Deal of the Week!: I just bought a generic Bluetooth headset for $.99! The deal is like this, the headset is $59, but Buy.com is blowing these things out for $10.99. Then you use Google Checkout for the first time and get a $10 checkout. Use the free shipping option (will probably come sometime during McCain's second term) and it is indeed just 99 cents. Click here.

Tip of the Week: I was talking to my dad about this a few weeks ago and then Mary asked about it. So I did it and absolutely love it! This is the deal. Get your favorite MP3 client like Winamp, and then go grab a stream ripping program (like Stream Ripper). Now you go to your favorite online radio station like SmoothJazz.com or any of the channels on Sky.FM and then activate the stream ripper. It snags each song as an individual MP3 and saves them all in a folder to listen to offline or run over to your MP3 player. You will need to spend about a minute deleting the bumps and PSAs, but it is really incredible. Set your ripper to grab overnight and have a couple hundred songs in the morning. You can fill that new 160MB iPod in no time!

Quotes of the Week:

• "I misspoke" -Hillary Rodham-Clinton on her lie about being under sniper fire in Bosnia.
• "Had Wright not retired, I would have left the church" - Barack H Obama on leaving the church where his mentor and friend of 20 years had pastored espousing white hatred speech from the pulpit - but only when Obama wasn't there.

Favorite New Band: Science for Girls.

Best new software: I bought Sage's ACT! again. This isn't really new, but I have a new laptop so I am reconfiguring and really, really love this program. Organizes everything in my life. I also got Adobe's Lightroom, but right now don't see much that is that helpful that I can't do in Photoshop CS3. Will load some RAW files later and see if there is a big difference.

Site of the Week: Fathers.com, just a great site to help you be a better dad.

Song of the Week: Love is a Beautiful Thing, by Phil Vassar. First time a song has made me cry since Butterfly Kisses. (note to my daughters - I love you!)

Leadership - The Missing Quality: I have battled back and forth who I want to see as President in the next term. Here is where I am at a loss. On the Democrat side I see two candidates that are fighting like pit bulls for the nod in their party, they really want it. On the Republican side there is one choice, and he has nothing to fight for so he is laying low (which is smart). But, there is no leadership. There is no hope.

I believe our country is about to face some very difficult times. Regardless who is President, they will have to deal with the war, a failing economy that is at a tipping point that is almost too late, and who knows what else will pop up. I don't see any of these people as being able to take that lead. There are no leaders, there are only politicians. I don't see anyone who has a REAL plan that THEY put together. They have plans, they are reactive, and they are put together by their staff to get votes, not to fix a problem. Last night Obama gave his economic address and the solution was that the government should bail out the millions of mortgage holders who made bad decisions. To the millions of you who are on a fixed 30 year loan - you are screwed. You will have to continue to pay the loan. But for those who were looking at the very attractive ARM loans, you are going to get government help (meaning from my taxes) for your bad choice. That's his solution - the government will help.

If the government wants to help why not start with New Orleans? Why not use some of those billions to find solutions to our fuel problems? Why not put a stop to the insane pork projects that are approved each year?

I really can't find a single leader that I am excited about, who I can vote for. There are some great leaders out there, but not in my district, state, or at a national level. Where we live I have a lame duck Congressman who hasn't done a thing recently, or at least if he has he has kept it a secret.

Where is our Lincoln? Where is our Reagan?

Politics of Deceit: I long for Lincoln. I long for Washington. I miss the days when I knew that our elected leaders were honest. I am not talking about the kind of dishonesty like Eliot Spitzer who cheats on his wife or Kwame Kilpatrick who has been charged with 8 felonies (mostly as a result of cheating on his wife). I am talking about people who are so numb to their own lies that they don’t even realize when they are doing and when they are caught they don’t see anything wrong with it!

I delicately remind you of the questioning of Bill Clinton who wanted to redefine “sex” and said that a particular variety of it wasn’t. The world scratched their heads, but it sort of worked – at least as far as the trial. So it should be no surprise that Ms. Rodham-Clinton said that she “misspoke” when she said that she was under sniper fire on a visit to Bosnia. She responded today by saying “"I say a lot of things -- millions of words a day -- so if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement," she said. Okay, I will give her that she says a lot of things in a day, but to characterize her visit to another country as being under sniper fire when it wasn’t isn’t misspeaking – its lying. And it is a part of her character. She wasn’t repeating something that someone told her that was wrong, she was trying to share a story about something that happened to her and she lied. She didn’t exaggerate, she lied. Here is what she said: "I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base." But the AP photo (left) clearly shows a different story. She stops to greet people, and everyone is smiling. There is not one look of concern.

But I am not shocked by the lie, nor the pass that she gets from the press. Does anyone remember Ms. Rodham-Clinton’s response to 9/11? She said that she was a concerned parent because Chelsea had gone jogging around the towers and was missing. But according to Chelsea a couple of months later she says that she was nowhere near the towers and found out about the attacks by watching the TV.

These are people who will say anything for political expediency. If my candidate (who is no longer in the race) where to come out with such a total fabrication he would immediately be off my list. If they will lie about their family and experiences just to get a vote they will lie about anything. And that person has no place in leadership.

Economic Report from the President - False Hope: Today the President gave a speech giving the citizens of the USA hope. It is false hope because it is groundless. It would be so refreshing if he would just tell the truth and tell American’s to get ready because things are going to get rough. The dollar is falling, gas prices are climbing, foreclosures are on the rise. So why do we see hope? Hope comes when we see a change in the right direction, but day after day we hear the opposite. He admits that we are going to face tough times but said "he was confident the economy would recover".

Give us hope by removing the gas tax or starting finding new sources of fuel. Give us hope by doing something to strengthen the dollar. Give us hope by encouraging stricter requirements for borrowers so they don’t lose it all a few years later. Those are positive, proactive actions that should have been done a long time ago. But instead we will be told that all is well and that this is just a bump in the economy. And millions will buy the lie and continue to rack up their credit cards.

I like the President on some of his social issues, but it is time that he just stand up and admit that our economic policies are plunging our country into a disaster. But we can hardly point the blame at American's who on average spend more than they make. That is exactly what our government does.

How to Light a Grassroots Fire: A year ago I wrote to the Republican Party of Kentucky expressing a desire to participate at any level needed. I decided that it was time to become a little more involved than just reading about what was going on and to actually get involved. I received a really nice automated reply saying that someone would contact me. No one ever did.

This is the problem with politics at the state level, especially the Republican Party. Don’t get me wrong, I love the values that they espouse, I am just not thrilled at their ability to organize. About 10 years ago I approached the local county chairman with the same request and the same results.

But compare that with the national level and you will see something totally opposite. I joined one candidate’s Facebook group and was besieged with daily updates telling me where he was campaigning and what I could do to help the party. Maybe a little over the top – but it got me watching him. But something interesting happened when he later dropped out, another candidate started sending me updates. I now get at least one e-mail every day from Senator McCain. It is clear that a members list was sold or given to McCain and now they are operating with the same level of passion.

A grassroots organization doesn’t have to be expensive, it just has to be organized. A 2005 report said that 75% of American’s use a computer and spend an average of three hours a day online. So let’s do some Kentucky math. The population of the state was recently estimated at 4,206,074. Census figures show that 36.55% of those are registered as Republican’s. That means 1,537,320 Republican’s are available. Now 75% of those on average are using their computers, so we now have 1,152,990 sets of eyes that can become active, if they want to. Surely not all of them will, most people don’t really care. But why don’t they care? They don’t feel their vote counts, they don’t have faith in the system or the politicians we elect, their lives are too busy with other things. There are a lot of reasons. So let’s say that just 10% of those people pay attention to what is going on, that is still 150,000 people that could be active, we the state Republican Party would just get organized.

Getting organized is easy. Let’s start with our 120 county chair-people. Let’s get them the templates to organize their counties and send out regular correspondence. Why not a few quarterly e-mails to everyone state wide from a few of our state and national Republican leaders (Mitch?). Let’s get some folks to light some fires and get our state back on track, then maybe our country.

More loss of rights: The California Second District Court of Appeals (Los Angeles) ruled that home schooling families no longer have the rights to raise their own children under penalty of law, unless the parents are credentialed teachers. Some reading this (and the article in Time) will argue the point that the judge didn't say that, he said that they couldn't home school children without being credentialed. That is the subtle difference in what we see as our right, and what the state says is our right. Those who home school typically do so because we see this as our parental responsibility, it is how we raise our children. By taking our children from us and forcing them to be taught things which we oppose in an environment that is often hostile is giving the state the authority over parents.

While Kentucky (my state) currently offers legal protection from such legislation, it can be a dangerous precedent if the law stands. California's own Governor - Arnold Schwarzenegger said "Parents should not be penalized for acting in the best interests of their children's education. This outrageous ruling must be overturned by the courts and if the courts don't protect parents' rights then, as elected officials, we will." Finally some common sense.

The case in California stems from one in which a charge of child abuse and neglect was filed against a couple apparently from one of their children. I will not argue whether or not this child was abused or neglected. I have seen many a case of both some by those in the public school, private school, and home school. If this kid was abused or neglected I feel that the state should have taken this child out of the home. However, the state should not have made a charge that the child MUST be home schooled and that all home schooled children should now move into the public sector. In essence, 200,000 children in California will now pay the penalty of one family, and that is if this family is guilty. Do we see a publicly schooled child who is abused and say that he should now stay home? That is a good solution for some, but to say that all publicly schooled children should now stay at home is just as a ridiculous solution.

I am a parent. I choose to raise my children. I believe that this is my unalienable right. If a parent chooses to have their children raised by the state then that is their right as well. Heaven help this country if we lose the right to raise our own children.

The Quirk that is Me. I have this little thing going on in my head that I tend to keep to myself for fear that those who know me would think that I am a total nutcase. My wife knows, and for the most part she agrees, just not obsessively like I am. My kids think I might be right, but for the most part I think that think that I an a nut job. My folks know, and they mostly agree. Very few other people know what goes on in here.

Why? Because when I started contemplating this “thing” 18 years ago it was so totally implausible that I even doubted myself from time to time. I would occasional put my toe in the water during a conversation to see if the other person might bite, and they usually didn’t. With the exception of possibly two friends I haven’t shared it at all.

So what is this thing? My belief in Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster? My theory as to who really shot JFK or the secret cult that Bush has joined? Nothing so conspiratorial (although Bush does belong to a secret cult that worships Bigfoot). My quirky thought is simple –our country is getting close to its last days.

I do not believe that the country is going to be invaded (although we are being invaded by over a million illegals every year), no do I believe that there is an internal plan at a coup (and that too is being done by Godless people who would pervert our traditions and history). I believe that the country is doomed because of greed and it will be our fall. I firmly believe that the United States is very close to experiencing The Great Depression II (or the Greater Depression). I had placed a date of October 2009, but I am now concerned that we don’t have that much time.

Let me share with you a few of the headlines from just today’s headlines:

• Employers Slash Jobs by Most in 5 Years (AP)
• US Payroll Sinks Dramatically (Wall Street Journal)
• Dollar Sinks to New Low Against Euro (AP)
• Fed Takes New Steps on Credit Crisis (AP)
• Home equity below 50% level (USA Today)
• Housing in deepest decline since the Great Depression (MarketWatch – Dow Jones)
• Foreclosures hit another record high (MarketWatch – Dow Jones)

Oil is at an all time high, credit is tight at all banks, gold (a key indicator to inflation) is near $1,000 an ounce. Jobs are down, housing is stalled, houses are foreclosing, gas prices are at an all time high.

So now maybe I am not such a nut job! In looking at the financial pages there is not one single piece of good news, unless you are a CEO. While we are paying more at the pump Exxon reported the largest profit gain in US history for the last quarter. While housing is sinking fast and banks are struggling to cover their losses Countrywide Financial (the country’s largest mortgage lender) gave their CEO a $116m bonus. That is a bonus, not his salary.

So those are the facts. Our government insists that the economy is strong and these are just regular economic rumbles that we will overcome. Easy for them to say when they all make huge salaries, but what about the population that elected them? It will difficult for most to survive this. Since the majority of the people can’t even name the Vice President of the United States is it any wonder that very few of them have taken the time to look at the economic indicators that are staring us in the face? It is so much easier to keep borrowing and heading for that cliff in joyful bliss. But then I remember what happened at the end of Thelma and Louise.

Tax Refunds, Courtesy President Nicolas Sarkozy: This week we saw stunning proof how out of touch our law makers can be. A $40b (40,000,000,000.00) contract was awarded to the French based EADS for the building of American defense aircraft. It is a travesty that during a time of economic instability that our government has decided to award the contracts for 173 air tankers to a foreign/socialist government. How shameful.