Election 2008

Here we go again: this is a big one

President (if you know me you should already know where I stand)
Just in case you didn't here is a few things you should know about Obama
- He was the only one in the Illinois state senate (that is 1 out of 100) to vote against a bill to save babies that survive abortions (they were sticking viable living children in a closet to starve to death)
- He kicked off his first campaign in the house of an admitted and proud terrorist William Ayers then sat on two boards with him and helped Mr. Ayers promote one of his books. Ayers is responsible for fire bombing peoples houses and the pentagon. On Sept 11, 2001 Ayers said he didn't go far enough and should have done more (referring to the bombings)

2nd Congressional District
Mark Mulligan (REP) - (MY Pick) General conservative views/ against the recent bailout packages/
Allen Boyd (DEM) - blue dog Democrat, voted for both of the 800 billion dollar Bail Outs/socialist take over of our banks even though he admitted 90% of constituents called or emailed against the bill. I am tired of Allen Boyd, I voted for him before... not again

State Representative - 9th House District
Peter Boulware (REP): (My Pick) General conservative views
Michelle Rehwinkel Vasilinda (DEM): big time liberal, I heard her say in an interview that one of her top priorities is raising taxes, her other big priority is providing more benefits to state workers.
John Shaw (NPA): One of his primary issues is trying to legalize marijuana

Judges: Unless I know of misconduct by a judge I won't vote for or against their retainment

Circuit Judge, 2nd Circuit, Group 7, (either one sounds like a good choice fairly even)
Lisa Raleigh (My Pick) lot of community service work, prosecuting attorney office
Frank E. Sheffield has a more experience than Lisa, but has mostly just been a trial lawyer

County Judge, Group 5
Nina Ashenafi Richardson: only legal experience as staff counsel for FEA. A lot of community involvement but little court room experience
Sean Desmond: (My Pick) was Assistant State Attorney for Leon and Franklin Counties, and owned his own law firm and worked at another private firm.

County Commissioner At Large, Group 1
Akin Akinyemi: interesting guy, but leans liberal.
Ed DePuy: (My Pick) I'm sure you've heard commercials against him from the police union, they stretch the truth with their accusations, being that Ed is one of only 2 semi conservatives on the County commission, and the ONLY one to vote against raising property taxes I'm voting for him.

Ocklockonee River Soil & Water Conservation District 1 Supervisor
Brian Acosta (NO) 23 years old, FAMU student, doctors aid
Sean McGlynn (My Pick) 52 years old, B.S. in Biochemistry, Doctorate in Biology, Library director for McGlynn Laboratories Inc

The Amendments: My rule of thumb if I don't understand it I shouldn't be voting for it.

Amendment #1 (YES or NO) [it doesn't really matter]
Eliminates some language already in the constitution that gives the legislature power to limit land ownership of people that are ineligible for US citizenship. This has been around since WWII and has never been used, Yes or No I don't think this Amendment matters.

Amendment #2 (YES)
Florida Marriage Protection Amendment. "Protects marriage as the legal union of only one man and one woman as husband and wife." With Massachusetts and now California legalizing gay marriage, this could help protect Florida.

Amendment #3 (NO/Maybe)
Your property taxes can't go up if you put hurricane shutters or a solar water heater on your house — for example. Any storm-hardening or renewable energy source would be exempt.
I agree with the idea I just don't think this should be in the Florida Constitution, the legislature should do this on their own. I'm OK if you want to vote Yes.

Amendment #4 (NO)
Basically land set aside for conservation (by counties or individuals) get tax breaks.
This sounds nice until you realize everybody elses taxes will be increased to make up the difference. There is a lot of conservation land in Florida (est 9.6 million acres)

Amendment #6 (Yes)
Basically changes the tax law so that marinas and oyster slips are taxed based on what they are being used as instead if the lands potential use (high rise condos). This will help Florida's boating and fishing industry as they are currently being taxed at the lands highest potential. It is like you owned a 10 acre lot with a 3 bedroom house but were taxed like a Walmart because a Walmart "could" fit on your property.

Amendment #8 (NO)
This would allow counties to vote on increasing county sales taxes to support their local Community College.
I just don't want Leon County adding more taxes for one more thing.

Wallstreet Blue Light Special

The Market is Down way Down... Should I pull all of my $ from the 401K.... NO, I'm bargain shopping.

Today I scaped together what little money I could find to buy a few shares of an S&P 500 ETF index fund. Specifically Rydex S&P 500(RPV). The S&P 500 is down 16% for the year. On average (except for this year) is has gone up 8 - 10% a year. Unless you think that our country will totally collapse it is going to go back up. I would not be suprised if the stock market continues to go down, even for a few months, but at this level the S&P 500 is "cheap".

Birds of a Feather

For the third time, my friend Sandra and I are pregnant--at the same time. Our daughters were born 2 weeks apart, our sons 2.5 months apart, and now we are about 3.5 months apart. I wanted to take this picture for posterity as it will probably be the last time we have this kinship. She is 38 weeks and I am 23 weeks. She is beginning to have prelabor symptoms and I am nostalgic for this fun bond. I have loved having someone to share this time with and hope we always stick together...even outside of pregnancy.

One thing we haven't talked about....

About 6 weeks ago, just after we found out we were pregnant, Ellie (who did not know we were expecting unil 4 days ago) asked me if she could name one of the babies in my belly. I laughed and said "What?" She said, "There's two babies in your belly, can I name one of them?" This was amusing, although slightly alarming since she had foreshadowed my pregnancy with Clark a few days before we found out. She has since mentioned either "twins" or "the babies" many times in last 6 weeks, including this morning at breakfast where she said she had decided to name the boy-Darren and the girl Dorrie. Spencer just chuckled.

Well, at about 9:30 this morning we had our first appt. and ultrasound. Dr. B put the wand on my belly and turned the machine on. The first image that came up on the screen was a perfect shot of two sacs and he quickly moved the wand, looked at us with a startled face and started to say " Well...one thing we haven't talked about..." . Now this may have worked for some first timers, but we've seen a few ultrasounds in our day. He looked at our huge eyes and mouths agape, and said "Shoot...I was going to try to prep you...but... Congratulations! You're having twins!" We looked at each other and started laughing. We filled him in on our 5-year-old prophetess and he got a big kick out of it and started telling nurses in the hall. He also requested I bring her in on my next visit so he could meet her and possibly get some lotto numbers :-) Spencer says her spiritual gift shall only be used for good, not state-regulated gambling.

Needless to say, we are shocked, thrilled, scared and excited about having twins. All I can say is God's plans are bigger than ours!

California Facism

Reason number 324 why I don't want to live in California. Here is a good way to make sure your kids don't get taught crazy things like religion or unbiased history.

California Court Rules Parents Must Have Teaching Credentials to Home School Kids, Friday, March 07, 2008

read the Full Story

Facism:1 : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition (Websters dict.)

Long Overdue

I can't believe its March already....especially since I'm getting ready to post Christmas pictures :-) Ellie's class had a very sweet Christmas party. Then there was the Christmas play...which, thanks to Sandra, Ellie had the standard uniform for (no shedding of the sheep this year).

We spent Christmas with all the Mitchells' in Ocala. We decided to be very brave and try to get a group photo of the cousins. The best option was after the Christmas Eve service when they were all still dressed up. By the way, if you've ever wondered what Christmas would look like with 6 children receiving gifts (from many families, check out the MOUNTAIN of gifts behind the kids. It's hard to tell in the picture, but it comes out about 6 feet or so...it was so much fun on Christmas morning. Jay, Jo, Spencer and I all slept on air mattresses in their play room and were totally free game for pouncing early in the morning.

For New Years', the Ocala Mitchells' and Mary's family all came to our house...which was CRAZY FUN! Ellie & Clark got an easel for Christmas and Thatcher and Rylee decided to try it out. Joanna was reminded of why she doesn't have such an easel with paint at the ready. ;-) We also had a very hard freeze while the Keels' were still here and Spencer left the mister on all night to make icicles for the kids. They loved eating them.

Ellie has really enjoyed her easel and for about the first 10 paintings, they all looked the same as in the picture. They were variations on a princess with very long hair. She's very comtemplative as she paints and studies her work often. Clark likes the chalkboard side which we put lower at his height, and try to keep him from eating the
chalk.

Presidential Primaries

The Republican Primary ... as I see it.

It is a hard pick between all of the Republican Candidates. Most have good qualities that if cobbled together would make a great president. Because of the number of candidates and huge number of issues this is oversimplified. Fox News gives good overviews for more info.

Because the Florida Primary is so early this year (Jan 29) it will really make a difference in who gets elected!!!

In Alphabetical order:

Fred Thompson DROPPED OUT of Race (aka. the guy on Law and Order, my #1 pick)
Experience: Assistant US Attorney in Nashville, TN, private attorney, council on Watergate committee, actor (18 films), 8 years in the Senate, (Chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee)
Positives: has 100% Pro-life voting record, strongest conservative in the bunch, Good ideas on Social Security, strong stance against illegal immigration, strong supporter of less government spending and lower taxes.
Negatives: Got in the race late, Has a hard time expressing his opinions on TV

John McCain (aka the Maverick)
Experience: 22 years as Navy pilot, Arizona rep. US House of Representatives since 1982-1986, US Senate 1986-present
Positives: Strong supporter of Troop Surge and finishing work in Iraq, Strong anti-pork/earmarking. War Hero former POW
Negatives: Voted against Bush Tax cuts, Wrote McCain-Finegold which limits free speech possibly more than any other bill ever. Supports radical changes to policy to prevent Gorebal Warming (not misspelled). Wrote McCain-Kennedy would have basically given amnesty to illegal aliens (bill did not pass)
Personal Note: I don't like McCain, he loves the press and will say stuff just to get on camera

Mike Huckabee (aka the Southern Baptist Preacher)
Experience: 1996-2007 governor of Arkansas, past chairman of the National Governors’ Association, Southern Baptist Preacher
Positives: Very Strong Pro Life (as Pro as you can get). Personality, has a great wit and is very likable. Supports the Fair Tax plan, supports Marriage Amendment, Strong 2nd Amendment supporter.
Negatives: Immigration (supports scholarships and instate tuition for illegals), Endorsed by the NEA (national teachers union), Raised taxes a lot more than cut taxes while governor. Very little foreign affairs experience
Personal Note: Jimmy Carter was a Pro-life Southern Baptist too...

Mitt Romney (aka the wealthy Mormon, my #2 pick)
Experience: Former CEO of venture capital firm (Domino's, Staples, and Sealy) Governor of Massachusetts (2002-2006), Credited for turning around Utah winter Olympics from near failure to a success,
Positives: lowered taxes and helped to balance budget in Mass., claims strong pro-life stance, successful businessman, strong health-care plan
Negatives: Is longtime member of the Mormon faith, was once pro-choice, has implied possibly increasing taxes on rich.

Dr. Ron Paul (aka the Libertarian)
Experience: Air-Force flight surgeon, several years in specialist in obstetrics/gynecology, US congress for many years,
Positives: Anti-government control, wants to lower taxes and decrease spending, a federalist, strong Pro-Lifer, wants to reduce the size of government, good health-care ideas
Negatives: Is a nut job. An Isolationist, Wants to take ALL of our troops around the world back to US soil. Basically said Israel is on their own and he wouldn't help if they were attacked.

Rudy Giuliani (aka the country's Mayor)
Experience: assistant attorney general under Regan, US prosecuting attorney n NY, Former two term mayor of NYC
Positives: Turned NYC from a dirty crime-ridden city to clean and low crime, A strong leader during the 911 tragedy, is now strongly against illegal immigration, wants to lower taxes, strong supporter of reduced gov. spending, strong on anti-terrorism
Negatives: weak on 2nd Amendment (outlawed guns in NYC), pre 911 was soft on illegal immigration, strong supporter of gay "rights", use to be pro-choice

Financial Geek continues....

I hate when I miss opportunities.

Last night after checking my email I did some of my homework on the two stocks I own Regions Financial (RF) and Toyota (TM). Both stocks have been knocked down due to the housing market troubles, but I'm in it for the long term esp. with Regions since it pays a good dividend.

Anyway I saw two articles on Regions Financial that both had just been published after the stock market closed that day. I new in my gut that Regions was headed for a big drop the next day. Being by nature lazy I decided not to do anything and went on to play video games.

The next day it dropped about 3 dollars per share.

What I should have done is sold Regions after reading the news, so I could have bought it back the next afternoon or following trading day after it had taken the major hit. Even if it had continued to drop I would have saved myself 3 dollars a share (minus the trading costs). I could have sold the shares and invested in something that I knew wasn't plunging the next day. Either way I should have sold.

Lesson to Self: Don't be afraid to cut your losses and run. As Jim Cramer says "worry about the downside of a stock the upside will take care of itself"