Now that the debt limit debate is over, for now, we can get back to the more important issues. Probably the most important issue not being discussed is the program by ATF where they sold guns to Mexican drug cartels. This program was called, “Operation Fast and Furious”. They were supposed to track where these guns were going, but for about 80% of the guns that did not happen. Two of the guns were used to kill two US agents in Mexico. This program was a disaster from the start.

There were hearings on the program, until the debt limit increase became the most important issue. At the hearings it was discovered that about 1400 guns were sold to “straw” buyers in the US and then transported to Mexico and given to the drug cartels. That is enough weapons to arm a military division. A straw buyer is someone who is not the real buyer. They purchase the weapon for someone else. The straw buyer is usually legally able to purchase weapons, but not always.

The way the program worked was a buyer would come to a gun store. The store would identify the buyer as a problem. They would call ATF and tell them of the hazard. ATF would instruct the gun store to sell the guns to the buyer because they were going to track the guns to get the “big fish”. The gun store would sell the guns to the buyer and forward the id numbers to ATF. ATF would put the numbers into a file and forget about them, until they were investigating a murder.

During the hearings the chain of people that had to know of the program has risen to at least the Assistant Attorney General level. That is the person directly under Attorney General Eric Holder. It is highly unlikely that an Assistant Attorney General would authorize a program this big and ambitious and not tell his immediate supervisor, the Attorney General himself. It is also unlikely that the Attorney General authorized a program this ambitious without consulting with the White House and/or the State Department to determine where Mexico would be on the issue. In other words, we have not reached the top of the food chain on this program yet.

The people testifying to Congress received letters just prior to their testifying. These letters basically said that there were some things that could not be divulged to Congress. The Congressman that is heading the investigation is furious over this letter and is demanding to know everything. Right now, the people testifying are standing firm and not letting out any information that will implicate anyone in a position higher than their level. They cannot help but make mistakes and that is how we are piecing together the idea that the buck has to travel at least to the Assistant Attorney General. This is not the kind of program that the Assistant would approve without consulting with the Attorney General and people working with Mexico. The last sentence is speculation on my part, but I feel I am on pretty solid ground when I make the assertion.

Barack Obama made some comments in a speech 2009 that indicate that he knew of a program where the id numbers of guns were being tracked into Mexico. This program started in 2009. That would indicate that he at least knew of the program, if not authorized it. There is no confirmation on this point, however. This is the kind of thing where someone at a relatively high level will fall on their sword for their higher ups and protect them. That lets the real villains escape while we prosecute the little fish that is being a “good soldier”. I hope that the Congressional investigators do not let this kind of thing happen. I want them to track down the real culprit as people have died because of this decision. Since people died as a result of this program, the person or people responsible for planning and authorizing it should be punished to the fullest extent of the law, no matter how high it goes. I would say that no matter who was in the White House. This is an illegal program that has caused the life of American citizens and numerous Mexican citizens. Anyone responsible for planning or authorizing it should be prosecuted, period.

The House passed the bill raising the debt ceiling yesterday. The vote to pass was not close, but about 160 Representatives voted no. The 160 no votes were from the very far left and the hard core Tea Party members. That is an odd political pairing. Their reasons for voting no are as different as their political backgrounds would indicate.

The bill as passed is not perfect. No bill ever passed by Congress could ever be perfect. Just by the nature of Congress and the fact you have to compromise to get things done, you get imperfect bills. So, since perfection is not possible, you have to look at what you have to evaluate it against what might be possible.

Given that the Democrats control the Senate and the White House, this bill is probably about as good as we could get. There is a lot about this bill I do not like. The commission has too much ability to screw things up. The people appointed to the commission from the Republicans in the House and Senate is critical to its success. If the Republicans pick on merit and ability instead of seniority, the commission will be successful. If they pick on seniority and we get a liberal Republican in the mix, it will be a disaster. That remains to be seen.

The cuts to the budget are too small. We are $1.6 Trillion in the hole for this fiscal year. They are talking about reducing the budget by $1 Trillion over 10 years. That is almost nothing in the federal budget. The bill should have cut at least $500 Billion this fiscal year and an additional $500 Billion each fiscal year until the budget is balanced. Or, the budget should be frozen at current levels until the budget becomes balanced. The first idea will get us a balanced budget in about 3 years. The second idea will get us a balanced budget in about 6 years. Congress would need to make priorities in the budget to meet those goals, but they could easily be done. The first priority should be to reduce government spending that is outside the Constitutional authority of the federal government. Democrats would never vote for that idea as that would mean their dependents would have to actually find work.

There is a lot of work remaining to be done to get our fiscal house in order. This is nothing more than a first step. It needed to be done because of the irresponsibility of the current administration. Had they identified the problem better and worked to solve the problem before it became an emergency, this problem would never have come to a head. But, the administration just continued to spend as if there was no limit to how much they could spend. That brought us to the brink of disaster. Better planning would have averted this problem. As Barack Obama said when he was a US Senator, “raising the debt ceiling shows a lack of leadership”. That is very true in this case.

In a note of human interest: Gabrielle Giffords came to the floor and cast a vote in favor of the bill. That was her first appearance on the floor since she was shot in January 2011. It shows how far she has come. As one talk show host said yesterday, if she does not progress one bit more she has come farther than anyone expected. That is a great human interest story. The sad story behind this great human interest story is that some Democrats in Arizona want to run her for the Senate in 2012. They feel that the sympathy vote will allow her to win. That is just sick. She will not be able to campaign or fill the office for a number of years after the election. Whoever is behind that campaign should be removed from authority over her affairs.

Any Republican that runs on a platform of fiscal discipline and responsibility will be victorious in 2012. Any Republican that tries to be a Democrat “lite” will lose. That is my prediction on the presidential politics of 2012.

Over the weekend the House, Senate and Barack Obama came to an agreement on how to raise the debt limit. The plan as announced yesterday sounds a lot like the plan put out by House Speaker Boehner, only without the revisit in 2012. The spending cuts sound like they are illusionary, which means they will not happen. The commission will make recommendations which will be unpopular with Congress, which means those cuts will not happen.

The only way to make meaningful reforms to actually change Washington is to vote out those that have been there for a long time and replace them with those who support Tea Party ideals. This way we can get people in office who want to cut the federal government down to size and have the intestinal fortitude to actually make the necessary cuts. With the current crop, especially the Democrats and some establishment Republicans, they are willing to say they will cut, but never actually cut. The other thing is that when this current crop says they are cutting, they are not cutting. They are just slowing the rate of growth to a government program.

The government uses a baseline approach to budgeting. That means that they take the last year’s budget as a starting point. They add 10% to each program as an expected increase. Any reduction from the 10% increase is considered a cut. So, you could cut the increase from 10% to 5% and the current crop of House and Senate members would say they cut 5% from the budget. They did not cut 5% from the budget. They just slowed the increase. They should start with the last year’s budget and not expect any increase. Then, when they talk of a cut in the budget they would actually be making cuts to programs, not cutting their rate of growth.

Throughout this entire process Barack Obama did nothing except criticize those who were producing actual plans or urge people to criticize those who were producing the plans. He has to come out on this as a big loser, or at least as a very poor leader. I would consider Barack Obama a non-leader on this issue based on the way he handled the situation.

Harry Reid was not much better than Obama. He talked about a plan, but never actually produced it. So, we do not really know if he had a plan or if it was just smoke and mirrors. He also has to be considered a non-entity in this mess.

Rep. Boehner has to come out as a winner on this issue. He produced plan after plan that the Democrats gleefully shot down. The final plan looks much like the last plan that Rep. Boehner actually produced. It was watered down to make it more palatable to the Democrats.

The Tea Party has to be considered a winner. The Tea Party Republicans in the House never wavered in their ideals. That meant that the final plan is much closer to what the Tea Party wanted than what the Democrats wanted. They did not achieve complete victory. But, the Tea Party is not the leading group in Washington, YET. When it gains strength in 2012, the future negotiations will mirror their wishes more closely.

The deal as announced is not perfect. It is probably the best we could get given that the Democrats control the Senate and the White House. I wish the cuts that were announced were targeted, rather than unspecified. But that would be a minor point and nothing that should hold up a final agreement.

The major talk today is about raising the debt ceiling. To be honest, talk of economics makes my eyes roll up into my head. I was still going to write about it until I heard on Sharp in the morning on KFYI that Charles Monnett of the US Minerals Management Service (MMS) was being put on administrative leave. Charles Monnett is the person who said he saw drowning polar bears in 2004. Since then we have been inundated with pictures of polar bears that are in danger of drowning. Global warming is more up my alley as I am a scientist.

It turns out that Charles Monnett is being put on administrative leave because of questionable scientific procedures he uses. To translate government language into common everyday language, he made stuff up and passed it off as scientific studies. He finally was found out and put on leave pending termination. His attorney is accusing the Obama administration of persecuting his client. That is something that would never happen. Charles Monnett preached exactly the kind of thing that the Obama administration wants to hear. For the Obama administration to put him on administrative leave the transgressions must have been truly breathtaking.

This is just a guess, but I bet that his data that polar bears were drowning in 2004 was found to be completely false. There are more polar bears alive today than there ever have been. The polar bear population in 1950 was half of what it is today. There was no talk of polar bear extinction in 1950 when there were far fewer polar bears. The polar bear population today is at least 50% higher than the historical high levels before humans came to the area.

The problem with scientists that work on global warming data is that they let their bias that global warming exists cloud their ability to see what is really happening before their eyes. They attribute normal fluctuations in population to global warming when it goes down. Then, when it goes up, they ignore the data until it goes down again. Ice levels fluctuate in a similar manner. When the ice levels are decreasing it is proof of global warming. Then, when the ice levels increase, they ignore the increase as if it never happened. They continue to talk of the decreases without ever acknowledging that the levels fluctuate. No population of living organisms ever remains static. They always are increasing or decreasing in number. That is the nature of things. At least that is what I was taught in Biology classes before global warming took hold.

Charles Monnett being put on leave is just another in a long line of people who were leading the charge in favor of global warming who now have been found out to be frauds. The emails from England that were published a couple of years ago are again proven to be true. The people who support global warming will falsify data to “prove” that global warming exists. If it is true the data would “prove” it true without having to falsify it. It is frustrating to me as a scientist to have people that say they are scientists falsify data. I can understand how it happens, but it still saddens me as well. When I took classes and got my degrees, I was taught to never falsify data. I was taught to record everything and let the chips fall where they may. That way you can discover the truth. When people falsify data to hide the truth, everyone loses.

It was good to go on vacation. We were out of contact with the entire electronic world for most of two weeks. That was great in many respects. It gave us a chance to unwind and enjoy nature. But, we also could not keep up with the news.

Our trip took us down almost the entire length of California. One thing I noticed was the signs notifying the public that fallow fields are a result of activities of politicians, not economics or conservation. That was mind opening. It is amazing that a little fish that lives in the salt marshes of the Sacramento River can have such a great impact all over California.

I do not remember the name of the fish. It lives in the salt marshes at the mouth of the Sacramento River. The salt marshes are primarily a result of the tides rising and falling, not the fresh water coming down stream. There needs to be fresh water, but the salt water from the San Francisco Bay is primarily what keeps the salt marshes alive. Environmentalists have convinced politicians that fresh water from the Sacramento River should be kept in the dams and not released for use in farming. This has resulted in thousands of prime farmland being taken out of production. Some of the water in the dams is needed by the fish, but most of the water can be used by farmers. Environmentalists (who, in my experience, do not want to protect the environment, they want to destroy agriculture and the economy) will not allow water to be released for agriculture no matter the tremendous impact on California.

California is in a tremendous economic disaster. It is the result of overspending on government programs and left wing boondoggles. But, the situation could be so much better if people were working instead of drawing unemployment checks. All it would take is to release water from the Sacramento River dams and some other northern California rivers to allow farming to start again.

The release of the water would immediately produce hundreds, if not thousands of agriculture jobs in California. Then, people would need to transport and process the crops before it got to the public in the form of food. That would mean additional thousands of people. It would not solve the economic crisis in California, but it would make a huge impact. The thousands of people taken off the unemployment and welfare rolls and put to work would reduce government costs. The income these people made could be taxed which would result in more money coming to the state. That would reduce the deficit even further.

The economic problems in California are so severe that this solution would not make a huge dent in the deficit. But it would help and it would make people feel better about working to solve the problem. Those are positive things. If you put enough of these kinds of things together, you just might have a solution to the problem. Right now, the state is looking at bankruptcy or default as their only option. They really hope that the federal government ignores the constitution and bails them out so they can continue overspending. As a taxpayer, I would hope that California looks to solutions that help solve the problem before they ask the federal government to ignore the constitution.

Yesterday, Barack Obama held a press conference and blamed everyone for the problems that the US has except for himself. He particularly pointed his finger at Congress. You have to remember when pointing fingers, that three fingers point at you when you point one finger at them.

Let’s look at little at the facts to determine if Barack Obama has his facts on straight. According to Obama, the entire reason that the debt ceiling is being reached is that Congress has spent too much money. There is some truth to this statement, but he is playing with the facts. It is true that Congress authorizes spending money. The President cannot spend any money that Congress does not authorize. But it is also true, that the Congress usually approves a budget that is somewhere near what the President asks for. So, both are really culpable when it comes to overspending. His statement would have been more accurate if he had included all Presidents as well as himself in the overspending. The overspending accelerated under Barack Obama so much that we reached this point far sooner than anyone had anticipated.

What is Obama’s solution to the budget problem? The only one that the press has reported on is that he wants to raise taxes on the “evil, disgusting rich”. If we confiscated every dollar that the rich has in assets, we would only run the government for a few months. Taxing the rich will not solve the budget problem. We do not have a problem where we are not taking in enough money. We have a problem where we are spending far more than we make.

Obama is now going to involve himself in the negotiations on raising the debt ceiling. He is complaining that the Republicans are not willing to compromise. He says that the Democrats are willing to compromise. But when you look at the facts, the Democrats will compromise on everything except for raising taxes on the rich. The Republicans will not raise taxes on anyone. There lies the impasse. The problem, again, is too much spending. If we do not cut back on what we spend we will become a third world country regardless of how much we tax the evil, disgusting rich. The time to cut spending is now, not next week or next year. The time to cut spending is now. There should be no sacred cows.

One area that the Democrats actually want to cut spending is Defense. That is the worst place to start cutting. We have to have a strong defense. Cutting that spending first is just asking for some third rate power to come kick sand in our face. We need to cut entitlements first. Entitlements take up almost 50% of our current budget and it will get worse with time. We have to figure out a way to rein in the entitlement spending so that the people who have been promised the benefits will actually get them.

If we do not cut entitlement spending on Medicare, the program will become bankrupt in 2024. At that time everyone on Medicare will be thrown off the program because it will be unable to pay for anything. If we reform the system, the people on Medicare would be able to receive it much longer. The same thing applies to all other federal entitlement programs. Democrats refuse to cut or reform any entitlement spending, thereby guaranteeing that people will not get promised benefits. While Republicans want to reform the system so that people will actually receive the benefits promised. Yet Republicans are demonized as being the ones out to “destroy” each entitlement program. You have to give it to the Democrat propaganda machine. They know how to call an apple an orange and get people to believe it.

At the press conference, Barack Obama was less than truthful with the public. That is nothing new. The press did not call him on it, again. That also is nothing new. Republicans have to stand up and tell the truth no matter how much it disagrees with the Democrat worldview. They will be vilified for telling the truth. But people will see that it is the truth and respond accordingly.

Our Imperial President and his wife seem to be uninterested in the economy of this country. If they want to go some place, they go. The cost is unimportant. The reason for the trip can be frivolous, like the recent trip Michelle took to South Africa. She wanted her daughters to connect with their ancestral roots. That is nice, but it is not something that the American taxpayers should be paying for.

One other thing has been bothering me about this Imperial Presidency. That is that Michelle Obama has 40 personal aides. Since the beginning of the United States until now, no first lady had ever had more than two personal servants. Since personal servants for the first lady did not really start until the administration of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, there have to be less than 80 people that have served as personal servants to first ladies. As a result, over half of the people who have ever served as a personal servant to a first lady are now serving in the Obama administration. That is a sad commentary.

To the Obama’s the American treasury is a bottomless pit. They can continually draw funds from the Treasury and never have to worry about their not being enough money. In some respects, they are correct. But in the overall scheme of things, they should think about the country. If they are living the life that European royalty would dream of while the people are suffering, that is exactly the situation that started the French Revolution. We all know how that worked out. Fortunately for the Obama’s, the opposition to them comes from Conservatives who do not believe in mob rule. They should be safe from the consequences of the French Revolution.

Please do not misunderstand what my point is. I believe that the President and the First Lady should have things first class. What I am trying to say is that during a period of austerity for the public should bring a period of austerity for the President and the First Lady. The period of austerity for the public should not be a time for the President and the First Lady to party as if they were the richest people on the planet. It should be a time where they cut back on their displays of opulence. When they host heads of state, they should give them the first class treatment they deserve. But, they should cut back on those trips to Spain and South Africa that serve no purpose other than sightseeing. They should keep the number of people going on the trips to a minimum, not the hundreds that go now. In other words, they should try and appear as if they are not trying to flaunt their wealth.

It would also be a bit different if the people doing the showing off with money actually acted if they knew something. When Barack Obama starts giving a toast during the British National Anthem that smacks of a rube. In their actions overseas, the Obama acts like the Beverly Hillbillies. If you remember the show, Jeb Clampett discovered oil and became rich. They moved to Beverly Hills and lived in a mansion, but maintained Hillbilly values. I get that same impression from the Obama’s sometimes. The Beverly Hillbillies were out of place in Beverly Hills. The Obama’s seem out of place in Washington and the World.

The press has derided the Imperial Presidency since at least Richard Nixon. They probably did before that, but I was too young to remember. But for some reason when they area actually faced with someone who is acting like an Imperial President, they are strangely silent. Of course, I know that the press is nothing more than the propaganda arm of the Democrat Party. That explains why they are unable to see that they are faced with an Imperial President.

I read a report yesterday that Anthony Weiner is helping to pick the person that will replace him. If I was in New York District 9, the last person I would want to endorse me would be Anthony Weiner. Even if our politics were the same, our values are completely different.

Back when I went on my first date, I showed up at the house with a corsage. I got out of the car and rang the doorbell. My date’s mother answered the door and let me in. My date, Lorraine Sackowicz, was ready and waiting for me. I handed her the corsage and said something complementary. She then asked me to pin it on. I had a panic attack. I stood there and could not move. Her mother was laughing herself to death behind my date. I could no more pin that corsage where it was supposed to go than fly to the moon. Finally, her mother composed herself enough to volunteer to pin the corsage on her daughter. I am sure it confirmed that I was absolutely no threat to her daughter. If I could not pin a corsage on her daughter, I was absolutely no threat to do anything else.

A lot of time has passed since that day. But the only female I could pin a corsage on would be my wife. With all others I would have the same panic attack that I had back when I was 16. I could no more do what Anthony Weiner do than fly to the moon. Even if I had a camera and the opportunity, I could never bring myself to actually take a picture of my junk. Then, the thought of sending that picture would absolutely terrify me. That is why having Anthony Weiner endorse me would be the last thing I would want.

What we need in Congress and in the White House is integrity. Integrity is such a rare commodity these days. There was a time when it was possessed by members of both parties. Today, few members of either major political party possess integrity. The percentage of people possessing integrity in the Democrat party has to be much lower than the percentage in the Republican Party. I get that guess from their reaction to scandals that occur. Republicans that are involved in scandals resign immediately or very quickly. Democrats usually use the scandal as some sort of a badge of honor. Anthony Weiner only resigned when it was clear that if he stayed on would negatively impact all the other Democrats running for office in 2012. If he would not have had an impact on other Democrats he would still be representing the 9^th District out of New York.

It is important to find the person with the most integrity when voting for someone. It seems like most of the time you have to choose between two people with little integrity. Occasionally you come across a candidate with integrity. When you do, you should work to make sure they get elected. They are someone you can count on to do the right thing every time. People without integrity will disappoint you most of the time. They are usually looking out for their own skin and not what is best for the district/state/country.

It is said that integrity is when you do the right thing when you are by yourself and nobody will ever know. After the Boston Massacre, the British soldiers were charged with a crime. No American attorney would take the case. John Adams decided to defend the British soldiers, even though he was a leading American Patriot. Those men deserved a high quality defense, even from an American Patriot. It was not a popular thing to do, but it was the right thing to do. That is what I mean by integrity. Doing the right thing, even when it is difficult is the absolute definition of integrity.

This morning on the way in to work, Barry Markson was in for Barry Young. He was talking about New York approving a Gay Marriage proposal last week. The one question that he and Michelle Larson had was: what impact does Gay Marriage have on traditional marriage? They have not had a good answer to that question on the air. I will attempt to answer that question in my blog.

First, I should tell you where I am coming from. I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I agree with the church’s stand on marriage. I felt I should say what I believe so that people will understand what I am saying.

As far as I know, only two countries have had Gay Marriage for some time. Those two countries are Norway and Sweden. I know that the United States is not Norway or Sweden. That is true, even if half my ancestors came from those two countries. But, what their gay marriage approval has done to traditional marriage is instructive. Norway and Sweden have the lowest rates for traditional marriage in the world, at least the Western world. This is attributed to the fact that gay marriage has made marriage itself less attractive as a lifestyle.

I am not saying that what happened in Norway and Sweden will happen in the United States if we adopt gay marriage, but it could. The fact the only countries that have gay marriage have the lowest marriage rates should give us pause before we jump into something that may destroy the fabric that holds our country together. Norway and Sweden are shadows of their former selves since marriage has declined as an activity of the population. Children need to be brought up in homes with two parents, preferably one with a father and a mother. They need what both a father and a mother bring to the table.

One caller to the show brought up another problem with gay marriage. The problem is that it will now be taught as a “normal” marriage. Books are already out like, “Heather has two mommies.” Teaching that gay marriage is “normal” cheapens traditional marriage and makes people less likely to marry. That is precisely the problem that Norway and Sweden have faced.

I have no particular problem with gays. I have had many as students. In fact, I have had gays refer other gays to my classes because I treat them with respect. I do not treat them as a disease or some outcast. The ones that have thanked me for treating them as other students commented on that. What a person does on their own time and out of my sight is just fine with me. I just don’t want to have to endorse their behavior. Just like I do not drink alcohol, I do not condemn people for drinking alcohol. That is their choice. If they do so responsibly, I have no problem with that. I have exactly the same attitude towards both behaviors. They are behavioral choices. I just do not want to have to endorse their choice. As long as that standard is maintained, I leave them and their lifestyle alone.

The reason for marriage is so that children can be born and raised. Gay couples cannot have children in the normal way. That means that their “marriage” is not the same as a marriage between a traditional couple of a man and a woman. You may say that some traditional couples cannot have children and gays are no different than them. That is true, but the man and woman have the potential to produce children naturally when they get married. The gay couple does not have that potential. Gay couples can get children through adoption or surrogate means (artificial insemination or surrogate mother), just like infertile couples. But you have to take the potential at the time of marriage into account, not what is possible after marriage.

Another argument people make is that so many children are being born out of wedlock today. That is because marriage is being demeaned in TV, movies and most other liberal outlets. If marriage were encouraged and babies out of wedlock discouraged, we would have a complete reversal. A big player in the increase in out of wedlock births has been federal welfare programs. They pay better if there is no father present, than if there is a father in the home. That discourages those people from marrying and raising children together. If welfare laws were changed to encourage marriage, out of wedlock births would dramatically decrease overnight. That will never happen because single mothers tend to vote Democrat.

I hope this blog post has given some reasons why gay marriage is a bad idea. They can have an equivalent to marriage and call it a civil union or something like that. That gives them all the benefits and legal ramifications of marriage without demeaning the institution of marriage itself. Gay activists do not like that because their goal is not to have gays get married; it is to get traditional couples not to marry. That is achieved by calling it gay marriage.

Word leaked out yesterday that an offshoot of the anarchist group Anonymous broke into the DPS computers and stole some information. On first glance, that should be a terrible thing. Groups like Anonymous have been breaking into government computers for months and creating havoc. In this case, the information they obtained was basically no big deal. They did find out some names of spouses that were released by this group, but that was the worst.

Most of the information was old information on tactics used to capture people on warrants. The next largest bit of information was memos send to local agencies. These memos to local agencies were not of the classified variety, but generally not for public consumption. But even so, these memos were generally old and out of date. The rest of the information was private communication between DPS officers or the public.

While DPS basically dodged a bullet on this one, it highlights a problem the agency has of inadequate security. If this group could hack into their email system and capture all this information it highlights the problem of lax security measures. Barry Young of KFYI said that one of the passwords used by a DPS officer was 12345. That has to be the least secure password someone could come up with. With passwords like that, they deserved to be hacked. DPS needs to establish some rules to insure that the passwords used by DPS officers are a bit more secure than 12345.

Any computer system that relies on people to input passwords can be hacked. That is just a fact of life. People are the weak link. But, people need to use these systems so that will always be a problem. You can make passwords more secure, DPS evidently had not established that level of security. I am sure that after this hack, DPS will establish new rules for passwords that will insure that the next time they are hacked it will be much more difficult.

Hackers are a fact of life in today’s world. Hackers would spend their time better if they were designing computer systems that were more difficult to hack, but the usual computer hacker is not interested in making things better. The usual computer hacker is usually an anarchist or someone that just wants to make some mischief. The anarchists are the dangerous ones. They hack computer systems to see how much damage they can cause. They leak information and do other nefarious things that are embarrassing and dangerous. The mischief makers are less of a problem. They just hack into systems to see if they can. Once they get in, they look around and get out. They generally do not leak information or do any real damage. They might cause some inadvertent damage, but it is usually limited in scope. The anarchist’s damage is almost always wide spread and very dangerous.

Computer security is something everyone needs to worry about. Unfortunately, just like the DPS officer with the password 12345, people get lax in their security measures. This happens because people get lazy in their security. Nothing bad happens for a long time and so people think nothing ever will go wrong. Then when it does, the problem is so much worse. Security is something you have to worry about all of the time.

Last night, our Fearless Leader gave his speech on Afghanistan. In the speech he outlined the schedule for the drawdown of troops. Basically the schedule was politically motivated by the political situation in the United States. He also said we would never rest from fighting Al Qaeda until they are defeated, then he proceeded to propose the troop drawdown.

The speech was made up of contradictions and statements that would be hard to justify. For example: how can you say we are keeping the pressure on Al Qaeda and withdraw the troops at the same time. I suppose there may be some logic there, but most people would be hard pressed to find it. If you are keeping the pressure on Al Qaeda, you keep the troops there to do that. If you are not keeping the pressure on Al Qaeda, you withdraw troops. Withdrawing troops should produce less pressure on Al Qaeda, but I am not a militarily trained mind. I just use logic to try and figure things out.

Obama said that he would release 30 million barrels of oil from the strategic reserve to try and reduce gas prices. This is nothing more than a band aid approach to the oil problem. He caused the oil prices to skyrocket when he stopped the drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska. Since the Gulf oil spill, we have only issued one oil drilling permit. That is not enough to produce the oil needed to keep the price down or the supplies up. The way to solve the problem he caused is to open up drilling in all areas in the United States that have oil reserves. This would immediately bring down oil prices and increase oil inventory in the long term. He would not have had to dip into the oil reserve to do that. But, now we have to replace the oil he released from the oil reserve. He is definitely not thinking long term. His whole focus is on November 2012 and his re-election. Everything else comes second in his mind.

The reports I have seen and heard about the speech say that support for the speech is thin and mixed. Confusion marks the response more than anything else. Nobody really knows what he said. Barry Young of KFYI read a statement that Barack Obama made last night and it made no sense to me. Since I was driving I did not write it down. I do not remember exactly what it said. I just remember the total confusion on trying to figure out the meaning of the statement. I am not dumb. I have two Masters Degrees to my credit, so I have lots of education. It is very rare that someone can confuse me with words, unless there is absolutely no logic behind the words. That was the case with the statement that Barry Young read. There was no logic to the statement so it made no sense at all.

If Obama’s purpose in giving the speech was to confuse Al Qaeda, he must have succeeded. He definitely succeeded with Congress and the Press. Pundits have more time to evaluate the speech, so they should come in with better analysis later today or tomorrow.

To me, most of what Obama does and says is a total mystery. No sane person would do or say what Obama does and expect things to go well. The only logical conclusion that can be drawn from that observation is that Obama must not intend for things to go well when he makes decisions.

We need someone in the White House who can make good decisions that will benefit the United States now and in the future. We need to stop all these decisions that hurt us now and into the future. Electing someone who understands the economy will go a long way to restore fiscal sanity to the US. Electing someone with a coherent foreign policy would also go a long way to secure the long term security of the country. Obama comes up deficient in both of those policies.

On the way to work today, Barry Young on KFYI, reported on a Gallup poll about people’s voting preferences. Since we now have two LDS candidates that have announced for President, the poll is of immense interest. The Gallup poll has been taken every year since 1967. It was started in 1967 because of George Romney, Mitt’s father, running for President.

The results of the poll have been generally consistent since 1967. The poll asks:”If your party nominated an otherwise generally qualified candidate for President, would you vote for that person if he/she were a Mormon?” Since 1967, the results have varied between 75 and 76% saying they would have no problem voting for a Mormon. The interesting part of the poll is the part that said they would have a problem. In 1967, the percentage of people that would not vote for a Mormon under any circumstances was 16%. Today that number is 22%. Even though the percentage of people that would have a problem voting for a Mormon has not really changed in over 40 years, the percentage of people that are more bigoted has increased.

Barry Young also said that if a candidate were “gay”, the percentage not voting for them was 32%. If the candidate was an atheist, the percentage not voting for them was 50%. All the other minority groups get percentages between 5 and 10%.

In my opinion, the reason that the percentage of people having a problem with Mormons is so high is because of certain religious leaders/groups that actively preach anti-Mormon propaganda. The religious groups that preach anti-Mormon propaganda promulgate the falsehood that Mormons are not Christians. They even go so far as to sometimes insinuate that Mormons do not even believe in God. In other words, they are akin to being atheists. Since people will not vote for atheists, the percentage not voting for Mormons goes up. No matter that the name of the Church is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. People discount that and say the real name is Mormon.

The amount of ignorance about the LDS Church is mind boggling. I am constantly astounded at how little people know of what the church believes. What they think we believe is usually completely false. One of the usual stories is that we worship Joseph Smith. That is not true. He was the first Prophet of this dispensation. As such, he deserves reverence. But, we do not pray to him. In fact, you can go to church for weeks and not hear his name mentioned. You cannot go to church for very long and not hear Jesus Christ mentioned. We pray to God the Father through Jesus Christ.

One other part of the church that people get wrong is the general meetings, open to the public, held in a chapel and the more sacred meetings held in the temple. Every meeting held in a chapel is open to the public meaning anyone can attend. Temple sessions are sacred and only worthy members can attend. The reason for this restriction is that more sacred things are discussed. The things done in the temple are not “secret”. They are “sacred”. Because they are sacred you do not discuss them as a general rule outside of the temple. But, anything discussed in the temple can be found in the scriptures by a person who knows where to look. So there is not really anything “new” taught in the temple, it is just presented in a different way to help understanding.

If there was less ignorance about the LDS church, the percentage of people that would not vote for a Mormon would go down. How long that will take I do not know. But, I have decided that I will never vote for one of the bigoted ones who would never vote for a Mormon, like Mike Huckabee.

NBC pulled a real stunner on Sunday. To open their broadcast of the Masters Golf tournament, they played the pledge of allegiance. They had children saying the pledge and they would cut to pictures of the military after each phrase. When they were finished, people realized that they had left out the words, “under God, indivisible”. Twitter went instantly nuts and the NBC switchboard lit up like a Christmas tree. A short time after the pledge, NBC interrupted their coverage of the Masters to issue an apology for their leaving out the words, “under God, indivisible”.

In their apology, NBC made it appear like leaving out the words was some sort of an error or oversight. They left people with the impression that it was not done intentionally. What probably happened is that the powers in charge felt it was more explosive to have the words included. They made that decision because the people they deal with all feel that way. When the firestorm erupted, they were not prepared for the reaction. That was obvious by the poor way they handled the situation. If it had truly been an error, they would have reacted with more shock and humility. They reacted like a liberal does when you catch him/her acting like a liberal. They deny they are acting like a liberal and blame it on a mistake.

One thing this uproar has done is highlight the words, “under God, indivisible”. Do we as Americans truly believe that America is a country founded, “under God”? The Declaration of Independence sets the precedence that the country is founded on Divine principles and Natural law. That is further promulgated in the Constitution. But, Progressives have worked hard for the past 100+ years to remove God from our Country. They have been so successful that many people believe that the Constitution actually says that there should be a separation between Church and State. The words do not exist in any of the founding documents of the country. They are only found in a letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Baptists in New England who were worried about the new country telling them what to do. But, judges at all levels have used the phrase to remove any mention of God from the public square. That was not the intent of the Founders. It is not the intent of the Constitution.

The rights we have in this country come from God. That is aptly stated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The laws that keep our rights sacred are there to maintain that relationship. Progressives believe that the government gives us rights. There is a famous quote by Tom Harkin stating that the government gives us rights. He is wrong about that. No government can give rights. If a government gives rights, it can take them away as well. If rights come from God, no government can take them away. Governments will try and take away rights given from God. Our current crop of elected Progressives is actively working to take away rights given to us by God. But, vigilance by the electorate will keep our rights protected by voting out the Progressives that want to take away our rights.

Freedom is not free. Freedom is something that each generation of Americans has to defend and protect. My generation has been conflicted in this process. We fought in Vietnam to protect our rights. But, the Progressives here at home worked to destroy that effort. Since then, the Progressives in my generation have worked to destroy the freedom that our fathers and grandfathers fought so hard to protect. My children and grandchildren now have to fight the fight against the Progressives of my generation to protect their freedoms. The problem they have is that the Progressives in my generation did not teach them about the greatness of America. What they know about America and our Founding Fathers is somewhat true, but it leaves out the greatness and goodness. That means they do not have enough ammunition to truly have a great chance of success. It is up to those of us who know to prepare the new generation on how to fight for freedom.

One issue that will define whether we are a Republic or a dictatorship is the War Powers Act dispute. Under the War Powers act, the President can commit troops to a conflict for up to 60 days before Congress has to approve. The first deadline passed about a month ago. Congress felt that there may have been a misunderstanding, so they gave the White House an extension until yesterday. The deadline came and went with no answer from the White House.

Many Republicans feel that the War Powers Act is unconstitutional. Most, if not all, Democrats believe that it is constitutional. When Obama consulted with his attorneys about the application of the war powers act in the case of Libya, the first two he consulted told him that the act applied in this case. So, Obama searched until he found a government attorney that said that the war powers act did not apply to Libya.

When Richard Nixon wanted to fire Archibald Cox, he went to the Attorney General. The Attorney General said he would not do it and resigned. The Deputy Attorney General did the same thing. On Nixon’s third try, he found an attorney that would fire Archibald Cox. That established the standard by which government attorneys are judged when Presidents act on the line between legal and illegal. If the attorney believes that the President is acting illegally, it is his/her responsibility to resign from office. If they believe the President is acting legally, of course they stay and defend the President. There are two attorneys in the government that believe that Barack Obama is acting illegally in regards to Libya. If they have personal integrity, they should resign to emphasize the point. That would make Obama look bad, but if he is acting illegally he is already looking far worse than an attorney’s resignation would make him look.

Democrats love to berate Republicans for their acting as an Imperial President. But no Republican President has ever acted extra constitutional as much as Barack Obama. Barack Obama is establishing records that will probably never be broken again in acting in an Imperial manner. Obama basically disregards Congress, except to rubber stamp what he wants. If they do not rubber stamp what he wants, he just orders agencies to go around Congress and implement his agenda anyway. If a Republican acted like this there would be endless press reports berating him/her for acting in an Imperial manner. Today, you hear nothing out of the Democrat Press about Obama acting in an Imperial manner.

Congress has the second deadline for the War Powers act to deal with. They have some choices to make. They can either decide that Obama is right and they are irrelevant or they can stop Obama in his tracks by denying him the money he needs to fund his Imperial dreams. To take option one would be the end of America as a Republic. That option is by far the more dangerous option.

The second option of cutting off funding for Libya is a serious act. Our troops need the money to fulfill their mission. But, if they are doing something illegal, they need to be stopped. Congress has hold of the purse strings. By removing the money to continue operations in Libya, they would be telling Obama that he does not have the authority to send troops into harm’s way without authorization from Congress. The hue and cry from the media would be swift and loud. But anyone who knows anything about the Constitution would know that Congress has to authorize sending troops into battle. This week is important to see if Congress has the will to fight for its right to exist. If it does not have the will to fight, it is doomed to be nothing.