Funny as a crutch, as we used to say

Oba mao



HT Taxmanblog

The Barney Dodge

The man knows no shame. He hid behind a Medal of Honor recipient, (published a whiney letter in the WSJ 9-23) in order not to appear at the defunding vote for ACORN. Oh Barney, you're the only thing transparent in this current administration!

Poverty pimps live well

Actually, main stream reporters couldn't be called exactly poverty pimps--they aren't the Jesse Jackson types where their entire livelihood is based on scamming the wealthy CEOs to give to their causes. But they do harange us ordinary folk with "social justice" sob stories and try to make us weep that we have more than others. Like Matt Lauer.

He has recently bought a waterfront "cottage" for $2.15 million in South Hampton, NY. He works for NBC's Today Show.

It was the closest nomination contest in a generation, with just one-tenth of a percentage point — 41,622 votes out of more than 35 million cast — separating Barack Obama from Hillary Clinton when the Democratic primaries ended in June 2008. Obama’s margin among elected delegates was almost as thin, just 51 to 48 percent.

But Barack Obama had a crucial advantage over his rivals this year: the support of the national media, especially the three broadcast networks. At every step of his national political career, network reporters showered the Illinois Senator with glowing media coverage, building him up as a political celebrity and exhibiting little interest in investigating his past associations or exploring the controversies that could have threatened his campaign. Read the entire report here

So what sort of pay back do these MSM reporters get? After all, Obama's going to redistribute their wealth to the bottom one-third (actually, that would include me). Maybe they just get to share the beach. I wouldn't deny a liberal media maven his millions, I just wish they'd be less a hypocrite about wealth, taxes, poverty, health insurance and Obama!

WSJ says luxury real estate is rebounding in the Hamptons thanks to Obama's "bridge loans" for the well connected with our tax money. (Lots of snobbish blacks in the Hamptons. They used to be only for snobbish whites.) Really, these people didn't get rich by being stupid.

A possible homicide. Foul play. Ya think?

It wouldn’t take me long to decide it was a homicide if the guy’s eyes are taped and mouth stuffed, his hands and feet bound, and he was hung naked except for his socks (Columbus Dispatch). Really, reporters sound a bit funny. Like this at Huffington Post

"Our job is to determine if there was foul play involved – and that's part of the investigation – and if there was foul play involved, whether that is related to his employment as a Census worker," said Beyer.

Attacking a federal worker during or because of his job is a federal crime.”

I'm voting that this had nothing to do with his part time job, and everything to do with kinky sex gone bad. Or he stumbled onto the modern version of an old timey Kentucky still (drugs).

Imagine the health care wait

While we were filling our coffee cups, the man on disability told me that he had applied 7 months ago for a special mortgage refinancing program that was part of the stimulus. He has submitted mountains of documentation, he has good credit, his bank is behind him--it's the federal government that has poured sugar in the gas tank of an already sluggish bureaucracy. He laughed--"This is more time than it took for me to qualify for diability!" (and that was a number of months).

Also, at Ohio State there is a back log in providing military veterans their payments for tuition, books and living expenses under the post 9-11 GI Bill. That log jam apparently started to build up around May of 2009. This has affected tens of thousands of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans nationwide scrambling to cobble together enough money until the government payments come through.

There's only a few million veterans, and probably even fewer mortgages going through refinancing paper work. Aren't you just amazed at a president so ignorant of the red tape he's creating who wants to take over the entire health financing system instead of fixing what doesn't work--like the waste and fraud that are already in the government health programs?

A tax increase on the vain and poor alike

In Ohio, vanity tags will go from $15 to $50, and 30 day tags from $8 to $18.50. Pity the poor working man--first the federal government decreases the supply of lesser value, inexpensive used cars by promoting a "cash for clunkers" program in which they are destroyed, thus raising the prices on used cars still in the market pipeline, then the state raises the price on everything concerning tags and licenses. I just renewed my driver's license two days ago, and noticed I was charged $1.00 for a "vision" test--that consisted of reading one line of numbers and waving my hand if I saw a flashing light. That 10 second test will now go up to $2.75, and the only reason it didn't go up in July with the other fees is they couldn't get the computers reprogrammed fast enough. Before he was elected, our Governor Strickland, a former Methodist pastor, insisted that raised fees were hidden taxes, and that he was against state sponsored gambling. Well, those morals went out the window. These d.l. and tag fees are supposed to raise an additional $55 million dollars. This is not supposed to overburden the BMV "customers," but will make up the funding gap in safety services.

A conversation about white guilt

and the damage done to African Americans by liberals. This interview with Shelby Steele by Charlie Rose was done in 1998, and the topic is perhaps even more important today. It’s also classic Charlie, where he tries to get the guest off track (starts out talking about Clinton’s morality and affairs) if he doesn’t agree with him/her, thus eating into their time. I was vilified by liberals by even suggesting that Obama’s “blaccent” wasn’t authentic even to my ear, but Steele said it first and better as did trained linguists. Unfortunately for Steele, his book on Obama had a very unfortunate subtitle: “and why he can’t win.”

First have something to say

Roy Tennant doesn’t know me, doesn’t read my blog, but I can identify, except I still think people need to have something to say before they e-mail, twitter or blog. I think from this post below, he’s decided everyone has something to say. I talk to a lot of people face to face, I read a lot, I’m on a bunch of lists; and sorry Roy, many have nothing to say at all about anything, but they never shut up. Some are college professors, some are on medication for brain disorders. Others can verbally express themselves, but their writing looks like my tennis or swimming (awful). Recently (in e-mail) my childhood friend Carol asked how could I find the time to read and write as much as I do. Everyone finds time to do what they enjoy--whether it’s attending board (bored) meetings, trying new recipes, walking 5 miles a day, training dogs, or collecting Annaco ceramic cats. It’s not about time, it’s not even about discipline. Here‘s Roy--a very good prolific writer and one with whom I frequently disagree:

"I write a lot. Some might say too much. I write Twitter updates, e-mails, electronic discussion messages, blog posts, journal articles, books, and this "glacial blog" where I post maybe twice a year. I think about writing a lot. Some might say too much. And I have something to say about it.

A colleague I greatly respect has said of writing "First, have something to say." At first this seems like complete wisdom, and for years it made total sense to me. But as I have thought more about it, I have become very uncomfortable with it. So I want to take this one post of my twice-a-year-blog to refute this statement since I think it potentially undermines potential writers at their most vulnerable point.” See if you agree with him no specific link but page says May 21, 2009

Cathy's Clown

He's probably a great grandfather by now--that poor dejected guy that Cathy dumped back in 1960, she was "treating him so bad," that his heart felt cry went to the top of the charts for the Everly Brothers. I was thinking about him this morning because we were moving to this in exercise class. Our instructor is probably around 40, has a toddler she brings to class, and wouldn't have even been born yet when the Everly Brothers were heart throbs. Gosh, they were cute (now 70 and 72).



When you see me shed a tear,
And you know that it's sincere,
Doncha think it's kinda sad
That you're treatin' me so bad,
Or don't you even care?

Don't want your lo-o-o-o-ove anymore.
Don't want your ki-i-i-i-isses, that's for sure.
I die each time
I hear this sound:
"Here he co-o-o-o-omes. That's Cathy's clown.
That's Cathy's clown.
That's Cathy's clown."

No one laughs at ACORN today

Last September was the first many of us had heard of “community organizer,” as an actual career. All we knew about ACORN was some voter fraud that rolled around each election. After the term was ridiculed by Rudy and Sarah, the pros at ACORN lit up like a dry torched Christmas tree. Matthew Vadum of Capital Research Center set us straight.

“But what exactly is community organizing? And is it “very valuable”?
There might be some form of community organizing somewhere in the nation that is “very valuable,” but in the highly specific sense that Obama –a lawyer who enjoys carefully crafting his sentences– uses the term, it’s not about church bake sales, picking up litter, little leagues, or parent-teacher associations.

Obama-style community organizing is pure leftist, anti-capitalist agitation. It’s about that nebulous Marxist concept of ’social justice.’ It’s about making people angry so they push for change. The kind of change they seek is rarely good. It often artificially creates pressure for government spending on whatever project is fashionable in leftist circles that day. Filled with robust self-esteem, community organizers are typically professional revolutionaries who believe that something is terribly wrong with America and that they are the ones anointed to fix it.

The father of community organizing was ultra-leftist Saul Alinsky (1909-1972), a Chicagoan who elevated local-level political agitation to an art form. Alinsky, a significant influence on Obama, believed in “rubbing raw the sores of discontent.” In his classic book Rules for Radicals, Alinsky prescribed the tactics and defined the goals of community organizing. Among his “rules“: “Keep the pressure on. Never let up” and “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”

Alinsky taught his disciples to disguise their radical ideology. “Camouflage is key to Alinsky-style organizing. In organizing coalitions of black churches in Chicago, Obama caught flak for not attending church himself. He became an instant churchgoer,” notes Richard Lawrence Poe. According to Alinsky, an effective radical activist “discards the rhetoric that always says ‘pig’ ” when describing police officers, and uses other linguistic tricks in order, “to radicalize parts of the middle class.” Winning over the middle class is key, Alinsky argued, because “the power and the people are in the big middle-class majority.”

Obama’s would-be castrator Jesse Jackson is a master community organizer himself who now focuses his efforts on Wall Street. His Rainbow/PUSH Coalition has shaken corporations down for millions of dollars. As Shelby Steele writes, Jackson and his brethren in the civil rights establishment have “pursued equality through the manipulation of white guilt.” Those leaders “ushered in an extortionist era of civil rights, in which they said to American institutions: Your shame must now become our advantage,” Steele writes.” Read the rest here.

Gullible travels

In the 2004 U.S. Presidential election, 25% of 18 – 35 year olds got their news from John Stewart’s “The Daily Show” and “Saturday Night Live” according to the Public News Service. Based on the outcome, I’m guessing it was much higher in 2008, and from the way Stewart, Letterman and SNL go hyper and disgusting over Sarah (and her children), Rush and Glenn, they aren’t letting up now that their man won. They are so in the tank for the left--whether Kerry, Gore or Obama--it’s no wonder they have a meltdown and have to call in Soros based lackeys to write their jokes.

But I do wish Rush and Glenn would just stop talking so much about how misinformed these No-lie-left-behind hosts are about their shows and their talk. Their audiences are totally left, so who cares? That group will probably not become listeners of Ann Coulter or Tammy Bruce or Sean Hannity, and if it is only parsed through Media Matters and Letterman, why get your shorts in a knot if people get their news that way? It’s no wonder Democrats are so poorly informed. Also, I think I don't care much for Glenn's new radio side-kick, Pat. He does impressions of Glenn, but not as good, and sometimes talks over him. Since I didn't listen in the summer (parked the car), I don't know when he started. Stu is a much better second banana.

Glenn’s boiled frog of Wednesday is an example. He wasted a lot of time on that last night. The bloggers were all a-twitter over him tossing a frog in boiling water to see if it would jump out according to the old saw. Of course, it was a fake frog, filmed ahead of time, they fell for it, and even cut the YouTube version that went on the internet in which he explained it was fake along with most Democrats and Republicans.

They are really gunning for Glenn now, because no one in the rest of the media does any research, fact checking, or old fashioned muck raking. So not only are they mad at the dirt he's digging up, but that he constantly scoops them (although that's not too hard). That ACORN advisory board story was revealing. Although not exactly his scoop. I guess we don't need to expect much of an investigation with that crew on board! Now ABC or NBC could have done that story. How hard is it to find out that Van Jones became a communist in prison? Or that Obama promised SEIU and ACORN a piece of the action in return for votes? It's all out there on the internet. You don't even have to take anything out of context. Does Katie Couric know about Google?

How do you cut costs?

That's a big topic in the media today--but it was four years ago too when unemployment was 4.5%, and in the 1990s, and the 1980s during the last big recession. I asked it June 28, 2005, then answered my own question (I do that a lot). I don't. I reread it today, and don't see any changes. Everyone seems to "cut costs" in different ways. Here's my list of non-cuts, and at my age, I'll probably not change what is working (hmmm--could be a motto).

Economically, it makes absolutely no sense for me to leave the house every morning at 6 a.m. and drive to a coffee shop. If you don't do this, you could exclaim, "But that costs you nearly $600 a year, when making it at home is about five cents a cup." Very true. But I read 2 or 3 newspapers, and see 4 or 5 people I know, chat with various folk, so as a social informational event, it's pretty cheap. Compare that $600 to a golf hobby, and you can see it is really pretty cheap.

We eat out about once a week--it's called our Friday night date. When my husband started his own business in 1994, this is one thing we cut for awhile, until we could see how our finances would be, but reinstated it quickly. Sure, I can fix the same thing at home for about $3.00 that costs us $30.00 at the pub, but again, it isn't food, it is R&R and time to focus on each other. It is also a line in the sand dividing the work week from the week-end, and when your office is in your home, you definitely need to keep this ritual (he also dressed for work each day, including a tie). About $1500 a year just to eat one meal. Ridiculous!

I could save about $400 a year if I stopped coloring my hair. That will come, but for now, I prefer to fool Mother Nature and the clerks who ask for ID when I request a senior discount. Brown hair turning gray is not pretty like a brunette turning gray (but prettier than a blonde or red head going gray--just a tip).

We usually get a glass of the house wine (red for the cardiovascular system) with Friday night dinner. I suggested to my husband that we just drink a glass of wine at home afterwards--saving Oh, maybe $500 a year (cheap wine), but he didn't go for that. Frugal, but not romantic.

We really don't need two cars now that my husband is retired. I suggested we get rid of his Explorer and keep my van, but since both cars are paid for (and he really likes his better than mine but his hurts my back). That would be a one time boost to the income, of say $6,000 (resale is the pits even on nice, well kept autos) plus a savings of maybe $300 a year in insurance and $200 in maintenance.

Pets are expensive. Kitty litter, cat food, vet bills, etc. I've not looked at the figures recently, but I think it is something like $6,000 over the life time of a cat, and more for a dog. If your daughter or neighbor won't stop by and look after the sweetie-pie when you're gone, you've got to add in huge boarding bills. But I'm not even going to think about that savings. Pets are good for all sorts of health benefits.

So you see, I could be saving and investing this to leave to our Alma Mater, The University of Illinois, but they didn't graduate any dummies, so we're spending wildly while we've got the chance.

Actually, the U. of I. item has changed. I won't send them ANYTHING because of Bill Ayers.

FDA, ReGen and Democrats

I heard this on the radio while returning from coffee.

“The Food and Drug Administration said Thursday that four New Jersey congressmen and its own former commissioner unduly influenced the process that led to its decision last year to approve a patch for injured knees, an approval it is now revisiting.” (NYT)

Since the party wasn’t mentioned, and if they are Republicans, that is always noted, I came home and looked it up. Yup. Democrats. Although I suppose that is a given if the story is New Jersey, or corruption, you are to assume Democrats.

"All four members of Congress denied that ReGen’s political contributions had played any role in their efforts on its behalf with the F.D.A. and said they were merely doing their jobs by trying to help a constituent company."(NYT)

Really, is that the job of a Congressman--to help out a constituent's company? So what is the FDA's job?

Climate of violence

Where is enhanced Nancy when you need a tearful appeal to end the climate of violence? Oh, that was just for peaceful tea party demonstrators like Murray who traveled 950 miles and back in 3 days to carry a sign asking where was the MSM and to sing and march with other patriots? She seems to be afraid to address the left wing kooks at the G-20, or the wealthy Iranians protesting the outrageous Ahmadinejad at the UN. Obama too deplores the peaceful protestors of Obamacare, calling them out as proxies for "broader issues" during his recent game show hosting last Sunday, issues he either refuses to address, or that are a veiled reference to you-know-what.

I think the conservatives, independents and libertarians should also be protesting the global agency which has no representation from the people of any country, just a bunch of government officials, dictators, jihadists and communist mini-men babbling on about sustainable growth, cap and trade, peer review and bank regulations. Really, will health care make any difference when we no longer even have a government of our own?

Shovel ready?

"The federal government on not spending a nickel on any shovel ready projects over 800 miles of I-75." Noted Gordon Gekko after a long drive back to Ohio from Florida.

There are sidewalks being installed along Kenny Rd. across from the OSU golf course. I'm hoping that those of you in Indiana and Illinois and Florida didn't have to contribute. Cities should be able to scrape up money for sidewalks without holding out their hands and kissing rings in Washington. No matter who's paying, they will still be way too close to a busy street to do us oldsters or school children much good.

Is your state driving away business?

Ohio is. It is ranked 47th for business climate, according to a new study by the Tax Foundation. Take a look at that map! Illinois is 30th, Indiana 12th, and Michigan 17th. And here sits Ohio at the bottom of the heap looking to big gambling interests (issue 3, slots at race tracks, lottery, etc.) instead of real tax reform to pull us out of this mess, created by both parties. The market is now global, but the Department of Labor reports most mass job relocations are from one U.S. state to another rather than to an overseas location. For instance, from Mt. Morris, Illinois to Florida, and 30+ years ago to another southern state. Sure, workers can move, but that doesn't help the schools or the local businesses that support the town. All ten of the states with the worst business tax climates voted for Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election, and five of the ten states with the best business tax climates voted for John McCain according to the Tax Professor. Ohioans plan to further destroy our economy in the Appalachian states by going along with the green global goals of the current administration in Washington.

HT to Patrick Poole of Soballiance who pointed to these sources.

The left coast

LA's Skid Row, one of the largest concentrations of homeless in the United States.

The buried history of the slave trade

The slave trade never ended, of course. There's more slavery going on today than in the 18th century, particularly among women and children. And especially for sex. More Africans have died from environmentalists allowing malaria to resurge than ever died in the Atlantic slave trade. Still, this piece by Black Informant is interesting commentary on the way the Africans and Europeans worked together to establish the 17th and 18th century slave trade. Our schooling in the 50s was less brainwashing and not as full of PC as today, so I knew some of this, but not Nigeria's role or what that nation teaches today.

Apparently our history began on January 20

At least the good stuff.

"The United States elected 43 presidents before the current occupant graced the office with his presence. We fought, and won, two world wars, liberated millions of people worldwide from tyranny, and worked cooperatively with other sovereign nations to rebuild entire continents. Some might even say the character of our nation is well established considering we have been a democracy for just over 230 years now.

Not President Barack Obama, who told the United Nations General Assembly yesterday, “For those who question the character and cause of my nation, I ask you to look at the concrete actions we [I] have taken in just nine months.” 230 years versus just nine months. No wonder, the New York Times reports, were UN delegates not only applauding Obama, but snapping photos of their hero like tourists. Read full piece."

Note: If you want to argue about the number: those before Washington weren't elected, and one guy was elected twice so he is counted once.

Obama just wants the world

"If there were ever a question about Barack Obama’s dedication to the concept of global governance, it has now been answered fully. His track record to date points toward his commitment to global governance; his speech to the United Nations removes all doubt." Canada Free Press To be fair, a world government that was NOT representative of any peoples or voters, but propped up by rules and regulations thought up by government officials, was not Obama's idea--it was our own President Woodrow Wilson and then embraced and tweaked by FDR.