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........