Obama aired his infomercial last night and it was astonishing in what it did not say.
The family story that struck me the hardest for what was unsaid was the one from Albuquerque. Since I have lived there and taught there for a number of years, I could see between the lines so to speak. What was not said was whether or not the woman was an actual teacher or some kind of aid. The ad says she takes teacher training classes to advance and better herself. so is she a teacher or not. If I'm not mistaken the store she walked out of was a Smiths not a Walmart, which is considerably cheaper. The house they showed as hers looked pretty big. Real estate is expensive in parts of the city but affordable housing does exist. Numbers would have made his case more credible. One problem I had with all of his examples of people having a "hard time" is that they were problems many people have who are not looking for the government to bail them out. You take the hand your dealt and you find a way to deal with it yourself. That is called personal responsibility. As Rush Limbaugh pointed out an abundance of programs exist to help with the whole host of problems this woman had. But my biggest problem was the lack of information on which to judge whether or not this woman was someone who really deserved our sympathy.

I think the guy is just a liar. He is saying whatever he thinks he has to to get elected. The biggest lie was when he said he would rebuild the military to meet 21st century challenges. Just the other day Barney Frank said the democrats would cut the military by 25%. That is the reality of what the Democrats will do. Obama has for the last 19 months never said anything supportive of the military and did in fact vote repeatedly to cut funding for the military in Iraq and Afghanistan.

One other thing that he is trying to blow by people not paying attention. He cannot do anything without the congress to go along with him. Maybe they will, or maybe they won't, but he is presumptuous to suppose that they will. Even a Democrat congress may not agree with him. And if they do, we are in so much trouble. He is spending money like we can print it. Oh yeah, they can. Fifteen billion a year for renewables to produce five million new green jobs. what is that and how can he know this? You see it is just talk. I could go on and on. Hearing it a second time (you can get it all on youtube.) makes its foolishness all the more evident.
For example, (I'll go on for a little bit more) he said that he would make Washington tighten its belt since families are having to tighten theirs. That won't happen. He says he will expand the domestic production of oil when he opposes drilling off the continental shelf where we know the oil is. He said he would tap our natural gas reserves. But how is he going to do this when his environmentalist supporters do not want it to happen. So many contradictions, so little time. Watch it if you have not. Go to youtude and look for Obama infomercial. Have to go. More tomorrow.

Let me finish today with some light-hearted thoughts. Really, it amounts to a distraction for the post-election detox period. As a political junkie I have been following this election for most of the last eighteen to twenty-four months that it has been going on. So what on earth am I going to do with myself on November 5? Well, November happens to be National Novel Writing Month, during which time crazy would-be authors knock out 50,000 word novels at blinding speeds, leaving editing and finely tuned everything laying in the road behind them.(there is in the definition the example of just such a sentence.) All a person has to do is sign up for free at www.nanowrimo.org then at midnight on Nov. 1 begin writing. My young protege and I are in. It would be really cool to have some of my friends along for the ride. Any takers? At the very least it should take my mind off the results of this election or the ongoing court fight that is very likely to follow. I think it is very possible that we will not know until much later who has won. And while I wait I will be feverishly writing.

Well, it has been awhile since I posted anything. I went on vacation and never came back, so to speak. And then there is the crazy state of the world. It has almost been too much to comment on. It is huge. The import of the election is almost more than I can take in and process. First it is scarey; second it seems hopeless, and third it appears to have spun out of the control of everyone except those with evil intent for our country and unscrupulous methods of achieving their ends. If Machiavelli was alive, he would be proud to see his methods being put to such effective use.
But it is not over til it is over, and ultimately God is in control, sovereign to HIS ends, not ours. So to that truth I will add these encouragements:

Ephesians 1:18-19 (NIV) "I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened inorder that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of this glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe."

Psalm 139:16 "All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be." (emphasis mine)

My point is this: God knew what is coming before we were born and his power and riches are ours and they are our hope in all that lies before us. We do not have to worry or be scared or even be angry about the outcome of this election because God has it all in hand.

However, that does not mean we sit back and do nothing. We have to vote. We have to talk to people and get them to vote. We have to try to convince people to vote the right way by showing them to what the wrong vote will lead.

As I have already written, Amity Shlaes' The Forgotten Man is a must read to understand that what the Democrats want to do to this country is no different from FDR's New Deal for the 21st century. it did not work in the 1930's and it will not work now.
A book I have to find is The Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek. This is suppose to be a difinitive explanation of socialism and how we get there.
Got to go now. More later. A lighter note perhaps.