It’s been about three months since the elections. Have you noticed all the “Change” in Washington since Obama’s been elected? Let’s see. About half of the appointed positions in his Cabinet and elsewhere are old Clinton appointees/buddies. The rest are mostly Chicago hacks and friends. His Cabinet hasn’t even been seated yet and one appointee, Gov. Richardson of New Mexico, already had to resign because of a pending Grand Jury investigation into questionable political campaign contributions. Then Obama nominates Clinton’s former Chief of Staff for CIA director. This guy has zero experience in intelligence matters. Of course the Obama team says he’s qualified by virtue of the fact that he read intelligence briefings while at the White House. Gee, I guess since I read the Wall Street Journal, I’m qualified to be the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Director!
Let’s not forget all the other fun things going on in the Senate. Harry Reid, with Obama’s initial support, doesn’t want to let Burris be seated in Obama’s place in the Senate. Gov. Blagojevich from Illinois is showing the world just how corrupt the Democratic machinery in Chicago is. Wait a minute, isn’t that where Obama spent all of his prior political career learning the ropes? Oh wait, the mainstream media already told us that he’s too intelligent to have been involved in any type of political shenanigans like that. Ten to twenty years of association with the likes of Rev. Wright, Tony Rezko, Bill Ayers and Gov. Blagojevich had absolutely no effect on the guy. Heck, he never even knew the guys were like that. After all, he told us he was only 8 years old when Ayers was committing his acts of terrorism. That certainly absolves him of any responsibility for his association with Ayers as an adult. Rezko’s wife paying full price on the same day for the adjacent property to Obama’s when he got his property at a significant discount. Purely coincidence.
It looks like Al Franken and the Democratic operatives in Minnesota have magically found enough votes to steal the election in that state. Also, you know, like Caroline Kennedy, you know, is like doing a bang-up job in New York pleading her strong credentials to be appointed to take Clinton’s vacated seat in the Senate.
Who else?
– Rep. Tim Mahoney of Florida for infidelity
– Rep. Charles Rangel of New York, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, remains under investigation by a House ethics panel
– Rep. William Jefferson of Louisiana is awaiting trial on charges of bribery, money laundering and misusing his congressional office
– Gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York resigned after revelations that he was involved in a prostitution ring
– Senator John Edwards for infidelity while his wife was recovering from cancer (a real swell guy)
Yes sir, the Democrats with leaders like Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Gov. Rod Blagojevich, Al Franken, Jack Murtha and all the other outstanding liberals are just what this country needs. If Caroline Kennedy gets nominated, that’ll complete the package for sure. Of course our saving grace is that we just elected the great “Community Organizer” and Mr. Joe (never looked in a mirror that I didn’t like) Biden. There’s one heck of a team to lead the free world.
A minister decided that a visual demonstration would add emphasis to his Sunday sermon.
Four worms were placed into four separate jars.
The first worm was put into a container of alcohol.
The second worm was put into a container of cigarette smoke.
The third worm was put into a container of chocolate syrup.
The fourth worm was put into a container of good clean soil.
At the conclusion of the sermon, the Minister reported the following results:
The first worm in alcohol – Dead
The second worm in cigarette smoke – Dead
The third worm in chocolate syrup – Dead
The fourth worm in good clean soil – Alive
So the Minister asked the congregation, “What can you learn from this demonstration?”
Maxine, who was sitting in the back, quickly raised her hand and said,
“As long as you drink, smoke and eat chocolate, you won’t have worms!”
That pretty much ended the service.
If you choose to believe all the newspaper headlines and stories on TV, we’re in quite a predicament. Most of the news is pretty dire and disheartening – bank failures, auto bailouts, security fraud, etc. Don’t get me wrong. People are suffering. There are definitely some problems out there in the economy and world in general, but news organizations seem preoccupied with only bringing you the worst that the world has to offer. If you just look around a little, it’s not too hard to find the good out there. With that idea in mind, I thought I’d share some of the things that I’m thankful for.
Family – consider yourself very fortunate if you have family members that you love and want to be with. There are a lot of families out there that don’t even want to be together and that is sad.
Friends – I’m not the most outgoing person in the world, so I can’t say I have a ton of friends. However, the ones that I do have, I appreciate very much.
Health – this one’s a biggy for me. If you’re in generally good health, consider yourself very lucky. There are so many people out there that would give anything to have a healthy and pain free body. With the exception of the occasional back problem, I’ve been very fortunate. Knock on wood!
House – a roof over my head and a warm bed at night.
Cheap Gas – a few months ago, people would have been happy to have $3/gallon gas. Now it’s less than $1.50/gallon. I don’t know how long it’ll last, but it sure is nice to fill up the car for less than $20.
Employment Rate – The national employment rate is over 93%. It sounds a lot better than hearing the unemployment rate rose to 6.7%, doesn’t it?
So there you have it. I’m sure if you look around, you’ll find there are many things that you can be thankful for. Have a very Merry Christmas and a super New Year.
An old farmer went to town to see a movie. The ticket agent asked, “Sir, what’s that on your shoulder?”
The old farmer said, “That’s my pet rooster Chucky. Wherever I go, Chucky goes.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” said the ticket agent. “We can’t allow animals in the theater.”
The old farmer went around the corner and stuffed the bird down his pants. He returned to the booth, bought a ticket and entered the theater. He sat down next to two old widows named Mildred and Marge.
The movie started and the rooster began to squirm. The old farmer unzipped his pants so Chucky could stick his head out and watch the movie.
“Marge,” whispered Mildred.
“What?” said Marge.
“I think the guy next to me is a pervert.”
“What makes you think so?” asked Marge.
“He unzipped his pants and he has his thing out,” whispered Mildred.
“Well, don’t worry about it,” said Marge. “At our age we’ve seen ’em all.”
“I thought so,” said Mildred, “but this one’s eating my popcorn!”
I thought I’d do a little write-up on the Apple TV. I’ve shown the unit to several people over the last year and most never knew it existed or knew very little about it. For those not familiar with it, the Apple TV is a media entertainment center made by Apple, Inc. It’s essentially a compact computer with no screen or keyboard. You connect the unit to your widescreen TV via HDMI or Component Video connections. The unit is quite compact at about 7.5” in width/length and about 1” high. You’ll need a broadband Internet connection, a wired or wireless network connection and an iTunes account from Apple. To take full advantage of all features, you really need to install iTunes on one of your computers. The unit can work with Apple or Windows computers.
The unit provides two methods of playing media files on your TV. You can stream them directly off your computer or transfer them first to the Apple TV and then play them. Either way works fine unless you have a marginal wireless network in which case streaming some video files may get somewhat choppy at times. In addition to letting you view all the photos in your iPhoto library or music/video/podcast files in iTunes, you can rent or purchase pretty much any movie DVD. Also, you can rent most TV shows in case you miss an episode. The unit also lets you connect to YouTube and watch anything available on that site. The quality of most YouTube videos isn’t that great but it’s nice to be able to watch it on the widescreen, nonetheless.
The other day, I hacked the Apple TV and installed Boxee software on it. This is alpha software that isn’t officially supported by Apple. Boxee is a media management software application with a user-friendly interface that can run under Windows, Mac OSX, Linux, etc. The really cool thing about Boxee is that it lets you connect to the Internet and get access to dozens of websites that have free movies and TV shows. You can connect to CBS.com and Hulu.com (NBC and Fox) and get access to all their current and past TV shows. Instead of paying to watch a past TV show on iTunes, you can get it for free, legally. If you want to see old TV series classics like Star Trek, Twilight Zone, Have Gun Will Travel, etc., it’s all there for free. There are also thousands of free classic movies available on other media websites that Boxee is set up to access.
I highly recommend the Apple TV to anyone that has a widescreen TV. The ease of displaying all your various media from one location will make you wonder how you got along without it. At only $229 for the 40GB version, it’s definitely a worthwhile investment.
Bailouts are stupid. With very few exceptions, they will only delay the inevitable. I can understand some government injection of money to keep the credit markets from completely freezing up and affecting the ability of businesses to conduct day-to-day operations. I can’t, however, see any rational reason to apply this to businesses in general. Businesses should succeed or fail on their own merit. If you can’t run your business profitably, then you shouldn’t be in business.
Bailing out the auto industry would be a huge mistake. The foremost reason for the auto industry’s current dilemma is labor cost. There’s an article by the Heritage Foundation that clearly and convincingly describes this. It’s almost unbelievable what the typical auto worker is making for a relatively low-skilled job. Overall compensation is almost $75/hour. Their healthcare benefits are beyond belief. For full medical, dental, eye care, etc., they pay only $10/month or $21/month for a family. That’s sickening! And get this. If they’re laid off, they get 95% of their pay not to work. Can you believe that? No wonder they don’t mind getting laid off. They’re basically drawing full pay NOT to work.
So what will giving the automakers billions in bailout money do for them? It’ll let them continue to operate on their current unsustainable labor contracts. Basically, the taxpayer is going to continue to subsidize the outrageous benefits package of the UAW. The Democrats control both Houses of Congress and the UAW and other labor unions own the Democrats. Do you hear any Democrats talking about letting the companies reorganize under bankruptcy law? The Democrats and unions don’t want anything to do with bankruptcy. Bankruptcy will allow the companies to reorganize and become competitive again by renegotiating their labor costs.
All you folks that voted for Democrats can blame yourselves when you see your taxes and wealth being redistributed to your poor old union laborers. Whether you want to admit it or not, you voted for Socialism and now you get to reap its benefits. What was the Democrat’s mantra for the elections, “Change You Can Be Deceived In”?
Three men died on Christmas Eve and were met by Saint Peter at the pearly gates.
“In honor of this holy season” Saint Peter said, “You must each possess something that symbolizes Christmas to get into heaven.”
The first man fumbled through his pockets and pulled out a lighter. He flicked it on. “It represents a candle”, he said.
“You may pass through the pearly gates” Saint Peter said.
The second man reached into his pocket and pulled out a set of keys. He shook them and said, “They’re bells.”
Saint Peter said “You may pass through the pearly gates”.
The third man started searching desperately through his pockets and finally pulled out a pair of women’s panties.
Saint Peter looked at the man with a raised eyebrow and asked, “And just what do those symbolize?”
The man replied, “These are Carols.”
I was cleaning up my computer files the other day when I ran across the following letter I received from someone a long time ago. I think it’s worth passing on, especially with all that’s happening right now in our country and the world.
I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright.
I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun more.
I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive.
I wish you enough pain so that the smallest joys in life appear much bigger.
I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.
I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.
I wish you enough “Hellos” to get you through the final “Goodbyes.”
I think too often we expect our lives to be perfect – taking for granted all of the good things that come our way. God never promised us a perfect life. But he does promise to always be with us through our trials and tribulations. We all need to remember that the bad things are as important as the blessings in life because they help to develop character and hopefully bring us closer to Christ. How would we appreciate joys in life without sorrow? We should be more content with what God chooses to place in our paths.
I wish you enough…
An Indian chief had three wives. The first wife slept on cowhide, the second wife a deer hide and the third on hippopotamus hide. The first gave birth to a baby boy, the second to a baby girl and the third had twins – a boy and a girl. Looking at what happened, the old chief declared, “The squaw on the hippopotamus is equal to the sum of the squaws on the other two hides!”
What did Frank Sinatra say when someone asked him if he had ever kept wading birds as pets? “Egrets, I’ve had a few.”
A man leaned to his right because his right leg was shorter than his left. He finally went to see a surgeon after much insistence from friends. Later, one of those friends saw the man walking down the street and noticed that the man’s legs were exactly the same length. “See, what did I tell you?”, the friend boasted. “You didn’t believe the doctor could fix your leg!” The man said, “I stand corrected.”
I went to the butcher’s the other day and I bet him 50 bucks that he couldn’t reach the meat off the top shelf. He said, “No, the steaks are too high.”
A woman has twins and gives them up for adoption. One of them goes to a family in Egypt and is named “Ahmal.” The other goes to a family in Spain; they name him “Juan.” Years later, Juan sends a picture of himself to his birth mother. Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband that she wishes she also had a picture of Ahmal. Her husband responds, “They’re twins! If you’ve seen Juan, you’ve seen Ahmal.”
The dentist tells the patient that his upper plate needs to be made of chrome because of the patient’s penchant for Hollandaise sauce (which has a lot of lemon juice in it, and is corrosive to most dental appliances). Why chrome? There’s no plate like chrome for the Hollandaise.
Two fish swim into a concrete wall. The one turns to the other and says, “Dam!”
The friars were behind on their belfry payments, so they opened up a small florist shop to raise funds. Since everyone liked to buy flowers from the men of God, a rival florist across town thought the competition was unfair. He asked the good fathers to close down, but they would not. He went back and begged the friars to close. They ignored him. So the rival florist hired Hugh MacTaggart, the roughest and most vicious thug in town to “persuade” them to close. Hugh beat up the friars and trashed their store, saying he’d be back if they didn’t close up shop. Terrified, they did so, thereby proving that Hugh, and only Hugh, can prevent florist friars.
I entered ten puns in a contest, and I thought I would win, but unfortunately, no pun in ten did.
The elections are finally over and it will be nice not having to watch political TV ads every two minutes. It’ll be interesting to watch the new administration over the next few years. As I can only base my observations on Obama’s actual voting record and political and personal associations in the past, I’m not overly hopeful.
Unfortunately, his first significant decision since the election bares this out. Obama has run his campaign under the mantra of change and NOT Washington politics as usual. So what does he do? His first political appointment to Chief of Staff is a hard-line, liberal political hack, Rahm Emanuel. Talk about a Washington insider. He’s a former political and policy aide to Bill Clinton. And guess what? He was also on the board of directors for Freddie Mac. Guess who gave him that job? Surprise, Bill Clinton! This is a guy who once mailed a dead fish to someone because he didn’t agree with him. There’s some real “change”, Obama style.
I don’t trust the guy. He lied when he said he would accept public funding for his campaign. He’s been dishonest when talking of his past and present associations with unsavory people and organizations. My guess is that he will continue to surround himself with more sleazy Chicago politicians and past Clinton hacks. I’m sure he’ll offer a token job or two to some Republicans so the liberal media can show how bipartisan he really is. Maybe it won’t be Washington-style politics. However, I don’t think Chicago-style politics is a whole lot better, either.
I hope I’m wrong. Maybe he’ll have some kind of epiphany and will govern in the best interests of the country. The liberal left-wing organizations and media had a big part in getting him this far. Does he have the intelligence and strength of character to do the right thing? Time will tell. Until then, many Americans will look at him with suspicion and distrust.
