Romney Wins Wyoming with Thompson in 2nd, and Hunter in 3rd

Only Duncan Hunter actively campaigned in Wyoming and that was good enough to pick up 3rd place. Romney won with Fred Thompson finishing 2nd. Only the top 3 picked up any delegates for the national convention Romney 8, Thompson 3, and Hunter 1.

Mineral County Republican Presidential Convention

Mineral County Republican Presidential Convention to be held Saturday January 12th at the Mineral County Courthouse from 12 to 3.

All registered Republicans are requested to vote for delegates to send to the West Virginia Republican Presidential Convention.

Republicans on to Wyoming, Democrats to New Hampshire

Saturday Republicans head to the Wyoming Caucus ahead of the New Hampshire Primary.

With 78% Reporting from Iowa

34% Huckabee
25% Romney
14% Thompson
13% McCain

Huckabee's strong win has surprised a lot of people, mainly at the expense of Romney. It is unclear how the virtual tie between Thompson and McCain will play out. 2 surprises; a stronger than expected 5th place finish by Ron Paul, and very low finish by Giuliani with only 4% of the vote.

With 96% Reporting
38% Obama
30% Edwards
29% Clinton
02% Richardson

Juan Williams pointed out that in Iowa, a state with 95% of the population being white, Obama's strong win over both Edwards and Clinton shows that he is a viable national candidate and race will not play a major roll as some expected. This will make Obama a more viable candidate in the eyes of many voters. The 3rd place finish by Clinton could be devastating to her campaign.

Conservatives Should Not Knock "Knocked Up"

At first glance, a movie called "Knocked Up" may sound like the typical Hollywood flick that trashes traditional values and mocks morality. After all the title suggests the kind of vulgar insensitivity that Hollywood seems to have about sex, children, and commitment. Some conservative writers panned the film, probably without seeing it. I am glad I gave it a chance.

Certainly this film has its moments that you do not want your children to see. The main male character smokes more pot than George Burns smoked cigars. On the other hand he also is unashamedly proud of his religious faith, in this case Judaism. Like many men of his age, twenty-three, he devotes his life to good times, meaning getting high and chasing women. The female lead has just found out that she has gained an on air position with that most shallow of networks, E!. Both have lifestyles into which a child will not fit.

They meet at a bar and end up at her place, the back room off of her sister's house. Here comes another scene that you would not want your children to witness. As you might have guessed, she gets pregnant.

The film's important message starts here. Its two least appealing characters encourage the couple to get an abortion, although neither can actually say the actual word. The male character's fat and obnoxious friend advises that he take his girl to a shmabortion clinic. The girl's mother, a shallow and materialistic baby boomer, tells her that her career is too important and that she must "take care of it." The mother gets particularly nauseating when she mentions that another family member preserved her career by "taking care of it" and "she has a real baby now." Obviously the writing team, led by Harold Ramis of Ghostbusters fame, wanted to make the abortion option look as unpalatable as possible. Neither character considers it for a second. The rest of the film shows the two trying to figure out how to commit to each other as much as they have to the unborn child. The male gives up drugs and gets a real job, enabling his girlf friend to move in with him. Along the way the girl's sister's marriage comes close to divorce, but they manage to struggle back to happiness.

This movie in the seventies would have shown a happy pair of people going their separate ways after an abortion while the married family would have broken up. Although "Knocked Up" is no traditional morality tale, it shows people struggling through real life challenges and making the right decisions along the way. Hollywood does excrete a lot of filth, but this film carries some good messages.

Capitalism and the Age of the Individual

As I wrap up my Christmas preparations I begin one of my favorite traditions, watching Christmas movies. Whether contrived or based on the way it used to be, it is clear that the song “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas” won’t ring all that true with our kids. I doubt that more than 10% of the people in our neighborhood decorate outside for Christmas. It also appears that few, if any, stores decorate for Christmas as they once did. Maybe a wreath or two, possibly some ornaments, but usually just a “seasonal” theme to the marketing displays. I don’t mean to be overly critical. I am just as guilty as we all are of forcing retailers to compete with mega stores like Target and Wal-Mart. Forced to cut costs, store owners save where they can in order to provide what the customer wants, lower prices. Even in my agency, we no longer give out calendars in an effort to lower costs and be more responsive to the changing environment.

As I began wondering what this means, I realized that it is ideal for a Christmas zealot like myself. Lower prices allow the individual to customize their Christmas experience. If I want decorations, special meals, and Christmas Eve candlelight, I can afford to do that. If I simply want to take advantage of discounted prices on toys, clothes, and electronics, I can do that as well. If I want to give away money to the needy or save a Christmas bonus for another day, I can choose that as well.

Unfortunately, you can’t get both the lowest cost and best experience from store owners and pillars of the community. It is up to me and you to customize our own Christmas experience. Those choosing not to participate do not have to participate. Those who want to go over the top, get to do that as well. It is simply individual accountability. I hope that everyone enjoys a safe and happy holiday season. I pray that we will be free from adversity and able to simply enjoy the freedom that we have in this country to not just live, but to change the way we live based on our decisions.

This trend is easily illustrated with Christmas, but is becoming evident in all areas of our lives. Retirement and financial planning are two such areas. More and more we are seeing that the only plan that you can count on is the one that you build and maintain. Employers (small business owners in particular) have to cut costs in order to compete with lowered costs. Taxes are everywhere and can’t be cut, cost of goods may have a little room, but not much, real estate and rents are on the rise, insurance costs are increasing and one of the only places left is to reduce services/ staffing. By becoming more streamlined, an employer is able to compete and stay in business. So the employees and even the employer have to separate individual financial planning and well being from the businesses financial planning and well being. Good employers still work with employees to find third party partners and bring those partners in to speak with the employees, to help build an individual plan, and provide guidance. The employers just can’t afford to carry the burden of being accountable for the financial lives of their employees.

If your employer can’t or won’t provide, the next logical place seems to be to ask the government for help. However, the government is not only incapable of solving this problem; it also has a huge conflict of interest. How can we hold a free election if a significant portion of the population is receiving government aid? Can people vote against their paycheck? Can they endorse a candidate that shares their beliefs if they rely on the competitor for their monthly check?

If we embrace the age of the individual, we need to be honest with ourselves. Social Security is broken. There are a lot of really intelligent government officials, if they haven’t solved the problem, there may not be a solution. Either recognize that there are too many people on the rolls and adjust the eligibility age to accurately reflect the fact that people are living longer than when the program started, or do away with it completely.

If we choose the former then set the eligibility age just past a person’s average life expectancy. Work until you die? What about retirement? Well, who ever promised you a retirement? Not to mention, who said you actually want to retire? When people stop having a reason to get up each day, their health fades, their bodies diminish, and they die. We have an entire segment of the population that are living examples of this fact. Don’t believe me? Hang out at the post office at the first of the month.

If the latter is accepted, any excess money will need to be spent on re-educating people on developing a good financial plan for their lives. A good plan addresses the three possibilities that you can encounter, you can live too long, die too early, or become disabled. That means life insurance, a planned stream of income (or a really big pot of money), and disability insurance. That’s where it starts. The more you want, the more you will want to plan. This individual accountability can be a scary notion at times. But the American Dream is based on being free, and one can’t be truly free if one is reliant on another person for the basic needs of life.

What’s my plan? As callous as it may sound to say everyone is responsible for themselves, that is not really what I am trying to implement in my own life. I don’t wan the government responsible for fixing this problem, at least not the federal government. I like to see local people and local organizations helping the poor in their own community. That involves more than a monthly check. My wife and I maintain the view that we are responsible for our own lives and for the impact that we have on our community. Therefore, we over plan for the Holidays and for our future and use our excess to help make our community a little better. We enjoy helping others and sharing the reason that we are helping, as Christians we believe that it is our responsibility to help others and to share the love of Christ with them. So when we pay for an elderly persons groceries, or give a gift card to a stranger, we take advantage of the opportunity to quickly share our message. It is what we have chosen to do with the savings we see from price competitive businesses. We don’t expect everyone to make the same choices that we make, nor share our beliefs, but we also don’t get the opportunity to help/ share our message if the government beats us to it.

The Good and the Strange

West Virginia University president Michael Garrison found his way into the newspaper twice last month for remarkably different issues.

The first earned him real kudos. Standing up to a popular coach with the best winning percentage in university history showed that he had backbone. Garrison's priorities lay in the university above that of the football team. After all, he is not the GM of a pro sports outfit, but the leader of an academic institution.

The second incident is a little stranger. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette while researching the promotion of Heather Bresch by Mylan uncovered something strange. She claimed to hold an MBA from WVU, but the records indicated otherwise. University officials claim that old records did not make it onto the new digitized system, so recently they gave her credit for six courses and awarded her the degree. Newspaper investigations have not yet turned up evidence that she attended the classes she claimed to pass. Why all this attention? Ms. Bresch is the daughter of Governor Manchin and her employer is one of WVU's top financial supporters, in case you have not noticed the new name of the football stadium.

Likely this is all an honest mixup. However, the Charleston Gazette today called for a thorough investigation. Hopefully all parties concerned will submit to a fair examination of what precisely occured. If nothing else, there may be other former students out there with the same predicament and the problem needs recitfied. Again, it is probably an honest bookkeeping error. However the worst case scenario of corruption in the state's flagship university could play a major role in the 2008 election.

Even more interesting is the Gazette's reluctance to accept the official explanation despite the fact that such things happen frequently. A multitude of small things, almost insignificant in themselves, are adding up to indicate a brewing conflict within the West Virginia Democratic Party between Manchinites and the ultra left. This represents the latest in a series of developments that include the possibility of top Manchin aide Carte Goodwin running to unseat Attorney General Darryl McGraw for the Democratic nomination.