Heat Wave

It has finally gotten hot, warm to D13 but damned hot to the rest of us.  We take for granted what this kind of heat means and how it impacts so many things.  People will die from the heat.  Equipment from automobiles to ice machines will fail at a higher rate.  When America was settled, most chose to live in the North.  They could warm themselves in the winter, but until modern air conditioning came along, cooling oneself was near impossible.  Sadly, we may be returning to those times as environmentalists continue to wage war against every new power plant anyone attempts to build.  And now the EPA may force the closure of many existing coal power plants that cannot meet their new requirements.

Some Second Thoughts

I took note to some of the comments yesterday that some took great offense to the fact that I front-load my arguments and have negative things to say up front about some entities. As a result, I went back and read over my articles of the last several months. I can admit that I have become a bit more combative over the last year. Perhaps that should change. Perhaps not. I will have to ponder it a bit before I decide. But I do want to address a few things that will, I hope, help those of you who take so much offense to my words put things in their proper perspective. Maybe it won’t. I acknowledge that there is a chance I am talking to walls who will see the wrong in other’s statements but never their own.

Entering the “Green Zone”; Leaving Reality

Many months ago I saw the trailers for the Matt Damon film, “Green Zone.” Just seeing the trailers was enough for me to see that it appeared to be an anti-American movie, so I decided that I wasn’t going to go give my hard earned money at the theater to watch it, despite the fact that I thoroughly enjoyed Damon and director Paul Greenglass’s previous Bourne movies. This afternoon, I was flipping through channels and found the movie starting on one of the premium movie channels. I figured if I didn’t have to pay for it, and thus risk giving money to a director who may be trashing America, I might as well give the movie a try. So I watched it. Exactly as I had figured, it was an anti-American movie from start to finish.

Open Mic for Thursday, July 21, 2011

Welcoming back open mic was quite a wise suggestion to me a week or so ago. When we eliminated the open mic we were under the premise that we would have several authors presenting regular articles and that would fill up our days each week. As we have found, getting regular contributions to SUFA isn’t as easy as one might think. Not that I hold any ill will towards those who intended to contribute weekly. Of all people, I know full well how hard it is to find time to write in depth articles with some research and facts. Far too often over the last year, I have been forced to fall back on writing opinion pieces that were long on rant and short on research. When I didn’t have time to research, I resorted to offering what was on my mind. That will continue, although I will continue to attempt to add researched topics whenever I can.

Font Change

I apologize for the font change that happened this morning. I didn’t realize that it would make the font so small. I have adjusted the font size while maintaining the style. For those that were having trouble reading it earlier today, let me know if this works any better. If not, I will try something else.

Don’t Fear Default… Goose and Gander at a National Level

This weekend was a “road trip” weekend for me and my lovely wife. A trip back to my hometown, which also included a detour to Hershey Park so that Mrs. Weapon could experience the wonderful world of chocolate for the first time. What Mecca is to Muslims, Hershey is to 52% of the US population. On the ride north, I listened to a minimal amount of news, instead opting for some music that the USWeapon clan could sing along with on the drive. But I did listen to about an hour of talk radio coverage of the debt ceiling discussions happening in Washington DC. As a result, SUFA gets this article because I am tired of hearing all the bull dookey around the topic.

Texas Tea

As I read the business section of a paper, July 3rd, it struck me as very interesting three of the articles were about oil.  I think our energy policy is as screwed up as our foreign policy, and that’s saying something.  John Stossel has mentioned our million dollar outhouse several times to everyone’s head-shaking laugh, only in America.  We’ve spent millions studying billboards and prostitutes in foreign countries. Some funny stuff, makes Leno’s job easier.  But when you talk about the policy of the United States, it’s billions, not millions that are in the punch-line.  Ex. our foreign policy, the billions we have given away to a world where those nations that like us seem to be the minority.  But wait, there’s even more…  How many billions(trillions?) have we paid to nations hostile or resentful to the US for the privilege of using their oil instead of our own?  Just last week, I read a story about a  Dubai diplomat being robbed in London.  He had withdrawn some spending money to go “shopping”, two million pounds of spending money.  (1)

A Free Market This is Not…

The time has come for us to stop with the constant bashing of the concept of a free market by using the current status of the United States market as an example of its failings. While I will freely admit that the US market is one of the more free markets in the world (#5 according to the study shared the other day), to claim that this is a free market is naive at best and reprehensibly dishonest at worst. The reality is that the inequity in America, the faults of the American markets, and the examples thrown up as “proof” of free-market failure all have a single thing in common…

Open Mic Returns… July 7, 2011

I hadn’t intended on returning the open mic format so quickly. I was thinking in another couple of weeks. However, tonight I didn’t have time to write and there weren’t any articles ready to go from me or the other authors at SUFA, so I figured it was as good a time as any to at least bring the concept back into the picture. While I won’t be adding any topics up front this morning, I will attempt to find time to add some throughout the day on Thursday, unless of course work explodes into madness, which has happened a lot lately. If nothing else, you all get a fresh thread to continue conversations on as the previous one was starting to gather some length.

SUFA Officially Endorses Jack Bauer

I was running through the news this afternoon, just wondering what it was that I was going to write a short article about. Tons of topics available, but most of them were going to take more time than I had available to work on an article. I saw a particular story and chuckled to myself that what I read wasn’t really “news” so much as it was “business as usual.” The article was chronicling the news that, and I know this will stun many of you into wandering the streets and muttering “there’s no place like home”, the nation’s largest teacher’s union has officially endorsed Barack Obama in his bid for President in 2012. First, isn’t it a little early to be endorsing a candidate? And second, does an endorsement actually mean anything anymore?