On the way to work today, I heard the Bruce Jacobs show with Mike Broomhead. He was discussing the huge boondoggle that is our light rail project.

We have spent approximately $70 million per mile for the light rail project. It is now up and running. For the first few days, they let people ride the light rail for free. I took advantage of the opportunity with my wife and granddaughter. We rode from ASU into Mesa and back. The trains were supposed to run every 10-15 minutes and they were doing very well on being on time. The trains were new, so they were clean. The train we rode was crowded because of everyone taking advantage of the free offer. I rode from ASU into Mesa standing up near a door. I rode from Mesa to ASU crammed into what we used for a seat, but I do not think was a seat. I am not sure what it was. It did not look like the seats in the compartment as it was not covered. It was just plastic. The three of us were crammed into space not intended for three.

The waiting areas were interesting as they had interesting designs. They were not covered and we found the sun uncomfortable. This was at the end of December. If it was uncomfortable at the end of December can you imagine what it will be like in the summer with temperatures over 100 degrees? The car was air conditioned, but with the number of people it did not work very well. I was standing in the sun on the way to Mesa and was hot. We sat on the sun side of the train going to ASU and we were hot. Again, this is in December. Can you imagine what that would be like during our hot summer?

Funding to run the light rail will cost Phoenix and Tempe a lot of money. The price of the ticket to ride is supposed to defray some of the cost. It will, but on the show this morning I learned that students ride the light rail for free. I am not suggesting that the students should have to pay full price, but even 25- 50 cents one way would make a huge difference in defraying costs for the cities. As it is, the light rail will cost the cities of Tempe and Phoenix millions of dollars each year whether the city is flush with money or cash strapped. It is one area that they will not be able to cut costs. The citizens of Phoenix and Tempe will be paying higher taxes to support this thing for a long time.

With the problems that I identified with the light rail, spending for the project is not over. They will have to do something to provide sun protection or nobody will go near the light rail in the summer. The air conditioning system is entirely inadequate to cool the trains in the winter. The cities will have to do something to cool them by summer. That is assuming that anyone is still riding the trains by summer. If they keep things as they are, nobody will be riding the light rail until after dark or before the sun comes up.

One other problem is that the light rail is subject to the traffic rules. It stops at traffic lights. Cars are allowed to turn in front of the light rail as it is traveling down the line. This is a recipe for accidents. I know that it is in the traffic areas, but that is also part of the problem. The light rail will be the cause of a lot of accidents, a lot of them fatal.

On the plus side, the light rail will be a positive for the businesses near the light rail stops. It will also be a positive for sporting events that are held near enough to the light rail line that people would walk from the line to the sporting event. The trains should be kept open until after the bars close at 2 am. This will keep drunk drivers off the road as the light rail will help many reach home without driving. I think the plan is to shut the light rail down around 11 pm like the bus system. That would not be a good thing.

Overall, I think the money spent on the light rail would have been better spent somewhere else. Now that it is in place, it needs to be fixed before summer hits or it will really be a white elephant. There are some positives associated with the light rail. Right now, there are so many negatives associated with light rail that the positives get drowned out. Maybe in a couple of years I will make a different assessment. As I stand here today, I think that it was a huge waste of money. As it stands today, few people will be riding the light rail by summer. That will mean almost no money coming in to defray the costs associated with the system. This is a large, giant financial drain on two cash strapped cities. They will regret spending money on the light rail long before they ever think it was a good idea.

I must add that one of my sons will be a regular user of the light rail system. The light rail comes about a mile north of his house and drops him off just outside his office. He will be one that will regularly use the system. Of my kids, he is the only one who will ever use it for more than incidental use.

 

The EPA is out of its mind. It has a proposal to tax greenhouse gases out for review. Since greenhouse gases are all naturally produced, there would be some difficulty determining all the sources is one problem with this stupid proposal. But, they propose to tax agriculture on greenhouse emissions. For smaller animals like hogs, the tax would be $20 per year. For the largest animals the tax would be over $100 per year. The Agriculture Department, to its credit, came out with a statement that taxing family farms would cause an undue hardship and probably cause most of them to fail. That is true. Most family farms operate hand to mouth and have absolutely no room for an additional tax.

This tax on greenhouse gases would include taxes on everything that moves because vehicles emit carbon dioxide. If we were somewhere near the maximum level for carbon dioxide I could see some attempt to limit the amount of carbon dioxide. The upper limit of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that plants can handle is 6%. We are currently at 0.363%. And, contrary to popular opinion, that level is not rising rapidly. It is rising, but at a very low level. Why is it not rising faster after record levels of carbon dioxide produced each year? Because as the carbon dioxide level increases, the ability of the plants to use the carbon dioxide increases, this keeps the rise to modest levels.

  Since our new President has bought into this global warming hoax, some increase in taxes is inevitable. The whole purpose of the global warming hoax is to increase the scope of government. The goal of Barack Obama is to increase the scope of government in the United States. The two goals meld completely into one goal. Both want the same thing, so of course Barack Obama supports global warming. The surprise would be if he actually knew something about science and did not support global warming. That would be a shock.

Barack Obama announced recently that he was going to increase the employment in the US by 3 million jobs. He also said that 80% of those jobs would be in the private sector. That means that 600,000 of those jobs would be in government. We have too many government workers right now. If he said that he was going to increase employment by 3 million jobs and decrease government by 600,000 jobs that would be a program I could support.

Putting Obama’s employment goal and greenhouse emissions into the same equation, some of those jobs would undoubtedly come in an agency that would have as its sole purpose to control issues dealing with the completely mythical global warming. This agency would have nothing to do, so would be really suffocating to deal with for anybody.

On a side note, the Polar Bear was listed as endangered a couple of months ago because the ice was disappearing. There is a little fact that is getting in the way of that listing, the ice levels are at record highs. That will not stop the global warming nuts from using that listing to try and destroy the economy of the United States. It should give the people that made the listing cause to delist the Polar Bear from the endangered list. The Polar Bear is not endangered. There are more Polar Bears today than there were 30 years ago or 50 years ago. There are more today than probably as far back as you care to go. The Polar Bear is thriving, not disappearing. Listing them on the endangered species list was a travesty.

We are going to see more of this kind of thing over the next four years. Democrats are big government types and big government types see the need for government everywhere. So, grab hold of your wallet and get ready for a wild ride. Hopefully, they will outdo themselves with excess and people will get tired of all the extra fees and taxes they will have to pay. Until then, we just have to grin and bear it. We can fight what we can, but Democrats are in the majority and we cannot stop everything. We should be able to keep the really stupid things out of the mix, or at least I hope so.

 

This fighting between Israel and Hamas has really been going on longer than the 10 days that the press is reporting. Hamas has been lobbing rockets into Israel for months, almost since Israel gave up the Gaza strip to the Palestine Authority. These rockets land anywhere and kill civilians. Of course, there was no outcry from the Muslim countries over these atrocities. There was no outcry from the rest of the world over the atrocities. Even the Palestine Authority got tired of the rockets and asked Israel to attack Hamas over a month ago. Of course, when Israel attacked the Palestine Authority had to denounce Israel.

Who is right and who is wrong in this conflict is clear. Israel is a sovereign nation. They have a border that is officially recognized by the United Nations and most of the civilized world. Muslim countries do not recognize Israel or their right to exist. Israel has a right to be able to protect their citizens in their homes. They should not be subject to terrorist attacks of any kind. Israel has the right to search out and destroy any and all ability to commit terror inside Israel.

Hamas knows that it does not have the full support of the people in Gaza. To keep the people under their control, they have captured and tortured people that they suspect are not supporters. Hamas has shot the captured people in the legs and broken arms, hands and legs. This terror campaign keeps the population from turning on Hamas as long as Hamas is considered a power in the area. Once they are taken out of power by any means, the retribution will be swift and just as hard. These are Muslims we are dealing with. They believe that if you broke my arm, you should lose yours. If Israel is successful in getting Hamas out of power in areas, they will have many informants who will turn in Hamas people.

Israel started their ground campaign on Sunday and I have not heard much on what is happening. I have heard Hamas complaining about civilians being killed. Those reports are exactly what Hamas wants reported. They hide their ammunition in civilian houses and Mosques. They fire their rockets from civilian areas. By doing that, it makes it less likely that Israel will strike back for fear of killing civilians. Once Israel decided that they were going to rid Gaza of Hamas, civilian causalities were certain. Hamas is counting on that to stop Israel from finishing off Hamas.

In all wars, there are civilian causalities. Soldiers are trained to not kill civilians. That is real difficult when the enemy they are fighting dresses like civilians and hides in civilian areas. In that case, civilians are sometimes killed in error. If you have shots coming at you from building A, you fire back into building A to stop those shots from coming. If the people firing the shots have civilians as hostages, the hostages could very easily be killed. Also, if the leaders of Hamas hold a meeting, they do it in civilian areas. That way if they get bombed, civilians will be killed. If civilians get killed Hamas can claim that Israel targeted civilians. They can even bring in television cameras and show the civilians, after cleaning out the Hamas information. This has been successful in Iraq, why not in Gaza as well. The news people want to believe the worst about America and Israel, so Hamas and Al Qaeda gives them what they want. The news media laps it up and serves it to the American and Israeli public to sway the public against the military. That strategy is working in America against our soldiers in Iraq, just like it did against our soldiers in Vietnam. The media hopes to pull it off again in Israel. Their problem is Gaza is so much smaller than Iraq or Vietnam; the time frame is so much shorter for them to be successful. Also, Israeli public opinion for the Army is so much higher than in America. They may not be successful this time.

Our new fearless leader has, in his usual bold manner, taken a decisive stand not to stand anywhere. My biggest fear is what will happen when Obama takes over on January 20? Where does Obama stand? Does he stand with freedom and liberty or with thugs? Only time will tell on that one.

 

This evening, I read that Focus on the Family decided to kill an interview they did with Glen Beck because he is a “Mormon”. They claim that Mormon ideology is incompatible with evangelical Christian ideology. We went through all this during the primary season with the bigot Mike Huckabee. Now, we have to deal with the bigot organization Focus on the Family.

I call them bigots because they are intolerant of views that do not completely agree with their position. That is a classic definition of a bigot. A bigot says that in order for me to have any interaction with you, you have to agree with everything that I believe in. First, nobody ever agrees completely with everything that you believe in. Everyone has their own interpretation of what is “true”. Second, if you only deal with people that agree with you, you have a very narrow world to move in. Now, I will admit that I am most comfortable doing activities with other members of my own faith, but I do not exclude other faiths (even non-Christian faiths). That is the way that everyone should be. If I had a radio show or a magazine and someone did something that I felt was good, I would take the time to interview them and give them a forum to state what they did and why. That way we build relations between groups. Excluding groups that you do not agree with builds walls that are difficult to tear down when you need to.

This action by Focus on the Family on the heels of the actions by Mike Huckabee will be difficult for Mormons or members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to forget. When an evangelical Christian person comes to us asking us for our votes, we will remember when we were rejected out of hand by evangelical Christians. We are not asking that evangelical Christians believe as we do (though we would like you to), we are just asking you to treat us as equals. You treat us as if we are “evil”. We do not treat you as if you are “evil”. You call us terrible names and say things about us that are not true. We do not call you names and do not say things, on purpose that are not true.

It is my understanding that Jesus taught that we should be kind to others. We should not bear false witness against our neighbor. Who is being the better “Christian” in this situation? You who bear false witness and call names or us who bear this with little outcry? Is Glen Beck the better Christian for his actions and telling the truth or Focus on the Family for dealing falsely with him? I think that evangelical Christian people and organizations should look into their own souls and determine what is driving this hate. Is it Christian love that is driving the hate or does the hate come from some other place?

If the hate comes from something other than Christian love, shouldn’t evangelical Christians repent and deal truly with their neighbors? I am not saying that evangelical Christians have to endorse everything that “Mormons” believe. Shouldn’t you encourage “Mormons” to do and say things that you believe to be true? Isn’t that the better way to lead someone to the truth than denouncing everything they do no matter how good it may be?

I for one am through endorsing evangelical Christians for political office. Evangelical Christians need to start embracing and supporting the truth wherever they find it. We members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints believe that we should look for truth wherever we can find it. We believe that all groups have some truth and as such need to be encouraged. That is why we do not denounce any group or organization as evil unless it exhibits a total disregard to the truth like radical Muslim groups. I do not like supporting bigots and am tired of trying to pretend that evangelical Christians are not bigots.  

Tomorrow is Christmas Day. It is the day that we celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Everyone knows that it is probably not the birthday of our Savior, but we celebrate it then anyway. In Israel, Shepherds only watch their flocks by night in the spring and fall. In the winter, they are snug at home. That means that the date should be in the spring or fall to be correct.

My church was organized on April 6, 1830. According to Jesus himself, it was exactly one thousand eight hundred and thirty years since his birth. The revelation does not say that April 6 was the correct day of his birth, but it does say that it was exactly 1830 years since Jesus was born. That would lead anyone with an ounce of logic to conclude that Jesus was born on April 6. But, we celebrate the birth of the Savior on December 25, just like everyone else.

Jesus was born into the world to take upon himself the sins of the world. He has made it possible for everyone to make it back to our Father in Heaven. Will everyone make it back to Heaven? No, that is not likely as many have chosen lives of sin and crime. Those people are choosing not to embrace our Savior and take upon themselves the name of Jesus.

There is a book out that looks at things the Bible says and determines what actually happened. The events of the Bible that we assume to be true for the birth of Jesus is that he was born in a manger. There is little doubt that this event is true. The shepherds were out in the fields and heard an angel tell them that Jesus was born. They then went into Bethlehem and found Jesus in the manger wrapped in swaddling clothes. That is also undoubtedly true. The shepherds were able to see Jesus when he was a baby while still in the manger.

The wise men were another matter. Many of us assume that the wise men found the baby Jesus in the manger and worshipped him. But, Herod killed all the male children under the age of 2 after the wise men left. That would lead one to conclude that the wise men came some time after the baby was born. It could have been as much as two years after the birth of Jesus that the wise men showed up to give him the gifts. We also assume that there were three wise men, but the Bible does not tell us how many. We get the number three from the three different gifts that were given. Any number could have given gold or either of the other two gifts. We do know there were more than one because the Bible refers to them as wise men. If there was only one, the Bible would have said wise man.

We do know that Jesus and his family fled Israel and went into Egypt for a time. They did this to escape the persecution that Herod had instituted in the Bethlehem area. After a period of time, they returned to Israel and moved to Nazareth. There, Joseph worked as a carpenter and Jesus spent his time learning.

We know little about the life of Jesus as a child or even as a young man. The Bible does not give us much information. The additional scriptures that we have also do not tell us anything about this time period. One interesting point is that when Jesus is an adult, there is no mention of Joseph. From this lack of information, we can infer that Joseph probably died during the time between when Joseph is mentioned when they attended the temple when Jesus was 12 and when Jesus was an adult. This is neither good nor bad and is not important to the story of Jesus or what he has done for us.

My testimony of Jesus is that he is the Son of God. He came here to take upon himself the sins of the world and make the payment for them. He made it possible for all of us to return to Father in Heaven. This is the season to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ and all that he has done for us.

 

Why are Democrats so enamored with socialism and communism? If you think they are not, then; why do Democrats love socialist and communist dictators? What is it about socialism and communism that attracts our “enlightened” Democrats? I, for one, cannot figure it out for one minute.

Let’s look at our closest communist country, Cuba. The people of Cuba live in poverty. The government turns the water on for one side of the street today and the other side of the street tomorrow. Power is turned off every night, because you do not need power at night. If you use too much power in one day, your power gets turned off for a couple of days. Bathtubs are not for taking baths in Cuba. When the water is turned on, the last thing you do is fill the tub full of water so you have some for the next day. You do not take long hot showers; you take sponge baths in the shower. The health care you get might be free, but it is of very poor quality. The health care you see in Michael Moore’s movie about the Cuban health care system is only available to foreigners who pay and the Cuban elite class.

Cuba should be a paradise. It has all the advantages that made it a destination for the world’s rich in the past. It has long clean beaches. It has great weather. The Cuban people should share in the riches that would come from opening up Cuba as a tourist destination. Cuba right now, is a hell hole. Nobody except for the demented Democrats would ever want to travel there. The Democrats would be shown the elite areas and the elite hospitals. The Democrats would come home and declare that Cuba is a paradise. Cuba is a paradise if you are one of the elite ruling classes. If you are anyone else, Cuba is a place to flee. That is why Cubans flee from Cuba every day. Hundreds die between Cuba and Florida every year trying to get out of Cuba. If it is so great there, why are they risking their lives to leave?

Let’s look at socialism; socialism is not as bad as communism. It is a very close second to being a terrible place to live, but at least there are some freedoms however few. Hugo Chavez is a saint to many of our “enlightened” Democrats like Danny Glover or Cindy Sheehan. They gush at how great things are in Venezuela. Venezuela used to be a country that was on the richer side of South America. It took in large sums from its vast oil reservoir. Now, under Hugo Chavez, Venezuela has become a South American backwater. It is one of the poorest countries in South America. It still brings in huge sums of money from its oil wealth, but that only goes to support the government and the elite class. The others have found out what poverty is like. They are now too poor to do anything about it. The worst part is they voted for Hugo Chavez in the beginning and he just took over. At least the Cubans can say that they did not elect Castro into power, he just took it.

In one city in Venezuela, they were building a shopping center. Hugo Chavez visited and saw the shopping center under construction. He told the mayor to stop construction because that land was too valuable to be used for a shopping center. Chavez made the city change the shopping center to a hospital because that was a “better” use for the land than a shopping center. Chavez was reported to have said that we cannot build a socialist paradise if we have commerce interfering.

The problem that I see is that we are sliding toward what these two countries have. It is not something that I wish for my children or grandchildren. I do not want them to have water every other day or power only during the day. I do not want my children living in poverty. I want them to be successful. They can only be successful if they live in a country that is free. A socialist or communist country is not free. When we opt for socialized medicine, we are becoming a socialist country. We are giving up our freedom for security. When we trade freedom for security, we are not free or secure. That is why I am fighting with all I can muster to stop the slide into socialism. I want my children and grandchildren to be free and secure. That can only come under the Constitution of the United States. There is no room in the Constitution for socialism.

 

When Barack Obama announced his choice for Labor Secretary, I knew nothing about her. She was a member of the House from California, Linda Solis. That was the extent of my knowledge about her and that I learned when she was announced.

Obama said she worked with labor groups all her life. There is nothing wrong in working with labor groups. Many labor groups are perfectly legitimate and work for the good of the workers. Some labor groups are not there for the worker, they are there to promote the communist party and that could be a problem if that is the type of groups she worked with.

Obama said that she worked with union groups all her life. Again, there is nothing wrong in working with unions. Some unions are probably ok. My experience with unions says that unions are inefficient and cost employers far more than they are worth. I did belong to a union in the first jobs I had while in college. An example of what I am talking about is: I was to start work at a specific time; I do not remember exactly what time that was. To me, that meant that I had to have all the machines I worked with warmed up and ready to go at that particular time. But, each morning the shop steward would come in and tell me that I was to turn on the machines at the start of work and wait for them to warm up. So, she would turn them off. When she left, I would turn them all back on so I would be ready to work when I was supposed to work. If I followed the union rules, I would have wasted at least 10-15 minutes of my workday each day. If everyone did that, it comes out to a lot of lost work time.  Also, some unions are part of organized crime or communist fronts, not the type that I would hope a new Labor Secretary would work with.

On initial analysis, there are some potential warning signs, but nothing that would definitely disqualify her from holding the position. Then, I discovered some information on her over the weekend. The union and labor groups that she has been working with have been the type that would disqualify her in my estimation. They are the groups and unions that are supported by socialist groups and communist organizations. The communist news outlets in particular have been praising the selection of Rep. Solis since the selection was made. That is not a good thing. If the communists like you, it is time to look again at the pick and find out why.

I am not saying that Rep. Solis is a communist or a socialist. I am just saying that the communists and socialists are particularly happy at having her selected for Obama’s cabinet. If there is one thing I do not want to do, that is make a communist or socialist happy. Any person that makes a communist happy at their selection sends up lots of red flags that the person is probably a bad choice. Now, as Labor Secretary, Rep. Solis could not do too much damage. I do not want her to do any damage at all to our system. If she imposes rules that encourage communist groups, that would be harmful to the welfare of the United States. That kind of thing is what I am trying to stop with this post. I would prefer someone who supports the Constitution of the United States and endorses the idea that a secret ballot is essential to any vote. Democrats say that is the standard in other countries, but are getting ready to throw that standard out the window in the United States. That makes no sense at all.

Right now, I probably do not know enough about Rep. Solis to oppose her for Labor Secretary, but there are a lot of signs that I should. More information will come out as her nomination gets closer to being considered. If the early warning signs are true, her nomination should be rejected. If the people complaining are bringing up dirt to cause problems, then she should be confirmed. I, for one, would like more information before making a final decision on her nomination. If information is difficult to get, then she should be rejected just on that alone. Any time people try to hide information; there is usually a good reason for them to be rejected. Hiding information and having something classified as secret is not the same thing. Secret means there is a national security interest reason for with holding the information. Hiding the information means it is a personal reason that will embarrass the person or disclose damaging information.

 

Yesterday I read that Barack Obama has selected as his science advisors, two men who support junk science over real science. It does not matter what credentials a person has if they reject real science and embrace junk. A science advisor should have impeccable credentials, but should also support real science. These two gentlemen do not and are quite proud that they do not support real science.

Why do I say that these two men do not support real science but support junk science? The answer is simple; they both were early supporters of global warming and remain so today. That they were early supporters of global warming is not the problem. Everything was looking like global warming had to be true back in the 1980’s when it was originally proposed. That it was a man-made phenomenon was always debatable, but that it was occurring was not really debatable at the time.

Things are quite different now. Global warming stopped at least 10 years ago. There has not been one year where the temperature increased since before 1998. Now, I know that NASA has been screaming that we are in a warming period. But, every time someone checks their figures they find out that they are wrong. They do things like use September figures in October and claim that October is the warmest on record. Then they take those incorrect figures and use them to indicate that a particular year is one of the warmest. According to NASA, seven of the ten warmest years have occurred since 1998. When NASA’s figures are corrected to use actual data, none of the years they claim are the warmest show up in the top 50.

Why are NASA’s figures so bad? The reason is that the director of NASA is one of the people that came up with the idea of global warming and he wants his theory to be correct. If global warming is not occurring, then his theory is incorrect. Nobody wants to be wrong. So, he “cooks” the books at NASA and incorrectly reports climate data. NASA has become a joke among those that know anything about climate data as being the most incorrect data source available. That is a sad story for a government agency. But it is a government agency and that is all that can be expected. NASA moved its recording instruments into locations that will give higher readings than is the generally accepted way of gathering weather data. They put their boxes in the sun; this raises the temperature during the day time. They put the boxes next to heat vents; this increases the temperature during the winter. They put their boxes on asphalt, which raises the temperature in the day time. A box is supposed to be located in a protected site away from areas with asphalt or heat ducts. The boxes should be located in the shade and on grass. At least that is the preferred way, if possible.

Since we all know that global warming is junk science, anyone who believes in global warming should be disqualified from becoming a science advisor to the President. The President should get the best science information possible, not junk science. Having advisors who believe that junk science is real science will necessarily cloud their judgment when it comes to evaluating scientific information. Any scientific information that disagrees with their pre-conceived notion that global warming is occurring will be rejected and not passed on. They will only pass on the hype they receive from non-scientists like Al Gore. To have a non-scientist like Al Gore telling supposed scientists what to tell the President scares me. Al Gore knows nothing about science. To watch his movie is to see someone who knows nothing and is trying to impress us with his lack of knowledge.

I for one do not want Al Gore advising the President on scientific issues. Al Gore is a failed journalist, minister, attorney, vice-President and everything else he has done. He should not be given any position of authority, except for maybe in a mental hospital in one of the wards. Al Gore is hysterical and delusional. We do not need delusional people advising the President.

 

Barack Obama has picked the head of the Chicago public schools to head the Department of Education. That is a real bad choice. I just read that only 17% of Chicago school kids can read at or above grade level by the 8^th grade. That is a terrible record. With a record like that the person should be fired, not promoted to a higher position.

The person to head the Department of Education should be a person that has promoted excellence in education, not failure. Of course, the Department of Education is an unnecessary federal department that has no usefulness, but that is another story for another day. Whoever heads the department should at least have led a successful education department somewhere in the United States. There must be someone in the United States who has led a successful education department somewhere. I am sure that Obama’s team could find that person if they tried hard enough.

One reason that Obama might have tapped the Chicago schools leader is that Obama and Ayers introduced their Fabian Socialism into the schools through the Chicago/Annenberg Challenge period. That means that the Chicago schools have been teaching socialism in their schools for about 15 years. That is plenty of time to have raised a generation of socialists. Obama probably would like to do the same for the rest of the United States. Unfortunately, there are plenty of teachers that think that socialism is the way the United States should go.

The problem with most of the major inner city schools is that they are failing. This includes: New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, St. Louis, Atlanta & Philadelphia. There are others, but those are the largest and they are all terrible at best. To choose one of the leaders from one of those places is a bad choice. When the schools are falling apart and the students not being taught at grade level, there is a problem. The person in charge should have identified that problem and be working to solve those problems. The problem is that no school administrator, except for Washington, D.C., is trying to actually solve the problems. They are all just going along to get along and Obama selects one of them. That says a lot about the priority that Obama will put on education during the next four years.

To give Obama an opportunity to make amends, I will assume that in making this selection, he was distracted by the Blagojevich situation. If that is the case, I would expect him to pull this selection back in the next few days and replace this bad selection with one that reflects a desire to see excellence in education instead of failure in education that he has endorsed. But, Democrats usually do not want excellence in education. An educated population will never pick socialism. An educated population will never go for the things that Democrats usually want to do. So, that is usually why Democrats are against improving education. They are always for spending more on education. They just do not want to improve what education we have. They just want to spend more to get more of what we already get. I know that makes no sense. But if you are reading this, you are educated and are probably not a Democrat.

As an educator, I try hard to provide my students with an excellent education. I will be the first to admit that I am not perfect. I make mistakes. I sometimes do or say things that in retrospect I wish I had not said or done. But, overall, I try hard to give my students the best education I can provide in the time they are with me. I am a science teacher and concentrate on the science. I sometimes get worried about the poor quality of work that my students turn in for research papers. The English is frequently bad. The sourcing of articles is done poorly. The citations in the back of the paper are done wrong. The citations in the back can be done with a website that will do it in the proper format for you. There is no reason to do it wrong. We have a learning center on campus that will go over their papers with them and almost write it for them when it is all said and done. Yet, I get terribly written papers all the time. That is a product of the poor education that they received before they came to my class.

I can say with satisfaction that students that succeed with me will also succeed in the courses that follow my course. Those that get an A or a B with me will usually get an A or a B all the way through the next three courses. Those courses are much more difficult than my introductory course. But, I think that it is because I prepared them well that the students do so well in the later classes.

 

Coming to your pocketbook some time soon, you will soon see new “sin” taxes like the ones in New York. New York implemented 88 new "sin" taxes on food and drinks to raise money. These “sin” taxes are on anything that has any chance to make you fat. Sin taxes have always meant taxes on things like alcohol and tobacco. These sin taxes are on things that liberals believe might make you less healthy. Where will it end?

We are on a trend for mommy government. The government is supposed to take care of us no matter what. So, if the government is supposed to take care of us, the government should then look out for our welfare in the form of our health. What better way to look out for our health than to put a tax on the things that will make us less healthy. It also increases the income to the state, which is the main reason for the taxes by the way. Looking out for our health is just the justification used to put those taxes on us.

Right now, these new “sin” taxes are only in New York. If they get accepted in New York, you can expect to see them show up in your state soon. Governments are always looking for new things to tax and New York took the leap to taxing things that were bad for your health. If there is a big revolt in New York over these taxes, the chance they will be implemented in your state is low. Now, the taxes will first be implemented in the liberal states and the states with the worst financial problems. Those are usually the same states by the way. Eventually, they will spread to all states as the idea takes hold across the country. So do not think that because your state is controlled by Republicans that you are immune from this type of tax. If your state gets into financial trouble, they will look to this as a way to increase income without increasing the income tax.

We might even see national “sin” taxes if Democrats ever want to balance the budget. With the huge margins the Democrats have in both houses of Congress, there would be nothing to stop them. This would not be an issue that the Republicans would likely go to the mat to stop so the filibuster is probably out the window. They have to save that for the truly monumental issues or the members will start to lose party discipline. Once party discipline ends, the filibuster ends because of the razor thin margin we are working with. This is why it is important to have people you can trust in elected office instead of Democrats.

Once these sin taxes get implemented there is little chance they will ever be repealed. There is just too much to appeal to a politician to ever repeal the tax. It is easily justified as looking out for your health. Everyone wants everyone else to be healthy so who could object. No, the only chance to stop these taxes is now. The only place to fight the taxes is in New York. Those of us outside of New York have to watch and see what the people of New York do. If they stand up and fight, there is hope for the rest of us. If they lie down and take it, we are doomed to be taxed like them. I am not saying that if New York accepts it today that we will get this tax in Arizona tomorrow. What I am saying is that if New York accepts it within this year or two, other states will see their opportunity. They will also implement this new sin tax. Then other states will adopt it and that process will continue until all states have these new sin taxes. This will happen over probably ten years or so. But, if New York does nothing today, we get the same treatment some time in the future.

I believe in smaller government. I believe that government needs as little money as possible. The federal government was authorized to do certain things by the Constitution. That is what the federal government should stick to doing. Everything else is left to the states. That would mean that at least half of the federal budget is not needed. It is probably more like two thirds of the federal budget that is being spent outside of the bounds that the Constitution authorized the federal government to spend money on. The Founding Fathers had it right. We have it wrong. We are headed in the wrong direction and I see no way to stop the train. I fear that we will lose the country very soon, if we have not lost it already.

 

It has just now come out that there were 21 contacts between Rahm Emanuel and Rod Blagojevich about the Senate seat that Barack Obama vacated. Having an interest in who is replacing you is natural. Talking to the person who is making the selection is natural. The original number of a small number or five would be reasonable and would not raise any eyebrows. But, the number twenty-one is astounding. We are not talking about a long period of time. Obama only resigned his seat last month and was elected on November 4, so these contacts could not have been much more than about one to two months long. That would translate into a phone call about every other day from Rahm Emanuel to Rod Blagojevich.

 

What went on during these phone calls? We can assume that Emanuel talked about Obama resigning the seat and then about who would fill the seat. There was undoubtedly a list of names that the Obama people put forth as acceptable and probably one name they would like to see picked. That is all that we can assume to know that went on during the conversations. Any other conversations would be pure speculation. But, that would have only taken up one or two of the 21 conversations. They must have had something else to talk about in those conversations. Some of the conversations were undoubtedly updates on the progress.

 

Knowing what we know about Rod Blagojevich we can assume that he talked about the pay for play. We also know that Rahm Emanuel is a product of the Chicago political machine. So, he would not have thought anything unusual about talking about pay for play. Whether this conversation included a pay for play from the Obama administration is unknown. We do know that Rod Blagojevich was upset that at the end, he was told all he would get would be the thanks from the Obama administration. We do not know if that was before or after the Obama team learned of the investigation into Rod Blagojevich.

 

Barack Obama originally said that there were no contacts between his campaign and Rod Blagojevich. Then, he revised that to say that there were contacts but that there were no conversations about the pay for play. The news media is sticking to the no contact part of the story. An Obama advisor, Axelrod made a statement on November 23 that Obama had talked to Rod Blagojevich about the Senate seat. After this scandal hit, that statement was revised to say that Axelrod misspoke. Axelrod may be a lot of things and he may do a lot of things, but there is one thing he does not do and that is make a mistake in what he says. Axelrod is also a product of the Chicago political machine. He knows the importance of saying the correct thing to the public, even when the exact opposite is going on in private.

 

The person who is in the biggest trouble is Jesse Jackson, Jr. He has been identified as appointee number 5. Appointee number 5 is supposed to have agreed to raise $1 million for Blagojevich in exchange for the Senate seat. The Saturday before the news hit, Jesse Jackson, Sr. held a fund raiser for Blagojevich that raised $500,000. That would lend credence to the idea that Jesse Jackson, Jr. would be in trouble. His people were actually taking active steps to do what was agreed to in those meetings with Blagojevich. If that agreement is on the tapes, Jesse Jackson, Jr. is in a lot of trouble. The problem is that it would be a Chicago jury that would have to hear the case and it would be unlikely to convict him of anything. He would have bought off the jurors or at least enough of them to make a difference.

 

The one thing that is certain is that Rod Blagojevich has held his last political office. He will be forced to retire somewhere and be forgotten. That is at a minimum for him. There is a good possibility that he will have to answer charges. Because he is white, there would be a good chance he would be convicted by a Chicago jury.

 

Obama is not looking too good with all this mess. He has handled it very poorly. He is also starting to sound like he wants an Imperial Presidency after cutting off a reporter yesterday. That is no way to keep the media on your side. They want to be stroked and coddled. They do not like to be cut off and told not to waste their questions. If he does that much more, he may find a very short honeymoon in Washington. Already there are questions about his leadership ability. If he cannot control the people in his administration, how is he going to be able to deal with people who dislike him? At the very least, there are people questioning him now that voted for him in November. That is a bit late, but we will take what we can get when we can get it at this point.

 

Over the weekend an Iraqi reporter threw his two shoes at President Bush. This was done as a protest to the Iraqi leaders that follow what President Bush says without question.

The protest raises a lot of questions that do require some answers. The first and most important is: where was the secret service when this reporter threw his first shoe? Where were they when he threw the second shoe a couple of seconds later?

A report I read said that the Secret Service had checked everyone for weapons and because the room was small, put a small presence in the room. Still, when this reporter raised the shoe to throw it, someone had to see it. If they saw the man raise his hand, nobody reacted to the action of someone throwing something at the President of the United States. They still had not reacted when this same man threw a second shoe. Then, the Secret Service showed up and tried to protect the President. They also showed up and wrestled the Iraqi reporter into submission.

I thought that the job of the Secret Service was to keep the President safe at all costs, including the loss of your own life. Not one Secret Service Agent reacted fast enough to get between a man throwing a shoe from 15 feet away and the President. The President had time to duck away from the shoe, so the shoe was not thrown at high velocity. The tape shows that the first agent shows up six seconds after the Iraqi throws the shoe at the President. That is much too slow. They should have identified that there was a threat when the man started moving his arm and started a reaction. I think that they thought there was no possibility of danger and relaxed. This relaxation almost cost the President his life. I know the shoe was not a danger, but it just as easily could have been a bomb. The President could have been injured by the shoe striking him in the eye. That would not have looked good for the Secret Service. As it is, they do not look good, but there is no harm done.

Many have asked the question, what would have happened if this had been Barack Obama? I think that the Secret Service would not have been asleep at the wheel. When the Iraqi raised his hand, someone would have been in front of Obama in an instant and the shoe thrower would have been taken out by another agent or more. The shoe thrower might have been able to deliver one shoe, but not two. But, the shoe would have been delivered at a Secret Service Agent, not the President.

Why do I say these things? I believe that the Secret Service protecting President Bush believe that their job is almost done and are relaxing on the job. They think that they just have to run out the clock and the President will have been protected on their watch. This is much like the Buffalo Bills on Sunday. They had to run out the clock to defeat the New York Jets. Instead of taking care of the ball and doing their job, they decided to run a risky play. The risky play failed and they lost the game. The same thing can happen to the Secret Service if they are not careful in this last month before President Bush leaves office. They almost fumbled the ball. They got lucky this time. They might not be so lucky next time. There are a lot of people in this world that have Bush Derangement Syndrome and wish the President was dead. How many want him to actually die is unknown. How many could do something about it is unknown. That is the job of the Secret Service to make sure that nobody gets a chance to do something about killing the President. This time they dodged the “bullet”. Will they do so next time? Will there be a next time? I hope that President Bush lives a long and happy life like his father. I also do not wish ill for our new President when he takes office, January 20, 2009. I did not vote for him and do not want him to serve, but that is not my choice at this time. He was elected by the people and so for the next four years, Barack Obama is the President.

I just wish President Obama would show us his birth certificate to prove that he really was born in Hawaii. He should not leave that question open. Every other candidate produced their birth certificate in this election season, except Obama. He will still be President, just let us cross off all the questions. It will help morale in the country.

 

There were a lot of things that were interesting over the weekend. There was the nut case that threw his shoes at President Bush and the Secret Service agents that stood and watched. There was the continuing saga in the selling of Obama’s Senate seat. But, for me, the biggest bit of news was that Barack Obama has a short window of opportunity to solve global warming.

You may say that I have already addressed the issue, but this person has a new argument. The person said that because the earth has been cooling for the past 10 years that it proves that man-made global warming is true. I found that to be a completely fantastic statement. That is like saying that because the stock market has been falling, my investments should give me a million dollar return. In other words, the statement makes no sense if you look at it logically. But, the statement was not meant to be taken logically. The statement was meant to answer the question about the fact that the temperature has gone down for ten consecutive years and how could that square with global warming. To deflect that argument, the author put that statement in there. Then, when the question comes up, the author can point to that statement and say they already addressed that issue.

There is no logical way that saying that something that is going down points to the truth of something that should be going up. If man-made global warming were true according to their theories, the temperature of the earth should be rising dramatically during the past ten years. That is because we have been putting carbon dioxide into the air at a record rate each and every year for the past ten years. So, if the theory was correct that when the carbon dioxide level goes up, the temperature of the earth goes up, the temperature should be going up. Since the temperature has been going down, that would put the theory that man is causing global warming by pumping carbon dioxide into the air into the dumpster. Only a fool would believe in the theory after the past ten year period.

Since the people that believe in global warming are not fools, there must be something else driving their issue. If you look at what they propose as a solution to the problem, you see what their goal is. Their solution to solving global warming is to reduce carbon dioxide output. They do that by placing restrictions on carbon dioxide production. That effectively eliminates most of the industry in the western world. Most industries produce carbon dioxide as a by product of production. Reducing or eliminating carbon dioxide production from those industries would effectively close them down.

If the western civilization industrial production was hamstrung by industrial regulations, the public would also have to have restrictions put on their production of carbon dioxide. This would involve many public restrictions on movement. These restrictions would require a large government program to implement the solution.

There you have the complete goal of those that are pushing global warming. They want complete control over people. They propose to get people to agree to those restrictions by selling them the idea as saving the planet. The ideas did not work when they were just implemented from above. But, by selling a “save the planet” mentality, they hope to get people to voluntarily give up their freedom. This is because the old communists just took over the environmental movement and started to use it to achieve what they could not any other way.

Michael Savage has a term he uses for this type of socialism, it is Fabian Socialist. We elected a Fabian Socialist as our new President. He hopes to get us to voluntarily give up the freedom our ancestors fought and died for by telling us we would be saving the planet. We would not be saving the planet; we would be just becoming communist. We have no ability to change the planet’s environment in any major way. We can change it in local situations, but not over the entire planet. The earth is too large and our efforts too puny to have the impact that the global warming people believe.

Environmentalists say that because we can change conditions in one local area that it proves we can change the climate world wide. That is preposterous. If I had unlimited funds and was told that I had to change the planet’s climate using those funds, I could not do so within the lifetime of my great-great grandchildren. To think that we can do so is ignorance run rampant or the height of arrogance.

 

Proposition 102 passed almost 6 weeks ago. There are still protests from the gay community over its passage. In fact, there were even editorials in the Arizona Republic this morning about proposition 102 and what it meant. To me, this is just amazing. I would never have thought that we would be having these kinds of discussions and demonstrations over a month after the vote.

Proposition 102 had one agenda and only one agenda. That agenda was to confirm in the Arizona Constitution that marriage in Arizona was between one man and one woman. That is the way it has been since Arizona was made a state and so it shall remain. The purpose of putting it in the Arizona Constitution was to make sure that no Supreme Court justice would declare it unconstitutional. We have a law that says exactly what the new prop 102 amendment says, but it is just a law and some judge could overturn the will of the people. To avoid that, we had to put it in the Arizona Constitution.

Since marriage was started, thousands of years ago, it has meant that it was between one man and one woman. There have been some cultures where polygamy was practiced. But, even there, marriage was between men and women, not men and men or women and women.

What is the purpose of marriage? The purpose of a marriage is to bring children into the world and to raise them to adulthood. Traditionally this has meant that it required one man and one woman to get together to produce children. To protect the children and the rights of the mother who raised them, marriage was started. This gave the mother and children the right to the income of the father (the traditional breadwinner). Religions embrace marriage because a strong marriage makes strong religious people and that makes a strong religion. The state recognizes marriage because it is in the best interest of the state to encourage the production of children and their protection to adulthood.

Gay people are asking that we recognize “marriage” between two people of the same sex. On the surface, this may sound reasonable. But, it is not reasonable from the perspective of the state. There is no interest in a union of two men or two women from the perspective of the state. They are not going to produce children and therefore not raise them to adulthood. There is no need to protect the rights of the children produced and the parent that raises the children as no children can be expected. Now, I do know that two women can have children by artificial means. But, that is actually introducing a “man” into the situation. The state cannot and should not concern itself with things that are not “natural”. In other words, the state should concern itself with matters that would concern “both” parents. If these mothers who have children by artificial methods want to include the “father” in the matter, then the state would need to get involved. Since they do not want the father involved, the state should not be involved.

Proposition 102 said nothing about homosexuals. It was not aimed at homosexuals. Homosexuals still h have the same rights as anyone else to marry someone of the opposite sex. Homosexual people say that they do not want to marry someone of the opposite sex. They want to marry someone of the same sex. As far as the state is concerned, that is not a “marriage”. If they want the state to recognize this union, they should advocate for some type of arrangement and call it something other than marriage. The term marriage is when men and women marry each other. In England, they call an arrangement of two people of the same sex a “civil union”. That works in England and would work here. You can give “civil unions” the same “rights” as marriages, just do not call it a marriage and everyone will be happy.

This is why I do not understand all the protesting over proposition 8 in California and proposition 102 here. If they want a marriage type situation, just work for something called a civil union and nobody would fight you over it. You could have that tomorrow. But, it is more fun to equate the civil rights movement with the gay agenda. That way they feel important. The civil rights movement was to correct a real problem of discrimination. The gay agenda is just an attempt to create a problem where one does not exist. When you saw a black person, you knew they were black and could discriminate against them. When you see a gay person, you have no idea the person is gay unless that person tells you they are gay. As far as I am concerned, that is more information than I want to know about the person.

I know that some of my students are gay. I do not ask and I could not tell you which ones are gay. I did have one student self identify himself as gay and he told me that he appreciated the way I taught the class. I thanked him and asked why. He said because he was treated just like every other student. He said he would spread the word in the gay community that I was a teacher that they could trust to be fair. If he knew my religion, he might wonder. But, I always treat my students how they want to be treated. I start out treating them all as adults and continue to do so until they act up. Then, they get treated as the child they are acting like.

 

The auto bailout failed in the Senate last night. A greater thing could not have happened to better people. The problem was that the unions do not want to give up anything. The Republicans sniffed out the problem and brought it to the front of the debate. That was a successful idea by the Republicans. Now the American people know where the problem lies.

The real problem is that the bail out is not dead. President Bush is trying to work a way around Congress. The problem with President Bush’s solution is that it is the Democrat solution. In other words, it is not a bailout of the auto industry; it is a bailout of the unions. The unions are destroying the auto companies by their demands. If they do not reduce their demands to that of the competition, the companies will go bankrupt. Then, the union contracts will not be worth the paper they are printed on.

The unions are betting that the car companies will not go bankrupt before the new Congress is sworn in. The auto execs say that they need the bailout before the end of the year to prevent the companies from going bankrupt. This looks like a game of chicken. Which side will blink first? If forced into bankruptcy, the first item that will be removed from the equation is the union contracts. The auto companies would become non-union shops overnight. That would be a big blessing for the auto companies and the buying public. It would also be a big blessing for the United States. The unions would not be able to foist their awful candidates on us any longer. The Democrat candidates would have to appeal to real Americans instead of union thugs to get votes. They could not do it with the current crop of Democrat candidates.

Unions have had their place in American society. They fought owners that would not give workers good working conditions and won. But, for the most part unions have outlived their usefulness. Most companies would never go back to the day where the worker was treated badly. If they did that, they would not get any workers. Companies today have to provide a good work place environment and a decent wage. Most companies are non-union today and are proud of that fact. The workers do not want to belong to a union and have voted down unions time and again.

The unions are working hard to get their card check bill passed because they can see the writing on the wall. They know that unions are becoming useless to American society. They do not want to disappear, so they need to do away with the secret ballot. As long as people can express their opinion in a secret ballot with no union thug watching, unions will continue to decline. If this card check bill passes, unions see it as an opportunity to increase union ranks. What it would do is force companies to lay off people and hire temporary workers. Temporary worker companies would benefit as they would have lots of contracts to hire employees for companies. Unions might try unionizing temporary worker companies. That would not work as the companies that hire those workers would just void the contract and hire a new company.

We are witnessing the death of unions in this country. As long as they have a large voice in the Democrat Party, they will be a problem. But their end is certain. When, not if, the auto companies void the union contracts and get the salaries and benefits down to their competitors amounts, the unions are dead. They will never again be a force in auto company negotiations and probably not in any significant way in any other industry again. This is their last stand. They have to stand and fight it out with Congress. If they get the bailout the Democrats want, they can put off their death for a few more months or years. But the end is certain. Unions will no longer be a force within the next 20 years. You can thank the Republicans in the Senate for pointing that out to the American people.