Obama seeks $54 billion for new nuclear reactors. $$ are one thing, but why not reduce the licensing pain?

Long-winded State Of The Union Speech

Let's get right into his speech, shall we? First off, he referenced a number of points in our history where our "progress", as he put it, was in doubt. To someone who only pays lip service to Christianity, it probably escapes him that this nation was founded by people who had a much more deep and faithful understanding that we WOULD succeed because of God. God shows Himself gloriously when believers are in situations where, by the world's standards, they should lose hope. This nation has gone to its knees at those times and God responded.

Next, he -- again -- reminds us that he inherited a mess, and just how bad that mess was. Oh, but then he says that's why he ran for office. He next plays at our heartstrings and tells us of all the hurt, angry, bewildered people who don't understand why bad behavior on Wall Street is rewarded -- but says nothing of how the Progressives were also rewarded for their behavior and Obama completely omits sharing with us that the last two budgets under Bush and the Congress were run by Democrats. He told us that the people deserve the Democrats and Republicans to work through their differences. Why, Mr. President? You owned both houses of Congress. Just where do you think the differences were? In the Senate the Republicans could simply not show up, since--until now--you had a super-majority. How unbelievably dishonest to go on painting a picture of Republican obstruction when they didn't even have a dog in the fight.

Okay, so he starts to attack the banks, setting us up for this preposterous tax on banks. First, he acts like he was on OUR side in the bank bailouts. He said he hated it, we hated it, but it had to be done. This, of course, is still debatable. The bottom line is WE tried to tell him NOT to bail everyone out, but the elitist Progressives essentially told us that we are too stupid and they did it anyway. So, now most of the banks, he admits, have paid back the bailout money they received. He doesn't tell you it came back with interest. But he DOES tell you that in order to get the rest back he plans to tax the biggest banks. Guess what, big guy, you're taxing the banks who have already paid us back. To add insult to injury, you've exempted the big businesses you bailed out -- GM, Chrysler, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- from such a tax. By the way, folks, you must understand that the ignition for this mess was squarely in two things: extremely high risk loans pushed out there by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the greed this bred that some of the financial institutions took advantage of. If people like Barney Frank and Chris Dodd had not been unethical we'd have never seen the dangerous loans getting floated out there to this degree. Now, his solution to preventing a future financial crisis was ultimately to again treat banks as too big to fail and guarantee future bailouts. Lovely. How about taking a serious look at how our bankruptcy laws and processes work instead?

Next, he hit the jobs issue, touting the "Recovery Act", aka stimulus, as saving two million jobs. He's got absolutely no real data to back that up. It's like walking up to you and asking,"Hey, are you still employed? If so, then most likely what I did saved your job." Wow, how do you make up logic like that? A nice kicker was that he brought up this window company (one that was given funding to push their "green" windows) that grew because of the stimulus. What he neglects to tell you is that policy director of that company is married to Cathy Zoi, Asst. Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. Glenn Beck has done a better job than I could do at shedding light on all the little cronies connected to stimulus and the Obama administration. What angers me most is that he said that jobs must be the number one objective this year. Why wasn't it the number one objective last year? Huh? Instead of socialized health care? Disingenuous. Ultimately, though, this stimulus bill was an utter waste of taxpayer money, with nothing long-lasting to show for it. Again, his words are pointed to help us realize we just don't get it and that he was right.

Speaking of that vein, on to health care. After all the town hall meetings, all the TEA parties, the phone calls and marches and three stunning defeats in off-elections, it's HE who doesn't get it. He literally looked down his nose at us and said he's pushing through. Do I need to remind you how many times he said the whole health care work would be transparent? Do I need to remind you of all the backroom deals made between hold-out Democrats, valued in the billions of dollars, to states like Lousiana and Nebraska? All for something that will ultimately hand more control of health care and related decisions to government and away from you and your doctor, all the while artificially lowering prices (making it no longer profitable for physicians or hospitals, etc., to stay in business) and strapping businesses --and you, if you refuse to purchase insurance--with various taxes and surcharges.

Okay, he also wants to freeze spending. Gee, that sounds nice. Well, until you realize that, first, he attacked John McCain during the campaign for suggesting the same thing. Oh, but then you realize all the areas of spending that he wants to exempt from the freeze. Oh, yes, and it's really not so much of a freeze as it is a limit on increasing spending in the areas affected. And, naturally, he just pushed super-increases to those areas anyway, so that should be enough to run on until the freeze is over. One last thing...the freeze wouldn't be in effect until after the mid-term elections. Convenient, isn't it?

How about this, Mr. President...pull back all the unspent TARP and stimulus money and cut our deficit that way? Instead of throwing more money at Education, Clean Jobs (notice they're not "green jobs"?) and the like, why not do things that actually remove the shackles from businesses and help them to grow so that tax revenues grow, too? Hmm? Do you folks realize that, roughly, the cost of the various entitlement programs the federal government funds (with our tax dollars) is around $43 trillion? Yes, trillion, not billion.

Obama went on to talk about how robustly he was pushing his agenda. He asked how long should America put its future on hold. What a trite question. Mr. President, how long would you like to submerge America in debt to realize your vision of America's future? Apparently, forever, because with all the things he wants to do, plus the staggering deficit HE has been responsible for since he took office, no economic wiz can foresee us actually paying off this debt.

Here was an amazing bit. He established a goal for America to double its exports over the next five years. Really? Okay, I'll bite. If you seriously looked at all the goods we export, to whom, exactly, would you sell twice as much of it? I know this issue is complicated, but let me throw just a couple of simple logic pieces at you. If we make similar goods as another nation, say, China (who owns most of our debt, by the way), whose goods would you buy given that China's cost of production is significantly less than ours? I mean, really, the unions have such a hold on our industry and our government (believe me, I know because I deal with their issues a lot), how do you suppose our large scale businesses could ever compete in a toe-to-toe export competition with countries whose labor costs are so low? Then there's the whole supply/demand thing. We're not going to just start pumping out twice as many goods HOPING someone will buy them.

Next was universal college. How about that? No one can deny there's value in a college education. In the spirit of full disclosure, I had two years of college---that I paid for myself after high school---and never finished. It has not hindered my success because I refused to let it. I can easily hold my own in a myriad of topics because I found ways to acquire the knowledge even if I don't have a sheepskin to reflect it. That said, what Obama has proposed is that graduates would pay no more than 10 percent of their income toward repaying student loans and that if they're not paid off in 20 years the debt will be forgiven. Wow, your tax dollars again, folks.

He mentioned he plans to go through the budget "line by line" and eliminate programs we can't afford and that don't work. How about sticking to your promise to stop earmarks, which we can't afford and don't work? Instead, you've signed bill after bill with thousands of earmarks worth billions of dollars.

He said we face a deficit of trust. What he refuses to acknowledge is that his administration is responsible for this deficit, too.

I could go on, and might if another point of his speech rises to attention over the next few days. But here's what his speech boiled down to. Screw You, America. He likes his agenda, will press it however he can, and we, the public, are just to dim to understand what he's doing and why it's better for us. He can't possibly conceive of a world where he's the one who doesn't get it.

A President And A Government Run Amok!

Let's look at the score as it now stands: A majority, but by no means a landslide when you look at actual popular vote, voted Mr. Obama, Reid, Pelosi and the other progressives into unanimous power. And, call me what you want (and you'd be dead wrong, so tough), but most of you who did vote for them did so for completely shallow, superfluous reasons. Most of you had no real clue what you were voting for other than how "pretty" Obama was, or that he was all about "change" or, yes, because he was black. Some of you actually DID know what he was about and you were absolutely giddy at the prospect of being able to soak the "rich" and live off the government (hence, the taxpayer) dime. And, still others of you have purely antisocial agendas, like validating deviant behaviors by creating artificial legitimacy via legislation. Sadly, you all actually believed the progressives had the answers (and clearly didn't recognize that they were largely a part of the problem) and believed they could fix all this.

So, what have we seen as a result of this blind choice? The left bracket and the right bracket of everything here is the mantra "we inherited this mess". No matter what, Obama and his folks have, and continue, to use this as their excuse. So, they took billions of YOUR tax dollars--and printed a lot more without benefit of an economy to actually back it--and wasted it on the stupid idea that bailing out failing big corporations and banks would solve the problem. More billions got dumped into multiple stimulus plans, allegedly to create jobs. No, wait a minute, now it was meant to save or create jobs. 2 millions jobs, in fact...now, wait....1.5 milli....oops, sorry, several thousands of jobs. Oh, well, that's not important, right? I mean, you didn't lose your job, did you? Then Obama MUST have saved it, right?.

Hmmm, what else? Oh, yeah, while you and your family were looking for a job or doing what you could to hold onto the one you had and keep your home, this administration was dumping almost all focus on REALLY doing something to help the job market and expending all effort to shove socialized health care down your throat. They frequently lied about how much it would cost, insisting it would be "deficit neutral". They worked most of it behind closed doors and stretched what normally passes in Congress as pork and bones tossed hear and there for votes into what cannot be characterized as anything less than bald-faced payoffs. Louisiana, Nebraska....you get the picture.

Now, Congress has lifted the debt ceiling of the federal government another 1.9 trillion dollars, putting at an overall debt limit of--wait for it--14 trillion! This is money we owe. All because we voted in a bunch of people who love big government and think it's government's job to provide for you, cradle to grave. Well, sort of. Based on the writings of many of Obama's cabinet and czars, you have to actually be beneficial in order to warrant federal expenditure. Watch some of Bernard Shaw's old home movies and you'll see what I mean. He's one of their favorites.

So, when the public started to actually wake up and realize the emperor had no clothes the TEA party movement began. Naturally, the administration labeled us every nasty thing in the book. They couldn't believe that people didn't love what they were doing. They couldn't believe that we weren't willing to "sacrifice" for what they called "the greater good". The fact was, more and more people recognize where they were really taking us. We've seen socialism and communism and it fails, miserably, every time. And the same internet, the same technology that allowed them to ride a wave of fear/hype/hysteria into power are the same tools we're using to find the truth behind all those people Obama so proudly surrounds himself with, that he relies upon for knowledge and advice. YouTube and archival recordings give us the real agendas behind his top people and even the man himself.

Here we are, a year later. Obama and the Democrats in office have put this nation geometrically deeper into debt than we've ever been. They have presided over the loss of over 4 million jobs. They've spent hundreds of billions and have nothing to show for it. But what will you hear in Obama's state of the union special? That he inherited a horrible situation and that it won't be fixed in just a year, two years or even four years. You'll hear that Republicans have not helped the situation--although the fact is that his policies and those of the Progressives have been so horrible that they've had to pay off half their own party just to pass what they have. You'll hear him try to pay YOU off by having yet more wasteful spending--that we cannot afford--on relatively small programs to make you feel better. You'll hear more about task forces and commissions and the like -- pronounced "bureaucracy" -- to work on the jobs problem. Of course, he should have been focusing on that in the very beginning instead of trying to destroy our health care system.

By the way, did you notice how, in the beginning, the problem was health care costs? Then, somewhere along the way it became insurance? The only effort to actually "reduce" the cost was to include price controls in their horrible bills. Artificially limiting costs always leads to shortages. Always. If you though getting in to see a doctor was tough now, just imagine what it would be like when more doctors and nurses say "I quit" because the Progressives decide they charge too much.

Anyway, I will probably grab the text of Obama's speech and dissect it for you. I will do my best to trudge through it and point out the lies, mis-characterizations or things that are truths but are things you don't want to live under...and why. I urge Christians to take it in with a Biblical mindset. Always remember that for the early church the government was absolutely the wrong answer and that it is we, as individuals and as the corporate body of Christ, who bear the responsibility of doing most of the things that we've pawned off on state and federal governments. For those who aren't necessarily Christians, but who have a clear head about responsibilities, look at his speech through the eyes of the Constitution. This document spells out what the federal government is allowed or is responsible to do. EVERYTHING else is remanded to the people or the states. We've given the federal government too much money and too much power. If it's not specifically in the Constitution, the federal government isn't supposed to touch it. Period.

On Scott Brown's Win In Massachusetts

Pulling off a stunning upset, Scott Brown beat Martha Coakley to win the special election for the Senate seat left vacant by the late Ted Kennedy. Considering how absolutely liberal Massachusetts has been for decades, this is amazing.

What this does is break the Democrats 60-vote, filibuster-proof majority. Mostly. With a few liberal Republicans who quite often vote with the Democrats, they could still spell disaster for hard-working Americans. However, here are some things I expect to see.

The Democrats -- and all their progressive supporters in the media -- will distance themselves from Coakley. They will pretend that this election was almost completely about the "horrible campaign" she ran rather than the truth, that this was a message to the nation that they do NOT like what the Democrats have been doing.

They will be scrambling to line up RINOs (Republican In Name Only) to make up the difference, and they will be scrambling to convince the House Democrats to lay down and simply pass the Senate bill as-is. If that fails, they will completely throw any hopes of saving a majority in the House or Senate and use the so-called "reconciliation" option to jam through a 51% majority vote.

Why would so many execute political suicide? You've seen this kind of behavior before. This becomes such a deeply ingrained disbelief that we wouldn't want their agenda and such a deep-seated anger and desire to be right that they would be willing to die on this hill. They see it as a type of martyrdom.

Probably the most disgusting piece of all this is that, through it all, they will constantly spew the lie that "this is what the people want". And it is a lie. Yes, we know there are things that need to be fixed in our health care system. But nothing that the liberals have done has been to FIX it. It's been totally about creating a nanny state and having a more socialized government. They don't care what the "people want" because these progressives don't believe you have a clue what you want, much less what you really need. That's exactly how they think.

There is a need to address health care costs, jobs, national security, etc.. The Republicans have been "progressive-lite" for 8 years and screwed things up. But what the Democrats have done is run roughshod over our form of government and behaved like little children, like bulls in a china shop. They've been drooling over all the socialism that they could have implemented and been frustrated that a few within their own party decided to hold out for some political payola in order to pass their bills.

So, this should be a wake-up call to both Republicans and Democrats. I suspect Democrats will remain with their hands on the snooze button until their house burns down. Hopefully, ours won't burn along with them.

"In the bail out the taxpayers back-stopped the banks"?! No, the GOV'T did with our $.

The Failure Of Obama Administration Energy Policies

I just read where Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is going to create more hurdles for energy companies to jump over in order to drill on public lands (this also includes off-shore drilling).

First off, all you tree-huggers can just keep quite because you have no clue, you are living in a fantasy world and have little intelligible logic behind any of your emotionally-driven drivel. I consider myself a good steward of the environment, but I absolutely know that God has given us dominion over this earth (those who are born into the Kingdom) and I find it impossible to believe that God was so short-sighted as to not plan for us to have access to all the necessary resources to last until Christ comes again. If you don't happen to believe the Bible, then you are simply wasting your energy anyway since there is no point to existing.

Now, anyone who actually pays attention to our energy situation knows that we are too dependent on foreign oil. The load of garbage that liberals have tried to sell you is that we can replace that with so-called renewable resources. But the fact is that none of those resources are capable of even a one-for-one replacement for the energy output and flexibility of use that we currently require. And they also neglect to tell you that conversion of one major consumer of a particular type of energy to another creates an unsustainable cascade effect on other types. For example, the big push toward electric cars. First, electric cars don't come close to the power and range of combustible engine counterparts. Second, we do not have the infrastructure in place to allow you to plug your car in for a recharge. Third, where a gas or diesel engine takes mere minutes to refill, the fastest recharge right now is 30 minutes for an electric car. And how do you bring back a "can of electricity" if you run out in the middle of nowhere? Fourth, just exactly is going to produce the insane increase in need for electricity that moving to electric cars would call for? Current electrical plants strain under the requirements we currently place on them. Liberals practically foam at the mouth when you suggest building more nuclear power plants -- the only plants capable of supplying that kind of power in the long term. Solar technology isn't anywhere close to ready, and neither is wind. In fact, tree-huggers rally against all the wind farms because they allegedly kill bird populations.

So, the only viable solution for now is responsible drilling in areas we have control over. We still have huge resources waiting to be tapped and we have to tie the hands of those who have continued to expend every effort to enslave us to a malevolent government policy. This will open up a lot more jobs, will eventually result in higher production in the U.S. and a reduced reliance on foreign oil. In the meantime, we should be working to build more nuclear plants (whose technology has significantly increase since the last plant was built 30 years ago). This could buy us the breathing room to improve other technologies to a point that they can truly replace oil.

Pelosi in the most honest moment of her life: "We will do what is necessary to pass the bill". Notice no mention of being ethical.

The Fallacy Of The Pharmaceutical Conspiracy

I'm a born-again Christian--one of those real ones who takes God's Word as it was breathed and I refuse to compromise it, water it down to suit a sick world. I'm a conservative and I have more than enough proof that the foundation of our country--which relied heavily on Judeo-Christian values and forefathers' firm belief that without God's involvement all this is folly--and it's unprecedented success is owed largely to core values that have since fallen by the wayside due to the infection known as liberalism. I am firmly a capitalist, but I am unwaivering in the conviction that pure capitalism absent of God is dangerous. I am not a Republican...the Republican Party has long been lacking the moral integrity to stick to the principles upon which it consistently -- if only ceremonially -- hoisted itself upon each convention. You would most likely count me as a "TEA Partier", but reducing what we stand for to a "third party" diminishes what it's about and doesn't really describe the movement.

So, it's with mixed feelings that I take on the growing number of drug company bashers out there. I lay almost all the blame on this dramatic rise in anti-pharmaceutical angst squarely on those who support the disgustingly horrible legislation known as health care reform.

Here's the perception, largely: Drug companies are creating more ways every day to induce people to less-than-wellness or keep them unhealthy because it makes them money. Truly healthy people don't need their product. Often cited are the nearly comical parades of "possible side effects" of taking their drugs, among other things, as evidence of the companies' ill will. Also often cited are all the issues surrounding "generic" versions as opposed to the branded versions. Last, but not least, is the perception that doctors are tied inexorably to partnerships with particular drug companies.

Are you thinking I'm convinced that there isn't some truth to the above? You'd be wrong if you do. First, let me remind of a couple of important things. The single most driving reason any business exists is to make money, to perpetuate itself. This is why, in the accounting circles, this is called an "ongoing concern". This includes doctors just as much as it includes drug companies. The other important thing is that health care is not a right -- it's a product/service. If I actually have to draw you a picture of why it is deplorable for you to treat it otherwise, then I'm afraid you are too far gone and you'd be a waste of my time. So, having said all this, I can promise you that the sinful nature of mankind will usually err on the side of greed and self-preservation.

However, the fact of the matter is we have an ironic catch-22 going. And a costly side-effect is that we have cascading unintended consequences of someone peeing their pants and now everyone has to wear diapers. If you don't understand the capital costs and the HUGE risk in developing a new drug, then you're incapable of coherent thought. Where do these drugs come from? Where do the ideas for them come? They come from an expressed need in the public sector. Sometimes it's the doctors who, in trying to treat some condition, share the need for a device or drug to deal with something. Sometimes it's the patient/consumer expressing that a current set of available treatment options is lacking in an area. And, yes, sometimes it's the awareness by a doctor, a drug company or a medical device company, of a priority need to address a disease or condition. And herein lies a problem. The effort to produce a drug or device is a risk and it costs money develop and test it. Government regulations can have a positive or negative effect on this process. Ultimately, this cost has to be recouped. And how does a business do this? Two ways: Increase unit price or volume.

Do doctors misdiagnose people and end up prescribing drugs, tests or procedures unnecessarily? Sometimes. Sadly, it's more often than not regulatory pressure and fear of lawsuits that cause this. Are we hypochondriacs? More than you think. I have had many conversations with people who insisted that they be treated for this condition or that, or that every possible test or treatment be used to make them well.

Unfortunately, drugs are what they are. Treatments are what they are. There is rarely a silver bullet. And ever more rare is the drug or procedure that doesn't have sides effects that could be worse than the condition they were meant to treat. But we humans are desperate creatures (more so when we have no real relationship with Christ) and we'll "take our chances" if there's a possibility that this drug or that procedure would help us. Also, we have allowed -- demanded -- that our government "take care of us". We've lost our innate ability to fight off a number of diseases & conditions because government has systematically "sanitized" us. So, we end up with a need to take one drug to counter the negative effects of another. We increase our daily reliance on various drugs -- not to fix us, but maintain a quality of life. This generationally makes us even weaker. Look at diabetes. The number one driver for the increase in diabetes is weight. Do I need to list how we've caused that problem? Yet rather than get off our lazy butts and exercise and change our eating habits, we dive into various drugs, surgeries, etc.

The fact is that overwhelmingly drug and medical device companies have saved or improved lives through their efforts. They have every right to be compensated for their work. And a company stands to make much more money if their products actually work than if they assign someone to an untimely death. If a treatment is known to not work, how long would it be before people stop using it? Not long. And certainly the cost of damaged reputation makes it also unlikely. Ultimately -- and this is what the general public doesn't get -- the very same disease or condition in one person may have a wildly different cause and, therefore, a very different treatment in another person. It is ignorant and foolish of anyone to say, "well, taking that drug cured my aunt Valerie and she had the same thing!" and assume it would work for you. It might even kill you. To ascribe the hideous agenda of hiding cures to corporations assumes that all the doctors, who are sworn to an oath, are complicit. And that assumption is simply insane.

Disgusting: Planned Parenthood is about to open an "abortion super center" in Houston, specializing in partial-birth abortions.

So, how much weight does the opinion of the AMA carry? Should be NONE. They only represent 18% of all doctors...and falling.

With "climate-gate" and record-breaking snow and cold temps in the northern hemisphere how's all this global warming working out? <sigh>

How stupid is this: Scientists believe we should grant Personhood to dolphins but not unborn humans?