As badly as I want this, it is not going to happen today. My original topic was going to be electricity preparedness. I ran out of time to get the necessary photos last week before I left. As a fallback, I thought I would find some internet images but I spent all my free time trying to get my podcast published.

As an alternative, read a book, listen to a podcast or do some other stimulation to change your programing. It is always good to get another perspective even if it is contrary to your own. If you don’t periodically challenge your beliefs then how do you know that they are still valid?

I remember that when I was a freshman in college, a friend asked me that if I was drafted, would I serve? At that point, I was fresh out of my programming in Boy Scouts so of course I said I would because it was the right thing to do. Today, I would almost assuredly have a different answer. Don’t get me wrong, I still love my country, but my perspective has changed. I love what it could be, not what it is.

That change in opinion came around because I kept challenging myself on what the implications were for believing or supporting one side or the other. As an example, the ‘Trump Tax Cuts’ has at least tripled my annual tax obligations. I have heard from others that it was a huge benefit. My financial position was based on the old rules and now with new ones I am at a severe disadvantage. From my perspective, this was a tax increase.

Fine, I know how to eventually move to take advantage of the new rules. But how can a party that supposedly has a platform of tax cuts create tax increases? Easy, it is because they don’t really stand for tax cuts. They stand for saying what they think will appeal to a wide group and create new rules by which they will benefit. Now I am teetering into being angry at bad guys so I will leave it at that.