We Are Grandparents - Stop Spending Our Money Mr President

The country needs to organize to stop the government from spending anymore money. If you believe we should tell our elected representatives that it is time to:

• Really Balance the Budget
• Reduce Spending
  
• Stop Trying to Budget Things We can't Afford

Then you need to email me now and say you would like to know what to do? First I would like to organize by state. If the response is great enough I will immediately set-up a permanent web site. This site is temporary. Permanent site under construction. GRANDPARENTS UNITE

Fox New's Glen Beck found a huge niche. Mom's that are not empowered. I propose to do the same. Get teams of grandparents, thousands, in every state in the union to make plans to tell our legislators to STOP, and DESIST spending and proposing these unaffordable programs.

A Quote from Glen Becks "Mom's Show."

"I've been thinking about the show with some of America's great moms we did last week and the response we've been getting has been overwhelming.

I went out to an event last night and something struck me: The amount of females in the audience was more than ever and clearly they were not there because of my molten hotness. I mean, look at me: Chubby, pasty, multiple chins — I could go on. They are there because as moms, it's in their nature to protect their children and they are realizing that this government is putting their children's futures at risk."

IDEAS, HELP, DO SOMETHING, Mom's and Grandparents need to rise up and stop this destruction of our nation.

Charlie Courtois

Election, 2008, Lies, Lies, Lies!

Is there anything we can believe about the election now? How does one separate the ½ truths from the ¾ truths and so on? Sources that I came to trust over the decades of my life are no longer reliable, and it seems that is it an ever increasing battle to root out the truth. Sooner or later each of us becomes tainted by this darkness. What really happens is that we begin to form our own misguided precepts that make us feel good. Truth is not about feeling good. Truth should be the basis with which we evaluate if someone is worthy of our vote.

If our candidate is exposed by a hint of scandal, or a partial lie, what do we do? Do we hunker down and deny it? At the very least I am guilty of that. We immediately discredit the source in our mind, be it good or bad or maybe even true. That is a very unhealthy situation. Nevertheless, the network video engineers rule the roost.

The spectacular dirt dug up on each and every candidate will surface, true or untrue, and eventually will be thrust in our faces with music, sound effects, and the latest flashing, blinking technology. Madison Avenue used to call this subliminal advertising, or messages. Now it is in your face exploding video messages. Brainwashing by our media which burns in the lies, half-truths, and whatever message the advertiser chooses to thrust on the public, is the beginning of the grab for power. Greed and the accumulation of money is how the election will be won. Yes and a skillful collection of deceptions and deviousness will be at the forefront of the march toward office.

Horror of horrors, there is always the latest poll. While I was perusing various news outlets political pieces, I was struck by the hundreds and hundreds of polls, which were emblazoned with red, white and blue American Flags, that were not worth the ink and drawing it cost to present them. I think it sad to say that there will be hundreds of thousands of people, maybe millions, misled by the anecdotal evidence they represent.

Election-2008 will break all previous spending records. The estimates now are in excess of a billion dollars. When it is all said and done this November, what will the hundreds of millions of dollars have accomplished, that some simple, truthful, and meaningful editorials about each new candidate would not have achieved?

U-Tube Clips, Cable Networks, Main Stream TV Media, Talk Radio, Print Media

After reading and listening to various portions of the above sources of news and information these last few weeks, I, for one, have become disillusioned about the veracity of any of it. The amount of money being spent on this upcoming election is beyond any human’s capacity to comprehend neither the meaning nor the impact of its use. The goal is winning. Lies become truth. Truth becomes a lie. Truth looses it meaning. The voting public is on the outside looking inside. The hundreds of promises declared by the candidates become blurred and meaningless. If this over-saturation continues, and it will, we may see a voting apathy occur in 2008 that will set a sad new record.

When one adds to that media bombardment the impact of the Internet and the Blog sites, it no wonder that people are beginning to feel everything associated with polls, talking heads, newscasters, reporters, editors, publishers, etc. etc is out of control. I am completely convinced that it is a physical impossibility to be well informed about Election-2008 without standing back and putting your own research effort into gear. I mean by this that you alone will have to evaluate each fact, bit by bit, and come to your own conclusions. Not only that; but, you will need to go back and start from scratch. I have been, and maybe you too, have been brainwashed. The unequivocal truth is that it is nearly impossible to be well informed with this years overwhelming media saturation about the pending Election-2008; because, it has become a farce and the lies and distortions are just beginning. Think about that!

May be it is just me; but, I am sick of the lies, distortions and self-serving political parties and the people associated with them. Politics is all about money, power, and the promises of those who claim to want to represent the people. Very shortly each political party will host their farcical national conventions, which will be led-off by a Hillary dominated democratic week. I urge each one of you to put on your thinking cap, and whatever you do, please go to the polls and vote your own true beliefs. Not that of some network, announcer, liar, promoter, or newspaper.

Charlie Courtois
Forsyth, Georgia

The Right To Life, The Election, and What Some are Doing About It

We can close our eyes and not see abortion, but this culture of death is all around us and it aids and abets choices in our lives which God will make us accountable for when the time comes.

The subject Pro Life affects every one who is alive. What the phrase often implies, wrongly to many, is that we humans make the choice of life ourselves. This could not be farther from the truth. The right to life is a gift from our Lord and Savior! The voluntary participation of the many in the work of “40 Days for Life,” depicted in the video presentation below, is just one small effort to pray and act against the abomination of abortion.

For most of my life I went around thinking that our courts had decided about abortion, partial birth abortion, euthanasia, stem cell research and other related life issues. These things were not on my radar screen. Now I realize that these civil law decisions are a violation of the 10 commandments that God handed down to us from our church fathers and as Disciples of Christ we are expected to stand up for the truth and to try to do our part in letting those who do not realize the error of their ways to understand what they are doing is against God’s will.

Two vital pieces of the “Right to Life” issue is the understanding of it and the doing of something about it:

UNDERSTANDING: http://www.worksforchrist.org/right%20to%20life.htm at the bottom of the noted URL you will find the heading, “The Fetus is a Baby and a Life. “ This is about the technical and the truth about life in the uterus.

DOING: This URL was produced by the “40 days for life” volunteers to promote what it is that they are doing in support of God’s Will to inform the protagonists and antagonists of abortion. Through prayer and peaceful support we can do a tiny something about this gargantuan issue.

The 39-minute video is a comprehensive case study of a very successful 40 Days for Life campaign that was held in Fargo, North Dakota.

You'll hear from their entire campaign team – as well as other volunteers and leaders, including a local radio station owner, the North Dakota leader of Concerned Women for America, and Catholic Bishop Samuel Aquila:

http://40daysforlife.com/blog/?p=120

The 2008 election is close. I hope this presentation will make you think about the 50,000,000 million, or so, deaths attributed to abortion in the U.S. since “Roe versus Wade” and what effect this election will have on the prospects for overturning this 1973 law in the States, the Courts, and our everyday lives.

Charlie Courtois

Who is Guarding the Financial Chicken-coop in Our Country?

A Brief Comment of Modern Finance and Where It has Taken Us!

Mortgage lending has been in the headlines for months. The figures reported for bad loans, those the banks call non-performing, are at astronomic heights. Most of us can not fathom the impact one/half a trillion dollars in loses or more. To save face we hear of many, many schemes to bail out the lenders, the property purchasers, the brokers and just about everybody involved in these sub-prime loans. According to the F.B.I. reports, they are beginning to take some criminal action toward the perpetrators; two Bear Stern operators, and 406 individuals around the country. One such scenario of many is inserted below.

Instead of stealing an identity to secure a credit card, scammers have been zeroing in on people they think have a lot of equity in their homes. They steal their identities, then go online and get a home equity line of credit on that person's house and take the money. The FBI said the possibilities seem to be endless, and even in a down market, there are many opportunities for scam artists. NY Times 6/21/2008

The total impact of this financial debacle is a long way from being settled. These crimes and abuses of power appear to be more far reaching than the Savings and Loan scandals in the early 1980’s. The S & L’s were bailed out by the Federal Government, and to the best of my recollection nobody did any real hard time for those abuses. This time these greedy, mendacious loans were executed at several levels. The fallout and financial impact of thousands of unsuspecting victims, those who failed to read the fine print of their mortgage contracts, and a small army of bankers, brokers, lenders of all stripes, and now a whole new agglomeration of predators poised to scam the unsuspecting, will be decided in large part with tax payer dollars, a declining stock market, and an untold amount of financial instability.

The scariest part of all this is that it will be a long, long time before the financial institutions will reveal the complete extent of the losses which they are supposed to declare. Since the numbers are in the billions, it is bound to have long term implications for hundreds of thousands of people. In the fall of 2007, I said of the first announcement from one of the big banks: “This is going to be like discovering cockroaches; if you find one or two there are probably 100’s.” Well, we have heard about 200-300 billion.

We talk about billions and trillions today without really understanding what the numbers translate to in life impact for the average citizen. In Lee Iacocca’s book, Talking Straight, he describes what you can think of a billion as in terms of time. It would take you and me around 33 years to count to one billion. Who is guarding the financial chicken-coop? It sounds like the Fox is to me!

Charlie Courtois,
Forsyth, Georgia

Will America Cutback on Fuel Without Being Forced?

Will America ever cutback on fuel without being forced to?

Your editorial on “fuel consumption” touches a sensitive nerve in each of us. As a senior citizen, I am fed up with the band-aid solutions that Congress offers up for solving oil price situation. This purchasing halt of reserve oil is one of the most ridiculous things I ever heard. Talk about sending a boy to do a man's job!



If ever there was a time for urgent action on the "OIL PRICE CRISIS” it is now; not in 2009 after the newly elected politicians will get started jawboning. Soon 20-30 million Americans won't be able to afford to drive to work when the gas pumps hit $5.00 a gallon! Inflation and gas prices are already changing everything we do.



What will the people earning 8-25 thousand dollars a year do? Lose their jobs when they can't afford gas? Get on unemployment? Give up altogether? Start riots? If ever there was cause for concern it is now. Not later!



Rationing and drastic cuts in speed limits sounds draconian; but, the time has come for real action. We MUST stop using so much OIL, period... We all know people will not discipline themselves. So, what choices are left?



Our Government and Congress have had 35 years to act since the 1973 oil crises; but, now it's even worse. How about some serious dialog about: What every citizen MUST do to help lower demand? We need to turn the “Somebody-Else-Will-Fix-It-Switch” off.

Published in the Macon Telegraph, May 15th, 2008

Charlie Courtois

The Oil & Gas Problem Is Not About Speculation

Blame the Speculators Floyd Norris from the NY Times article 6/19/2008

In Washington, some high prices are deemed better than others. Stocks should go up, and so should home prices. Commodities should go down.
Senator Joseph Lieberman, the Connecticut Democrat turned Independent, has unveiled suggested legislation to deal with the spate of speculation that is blamed for driving oil prices to record highs, and for making food too expensive.
One proposal would require regulators to set strict limits on how many futures contracts could be owned by financial types, as opposed to buyers and sellers of the real commodity, who could keep trading so long as they were hedging.

The Problem is not about Speculation
Woe is you who wander around believing our oil and gas production is what it should be and that there is little the average voter can do about it.

If our US oil and gas giants were allowed to drill in US controlled properties we could impact the supply and demand from a US needs’ perspective. Let’s not forget that the US Congress is the one thwarting the production and exploration of crude on US properties.

There are now close to ½ a billion Chinese being moved into the major cities of China. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to compute the demand for motor driven vehicles.

Let’s worry less about environmental concerns and pay more attention to managing our resources. Money, exploration, trade, etc. We are the largest and most successful economy in the world; so, let’s get on the ball and do something about it.

Charlie Courtois

Illegal Immigration! A USA Moral Dilemma!

What do you believe you would do if you owned a large multinational corporation about the problem?

I pose the question, not from a bureaucratic position; but, from a profit making enterprise perspective. I list just a few tidbits to stir the pot for a lively discussion.

1.Keep on doing very little just like we have for the last decade. Now we have somewhere between 12 and 20 million illegal aliens; plus, their family and relatives who are eager to get on our Social Security and Medicare rolls, according to various sources.

2.Lobby to get them all proper identification, work visas and setup a plan that deports the offenders if they don’t follow the “new” plan, whatever it is.

3.Keep on talking about a fence?

Or maybe you have some ideas the politicians have not put forth already. As a country, we already have immigration quotas; but, they are meaningless in the face of millions of illegal aliens every year, that seek a home here. Notwithstanding the fact, that we have over 10,000 miles of border to patrol. Peoples rights, budget-busting, moral thinking, safety, security are all in the mix.

CharlieC