Stupid is as stupid does

 

And the moron of the year award goes to....

Meet Mr. Louis Caldera. He is the director of the White House Military Office for the Obama adminstration. Apparently, he is also a bumbling moron.

So lets paint the picture, shall we? This dolt is looking to approve a photo opp. to take a new and more exciting photo of air force one in flight. Well, ok, so technically it’s not air force one until the president is actually on the thing, but you get the idea.  They want a pretty new picture of the plane the president flies around in – because, well…. presidential marketing figures so prominently into the economic recovery we so desperately need.

Anyway, folks decide that having the Statue of Liberty and New York in the background would be a good idea. Swell. 

So far so good. If I was going to take a new photo of the presidents airplane, I also might like a shot of the Statue of Liberty in the background.

So lets forget for a minute that we live in the age of Photoshop where we could make it appear that the presidents plane was flying through the gap in Theodore Roosevelt’s front teeth without ever even putting the thing into the air. Oh no… this photo must be the real deal.

I am still ok with it. What I am not ok with is that you don’t keep it a secret. For a week leading up to the fly by, there should have been daily reports on the news that this little air show was going to happen. I have a whole lot of faith in New Yorkers. They made it through 9/11 and I have the utmost confidence that they could have handled a flyby…. IF THEY HAD KNOWN ABOUT IT. What happened instead is that our morons in command decided to do this little flyby extravaganza in the spot where the locals have the greatest reason to freak out over unannounced low flying planes – without providing ANY warning. Really? REALLY?!?!

Can someone truly be that mentally deficient to conclude that this is a good idea? Oh, and I don’t want to hear the security argument. The president was never on the plane and frankly, nobody had to say a thing about what plane was going to be doing the flyby. All they had to tell those New Yorkers was that a promotional photo shoot of an aircraft was going to be taking place and that would have been that. Get it on the news, on the radio, in the papers and New Yorkers would not have batted an eye. 

Given what they did and did not know, I think that those New Yorkers reacted entirely appropriately. It’s those idiots we have put in charge that dropped the ball here.

Some books to get you started

Many of you are here now because you just listened to the podcast I posted today. In that podcast, I promised you a list of books that I thought would really benefit anyone out there with even the slightest interest in understanding where I was coming from in the podcast.

For those of you that have no idea what I am talking about, I posted a podcast in which I discussed what I thought we should be doing as a nation. Sort of a ‘Rebel Manifesto’ if you will. Let me encourage you to take a listen to it.

My real hope is that we can get a dialog going. There are so many things that seem to be off the rails in our current political system and as citizens, we should all be willing to step up and share our thoughts.

First I want to point out what I think is the best place to start. There are dozens of volumes out there on our country and what the founding fathers intended. So much of what we think we know today is actually the result of lots of folks trying to skew the facts one direction or another. As I always like to do, I encourage you to find the facts and decide for yourself.

So where is the best place to start? I believe it is with a book called “The 5000 Year Leap”. No matter where you are right now, this is an ideal book to begin your understanding of our nation and just how amazing our founders were in their ability to create a nation that understands human nature and strikes a balance between our good and not so good inclinations. If you have read tons of books on our history as I have, you will find this book ties a whole lot together for you. If you have never read anything on the subject, “The 5000 Year Leap” is going to be an eye opening foundation for you. Even better, the book references all its source material, so if you disagree with the author at any point, you can dig up the original primary source they drew their conclusions from and form your own opinion.

I only bought this book a little over a week ago, and I have already read through it twice. You owe it to yourself to read this book.

So here is my suggested reading list, I hope it helps:

1. “The 5000 Year Leap“, by W. Cleon Skousen (This is the place to start. It is available in a variety of ways – from the kindle all the way down to an Audio CD)
2. “Common Sense“, by Thomas Paine
3. “The Federalist Papers“, by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay, etc..
4. “Founding Brothers“, by Joseph J. Ellis
5. “FDR’s Folly“, by Jim Powell (This one will amaze you. Despite having been written in 2003-2004, the similarity between the crazy things done in the depression and what is going on now will startle you)
6. “Capitalism and Freedom: Fortieth Anniversary Edition“, by Milton Friedman. (In addition to being a brilliant economist and Nobel prize winner, he is also an amazing author who manages to make the topic of economics interesting. This is a short volume, worth your time)

I would say that is a good place to start your self education. If that list seems a bit too much for you, just read “The 5000 Year Leap”. If you are willing to take on one more, I think I would go with item 6, “Capitalism and Freedom”. Both of those are very quick reads that deliver far more than their size would suggest.

I want to encourage you to discuss the topics covered in todays podcast. If you would rather talk about it in a more forum like format, please feel free to do so on my new forum at my real estate site.