Non-Residential Construction Industry Worsens

The Economy Shows Minimal Signs of Stabilizing; Non-Residential Construction Industry Worsens says this report.

"Our country is in the middle of a deep recession and everyone is looking for any type of sign, data, graph, or chart to signify the end of this downward spiral. Miles•McClellan is no different in the search for answers. We have decided to share a few important economic indicators with you each month; in this, we may better understand the challenges facing us in the near future."

I don't know what a TED spread or a Baltic Dry index are, but they are the only pieces of this chart that look OK.

The map of recovery

Although I don't know if you can trust recovery.gov to tell the truth about ARRA money and what's happened to it, here's a map, even if they were lying, it's not a good picture. It's not being distributed for "shovel ready" projects, and not producing any jobs because the bureaucrats are just using it within their own agencies to clean up little pockets of problems they created under previous administrations. Just look at the "jobs" all of FDR's programs created. The fox is really in the hen house, folks.

This UNC site stopped reporting weekly updates on July 10. All done?

The White House Trifecta

Minority female slumlord. And rich. Valerie Jarrett. Just like the good old white boys from Chicago. Women! We've finally made it! Think of the real estate development if the Olympics come to Chicago!! More poor to be moved out and scattered--again--just like 20 years ago. More tax dollars down the drain.

White House Olympics crony watch.

From Change.gov: "Valerie B. Jarrett became the President and Chief Executive Officer of The Habitat Company on January 31, 2007. From November 1995 through January 31, 2007, she was the Executive Vice President of The Habitat Company. The Habitat Company is one of the nation’s premier developers and managers of residential apartments and condominiums. Habitat has developed more than 17,000 housing units and currently manages more than 20,000 units. Before joining The Habitat Company in 1995, Ms. Jarrett served for eight years in the City of Chicago government; first as Deputy Corporation Counsel for Finance and Development, then as Deputy Chief of Staff for Mayor Richard M. Daley and finally, as Commissioner of the Department of Planning and Development. Prior to her City government service, Ms. Jarrett practiced law with two private law firms."

From Chicago Tribute: "Habitat has earned $6.8 million in fees and $10.8 million in administrative expenses since the plan started in 2000, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The company also earns millions as a property manager for the CHA."


From Boston Globe's story of Jarrett's (and Obama's) slum dealings in 2008.

Campaign finance records show that six prominent developers - including Jarrett, Davis, and Rezko - collectively contributed more than $175,000 to Obama's campaigns over the last decade and raised hundreds of thousands more from other donors. Rezko alone raised at least $200,000, by Obama's own accounting.

One of those contributors, Cecil Butler, controlled Lawndale Restoration, the largest subsidized complex in Chicago, which was seized by the government in 2006 after city inspectors found more than 1,800 code violations.

Butler and Davis did not respond to messages. Rezko is in prison; his lawyer did not respond to inquiries.

Jarrett, a powerful figure in the Chicago development community, agreed to be interviewed but declined to answer questions about Grove Parc, citing what she called a continuing duty to Habitat's former business partners. She did, however, defend Obama's position that public-private partnerships are superior to public housing. . .

[Obama] once told the Chicago Tribune that he had briefly considered becoming a developer of affordable housing. But after graduating from Harvard Law School in 1991, he turned down a job with Tony Rezko's development company, Rezmar, choosing instead to work at the civil rights law firm Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland, then led by Allison Davis.

The firm represented a number of nonprofit companies that were partnering with private developers to build affordable housing with government subsidies."

Women's fashion

From my seat at Panera's in the morning I see the employed women and school girls of suburban Columbus setting out for work and education. Some younger women are showing up grandma and are again wearing skirts after a complete break down of good taste in the 80s and 90s, but still very casual with the low cut t-shirts. You gotta hope they don't bend over at work or some guy will be hit with a false charge of harassment for looking. Retirees of both sexes appear in public wearing shorts with all the veins, lumps, bumps and saddle bags. So of course I noticed this photo in the WSJ this morning, wondering why my suburban sisters can't look as good as an impoverish Indian farmer dealing with a drought. Attractive colors, artistic patterns, beautiful draping, sufficient coverage.

Glenn Beck's new book, Arguing with Idiots

It's going to be a tough read. I don't buy a lot of books new--usually pick them up used or check out a library copy. Unfortunately, my local public library's selection policy leans way to the left, and it's hard to find political books there with an alternate viewpoint. That teaches conservatives to stop asking, and stop using the library, so then they have a good excuse. But it helps bond issues to fail, too.

Back to Glenn. It's the format I don't like. Fingernails on a blackboard. This book is to readability the way The View is to good manners. The size is awkward. I've looked through my bookshelves and haven't found another one this size. The publisher is a division of Simon & Schuster, Threshold Editions/Mercury Radio Arts. Threshold Editions is a conservative publishing imprint at Simon & Schuster, owned by CBS Corporation (Leslie Moonves)--obviously, liberals don't want to miss the money train. Mary Matalin, a GOP strategist, is the chief editor. "Mercury Radio Arts is Glenn Beck’s fully integrated multi-media production company. Mercury produces or co-produces all Glenn Beck related properties including The Glenn Beck Program, America’s third highest-rated radio show, Glenn Beck, one of the most successful new shows on the Fox News Channel, Beck’s New York Times bestselling books, his live stage-show business, destination website GlennBeck.com and consumer magazine Fusion. Founded in 2002, Mercury has a full time staff of 20 employees and is based in New York, NY." So, I suppose Mercury isn't really into readable print products.

I don't like books or magazines that are designed to look like webpages--scrap booky cute boxes with torn edges, colored pages that look like something was dropped on them, cartoonish statistics. The promised bibliography is extensive, just like Glenn said, but it's in print so tiny I'll need a magnifying glass and is in run-on paragraph form, just like the medical and nutritional research on Activia if you ever find that web page. For this librarian, citing a scanned book page, google news or Yahoo news is disappointing "fact finding." My advice, hire a good researcher and do it the right way. It's not that hard to find the flaws in progressive/marxist theory or to examine the failures of every country that tried it; but use some decent source material. Citing google news which doesn't cite its sources just doesn't cut it.

The basic text font appears to be Times Roman, or something similar and readable, but the larger type for emphasis is red and yellow with a gray shadow, in a horrible font where the capital K looks like an H from a little distance, so that slows down reading. Then there's the fakey backward facing N and R (which are an I and a Ya in Cyrillic, but how many people know that?). Yes, it goes with the photo on the cover of Glenn in a quasi Russian/Soviet military uniform (and those guys really do look that weird and scary because we saw them board our train at the Finnish border to collect our passports in 2006), but it's so "The Russians are Coming" movie poster.

Because some of the outlandish things the leftists in education, cultural arts, and government say and do, it is difficult to tell the cartoonish representations from the real thing, like the "Nannies winner" and posters of Surgeon General's warnings. Glenn, if 400,000 don't die of obesity, but were fat people who died of other diseases, like old age, and the actual toll is 25,000--couldn't you have found a better footnote than a website I've never heard of questioning the CDC which most of us have? Chapter 10 on presidential progressives is virtually impossible to read due to clutter, cartoons, type font changes and blobs of color like splashed garbage--checking the bibliography on that one will be tough.

Glenn, I like your shows, but you get an F for readibility.

Hmmm. Maybe I should have waited for the library to buy its one copy.

Pelosi won't weep over Grayson's behavior

“Congressman Alan Grayson (D-FL) recently gave an angry speech about members of the GOP on the House floor. CNN.com quoted Grayson as saying on the House floor that "[I]f you get sick America, the Republican health care plan is this: die quickly." (If you click the link, you can watch the video of Mr. Grayson in action espousing his bitterly partisan view.) Some, including members of the GOP, have compared this speech to Congressman Joe Wilson's outburst during President Obama's address to Congress. That comparison of the two pieces of rhetoric ignores some of the major differences between the two.

Firstly, Congressman Wilson's shouting of the phrase "You Lie" was unacceptable and I do not support that behavior. However, Congressman Wilson has said that he did not plan that outburst and he apologized for it afterwards to the White House. On the other hand, Grayson's speech was planned. You can tell it was planned well in advance because he had visual aids for those who might have been watching the speech but not listening to it. One of his signs said the following: "The Republican Health Care Plan: DIE QUICKLY." “

Read the rest at American Issues Project blog

My sixth Blogiversary

According to the first entries on "Collecting my thoughts," this blog begins October 1, 2003. However, I had to back fill a little, using October 1 as sort of an indexing page for topics [see right side links on my blog] poetry, family stories, fiction, etc. My first entry was actually October 2. It didn't quite work out the way I'd planned--the people to whom I'd been sending my writing beginning when I retired in 2000 are either disinterested or enjoying other adventures of their own, although a few do keep up, so I just write for me and the few regulars I've picked up along the way who drop by occasionally. According to the "dashboard" of blogger dot com, I've written 7,015 entries at this blog, but that doesn't count the ones I removed. Altogether at all my blogs I've written about 8,500 entries and over 400,000 have visited, although some of those entries have been written by guest bloggers, particularly at my "Reunion" blog where high school classmates have been contributors of stories and photos.

The imaginary menu, if you stop by for the celebration and conversation free of politics, religion and health tips, is: Morning--tea, coffee and mixed fruit with a few nibbles from Panera's bakery; noonish--chicken salad on croissants with veggie snacks; afternoon--high tea with assorted goodies, a few sugar-free; dinner hour--baked salmon with my secret sauce and asparagus, with something gooey, decadent and chocolate for dessert. If it's warm enough, we'll sit on the deck and enjoy the fall color and the birds that stop by the creek. Please, no gifts--I have a full house. I'll put the cat in the laundry room, and the imaginary dog (a dalmatian) will be at the neighbors, so no animals will jump on you or make your allergies flare.

Why Obama had to go to Copenhagen

"[Chicago Mayor] Daley's son, Richard R. Daley, learned a lesson from his father. Go with the political flow regardless of its direction because it's all about Chicago, not any political ideology. Left or right, all are precious in the Machine's sight -- as long as there's a money river to tap. So what if the political flow of the Democrat Party has turned decidedly left. Chicago is neither left nor right -- it's permanently Machine centered.

Daley the Younger called in his markers and drafted President Obama to go to Copenhagen and lobby on Chicago's behalf. Wherever he was born, Obama will now always be the favored son of the Machine. Obama original allegiance is to that Machine. He owes it. And it's payback time.

When Obama came to work as a young lawyer at Allison Davis' law firm, one that represented slum landlords like "Tony Rezko," Obama learned the lesson of "go-along-to-get-along" that his new boss had once learned. Davis learned not to cross the Machine. Davis, Rezko and current senior presidential advisor Valerie Jarrett were Obama's finance campaign committee in his run for the Senate. They're all serious contributors to the Machine.

Jarrett was the president of a property management firm that managed large Chicago Housing Authority properties. In other words, a city-designated slum landlord. Before that, she was Michelle's boss in the Office of the Mayor of Chicago -- that would be Richard the Younger. After that, she became Michelle's patroness at the University of Chicago Hospitals.

So, of course, the President has to go to Copenhagen to push for Chicago as the site for the 2016 Olympics. He is the duly elected Patron in Chief assigned to bring home the bacon. The closer. He says he's can now leave Washington because the campaign for healthcare reform in under control. Right. And the Cubs are destined to take the Series this year in four straight." Read the rest Lee Cary at American Thinker

Sarah Palin's charge of death panels

In an article at American Thinker on the existence of “death panels,” the author, Joseph Ashby, says it’s not in HR 3200 because it already exists: “H.R. 1 (more commonly known as the Recovery and Reinvestment Act, even more commonly known as the Stimulus Bill and aptly dubbed the Porkulus Bill) contains a whopping $1.1 billion to fund the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research. And on this council is Dr. Death himself, Rahm Emanuel’s brother, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel.

One of the commenters at this post, Redhawk, analyzes the role of statism in our Congress’s health care plan.

When you get past all the doubletalk, this is what the people who are advocating a government-run healthcare system truly believe. The foundation of the statists' philosophy is that the people in a society are in essence the property of the state. Given limited resources and the state will always claim to be short of resources, the state will decide the extent to which a person will be medically treated for a serious illness, depending upon that person's perceived value to society. To the statist, this makes perfect sense. Of course in actual practice, the final decision can be heavily influenced by how many friends in Washington one can petition, which is a storyline right out of Atlas Shrugged; how one's success in life and in this case life itself will be determined by political pull. Washington apparatchiks and their hangers-on will of course automatically receive the best of care.

I have not read whether this is happening in Britain, but I would be surprised if it were not, since such a system invites corruption. There you can be denied cancer treatment even if you are willing to pay for it out of your own pocket or you may be denied stints if you are above the arbitrary age limit of 59; unless of course you lucky enough to have friends in high places who can make an exception in your case. Otherwise, you have a duty to die. They may or may not decide to pay for the pain medication to relieve your final suffering, since it is all subject to the whim of some bureaucrat. This is the type of system to which we are heading unless we can stop it. We are being asked to quietly accept a socialist plan that promises to improve the healthcare of roughly 20% of the population, many of whom are here illegally, but in doing so will intolerably degrade the healthcare for the rest of us.

HT Murray

Did you see that Sarah's book is already #3 on Amazon and it isn't published yet, and that Glenn Beck's new book is outselling the Kennedy memoirs?

Have you planned ahead?

Take the Long Term Care planning quiz.

Here was my "score."

You have obviously given this topic some important consideration. Congratulations! By planning ahead, you can have more control over your care choices and the financial impact of paying for care. Planning ahead also provides important peace of mind for you and your loved ones.

They didn't say this but I will, since I keep track of these things: one month in a nursing home costs more than one year's premiums on long term care.

The rush to defend Polanski

"A high-profile rush to defend Roman Polanski after the film director's arrest sparked a backlash on Wednesday, as a growing number of politicians called for him to face justice over a three-decade-old child sex case."

I'd sure hate to be on the side defending a guy who made bad movies, but in this case, I think the case should be dismissed. First, it looks like the judge in the first plea bargain for which he served time, really messed up, and second, the woman who was 13 at that time, wants it dropped. There are a lot worse things for 13 years olds than having sex with a movie director, and it happens all over the world--forced marriages, rape, incest, etc., baby mommas for high priced bad hip hop musicians and traumatizing movies called "art" from Hollywood. No one seems to care about these things except Christians, and then they are ridiculed if they try to get a smidgen or morality included in school curricula. The guy is scum, no doubt about it. But he has paid, and paid, and paid. Let it go.

The decline of English

As I've noted before, except for some Freshman composition, I didn't take anything in college that could be called "English," because I was a foreign language major. But I do think it's important, and I've been sad to see it's importance go down hill since the radicals took over the campuses of the USA in the 1970s. The decline of English by William M. Chace, formerly of Berkeley, Stanford, Wesleyan, and Emory, notes the following grim statistics, the numbers of those majoring in the humanities dropped from a total of 30 percent to a total of less than 16 percent in 30 years:

English: from 7.6 percent of the majors to 3.9 percent
Foreign languages and literatures: from 2.5 percent to 1.3 percent
Philosophy and religious studies: from 0.9 percent to 0.7 percent
History: from 18.5 percent to 10.7 percent
Business: from 13.7 percent to 21.9 percent

I did a few word searches on this article--Marxism, feminism, deconstructionism, etc.--and see he doesn't address any root causes driving students away who don't want to be harangued during class with political poop and Michael Moore movie mayhem. Chace thinks "at the root is the failure of departments of English across the country to champion, with passion, the books they teach and to make a strong case to undergraduates that the knowledge of those books and the tradition in which they exist is a human good in and of itself." Maybe the students figure out on their own that selecting an obscure female author from 1910, or a gay Mexican who died for a cause in 1930 doesn't mean much in the big picture? Ya think?

When I was doing my research on private libraries I tracked down a fabulous Professor of English who had taught at a prestigious school--past tense. He'd been driven out of his position (he had tenure and was a full professor, but there are ways by denying funds for assistants, research and rearranging offices), and was in another state teaching at a state school extension, basic composition and grammar. But at least he was free of the radical demagogues. And he was a liberal--but beaten down by the feminists and marxists in his department because he wanted to teach what was important, not their political theories. We talked for a long time on the phone and his assistance was invaluable, his knowledge of private collections enormous. He kept cautioning me to close the door of my office, to make sure no one was listening. And that was in the mid-90s.

The media are kind to Obama

But they lie to us. Here's an example. "Mixed data reflect fragility of economic recovery" by Sara Murray, WSJ, Sept. 30, 2009

I realize she didn't write the headline, but the graphs don't exactly show a "recovery," more an occasional blip. In most of those cities, the home prices are still above 2000 levels, despite the dramatic drop beginning when the sub-prime mess revealed the folly of the constant government interference in the housing market by using it as a carrot for politicians of both parties and non-profits like ACORN to look good to low income people.

Only one city, Detroit, owned for decades by Democrats pushing wealth transfer, dropped below 2000 levels. The upticks recorded in July were tiny, with Minneapolis the best, Las Vegas the worst.

But back to "words matter."

I know I sound like a broken record, but if this article had been written during the Bush years, there would have been considerable differences.

"Consumer confidence drops, despite a tiny rise in home prices in a few cities during July, underscoring the disastrous decisions of the Bush administration in how to lead us to a recovery."

I shouldn't provide Obama any hints, but if the media were as vigilant with him as they were with Bush, I think he would be ahead of the game with rising poll numbers instead of dropping. They could have been corrective. Just by telling the truth, which they didn't do during the Bush years.

What is a mixed metaphor?

A combination of two or more metaphors that together produce a ridiculous effect wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

In today's Wall Street Journal we had this gem:

"Housing is on life support. . .until market forces replace the prostheses of government."

Most people on life support don't need a prosthesis, let alone more than one. And usually the government pulls the plug with its plan, as it will seniors relying on Medicare.

Cash for Clunkers end result

According to this report from Edmunds, sales of new vehicles in September 2009 fell off a cliff, dropping 41% from August 2009 and down 23% from September 2008. This shows that the primary sales effect of the “Cash for Clunkers” program was to harvest sales that would otherwise have occurred later in the year and compress them into an earlier time period.
More details at Taxman Blog (another great Ohio blogger)

Lytham Road Exercise class

This works well as a hymn, and since the class is in the church fellowship hall, I'll sing it for you. The class meets Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 9:15 for an hour at UALC Lytham campus, 2300 Lytham Rd., Upper Arlington, with three different instructors and work-outs. No matter what. I'm really not into exercise, but it's good for me. And you.


It's Wednesday
It's Wednesday
It's Exercise day (2x)

Oh card i o
Oh Weight lift
It's jump and repeat.

It's Wednesday
I hate it
It's Exercise day.

When I sang it for the class, demonstrating why I'm no longer in choir, Jan recognized the tune as "Immortal, invisible, God only wise," composed by Walter Chalmers Smith, and used with a Welsh melody.

What's wrong with calling it PLPCB?

"The five partners in the London office of Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates have left to start their own practice, named PLP Architecture. The founders of the new firm are Lee Polisano, FAIA, former president of KPF, as well as David Leventhal, FAIA, Fred Pilbrow, RIBA, Karen Cook, AIA, and Ron Bakker, AIA. The move comes after the five made a failed attempt to buy out KPF's UK operations in July." Architectural Record

I guess it wasn't as pronounceable as PLP.

Response from Sherrod Brown

Yes, I know everone who wrote got the same response, but at least Sherrod Brown (D-OH) responded and he has been listening to the people. But here's what caught my eye and the only thing I'll direct this comment to:

"One thing is clear - we must keep what works and fix what is broken. We must protect health coverage for those who like what they have, and we must ensure those with no coverage have insurance options they can afford."

Keep our insurance, but fix what is broken and cover those who don't have it. Now I would have added--we haven't collapsed in the 17 years since we didn't pass Hillarycare, so we have time to look at all the angles, but then. . . I'm no longer a Democrat.

Now wouldn't that have been a simple plan--and we have all those laws and regulations in place, with some that need to be repealed. We could have tightened the oversite of Medicare and Medicare, imposed some penalties on the crooks, stopped the ridiculous testing with tort reform, there could have been a better effort to get people into the programs for which they were eligible without months or years of waiting, and we could have removed the laws that prevented competition across state lines. Nothing would have required the massive, tangled, intrusive, economy-deadening bills that have been proposed.

Except.

The sensible approach wouldn't have given the federal government more power over the people who manage just fine without it!

Adult stem cells used in hip replacement

Doctors in Southampton, England have successfully used adult stem cells to repair hip bones, allowing patients to avoid hip replacement surgery. After removing dead tissue in the hip, the cavity is filled with bits of ground up bone and the patient’s own adult stem cells. So far six patients have had the treatment with only one failure, doctors said. From FRC Blog.

If you read the original Telegraph article, you'll see the word "adult" isn't used, leaving the impression it might be embryonic, but if you're using cells from the patient, they aren't going to be from a killed embryo. The article actually mentions the controversy, although there is no controversy about using adult stem cells, only embryonic.

Adult stem cells, taken from sources such as bone marrow and cord blood, have now been successfully used to treat well over 70 medical conditions. None for embryonic.

Although I said it first

Glenn Beck quoted from the NYT tonight on their assessment (negative) of the 9/12 peaceful, trash-free gathering, at which no one was arrested, in Washington DC, and their puff ball piece covering the protests at the G-20 with 190 arrested. I'm really glad to see he had the video to back it up. The conservatives have been maligned enough on this issue. I had pointed out the silence of the left and Pelosi on this issue here. Really, you do wonder how they have any self-respect at the Times, although Glenn says they've assigned someone to watch Fox because they are missing so many stories.

Good analysis of Ahmadinejad's closing words of his speeches, by Joel Rosenberg, too--about how true Muslims have to bring about the chaos to usher in the end-times.

“Oh, God, hasten the arrival of Imam Al-Mahdi and grant him good health and victory and make us his followers and those who attest to his rightfulness.”

Did NYT or LAT or WSJ object to any of this? Not to worry. The great one will snuggle up and make it all OK. I just checked Huff and Puff on this--those folks live in an alternate universe.