The COEXIST calculus

This guy breaks down the whole meaning of those COEXIST stickers you see on cars....

And let’s assume a very broad definition of “coexist”: living together without calling for the destruction of each other. Here are the problems with that:

• C wants to kill E, X, T, and (by implication) O. If they achieved the world they wanted, I and S would also no longer exist.
• O doesn’t allow for effective resistance or defeat of C.
• E stands in direct opposition to C, X, and T, and accuses those who speak against them of hate speech. Also, they’re trying to edge X and T out of public schools in favor of their own agenda. (They’re afraid C will be offended, so they get less trouble.) E is actually very, very intolerant.
• X’s existence is threatened not only by C but also by O, who invariably supports C over X.
• I and S are statistically insignificant and are mainly on there to complete the bumper sticker.
• T is who the bumper sticker is really arguing against, but poses no physical threat to any of the others.

• 
  

Read the whole thing.....

Andy Stern Lobbyist Scandal

Collapsing Economies 101

Here's a 3 credit hour course in how economies collapse.

Memorize this and report back.....






For you ignorant liberal types who believe in the "science" of global warming yet somehow never learned anything about econ 101, here's a hint. You can't keep adding all those fat ass, cushy government jobs without a hearty, thriving private sector. It just is. Kind of like the science of gravity; the science has been settled.

Krauthammer: "Insane" To Give Terrorist A Lawyer

Transparency

Who did they vote for? #371

This one's a gimme. Just expand the photo.






Thanks to reader Bartman

Why we're going broke

Because public sector jobs are continued boulders on the shoulders of private sector workers.....

State and local governments face large budget deficits
as revenues have stagnated and spending has remained at
high levels. To reduce deficits, large savings can be found
in the generous compensation packages of the nation’s 20
million state and local workers. In 2008, wages and
benefits of $1.1 trillion accounted for half of total state and
local government spending.1 This bulletin examines state
and local compensation costs, with a focus on the lucrative
pensions enjoyed by public sector workers.

The the entire piece here......

10,000 Enrons

Also known as the great unfunded pension swindle..........

The Financial Times runs a story today by Francesco Guerrera and Nicole Bullock on the looming problems of underfunded public pensions at the state and local level in the United States. The news story cites a new study by Orin Kramer, chairman of New Jersey’s pension fund:

The estimate by Orin Kramer will fuel investors’ concerns over the deteriorating financial health of US states after the recession. “State and local governments are correctly perceived to be in serious difficulty,” Mr Kramer told the Financial Times.

“If you factor in the reality of these unfunded promises, their deficits will rise exponentially.”

Estimates of aggregate funding requirement of the US pension system have ranged between $400bn and $500bn, but Mr Kramer’s analysis concluded that public funds would need to find more than $2,000bn to meet future pension obligations.

Two trillion dollars? One question about these obligations is whether taxpayers will stick around to pay them, or instead will vote with their feet. (“Vote with their feet” is something that has been discussed in various ways at VC — as an aspect of a federal system and states with their own laws.) Many of these pension obligations have been incurred by municipalities and others by states, and in some cases the obligations are intertwined. But what happens if voters-taxpayers move out?

More.....

Responding to Paul

I recently received this comment to my post on how public education is the "public option" to our education demands.

Let me offer these notes point by point.

Allegations of price-fixing, bid-rigging, exclusive sales contracts, local price cutting to freeze out competitors, and the dividing up of markets need to be fully explored through subpoenas and depositions (a law suit by all 50 States and joined by the Feds) so we can get rid of our dysfunctional corporate health care system that's choking the economy to death.

First, I agree that there is a lack of competition but it's because states will not allow out of state carriers into their markets. Even with that, nearly every insurance carrier pays out 85% of their premiums in claims (with the remaining 15% to cover overhead and profit). I don't think that's bad.

I agree that the current system is dysfunctional but that's because we expect our employer's to pay for our use of the health care system. I wouldn't think of handing my home or auto insurance premium over to my employer to pay. What makes health care (something so much more personal) more reasonable.

Federal workers and retirees can select plans at a cost range from $100 dollars a month for the cheapest individual coverage to $500 dollars for the most expensive family plan.

Paul, this is where you show that you are a dumb ass. The federal system you so value is broke and cannot be sustained long term. Of course, you think that's wonderful because people are getting more than they are paying for. But if you had ever taken a short econ 101 course, you would have realized that.

I’m voting “MY” pocket book - I want lower premiums and less money taken out of my paycheck - if they want to help spur on the economy they will make sure this happens for all - not just a select group.

See dumb ass comment above. My guess is you also want a pony. If you want to vote your pocket book, pay for your own damn health care and don't expect me to subsidize yours.

90% of the wealth concentrated in 1% of the population is no way to run a country but a heck of a way to establish a royalty ruling class. Yacht sales can not sustain 350 million people. I'm for the public option, competition and a level playing field or break up the big insurers like we did AT&T.

Paul, have you ever heard the term economies of scale? Look it up. None the less, if you want to increase competition, simply allow cross state sales and purchase of health insurance. That wioll add competition by default. That's not one of the plans from Reid and company.

A slavish focus on profit margin might be good for the individual or a business, but it is one helluva lousy way to "govern" a Country. The GOP being a wholly owned subsidiary of Corporate America has a hard time with that concept.

First, If you looked at last year's donations to the presidential candidates, you would see that Obama and co. received far more political donations from Goldman Sacs and the rest of the Wall Street vermin than McCain did.

Look at how prominent democrats like Rubin, Gorelick and Johnson, looted many Wall Street firms and then preach to me about the GOP.

Other than that, you're point is a non sequitor.

You are a writer and spent a lot of time with this comment but you failed to address the fundamental truth. Look at the way government runs many of our institutions and how the private sector delivers the same product/service. Are you seriously trying to tell me that customer satisfaction with private schools is poorer than public schools?

Or that customers of Fed Ex or UPS dislike their service over, say, the US Postal Service?

You really aren't the serious type are you?

Now go find someone to buy you a pony.

Sowell on intellectuals

If there is any lesson in the history of ideas, it is that good intentions tell you nothing about the actual consequences. But intellectuals who generate ideas do not have to pay the consequences.

Academic intellectuals are shielded by the principles of academic freedom and journalists in democratic societies are shielded by the principle of freedom of the press. Seldom do those who produce or peddle dangerous, or even fatal, ideas have to pay a price, even in a loss of credibility.

Who blames Rachel Carson, an environmentalist icon, because her crusading writings against DDT led to the ban of this insecticide in countries around the world-- followed by a resurgence of malaria that killed, and continues to kill, millions of people in tropical Third World countries?

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Why I'm a conservative #66

Because I understand that governments do not have the discipline to make the tough decision.

Don't take my word for it. Just ask Willie Brown, not exactly your garden variety conservative......

If we as a state want to make a New Year's resolution, I suggest taking a good look at the California we have created. From our out-of-sync tax system to our out-of-control civil service, it's time for politicians to begin an honest dialogue about what we've become.

Take the civil service.

The system was set up so politicians like me couldn't come in and fire the people (relatives) hired by the guy they beat and replace them with their own friends and relatives.

Over the years, however, the civil service system has changed from one that protects jobs to one that runs the show.

The deal used to be that civil servants were paid less than private sector workers in exchange for an understanding that they had job security for life.

But we politicians, pushed by our friends in labor, gradually expanded pay and benefits to private-sector levels while keeping the job protections and layering on incredibly generous retirement packages that pay ex-workers almost as much as current workers.

Talking about this is politically unpopular and potentially even career suicide for most officeholders. But at some point, someone is going to have to get honest about the fact that 80 percent of the state, county and city budget deficits are due to employee costs.

Either we do something about it at the ballot box, or a judge will do something about in Bankruptcy Court. And if you think I'm kidding, just look at Vallejo.

Read the rest of brown's thoughts here.....

Where's Pol Pot when you need him

From The American Thinker....

The racial madness that has left-wing America in its thrall finds its apogee in the Berkeley, California public schools. Berkeley High School is now poised to eliminate science laboratory classes because "science labs were largely classes for white students." Eric Klein writes in The Easy Bay Express:

The proposal to put the science-lab cuts on the table was approved recently by Berkeley High's School Governance Council, a body of teachers, parents, and students who oversee a plan to change the structure of the high school to address Berkeley's dismal racial achievement gap, where white students are doing far better than the state average while black and Latino students are doing worse.

Five science teachers will lose their jobs if the proposal is adopted when the School Board meets next week:

It will come before the Berkeley School Board as an information item at its January 13 meeting. Generally, such agenda items are passed without debate, but if the school board chooses to play a more direct role in the High School Redesign, it could bring the item back as an action item at a future meeting.

All Berkeley High students, whatever their race, would lose the opportunity to get a solid grounding in science, opening up the door to achievement in higher education and life via scientific study. Notes Klein:

Mardi Sicular-Mertens, the senior member of Berkeley High School's science department ... who has taught science at BHS for 24 years, said the possible cuts will impact her black students as well. She says there are twelve African-American males in her AP classes and that her four environmental science classes are 17.5 percent African American and 13.9 percent Latino. "As teachers, we are greatly saddened at the thought of losing the opportunity to help all of our students master the skills they need to find satisfaction and success in their education," she told the board.

So in order to "help" black and Latino students, the idea is to eliminate the opportunity for said students to make something of themselves through science. Those students who excel will be disfavored, while those who do not will be given more resources. The problem is that science training is one of the elements of educataion least susceptible to the multicultural indoctrination that pervades education in Berekeley and far too many other places. Replacing science with something dreamed up by the education-school-trained "experts" is unlikely to bring any improvement, even for its purported beneficiaries.

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How are liberals handling the economy?

Not very well if you read this.......

In terms of U.S. output contractions, the so-called Great Recession was not much more severe than the recessions in 1973-75 and 1981-82. Yet recovery from the latest recession has started out much more slowly. For example, real GDP expanded by 7.7% in 1983 after unemployment peaked at 10.8% in December 1982, whereas GDP grew at an unimpressive annual rate of 2.2% in the third quarter of 2009. Although the fourth quarter is likely to show better numbers—probably much better—there are no signs of an explosive take off from the recession.

We believe two factors are behind this rather tepid rebound. An obvious one is the severe financial crisis that precipitated this recession, with many major financial institutions receiving large bailouts from the federal government. The confidence of bankers and venture capitalists has been shattered, at least for a while, and it will take time for them to recover from the financial turmoil of the past couple of years. The household sector also faces a difficult period of financial retrenchment in the wake of a major collapse in home prices, overextended debt positions for many, and high unemployment.

The second factor is less obvious, but possibly also of great importance. Liberal Democrats won a major victory in the 2008 elections, winning the presidency and large majorities in both the House and Senate. They interpreted this as evidence that a large majority of Americans want major reforms in the economy, health-care and many other areas. So in addition to continuing and extending the Bush-initiated bailout of banks, AIG, General Motors, Chrysler and other companies, Congress and President Obama signaled their intentions to introduce major changes in taxes, government spending and regulations—changes that could radically transform the American economy.

Read the rest.......

Public schools - Education's "Public Option"

A commenter to one of my posts put it most eloquently........

Public schools are education's version of the "public option". In the health care debate we supposedly need the public option to provide competition to the private sector. The result is millions of parents that will do just about use any option to get their kids out of public schools. So what's the socialists' answer? Fix the schools? Nope. Cut off the options. Force them into the public system.

This is the plan for the health system too. Bring in a public option, then cut off the oxygen to any private alternatives.

Ditto

The land of plenty goes south

The "ought" decade was one promise after another turned into trauma for California. It began with a popular Democratic governor, judging from the voter majority that put him in office. But his popularity plummeted in tandem with the state's nosediving finances. The decade ends with a Republican governor who, at first, was every bit as popular, judging from the wide voter margin that elected him. His popularity and the state's finances likewise hit bottom.

The chief distinction between Democrat Gray Davis and Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger may be that the former was recalled from office, and the latter will be permitted to finish his term next year. Perhaps Schwarzenegger was spared because voters remember the lousy results of the previous recall.

California's bipartisan gubernatorial failures were uncomfortably similar. Profligate spending, overextended borrowing and looming deficits were Davis' undoing. Schwarzenegger promised to "blow up the boxes" and cut up the credit cards, but ended up spending and borrowing on a par with, and sinking every bit as deep in debt, as Davis. This downward trajectory means Californians are among the highest-taxed, most over-regulated and poorly served citizens in the 50 states.

More.....

The future of Amercian health care

CHILD cancer patients with damaged immune systems are being placed in filthy, rundown isolation rooms at one of the State's premier hospitals.

In some rooms in the oncology ward of Sydney Children's Hospital at Randwick, airconditioning vents are filled with thick dust, mould is growing in bathrooms and meals are placed in the same cupboard as bedpans.

Todd Leach, the father of six-year-old Hailey Ryan Leach, who has just undergone a bone-marrow transplant for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, took photographs in Ward 2 West, where Hailey was supposed to be in isolation for 100 days to protect her compromised immune system.

Mr Leach said that although the hospital's doctors and nurses give 100 per cent, he was appalled by the condition of some of the rooms.

"Maybe it's OK for a kid with a broken arm or leg - but not for a kid with no immune system," he told The Sunday Telegraph.

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Life in "Progress" City

Or could be filed under Arranging Deck Chairs on the Titanic.........

In San Francisco, Mayor Gavin Newsom is slated to propose an ordinance that would require retailers to post labels on store shelves warning about possible dangers of cell phone radiation. In Maine, state representative Andrea Boland will present to the legislature her proposal requiring manufacturers to warn that excessive cell phone use could cause cancer.

If San Francisco really wanted to help their residents they should pass a law requiring brochures be mailed to all residents indicating that your chance of dying of homicide in the city is a 1000 times higher than living in the suburbs.

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Democrats kill hope for DC parents

Maybe a liberal out there can explain to me how "choice" is so important when it comes to abortion but when it means getting your kids out of disgusting schools, not so much.....

This is big government at its finest hour. The Democrats have officially killed a successful private school voucher program banishing more than 3,300 low-income children back to the DC schools they so desperately wanted to escape. The Heartland Institute reports:

The leaders of D.C.’s school choice movement, Kevin P. Chavous (former D.C. Councilman) and Virginia Walden Ford (executive director of D.C. Parents for School Choice), today issued the following statement:

“House and Senate Appropriators this week ignored the wishes of D.C.’s mayor, D.C.’s public schools chancellor, a majority of D.C.’s city council, and more than 70 percent of D.C. residents and have mandated the slow death of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. This successful school voucher program—for D.C.’s poorest families—has allowed more than 3,300 children to attend the best schools they have ever known.

The decision to end the program, a decision buried in a thousand-page spending bill and announced right before the holidays, destroys the hopes and dreams of thousands of D.C. families. Parents and children have rallied countless times over the past year in support of reauthorization and in favor of strengthening the OSP.

Yet, despite the clearly positive results and the proven success of this program, Sen. Dick Durbin, Rep. Jose Serrano, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, and Secretary Arne Duncan worked together to kill the OSP. Funding the program only for existing children shrinks the program each year, compromises the federal evaluation of the program, denies entry to the siblings of existing participants, and punishes those children waiting in line by sentencing them to failing and often unsafe schools.

[emphasis mine]

The Democrats have effectively ended the voucher program. Obama only extended it into the 2009-2010 school year. He could have done more. He didn’t. Underpriveleged children–whom the Democrats oppress “protect” from the greed and injustices of the Right had a chance to gain the social justice and fairness Obama continuously touts in his speeches.

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We're surprised?

Apparently, media types are just now figuring out that the Obama cool is just a bit tepid.....

I get No-Drama Obama. I see what it's about and agree with it usually.

But I don't much care for it when an al-Qaida-trained terrorist nearly blows up one of our airplanes on approach to Detroit on Christmas Day. In that case, the drama is already out of the bag.

I want somebody to get dramatic in my behalf -- outraged, I mean -- and to do so instinctively and quickly, if not quite impulsively.

No-Drama Obama, as Barack Obama came to be known in the recent campaign, refers to a style that is restrained, deliberate and measured, and which lets the overheated moment pass before speaking or acting.

If you want get Obama pissed, let a terrorist get in the wait of his eating his waffle.

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Why more guns?

You've seen the headlines. Deranged douche bag goes into (shopping mall, classroom, office, restaurant, museum, etc) and kills several people with a gun.

Have you ever wondered what would happen if one of these lunatics would invade a place and started shooting at people with guns.

You need wonder no more.......

The headline

Police Ambush Leaves One Dead

The dead one?

A man ambushed and shot a Mount Orab police officer in the back early today, before that officer and another officer returned fire and shot him dead.

Kind of strange how that works isn't it?

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Life in "Progress" City

From the Empire City of New York, who hasn't had a conservative run the city since the Indians vacated......

So you're putting together your municipal budget knowing you have a budget crunch. You probably prioritize your spending on the important city services

Police - check
Fire - check
Roads - check
Brochures aiding heroin users - check.....

Here's the latest smack on taxpayers.

The city spent $32,000 on 70,000 fliers that tell you how to shoot heroin, complete with detailed tips on prepping the dope and injecting it into your arm.

The Health Department handout has outraged New York's top drug prosecutors and abuse experts.

"It's basically step-by- step instruction on how to inject a poison," said John Gilbride, who heads the Drug Enforcement Administration's New York office.

"It's sick," said City Council member Peter Vallone Jr. (D-Queens)

"Foolish," said Columbia University drug researcher and treatment expert Dr. Herbert Kleber.

The 16-page pamphlet features seven comics-like illustrations and offers dope fiends such useful advice as "Warm your body (jump up and down) to show your veins," and "Find the vein before you try to inject."

It even encourages addicts to keep jabbing if their needles miss the mark.

"If you don't 'register,' pull out and try again," it says.

You really can't make this stuff up. Hey, you have a better chance of shooting heroin in NY than getting some greasy french fries from a vat of trans fat.

What's so "progressive" about how to shoot heroin?

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Members of media not exactly Mensa members

Why is crime going down despite the economic downturn?

The Washington Post comes up with all kinds of nonsensical reasons...........

If only we knew exactly why and how it has occurred. An accident of demography? The passing of the crack cocaine epidemic? We're inclined to credit policies that put more brave and dedicated cops on the street, with better technology and smarter tactics. Still New York City continued to rack up lower homicide rates in the past decade even as its police force shrank by 6,000. New York officials say that city's tougher gun laws have helped; yet Houston also recorded a drop in homicide in the first half of 2009 despite loose gun laws.

Tougher sentencing probably took some career criminals off the streets -- though there's little evidence that the death penalty deters murder. No doubt new lifesaving medical techniques turned potential homicides into lesser offenses -- yet aggravated assault is down, too.

Government at all levels spends much time and money figuring out what's going wrong in our society and how to fix it. Perhaps we need a bigger effort to determine what's been going right in the fight against violent crime -- and to spread that knowledge to every jurisdiction in the country.

Huh??????

Maybe someone at the Washington Post needs a clue as to what the 80/20 principle is.

In this case, it means that 80 percent of violent crime is committed by 20 percent of criminals. For decades of coddling this 20 percent of degenerates (one the failures of social engineering), common sense finally prevailed and we actually started keeping more of these miscreants in jail. Hence, felons committing fewer crimes.

But for the dumb asses who seem to take pride in being "journalists", the cause/effect quotient seems to elude them.

And these morons wonder why people aren't all that interested in what they have to say.

More here if you can check your brain at the door.....

Bearcats - not ready for prime time

In the history of professional sports in Cincinnati, the aughties will be the only decade in which a professional sports teams haven't won a playoff game.

So hungry we are for a winner in this city, the past couple of months have been wonderful watching people rally around the Bearcat's football team. If someone had told me ten years ago that teenage girls would be walking around town wearing a UC football sweat shirts, it would have been grounds for random drug testing.

With that in the back ground, to say last night was disappointing would be an understatement. The team truly looked rudder less without a true head coach at the helm. I wonder what Brian Kelly thought as he watched his team take an ass kicking.

In all the scenarios I had played out in my head, what happened last night would have been the worst case. It was uglier than my prom date.

Despite the beat down last night, next year's team promises to be even better. 1) the only contributors on defense will be back 2) Most of the offense will be back 3) The new coach won't totally ignore the defensive side of the ball 4) We get Oklahoma at home.

Regardless, the team provided this city with a reason to be proud for the first time in a long time.

Congratulations on a great season to Mardy, Tony and the guys. You'll always be remember for bringing pride to the city again.

PS On a related note. You remember the good old days when New Year's Day was the last of college football? Now we still have something like ten more games brought to you from the people who keep telling us that a D-1 playoff doesn't work because it will make the season longer.

Welcome to government health insurance

l've always maintained that there's a big difference between having health coverage and having access to health care.

The government's been good at seeing that everyone has "coverage"; Care? not so much.....

And now we're going to see it in practice...............

The Mayo Clinic, praised by President Barack Obama as a national model for efficient health care, will stop accepting Medicare patients as of tomorrow at one of its primary-care clinics in Arizona, saying the U.S. government pays too little.

More than 3,000 patients eligible for Medicare, the government’s largest health-insurance program, will be forced to pay cash if they want to continue seeing their doctors at a Mayo family clinic in Glendale, northwest of Phoenix, said Michael Yardley, a Mayo spokesman. The decision, which Yardley called a two-year pilot project, won’t affect other Mayo facilities in Arizona, Florida and Minnesota.

Obama in June cited the nonprofit Rochester, Minnesota-based Mayo Clinic and the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio for offering “the highest quality care at costs well below the national norm.” Mayo’s move to drop Medicare patients may be copied by family doctors, some of whom have stopped accepting new patients from the program, said Lori Heim, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, in a telephone interview yesterday.

“Many physicians have said, ‘I simply cannot afford to keep taking care of Medicare patients,’” said Heim, a family doctor who practices in Laurinburg, North Carolina. “If you truly know your business costs and you are losing money, it doesn’t make sense to do more of it.”

Welcome the the future of Obamacare

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New year's resolution

I don't usually make resolutions in general. What I usually do is pick something I've never done before and pursue it as much as I can.

Last year, I went with getting my concealed carry permit and start target shooting. Unfortunately, getting enough ammo to do any substantial shooting proved to be difficult so last year's was kind of a bust.

In other years, I've done, in no particular order, train and run in a marathon, ball room dancing, taking saxophone lessons, this blog, reading and studying the entire Bible, volunteering, etc....

After two different episodes where I was told my blood pressure was through the roof, I went and got a full physical a couple of weeks ago.

Outside of needing to lose weight, everything checked out OK; including the blood pressure. Never the less, I decided to make this year about my diet. I eat a lot of crap; processed foods, trans fats, high fructose corn syrup, aspartame, fried foods, etc. My biggest enemy is processed bleached flour.

If you have ever noticed, every culture has a recipe for some kind of bread. It could be made out of wheat, corn, rice, potatoes and I've always wondered why. I believe the reason is that it is a cheap fuel source.

Given that we all live comparative sedentary lives to our ancestors, isn't eating bread the equivalent to putting jet fuel in a Toyota?

So this year, I'm going to concentrate on what I choose to fuel my body with. My intention to eat foods as God put them on earth and avoid processed crap where I can. Call it the God Diet.

I'll give periodic updates to what I find.

None the less, I'm pretty sure my blood pressure will drop when Obama's out of office.

Who did they vote for? Celebrity edition

I usually don't put celebrities in this feature because we pretty much already know how most celebrities would vote.

But I'll make an exception to Gilbert Arenas and his Washington Wizards teammate, Javaris Crittendon......

Yup, the Gilbert Arenas gun in his locker story just got a whole lot more interesting, people. For Wizards' fans it just a whole lot more depressing. According to multiple sources, including that minstrel of good cheer, Peter Vescey, Gilbert Arenas and back-up guard Javaris Crittenton pulled guns on one another over a gambling debt on Christmas Eve following practice.

Allegedly, Crittenton was incensed that Arenas welshed on a bet and got in Gilbert's face, saying "I'm not your punk!" Arenas, apparently feeling otherwise, then pulled an unloaded pistol on Crittenton. Crittenton grabbed his own gun and the standoff ensued. It is not clear what happened at this point but obviously (and thankfully) no one was shot.

We don't know what teammates saw the dispute but you have to wonder what Fabricio Oberto was thinking. I am guessing it was something like, "I used to play with Tim Duncan...I used to play with Tim Duncan...I used to play with Tim Duncan...please don't let me get shot!"

These guys are obviously law abiding, concealed carry permit holders so I'm thinking that November, 2009 they pulled the chain for John McCain.

I also know that me and my Redville, republican, redneck, gun toting, buddies usually spend Christmas Eve playing chicken shooting each other.

What say you?

More....

Global Warming Challenge - Final results

The results are in. Going into December, the Global Warming challenge was tied at 11 points for cool and 11 for warm.

For the month of December the average high temperature was 40.23 degrees versus an historical high of 42.71. The average low was 26.32 versus an historical average of 26.39.

The gives the cooling crowd a 13-11 victory. The second straight year cooling won the challenge.

I will keep the challenge going for the next year since I'm still waiting for one of the sex offenders from Plunderbong to "put their money where their mouth is".

A few notes regarding the challenge.

1) I'm not a global warming scientist. As a result, I'm making my source available to the public for checking. I used the Weather Underground for the CVG airport. Feel free to double check my figures.

2) Once again, I could gloat about the results. However, I get that the world's climate is more a result of solar radiation than anything man can do. The results are as random as a coin flip. However, if you are a branch Gorvidian, how do you reconcile the fact that it keeps getting cooler when you espouse warming.

3) If you think my scoring system is suspect just note that the average high temperature for the year was 63 degrees versus an average historical high of 64.1. The average low 44.5 v. 44.4. In addition, I compared the numbers for 2009/2008 and they came up high 63/63.8; cool 44.5/43.8. The last I checked, The Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky airport is part of the globe. You Branch Gorevidians keep saying that it's getting warmer but the number certainly don't reflect that now does it?

So which one of you Branch Gorevidians are willing to take me up on the challenge. If you believe it's warming, wouldn't it be great to take some money from the incredible Gordon Gekko? I'll make a deal with you. We'll put up $100 using any location on the weather underground and the loser funds a reforestation project in the Amazon. It's all good.

Unless, of course, you really don't believe the earth is getting warmer.

Go Bearcats

Tonight's the conclusion of what I hope is a perfect football season for the 'Cats.

Unfortunately, they're going to have to do against probably their worst match up off all the BCS bowl teams.

Given the 'cats inability to stop the run and Tim Tebow's ability to humiliate defenses with the run, this could be ugly. But then again, I thought they've had lot's of bad run match ups and have managed to pull them out.

I'll be at the Kenwood Willie's tonight watching the festivities.

Go Cat's

Obama meet Google

Thanks to reader Tim for the link.........

Josh Rogin has the story at the Cable:

Jide Zeitlin, the Obama administration's nominee to be America's point man for financial reform at the United Nations, has withdrawn himself from consideration for the job, an administration official tells The Cable.

Zeitlin, a former Goldman Sachs executive and telecom entrepreneur, had faced criticism for his business dealings related to Indian contractors and was also accused of identity fraud for an incident in which he admitted to sending an email to investors masked as coming from one of his competitors. Zeitlin testified before Congress that the email was a prank.

Rogin also hints at the the possibility that there is another scandal here that isn't financial:

But concerns about his nomination grew as rumors swirled around Washington and New York that Zeitlin was engaged in other activities that called into question his overall character and also may have included elements of identity fraud.

Specifically, one woman contacted several government offices and multiple news outlets, including The Cable, with allegations that Zeitlin had used deception to lure her into what eventually she claims was a romantic relationship. Those allegations could not be independently confirmed by The Cable. The administration official declined to comment as to whether they had been investigated as part of Zeitlin's vetting process or afterwards.

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Life in "Progress" City

From the mistake on the lake, Cleveland, who hasn't had a conservative in city government since Moses Cleaveland ruled the area.........

Here's a news flash from Planet Obvious: Chris Warren, Cleveland's regional development chief, says wasting tax dollars to help folks buy homes they can't afford is not smart policy. He needs to make sure it doesn't continue to be city policy.

Cleveland's role in aiding and abetting its very own foreclose crisis, one of the worst in the country, was highlighted by Plain Dealer reporter Mark Gillispie on Sunday. His investigation into Cleveland's Afford-A-Home program revealed a shameful lack of oversight.

The city provided at-risk buyers with down-payment loans of up to $20,000 through the federally funded program -- without the obvious caveat of ensuring that they could continue to make mortgage payments.

As a result, nearly half of the 584 homes sold between 2000 and 2007 by the top three firms using these loans to entice buyers have gone into foreclosure. Among the recipients: A homeless woman living in a car with her children. Contrite city officials acknowledge they were asleep at the wheel as millions of taxpayer dollars were lost in the firestorm of sheriff's sales that followed. They've promised to clamp down immediately on how they qualify buyers.

Yet city officials did little, until this newspaper's investigation uncovered the problems, to halt these practices or to provide adequate oversight of the private rehabbers that used the loans to sell homes.

Officials need to explain such an appalling lack of accountability.

They don't need to explain anything. They're democrats in government. That should about explain it all.

What's so "progressive" about rampant foreclosures?

Article here.....

The important "hockey stick" graph

Delinquencies at Fannie Mae.

Anyone care to guess how this occurred?

Life in "Progress" State

They called it Paradise
I don't know why
You call some place Paradise
Kiss it Goodbye

So the state of California is attempting to deal with 60 to 80 billion in budget deficits so what does the largely democratic congressional representation do for the state. Pass health care of course which will add billions of additional medicaid burdens on a state already tinkering on bankruptcy.

So how does one Diane Feinstein manage such trivialities.........

The problem is that the health care bill would include more people in the Medicaid program, which is partially funded by the state.

Governor Schwarzenegger says that’ll cost California an extra 3 billion dollars a year.

Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein says she’s aware of the problem. "I’ve seen the Governor’s numbers," she says, "and it’s a worst case scenario. So hopefully, that’s not going to happen and we have some time to deal with it."

Too bad the California "progressives" are so easy. They could have worked a deal out like Ben Nelson.

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Four more years of Bush

Remember the good old days when you bought baseball cards to put in your bicycle spokes and the media was all over how much vacation Bush took.

Someone at The New Republic has picked up on the continued presidential trend..........

It’s been a tough first year for President Obama, as critics throughout the body politic bemoan that Mr. Change-We-Can-Believe-In is looking more and more like Mr. Politics-As-Usual. With the coming new year, however, POTUS has a prime opportunity to regroup, reload, and revamp his image. He could start by ditching golf.

Seriously. Its venerable White House history notwithstanding, golf is a dubious pastime for any decent, sane person, much less for this particular president. Why would a leader vowing to shake up Washington--to alter the very nature of politics--sell his soul to a leisure activity that screams stodgy, hyperconventional Old Guard?

There are signs that Obama has been nursing a creeping golf addiction for some time now. He took up the game a little more than a decade ago as a newbie state senator hoping to bond with more rural, conservative colleagues. Next thing you know, he was hooked--playing for cash, fretting over his form, and goading staffers to cut out of work early for a quick round.

During the 2008 race, Obama’s golf outings drew less notice than his battles on the hard court. But, now that he’s firmly ensconced in the Oval Office, the sticks have come out of the closet as Obama constantly looks to squeeze in a few holes: on Father’s Day, during the family’s summer holiday on the Vineyard, immediately upon touching down from his June trip to Europe. It is often noted that this president hit the links more frequently in his first nine months than the reared-on-golf George W. did in his first two years (after which W. conspicuously swore off the game out of respect for the troops). Currently ranked eighth on Golf Digest’s list of presidential golfers (sandwiched between Clinton and Reagan), Obama seems intent on moving up the ladder--despite reports that he’s something of a duffer.

Excuse me, I have a tee time to make.

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Can we hurry this up, I have a tee time?

Politico on The One's handling, or lack there of, of the panty bomber......

There is a sense of déjà vu in the Obama administration’s response to the attempted terrorist attack on Christmas Day. A by-now familiar pattern has been established for dealing with unexpected problems.

First, White House aides downplay the notion that something may have gone wrong on their part. While staying out of the spotlight, the president conveys his efforts to address the situation and his feelings about it through administration officials. After a few days, the White House concedes on the issue, and perhaps Barack Obama even steps out to address it.

That same scenario unfolded over the summer, when Obama said Sgt. James Crowley, a white Cambridge, Mass., police officer, “acted stupidly” when he arrested Henry Louis Gates Jr., a black Harvard professor, in his own home. It happened in March when the public was outraged over AIG dishing out hefty bonuses. More recently the public witnessed the dynamic after a security breach at President Barack Obama’s first state dinner.

But the fact that the issue now is a terrorist incident — albeit an unsuccessful one — makes the stakes much higher, and the White House’s usual approach more questionable. That this test of his leadership comes while he’s on vacation in tropical Hawaii further complicates things.

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The John Murtha School of Journalism

So you see media and ethics issues what comes to mind? Democrats of course; NBC in particular.....

NBC’s interview with David Goldman has drawn a scathing review from the Society of Professional Journalists’ Ethics Committee.

The panel says it’s “appalled” because NBC News chartered a plane for Goldman and his son, Sean, to fly from Brazil to the United States. They were reunited after a five-year custody battle, and they arrived in Orlando on Christmas Eve. In paying for the plane, NBC News engaged in “checkbook journalism,” the Ethics Committee says.

The journalists’ group has a code of ethics that urges reporters to refrain from bidding for news.

“The public could rightly assume that NBC News bought exclusive interviews and images, as well as the family’s loyalty, with an extravagant gift,” Ethics Committee Chairman Andy Schotz said.

In a statement, NBC News said: “The Goldmans were invited on a jet NBC News chartered to fly home to the U.S. on Thursday, December 24. NBC News has followed this story since the Goldmans’ story first ran on Dateline nearly one year ago — David Goldman since has appeared on Today seventeen times. NBC News has not and will not pay for an interview.”

Journalist ethics? That's a laugher.

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The natives are restless

Barack's left flank is getting a little perturbed at The One.....

Hey did you hear about the iconic African-American guy who plays golf, and whose relationship with the public is in a free-fall lately?

No, as a matter of fact I'm not talking about Tiger Woods.

You know, I've really been trying not to write an article every other week about all the things I don't like about Barack Obama.

But the little prick is making it very hard.

Like any good progressive, I've gone from admiration to hope to disappointment to anger when it comes to this president. Now I'm fast getting to rage.

How much rage? I find myself thinking that the thing I want most from the 2010 elections is for his party to get absolutely clobbered, even if that means a repeat of 1994. And that what I most want from 2012 is for him to be utterly humiliated, even if that means President Palin at the helm. That much rage.

Did this clown really say on national television that "I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of you know, fat cat bankers on Wall Street"?!?!

Really, Barack? So, like, my question is: Then why the hell did you help out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street?!?! Why the hell did you surround yourself with nothing but Robert Rubin proteges in all the key economic positions in your government? Why did you allow them to open a Washington branch of Goldman Sachs in the West Wing? Why have your policies been tailored to helping Wall Street bankers, rather than the other 300 million of us, who just happen to be suffering badly right now?

Read the rest of this panty bunching hysteria here.

More Christmas news

At ThreatsWatch.org, Steve Schippert and Clyde Middleton have dug up the bizarre and unsettling issuance of an executive order recently signed by President Barack Obama. Executive Order — Amending Executive Order 12425, signed December 16 and released a day later, grants the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) rights on American soil that place it beyond the reach of our own law enforcement agencies, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Schippert and Middleton note that Obama’s order removes protections placed upon INTERPOL by President Reagan in 1983. Obama’s order gives the group the authority to avoid Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests — which means this foreign law enforcement organization can operate free of an important safeguard against governmental abuse. “Property and assets,” including the organization’s records, cannot be searched or seized. Their physical locations and records are now immune from U.S. legal or investigative authorities.

If the president of the United States has an aboveboard reason for making a foreign law enforcement agency exempt from American laws on American soil, it wasn’t shared by the White House.

Andy McCarthy, former assistant United States attorney for the Southern District of New York and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, notes at National Review that the limitations that Obama removed are “what prevents law-enforcement and its controlling government authority from becoming tyrannical.”

A paragraph later, McCarthy describes Obama’s actions in the starkest of terms:

This international police force (whose U.S. headquarters is in the Justice Department in Washington) will be unrestrained by the U.S. Constitution and American law while it operates in the United States and affects both Americans and American interests outside the United States.

Some bloggers covering this story are noting that the law enforcement agency to which Obama has extended such extraordinary powers to has had a dismal past.

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Change the law

Most people are not aware of how sales/use tax laws work.

If I go to Delaware (where there is no sales tax) and buy a computer, I don't pay any Delaware sales tax but I owe Ohio use tax since I am a resident of Ohio. That use tax is the equivalent of Ohio sales tax.

In addition, if I buy a computer from a Kentucky company via the internet, they are not required to collect Ohio sales tax unless they have "nexis" in Ohio (essentially a business presence of some kind).

As a result, companies like Amazon save people sales tax dollars provided their state has no Amazon warehouses or other business locations within the state.

To make sales tax matters even more ridiculous, states have determined that the tax be levied where service/product is delivered. So for a Cincinnati local landscaper who performs services in Hamilton, Clermont, Warren and Butler counties, they are required to collect sales tax for each of those counties.

If you have an internet company in Ohio, you'd be required to collect the sales tax for over 90 different taxing districts within the state, a logistical nightmare.

So for a company like Amazon, it behooves them to not deal with the over 8000 different taxing districts throughout the country.

Well, people like the Times don't like that............

BEFORE settling on Seattle as the home of Amazon.com, the founder, Jeff Bezos, considered placing the company on an Indian reservation near San Francisco. “This way, we could have access to talent without all the tax consequences,” he said in a 1996 interview with Fast Company.

The reservation couldn’t be used as a sales-tax haven, after all, Mr. Bezos said he learned, so he had to look elsewhere. Offering prices free of sales tax to customers in California, the most populous state, would be possible only if the company were placed elsewhere. “You have to charge sales tax to customers who live in any state where you have a business presence,” he said then.

Today, Amazon collects sales tax in only five states, which gives it a continuing advantage over companies who do collect them in all or most states. Competitors aren’t the only ones hurt by Amazon’s stance on sales taxes: it also means the loss of considerable revenue to states and localities that badly need it.

The thing that makes this so ridiculous is that all this could be averted if the states agreed on one simple principle; you collect the sales tax from where the sales originates. As a result, Amazon would be forced to at least charge the 8.5% Washington sales tax from customers.

But that doesn't work for states. Why? because it would create a natural advantage for states like Delaware who have no sales tax and we all know how governments love competition.

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Christmas.... when the real news occurs

You probably didn't catch this celebrating the birth of the baby Jesus with family & friends........

It’s a favorite government trick to announce bad news on a Friday afternoon, so it appears in Saturday’s paper, the least likely edition to be read. By Sunday and Monday, it’s old news. The Obama Treasury just went one better, announcing on Christmas Eve that they were uncapping the amount they believe will have to be invested in Fannie and Freddie. The Bush Treasury first estimated the government-sponsored enterprises’ (GSEs) losses at $100 billion each. The Obama administration, which has been using the GSEs to stabilize the housing market by reducing their underwriting standards, upped the ante to $200 billion each. Now the administration has thrown in the towel completely, and dropped a large lump of coal in each taxpayer’s stocking—it won’t even try to estimate the total losses of Fannie and Freddie.

This is the culmination of an unprecedented policy disaster, inflicted on the American taxpayer by congressional supporters of Fannie and Freddie who refused over many years to approve new and tougher regulations for the two GSEs. Now that many of these folks are in charge of the House and Senate committees that deal with financial reform, they have suddenly found new respect for regulation and are trying to apply it to the entire financial system. Perhaps the American taxpayers, acting as voters in 2010, will decide that one disaster per career is all they should be allowed.

Anyone have a golf tee?

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Hitchens on the panty bomber

Christopher Hitchens on the panty bombing............

It's getting to the point where the twin news stories more or less write themselves. No sooner is the fanatical and homicidal Muslim arrested than it turns out that he (it won't be long until it is also she) has been known to the authorities for a long time. But somehow the watch list, the tipoff, the many worried reports from colleagues and relatives, the placing of the name on a "central repository of information" don't prevent the suspect from boarding a plane, changing planes, or bringing whatever he cares to bring onto a plane. This is now a tradition that stretches back to several of the murderers who boarded civilian aircraft on Sept. 11, 2001, having called attention to themselves by either a) being on watch lists already or b) weird behavior at heartland American flight schools. They didn't even bother to change their names.

So that's now more or less the routine for the guilty. (I am not making any presumption of innocence concerning Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.) But flick your eye across the page, or down it, and you will instantly see a different imperative for the innocent. "New Restrictions Quickly Added for Travelers," reads the inevitable headline just below the report on the notoriety of Abdulmutallab, whose own father had been sufficiently alarmed to report his son to the U.S. Embassy in Abuja, Nigeria, some time ago. (By the way, I make a safe prediction: Nobody in that embassy or anywhere else in our national security system will lose his or her job as a consequence of this most recent disgrace.)

In my boyhood, there were signs on English buses that declared, in bold letters, "No Spitting." At a tender age, I was able to work out that most people don't need to be told this, while those who do feel a desire to expectorate on public transport will require more discouragement than a mere sign. But I'd be wasting my time pointing this out to our majestic and sleepless protectors, who now boldly propose to prevent airline passengers from getting out of their seats for the last hour of any flight. Abdulmutallab made his bid in the last hour of his flight, after all. Yes, that ought to do it. It's also incredibly, nay, almost diabolically clever of our guardians to let it be known what the precise time limit will be. Oh, and by the way, any passenger courageous or resourceful enough to stand up and fight back will also have broken the brave new law.

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This just in

Janet Napolitano has just announced that the panty bomber is now on the cannot fly list proving that the system works as intended.

As a follow up, she also announced that 80 year old women will be subject to full cavity searches to prevent additional attacks.

Krauthammer Rips Obama's "Flacid, Meaningless" Words On Iranian Revolution

Reason.tv's Nanny of the Year 2009!

Life in "Progress" City

From the "progressive" mecca of Gary Indiana, who hasn't had a conservative in city government since the creation of dirt...............

It’s much more likely not to happen than to happen but the clock is ticking for the death of Gary, Indiana. State law imposes property tax caps on all local governments far below the level Gary has grown accustomed to. Gary finances 80% of its $80M+ general fund operations through the use of property taxes. A vote on including the tax caps in Indiana’s Constitution is widely expected in 2010.

Gary has appealed and gotten special exemptions at a level unique in the state to maintain higher taxes while undergoing adjustments to bring government down to a size that can survive on anticipated revenue. Absent that relief, Gary’s 2010 property tax receipts would drop from a projected 62.9M to 28.1M.

As a condition of the transitional relief, a financial monitor was required for Gary and its related municipal districts (sanitary, storm water, public transport corp, and airport authority). The transition ends in 2012. If Gary has not adjusted sufficiently that it can handle somewhere between 20-30M less in revenue by that time, the 5th largest city in Indiana will be forced to declare bankruptcy.

Complicating matters are at least $34M in outstanding debts on top of its impending structural deficit. The term at least is used advisedly because unlike most cities, and most private organizations of its size and complexity, Gary uses a cash based accounting system. Future obligations that have not been presented for payment are not accounted for at all in a cash based system. The city government literally doesn’t have the capacity to accurately know what it owes. Because of the lack of information the financial monitor is forced to guess at some basic information.

The current Gary financial monitor’s report makes for frightening reading. Property tax revenue is scheduled to drop 50%+. There is no likelihood of a local income tax and Indiana does not share its sales tax revenue with local government. One of two casinos operating in Gary has entered bankruptcy and even before then a dispute with the casino operators disrupted payments to Gary. The bad news keeps on rolling for 265 pages.

What's so "progressive" about a city who can't even support a casino?

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How to know if you are a democrat

Here's a list of the 50 things successful people have in common.

1-10

1. They look for and find opportunities where others see nothing.
2. They find a lesson while others only see a problem.
3. They are solution focused.
4. They consciously and methodically create their own success, while others hope success will find them.
5. They are fearful like everyone else, but they are not controlled or limited by fear.
6. They ask the right questions – the ones which put them in a productive, creative, positive mindset and emotional state.
7. They rarely complain (waste of energy). All complaining does is put the complainer in a negative and unproductive state.
8. They don’t blame (what’s the point?). They take complete responsibility for their actions and outcomes (or lack thereof).
9. While they are not necessarily more talented than the majority, they always find a way to maximize their potential. They get more out of themselves. They use what they have more effectively.
10. They are busy, productive and proactive. While most are laying on the couch, planning, over-thinking, sitting on their hands and generally going around in circles, they are out there getting the job done.

Just a wild guess but I'm thinking the more of these you answer no to, the more likely you voted for Barry and Co.

Giving the GOP it's props

I'm usually hard on the GOP because, more often than not, they seem more than willing to compromise basic conservative principles for political expediency.

But in the case of health care, republicans did show up for a change.

How do I know? I read this piece defending Max Baucus's drunken tirade on the house floor where the writer laid out this claim.........

Now, if you can read that, and you can, then you have to agree Baucus was not "slurring" or "drunk" , or "slobbering" when he was speaking. Otherwise he could not have got off such a great blast against Wicker.

And Conservatives know it.

Rather, Baucus was just plain tired and really angry. The product of long hours of debate against Republicans who just don't play fair at all.

Baucus made a great point. People like Maine's Republican Senator Olympia Snowe were really interested in passing health care reform, but were relentlessly pressured into not doing so. Personally, I think they're on the wrong side of history.

Now let's look at this for a moment. (nevermind that the writer never offered anything on Baucus's drunkeness)

Let's assume that these health care bill(s) were a totally kick ass pieces of legislation that would cure all of our country's health care woes.

1) You're telling me that that not one republican wouldn't have signed up so they could go back to their constituents extolling everything they do for them? That's not a politicians nature.

2) You're telling me that not one liberal republican like Snowe, Rinovich, Collins, Grahamnesty, et al wouldn't have loved to jump ship to the dark side given their "bi partisan" make up? Getting all these guys together is like herding cats; next to impossible.

3) If these bills are so awesome, how is it that it took billions of dollars of bribes to even get all the democrats on board?

4) What kind of calculated risk is there here? Again, assuming that this thing is awesome, it means that republicans will be out of power for for at least a half a century for trying to obstruct it. Why would any of them do that?

5) Why do democrats care if any of these get bi partisan support? Let's face it, if I have a great bill I want all the credit. Unless, maybe it's not so great, then I'm looking to spread the blame.

On second thought, maybe I'm giving the republicans too much credit here. Maybe these bills are so horrible that not even one of them can support them; taking no political courage what so ever.

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Life in "Progress" State

They called it Paradise
The place to be
They watched the hazy sun
Sinking in the sea............

The "ought" decade was one promise after another turned into trauma for California. It began with a popular Democratic governor, judging from the voter majority that put him in office. But his popularity plummeted in tandem with the state's nosediving finances. The decade ends with a Republican governor who, at first, was every bit as popular, judging from the wide voter margin that elected him. His popularity and the state's finances likewise hit bottom. The chief distinction between Democrat Gray Davis and Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger may be that the former was recalled from office, and the latter will be permitted to finish his term next year. Perhaps Schwarzenegger was spared because voters remember the lousy results of the previous recall.

California's bipartisan gubernatorial failures were uncomfortably similar. Profligate spending, overextended borrowing and looming deficits were Davis' undoing. Schwarzenegger promised to "blow up the boxes" and cut up the credit cards, but ended up spending and borrowing on a par with, and sinking every bit as deep in debt, as Davis. This downward trajectory means Californians are among the highest-taxed, most over-regulated and poorly served citizens in the 50 states.

Yet to hear the pols tell it, it's those selfish voting bastards who refuse to accept more tax increases.

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Senator Max Baucus Drunk / Intoxicated on Senate Floor - Shouts Down Wicker

A little too much holiday cheer?