A front is moving in

Double standard?

So is the liberal outrage over the New Yorker
cover a double standard?

Check this artwork from a Rolling Stone article.

Where was the outrage here?

Tonight's OVI checkpoint

There will be a DUI checkpoint in Blue Ash and Clermont County (on Ohio Pike) tonight.

I'm having difficulty finding the exact locations of the checkpoints. If you know of the location, please let us know in the comment section.

Otherwise, if you see a Cincinnati Bengal partying around you, I'd leave. Because you know they'll find a cop somewhere.

National Security

A great shot

McCain on the question of "is Obama a socialist?"

[McCain] also said Obama had the “most extreme” record in the Senate.

Asked later if he thought Obama was an extremist, McCain said: “His voting record … is more to the left than the announced socialist in the United States Senate, Bernie Sanders of Vermont.”

Does McCain think Obama is a socialist? “I don’t know. All I know is his voting record, and that’s what people usually judge their elected representatives by.”

Of more interest to me are these socialist conferences he attended while in college. The Weekly Standard has more.

Do you think the apostles, aka the US media, will confront Obama about the shot?

Maybe they can ask those campaign workers with the Che posters on the walls.

Ban guns, be rid of violence. Not

A couple of days ago, I noted a debate I had regarding gun violence.

My point to gun control nuts is that it's not the guns, otherwise, we'd have shootouts in every rural enclave in the US where gun ownership is probably higher than urban areas.

Here's a piece indicating some cause and effect...

It shows up in youth violence, in child abuse and neglect, in school dropout rates, and in a steady stream of young men into the juvenile detention center at Oak Hill and the D.C. jail.

A major cause of all this? Teen pregnancy. That, at least, is the thesis of Brenda Rhodes Miller, executive director of the D.C. Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. She makes a case that only the ignorant would ignore.

"We used to say that boys get guns and girls get babies. Now, we routinely ask reporters for the age of parents whenever someone meets a tragic end," Miller wrote in an e-mail this week.

Her point? D.C. neighborhoods plagued by youth violence are the same neighborhoods where birth rates among teenagers are highest. To see for yourself, go to the campaign's Web site: http://www.dccampaign.org/content/view/144/106/. Look at the 2005 and 2006 maps of juvenile arrests and teen births.

Oak Hill and the city jail? Consider the youths in the juvenile justice system. Many are sons who were born to teenage mothers. Miller's organization points out that these youths are three times as likely as other boys to end up in the justice system.

Many also are teenage fathers.

When are we going to get real and decide that our welfare state has failed both taxpayers and recipients?

What party is she?

She noticed that Girl Scouts had set up a cookie sale on the street corner outside her office. Taylor approached a troop leader and asked if they had permission to set up.

The troop leader, Maia West, said she did.

West said Taylor told her she was disrupting Taylor's business. Taylor says she was simply worried that the girls could get hurt next to such a busy intersection.

The confrontation ended with Taylor calling the police and the half-dozen 8- to 10-year-old Girl Scouts packing up their cookies.

"We were just yelling 'Girl Scout cookies!' and the lady comes out and tells us to stop it because it's ruining her business and she can't work," said West's 10-year-old daughter, Amanda. "The lady told us to go, so we had to leave."

The question is.... what party is she?

A car is the least of their problems

Meet Donna Nunez and Angelica Hernandez. They were profiled in an NPR piece about hard times in Ohio.

Nunez, 40, has never worked and has no high school degree. She says a car accident 17 years ago left her depressed and disabled, incapable of getting a job. Instead, she and her daughter, Angelica Hernandez, survive on a $637 Social Security check and $102 in food stamps.

You're telling me that in the past 17 years, this woman has been unable to squeeze in a GED in that demanding schedule of being poor.

That would go a long way into helping this woman 1) kick her depression and 2) help her find a job. In addition, couldn't she find a way to walk off some of those pounds. That would also be a great first step in helping her disability and also helping her depression issues.

Believe it or not, I have a lot of compassion for these women. I've seen this kind of generational poverty in my lifetime. These women probably have no knowledge of a life outside of this life of despair. Unfortunately, the government has become enablers for these women to continue these lives of despair.

This is why, if we're going to have a welfare state, there has to be conditions to receiving benefits. You should at least be going to school on your way to a GED. You should submit to drug testing. If you receive section 8 housing vouchers, you should be subject to home inspections.

If we push people in need to achieve, they might actually be exposed to a life that's not the life of a couch potato.

Friday Funny III

Friday Funny II

Terrorist technology v Western engineering

Friday Funny

I never knew you could play a kazoo like this....

Rated R for provocative.

Charles Krauthammer nails this one

Charles Krauthammer has a personality profile on the world's most narcissistic personality. No Not Bill Clinton. He's chump change next to this guy....

Americans are beginning to notice Obama's elevated opinion of himself.

There's nothing new about narcissism in politics. Every senator looks in the mirror and sees a president. Nonetheless, has there ever been a presidential nominee with a wider gap between his estimation of himself and the sum total of his lifetime achievements?

Obama is a three-year senator without a single important legislative achievement to his name, a former Illinois state senator who voted "present" nearly 130 times. As president of the Harvard Law Review, as law professor and as legislator, has he ever produced a single notable piece of scholarship? Written a single memorable article? His most memorable work is a biography of his favorite subject: himself.

It is a subject upon which he can dilate effortlessly. In his victory speech upon winning the nomination, Obama declared it a great turning point in history -- "generations from now we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment" -- when, among other wonders, "the rise of the oceans began to slow." As economist Irwin Stelzer noted in his London Daily Telegraph column, "Moses made the waters recede, but he had help." Obama apparently works alone.

Pot, Kettle Black award

This week's Pot, Kettle Black award winner goes to the person who offered up this quote...

"You know, God bless him, bless his heart, president of the United States, a total failure, losing all credibility with the American people on the economy, on the war, on energy, you name the subject,"

The Nominees are

a) Amy Winehouse
b) Bob Taft
c) Nancy Lollapelosi

The answer, c. The leader of the House with a whopping 9% approval rating.

Wow, Jesus only needed 12

Cast of 300 Advises Obama on Foreign Policy

more...

Gordodamus

Like the the prophetic sage Nostradamus, ole Gordon here hit this one out of the park months ago....

Crude oil for August delivery fell $5.42, or 4 percent, to $129.18 a barrel at the 2:30 p.m. close of floor trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices touched $129, the lowest since June 6. Futures are up 74 percent from a year ago.

Prices have dropped more than $18 from last week's record of $147.27 a barrel on signs that consumption in the U.S. is falling. Oil is down 11 percent since July 14, the biggest three- day drop since December 2004.

More....

What happened? Simply announcing the potential for exploration.

I'll be at The Summit for everyone who wants to hear my future predictions.

A short life in "Progress" City

"Violent crime in the city of Chicago is out of control," Blagojevich said at the bill signing ceremony. "I'm offering resources of the state to the city to work in a constructive way with Mayor Daley to do everything we can possibly do to help stop this violence," said the governor.

The summer of 2008 will be remembered as especially violent. Blagojevich said there's been a child shot nearly every day since June 26, with 29 Chicago Public School students shot since last fall.

"Twenty-eight of those kids are African-American and Latino. Hard to imagine that that would be acceptable if that were, in fact, the case in other parts of the city or in a middle-class suburb somewhere," he said. "Something is wrong, and this violence has to stop."

More....

Hey Guv, how is it that all these God and gun clinging red necks in SE Ohio somehow find a way to keep from shooting each other every night.

I don't know for sure but I'm betting that at least fifty percent of the homes in my neighborhood (SW Ohio) has a loaded gun in it, yet, to my knowledge, there's never been a shooting of any kind in the neighborhood.

If you are a "progressive", your first reaction is to blame guns. But it can't be that simple because we have guns in Warren county and we're not shooting each other. In fact, "progressive" cities have the most restrictive guns laws, probably have less actual gun ownership (as a percentage) and still have all these killings.

It's not the guns.

I got into a debate with a liberal blog last weekend who wanted to blame this gun violence on Bush, Cheney, & Rumsfeld. This is the type of "progressive" thinking that has our inner cities becoming shooting ranges.

The truth is harder to swallow for "progressives". This calamity is a total by product of the welfare state "progressives" created. And now they're delusional to the true issue at hand.

All you need to do is look at our prison population and you’ll see two common threads.

1) Fatherless homes
2) Drug and alcohol abuse (I would offer that this is actually a sub set of fatherless homes)

Our current welfare culture has diminished the importance of two parent families and has created an entire subculture of young males who have no respect for authority and no respect for their own lives.

So what if I pop a cap in your ass or you shoot me? When lives have no value, who cares?

We’ve spent trillions on the “war on poverty” and guess what? We have even more poverty today than we did in the 1960’s. Only this poverty is made up of “poverty of the soul” which is probably worse than financial poverty and why we have a serious group of men in this country who have no problems taking a shot at a cop.

Liberals are adept at putting salve on symptoms (such as taking away guns). When they want to get real and start dealing with the rot we’re breeding with our welfare state, we’ll actually begin to make some progress with this senseless violence.

Remember, cities are run exclusively by "progressives", the suburbs are not. Cities have all the murders, the suburbs do not. You tell me the difference.

What's so "progressive" about homicides?

Just for Midas

Last night's dinner at Fraze. Sans the cheese dip.

At least he has hope

From an alleged conservative republican on why he's voting for Obamamania....

Plus, when it comes to domestic issues, I don't take Obama at his word. That may sound cynical. But the fact that he says just about all the wrong things on domestic issues doesn't bother me as much as it once would have....

snip

Besides, I suspect Obama is more free-market friendly than he lets on. He taught at the University of Chicago, a hotbed of right-of-center thought....

snip

When it comes to health care, I am hoping Obama quietly recognizes that a crusade against pharmaceutical companies would result in the opposite of any intended effect...

snip

Even if my hopes on domestic policy are dashed and Obama reveals himself as an unreconstructed, dyed-in-the-wool, big-government liberal, I'm still voting for him.

I guess that's the HOPE message Obamamania is preaching. Let's just Hope and Pray he's not the next Jimma Carter.

Wait a minute.... baby or "bio waste"

A woman has settled her lawsuit against Los Angeles County involving the disposal of her infant daughter as "bio-waste" after she had an abortion.

36-year-old Yolanda Garnett filed the negligence lawsuit September 25, 2007 in Los Angeles Superior Court. The lawsuit stated Garnett had asked the Coroner's office to return her daughter's body for burial after an autopsy was performed but was told the aborted fetus was deemed bio-waste and thrown out.

So you decide to kill an unborn baby and you're worried about how the remains are disposed of?

Too bad this woman didn't have enough respect to actually keep the baby ALIVE.

Obamamania - Catch it

Michael Medved on the 2008 Cult of Personality aka Barack Hussein Obama.

Barack Obama isn’t just conducting a political campaign; he’s launching his very own religious cult.

Under the headline “Obama Supporters Take His Name as Their Own,” the New York Times reported on a bizarre fad among the candidate’s enraptured acolytes: across the country, they’ve begun adopting his middle name, Hussein. “The result is a group of unlikely sounding Husseins,” writes reporter Jodi Kantor, “from Jaime Hussein Alvarez of Washington, D.C., to Kelly Hussein Crowley of Norman, Oklahoma, to Sarah Beth Hussein Frumkin of Chicago.”

One of the key elements in many religious cults involves a name change – like transitioning from Richard Alpert to Baba Ram Dass, or from Malcolm Little to Malcolm X. To Obama’s true-believers, adding an Islamic middle name is a small price to pay for connecting with a candidate who qualifies as a “lightworker” and “an enlightened being,” according to San Francisco Chronicle columnist Mark Morford.

“Many spiritually advanced people I know,” he writes, “identify Obama as a Lightworker, the rare kind of attuned being who has the ability to lead us not merely to new foreign policies or health care plans or whatnot, but who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet, of relating and connecting and engaging with this bizarre earthly experiment. These kinds of people actually help us evolve. They are philosophers and peacemakers of a very high order, and they speak not just to reason or emotion, but to the soul.”

I think the Obama campaign could be in deep trouble as a result of this cult like relationship he has with his supporters.

I can see a considerable backlash towards a candidate who makes news commentators legs "all tingly". You saw it during the campaign, when it took SNL to finally call out the incredible adoration of the media towards Obamamania. He started tanking almost immediately.

It's not the kind of thing that works real well in flyover country where people have their sense about them.

Money for nothin'

Old Gordon went to the Mark Knopfler show at Fraze Pavilion last night.

In my limited music knowledge, there are but a handful of guitarists who's sound is so distinctive, you know who's playing without ever hearing the song before; Robert Cray, Duane Allman, Eric Clapton, Neil Young & Walter Becker are ones who come to mind for me. Knopfler's sound may be the most distinct.

Unfortunately, I really hadn't followed him much since Dire Straits so I wasn't really sure what to expect last night.

Knopfler must have had every string instrument on stage, ukulele, violin, mandolin, the old time bass, etc. The show was a great evening of string harmonics.

He did do some old Dire Straits; So far Away, Sultans of Swing, Romeo & Juliet and Brothers in Arms. He didn't play Money for Nothin'. The Sultans of Swing solo was awesome.

It was a good show but a show like Knopfler's is difficult to enjoy when you have packs of douche bags talking behind you all night. I moved twice to no avail.

My recommendation. Take the $40 you'd spend for a ticket and buy 4-5 CD's go out on your back deck after all the kids are down and fall asleep to the sounds. Trust me. You'll enjoy it more.

Other concert notes...

1) When are whale tails going out of style? It's getting about as sexy as plumber's crack.

2) Hey Riverbend, you might want to talk to the plumbers at Fraze. They must have invented some new plumbing technique to drain that inch of piss/water off the bathroom floor before the show even starts.

3) Hey Mark, we got your point. You don't want to be videoed. Really, you ought to be thankful that there are fans interested in actually taping the show.

4) How is it possible that Knoplfer/Dire Straits & Rush are not in the rock in roll hall of fame before Jackson Browne, The Police & Madonna?

5) T shirt of the night "Dead heads for Obama". I'd say that's about right.

Obamamania - Catch it

Thanks to reader Bernie

Who do you love?

Each day, I try and rifle through most of the links in my sidebar for material to post on. But lately, it seems to be getting a little stale.

In addition, I'm trying to spruce up the old blog to include more of what my readers are interested in.

If you are a regular reader, please let me know some of your news/blog sources that you think are pretty good. I'll put those on the sidebar.

Drop your list(s) in the comment section or email me at gtvcpa@yahoo.com.

Also, feel free to send me anything you think might be of interest to the readers. Readers Mark and Tony send me things that are of interest and that is always greatly appreciated. This is still a non profit mission and, unlike PBS, I get no government subsidy so any help is greatly appreciated.

Obamamania releases list of official Obama jokes

From Andy Borowitz

Saying he is "sympathetic to late night comedians' struggle to find jokes to make about me," Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill) today issued a list of official campaign-approved Barack Obama jokes.

The five jokes, which Sen. Obama said he is making available to all comedians free of charge, are as follows:

Barack Obama and a kangaroo pull up to a gas station. The gas station attendant takes one look at the kangaroo and says, "You know, we don't get many kangaroos here." Barack Obama replies, "At these prices, I'm not surprised. That's why we need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil."

A traveling salesman knocks on the door of a farmhouse, and much to his surprise, Barack Obama answers the door. The salesman says, "I was expecting the farmer's daughter." Barack Obama replies, "She's not here. The farm was foreclosed on because of subprime loans that are making a mockery of the American Dream."

A horse walks into a bar. The bartender says, "Why the long face?" Barack Obama replies, "His jockey just lost his health insurance, which should be the right of all Americans."

Q: What's black and white and red all over?
Barack Obama: The New Yorker magazine, which should be embarrassed after publishing such a tasteless and offensive cover, which I reject and denounce.

A Christian, a Jew and Barack Obama are in a rowboat in the middle of the ocean. Barack Obama says, "This joke isn't going to work because there's no Muslim in this boat."

Move those jobs here

California State Automobile Association will close its California call centers - including its 500-employee Elk Grove facility - earlier than expected and send the jobs out of state, citing the cost to do business in California.

AAA's Elk Grove site on West Taron Drive will close by the end of 2010, said spokeswoman Cynthia Harris. Last October, AAA officials had said they planned to close the facility by 2011.

AAA's Livermore facility will close on Sept. 1. Its Irvine center will close in March 2009.

In all, about 900 people work at the three centers.

"It costs more to do business in California than other states," she continued, adding that increased demand for AAA's services and AAA's expanded geographic reach were also factors.

Hey AAA, move all those jobs to the great state of Ohio, The Heart of it All. We offer the following amenities for employers with good jobs....

- The eighth highest corporate tax rates in the country

- Oppressive unemployment and worker's comp rates

- Higher than average minimum wage

- No smoking, no where, no time

- Compliance with over 1000 city and school district income tax jurisdictions.

And soon to come..... Seven paid sick days for your employees.

It's a regular employer's paradise.

"Progressive" NIMBY

TIM Robbins' and Susan Sarandon's mission to protect the poor and needy doesn't apply to their Greenwich Village neighborhood. The Oscar-winning liberals recently attended a Landmarks Preservation Commission hearing to oppose St. Vincent's plea to build a new, larger hospital on West 12th Street, three blocks from their home. This despite their support of causes like UNICEF and Champions for Children. "The hospital provides $40 million in care to the indigent every year," one proponent told us. "Robbins dismissed more than 100 people rallying in support of the hospital - low-income, union workers and veterans of the AIDS crisis - as 'those people out there.' " Sarandon said in a statement: "Improving the hospital is a great idea. However, this can be accomplished without compromising the neighborhood. St. Vincent's should consider the proposed alternative solutions." Robbins declined to comment.

It's always important to help the poor and downtrodden as long as they can live and stay in Africa.

The Billary never dies

In a Freddy Kreuger like political life, You can't kill the The Billary with a stabbing, some gun shots, a good hit with flame thrower and a toss off the building.

Or in this case, maybe it's her supporters.

Big news folks - it looks like our efforts in contacting those Superdelegates are starting to pay off, so keep on writing to them (ok, maybe Donna B's a waste of time). There are unconfirmed reports, based on phone banking efforts to reach out to Super Ds, that eight previously Obama SDs expressed that, given the opportunity, they would vote for Hillary at the convention. I heard about an interview Will Bower of PUMA did recently, where he said delegates are starting to say they'll vote for Hillary in Denver if the DNC did the right thing and ran an open and fair convention. That means a roll call vote with Hillary's name put into nomination, and on the ballot. So I shot an email to Bower to ask him where he got that info from, and here's what he sent me regarding the efforts of a friend of his "A large phone banking effort to the super d's combined with Obama's flips and poor presumptive nominee performance, etc have yielded doubts within the super delegates, enough that 3 elected and 5 DNC members have confided that should they have the opportunity to do so, they will vote for Hillary." Maybe this is why BHO and the Toxic Trio are pushing so hard to keep Hillary off the roll call ballot eh? I've been wondering what they're so afraid of now it looks like we have part of the answer.

Alegre :: Breaking: Eight Supers Switching to Hillary

I think Politico may have stumbled upon one or two reasons why the Supers are starting to take a fresh look at Hillary. The above news paints this article in a whole new light for me. MassLib touched upon all this in an earlier diary today re BHO being a PUMA but I thought this was worth another rant. The folks on the Hill (aka Super delegates) are getting pissed at BHO for the lack of effort on his part when it comes to fundraising, coordination and support theyre getting in their own bid for re-election etc. Todays Politico has the story After a brief bout of Obamamania, some Capitol Hill Democrats have begun to complain privately that Barack Obamas presidential campaign is insular, uncooperative and inattentive to their hopes for a broad Democratic victory in November. They think they know whats right and everyone else is wrong on everything, groused one senior Senate Democratic aide. They are kind of insufferable at this point. From a total lack of effort re fundraising for Dems in town-ticket races, to little or no heads-up when he turns up in their district, theyre feeling more than a bit dissed and ignored by our presumptuous nominee.

You keep dreamin' that dream.

Where are the jokes?

Apparently, the late night comedians cannot find a way to work Obama into a joke...

Of course they can't. I bet back in biblical times you'd be hard pressed to find a Carl Reiner, Don Rickles, Buddy Hackett or Shecky Greene coming up with good zingers about one J. Christ.

When we're talking about The Messiah, jokes are hard to come by..... After all, that whole eternal salvation is nothing to laugh at.

Although, somehow I still think they can work in a couple of good arugula shots, if anyone actually knows what arugula is.

The socialist republic of Ohiostan

A behemoth lies in our midst, sucking in ever greater amounts of cash and growing at twice the rate of inflation.

What's more, we're feeding it with billions and billions of tax dollars. An unprecedented study released today shows that the combined cost of government across 16 northeastern Ohio counties -- teaching our children, running our cities and tending myriad other public services -- had reached at least $16 billion by 2002.

That amounted to $3,750 for every man, woman and child in the targeted region, which includes counties including Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, Lorain, Medina, Portage and Summit.

The $175,000 study, paid for by civic and business leaders to gauge government spending, used the latest available U.S. census data to look at 800 publicly funded entities in the region.

And while the numbers are dated and incomplete, they suggest our system of governance is bloated and drags down the region's economy, according to the people who commissioned the study. "The expensive, fragmented local government system we have costs money," says David Abbott, board chairman for the Fund for Our Economic Future, an economic development philanthropy. "Some of that could be redirected to make us more globally competitive -- to early childhood or college education, or directly to economic development efforts."

More....

And here's an article on the bloated cost of local government in NE Ohio... $3,750 for every man woman and child in the region.

And at NRO

In addition to the oppressive tax burden noted by Jonathan Adler below, Ohioans, already struggling with a mammoth jobs and brain drain, will be voting this fall on a ballot initiative called the Ohio Healthy Families Act. The Act will require most Ohio businesses to provide up to 7 paid sick days to their employees who are ill or who have an ill family member. The paid sick leave begins to accrue immediately upon hire.

Over the last 25 years, policies based on economic populism have been strangling businesses in Ohio. As noted recently in the WSJ by Ohio native Chester Finn, the best and brightest young people are fleeing Ohio in droves. Cleveland lost more residents last year than any major city in the country.

Whatever the merits of OHFA, it's likely to contribute to that trend. Before you can take sick leave, paid or otherwise, you have to have a job.

You know what we need? A tax increase. Well, instead of that, let's shoot for paid time off for everyone; that always works to bring in business. Maybe we can vote for free hybrid cars for everyone with a job in the state. Or how about free double verdi, lattes, with an arugula garnish to help the closing Starbucks?

Purge the Surge

Obamamaniacs are working overtime to scrub the obamamania web site of his opposition to the surge, his church attendance, etc.

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama's campaign scrubbed his presidential Web site over the weekend to remove criticism of the U.S. troop "surge" in Iraq, the Daily News has learned.

The presumed Democratic nominee replaced his Iraq issue Web page, which had described the surge as a "problem" that had barely reduced violence.

"The surge is not working," Obama's old plan stated, citing a lack of Iraqi political cooperation but crediting Sunni sheiks - not U.S. military muscle — for quelling violence in Anbar Province.

The News reported Sunday that insurgent attacks have fallen to the fewest since March 2004.

Obama's campaign posted a new Iraq plan Sunday night, which cites an "improved security situation" paid for with the blood of U.S. troops since the surge began in February 2007.

It praises G.I.s' "hard work, improved counterinsurgency tactics and enormous sacrifice."

Campaign aide Wendy Morigi said Obama is "not softening his criticism of the surge. We regularly update the Web site to reflect changes in current events."

GOP rival John McCain zinged Obama as a flip-flopper. "The major point here is that Sen. Obama refuses to acknowledge that he was wrong," said McCain, adding that Obama "refuses to acknowledge that it [the surge] is succeeding."

And, thanks to the magic of the internets and all those tubes, here's the original plan:

THE SURGE IS NOT WORKING

"The stated purpose of the surge was to enable Iraq's political leaders to reconcile. They have not done so. . . .

Our troops fight and die in the 120 degree heat to give Iraq's leaders space to agree, but they are not filling it. .

. . The bar for success is so low that it is almost buried in the sand."

Iraqi Government Not Stepping Up: The goal of the troop surge was to create space for Iraq’s political leaders to reach agreement to end Iraq’s civil war. In January 2007, President Bush said the goal of the surge was to contain violence so that "Iraqis will gain confidence in their leaders, and the government will have the breathing space it needs to make progress in other critical areas." Since then, more than 700 American troops have died, but the Iraqi government has not stepped up. In early September, the United States Government Accountability Office found the Iraqi government has not enacted legislation to meet critical benchmarks on de-Ba'athification, oil revenue sharing, provincial elections, amnesty, and militia disarmament that are key tobeginning national reconciliation.

Uneven Gains Not Sustainable Without Iraqi Action: At great cost, our troops have helped reduce violence in some areas of Baghdad, but only when measured against the record levels of violence in late 2006 and early 2007. As The New York Times reported in a wide-ranging investigation, violence has decreased in certain neighborhoods only because they have become more ethnically homogenous as minority groups have fled. Most importantly, as a commission headed by General Jim Jones reported, the Iraqi Security Forces must take responsibility for holding the security gains created by the surge, but they are not doing so.

Anbar Province Success Not Related to Surge: The reduced violence in Anbar Province is the result of cooperation between American forces and Sunni tribes, which started more than 18 months ago, long before the surge. The province is overwhelmingly Sunni, and the tribal leaders there made a political decision to turn against al Qaeda. This does not demonstrate the success of the surge; it demonstrates that the solutions in Iraq are political, not military.

This guy is making John Kerry look as flexible as a sheet of plywood. How long before the liberal nutcases against Bush (LNAB) start to eat Obama.

Kill the speculators

Larry Kudlow with a great piece on the markets response to one little action, the announcement by Bush to lift the executive ban on drilling....

In a dramatic move yesterday President Bush removed the executive-branch moratorium on offshore drilling. Today, at a news conference, Bush repeated his new position, and slammed the Democratic Congress for not removing the congressional moratorium on the Outer Continental Shelf and elsewhere. Crude-oil futures for August delivery plunged $9.26, or 6.3 percent, almost immediately as Bush was speaking, bringing the barrel price down to $136.

Now isn’t this interesting?

Democrats keep saying that it will take 10 years or longer to produce oil from the offshore areas. And they say that oil prices won’t decline for at least that long. And they, along with Obama and McCain, bash so-called oil speculators. And today we had a real-world example as to why they are wrong. All of them. Reid, Pelosi, Obama, McCain — all of them.

Traders took a look at a feisty and aggressive George Bush and started selling the market well before a single new drop of oil has been lifted. What does this tell us? Well, if Congress moves to seal the deal, oil prices will probably keep on falling. That’s the way traders work. They discount the future. Psychology and expectations can turn on a dime.

The congressional ban on offshore drilling expires September 30, so that becomes a key date. A new report from Wall Street research house Sanford C. Bernstein says that California actually could start producing new oil within one year if the moratorium were lifted. The California oil is under shallow water and already has been explored. Drilling platforms have been in place since before the moratorium. They’re talking about 10 billion barrels worth off the coast of California.

Did the taxstud call that or what?

By the way Senator, according to the investment bankers here today, most of the price spikes have occurred as a result of speculation in the market. Many of these people believe that this speculation has resulted in increases of $50 to $60 a barrel.

Why? On January, 2007, when this democratic congress assumed power, light sweet crude prices were hovering around $53 a barrel. Today, those prices exceed $120 a barrel. When this congress took power, the market knew that you idiots would do what ever it took to prevent drilling on US soil in order to protect some musk rat in Manitoba or water moccasin off the Georgian coast.

As a result, speculators know that world supply will be limited due to your inaction, so prices have no where to go but up. But you'd rather come here today and grandstand your fat ass and lecture us about crude prices instead of actually governing in a manner that will help the average American.

Now, do congressional democrats have the stones to support sea otters off the coast of California over the working stiff? We'll see. Of course, McCain will find a way to fumble this one all the way to ANWAR.

Trouble brewing in C-bus

It looks like the Great depression is hitting the Columbus area.

Starbucks announced the closing of its first fifty stores.

#2525- 1505 5TH AVE 1505 W 5TH AVE COLUMBUS, OH

#11883 - MAXTOWN 925 N STATE ST WESTERVILLE, OH

Man, where am I going to get my Yoko Ono's greatest hits to go along with my $8.76 verdi, latte, double somersault, with a squirt of hummus cup of coffee.

Obamamania - Catch it

Hank Aaron vs Duke Snyder Home Run Derby Part 1

A real home run derby

More democratic mismanagement

So now we have the financial debacle of Fannie Mae and Freddie mac and you're guessing it must be run by a bunch of republican fat cats.

Well you'd be wrong again. For some reason, you won't find a mainstream media organization talking about the who's who of democratic power players that ran these companies; especially one Jim Johnson.

You may recognize the name of Jim Johnson as one of those three Obamamania vetters who resigned from the Obama campaign last month.

Republicans shouldn't have been so quick to hurl on Johnson. If he would have run the vetting for Obama like he ran freddie mac, it would be a slam dunk for McCain.

Cocaine Bust

Yeah, I can see someone using that for drug paraphernalia.

Thanks to reader Tony. Rated "R" for local news coverage....

Thought of the day

When building your business, try to get it as large as you possibly can.

Then, when you become "to big to fail", the feds will bail you out no matter what dumb ass things you do to ruin your business.

This business tip brought to you by Jack Handey.

Obamamania - Catch it

Obamamania - Chicago style

When I first saw the title of this piece, Making It, and saw that it was in the New Yorker, I figured I wasn't up for literal pornography being performed on Obama.

But I gave it a shot and now think it's a pretty fair piece about Obamamania's rise through Chicago politics.

From some of Obamamania's former supporters....

Although many of Obama’s recent supporters have been surprised by signs of political opportunism, Preckwinkle wasn’t. “I think he was very strategic in his choice of friends and mentors,” she told me. “I spent ten years of my adult life working to be alderman. I finally got elected. This is a job I love. And I’m perfectly happy with it. I’m not sure that’s the way that he approached his public life—that he was going to try for a job and stay there for one period of time. In retrospect, I think he saw the positions he held as stepping stones to other things and therefore approached his public life differently than other people might have.”

On issue after issue, Preckwinkle presented Obama as someone who thrived in the world of Chicago politics. She suggested that Obama joined Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ for political reasons. “It’s a church that would provide you with lots of social connections and prominent parishioners,” she said. “It’s a good place for a politician to be a member.” Preckwinkle was unsparing on the subject of the Chicago real-estate developer Antoin (Tony) Rezko, a friend of Obama’s and one of his top fund-raisers, who was recently convicted of fraud, bribery, and money laundering: “Who you take money from is a reflection of your knowledge at the time and your principles.” As we talked, it became increasingly clear that loyalty was the issue that drove Preckwinkle’s current view of her onetime protégé. “I don’t think you should forget who your friends are,” she said.

Our future president?

Meet Green Party Candidate Cynthia McKinney.

Turning food into fuel

Here's a great scientific article about the use of corn for fuel.

David Pimental, a leading Cornell University agricultural expert, has calculated that powering the average U.S. automobile for one year on ethanol (blended with gasoline) derived from corn would require 11 acres of farmland, the same space needed to grow a year's supply of food for seven people. Adding up the energy costs of corn production and its conversion into ethanol, 131,000 BTUs are needed to make one gallon of ethanol. One gallon of ethanol has an energy value of only 77,000 BTUS. Thus, 70 percent more energy is required to produce ethanol than the energy that actually is in it. Every time you make one gallon of ethanol, there is a net energy loss of 54,000 BTUs.

Mr. Pimentel concluded that "abusing our precious croplands to grow corn for an energy-inefficient process that yields low-grade automobile fuels amounts to unsustainable subsidized food burning".

Neither increases in government subsidies to corn-based ethanol fuel nor hikes in the price of petroleum can overcome what Cornell University agricultural scientist, David Pimentel, calls a fundamental input-yield problem: It takes more energy to make ethanol from grain than the combustion of ethanol produces.

At a time when ethanol-gasoline mixtures (gasohol) are touted as the American answer to fossil fuel shortages by corn producers, food processors and some lawmakers, Cornell’s David Pimentel, one of the world’s leading experts in issues relating to energy and agriculture, takes a longer range view.

"Abusing our precious croplands to grow corn for an energy-inefficient process that yields low-grade automobile fuel amounts to unsustainable, subsidized food burning", says the Cornell professor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Pimentel, who chaired a U.S. Department of Energy panel that investigated the energetics, economics and environmental aspects of ethanol production several years ago, subsequently conducted a detailed analysis of the corn-to-car fuel process. His findings are published in the September, 2001 issue of the Encyclopedia of Physical Sciences and Technology

Ohio economic suicide

Cleaning up a few older pieces.

Here is a great piece on Ohio's economic suicide.....

Once known as the Mother of Presidents, Ohio is now getting poorer, older and dumber – and making all the wrong moves to reverse the situation.

And that may actually be a plus for Barack Obama. His party is finding that lofty, vague promises of change combined with high-spending, high-tax, welfare state-ish policies are a political winner in the state. How else to explain why Gov. Ted Strickland's approval ratings are in the mid-50s or why Democrats may even win control of the state House for the first time in 14 years?

AP

Gov. Ted Strickland

But as a formula for economic revival, it is madness. Ohio already has the fifth-heaviest state and local tax burden in the country (up from 30th in 1990) and finds itself stagnating. Its unemployment rate, 6.3%, is above the national rate of 5.5%, even as the state's work force shrinks as people emigrate. Ohio's median household income is also falling – in 2006 it was $44,500, down 0.5% from the previous year – while the national figure ($48,500) was up 1.6%. During the closing decades of the 20th century, incomes rose twice as fast across the country as in Ohio.

The state has been deindustrializing for ages – the sprawling General Motors and NCR plants of my Dayton childhood are long gone. Every metropolitan area has seen manufacturing employment plunge. The state lost more than 200,000 nonfarm jobs over the past seven years alone. Of Ohio's 10 largest corporations (including Procter & Gamble and other well known companies), just two have posted positive returns so far this year. A surefire way to have one's portfolio underperform the market these days is to invest in Ohio.

Assortment of Nuts

From Cincinnati's own Jim Borgman.