Got Cod?

Leave it to the Cincinnati Enquirer to bring the world to your doorstep. The word of the day is CODPIECE.

The thing about playing a guy in late Renaissance costume in "Romeo and Juliet," grins Cincinnati Shakespeare actress Sara Clark, with a faux perplexed frown, "is I have something between my legs. There's no crossing of legs like a girl."

COD PIECE: "It's a triangle of fabric designed to provide support and coverage. Stuffing the codpiece to create a more pronounced profile was a popular fashion statement with men of all ages.

I think Batman wore one.

Save the Moose

Idea for a bumper sticker: Save the Earth, Shoot a Moose.

Norway: Researchers at the technical university in Trondheim have discovered that the moose, the country's national symbol, is a major contributor to greenhouse emissions. Annually, one moose produces greenhouse gas equal to 13,000 km of car travel.

"To put it into perspective, the return flight from Oslo to Santiago in Chile leaves a carbon footprint of 880 kilos. Shoot a moose and you have saved the equivalent of two long-haul flights," said biologist Reidar Andersen.

Always looking out for the members

Maggie Thurber has this little item on the news that somehow didn't get widely reported.

Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels recently refused to extend an executive order that had forced state employees to pay union dues. Once the dues became voluntary, 85% of the state work force stopped paying. Wonder what would happen in Ohio if any governor were to do the same???

I guess all those people have no idea what the cost/benefit of those dues means for them. Or.... maybe they do.

Defeat at Any Price

Americans are so accustomed (or inured) to this attitude that they rarely step back and ask, What the hell is going on here?

The issue isn't tactics--doesn't concern the draw-down that the administration has forecast and General Petraeus has now discussed, or how this draw-down should work, or how specific such talk ought to be. The issue is deeper. It's time for Americans to ask some big questions. Do leading Democrats want America to win this war? Have they ever?

More

He's morphing

Is it just me or is Al Gore starting to morph into Darrell Hammond. Which one is which?

Taking my property

I happened to be reading this article on Ayn Rand's influence on corporate CEO's. (If you've never read Atlas Shrugged it is the genesis for the Midas Mulligan pen name).

In the article, is a reference to Ayn Rand's background....

Rand’s free-market philosophy was hard won. She was born in 1905 in Russia. Her life changed overnight when the Bolsheviks broke into her father’s pharmacy and declared his livelihood the property of the state.


In all honesty, this occurs every week in the US................ It's called pay day.

Think about it. You've worked your butt off all week and you get to Friday and guess what. the states(s) just proclaims part of your hard work as property of the state.

If you're lucky, the state may subsidize your contribution to a 401k (see post below). The state even promises to put part of their property into a retirement account on your behalf.

So really, how is Rand's experience any different than an average American's on Friday?

Another reason public schools get a bad name

John Leo has a great piece entitled Creating Activists at Ed School.

Leo's piece just confirms my experience as an undergrad education major 25 years ago. I was shocked to be surrounded by so many ding dongs and derelicts (and those were just the professors) on a college campus. Nearly all my Teacher's College curriculum that first year was related to social engineering. It wasn't until my second year that I started to realize I was going to have a college degree and not know anything.

Excerpt from the article

Interventions by free speech and religious liberties groups induced a few schools to back down in well-publicized cases of abuse. At Missouri State University's undergraduate social work program, Emily Brooker received a "C" after complaining that professor Frank Kauffman "routinely engaged in leftist diatribes." Kauffman instructed Brooker's class to write the state legislature urging legal approval of adoption by gays. She refused on religious and moral grounds. As a result, Brooker was brought up on very serious charges; to get her degree, she had to promise to abide by the NASW code. After graduation, she sued and won a settlement.

Is it any wonder a teacher can somehow tie Guantanamo and the Declaration of Independence.

Why public schools get a bad name

Reason number 6,889,887 ...... why public schools get a bad reputation.

Teacher Mike Brooks thought it would be a good idea for his eighth grade history class to go home and have the student's parents renounce their US citizenship.

After all, he was simply trying to start a discussion with his students regarding the Declaration of Independence. Except that he managed to include this with the letter he sent with his students.


Excerpt.

Chico resident Michael Hill said he was told by his daughter, Kaytlen Hill, 13, that the assignment was to have parents sign the letter and return it to class Wednesday.

"The lesson being taught in class was that the U.S. kidnaps innocent people and takes them to Cuba, where they are kept indefinitely and tortured," Hill said he learned through his daughter.

When Hill asked her if Brooks mentioned Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the U.S. imprisons terrorist suspects, he said his daughter replied "yes."

He said his daughter broke into tears when she talked about Brooks mentioning illegal wiretaps and other surveillance directed against innocent people.

"I think I was more irritated by the classroom discussion than the letter," he said.

Brooks said he was trying to establish a parallel between attitudes during Revolutionary times, and those of today.

Yeah......... there is so much commonality between Guantanamo and the Declaration of Independence.

Maybe the "History" teacher actually needs to read the Declaration of Independence once or twice.

The best part of all this. The teacher will face no disciplinary action.

Irony

Isn't there a certain irony that the most visible case of domestic wiretapping outlined in the Patriot Act was committed by ...........the Patriots.

Friday humor

A little Friday humor. Caution... This might be a little racy.

Wrapping yourself in defeat

Back in May, I noted that democrats had painted themselves into a corner by protesting the war so vehemently. They effectively put themselves in a no win situation by taking the position.

What I didn't expect, was how their position on the war would actually wrap themselves into a position where they would actually want and actively pursue an American defeat.

I don't know how these clowns sleep at night.

Let's do lunch

This lucky woman won a lunch with Hillary Clinton in a email contest on Hillary's website

The funny part of the article was this blurb.

In a follow-up e-mail to supporters, Bill Clinton raised the stakes for the contest, writing: "I hear you might be having lunch with Hillary - do you mind if I drop in?"

Does this guy ever pass up an opportunity to slime on some honey? He must have seen her picture.

Yeah Bill she's female, she's better looking than Monica.

Edwards buys ad time

John Edwards bought ad time after George Bush's speech tonight to sell his new line of hair care and nail treatment products.

Be sure to watch tonight if you want bring out the closet metro sexual in you.

It's our money not yours

Liberally conservative has a great breakdown of an article by Rahm Emanuel, Illinois congressman and former Clinton lackey, in the Wall Street Journal.

The article talks about Emanuel's plan to have the government sponsor 401k plans and to force all people to fund them.

While I would expect that type of socialist drivel from a former Clintonista, this is the quote that caught my attention.


“Last year, we spent $125 billion in tax subsidies to encourage retirement savings”


Just how did the US government spend all that money to "encourage retirement savings"? Was it a bunch of PSA's on TV promoting savings? Was it mass mailings, telling us to save? Did they contribute to our 401k's? After all, 125 billion is a lot even for federal government standards.

No, the government didn't spend one dollar to advocate anything. What Emanuel is referring to is the tax savings we all get by contributing to our 401k's. He calls that "spending".

To inform Mr. Emanuel, the money was never yours to "spend".

His choice of language is so 1984. It was never our money to invest in a 401k........ it's the "government's" who subsidize our ability to fund our own damn retirement account.

40 years ago, this guy would have been beaten up for this kind of talk. Now it's part of the general lexicon and no one says a word.

The Faith Party

Every time I hear that the democratic party is open to people of faith, I always laugh.

Apparently, Kathy Griffin, a no doubt member of the party of faith made some very nice comments about Jesus at the Emmy awards.

In her speech, Griffin said that "a lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award. I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus."

She went on to hold up her Emmy, make an off-color remark about Christ and proclaim, "This award is my god now!"

The comedian's remarks were condemned Monday by Catholic League President Bill Donohue, who called them a "vulgar, in-your-face brand of hate speech."

According to the TV academy and E!, when the four hour-plus ceremony is edited into a two-hour program, Griffin's remarks will be shown in "an abbreviated version" in which some language may be bleeped.

Yeah, the new democratic party slogan..... the party where all you Jesus lovin' freak assholes are welcome.

Why character matters

All through the Clinton sexual excursions and subsequent impeachment, I felt people missed the entire point of why what happens in your bedroom is important in assessing character.

The point being what happens in your bedroom subjects one to extortion and black mail. Don't believe me. Just look at the lengths senator Craig went to to try and conceal his little peccadillo from the public.

What if someone would have had film of this guy? What secrets would he have released to keep his little secret quiet?

That's precisely why your character matters and, in the world of presidential politics, who you run with matters as much as who you sleep with.

Liberally conservative has a post about the whole Clinton-Hsu relationship. As more comes out about Norman Hsu, you start to realize that it's one thing to take campaign contributions from someone you don't know but this guy got tremendous amounts of access to Clinton.

How in the world did her security people not find about this guy's issues? Or, more importantly, did they know but not care? Is this the same sloppiness in which she'll appoint her staff? Kick in a few bucks and we'll get you in?

Under Bill, set a high water mark of pay & play politics, to the point that national security was impacted. It's nice to see Hill trying to surpass her low life husband.

Living in Poverty

Last week, the government issued poverty figures for the year. As I stated then, income figures are a bad way to determine whether someone lives in poverty.

The first two years I started my business, I would have been counted as living in "poverty" because my income was below the poverty figures, yet I owned my house, a car, the business property, etc.

The Heritage Foundation ran through the US Census Bureau figures and this is what they found.

• Forty-three percent of all poor households actu­ally own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.
• 
  
• Eighty percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, in 1970, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.
• 
  
• Only 6 percent of poor households are over­crowded. More than two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.
• 
  
• The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)
• 
  
• Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 31 percent own two or more cars.
• 
  
• Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions.
• 
  
• Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.
• 
  
• Eighty-nine percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and more than a third have an automatic dishwasher...

So when a "poor" person owns a TV, VCR, cell phones, etc. are they, in fact, "poor"?

Hat Tip Porkopolis.

Stealing signals

I don't get big flap about the Patriots stealing signs from the Jets in last weekend's football game. If you weren't allow to steal signs, why do you have signs at all?

And if teams didn't know someone was trying to steal their signs, why do they incorporate "decoys" when they are sending in signs.

At the same time, I was in a bathroom stall signaling that I needed toilet paper to the stall on my right. I guess the sign was intercepted and misread by the guy in the stall on the left and the next thing you know I'm answering questions from a cop.

So the moral to the story is... keep your signals straight and use decoys where appropriate.

I'm sticking to that story even if it costs me my Senate seat.

TJ Rodgers

As I wrote the previous post, I kept thinking about "the letter" TJ Rodgers, President of Cypress Semiconductor, wrote to the nun that launched him into notoriety.

How time flies....... it was eleven years ago.

If you're not aware of "the letter", it was Rodgers response to a form letter written to him by a nun asking for more minority and women representation on his board.

His response is why I love this guy. If you want to read a politically incorrect defense of free market capitalism, click here.

Stealing elections

Most people haven't studied what has been going on at Dartmouth University but it's a case study in how liberalism/socialism/communism weasels it way into power and takes over an institution.

Since 1891, Dartmouth's charter has allowed alumni to elect 1/2 of the school's trustees. In the past ten years, frustrated with free speech issues and academic performance, and staff accountability, the alumni have elected outside notables as T.J. Rodgers who have upset the liberal apple cart.

So much so that the school has changed the charter, expanding the number of trustees from 18 to 26, with the additional 8 trustees to be selected by the existing trustees.

So the fact of the matter is liberals can never win on the argument and when they see they are getting their asses kicked under the rules of the game, they change the game.

It reminds me of how they tried to steal Florida in 2000.

I remember

I don't need a lavish post about what today means to so many Americans.

After the first attack, I hooked up a TV just in time to watch the second plane crash in the the second building. I knew that day the world we be a lot different.

I remember. I'll never forget.

Oops!

The Clinton's are returning $850,000 in illegal campaign contributions.

Who would have thunk it.....

Except the eight years from his husband's, or is it her wife's campaign? they look so similar.

Always looking out for the little guys....... so they can steal from them.

Interesting stat(s)

If you take out Syracuse (0-2).....the Big East conference is 14-0 and has outscored the opposition 611-195.

The Big East has won 28 of their last 30 nonconference games, including 5 bowl games.

Polar Bears

If you are one of those global warming people, you probably shrieked when you read about polar bears being extinct by the end of the century.

But wait......... If you are one of those global warming people, you are probably a believer in evolution. So if we have global warming, won't polar bears just evolve into, say, Cuba Bears?

So what's the big deal?

You might want to move those boats

A lot's been made of the fact that many of the parties in the Brenda Nessleroad-Slaby case have such a close working relationship that maybe justice isn't quite what it appears.

I have it from a source whom I trust, that many of the players in this case have boats stored on the Clermont County Fairgrounds and they use convicts performing community service to clean them up and winterize them as part of their community service.

So Scott Croswell, Don White, and all the other various Clermont County judges, commissioners, prosecutors, et. al., if you have a boat out there, you may want to move them for a few months before a "real news" organization starts sniffing around to see if those transactions are "arms length".

Oh, wait. We don't have one.

Nevermind.

Plan your '08 vacation today

With the summer of 2007 winding to a close it's time to take a look ahead to next year's vacation hot spots and plan accordingly.

If you can't make it to Columbus, OH for the Accountant's Hall of Fame, maybe you could schedule some time to go to Highbridge, WI and check out the Disc Golf Hall of Fame.

Fred Salaz of Crescent Springs KY is the most recent inductee. Here's a tidbit of what you'll get.

In disc golf, players have a rating, which is similar to a golf handicap. A 1,000-rated player is a scratch golfer, while the world champion is 1,034. Salaz is a 971 - pretty good, he says, for his age. He can still sail a disc about 500 feet, meaning he could clear the center field wall at Great American Ball Park if he were throwing from the plate.

Just remember the following traveler tip, when you are on the road and you use a public restroom stall make sure you tap your foot incessantly. When a person in another stall taps his, slide your foot over towards his. It's the international sign of "Hello" in stall langauge.

DUI Checkpoints

Just out of curiosity. If you wanted to put up a DUI check point, wouldn't you place at a time and place that would nab the most potential offenders.

I just got off the phone with Midas. Apparently, if the Ohio Highway Patrol and the city of Cincinnati decided to place a DUI check point on Second or Third St. after the Bengals game they could probably nab 30 - 40 thousand offenders.

It's only 12:00 and it's already drunken debauchery downtown with Bengals fans getting ready for the game tonight.

So if the cops really want to go to work and go at it, there's your tip.

Prez Hillary

Newsweek has big article this week on Hillary. Call it a free campaign pitch. What do these people see in her? She hasn't done a thing in the Senate. She's afraid to take a stand on anything. And she's got the personality of a pit bull.

President Hillary Clinton—words that many Americans have a hard time saying out loud. But she is ahead of Obama, her nearest competitor, by double digits in all the national polls and has closed the gap with Edwards in Iowa. She has outperformed her rivals in almost every debate and has presided over a remarkably disciplined and effective presidential campaign. Meanwhile, the post-George W. Bush Republican Party hardly seems formidable at the moment: Clinton's opponent would likely be either a Mormon from Massachusetts, a laconic actor from Tennessee or a former New York mayor who is strong and stubborn—not exactly a change message in an election to replace Bush. (Clinton leads each of the top Republican contenders in most head-to-head polls.) A year before the election, Clinton seems, astonishingly, like the safest money in the 2008 race.

Why be a Senator

After thinking about Chuck Hagel's resignation over the weekend, I had to ask myself, why?

When it comes to senate republicans, it is clear that they are more about power over purpose and if you're not going to be the party of power, with all the perks, then why be there. If Hagel had a purpose he was running on, he wouldn't just quit. He would stick it out until mission accomplished.

I wish just one media member would ask every national politician this question. If you could only pass one and only one bill, what would it be? What is the hill your governance will die on?

Too often, these clowns get into office without having a clear distinction of why the hell they are even there. We're getting ready for the primary season and I couldn't tell you one issue that any one of the candidates intend to take into office. We, the public let these guys of the hook with the old "I just want to help people" generic blah blah blah.

For all his fault's, if Al Gore runs, you'll know his primary purpose for running.

So once again, I throw to the mainstream media to ask the question which means I might as well be listening to crickets in my back yard tonight.

Tryforgettin

A funny to start the week.

It's going to be a good campaign season.

Quote of the day

"It appears we have appointed our worst generals to command forces, and our most gifted and brilliant to edit newspapers.


In fact, I discovered by reading newspapers that these editor/geniuses plainly saw all my strategic defects from the start, yet failed to inform me until it was too late.


Accordingly, I am readily willing to yield my command to these obviously superior intellects, and I will, in turn, do my best for the Cause by writing editorials - after the fact."


- Robert E. Lee, 1863

Hat tip to Lucianne.com

But she didn't intend it.

Allegedly, Sarah Welsh was drunk late Saturday night/ Sunday morning when she plowed head on into another car heading south on I-75.

It's too bad for Sarah that she wasn't driving in Clermont County. After all, if she didn't intend to kill anyone, she probably would have walked. Ask Don White, the prosecutor.