taxmanblog

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

I won't be watching the State of the Union

I don't need to. I've already caught an excerpt of the speech.

.........So within the next week, I've authorized congress to consider targeted tax credits to every family for the purchase of a pony. Because shouldn't every family have one..........

......... In an attempt to cut down on alcoholism in this country, I've authorized the FDA to accelerate approval of a beauty cream that will make every one hot. By having lot's of beautiful people in this country, we'll have less need for alcohol consumption........

......... During the next two month's I will have approved a new cabinet level department responsible for building a time machine. Within the next decade "Back to the Future" will no longer be a science fiction movie but reality..........

......... I have requested that the Department of the Interior stop all current actions and concentrate specifically on protecting all species of unicorns and sasquatches in our national parks..........

......... I will not rest until we can rid all Hollywood actors of their Napoleon Complexes.......

......... In an attempt to rid ourselves of our dependence on foreign oil and solve global warming, I will commission a bi partisan think tank who's charge will be to design a world in which everything will run on magnets............

.......... and finally, I want to encourage all parents to discontinue making reference to the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus......... There is only one person who can deliver everything to the American people and he is an omnipresent American president with a lot of taxpayer money and a State of the Union address..............

If I missed your particular fantasy insert here_____________________.

Monday, January 24, 2011

Sage advice for POTUS

Jonah Goldberg offers Obama some advice for his SOTUS tomorrow. Namely, start drilling for oil..........

The objective case for developing our oil and gas wealth is pretty straightforward. With the exception of climate change, pretty much everything the Obama administration considers a major problem would be improved by opening the floodgates to new exploration.
The deficit? The oil industry already pays the U.S. treasury more than $95 million a day in taxes, rent, royalties, and the like. If you expand exploration, you expand revenues. According to estimates, if America unlocked its oil and gas reserves, the government could take in somewhere between $1 trillion and $2 trillion in additional revenue over the coming years. And that’s not counting the increased revenues from the stimulus of lower fuel and energy costs.

Trade imbalances? Domestic oil and gas is, by definition, not imported. The more we produce here, the less we import, or the more we can sell overseas. Either way, the trade deficit goes down and GDP goes up.

Jobs? You can’t drill for American oil or natural gas in China, Saudi Arabia, or anyplace other than America. Oil- and gas-exploration jobs pay more than twice the national average.

Unfortunately for Jonah, he's never read my blog. Because if he had, he would know that there's a big reason Obama won't drill. It's one of the hills their party will die on. The Environment is #7 on the list and as I noted on 9/08............

The democratic party likes to say that it's out for the working guy. But ask yourself this question; if it came down to creating jobs for working stiffs and protecting a caribou in Alaska, who wins?

We have the capability to start domestic drilling here in the US. Domestic drilling accomplishes a number of good things for this country. It lessons our dependence on resources from rogue nations, it strengthens our dollar, it lessons our trade imbalance, it increases US Treasury receipts, it creates good high paying, union jobs.

Yet with all these positive aspects of domestic drilling who do you think is primarily responsible for killing it? Hint, it's not republicans.

Watch the video from a month or so ago and tell me that democrats care more about the working stiff struggling to pay $4/gal for gasoline over saving some caribou in Alaska or sea otter off the San Francisco coast

So nice try Jonah. Not going to happen even though this guy claims to be a "pro business" president.

More....

Happy Birthday to you........

What says Happy birthday more than someone getting gunned down............

Mayor Mark Mallory on Sunday called for an end to the kind of violence that left two people dead the night before.

"Two young men losing their lives to gun violence in one night is absurd," Mallory said.
Cincinnati police officers found Uriah Ware Jr., 17, shot dead at 11:53 p.m. Saturday in the parking lot of the former National Guard Armory at 4100 Reading Road in Paddock Hills.
"Uriah Ware was hit by a stray bullet at a birthday party," Mallory said. "Parents should not have to worry about their child's safety at a birthday party."

Mr. Mayor, you are correct. You shouldn't have to worry about stray bullets at a birthday party and out here in "Redville" we don't.

More.......

Megin...... meet "Peach"

Last week, I did a post on one Megin Gray who was charged with second degree criminal abuse after her baby burned to death while she was strung out on Xanax, Percoset and booze.

The whole thing sickens me and it reminds me of a story I recently told The Lovely Mrs. Gekko about a douchebag I once knew named "Peach" (I don't think I ever knew his real name).

"Peach" was the brother in law of my best friend at the time. "Peach" didn't work because he was "disabled". For some reason, he wasn't physically able to get a job but always seemed healthy enough to sell hot video tapes, lawn mowers, etc. In today's world, he probably be out there selling hot copper tubing ripped out of some abandoned house.

But to me "Peach" was still cool because he smoked a lot of dope and was willing to share it with me. In addition, "Peach" was quick with his criticism of "the man" who was holding down people from their aspirations in life.

I guess it never occurred to me that "the man" "Peach" was always critical of, saw fit to hand him a check to be a total douchebag. I'll always remember Terry and I going into his kitchen lokking for munchies and not finding one thing in their kitchen to eat. See, "Peach" always had money for dope but food for his kids I guess was optional.

In any event, "Peach" and his family were total welfare hacks. They received food stamps, ADC, his disability and free lunches for his kids. In today's world, they'd also be receiving subsidized housing and disability for their kids who they (along with the school's cooperation) would have diagnosed with ADD or some other learning disorder.

One day, my friend Terry and I were smoking dope with good old "Peach" and he starting acting weird. After a couple of bowls he whipped out a gun and started waving it around.

That was our cue to get the hell out of there. Later that day, we found out that "Peach" shot Terry's other brother in law in the head, killing him.

The point of this story is four fold.

First, that bit about idle hands being the tools of the devil is totally true. I've never met a damn person who accomplished crap when they were given money just to exist.

Second, drugs are an epidemic in our lower classes and welfare does nothing but enable the consumption of those drugs. Why do we continue to turn a blind eye to the child abuse going on in these homes when a simple drug test would solve many of those problems? Six years ago, I took a second job with a grocery store chain and they drug tested me as a condition of employment (to stock bologna for crying out loud). It doesn't seem to me to be a stringent criteria for someone who has their hand out to remain clean; especially when children are involved.

Third, guys like "Peach" are like magnets in society. While they're smoking their weed and taking Xanax, they've got plenty of time to teach others how to scam the system. In addition, it drains the working stiffs of their desire to do the right thing. Seriously, why work your ass off just for the privilege of supporting an asshole like "Peach". If you wonder why the Tea Partiers are so popular, it's a culmination of lots of people who know a "Peach" and are tired of supporting that bullshit and being a conspirator to the death of a child who's only sin was being born to a lowlife drug addict.

Finally, I'm guessing that "Peach" is dead by now. If he isn't, I'm sure that he is still a lowlife pile of dung. In addition, I'm sure his legacy of being that lowlife pile of dung has been well passed down to his children and their children. Just like Megin Gray's kids.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Big Pharma moves to the White House

The Obama administration has become so concerned about the slowing pace of new drugs coming out of the pharmaceutical industry that officials have decided to start a billion-dollar government drug development center to help create medicines.

The new effort comes as many large drugmakers, unable to find enough new drugs, are paring back research. Promising discoveries in such illnesses as depression and Parkinson's that once would have led to clinical trials are instead going unexplored because companies have neither the will nor the resources to undertake the effort. Drug companies have typically spent twice as much on marketing as on research, a business model that is increasingly suspect.

The initial financing of the government's new drug center is small compared with the $45.8 billion that the industry estimates it invested in research in 2009. The cost of bringing a single drug to market can exceed $1 billion, according to some estimates.

This is what has always bothered me about the FDA. If the federal government approves a drug to be safe and allows it to go to market, I believe the company should be insulated from tort liability unless some fraud that resulted in the approval is proven.

It's amazing how many late night ads you see from tort attorneys seeking to line up class action suits before the first prescription has been filled.

If a company is going to be liable for any sort of tort injury then what the hell do we need the FDA for? Won't the market place simply take care of companies bringing defective products to market?

In addition, I'm sure Obamacare has given Big Pharma all the incentive in the world to bring new products to market. After all, we all know how "pro business" the Obamunists are.

More.......

Life in "Progress" City - NY edition

Instead of making their cities worth living in, "Progress" cities just seek to extort cash from you...............

Actor Alec Baldwin has joined a list of elite New Yorkers targeted by tax collectors who think they're fibbing about where they really live to dodge New York City income taxes.
In recent years, auditors have confronted hundreds of super-wealthy New Yorkers over the residency rules - including star Yankee shortstop Derek Jeter.

Facing shrinking revenues, the state has ramped up its pursuit of suspected tax dodgers, hiring 189 new auditors and - for the first time - making filers swear under oath on tax forms as to how many days they "spend in New York City."

From the party of choice

Unless that choice means risking jail time for trying to get your kids into a not so dead end school district..............

An Akron woman was sentenced to 10 days in the Summit County Jail, three years of probation following her release and 80 hours of community service for being convicted of falsifying residency records so that her two children could attend Copley-Fairlawn schools.
Common Pleas Judge Patricia A. Cosgrove, who handed down the sentence Tuesday afternoon in a packed courtroom with Cleveland's major television networks recording the proceedings, ordered Kelley Williams-Bolar, 40, to begin serving the sentence immediately.

Williams-Bolar, who was standing before the bench with her attorney, Kerry M. O'Brien, nearly collapsed into the arms of sheriff's deputies as she was led away, sobbing loudly, to begin serving her jail term.

More......

As an aside, the Gekko's have never had kids in our the public school district, a district currently under fiscal emergency and under state control for not passing a levy since the beginning of time. We just received our latest property tax bill. Out of curiosity, how much would be a "fair" amount for us to pay to support those schools?

Prager University: Are You a Liberal?

Confessions of a Branch Gorevidian

Here's a great read from one of the founders of Greenpeace...............

In the early days we debated complex issues openly and often. It was a wonderful group to engage with in wide-ranging environmental policy discussions. The intellectual energy in the organization was infectious. We frequently disagreed about specific issues, yet our ultimate vision was largely shared. Importantly, we strove to be scientifically accurate. For years this had been the topic of many of our internal debates. I was the only Greenpeace activist with a Ph. D in ecology, and because I wouldn't allow exaggeration beyond reason I quickly earned the nickname "Dr. Truth." It wasn't always meant as a compliment. Despite my efforts, the movement abandoned science and logic somewhere in the mid-1980s, just as society was adopting the more reasonable items on our environmental agenda.
Some activists simply couldn't make the transition from confrontation to consensus; it was as if they needed a common enemy. When a majority of people decide they agree with all your reasonable ideas the only way you can remain confrontational and antiestablishment is to adopt ever more extreme positions, eventually abandoning science and logic altogether in favour of zero-tolerance policies.
The collapse of world communism and the fall of the Berlin Wall during the 1980s added to the trend toward extremism. The Cold War was over and the peace movement was largely disbanded. The peace movement had been mainly Western-based and anti-American in its leanings. Many of its members moved into the environmental movement, bringing with them their neo-Marxist, far-left agendas. To a considerable extent the environmental movement was hijacked by political and social activists who learned to use green language to cloak agendas that had more to do with anti-capitalism and anti-globalization than with science or ecology. I remember visiting our Toronto office in 1985 and being surprised at how many of the new recruits were sporting army fatigues and red berets in support of the Sandinistas.

Hey Obama here's an idea

Apparently, our president is having trouble coming up with provocative ideas to stimulate employment in this country.

HERE'S AN IDEA YOU IDIOT................DROP THE MINIMUM WAGE!!!!!!!!!!

This is really a must read piece.......The real danger is not starving families with low wages, but locking them out of the economy altogether. If the minimum wage gets too high, there is no way for low-skilled workers to take their first step into the work force. What’s worse, there are many government regulations that are tending to compound the effect of the minimum wage, raising the price of hiring workers. Obamacare, for example, will effectively raise the minimum wage by adding an expensive minimum benefits package every worker must be given. Hiring inexperienced teens has become a risky, regulated, expensive proposition — as a result, the teenage unemployment rate in this country recently hit an all-time high of 27.6%! My teenage son would gladly work for $5, or even $3, or even for free in the right job that could teach him skills and help him establish a resume of reliability. Unfortunately, that’s impossible today.
This is why I say that for many people, low wage jobs are the first rung on the ladder to success and prosperity. Raising the minimum wage is putting the first rung of the ladder out of reach of many low-skilled Americans.

Is it just a coincidence that unemployment shot up right when the federal minimum wage law kicked in?

More.......

How governments create conflict

No one expedited my conversion from bleeding heart liberal to a right thinking conservative more than Walter Williams.

And it's columns like this one that got the ball rolling.............

Some Americans have strong, sometimes unyielding preferences for Mac computers, while most others have similarly strong preferences for PCs and wouldn't be caught dead using a Mac. Some Americans love classical music and hate rock and roll. Others have opposite preferences, loving rock and roll and consider classical music as hoity-toity junk. Then there are those among us who love football and Western movies, and find golf and cooking shows to be less than manly. Despite these, and many other strong preferences, there's little or no conflict. When's the last time you heard of rock and roll lovers in conflict with classical music lovers, or Mac lovers in conflict with PC lovers, or football lovers in conflict with golf lovers? It seldom if ever happens. When there's market allocation of resources and peaceable, voluntary exchange, people have their preferences satisfied and are able to live in peace with one another.

Think what might be the case if it were a political decision of whether there'd be football or golf watched on TV, whether we used Macs or PCs and whether we listened to classical music or rock and roll. Everyone had to comply with the politically made decision or suffer the pain of fines or imprisonment. Football lovers would be lined up against
golf lovers, Mac lovers against PC lovers and rock and rollers against classical music lovers. People who previously lived in peace with one another would now be in conflict.

Why? If, for example, classical music lovers got what they wanted, rock and rollers wouldn't. Conflict would emerge solely because the decision was made in the political arena.

The lesson here is that the prime feature of political decision-making is that it's a zero-sum game. One person's gain is of necessity another person's loss. As such, political allocation of resources is conflict-enhancing, while market allocation is conflict-reducing. The greater
the number of decisions made in the political arena, the greater the potential for conflict. It would not be unreasonable to predict that if Mac lovers won, and only Macs could be legally used, there would be considerable PC-lover hate toward Mac lovers.

There's really no change

I don't like to comment on certain broadcast persoanlities who I think are humongous douches and I don't want to mention the name of one who was recently let go by his violence inflaming network. That's precisely the kind of promoting he would want.

But keep in mind conservatives. This network let go a goof ball who will spend the next couple of years balled up in a corner of his NY apratment with his hairless cat but replaced said goof ball with another.

It's really nothing to gloat about.

Cincinnati's light rail delusions

There goes Jimmy Galt

The founder of Jimmy John's is moving out of Illinois...........

The founder of Jimmy John's said he has applied for Florida residency and may recommend that his corporate headquarters move out-of-state as a result of the Illinois tax increases enacted last week.

Jimmy John Liautaud told The News-Gazette on Tuesday that he is angry about the moves, which boosted the individual income tax from 3 percent to 5 percent and the corporate income tax from 7.3 percent to 9.5 percent.

"All they do is stick it to us," he said, adding that the Legislature and governor showed "a clear lack of understanding."

"I could absorb this and adapt, but it doesn't feel good in my soul to make it happen," Liautaud said.

Jimmy John's, which has its corporate headquarters on Fox Drive in Champaign, has more than 1,000 sandwich shops nationwide, many of them franchise operations.
Champaign has been its corporate base, but Liautaud said it will not necessarily continue that way.

Liautaud said he has been contacted by "multiple pro-business states" that made him feel "wanted and important."

Jimmy here is doing Illinois a favor. See, most entrepreneurs or conservatives won't voice their opposition to these kleptocratic regimes, they just move out.

How an idiot creates jobs

This what you get when you elect someone who's never run a damn thing in his life....

Three days before Christmas, President Obama gathered his economic team in the West Wing’s Roosevelt Room to review themes for his State of the Union address. The edge-of-the-cliff crisis he inherited had passed, but with more than 14 million Americans still out of work, he was looking for bold ways to bring down unemployment. The ideas presented to him, though, seemed familiar and uninspired. “You know, guys,” he said, according to someone in the room, “I’ve told you before, I want you to come to me with ideas that excite me.” Nothing he was hearing excited him.

That's because people who create jobs aren't exciting, they're just profit seekers and those seeking profits create jobs as a by product of their efforts.

The dirty little secret the Obamunists never got in ivy league skools is that governments cannot create anything; they never have and never will. All governments can do is destroy the will of the people. Something this administration has been wildly successful doing. The fact that this dip shit still hasn't figured it out in two years of on the job training speaks to his idiocy.

Can we get that dumb ass George Bush back?

More.....

Saturday, January 22, 2011

From the "pro-business" administration

Imagine for a moment that you’ve been tasked with conducting a scientific analysis to determine the origination point for small volumes of methane detected in two private water wells in Parker Co., Texas.

You would know the question is important, since the agency for which you work – the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency - has based nearly its entire case against an energy producer in North Texas on the assertion that the methane in those water wells came from natural gas wells drilled into the Barnett Shale.

In conducting this analysis, it’s likely you’d know that one of the most obvious ways to characterize the methane in the water wells is to run a profile on the percentage of nitrogen found in the samples of natural gas.

Through experience, you would know that methane in the Barnett has a relatively low percentage of nitrogen – often in the single digits.

And you would also know that a much shallower rock formation called the Strawn has a much higher percentage, generally around 20 percent.

Your task: Pin the presence of methane on Range Resources by trying to prove its wells in the Barnett represent the source of the natural gas in the water wells.

On Dec. 7, 2010, that’s precisely the argument that EPA put forth in issuing an unprecedented “emergency order” -- demanding, among other things, that Range plug up its wells and go home.

Just one problem: The isotopic analysis EPA used as the basis for its order doesn’t include a word about nitrogen; EPA never ran those tests.

Duke Energy sucks

As a graduate of the University of Cincinnati Business school, I've always contended that what I need to know for my accounting degree and subsequent CPA designation I could have learned in one year of school not the four they required for the degree.

Nearly, everything important I learned at UC were things not taught in the classroom. Like how to get what you want/need within a government bureaucracy.

Or how to sweet talk some union protected asshole to help you with something that falls outside of their job description.

Those skills came in handy for my dilemma with Duke Energy this week.

As I detailed a couple of days ago, my office has been without electric for four days before I was able to track down someone who could actually help me out.

It finally came down to me tracking down the people who I knew were cooperative through the return calls on my cell phone.

As of yesterday, I was up and running. When the crew came out, the crew leader asked me "what took so long?".

So I guess all those exasperating dealings with the registrars office finally paid off.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Are you smarter than a congressman?

Duke Energy sucks

Let me lay out the time line and I'll let the readers decide if these are acceptable business practices.

On approximately 12:30 pm Tuesday, a semi tractor passed by my business in Loveland. As it passed, it proceeded to tear down a power line on the street and along with it ripping my electric meter off of my building and dragging it down the street.

Being a great citizen, he promptly kept driving.

The workers at the site managed to get power restored for the block within about two hours. Since I had no meter, I was told that I would have to have an electrician install a meter base and an entrance cable. Once those were installed, they could then install temporary service until a permit was issued and a final inspection was completed.

I had an electrician on my site and he had the work done by about 6:00 Tuesday night. Of course, now Duke Energy tells me that because I have a new meter base, I would have to have a permit issued prior to their installation of service. I had an inspector to the place today at 11:00 am today and he issued the permit.

Now I call the installation people and they tell me that they need one of their techs to come out just to establish the service that's needed and that it may take 3 business days to get that person out. In addition, because of the weather, they have no one out today. Nevermind that I've driven to my office three times today.

She then proceeds to tell me that it might be 7 - 10 business days before I have power. Not exactly a good time to have no electricity for an accountant.

Now let me ask this question, if the phone system at Duke energy were to go down, do you think they would tolerate their hardware company telling them it would take 7-10 days to restore their phone systems to operating order?

It's not like I have an option to call Mortimer and Randolph's competitor(s) to get access to electricity.

So the question is this. How much should I seek for damages when I call my attorney Monday morning?

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Who did she vote for? #8181

Meet Megin Gray. Why is Megin in the news..............

A 26-year-old mother woke up Tuesday after sleeping for 12 hours and found her 9-month-old daughter lying on the floor badly burned. Megin Gray rushed the infant to the hospital but it was too late. Police say Gray had taken Xanax, Percocet and drank alcohol before going to sleep about 11 p.m. Monday in the west Covington apartment where she lived with the infant, her three other children and another couple and their child.
Gray awoke about 11 a.m. and discovered the infant lying against a baseboard heater, said Kenton County Commonwealth’s Attorney Rob Sanders.
Police were called to the St. Elizabeth Covington emergency room about 11:30 a.m. after the baby was pronounced dead.

Now usually, I reserve these posts for garden variety derelicts and morons, who manage to find their way on some democratic constituency. This time I want to ask the question.

How much money would you wager that this ding dong was receiving welfare benefits?

Seriously, nearly all of my clients have instituted drug testing as part of their employee policies; usually to save on worker's comp premiums.

If nearly everyone who has a job must take some form of a drug test, why are we not forcing welfare recipients to take them as well.

Put another way. If Megin were your sister, would you allow her to live in your house sucking down percoset and booze all the while neglecting her children. Of course you wouldn't. But in the welfare world, testing for drugs is a no no and so is challenging someone's fitness to be a parent.

Now we have a dead child and soon to be three children with no mother. I'm betting that they wished she would have been tested.

And by the way, where's any of the daddy's?

More....

Life in "Progress" State - California edition

Seriously, if these people were in the private sector, they'd be spending some time in Club Fed........

We've grown numb to annual budget meltdowns - shortfalls of $20 billion have become the norm. But what is our state's total debt? Would you believe at least $265 billion?
California's debt sorts into three buckets:

Budget deferrals, required reimbursements and related debt now total nearly $40 billion. How did "kicking the can down the road" get the state to such a large number? Budget gimmicks to achieve a balanced budget for one year (borrowing from local government, required repayments to public schools and other one-time actions) have added up. As Gov. Jerry Brown highlighted in his budget proposal, most of the budget "solutions" over the past three years "were temporary or failed because of court decisions or faulty assumptions."

General obligation borrowing is authorized by voters for school buildings, clean water, housing, stem cell research and other expenditures. According to the state treasurer, the total outstanding is $77 billion, the majority of which is for long-term infrastructure investments.
Pensions and retiree health promises for state workers are an unfunded pension liability (i.e., the amount by which pension promises exceed pension assets) of $96 billion as of June 2009.
However, that figure assumes that those pension funds will increase their assets faster than U.S. investment assets grew in the past century. So, if they earned at the past century's rate, (which itself was very high historically), the unfunded liability is $256 billion. Using the method employed by Alicia H. Munnell of the Center for Retirement Research and formerly of President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers, the liability is $568 billion.

Milton Friedman: Why soaking the rich won't work.

Sheila Jackson Lee - 5th Amendment

Health care is "life and liberty"?

Life in "Progress" City - Atlanta edition

From the city where there hasn't been a republican in town since Sherman burned it to the ground.......

One day after receiving notice that the Atlanta Public School's accreditation is in jeopardy, the Atlanta Board of Education is examining what it must do to regain its status.
One of the requirements to get accreditation restored, is that the school board meet with a licensed mediator.

At the heart of the decision to place the Atlanta Public Schools' accreditation on probation is the infighting between school board members, particularly concerning the issue of who should lead the board, and how they should make decisions.
Dr. Mark Elgart is CEO of the accrediting organization, AdvancED.

He says that disharmony was particularly evident on the day that GBI agents entered some high schools as part of an investigation into an alleged cheating scandal.

Producing morons to be our future politicians.

More.....

Who did he vote for? #829

Meet Dr. Kermit Gosnell. Why is he in the news?

A West Philadelphia abortion doctor, his wife and eight other suspects are now under arrest following a grand jury investigation.
Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 69, faces eight counts of murder in the deaths of a woman following a botched abortion at his office, along with the deaths of seven other babies who, prosecutors allege, were born alive following illegal late-term abortions and then were killed by severing their spinal cords with a pair of scissors.

“I am aware that abortion is a hot-button topic,” said District Attorney Seth Williams. “But as district attorney, my job is to carry out the law. A doctor who knowingly and systematically mistreats female patients, to the point that one of them dies in his so-called care, commits murder under the law. A doctor who cuts into the necks severing the spinal cords of living, breathing babies, who would survive with proper medical attention, is committing murder under the law.”

Nice to see he's keeping in rare, safe and legal.

More......

From the network who brought you the show "Crossfire"

CNN's John King: "Before we go to break, I want to make a quick point. We were having a discussion about the Chicago mayoral race. My friend Andy Shaw used the term 'in the crosshairs' in talking about the candidates. We're trying, we're trying to get away from that language. Andy is a good friend, he's covered politics for a long time, but we're trying to get away from that kind of language."

See the video

Paul Ryan: This bill is a fiscal house of cards

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

This qualifies as news for ABC

From the "Are you kidding" me file.............

An adult entertainment waitress is up $60,000 after settling a lawsuit with her former strip club employers after, she says, they called her "old," teased her about Alzheimer's disease and menopause, and then fired her at age 56.

News flash to all aspiring strippers. Here are other reasons you can't get a job or may get fired.....

You're ugly.
You can't use a pole in a wheel chair.
You can't dance.
You're missing a limb and/or teeth.
You're obese
You're a guy

For the most part, strip clubs tend to be discriminating towards young, thin, women with rhythm and all their teeth and limbs.

But hey, if you can overcome those obstacles, maybe you can write the next screen play similar to the movie "Rudy" where an ugly, fat guy with one arm, overcomes the obstacles to become a Vegas showgirl.

Geez. This qualifies for news..........

Why I'm a conservative #19

Because I understand that government officials will always find the path of least resistance and that usually means passing the buck to someone long after you're sunning yourself in Florida..........

US public pensions face a shortfall of $2,500 billion that will force state and local governments to sell assets and make deep cuts to services, according to the former chairman of New Jersey’s pension fund.

The severe US economic recession has cast a spotlight on years of fiscal mismanagement, including chronic underfunding of retirement promises.
“States face cost pressure, most prominently from retirement benefits and Medicaid [the health programme for the poor],” Orin Kramer told the Financial Times.
“One consequence is that asset sales and privatisation will pick up. The very unfortunate consequence is that various safety nets for the most vulnerable citizens will be cut back.”

What makes this even more ridiculous is the continued anti business tenor of the democrats. After all, where do you think these pension funds are invested? (Hint it's not in T Bills). A thriving commerce sector of our country aids in the underfunding of these pensions.

But try telling that to a "progressive".

More.....

More double standard

Apparently, in Hollywood it's totally acceptable to offend the gun clingers in flyover country, but never, I mean never, offend a drug using, gay, scientologist aka Hollywood actors...........

Ricky Gervais today insisted he had not been carpeted at the Golden Globes after subjecting a room full of speechless American stars to lewd jibes at last night's ceremony.
He vanished from the stage in the middle of the awards show, leading to speculation that he had been carpeted. Viewers said that when he returned some time later he looked subdued.
A spokesperson for the comedian today called rumours he was chastised by bosses 'utter rubbish' fueled by 'Twitter speculation.'
Gervais insists the the mood backstage was 'great' and his extended time away from the camera was planned.

Double Standard?

By now, you've probably heard about the outrageous comments from NY School Superintendent, Cathie Black, saying that one of the solutions to the overcrowding in their schools is birth control.

But I hadn't heard about this comment until this morning..........

Less than two weeks into her new gig, Schools Chancellor Cathie Black has reportedly riled parents and public officials by cracking some jokes last week during a meeting at state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver's office. When a public-school dad voiced concern about the "huge shortages" of classroom space in lower Manhattan that could be coming, Black remarked: "Could we just have some birth control for a while? It could really help us all out a lot."

Ha! That one makes us like her a little. The act, however, didn't stop there:

The public-service novice, who has spent her entire career in media and publishing, also dropped jaws at the meeting by likening her task of satisfying space-crunch concerns in every neighborhood to making "many Sophie's Choices" — a reference to the book in which a mother in the Auschwitz death camp is forced to decide which of her two children will live.

"Everybody's face fell. You don't want to hear that reference when you're talking about children," said Tricia Joyce, whose kids attend the perennially overcrowded PS 234 in TriBeCa.

Are you serious? I hear one conservative say the word "macaca" and you would have thought the world was ending.

Yet nary a word in the press. Maybe she should have used the words "blood libel" to really get a response.

Coincidence?

More......

Monday, January 17, 2011

There goes John Galt

Want to invest in Facebook?

You're going to have to move overseas. Because of US security laws, Goldman decided to move their private placement to foreign investors............

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. slammed the door on U.S. clients hoping to invest in a private offering of shares in Facebook Inc., because it said the intense media spotlight left the deal in danger of violating U.S. securities laws.
Goldman's decision to allow only non-U.S. investors to buy shares in the social-networking site is a black eye for the Wall Street firm, which sent jealous rivals scurrying for look-alike deals when the Facebook agreement surfaced two weeks ago.

More.....

Spree killers and Global Warming...... a connection

You know how the Branch Gorevidians keep trying to convince the public that when it gets hot, that proves global warming and when it gets cold, that proves global warming.

I think the libs are trying to do the same thing with Shooter Punk.

See, when the story broke, it was because of conservative hate speech that incited this ding dong. Of course, now that some time has passed, we now know that he hated George Bush.

He became intrigued by antigovernment conspiracy theories, including that the Sept. 11 attacks were perpetrated by the government and that the country’s central banking system was enslaving its citizens. His anger would well up at the sight of President George W. Bush, or in discussing what he considered to be the nefarious designs of government.
“I think he feels the people should be able to govern themselves,” said Ms. Figueroa, his former girlfriend. “We didn’t need a higher authority.”

What this means is that his hatred of George Bush incited him to be a sadistic killer. In addition, we now know that it was George Bush's fault that incited James Fuller to threaten to kill Tea Party rep at ABC's town hall.

It's much like the scene in Forrest Gump where the douche bag hits Jenny and then blames the Vietnam War for his d-baggishness.

So libs are absolved of any responsibility. Either Bush incited it or Bush was so hated, it created violence in normally civil liberals.

More....

Life in "Progress" State - Illinois edition

Imagine that. The NY Times backs the suicide pact common sense people know as the Illinois tax hikes..........

For years, Illinois, like so many states, pretended that it had not fallen off a budgetary cliff. It was spending too much and taking in too little revenue, but every year it would kick its problems into the next. Unable to pay its bills, it finally accepted reality last week and raised taxes on incomes and businesses — a first step toward getting its house in order.

The action was immediately ridiculed by several governors around the nation who are still pretending that they can cut their way out of the enormous shortfalls they face, without raising taxes. Wisconsin and Indiana predicted a windfall of angry corporations and residents would head their way from Illinois. Even Gov. Chris Christie, the New Jersey Republican, vowed to fly to Illinois to invite businesses there to defect to his state.
That makes great political theater. But businesses and voters in Illinois, and around the country, should take a closer look at the facts and figures, including their own.

After 22 years of not raising income taxes, Illinois saw its budget shortfall grow to $15 billion. It had the lowest state credit rating in the nation, and it wasn’t paying its bills to hospitals and schools.

Notice that they conveniently forgot to mention sales tax of which Illinois has one of the highest in the nation.

In addition, if you have stable tax rates, the inflationary increases in tax receipts should cover inflationary increases in state services. When this is the case, you should never have to increase taxes of any kind.

Let me ask Mr/Ms Progressive. Illinois has been a state for nearly 200 years. I'm just wondering if all of these state agencies have been in existence for the life of the state.......

I'm thinking that Illinois got along just fine without all these agencies. Did they have a Human Services Department during the days of Lincoln? In addition, are you telling me that you can't merge the lottery commission and gaming board among others under one agency?

More....

Life in "Progress" City - New York edition

New York City's abortion rate is 41 percent, more than double the national average, according to city health department statistics. The figures spurred a meeting of Christian and Jewish leaders in Manhattan, including the archbishop of New York, Timothy Dolan, who called for a reduction in the number of aborted pregnancies.

"We gotta do more than shiver over these chilling statistics," Dolan said at a press conference Thursday. "I invite all to come together to make abortion rare."

n 2009, women in New York City terminated 87,273 pregnancies, according to data released last month. Black women had the highest rate of abortion by far, followed by Hispanics, white women and Asians. The national abortion rate is 19 percent.

Joan Malin, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of New York City, issued a statement saying unplanned pregnancies are affected by access to information, birth control, sex education and intimate-partner violence.

Not so fast. Are you telling me that women who know where to get an abortion have no idea where to get birth control or domestic violence help?

I don't think so.

Liberals committing intra party genocide?

Now that's "progressive"!

Thanks Reader Jeremy for the link.

More.....

When will they correct the bogus global warming record?

In 2005, Salon published online an exclusive story by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that offered an explosive premise: that the mercury-based thimerosal compound present in vaccines until 2001 was dangerous, and that he was "convinced that the link between thimerosal and the epidemic of childhood neurological disorders is real."

The piece was co-published with Rolling Stone magazine -- they fact-checked it and published it in print; we posted it online. In the days after running "Deadly Immunity," we amended the story with five corrections (which can still be found logged here) that went far in undermining Kennedy's exposé. At the time, we felt that correcting the piece -- and keeping it on the site, in the spirit of transparency -- was the best way to operate. But subsequent critics, including most recently, Seth Mnookin in his book "The Panic Virus," further eroded any faith we had in the story's value. We've grown to believe the best reader service is to delete the piece entirely.

"I regret we didn't move on this more quickly, as evidence continued to emerge debunking the vaccines and autism link," says former Salon editor in chief Joan Walsh, now editor at large. "But continued revelations of the flaws and even fraud tainting the science behind the connection make taking down the story the right thing to do." The story's original URL now links to our autism topics page, which we believe now offers a strong record of clear thinking and skeptical coverage we're proud of -- including the critical pursuit of others who continue to propagate the debunked, and dangerous, autism-vaccine link.

My issues with immunizations isn't the thimerosal in vaccines but the number of vaccinations given to children at such a young age.

For instance, why are children given Hep B vaccinations when the most common cause of transmission is sexual contact, IV drug use and/or contaminated blood transfusions.

When I was a child, most children were given vaccinations for about 16 conditions. Now that number is over 35. Many of the additional vaccinations are for non life threatening illnesses.

I still believe that too many vaccinations are given to children. What impact that has on them, I don't know. But my common sense tells me that your immune system is just like any muscle, you need to work it out for it to be effective later.

But hey I just watch what the health professionals do. Where the Lovely Mrs. Gekko works they've had mandatory flu shots, yet few people actually got them. This year, the hospital's internal health staff walked to each floor and gave a shot right then and there. If you had no documentation as to why you should be exempt, you either got the shot or were fired.

Now if people in the health world are resisting these things, why do we push them on children.

On another note. I wonder when we can expect the media to start retracting their bogus global warming stories when they find out the science is totally bogus?

More.....

Question of the day

Maybe someone can give me a history lesson

When the following people were assassinated (MLK, JFK, RFK, Malcolm X, John Lennon), who were the popular right wing, hate spewing, talk radio personalities at the time?

I think we can make the case that Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck have reduced political violence.......

Palin Derangement Syndrome on display

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Antonio Cromartie trying to remember his kids

Seriously, how could you root for this idiot for anything in life?

Bears

I've been pretty good this year living up to not watching the NFL. I refuse to be a part of any business model where a scumbag, extortioning, pile of crap, d-bag like Mike Brown can make money off of me watching the game........... even when I'm watching the Bears.

But I broke down today and watched the Bears throttle Seattle setting up a classic showdown with the Packers next week.

Then I finished off the day watching the Patriots and Jets go at it. Unfortunately, I was rooting for an ebola virus to break out in the johns in the hope that it waste both teams and their fans. That didn't happen but option #2 did happen. Tom Brady will have to go back to one of his knocked up super models after the Jets put it to them.

Now if the Jets can just get that ebola outbreak at their training facility this week, I'll be happy.

Life in "Progress" City - Detroit edition

Detroit was once America's fourth largest city, though today large sections of its inner core are abandoned to the elements, and monuments like Michigan Central Station are returning to dust. Another emblem of civic decline is a plan to desert nearly half of Detroit's public schools so that it can afford to fulfill its teachers union contract.

The school district is facing a $327 million deficit and has already closed 59 schools over the last two years to [save operating funds]... the district [could have to] close another 70 of its remaining 142 schools to save $31.3 million through 2013.
Under the emergency plan, ... high-school class sizes would increase to 62 by 2014 [and under union contracts] the district must pay [teacher] bonuses for class enrollment over 35, thus imposing some $11.1 million in new costs through 2014... Note that this dispensation carries about the same price tag as the school abandonment windfall: In other words, Detroit may end up destroying serviceable capital assets so it can pay its public workers more over the short term.

...The budget gap is partly due to the property tax revenue collapse as the Motor City crumbles, as well as financial mismanagement and a surge in pay and benefits for public employees. The Mackinac Center, a state think tank, reports that average Michigan teacher salaries outpaced those of all other states from 2003 to 2009, when adjusted for state per capita income as a proxy for the local ability to pay.

This article over at the Wall Street Journal fails to mention one very important fact. Many of these future illiterates will be well read enough to go to Sarah Palin's website, see the target areas she's highlighted and then assassinate the appropriate representative.

More......

Life in "Progress" City - Camden NJ edition

From the city of Camden where you couldn't find evidence of a republican in the city if you commissioned the world's largest archeological dig..............

Yet another crisis is upon this burdened city, among the most impoverished and crime-ridden in the country.

Deep layoffs of city workers go into effect on Tuesday - cutting up to 383 jobs, or one-fourth of the city's employees.
The exact number depends on whether public workers' unions make last-minute concessions. In any case, the cuts are likely to be deep - and could be a blow to the quality of life in a city where more than half the 80,000 residents, mostly black and Hispanic, live in poverty.

I have a question. How could the "quality of life" be any worse than half a city in poverty?

The saddest part of all of this is that do you think you could get the residents of this city to support a conservative despite the dire living conditions?

I'm sure that the state of Camden is some sort of racist plot perpetrated by racist tea partiers.

More......

CNN Panel: Stupid Palin, Reaganomics & Wealth Redistribution Caused AZ S...

Saturday, January 15, 2011

toning down the discourse

that '70's show

Friday, January 14, 2011

Life in "Progress" City - Memphis edition

Approximately 90 students at Frayser High School are pregnant or have recently given birth
The startling numbers fall in line with high teen pregnancy rates in the entire Frayser community
A new initiative to help combat the problem will soon be introduced

(Memphis 1/13/2011) About 90 students at a Memphis High School are either pregnant, or have been recently.

The startling news was confirmed by a high ranking city official and comes as the community plans to roll out a new initiative to help combat the problem.

However, one Frayser High School graduate says teen pregnancy is not a new problem for the school.

It's no problem as long as you don't mind living a life of poverty.

More....

Hey, we're pro business!

From the "if you have to say it, it's probably not true" file.

The Obamunists would have you believe that they're a very pro business administration.

But ask yourself the question. How many "pro business" administration would pull this one............

The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday vetoed a controversial Arch Coal Inc. mine in southern West Virginia — a decision that underscores growing tension between the mining industry and regulators.
Using its power under the federal Clean Water Act, the EPA took the rare step of revoking a coal mine permit that had been approved by the Army Corps of Engineers in 2007.

The action, hailed by environmentalists as a major victory, effectively stifles development of Arch's Spruce No. 1 mine, a sprawling complex that would be among the largest operations of its kind in Appalachia. The Creve Coeur-based company, which vowed to challenge the decision, said the EPA move threatens a $250 million investment and 250 jobs.

We don't need no stinkin' jobs.

More......

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Andrew Klavan: The History of Western Culture in 2 1/2 Minutes

That '70's show

It's deja vu all over again..........

Jobless claims hit a 10-week high last week while producer prices shot up in December, pointing to headwinds for an economy that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said was showing fresh vigor.

More....

Life in "Progress" City - NY edition

From the Empire City.........

Eek! Here's one subway ride that will make your skin crawl.
The nightmare of every subway rider was caught on video after a chubby sewer rat crawled up the leg of a sleeping straphanger on a No. 4 train in Brooklyn and came face-to-face with the man.
The video clip, posted Wednesday on YouTube, has already become a viral hit and promises to freak out anyone who has ever taken the subway.
Rats are often relegated to the tracks as straphangers gaze at them while awaiting their train. This time, this rat-subway rider encounter was a little too close for comfort.

Question of the day?

A man walking his dog has found a black bag holding ammunition that authorities believe was discarded by a gunman accused of trying to assassinate an Arizona congresswoman.

Chief Rick Kastigar with the Pima County Sheriff's Office told The Associated Press that an 18-year-old found the bag Thursday morning in a neighborhood near where the suspect lives. He went to get another man, who looked inside and saw ammunition.

Authorities have said the suspect, and his father got into a confrontation over the bag at their home in the hours before the shooting.

All this brings a question to my mind. Where did this guy get the money to buy his gun and all his ammunition.

A new Glock is going to run you $500. Even a used one in good condition is probably going to go for over $400.00. In addition, the special clip he loaded had to cost a few bucks.

Frankly, 9 mm ammunition has been almost impossible to find in Cincinnati and when you can get it it runs for $30 a box.

We know this guy had no job. Where did he get the cash to finance his murder spree?

I just can't see myself going to my folks and asking "Hey mom, can I get $500 for a Glock?" It doesn't sound as though this guy's parents were made of money.

I'm curious as to whether this guy was getting an SSI check for his mental issues. If so, we can thank the Social Security Administration for subsidizing an assassination attempt.

In addition, we should question how a guy who was receiving disability payments for a mental disorder could qualify for a gun purchase.

The article notes that he used a credit card to buy the ammunition but how did he did he pay on a credit card with no job? On top of all that, the guy was a regular pot smoker. Does his dealer swipe credit cards? The people I'm familiar with typically work on cash only basis.

Just a thought.

More....

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Life in "Progress" City - Chicago edition

From the Windy City.................

WBBM Newsradio 780 has learned that the cooler at the Cook County morgue is so crowded right now, bodies are doubled-up on some of the trays.
Why are there so many bodies?

“We had this huge upswing in deaths right at the end of the year, and with the holidays being on Saturdays, it really created a backlog because the funeral directors weren’t coming in,” Cook County Medical Examiner Dr. Nancy Jones tells WBBM Newsradio 780′s Steve Miller.

Well you know the criminals were trying to beat the murder quota before year end......

More....

Global Warming Panic explained

Males not permitted

Years ago, I liked to spend Sunday mornings going to a local park, turn on a Sunday morning sports talk show and read the Sunday paper in the fresh air.

One Sunday, I went to Mt Airy Forest (you Cincinnatians know of it) where I was doing just that when I got the crap scared out of me by a guy who knocked on my window.

I asked him what he wanted and he just looked at me real weird and walked away.

When I told a coworker about it, he informed me that I was in "Lollipop Park" and the guy probably thought I was looking for some gay action.

"ON SUNDAY FREAKIN' MORNING!?!?" was my reply.

So I decided I could no longer go to that park for fear that someone would mistake me for George Michael.

As a result, I started going to a park where there was traffic........ assuming that gays wouldn't be hanging out with the soccer moms.

One morning, a cop pulled up next to me and asked me what I was doing. I told him I was reading my paper listening to the radio.

He told me that one of the soccer moms called in a strange guy in a car in the park.

Nothing came of it, but I got the message loud and clear. DON'T GO TO FREAKIN' PARKS ANYMORE IF YOU ARE A SINGLE/STRAIGHT GUY.

So I can relate to this article completely...........

Last week, the lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, Timothy Murray, noticed smoke coming out of a minivan in his hometown of Worcester. He raced over and pulled out two small children, moments before the van's tire exploded into flames. At which point, according to the AP account, the kids' grandmother, who had been driving, nearly punched our hero in the face.

Why?

Mr. Murray said she told him she thought he might be a kidnapper.

And so it goes these days, when almost any man who has anything to do with a child can find himself suspected of being a creep. I call it "Worst-First" thinking: Gripped by pedophile panic, we jump to the very worst, even least likely, conclusion first. Then we congratulate ourselves for being so vigilant.

Consider the Iowa daycare center where Nichole Adkins works. The one male aide employed there, she told me in an interview, is not allowed to change diapers. "In fact," Ms. Adkins said, "he has been asked to leave the classroom when diapering was happening."

Hey, I guess if I can get out of diaper changing what do I have to complain about?

More.....

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Saving Social Security with Personal Retirement Accounts

From the party of civil discourse

I think there was one three syllable word in the whole thing

Monday, January 10, 2011

Why do we continue to glorify shooter punks?

You won't find the name of the douche bag who decided shoot a bunch of people this past weekend on this blog.

You also won't find the name of any other list of losers and derelicts who have no life so they try to make a name for themselves by shooting up a whole bunch of innocents.

Years ago, you couldn't watch a sporting event without seeing some dumb ass run on to a field or court to show off. After Monics Seles was stabbed, TV executives decided they would no longer show these dumb asses on TV. Today, you rarely have these dolts doing it.

You see.... even your low man on the food chain, sports executive understands that you if don't give dip shits a venue, they'll go away.

Unfortunately, network TV news hasn't gotten the memo. So they'll continue to glorify this punk for doing something heinous, creating an environment for someone other idiot to one up him.

I guess I understand that someone of prominence was part of this shooting, but how is this anymore tragic than the 100 black men who are gunned down on our American streets during any one weekend?

In Cincinnati, we have a case where a father and son each killed their respective children (one was three years old, one was three months).

Are you going to tell me the shooting in AZ was more disgusting than that?

In addition, I got sick of watching TV & reading blogs trying to place a political motivation behind these shootings.

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that this guy never read Sarah Palin's blog and noticed the bulls eyes on the state of Arizona.

Instead of looking for a political motivation, why isn't anyone interviewing his parents? I'd be shocked if this guy came from an intact, functional, two parent family.

It's my belief that most of these spree shooters are a product of culture that protects their little ones from all adversity in life..... to the point that we can't even keep score to a soccer game. As a result, when these clowns actually have to deal with truly difficult adversity (like a relationship break up, getting kicked out of school, getting fired) they totally unravel.

But no..... the same same old reporting will occur and now the next Mark Lee Asshat or the next Robert David Dipweed or Andrew Wayne Moronovich will have an even bigger goal to achieve.