HIPPIE CLAUSE

Ho, Ho, Ho. Hello everyone, it's me, Hippie Clause. The '60s version of the jolly old man from up north. I'm not quite as well known as the Kris Kringle version, mainly because I don't hang out in malls, don't have a league of elf helpers and don't have a great story wove through the ages. But I am working on it. I don't bring toys for all the kids, I bring advice to all our politicians and people. Not quite as glamerous to be sure, but someone has to do it. So, let me reach into my big tie-dyed bag and see what I've got for everyone this year.

For President Barack Obama;

I thought long and hard about this one. To President Barack Obama I advise humility and Supreme guidance. If ever in our history there was a man that needed the guidance of God, it is Barack Obama. Our economy is in shambles, our stature overseas is dismal and our people are lost. Our families, once the great unbreakable strength that has persevered through war and depression, has now been replaced by fractured families that have devalued fatherhood, the two parent structure and discipline. Our children are lost and we are too busy with ourselves to even care. For Obama to make a mark in this area he will have to show that a nuclear family is worth emulating and help us understand the value of unity verses selfishness and narcissism. In the process, Barack has to have the humility to be one of us, not one above us. It can be far to easy for someone who has come so far, so fast, to become full of himself. In this time of self indulgence, President Obama needs to understand that no one man can cure problems so vast and deep by himself. He needs humility to help guide him to the people most capable of helping him help all of us. We need a leader who leads people willing to follow, not a strong arm. Humility will help him in that area, just as it helped another great president who faced hard times, Abraham Lincoln.

For our Congress;

I advise, guilt. Guilt for running our country into the ground while only thinking of their next election. Guilt for taking money from lobbyists who didn't have the best interest of this country at heart. Guilt for representing big business and advocacy groups that served the few, rather than the many. And guilt for blaming each other, when it is the corrupt system of Washington that is to blame. A system that can only be fixed by virtue, reborn through guilt, that will make a few strong enough to stand up and say, "I will no longer stand still while corruption destroys the country my fore fathers died for."

For us, the people;

I advise, strength. The strength to change back into the people that we once were. People who valued themselves by their ability to sacrifice for their family, country and the greater good of everyone, not by their selfish achievements or possessions. We have come far in shedding our racism and our sexism, even though we still have far to go, but we have fallen so far in other areas. We were once self-reliant and strong, now we are weak, divided and dependent. We seek a government that can cure all our needs by writing a check, not by us volunteering. We don't shovel our elderly neighbor's walk, instead we wonder why the government doesn't create a program to do it for us. In the process we have lost the pride that comes with helping, with caring. In the hard times that are certain to be ahead, we will be faced with the option of continuing down this path alone or together. Tough times will help us realize our own strength and the truth behind one of my favorite quotes, "United we stand, divided we fall."

My last bit of advice for all of you is to not worry about the hard times ahead. Prepare. Hope for the best, but don't worry. We have been down this road before and we will come out of this stronger and smarter. Times will get better, they always do. Love those that are closest to you, support those that are less fortunate. Together we will overcome these hard times just as we always have. As Dr Seuss' character, The Grinch, famously learned, Christmas isn't about things, it's about family and being together. We should all take a moment to remember that. Merry Christmas everyone. May God guide you through these tough times. H.C.

PAGE D-12

Here are some stories that I've unearthed that I feel deserve a lot more attention than they were given. Most were buried deep in the bowels of my many newspapers and are ignored by nearly everyone. Since I love when my friend Andre over at The Unmitigated Word does news snippets, I've decided to give it a short try myself with my own spin on it. I'm sure some of them will leave you wondering, as I was, how the mainstream media managed to bury them.

Arson at Sarah Palin's church

For reasons that I am unable to fully understand, people on the left side of the political spectrum hate Sarah Palin beyond words. I find this odd because Sarah hasn't, to the best of my knowledge, done anything to any of them except have a point of view, culture and lifestyle that is different from their own. The supposedly tolerant left can't seem to control themselves from attacking her children, her hometown, her looks and even her accent. However, it now appears to have reached a brand new level, when someone, or several someones, burned down the Wasilla Bible Church in Alaska. Authorities believe it may be connected to the church's outreach program for homosexuals that has been recently criticized by several Gay organizations. Governor Palin herself has apologized to the church and people of Wasilla for bringing this vile hatred back home from the lower 48. Move over KKK, it appears you now have some competition on the left.

Bush swings open the border

In the middle of the night G.W. gave a parting kiss to farmers across the country. Bush rewrote the rules for immigrant farm hands in a way the makes it easier for farmers to get low wage workers without having to prove that they at least tried to get labor through conventional means. Bruce Goldstein of the advocate group Farmworker Justice had this to say, "The changes in the posted version would drop a requirement that an employer get the Labor Department to certify it faces a worker shortage before it can get visas for foreign workers; instead, employers would be allowed to simply attest in writing to a shortage. That version of the new rule also would change the method for calculating wage minimums for workers and relieve employers of a requirement to recruit in states or communities where other employers already are hiring farm workers." With the GOP fighting for cheap labor and the DNC fighting for the illegal vote, soon we won't have to ship jobs overseas to lose them.

Riots across Europe

One of the many reasons that I oppose Socialism is that it doesn't absorb hard times very well (due to the majority of the jobs being public) and instills in it's populous the inability to function without the government holding their hands. I call these people "Bridge Sitters" after the people stranded on the infamous bridge in New Orleans waiting for the government to save them. An unfortunate result of disappointed "Bridge Sitters" is that they blame the government for not solving every problem in life that they face. Self reliant people are far better at surviving hard times since they immediately go about helping themselves and others. This is now playing itself out in several European countries as the bad economy spreads. As more and more people lose their jobs, and with no other job source to turn to, angry youths are hitting the streets to vent on their "parent". The government's only option is to create work programs funded by printing money. Any first year economics student will tell you that only leads to devaluing your currency and hyper-inflation. The riots started in Greece but have now spread to France, Germany, Spain, Denmark and Italy. This could turn into a far bigger story later.

Lending money to fools

Lastly, but not least, is the story of a swindler of epic proportions. Wall Street money manager Bernard Madoff's ponzi scheme is being pretty well covered by the mainstream media. Mr. Madoff managed to run off with over 50 billion dollars of investors money. That's 50 Billion with a "B". What wasn't, and isn't, being covered is who was among the burned. J. Ezra Merkin, GMAC chairman. That's right, the chairman of the financial arm of General Motors Corporation that is, as we speak, begging for taxpayer money. Is it too much to ask that before we bail out these losers, they at least shed people that fall for one of the oldest schemes known to man? It's easy to see why this isn't being well publicized. Who would give more money to people who can't even be trusted to hold on to what they have? What's next, we cover their track losses too?

Well, that's it for now. Maybe this helps explain why I walk around mumbling to myself a lot lately. H.C.

A LOOK AT ALTERNATIVE FUELS; IS NATURAL GAS THE ANSWER?

Despite the fact that gas prices worldwide have plummeted, our situation here in the U.S. has not changed. We are still way too dependent on foreign oil, we still will be out of domestic oil in 10 to 12 years, and petroleum is still polluting our planet whether you believe the Global Warming alarmists or not. The majority of the dollars we are sending overseas are still going into the hands of governments that have our destruction as a goal and or trade deficit is still way too high. For all these reasons, I beg all of you not to fall back into complacency and assume the danger is past. It has simply retreated only to return later, far more dire. In this piece I will be looking at the viability of using Natural gas as an alternative. My hope is to go through all our alternatives and help you best decide which will be the most viable option, or if a variety of options used simultaneously is best.

Natural gas is a naturally occurring gas (hence the name) found in the Earth that consists mainly of Methane, but also contains Butane, Propane, Hydrogen Sulfide and other trace elements. It is either pulled out of natural gas wells or is the bi product of oil wells. At the present time, it is used in the U.S. to primarily heat homes. If you live anywhere near a city in the U.S., your home is most likely heated by natural gas. Natural gas has been used in the U.S. since 1816 for both heat and light. More recently, it has been used to create electricity as a fuel in conventional steam boiler generators. It's cleaner than it's competitors such as oil and coal, and some people, most notably T. Boone Pickens, have been recently propping it up as a solution to our oil dependency. But how likely is that to happen? Do we have enough to do the job? And is it a good answer for our future? All of these are questions I will try to answer in this piece.

*Do we have enough?*

At first glance, it certainly seems we have enough. The U.S. has known reserves of natural gas in excess of 1,320 trillion cubic feet. That certainly seems like plenty, but first we have to study the mechanics of Natural Gas. Natural gas is measured in cubic feet, meaning the amount of gas that would fill a box 1'x1'x1' = 1 cubic foot. That would seem to be equivalent to about a gallon of gas, but there's other factors to consider. In order to compare them fairly, we have to "liquefy" the natural gas through compression. In order to get 1 gal of liquid natural gas, we have to compress approximately 100 cubic feet of gas. Even then it's not really equivalent. One liquid gallon of natural gas has approximately 3/4 the energy stored in it when compared to petrol (it takes126.67 cubic feet of cng to equal a gallon of regular unleaded gas) . That means that a gallon of natural gas in a car that normally gets 24 MPG will only get about 18 MPG, which in turn means you will have to burn more of it to cover the same distance. Another problem is that we already use natural gas to heat our homes and to power steam turbine power plants. At the present time, we only produce 24.5 trillion cubic feet a year in the U.S. and we already consume 23 trillion. That doesn't leave a lot of room. With the amount of natural gas that we would have to have to power our cars, estimated at 28 trillion cubic feet per year we would need to increase our production by over 100% or find a way to free up what we already produce. That would explain why the T.Boone Pickens Plan has, as one of it's centerpieces, replacing the amount of natural gas that we use for electricity production with wind and solar and why he's only suggesting replacing only a fraction of our oil consumption.

*So in conclusion.*

Is the idea of natural gas as a replacement for oil viable? Yes. But we have to consider a few more things before we jump head first into it. For one thing, replacing or increasing production would take years. Would that time be better spent chasing something else? We'll get into that later when we look at the other alternatives. Another thing to consider is that natural gas is controlled by the same corporations (Big Oil) that have been raping us at every opportunity. If we're going to invest in a new fuel source, wouldn't be better to not give a big monetary kiss to our rapists? Natural gas is a domestic source that is plentiful, cleaner, (but not really clean), and easily deliverable since the pipeline already goes to most of our homes. It's certainly worth considering. It would definitely be better than sending our money to governments that hate us and quite possibly are the source of funding for terrorists that are trying to destroy us. As we look at the future, it would serve us well to seriously consider all the options we have and natural gas could, at the very least, lessen our dependence on foreign oil in the short term. H.C.

CHANGELINGS

Change, change, change. That was the mantra of the Obama campaign. It also was the buzzword of the Obama-maniacs. That group of faithful followers who cried at all his speeches, took all his words to heart and looked at him as the Messiah who would lead this country to Utopia. Now, nearly a month after the historic elections, change has come to the Obama camp, but it's not the change they thought. That change was from flighty idealist to realist.

It's not really Barack's fault that some people projected unrealistic expectations upon him, those people are seldom grounded in reality anyway. They are people who believe war is never the answer, even when avoiding war is more costly. They are people who think you can force the rich to do your bidding, even as they admit the rich run this country. They believe you can pry power from the powers-that-be simply by voting in a President, even as they admit that we have a balance of power and a Constitution that keeps a President from doing whatever he wants. To all those people, I dedicate this piece.

The problem is, for the most part, that they are ignorant (and I don't mean that in a degrading way) of the way our government runs. Because of that, they don't understand how hard it is for a President to get his agenda through. They have been told by their Left-Leaning Media that G.W. is single-handedly responsible for the War in Iraq, the price of oil, the state of our economy, and probably believe that Bush hired-out the attacks on 9/11. If Bush could do all that, they reason, then why shouldn't Obama be able to push through Universal Healthcare? Better distribution of wealth?

The truth is, and you Liberals should probably sit down for this one, Bush didn't really control all those things himself.

The War in Iraq was pushed through by a cabala of people from Rumsfeld to Bush Senior. Poor G.W. was just their pawn. It was planned and agreed upon by the RNC with the help of other nations and even some Democrats that were sick of bowing for oil and sick of the troublesome example that Sadam set forth in the Middle-East. After 9/11, they saw their chance and used, let me repeat that, used, not created, the event to their advantage. You people who believe that Bush orchestrated 9/11 have a real problem sorting fact from conjecture and I can't do a thing to help you. As hard as I have tried. If it wasn't 9/11, it would have been something else. Our Presidents can't get away with a blow job or a burglary much less something that would require the Pentagon to kill it's own people. God, I can only hope none of you end up as part of a jury.

The price of oil, and thereafter the price of your gas, is manipulated by world factors such as supply and demand, OPEC, and the value of the U.S. dollar. Most of this oil (77%) is in the hands of Governments who have their own agendas which are contrary to ours. Bush couldn't control that if his life depended on it. Do yourself a favor and spend some time researching where oil comes from and how much we (the U.S.) consume. It'll do you a lot of good.

What really happens is that these ideas are hatched over years and through politics and money, people are brought on board until they have enough people to make it happen. Then they sell their idea to the unwitting public through their media sources. It's as simple as that. Without those people in Congress, without the support of your party and without the lobbyists to pay for it, ideas die. Some things have tons of support from the public (like ending abortion) but aren't supported by either Party because it might dry up the well of lobbyist monies that both sides get from hotly contested issues. Change in Congress is for sale to the highest and most organized bidder. No one can do it alone, including President Obama.

For this reason, President Obama has carefully tried to craft a cabala of his own. One that he hopes will be powerful enough, connected enough, and financed enough to pass the ideas that he holds closest to his heart. In looking at his options he has to consider the politics involved. Will he piss off others in his Party that expect power through seniority? Will he lose their support on key issues? Are there people on the other side of the aisle willing to join him? Can he trade positions for support? This is not change, but it is reality. For Obama to get anything done, he needs to enter the very world he threaten to change. Fortunately for him, all his fellow politicians understand that "Change" is simply the keyword used by every politician to take a position held by the other Party. Especially when things are going wrong.

So don't be too hard on Barack, you Changelings. He's just doing what he has to do to get any change at all. He picked ex-Clintonites for posts because he had to. He picked Hillary for Sect. of State to unify his Party, and he's cutting deals just like every politician before him. It's true that it's not change, but it's what he has to do. The best we can hope for is that he will keep our best interests at heart. But most importantly, don't blame him for not bringing the change that you hoped for in the blink of an eye. After all, it's you that didn't understand how hard it is to "change". H.C.

AND SO IT BEGINS

Of all the problems that plague our government, none infuriates me more than the "Pardon Season". Although Presidents typically pardon people throughout their terms, controversial pardons are usually avoided until this time of year. This is the part of the election cycle that America suffers a "lame duck" President. That is, a President who is nearly powerless, but has nothing to fear from voters. He doesn't fear the voters because he's already been voted out or termed out and his Party has two years before another election. Let's face it, no one can ever remember who any President ever pardoned anyway, much less two years later. The Pardon Season starts sometime just after the Presidential election cycle and can last right up to the very last day of the departing President's reign. Each departing President tries his best to do this outrageous act in a way that draws as little attention as possible. Maybe during a hot news day, or after a major sporting event.

Today the Bush Administration released a list of 14 people who would be the recipients of a Presidential Pardon from George W. Bush. Including these pardons, he has now granted a total of 171 pardons and eight commutations. Conveniently, this list was release at the same time that every journalist was covering Barack Obama's announcement that his new economic team would include Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers. Yes, the same Larry Summers that I wrote about a while back who lost his job as Harvard's President because he had the nerve to suggest that women might just not be interested in becoming engineers. That infuriated the leftists at Harvard who demanded, and got, his resignation. Despite that, it appears Obama is unconcerned that the press will make an issue of his appointing a known sexist. My guess is that he's right, since the press always seems to be far more forgiving to the Dems for acts of racism or sexism. But back to Bush.

Bush's pardons so far are in line with the usual lame duck pardons. A bunch of rich people, a bunch of well connected people. Each has fought long and hard to make their way on to the list. Whether it's Republicans or Democrats doing the pardoning, you can rest assured that each pardon is represented by sizable donations to the President's campaign or his soon to be constructed Presidential library. Clinton pardoned domestic terrorists along with an assortment of white collar criminals and drug dealers and George H.W. Bush pardoned his Iran-Contra buddies and a long list of white collar criminals, both sides abuse this loophole terribly. Among Bush's recent pardons were for 3 people who committed various types of bank fraud, a women who committed medical insurance fraud, a couple of drug dealers and even a killer of bald eagles.

So how do we stop this abuse of power?

First, there should be no lame duck pardons at all! All pardons should be given out before Oct. 1 of their last year in office. That way the press has time to publish all their pardons and let the voters take it out on their candidate or party. This system of allowing criminals to buy or barter their way out of their convictions through lobbyists or personal connections is a form of nepotism and elitism that we should all be trying to limit in our government. Government is a service to one's country, not a position of power to shield one's friends and relatives. Presidents, Senators, House Representatives and Governors all abuse this power for their own benefit and it's time to make it so that it's also at their own peril. Justice can never be completely equal, but it is what we should all strive for. H.C.

TWO DAVIDS VS. TWO GOLIATHS

The banners have all come down, the streets are all swept free of the confetti, and the last party has been thrown. Now comes the time to analyze the election, the blame and the credit. To be sure, a lot of the credit for the big win on the Democrat side has to go to Barack Obama and a lot of the blame for the loss has to go to John McCain. That's just the way it is, the buck stops at the top. The McCain campaign leaders (not to be confused with the RNC) have thrown Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin to the wolves. This is to be expected, they certainly don't want to take the blame themselves, after all, they're all hoping to work on another campaign in the future and that's not likely to happen if they blame themselves. Governor Palin is doing the right thing. She's defending herself while pointing out that these attacks aren't coming from McCain or the RNC. Her future, from my point of view, has to be bright, I can't picture the RNC throwing away anyone with that much star power and name recognition. On the Democrat side, everyone wants in on the credit, as can be expected. But who was really the brains behind the impossible? From everything I've seen and read, it was two relatively unknowns that brought down the the twin Goliaths of McCain and Clinton; David Plouffe and David Axlerod.

So, who are the two Davids? Let's take David Plouffe first.

David Plouffe began his political career when he went to work for Senator Tom Harkin's 1990 re-election campaign. He later worked as a state field director for Harkin's unsuccessful 1992 Presidential campaign. He then successfully managed Congressman John Olver's first re-election bid in Western Massachusetts. In 1994 Plouffe managed Delaware Attorney General Charles M. Oberly's unsuccessful campaign against Senator William V. Roth Jr.. He then worked as campaign director for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in 1995. In 1996, Plouffe managed Bob Torricelli's successful campaign to fill Bill Bradley's seat in the United States Senate.From 1997 to 1998 Plouffe served as Democratic leader Richard Gephardt's Deputy Chief of Staff. From 1999-2000 he worked as executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and then in 2003 he met David Axelrod and began working on Barack Obama's successful 2004 U.S. Senate Campaign and finally on Barack's Presidential bid. From the very start of Obama's campaign, Mr. Plouffe made one thing abundantly clear. There would be no drama. As Barack's campaign manager, David was the "details man", in charge of the Obama strategy to win. With every state thought out in his head and every move calculated, David Plouffe believed the only possible problem would come from either his staff acting out badly or his candidate coming across as an "angry black man". On that, he was completely correct. White America had seen it's share of passionate black presidential candidates from Rev. Jesse Jackson to Rev. Al Sharpton and they had demonstrated one thing beyond any doubt. While all were popular among black people, white people would not vote for them. Without the white vote, Mr. Plouffe concluded, Barack could not win. This theory of "no drama" was applied not just to Barack Obama, but also to his wife, his spokesmen, his supporters, campaign workers and anyone else that could be tied to Obama. David Plouffe was directly responsible for the discipline that the Obama campaign showed.

David Axelrod was Barack's Senior Political Advisor, but he could better be described as Barack's "Right Hand Man". David began his political career at age 13 handing out campaign buttons for Robert F. Kennedy. He pursued his passion for politics by attending the University of Chicago where he majored in political science. Like his counterpart, David Plouffe, he didn't graduate and went to work at the Chicago Tribune and became the City Hall Bureau Chief and a political columnist. Unhappy as just a writer, (I can relate), in 1984 he joined the campaign of US Senator Paul Simon as communications director and within weeks he was promoted to co-campaign manager. He then formed his own consulting firm, Axelrod and Associates, and was hired by Harold Washington, Chicago's first black mayor.This established his experience in working with black politicians and he later went to work on similar mayoral campaigns of blacks, including Dennis Archer in Detroit, Michael R. White in Cleveland, Anthony A. Williams in Washington, D.C., Lee P. Brown in Houston, and John F. Street in Philadelphia as well as Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley. David met Barack Obama in 1992 through a mutual friend and the two became so close that Obama consulted Axelrod before he delivered his famed 2002 anti-war speech and asked him to read drafts of his book, The Audacity of Hope. Axelrod is credited with coming up with the Caucus Strategy and post Super Tuesday Strategy that helped defeat Hillary Clinton in the primaries. I think it's fair to say that without David Axelrod, we would be looking at a Clinton or McCain Presidency.

As we assess the 2008 historic election of Barack Obama, let's all remember that Barack is not just the product of the streets of Chicago, not just the product of a caring Grandmother or the support of black people. Barack Obama is where he is today by virtue of his gift of communication and the efforts of two Davids who helped him slay two Goliaths that no one, not even me, thought he had a chance against. H.C.

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DAY MAKES

On September 11, 2001 all of our lives changed forever. On that fateful day, Americans were no longer black, brown or white, we were all Americans. The attacks on the World Trade Center unified us all in a way I have never seen. In the face of an enemy that didn't care if they killed who they killed or what color they were, we suddenly all became Americans, brothers and sisters. But time has a way of making us forget the significance of a single day, of a single moment in history. Whether it's April 4, December 7, or September 11, we slowly drift back into all the things that divide, not unify us all.

And now, on November 4, 2008, after all the divisive attacks by both sides, America has seen another equally important moment in time. Unlike the previous days I mentioned, this day is a joyous one, even for the people who did not support the change that has come. On this day America chose an African-American, Senator Barack Obama, for their highest, most powerful position, the President of the United States of America. This happened even though blacks are only 14% of the population. It happened with the help of white people, Asian people, Hispanic people, Gay people and people of every race, creed, and religion imaginable. It happened because a majority of people did not care about his color or his mixed race and mixed religion background. What they all shared was his positive message of an America that could be better, of an America that lives up to it's creed; "That all men are created equal". They all shared his vision of unity, not divisiveness, of hope, not of fear.

On this one day America is again unified by the one bond that binds us all, a future that is tied and bound by our love of the United States, our home.

Don't get me wrong, there will be times of trial, and divisiveness will again rear it's ugly head, but after today, we will never look at America the same. The Nay-sayers, the haters, the people stuck in the sad reality that was the '50's, '60's, and '70's will have to admit that America has changed and for the better. On this day, November 4, opportunity has spread and now warms the hearts of people who honestly felt that it was simply not theirs to enjoy. It is truly a day for hope and optimism.

The saddest part of all of this is that one day separated Barack's grandmother, the women who raised him and the person he credits with being his biggest influence, from seeing her son become everything she believed he could be. I am sure, however, that she is in heaven smiling down, knowing that the sacrifices she made were not for naught. Family has won out.

To all my black friends, congratulations. It has been a long hard road but one that has lead to a better tomorrow. Yesterday is gone, the moment is fleeting, and tomorrow is all we have. On this one day, history has been made, hope has resurfaced and racism has been dealt a serious blow. What a difference one day can make. H.C.