Topping the blog lists!

You made Thinking Out Loud one of the top ten conservative blogs on "Top Political Blog" site (on April 28, 2012) with an international audience. On February 18, 2013, we hit in the top 50 of ALL political blogs. (This changes all the time, so keep reading.) Thank you.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Some commons sense . . . PLEASE!!!

Okay, here is a situation I propose to you. You have a 22-yr old in college. He has a credit card so you can teach him about responsible financing. (Go with me on this, its just an analogy.) Your child has no job and YOU pay the credit card bill. Slow but sure, they run up the bill to the limit on all kinds of stuff they "say" is needed for their education. You may disagree, but they have some persuasive arguments.

Anyway, the credit card company contacts them directly and says "hey man, you're a really good spender so we want to UP your credit limit." They do this several times and the limit is ridiculously high. And YOU are still responsible for the bill.

So what do you do?? Do you call the credit card company and yell at them, demanding to know what the heck they were thinking? Do you take the card from your college age child? Do you sue either or both of them? I mean, what do you do?

Well, this is the situation we are all in with Washington's irresponsible spending and ridiculously high credit limit. They want to keep spending, and they'll give you lots of good reasons. Reasons that on the surface sound valid but you have to consider the economic times we are in. Hard choices have to be made in the area of spending. Raising the limit on the credit cards is also NOT a good option. It just puts off the inevitable and makes the problems worse.

The whole idea behind Cap, Cut and Balance is a responsible approach to government spending. And Standard and Poors has said that they will downgrade our bonds (meaning the dollar will be worth less and our credibility will be shot to heck), if we don't couple a raising of the debt limit with some kind of responsible management of our money. Which means we HAVE to have a Balanced budget, just like families across America. We HAVE to get serious about how we spend our money, just like every citizen in this country. And we HAVE to have a tried and true method of creating a stable economy. If we don't, we're serious trouble now and down the road..

Just like a family that has to make choices, the government is going to have to make choices. We may not like all the things we have to rein in right now, but we HAVE to. We have no choice at this juncture. Look into it for yourself. Don't be a willing follower of every pied piper out there. Think in relation to your own economic situation. Could you do in your family what the government is doing to our country?

Agree with me or disagree with me, it makes no matter. So long as I got you to think for yourself instead of listening to some talking head or a politician that talks out both sides of their yap or the guy down the street who talks louder than everyone else. And seriously, don't even listen to me and take things for gospel. Just make some common sense connections with what the government is doing and what you have to do every day. But heck, this is just me, Thinking Out Loud.

Have a great day.

Charles

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Goodbye, sis, we love you

As I go through life and get older, I am running into a stage that more often than I like begs a question. A question that has plagued religion and philosophers throughout time.

When we lose someone we love, no matter their age, we far too often are sad, bitter and angry. If we believe in God we ask "why?" If we don't believe in God, we ask "why?" The latter because even those who don't believe in God still WANT to believe that there is somewhere or something after this life for their loved ones.

Philosophers ponder the question of life and existence and ask the why do we exist and then perish. What is the sense, they wonder, to a life so short. Religion offers the simplistic response, saying that it was their time or that god just wanted them home. There was a movie or something, I can't recall at the moment, where someone had said of their child's death that God had wanted another angel. And the lead actress asked if God was so all powerful why not just make another angel, why did He have to take the child.

But in our grief and loss and pain, we miss the real fact. We are asking the wrong questions, making the wrong assumptions.

Instead of asking why our loved one had to leave us too soon, we should be asking why we got to spend the time with them we did. We so focus on not having enough time that we fail to enjoy the time we have.

Death is the great equalizer of all arguments, all disagreements, all petty problems.

What importance can we place on a squabble about how someone disapproves of our lifestyle, or how someone got the family bible over someone else or who has the most money or best spouse or nicest kids or whatever? When in the end, death will claim us all. Death will not equivocate on whether we had enough time to get over our small differences. Death will not care that you missed out on getting back together or whether one side or the other apologized first or how long it takes to get over feeling sorry for ourselves.

Death is death and it waits for no one, man or woman. Death comes at a time and place of its choosing, whether we are ready or not.

When it is time for someone to die, then it is time.

While you are griping over that "borrowed" recipe or hurt feelings or imagined wrong or jealous anger or whatever, time is ticking away, moving inexorably to the final end we all must face. Death. The end of existence in this corporeal form. Regardless if you believe in the after life, in whatever form, or you believe that once you're dust you're dust and nothing more, it is the same for those still living. The end. No more.

So I urge you to remember this fact as you swear you will never talk to so and so again because they yelled at your pregnant wife or snubbed your significant other's kids or talked down to you or whatever you feel is deserving of not speaking with them again, even for the time it takes you to get over it or one of you to apologize. Death comes. And we only have so much time with those we love, those we share this world with, those who are just as human as we. And if we only change the questions we will ask at the end, we will change the way we spend our time in the now.

SPend the time you have with those around you, because there is NEVER enough time. And all those lost moments are just that, lost. You can never get them back.

I am not even going to ask if you disagree or not. I am not going to say that it doesn't matter to me because I am just Thinking Out Loud. I am going to simply ask that you think about this. That you look around you and see if there is someone you have lost moments with. And decide to not lose any more.

Have a great day. Goodnight and goodbye, sis, we love you.

Charles

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Now he knows how we feel

President Obama has "reached his limit" on the debt talks. He says it may bring his Presidency down but he will not yield.

Well, POTUS, now you know how we, the American public, fell about all the nonsense you and your Democratic colleagues have been doing these past 2+ years. In the midterm elections, we pretty much let you know we also had "reached our limit" with the "you have to read it to find out what's in it" legislation and backdoor deals and economic flubs and government intrusions into our lives. We told you, in no uncertain terms that creating government jobs is not a way to stimulate the economy. We demanded an end to the bailouts turned corporate take overs where we the taxpayers did not want to own a piece of Big Auto, nor did we want any part of dictating to business how they "do" business. We chanted in march after march, rally after rally, townhall after townhall that we were tired of the people who have never owned, operated nor run ANY kind of business telling corporate America how to do their jobs. We have since decried your continued excesses and finger pointing and media spin that made CEOs targets of vile hate and fear mongering. Even as recently as a few days ago, we drew a collective gasp and delivered astonished "good griefs" over your obvious fear pandering to senior citizens when you told them their checks would stop when you knew full well it was a lie.

We have told YOU that we had reached out limit with you and your social engineering, We told you we would no longer listen to your politically motivated drivel, nor to the media's obvious spin doctoring.

But it is incredible to see that you still do not listen.

Your lackeys such as Steve Israel and Robby Mook continue to send out their outraged letters in defense of your position and further vilification of the Republicans for standing firm against the dangerous actions you insist on taking. You continue to call special press conferences to berate and belittle true Americans who want us to stop this downward spiral of our economy, values and the long history of the American 'can-do' spirit and great tradition of entrepreneurialism.

So I guess now you know how we fell. You have reached your limit. One can only hope. maybe you'll stop fighting the millions who keep saying Noooooooo when it comes to out of control spending. Maybe you'll start to listen when we collectively say Stoooooooop in denouncement of your heavy handed tactics. We pray that you'll come to some kind of sense and behave like a President of the United States and not some Democratic Party dictator and patsy.

If not, we will definitely have our say come November of 2012. You will definitely hear us then when we say GOODBYE at the polling stations across America. Because I don't know of any rational thinking person, even Democrats, who will not say enough is enough. Who will not tell you loud and clear, we have REACHED OUR LIMIT with you.

Agree or disagree, but some of you out there have got to have your thinking caps on and realize that what I am saying makes sense. Some of you have got to understand that what the President, the NLRB, Pelosi, Reid, Frank and the rest of the Democratic machine in this country is doing to further destabilize and destroy our economy. But if not, that is okay, too. Just as long as I maybe made you think just a little differently instead of blindly following anyone else's "truths" about our economy and the debt limit, than I will have done my job. Either way, it is no matter to me. Because, heck, this is just me, Thinking Ouot Loud.

Have a great day.

Charles

Friday, July 8, 2011

The loonies in DC are at it again!

President Obama has no clue as to what it takes to run a business - he has never run a business, has never been involved in the running of a business, has no clue what it takes to get a business running nor keep it going - and yet he will not intervene in the NLRB's decision to take Boeing to court on the word of greedy, sleazy, low life union thugs who don't care a hoot about workers in America, just their grab for power and money. The members are Presidential appointments, not elected, meaning that it is up to the President to keep these nimrods in check. but he won't. Why? because he is bowing to the almighty dollar unions thugs throw into his re-election coffers. heaven forbid he do what is right for America, the American worker or the economy!

Contact your Senator to tell them that they need to pass S. 964. (The "Job Protection Act") Sign the petition that 37 Republican Senators have begun in order to get this legislation on the books in order to curtail the non-elected officials at the NLRB. Call, write, email the White House and let the President know that the actions of the NLRB are in opposition to his responsibilities to make sure Americans can get back to work, which will shore up the economy and get America back on track. Write letters to the editor of your local paper, or the national rags such as the Wall Street Journal. Let your family and friends know that they need to speak up because our government will not.

Now that that little rant is out of the way, lets move on to another topic of interest that affects every single one of us in so many ways.

NASA.

The chopping of NASA's budget makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. If you agree, you probably know why. But if you are like so many politicians and so many liberal loonies who would shoot their foot to get rid of a corn on your toe, let me enlighten you as to why NASA is more iportant than many people realize.

You like getting less radiation during x-rays and mammograms? MASA made that possible. You like the benefit of artificial limbs not being clunky things, thus allowing people who lose limbs (like our brave men and women in the military and the likes of lance Armstrong) to re-enter society in productive ways? NASA made that possible, too.

Too esoteric and not applicable to you personally? How about smoke detectors? NASA (for Skylab in the '70s) did that. Baby formula? Nasa. Cordless drills? Yard trimmers? Dustbusters? NASA, NASA, and NASA. CAT scans and MRIs?? That was NASA, too.

NASA began in October of 1958 and replaced NACA (National Advisory Commission for Aeronautics), which began in 1915. And for the past 50+ years has been working in conjunction with civilian businesses to design and develop technology which accounts for so much you never really knew before. (For more info, check out this article.)

So why keep NASA's funding in place and work on getting NASA's mission back on track? Who knows what wonders and innovations they will come up with in the next 50 years. Who knows what lives could be made better, saved. But I can tell you how many lives will NOT be made better if the funding is allowed to be cut and NASA dissected . . . ZERO. NONE. NADA.

Tell you elected officials to read that article linked above. Tell them that NASA is not only vital to our national economy, but it is important for our future.

Agree, disagree, it really doesn't matter. If only you come away with some new thoughts on things or with a different perspective - in other words if you think for yourself instead of listening to other people, including me - then I have done my job. Because, you know, this is just me, Thinking Out Loud.

Have a great day.

Charles

Monday, July 4, 2011

4th of July - Happy Birthday, America!

Just wanted to share what an acquaintance of mine wrote on her Facebook. It is truly awesome, truly American and I can support it 100%. (Even though we usually are on opposite sides of the political spectrum.)

"Let's be the UNITED States of America today with no fussing or arguing about our country. I treasure our freedom of speech, but today I just want to enjoy my county. We are a mixed bag of political parties, races, and religions but we are all Americans, but here we are free to be individuals. Happy July 4th."

Thanks, Kathy.

I hope all of America has a safe and happy and wonderful Independence Day! God Bless the USA!

Next week, back to the job of making you think for yourself while I will be Thinking Out Loud!

Charles