Friday, February 27, 2009

Oh, I Get It!

I get it! Democrats have been getting hammered pretty hard about that $787 Billion Stimulus Bill they crammed down our throats so President Obama comes up with a budget SO big that we'll stop worrying so much about what congress did with that piddly little stimulus thing. $3.5 Trillion is SO stinking much money that we're burning out our brains just trying to understand how much money that is! Let's see I now get $400/month from retirement investments (after thieves and crooks got done with me) so it would take me 730 Million years to come up with that much money. Did I say Million? Gads, I still can't grasp how much $3.5 Trillion is. Maybe it'll help if I calculate that in light years?

Heck, I'm in such shock that I'm wayyyy not ready to move onto thinking how it gets paid for. That must be part of the plan too! By the time we're over our shock, the budget legislation will be passed too. Stimulus bill? What stimulus bill? Budget? Did you see a budget go through here? See? It worked! Brilliant!

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

It's Not The Old West Folks!

C'Mon folks this is not the lawless Old West. The elections and subsequent legislative and executive 'encounters' aren't meant to be the equivalent of gunfights on main street. It's not meant to be about survival of the fittest or the last man/woman standing. The winner of the gunfights we're seeing doesn't get to be the law.

The 'law' is our Constitution, not any of the institutions created by it, any person garnering significant power by it's processes or any political party that comes along. Our founding fathers established the principles and rules by way of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. They intended for there to be a tension but also relative balance between the two basic political opposites, liberals and conservatives. When one party locks the other out of the room while creating really important new laws and sweeping government reform, including record spending and debt, we become more like a dictatorship or autocracy than a democracy. It may be exciting, fun or even entertaining for some in one party but it's not healthy for our country. It's arguably unconstitutional isn't it?

There is no doubt that passing that particular stimulus bill absolutely commits us to big tax increases to pay for its spending requirements without citizens having any idea what those taxes will be. There is also no question that not one legislator had time to read the legislation before passage so that guarantees there was no time to ensure it represents the will of The People. In fact, rational people have argued that it was processed that quickly in order to consciously avoid having citizens know what was in it before it was voted on. What would our founding fathers say about that? Does taxation without representation ring a bell?

Why has America been so consistently successful compared with countries that are controlled by either very left-wing or very right-wing politics? What's going on in Congress is unhealthy and the legislative processes being used appear to violate at least the spirit of the Constitution and intentions of our founding fathers.

S'Up With Female 'Barbers'?

Why do female haircutters refuse to cut a man's hair the way HE wants? (Sorry, but I can't bring myself to call them barbers.)

Once again (or rather 'still') I'm shopping for a good barber. Male barbers started getting much harder to find about 20 years ago so, when I move to a new community, my search invariably begins with female haircutters out of necessity. My main beef is that they ALL hate sideburns. No exceptions (at least not that I've found in 20 years).

I want modest sideburns about 1" long and I want them equal in length. Is that a lot to ask? Ha! Apparently it is! I don't care what's currently 'fashionable'. I don't even care if my sideburns don't happen to fill in as thickly as some. For whatever reason (that I can't explain and, in fact, is completely irrelevant anyway) I just like to have modest sideburns. C'Mon, it's MY hair!

It's not for lack of trying to find a good barber because at least 80%, probably 90% of my haircuts in that time have been by females. And I do make the effort to work with them. I've had my current female haircutter since we moved to Roseburg almost two years ago. It's been a struggle to get my hair cut the way I want. Once, after going to her for about a year, she whacked my sideburns completely off but I stayed with her because she promised she'd do it my way. A couple of times after that I told her to leave them alone and I'd trim them at home. She got annoyed with my lack of confidence so I relented and said, okay. I won't say anything again but the 'rule' going forward is: don't shorten them; just square off the end and I'll be the one to shorten them at home with my own clippers when/if I want to. She appeared to agree. Foolish me, I believed her.

To her credit she appeared to try. Then two haircuts ago she blurted out "I don't like sideburns". Well, duh! I should have known it was a lost cause at that point but I resolved to keep trying to work with her. The last haircut was the last straw. Once again she sortened them by about half. This time I didn't say anything but am in search of a new barber. Wish me luck!

I can imagine what you're thinking but, yes, I did give her a nice tip each and every time including a bit bigger one at Christmas AND we talked about 'stuff'. I wasn't a grinch in tipping or conversation. I was always on time for my appointments. (My wife would agree I'm punctual, perhaps to a fault.)

So, what is it exactly with female 'haircutters' anyway? I don't get it even after 20 years of experience with about 12-15 haircutters.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Stimulus Bill Process: Violation of Constitutional Principles?

Step back for a moment and check out what just happened regarding the stimulus bill.

First, representatives of some 45%(!) of voters were purposely excluded from the table (citizens' interests were denied representation) when the bill was created. Note: the Democrats claim their tax cuts in the end included that representation but: 1) just because something is called a tax cut doesn't mean it's a kind of tax cut Republicans desire (in fact, those particular ones aren't) and 2) most of what they call tax cuts are tax credits, not cuts at all so it's a huge distortion of truth to say that aspect of the bill supports Republican interests. Mostly it does not.

Second, the bill was too big and the vote forced irrationally too quickly for any(!) congressman to even read it, much less understand it. How can representation be claimed for even Democratic citizens when their congressmen didn't have time to even read it? In fact, more than half of the bill's contents are the types of things the constitution intended to go through appropriations processes. Using this emergency as an excuse to satisfy a pent-up desire for party-specific programs (therefore avoiding healthy, appropriate debates about their merit and content) is not clever. It's unconscionable and irresponsible.

Our founding fathers, via the content of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution clearly intended for there to be a balance of powers in order to avoid unfair governing as demonstrated by the desire for a fully representative form of government by including such features as the House and Senate, the electoral process as set up, three balancing branches of government, and setting everything up to balance political views via a give and take legislative process. It was clearly intended that resulting legislation should be processed so as to fairly consider and represent opposing views after having them rigorously debated and flushed out.

Bottom line, Democratic congressmen have no rational basis on which to claim their vote on this bill represented the will of The People. In addition, the debt created by this bill will force an unavoidable large increase in taxes. That means there was no assurance (and no desire or intention to achieve assurance) that either the bill's content or the resulting taxes represent the will of The People. The content and the process used in fact guarantee that the interests of a large percentage of Americans were purposely(!) avoided. Isn't that taxation without representation?

Instead of ensuring the will of the people is represented in the first place they did what they wanted, intentionally avoiding due (consitutional) process and are now embarked on a sales job after the fact to convince us what they did was the right thing.

This should bother all Americans, not just Republicans because it is a clear violation of the spirit, if not the letter, of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence (as in taxation without representation). The process used for this bill was puposely designed to exclude Republican participation in any meaningful way. Not a good day for our Republic.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Finished Reading 'Wild at Heart'

When did I stop being a warrior? When did that secret desire to be dangerous melt away? Life sucks it out of us if we let it. Good news is we can get it (back) men.

Fact is, we were born with a spirit of adventure to be warriors. Too often we end up being the epitome of the comic strip character, Dilbert. Or we direct our warrior effort and strength toward getting rich or some other shallow and fundamentally irrelevant objective/goal. Often how we look becomes more important than how we are character-wise. Appearance becomes more important than substance. Don't rock the boat ... you could fall out. Don't take risks ... you might fail. Don't be true to your nature ... conform. Don't do 'the right thing' ... that's so old-school. Don't. Don't. Don't. What happened to try ... try your best?

When and how did things like honor, honesty, courage, responsible behavior, integrity, reliability, faithful friendship, chivalry, defender of the weak/affirmed, hard/honest work, faithful husbands/fathers, and avoiding debt/indebtedness cease to become the standards? One of my greatest laments about our culture at this time: there was a time when a man's word meant something, when a promise made was a promise kept. One lawyer for every 10 people in the country wasn't necessary because a man's handshake was bond and people took more responsibility for their lives and for circumstances, especially those they created.

As Eldgedge describes, many of us men live wounded lives, unable to realize the potential God put in our souls. Wounds from our fathers are the worst along with fathers who are absent in fact or in spirit. Fathers who fail us or make/allow us to feel like failures keep us from discovering our "authentic masculinity".

So, we search (or should be searching) for that "authentic masculinity" such as God intended for us which translates into being a good (reliable, faithful) husband, father and friend. We were born to be Wild at Heart so if we never discovered it or lost it we need to find and embrace it. Our world needs us to be authentic. Our wives and children are more desperate for it than we (or they!) know or vocalize.

I recommend this book to any man who realizes he's no longer Wild at Heart.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Galesville Reservoir (OR) Fishing Trip 02/07/09

This is Galesville Reservoir where I spent Saturday doing what a lot of us retirees love doing. Fly fishing is the type of fishing I enjoy the most and I was using my 8' Outcast pontoon boat this time. Caught a good number of landlocked coho salmon which I've never caught before. Sweet relaxing day. At least until the wind started churning up whitecaps. Naturally I was at the downwind end of the reservoir so paddling back to the boat ramp was a challenge. But it was a beautiful day in a beautiful place. A good day of fishing ... and catching!