Saturday, January 24, 2009

Bush the liberal

For the life of me, I never understood the absolute hatred liberals had for W.

By nearly every measure (except abortion), the guy governed like a bonafide liberal.

But don't take my word on it. Here's the take of another....
The most basic Bush numbers are damning. If increases in government spending matter, then Mr. Bush is worse than any president in recent history. During his first four years in office -- a period during which his party controlled Congress -- he added a whopping $345 billion (in constant dollars) to the federal budget. The only other presidential term that comes close? Mr. Bush's second term. As of November 2008, he had added at least an additional $287 billion on top of that (and the months since then will add significantly to the bill). To put that in perspective, consider that the spendthrift LBJ added a mere $223 billion in total additional outlays in his one full term.

If spending under Mr. Bush was a disaster, regulation was even worse. The number of pages in the Federal Registry is a rough proxy for the swollen expanse of the regulatory state. In 2001, some 64,438 pages of regulations were added to it. In 2007, more than 78,000 new pages were added. Worse still, argues the Mercatus Center economist Veronique de Rugy, Mr. Bush is the unparalleled master of "economically significant regulations" that cost the economy more than $100 million a year. Since 2001, he jacked that number by more than 70%. Since June 2008 alone, he introduced more than 100 economically significant regulations.


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Obama's economic advisor

How this never made national news blows me away.

Four more years of Bush

Wow, I didn't know Bush was still president.
Six more bodies were recovered from the rubble of an Al-Qaeda den hit by a suspected US missile, pushing the death toll in two separate strikes to 21, security officials said Saturday.

"Six bodies of local tribesmen were found in the rubble of the house which was destroyed in a US missile strike on Friday just outside the town of Mir Ali in North Waziristan district," the official said.

On Friday officials said eight people including five foreigners -- Pakistani officials use the term "foreigners" to describe Al-Qaeda militants -- died in the missile strike at the house of a pro-Taliban tribesman near Mir Ali.

Hours later another suspected US drone fired two missiles into a house in Wana, the main town in South Waziristan, killing seven people.

The strikes were the first under new US President Barack Obama and effectively dashed any hopes that Pakistani officials were nurturing that the new administration in Washington will halt such strikes.


Wait a dag gone minute here.... the article says
it was the first strike under the Obama administration.

I thought the whole hatin' on Bush started when he unilaterally invaded a sovereign country with whom we had no beef with?

How is Pakistan any different?

How is this anything different than Bush?

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Who did he vote for? #441


Meet Shane Ashbrook.

Why is Shane in the news?

According to WLW....
The man suspected of being behind the wheel of a rental car that crashed into two other vehicles on Wednesday, injuring four people is now behind bars. Police say 22-year-old Shane Ashbrook caused the crash on Queen City Avenue on Wednesday that left two adults and two children with injuries. Police say Ashbrook ran from the scene but was taken into custody on Thursday and will be in court on Friday.


So this past November, did Shane vote for the Hope and Change message of The Messiah or the same old dirty politics of the Maverick?

Friday, January 23, 2009

Good enough for thee but not for me

The "progressive" hypocrisy just gets deeper all the time.

Here we have the Robert Kennedy's out in public preaching the Branch Gorevidian message to the public all the while his clan is doing all it can to kill the wind farm project off of Cape Cod.

The proposed Nantucket Sound wind farm cleared the most significant hurdle in its contentious 7½ year history yesterday, an accomplishment federal officials said could be a "bellwether" for the future of offshore wind farms.

"There is nothing in the (final environmental impact statement) to basically cause extreme alarms about the project," said Randall Luthi, outgoing director of the U.S. Minerals Management Service, which issued its final environmental report on the project. Luthi also announced during a press conference that the final rules for offshore alternative energy projects would not be finalized during the Bush administration.

snip

Opponents of Cape Wind, including U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., contended yesterday that the MMS report was rushed.

The MMS review of Cape Wind is under investigation by Interior's inspector general, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration continues to review the project, and the rules that would govern the project's construction and operation are incomplete, Kennedy said in a prepared statement. "By taking this action, the Interior Department has virtually assured years of continued public conflict and contentious litigation," he said.

In a statement posted on his Web site, U.S. Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., said the Bush administration's decision to issue the MMS report "literally hours before leaving office — prior to issuing any standards to guide the review of these projects — comes as no surprise."

"The administration has put the cart before the horse and adopted an unprecedented approach that provokes more controversy and litigation; all for a $2 billion project that depends on significant taxpayer subsidies while potentially doubling power costs for the region," Delahunt's statement read.


Remind me again of who the party of the rich is v. the environment party?

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America's favorite valley girl pulls out...

I wonder when the INS is going to show up at her doorstep to bust her ass for hiring illegals as they want to do for all those "greedy" corporations, ya know?

Say it ain’t so, Caroline K. Schlossberg.

Another liberal icon caught allegedly not paying taxes. First Charlie Rangel, then Tim Geithner, now the Valley Girl of Camelot. Do as they say, not as they do. I guess they didn’t get the memo from Joe Biden - the vice president lectures us all how “patriotic” it is to pay taxes, Caroline.

I wonder if the New York Times [NYT] will write an editorial defending this latest liberal tax cheat, the way they did for Tim “What do you mean you can’t write off your kid’s overnight summer camp?” Geithner.


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Party of the rich

Who does Barney Frank represent?

U.S. Rep. Barney Frank yesterday defended helping Boston’s OneUnited Bank land $12 million in federal funding, despite regulatory complaints its executives were getting “excessive” pay and even a Porshe for its CEO.

Frank, head of the powerful House Financial Services Committee, acknowledged that last fall he inserted into the government’s $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program bill specific language to help OneUnited, New England’s only black-owned bank.

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Double Alley-Oop Dunk

This is pretty cool.

Congratulations UC Dance team

Congratulations to the UC Dance team for it's national title over the weekend.

If you want top watch a clip click here....

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Headlines

From reader Bernie....


Headlines On This Date 4 Years Ago:

"Republicans spending $42 million on inauguration while troops Die in
unarmored Humvees"

"Bush extravagance exceeds any reason during tough economic times"

"Fat cats get their $42 million inauguration party, Ordinary
Americans get the shaft"

Headlines Today:

"Historic Obama Inauguration will cost only $120 million"

"Obama Spends $120 million on inauguration; America Needs A Big Party"

"Everyman Obama shows America how to celebrate"

"Citibank executives contribute $8 million to Obama Inauguration

Update III

OK, now I'm confused, whatever I said before, please consider that I'm doing the opposite of that; the opposite of the first post, which was my second, which might have been confusing.... ya know.

Someone please tell Governor Paterson that I've made up mind and I'm standing by it.

Whatever that is, ya know.

Update II

Please note, that I, Gordon Gekko, decided to pull out, er..... wait a minute. Was I in or out after my last post?

Well, what ever it was, someone please tell Governor Paterson that I'm in or out, depending on what I said on my last post.

Update

Please note that I, Gordon Gekko, decided to pull out of consideration for the NY senate seat.

Someone please tell Governor Paterson.

Why poor people stay poor

Last summer, I was talking to my server, a single mom, at a local sports bar....
---------------------------------------------------

Her So you are an accountant?

Me Yeah

Her Do you do simple tax returns like mine?

Me Yeah

Her I just have a W-2 and earned income credit what would you charge me to do my return?

Me My minimum fee is $95, I charge $20 to efile the return.

Her Holy cow, HR Block charged me $340.00 last year.

Me You must have done a rapid refund?

Her Yeah, you can't get me my refund that day?

Me No, when you efile you should have your money in about a 7-10 days. Frankly, I think the rapid refund is HR Block rip off. They're actually loaning you the money you'll have in a weeks time.

Her Well this year, I'm going to have you do it, I can wait a week to save $250.

------------------------------------------------------------

Now mind you, I go in this same sports bar roughly every Wednesday for their Gyro special. I've had this conversation with her at least 10 times since last summer.

So how does the conversation go yesterday.

------------------------------------------------------------

Her How much would you charge my boyfriend to do his taxes?

Me $95 plus $20 for the efile

Her Well, I think I'm going to have him call you. He's trying to do it himself and he getting frustrated.

Me What about your return?

Her Oh, I already had HR Block do it. I got my refund that night!

Me Just out of curiosity, how much did they charge you?

Her About $350.

---------------------------------------------------

Now you can write me off as pissed off business owner who lost the sale. Frankly, I don't want these kind of dumb asses as clients. I've got enough tax business as it is. I don't want the DNA of my client base diluted with these ding dongs.

However, there's a reason idiots like this never have any money. Because they're willing to pay someone $350 to get a refund v. waiting a week for $115. In fact, if they did the form themselves on old fashion paper, they could have their money in a month for free!

Let's just call it poor people math.

The good news is her and her boyfriend aren't dumb enough to forget how to procreate. She's got another one in the oven and society will be the recipients of another dumb ass to feed.

Post-Barackalyptic Wasteland

You may know these people as those environment raping conservatives. Instead these are environment loving "progressives" enjoying the Obama coronation.

Hey, are they hugging that tree or ripping it down.

HT Newsbusters

"Progressive" hypocrisy

Liberals are always yacking about compassion for the fellow man. Right up until it comes time to actually cut a check for something. It's really an effective way to get them to shut up.

Arthur Brooks on the concept foreign to liberals, charity....
"What is required of us now," President Barack Obama said in his inaugural address this week, "is a new era of responsibility -- a recognition on the part of every American that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world." It is a message that nonprofit organizations would like our nation to take to heart, as 2009 fund-raising begins.

snip

Over the past several years, studies have consistently shown that people on the political right outperform those on the left when it comes to charity. This pattern appears to have held -- increased, even -- in 2008.

In May of last year, the Gallup polling organization asked 1,200 American adults about their giving patterns. People who called themselves "conservative" or "very conservative" made up 42% of the population surveyed, but gave 56% of the total charitable donations. In contrast, "liberal" or "very liberal" respondents were 29% of those polled but gave just 7% of donations.

These disparities were not due to differences in income. People who said they were "very conservative" gave 4.5% of their income to charity, on average; "conservatives" gave 3.6%; "moderates" gave 3%; "liberals" gave 1.5%; and "very liberal" folks gave 1.2%.

A common explanation for this pattern is that conservatives are more religious than liberals, and are simply giving to their churches. My own research in the past showed that religion was a major reason conservatives donated so much, and that secular conservatives gave even less than secular liberals.

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Four more years of Bush

Isn't it funny that one of the liberals' chief complaints about Bush = Hitler was his snooping via the Patriot Act.

But this is 1984. The vernacular is different. Now use of the Patriot Act is protecting us versus spying on us.....
President-elect Barack Obama's nominee for attorney general has endorsed an extension of the law that allows federal agents to demand Americans' library and bookstore records as part of terrorism probes, dismaying a national group of independent booksellers.

Eric Holder said at his confirmation hearing Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee that he supports renewing a section of the USA Patriot Act that allows FBI agents investigating international terrorism or espionage to seek records from businesses, libraries and bookstores. If not renewed by Congress, the provision will expire at the end of 2009.

The searches must be authorized by a court that meets secretly and has approved the government's requests in nearly all cases, according to congressional reports. The target of the search does not have to be suspected of terrorism or any other crime. A permanent gag order that accompanies each search prohibits the business or library from telling anyone about it.

Holder said he realizes the provision has been controversial and he will seek more information from department staff before making a final decision, if confirmed as attorney general. He didn't elaborate on his support for the law, but said at another point in the hearing that his top priority would be to protect Americans from terrorism, using "every available tactic ... within the letter and spirit of the Constitution."

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Wednesday, January 21, 2009

My team is #1

So you're having drinks with your crew and the subject of the true college football national champion comes up.

Being a loyal Ohio University alum, you want to make the case for OU being the best team in college football.

You simply go to this site and choose your team and get this diddy....

Ohio beat Kent on 10/11/2008 by a score of 26-19 (on the road!)
Kent beat Buffalo on 11/28/2008 by a score of 24-21 (on the road!)
Buffalo beat Ball State on 12/05/2008 by a score of 42-24
Ball State beat Navy on 09/05/2008 by a score of 35-23
Navy beat Wake Forest on 09/27/2008 by a score of 24-17 (on the road!)
Wake Forest beat Mississippi on 09/06/2008 by a score of 30-28
Mississippi beat Florida on 09/27/2008 by a score of 31-30 (on the road!)

Or maybe you went to Indiana and you find this out....

Indiana beat Northwestern on 10/25/2008 by a score of 21-19
Northwestern beat Duke on 09/06/2008 by a score of 24-20 (on the road!)
Duke beat Vanderbilt on 10/25/2008 by a score of 10-7 (on the road!)
Vanderbilt beat Mississippi on 09/20/2008 by a score of 23-17 (on the road!)
Mississippi beat Florida on 09/27/2008 by a score of 31-30 (on the road!)
Florida is the 2008 Div 1-A champion

Loads of fun for the entire family...

Four more years of Bush

This is hilarious....




HT Ms. Underestimated

Human rights UN style

Nothing says human rights like smuggling in come child porn.... courtesy of the UN.

From Jammie Wearing Fool
A high-ranking human rights worker with ties to the United Nations was nabbed at Kennedy Airport Tuesday with kiddie porn in his suitcase, officials said.

Clarence Dias, 65, president of the International Center for Law in Development, whose offices are located at the UN, had the smut in his carry-on bag as he passed through security on his way to a flight bound for Bangkok, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said.

Transportation Security Administration officials doing a random bag check around 8:20a.m. allegedly found a DVD whose cover featured an apparently underage nude boy and an adult male in Dias' handbag, prosecutors said.

The video's title - "Winner Pub Pattaya" - apparently refers to a beach resort in Thailand, authorities said. There were also other lewd photographs in the bag, authorities said.

Isn't there a certain psychological projection about all things liberal?

What's wrong with this picture?


Here's a nice image from Fabius Maximus comparing government payrolls to manufacturing.

Questions

Exactly what has the increased governmental payroll gotten us?

Has it reduced poverty?

Are our schools better?

Does our mail get delivered more efficiently?

Do we have better public safety?

Have we eliminated drugs from the streets?

Seriously, can anyone actually name one problem that used to exist that no longer exists as a result of this increase in government employees?

Is there one problem that has even been improved as a result of this government payroll?

I've got an idea for all those governors languishing over their state budgets right now.

Tell every state employee "if your job didn't exist in 1970 it won't be here in 2010".

What would be the end result of that?

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Modest Expectations From An Obama Supporter

I'm confused. I went to my local Sunoco at precisely, 12:01 and filled up.

I went in and bought some gum and the clerk says "that'll be $21.47".

What's up with that? I thought we'd never have to worry about buying gas again?

What party is he?

More than a year after denying it, the newly elected mayor of Portland has admitted having a sexual relationship with a male teenager in 2005.

Sam Adams, who is openly gay, acknowledged the relationship in a statement Monday, after the Willamette Week newspaper broke the story on its Web site.

In Washington, D.C., for the inauguration, Adams will cut his trip short to issue a public apology Tuesday afternoon in Portland, said Wade Nkrumah, his spokesman.

The article conveniently omits party affiliation. So the question goes out. What party is he?

More....

NY Times gets a pay day advance

I can't understand why liberals like the NY Times, are so against pay day lenders when it looks as though it's a better alternative to the loan sharks they now have to use.....
Carlos Slim has loaned the New York Times (NYT) $250 million. This further lessens the immediate cash crisis and should give the company another year or so of breathing room. As we expected, however, the money was breathtakingly expensive.

Two of Slim's companies now own $250 million of NYT Senior Unsecured Notes paying annual interest of 14% ($35 million a year). In addition, Slim gets warrants on 16 million shares of Class A common stock, which equates to just over 10% of the company. (Class A shares are for the hoi polloi. The Class B shareholders, including the Sulzbergers, still control the company).

See you in another year when these clowns go down.

More...

Monday, January 19, 2009

Help Wanted

As most of you know, my paying job is that of a CPA and we're coming up on my busiest stretch of the year.

As a result, my posts will be limited for the next few months; pretty much just links to other articles I find interesting, without commentary.

If you happen across any article you find of interest, please forward and I'll get it on the blog.

In addition, I still have the Bat Light out for a third blogger for the site. The pay is menial (zero) the coffee is crappy and the benefit package consists solely of Bengal playoff tickets and ugly groupies. However, you just might find it's a good way to get your inner blogger freak on without the responsibility of keeping up with it every day.

If you think you can do two to three posts a week, feel free to contact me at gtvcpa@yahoo.com.

Thanks

Question for the Branch Gorevidians

OK, so now that George Bush is leaving office, the myriad of problems he's responsible for (global warming, homelessness, torture etc) will vanish tomorrow at about noon.

Even the UN's starting to catch on.....
If you're wondering why North America is starting to resemble nuclear winter, then you missed the news.

At December's U.N. Global Warming conference in Poznan, Poland, 650 of the world's top climatologists stood up and said man-made global warming is a media generated myth without basis. Said climatologist Dr. David Gee, Chairman of the International Geological Congress, "For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming?"

Is this the same UN that had us in a catastrophic warming just last year?

A question for the Branch Gorevidians. Now that we know that the earth is cooling creating deaths in our cities as people freeze to death, what could we do as a people to increase the temperature?

I'm guessing very little.

Did it ever occur to you purple Nike wearing freaks that we could no more do things to warm the climate as we can to cool it?

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My sentiments exactly

This guy says it better than I ever could....
They tell us that January 20, 2009 will be an historic occasion in American history. I agree, but not for the reasons they give. It will be the first time in history that a majority of American voters have not only elected a black man to POTUS, but also elected an unqualified, no résumé, unaccomplished, radical left, and likely illegal alien, without ever demanding personal history, educational records, health records, military records, or proof of citizenship from this man. He is an absolute zero on qualifications for POTUS.

We expect this from Democrats, but we also expect that the Republican Party would have made an issue of these shortcomings and the lack of qualifications of Barack Hussein Obama. We expected that the Republican party would have made an effort to support and defend the Constitution of the United States and to see that our laws are followed. The Republican party shares the responsibility for this abomination in their negligence and refusal to stand up and fight for our Constitution and conservative values.

You and your Democrat-Lite candidate, John McCain, did neither and allowed this illegitimate candidate to usurp the office of the president. McCain’s campaign was pitiful and failed to bring up even the most basic issues of the Obama candidacy. Issues not only of his citizenship, but his dark associations with radicals (other than Bill Ayres, which was a non starter), his empathy with Islamics, his complete lack of understanding of the Constitution, the free marketplace, American history other than black separatist history, and the principles of freedom and liberty on which our country was founded.


More....

Canada turns back terrorist.

Somehow he wasn't good enough to even enter the country of Canada, yet he's plenty good enough to teach our kids at an American university.

Of course I speak of one William Ayers......
An American education professor, one of the founders of a radical 1960s group known as the Weather Underground, which was responsible for a number of bombings in the United States in the early 1970s, was turned back at the Canadian border last night.

Dr. William Ayers, a professor of education at the University of Illinois-Chicago and a leader in educational reform, was scheduled to speak at the Centre for Urban Schooling at University of Toronto's Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. But that appearance has now been temporarily cancelled.

"I don't know why I was turned back," Ayers said in an interview this morning from Chicago. "I got off the plane like everyone else and I was asked to come over to the other side. The border guards reviewed some stuff and said I wasn't going to be allowed into Canada. To me it seems quite bureaucratic and not at all interesting ... If it were me I would have let me in. I couldn't possibly be a threat to Canada."

Maybe they didn't let you in because you're an a-hole terrorist.

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The party of the rich

HT from reader Mark....
Wall Street may be bruised and battered, but it still donated more money than any other U.S. industry to President-elect Barack Obama's inaugural festivities on Tuesday, a study has found.

The Center for Responsive Politics said executives of finance, insurance and real estate companies and their family members gave $7.1 million to Obama's inaugural committee.

Top donors from the world of high finance included George Soros, Ronald Perelman and David Shaw, the center said.

Bankers and hedge fund managers will mingle with Hollywood stars and Silicon Valley high-technology titans at the swearing-in ceremony for the 44th president, the parade down Pennsylvania Avenue and the balls and parties that follow.

Special access and tickets are reportedly available to those who contributed $50,000 to the inaugural committee or who helped "bundle" larger sums from multiple individual donors, the center said.

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Caroline, Valley Girl, for US senate Ya know.

From the NY Post....
DESPITE claims that he's still undecided, Gov. Paterson is "certain" to pick Caroline Kennedy to replace Hillary Rodham Clinton in the US Senate, several unhappy contenders for the job have told friends and associates in recent days.

The contenders based their conclusion on the view that Paterson, after nearly two months of indecision, would "greatly embarrass" and "entirely humiliate" Kennedy, anger her prominent political family and even offend President-elect Barack Obama by picking someone other than President John F. Kennedy's daughter.

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