Changing of the Guard

In case you missed it due to some lucky coma (and even then your excuse is pretty weak), earlier this week there was a momentous power exchange between the quixotic political parties: the Presidency. The poster boy for the Democrats took office, floundering over the oath a little, but still official. Mr Obama is everywhere in my news. We're just one bored journalist's dilemma from knowing Mr Obama's routine bowel movements, if he has any.

I don't have anything in particular against Mr Obama per se. Originally, I thought he was a decent fellow, but clearly a long-shot from getting into the white house based upon the fact he was a one-term junior senator with practically no political experience. And we didn't really know him very well. I lumped him into the same category as Fred Thompson, the actor who ran on the Republican ticket.

Yet somehow, this no-name low-on-the-totem pole senator picked up momentum and defeated Hillary Clinton, which is impossible. And I mean that. Even when Clinton lead Obama by double digits in state polls, he still beat her, sometimes handily. It is highly questionable to me, but thankfully the media swept by those issues and fueled the mania. That mania banked on "Change" even though there was no real difference between Hillary's and Barak's change -- it actually came down to a popularity contest in the end. In this case, always bet on black.

Questions aside, I do recognize that even the best republican would have lost the election. It wasn't that Bush buried all hope for republicans; it was the media. Bush did what he thought was morally right for the country. Same thing Lincoln did, coincidentally. Sure, there is the black mark of Iraq - but let's face it: we all bought into it. We were in the wake of 9/11, the CIA comes out with a report that says WMDs in Iraq, other countries agree, and Sadam had ousted the UN inspectors several months before they were supposed to leave. In short, our intelligence community let us down, but the media pegged one fall guy specifically. Unless, of course, Iraq did have some WMDs and shipped them out. Meh, wasteful thinking.

The other sorta black mark is Hurricane Katrina, which is not Bush's fault unless he does control the weather. But, New Orleans was aware of the dangers. In a poll taken 3 months prior, 37% of citizens said they wouldn't abandon New Orleans if a hurrican ever came. Lo and behold, guess what happened? People suffered. Bush believed FEMA could handle it. They failed. Not him. He came a few days late, but what could he do? His FEMA organization was in shambles.

I'm not here to wipe Bush's slate clean, but he was unfairly targeted, villianized, crucified, and finally, called the "worst president ever" which is crap.

So now we have Obama, and my premilinary judgment is muddled. I want to think that he will be able to fix the economy (again, a problem brewing since Carter's era) and make things all nice and peachy. He presumptuously aligns himself with Lincoln, the media eat it up, and I hear about it nearly 24/7. Let me put it this way; he is not Lincoln by any means. And history will judge Obama accordingly. Lincoln was extremely unpopular during his day -- after all, he presided over our bloodiest moments.

If I were the draw parallels for Mr Obama, I'd say he's closer to Franklin D. Roosevelt. A decent president who saved the economy by going into war. Seriously, stock market crashed in October in 1929, he was elected in 1932, and we remained in a depression for almost 10 years until WWII. See, Mr Obama is already proposing what FDR did, more taxes and stimulus options. How does that help consumer confidence? More taxes, great. Sure, it'll make way for more government jobs, I understand. At my cost, though.

Anyway, here's what I'll do. I admit that I do not trust Mr Obama. He came out of no-where, I don't know his policies (aside from overt liberal agenda), and I fear that his long-term fixes. In short (heh, hardly), the old adage that the constitution will hang by a thread is now well on it's way to being true. The American Way, coupled with the American Dream, will become a nice piece of history. Well, it'll be re-written to look selfish. We are working towards socialism now. Gah! Side tangent -- this whole freakin' post is side-tangent upon side-tangent.

Okay, again, I'll respect the office of the president, which more than I can say for the rest of the country while Bush was in office. I'll give Obama the chance to succeed and try not to be cynical... yet. There have been good Democratic presidents as well as bad ones. But, I just feel that yellow journalism will forever slander any good republican candidate, and that this country is more one-sided than ever. Actually, I know for a fact: there are now 17 million more democrats than republicans. Super. Who needs bipartisan when you have a majority? Even Mickey Mouse is probably a democrat now. Filthy little rat.

This Gas Stinks!

As some of you may have known, we spent 2 weeks snow-birding in Florida, specifically, Orlando and the Keys over the Christmas break. I can highly recommend the Keys to anyone, especially Key West if you're heterosexually challenged. If not, uhm, leave once the sun goes down unless you like mental scars.

Anyway, back to business.

So, gone for two weeks. I turned the water heater off, turned the heat down, closed up the house and left. Prior to that we burned wood to keep warm. Imagine my surprise today when I got the heating bill which was clocking in at $230. Sure, the weather was piss-poor (and I missed a white Christmas for Oregon in lieu of palm trees with lights -- not the same!). Still, I am highly miffed over this, and I did what any other reasonable man would do in the same circumstance. No, it didn't involve cleaning guns and mapping out exit routes at the nearest NW Natural Gas station although truthfully that did cross my mind. But, instead I went outside and chopped wood and built a fire. It is still burning brightly.

We had a similar issue like this last year, same time. We left for a week, turned stuff off, and came back to a $200 bill. We balked last year, they sent out a tech, he determined there wasn't a gas leak, and that prompted us to lower our "room temperature" to a unforgiving 63 degrees. My wife didn't like that, but money is apparently more important than heating. For this winter, we beefed it up to a sultry 64 degrees. It was cold. We do need to replace the 20 year old windows, but my wife has industrial duty curtains on them already. Plus, we're still paying off the roof, and, erm, vacation.

The interim plan is thus; we've replaced nearly all the old light bulbs with mercury-laden environmentally energy efficient versions in hopes to lower our electric bill so we can get a space heater! And build more fires. I wonder how much NW Natural gas would like a fire...