Monthly Archives: October 2012

All Rich Guys Think They are Infallible…. 5

In The News, Quotes, Will's Quotes • Tags: , , , , ,

via Jack Welch: I was right about jobs report – Oct. 9, 2012.

Welch, the former CEO of General Electric, had previously contributed content to Fortune, but following critical coverage of his comments on the jobs report and tenure at GE, Welch said in an e-mail Tuesday that he was terminating his contract with Fortune.

In his WSJ op-ed, Welch suggests that the reaction to his criticism of “the ruling authorities” was something he would expect in Soviet Russia or Communist China. “Nope,” he wrote, “that would be the United States right now, when a person (like me, for instance) suggests that a certain government datum (like the September unemployment rate of 7.8%) doesn’t make sense.” More…

Where the candidates differ on foreign policy…. thank heavens…. 9

Getting Serious, Off The Top • Tags: , , ,

via Due Diligence: Where the candidates differ on foreign policy – CBS News.

The president wants the military to focus more on nontraditional threats like al Qaeda, and no longer wants the United States to serve as the world’s policeman. He noted on Monday that America spends more on the military than the next ten countries combined – which you only say if you think America is carrying too large a burden.

It can be difficult to tease out differences between the candidates on specific issues. But when it comes to the larger, overarching philosophy, there is a clear difference: Romney wants to spend more money to expand America’s traditional military role in the world, while the president wants to transition to a new era in which America plays a fundamentally different role. And that philosophical chasm is more important than the lack of difference on many individual issues. More…

Celebrating Two Personal Milestones Today… 6

Off The Top, Quotes, Spouting Off, Will's Quotes • Tags: , , , , ,

I am putting aside my usual Sunday post about things that inspire me in order to tell you about two milestones that are happening today in my life.

The first milestone is that today is my 66th birthday so I have officially survived my first full year of single-payer system health insurance. I have to tell you that it was great. More…

War Jobs vs Peace Time Jobs….

Government, Military, Money, Off The Top • Tags: , , ,

Source: Defense cuts could further dim US jobs picture – Life Inc..

There are thousands of civilian jobs related to the war effort, and cutbacks in defense spending have already led to reductions in these defense-related jobs, including direct government positions or those with defense contractors.

Outside of slightly more federal money spent on citizen’s safety nets the defense budgets are the biggest use of our tax dollars.  We spend more on our military than the rest of the world combined. As shown by the quote above and the source article one of the arguments our hawks give us for maintaining our military spending is that it creates much needed jobs. The graph below provided to me by my friends at the American Friends Service Committee show that the same money could produce many more jobs if spent outside of our military complex. The only reason we spend as much as the rest of the world combined on our military is because our politicians and generals have chosen to make us the policemen of the world.

More…

A Powerful Moderate Republican Backs Obama….

In The News, Politics • Tags: , ,

via Colin Powell endorses Barack Obama for president – CBS News.

When he took over the country was in very, very difficult straits. We were in the one of the worst recessions we had seen in recent times, close to a depression. The fiscal system was collapsing. Wall Street was in chaos, we had 800,000 jobs lost in that first month of the Obama Administration and unemployment peaked at 10 percent. So we were in real trouble. The auto industry was collapsing, the housing was started to collapse and we were in very difficult straits. And I saw over the next several years stabilization come back in the financial community, housing is now starting to come back after four years, it’s starting to pick up. Consumer confidence is rising.” More…

The Light at the End of the Tunnel…. Finally….. 2

In The News, Politics • Tags: , , , ,

Here we are twelve days away from the election! I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. It seems that each election, especially when a president is on the ballot, gets uglier and uglier. There just seems to be so much hate in our country now and that is truly scares me at times.

Twelve days and we will finally be finished with all these negative ads costing billions of dollars telling us why we should be against someone but little about why we should vote for the other guy on the ballot. I just saw some yard signs like the picture here in several yards in my neighborhood.  The Republican party’s mascot is the elephant and of course we all know that an elephant never forgets (all of us believe in all those clichés don’t we).  As I am getting older in years I definitely am forgetting things but I don’t forget who caused so much of our current problems. More…

I am War Weary……. 9

In The News, Military, Politics • Tags: , , , , , ,

I saw a statistic  somewhere that said that 68% of U.S. citizens are war weary.  I am certainly one of them.  Neither party seems to shy away from sending our kids and/or our dollars to fight in this or that conflict. After twelve years of constant war costing us thousands of our kids and $trillions I am war weary. Do we really need to be the policemen of the world even if it bankrupts us? Our war machine has cost us enough! More…

Big Money…. 9

In The News, Money, Politics • Tags: , , , , ,

‎[Republicans] take care of big money for big money takes care of them. – 20 September 1931  Will Rogers

I don’t think that even Will would have dreamed that we would one day have something called “Citizens United”. That is the Supreme Court decision that opened the money spigot in today’s politics. There are now dozens of groups both Republican and Democrat, but mostly Republican, that go by various innocuous names that put out much of the mud in today’s politics.

Since these guys can hide behind noble sounding names and don’t have to say what their political bent is it is hard to know where they stand without a program. So I took the effort to track down the top fifteen pacs for you.  It is shown below. In case you are interested the totals add up to

Republican – $263 million

Democrat – $48 million More…

RJ’s Doctrine….

Off The Top, Spouting Off • Tags: , , ,

Tonight is, thank heavens, the last debate for this presidential season. It will be on foreign policy. I can tell you in advance what will happen. Each side will tear into the other saying their opponents foreign policy will assure the total destruction of the United States. There will be little of anything but put-down and counter-put-downs.

If I were running for president I would give you very clearly what I would proudly call RJ’s Doctrine: More…

If God Is Love… (Part1) 3

Book Reviews, Inspiring • Tags: , , , , ,

I am going to start a series of posts around quotes from some of the many books I have read. One of the favorites is the book “If God is Love” by Philip Gulley. Here is the quote for today:

When Jesus redefined kinship, he was challenging their exclusive circle by declaring that anyone in any place who did the will of God regardless of social standing or religious affiliation, was his brother or sister.  Kinship is not a matter of racial, religious, or cultural conformity. It was the by-product of a commitment of the will of God — to love and care for all. More…

Memoirs….. 2

In The News, Quotes, Spouting Off, Will's Quotes • Tags: , , ,

When you put down the good things you ought to have done, and leave out the bad ones you did do well, that’s Memoirs. – Will Rogers

I think almost all of us who have ever put pen to paper so to speak have thought about writing our memoirs. But it seems that only those folks who are famous ever actually get theirs published and I have a sneaking suspicion that many of even those are actually ghost written. I guess I have sort of written my memoirs in that I have been keeping a journal for about twenty years now. The girls call them a diary but a journal is a much more manly word for mine. But some of the things I write in the journal are not to be seen by anyone but me. More…

More Brainy Stuff…. 2

Off The Top, Spouting Off • Tags: , , , , ,

I can’t seem to shut my brain off with all this change talk the last few posts. Hopefully this is the last post in this area. Here are some more basic things that need to change in our country in order to go forward with a least a small hope of getting better. I will admit that a some of the items on the current list are said more in jest than seriousness.

  • Schools should be free as long as a kid wants to learn – We are becoming a third class country in regard to the number of our citizens with college degrees. A good part of this is due to the expenses being beyond what many can afford. We should make learning a right rather than  a privilege of only those that can afford it.  If a kid wants to be a doctor  or any other profession lets pay for his tuition to do that. When we finally get universal healthcare like the rest of the world he would be making a little less “big bucks” to pay off twelve years of learning. The definition of “kid” here is anyone between the ages of two and two hundred. More…

How About Some Changes…. 5

Off The Top • Tags: , , , , , , ,

I guess I am still fixated on the post from yesterday about how so many very sparsely populated States in the U.S. now have so much power. It seems that our country is quite out of balance right now as a result of past decisions.  Maybe it is time to revisit some of that stuff.  Being that I am the fool who rushes in where angels fear to tread I will take a stab at this. If you want to call this the Walters’ Doctrine go ahead. I will take the blame for all of it. Here is my list of things that need to change: More…

The Great American Desert…. 2

In The News, Politics, Quotes, Will's Quotes • Tags: , , ,

The West has got lots of open country but none that you can live on. – October 1, 1933  Will Rogers

Of course when Will talked about the “West” I’m sure he was not talking about the States along the coast but instead those along the east slope of the Rocky Mountains.  But it turns out that he was mostly right in that not many people live in that area of the U.S.  I always remember the old saying that “50% of the people in the U.S. live within 50 miles of the coast”. But, just how many people live in Will’s “west”. Lets take a look. More…

Mr. 3.75 Percent

In The News, Politics • Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Source: Mr. 3.75 Percent – By Daniel Altman | Foreign Policy.

One political leader who likes to plan for the really long term is Paul Ryan, the Republican nominee for U.S. vice president. By 2050, Ryan’s budget plan would reduce federal spending outside health-care programs and Social Security to 3.75 percent of GDP, down from 12.5 percent last year, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. So, what would it mean to chop away two-thirds of the federal government?

According to the World Bank, government spending minus health care was already lower in the United States than in all of the European Union, Japan, China, and India in 2009, the latest year with comprehensive figures. At just 3.75 percent of GDP, the United States would be one of the world’s lowest spenders. The only countries that spent less in 2009 were Equatorial Guinea, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and the Central African Republic. More…

That Bearded Guy Up There….. 2

Things Spiritual, Words of Wisdom • Tags: , ,
I am starting a new category here for some Sunday posts. As some of you know I have been blogging about living by the red letters, meaning the words of Jesus found in the Bible, for several years now. Since that blog, even though it has been running longer, does not get the readership of this one I thought I would bring a few of my favorite posts here for your thoughts.

***** Posted September 20, 1012 **********

Many of us Christians never seem to give up our childhood views of just who God is. We think of him as that white bearded guy up in heaven. True, we do add some things to this vision as we get older we see him as that guy who spends his day saying “You go to heaven; you go to hell”.  We often view Jesus in the same childhood comprehension. Jesus is that long-haired, brown-bearded guy who sits around all day playing with sheep and always has children gathered around him. More…

Grand Canyon 1

Photo Saturday • Tags: ,

This was my second visit to the Grand Canyon in December 2005. We stayed at the park lodge just fifty feet away from this view. That is one of my dirty little secrets that park lodges are often some of the most affordable places to stay.

What do the Republican Party and the Christian Church Have in Common??? 2

Off The Top, Politics • Tags: , , , , , , ,

Religion and politics together!!  Boy am I asking for it. But, thank heavens I am not going to be talking about abortion (I have done that more than enough lately).  Maybe I am going to talk about how Evangelicals seem to make up the majority of the Radical Right?  Nope, not going to talk about that either… The thing I want to talk about that they have in common is the practice of exclusion. More…