Anyway, one of the boys came up to me early this week and said, “If I become a firefighter, will I have to pay taxes?”

I told him, “Of course you will.”

He looked at me with a blank face for a moment and then he finally said, “But Obama won the election and firefighters make less than $250k a year.”

“You will STILL have to pay income taxes,” I reiterated.

I went on to explain that Obama has promised to add an additional tax deduction for working people. He has said that the tax rate for middle income families will be less than it was during the Reagan years (not difficult to do, by the way), that families making less that $250k a year will not see a tax increase, and that middle income families will receive tax relief. The key word is relief, which in and of itself is a rather ambiguous word.

Nowhere does Obama say that middle income families will no longer have to pay taxes at all. However, SO many people came out of election season believing that. MANY voters think that their boat just bought the gravy train. As sorry as I feel for those who are uninformed, I also have to say that they could have avoided ignorance by doing a little light reading on Obama’s own website.

Foolishness.

I think we will be surprised at how much more of our lives become legislated in the next few years.

As a comical aside, two of the seats vacated by those journalists who have been kicked off the press plane will now be filled with writers from “Ebony” and “Essence”. Wave Goodbye to hard-hitting investigative journalism and Hello to fawning feature articles.

He and his wife are in Florida today and will stop in Gainesville. It is not as though Gainesville needs a lot of convincing. They are a tiny blue dot in the middle of a sea of read during every presidential election. You can thank the University of Florida for that. The students and professors make up a tiny puddle of liberalism in an otherwise conservative county, and surrounding. So, it is not as thought Biden is being given a very difficult task in Gainesville. It is the equivalent of giving your “slow” uncle a pity job bagging groceries at the family supermarket.

Do people really think that Obama’s censorship tactics will stop if he in the White House? If anything, they will become more strong-arm and aggressive. The Obama campaign is staffed by a throng of Thugs.

Go ahead, you bleeding heart liberals, drink your Kool-Aid. And while you are at it, get a job.

It turns out that Obama’s aunt, Zeituni Onyango, has been living in PUBLIC HOUSING here in Boston, even though an immigration judge rejected her request for asylum four years ago. She is living here illegally. She is living in publically subsidized housing, which also raises the question of HOW she secured such housing with a standing deportation order in place.

There are estimates that show there are more than 10 million such immigrants in the United States – people who have been told to leave and willfully decided to disobey the order, to willfully break the law.

So, while many Americans are unable to find affordable housing, people like Obama’s aunt are taking up valuable room in our social programs. And, what does Obama want to do? He wants to expand these kinds of broken, corrupt programs. He wants to spend more of our tax dollars of programs that will inevitably go to benefit people living in the United States illegally instead of the Americans who deserve the assistance.

Deplorable.

So, this new kink in the drama is particularly amusing to me. McCain has suspended his campaign in order to focus more time on the absolute financial crisis that Washington is currently examining.

Democratic supporters are ridiculously jumping at the situation, claiming this is a sigh that McCain is afraid of the debate. Other Democrats say McCain is using this as a “distraction” (Joe Biden) and “desperate” (Keith Boykin).

Excuse me while I take a few minutes to regain my breath. I laughed so hard I am wheezing.

It is not as though McCain is new on the horizon. The guy has a long, public record of being well-prepared, easy-going, confident and on-target when speaking. This is the man who actually tried to invite more debates with Barrack Obama, while Obama stodgily stuck to the idea that he was only willing to participate in the required number of debates.

I happen to agree that McCain’s decision to suspend his campaign is a move that shots confidence. If he were truly desperate, he would cling with a death-grip to every opportunity to further his own campaign. Instead, he is putting his CURRENT job as a Senator in the forefront of his life for now.

Obama’s people are very, very stuck on the word “multitasking” right now. That is all well and good, but do they understand that there is a time to multitask and a time to make sure you are not spread too thin?

They were also partially obscured by cigarette smoke, just one more reminder of why I hate crowds.

Getting into the school this morning was not so bad, It took a little longer and there were already people trying to get into the school lot to park. They had to be turned away which was what was making the drop-off take so much longer.

This afternoon I have to be at the school about the same time as the speech starts for my volunteer time in the classroom. Parking might get a little tricky. I plan on parking in the driveway of a friend’s home and walking, but I have heard that particular street might be closed off this afternoon.

I’ve been to rallies before. I attended my fair share when I lived in Gainesville. I even walked across an interstate pushing a stroller. However, I stop at allowing an event like this to eat up my entire day. We live in the age of television and I can see pretty much any political speech I want to from the comfort of my own home. I don’t see my view as me being inactive or uninvolved. I just want to maximize the way I use my time.

Of course, it sounds like I will be hearing the speech whether I want to or not. Since the school is quite literally right next door, we will all be hearing it.

I just came upon the link for FelonSpy.com on a local forum I was visiting to talk about a crime that had been committed in the Tampa Bay area. Someone had posted it and I thank them very much.

I was hap-hap-happy to see that my neighborhood looks clear, though there are some questionable folks over toward the highway. I pout in the address for my old house where my ex still lives and my daughter visits every other weekend and there is a neighbor around the corner that should be kept an eye on for sure. I forwarded the results to my ex for him to take a look at.

Anyway, give it a try. You might be surprised.

I am hopeful that we will all be able to take a few minutes, in the very least, every year to remember the fallen.

I also hope we will wake up and realize that we have American terrorists tucked safely way in our own county. In fact, we have American terrorists who are befriended and harbored by a presidential candidate. How marvelously handy.

I wonder how it is that patriotism has become so sadly redefined in the last couple of decades. The concept of personal freedom has cut so deeply into our collective unity that even dangerous people with ill intent are handed more liberties than ever before. How have we come to a place where people who have harmed others and even go as far as to boast of their criminal acts are now celebrated and lauded?

I wish that the remembrance of September 11 would also serve to embolden Americans to feel the pride for the Nation that we deserve to feel.

You could tell from the bumper stickers on their hybrid car that they lean so far to the left that if I had blown a bubble with my gum they would have tipped over. Those are the kind of Democrats I overheard this morning.

But, the conversation I heard the mother having with her son was too good not to pass along to all of you. The boy looked all of 11 and he was telling his mother he thought the Democrats should have put Joe Biden on the ticket as the presidential candidate, with Barack Obama as the candidate for vice president.

His mother looked at him for a second, flipped her overly-highlighted hair and said, “I agree. Dumb move, huh?”