I think a lot of people, deep down, want a King to rule over them.  To back up this assertion I have history on my side of course.  But even in modern America there seems to be a huge section of the population that just don't want to bother with being responsible for themselves and planning ahead for their lives.   Most of these we call "Libs".

Libs want the Government to take care of them (and You) from cradle to grave.  Pay for birth, food, diapers, schooling, after-school care, job training, midnight basketball (if you're black), getting into and paying for college, providing and securing jobs, rehab for various reasons, transportation, pay raises, medical and living costs, entertainment, vacation days, computers in every pot, retirement funding and making sure that they get taxed again once they're dead.  The only thing I don't think they care about is having Uncle Sam pay for burials.  I don't know why they haven't found that "right" in the Constitution yet.  You know they will.  

If you'll notice, everything that they want, a King could provide.  Well, why don't they just come out and say it then?  Because, in their minds, they love liberty and freedom and opportunity.  They don't want a tyrant to take advantage of the working folk.  I know, I know - they say one thing and then push for the exact opposite.  It's how their minds work.  I really think it is a mental disorder. They block out anything that doesn't mesh with their fantasy. 

Here's how I think they reconcile the disparate desires.  They consider the Government as WethePeople.  Conservatives consider ourselves, individually and with faces, as WethePeople.  The Libs figure that all the money that is confiscated through taxation goes to all of us anyway so what's the big deal?  They always ignore the fact that the Government only represents  WethePeople.  We are NOT the Government.  The Government is an image or representative of us. The Government has no face and produces nothing. The marketplace is really us.  Places of worship are us.  Businesses large and small are us.  I could go on and on.  The Government IS a ruler.  Conservatives want the Ruler to be smaller and less intrusive.  The Libs want the Ruler to be more powerful and have greater dominion over us all.

And there are some other Americans who are sorta middle of the road types who also look to a King whether they really realize it or not.  These are the people who are too busy to pay much attention to what's going on outside their homes.  They believe the Brian Williams of the world.  They follow Oprah.  They expect the schools and libraries and television to rear their children.  They don't mean harm - it's just easier to shrug off their responsibilities to others who certainly have an interest in their children.  These people also gripe more about ATM fees and the price of movie tickets than the amount that comes out of their paychecks.  They also believe that the Government and their Employer is paying for services such as retirement and healthcare.  They don't know and don't care that they (themselves) are actually paying for these things.  They trust that someone somewhere is handling the important things like security and defense and the bad guys in the Middle East - wherever that is. 

Now, before I let the conservatives off the hook I will point out how many of us love Elvis or Money or Sports Teams to an unhealthy degree.  Those of us who do that need to go to church.  And more than a few of us love the Royals!  What is up with that?  Must be the soap opera appeal.  Now, as for me, I have only one King - Jesus Christ.  I am quite happy with my choice.  Besides Him, though, I say we keep fighting against this King worship mentality.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have put their berets in the ring for Presidential Nominee from the Democrat Party.  This should be fun to watch.  The Democrat Party contains some wildly divergent factions that seem like they should not be under the same umbrella.   Sorta a big non-sequitar conglomeration if you will.  (I have no idea if I used those $10 words correctly but I'm on a roll).  On the one hand they have the black vote to worry about and on the other hand they have the feminist vote to worry about. 

Now, one might say this is easy to remedy.  Just make one a Prez candidate and the other the VP candidate.  Ah but which should be which?  If you put the man in front, well that's a tune that the feminists have heard before - Geraldine Ferraro.  Why should the woman stand behind the man - again?  But if the woman is put first that might be an even bigger problem.  Why should a "strongblackman" have to take a back seat to a white woman?  This makes me giggle with pleasure as I think about the messy taffy pull that will come from this.  And I don't usually giggle. 

Now, we all know that the Dems will pull this off - somehow.  Just like they do with other tricky situations; like voting for the war and then undermining it from the get-go.  They will stretch it out week by week over a really long time so that the public will lose interest or forget what the concern was in the first place.  The public has no tenacity for the most part.  And Dem voters are not all that bright anyway.  bumper sticker slogans are good enough for them. They are intellectually lazy and short-sighted.  Plus, the opposition party is defenseless when it comes to fighting dirty.   The press will put a layer of cheap paint over the whole thing to help further confuse the public.  But it will fun to watch the strategy that the Dem party puts together and the discomfort they will feel.  I marvel at the sheer evil genius that leaks out from them all. 

One more thing to keep in mind.  Hillary and Bill are ruthless and powerful.  Does Barack really think that he can beat them?  He might want to ask Kerry, Dean and Edwards about undermining in regards to the Clintons. 

I started in earnest to get rid of my extra poundage on Dec 30.  I know it is a strange time to get it going but I was running out of big pants to wear.  In my previous posts (from Nov) I said I was going to start but, alas, I laid around instead.  Now, it's for real.  I have lost 12 lbs in 18 days. And I lost 2 inches off me belly and 2 off me waist.  Not bad. 

What did I do you ask? Well, I cut out bread, pasta, rice.  I cut out sweets of all kinds except honey.  I cut out all meat.  I cut out all milk products.  I cut out my beloved sweet tea. Sounds fun, no?  

What my wife and I are doing is called the Daniel Fast.  Daniel refused the King's rich food and ate only veggies and fruit. There are many versions of this which can be found on the net.  My church does it as a corporate (body) fast for the first 21 days of each new year.  It's a way to rely on God for our strength (and boy, you can bet I've been praying hard).   Also, it's body discipline (Paul) and a way to get rid of bad habits.  The idea is to demonstrate the same strength one would have if they ate "normal" food. 

Now, for those who don't know, when a Christian or Jew fasts, they are not to look pitiful while doing it.  They are also not supposed to brag about it.  Most try not to tell anyone for these reasons.  I decided to tell you for honesty's sake. 

What have my wife and I been eating?  Beans and potatoes mostly.  When we get tired of that we eat potatoes and beans.  I now know several ways to cook up potatoes and about 20 things to add to beans to make them tasty:)  I am a master chef now. By that I mean I cook up some black beans or navy beans in a crock pot; add frozen veggies; a can or two of ocra and tomatoes; some salt and pepper and voila: another form of bean stew!  It's actually not that bad although after 12 days I have finally started to dream of bowls of chili with sour cream and cheese.  Mmmmmmm cheeeeese.  But I digress.  We eat apples, bananas, peaches, plums, raisins, kiwi, berries of all kinds, pineapple and melon.  Also lettuce, celery, carrots, tomatoes, green beans etc etc.  I found some cracked bread products (kosher of course). I recommend WASA brand and Lavasch brand.  Excellent taste.  We also drink lots of juice and eat lots o' hummus.  Oh and natural peanut butter.

I have also worked out almost every day demonstrating my tremendous strength. haha.  Actually i have strong legs but my upper body needs work.  I've always sucked at benchpress.  I have reduced my cardio from what I used to do and increased the iron work and body weight excercises.  Check out Matt Furey for details.  Hindu pushups and squats and the magnificent 7 are the way to go.  I've read many books that swear that one does not have to run for 45 minutes a day to look great.  Plus, I never see the ripped-looking guys spending too much time on the treadmills.  I don't get it but, hey, if I don't have to run that much then I'm all for it. Anyway the fast has not affected my strength - thank the Lord. 

Now before you get the wrong idea I want to say 2 things.  1. I do not plan on keeping this strict diet.  That will not work for me.  I like meat and dairy and sweets and pasta and bread.  However, I do plan on eating vegetarian(less the potatoes)  twice a week and fasting in some form or another 1 day a week.  I will let one day be an anything goes day.  Basically I will NOT eat whatever I want anytime I want.   The second thing is that I recognize that as healthy as this diet sounds, it actually is not that great for weight loss.  Too much sugar in juice and fruits and too many carbs in the hummus and potatoes.  Moderation is the key.

BTW-we watched the marathon of the "Biggest Loser" reality series.  Amazing what some of those folks lost!  They transformed their bodies to where they looked totally different.  Some of them lost a whole nother person - over 100 lbs.  So I put the "Biggest Loser" cookbook on hold at my local public library.  I can't wait to try some of the recipes.   

About 35 lbs and 5 inches off the ol' waistline to go!  I'll keep you posted! 

 

Well, I guess the REAL championship game woulda been FL-USC.  Hahahahaha.  OSU's record v. SEC teams in bowl games (all time) 0-8.  Hugh said on his radio program last week that the SEC is the twinkle toes league.  Ooops.

Big Ten football has traditionally been overrated.  Their bowl records are not that good.  Click here and here to see what I mean.  Of course, these sites will have to be updated:)  OSU and Michigan got whupped. They are similar to pop stars and the Dems - without the press and puffed up PR, they are not all that. 

The SEC is a FAST league in case you didn't know.  Kentucky (my team - and, yes, it's like being a Cubs fan) has a better bowl record than OSU and Michigan. Iowa has a better record than OSU. 

And, I hate to say it, but Troy Smith, along with Archie Griffith, should not have won the Heisman since they were playing against inferior competition in their leagues.   

So I was flipping through channels on Saturday and came across the Dallas-Seattle game.  There were about 4 minutes to go with Seattle leading 21-20.  Dallas had the ball and Julius Jones burst up the middle with a long run.  I immediately said to the tv "Let him score."  My wife looked at me and said "I thought one of the objects was to keep the other team from scoring."  I replied, "Well, if they let Jones score, the Seahawks will get the ball back and have 3 minutes to get down the field into the endzone and have a chance to win.  They can throw at least 15 passes in that time. Now, all the Cowboys are gonna do is run the clock down and kick a chip shot to win.  The Seahawks will only have 30 seconds or so to get down the fieid and set up for a long field goal."  The Seahawks have the type of passing offense to get downfield quickly.  They were starting to hum and Stevens was having a big day.  

Now, this raises an ethical question:  Should a team let an opponent score just to get the ball back with plenty of time to get to the endzone? Or should they try their best to stop them, let the opponent kick a 95% probable field goal to take the lead and  leaving said team very little time to get in field goal range and kick a (probably) long field goal? 

There is the question of professional integrity.  If the players don't try to stop the opponent, a fan (and the Commissioner) could say that the players laid down to lose bringing in all kinds of questions as to why.  But if the goal is to win, I say an ethical strategy would be to let the guy score so your offense will have plenty of time to get down to the opposite endzone.  The way I see it, smart receivers and running backs "let the ball slip" out of their hands or flat out spread their arms wide and let the ball hit them in the stomach if they are going to lose yardage or to stop the clock. Or, when the receiver has to play defense, he will bat the ball down to keep the defender from intercepting it.    One could say that in these cases the player is not really trying to catch the ball. 

Of course, my wife said, "Why don't they just take the ball back from them?"  I love her, she understands the core of the game. 

Naturally, I figured the game was over and TURNED THE CHANNEL!   You know, I knew better too.  I've been a sports fan for a long time and I know this is just the type of game to end in a wild fashion.  I heard the news on the radio about the finish and had to laugh. 

Note: I feel sorry for Romo.  Dallas is not the place for sympathy after a huge muff. 

And does anyone out there think T.O. is not going to bring this blunder back up again when he gets pouty?  He hates his QBs (usually after he gets himself in trouble).   Of course, he'll forget all the dropped passes he had during the season and his 2 catches for 26 yds in this game.

 I am not excited, at all, by the 2008 election.  It sorta reminds me of the 1996 election when we had Bob Dole and Jack Kemp as our presidential nominees.  Now it is McCain and Romney in whatever order.  Zzzzzzzzzz.  A northeastern (code for liberal RINO) republican and a 71 year-old MSM buttkisser.  (Insert the 3 Stooges sleeping in one bed scene here). 

Both seem like nice men.  Both are fine Americans and well accomplished.  But they don't seem to spark any passion or even a tingle when I hear them speak.  Romney says the right things most of the time and I think he is pretty conservative at heart.  But when asked about the war in Iraq he gave a politician's answer:

One of the people who is considering a run, Sen. [John] McCain, has advocated sending up to 30,000 more troops to help stabilize Iraq. Do you support sending more troops into that country?

The process that is being pursued right now is that the President and his senior staff are meeting with generals and officials at the front in the theater and finding out their perspectives. That’s something you have to do, along with meeting with al-Maliki to determine where they are and where they can be.

I’m not going to weigh in. I’m still a governor. I’m not running for national office at this stage. I’m not going to weigh in on specific tactics about whether we should go from 140,000 to 170,000. That’s something I expect the President to decide over the next couple of weeks and announce that to the nation. I want to hear what he has to say.

But fundamentally, we’re talking about a very different approach than the Iraqi Study Group concluded. Their approach suggested somehow we would pull out in a setting that was less than victorious. We really do need to make sure we stabilize the nation to the extent humanly possible so that Iraq cannot be torn apart by its neighbors and so that a sectarian disaster does not ensue.

Do you think right now the U.S. is losing the war in Iraq?

The term is overly charged, I’m afraid, and so I’m not going to try and define who’s winning and who’s losing. I don’t think we’re making anywhere near as much progress as we had anticipated we would make.

There’s no question the administration was surprised by the fact that after the fall of Saddam Hussein it was a much tougher road than they ever expected. Secretary [Donald] Rumsfeld, as you recall, said we’re just sweeping up a few dead-enders. Well, it turned out to be a lot more than that. We had insufficient troops in place. We had insufficient plans. We did not have the appropriate rules of engagement in place. Obviously, there were management lapses—events such as Abu Ghraib make that clear. For all those reasons, we did less than the entirely effective job that we would have hoped to be able to do. And as a result, we’re in a difficult position right now.

But to assess whether we’re making progress or not, I would presume we’re making progress, but certainly not at the rate we were hoping to make progress and, in some respects, that is disappointing.

This excerpt is from an interview in Human Events dated Dec. 28, 2006. 
Here is the link:  http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=18683    Note that this interview was only a week or two ago and yet he says flatly that he is not running for office even though he knows he's about to.  I dislike that polspeak junk.  Just say what you have to say.  He actually sounds like a cornered Dem when pressed to ask what he would do about Iraq. "Uh, that's the President's job, not mine."   Romney is as appealing as Sprite. 

And McCain.  How has he helped the party?  By second-guessing Bush on half the issues that get bounced around in public?  Remember, this is the guy who flirted with Kerry as being a VP running mate.  He gave us McCain-Feingold, the Gang of 14, and he is for any kind of cell research.  The only thing he has gotten right is his stance that we should win in Iraq.  So we could run Lieberman for our top slot, too, based on that criteria. 

In 1996, Dole and Kemp lost by a good amount.  Both were good conservatives, decent speakers, but they just didn't excite enough people, including Republicans.  Clinton and that other guy were more appealing to the TV generation.  Clinton is a star (despite the fact that he gave the most boring and longest speech at the 1988 convention).  He is an excellent speaker and BSer, which sometimes go hand in hand. 

Barrack Obama is like this although I think him to be less off the cuff and more like an actor who has played Hamlet for years.  Hilary has backbone but is shrill when she tries to be passionate.  And she is transparent in her powermadness "and you know what i'm talkin' bout".  However, I think Obama and that guy who lives in the other America could be a decent team.  They are lightweight and cuddly enough to please the soccermoms, ostriches, and intellectually lazy among us. 

See, I think the reason America loved the Clintons was because "Dallas" was off the air and we needed a replacement.  Today, America is getting war fatigue and the current administration is not helping one bit.  "Hard hard work" and "Staying the course" are becoming aggravating to hear.  We need more.  And if Romney and McCain or whoever (Sonny Perdue where are you?) don't come hard at us about the life and death importance of winning against Islamofacism the American public will become lax and "let it ride".  They have already started by electing a new majority to Congress. 

Simple observations from a simple man.  Hey, that doesn't sound right...

1. Neo-con: This adjective is perjorative.  I have figured out that it means "Jew who has realized that 10% of the Muslem population on earth openly wants every last Jew dead as well as America (friend to Israel) to fall".  The true number may be bigger.  It goes back to the classic definition which is a conservative is a liberal whose been mugged.   I have no use for the term.  To me, it is used to induce shame or guilt for maturing or changing sides.  The same folks who hate labels and encourage diversity use it in a negative fashion to start an argument.  I am just happy to read Kristol, and listen to Medved and Prager.

2.  Strawman or Straw man :  used on comment boards everywhere.  Every 3rd comment will state that a previous commentor has set up a "straw man".  I've heard of "feet of clay" and the movie Straw Dogs with Dustin Hoffman and even "paper tiger" but rarely encountered "straw man" until I visited the blogworld.  this reminds me of annoying catch phrases from grad school or the business world; paradigms, end-user, "putting out fires"  "fighting alligators".  Harmless, yet annoying when used too much. 

3.  Cut and paste :  Not that I'm being overly critical but some commentors think that we want to learn not one or two interesting facts or opinions about the topic of the entry; but the entire origin and history of whatever.  For instance, if Applecore states that "Rome fell because of overextension in the 5th century AD", then it may well be rebutted by Analretentive who not only copies A's original statement but then cuts and pastes the entire book of Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 

The other funny thing is when folks go to a dubious source to cut and paste to back up a point.  For example, a person of liberal persuasion might go to the DU, KOZ, or weknowtherealtruthbehindwhythewhitehouseispaintedwhite.net and copy and paste an entire article to persuade other commentors on why it's absolutely true that the War on Terror is a cover-up for the fact that George Bush's great grandfather on his mother's side set this ingenious plan to earn 5 cents more per barrell on oil for the Illuminati in motion back in 1888. 

4.  One party can win election by stating 90% the same thing as the other party while claiming to be different and more effective if the media never asks them to prove their differences and inquire about that party's plans.  Also, the party can be elected if it waits for the party in power to erode due to blindness, tardiness, and stupidity. 

5. I've learned that Mormons are not really dangerous to the United States.  The worst that can happen if Romney wins is that we will improve our postures, brush more often, and Sprite will be the official drink of the United States of America.  I've also learned that the LDS has a proud history which has been changed often and that half the Mormons cheerfully ignore anyway.  

6. I've also learned that trying to completely pay off all debt is a mixed bag of emotions.  (I recommend Dave Ramsey for inspiration).  I changed jobs, see, and got this big windfall of cash money due to cashing in vacation and sick time.  So my bad self automatically tries to figure out if I have enough room in my apartment for a big screen HDTV.  My good self says automatically that I should pay off a creditor completely and be done with it.  Well, my good self and my wife convinced me to go ahead and pay off the creditor completely.  Boy was I sad to see that money go away so quickly.  I hardly knew ye!  Now, however, I am quite satisfied at what I did.  I must be maturing in my adulthood.  Good.