Saturday, November 29, 2008

Jonathan Haidt: The real difference between liberals and con

HT Porkopolis

2008 Cincinnati Bearcats Stadium Intro Video

Beacats win Big East out right

UC just defeated Syracuse for a sole possession of the Big East title.

Tribute of the season can be seen here....

Ok, Ok you can get back on the bus

Memo:

To All supporters
From Obama campaign

RE Under the bus

To all of you dumb asses who said and did ignorant things during the campaign that could have cost me the election and caused me to ceremoniously throw you "under the bus", please note that you are now allowed back on the bus.

As of now, Austin Goolsbee and Samantha Powers can have their original seats as advisers to my administration. As a result, we can get back to hating on Israel now that it won't cost us South Florida votes.

If you have any questions related to this memo please forward to David Axelrod.

BO

Friday, November 28, 2008

Bearcats clinch Big East


Pitt just defeated WVU allowing the University of Cincinnati Bearcats to clinch the Big East crown and a BCS bowl bid.

It's been an unbelievable season for the 'cats.

Congratulations to Coach Brian Kelly and his team for making history this season.

Next to Xavier's elite eight appearance in the NCAA tournament, it's the best thing to happen to this city in a decade.

Lord knows nothing from the pro teams has been decent.

Signs of the great depression

A Walmart worker was trampled to death this morning because ....

a) Walmart was offering free groceries for unemployed workers.
b) They were offering free clothing to the children of people in poverty.
c) The worker refused to let go of all the stores copies of Chinese Democracy by Guns n Roses.
d) People were stampeding the store to spend money at four in the morning.


For what it's worth, apparently there were no deaths today for people stampeding Starbucks for a double grande, frappucino with a coffee twist.

Magical Reindeer Gems

The Christmas ornaments for sale at the Miller Park Zoo's gift shop are partly manufactured by reindeer. Honest!

Staffers make decorations out of droppings from the zoo's two reindeer, Ealu and Rika. The droppings are dried, then clear-coated and either painted or rolled in glitter. Zoo marketing director Susie Ohley has named the products "magical reindeer gem ornaments," and each comes with a label of authenticity. They cost $5 at the zoo gift shop.

Staffer Katie Buydos, who makes jewelry as a hobby, donated wire and beads, saying, "Susie asked me to bring some creativity to the table." Some folks are surprised at the size of the "gems," which are only about as big as marbles. "Reindeer are so big," zoo maintenance worker Sheldon Williams said. But the droppings are "just a big pile of small."

The Political Market

Charles Krauthammer:

"Today's extreme stock market volatility is not just a symptom of fear -- fear cannot account for days of wild market swings upward -- but a reaction to meta-economic events: political decisions that have vast economic effects.

As economist Irwin Stelzer argues, we have gone from a market economy to a political economy. Consider seven days in November. On Tuesday, Nov. 18, Paulson broadly implies he's only using half the $700 billion bailout money. Having already spent most of his $350 billion, he's going to leave the rest to his successor. The message received on Wall Street -- I'm done, I'm gone.
Facing the prospect of two months of political limbo, the market craters. Led by the banks (whose balance sheets did not change between Tuesday and Wednesday), the market sees the largest two-day drop in the S&P since 1933, not a very good year.

The next day (Friday) at 3 p.m., word leaks of Timothy Geithner's impending nomination as Treasury secretary. The mere suggestion of continuity -- and continued authoritative intervention during the interregnum by the guy who'd been working hand in glove with Paulson all along -- sends the Dow up 500 points in one hour."

More...

Larry Wright


Steve Kelley


Turmoil in the Making

Robert Kiyosaki:

"How did we get into the current financial mess? Great question.

In 1910, seven men held a secret meeting on Jekyll Island off the coast of Georgia. It's estimated that those seven men represented one-sixth of the world's wealth. Six were Americans representing J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and the U.S. government. One was a European representing the Rothschilds and Warburgs.

In 1913, the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank was created as a direct result of that secret meeting. Interestingly, the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank isn't federal, there are no reserves, and it's not a bank. Those seven men, some American and some European, created this new entity, commonly referred to as the Fed, to take control of the banking system and the money supply of the United States."

More...

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Happy Thanksgiving

To all family, friends, readers, and contributors, have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

If you were born in this country, you have much to be thankful for. Spend a few moments today and reflect on those things.

Well, unless you are a Lions fan, then you probably don't have a whole lot to be thankful for.

Turkey Day


Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Cleveland school to be renamed

A Cleveland councilman wants to rename a Cleveland school after Obama.

It seems like the perfect thing. Name a public school after an official who would never send his own kids to that school.

Name a school after someone who hasn't done a damn thing yet, much like the students who inhabit the school.

Name a school with a high budget and low performance after The Messiah.

Perfect fit.

Thought of the day.

I find it kind of amusing that most people who don't want Louisa Tuck (aka Crystal Gunns, porn star) in their kids lunch room, serving food, yet have no problem with William Ayers, terrorist, actually teaching their college aged kids.

I guess it's those priorities that has The Messiah in the office of President-Elect.

How did we get into this mess?

A thorough piece at the Cato Institute detailing how our country ended up in this current economic mess.

Read the report here.

A big 'ole salute to this bad ass

If you haven't read up on this marine sniper who totally kicked ass in in Afghanistan last week, well, you're watching too much network news.

Here's the story....

“The day started out with a 10-kilometer patrol with elements mounted and dismounted, so by the time we got to Shewan, we were pretty beat,” said a designated marksman who requested to remain unidentified. “Our vehicles came under a barrage of enemy RPGs (rocket propelled grenades) and machine gun fire. One of our ‘humvees’ was disabled from RPG fire, and the Marines inside dismounted and laid down suppression fire so they could evacuate a Marine who was knocked unconscious from the blast.”

The vicious attack that left the humvee destroyed and several of the Marines pinned down in the kill zone sparked an intense eight-hour battle as the platoon desperately fought to recover their comrades. After recovering the Marines trapped in the kill zone, another platoon sergeant personally led numerous attacks on enemy fortified positions while the platoon fought house to house and trench to trench in order to clear through the enemy ambush site.

“The biggest thing to take from that day is what Marines can accomplish when they’re given the opportunity to fight,” the sniper said. “A small group of Marines met a numerically superior force and embarrassed them in their own backyard. The insurgents told the townspeople that they were stronger than the Americans, and that day we showed them they were wrong.”

During the battle, the designated marksman single handedly thwarted a company-sized enemy RPG and machinegun ambush by reportedly killing 20 enemy fighters with his devastatingly accurate precision fire. He selflessly exposed himself time and again to intense enemy fire during a critical point in the eight-hour battle for Shewan in order to kill any enemy combatants who attempted to engage or maneuver on the Marines in the kill zone. What made his actions even more impressive was the fact that he didn’t miss any shots, despite the enemies’ rounds impacting within a foot of his fighting position.

“I was in my own little world,” the young corporal said. “I wasn’t even aware of a lot of the rounds impacting near my position, because I was concentrating so hard on making sure my rounds were on target.”


Nice job Mr. Marine.

New game

Here's a new game to keep yourself on the computer while faking work.

From TigerHawk

Six degrees of Hitler
Here is the task set before you:

1) Go to Wikipedia.
2) Click any random link on there.
3) You have five clicks to reach Hitler's article.

GO!

UPDATE: Forgot to mention varying levels of difficulty.

Easy Mode: Any links

Nightmare Mode: No Country Links

Hell Mode: No Country or Date links

Of course liberals will go to the elementary version offered on the Daily Kos where Bush = Hitler, Cheney = Hitler, Reagan = Hitler, McCain = Hitler, etc etc.

Now they tell us

Of course, just three weeks ago, when Bush was president, we couldn't act fast enough on global warming to ebb the tide of our inevitable man made, carbon emitting, doom.

But that was then, before Mr. Obama took over the office of the President-Elect.

Now it's whoa, whoa, whoa; let's no be too hasty in doing something that might wreck our economy because our science may not be all that good.....
The National Academy of Sciences and most major scientific bodies agree that global warming is caused by man-made carbon emissions. But a small, growing number of scientists, including D’Aleo, are questioning how quickly the warming is happening and whether humans are actually the leading cause.

Armed with statistics from the Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climate Data Center, D’Aleo reported in the 2009 Old Farmer’s Almanac that the U.S. annual mean temperature has fluctuated for decades and has only risen 0.21 degrees since 1930 — which he says is caused by fluctuating solar activity levels and ocean temperatures, not carbon emissions.

Data from the same source shows that during five of the past seven decades, including this one, average U.S. temperatures have gone down. And the almanac predicted that the next year will see a period of cooling.

“We’re worried that people are too focused on carbon dioxide as the culprit,” D’Aleo said. “Recent warming has stopped since 1998, and we want to stop draconian measures that will hurt already spiraling downward economics. We’re environmentalists and conservationists at heart, but we don’t think that carbon is responsible for hurricanes.”

But then again, maybe I've got it wrong. After all, the current office holder of the president elect told us back in June that global warming was ending.

“I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.” B. Obama (6/4/08)

So maybe it's just healed because The Messiah said it so and the media reported it as such.

By the way, the current score to the global warming challenge Warm 338 Cool 333.

More.....

More Bush

Wow, I am getting older and my memory is starting to fade. But I think it was Mr. Obama, current office golder of the President elect, who was highly critical of the Bush administration's war effort.

Obviously, I've got a little old timer memory loss. It must have been The Maverick who was critical of all things Iraq. How else can you explain this....
Sources tell ABC News that Defense Secretary Robert Gates will be staying on in the top Pentagon job, for at least the first year of the Obama administration. "It is a done deal," a source close to the process tells ABC News.

Gates, while a registered independent, has served numerous Republican administrations. President George W. Bush nominated Gates to replace the Donald Rumsfeld after the 2006 midterm elections, when the war in Iraq was spiraling out of control.

The former Eagle Scout is expected to be rolled out immediately after the Thanksgiving Holiday weekend as part of a larger national security team expected to include Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, as Secretary of State; Marine Gen. Jim Jones (Ret.) as National Security Adviser; Admiral Dennis Blair (Ret.) as Director of National Intelligence; and Dr. Susan Rice as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.


The next thing you're going to tell me is Obama voted for the FISA bill while he was a senator running for president.

More....

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

The golden state gets rusty

They call it paradise
I don't know why
You call someplace paradise,
kiss it goodbye

D. Henley


California's unemployment rate soared to a 14-year high in October, hitting 8.2%, and economists predicted that it could rise substantially over the next year and a half.

The state's economy shed 26,400 people from its payroll last month, raising the total number of lost jobs to 101,300 since October 2007, the California Employment Development Department reported Friday.

So which states could actually have an even higher unemployment rate than CA. None other than the blue state paradises of Michigan and Rhode Island.

More......

How the bailout compares

How does our current bailout of all things losing money compare with other government efforts?

Here's a piece that does the actual computations.

If we add in the Citi bailout, the total cost now exceeds $4.6165 trillion dollars. People have a hard time conceptualizing very large numbers, so let’s give this some context. The current Credit Crisis bailout is now the largest outlay In American history.

Jim Bianco of Bianco Research crunched the inflation adjusted numbers. The bailout has cost more than all of these big budget government expenditures – combined:

Marshall Plan: Cost: $12.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $115.3 billion
Louisiana Purchase: Cost: $15 million, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $217 billion
Race to the Moon: Cost: $36.4 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $237 billion
S&L Crisis: Cost: $153 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $256 billion
Korean War: Cost: $54 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $454 billion
The New Deal: Cost: $32 billion (Est), Inflation Adjusted Cost: $500 billion (Est)
Invasion of Iraq: Cost: $551b, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $597 billion
Vietnam War: Cost: $111 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $698 billion
NASA: Cost: $416.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $851.2 billion

TOTAL: $3.92 trillion


For what it's worth; this is chump change compared to the 40 TRILLION DOLLAR bailout coming for Medicare and Social Security.

More.....

Drive too much - problem; drive too little - problem

Only in the government can the electorate comply and create yet another problem.

From the WSJ....

When gasoline prices shot over $4 a gallon this summer, Americans didn't wait for Washington to respond with an energy policy. They took action on their own by driving less and switching to more fuel-efficient cars.

The results are dramatic, but also problematic.

The good news is that gasoline consumption has fallen compared with a year earlier in every month from March through September of this year, according to data from the Energy Information Administration. Vehicle miles traveled -- the wonky term for how much we drive -- have dropped for 11 straight months, and fell 4.4% in September, according to the Department of Transportation.

snip...

But the federal government is conflicted, too. Yes, policy makers want us to conserve oil. But now that we have, the funds that pay for roads, bridges, rail transit and other transportation infrastructure are falling right along with gasoline tax receipts.

The U.S. Department of Transportation last week said that gasoline taxes paid into the highway trust fund fell by $3 billion in the 2008 fiscal year.


So the bottom line. If we continue to drive too much, you'll get bitched at by LollaPelosi & Co. if you drive too little, you get the same.

Sounds like a future ex-wife.

Brooks on The Messiah

David Brooks no longer has to pull out his knee pads to worship at the feet of Obamamania; he just keeps them on all the time.

Here's his take on The Messiah's disciples.
Already the culture of the Obama administration is coming into focus. Its members are twice as smart as the poor reporters who have to cover them, three times if you include the columnists. They typically served in the Clinton administration and then, like Cincinnatus, retreated to the comforts of private life — that is, if Cincinnatus had worked at Goldman Sachs, Williams & Connolly or the Brookings Institution. So many of them send their kids to Georgetown Day School, the posh leftish private school in D.C., that they’ll be able to hold White House staff meetings in the carpool line.

And yet as much as I want to resent these overeducated Achievatrons (not to mention the incursion of a French-style government dominated by highly trained Enarchs), I find myself tremendously impressed by the Obama transition.

The fact that they can already leak one big appointee per day is testimony to an awful lot of expert staff work. Unlike past Democratic administrations, they are not just handing out jobs to the hacks approved by the favored interest groups. They’re thinking holistically — there’s a nice balance of policy wonks, governors and legislators. They’re also thinking strategically. As Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute notes, it was smart to name Tom Daschle both the head of Health and Human Services and the health czar. Splitting those duties up, as Bill Clinton did, leads to all sorts of conflicts.

Most of all, they are picking Washington insiders. Or to be more precise, they are picking the best of the Washington insiders.

Did it ever occur to one D. Brooks that our current economic crises are a direct result of the Harvard MBA types' management of their respective disciplines? Let me guess, it was a bunch of bubba deer hunters who came up with the idea of credit default swaps?

Let's take a look at some random blue blood....

Rick Wagoner, CEO of GM, MBA Harvard.

Vikram Pandit, CEO of Citigroup, PhD from Columbia.

Jeff Immelt, CEO GE, MBA Harvard.

Franklin Raines, CEO Fannie Mae, JD Harvard Law School, Rhodes Scholar.

Forgive me if I'm not impressed with these genius's management of government and companies. As the late William Buckley would say "I'd rather be governed by 2000 random names from the Boston phone book than the Harvard faculty".

More Life in "Progress" city

If you are one of those "progressive" types, you believe "Redville" lacks all the amenities of city life; museums, pro sports teams, etc.

Maybe you're right after all, when I walk my dog out here in Christo-Fascist land (as one commenter calls it) I'm not going to get this.....

A mother shocked by seeing two half-naked men having sex while out walking the dogs with her daughter was told by police to take a different route in future.

Marie Cragg, 44, spoke of her disgust at the officers' reaction and said she feared the woodland beauty spot would be turned into a no-go area for ordinary members of the public.

The men seen by Miss Cragg and her 18-year-old daughter Jessica were stripped from the waist down and carried on with their activities even after they knew they had been spotted.

'I called the police and never heard anything back,' Miss Cragg said.

'Then later I was talking to the community officers, and they said they knew what goes on and I should change our walk.

'You should not have to see that, should you? They can go into the woods and go wherever they want - it's sick.

'They saw me and didn't care and just carried on. I could have been a childminder with kids. I would rather go past a gang of hoodies - they are making the place seedy.'

I guess that's an amenity we want out here in the 'burbs.

Life in Blue areas

Quick, think of the bluest city in the United States.

Your answer?

Call me The Mentalist, but I'm going to guess that your answer will show up on the FBI's list of the top crime cities.

Let me know your answer and see if it's on the list.

Check it out here

Monday, November 24, 2008

Jimmy Kimmel goes to black barbershop to see how to properly joke on Barack Obama

Little sweet Molly

Little Molly Sweeney shows why she is the product of a generation of kids who didn't keep soccer scores.

To quote little Molly....
For the first time in my life, I feel as if someone stands for me and my ideals, understands my hardships and wants to make my life and the lives of my generation better than those of our parents.

Barack Obama gives me hope that when I graduate from college, I will have a job and a place to start my life where I don't have to worry about not having enough money to eat or repay my school debts. Obama understands the importance of my education, and wants to help ensure that I can receive that education, thus bettering myself and bettering America.

You can go on to read the rest of her drivel here.....

What caught my eye was her bio at the end...
Molly Sweeney is a UC Davis sophomore working toward a triple major in political science, communications and international relations. She wants to be a war-zone correspondent and analyst of terrorist activities.
A triple major in poli sci, communication and international relations? Wouldn't it have been more efficient to have just majored in unemployment?

Seriously, did she do any research on the media job market before deciding on a major? If she's not hot, there's no hope of being a network war correspondent; just ask CBS slut Lara Logan.

Maybe she can go to the NY Times? Assuming they'll be out of bankruptcy by then.

Dear naive Molly, if you are worried about getting a job, let Uncle Gordon give you some advice that your parents were too afraid to (the same people too afraid to tell you your soccer team got its ass kicked)... CHANGE YOUR MAJOR(S) TO SOMETHING WORTHWHILE.

On a good note Molly, at least you won't have to worry about your mortgage payment when you get out of school.

Should it suck to be poor?

Maggie Thurber has a post on the Food Stamp Challenge and it begs the question I always ask.

Should it suck to be poor?

Seriously, let's assume that food stamps would more than cover 3 squares a day. Would there ever be an incentive to not be on food stamps?

I like to compare this with homelessness. I think we can all agree that homelessness is bad. But should being homeless suck? Shouldn't we create an environment where being homeless is much worse than getting off the drugs and booze and actually getting a home for yourself.

Let's look at San Francisco. San Francisco spends over 100 million on their homeless population every year. Has that increased or decreased the homeless population in the Bay area?

I would say that from the smell of urine that pervades the city, my guess is not.

Imagine that you had a brother who fell on hard times and you allowed him to stay in your home. Would you be pissed if he got all uppity about that spaghetti you served him? Even though it was plenty good enough for you. What about that mac and cheese and hot dogs?

After a while, wouldn't you realize that you were just enabling this clown and give him the boot out?

Yet somehow we allow our governments to enable people's dysfunctional lives for generation upon generation.

Last year, I thought about doing this challenge. But then it dawned on me, I've already done it, only we called college.

I can't even look at a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese after the reminders of the cases of that crap I ate as an undergrad.

The same with those 33 cent pot pies and frozen burritos.

So excuse me if I don't have have a lot of compassion for people on food stamps who can't eat great cuts of meat and fresh vegetables for each meal. Guess what, me and my roommates ate shit and garbage for for five years, you can do it to and if you don't like it; do something about it. After all, being poor should suck.

Cincinnati Bearcats vs Pitt Panthers 11-22-2008

This could have been a repeat of the Cal Stanford debacle.

Bearack Obama


Disturbing trend in Montana ..

The photo below captures a disturbing trend that is beginning to affect wildlife in the US...


Animals that were formerly self-sufficient are now showing signs of belonging to the Democratic Party... as they have apparently learned to just sit and wait for the government to step in and provide for their care and sustenance.

This photo is of a Democratic black bear in Montana nicknamed ...

'Bearack Obama'!

Thanks to Reader Fred.

Modest Expectations From An Obama Supporter




“I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.” B. Obama (6/4/08)

Any word yet where we stand on these?

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Steve Kelley




Now they tell us

Mark Halperin on the orgasmic coverage of The Messiah.
"It's the most disgusting failure of people in our business since the Iraq war," Halperin said at a panel of media analysts. "It was extreme bias, extreme pro-Obama coverage."

Halperin, who maintains Time's political site "The Page," cited two New York Times articles as examples of the divergent coverage of the two candidates.

"The example that I use, at the end of the campaign, was the two profiles that The New York Times ran of the potential first ladies," Halperin said. "The story about Cindy McCain was vicious. It looked for every negative thing they could find about her and it case her in an extraordinarily negative light. It didn't talk about her work, for instance, as a mother for her children, and they cherry-picked every negative thing that's ever been written about her." The story about Michelle Obama, by contrast, was "like a front-page endorsement of what a great person Michelle Obama is," according to Halperin.

More....

Bearcats win big last night

The Bearcats pulled out the biggest win of their long, yet very mediocre, history.

The job's not finished yet. They have to beat Syracuse next Saturday to finish the job. I won't be easy. Just ask Notre Dame.

None the less, the win last night made all those bad games against Southern Miss, Tulane, Memphis, Eastern Kentucky worth it.

Hopefully, my voice will be back by Tuesday or Wednesday.

Obamarrhea

Some things never change. Washington D.C. is the epicenter of slim. And why would anyone think the Republicans will put up any type of fight during the confirmation hearings?

The latest list of Obama's expected Cabinet selections includes Hillary Clinton for secretary of state, Timothy Geithner as his Treasury secretary, Eric Holder as his attorney general, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson for commerce secretary and Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano for secretary of the Homeland Security Department.

Senators will have to decide in the confirmation hearings whether to broach Richardson's involvement, though marginal, in the Monica Lewinsky scandal, as well as Napolitano's work in the Anita Hill sexual harassment case and Holder's support of President Clinton's controversial pardon of Marc Rich.

Although none of these nominations is expected to fail, it is possible some could be delayed.


More...