It’s Only Words

Posted on March 27, 2013 by Tom Balek Standard 1

What they say to the public and the media:

WASHINGTON (AP) Nov. 7, 2012 – President Barack Obama is sounding a conciliatory tone after his re-election victory, saying he has learned from those who supported him and those who opposed him. And he says he returns to Washington “more determined” and “more inspired.”

He said he’s hoping to work with Republicans to solve the nation’s problems.

What they say to each other and their supporters (I am on the President’s mailing list and received this e-mail today):

Friend –I want to make one thing absolutely clear:

We’re up against a whole lot more than just opposition in Congress.

We’re up against interest groups with money to burn — organizations willing to drop every last penny they have to stop President Obama’s agenda in its tracks. We’re already seeing it on gun violence, and immigration reform — they’re going to spend millions to throw a wrench in the works of progress.

You can be damned sure that this is not going to stop.

Organizing for Action is going to shift the balance of power in Washington back to real people. People like you have shown over and over again that no amount of spending can stop millions of Americans calling for change.

It’s going to take each of us rolling up our sleeves, getting to work, and chipping in what we can when we can.

We have our first fundraising deadline this weekend. Donate $5 or more right now to become a founding member of this organization: https://donate.barackobama.com/First-Deadline

This is going to be fun. If we do this right, the other side won’t know what hit ’em.
Jim Messina, Chair – Organizing for Action

They have no intention of cooperating or “reaching across the aisle”. “The other side won’t know what hit ’em”, says Messina. They think it’s fun. It’s not about the future of the country. It’s not about school safety. It’s not about immigration reform. This is a game to them.

God help us.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

You think that I don’t even mean
A single word I say
It’s only words, and words are all
I have to take your heart away

Words – the Bee Gees

Yesterday’s News

Posted on March 24, 2013 by Tom Balek Standard 2

news One year ago the news media fixated on a single story for several weeks. It was so terribly important that it superceded everything else that was going on in the world. It was as if nothing else mattered – this story was so critical to the life and welfare of every American that there was no room for any other news. Even President Obama had to take time from his schedule to express his concern and thoughts about the topic.

Don’t remember? Does the name Trayvon Martin ring a bell?

What have you heard about him lately? Do you know how the case turned out? Has anything changed in our lives because of the Florida incident in which Martin, a neighborhood watch volunteer, followed a young man he thought was suspicious, and ended up shooting him in a scuffle?

My point is this: our news industry has devolved to the point where they now pick a salacious and often irrelevant or marginal news story and elevate it to crisis pitch, while ignoring everything else that happens worldwide. If the Trayvon Martin case was so earth-shakingly important, why have you not heard anything about it for a year?

Whatever happened to the Occupy Wall Street crowd? Our media elites climbed all over each other to recount every syllable uttered by a tiny group of incoherent losers, affording them status on par with world leaders and history-makers. Where are they now? What happened? Is it possible that MAYBE THEY WEREN’T NEWSWORTHY IN THE FIRST PLACE?

The media was quick to report that the Tea Party is dead. It isn’t. But the Occupy Movement sure as hell is. Who is reporting on that?

Remember all the hoo-hah about ObamaCare? We would all die if it was implemented. Or we would all die if it was NOT implemented. Either way, we were all going to die. Three years later, not much has happened.

Michael Jackson. Lady Diana. Stories about pop culture icons deserve a headline, not an entire page of the calendar.

It’s a sad fact that the news business has become so much more business than news. Rather than reporting actual news and letting the informed public determine what is important to them, the media now chooses the story it feels has the most commercial potential and milks it to the bloody end.

So when you see today’s front-page bold-type stop-the-presses big story, don’t get your underwear in a knot. There’s a good chance it will be completely forgotten a year from now.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Who wants yesterday’s papers?
Who wants yesterday’s girl?
Who wants yesterday’s papers?
Nobody in the world!

Yesterday’s Papers – the Rolling Stones

Change – Be Careful What You Wish For

Posted on March 19, 2013 by Tom Balek Standard 1

obama_change_01 I had an interesting conversation with a liberal this week – a junior manager who works very hard, earns a modest salary, and would like to improve his family’s standard of living.

Our business conversation had turned to the hesitancy on the part of business owners to invest. “No one is willing to pull the trigger on any major spending in the current political climate,” I said.

My friend asked, “What does politics have to do with whether or not a business owner wants to invest?”

I pointed out that politics and economics are inseparable. After all, the only thing a government can do is spend other people’s money. Everything the government does affects the economic environment, and conversely, voters and supporters of candidates make decisions based on their own current financial situations. Business owners are not confident right now that risking additional capital will provide them with any financial reward.

“Well I have always been a liberal,” my friend said. “And I agree with you, nobody wants to spend for anything right now.”

I let him talk.

“Nobody wants to upgrade their facilities or hire more employees. They just don’t know if customers will be able to afford to buy their products.”

I nodded. Keep thinking, young man.

“You know,” he continued, “wages sure aren’t what they used to be – if you can find a job at all. People can’t afford to buy houses and cars and other things because they just aren’t making enough money.”

He was on a roll.

“If nobody can afford to buy things, why would you want to build a new store or hire more people?” he concluded. “Times are tough.”

I wanted so badly to deliver my speech about how government waste, corruption and misguided overspending takes a huge bite out of our GDP and personal wealth. About how government social policies discourage savings and personal responsibility. About how federal fiscal policy has devalued our dollar, destroyed our balance of trade and built an insurmountable debt. About how we have become a nation of undereducated, disengaged sheeple, victim to any media-savvy, slick-talking promiser-in-chief.

I wanted to ask, “So why are you a liberal?” Instead, I shook my head and said, “Gee, I wonder what has changed?”

He didn’t answer. But the concerned look on his face told me he knew.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

I still don’t know what I was waiting for
And my time was running wild
A million dead-end streets
Every time I thought I’d got it made
It seemed the taste was not so sweet

Changes – David Bowie

It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! No, It’s a Drone.

Posted on March 10, 2013 by Tom Balek Standard Reply

p51mustang Flashback: 1995, Manhattan, Kansas. I had just bought a home near Lake Tuttle and was out on my first Saturday motorbike cruise to check out the neighborhood. Down the road a few miles I came upon a large, open field and a cluster of men looking skyward in intense concentration.

I stopped to see what was going on. It was the local radio-controlled aircraft club, passionately engaged in their hobby on a beautiful, blue-sky Kansas afternoon. Their airplanes and helicopters were meticulously fabricated and painted – most were replicas of famous propeller-driven war-planes. The craftsmanship required to build and maintain such machines is only exceeded by the dexterity it takes to get and keep one aloft and under control. These guys were way beyond that, and I was mesmerized watching them guide their craft through acrobatic spins, dives, tricks, and mock battles. Takeoffs and landings were precise, if abrupt. Given the cost of these birds and the hours of work invested, crashes are uncommon.

Funny how we miss events and trends that ultimately have a huge impact. It never occurred to me on that prairie afternoon that this hobby would rapidly evolve into a multi-billion dollar industry, a constitutional crisis, and a sea-change in military and security strategy.

Drone Today we call them drones, and as we speak you may have one quietly buzzing over your head, perhaps observing you.

Our armed forces were quick to take advantage of drone technology – at first for reconnaissance, but soon after for actual combat missions. The use of machines to reduce risks to our soldiers won wide-spread support from political leaders and citizens alike. But as their use proliferated the ethical line in the sand seemed to move.

Americans were pleased to learn that Osama Bin Laden’s right-hand man, Ayman al Zawahiri, was one of many Al Qaeda bad-asses sent to meet their maker by Predator drones in recent months. But concerns mounted when a drone strike killed American-born terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki and three other Al Qaeda leaders in Yemen, and a few days later, another drone took out al-Awlaki’s 16-year old Denver-born son, who, according to his family, was not a terrorist.

“To kill a teenager is just unbelievable, really, and they claim that he is an al-Qaeda militant. It’s nonsense,” said Nasser al-Awlaki, a former Yemeni agriculture minister who was Anwar al-Awlaki’s father and the boy’s grandfather, speaking in a phone interview from Sanaa on Monday. “They want to justify his killing, that’s all.” (quote from the Washington Post)

Senator Rand Paul takes the Constitution seriously, and literally. He filibustered the Senate for 13 hours last week to challenge the authority of President Obama – or any American, for that matter – to assassinate another American without due process. “The ‘drone debate’ isn’t over,” Paul declared. “I wanted everybody to know that our Constitution is precious and no American should be killed by a drone without first being charged with a crime.”

The market for military drones will reach $90 billion over the next ten years, according to the Teal Group. And applications for use in the private sector, as well as domestic law enforcement, are only starting to heat up.

Watching those pretty toy planes maneuvering above the Kansas prairie almost twenty years ago, I didn’t see the huge future implications. It makes me wonder what else I’m missing as I observe ordinary life today.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

A shout out to the Vietnam vets –

Sky pilot
Sky pilot
How high can you fly
You’ll never, never, never reach the sky

Sky Pilot – Eric Burdon