Marriage

For Mr. & Mrs. Gekko

Happy Thanksgiving Part 2

the follow up to the earlier post

Marital Bliss

If you read this blog with regularity, you know I'm engaged to the lovely future Mrs. Gekko.

Tomorrow we'll "make it legal" with a marriage and subsequent honeymoon. While I'm away on my honeymoon, I'll try to do some posting but it will probably be light since I really don't know what wireless service I'll be able to get.

Needless to say, I have much to be thankful for. My only hope is to have a marriage as full of love, trust and honor as Bill and Hillary.

Are you a liberal?

While researching the previous post I ran across this quiz on Dennis Prager's site.

Are you a liberal? It has some interesting questions.

America

We can all agree that our country has a lot of problems. But on days like today it's wise to focus on what's good about our great land. We are a blessed nation. What was true in 1961 is still, in many ways, true today.

The Wall Street Journal has published this editorial annually since 1961.

Anyone whose labors take him into the far reaches of the country, as ours lately have done, is bound to mark how the years have made the land grow fruitful.

This is indeed a big country, a rich country, in a way no array of figures can measure and so in a way past belief of those who have not seen it. Even those who journey through its Northeastern complex, into the Southern lands, across the central plains and to its Western slopes can only glimpse a measure of the bounty of America.

Turkey Day

If you had to invite one presidential candidate to dinner, who would it be?

Ohio pols....can you read?

There is an incredible shift in population away from the NE and midwest to the sunshine states.

Excerpt

The new Almanac of American Politics is out, and statistics within the Bible for political junkies show a rapidly changing American political landscape. Population, statistics show, is draining from the Midwest and Northeast and pouring into southern, sunnier states. It will take a decade for the results to be evident, but one thing is sure: With changes as rapid as these, the electoral college math in 2012 will be dramatically different from what it is in 2008.

Knowing the competent leadership in Ohio, you'll raise taxes and increase government bureaucracy. That'll show all those wealthy types who's the boss.

Happy Thanksgiving

The WKRP Turkey Drop

The fairness doctrine

I happened to catch Dennis Prager's show yesterday and he was interviewing Ron Brownstein, of the LA Times.

Brownstein is pushing a new book titled "The Second Civil War". Brownstein's asserts the coarseness of political discourse is threatening to civil American society.

The main culprit of the coarsening of this discourse? It is, surprise, talk radio. Brownstein wants to bring back the fairness doctrine. Prager nailed him on the main salient point. Prager asked Brownstein if he'd be willing to bring back the fairness doctrine if it applied to all aspects of American life; universities, newspapers, private foundations, etc.

Brownstein chucked the question but I found it interesting that anything the conservatives dominate, liberals are all about making "fair" but they don't want anything to do with opposing opinions when it doesn't suit them.

The real reasoning American political discourse has been downgraded? Liberals see talk radio and Fox News as threats to their "truth" and they'll impose any form of censorship to make sure they monopolize the "truth".

The party of free speech II

Here's a post on Hot Air illustrating the party of free speech in action as they stormed the stage at the University of Florida.

Michelle Malkin has some video footage of the party who "supports out troops" blockading a military shipment.

Stickland hates the poor

Matt at WMD discloses the hatred Ted Strickland has for poor people.

Dowd on Clinton

Maureen Dowd takes a few shots at Hillary's "experience".

Excerpt

Her Democratic rivals had meekly gone along, accepting her self-portrait as a former co-president who gets to take credit for everything important Bill Clinton did in the ’90s. But she was not elected or appointed to a position that needed Senate confirmation. And the part of the Clinton administration that worked best — the economy, stupid — was run by Robert Rubin. Hillary did not show good judgment in her areas of influence — the legal fiefdom, health care and running oppo-campaigns against Bill’s galpals.

She went on some first lady jaunts and made a good speech at a U.N. women’s conference in Beijing. But she was certainly not, as her top Iowa supporter, former governor Tom Vilsack claimed yesterday on MSNBC, “the face of the administration in foreign affairs.”

She was a top adviser who had a Nixonian bent for secrecy and a knack for hard-core politicking. But if running a great war room qualified you for president, Carville and Stephanopoulos would be leading the pack.

Hillary pulled the classic John Kerry, pick something as an attribute and run on it. Then let people review said attribute and question what the hell you're talking about.

I think you're starting to see an implosion of support for Hillary from the democratic elite who realize that she's not electable because of her Nixonian ways.

Look for more rats jumping off the ships in the future.

See also Tony Blankley Mrs. Clinton's "experience"

Another media spin

The main stream media has taken a recent quote from Scott McClellan and did what they always do.

Spin it to make Bush look bad.

Excerpt

In an excerpt from his forthcoming book, McClellan recounts the 2003 news conference in which he told reporters that aides Karl Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby were "not involved" in the leak involving operative Valerie Plame.

"There was one problem. It was not true," McClellan writes, according to a brief excerpt released Tuesday. "I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president's chief of staff and the president himself."

First of all, Rove was never implicated in any of the leak case. And while Libby leaked, there was never any evidence that it was a coordinated effort on behalf of the White House to discredit Plame or Wilson.

Secondly, the real leak to Novak, which started the whole thing, was a by a democratic sympathizer and local big mouth Richard Armitage.

Third, this article is implying that Bush, Cheney et al told McClellan to go out and spread falsehoods. But he used the word "unknowingly". Isn't it possible that Bush and Cheney told him that the White House didn't know anything because they, in fact, didn't?

Another reason to distrust the media.

As long as you vote our way....

The party of "counting every vote" somehow has a problem with petitioners who gather signatures to place an issue on the ballot.

In 2005 Mr. Carpenter, a Tulsan, launched a signature campaign to get a state-wide vote on a Taxpayer Bill of Rights. Tabor, as it is known, would cap the rate at which state government spending could increase. Mr. Jacob and Ms. Johnson were later brought on board to assist the effort. Not surprisingly, politicians and interest groups that favor big government have developed an intense dislike for Tabor spending limits, even though, like lawmaker term limits, they tend to be popular with voters.

This certainly proved to be the case in Oklahoma. Despite strong opposition from organized labor especially, Tabor petition advocates managed to gather some 300,000 signatures from registered voters, far more than the 219,000 needed to get the measure on the state ballot. Following a court challenge, however, the signatures were invalidated, not because the signers weren't legitimate but because the Oklahoma Supreme Court determined that nonresidents of the state had collected signatures.

Ironically, it is perfectly legal for opponents of a petition to solicit money and manpower from out-of-state. And sure enough, public sector unions opposed to the Tabor initiative recruited people from outfits like the Oregon-based Voter Education Project, an offshoot of the AFL-CIO that specializes in countering signature drives. They also set up Web sites that advertised the location of signature-gathers and urged their members to harass them.

After the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled, Attorney General Edmondson could have let the matter die. Instead, he decided that the best use of scarce prosecutorial resources was to indict the petition campaigners. There's reason to believe his decision has less to do with enforcing the law and more to do with warning activists to think twice before challenging political elites.

More....

Which candidate do you hate the most?

Hat Tip to Nasty, Brutish & Short.

Here's a quiz to test which candidate you hate the most.

For me, it was Dennis Kucinich. And here I was starting to enjoy hearing about his contacts with aliens and UFO's

Grady the Badger

These ads are great. You Tube's got a whole bunch of them. When this ad's finished, you can scroll under the screen to see the others.

Hat Tip to Conservative UAW Guy

Top five US economic myths

I finally got a chance to read through Tom's Top Five Myths about the US Economy.

Check it out.

Climate changes evolution?

Climate swings shaped human evolution, researchers claim

We know these researchers have to be a bunch of quacks. Everyone knows that climate change has only occurred since the invention of the SUV.

More.........

Dump Dianne

Lately, I've been going to a lot of liberal sites to get a different perspective on the political scene.

This was a stunner. Apparently, liberals aren't happy with Dianne Feinstein in much the way they went after Joe Lieberman.

Liberals upset with Dianne Feinstein? You've got to be kidding me.

Excerpt from the American Spectator.

Such cardinal sins have left Feinstein facing a censure resolution that left-wing activists hope to move at the California Democratic Party's executive board meeting tomorrow. Proclaiming Democrats' "disappointment at, and censure of, Senator Feinstein for ignoring Democratic principles and falling so far below the standard of what we expect of our elected officials," the resolution faces an uphill battle. Before it can be considered by the party's executive board, the resolutions committee must approve the text unanimously. Even if it does, the resolution may not pass -- according to its communications director, the California State Party remains supportive of Feinstein.

Next on the liberal agenda.... Please tell me it will be Ted Kennedy.

The campaign is heating up

You know when the campaign is heating up when convicted criminals, pardoned by one BJ Clinton, are contributing to the Hillary campaign.

Is there anybody out there they won't take money from?

Income disparity

Thomas Sowell in true Thomas Sowell fashion lays out how the top 1% of the top income earners saw their incomes drop in the past ten years v. the bottom 1/5 who saw their incomes go up by an average of 91%.

Excerpt

That is why the IRS data, which are for people 25 years old and older, and which follow the same individuals over time, find those in the bottom 20 percent of income-tax filers almost doubling their income in a decade. That is why they are no longer in the same bracket.

That is also why the share of income going to the bottom 20 percent bracket can be going down, as the Census Bureau data show, while the income going to the people who began the decade in that bracket is going up by large amounts.

More....

No Wrong Turns

Ted Kennedy thinks the Supreme Court has taken a wrong turn.

Let's face it no should know more about wrong turns than a Kennedy.

Another writer's strike

CBS News writers authorize
union to call a strike

You mean we won't get those fake national guard stories anymore?

A Good Red

From ryanparkersongs.com

Paid sick days

I happen to run across the Progress Ohio website and saw the campaign for paid sick days on one of the pages.

Since this group wants to tell me how to run my business, I sent them this email.

I am a CPA in SW Ohio. I currently have one full time and one part time office employees.

How much should I compensate them?

Thank you
Gordon

And I received this response.

Thank you for your interest in the campaign. Please note that we will respond to serious inquiries only as we work hard to ensure that earning Paid Sick Days is a reality for working Ohioans.

But my question is serious. If you are a proponent of this bill, please tell me how much I should pay my employees.

You have no problems telling me how many paid sick days I should offer. What if my employees are willing to give up paid sick days for a higher hourly wage. Shouldn't I be allowed to offer that?

Assume I have two employees that do the exact same job. One needs health insurance, the other is covered by her spouses insurance. Should they be paid the same?

The fact is, the people who run these socialists organizations have never run a business before. They have this belief that we employers are out to squeeze the life out of our employees. They've never had to run out and get a cash advance on a credit card to make sure payroll got met that week (as I had to in my first year of business).

These guys hide behind the shield of labor unions who enact some of the worst labor practices in America. Ask one of the picketers in front of biggs or Walmart some time and ask them what they get paid and their benefits.

Has a liberal ever really sat down and thought about why businesses locate overseas? Have they ever made the connection that businesses that locate overseas, don't have to worry about such things?

Democrats won't back down on war

Can you name one time a liberal program actually solved a problem?

So why shouldn't they not back down on the war. They've never been on the correct side of history anyway.

What's wrong with Black America

Here's a start.

A commemoration of the Tawana Brawley fiasco.

The Clinton credentials

Deroy Murdock on how Billary's credentials match up with other contenders in the field.

Hooking up

Kathleen Parker with a great piece on how "hooking up" hurts women.

Every parent should have their daughter read it.

A letter to the NCAA

Dear NCAA

I just read the article about the NCAA cracking down on school nicknames that espouse racial stereotypes and caricatures. It's ridiculous that a school like the University of North Dakota would treat a group of prideful Native Americans like an animals.

I appreciate your work in making sure these schools quit using groups of people as mascots.


Sincerely,

The Notre Dame
Fighting Irish Leprechaun

Defintion of Bengal

Bengal v. To lose in a manner that's almost super natural.

Thanks to Carson Palmer's 2 interceptions returned for touchdowns, Cincinnati bengaled the game to Arizona.