First, I recognize what an African-American president means symbolically for minorities in this country. While it is not the first or the last struggle in the human rights movement, it is a significant milestone in the fight. Racism was part of the ugly past of America, and though it hasn’t been stamped out completely, this was definitely an event that illustrates the fruits of that labor.

Obama is also an orator. When we look at our past, we find ourselves attracted to the great speeches. “I have a Dream.” “We will go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” “With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph — so help us God.”  Despite policy disagreements, there is no doubt that the speeches Obama will deliver could match or rival the great orators of our past.

I’ve always wondered what it would be like to live when there was some sort of advancement in American society, and I guess that this could be my chance.  While I won’t be able to agree with the policies of Obama, I can be proud to live in a country of opportunity that allows him to become president.  So, I congratulate him, and hope that he will take actions that help the United States remain the land of opportunity that bore him.

For the angry stuff, that’s another blog post.

First off, let’s take a look at this $85 billion bailout of AIG.  The key here is that we spent $85 billion dollars of “taxpayer money” that… and here’s the kicker… nobody voted on.  Chairman of the Fed Ben Bernanke and his group basically signed this money over.  And who oversees the Fed?  Where are the checks and balances for them?  There are none.  In fact, we don’t even vote on the person who is arguably the most powerful economic figure in the United States, if not the world.  Each of the candidates made their point about whether bailing out AIG was the right thing to do, but in reality, even the real president didn’t have an official say in it.  Even if Bush wanted to bail out AIG, he’d still have to push a bill through congress to do it.  So where is the accountability for Ben Bernanke? 

Second, in the bailout deal, the United States became an 80% stakeholder in a private company.  Wait a second here… doesn’t that sound dangerously close to socialism?  Some of the democrats want to trade help with bad morgages for shares in the company that uses the help.  This is supposed to be used to pay back “the taxpayer” when the crisis is over.  But what happens when a shareholder vote comes up?  Will “the taxpayer” get a vote in what happens to the company?  Who will be in charge of handling this sort of issue? 

I use the phrase “the taxpayer” in quotes because, in reality, we aren’t really paying for this bill.  In fact, all of the actual “taxpayer” dollars have already been spent.  We were facing a budget deficit before all this came around.  So where does all this money come from that we’re going to use to pay for this bill?  The answer is the same that it has always been when the government needs money.  They issue treasury bills.  And with all of America’s financial institutions in a bind, do you know who is picking up the majority of these bills?  China. 

Thanks to Democratic party roadblocks, we’re already sending $700 billion dollars a year overseas to countries that don’t like us very much for our oil needs.  Now, we’re going to borrow an extra $700 billion from one of the last bastions of communism to support the greatest socialist initiative that the United States has ever put forward.  In fact, the Chinese are already financing a large portion of our country’s national debt, the cieling for which will be raised to over $11.3 trillion dollars as part of the proposed bill.  If we wanted to foot the bill for this to the taxpayer, everyone would have to write a check for over $3000.  So how exactly are we going to be saving our economy by bailing out these irresponsible companies?  That’s right, we’re going to be shoring up investor confidence. 

Wait a second.  Investor confidence?  The reason these companies are falling on wall street is because there is no confidence in their activities.  Now, when our government steps in with a giant pile of money, we’re going to expect them to turn around and make good on it?  Basically, the government is saying that it’s OK that you made these mistakes, we’re here to bail you out.  Now, the democrats want to extend the bill to support people that are defaulting on their home loans so they are not foreclosed on.  What?  Is that not a slap in the face to every American who made the dream happen when the time was right?  Who waited until they could actually afford the house and after they bought it, actually made all their payments?   Basically, the government is again sending out positive reinforcement of a negative behavior.  And in the name of “something must be done” we all have to pay for it.  Maybe not now, but in the future we will pay dearly.

Fortunately, after the storm a cold front came through.  Initially, this created alot of rain and lightning, but now, we’re doing great because it also brought alot of cold air that’s sticking around.  Last night was comfortable for the first time in a while, and eventually I got cold.  We have not had phone service for a while because the batteries that keep it running went out.  Thus, I haven’t been able to update.  Now, however, things are back online.  As far as life without power or plans, we’ve been occuping our time by doing a puzzle and meeting with friends.  Our neighborhood has been meeting every night for dinner, just to gather around a central light and conserve everything. 

School is out for me for the rest of the week, and apparently my brother’s building at UH had part of the roof blown off… his classes are cancelled “until further notice”.

Our family is still doing well.  The generator that we were able to purchase is providing us some comfort, and we shared some of that with our neighbors yesterday as we had a sort of hurricane party.   It was good to get together with them and have a outlet for some of the stress associated with some of the damage we sustained.  We also had alot to celebrate as our neighborhood escaped without any injury. 

For now, we’re just taking some time to relax for a little bit, and soon we will get ready to begin cleaning things up.  We have alot of supplies here and we hear that the grocery stores will be opening again soon.  Again, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for thinking about us and praying for us.  We believe that we have been truly blessed to escape alot of the damage that our fellow Houstonians and neighbors have experienced.

Tree down in my Front Yard

EDIT: Pictures

EDIT: More Pictures 6:45 PM 9/13/08

Well, if you’ve been paying attention to the news, Hurricane Ike came through the Houston area this weekend.  I have lived here for some years, and I’ve never had a storm this bad. Of course, the only other hurricane we’ve been through was Rita, but we didn’t have any damage then.  As you can see from the picture, though, we have some damage this time.  The tree in the picture used to stand in our front yard, but now it’s fallen down across our driveway.  We had our cars parked in the driveway, and fortunately saw that the tree was going to come down.  We took the risk and moved our cars into the street, and made it ok.  5 minutes later, the tree came down.  While we were outside, we saw that there were a number of trees down on our street.  Also, we have a tree down in our backyard that looks like it crashed through our fence.

The power is out right now, but our recent generator purchase is allowing us access to power, internet, TV and coffee.  It’s been a long night, but it looks like we’re all going to be ok now.  I’ll try and post more pictures as I get them, and post more information as I find it out.

UPDATE:

Debris on Street

After the storm died down, we went outside and started to take a look at the damage, and it’s worse then we thoguht.  There was a tree down across the road, blocking most of the cul-de-sac in.  After a while, all the neighbors started coming out and we all got to work on removing the debris.  We didn’t have any chain saws right away, so we went at the trees with hacksaws.  Eventually we were able to get some chainsaws and were able to clear out the big trees.  The tree was so heavy without chopping it that we didn’t have a rope strong enough to pull the log from a truck hitch.  

We all worked together to get the trees cleared and tonight we’re having a few folks over to celebrate making it through without loss of life.  We really feel blessed to have so many trees down and not have anyone injured.  For those of you who have been praying for us, we thank you and hope you all are doing well.

Conservatism and the Dark Knight - Rush

What Bush and Batman Have in Common - Referenced Wall Street Journal Article

EDIT: I also changed themes. Hope you like it.