Congratulations David Payne

I didn't get a chance to see this live but congratulations to David Payne for his bronze medal finish in the 110 hurdles.

As you can see from the finish he was a chin away from Gold.

David, you did UC proud.

It's a matter of trust

Solving problems by creating others

Riddle me this Batman.

In order to correct the trillion dollar unfunded Medicare debacle we need to add another trillion dollar health care debacle? Huh?

But that's how the Obamunists solve problems, borrow money to pay off money we've already borrowed or plan to borrow and somehow we all end up richer for it.

Another classic Steyn analysis.......

But the silver-tongued salesman sails on. Why be scared of a government health program? After all, says the president, "Medicare is a government program that works really well," and if "we're able to get something right like Medicare," we should have more "confidence" about being able to do it for everyone.

On the other hand, says the president, Medicare is "unsustainable" and "running out of money."

By the way, unlike your run-of-the-mill politician's contradictory statements, these weren't made a year or even a week apart, but during the same presidential speech in Portsmouth, N.H. At any rate, in order to "control costs," Obama says we need to introduce a new trillion-dollar government entitlement. It's a good thing he's the smartest president of all time and the greatest orator since Socrates because otherwise one might easily confuse him with some birdbrained Bush type. But, if we take him at his word, then a trillion-dollar public expenditure that "controls costs" presumably means he's planning on reducing private health expenditure – such as, say, your insurance plan – by at least a trillion. Or he'll be raising a trillion dollars' worth of revenue. Either way, under Obama nothing is certain but death panels and taxes – i.e., a vast enervating statism and the confiscation of the fruits of your labors required to pay for it.

That's why the "stimulus" flopped. It didn't just fail to stimulate, it actively deterred stimulation, because it was the first explicit signal to America and the world that the Democrats' political priorities overrode everything else. If you're a business owner, why take on extra employees when cap-and-trade is promising increased regulatory costs, and health "reform" wants to stick you with an 8 percent tax for not having a company insurance plan? Obama's leviathan sends a consistent message to business and consumers alike: When he's spending this crazy, maybe the smart thing for you to do is hunker down until the dust's settled, and you get a better sense of just how broke he's going to make you. For this level of "community organization," there aren't enough of "the rich" to pay for it. That leaves you.

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Progressives "Cheneyed" by The One

HT to Norma

Social networking

I'm still catching up on the social networking gig.

So far, I've found Twitter to be absolutely worthless. I'm still trying to figure out how to most effectively utilize Facebook, My Space and Linked In.

Frankly, much of what my "friends" are posting on Facebook is crap. I really don't see the need to post my whereabouts 24/7.

I did break down and put my Facebook link on the blog if you'd like to be my "friend". If you are someone who uses these sites for something worthwhile, clue me in. What am I missing? I'd like to use these for something worthwhile, but i'm not sure what that exactly looks like.

Please help me in the comment section.

"Progressives" can't deal with real science

I continue to be amazed at how quick "progressives" are to believe in the faux science of global warming yet seem to have no grasp of real science like the LAW of supply and demand.

In addition, there is more than overwhelming evidence that socialism doesn't work in so many ways. Take the socialist paradise of California. Does it appear that oasis of progressive thinking is working?

The WSJ has an article noting the more socialized the economy, the more difficulty they are having in this recession..........

Proponents of Big Government can't say we avoided the next Great Depression due to hypothetical stimulus money that is mostly unspent. So they argue it's more important that the federal government merely continued spending and didn't "slash" spending as in the early 1930s. But the federal government didn't slash spending in the early '30s. Federal spending rose by 6.2% in 1930, 7.7% in 1931 and 30.2% in 1932. Since prices were falling, real increases in federal spending were huge during the Hoover years.

President Obama clearly believes Big Government is the antidote to this and perhaps all recessions. At his first news conference in February, the president said, "The federal government is the only entity left with the resources to jolt our economy back to life." Yet that raises a key question: If the U.S. economy could not recover without a big "jolt" of deficit spending, then how did the economy recover from recessions in the distant past, when the federal government was very small?

A 1999 study in The Journal of Economic Perspectives by Christina Romer (now head of the Council of Economic Advisers) found that "real macroeconomic indicators have not become dramatically more stable between the pre-World War I and post-World War II eras, and recessions have become only slightly less severe." Ms. Romer also noted that "recessions have not become noticeably shorter" in the era of Big Government. In fact, she found the average length of recessions from 1887 to 1929 was 10.3 months. If the current recession ended in August, then the average postwar recession lasted one month longer—11.3 months. The longest recession from 1887 to 1929 lasted 16 months. But there have been three recessions since 1973 that lasted at least that long.

So once again I throw out the challenge to the "progressives" out there. If liberal policies are so great, why is Detroit such a shit hole?

We want these guys to run health care? #41

Cash for clunkers once again...........

For all the program's acclaim, the $3 billion economic stimulus effort is causing headaches locally for car dealers as well as buyers, who can get up to $4,500 off their purchase by handing over older, less-fuel-efficient vehicles.

The federal government has been slow to process the tens of thousands of clunker applications nationally, and that's creating a series of hang-ups.

Like Faulk, many other buyers have yet to receive their new cars, as dealers hold out to receive clunker funding — even though withholding a car is in violation of a federal government directive.

Other buyers are getting their cars, but dealers are presenting them with agreements to pay back the dealership if clunker funding is rejected. That, too, is wrong, the federal government says.

Do you want to know why dealers are doing this.

Reader Tim passed along a story he heard about a dealership who did all the CARS paperwork only to have the feds withhold $2,200 of the $4,500 because the car buyer had an outstanding tax lien.

How in the hell is a dealer supposed to know of an outstanding tax lien, back child support or a delinquent student loan subject to a refund confiscation?

The Federal Government.....
You want something screwed up, we're your guys.

more......

"We are God’s partners in matters of life and death.”

Kind of funny how we're "God's partners" except when it comes to abortion then it's above his paygrade.

Doesn't sound all that partner like to me.

The single payer system for college

So the way Obamacare plans to help health care is to offer more competition by offering a government plan.

How did that work in the education arena?

The WSJ with the results..............

Democrats are planning to use the autumn budget reconciliation to bring America further down the road to a single-payer system—and not just in health care. Responding to a White House request, pending House legislation would make the federal government the dominant lender in the $100 billion market for student loans.

Not that Congress has traditionally kept its hands off this business. As in health care, intervention in the education market has gone hand-in-hand with rising costs. While government accounts for 41% of health-care spending, the feds guarantee or issue roughly 80% of student loans, subsidizing the rates and also offering a slew of grant programs. Not by coincidence, higher education costs have risen much faster even than in the health-care market. From 1982 through 2007, college tuition and fees increased 439% in nominal dollars, almost triple the rise in median family income, according to the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.

Now the plan is to squeeze out what remains of the private market. Until now, there were three options for students needing to borrow for college: private loans, government loans and loans made by private lenders but guaranteed by the government. The plan for the fall is to outlaw this last category—more than half the current market—while tightening the noose around the small share that remains free and poses no threat to taxpayers. Simply put, we are watching in student loans exactly what ObamaCare's harshest critics have forecast for health care: a "public option" that ultimately destroys all competition.

The cold hard truth. The more money we make available to kids for education, the more money the education leaches suck out of the students.

Lately, I've commented to the lovely Mrs. Gekko about the proliferation of all these "colleges" who've set up a campuses in suburban office parks. They're everywhere.

Here's some of these office park schools who advertise degrees in pajamas.....

Chatfield College
Brown Macke Collage
Antonelli College
Kaplan College
Southwestern College
National College
Ashland University
Mt. Vernon Nazarene
Daymar College
Miami Jacobs College
Galen College
Indiana Wesleyan

Ask yourself the question. Why is it that these schools are jumping up all over God's creation?

Of course, to many questions, if you answer money, you're normally correct 95% of the time. And in this case you would also be correct. These guys know there's lot's of student loan and Pell grant money to extract from any ding dong with a high school diploma.

The end result is a poorly prepared "college graduate" and a school who's pocketed lot's of money.

Even the traditional schools understand that people will seek out a college education for their kids and will pay "X" for the privilege. Adding government money to the mix never changes the "X" for the parent/student.

So while liberals are still looking to take over our medical establishment. How about cleaning up the messes you've already created out there.

Tea Party Rally

Meet the Gekko's at the next Tea Party Rally.

Let's get thousands out there.

Particulars.........

The Cincinnati Tea Party presents the Voice of America. More details to follow...

Vitals

Date: September 5, 2009

Time: 1:00pm - 6:00pm

Location: Voice of America Park, West Chester Ohio

We are in need of volunteered services as well and donations to make this event a success. Please email info@cincinnatiteaparty.org if you would be able to volunteer a service.
Thanks in advance for your continued support!

RSVP for the Event here!

Thursday humor

From reader Steve

Guy goes into a bar, there's a robot bartender. The robot says, "What will you have?" The guy says, "Martini." The robot brings back the best martini ever and says to the man, "What's your IQ?" The guy says, "168". The robot then proceeds to talk about physics, space exploration and medical technology.

The guy leaves, but he is curious, so he goes back into the bar. The robot bartender says, "What will you have?" The guy says, "Martini". Again, the robot makes a great martini, gives it to the man and says, "What's your IQ?" The guy says, "100." The robot then starts to talk about Nascar, Budweiser and John Deere tractors.

The guy leaves, but finds this very interesting, so he thinks he will try it one more time. He goes back into the bar. The robot says, "What will you have?" The guy says, "Martini", and the robot brings him another great martini. The robot then says, "What's your IQ?" The guy says, "Uh, about 50."

The robot leans in real close and says, "So, you people still happy you voted for Obama?"

I'm still waiting for some of those viral liberal jokes that pass amongst "progressives". If you have one, pass it along.

PS Bush = Hitler = not a joke

MSNBC: Gun-Toting Protesters are 'White' Racists... Black Guy with AR-15 Edited to Conceal his Race.

Why does college cost so much?

After you watch this, you'll wonder why liberals aren't calling for college education reforms. Oh, never mind.

Greenpeace Leader Admits Arctic Ice Exaggeration

Why I'm a conservative #41

Because when I was about 27, I understood something that a labor leader is just now starting to get.....

Trumka's remarks were echoed privately by several other labor officials at the convention in Pittsburgh. In particular, the emerging Senate FinanceCommittee plan - which seems unlikely to contain a public option and could end up taxing pricey health care packages - seems almost guaranteed to incite the unions.

"We'll oppose it," Trumka said, when asked about any bill that ends the tax exemption for employer coverage. "It's actually a stupid concept because if you tax those that have it to pay for those that don't, eventually those that have [benefits] won't. Then who do you ultimately tax?" [emphasis added]

More....

Single payer health care at work

It's not the death squads you have to worry about when it comes to government health care. With government health care, you'll probably die before you even get to a hospital.

From England........

A young mother gave birth on a pavement outside a hospital after she was told to make her own way there.

Mother-of-three Carmen Blake called her midwife to ask for an ambulance when she went into labour unexpectedly with her fourth child.

But the 27-year-old claims she was refused an ambulance and told to walk the 100m from her house in Leicester to the city's nearby Royal Infirmary.

Her daughter Mariah was delivered on a pavement outside the hospital by a passer-by, just before ambulance crews arrived.

Today the Trust that runs the hospital said it would look into any complaint made about the advice and care the 27-year-old received.

Ms Blake said she started going into labour at about 7.15am on Sunday, August 2.

She said: "I phoned up the Royal Infirmary, it's just across the road, and they said to go into a hot bath, and then to make my way over there.

"I went into the bath and realised she was going to come quickly. I didn't think I'd be able to make it out of the bath, so I phoned the maternity ward back and told them to get an ambulance out.

'They said they were not sending an ambulance and told me I had had nine months to sort out a lift.'

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You want these guys to run health care?

So now we know that the federal government cannot even competently reimburse dealerships for simply buying junk cars.......

Hundreds of auto dealers in the New York area have withdrawn from the government's Cash for Clunkers program, citing delays in getting reimbursed by the government, a dealership group said Wednesday.

The Greater New York Automobile Dealers Association, which represents dealerships in the New York metro area, said about half its 425 members have left the program because they cannot afford to offer more rebates. They're also worried about getting repaid.

"(The government) needs to move the system forward and they need to start paying these dealers," said Mark Schienberg, the group's president. "This is a cash-dependent business."

The program offers up to $4,500 to shoppers who trade in vehicles getting 18 mpg or less for a more fuel-efficient car or truck. Dealers pay the rebates out of pocket, then must wait to be reimbursed by the government. But administrative snags and heavy paperwork have created a backlog of unpaid claims.

Schienberg said the group's dealers have been repaid for only about 2 percent of the clunkers deals they've made so far.

These guys are making the FEMA handling of Katrina look like a well oiled machine.

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Animal Farm

A great piece placing the Obamunists right inside the text of Animal Farm......

I read the various articles and blogs concerning the Obama administration seemingly backing off the public option requirement under proposed healthcare legislation. I was reminded of one particular scene from George Orwell’s Animal Farm in which Squealer (think White House spokesman Robert Gibbs) explains to the animals (the White House press pool) why Napoleon (President Obama) pulled a 180 on the building of the windmill originally proposed by the banished Snowball:

“That evening Squealer [Gibbs] explained privately to the other animals that Napoleon [Obama] had never in reality been opposed to the windmill. On the contrary, it was he who had advocated it in the beginning, and the plan which Snowball had drawn on the floor of the incubator shed had actually been stolen from among Napoleon’s [Obama’s] papers. The windmill was, in fact, Napoleon’s [Obama’s] own creation. Why, then, asked somebody, had he spoken so strongly against it? Here Squealer [Gibbs] looked very sly. That, he said, was Comrade Napoleon’s [Obama’s] cunning. He had SEEMED to oppose the windmill, simply as a maneuver to get rid of Snowball, who was a dangerous character and a bad influence. Now that Snowball was out of the way, the plan could go forward without his interference. This, said Squealer, was something called tactics. He repeated a number of times, “Tactics, comrades, tactics!” skipping round and whisking his tail with a merry laugh. The animals were not certain what the word meant, but Squealer [Gibbs] spoke so persuasively, and the three dogs who happened to be with him growled so threateningly, that they accepted his explanation without further questions.”

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What's this guy smoking?

I'm getting a little sick of all the ding dongs out there who voted for Obama and now have second thoughts. Like this clown..........

Ryan Tang is a young Republican who voted for Barack Obama last fall. He liked Mr. Obama’s talk of bipartisanship. He thought he was someone – finally – who would work with Republicans and Democrats.

But today, just six months into the president’s term, Mr. Tang is having buyer’s remorse. He doesn’t think Obama has lived up to his rhetoric. He’s worried about the country veering away from the core principles he believes in: free markets, smaller government, less regulation. Thus he’s now inclined to support a candidate with more managerial brio even if he or she is not particularly “cool” – a Republican like former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney or former eBay CEO Meg Whitman.

“And those people aren’t hip,” says Tang, a recent college graduate who works for a consulting firm in Washington, D.C.

So Ryan, what in Obama's brief history as anything would have led you to believe that he would govern in a bipartisan way?

Was it his work as an ACORN rep? We all know they are bipartisan.

Maybe it was his work as a state senator where he voted with his party 99% of the time?

Or his three votes in the US senate where he voted the democratic line a perfect 100%?

While I'm being overly harsh on young Ryan here, I actually blame the media for allowing Obama to cast himself as some sort of moderate when his one page resume showed nothing of the sort.

Much like the way he flat out lies about the health care debate today where he claims that he's never been a proponent of a "public option" when You Tube is littered with videos of him saying just that.

Will the traditional media outlets continue to just let this guy say whatever the hell he wants without a challenge or will someone finally show some balls and tell the emperor he has no clothes?

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Life in "Progress" City

From the city of Paterson, NJ, who hasn't had a conservative run the city since Plato was a hot weekend ticket......

Seeking to curb violence after a spate of deadly summer shootings, Paterson officials are considering an unusual ordinance that would prevent people of all ages from gathering outside in public late at night.

The measure could be the nation's first citywide, non-emergency curfew to include adults, several experts said.

"We're trying to think outside the box," said Mayor Jose Torres. "This was triggered predominantly by fear among city residents over the shootings that have been occurring this summer."

A 29-year-old Paterson man was gunned down in his car last week in the latest chapter of a tit-for-tat battle between rival groups, according to police who decline to describe them as gangs. The battle has generated community fear, even though overall shootings and violence remain low by historical standards.

Out here in Redville we already have a curfew, albeit self imposed, we call it going to work the next morning.

What's so "progressive" about Paterson NJ.

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