Posts Made By: David White

I don't know if anyone here has read the book Endurance by Alfred Lansing, but I recently finished it. If one is unfamiliar, the book is put together by a collection of the crew's and Shackleton's diaries and deals with Sir Ernest Shackleton's failed 1914 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, where he and his crew are trapped in the Antarctic for circa 2 years. It's an amazing story of how Sir Shackleton and his crew, managed to escape the Antarctic, due to what can only be called, brilliant leadership by Shackleton. The reason I bring it up, is before I finished the book, I realized, Shackleton and Obama have absolutely nothing in common.

Shared sacrifice. One of the leadership skills, that separate the two, are their definitions of shared sacrifice. Shackleton makes it clear, in front of his men, if he is to lead them out of Antarctica and he will, they will have to travel as lightly as possible. As an example, he takes the gold coins from his pocket and tosses them in the snow, rips a couple pages out of his Bible, signed and given to him by Queen Alexandra, puts them in his pocket and sets the Bible in the snow. Then walks away. Obama proposes shared sacrifice, yet, I can't think of a single example of Obama's leadership in this endevour.

Blame. Shackleton never, ever blames anyone or anything, for their being trapped or any of their setbacks during the struggle out. He could blame the weather, the months of lack of sunlight, struggles with food, and more, as reason's for their hardship, but blame is completely foreign to him in the book. Obama's stance on the issue is, well, obvious, every problem is because of someone else.

Class warfare. Despite being English, and 1915, where class is everything in Great Britain, Shackleton eliminates it. There is a drawing for the best sleeping bags and somehow Shackleton insures the junior members of the party receive them. All chores, no matter how menial, are divided equally amongst the crew and officers. Obama, on the other hand, attempts to create class warfare at every opportunity. The rich are never paying their fair share, in any sense of the equation in Obama's mind, which clearly is designed to create a wedge.

Unity. Shackleton unites the crew. Despite having officers and a hired crew separated by class and occupation, Shackleton will ask advice of both, and praise both. He gives everyone a sense of a joined purpose. Obama will call for both parties to unite, then will turn around blame Republicans for gridlock or whatever. How could any rational man believe this will unite?

I really didn't take a hard look at Obama's leadership skills until I read this particular book, and obviously, I find his skills, abysmal.

Any thoughts on Obama's leadership? Pro's and con's.

I just finished Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, the story of Louis Zamperini, an American Olympian and soldier held in a Japanese POW camp, and the brutal treatment he, and his fellow soldiers, received at the hands of the Japanese. I found it a worthwhile read.

Now, I've started Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses, and I find the reading brutally tedious and honestly, it's boring. Has anyone read this book through and found it worth the effort? Should I continue because it will get better, or find something of more merit? Currently, I'm ready to put a fatwa on Rushdie.

According to Biden, Mitt Romney wants to put y'all back into chains, and using his black southern baptist imitation while he's saying it.

http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/videos/joe-biden-romney-will-put-yall-back-in-chains/

What the heck is Biden doing at the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research?

Governor Patrick ‘shocked’ at union shakedown allegations. I'm not.

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1061161809&srvc=rss

Unions just seem like a system where the democrats support them, to get unions more money, so unions can funnel money back to the democrats. The teacher's strike in Chicago is a classic example. They average $76,000 year, not including benefits, summers off, 2 week Christmas breaks off (though it's called winter break now, just a coincidence it falls on Christmas), spring breaks,
all federal holidays, and personal holidays. And they got a 16% raise over 4 years. And their track record, a 37% illiteracy rate

http://epb.lbl.gov/homepages/Rick_Diamond/LBNL55011-trends.pdf

Grandma was right.

Perry and his nutcase female counterpart want to audit the federal reserve. They want it to DISCLOSE!
Er, ah, it already does...

You may want to send a note to another nutcase, Obama.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37003798/ns/business-stocks_and_economy/t/obama-administration-now-supports-fed-audit/#.TkyEsRzZBsA

The photo is obviously altered. Obama rides in the short bus.

Rod Kaufman said:

When gasoline prices were up around $4.00+ during the Dubya years, conservative posters in this forum defended the profits being reaped by the oil companies as a good thing because they reasoned that people had their 401ks invested in oil stocks. (How they knew what stocks people had their 401ks invested in remains a bit of a mystery but for the sake of argument, let's assume it to be true). However, a funny thing happened when Obama became president and oil and gas prices spiked and oil company profits once again skyrocketed. Some of these same conservative posters either remained silent on how beneficial it is to have higher oil prices and therefore higher gasoline prices and subsequent higher profits for the oil companies and their investors. Instead, they whinned and complained about the high prices of oil and gas and blamed Obama for it!
But given our understanding of the market system, the conservative posters in the Bush years were evidently correct: higher oil prices= higher gas prices=higher oil company profits=higher profits for investors.
So now who's fault is it for faliing oil prices and falling gasoline prices?
Is it:
a. Obama? How could it be his fault when he caused them to go up? I guess we gotta eliminate him.
b. Bachmann? Well, I gotta admit, she scares me and she's threatened to take us back to the days of gasoline prices under $2.00/gallon.
c. Speculators? Naw, they're always driving gas prices in one direction: up!
d. Market forces? Hmm, now there's a thought:
http://money.cnn.com/2011/08/19/news/economy/oil_gas_prices/index.htm?hpt=hp_t2
I don't know, Bachmman stiill scares the BGs out of me just about everytime I see or hear her speak...

First, what I always remember was the constant mantra from the left saying gas prices where high during the Bush years, because he was helping his rich oil buddies. Never that high gas prices were some sort of benefit for 401K's by the conservatives. So following the liberal mantra, the question is, who was Obama helping when gas prices went up?

Second, Bachman's "threatened" to take us back to gas prices under $2.00 a gallon? Who considers cheaper gas prices a threat?

Third, You're correct, Obama has no control in lowering gas prices. He's just not that bright.

I agree with Obama regarding shared sacrifice, although his and the dictionary meaning of "shared" seem inconsistent, "to divide, apportion, or receive equally" and since the debt is going to kill us, we're going to have to increase taxes but more importantly, dramatically reduce spending. So I do agree with ending the Bush tax cuts, since at least it's a start in the "shared sacrifice" by putting the 10% of the working population back on the federal income tax rolls. I think everyone should have to pay something in the federal income tax system, and they most certainly should not be getting back more than they had deducted.

One problem I do have with Obama's definition of shared sacrifice is it seems to only include people with private jets, and Airforce One strangely enough, by his definition, doesn't seem to be a private jet. Talk about hypocrisy.

Obama cited the payroll tax in his weekend radio and Internet address Saturday, when he urged Congress to work together on measures that help the economy and create jobs. "There are things we can do right now that will mean more customers for businesses and more jobs across the country. We can cut payroll taxes again, so families have an extra $1,000 to spend," he said.

Didn't we cut payroll taxes in 2010 as part of the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010. And what did that produce? About another trillion in debt and 9.2% unemployment. That worked so well the first time, let's do it again.

I think Perry has the best opportunity.

Running mate, definitely not Mitt or anyone else at the podium, someone hispanic, maybe Mario Diaz-Balart. But more preferable, Marco Rubio, but doubtful if he'll take it. Despite saying he won't, he can still change his mind, that's easy enough to spin.