatives who make up a large part of the Republican base and probably over 50% of those that vote in the primaries. I guess it is better to have a position, no matter how bad than no position at all.

What will this mean for the other candidates? For McCain, it will not mean anything. He will not pick up social conservative votes as they do not trust him after the gang of 14 debacle. Romney will probably benefit the most from Rudy taking this position. There is not a lot of difference between many of Rudy and Romney’s positions on the war. Their biggest differences come when talking about the social issues. Romney is a social conservative. Rudy is a social liberal. The second tier candidates will not benefit from this position change by Rudy. They can only benefit if two or more of the top three candidates drop out of the race completely.

Romney is starting to make some inroads into the leads of Giuliani and McCain nationally. He has started to make the national press. This will help him gain attention and commitments from people all around the country. Romney is now leading in polls in New Hampshire. He has closed the gap considerably in Iowa. He polls well in states that have primaries on February 5. The longer Fred Thompson stays out of the race, the more likely Mitt Romney will be the nominee. If Fred Thompson wants to be President, he needs to announce his candidacy within the next six weeks or he will be too far behind to catch up. Even now, it is difficult to see Thompson raising enough money to compete with Romney or Giuliani in the early primaries. Maybe, Fred Thompson is really running for Vice-President. He would instantly make a ticket of Romney/Thompson or Giuliani/Thompson almost unbeatable.

The end of the semester is upon us. I have turned in my grades for the semester and am getting ready for the summer semester to start.

This year, I had to teach classes that were new to me. I taught Anatomy and Physiology and Biology for Majors. Both classes were fun to teach and I learned a lot in teaching the classes. I did feel a little out of sorts in not teaching the class I usually teach. I have a feeling for the semester depending on what lab is being taught in my usual class. I was always out of sorts for the semester because of that.

In teaching Biology for Majors, I was blown away by the quality of the students. They were fighting for top scores from the first day. I am used to having classes where I have to work to get students to try. My usual goal is to work to have students get a B. In this class, there were few that even got a B. A couple said the class was too easy. I should have anticipated that, but had not taught it for 5 years and was unprepared. If I teach it again, I will work at making it more challenging. For this course, I also had to make up all the tests and quizzes. That took most of the semester to get all that done. I should also have redone the powerpoints, but as a part-time instructor, I just did not have the time. If I teach it again, I can work on reworking the powerpoints.

The Anatomy and Physiology was the second semester I taught the class. I improved some things over the first semester and things went very well. When I get to teach it again, I will be prepared with all the materials and stories. The first semester, I was short on stories to fill out the lectures. In the second semester, I added a lot of stories that made the lectures go better. I still need to get more materials to fill out the lecture time on some lectures, but overall it went pretty well. I did not like the lab book we used this semester. As a result, the text and lab book will change for fall. It will make the course much more interesting for the students. They will have a crime scene to investigate for each chapter. Then they will be given the tools necessary to complete the investigation. To summarize the chapter, they will have another crime scene to investigate with the tools they just gained. It should be a fun class, if taught right.

I am going back to teaching my pre-nursing majors. That will be fun. I think I have more stories and information to help me be a better instructor for the course. The goal of an instructor should be to improve in how they teach a course every semester. If an instructor does that every course, they will be good by the time they retire. What usually happens is that the instructor finds a comfort level and stays there. Then the course becomes stale. There is nothing worse than taking a stale course because the instructor is too lazy to try to improve or update the course. In science there is a good sign that the course is stale, if the materials used are more than 5 years old, the course is stale. Science is changing all of the time. The information needs to be updated to fit with the new and improved information that you have.

On the Lucianne web site, I read a blurb about a college that is requiring students to see Al Gore’s science free movie, “An Inconvenient Truth”, before graduating. One student was quoted as saying something to the effect that the college was not a bastion of learning, it was a bastion of leftist thought.

That is true, even on my campus. I teach Biology at a community college. When the issue of Al Gore’s movie came up, there were a lot of people that bought into the hysteria and said stupid things. There are also people who have a knowledge of the truth and were not afraid to say it. Unfortunately, one of the people who spoke up offended some people. As a result, he may lose his job. Leftists always get offended when they are confronted with the truth. They then make it their job to destroy the person in question. This person’s offense was that he provided a link to a site that had a link to another site where there was something that the people did not like. That is going pretty far when complaining. The event did make the news. We shall see how it plays out.

Another event that hit recently was the employee store made tickets to the circus available for purchase. Somebody went to a PETA site and read that circus animals are badly mistreated and abused. That person provided a link to the site and all the leftists became hysterical. They were saying things like the employee store should be abolished if they are going to sponsor events like this.

I went to the PETA site and discovered that it was the same misinformation that PETA puts out all the time. I then went on our email system and tried to tell everyone that they should slow down and act like educated people. We are supposed to be educated people and educated people do research to discover truth. Using one site that is usually producing misinformation is not good research. But, the leftists still were on their rant and hysteria. The entire thing would be funny, if the leftists were not so serious and so numerous.

In our district, if you want to be hired full-time, you have to keep your mouth shut about the truth. You have to toe the leftist line in interviews and discussions. After you get hired, you can start telling the truth. There are too many leftists in hiring positions to allow the truth to come out too soon.

Schools have become a site for leftist propaganda. It is in the textbooks. It is taught in most of the classes. The students are expected to repeat the leftist drivel back to the teacher as “truth”. The truth is a stranger to the classroom right now. Even in science classrooms where science teachers claim to follow the scientific method, the truth is a stranger. If it fits in the leftist mold, it can be taught. If it is the truth, you have to hide it until it can no longer be denied. Then you try to explain away the truth. My students are always amazed when I do not require leftist drivel as truth. In fact, I will tell them that some things in the book are not true or are slanted. I will not make my students repeat falsehoods back to me as truth. I try only to teach things that are true. That may end up getting me in trouble, but my dedication to the truth is too important.

The demise of the newspaper industry is on display for all to see. The unfortunate part is that the managers and owners of the newspapers do not see what is happening. They do see their subscriptions declining, but are unable to know what to do.

Our local Arizona Republic is an example of what is happening. The Arizona Republic made some changes recently. They were billed as making the paper more responsive to the needs of busy people. They basically gutted the Monday edition of the paper. It is now the sports section, the comics and the front page. I am stretching the truth a little bit, but not much. They think they fooled the public into thinking that they did this to improve the delivery of the news. Like we are going to believe that reducing the news content of a newspaper is going to make the paper more able to deliver the news.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune has also put their ignorance on display. They have a columnist that has a following in Minnesota and around the world. He writes for their online edition of the paper. Since the future of the newspaper industry is online, you would think that they would build around this strength. No, they take this strength and move the strength to do local reporting. What were the managers of the paper thinking? Were they using some sort of mind altering drug to come up with such a stupid decision.

Dave Barry a columnist out of Florida is quoted as saying that it is like taking Dwayne Wade of the Miami Heat and making him keep stats. Dwayne Wade is one of the biggest stars in the NBA right now. James Lileks is one of the biggest stars in the column writing world on the internet. He writes articles that ring with truth and humor. He would be out of place writing about local events. He probably could do it better than the current reporters, but that is beside the point. Dwayne Wade may keep stats better than anybody, but you still need him on the court. The Minneapolis Star Tribune still needs James Lileks writing columns for the paper online, no matter what their other needs are.

If the Minneapolis paper is so stupid, the Arizona Republic should call James Lileks up and hire him on the spot. There is a rumor that he has family in Arizona and could be persuaded to move to Arizona. We are always open to people who have a skill and an ability to use that skill. Any Arizona paper would be blessed to have him writing under their banner.

I know Hugh Hewitt would like James Lileks to stay in Minnesota. It is cold in Minnesota. The snow is much easier to shovel when it is 75 degrees and sunny. In Minnesota, the snow can be cold and wet. Sometimes the temperature even gets below zero. As an Arizonan I am appalled that someone can make up stories that the temperature could drop below zero, but there you have it. The stories people make up.

Every so often in sports, the officials become the story. Such was the case in the Suns/Spurs game yesterday. The officiating was poor at best. When they would make a bad call against one team, they would try to make it up by making the same call against the other team.

The worst call of the game was the call near the end of the first half. After a missed shot, Amare Stoudemire of the Suns and Tim Duncan of the Spurs got their arms tangled and fell to the floor. The incident should have been a non-call. The play had nothing to do with the game. The ball was near the other end of the floor when the incident occurred. That would mean a non-call would have been the correct call. The referee decided that a foul needed to be called. He called it on Amare Stoudemire. The replay showed that Tim Duncan pulled Amare Stoudemire down to the floor, then flopped. The play was significant. Amare picked up his third foul and had to sit out the rest of the half. It also affected the play in the second half as Amare had those three fouls and could not be as aggressive in the early parts of the second half.

Now, as a Suns fan, I feel the call was made against Amare as the officials feel that Tim Duncan could not possibly have made a foul without telling them first. Whenever Tim Duncan was called for a foul, he always raised his arm right away. If he did not raise his arm, the foul was against the other player.

Another play that should have been a foul and was not was a play late in the second half. Barbosa of the Suns was driving to the basket. He was hit by at least three Spurs players and knocked to the floor. The officials made no call on that play. There was obvious physical contact between Barbosa and at least three Spurs players. Any one of the Spurs could have been called for the foul. No call was made. The Spurs took the ball down the court and scored a basket.

Now, I normally do not gripe about calls in a game, but these were very bad. The officials made a couple of other calls that were bad against both teams. They would make a bad call against one team and then shortly thereafter make the exact same call against the other team. It was like they were making up for the first bad call by making another bad call.

The two calls I highlighted are the only two I remember from the game. The bad calls against the Spurs were usually balanced by a bad call against the Suns of the same type. Those were usually an even balance. The highlighted two were game changing type calls. The call against Amare changed his entire game from that point on. The call that Barbosa did not get would have tied the game at that point. Instead, the Spurs went up by 4 points. That was significant.

Hopefully the series will be officiated better in the future. It is a shame to see two teams playing so hard and having the officials decide who wins. The winner should be the team that plays better, not who gets the most important calls or non-calls. One bad call is expected. So many in one direction is not expected. The league has to get better officials to officiate during the post-season. If this crew is their best, the league has a big problem on its hands.

We have had two debates already and a few things are clear. First, no Republican scares the public like any of the Democrats. Second, outside of Barak Obama, the Republicans look better on TV than the Democrats.

What was decided in these debates? Absolutely nothing. Nobody actually won either debate. Barak Obama looked like a deer in the headlights when confronted with the question of two cities blown up by Al Qaeda, what would he do. He basically said that he would do nothing. Other than that, there were no surprises. Nobody stood out as something more than anyone else. Whatever you thought of the candidates before the debates is what you think of them now.

Does that mean we should do away with the debates? No, debates are valuable tools to let the public see the candidates without having a reporter editing their comments. It gives them a chance to say what they would do to make America a better place. One of the better questions was to Mitt Romney. He was asked what he did not like about America. He responded by saying that he liked everything about America. The country is more than just land, it is people and America has the best people in the world. That gives a good look at the way he looks at America. He sees America as a positive influence in the world. If the same question was asked at the Democrat debate, you would have had long answers of woe. They see America as a force for bad in the world.

We do need to whittle down the number of candidates that participate in any one debate. Ten candidates for one debate are just too much, especially when the moderator is from the opposing party. Chris Matthews has worked for Democrats in the past. His questions about a dead issue were over the top and should not have been allowed. They were not relevant to the issues of today and the future. They did not even really make any window into the issues of the past. They were just asked to make Republicans look bad.

Democrats have solved the problem of moderators that they do not like. When Brit Hume, one of America’s top reporters, was going to moderate a Democrat debate, they all pulled out. They are afraid of questions that might make them have to think. They want moderators that think like them and will allow them to get away with non-answers.

Well, the campaign season starts about 6 months early. But it is here so we should take advantage of it as we go through the season. We should learn about all the candidates.

On the way to work today, I listened to the first hour of the Dennis Prager show. The main topic discussed was integrity. The specific example was publishing a code that would allow a person to copy movies for free.

What brought it to Dennis’ attention was the controversy over publishing this information in the first place. A web site has banned the practice and the people posting at the site have rebelled. The thought is that they want to discuss the use of this code in an open forum. They are leaving out the implication of publishing the code makes it available for others to copy movies, without paying the people who made that movie.

Dennis took the position that the 10 Commandments said simply, “Thou shall not steal.” The commandment does not say that you can break this rule if you do not like the person. It simply puts it in a blanket term that stealing is wrong at any time and in any context.

I agree with Dennis Prager’s position. Stealing is wrong and should not be tolerated. I believe I should be able to place a $100 bill on the table and come back a week later to find it still there. But I also subscribe to the position that my word is my law. I heard once that a person said that if he was placed in a cell with iron bars, he would try to escape any way he could. But, if a circle was drawn on the ground and he gave his word that he would not cross it, he would die rather than cross that line. I believe I have the integrity to follow that standard. I do not understand people who do not have that standard.

Am I saying I have completed everything I have said I will? No, sometimes events have happened that have made my promise impossible to complete. I still made every effort to complete my promise. I was just unable to keep it because of things out of my control.

In society as a whole, people’s word means nothing. Even if you get it in writing, you have no promise that it will be completed. We are having a problem with people promising to put in an addition to our house. They even put it in writing and then followed that up with verbal promises. It turned out that they were only doing that to keep us from filing a complaint until after they filed for bankruptcy. That is the dishonest way to do business. Unfortunately, it seems to be the usual way to do business in the country right now.

We need to get back to a time where a person’s word meant something. For me, if I say it, it will happen. You can get my verbal promise in writing, but the verbal promise is the one I will follow. I just wish others had that same level of integrity. I have tried to teach that level of integrity to my kids. I am not sure how much of it really sunk in. I hope a lot of it sunk it. I would like that to be my legacy in this world.

Michael Medved has a column out that suggests that there is a difference in how Republicans and Democrats view the Presidency. Republicans view the Presidency as a position that needs to be managed and select candidates, governors that reflect that view. Democrats, on the other hand, view the Presidency as an extension of the House or Senate. Their candidates tend to come from the House or Senate as a result.

If we look at the candidates running for President at this time, you see this reflected in who is running. Republicans are governors or mayors with a Senator thrown in. Democrats are House members and Senators with a governor thrown in.

Which view is best for America? It depends on how you view the role of President. Conservatives view the federal government as a necessary evil. As a necessary evil, it is important to manage it efficiently. Where do you find people that can manage a government? You find them in a smaller governmental agency. The smaller governmental agency would be one that would be less out of favor with the voter. Most Conservatives would like to shrink the size of the federal government, maybe even removing a cabinet post or three. The purpose of removing the cabinet posts would be to put the power back into the hands of the states, where it belongs.

Democrats view the President as an extension of the legislative branch. They select people who are successful in the legislative branch. That would make them a good legislative President. Liberals believe in more government. More laws will mean more government. You find good legislators in the House or Senate.

As a Conservative, I believe the comment from President Reagan, “The government is not the solution to the problem, it is the problem.” I believe I have that quote correct. We need to reduce the size of the federal government. It is way too big and takes on way too many things. We need to get back to what the Constitution says the federal government can do. Everything else should be left to the states. That would solve so many problems, it would not be funny. It would also eliminate many government departments.

There are things the federal government should do and those are the things it generally does well. The issues that affect the entire country would be top on the list of things the federal government should do. Listing some of the major things the government should do: defense, immigration, tariffs, national parks, national forests and rangelands, border security. There are probably more, but that is just a sampling. Education should be left to local school districts in the states, not the federal government.

So, my recommendation is that we elect someone with administrative experience. That would mean someone like a governor or mayor. We do not need an extension of the legislative experience. Fred Thompson has Senate experience. He does sound like a straight shooter. He may be the exception to the governor/mayor rule. We will have to wait and see.