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Are you offended by the following being read while the flag is being folded? The established clause said: "Congress shall make no law ..." so if you are not congress, why are you being prohibited from doing whatever?

The first fold of our Flag is a symbol of life.

The second fold is a symbol of our belief in eternal life.

The third fold is made in honor and remembrance of the veterans departing our ranks who gave a portion of their lives for the defense of our country to attain peace throughout the world.

The fourth fold represents our weaker nature, for as American citizens trusting, it is to Him we turn in times of peace as well as in time of war for His divine guidance.

The fifth fold is a tribute to our country, for in the words of Stephen Decatur, "Our Country, in dealing with other countries may she always be right; but it is still our country, right or wrong."

The sixth fold is for where our hearts lie. It is with our heart that we pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

The seventh fold is a tribute to our Armed Forces, for it is through the Armed Forces that we protect our country and our flag against all her enemies, whether they be found within or without the boundaries of our Republic.

The eighth fold is a tribute to the one who entered into the valley of the shadow of death, that we might see the light of day, and to honor mother, for whom it flies on Mother's Day.

The ninth fold is a tribute to womanhood; for it has been through their faith, their love, loyalty and devotion that the character of the men and women who have made this country great has been molded.

The tenth fold is a tribute to the father, for he, too, has given his sons and daughters for the defense of our country since they were first born.

The eleventh fold, in the eyes of a Hebrew citizen represents the lower portion of the seal of King David and King Solomon, and glorifies in their eyes, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

The twelfth fold, in the eyes of a Christian citizen, represents an emblem of eternity and glorifies, in their eyes, God the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit.

The thirteenth fold: When the Flag is completely folded, the stars are uppermost reminding us of our Nation's motto, "In God We Trust." After the Flag is completely folded and tucked in, it takes on the appearance of a cocked hat, ever reminding us of the soldiers who served under General George Washington, and the Sailors and Marines who served under Captain John Paul Jones, who were followed by their comrades and shipmates in the Armed Forces of the United States, preserving for us the rights, privileges, and freedoms we enjoy today.

Let's see, a couple conference calls today got me a little more informed. The preparations for the 2008 Republican National Convention is going full speed ahead with the Minneapolis Saint Paul 2008 Host Committee gearing up to hire about 140 full time staffs.

Governor Huckabee is gaining in the nationwide polls. I understand it's largely because people start to catch on with his support of the FairTax plan, which taxes consumption and not productivities or savings.

The issue of water shortage in Georgia is a little more serious than I read. Governor Purdue's lawyers are finding way to allow the president to waive some of the Endangered Species Act provisions so nobody has to face the choice of children vs. mussels because the children are going to win everytime. The midwest will be next to experience water shortage as well if the ridiculous water consumption to make ethanol is to continue. It takes about 1,700 gallons of water to produce 1 gallon of corn ethanol, which is pretty incredible to me. Texas is pretty creative in proposing to pay royalty to the folks if they are willing to sell their private properties so water reservoirs can be created in east Texas.

Bella portraits such a beautiful story of family, love, understanding and compassion. What is even more amazing is the story of the lead actor, Eduardo Verastegui, who on the verge of breaking it big, doing $30 million projects, began to refuse to play a part in any project that portraits the stereotype of Latino as womanizer and liar and Latina as a sex object. Eduardo said he wanted to make movie that he can take his grandmother and mother to see without any scene where he has to cover their eyes. He went so far as to not being able to make his rent next month without compromising his beliefs. Even while he was presented with projects that he could have taken and paid for a house. The rest of the world imitates America, and America copies what Hollywood portraits. The one repeated theme by both Eduardo and the producer Sean Wolfington was that they want to light a candle instead of cursing the darkness. So we need to support them by telling everyone to go and see Bella. They are only released in 164 theaters nation wide instead of the general release to 4,000 theaters but their tickets sold by mid day Friday of this opening weekend could have already broken the record. Even if you couldn't make it this weekend, just buy the ticket anyway to support great movie like this one.

I had the opportunity to hear from Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas at a luncheon put together by the Heritage Foundation along with the National Center for Policy Analysis and the Federalist Society. More than 1,500 people were in attendance at the Adam's Mark hotel in downtown Dallas. Justice Thomas was interviewed by governor du Pont about his life and his book, My Grandfather's Son.

He was asked first about the process how the US Supreme Court decides on which case to hear. Petitions are given to the justices. They read up, make their decision and then vote on it in conference, starting with the chief justice going down on seniority. If there are four votes, the case is taken up. The opinions are also derived in similar fashion. There is hardly ever the case of going back and forth in conference between justices, especially under chief justice William Rehnquist. No one justice ever tries to change the opinion of another since it's very much futile. Each justice has come to the opinion he has on a particular case from very widely different approaches.

The justice moved in with his grandfather after his dad left the family. His grandfather was the greatest human being he had ever known. He told justice Thomas to "not do as I say but do as I do, emulate me." That's tremendous responsibility, like the apostle Paul said. His grandfather's mom was the daughter of a free slave but he's not bitter and do not blame the world. In his Catholic school, he learned from the nuns that everyone is inherently equal in the eyes of God. In 1964, he made the decision to become a Catholic priest and went to seminary in Georgia. When Martin Luther King was basically executed, he heard another seminary student, not aware that Thomas was behind him, said "I hope the SOB die." In 1968, Clarence Thomas felt angry and felt justified for it. He later got caught in a riot, actually not caught because he went to the riot. But it wasn't he that did it, it was the alcohol. He credited the maturation process, the growing up that helped him to ask himself why was he angry to the point of self destruction. He asked God to take hate out of his heart. Went to Yale law school. When he graduated from Yale, went to interview in Atlanta, New York, Washington DC, and Los Angeles but didn't get a single offer. That he said cheapen his Yale law degree, not his education at Yale, because some people he helped in law school was hired but he was never considered.

Asked about the confirmation process. Justice Byron White, in whose office he moved in, was nominated and confirmed within ten days. He was justice number 106 on the US Supreme Court so apparently the nation was doing just fine with over one hundred justices before him with not so lengthy confirmation process. The nominees used to not even go to the hearing. It's thought to be beneath the justice to be asked questions by the senators. He wanted us to ask ourselves whether the bitterly drawn out confirmation process of modern time is good for our country. He definitely does not believe in putting people who are interested in a particular outcome to be in charge of selecting someone who, although may be flaw, but must be impartial. He used a rather humorous example. Let's say a referee made a close call on pass interference at last year's red river shoot out game that resulted in the Longhorns losing the game. What are the chances that UT officials would confirm that referee for the game this year? What are the chances that particular referee gets out of Texas alive? He said president Bush asked him but one question, will he call it as he sees it? He's there on the court to interpret the law as it is written, not to be a policy maker.

Justice Thomas vows to himself never to treat anyone the way he was treated during his confirmation process nor would he ever do as poor a job as those people did when he was at their mercy. He believes he owes it to the men and women in uniform to do the best he can on the court to defend freedom, for which they are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice. He takes his clerk to Gettysburg at the end of every Supreme Court term so they realize what took place there.

Asked for advice he would give to college student considering law school. He jokingly replied that every time he planned something, it would always end up in a mess. The evidence of there is a God is that God saved him from himself every time. He encourages aspiring law student to put aside the US News and World Report ranking and go to law school that can help them truly get an education. Although 8 of the 9 justices tend to replicate themselves and pick their clerks from the Ivy League law schools, he himself does not.

The Young Republicans were all over Louisiana campaigning this weekend. Our particular group went in to Natchitoches, pronounced /Na-kee-dish/, about an hour south of Shreveport and Minden, about half hour north of Shreveport. In Natchitoches, we campaigned for Rick Nowlin, who is running for state representative district 23 and Gerald Long, running for state senate district 31. Rick has run an amazing campaign. A couple months ago, he had 3% name recognition compare to his opponent, Joe Sampite who has 90% name recognition since Joe has been the mayor of the town for 20 years. Rick came out ahead with 35% of the votes and will be in a runoff with Joe who garnered 33%. If you live in the district, which includes Natchitoches and a small part of Winn parishes, please vote for Rick on Saturday, November 17th, 2007. Senator Long won out right with 54% of the votes, a great and sweet victory over Democrat Taylor Townsend. The race in Minden was lost but Bobby Jindall, who at 36 and of Indian descent, carried the night with 54% of the votes. He learned from his mistakes four years ago when he lost to Kathleen Blanco because he had decided to take the high road and not response to attacks. I learned from Jeff, our local field director that in Louisiana, the governor is pretty powerful because he gets to appoint the speaker of the state house and president of the state senate.

On November 6th, 2007, Texans will be presented with 16 proposed amendments to the Texas Constitution. As of this moment, I am definitely for Amendment No. 8, and generally yes on the rest because they received not only the 2/3 required majority but almost unanimous votes in both of the legislative chambers, with the exception of the followings which are definitely a big bold NO vote from me:

Amendment No. 12: TxDOT does not need anymore money to do crazy things like video taping drivers on Texas public highway without even a simple public notice, let alone consent. And why does a public agency need to spend money to advertise is beyond me. They are up for sunset review next legislative session so I hope for a lot more scrutiny into how they spend our tax money.

Amendment No. 15: There is no need for the creation of another cancer research center. Plus $3 billion is not enough to start something from scratch and play catchup. If we need to, put more money in to the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. The House vote on this, which is HJR No. 90, was 116 for, 26 against, and 1 present, not voting. Among the votes shown as yes, 7 people had a statement saying they intended to vote No, with one no switched to yes, and three additional yes. So the final tally was 113/32/1. Among the nays are the conservative members I trust, who are good people trying to do the right thing: Linda Harper-Brown, Frank Corte Jr., Jodie Laubenberg, Ken Paxton, Robert Talton, and Bill Zedler.

Amendment No. 16: I don't like to spend more money and the House votes on this is 113 for, 22 against, 1 present not voting. Among the votes shown as yes, 6 people had a statement saying they intended to vote no, with one additional no. So the final tally was 107/29/1. Among the nays are the conservative members I trust Linda Harper-Brown, Robert Talton, Myra Crownover.

I did not realize that I was in the top 25% of income tax filers in 2005.

Percentiles Ranked by AGI	Adjusted Gross Income Threshold on Percentiles	Percentage of Federal Personal Income Tax Paid
Top 1%	$364,657	39.38%
Top 5 %	$145,283	59.67%
Top 10%	$103,912	70.30%
Top 25%	$62,068	85.99%
Top 50%	$30,881	96.93%
Bottom 50%	$30,881	3.07%

Source: IRS (Tax Year 2005)

Our CEO gave us each a copy of The Fred Factor to read.

A couple pictures from family camp this weekend at Pineywoods and the link to videos of us playing spoon.

       

I am angry to read that TxDOT was videotaping license plates of drivers on Texas highway, without any public notice, let alone consent. This is in addition to them using my tax dollars to advertise to Texans to give them a good public image. Certainly the legislature need to tell them a little more specifically what they could and could not do with the tax payers' money. I pay them to keep the road well maintained and to pay their employees well so they can keep doing a professional job serving the public. I have friends who are engineers working for TxDOT and I understand they aren't paid very well. That makes me all the more mad. I'll make sure governor Rick Perry hear from me about this.

This Slingbox is a cool idea.

It was such a roller coaster game tonight for the Dallas Cowboys against the Buffalo Bills. The Cowboys didn't seem to be able to run the ball at all. Every pass seemed to end with an interception. What can you do? But thank God they were able to save the game with two field goals, first one spoiled by the time out called immediately before the snap by the Bills' head coach Dick Jauron.

I caught the tail end of the presentation Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) Steve Russell gave to the Heritage Foundation folks. He's the kind of inspiring leadership that make this country the best place on this globe. He pointed out that it's not a civil war in Iraq because the insurgents are only about 10,000 to 20,000 male, while the population of Iraq is 25 millions people. That we do not hear of the successes of the provincial government. The fact that Tikrit, Saddam's stronghold, has not been in the news is an amazing victory for our troops and the Iraqi security forces. Check out his organization, Vets 4 Victory.

It's so encouraging to see governor Mike Huckabee's poll number keeps going up and up and up. He's now in third place with 12% behind Mitt Romney 29% and Fred Thompson 18% in this Des Moines Register poll. Not only did he pass mayor Rudy Giuliani 11% but he's number one favorite "among the one-fourth of likely caucus participants who say their minds are made up, Huckabee comes out on top with 19 percent, followed by Romney at 16 percent and Thompson at 15 percent." Newt Gingrich said Huckabee would be the dark horse candidate if he has some money, which is something I found out for myself when I first met the governor in Plano a couple months back so I am taking it upon myself to raise a few bucks for the governor among my family and friends. With what he has been able to do without money, I can't wait to see what he can do with some money.

I had an opportunity to sit down and have lunch today with a couple of Panamanian young political activists who came to the US through the State Department International Visitor Leadership Program. Adolfo Tomas Valderrama is the Youth National Secretary for the Panamenista Party and Catibel del Carmen Franco is the Secretary of Women's Affairs for the Patriotic Union Party. The subject of discussion was grassroots politics and young people's involvement. But we talked about a lot of stuffs. I learned a few interesting things. Money creates scandal in French but not sex. Sex does it for the British but not money. Both of them will cause you great pain and trouble in these United States of America. Talking about corruption, which is plaguing Panama, we agree that once you are believed to be corrupted, you are done in the US but not in Panama. They told me another interesting fact I did not know was that Panama seems to not have any natural disaster. Hurricanes make landfall on the countries north and south of Panama but sparing Panama every time. They had a saying that God was born in Panama.

Flipped to C-SPAN in time to see congressman Steve King of Iowa pointed out that the SCHIP program, which seeks to provide federal subsidy for health insurance for children of low income families, if allow to raise the income ceiling for eligibility to 400% of federal poverty level, would make 75,000 families in America who are subjected to the Alternative Minimum Tax qualified for SCHIP. So you are subjected to a federal income tax that is created to target the rich, but qualified for federal subsidy for your children's health insurance. Can the Democrats be anymore ridiculous than that? I wouldn't doubt.

I had a great time last week on a 5-day Caribbean cruise with a whole bunch of singles from my church. We had shore excursion in Cozumel and Progreso, Mexico. I now understand what people are talking about when they talk about clear water of the Caribbean that you can see the bottom. It's a beautiful turquoise color. We went snorkeling in Cozumel, went to see the Mayan ruins in Progreso and shopping in both. I wouldn't mind having a vacation home in Cozumel.