Due to personal obligations, I will not be blogging until further notice. My apologies to all (3) of my readers. Not to worry, however. Tempus fugit.
Filed under: Everything Else
February 6, 2009 • 8:52 pm 0
10 Most Ticketed Cars / 10 Least Ticketed Cars
Filed under: Everything Else , cars, least, most, tickets
February 5, 2009 • 12:03 pm 0
Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg Hospitalized with Cancer
• 11:58 am 0
The 7 Worst States To Start a Business
The 7 Worst States To Start a Business by Matthew Bandyk
Filed under: Everything Else
January 31, 2009 • 6:59 pm 0
how the english respect the queen[']s english
Yet another example of dumbing things down for those who cannot be bothered to learn some rules.
Its a catastrophe for the apostrophe in Britain By MEERA SELVA
On the streets of Birmingham, the queen’s English is now the queens English.
England’s second-largest city has decided to drop apostrophes from all its street signs, saying they’re confusing and old-fashioned.
But some purists are downright possessive about the punctuation mark.
It seems that Birmingham officials have been taking a hammer to grammar for years, quietly dropping apostrophes from street signs since the 1950s. Through the decades, residents have frequently launched spirited campaigns to restore the missing punctuation to signs denoting such places as “St. Pauls Square” or “Acocks Green.”
This week, the council made it official, saying it was banning the punctuation mark from signs in a bid to end the dispute once and for all.
Councilor Martin Mullaney, who heads the city’s transport scrutiny committee, said he decided to act after yet another interminable debate into whether “Kings Heath,” a Birmingham suburb, should be rewritten with an apostrophe.
“I had to make a final decision on this,” he said Friday. “We keep debating apostrophes in meetings and we have other things to do.”
Eventualy, youll bee making othur finall desisions wich will make this one appeer easy in comparisun.
Remember that England WAS THE global super power. Now apostrophes bother them.
Filed under: Everything Else
• 6:26 pm 0
The “Free Press” in Russia: Another Journalist Murdered
Russian newspaper mourns another murdered reporter By MIKE ECKEL
The dead loom over the morning editorial meeting at Russia’s leading investigative newspaper. Novaya Gazeta’s staff is trying to plan the next issue and editor-in-chief Dmitry Muratov is in an understandably foul mood.
In a corner hang photos of four reporters he has lost in the past eight years – one beaten to death, one allegedly poisoned, two shot – the most recent on Jan. 19. It’s not easy to put a paper out these days, Muratov says.
“There’s usually a lot of jokes, laughing, talk about ideas. But our batteries are totally spent,” says Muratov, 47, billows of pipe smoke filling the long pauses. “How can there be any sort of (normal) frame of mind when a journalist is being buried?”
That journalist was Anastasia Baburova, a 25-year-old cub reporter. She and a human rights lawyer were shot execution-style by a masked man with a silenced pistol as they walked together a few blocks from the Kremlin.In a country considered one of the most dangerous for journalists, no Russian newspaper has suffered like Novaya Gazeta. In a country where most media have been cowed into submission, no other newspaper publishes such probing investigative articles and acid commentary about government corruption, police-state politics and Chechnya war abuses.
“Every two or three years, we lose someone,” says Elena Kostyuchenko, a 21-year-old investigative writer for the paper. “But you just have to write, write, write and keep writing. You have to.”
Some 16 journalists have died in contract-style slayings or under suspicious circumstances in Russia since 2000. Many more have been assaulted or threatened.
Under Vladimir Putin, who became president in 2000 and now is prime minister, the TV networks watched by most Russians were taken over by the state, their news operations highly sanitized. Big-selling newspapers are either sympathetic to the Kremlin or owned by Kremlin-allied business groups.
Of the many free-spirited papers that sprang up when the Soviet Union collapsed, Novaya Gazeta — meaning New Newspaper — is a rare survivor.
Filed under: Everything Else
January 30, 2009 • 10:01 am 0
Eric Cantor on the D.C. Binge Spending
Why I voted NO by Eric Cantor
Yesterday, when the roll was called, I voted against the misnamed economic stimulus plan which ultimately passed the House.
The American economy is hurting and that means Americans are hurting. Middle class families are being hit with continuing layoffs and our retirement and college savings are being ravaged by the markets.
We should be acting boldly to preserve, protect and create jobs. We should cut taxes on small businesses and middle class families to help create jobs.
Unfortunately, Nancy Pelosi has crafted a “stimulus” bill which will do little if anything to stimulate the economy. The bill presented to the House is a borrow and spend bill which would drive this years’ deficit to over 2 trillion dollars.
It is simply not accurate to describe this bill as an economic stimulus plan. It is however a massive government spending plan.
Here is some of what is currently in the plan:
- It creates 32 new federal programs, totaling $136 billion. (37 percent of the total cost)
- It expands 60 existing programs, mostly programs favored by the political left.
- It spends $6 billion in corporate welfare to help broadband companies get more customers.
- It spends $600 million to “prepare our country for universal healthcare”.
- It spends $1 billion on Amtrak.
- It spends $400 million on climate change research.
- It spends $50 million on the National Endowment for the Arts.
- It spends $3 billion on a new “prevention and wellness” fund, which includes $335 million for sexually transmitted disease education and prevention.
Every penny is passed on to our children and grandchildren in government debt and will undoubtedly lead to massive tax increases in the future.
This reckless spending is why I voted NO.
Now the bill goes to the Senate and later will come back to the House. As the process continues I will try and advance an alternative bill which I believe would unshackle the American economy and create millions of jobs.
Our plan calls for a smarter simpler stimulus plan with twice the jobs at half the cost. No waste, no delay, just jobs.
- A 20% tax cut for small business to create jobs.
- Across the board tax cuts for middle class families.
- Extend bonus depreciation on small business expenses to encourage investment.
- And, to help our neighbors who have been laid off, we want to eliminate income taxes on unemployment benefits.
This plan would stimulate the economy and create millions of new jobs.
I think most Americans know that cutting taxes on small business and middle class families will do more to stimulate the economy and create jobs than Nancy Pelosi’s massive borrowing and spending.I will try and keep you informed as the debate in Washington continues.
Sincerely,
Eric Cantor
Filed under: Everything Else
January 26, 2009 • 1:22 am 0
Extraordinary Uses for 16 Ordinary Household Items
Woman’s Day: Extraordinary Uses for 16 Ordinary Household Items By Woman’s Day
Filed under: Everything Else
January 23, 2009 • 5:03 am 0
The Cult of Obama and (?) Hockey (?)
*sigh*
Whoever designed this jersey should be forced to wear it in public. Every day. Wearing nothing else.
Filed under: Everything Else
January 21, 2009 • 6:20 pm 0
CNN Attempts Objectivity by Focusing on Obama’s Highly Deviant Wardrobe
When the topic is Obama, the media knows full well that its behavior has been worse than 12 year old groupies at a rock concert. So it’s almost amusing when it even hints the slightest criticism at Obama. WHy? Because it can’t even get that right.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/01/21/a-major-bush-rule-gets-scrapped-by-obama/#addcomment
A major Bush rule gets scrapped by Obama
It’s the same Oval Office. The same desk. Even the same curtains. But President Obama has already made one major change: Go through eight years of White House photos, and you won’t find one of former President Bush in the Oval Office without his jacket on.
It wasn’t just a personal preference. In the Bush administration, it was a rule: Jackets in the Oval Office — and now, it seems, one of the first Bush-era regulations to get scrapped in the Obama White House.
– CNN’s John King contributed to this “report.” [sarcastic punctuation marks added]
Barack Obama sans suit jacket. Commence impeachment proceedings pronto!
Filed under: Everything Else
January 19, 2009 • 6:50 pm 0
Quotes from “The Success Principles”
RWN: The Best Quotes From Jack Canfield’s “The Success Principles.” compiled by John Hawkins
Filed under: Everything Else
• 12:00 am 0
Job Losses Galore: NYC, LA, Miami, Chicago
Report: New York to lead US cities in job losses
Only five metropolitan areas in the U.S. will escape job losses this year, according to a forecast released Saturday by the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
New York is expected to take the biggest hit as thousands of jobs are lost on Wall Street. Big financial firms are slashing workers as they cope with bad debt. Other companies have gone under, like Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., which filed for bankruptcy in September.
The New York area is expected to lose 181,000 jobs in 2009, the report said. Consulting company IHS Global Insight produced the report for the group.
The Los Angeles area is expected to see 164,000 lost jobs, in part because of the huge drop in home prices that has punctured the California economy.
After New York and Los Angeles, the Miami area is expected to see the greatest loss, with a decline of 85,000 jobs. Chicago and the surrounding area are next, with losses projected at 80,000.
Unemployment is expected to top 10 percent in 70 areas, from already hard-hit cities like Detroit and Cleveland to places that had until recently been prosperous like the Riverside-San Bernardino area in California. Other big cities like Denver and St. Louis are expected to see unemployment rise above 9 percent.
Ithaca, N.Y.; Fairbanks, Alaska; and St. George, Utah, are among the handful of the nation’s 363 metropolitan areas expected to see employment remain flat or increase slightly.
Filed under: Everything Else
January 17, 2009 • 11:49 pm 0
Quote of the Day / Worst Quote of 2008
“The hard, cold, sad truth is that the mainstream media distort virtually every important issue of the day” — Selwyn Duke
And (one of) the worst quotes of 2008 comes via a racist money-hound at Planned Parenthood (well, aren’t they all?), also known as Ms. Autumn Kersey:
“Understandable, understandable.”
– Autumn Kersey, Planned Parent of Idaho, responding to a caller directing his donation to black [mothers], and saying, “You know, we just think, you know, the less black kids out there the better.”
In all fairness, with a first name like Autumn, the season where nature initiates the end of life, there shouldn’t be much wonder about her employment.
Filed under: Everything Else
• 8:56 pm 0
Michigan Economist: “Consumers Have Never Had It So Good. Ever. Anywhere.”
Carpe Diem: Despite Current Economic Slowdown, Consumers Have Never Had It So Good. Ever. Anywhere. by Dr. Mark J. Perry.
From a different post, here’s an interesting graph:
Filed under: Everything Else
January 15, 2009 • 11:36 pm 0
Help Stop the Push Toward Socialist Healthcare!
I sent signed the following e-mail to Congress via Citizens Against Government Waste:
You will soon consider legislation that would re-authorize the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), as well as expand it by raising the federal cigarette excise tax. I urge you to please oppose the expansion of SCHIP and any corresponding tax increases to pay for it.
With this year’s federal deficit predicted to reach $1.2 trillion, even before the enactment of a new economic stimulus package of as much as $1 trillion, and the nation facing overwhelming long-term financial liabilities under Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, we simply cannot afford a massive new healthcare entitlement.
Expanding the SCHIP income eligibility level from the current 200 percent of the federal poverty line (approx. $40,000 in annual income for a family of four) to 300 or even 400 percent of the federal poverty line (approx. $61,950 and $82,600 in annual income, respectively) would at the upper end make more than 71 percent of American children eligible for government-provided healthcare coverage.
Many of these children already have private health insurance, and the proposed expansion, which would increase cost of SCHIP from $25 billion to as much as $75 billion over five years, would shift the financial burden from the private sector onto taxpayers.
Most of the increased spending will come from a hike in the federal cigarette excise tax. Ironically, such excise taxes fall most heavily on the poor – exactly those who are supposed to benefit from the SCHIP expansion. With studies showing that raising cigarette taxes generates less revenue than expected because people stop smoking, I expect this to be just the first of many tax increases to come as SCHIP, like virtually every other entitlement program before it, ends up costing more than expected and sucking up increasing amounts of my tax dollars!
Frankly, the effort to expand SCHIP appears to be a backdoor, incremental attempt to impose a government-run, socialist healthcare system on me and all Americans. I strongly oppose such a system and again respectfully urge you to reject any expansion of SCHIP by increasing the federal cigarette excise tax, or any other taxes, to pay for it.
Filed under: Everything Else
• 8:58 pm 0
10 Reasons to Be Thankful
January 12, 2009 • 12:39 pm 0
With “Republicans” Like Bush, Who Needs Socialists?
Conservatives must take the Republican Party back and away from those who “chucked aside” the free market.
Bush the pre-socializer: “I readily concede I chucked aside my free-market principles” By Michelle Malkin
Also from Michelle Malkin, perhaps it is time to express some gratitude to W.
Kosovo shows its appreciation by naming a street after President Bush.
It’s better than a sewage plant.
Sorry to be a Grinch, but with his massive government bailout legacy hanging overhead, perhaps someone should name a bottomless pit after W.
A Grinch indeed, Michelle. Would we be much different from the San Francisco hippies who named a sewage plant after W.?
George W. Bush has stuck his neck out, his entire Presidency and legacy, to protect Americans. For that alone, he should be thanked and respected. Too bad that too few Americans will express any gratitude to him, Dick Cheney, or anyone else in their administration.
But I admit that Bush’s achievements begin to dwarf somewhat with his massive-government binge spending over the last few months and his open concession that he abandoned the free-market to save it. (Don’t bother trying to find any logic in that statement. There is none.)
It has been a long and bitter pill to swallow for any true conservative.
Filed under: Everything Else
January 11, 2009 • 10:01 am 0
The Latest Pig$ at the Trough
Public Radio and Public TV want a $550 million bailout by Michelle Malkin
Filed under: Everything Else, The Government Engineered Mortgage Crisis , bailouts, public radio, public tv
• 9:46 am 0
Why Obama Selected Sanjay Gupta for U.S. Surgeon General
If the campaign for nationalized health care is, as [Democrat Representative John] Conyers puts it, “done for” should [Sanjay] Gupta get the job, then anyone truly interested in public health should hope that Gupta is quickly ushered into his new job. The U.S. needs universal care like Canadians need even longer waits for treatment under their version of what Conyers, Krugman, Moore, et al. have in mind.
Filed under: Barack Obama / The Messiah, Everything Else, Socialized Health Care
January 9, 2009 • 12:45 am 0
Actual Headline: “Touch-screen gadgets alienate blind”
First of all, allow me to state, “No shit.”
Secondly, liberals (the tolerant souls who dominate the news media) have quite a talent for twisting any advancement in technology as bad news for SOMEONE. They also find it really convenient to ignore the hundreds of thousands or millions of people whose lives have been improved significantly.
Every advancement in technology has always harmed SOMEONE. Ask Smith-Corona how well their typewriters have been selling lately.
Touch-screen gadgets alienate blind by Sinead Carew; editing by Richard Chang
The craze for touch-screen gadgets, sparked by Apple Inc’s popular iPhone, is raising worries that a whole generation of consumer electronics will be out of the reach of the blind.
Motown icon Stevie Wonder and other advocates came to the world’s biggest gadget fest, the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, to convince vendors to consider the needs of the blind.
My deepest sympathies go to those who cannot see or have difficulty seeing. While I cannot imagine what it is like (thank you God) my best guess would be that it often can be quite a cross to bear. However, in this particular case, some common sense is in order.
Technology of any kind of expensive to develop. It will likely be geared towards those who can use it (i.e., buy it). If popular, then it would be totally appropriate to consider the needs of the blind.
Reuters: Why not wait to learn if touch technology is all it’s cracked up to be and then consider writing these victimology stories?
Filed under: Everything Else
January 8, 2009 • 11:35 am 0
“Ignorance is Our Most Costly Commodity” — Rush Limbaugh
Woman finds 139-year-old baseball card in box of antiques By ‘Duk
The strange story goes like this: Last summer, Bernice Gallego pulled an old baseball card from a box of antiques. She figured it might be worth something to someone, so she listed it on eBay.
The starting bid was $10.
But after getting a flurry of inquiries about whether the card was authentic or not, Gallego started to suspect she was holding something a little more valuable and immediately ended the auction.
Why isn’t this woman the CEO of General Motors, Ford, or Chrysler?
One need not be a baseball fan, a sports fan, or a baseball card fan to understand that any item that was produced in the mid-1800s is probably valuable regardless of what it is.
Filed under: Everything Else
January 1, 2009 • 2:22 pm 0
A Half Century of Castro’s Shadow on Cuba
Commemorating the continual erosion of a great nation thanks to the gross ignorance, the elitism, the ruthlessness of one Communist egomaniac and his henchmen.
God’s blessings on Cuban citizens and damn those who oppress them.
Cuba celebrates revolution’s 50th anniversary By ANITA SNOW
Filed under: Crazy liberals, Everything Else
December 29, 2008 • 5:17 pm 0
Bernard Madoff or U.S. Congress?
Star-Ledger: The Ponzi scheme that Baby Boomers are waiting to cash in on by Paul Mulshine
I think it is fair to say that 2008 has been the worst year in the history of the Republican Party. Every conservative columnist in America has weighed in with a theory on how to rescue the right. So here’s mine: Stop treating the young people of America the way Bernie Madoff treated his investors.
A lot of people have been comparing the Ponzi scheme allegedly run by Madoff to the Ponzi scheme run by the U.S. government, also known as Social Security.
That’s entirely unfair.
To Madoff.
From what I can gather, Madoff at least made an attempt to invest the money he got from early investors to give them the returns he promised. Those investments failed to bring in enough money and the scheme was doomed to fail sooner or later. But if Madoff had been a more brilliant investor, it might have worked.
The federal government, on the other hand, never tried to make the Social Security system work. The feds didn’t invest the money in the market. They took the money that we gave them and lent it to themselves, promising themselves interest. To be paid by themselves.
This scheme is even more crooked than Madoff’s. But try and explain that to adults, especially Baby Boomers. The math is complicated, but the typical boomer seems to understand that he or she is on the winning side of the curve in this scheme. We will get a good return on our Social Security payments and a fantastic return on our payments into Medicare.
But try talking to kids about it. I do so regularly, often in college classes that I visit.
Whenever I am before a class, I make it a point to tell the students the truth about Social Security. And the truth is that when the current crop of college kids are in their peak earning years, each will be supporting half a retiree. “I’ll be on the beach sipping a margarita and you’ll be paying my bills,” I tell the kids.
And maybe that was the point all along.
F.D.R.’s economic illiteracy will ruin us.
Filed under: Everything Else
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