The Blarg

Obama has officially quit his church that he attended for 20 years. After Reverend Wright (video) and now Father Pfleger (video) have exposed the views of his church, why did it take so long for Obama to quit the church if he doesn’t buy into their same theology and philosophy? It’s obvious he’s quitting for political purposes (he originally defended Wright), but I don’t think you can ignore the fact that he attended the church for 20 years and considered both of the above men as mentors and friends. Whether Obama made the remarks or not, his attendance at this church says something about who he is as a person. Tie that in with his wife’s remarks (video) about finally being proud of America, his own derogatory remarks about small town America, and you have to wonder if Obama can relate to the average American. If you support Obama and haven’t watched the two above videos then I don’t think you are fully informed about the man you are supporting.

So what I’d like to know, if you’re supporting Obama, and you are aware of all of the above, aren’t you at all concerned?

In case you’ve never heard me complain about it before, the state of California has decided that despite requiring a Bachelor’s Degree and a Credential to teach (6 years of schooling), they also think beginning teachers need extra “support” that their 6 years of college didn’t provide. This used to be completed by taking college courses but has since been replaced by a district led program. For the last two years I have suffered through mounds of paperwork and extra meetings, but as of today that is finally over! The only positives of the program are that I will get college credit at cheap prices which push me over on the pay scale, and I got to do the program with some other great teachers, but overall the whole program is a waste. It’s a waste of everyone’s time, and it’s a huge waste of money. This is a prime example of government organizations creating unnecessary bureaucracies.

Second I’d like to complain about people that complain about gas prices. Is gas more expensive than it used to be? Yes, but please don’t blame it on oil companies. For all the people that don’t know how to think critically and think oil companies are somehow manipulating prices, please read this article. If you’re too lazy to read it, here is my favorite part:

ExxonMobil, the nation’s largest oil company, profited 10 cents for every dollar it brought in revenue in 2007. That puts its profit margin in the middle of other Fortune 500 companies, including Bank of America (18-percent profit margin) (NYSE: BAC), AT&T (11.8 percent) (NYSE: T) and Proctor & Gamble (13.1 percent).

Just because oil companies make a lot of profits, their profit margins are nothing out of the ordinary. Not to mention that an American company making money is a GOOD thing! It’s not like there is one guy sitting around in a gold bath tub drinking margaritas and taking all the money. Companies like Exxon are corporations, and when they do well their investors are rewarded. Instead of complaining about the amount of profits that oil companies make, maybe people should buy some Exxon stock instead.

Had a good Memorial Day weekend. Spent some time with family today, and went out to eat with Lydia and Joe and saw Iron Man. Baby is good and fat. Here’s a video of Luke drooling in HD.

Here are some fun pictures of the boy. He’s really become a drooling machine lately. He’s eating 6 ounces at most feedings, but he still only likes to sleep 3-4 hours at night. In one of our baby books it says at 10 weeks they “might” start to sleep through the night. HA! We shall see silly book.

This is his “I’m super fat” pose. If I was a cannibal I think his meaty thighs would look tasty. Reminds me of a good turkey leg.

This is his “I should be in a commercial” pose. I mean look at that face, it’s perfectly round, and save for the almost bald part, he could hawk some diapers or tires right?

This is his “I tried crawling and failed miserably” pose. Technically daddy made him try crawling just so he could take a picture, so I accept all the blame on this try.

This is his “look at my super cute smile” pose in front of the very popular afghan backdrop.

And Andrew, I need your help getting the pictures centered, because the way I’m doing it now is a pain! And Angelo, what you using to get vimeo vids embeded?

First let me say that this has been a very hard post to write. It’s taken me several days of putting my thoughts in order and looking up data, but hopefully you will find it interesting. This is a post that could have gone on forever with statistics and examples, but I’ve tried to pick the biggest points I can. If you look at some of the links you might have to scroll down to find the data I’m citing.

Barack Obama has made it the central theme of his campaign that he will bring the “change” that this country needs. Currently one of the most talked about problems with our country is our “economic woes.” I thought I’d visit Barack Obama’s website to see what he had to say about poverty in America. The first thing that caught my attention was that the list went on and on. By my quick count, I see 10 programs that Obama wants to either start or expand that would require government money, not to mention several that would hurt businesses like higher minimum wage and mandatory paid sick leave. Even for mom and pop stores that’s going to cut into their bottom line.

But all the above aside, it’s one of the first things on Obama’s list that I want to focus on in this post. On his page he says:

“Poverty Rising: There are nearly 37 million poor Americans. Most Americans living in poverty work, but still cannot afford to make ends meet.”

That must go hand in hand with the economic doldrums I keep hearing about in the media and from people on the left. Nearly 37 million are poor? That sounds like a lot of people, and Barack Obama isn’t making the number up, in fact he got it from the US Census Bureau. But how is poor being defined, and is there really more the government can do to make it better?

When Obama says 37 million people are poor, that means 37 million are below the poverty line, but does that mean these people are homeless and destitute? Not in the least. Here’s a great article detailing just what it means to be “poor” in America. You can read the whole article, but here are some of my favorites:

• Eighty-nine percent of poor families say they have enough food to eat, and only two percent say they “often” don’t have enough to eat.
• Eighty percent have air conditioning (even my parents don’t have AC).
• Sixty-two percent have cable or satellite TV (we don’t!).

When Obama laments about the situation of 37 million Americans, is that really a genuine problem? Of course there are people in need, but is this the defining issue of our time? Is there really more that the government can do to fix this problem?

Since the War on Poverty began under Lyndon B. Johnson back in the 1960’s, what has happened to the poverty rate? According to the above article, we currently spend $600 billion a year on the poor, and with those kinds of expenditures the poverty rate must be declining rapidly, shouldn’t it? If you look at the census data though, the poverty rate (percentage of people below the poverty line) has remained essentially unchanged since the 1960’s! Despite all the money spent over last 40 years the government has been unable to reduce poverty, but I’m supposed to believe that the only thing we need is more government? Of course not.

Not only are the “poor” not that poor, and the government ineffective in helping them, why do so many people think our country is headed in the wrong direction and needs “change”? In fact, 87% of people think the economic condition of our country is getting worse. That’s an overwhelmingly negative outlook and it makes sense that a lot of people agree with Obama’s sentiments. But when people are asked about their own lives they give a very different response. When asked about their own personal financial situation, 76% say they are doing better or the same, and only 24% say it’s getting worse. Why the huge disconnect? For the most part people recognize their own life is OK, but then they turn around and think the country is in shambles.

All of this begs the question: Do we really need the “change” that Obama wants to bring? Are government programs and less personal responsibility the answer to a problem that isn’t near as bad as people think?

Personally I believe Obama is peddling the same failed liberal policies of the past. There is nothing new or revolutionary about his ideas. Increased governmental influence in our lives is not the key to making America better. I found this quote from President Franklin Roosevelt which I think makes for a great close to this post.

“The lessons of history, confirmed by the evidence immediately before me, show conclusively that continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit….”

We’ve had 1.5mbps DSL since we moved in, but I finally got tired of the slow speeds. We’ve switched over to 6mbps Time Warner Cable, and the speed gains have been great.

I’ve seen a 250% increase in maximum bandwidth from roughly 200kbps to 700kbps.

I’ve seen increased ping times to many parts of the country (very important for online gaming). I did tests before and after the change using www.speedtest.net.

NY - 29.3%
NJ  - 16.3%
FL - 23.4%
TX - 14.1%
WA - 29.3%
ND - 25.4%

Verizon also stopped giving discounts for committing to year long contracts, so the cable is only $10 more a month than the DSL. I think we might even ditch the home phone completely seeing how the only calls we get on it are telemarketers. We don’t use all our cell phone minutes anyways, and even if we need to bump it up to next highest plan, we’d still save money. So better internet speeds AND saving money. I like!

I promise the next post will contain pictures of a baby.

Recently we’ve had tons of stuff break! It all started the day before Luke was born.

1. The arcade monitor broke. I had it connected to a “smart” powerstrip that would only turn things on when the computer was turned on. However one day it got dumb and decided to turn the arcade monitor on and off continuously for hours. The result was a broken arcade monitor. Only took two months to get it repaired!
2. Stacie took the new car to a doctors appointment, and someone decided to scrape their car against the rear-left wheel. Had to take it to the body shop, and a week and a half later had it back.
3. The hard drive in the HTPC died, so I had to get a replacement drive and then reinstall everything. Luckily this time I used Norton Ghost to create an image of the drive. Now if anything like this happens, getting it set back up should be easy.
4. I noticed my quad core cpu was running a bit hotter than it should be, so I decided to try and re-seat the heatsink. In the process I broke the clips that hold it down, so then I had to order a new one. Luckily after putting on the new  fan/heatsink the processor runs a good 20 degrees Celsius cooler.

But now everything is fixed and working again. Stacie just reminded me that one of the lights in the kitchen isn’t working, but I need a new ballast to make that work. After that I think everything will be working again.

It’s been a few months since I made a book update because I was waiting for a special occasion, and I just had one!

I just hit 100,000 words on my novel, and that’s a HUGE hurdle. It’s so big that Word can’t even handle the extra place value in the bottom status bar! As a general rule most people consider 100k words the length of a marketable novel. It can be shorter, but that makes it a little harder to publish. To give you an idea, from what I can find on google Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was 107,000 words. I think my total word count will end up somewhere around 110-115k.

I’ve got six chapters left and they’re special because I have to use them to say “goodbye” to the characters. I’m writing the book through the POV of six or so characters, and each chapter bounces to a new character as the story unfolds. These last six chapters are the final chapters for each characters POV, so not only are they closing out the book, but they need to bring about some sort of closure for each character’s journey. Exciting huh?

You probably won’t see another post until I’m done with the book and begin to edit. I hope everyone is leaving a space open in their summer reading schedule.

I’ve run out of exciting titles for posts of baby pictures. One of these times I’m actually going to post something like a thought, or what I’m up to, but for now it will have to be just another post of the cutest boy on Earth.

I know it’s been a while since this aunt got her picture on the blarg.

And in this one he is just downright cute. Since he’s smiling a little in this picture, I’ll say something about that. It’s pretty fun now because he’ll look at me or Stacie and smile when he sees us. It’s super cute and something he didn’t do even a couple weeks ago.