Really, Barack, it is far past time to man up.

So, it's all still Bush's fault. Trillions of Obama/Pelosi/Reid dollars later and he still says we're suffering from the failed policies (you remember those policies: the ones that took us to 14,000+ on the Dow) of the Bush administration.

There comes a point (and we are well past it) when the Chief Executive has to act the part. This is getting embarrassing.

Will no one relieve me from this pesky job?

The pitiful whining from our new Chief Executive continues apace:

STEVE KROFT:What is the most frustrating part of the job?

BARACK OBAMA: (SIGH) The— the fact that— you are often confronted with bad choices that flow from less than optimal decisions made a year ago, two years ago, five years ago, when you weren't here. A lot of times, when things land at my desk— it's a choice between bad and worse. And as somebody pointed out to me— the only things that land on my desk are tough decisions. Because, if they were easy decisions, somebody down the food chain's already made them."

As the vernacular of today's youth would have it, "Well, Duh!"

I don't even know where to start with this. Should I start with the fact that Obama has never in his life had any meaningful executive experience? Was this fact not pointed out repeatedly during his campaign? Didn't Sarah Palin herself say that being an executive means having to make decisions rather than voting "present?" But no, that was deemed an unimportant and inconvenient distraction from Obama's real qualifications, which ultimately turned out to be his African-American heritage and the fact that he's not George Bush. Yes, what useful traits those have turned out to be, but unfortunately only in the area of aggrandizing and worshiping our new president.

Confronted by choices made during previous administrations?? I'm sorry, but how could he have not known that? It has been ever thus, up to and including his predecessor having to deal with the terrorist acts of 9/11 that were largely the result of Clinton's milquetoast response to the emerging threat. Clinton had plenty to deal with when he took over from Bush 41. Reagan had a horrible mess to contend with brought about by the abject failure of Carter's presidency. Those men, though, dealt with the situations they "inherited" without tiring us with adolescent sniveling about just how horrible the job of being Chief Executive is. Perhaps that was because all of those men had acted in an executive capacity before. "Wow," you say, "experience really does matter in the role of President of the United States? Who knew!" Well, I'll tell you who knew: 47% of those that voted knew.

So, President Obama, you're finally starting to realize that "A lot of times it's a choice between bad and worse?" You don't say! Perhaps you could ask George W. Bush about that. You remember him. He's the guy that was faced with extremely difficult decisions every single day, many of them involving issues that would be life or death to thousands of brave volunteer soldiers. He's the guy that had to decide what to do with suspected and/or proven terrorists captured on the battlefield or under suspicious circumstances. He's the man that had to decide to what lengths we should go to extract information from potential terrorists that could save thousands of innocent lives.

There's a difference, though, between the environment in which he had to make those decisions and the situation you're in: George Bush did not have the luxury of an adoring media, a rabidly partisan supporting Congress, and throngs of enthralled believers that would not second guess or harshly criticize every single decision, and often twist his words to give the impression that he was an ignorant, uncaring monster. You, President Obama, were one of those people. You spent at least two years telling anyone that would listen how horrible Bush's decisions and policies were. You were one of the worst demagogues of Bush "failure." You never once professed to recognize that Bush too was forced to decide between "bad" and "worse."

Yet you have the unmitigated gall to whine about the difficulties you face now? You're kidding, right? Maybe you should have listened when millions of voters tried to tell you that you weren't ready to make the tough decisions. Maybe you should listen as more and more people try to tell you that you still aren't ready to make the tough decisions.

This is, in fact, change, but it is NOT leadership.

Love him or hate him (and I know where the preponderance of opinion lies), George W. Bush was a leader. He made decisions based on merit and/or personal conviction, and what's more, he stood by those decisions. When raked across the coals by the media and the hyperventilating liberal punditry cabal in the form of lunatic rantings from the Olbermanneasque crowd, Bush responded exactly as a leader should: he ignored them. He did not lash out against private citizens, he did not encourage Congress to legislate tightly focused punitive taxes, he did not attempt to deflect blame for his own actions by demonizing corporations, and he did not blame problems that he "inherited" (9/11, Iraq, etc.) on the clearly culpable previous administration.

Obama has brought change with him to his Presidency. Now it is common to single out private citizens that voice opposition to his policies for public approbation. Now it is a daily occurrence to hear turgid, obfuscatory prose read from a prepared speech laying the blame for any failure on his part on the Bush administration. That is not leadership; that is cowardice. Ah, the audacity of hope. Atrocious and appalling, is it not?

So what are we left with? We now have a Chief Executive that "leads" by responding to headlines and polls. We've seen this before, of course, in the form on one William Jefferson Clinton, but I would contend that Obama has reached new heights of louche dealings with the press. He seems to believe that his "mandate" from the people, which in reality is nothing more than an indication of what a horrible candidate John McCain was, allows him to come forth with a ukase targeted against the devil du jour whenever the urge or political necessity hits him. This is not the leader that we needed. Nor, if I may be so bold, is it the change we were looking for.

'A' for effort, 'F' for credibility

These Nigerian spams are usually worth a chuckle, but this one is a laugh-a-minute extravaganza of ineptitude:

Anti-Terrorist and Monetary Crimes Division
Fbi Headquarters In Washington, D.C.
Federal Bureau Of Investigation
J. Edgar Hoover Building
935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, D.C. 20535-0001.
Website: www.fbi.gov
Date: 03/18/2009


ATTENTION: BENEFICIARY.


This is an official advice from the fbi foreign Remittance / telegraphic dept.,
it has come to our notice that the Central Bank of Nigeria district has released
10,500,000.00 US dollars into bank of America in your name as the beneficiary by
inheritance means.

The Central Bank of Nigeria knowing fully well that they do not have Enough
facilities to effect this payment from the united kingdom to your account, used
what is known as a secret diplomatic transit payment (s.t.d.p) to pay this fund
through wire transfer, they used this means to complete the payment. They are
still waiting for confirmation from you on the already Transferred funds which
were made in direct transfer so that they can do final crediting to your
account. Secret diplomatic payments are not made unless the funds are related to
terrorist activities why must your payment be made in secret transfer, if your
transaction is legitimate, if you are not a terrorist, then why did you not
receive the money directly into your account; so this is a pure coded means of
payment?

Records which we have had with this method of payment in the past has always
been related to terrorist acts, we do not want you to get into trouble as soon
as these funds reflect in your account in the U.S.A, so it is our duty as a
world wide commission to correct this little problem before this fund will be
credited into your personal account.

Due to the increased difficulty and unnecessary security by the American
authorities when funds come from outside of Europe, and the Middle East, the FBI
bank commission for Europe has stopped the transfer on its way to deliver
payment of $10,500,000.00 to debit your reserve account and pay you through a
secured diplomatic transit account (s.d.t.a). We govern and oversee funds
transfer for the World Bank and the rest of the world.

We advice you to contact us immediately, as the funds have been Stopped and are
being held in our custody, until you can be able to provide us with a diplomatic
immunity seal of transfer (dist) within 3 days from the world local bank that
authorize the transfer from where the funds was transferred from to certify that
the funds that you are about to receive from CBN are antiterrorist/drug free or
we shall have cause to cross and impound the Payment, we shall release the funds
immediately we receive this legal documents.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------

We have decided to contact you directly to acquire the proper Verifications and
proof from you to show that you are the rightful person to receive this fund,
because of the amount involve, we want to make sure that the money you are about
to receive is clean and legal . Be informed that the fund are now in United
State in your name, but right now we have ask the bank not to release the fund
to anybody that comes for it, unless we ask them to do so, because we have to
carry out our investigations first before releasing the fund to you. Note that
the fund is in the BANK OF AMERICA right now, but we have asked them not to
credit the fund to you yet, because we need a solid proof and Verifications from
you before releasing the funds.

So to this regards you are to re-assure and proof to us that what you are about
to receive is a clean money by sending to us (FBI) identification Record and
also Diplomatic Immunity Seal Of Transfer(DIST) to satisfy to us that the money
your about to receive is legitimate and real money. You are to forward the
documents to us immediately if you have it in your possession, if you don't have
it let us know so that we will direct and inform you where to obtain the
document and send to us so that we will ask the bank holding the funds, the Bank
Of America to go ahead Crediting your account immediately.

These Documents are to be issued to you from the World Local Bank that
Authorized the transfer, so get back to us immediately if you don't have the
document so that we will inform you the particular place to obtain the document,
because we have come to realize that the fund was Authorized by (H.S.B.C) Bank
in London.

An FBI Identification Record and Diplomatic Immunity Seal Of Transfer (DIST.)
often referred to as a Criminal History Record or Rap Sheet, is a listing of
certain information taken from fingerprint submissions retained by the FBI in
connection with arrests and, in some instances, federal employment,
naturalization, or military service.

These Condition Is Valid until 30th of March 2009 after we shall take actions on
Canceling the payment and then charge you for illegally moving of funds out of
Africa.

Guarantee: funds will be released on confirmation of the document.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------

Final Instruction;

1. Credit payment instruction: irrevocable credit guarantee.
2. Beneficiary has full power when validation is cleared.
3. Beneficiaries bank in U.S.A., can only release funds.
4. Upon confirmation from the world bank / united nations.
5. Bearers must clear bank protocol and validation request.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------

NOTE: We have asked for the above documents to make available the most complete
and up-to date records possible for the enhancement of public safety, welfare
and security of Society while recognizing the importance of individual privacy
rights. If you fail to provide the Documents to us, we will charge you with the
FBI and take our proper action against you for not proofing to us the legitimate
of the fund you are about to receive.

The United States Department of Justice Order 556-73 establishes rules and
regulations for the subject of an FBI Identification Record to obtain a copy of
his or her own Record for review. The FBI Criminal Justice Information Service
(CJIS) Division processes these requests to check illegal activities in U.S.A.

An individual may request a copy of his or her own FBI Identification Record for
personal review or to challenge information on the Record. Other reasons an
individual may request a copy of his or her own Identification Record may
include international adoption or to satisfy a requirement to live or work in a
foreign country or receive funds from another country, i.e. Diplomatic Immunity
Seal of Transfer, letter of good conduct, criminal history Background, etc.)

FBI Director
Robert S. Mueller, III

Absent all of the other mistakes, telling me that my new found money is safely awaiting me at the Bank of America?? LOL! I'd better get it out of there before the cabal of Dodd/Obama/Geithner find a way to tax 91% of it! Or, of course, before the bank collapses.

Scary Pelosi and the 2nd "Stimulus"

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Tuesday she is open to introducing a second stimulus bill, but it's too early to determine the size of such a package and the timing on another major economic measure. “We have to keep the door open to see how it goes,” Pelosi told reporters Tuesday following a House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee hearing on the economy.

This can mean:

- She is admitting that the first "stimulus," which was nothing more than a transparently packaged Liberal grab-bag of take-advantage spending, does nothing to address the actual problems in our economy,

- She has an entirely new list of pet Liberal projects that she wants to fund before the economy fixes itself, thereby losing further opportunity to "not let a crisis go to waste,"

- She is a complete and total idiot that does not know or care what the eventual results of this unconstrained spending spree are going to be.

Me? I vote for all three.

It's all just so unfair!

Any parent, any elementary school teach, anyone at all that has had even minimal exposure to young children will know of the "it's not fair!" syndrome. Anything at all that does not live up to expectations or injures their delicate little sensitivities is declared stridently to not be fair. No problem is of their own making; things always happen to them, not by their own actions. Negative consequences resulting from their poor decisions are not their own fault, rather they are caused by the unfair actions of others.

Fortunately, most people outgrow that stage.

Not all do, though.

Allow me to illustrate the case of one who didn't with a parable.

Let's look at the case of young Barry. Barry spent two short years in an important job where he was, through the very nature of the work he was supposed to be doing, very well informed about the problems facing his employers. In fact, his job was to assist in solving those problems. Barry soon found that it was easier to blame the big boss for the problems rather than make any meaningful effort to solve them. Just as a child would, Barry blamed everyone but himself for the problems, but primarily he blamed the man currently in charge.

Sometime during the few short years when Barry should have been devoting his attention to learning the subtleties and intricacies of his very important job, Barry realized that he thought that he could avoid all of that hard, inconvenient work simply by telling anyone that would listen that the boss was an idiot that was doing everything completely wrong and that he, Barry, could do it better. Things were tough, and a lot of Barry's friends and co-workers were happy to listen, and in fact even encourage Barry to complain ever louder.

Barry soon began to believe that he did, in fact, know better than anyone else how things should be done. Barry began to believe that a diligent effort to learn how things really worked wasn't necessary. In his naivety, Barry actually started to believe that he really could make the important decisions and be a successful leader of a very complex organization. Barry's friends, desperate for a new boss and willing to do anything to get one of their own choosing, supported Barry's adolescent over confidence.

It came to pass that Barry, after a concerted two year effort of constant denigration of the current boss and scores of unrealistic promises to his friends and supporters, actually managed to get the top job.

Unfortunately for young Barry, the job turned out to be just as hard as everyone that wasn't caught up in the false optimism and fervor had tried to tell him. Barry soon found out that he had no clue whatsoever about how to solve the extremely complex problems now facing him. So, what did Barry do?

Barry cried about the unfairness of it all. Barry, who spent years striving to gain the job, the job that he should have known came with the baggage of almost unsurmountable problems, began to complain about the awful mess that he had "inherited." Ignoring the very apparent and very real fact that he had deliberately campaigned to be the man that would solve each and every one of these problems, Barry whined about his misfortune in having been saddled with all of these issues. Barry continued to blame the former boss for the failure of his desperate attempts to rectify the problems, many of which only made the problems worse.

Knowing that he had bitten off far more than he could chew, Barry began to lash out at former supporters that spoke out against some of his more egregiously bad decisions. He attempted to deflect blame for his poor performance onto people that were not even in positions of responsibility. All the while, Barry praised himself for his stellar performance. In his mind, Barry was convinced that only he knew what needed to be done, and anyone that disagreed must be a personal enemy that was wishing for him to fail, and therefore must be destroyed.

[End of Part 1]

Why might pilots be generally conservative?

I saw this on a pilot's blog in reference to the on-going debate over aviation user fees:

...the chanting among the mostly conservative aviation community about socialism, communism, traitorism, etc.

User Fees are a contentious issue as most pilots believe a number of fundamental things:

- Government aviation services are already paid for via a per-gallon fuel tax. This is the same line of thinking that motorists follow when they see a multi-billion Highway Spending Package emerging from our spendaholic Congress despite the fact that billions are collected by the government every year in the for of gasoline taxes.

- Just because the government promises that these fees will only apply to large general aviation airplanes such as business jets, there is no reason to believe that they will not trickle down to the private plane segment. In fact, there is ample reason to distrust the government on this topic because there are multitudinous historical examples to point at, and European/Canadian pilots have already been down this path to the detriment of the entire private aviation industry in those countries. As our government seems hell bent on following the failed European socialism model, there is no reason to believe that this will be any different. As our current government has shown a tendency to encourage rivalry between economic strata within our populace, there is every reason to believe that they will justify their demonization of private pilots as "making the rich pay their fair share for their toys."

- The cost of administering and collecting the fees through the creation of yet another bloated government agency will be so expensive that even a reasonable fee will soon grow into an exorbitant fee as revenues are swallowed by the government machine.

To oppose a change in policy that will very likely result in massive damage to an important industry and will also very likely cause loss of life as pilots attempt to work around fees by forgoing the use of government (or privatized) services whenever possible should not, in my opinion, be categorized as "chanting among the mostly conservative aviation community about socialism, communism, traitorism, etc." But that is not what I want to concentrate on.

I'm more interested in the contention that the piloting community is comprised primarily of people with a conservative viewpoint. I got to wondering if that was truly the case and if so, why that might be. I feel somewhat qualified to comment on this as I myself am a pilot, and I believe myself to be fairly conservative. I spent some time thinking about whether or not there is truly a relationship between being a pilot and having a conservative viewpoint, and I quickly decided that there probably is.

To consider what traits draw a person into wanting to fly an airplane, we have to first delineate the various reasons people want to fly. Some do it because it is an efficient way to travel, for the most part. Others do it simply for the enjoyment of flight. There are certainly cases of both, just as there are as many other reasons as there are pilots. If we go with the gross categories of "efficient travel" and "enjoys the flying," though, I can definitively say that I fall into the latter group. I fly because I love to fly.

That determined, we can then begin to investigate just what it is about flying my own airplane that appeals to me. There are, of course, hundreds of reasons. I like the mastery of the machine. I like the sensations of moving myself and the airplane in five degrees of freedom. But primary among the reasons are that I love the feeling of freedom to go where I want to go, when I want to go, with very few restrictions, I love the feeling that I am in nearly complete control of my destiny, I love the challenge of responding to an ever-changing environment, and I love the feeling that I will succeed or fail entirely on my own merits.

Considering that, would it be any wonder if most pilots found that liberal political beliefs do not fit their viewpoints? Wouldn't it simply make sense that collectivism, nanny-ism, freedom from consequences, poor decision making, and over regulation would be anathema to them? Well, it does to me. I pride myself on the ability to not only make my own decisions but to live with the consequences as well. I'm proud that I have been able to succeed without an overbearing government moving obstacles out of my way. I cringe at the thought of government being the one to decide on winners or losers without any regard to the inherent unfairness involved.

No, I would not be at all surprised to find that the majority of the pool of people that choose to fly because of their love of doing it, and doing it well, are for the most part conservative in other aspects of their lives. And for whatever it's worth, I am opposed to user fees. Adamantly opposed. The reasons should be clear. It should also be clear that those reasons have nothing whatsoever to do with "socialism, communism, traitorism," and I deeply resent the implication that they do.

Plumbing the depths of my incredulity

There were plenty of times during Obama's campaign when I consoled myself with the idea that he would be lucky to get even 10% of his proposed socialistic redistributionist spending schemes accomplished. I was incredulous over the idea that any sane administration would attempt such a sea change in the very fabric upon which the two century success of our merit-based society is embroidered.

Even as billions of dollars were misdirected to liberal pet causes like ACORN and the other rogues galleries of far left organizations under the transparently false rubric of "stimulus" spending, I remained at least hopeful that sanity would prevail before irreversible damage was done to the long-term health of our nation.

I no longer feel that way. New piles of odoriferous government incursions into ever more personal aspects of our lives are now winding their way through a Congress that appears hell bent on the idea of enslaving all of us in their new socialist utopia. There does not appear to be any remaining hope whatsoever of stopping (or even slowing) this government leviathan. Healthcare is next, mortgage bailouts for the greedy, non-productive home "owner" are just over the horizon, and I strongly suspect we will also see legislation that will further erode the idea of rewarding success through personal effort with the passing of card-check laws. I also believe that we will soon see direct attacks leveled against dissent in the revival of the Fairness Doctrine, albeit under the disingenuous renaming of that unconstitutional and reprehensible edict as "diversity of ownership."

I have found that I no longer harbor any hope of even a modicum of sane behavior from either our congress or our president. I also hold out no hope for the judicial branch: we are only one Obama appointment to the Supreme Court away from an unassailable liberal socialist state, aided and abetted by the de facto fourth branch: the press.

If we had life boats on the good ship Titanic America, I'd be getting in line.

I have to confess that I have lost the battle to not develop a personal animosity for our new president. I tried, I truly tried, but his arrogance combined with his rank, amateurish incompetence have overwhelmed me. I believe that he cheapened his campaign by running against Sarah Palin and George Bush rather than his actual opponent, and I believe that he cheapens his presidency by running against Rush Limbaugh. I lost my personal battle to not harbor ill thoughts against Barack Obama himself, and I now find myself struggling mightily to not react in the same way against people that I know to have voted for him.

I still hope to win that battle, though. Sadly, that is the only hope that I still have.

Why I didn't accept the Fox News interview request

"Mean spirited?" Well, no, not in my opinion. I think it's more a scream of anger and frustration directed against our "elite" do-as-we-say-not-as-we-do government.

To add injury to insult, consider this:

Political Persecution: Audited For TaxCheatStamps.com:

Today I received a letter from the IRS that my 2007 tax returns are being audited. Less than one month after launching TaxCheatStamps.com.

Oh, could be coincidence I suppose. But as the Left likes to say, I question the timing.

Free to a good home

Anyone that wants to market these, feel free: