Remember Where It Started...

As reports are being released and the quality of the intelligence that led us to war in Iraq is coming under fire, it is important for us to remember a few important things.

Most notably, President Bush did not undertake the gathering of intelligence himself, nor did he misinterpret the intelligence. Though we may all be in agreement that the intelligence was bad, it was not the President’s fault that he received bad intelligence.

The President was right to rely on the intelligence provided to him from the CIA, intelligence from the world community, and yes, even intelligence from the UN.

Also, it is important to remember that despite what the media is trying to throw at us everyday, many elements of the intelligence were, in fact, quite true. Also, it is important to remember that the US policy prior to President Bush coming into office was one of containment when it came to Saddam Hussein.

The problem with just holding him at bay was that he was in the midst of beefing up his long-range missile development program and developing long-range missiles with chemical and possibly nuclear warheads. The only thing keeping the Iraqi regime from being nuclear capable was purchasing the material at a time when Pakistan was selling nuclear material left and right.

These were missiles that could have hit Turkey, Israel, Greece, Saudi Arabia and other Mediterranean and Middle Eastern nations. Intelligence on the missile program came from the UN, so this is not a Bush-led conspiracy, folks.

Another key point to remember as the Democrats in Congress moan about the quality of intelligence that came from the CIA is that it was many of those very same Democrats that supported the Clinton administration and it was the Clinton administration that cut back military and intelligence spending in the years before 9/11.

It was the Clinton administration who continually robbed the CIA of the hands-on intelligence gathering methods of the Cold War that kept us safe. It was the Clinton administration that put us in a position where we were relying on satellite passes instead of boots on the ground.

And lastly, we still cannot ever forget that it was the Clinton administration that sat back in 1993 and in 1997 and in 1998 when U.S. targets at home and abroad were attacked by Al-Qaeda terrorists.

Michael Moore will point out that the Taliban sent an envoy to the U.S. that was welcomed in Texas, even though they were harboring Osama Bin Laden, but he doesn’t mention that his buddy Willy Jeff refused time and time again to capture or kill Bin Laden himself when the CIA had him in their sights.

Michael Moore will even go as far as to claim that he’s not pro-Democrat, too, but rather an independent, trying to show both sides of the story. Instead of calling our President a liar over botched intelligence, people like Michael Moore should be looking into why the intelligence sucked in the first place...the military cutbacks that Democrats demanded.

Constitutional Crisis in 1876

If you think the presidential election of 2000 was ugly, you should have been around for the election of 1876.

Waged against the backdrop of Reconstruction, the race pitted Democrat Samuel J. Tilden, a reform-minded New York governor, against Republican Rutherford B. Hayes, a three-term governor of Ohio.

Amid vote-buying, intimidation and political skullduggery of the most blatant sort, three states, Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina, submitted two sets of electoral votes, one for Hayes and one for Tilden.

A constitutional crisis ensued, and Congress appointed a special election commission to sort out the disputed votes.

Then, in a backroom deal, the Republican-controlled commission asked Southern Democrats to award all 19 disputed votes to Hayes, and in return, once president, Hayes would withdraw all federal troops from the South.

The bribe was accepted by the Democrats and Hayes ended up with 185 electoral votes to Tilden’s 184. For the next four years, bitter Democrats called the new president “Rutherfraud” and Tilden “President Tilden.” Tilden called the debacle “the greatest political crime of our history.”

Let's Blame Correctly...

We are none of us perfect, but I believe one of the greatest strengths of a man is to know himself.

To know himself, what he is capable of and what his weaknesses are and to ensure that on every occasion throughout the course of his life, he does whatever is necessary to ensure that his weaknesses do not result in harm to others.

This is why, ultimately, I do not think Willy Jeff Clinton should have been President.

I think he should have known that he was unfit to lead this nation because of his lack of character in a very specific area, but the glowing prize was too valuable to him to have the foresight to see the damage he would do to this nation and the disappointment it would bring to people like myself who at one point in our lives, supported him.

We are today, a nation divided.

Reagan brought this country together like never before. George 41 didn’t split it and despite the fact that most liberals will blame it on George 43, I believe the rift that sent so many people either to the far left or the far right was created during term #2 of ol’ #42, Willy “Moist Cigar” Clinton.

The greatest insight into the mentality of the man and his character can most clearly bee seen in his final explanation that he did all of this simply because he knew he could get away with it because he was the President.

Unchecked School Administrators

Well, here we go again with school...Look folks, I’ll stop bad-mouthing school, teachers and administrators once they stop giving me fuel for the fire, but we all know that’s never going to happen.

Shiba Pillai-Diaz is a middle school teacher in New Jersey. She decided to decorate her classroom’s bulletin board with an American theme. So, she put up an American flag, a poster of the Declaration of Independence and portraits of several U.S. Presidents. Wanna hear why she had to take the bulletin board down?

There were enough stupid moron parents and weak, spineless school administrators who listened to those morons, that’s why!

What was their complaint? Well, one of the pictures of the U.S. Presidents was George W. Bush, the current sitting President, and whiny parents said that if this teacher was going to have a picture of George W. Bush up, she should have a picture of John Kerry up too, to be fair.

She was given a choice...put John Kerry up on the bulletin board, or take the whole thing down. OK, ya frickin’ idiots, so does that mean that she needs to get up a picture of Al Gore, too? How about Bob Dole and Ross Perot? They weren’t Presidents, but they ran for office, right?

So, when we put up pictures of the Presidents of the United States of America, do we now need to include the current Presidential Candidates as well?

According to these moron parents and this teacher’s bosses, we do. So, is this where we are at in America? Our teachers cannot put up a picture of a sitting President during his re-election without putting up pictures of the people running against him?

Now, hold on a second...understand what you just read? I said “people,” didn’t I? Yes, there is more than one person running against George W. Bush in this election, but there was only an outcry for John Kerry’s picture, not an outcry for pictures of each of the Presidential Candidates. What do we call that, boys and girls? We call that hypocrisy.

Parents claimed it was unfair for the teacher to put up just Bush’s picture and whined for Kerry’s picture. They did not, however, whine for pictures of all of the candidates...just their candidate. Why did they want Kerry up on the bulletin board? They said it was to be fair, but I must call them on the fact that it is just because it’s their candidate, not because they are looking for something to be fair.

“Damn Right I’m Paranoid!”

At times, I have been accused of being paranoid. Maybe it is because I love to watch documentaries on crime so that I can stay informed of the criminal mind that is constantly working against us, the people who work for a living.

If always keeping in mind that there are dangerous people out there and being wary of placing myself in situations where they can get at me and my loved ones is paranoia, then I welcome being called paranoid.

Did you grow up in a neighborhood where gunfire broke the night silence at least once a week? I did. It may sound like an after-school special, or a sub-plot from Boyz N' The Hood, but by the time I graduated from high school, I’d been to five funerals of murder victims that I had known personally...and I grew up in Orange County, California.

Maybe that’s why I have an understanding that there are people and places in the country that are dangerous. Why, just last Friday, there was a shooting in Newport Beach and the suspect fled down the 73 South, the same toll road Teresa and I use everyday. Did I see the suspect? No, but I did almost get hit by a Newport Beach Patrol Car that passed me on Pacific Park in the bike lane, racing to catch up with the chase without his siren or lights on.

This guy’s sworn duty is to protect me and he almost killed me with his pursuit-induced bad driving, so can you image the capability of doing damage of someone who is intending to hurt me?

Now, I am not endorsing that we all live in fear, and I do not consider how I live living in fear, but it cannot hurt to be cautious of our surroundings and to watch for warning signs.

Last Friday, in Kansas City...why is it that when a meat-packing plant worker has walked into the plant and murdered 5 people, it seems like everyone saw it coming, but did nothing about it other than to stand around afterwards and say, “I knew it was going to happen.” Were they afraid of being accused of paranoia?

We live in an America where you can be at work and have a co-worker standing in front of you, gun in hand, and literally passing judgement by saying, “You haven’t done anything to me, so you can go,” then moving on to the next co-worker.

You’d better hope you didn’t accidentally spill coffee on this guy yesterday, or have taken too long in the bathroom when he needed to use it, because today is the day that he is going to walk in and end your life for it.

Oh, but I’m paranoid. I’m a crack-pot nut-ball when I don’t want to drive to certain cities and down certain streets at night, even in Orange County...

Is Democracy Temporary?

You may recall hearing a quote from Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at The University of Edinburgh, about “The Fall of The Athenian Republic” some 2,000 years prior. It was written about the time our original 13 states adopted their new constitution in the year 1787. Here’s what he had to say: “A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship.” The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence: From Bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to complacency; From complacency to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage. More recently, Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning our 2000 Presidential election:

Population of counties won by:
Gore = 127 million
Bush = 143 million

Square miles of land won by:
Gore = 580,000
Bush = 2,427,000

States Won By
Gore = 19
Bush = 29

Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by:
Gore = 13.2
Bush = 2.1

Professor Olson adds: “In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush won was mostly the land owned by the tax-paying citizens of this great country. Gore’s territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off government welfare...” Olson believes the U.S. is now somewhere between the “complacency and “apathy” phase of Professor Tyler’s definition of democracy; with some 40 percent of the nation’s population already having reached the “governmental dependency” phase. It comes as no surprise that the team of Kerry/Edwards is appealing to the same electorate. There’s a lot at stake in this Election Year and apathy is the greatest danger to our freedom.

Today's Taxpayer Should Not Be Held Responsible For Slavery

A Japanese-American interned during World War II deserves reparations from the US Government. That Japanese-American’s children who were born after they were released from the camp and that person’s grandchildren do not.

Do I deserve reparations from the Mexican government because Pancho Villa drove my great-great grandmother’s family out of Mexico? Sounds ridiculous, but there are folks out there that say the U.S. Government owes them money because the U.S. Government condoned slavery before the Civil War and their great-great grandmother’s family was effected by slavery.

Let me give you a quote...Richard Barber, whose grandparents were slaves says that he will fight for reparations because there are still Americans “who have trust funds built on the backs of slaves.”

No one in my family ever owned a slave, yet, according to Mr. Barber, my tax dollars are supposed to go in his pocket...according to Mr. Barber, a company that I might own stock in that once had ties to slavery should take revenue out of my pocket and put it into his...why does Mr. Barber deserve my money more than me when I am the one who worked for it? Why does Mr. Barber deserve my money when I never owned a slave, nor anyone in my family line ever has, at least going back the entire time we've spent in the U.S.?

It’s because Mr. Barber looks back at a life that did not pan out to be all that he wanted it to be, and like most Americans, honestly, truly believes that there is no way that the way his life turned out is his fault because it has to be someone else’s...so, I’m giving away my money for food stamps, for unemployment insurance, and now I have to pay for slavery, too?

A Story That Must Be Shared...

Thomas H. Moorer, died in February 2004. I am saddened that I did not know who he was until I read his obituary.

Thomas H. Moorer was most well-known for his appointment to chief of naval operations by Lyndon Johnson in 1967 and for his service on the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Vietnam War. Moorer’s story that led him to this post is a very fascinating one.

Moorer was a Navy lieutenant pilot stationed at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. He was one of the few pilots who actually got airborne that morning and fought in the air against attacking Japanese fighters.

A year later, while leading a push back against Japanese forces moving towards Australia, Moorer and his crew were shot down by a swarm of nine Japanese fighters. Moorer bounced his plane off the water three times, slowing it and finally making a successful water landing. After being adrift, Moorer and his crew were rescued by a Philippine freighter.

Amazingly, just minutes after they were pulled from the water, the Philippine freighter was attacked by Japanese dive bombers and sunk. Moorer led the ship’s evacuation into two life boats and successfully guided the survivors to a deserted island, where, finally, two days later, Australian fliers saw the large S.O.S. that Moorer and his men had made on the sand from beach debris.

Moorer would go on to become the navy’s youngest rear admiral in history at age 45 in 1958. Moorer would later be appointed to the Joint Chiefs and serve as Chairman from 1972 to 1974. Upon his passing, I felt it only right to tell his amazing story and to thank him for his service.

Why Ethics Are In Decline...

There are two reasons that I am writing about business and ethics again today. 

Reason #1: At the end of May, I began receiving emails from Strong Financial, my former investment company that became my former investment company after it’s founder and captain, Dick Strong was caught using time zones and different closing times of international markets to pad his own personal stake in the company. These emails were talking about how exciting it was for Strong Financial customers that Strong Financial was going to be “merged” into Wells Fargo, thus resulting in access to new Wells Fargo investments. I must admit that I had a very difficult time getting excited about this because I knew that the only reason these Wells Fargo investments were being made available to me was because Dick Strong acted in an unethical manner, was caught, forced out of his leadership positions, resulting in the fail of Strong Financial and the necessity for it to be picked up by Wells Fargo in order to survive. Could you imagine spending your life building a company, then losing it just because you got a little greedy? This time-zone play was wrong and Dick Strong knew that it was wrong, and now his life’s work is going to end up as part of a division of Wells Fargo.

Reason #2: Teresa was at traffic school this past Saturday and re-told to me a story that the class’s instructor told her. When this instructor was a young girl, her family was involved in a car accident while on a road trip. The evening of the accident, the instructor and her sister found themselves in a strange town with nowhere to stay the night while their parents were in the hospital being treated for their injuries. The instructor’s mother called for a priest and the priest found a family for the girls to spend the night with that lived in the same town that the hospital was in. As the instructor was telling the story to Teresa’s traffic school class, she commented on how things were different back then and how people could be trusted.

We all know that things were different back then, but then this led me to ponder the question of why we have accepted this decline in ethics over time.

There is no question that, on the whole, American society grows more and more unethical every year. American business can do little but follow that trend because American business is made up of the same individuals that make up American society.

Ethics do not decline overnight, so there is not a clear-cut morning where we wake up and things are suddenly unethical, but even though this slide of ethics has occurred over decades, I cannot help but ponder why there are so many people out there in the business world that tolerate loose ethics, or a lack of ethics altogether, from the people they do business with and the people that they employ.

Why does an 18 year-old kid in the work place today think it is perfectly all right to sit in the company bathroom and text message his friends while on the clock? Is it technology’s fault? Is it how children are raised now as opposed to then?

It may be part of the reason, but what I am coming to believe is that the largest portion of blame for this slide in ethics lies with people out there in the business world who tolerate it.

Ethics thrive when unethical behavior is not tolerated, therefore, naturally, ethics decline when unethical behavior is tolerated. The text messaging kid’s managers know what he is doing, but they continue to let it happen. If the company’s owner knew what the kid was doing, he would be gone, but why do the managers tolerate this unethical behavior? Their tolerance of it not only allows his unethical behavior to continue, but contributes to the rise of unethical behavior from others at the company as well.

So, what can we as business owners and professionals do to ensure that ethics stop declining? Never tolerate unethical behavior from those we do business with and those that work for us.

To Spend Your Days In Castles...

There is not a single day that goes by that I am not thankful for the job I have, running and growing my own business by helping other business owners run and grow their companies. I truly have a dream job.

That being said, it is very rare for me to read about someone who is doing a job that results in a bit of a smile and just a little bit of envy or wonderment.

In a recent issue of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance a quote caught my eye. “I don’t do very much other than write about, talk about and drink Scotch.” Believe it or not, there is a Scotsman who actually makes his living doing this. His name is Charles MacLean, a 52 year-old native of Scotland who went to law school, but is today the foremost writer and critic of whiskey in the world.

Charles MacLean knows the Latin name for all of the different trees that aging barrels are made out of and can even quote just about every line that has ever been written about whiskey in famous literature the world over.

To MacLean, a whiskey as old as him is still young compared to the century-old tastes that he is used to. A new whiskey drinker might think Glenfiddich goes down a little rough, but MacLean has been known to call Glenfiddich “sort of girly.”

Respected, envied and sought-after top whiskey critic...if that’s not living, then I don’t know what is...

Las Vegas Casino Security

If you’ve ever stepped foot into a Las Vegas casino, let alone had the opportunity to meet some of the security personnel, you know that a Las Vegas casino is an “expert” when it comes to security.

The average start-up cost for casino security is $56.5 million dollars. Las Vegas casino security is at such a level of expertise that the Department of Homeland Security is currently looking to Las Vegas casinos to help them in keeping America safe through training DHS officers on security.

We all know that security is pretty tight at a Las Vegas casino, but there are some interesting things that I just learned.

If a suspicious character is picked up in the lobby or gaming area of one casino in Las Vegas, his image and profile is sent to virtually every other casino in town to alert security personnel.

In many casinos, there are little cameras in the table, right underneath the dealer, watching their every move.

Bell captains are checking all luggage that is checked at the casino to ensure that the guest who left the bags is staying in the hotel and remains registered at the hotel.

When you use your key card to enter your room, IT and camera equipment is logging when you entered your room and recording video of the hallway to create a record of who is coming in and out of your room when a key card is used.

Cameras in the hallways are fitted with special software that send an alert to security staff if any large objects are brought in or moved out.

There are video cameras rolling and recording license plates at the valet and in driveways, recording numbers into a database.

Try not to be too paranoid next time your at a Las Vegas casino, but believe me, they are watching your every move...

Move Over Nevada, Here Comes California and Lee Baca...

As you may recall, a few years back, Californians voted to allow California’s Native American tribes to use gambling in order to pull their people out of poverty.

I will be the first to admit that usually gambling and the theory behind it generating revenue sounds wonderful at first, but then later leads to an array of negative social impacts.

I think, however, that for the most part, legalized gambling on California’s reservations has had a positive impact. Today, however, I’m not bringing up legalized gambling for Native Americans because of the moral issues. The side-effect of legalized gambling in California that I am talking about is the side-effect of politician after politician then using legalized gambling as a solve-all for the entire society’s economic problems.

We voted to give gambling to the Native American tribes because they were impoverished. We obviously felt bad for this entire sub-group of Americans because other than the land we took from the Spanish, bought from the French or the Russians (of course, after those folks took it from the Native Americans), our government directly took all of the land that makes up the U.S. from this group of people’s ancestors.

I, myself, am descended from a line of the Blackfoot people who had their land taken away. So, I think Californians did a good thing by giving the Native American tribes a way out of poverty.

For the most part, this has worked and has had a positive impact.

Now that it has worked, though, the California politicians, like LA County Sheriff Lee Baca, want their share of the money. Is Lee Baca and his cohorts blaming Gray Davis for the financial state of California’s Sheriff Departments? No, of course not, they are blaming it on the successful Native American gambling tribes because they are not paying taxes.

These people do not pay taxes because they are considered to be a sovereign nation within the borders of the U.S. This is due to the treaties that the U.S. Government made with their forefathers.

Not like it has never been done before, but Lee Baca wants us to tear up that treaty and get these Native American tribes paying 25% of their gambling revenue to the State of California.

You may soon see folks outside your grocery store with petitions trying to get this on the ballot. You may even receive a petition in the mail like I did with a letter from Lee Baca explaining how these Native Americans and their lack of paying taxes are going to contribute to the death of California’s Sheriff Deputies and result in tax increases for all hard-working Californians.

No where in this letter does Baca address the financial debacle of Davis and his liberal cohorts, but he is sure ready to blame the state’s money problems on people who are not required by law to pay taxes, and a 25% tax at that.

Now, are you ready for an even better one? This petition that Lee Baca is supporting and asking you to sign is going to also increase state revenue by adding 30,000 slot machines to the already legal card clubs and race tracks in California.

If this one passes, how far are we from completely legalizing gambling in the state of California? Well, we would sure be a hell of a lot closer than we were five years ago.

Baca claims to be worried about the number of Deputies that he is going to have to cut from patrols, but how many more criminals are we inviting to our state by further legalizing gambling?

Please do all of California a favor and do not sign this petition. It is going to bring another 30,000 slot machines to California and not to reservation casinos, but to neighborhoods where people live and are raising their children.

Lee Baca and his cohorts say that the Native American tribes owe Californians because we have “given them” a monopoly on gambling. Hey, not too bad...they got gambling and we got to destroy their entire civilization because it fit our national interest best and got to steal an entire nation’s worth of land from their great-grandparents so the government could turn around and sell it to us at $50,000 an acre.

Our government destroyed their way of life, so the least they can do is pay us 25% of their gambling earnings, right?

Did They Just Tell Me "No"?

Why do you hire an expert?

Well, it is because of the expertise that they have that you do not.

So, what to do when you don’t agree with what the expert you have hired has recommended?

Take a minute to pause and think back to what Edmund Burke once said. “Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment, and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.”

That’s a mouthful, but read it a couple of times. What it is saying is that the expert you hired has a duty to tell you “no” when that expert knows that his opinion is correct and yours is not.

The expert that you have hired is not trying to push you around, not trying to get you going, not trying to do anything but to serve you in the capacity in which you hired him to serve you.

The expert is speaking from experiences that you do not have...the lack of experience which is the very reason that you hired that expert.

So don’t get upset when you are told “no” by your expert, but instead, take the time to understand where the “no” is coming from...the experience and expertise of the expert.

Giving Thanks When It’s Due...

I always try to remember to give credit where credit is due and I just ran across an article that made me feel the need to sound off with some thanks.

The new mayor of Hartford, Connecticut is a guy named Eddie Perez. Growing up in the bad part of Hartford with his single mom and eight siblings, Mayor Perez was once known on the streets as “The Professor” and ran with a gang he co-founded with some other young male family members.

Perez gives credit to getting involved in the community as to the reason that he turned his life around and started doing some good.

I grew up in the bad part of town and I grew up around guys just like Eddie Perez. One of the things that Perez commented on in an interview was that as he learns about the kids he grew up with, he finds that about 90% of them died from drugs or a life of crime, ended up in jail, or have no measure of success in their life whatsoever.

I know for a fact that as I hear news of my old friends that I grew up with in my early years, that number is ringing true for the group of kids that I spent my elementary school years with.

Hearing that 90% figure and seeing what Eddie Perez did with his life led me to think back on the loving family that I had around me and the wonderful friends that I made that not only accepted the kid from the poor side of town as their friend, but those friends and their families that, without even knowing it, showed me that there was a better life for me out there than the one my fellow neighborhood kids were choosing.

It was, in fact, for me, my family and friends and their belief in me that showed me the way. I must thank you all, my friends, and I must thank my family for this wonderful gift of a better life...Each moment spent with you and each lesson learned was a stroke on a canvas that would materialize into my American dream...

America Back On The Moon?

It almost seems trivial to be discussing space exploration at this point in American history, but I guess I must agree that we must keep on reaching for the America of tomorrow.

How else are we going to one day unite the world under the People’s Democratic Republic of the United States of the World? How many stars are on that flag?

I’m OK at looking towards space again as long as enough government is still working to keep us safe from terrorism before we are forced to divert those resources into figuring out how to defend ourselves from the subterranean Martians that we are going to piss off one day by landing on their planet.

First and foremost, despite the tragedies of 1986 and 2003, a push back to the moon, then on to Mars will most-likely result in the retiring of our space shuttles. As someone who grew up and aged with them, I will be sad to see the shuttles go, but we all know that they have outlived their mission.

The shuttles represent so much of the America that I grew up in...the America that finally defeated the Soviets and won the Cold War. As we bid farewell to our old work-horses, we will then need to decide if we launch our next round of moon missions direct from Earth or from the International Space Station. Will we see a new shuttle-like craft for transporting people and cargo to the space station? Will we see a new generation of Saturn 5-style rockets, or will we see both?

Either way, the best experts agree that for the sheer sake of technological advancements and the continually falling cost of that technology, man will be back on the moon within 15 years.

They say we will build a moon colony this time around and will have the technology for permanent residence on the moon. Yet another pristine, virtually untouched planet for us to litter with empty potato chip bags!

Once we have established our moon base, it will be time then to look to Mars, which these same experts say man will step foot on in about 25 to 30 years. I truly would love to see man on Mars before the end of my lifetime, but I must admit that I wonder how it will fit into our ever-changing lives here on Earth and which of man’s weaknesses and political and ethical quandaries will follow us up into the stars...who am I kidding? We all know that it will be all of them.

So, here is to empty Doritos bags littering the Martian countryside because, at least, as William Burrows pointed out in the WSJ, we will have spare humans on other worlds so that humans will survive when we finally destroy the Earth.

So, now that we have the pipe dream in place and can rest assured that we will not need to divvy up the surface of the moon with the evil Soviet empire this time around, how in the world are we going to pay for all of this? Well, that’s what they said before we went to the moon the first time and we managed to pay that bill off.

Sure, it’s a little more costly than the President flying on to the deck of an aircraft carrier, but that was pretty cool, and it sure did piss a lot of people off, and this is going to be really cool and the $1 trillion price tag of getting us to Mars is really really going to piss a lot of people off...We’ll just have to sit back, keep paying our taxes, and see what happens.

Saving At Its Worst...

At this point in the economic game, any American who actually manages to save some money should be praised, but there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it.

A Pennsylvania man that was not named by The Week Magazine, most likely so he wouldn’t be bombarded with calls from financial planners, recently walked into a bank with 37 4 1/2 gallon buckets filled with pennies he had accumulated over 40 years.

The pennies totaled $10,060. Putting $10K away over 40 years is not extraordinary, but with more Americans not saving anything at all, it’s not too bad.

My problem, however, is that if this guy had started putting the $251.50 he was averaging per year in pennies into an investment that returned even 5% per year, he’d have $20,252 instead of $10,060, even after paying taxes.

Putting these pennies in buckets instead of investing them was a monumental mistake.

“Some people don’t think pennies add up to anything,” this man’s wife was quoted as saying.

I’d love to have seen the look on her proud face when she found out that an annual trip to the bank with these pennies could have doubled their money.

What Is Insider Trading?

Sure it looks fun in the movies and it is basically what started this whole Martha Stewart mess, but how many of us understand what insider trading is?

Well, there are a good deal of gray areas when it comes to the insider trading laws, much like how traffic laws are open to interpretation but can still land you in jail based on how they are interpreted.

Insider trading laws were enacted in a five-year period following the 1929 crash to combat some common abuses of the era.

Basically, it is illegal for you buy or sell shares of a company based on information that you receive from an officer or key employee of that company.

If this individual tells you, or in some other way, provides information to you that they believe will, or is commonly known to, effect share price and you then go and buy or sell shares in that company, you have then committed a crime.

Here’s the kicker. If the person telling you this information is not an employee of that company nor discloses to you that they heard this information from an employee of the company, you can buy and sell all that you want to with this information, completely legally.

If you are walking down the street and find a memo that says Microsoft is going to stop selling software and develop a new line of oven mitts, you can legally act on that information. More so, if you break into Bill Gates’s house and see this memo on his desk, you can be prosecuted for breaking into his house, but you can buy, buy, buy and sell, sell, sell, fully legally with the information that you saw while you were illegally in his home.

But, if you hear it from a Microsoft employee and you act on it before it becomes public knowledge, you can end up in jail for insider trading.

How Dems Are Bush’s Best Supporters Right Now...

I’m still trying to remain objective here, but I must say that the Democrats are doing one hell of a job of making it difficult for me.

Right now, I’m voting Bush in November, but one of the things I try to do, no matter how one-sided I am on an issue, is try to look at the other side.

I try to make sure that I do not close myself off to just hearing out one side, but make sure that I hear out both sides before making my final decision.

Now, as far as the Presidential Election goes, I keep trying to hear the Democrats out, but these jerks can’t get past their Bush-bashing to actually talk on the issues.

Now, I know the information that finally reaches me is having to go through the media filter that all news does these days, but even hardened Democrats must admit that the level of Bush-bashing is not leaving much media time for the actual issues that I would like to hear about.

I’d like to know how Wesley Clarke plans to keep my family safe amid terror threats. I’d like to know how Howard Dean is going to ensure the economy maintains its recovery. I’d like to know how in the world anyone still actually listens to Al Sharpton.

The problem is that they are too busy talking about aircraft carrier landings and presumptuous banners to get their message through to me, the voter.

So if Bush is talking about issues and they’re talking about Bush, to me, then, they’re Bush’s best supporters right now. Hey, thanks guys!

Back In 1904...

Back in 1904...

...the average life expectancy in the U.S. was 47 years.
...only 14% of U.S. homes had a bathtub.
...only 8% of U.S. homes had a telephone.
...a 3-minute call from Denver to New York City cost $11.
...there were only 8,000 cars in the U.S., and only 144 miles of paved roads.
...the maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 miles per hour.
...Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California.
...California was only the 21st most populous state with a mere 1.4 million residents.
...the tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower.
...the average wage in the U.S. was 22 cents an hour.
...the average U.S. worker made between $200 and $400 per year.
...a competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year, a dentist $2500 per year, a veterinarian between $1500 and $4000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5000 per year.
...more than 95% of all births in the U.S. took place at home.
...90% of all U.S. physicians had no college education. Instead, they attended medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press and by the government as "substandard."
...sugar cost four cents a pound.
...eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.
...coffee was fifteen cents a pound.
...most women only washed their hair once a month, and used borax or egg yolks for shampoo.
...Canada passed a law prohibiting poor people from entering the country for any reason.
...the five leading causes of death in the U.S. were: 1. Pneumonia and influenza, 2. Tuberculosis, 3. Diarrhea, 4. Heart disease, 5. Stroke.
...the American flag had 45 stars.
...Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Alaska hadn’t been admitted to the Union yet.
...the population of Las Vegas, Nevada, was 30.
...crossword puzzles, canned beer, and iced tea hadn’t been invented yet.
...there was no Mother’s Day or Father’s Day.
...20% of U.S. adults couldn’t read or write.
...only 6% of all Americans had graduated high school.
...marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at corner drugstores. According to one pharmacist, "Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health."
...18% of households in the U.S had at least one full-time servant or domestic.
...there were only about 230 reported murders in the entire U.S.
...letters could take months to travel the world. This information came to me in an "electronic" mail, "copied and pasted" by me into a "software program" on a "computer" and delivered to you via the World Wide Web that involves no paper, writing, or teamsters (who drove horses in 1904), in just a couple of seconds...try to imagine what it may be like in another 100 years...