Saturday, April 21, 2007

NBC (Nutcase Broadcast Channel)

It doesn't matter what side of the political spectrum people fall in, they are all in agreement that NBC should not have aired the Cho video.

Tim Rutten: "[NBC's] statement is bovine excrement. Look, the only thing this does is to demonstrate that he was insane. Well, none of us had any doubt about that."

Howard Kurtz: "In all the years I've been chronicling the media, I have rarely seen the tidal wave of resentment that has washed over television organizations that showed the now-infamous Cho video. In the minds of many Americans, this was a horribly offensive act, and no amount of explanation about the obligations of journalism is going to change that view."

Mark Steyn: "NBC is fulfilling the killer’s last request. That’s disgusting. That’s disgusting, because in effect, you have colluded in this kind of show of slaughter that he’s concocted, and I think that’s disgusting for NBC."

Mickey Kaus: "NBC is now the go-to site for serial killers who have videos."

Hugh Hewitt: "In a country of 300 million, NBC will find some defenders, but the deep and wide disgust will not shift in the weeks and months ahead, but only harden. When in a few months, or a year or two the next maniac sends the next video of his mayhem, see if Steve Capus is still going to be defending the decision he and his colleagues made to inject poison into the information pipes. Their shame is not only in the fact that are they the most exploitative and callous businessmen in the history of broadcast news. Far worse, they are accomplices to murder, for as Mickey Kaus said yesterday, it "is almost inevitable" that there will be future victims 'who will be dead because NBC published this.'"

Hillary

I've always figured that the more people see, read about and hear Hillary, the more they will be turned off. I still think she'll win the Dem's nomination easily, but winning the White House is a much different story.

Dick Morris and Eileen McGann think she's losing steam: "There has been a sudden and highly significant shift in the Democratic Presidential race: Hillary Clinton is rapidly losing her frontrunner position to Barack Obama as her negative ratings climb.

According to the Gallup poll, most Americans don't like Hillary Clinton and the number of people who view her negatively has been steadily increasing ever since she announced her candidacy for President in January."

Friday, April 20, 2007

Prediction

I haven't exactly made myself the next Danny Sheridan with my predictions ie GOP keeping house & senate and the Bears winning the Super Bowl but I feel pretty confident about this prediction.

It looks like good weather this weekend in the City of Cincinnati for beginning of murder season. I'll predict at least one black man will be shot and killed this weekend by another black man.

But at least Imus won't be around to call him a nappy headed ho.

Harry Reid Concedes

I've tried to lay off the war because I decided long ago that the military people should run it not a bunch of politicians and hacks who can't tell the difference between Sunni and Shia Muslims.

It doesn't look good in Iraq because, just like Vietnam, we're going to fight the damn thing with one arm behind our back.

With that said, Harry Reid's comments about the war being lost are down right treasonous.

Imagine you are an Iraqi Shia. You desperately want to see a peaceful and democratic Iraq. You are willing to support the US but you also fear for your family if you show too much support. As the days wane, and you see the US wants out do you 1) outwardly show your support to the US and collaborate with US troops or 2) keep a low profile and not cause any stirs.

I was born in 1963, my earliest memories of Vietnam was seeing people hanging off of helicopters leaving the US embassy; desperately trying to leave the country. What do you think happened to all those US collaborators after we left? Let me just say that most of them are not around to tell us because I'm sure they were all executed.

Need a more recent example, try Somalia. After we pulled out of there, the country is in total chaos, run by territorial war lords. How much love do you think those war lords have for US collaborators?

The last thing we need to do in Iraq is to concede defeat and play right into the paper tiger painting Bin Laden has planted into the minds of middle easterners.

The thing that kills me most about the American public is that Bush warned us about this. He told us this would be a long struggle, that there would be setbacks along the way and that there would be battles we wouldn't know about but yet the one news cycle American public wants an end to this thing.

Let's pretend we pull out troops out tomorrow. What happens next? Do you think we will be more or less a target of more 9/11 type attacks? What happens to our friends in the Middle East? Do you think they going to be more or less supportive after the next 9/11 knowing how much we love a struggle? What happens to the Kurds, Sunnis and Shias in Iraq?

Finally, how do we ever justify having our troops anywhere in the world Korea, the Phillipines, Europe? How do we ever commit troops to places like Rwanda Somalia, Sudan, Kosovo where we have absolutely no national interest?

Now that the Soviet Union has crumbled the US is the sole remaining superpower. It is our job to be the policeman to the world. Why? Because if we don't do it, who will? the French?

Kings Island/Minimum Wage

Where to begin.

Tuesday, Kings Island, a SW Ohio Amusement park, announced that they were going to discontinue bus service for some of it's workers, youth from the city of Cincinnati.

Historically, Kings Island recruited lots of kids from the city and provided transportation for them up to Kings Island. They then announced they were cutting the service, essentially eliminating job opportunities for hundreds of intercity kids.

Why? If you guessed the increase in the minimum wage, you get to move to the head of the class. So all those kids who had opportunities before the hike just got to watch what do gooder liberalism does in practice. No one would say publicly because it's probably politically incorrect but when the wage hike went up Kings Island could no longer afford to give job opportunities to at risk kids; higher wages require higher productivity. So they just give those jobs to suburban kids.

Ah, but why kill a liberal do-gooder program that doesn't work when you can create another. The City of Cincinnati and Hamilton County announced that they would subsidize the program so the buses keep running. Never mind that Kings Island does not pay either Cincinnati or Hamilton County taxes of any kind. This is how government works.

In the immortal words of Ronald Reagan

If a liberal see something and it moves, they tax it.
If it keeps moving, they regulate it.
When it quits moving, they subsidize it.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Va Tech Shootings

Now that the dust is beginning to settle on the Va Tech shootings, it looks like we can see America.... at it's worst.

Media

Is there nothing sacred for the media? specifically, NBC. I'm a big freedom of the press guy but with every freedom comes a responsibility.

First, a little precursor. I believe most people in the psychiatric community would tell you that this shooter had mega self esteem problems and was obsessed in finding a way to have himself stand out among the masses.

The media knows this yet they play right along into this guy's hands making him a celebrity by putting his name and picture all over the place. He can now rest in peace knowing he's a big man on campus.

Do you think the there might be another disturbed young person out there that might see this type of behavior as his road to immortality?

I would be willing to bet a lot of money that before the end of the school year, there's going to be another one of these types of shootings. And with each and every one of these shootings, the ante gets upped to make the next shooting more sensational than the last.

Has anyone noticed that the entire popular culture is all about being noticed? Survivor, American Idol, Springer, My Space, Deal or No Deal, Maury, You Tube. It doesn't matter if it's to show off your special talent or to sink to the lowest of self-degradation as long as you get your fifteen minutes.

And the media plays right along. Just like a drug dealer handing another vial over to the crack whore; and we all just gawk at the results.

It gives the executives at NBC a total pass. Now they can play the old "we're just giving the public what they want..." card. I'll remember that when one of their kids OD's on meth.

Victims

It's hard to be critical of someone who's lost their life but it appears the victims in the classroom huddled up behind a desk during the shooting; even while the shooter was reloading the clips to his guns. Only a professor, a holocaust survivor, fought back.

What were these kids thinking? Well, I hope he runs out of ammo soon? In this country we've got to start getting it through people's heads that the only way you deal with evil is to confront it.... often violently. You cannot negotiate with evil, you cannot expect mercy from evil, you cannot be patient with evil until it's no longer evil.

The people on United flight 93 got this. They knew they were going to die, but they were not going to let evil win on evil's terms. They didn't huddle up in the corner waiting for evil to decide their destiny, they created their own.

It doesn't matter if evil shows up as the president of Iran or a mad man on campus, at some point, everyone needs to start getting that force is the only way you confront such people.

We've gotten to this place in our country by brainwashing people into this multi cultural clap trap which insists in 1) denying that evil really exists in the first place... "it's just another opinion to be respected"... "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" crap 2) thinking the only effective way to deal with confrontation is to "talk it out".... Malarkey.

For the past couple of decades, we've been "wimpifying" America and it's disgusting. I was watching a piece on PBS a couple of weeks ago when Natan Sharansky said that while he was in a Soviet prison he heard about Ronald Reagan calling out the Soviet Union as an "Evil Empire". It was his opinion that just calling out evil was enough to spur on the dissidents in their country.

Do we have the stones to do it again? or will we just have Nancy Pelosi stop in to shake hands with it?

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Partial Birth Abortion

The Supreme court today upheld the federal law banning the practice of "partial birth abortion".

One of the tenets to the abortion debate has always been the question of "when does life begin"?

While no one in this lifetime will ever know the answer to this question, I would offer that society already has an established clinical solution to this question. It's simply the flip side of when life ends. I believe it's probably when a heart stops but a doctor can tell me more definitively.

For instance, if life ends with the stopping of a beating heart, then surely we can all agree that life should begin with the same definition..... when the baby's heart starts to beat. At that point in time, the baby should receive all the legal protection any other human would enjoy in this country.

Unfortunately, the whole debate has devolved into a woman's right to do with her body what she wants.

If you believe in that premise, do you believe prostitution should be legal? After all it's a woman's body if she wants to sell it for profit shouldn't she be allowed? What about drug use? Shouldn't a person be able to use meth, despite the abuse it does to one's body. What about eating up all that trans fat? It's my body.... shouldn't I be able to eat all the damn french fries I want? If it's simply my body, what the hell are all these seat belt laws for?

What if a woman wants an abortion for gender selection? Does the baby girl that's about to get killed have a say about her body?

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Quality Journalism?

John Leo has an excellent piece in the New York Sun about journalistic reporting through the eyes of reporters. He quotes the late Michael Kelly


"most journalists learn to see the world through a set of standard templates into which they plug each day's events."


Seeing the world through this template has resulted in some incredibly awful reporting on the Duke case and the Imus slur.

The bottom line is the traditional news media has a view of the world where conflict must exist between rich/poor, white/black, religious/nonreligious, man/woman etc. When there is evidence to the contrary, these media outlets simply ignore the evidence and reports on the same template.

An example, Terry Moran who wrote a piece on his blog "Don't feel sorry for the Dukies" which essentially states that the rich boys may not be charged with rape but they're still guilty of being white & privileged men victimizing a poor, disadvantaged black girl. He just cannot give up his paradigm of the world.

The same template held true this past fall when NBC decided to do a piece on how white middle class people are hostile to Arab looking Muslims. They baited the piece by having Muslims dressed in Arab gear show up at a NASCAR race and pray.

You know why you never saw the piece.... because it was never produced. They could never elicit a response from those good old boys to harass the Muslims. See, it never occurred to NBC producers that the good old boys don't really care if you are a Muslim as long as you like Earnhardt.

What would have been nice would be to see a piece about journalists' preconceptions about fly over country but don't hold your breath. We'll get that piece when you start seeing apologies to the "Dukies".

Tax Time

As many of you know, I am a local CPA and preparing tax returns is a big part of my practice.

While I can understand that the average person really doesn't get the basics of tax law there are a few things that normal citizens should be able to master.

First, refunds of taxes are just that.... refunds. Your refund goes up or down based on the tax liability reported on the return and the amount you paid in during the year. The fact you normally get a $2,000 refund is no guarantee you'll get $2,000 next year. Especially if you do things like take out money from an IRA, go on unemployment, get divorced. I find myself spending an inordinate amount of time educating taxpayers for things people should really know coming out of high school let alone people with MBA's.

Second, you don't get a refund if you pay nothing in. I swear I spent 45 minutes this year trying to explain to a person who's only income was social security why she didn't get a refund for high medical expenses. Now, there are some credits which are refundable, EIC and, this year, the telephone tax refund. She was expecting a refund to the extent of her medical expenses.

Finally, deductions are just that, deductions, not credits. If you have $6,000 in mortgage interest expense it does not make a $6,000 change in your tax liability and, subsequently, refund. I'll preach till I'm blue in the face that paying increased taxes on non deductions is preferable to paying out the deduction.

When I first started in practice, I swear I had a client who would have paid out $10,000 if it would have saved him $750.00 in taxes. It wasn't until I told him I would give him a $10,000 invoice when he finally got my drift.

I'm a proponent of the fair tax. While people think that will put old Gordon out of business, I would offer that someone has to do all those sales tax returns in addition, I wouldn't have to spend my time providing the public with basic personal finance education on a pro bono basis.

Gun Ban

I was just listening to the radio when the DJ was interviewing Ann Compton from ABC News about the shootings yesterday at Va Tech.

Here were her thoughts "Well Jim, I went to school in the area and it's a big gun ownership population. The people here didn't like the gun ban instituted by the school years ago".

First off, it's a good things the school put that ban in place, otherwise, someone might think it was OK to just walk through campus and randomly shoot students and staff.

Second, Maybe some of those yee haa hillbillies that love their guns understand that attacks get even quick when you're lock and loaded.

I hate to pile on when a tragedy like this occurs but really, has anyone studied the profiles of these guys. Has anyone noticed that these armed attacks are not occurring at rifle ranges, a police station, a biker bar.... they're committed by cowards who definitively know the victims are unarmed.

After a couple of criminals in Cincinnati were shot and killed in robbing convenience stores, convenience store robberies went down but what has skyrocketed in it's place.... bank robberies. Maybe ... it's because robbers play the cost benefit principle and they know that bank employees are unarmed as a matter of policy.

When it's all said and done, this person will be found to be mentally stressed or had some sort of a breakdown but even the early reports show that this guy walked around the campus with absolute impunity. Maybe if a student or staff member had a concealed carry fire arm they could have shut this guy down before 32 lives were lost.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Sex Sting

Do these guys watch the news? Every week on Dateline and nearly every week somewhere in America there is a sting where a bunch of guys get busted trying to set up sex with a 15 year old?

While I'm not a big fan of such stings because there is no actual victim (unless you call a 40 year old cop who gets off on this a victim), these guys deserve some kind of punishment for general stupidity.

Here's a question for the "homosexual's are just born that way" crowd. If a man has such a sexual compulsion that he's willing to risk everything to hook up with a 15 year old, should we really punish him?

Keep in mind, once a girl starts to menstruate it's nature's way of saying she's a woman. So aren't we just putting some ridiculous arbitrary standards of sexual conduct on a man who was just "born that way"?

I wonder how many gays are willing to step up and defend these guys. After all, not only do these guys not get to marry these girls, but they get to go on Dateline and have to register as a sexual offender the rest of their lives.

Edwards Hair

It probably appears that I have an obsession with the candidates' hair as much as I write about it.

Actually, my obsession pretty much ends with a $400.00 haircut. But not for old John Edwards.

I'm sure his $400.00 is just his way of taking care of the neighborhood barber who can't afford health care.

Government income

Approximately 53 % of all Americans receive some type of government program.

No wonder so many are against tax cuts for the rich; it dries up the income stream

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Michigan IPods

Nixguy has a follow up piece on the Michigan IPod fiasco.

You'd swear it was made up if it wasn't so ridiculous.

Maybe Ohio can do a guns for IPods program to help finance their end of the Brent Spence bridge construction.

Clean Gas

Don't blame "big oil" this time when gas prices go up next summer. Blame your elected officials and the global warming, chicken little crowd.

"Starting next summer, Southwest Ohio motorists will pay a little extra at the pump under a state plan to require a cleaner gasoline to be sold in Cincinnati, Dayton and surrounding areas.

The proposal awaiting federal approval is meant to curb ozone pollution in the region. The cleaner gas would only be sold during the summer and would emit fewer vapors that trigger ozone problems. It would replace biennial E-check tests, which ended locally in 2005."

Enquirer: New gas cleaner, but costly

Trans fat ban

Now that we've slowly but surely turned smokers into lepers, we can now turn to the trans fat pimps of bad health.

Here's one of our local do gooders out to beat the death out of trans fat.

You know somehow life seem so much sweeter when we had a bitter enemy like the Soviet Union. At least we could all unite with our olympic teams, chess clubs and Rocky IV to hate the big time bad guys.

Somehow taking out all our anger on a french fry just isn't the same.