Well as you have noticed I really haven't posted anything in a little while. I have kinda had writter's block. I say kinda because there have been issues that I have seen in the news that I have had some comment or thought about and think that they are worthy of discussion, however, I just haven't had the passion to actually jump into the issues and sink my teeth into them. Maybe it is the mediocre presidential race that is dulling the rest of the news world with its lack luster canidates and shallow dialouge, if you can even call it that.
Earlier this month Gov. Richardson dropped out, probably the overall best canidate that we had running and I'm not sure that anyone noticed. Then this week Fred Thompson dropped out, again not a big surprise and not a big loss. Can anyone, who isn't a political journalist, even name all the canidates? There are no strong front runners, there is no big personality. You can claim Hillary or Obama, but they are spilting the primaries and neither has what it takes to be the president that I want running our nation; on the republican side you have a three way split between McCain, Romney and Huckabee and again none are who I want running our country.
Hillary is perfect politics.
Obama is perfect rhetoric.
McCain is perfect past.
Romeny is perfect bore.
Huckabee is perfect scare.
WOW, are you excited yet?
I'm not.
I keep trying but I just cannot get behind any canidate with any energy. I keep hoping that suddenly some miracle will happen and we will have sparks flying and energy flowing and there will be something to get excited about, but I must confess that I am not holding my breath for it.
I want a canidate with some depth, that is really willing to get their hands dirty by making a true effort to solve some of the problems that plague our nation without stripping away the things that make this nation great. This will not be an easy burden and the hardest part will be trying to get Congress to stop playing politics and do their duty to serve the people of this great nation, instead of serving themselves.
I think that Congress should not get another pay raise until they stop playing politics and start solving real issues. I do not think that it would be too demanding to ask that 10% of real issues in the country get resolved before Congress gets another pay raise. And special interest groups should be ban from gifting anything to any member of Congress, no dinners, no vacations (I'm sorry, they are fact finding trips), no scholoarships for kids, no jobs for spouses, no anything that will not hold up transparently for public review. Full disclosure should be made and members should have a three strikes you are out rule. If you fail to disclose gifts recieved 3 times then you are removed from office and not allowed to run again.
We have real social and econmic issues to remedy as well as foriegn policy and actions that need to be implemented. We need to demand that trivial items be left on the shelf to be dealt with when all other issues are solved. When the crime rate is minimal, the jobless rate is negligible, inflation is low, education is truly available to all, and basic needs are accessible to all then by all means feel free to regulate baseball or any sport for that matter or any other petty issue that is not truly impacting the security of the nation or population.
Once again though I find myself saying that it is OUR fault that we have the problems that we have with mediorce canidates running for our naiton's highest office and a congress that can't seem to even agree to disagree. As a public we are negligent in our responsibility of a government by the people, for the people, of the people. We have broken the system and until we get our own hands dirty and make the effort to fix the issues then we get the disaster that we have created by our own passiveness.
This past week Cuba held their parliamentary elections. They have ONE party and all canidates ran unopposed. In our eyes that means that they have NO choice. They had a 95% voter turn out. In Cuba where their vote doesn't matter, doesn't change the outcome, everyone votes. Here where your vote DOES matter, your DO have a choice and your vote DOES make a difference we had less than a 60% turn out in 2004 according to the Cenus Bureau. And then some of us spent 4 years complaining about the job being done in Washington. We have nothing to complain about, except our own complacency.
23 January 2008
11 January 2008
$3 quadrillion lawsuit.......
Some people have NO sense of personal responsibility and NO sense of personal culpability and absolutely NO common sense!!!!
The Army Corps of Engineers has received roughly 489,000 claims from victims of Hurricane Katrina. Of those, a couple hundred are for $1 billion and the top out is for $3 quadrillion. Now while I sympathize with the victims of Katrina and the loss and devastation that they endured the WHOLE area did not sustain a loss of $3 quadrillion.
It is a good thing, actually maybe it isn't, that I am not the one who will hear this claim. The first thing that I would demand of the plaintiff is for them to show to me that they even comprehend that number, that they can express that number with efficiently and in multiple forms to even validate that they are competent to receive anything. The second thing that I would require is documentation of all real losses sustained by the plaintiff. And they would not receive more than 3 times that amount. Then after the claim is settled I would disbar the lawyers who instigated this whole scam!!
The person whole filed the claim has no morals, no sense of right and wrong, no consciences and probably very little in the way of real loss. These stupid actions are why our court systems move at a snails pace. I believe in valid lawsuits, however, we as a society have become so greedy that we want someone to pay us for any and all negatives in our lives.
These claims are for the levees failure, yet very little uproar was made for the 50 years before Katrina that the levees were poorly designed. And I do not remember hearing about the residents of New Orleans stepping up to pay for the improvement of the levees. When you live near the coast you have to take into account the cons along with the pros. By choosing to live in New Orleans you accepted certain possibilities. When your house is below sea level you increase the possibilities of subcuming to certain natural disasters. There were precautions that could have been undertaken by the citizens of New Orleans and a much better job could have been done by local emergency management officials. And asking the US government to compensate you for your lack of common sense is STUPID!!!!!
There is a lot of blame to go around with the disaster and the aftermath but the blame starts at ground zero not on Capital Hill. I live in a hurricane prone area and have for a lot of my life, I accept the fact that if a storm surge of 10 feet or more hits my area more than likely I will be flooded out. I also understand that my residence was built before Andrew and is not upgraded to the new hurricane codes. I lived in Pensacola for Ivan as well as Katrina. Many homes in Pensacola were destroyed and even more were damaged. But no one in Pensacola filed such a claim. Ivan sent a 17 foot storm surge inland when it hit, so now all structures have to be 17 feet above sea level, that means that a lot of rebuilt homes are going up on stilts. Maybe New Orleans should have thought about that prior to the hurricane, Katrina was not the epiphany of where New Orleans was situated. At no point before Katrina did the government attempt to lead the people of New Orleans to believe that they were above sea level. At no point before Katrina did the government attempt to give the citizens of New Orleans a false sense of security. Hurricanes have been a part of the Gulf Coast for as long as the Gulf has existed.
If you are not responsible enough to take precautions to limit your losses in a natural disaster why should the government compensate you for being lazy!!! And what makes you think that you and your loss is worth more than 22 times the GNP of the US for 2007!!
The Army Corps of Engineers will only give the zip codes of the locations of the claimants, this one listing a Baker, LA zip code. I think if this claimant thinks that their claim is honest and valid they should come forward and make themselves public and accept the scrutiny of the citizens of this country, who ultimately will be paying the tab for whatever amount is agreed upon.
The Army Corps of Engineers has received roughly 489,000 claims from victims of Hurricane Katrina. Of those, a couple hundred are for $1 billion and the top out is for $3 quadrillion. Now while I sympathize with the victims of Katrina and the loss and devastation that they endured the WHOLE area did not sustain a loss of $3 quadrillion.
It is a good thing, actually maybe it isn't, that I am not the one who will hear this claim. The first thing that I would demand of the plaintiff is for them to show to me that they even comprehend that number, that they can express that number with efficiently and in multiple forms to even validate that they are competent to receive anything. The second thing that I would require is documentation of all real losses sustained by the plaintiff. And they would not receive more than 3 times that amount. Then after the claim is settled I would disbar the lawyers who instigated this whole scam!!
The person whole filed the claim has no morals, no sense of right and wrong, no consciences and probably very little in the way of real loss. These stupid actions are why our court systems move at a snails pace. I believe in valid lawsuits, however, we as a society have become so greedy that we want someone to pay us for any and all negatives in our lives.
These claims are for the levees failure, yet very little uproar was made for the 50 years before Katrina that the levees were poorly designed. And I do not remember hearing about the residents of New Orleans stepping up to pay for the improvement of the levees. When you live near the coast you have to take into account the cons along with the pros. By choosing to live in New Orleans you accepted certain possibilities. When your house is below sea level you increase the possibilities of subcuming to certain natural disasters. There were precautions that could have been undertaken by the citizens of New Orleans and a much better job could have been done by local emergency management officials. And asking the US government to compensate you for your lack of common sense is STUPID!!!!!
There is a lot of blame to go around with the disaster and the aftermath but the blame starts at ground zero not on Capital Hill. I live in a hurricane prone area and have for a lot of my life, I accept the fact that if a storm surge of 10 feet or more hits my area more than likely I will be flooded out. I also understand that my residence was built before Andrew and is not upgraded to the new hurricane codes. I lived in Pensacola for Ivan as well as Katrina. Many homes in Pensacola were destroyed and even more were damaged. But no one in Pensacola filed such a claim. Ivan sent a 17 foot storm surge inland when it hit, so now all structures have to be 17 feet above sea level, that means that a lot of rebuilt homes are going up on stilts. Maybe New Orleans should have thought about that prior to the hurricane, Katrina was not the epiphany of where New Orleans was situated. At no point before Katrina did the government attempt to lead the people of New Orleans to believe that they were above sea level. At no point before Katrina did the government attempt to give the citizens of New Orleans a false sense of security. Hurricanes have been a part of the Gulf Coast for as long as the Gulf has existed.
If you are not responsible enough to take precautions to limit your losses in a natural disaster why should the government compensate you for being lazy!!! And what makes you think that you and your loss is worth more than 22 times the GNP of the US for 2007!!
The Army Corps of Engineers will only give the zip codes of the locations of the claimants, this one listing a Baker, LA zip code. I think if this claimant thinks that their claim is honest and valid they should come forward and make themselves public and accept the scrutiny of the citizens of this country, who ultimately will be paying the tab for whatever amount is agreed upon.
09 January 2008
Answer in one sentence.......
What is the Office of the President of the United States of America?
I propose that this question be asked of all candidates seeking the office. And if they cannot answer it and do so in one sentence then they should not be able to run for the office. And I think that it would add some humor into this lack-luster campaign season. However, if candidates ran for the office based on carrying out the true job of the office then all Presidential elections would be incredibly boring. That in itself would make the politics more interesting, but that is another blog for another day.
I have always wanted a candidate to step forward and say that their platform for office is to work with congress to see that the laws passed are fair, constitutional, based on the analysis of the Supreme Court, in the best interest of the citizens of this great nation and to execute said laws justly and efficiently. Any candidate that ran on that platform would have my vote.
Again we have the type of politics that we have with all the mud-slinging and empty promise making because candidates run on platforms that are not within the bounds of the Office of the President as laid out in the constitution. It is really simple -- we have 3 branches of government that are equal but separate. We have the legislative branch or congress, which has the task of making the laws of the land, second we have the judicial branch or supreme court, which ensures that the laws passed are fair and constitutional, and lastly we have the executive branch or the president, whose job it is to run the government under the dictates of the other two branches. That is the basic layout of how things are suppose to work. Are there more details to it; yes, but this is the foundation of our government.
It is not up to the President to promise not to raise taxes, that is up to congress. It is not up to the president to make laws, that too is up to congress. It is not the president who decides if a law is constitutional, that is the supreme court's job. Can the president suggest laws that congress take under consideration, yes. Can the president ask the supreme court if a law is constitutional, yes. Does the president provide information to assist congress and or the supreme court in their decision making, yes.
If we are serious about taking the corruption out of politics then we as citizens need to demand that our public officials do the job that our constitution lays out for them. We as the voting public need to know what their jobs are and we need to stop the candidates when they start down the campaign promise roads that do not follow the paths of the office that they seek. As long as we are ignorant to the actual jobs that public officials are to do then we cannot complain that our elected leaders are dishonest, corrupt, misleading, power hungry individuals with their own agendas. Because they are and we allowed it by listening to them and supporting them and not keeping them in line from the start.
I propose that this question be asked of all candidates seeking the office. And if they cannot answer it and do so in one sentence then they should not be able to run for the office. And I think that it would add some humor into this lack-luster campaign season. However, if candidates ran for the office based on carrying out the true job of the office then all Presidential elections would be incredibly boring. That in itself would make the politics more interesting, but that is another blog for another day.
I have always wanted a candidate to step forward and say that their platform for office is to work with congress to see that the laws passed are fair, constitutional, based on the analysis of the Supreme Court, in the best interest of the citizens of this great nation and to execute said laws justly and efficiently. Any candidate that ran on that platform would have my vote.
Again we have the type of politics that we have with all the mud-slinging and empty promise making because candidates run on platforms that are not within the bounds of the Office of the President as laid out in the constitution. It is really simple -- we have 3 branches of government that are equal but separate. We have the legislative branch or congress, which has the task of making the laws of the land, second we have the judicial branch or supreme court, which ensures that the laws passed are fair and constitutional, and lastly we have the executive branch or the president, whose job it is to run the government under the dictates of the other two branches. That is the basic layout of how things are suppose to work. Are there more details to it; yes, but this is the foundation of our government.
It is not up to the President to promise not to raise taxes, that is up to congress. It is not up to the president to make laws, that too is up to congress. It is not the president who decides if a law is constitutional, that is the supreme court's job. Can the president suggest laws that congress take under consideration, yes. Can the president ask the supreme court if a law is constitutional, yes. Does the president provide information to assist congress and or the supreme court in their decision making, yes.
If we are serious about taking the corruption out of politics then we as citizens need to demand that our public officials do the job that our constitution lays out for them. We as the voting public need to know what their jobs are and we need to stop the candidates when they start down the campaign promise roads that do not follow the paths of the office that they seek. As long as we are ignorant to the actual jobs that public officials are to do then we cannot complain that our elected leaders are dishonest, corrupt, misleading, power hungry individuals with their own agendas. Because they are and we allowed it by listening to them and supporting them and not keeping them in line from the start.
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