Tuesday, I am taking a day off of school to go to court with one of my former students. From the time I met him as a 9th grader, I sensed a genuine sensitivity and compassion for people and he was one of the few that wanted something more out of life  than the typical success and money that most students have in their future plans.

Up until 9th grade he had gotten a terrible education in other school systems and he was reading at a 3rd grade level and had the math skills of a 3rd grader at best. He had learned over the years how to find the path of least resistance to get to the next grade, but unfortunately no one was stepping in and saying that “shortcuts” are dead ends.

He had such a pleasant personality and was so liked by his peers that he was voted Senior Class President. At graduation (which he barely pulled off) he gave one of the most inspiring and moving speeches that I had ever heard given by a student at any graduation (I did help him on the development of the speech but it came from his heart!).

After graduation he desperately wanted to go away to college so that he could get out of the home he lived in. It was dirty, unhealthy, and was almost unfit for living. I have seen better looking places in Nepal villages. His mother is not stable and often turns to drugs and his two older brothers are in and out of court and jail. His younger brother was my student last year and he has spent a number of nights at my home, and I already can feel the pain that is in his future apart from a complete change of environment.

William was unable to make it in community college as his math and reading deficiencies that plagued him so, never caught up with his age. His dad died last spring and this only added to the weight that he was carrying.

He has been pulled over on 5 different occasions and every time (often without cause) has been taken to jail. Recently his apartment was raided by at least 8 police cars and there laid Will and his younger brother on the ground. The younger brother was left behind but Will, being over 18 was hauled off with his drug-dealing brother.

I found a lawyer for William (a personal friend) who was going to take half the normal fee and allow William to work off the other half. His mom needed to come up with a few hundred dollars, but bought a flat screen TV and new Cell phone instead. Without a lawyer that wasn’t court appointed, there was no way that anyone was going to be able to sort out the multiple warrants, car impoundments, back bills, and on and on.

We really struggled if we should pay the money, but we have already invested thousands and at some point we knew William needed to see where this was all heading, so as hard as it was, we left this to his family.

And so he spent 4 weeks in jail and when he finally was out on bond (borrowed money by a friend), he managed to get a temp agency to get him a job, but that company as most here in this area ended up letting William go. As of now he has to be back in court for another sentencing and because they “lost” his ID while he was in prison, he has not been able to re-enroll in school or find another job. It doesn’t look good for him.

His mom is not stable and refuses to go with him to prove that he is who he says, so he cannot get a birth certificate to begin the long hard process of starting over with identification.

Two weeks ago, Will and his younger brother went to church with me and they then spent the night. We went shopping and all Will asked for were things like toilet paper, deodorant, toothpaste and his favorite cereal and milk!

Today he called and said that his cousin, who he was living with, has moved into his girlfriend’s parent’s home and so now Will is “officially” homeless. No ID. No Money. No home. No family. He is spending the night at a “friend’s” that he met this summer at a local park basketball court!

Tomorrow I will pick up the two brothers and bring them here to spend the night and I will go to court with Will Tuesday morning and try and speak on his behalf and convince the judge that Will is someone that needs a real chance in life to do something with all of this pent up compassion and hope. Whether I like it or not, I simply cannot get the words of Jesus out of my head, “When I was hungry did you feed me, and when I was thirsty did you give me something to drink, and when I was in jail did you visit me?”

I cannot tell you the numbers of students that I spend time with that are hurting just like William and his younger brother. Teenage pregnancy is a common site in our hallways. Parental abuse is something that kids take in stride. Fathers are nowhere to be seen and on parent teacher night this last week I was lucky to have 5 out of 110 show up.

I go to great lengths to get the parents to come to the school when I “spot” a child that I believe needs special attention (Special Services, formally called Special Education), but the parents very rarely show up to sign for the testing. If they don’t sign then my hands are tied.

My first hour class has 33 students and the average tardy and absence rate is 18 a day. That is due to the fact that most don’t have parents that are willing to get up in the morning and kids are getting on 2, 3 or 4 buses, leaving home at 6am.

The majority of my 9th grade students are doing multiplication on their hands and now the state of Michigan has required 4 years of math, ending with Advanced Algebra as a state requirement for graduation! Did they ask me what I thought about such a bold move in midstream? This year’s ninth graders are no better prepared than they were two years ago before the law changed!

The crisis that we are currently facing in our country when it comes to unemployment and recession is just the tip of the iceberg. There isn’t a night that I leave school where I don’t ache for where I see us going in this country. It is going to take a massive amount of love and attention and involvement in the lives of millions of kids to bring about the change that we need- not a check home in the mail so that another iPhone can be purchased. Why do we even think it remotely possible that we can legislate ourselves through this mess.

Values of the past are disappearing, and are being replaced by the voice of a few loud minorities while millions are neglected and unspoken for. Absolutes are now considered to be intolerances. Truth is what we say we want it to be. The original foundation, on which the constitution was built, is quickly crumbling. Truth is being replaced by “I think” and the concept of family is in great need of repair and revival.

And this I see firsthand on a daily basis; racism appears to not be getting better as the media would like us to think so. In fact, from where I sit it is worse now, than when I was growing up in the 50’s and 60’s. The election sent a very dangerous message that we have come a long way; but have we really? William sat in my living room two weeks ago and when he saw one of Obama’s campaign advisors he yelled out, “That man is a crook! Obama has surrounded himself with crooks and ‘we’ blacks are all being told that if we don’t vote for Obama, we aren’t a “loyal brother”.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not adding that quote so that I can get a dig in on Obama. As I said in a previous post, Obama is on my prayer list and I sincerely hope that he can make a difference, but the fact is that he can try all day, every day, but it will always come back to US.  William’s words show you that William is a thinker and he doesn’t want to just be “given” a way out; he wants to find a way out and when he does, he wants to help others. As bad as he would like to pursue a dream and be a man that makes a difference he has a lot of baggage to carry. We desperately need changes of the heart so much more than we need the stroke of a president’s pen or the vote of leaders in Congress.

All the time, I have students that ask, “Can I come live with you. I will behave and do all of my homework.” And I just want to break down and cry, because they really are hoping that the answer might be yes. The pain is real and the needs are great and it is going to take a whole lot more then legislation to pull our country together and to provide a world where love and compassion, forgiveness and sacrifice, are the operative words, or should I say action. The question is not whether Obama is about change or not. The question is- are we about change for others, or are we about change for ourselves.

I will let you know how things go Tuesday night. Say a pray for William if that is ok to ask for.

After spending over two hours on the phone with various Verizon reps that really had no business representing the company, I was finally connected with a “nice” young man that said, “Let’s just send you a new DVR- how would that be?” I said, “Sure, why not if that will fix the problem of having no picture!” This person was some kind of “escalations” manager and I think it was his job to make the customer happy in less than 45 seconds. He concluded by asking me if I was happy with the resolution and then there was just one more “transfer” involved and I could finally get off the phone.

The rep that I finally was transferred to was responsible for setting up a “swap” and he needed some information from the owner of the account. One of the items that he needed was the DVR box ID number and the reason for the return. When I gave him the reason, he said, “I can fix that problem for you right now. You don’t need a new box!”

He quickly took me into the on-screen menu and showed me how to locate the information that we needed. The TV needed to be receiving a signal that was different than what the boxes were defaulted at.  All that we had to do was change the output from the DVR box from 1080p (the default), to 480i. And what do you know? We have had a picture! The box was fine and all was well.

I shouldn’t really say all was “well”, as my grandson must have asked his dad 20 times, “When is grandpa going to play with me?”

I thanked him and then I said to him. “If I were in your job, I would write a memo and give it to your supervisor and I would also make a copy and see that it found its way to someone higher up in the chain of command.” I repeated to him the suggestion and said, I would be giving you a promotion for taking that kind of initiative. I said, “What you have just done, is find a way to get the customer up and running without the company having to pay for shipping of a product two ways.” I also told him that if I had talked to him first instead of last, I could have saved two hours of my precious time and spent it with Carter, and Verizon could have saved two hours as well.

I then told him that he single-handedly made me feel like I would work on trying to stay “loyal” and positive about my Verizon experience and that I felt that his boss needed to understand that.

How many people do you think have been sent a DVR that is defaulted to one signal while the TV is set to receive another? Hundreds? Thousands?

How much would it have cost Verizon to ship out a new DVR?, and would the original DVR that was returned have to go through testing because it was returned as “defective”? How much time was wasted on the phone? How many transfers? How many people were involved in what was just a simple flip of a button?? When I started adding up the shipping costs along with the man hours involved in this transaction, I concluded that it would have cost Verizon at least $50, if not more. And even as it was, because of the time involved, there was still a considerable loss to the company.

And do you know why my son-in-law was sent a “free” DVR in the first place? Because when he signed up for Verizon, he was “pulled” into the deal with an offer for a “free 27 inch flat screen TV, but no one ever calculated the number of TV’s that would be required for all of those new customers that got “pulled”: into the deal!.

After waiting 6 months and making several phone calls, my son-in-law finally got ticked off enough to call and “demand” that his TV be sent, or give him something else for the inconvenience and failure to honor the Verizon promise.

I could easily share dozens of these kinds of stories and I bet you could also do the same. Is it any wonder that we are in trouble with the economy here and world-wide?

And my big question is this; did that rep, that helped me out at the end, follow through with my suggestion, or was he just one more person that worked for Verizon that was a part of the problem- NO ONE AT THE LOWER LEVELS OF BUSINESS CARES ENOUGH ABOUT THE WELFARE OF THE COMPANY’S FUTURE TO SHOW SOME PASSION AND HELP MAKE THE COMPANY BETTER.

And when you think about it, who really is the most important person in many of these kind of scenarios that are a frequent occurrence in these big corporations? It is the “little” guy at the bottom that actually talks to the customer. The rep that I spoke with at the end all but saved any respect that I had for Verizon.

I have beat my head against the wall on a number of occasions when I realize how much I could do to help a certain company change this kind of epidemic that exists in large corporations today, but everyone at the top is so busy trying to make more money that they forget who they are making it from and who it is that actually talks to those people that hand over their hard earned money.

I knew when I hung up the phone, that the most valuable resource that Verizon had in that entire fiasco, was probably not going to say a word. He cared about me, but that was as far as he was willing to go. HE WASN’T PASSIONATE ABOUT THE CORPORATION. AND I BET YOU ANYTHING THAT THE COMPANY WAS PASSIONATE ABOUT HIM EITHER.

I have had a dream for 2 years now to help a company change this kind of thing. It would take just one company that was willing to step out and make the big paradigm shift; produce PASSION in the people that meet with and talk to the customer. Two things: PASSION for the customer and PASSION for the corporation.

And then  each and every department that would have any influence on how that product was received by the customer would begin to Passionately work together. Together they would passionately stand behind each and every product that the company was placing into the hands that were outstretched by the customer . The customer would feel the passion. IT IS CONTAGIOUS!

HELLO!!! The old model isn’t working. Technology, speed, shortened phone times, outsourcing, twittering, utubing, ireporting, facebooking, blogging, and all of the gimmicks are never a substitute for a group of employees that are driven by two PASSIONS; one for the corporation and one for the customer. They are passionate and excited and not focusing on their own departments success. Rather they are focusing on what the face of a smiling customer actually looks like. That is what makes them love their company and that is what drives them to be passionate about all that they do. What a great feeling it is to work for a company that really does care about the feelings and needs of each and every customer.

And how do they feel if their passion produces an idea that will make the customer more excited to buy from their company? They will take it to their boss and he will not share it as if it was his own, he will say, “Look at the passion that Rosy has for our customers!! This makes us feel good about who we are and why we are in business!” And you don’t think that stock prices will soar?

First one to try it will be pleasantly surprized that if you are passionate for the customer they will be passionate about the company and I cannot think of a better combination for growth.

Do you have a story like this that you could share? I would love to hear it.

It is finished, but the work has just begun. This man has been given the biggest plateful that I think any president has ever been handed. He needs our prayers. We had record numbers of voters and now we need record numbers of people to dig in and make this administration successful.

I am worried, because I believe Obama has every intention of working long hours, but will all those that voted for him be willing to do the same. A president is only one man. At the end of the day, John Kennedy was right, “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”

Many of us are familiar with the name Billy Graham. Republicans and Democrats, Independents and Non-Voters have one thing in common when it comes to this man. He will not tell us which presidential candidate he is voting for.

No person, over the past 50 years has had the invitations to the White House that he has had. When Bill Clinton had his “moral failure” while in office, who did he call in for counsel? Billy Graham. When Presidents were agonizing over a decision to “go to war” or engage in activity that would cause great human anguish and pain, who did they bring in to pray? Billy Graham. When no American diplomat could gain access to the ears of the North Korean leadership, who was asked by our president to hand-carry a letter into that communist country? Billy Graham. Who is the one person, that every time Larry King has him on his show, causes Larry to really ponder the meaning of his life?  I could go on and on.

Who has spoken to more people around the world than any other leader? Who has broken attendance records in many of the United State’s most spectacular sports centers?

Who, do you know that has this kind of reputation and yet will not share a recommendation on who to vote for in a presidential election?

Billy Graham.

I read this quote, just a few days after  Billy Graham’s 90^th birthday. He soon will no longer be with us and the long line of presidents that have turned to him from the time of Eisenhower to George W Bush will not have his unshaken integrity and moral compass to give them help in their hour of need.

Billy Graham began giving guidance at the White House when Dwight D. Eisenhower was President and the following are his words:

“I don’t believe it’s my role as an evangelist to get involved in partisan politics or political issues,” he told Reader’s Digest, “but to try to be a spiritual and moral influence on those in leadership. The best advice I can give to any leader, or anyone, for that matter, is to seek God’s wisdom in difficult decisions. People in leadership are often very lonely and under great stress. They need to know that God cares for them.” http://www.rd.com/your-america-inspiring-people-and-stories/billy-graham-counsel-to-leaders/article32183.html

We have run the course of another election and this may be the one, where Billy Graham may not be called to the White House.  Because of his age he may not live much longer. Because of his frailty he may not be able to make the trip. Or we may simply have “changed” and the new leadership will not turn to find his support. Only the days ahead will tell, but on the night of an election that could change the face of our great nation forever the words of Billy Graham have not changed. He said:

“To get nations back on their feet, we must first get down on our knees.”

It is now too late to remind people that the ballot they cast will be our “living will” left to our children and grandchildren, because for many of us they will have to live with the choice that we have made. “What’s done is done.”

But one thing is certainly true; it is never too late to take the words of one of the world’s most respected and influential leaders, who never used his influence to tell anyone how they should vote, and that one thing is to apply those very words to each of us individually and get down on our knees. We are indeed headed into some very turbulent times. There are many unknowns and that can be said of the circumstances and the leader, whoever he is. But just maybe there is one person that does know.

Billy Graham never wavered. He was a man of incredible integrity and he understood that you cannot change a nation unless each individual has a change in his heart. That is the one thing that no leader, regardless of his promises, his charm, his eloquence, and the undeniable contrast of the last “bad eight years”, is able to bring about.

The similarities of what I see in a classroom of 9^th graders and what I see in Iraq, Iran, North Korea, China, and our own adult country, are amazingly similar; it all starts in the same place- the heart. The hallways of a high school are a glimpse into the nations. I am unable to “legislate kindness and concern” in the classroom where there are only 30 students and they all have my attention. Do we really think that a leader can convince a nation of 300,000,000 or a world of 6,500,000,000 people to just get along?

Regardless of the outcome of tonight’s election, there is one thing that I can be sure of; while the parties are roaring, and the millions of dollars are being spent, there will be at least one person on his knees.

That gets my final vote.

At a glance it appears that Intel is going to “run away” with the game’s winning football and unfortunately that was the only ball!

Does this mean that there will be no more Saturday pickup games?

And Nvidia; what has happened to their stock? Have they gone from “king of the hill” to “king of the landfill hill”?

Are there any predictions out there on what is going to drive the competition in CPU technology for all of us “enthusiasts”? And what is in the cards for Nvidia? Who is going to, either push them, or replace them?

I know that there has been at least one person on our forum that never “liked” Nvidia and it appears that his gut feelings are showing up on Wall Street, and will soon show up in computers. Or should I say not show up.

And one other question that I have been giving considerable thought to- what is going to happen to all of these Intel motherboards with the old 775 sockets? If the i7 is what it appears to be, except for those with very high end machines that are able to “hang” for another couple of years and get the job done, many are going to say, “Time for a new machine.”

I wonder if anyone has given a thought to a good program that could distribute all of these 775 motherboard computers into the hands of those in underdeveloped countries, where just having a word processor would be a delight! Maybe we at RS could come up with a program to collect and distribute quality “enthusiast’s” cast offs!

I for one have become so consumed with the latest and greatest, that when I stopped and took some personal inventory today, I realized that I had not been nearly as concerned about the “upgrade” of those that would treat my cast offs, like I would treat the latest and greatest technology. In fact, there really isn’t a comparison.

Literally, kids that live high in the Himalayas receive a pencil with the same excitement that I get when a GTX 280 shows up on my front porch!

Today the two hopes that kept me thinking “forward” were #1 our folding team, and #2-that we always get to learn from what we have gone though and use it for something good; and often even better things happened because we traveled the road that we did.

I am very proud to be a member of a website that has so many members that are using their technology on a daily basis, with the poor and underprivileged factored into their computer building strategy. Thanks to each of you.

This is Rampantspeculation and your views are welcome here. Please feel free to give an opposing opinion or idea. The views in this blog and any posts past, present or future, are nothing more than ideas that might provoke thought. There is nothing wrong with being challenged to think. When we stop thinking that is when I get scared! Don’t forget to vote and I hope it is a thoughtful one.

 

Today I listened to the wisdom of an older leader, Eagleburger, and he came right out and said that he was scared for the future of our nation. He has nothing to lose or gain by such a statement. He has run his course and he is old. But he is wise and insightful use of the word, “scared” shook me.

He mentioned the fact that Obama and McCain publically agreed to take the same “high road” regarding US matching funds and yet Obama broke his promise and has gone on to spend nearly ONE BILLION dollars. Eagleburger said that he was amazed that the press had NOTHING to say about this. Imagine if McCain, the rich white politician had done the same and imagine if he had outspent Obama in the way that Obama has outspent him. What would America think? The headlines would read, ”Rich White Man Buys the Presidency”.

Biden has been hidden. Obama’s wife, after saying that for the first time in her life she feels like an American; she too has been hidden. Little is coming from either one of them. Obama swore that he was not going to go with the established leaders from inside the “beltway”, yet he chose Biden, with his 36 years of extremely liberal years in the Senate, but no one questions that decision. He had to pick someone with experience, so as to provide some experience to his ticket and give people some peace of mind that there would be someone by Obama’s side that could steer him in the right direction when under pressure. McCain “does” what Obama only “said” and he is accused of selecting a person that hasn’t enough experience.

Obama voted on a number of occasions while in the Illinois Senate, that babies that were aborted and yet still lived should be put to death! How many people really know his track record and what he stands for? He made the statement that if his daughters were to “make a mistake; I don’t want to punish them with a baby.” I am amazed that such words have not drawn more attention. Is that really how he views a teenager’s poor judgment; that the baby is a form of punishment?

Dr. James Dobson held back on any endorsement of a candidate this time as he struggled with some of the positions that McCain was taking, but as this all draws to a close and more and more of Obama’s views and ideologies come to the surface, he felt that he no longer had a choice to sit on the sideline and just encourage people to vote. In short, he too is “scared” about the direction that our nation is heading.

I believe that what Dobson is so troubled about is that Obama is so far to the left and so liberal when it comes to issues that go beyond just the sanctity of life, but family values, marriage, and education, - that he will hold within his power the ability to appoint 2 and maybe as many as 4 young Supreme Court Justices, that will not only interpret the law, but will possibly create legislation for the next 40 to 50 years. And with a very large majority in the Senate and House, his chances of getting what he wants are very high.

The Catholic Church has just now begun to speak out regarding their concerns and my question is why has everyone waited so long? Why has it been so hard to get answers to questions? Why when McCain asks is he being accused of attacking? Why is the media over 65% supportive of Obama in their reporting and only 35% positive on their McCain stories? What is happening here? I always told my ball players on the floor that if they are good, people will see it in their game. I told them that they don’t have to talk about how good they are, they just need to play how good they are!

Are we really that desperate to have a strong economy that we will sacrifice things that many hold very dear to their hearts? And with what little we know about Obama, what is the rational that he is able to pull together our economy? Hating Bush doesn’t make Obama a better president.

Because the economy went south under Bush, doesn’t mean that Obama has the goods. That argument is used by my students all the time in the classroom when they get caught and yell out, “What about Johnny; he was talking too!” Bush becomes the one to point to so that the weaknesses of the one running for president are never looked at closely until it is too late.

In all seriousness, what did Bush inherit when he took over the presidency? The planes that flew into the world trade center were part of a plan developed during the Clinton years. Did the economy under Bush rebound in a most amazing way considering what our country went through? Only in the past months with the election looming on the horizon did people begin to squirm. It almost appeared that the more obvious it looked that Obama would win, the worse the economy got. If he has the answers and the polls all say that he is going to win, then why not some form of recovery within our economy?

We don’t know; that’s why. Today on Meet the Press, Fred Thompson was asked some questions and the number one concern that he pointed to is that Obama has not allowed anyone to get to know him. This frightens him and it frightens me. I have seen too many eloquent speakers lead people down a road to know-where and what if it is happening again?

It isn’t frightening who Obama is. It is frightening how much support he has rallied, how much money he has raised, how enamored people have become with him. What scares me is not Obama; he is just one man- it is the number of people that are voting with such strong conviction about a person they don’t know, who has very little experience, and who has a reputation for hanging around with the wrong crowd. Distancing yourself from the ones you once associated with doesn’t really mean anything, but it is what is working for him, unbelievably well.

It is frightening that it is “expected” that the majority of the black population is going to vote for him. With the media, it is a given and it is treated as if that is “normal” and “ok”. It would not be ok for a white person to say, “We expect” all of the whites to vote for the white and then move on to the next news story. What is happening to us?

I have said it before and I will say it again. Obama isn’t a person that I dislike. I have many friends that have different views then I do and some of them are right here on Rampantspeculation.com. I respect their position and I can see that they are thinking and finding reason for their decisions, but that is not the norm in this election.

 I don’t know enough about Obama to make much of a judgment on his ability to lead. I believe that you can have a person in office that has strong personal views that many might disagree with but he is able to separate his personal views from what is right for the country and does the right thing by the office, but I don’t know if Obama is that kind of man.

 I am entitled to disagree with him on issues that I do know about, such as the abortion issue and that shouldn’t bother anyone. We all have views and are entitled to share them, contrary to what some people, like Bill Maher have to say about those that allow “faith” to guide their positions.   But I do not know enough about Obama and whether or not he is able to make the separation when the time comes.

Will his personal experience and views cloud his judgment once in the oval office? I do not know. And many people that are “following” Obama don’t know either, and that is what really scares me. And how many people are expecting “Obama the President” to take care of things that they should be taking care of themselves? That scares me.

There is a great difference between the great depression and the world we live in today. Most worked through the great depression and came out the other side stronger and better for what they suffered and went through. Today many are waiting for a “messiah” to take them through it.

I thought the burden that was placed on President Bush’s shoulders was overwhelming. I don’t think we have seen anything yet. And that scares me too.

Rick Warren asked Obama, “At what point does a baby get human rights, in your view?” Obama said, “…Answering that question with specificity, you know, is, uh, is, above my pay grade.”

But then, not long after that answer, he announces that the “FIRST thing I’d do as president” would be to sign the “Freedom of Choice Act.” This would overturn nearly every local, state, and federal anti-abortion law passed the in the last 40 years. It is so broadly written that doctors, that have in the past been able to not have to perform certain “ethical” procedures due to their own consciences, will be forced to do so. How will that make a doctor feel when it comes to their CHOICE!

Comments are welcome. I might not always be right, but tonight, 4 days before the election, I am scared. Please could someone comfort me!

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/Polls.aspx?id=309635713550536

As I have said before, Obama may be an outstanding person with many positive ideas and a burden to help our country, but I keep searching for answers to important questions and they are hard to find. We have had too many leaders in the White House that, after sitting behind that desk, go on to show us that we didn’t know him as well as we thought. Nixon and Bush are two examples. Clinton was another example that showed the entire country that you cannot separate who you are from what you do. It is just too difficult!

Here in Detroit, the mayor (He was very close to being a major player in the Democrat Party) had all kinds of unknowns swirling about him during his second bid for re-election and it didn’t matter. He was re-elected and is now in prison. People did not really know who he was. The integrity was not there.

Someone may have great integrity, but it takes time to see it.  It is something that has to be “seen” over time, versus being “told” that it is there (especially by the media) and to believe it.

For many, McCain is the “lesser of two evils”, (I personally don’t care for the word evil in that cliché but you understand my meaning) but I at least feel like I know him apart from who the media says he is. He is not my favorite choice out of the many that were in the primaries.

I was listening to a very interesting commentary on the radio yesterday and the point was made that if we start to slowly pull out our military from Iraq, we are ensuring that those that are left behind, waiting to come home next, are much more likely to be killed. He said that there were only two options. #1 Increase the size of our presence and get it done right or #2 Get them all out at once. He suggested that to pull them out slowly, leaves those left behind in a very “unprotected” environment.

The above link was very accurate in the last election. It may be closer than we think.