And He's Done What?

So it's been a few years since Obama has been the failing leader of this country, and what has he done? In my opinion....nothing. He's spent trillions, acts smug and arrogent as usual, and still hasn't fulfilled one promise except spend our money to make the rich even richer. I thought Bush was bad for the tax cuts the rich received, but Obama just gives them money to "keep them in business and provide jobs."

Instead of focusing on a new world order he hopes to be in charge of, and trying to improve on his horrible public speaking skills (I've never seen someone as bad as him at speaking publicly), maybe he should improve our country and focus on our needs. His healthcare bill is pathetic if not completely a waste as healthcare companies are still confused as to how to bill customers. Someone, please, tell me what good he has done. If you can tell me something good he personally (not the senate, not congress, but Obama himself) then let me know because he hasn't done a damn thing at all.

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Forwarded Letter to Obama

I received this e-mail yesterday from my wife. Even if this letter isn't real it's completely true and I agree with it. If it is true, this old man rules!

"This venerable and much honored WW II vet is well known in Hawaii

for his seventy-plus years of service to patriotic organizations and causes all over the country. A humble man without a political bone in his body, he has never spoken out before about a government official, until now. He dictated this letter to a friend, signed it and mailed it to the president.

Dear President Obama,

My name is Harold Estes, approaching 95 on December 13 of this year. People meeting me for the first time don't believe my age because I remain wrinkle free and pretty much mentally alert.

I enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1934 and served proudly before, during and after WW II retiring as a Master Chief Bos'n Mate. Now I live in a "rest home" located on the western end of Pearl Harbor , allowing me to keep alive the memories of 23 years of service to my country.

One of the benefits of my age, perhaps the only one, is to speak my mind, blunt and direct even to the head man.

So here goes.

I am amazed, angry and determined not to see my country die before I do, but you seem hell bent not to grant me that wish.

I can't figure out what country you are the president of.

You fly around the world telling our friends and enemies despicable lies like:

" We're no longer a Christian nation"
" America is arrogant" - (Your wife even
announced to the world," America is mean-
spirited. " Please tell her to try preaching
that nonsense to 23 generations of our
war dead buried all over the globe who
died for no other reason than to free a
whole lot of strangers from tyranny and
hopelessness.)

I'd say shame on the both of you, but I don't think you like America, nor do I see an ounce of gratefulness in anything you do, for the obvious gifts this country has given you. To be without shame or gratefulness is a dangerous thing for a man sitting in the White House.

After 9/11 you said," America hasn't lived up to her ideals."

Which ones did you mean? Was it the notion of personal liberty that 11,000 farmers and shopkeepers died for to win independence from the British? Or maybe the ideal that no man should be a slave to another man, that 500,000 men died for in the Civil War? I hope you didn't mean the ideal 470,000 fathers, brothers, husbands, and a lot of fellas I knew personally died for in WWII, because we felt real strongly about not letting any nation push us around, because we stand for freedom.

I don't think you mean the ideal that says equality is better than discrimination. You know the one that a whole lot of white people understood when they helped to get you elected.

Take a little advice from a very old geezer, young man.

Shape up and start acting like an American. If you don't, I'll do what I can to see you get shipped out of that fancy rental on Pennsylvania Avenue . You were elected to lead not to bow, apologize and kiss the hands of murderers and corrupt leaders who still treat their people like slaves.

And just who do you think you are telling the American people not to jump to conclusions and condemn that Muslim major who killed 13 of his fellow soldiers and wounded dozens more. You mean you don't want us to do what you did when that white cop used force to subdue that black college professor in Massachusetts , who was putting up a fight? You don't mind offending the police calling them stupid but you don't want us to offend Muslim fanatics by calling them what they are, terrorists.

One more thing. I realize you never served in the military and never had to defend your country with your life, but you're the Commander-in-Chief now, son. Do your job. When your battle-hardened field General asks you for 40,000 more troops to complete the mission, give them to him. But if you're not in this fight to win, then get out. The life of one American soldier is not worth the best political strategy you're thinking of.

You could be our greatest president because you face the greatest challenge ever presented to any president.

You're not going to restore American greatness by bringing back our bloated economy. That's not our greatest threat. Losing the heart and soul of who we are as Americans is our big fight now.

And I sure as hell don't want to think my president is the enemy in this final battle...

Sincerely,

Harold B. Estes"

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Health Care Reform is Supposed to be Better?

I agree that all citizens in the United States should have health care; the health care system has spun too far out of control. Premiums are too high, health care companies make too much money, and companies are dropping health care to save money. So what's the solution?

Well, President Osama (I mean....Obama) came out and said he would reform health care so everyone would have it! Yay right? It only took him a year longer to get things passed then he promised, and now that the reform bill has passed everything will be spiffy right? Wrong. Although more Americans will have health care and I am totally supportive of that, and the national debt will be $24 million dollars down, according to a report on Yahoo the government was planning on cutting funds to Medicare by 15%. Wow! Medicare (for those of you who are oblivious) is for elderly people that need further help with medical bills. In fact, according to the same report on Yahoo, the majority of funds hospitals are able to bring in are due to Medicare and the growing number of those that are older going to the hospital on a consistent basis.

How is this bad? The government will be saving the country money right? Everyone will have health care right? Well yes and yes. However if you haven't seen the problem yet let me elaborate. If Medicare funds are cut by 15% Medicare won't be able to cover as many costs as they have in the past (which is 100% of costs in many situations). Therefore the elderly will not be able to pay for everything they are in need of, causing the hospitals to either lose money because of lack of payments, or because people just won't go because they can't afford it anymore. What happens next you ask? According to economists on the same Yahoo article 50% of hospitals will go under financially from the decrease in services. What happens then if half our hospitals are gone? Crowded hospitals, longer wait times, higher stress on doctors because of the lack of other hospitals, and frustration with the health care system because it'll end up like Canada, and we all want to prevent that. What else? Doctors, nurses, all hospital personnel are unemployed. I thought the government was going to try and prevent unemployment rates from sky rocketing, guess not.

Another bit of information I don't like about this reform. According to the same Yahoo article the Democrats want to pass a bill (under the idea from Obama) that the government should increase taxes on health insurance companies to discourage them from having such high premiums. Are you retarded or high on drugs? Look at the tobacco company you ignorant morons. The government taxes the tobacco companies and those taxes increase all the time. Who pays for it? Not the tobacco companies, but the customers. Companies just increase their prices. Health insurance companies are just going to hike up the prices to pay for those taxes. Then what happens? People like me that can't afford health insurance in the first place get screwed because we have to:

1 - Pay for our own health insurance because the government picks and chooses who they help out with insurance (like Medicaid).
2 - Pay the taxes on the higher premiums.
3 - Pay more taxes for this stupid reform to cover the costs of others to have insurance.
4 - Get screwed by the government because they just can't figure it out.

We have the best health care in the world, it doesn't need to be CHANGED but REGULATED; the government is there to govern and regulate not CONTROL! Look at the government run entities:

1 - Medicaid (probably going to be stopped with this new reform) was easy to fraud, wasn't regulated closely, and is costing us billions each year.
2 - USPS (United States Postal Service) is continually closing facilities, raising prices to match what they need (and for those that don't know, the USPS is required to have about $1 billion in extra revenue every year to put into an emergency fund, and so where is that money now to help them out?), and the service is worse and worse because they hire idiots.

Look how well these entities are doing and how well the government takes control! This reform is going to cause more problems than solutions if our mentally retarded government officials can't get their heads out of their butts and figure something out to stop screwing people that actually work to make an honest living and stop aiding those that take advantage of government handouts that are easy to get. Thanks Obama, your New World Order and plans to take over the world with your cocky attitude are going to screw "your country" that you "care about" even more than when Bush was in office! Might as well add a hammer and a sickle to the flag now so it doesn't come to a surprise in the future!

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Scare Tactics

For some reason people like to use scare tactics to take control. This is one way our government likes to keep their power. The best example of government using scare tactics is the movie "V for Vendetta." If you have not seen this particular film let me elaborate. A politician seeking the position of leadership plotted to kill thousands of his own people with a virus to spread scare among people. After the virus was released he, and others within his party, blamed a group of radicals for the spread and promised a change if he were elected. After he was elected a cure was magically discovered, manufactured, and distributed among those suffering. So much trust was put into the government they began using scare tactics to control the people by implementing curfews, a fear of being arrested for talking bad about the government (cough...patriot act), and a continual reminder that the people needed the government to do this for their own safety.

Lets look at our previous president, George W. Bush. In my opinion Bush is uneducated, not good with words at all, and selfish. A terrorist attack on the United States happened on 9/11/01. Rumor has it the government knew about it, but lets bypass the conspiracy theories because none of them can be proved or disproved. What happened was we invaded Afghanistan (which in my opinion was our right), and then the government went too far. George W. Bush and his administration made up lies in order to invade Iraq. I'm not saying Saddam shouldn't have been taken out at sometime, but why fabricate the truth to such a high degree? Then the Bush administration started doing the same thing as in "V for Vendetta;" they began to tell us that we need them to be safe from terrorists. In order to keep us safe they initiated the "Patriot Act" also known as the UnPatriot Act by those in the Wiquer Party. According to the Patriot Act the government had the right to take anyone for any suspicion for as long as they wanted without an explanation. Sure, that sounds so "patriotic." The fear of war, attacks, and internal persecution was highly pushed during the Bush era.

Lets look at our current president, Osama Obama. Not only, in my opinion, is he a Muslim that is really just looking for world domination through kissing the butts of other countries instead of taking care of his own like he needs, but he's also an arrogant fake like those you love to hate. Does he use scare tactics of war to take control of us? I haven't seen it (although I have to digress and say, didn't he promise to get us out of the middle east, yet sent 70,000 more troops out there not too long ago?). How does the Obama administration use scare tactics? By using the biggest thing hurting the United States: the economy. The Liberals all together like to come out and say without them we cannot get out of this recession. We need them to bring the United States back up to a financial power. This coming from a President that bought his wife a 6 digit helicopter to travel in, made around $5 million last year from salary and book sales, and burns millions of gallons of fuel (paid for by our tax dollars which we apparently don't have) to kiss the butts of other countries.

Why can't we have a president that won't use scare tactics? The government is already there, it already exists, tell us something we want to hear. I want the government to tell us:

- Government officials will start using their own money to pay for their gas, travels, hotels, etc. instead of taxes we pay (outside of paying their salary)
- They'll stop spending billions on a war they promised to stop 7 months ago
- They'll stop spending billions on welfare and other government programs on those that aren't in need, just lazy
- They'll stop spending billions on foreign aid when people in this country are suffering (I'm not saying stop foreign aid, I'm saying to cut it on those countries that don't need us and burn our flags when they don't want our help anyway)

Bush used scare tactics, Obama is using the same tactics with a different focus, and I can almost guarantee the next president is going to use scare tactics. When a country can't even trust their own government that government has gone off the deep end.

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Big O Ripoff

So I haven't blogged in a while, but I have so much to rave about. First of all, Big O Tires is a scam, right off hand I want to say it. Do not go there. Lets start at the beginning. I went in for their economic oil change they had been advertising for quite some time. A full checkup for $20 and an oil change, not a bad deal at all! I take my wife's CR-V. They tell me everything looks good except the struts need to be replaced and show me the wavy wear in her tires; it will cost $1000 for both front and rear struts. They were pushing me to sign papers to get the work done right then and there. They gave me the "It's unsafe for us to let you drive out of here...blah blah blah" speech. Since I didn't have the money I was able to collect my keys and take off.

Four months later my wife's car needed to be registered and we needed new tires in order for it to pass. Japanese Auto up in Orem said they would take a look at the struts to see if they needed to be replaced, and how much it would be. Two guys came out, checked the struts, tested them, then looked at me and said, "Your struts are perfectly fine. The tires you have were worn from off road use." Yep, that off road use was from the previous owner.

Experience number two was with my car. I have a Saturn Ion 2 and the car has been awesome. I took this car into Big-O after I took in my wife's, but before I found out about the struts being fine. A different guy that I talked to called me on my cell and told me two of my tires wouldn't pass the next month when I went in to register the car, and he had some good deals he could give me. I told him I was ok and that I go to Discount Tire Company (whom I love) and they could give me a better deal. This guy gave me the same BS about how he couldn't let me drive out of there because it was unsafe. So of course I walked back to the store, grabbed my keys from behind the counter, and just took off (I paid for the service before I left the first time). Went to discount, and they told me my tires were fine. The guy just wanted a sale.

Big-O is a huge ripoff, and their tires suck anyway. If you want an honest company to fix your car, either go to Japanese Auto or Altech Auto in Orem (both are honest and will save you money), and go to Discount Tire Company for your tires. They gave us a great deal on 4 new tires for my wife's CR-V and extended the warranty for free.

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Corporate Evil

Finally, I was able to quit my job of the last 5 years at an evil corporation that I will not name because they paid for my school the last 4 years; I want to give them one positive thing before I rip into corporate schemes. It feels great to be away from the corporate environment of:

1 - Being scrutinized and undermined by corporate fat cats that have no idea what my job was in the first place.
2 - Insane rules and regulations brought upon everyone as a punishment for the lack of accountability of a few.
3 - Downsizing and held raises so the fat cats can keep their overpaid wages consistent for doing nothing.
4 - The reminder that there are no other jobs out there so I have to stick with it (but not anymore!)

Major corporations are part of the problem causing the economy to stay at a slum (in my opinion at least). In many cases they are laying off and cutting budgets to the hard working employees so they can keep high wages at the corporate level. Why not get rid of a few of the slothfull corporate employees that are too less accountable to save the company in the first place? One high waged job will keep the job of 10+ others.

Scare tactics are commonly being used by corporate offices with the idea that employees will work harder in order to keep their jobs. Well, it doesn't work. The place of my employment for the last 5 years has tried to scare people since I started working there; about 6 people working there as long as I have should have been fired, while only a few have. Then there are about 10 others that have been on the verge of being fired for years. People don't care! They do still do the minimum they have to in order to keep a job, it's the American way.

I'm not saying all corporations are like this, but all the corporations I've been involved with directly or indirectly are very close. Those making 7 digits a year should sacrifice so that jobs are not lost, which will result in few jobs being taken away, which will result in our economy not going down the crap hole as fast as it is/has/will continue to do so. No it won't fix the problem, but at least it's a start.

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My Opinion About Homeopathics

Straight up and out of the bag, homeopathics CAN work but homeopaths themselves are quacks. Let me explain. My family has been diagnosed with celiacs disease; an intolerance to gluten (a protein found in wheat, barley, oats, rye, and many other grains). When gluten is consumed it is the equivalent of eating small portions of poison over time. My mother was the first to discover she had it but years after she was feeling the affects. She began seeing a homeopath in Provo named Julie. Everyone in my family knows how much "love" I have for this quack.

Julie used an "advanced computer program" that determined your tolerance for certain foods programmed into the computer. She would stick a little metallic/needle like structure connected to the computer to your finger and the computer would give her a rating regarding your tolerance. Brilliant!

The first time I went to Julie (my mother was present) she gave me all these little droplet containers to help my my multiple "intolerance levels" for a wide variety of foods. While she was "testing" me she would try to convince me of things that were not true. "You have problems digesting fiber don't you?" Me: "Not that I know of." Julie: "The computer says you do, so you do." (What just happened? The computer knows me better than me? Um...sure.) Here's what's interesting too, she told me I had horrible psoriasis because I was allergic to alcohol and vinegar. Then, she put alcohol and vinegar in my droplet bottles to preserve the magic liquid (does this make sense? "Avoid alcohol and vinegar, unless I give it to you because I'm magic.") She also gave me pills telling me I had multiple worms in my intestines that were causing my stomach cramps (please note that Julie and the computer decided I had stomach cramps, as I was unaware my stomach was ever cramping).

Diligently I took these nasty drops and pills and powders that she gave me. 1 month later when my mom wasn't present, Julie told me I needed even more. Instead of asking she just kept on piling up pills, droplets, powders, etc. onto my mother's bill. So, in one month I miraculously became allergic to foods I don't eat anyway (one example was asparagus, never had it before then and never will after I tasted it once). She asked how I was feeling after taking her "magic" and I informed her I felt like crap compared to before.

On my own I stopped taking the crap she gave me. After one week I felt exactly like I did before taking the magic ingredients; I felt great. The third and very last time I ever went to Julie on my own decision (my mother asked me to go after this, but I refused and I was 16 at the time) I lied to Julie and told her I finished all her useless toad eyes and newt tongues she gave me, and the computer agreed with my lies! Yay!

There are three things I want to discuss: homeopathics and "natural" substances, prescription drugs, the power of the mind.

The above experience shows you that the homeopath herself was the problem, not the concept itself. I have seen homeopathics work after a very very very very long time regarding my mother's health. However, it wasn't until after she started seeing a doctor (real doctor with his PhD) that uses both homeopathic and prescription drugs in his practice that things started happening for her. But take a look at what "natural" or aka homoepathic drugs can have. The FDA cannot regulate homeopathic drugs because they are classified as supplements. All vitamins, minerals, etc. are not under the jurisdiction of the FDA. In fact, if you're taking "natural drugs" you could be taking water and not even knowing it, and there is nothing you can do. The first step to choosing a homeopathic drug is finding a reputable company, then the second step is to take the drugs.

Homeopathic drugs can be effective, but the downside is they can take forever to do anything. Ugh..."I hate wait." (tell me what movie that is and you are awesome). This leads us into prescription drugs. Why are prescription drugs even used if we have natural resources to help us out? Well, prescription drugs are fast and give us the results we want right? Sort of. They are fast that's for sure. Nevertheless, prescription drugs are not always good (uh oh, the drug companies will shut down my blog now). Ever thought about why your doctor has to give you permission to take a drug? It's not just so he/she can make money for the prescription, that's just an added bonus. It is because prescription drugs are the strongest, most hardcore form of whatever you want them to be. You want to feel better faster from a cold or flu? Take a prescription or over the counter drug (note that a virus cannot be killed, just temporarily controlled/relieved). Can you take other forms of vitamins that are natural? Sure, but who wants those anyway? They are slow! Prescriptions rule?

The mind, in my opinion, does have power over the body. I personally don't believe someone can wake up after finding out they have cancer and say, "I don't have cancer anymore." then go on their way living life without cancer just because they say so. Not at all. Their mind can help beat cancer, but it's not a miracle worker. Our bodies are incredible! They can do things you won't believe, but we need to make them do it. The mind is powerful enough to control the body in ways to help it overcome illness to a certain degree; the mind is powerful. It is so powerful in fact, that women can actually convince their bodies that they are pregnant even though they never had sex. Their bodies will actually grow as if they were pregnant! Isn't that amazing? (and pathetic at the same time)

So if our mind is so great why don't we use it? We've grown up in a world where we've been accustomed to say, "Doctor give me a quick fix." and going on our way. We don't want to put forth effort to make our bodies healthy, we want the miracle drugs that will make us better without us having to commit to anything. In a way I don't blame people, we are expected to get a great deal done for work, school, etc. in a short period of time. We don't want to waste time on slow processes.

So where do I stand? Prescription drugs are fast, affordable (with insurance), and easy to get. However they can also cause many problems from their extreme strengths created in labs for the purpose of imitating natural substances at, again, extreme strengths. Homeopathics can work and keep your body in a healthy lifestyle. However, the homeopaths that distribute these "natural" cures are what you need to watch out for, and if you have the time to wait for something to kick in be my guest. The mind can only do so much, but use it. It will help. Everything we have is good, everything we have is bad. What's my solution? Buy my sugar water...I mean, natural 100% guaranteed pills that are clear and odorless. You'll be saved forever!

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