Saturday, November 06, 2010
neti pot
State rankings
Hint. California doesn't rank real high.
Life in "Progress" City - Cincinnati edition
Cincinnati firefighter union officials blamed fire station "brown-outs" for possibly causing delays in reaching a Northside fire Friday night in which a man and a three-year-old granddaughter were severely injured.
“The citizens should need to be irate over this,” Union President Marc Monahan told media outlets Friday night. “This is squarely on council and the mayor for the decisions they made and decisions they make in the future.”Council member Cecil Thomas called the incident the city’s “worst nightmare.”
“This is what we’ve always feared with these brownouts,” he said. “The last thing we want to do is cut services to the detriment of the safety of our city and this reflects that.”
But hey there's always plenty of money for choo choo trains in "progress" cities.
More....
Life in "Progress" State - Illinois edition
Illinois’ precarious budget situation has again prompted a company to stop doing business with the state.Here's an idea. How about paying the vendors already extending credit to you.Records show the Illinois Department of Corrections was forced to scramble this week when a vendor refused to deliver foam food trays to Menard Correctional Center because it hadn’t been paid.
Industrial Soap Co., which holds the master contract for the foam trays, “will not deliver due to delinquent invoices,” prison officials noted.
The St. Louis-based vendor wouldn’t discuss the contract situation Tuesday, but records show the company is owed about $166,000 dating to last year.
In order to avoid gaps in meal service, state officials gave another company a $36,000 emergency contract to keep the foam trays in stock.
The trays are needed to serve meals to the 3,400 inmates because they have been mostly locked in their cells since mid-October due to rising violence in the maximum-security facility.
More.............
Friday, November 05, 2010
Red State - Blue State
I ran across the above map detailing the senate races by county. (If someone can find this map for the house races I would appreciate you forwarding it to me.)
Much like the 2000 and 2004 election, what we see is that most of the country is naturally red. The blue spots are, for the most part, confined to the country's urban centers. Even the bluest of states, California, is mostly red outside of the population centers on the coast.
Once again, I throw out the following question to my "progressive" readers.
Would it be unemployment?
Would it be crime rates?
How about schools?
Homelessness?
Taxes?
Fiscal/Budget emergencies?
Access to amenities (shopping, parking, jobs)?
I cannot think of one reasonable quality where living in a blue area would be preferable to life in "Redville". Our once great American cities are dumps, arm pits, shit holes, compared to life in "Redville"
But you don't have to take my word for it. Follow the demographics. The population flight out of cities rivals The Exodus. However, instead of Pharaoh, our cities have rulers called the Democratic Party.
In fact, in most of the cities, you couldn't find a republican in city government with a Chilean Miner rescue team.
It's clear that democratic rule turns areas to crap. We have no better example than New York City. Compare the city under the rule of Ed Koch and David Dinkins versus Mike Bloomberg and Rudy Giuliani (keep in mind these guys aren't conservative, just not Soviet bloc socialists).
A while back, I read a piece by some liberal who claimed that the country should divide itself by blue states and red states so liberals would get all the great states like California and Washington while conservatives would be relegated to "the slave states".
But in reality, it's simpler than that. Liberals would get to live in wonderful "progressive" meccas like Detroit, East St. Louis, Los Angeles, Gary Indiana, Cleveland, Youngstown, Toledo, etc.
What I don't get is how liberals, who claim to be more cerebral than your average conservative neanderthal, can't get their arms around the fact that all the stuff they run is totally dysfunctional.
Maybe someday they'll learn. None the less, soon they're going to learn it the hard way in CA and NY.
Who is the employer here?
Now my building is a 110 year old residence converted to office. So I'm sure that this place would never meet current fire code requirements and has been grandfathered for many requirements.
None the less, this particular inspector told me that my EXIT signs needed to be lit even though a former inspector told me (and I showed the guy the form) that they did not need to be lit. The fire fighter told me that he'd look into it and get back to me.
Yesterday, this fire fighter came into my office to tell me that they were "going to let me" keep the signs as is.
So I asked the guy if, in fact, the code required it or not. He didn't give me a straight answer. I was in no mood to bicker with the guy because I needed to get out of the office. None the less, his attitude of "we're going to let you" continued to grate on me all day.
This illustrates my problem with government employees. Who the hell works for whom? This guy basically came off like I work for his ass. In reality, it's my property taxes that pays his salary and benefits.
I'm just guessing that if this inspection had occurred a week after a fire levy was defeated, these guys would probably not "let me" keep my exit signs as is.
I run into this all the time. Once the city of Cincinnati required my client to submit payroll withholdings on subcontract workers. I asked the auditor to show me where in the code it required withholding on subs and they sent me a withholding instructions on payrolled employees. My client paid the amount because it was less than the time and effort to fight it but he repaid them by locating out of the city. I bet that bully auditor still believes he got one over on my client.
I had another instance where the city of Cincinnati told my client that the wages reported to them on the W-2's form didn't agree with the wages on their corporate tax return. I could never get this guy to realize that the corporate tax return represented a different period of time than the W-2's (of course the payroll #'s wouldn't match). It wasn't until I threatened to not withhold city taxes on work performed outside the city (which was nearly all of it) that these clowns backed off.
These are the annoyances employers put up with every day. Larger businesses get to deal with OSHA, dept. of Labor and EPA inspectors who "will let you" or not conform to their whims or to their most recent regulations.
And the Obamunists want to assure business that they are pro commerce?
Business people know better.
Thursday, November 04, 2010
The bright side
Consider..........
Charlie Crist instead of Marco Rubio
Arlen Specter instead of Pat Toomey (Specter would never have switched parties if he would have had an unopposed republican primary)
Trey Grayson instead of Rand Paul
George Voinovich instead of Rob Portman ( I consider Rinovich's retirement a save face in lieu of a primary ass kicking )
Bob Bennett instead of Mike Lee
Now let's assume that these guys would have won over the tea party/more conservative candidates in the primary and would have won the general.
And let's assume the conventional wisdom that if the following would have won their primary over tea party/more conservative candidates (and hence, the general election) to give the GOP a Senatorial majority.
Mike Castle (DE)
Lisa Murkowski (AK) (I throw her in over Joe Miller even though she probably be in anyway)
Sue Lowden (NV)
Jane Norton (CO)
Tom Campbell (CA)
Would you trade a majority with this cast of hemorrhoids over a minority with what we have?
Life in "Progress" State - California edition
California Academic Performance Index (API) California Access for Infants and Mothers California Acupuncture Board California Administrative Office of the Courts California Adoptions Branch California African American Museum California Agricultural Export Program California Agricultural Labor Relations Board California Agricultural Statistics Service California Air Resources Board (CARB) California Allocation Board California Alternative Energy and Advanced Transportation Financing Authority California Animal Health and Food Safety Services California Anti-Terrorism Information Center California Apprenticeship Council California Arbitration Certification Program California Architects Board California Area VI Developmental Disabilities Board California Arts Council California Asian Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus California Assembly Democratic Caucus California Assembly Republican Caucus California Athletic Commission * California Attorney General
Those are just the As. The rest are below the fold.
Check out the rest here......
Stuff liberals run - Fannie and Freddie
More......The taxpayer cost of bailing out mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, already at $148 billion, will likely rise to $280 billion and could balloon to $685 billion, according to Standard & Poor’s:
With a growing portfolio of unsold homes, a sluggish economy, stubbornly high unemployment, the prospect of rising foreclosures, and billions in legacy losses, it appears unlikely in our view that housing and mortgage markets will be able to operate normally without continuing and substantial government involvement.
The ratings agency says the cost could hit $685 billion if the U.S. government sets up and capitalizes a new entity to replace Freddie and Fannie. S&P notes that the U.S. housing market is more dependent than ever on the government-sponsored enterprises, now under receivership. Freddie, Fannie and the Federal Housing Administration now buy more than 90% of all home loans vs. less than half before the housing crash.
Freddie and Fannie’s regulator recently estimated that the Treasury might have to inject up to $363 billion into them, with a net cost of $259 billion.
Since when did 45 mph become "high speed"
Republicans Scott Walker of Wisconsin and John Kasich of Ohio, who won their races for governor Tuesday, both have sharply criticized the high-speed passenger-rail projects championed by President Barack Obama. Their victories cast doubt on high-profile projects in their states that were awarded hundreds of billions of dollars in federal stimulus funds.
In Ohio, Mr. Kasich has said the proposed $450 million train connecting Ohio's three major cities—Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati—would cost too much and run too slowly to be more convenient than driving or flying.
Wisconsin's Mr. Walker made opposing the train, which he deemed too expensive, a major part of his campaign. He has said he would like Congress to allow him to use the $810 million allocated to Wisconsin for a high-speed line between Madison and Milwaukee to repair the state's roads and bridges instead.
For the record, The three C rail would never exceed 45 mph. Now that's high speed if you are Usain Bolt running a 100 meters. Not so much when the speed limit on the highway is 65 mph.
more.......
How did the republicans win
The PowerPoint slides presented to House Republicans in January 2009 seemed incongruously optimistic at a time when the very word “hope” belonged to the newly ascendant Democrats and their incoming president, Barack Obama.While it would be nice to give credit to republican "strategy" there was really only one strategy point that needed executed.......Let democrats be democrats. And democrats had no problems engaging in very little nanny like job killing regulation there was.
"If the goal of the majority is to govern, what is the purpose of the minority?” one slide asked.“The purpose of the minority,” came the answer, “is to become the majority.”
The presentation was the product of a strategy session held 11 days before Mr. Obama’s inauguration, when top Republican leaders in the House of Representatives began devising an early blueprint for what they would accomplish in Tuesday’s election: their comeback.
How they did it is the story of one of the most remarkable Congressional campaigns in more than a half-century, characterized by careful plotting by Republicans, miscalculations by Democrats and a new political dynamic with forces out of both parties’ control. The unpredictable Tea Party movement, the torrent of corporate money from outside interests and an electorate with deep discontent helped shift the balance of power in Washington.
More.......
Like a Rolling Stone
Despite feeling like a manatee was sitting on my chest, the Gekko's went to NKU last night to catch the latest Bob Dylan show.
As I've said before, I've never owned a Dylan CD or really knew that much about his catalog of music. All I know is this guy's band totally rocks and I'll try and catch at least one of his shows every tour. In fact, from last night's show, I think I could audibly understand about ten words from the lyrics.
One of the things I like most about his show is he doesn't pollute it with a bunch of trivial jabber about the local dining cuisine or how this song is off his new album which you can buy at Amazon or how he was inspired to write a song after watching Charlie Sheen in a hotel lobby; they announce the band and the band plays.
The second thing I like about his shows is that the music arrangements are entirely different from a previous tour. As I told the Lovely Mrs. Gekko last night, I felt like I was at a rockabilly revival.
So if you have never seen a Bob Dylan show in person, trust me, you've gotta get to one. Remember, the guy is almost 70.
Coincidence?
New U.S. claims for unemployment benefits rose more than expected last week, government data showed on Thursday, underlining the persistent weakness in the labor market.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 20,000 to a seasonally adjusted 457,000, the Labor Department said, reversing the prior week's decline.
Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast claims rising to 443,000 from the previously reported 434,000. The government revised the prior week's figure up to 437,000.
The report came a day after the Federal Reserve announced it would buy an additional $600 billion worth government bonds by the middle of next year to spur the lackluster economic recovery and boost employment.
More.....
Restoring sanity back to business
Delta Air Lines flight attendants narrowly voted against union representation in a month-long election that ended Wednesday, the company and the Association of Flight Attendants said.
It was one of the largest unionizing efforts in recent history in any industry, and turned out to be one of the closest votes in recent memory as well. Union supporters failed to get the majority, losing by 325 votes. The final tally was 9,544 against unionizing, and 9,216 voted for a union. The AFA got 8,776 of those pro-union votes, and a total of 94 percent of workers voted.
More.....
Sanity back at the statehouse
Barely twelve hours after winning office, Gov.-elect John Kasich said Wednesday that creating jobs, halting the statewide passenger rail project and reining in labor unions are his top priorities.C'mon John! People are lining up for a six hour trip to Cleveland that would normally take you four and half hours door to door."Passenger rail is not in Ohio's future,'' the Republican said at his first news conference after Tuesday's win over Gov. Ted Strickland. "That train is dead."
He was referring to the $400 million federally subsidized project to restore passenger rail between Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland, along the so-called 3-C corridor. Kasich has said it would be too costly to reactivate freight lines for passengers and that the trains would be too slow and underused.
More........
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
Is there a difference?
In fact, how is it that a state who votes for jerry Brown vote for a dead candidate..........
Republican hopes of capturing the 28th Senate District following Democratic Sen. Jenny Oropeza’s death were quashed Tuesday as the late South Bay senator’s name cruised to victory.
With absentee ballots counted and 510 of 535 precincts reporting, Oropeza, who died Oct. 20, held an insurmountable lead with 57.8 percent of the vote. Republican John Stammreich was second with 36.3 percent, and Libertarian David Ruskin was a distant third, with 5.9 percent.
Nevermind, I don't think there's a difference between the two.
The post mortems
The consequence has just been written across the electoral map - the loss of the House to the Republicans and the narrowing of the Democratic majority in the Senate. Of course, high unemployment and high economic anxiety played a role..........
This is a popular meme being perpetrated by the left but did it ever occur to anyone that it's because of the excessive laws and regulations on businesses that unemployment and economic anxiety remain high?
Let's take California, who voted yesterday not to suspend their environmental laws. How many businesses do you think will be locating there anytime soon?
But hey, don't ask me, ask a CEO who makes the decision to locate plants. From a post in August.........
Since an unusually sharp downturn accelerated in late 2008, the Obama administration and its allies in the U.S. Congress have enacted trillions in deficit spending they say will create an economic stimulus -- but have not extended the Bush tax cuts and have pushed to levy extensive new health care and carbon regulations on businesses.
"They're in a 'Do' loop right now trying to figure out what the answer is," Otellini said.
As a result, he said, "every business in America has a list of more variables than I've ever seen in my career." If variables like capital gains taxes and the R&D tax credit are resolved correctly, jobs will stay here, but if politicians make decisions "the wrong way, people will not invest in the United States. They'll invest elsewhere."
Take factories. "I can tell you definitively that it costs $1 billion more per factory for me to build, equip, and operate a semiconductor manufacturing facility in the United States," Otellini said.
The rub: Ninety percent of that additional cost of a $4 billion factory is not labor but the cost to comply with taxes and regulations that other nations don't impose. (Cypress Semiconductor CEO T.J. Rodgers elaborated on this in an interview with CNET, saying the problem is not higher U.S. wages but anti-business laws: "The killer factor in California for a manufacturer to create, say, a thousand blue-collar jobs is a hostile government that doesn't want you there and demonstrates it in thousands of ways.")
Instead of looking down on the masses claiming they don't understand, maybe they could consider how their governance impacts the state of our economy.
But that would require a good dose of humility, the leading characteristic you won't find in a liberal.
Commerce, Commerce, Commerce
Without it you just have an economy of sharecroppers.
More.....
Good news - bad news
Good news - The map to the right are the congressional districts highlighted by reps. Red for GOP, Blue for Dems. Really hard to say that it wasn't a big time ass kicking last night.
Bad news - GOP didn't take the Senate.
Good news - The GOP didn't take the senate. Frankly, if the GOP had taken the senate, I think there would be too many Grahamnesty's, Snowe's Collin's etc. who would love to cross sides to prove that they'll "work with the president's agenda" which just happens to be a socialist one. The House will be the stopgate for further stupidity.
Good news - The GOP brought a number of minority candidates to the dance. Do you think the MSM will recognize that without the Tea Party support, the GOP would have just kept fielding the same old white guys to these spots.
Bad News - None of the Legion of Doom heads (Frank, Boxer, Brown, Reid) went down. But enough of their minions bit the dust for them to make the taste less bitter.
Good news - Ohio state offices where swept by the GOP. Maybe they'll make state government work once and for all unlike the Rinovich/Taft GOP that preceeded them.
Bad news - California decided that it was important to keep up the reputation as a liberal utopia.
Good news - They won't be able to blame one damn republican when the state collapses in fiscal disarray.
Bad news - Some of the Tea Party senate candidates got their asses handed to them. The conventional wisdom is that it cost the GOP a senate majority.
Good news - Imagine a senate populated with Charlie Crist's, Mike Castle's, Lisa Murkowski's et al. I'd rather go down in principle than have these party thugs tell us how we need to compromise to get along.
Bad news - Dino Rossi will have yet another election stolen from him.
Good news- Future republicans no longer need to worry about their democratic opposition. Their opposition is coming earlier for them.
Bad news - we will never be able to trust a republican to uphold the "brand" of conservatism. The work of tea partiers just started with the need to spotlight the RINO's continued efforts to do the spineless.
Good news- How historical was the House trouncing? Everyone wants to compare it to 1994. But what gets lost in the conventional wisdom is that due to pension law changes for members of congress, many democrats retired prior to the '94 election (22), leaving many open seats for the GOP to win. That wasn't the case here. Many of these incumbents were powerful committee chairs. For those to go down, truly took a tidal wave of anti incumbent sentiment.
Bad news - The media will spin the loss of the senate as a negative for the GOP. But seriously, the dems didn't flip one senate race and only won one of the open races (WV). How ugly was that?
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
Election results/comments
msnbc calls it for Marco Rubio. A Hispanic Tea Partier
Fox calls MO for Blunt.
Tea party woman Ayotte wins NH
just got this email from the president............
...Hugo -- I need your help Hugo --
From: Barack Obama To: Hugo Chavez
Races across Ohio are coming down to the wire. Polls will close at 7:30 p.m.
We've got one hour left, and we can't back down now. I need you to vote for Ted Strickland for Governor, Lee Fisher for Senate, and Democratic candidates for Congress -- and then I need you to pick up the phone and make calls to other Ohioans to make sure they vote as well.
Start making calls.
In 2008, we made history. Remember that election night. Remember the generations that came before, that hoped and fought for change and a better day. And then commit to doing everything you can in this next hour to carry that promise forward.
It's time to make some calls.
https://call.barackobama.com/campaigns/OH168
Nothing in America has ever been easy. But there's nothing hard about deciding what to do right now: We fight until the final buzzer.
Thank you,
Barack Obama
P.S. If you haven't voted yet, please vote now and bring three friends. Find your polling place here:
http://pollingplaces.RaiseYourVote.com
Fox calls WV for Manchin
ABC calls wins for Kucinch and Kaptor
Young beats Hill in IN......Grayson goes down
Jon Stewart on Sarah Palin at Northeastern University
No potential fraud here
Millions of Californians have not yet returned their vote-by-mail ballots, and the flood of returns expected on election day could delay results in tight races, officials said Monday.
The state's 58 counties had reported receiving just under 3 million absentee ballots as of early afternoon Monday -- less than 40 percent of the 7.6 million ballots requested statewide for the general election, according to the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials.
In some counties, vote-by-mail is expected to exceed in-person voting.
That means a huge number of last-minute returns will not be processed Tuesday, and the most competitive races may remain too close to call.
"The ballots are coming in later than average and there's more of them than average, which means more uncounted ballots on election night," said Contra Costa County Clerk Steve Weir, who estimated that one-quarter of his county's absentee ballots would not be included in Tuesday's tally.
Recent polls show a number of extremely close contests in California, including the races for lieutenant governor and attorney general. In addition, about half a dozen congressional seats and several state legislative seats are thought to be in play.
More.....
It's 12:00
No word yet on the Steve Driehaus and Lee Fisher concession speeches.
Who did they vote for? The Dude edition
Life in "Progress" state - California edition
I don't know why
Somebody laid the mountains low
While the town got high...
California welfare recipients will no longer be able to use their state-issued debit cards at medical marijuana shops, psychics, massage parlors and many other businesses whose services have been deemed “inconsistent” with the goals of the program.
The Schwarzenegger administration sent a letter to county welfare directors on Monday announcing that ATMs and point-of-sale card readers in such business will be removed from the network that accepts California’s Electronic Benefits Transfer cards.
Monday’s letter announced that the cards, which access cash meant to help families pay rent and clothe their children, also will no longer work at bail bond establishments, bingo halls, cruise ships, gun shops, bars, racetracks, smoking shops and tattoo parlors.
Reached late Monday afternoon, Department of Social Services spokesman Michael Weston could not say how much welfare money had been spent or withdrawn from the businesses subject to the new ban. He also would not elaborate on how they were chosen. The letter said the businesses are “inconsistent with the intent” of the program.
In June, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger eliminated casinos and poker rooms from the network after The Times reported that more than half the licensed gambling establishments in California had ATMs that accepted the cards.
So now you're going to have to go across the street to the supermarket get cash there and then roll over to the Doobie Shoppe to get your stash.
Giving roaches to welfare recipients?Now that's "progressive"!
More.....
PS remember to vote today, there's three million stoner, welfare whores waiting for you.
Katie on Juan
Let's drive them to the worst neighborhoods in America around, say 2:00 am, drop them off and tell them to walk home. Do you tink their pulse might go up a beat or two?
Today's person I'd like to test is the non biased Perky Katie
“Juan Williams was supposed to be here, but he had a little trouble with a cab. It wasn’t that a cab wouldn’t stop for a black guy. But when a cab did stop, Juan would look in, see the driver and get really nervous.”
Whenever you're ready Katie.
More....
Who does government help really help?
So as we all vote at the beginning of the month today, I want to pose this question. Who does financial aid really help?
I have a client who got started renting Section 8 housing last year. Now the conventional wisdom is that without Section 8, millions of poor people would be homeless. The reality is that most of the Section 8 units my client rents are renting at above market rates. Who ends up with the money?
Not the poor person. It 's the person who bought an $11,000 house put $5,000 into it and now rents it for $799 a month. As he tells me, "I'll have my investment back in 2 years."
Now consider that this house is now off the market for a poor or moderately poor family to actually purchase. And consider that the true rent on a place worth $16,000 should be about $200.00, which is just about the amount the resident has to pay anyway. All the government money did was line the pockets of one of" the haves".
Or how about my convenience store owners, who do about half of their business the first week of every month. Who makes out when our government subsidizes the purchase of lottery tickets and beer? It's not the consumer, unless you count a nice buzz as part of the benefit.
Do you think that these convenience store owners drop their prices that first week of the month in order to chase those dollars? Hell no. In fact, watch a convenience stores signs in the window advertising "Beer at State Minimum". You'll notice that those signs conveniently disappear at the beginning of the month.
How about financial aid for college students? Is it the student who benefits from easier accessibility of Pell Grants and student loans? Actually, the out of pocket cost to the student and parent has grown exponentially. Who makes out? College professors, administrators and staff who have been getting 4-8% pay raises while most people's wages remain flat.
So if you would like to keep perpetuating this mess that does nothing but create more inequality in our country. The democratic ticket is your friend today.
If you believe in freedom and a "private option". Vote conservative.
Monday, November 01, 2010
But I thought the tea partiers were racist?
Despite allegations of racism in Tea Party organizations, the Republican Party, and conservative groups, 2010 has witnessed more black Republican activism than ever before. Thirty-seven African Americans in 16 states have been in contention for seats in the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives this year.Fox News reports, “The Republican Party is hoping to put a record number of African Americans in Congress after Tuesday’s election; despite the fact the first black president is highly unpopular within the party.”
Of course, the effort has not been without some difficulty.
According to Onnidan Online, “Black conservatives are used to having to defend their values, but they now are really taking heat for their involvement in the mostly white ‘Tea Party’ movement — and for having the audacity to oppose the policies of America’s first black president.”
One such black conservative is Timothy F. Johnson of the Frederick Douglass Foundation, a group of black conservatives who support the free market and limited government. “I’ve been told I hate myself. Black Republicans find themselves always having to prove who they are. Because the assumption is the Republican Party is for whites and the Democratic Party is for blacks.”
Fox News indicates that one of the most likely black conservative victors is Tim Scott, a South Carolina state representative and former Charleston County Council Chairman. With only minor opposition from Scott’s heavily Republican district, Scott is likely to become the state’s first black GOP congressman since Reconstruction.
Scott reflects, “I think the issues are very simple. Limited government, simplified tax code, lower taxes, and less government spending.” His campaign has rested on promises of reducing funding of ObamaCare, a measure he has dubbed “a jobs killer.”
Doesn't sound all that racist to me? Maybe that's why liberals are scaring people.
