Say it ain't so...

I feel sick to my stomach...


Dusty Baker has agreed to a three-year deal to manage the
Cincinnati Reds, beginning with the upcoming season, ESPN has learned.

Baker, a former Cubs and Giants manager and current ESPN analyst, will continue to work with

ESPN through this season's League Championship Series and World Series.

Baker is expected to be introduced at a news conference in Cincinnati on Monday.

Remember this... Chicago Cubs manager Dusty Baker, dismissing suggestions he made a racist assertion when speaking with reporters about day baseball, stands by his comments that black and Hispanic players are better suited to playing in the sun and heat than white players.

"You don't find too many brothers in New Hampshire and Maine and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. ... We were brought over here for the heat, right? Isn't that history? Weren't we brought over because we could take the heat?"

From Lance...

On a positive note...Reds Marketing now has two more promotional nights...Tooth Pick Night and Wrist Band Night. And the Reds can save money on paying a bat boy....Dusty can use his son again.

frank caliendo redux

Frank on Letterman

Globalization

As always, Mark Steyn, hits one out with this piece on the spread of wahhabism.

You'll never get a politically correct version of anything with Steyn.

Go Bearcats

Tonight the future Mrs. Gekko and I will be at Nippert Stadium hoping to see the Bearcats extend their win streak to ten games, second longest behind LSU.

We'll be at the Holy Grail and I'll be available for autographs until about 6:30. Since I'll be with the future Mrs. Gekko, I'll ask that all you young, hot, blogger groupie types not to request that I sign your bare breasts with a sharpie. It really gets the future Mrs. Gekko upset.

A mistake?

"I lost my wife due to my own action and I live with that every single day," Dieterle said. "I am sorry is the only thing somebody can say. It's no consolation, I know. Michelle was a good person. We had a good life. Mistakes were made."

So what exactly was Mr. Dieterle's mistake? Maybe he ran a red light that resulted in her death? Maybe he was drunk and accidentally shot her? Maybe he gave her to much medication?

No. Mr Dieterle's mistake was to accidentally scale a three story apartment building; inadvertently break into her apartment; forgetfully raping and killing his wife; and erroneously mutilate her genitals as she was bleeding to death.

The only mistake in this case is the fact that this guy doesn't have a fatal IV in his future.

Gore beating the odds

I really hate seeing the names Midas and Al Gore in the same article...

Bookmakers cut the odds of Al Gore becoming the next president of the United States and started to sweat as the former U.S. vice president won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday.

The reason is that in winning the prize Gore has now satisfied two of the three conditions the bookies set for a 100 to one bet they had offered -- winning an Oscar, becoming a Nobel laureate and taking up residence in the White House.

He seems to have the Midas touch and if his supporters encourage him to stand he may shake up the whole race," Ladbrokes spokesman Robin Hutchison said.

This just in

In an apparent shift of events, the US Supreme Court just ruled that the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Al Gore this morning should, in fact, be awarded to George Bush.

Details at Scrappleface.

Quote of the day

Liberals love jobs but hate employers

Unknown

We're # 46

A report just released by the Tax Foundation ranks the various states for the business tax environment.

Ohio comes in at a strooooong 46th place, just in front of New York, California, New Jersey & Rhode Island.

Oh yeah, but Wyoming, Nevada and South Dakota college football sucks, so there.

Why the music business sucks

If you ever wanted to know why the music business is in such disarray, you could guess music downloads on the internet.

But if you guess, because studios are blowing $120,000,000 on Madonna, you're probably in a better ball park.

I watched Madonna during the Live Earth show and it was clear to me that she's washed up. But apparently not washed up enough to squeeze $120,000,000 out of Live Nation for her next three albums.

That $120,000,000 would go a long way in identifying, developing and promoting new talent. Instead it's wasted on a washed up skank.

What's going to happen when Keith Richards realizes he's dead and the Stones can't put out another album?

A Friday Funny

Frank Caliendo doing a Bush impersonation

Those pesky liberals

Apparently, the democratic party is getting frustrated by the pressure many liberal groups are putting on them to advance the liberal agenda. According to this article

Representative Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat, is as closely tied to the issue of gay rights as Barney Rubble is to Fred Flintstone. But recently, Mr. Frank has been under siege by gay rights groups.

They are angry because Mr. Frank has removed specific language about “gender identity” from the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, a bill that would protect gay men and lesbians in the workplace and that gay rights advocates say would now leave transsexuals and transgender individuals vulnerable.

The democrat complaints about liberals actually mirror the rift between conservatives and republicans, Remember the infamous Trent Lott quote about conservative talk radio

“Talk radio is running America. We have to deal with that problem.”

One of the things talk radio, the internet, and blogs, in particular, have done in the political stratosphere is to force a distinction between republican/conservative, liberal/democrat and to force politicians to toe the ideological line.

Obviously, libs and conservatives are most passionate about the debate and, as a result, drive the debate. Politicians hate it because they no longer have the ability to hide behind nuance; play the moderation card. They can no longer pull the old "I was for it before I was against it" caca because the blogs will tear it apart.

I think this is a good thing for conservatives. Imagine the public's appetite for a bill protecting the transgender population. It goes no where.

So let's keep up the pressure on these guys and maybe we'll actually get some conservatives in office and not republicans like RINOvich and Lott.

Nobel Peace Prize

Let's see

The UN
Jimmy Carter
Yasir Arafat
Al Gore

That just about makes the Nobel Peace Prize totally irrelevant.

By the way, didn't the computer win a Nobel Peace Prize.

Uh, Gordon, that was Time's Man of the Year, unless you're talking about Gore again.

Taking Carter's advice

So the Hildebeast would talk to Iran without any preconditions.

I would engage in negotiations with Iran, with no conditions, because we don't really understand how Iran works. We think we do, from the outside, but I think that is misleading,"

Wow, so she would follow the very strategy that allowed our embassy to be raided and our citizens to be taken hostage by the very man (little man Ahmadinejad) who perpetrated the assault the first time.

I guess if you're the party that supports public education, it shouldn't be a surprise they never learned a history lesson.

A Carter Critique

Jimmy Carter provides some worth while criticism of the Bush Administration. :)

An excerpt via Best of the Web.

Walsh: And finally on Iran, what if they continue to defy world opinion and develop a nuclear weapon capability? What should the United States do about it?

Carter: Well, first of all, I think we should be communicating with the Iranians directly, through diplomatic means. Even after the shah was overthrown, we still maintained diplomatic relations with Iran--in fact, that's proven by the fact that my hostages were in Tehran. They had an equal number of diplomats in Washington, about 75 or so, and we should be communicating with them. And secondly, we should assure them that we don't intend to launch a pre-emptive war against them as we did in Iraq. But there are a lot of threats coming out, and that tends to put the Iranians on the defensive and make them want to do everything they can to build up their weaponry. So communicating with them and letting them know that we'll resolve their difference--differences diplomatically would be my recommendation.

Hey Jimmy, How did all that "talking to your enemies" work out for you. Somehow it occurs to me that despite all that talking...... the Iranians still invaded our embassy and took hostages. But at least they released them as a result of all those diplomatic talks. Right?

Jimmy will always be the best thing that ever happened to the GOP.

How can the GOP get him to speak at the next democratic convention?

No Dust in this house

Rumor has it, the Reds may hire Dusty Baker to be the team's new manager.

Some advice to Krivsky and Castellini.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This guy has a reputation for burning out pitchers, Remember Mark Prior? How about Kerry Wood?

This guy must have read Isaiah Thomas' self help book "How to be incompetent and still get the job you want".

A million ideas

According to the Hildebeast

"I have a million ideas. The country can't afford them all."

Of course she does. She's a liberal. See my post below. We have a 300 million people in this country. You could conceivably have 300 million programs to cover every want, need & desire of every citizen.

But how do you do programs for, let's say, 20 million people and not do something for all the rest?

Even better, not only do you not do something for the remaining 280 million but you make them pay for what you're doing for the 20 million.

That's why people don't fear socialism... They're all at the trough waiting to get their's.

Projection

The party of open mindedness, sent out a directive to House staffers.

Excerpt....

House Homeland Security Committee staffers are on a peculiar mission to study "public health issues at events involving mass gatherings," which has personally insulted Rep. Robin Hayes of Concord, North Carolina.

The event: NASCAR.

The rub: the requirement that the Democrat and Republican staffers attending first be immunized against Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, tetanus, diphtheria, and influenza.

I'm going to go out on a limb here. I will bet a lot of money you will get more disease(s) in a San Francisco bath house than you will a NASCAR race.

Unless you are a Gordon fan........... then it's probably like the bath house example.

Fear of Socialism

In general, I think Joe Conason is a hack writer. Yet I found myself in agreement with his title "Why socialism evokes no fear"

I agree with the general premise, but disagree as to why. I still contend Americans want to be pacified, they don't want to hear bad news; unless it's about a David Hasselhoff DUI.

Americans are tired of the debate they never wanted in the first place. I have a convenience store client where I go to buy my coffee and paper every morning. I can tell you that as long as the average Joe can buy his cigarettes, coffee, & lottery tickets every morning, they don't give two dumps about SCHIP, the Iraq war, or Norman Hsu.

So Katie, get the poor child with no insurance off the screen, I just heard K-sperm knocked up another girl friend and I want the details.

Thomas

Thomas Sowell has a great piece revisiting the whole Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill affair.

I still remember my initial thoughts when the great senators attempted to lynch Justice Thomas and that was simply scumbags don't confine their "scumbagginess" to one. It's usually a trait that transcends numerous people.

Yet there was never any reports of the kinds of things by others. What gives?

As I said in a previous post, a liberal has no difficulty in smearing someone's character since it's a quality they give no value to.

Pelosi

How incompetent is republican leadership when they can't get any traction on someone like Pelosi.

Excerpt from a piece by Dana Milbank in the Washington Post

But her spirits soured instantly when somebody asked about the anger of the Democratic "base" over her failure to end the war in Iraq.

"Look," she said, the chicken breast on her plate untouched. "I had, for five months, people sitting outside my home, going into my garden in San Francisco, angering neighbors, hanging their clothes from trees, building all kinds of things -- Buddhas? I don't know what they were -- couches, sofas, chairs, permanent living facilities on my front sidewalk."

Unsmilingly, she continued: "If they were poor and they were sleeping on my sidewalk, they would be arrested for loitering, but because they have 'Impeach Bush' across their chest, it's the First Amendment."

Huh? What does that have to do with anything? What kind of courage does it take for someone to campaign on ending the war and they end up more concerned about someone putting a Buddha in their front yard?

I think Webster's needs a new definition of courage.

Courage adj. - A quality absent in the city of Washington DC.

John Belushi Donut Commericial spoof

Hillary fundraising

A video of the Hillary fund raising machine.

WOW

Is that Fred Thompson's wife?

Do we get to look at her for the next four years.

I think I'm a Fred Head now.

Hopefully they run on a co-presidency platform.

Dems pullout of MI

Once again the party of "every vote counts" has decided to pull out of the Michigan primary.

Anyone see the hypocrisy here?

Just say no

If I hear of an upcoming tax levy or state issue that I'm not sure about, many times, I just look to see who's for and against the issue and I can make up my mind fairly quickly.

Hamilton County, OH has an upcoming sales tax hike to support construction of a new jail.

At least that's how it's presented to the public. This morning I found the local rag (not on line to date) with the headline

Ex-NAACP presidents endorse tax

The NAACP is for a jail tax? If you think something is awry here, you would be correct.

The tax is not just for a jail. It's for a jail and other programs.

I think that should solidify my vote now.

Just pretend you forgot

A man was charged with felony child endangerment after he left his daughter in a hot car.

If he was Brenda Nesselroad-Slaby you could just say you forgot even if it means the baby died and not get charged.

How about that for justice.

"Ask not what your country can do for you....."

Imagine this quote from JFK's inauguration speech if he were to give it today. Before he'd get to the White House, the headlines would scream.....

"Kennedy hates SCHIP, hates children"

"Kennedy expects poor people to pay for groceries"

"Rich at an advantage... can do more for their country, Poor left out"

At one time, it was considered shameful to be poor and to ask for a hand out. To offer to pay for another child's health insurance, would have been consider an insult to the parent.

When my father broke his neck, I remember the shame in my family when we received food stamps and free lunches. I refused to tell the clerk I was a free lunch because I didn't want anyone to know we were poor. I got a job to pay for lunches I could have received for free just so people wouldn't know.

Yet today, it's just gimme, gimme, gimme, more, more, more.

We even have advertisements on the radio to solicit people to take government hand outs.

The trends in this are increasing at ever increasing speeds. I want to blame George H.W. Bush for his part in this.

Remember the debate with Clinton and Perot? When the young woman started her question with "You are our father, we are your children......."

That question was all teed up for Bush to make the role of government clear for the population. Instead he blathered on and on about compassion, programs, blah blah blah.

What he should have said was...

"I am running for President of the United States, I am not your father, nor am I an uncle, cousin brother, sister, mother or aunt.

There are 300 million people in the United States, 300 million people with different wants, needs, & desires. There will never be a government big enough to address every thing for every person in this country.

In addition, the government cannot do anything for one of the 300 million without creating an issue for another."

Instead of politicians stepping up and really laying out the hard cold facts of life, we get these every thing for every body BS sound bites and a government that finds itself as hating children because it won't pay the insurance for children in households making $80,000/year.

The next politician who lays it out like that will get my vote forever. Unfortunately, he couldn't get elected as a dog catcher.

And I wonder how a dumbass like Laketa Cole gets elected.

Laketa follow up

In follow up to Midas' post below. You can tell it's election time in the city.

Just this past weekend I was all set to post about the lack of substantive stupidity on the part of Cincinnati City Council candidates.

I guess I was premature.

I am absolutely amazed at the lack of understanding of basic economic theory by politicians. So I'll explain to Laketa how this works since the public schools failed to.

First Laketa, businesses open in an attempt to make a profit. No business ever opened with it's eyes on improving the community. If someone was into that, they don't open a business they become social workers.

Second, businesses rarely close because they are profitable. If there was a buck to be made in that part of town, someone would be there to make it.

Third, profits are a combination of sales less expense. In the area of town this Aldi's store was located, there may have been tremendous demand for products from this store but there are also incredible expenses that stores don't have to face in the 'burbs. These include, extra security, increased theft, lack of a qualified work force, taxes that are double the suburbs, etc. etc.

Most grocery stores work on a 1-3% net profit margin meaning that on a $100 sale they might make 1 to 3 bucks. If someone steals $100 worth of goods from the store, you need $1000.00 worth of sales just to get yourself back to break even.

I'm actually a little sick and tired of politicians catering to this type of rhetoric. If Ms. Cole was a true leader she would take the time to educate the people in the neighborhood of what it takes to create a positive business culture.

Instead we get this playing down to the idiocy of the populace and, as a result, businesses just decide it's not worth operating in a city that would rather line up with ding dong and derelicts instead of their businesses.

We all operate in a cost/benefit principle in all aspects of life; marriage, where we live, what we buy, etc... Businesses are no different.

Until local politicians do the things necessary to welcome businesses to their community, they will continue to be littered with JD Byrider and check cashing stores.

MoveOn.Dems

The party of open thought, wide minds and a large tent is putting out hits on self-enterprising T-shirt designers:

Michelle Malkin: MoveOn.org, the left-wing extremists who bashed the commander of American forces in Iraq as a traitor, should get out of the political kitchen. The George Soros-funded hitmen can't stand even a bit of heat from Mom-and-Pop retailers who tried selling T-shirts and mugs on the Internet critical of the "General Betray Us" smear ads against Gen. David Petraeus.

Laketa speaks

Laketa Coles thinks Aldi's owners are racists because they want to move their store out of Avondale. Guess it has nothing to do with making money, security, declining populations and the overall cost of doing business in the area.

Without the Aldi, Avondale residents would be left with only convenience stores for food shopping in the neighborhood.

And that's why we (African-Americans) have the diabetes, the hypertension, because we don't always have stores to buy fresh produce and healthy food," Cole said.

"They built the store off the backs of the African-American community, the poor community," she said.

When they eat their own, Part Tres

An Air American personality I've never heard of (is that redundant?), has a piece about Hillary's leadership.

Excerpt.

If I seem down on Democratic leadership, I have excellent reasons. Because there is no leadership. In August, they lost a fight on the FISA bill (actually, what fight?) giving the government new powers to spy on Americans. They just allowed Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman to pass two bills that threaten war against Iran — again, without a fight. They just lost votes on withdrawing troops from Iraq — again.

And all of these losses are against the most persistently unpopular president of our lifetime. If you’re not down on these Democratic “leaders,” then you’re not paying attention.

But above all of them stands Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. She is comfortably leading the race for her party’s presidential nomination. She has the bully pulpit. The press will listen to whatever she says. She can make an impact. She is in a position to lead.

And what has she done with that?

I’m still waiting …

In all honesty, throughout his piece, I kept thinking.... replace Hillary with the name of any senator and you wouldn't have to change the text at all.

As far as I'm concerned, John McCain is the only senator that has at least fathered and moved legislation he believes in (albeit none of it appetizing for conservatives). It's why I have so much disdain for senators and probably why none of them can win an election. They spend way too much time bobbing and weaving through votes, always playing a nuance for the masses.

It's why leadership in the senate is a total oxymoron. Leaders aren't groomed in the senate; only weasels and snakes are groomed in the senate. Larry Craig is the epitome of everything senatorial.

If I were to ever have to shake the hand of Voinovich, Brown, et al I would immediately look for a napkin so I could wipe their slime off my hands.

It's really the only reason I support Guiliani for president..... He's actually run a government not run for cover with every little controversial vote like the "senators".

Wow, I need a shower just writing about these derelicts.

These Go To Eleven

One of the greatest Spinal Tap clips

Doh! Award

The City of Cincinnati has issued a statement in response to complaints from the public about them showing the OSU-Purdue game on the Fountain Square jumbotron instead of the UC-Rutgers game Sat night.

The Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation (3CDC) manages Fountain Square and operates and determines the programming for the LED Board. Steve Leeper, the director of 3CDC agrees that they should have played the U.C. game. It was an oversight on their part. They promise that they will give U.C. the priority in the future.

Ron Wahl
Assistant to Councilmember Roxanne Qualls

Why the Bengals will always suck

It's been 4 plus seasons of the Marvin regime in Cincinnati. Despite what you think of him as a coach, there are several reasons the Bengals will always be a second tier NFL football team. One of those reasons is the front office.

Just compare the front office personnel of the Indianapolis Colts v. The Beagles (HT Lance McAlister).

Colts

Chris Polian, Vice President of Football Operations
Steve Champlin, Director of Football Administration
Tom Telesco, Director of Player Personnel
Dom Anile, Sr. Consultant to Player Personnel
Clyde Powers, Director of Pro Player Personnel
David Caldwell, Western Regional Scout
Todd Vasvari, Eastern Regional Scout
Bob Ferguson, Special Asst. to the Dir. of Player Personnel
John Becker, Area Scout
Ryan Cavanaugh, Area Scout
Mark Ellenz, Area Scout
Bob Guarini, Area Scout
Byron Lusby, Area Scout
Matt Terpening, Area Scout
Kevin Rogers, Pro Scout
J. W. Jordan, Salary Cap/Personnel Analyst
Stefani Paul, Player Development Administrator
Jamie Moore, Scouting Assistant
Jon Shaw, Scouting Assistant
Debbie Finn, Asst. to the Director of Player Personnel

Bengals

Pete Brown Senior Vice President - Player Personnel
Paul Brown Vice President - Player Personnel
Jim Lippincott Director of Football Operations
Duke Tobin Director of Player Personnel
Greg Seamon Scout
Earl Biederman
John Cooper
Bill Tobin Scouting Consultants
Debbie LaRocco Personnel Assistant

Can you imagine any business that runs a 100 million of payroll with this kind of staff. You could get better players using Monster.com than this assortment of ass kissers and nepotism.

I can appreciate wanting to improve your organization from talent drafted and developed from within. But if you are going to do that, you need to spend the bucks to pay scouts. Watching the SEC and Big Ten game of the week is not an effective personnel strategy.

So everyone that buys those tickets for that crap they call a team, call yourself an enabler and be used to 8-8 because that's what you are supporting. The city of Cincinnati paid for and deserves better.

Biofuels & Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Fill'er Up!

A new study co-authored by Nobel Prize winning chemist Paul Crutzen argues that growing some of the most common biofuel crops, including corn bioethanol, releases around two times the amount of the potent greenhouse gas Nitous Oxide (N2O) than earlier studies supported, which, according to the study, would erase any benefits from not using fossil fuels.

"What we are saying is that growing many biofuels is probably of no benefit and in fact is actually making the climate issue worse," said co-author Keith Smith from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

According to the article from Chemistry World, some previous estimates had suggested that biofuels could cut greenhouse gas emissions by up to 40 per cent.

Bears win?

You got to be kidding me.

I went to bed last night at halftime, assuming that Brett Favre would complete another 30 passes in the second half only to wake up this morning to see....... the Bears won?

Happy Columbus Day

I have to thank the intellectual elite for this one. I never celebrated Columbus Day. As a holiday, it never had much meaning to me until a bunch of intellectual elites had it mean that everything related to European expansion was bad.

So happy Columbus Day, I think I'll celebrate by enjoying a big glass of wine in my palatial estate that was built reminiscent of European expansion... although today they call it urban sprawl.

The party of faith

Once again, the party of faith is putting together a radio show on atheism via Air America radio network.

As a Christian, I'm feeling more welcome all the time.

What do we own?

The conservative UAW guy has a breakdown of the national debt and the contingent liabilities of the federal government.

Congress recently passed a credit limit increase to 9.85 TRILLION dollars.

This on top of at least 30 TRILLION in unfunded social security and medicare expenses.

I'm often troubled by the media's lack of interest in the national debt issues. Often the debt is refered to in % of GDP, fixed dollars, etc.

But as an accountant, debt is relative to what you own.

For instance, no one (except a pay day check casher) would loan money to someone without a corresponding asset. For instance, you borrow $100,000 for a house, the bank wants at least $100,000 in collateral.

What collateral does the US government have? I've done lot's of internet searches and cannot find anything that estimates the value of assets the US government owns.

I know there's lots of real estate, oil and forestry reserves, gold, etc. But what's it all worth?

We've got to be getting close to that limit.

Just think of the day some repo guys are out on the tarmac hooking up Air Force One.

Pelosi prays for Bush

SO Nancy Pelosi prays for George Bush. It's nice to see one of the party of family values prays for our president.

Out of curiosity, does her god wear leather chaps, a ball gag and answers her prayers in Broadway musical tunes?

Goat

Jay Mariottti: It's sickening enough that someone would kill a goat, hang it on the Harry Caray statue the other night and post a video of the carcass on YouTube. But you know what's really creepy? It had zero impact in reversing the most futile, maddening, wretched and incurably impotent daze in the history of American sports.

If sacrificing a billy goat can't purge a curse, isn't it doomed to last forever?

This is Cubdom, where despair comes with the game ticket and parking pass.

Don't talk to strangers

Marion Jones became the latest in a group of now infamous people that includes Martha Stewart and Scooter Libby of committing the crime of lying to federal investigators.

Regardless of what you think about each of those people's alleged crimes, there seems to be something inherently wrong about being convicted of lying to investigators when they can't convict you of the crime the investigators are investigating.

So tip of the week, if groups of people show up at your door wearing dark suits and white shirts, politely tell them you've got better things to do.

tryforgettin merchandise

I've been doing the blog for almost a year and I can say without question the most popular post so far has been tryforgettin'

If you want any merchandise related to the video, click here.

I receive nothing from the sale of the merchandise. It just seems like a shameless plug for someone who's helped out my blog traffic.

Go Bearcats

With the Wisconsin loss, LSU now owns the second longest win streak with ten, I believe.

The nation's second longest win streak with nine is..........The UC Bearcats.

With their 28-23, win over 20 ranked Rutgers on the road the Bearcats have the 'Nati crazy about college football.

I refuse to predict anything with the Bearcats since my World Series prediction of the Cubs went down faster than a Bill Clinton intern.

But I'm enjoying it while it lasts.