Congressional Elections

I had hoped that McCain's selection of Sarah Palin would put him ahead of Obama once and for all. Her selection was in my opinion one of the great political strategy moves of all time. It caught Obama flat footed, galvanized the conservative base, brought more women into Republican side and laid the groundwork for a new generation of Republican conservatives.

I wanted McCain to get ahead so we could put more emphasis on the congressional elections. Republicans really need to recapture congress now more than ever before. The financial mess that just exploded onto the scene demands a lot of attention and we can't trust Democrats to do what is needed.

What is just as important as the financial meltdown is the energy problem. Democrats have already demonstrated that they will no allow expanded exploration and drilling for oil in American waters or other likely areas onshore. What is just as important as drilling for new sources is to build new refineries in areas outside the hurricane zone. Ike proved that a hurricane in the Gulf has an immediate negative impact on oil prices and availability. We have all our eggs in ine basket and desperately need to start locating refineries in other regions.

Probably the biggest thing we need to do and what the Democrats will block if they stay in power is to capitalize on our abundant natural gas reserves. We not only need to drill for more natural gas, we need to build more pipelines to make natural gas available to over 90% of homes and to natural gas fueling stations for cars.

In my opinion, we desperately need to oust the democrats from their majorities in congress. If we don't, we are going to have energy shortages on a massive scale and we will be even more dependent on oil from the middle east. Democrats simply will not address those issues and they will put this country on a path to ruin.

Chuck

Second Childhood

Sometimes I wonder what made me do something like I did today. I bought a Triumph motorcycle.

I have had the itch to do a restoration on an old Triumph for a good while and finally I bit the bullet and bought a 1972 Bonneville. I would have preferred to do a 1968 but all of them that I found were either choppers or priced a lot higher than I was willing to pay. The 1972 is the same style so it really doesn't matter all that much.

I really enjoy bringing an old car or motorcycle back to a like new condition. I have 2 Chevelles, 1966 and 1967 that I restored and the experience was very satisfying.

The good part of this Triumph is that it has a clear title, the bike hasn't been butchered by making it a chopper or bobber. It has all the elements to be better than new when I finish it.

I guess us old retired old men have to do something to keep us out of trouble.

Chuck

Why I Dislike Obama

I finally figured out why I dislike Obama so much. It isn't that he is an inexperienced, liberal democrat who will promise anything and deliver nothing. It isn't that he has abandoned everyone close to him that became an inconvenience. It isn't even his defeatist stance on the war in Iraq. None of those things bother me all that much. What really bothers me is his SMUGNESS.

When he speaks, Obama affects poses he thinks portrays him as a great thinker, and uses voice inflections reminiscent of MLK. Watching Obama is almost like looking at a hologram, all visual and no substance.

I can just imagine how Putin would react to Obama putting on one of his holier than thou acts at a conference table. He would peel the hide off him and walk out of the room. Conference over, Obama lost everything.

I hope people get over this infatuation with Obama before the election. We are facing some of the most dangerous times we have ever faced and Obama hasn't a clue.

Chuck

Obama the Weenie

I have never been one to make excuses or to blame someone or something for my failings. God only knows I have had enough of them but I always owned up to them.

This business I've been seeing about McCain cheating in the Evangelical Forum Saturday night just cements my opinion that Obama is a cry baby and that he would fall apart like a cheap suit in any confrontational situation. I can just imagine him sitting across the table from Putin trying to reach an agreement on anything. Putin would walk away with all the marbles and Obama would be sitting there with his face hanging out.

We don't need a milquetoast for president. We need someone with principles and convictions who will go to the mats defending them. Obama has neither and he wouldn't go to the mats to protect his own family.

Chuck

Fight Fair- My Wrinkeled Old Ass

When I was in 4th or 5th grade, there were 5 cousins from my neighborhood who decided it would be fun to hassel me while we were waiting for school to open for the day. We were all within a year or 2 in age so we were always in fairly close proximity.

They started the hasseling by hiding my books so I would be late to class so I started keeping my books with me. Then they started pushing me around. They would get in a circle around me and push me back and forth between them. So I started staying in a group where it wasn't easy to single me out. Then they started hasseling me at recess. They would throw the softball at me rather than to the baseman or they would slide into a base and deliberately kick me or whatever.

My Mother was a member of the PTA and came to the school one morning while they were hasseling me. She had always told me not to get into fights at school and to be "nice". When she told my Dad about the Nease boys pushing me around we were at the dinner table. My Dad didn't say anything during dinner but afterward he took me out to the porch and gave me some of the best advice of my life.

My Dad told me to never be a bully and try to look tough and to never start a fight. He went on to say that if the Nease boys continued to hassel me I should defend myself and that if I couldn't avoid a fight then I should win. He made it very clear that the only way to stop a bully is to whip his ass and that that was what he expected me to do- win.

My situation was that I was being bullied by 5 boys who were about my age and size. My Dad made it clear that there is no such thing as a fair fight. If I had to defend myself the aggressor deserved what he got and that that I should pound him so bad that he would never even consider messing with me again.

I took my Dad's advice to heart. I was in the bathroom when one of the Nease boys came in alone and called me chicken shit. I didn't say a word to him I just kicked him in the nuts as hard as I could. Needless to say he wasn't able to put up much of a fight after that and I shoved his face into the urinal.

After school that day the word had gotten around about what I had done and the Nease boys were going to get even. I was scared but for some reason I looked forward to the confrontation. I walked out onto the playground and sure enough here came all 5 of the Nease boys. When they got close to me the other kids on the playground gathered around to watch me get pounded. What no one knew was that I had slipped out of the building earlier and put a broken off broom handle where I could easily get to it.

As the Nease boys got closer, I pulled the broom handle from it's hiding place and started wailing away on them . I beat the living shit out of them while they were yelling "fight fair" and while I was beating hell out of them the other kids started cheering me on. I was elated that I had support and when I finished cleaning the Nease boy's clocks I told them that I would fight all of them in a "fair fight" one at a time.

While the other kids kept the other Nease boys from jumping in I fought Ronnie. He was the ringleader and I have to say it felt good to whip his ass with my bare hands. I never had a problem with the Nease boys after that but the advice my Dad gave me has stuck with me all of my life.

I can honestly say I have never started a fight in my life but on those occassions when I couldn't avoid one "fighting fair" never occured to me. I have bitten, kicked, gouged, scratched, pulled and pushed my way through a lot of fights in my life and I don't believe I ever lost one.

The point of all this personal history is that we are seeing Russia becoming a bully again. We need to make sure that Russia knows that we won't "fight fair" if they try to bully us. If we don't stand up to Russia and kick them in the nuts they will just keep on bullying and then we will have to pull out the broom handle. Now is the time to stop the Russian bully before he thinks he can just push his neighbors around without paying the consequences.

Chuck

Quit Running and Fight

I saw at Flopping Aces that a Russian had said the Georgian Army must have been trained by Americans since they ran at the first confrontation. I hate that this is the way the world sees us today but to be honest about it there is some validity to the statement.

I have no idea what caused our politicians to believe that quitting a war is the best way to go but if one considers that starting with Korea all of our conflicts have ended with less than total victory. We had kicked the North Korean's asses all the way up to the Yalu river when the Chinese swarmed across the border and initially kick our asses. That was a relatively short lived setback and we recovered to push them back to whence they came. But what did we do once we had the situation under control and signed a truce that gave North Korea all of it's lost territory back and left Korea a divided nation.

The end result of the Korean War, they called it a Police Action during the war, is that we are now worried that North Korea is developing a nuclear weapon and the means of delivering it to our shores. So much for a negotiated peace. As soon as we turn our back we get stabbed.

Vietnam was much the same as Korea but we went one better and put rules of engagement in place that cost us thousands of lives and allowed North Vietnam to recover from every major defeat we handed them and to infiltrate their Army into South Vietnam through neighboring countries. We didn't lose the war in Vietnam, we gave it away.

In the Gulf War in 1991, we beat hell out of the Iraqis and could have easily taken the entire country but what did we do? We handed Saddam his country back and let him murder thousands of his citizens. We did this because we virtually destroyed his army on the highway of death and we were concerned that the rest of the world would think we were mean for wiping out an army that was running away.

We cut and ran in Somalia and Lebanon because the Somalis dragged our dead troops through the streets and we left Lebanon because a suicide bomber blew up the Marine barracks. Both of these retreats were shameful and should not have happened. But look at what we have now. Somalia is a chaotic mess that harbors terrorists and lets pirates prey on ships that come close. Lebanon is in the hands of Hezbolla and foments terror attacks on Israel fot Iran.

At some point we need to change the way we deal with military situations. I would like to see us return to a philosophy of total victory and accept nothing less than unconditional surrender fro our adversaries. We should make it clear to every country in the world that any attack on a US citizen, military installation, ship or plane will be met with the full force of our military up to and including a nuclear attack.

We need to tell Pakistan that we are going to destroy the safe haven that Bin Laden is enjoying unless Pakistan does it themselves. They should be told that we don't want to violate their borders but we will in necessary and they had best not try to do anything about it.

The US should pull out of the UN and form an organization of democracies. Those democracies should have a full committment to each other much like NATO used to have. We shoul also break away from NATO and align ourselves with countries who still have the guts to fight when necessary. France, Germany and most of the EU countries need not apply. They have depended on the US to do the heavy lifting long enough. Look at the "help" NATO is giving us in Afghanistan. It is a joke.

I am sick of fair weather friends who willingly take our money, let our military protect them and rely on us for technological advances while they stab us in the back in the UN and bad mouth us on everything.

It is time to elect some politicians who have guts and who are not afraid of confrontation. Obama is not one of these and 99% of our Senators and Congresspersos don't fill the bill either.

Chuck

Obama and the Economy

I watched most of Obama's speech today in Michigan and finally had to turn it off because with every word he demonstrated just how unaware of how the economy and the rules of supply and demand work. He held out a fig leaf to the Michigan audience by promising that he is going to make the auto manufacturers start producing energy efficient cars and how that will create more "good union jobs" in Michigan.

Obama doesn't seem to comprehend that he can't make the auto makers do anything unless he declares a national emergency and puts industry on a wartime footing. He also doesn't seem to understand that the Detroit automakers are rapidly going bankrupt because of the "good union jobs".

Any move by automakers toward alternative fuel powered cars will probably be by manufacturers located outside Detroit and they will probably be made in new manufacturing facilities located in states that are business friendly. Low state tax rates, right to work laws, work forces that actually want to work and functioning local governments will attract the new plants and Detroit will continue to slide downhill.

Obama promised to give everyone a $1000.00 rebate to help offset the high cost of gasoline which he intends to fund with windfall taxes on the oil companies "obscene" profits. Obama doesn't seem to understand the difference in gross profits and profit margins. If he imposes windfall taxes on gross profits, the oil companies will go broke in a hurry. Then where will we be?

When Obama speaks about the economy, its almost like John Edwards wrote the speech. Big oil, big pharma, big this, big that they are all evil and must be taxed to death. Where does Obama think the money for the research and development that gives the US the lead in developing new drugs or the money to develop new forms of energy will come from. Does he expect it to come from the government? That would require higher taxes than Obama has already proposed.

I think Obama is finally on the verge of putting himself in a corner he won't be able to talk his way out of. He is making promises that the public knows he can't keep. Most people have a better understanding of economics than Obama is giving them credit for. People don't like to be played for fools and Obama is about to step over that line.

Look for Obama to start sliding in the polls soon.

Chuck