In a post about a month ago, I postulated that it didn't matter WHO won the 2008 or even 2012 presidential elections because regardless we would have thousands (2 or 150 who knows) of troops in Iraq for at least another decade. Yesterday, in the Democratic Presidential debate, none of the top 3 candidates could commit to having troops 100% out of Iraq by 2013.

Interesting, huh? All the hoopla and catering to the far left, "Get out of Iraq NOW", crowd still isn't enough to make the liberal presidential hopefuls promise a quick exit. The question now is what does that mean?

1) The NutRoots (KOs, Democratic Underground, etc.) must be in a tizzy that none of their tier 1 candidates endorse an immediate and complete withdrawal and surrender. Will they stay home and not vote? Will they vote for a candidate that does promise immediate defeat? Will they hold their nose and vote for the Hill just so as not to give Republicans a chance? Either way, this has to help the Republicans.

2) Is it obvious enough yet that Hillary is no more than a complete political weathervane? At least Obama has been consistently against the war. Hillary vacillates like a sine curve. As much as every pundit in the universe now believes she has the nomination locked up, I still hold out the possibility that we'll see a Dean-like disaster. No, Hillary is not Howard Dean and I'm not sure there's a John Kerry waiting in the wings, but when the rubber meets the road can the liberals truly pull the lever for her?

- she's not anti-war enough
- she's a political triangulator, not a leader
- she continues to have a high percentage of negatives (those that definitely will not vote for her)
- is anyone, even the Dems, really ready for another Clinton presidency?
- the right is amassing so much dirt on her for the general election that it will get ugly after the primaries.

I'm not quite ready to retire my prediction from a year ago that Hillary will NOT win the Democratic nomination - although the odds are looking pretty long at this point.

UPDATE: I found two candidate matching games that match your policy picks to the appropriate candidate. I ended up with Tancredo on the first one and Mitt, Mike H. and Fred T. on the second one. Try your luck and let me know what you end up with:

vajoe

usa today

UPDATE #2: And the third thing I meant to ask is since we are going to have troops in Iraq and Afghanistan for another 10 years - at least - when are the anti-war zealots (left-over hippies, naive students, socialists and peace-at-any-price pacifists and other assorted under-employeds) going to stop garnering attention with their pathetic anti-war rallies? Just curious.

I mean we have over 100,000 troops deployed in Europe, but I haven't seen any signs or protests regarding our "Occupation of Europe" or "No Blood for Olives". We have almost 100,000 troops deployed in Asia including about 40,000 troops in Korea where the conflict has been under a cease fire for over 50 years, but still is not "officially over". Where are all the jokes about "Mission Accomplished in Korea". Why are we putting our troops in harms way over a Civil War? Haven't we trained enough South Koreans yet to protect their own country? No Blood for Hyundai's!!

Is there some memo that goes out to the anti-war crowd about when to give it a rest?

I'm as happy and impressed as anyone when you see someone go from extremely overweight to skinny (yes, I admit to catching a few episodes of Big Fat Loser). BUT, it kind of irks me that those who stay at a normal weight and don't allow themselves to get fat in the first place, get absolutely no credit.

Why is this the case? Likely because people believe that fit people have it easy; that it doesn't take commitment and work. That people that are fat are victims, not of their own poor choices, but rather because of societal problems hoisted upon them. This, sadly, is our culture today. Victims are the heroes and achievers are simply the forgotten ones.

It's no coincidence that people feel the same way about the "poor" and the "rich" (in quotes only because they are relative terms). There is no appreciation for achievement. I got an education. I work hard and have for over 20 years and will continue to have to work hard for the next 20 at least. I pay a crap load in taxes and April 15th is far and away the most dreaded and stressful day of the year for me.

Yet, who is fighting on my behalf to protect my rights and my achievements? We've got special interest groups for the poor, for minorities, for the elderly, for arts, for education, for this that and the other, that is quietly being funded by millions of people like me who can do nothing more than work to support their family and keep our mouths shut - short of this little blog. Who stands up and applauds those who achieve in quiet support of the "beneficent" hand of the government? One day, Atlas will shrug and the millions of us who toil for our families, trying to make a better life for our children and our children's children, will be gone and along with it the financial support for government largess.

I read two news items today that went completely against mainstream media thinking:

• poverty isn't really the problem it's made out to be, and
• U.S. healthcare might not be either

First, this report from the Heritage Foundation (yes, a conservative group) which suggests that poor people have it pretty good - relative to what we think of as poor anyway. To start, picture in your mind a poor person or family: family of 5 living in run-down, one room public housing apartment, no shoes, ragged clothes, no air conditioning, no TV, no car, skinny from lack of food. Well actually, today your average poor person according to the census bureau lives in their own home, has a car, air conditioning, 2 TVs with cable or satellite. And food, you ask? 89% of poor people say they have enough to eat. I'd say - have you seen how fat people are these days - even in poorer areas?

Second, a report comes from England that flies in the face of the WHO reports of poor life expectancy in our country. While healthcare is surely some subcomponent of overall life expectancy, it is a poor measure for comparing healthcare quality. While not perfect, a better measure might be disease survival rates. In this case, the issue of why the person contracted the disease - a key component of life expectancy - is meaningless and the ability of the healthcare system to help the person survive is central. I'll let the graphic speak for itself:

So, I began to consider what Democrat voters would do if it could be proven (I'm not saying it has been, but what if) that poverty and healthcare were NON-ISSUES in the U.S.. Then I realized, it wouldn't change a thing. It's not about poverty. It's about perceived fairness. Perceived!?

Death and taxes are a sure thing. Well, so long as there are rich people that have more money than other people, we will have Democrats pandering to the "victims" of society and you can count on it.

I just completed a survey. It came from a Michigan university although I can't be sure who crafted the questions (e.g. students, administrators, 3rd party). The objective appeared to be to learn about the current job market directly from those of us in business who hire college graduates. I thought "great"! I love sharing my advice with students. It may or may not be good advice, but I like giving it!!

They had multiple surveys so that each employer could fill the one out that more closely matched their situation. I chose the small business survey intended for companies with less than 100 employees. We have 15.

There were at least 3 things in the survey that bothered me. They screamed academia run amok. They showed a clear lack of understanding of the way things happen in the real world . My answers showed my anger:

1) "What does your company do to attract, hire and retain 'underrepresented' students?

Answer: We have found that midgets - sorry, the vertically challenged - like to hang out together in Adult Fetish bars and can't resist free platform shoes. That's our plan, although we currently have not been able to retain any employees under 4 feet tall.

Actually, I figured they meant racial diversity, but didn't want to say it. Frankly, I have never worked in a company that said anything openly about diversity. Why? Because companies don't care about diversity so far as I can tell. I mean sure, Denny's does after it got slapped with law suits for being racist. Coke might after also being slapped with law suits. So, I guess right after the objective of making the business successful - for which having a diverse group of colored skins has absolutely nothing to do with - a successful company might want to consider hiring people of various shades simply to avoid law suits. Truly, this diversity crap exists solely in academia and for appearances. In the small business world, we don't even talk about it. Does that mean we don't have a diverse work force? Does it mean we're racists? Of course not! In fact, we are the complete opposite of racist. We actually hire and retain people with absolutely no regard for their skin color. Imagine that, a color-blind work place. And yes, you guessed it, we actually do have a diverse work force. It kind of reflects our community. Interesting how that works, huh?

2) "Studies have found that students require praise often. What programs does your company have in place to make sure employees receive sufficient praise?"

Answer: We actually have a separate praise room. Instead of breaks or lunch for executives, we gather in the praise room and kneel in front of all of our new hires. We read from various praise books, but also come up with off-the cuff praise. We do this until the praise-o-meter is full and then go back to work.

Are you shitting me? Again, complete ignorance of a work environment. Frankly, if you're the type of person that needs constant praise, you won't even get through our screening process. The idea that we might actually have a program through which we "force" praise - kinda makes me want to vomit. Here's the real low down. James Blanchard, an extremely successful banker and Chairman of Synovous, once said to a group of us that business is all about "being good to people." He's a southern gentleman and his message was sweet and simple. It wasn't about feigning praise, it was about respect. There is no program to make people respectful, it comes from the type of people we are. We treat all of our employees with respect. We might provide praise, we might criticize but whatever interactions we have with each other and with our customers - it comes down to respect. If that's not in your nature, then there's no stupid program or training class that can give it to you.

The two easiest ways to demagogue the Fair Tax are to suggest the following:

• it's a 30% tax on everything you buy, and
• it will hurt the poor

Debunking these untrue statements can be difficult only because to properly explain the Fair Tax takes more than 30 seconds and too many voters have an attention span of only 3 seconds. So, here's me 15 second attempt:

If you make $130 today, your take home pay is $100 allowing you to purchase $100 in groceries. After the Fair Tax, your take home pay will be $130 and you can buy the same amount of groceries. So what's changed? No IRS, no April 15th, no forms to fill out ever again. Oh, and if that's not enough for you, how about the check that you get to cover the tax you just paid?

Of course, it's more complicated than that. Of course some people will pay more taxes and some less. But it isn't dependent solely on how rich or poor you are, but rather it's based on your consumption. When and how much tax you pay is your choice.