red meat.....

The NFL season kicks off tonight (dvring the game as I type) with the New York Giants hosting the Washington Redskins. As much as hockey is my number one sport, I do love football, as it is the sport most of my friends and fellow Geezers follow, so there is always conversation these next five months.

Also, there is the fantasy football aspect of it, as that keeps me interested in all the games, every week. This year I named all my teams "Always 70 and Sunny", obliviously in reference to living in San Diego. It started out as a joke because my first league this year was with the Windy City Geezers, so I wanted to help them "have warm thoughts" on those November / December nights. Some of them were not amused. :-)

I have uploaded all of Morgan's Ireland photos to five different posts, and have them saved. I hope to get Morgan to "caption" some of the pictures, then I will roll them out over a period of time.

Three paragraphs down, and some of you are going, "Great, maybe today we can skip the politics". Sorry. Not going to happen. Might as well skip to the end of the post. I know some of you are turned off by politics, and while completely understandable, it is upsetting. It is upsetting, because Washington made it this way. The most important right/control the people of this country have is to vote, and many, way too many, don't want to have anything to do with it. It is a shame.

Yes, my leanings are Republican, but I am more a moderate Republican. I believe in personal responsibility, very small federal government, capitalism and low taxes. If you want to use labels, Fiscally Conservative and Socially Moderate. While I am with the "right wing" portion of the party on some social issues, I am not "with them" on all of those issues, and might even be considered "liberal" for certain ones. Some might say that is the Libertarian Party, and it possibly is, but under our current structure, I have no problem being under the Republican tent.

I figured I should throw the above out there as I go through different issues that are discussed in the news leading up to the election in future posts, including the war.

So, the "red meat" title is the phrase being used by the media to describe how the speakers last week for the Democrats, and this week for the Republicans were giving the each party's base something to chew on, and get riled up. In truth, it is just "hot air" but deemed necessary by each party. Though mostly "rah-rah", if done well, these speeches can help launch political careers (Bill Clinton in 1988, Barack Obama in 2004), or make viewers go, what was that?". Because of the "short week", The Republicans trotted out Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and Rudy Guiliani all on one night. Ouch, were they rough on Obama. Some thought too rough, but it is a convention. As I have said, the real stuff starts next week on the campaign trails, and with the debates.

And, yes, I will gush over Governor Palin, and her speech. I understand that the speech was written by a "speech writer", and she used teleprompters, (so did Barack Obama on his big speech) but after what she has gone through these past five days, she was completely "on mark", and seemed like a natural up on the stage. Again, we will see what the next 8 weeks bring, but unless she has a complete meltdown, she is going to be a "star" of the Republican Party for quite a few years (if she wants to keep pursing politics).

Want to know why I am so high on Governor Palin (besides being a "hockey" mom)? Because I see my wife up there. Now Morgan has no political aspirations (unless she is hiding them from me), but I see a strong woman, who is intelligent, a great mother, and a great wife. I see a woman who can handle what is put in front of her in a "man's world", and can knock those obstacles to the side. Those traits all equal my lovely wife.

Those are also the traits that my daughter will pick up from Morgan, and who knows, maybe in 30 or so years, we will see my Cassie up there accepting a nomination.

- Hooray marriage!
- Time to get your XBOX 360.
- DirecTV and TIVO kiss and make up.

Until the next time.....