I’m still waiting on my letter from President Bush telling me about the $600 I’ve got coming from the government. I moved about a year and a half ago so I guess he did not get my ‘change of address’ I sent the IRS when I filed my taxes last year. I’ve really been trying to figure out how I’m going to spend this windfall when I finally get it and I think I’ve found the answer. It’s costing me about $15 to $20 extra to fill up my five year old Tahoe now over what it was costing a year ago. If I stay close to home I can get by on a tank of gas per week. That means this $600 will cover about 6 months of the increased gas prices. That made me feel pretty good until I figured out that I’ve already spent that money and the check from President will only make me whole for the past six months and the next six months I’m on my own.

I’ve got a better idea for the next $160,000,000 that he and Mr. Cheney want to spend to stimulate the economy. Instead of sending me back the tax money I’ve already paid why don’t he man up and encourage me and all my fellow citizens to spend by doing something that will really make a difference. Why don’t he limit the amount of fees and penalties the credit card companies charge. While the Fed bleeds money by reducing the cost of money to all the big boys, I still see credit card interest cost way above 15%, sometimes even above 25%. I don’t think it would kill them to hold the interest to 15% across the board. I also think I’d be more incline to spend if I knew that a late fee would give me thirty days before getting hit with a $30 late fee and a $30 fee if I went $5 over my limit. I can’t even think about the other charges that show up from time to time and I know I’m not the only one getting hit by these ever increasing amounts.

VISA has just enjoyed one of the most successful IPO’s in history. Their stock was snapped up by hundreds of institutional investors, not the little guys, because they are projected to be so profitable. These profits are coming after countless executives will be paid over a $1,000,000 per year and untold millions spent on lavish perks and entertainment. I’m not a communist and I wholeheartedly believe in the free market system but these times require common sense and lord knows we need some now.

My good friends in an adjoining county announce today they are getting a new, and much needed, 750 person above ground storm shelter. They are getting a big federal grant to build this much-needed facility but I had never heard of one being built above the ground. When a tornado hits in this area, which it often does, I want my big fat body under the ground, so the above ground description threw me. I talk with my two closest advisors, John and Wally, about the situation and I think we came up with several reasons for the change in the design you expect.

Our first observation was that if you were underground without windows or open doors you would not be able to see the ‘cloud’ coming and all that stuff flying around. Secondly a person underground may miss the sound of that famous train coming they will be ask about by the first television reporter on the ground. Thirdly if you, and 749 others, were stuffed underground, all talking, singing and carrying on, as folks in this area are prone to do, you would have no way of knowing when the storm had passed. That means you would be down there as long as the food and beer held out. Another reason pointed out by the official was that he was afraid that if the facility were put underground then many of their residents would not be able to find it. This would really be a problem if they had stayed at home long enough to finish the last part of a ‘Jerry Springer Show’. Springer has a big following in that county, especially on the shows where everyone is waiting on the results of the DNA test.

For whatever the reason the official was satisfied that the shelter, which is being built in a nearby mobile home plant, would be ready before the end of tornado season.

Looks like another good job by FEMA.

O.K. we’ve bailed out Bear Stearns and guaranteed another oil tanker load of money to induced J.P. Morgan to take over the Wall Street giant. I know that on some level this makes sense and will be good for our economy in the long run, but I have a few request of our government in regards to this transaction.

First, I think we should be extremely upset if we read a week or two from now that the CEO and his buddies leave Bear Stearns with multi million dollar retirement packages. These are the clowns that put that eighty-year-old company in the shape it’s in now and they certainly should not be rewarded for their greed fed blunders. All this money should go to reducing the bailout funding, not to pay off those who screwed up in the first place. Secondly I believe that the Executives from J.P. Morgan should agree to limit their compensation to no more than two hundred and fifty thousand dollars ($250,000.00) per year until the bailout money or guaranty is fully repaid to the people’s treasury. Next I believe the government, as a condition of the bailout should require a moratorium on the usual perks provided these elite corporate executives until the governments’ exposure is reduced to zero. No more personal limos with drivers, private dining rooms, personal access to corporate jets and vacation hideaways. Lastly I think the terms of the bailout should include a energy related provision. All the executives of the acquiring company and the bailout beneficiary should be required to use their existing fleet of limos and drivers to set a good environmental roll model for the nation. They should create carpools to bring all the executives in from the outlying areas of New York daily instead of providing multiple cars for the individuals involved.

J.P. Morgan bought this company for two dollars ($2.00) a share, supported by the people’s money. Why can’t there be some show of good faith to the people instead of just another trip to peoples well for more pork and water to feed the rich?

When I borrow money I have to jump through a dozen hoops to satisfy the lender that I am serious about paying it back on a timely basis, why are the big boys not held to the same standards?

$42,000,000, forty-two million dollars, $1,000,000 X 42=$42,000,000. Any way you write it or say it it’s a boat load of money. People drive across two states to buy a lottery ticket for a chance to win that kind of payoff. Oprah can pay for ½ a house for that much money. 1,000 teachers can work for year for that much money. 10schools can be built for that much money. So what does our government do with that much money? It sends all of us a letter telling us that we are going to get a tax give away of $600. We have heard about it for nearly four months. Brian Williams and told us at least twenty times and it has been in every newspaper and magazine for months.

Am I just stupid or is this the closest thing to throwing a ton of money up a pig’s backside and hollering sooey since we built a bridge to nowhere or invested thousands of dollars in a toilet seat. Please just give me one good reason why this is necessary. Do we have so many government employees on the payroll that we just have to find work for them to do or have our legislators finally lost touch with reality. Poor ole G. Bush doesn’t even have a reason for a P.R. effort, he’s toast and nothing will change that.

The only explanation is that our elected officials have no clue about how much they are spending. A million dollars ($1,000,000) has absolutely no value to anyone inside the Beltway. In the words of that great American, Earl Pitts, ‘WAKE UP AMERICA”.

Who let Geraldine out of the box? Did her husband ever serve any time for the mess he was in when she ran for V.P.? If we really needed to know about being nominated because of race or gender she’s the one for ‘Meet the Press’. If she were not female she’d be known only for introducing the legislation that promoted conjugal visits in prisons.

Barack is right by saying a black man with a name like Barack Obama probably should see a shrink if he even thought about running for President. Especially while half the world is looking for a guy named Osama and Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are still loose. Obama is the frontrunner in spite of being black not because he’s black. Thunder thighs and Bill are throwing everything she can think of at Obama and this last volley shows how desperate they are getting.

Go back into your hole Geraldine. How many states did you and sweet Walter carry? That’s what happens when someone is nominated because of race or gender.

Barack Obama is leading because he believes this country can achieve the potential it has. He’s the one I want answering that damn phone at 3:00 in the morning.

I missed something somewhere. Why did they fire a perfectly good foreign affairs advisor from the Obama campaign because she called iron butt a ‘Monster’. She is. She has spent a lifetime honing those skills to almost perfection. She would be easier to identify if she had continued to look like she did at Wellesley but someone close to Bill figured that out early and got her to shave, get some contacts, see a pants suit designer, take the Clinton name and comb her hair, but they could not do much for the person underneath.

Webster’s II New Riverside dictionary defines monster as, “an extremely vicious or wicked person”. Has anyone ever paid attention to this woman? She is the best ever at giving credibility to a vicious rumor or innuendo she started or cause to start by denying it. Would you believe this woman on a used car lot. She is also adept at taking credit for successes that she either had nothing to do with or that never occurred in the first place. Her health care efforts during the early years of her husbands’ first term were the laughing stock of the country. This woman nearly got him beat before he was ever elected and now she claims everything good he ever accomplished was done through her efforts.

The lady that got fired should be rehired and given a raise. Look at the ‘lifetime of experience’ Hillary so quickly throws out at every stop. You may want her answering the phone for you at 3:00 in the morning but I’d rather it be put on ‘call forwarding’ to Ron Paul than to trust her with my grandchildren

March 5, 2008

Yes, this is the day after the sub/Super Tuesday and Hillary, from what she said on the ‘Today’, has clinched the nomination for President. I am a Democrat, I am so ready to get Bush/Cheney and this entire administration out of Washington, but I swear I will vote for John McCain before I will ever vote for this overbearing know it all broad.

Hillary Clinton is no more or no less than a female Carl Rove and a remake of exactly what we have now. This woman will do and say anything to claim the office which she feels she has a divine right to occupy. She has been driven from the time she left Wellesley until today to be the President of the United States and will let no principle or value stand in her way to attaining her goal. Her marriage and her entire adult life have been driven to obtain this one goal and now that she is so close she will become more and more obsessed by that goal.

A world questioned why any woman would endure the humiliation heaped on her by a promiscuous husband. From Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey, Monica Lewinsky and the Lord only knows who else, Bill has made it abundantly clear that this was not a marriage made in heaven. Everyone knows his personal life is separate and apart from his public life. Hillary did not leave him because she knew from the start that this old country boy had the potential to place her in a position to reach her goal in life. Short of Bill’s being shot by a jealous husband Hillary was sticking to him like white on rice.

I do not have a problem with having a woman President; I have a problem with that woman being Hillary Clinton. This woman is acting like the spoiled self centered brat she is and it is hurting her party and our nations chances of getting the war mongers out of office and replacing them with an administration that will return us to a place of leadership in the world. In addition to lying about ‘universal health care’, having a weak or non- existent energy policy, and a less than full commitment to the ‘greening’ of our country, Hillary has pulled out all stops in the use of the ‘ringing phone’.

Who is supposed to answer the phone and what are they supposed to say when they do pick it up to answer. Is it supposed to be a John Wayne or George Bush clone that immediately screams at the caller that we’re launching missiles right now to blow their asses up? How about a Dick Cheney that says hold on while I call some friends in the Oil and Weapons business and see how we need to respond? How about an old man that can’t exactly remember where the caller is from or a woman that’s been up all night co-coordinating the Secret Services search for her husband in all the Hooter’s in Washington D.C.

I would like to have someone pick up the phone that knew the caller and the leader of whatever group was causing the trouble. I would like someone that had studied and understood the underlying conflicts that may have lead to the crisis call. I would like someone that had previously addressed the causes of whatever the conflict from a reconciling position without the baggage of special interest. I would like someone that was trusted by leaders around the world to act in a right and just manner, not determined by special interest or superficial pride.

I do not want that phone answered by anyone with a lifetime of experience like both McCain and Hillary boast of having. The experience we have garnered for the past fifty (50) years has really got us screwed up, why do we want more.

We still have the power to achieve great things in this world. We can help in so many ways and places that once again we can become that light on the hill we think we are now. We need leadership that uses our vast resources for the good of others, not just ourselves. We can broker peace if we are trusted to not be looting the countries we’re helping. We can influence economies if we are not giving with one hand while taking double with the other. We can lead in protecting and renewing our environment if we pay the price ourselves.

We are not ever going to be trusted in this world until we have leadership that does not have ‘a lifetime of experience’ in government.

Thomas Jefferson was thirty-three (33) when he was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence. Pretty good for someone without a ‘lifetime of experience’.

Last Saturday morning I pulled out of my driveway about 6:30 a.m. While stopping to pick up my morning paper, I was shocked to see cars lining both sides of our street. We live on a fairly long street and the cars and trucks stretched form one end to the other. I noticed a sign on the corner across from my driveway announcing an estate sale three doors down from my house beginning at 8:00 o’clock a.m. and the masses were already gathering.

My first reaction was one of sadness. I knew the lady that lived there before she died several months before and thinking about her worldly possessions being sold like this bothered me in a way that is hard to describe. Mrs. McNeely was a great lady. While I did not know her well I was around her for several years and had grown to appreciate what a true southern lady she was. I first knew her long before moving into her neighborhood from her work at Decatur General Hospital. My wife had worked there when we first married and I had gotten to know Mrs. McNeely through conversations in the gift shop or on the hallways while waiting on my wife. Mrs. McNeely always looked so pretty with her perfectly fixed hair and makeup and her smartly pressed hospital volunteer smock. Later after I begin to play golf at Decatur Country Club I would see Mrs. McNeely on the golf course, always walking, pushing her cart and clearly enjoying not only the game but also the friends she was playing with that day.

I really did not know when Mrs. McNeely got sick and out of action for the last time. I do remember the day my wife told me Mrs. McNeely had passed away, and though I had not been a close friend I felt that sudden emptiness one feels when someone you know and admire is gone and you will never see them again. My gut reaction was that a very neat person, that attacked aging with such style and vigor, had left us and was going to me missed by so many she enjoyed and who equally enjoyed her.

I had no interest in the items covered under the ‘Estate Sale’ banner, I did not want anything and probably could not afford anything. Still I felt discomfort in knowing these treasures Mrs. McNeely had acquired and accumulated over such a long period of time, would just be sold to anyone who showed up at 6:30 in the morning in a pick-up truck. I kept this sad and miserable feeling all morning until sometime after lunch when I again left my house headed for my weekly trip to ‘ACE HARDWARE’. As I eased down the street, winding my way through the cars and trucks parked on both sides of the street, I had to stop for a moment while a husband and wife lugged a fairly large rug across the street and fitted it into the trunk of their older model Buick. These two were so happy with their find and purchase that they were actually laughing together. I heard the husband telling the wife about what a deal they had found. “Can you believe we got that for $250,” he said, “it will be perfect in out living room”. His wife could not resist, “I told you it would be worth coming and you didn’t believe me”.

The rest of the day I watched others come out of Mrs. McNeely’s house and now saw them a little differently. Most of them seem to be extremely happy, some even laughing as they carried their new treasures to their cars and trucks. I was amazed at how much the purchases seemed to mean to these new treasure hunters. I don’t know why but I begin to wonder if the joy these new owners were feeling was like what Mrs. McNeely had felt when she first found these items. Maybe this was the best way to honor Mrs. McNeely. To share those things that meant so much to her with others that would now treasure the items the same as Mrs. McNeely and hopefully gain the same enjoyment and pride that my friend had found.