The Party Of Taxes, And The Party Of Tax Relief

President Bush;
"Unless Congress acts, most of the tax relief we have given over the past 7 years will be taken away. Some one in Washington said that "Letting a tax relief expire is not a tax increase." Try explaining that to 116 million American Taxpayers who will see their taxes rise by an average of $1,800.
...With all the other pressures from their finances American families should not have to worry about the Federal Government taking a bigger bite out of their paychecks. There's only one way to eliminate this uncertainty; Make the tax relief permanent."

At these words, one party stood and cheered (as well as many in the crowd above) and one party sat quietly in a display of protest to the suggestion.



H/T: Hot Air

NASCAR: How I Got It Bad

Trouble in Turn 2 has a cool post about how he got hooked on NASCAR, so I figured I'd follow through with my own remarkably simple version.

I literally grew up loving racing. Some of my earliest memories are of my dad and I going to what is now Music City Motorplex, to watch the local racers duke it out in the Late Models, Powder Puffs, Legends, Mini-Modifieds, and other divisions.

Usually once a year my dad and I would either drive up to Bristol, or Atlanta (when it was a regular oval) to watch the Busch or ARCA Series on that Saturday. I got to watch Charlie Glotzbach race in the ARCA series as well as when Michael Waltrip took a very nasty hit into the crossover gate at Bristol that tore his car in half at the firewall.

Following my dad, the black 3 was my driver of choice. His reason was simply, "At the time he was the only guy that could beat Bill Elliot," and that was good enough for me.

I still go to the Fairgrounds, and at some point I want to go to the Daytona 500, The Food City 500 at Bristol, and maybe a race at Atlanta since I may be moving to that area after school.

I love NASCAR, and once mid November comes around, I'm already looking forward to Speed Weeks in February. And this year with Joe Gibbs driving Toyota's, I can't express how excited I am about that. In a house of all Toyota's, it was a great day when they announced they were joining the cup.

I Finally Got Around To It

So I joined the Blogger Lose-A-Thon, but procrastinated/didn't have an accurate scale to weigh myself on until now.

While in Atlanta for a week and a half there was no scale to be weighed on, and at my parents the only scale there bounces between 56 and 105....neither of which are my weight. So finally after playing racquetball with my room mate I weiged in.


147 Pounds


That's about what I figured. And being 5'6" that puts my BMI at about the 23.5% range which the 147 pounds doesn't sound like much until you see that at 25% you're considered overweight, which for my size is at 155 pounds. So my goal is to get off my tail and get down to about 140, preferably 135 for the end of the contest in June.

I know I'm not going to win, and I know Wyatt and everyone is going to be seething at me for being so small, but....

Oh well.

Words Of Wisdom From Wells Fargo

I subscribe to Wells Fargo's Daily Advantage, a daily recap of the market's movement. Usually it is garbage can fodder, but every so often there as moments of grandeur, like this one.

The stock market is in a bumpy patch, but I'm going to sleep well tonight as usual. Here's why: My wife Kathy and I are very broadly invested in stocks, bonds, and cash in a way that we think roughly represents the U.S. economy. That means that as the economy goes, so go our investments. With the economy slowing down and maybe even entering a recession, we fully expect that our nest egg might stop growing for a while and maybe even shrink. So what? We also believe the economy will sooner or later resume its growth as it has after every downturn for the past 200 years. Why should this time be different? When the economy starts growing again, so will our investments. (Indeed, our nest egg may never stop growing, but that remains to be seen.)

About the only way Kathy and I could lose our savings is if the economy goes away, and I don't see how that could happen. It's a $3.2 trillion economy. Where would it go? Americans love to work and work hard. We make stuff or we provide services and then we take our compensation and spend it. That's the economy in a nutshell. And it's not going to stop. In fact, with the population growing and our productivity increasing, the economy will get bigger in the future. So we've bet on the long-term growth of the American economy and nothing that has happened in recent months suggests our bet is misplaced.

That's not to say we never do anything with our investments. We rebalance when growth of one sector or another alters our intended allocation. And if we thought there was a massive readjustment ahead, we might change our allocation. We moved some money out of stocks and into bonds in January 2000 just before the tech bubble burst and that move preserved some value for us. But we don't see any distortions like the tech bubble in our portfolio today. And while the recent downturn has been marked by dramatic losses to some firms and a lot of psychological angst, otherwise it's a pretty ordinary correction so far. So, as I was saying, long-term investors sleep better. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

A huge amen to Wells Fargo's Peter Nulty!

It's true. If you look at the Dow Jones Industrial Average, for about the last 80 years, if you look at any date along the line, 10 years prior to that point the market will have been lower, and 10 years after that point the market will be up.

Another great quote from Dave Ramsey on CNN is summarized in this;
"A Recession is defined as 2 consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth, and over the past decades economists have predicted 20 of the last 3 recessions."

Possible Big News From The Huck Camp?

Flying Space Monkey speculates that due to Thompson taking votes away from Huck's base, Huckabee may withdraw from the Primaries.

That would be freakin sweet! Heh! Heh! Heh! Heh!

D.I.Y. Despair

I love despair.com. The site has the most amazingly funny demotivators. But the best part? A Do It Yourself Demotivator!

I was looking into politics (big surprise huh?) and thought, "I want to make one about my new favorite target to shoot flak at;"
The "I'm not the conservative you think I am" candidate from Arkansas, Mike Huckabee.

But alas, when I found the perfect picture, I drew a big blank!

So my task to you is this;
Give me a word, and a demotivator for the following picture. I will hold the contest until Wed. Jan 23rd, and should have the poster up by the next day.



I (and possibly my panel of judges) will select the winner, at which point, I will make the demotivator, and post it as a sticky post until Super Tuesday (Feb 5th), or beyond!

Here's my example:
RHINO - Not just a big gray animal.

ENTRIES SO FAR (not in the comments):

RFTR;
"PROPAGANDA - What lies behind us and lies before us are small matters compared to what lies right to our faces."

Mr. Right;
"CLEMENCY - Because murderous thugs deserve another chance to kill."
"I *Heart* HUCKABEE... Not!"
"HUCK - Sometimes rhyming words aren't just a coincidence, they're a warning!"

Jason Slagle (Mmmm Pizza!!)
QUIXOTIC - Just because your pursuit is hopelessly futile, doesn't mean your objective is noble.

Slumbering Behemoth (MAJOR thanks for the spinoff link from LGF!!!);
PRESIDENTIAL PARDONS - Because 1,033 violent & free criminals is just not enough

And although they're not related to the Huckster, these are really funny. H/T to RFTR for them.
































































This contest wouldn't be much of a success if it weren't for Harvey of Bad Example/IMAO and the links he gave from IMAO. So if you have time, be sure to visit his blog!

More GOP & College here

Because I See A Lot Of Huckabee Fans

You really should see this article that was posted about his so called "Tax cuts"

Yes there were over 90 of them, but they totaled all of 378 Million dollars. That's a pretty good chunk of change, until you look at his tax hikes.

There were a total of only 21 tax hikes, but they totaled $883.1 Million dollars in increased taxes, and gave a net tax increase of $933 per person in just 8 years in office, an increase of 47% from the starting point of $1,969 per person in state and local taxes.

The Club for Growth, a PAC that seeks economic freedom in candidates rates Mike Huckabee as very poor on not only taxes, but spending, entitlements, government regulations, mediocre at school choice, and only one plus was at tort reform.

Governor Huckabee's record on pro-growth, free-market policies is a mixed bag, with pro-growth positions on trade and tort reform, mixed positions on school choice, political speech, and entitlement reform, and profoundly anti-growth positions on taxes, spending, and government regulation.

While Governor Huckabee's record displays some flashes of economic conservatism, especially during his early years, the overwhelming evidence of his record and rhetoric over the past ten years leaves the Club for Growth and economic conservatives around the country to wonder if a President Huckabee would espouse the relatively pro-growth policies of Governor Huckabee circa 1997 or the anti-growth policies of Governor Huckabee circa 2004. While the Governor has made a concerted effort to defend his record, calling oneself an economic conservative does not make one so. His recent refusals to rule out raising taxes if elected President-the cornerstone of a pro-growth platform-perhaps indicate which path he would choose.

Over the past ten months, it has become abundantly clear which path Governor Huckabee has chosen, and it looks more like the path of John Edwards than it does a limited-government, economic conservative. Huckabee himself admits that he is a "different kind of Republican," a code word for more government involvement, less personal freedom, and greater dependence on government bureaucrats. Huckabee is proud of his tax hikes, his spending increases, and his regulatory expansions as governor, and he has not indicated that he would govern any differently as President. Nominating Mike Huckabee for president or vice-president, would constitute an abject rejection of the free-market, limited-government, economic conservatism that has been the unifying theme of the Republican Party for decades. - Club for Growth

Mike Huckabee reminds me of Bob Corker; He looks nice and shiny on the outside, but if you start to scratch the surface, you find a lot of crap. Huckabee has taken notes from former Arkansas governor turned President Bill Clinton, and has told conservatives what they want to hear. The only problem is they are so fixated on his evangelical background that they forgot to look at his voting records.

Of other candidates, Club for Growth states;

Fred Thompson

Senator Thompson's eight-year record in the U.S. Senate demonstrates an admirable commitment to limited government and free-market principles. His record on entitlement reform and school choice is excellent, while his support for lower taxes and free trade is very good. On Social Security reform in particular, Thompson courageously supported personal accounts at a time when few politicians were willing to risk their necks taking on the third rail of American politics.

His record on spending (save the occasional pork project) is generally impressive, as demonstrated by his votes to restrict the growth and reach of the federal government. On regulation, too, Thompson voted generally against government intrusion in the private sector. Many Republican politicians talk about limited government and the principle of federalism but Thompson exemplified those ideas, often voting against bills that would have made it easy for a political opponent to paint him in a negative light.

While this strong federalist philosophy casts a redemptive light on his opposition to tort reform, it does not fully excuse or explain a number of his votes. His persistent federalism also makes his role in the passage of McCain-Feingold all the more disappointing. It is difficult to reconcile Thompson's fervent belief in a limited government with his enthusiasm for increasing government regulation on political speech. Thompson has never adequately addressed this contradiction and will have to do so. His recent doubts over the legislation's efficacy are encouraging, least of all because all politicians make mistakes, and rare are those willing to admit their own.

John McCain

While John McCain can easily point to a handful of pro-growth votes over his twenty-four years in Congress, a deeper look at Senator McCain's record and rhetoric, especially in recent years, ought to give American taxpayers a long and hard pause.

To give credit where it's due, John McCain's record on spending, school choice, and free trade is extremely positive. His go-it-alone moralism sometimes results in pro-growth policies, as is the case in his anti-pork crusades. However, this moralism often manifests itself in the form of more government, less freedom, and a distrust of the individual and the free market system. This is dramatically the case in his opposition to the Bush tax cuts, his class-warfare rhetoric, his occasional support for large-scale increased government regulation, his willingness to raise Social Security taxes, and of course, his abysmal record on political free speech.

Senator McCain's outspoken pursuit of anti-growth and anti-free-market policies in the realms of taxes, regulation, and campaign finance reveals a philosophical ambivalence, if not hostility, about limited government and personal freedom. This ambivalence, combined with a rebellious nature, often leaves taxpayers the victims of his latest cause célèbre. Despite his positive votes-and there are several-his negative positions have tainted, perhaps beyond repair, the positive ones over his twenty-four years in Congress. The evidence of his record and the virulence of his rhetoric suggest that American taxpayers cannot expect consistently strong economic policies from a McCain administration.

Rudy Giuliani

There is no doubt that Rudy Giuliani took some anti-growth positions over his eight years as mayor of America's largest city. From his support for extending income tax surcharges, to his affinity for corporate welfare projects, to his vocal opposition to NAFTA, there are undoubtedly some stains on Giuliani's fiscal record.

However, any exploration of a municipal executive record has to be colored by the unique context in which that record is achieved. Some of Giuliani's positions are understandable given the liberal constituency he represented-such as his support for New York City rent control; others-like his support for McCain-Feingold and the 2003 Medicare Prescription Drug Plan-are not. In New York City, Rudy Giuliani governed a locality that was thoroughly dominated by liberal Democrats; public sector labor unions; social welfare activists; and a powerful local news media actively hostile to a limited-government philosophy. In the face of such tremendous headwind, Giuliani's fiscal accomplishments are remarkable.

Despite powerful local obstacles, Giuliani was able to significantly cut taxes; hold spending increases down below the rates of inflation and population growth; overhaul the welfare system; deregulate and privatize many local government services; and join the fight for school choice. These accomplishments played a crucial role in transforming New York City from an economic basket case into a thriving economy.

The most important question is what Giuliani's mayoral tenure tells us about how he would govern if elected president. The answer is not clear cut, as some of his local positions are worrisome and some of his federal positions are still unknown. Nonetheless, one cannot help but conclude that if Giuliani could accomplish the pro-growth record he did in the hostile environment of New York City, the potential for him to accomplish even more amid the more politically balanced federal government is great.

Mitt Romney

As Massachusetts Governor, Mitt Romney's record on economic issues was generally good. He demonstrated a willingness to take on his Legislature and deserves credit for the many pro-growth measures he advocated and the modest reforms he was able to achieve. While his record on taxes, spending and entitlement reform is flawed, it is, on balance, encouraging, especially given the liberal Massachusetts Legislature. His record on trade, school choice, regulations, and tort reform all indicate a strong respect for the power of market solutions.

At the same time, Governor Romney's history is marked by statements at odds with his gubernatorial record and his campaign rhetoric. His strident opposition to the flat tax; his refusal to endorse the Bush tax cuts in 2003; his support for various minor tax hikes; and his once-radically bad views on campaign finance reform all cast some doubts on the extent and durability of his commitment to limited-government, pro-growth policies. His landmark steps in the health care arena also exhibit a mixture of desirable pro-free market efforts combined with a regrettable willingness to accept, if not embrace, a massive new regulatory regime. Nevertheless, given his outstanding private sector entrepreneurial experience; the strong pro-growth positions he has taken on the campaign trail; his overall record as governor; and the fact that the U.S. Congress will not be as liberal as the Massachusetts Legislature, we are reasonably optimistic that, as President, Mitt Romney would generally advocate a pro-growth agenda.

Ron Paul

When it comes to limited government, there are few champions as steadfast and principled as Representative Ron Paul. In the House of Representatives, he plays a very useful role constantly challenging the status quo and reminding his colleagues, despite their frequent indifference, that our Constitution was meant to limit the power of government. On taxes, regulation, and political free speech his record is outstanding. While his recent pork votes are troubling, the vast majority of his anti-spending votes reflect a longstanding desire to cut government down to size.

But Ron Paul is a purist, too often at the cost of real accomplishments on free trade, school choice, entitlement reform, and tort reform. It is perfectly legitimate, and in fact vital, that think tanks, free-market groups, and individual members of congress develop and propose idealized solutions. But presidents have the responsibility of making progress, and often, Ron Paul opposes progress because, in his mind, the progress is not perfect. In these cases, although for very different reasons, Ron Paul is practically often aligned with the most left-wing Democrats, voting against important, albeit imperfect, pro-growth legislation.

Ron Paul is, undoubtedly, ideologically committed to pro-growth limited government policies. But his insistence on opposing all but the perfect means that under a Ron Paul presidency we might never get a chance to pursue the good too.

And of course, the Democrats are absolutely appalling.

Hillary Clinton, Barak Obama, and John Edwards are nearly identical in their opposition to economic freedom and their determination to expand the size of government. If they showed any glimmer of moderation in the Senate, their recent rhetoric and policy proposals leave no doubt as to their desire to move the Democratic Party leftward on economic issues. They often seem locked in a three-way battle to see who can be the most anti-growth in their economic policies. More often than not, John Edwards wins that designation, outdoing Clinton and Obama in inflammatory rhetoric and in big-government policy proposals, truly mastering the art of class-warfare politics. That said, the differences between the trio are merely variations on the same theme. All three have backed and are proposing policies that would prove disastrous for economic growth in this country.

Bill Richardson is clearly more pro-growth than his opponents and not prone to the kind of demagogic pronouncements that we so often hear from the other Democrats. As governor, he demonstrated that he understands -- at least on a basic level -- that less government and lower taxes can lead to increased economic growth. While in Congress, Richardson also had a better record on spending, trade, and tort reform than his rivals for the presidential nomination. Yet, Richardson is not running as a pro-economic growth Democrat in the mold of John F. Kennedy. He has spent little time boasting about his net tax cuts as governor or talking about the importance of free trade.

It is a shame none of these candidates have learned from the successes of Kennedy, who enacted pro-growth tax policies, and President Bill Clinton, who enacted pro-growth trade policies. The Kennedy tax cuts and the Clinton trade policies greatly expanded opportunity, created new jobs, and created wealth that benefited all Americans. There is no rule that says Democrats cannot support pro-growth policies, and there is a real dearth in the party for just that kind of Democrat.

A Bit More Than Slightly Disturbing

I will start off by saying that I have never been a Ron Paul supporter, and have had my doubts about him since the beginning of the debates in the mid/late part of last year. Frankly, I find Congressman Paul's Foreign Policy (Read:Isolationism) is naive and would not hold up, as it hasn't in the past. But TNR has found some very disturbing letters that were released under Ron Paul's name for many years while he was out of office. Congressman Paul claims that he has nothing to do with those articles, and states, "For over a decade, I have publicly taken moral responsibility for not paying closer attention to what went out under my name."

But I find that a bit more than hard to believe.

I noticed something odd while looking at a commenter(#163) at the TNR site who claimed that the TNR writers were making a cop's words appear to be Cong. Paul's own. I was going to respond that the point isn't what the police officer said, so much as the paragraph after that. It is implied that the cop was saying that if you need to use a gun against a (presumably black) carjacking youth, then you should clean the gun and dispose of it. The next paragraph is obviously not a continuation of the quote from the officer as it states, "I frankly don't know what to make of such advice, but even in my little town of Lake Jackson, Texas I've urged everyone in my family to know how to use a gun in self defense. For the animals are coming."

Lake Jackson, Texas? That is the home of Congressman Paul, and has been such (I would assume) since 1968 when he moved to Texas. This letter was written in 1992, 6 years after Ron Paul left Congress, and 4 yearts before he returned in 1996. I find it VERY hard to believe that this letter, or any other of the appalling letters that were found by TNR were not edited or known of by Congressman Paul if they were written in his HOME TOWN.

PJ Media has a lot of soundbite type excerpts, but to get a real view of the articles, be sure to check out TNR's findings, as well as the follow-up articles written by HotAir here and here. It's some pretty creepy stuff. I have some Paul supporters at school that I would like to ask their opinion on these things.

Make That 0-9

Ohio State was 0-8 against SEC teams going into the BCS Championship game last night. But now they're 0-9 after LSU thuroughly proved that they deserved to be in the title game. The final score was 38-24, but after going up 10-0 over LSU, then falling behind 24-10 at halftime, Ohio State could not close the 14 point gap.

The polls show that they deserve their rank as well. They not only beat the number one team, they made it look easy, and gained 60 of 65 number one votes, with Georgia finishing 2nd with 3 votes after mauling Hawaii, and USC getting one vote in third, and Kansas got one in 7th.

The game was exactly how it was last year. Ohio State gets lost of hype and comes out all guns blazing. Then they just hit a brick wall, and never recovered. I thought it was very amusing how the announcers were all over "How great OSU looked" after the first half, then it was nothing but LSU compliments for the rest of the night. This game improved the SEC's record in the title game to 4-0 since the inception of the BCS in 1998.

Ohio State scored first with a 65 yard rush, and LSU was forced to punt after a botched audible turned snap pushed the Tigers back inside their 15 yard line on a long 4th down. OSU drove the ball and managed 3 points out of a 25 yard kick with 9:30 left in the 1st, and that's where the Buckeye momentum collapsed. LSU answered with a field goal followed by 3 more touchdowns in the second quarter, and the key point was two fold; The blocked 37 yard field goal, and an interception on the following OSU drive which led to 14 points for LSU.

The second half didn't start much better for the Buckeyes because LSU got the kickoff, and with the help of 2 critical personal foul calls on OSU they made the score 31-10. Then finally after thirty-seven and a half minutes Ohio State finally scored again with 2 minutes left in the 3rd quarter. Then two costly turnovers, a fumble that gave LSU 21 yards their way, and an interception stopped any momentum that Ohio State had built.

LSU scored again to make it 38-17, and after a VERY audible "SEC! SEC! SEC!" chant at 1:43 left, Ohio State added a meaningless TD with under a minute and a half left in the game to give it the final score of 38-24.

It was a weird season, but you earned it Tigers. Hold that trophy high!


Some BCS notes:
LSU is the only undefeated team with more than 2 appearnces in a BCS game at 4-0
The SEC has the best BCS record at 11-4 of teams with more than one appearance (MWC is 1-0 from the 2005 Fiesta Bowl)
The PAC 10 is only 8-4 in BCS games
Th SEC had the best bowl record this year at 7-2, and also had the most teams in a bowl with 9
Big Ten has the most appearances at 16, but are only 8-8
The ACC has the worst record at 1-9

A Lesson In Fluid Mechanics & Aerodynamics For Neal Boortz

Here's the myth;
A plane is sitting on a conveyor belt pointing This way ---->

The conveyor belt begins to move the other way. <-----

The myth states that the plane will take off, and Neal Boortz adamently agrees.

I very much disagree. The myth states that the wheels of the plane and the conveyor belt are going the same speed in opposite directions. The plane itself will be stationary compared to the ground, and the wind that it needs in order to take off.

The net velocity of the plane and the wind must be the take off velocity in order for the plane to lift off. For example, if the take off velocity of a plane is 100 miles per hour, the velocity of the plane minus the velocity of the wind (Positive if the wind is a tailwind, and negative if it's a head wind, hence why planes usually take off INTO the wind) has to equal the take off velocity. Therefore a plane traveling 95 miles per hour into a 5 mph head wind is going to take off.

Flight is possible because of a concept explained by the Bernoulli Principle. It states this;
"An increase in velocity is associated with a decrease in pressure, and a decrease in velocity is associated with an increase in pressure." The concept of flight is that an airfoil has a longer distance over the top side of the wing than it does on the bottom. The air flowing over the top has to flow faster then the air on the bottom side of the wing. Since the air has the same density, same static pressure, and a negligable change in potential energy due to height change, the pressure on the top of the wing is lower than the pressure on the top side of the wing. Then you multiply that pressure difference by the surface area of the wing to get the amount of lift.

If the plane is not moving, there will be no air flow over the wings, and no lift.

The only way a plane could take off from a conveyor belt is if it were stationary (relative to the conveyor belt) or if it were bein g propelled in the same direction as the belt.

Look at these pictures to see what I mean.































Neal, I will be laughing at you all day on Jan 31st.

Hmmm

With 2008 now here, I've got HUGE plans for the year. In August, I will don a cap and gown to graduate from Tennessee Tech University with my mechanical engineering degree, emphasising in energy systems. Then a few months after that, the college-ette and I will be tying the knot, which I am very excited about. And at some point near the end of the year we are planning our honeymoon to either St. Lucia or Jamaica.

But there's something else I'm tempted to do. Sssteve has challenged Wyatt, who then gathered 2 more contestants RT, and Grimjack, in a contest to lose weight, as a percentage of body weight. At first I thought, "Oh that's cool for them." Then I thought..."Hmmm...Should I?"

I'm sure they'll all want to kill me for being at 145 pounds, but then again, I'm only about 5'7, and have gained at least 10 pounds in the past couple years due to "not having time with classes and my co-op to get to the gym," (read: being lazy) which equates to about a 10% increase in my weight, and it would be nice to not have that when I tie the knot and go to the beach.

I may just join the match not to win, but just to motivate myself to become more active before my events happen this year.

The battle starts...well, yesterday, and runs to June 30th, so a full 6 months to see who can lose the most percentage of their weight. So if you want some strong motivation to lose weight....join the battle and fight for the win.

Let's Get Something Strait Here

I'm sick of all the sports "analysts" blaming the USC Trojans loss to Stanford on John David Booty's broken finger, saying that it made it so that he couldn't play well.

Bull S@&#!!!

Let's look at the game's statistics shall we?

Booty was 24/40 on passing with 364 yards in the air, including 2 Touchdowns. Hardly a "bad day" when you look at that. Pritchard on the other hand was only 11/30 for 149 yards.

USC racked up almost 460 yards of offense in that game compared to only 235 by Stanford. They key was the 4 interceptions that Booty threw. Three of them were thrown when the Trojans were right around the USC 35 yard line, one of which was run all the way back for a touchdown.

By all accounts USC should have man-handled Stanford, but they came in over confident and under prepared, and they paid for it. You can't blame it on something like a broken finger when the numbers clearly show another story. Stanford's defense simply played better than The Trojans.