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A record 377,616 people showed up at McChord AFB this weekend to take in the sights illustrating the power of the U.S. military. Compare that to the number that showed up to protest the Iraq war at various times around the area.

I would have to say that the voices of anti-war loudmouths was officially drown out by the sheer numbers of people who support our men and women in the armed forces. It reminds me that the biggest protest I’ve seen was the support-the-troops rally outside Ft. Lewis that stretched for more than 8 miles of overpasses (as that 2003?). And that was actually a counter-protests. The protesters showed up and according to eye-witnesses didn’t even get off of the bus.

I wasn’t able to make the show because of other responsibilities. I heard it was great.

McChord AFB Air Show 2008 - fencecheck.com

Air Show Millitary Expo 2008 McChord AFB USA - YouTube.com

McChord AFB Air Show 2008 - Web site

As I’m reading a post on the Washington Policy Center’s blog I found myself somewhat stunned at the simplicity of the statement in this paragraph:

During our annual transportation event, Dr. Ronald Utt, a transportation and economics expert from the Heritage Foundation suggested that moving toward performance-based transportation decision making (and away from the current political system) means resources are distributed on getting the biggest bang for your buck. Instead, Sound Transit’s resource allocation appears to have very little to do with performance and everything to do with buying votes.

The more I’ve thought about it the more sense it has made. Over the years I’ve learned that there is great wisdom in simple things. A change in goals can lead to a complete overhaul of the way things are done. Focusing on a clear, attainable result can make a lot of choices along the way a lot simpler to decide.
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The first energy crisis, back in the 70’s, was created by foreign interests who hate America. It was people from the ilk that took American embassy workers hostage in Iran and blew up a marine barracks in Lebanon. And along came a Democrat U.S. President and Congress and made the problem worse with their consistently bad economic policy.

The next time the Democrats provided us with a president that same ilk reappeared and was re-energized by the lack of proper response to their threats and attacks. Now the oil prices are rising again, for many reasons. Partly because our enemies can get away with it, but mostly because we have no alternatives to buying their oil.

Thanks again to the Democrats, oil companies cannot drill in areas that have the largest oil reserves in the U.S. President Bush has lifted the ban on offshore drilling, which was half of the problem. The other half is caused by the Democrat controlled congress. Thanks to them and their continual resistance to using our own oil, we are stuck paying exorbitant prices at the pump, most of which goes to rich oil sheiks who hate America (but love American money.)
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After several employees of the Tacoma ACORN office were indicted in Seattle, with the help of Tacoma prosecutors, we’re now learning more about corrupt practices within their organization.

Despite raking in a troubling 40 percent of its revenue from taxpayers over the last three years, ACORN Housing Corporation’s actions range from controversial to borderline illegal:

• AHC has worked to obtain mortgages for illegal aliens
• AHC relies on undocumented income, “under the table” money that may not be reported to the Internal Revenue Service
• ACORN’s “financial justice” operations attack lenders for “exotic” loans, but AHC has recommended ten-year interest-only loans (which deny equity to the buyer) and reverse mortgages (which can be detrimental to senior citizens)
• AHC may have violated federal law by failing to maintain a proper distinction between its tax-exempt housing work and the aggressive political activities of ACORN

Not much of an advocacy / counseling group if they steer people wrong when they come in for help. Makes me wonder who’s interests they are really advocating. Actually, no it doesn’t. There’s ample evidence that they’re nothing more than a left-wing political group pretending to be something else.

When charges where filed in Seattle the organization was supposedly cooperating with authorities to prosecute their supposedly wayward employees. Considering there were several other cities where charges were filed against their employees, some of us doubted that these people were acting outside of their organization’s policies. Now we see even more evidence of corruption.

I’m not sure if this is a sign of improvement, but Puget Sound is ranked only 9th worst in the nation for drive time congestion in a recent report by Inrix of Kirkland. Some other lowlights from the report puts us 10th worst in overall congestion, 6th worst in their ‘Drive Time Travel Time Index’ and we have the 8th worst travel time hour.

Funny thing about these rankings, they don’t often show any improvement when a city’s rank changes. Instead they show that the other cities got worse. However, in this case we can claim that we have the 7th largest decrease in drive time congestion from 2006 to 2007. Things improved by a whopping 0.2%. Sounds like a new plank in the Democrat governor’s campaign. Finally she has something to hang her hat on besides quid-pro-quo legislation for her campaign donors.

In other news Silicon Valley can produce more then chips and disks. Scientists there have come up witha genetically altered microbe that eats agricultural waste and excretes crude oil. They wouldn’t put it in their own cars, but they think it will get us off of our Saudi oil dependency (no mention of Venezuela). Maybe someday I’ll be able to put my grass clippings into my SUV.
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Liberals are attacking the platform adopted by the WA GOP Convention in Spokane over the weekend. Some of their attack is based on misrepresentations and some is based on values that differ greatly from the people who actually adopted the platform, the WA GOP grassroots voters.

The WA GOP Convention

I’ve been trying to get a better feel for all that went on over the weekend. I wasn’t there since I didn’t even submit my name for consideration as a delegate in the Pierce County convention. I figured I wouldn’t be able to accomplish anything there so it would be a waste of my time and money. From all reports, as I expected, it was politics as usual, something that usually turns the grassroots off and drives them away from the party (like it’s doing to me).
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I’ve been reading some of the posts over at TheNextRight.com. It covers the spectrum of Republican opinion with a majority of the posts being relatively conservative.

There’s a pretty good article about the Ron Paul campaign. It puts it into context fairly well. I’m not a Paul fan so I’m guessing that some of his die-hard supporters would differ with the opinion presented in that post.

The left-leaning side of the site is a mixed-bag on some of the ‘moderate’ (which I consider to be ‘liberal Republican’) posts. One such post, which I won’t link to, was a typical McCain supporter bashing principled conservatives with the usual tripe. I don’t bother pointing out the error when someone posts garbage like that because I’ve found that it isn’t worth the effort.

What McCain supporters are trying to do is to paint conservatives who continue to oppose him as though they are just being petty and emotional about the issue. I do understand some of where they’re coming from, and it doesn’t paint a very good picture of them.
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Tacoma has been implementing policies that are touted as eco-friendly for a while now. Some of them have come around to bite them, mostly in the form of higher costs or lost revenues (for the city and for businesses in the city). Another consequence of their il-conceived policies has reared it’s ugly head.

One of the major problems with these new policies is that they’re trying to force a supposedly ‘new way of thinking’ into existing environments. In this case they are encouraging multi-story mixed-use buildings (residential combined with commercial, such as retail) by giving tax breaks to developers. And without thought of the consequences the city has allowed these buildings with large reflective exterior surfaces to be built next to existing houses.

The consequence: sunlight is concentrated on existing houses causing the interior to heat up.

Some might think this is an acceptable consequence to protect the planet from its evil nemesis ‘urban sprawl’, but if you’re sitting in a solar roaster that was once a comfortable rambler, it ain’t so cool.
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Wired magazine, known for it’s zealous focus on the latest crazes, takes a look at the latest environmental craze and what people think they should do about it. They don’t actually look at the validity of the anthropogenic issue or the dire consequences debate, but at least they add a little bit of objectivity to the climate of climate change.

Putting aside the absolute lie known as ‘the coming ice age’. And ignoring the food shortages and high prices caused by biofuel mandates, not to mention the slashing and burning of rain forest in Brazil because of their extremely high biofuel mandates. And forget for a moment the economic impact on the timber industry because so-called scientists failed to realize that spotted owls will fornicate anywhere (they just happen to prefer old growth forests the way hippies prefer rock concerts). The list goes on, but lets ignore all that for the moment. I’m starting to wonder which will be the next abject failure of the environmentalist movement.

I’m addressing this to the local liberal set who go crazy over the crazes. Since they’re like most liberals they never really think things through. Let’s hope that this gets them thinking instead of reacting to whatever bright ideas blow their way.
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I just want to take a moment in grateful remembrance of those who have fallen in defense of our country and our freedom. For those who have loved ones who have made the ultimate sacrifice to keep all of us free and safe I hope you know that most Americans share the gratitude and the sorrow for your loss.

They will not be forgotten.

As a Christian minister I am keenly aware that those who have fought and are fighting to defend us are protecting each individual’s freedom to worship as each believes to be right. The freedom that I consider so vital is protected by those who have defended our country in the past and especially by those who are fighting in the War on Terrorism and it’s front lines in Afghanistan and Iraq..

Like enemies of the past our current enemies seek world domination. But what’s unique about these is that they do so in the name of their religion. Their religion seeks to subjugate or destroy all other faiths. I don’t know of a time in our nation’s history when freedom of religion was at greater risk.

While the freedom of religion is especially important to me, I am also grateful for all of the other freedoms that I enjoy.