Made a comment to Tall Pockets (http://tallpocketsforprez08.blogstream.com/) about what my plank would be. An excellent thought. The choice between serious or smart-ass? Only the serious muse struck. Some nails in the plank:

Have only public funding for presidential campaign costs. And a committee which would cancel funding if ads become negative.

Balance the budget quickly. First, eliminate waste and corruption (see below). Second, once the hemorrhage is stemmed, get taxes to pay for it. Sales tax or income tax? A reasonable combination. And compartmentalize the income. Social Security gets and keeps their funds. Highway ditto. Medical, etc.

Political action groups and influence peddling would be restricted to make their effect no more significant than what the rest of us have. Something like 1:1 employee to ordinary citizen ratio for amount of money spent by the group. And some public support for action groups for ordinary citizens other than things like AARP, NEA, NRA, etc. With a strigent bipartisan oversight by someone other than Congressmen.

Line item veto on any spending bill. Who does this is a big question. A single member of either party, even if it is the President, is not a good vetoer.

Make the medical industry competitive. Insurance companies. Pharmaceutical companies. Etc. Let citizen groups negotiate and find the best price. Promote citizen groups that include the presently uninsured and under insured. Everyone must have medical insurance. All children are insured.

Start pulling out the troops and put pressure on the Iraq government. Syria, Iran, Lebanon, too. Increase diplomatic efforts in Middle East.

Implement one year public required service. Hospitals. Child care. Elderly. Support in armed forces. Etc.

Required child care at kindergarden or below.

Implement the carbon equations and do it without corruption.

New push for educational excellence. Increase funding and increase accountability.

Citizen oversight of organizations that restrict or control freedoms. CIA, FBI, etc. Not citizens hired by the administration.

Abortion and homosexual policies are up to the state.

Immigration? Make a reasonable but strenuous path open to those good members of our communities who deserve a path to Citizenship. Shut down the borders, both overland and oversea. Hang (not literally) all law breakers.

Make waste handling the responsibility of the industry that produces it and the cost a part of the purchase price.

Make some of the gasoline tax go to development of alternative fuels.

Increase the Armed Forces and keep Congress out of Defense spending.

Would you support this? Why not? Write your own darned plank then.

Now that some of the candidates, have dropped out, we need some more good brain stimulators to join the race.

The tops on my list is Christopher Walken (http://www.walkenforpres.com/). One glance at his website will convince anyone that he is a serious possibility. “Champagne in every pot.” That is pronouned cham-pag-ny.

And who can forget Tom Dobbs in Man of the Year? That is him in the video. http://www.tomdobbs.com/ “Politicians are a lot like diapers. They should be changed frequently, and for the same reasons.”

And, of course, everyone who has any good taste for television knows that the prime (time) candidate is Stephen Colbert. http://www.colbert08.us/.

And then there is ourown Tall Pockets http://tallpocketsforprez08.blogstream.com/. Don't know his plank yet.

If we can have a Naval Academy graduate for candidate, why not a Whoopoo. Wesley Clark for President! http://duclarkies.net/

And we can not forget the Libertarians. Wayne Allen Root is the current leader for 2008. http://www.lp.org/

The Green Party. http://www.gp.org/index.php looks like they might go for Ralph Nader http://www.nader.org/

Went to see if the Nazi's had a candidate http://www.nazi.org/ but it does not look like they are trying this year. Don't go to this site!.

A guy I always liked to see on the talking heads shows, Robert Reich. http://trickledown.wordpress.com/2008/02/03/robert-reich-for-president/

And then there is the choice of every music lover Louis Jordan. http://hakpaksak.wordpress.com/2008/02/02/vote-for-jordan-for-president/

Ron Paul? http://www.ronpaul2008.com/ Some great ideas but Rosie endorses.

Mike Gravel. “marijuana is safer than alcohol” http://www.gravel2008.us/

We definitely need some inventive candidates. How about some additions to the list? Whom do you want?

Have had a little computer glitch. We have two computers. An older commercial Dell which we use most of the time. There is an intermittant casualty that comes up if there is a power interruption that a computer geek says could be fatal. So we got a second hand Shuttle and got them both networked and routed. The Shuttle had been used as a TiVo by the previous owner and getting through all the settings and passwords was pretty hairy. But a tech at Verizon spent a couple of hours on the 'phone getting it connected. Above and beyond.

We came back from visiting the kids a week or so ago and the Shuttle would not connect. Everything ran fine but kept getting the cannot display screen. Found the Default Gateway address empty. What to do? What to do? Nothing on Google gave any joy. So, even though the problem was obviously on my side of the router, I called Verizon. Could not get past the stupid robot to talk to a real live person. Will not tell what words I used about what I think of those telephone robots. Went to the Verizon help page and got on a chat box with a gentleman, obviously Indian. He had an Indian sounding name and his English was just a shade different. Very capable and patient. A nice guy. He worked me through fixing it. Once again, a fairly lengthy process. Had to check several parts and restart a few times. Turned out, my Shuttle was receiving an incorrect IP address. Still do not know why. But the end of a long story is that once again, the Verizon help tech went above and beyond the call to help me fix things wrong with my system.

Thanks Verizon. Of course, my bill more than compensates but I certainly do appreciate the help in times of crisis.

And for this fine Friday, a second posting. Sometimes the fertility of my brain astonishes me. Be sure to read the other entry about Verizon. It is more important.

The news, both local and national, have a story about using cameras to catch speeders. Seems to work really well. Speeding and accidents way down. The detractors say it does not solve the basic problem.

Once again, both are correct. All in favor of lots of radar traps. And all in favor of police hanging speeders by their provate parts. There is a 45 zone between us and the local Dollar General. I always drive five mi/hr above the limit. Almost get pushed off the road. Ditto on the Beltway in the big city. Most of it is 55. But drive 55 or 60 and you are a traffic hazard.

Where are the police? Here is a great way to solve the state and local financial problems. If someone is breaking the law, they are law breakers and ought to be persecuted to the full extent of torture and bound of flesh (with the blood). Here is a national crisis (look at the death statisitcs) with an obvious and already-in-place solution. Hang their asses.