Hallelujah!!! The Recession Is Over!!!

The other day I saw President Obama proclaim the recession is over. While I am glad to hear this news I think someone forgot to tell everyone who doesn’t live in the White House.

I am not a graduate of the Wharton School of Business and in fact I don’t even know how to use QuickBooks. I do have something that the higher levels of government and top notch economic scholars do not have and that is my experience as a small business owner.

I had an experience this week that really opened my eyes as to how bad things really are out there.

I was hired to over haul the computer systems of a telemarketing room. I know you hear the word telemarketing and your ready to place my blog on the national do not read list but I have a secret for you. If you really want to know what the economy is like ask the person who spends eight hours a day talking to people all across America trying to sell them something. If you want a real expert on the economy look no further.

With the permission of the people who owned the business I monitored their sales people while I was working. I knew things were very bad out there but I had no idea just how bad. The statics and numbers you hear on the news just don’t hit home until you hear person after person talk about how they are out of work, have no heath insurance, are about to lose their home, how $200.00 which was once disposable income is now a fortune.

All joking aside I honestly believe every senior White House official and economic adviser to the President should have it be a job requirement to spend a week telemarketing. They may have the raw numbers but those numbers would really hit home if they could hear the voices and the stories of their fellow Americans who have and continue to suffer through what I can only guess is economic recovery since the recession is over.

So yes like many others out there I’m very good at identifying the problems facing us but that doesn’t do a thing to fix them. If you’ll indulge me I do have a few ideas that maybe you’ll agree with.

1) Go back to being a nation of producers instead of consumers. Common sense will tell you that the money to consume comes from the money you earn when you produce.

2) Bring American jobs back to America. It is time to either get the labor unions on board with recovery or break them once and for all. Plain and simple the reason so many of our jobs have gone over seas is the unions have out priced American labor. At some time you would have thought it would occur to them that having 60% of what you once had is better than having 100% of nothing.

3) Make low interest loans to companies that will build factories in America and will place a sticker on their products that reads MADE IN AMERICA BY AN AMERICAN.
They will put people back to work. Radical idea I know.

4) Change our current tax code to a flat 10% that every American pays on what they earn, yes even the rich guys too who pay next to nothing now.

5) Face the fact that if the recession is really over it’s only because we are entering a full scale depression.

These are just the ideas of a guy with no economic education but plenty of experience making a living.

It’s time to face facts and stop sugar coating how bad things really are and have a frank and open discussion about how to fix things and listen to every single idea no matter how radical it may seem.

Five Lessons We Can Learn From Michael Jackson's Death

Watching the news coverage of Michael Jackson’s death reminds me of the hostess party scene from the movie Goodfellas where one of the mafia wives says we always talk about them like they’re saints once their gone.

Michael Jackson is dead and there is nothing that can bring him back but the one “redeeming” thing we can take from his death is the lessons we all can learn from it.

1)Unless you love yourself it doesn’t matter how many other people do. This is a man who hated who he was and what he looked like so much he many actually hold the world record for plastic surgeries. No matter how many people packed into a stadium or lined the streets to see him he never liked what he saw in the mirror.

2)Never buy into your own hype. Adoration is more powerful drug than Heroin. When you receive it to the degree he did it’s easy to believe not only do you deserve it but are entitled to it. After the Thriller album he no place to go but down. Very few artists will ever have a success like Thriller and no one has ever had a second one. Fleetwood Mac never had another Rumors and Peter Frampton never had another Comes Alive. There is nothing wrong with dreaming big but you only set yourself up for intolerable pain when you chase the impossible.

3)No matter if you get them from a Dr. or Dealer DRUGS WILL KILL YOU. He wasn’t the first person become an addict and by no means will he be the last. It’s difficult to perform when you’re so stoned you can’t lift your head off a pillow. If you have a drug problem there are many places to go for help call one now.

4)Keep your sexual appetites to yourself. There is an old saying if one person calls you a horse you can ignore it if enough people say it it’s time to buy a saddle. I don’t care how many public denials he made about the molestation charges, He would deny it with a statement and then prove it with his actions. The only reason he won the criminal trial is the jury hated the accuser’s family worse than they hated what he did. If you suffer from a perversion get help don’t flaunt it.

5)At the end of the day no matter how many people know and appreciate your work you are just a person and are open to the same temptations and downfalls as the rest of us and you can pay the highest price there is for it. Your life.

More Of The Same

I am sitting here reading about another politician who has had an affair. This time it is Senator John Ensign of my home state of Nevada.

Maybe I an uninformed or don’t hold elected officials to the same standard others do but my reaction is so what.

As far as I can tell Sen. Ensign did his job every day, didn’t funnel campaign or state money to her or do anything else even close to illegal. All he did was have sex with a woman who wasn’t his wife and that is nobody’s business except his and Mrs. Ensign.

Does this make him unable or unworthy to carry out the business of the state of Nevada? I don’t see why not.

It is time to realize our elected officials are people just like you and I and susceptible to the same desires and temptations as the rest of us.

I think the Senator did the right thing by keeping this private as long as he did and only came forward to protect himself from the extortion attempt of the husband of the woman he was seeing.

There are some things that are not the business of the people and what an official does at the end of their work day provided it is not illegal is one of them.
This is not a new story. Only the names have changed.

We all remember President Clinton’s involvement Monica Lewinsky. I had no problem with it then or now.

The only thing I feel President Clinton did wrong was lie about it when it became public. He could have saved the country a great deal of time, trouble, and money by coming clean when it became public, just as Senator Ensign did.

When it comes time for the Senator’s re-election I hope the people of Nevada will vote based on the job they feel he has done and not what two consenting adults did on their own time behind a closed door.

Just What Did You Prevent? Nothing.

I have never understood the view of the select few who use violence in the war against abortion.

I just do not see how murder prevents murder. Yes I know all the standard arguments that by killing the doctor you have saved all the lives he or she would have killed. I understand those arguments I just don’t buy them.

I do not want to turn this blog into a debate abortion itself. If it is something you really want to discuss I would rather save that for another entry where it can be given the full consideration it is due. Today I want to talk about killing doctors.

People who kill abortion doctors always say they are following God’s will yet completely ignore the sixth commandment. If you believe in the Ten Commandments how do you pick this one to ignore.

Killing abortion doctors is not going to stop abortions. Abortions are a business just like the removal of kidney stones or any other medical procedure. As long as there is profit to be made doctors will perform abortions. It is as simple as that.

People who kill abortionists give Christians a bad name (and the people who do this always profess to be Christians). I am sure if you were to poll the Christian population 99.9% would say abortion is murder and it should be outlawed. That is their right. I’m sure the same 99.9% would say it is just as big a sin to walk into a church with a gun and kill someone who performs abortions.

People who kill abortionists hide behind the name of Christianity without really knowing any of its core values. The majority of Christians would never even consider such a thing.

If you are that against legal abortion the way to stop it is to have the Supreme Court overturn Roe V. Wade not by bombing buildings and shooting people no matter what they do for a living.

When you take this route you are no better than the terrorists we are fighting around the world right now.

Why Should You Give A Damn About Amanda Knox?

I was at my local coffee shop several times today (it seems to be my home away from home). It is a block away from my home and directly across from UNLV or the University of Nevada Las Vegas. It is always filled with college students.
For the “fun” of it I asked several of them this evening a simple question.

Who is Amanda Knox?

One replied that she thought she was a professional skier and the rest didn’t know.
While this was hardly a scientific sampling of the populous it did raise an interesting question for me. If her own peer group doesn’t know who she is or even why they should who else doesn’t know.

Amanda Knox is the American college student sitting in an Italian prison awaiting trial for the murder of her roommate Meredith Kercher.

Meredith Kercher wasn’t just murdered she was butchered like a farm animal and all the evidence circumstantial and forensic points directly at Amanda Knox. Or does it?

Starting off the crime scene was processed so badly it made the O.J.Simpson evidence collection look good in comparison.

The authorities point to the clasp of the bra the victim was wearing as having the DNA of both Amanda and her boyfriend on it. It is my understanding from someone close to the case that not only was that clasp not found for 40 something days but it was cross contaminated with other DNA samples.

I am not a crime scene investigator by any stretch of the imagination but I can tell you it doesn’t take 40 something days to process one small bedroom and it doesn’t take that that long to find the clasp of a bra. It’s just common sense.

To make matters worse Amanda has become to the Italian media what Casey Anthony is to our own and worse.

Before ever seeing a jury there was a book on her sex life that was released and is a national best seller.

The problem with that book is twofold.

One Amanda had no part in its writing so nothing in it can be verified as true, let alone even in the same neighborhood as true.

Yet the people of Italy think it is true and that brings up the other problem. The prosecutors are claiming Meredith’s murder was a sex game gone wrong. No one can say what that game was or just who was playing it but the game went wrong and that’s why Meredith Kercher was killed.

Now Amanda “the sex crazed killer” is known all over Italy by the name taken off her Myspace page Foxy Knoxy. It is absolutely true by the way she was called that here at home. It was a nickname given to her by friends on her soccer team that describes her style of playing soccer.

There is widespread talk of her Marijuana use and drinking. If you go to Youtube you can find a video of a very drunk Amanda recorded with her friends. You know what this proves? That she is like almost every other college student her age.

I live a block away from a college and there are three college bars within walking distance of my home and they are packed every night. So this doesn’t make her unique.

What fails to be mentioned is how she has been an Honor Roll student all her academic career right into college.

What also fails to be mentioned is how the Italian Police have who many in the know believe to be the real killer in custody yet persist in their prosecution of Amanda.

This week on Point Blank the talk show I co-host we will be introducing you to the real Amanda Knox. We will be presenting a program that is dedicated to you getting to know the girl behind the stories.

Why should you give a damn about Amanda Knox?

Because if you ever take a vacation out of the United States you could be sitting in a foreign prison for over a year waiting to prove your innocence in a system of justice that does not afford you anywhere near the same rights and privileges ours here at home does, and that is the true meaning of being a stranger in a strange land.

Victory Shall Be Mine

Is it just me or does it seem when Seth McFarlene created the show Family Guy he based the character of Stewie on Kim Jong Il.

They are both about the same height. They both love to build weapons of mass destruction, and they both really want to rule the world.

As I woke up today I am seeing on the news about North Korea launching not one but two new missiles just 24 hours after testing a nuclear weapon that was the size of what we used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I think his intentions are pretty clear at this point.

There is a difference between political posturing and repeatedly kicking someone in the balls.

One is just that,posturing and the other shows you are not just willing but very able to harm at will.

Military action needs to be taken now.

It is not lost on me how I sit in the cheap seats knowing if our men and women in uniform are placed in harm’s way yet again I am too old to join them. It’s a battle I personally won’t have to fight. That doesn't change my mind on the need to have our military handle this. It is not a call I make lightly.

I have said it before and I will say it again. North Korea is the single greatest threat to the security of the United States second only to Al Queda.

I know there are inherent problems with fighting North Korea not the least of which how it will change our relations with China.

I’m thinking China may be getting a little sick of North Korea themselves and may even side with the US if it came down to action. I can only hope so.

Here is the fact of the matter. Do we have to wait until the guy nukes Guam before we do something?

He has all the working parts and components of a nuclear weapon that can hit our shores. Let’s do something now before he assembles them and the only choice we have is to evacuate the west coast.

Amercia's New Courtroom

This week I was lucky enough to speak with DNA expert, expert witness, and as he called himself on the radio show I co-host talking head Dr. Lawrence Kobilinsky.

Later in the day I got an email from Dr. Kobilinsky that contained this phrase:

"I think that we need to consider enacting legislation similar to that in the UK which bars media from discussing the details of a live case. Although I believe that it important to educate the public about our criminal justice system, there may be a cost associated with this mode of education. This is an important subject which needs further study. I believe in fairness in the justice system and a person's right to a trial of his peers in a courtroom, and not on an entertainment television show. Such programs have no legal limitations and can be inherently biased against any defendant." Potential jurors can be tainted by what they hear on TV programs. The judge and jury on a criminal trial will be concerned with justice for a defendant and balance in their perspective and will not be concerned about high viewer ratings and competition with other networks in the way that TV anchors are."

The Dr. makes a good point. The media has become America’s new courtroom. More and more the court of public opinion decides people’s guilt months or in some cases years before a defendant sees a jury. Where is this opinion formed? In the media of course.

High profile defendant’s virtually have no chance of encountering a jury that is in not some way biased or at least familiar with the intimate details of a case long before the summons for jury duty is even cut. More important they may have been exposed to and will consider evidence that may not even be allowed at trial due to pretrial motions.

A great example is the case against Casey Anthony. You can’t go fifteen minutes watching cable news without hearing about the murder case, the civil suit, what she had for lunch, or who she slept with before she was arrested. Tonight Nancy Grace is doing a special on all Casey's lovers. Why?

The remedy for this type of exposure used to be a motion for a change of venue. But the days of national cable news have made this moot. It doesn’t matter where you try Casey Anthony because wherever you go they have seen the same coverage as well.

You can even take this one step farther. There are shows like the ones on Court TV that at least try to remain objective. Then you have hosts like Nancy Grace who wish to prosecute a defendant in the media without the benefit of that person being able to offer a defense.

Whatever your opinion of Casey Anthony I promise you more people are going to remember Nancy Grace crucifying “tot mom” more than anything Jose Baez has said regarding her innocence. Just for the fun of it try to remember as many Nancy Grace quotes on this case as you can and then try to remember some Jose Baez quotes. I promise you Nancy will win hands down.

Why should we care if Casey Anthony, Drew Peterson, Melissa Hukaby, or any other high profile Defendant gets a fair trial? Because next week through no fault of your own there could be circumstantial evidence linking you to a murder and the last thing you need is Nancy Grace telling the entire country what a bastard you are. There is no way to defend against that.

Perhaps we would all be better served if high profile media went back to reporting the news instead of trying to create it.