Chris’s Blog

1) This is about the clearest, concisest explanation of why the bailout (or “rescue” as the government and complicit media are now referring to it as) is bad.  It lines up very nicely with why I’m against it.  Of course, it doesn’t seem like it matters now, since the Fed unilaterally made the decision to spend $630BILLION on bank bailouts (much of it going overseas) before the House even voted!  This country is so screwed.

2) Here is a great article about the current gas shortage in Georgia (and the Southeast).  You may not like the end result, but you have to admit, he makes a very good point.  In the end, gasoline may actually cost less when the government doesn’t interfere with the market.

Well, not really, but I am doing something I’ve never done before.  Giving my Senators and Congressman a very clear picture of my views by calling/emailing them about this ridiculous “bailout” plan that thankfully failed to pass the House today.

Here is the text of the email I sent to both Georgia Senators Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson:

Senator XXXX,

The proposed $700B bailout that is being rushed through congress is a travesty to the free enterprise system, not to mention unconstitutional.

There are plenty of options available other than throwing money at the problem, especially when the people in charge of that money are the ones that either created the problem in the first place or are the least qualified to manage it.

Nothing personal, but the government has consistently shown that money management is not something they can be trusted with. This is clearly demonstrated by the increasing national debt and the inability to create a balanced budget and stick to it.

This is not something that can be solved in a week. The only way this issue can be adequately resolved is by intense and thorough study of ALL the options.

I have to put my foot down on this matter. If you feel that voting for this bill is something you must do, then I feel that you are no longer representing the interests of the people of Georgia and I will vote against you remaining in office.

Sincerely,
XXXX

I also gave Congressman Phil Gingrey (Georgia, 11th District) a call today to personally thank him (well, one of his Congressional aides, anyway) for voting against the current House bill for the bailout.  I’m not sure, after talking to his aide, that his motives were correct, but at least we got the result this country needed and I will keep on him about not using taxpayer money to bail out failed corporations whose executives drove the companies down while raking in tens of millions in salaries and bonuses.  The only way for the market to recover is to let it recover naturally and without government intervention (which is what got us to this point in the first place).  I sent a somewhat modified version of the email above to Congressman Gingrey.

If you need to look up your Senators/Congressmen, hit up Congress.org.  They give you everything you need to figure out which district you are in and who represents you and give you their office numbers (I would call the Washington D.C. office at this point), addresses, etc.

Get out there, get involved, let your representatives know how you feel!

Welcome to the world!
8 lbs. 14 oz.
19.5 inches tall
September 21, 2008 5:30am

I’m sitting here in the labor and delivery room.  Valerie is resting (as well as one can with intense cramping every 3 minutes).  She has had some mind-altering drugs, but no epidural yet.

Kayla was born on a Sunday and it looks like this one will be too.  Kayla is so excited about being a big sister–she can’t wait to meet her little brother or sister (we decided to be surprised with this one).

The DOW climbed enormously today.  90% of Americans won’t see past that first sentence.  The reason it came up is that the government is once again coming to our “rescue” by drafting a plan for more socialism!  Yay!

The government manipulation of our markets has got to stop.  It will not end well and rest assured, it will end. Once the money is gone, our dollar is so devalued, and our creditors (China, anyone) come calling, it will end.

I said this over on SlapShotSal’s blog, but it bears repeating here:  In these last 2 weeks, the Bush Administration (not just Bush, but his Fed chairman, his advisers, etc) has done more damage to this country than they had in the previous 8 years. Meanwhile, all we can do is squabble about some “supposed” emails and “lipstick on a pig” comments.

I don’t really have much commentary on this.  Whatever your opinion of Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX), you can’t deny the fact that he predicted the failure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac 5 years ago.  Not only that, he was working to stop it from happening.  Too bad nobody listened.

I’m developing an unexplained and sudden interest in Economics, lately.

Or, they would have been if both cars suddenly didn’t need major work that actually cost more than said car payment.

First, it was new tires for the Jeep last month.  Unfortunately, the price of tires has gone up.  Way up.  Last time, I had to buy a set it was around $600.  This time, it was $810.  At least they’ll last a while (hopefully at least 50K miles).  Thanks to a good mechanic friend of mine, Amos, I didn’t have to replace the front brakes–he turned the rotors for a very reasonable price and we were good to go on that.

Then, last week, I noticed my Mustang was lurching and/or bucking when I was just cruising down the road maintaining speed.  If I was accelerating or idling, no problem.  I had just filled up recently, so I thought maybe it was bad gas.  The problem got worse until finally on Monday I got a “Check Engine” light.  Oddly, after the check engine light came on, it ran better.

Well, my car has just over 100K miles, so I figured it was time for a tune-up anyway.  Amos is a little inconvenient when I need to leave the car for a period of time, so I took it over to America’s Service Station where Shane takes his car.  I figure if they can keep his ‘96 Ford Exploder (that he didn’t change the oil in for the first 60K miles or so that he owned it) running, they could fix my car.

About an hour later, they called and said it was misfiring on a cylinder due to a bad O2 sensor (crap, that sounds expensive) in addition to needing the tune-up ($160 just for plugs and wires).  The nice thing is they told me the coolant flush/fill that I had suggested (I’ve never had it done in the car) was not needed.  So, that saved me a few bucks.  Still, it came out to just a few bucks shy of $800.

Well, I guess I’m glad I don’t have a car payment.  Otherwise, it might have been a challenge to come up with how to pay for the last two months!  I can now, however, give a pretty glowing recommendation to America’s Service Station considering they had the car done by just after lunchtime and actually saved me a few bucks by not doing some of the things they could have.  I wouldn’t have even blinked if they had serviced the coolant system, but they didn’t.

Oh, and it runs a heck of a lot better.  I’ve known something wasn’t quite right for a couple weeks now.  I guess when you drive a car nearly every day for 10 years, you get a bit of a “connection” to it.

So, I was chatting with a friend of mine, Mick, and posting to his blog and I mentioned that I’d have a lot to say about “The War.”  So, Mick, this is for you.  I’ll try to keep it to the point so it doesn’t get too long.

President Bush said in his second inaugaral speech “The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.”  For a long time I agreed with that.  I still do to a point, but I no longer believe it applies to the US policing the world with our military. It seems that in the last 100 years, we’ve done more harm than good getting involved in conflicts that do not affect us directly.

I don’t believe President Bush is evil. I believe he was given information that certain people in Washington wanted him to see and made a bad decision with that information.  I believe that Saddam Hussein was evil and his removal will (in the long run) be good for the world.  I don’t know that we should’ve done it, but we did, it’s in the past.  I do believe Saddam Hussein was actively pursuing a nuclear weapon and he already had various biological weapons.

I don’t believe that pulling out of Iraq immediately is a good idea.  We need to finish the job properly now that we’ve stepped in it.  We need to turn provinces over to the Iraqis (we just turned over the Anbar province to the Iraqis and the media is hardly reporting it) as appropriate. We can’t just destabilize a country by removing their leadership and leave.  We need to clean up the mess we made.

Now, on to the media.  I do belive the media is to blame for the anti-war sentiment. People have apparently forgotten what it takes to win.  Sacrifice (even to death–I lost a friend over there) and time and the media sensationalizes this for their own gain.

Now, all that being said, we need to quit interfering in other countries militarily.  We need to quit sending troops to every conflict and every squabble and let some of these other countries stand up for themselves.  We need to stop fighting wars we cannot afford (the government’s debt is out of control at this point).

It’s just too bad that we don’t have a viable Presidential candidate that feels that way.  Obama talks a good game, but on “bringing our troops home” he’s only riding the coattails of the media’s anti-war propoganda.  He has no substance and will tax our economy into the crapper, advance socialism in this country, and raise the level of spending while weakening our national defense and Constitutional rights. McCain says he’s a maverick and will lower our taxes across the board, but without cutting government spending (what President really has in the last 30 years), how is he going to pay for that? Both candidates are beholden to the same special interest groups and both candidates want to eschew the Constitution for their own reasons.

That’s enough for now.  In part 2, I’ll explain why I’m voting for the “lesser of two evils” and who that is…

Three years ago last month, my friend Specialist Joshua Dingler was killed serving our country in Iraq.  He was over there because 7 years ago today, terrorists invaded our country and killed nearly 3,000 of our citizens on US soil.

Here’s to you, Josh–we miss you.

And here’s to the rest of those that died or whose lives were changed because of what happened 7 years ago today.  I will never forget.

2 World Trade Center (South Tower) - 10:02 am
1 World Trade Center (North Tower) - 10:28 am
7 World Trade Center - 5:20pm

Everytime I see pictures of Sarah Palin, there is a nagging “something” in the back of my head–like I’ve seen her somewhere before this week.  JediChric pointed me in the direction of the above picture and I finally realized why she always seems so familiar!

Looks to me like a vote for Obama/Biden is a vote for the Cylons!

Here’s a link to the original on Flickr, but if the comments get too nasty, I’m taking the link down.