As I sit here looking out the window of my office watching helicopters fly low to the ground and policemen set up traffic cones in preparation for tomorrow's inauguration. I can't help but long for it all to be over. Not really because I didn't vote for The 'bama, but because this town is just insane and it does not need 4 million more people to come here and help make it more insane.

In fact I think it is very sad that one of Dubya's last acts in office was to declare this area a disaster zone. Of course it was really just so that FEMA money could be used to help cover the expenses; however I do not disagree with the label. The government is poised to spend over 150 million american dollars on this event. And I find the lack of critics of the extravagance to be very hypocritical.

AP Slammed Bush’s ‘Extravagant’ Inaugural in ’05, But Now It’s Spend, Baby, Spend | NewsBusters.org

Four years ago, the Associated Press and others in the press suggested it was in poor taste for Republicans to spend $40 million on President Bush’s inauguration. AP writer Will Lester calculated the impact that kind of money would have on armoring Humvees in Iraq, helping victims of the tsunami, or paying down the deficit. Lester thought the party should be cancelled: “The questions have come from Bush supporters and opponents: Do we need to spend this money on what seems so extravagant?”

Fast forward to 2009. The nation is still at war (two wars, in fact), and now also faces the prospect of a severe recession and federal budget deficits topping $1 trillion as far as the eye can see. With Barack Obama’s inauguration estimated to cost $45 million (not counting the millions more that government will have to pay for security), is the Associated Press once again tsk-tsking the high dollar cost?

Nope. “For inaugural balls, go for glitz, forget economy,” a Tuesday AP headline advised. The article by reporter Laurie Kellman argued for extravagance, starting with the lede:

Joe rips the Drive-By's

Joe makes a good point on this clip. The news people can find out anything they want, it's their job, but their lack of curiosity on the Blago matter is very telling.

Hot Air » Blog Archive » Video: Joe Scarborough rips the Tanning Bed Media

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William F. Buckley Jr. Dies at 82

RIP Bill Buckley, you will be missed.

William Buckley was often described as a witty man who loved a good argument or discussion. But also a man who was extremely friendly and displayed a love of life that was contagious. He had close friends on both sides of the political aisle and his intellect was renowned among them all. I can truly say that this is the kind of person that I want to be.

He is sometimes called the founder of Conservatism. But I think that's somewhat of a misnomer since conservatism is based on a way of life and what motivates people. It is not an intellectual philosophy that dictates how we act and think; it's rather the other way around. Bill Buckley was the first one to articulate conservatism and it's motivations as a complete intellectual platform. So I think the best description for him would be the Father of the Conservative Movement. I miss him already.

Rush Limbaugh shares his memories of Bill:

Bill Buckley is indescribable.  He's irreplaceable.  There will not be another one like him.  And although that's true of all of us, once you take the time to learn about Buckley and his life and look at what all he did with it, he did not waste a moment, did not waste a moment.  He was able to pursue, as he called it, his sybaritic delights, his pleasurable delights, such as sailing around the world numerous times, traveling the world with his work.  He was prolific in output, but it was his intellect and it was his good humor that was literally inspiring to me.

Norman Podhoretz: WFB and his mighty pen.

An NOR Symposium on the life of WFB

John McCain: Bill was a great American

Redstates favorite WFB qutoes

I would like to take you seriously, but to do so would affront your intelligence.

We are so concerned to flatter the majority that we lose sight of how very often it is necessary, in order to preserve freedom for the minority, let alone for the individual, to face that majority down.

I would like to electrocute everyone who uses the word "fair" in connection with income tax policies.

All that is good is not embodied in the law; and all that is evil is not proscribed by the law. A well-disciplined society needs few laws; but it needs strong mores.

ElBaradei's Real Agenda

So really, what does it take to get fired from a UN job?

Mr. ElBaradei's report culminates a career of freelancing and fecklessness which has crippled the reputation of the organization he directs. He has used his Nobel Prize to cultivate an image of a technocratic lawyer interested in peace and justice and above politics. In reality, he is a deeply political figure, animated by antipathy for the West and for Israel on what has increasingly become a single-minded crusade to rescue favored regimes from charges of proliferation.

Mr. ElBaradei assumed the directorship on Dec. 1, 1997. On his watch, but undetected by his agency, Iran constructed its covert enrichment facilities and, according to the 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate, engaged in covert nuclear-weapons design. India and Pakistan detonated nuclear devices. A.Q. Khan, the Pakistani nuclear godfather, exported nuclear technology around the world.

In 2003, Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi confessed to an undetected weapons effort. Mr. ElBaradei's response? He rebuked the U.S. and U.K. for bypassing him. When Israel recently destroyed what many believe was a secret (also undetected) nuclear facility in Syria, Mr. ElBaradei told the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh that it is "unlikely that this building was a nuclear facility," although his agency has not physically investigated the site.

If I had a performance record like this at my job I would be fired. Very fired. I mean this guy has basically turned his department in to giant buckets of fail.

Unless of course your agenda has more to do with thwarting the interests of America. And his actions make perfect sense if he believes that America is the cause of the worlds problems.

It amazes me how selfish this guy is and how feckless his bosses at the UN are. The fact that a performance like this and a self serving agenda by a director can go un-addressed and unpunished is amazing. This also begs questioning of the UN (not that I need much of a reason). For a world wide organization who's stated goal is to keep peace; why are they letting one person's personal agenda endanger millions. Do they really think that a Islamic extremist with a nuclear weapon won't be that bad? There is some SERIOUS disingenuousness going on here.

ElBaradei's Real Agenda - WSJ.com

Links

Chilling Effect - WSJ.com - Global Warmists try to stifle debate

House Inaction Left America Open To Attack - Mitch McConnel

Bad Times::By Thomas Sowell - New York Times "journalism"

American Thinker: The Misnomer of Conservatism

Rush talked about this article yesterday and it truly made me think.

Consider the silliness of words like "conservative" and "liberal," if we actually give those words their commonsense meaning.   Which American would most conservatives view as one of their own?  Thomas Jefferson would be high on the list.  He supported  states' rights; he dreaded an imperial judiciary; we believed that the government which governed least was the best government; he believed strongly in the American Dream (he is recognized as the father of American Exceptionalism); he also deeply revered Western Civilization and its contributors.  Thomas Jefferson would be considered an arch-conservative on most issues today.

But what was Jefferson, if we use the ordinary meaning of the words we have been given to describe politics?  He was a liberal, because he believed in freedom (the ordinary meaning of the word relates to Latin libera.  He was a conservative, because he sought to conserve those traditional rights which Americans had possessed as subjects of the Crown under English Common Law.  He was a radical, who wrote the transformative Declaration of Independence and who made the radical gamble on America implicit in the Louisiana Purchase.  He was a reactionary, because he sought to "turn back the clock," when the British tried to redefine the status of colonials by depriving them of rights which Englishmen had under Common Law.  He was a revolutionary, because he reached the conclusion that only a revolutionary war could do justice to the American cause.  He was a moderate, because he sought a tranquil, limited, apolitical government.

What Jefferson "was" ideologically was defined by the particular events happening at the time and upon the context it which those events happened.  Yet Jefferson was not inconsistent it his political views:  he was very consistent.  He did not change, but rather the meaningless terms to define his actions and words had to change to meet the consistency of Jefferson.  It is not unimportant that Jefferson and the other Founding Fathers never used terms like "liberal" or "conservative" or "progressive."  And, despite the fact that his Presidency came after the French Revolution, Jefferson never used the term "Left" or "Right."  Jefferson, one of the most brilliant and learned political thinkers in history, never used the silly language that we do today to describe political thought.

Did that mean that Jefferson did not write about politics and government?  Quite the contrary:  He wrote extensively, brilliantly, lucidly, and deeply.  What he wrote about was not ideology, but rather specific principles that he believed were essential for good government.  Jefferson believed in very limited government.  He believed in strong individual rights.  He believed in strong states and weak federal government.  He believed that America was unique and vital to the world.  If someone wanted to use a name to describe what Jefferson believed, that was his right, but Jefferson defined himself who he was.

Read the whole thing: American Thinker: The Misnomer of Conservatism

Homeless: Can you build a life from $25?

This is an amazing story about a guy with a college education who, just to see if it could be done, became homeless and tried to build a life for himself starting with just $25.

Meet Adam Shepard, his goal was to have a car, a job and $2500 in the bank after a year. After 10 months he had a car, a job and $5000 in the bank!

His story truly is inspiring. I can't wait to read the whole book but I love how he repeatedly eschews any attempt to suggest that he had an advantage because of his education and upbringing. Instead he talks about the lessons HE learned from the people who started out less fortunate than he did.

Homeless: Can you build a life from $25?

But surely your background – you're privileged; you have an education and a family – made it much easier for you to achieve.

[Adam]I didn't use my college education, credit history, or contacts [while in South Carolina]. But in real life, I had these lessons that I had learned. I don't think that played to my advantage. How much of a college education do you need to budget your money to a point that you're not spending frivolously, but you're instead putting your money in the bank?

Do you need a college education? I don't think so. To be honest with you, I think I was disadvantaged, because my thinking was inside of a box. I have the way that I lived [in North Carolina] – and to enter into this totally new world and acclimate to a different lifestyle, that was the challenge for me.

......

Would your project have changed if you'd had child-care payments or been required to report to a probation officer? Wouldn't that have made it much harder?

The question isn't whether I would have been able to succeed. I think it's the attitude that I take in: "I've got child care. I've got a probation officer. I've got all these bills. Now what am I going to do? Am I going to continue to go out to eat and put rims on my Cadillac? Or am I going to make some things happen in my life...?" One guy, who arrived [at the shelter] on a Tuesday had been hit by a car on [the previous] Friday by a drunk driver. He was in a wheelchair. He was totally out of it. He was at the shelter. And I said, "Dude, your life is completely changed." And he said, "Yeah, you're right, but I'm getting the heck out of here." Then there was this other guy who could walk and everything was good in his life, but he was just kind of bumming around, begging on the street corner. To see the attitudes along the way, that is what my story is about.

That makes me feel almost ashamed for not having a better attitude about my career and education. It definitely gives me pride to live in a Country where you can start at the bottom and with enough hard work and a good attitude be very successful. Especially if you have an attitude similar to Adam's:

You made it out of the shelter, got a job, and opened a bank account. Did you meet other people who had similar experiences?

Oh, absolutely. We don't need "Scratch Beginnings" to know that millions of Americans are creating a life for themselves from nothing.... Just as millions of Americans are not getting by. There are both ends of the spectrum.

To meet that guy [in the wheelchair] at the shelter, [makes you wonder] 'Can he get out and go to college and become a doctor?' Maybe, maybe not. I think he can set goals..... You can use your talents. That's why, from the beginning, I set very realistic goals: $2,500, a job, car. This isn't a "rags-to-riches million-dollar" story. This is very realistic. I truly believe, based on what I saw at the shelter ...that anyone can do that.

That's one thing about liberals and really politicians in general. You never hear them say "you CAN do it". It's always "What you've already done should have been good enough and I'm the one who can fix this injustice". Even if the pols have good intentions they are discouraging the attitude that will ultimately help the poor become not poor.

Here is another interview with Adam from one of my favorite websites Get Rich Slowly:

Even now, though, in my current life where I have a little bit more financial freedom, I’m still always looking to save money. Why do I need to go to the “real movie theatre” when I can go to the “dolla-fitty” and watch movies that might be a month or two old? Why Eddie Bauer, when Marshall’s essentially has the same clothes? Why Dr. Pepper when there’s Dr. Thunder? And on and on. Even with money to spare, I’m looking for ways to put that money to work for me rather than spending it on items that I don’t truly need for right now.

I know that one day I’ll be financially free enough to own the car I want, the house I want, the clothes I want. That day is not today, but the idea of delaying gratification keeps me going.

J.D.
Is it really that easy? You were able to do this because you had a goal. What was the situation like for those people you worked and lived with? Did they have goals? Did they save?

Adam
Of course it’s easy for me to say it was easy. I had a goal. I was out to prove a point. I had the mentality and I knew what I had to do to get the results I wanted.

But what surprised me most, and what makes my story so fascinating, is that so many people around me were doing the same thing. It was most prevalent in the shelter (where some people had spent a lifetime learning from their mistakes), but it was just as prevalent outside of the shelter with guys like Derrick Hale, who emerges as the hero of my experience in Charleston.

Derrick was a guy I was working with at the moving company. He had come from rural Kingstree, SC, and he truly knew what poverty was like having grown up in a world of bologna and pickle sandwiches and maybe the lights will turn on, maybe not. And there he was in Charleston, saving his money just like I was. Actually, that’s cocky of me to say, since I was learning so many lessons from him.

Derrick was unique in that not only did he have a goal, but he had a vision for achieving that goal. There’s a monumental difference, and I really learned that throughout the course of my time in Charleston. Everybody knows what they want (nice house, car, vacation money, etc.) and many people know what can get in the way of achieving those goals (see poor spending habits above). But! Some people really struggle with the discipline of their vision. Derrick wanted a house, and near the end of my time in Charleston, he moved into a brand new 3-bedroom, two-story house, with a patio and a fenced in yard for his daughter and dog to play. He was 25 and he worked as a mover, but he knew how to handle his money.

So, is it realistic to set goals and save your money and make worthy investments? Of course it is! Are people doing it? Of course they are, just as there are people that are squandering their money to bad habits.

Read the whole thing. You will be glad you did

Also check out his website Scratch Beginnings.