Police arrest dad that forced his kids to smoke syn­thetic mar­i­juana on video and posted it on the web. Really? What were you thinking?!

You can’t turn on the news these days with­out a nau­se­at­ing amount of cov­er­age of the Iowa Cau­cuses and who is lead­ing today after the pre­vi­ous night’s mud sling­ing.  I have to say, I’m depressed.

I’m just a fam­ily guy who’s wor­ried about the pro­longed eco­nomic mess we’re in and would like to find some sliver of hope that there is some­one out there that has the val­ues, guts and lead­er­ship skills nec­es­sary to right the ship.  These guys out in Iowa don’t fit the bill.  To be hon­est, nei­ther does Pres­i­dent Obama (although I think he has it in him, he doesn’t seem to have the strength of char­ac­ter, yet, to do what’s necessary).

I guess I’m look­ing for a Churchill-type. Some­one who has the guts to tell us the bad news, clearly with no BS coat­ing, and then tell us what it’s going to take to get bet­ter.  That is what we need, a true, hon­est to God, leader.  The mess we’re in is too com­plex and far reach­ing. The way out will entail sig­nif­i­cant pain and the one who takes on the chal­lenge will not likely be re-elected.

It’s that last state­ment why there’s no one out that that fits the bill. All mod­ern, career politi­cians func­tion on reelec­tion. Any­thing that goes against that is anath­ema. That’s a shame.

Dads, take the time to learn some­thing about each of the can­di­dates out there before you vote.  Ask your­self if the per­son you like has the for­ti­tude of spirit to do the right thing even if it means no reelec­tion.  Do they care that much about our coun­try?  If you hon­estly answer “yes”, then you have your man (or woman).  If we all do the same thing, then, per­haps, we have a chance to get out of this mess sooner rather than later.

All the best

I love this story. It’s not only because I’m a dad but because a store man­ager under­stands what it is to be human. I’m sure the store man­ager is a parent.

“My daugh­ter has been sav­ing her birth­day money and allowance for almost 9 months now so that she could afford an iPod touch with a cam­era in it.”

10 year old saves money to buy her first iPod.

War­ren Buf­fett is one of my favorite peo­ple. He gets it and isn’t afraid to say it.

In this Op Ed piece for the New York Times, our friendly Omaha bil­lion­aire gives his thoughts on rais­ing taxes.

But for those mak­ing more than $1 mil­lion — there were 236,883 such house­holds in 2009 — I would raise rates imme­di­ately on tax­able income in excess of $1 mil­lion, includ­ing, of course, div­i­dends and cap­i­tal gains. And for those who make $10 mil­lion or more — there were 8,274 in 2009 — I would sug­gest an addi­tional increase in rate.

My friends and I have been cod­dled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Con­gress. It’s time for our gov­ern­ment to get seri­ous about shared sacrifice.

Just like at home, my fel­low dads, spend­ing too much means we need to take tough deci­sions and make sac­ri­fices. We need to tell our elected offi­cials to tighten the belt (make sac­ri­fices) and find equi­table forms of rais­ing rev­enue (tax rates on the “rich”).

Oh, and as a tax lawyer, I don’t buy the idea that the rich pay their fair share but the masses just don’t under­stand that. This is Warren’s view:

While the poor and mid­dle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Amer­i­cans strug­gle to make ends meet, we mega-rich con­tinue to get our extra­or­di­nary tax breaks. Some of us are invest­ment man­agers who earn bil­lions from our daily labors but are allowed to clas­sify our income as “car­ried inter­est,” thereby get­ting a bar­gain 15 per­cent tax rate. Oth­ers own stock index futures for 10 min­utes and have 60 per­cent of their gain taxed at 15 per­cent, as if they’d been long-term investors.

He paid 17.5% income tax last year. What per­cent­age, my fel­low dad, did you pay last year? Mine was sig­nif­i­cantly higher than that.

I saw this on TUAW and as an Apple fan and cit­i­zen of the US found this hilar­i­ous and sad at the same time. It’s social com­men­tary wrapped in a Mad TV skit.