Ken's Comments

If you look over the last 9 years, you'll see that the liberals have come to dislike Great Britain - probably because of their support for George Bush in the War in Iraq. They prefer France, Germany, and Russia - countries that have never provided any significant support for the U.S. This disdain culminated in the past week with the shabby treatment of Great Britain's Prime Minister by the Obama administration. During the run up to the War in Iraq and throughout the War, liberals have repeatedly said the US lacked the support of "World Opinion" for what we were doing. What they meant was that we lacked the support of France, Germany, Russia, and China. The fact that we had the support of other countries, most notably Great Britain - not just support in words but with troops - was given short shrift. I don't think the liberals in the U.S. have forgiven Great Britain for helping us. You'll recall John Kerry's references to testing world opinion before acting...

One good aspect of the proposed Obama budget is that Amtrak will get a significant increase in funding. If we truly want to reduce use the of gasoline, we need to make a significant commitment to rail travel. Amtrak can be a significant alternative to driving and air travel if it received proper support. The underfunding of Amtrak by the Bush Administration, and other administrations before it going back to the Reagan Administration, has been a sin. To get people to drive less and still travel, we need to give them an alternative. Trains can be that alternative. We should be promoting Faster trains between major cities - Chicago to St. Louis or Seattle, LA to Las Vegas, are just some routes that come to mind. If people felt the train could be reasonably close in travel time to flying, the comfort, easier security, and fact that trains deliver them downtown, would win over converts. More "car train" routes - trains would be significantly more attractive if the riders kno...

I find the controversy with Rush Limbaugh and President Obama to be ridiculous. All sides are wrong on this. First, President Obama is wrong to allow his staff to focus the public's attention on this. Rush is wrong because his statements opposing the President's policies are too broad. Republicans are wrong for not speaking their minds on the issues when Rush calls them out. None of this is really helping the current situation. Commentators are starting to point out that President Obama's staff are wrong for focusing the public's attention on the controversy with Rush Limbaugh when there are more important issues - like the economy and health care. Ari Fleischer, former Press Secretary under President Bush, also challenged President Obama on the fact that he has repeatedly said - during the campaign and during his inaugural address - that his Administration would put politics aside. Yet his staff's focusing attention on Rush Limbaugh and the Republicans is completel...

A lot of people don’t get time to watch TV and are unaware of some of the really good shows on TV. I happened across some really fun shows through a variety of means. I thought I’d list the shows I like. I have sort of an eclectic taste. As a general rule the shows I like have to have both a sense of humor and are dramatic, and they should have characters that capture my interest – although there are exceptions to the rule. There are not too many shows but I do go out of my way to watch them when they are on TV. The shows are, in no particular order: -- NCIS, Tuesday night at 8:00 p.m. on CBS: This probably is in fact my favorite show. The show caught my interest one night when I was flipping through channels because Charles Durning was on the episode. They kept my interest because, at a time when people were criticizing the military due to Iraq, NCIS treats the military with great respect and dignity. They really understand, for example, what the Marines are all about. The cast member...

If you're waiting for a miraculous economic recovery don't hold your breath. I think we are seeing the economy contract after 15 years of false prosperity. Spending next year could cause the economic downturn to level out and perhaps even put us on the road to positive growth. But things are not going to get back to where they were for a long time. In some ways, that is probably a good thing, too. Since the adoption of the laws in 1994 causing the lending industry to lower its stanards for issuing mortgages, I think the economy has grown at a rate faster than it should have grown. This has not entirely been due to the mortgage situation. Recall that we had the "Dot Com" bubble in the late '90s. We also had major companies falsifying their financial records - remember Enron, MCI, Adelphia Cable to name a few - to create significantly higher stock prices. All of this translated into higher salaries, bonuses, and wealth for many people. After the dot com bubble burst...

As the Bush Administration's term in office winds down we get to see who is interested in doing what is right for the Country versus who is interested in doing what is right for their party on display. President Bush, by all accounts, has been extremely gracious and helpful to the incoming Obama administration. On the other hand, we see actions that indicate Speaker Pelosi will consolidate her control of the House of Representative so that all dissenting opinions will be pushed down. The Country has not benefitted from the extreme partisanship of the Democrats during the last two years of the Bush Administration and the country will not benefit if the Democrats continue this behavior during the Obama Administration. During the post-election period, President Bush has allowed President-elect Obama to move to center stage on economic issues. A political commentator described it as the U.S. having two Presidents -- one on domestic policy (Obama) and one on foreign policy (Bush). Presi...

The word conservative is used by many people, but few seem to have any real idea of what it means. The media uses the term very inconsistently. A frequent misperception is that conservative is synonymous with Republican -- not true at all. Despite the misuse of the word conservative, laying out a political spectrum that shows conservatives and liberals, which represents all political philosophies, and can be applied to any domestic issue and show consistent results is not hard. However, when you actually applied this to issues of the day some interesting results occur. Not the kind of results you'd get if you read the paper. If you read or listen to the media, you'd have a hard time coming up with a definition of conservative that can be consistently applied. Perhaps the media subscribes to a political spectrum that has Communists and Socialists on the "Far Left" (a term never seen in the press any more) and Nazis and Fascists on the "Far Right." If t...