I Have To Laugh

I have to laugh. President Bush lifts the ban on offshore drilling and the Democrats poo-poo it. The move may be “ineffectual,” as Nancy Pelosi says, if you’re one of the “I want my candy now people.” But it’s a first step. Now the ball is in the court of the Democratic do-nothing Congress.

“Now is your time to shine, boys and girls,” I say to the Dems. “Your time to prove to the American people that they ought to keep you in office. It's why Bush is president and you aren’t, Nancy.”

“Is that your only solution to the high oil prices? Come on, Nancy, come up with a real solution. Why weren’t you working on this problem before? Why are you so late to the table with your foolish proposal?

You’re like the little daughter of a poor immigrant farmer who came to America in the nineteenth century. He had six coveted grape roots and a thousand dollars with which he planned to create a huge grape farm. A man came to him offering several thousand dollars for those roots, enough money to buy a small house and make their family comfortable. Amid cries of anguish from the mother and daughter, he held fast to his dream. He planted the six roots and it took 15 years. But in that time he had a multi-acre farm producing thousands of pounds of grape juice a year from which he began a highly successful winery and created a famous empire in California.”

People like Pelosi make me sick. Thank goodness for conservatives who believe in the future of this nation. Who are willing to sacrifice for the future and give up immediate pleasures and compensation for the ultimate dream.

Sadly, Nancy Pelosi and her entire cadre of Congretional liberals are not made of that kind of stuff—the stuff that made America strong. They are too prone to cry as did Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California (quoted in the end of the New York Times story). She was heard saying:
““Even if new offshore drilling were allowed off the coast of California and along the outer continental shelf, which I wholly and resolutely oppose, it won’t produce oil in time to solve the gas price emergency American consumers are facing right now.”

No dough!

You point the finger at conservatives, but you wanta know what? They’ve got a plan and you don’t. Their plan is to start now. Yes, it will take ten years to make a dent in our energy production. But they’ve got a plan, and you don’t. You can’t even get enough Congressmen together to discuss the matter. You can’t get a consensus on oil. The American people are clamoring for action, yet a do-nothing Congress will slide into November 5 without doing anything on two of the nation’s biggest problems, Energy and Social Security. And many of you who are up for re-election will be slid right out of Washington on your hind sides before you know it, repelled by an angry American electorate.

Energy is the most immediate problem. Bush got it right. It was reported in the Times. “For years, my administration has been calling on Congress to expand domestic oil production,” said Mr. Bush in a brief Rose Garden appearance in which he saddled Democrats with responsibility for gasoline prices exceeding $4 per gallon. “Unfortunately, Democrats on Capitol Hill have rejected virtually every proposal, and now Americans are paying at the pump.”

What will it take, Nancy, for you to act? $200 a barrel oil?

You're so ridiculous, I have to laugh!

The following is an actual email to my sister and her husband living in Nevada, and you can sneak a peek:
"Teri and Tony,  I can't recall if you are Republicans or Democrats, like Dad and Mom were. But I don't mind offending anyone when I say I am a reformed Democrat turned Republican. I went ot college, journalism school, at the University of Utah to learn how to be an honest reporter. I worked for the Associated Press and three magazines. I never slanted the news. I always felt I reported the news fairly. It disgusts me to think how once respected news media now resort to lying--because that's what it is when you distort the news--and far to the left the news media in this country have come...and how they have abused their pledge to report news honestly and fairly. Read the following, and if it doesn't disgust you ... well it should. The news is soooo slanted in America today, you don't know what to believe. This is the very reason they are rapidly losing their following.
I love you both,
Don  (I forwarded to them an email I received from my friend, Lee, yesterday.

--- On Sun, 7/13/08, Lee Eshbaugh <leshbaugh@cfl.rr.com> wrote:

From: Lee Eshbaugh <leshbaugh@cfl.rr.com>
Subject: FW: ABC News In Iraq (UNCLASSIFIED)

From: skipdink@bellsouth.net [mailto:skipdink@bellsouth.net]

Sent: Friday, July 11, 2008 11:30 AM
To: monaroberts
Subject: FW: ABC News In Iraq (UNCLASSIFIED)

  

Subject: ABC News In Iraq (UNCLASSIFIED)

Please read the attached email.  Regardless of your political affiliation, it's pretty disconcerting to think the media would put such a slant on things.

Just in case you happened to see the ABC News piece (if you watch ABC
News) with interviews of 5 military folks in Iraq "3 planned to vote for
Obama and 2 for Hillary"; no mention of any McCain supporters.
Well, here's the "Rest of the Story."

This is from Major General (Ret) Buckman:

My niece, Katelyn, stationed at Baluud , Iraq was assigned, with others
of her detachment, to be escort/guard/ watcher for Martha Raddatz of ABC
News as she covered John McCain's recent trip to Iraq . Katelyn and her
Captain stood directly behind Raddatz as she queried GI's walking past.

They kept count of the GI's and you should remember these numbers. She
asked 60 GI's who they planned to vote for in November. 54 said John
McCain, 4 for Obama and 2 for Hillary. Katelyn called home and told her
Mom and Dad to watch ABC news the next night because she was standing
directly behind Raddatz and maybe they'd see her on TV. Mom and Dad of
course, called and emailed all the kinfolk to watch the newscast and
maybe see Katelyn. Well, of course, we all watched and what we saw
wasn't a glimpse of Katelyn, but got a hell'uva view of skewed news.
After a dissertation on McCain's trip and speech, ABC showed 5 GI's
being asked by Raddatz how they were going to vote in November; 3 for
Obama and 2 for Clinton . No mention of the 54 for McCain.

Think about this:

Fear forwarding might offend someone? ... disseminate as you deem
appropriate, politically correct, whatever, it's Time for America to Speak up!

 

 

North Korean Nuclear Talks Lead to Agreement
BEIJING - In an Associated Press story by Henry Sanderson we learn that negotiators from six nations agreed Saturday on steps to verify North Korea's nuclear disarmament, opening the final phase in tortuous efforts to rid the North of nuclear weapons.

Let's blog this in the comments below. "Will North Korea, finally, live up to its word? Many believe it won't."

The agreement was reached after three days of talks. It requires North Korea to finish disabling its main nuclear facility by the end of October.

That will be the clincher. I'm wondering if we will see live video of that event, just like we saw pictures of the implosion of the water tower gismo that was supposed to have been integral to the dismantling process. I'm also wondering if what we'll see is an old facility blown up while the real nuclear facility lies concealed behind some trees somewhere.

Our Inspectors Are Inept--Bring on James Bond
Who were the six nations? Well, of course China and the U.S., South Korea, Japan and probably Great Britain--did I miss one--maybe Russia--took part in agreements where North Korea was promised deliveries of fuel oil and other economic aid. I think we need James Bond back to go over there and discover what the smart diplomats failed to discover. He could go by sea in his underwater car. That way they would never detect him when he pulled onto the beach. He's the only one capable of verifying anything.

Verification is Key
The envoys agreed to a robust verification team of experts who will visit North Korean nuclear facilities, review its documents and interview its technical experts. Ah, verification...that's the key, isn't it. These scientists won't find anything. They'll be flown in there, sleep at the best hotels--not the kind that fall down with a seismic wave of 5.5. They'll take pictures of something, wag their heads, agree, and fly home to announce all is well in North Korea, the little brother of a very duplicitous China, when it isn't.

The last time we thought we had it done, we went along for several months, a year, then North Korea threw out everyone once they had their bread and butter and blasted a missile over Japan, just to flex their muscles and scare the Niponese.

L'Empire Has an Insidious Plan
It will be September before the entire "agreement" is on paper. Some specifics of the verification remained to be worked out. That merely means the Chinese version of L'Empire will figure out how they can further deceive the world. Yes, I said China because North Korea takes orders from Beijing. Experts and diplomats from the six nations hoped to agree on those steps by early September, said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill.

Last time participating ministers didn't see any obstacles and that's what they are saying again. The only obstacle is the hubris and avarice of one bad man, Korean leader Kim Il-sung who takes his cues from another bad man, Chinese leader Hu Jintao. Kim loves to kill two things once he has what he wants: international deals and people.

Friday, July 11, 2008

Could This Happen In America?

By Don White, July 11, 2008

Over the past decade, a former terrorist group has basically hijacked and changed Lebanon forever. The news today reports that a very divided Lebanon has given this militia-driven group veto power, outmaneuvering Israel and the West.
Become somewhat of an expert, reading the book Hezbollah: A Short History by Augustus Richard Norton, Professor of International Relations and Anthropology at Boston University. Norton was a military observer for the United Nations in southern Lebanon when Hezbollah and rival Shi'i parties were taking form there in the early 1980s. A former U.S. Army officer and West Point professor, he has conducted research in Lebanon for close to three decades, and his book Amal and the Shi'a is widely considered to be a classic account of the political mobilization of Lebanon's Shi'i Muslims.
Beginning as a terrorist cat's-paw of Iran, Hezbollah has since transformed itself into an impressive political party with an admiring Lebanese constituency, but it has also insisted on maintaining the potent militia that forced Israel to withdraw from Lebanon in 2000 after almost two decades of occupation.

Hezbollah evolved from a one-dimensional terrorist group into a "janus-faced" organization, two-faced, with great power and persuasion. No one knows what its outcome will be, as it is in the middle of an incomplete metamorphosis from extremism to mundane politics where it finds itself today.

Could This Happen In America? Better Question: Is This Happening in America?
If we could not stop Hezbollah in its infancy, how can we avoid having a militant group take over our government? There are signs of militancy on both the left and the right and from without today. The September 11, 2001, attacks in New York and Washington were the most destructive ever on U.S. soil. But law-enforcement officials have also long struggled with a range of U.S.-based terrorist groups.

Domestic extremists include hate groups motivated by ultra-conservative ideals that are often anti-Semitic and racially motivated; ecoterrorists who use violence to campaign for greater environmental responsibility; and socialist groups who oppose the World Trade Organization.

While homegrown Muslim extremists have proven more lethal in Europe than in the United States, U.S. authorities continue to worry about the prospect of attacks by militant Muslims who are American citizens.

The Democrats in Congress may not be realistic enough to spare us from the world's worst energy crisis, leading to the decline of civilization as we know it today.

Most of them believe fervently in global warming--that if we continue to pollute the atmosphere with biocarbons we will melt the solar ice cap enough to flood American coastal areas like Florida and New York.

Over 70% of our globe is covered by water. Ninety-seven percent of all water on earth is in our oceans. Life on earth began in the oceans 3.1 - 3.4 billion years ago and then evolved from the ocean to the land millions of years ago.

 Today, the ocean remains a necessity to maintain life as we know it.  The oceans provide necessities such as:

    * most of the oxygen we need to breathe
    * a reservoir for soaking up almost half of the globe's gaseous carbon pollutants (more than 2 billion tons)
    * a food source that can be managed to help feed the world
    * the ingredients for many of today' s and tomorrow' s medicines
    * making our weather, and
    * is an essential part of the global economy.

FOR EVERY HUMAN, ANIMAL AND PLANT ON EARTH, A HEALTHY OCEAN IS A MUST!!
That's the mantra and hope of all good environmentalists. If what they say is true, anything we do to pollute the oceans and air has catastropic consequences. However, I happen to believe that the world has a long way to go before anything close to that occurs.

Did you know?

    * Three-quarters of all marine pollution comes from land. A recent National Academy of Sciences study estimates that the oil running off our streets and driveways and ultimately flowing into the oceans is equal to an Exxon Valdez oil spill - 10.9 million gallons - every eight months (Committee on Oil in the Sea, National Research Council, 2002).  
    * Many countries still allow untreated sewage to continually flow into the sea.   
    * Some fishing techniques result in billions of pounds of fish and other marine life being killed and discarded each year. Worldwide, it is estimated that fishermen discarded about 25% of the total catch during the 1980's and in the early 1990's. This adds up to about 60 billion pounds each year!! (Alverson et al., 1994; Alverson, 1998).   
    * Dynamite and cyanide are still used for fishing.
    * Over half of the world's original coastal marshes and mangrove forests are now developed as industrial parks, residential areas and farms.

Taking all of that into account, the fact remains that we face an even more imminent danger than global warming. It is the breakdown of our civilization from a crisis in energy which is already upon us. Of all the oil producing nations that we depend on including Saudi Arabia, America has no friends. That does not include Great Britain which has North Sea production, but they use their own oil and we purchase very little of it. The same is true for Canadian oil. The current Democratic congress is ill-equipped to respond to the energy crisis. They have been in power for going on two years and have done nothing to solve the problem.

We need to allow drilling in Alaska's ANWR region, develop more wind and solar power, begin building nuclear energy plants, authorize removal of Utah's and Colorado's shale oil deposits where we have three times the oil of Saudi Arabia, and start drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and off other coastal areas around Florida. China and Canada are already drilling just 60 miles from U.S. territory, so why not us?

America can't solve the world's global warming problem by allowing ourselves to become weak economically.

In his book The Coming Economic Collapse<span style="font-style:italic;"></span> Stephen Leeb cites geologist M. King Hubbert who observed that once you extract half the oil from a given field (which is the case in Saudi Arabia), production begins to decline. Applying this law to the United States as a whole, Hubbert concluded that oil production in the U.S. would peak in the early 1970s. It has just been since then that our oil production has dropped from over 9 million barrels a day to roughly 5.5 million barrels a day. This era marked the first time that the United States began consuming more imported oil than domestically produced oil. Foreign oil has comprised an ever larger percentage of the oil we have used ever since, yet we do very little to develop alternative sources of energy. Or what we have done is too little, too late.

Leeb wrote in his book <span style="font-style:italic;">The Oil
Factor</span>: :"Any way you slice it, oil seems headed for triple-digit levels by the end of the decade. Oil at $100 will be a minimum. Just to put this in perspective, this could mean gas prices at the pump approaching $10 a gallon."

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The Democrats in Congress may not be realistic enough to spare us from the world's worst energy crisis, leading to the decline of civilization as we know it today.

Most of them believe fervently in global warming--that if we continue to pollute the atmosphere with biocarbons we will melt the solar ice cap enough to flood American coastal areas like Florida and New York.

Over 70% of our globe is covered by water. Ninety-seven percent of all water on earth is in our oceans. Life on earth began in the oceans 3.1 - 3.4 billion years ago and then evolved from the ocean to the land millions of years ago.

 Today, the ocean remains a necessity to maintain life as we know it.  The oceans provide necessities such as:

    * most of the oxygen we need to breathe
    * a reservoir for soaking up almost half of the globe's gaseous carbon pollutants (more than 2 billion tons)
    * a food source that can be managed to help feed the world
    * the ingredients for many of today' s and tomorrow' s medicines
    * making our weather, and
    * is an essential part of the global economy.

FOR EVERY HUMAN, ANIMAL AND PLANT ON EARTH, A HEALTHY OCEAN IS A MUST!!
That's the mantra and hope of all good environmentalists. If what they say is true, anything we do to pollute the oceans and air has catastropic consequences. However, I happen to believe that the world has a long way to go before anything close to that occurs.

Did you know?

    * Three-quarters of all marine pollution comes from land. A recent National Academy of Sciences study estimates that the oil running off our streets and driveways and ultimately flowing into the oceans is equal to an Exxon Valdez oil spill - 10.9 million gallons - every eight months (Committee on Oil in the Sea, National Research Council, 2002).  
    * Many countries still allow untreated sewage to continually flow into the sea.   
    * Some fishing techniques result in billions of pounds of fish and other marine life being killed and discarded each year. Worldwide, it is estimated that fishermen discarded about 25% of the total catch during the 1980's and in the early 1990's. This adds up to about 60 billion pounds each year!! (Alverson et al., 1994; Alverson, 1998).   
    * Dynamite and cyanide are still used for fishing.
    * Over half of the world's original coastal marshes and mangrove forests are now developed as industrial parks, residential areas and farms.

Taking all of that into account, the fact remains that we face an even more imminent danger than global warming. It is the breakdown of our civilization from a crisis in energy which is already upon us. Of all the oil producing nations that we depend on including Saudi Arabia, America has no friends. That does not include Great Britain which has North Sea production, but they use their own oil and we purchase very little of it. The same is true for Canadian oil. The current Democratic congress is ill-equipped to respond to the energy crisis. They have been in power for going on two years and have done nothing to solve the problem.

We need to allow drilling in Alaska's ANWR region, develop more wind and solar power, begin building nuclear energy plants, authorize removal of Utah's and Colorado's shale oil deposits where we have three times the oil of Saudi Arabia, and start drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and off other coastal areas around Florida. China and Canada are already drilling just 60 miles from U.S. territory, so why not us?

America can't solve the world's global warming problem by allowing ourselves to become weak economically.

In his book The Coming Economic Collapse<span style="font-style:italic;"></span> Stephen Leeb cites geologist M. King Hubbert who observed that once you extract half the oil from a given field (which is the case in Saudi Arabia), production begins to decline. Applying this law to the United States as a whole, Hubbert concluded that oil production in the U.S. would peak in the early 1970s. It has just been since then that our oil production has dropped from over 9 million barrels a day to roughly 5.5 million barrels a day. This era marked the first time that the United States began consuming more imported oil than domestically produced oil. Foreign oil has comprised an ever larger percentage of the oil we have used ever since, yet we do very little to develop alternative sources of energy. Or what we have done is too little, too late.

Leeb wrote in his book <span style="font-style:italic;">The Oil
Factor</span>: :"Any way you slice it, oil seems headed for triple-digit levels by the end of the decade. Oil at $100 will be a minimum. Just to put this in perspective, this could mean gas prices at the pump approaching $10 a gallon."

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Jr. said last week the nation's financial difficulties would last deep into 2009 and that the Bush Administration was doing all it could to right the ship of state.

I hope he meant, Bush is doing all he wants to do, which I hope is nothing because we the solvent don't owe the "inventive", speculative, and foolish few our hard earned tax dollars.

But the fact remains, Paulson said, there were 1.7 million housing foreclosures in 2007 and there likely will be 2.5 million more this year.

That was last week's news.
Now the New York Times reports Fed Chairman Ben Bernanki, Jr. yesterday coming out with an announcement dressed as a "new revelation." The headlines said: "Fed Sees Turmoil Persisting Deep Into Next Year." Hurrah,or is it hooray or hoorah these days? They finally got it right. That's not news, New York Times, that's what Paulson said a week ago. Merely because he's a Bushie doesn't mean you have to make Bernanski look like the hero he isn't. You've actually committed plagierism, or something akin, the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work

Most of these are cases where the Federal Government can't and shouldn't do anything to save the houses for these speculators.

My question is why should we? Why should 95 percent of the people who have mortgages which did not go into foreclosure throw a life-line out to the 5 percent who were reckless and bought over their heads? That's a very bad precedent to set in a country that was founded on free enterprise.

When is the Fed going to get out in front on America's economy?
In a much belated announcement, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke announced that the Fed would issue long-awaited rules that would restrict exotic mortgages and high-cost loans for people with bad credit.

A little late for that rule, wouldn't you say? This is acknowledged to be the prime reason the housing failures occurred in the first place. Where is that charlatan Allen Greenspan when you don't need him?

One such step would extend low-interest lending programs to Wall Street’s largest investment banks into next year. (The Fed did that today). The programs, one of which was set to expire in September, can continue only if the Fed issues a finding that there are “unusual and exigent circumstances” that justify them.

Mr. Bernanke also recommended that Congress grant the Fed broader authority to monitor and supervise the financial markets to assure greater stability in the future. But with time running out on this session, lawmakers are unlikely to adopt such legislation before next year.

Again, the problem with the Fed is "too late, too little."

Today's a great time to buy a property. If anyone is interested, today's Ditech rate on home loans is 5.86% or 6.117 apr.  If you want real answers for financial and home problems, check out a great little
blog called House ABC's    http://www.houseabcs.blogspot.com

Don White is an attorney/writer, former AP newsman, living in Windermere, FL , writing for various newspapers and blogs throughout the country. He and his wife and son, Carolyn and Marcus, authored the successful real estate book published by Amazon.com called SELLING FAST.