Miss me?

So it has been quite a while since I last posted, I blame life.  Well the fact that life is absolutely amazing!  This is probably going to be a very long post so bear with me!

Most importantly I am now a married man, off the market, take care of your little girls as women throughout the world are weeping.  Ok maybe not, but I am the happiest man in the world, that I know for sure.  Jamie Kayle READ, is the best wife and best woman I could ask for, she completes me and compliments me in so many ways.  Our wedding was at a place that means more to me than anywhere else, Sebasco Harbor Resort.  Sebasco was founded by my Great-Great-Grandfather Nathan A Cushman who also started and ran a very popular bakery in Northern New England.  It is no longer in the family but I grew up spending my summers there, golfing, going to the beach, enjoying the gorgeous coastal views and of course BINGO!  We were also lucky enough to have our awesome (english accent an all) Pastor Stuart McAlpine to perform our wedding.  The day was gorgeous, as was my bride, and it was an amazing time with friends and family.  Jamie has some great pictures and synopsis on her blog if you want to check it out.

I wrote last time about my new homebrewing hobby and at that time I believe I had only brewed one beer, well I have now brewed 7 batches (all 5 gallons) with 1 more in the fermenter as well as ingredients for 2 more beers (one of which is a 10 gallon batch).

My Beers:

Pennsylvania Lager – This was a Yuengling Clone recipe designed by Annapolis Home Brew Shop.  It was ok and I could taste the Yeungling flavor but I didn’t (and still don’t) have the best setup for a Lager, I will need to get a fridge to ferment in, so that I can actually lager the beer.

Bavarian Hefeweizen – This was a boxed kit by Brewers Best, that turned out excellent, a veritable banana bomb.

Ultimate Amber – This is another AHBS recipe, it was pretty good and was the highest alcohol percentage beer at that point.

90 Min IPA Clone – This is one of my all-time favorite beers right now, I love the Dogfish Head Brewery and their 90 Min IPA, the clone was designed once again by AHBS.  I also brewed this beer when my new Bro and Sis (Tim and Bobbi) were visiting us in DC!  Tim was my assistant and though we had some close calls it turned out excellent.  I almost liked it better than the real thing, ALMOST.

American Pale Ale – This is another AHBS recipe that originally began in an attempt to clone Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, which is another beer I love (did I mention that I had SNPA and Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA at the wedding!), but they decided they liked what they came up with better.  This one turned out quite well too and some even liked it better than the real SNPA.

My Hefeweizen – My first attempt at creating my own recipe!  I was so excited to do this and it turned out quite well, the other hefe was a little better, but I can keep tweaking the recipe and make it perfect, in fact we are going to brew 10 gallons of it this weekend.  I just bought a 15 gallon brew kettle and made a 70 qt Mash Tun so that i can go into all-grain brewing and brew 10 gallon batches and this will be my first all-grain batch!

Irish Red – This is the second recipe I have designed, it is good, not my favorite style of beer, but it turned out pretty good.  It did come out darker than a red normally is, but with some tweaks I am sure I can get it perfect!

Irish Pale Ale – Another new thing I have learned is how to re-use the yeast from one batch to the next and make yeast starters.  I took a SNPA clone recipe I found and instead of the yeast they recommended I re-used my Irish Ale Yeast from the Irish Red.  This I will be transferring to a secondary fermenter (to free up my primary for the 10 gallons of Hefe!) probably this weekend.

Irish IIPA (DIPA) – I just designed this beer to re-use the Irish yeast a 3rd and final time.  I had planned it to just be a nice hoppy IPA but I went so wild with my hop additions that I got the IBU’s (international bitterness units) over 100, at this point the beer really was no longer a straight American IPA (Indian Pale Ale) nor was it balanced anymore, so I decided to go all the way and make it an Imperial IPA or a Double IPA and boosted the grain and alcohol.  This is going to be one strong beer!

Anyways the hobby is so much fun and I would love some day to somehow make it into my work.  I’d love to open a homebrew shop/craft beer store and still would love to have a brewpub someday.  For now I’ll just enjoy the brewing!

I almost forgot about my tech updates!  Well for one I decided to fall out of Ian’s boat at night during my bachelor party, of course this was the only 10 minute period I actually had my phone in my pocket!  So upon our return to DC we got Jamie a brand new Droid 2 which we both love (though I want a Droid X!) and she gave me her old phone.  Aren’t I just the best husband ever?

The last desktop I purchased was in 2002 when i bought a beast of a machine  (it was over $2,000!!) that was made by Gateway, her name was Hippo.  In 2005 I found her getting slow and ready for an upgrade so I got a bunch of new parts for Christmas; mobo, AMD processor, RAM, graphics card as well as a external harddrive and one of my grandfathers old big screen monitors.  This rebuilt beauty was named The Beast.  Well fast forward to 2010 and my monitor farts out on me, I get attacked by my first virus in about a decade and then the mobo blows out on me.  My wonderful wife allowed me to spend some of our wedding money though on fixing her up.  So let me introduce you to Phoenix (risen from the ashes!)!

Monitor – 23″ 1080p beauty

New intel i5 processor and motherboard to go with it.

4 gb of RAM

Smoking new graphics card

The Phoenix has truly risen.

Another great thing we got with our wedding money was a home theater system.  Jamie is so excited to have 7.1 Channels bumping the music to NCAA 11 on my PS3 at all times!

All in all my life has been pretty excellent recently, good beer, great tech, AWESOME WIFE!

Well at least I’d get cheap corn?!?

Jamie the wonderful love of my life is from a part of the country I used to never think I would ever visit.  The part of Colorado she is from is basically Nebraska and her sister and brother and families live in Hastings, NE.  I know right?  People actually live there!

Anyways we are still in the middle of busy season but Jamie’s niece Kaylee had a birthday this last week and her party was on Saturday.  Kaylee asked if we were coming to the party and her mom told her that we lived too far away.  She started crying, so of course we had to go and I got to venture into uncharted  territory.

After the 2.5 hour drive from the airport (I KNOW!) we arrived around midnightish in Hastings at their house.  We went to bed pretty quick but wokeup fairly early in the morning.  I heard the little munchkin upstairs so I woke Jamie up and we surprised her, she didn’t know what to think!

It was a great time hanging out with everyone but the real purpose of this post is about possible life altering decisions.  I know Jamie would love to live near her family and her nieces and someday we will have children of our own and it would be great to have them play with their cousins.  Just joking around a few months ago I was looking at houses in Hastings and we found this one that was really nice, 4 br/4 ba, basement, office, fully updated nicely finished kitchen, backyard with a pool.  We found out it was RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET from Jamie’s sister!

So Tim set us up an appointment to go see it.  My word, the pictures and listing did not do it justice.   I have found my dream home!  So we walk in the entry way, gorgeous, To the left is  a formal living room, and beyond that the formal dining room, past that is a gorgeous finished kitchen, stainless steel appliances, a nice island.  Then you have the living room with a door to outside which we will discuss next!  The living room has a cutout for a huge tv in the wall, it has prewired wall mounted speakers, a fireplace!!!!  Let’s go outside next!  You step out on a smaller deck (compared to my current one) but you look out on a glorious sight!  A beautiful pool, lawn chairs and pool chairs galore.  To the right of the pool is a roofed bar and grill, beyond that is a small mini garage which was used it appears for poker and has a fridge and it’s own heating system.  Off beyond the pool are more chairs an a firepit.  Who could ask for anything more?  Me!  Lets go upstairs!  The master bedrom is a whopping 27′ by 17′ (somewhere around there)  It actually has a sauna in it (probably won’t stay, but still).  It also has his and her closets!  A nice master bedroom too.  There are two other bedrooms upstairs and another bathroom.  As we head down to my awesome new lair! I forgot to mention on the main level the half bath, the great laundry room which leads to the 3 car garage with a sink!

Lets go to my lair! Downstairs is a wonderful theater, a projector with a drop down screen and a comfy couch! off to the right is a self contained office, to the left is another bar!  There is also a bedroom and bathroom in the basement.

So I never thought I would move to Nebraska, I told Jamie Texas is as close as she’d get, but it would be such a blessing to live near Tim and Bobbi and Travis and Kristy and the girls.  But being able to do that and live in a dream house!  Time to figure out the finances of it all!

So wish me luck in figuring this all out!

Much a’brewin!

Well well well, it’s been quite a while since I’ve written on this blog and i’d like to take a bit of a change in tack on it.  I’m going to continue to rant and rave about politics etc… when I have time but I’m also going to add some life tidbits and especially homebrew aspects.  I’ve recently become interested in homebrewing and creating my own craft beer and right now I have the first batch in the fermenter.  So I may do some quick reviews of craft beer and detail my progression as a brewer here.

To update on my life, things are amazing been with Jamie almost a year officially not though we have been “together” for much longer than that, in my mind all our lives.  Recently I asked her to marry me and thankfully she has said yes.  Actually it was YES YES YES, while I was still proposing.  As we look forward to our life together I just have to be thankful for all the blessings in my life and remember that even when stressed I have been blessed with a very good life.

As for the brewing I’ve developed a taste for good beer (note this means no coors, budweiser, or michelob EVER) over the last 5 years or so and recently went to a friends house for a brew party.  He was throwing in a new batch of Oktoberfest (partial mash) and taught me how to do a partial mash brew.  It was great fun and really awakened an actual hobby instinct in myself.  Finally something I can do, spend money on and not have a waste of time.  I will either save money by drinking my own beer or God willing develop my own recipe that others may enjoy.  It would be a great dream to open my own brewpub someday, but thats getting ahead of myself, I haven’t even brewed my own recipe yet.

So I spent my birthday money on a homebrew starter kit with an Ale Pail (primary fermentor) a 5 gallon glass carboy (secondary) auto siphon, bottling bucket, cleaners, etc… etc… I also bought two beer kits, one made by Annapolis Homebrew a Pennsylvanian Lager (Yeungling Style) that I brewed up last weekend, Jamie and I had a great time with great weather brewing it.  It should be almost done with primary fermentation right now and I just need to figure out how to get my auto-siphon to work to transfer it to the carboy.  Next (maybe next weekend) I will throw in the other kit I got which is a Bavarian Hefeweizen.  Hopefully I’ll have about 3 brews ready for my Memorial Day BBQ to open up the summer season in the backyard.

Another thing I want to start doing and something that I think will help me fine tune my own brewing and recipes is to try all kinds of craft beers and review them, figure out what makes them tick for example.  Our Grocery store actually has a much better brew selection than I realized even with make your own 6 packs.  So on to what I’ve tried this weekend.

The first beer I tried was the Leinenkugel’s Sunset Wheat beer.  Typically I’m not a huge fan of wheat beers (I know making the hefe, whats up with me?) but I have read about Leinie’s at the beer advocate and it seems to be a favorite brewery of many.  Leinenkugel is from Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin and has been brewing since 1867.  The beer quickly surprised me with it’s smoothness, it was not quite what I expected but pleasant.  The bottle did not mention it but the first thing that struck me was the blueberry taste, quite strong, almost too strong.  This was surprising as I’m not usually a fan of fruit beers and don’t buy them, this beer mentioned nothing of it yet I quite clearly tasted blueberry.  Upon later review I found that they do in fact add a top-note of blueberry to the brew.  The beer seemed rather carbonated to me as if I was almost drinking a soda, no necessarily in a bad way just more than i’m used to in a beer.  Overall it was not bad as a wheat beer but not something I would go buy a 12 pack of.  I’d definitely be willing to try a Leinie of a beer type i’m more enthused about.

The second beer I’ve tried this weekend was from the Kona Brewing Company from Kona,  HI.  Kona has been brewing since 1994, as I’m a major beach fan anything that represents beaches, surfing, and the ocean will get a try from me.  The Kona I tried was the Longboard Island Lager.  I found it a delightfully light beer with just enough flavor to be a real beer.  I hate to describe it this way, because the taste is not at all similar but I can’t help but be reminded of Corona, in that its a great warm weather, at the beach kind of beer.  Light bodied and smooth and easy to drink with just enough flavor.  I highly recommend it and in fact after my sample I purchased a 6-pack of it.

Thats it for now I just hope my life continues to be blessed and continue to have good brews in my life.  With something new to catch my interest I hope to truly post a lot more here.

Health-Care

Well my friends its been way too long and I’ve just ranted the last few times on here anyways, but I’ve taken my meds and ready to get back into the political sphere.

Healthcare, is it a right? Of course not.  Basic Libertarian principle is that you have the right to yourself and anything your own body helps you to create (IE your property).  Healthcare falls under neither.

Healthcare is of course important, maintaining good health means you can produce more and become more successful, but it’s noone elses obligation to provide it for you.  In fact if government forces them to then it is infringing on their rights, and their “property”.

That being said, I’m not the most rabid libertarian on the planet.  I also recognize political realities and people want something done.  Our hybrid system IS broken.  That does not mean that the solution Obama and the Democrats are pushing is the correct one.

This is actually something that is frustrating me quite highly about this debate.  Yes the people at townhall meetings are saying stupid things and getting very worked up and being rude.   But they are frustrated, I can at least sympathize.  How the Democrats are framing this issue infuriates me though. Basically they are saying either you think the system is broken and you have to support their plan, or you support the status quo.

This is obviously patently false.  Polls show that.  Majority of Americans want healthcare reform, they want the system fixed.  Yes we all know its a mess when healthcare costs rise and rise and rise, premiums rise, insurers deny claims that are covered under your plan that you pay for.  Of course its broken.  But a majority of Americans are also against this plan and the public option.

So no Mr. Obama we do want reform, we don’t want your plan, that doesn’t mean we want the status quo.  Thanks for lying and trying to guilt/force us into supporting you as usual.

So what DO we want?  Well let me tell you what I want.

COST REDUCTION.  One major issue in the Obama plan is that it does nothing to reduce costs, in fact the CBO (the governments own economists) have predicted that it would skyrocket costs above and beyond what even the current system is doing.  Why aren’t the democrats including cost reduction items as promised?  Because it’s a farce and a lie that they want to reduce costs, all they care is taking a step towards Universal Healthcare, results be damned.

How would I reduce costs?

1. Tort Reform

This means no frivalous lawsuits against docters.  This also means even in cases in which the doctor makes a mistake, no outrageous awards.  If I miss a credit when I’m auditing, I don’t get sued for multi-millions of dollars, when you forget someones fries in a happy meal you don’t have to go to court.  Can you imagine if we all had to face this in our day to day jobs?  I am not saying doctors/their insurance providers shouldn’t have to make someone whole after harming them.  But we all make mistakes we are all human, and an honest mistake should not be a multi-million dollar law suit.  Negligence is the only thing that should cause such sums.  This would lower their premiums for insurance, it would also allow them not to order superfluous tests that they now do (which drive up costs).

2. True Healthcare Competition

Right now most of us only have a couple of options of providers for healthcare.  Sure we have many different plans; PPO’s, HMO’s, high-deductible, low-deductible, etc…  But they are all from few providers.  Basically most of us in America live under healthcare monopolies or oligarchies.  What we need is true competition to allow Joe Blow from Portland, ME to purchase healthcare in California, Texas, Alaska, Italy, Russia, Japan.  True worldwide healthcare markets.  This would allow much more competition while also keeping the insurance pools large to reduce risk.  With this true competition it would drive down premiums as well as reduce the tendancy of insurance companies to disallow legit claims because, “Who else are you gonna go to?”  As an aside we need to create strong laws and enforce laws regarding insurance companies that deny legitimate claims.

3. Illegal Immigration

This is a hot topic issue that has roots in many other areas, but as far as healthcare goes illegal immigrants are a major cost on the system as most don’t have insurance and use emergency rooms for most medical care, as well as don’t pay.

I believe as long as they are here we need to give immigrants a legal status.  This does not mean we should or shouldn’t shut down the border, but as long as they have a legal status, we can tax them, they can demand fair wages (which means they can’t compete as well against our wage earners), they can get their own healthcare.  Most of the ills of illegal immigration are due to the fact that they are under the radar and users of services and do not pay taxes to support them.

4. Prevention

While this starts at the home and can not be mandated, we need to focus on prevention of diseases and teaching our kids and families to stop being over eating, over indulging slobs.  I admit i’m not perfect either, but I’m trying to be healthier, less drinking, less eating, more exercise.  These simple things will drive down costs, as its cheaper to practice preventative medicine than cure someone already very sick.

These are just a few ways that we can reduce costs in healthcare, there are many more.  Is most or any of this in the bill? Well who really knows with 4 different bills running around that no one in congress has actually read, but from what I am gathering no it’s not.  The democrats are more worried about covering those without insurance than fixing the actual problems with our insurance market.

Did it ever occur to them that if we fixed the actual problems, the cost would be reduce and a lot of those people who can’t afford insurance now could?  If they would just do that, reduce the number of people who can’t afford, by reducing costs, then I would actually support a plan to cover those who are left over.

But as usual a Democrats plan is to leave the problems in a system and just spend money to cover it up.

Why don’t we actually solve the problem for once.

Don’t come visit my city!

That’s right, please stay at home, don’t visit, don’t come tour Washington DC until you learn some manners.

Today I decided to come back to the office a bit early before the day was over, as it was the last day at my client.  Big mistake.  For those of you who don’t know DC springtime is major tourism time.  It is also the Cherry Blossom Festival right now.  Plus most tourists try not to travel metro around rush hour as that is us locals designated time and we don’t put up with crap, you will be put on your ass if you can’t handle a city commute.

So forgetting all this with my addled brain I decided to go to the office around one.  First of all I get to the station just as my train is rolling in, I’m all like sweet!  I am lugging my huge audit bag with me so I try and go through the wide turnstiles to go down to the train, of course it doesn’t work, so I’m stuck struggling to get through the small one in time.  I start hurrying knowing I have less than a minute to get on the train before it leaves.  Of course two slow tourists are on the escalator before me and in my way.  Knowing it wasn’t life or death I decided to be calm and not yell at them and just wait for the next one.

So after about five minutes the next train comes, pretty empty, I’m rockin.  I sit down in an empty seat (in fact most of the train was empty) and sit my audit bag in the aisle up next to my seat.  So I’m jamming to my Ipod and all of a sudden during a stop a woman walks up next to me and just stares at me.  I am a bit taken aback so I look around and realized that in my daze of funky grooving that the train has filled up and the seat next to me is one of the last ones.  I look back at her (still getting the death stare), I ask if she’d like to sit down.  Instead of nicely taking up my offer and moving so I could get up and move my huge audit bag out of the way so I can get out and she can sit down, she says in the most snotty way possible, “Yes I’m trying to sit down”.  Remember she never asked or anything just stared.  So now I’m a little pissy and I’m trying to get up so she can sit, she does not move, I practically trip over my audit bag which is in the way of me getting out of the seat (since she won’t move so I can actually move the bag properly).  I get so fed up I let loose an expletive and something about you know I have a damn big bag here and storm down the aisle and wait by the door for the next two stops.

So I’m fuming at this point of course, I tried to be nice to the woman and she was a jerk back.  So we roll up to Metro Center and I’m trying to get off an people behind me are cutting me off trying to get off the train with my excessively large wheeled work equipment, finally I get out and of course metro center is packed with tourists, meandering about, not looking where they are going, not caring that people are trying to move behind them.  I get to the escalator to go down to the blue/orange lines and of course its packed as usual, I’m coming from the left side and knowing to cut across to the right and stand riding down with my bag is going to be a nightmare, I shorten the handle and pick it up to carry it down as I walk down the left side.

Lets pause for a secondary rant here.  There are these people called escalefters.  I hate them.  I don’t hate many groups of people as a whole, I try to only dislike certain people, but in my mind an escalefter is the lowest form of life.  An escalefter is someone on an escalator that is wide enough for two people who stands on the left.  Common courtesy and protocol is for people to stand on the right and walk on the left.   If you are from east gish country America learn it, love it, live it.  You walk on the left, the flow of foot traffic is great and we all go on our merry way.

So back to the story.  I’m holding my ginormous audit bag and attempting to walk down the left of the escalator when I realize, hey we aren’t moving.  Well technically we are moving since the escalator is moving, but stay with me, you know what I mean.  I look down the escalator.  THERE HE IS.  A 40ish tourist ESCALEFTOR!  If I was the crocodile hunter I’d yell Crikey, before I jump on his back and wrestle him to the ground, but alas I’m just a mild mannered accountant.

Finally he gets off but its too late I’ve already ridden most of the way down while holding my audit bag, frustrating, annoying, not the end of the world I suppose, but there is this other habit tourists have that not only drives me crazy but is dangerous.  Move your little fanny pack butt out of the way at the bottom of the escalator.  Not sure if you know this but escalators move, they don’t care if you are in the way at the bottom.  So here I come getting off the escalator and there are families and kids being plowed down by my bag and feet.  It’s almost like one of those stampedes on the way to Mecca.  I finally just snap and yell get the **** out of my way you ***-**** tourists.

To which I get nasty looks of course, because, I’m such a rude bastard.  As if!

To finish my thought, don’t come to DC, don’t come to Maine (oh boy don’t get me started on those tourists), don’t go anywhere but your own little corner of the world if you can’t be respectful.  Some people are in a hurry, some people are living their daily lives, some people can’t go on vacation until Memorial day in Florida (t-1.5 months).  Show some respect, be polite, and be aware, and for damn sure stay the hell out of my way!

Has the whole world gone retarded?

When will people learn to just leave each other alone and mind their own damn business?  Forcing E-harmony to offer same-sex services (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122714242388642779.html?mod=googlenews_wsj) is equally as retarded as passing Proposition 8.

I had been planning on writing a gay marriage post after the passing of prop 8 but other issues had been distracting me, but with this development I’ll tackle it now.  So basically E-Harmony most people know is an online christian dating site, but unlike other sides, you have to be accepted as a member.  They give you a crazy survey that analyzes you and matches you with other people  If you are rude, vulgar, looking for anything other than a monogomous straight relationship you will be rejected.  E-harmony has been sued multiple times by lesbian couples and married men looking to cheat on their wives, calling this discriminatory.  Until now they’ve held firm.  A gay man in NJ sued E-Harmony calling it’s practices discriminatory and that they must offer the services to same-sex couples as well.  E-Harmony has long contended they are serve a niche market and the owner/shrink who runs it does not have the knowledge of other types of relationships to fully do the personality matching he does for straight couples.

So my question is, why can’t the gay community just leave this site alone?  There are plenty of gay dating sites, why do they have to go to a straight christian one?  Do the gay dating sites now have to allow straight matchmaking?  I might sue to accomplish just that.  This is the kind of stuff that just causes more drama between the straight and gay communites, a fight for a fights sake.

Oh Christians, don’t get too excited and applaud my post yet, you do the exact same thing.  This utter retarded fight over gay marriage needs to stop.   I don’t agree with what the california courts did with gay marriage, but I’m also completely against Proposition 8. As a side bar, the ironic part of prop 8 is, it only passed because of Obama.  How you say?  Because of the record hispanic and african american turnout in California.  These communities are historically very socially conservative and helped push prop 8 over the edge.

So I’m against prop 8 and the courts decision, I guess you want to know what I want huh?  How about separation of church and state?  How about ending the racist institution of government run marriage?  Do you know that marriage was taken over by the state during the civil rights era in order to ban inter-racial marriages?  Government has no right to be involved in what has been historically a religious sacrament.  How do we solve this problem?  Give marriage back to religion, this will protect the “sanctity of marriage”.  The government then for recocognition of couples can issue civil unions to both straight and gay couples, all couples can get a civil union in order to get the legal benefits of a union.   This is equal and still protects “marriage”.  Why is it christians that you have such a problem with gay people getting married but never complain about prisoners, athiests, or any other “sinner” taking a religious vow?

In short, christians, leave gay people alone, they have the right to live their lives and be happy as a couple.  You don’t have to agree with it, you can teach your kids it’s not the “right way”, but let them live in peace and be equal under the law.   Gay people, quit starting fights over nothing, let the christians have their niche dating site, you have yours.  Both sides are too busy fighting each other they don’t care that they can both accomplish their goals if they would just back off and work together.

Why are people in this world so utterly retarded?

Eating our own.

Much like certain species of animals, the republican party has a habit of eating it’s own at any sign of trouble.  I was prompted to write this because of a recent article about who will be the next chair of the GOP.  It sounds like a battle between Gingrich and Steele and some other minor players.  The author of the article completely dismissed Gingrich because of his moral failings.   I stopped and said what?  We allow corrupt politicians, who steal money, who sell their votes, who go back on their campaign promises in Washington all the time.  Yet a man has a moral failing and he’s the anti-Christ?  Not that I’m a model of christian living, but isn’t there something to be said that no-one is perfect and we all fall short of Christ’s teachings?

So lets look at how badly the GOP eats it’s own.  First lets look at Trent Lott.  No you may scream, he’s a racist we can’t defend him.  We can’t?  Trent Lott was at a birthday party for Strom Thurmond the longest serving US Senator, who yes did run for president on a segregationist platform.  Guess what, most of America supported segregation at the time, was it right?  No, of course not.  But Trent said nothing of the platform, he was giving praise to an old man, an old man I might point out was the first to hire an African American staffer in the US Senate.  He’d changed, the world had changed, but what did we do to Trent, we drove him out of leadership.  Because as usual we never fight for ours.  Now lets look at the Democrats and do I need look any further than Robert Byrd, a former active member of the KKK.  This man actually spread hate and violence against minorities.  This man has been rewarded how by the DNC?  He has served in the following roles: Senate Conference Secretary, Majority Whip and twice Majority Leader.  So we have a guy who compliments an old man who had a bad belief over 70 years ago, and the democrats promote a man who was an active and hateful racist, part of a murderous lynching organization.

Next! Yes I will touch it, Mark Foley.  How dare I attempt to justify this you may ask?  I’m not going to justify his actions, I’m going to point out we eat our own while the DNC defends theirs.  Ok, you know the basic jist of this scandal, Mark Foley sent explicit IM’s and emails to pages who had worked for him.  There is no accusation of actual abuse, just inappropriate messages and perhaps solicitation.  Disgusting I agree, but lets look across the aisle and see what the dems did to their own in a similar circumstance.  Representative Gerry Studds (D-MA)  (1973-1997) in 1983 was censured (basically told, you are a bad boy) by the US House for having sex with a 17 year old congressional page, which he as admitted to.  To this day he is applauded as the first openly gay congressman and was rewarded with committee chairmanships by the dems in his long tenure in the US House.  So lets compare, openly admitting having sex with a 17 year old boy, to emailing lude messages to a 17 year old boy.  One was honored and one left in scandal.

Now I started this talking about Newt Gingrich, so let’s finish it there.  Newt is one of the smartest men in American politics, and the smartest in the GOP.  He led the Republican Revolution and the Contract with America, he has since his demise helped Jeb Bush revolutionize health care in Florida, he has advised and tried to help the GOP out of their current downfall.  In short he is a brilliant man that has some personal shortcomings.  He was railroaded out of leadership after it came out that he cheated on his wife.  I for one am tired of the Republican Party devouring it’s best and brightest because they have moral shortcomings (how often do those complaining of others shortcomings, have some of their own).  This is politics, a dirty business, squeaky clean members rarely make it far.  If they broke the law charge them, if not, don’t drive them out, don’t betray them.  The democrats don’t and you see how successful they’ve been over the last 50 years.  We can’t afford to lose great minds because they cheated on their wife, or made an offhand comment.

I hope Newt takes control of the party, brings it back to it’s true principles and repairs that Contract with America.

Bailout Part Deux?

So I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while but I’ve been swamped the last week or so and it got neglected.  Basically last week I saw a perfectly ironic cover of a newspaper.  On the right it had the “Emergency Economic De-Stabilization Act of 2008″ and basically it’s complete failure.  This was about the point that Secretary Paulsen had admitted that his reason for the act wasn’t going to work (buying up worthless debt).  Wow I could have told him that.  So basically this blank check handed to him with no stipulations is now going to be used for something other than what he sold it to congress and the American people as.

Now to the left of this cover the  irony was complete.  It had a glowing story about the need for the new auto-worker bailout.  Hey if it doesn’t work at first, always try, try again right?  Wrong, we’ve bailed out the auto industry before and they are still failing.  We’ve had major american auto-makers go under before, it hasn’t killed the economy.  In fact the Big 3 now employ less than GE or Wal-Mart, would you want to bail them out?  Well guess what you won’t have to, they run their companies properly.

The biggest thing that pisses me off with this bailout (besides the fact it’s completely anti-free market), is that these companies failed.  They stuck to big gas guzzling cars, SUV’s, they rode the wave and didn’t plan for the future.  Why should we bail them out when they had a bad business model?  Some might scream but the workers.  Well this is partly also the UAW (United Auto Workers) fault.  The exorbitant salaries, benefits, and fighting robots in the factory lines helped to drive up the cost of making vehicles way above what it costs the Japanese car companies.  In Japan the belief is you all work as one to make the best product, if the company succeeds you all succeed, in America, we just want our money company be damned.

Look, if your kid takes his favorite toy and smashes it to pieces and you don’t yell at him and you just go buy him a new one.  Wouldn’t you expect he might do it again?  That he won’t learn a lesson?  That is what will happen here.  The American auto industry has failed since the 70′s to innovate and compete, and frankly should be out of business by now.  Let little American upstarts like Tesla Motors (http://www.teslamotors.com/) take over the auto industry.   Car makers that actually get it, and get what we want.

P.S.  Didn’t want to write a whole article on it, but it seems that 2 more of Obama’s transition team has ties to Fannie and Freddie.  Change we can believe in!

Change we can believe in!

Obama has promised us new politics, out with the old boys club.  Finished forever are special interests, big business ties, corruption etc…

Aren’t you all so happy?

In his first act as president he has shown his commitment to this principle.  Obama has chosen the principled, new age politician Rahm Emanuel as his Chief of Staff, a man who will now lead his transition and selection of other white house staff and have huge impact on his Cabinet appointments.  Thank god this guy wasn’t a former Clinton staffer, wasn’t a board member of Freddie Mac, never wished death upon his opponents in 96 or ever sent dead animals to his enemies.  Oh wait…

How is this change again?

Rahm Emanuel was a major fund raiser for Bill Clinton in the 92 campaign and then became a senior advisor to him for his presidency.  CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN.

“Emanuel is said to have “mailed a rotten fish to a former coworker after the two parted ways.”"

“On the night after the 1996 election, “Emanuel was so angry at the president’s enemies that he stood up at a celebratory dinner with colleagues from the campaign, grabbed a steak knife and began rattling off a list of betrayers, shouting ‘Dead! … Dead! … Dead!’ and plunging the knife into the table after every name.”“

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahm_Emanuel#Career_as_political_staffer

YES WE CAN!  This is the end to partisanship, this is a new age of politics where we can …. mail dead animals to our enemies and wish death upon them?

In 2000 President Clinton named Emanuel to the board of directors of Freddie Mac.

“During the time Emanuel spent on the board, Freddie Mac was plagued with scandals involving campaign contributions and accounting irregularities.^[25] The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) later accused the board of having “failed in its duty to follow up on matters brought to its attention.” Emanuel resigned from the board in 2001 when he ran for congress.^[26]“

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahm_Emanuel#Career_in_finance

“In 2006, Freddie Mac was forced to pay a $3.8 million fine to the Federal Election Commission to settle allegations it illegally contributed to congressional candidates between 2000 and 2003 – while Emanuel was on the board and running for and serving in Congress.

“Freddie Mac was accused of illegally using corporate resources between 2000 and 2003 for 85 fundraisers that collected about $1.7 million for federal candidates,” an Associated Press story from April 18, 2006 said. “Much of the fundraising benefited members of the House Financial Services Committee, a panel whose decisions can affect Freddie Mac.”

And, since his successful run for the House of Representatives in 2002, Emanuel has been the beneficiary of campaign cash from Freddie Mac and its sister organization Fannie Mae – $51,750 according to the Center for Responsive Politics Web site OpenSecrets.org.

Emanuel received $25,000 in contributions from Freddie Mac during his first run in 2002, right at the end of his tenure at the government-sponsored enterprise. Freddie Mac was his third largest overall contributor that year.”"

http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2008/20081106133228.aspx

2008 Contributions

Open Secrets reports that Rahm Emanuel “was the top House recipient in the 2008 election cycle of contributions from hedge funds, private equity firms and the larger securities/investment industry”.^[33]

I mean thank god big money and corruption will no longer be in the White House, thank god Obama is going to get tough on this financial crisis and punish those responsible, by making them White House staff.

I never expected much more, honestly from any president, but he was the one running on change, change we can believe in.  So as his first act he appoints a corporate banker involved in the scandals, who is a highly partisan angry politician.  This does not bode well for his message of change and healing the divide.

Perhaps next time people will learn and vote based on policies and background, not hyperbole.

President-Elect Obama

Where do I even begin with all of this?

Contrary to what people might think I’m not devastated by this loss, I’m more annoyed, disappointed and frankly motivated.  Yep Obamanation has brought me out of retirement from politics.

As I said in my intro I tend to lean more libertarian in my views these days and in no way am I a fanboy of the Republican party, and I will call them on their crap.  So let me go through the main reasons that I supported and voted for John S. McCain.

First of all, I believe in balanced government, the utter failure and mess of the last 8 years has proven that to me as I made my transition as a neo-con to a more liberty minded conservative.  When Carter had absolute control we had an absolute mess.  Now with Bush having control of all branches we’ve had an absolute mess.   As they say absolute power equals absolute corruption.  The 90′s under Clinton with the Newt House and then later the Senate things were great.  Now I don’t put this all on the split government, obviously the 90′s had incredible gains due to the massive new gains in technology especially the computer industry.  Bush’s term also had unique challenges that could not be helped.  But overall when the parties have to work together both of their more extreme views will not get through.  If they can’t find compromise, the government will do nothing.  Frankly that is often the best case possible, just having the government get out of the way.  So with the resounding wins in ’06 by the Democrats I found it imperative that John McCain win this election so that a veto could be held over the Democrats more extreme proposals.

Tax and Economic policy is the second reason I had to support McCain and why it is very unlikely I’d ever support a Democrat.  In 2011 the Bush tax cuts will expire, putting the top rates back up to the Clinton levels and far more importantly raise the capital gains rates.  You may ask me, why do you care about the rich and don’t they deserve to be taxed higher than anyone else, they are just greedy corporate assholes.  Well first of all no, but thats not the point.  The point is who actually pays those high tax rates.  My father.  My father and all the other small business owners out there, who are moderately successful.  What americans don’t get, and democrats would prefer to keep them in the dark about is that profit does not equal income.    For example my dad owns a company.  He must be rich right?  No, he pays himself much less than he deserves and works over 80 hours a week.  The rest of the money is the businesses and is needed to grow the business and hire new employees, to give employees raises, to invest in and replace equipment, etc…  That’s not my fathers money, yes he does have access to it, but that would cause the business to fail if he just took it out.  So now you are going to raise the tax on this money, that is less money either for growth (and more jobs), raises for the employees, or my dad’s own paycheck.  More importantly than that, especially personally.  My dad’s retirement is locked up in the value of the business, the value of the business is locked up in the equipment.  The equipment is depreciated.  In layman’s terms, basically the value of the equipment is lower than what its worth (accounting wise) so if he sells it for say 2mil he has to pay capital gains tax on a lot of that, it’s all considered profit.  With the massive capital gains rate changes, my fathers retirement will be cut into, and he either will have to sell off his business (and thus put around 30 people out of jobs) before the rate changes go through, or lose a good chunk of his retirement.  This class warfare the Democrats wage and intentional distortion of the facts is probably the single most damaging action they could commit.  They tell you Bush cut taxes for the rich, but it’s not true, it’s a sound-byte.  Since the richest of the rich rarely even pay that top rate, they escape it, our small businesses, those who provide the most jobs in America foot that bill.

So those are my two most important reasons for voting for John McCain, while I do agree with him more on other issues such as health care.  Now obviously things didn’t turn out as I would have hoped so now I would like to discuss my analysis of the election  and why I’m really not that upset.

This should have been an easy blowout yet it ended up being far closer than one would have expected.  After 8 years of republican corruption and some failed policies, the abysmal approval ratings of W, and a tanked economy the Democrats should have run away with it.

Obama I believe won for 3 major reasons

1.  He is very charismatic and created a bit of a cult following

This is the one that bothers me the most and really makes me pessimistic about our citizens and the future of this country.  I can’t count the number of people I spoke to after he won who were screaming GO OBAMA, WE WON, WE’LL HAVE CHANGE.  So I instituted a policy that I would not discuss the election with an Obama supporter who can not tell me 5 specific policies of his.  Or barring that if they were very anti-McCain, 5 specific policies of McCain.  Every single one failed me.  I heard things like he’s bringing change! I know often and in both parties, there are just partisan voters who will vote for and R or a D without even knowing what they stand for, but this cult following for Obama I believe was much more exaggerated than normal voter ignorance.

2. African American vote and the first black candidate

While I am excited to see the day that the first black President will take the White House and it is a a historic occasion and a great victory for civil rights, I’m disappointed that people would vote on that basis alone.  To vote for a woman candidate or black candidate purely on the basis of color or sex is just as bad as voting against them.  It’s racism pure and simple, anyone who voted for McCain because they didn’t want a black president is racist and anyone voted for Obama just because they want a black candidate is racist.  The only way to true equality is pure color blindness.  The extremely high black turnout in key states such as VA and NC and other states was a deciding factor in this race.

3. Dissatisfaction with Republicans

Obviously there is a lot of dissatisfaction with the GOP after 8 years of complete power, and on some issues I can’t blame the people.  The massive spending and debts, the failed strategy initially in the war, the corruption of many Republican politicians. Basically they abandoned their principles and what they were elected for.  This factor pushed a lot of moderate Republicans and Independents into the Obama coalition.

Even with all these factors, this election could have easily gone the other way and despite the large difference in electoral votes, most of the swing states weren’t won by that huge of a margin. FL, OH, NC, VA all could have and should have remained in the GOP column. So why couldn’t McCain pull them off?

1.  Sarah Palin

Now unlike the rabid haters of her, I think she actually would have done a fine job.  I disagree with her strongly on some of her social issues, but as governor she’s been very successful and is the most popular governor in the country.  She was strong and knowledgeable on energy issues in a pressing time for such issues, as well as she appears to be less corrupt (which is all we can hope for with politicians) than most out there, even taking on her own party in Alaska.  But her rather radical (to mainstream America) social views turned off the independents and moderate republicans as well as rallied the feminist vote.  Many have said that she rallied the base and on that alone she was a good selection.  While true, I believe that the base could have been rallied against Obama anyways and you still could have made a conservative pick, but one that wasn’t quite as outspoken on certain issues.  Also the democrats effectively used her “inexperience” and the “heart beat way” argument to scare people away from considering the McCain campaign.

2. Poorly run campaign

Consistently throughout the campaign mistakes were made.  The most consistent one was never really sticking to one tactic and pounding it home.  They went hard on Obama, then soft, then economy, then reform,  then country first, then at the end constant attacks.  McCain had a good platform, his policies are the ones that America really does support, but he could never get them out.  Palin became a distraction and the Obama campaign effectively linked McCain to Bush.  As to the Palin pick it took the best card out of the McCain deck with the inexperience argument, that argument was gaining traction and even before Palin was on the ticket McCain was gaining ground.  The second she was selected they stopped using that tactic and the democrats were given a reprieve for the most inexperienced candidate in modern times.

So where does that leave us?  Should we be freaking out?  No, I actually believe we are in a very good situation.  I believe liberty loving conservatives (note I am not saying Republicans, because many republicans do not fit that mold) have a major opportunity here.  Obama is going to struggle keeping his campaign promises and coalition together.   The far left of his group wants health care, education, wealth redistribution etc…  The middle of his campaign were more dissatisfied with how things were going and won’t buy into those programs.  If he governs from the center he loses that base, if he governs from the left he loses the key elements that gave him the victory in the first place.  Even beyond that in the current economic times he can’t afford his policies without bankrupting the nation or jacking up taxes on everyone.

Also people seem to forget that while Bush and the GOP may be very damaged in the minds of Americans.  Congresses overall approval rating is actually lower than Bush’s.  Yes the democratic controlled congress is less popular than the President.

With the challenges Obama and the Dem congress face I truly believe we can make gains in ’10 and ’12.

So what do we do now?  We go out there, we support liberty minded individuals, no matter what party they are in.  There is a lot of talk from the far right that the moderates lost this for us and from the moderates that the far right lost it.  Both are wrong.  America is first and foremost a rather libertarian (if not officially) country.  Our rights end where yours begin.  Small government, fiscal responsibility, social freedoms consistently over and over succeed in this country.

I for one am very motivated to get involved again, work for candidates (not parties) I believe in from a local level up.  Furthmore I encourage all of you to get involved as well, voting is the bare mininum of your civic involvement.  Go to local party events and meetings, volunteer, support candidates you believe in.  Talk to your friends and neighbors.   When the current people in power mess up or are about to, call your Representatives and Senators.

In short do not mourn this election see it as an opportunity to unite and work towards making this country great again.