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The following is just a quick review of some interesting articles, photos, videos…heck, whatever…that I came across during the past week. Do what you want with it

Edgley Optica OA7-300

One of the more interesting aircraft I have seen, the Optica was designed to be an alternative to helicopters for police forces, observation, and traffic control. The cost of maintaining a rotary aircraft like a copter are astronomical (tons of very expensive moving parts) compared to a fixed wing airplane. The Optica was a low-speed design with a high visibility cockpit. The cowled “pusher” propeller increased thrust while also quieting the overall noise of the craft.

Unfortunately, the Edgley Optica never made it mainstream. The manufacturing plant was lost due to fire (suspected arson by a former employee) in 1987. Only 25 exist today.

Burn Notice on USA Network

I don’t really watch much on television, but this series on USA caught my eye last year. Burn Notice is the story of a spy who is “let go,” only spies don’t have the fortune of having a declassified resume to get their next job.

Anyway, last night’s episode showed Michael Shanks as Victor, Michael’s adversary (his third time in the series). I am a big Michael Shanks fan from Stargate: SG-1 where he played the role of Dr. Daniel Jackson. In Burn Notice he gets to show off his tough, mean side. Good stuff.

Glenn Beck’s visual representation of the insane amount of money our government has been creating since the mid-1970’s. Spread it around – everyone needs to see what has happened in just the last month.

Received this short story in an email the other day (from my mother, no less) and thought it was pretty good. People get so caught up in making unearned money that they lose sight of the truth. Remember – the only way to true wealth is honesty and hard work.

Once upon a time a man appeared in a village and announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10 each.

The villagers, seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest and started catching them.

The man bought thousands at $10 and, as supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their effort. He next announced that he would now buy monkeys at $20 each. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again.

Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms. The offer increased to $25 each and the supply of monkeys became so scarce it was an effort to even find a monkey, let alone catch it!

The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at $50 each! However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would buy on his behalf. In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers: “Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has already collected. I will sell them to you at $35 and when the man returns from the city, you can sell them to him for $50 each.”

The villagers rounded up all their savings and bought all the monkeys for 700 billion dollars.

They never saw the man or his assistant again, only lots and lots of monkeys!

Last night President Obama delivered his first State of the Union address to Congress. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal provided the minority party’s direct response after Mr. Obama concluded.

Jindal described several of the incredibly wasteful expenses included in the recently passed “stimulus” package. $300 million for new government cars (at least the big three auto makers will have a few sales this year), $8 billion for the development of high speed rail from Las Vegas to Disneyland (congrats to Senator Harry Reid for the huge piece of pork), and $140 million to monitor volcanic activity. Jindal is right – Congress “should be monitoring the eruption of wasteful spending.” The Democrats spending spree is irresponsible and only stimulates the growth of government, not of its citizens.

The government must cut waste, control energy expenses (which includes increasing renewable energy, drilling for more oil, and more nuclear power plants), allow for private universal health care (not government run, but rather patient managed), and a huge focus on bettering the education of our children.

Congress hardly read the massive $800 billion stimulus bill and did not offer the opportunity to the American people to review the package and provide their opinions.

The way to strengthening of our country is to decrease spending, empower small business owners, grow our economy, and create new jobs. It is not to grow government as the Democrats would have us believe. “Don’t let anyone tell you America’s best days are behind us.”

Bob Vander Plaats

Already the 2010 gubernatorial campaign in Iowa is heating up. Chet Culver, the Democratic incumbent, is up against Republicans Bob Vander Plaats and Bill Northey (along with several other potential candidates).

It seems we already have a defining issue for the campaigns – the proposed Gas Tax increase. Both Vander Plaats and Culver oppose the idea, while a few other Republicans support it. The increase is designed to ease the financial shortcomings of the state. The current legislature does not want to erase any existing services, but income has dropped. “Where to get the money?” they asked.

How can this be considered acceptable? If I, as an individual citizen, lost a portion of my income would it be deemed appropriate to demand that my lifestyle not be affected? No, I would be expected to cut my expenses – I couldn’t just require others to give me more money.

Iowa needs to realize the need to cut expenses. Over the past few years this state’s government has increased under Chet Culver’s leadership. It is time to scale back and remove the unused, poorly implemented, or ineffective programs that are dragging us into debt. Rather than grab more money from the citizens to make up for poor planning Iowa needs to find a way to do with what it currently has.

Will it be hard? Probably. But no one should be forced to make up for someone’s errors – especially when that someone is the government.

Your Thoughts, Please!

Please let me know what you think! Write your thoughts, opinions, or points in this articles Comments. I appreciate everyone’s responses!

President Barack Obama has began breaking his campaign promises almost immediately and continues to do so today.

During Barack Obama’s campaign he promised a 5 day waiting period after Congress approves a law before signing or vetoing it. This so-called “sunlight before signing” period was to ensure the citizens had plenty of time to review the legislation and provide their input to the White House.

Obama’s own campaign website stated “Too often bills are rushed through Congress and to the president before the public has the opportunity to review them. As president, Obama will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days.”

Promise: Broken

Congress sent the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to President Obama about a week ago, and less than three hours later it was signed into law. If I do my math correctly (and by that I mean use my calculator properly) he missed his 5 day promise by about 117 hours. Oops.

Heck, he passed the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act only two days after receiving it. And that was in his first week as President.

Obama promised all these wonderful changes to be made if he were elected. He promised to include the citizens, to attempt to truly be a leader of the people. Many on the Right saw this as posturing for votes, but obviously many believed him. Unfortunately, he has already starting proving his inability to keep a simple promise from disrupting his liberal agenda.

This is a man who will stop at nothing to have his way. How about Bipartisanship? Nope – no need for that in the White House of the 44th President. Take a look at the current Economic Stimulus Package. The only bipartisanship in the package right now is the 7 House Democrats who voted alongside Republicans against the bill. When confronted with this fact the administration ignored it and spouted some completely inane numbers stating “3.5 million jobs that we look forward to saving or creating.”

Hey Obama! How about listening to the people and providing us with a response?! No? Oh well, you’ll be out in 4 years anyway.