"I am not Gay"

One thing we know for sure is that Larry Craig is not gay. How do we know it? He told us so, “"I am not gay. I never have been gay," he unconvincingly said in his press conference. Tony Orlando said it best when he sang, “Knock three times on the ceiling if you want me” --- oops wrong song, it should have been, “Knock three times on the bathroom stall if you want me..” He did all the right code, but no – he is not gay.

What if he were to meet Judge Judy? Whenever Judge Judy confronts a plaintiff about an arrest, and the plaintiff says, he/she pled guilty because he/she didn’t understand what he/she was doing at the time, Judge Judy comes down hard. Judge Judy doesn’t always have the brightest of people in front of her, but she tells them that if the plaintiff or defendant plead guilty in a case for whatever reason, the court makes sure they know to what they are pleading. So what if Judge Judy had Senator Craig in front of her?

So, now we are to believe that Senator Craig didn’t want to perform some kind of fetish act on the guy in the stall next to him. If he were not culpable, he would have defiantly claimed his innocence. But no, he decided to plead guilty to a lesser charge. He wants us to believe that he did not know what he was doing, so now he hires an attorney. This is a Senator who is used to public speaking, used to being under pressure, and theoretically supposed to be half-way intelligent. So what should we do with him?

You may also have noticed during Craig's press conference, his wife, wearing sunglasses would not even look at him.

Larry Craig should resign for one of two reasons. If the charge is true, then he should resign for abuse of power (showing his senate card to try and extricate him from this mess) and for inappropriate conduct. If the charge is not true, he should resign for just being stupid. Any senator who pleads guilty to a crime he did not commit, and then wants us to believe he did not know what he was doing has got a few marbles missing. I believe the former is true – he did know what he was doing.

If Larry Craig wanted acceptance for this kind of behavior, he should have been a Democrat and maybe have a seat in the oval office. I hear Democrats are much more forgiving with this type of behavior especially if you are president.

I feel compassion for those caught up in the subprime debacle but....

The Democrats want to bailout the borrowers from their bad decisions. Hillary Clinton wants the government to issue a $1 billion federal bailout to avoid foreclosures. New York Senator Chuck Schumer and other Democratic senators have joined her. John Edwards has also recently attacked subprime lenders until it was discovered he had 16 million dollars invested in Fortress Investment Group, a firm involved in the foreclosure of more than 30 homes. This is just another reason not to vote Democrat.

I tend to be very conservative in my approach to life. I worked hard to obtain my BS, and my MBA. I paid my own way through college. I did the apartment thing. I worked, I saved, I bought a house with a substantial downpayment. I made sure my income far exceeded the amount of the mortgage. I invested; I diversified because I did not want to find myself in a financial bind. In 15 years I paid off my house, and I continue to build my portfolio. I did all this with a neurological disorder that has impeded my way to the top and which has made me have to make several compromises along the way. I don't presume to be full of braggadocio, but my intent is to point out the anger I feel when I see the liberals wanting the government to take care of everyone from cradle to grave.

I have heard all the excuses for people not being able to get a college education from I can't afford it to its just too hard. To this I say - "Bull Pucky!." Statistics show that people with college educations earn far more than people without college educations. I have known a lot of people whom I thought could never earn a college degree, and time and time again these people have proved me wrong. If you have a child out of wedlock, if you end up in a gang, if you get kicked out of your house - those are your choices. Regardless, even if you have made mistakes, it only toughens the odds; you can still earn that degree. In America, there is always a way.

Try Central or South America. The only way to get ahead in those countries is through political connections or owning a business. People all over the world are clamoring to enter the United States, yet we keep hearing the liberals complain. How about this for an immigration solution. For everyone who wants to hug Hugo Chavez or blame America first, I say we should exchange him/her for one person in another country south of the border who wants to come here and work hard, get an education and be a part of the U.S..

Everyone wants the American dream. We live in a world of immediacy. We want everything now. Saving for tomorrow is just putting off the inevitable, so college students rack up average credit card debts of 10,000 dollars at a time when their parents pay for everything. Savings rates are at all time lows. If we can't afford to pay for vacation, we will just put it on the credit card. I can't help all the bad decisions people make.

During the dot-com craze, instead of starting businesses in garages like Hewlitt Packard and Intel, venture capitalists poured money into so-called full-fledged business with no proven model or record. It was a recipe for disaster.

People can make all the bad decisions they want until it starts affecting me.

So, now let me get this straight.

Joe wants to buy a house. He walks into a lender. The lender gives him some forms to fill out. Joe inflates his income to make sure he will get the loan. The lender understanding that Joe (even with his inflated income) doesn't make a lot of money and has not been at his job very long still lends him the money. He just ups the interest rate but not for the first twelve months. The first twelve months, Joe will be on easy street, but then his payment doubles. 12 months pass, and Joe can no longer afford the mortgage, and the lender is forced to foreclose on his home. In addition, from the time Joe bought his house to the time he is forced to foreclose, his house has devalued so he now owes more than he borrowed. The Democrats want me and you to pay for his mistake by bailing him out.

Joe is a man who lives beyond his means like so many others in this subprime debacle. He should rent but wants to buy. Houses continued to appreciate due to the plethora of these shaky loans, but it was an artificial appreciation since people who should not have been buying houses continued to buy. Under normal circumstances, these borrowers would not have been able to make such loans. Both lenders and borrowers alike were caught up in this subprime world hoping that when the inevitable crash occurred, it would be the other guy who would be caught with his pants down.

"We will raise your taxes" should be the Democrats motto. You can't afford health insurance, don't worry, we will raise taxes, and give everyone health insurance. You can't afford to pay your mortgage, don't worry we will raise taxes, and everyone will pay your mortgage. You can't afford to pay for Global Warming (you know that hoax everyone is talking about), don't worry we will raise your taxes. You don't have any money but you had six kids out of wedlock, don't worry we will raise taxes, and everyone will pay for your kids. You can't afford to pay your taxes, don't worry we will take the money away from the ones who busted their butts garnering the necessary tools to become successful and they will pay your taxes.

The only people I want to bail out are my kids and at my discretion.

There are certain things I don't mind giving to:

Joe for short term assistance
The disabled
Certain medical research, etc

but do not force me to give to every bad decision made by every Tom Dick and Harry!

Yet, the Democrats are poised for a comeback - go figure!

Read Michelle Malkin's piece on it
http://michellemalkin.com/2007/08/24/the-democrat-clamor-for-a-housing-bailout/

Deconstructing "An Inconvenient Truth"

If the Democrats regain power in 2008, they will enact a plethora of policies to stifle the American economy. The Democrats will definitely be on board with the doltish science propagated by Al Gore. I recommend everyone read this article by Mary Ellen Gilder, the daughter of noted technologist and FORBES newsletter partner George Gilder. She did a balanced research on the film, "An Incovenient Truth" and she shows the egregious distortions and falsehoods of Al Gore's movie.

Cut and paste the following link http://sitewave.net/news/s49p1835.htm

In Guilder's essay she writes

However, Michael Crichton (best known for his novels but also a graduate of Harvard Medical School and a former postdoctoral fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies) warned his audience of the dangers of "consensus science" in a 2003 speech,

"Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.

"Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus.

"Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus."

Michael Crichton is the author of "Jurassic Park", and his latest novel, "State of Fear" shows how absurd the Global Warming myth is. It is a must read.

I feel your pain!

As part of the investor class, I am feeling the pain of the bloodletting in my portfolio. I guess it's part of the risk of investing, but its no time for panic. The Democrats will probably blame it on Global Warming or Bush, but the intelligentisia realize its the subprime debacle, in other words "greed." Just like the dot-com crash, the subprime fiasco boils down to the word "avarice." Credit was given to anyone. Banks would securitize these mortgages and sell them to the next sucker. Eventually, like the dot-coms, it had to implode.

The stock market will rebound - it always does, but there may be more bloodletting first. It's hard to grin and bear it, but grin and bear it we must. The savvy investor will start buying more stocks. Country Financial which has become part of the story was rated five stars by Morningstar. I wonder if Morningstar will put it in under review.

As the stocks began its downward spiral, I bought a stock from Ireland, Allied Irish Bank. Ireland is in the process of huge growth. I do believe I bought it too early however, because the subprime issue is spreading and the stock market seems to be in freefall. I will buy more stocks, but I think the market still has further to go. What is happening now can be compared to the dot-com crash in this respect. The dot-com crash did not affect only the dot-coms but it spread to the rest of the economy because the dot-coms were the consumers of other industries. When the dot-coms could no longer purchase equipment, other industries could no longer sell to these failed dot-coms. I see the subprime market spreading to the rest of the economy in a similar fashion. Credit tightens, Mortgage rates rise, and consumers stop buying. I do not believe it will be a recession, because I don't think the subprime issue is as large as the dot-com crisis was. In fact, by the end of the year, I suspect the market will have rebounded.

So what do I think right now - its time to start picking up stocks on the cheap. Stocks in my portfolio which have now ended up in the buying range noted as five stars by Morningstar are the following; (note: These stocks may fall further. It's hard to time the stock market, but these stocks are worth keeping an eye on) The time to buy is when everyone is running for the hills.

Allied Irish Bank (AIB)(Ireland)
Anheuser - Bush (BUD)
Bank of America (BAC)
Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B)
Carmax (KMX)
Cemex (CX)(Mexico)
Cintas Corporation (CTS)
Corporate Executive Board Company (EXBD)
Discover Financial Services (DFS)
Ebay, Inc (EBAY)
Enterprise GP Holdngs (EPE)
Expedia (EXPE)
Expeditors International of Washington (EXPD)
Fastenal Company(FAST)
Home Depot (HD)
IAC/Interactive Corp (IACI)
International Speedway (ISCA)
JP Morgan (JPM)
Mcgraw-Hill Company (MHP)
Microsoft Corporation (MSFT)
Novartis (NVS)
Pfizer (PFE)
Western Union (WU)
Wal- Mart (WMT)
Washington Mutual (WM)

The recent (almost) or correction (if the Dow hits 12,600, it will be recognized as a correction, 10% below the market's high) of the market makes this a buying opportunity. Although one should investigate a stock on its merits, the above quality stocks have gone down to buying territory.

The metric I use to determine the value of a stock is the discounted cash flow method. It is much more accurate than just using the P/E of a stock.

Happy investing

The consesus continues on Global Warming.

The Washington times (a liberal newspaper) reports on John Lockwood who conducted research in the Library of Congress and found in the Washington Post that in 1922 the Artic was getting warmer (was this pre-C02?). Click and paste the following URL http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/20070814/NATION02/108140063 (I have to figure out how one makes the link clickable instead of the antiquated cut and paste method.)

Scientific consensus not represented by the IPCC, (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)cut and paste the following URL

http://www.thehilltimes.ca/html/cover_index.php?display=story&full_path=/2007/august/13/letter4/&c=1

A little more information on Carbon Dioxide (it is less than 4% of the earth's atmosphere) http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog

You can win 100,000 dollars

All you have to do is prove Al Gore right. Prove global warming is man-made and you can win 100,000 dollars. All you lefties - get cracking!



Cut and paste this URL address here to enter the contest

http://www.ultimateglobalwarmingchallenge.com/

Should not be a problem since there is an apparent consenus among Scientists at least according to Al Gore

Everybody - get out your tan lotion - Global warming is coming, but not just yet

Global Warming is coming to a city near you at least after 2009-- http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN0837368420070809?feedType=RSS&rpc=22&sp=true

Climate experts have long predicted a general warming trend over the 21st century spurred by the greenhouse effect, but this new study gets more specific about what is likely to happen in the decade that started in 2005.

To make this kind of prediction, researchers at Britain's Met Office -- which deals with meteorology -- made a computer model that takes into account such natural phenomena as the El Nino pattern in the Pacific Ocean and other fluctuations in ocean circulation and heat content.
A forecast of the next decade is particularly useful, because climate could be dominated over this period by these natural changes, rather than human-caused global warming, study author Douglas Smith said by telephone.

This reminds me of the financial models we would make during my career as an Accountant. Weeks are spent formulating and revising financial models that forecast next fiscal year's profit and loss, then budget meetings take place. As the CFO and other principals ponder the numbers on said budget, they determine that profitability needs to be increased. In a flurry to meet budget requirements, we begin to revise our models. Assumptions are changed; a variable is changed here and a variable is changed there and voila - we have now reached our profitability goals. CFO is satisfied. Nevermind that the profit goals we set out for ourselfs are unattainable - if worse comes to worse, we will adjust the financials to meet set criteria at the end of the fiscal year.

Auditors will ask questions, and we always have the right answers.

With all the grants needed to come up with a global warming scenario, I wonder what assumptions, the so-called climatologists need to change to reach their predetermined conclusions? Hmmm - Am I being too presumptious? maybe a bit skeptical?

Let's have a global warming pool, (something like a football pool), and we can make bets on whether their predictions are accurate, especially given the fact we can't seem to predict the weather more than a week in advance.

The real heat will start after 2009, they said.

Until then, the natural forces will offset the expected warming caused by human activities, such as the burning of fossil fuels, which releases the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide

The sages of the Global Warming Swindle have somehow determined that we have until 2009 before things start heating up. There are people who really believe this stuff. That is what's incredible.

Senator Inhofe got it right -

http://epw.senate.gov/pressitem.cfm?party=rep&id=264308

More for all you lefties here
http://epw.senate.gov/speechitem.cfm?party=rep&id=263759

For more check out Michelle Malkin
http://michellemalkin.com/2007/08/09/hot-news-nasa-fixes-flawed-temperature-data-1998-was-not-the-warmest-year-in-the-millenium/

Why is the left so gullible?

And the Winner Is... August 5th GOP debate

Whose idea was it to have a GOP debate at 8:00 AM in the morning? - And on a Sunday morning. Doesn't anyone know Republicans go to church? There must have been a total of two people watching it, maybe three. I was one of them. In fact, I woke up exactly at 8:00 AM; I turned over, grabbed the remote and turned on the television. My wife didn’t even wake up – so that was good, because she would have told me to turn it off. I am sure, in the next few days, we will hear various sound bytes from the debate, and most people will say “What debate?”

Was it just my impression that the GOP debate doesn’t come off as quite as silly as the Democratic debate. I mean we saw no Snowman talking about global warming, and no crazed lunatic with an AK-47. I actually thought George Stephanopoulos did a good job moderating. ABC only showed three videos in the entire debate as opposed to all the half-witted questions posed by the Youtubers in the Democratic debate. I was very disappointed my question was not posed which had made the first cut on i-caught. But I guess when the network only shows three videos, chances are slim they will choose yours.

I digress. So, why is global warming such a hot (no pun intended) topic with the Democrats and not a hot topic with Republicans (it wasn’t even mentioned.) The reason is this – Global warming is a fraud. Here is the question I posed which made it in ABC's first cut.



Some other frauds which have been perpetrated, and have been found out to be frauds from the Democratic side of the aisle

Paul Ehrlich – The population bomb http://www.overpopulation.com/faq/people/paul-ehrlich/

Global Cooling - http://denisdutton.com/cooling_world.htm

Eugenics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics

I would add to the list evolution, but I won’t. I will stop with the few I mentioned.

Back to the debate -

I understand the American people want change. Change to me is returning to our conservative principles. Bush was never and has never been a true conservative albeit he is better than anything the Democrats have ever had to offer. When you watch the Democratic debate and then the Republican debate, is there any question that the Republicans would continue to grow the economy and continue the war on terror? The Democrats talk about raising taxes and withdrawing from Iraq, (a defeatist approach). They have yet to take “Economics 101” to see why raising taxes stifles growth (they should just make a trip to Europe), and the Democrats also fail to understand that if we were to withdraw from Iraq, the enemy would look at it as a victory, and such a perceived defeat would only embolden radical Islam. As Guliani pointed out, the Democrats don’t even mention “Islamic terrorism.” I will feel much safer with the Republicans in power.

And what is that guy with the first two names again Paul Ron, Ron Paul still doing on the podium. He talks like a Democrat, and he must have used the word neocon about 100 times. Have you ever noticed that when sites such as the drudge report create a poll asking who won the GOP debate, Ron Paul is always the winner http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Decision2008/popup?id=3436820&POLL299=1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 . As of this writing, he has over 17,000 votes on the Drudge Report with Mitt Romney second at under 3000 votes.. It happened in the last debate on KSFO’s Melanie Morgan’s website too. I can say that Ron Paul has one thing going for him. He has a loyal following that just sits at the computer all day and votes for him. I think Ron Paul’s disciples need a life.

I don’t think abortion is going to be much of an issue this go round, but I do think Mitt Romney needs to get a better answer. I thought Brownback and Romney were going to have a fist fight over Romney’s change of position on the issue of abortion. Romney didn’t defend his position very well, and later in the debate, he said he felt the one area he thought he made a mistake was when he was running for governor of Massachusetts, he was pro-choice. It left me the impression that he was always pro-life, but he only changed his position for political reasons. I wonder if anyone else had the same impression.

Tancredo actually wanted to blow up Mecca and Medina. All I can say is this – if we didn’t have the entire Muslim world gunning for us now, we would after we blew up the two most holiest shrines in the Muslim world. And that came from a candidate other than Ron Paul. I thought Ron Paul was the only wacko up there – I guess not.

When Thompson was done speaking about breast cancer, it sounded like his entire family had it. If that is true, it is definitely a tragedy, but when he then said he would cure breast cancer by 2010, he just sounded like an idiot.

Last week, Obama handed Hillary the Democratic nomination when he said he would withdraw from Iraq, talk to our enemies and invade our allies, which means he would invade another sovereign nation. I thought invading sovereign nations was anathema to the Democrats. I wasn’t sure at first if Guliani agreed with Obama, but he sure didn’t make it clear. Mitt Romney was able to explain why Obama’s position was just plain ridiculous. Will Obama lose his star power now? Will he get booed by the Daily Kos? One can only wait and see.

Why is it that in every other presidential election, I knew who I was going to vote for from the start and why. But, with this current crop of candidates, it is still a tossup. McCain is not even a blip on my screen. Guliani is the one I am looking at albeit somewhat reluctantly. He is also the one I thought who won the debate.

Another Bilingual American Idol

Voy a hacer el intento de cantar unas canciones (dos en español y una en ingles.) Es increíble esta tecnología - ¿Creen que estoy listo para “American Idol.?”

Here I am putting forth the effort to sing a few songs (two in Spanish, one in English.) Isn’t this technology great? Do you think I am ready for “American Idol?”

Mis interpretaciones de
Volveré por Diego Verdaguer (aquí presento a mi hija)



El amor de mi Vida por Camilo Sesto



For my Lady by the Moody Blues

Another Republican Debate

Sunday August the 5th, the next Republican Debate by ABC NEWS will commence. I know you are saying, "Oh no, not another one!!" I have sent in a couple of videos with questions I have, and I thought I would post them here. I have posted two questions; the first one is on global warming and the second is on nuclear power. Not sure why I moved around so much. It's not easy to make a video. Will they choose one of my videos? :)

Question on Global Warming



Question on Nuclear Power