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U.S. taxpayer dollars should never allow a U.S. official (Representative, Senator, President, judge, or anyone else whose salary is paid by public taxes) to make MORE than the salary for his/her position.

Example: If a Senator’s 2009 salary is $174k, but he/she made $80k on a real estate deal in 2009, they would only be allowed to keep $94k in wages from the federal government.

President Obama said in his State of the Union speech last night:

Families across the country are tightening their belts and making tough decisions. The federal government should do the same.

I think my idea is a very simple way for him and for Congress (and others) to demonstrate that.  Check it out.

You know I’m really not for meddling with the system at all, but basically that video says “America can’t do it because England and Canada did it, and it doesn’t work, and there’s no way we could do it better.”

It also, in lieu of building a socialized medical system, justifies charging patients $5 for an aspirin because they need that money for innovations to improve trauma technology availability, cancer treatments, MRIs, etc.

So basically, the costs of all those innovations get distributed among everyone, even people not using it.

How is that not already a socialized system? So can’t America, the land of great innovation do it better? If not … well that’s a sad forecast.

I mean would a single payer system with incentives not solve the problem too? The title of this video is hardly accurate …

The video talks about how Obama purportedly is building a single payer system (this is purely conjecture), then it goes on to conclude that such a single payer system couldn’t work because Canada and England can’t make it work. It “destroys/pulverizes/crushes” a theoretical Obama “‘health care’ plan” that doesn’t even exist on the grounds that there’s no way America could implement a system better than Canada or England …

Beautiful.

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Off to the homeplace to see how many people ask me what crazy beer I’m drinking #

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Coolest thing ever! Wardensville on CNN … http://abv8.me/14O Makes me very proud #

About the coolest picture ever http://abv8.me/14L (Crasher Squirrel) #

Life tip: You are only as good as the ice cream you eat. Mmmmm … I am real good. #

@GSTEPHANOPOULOUS Wow! (Al Franken draws the US) http://abv8.me/13c #

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Is it either? Well, it is both, but let’s be reasonable. Does the Saudi King now believe he has absolute sovereignty over the United States? Has he claimed the United States and its possessions into the domain of Saudi Arabia?

Hardly.

It is ignorant to continually dispute things like this. These are dignitaries. They are not gods. That is, they make mistakes, and they realize people from other cultures make mistakes.

I am not 100% convinced that Obama is bowing, because it looks more like he’s bending over to pick up a quarter he dropped or something. However, if he did bow, it was undoubtedly a gesture of good faith. President Obama did not hand the keys of the United States over to King Abdullah. Yes, a bow to that nature in the Muslim culture is a gesture of complete submission. Obama is not a Saudi citizen however, and Abdullah must be accustomed to interacting with people of different cultures. To that point, it is not likely that the Saudi King recognized this gesture as anything but one of good will.

You’ve got to remember. Leaders constantly get immersed in different cultures and have no choice but to be lenient in their interpretations both in spoken and body language. Look at it this way: if King Abdullah would have smacked Obama on the butt like a basketball player in the locker room, would we really think they were good buddies? You can be certain that the first glance interpretation we made of the gesture would be accompanied by a great deal of skepticism and debate.

If the Saudi King believes he has gained any control over the United States, he did so because of the failed policies of our previous, incompetent, arrogant former President. You know, Dubya? He is the most significant cause of our dwindled respect from our worldly observers.

The “terrorist attacks” of September 11th, 2001 occurred approximately 8 months after George W. Bush was inaugurated the 43rd President of the United States of America. Therefore, Bush’s failure to demonstrate a firm stand against the terrorist powers of the world directly led to this attack.

Disagree? Not preventing that attack is equally as at fault for Muslim sovereignty over the United States as Obama’s apparent faux pas.

Get over it, and, instead of nit-picking Obama’s non-godly ability to make mistakes, help us regain respect, not some ill-conceived reverence, in the international community.

We are not THE power, we are a communal power, and everyone is trying to get along.

But that is another entry …