***BIG CHANGES IN THE WORKS***

***BIG CHANGES IN THE WORKS***

Be sure to stay tuned to this blog over the next couple of weeks. There are some fundamental changes in the works for this blog.

October 23, 2008

Awesome!!!

I have to give props to my brother who has made his first break into the "blogosphere". He's writing a sports blog titled "Skiman Sports". Check it out.

I guess it's kind of like a sports talk radio show but on a blog. Nothing like a blog with a clear cut mission on subject matter... more than I can say about this mish-mash of random thoughts I put down here!

Perhaps following his discussions on sports will give me something else to think about other than current events, politics and the government.

October 22, 2008

What the hell is up with this blog lately???

As of late, the subject matter of my blog has turned primarily to politics and current events. Many of my deep thoughts and feelings regarding my world outlook have spilled over onto these pages. I certainly hope that the readers are not too judgemental towards my character if they do not agree with what they read.

Over the past year this blog has undergone constant growing pains as I have tried to figure out what to write about here. Sometimes I write about what I am doing in my personal life, what I am reading about, movies, photos, travels... and other times, it's politics and current events.

Right now my mind has been very much preoccupied with the elections and politics. As such, that's what the reader gets from me. It's not that I write to sway any opinions but rather to inform. I take pride in reading and learning as much as I can about how this screwed up complex world works. Because of this, every time I learn something new that is not common knowledge, I can not help but feel the need to get behind a podium and scream "HEY! Look at this! No one tells you about this! This is important!"

I would tell you that I would tone down the writings about current events, politics, the economy, etc., but it would be a lie.

October 10, 2008

Mr. Jones' Neighbor Rediscovers the American Dream.

Yesterday I was feeling pretty sad. As I thought more and more about the economic news of the past few weeks, some things began to become clear to me. Usually clarity brings about a sense of calmness and understanding, but what has become clear to me this time brought on only sadness.

The perilous state of our economy during the past few weeks has left many losing a great deal of their hard-earned wealth. This is manifesting its self in lost jobs, foreclosed homes, lack of available loans and lost value in retirement funds and savings.

I have a theory about what this could mean.

There is discussion now about the American Dream being lost. The dream is one of owning your own home, a nice car and having that well paying job that will propel you into a life of luxury. It is essentially the dream of keeping up with the family next door… keeping up with the Joneses. It is about having the bigger house, the greener lawn, driving the nicer car and going on the more exotic vacation than the Jones family next door. You work long hours of overtime at your high paying high stress job to fund the efforts to keep up with the Joneses. In the process you fail to notice your son growing up. You miss his little league games. He loses out on having an attentive father. Without the attention and motivation he needs from his parents... he drops out of high school, becomes addicted to drugs. Your daughter ends up getting pregnant as a teenager because her parents were never home. And since you are working so much, your wife is lonely and resorts to sleeping with Mr. Jones next door. While all this is happening, you are overtaken with impatience and greed on this quest and you manage to bury your self in tens of thousands of dollars of credit card debt living beyond your means.

Now that the economy is sliding downhill, we as a nation stand to lose many of these things that we have so readily associated with the American Dream. Call this what you want... fate, coincidence or devine providence but our nation needs this. It is only then, when we have lost these material things, that we will learn as a nation what is of true value to us. Our families... husbands and wives, sons and daughters. Our friends. Our faith. The conversations and moments we share with the people we care about. Our freedoms as Americans! The things that we are blessed with that have little or no material value but are priceless to us.

It makes me so sad it nearly brings me to tears. How much are we going to have to lose as a nation before it is that we realize what we have?

October 7, 2008

My mind has been tied up with a few logical quandries at the moment.

O.K. I am so frikin fired up lately about the news! I have been struggling to wrap my head around it and learn about it enough to the point where I can understand it. Let's delve into it shall we.

Last week the U.S. House of Representatives voted on a $700 bailout for troubled assets. (How a country in trillions of dollars of debt can consider the idea of spending $700 billion of money that they don't have is beyond me... but that's another issue!) The House of Reps voted this bill down 228 to 205. They said it was a blank check, too much money and lacked oversight.

The House decided to send this bill to the Senate for further debate, revision and vote . They added about $150 billion in spending to the bill and voted for it 74 to 25.

The House of Reps then went ahead and... voted in support of this new bill totaling $850 billion dollars ( 263 yes/171 no).

WTF!? Do not think about the logic behind that for more than 5 minutes or else you will start to experience the symptoms of an anyerism and blood will shoot out of your ears. The human brain is not cabable of such things.

Secondly there is this story that is FINALY getting some attention:
The relationship between Barack Obama and Bill Ayers.

Now that's a bit of a lengthy article. Basically it presents a professional and political connection (not just a coincidental one as presented by the media) between Obama and Bill Ayers. Ayers being a domestic terrorist, founding member of the Weather Underground (Wikipedia that), having bombed the Pentagon, police stations and robed banks. He has never expressed regret for this. Actually... (as mentioned in the story) on the morning of September 11, 2001, New York Times published a profile about this man where he says he only wishes he blew up more buildings and planted more bombs!

If you don't want to read the article, watch this Anderson Cooper video clip. Keep in mind... this is coming from the rather liberal biased CNN and not the typically conservative FOX news network. (Trust me... you will be suprized.)

Now I am not advocating any one political party here... I'm advocating common sense.

Wouldn't common sense dictate that if a political candidate chose to work with someone who is a self admitted domestic terrorist, they are demonstrating a lack of good judgment? A lack of judgment that may not befit them for the position of the highest public office in the land?

I learned early on in life that you can judge a lot about a person by the friends that they keep. I learned that from my parents.

Cathartic... I feel better now. (Slightly.)