RIP Earl Gibson

Yesterday, I received news that my friend, guitarist and vocalist, Earl Gibson passed away very early in the morning of Saturday, October 19th. He had an amazing career touring as a guitar player in the 1940s with the likes of the ORIGINAL Ink Spots and the Mills Brothers. Later he would also tour with Earl Grant and as a guitarist/vocalist the Sensational Ink Spots in the 1960s. During this time he also became friends with the great jazz legend Duke Ellington. I met Earl for the first time about 5 years ago through my grandfather and even had a chance to sit in on a jam session with him. I kind of saw him as my link to the music scene of the 1940-60s. He will be greatly missed. I have a few photos of him that I will post later.

Here are a few web-articles about him:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPx0wMpHYIE

http://www.rftstl.com/2007-05-09/news/the-ink-spot/

http://sheltontree.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_archive.html

http://www.ratpackstlouis.com/e1.htm

Bailouts, Buyouts, and a Never Ending Stream of Cash

It's been quite a while since I did much of anything with this blog, but I've decided to return to it. I plan for it to be a daily blog that will be a tie-in with a weekly podcast. Anyway, on to the subject at hand....

I am absolutely tired of hearing about all of these proposed bailouts. Admittedly, I don't have any great education in economics, but I did OK in my high school and college math and economic classes. At the very least, I know that putting more money into the economic system cannot be a good thing. Ever since we've gone off the gold standard, what has our money been backed by? I wouldn't say "nothing", because we are all still willing to exchange paper money for all of our various goods and services. I would argue that what backs the paper money these days is the goods and services themselves. It's all just a matter of the quantity of goods and services that we are willing to exchange for those paper dollars. That kind of system can work well if the economy is stable, and the amount of money in circulation stays relatively the same. The problem comes when the Fed (and everybody else involved) keeps printing money and pumping it into the system. The number of "dollars" that I have may remain the same, but the VALUE or the amount that I can purchase with each individual dollar goes down.

I personally don't understand the argument of "too big to fail". Admittedly, there may be some institutions that have so many tentacle throughout the world economy that a failure could cause the economy to be adversely affected. I do believe that the Fed and other government agencies have a role in overseeing their stabilization, but outright buying is not the right way to go. Many of the laws such as separation of banks and lending houses need to be restored. Also, what the heck is "short-selling"???!!! Since when are you allowed to sell stock that you don't even have (aka "shorting" the stock)? That's one practice that needs to be abandoned IMMEDIATELY.

One final thing, our current government debt now stands around 8 TRILLION dollars. The American economy is only about 14 trillion. We still have some breathing room, but we need to turn this around NOW. That's why we need to get some TRUE monetary hawks elected to office. Plus, we need to institute term limits, because even people who cut budgets will eventually succumb to the Washington "culture" of spending. Admittedly, I am a conservative and I tend to vote Republican, but I've had a lot of problems with them as of late. I will be voting for John McCain and Sarah Palin on the top of the ticket, but I'm starting to think about voting anti-incumbent the rest of the way down to send a message. It's time to do a little House-cleaning.....and Senate cleaning while we're at it.


More later.....

Creation or Evolution

Author’s Note: I composed this brief paper back in 1996 when I was in eighth grade. Though it has been nearly a decade since I wrote it, my sentiments remain the same. I have attempted to leave it virtually untouched (with a few grammatical edits) as I wrote it then.

For years, evolutionists have been trying to prove that there is no God and that the universe came into being without one. Try to imagine their theory. We travel back in time to the “Big Bang” and we see an explosion from a small ball of matter forming the universe. Now, let’s think this through. First of all, where did the ball of matter come from? Evolutionists would say that it came from “virtual nothingness.” But the word “virtual” means “almost”...not “complete.” So, it means “almost nothing.” That means there must have been a little something. So where did it come from?

The best answer that they can give us is that matter is continuously being made and destroyed. This is known as the “Steady State” Theory. But if this is the case, then what started the creation and destruction of matter? Another theory is that the universe is self contained. Then how did the self contained universe come into existence. Another theory is that the universe had zero potential energy and therefore just popped into existence...but what kind of nonsense is that?

Continuing on, galaxies, planets, and stars began to form. Then after earth was formed, volcanoes erupted and provided all of the different gases and chemicals on earth today. Some of these mixed together to form a single celled creature. This cell reproduced and over several million years of evolution, created all the different kinds of plants and animals on earth.

This appears to be very difficult, though because of the reliance on chance. Everything just seems to have landed perfectly in the right place. Let us again travel back in time, but only a few centuries...back to Leonardo di Vinci. He has just finished painting a beautiful picture. How foolish would it be for me to say that he had just thrown the paint on the canvas, and by chance it landed in just the right place.

Whether or not you believe in God the way I do or not, it is hard to deny the fact that there is a Creator who designed the universe. There is just too much perfection in the universe for there not to be one.

Illegal Immigration

Well, it looks like illegal immigration is all over the news these days, and everybody and his brother has an opinion about it. The President and bulk of the Senate want a border security proposal combined with a guest worker program, while the House and a large part of the public want a "security first" bill.

Meanwhile the President has been suffering from the lowest approval ratings of his presidency. Most of his liberal critics would point to the war in Iraq as the cause for this loss of support. I would disagree, because he still managed to secure a sizable majority during his reelection in 2004. This drop in support has come from his unwillingness to drop the guest worker program.

On the surface, the guest worker program seems to be a good idea....for people who have not already violated our immigration laws. This is the central crux of my disagreement with the President's proposal. With almost every other aspect, I like his idea. Adding 6,000 national guard to assist....good idea. Adding high technology for monitoring the border....good idea. Adding more border control....good idea. Tamper proof id's....good idea. ANY kind of legalization/citizenship for people who have broken our laws....BAD IDEA!!!

So, what do I propose? Am I saying that we round up all 10-12 million illegals and deport them? No, because like the President, I see that as impractical. So, what do we do? We take away all incentive for them to stay here and cause them to deport themselves.

Here's my step by step solution: 1. Triple the size of the current Border Security force. 2. Spend whatever it takes to put high tchnology to monitor the border. 3. Build some kind of a fence. I'm not saying a wall, but a fence. And for those that think it's impractical, look at what Israel has done along their border with the Palestinians. 4. Issue tamper-proof id's for the work place. 5. Crack down HARD on employers who knowingly employ illegals by giving them HUGE fines per every illegal employed. 6. Finally, deny all social services to those here illegally. I know that may sound cruel, but there is a huge strain on the system as a result of illegal immigration. We are already facing a financial disaster with Social Security and Medicare, so we don't need the added stress.

More later....

Gas Prices

So, here we are at nearly $3.00 per gallon (in Texas that is...maybe more where you are), and everybody's wanting to know who's to blame and what can be done. Is it high oil prices? Partially, yes but not all. There are actually several factors: high oil prices, the wrong type of oil imports, too few refineries, too many blend requirements, inability to access domestic reserves, and of course overly high taxes. Let's start at the beginning...

First we have the fact that there are TWO types of oil. These are sweet crude and sour crude. You may have heard that oil is selling for around $70+ a barrel. This is half true. Sweet crude sells for this price. Did you know that sour crude sells for around $35 a barrel? Which raises the question...why don't we buy that type? Well, the answer lies in the type of refineries that we have. Our refineries here in the US are equipped only to process sweet crude. Other countries have sour crude refineries...but we don't. Talk about unprepared!!!

Which leads us easily to next point. Not only do we not have any of the other TYPE of refinery, we have too few of the ones that we do have. We have not built a new refinery in this country in nearly 3 decades! However, it has been brought to my attention that one of the major oil companies IS preparing to build a new refinery. I don't know how many refineries we will need to build to keep up with demand, but at least this is a start.

Another thing is to tap into more domestic sources of oil. I for one certainly believe in taking care of our world, but I think it is an absurdity to say that we cannot tap into ANYMORE of our natural resources. We need to tap into ANWR, the Gulf of Mexico, etc. This will get us into a situation where we will be less dependent on foreign oil. Once that is done, THEN we can begin to talk about alternative energy.

So, for what it's worth, here is my proposal for our gas crisis that the government can implement. For the short term, eliminate ALL taxes and remove blend requirements. These actions alone will probably knock the price down by about $.70 over night. My longer term plan involves tax subsidies for companies that will build refineries with an emphasis on SOUR crude. We have to get more processing ability, because all the oil in the world won't mean a thing if we can't refine it fast enough! Next, expand domestic drilling! We have to get away from foreign oil! Lastly, as a bone to environmentalists, invest money into the development of alternative energy.

There it is. It's as cut and dry as I can make it. Next entry...illegal immigration.

Introduction

The purpose of this blog will be the discussion of two of the biggest passions in my life: politics and music. I do not claim to be an expert in either of these fields (although I do have a BA in music), but rather am simply an individual who wishes to share his opinions with the world. I am going to try within the next couple of weeks to launch an accompanying weekly podcast. In addition to the podcast, I will try to post at least one daily blog. So, sit back, read, and enjoy.


-Ryan Smith