I must admit, I did not attend a Super Bowl party this year, nor have I for several years.

As a Steelers fan, I certainly did not want to be amongst others in the last few years that my team was in the big game: I get emotional and only my family should see such, if even them.

And as I said, while I have not been to a party in a while, I realize that such are purely social events for many people (I won’t specify a gender as that would sound chauvinistic in our highly sensitive, albeit tone-deaf age).

So:

• I did not have to offer the obligatory “hi! How are you?” to people whose well-being I did not even remotely care about.
• I did not have to worry about how much I piled on my plate (except for the catcalls from the wife) as I was home; there was plenty of it and I was the only one bellying up to the trough.
• I was allowed to offer (read: scream) my opinions on the game any way I saw fit, without hearing the non-football fans (again, gender unidentified) whispering whether I was inebriated or looney.
• I could make my remarks about Madonna being outdated (to put it charitably) without offending anyone of my peers in the room.
• I reminisced about my favorite Clint Eastwood movies after seeing him on an auto commercial, with no one looking at me like I was born during the Depression.
• I didn’t have to hear about how good looking Tom Brady is.
• I didn’t have to hear about how good looking Tom Brady and his super-model wife, Gisele Bundchen, are.
• When the great Otto Graham was mentioned on tv, I didn’t have to hear “did he invent the graham cracker?”
• When the game neared the end, I didn’t have to hear anyone argue why the halftime show was the best part of the game.
• Most importantly, when the game came down to the last 2 minutes and I lost all mental continence, I could, and not have to answer to anyone.

Robert Frost wrote “I took the [road] less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.”  My take is: I watched the Super Bowl on my own and is there a better way?

-I.M. Windee

At the National Prayer Breakfast today, President Obama said his Christian faith is a driving force behind his economic policies, from Wall Street reform to his calls  for the wealthy to pay higher taxes. As a person of faith, it is good to hear the President claim such. Still, these remarks are reminiscent of President Lincoln observing, during the Civil War, that during great struggles, both sides claim God to be on their side; one side, though, must be wrong.

But a closer look at his 3 years in office suggest that while Mr. Obama may have religious and spiritual faith, he is lacking such in the average American.

Since the President has taken office, he has regulated every major area of American life that he was able.  And no matter what anyone says, government laws and regulations are an implicit lack of faith that people can do the right thing on their own.  From financial regulation to health care to energy production, Mr. Obama has determined how people should act because he obviously believes that they cannot make the correct decision, however such is defined, on their own.

So when Mr. Obama breaks out his prayer beads during the campaign season, he would do well to not only believe in God, but also in a people who are of a nation whose principles are based upon the faith that he claims to hold: Americans.

-I.M. Windee

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The Republican establishment and voters are worried about nominating someone who can beat Obama; picking the candidate with the right agenda will do such

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The Florida primary this past Tuesday saw Mitt Romney take a sorely needed victory but by no means ended the matter of who will be the Republican nominee. Newt Gingrich is tenacious, to say the least, and he is likely not going anywhere at least for the time being. A good analogy would be the western front lines in World War I where both sides slugged it out refusing to even consider capitulation until it was no longer a decision for the Germans.  “Kaiser Gingrich,” should he not win, will exact a high body count before he decides to leave the carnage.

As these battles are fought in various theaters, the talk among the pundits, establishment and voters is which candidate is most capable of beating President Obama in the general election. Clearly the Republican electorate does not want to nominate a lackluster candidate who will surely go down in flames to Barack Obama; the 1992 election with the befuddled “Herbert Walker” was not easy to watch, as a Republican or American.

But by looking in a candidate at what can be ephemeral characteristics, it becomes too easy to forget the bigger picture: what is the presidential job description (read: electorate) demanding in the next term? Everything else just makes for good sound-byte or posters.

Probably the best, though not only, example of such was 1980.  In that year, the country had just endured the 1960s and 1970s which British historian Paul Johnson accurately described as “America’s suicide attempt.”  A former B-rated movie actor, eschewed by the Republican establishment and derided by Liberals as an extremist, made his final run at the Presidency.  His main opponent in the primaries was George Herbert Walker Bush. Although it is easy to say “the rest is history,” it was not at that time. Ronald Reagan went into the final weekend before the general election behind incumbent President Carter.  The electorate took one last gut check and realized that not only was his platform what they believed in, but it was also what the country needed. At that point, “the rest is history.”

But the lesson is that Mr. Reagan likely did not fit into any profile of someone who could beat the incumbent, let alone govern well. Yet the electorate saw something that the pollsters, establishment and partisans did not: someone with the proper vision for the country.

So as the remaining 90%+ of the Republican primary voters go to the polls in the coming weeks and months to determine who will provide the opponent for Mr. Obama, they would do well to focus on which candidate has the best road-map for this country and ignore the fleeting traits that may win today’s polls but are long-forgotten tomorrow.

-I.M. Windee

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When President Obama Denounces Excess Government Regulation, He’s Preaching Temperance From The Bar Stool

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State of the Union addresses, while constitutionally required, have become an exercise in Presidential grandiosity and dreaming.  They are now a wish-list of what the President wants and would get if he were a monarch that didn’t have to ask a legislature for approval.  But since the U.S. form of government makes congressional approval of most things mandatory, the best a President can do is step before Congress once a year and give an inflated list of wants with the hope that a fraction of them will be granted.  Along the way, he also throws some verbal pies in the faces of his audience, usually at the other party.  And as this is an election year, what better way to kick off the campaign and take some of his themes out for a spin?

In that regard, President Obama lived up to this dumbed-down modern standard for State of the Union addresses last Tuesday night.

He started out by re-affirming his commander-in-chief status by telling of a recent trip to Andrews Air Force Base to welcome some of our troops to serve in Iraq.  This served the dual purpose of contradicting his critics who say he doesn’t care about the military while reminding his liberal wing that he ended our military involvement in Iraq: a Liberal Cause Célèbre.

He then went on to chide congress in general, and Republicans implicitly, that we should work together with the same “get-it-done” attitude that the military does.  This sounds great but congress is not the U.S. military, thankfully, or we would’ve been overrun by the enemy long ago.  And when Mr. Obama implored us to “imagine what we could accomplish if we followed their [the military’s] example,” he was asking us to imagine what accomplishing his agenda would look like, not any of the Republicans’ goals.

There were lines that did not need a laugh track such as when he called for “a future where we’re in control of our own energy, and our security and prosperity aren’t so tied to unstable parts of the world.”  When I last checked, Mr. Obama nixed the XL pipeline (20,000 “shovel-ready” jobs) from that rogue country, Canada.

Mr. Obama then proceeded to play historian and tutor us about the World War II generation who returned home from combat and “built the strongest economy and middle class the world has ever known.”  He failed to mention that they did that without the welfare society that would erupt in the mid-1960s.

After lamenting the contraction of manufacturing and loss of jobs because of technology (he mercifully did not call for the horse and buggy industry to be brought back via government subsidy), he went on to say that “the state of our Union is getting stronger.”  With a net loss of one million jobs since he became President, I would prefer his other slogan of “it could be worse.”

Onward he plodded to state he intends to fight obstruction with action and oppose any effort to return to the very same policies that brought on this economic crisis in the first place. Translation: his way or the highway.

Then he took a trip down memory lane and gloated over the auto industry bailout.  He said “tonight, the American auto industry is back.” I wonder what the stockholders of old GM and Chrysler, who were wiped out in a political bankruptcy that put the unions ahead of them, would say about such a “success story.”

The President then went on to have a conversion on the tax road to D.C. but unsurprisingly, Mr. Obama was more concerned about bringing taxable income back from foreign countries than addressing the carve-outs motivated by social engineering (mortgage interest, solar credits) or the double-taxation that corporations must pay in the U.S.

The President then moped over our energy dependence and its cost.  He concluded that “the easiest way to save money is to waste less energy.” His solution was, not surprisingly, costly upgrades and mercifully not cardigan sweaters, a la Jimmy Carter.

The knee-slapper of the night, though, had to go to the President bemoaning government regulation.  He lamented “there’s no question that some regulations are outdated, unnecessary, or too costly.”  He went on to say “I’ve approved fewer regulations in the first three years of my presidency than my Republican predecessor did in his.”  When he referred to “Republican predecessor,” did he mean President Rutherford B. Hayes? It should also be noted, even if he conveniently did not, that the full impact of ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank have yet to be felt and those will be blow-outs when regulations are ready for the Presidential signature.  Mr. Obama was clearly preaching temperance from the barstool.

Which gets us to Mr. Obama’s overall approach to the Presidential campaign and election this year.

Mr. Obama is unquestionably a big government Liberal who can’t imagine a program that he would not like. And he has governed as such throughout his first term.  Anyone who would disagree with him, including his own deficit commission, is either summarily dismissed as crazy or ignored.  Even Bill Clinton, ever the wet-fingered politician checking the prevailing political winds and public mood, course-corrected and even claimed ownership in government reforms that were of a conservative nature (think: welfare reform). But not Mr. Obama.  As he said in an interview, he would “rather be a really good one-term President than a mediocre two-term President.”  As he clearly sees being a good President as one who expands government’s role in life, there is every reason to believe that, if re-elected, he will continue the extraordinary encroachment of government on society, regardless of what President (and more accurately, “Candidate”) Obama says in a speech before congress or on the campaign trail.

-I.M. Windee

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Egalitarianism at that virtual commune: the internet

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The defeat last week of proposed intellectual property bills in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives was the natural culmination of an ever-growing entitlement mentality and consequent society that serves such mindset.

Nowadays, everyone feels entitled to what they get, and perhaps even more: the leaders of teachers’ and government workers’ unions claim they are entitled to rich pensions and medical plans that they pay little if anything to; government aid recipients, when the media has a slow news day and sticks a microphone in front of them, will winnow about welfare programs (unemployment, food stamp) that ultimately expire after a prolonged period of time or have reasonable restrictions (do you really need such?) on them; corporations will claim they need tax breaks and grants to compete with foreign competitors (R&D credit, Solar Energy loan guarantees) and banks will plead for bailouts due to a housing meltdown that they did little to avoid, if not aid.

The first sign of such entitlement mentality to hit the internet was when Google and other search engines and similar information warehouses came four-square against internet service providers effectively charging for the amount their networks are used.  The net-neutrality proponents claimed that everyone is “entitled” to the internet at the same price regardless of how much or little one used it, as if the network is this “horn of plenty” that was created by out-of-world resources and there was no earthly cost to create it here.  It’s the equivalent of going to the gas station and having your tank filled but claiming that you should pay as little as the person who only buys a gallon of gas.  Yet the amorphous nature of the internet, despite the very real costs of building its infrastructure, has allowed outfits like Google to annex the internet hardware, without the cost, to serve its business model.  Now that’s effective cost of goods management!

Such argument, however wrong, is a natural springboard to the claim that anything in the vaporous cyberspace really doesn’t belong to anyone in particular but to that vast commune known as the world wide web.  This explains the full-throated opposition to the proposed intellectual property bills that died in congress last week.

While such a battle won appeals to those with a strong egalitarian streak, it begs the question as to why anyone would decide to create anything if it can be taken on the internet without reward to its creator?

So to use a play on the famous line from the movie Field of Dreams, “if you build it, they will come,” our new state of entitlement can best be summed up as “If you create it, others will come and feel entitled to it and take it.”

-I.M.Windee

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If the Times editorial board is willing, I’d be happy to pay their airfare over to Helmand Province in Afghanistan so they may also remind the  Taliban about the Geneva Convention

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A video of U.S. Marines urinating on dead Taliban has circulated on the web.  There can be no disagreement that regardless of their state of mind during a difficult tour of duty in Afghanistan, such action is unacceptable and the perpetrators must be punished.

But as is typical with the usual liberal suspects, this situation is to them another example of the U.S. military gone awry and further evidence of an institutional problem especially as reminiscing over Abu Ghraib reflexively occurs.  Hardly.

The truth of the matter is this is a further reminder of how professional, and respectful of the enemy,  the U.S. military always is when conducting war, but for these outlier situations.  It is hard to imagine the Taliban ever giving a Christian or other religious burial to a captured high-level leader of the U.S. if they ever had to inter the body.  Yet that is exactly what the U.S. did with Osama Bin Laden, who murdered thousands of U.S. citizens and is reponsible for the death of military personnel who went to war and were killed in the aftermath of 9/11.  Such is in stark contrast with the Taliban, as well as Al Queda, who are known for their brutal treatment of their prisoners (hostages).

As to the nail-biting over inflaming anti-American sentiment in Afghanistan, this cannot help the U.S. image but given that the Taliban are well-known to be brutal against their own people, it’s hard to believe that a couple of marines’ bad toilet-training will move the Taliban ahead of the U.S. in popularity.  In fact, for many an Afghan, who are pragmatic and more worried about survival, this may be a further reminder of who they think they would fare better with as a neighbor: namely, the U.S. military.

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Mr. Romney must realize that only one person in the history of this world has been successfully both for and against the same thing, at the same time: Bill Clinton

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Going into an election year with the worst economic recovery since the Depression, President Obama cannot believe his luck over how the Republican Presidential candidates have suddenly discovered the vicissitudes of capitalism that Mitt Romney practiced at Bain Capital.  In short, Mr. Romney worked at an investment outfit that purchased various entities, usually in distress because of mismanagement.  In return for its money, Bain would convert the failing entity into a viable business through paring back costs, often via worker cutbacks, and repositioning the operational, if not strategic focus.  The implicit alternative was failure and dissolution of such businesses, which would have resulted in a 100% worker cutback.

Liberals, perhaps by virtue of their neurological plumbing, have never been able to jump the intellectual hurdle that some worker cutbacks are far better than all workers losing their jobs when a business fails.

But mainstream Republicans have always been able to understand that investment firms like Bain ultimately perform a wealth-creation function by freeing up resources that are being wasted on failing business plans and putting them to a use both needed and demanded by consumers. Republicans have understood this, that is, at least up to now.

As Mr. Romney looks more and more inevitable as the Republican Presidential nominee, the field of candidates has decided that they can out-do President Obama and Democrats in class warfare demagoguery and bashing the rich.  Brilliant.

There can be no doubt that too early a coronation of Mr. Romney will only allow Mr. Obama to focus on and begin rallying his troops and fire power against him.  And the sparring Mr. Romney will do with other Republicans will sharpen his game; far better for a fellow Republican to land a solid punch in the primaries which Mr. Romney can pick himself up from the mat and learn to recover from than in the general election when undecided voters will be watching him. But the debate and disagreement should be substantive and constructive and not just picking up whatever verbal rocks and dirt are lying on the ground and throwing such willy-nilly in the hope of winning a few votes that are not worth winning, if they even exist at all.  It’s hard to believe that Mr. Romney’s primary adversaries truly believe that Mr. Romney did anything even remotely improper and when you align yourself with MSNBC’s Ed Schultz who asked his viewers “Should the country be run by a ‘vulture capitalist’,” you’ve got to step back from the cliff; free-falling does not have a pretty ending.

Which leads to the real issue that Republicans, and Mssr. Romney, should be laser-beamed on: Romney/Obama Care in particular and healthcare in general.

It is likely that capitalism of the brand that Mr. Romney practiced will survive long after the Obama administration is reduced to history books. But Obamacare is a different matter. The presidential election this year will decide if a major portion of the U.S. economy, as well as people’s health decisions going forward, will be changed permanently, and not for the better.

One of the great challenges this country, and its economy, faces is the spiraling cost of medicine, caused largely by market distortions created by government intervention via regulation as well as the infusion of vast amounts of money, through Medicare and Medicaid, amongst other intrusions.  As Massachusetts governor, Mr. Romney oversaw legislation that was a mini prototype of Obamacare, for the Bay State.  The results have not been impressive.  Medical costs have increased and the state government is facing hundreds of millions of dollars of outlays that Romneycare has created.

Mr. Romney has refused to acknowledge any mistake in shepherding his health care plan to law as governor. In fact, he’s tried to distinguish his program from Obamacare, which he is against, but the two  programs are indistinguishable.  This leaves Mr. Romney prone to attack by President Obama for both flip-flopping and inconsistency, something that would hurt him as a candidate as well as his message that Obamacare is not good for the country.

But he must realize that in trying to be effectively on both sides of the Obamacare debate, he is attempting the impossible.  Probably only one person in the history of this world has been successfully both for and against the same thing, at the same time: Bill Clinton. And while Mr. Romney is generally an adequate speaker, he’s no Bill Clinton, thankfully.

So Mr. Romney would do himself and the electorate a service if he came clean and admitted that his Massachusetts experiment was a mistake, and that Obamacare will be a mistake on a national scope if Mr. Obama is allowed to remain in office. And his Republican opponents would also be doing themselves and the public a service by abandoning the MSNBC carnival barking over Bain Capital and instead focus on one of the real major issues that affect us: health-care.

-I.M.Windee

I both have given up on listening to others’ predictions, with any seriousness, for an upcoming year, as well as stopped making such prognostications myself.  If I could foresee the future with any accuracy, I would not be writing here for my audience of perhaps a half a dozen (I’m being charitable to myself); I would be placing wagers on sports games with bookies or playing the stock market, quietly.  You’d never hear from me again and early retirement would be my lot.

Alas, I am not a Nostradamus. Thus, I will stick to what I would like to happen; what would be “nice”.

So, here is my “nice wish-list” for 2012:

• It would be nice if most people who are looking for a job got one.  I say “most” and not “everyone” since, as heartless as it may sound, there are some who earned their unemployment.  If you doubt such, think about a not-so-positive visit to a government agency or experience with a “customer satisfaction” agent on the phone (although they are somehow employed).
• It would be nice if every day were sunny and 75 degrees, at least during the New Jersey winter.
• It would be nice if a majority, as opposed to a small minority, of mass transit elevators in the New York City area, or anywhere for that matter, worked.
• It would be nice if the remaining dictators of the world moved onto their next life; 2011 was not a good year for tyrants, thankfully.
• It would be nice if people on the roads showed courtesy towards each other (alright, I’m reaching for the moon but I also believe in the Second Coming).
• It would be nice if most people voted this year.
• It would be really nice if those people who voted knew about who they cast their ballots for.
• It would be nice if the next “price change,” no matter what it is on, lowers the price and doesn’t raise it.
• It would be nice if Occupy Wall Street declares their satisfaction with something….anything.
• While on the topic of Occupy Wall Street, it would be nice if instead of occupying physical places, they occupied more of the intellectual debate which is sure to heat up next Presidential election year. Right now, Spiro Agnew’s label “nattering nabobs of negativism” is what I think of when they are mentioned.
• It would be nice if the next mailing I receive from my church or any of the educational institutions I attended said that they have enough money and just wanted to inform me of the mission they are fulfilling, as opposed to being in a constant state of pan-handling.
• It would be nice if no one died (except the dictators mentioned above).  It’s both depressing to see the old-timers go and tragic to hear of young people passing. Yes, I realize there would be a logistics problem with this one so let’s just keep it to 2012 until we work out the bugs.
• It would be nice if some of those re-sealable food packages actually worked. It would be nicer if I, an admittedly uncoordinated person (my wife calls it “klutz”), would learn to use them.
• It would be nicest of all, perhaps, if all of the issues above were addressed so windbags like myself would have nothing to write about and thus never be heard from again.

A happy and healthy new year to you.

-I.M.Windee

Some observations from the holidays:

• If you listen to Karen Carpenter Christmas songs too much, you run a high risk of developing diabetes.
• Is it really true that receipt of a certain car in December (one to remember) will cause rapture or at least make your marriage and family life great?
• While the parking lot of a Catholic church after holy communion is still the most dangerous place on the planet, the parking lot of a store on Christmas Eve is a close second.
• My barber asked me about my Christmas Eve.  Caught off-guard, as I barely cared myself, I wondered how much she was concerned about such.
• My same barber said that once 9 pm rolls around on Christmas Day, she considers the holiday over: it’s good to know the deeper meaning of Christmas carries with many, or perhaps just some.
• People in the store and parking lot on Christmas Eve have a sense of seriousness that perhaps only the special forces who meted out justice to Osama Bin Laden had right before they carried out their mission: shopping is a serious matter, apparently.
• If you are going to use the self-checkout line, especially on Christmas Eve, you better know what you’re doing.  The minute you show the slightest hint of doubt or inefficiency, a posse is ready to form and hang you.  People have places to go, after all.
• I’m told to ensure that the “To” on the gifts ostensibly from Santa to my children do not look like my writing.  Can a 7 and 9 year old really decipher handwriting?
• Was that a fellow church-goer in the store parking lot giving me the finger after I got the spot he wanted?
• If I bought everything my kids wanted for Christmas, I would single-handedly take the entire global economy out of recession and into prosperity for at least 3 decades.
• Why do females wrap gifts better than me?  Ah! Now I remember: I don’t care about wrapping gifts.
• I found myself wishing “Happy Holiday” to someone I didn’t even know I was saying such to, let alone know what I was saying.
• When I was growing up in the 70s, putting the toys together, a duty that fathers were conscripted into, caused great heartburn, but ultimately was a mission accomplished.  Now, separating the toys from the packaging they are affixed to requires no less than a blow-torch, if even successful with that.
• Frosty the Snowman was bi-political: he was obese (politically incorrect) but he also melted, thus proving gloabl warming (politically correct).

Happy holidays and have a healthy new year.

-I.M. Windee

North Pole (AP [Arctic Press]) -  In what can best be described as one of Santa Claus’ worst weeks ever, the corporate conglomerate better known as Kris Kringle Inc. (“KKI”) was on the receiving end of the wrath of the Obama Administration, Occupy Wall Street, congressional Democrats and organized labor.

On Monday morning, the Department of Justice led the charge by filing a suit in federal court alleging that KKI was, in fact, a monopoly.  Attorney General Eric Holder took the reins (pardon the pun) and held a press conference explaining the action. “One of the greatest threats to our economy is the erosion of free competition in our markets,” said Mr. Holder. “And no one best exemplifies a lack of free competition better than Santa Claus and his corporate behemoth, Kris Kringle Inc. Think about it, is there any other entity out there that rides around the world on Christmas Eve and provides gifts to children?  The answer is a resounding “NO!”  And given that he does not charge anything for such gifts, we are looking into anti-dumping violations especially as we believe that some of his toys were not produced by his elves but in China.”

The day only got worse as Monday afternoon saw the Environmental Protection Agency seek a court injunction against Mr. Claus’ Christmas Eve run.  Apparently, the team of reindeer are considered “ruminant livestock” that are capable of producing tons of methane gas that contribute to global warming.  EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said that global warming should not be a partisan issue and that all thinking people, who care about Mother Earth, should be against Rudolph and his methane-emitting co-conspirators [Later in the interview, she admitted that EPA press conferences emit more hot air into the atmosphere than do the sources it alleges].

Rounding out the Monday barage, President Obama held a rare impromptu news conference and wondered aloud if Mr. Claus was paying “his fair share” in taxes.

Tuesday turned out to be no better.  Heading into an election year, congress was eager to show its mettle.  In Mr. Claus, they found their pigeon…err…man.  Senator Schumer of New York thundered “Santa has to decide whether he is for the middle class or against it!  George W. Bush, too!  And throw in Richard Nixon for good measure.”  Congressman Barney Frank suggested that Santa’s operation may fall under financial services regulations and, if not, vowed to pass legislation so that it would be, until he remembered it was no longer 2010.

Wednesday continued Mr. Claus’ lousy streak: Occupy Wall Street got into the fray as only they can: “Occupy North Pole.”  Actually, they could not get up there due to logistics and the fact that there are no Starbucks nor bodegas at the top of the world.  But they were there in spirit, protesting, and held “virtual sit-ins” smack dab at the North Pole.  Impressive.  And their message was clear as a frozen bell: Mr. Claus is worse than the 1% as he is the only one in his class.  ELITIST!!

Thursday saw the leadership at the New Jersey Education Association assert that the fall of Santa shows how wrong Governor Chris Christie’s policies are.  When pressed, they could not elaborate.

Finally, on Friday, Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO President, pointed out that Santa’s elves are not unionized and thus likely exploited.  He went on to say “and to my fellow worker elves, we are with you, we feel your pain whether it exists or not, and UNION YES!!”

Sensing potential political downside to this onslaught on a Christmas icon, the Obama administration held a joint press conference with Department of Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu.  Secretary Chu reassured Mr. Claus that if KKI had to abandon its “core business model” (he looked confused when he used such term), the Energy Department would help him get into the alternative energy industry.  As if on queue, Secretary Solis gave a reminder that there are extended unemployment benefits.

Mr. Claus could not be reached for comment but reports say he was with a team of lawyers planning his next moves. Given the week that poor Mr. Claus had, it’s safe to assume that he’ll be voting next year.

-I.M. Windee