Mayday, Mayday...Pull the Cord, Maverick! Pull the Cord!!!

John McCain, in a colossal blunder tonight, just revealed his plan to win the election. Socialism, Republican-style.
Oh, my goodness. Now we're going to "bail out" the irresponsible "grass roots" that contributed to this credit mess. Let's not allow the market to adjust naturally by allowing unemployed and asset-less borrowers to reap the whirlwind of their irresponsibility. Instead, let's allow the responsible borrowers to subsidize others' short-sightedness in a misguided and transparent pander which will undoubtedly eventually further destabilize the lending market.

As a tax-paying, hard-working, debt-leveraged Veteran and worried home-owner and householder, allow me to be one of the first to tell John McCain "no thanks".

You were ready to sacrifice an election to win a shooting war. Now it is time to sacrifice an election to win an ideological one.

If we conservatives give in to the notion that the government is responsible for saving citizens from their own poor decisions, then the Republican Party has truly lost its moral authority on all matters financial. I'm sorry, Senator McCain, but this is where we truly part ways.

I respect you. I honor your service to our country and unmistakable courage as a POW. I admire your willingness to stand your ground, even against your own party, when you feel they are wrong. So please understand and respect my position that what you suggested tonight is more than simply a ham-handed attempt to change your downward slide in the polls. To me, this identifies you irrevocably as part of the very problem that has led me to oppose Barry Obama. If you continue on this poorly-considered vote-grabbing pandering course, I will feel forced to waste my vote on the Libertarians.

Please reconsider, or I fear all will truly be lost.

Redistribute. It's the (new) American Way.

I found Obama's performance tonight to be flawless. He spoke just like George Soros taught him. I'll give it to him. He is about the most eloquent spokesman for communism I've ever heard. What a pity the Cold War ended already. He'd have been a shoe-in for information minister under Andropov or Khrushchev.

When did it become a crime to make it? When did it become the government's responsibility to make sure your children were taken care of? I guess I missed the memo. Here I am, trying to ensure a better life for my son, and all the time, I could have been depending on Barney Frank to take better care of him than I ever could have dreamed.

Incidentally, I found it interesting that "health care is a right...in a country as wealthy as ours...". I guess that, once again, I was operating on the outdated notion that "rights" were those things that were assumed as part of a universal belief about people's place in the universe. Apparently, health care is a right in America, but not in the Congo. Not in the Sudan. Not in any less "fortunate" country. It's good to know.

I move that we also amend our Declaration of Independence to specify that only Americans are endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights to Life, Libery, and Property. After all, we are the only ones who can afford such luxuries...right, Senator Obama? I guess the rest of the world can just suffer until your far-sighted generosity touches them. After all, YOU (and your party) are the true guarantors of all real "rights". Until the colossal thieves Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, Barack ("the One") Obama, and the Obama Youth are on board, all such claims to these heretofore "rights" are simply rhetoric.

Please, Senator Obama. Please let us poor sheep know which rights we can afford under your New Plan for America. Far be it from me to be so presumptuous as to claim rights to which I am untitled due to my poor position in life. We await Thy Glorious pronouncement.

Barack Obama - Criticize at your own Peril

In an A.P. article this morning, it was suggested that criticisms by Governor Sarah Palin of Senator Barack Obama's past (and present) radical acquaintances and friends are, in a word, racist. This is exactly the kind of conversation-squelching race-card playing that his campaign has perfected, not over the past couple of years, but apparently over his entire adult life. He is a career race-baiter and brow-beating thug.

Okay. Let’s just take the whole color thing off the table for a moment. Not that I am forgetting about it, of course, because it is extremely important, and I will get to it later.

Senator Barack Obama is a radical terrorist sympathizer. It’s true. There is no reason to believe, unless you are simply predisposed to take him at his word that he would not continue to be a terrorist sympathizer once in the White House. I know. You are in shock at my candor on this subject. And some of you, perhaps many of you, are thinking the same thing right now – the “r” word (racist). I’d like to tackle this issue in two parts. I’ll start by backing up my assertion that Senator Obama has habitually cozied up to terrorists and radicals.

From his very earliest days as a Columbia University student with political aspirations, Barack Obama has been groomed, trained, and protected by some of the most notorious America-haters known. Almost as soon as he arrived in New York, possibly before, he was under the tutelage and supervision of the radical and controversial leader of the so-called Nation of Islam and well-documented white-hater and race-baiter Louis Farakhan. He was likely accepted into Harvard Law School as a result of the introductions made for him by Farakhan, most notably to an advisor to a Saudi Arabian prince. It has been speculated and not denied that Obama’s law school education was paid-for by this Saudi sheik.

Once in Chicago, Obama was immediately snapped up into the world of ACORN as a community organizer, where he became acquainted with William Ayers, former 1960s radical and member of the Weather Underground. Ayers is an unrepentant terrorist, and has made recent statements that indicate that violent acts against the government might still be necessary in order to perpetuate his radical agenda.

Ayers and Obama co-chaired a foundation which funneled funds into ACORN projects, including one designed by Obama himself while the lead trainer at ACORN – the use of intimidation and bullying tactics to force local banks to make ridiculous loans (so-called NINJA [“no income, no job, no assets”]) to local black citizens. ACORN then funneled money back towards Obama when he first ran for elected office in Chicago. It should be noted that at the center of the recent mortgage credit crisis lies ACORN and their work to force loans to happen that could never be paid back as a form of social engineering. These bad loans were eventually packaged up and sold to Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, and when they began to be defaulted upon, started the fall of dominoes that led to the recent $700B bailout. This sort of takes the punch out of Obama's recent assertion that this mortgage problem suddenly appeared out of thin air the instant G.W. Bush was elected. It also makes one wonder how on earth he could go about fixing a problem, the origins of which he either forgot or refuses to acknowledge.

For twenty years, Barack Obama attended a church led by a violently radical race-baiting, white-hating pastor, Jeremiah Wright. He was married to Michelle in that church by Reverend Wright. Reverend Wright baptized his children. There really are only three possibilities: (1) Obama truly was oblivious for twenty years about what went on in that church (ignorance or naiveté of an unprecedented scale); (2) Obama knew what that church was all about but couldn’t afford, for political reasons, to leave (cowardice and self-centeredness); or (3) he knew very well what the church was about and stayed there because he tacitly agreed with what Wright preached. Is he naive, cowardly, or dastardly? I'm just asking. I still haven't been satisfied with his failure to answer simple questions about this.

Antoin (“Tony”) Rezko, a Syrian businessman and recently-indicted real estate developer in Chicago, has had a close personal relationship with Obama for years. In fact, Obama and Rezko secured their new home properties on adjacent lots in the same very well-to-do Chicago suburb on the same day – three weeks after Iraqi billionaire Nadhmi Auchi loaned $3.5million for the purchase. There is more than enough to be curious about the relationship between Obama and Rezko.

Obama’s campaign has been in frequent contact with Hamas, a known terrorist group, during this campaign, so much so that when it was discovered, they felt it necessary to fire Robert Malley, a chief Obama advisor, to avoid the obvious political fallout. This never really materialized, of course, because the mainstream media outlets are too busy drooling and trying to get their next opportunity for "Cooking with Barack and Michelle".

So what does all this mean? Does it mean that Obama is Al Qaeda’s “man on the inside”? Of course not. Although it does seem to indicate a certain level of comfort with people that most of us, especially us whites who seem to be the target of the rage of lots of Obama’s friends and acquaintances, might find less-than-fun dinner companions.

I never like the “shoe-on-the-other-foot” technique of argument. But here it seems rather appropriate. Let’s imagine a candidate – a white candidate. This candidate goes to a white supremacist church for 20 years, then claims he didn’t know that it was preaching white supremacy, after it is conclusively demonstrated that he was there when the “hate message” was being preached. Far from being shocked and horrified at that message, he stays there. He gets married by the white supremacist preacher. He lets that same preacher baptize his children. Would that bother you?

Now let’s say he could be definitively linked to running in the same circle as Tim McVeigh, or perhaps the Unabomber? Moreover, he lived on the same street as the Unabomber, as well as the same street as a well-known Aryan Brotherhood leader who had called for the destruction of all black people? Would that bother you? Would it make you a racist to point out all those oddities?

I, for one, don’t think that would make you a racist. I think that would make you a thoughtful voter. So when you call those of us racists that want to make sure we aren’t electing a radical, a friend of known terrorists, just know how incredibly defensive and silly you sound. There is truly a limit to being “The Devil’s Advocate”.

Way To Go, Sarah!

She did what she had to do last night. She seemed at-ease and comfortable, and in fairly-good command of the issues. She came off as a very refreshing antidote to the consummate boring double-talking insider Biden.

I was thinking last night right before the debate started that she would hardly be human if she wasn't thinking, in some deep dark part of her psyche,

"What in the world am I doing? Am I doing the right thing? Am I the right person for this? Can I - should I - put my family through this? What would happen if I just left? Maybe I should just run out of here and back to Alaska where people understand me, love me, respect me..."

She didn't run. She girded herself, swallowed hard, and did what Americans are supposed to be the best in the world at - kicking butt when it counts the most. I am so very proud of her.

I am also proud of all the people who joined with us to pray for her and her family. Most of all, I am proud and incredibly thankful that we have the ability to speak to Our Father anytime, anywhere, and about anything. It is so nice to be in His family.

This isn't over, of course. Today, the attacks will continue and even intensify. We have to commit to continuing to pray for her and for our country in these dark times. Thanks, everybody.

_______________________________________

On another front...

Is it just me, or is everybody thoroughly confused now about this bailout deal?

I understand the problem, I think. Bill Clinton put pressure on the central bank to institute a practice of lending money to people that couldn't possibly pay it back as yet another social welfare program. In his mind, I guess, home-ownership (like health care) is one of those inalienable but unmentioned "human rights". Now those bad mortgages have begun to be defaulted on in large numbers, and the people holding those mortgages can't sell them. The banks invested in them are failing, now, and have no credit to lend to anyone.

Where I get sketchy, though, is in the following...

1. How exactly does $700Billion fix all of that?

2. What would really happen if we said "no" to the bailout deal?

3. What should we be doing to prepare?

Help me out with this one, okay? I really don't get it. I don't know if I should be calling my Representative and telling them to do it, or warning them not to do it.

A Prayer for Sarah

I don't think any of us really know what kind of person Sarah Palin is. There seem to be a couple of extremes of thought, to be sure - some of her most ardent fans would claim that she is the savior of the Republic, her enemies paint her as a danger to everything American, a Bible-thumping "fundamentalist" idiot. Both of these extremes almost certainly leave something to be desired.

Despite my initial positive gut reaction to her, therefore, I had withheld final judgment until we could see more of her. What I found was that I was watching the wrong person.

Sarah Palin is what she is. She is a human being - a driven and successful American woman. She is very much like many of us - with some weaknesses, some strengths, some tragedies, some joys. I'm sure that we could learn a lot about her, given more time, and our opinions might change for the better or for the worse. I find, however, that I am learning more about Sarah Palin from her enemies.

She has been in the public eye for a very few weeks. In that time, she has inspired a kind of rage and vitreol I've not seen before in my lifetime. She has been accused of graft and corruption - no evidence could be found. She has been accused of being a political novice - I've tried to figure out how on earth that could be a bad thing. She has been attacked for having too many children. She has been ridiculed for her down-home persona. Hundreds of thousands of dollars of campaign money have been spent to dig up dirt on her...the result? She tans.

She has been interviewed by our "elite" media sneeringly and mockingly. She has been asked unanswerable questions, then bashed for not answering to their satisfaction, then dismissed as stupid and naive. Her 17-year-old daughter has been exposed to a ridiculous level of scrutiny for becoming pregnant then doing the most responsible thing and keeping the baby and marrying the father. She has had her personal emails hacked, stolen, and then leaked in a barely-reported federal crime. Her husband has been accused of incest, and her special-needs son was offered for sale on eBay by some of the radical liberals who oppose her.

All of this combines to reveal something. Although we don't know Sarah Palin very well by her own words and actions yet, we are learning much about her from the people who despise her. She is hated with a kind of hatred I've never before seen in this country. The term "rabid" comes to mind. These are the people who want to run our country.

With all this in mind, my family and I have been praying for Sarah this week. We will be praying for her tonight before and during her debate - lifting her up to a merciful Father in prayer. I do this partly because I think that someone like her might be good for a change - the other three people involved in this contest are all parts of the problem to varying degrees, in my opinion. And I do this partly because I hurt for her and her family. It hurts me that this is what happens when we send one of our normal American citizens to Washington. They are given a choice between corruption and personal destruction. She chose to be strong, so she and her family must pay the price of their insolence against the power structure.

I want to be clear about this. I am not making the claim that Palin is "God's candidate" or anything of the sort. I am not even praying that she wins the debate tonight necessarily. The election will go as God wills, if we will pray to Him about it. What I am praying for is that her enemies who have attacked her and her innocent family so cruelly and without basis and without mercy will be thouroughly confounded and put to shame.

I invite all of you to pray for Sarah today and tonight. I ask you to pray for her family. She must be under a kind of pressure few of us can even fathom. You and I know, however, that the One to whom we pray is greater than all of this, and is able to make her personally victorious, even if not outwardly. I invite you to pray with me for our very sick country, that God will heal it. Surely this is not the America our forefathers envisioned. I am praying that her enemies will become confused, that God will protect his daughter with his angels, that He will prepare her mind and spirit for the battle tonight, and that God's perfect will will be done. I offer the following verses from His Word as thought points as we go into spiritual battle along with her...

When you go to war against your enemies and see horses and chariots and an army greater than yours, do not be afraid of them, because the LORD your God, who brought you up out of Egypt, will be with you. 2 When you are about to go into battle, the priest shall come forward and address the army. 3 He shall say: "Hear, O Israel, today you are going into battle against your enemies. Do not be fainthearted or afraid; do not be terrified or give way to panic before them. 4 For the LORD your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory."

- Deuteronomy 20:1-4

Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you."

-Deuteronomy 31:6

But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. "Do not fear what they fear ; do not be frightened."
- 1 Peter 3:14

... say to those with fearful hearts, "Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you."
Isaiah 41:10So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
- Isaiah 35:4

Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.They are brought to their knees and fall, but we rise up and stand firm.
Psalm 20: 7-8

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?
Psalm 27:1

The LORD is the strength of his people, a fortress of salvation for his anointed one.
Psalm 28:8

Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord!
Psalm 31:24

God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.
Psalm 46:1

But I will sing of your strength, in the morning I will sing of your love; for you are my fortress, my refuge in times of trouble.
Psalm 59:16

Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
Isaiah 41:10

For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.

1 Corinthians 1:25

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.

Ephesians 6:10

I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Philippians 4:13

Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,

- 2 Timothy 3:12

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.
Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name.

- 1 Peter 4:12-14, 16

But the Lord is with me as a dread warrior;therefore my persecutors will stumble;they will not overcome me.They will be greatly shamed,for they will not succeed.Their eternal dishonorwill never be forgotten.

- Jeremiah 20:11

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

- Matthew 5:10-12

“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.

- John 15:18-20

Hang in there Sarah. You are not alone in this.

That Familiar Smell Is...Janet Reno???

Check out the latest stunt by the devotees of His Worship. You can almost hear the goose-stepping boots. You can almost smell the burning "fundamentalist" compounds. Not so fast, ATF snipers! Your job security just went through the roof! I guess this is the Obama cult we can get used to for the next few years.

Resistance is futile. Dissent will be crushed.

Funding Medical Research - the Cruel Calculus of Inequity

The leading causes of death in 2005 (and the number of people who died as a result) in the United States are listed below.

1. Heart disease 652,091
2. Cancer 559,312
3. Stroke (cerebrovascular disease) 143,579
4. Chronic lower respiratory diseases 130,933
5. Accidents (unintentional injuries) 117,809
6. Diabetes 75,119
7. Alzheimer's disease 71,599
8. Influenza/Pneumonia 63,001
9. Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, nephrosis 43,901
10. Septicemia 34,136

What I would like to point out is that the deaths related to Human Immunodeficiency Virus and AIDS for 2005 totaled 16,865. In 2006, the number of deaths declined to just over 14,600. Please compare to the above numbers.

Now take a look at the U.S. Federal funding and compare.

HIV/AIDS: $2,921,000,000

Heart Disease and all related research: $ 5,510,000,000
All Cancers (including childhood cancers): $ 7,862,000,000
Stroke/Cerebrovascular Disease: $ 342,000,000

Chronic Lung Diseases (including smoking and tobacco research): $ 2,089,000,000

Accidents: $ 729,000,000

You get the idea. There seems to be little rhyme or reason to the funding strategy. In 2005, the government spent nearly over 53% as much on AIDS/HIV research as it did on heart disease research. This, at the same time that deaths due to heart disease were over 38-times as common as deaths from AIDS. When a simple formula is used to compare the amount of money spent per death by each disease (perhaps a better measurement of the tangible emphasis placed on each disease), the results are as follows:

HIV/AIDS: $173,198.93

Heart Disease: $ 8,449.74
All Cancers (including childhood cancers): $ 14,056.56

Stroke (and cerebrovascular disease) $ 2,381.90

Chronic Lung Diseases: $ 15,954.72

Accidents (including childhood accidents): $ 6,187.98

Is this kind of analysis cold and unfeeling? Possibly. Don't believe me? You are welcome to do the math yourself. I got my figures from the National Institutes of Health. Just keep in mind - these are exactly the same kinds of analyses that will be performed by whoever ends up holding the keys to our healthcare alone and without competition.

Another interesting fact about the numbers from 2005: We spent $2.7 Billion on researching "Health Disparities" and another $2.4 Billion on researching "Minority Health Care". I wonder how many lives of all colors this $5.1 Billion might have saved - I am guessing quite a few. It nearly equals the amount spent on researching our number one killer, heart disease.

This same government is the one to which we are asked to entrust our health care under a government-dominated single-payer system. If this should happen, I believe there are two possible outcomes. Either the government will continue this ridiculous and indefensible disparity in the outlays for research funding, out of fear of the rabid special interests, or they will realize that the only pragmatic course is to base funding on the actualities of the impacts of these various diseases. Somehow, I feel sure that those that support AIDS funding well over and above its due will not go quietly.

I ask you to examine yourself. Don't worry, there's nobody around. Let yourself go to the logical place it wants to, without fear of retribution from those who oppose that logic. Ask yourself these questions...

1. How many people do I know personally who have had heart disease, stroke, or cancer?
2. How many people do I know personally who have had AIDS or HIV?
3. How many dollars have I personally seen spent on catheterizations or open heart surgery for heart disease, on MRIs and CT scans for strokes and suspected strokes, on medications for heart disease or cerebrovascular disease, on chemotherapy and/or radiation for cancers?
4. How many innocent children are we willing to sacrifice to childhood cancer?
5. Is it fair that we spend nearly two thousand percent more per capita on AIDS and HIV research than we spend on the number one killer in America, Heart Disease? Or that we spend seventy-three-thousand percent more on HIV/AIDS per capita than is spent on stroke and cerebrovascular disease, a disease that killed nearly nine times as many people?Is this justifiable, by any stretch of the imagination?

6. Is it equitable to spend the same amount of precious federal research funds on researching health inequity and minority health care as we do on heart disease?

I have already made it clear how I feel. Now I invite you to make your own conclusions. Is AIDS research important? Of course. It is critical, however, if we are to call ourselves a nation that practices "evidence-based" and "outcomes-based" medicine, that we either justify this seemingly ridiculous disparity, or that we correct it.

People are dying as we speak. Let's get this right.