240. Mr. Arrogance

O is unbelievable. Hold your nose and dive into this -- "I want it my way and only my way!" How I hate whiny kids, let alone grown men. I just want to slap him in the head like Gibbs does to Tony on NCIS. Hello! Anything in there? Screw The People! What's $1 Trillion Dollars (hee-hee, really $3+ Trillion)! People. We can't let today's clowns and circus destroy the dreams of our children and grandchildren. I can already hear the money presses warming up.

239. Here's More Wasted Money

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They sound like names for beagles, but continue to act like innocent pit bulls. The government created and supported these companies that got us into the housing crisis with their poor lending practices driven by the National Recovery Act and Mr. Babble (Barney Frank). Why the government just didn't let them dry up on the vine I don't know. It's time to feed them to the private sector and let it turn Fannie and Freddie into real company names. Once again the government throws our money away. Let's just face it that they can NOT operate outside of government influence even though they are suppose to. I chalk this down as yet another government failure. And they have the audacity to ask for more money (see here)! Let's watch the Dems salute. My salute is a little different! I can smell rotten miles away -- use some Common Scents.

238. Just Do It RIGHT!

I'm getting tired of the constant throwing of money at symptoms to remove the pain of probems! Why not address the problem head on and do what's right? Why do we prolong the agony of the unemployed by continuing to throw bread crumbs their way to give them the sense of helping them when all that it being done is prolonging their unemployment? Jobs are not available because small businesses are uncertain of the future -- mainly their costs, which include health insurance, taxes, labor union salary raises, etc. So, what is the problem and what is the symptom? The symptom is unemployment. The problem is small businesses need risk relief. So, CUT CORPORATE TAXES and give them something they can hang their hat on. Let them IMMEDIATELY shop for health insurance across state lines. Curb the constant interrupting and bullying by unions. I'll guarantee doing those three things will spur small business growth. Remember, they don't necessarily need higher consumer demand to grow their business into NEW markets -- more regions, states, countries, products, etc. Give the small businesses relief! The symptom will disappear and the problem will be resolved. Now you might understand why the JOBS bill mentioned here is not totally accepted. Why throw money at highways only? Might as well dump cash on the streets. To increase jobs, you have to increase equipment, meaning there will be far less jobs created because of new equipment costs. And who gets the money and jobs? Government. We need to stop frivolously dropping money from helicopters -- think of dropping food over Africa. Does that incentivize those people to work? Does it create jobs? The money we offer is nothing more than food coupons for our unemployed. Our unemployed don't come close in comparison to starved Africans."'The most vulnerable families in America are going to suffer because of this political decision by one senator,' said Senator Dick Durbin..." How? Living in the house they took too much of a loan out for? Fast food, chips, liquor and soda? Here's a thought -- why not limit Food Stamps ONLY to nutritious food! Sorry for sounding callous, but somebody needs to address the PROBLEM, NOT the SYMPTOMS. Meanwhile President O wants the Republicans to stop playing hardball with him and negotiate when HE WON'T! What a leader! It's time to clear Congress of incompetents, starting with Pelosi and Reid -- and we can't ignore Mr. Babble (Frank) and Mr. Cheat (Rangel).

237. Convergence Day

First, let me apologize for the obvious error in Post 223. For some reason I had the DJIA in the 11 thousands rather than the 10 thousands. Thus, the convergence I mentioned should have been 10200 hit during the day today (and less). So, where do we go from here? According to Williams %R Down for about a week. According to the convergence curves UP. My guess is that we'll muddle through the next week around this point then break upward as stated in Post 223. Give it a week since Obama and crew are hard at work confusing the public and threatening to force us to eat over a TRILLION dollars for Health Care. Looks like Politics will muddy the waters and bring uncertainty back to the U.S. Market. None of the good news, like 72% of the companies reporting earnings reported earnings above expectations, took hold. It's time for the real investors to show their cards and get the market rolling. It's time for Obama to FOCUS ON THE ECONOMY AND JOBS and defer for years an OVERALL Health Care plan kludge. He should immediately go after FRAUD and address TORT Reform and ALLOW Small businesses to shop for health insurance across state lines forcing insurance companies to create larger pools and drop costs! Gee I hate BLOCKHEADS!

236. The Health Care Fiasco Summit

While biking this morning (stationary of course) I tuned in to the Health Care Summit meeting. Guess I hit it early because the "leaders" were preaching their unbipartisan bills while the big O sat and smirked at the Republicans. When the Republicans did speak, they were concise and exactly on point. Their message was ACT IMMEDIATELY ON THE HIGHEST PAYBACK ISSUES. Did the Dems get it? Nope. Old Harry interrupted the first discussion calling "filibuster" after he preached about personal issues and Nevada. The others did nothing bu defend their bills when none of the Republicans even mentioned the bills. Now, if I had been leading the meeting, I would have had my flip chart stand and would have captured the MOST IMPORTANT issues the public were facing and the MOST IMPORTANT suggestions to meet those issues -- as the Republicans tried to explain. For example, 50% of small businesses have a problem with Health Insurance costs which could be addressed with a simple policy allowing them to shop across state lines which would force insurance companies to create larger pools NATIONALLY to compete AND bring insurance costs down for those 50% of the people. Maybe even low enough for some of those uninsureds to jump aboard. Did the Dems get the message? Nope. Two other early issues from the Republicans were to IMMEDIATELY get 7.5% back by clamping down on fraud, plus another 7.5% by clamping down on frivolous suits and rewards. Again, despite little expense involved to resolve actual Health Costs, not just insurance, and to resolve the issues IMMEDIATELY, the Dems didn't get it. Obama NEVER acknowledged anything the Republicans said -- only repeated the main issue and called on a Democrat to defend their bills! It didn't take me long to dismiss this summit as a totally waste of taxpayer dollars. I wish the public would know what a planning session like this should be like and HOW it should be led. Maybe then they would see what I did -- a rookie in the driver's seat who shouldn't be there. I can't see how this meeting could have been revived after I switched back to FM music! We'll see if the critics call it an "F" too? I'm sure the Dems will call it an "A+" as usual -- blind to the public. I best part of the Fox News coverage was the man in the street who asked what the important issues were. The public was unanimous -- quit screwing with Health Care and address JOBS and the ECONOMY! Most said defer Health Care discussions until the economy and jobs pick up. You listening O? I doubt it. Please don't -- we need Hope and Change in November and 2012. You blew your last chance to turn things around!

235. I Love this Country

I went down this morning to sign up my Dog for welfare. At first the lady said, Dogs are not eligible to draw welfare. So I explained to her that my Dog is unemployed, lazy, can't speak English and has no frigging clue who his Daddy is. So she looked in her policy book to see what it takes to qualify. My Dog gets his first check Friday. Damn this is a great country.

234. Did O Forget We Want Health COSTS reduced?

I haven't actually read O's 11-page proposal yet (11 pages for 1+ year's in office) on Health Care, but this article nets out a few things. Seems O's focus is on reducing insurance costs, NOT Health Costs which would in addition reduce insurance costs. His plan is also to take over the insurance industry and tax investments. Oh, what a sweet deal -- yuck! Here are a few snippets from the article:

"The new White House plan would give the federal government the power to regulate the health insurance industry much like a public utility. The Health and Human Services Department — in conjunction with state authorities — would be able to deny substantial premium increases, limit them or demand rebates for consumers"

"... but also includes a new tax on investment income that Republicans object to."

" It could include ideas Democrats and Republicans have both supported, such as federal funding for high-risk pools that would extend coverage to people denied because of medical problems, and a new insurance marketplace for small employers and individuals buying their own policies."

"A Medicare payroll tax increase on upper-income earners would help plug the revenue gap. For the first time, Medicare taxes would be assessed on investment income, not just wages. "

"... leaves in a special Medicaid deal for Louisiana."

"Estimated to cost about $1 trillion over 10 years, Obama's plan would be paid for by a mix of Medicare cuts, tax increases and new fees on health care industries."

Do you get it folks? Tax investments, cut medicare, regulate the health insurance industry, tax the industry. Now that's how to create jobs and strengthen businesses. Forget cutting business income tax which WOULD grow businesses and jobs. I'm believing O no longer stands for just Obama, but for Ostrich. One in the same -- head in the sand.

Here is the Obama Proposal. I need a time out before I delve into this. I already got hung up after the first few paragraphs -- not only can't I stand to hear him anymore, now it takes great effort to read his BS. Need to clear my mind after reading the summary article.

233. Need Some Feather Ruffling?

I don't want you to miss O's Health Care bill. Here's a lookie at nothing but the hype and promises due somewhere on the Internet. I would expect to find it on the White House website. So, take your high blood pressure medicine, Valium, or drug of choice BEFORE you enter the crazy zone. Hopefully we'll learn what tactic he plans to use to corner the opposition. Wouldn't it be nice if he didn't publish anything about what HE wants and just holds a real strategic/tactical planning session to determine what the requirements really are before pushing solutions that don't come close to the real requirements? Dream on folks. I would venture to guess you'll need a hair dryer to preen those feathers after reading, thank God it isn't verbal, words. :-)

232. Speedo Aquabeat MP3 Player

Humans! Just can't enjoy a swim without music blaring in their ears. Master tried out his new waterproof MP3 player today. Results of the 4.5 mile test: Overall enjoyable. However, a lot of trial and error occurred until he was able to select the right ear buds and connections. He thinks he has it now. Swam 50 laps without a problem until he stopped to talk to another swimmer and took out one of the buds. This reset the problems until he completely dried his ear and blew out the speck of water that entered the speaker in the bud causing a muting effect. Tomorrow is the second test. Apparently the Speedo MP3 set up as advertised without a hitch. He was impressed with the speed of copying music to it -- about 5 albums of songs in about 1-2 minutes. From what I hear, it plays the songs in alphabetical order meaning the songs across 5 albums are pseudo-shuffled. There is also a Playlist application where a specific order can be set. Now he's looking for his notes on the free "tempo" program that inspects the songs and matches it with the tempo (swim stroke) desired. Phew! I just chase sticks and ducks! Really. Is this necessary? According to him, swimming 4 miles with music was like 1 without -- only thoughts are counting and music enjoyment. Show off is up to 59 miles so far this month -- doesn't he know that's torture (almost water boarding).

231. Windows 7 - Shutdown Fails Solution (Post 221)

If you can't rely on Microsoft, who can you rely on? On 2/7/2010 I selected an optional windows update to update my RealTek PCIe FE Driver. Mistake! The errors I have had (3 now) were all after that update. Solution is to ROLL BACK to older one using Device Manager (I Hope -- just did it and will see if this fixes it). How did I determine the cause? I downloaded WinDbg from Microsoft to explore the minidump created (in C:\Windows\Minidump). When you run AS AN ADMINISTRATOR the Windows Debugging tool WinDbg you need to specify the source (File, Symbol File Path) of the SYMBOLS. Tell it you want to go to http://msdl.microsoft.com/downloads/symbols and the program will pull down the symbols its needs as required. Then open the minidump (File, Open Minidump) in C:\windows\minidump. Let it rip and also click on the highlighted items. You should now see the cause spelled out for you. What did I learn from all this? Don't install a driver unless it is available from the manufacturer of the device or the computer -- be careful with those from Microsoft. Most likely they attempted to resolve a different problem and didn't thoroughly test it and couldn't wait for the manufacturer to do it right.

230. Reid Should Learn to Read

Hey Harry. You do know you are already the bottom fish in the Nevada race, don't you? Do you believe baiting the Republicans into helping to draft a bill and then stripping out their input behind closed doors will only sink you farther into the mud? And O's MOST important subject no less -- the JOB bill. Thanks for helping people decide on their November 2010 choices! Here's an excerpt from this article:

"Leader Reid's surprising decision to abandon a bipartisan job creation bill is an ominous sign and contradicts the president's call for both parties to come together," Hatch said. "This is not how you legislate in the United States Senate and demonstrates a tremendous arrogance of power."

Republican Charles Grassley, who helped craft the initial package, also will probably vote against the bill unless he gets a chance to change it, according to an aide.

"Democracy isn't working when the majority leader decides behind closed doors what's in a package and then doesn't allow any amendments," Grassley said in a statement.

Some Democrats have also expressed dissatisfaction.

Sink Harry Sink. Sink. Sink. Sink. I think even O may leave you stuck in the mud this time.

229. More Mickey Mouse Tactics

Seems like people cannot leave well enough alone. Immediately they jump on a symptom for a problem and want to change it to something that worked decades ago but will no longer work. In this case its the SEC and its proposed short selling restrictions summarized here. With modern trading systems capable of zillions (figuratively, but approaching literal) of trades per second, does it matter if you wait a hundredth of a second for an uptick before you drop it again? Hmmm. Now borrowing billions of dollars through short trading by a super wealthy fund or individual WOULD bother me. Wouldn't this be market manipulation? Maybe the SEC should just GUARANTEE investigation of trades involving huge amounts of borrowed money -- make it a standing threat to do so. Maybe that will prevent the already-in-control hedge funds and others from driving the market down to gain a better buy-in point.

228. Jam Health Care via Budget Reconciliation Process

O, O, O! Do you remember the Budget Reconciliation process where only 51 senate ayes pass the bill? Well, here comes O with his hardball. He is now drafting his OWN Health Care bill. Granted its mostly the agreed upon items between the Democratic Senate and Democratic House bills and will try to shape it to fit the Budget Reconciliation process! The war takes an ugly shift. Come February 25 when he tried to jam this down the Republican throats, he will actually be trying to jam it down OUR throats. Can you believe his audacity and egoism? Stay tuned. You'll be hearing more. Meanwhile read this article for more details to date. It's starting to stink in here again so says MY Common Scents.

227. Windows 7 - Post 217 (Power Mgt) Update

I finally decided to check with Dell about the problem at Post 217 which occurred 3 times so far since 1/6/2010. I decided to avoid the verbal struggle with the overseas 1st line of support and decided to try the Online Chat that I liked in the past. Well, not to get off the subject, but of course just getting to Chat was another problem. I could not get to it via the Dell Website. However, when I brought up Dell Support program on the PC and invoked it from there all was good. Now, let me move on to Post 217. 1st Line was of course snowed by the problem and details I gave them and simply, and IMMEDIATELY, told me to send it into the repair depot. Oh Boy. Motherboard problem he said. Yet, the problem occurs across multiple vendor machines? "Well, I'll send you an A/C adapter too to try!" In other words, he never heard of this problem and had no clue how to provide diagnosis support to isolate the cause. Anyway, I replaced my A/C power adapter yesterday and will see if it was the cause. BIOS is current, so that's out.

226. Windows 7 - Handy Shortcut to ALL TASKS

stueycaster at this forum provided an excellent Shortcut to a program that lists EVERY task available to you. The tasks are listed by category also. With this you no longer have to remember WHERE the task you want is and HOW TO GET TO IT. I recommend it.

Right click the desktop.
Mouse over: New.
Click: Shortcut.
In the location window paste - C:\Windows\explorer.exe shell:::{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}
Click: Next
Name it something like "All Tasks" or something similar.
It will give you a shortcut to all the different settings you can make in windows 7.

225. Windows 7 - PowerPoint Viewer

Having problems viewing .pps files in Windows 7? My system came without the .pps defined as an extension. Unlike XP where you can simply ADD an extension and associate it to a program, W7 forces you to do a REGEDIT change. PowerPointViewer did not start when clicking a .pps file. Windows 7 knew nothing about a .pps file (CP, Default programs, Associate a file…). I found a registry edit at http://www.winhelponline.com/blog/unable-to-open-pps-ppt-from-windows-mail-or-wlm/ that, I think, allowed the .pps to show up. I still had the problem selecting the program until I went to CP,Programs and Features and did a REPAIR to PowerPointViewer. After that I found the module needed (PPTVIEW.EXE) in Program Files(x86)\Microsoft\Office12, I was now able to associate it with the newly created .pps entry created by the registry edit. W7 also removed the File Types tab from teh Folders Options rendering it useless too. All these problems started with Vista. Maybe some day MSFT will get it right again.

224. How Does Your Garden grow?

It's garden planning time. Did you plant your seeds indoors yet? We're trying a few new vegetables this year: Arugula, Tyfon (now we learn that its a grazing food -- moo, moo), Sololist (Chinese cabbage), Pickling Cucumbers, soy beans, sweet corn, plus some yellow strawberries which are suppose to fool the birds. To date, we already have 2-3" plants (arugula, tyfon, cabbage, tomatoes). Bought a heated mat this year which works great -- germination is now assured and very fast. The snow is almost melted which means in the next week or two I'm putting the cabbage out and planting the cold-weather crops -- carrots, radishes, spinach (all that I planted in my hot house are still green and growing over the winter), etc. Next week I'll be building a larger, sturdier hot house -- the winds here are the most destructive natural element we need to be concerned with (gotta tie the radishes down). I'll be using the wall-of-waters again this year -- worked great last year -- and planting tomatoes in April again. This year my peppers, squash, and maybe other vegetables will go in early using the wall-of-waters.
Spring is on its way. Get your tools ready and good luck with your garden.

223. Market Update

Oops -- I edited this to put the DJIA in the right ball park. I repeated 11xxx DJIA throughout when it should have been 10xxx. Must have been wishful thinking,

Sorry for the long leave of absence. Lost my red squeaky forecasting toy for a while. We did bounce as predicted, but several new events occurred since the last report that caused some uncertainty, such as, Greece debt, Euro stability across entire Euro Zone, China increasing Bank reserve requirements, China paying games with the yuan, the U.S. still sitting on its hands re Iran, and as usual Obama preaching to his choir. So, what were the net effects? As I stated in a previous post, I think China has taken the right approach to preventing a run away economy and to curb investment speculation. I continue to see positive growth there and at a rate above ours here. They may still dabble with the value of the yuan which may cause O's feathers to ruffle. Hopefully this will pass and not cause O to shout the word protectionism too loudly! If he persists on leaning that way, the market could fold quickly. However, with the earnings looking so positive, economy growing (Fed forecasts even stronger than expected growth for 2010 now), jobless rate holding steady (won't decrease much), Europe with a plan to handle debt crisis with some of its countries, UK rebounding, I'm looking for a positive 25-30 days. Not to say we won't dip; volatility needs to settle down in the next 5 days. I'm looking at a convergence point of DJIA 10,200 for 10-day and 30-day moving averages to be the breaking point of the market UPWARD. In short, we'll play the bouncing game for the next 4-5 sessions and break through around 10,200 when the 10-day and 30-day moving averages converge upward for another 400-500 points, maybe to 10,600-10,700. But, what do I know? I can't even keep my toy dry for longer than a few seconds -- I carry it everywhere. I think my bratty brother Douglas Ray -- a cat no less -- stole it last time. Ha! Like he knows what to do with it! Ok -- ante up, but keep an eye on the wild card protectionism. Although you may hear gossip re Health Care continuance or begin to realize that O's State of the Union promises re nuclear and offshore drilling are NOT near term, the real positive news will be the ongoing progress towards the conservative views. The USS Democrat has taken a few blows and is already under damage control. See you in about 25 days -- squirrels may already be out by that time (warning for the Squirrel Man).

222. Robin Williams as the American Flag

You'll enjoy this.

221. Windows 7 - Shutdown Fails

Anybody else getting a Shutdown failed message in the morning when they think they are just going to unhibernate? After 3 times, I turned off automatic install of Windows Updates. If you didn't already know, the defaults in Windows 7 is to WAKE your computer up, if in sleep or hibernation, to download AND install Windows Updates at 3 A.M every day. We all know that some of these updates might require a RESTART which means a SHUTDOWN first. My assumption is that it hangs up trying to do the restart, actually during the Shutdown phase. Thus, there is a conflict between the Shutdown process and hibernation mode or the power manager settings. Quite possible my power manager settings which are set quite short cause the computer to sleep when it's waiting on Shutdown processes to complete. Who knows. But, my theory is to not allow it to install updates automatically anymore -- ok to download them. Next morning my Action Center will alert me that something was downloaded and ready to install. I'll see if this circumvents the problems.

220. Spending Cuts OR Tax Rises

Sorry, I need to laugh again. Bet you never heard a dog laugh so much! This time its over the bill O just signed raising the debt ceiling another $1.9 TRILLION. Guess I shouldn't be laughing, but I need to understand why we need to raise the debt ceiling when EVERYTHING O will approve will be paid for by spending cuts or tax rises, i.e., hello PAYGO; didn't we hear about you several years ago. Nice to see you're back out of the closet. I hope you liked the closet, 'cause you'll be right back in there very soon. Now, the bill I would like to see is one that doesn't raise the debt anymore and considers spending cuts AND cuts to existing approved earmarks! I would also like to see the stimulus money RETURNED for for projects like the latest one from California where TWO jobs were created to study why some people lack self-control and become obese, or the ones in Pennsylvania in non-existent districts, or for police cars in Florida (now that created a lot of jobs). But no-o-o-o. Make the banks pay for the government's slop! That way, they will have to increase service costs to you and me to cover the new fees/taxes and thus, gives the government a reason to blame the banks even more. Just who does this administration think their kidding. We dogs even have better Common Scents.

219. 2/25 - Another Ridiculous Event

I assume you all heard about O's invitation to HIS February 25th Health Care discussion event. Having led strategic and Tactical planning sessions for corporate companies for over 20 years I can only LAUGH (Ha-Ha) at O's HALF-DAY session to negotiate bipartisam solutions for Health Care reform. The planning sessions I held were both 1-year plans and 3-5 long-term plans, each lasting 2-4 FULL days. Now, you could assume the annointed one has far better skills than I -- I doubt it. This article introduces you to the number of participants, 40+, and who. Here comes another wasted half-day of 40+ expensive people who will get their ears filled with Obama-malarkey. What could be good is the posting of bills from each side. What won't be good is O pushing the Democratic bills asking what needs to change in them to get them passed! I'd love a contract to lead a strategy session for him. Heck, I'd do it for only expenses. Get out the dog and pony.

218. Nuclear, but not NOW!

"The Southern Co. has applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a construction and operating license for the plant, one of 13 such applications the agency is considering. NRC spokesman Eliot Brenner said the earliest any of those could be approved would be late 2011 or early 2012." Is this really helpful Mr. President? This quote came from this article where O sprinkles fairy dust in front of We the People to get us to believe that his State of the Union words re building Nuclear plants AND creating jobs NOW were serious. I find it appalling that APPLICATIONS to build from companies that have already built plants in the past would take 1.25 to 2 years to SIMPLY APPROVE! Let's get on with it! What do you want to bet off-shore oil drilling will also be deferred until 2011+? I hate to keep beating the guy up, BUT his naive butt seems to be clouding all Common Sense!

217. Windows 7 - "Plugged in, not charging"

For a couple of weeks my laptop power manager was reporting "plugged in, not charging." Scores of people have reported this problem on the Internet (Google the message) with really nobody wanting to accept the problem as theirs. You will find that the problem is not unique to manufacturer (some I saw were Sony, HP, Compaq, Dell, Lenovo, Acer). Operating systems reported were basically Vista and Windows 7 (now there's a clue). Solutions included replacing power adapter (can't imagine the exact same adapter being used for all manufacturers), popping battery out and reinserting it (sometimes several times and in particular sequence with disconnect and reconnect of AC adapter), BIOS upgrade, Motherboard adapter soldered weakly, etc. You'll find this problem starting on Vista in 2007 and continuing right into Windows 7 currently. So, what was exactly my symptoms? I always have my laptop connected to A/C power and after first charging to 100% it stayed there for some time -- don't know exactly how long. However, after changing power management options I began to notice the battery power decreasing every day along with the message above in title. After endless research, I decided it had to be software (Windows 7) and forgot it was A/C power sometime -- maybe when hibernating or sleeping. I was getting strange hibernation -- it would appear to hibernate, but came up as fast as sleep mode. Plus, had a few crashes to Windows 7 while in hibernation mode that recovered on complete restart. Whatever the problem is, I reset it back to normal (this time) by removing power cable AT PC (not wall), cleaned it off good, and plugged it back in. Immediately it restarted charging to 100%. Now was it dirty? Couldn't tell. Maybe it was just having it out for about 40 seconds. If I were to guess, the laptop senses when the cable is attached (plugged into wall or not -- just physically there) and notifies Windows to begin monitoring the power port for power and problems. Quite possibly it wiggled loose (but I doubt it) sometime while moving the laptop to its bed each night on the floor. Who knows -- I'm just a dog and can't smell anything wrong. See also Post 227.

215. What Can We Learn From the Greeks?

I heard all about the Greeks: one fraternity party after another. Remember those barn parties? Toga Parties? Mixers? Socials? Oops, wrong Greeks.

Seriously, Greece is up to its nose in pig doo. What will the Socialists do? Read this article or this one to get caught up. I think you'll agree that Obama's Socialist administration should be closely watching the activities in Greece to avoid a similar problem -- I do believe we already have the problem -- and get out their togas and act Greek. Can you imagine the uproar in our future because this administration continues to kiss Labor Union butts, delaying corrections to our huge deficit. This is scary stuff folks. Thus why I have my Bear outfit out and ready to wear -- the Bull will go in the closet very soon. Google a few more articles re Greece Deficit problems and compare us to them.

214. Some Humor-1

213. Some Humor-2

212. How Much is Defense Worth?

In football, defense is probably more valuable to a team than offense. How about America's Defense programs? As this article points out, the 2011 Defense Budget (separate for the overall budget) has been increased to a record high. I'm still pondering the highlights in the article, but have a better feeling that Gates is looking out for our interests both defensively and financially. The back-to-the-moon project is being cut from the non-defense budget; the early-warning defense satellite project in the defense budget is being superseded by the infrared defense satellite project. If I were to guess, the one cut was the alarm, whereas, the infrared is the hammer. I can live with blowing things out of the sky -- don't need sirens to get me scared. And, yes, C-17 transport aircraft are handy for the catastrophes of the world, like Haiti; but, isn't it time other countries ante up for these aircraft? Again, I think Gates realizes this and is correct. Just where the entire $708B goes I have no clue. However, when they state that we need to invest in new technologies, I wonder why they think the building of new command ships with that new technology is not important; they could be right in that any new technology would be retrofitted in older command ships for less. If this is true, I commend them again. A 3.4 increase in Defense is well worth the money considering the restraints also documented in the article. Better than a bridge to nowhere. I sure hope some of the big bucks goes to the personnel. Did you realize some of the Congressmen and women get paid more than the military generals? How about a little rob-Peter and pay-Paul bill?

211. The Right Health Care Reforms - the States Listen

As the Democrats still churn to push out a Health Bill to please the anointed One, the states, 34 to date, are pursuing their own constitutional amendments to ban forced health care insurance and the assessment of any penalties to bilk residents into buying health care. They are also looking at mandates to create larger insurance pools which could lower rates. Finally we could be making headway. This article highlights the state mandates and also that in the end the Federal Government could still prevail. However, as this other article points out, the states can organize to call a convention and submit U.S. Constitution amendment proposals that could be enacted should three quarters of the 50 states vote for them. The People speak!