Life in "Redville"

The past few weekends, the Gekko's have done a few day trips to some of God's country here in Ohio.

Let me offer, if you get a chance to go to Hocking Hills, Clifton Gorge, Hueston Woods during the color change you really have to make the trek.

As we've gone on these trips, I really can't help but wax nostalgic as we stop into small towns like Nelsonville or Cedarville and really feel at ease in those communities.

It's funny how growing up, all I could think about was getting out of Lancaster into the city.

Ahhhh, the city, with it's lively sophistication........... and crime and poverty and unemployment and horrible schools.

As I've grown older, I've started to learn that all those small town lessons, the things eastern elite ridiculed Sarah Palin for, is where the brains are. Because there's a true understanding of human nature aka common sense.

So when I hear of Harvard University losing billions on derivative swaps all I can hear is my dad telling me "if you can't write a deal on the back of a cocktail napkin, it's too complicated"

Or one of my farmer clients who joked about the cash for clunkers "So we're going to take perfectly good cars and demolish them so now poor people won't have cars to buy. That sounds like a good idea".

Or another client who was watching this for sale sign going up next door to his house. "They're putting that sign in real deep, that tells me they don't plan to move it anytime soon!"

Or this small business owner who told me "now they're going to penalize small businesses for not offering health insurance, and the penalty will be cheaper than the insurance, and the workers get coverage without all the paperwork, let me guess what those businesses are going to do".

Of course, you do not always run into small town sensibility in say, Yellow Springs, where old hippies move to get ready for the next revolution.

I've noticed that the signs on the shops have gone from "products made in this store do not come from sweatshops" to "products made in this store come from vendors who pay a living wage to their workers".

It's funny how none of them seem to mind that I may have made my money exploiting the poor while I look at a $125 vase. Or that the lovely Mrs. Gekko makes her money in big medical as she's contemplating the purchase of a $200 jacket made of hemp.

Regardless, if you want a life surrounded by common sense pack up and head to the hills.

Life in "Progress" City

Shakes, over at Cesspool of Humanity, linked this blog in reference to my Life in "Progress"City post referencing Detroit.

In his post, he referenced an excellent read from 1998 related to the demise of our once great American cities.

Ten of America’s 25 largest cities have lost population during the 1990s, including Boston, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Milwaukee, Chicago, and, of course, Detroit. Most of these cities have been steadily losing population for a generation while their suburbs thrive. For example, as Atlanta’s population has declined by 19 percent since 1960, its suburbs have grown by 396 percent. As the table on page 15 shows, this pattern is repeated in many major cities across the country. The decline of these older central cities cannot be attributed to a faltering economy in any of these metropolitan areas. Nor is it due to "white flight," for blacks have also fled the central cities in large numbers. The black populations of Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, and St. Louis have all fallen since 1970. Washington, D.C., has 140,000 fewer black residents than it had in 1970.

Our major cities were once magnets of opportunity for low-income people; now they are places where the poor are isolated from opportunity. In 1960, central cities housed roughly one-quarter of America’s poor. Today they contain nearly half. Urban unemployment is twice the national rate and median household income in central cities is typically half the level of surrounding suburbs. Job growth followed the middle class to the suburbs: Nearly 80 percent of all new jobs today are being generated there. The amount of suburban office space surpassed that of downtown office space in the early 1980s, and is now one-third higher (see chart on page 16). "Most new economic growth," writes Joel Kotkin, an expert on urban affairs, "is inversely related to its distance from the inner city." George Gilder reflects the general popular mood when he writes that "cities are dirty, dangerous, and pestilential."

The overriding cause of the nation’s urban calamity is modern liberal social policy. Big cities, the political strongholds of liberalism, were supposed to be laboratories for the Great Society expansion of the welfare state. Instead, cities became the principal victims of liberal ideology. Three failures of liberalism combined to generate a ruinous urban policy: the failure to nurture the sources of economic growth, the failure to understand urban neighborhoods, and the failure to appreciate the importance of a strong moral order.

A couple of weeks ago I met up with some old buddies from a large CPA firm I worked at in Dayton.

When I worked for the firm, I was just out of school and fabulously liberal. In fact, one of the guys in the firm told me that if the partners ever found out that I voted for Howard Metzenbaum, I'd probably be fired.

None the less, at this reunion, this person found out that I was a recovering liberal and asked me what caused the life change.

In all honesty, what happened was I started questioning my faith in the religion known as liberalism. Namely, I simply asked the question "if liberalism is such a superior world view over conservatism, why are our cities in such a horrible condition".

I've been doing this blog for four years now. I've challenged liberals to answer this question for me endlessly. Not one liberal has ever had the balls or the knowledge to answer that question. Which is why I've come to believe there is something cognitively wrong with any liberal who read these challenges at yet moves on believing in the cult known as liberalism.

What else could it be?

Congressman calls female lobbyist whore

From the party of civility

Kennedy on health care

Patrick Kennedy, D - Doucheville, had this to say about the Catholic Church......

“I can’t understand for the life of me how the Catholic Church could be against the biggest social justice issue of our time, where the very dignity of the human person is being respected by the fact that we’re caring and giving health care to the human person—that right now we have 50 million people who are uninsured,” Kennedy told CNSNews.com when asked about a letter the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) had sent to members of Congress stating the bishops' position on abortion funding in the health-care bill.

“You mean to tell me the Catholic Church is going to be denying those people life saving health care? I thought they were pro-life?” said Kennedy. “If the church is pro-life, then they ought to be for health care reform because it’s going to provide health care that are going to keep people alive. So this is an absolute red herring and I don’t think that it does anything but to fan the flames of dissent and discord and I don’t think it’s productive at all."

Let me clue Kennedy here on something.

Before the Kennedy clan bottled it first bootlegged whiskey, this country was covered in hospitals run by the church; giving the poor and in firmed health care. Just where does he think names like St. Anne's, St. Elizabeth's, St. Luke come from?

What about the other religious hospitals like here in Cincinnati..... Jewish, Christ and Bethesda, who's leadership didn't wait for 200 years for the government to take care of the poor before they decided it was an important mission for their faiths?

While we're on the church, how is it that the oldest schools in most communities originated from the missionary work of Christians? They didn't sit around and lobby ass hats like Kennedy to save the poor, the uneducated, the unwashed and the in firmed. They actually did something with their own resources; not those stolen from the populace.

So maybe Kennedy could take that fortune his family has amassed over the years and actually buy some poor people insurance instead of extracting it from others like people of faith have done for generations.

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Who did he vote for? #221

Meet Andres Duque. Why is Mr. Duque in the news?

Andres Duque thought he got a real steal when he paid $125,000 for his Little Haiti condo. But four years later, similar units are selling for $35,000 and even less.

And so, faced with the prospect of being underwater on his mortgage -- owing more than the unit is worth -- for the next 20 years, Duque, 33, made what seemed to him like a rational choice: to cut and run.

He stopped paying the mortgage, basically forcing the lender to take the condo off his hands through foreclosure.

"I was able to pay off all my credit cards," said Duque, who is biding his time in the condo, waiting until they come and evict him. "In a way, it was the best thing that happened to me because all my income is not being consumed by this freaking monster of a debt."

Duque's game plan is known as a strategic default -- when borrowers walk away from loans, even if they can afford the payments.

So this past November, did this master mind vote for the Hope and Change candidate or the four more years of Bush candidate?

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And we want these guys to run health care?

From that hotbed of conservative news stories, CBS, comes this hit piece on Medicare fraud.........

Of all the problems facing the United States right now, none are more important than health care.

President Obama says rising costs are driving huge federal budget deficits that imperil our future, and that there is enough waste and fraud in the system to pay for health care reform if it was eliminated.

At the center of both issues is Medicare, the government insurance program that provides health care to 46 million elderly and disabled Americans. But it also provides a rich and steady income stream for criminals who are constantly finding new ways to steal a sizable chunk of the half trillion dollars that are paid out each year in Medicare benefits.

In fact, Medicare fraud - estimated now to total about $60 billion a year - has become one of, if not the most profitable, crimes in America.

This story may raise your blood pressure, along with some troubling questions about our government's ability to manage a medical bureaucracy.

StopMedicareFraud.gov

If you want to find Medicare fraud, the first place you should look is South Florida, where 60 Minutes and correspondent Steve Kroft were told it has pushed aside cocaine as the major criminal enterprise.

Watch the video and more.....

Ingrates

A must read piece by Stephen Hayes on the total political hackery of the Obamunists......

On October 18, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel appeared on the Sunday morning talk shows and, in the process of answering questions about Barack Obama's strategy on Afghanistan, accused the Bush administration of failing to ask the most basic questions about that country and our war there.

The president is asking the questions that have never been asked on the civilian side, the political side, the military side, and the strategic side. What is the impact on the region? What can the Afghan government do or not do? Where are we on the police training? Who would be better doing the police training? Could that be something the Europeans do? Should we take the military side? Those are the questions that have not been asked. And before you commit troops  .  .  .  before you make that decision, there's a set of questions that have to have answers that have never been asked. And it's clear after eight years of war, that's basically starting from the beginning, and those questions never got asked.

Then, after former vice president Dick Cheney used a speech on October 22 to accuse the Obama administration of "dithering" on Afghanistan, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs responded by claiming that the Bush administration did not care about U.S. troops.

"What Vice President Cheney calls 'dithering,' President Obama calls his solemn responsibility to the men and women in uniform and to the American public," said Gibbs. "I think we've all seen what happens when somebody doesn't take that responsibility seriously." Gibbs went on, calling Cheney's comments "curious" and claiming that a request for troops from General David McKiernan during the final year of the Bush administration "sat on desks in this White House, including the vice president's, for more than eight months."

So there are two separate and very serious charges that Obama White House officials are making about their predecessors. First, that the Bush administration had no real Afghanistan policy and failed for eight years to ask the important questions about the war there. And second, that the Bush administration ignored requests from commanders on the ground to increase troops in Afghanistan.

Bush administration officials were furious.

"The idea that we just sat on our f--ing asses--it's really a slander," says one senior Bush administration official. "It's just not credible that we didn't take this seriously."

In fact, the Bush administration did ask those questions. From mid-September to mid-November 2008, a National Security Council team, under the direction of General Doug Lute, conducted an exhaustive review of Afghanistan policy. The interagency group included high-ranking officials from the State Department, the National Security Council, the CIA, the office of the director of national intelligence, the office of the vice president, the Pentagon, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Its objective was to assess U.S. -policy on Afghanistan, integrating a simultaneous military review being conducted by CENTCOM, so as to present President Bush with a series of recommendations on how best to turn around the deteriorating situation there. The Lute group met often--sometimes twice daily--in a secure conference room in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. (The group used the room so frequently that other national security working groups that had been meeting there were required to find other space including, occasionally, the White House Situation Room.)

When will the press recogize that voting present, is no longer an effective leadership skill?

Read the rest........

While Rome burns II

Do you remember the good old days, when the world hated George Bush and NATO was all set to help us out once The Lord, Obama, was elected as leader of citizens in the world.

Well, it's not turning out that way.

In fact, while our beloved leader continues to twiddle his thumbs as our troops are getting pummeled in Afghanistan, NATO has decided to back the plan of General McChrystal.

During a trip to Germany and the Czech Republic earlier this month, I was surprised to find that many of the Europeans I spoke to seemed more cognizant than the Obama administration of how important it was to commit the resources necessary to win in Afghanistan.

This has not always been the case. The Bush administration tried repeatedly to obtain increased troop commitments from NATO allies and was often rebuffed. The soldiers that were sent were often of limited utility because of political restrictions placed on the areas they would deploy to as well as their rules of engagement.

In its nine months in office, the Obama administration has been unable to turn the president’s vaunted popularity in much of the world into major new international commitments of troops. Now, just as the president is publicly agonizing over what the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan should be, some European leaders seem willing to consider making increased commitments to Afghanistan. In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government is considering increasing the size of the German contingent in the country when the deployment’s mandate is renewed later this year, something that is nothing short of amazing given how publicly unpopular the German presence in Afghanistan is. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced last week that he was sending an additional 500 troops to the country.

Now, you may know General McChrystal as the military leader appointed by the Obamumists to handle things in Afghanistan only to have him take a back seat while the mull the plans of the military genius aka Joe Biden.

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Life in "Progress" City

From Detroit again, where apparently not only do you get no city services for high taxes, you get the privilege of funding your own law enforcement..........

Shortly before noon on a recent Monday, T.J. Cooper sat in his red pickup, showing off his digital camera. He clicked through pictures he had taken a few weeks earlier of a man driving a truck full of radiators stolen from a vacant home here in Indian Village, one of Detroit's last middle-class neighborhoods. No one, Cooper notes wryly, likes having his picture taken. "They try to hide their face. Or break your camera. Or," he says, driving up a tree-lined street, "break you." Minutes later, Cooper passes the same man, in the same truck, apparently scoping out another house.

Cooper, 29, is a private-security detective, one of many who patrol once prosperous enclaves like Palmer Woods, Boston-Edison and Indian Village. With the city's police force cut more than 25%, private security appears to be one of Detroit's few growth industries. Local precincts are overwhelmed with shootings and other violent crime, leaving companies that supply home protection with long customer waiting lists. "People put a premium on security when unemployment and crime go up," says Larry Dusing, founder of Dusing Security & Surveillance, which has expanded into three neighborhoods. (See pictures of Detroit's beautiful, horrible decline.)

Crime weighs heavily on the minds of Detroit's middle class, although it's an issue few residents want to discuss. In some neighborhoods, armed guards stand watch outside houses of worship; in September a pastor shot a man trying to rob his church. In others, street barricades have been set up to help deter potential thieves.

A short, plump Michigan native, Cooper worked in store security before joining Dusing about eight years ago. Now he manages Dusing's patrols, driving around Indian Village in his truck with an orange light bar on the top. He wears a black baseball cap reading security and a bulletproof vest but travels unarmed, partly for liability reasons. He keeps his camera, equipped with a massive telephoto lens, near his lap.

An Indian Village security guard's job is much like that of any cop on the beat. That afternoon Cooper investigated a report of suspicious activity from one of the neighborhood's few markets. (The suspects, sitting in a brown minivan, turned out to be selling state-issued cards used to buy food.) He continued his patrol, eyeing the men walking up and down the street. "If you notice a guy stopping and staring" at a house, Cooper says, "he's obviously up to no good." Especially suspicious are people who walk up to homes and stuff flyers into doors. Sometimes they are testing to see whether a door is unlocked or are casing the property for valuables. "A lot of times we'll see the same car come back three or four times in a single shift." (See more on TIME's Detroit blog.)

The community of Indian Village hired Dusing in 2003, after a rash of property crimes. An estimated 15% of the neighborhood's homes are foreclosed, a result of the national real estate crisis, which has hit Detroit particularly hard. Vacant homes are an open invitation to burglars and vandals. Neighbors install motion sensors and curtains in them and maintain the lawns to make the properties appear occupied.

Members of the Historic Indian Village Association, a local residents' group, share the cost of private security — about $30 per household each month. Association president Doug Way, 42, moved to Detroit with his wife seven years ago and fell in love with Indian Village's 19th century manors, built for the city's emerging industrial barons. Footing the bill for private security is almost like paying an extra tax, he acknowledges, but it's worth the cost. The median sale price of homes in Detroit has plunged from $59,700 in August 2005 to $8,000 just two months ago. "You could argue that one reason the homes are less expensive in the city is the level of services isn't as high," he says. "If there's some way we can make this a better place to live, these homes will actually be worth a lot more in the long term."

What's so "progressive" about paying for your own private security?

Thanks reader Becky.

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A great gig if you can get it

Hey, if you are an AIG executive, you need to get a gig at Fannie Mae, where apparently, losing billions of taxpayer dollars doesn't get you fired or pay reduction but a raise.....

The pay package given to Freddie Mac's new chief financial officer should have sent a message from Washington to corporate America about how executive compensation standards must change. Instead, it did just the opposite.

The government-controlled mortgage finance company is giving CFO Ross Kari compensation worth as much as $5.5 million. That includes an almost $2 million cash signing bonus and a generous salary that could top $2.3 million. (emphasis added.)

The Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Freddie Mac, approved the pay package. A spokeswoman pointed to a statement that justified the agency's approval of the pay, which was done in part because the amount was comparable to what others in the financial services industry make.

Apparently, they didn't clear that through Ken Feinberg, pay czar and the final arbiter of what's fair.

Thanks reader Jeremy.

"Outrage" Documentary Outs Anti Gay Politicians Who Are Gay

The lovely Mrs Gekko and I watched this documentary last weekend.

What I find most interesting is how the people most inclined to chant "stay out of our bedrooms" are the first people to out someone's sexual behavior. Not only are these voyeuristic perverts more than interested in someone else's bedroom they're hell bent on making sure everyone else knows what goes on in others bedrooms.

Frankly, I don't know if Charlie Crist if gay or not and I don't care (although that would probably explain why he's such a snappy dresser). But then again, I'm just one of those Neanderthal conservatives.

Life in "Progress" City

From the motor city of Detroit, who hasn't had a conservative run the city since the first combustible engine was invented......

In a crowded ballroom next to a bankrupt casino, what remains of the Detroit property market was being picked over by speculators and mostly discarded.

After five hours of calling out a drumbeat of "no bid" for properties listed in an auction book as thick as a city phone directory, the energy of the county auctioneer began to flag.

"OK," he said. "We only have 300 more pages to go."

There was tired laughter from investors ready to roll the dice on a city that has become a symbol of the collapse of the U.S. auto industry, pressures on the industrial middle-class and intractable problems for the urban poor.

On the auction block in Detroit: almost 9,000 homes and lots in various states of abandonment and decay from the tidy owner-occupied to the burned-out shell claimed by squatters.

Taken together, the properties seized by tax collectors for arrears and put up for sale last week represented an area the size of New York's Central Park. Total vacant land in Detroit now occupies an area almost the size of Boston, according to a Detroit Free Press estimate.

What's so "Progressive" about $500 homes?

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While Rome burns

It's nice to see that while Gen. McChrystal is tapping his foot waiting for approval of his strategy in Afghanistan or some version of a Biden plan, the president has plenty of time for some links........

President Obama is golfing at Ft. Belvoir today with Melody Barnes, the director of the White House Domestic Policy Council.

This is the president's 24th round of golf since his inauguration, according to the meticulous records of CBS News' Mark Knoller.

And, interestingly, it's the first time the president has played with a woman.

Usually these outings are men only.

But today's round of golf comes after some questions raised by the media about what some critics say is a too-fratty atmosphere in the White House, a place where the president's closest advisers -- chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, senior adviser David Axelrod, and press secretary Robert Gibbs -- are known by women at the White House as "the Boys." That's a perception fed with lower-level aides like personal assistant Reggie Love and trip director Marvin Nicholson who have close personal relationships with the president and play basketball and golf with him.

On one level, this is much ado about nothing. No one is alleging discrimination or an uncomfortable work place. White House aides point to the myriad women in positions of power -- Barnes, senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Communications Director Anita Dunn, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, UN ambassador Dr. Susan Rice, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, and many others as evidence to rebut any notion that the White House should stamp "Beta Omega" above its columns.

Where's all the critics who were up in arms when Bush got a few rounds in "while our boys were dying in Iraq".

24 times while he's been in office? What's he doing? Tuning up for the seniors tour?

This Week guest Laura Ingraham - Cheney's numbers on the rise!

TV Show or Hope and Change

"Don't ask questions that would shed us in a negative light?"

I guess Fox news won't be there in the press room.

Obama's Ongoing Teleprompter Battle Continues at MIT

Here's Mr. Articulate when the teleprompter goes down

Graph of the day

HT American Thinker.......

Life in "Progress" City is nice and white.....

Here in the Queen City of Cincinnati, we often hear about how our city is so backwards and not diversified and all the other "progressive" clap trap as compared to Portland, Austin and the others.

There's a reason "progressive" like these bastions of "progressive" beliefs..... they're nice and white......

Among the media, academia and within planning circles, there’s a generally standing answer to the question of what cities are the best, the most progressive and best role models for small and mid-sized cities. The standard list includes Portland, Seattle, Austin, Minneapolis, and Denver. In particular, Portland is held up as a paradigm, with its urban growth boundary, extensive transit system, excellent cycling culture, and a pro-density policy. These cities are frequently contrasted with those of the Rust Belt and South, which are found wanting, often even by locals, as “cool” urban places.

But look closely at these exemplars and a curious fact emerges. If you take away the dominant Tier One cities like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles you will find that the “progressive” cities aren’t red or blue, but another color entirely: white.

In fact, not one of these “progressive” cities even reaches the national average for African American percentage population in its core county. Perhaps not progressiveness but whiteness is the defining characteristic of the group.

That probably explains why "progressives" love Sweden so much.

More...........

You want these guys to run health care?

Do you remember the good old days when we could blame George Bush for a flu shot shortage; like it should have been on his "To do" list

1) Win war in Iraq
2) Win war in Afghanistan
3) Meet Valdimir Putin in Moscow
4) Call CDC to make sure we have we have enough flu vaccine.........

Well, is it still George Bush's fault we don't have enough R2D2 vaccine?

If you're not in line for free H1N1 vaccinations in Butler County today, it's too late, health officials said.

Butler County Health department director Pat Burg e-mailed a statement at 10:49 a.m. that no more people could be accepted for the vaccinations "due to the overwhelming response." The clinic, which is designed for high-priority patients, continues Saturday.

I think it is.

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How to get love from the Obamunists

Fox News shouldn't take the snubs from the White House personally. After all, they're not the only ones being slighted by the White House......

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, initially dubbed Sarko the American for his pro-U.S. stance, is finding it much tougher to deal with Washington than he had anticipated and is recalibrating his policies accordingly.

Stung by perceived snubs from U.S. President Barack Obama and encouraged by the growing importance of the G20, Sarkozy is increasingly reaching out to non-aligned states in an effort to extend France's international influence.

He has forged especially close ties with Brazil, is seeking alliances in central Asia and is intensifying his activities in the Middle East, using multi-billion dollar military and civilian nuclear trade deals as his calling card.

These initiatives are being played out against a discordant tone in Franco-American relations. This lack of harmony does not constitute a crisis, but is nonetheless raising eyebrows.

"Sarkozy has clearly been thrown off course in his relations with America," said Didier Billion, a senior researcher at the Institute of International and Strategic Relations (IRIS).

See, Gordon, Nick and Roger need to understand what they need to do to get some love from Obama. I'm going to lay it out for them here.

1) Start a military coup and start raping and pillaging some banana republic.

2) Get a photo op with Fidel and Hugo.

3) Send some enriched uranium to Mamoud with a card that reads "thought you could use this".

4) Help the Palestinians launch a few rockets into Israel.

5) Go to the UN and condemn the US for it's imperial ambitions throughout the world.

Do those things, and you'll get a visit from the Billary in about three days. Then, about week after that, Obama will show up with his entourage to let you know how wonderful it is for you to know him.

Otherwise, you going to have to settle with a bad collection of DVD's from Walmart and stale donuts in the White House press room.

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Ruth Marcus, racist

I didn't know Ruth Marcus was a racist until I read this piece critical of our first black president.......

Where the White House has gone way overboard is in its decision to treat Fox as an outright enemy and to go public with the assault. Imagine the outcry if the Bush administration had pulled a similar hissy fit with MSNBC. “Opinion journalism masquerading as news,” White House communications director Anita Dunn declared of Fox. Certainly Fox tends to report its news with a conservative slant -- but has anyone at the White House clicked over to MSNBC recently? Or is the only problem opinion journalism that doesn’t match its opinion? On "Fox News Sunday," host Chris Wallace replayed a quote from an Obama interview: “I don't always get my most favorable coverage on Fox, but I think that's part of how democracy is supposed to work. You know, we're not supposed to all be in lock step here.”

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Why I hate to fly? #44

I guess it's a numbers game for me but think about the time it takes to fly a normal 2 hour flight.

It takes the Gekko's an hour to get to either CVG or DAY. If we go to CVG and park in long term parking, make it an extra 1/2 just to get to the terminal.

Then the FAA tells you to get to the airport two hours before your flight to check in, receive your cavity search, etc.

Then you have flight time, which if every thing goes to plan take about 2 hours. Finally, you have to get a rental car drive to your destination.

I figure, if every thing goes well, you are 8 to ten hours on a normal flight.

That doesn't count the convenience of being treated worse than cattle heading to slaughter and the luxury of having your bags ripped through by a pack of thieves looking to swipe your digital camera or your notebook.

Where as, I can jump in my car and drive, with my gun(s), my operational cell phone, food and bathrooms at my convenience and, most of all, don't have to sit next to someone I'm pretty sure has tuberculosis.

But, of course when you fly, you also have the added benefits of potentially being stranded on a tarmac for eight hours or this........

Last December we reported on a Go! Airlines flight where the pilots fell asleep and missed the airport. Today a Northwest Airlines Airbus A320 flight missed their destination of Minneapolis by 150 miles.

The flight crew said they became engrossed in a conversation about airline policy (and honestly, who couldn't?) and lost track of their location. However, the FAA is investigating if pilot fatigue played any roll in this event.

The flight from San Diego to Minneapolis had 144 passengers onboard and none of them were aware of what happened, until the aircraft was swarmed by police once they finally arrived. The police kept all passengers onboard until they were allowed to question the flight crew.

The FAA lost contact with the aircraft while it was traveling at 37,000 feet and they notified the Air National Guard, who then put two fighter jets on alert. They were never given the order to take off.

Andrea Allmon, a passenger who had been traveling from San Diego on business, stated, "When I do my job, I do my job. These guys are supposed to be paying attention to the flight. The safety of the passengers should be first and foremost. (It's) unbelievable to me that they weren't paying attention. Just not paying attention."

She is right. No matter if they were awake having a heated debate, they should have still been paying attention to their flight and of course the radio. The FAA is investigating the incident and the two pilots have been suspended from flying. Hopefully it is not found that the pilots fell asleep during flight.

The next time the Gekko's head to heaven's waiting room, Florida, I think we'll just hitch a ride on the back of a cattle trailer, I doubt the driver will fall asleep.

Now go get that flu shot

This flu season you won't have to worry about Gordon taking up space standing in line getting an R2D2 flu shot or any other flu shot for the matter.

I'm so glad that I don't have to worry about all the vaccinations for young children today because I'm not sure what I would do. I do believe that the public benefits from mass vaccinations but I also believe that political correctness has pushed so many vaccinations on us that my common sense tells me that it can't help our immune systems.

One vaccination I would have never recommended to anyone is Guardasil, a vaccination to prevent HPV in women.

Here's a piece that affirms my belief in how political correctness trumps serious public health initiatives.......

Gardasil has to be the perfect drug for the brave new world of ObamaCare, in a 1984 kind of way. Made by Merck & Co., it was approved in 2006 for use against venereal disease in young girls. Here's why it's so culturally suited for hope and change -- and such a perfect example of why you don't want the government in your medicine chest:

1) Gardasil has owed most of its success to the fact that government agencies have been subsidizing its sales, recommending its use, and even talking about requiring it.

2) Administered to girls as young as nine, it seems likely to help them grow up feeling ever so much safer about "safe sex." They'll be freer to rebel against bad old, religion-based morality, and more inclined to bond (as it were) with peers, school, the state and charismatic politicians who are always repeating themselves.

3) Best of all, it now appears that Gardasil doesn't work.

Gardasil was promoted as the first vaccine against cancer, since it works against human papilloma virus (HPV), which is believed to instigate the growth of cancerous cells in a woman's cervix. But since it was first hurriedly approved by the Food and Drug Administration, Gardasil has been dogged by criticism that it hasn't been adequately tested, and by persistent reports of side effects, including deaths. So has a similar drug, Cervarix, made by GlaxoSmith-Kline.

Read the rest.........

Anderson Cooper: Does Obama Have A "Nixon Type" Enemies List?

Getting Yelled At by One of My Heroes

An interesting take

The 1990's derivative warnings

Needless to say, I don't watch a lot of Frontline. It usually takes about five minutes into one of their shows before it starts in as a Bush hit piece. I guess Frontline finally figured out that Bush is no longer president so they could move on (unlike our current president).

However, I have to say, last night I watched the most recent episode on derivative warnings during the 1990's.

It pretty much hammers all the players at the time; rightfully so. It also ties in how the errors from the 1990's have come back full circle today.

What's interesting is how many of these guys are now working on the current economic recovery, namely Tim Geitner.

It really is a good watch so catch it (you can watch on line here).

'Do What They're Told'

How to bring America together.

Funny, how we're not willing to do what he's telling us.

Modest Expectations From An Obama Supporter

How's that Hope and Change thing working out for Peggy right now.

Obama Hasn't Done Anything Yet

I happened to run into this video I posted last year.

Yeah, we're still waiting for something besides "present"

Who we endorse

Lately, I've received emails requesting that I endorse certain candidates and issues.

I'll post some endorsements in time.

In reality, it should be pretty clear as to who/what I line up for when I vote.

For instance, below is a list I did last October and what you will find is that these various sub groups of people kind of fall in line with their world view and candidate they support.

War Protesters		Active Military
20 year olds		60 year olds
Larry Flynt		Pat Robertson
Criminals		Cops
Union Heads		Corporate executives
Drug Dealers		Convenience store owners
Alec Baldwin		Kelsey Grammar
Welfare Queens		Working women
Michael Stipe		Ted Nugent
Planned Parenthood		Right to Life
Sharon Stone		Bo Derek
ACORN workers		NASCAR Fans
Joy Behar		Elisabeth Hasselbeck
Atheists		Born again Christians
Madonna		Martina McBride
Vegans		Hunters
Non repentant terrorists		FBI agents
Homeless		Homeowners
College professors		Small business owners
Urbanites		Suburbanites
Any network news anchor		John Stossel

So when I see a candidate for congress I look and ask myself "who would Larry Flynt and the Vegans vote for?" That gives me all the clarity I need.

So as you go to the polls this November, ask yourself, which of these groups do you want as neighbors? Who do you want to teach your children? Who will you invite to your cookout?

Then vote accordingly.

Who did she vote for? #444

Read the following and ask yourself the question; who did this unnamed 70 year vote for in the last election?

A 70-year-old woman who is in town for the All-American Quarter Horse Congress shot and killed a would-be robber last night at a North Side motel, police said.

The shooting occurred about 9:15 p.m. at the Continent Inn, said Columbus Police Sgt. Isaac Bridges. The motel, at 6225 Zumstein Dr., is located at The Continent shopping center, off Rt. 161 near I-71.

Sgt. Eric Pilya of the homicide squad said the woman was in a motel room with four or five others and they'd cracked open the door to get fresh air.

Pilya said a man barged into the room, demanding money from those inside.

Police said the woman grabbed a gun that she had in the room and shot the man, who staggered into the parking lot of the motel and died. His name wasn't released late last night, pending notification of family.

Did this woman vote for that Hope and Change doohickey or the The Maverick watchumacallit last November?

Conversely who did the robber support for last November?

More....

ACORN Philadelphia Prostitution Investigation Part I

And I've got a wonderful bridge in NY to sell you

This photo was On Drudge related to Kathleen Sebellius' hearing on health care.

One of her lackies opined

"She is back fighting to get everyone the same good health care she has,"

Here's a guarantee I'll back with my life savings. Within five years after this Obamacare is pushed through, no one will have the coverage Kathleen Sebellius has...... except the ruling privileged.

Hit the Road Jack: Oversight Democrats Run Away From Countrywide Bribe Program Vote

Tea party photo

An obvious astroturf plant by the republican party
From the 9/5 tea party in West Chester....

Bringing people together

The conventional wisdom was that Obama was a uniter; a healer to bring aggrieved parties together. But let's look at how Obama has spread the love amongst the "citizens of the world".

If you are a revolutionary guard in Iran gunned down (the guys working to kill our soldiers in Iraq), Obama's got a condolence for you.

If you are a Fox News correspondent, no soup for you.

If you are a Honduran president looking to pull a Chavez like coup, Obama's got your six.

If you are a group of Iranians who's had an election stolen, not so much.

If you are Vladimir Putin, Obama will sell out our Chech and Pole allies for a little love in the UN.

If you are a Chech or Pole, you need to find new friends; maybe Fox News.

If you are the leader of our oldest and strongest ally, Obama will show our love for our closest ally with a box set of DVD's.

So in conclusion, if you are a dictator or general oppressor of citizens the Big O's got your back. If you are just an ordinary citizen clinging to guns and God, you're united in the "you're about to get screwed" group.

I think I know why his campaign workers felt OK with the Che poster in the office. This guy is just like him.

Cash for clunkers......... the postmortem

So how did that cash for clunkers program work out for the poor?

In her search for a cheap, used minivan for her and her husband, Krissy Dieroff has visited seven dealerships across Berks and Schuylkill counties in the last week, but to no avail.

"There's not much to pick from, and the ones we do find are overpriced," said Dieroff of Auburn, Schuylkill County, while browsing the lot of a city dealership on Monday.

Dieroff blames the shortage of inexpensive used cars on the federal cash-for-clunkers program, in which almost 700,000 used vehicles were traded in for newer, more fuel-efficient vehicles, and then scrapped.

Those clunkers were the cars Dieroff and her husband, Jason Boyer, would have been shopping for, they said.

"I saw the cars they were putting in the junkyard, and they were better than what we're driving now," Boyer said.

Some local used car dealers specializing in vehicles priced $5,000 and under agreed that there are fewer inexpensive vehicles available.

Q. Who could have predicted that outcome?
A. Someone who sounds an awful lot like me.

More......

Practicing Medicine 2009

Our current health care system isn't perfect, that's for sure.

Here's one of the things we could change TODAY to lighten the load on costs........

Dr. Jacquelline Perlman, who's helped deliver hundreds of Brooklyn babies in her 12-year OB-GYN career, is calling it quits -- and citing sky-high malpractice insurance and plunging income.

"I've decided to retire from obstetrics," said Perlman, 42. "It breaks my heart. Malpractice costs are a big part of it. It's a very sad story.

The last straw, she said, came last spring when her insurer, the Combined Coordinating Council, noting the high risk of covering obstetricians, canceled her policy and those of doctors she practiced with at Brooklyn Women's Health Care, a New York Methodist Hospital affiliate.

She found a new insurer, but the damage was done. Her annual malpractice premium now runs about $160,000 -- for a doctor against whom no malpractice case or even so much as a settlement has ever been upheld.

And, she said, in the last five years, as her malpractice-insurance costs have risen, her income has dropped by 20 percent.

Think about that! Let's do a little math on this. Let's assume she delivers 300 babies a year. That's $533 per baby that has to get covered......... Just for insurance!

That doesn't count any overhead whatsoever.

What's crazy! That doesn't change at all under Obama care.

Article here....

The Obama enemy list

A great piece on the Obamamunists, who make the Nixonian paranoia look like Romper Room.....

--Now he has launched an orchestrated attack against the only television network that makes a sincere effort at offering balance, Fox News Channel, in an attempt to isolate, demonize and delegitimize the organization because it won't follow suit and join the state-run media. The administration is vacillating between boycotting and allowing some administration officials to appear on the network. Obama singled Fox out as "entirely devoted to attacking my administration." Rahm Emanuel said it's "not a news organization so much as it has a perspective." David Axelrod said, "It's really not news; it's pushing a point of view." Axelrod implored ABC's George Stephanopoulos and his network "not to treat (Fox) as a news organization." White House communications director Anita Dunn, who has bragged about her success at controlling the media, said Fox is "like a wing of the Republican Party" that "spouts Republican talking points."

The common denominator of all these vicious White House attacks is that their targets are those who oppose the administration's agenda. Instead of selling its agenda the old-fashioned way -- by convincing the unconvinced -- it attacks those who dare to articulate and air the opposing point of view. This is a totalitarian, bullying administration, which is revealing its heightened state of panic and desperation over the public's growing awareness of the dangerousness of its policy prescriptions for America.

Isn't it interesting that the Obamunists have spent more time on hitting Fox News and other perceived enemies than actually approving an Afghanistan strategy?

More.....

How to make friends and influence people

Life in "Progress" State

From the great lake state of Michigan, who hasn't had a conservative run the state since Bo Schembechler was a Buckeye....

State lawmakers will soon face large budget deficits again, perhaps as much as $100 billion across the U.S. Here's some free budget-balancing advice: Steer clear of the Michigan model. The Wolverine state is once again set to run out of money, and it is once again poised to raise taxes even as jobs and businesses disappear.

In 2007 Governor Jennifer Granholm signed the biggest tax increase in Michigan history, with most of the $1.4 billion coming from business. The personal income tax—which hits nonincorporated small businesses—was raised to 4.2% from 3.95%, and the Michigan business tax levied a surcharge of 22%. The tax money was dedicated to the likes of education, public works, job retraining and corporate subsidies. Ms. Granholm and her union allies called these "investments," and the exercise was widely applauded as a prototype of "progressive" budgeting.

Some prototype. Every state has seen a big jump in joblessness since 2007, but with a 15.2% unemployment rate Michigan's jobs picture is by far the worst. Some 750,000 private-sector payroll jobs have vanished since the start of the decade. For every family that has moved into Michigan since 2007, two have sold their homes and left.

Meanwhile, the new business taxes didn't balance the budget. Instead, thanks to business closures and relocations, tax receipts are running nearly $1 billion below projections and the deficit has climbed back to $2.8 billion. As the Detroit News put it, Michigan businesses are continually asked "to pay more in taxes to erase a budget deficit that, despite their contributions, never goes away." And this is despite the flood of federal stimulus and auto bailout cash over the last year.

What's so "progressive" about a bankrupt state?

More.....

NBC Cameraman Intimidates Troy MI Activist 10-17-09

"Non partisan" ACORN worked to elect Ohio democratic reps

From the Plain Dealer........

ACORN's detailed "Ohio 2007-08 Political Plan," targeting swing "congressional districts Aupon which the balance of power in Congress will rest," was ultimately scaled back. It appears the organization, which says it merely wants to empower disenfranchised people, decided not to mount voter campaigns that would have specifically helped Democrats Zack Space of Dover; Steve Driehaus of Cincinnati, and Mary Jo Kilroy of Columbus, all of whom won their congressional races anyway.

ACORN said in interviews with The Plain Dealer that its final efforts were generic -- tied not to a political party but to conducting "the largest nonpartisan voter registration drive in Ohio's history." It calls the new conspiracy theories ridiculous.

But to some, ACORN's early 13-page plan for the 2008 election reinforces what critics always assumed: The group's goal was never nonpartisan. The political plan and other ACORN documents show that the group was interested not just in helping presidential candidate Barack Obama, whom it urged its members to support, according to post-election Federal Election Commission reports. ACORN also was interested in Congress and the Ohio Statehouse.

As if we needed one more reason to vote out Driehaus, Kilroy and Space.

ACORN goes South Park

Rated R for language.

Life in "Progress" State

From the Aloha state of Hawaii, who hasn't had a conservative run the state since the invention of the tiki torch........

At a time when President Barack Obama is pushing for more time in the classroom, his home state has created the nation's shortest school year under a new union contract that closes schools on most Fridays for the remainder of the academic calendar.

The deal whacks 17 days from the school year for budget-cutting reasons and has education advocates incensed that Hawaii is drastically cutting the academic calendar at a time when it already ranks near the bottom in national educational achievement.

While many school districts have laid off or furloughed teachers, reduced pay and planning days and otherwise cut costs, Hawaii's 171,000 public schools students now find themselves with only 163 instructional days, compared with 180 in most districts in the U.S.

"The 16-year-old in me is pretty excited that I'll be able to chill on those days," said Mark Aoki, a junior at Roosevelt High in Honolulu. "But overall within me, what I truly believe is that we'll regret this."

Actually they won't regret this at all. See, by keeping your population ignorant, you get a ready made supply of future welfare recipients/democrats.

It's all good.

What's so "progressive" about an ignorant citizenry?

Thomas on the presidency

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Maher Still "Not Crazy" About Vaccinations

Albeit we get there from a totally different angle but i may agree with Bill Maher for a change.

Life in "Progress" City

From the Windy city of Chicago, who hasn't had a conservative run the city since Al Capone's vault actually had something in it........

Faced with a $550 million budget deficit, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley today said that all non-union city workers will take nearly five working weeks of unpaid leave next year to save the city money.

In other words, the only workers who actually work won't be working.

What's so "progressive" about a failing city?

More....

Juan Williams Takes On the Race Baiters!

Tea party photo

9/5 tea party photo.

Click to enlarge.

Anita Dunn in her own words

I'm sure all this is taken out of context

Yeah teaching abstinence would be so much worse than this

Boy, just imagine if we started teaching abstinence in schools. We might end up with this result.........

It is a Chicago public school full of energy and spirit. It has about 800 girls, and 115 of them have something in common – something you might find disturbing.

CBS 2's Kristyn Hartman reports.

All those young ladies are moms or moms-to-be at Paul Robeson High School. It's not a school for young mothers, it's a neighborhood school. And all of the pregnancies have happened, despite prevention talk.

If you want to know why, the people closest to the situation say there's no simple explanation.

I'll give you a "parochial" Sarah Palin, type explanation; welfare.

How hard is that to figure out?

More.....

Ivy League brain trust

Remember the urban snob critique of Sarah Palin for being so "parochial"? Well exactly how smart are those eastern elite Harvard grads?

Harvard University’s failed bet that interest rates would rise cost the world’s richest school at least $500 million in payments to escape derivatives that backfired.

Harvard paid $497.6 million to investment banks during the fiscal year ended June 30 to get out of $1.1 billion of interest-rate swaps intended to hedge variable-rate debt for capital projects, the school’s annual report said. The university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said it also agreed to pay $425 million over 30 to 40 years to offset an additional $764 million in swaps.

The transactions began losing value last year as central banks slashed benchmark lending rates, forcing the university to post collateral with lenders, said Daniel Shore, Harvard’s chief financial officer. Some agreements require that the parties post collateral if there are significant changes in interest rates.

“When we went into the fall, we had some serious liquidity management issues we were dealing with and the collateral postings on the swaps was one,” Shore said in an interview yesterday. “In evaluating our liquidity position, we wanted to get some stability and some safety.”

Harvard sold $2.5 billion in bonds in the fiscal year, in part to pay for the swap exit, even as the school’s endowment recorded its biggest loss in 40 years, the report released yesterday said. This is the first time the university has detailed the cost of exiting its swaps.

Yeah, that parochial Palin probably would have invested in CD's.

More.....