A Scattered Brain

Mitt Romney has decided to drop out of the race and concede to John McCain.  This is a very sad day for me as a Romney supporter, but even more so as a conservative.  It is now guaranteed that we will have a liberal in the White House come next January.  Right now McCain is claiming that he would push a conservative agenda.  I can’t believe that given his record of late opposing most, if not all, any conservative positions on legislation.  He was against the tax cuts.  He wrote the very illegal campaign finance reform bill (breaks freedom of speech in the ways candidates can and cannot respond to attacks).  He wrote the bill for immigration reform which would have given amnesty to millions of people who shouldn’t be in the country now.

So now what to do?  I can’t vote for anyone at this point.  I almost would rather a DemocRAT in office so Republicans can oppose all non-conservative legislation.  If McCain gets elected, the rank and file Republicans would have their hands tied in opposing the President (much like they do now with many of Bush’s proposals).  I don’t know if I could ever actually pull the lever for a Dem, but I really can’t say I approve much of McCain at all.  A lot can happen between now and November, of course, and I can only hope that it won’t be nearly as bad as I currently fear.

The Monte Carlo hotel and casino in Las Vegas has just caught fire. There aren’t many details right now but it appears to have started near the roof and is going down into guest rooms. The hotel has been evacuated and firefighters are working on it now. It is unknown at this time how the fire started.

UPDATE: As of 12:30 PM PST, the fire appears to be under control and nearly out.

So, the government has decided to enact an Economic Stimulus package. The package calls for $600 for individuals and $1,200 for couples with an additional $300 for each child for those who pay taxes. I’m guessing we won’t get anything for our kid yet, but the $1,200 extra back of our own money sounds nice.

The checks are scheduled to come out in June or so if the vote goes through this week as expected. It has a wide range of support from both sides of the aisle as both Democrats and Republicans know that if they were to look like the party opposing this, they could pay dearly in November.

I, for one, don’t necessarily agree that the economy is in dire straits. I certainly don’t think the government should get involved in the housing issues out there as the market will correct itself in time. But I won’t be sending back my check either.

This has got to stop… Yet another girl has gone missing and the suspect is a registered sex offender.  How many more of these need to occur before the liberals in this country understand that they are releasing sex offenders way too early.  Most of them should never be released; especially those that are ranked as “highly likely” to commit the same crime again.

Is it just me, or has common sense yet again left the building?  If you release someone knowingly that they are likely to commit the same crime again, shouldn’t you reconsider releasing them?  But no, instead we create a freaking list and tell them that they have to register themselves on this list.  Yeah, that sounds like a plan.

The people that are committing these types of crimes aren’t going to be rehabilitated.  Sorry, it won’t happen.  Their punishment should be banishment from society for life.  Whether that is in prison or in a hospital can be determined on a case by case basis; but to let these sick minded individuals back on the streets is reprehensible and as a society we are then all culpable for their actions.  It makes me sick.

How many more stories like this must we see before we change the way these criminals are handled?  I personally believe that being convicted of a sex crime against a minor should incur a lifetime sentence without the possibility of parole; along the same lines of murder in the 1st.  Even though the victim(s) may be alive, they certainly have had their original, innocent self murdered and those responsible should have to pay accordingly.

Something tremendous has happened in France… They have overwhelmingly elected a pro-American, pro-Capitalist conservative for their new President.  This changes the decades long socialist trend in France and is a great thing to see.  He will have a lot of challenges ahead, as parliamentary elections are coming up soon, and France’s government may not know what to do if an opposing party to the new president wins the majority (the government as it is now almost depends on the President and Parliament to be of the same party).

To see anything less socialist coming out of Europe (Great Britain excluded) is truly amazing.  The new president is going to be taking on a lot of responsibility but it appears the French are ready to come back to a market based society.

Check out the news article here.

Have a great week!

Check out this article:

Group Asks Congress to Adopt Five-Day Weekend

As much as it sounds like a good idea, this would kill society.  If everyone only worked for two days, can you imagine the lines at the DMV or medical practices?  Sure, different services could be open on different days to lessen it a bit, but things would grind to a standstill for those services that require lines / waiting.

The economy would be affected, but maybe not as much after a while.  Most people when working probably don’t get a full 5 days of real work done anyway, so if you only had to be in a place for 2 days a week, you could be more productive.  Of course, business couldn’t adopt a rolling schedule like independent services could; otherwise things would really never get done.  Imagine sending an e-mail to a client but they won’t be in until later in the week so it’ll be at least a week before you get a response.

I’m sure the idea behind the group isn’t really to effect change.  If they were truly serious, they would possibly push for a 4 day work week; which would have nearly no adverse side effects to economic or service abilities as each business could choose how to split up Monday/Friday off time.  I think they are just trying to make the point that Congress, for all of the money they receive (outside of PAC donations) as salary, is only in session for what works out to 2 days a week.  I’m not a fan of Congress in general and believe there should be some major overhauls in practice, but the last thing I want would be for them to be in session for any more time than they are now (do you really want them passing MORE stupid legislation?).  Also, even though they may be in session for only 104 days, they are working out side of that; theoretically; for their constituents.

I have a better overall solution… allow me to work 2 days a week at my current salary and the rest of you can all continue to work as you do (or don’t) now.

Take care all, sorry for the lengthy delay in posting.  My current bowling league ends tonight so I will post my scores for the league and how we ended up as a team.

Well, after 12 years of controlling both houses of congress, the GOP has lost the House and the Senate is too close to call and may be for quite some time depending on what happens in Missouri, Virginia, and Montana.

As most of my friends know, I’m quite the conservative Republican; and while I continued to vote that way for the Senate and House races in my district; I feel that the GOP has really let me down in many ways.  Most, if not all, of the ideals that took the GOP to the top starting in 1994 have all been lost in general Washington politics.  Fiscal responsibility is something that seems to be forgotten (and that is spending outside of Military spending, which I am 100% for).

Also, at least since Bush has been in office, the leadership of both the House and the Senate haven’t been leading at all.  Even with the President, it was their requirement and duty to lead with the conservative principles that got them (and continued to get them) elected in the first place.  That has been missing the last 6 years.

If we end up with a Democratic House; slightly Republican (or tied) Senate, things could get interesting as split party congres like that will make things difficult.  However, regardless of what happens in the Senate, the Democrates (gulp!) have a mandate and the public has given them the opportunity to try to lead and get things done.  I don’t see that happening and while Nancy Pelosi Speaker to be has stated that the House won’t spend a lot of their time investigating or trying to impeach Bush, don’t count on it.  It has been the mission of the Dems for the last 6 years to ruin Bush; not because of his policies and their disagreements for them, but rather some personal, deep-seeded hatred for him as a man.  I hope that Ms. Pelosi can keep her party in check and deliver on that promise.

The only good that I can really see out of this is when there are conflicting parties among the different branches of government, nothing tends to get done.  Most of the time nothing is better than what Congress does accomplish and while I had hopes in 2002 when Republicans had control of everything that many conservative legislation initiatives would pass, there wasn’t much; and the tax breaks that did pass still came with increased pork spending in government so no real long term benefits.

Congratulations again to the Dems; and to the Republicans; if you ever want to win back support among the voters you have to get back to a fully conservative base as right now there isn’t anywhere for us to look to right now.  The Democrats, with few exceptions, are too liberal and support too many increases in the size of government.  Some GOP members state they are for smaller government, but all recent evidence is to the contrary.

For the record, outside of the tightly contested races where I felt my vote truly counted, I voted for a third party candidate.  Generally, I would vote for the Independent American party (known as the Constitution party in most states).  This is the first time when I didn’t vote straight Republican across the board.

We need a government that understands that it isn’t the government that makes this country work; it’s the people.  It always has been and always will be.  Government, by it’s very nature, opposes the initiative, innovation, and imagination that is needed to create new ideas, products, and services to really help the people of this country.  I don’t expect much out of the next 2 years; or really just 1 before we start trying to elect our next President.

I’m sorry for all the rambling; if I took more time, I’m sure I could have posted a much more coherent and nicely flowing essay.  But hey, English was never my best subject; and I’ll admit at this moment I’m tired and sad and just don’t want to proof read my post. Hooray to all of you who actually read all the way through this.

In memory of the tragic and horrific events that occurred five years ago, I want you all to remember where you were and what you were doing when you first heard about the events happening on 9/11/01.  Here is my story:

I was feeling absolutely horrible and so I was going to work a few hours later than usual.  I arrived at work around 9:00 and started my daily troubleshooting of peoples’ computers and was working specifically with one of our Implementation manangers in his office when a woman burst in stating that a plane had hit the World Trade Center.  At that time, I assumed it was some small commuter plane that had hit accidentally and went back to work.  Then our office became more of a buzz as the truth started to come out.

Someone found a small 13″ T.V. and we placed it in a corner office by the window so we could watch with reasonable reception.  In the business I was in, we had quite a few clients that worked in both buildings of the WTC.  I was still feeling terribly ill and went home around 12:00 to continue to watch the events unfold at home.  At some point while talking to Kylah in the morning, she stated that she thought it “was that Bin Laden guy” and I completely agreed.

Later, I found out that the very first customer I had talked to who worked for Janus Funds in Colorado happened to be at the WTC for a conference and was one of the 2,800 killed.

Please, never forget what happened that day even though the media refuses to show it; and always remember those who passed and those who have fought to help prevent anything like that from happening again.  And, please share your thoughts of where you were and what you were doing that day.

Here are two stories that indicate that the world is most certainly about to end:

First, apparently Pluto is actually NOT a planet.  After years of growing up believing that there are 9 planets and hearing that there may in fact be 10, I’m told that in fact there are only 8.  What’s going to be next; Earth won’t be a planet anymore?

Second, and even more of a sign of the end times, there will no longer be 24 hour marriage licenses given out here in Las Vegas and that they will in fact close at midnight.  Midnight?!?!?!  It takes at least until 3:00 am to make the ill-advised decision to get married while drunk.  I know they say it will save the state some money, but the math just doesn’t add up to me.  Doesn’t the publicity alone pay for being open all night long?

I heard about this on the radio and while I think it’s hilarious, it is dispicable how AOL treats people when all the guy wants to do is just cancel his account. For all of those using AOL, my sincerest apologies to when you finally decide that it is overpriced and useless in this day.

Here’s the link to the report:

Vincent Ferrari and Matt Lauer Interview

There are places where you can find the full audio of the message, but they keep changing so I won’t bother posting one here. My favorite line was: “The card is mine, it’s in my name; the account is mine, it’s in my name; cancel… the… acount!”

Enjoy!

Spencer

P.S. Sorry I haven’t posted in a while. I was thinking about starting a weekly bowling blog to go along with my league, but figured most of you wouldn’t care anyway. Have a great day!