Day275 Tuesday 05/31/11

ran 4.6 miles
New Mexico will be ending a food stamp supplement for elderly and disabled residents of the state on July 1, 2011. There is no money left in New Mexico’s budget for it. As awful as it is that these highly dependent citizens of New Mexico are going to lose $25.00 monthly from their own state, it is one of many different examples festering in all fifty states of a truth that is growing more and more severe.

Even if you happen to be someone who clings to Bush for the blame of every problem we currently have, which is pure poppycock, what has this current president done that has moved us forward? Regardless of whose fault it is, Barack Obama is doing nothing but perpetuating an irresponsible cycle of empty promises and false hopes. And the near-future outcomes of his actions quite possibly will end in the same way as the events I am about to describe in New Mexico.

Federal law requires that recipients of food stamps receive a minimum of $16.00 a month. New Mexico is currently paying $25.00 to all who qualify for food stamps. This is down from a total of $30.00 last year.

If I might make a comparison, New Mexico is one single state and their circumstances cannot possibly be applied to every other state (for the same reasons that Obama’s universal health care plan would not work for fifty different states), but notice the abrupt transition from what was a small decrease, yet still more than a necessary amount, to what will soon become nothing at all, in the case of New Mexico versus the ability to afford food stamps for elderly and disabled residents.

Nearly 14% of Americans receive food stamps. Don’t quote me on this, but I am pretty sure that the Tea Party represents 13% of the vote. Those are two extremely different sides of the aisle when it comes to casting votes. I'm not trying to capture any real point that isn't immediately obvious, but it is certainly an interesting couple of numbers to look at. As of March, under Obama, there was an 11% increase of food stamp recipients from the year before, more than 44.5 million Americans, and the number of recipients from four years ago is up 61%. That’s a lot of voters who would never vote for a man or woman who campaigned on and threatened to fix this problem that has been created.

To take a step back to the comparison I was trying to make in the paragraph before last, it is unfortunate, but what happened in New Mexico is a very common sequence of events, which tend to lead up to the utter failure of government programs. New Mexico was given a $16.00 per month minimum to disperse, they upped it to $25.00 per month, raised it to $30.00 per month, dropped it back down to $25.00, and then, unexpectedly, completely ignoring the idea of reverting back to the minimum, as established by the federal government, they went from $25.00 to zero. Nothing! And, they could have not upped the amount and let the program last twice as long.

Just think about how terrifying it could be if that standard method of operation was applied to a much larger scale. Health care, serving all fifty states, for example, in the very near future. This is a micro-example of such a larger national scale, but do you honestly think for a second that the federal government would behave any differently if their bottom fell out?

You are promised $16.00, you receive $25.00, then $30.00, the bottom falls out and they return to $25.00…and then it’s over. Just like that! It is a similar sense of utter denial that children often exhibit and it is cruel and unusual punishment to be so deceitful and out of touch with the people who are being served that rather than prepare for and adapt to the realities before our leaders, they too often go on lying and behaving as though everything is fine.

Our national debt? Health care? Our borders? Idiotic spending at an incomprehensible scale? If you back Obama than good for you, but I can tell you this, as New Mexico has just made a great example of; Barack Obama and minds like his have great intentions but they seem to lack rationality and feasibility. If you voted for Barack Obama in 2008, whatever it is you disagreed with on the conservative side of the political arena, I think it is important to note that here in 2011 and on into 2012, there is only one side that has an attainable goal to flip this country right side up, and it is not the liberal, or progressive side. The House had a vote tonight on whether or not to raise the debt ceiling and if I remember correctly, only 10% voted to raise it, further hurling our nation into financial oblivion. The 300-something House members who voted against it, many of which were on the left side of the aisle, obviously realized that they would quite possibly lose their jobs in 2012 if they continued to do what our president wanted and what the people did not.

1,272.2 miles to go.

Day274 Monday 05/30/11

800 miles!!!

ran 5.8 miles

Today marks 800 miles and the end of nine months of running against Obama.

I hope you had a nice Memorial Day weekend and thank you, military men and women, veterans, and those soldiers who we mourn, for the brave and noble sacrifices you have made for America.

Watching Memorial Day specials on television today I noticed a recurring theme through the many different testimonials that were given by active and veteran military men and women. That theme was one that underlined the fact that many of our physically wounded and emotionally devastated soldiers lack many of the resources they need once they return home. It seems that our soldiers’ wellbeing and their futures should be a top priority compared to many other things that seem to claim priority over them.

For example, wasteful earmarks, which have only recently been fully exposed and limited for the wasteful and abusive spending they are, serve very little purpose other than as an obstacle to more important and needy uses for tax dollars, such as the healthy and dignified futures of our veterans and their families. Our federal government spends our tax dollars on many questionable things, and these many curious things have no rhyme or reason of importance.

While our active military and veterans are often compromised after having served their country, it is insulting when you look at how many of our tax dollars go to other nations, countries that wish harm upon us and are perhaps considered our enemies. It is insulting how much we spend for illegal aliens in hospitals and how certain states are beginning to start programs that pay for the college educations of illegal aliens, while legal citizens have to work twice as hard to succeed, and veteran causes and programs take second place to helping illegal aliens adjust to the traumatic transition of being lucky enough to become an American. It is so backwards! Welfare recipients who stay fused to the teat of the government, food stamps, unemployment benefits…these are all valid, necessary and important programs that America no doubt needs, but the system is taken advantage of to such a degree it is simply insulting to needy veterans, whatever their needs, when they cannot be helped but so many millions of others, who contribute so little to society, are so well taken care of. There are a lot of undeserved tax dollars being delegated to more mouths than we can feed, yet our military men and women work the hardest for what amounts to so little when you begin to compare what is really important.

There are better answers out there but none of them can be looked at until we lock elbow to elbow and pull our economy up from the cliff’s edge it is desperately hanging onto.

1,276.8 miles to go.

Day273 Sunday 05/29/11

ran 2.3 miles
Today ends week thirty-nine of running against Obama. I ran 21.2 miles this week averaging 3.03 miles per day.

Wearing black from head to toe, clad in leather, Sarah Palin kicked off her “One Nation” tour by showing up at a motorcycle ride today from the Pentagon to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, which thousands were participating in. Palin chatted with other motorcyclists and was quoted as saying “I love that smell of the emissions”.

The pictures taken of Palin and some of her comments made me think of Johnny Cash meets Colonel Kilgore in “Apocalypse Now”, this theme manifesting itself in the form of a female Alaskan governor who ran for Vice President in 2008.

I’m excited to follow Palin on the campaign trail. She has some great ideas and she gets things done. She is a candidate that backs the Tea Party and she will be campaigning on many of their values, which coincidentally contradict most of the ideas our current president holds and acts upon. The Tea Party represents the largest organized uprising of people against their federal government in the modern history of America, and Barack Obama and his ideas are very much responsible for the emergence of the party.

Less taxes, small government, and fiscal responsibility---I cannot comprehend why so many people think ideas like these are bad ones, but they do. Hopefully common sense will prevail and we can elect to repeal the health care law and start slashing our national deficit, among many other things that need fixing, when we vote on November 6, 2012.

1,282.6 miles to go.

Day272 Saturday 05/28/11

ran 3.4 miles
Some stats and facts about the state of New York:

• New York was the eleventh state to join the union on July 26, 1788, one year before North Carolina and one month after Virginia.

• Population, as of 2010, is 19,378,102.

• Senators are Kirsten Gillibrand (D) and Charles Schumer (D).

• Representatives are Timothy Bishop (D), Steve Israel (D), Peter King (R), Carolyn McCarthy (D), Gary Ackerman (D), Gregory Meeks (D), Joseph Crowley (D), Jerrold Nadler (D), Anthony Weiner (D), Edolphus Towns (D), Yvette Clarke (D), Nydia Velazquez (D), Michael Grimm (R), Carolyn Maloney (D), Charles Rangel (D), Jose Serrano (D), Eliot Engel (D), Nita Lowey (D), Nan Hayworth (R), Chris Gibson (R), Paul Tonko (D), Maurice Hinchey (D), William Owens (D), Richard Hanna (R), Ann Marie Buerkle (R), Brian Higgins (D), Louise Slaughter (D) and Tom Reed (R).

• New York has twenty-nine electoral votes. After the 2010 Census Reapportionment, the state lost two of its electoral votes 2020. Historically, New York has been primarily a “blue” state since the Great Depression. Obama defeated McCain by 27% in 2008.

President Obama is scheduled to return tonight and to begin taking stock of the many events he missed on our own soil for the past week. I feel better already.

1,284.9 miles to go.

Day271 Friday 05/27/11

ran 3.1 miles

Today was yet another eventful day in the news. Barack Obama is still touring Europe. Not only is he pledging to rebuild everything lost to cyclones in Joplin and numerous other devastated cities, but he is doing it as wholeheartedly as any man can who is stuck in elite hotel suites across the European landscape. Today I heard he actually signed legislation to continue the Patriot Act from France using an “Autopen Machine” here in America. Seriously, it’s a rectangular little gadget with tiny gears and pulleys and torques and twists, holding a fancy little White House pen at the end, which allows Barack Obama to sign any legislation he wants from anywhere he wants without having to endure the burdensome dignity of actually being present for such unimportant issues.

Palin, Giuliana, and Perry were all over the news today. It looks like Sarah Palin is officially in, while Giuliani and Perry are being tested and weighed in polls regardless of whether they intend to run or not.

Back to our current president, some of the actions he makes each and every week, that would be unacceptable and ridiculous for any other president to do without receiving full scrutiny from a seething mob of media, make me wonder what is so special about Obama and why do we have to be so nice and accepting of his actions. Is our president some sort of special man that requires some sort of special needs or attention that no president before him was special enough to receive?

I would have loved to see George Bush try to sign the Patriot Act with a little robotic arm holding a fancy little pen somewhere in the White House while he was riding horseback somewhere in Texas explaining to Congress how he had somehow overlooked that the bill had to be signed by this one specific final day and had regretted that he could not be there to sign it personally. Instead, stick the stack of papers under that fancy little signing machine we have. That way, since no one will call me out on it because I am “special”, I have the ability to keep the Patriot Act renewed and if anything bad comes from it I can always say that I didn’t actually sign it; a tiny little robotic arm forged my signature.

Now I’m just rambling and letting frustration get the best of me. Let’s end this post on a pleasant note…



…maybe try back tomorrow.

1,288.3 miles to go.

Day270 Thursday 05/26/11

ran 4.2 miles

Chapter 9

It seemed things used to make so much more sense when Jonas was younger and more confused. As a child, Jonas remembered his house being an entire universe. His backyard was a neighboring galaxy. To ride in the car with his mother to go to MacDonalds for french fries or to pick out a candy bar at a gas station seemed far more exciting to him at four than traveling to the moon would have been when he was forty. Now that Jonas was well-invested into his thirties, MacDonalds menus were written primarily in Spanish and the moon, often shadowed into a mysterious crescent like a sharp edge in the hand of a madman, mocked everyone in its path with a cold, mercurial gleam. The shine of its reaper’s edge was a glowing reminder hanging in a vast sky devoid of what was once hope and imagination that everything was what it was and that there only just so happened to be a huge, majestic jewel in the sky that refused to stop watching us.

Jonas exhaled. He thought about the decisions and steps in his life that had brought him to where he was. He was both selfless and proud, yet disparaged, and constantly looked for courage. He thought about his country and what it once was and where it once started. Things were not always like this. His country was gone. It was now a continent. It was augmented with the same superficial and silicone motives that enlarged breasts. Things were not always like this. The rest of the world laughed at us. It had been determined by our own leaders that when their country was too hard working, too economically incomparable per capita, and too driven to succeed at all costs, that their own people should have been tempered into a less resourceful and more docile population of equal rights regardless of ability. Things were not always like this. It had somehow become America’s responsibility to level a proverbial playing field of opportunity for anybody of any age, gender, or ethnicity. In doing so America lit a fire under its own ladder and prioritized an agenda of appeasing everybody and every country it was better than. Things were not always like this.

Professional football players made ridiculous amounts of money for being the best they could be and not one of them would ever ease up on their competition because ability or race was questionable. Lawyers have one of the most respectable titles in the world, doctors and architects demand distinction, and not one of them would ever compromise litigation, a triple bypass, or a set of World Trade Center Towers because other methods or designs were weak, inexperienced, or had said, “It’s not fair.”

“It’s not fair” was the weakest and most supple condition used. It’s based on sympathy and charity. Charity was the worst thing to give anybody and sympathy was the water that extinguished the American fire to succeed. Things were not always like this. America had churned like butter into a fluffy froth mutilating its original design and intention of rigid perseverance and stout will to succeed.

Things were not always like this.

1,291.4 miles to go.

Day269 Wednesday 05/25/11

ran 0.5 miles
On some days the news we read and hear is as fluffy as cotton and riddled with questions of why one certain bloom of soft comfort is being reported when, if you apply the slightest pinch, you may find seeds within that prick your fingers and require plucking. On other days the news is overwhelming to such an extent, regardless of what hue the media paints it in, that to fully comprehend one single event of the past twenty-four hours that you have just read or heard about becomes a frustrating task with no end, not much unlike staring into the sun to get a better idea of what it really looks like, at something more than a glance.

Today is one of those latter days. I am going to stare into the sun for a moment and pinch an unprocessed handful of cotton. When events become too numerous and overwhelming, rather than elaborate on one or two things, I find it far more effective to just rant, so here we go:

Benjamin Netanyahu. If you had a friend who you respected and protected to the same extent you regarded and helped any others you had a deep relationship with, would you suggest to them that they ought to tie their hands behind their backs and run into a battlefield with an enemy bent on their destruction? For anyone who knows nothing of this long Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Palestine is associated with Hamas, an organization classified by the European Union, the United States, Canada, Israel (put them at nine miles wide? Any soldier or terrorist can run that distance in mere minutes over an hour), and Japan, as a terrorist organization. Israel is the greatest chance of democracy the Middle East stands and they are actually really good at it. You tell me what’s going on. Kathy Hochul, the projected winner in New York for the seat of Chris Lee, who resigned for lewd behavior, was arguably based on a Medicare vote. Ironic that the privatization of Medicare is as hot of a topic as the socialization of health care at large. The split between Hochul and Republican candidate Jane Corwin was 48% to 42%. In the middle of these two candidates was a Tea Party candidate, Jack Davis, who obviously had no right to be in the running other than to take votes away from the “Republican”. Is that how they are going to win in 2012? Implosion? Paul Ryan is extremely focused on reducing the size of federal government. Sounds great. His plan knocks Obama’s off at the knees by saving $6 trillion over the next ten years. Our debt right now is in the fourteen trillions and if Obama gets reelected that is four more years of two-fifths of $6 trillion added on to only God knows what else. Medicare and Medicaid are bankrupting us and if Obama would come up with a solution that addressed this factor of our dismal economic equation it would earn him some points to at least show that he had tried. Many may feel that Ryan’s plan is too radical, but I look at it like a shaken up bottle of soda that someone just handed me and I was foolish enough to open up; you can either let it spill and make a mess like a child with wide eyes and no solution or you can quickly tighten the cap until the carbonation dissipates. Barack Obama is shaking the can like a six-year-old in complete denial of the laws of physics, and his actions are proving to be incapable of understanding the reasons why. He has a nice, clean glass for every one of us, filled with ice on a summer day full of potential, but his drink is going to be flat if he pours it into our glasses. One thing that really irks me is when people clearly see such a large problem before them and they refuse to look at it. They stir and pour its inconceivability into a filthy jar, and then they sell it.

Today is my birthday and I am optimistic to say that I am officially one day older and one day smarter than I was yesterday.

1,295.6 miles to go.

Day268 Tuesday 05/24/11

ran 3.4 miles
In case you didn’t know, there is now a “Director of Progressive Media and Online Response”, appointed by the White House. He is being paid with our tax dollars and his job is to build up Obama’s online presence and to squash any negative stories or messages circulating through social networks, blogs, or major media networks.

I am a small fish in a big pond but I would welcome any criticism Mr. Lee has for me. His name is Jesse Lee and he was cited in numerous articles today as being a familiar name for writing a White House blog post bashing Glenn Beck in 2009. The most detailed description I found today regarding Mr. Lee is that he worked in “new media” and has served as the White House’s liaison with the progressive media and online community.

One of the articles I’m sourcing claims, “If you’re going to post something online about Obama that isn’t true, Lee is going to be the one to handle you. Considering that Lee’s first tweet about his new position included a picture of The Terminator, we suggest you watch what you say OR BE DESTROYED.”

The article went on to say, “Okay that was a little dramatic, but you get the idea.”

So, considering the history of American politics, and 2012 is going to be a big one, one side will be funded by tax dollars to play with the rules while the other side will be enforced by this ministry to explicitly follow the rules. Hopefully, good prevails, depending upon which side you're on.

These are the two articles I used as sources:

...new story squasher director...

...new position to deal with unfavorable online media...

1,296.1 miles to go.

Day267 Monday 05/23/11

ran 4.3 miles
The Government Accountability Office, and yes, this is a real office of the American government that actually seeks accountability, in a report being released tomorrow, states that at least 3,700 government contractors and nonprofit organizations that received more than $24 billion from Barack Obama’s stimulus package owed $757 million in back taxes as of September 30, 2009, the end of the budget year.

In an article from the AP, the report indicates that nearly 6% of the 63,000 contractors and grantees examined were tax delinquent. The report also cautioned that this number is most likely significantly higher because the known tax debt fails to measure certain factors like income underreporting.

Here are two examples of how little scrutiny was exercised by Obama’s administration in dishing out our tax dollars into numerous trashcans:

• An engineering firm that received a $100,000 stimulus act contract but owed $6 million in back taxes.

• Social services nonprofit that received more than $1 million in stimulus funds owed taxes of $2 million.

Our government is currently in the process of drafting legislation to deny contracts and grants for entities that are delinquent in their taxes. Here we are in 2011, with our economy gasping for breath and our government has finally decided to consider not giving our money to groups that owe exponentially more in taxes than the dollars they take in. Our federal government is giving them even more free money.

"It is a matter of basic fairness that those who take government money should be required to pay their taxes like everyone else. That such a huge amount of the stimulus money went to known tax cheats should be a wake-up call for Congress."

Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK)

The current value, which continues to rise as distribution gets further analyzed, of the February 2009 stimulus package is $821 billion. Nearly 35% of the unpaid taxes from those delinquent entities that received stimulus were for debts incurred as far back as 2003. This is blatant waste and it is throwing $4.00 gasoline on the fire that is crippling our economy.

"This shows how fundamentally flawed the failed stimulus has turned out to be when Washington jams through almost a trillion dollars in spending with little scrutiny."

Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT)

1,299.5 miles to go.

Day266 Sunday 05/22/11

ran 0.5 miles
Today ends week thirty-eight of running against Obama. I ran 19.8 miles this week averaging 2.83 miles.

Herman Cain officially threw his name in the hat for the 2012 presidential election. He is my official top candidate at this early point in the race to November 6. He made his announcement Saturday in Atlanta, urging Americans who are frustrated with the direction our country is heading to read the Constitution.

Cain supports many good ideas, which are not nearly as radical or life altering as what is going on in this country we call America, less and less. Repealing Obama’s health care law and implementing the Fair Tax are two of his ideas that would work toward getting America back on its feet.

1,303.8 miles to go.

Day265 Saturday 05/21/11

ran 1.7 miles
Some stats and polls from Rasmussen Reports:

• Barack Obama’s presidential index rating shows that 24% of American voters strongly approve of his performance while 37% strongly disapprove, giving Obama a presidential index rating of –13.

• Overall, 49% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of Barack Obama’s performance and 50% disapprove.

• Among American voters, 64% believe that improving border security is more important than addressing the status of illegal immigrants already in the country.

• Of those polled, 60% say the Federal Government encourages illegal immigration.

• Only 29% say U.S. is heading in right direction.

1,304.3 miles to go.

Day264 Friday 05/20/11

ran 4.0 miles
Happy “Rapture” Eve. There has been a lot in the news today regarding all things disturbing. Harold Camping and his prediction about tomorrow are as realistic as Obama’s idea to revert back to ’67 borders in Israel. Camping has no idea how many people he suckered into a bad night’s sleep and Barack Obama is completely out of touch with reality if he believes for a second that Israel would be safe, based on the vision he has.

This has been a very odd week. It’s been an odd year. I find it very difficult to wrap my mind around what is going on in America and to a greater effect the entire globe.

After posting on this blog for nine months and receiving comments and feedback, following news closely from both completely contradictory sides, and following my own heart and beliefs, I have found that this country is simply divided up the middle. I think Barack Obama is the wrong man for the job at this current time and circumstance, but there is exactly one other person who completely disagrees with me. Whatever your opinion is, exactly one other person in this country thinks you are as absurd as you think they are. We are a nation divided 1:1 and I don’t think anyone can argue otherwise. A ratio like that, marginalizing unity, is not what America was intended to be.

Harold Camping does not give me goose bumps; Barack Obama does.

1,306.0 miles to go.

Day263 Thursday 05/19/11

ran 2.3 miles
Breaking News!!! Breaking News!!!

Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, has called for the United States to give Texas back to Mexico. He is demanding North America return to its nineteenth century borders. Starting in 1836 with the Treaty of Valasco, to July 4, 1845, when Texas joined the union, to the Mexican-American War that followed from 1846-1848, in which America defeated Mexico and fully secured Texas as an undeniable state, Netanyahu somehow feels that all of this history should be erased and that Texas’ status as a member of the union should be revoked.

I am only trying to illustrate how audacious and unhopeful Barack Obama’s intentions for Israel are. Revert back to 1967 when Israel won the Six Day War and claimed their current borders. America has been a strong ally of Israel’s up until now. Obama is placing a great deal of unproven peace and unrealistic confidence in the bordering nations surrounding Israel.

Speechless.

1,310.0 miles to go.

Day262 Wednesday 05/18/11

ran 3.3 miles

Chapter 8

The door opened achingly with a dull creak like an old man slowly extending his jaw to form words with garbled consonants and muted vowels. It was dark inside as a single figure emerged before Jonas. A dull lamp directly behind the figure’s head distorted his shady features.

Jonas had a cynical wit for detecting trouble and at that moment nothing had felt right. The figure in front of him looked vaguely familiar and particularly threatening. Jonas could see it was a large man and there was something in his hand. After a few seconds of silently staring at Jonas the figure stepped forward into the light and spoke.

“You don’t look like much. Come in.”

Jonas immediately recognized the man as both a friend and a stranger though he had never personally met him. In the underground world, which they were both cast into, real names were rarely ever used, close friendships were a burden of too much emotional gravity, and staying in the same place for too long was considered dangerous. The underground was larger than any of its enemies had estimated, yet this rendezvous had much planning and very specific purposes. For now, 216 Fifth Street was Jonas’ temporary destination and the man standing in front of him was a face he had seen not very long before.

Upon entering, Jonas felt coy and small. The space was confined and the windows were boarded up. The interior had an odd presence similar to that of a fortified brown paper bag. The walls were chipped all over with various rotted materials. A derelict, thin curtain hung over an obscured window, which looked like it would tear in half were a tiny mouse to cling to it. The floor was a decrepit stretch of wood-paneled unreliability that creaked with every step. In many spots the outside ground was visible through cracks and holes.

There were two other men sitting at a small table in a corner and neither of them acknowledged Jonas’ presence. He heard a toilet flush in the back of the house and asked, “How many of you are here?”

“You make five. The two over there are harmless, Ben and Thomas. You can call me Mason. I’m sure you know names don’t mean a thing around here.”

There was an awkward pause similar to that of the moment a truth may have suggested falsifying itself.

“And you are Jonas Cassidy, one of the few most admired and hated men on this new continent, Americanadexico.”

A voice came from afar. It was a woman. Her voice was familiar yet distant.

Mason was the crescent shaped man on the side of the road. The object in his hand was a pack of cigarettes. Grinning, he asked Jonas with a mild nudge and a restrained push, “Got a Bic or a match?” Ben and the other two men started laughing as she suddenly walked into the room. A brisk silence fell over everyone.

It was Carmen.

“Hello, Jonas. Outside…we had to do what was necessary to ensure no one was following you or watching us. We could not bring attention to ourselves.

Carmen was now wearing plain, loose clothing. She was a fugitive in white cotton and baggy denim.

“From this point forward you will address me as Erica.”

Jonas and Carmen were the only ones in the dimly lit room who knew one another’s true identities. Jonas could sense no one else knew and that Carmen wanted to keep his and her history hidden.

“It is dangerous to be free in this country and too many people are looking for us. I know you are already aware of our disposition but I don’t want you to misinterpret our first impression with you. We are good at what we do and we believe in what we do.”

Jonas was impressed and in awe of Carmen. Moments ago he had felt sorry for her and he was disappointed in her. Now he had discovered that she was like him. He saw that she was one of the few people that were not afraid.

“These are my friends and now they are your friends. If they introduced themselves already then you probably know them as Ben, Thomas, and Mason. I do not know their real names and they do not know mine. We choose to know as little as possible about each other. However, we all know who you are and unfortunately everyone else does, too. I hope you will trust us, Jonas. And if you don’t, I will personally hand you over to the authorities with no remorse. You’ve come this far, Jonas, and if you don’t challenge yourself to succeed right now then what was it all for? You can either testify your faults to the government or you can falsify the government with your truth.

A curtain suddenly tore in half as a tiny rodent fell to the floor and scampered across the splintery terrain with a rather large and weightless strip of yellow flowered pattern falling further apart with each tiny step.

“Jonas, we know who you are and we know what you are. Our task is to make sure you understand what you are."

Jonas had a look of excited terror on his face. Everything was happening so fast. Minutes before he was content to wander aimlessly in what seemed to him a museum of uninitiated existence. It was so comfortable and easy to sit aside and watch things rapture and to blame others instead of expressing his ideas and making his voice heard. Jonas had always dreamed about the rapture and rising above the silence, but now that he was at his destination, he was afraid.

Carmen, or Erica, could sense the urgency and immediacy of the moment in Jonas’ despairing eyes. She slowed things down to give him a chance to catch up.

“This man that keeps shoving you around and asking for a Bic or a match is Mason. Ten years ago I would have said that he was a patriot, a proud American and an enemy to anyone who threatened the preservation of America and its freedom. If I were to call him a patriot now he would be offended to hear that I was referring to him as an ungrateful and disillusioned man who had the overrated ability to passionately recite words from newspapers, television shows and radio programs like a talking head with a string drawn from the back of its plastic skull that was incapable of acting upon his own thoughts. If I were to call him a proud American now he would be enraged by the notion that I may have thought he approved of the actions of his government. And now that America’s greatest enemy is its own government, Ben is an enemy to his own country.”

Jonas grabbed the pack of cigarettes out of Mason’s hand and lit one. He looked at Erica through a cloud of smoke and said, “So what do we do now?”

“That’s what you’re here to tell us, Jonas.”

Jonas was now alone. Like a lake, hidden, he was surrounded on all sides but he was by himself. The two that went by Ben and Thomas looked at Jonas with critical eyes carefully sizing his silence. Mason lit a cigarette. The sound of the match igniting seemed to vibrate in the ruinous walls and the odorous smell of sulfur emanated through the still of the moment. Jonas and Carmen stared into one another’s eyes. He knew this would be the last time he could think of her as “Carmen”. They both wanted to say so many things they each knew could not be said.

The vacancy of emotion Jonas displayed was a disappointment to all. He had tentatively received the honor and respect of an unlikely leadership for a cause that pervaded and illuminated his very being. For someone who often felt the world and all its creatures to be nothing more than a random pocket of change jingling in the cosmos, he was in awe.

Jonas elected not to display his awe like a stoic poker face concealing a hand. He was still unsure whether his cards were good or bad and if it were not for Carmen’s presence he would have probably left 216 Fifth Street as quickly as he had found it. He did not know these other rogues and he was unaware of how they expected he should have reacted. What Jonas really wanted was to run and that was precisely why he had stayed. Although fear compelled him it was the tragedy of eventually dying with the regret of cowardice and the torment of unanswered questions that truly terrified Jonas and his unknown fate. He was still unsure of any certainties and he did not understand at all what exactly these four individuals had wanted from him.

1,312.3 miles to go.

Day261 Tuesday 05/17/11

ran 4.1 miles
As a follow-up to last night’s post, here are the details about Chris Holton, of the Center for Security Policy, and what his presentation on Shariah law and Islam entailed. There was a lot of information covered and in an attempt to not make this post too lengthy for patience and too jumpy to connect its dots, please bear with me. Here it is.

In May of 2007, the Pew Research Center conducted a survey among all walks of Muslim Americans and one particular question they asked was this:

“Can suicide bombing of civilian targets to defend Islam be justified?”

Among the 2.35 million Muslims in America, in 2007, including 1.4 million over the age of 18 (the target group of the survey), this was the response:

Often/sometimes: 8%

Rarely: 5%

Don’t know/refuse to answer: 9%

Never: 79%

At least 13%, and an undecided 9%, entertain the idea of suicide bombings targeting civilians in America.

Ignoring the 9% who don’t know or refuse to answer, the 13% alone that do condone suicide bombings comprise 182,000 Muslims in America, according to this Pew survey.

This same question was asked to adult Muslims under the age of thirty and these were the results.

Often/sometimes: 15%

Rarely: 11%

Don’t know/refuse to answer: 5%

Never: 69%

Again, this survey was taken four years ago. Among the age group most recruited for suicide bombings, at least 26%, and an undecided 5%, entertain the idea of suicide bombings targeting civilians in America.

Ignoring the 5% who don’t know or refuse to answer, the 26% alone that do condone suicide bombings comprise 109,200 Muslims in America, according to this Pew survey. That percentage exceeds one out of every four Muslims between the ages of eighteen and thirty in America who find suicide bombings to be at least somewhat acceptable.

This was another question:

"What is your view of Al Qaeda?"

Favorable: 5%

Somewhat unfavorable: 10%

Don’t know/refuse to answer: 27%

Very unfavorable: 58%

Same question to Muslim adults under 30:

Favorable: 7%

Somewhat unfavorable: 16%

Don’t know/refuse to answer: 19%

Very unfavorable: 58%

70,000 Muslims in America admit a favorable view of Al Qaeda.

29,400 Muslims in America between the age of 18 and 29 admit to having a favorable view of Al Qaeda.

This was in 2007.

The Muslim religion is far too large to label in any one way. But it appears that a significant and threatening minority of Islam is hijacking the peaceful majority of the Muslim religion.

Moving on, in 1991 documents were uncovered in America from a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, the organization that has sired Al Qaeda and any other organization you can think of that deals terrorism in the name of Islam. The documents were titled “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America”. (Here is some more information on the documents)

These were the contents:

1. An introduction in explanation

2. The concept of settlement

3. The process of settlement

4. Comprehensive settlement organizations

The mission statement:

“The Ikhwan (brotherhood) must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

“Sabotaging its miserable house…by their hands.”

Infiltration.

Abdurahman Alamoudi. 2004. Alamoudi was the president of the American Muslim Foundation under Clinton’s and Bush’s presidencies and he is currently spending the rest of his life in jail. He held an extremely high position with much clout and much say in our president’s decisions regarding the Muslim community in America. Alamoudi was a terrorist and, along the lines of the above mentioned mission statement of “sabotage” and implosion by our own hands, he infiltrated the United States to the highest political position a Muslim can hold in this country. He had a hand in global terrorist attacks, he was a mouthpiece and an ear for organizations like Al Qaeda, and he had every desire to kill Americans through acts of terrorism, and he was shoulder to shoulder with two of our presidents.

There is much more to be said but I think this is sufficient enough to make you lift an eyebrow and mull things over.

1,315.6 miles to go.

Day260 Monday 05/16/11

ran 3.9 miles

I attended an Acadiana Patriots event tonight that Chris Holton of the Center for Security Policy spoke at. Holton is a highly educated man regarding Shariah law, the Koran, the Muslim Brotherhood, and, among many other things, the level of infiltration that Islam has penetrated not only the American government but the entire globe. I know that sounds like a presumptuous mouthful, but the words this man shared with the crowded room tonight were as disturbing as they were true.

Chris Holton has been interviewed by Glenn Beck, appeared on numerous Fox News programs, and has been interviewed on numerous radio talk shows, such as Laura Ingraham’s show.

He knows what he is talking about and the facts he has, combined with the unbelievable reality that exists, which so few are even aware of, are absolutely staggering. The event was well worth attending and the questions that followed grew lengthy in time, so I don’t have time to elaborate tonight on the details of what was said by Chris Holton. Tomorrow’s post will be filled with details. Not enough time tonight.

1,319.7 miles to go.

Day259 Sunday 05/15/11

ran 2.9 miles

Today ends week thirty-seven of running against Obama. I ran 21.5 miles this week, averaging 3.07 miles per day.

I have some quotes for today’s post from Henry David Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience”. Thoreau is one of my favorite writers and I recently stumbled across and purchased an old edition of “Walden” and “Civil Disobedience” at a garage sale. The copy I purchased (for a quarter) was printed in the mid-twentieth century when books had only cost $0.75. “Civil Disobedience” is only twenty pages long and it is filled with quote after profound quote. This essay was first published in 1849 out of Massachusetts. The first quote is one you will recognize.

“That government is best which governs least.”

“The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way.”

“Trade and commerce, if they were not made of India-rubber, would never manage to bounce over the obstacles which legislators are continually putting in their way; and, if one were to judge these men wholly by the effects of their actions and not partly by their intentions, they would deserve to be classed and punished with those mischievous persons who put obstructions on the railroads.”

“Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice.”

“He who gives himself entirely to his fellow men appears to them useless and selfish; but he who gives himself partially to them is pronounced a benefactor and philanthropist.”

“I quarrel not with far-off foes, but with those who, near at home, cooperate with, and do the bidding of, those far away, and without whom the latter would be harmless.”

“Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.”

“Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence.”

“The best thing a man can do for his culture when he is rich is to endeavor to carry out those schemes which he entertained when he was poor.”

“Know all men by these presents, that I, Henry Thoreau, do not wish to be regarded as a member of any incorporated society which I have not joined.”

“They who know of no purer sources of truth, who have traced up its stream no higher, stand, and wisely stand, by the Bible and the Constitution, and drink at it there with reverence and humility; but they who behold where it comes trickling into this lake or that pool, gird up their loins once more, and continue their pilgrimage toward its fountain-head.”

“If we were left solely to the wordy wit of legislators in Congress for our guidance, uncorrected by the seasonable experience and the effectual complaints of the people, America would not long retain her rank among the nations.”

“There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly.”

1,323.6 miles to go.

Day258 Saturday 05/14/11

ran 3.4 miles

President Obama is aiming to speed up domestic oil production. If all it takes for him to pursue a course of action he completely disagrees with is for gas to go from $2 and some change to $4, increasing week by week, then what will it take for our entire economy to be put on the proper path of reconstruction. In proportion to unacceptable $4 gas prices, what Obama intends to do with health care plus what he has done with stimulus package “monopoly” money divided by how little effort he shows to slash our deficit multiplied by his lofty and unrealistic goals subtracted by two and a half years of progress, unpaid, what is happening to our economy is equivalent to encouraging $6 gas if it is only at $4.

These gas prices have a crushing gravity on our wallets, but our economy, a much larger picture, as a whole, is in peril. Gas coming back down to $3 or less, in something between a near and distant future, is a huge step in the right direction but if our economy as a whole is severely ill and refuses to seek treatment, then Obama’s step toward easing the process of obtaining drilling permits on U.S. waters serves as much purpose as a band-aid on a cut artery.

And it is important to keep in mind that one of the very last things the president of our country wants to do is to encourage drilling for oil in America. Obama has expressed his disapproval of oil as a thriving energy resource in America through both words and actions.

To paint a picture, our president is currently going against everything he worked for with his prolonged moratorium on drilling. The Horizon explosion in April of 2010 was a perfect opportunity for Obama to do what would have required a lot more time, energy, and deceit, otherwise. I, for one, find it insulting and senseless when I think of the jobs, money, production, and progress the moratorium cost compared to the fact that one year later our president is in the headlines “speeding oil production”.

1,326.5 miles to go.

Day257 Friday 05/13/11

ran 3.6 miles

You may not know this, but S.679, a bill introduced by the Senate in April, is on its way to abolishing Article II, Section 2, of our United States Constitution. This bill is called the “Presidential Appointment Efficiency and Streamlining Act”. To everyday people like you and me the name of that bill translates to “Obama’s Dictatorial and Counter-Constitution Act”

Article II, Section 2, of the U.S. Constitution outlines that the “advice and consent” of our branches of government, the House and Senate, have the power to advise and approve or disapprove of the president’s decisions regarding who he appoints to certain Departments, Administrations, and Boards.

S.679 will give Obama exclusive power to confirm any individual he chooses to whatever position he wants to fill with no concern of what you, your Representatives, or you Senators have to say about it.

These are some of the 200 positions at risk:

• The Agriculture Department’s Commodities Credit Board
• Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service Administrator
• The Chief Scientist of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
• The Commerce Department’s Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information
• The Defense Department’s Assistant Secretary for Networks and Information Integration
• The Education Department’s Assistant Secretary for Management
• All 7 of the Assistant Secretaries of Energy
• The Department of Homeland Security’s Director of the Office of Domestic Preparedness
• Homeland Security’s Assistant Administrator of FEMA for Grant Programs
• The Department of the Treasury’s Assistant Secretary for Management and CFO
• The Treasurer of the United States
• The Director of the U.S. Mint
• The Governors and Alternate Governors of the IMF and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development
• The Governor and Alternate Governor of the Asian Development Bank (amending Section 3(a) of the Asian Development Bank Act)
• The Governor and Alternate Governor of the African Development Fund (amending Section 203(a) of the African Development Fund Act)
• The Office of Management and Budget’s Controller, Office of Federal Financial Management
• The Director of the Community Development Financial Institution Fund

S.679 was proposed by Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on March 30, 2011. The Washington Post applauded this act as “a better process” and referred to the 200 positions being exempted from Senate confirmation as “non-policymaking, non-senior positions”.

Article II, Section 2(a), of U.S. Constitution

“He shall have Power (the president), by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.”

1,329.9 miles to go.

Day256 Thursday 05/12/11

ran 3.5 miles

From CNBC, “Obama Tells Companies to ‘Step Up’ and Hire Workers”. Calling on corporations to do more to help the economy, Obama projected that it will take at least “several years” for our economy and its needs to recover. That’s wishful thinking. Perhaps he should question why so many companies are sitting on so much money and why they are so reluctant to invest it in jobs or expansion. It could be because they don’t believe in Barack Obama’s intentions or policies.

“We’ve got a lot more work to do to get businesses to invest and to hire,” Obama said to an audience at a town-hall style meeting hosted by CBS.

Unfortunately, his idea of encouraging corporate America to invest and hire is to tax and mandate.

1,333.5 miles to go.

Day255 Wednesday 05/11/11

ran 1.4 miles

Chapter 7

Jonas stood uncertainly at the door unsure of what or who was behind it. There were a few faded newspapers scattered around the foot of the door lending to the house a sense of vacancy. Across the top of one of the tattered papers in bold print read the headline “Incumbent Confident For 2016 Election”.

“It’s not even November of 2016”, Jonas said under his breath. Polls, debates, scandals, skeletons, and baby kissing were all in full gear. Mind numbing senselessness would soon inundate the delicate fabric of rational thinking through any media outlet it could find. The only aspect of this election Jonas found even mildly amusing or interesting was a sardonic curiosity of who the next untapped mass of voters would be and how sinisterly they would impact the existing and dwindling minority of traditional American beliefs in government. Jonas believed the 2012 election exploited an immense frontier of new voters when his country allowed millions upon millions of illegal aliens to legally remain within U.S. borders and become naturalized citizens (and voters). The message to the world was that this country granted unlawful deviants amnesty and that its laws were pliable and easily revised by criminals. The numbers, and the power created by the numbers, had grown exponentially over a small matter of years. And just a few years was all it took for an entire continent of three countries to go through the preliminary steps of becoming one single nation for reasons even the government had much difficulty lying about and Americans found impossible to understand.

The government began blatantly opposing the demands of the people it was supposed to be protecting and treated their votes and ideas as though they were nothing more than blank scraps of paper in a permanently sealed suggestion box. It took years for the people to finally stir and to understand that something was wrong. And when they did it was far too late. Their reactions were meaningless and as useless as a 6:20 train ticket at 8:00.

Jonas was one of a group of rogue individuals who had allegedly committed crimes of “unAmerican-thought”. He was accused of thinking and speaking against his country. Something had been wrong for a very long time and it was being ignored like a highly detectable cancer. There was a general feeling among many that something bad was coming or that something good was going away. But few felt compelled to speak out about it or act on it. They were convinced that everything they were told was to be unquestioned and they were comfortably powerless with their surroundings. Freedoms, one by one, were being limited or taken away. Much had changed for the worst in a short period of time and nobody had seemed to care. The rights and will of the government’s people thinned away like a shallow, muddy puddle evaporating all of its hope into a cloudy void. The people’s government was the proverbial atmosphere collecting the hope and it was not going to precipitate a drop of fairness any time soon.

Governments do not claim mistakes and they do not retract or negotiate fault.

Jonas did not rob or shoot anybody. He was not a terrorist. Not once had he ever placed another human being in potentially fatal harm. Jonas simply wrote a manifesto, which became something larger than he had ever expected.

When something is done or said by the government it will be seen through until it works or until the people get tired of hearing about it, only to forget.

Jonas and those like him were considered threats to the new nation. They were threats to continental democracy, which many would call progressivism, and accused of treasonously hating their own country with intentions to plot against its people.

Governments do not die. Nor or they living things yet they control us.

Those who aided and abetted Jonas and those who thought like him were dutifully encouraged to publicly denounce their beliefs or to be immediately exiled from the country, United North America, once apprehended.

The only tools a government should need are simplicity and common sense. To imply that there is anything else necessary is both ill-intended and opportunistic.

Jonas refused to believe what other people had said about him on the radio and what newspapers had printed about him. The media portrayed him as a monster regardless of the truth. He chose to risk exile by his own country. Before the God he knew in his heart, before all the wars his and other governments created, before all of the wasted life so many seemed to sit idly by, before welfare recipients and the large percentage of them who lacked so much belief in themselves, before congressmen and governors who had been holding on to impossibility for far too long, before Hollywood, New York, Houston, Ontario, Cancun and the rest of the continental union, before the lack of sensitivity and the abundance of selfishness that made this entire world go around, before the President and all of his men, Jonas decided that he would have no part.

Things were not always like this.

1,337.0 miles to go.

Day254 Tuesday 05/10/11

Barack Obama and Common photo from Huffington Post

ran 3.3 miles
Tomorrow night President Obama will be hosting a poetry ceremony at the White House, which “Common”, a poet or rapper of some sort with ties to Reverend Jeremiah Wright, will be headlining. Common, otherwise known as Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr., makes lyrical allusions to inciting violence in America, including typical “rap” themes filled with misogyny, guns, and a generally immature and irresponsible use of expletives. I thought about littering the rest of this page with some examples of his work but that would only dignify his it.

Yet again, Barack Obama is displaying how little he cares about America’s interpretation of his actions. This guy, Common, is as offensive and obscene as Jeremiah Wright and, under any other circumstances, I can’t think of one president from the past or the future who would care so little about inviting such a controversial figure into the White House.

1,338.4 miles to go.

Day253 Monday 05/09/11

ran 3.4 miles

I had posted back in March of this year about China’s full sprint toward claiming the title of “World’s Largest Economy”, while America, fighting against itself, coupled with a president intent on spending money we don’t have and decreasing the value of the American dollar, sets a mediocre pace of something between a walk and a jog toward its future. I understand the goals and I see the vision Barack Obama has, a future that looks bright on the horizon yet is completely unrealistic, but the bridge he is building to obtain that future is made of popsicle sticks.

You may not know this but China has recently surpassed Japan and claimed the status of the second largest world economy. This news preceded the tragedies that occurred in Japan recently and China is projected to overtake America’s economic stride in 2016, according to CNN Asia Business Analyst, Ramy Inocencio.

Inocencio’s source is the International Monetary Fund and its new GDP forecasts. China’s gross domestic product is speeding toward a projection of $19 trillion, an $8 trillion increase in the next five years. America is forecasting $18.8 trillion in 2016, an increase of only $3.5 trillion in the same period of time. With numbers like that and the state of our economy, China’s economy stands to exponentially surpass ours after 2016.

With everything currently at stake in this nation, the 2012 budget battle in particular, our president and liberals are showing little interest in slashing spending, while conservatives are attempting against all odds to climb back to the surface of our deficit.

In early March of this year, Barack Obama had uttered one of the most ridiculous and defining statements of who he really is when he suggested that it would be so much easier to be the president of China. President Hu Jintao does not receive very much scrutiny from the Chinese press and the Chinese people he represents don’t have many disagreements with him when he speaks in Tahrir Square. They are a communist nation. What exactly does Obama mean with words like that and what president of the United States of America possesses the tactlessness to say such a thing? He compared the iron fist of China to the freedom America has been fighting for and maintaining for nearly 250 years in a light that casts a shadow on everything America stands for and illuminates the tenets of a government that does not let their people even criticize their leaders in the slightest manner. Those words Barack Obama uttered to America speak for themselves.

1,341.7 miles to go.

Day252 Sunday 05/08/11

ran 2.3 miles
Happy Mother’s Day!

Today ends week thirty-six of running against Obama. I ran 26.7 miles this week, averaging 3.81 miles per day.

Without delving too deeply into what is a sensitive and strained issue, it has always fascinated me, particularly over the last two and a half years, why so many other Americans would deliberately choose to vote for a democrat, to believe in liberal ideas, and be willing to fight for them. Immediately, by making that statement, my words might suggest that I am some sort of a closed-minded, selfish person who cares little for the opinions of others, but I assure you, that is not the case. I find great virtue in our two party system and if we were to leave one party or the other to their own devices for too long, no good would come from it. The two parties, the House and Senate, the Justices and the President all play watchdog to one another, and it is a brilliant system of maintaining order in an arena of such large amounts of power.

To restate what I was getting at earlier, I fully accept that I may think differently from others and that others are bound to think differently than me, but with this upcoming election having so much riding on it, right here and right now, I don’t get what supporters of Barack Obama are after; especially now that his mesmerizing campaign is over and America is now in the state it’s in two and a half years later.

I’ve always liked that quote, "If you are young and not liberal, then you have no heart; but if you are old and not conservative, then you have no brain.” It really is interesting to wonder who is the typical Republican voter and who is the typical Democratic voter? Aside from literal definitions and ideologies, if we could put a face on each of these two voters, what would they look like? What would they believe in? What would they do for a living? The questions are endless?

Do you ever find yourself behind another vehicle in traffic that has an Obama/Biden bumper sticker and then suddenly find you are switching lanes and speeding up just to catch a nonchalant glimpse of who this person is? It’s because you want to put a face to something you cannot understand. And it goes both ways. A McCain/Palin bumper sticker has an equal reaction for certain others.

When I look at what Barack Obama has done and the trail he is blazing through a country, which is looking less and less like America, this is how I define the collective Democrat and the collective Republican:

Democrat: “I would like less personal freedom and unrestrained growth of government.”

Republican: “I want to hear as little from the government’s mouth as possible and I want it to shrink back down to the size it was intended to be.”

Democrat: It’s not fair for me to have to work for the things I have and want. I’ll vote Democratic and the government will take care of me.

Republican: Please stop interfering, federal government, so much with the goals I have. I don’t need you nearly as much as you would like to believe and yet you force yourself upon me as a constant obstacle.

Democrat: Rich people don’t deserve the money they have. They are dishonest and Democrats will take that money from them with high taxes and spend it on me.

Republican: I applaud the wealthy and their successes. If I am rich one day it will be because I worked hard for it. If not, I will take pride in providing for myself without taking advantage of the government.

As an afterthought, it is interesting to point out that there are as many wealthy Democrats as there are Republicans, yet if they were taken out of the picture, I am by no means implying that they should be, the battle of ideas becomes one between people who work hard to earn what they have and people who work less as hard but feel entitled to other peoples’ money; people who want the federal government out of their lives versus people who welcome the idea of being under complete control of the government.

1,345.1 miles to go.

Day251 Saturday 05/07/11

ran 3.9 miles
Fox News recently hosted the first Republican Presidential Debate in South Carolina. Standing behind podiums were Ron Paul, Herman Cain, Rick Santorum, Gary Johnson, and Tim Pawlenty. Absent were names like Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, and Mitt Romney.

The debate was symbolic of the gate at the starting line to this race officially opening. I am obviously biased in my approach to 2012. I want Barack Obama out and I will vote for a box of nails if that is what he is running against. I am going to follow these candidates closely over the next year and a half and form opinions about them like everybody else but, ultimately, whoever earns their way to being the final name on the Republican ticket is going to go against everything Barack Obama represents. While it is important to make informed decisions and votes to get the best man or woman to November 6, 2012, it is also an unavoidable fact that regardless of who it is they will campaign on rebuilding the deconstruction this nation has been weakened with for so long and they will go against the ideas Obama stands for. Whoever it ends up being I am voting for them, whoever that Someone Else will be.

After the campaign gate was opened and the debate took off I was particularly excited to see what Ron Paul and Herman Cain had to say. I don’t know enough about Santorum, Johnson, or Pawlenty to form anything more than a first impression but I have always been a big fan of Paul and I am extremely interested in Herman Cain, a name many have never heard of.

Ron Paul has a realistic, “matter-of-fact” approach to the problems America faces. His ideas make so much sense that they seem out of place in a setting such as Washington. Paul is a long-time Representative out of Texas.

Herman Cain, on the other hand, has never served as a politician and that is a strength worth recognizing. But, then again, Barack Obama barely had any experience either. However, Herman Cain does have a dazzling amount of experience in the corporate world having served as CEO of different corporations. He is best known for his success with Godfather’s Pizza. He became CEO at a time when this company was flailing toward bankruptcy and in a short period of time he turned the company around and had it making profit again.

At this early stage, of these five candidates I like Cain the most. He is genuine and comfortable when he speaks and he has a highly successful background, he has never been a politician, which I think is a real virtue, and he endorses the Fair Tax, which would abolish federal income taxes and the IRS. If you don’t know anything about the Fair Tax then check it out. It is gaining a lot of momentum and it would solve many of the problems America faces.

1,347.4 miles to go.

Day250 Friday 05/06/11

ran 4.2 miles

• New Mexico was the forty-seventh state to join the union on January 6, 1912, one month before Arizona and five years after Oklahoma.

• Population, as of 2010, is 2,059,179.

• Senators are Jeff Bingaman (D) and Tom Udall (D).

• Representatives are Martin Heinrich (D), Steven Pearce (R) and Ben Lujan (D).

• New Mexico has five electoral votes. Historically, the state has voted for thirteen Democrats and twelve Republicans. As split as New Mexico’s votes have been over the past ninety-nine years, they have remarkably only voted for the losing side twice (Gerald Ford in 1976 and George W. Bush in 2000). Barack Obama defeated John McCain 57% to 42% in 2008.

April jobs +244,000, yet unemployment back up to nine percent. Fannie Mae reports $8.7 billion loss for first quarter; seeks $8.5 billion more from taxpayers. Gas national average $3.99. No word of 2012 budget talks in the news.

Osama Bin Laden.

Osama Bin Laden.

Osama Bin Laden.

Osama Bin Laden.

Osama Bin Laden.

This good news and massive distraction from the issues that were being covered up until Sunday night could not have come at a better time for our president. The more important domestic issues we have been wrestling with have been put to the side like a steak pushed away to devour a few fries.

Osama Bin Laden.

1,351.3 miles to go.

Day249 Thursday 05/05/11

ran 3.5 miles
Some stats and polls from Rasmussen Reports:

• Barack Obama’s presidential index rating shows that 26% of American voters strongly approve of his performance while 35% strongly disapprove, giving Obama a presidential index rating of –9.

• Overall, 49% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of Barack Obama’s performance and 50% disapprove. Since Osama Bin Laden’s death, Obama’s numbers have improved, though only an amount nearly not worth mentioning. This nation’s interpretation of its president remains almost equally divided.

• Regarding Obama’s budget proposal, 30% of American voters favor it and 50% oppose it.

• Dropping slightly, 47% of American voters favor repeal of Health Care Law.

• Only 25% of American voters believe America is heading in the right direction.

Gas prices are through the roof, jobless claims are at an eight-month high, polarized budget battles are being waged with no end in sight, and our president has the audacity to discuss a tax on how many miles you drive each day. This is part of the administration’s Transportation Opportunities Act. Where do they come up with these names? “Opportunity”? For who? That makes as much sense as limiting conservative talk radio with a “fairness” doctrine. It’s not fair; it’s censorship.

Who discusses a tax per mile driven at a time like this? It is insult to injury! Nearly half of the people in this nation do not even make enough money to have to pay federal income taxes. While they certainly sit on the receiving end of others who do pay income taxes, I don’t think this would settle well for them, either, or anybody else.

1,355.5 miles to go.

Day248 Wednesday 05/04/11

ran 3.1 miles
Here is Chapter 6 of “I am Erica”. To read it from the beginning click on “I am Erica” in the categories to the right.

Chapter6

Jonas followed his defrosted path back to Fifth Street. Now exhaling smoke instead of steam, the sun prevailed over the cold moisture. Leaves would soon be crackling and rustling instead of sticking together like cold, wet flakes of oatmeal. Whitened rooftops would once again be faded back to black and birds would soon be foraging on a newly moistened earth.

His knock grew inpatient tapping against his denim pocket. His left toe touched street with every other step through his worn sole. The meager weight of his backpack snapped another of the final threads on his shoulder strap. His jacket was not at all sufficient to warm him in the cold evenings. Jonas’ rare feelings of neglect and compromise were usually immediately followed by an urgency of strength and a familiar will to succeed. He was empowered by the frustration of adversity. But for an instant he felt like one of the paper shamrocks that gas station clerks asked customers to donate a dollar for towards muscular dystrophy. Most people would rather not part with their dollar. They often felt that because they had donated a dollar earlier in the week that the month of March’s charitable donation quota had been reached. Jonas was admittedly one of these people, himself, and he did not mind feeling the way he did. Suffering was in his nature and part of what he believed to be the greater part of existence.

He thought about the dollar he had found earlier and suddenly perceived it to be an unexplainable form of charity that somebody or something had donated to him. Offended by the idea that mere luck or chance proximity may have taken pity on him and given him a dollar immediately devastated his pride. Jonas crumpled up the dollar and threw it back in the street as though it were an insult to the integrity of his struggles. He preferred to remain blighted and ignored like dystrophic muscles in children or a stale box of Girl Scout cookies.

The aged, frayed and weather-beaten door stood like an immense monolith that a common, run-down house just happened to be squeezing. The cuts and scratches were like hieroglyphs of a forgotten history. The undulating knots swelled with stories that would never be told. There were numbers stenciled by the sun where a two, one, and six once hung at eye level. The doorknob was porcelain fired on cast iron and it tilted downwardly as though a couple screws were hanging on by a final thread. Jonas determined the door had to be at least a century old. One hundred years of weather, openings and closings, friends and enemies, good news and bad news, all passing through various decades over a vast amount of time.

Jonas was certain he would never live to be one hundred years old. Nor did he find himself capable of standing in one spot for even one hundred minutes. He wondered about the occurrences the door may have been a part of and then reflected on the underwhelming little he had seen in his own young life.

Jonas Martin Cassidy was thirty-five years old. He was born into the Reagan administration and the first big post-hippie “Just Say No” movement against drug use. John Lennon had died the year Jonas was born and, before he had quit collecting baseball cards or had crashed into puberty, the Berlin Wall had fallen.

Compared to one hundred years there was little Jonas had seen. What he had seen had amounted to even less as half of it had been viewed through primarily adolescent and juvenile eyes. He could not possibly have had any idea of the scope of events that had occurred over the last century.

Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle”, San Francisco and the most damaging earthquake in U.S. history, Reverend Algernon S. Crapsey found guilty of heresy, Charlie Chaplin, Nan Aspinwall, the Ludlow War, WWI, the influenza epidemic (202 deaths daily), John Scopes’ evolution debate, deep channel green and rich windsor maroon, the Great Depression followed by the Social Security Act and the Wagner Act, FDR, John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath”, WWII and Normandy, Bernard Baruch coins the term “Cold War”, the Korean War (165,485 American casualties), Vietnam, Bay of Pigs, Grenada, invasion of Panama, the Gulf War, intervention in Bosnia and Herzegonia, 9/11...

These people and events cannot sum up even a small fraction of the past century. They are loose reflections of an uncertain future that is begging for direction and meaning. What history distinctly earns through patience and concision the future squanders in blind repetition and excess.

1,359.0 miles to go.

Day247 Tuesday 05/03/11

ran 6.1 miles

Well, that’s that. Osama bin Laden is dead so we can all now move on to the pressing domestic issues that have been contorting the shape of our nation. After nearly two and a half years of spending like a compulsive gambler, using other peoples’ money and losing it, there is currently much at stake.

The budget battle has been absolutely exhausted to the point that a mere matter of days after 2011 was settled the 2012 fiscal year’s war began with no end in sight any time soon. The two different camps lay entrenched, one with an arsenal of monopoly boxes filled with fake money and the other fighting only with tooth and nail to engage America’s overwhelming debt.

Regarding ObamaCare, there is an incredible amount of money currently tied into getting our president’s health care legislation up and running. Whatever billions of dollars are spent to spark this massive project to life will be lost in the event that Barack Obama does not get reelected. Any man or woman who chooses to run against him is going to campaign on repealing ObamaCare, among many other issues, which are contrary to his ideas. And as a consolation prize, let’s assume Barack Obama does get a second term. If the House and Senate repeat what happened during the midterm elections on November 2 of last year and conservatives control not only the House but the Senate, too, it would be hard to believe that ObamaCare could advance very far. Yet all of these billions of dollars would have been squandered on an idea that lacked two legs to stand on.
I try to post once a week about the Health Care Compact, a possibility that does not repeal Barack Obama’s federally mandated health care, but allows states to not participate in it and to formulate their own systems based on the needs of each individual state. Here is the latest news on their progress:

• Passed the Texas House.

• Passed the Arizona House and Senate (vetoed by Governor Brewer).

• Passed the Montana House and Senate (pending Governor's signature).

• Passed the Georgia House and Senate (signed by Governor Deal).

• Passed the Oklahoma House and Senate (pending final concurrence in the Senate).

• Passed the Missouri House and Senate (pending Governor's signature).

• Passed the Colorado House Health Care Committee and the House Appropriations Committee (pending consideration in the full House).

• Passed the Tennessee House Health Subcommittee (pending in the full House Health and Senate Finance Committees).

• Health Care Compact bills have been introduced in South Carolina and Louisiana.

• Health Care Compact bills are in the drafting process in Florida, Ohio, Michigan and Washington.

And finally, need I even mention gas prices?

1,362.1 miles to go.

Day246 Monday 05/02/11

President Obama and members of his national security staff during the operation to take out Osama bin Laden. White House photo

ran 3.6 miles
The announcement of Osama bin Laden’s demise came so late and as such a surprise last night that today it is important to acknowledge how relieved and united this entire country is for the families and friends of those whose lives were lost on 9/11; for the sense of closure they must be feeling.

Barack Obama earned a worthy medal for his presidency as being the man who gave the executive order to perform the raid in Pakistan. The decision was riddled with risks. For one thing, Osama bin Laden quite possibly may not have been there. And had he not been, America would have had some difficult explaining to do to the country of Pakistan for storming in unannounced. It required a large sum of testicular fortitude to follow through with this mission, known as "Operation Geronimo", and he deserves credit.

Having said that, my opinion of his performance as our president remains unaltered. His policies and his actions have driven him into the ground with disapproval and I would venture to say that had this epic moment not have occurred, it would have been twice as hard to redeem himself in the eyes of Americans who voted for him in 2008 and are now weighing whether that was a mistake or not. Obama’s polling numbers are going to rise noticeably and he is going to have a strong wave of momentum to build off of. If he can formulate an “Operation Geronimo” on gas prices then he would emerge as a hero having obtained a sense of redemption for everything he has done up until now, which so many of us utterly disagree with.

Barack Obama has shown his spots and they are not going to change. He has more than defined himself and his agenda, and as the election nears there will more than likely be a series of actions that will predictably appease the independent voters who are undecided. This presidential election is going to come down to a very small percentage of voters. According to polls, America is nearly equally divided for and against Obama’s reelection, except for a mere ten percent, or less, of undecided voters and they will be the deciding factor.

1,368.2 miles to go.