People hang on his every word, even the prepositions.

He could disarm you with his looks… or his hands. Either way.

He can speak French… in Russian.

The police often question him just because they find him interesting.

His beard alone has experienced more than a lesser man’s entire body.

His blood smells like cologne.

He’s been known to cure narcolepsy just by walking into a room.

His organ donation card also lists his beard.

He’s a lover, not a fighter, but he’s also a fighter, so don’t get any ideas.

His reputation is expanding faster than the universe.

He once had an awkward moment, just to see how it feels.

He lives vicariously through himself.

His charm is so contagious, vaccines have been created for it.

Years ago, he built a city out of blocks. Today, over six hundred thousand people live and work there.

He is the only man to ever ace a Rorschach test.

Every time he goes for a swim, dolphins appear.

Alien abductors have asked him to probe them.

If he were to give you directions, you’d never get lost, and you’d arrive at least 5 minutes early.

His personality is so magnetic, he is unable to carry credit cards.

Even his enemies list him as their emergency contact number.

He never says something tastes like chicken. Not even chicken.

His legend precedes him, the way lightning precedes thunder.

I decided to do a series of comparison lists of histories over-rated and under-rated as they relate to each other.  This list is political and military leaders.

Some of the comparisons require a little thought.  For example, Hamilton and Jackson.  Hamilton is the most respected financial pioneer in American History, but Andrew Jackson is the only President to eliminate National debt and operate a trade surplus, so Jackson is under-rated as compared to Hamilton.

1.  Flash Gordon, 1980.  The worst plot and production values ever, but you just can’t look away.  “FLASH…Ah Ah”

2.  Clash of the Titans, 1981.  Sir Lawrence Olivier had to regret signing up to play Zeus in this Claymation nightmare.

3.  Attack of the Clones, 2002.  By far the worst movie in the Star Wars sage.  This is maybe the worst directing job of all time.

4.  Starship Troopers, 1997.  The worst acting ever, but the production value and effects were not bad.  The script was a disaster.  Stat: More ammunition was used during filming that any other movie ever.

5.  Battlefield Earth.  Travolta +future alien battle+ Scietology = the worst movie ever made.

AFI’s Top 25 movies of all time include only eight best picture winners.   The best year ever has to be 1962 with Lawrence of Arabia, The Longest Day, Mutiny on the Bounty, and To Kill a Mocking bird.  1994 has a good argument with Forest Gump, the Lion King, Shawshank Redemption, and Pulp Fiction.

AFI Rank	Title	Year	Best Picture	Place on list
1	Citizen Kane	1941	How Green was my Valley	NR
2	Casablanca	1942
3	The Godfather	1972
4	Gone with the Wind	1939
5	Lawrence of Arabia	1962
6	The Wizard of Oz	1939	Gone with the Wind	1
7	The Graduate	1967	In the Heat of the Night	NR
8	On the Waterfront	1954
9	Schindler’s List	1993
10	Singin’ in the Rain	1952	The Greatest Show on Earth	NR
11	It’s a Wonderful Life	1946	The Best Years of our Lives	37
12	Sunset Boulevard	1950	All About Eve	16
13	The Bridge on the River Kwai	1957
14	Some Like It Hot	1959	Ben Hur	72
15	Star Wars	1977	Annie Hall	31
16	All About Eve	1950
17	The African Queen	1951	An American in Paris	68
18	Psycho	1960	The Apartment	93
19	Chinatown	1974	The Godfather Part II	32
20	One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest	1975
21	The Grapes of Wrath	1940	Rebecca	NR
22	2001: A Space Odyssey	1968	Oliver!	NR
23	The Maltese Falcon	1941	How Green was my Valley	NR
24	Raging Bull	1980	Ordinary People	NR
25	E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial	1982	Gandhi	NR

The Illiad and Odessey, Homer. 8^th Century BCE

Histories, Herodotus. 5^th Century BCE

The Republic, Plato. 380 BCE

Meditations, Marcus Aurelius, 167

The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli. 1532

On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, Nicolaus Copernicus. 1543

Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, Isaac Newton. 1687

Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith. 1776

The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx. 1848

On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, Charles Darwin. 1859

Here is a fictional account of a possible 21st century world war. 

Allies: USA, Great Britain and Commonwealth Nations, Japan, Greece, Israel, India, South Korea

Eastern Alliance (EA): Russia, China, North Korea, Turkey, Southeast Asian Nations, Pakistan, Middle East, North African Nations, Former Soviet Republics.

Neutral: European Union, Sub Saharan Africa, Central and South America

Build-up:

Russia, China, Pakistan sign a treaty to share oil reserves and military intelligence. This causes fear in India, so they mobilize their Military to protect their borders. Iran is invaded from two fronts through Afghanistan and Iraq by the United States Army. A world wide Islamic call to arms causes all Middle Eastern nations to declare war on the U.S. This includes Pakistan. India then declares war on Pakistan and launches nuclear strikes which Pakistan returns, killing millions. The United Nations holds an emergency meeting and all members of the Security Council sign a pact to not deploy any nuclear weapons in the coming conflict.

Conflict: Year 1

Russia mobilizes along the former Iron Curtain and then signs a peace treaty with the European Union. Russian troops move into Afghanistan and Iran first as defense, but then they start to seize oil fields. The U.S orders the Russians out but China and Pakistan back Russia because of their treaty.

Meanwhile, the new Islamic Unified Army launches a massive attack against Israel who does not deploy nuclear weapons but manages to hold off the invaders. Egypt takes control of the Suez Canal and refuses to allow the Allies access. The Allied bases come under attack in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan. They decide that they cannot hold onto these areas with Russia and China looming so they withdraw to bolster Israel.

North Korea launches a huge offensive in South Korea and China’s entire Navy cuts off the US from reinforcing Seoul. South Korea falls with huge US casualties and the U.S. forces in Korea surrender. This is a huge moral boost for the Eastern Alliance. Japan maintains a national defense and navy, but they do not launch an offensive to help the US troops.

A massive Russian Land and sea force mounts in eastern Siberia. The Allied Pacific fleet moves north to counter the Russian Navy. Alaska is heavily fortified causing a stand-off between Russia and the USA across the Bearing Sea.

Australia sends troops to bolster India who is invaded across the Himalayas by China and from the west by Pakistan. A bitter fight for the Indian subcontinent ensues.

Turkey invades Greece from the east, and Russia invades from the North. The Allies officially declare war on Russia and China. Greece is lost to the EA because the allies put the defense of Israel as the first priority. The Black sea oil trade and all access to Asia is now lost to the Allies. India is holding out, and Israel is the only foothold that the Allies have on the entire Asian continent.

Year 2

With the bulk of the US navy in the Bearing Sea, China dominates the south Pacific. Japan will still not engage the Chinese or Koreans. Australia is threatened by the Chinese, so they pull out of India for the defense of Australia. India soon falls to China and Pakistan. The Allies desperately try to get Europe to enter the war but they still refuse. Poland asks for support due to the massing of Russian troops along its border. The allies fear a land war with Russia, so they do not mobilize in Europe.

Cuba, Columbia and Venezuela join the EA and attack the Panama Canal. The allies ask Mexico and Brazil to join the war effort, but they remain neutral. The U.S. deploys troops to defend Panama which they do easily. Cuba is taken by the US and all of North and South America is secured, although not officially with the Allies. With the US defenses weakened in Alaska, the Soviets launce the largest naval battle in History against the US Pacific fleet. China’s Navy then moves into the pacific and attacks Hawaii. The U.S. Navy is victorious against Russia, but with heavy losses.

The U.S. takes the offensive and moves most of the forces into The Middle Eastern theater. This weakens the west coast, but the US gambles that Russia and China will not invade the United States. The British lead an offensive breakout from Israel and retake the Suez Canal and most of Egypt. The Islamic Unified Army crumbles and the Allies retake most of Iraq, and Saudi Arabia, securing much needed oil reserves. The allies are constantly engaged by insurgents and holding the area is very costly.

Year 3

Russia and China launch a joint counter offensive into Iraq, and the largest land battle in human history ensues. It is nicknamed Armageddon because of the massive death and destruction on both sides. The battle is an allied victory, but they are weakened and susceptible to insurgent attacks.

The US navy begins an offensive into the south pacific after the Russian Navy is subdued. China is no match for the US with its heavy aircraft carriers now in the mix. Japan finally joins the war and they launch attacks into Korea and China. The U.S. blockades the entire Pacific Rim and tries to force the surrender of China. Russian Navy moves into the Atlantic and begins pirating European shipping. A stalemate begins to develop and no land battles exist for the last half of year three.

Year 4

The Allies now hold naval and air supremacy and blockade all EA ports. Russia, desperate for food, oil, and money invade Poland. This breaks the stalemate and allows a new European front to open up. This is just what the allies needed. Germany joins the allies and they begin a land invasion of Russia. Moscow is besieged and the Russian people are dying by the millions. India revolts and retakes the subcontinent with support from Allied air power. The allies liberate Tibet, and invade western China. Japan invades China and a huge land war takes place along the great wall. The US opens an eastern front by invading Russia from Alaska. With all hope of victory lost Russia surrenders to the European Union’s demands and remains in control of all territory it held before the war. The US army in Siberia now heads south and takes Manchuria and Korea.

China and Japan agree to a mutual ceasefire. As do India and Pakistan. The Middle East is the last battleground of the war. The insurgents are still active, but the allies now have the full force of their armies along with the European Nations. The entire Middle East is put under the control of the United Nations. The national boundaries are reformed into states with a representative democracy controlling the new union of Middle Eastern states. All of the monarchies and dictatorships are collapsed and the fundamentalist movement is subverted by democracy.

Year 5

China is severely weakened, and remains the world’s only communist country. Manchuria and the western province of Xinjang have been taken over, and are now new nations. Aided by the CIA, a people’s revolution rises up in China and overthrows the government. A new democratic constitution is ratified in China marking the official end of the War to end all Wars.

Liberal has become a negative slander. A pejorative to describe a weak person who wants everything handed to them by the Government. That is the opposite of what constitutes a liberal.

Liberal is the root word of liberty and liberate. It means freedom. The true definition of a liberal is a person who holds individual freedom to be the most important political issue. The limitation of government interference in business and individual lives is the real central theme of liberalism. It was the foundation upon which the United States of America was built.

Modern liberal political issues like welfare, universal healthcare, and progressive taxation, are not liberal at all. They are socialist issues. The limitation of government in individual lives along with the increase in government programs to aid people is a true contradiction. The modern political liberals want to have their cake and eat it too. If people want to protect individual liberties, they have to be willing to limit the size and power of the federal government. If they want social programs to provide equality and assistance to everyone, then they have to give up individual liberties. There is no way to have it both ways.

The founding fathers knew this, and they knew the nature of human ambition. If you give elected officials absolute power, they will take away liberties, and become corrupt. If you guarantee liberty, some people will try to take advantage of the free market system. If everyone is equal, we will all be poor. If economic incentives exist; the smart, diligent, industrious people will rise to economic power. If the government continues to eliminate economic incentives with high taxes, interest rates, no patent protection, etc, then the smart, diligent, industrious people of the world will invest their money and ideas somewhere else.

The true future of the nation has to be in economic conservatism and social liberalism. The Republicrats will eventually take over! Something has to give, and that is an economic survival of the fittest. People unable or unwilling to compete economically will be poor. It is that simple. If we can tolerate that, the nation will long endure.

Ever wonder where your tax dollars go.  I find it strange that we spend more than twice as much money on the war in Iraq and Afghanistan than we do in th entire U.S. Department of Education.  Our interest payments on debt is more than the budget for the departments of Health and Human Services, Education, Veterans Affairs, HUD, and Homeland Security combined.

• $644 billion – Social Security
• $408 billion – Medicare
• $224 billion – Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP)
• $360 billion – Unemployment/Welfare/Other mandatory spending
• $260 billion – Interest on National Debt

· Discretionary spending: $1.21 trillion (+4.9%)

• $515.4 billion – United States Department of Defense
• $145.2 billion(2008*) – Global War on Terror
• $70.4 billion – United States Department of Health and Human Services
• $59.2 billion – United States Department of Education
• $44.8 billion – United States Department of Veterans Affairs
• $38.5 billion – United States Department of Housing and Urban Development
• $38.3 billion – State and Other International Programs
• $37.6 billion – United States Department of Homeland Security
• $25.0 billion – United States Department of Energy
• $20.8 billion – United States Department of Agriculture
• $20.3 billion – United States Department of Justice
• $17.6 billion – National Aeronautics and Space Administration
• $12.5 billion – United States Department of the Treasury
• $11.5 billion – United States Department of Transportation
• $10.6 billion – United States Department of the Interior
• $10.5 billion – United States Department of Labor
• $8.4 billion – Social Security Administration
• $7.1 billion – United States Environmental Protection Agency
• $6.9 billion – National Science Foundation
• $6.3 billion – Judicial branch (United States federal courts)
• $4.7 billion – Legislative branch (United States Congress)
• $4.7 billion – United States Army Corps of Engineers
• $0.4 billion – Executive Office of the President
• $0.7 billion – Small Business Administration
• $7.2 billion – Other agencies
• $39.0 billion(2008*) – Other Off-budget Discretionary Spending

*The financial cost of the Iraq War and the War in Afghanistan are not part of the defense budget; they are appropriations.