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Since the weekend is reserved for lite posting, I thought I would share a song with you. I was first made aware of this song via the The Soloist. I’m pissed that they bumped the release date for the movie for two reasons:

1. I will have to wait until March 13, 2009 instead of getting to see it on November 21, 2008.
2. It’s not coming out during Oscar season, so it will be difficult for Robert Downy, Jr. to get his Best Actor Oscar.

The trailer really pulls my heartstrings. I get the feeling that The Soloist is a movie that I will chock up watching. The only good thing about the new date is that it is at the start of the blockbuster season, so maybe they will trade Oscar eyes for dollars. Hopefully.

Without further adieu, I present to you Suite for Solo Cello No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007: I. Prélude performed by Yo-Yo Ma as featured in The Soloist trailer. Enjoy!

I wasn’t going to post until Monday morning, but this is too juicy to pass up: bluDANGLE: The Best Gift for the Office Boss

Read the comments for a real belly-laugh!

Carter Chambers

When I was in college, our professor gave us this assignment. We were supposed to make a list of all the things we wanted to do before we kicked the bucket.

Here’s my list in no particular order.

1. Make a feature length full budget film.
2. Be a radio talk show host if only for a day.
3. Run a newspaper.
4. Own a house.
5. Learn Italian.
6. Learn to play the piano.
7. England.
8. Ireland.
9. Italy.
10. Go back to Vienna.
11. Go back to Puerto Barrios.
12. California.
13. Learn the art of photography.
14. Learn the art of sound recording.
15. Become an actor.
16. Be a journalist.
17. Find a soulmate.
18. Be husband and a father that inspires other husbands and fathers to raise their standard of living for themselves and their families.
19. Be a published author (novel).
20. Write feature length screenplays that are produced and cause the films to be talked about for decades to come.

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When I was just a kid, my family went to Boston because my dad had a continuing education class he had to attend. This left Mom, Grandmother, my baby brother, my sister and I free to go exploring. We decided to go to Cape Cod.

There were many yard sales that day on the Cape, but the one I remember most vividly was one in the basement of this little church. They were having a book sale, something like $1 a book. Mom said I could pick out anything I wanted. I remember grabbing this little green book. (there were two or three of them that made a set) It was some kind of philosophy book or something. She didn’t much like that book, so I chose another attractive little tome: Robert’s Rules of Order.

The lady running the book sale told me that I wouldn’t much like this book either; that it was boring rules for how to conduct meetings. I didn’t care. It was my intention to read the whole thing cover to cover.

Later that year after we got back home, we had SAT testing. You always bring a book in case you finish early so you can have something to do so that you don’t disturb the other children while they are finishing their test.

I was in the hallway reading Robert’s Rules of Order when one of the elders of the church came by. (I was homeschooled and so we were testing at the church through their coverage as a private school.) He looked at the book and said Robert’s Rules of Order, eh? If you know what you’re doing with that, you can cause a question of order for the “Powers that Be” while you go to lunch. I chuckled.

From that day to this, I have never attempted to finish reading Robert’s Rules of Order.

You’re not really a programmer until you sit in the computer labs and listen to someone cuss all day long in a worried mantra rocking back and forth in their chair, trying to figure out why their programs don’t work. Just when you can’t take it anymore and you’re getting ready to stand up and punch the guy in the face, he jumps three feet in the air from a seated position and yells, “YES!!!” Though relieved that he’s no longer breaking your concentration with his expletives, you cock a half-smile for him because you’ve been there before…

The code should be working but it doesn’t. There’s an invisible bug. You can’t find it. You’ve been working on the program for weeks and it seemed to be working fine yesterday but you decided to try it one more time before class and that’s when you notice it. You’re so wore out from tracking down this bug that all you’re going to do when you get back to the dorm is veg out.

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The election is over and the people have chosen. They have chosen to punish the current administration even though that administration wasn’t even on the ballot. We the people have chosen a man that we do not know and do not understand because he feels good, not because we agree with his principles. Now that we have made our bed hard, we must lie in it.

Here are my predictions for the Obama administration should he actually stick to his campaign promises:

1. We’ll have a strong 4th quarter this year because people will be willing to spend money for Christmas because they know there will be a new resident at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

2. Obama will only have one term.

3. We will be in a full-blown recession by midterm elections.

4. Every negative thing that happens in the next four years will be blamed on the Bush administration while Obama will take the credit for anything positive.

5. No gas at the pumps nation-wide due to oil shortages due to non-production thanks to Obama’s plan to tax the oil companies at 50%.

6. The middle class will be impoverished within a year and will become fully dependent on government.

7. There will be an assassination attempt within the first 6 months of Obama’s administration.

8. There will be an attack whether terrorist or by a country’s army within the first 9 months.

Times may very well be changing. It used to be a rule of thumb that college kids didn’t vote, but this year the “Why?” generation came out in force. They asked, “Why do I have to know what a candidate believes? Why should we put another candidate with an ‘R’ behind his name in office? Why will I be thought a racist if I don’t vote for Obama?” (Curiously, that last question is applicable to both whites and blacks. Racists if you vote for him and racists if you vote against him. Ouch!)

We live in a nation of such prosperity that Generation “Why?” has the luxury of attempting text-book solutions to social problems. Despite the repeated failure of communism and because of the freedom in this nation paid for by the lives of so many brave men and women who fought such evils, “Why?”ers have been given a chance to take part in a social experiment. “Why?”ers have been able to try their wings in the world by employing the scientific method via the polls. They chose to elect a man who has promised to bring all the necessary ingredients to the table to perform this social experiment for their direct observation.

“Why?”ers think that fairness is defined by stealing from the rich to give to the poor. They think that Obama is Robin Hood even though they don’t have a clue what Robin Hood was all about. “Why?”ers think that Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor—but that simply is not true. Robin Hood didn’t steal from the so-called “rich.” Robin Hood stole the oppressive taxes that the king levied against his subjects. Thus, Robin Hood gave back to the people back what was rightfully theirs to begin with.

Do you know how “Why?”ers define “The Rich”? They define the rich to be anyone who makes a dollar more a year than they do.

Instead of spewing rhetoric and talking points to woo a pimple-faced member of the opposite sex, instead of being indifferent and apathetic, instead of using election day as an excuse to screw a significant other shirking their patriotic chore, “Why?”ers chose to save the sex for the after party and voted for the donkey Democrat ass of their idolatry, perhaps due in part to celebrity endorsement and coercion, even if those celebrities were not Americans!

But Obama’s win may not be all bad. Perhaps within the next four years the “yute of America” will learn that without competition, individuals have no incentive to produce for themselves. This is doubly true if there is a common resource paid for by the community. Known as the Tragedy of the Commons, the argument states that it is better for the individual to consume as much of the community resource as possible because the benefit is the individual’s while the cost is the community’s.

Take health care for instance. If universal healthcare finally comes to pass under Obama’s administration—a proposition fundamental to the Democrat’s party platform since 1948 yet to be realized—it would behoove the individual to use the health insurance as often as possible. Qui Bono? Who benefits? The only beneficiary here is the bum who cashes in on the insurance. Who foots the bill? The rest of the country. Those who don’t get sick as often as well as those who can afford to pay their way are punished for their good health and hard work.

Under the Obama tax plan, hard work and achievement will be severely punished. His confiscatory tax plan calls for raising taxes on those making more the $250,000. “Why?”ers who have never had to work a day in their life and who don’t know the value of money may think that this is a staggering income, but those in the business world know this isn’t even a drop in the bucket. A restaurant that grosses an average of $5000/day will have $250,000 passed over the counter in just 7 weeks. At this rate, there will be an additional $1.6 million that the restaurant will pull in over the rest of the year for a grand total of $1.29 million a year.

Because under the current tax law small businesses can be formed as S-chapter and Limited Liability Corporations which are passed-through entities filed with the owner’s personal taxes, the owner will have to pay taxes on $300,000 assuming an operating cost of 75%. Obama thinks that owner in our scenario is Mr. Rich Bastard when in fact, he’s the backbone of our country. The rich are the celebrities that helped to get Obama elected. What they don’t tell you is that once you have earned your money, the government can’t tax it again. In other words, those celebrities who have made money the past eight years under the Bush administration already have their money invested. Since they have money, it doesn’t matter to them who pays for what because they still have a nest-egg to draw upon unlike good ol’e Joe Plumber.

But again, there may just be a silver lining in the Obama tax plan’s little black rain cloud: businesses will have to compete for what few hard-earned dollars consumers will have left. Competition always makes for a more robust economy because companies have to figure out how to more efficiently offer their good or service and must be in tune with consumer’s wants and needs. The net result will be that superfluous products will be removed from the market as they will no longer be demanded. The corollary to this is that goods and services produced will have to be of a higher quality in order to win the consumer’s wallet’s vote.

That’s not the only thing that will have to become more competitive. Politicians too will have to compete, specifically on the Hill. Democrats do not have a super-majority on the Hill and so they will have to work to get the additional votes they need from Republicans on key issues rather then sit on their laurels and manufacture laws to suit their party’s agenda and totally shut out the opposition’s voice.

Conservatives too will have to compete. Having lost the White House and a thin majority in Congress, Conservative leadership will be required for Republicans to make their constituents’ voices heard. Each vote and speech will count as Conservatives fight to bring balance to the Democrat’s majority in the Capitol and in the White House. There has been no Conservative leadership in Washington for the last six years. Bush has greatly hurt the cause of Conservatism.

Perhaps Obama will make America hope for change and not just change left in their wallets after being put through his confiscatory tax plan’s wringer. Despite what some may read into the election results, the only mandate that Barack Obama has was to remove someone from power that wasn’t on the ballot—George W. Bush. America is still a financially conservative country. When “Why?”ers that don’t have an inheritance waiting for them built by their parent’s hard work discover that it’s not Mr. Rich Bastard that’s being screwed by the Obama tax plan but rather their own wallets, they will hopefully snap out of their dreamy, delusional social experiment having received education through experience.

“What doesn’t kill us, makes us stronger” someone once wrote. Truly, if people are affected negatively enough under Obama’s administration, leaders will rise up from among us and put us back on the path to success and stability. These are the forces that our Founding Fathers are so highly praised for having built into America. No matter what transpires, no one group of people can have absolute power. The people’s voices can be heard and this country affords individuals the opportunity to see a need and rise to the challenge of meeting that need by fighting for what they believe is right. Ours is a government “of the people, for the people, by the people.” Though the Obama administration may be a painful one, a new generation will get to see first hand what is at stake—their future—and will hopefully value it enough to defend it against anything that threatens it, no matter what the cost.