Battling the Uncertain

In these situations,
I'll often act in patience.
Because things are so uncertain,
I'm afraid I will hurt them,
or myself;
So my eratic act shelf.
And I'll wait on the moment,
wait to take it and own it.
But then in a split second of fear,
I worry if I should hold her near.
I try to resist this impetus,
and wonder if she is into this.
In these situations,
I cannot yield to patience,
I should wrap her in my arms and dance.
I should risk it and take the chance.
The only way to know if things are right,
is to take this moment on Valentine's night.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/labor-force-participations-plunges-fresh-26-year-low

I don't like to just watch movies,
I watch movies to move me.

She was the sand

If there was a storm, she was always in the middle of it. Where the peace was and the person can see clearly. Nothing disturbed her person, she was not altered by it, it was altered by her. When her dark hair hung relaxed by her side the air would surround it and playfully toss a strand from time to time. When the wind raged her hair would ride the waves of the wind and stretch out against the sky in beautiful defiance. Her eyes would not cloud with the fear of the future. Her lips would never purse, so I would watch them and wait for them to open and her to smile. When she smiled the angels would sing and then her lips would close and the world would go silent again, and the birds would chirp peacefully in the trees.
In the field were she stood the sand rolled in the wind and danced across her feet. It would be carried for a while then lay quietly underneath and between the mesquite and the brush. The sand was sand before it began and sand when it ended. Just like when the storms raged and the clouds of fear crowded their eyes, she quietly let the wind carry her to a new place. She was beautiful when it began, and she was beautiful when it ended.

Sands

I felt like the sands,
course and incomplete.
Pieces of a greater past,
crushed beneath the current's feet.

Like I was lost,
amongst the tussle.
Like I was the cost,
of the great struggle.

I lay like the wounded,
underneath the mesquite.
Where the wind laid me,
my forfeit replete.

Unfair winds had carried me,
had dashed me on the rocks.
I had been captured in,
lifes bars and locks.

I lay prostrate in the shade,
with other fallen soldiers.
With the dead I lay,
shoulder to shoulder.

Then again came the wind,
and laid me on the hillside.
And looking to the sunset,
I reflected on my killed pride.

I felt like the sands,
pushed by unknown winds.
I was with the beaten,
The lost were my kin.

Commitment Issues

You can save $10 on 3 dozen roses if you order now.

Sometimes inspirational quotes are depressing. E.g. In his speech The American Scholar Ralph Waldo Emerson states, "The true scholar grudges every oppurtunity of action passed as a loss of power." I stood up, looked around tried to do something, and then sat down at work. I got nothin' What the heck can I do with my life right now?

Diversification, Index and Mutual funds have led us to overinvestment in poor companies.

I cannot believe

I could not believe,
that steel could still your body,
or steal your soul.
That any thing could fill this hole,
and make me feel whole.

I could not conceive,
That reality could reel me in,
and to my chagrin,
make my skin to freeze.
---

I would not concede,
to the fatal reality of The Fall,
That our bodies could fall at all,
I would lie you could not lie there,
6 feet under, under His care.

I will not recede,
into black closets,
and sack cloths of loathing,
I will continue on holding,
that steel cannot steal your soul.

I cannot believe,
that blacktop could stop the seas,
of the beliefs of you and me.
I cannot, will not recede,
and back away from what you left in me.

I walked passed the poor

I walked down the street,
and smiled as the poor passed by.
I had long yellow teeth,
and a glistening gleam in my eye.

I patted dusty shoulders,
and shook the stained dirty hands.
I asked them of the future,
and they did not have any plans.

I wondered why the poor,
cast their eyes down that way.
Why when I gave a smile,
a frown responded in dismay.

I wondered why the poor,
allowed this life to stay.
They woke with a curse,
and with curses end their day.

I continued to walk,
passed a long bread line.
And at the very end,
was the spot that was mine.

I waited patiently,
laughing with those near by.
When they spoke sorely of their life,
I paused to asked them why.

Taking my cut of bread,
and the small bowl of soup.
I waved goodbye,
To the little ragged troop.

And then started walking,
down a day labor line,
I saw a spot at the end,
and said that spot is mine.

I left the poor behind,
and joined the tired throng.
Who worked while out of work,
and kept their spirits strong.

At night when I climbed,
into my shelters little bed.
Thoughts of the poor,
ran slowly through my head.

I had left the poor behind,
yet had no home at all.
I had left the poor behind,
when I started walking tall.

For though I be poor in pocket,
my soul will not take pity,
I will not let my luck,
drag me to those trenches of the city.

I woke up with the poor,
and left them all behind.
Because today is a day in a life,
and today, that life is mine.

Nancy Pelosi

When we were in the capital building walking around with R-Jeff Flake (or our Jeff Flake) we walked by Nancy's office and could hear her talking. I told Mr. Flake, I really don't like her (I probably said hate) and asked him what he thought. He said, "WEll, there are some things I don't agree with her on." He wouldn't play into it. He really is a nice guy. But she is not a nice person.

Field of Green

They came upon a wanton field,
with rocks and weeds and trees.
And slowly they did labor there,
to shape it to their needs.
And side by side they worked and toiled,
to improve the landscape there,
The days were hard, hot and long.
But together, they did not care.
For day by day the field did change.
and began to be a grass field of green,
with smiles and laughs they relaxed,
and lived as if in a dream.
Every day, in the midst of play,
they would stop to make improvement there,
and a garden and flowers there sprung,
where once was a field so bare.
Small disputes would there arise,
minor, but disputes none-the-less.
But disputes were disproved and sent away,
with a smile and a gentle caress.
They stood proud and side by side,
on what they had made together.
They took the bare minerals of earth,
and with effort made it better.
But slow and sure, in independent demure,
they had made their dreams real.
But all the glory and beauty there,
could not match the way they feel.
But one day, from a sky of grey,
came a rock of insidious size.
And smashed in the middle, and made brittle
Their beautiful and glorious prize.
With anger complete, and determination replete,
they set out to tackle that rock,
but small indecision and silence's derision,
they started to cease to talk.
Unable to fix it, they decided to nix it,
and it sat obstructing their view,
and there they sat, back to back.
Unable to do anything new.

The rock could have been moved,
with the strength of them two,
but she blamed it on him alone.
And he is in anger,
berated her like a stranger,
and a crack appeared in their home.

A year passed bye,
you could see it in their eyes,
that slowly their love passed too.
And unable to act,
and with unflattering tact,
weeds began to infiltrate their view.

They left their lovely, once wanton field,
and went there separate ways,
and the passer-byes, and vagrant guys,
would pity with their wondering gaze.
The Field of Green, and what it did mean,
how did it pass from that to this?
The lover's quarrel, did erase the toil,
and freeze the warmth of the kiss.
Years later he too passed bye and cried,
as he looked on the Field of Green,
Because with all of the beauty and glory there,
the rock was all that could be seen.

Daily Rant

Here is the link for the charts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_federal_budget

Red herrings and charitable people with other people's money. That is how I feel this morning. The Republicans and Democrats in the proceeding months will begin to wage important and imperative battles to save people, to cut the budget, or other grandiose and important items. The reality if the government was serious about making changes the important budgets to cut are not the discretionary ones. I pulled charts and data from two sources and to be honest, government accounting gimmicks are the worst, so take all numbers at face value.
First, www.usgovernmentspending.com lists the budget as thus,
.7 Tril Welfare
1 Tril Social Security
1.2 Tril Health Care
1.1 Tril Education
.9 Tril Defense
1.8 Trill All Other Spending

Second, Wikipedia, who also provided the graphs and pictures and whom I trust more, given there numbers seem to come from the CBO have these percentages
19.63% Social Security
18.74% Department of Defense
16.13% Welfare/unemployment
12.79% Department of State
8.19% Homeland Security
For a total of 75.48%

So what you will not see is any serious actions coming for any of these top budgets. Really you can ignore the headlines and the strong budget cuts unless they are to drastically cut these programs. You'll notice from one chart I am attaching the mandatory spending is almost the total of our federal income. That is with the Department of defense place as "Discretionary." Right..... like at their discretion congress can cut that..... or would without losing their political career. So if we cut 100% of these red herrings and cut the DOD in HALF! We are still unbalanced and worse, things will continue to get worse with the expanded costs of health care under Obama care. Republicans will win the battle in the house and move to repeal it and congress will do nothing. So the Republicans will put the onus on the Democrats and score a major political victory with much fighting, effort, and most importantly, attention, but in the end it will amount to nothing but political shenanigans. Obama care will not be repealed and all of that will be spent on brownie points.
As a side note, not the main point, we need to end the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Piling on the debt does not increase our homeland security, it weakens us. The US is threatened by a serious foe to the Republic, and it should be painfully familiar to Americans in this time, for that foe is Debt. We cannot continue in this way, we must change.

All Was Quiet on the Western Front

All was quiet on the Western front,
and all the guns lay low.
There was no war and there was no hunt,
and Peace did quietly bestow.

Gifts of silence and time to think,
far from the fiery glow,
Hanging strong was the sulfuric stink,
and the soldiers still did know.

Of the battle that had raged there,
of the passion of the fight,
The war had taken every care,
and only paused at night.

Now the soldiers sadly sat,
without purpose, hope, or direction.
Without the valor of combat,
They could not hide in armors protection.

So home they came to enwrap their love,
and rebuild what they left behind,
But at home they found;
It was they that had been left behind,
and their loved one slowly unwrapped their love.

Uncovered, without proximity's protection,
At home there had been no combat,
and fight had fled another direction
At home the loved one sadly sat.

And thought while alone the cold nights,
Wishing to know of their soldiers care
Instead the passion of their fights,
Was all that remained there.

But the soldier did not know,
At home had hung his battle's stink,
He was far in the fiery glow,
And in the silence she could think.

A solemn kiss she did bestow,
Their was not the passion as at the hunt,
For now their guns lay low,
For all was quiet on the Western Front,
But how long would it last at home?

Lest we forget

Do not forget fellow citizens, in this country, economics introduced the slave trade, and Christianity killed it.

Names

I don't like remembering names. I would rather spend my time learning about the person. I don't care what your name is, if your around me enough I'll learn your name. I don't like that feeling when somebody knows my name but nothing about me. Like it validates them that they know my name. The minimum requirement for me to treat them civilly or for them to pretend we are friends. I throw away names, and remember faces, I remember people.

Ben Franklin is the man, Barney Frank.... is..... well.....not

I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. I observed...that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer. – Ben Franklin

Pity

I hate pity. I could leave it at that but I feel it is the worst feeling in the world. When I feel it I feel like I am sinking. I hate to hear people admitting defeat. It is even worse when I can see they don't even believe they can succeed. I hate pity and whenever there is a hint of pity in the eye of someone around me when they look at me I instanstly burn inside. I cannot stand to be pitied. I cannot stand to hear people seeking pity. If things are bad for you, I am not the man to come to. I do not gratify and I do not validate. When a man is tired and feels like the task cannot be accomplished, what use would I be to take that task from him. Take away the pride of accomplishment? It would take away all of what he should have felt from all that he had accomplished so far. I don't want to help, only to encourage. When you feed a man, you starve his soul. When you give a man his home, you take away his chance of hope. Nothing is worse than pity. Perhaps not even death.

I was walking on the beaches of Marinduque, Philippines when I stopped and turned to my Filipino constituencies and asked if they wanted to learn a little about economics. They didn't protest enough for me to stop. Looking out I saw about 40 canoe sized boats with fisherman not too far from the shore. Farther out in the richer waters were larger boats. I asked how many men could be put in each smaller boat. "2". Then I asked how many would be in the larger boat. "5". Then we discussed how much more fish the larger boat could catch. We settled on about 10 times as much. When asked why anyone would use the smaller boats the answer was money, they can't just go buy a bigger boat. Then I laid out the following scenario. A business man and politician wanted to increase the amount of fish that could be produced fisherman in that area, but wouldn't do it because of the political effects. First of all I pointed out it would take 4 of the larger boats to replace all 40 of those boats. The number of men thereby employed would be 20. Each of those fisherman would make more money, enjoy better hours, and would have the added benefit of reducing the pains their hit or miss way of fishing was causing. Politically it would be disastrous, for sure those 20 men and their families would vote for him, but he would face strong opposition from the 60 whose lives were now ruined. Politics and progress. Most of the time these two are very incompatible.

Social Security is a regressive tax hitting lower income individuals harder than the rich. There is a cap that when you reach that income level you do not have to pay that tax any more. Cutting the social security tax for employees is the smartest way to cut taxes in a simple effecient way to benefit those who WORK and make less than $106,800.