Records

I was able to wrapped things up at work and headed over to Paul and Sharon's place to watch the Cowboys goes against the Packers tonight. Great food and great football. I ate too much again just like last Thursday. Thank God the Cowboys is now 11-1, second only to the Patriots. When we see them again in the Super Bowl, it should be a totally different game than the last time we saw them. We are going to return the favor.

The White House Christmas card came in the mail today, mailed from Crawford, Texas on November 27th. Scripture quoted this year is Nehemiah 9:6 (NIV).

I am impressed with my iRobot Roomba 550, which was able to clean three rooms, and got back to dock in the charging base, with the help of a couple lighthouses.

Caught the tail end of the CNN/YouTube debate tonight when I got home. From the post debate panel review, both of my candidates, governor Mitt Romney and governor Mike Huckabee, did a pretty good job. On the contrary, senator Fred Thompson is pretty much done with. He made the desperate attack on both Romney and Huckabee. I don't have anything against the man except my gut feelings. The fact that he does not attend church and that his wife wants to be first lady more than he wants to be president didn't exactly help either.

I finally admitted to myself that I am both too busy and/or lazy to vacuum so I picked up an iRobot Roomba 550 while I was at Costco tonight.

I had a great Thanksgiving, eating too much like everyone else. But I did run the 8 miles Dallas YMCA Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning, officially clocked in at 1:32:50.35. That's a full 10 minutes improvement from the Saturday before, when I did 8 miles on the treadmill for 1 hour and 42 minutes. I used to be able to run 8 minute mile but haven't run for a while, at least a year, and had only three weeks to prepare to it. My goal is 64 minutes next year.

Vivian told us about Operation Care Dallas, and I signed up for it. It will be Saturday, December 15th from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm at the Dallas Convention Center. We went to the orientation meeting for volunteers at First Baptist Dallas on Sunday and stayed for the 6:00 pm service. My first time seeing Dr. Robert Jeffress preaching in person.

Got off work today, went to our Dallas County Young Republicans happy hour at Champps in Las Colinas tonight. Had a chance to talk to a bunch of Ron Paul supporters. We engaged in great conversation. It's glad to see young people like me who are knowledgeable and are willing to engage and make a difference.

Got home, ate dinner while listened to Rudy Giuliani speaking at the New England Council Politics and Eggs forum, shown tonight on C-SPAN. He listened well to the questions. He was asked about his dealings with illegal immigrants in New York City while he was mayor. I thought he handled that very well. He presented the circumstance to the questioner and asked if she would not have done what he did. I am going to be more willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

The YouTube people came back and said my previously submitted clip was longer than allowed and advised me to shoot a new one that is 30 seconds or less. Here is the new clip, where I pulled the camera up higher, sat up a little straighter, and talked a little faster.

Check out my question for the upcoming YouTube debates.

The YRNF Fall Board Meeting and TYRF quarterly board meeting all rolled into one this weekend at the Westin Galleria in Houston. I had a great time, meeting so many new friends and seeing old ones.

YRNF Campaign Chair and Co-Chair Rachel Hoff & Julianne Britt.		Minnesota delegation Natalie Miller & Dan Reiff		Arkansas delegation Leslie Rutledge, Josh, Jill Presley Cox, Elizabeth Aymond, and Yolanda Hugg.
Karl Ninh & Termite Watkins.		Texas delegation.		Texas delegation.

With KBH's sight set on the Texas governorship, I am changing my prediction to a Romney/Huckabee Republican ticket. I hope Huckabee will stand on principle and not agree to be on the ticket with Giuliani, God forbids, should Giuliani get the nomination.

This is good.

I am wondering what conservatives like Pete Sessions, Rick Perry, and Pat Robertson see in anti life, anti gun Rudy Giuliani that I don't.

Caught the first visit of French president Nicolas Sarkozy to the White House today on C-SPAN. I really like the little speech he gave at the dinner. A few great excerpts:

France and the United States are allies, have been allies, and will continue to be allies, and have been so forever.

In my country there are thousands upon thousands of white crosses to remember those men who didn't know France, and yet who came to die on French soil.

And I also came to say that one can be a friend of America, and yet win elections in France.

So here I am in Washington on a first Tuesday in November. Now, I have no electoral ambitions when it comes to the U.S.

posted by Karl Ninh : 00:07  0 comments links to this post

After spending some times at Bally's to condition myself and get ready for the 8 miles Dallas YMCA Turkey Trot coming up on Thanksgiving day, I got home, flipped on the TV in hope of catching the tail end of Monday night football. Didn't find it but instead stumbled across the tail end of the October 16th City of Carrollton council meeting where Herb Weidinger was bashing Carrollton resident Paul Kramer just because he exercised his first amendment right and was at a protest. Last time I checked, I thought this country of ours was a constitutional republic where people have the constitutional right peaceably to assemble. I found myself in agreement with councilman Tim Hayden, who said basically that the article itself said nothing about what Paul Kramer did or didn't do that was so bad. I guess Paul committed the unforgivable sin of disagreeing with mayor Becky Miller and her band of dictators. What was even more astonishing was the fact that my own place 3 council member, Pat Malone, seconded the motion by Herb Weidinger to remove Kramer's name from the resolutions to appoint people to the various boards and commissions. I guess it really opened my eyes about the person who represents me on the council. A point on diversity: a room full of people who are all looking different but think alike isn't diversity. But that wasn't it. The most frustrating thing was the way mayor Becky Miller was running the meeting. I mean for a kid coming from a third world country like Vietnam, I now after fourteen years residing in this great land, have come to learn the basics of Robert's Rules of Order. I mean it's not rocket science, just having attended enough meetings, you should get the hang of it. And it's not too much to ask, if you are going to be mayor, I would at least pick up some materials to read, or point my browser to Google and do my homework so I won't embarrass the entire city of some 116,000 people for electing a mayor who has no idea how to conduct a meeting. If we could find a way to put that video segment on YouTube, we would have a great laugh sharing it with all other folks, especially the Young Republicans around the 50 states. But I have to be careful since the dictators are also very petty.

I had an opportunity to hear governor Jeb Bush speaking at a luncheon hosted by the National Center for Policy Analysis.

He believes that a leader must take risk but manage it to make a difference. Examples of it while he was governor of Florida were the elimination of the civil service commission so that those who are ineffective can be fired just like everyone else. He outsourced and streamlined state government so that the state has 13,000 less employees, cut $20 billions in taxes, ended affirmative action in college admission but reached out to disadvantage kids, ie. created a color blind scholarship for students who are the very first one in their family to go to college, managed 8 hurricanes in 14 months, state bonds went to AAA rating, and a total of 2,558 budget items were vetoed.

Five things for those in leadership to consider:

1. Leaders ask why not. A couple weeks after he was sworn in as governor, he walked to the state capitol and noticed that there were no Florida state flag flying on top of the dome. He inquired and was told there were enough space on the pole for only two, the US flag and the POW flag as required by state law. A committee was formed, and he was presented with a half a million dollars budget item to build another pole for the Florida state flag. Why not go with smaller flags so three can fit on the existing pole? That was accomplished with no cost to Florida tax payers.

2. Fill the space. People will have to response to your agenda. Have Big High Audacious Goals. As governor, he saw to it that high school students can declare a major, graduation rate increased and drop out rate decreased, with mentors in schools, ended social promotion, ....

3. Stick with it. He has two people he admires in this aspect, Winston Churchill and his brother, president George W. Bush. Big ideas are going to take time to implement and it requires determination in an instant gratification world. Focus on the long term with passion.

4. Communicate. Use every means possible to communicate and listen to people. Show humility by truly listen. People are busy with their lives. They are not going to watch your everything you do, unless you really screwed up. So tell them what you do and achieve. And don't let your people pump you up to let you think you are way smarter than you really are.

5. Cast a vision. Tell people what's on the other side of this jagged hill that you are asking them to climb. People will be receptive to bold ideas back up with substance.

A question was asked what advice would the governor give to a young person thinking of going into politics. The answer was to be a successful person first, be it a mom, dad, business leader, .... Don't make politics a career. Don't pursue the petty ambition and miss out on life. When you succeeded, you can then run and share your experience. On the hot topic of immigration, he believes we've got to take control of our border but isn't worry as much as some about losing our culture. That argument has been made every generation. We need to continue to encourage the cream of the crops from all over the world to come here and pursue the American dream. That's how we stay strong and being the best in the world. He then told the story of Marco Rubio, a second generation Cuban-American who at 35 became the speaker of the Florida House of Representatives while he was governor.

Asked about the White House and said he had no further aspiration. All he wanted was to be governor of Florida and he was.

I really like the governor. He was a great speaker, speaking with such simplistic but powerful style. You can feel that he's very relax, comfortable, just like talking to a group of friends. He's also very personable, listens very well. He's definitely someone who could end up at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.