DANNY GLOVER HAS LOST HIS MIND

He's out of his wits, this Danny Glover. After hearing his remarks recently about Haiti, the American government's response, and Hugo Chavez of all people, I think its clear the man has lost his mind. Who knows if he's always been a left wing junkie...probably has been. Most of those Hollywood types are, of course. It always pains me when these guys get out there and do this as well. I mean, Danny Glover's a good actor, no doubt about that. I enjoyed his performances in the Lethal Weapon movies where he seemed to play a pretty sensible guy.

Danny Glover seems to think we're occupying the country. But then this is what Hugo Chavez seems to be saying as well. "Send doctors Mr. Obama, not soliders," Hugo was quoted as saying.

I think it's safe to say that Haiti has no infrastructure. They also do not have a viable police force nor do they have a military force. They do, however, have corruption en masse. This is the primary reason why American ground forces are there in Haiti to deliver medicine, water and other necessary supplies to the Haitian people in need of it. If they were to simply send doctors, we'd likely have to add their bodies to the growing piles of earthquake victims.

By the way, as for the efforts of America in this whole thing to Mr. Chavez and to Mr. Glover, since 1992 the United States has provided $3 billion worth of aid to Haiti. Now, granted we can argue all day what good it did. But it's still an enormous amount of money no less. We are currently sending $100 million of U.S. taxpayer money as we speak—not to mention the cost of the deployment of troops itself. Mr. Chavez has sent one plane of supplies. One plane! I wonder if anyone on it were doctors?

By the way, might I just point out in closing that long ago I decided to boycott Citgo as it is owned and operated by Chavez and the Venezuelan government. I leave that as a reminder that pumping gas at a Citgo station only serves to serve tyranny.

PROFILE OF A PATRIOT
Profiling in our nation's airports have nothing at all to do with singling people out or denying anyone their civil rights. At the end of the day profiling is about patriotism.
CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE ISSUE OF THE FALLING SKY
Global warming, climate change, whatever we are calling it today, is about putting the human race smack dab in the center of the doomsday scenario. It's meant to scare the hell out of us.

WE ALL HAVE A DOH! MOMENT NOW AND AGAIN

I sway from the usual rant today just to reflect on one of those Homer Simpson, Doh! moments we all tend to have every now and again. They're never major happenings. Just minor moments in life when you think, man that's just annoying.

It was earlier in the week when the wife and I had decided it might be nice to catch a bite out to eat on Friday (that would be today, of course). She was at the kitchen table going through the coupon wallet, and taking out the expired ones to throw away.

"Hey, there's one in here for Red Lobster—$4 off two dinner entrees," my wife told me and tossed the coupon over to me.

"Oh, well, maybe we could catch Red Lobster Friday then," I told her.

She nodded, and then asked me when it expired. Doh! It would expire on Thursday. But no problem, I told her, we'd just go out to dinner on Thursday instead of Friday. It really didn't matter to me anyway when we went out to eat.

So Thursday came along, the wife got home from work, and she just wanted to change a bit before we left. As we were headed out the door to leave for the restaurant she asked me, "You've got the coupon?"

"Yeah, it's in my wallet. I put it in there so I'd be sure not to forget it."

We arrived at the restaurant, it would be a 25 minute wait for a table we were told, and they handed us one of those little vibrating things. Not too bad. We've waited longer many times before. If it would have been Friday like we had originally planned the wait surely would have been quite a lot longer. It's always like that at Red Lobster, you know.

So, like most people do we just ambled over to the bar and ordered up a couple of drinks. One Samuel Adams on tap for me a Malibu Rum and Coke for the wife. $9.50. Let me tell you, I'm in the wrong line of business. Drink prices are getting a little soaked.

Anyway, we finally got seated and the waitress told us about the fish specials and other particulars. We refreshed our drinks and before she walked away I said "Oh, by the way. I've got a coupon just so you know."

"Fine," the waitress said. "Just present it when you pay and I'll take care of it."

So we sat and talked, the wife and I. We ordered up one of the appetizers. It arrived and we ate it. Our salads came and we ate those. Then the main course, and we gobbled that all up. The waitress came by and asked if we wanted dessert, to which both the wife and I replied (clearly way too full already) no thanks, we'd burst for sure. And so she brought the check and I whipped out the debit card to pay. Waitress came and got it, rung us up, I signed and we headed for the door.

Hitting the cold Wisconsin winter air just outside the Red Lobster the wife remembered. "The coupon," she said. It was a statement.

Dammit. Yes, the coupon. I had forgotten it.

Sure, I could have gone back inside and had the waitress apply it. But it was only $4. Only $4—spoken like I have a couple million in the bank. And it would be time consuming. The place was still busy. It would be a lot of hassle for practically nothing. Instead I simply yelled Doh! in my head, and brushed it off as I walked to the car to get the door for my wife.

FORMER PRESIDENT H.W. BUSH HECKLED

I think it's deplorable what happened to former president George H.W. Bush at a Houston, Texas pizza restaurant where a man came up to him and began to heckle him, shouting false accusations and profanities. Luckily the president's secret service protection was in tow and they were able to send the heckler on his merry way.

Not that we don't sometimes disagree with our elected officials, including our presidents. But as anything goes in this world, if we want to get our point across, we have to do it respectfully and we simply cannot engage in the use of outright lies to support in favor of our arguments. This is not to say that had the man approached the former president in an intelligent way the president may have sat with him, chatted, and maybe even offered up a piece of pizza to the guy. But what the heckler did only served to make him look like a fool. It invalidated any case he may have had.

My concern over this incident calls me to question, beyond this, whether we may need to have another look at the law that went into effect in 1994 that limits secret service protection for former presidents elected after January 1, 1997 to just 10 years following the end of their terms. I examine it in more detail in my hub, "Bush Heckled At A Restaurant Signals Time to Revisit 1994 Law."

HAITI EARTHQUAKE DEVASTATES AN ALREADY IMPOVERISHED NATION

The recent 7.0 earthquake that rocked the land in Haiti, an already impoverished nation, has gotten much attention from top celebs, and President Obama has spoken about it as well. In particular Wyclef Jean has begun a foundation with a phone number that people can call to make donations to relief efforts there. You can text "Yele" to 501501 and Wyclef Jean's foundation, Yele Haiti will donate $5 from a charge made to your phone bill. Naturally the American Red Cross and UNICEF are engaging efforts there as well.

On Tuesday the president said "his thoughts and prayers were with the people of Haiti." He has also stated that U.S. Military assistance could be provided if the situation deems it to be appropriate.

The area most affected by the quake was the capital city of Port-au-Prince, which is home to nearly 1.8 million people.

WEAK EARNINGS REPORTED THROUGH HOLIDAYS; WELL DUH!

Two stories hit the wire this morning, "Stocks lose ground on weak earnings start," and "Small business sentiment drops amid weak holidays," and as of this writing the markets are down about 30 points. But I have to tell you, I find this a little bit puzzling considering that the fact that we are not quite out of the woods on the consumer end of the recession is not new news. Nor are the jobs numbers which are still hovering around 10%. If people aren't working, or still aren't feeling a strong sense of job security they aren't going to spend their money. If you ask me, the recession, and low consumer demand should already be priced into the markets.

So, as things tend to go in these quick markets, it's just a knee-jerk reaction. I've talked about this before as being a time to jump in and take advantage of the overreaction. A long while back I wrote a blog entitled, "Jittery Investors Give Me the Cheaps," which basically was built on the premise that knee-jerk reactions from jittery short term investors typically provide an opportunity to get into a new position more cheaply, or to add shares to an existing position for less money.

Until this economy gets out of the doldrums, I'm sure there will be plenty of opportunities to take advantage of nervous traders.