Of the 855 cities in Minnesota, 549 have populations of 1,300 or less.

Interestingly, the Franken Campaign publicly stated they will have 1,250 lawyers on the recount. As someone close to the recount emailed me, "that’s roughly 6 attorneys for every ballot they want to try to get to overturn the outcome of the election."

Investor's Business Daily on the role of conservatism in the move to our socialist state.

Conservatism's current intellectual chaos reverberated in the Republican ticket's end-of-campaign crescendo of surreal warnings that big government — verily, "socialism" — would impend were Democrats elected.

John McCain and Sarah Palin experienced this epiphany when Barack Obama told a Toledo plumber that he would "spread the wealth around." America can't have that, exclaimed the Republican ticket while Republicans — whose prescription drug entitlement is the largest expansion of the welfare state since President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society gave birth to Medicare in 1965; a majority of whom in Congress supported a lavish farm bill at a time of record profits for the less than 2% of the American people-cum-corporations who farm — and their administration were partially nationalizing the banking system, putting Detroit on the dole and looking around to see if some bit of what is smilingly called "the private sector" has been inadvertently left off the ever-expanding list of entities eligible for a bailout from the $1 trillion or so that is to be "spread around."

The seepage of government into everywhere is, we are assured, to be temporary and nonpolitical. Well.

Probably as temporary as New York City's rent controls, which were born as emergency responses to the Second World War, and which are still distorting the city's housing market.

It's a good piece but I think they miss a fundamental point.

Conservatism never changes because it's based on principle. What happened to conservatism is a bunch of rogue democrats decided to run as republicans and claim they were conservatives (see John McCain, George Voinovich, Bob Taft, Chuck Nagel).

Looking for a job

Obama officially resigned his senate seat yesterday so that he can concentrate on using his time in the presidency looking for a new job.

Unfortunately, when you are leader of the free world it's makes looking for a better job quite a bit tougher.

So if you are a recruiter with an idea for The One, send it to www.change.gov He'll be glad to hear from you.

When liberals figure things out.

Don't you love it when liberals figure out something that conservatives have been telling them for years.

Take this TNR piece on one John Edwards

Here's the thing: other than serving one term in the Senate (much of which was spent running for the White House) and two unsuccessful presidential campaigns, what has Edwards really done to warrant a national platform? I mean, even put aside the whole adultery thing; Edwards hasn't exactly accomplished all that much to warrant the prominent place in national life he clearly desires.

First, did they forget to mention his beautiful mane of hair intentionally?

Second, it seems to me that he has more experience than one Messiah; one senate term, one bid for the presidency.

Maybe some day the liberals will listen to us before it's too late.

Eagles Tailgate Drunken Joust with Wizard Sticks

Bengal fans made want to take this up.

It looks like more fun than the games.

The continued assault on Joe the Plumber

It hasn't ended for the state offices doing their little oppo research on those opposed to The Messiah.

From the Akron Beacon Journal

The election is over, but the Joe the Plumber case is not.

Ohio Inspector General Tom Charles said his office is now looking at a half-dozen agencies that accessed state records on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher.

The Beacon Journal has learned that, in addition to the Department of Job and Family Services, two other state offices — the Ohio Department of Taxation and Ohio Attorney General Nancy Rogers — conducted database searches of Joe the Plumber.

Wurzelbacher became an instant celebrity after he asked Barack Obama a series of questions in his Toledo driveway about the Democrat's tax policies.

In the third debate between Obama and Republican John McCain on Oct. 15, the candidates referred to Joe the Plumber more than 20 times.

The next day, the taxation department conducted two separate searches of a database of liens for unpaid taxes that were certified to the Ohio Attorney General's Office for collection.

John Kohlstrand, a taxation department spokesman, said he is prohibited from talking about individual taxpayers, but he confirmed that the databases were checked.

The searches were done to determine whether a lien placed against the individual was appropriate and whether it remained unpaid or not, Kohlstrand said.

The department's first search of the day was unsuccessful because of incorrect information about the individual, Kohlstrand said. Ohio Attorney General Nancy Rogers' office then contacted taxation because it was having difficulty accessing the database, Kohlstrand said. After the two agencies talked, taxation completed a successful search.

It's been called to my attention that I'm a chicken shit for not putting my true name on this blog.

But Joe the Plumber isn't the only person who's had to deal with this kind of dreck.

Let me give you some history.

I am an accountant. Part of what I do is represent clients who have tax issues before the IRS, the State of Ohio, ODJFS, Worker's comp, etc.

I didn't have this blog up two weeks when a representative from one of the above agencies told me, "I read your blog...... it's interesting". I didn't receive this comment as a compliment, I received it as a threat towards my client because I'm an anti tax guy.

I was told that this unit, as part of their investigation, does web searches of the taxpayer involved as part of their due diligence .

"You do those on their representatives as well?", I asked.

"Yes, if we suspect that there may be a case of a representative selling a fraudulent tax scheme."

Given that this was a trust fund tax issue from 28 years ago ( I should have told her that I was a liberal back then), I thought this was pretty damn lame.

So when Midas wanted to keep his identity anonymous because of work issues, it sounded like a great opportunity for me to do the same.

Therefore, if you really want to know who I am, you can figure it out very easily from the information on the first page of this blog. If you are a dumb ass, you won't be able to. Otherwise, I think I'll just keep me name out of any potential google searches for the protection of my family and clients. I don't want my clients being "Plumbered" because of my political beliefs.

For the record, when I submit to the Ohio Carnival I use my real name. If you communicate through the email address at the top I use my real name. I'm not hiding from anyone.

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

Cincinnati Enquirer meet Econ 101

How do you know that liberals run newspapers?

Because their knowledge of economics is nonexistent.

Take for instance, the Cincinnati Enquirer, who's readership has dropped like all the Obama newsletters around the country. This despite the fall of the Cincinnati Post.

How do they handle a drop in readership?

They raise the price of the daily paper from fifty to seventy five cents.

Enquirer meet Price-Demand curve. You would have run into this guy in college had you decided to take an Econ class instead of Russian Lit.

See, when price goes up, demand for your product goes down.

People already knew the paper wasn't worth 50 cents with all the PrObama pieces in it. That's why readership has been dropping. My guess is even more will decide it's easier to just give the Obama campaign 300 bucks a years and get on their email list than to buy your paper every day.

Good luck on this one.

Brought to you by the same people who thought raising the presidential campaign fund from $1.00 to $3.00 would increase participation.

Taxachusetts

In a shocking stunner, blue state Massachusetts is looking to eliminate the state income tax.

The history of taxation in Massachusetts over the last century is one of legislators forever indulging the state’s appetite and never prescribing a diet. The state’s first income tax, enacted in 1915, was initially presented as “a substitute, complete or partial, for the existing tax on personal property,” observed the Harvard economist Charles Bullock. But the income tax neither eliminated nor alleviated the property-tax burden, and it soon became a permanent levy, with the rate rising from 1.5 percent in 1950 to 5.3 percent today. During the mid-sixties, something similar happened when Republican governor John Volpe—in the strange world of Massachusetts politics, party labels confuse as much as instruct—crusaded for a sales tax while mainly Democrat antagonists in the state legislature battled against it. The sales-tax foes won the first six battles, but in winning the seventh vote, Volpe proved the old maxim that if at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try, try, try, try again. The sales tax was to last from April 1, 1966, to December 31, 1967, but over 40 years later, a mere two-day respite from it is cause for celebration.

Governor Ted, are you watching this one?

More.....

It's fashionable to hate on the rich

The Obama coronation made hating on the rich fashionable, like wearing black, pet rocks, earth shoes, etc.

Ask the New York budget how much they like the rich. They'd probably tell you how much the miss those guys.

From the WSJ....

The global credit panic has swept away many illusions, and we're about to find out if that includes those of the politicians who have feasted for years on Wall Street tax revenues. Ground Zero is New York, which has lived a tax-and-spend fantasy thanks to the long bull market and "progressive" tax rates. Reality is now biting.

The financial services industry employs between 2% and 3% of nongovernment workers in New York, the same as it did in the late 1970s. What's changed is the share of total wages in the state represented by Wall Street jobs, which had skyrocketed to nearly 20% last year from a little over 2% in 1977.

"This is 212,000 people making nearly $80 billion in wages and salaries last year," explained E.J. McMahon of the Manhattan Institute at a recent panel discussion on the financial crisis. "This is all taxed at the margin, so it plays an outsized role in the state's finances." This is also the dirty little secret of highly "progressive" tax rates: They make a state dependent on relatively few taxpayers.

Where's John Galt? Probably not living in New York.

Al the Shoesalesman Gets a Tax Cut

The Matrix Runs on Windows

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

The 2008 Weblogs awards

If you would like to nominate some of your favorite blogs, click the button.

HT to Bizzyblog a deserving nominee.

Modest Expectations From An Obama Supporter

I still haven't read when we can stop paying our mortgages. Can someone clue me in on the date?

Calling all liberals

Here's the Ohio Red-Blue map by county.

I'm still waiting on a lib to check in to tell me exactly what makes life in Youngstown (a hard core democratic area) so much more wonderful than say life in Piqua (Redville).

How about what makes life in Cleveland so much more wonderful than life in my home town of Lancaster.

Or what about Toledo v. Dublin?

Columbus v. Newark?

Many years ago, I dated a tremendously liberal woman and we talked about where our kids would go to school. At the time, we were both living in Cincinnati Public Schools. My proposal, Catholic schools. Her proposal? Move to the suburbs because she "supports public schools". Huh?

As I stated at the time, "that's so wonderfully liberal". Liberals create and run the crappy school systems they'd never send their kids to so they haul ass out to the suburbs where the sensible republicans take care of business.

In many respects, democrats are like teenagers, they are always quick to point out the responsible parents shortfalls all while they live rent free under said parent's roof. What a great deal.

Now I know that Eric from Plunderbong checks into this site because he comments on snarky little crap. Well tell me Eric, what is it that makes living in these blue areas so damn wonderful?

Is it the crime? the unemployment? the schools?

But hey, don't take my word for it, just look at the flight of people out of these blue areas into the red areas. Moses could only have dreamed to be as efficient. If the pharaohs had been democrats even the non slaves would have hauled ass out of Egypt much like they have Cleveland, Akron, Toledo, Dayton, Cincinnati, Youngstown, etc.

So Eric, do you have the balls to take me up on this one?

Ramirez

Obama's Gonna "Change the World"

Christopher Hitchens:

"More worrying still, there are vicious enemies and rogue states in increasing positions of influence throughout the world (one of the episodes that most condemned the Republican campaign was its attempt to slander Sen. Joe Biden for his candid attempt to point this out), yet many Obama voters appear to believe that the mere charm and aspect of their new president will act as an emollient influence on these unwelcome facts and these hostile forces. I can't make myself perform this act of faith, and I won't put up with any innuendo about my inability to do so."

More...

Thank a Vet today

That's Veteran with a capital "V".

Veterans, those who personally made the sacrifice to delay their own immediate dreams to do something bigger like protect this country and all it represents.

As many know, I was a by product of the "hate the military" liberal, Vietnam, douche bag, protesters from the 1970's and early '80's. At the time, I had no appreciation for my right to "free speech". As a loud mouth liberal, I believed my speech was "free" to me because I gave nothing for it. I was entitled to it.

Now that I'm a born again conservative, I understand that nothing in life is "free". Someone always pays the price for my free speech and that person is a veteran.

You will always have my utmost respect for fighting the fight I wouldn't.

Thank You!

Hi, I'm Governor Ted and I'm here to help

So Governor Ted's going to be in Wilmington today to see what he can do to help the area recover from the loss of DHL jobs.

Well here's how I see it Ted. Here are the things that this state has done in the past three years to drive jobs out of the once great state of Ohio....

- Introduction of the CAT tax
- Annually, increase the minimum wage
- Keep strippers six feet from patrons
- Ban public smoking
- Decrease the profits of payday lenders.
- Not allow casinos in the state
- The continued assault on employers in the form of outrageous unemployment and worker's comp costs.

Now you can say, Geez Gordon, these didn't hurt company's who offered good paying jobs to employees.

But jobs don't exist in a vacuum. The money the stripper earns is every bit as valuable to an economy as the money an autoworker earns. Ever heard of the multiplier effect?

After all, where does the stripper spend her money? Don't they buy cars? Go to restaurants? Shop at Krogers? Do people work at those places?

Guess what, people work at those places as well! They need the money of the stripper the auot worker, the computer programmer, the brick layer, the restaurant server, et al to survive.

Each and every law that is passed in this state that makes it more difficult for profitable businesses to exist in this state has a ripple effect throughout an economy. It may only directly impact 100 people but those 100 support others, who support others, etc.

So what if the check cashers go out of buisness? What about the real estate developer who doesn't need to build new space because of saturation in the commercial real estate market? Aren't those contstruction jobs good jobs?

I'm of the belief that there is no distinction between good jobs and bad jobs. There's only healthy economies and shitty ones. It just so happens that democrats always seem to be governing over the shitty ones, which means fewer jobs for everyone.

Governor Ted was against the casino being built in Wilmington. Now he has the balls to show up and ask what he can do to help jobs in that very area?

Yeah Ted, how about you getting the hell out of the state. That will do a lot to get business back here.

As I've said before, democrats have made a cottage industry of ruling over the horrible areas they actually created. Ohio is simply Michigan Junior at this point. All we need to do is follow Michigan's lead and we'll have their kick ass economy soon.

What's so "progressive" about no jobs?

Dear President-Elect Obama

Dear President-Elect Obama

From the video above, I’m clear that you will make sure that we need not worry about our home mortgage payments anymore.

But what about my car being repossessed?

See, my wife and I went to a Lexus dealership about two years ago. The salesman there allowed us to test drive one of their top of the line SUV’s which he should have known we couldn’t afford. None the less, we got in the car and, let me tell you, the smell of that new car, the fine Corinthian leather, and butt warmer seats was too intoxicating for us to handle.

The next thing we know we’re being preyed upon by one of those predatory lenders, who strapped us into a $1,501.00 a month car payment for the next 60 months.

After making payments for year or so, we have found ourselves getting behind on the payments. So much so, the predatory lender is threatening to repossess our car.

Fortunately for us, we we’re forced to move out of $350,000 home due to foreclosure so the repossession guys are having a hard time finding us.

So we’re asking you to help our middle class family who makes only $60,000 a year to help us keep our car.

It looks like you are into bailing out the US automakers; the shareholders, the workers, the vendors. But what about the poor schleps who bought their cars? The poor people who are now locked into horrible loans because we couldn’t resist the smell of those cinnamon rolls in the car dealership.

Will I be able to say on a youtube video in a couple of months that I’ll never have to worry about a car payment ever again?

Please help us, we have our eyes on a nice BMW and we’d like to ask them to deliver it soon.

Sincerely,

Over extended Yuppies

Get your guns while you can

Harry McLain Jr. saw the spike the day after the election, when his sales doubled over the previous year then shot even higher Thursday. “They are buying more guns than normal, and they are buying the guns the government doesn’t want them to have,” said McLain, who owns a gun shop near Binghamton and was among the sellers gathered Saturday for a weekend gun show on Main Street in Clarence.

Gun owners figure a Barack Obama administration, combined with a Democrat-controlled House and Senate, will impose stricter laws, so they are buying guns now, especially semiautomatic weapons. The fears manifested Saturday in Clarence have appeared around the country as well.

Last month, as an Obama victory appeared likely, background checks for gun purchases rose by 108,000 over the previous October, a 15 percent increase. As of Oct. 26, they were up about 8 percent for this year, according to the FBI.

Count ole Gordon as one of these purchasers of firearms.

Over the weekend, I bought a Sig Sauer 9mm. I can't wait to give it a test ride.

Modest Expectations From An Obama Supporter

Cincinnati Survives West Virginia Nov 8th 2008

A wild and crazy end to the UC WVU game last night.

What party is he?

Here's a pol having a good time

A Jersey City councilman has reportedly been arrested for urinating on a crowd of concertgoers from the balcony of a Washington D.C. nightclub.

The New York Daily News reports in Sunday's editions that two-term Jersey City councilman Steve Lipski has been charged with simple assault.

The newspaper says 44-year-old Lipski was removed from a place called the 9:30 Club on Friday night.

That's after club staffers saw him relieve himself onto the crowd from a second floor balcony during a concert by a Grateful Dead tribute band.

Messages left at Lipski's council office, and a Jersey City listing under his name were not immediately returned.

The piece doesn't mention his party affiliation so the question is..... What party is he?

Hint... He was just demonstrating the coming administration policies towards the taxpayer.

More like it

Unlike my previous post on the hilarity of Obama "winning over the press", here's a journalist who has it right.

This one titled....

A love story: The press and Obama

The late Jerome Holtzman, a sports writing institution in Chicago, wrote a book 35 years ago called No Cheering in the Press Box.

It's still true. Up in the press box, partisan rooting is not tolerated. It will get the reporter tossed, credentials stripped. I've seen this happen to a local TV broadcaster in Toronto who whoop-whooped a Leaf goal during a playoff game.

The irony is that sports scribes – often belittled for working in the "toy department" – could teach their tall forehead colleagues a thing or two about professional conduct and impartiality.

More....

This is a joke, right?

This headline is out of The Onion, right?

How Obama Can Win Over The Media

Here are some other ideas.

- Avoid urinating on them... literally.

- Only allow them to clean up the First Family's dog dropping once a week.

- Promise to father a child with their spouses using your superman like sperm.

- Tell Chris Matthews to keep his tingling leg outside of a five mile radius from The Messiah.

More...

The conservative cause wasted

P.J. O'Rourke with a long, but excellent analysis, on the wasted 28 years of the conservative movement.....

Liberalism had been running wild in the nation since the Great Depression. At the end of the Carter administration we had it cornered in one of its dreadful low-income housing projects or smelly public parks or some such place, and we held the Taser gun in our hand, pointed it at the beast's swollen gut, and didn't pull the trigger. Liberalism wasn't zapped and rolled away on a gurney and confined somewhere until it expired from natural causes such as natural law or natural rights.

In our preaching and our practice we neglected to convey the organic and universal nature of freedom. Thus we ensured our loss before we even began our winning streak. Barry Goldwater was an admirable and principled man. He took an admirably principled stand on states' rights. But he was dead wrong. Separate isn't equal. Ask a kid whose parents are divorced.

Another point...

Conservatives should never say to voters, "We can lower your taxes." Conservatives should say to voters, "You can raise spending. You, the electorate, can, if you choose, have an infinite number of elaborate and expensive government programs. But we, the government, will have to pay for those programs. We have three ways to pay.

"We can inflate the currency, destroying your ability to plan for the future, wrecking the nation's culture of thrift and common sense, and giving free rein to scallywags to borrow money for worthless scams and pay it back 10 cents on the dollar.

"We can raise taxes. If the taxes are levied across the board, money will be taken from everyone's pocket, the economy will stagnate, and the poorest and least advantaged will be harmed the most. If the taxes are levied only on the wealthy, money will be taken from wealthy people's pockets, hampering their capacity to make loans and investments, the economy will stagnate, and the poorest and the least advantaged will be harmed the most.

"And we can borrow, building up a massive national debt. This will cause all of the above things to happen plus it will fund Red Chinese nuclear submarines that will be popping up in San Francisco Bay to get some decent Szechwan take-out."

Yes, this would make for longer and less pithy stump speeches. But we'd be showing ourselves to be men and women of principle. It might cost us, short-term. We might get knocked down for not whoring after bioenergy votes in the Iowa caucuses. But at least we wouldn't land on our scruples. And we could get up again with dignity intact, dust ourselves off, and take another punch at the liberal bully-boys who want to snatch the citizenry's freedom and tuck that freedom, like a trophy feather, into the hatbands of their greasy political bowlers.

More....

BO

Noemie Emery:

"Refusing to take Ronald Reagan's famous advice--don't just do something, stand there--conservative machers are all in a swivet, reading the leaves of the 2008 verdict, plotting to pick off this or that set of voters, opining on what it all means. Actually, just standing there seems like a pretty good option, at least for the moment, and perhaps for the next few weeks and months. Plans made right now may turn out to be useless. There are too many things we don't know.

We don't know yet what happened on Tuesday, and what kind of win it will be: a pivotal one, like 1932 and 1980; or a transient success--1964, 1976, 1988, 2004--that at the moment appeared monumental, but four years later had turned out not to be. How much of the glow now surrounding the Democrats is due to themselves, and how much to the nature of Barack Obama, who has a personality that comes along twice in a century, and how long will this last?

Which Obama will turn up to govern, the man of moderate temperament, or the functional liberal, whose record is way left of center? When the phone rings for real at three in the morning, who will pick it up: the oh-so-cool cat who was so self-possessed while campaigning, or the neophyte who, outside of campaigning, has never faced a real test in his life? How big will the recession be, and will he prolong it? Will he gain or lose ground in the war on terror? Will we have a new terror attack? If he governs well, he will win again in the next go round, and nothing done now will change it; if he blows a big test on the world stage, then nothing will save him. No grand schemes hatched now will change that."

More...

Modest Expectations From An Obama Supporter

Mrs. Gekko and I are looking for a new place since our mortgage is currently way to small to worry about it already.

Looking for a much bigger place to not worry about somewhere in the mid 1,000,000's if you know of one please forward.