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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Michael" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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12:20 pm
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Fun night in Long Beach
I spent my Saturday hanging out with a friend that I haven't had contact with for almost a decade. I went for a nice walk and had a good conversation with her in Long Beach. Then I had some trout at a local restaurant in the area. Overall, a fun night.
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06:47 am
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NT from law school got married. Never thought that would happen.
NT from law school got married!? Wow, what is this world coming to?
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12:40 am
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I went to a TEA Party Express event in Griffith Park.
I just got back from a TEA Party Express event in Griffith Park in the Los Angeles area. What is quite apparent is that the passion against the statism-collectivism-altruistic vision of the Obama Democrats is growing, and becoming stronger by the day.
It's rare to see a true citizens protest movement. Most people are too busy to get active in political debates. That's reasonable because in a free society, there are thousands of different pursuits that one can engage in. Now that our country is headed down a very dangerous course, one that could affect the very foundation of the country, regular citizens are becoming far more involved. It was truly a remarkable experience to see so many people at this event.
I saw people from every walk of life there. I heard an American who immigrated from Russia who said that she is getting involved because she does not want America to go down the path that Russia once went through. People who have experienced tyranny know the signs of its development.
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02:35 pm
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Unlike America's Founding Fathers, President Obama does not believe in liberty.
I have been reading David McCullough's "John Adams." When reading this book, it's clear that John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington had a unique understanding of human nature. Human nature, they felt, resulted in government encroachment on the natural liberties of the people. Government, not the people, should be constrained in order to provide the maximum amount of liberty to the people.
Thomas Jefferson once said: "The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first."
Notice that Thomas Jefferson wanted the chains on the government and not American citizens.
President Barack Obama does not want any limits whatsoever on his powers. He has not made any reference to the limitations on our federal government during his time as president. Even worse, prior to becoming president, he complained that the US Constitution acted to prevent government action, which he found problematic since he believes that it is the power and perogative of the government to involve itself in literally every aspect of our lives.
When listening to speeches and comments made by Obama, it's clear that he does not believe in the Declaration of Independent's clear reference to an unalienable right to the pursuit of happiness. Every policy he proposes is intended to get in the way and block one's right to the pursuit of happiness. Just yesterday, Obama has proposed new limits on what higher level executives are able to make at their firms. Why does he propose this policy? Simple: He does not believe that individuals should pursue their rational self-interest by working hard and receiving a high salary to compensate them for their efforts. Rather than celebrate individual achievement, Obama believes in punishing it.
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06:38 pm
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Once the government takes over the health care industry, it seeks to destroy competition.
When you are in a hospital receiving care, do you often think, "If only the government would take control of this entire enterprise, the system would truly be effecient and run a lot better"? Don't laugh, that is the argument being made in Washington!
Do doctors think that things would improve in health care once Washington politicians, bureaucrats, and courts override the will of their patients?
No one thinks this way. Doctors don't think this way, and neither do patients.
Further, once the government takes over health care, it is aggressive in its attack against any alternative to the government-run monopoly.
Let's look at Canada for a moment. There is a movement in Canada to offer more privatized health insurance there. However, the "government-run" monopoly advocates are screaming at the top of their lungs that such voluntary, individualistic care is harming the government-run monopoly system.
"What it means is that people who have no money, who are chronically ill, disabled, who require medical attention frequently, are going to suffer dramatically," said Leslie Dickout of the B.C. Health Coalition, as quoted in the LA Times. In other words, the government-run system is not paying doctors sufficiently, and offers long lines to patients, but the private-sector alternative is able to lure doctors through better pay, and patients with less waiting times, and that's considered unfair. These government-run health care advocates do not care at all about health care. What they care about is control over doctors and patients in a totalitarian, government-run health care utopia.
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01:50 am
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Diane Watson’s townhall meeting
I went to Rep. Diane Watson's townhall meeting. This was a very unusual townhall meeting. It was quite apparent that Diane Watson was able to fill the townhall with an overwhelming number of left-wing lunatics who hold unreasonable and irrational political opinions. For instance, when Diane Watson talked about how she had not read the bill, the audience laughed and even applauded. That is not a very typical reaction from members of the public. In most parts of the country, such an admission would result in a great deal of scorn from the audience members.
Normal people are not enthralled with politicians, especially those who are open enough to say how lazy they are about the work that they are entrusted to act upon. Thus, it is striking that Rep. Diane Watson was bold enough to say that she is open to nationalizing 20% of the entire United States economy without bothering to read the fine print.
Some audience members, who read a script, and were members of some government-run health care pressure group, were demanding that Diane Watson propose the creation of an authoritarian, monopolized government-run health care system (single payer--also known as 'single provider' of health care: i.e., a monopoly).
Thankfully, I was able to ask her why government-run health care would work when it failed everywhere. Her answer was most unusual: She admitted that government-run health care systems around the world have failed, but she insists that we can avoid the mistakes that have existed in other countries. Doubtful. Some ideas are reprehensible regardless of what country one lives in. The idea that we need to copy the failures of other countries, such as UK, which exhibit an enormous amount of rationing of health care, poor quality and hygiene, is irrational. If an idea does not work in other countries, there is no sensible reason to impose it here. At least Diane Watson admitted that government-run health care has failed everywhere that it has been tried. That is a remarkable admission for someone who wants to create such a monster here in the United States of America.
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09:02 pm
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Government-run coffee companies.
Do Democrats want the government to take over coffee houses like Starbucks? Read my satirical report here.
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01:44 pm
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President Obama attacks Swiss sovereignty.
Barack Obama campaigned for president in 2008 partly on a platform of trying to restore America's "respect in the world." Voters were told that America would reach out and try harder to show our friendship with those in Europe, in particular.
So how is Obama proving his friendship with Europe?
By trashing the sovereingty of Switzerland. The United States is demanding that certain tax related data from clients by Swiss-based UBS be turned over to the Internal Revenue Service. If UBS does so, it would undermine Swiss's bank secrecy laws, and thus, their entire banking system. When a customer places money in a Swiss account, there is the implicit assumption that their data will not be turned over under any circumstances to authorities in other jurisdictions. If customers no longer believe that their banking related information is kept secret in Switzerland, customers will find other jurisdictions that are able to maintain such secrecy. As a result, a lot of Swiss's banks will have fewer deposits, more will fail, unemployment will rise, and the economy will suffer. What does Obama have against Switzerland?
Interestingly, Switzerland is considering passing a law preventing UBS from complying with the IRS mandates. As Reuters reports, this case is "souring diplomatic ties."
So much for the broken promise of Barack Obama trying to repair relations with the rest of the world.
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07:13 pm
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I won a small claims judgment against a telemarketer, Orange County Public Auto Auction.
In February, I received two pre-recorded telemarketing calls from Orange County Public Auto Auction, Inc. They called me using the telephone number 1-800-923-9206. I decided to sue Orange County Public Auto Auction, Inc. in small claims court for the maximum statutory amount. Today I went to court and no representative from Orange County Public Auto Auction, Inc. came to defend themselves. I explained the case to the commissioner, and he agreed with me. I won my judgment, and I will be taking efforts to enforce it after 30 days have passed.
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10:46 pm
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I always investigate strange letters to the editor.
I noticed a strange letter to the editor today in the New York Times. It was from a woman named Barbara McFadden from Oakland. She wrote to urge Congress to eliminate the tax exemption for employer-provided health care (presently, employees pay no tax on the health insurance that they receive from their employer). Whenever someone suggests that we raise taxes, I always look up their name on Google because it is rather rare for an average, run-of-the-mill person to say, "Raise my taxes." In 2008, this woman gave $750 to Barack Obama's campaign for president and $250 for Hillary. Further, while her occupation stated that in February that she was a teacher, by October she listed her occupation as retired. Meanwhile, she writes: "I have employer-provided health insurance. What is more, I am ready to give up the current exemption and pay taxes on the insurance so that other Americans can have decent coverage." In October of 2008, she listed her occupation as retired. How can she have employer-provided health insurance? Is this retirement-based health insurance? Or did she change jobs? Further, this is equally disingenuous because Congress is debating the idea of taxing every employee's health insurance benefits except for those received by union members! This woman is very likely a member of California's teacher's union, which means that she would be exempt from this tax increase. It's always easy to call for a tax increase when someone else is paying the bills!
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12:48 am
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Random thoughts on getting things done/murder mystery party.
Why does it seem as though people are able to accomplish far more than I do when they have a lot less free time than I do? I feel that the day moves far too quickly and I'm not able to accomplish as much as I would like. In any case, tomorrow I am going on a "murder mystery" party at a friend's house. I am going to play the role of a "doctor." Let's see how this turns out.
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03:57 pm
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Don't let the government take over our health care system.
President Obama is trying to bully doctors into supporting his authoritarian health care proposals that would shift roughly 17% of the economy directly to Washington, D.C., to be decided by 535 elected officials and thousands of bureaucrats. The idea that this will improve health care is risible.
For routine, expected expenses, the best form of health care would be if the patient pays the physician directly, with no middle man (including insurance or the government). Thus, if you have a cold, and you want to visit a doctor, you should be able to shop around and determine who is going to charge the best rates. As the system would move towards a capitalist system, doctors would post their prices online and there even would be advertisements making their prices known. However, since doctors get most of their payments through third-parties--including both the government and insurance companies--most people are ignorant of the prices doctors charge, and doctors themselves have very little incentive to cut down costs to pass it along to patients.
Obama has the worst of the worst ideas. Rather than moving towards a system in which the patient pays the doctor directly, he wants the patient to pay taxes, which will be sent to D.C., wasted by hundreds of thoudsands of bureacrats, and then sent back to you with millions of strings attached in terms of how you can visit your doctor, when, how often, what type of treatment will be offered, and how and when your doctor will get paid. This will cause a nightmare. It is your job to oppose this. I am including a form letter that you can send to your member of Congress as well as both of your US Senators. I already sent my letter to them and now it is up to you to do your part. You can send a message to your Member of Congress by clicking here.
Here is the form letter that you may copy and paste and send it along to D.C.:
As your constituent, I urge you to oppose President Obama's health care schemes. Government-run health care does not work, and should be opposed.
I do not want the government to be in charge of health care. We have seen that the government-run systems in the UK and Canada do not work. Instead, I support private sector solutions such as deregulation, enabling citizens to buy health care policies from a company in any state, and to provide tax deductions for individuals to purchase coverage.
For these reasons, I strongly oppose President Obama's government-run health care ideas. I urge you to vote against these bills when they come for a vote in Congress.
Sincerely,
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07:13 pm
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Obama's Oppression.
Sometimes we feel as though we are no longer in the United States of America. The greatness of America is that it is a nation that has a federal government with limited powers. Our Constitution does not grant the federal government unlimited power to do whatever it wishes. Rather, the federal government is limited only to protecting individual rights. Individual rights are another way of referring to liberty. However, we are seeing that these limits placed upon the federal government have steadily eroded over time.
We presently have a federal government that wants to intervene in every aspect of American life. Think about what starts in the beginning of the day: you eat breakfast, turn on the TV, and drive to work. Well, in every one of those areas, the government wants to intervene and change the way you live. First, the government wants to radically change your diet. It's hard to get Nancy Pelosi to come to your house to tell you what to eat, so the best way is by making certain foods more expensive so that you'd be forced to buy less expensive foods. Ostensibly, this means taxing "junk food," but it is not hard to conceive of Congress expanding far beyond this to coffee, beef, salt, etc, etc. Secondly, turning on your TV to catch the news will be far more expensive because the people in Congress have a hypersensitive and paranoid view of rising temperatures, which causes them to have the arrogant view that they, the United States Congress, actually have control over global temperature. (This actually reminds me of a documentary I rented recently. It was a documentary about pre-historic man. During one part of the documentary, it referred to the fact that ancient man believed that he could change the weather by chanting to the "weather god." Isn't this very similar, only that this time, Congress wants to force you to pay alms to this "weather god"?) Thirdly, driving to work will certainly be a lot more difficult in the future since Congress wants to design the type of car that you should be driving, impose substantial taxes on gasoline to make it harder to drive to work, and also, to impose policies that will make driving more inconvenient. For instance, Congress wants to shift gas tax revenue away from highway construction towards mass transit, which will result in more congestion.
As Americans, we must remember that our Constitution does not grant Congress unlimited majority rule. Our Founders choose specifically to limit the extent of Congress's powers. No matter who wins an election, there are some things that politicians cannot do. Politicians are to write laws to protect our individual rights; their job is not to abridge our rights.
Further, while we still have the freedom to communicate, it is essential to get the word out and let your fellow citizens know what President Obama has in store for America. Obama does not believe that Americans should have individual rights. Instead, he wants to ration rights and distribute it to his political allies and oppress those who are not favorable to him. It is important that we remain vigilant and continue to shed light on the harmful ideas and policies that Obama continues to bring forward.
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04:49 pm
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I have a cold.
I feel sick. Tired. Exhausted. Not sure what is wrong. I think I have a cold. I'm going to take a nap.
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02:13 pm
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Wal-Mart and Griffith Park
Yesterday I went to Wal-Mart. In a few minutes from now, I will be going to the Griffith Park Observatory for a bike ride with a friend.
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06:03 pm
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California's high state minimum wage law costs jobs.
I recently had an op-ed column published condemning California's high state minimum wage law. You can read it here.
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11:20 am
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My column has been published.
My column, "The United States Should Not Adopt a Government Run Health Care System," has been published. You can read it here.
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01:25 am
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My trip to Seattle/Vancouver
I had a wonderful trip to the Pacific Northwest area of Seattle and Vancouver. On my first day in Seattle, I fell in love with the city rather rapidly. I loved the fact that the Downtown area was quite accessible by walking. During my walk Downtown, I was pleasantly surprised to see how beautiful the buildings truly were. The architecture is stunning in Seattle, especially compared to a lot of other cities. On my first day in Seattle, I was able to get Clover Coffee from Starbucks: it is truly a unique experience. The coffee is made individual in a special machine that uses extraordinary coffee beans to make the experience far more intense. At night, I ate fish at a local restaurant that was fairly close to the ocean. It was fairly upscale, but also, not pretentious. I ordered fish, which went for around $20, and although the portions were a bit small, at least it tasted great. Then, the next morning, I went to Pike's Place Market, and I ordered some goodies from a local bakery. The price was $2.75, and I was willing to pay it, but the owner of the store unilaterally lowered the price to $1.75 because I was willing to pay in cash. Well, that was quite nice of him. Then I ran back to my hotel (as I was running short on time), and went on a bus that took me to Vancouver. At the border, the Canadian Border Patrol Services agent asked if I had any flu symptoms (this is during the swine-flu epidemic, of course), and I of course said no. I was approved, and admitted inside Canada. The bus took me right to the door of my hotel in Vancouver, and it was a pleasant, beautiful hotel room at the Reinassance Hotel, which also has a great hotel in the LA area, too. The hotel room in Vancouver was overlooking a waterway area, and I was able to see boat-planes land and taking off in the water area. It was quite exciting, and I was thrilled to see this.
On the first day in Vancouver, I walked along the entire financial district area, trying to see and look at every store that existed there. Interestingly enough, I did not buy any souvenirs from Vancouver. I just know that certain things look a bit tacky over time. It is nice that Vancouver is the spot of a future winter Olympic games, but buying Vancouver 2010 Olympic gear will only later look tacky once 2010 appears further and further into the background. For instance, would you want an Athens 2004 t-shirt? Probably not. In any case, on the last day in Vancouver, I went to Gastown, as well as Grouse Mountain, where I literally felt as though I was on top of the world. It was cold. It was snowing. But I had a blast!
Returning home, I had to get up at 3 am in Vancouver, board a bus at 4:10 am, and make my way to Seattle. I arrived in Seattle around 8:30 am or 9 am. I felt as though I would accomplish a great deal while I was there, but in reality, all that I was able to accomplish was to go on the Underground Tour as well as eat breakfast at a wonderful seafood place in the Pike's Place area, as well as get a Clover Coffee from Starbucks. Then, after that, I boarded a bus to the Seattle International Airport. I had a great conversation with a community college professor on the bus. He was quite friendly, talkative, and in good spirits. He reminded me of why I liked Seattle to begin with: it is a land of intensely passionate individuals who are intelligent, devoted to their careers and their hobbies, and who are friendly too. Considering that California is becoming more and more authoritarian, it is nice to know that there is at least some refuge out there. Washington is one of the seven US states that I would state are truly free American states.
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12:10 am
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President Obama Hands Al Qaeda CIA Blueprints on What to Expect if they are Captured.
It is painfully obvious that President Obama is the first American president who truly hates America and is willing to take positions that are certain to undermine our national security. By releasing memos that the CIA had used in the Bush administration in determining what the limits are in interrogating terrorist barbarians, it puts our enemies--the barbarian Islamfascists--on notice of what the ultimate limits Americans are willing to use against them. These barbarians will use these memos as blueprints in determining how to avoid revealing any relevant information regarding imminent threats against America. Obama has essentially stated that he does not care if this hurts our national security. Considering the fact that our enemy is still out there, and we have shown weakness and have taken away a valuable tool to use against our enemy, we are in a far more dangerous position now. We will live to regret this day. And when that day comes, President Obama will be responsible and must be held accountable politically at the ballot box for his disgraceful and contemptible decision to reveal our nation's secrets to our enemies.
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11:41 am
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Democrats scare US companies into moving to Switzerland.
Obama's policies are not helping US companies. It is obvious that either Obama is not aware of the harm that his policies cause (in which case he is not that bright), or he is aware, and doesn't care about the harm that he is causing. In one case, high corporate income tax rates, cap-and-trade policies, new rules allowing easier unionization, and unfriendly policies towards major corporations, is causing some companies to move to Switzerland.
It's funny how a lot of liberals were threatening to leave the country when Bush was elected and re-elected, but real American companies are actually leaving due to Obama's poor policies.
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