2008 Electoral map

This article from Human Events.com is a "must read"!! Robert Novak and Timothy Carney make a compelling state by state examination of the fall election. Their prediction: McCain 270, Obama 268. I can see a few states that they may have been too conservative on. There is a good chance the tally could be much better for McCain. I see a good possibility for the GOP in New Hampshire, Michigan, and hopefully Pennslyvania. New tally: McCain 312, Obama 226! Possible losses for McCain include Missouri, Nevada, and New Mexico. If that is what happens, the new new tally is: McCain 291, Obama 247. I'll take any of these three outcomes!

The entire article can be found by following this link.

Great moments in Presidential Speeches

Talk about misspeaking! You have to check out this example of Obama stuffing his big foot into his even bigger mouth. They have all done it, but this was by far the funniest example.

John McCain is younger than we thought!

According to Doctor Michael Roizen, the developer of the "real age" program, John McCain is only 63.7 years old, biologically speaking. Experts claim that if he becomes president, he will age twice the actual time. I figure he's probably looking at a single term, by his own choice, so he would only be about 72 (biologically speaking) at the end of that term. This might get quite a bit of play in the coming months, especially if the dems bring age up as an issue.

I bet I caught your attention so here's "the rest of the story."

Memorial Day 2008

My feelings for Memorial day have been captured in song and may be seen and heard here.

Showing gratitude

Instead of viewing countries like Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan as the proverbial "over there" some political leaders speak of, we should show tremendous respect to the people of those countries for fighting terrorism...right in their own backyard. While Americans go out shopping with the biggest worry of how much they can spend, Iraqis, Afghans, and others who live "over there" have to do so while fearing for their lives.

Sometimes though, they are not given the respect they deserve. The so-called "antiwar" movement repeatedly downplays the reality that Al-Qaeda is indeed operating inside of Iraq and targeting innocent people in its campaign of mass murder. Instead, they would like to present to the American people (or as they see it, potential voters) that the current fighting is only about ancient hatred, and that Iraqis are lusting for each others' blood and unable to put their country back together. The Iraqi Security Forces are portrayed as incompetent and incapable of handling operations on their own, even as they are bravely fighting against terrorism (in their own country) and taking losses much higher than their American counterparts.

I suggest we show a little more appreciation...and respect. Just because the terror attacks that are wrecking havoc across the globe have not found their way into the streets of an American city these last few years does not mean we should forget about it. Our allies and friends, as well as those who are determined to make the world a more dangerous place are fully participating...and Americans should be as well.

The paragraphs above come from C.H.'s blog of May 13. You may follow this link to read the rest of the story. He hits the nail right on the head concerning how little we Americans have to cope with. We are very fortunate (so far) that the fighting is "over there".

How can this be legal?

Superdelegate names value of his vote

California Democrat Steven Ybarra, a superdelegate to his party's national convention, said he'll support the candidate who promises to spend $20 million on registering Mexican-American voters and getting them to the polls on Election Day.

He'll remain neutral in the race between Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton until "someone shows me the money," the Sacramento lawyer told the Associated Press.

Ybarra said he believes that $20 million could pay to register 1.3 million Mexican-Americans in New Mexico, Colorado and Florida and possibly turn those states Democratic in November.

There are nearly 800 Democratic superdelegates — elected officials, party leaders and activists. They are free to vote for any presidential candidate they wish at the party's convention.

I found this article a couple of weeks ago in the USA Today and finally have the time to post it. I find this to be despicable behavior, and I think it should be if it isn't, ILLEGAL!! The democrats will stoop even lower than I imagined possible. They would love to legalize them all just for their votes! I would have thought that this offer would have made much bigger headlines than it did. Maybe I'm the only one that thought it stunk so bad??

The plight of the older sibling

Parenting a perfectionist
“We did become stricter with Joshua after Justin was born,” says Ken Jones, father to the Jones boys — Joshua is 13, and Justin is 11. “I think I was a bit rougher on Joshua. He had to do things more perfectly.”

As the Jones family, who lives in Corona, Calif., has found, and the new research confirms, being a little tougher on the oldest kid in the family often turns out a kid like Joshua — the stereotypical rule-abiding, responsible first-born.

The study showed that older siblings were much less likely to drop out of school or, in the case of girls, get pregnant, than the youngest in the family, perhaps because they’ve had a lifetime of being held to higher standards.

That stricter parenting style often shapes the first-born kid into a play-by-the rules perfectionist, so parents tend to rely more on their oldest child than the younger kids, says Kevin Leman, a Tucson, Ariz., psychologist and author of “The Birth Order Book.”

“When a job needs to get done, it’s the habit of the parent to call on the first-born, because they’re the most reliable and conscientious,” Leman says. But it's no accident that the oldest has become a responsible wonder child; it's the parenting strategy that made them that way.

I have 3 younger siblings, no wonder I'm so perfect! Thanks Mom and Dad. Click here for the rest of the story.

Update on Bakken Formation oil deposit

3 to 4.3 Billion Barrels of Technically Recoverable Oil Assessed in North Dakota and Montana’s Bakken Formation—25 Times More Than 1995 Estimate—
Released: 4/10/2008 2:25:36 PM

Reston, VA - North Dakota and Montana have an estimated 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil in an area known as the Bakken Formation.

A U.S. Geological Survey assessment, released April 10, shows a 25-fold increase in the amount of oil that can be recovered compared to the agency's 1995 estimate of 151 million barrels of oil.

Technically recoverable oil resources are those producible using currently available technology and industry practices. USGS is the only provider of publicly available estimates of undiscovered technically recoverable oil and gas resources.

New geologic models applied to the Bakken Formation, advances in drilling and production technologies, and recent oil discoveries have resulted in these substantially larger technically recoverable oil volumes. About 105 million barrels of oil were produced from the Bakken Formation by the end of 2007.

The USGS Bakken study was undertaken as part of a nationwide project assessing domestic petroleum basins using standardized methodology and protocol as required by the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 2000.

The Bakken Formation estimate is larger than all other current USGS oil assessments of the lower 48 states and is the largest "continuous" oil accumulation ever assessed by the USGS. A "continuous" oil accumulation means that the oil resource is dispersed throughout a geologic formation rather than existing as discrete, localized occurrences. The next largest "continuous" oil accumulation in the U.S. is in the Austin Chalk of Texas and Louisiana, with an undiscovered estimate of 1.0 billions of barrels of technically recoverable oil.

"It is clear that the Bakken formation contains a significant amount of oil - the question is how much of that oil is recoverable using today's technology?" said Senator Byron Dorgan, of North Dakota. "To get an answer to this important question, I requested that the U.S. Geological Survey complete this study, which will provide an up-to-date estimate on the amount of technically recoverable oil resources in the Bakken Shale formation."

The USGS estimate of 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil has a mean value of 3.65 billion barrels. Scientists conducted detailed studies in stratigraphy and structural geology and the modeling of petroleum geochemistry. They also combined their findings with historical exploration and production analyses to determine the undiscovered, technically recoverable oil estimates.

USGS worked with the North Dakota Geological Survey, a number of petroleum industry companies and independents, universities and other experts to develop a geological understanding of the Bakken Formation. These groups provided critical information and feedback on geological and engineering concepts important to building the geologic and production models used in the assessment.

Five continuous assessment units (AU) were identified and assessed in the Bakken Formation of North Dakota and Montana - the Elm Coulee-Billings Nose AU, the Central Basin-Poplar Dome AU, the Nesson-Little Knife Structural AU, the Eastern Expulsion Threshold AU, and the Northwest Expulsion Threshold AU.

At the time of the assessment, a limited number of wells have produced oil from three of the assessments units in Central Basin-Poplar Dome, Eastern Expulsion Threshold, and Northwest Expulsion Threshold.
The Elm Coulee oil field in Montana, discovered in 2000, has produced about 65 million barrels of the 105 million barrels of oil recovered from the Bakken Formation.

Results of the assessment can be found at http://energy.usgs.gov.

For a podcast interview with scientists about the Bakken Formation, listen to episode 38 of CoreCast at http://www.usgs.gov/corecast/.

You can check out the entire story here.

It won't make us energy independant over night, but this development sure is good news! We absolutely can not allow our government to stand in the way of us taking advantage of this deposit.

In the short term, our politicians have got to release the strategic supply to lower the prices and increase the supplies of gas and oil. After all, the whole idea of this stockpile is for emergency situations, well, I'd say that $3.50 and up for gas and $4.00 and up for diesel and fuel oil is an emergency! At the very least, CONTINUING to add to this reserve HAS GOT TO STOP!!

It will take quite a mixture of things to correct our energy problems in the future, but it should be clear to anyone with a brain that we should be starting NOW,(we should have started years ago)! The tree huggers, the anti-nuke crowd, the green freaks, and all the other bleeding heart liberals better sit on the porch and stay the Hell out of the way!

Well, time for some sleep, besides I already said a lot more than I planned to.

How many of me?

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 25 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

I guess my last name is not very popular. Oh well! Just for the fun of it, I punched in John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. McCain had the most namesakes in the U.S., followed by Clinton. The REAL surprise was Obama!! HE DOES NOT EXIST!! There are ZERO Barack Obamas living in the United States of America!

Of course, I realize that this site has incomplete data, but wouldn't it be nice if they were right?! I'm getting SO TIRED of listening to his BS. He is making me sick!!