Of course, his view of the world requires him to see no value in the tea partiers that have been arroused by, not just the socialism of the President and his party, but by patriot pretenders as himself. He sees Americans as irresolute as himself. Lindsey Graham is so wrapped up in his position that he cannot comprehend that the American people would inconvenience themselves and turn off Dancing With The Stars long enough to throw charlatans like himself into the unemployment line… or to those of his elevated stature, into the brotherhood of overpaid lobbyists. Graham avers that “The problem with the Tea Party, I think it’s just unsustainable because they can never come up with a coherent vision for governing the country. It will die out.”

The man lives in the same fantasy world as the Democratic majority he is so fond of working with in the destruction of our country. He thinks, “If you look at the Republicans who are likely to come into the Senate in 2010, they’re gonna be more like me, not less like me.” If this is the case, it is our fault. We cannot let this happen.

He asks the tea partiers. “What do you want to do? You take back your country — and do what with it?” This shows his perverse thinking that assumes we want to do something with it… big government thinking. We don’t want to do anything with it. We want to be left alone… and have the government stick to it’s legitimate functions of keeping us safe, and doing things that we really cannot do for ourselves and are necessary for our survival.

In a world crying out for another Ronald Reagan, Graham says, “We don’t have a lot of Reagan-type leaders in our party. Remember Ronald Reagan Democrats? I want a Republican that can attract Democrats.” Once more showing a disconnect from the core of the Republican Party he declares, “Ronald Reagan would have a hard time getting elected as a Republican today.”

This man, who many Republicans still see as one of their own, is seeking to win over Democrats by being one of them. Ronaldus Magnus won them over by making the case for conservative values and demonstrating the wisdom of their implementation. Reagan won the victory in the battle of ideas. Graham chooses to surrender to the oppositions failed schemes.

Lest one believe that this is just an attack on one senator out of step with the pleasant southern state he represents, consider that this is a warning that we need to be aware of others who just find it convenient to side with enemies of the republic. We can’t just blindly follow the dictates of party leaders who share his disdain for the common folks who make up the tea party movement, but are just not quite so honest. They are more than happy to have our efforts and our votes, but just don’t relish our ideas.

The tea partiers are being used, in many cases, by big government progressives within the party that claims to believe in smaller, less intrusive government. This is backwards. It is time the tea partiers to throw out the professional politicians and use the party apparatus to move us toward more freedom, not less.

While we haven’t identified him or her yet, we need to keep on looking for one with the courage and understanding to conclude another speech with something like “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! – I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” Then we need to the wisdom and courage to follow them.

This kind of thinking lets Republicans believe they have a majority when they can never really get them to act like a majority. It is the thinking that populates their caucuses with the likes of Lindsey Graham and Olympia Snowe, who can be relied upon to help the party snatch defeat from the jaws of victory at regular intervals. They become like “that splintered reed of a staff, which pierces a man’s hand and wounds him if he leans on it!” as II Kings 18:21 describes it.

Working for the victory of just anyone who calls themselves a Republican puts the party in a position where being named as one means nothing in reality. I could call myself a table… but that would not make me one. When Newt Gingrich and the National Republican Congressional Committee endorsed Dede Scozzafava, they joined the New York State United Teachers, the Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers Local #2, the Jefferson, Lewis and St. Lawrence Central Trades and Labor Council, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 910 (can anyone say ‘card check’), Senator Susan Collins, ACORN, and the Daily Kos!

Beyond this, what else would make one think that Scozzafava is not worthy of Republican organizational support? She is in favor of homosexual marriage and abortion.  She is not opposed to tax increases… she has refused to sign a no tax hike pledge, she supports bailouts, stimulus bills, card-check, earmarks and the like. Even the Democrats call her a tax-hiking liberal… and they know tax-hiking liberals! After supporting such a candidate, how can Republican leadership come to the people and present themselves as the answer to the Obamination? What is the point?

Many conservative and libertarian voters have long since recognized the folly of letting party affiliation determine their vote. Along with Chuck Baldwin they will tell you that “Voting for the lesser of two evils is still evil”. Only this time, the Republican may actually be the greater of the two evils in spite of her NRA endorsement… an endorsement that illustrates the danger of being a single issue voter and ignoring the big picture.

On the other hand, we see people who have a history of standing for the freedoms that Republicans tell us they stand for backing an independent candidate Doug Hoffman. The man is not as connected to the party leadership and interests that would like to see one more liberal tinkering with our lives, but he is carrying the banner for all those in the district, and perhaps around the country, who believe in the good of the country over blind party loyalty.

Sarah Palin’s recently publicized endorsement of Hoffman is only the latest of those with impeccable Republican pedigrees… including former Majority Leader Dick Armey, Senator Rick Santorum, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, Congressman Todd Tiahrt… and the Eagle Forum. Other than Armey, most of Hoffman’s supporters are part of a new face of the Republican Party. They harken back to a time when people could look at a party label and have a pretty good idea of who would be the big government redistributionist and who would stand against them.

If the Republican Party is to survive as force to actually accomplish something of value it cannot continue to permit people who share little of the values of the rank and file supporters to carry the banner and purport to represent the people. The old thinking of “our team” verses “their team” has to give way to looking at what is good for the country. The conniving and abandonment of principle that has given rise to the distaste many have for the party label has to be replaced by a respect for the values of the people and replaced by an absolute respect for the difference between right and wrong… or Republican victories will mean merely a slower form of national suicide than under the Democrats.

Copyright ©2009 Angel Loupe

Editors note: We took a little different approach today by including a poem by a young lady from middle Tennessee. It gives us some things to consider. Read, think and enjoy!

It is reported that Israeli ambassador Michael Oren was summoned to the State Department.* He was told that a building project being developed by an American investor in east Jerusalem must not go forward as it interfered with their plans for regional peace. The State Department sought to forbid any Jewish development on captured lands in an attempt to draw boundaries more satisfactory to the Palestinians.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to the attempted land use demand by commenting, “I can only imagine what would happen if someone suggested Jews could not live in certain neighborhoods in New York, London, Paris or Rome. There would certainly be a major international outcry.” This new construction is part of his plan for a unified Jerusalem. It is surprising that he took no public offense at the treatment of his ambassador as some lackey from a client state… however, it appears that he is focused on what is best for his country and not on petty one upsmanship.

Meanwhile, former first lady and current Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton was hearing from India’s environment minister, Jairam Ramesh,** that his country had no interest in signing on to environmental demands of the Obama administration and Europeans who have bought into the man-made climate change hysteria. Even though she dangled technical partnerships in front of him, Ramesh did not bite.

Mrs. Clinton was not able to convince him that the fate of the world hung on their decision and that only by working together can we overcome all the evil, planet warming pollution that the reprobate western corporations have been spewing for years. Not only did she apologize for the west, and US in particular, for gunking up the planet but she offered to help them fix our errors. The minister was not impressed. India, along with China as well, have chosen not to, lemming like, follow the US and our slick lipped shyster down the path to economic suicide.

It appears that foreign leaders do not fall under the same teleprompter induced spell that hypnotizes many in the slack jawed segment of our electorate. They seem to be more able to see through the soaring rhetoric to the harsh economic realities that underlie the awesomely proposed plans of our fearless leader. They see the destruction that lies down the path we, as a nation, have chosen. The man has made his pitch, but they are not buying.

Perhaps they are understanding that there is more form than substance to this administration, it’s rhetoric and it’s plans. On the other hand, they just may not have the emotional attachment to the president who wants to solve all our problems by sticking it to the rich… or they may not have given any thought at all to the President of the United States.

It is possible that they just looked at the plans in both cases and rejected them because the simply were bad ideas. I had a friend who, when he was training to be a camp counselor for middle age children, was told that for them to follow and respect him, he not only had to be right, but he had to appear to be right. Unfortunately Barack Hussein Obama has neither of these going for him.

* Israel Rejects US Call to Halt Jerusalem Project http://tinyurl.com/ljbhz3
** India Rebuffs US Carbon Demands http://tinyurl.com/nugzw2

More information: http://tinyurl.com/mbvac3

It seems those that tend to feel more vulnerable and insecure see greater generalized hatred… women (57%)… unmarried (62%). They seem to be responding more on emotion than actually looking at the details of each incidents. Each killing is unfortunate, the ending of one life and ruination of another… not to mention the families involved. However, was an irrational hatred the driving factor in each case?

It seems that today, we have a difficult time thinking about and overusing the word “hate”. For instance, homosexuals believe that they are the victims of hate crimes whenever anyone opposes them or their goals. If a preacher tells his congregation about the sinful nature of their actions, they say he is preaching hate. They may be disingenuously playing the part of a victim, having realized a little sympathy when they are supposedly harassed by someone who simply disagrees with them or their agenda. In some ways believing that your adversaries irrationally despise you is less damaging to the ego than accepting that they may have good reasons that may actually be correct.

In the case of Dr. Tiller, without getting in the head of the shooter, it’s kind of hard to understand the details of his motivation. However, automatically assigning Scott Roeder’s motive to a blind hatred of Dr. Tiller ignores the fact that, to him, it may well have been just a logical response to a situation where he saw the courts repeatedly thwarting the will of the people and their elected legislatures. We have the situation aptly described by Frederic Bastiat when he said, “When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law. These two evils are of equal consequence, and it would be difficult for a person to choose between them.”

The tragedy of Private Andy Long’s death is that he was killed in a war where he didn’t even know he was on the front lines. It is more comforting to consider the this the action of a deranged, vengeful shooter who, once captured, is no threat to the rest of us. This thinking would let us pass it off as an unfortunate event and not consider the ramifications of multiple Abdulhakim Muhammads among us… hating us as a society, but not considering any of us individually. We may weep for Private Long as we hope we will be spared a similar fate.

What is interesting is that in the first case, the shooter was viewed by the drive by media as part of the larger pro-life community which en mass would enjoy a shooting spree at every abortion clinic in the country. In the second case, where logic, along with his actions and training, tell us the shooter was part of a group with a terrorist agenda, the same media totally ignores the evidence at hand and makes him out to be a solitary nut case. In this case, their political correctness may well be complicit in the next terrorist act.

Then we have the case of James von Brunn, the one truly disturbed individual who lived in a world of hate filled fantasies. Far too many have a scorn for the Jewish people, but they don’t go hunting them or their friends down with lethal weapons. For this man to commit such an awful act, particularly at his age, one has to wonder if he felt his life was about over and he wanted to make one last statement before, what would be, a surprisingly bad meeting with his maker. He may have felt being killed by police was more honorable than putting a gun to his own head… an act that would have spared many others much heartache and pain. It could be then, that harboring his irrational hatred for such a long time in his life, he felt his actions were completely logical.

It’s hard to say specifically why people do things… sometimes we don’t understand our own motivations. Even the Apostle Paul had these conflicts when he wrote, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do-this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not’ want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.” Romans 7:15-20 (NIV)

We do, however feel more comfortable, more in control even, if we see the world as a logical place with an understandable reason for everything that happens – even if we witness what appear to be occasional aberrant events. What we don’t like, as a society, is to look at events as part of a bigger picture with causes and effects that can be understood, as this puts a responsibility on us to examine our selves and make some changes.

Today, the United States is sharing the most serious economic malady since the “Great Depression” with countries all over the world. While not approaching the absolute calamity of the 1930’s, the damage done to our wallets and psyches is nevertheless daunting and bruising. Businesses, organizations and individuals are understandably fearful and have curtailed spending in lieu of conserving capital. Risk taking, the key to maximizing gain, has been virtually shut down. Small business growth and development has been strangled. Entrepreneurs have hunkered down, fearful of the vagaries of a marketplace that seems to have no stomach for new products and ideas.

In times like these it pays to study the lessons of history. The Great Depression was bleak for so many, of course. Nevertheless, it was actually a fertile era for creativity and entrepreneurial activity.

People were desperate to make every purchase count, to leverage every dollar spent and obtain maximum value. The result was that an exciting array of creative breakthroughs came to market to satisfy the greater demand for economy.

The importance of consumer advertising was magnified and became a much more critical tool utilized by packaged goods manufacturers to woo value conscious consumers. Heinz ketchup, Palmolive soap, Campbell soup, Westinghouse appliances, Revlon and Max Factor cosmetics and Hormel Spam enjoyed an explosion of growth created by new sales promotion concepts. Billboards, mass advertising, coupons and sampling became ubiquitous. Local, regional and national agencies evolved to assist manufacturers in promoting their products in new, exciting ways. Barn advertising for tobacco products and Burma Shave road signs added needed revenue to beleaguered farmers and roadside landowners.

The Studebaker Motor Company had evolved from a 19th century maker of hand carts and wheelbarrows to a struggling auto carriage manufacturer. The Company enjoyed modest success until the Great Depression. Recognizing opportunity, Studebaker went back to its roots as a maker of work conveyances and began to produce the Studebaker paneled work truck. At a price of around $600, this workhorse vehicle enabled thousands of laborers, handymen and small contractors to eke out a living hauling, building and scratch farming.

The ball point pen, nylon, the radio, radar, the Land camera, the photocopier, sticky tape, the television, FM radio band, the helicopter, the jet engine and the electric razor are only a few of the inventions that were perfected and came to market during the 1930’s. Inventors did not stop their pursuit of fresh, valuable innovations. They seized the reality they were confronted with and targeted practical solutions to problems that needed to be addressed at that time.

The same opportunity is available today. The opportunity to create products or services that offer great utility and excellent value is appreciated by the consumer more than at any time in recent memory. There is a rush to basics, store brands, no frills products that perform and are sturdy. The inventor that can address these contemporary needs will find a willing acceptance from investors, consumers and retailers.

There is never a better time than NOW to launch a product, start a business or license a product. This is true when markets are booming, or when the economy is in a trough. There are always excuses made for not making a sale, not closing a deal or not taking that chance, that chance that can change one’s life. Every economic age offers the opportunity for success for those willing to address real needs with inventiveness. History offers us plenty of proof.

Geoff Ficke has been a serial entrepreneur for almost 50 years. As a small boy, earning his spending money doing odd jobs in the neighborhood, he learned the value of selling himself, offering service and value for money.
After putting himself through the University of Kentucky (B.A. Broadcast Journalism, 1969) and serving in the United States Marine Corp, Mr. Ficke commenced a career in the cosmetic industry. After rising to National Sales Manager for Vidal Sassoon Hair Care at age 28, he then launched a number of ventures, including Rubigo Cosmetics, Parfums Pierre Wulff Paris, Le Bain Couture and Fashion Fragrance.

Geoff Ficke and his consulting firm, Duquesa Marketing, Inc. (http://www.duquesamarketing.com) has assisted businesses large and small, domestic and international, entrepreneurs, inventors and students in new product development, capital formation, licensing, marketing, sales and business plans and successful implementation of his customized strategies. He is a Senior Fellow at the Page Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, Business School, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio.

The men in this group are good men, and yet I am amazed that even now, they come around and ask what it is the people want. Could it be like a child who goes from one parent to another hoping to get a better answer to his question? Could it be the massive discontent among the people has not sunken in? Or could it be that they are looking for better ways to package what they want to do already in terms that make the populace think they are listening? I like this last answer the least, but when anyone has been inside the beltway too long, the question has to be asked.

The reason that I, as a voter, am offended by this attempt to find out what we are thinking and wanting is that it tells me what I already know… that I have ignored for far too long. I am not a lobbyist who can make good things happen for them. I am not a financier with a briefcase full of money to contribute. I am not a union boss that can deliver votes by the thousand. I am just one of thousands who gathered at locations around the country on April 15…. and now they ask us what we want!

Making matters worse, we are told that the message, methods and approaches that, when used properly gave us victories in the past need to be set aside. There is some truth to this… times change and circumstances change, communication methods change. The are even telling us our message has to change so it won’t offend people. The primary truth here is that conservatives have not been good at explaining WHY our approach is better. The government indoctrination centers called public schools have many convinced of the value of Big Brother’s intervention and interference in our lives.

We are told that we need to get over the glory days of Ronald Reagan. We are told that we should forget about the man who told us: “Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.” and “The problem is not that people are taxed too little, the problem is that government spends too much.”

We are told that his approaches won’t work today. I have no idea how they came to this conclusion as his philosophy has not been used in years. The fact that they are telling us these things on what is supposed to be a “listening” tour is indicative of the predilection of the political class to be in control.

What frightens me most is the nagging thought that some are simply looking to change the party’s’ marketing approach into something that sounds like what the people are looking for. It may just be market research. We have, for years, heard conservative messages from candidates, worked to get them elected and found them to something quite different once in office.

What we really need are the two qualities of integrity and courage… which is the one virtue that insures all the others. We’ve seen this in people like Michelle Bachmann from Minnesota and Sarah Palin, both principle driven ladies tend to make the old guard nervous but would be a great addition to this group, but have not been invited to take part.

All this does not mean we should not give them a chance to make amends for the past. If you have the opportunity to join one of these sessions, do it. Go in with the attitude of an employer doing a performance review. Don’t accept condescending answers that tell you you just don’t understand the big picture. Be polite, but remember they are the ones coming around trying to keep their jobs.

Still following the tortoise, but slightly less aggravated as I understood that he wasn’t responsible, and he probably had no idea he was gumming up the works for me and everyone behind me… or perhaps he just didn’t care. I studied the driver for a few minutes, noticing that he was an older gentleman. Old enough to have gone through the public schools before many turned into secular humanist indoctrination centers. I wondered just where he went wrong.

Eventually he moved over to the center lane and I forgot about his reasons… nothing I could do about it anyway. It did get me thinking about all the old bumper stickers I see as I travel up and down the east coast. I wonder if they are left in place to gloat, prove a point, or if the driver is just to lazy to remove them. Win or loose, I tend to take mine off the morning after the election…. sometimes even election night. At times this is a matter or practicality as my home state of Virginia has elections every year – so the old ones need to make way for the new ones on a fairly tight cycle.

In any case, after the last vote is cast, the sticker loses it’s value and just serves to annoy those who voted the other way. I must confess that after the 2004 I left mine on an extra month or two. My motives, I have to say, were not entirely pure. As I drove to my office many mornings in October, an older gentleman made part of the same run at the same time. He made a variety of gestures at me that weren’t exactly complimentary. I just smiled and waved. Besides those W04 stickers were some of the best ever designed.

With the current mood of our country, depending on where you travel, it can be an open invitation to have your car vandalized. Recently I was tempted to put a sticker on that said “If Obama is your answer, you asked a stupid question”. However because I did not want to buy new tires, a new windshield, or a new paint job, I decided not to display my opinion.

Then I got to thinking about the message we convey with some of our bumper stickers. Supporting a candidate or issue should always be encouraged. On the other hand, attacking the people who vote for a candidate is not usually the best way to get through to them. If your candidate won, hopefully the supporters of the other fellow will see that your guy was the right choice by his actions. On the other hand, if their guy won… they will soon enough see the error of their ways. It’s sort of like the idea you catch more flies with honey…

I’m not one that says we should all just pull together behind the winner and support all his actions and goals, but we may not have to be in each other face constantly. We must continue to pursue what we see as right, but we don’t necessarily have to carry things at the personal level we see on some stickers. It may make us feel better, but doesn’t go very far in convincing others.

Once our candidate is no longer running, the real estate on our vehicles would probably be better used promoting important issues where we may get agreement when separated from a party or candidate. Ideas such as “Secure the Borders” or “I Support Women: Born and Unborn” may get us further than banners that make people wonder if we don’t know the election is over.

That said, this is still the USA, and for the time being at least, you have the right to express your opinion. It’s your car, truck or SUV, with a few caveats, feel free to let the world know where you stand… even if it just says “I Like Knitting”.

I’m reminded of the line from Barry Goldwater’s 1964 acceptance speech that chased the “moderates” in the New York delegation from the hall. And what awful thing did he say?
“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!” Apparently the “moderates” did not believe that liberty and justice should be pursued with everything we’ve got.

Unfortunately the actions of more and more Republicans shows that they too would run away from this statement. The most notable are the three who broke from a party just discovering the value of unity. While not from New York, it should be recognized that they are also from the northeast. What can be said of those who supported the current spending orgy coming out of the land inside the beltway?

Can they really be thought of as moderate in any way, shape or form? Can the rest of us join in their excitement at having trimmed a hundred billion dollars from an eight hundred billion dollar spending package? If you had three children, could you be happy if you convinced a kidnapper to only take one rather than all three? Would we have felt any better if only 2,000 hundred people died on 9/11 rather than 3,000?

Politics is said to be the art of compromise. However when we are faced with a choice of right or wrong, only the morally ambiguous can feel satisfied with a compromise. Suppose FDR had been able to negotiate a treaty with Adolf Hitler, whereby only 3 million Jews would have been slaughtered. Would the former paper hanger have been less of a monster?

No, there are times when, win or loose, we need to take a stand against something that is patently wrong. To compromise and give our assent to something that is plainly wrong lessens our stature among those around us and in our own eyes. When these people abandoned their core principles, or at least what they said were there core principles, they showed themselves to be untrustworthy and unreliable. They showed themselves to be something many thought did not exist. By siding with liberals, they became indistinguishable from them. They showed themselves to be Liberal Republicans.

Arlen Specter, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins are not alone. Each just unmasked themselves one more time. Knowing there are such beasts among us should help us to be prepared to deal with them and not be afraid to root them out as soon as possible. If we don’t we will be lulled into a false sense of security by simply looking at numbers. Beware – you may run into Democrats in Republican clothing. I certainly have.

One of the principles of Steven Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is the private victory must precede public victory. What this means is that we have to bring ourselves under control before we can hope to effectively deal with outside situations. If self control sounds like a biblical virtue, it is.

This self control, among other things, means a sense of mission and focus on the issues at hand that denies the many distractions the power to divert you from the path to your goals. The goals themselves are a subject for another day, but for the moment we shall assume that they are worthwhile in themselves and worthy of your best efforts.

So what obstacles requiring self control may you run into while pursuing the public good? Once you stick your head above the crowd to be heard, you immediately become a target for flying tomatoes and anything else those who live in the status quo can throw at you. Your motives will be questioned. Everything you do will be scrutinized… which is one more reason to walk the straight and narrow and keep everything on the up and up.

Then the most trying time of all may come to you. You may succeed. People will complement you. They may hang on every word you utter. You will be invited to things you’ve never been to before. It can be very easy to start to believe you are actually that good.

It’s good to remember the words of Rudyard Kipling in the poem, If:

If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same…

Then you have the idea of self control.

While yearning for victory and “pressing toward the mark”, it’s necessary to understand that achieving our goals can be the most hazardous part of our political, or business, activity. How many idealists arrive in Washington, or state capitols, determine to overhaul and reform the system, only to find themselves part of the problem a few years later after several successes?

An interesting example of this phenomenon was depicted in the film The Devil’s Advocate. As a promising young lawyer, Kevin Lomax (Keanu Reeves) is enticed to the big city to work for Al Pacino whose character is interestingly named John Milton. Briefly, he manages to avoid all the temptations placed before him and he ends up back in his small town… only to succumb to the ultimate sin of pride in having eluded the devil himself (Pacino).

Self control may be even harder to attain while riding in the victory parade than walking into the den of lions. How is it achieved?

Can an iron will and unmovable determination keep us from self destructing? Can we just resolve to not fall into the multitude of traps we encounter almost daily? Hardly.

What then can we do? Titus 2:11-12 says: For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age. (NIV) 

It means that if we are to stand tall against whatever Goliaths we are facing, we need to be, as the Pentecostals are fond of saying,  “read up and prayed up”. The further into the system you go, the more demands there are on your time. This is one item, however, that cannot be dropped off the agenda.

Pat Robertson says that when he was running for president in 1988, he would get up at 4:30 in the morning to be sure he had this time. It’s dark then! However he understood his results and future would be even darker if he didn’t do it.