You rarely get honesty like that any more. It is being tried again during the current crisis. We went from gold backed currency, to the "full faith and credit" variety, but now it's just paper based on thin, hot air out of DC. A part of me fears how this will all end. Once upon a time the two great powers were England and France. More recently it was the USA and the USSR. Who will it be next? I believe we should be on very good terms with China.

The Gitmo terrorists are not American citizens. In fact their aim is to destroy us all. Our legal system must move very carefully in this area of law, philosophy, and rights. As many of them have deprived humans of the right to live based only on some sort of fanatical creed of their own, our safety may outweigh their "rights" by a significant amount.

It is truly strange as we watch things like affirmative action, equal rights amendment, and all the well intentioned laws of this type; that we lose sight of the simple truth of this quote. The more complex our laws become is not helping the underlying problems they propose to address. We started with the simple truth, "...all men are created equal..." Now we have thousands of pages of laws, acts, procedures, standards, etc., and we have not improved on that simple, founding line. God help us!

The simple clarity is more ambiguous than it seems. Is it wealth or "stuff" as George Carlin often said. Perhaps the sarcastic Golden Rule applies. He who has the gold makes the rules. A camel going through the eye of a needle comes to mind as well.

Napoleon had a mind capable of finding the sometimes subtle truth of many situations. He also had an incredible ego and has a complex named after him. Financiers do have a profit motive. Who doesn't? If you find someone without this, He has been nailed to a cross. In order to reap and enjoy profit, there must be a stable environment for the agent. In evaluating any wisdom from Napoleon, one must weigh his acts and goals in the balance as well. He was after wealth and power. He managed to bring the Pope to his own coronation as emperor and then seized the crown from the Pope's hands and crowned himself. It is natural to generally despise the person you must turn to in order to enable your goals. The accumulation of wealth is not an easy task. If it were, there would be no need of financiers. The refrain never changes. "If only I had..."

John Adams was an incredible player in the early days of our country. Recent publications have addressed how important he was to our early years as a nation-state. Very few understand the subtle power struggle(s) involved in the birth of the USA. Our founding fathers had a nearly unbelieveable understanding of the perils involved in creating a system where the people ruled. At our current point in time, we are rather suddenly staring down a fundamental change in the underpinning of our country and society. When, and if, we migrate to the sort of mob rule/socalism that Mr. Obama is the creature of, we are doomed! That our second President recognized this centuries ago must give us pause. In God we trust is our only salvation. The sad part of that trust is its removal from the machinations of the state to a purely individual state. God bless America, the people, not the state!

Ralph Nader is perhaps my least favorite person. He has done much more damage than good for our country. Yet, in the tradition of capitalism, he has created a role for himself that pays his expenses and provides employment for others. Much like his book he remains "Unsafe At Any Speed!"

Calvin Coolidge has the plainest headstone of any of our Presidents. It is a simple, flat stone of the type used in New England cemeteries, except that it has the Presidential Seal on it and a small flag flying. It is at the far end of a row of Coolidge family headstones at a simple village site off the beaten path in Vermont - I hope that's correct. I've been there and been moved by it. Just can never be sure it's not New Hampshire and too lazy to look it up at 3:52AM. He was a man of few words, but he was grounded as few of our leaders were/are. We have a new man in the White House and I can only wish him well, but the sudden rush to action and change does not sit well. Our first trillion dollar budget happened on Nixon's watch. Now our annual deficit is going to be in the trillions. This is not good. Paper money is known to be worthless. What allows it to work is the off switch on the printing press and a trustworthy nation. Absent that, inflation runs rampant. Inflation is a deadly enemy in the long run, but a friend of politicians in the short run. You need a simple test to put things in perspective. Cars work well, so does beer. When Henry Ford set out to build an affordable car for the masses, most cars were $5,000.00 and up and hand built. He did two things. He made a car for $750.00 and raised the wages for his workers so they could afford one. In 1962 a Corvette was $5,000.00. Today it's $55,000.00 and the top end version is $245,000.00. In 1962 a 'vette turned heads and every guy dreamed of having one. Today, I wonder, but then I'm 47 years older. Coolidge speaks to Obama from his cold, New England hillside. There is no sign Obama is listening.