That's not "progressive"

I was going through some post at this blog and I ran across this

Then last week Toyota announced it is canceling plans to build its new Prius hybrid at its plant in the San Francisco Bay area because of the high tax and regulatory costs. Adding to the humiliation is that Toyota will now take this investment and about 1,000 jobs to a more progressive and pro-business state: Mississippi.

Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. Mississippi a "progressive" state? Now we know that's a bunch of malarkey. Mississippi is a state full of backwater hicks and JOBS. How could it be "progressive"?

But it gets better for California, a "real" progressive state.

There is already a reverse gold rush going on in California and the evidence points powerfully toward high tax rates as a culprit. Census Bureau data show that, from 1996-2005, 1.3 million more Americans left than came to California. And the people who are leaving are disproportionately those with higher incomes: the very targets the Democrats want to tax more.

The liberal fairy tale is that the rich “don’t pay their fair share.” The reality is that there’s no state in the country more dependent on six- and seven-figure earners to pay its bills. Those with incomes of more than $100,000 pay 83% of the state’s income taxes, and the richest 6,000 of the 38 million Californians pay $9 billion in taxes. Every time a rich person like Tiger Woods departs, the state fiscal problem deepens.

The Democratic tax plan will give rich people a further incentive to flee at the very time the real-estate market is in collapse. New housing data reveals that the average California home price fell by 28% from June 2007 to June 2008, almost double the decline of any other state. The politicians in Nevada, the state with the third worst real-estate market, are hoping California raises taxes, because this could be a fast way to revive the Reno and Las Vegas housing markets.

What the politicians in California refuse to address is their own overspending. State outlays were up 44% over the past five years, meaning that California is spending at a faster pace than even Congress. Minority Republicans in the Legislature say the solution is a hard expenditure cap – like 46 other states have. Yet even in the face of the giant deficit, Mr. Schwarzenegger and the Democrats want to pass a new $9 billion water bond, a $14 billion state-run health insurance program, and the most expensive climate-change program in the country.

It may be that California Democrats are trying this now as a kind of trial run for Barack Obama next year. The Illinois Senator also believes he can solve the federal government’s fiscal imbalance by imposing higher tax rates on small business employers and the wealthiest Americans. If they can get away with it in Sacramento, look for a national reprise next year.

What's most impressive to me is how "progressives" seem to know so much but can't seem to get their arms around the fact that people leave when they take over. Those are the only votes that count. Are you taking notes Governor Strickland?

Gasoline prices exposed.

The Enquirer has their last installment on their gas price series.

If you ever wanted to read a provocative series of in depth reporting. Don't read this.

I remember more interesting pieces in my Weekly Reader, 35 years ago.

I'll give you the cliff notes version of the series. 1) gas is cheaper M-Th than it is F -Su. 2) gas costs more right off the interstate. 3) some stations charge less so you'll come into the store. 4) gas is cheaper at the big box stores.

And they wonder why circulation is dropping.

Next on the Enquirer agenda....

Convenience stores charge more than grocery stores for the same product!

News you can lose.

At least they'll pay for the guy

No, it's not the 2000 election map. This is a map of the states hit hardest by the Obamamania income tax plan.

Because so many more"rich" people live in the blue states, they'll be picking up the big time tab on Obama's tax initiatives.

Seems only fitting to me.

HT Taxprof

Media bias, naaaah

Now does this sound like a non bias reporter to you....

It's 16:02pm and I’ve been training in the gym of the Ritz Carlton hotel in Berlin. A man in a suit approaches me and says: "Barack Obama is about to come and train ...“ Shortly after half past four and he actually arrives! Barack Obama is wearing a grey t-shirt, black tracksuit bottoms – and a great smile!

"Hi, how’s it going?“ asks Obama in his deep voice. My heart beats. "Very good, and you?" I say. Obama replies: "Very good, thank you!"

Obama (with toned arms and a strong back) puts on his headphones for his iPod to listen to pop music. He hums quietly. Then he jumps on a fitness bike. He pushes three times on the pedals – but then can’t be bothered with it.

He goes and picks up a pair of 16 kilo weights and starts curling them with his left and right arms, 30 repetitions on each side. Then, amazingly, he picks up the 32 kilo weights! Very slowly he lifts them, first 10 curls with his right, then 10 with his left. He breathes deeply in and out and takes a sip of water from his 0,5 litre Evian bottle.

Shortly before five o’clock Obama comes over and sits directly next to my cross-trainer on the mat. First he does 10 sit-ups, then stretches. Then he looks at his watch and says to his bodyguard: “It’s time, let’s go.” Quickly I ask: “Mr. Obama, could I take a photo?”. “Of course!” he answers, before asking my name and coming over to stand next to me.

“My name’s Judith” I reply. "I’m Barack Obama, nice to meet you!” he says, and puts his arm across my shoulder. I put my arm around his hip – wow, he didn’t even sweat! WHAT A MAN!

It's a good thing John Edwards wasn't in the room with them.

A nice quiet evening in Redville

Last night, out in the doldrums of suburbia, I enjoyed a great outdoor concert by the Rusty Griswolds with about 2,500 other suburbanites. The best part of these Friday night shows, you're allowed to bring in your own beer coolers.

But of course, the suburbs don't have near the amenities of city life as indicated by my "progressive" buddy John Hoebbel of Northside.

See the city has all those wonderful things to do like NFL football, the opera, the symphony, art museums. They also have things to do like this....

Police say one man was shot three times as he tried to flee from an attempted carjacking on Winneste Avenue early Friday morning. The 21-year-old man was hit in the back, hip and thigh as he ran away. The carjacker was thwarted when the person driving the car sped off.

Or how about this news report....

Police were busy overnight, investigating three separate shootings. Two people were shot in Madisonville after a fight at Bramble and Whetsel avenues. The argument allegedly started at the Between Rounds Sportsbar. A second shooting in Sedamsville, left a man injured. He was shot in the arm and stomach in the 31-hundred block of River Road. And, a third was in the West End. That victim was shot in the chest at Ezzard Charles and Western Avenue. No suspects have been arrested in any of the cases.

So I guess it's a preference. You can come out to Blue Ash and enjoy a nice free outdoor concert with your family & friends, drink some beers and go home to a nice quiet neighborhood or you can cruise the city after all the museums close and dodge gun fire during a car jacking.

The fairness doctrine

How's this for the "fairness doctrine"?

Hey, they're still able to be fair and objective, right?

IBD on the trail.

Even the Associated Press — no bastion of conservatism — has considered, at least superficially, the media's favoritism for Barack Obama. It's time to revisit media bias.

True to form, journalists are defending their bias by saying that one candidate, Obama, is more newsworthy than the other. In other words, there is no media bias. It is we, the hoi polloi, who reveal our bias by questioning the neutrality of these learned professionals in their ivory-towered newsrooms.

Big Media applies this rationalization to every argument used to point out bias. "It's not a result of bias," they say. "It's a matter of news judgment."

And, like the man who knows his wallet was pickpocketed but can't prove it, the public is left to futilely rage against the injustice of it all.

The "newsworthy" argument can be applied to every metric — one-sided imbalances in airtime, story placement, column inches, number of stories, etc. — save one.

An analysis of federal records shows that the amount of money journalists contributed so far this election cycle favors Democrats by a 15:1 ratio over Republicans, with $225,563 going to Democrats, only $16,298 to Republicans .

Two-hundred thirty-five journalists donated to Democrats, just 20 gave to Republicans — a margin greater than 10-to-1. An even greater disparity, 20-to-1, exists between the number of journalists who donated to Barack Obama and John McCain.

Obamamania's geography

Let's see, Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait, Jordan, Israel, Germany, France; that now get's him to the 57 states he's visited.

Looking at the crowds he drew, he should pick up 200-225 electoral votes from those states alone.

Obamamania - Catch it

Here's a shocker

In a Cincinnati Enquirer exclusive, above the fold, expose the headline reads

Gas does cost more near interstates

Whoa. I wonder if they're working on that next expose.... Water is genuinely wet..... Bears really do crap in the woods.... The Pope is indeed Catholic...

I wonder how many dollars in investigative reporting that took?

Is it just me or is their new website the worst of any paper in Ohio?

DUI Checkpoint

There will be a DUI checkpoint tomorrow night in Cincinnati at a location disclosed tomorrow.

As soon as I can get an exact location, I will inform you.

Gordon Nostradamus

My Nostradamus like prediction this week?

This weekend a young black male will be gunned down in cold blood by another young black male inside the city limits of Cincinnati.

But hey, as this guy lies in the street dying, he can die knowing that the city has the opera and nice art museums.

Site of the week

Since I've been on a rampage speaking out about the ineffective & corrupt "progressive" government meted out by liberals, I figure I'd refer you over to someone who live's in one of America's playgrounds; in this case, Detroit.

The Blog, Detroit Daily Dirt has all kinds of interesting factoids about life in a blue city.

But hey, like my "progressive" friend, John, would says. At least, they have the Lions and the symphony.

The tough life of a congress person....

From the American Thinker

Democratic congressional candidate Mary Jo Kilroy sent a look-alike to rural parade. Much like Saddam Hussein, Ohio 15th congressional district Democratic candidate Mary Jo Kilroy uses body doubles when she tires of having to deal with all of the little people she intends to represent.

Such was the case last week when Kilroy sent her campaign body double to represent her at the Plain City Steam Thresher parade. Apparently the Amish-dominated city was too tough a crowd for Kilroy to handle. Matt Naugle broke the story this morning on his much-watched Ohio political blog, NaugBlog, complete with video of her stand-in's performance captured by the Ohio Republican Party.

The Ohio 15th district seat is one that Democrats are hoping to pick up this November from Republicans, with longtime incumbent Rep. Deborah Pryce retiring. Pryce narrowly beat Kilroy by only 1,055 votes in 2006. The district is evenly split between Republicans and Democrats.

Kilroy's support comes primarily from Columbus, but the rural counties (Union and Madison) west of the city lean heavily Republican. Coincidentally, Plain City, where Kilroy's body double made her appearance, is in Madison County.

Death in "Progress" City

If you're looking to have your blood boil read this article.

The scene repeats itself daily on city streets: a driver gets stuck bumper to bumper, blocking an intersection and preventing another car from turning left.

But authorities say that was enough to cause Edwin Ramos to unload an AK-47 assault weapon on a man and his two sons, killing them.

The deaths immediately drew public outrage, which intensified when authorities revealed that Ramos, 21, is an illegal immigrant who managed to avoid deportation despite previous brushes with the law.

The case has put San Francisco's liberal politics to the test, setting off a debate over its sanctuary law that shields undocumented immigrants from deportation.

On Wednesday, Ramos pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder in the deaths of Anthony Bologna, 49, and his sons, Michael, 20, and Matthew, 16. Bologna and his older son died in the intersection on June 22. His younger son succumbed to his injuries days later.

Shortly after that, police arrested Ramos, a native of El Salvador and reputed member of the Mara Salvatrucha gang, known as MS-13. Investigators believe he was the gunman, though two other men were seen in the car with him.

The heinousness of the deaths has put pressure on San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris to seek the death penalty against Ramos. Harris, who campaigned on an anti-death penalty platform and has never pursued capital punishment during her more than four years in office, has declined to say exactly how she intends to proceed.

This whole ordeal has me thinking many scattered questions.....

1) Is this one of the amenities along with the opera and symphony my progressive friend John was talking about? Being gunned downed by an illegal immigrant?

2) Just exactly who do the Mayor and DA work for? The people who pay their salaries or these miscreants they're so hell bent on protecting?

3) Let's assume you are a law abiding, taxpaying citizen, do you think the city government of San Fransisco is looking out for your best interest? Isn't it clear by the way Newsom is governing that he would rather have the Ramos's of the world living in his city over the Bologna's?

4) If you are the next door neighbor of the Bologna's do you think you're more or less likely to move out to the boredom of suburbia as a result of this incident?

But I guess the suburbs don't have the Giants.

Global Warming Challenge Update

The score of the global warming challenge through 7/23.

Warm - 200
Cool - 217

How is it that with all this global warming, the cool score is higher than the warm?

Who will they vote for #22

From Gateway Pundit...

Firefighters have learned of a Denver house full of urine.
They say protesters are storing urine to throw at police during the DNC Convention.
The Drunkablog and KJCT8 reported:

A new kind of warning has come up about protesters gearing up for the Democratic National Convention.

Denver firefighters have learned of a house full of urine being stored to throw at police. An internal memo is warning first responders that disgusting acts are a significant concern.

Protesters in other cities have used urine and feces filled balloons to throw at police and there are concerns that could happen during the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

Denver City Councilman Doug Linkhart has proposed an ordinance to keep protesters from carrying the so called urine bombs or other liquids in the protest areas.

Members of a coalition of activists planning protests around the DNC said the ordinances restrict free speech including Re-create 68 spokesman Glenn Spagnuolo.

Now do the people who own/rent this home vote for.

The Hope and Change of one Obi wan Obama?
Bob Barr?
Ralph Nader?
John McCain?

I think I'm going with the libertarian Bob Barr.

Anti War hypocrisy

Ralph Peters on a point I made earlier this week.

How is it that Obamamania's proposal to move troops from Iraq to Afghanistan, hasn't been met with condemnation from the anti war left?

AM I the only one who's noticed the silence? Mere months ago, left-wing bloggers and demonstrators were wailing Support our troops, bring them home! seven days a week.

Now their presidential candidate has announced that he won't bring all those troops home, but will simply transfer combat forces from Iraq to Afghanistan - expanding that war. (He's discussed possibly invading Pakistan, too.)

And the left's quiet as a graveyard at midnight.

Where are the outraged protests from MoveOn or the DailyKos? I thought the extreme left felt sorry for our service members in harm's way and wanted to reunite them with their families.

What happened?

We all know exactly what happened. The left has nothing against foreign wars (as long as they don't have to fight in person). They just want to pick our wars themselves.

The problem with Iraq wasn't that America toppled Saddam Hussein, but that George W. Bush did it. I've been saying it for years: Had Bill Clinton done the job, the left would've celebrated him as the greatest liberator since Abraham Lincoln.

Maybe a "progressive" out there can set me straight. In my mind, the rationale for increasing our presence in Afghanistan is worse than keeping troops in Iraq.

But if The Messiah calls us to it, I guess that makes it all right.

Double Standard?

Thought of the day.

What is the more egregious slip of the tongue.

Referring the to Czech Republic as Czechoslovakia or Speaking iof the Senate committee that you work on; except that you don't....

Obama on Wednesday was speaking to reporters in Israel when he tried to boast about what he'd done to protect Israel.

"Just this past week, we passed out of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee — which is my committee — a bill to call for divestment from Iran as a way of ratcheting up the pressure to ensure that they don't obtain a nuclear weapon," Obama said.

Why that's wrong: Obama is not a member of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.

More.....

This guy is a great speaker if you can overlook the lies and UHHHHH's, AAHhhhhh's, & duuuuh's.

Yet even more "progressive" mismanagement

What do designer sunglasses, a decorative tire cover and a raincoat have in common?

They’re all personal items Baltimore County employees charged on government-issued credit cards, according to a recent audit that also said supervisors did not always require employees to submit receipts to verify purchases.

Nonbusiness purchases made by 49 employees in the county Department of Public Works’ Bureau of Highways on procurement cards, or “p-cards,” totaled just $108, but government watchdogs said it could be indicative of a larger problem.

“Regular corporations police themselves very well on this issue, but the government doesn’t police itself very well,” said Dee Hodges president of the Maryland Taxpayers’ Association. “Government accounting offices have to be very strict about it and lift the cards of the people who abuse it.”

More.....

HT Brian Thomas

Freddie and fannie corruption

Paul Gigot has a great piece on the history of thievery by the Fannie and Freddie gang....

So here we are this week, with the House and Senate preparing to commit taxpayer money to save Fannie and Freddie. The implicit taxpayer guarantee that Messrs. Gray and Raines and so many others said didn't exist has become explicit. Taxpayers may end up having to inject capital into the companies, in addition to guaranteeing their debt.

The abiding lesson here is what happens when you combine private profit with government power. You create political monsters that are protected both by journalists on the left and pseudo-capitalists on Wall Street, by liberal Democrats and country-club Republicans. Even now, after all of their dishonesty and failure, Fannie and Freddie could emerge from this taxpayer rescue more powerful than ever. Campaigning to spare taxpayers from that result would represent genuine "change," not that either presidential candidate seems interested.

Can "progressives" run anything well?

The liberal standard bearer The NY Times reported their earnings today....

New York Times Co. says its second-quarter earnings fell 82 percent from the year-ago quarter boosted by a one-time gain. Meanwhile, print advertising revenue continued to shrink.

The New York-based newspaper publisher says its quarterly net income dropped to $21.1 million, or 15 cents per share, which included 11 cents per share in buyout costs.

Analysts polled by Thomson Financial expected income of 22 cents per share in the latest quarter. Analyst estimates typically exclude special items.

Revenue dropped 6 percent to $741.9 million, missing the average Wall Street estimate for $754 million. Ad revenue slipped down 11 percent, hurt mostly by fewer classified ads.

Seriously, can "progressives" run any business or government successfully? Ole Pinch is probably thinking of using the Number 1 "progressive" management tool.... just increase taxes to increase revenue".

Follow up.....

I just about fell out of my chair laughing when I read this piece about how the NY Times expects to shore up it business's profits.

The New York Times [NYT] Co. will increase the Monday-Saturday newsstand cost of its flagship paper by 25 cents to $1.50, the publisher said today.

Times Chief Executive Janet Robinson said the price increase for the New York Times will take effect Aug. 18. The company has already raised home delivery prices for the paper 4.5 percent in two separate hikes since last July. That helped overall circulation revenue rise 2.5 percent in the latest quarter.

So demand for your product is declining and the best way of managing that is to increase the price?

This is a joke? right?

Ohio's Bluest City?

If I were to ask you. What is the "bluest" city in the state of Ohio? Your answer would be.....

Cleveland?
Youngstown?
Lorain?
Toledo?
Canton?
Dayton?

Well now, all you really need to ask is this. What city has the highest unemployment rate in Ohio and you'll probably get the same answer.

Cleveland - 10.1%
Youngstown - 8.6%
Lorain - 9.3%
Toledo - 8.5%
Canton - 8.1%
Dayton - 8.4%

You'd be hard pressed to find a republican in these cities with a search warrant and Homeland Security.

But of course, as one of the comments (in a previous post) pointed out, "the cities have the symphony". Well, I guess when you don't have a job, there's lot's of time for the symphony.

What's so "progressive" about unemployment?

HT Matt at WMD

Santa Barbara Anti-War Protest

This is what constitutes civil debate for a "progressive".

You may know "progressives" as the free speech types.

Tell that to the veteran who was spit on.

Arranging deck chairs on the Titanic

So just why would people leave the city for the suburbs.

Maybe it's because of this type of lunacy.

Los Angeles, the second-largest US city behind New York, would ban plastic bagging in all supermarkets, grocery and retail stores, the Los Angeles City Council said.

After July 1, 2010, customers must provide their own bags or buy bags made of paper or other biodegradable material from the store for 25 cents.

The goal is to rid the city of some 2.3 billion non-biodegradable plastic bags that are distributed each year and end up polluting waste dumps for a long time.

San Francisco, 600km north of LA, in 2007 became the first US city to ban plastic bags from its stores.

Both city regulations are intended to pressure state politicians who are considering a Bill to eliminate plastic bags across the state by 2012.

It's a good thing these cities are tending to their most pressing problems. The other evening, I saw a news report of those plastic bags jumping out and shooting someone in cold blood.

I guess people are more than willing to pay. After all, they have those amenities like the opera.

Progress City v. Redville

Once again, it appears that we need to go through this exercise again.

Here is the 2004 election red/blue map broken down by county. As you can see, the areas broken down less by state and more by urban areas v. suburban/rural.

This is what we know about these areas. The blue areas have things like high unemployment, large amounts of crime, homelessness, horrible schools, high taxes.

The suburbs have things like better schools, low unemployment, lower taxes and lower crime.

I get lots of "progressives" telling me about all these "amenities" offered by urban life. But the truth is indisputable and no "progressive" will debate on this fact. If urban life is so damn wonderful, why are so many people leaving so they can live in "Redville"?

Good enough for thee but not for me

According to democrats, that whole federal gas holiday proposed by McCain was just a gimmick.

Well, unless you're fueling up one of their vehicles.

Several Denver City Council members are questioning why the local Democratic Convention host committee has a contract with the city to fill up their fleet of vehicles with tax-free fuel.

The $466,000 contract, only $9,700 of which has been paid so far by the DNCC officials, allows them to use the city's car wash and gas stations for their vehicles. The city's fuel pumps should be used by government employees only because they don't charge $.40 cents per gallon of state and federal taxes, some council members said.

Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper told councilmembers this morning that a similar deal was in place between Minneapolis and the Republican National Convention Committee, but a spokesperson in Minnesota said that wasn't the case.

"This money (fuel taxes) goes to our state highway system," said Denver City Councilman Charlie Brown. "Why shouldn't the DNC be willing to help our roads and our maintenance and our construction?"

Once again, progressive/hypocrite, one in the same.

Hair Ball's a cheater

I was shocked to read this in the National Enquirer....

Vice Presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards was caught visiting his mistress and secret love child at 2:40 this morning in a Los Angeles hotel by the NATIONAL ENQUIRER.

The married ex-senator from North Carolina - whose wife Elizabeth continues to battle cancer -- met with his mistress, blonde divorcée Rielle Hunter, at the Beverly Hilton on Monday night, July 21 - and the NATIONAL ENQUIRER was there! He didn't leave until early the next morning.

Rielle had driven to Los Angeles from Santa Barbara with a male friend for the rendezvous with Edwards. The former senator attended a press event Monday afternoon with L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on the topic of how to combat homelessness.

But a months-long NATIONAL ENQUIRER investigation had yielded information that Rielle and Edwards, 54, had arranged to secretly meet afterward and for the ex-senator to spend some time with both his mistress and the love child who he refuses to publicly acknowledge as his own.

The only thing shocking to me about this? I would have swore he would have been caught in an LA bathroom with George Michael.

I guess I now know where John Edwards sees "Two America's"....One's his family in North Carolina and the other is his family in LA.

What a scumbag.

Life in "Progress" City

I drove by the old Showcase Cinema in Norwood (which closed a few months ago) and a thought came to mind.

If you live inside the city of Cincinnati, say, Northside, Clifton, Hyde Park, where would you go to watch "The Dark Knight"?

I could be wrong but I don't believe there is a theater inside city limits showing the movie.

So we have one more reason not to live inside city limits.

Bring down those gas prices?

Do these sound like the words of a man who's committed to bringing down gas prices?

You tell me.

Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?

I can't tell from Obama's quote whether he was closer than Blutto or not....

But it is wonderful to be back in Indiana. In a few moments, we’ll open up the discussion. But I want to offer a few comments about some of the emerging threats that we face in the 21st century and offer some ideas about how we can face those threats.

Throughout our history, America’s confronted constantly evolving danger, from the oppression of an empire, to the lawlessness of the frontier, from the bomb that fell on Pearl Harbor, to the threat of nuclear annihilation. Americans have adapted to the threats posed by an ever-changing world.

Afghanistan v. Iraq

So Obamamania wants to get our troops out of Iraq and into Afghanistan. Why?

I mean how does Obamamania justify the invasion into a country who has posed no threat to our country? In addition, he also wants to invade Pakistan? Wouldn't that be like invading India? Pakistan is an ally of ours and yet Obamamania wants to invade. What did they ever do to us?

In addition, the Afghani's have no WMD. I thought that was a no brainer for libs.

Wouldn't all justification for heading into Afghanistan and Pakistan be the same justification for Bush heading into Iraq. Namely, there's a perceived threat in the area we need to eradicate. What's exactly the difference?

I've always assumed that the anti war left was against all war(s). Period. Yet, where is the call from the anti war folks to pull our troops from all active theaters; including Afghanistan.

Oh, I guess war is OK as long as it's initiated by The Messiah.

Sowell on sub prime lending

Thomas Sowell on the sub prime mortgage mess....

Blaming the lenders is the party line of Congressional Democrats as well. What we need is more government regulation of lenders, they say, to protect the innocent borrowers from "predatory" lending practices.

Before going further down that road, it may be useful to look back at what got us into this mess in the first place.

It was not that many years ago when there was moral outrage ringing throughout the media because lenders were reluctant to lend in certain neighborhoods and because banks did not approve mortgage loan applications from blacks as often as they approved mortgage loan applications from whites.

All this was an opening salvo in a campaign to get Congress to pass laws forcing lenders to lend to people they would not otherwise lend to and in places where they would not otherwise put their money.

The practice of not lending in some neighborhoods was demonized as "redlining" and the fact that minority applicants were approved for mortgages only 72 percent of the time, while whites were approved 89 percent, was called "overwhelming" evidence of discrimination by the Washington Post.

Some people are more easily overwhelmed than others, especially when they find statistics that seem to fit their preconceptions. But if we do what politicians and the media seldom bother to do-- stop and think-- an entirely different picture emerges.

In our own personal lives, common sense leads us to avoid some neighborhoods. If you want to call that "redlining," so be it. But places where it is dangerous to go are often also places where it is dangerous to send your money.

Black Flight

Apparently, it's not just whitey leaving the city for the suburbs. Blacks are also leaving. According to the WSJ.....

Decades of white flight transformed America's cities. That era is drawing to a close.

In Washington, a historically black church is trying to attract white members to survive. Atlanta's next mayoral race is expected to feature the first competitive white candidate since the 1980s. San Francisco has lost so many African-Americans that Mayor Gavin Newsom created an "African-American Out-Migration Task Force and Advisory Committee" to help retain black residents.

"The city is experiencing growth, yet we're losing African-American families disproportionately," Mr. Newsom says. When that happens, "we lose part of our soul."

Mayor Newsom, listen to the clue phone. It's not the soul you need to be worried about..... it's the tax base.

This article ties in nicely with some comments I've received from a reader on an older post.

If you read this blog enough you'll hear a constant refrain; police, fire, roads. Money spent on anything else is a waste of precious government resources. Yet city leaders like Mayor Newsom just keep doing what they're doing. Waving by to good taxpaying people as they leave.

Let's go through this once again. Cities are no different than businesses in the private sector. People will compare the costs/benefits and respond accordingly; by moving. It doesn't matter if you are white, black, purple or plaid, every household will work through that equation when picking a home.

The lovely Mrs. Gekko and I live in a township with no city tax. That saves our household over $2,000 a year as compared to living within the city of Cincinnati. Our garbage still gets picked up, we have better schools, our street actually gets plowed in the winter, we don't have to worry about crime and yet we save money.

Seems like a pretty good deal to me.

This also works at the state level. Ask California, where they are experiencing a net migration drain as people leave the state. Last week, I read a great piece (if someone knows where to find it, please forward) on the CA budget. Since Ahnauld has taken over the governorship, the state budget has increased by 40 BILLION dollars. Yet, not one taxpayer could tell you exactly what they got for that extra 40 BILLION dollars.

This author's point was this; if people can't tell you where that money was spent to benefit them, they assume you can do without it.

I assume that the city of Cincinnati can do without the 2.1% city income tax. Why? because I live in an area that doesn't have it and yet I still get the basic city services I want.

When city leaders recognize this and actually budget accordingly, people will move back.

Wanted - A good pick up game

Old Gordon, is looking for a new gym somewhere in SW Ohio that has some good pick up games for the oldie, baldie, fattie set.

We used to have some great pick up games at Tri Health Pavilion but many of the guys there have moved on to other gyms.

If you know of a gym that has some good evening games, please let me know.

I've got to get some game on.

Al Gore Hypocrisy

I've pointed out the hypocrisy of progressives so often in the past few months, it's clear that the two terms are actually synonyms and hence redundant when used together in the same sentence.

Regardess, Americans for Prosperity, filmed some footage of the hypocrisy with the Al Gore global warming road show. Enjoy.

Make the rich pay

Of course, if you are informed you already know that they do.

Here's a graph from the WSJ on the distribution of the tax load.

The nearby chart shows that the top 1% of taxpayers, those who earn above $388,806, paid 40% of all income taxes in 2006, the highest share in at least 40 years. The top 10% in income, those earning more than $108,904, paid 71%. Barack Obama says he's going to cut taxes for those at the bottom, but that's also going to be a challenge because Americans with an income below the median paid a record low 2.9% of all income taxes, while the top 50% paid 97.1%. Perhaps he thinks half the country should pay all the taxes to support the other half.

Aha, we are told: The rich paid more taxes because they made a greater share of the money. That is true. The top 1% earned 22% of all reported income. But they also paid a share of taxes not far from double their share of income. In other words, the tax code is already steeply progressive.

We also know from income mobility data that a very large percentage in the top 1% are "new rich," not inheritors of fortunes. There is rapid turnover in the ranks of the highest income earners, so much so that people who started in the top 1% of income in the 1980s and 1990s suffered the largest declines in earnings of any income group over the subsequent decade, according to Treasury Department studies of actual tax returns. It's hard to stay king of the hill in America for long.

The most amazing part of this story is the leap in the number of Americans who declared adjusted gross income of more than $1 million from 2003 to 2006. The ranks of U.S. millionaires nearly doubled to 354,000 from 181,000 in a mere three years after the tax cuts.

This is precisely what supply-siders predicted would happen with lower tax rates on capital gains, dividends and income. The economy and earnings would grow faster, which they did; investors would declare more capital gains and companies would pay out more dividends, which they did; the rich would invest less in tax shelters at lower tax rates, so their tax payments would rise, which did happen.

I'd say it's time for the poor to step up and help those rich guys out for a change.

Free Tibet, wait, where is Tibet?

Thought to "progressives".

When you're protesting for a country, It's a good thing to actually know where that country is.

Obamamania - Catch it

Thanks to NRO

Political correctness run amok

If you haven't read up on this case, don't. You'll just become thoroughly disgusted with the anti free speech left if you weren't already.

Keith Sampson is really a rare kind of student. First of all, he was willing to take a job as a janitor to help pay for his college education. But, even more impressive, he spends his break time reading scholarly books on subjects such as American history. But, when he decided to read a book on race relations – one describing how students at Notre Dame defeated the KKK in the 1920s – all hell broke loose.

A black female co-worker at IUPUI decided to charge Sampson with racial harassment. This matter should not have been hard to resolve since the book, which Sampson checked out from the IUPUI library, was objectively anti-Klan and anti-racist. The only difficult part of the case should have been deciding the fate of Sampson’s accuser. Had she intentionally leveled the false claim of racial harassment, she should have been fired. Had it been accidental, she should have been sent to sensitivity training to get over her obvious prejudice against white people.

But, of course, this happened in a university setting, which means that common sense never had a fighting chance. Sampson was told last November that his conduct constituted racial harassment. The affirmative action officer (Lillian Charleston who is now retired) stated “You used extremely poor judgment by insisting on openly reading this book related to a historically and racially abhorrent subject in the presence of your black co-workers.” Such ignorance is by itself a good argument against affirmative action.

More on Obamamania's ego

More on America's favorite narcissist, The Messiah.

The downside for Obama is how much his ego stands to resonate beyond the political right.

Last January, the online Slate Magazine debuted "The Obama Messiah Watch."

In February, a blogger for the left-embracing Mother Jones commented on his uneasiness over the candidate's messianic complex: "Does this post play unhelpfully into the pernicious and growing Obamaism-as-cult . . . that we'll likely see repeated over and over by the right wing if Obama gets the nomination?" blogged Jonathan Stein.

"It does. Sorry. But Obama's rhetoric makes an undeniable suggestion: that his election, not an eight-year administration that successfully implements his vision for America, would represent a moment in America of the grandest, most transformative kind. And that's a bit much," Stein wrote.

When the Obama Girl video first surfaced, Obama told the Associated Press, "You do wish people would think about what impact their actions have on kids and families."

That's good advice. He should think more about the impact of his ego on voters.

A presidential candidate is supposed to get bigger on the national stage. That doesn't mean his head should, too.

He's just trying to squeeze his head into those ears.

C'bus gets decaffeinated

Starbucks released the additional store closings in Ohio.

With six of the nine Ohio closings coming to Columbus, I'm guessing

1) Starbuck's is anticipating large state cutbacks.

2) With Marc Dann's crew leaving town, hangovers and coffee sales are down.

3) A combination of both.

It's a regular depression in the C'bus.

How soon we forget

Remember the Iraq Study Group? Don't worry, I totally forgot about it as well.

But.... it does pay to go back and look at what the group foretold in December, 2006 if Iraq became an Al Queda playground....

Terrorism could grow. As one Iraqi official told us, “Al Qaeda is now a franchise in Iraq, like McDonald’s.” Left unchecked, al Qaeda in Iraq could continue to incite violence between Sunnis and Shia. A chaotic Iraq could provide a still stronger base of operations for terrorists who seek to act regionally or even globally. Al Qaeda will portray any failure by the United States in Iraq as a significant victory that will be featured prominently as they recruit for their cause in the region and around the world. Ayman al-Zawahiri, deputy to Osama bin Laden, has declared Iraq a focus for al Qaeda: they will seek to expel the Americans and then spread “the jihad wave to the secular countries neighboring Iraq.” A senior European official told us that failure in Iraq could incite terrorist attacks within his country. The global standing of the United States could suffer if Iraq descends further into chaos.

It's a good thing we followed the sage wisdom of one Messiah, B. Obama, who would have had the whole region degenerate into tribal anarchy if the US would have pulled out.

Revisionist history

My main reason for believing that your average "progressive" is an ignoramus?

Because when they review their history notes, they see something that's just not there.

Case in point....

Even here in his home state of Georgia, Jimmy Carter does not receive universal acclaim. He is regarded by many as a weak-kneed appeaser or a naive do-gooder with a puritanical bent.

Much of that reputation can be traced back to his widely noted July 1979 speech on the nation's "crisis of confidence," remembered as the "malaise" speech, though he didn't use that word. The response to that televised talk taught politicians one thing: Never ask Americans to make sacrifices. After all, it is now accepted wisdom that the speech — combined with hyperinflation, hostages and an oil spike — cost Carter a second term.

But a sober and fair look back at what Carter actually said ought to earn him higher marks. He was right when he insisted that consumers conserve energy; he was right to urge a dramatic increase in the use of solar power; he was right when he called for a cap on imported oil.

"Beginning at this moment, this nation will never use more foreign oil than we did in 1977 — never," he said. "From now on, every new addition to our demand for energy will be met from our own production and our own conservation. The generation-long growth in our dependence on foreign oil will be stopped dead in its tracks right now."

Carter also called for research into alternative fuels, massive investment in public transit and a broad campaign for conservation. He acknowledged that the new programs would require billions, but "unlike the billions of dollars that we ship to foreign countries to pay for foreign oil, these funds will be paid by Americans to Americans."

Of course, you know the rest of the story. The next year, Ronald Reagan was elected and threw out Carter's plans. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) relented, and gasoline became, once again, plentiful and cheap. So Americans pretended Carter was the problem — not our profligate consumption patterns. Today, we're importing twice as much oil as we were when Carter gave that speech.

Of course, Ms. Tucker fails to mention that one of those alternative energy sources, nuclear energy production, came to a screaming halt under the Carter administration. Development of that technology alone would have freed up natural gas to run our transportation fleet.

Now I want to challenge a "progressive" to something. Here's a trillion dollars, what alternative energy source do you invest in?

The fact of the matter is that no one knows.

Worldwide, there are trillions of dollars being spent on "alternative fuels". The government doesn't need to direct where that money is spent, the private sector will dictate that.

T. Boone Pickens is spending millions on wind farms in Texas, if he is successful, he will be worth billions and the market place will fall right in behind. The government never developed oil into gasoline at the turn of the century, the market place did.

Jimmy Carter will always be known in history as one of the worst presidents this country ever had. Revisionists who want to claim otherwise, just show their ignorance.

Goreconomics - Catch It!