Steve's Blog Spot

May He guide Mr. Obama and give him wisdom in all choices and strength for the difficult ones. And thank you, Mr. Bush, for all you have done under a difficult set of circumstances. Mr. Reid and Ms Pelosi can go suck a rock...

From The Onion : Black Man Given Nation's Worst Job November 5, 2008 Issue 44•45 WASHINGTON—African-American man Barack Obama, 47, was given the least-desirable job in the entire country Tuesday when he was elected president of the United States of America. In his new high-stress, low-reward position, Obama will be charged with such tasks as completely overhauling the nation's broken-down economy, repairing the crumbling infrastructure, and generally having to please more than 300 million Americans and cater to their every whim on a daily basis. As part of his duties, the black man will have to spend four to eight years cleaning up the messes other people left behind. The job comes with such intense scrutiny and so certain a guarantee of failure that only one other person even bothered applying for it. Said scholar and activist Mark L. Denton, "It just goes to show you that, in this country, a black man still can't catch a break."

I'm really tired of it all. The ads, the sound bites on the news, the debates - all of it over, at least for a little while, until everyone and their neighbor starts posturing for the 2012 election! In sizing up all 4 candidates, after all the dust has settled, after all the blah-blah, after the ridiculous amount of money spent on each side, I see only 4 politicians. Two of them are lawyers. Two of them aren't. Two of them are polished and eloquent. Two of them aren't so polished and eloquent. Two of them talk about a lot of things. Two of them make things happen. I don't think the choice is difficult. Be sure to vote...

is not much different from any I have voted, except maybe for the sheer amount of information available, due to today's technology - internet, 24 hour news channels, etc. Bottom line: we seem to always try to pick the lesser of two evils, the candidate who will hurt us least. I always lean a certain way, but I have a quick exercise I use as a sanity check against my own biases: I mentally reverse the party alliance for each candidate. That is, Obama becomes an R, McCain becomes a D, etc. This way, if I am leaning toward voting R, Obama becomes my favorite guy; I am biased for him. Now examine the candidate from a positive point of view, rather than negative. For example, if you are Republican, pretend Sarah Palin is a Democrat running against a Republican Joe Biden. Do you still like/dislike both's qualifications, ideas, track record, etc. equally? From a Republican perspective, what things make Biden the better candidate? I find this exercise forces me to vote the person ra...

they are politicians . And frankly, I do not understand how they think (a word used loosely in this context). Victor Davis Hanson has the right idea of a sure-win platform: I don't quite understand why one party or the other doesn't campaign on delivering more energy to the American people to lower costs, keep the world price down, and money out of the hands of terrorists, and to address U.S. debt and the falling dollar. There seems no contradiction between wanting nuclear power, clean coal, tar and shale, more drilling off our coasts and Alaska — and more conservation, more money for hydrogen, biofuels, more solar, wind, etc. Providing both short- and long-term energy policies would be most beneficial to our country's well-being, and we would stop sending billions and billions of our dollars to countries who do not wish us all the best. Come on, politicians, stand up for America for a change and use some common sense! That's the "change" we really need. VDH ...

John McCain is a very lucky man, and I'm sure he knows it. I had wondered about his wife Cindy, as she prefers to stay in the background, and there's not much in the press about her. Maggie's Farm has a great summary about Cindy McCain , based on the Wall Street Journal bio article. You can judge a person by their spouses, friends, and associations, and Senator McCain's wife of 28 years is a gem.

Last night during the 3,453rd Democratic debate, both Clinton and Obama stated they would not raise taxes on individuals whose incomes were under $200,000. (And that group would include me by a pretty fair margin!) But does that mean they would still allow Pres. Bush's tax cuts to expire in 2010? Technically, they could let the cuts expire and still claim they did not raise taxes. Which, to me, would be a tax increase , purely from the standpoint that I would pay more taxes when the cuts expire. So, what did they really mean? I think McCain won this debate...

No news there, as there are many who have already made this prediction. But here's my 10 cents worth. No matter your thoughts on Ms Clinton or Mr. Obama, I think it has boiled down to a matter of money, and she is losing that race. Some of her bills are not getting paid, but I think that's statistically quite small compared to the bills that have been paid. At the end of the day, though, the most money wins. Unfortunately. There's something inherently wrong when you can buy/spend your way to a candidacy. But that's not my point. According to their filings with the Federal Election Commission, Hillary's campaign has $24 million in the bank, after debts, and after spending $135 million to date. She is lagging behind Barack , who is sitting at around $38 million after debt, and after having spent a whopping $158 million so far! They have a combined expenditure of almost $300 million, and that's only for the primaries. The winner still has to compete for the golde...

This didn't make the news...