Mike Leonard RIP

Last week, maybe the biggest sports fan in the country passed away.

Mike Leonard, a Willie's regular and huuuuge UC and Buckeye fan, died in Miami attending UC's Orange Bowl appearance.

The Enquirer a great obituary here.

Mike Leonard was a devotee of Cincinnati sports teams – so much so that in 1969, Enquirer sports columnist Jim Schottelkotte dubbed him “Super Fan.”

Mr. Leonard was especially fond of UC, OSU and Indian Hill High School football, the Bengals and Reds. He once watched Ohio State play Purdue in Columbus, then drove to St. Louis where he caught a few winks before proceeding to Kansas City to see the Bengals battle the Chiefs the following day.

He also once stopped off to watch the Bearcats play Tulsa wearing a tuxedo. He was on his way to Madeira where he was to be in a wedding.

May he rest in peace. He'll be missed.

Notice from Governor Ted

As part of Ohio's continued efforts to kill off business here in the "Heart of it All", Governor Ted is pleased to announce the annual hike in the state's minimum wage to $7.30/hr. effective 1/1/09.

If you are a business struggling to make a buck, please make sure that you update your payroll records before going bankrupt.

The state's press release can be seen here.

The Honeymoon is over

Remember how an Obama presidency was going to change the world's opinion of the United States.

You know, they'd quit hating on us since George Bush would no longer be the president.

Well, I guess hanging a picture of Obama in effigy is the muslim's world way of saying "We Love You O".

From Yahoo News...

Muslim protesters wearing masks of, from left, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and U.S. President-elect Barack Obama, take part in a rally against Israeli air strikes on Gaza, in Jakarta, Indonesia, Sunday, Jan. 4,

Profiles in Courage - Obama Style

Obama on Gaza.....

"I’m very concerned with the conflict taking place there," Obama said. "I’m monitoring the situation on a day to day basis.

"The loss of civilian life in Gaza and in Israel is a source of deep concern to me, and after January 20th I’ll have plenty to say about the issue."

Whoa, that's really stepping out there O.

But you know, Obama is The Messiah so I guess I need to listen to these profound statements like a parable.

More.......

Ha, Ha, Ha this is the best satire

Those guys at The Onion get funnier all the time.

Read this one....

Democrats, attempting to defuse the politically nettlesome issue of earmarks, pledged to cut federal spending on the pet projects while making the process for doling out the funds more understandable to the public.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey and Senate counterpart Daniel Inouye said in a joint statement today they will cut funding for most types of earmarks in half from 2006 levels. The cuts would be smaller, about 12 percent according to committee earmark estimates, compared with the most recent levels.

That is hilarious. Get it? Democrats will cut earmarks? Make it "understandable"? Oh man, I just spit my diet dew all over the screen.

What? you mean this wasn't from The Onion but Bloomberg News?

Is that a different satire site, like Mad or Cracked?

Dear President Elect

Dear Mr. President Elect;

I am a hard working taxpayer. Last spring, after a good tax season, I had some additional funds and decided to purchase a few shares of stock.

Given how beaten up I thought GE stock was, I bought 200 shares a $28/share.

In addition, thinking these stocks couldn't get any lower, I bought Fifth Third at $18/share and National City at $5/share.

My wife and I would like to help out the economy by finishing off our basement and adding an addition to the back of home. Unfortunately, the money I was going to use to do these things took a pounding from my stock losses above.

So I'll make you a deal. How about a Gekko bailout to the tune of 20 gigabillion dollars on the promise that I'll reinvest it in the economy by finishing our remodeling. I promise to do it just like the $350 billion the banks have used to reinvest in the economy.

The fact is, my investment decisions were a hell of lot better than buying billions of dollars in mortgages people wouldn't pay back. C'mon O, are you kidding me?

Look, the Gekko's can continue to operate without this stimulus. I'm only thinking about those poor Warren county contractors who need work. If we don't get this bailout, there will be many workers in the Warren County area without access to a job, cigarettes, lottery tickets, and Old Milwaukee.

Therefore, it's really only prudent that you help out the local economy with this bailout.

In addition O, I know how this works politically, so let me say up front, I don't own a corporate jet. So we're good there. I also understand that congress will want some accountability with this bailout. So you better make it for a few terrabillion more so we can make sure we comply by making our project green.

Thanks President elect Obama.

The Gekko Family.

PS I think I know someone who can take care of your Blago problem.... if you know what I mean?

The Big MAC surrenders

A surrender flag as seen outside of the Big Ten headquarters in Chicago.

Jim Delaney offered a surrender against all other BCS opponents until they can count their members.

Three is a Magic Number

On this date: January 6, 1973
The animated Saturday morning TV series of shorts called Schoolhouse Rock premieres on ABC this day in 1973 with "Multiplication Rock." The short musical cartoons featured lessons in math, history, science, grammar, and more, with classics like "Conjunction Junction," "Interjections," and "The Preamble to the Constitution."

It's still Bush's fault

A once-popular bumper sticker says simply, "When Bush took office, gas was $1.46." It was meant to be a slam, but as the end of his eight years approaches, President Bush is seeing gas prices that, adjusted for inflation, are lower than when he was inaugurated.

Last week's $1.59 - the average for a gallon of regular on Dec. 29, according to the Energy Information Administration - works out to $1.33 in 2001 dollars, or 9 percent less than it was the day Mr. Bush took office. The tumble in prices, from a high of more than $4.05 in early July, has meant incredible savings.

John B. Townsend II, spokesman for AAA Mid-Atlantic, said the inflation comparison doesn't mean much to consumers paying at the pump, but the drop in prices has put real money in consumers' pockets.

More.....

Timeline shows Bush, McCain warning Dems of financial mess

Plaxico Burress On Gun Safety

Who did they vote for # 188

A nice array of mugshots representing a distinct political force....



From reader Bartman....

Apparently, Obama had a big voting constituency with the penal system.

More at TSG

"Progressives" lie again

So let's see. "Progressives" told us when we started the Great Society that poverty would vanish in this country.

"Progressives" also told us that when we enacted Social Security it would end poverty for seniors.

History has proven time and again how liberals lie to weasel their way into our lives.

Need further proof? Check out The Huffington Post, not exactly the conservative standard bearer, on Global Baloney!

You are probably wondering whether President-elect Obama owes the world an apology for his actions regarding global warming. The answer is, not yet. There is one person, however, who does. You have probably guessed his name: Al Gore.

Mr. Gore has stated, regarding climate change, that "the science is in." Well, he is absolutely right about that, except for one tiny thing. It is the biggest whopper ever sold to the public in the history of humankind.

More....

When will we get a statement from some liberal blogger out there saying, "yeah, we were wrong"?

The Law of Unintended Consequences

So politicians have been working for years to push lenders into doing home loans for minorities.

How did that worked out for those folks?

California Rep. Joe Baca has long pushed legislation he said would "open the doors to the American Dream" for first-time home buyers in his largely Hispanic district. For many of them, those doors have slammed shut, quickly and painfully.

Mortgage lenders flooded Mr. Baca's San Bernardino, Calif., district with loans that often didn't require down payments, solid credit ratings or documentation of employment. Now, many of the Hispanics who became homeowners find themselves mired in the national housing mess. Nearly 9,200 families in his district have lost their homes to foreclosure.

For years, immigrants to the U.S. have viewed buying a home as the ultimate benchmark of success. Between 2000 and 2007, as the Hispanic population increased, Hispanic homeownership grew even faster, increasing by 47%, to 6.1 million from 4.1 million, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Over that same period, homeownership nationally grew by 8%. In 2005 alone, mortgages to Hispanics jumped by 29%, with expensive nonprime mortgages soaring 169%, according to the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council.

An examination of that borrowing spree by The Wall Street Journal reveals that it wasn't simply the mortgage market at work. It was fueled by a campaign by low-income housing groups, Hispanic lawmakers, a congressional Hispanic housing initiative, mortgage lenders and brokers, who all were pushing to increase homeownership among Latinos.

Many pounds ago, I worked as a credit analyst for a bank. And there's a reason that bank's developed those crazy qualification standards like down payments, documentation of income, etc...

Because it works.

As soon as these jerk off politicians push to distort markets, this is what we have left. People living as renters with the added benefit of not being able to qualify for a mortgage in the future.

Some deal..... Do you think we can get a liberal some where to own this as their legacy to the mortgage crisis?

more.....

All Bush with a sprinkling of corruption

Man, The Messiah hasn't even been sworn in yet and he's already got ethics issues all over the place.

First, you had Rahm Emanuel and his dealing with Blago. Then, over the weekend, Bill Richardson decided his ethics violations were too much for scrutiny.

Now, The Billary, with her doo doo....

A developer in New York state donated $100,000 to former President Bill Clinton's foundation in November 2004, around the same time that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton helped secure millions of dollars in federal assistance for the businessman's mall project.

Hillary Clinton helped enact legislation allowing the developer, Robert Congel, to use tax-exempt bonds to help finance the construction of the Destiny USA entertainment and shopping complex, an expansion of the Carousel Center in Syracuse.

She also helped secure a provision in a highway bill that set aside $5 million for Destiny USA roadway construction.

The bill with the tax-free bonds provision became law in October 2004, weeks before the donation, and the highway bill with the set-aside became law in August 2005, about nine months after the donation.

Congel and Philippe Reines, a spokesman for Hillary Clinton, both said there was no connection between his donation and her legislative work on his project's behalf. Reines said the senator had supported the expansion of Carousel mall "purely as part of her unwavering commitment to improving upstate New York's struggling economy, and nothing more."

Notice how all these issues surround former Clintonites. They're making Chicago style politics look lame.

More.....

By the way, Obama better get that alignment checked on the bus. Richardson was a big bump.

When will Israel end their aggression?

When should Israel pull out of Gaza seems to be the question of the day on most of the conservative blogs.

I've got an answer. How about never.

Let's face it here's how this dance goes. Hamas and Hezbullah have continued assaults on Israel with rockets flown into the country. Israel takes it up to a point then pulls a counter assault. The international community condemns Israel and the US negotiates some sort of pull out and/or cease fire settlement. All of which does nothing but allow these terrorist organizations to regroup and re arm and fire more rockets another day.

The day Israel goes in and demolishes the military infrastructure of these groups and the international community applauds it, will be the day the people in these territories will remove Hamas and Hezbullah from their ranks and maybe peace will be had. Ask Egypt.

Go kick some ass Israel.

More on the discussion at NRO

Brought to you by the "Most Ethical CONgress in History"

Today's pile of corruption comes from none other than Charles Rangel, a repeat performer.....

Representative Charles B. Rangel has helped raise $11 million for a City College of New York school of public service to be named in his honor. In recent months, as questions have emerged about his fund-raising, he has insisted that he has kept his efforts to attract donors scrupulously separate from his official duties in Congress.

But Congressional records and interviews show that Mr. Rangel was instrumental in preserving a lucrative tax loophole that benefited an oil-drilling company last year, while at the same time its chief executive was pledging $1 million to the project, the Charles B. Rangel School of Public Service at C.C.N.Y.

The company, Nabors Industries, was one of four corporations based in the United States that were widely criticized in 2002 and 2003 for opening offices in the Caribbean to reduce their federal tax payments. Mr. Rangel was among dozens of representatives from both parties who bitterly opposed those offshore moves and, in 2004, pushed unsuccessfully for legislation to make the companies pay more tax.

But in 2007, when the United States Senate tried to crack down on the companies, Mr. Rangel, who had recently been sworn in as House Ways and Means chairman, fought to protect them. The tax shelter for the four companies was preserved, saving Nabors an estimated tens of millions of dollars annually and depriving the federal treasury of $1.1 billion in revenues over a decade, according to a Congressional analysis by the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation.

More from the NY Times no less.......

Nepotacracy

The conventional wisdom is that republicans are the party of "silver spoons in their mouths".

Yet how do you describe the current shenanigans of democratic appointments to the senate.

Riddle me this batman

In Illinois, you have a man appointed by the sitting governor with a decent resume of public service within the state.

In New York, it appears the governor will appoint a debutant who's never held a meaningful job for any extended period of time.

Yet the democratic senate leadership looks to bar entry to the chamber of which candidate?

Apparently, if you are a democrat it's more helpful to be a Kennedy than to actually have a job.

From Althouse....

The aide familiar with Senate Democratic leaders' plans said if Burris tries to enter the Senate chamber, the Senate doorkeeper will stop Burris. If Burris were to persist, either trying to force his way onto the Senate floor or refusing to leave and causing a scene, U.S. Capitol Police would stop him, said the aide.

So at at time when there isn't a single black person in the U.S. Senate, a black man arrives at the doorway and means to go forward to take what he believes is his rightful seat...

More....

Don't Ask Me No Questions

A tough loss

The UC Bearcats weren't ready for prime time last night with their 20-7 loss to Va. Tech last night.

Regardless, it was water in the desert for those of us who have followed this team for years. Let's hope last night wasn't an aberration but a sign of times to come.

Congratulations to the team for a great season.

For a city thirsting for a winner, it was nice that it came from a team like the Bearcats.

How to avoid a New Year's hangover.

Don't drink with Midas

Santa Claus Bailout Hearings

Being so busy during the Festivus season, I missed this on C-Span.

Thanks to reader Mike.

Global warming challenge final results

The final results to the Global Warming Challenge

Warm 341
Cool 371

How is this possible? I mean it's supposed to be warming right?

Actually, I'd like to gloat but in reality it's like bragging about winning a coin flip. I mean the chances were 50-50 that cool would win the challenge.

Unless of course you're a Branch Gorevidian who believes in this global warming non sense. Then this has to be a shocker to your core. Kind of like killing yourself wearing purple Nikes only to find that comet really didn't mean the end of the world.

Now it is possible that Gordon's point scoring skewed the numbers in favor of the cool figures.

However, keep in mind that the warm figures included 10 extra points for record highs and zero for record lows.

None the less, I went back day to day and noted the average high and lows for the year.

The historic average high temperature at CVG is 64.1, for 2008 is was 63.8 a difference of .3 degrees cooler.

The historic average low is 44.4 degrees v. the 2008 average of 43.8 degrees, a difference of .6 degrees cooler.

No matter how you cut it, the temperatures were cooler despite claims of some warming.

At least this keeps liberals claims at a perfect 100% wrong.

But I'm willing to put my coin flip where my money is. Where is that little piss ant lib who mocked my challenge?

Here's your chance to take a conservative's money, you have to love that; at least if you have balls to take me up on the challenge.

However, I am changing the scoring this year.

I'm going to calculate the average high and lows for the month against the historic average high and lows. I'll assign one point for each for a total of 24 total points. I'll carry the decimal out to avoid any ties at the end of the month.

So what's it going to be punk?

Bartman meets the president elect

Happy New Year 2009