GOP and College

I've moved!

2008-09-08T17:31:00.004-06:00

In more than one way!

The long wait is over, and I can officially say I am no longer GOP & College. I received my Mechanical Engineering Degree on August 2nd, and have since moved down to Atlanta where I am working as a Process Engineer.

I have also moved my web address...

I created a new blog, Red State, Blue City. So GOPAC will stay here for reference purposes, but I'm going to be posting at RSBC from now on!

See you there!

Oh Yeah...

2008-07-25T10:31:00.004-06:00

As a slight update on the site, the countdown to the day when the title "GOP & College" becomes obsolete is almost here!

I graduate with my Bachelor's of Science in Mechanical Engineering on August 2nd at 10 AM!

Money Trail Points To Media Bias

2008-07-25T08:02:00.003-06:00

The split between the words of comfort that large media companies give, claiming no bias, and what happens with their political donations are two completely different things.

Although the media continually claims neutrality, studies have repeatedly shown the opposite to be true, and this one adds more fuel to the fire.

A total of a little more than $315,500 of money goes to Democrats, while only a bit over $22,500 went to Republicans.

Of that statistic, 4 journalists donated directly to John McCain, 80 donated directly to Barack Obama. Among strictly Journalists, there were 235 donations by journalists to Democrats in general, and 20 who went to the Republican Party. In the media as a whole, including anchors, and such showed a similar pattern at 311 to Democrats, 30 to Republicans

Looking deeper, the majority of Republican donations went to Ron Paul, who is flaunted by many liberals, and to Rudy Giuliani, Mayor of New York City. No statistic was given about how many of the Democrat Donations were towards Hillary Clinton though.

Will Franklin has the same thoughts.

Senator McCain's Editorial Rejected By The New York Times

2008-07-21T10:26:00.003-06:00

Here is a direct transcript of the Editorial (a direct rebuttal of Obama's editorial) that was declined publishing by the NYT.

In January 2007, when General David Petraeus took command in Iraq, he called the situation “hard” but not “hopeless.” Today, 18 months later, violence has fallen by up to 80% to the lowest levels in four years, and Sunni and Shiite terrorists are reeling from a string of defeats. The situation now is full of hope, but considerable hard work remains to consolidate our fragile gains.

Progress has been due primarily to an increase in the number of troops and a change in their strategy. I was an early advocate of the surge at a time when it had few supporters in Washington. Senator Barack Obama was an equally vocal opponent. "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there,” he said on January 10, 2007. “In fact, I think it will do the reverse."

Now Senator Obama has been forced to acknowledge that “our troops have performed brilliantly in lowering the level of violence.” But he still denies that any political progress has resulted.

Perhaps he is unaware that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has recently certified that, as one news article put it, “Iraq has met all but three of 18 original benchmarks set by Congress last year to measure security, political and economic progress.” Even more heartening has been progress that’s not measured by the benchmarks. More than 90,000 Iraqis, many of them Sunnis who once fought against the government, have signed up as Sons of Iraq to fight against the terrorists. Nor do they measure Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s new-found willingness to crack down on Shiite extremists in Basra and Sadr City—actions that have done much to dispel suspicions of sectarianism.

The success of the surge has not changed Senator Obama’s determination to pull out all of our combat troops. All that has changed is his rationale. In a New York Times op-ed and a speech this week, he offered his “plan for Iraq” in advance of his first “fact finding” trip to that country in more than three years. It consisted of the same old proposal to pull all of our troops out within 16 months. In 2007 he wanted to withdraw because he thought the war was lost. If we had taken his advice, it would have been. Now he wants to withdraw because he thinks Iraqis no longer need our assistance.

To make this point, he mangles the evidence. He makes it sound as if Prime Minister Maliki has endorsed the Obama timetable, when all he has said is that he would like a plan for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops at some unspecified point in the future.

Senator Obama is also misleading on the Iraqi military's readiness. The Iraqi Army will be equipped and trained by the middle of next year, but this does not, as Senator Obama suggests, mean that they will then be ready to secure their country without a good deal of help. The Iraqi Air Force, for one, still lags behind, and no modern army can operate without air cover. The Iraqis are also still learning how to conduct planning, logistics, command and control, communications, and other complicated functions needed to support frontline troops.

No one favors a permanent U.S. presence, as Senator Obama charges. A partial withdrawal has already occurred with the departure of five “surge” brigades, and more withdrawals can take place as the security situation improves. As we draw down in Iraq, we can beef up our presence on other battlefields, such as Afghanistan, without fear of leaving a failed state behind. I have said that I expect to welcome home most of our troops from Iraq by the end of my first term in office, in 2013.

But I have also said that any draw-downs must be based on a realistic assessment of conditions on the ground, not on an artificial timetable crafted for domestic political reasons. This is the crux of my disagreement with Senator Obama.

Senator Obama has said that he would consult our commanders on the ground and Iraqi leaders, but he did no such thing before releasing his “plan for Iraq.” Perhaps that’s because he doesn’t want to hear what they have to say. During the course of eight visits to Iraq, I have heard many times from our troops what Major General Jeffrey Hammond, commander of coalition forces in Baghdad, recently said: that leaving based on a timetable would be “very dangerous.”

The danger is that extremists supported by Al Qaeda and Iran could stage a comeback, as they have in the past when we’ve had too few troops in Iraq. Senator Obama seems to have learned nothing from recent history. I find it ironic that he is emulating the worst mistake of the Bush administration by waving the “Mission Accomplished” banner prematurely.

I am also dismayed that he never talks about winning the war—only of ending it. But if we don’t win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president. Instead I will continue implementing a proven counterinsurgency strategy not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan with the goal of creating stable, secure, self-sustaining democratic allies.

H/T; Drudge

To People Who Are Planning On Voting With Their Wallet...

2008-07-19T09:02:00.005-06:00

I just wanted to give a reminder to everyone who is thinking about voting Democrat this election cycle because they feel that Obama will do things to give them more money.

The average Tax Freedom Day of Democrat states is 10 days later than the average Republican state. Just think about the affect on your finances losing 2 weeks of pay could do when you push that button on Election Day.
This information is for 2006, but TaxFoundation.org has the data for 2008 out as well.

Just Breaking, Iranian Fauxtography Scandal

2008-07-10T09:24:00.004-06:00

Malkin posted the story less than 30 minutes ago, but it has been building for some time now.

At least some of the images provided by the Iranian government about the missile launches this week have been shown to be FAKES. And looking at some of the images, I have my doubts that the images provided in so many papers were even from this year.

Looking at Snapped Shot, I notice something about the altered photo, and the image from 2006. They both have one legitimate rocket with a yellowish exhaust trail, surrounded by missiles with a white exhaust trail. This makes me wonder if the "Launch pictures" from this week are merely recirculated images from 2006.

Unfortunately there aren't enough ground features to determine if this is the case since the angle that pictures were taken from are so different. My suspicion is that the image from 2008 is simply a picture of the two furthest left rockets, and the yellow smoke rocket from a different angle, with the addition of a horribly faked 4th rocket, but without further in depth research, I can't be sure.

Kaminger shows reason to think otherwise, as the 2006 image did in fact show up almost unaltered again this week.

H/T: Malkin, Snapped Shot

Psssssssssssst! IT'S FANTASY FOOTBALL TIME!!!!

2008-07-08T10:59:00.003-06:00

HWC Football is taking on managers.

The league limit is only at 12( possibly up to14), so GET IN HERE NOW!

Those already in;
Myself
The Man
J Wookie
Hector Vex
Trench Coat Reynolds
Mr. Pigg

Past year competitors (that need to join)
Wyatt
bRight & Early
RFTR
webcats
Jerk Store
Lawhawk
Pat from T(v)RWC

Saddam Did Have The Ability To Produce Nuclear Materials

2008-07-08T08:20:00.002-06:00

How do we know? Because 550 metric tons of Saddam's Yellow Cake Uranium just made it safely to Canada.

The intended use for this cake is merely speculation, but it does show that there was a very large amount of radioactive material available to use as he desired. However it is important to note that Saddam was very vocal in the 1990's about getting information and technology to be able to produce weapons grade enriched uranium. Also to be noted is that after the end of the Gulf War where Saddam signed a treaty to dismantle/render harmless all WMD's, there were 40 nuclear research facilities, including 3 Uranium enrichment sites that were completely hidden for over 7 years from the outside world.

Not only was Saddam very effective at concealing his intentions, but he was also moderately effective at concealing the physical aspects of his intentions. This, after all, is the guy whose air-force went missing for almost 5 months before discovering them buried under more than 10 feet of sand, right under the Coalition Force's nose. Who knows what could lie 100 or more feet below the Iraqi sand.

The Final Knock-Out Punch

2008-07-08T08:10:00.002-06:00

Did anyone in the US hear this from a major news source?

American and Iraqi forces are driving Al-Qaeda in Iraq out of its last redoubt in the north of the country in the culmination of one of the most spectacular victories of the war on terror.
After being forced from its strongholds in the west and centre of Iraq in the past two years, Al-Qaeda’s dwindling band of fighters has made a defiant “last stand” in the northern city of Mosul.
A huge operation to crush the 1,200 fighters who remained from a terrorist force once estimated at more than 12,000 began on May 10.
Operation Lion’s Roar, in which the Iraqi army combined forces with the Americans’ 3rd Armoured Cavalry Regiment, has already resulted in the death of Abu Khalaf, the Al-Qaeda leader, and the capture of more than 1,000 suspects.
... American and Iraqi leaders believe that while it would be premature to write off Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the Sunni group has lost control of its last urban base in Mosul and its remnants have been largely driven into the countryside to the south.

Perhaps the military wanted to keep it hush-hush, but something tells me that it may not be the case. I think some one needs to put this report on Barack Obama's desk. Maybe then he'll realize we're not losing there, and need to stay until the job is done.

H/T Instapundit, (via Hot Air)

Epic Fail

2008-06-23T22:09:00.001-06:00

From ShipmentOfFail.com

ROFLZ!

The Reddest of Meat

2008-06-23T12:05:00.002-06:00

Serve this up to the dogs shall we? Pure oxygen pumped in a sealed package doesn't produce meat this red.

The line "We only want to hear your opinion if we agree with it," seems so lacking in this situation. Especially when the average temperature of the Earth last year dropped to the extent that scientists around the world are now warning of Global Cooling...again.

Scott Kalitta Dies In Funny Car Wreck

2008-06-21T17:09:00.005-06:00

During the 4th round of qualifying this afternoon Scott Kalitta's engine exploded, and before the car could get slowed down, his car ran into a barricade at the top of the track going at what can only be described as a VERY high speed.
Scott's engine exploded shortly before the finish line and the speed trap measured his speed at 300 MPH, and from there until the impact with the barricade, no sign of braking could be seen.

Drag racing is a highly dangerous sport, and the NHRA has unfortunately had the loss of 2 drivers in as many years. Eric Medlen passed away last year during a test session, and now Scott Kalitta has passed away during an event.

Scott, the son of legendary NHRA driver Connie Kalitta, was 46 years old, and is survived by his wife Kathy and 2 sons, Corey and Colin.

ESPN2's coverage of the event included this clip of the accident, but I must warn you, as they do in the video; this video shows the wreck that ended his life, and if you are the kind of person who would scream "Oh my god," at a shocking video, you may not want to watch it.

How To Speak Democrat

2008-06-21T14:01:00.002-06:00

Hot Air has a great video from the Congressional Floor from this week. It sucks though that they missed John Shimkus ripping into Democrats and more over Nancy Pelosi for not allowing a bill to open the Continental Shelf for oil drilling; one that 67% of Americans agree with, according to a recent poll.

Here's a bit of what he said.

So now we find ourselves in a dilemma. It's Economics 101. It's supply and demand. Limited supply, increased demand, higher prices.

Here's the problem. January 2001, the price of a barrel of crude oil was $23, just 7 years ago. When the new majority came in in January of 2006, the price of a barrel of crude oil was $58.31. This was not acceptable. I didn't like this. That's why we passed, in between this time, the 2005 Energy and Policy Act. And on this floor, that bill had the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in it. Of course it went to the Senate and it went there to die. And they pulled ANWR out.

Today the problem has grown by exponential amounts. Today the price of a barrel of crude oil is $136.39. So I'd like to keep this debate simple. This is a problem. So what is a solution?

And we're going to hear a lot, we've heard a lot of solutions from the other side. None of their solutions talk about bringing on more supply.

And we've had some great victories this week. FISA, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, funding of the troops, no restrictions, GI bill expansion, great victories that came about through bipartisan compromise on this floor, bills that will get signed by the President. And we're all pretty pleased with the work we did this week.

We can do that with this. There is a congressional majority that would vote for more supply. There's only one hang up. It's the Speaker of the House will not let these bills on the floor.

So you have done a great job, and I used my 1 minute, Congressman Westmoreland, to sign your petition. And I want to challenge and encourage all my colleagues, in a bipartisan manner, to come down and sign this petition, this pledge. And I hope the constituents from all over the country ask their congressmen have they signed this pledge.

The pledge is pretty simple. I will vote to increase U.S. oil production and lower gas prices for America. And there I am, right there, just signed it.

67% of Americans say drill here, drill now, but the Speaker of the House refuses to allow the bill on the floor. Maybe it is a time for change. Time to kick the jack-asses out of the House.

H/T: Hot Air

GOPAC Is For Smart Readres...

2008-06-13T05:53:00.001-06:00

Woo Hoo!

Junior High!

H/T: Wyatt (Elementary School)

Top Gear Reviews The Prius

2008-06-11T08:25:00.002-06:00

And what is a Prius good for you might ask? Look and see.

H/T: Jawa Report v3.0

Greatest Golf Grouping...Evah!

2008-06-10T13:36:00.003-06:00

Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, and Adam Scott all tee off together on Thursday and Friday. The crowd will be HUGE. They tee off at 11:06 AM Eastern Time Thursday and 4:36 PM Eastern on Friday, and I'm sure the bandwidth usage of PGA.com will be maxed out if they broadcast their whole round.

In fact, all of the top 12 are grouped together. Here are the other 3 groups;
(1) Ernie Els, Justin Rose, Geoff Ogilvy
(2) Stewart Cink, Sergio Garcia, and Vijay Singh
(3) KJ Choi, Jim Furyk, and Steve Stricker.

ESPN's coverage begins at 1 PM Eastern time on Thursday.

Divided We Fail?

2008-06-05T11:43:00.002-06:00

It's a novel concept; If Democrats and Republicans united to create good legislation that would benefit everyone in society, then government would be a success.

Then you start to scratch the surface only a little bit, and you find a VERY important bit of information. The "Independent" organization backing DWF is none other than AARP.

This is the same AARP that is hell-bent on keeping the government in charge of retirement finances, as opposed to giving the responsibility to the worker.

Let's put this into perspective. The maximum benefit you can withdraw from Social Security is currently $26,220 per year (Max income to add money to SS of $102,000 per year based on 2008 FICA limit). Assuming you use your Social Security benefits for 15 years (starting at 65 and ending at death at 80) you have used a total of $393,300. If you simply put money in a savings account (making no interest) from when you were 30 years old until you retired at 65, you would need to save $936.42 per month....out of the $8,500 per month that you were making. That is 11% of your gross income. Currently Social Security takes 12.4% of income, which is $1,054 per month (a loss of 117.58 per month)

WAIT A MINUTE!!!!!

You're paying in 12.4%...and only getting out 11%??!! THAT'S NEGATIVE INTEREST!!!!

Now, let's run the numbers on a "privatized" Social Security fund, and see how much you make at varying interest rates, from 0%, to the market average 12% when we add that $936.42 per month to a mutual fund/IRA, here is how much you retire with;

0% - $393,300
1% - $471,067
2% - $569,868
3% - $696,151
4% - $858,488
5% - $1,068,292
6% - $1,340,798
7% - $1,696,381
8% - $2,162,357
9% - $2,775,406
10% - $3,584,875
11% - $4,657,259
12% - $6,082,300

So, is Social Security really worth saving for future generations? The longer you wait, the more it costs you.

Even investing just $100 per month at 12% for 35 years nets you $649,527. That's 65% more than Social Security.

Hillary Jumping The Fence Again

2008-06-03T16:05:00.003-06:00

First she was against running for president, then she was all for it.

Then she was against campaigning in Florida and Michigan (and even signed a pledge not to with the other nominees). Then after telling people she wouldn't break the pledge, she was all for breaking it just 5 days later.

Last week she was against accepting the Vice President offer from Barrack Obama in a bargain for her to bow out, now she's all for it.

What else does she claim to be "totally against," now only to change her mind?

Troop Casualties Lowest In War

2008-06-01T08:57:00.004-06:00

Nineteen for the month of May. Out of the over 150,000 troops currently stationed in Iraq. Lies.com has been covering what has become the lack of truth in the liberal "Iraq in the new Vietnam" argument. I will admit that the similarity was there at the beginning of the war, but ever since about January of 2007, not only did Iraq start to look nothing like Vietnam, but ever since the peak in May of 2007, Iraq has followed a pretty steady downturn, and last month, the lowest casualty count for the entire campaign was recoded at just nineteen.

First, the view of each war through to September of 2007,

Then zoomed out to compare to the entire Vietnam War.

BEST "Cubs Suck" Site...EVER!

2008-05-28T15:42:00.003-06:00

HAHAHAHAHAHA! I love it!!! In celebration of the Cubs reaching the Century mark since winning their last World Series, here's a mockery of them.

Then, check these out;

Did you know that CUBS is an acronym? Check it out!

* Completely Useless By September
* Could U Beat Somebody
* Could you be suckier?
* Can Usually Blow Saves (or Series)
* Completely Useless By Spring
* Champions Until Baseball Starts
* Can Usually Be Swept
* Cork Used By Sammy
* Can't Undo Being Sucky
* Can't Understand Baseball Scoring
* Can't Understand Baseball Strategy
* Constantly Uttering Bull SH@* (When talking about Cub fans)
* Choke Under Baseball Stress
* Children Use Better Stategies
* Crap up baseball's sanctity
* Completely underachieving batters, starters
* Cry unnecessarily 'bout Stoney
* Constant untimely base-running snafus
* Cubs Utter Baker Sucks
* Continually Upstaged By Sox
* Chicago's Underachieving Baseball Squad
* Constantly Using Bad Strategy
* Coming Up Behind Sucks
* Completely, Utterly Blown System
* Chicago's Ultimate Bitch Squad
* Completely Underachieving Baseball Scrubs

And as a Cardinal's fan, my personal favorite...

A Very Large Ouch

2008-05-20T16:47:00.002-06:00

Senator Ted Kennedy got a very humbling announcement today. Doctors found that he has cancer, and not only that, but that it is in his brain and will more than likely kill him within a couple years.

I will admit that I was looking forward to him being out of office, but not like this.

Senator Kennedy, God Speed to you, and I hope that you can do everything you desire in the next few years.

That Was A Fun Weekend!

2008-05-19T19:18:00.007-06:00

This weekend I went with my parents to Bristol, TN for the first two days of Qualifying in the NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals, and it was pretty frickin sweet! Friday afternoon/night was cold and windy, but an already fast racing surface that started at only 85 degrees at 3:30 PM dropped to a cooler and faster 74 degrees (Air temp was only about 55 degrees) by the time the second round started, and leading the charge was Tony Schumacher with a 4.502 blast down the quarter mile with a top speed of 327.43 MPH through the speed trap in the last 60 feet. Also there were the sportsman divisions (Super Stock, Stock, Comp Eliminator, etc...) Pro-Mod, Pro Stock, and Nitro Funny Cars. For a taste of the action, enjoy this picture of Tony Pedregon and Melanie Troxel (who ended up winning the event).

Sunday, my dad and I went to Mountain Glen Golf Course in Newland, NC to play 18 holes, and although it was rainy and a little cold, we had fun. I was worried after hitting some practice balls at the range because after a smooth practice swing, I would step up to the ball, and literally feel like I didn't know how to swing a club. This little mental freak out then caused me to to try and hit the ball...and in the process forget to hit the ball.
Fortunately though I played pretty well on the course, and I wish we had kept track because on one streak my dad had 4 pars and 2 birdies, and possibly shot around a high 80. I on the other hand mostly played bogey golf and shot around a 90 to 95, which isn't too bad for me.
I wanted to put a picture in of me blasting out of a bunker, but Blogger kept turning it sideways, so I'll settle for this one from when I went the first time back in '06. It's a very pretty course, and if you're ever up there, I recommend going.

**UPDATE** I GOT THE PICTURE TO WORK!! Flickr, you rock.

Make That Three Strait

2008-05-02T21:42:00.002-06:00

For the third strait semester I've gotten over a 3.0 in my classes (4 total), and have now gotten my overall GPA up to a 3.03 with just 7 hours of classes remaining until I GRADUATE! Here's a rundown of the grades I got;

Energy Systems Lab (2 hrs) - B
Applied Machine Design (3 hrs) - B
Steam Power Plants (3 hrs) - B
Turbo-Machinery (3 hrs) - B
Noise Control (3 hrs) - A

And I had one easy class, Art Appreciation (3 hrs) which was an easy A.

All together it was 17 hours with 3 extra hours of labs, and at the end of the semester it got to be really hectic. In about 10 days I had 2 tests, 3 presentations and 3 reports due, then the next week was exams...Yuck.

But finally, this semester is over and after this summer I will graduate with my Bachelor's of Science in Mechanical Engineering. Also hopefully in a few weeks I will get my certificate stating that I passed the Fundamentals of Engineering Exam, which is step one in getting my Professional Engineer license.

Too Cool To Pass By

2008-04-30T10:46:00.002-06:00

Now is this not some Bad-Ass LEGO work? I can almost hear "Danger Zone" starting somewhere...

H/T Wyatt

Actual Quote From Class Today

2008-04-24T12:09:00.003-06:00

If anyone is unaware, this week is the national "Empty Holster Protest" from Students for Concealed Carry on Campus. This is a protest advocating concealed carry laws on campuses which currently outlaw them, leaving students defenseless in the case of an armed attacker. The campus hierarchy assume that the campus police will be sufficient to eliminate the threat, but on campus here at TTU there are 15 officers for over 9,000 students, and although the campus can call upon city and possibly county law enforcement, incidents at Virginia Tech, Columbine, and other "Gun Free Zones" have shown how "effective" that police presence is.

Aside from the empty holsters, students have been carrying signs which can get the point across. Here is an example of some.

"This is a GUN-FREE ZONE! If you are planning on shooting a bunch of innocent people and then yourself, we're sorry, but that is not allowed here."

"This is a VIOLENCE-FREE ZONE! You cannot be raped, molested, murdered, assaulted, beaten, mugged, shot, strangled, or stabbed on this campus, because IT IS AGAINST THE RULES"

There are others, but nothing comes close to the next quote that was said in a class today.

One of the professors here at Tech is strongly against concealed carry on campus, and one of the students was/is wearing an empty holster.

I'm not sure if it was in relation to the holster, but the teacher asked the person next to him "Do you feel safe sitting next to him?"

Without thinking the other student responded, "I'd feel safer if he was armed."

Amen.

See Ya Steve

2008-04-18T08:09:00.002-06:00

Steve McNair announced that he is retiring from football after 13 seasons in the NFL, with 11 of them playing for the Titans.

The dedication of this man to the sport is amazing, and seemingly no injury was too great to keep him off the field. He played through broken fingers, and other times when he spent the entire week injured, but sucked it up for 60 minutes on the gridiron.

After 13 years though, he says his mind is ready to play, but his body just can't keep up anymore.

Enjoy retirement, Steve. You've earned it.

Sunday Night Funny

2008-04-13T21:43:00.001-06:00

Cowboy Blob had this picture up and it was too hilarious to pass up.

Smack A Clinton Time

2008-04-12T05:55:00.005-06:00

The AP does a great job of demonstrating the phrase "Smack a Clinton" with this piece. Bloggers had been all over it for a full 24 hours, but the AP finally admitted it yesterday. I love seeing the media turn on them.

Just to make things clear, here's the debunking from the AP story;

THE FACTS:

Bill Clinton has many of the facts wrong.

His wife didn't make the sniper fire claim "one time late at night when she was exhausted." She actually told the story several times, including during prepared remarks on foreign policy delivered the morning of March 17.

It's also not true that she "immediately apologized for it." Clinton has never apologized for the comments and only acknowledged that she "misspoke" a week after the March 17 speech when video of her peaceful tarmac reception emerged.

It's also not true that she was the "first first lady since Eleanor Roosevelt to go into a combat zone" - a claim that Hillary Clinton has also made when talking about the trip. Pat Nixon traveled to Saigon during the Vietnam war and Barbara Bush went to Saudi Arabia two months before the launching of Desert Storm.

The trip also was not in 1995, but 1996.

Clinton campaign spokesman Phil Singer responded to the former president's remarks Friday by saying, "Senator Clinton appreciates her husband standing up for her, but this was her mistake and she takes responsibility for it."

She's also told her husband to quit talking about it.

"Hillary called me and said 'You don't remember this. You weren't there, let me handle it.' I said, 'Yes ma'am,'" Bill Clinton, who was in Indiana campaigning for his wife Friday, told reporters.

Hillary's (Lack Of) Understanding of Economics

2008-04-09T09:46:00.002-06:00

Here's a transcript of Hillary's OWN words on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno (Emphasis mine);

I was in Indianapolis the other day and I was shaking hands after I spoke. And there was this young boy about eleven years old and he's trying to tell me something—you know the crowd was yelling—so I leaned over and he said, "You know, my mom makes minimum wage and even though it went up, her hours were cut. So we're not making any more money. Can you help her?" You know, when somebody says something like that to you, it really does kind of energize me. I think, yeah, I can, I'm going to really try to help you, because this is wrong. And everywhere I go I hear stories like that about veterans who don't get health care, about people, who are, you know, losing their jobs, and I think we can do so much better. So for me it's just get up every day and fight on because this country's worth fighting for.

Note the line in bold. Economics 101, if production costs increase (either by material cost increases or labor increases) then you cut expenses to maintain a profit. In this case, the woman's wages were the increase. If the story is true, then this situation is easily predicted. The most amusing thing about this story is that Hillary herself was a HUGE supporter of the very reason this woman had a reduction in hours. The site Votehillary.org has a transcript of a speech she gave to the President about raising minimum wage. If there's any doubt of her support of a rate increase, here's the opening statement of it;

Mr. President, I find it almost hard to believe that we are here on the floor of the United States Senate arguing over the necessity for an increase in the minimum wage. I am strongly supportive of Senator Kennedy’s amendment, proud to cosponsor it, and urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to vote in favor of it and to oppose the second-degree amendment. Now, this amendment does not go as far as I or Senator Kennedy and others would have preferred. It raises the minimum wage to $6.25 an hour, far short of the $7.25 an hour that Senator Kennedy and I and 48 other Senators proposed in March, but we could never get a vote on that. Now, this amendment, however, should have even greater support than the 50 cosponsors we had last March. It should pass unanimously out of this body. Fifty senators just last March supported an increase to $7.25 and now we have cut the increase with a hope that we can get, number one, the vote we are hoping to get on this appropriations bill; and, number two, an overwhelmingly bipartisan passage.

Not only did Hillary attempt to use this story to gain pity among voters, but she doesn't even seem to realize that she was the cause of it. This woman truly has no understanding of basic Economics.

H/T: RFTR's Gmail message.

One More Reason Against Gun Control

2008-04-02T09:36:00.002-06:00

James William Spiers III is alive today because he is the proud holder of a hand-gun permit. While delivering a pizza to some apartments in Des Moines, Iowa, Spiers was confronted by an armed robber who held a gun to his head, demanding money.

After a struggle, Spiers either managed to wrestle the gun away from the robber, or used his own and fired off shots at the robber as he ran away, wounding him 3 times.

After the incident, Spiers was sent home by his manager, and the HR department's response was;
that they don't allow employees (more importantly delivery personnel) to carry guns "because we believe that that is the safest for everybody.”

Yes, it's safer to carry around a bag filled with cash at night unarmed.

H/T: Instapundit

The Chinese Love The Clintons?

2008-03-26T10:33:00.002-06:00

In a report by the WSJ, the Chinese are heavily favoring Hillary Clinton to win.

Anyone wonder why?

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, May 23 [1998]) -- Republicans are keeping up the pressure on President Bill Clinton to explain questions about possible links between 1996 Democratic campaign contributions and decisions to share U.S. satellite technology with the Chinese government.

In the weekly GOP radio address Saturday, Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla., said "the administration needs to provide Americans with direct and full answers to important questions about all of this."

"How did it come about that highly sensitive technical information was given to the Chinese? Why did the president ignore the national security experts who counseled against this deal? What damage has been done to our national security?" Goss asked.
"We know that Chinese officials chose to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in the 1996 re-election of the Clinton administration. What we don't know is what they expected to gain from that investment," Goss said.

The Clinton's took illegal campaign contributions from the Chinese in 1996...and I'll be darned if Hillary didn't take illegal contributions from the Chinese this cycle.

Also, The Cassandra Page took a more in depth look in 2005 at the findings of the congressional reports.

"He'll Be An Engineer"

2008-03-26T08:44:00.001-06:00

Hehehehe.

News You Won't Hear In The News March 25th, 2008

2008-03-25T10:46:00.002-06:00

There was a recent story about the reduction in news stories about Iraq these days. At this time last year, 23% of news stories were about Iraq. During late 2006 and early 2007, the outlook wasn't good. Then the surge deployed, and over the last 5 or 6 months there have not been more than 40 US troop deaths.

With that reduction, the air time dedicated to Iraq has since dropped to 1% of total airtime since the beginning of the new year. Even HuffPo admits the surge is working stating;

From a journalist's standpoint, the story hasn't changed for several months. The American "surge" appears to have made progress, and while Iraq is hardly safe, pockets of the country are much safer than before.

It's possible to pinpoint the exact week that the switch turned off. The war averaged 30 minutes per week of coverage last year on the three network evening newscasts up until Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the U.S. forces, testified in September about the surge's progress, according to news consultant Andrew Tyndall. In the last 15 weeks of the year, the broadcasts collectively spent four minutes per week on the war.

But there are still stories to tell in Iraq. Michael Yon has been reporting in Iraq since at least 2005, and has an open policy about his reporting. Any news agency is free to use his dispatches AT NO COST, and yet not a single report has been published by any of the mass media. This latest one is one that needs to be looked at. Here is an inspiring piece from it (emphasis mine);

Al Qaeda is still trying to spin Iraq into civil war, but whereas in 2005-2006 al Qaeda was succeeding, today al Qaeda is being shredded.

An Iraqi officer near Sinjar told me that recently a group of perhaps twenty “jihadists,” many of them foreign, descended on a Nineveh village. The Iraqi officer said the terrorists killed some adults and two babies. One baby they murdered was 15 days old.

Until recently, such terror attacks inside Iraq could have coerced the village into sheltering Al Qaeda. Yet this time, the “jihadists” got an unexpected reception. Local men grabbed their rifles and poured fire on the demons, slaughtering them. Nineteen terrorists were destroyed. Times have changed for al Qaeda here. Too many Iraqis have decided they are not going to take it anymore. Al Qaeda in Iraq is still fighting, and they are tough and wily, but al Qaeda Central seems to realize there are easier targets elsewhere, perhaps in Europe, where many people demonstrate weakness in the face of terror.

This type of story NEEDS to be heard by more people.

H/T: Jawa Report

Another Hillary Defector?

2008-03-25T06:27:00.005-06:00

This time it's the media that for 8 years was the trustworthy friend of the Clintons. Now they've turned their backs on them late in the game.

Wow, this is getting good!

Favorite quote:

Who knows if she mis-remembered, misspoke, exaggerated...whatever. It makes the case for Senator Obama that all this experience that she's been talking about is at least partly her imagination.

Hot Air's got the video as well, as well as the Clinton Spin Machine at work on the "mistake."

UPDATE: Since the original story went viral on You Tube, CBS followed up on the initial report and stuck it to Hillary even more!

Super Delegates?

2008-03-24T19:07:00.002-06:00

With all the Democrat Primary news there's a lot of talk going around about "Super Delegates."

But what the heck are they?

Mr. Right at TRP has an...animated...look at the Democrat Super Delegates that's worth a look.

Hehe, Aquaman. ROFL!

Cardinal Rule: Don't F#$% With The People That Handle Your Food

2008-03-16T22:34:00.002-06:00

Waiting is on Comedy Central right now, and I had forgotten how much that movie makes it so you're never brave enough to complain about your food at a restaurant...EVER!

It's so funny, but having worked in them for a few years in high school, all the jokes are that much funnier because they can be ever so true.

If you've ever seen the movie, then I'm sorry for bringing back the memories of the "Special Prep" given to some of the food. Let me make it up to you with this...Emmanuelle Chriqui (a.k.a. the lesbian bartender).

TASTY!!!!

Quote Of The Day

2008-03-12T09:46:00.003-06:00

If he indeed is a former Marine (Which I think he is), I feel bad for Rob Riggle, a correspondent for The Daily Show. He went to Berkly, CA to cover Code Pink's protest of the Marines. Here's an actual dialogue between Rob and a Code Pink-o.

Protester: It is our responsibility as the public to shut this station down. To shut this recruiting station down.
[Another protester tells that Code Pink "is about free speech"]
It's very important to protect free speech, and so we clearly have the right to be here.

Rob: If only there was an organization that was...sworn to defend that free speech.

Protester: Wouldn't that be great.

Wow. Seriously. WOW.

H/T: Hot Air

A Democrat Gets Caught Up In A Sex Scandal

2008-03-10T17:40:00.002-06:00

After lambasting the Republican Party for Larry Craig's and Mark Foley's involvement in sex scandals, Democrats are having to chew on their own words as New York's Democrat Governor Eliot Spitzer admitted in a conference that he had spent thousands on a high-end call girl.

He is expected to step down and Lt. Gov. David Paterson will step in, possibly as early as tonight.

As a thought, it's ironic how the thing that politicians stand up for the most is the thing that they fall to later.

VICTORY!

2008-03-09T18:39:00.003-06:00

Congrats to Kyle Busch for not only winning the first ever COT race in Bristol last year, but now, this year he has given Toyota their first Sprint Cup Victory at the Kobalt Tools 500 in Atlanta.

WAY TO GO TOYOTA!

Pardon Me If I'm More Than Slightly Confused

2008-02-13T11:29:00.002-06:00

So in September of 2005 after Katrina hit, scientists all over the world claimed that "Global warming is going to cause more hurricanes and much stronger hurricanes!" Predictions of the "one of the strongest hurricane season ever" were prominent in every prediction, and 17 named storms were predicted, including 9 hurricanes, and 5 over a Category 3. "The United States will be pounded," they said.

In actuality, there were only 10 storms, 5 hurricanes, which included 2 over a category 3 hurricanes. But only 2 tropical storms hit the United States. Everything else ran into a weather system which pushed them back out to sea.

Then came the 2007 hurricane season. Again, predictions were doom and gloom. Initially at 14 named storms, with 7 hurricanes and 3 majors, it was increased to the same as 2005.

Then when all was said and done, there were 15 named storms, only 6 'canes, and 2 major ones. One of which was Dean that plowed into the Mayan Riviera, and Felix who hit Nicaragua, but again, the season was weaker than had been predicted.

Now in 2007 and 2008, scientists have begun to claim that "Climate change" (aka Global Warming) is actually causing fewer hurricanes.

On top of that, a new study has shown that increased sun spot activity may actually cause Global Cooling.

THE SUN? THAT'S THE SOURCE OF CLIMATE CHANGE???!!! TELL ME IT ISN'T SO!

Seriously though. With all the contradictions given about "Climate change" and "Global Warming" I just cannot bring myself to believe it one way or another. I do realize that the Earth's climate is dynamic. But how much change is attributed to human activity is where I'm still skeptical.

Reason #1 (And Only One) To Watch IRL

2008-02-12T22:03:00.004-06:00

Sure they're fast, but with the IRL, after about 5 laps you have what NASCAR fans at Bristol call "the conveyor belt." Where all the cars are spaced pretty far apart, and nothing happens for about 50 laps.

IT SUCKS!

But Sports Illustrated has given guys a good reason to watch IRL, Danica Patrick!!

I will also note that it's the only thing going that NASCAR doesn't have. A hot driver. Sure they've got hot TV Personalities, but no hot female drivers.

College Bloggers: Who Wants Free Money?

2008-02-12T20:00:00.000-06:00

College Scholarships.org is offering a $2000 scholarship to one lucky college blogger this year.

Here are the requirements;

Blog must be kept up to date, and contain current posts about events, politics, opinions, etc.
You must be a US Citizen.
Must have a 3.0 GPA.
You must be currently enrolled in post secondary education
And finally from the official post - "If you win, you must be willing to allow us to list your name and blog on this page. We want to be able to say we knew you before you became a well educated, rich, and famous blogging legend."

Huckabee Demotavator (STICKY)

2008-02-05T23:59:00.000-06:00

(Click here for a reminder of why it's oh so true)

The award goes to RFTR for creating this poster. It will remain up until after Super Tuesday!

Sneaky, Sneaky, Sir!

2008-02-05T14:07:00.000-06:00

Mike Huckabee won West Virginia on the back of a strategy move from John McCain. John is very aware that delegates for Huckabee turn into non-votes for Mitt Romney.

Reports are coming in that delegates supporting McCain were ordered from their higher-ups to vote for Mike Huckabee in order to prevent Mitt Romney from winning the 18 delegates that come with the state.

There were 2 votes since no delegate got a true majority of the votes and after Ron Paul was eliminated for finishing last, McCain's supporters abandoned him in a move that epitomizes "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

They, as well as many Paul supporters rallied behind Huckabee and gave him the win by 47 delegates, out of a total of 1,100.

Huckabee now holds 18 of the 30 delegates that will be going to the RNC, 9 more are decided in the primary, and 3 undecided ones will go as well. But unfortunately for Mitt supporters (like myself), and good for McCain Supporters, Romney doesn't have them.

Strategery indeed!

The Sick And Twisted Jihadi Mind

2008-02-01T14:11:00.000-06:00

In an attack today in Baghdad, Jihadi's strapped dynamite and ball bearings to two women in separate markets, killing upwards of 100 people.

The sick part? The women had Down Syndrome and had been tricked by the extremists into putting on the vests, and were unaware that they were suicide vests.

From Hotair:

I also bring all of this up in the hope that liberal readers might finally extract their craniums from their backsides and realize that whatever you think of Bush, he’s not the problem. He didn’t start the war and he’s not the cause of the jihad. Animals of the type who would blow up innocent mentally disabled women to kill scores of other innocent people cannot be reasoned with. There’s nothing to talk over with people like that. They live in a state of violent depravity that puts them beyond reason barring some massive change in their own minds. We infidels aren’t going to make that chance by playing nice. We have to defeat them.

The Party Of Taxes, And The Party Of Tax Relief

2008-01-29T11:42:00.000-06:00

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

2008-01-28T20:07:00.000-06:00

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

2008-01-24T22:49:00.000-06:00

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

2008-01-23T23:00:00.000-06:00

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?

2008-01-21T10:43:00.000-06:00

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

2008-01-13T22:27:00.000-06:00

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

2008-01-11T14:51:00.000-06:00

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

2008-01-09T12:59:00.000-06:00

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

2008-01-08T13:17:00.000-06:00

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

2008-01-04T14:45:00.000-06:00

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

2008-01-02T14:23:00.000-06:00

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

2008-01-02T07:56:00.000-06:00

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.

Washington's Most Corrupt

2007-12-30T22:53:00.000-06:00

Judicial Watch has come up with a list of the top ten most corrupt politicians in DC. and not surprisingly, Senator Clinton is on the top of the list, as well as many other prominant Democrats.

1. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY): In addition to her long and sordid ethics record, Senator Hillary Clinton took a lot of heat in 2007 – and rightly so – for blocking the release her official White House records. Many suspect these records contain a treasure trove of information related to her role in a number of serious Clinton-era scandals. Moreover, in March 2007, Judicial Watch filed an ethics complaint against Senator Clinton for filing false financial disclosure forms with the U.S. Senate (again). And Hillary’s top campaign contributor, Norman Hsu, was exposed as a felon and a fugitive from justice in 2007. Hsu pleaded guilt to one count of grand theft for defrauding investors as part of a multi-million dollar Ponzi scheme.

2. Rep. John Conyers (D-MI): Conyers reportedly repeatedly violated the law and House ethics rules, forcing his staff to serve as his personal servants, babysitters, valets and campaign workers while on the government payroll. While the House Ethics Committee investigated these allegations in 2006, and substantiated a number of the accusations against Conyers, the committee blamed the staff and required additional administrative record-keeping and employee training. Judicial Watch obtained documentation in 2007 from a former Conyers staffer that sheds new light on the activities and conduct on the part of the Michigan congressman, which appear to be at a minimum inappropriate and likely unlawful. Judicial Watch called on the Attorney General in 2007 to investigate the matter.

...4. Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA): As a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee's subcommittee on military construction, Feinstein reviewed military construction government contracts, some of which were ultimately awarded to URS Corporation and Perini, companies then owned by Feinstein's husband, Richard Blum. While the Pentagon ultimately awards military contracts, there is a reason for the review process. The Senate's subcommittee on Military Construction's approval carries weight. Sen. Feinstein, therefore, likely had influence over the decision making process. Senator Feinstein also attempted to undermine ethics reform in 2007, arguing in favor of a perk that allows members of Congress to book multiple airline flights and then cancel them without financial penalty. Judicial Watch’s investigation into this matter is ongoing.

...8. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL): A “Dishonorable Mention” last year, Senator Obama moves onto the “ten most wanted” list in 2007. In 2006, it was discovered that Obama was involved in a suspicious real estate deal with an indicted political fundraiser, Antoin “Tony” Rezko. In 2007, more reports surfaced of deeper and suspicious business and political connections It was reported that just two months after he joined the Senate, Obama purchased $50,000 worth of stock in speculative companies whose major investors were his biggest campaign contributors. One of the companies was a biotech concern that benefited from legislation Obama pushed just two weeks after the senator purchased $5,000 of the company’s shares. Obama was also nabbed conducting campaign business in his Senate office, a violation of federal law.

9. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA): House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who promised a new era of ethics enforcement in the House of Representatives, snuck a $25 million gift to her husband, Paul Pelosi, in a $15 billion Water Resources Development Act recently passed by Congress. The pet project involved renovating ports in Speaker Pelosi's home base of San Francisco. Pelosi just happens to own apartment buildings near the areas targeted for improvement, and will almost certainly experience a significant boost in property value as a result of Pelosi's earmark. Earlier in the year, Pelosi found herself in hot water for demanding access to a luxury Air Force jet to ferry the Speaker and her entourage back and forth from San Francisco non-stop, in unprecedented request which was wisely rejected by the Pentagon. And under Pelosi’s leadership, the House ethics process remains essentially shut down – which protects members in both parties from accountability.

10. Senator Harry Reid (D-NV): Over the last few years, Reid has been embroiled in a series of scandals that cast serious doubt on his credibility as a self-professed champion of government ethics, and 2007 was no different. According to The Los Angeles Times, over the last four years, Reid has used his influence in Washington to help a developer, Havey Whittemore, clear obstacles for a profitable real estate deal. As the project advanced, the Times reported, “Reid received tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Whittemore.” Whittemore also hired one of Reid’s sons (Leif) as his personal lawyer and then promptly handed the junior Reid the responsibility of negotiating the real estate deal with federal officials. Leif Reid even called his father’s office to talk about how to obtain the proper EPA permits, a clear conflict of interest.

Hillary, Pelosi, Dingy Harry, Feinstein, and Obama. That's a pretty high order list; 2 Presidential hopefuls, the House Speaker, and The Senate Majority Leader.

Also on the list are many prominant Republicans. Rudy Guilliani was ranked #3 for mysteriously billing many NYC agencies during the time when he was beginning an affair while in office. Senator Larry Craig was listed at #5 for his role in the bathroom sex accusations. Scooter Libby was on the list for "leaking" Valerie Plame (even though it was well documented that Richard Armitage actually leaked the name).

Most surprising to me? Arkansas' Golden "Conservative" Mike Huckabee. Here's the quote;

Governor Huckabee enjoyed a meteoric rise in the polls in December 2007, which prompted a more thorough review of his ethics record. According to The Associated Press: “[Huckabee’s] career has also been colored by 14 ethics complaints and a volley of questions about his integrity, ranging from his management of campaign cash to his use of a nonprofit organization to subsidize his income to his destruction of state computer files on his way out of the governor’s office.” And what was Governor Huckabee’s response to these ethics allegations? Rather than cooperating with investigators, Huckabee sued the state ethics commission twice and attempted to shut the ethics process down.

H/T: Stew at The Right Place

Am I The Only One To Find This Hillariously Ironic?

2007-12-29T14:17:00.000-06:00

From AP, Via Yahoo!

CAIRO, Egypt - Osama bin Laden warned Iraq's Sunni Arabs against joining tribal councils fighting al-Qaida or participating in any unity government, in a new Internet audiotape on Saturday.
...Bin Laden said U.S. and Iraqi officials are seeking to set up a "national unity government" joining the country's Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.
"Our duty is to foil these dangerous schemes, which try to prevent the establishment of an Islamic state in Iraq, which would be a wall of resistance against American schemes to divide Iraq," he said.

Did he seriously just say that? Wow. They really are getting desperate.

Democrats: Only Objecting When It Profits Themselves Most

2007-12-10T08:21:00.000-06:00

So not only did House Majority Leader, Nancy Pelosi, have previous knowledge of water boarding in 2002, she also did not object. Pelosi was part of a gang of 4 which were present in 30 intelligence meetings discussing the CIA's use of "harsh interrogation methods" and had no objections to the use of water boarding.

Pelosi declined to comment directly on her reaction to the classified briefings. But a congressional source familiar with Pelosi's position on the matter said the California lawmaker did recall discussions about enhanced interrogation. The source said Pelosi recalls that techniques described by the CIA were still in the planning stage -- they had been designed and cleared with agency lawyers but not yet put in practice -- and acknowledged that Pelosi did not raise objections at the time.

PoliPundit sums it up;

Go figure. So, this means the Democrats knew of and did not object to “Bush’s secret prisons.”

This means the Democrats knew of and did not object to “the Bush Administration’s use of torture.”

This means the Democrats have done nothing but politicize the conduct of the war for political gain for the last 3 + years.

Again, hypocrisy is a virtue for the modern left.

Newsbusters is also ALL over it.

Les Miles To Stay In SEC

2007-12-06T23:13:00.000-06:00

People didn't believe him when he said he will be LSU's coach next season. People were speculating that "Well, he'll leave after the '08 season. He left the door too open with what he said.

They were wrong. Les is there until at least the 2012 season as his contract has been extended through the 2012 season.

A note from TSN;
" During his three years at LSU, Miles is a gaudy 33-6 and has 14 wins over teams ranked in the top 25, a school record."

14 wins over top 25 teams in just 3 years. One year with 4 wins, and 2 with 5 wins over top 25 teams. Fantastic.

GO LSU! Bring that National Title back to the south for another year! (Side note; So far, the SEC is 3-0 in National Title games since the beginning of the BCS in 1998.)

Well, Doesn't That Suck A Big Fatty

2007-12-05T08:45:00.000-06:00

The BBC took a few Muslims out to play paintball (H/T: Malkin) back in February of 2005. I hadn't seen it this way, but apparently paintball is considered a great training device for terrorists.

I mean look at it this way, you get to practice shooting people, and if you get shot yourself, you just try again in the next round.

I've played paintball for going on 4-5 years now, and absolutely love the sport. (I just wish I had more money to play) This sucks to see something like this be corrupted and used for the wrong purposes.

And for your viewing pleasure, the Top 10 Reasons to Date a Paintball Player;
Top 10 reasons to date a paintball player…

10. They like it when they get bruises.
9. They like to show off their guns.
8. They aren’t afraid to sacrifice their body for the better good.
7. They love to see how dirty they can get.
6. They shoot at 300 feet per second.
5. They do it in bunkers.
4. They also do it in the woods.
3. They are up for it 6 or more times a day.
2. They always take care of their equipment.

And the number one reason to date a paintball player...
1. They always wear protection.

Oh Noez! I Missed It!!!

2007-12-03T17:10:00.000-06:00

So I went to see the college-ette this weekend (No regrets btw, baby!) and I arrived home to see this on the front page of the TTU Athletics page! AMAZING!!

So here's the scoop of what happened, as accounted by my friend, "The Hunt0r." Person X shoots the ball and it bounces off the rim, then BOTH Daniel Northern and Amadi Mckenzie jump up and double-dunk the ball, shattering the glass into a million pieces. The clean up and replacement took almost an hour.

Pity. Oh well.

Major kudos to the TTU sports photog, Tony Marable. He's the Director of Minority Engineering here at Tech, and is a hell of a guy. Tony is also the adviser of TTU's College Republicans.

If you'd like to see more of his work, you can view it here.

CNN In The Tank With Democrats

2007-11-29T12:33:00.000-06:00

CNN’s last two debates have been filled with Democrat plants. And they haven’t even been difficult to discover either. I had to search all over to find analysis of the plants, so I organized them here.

In the Democrat debate all 6 questioners at the debate were plants, reported by CNN as “Undecided voters”

LaShannon Spencer – Political Director for the Democratic party of Arkansas
Khalid Kahn – President of the Islamic Society of Nevada, and gave $2,000 to Harry Reid in April, 2007
Catherine Jackson – Devout Anti-war protester
Maria Luisa – Forced by CNN to ask “diamonds or pearls” question as opposed to her pre-approved question regarding Yucca Mountain, and was a former staffer of Nevada Democratic Party Chair, Harry Reid
Judy Bagley – Leader of the Culinary Worker’s Union Local 226
George Ambriz – Served as president of MEChA, a Hispanic organization that calls for anti-American activities and civil-disobedience

In the Republican debate there were at least 5, possibly 6 plants that were deemed by CNN again as “Undecided voters;”

Keith Kerr – Retired Army Colonel, and steering committee member for LGBT Americans for Hillary. Appeared on CNN 12/11/2003
Questioner “Journey” – John Edwards Supporter. Has videos under same account wearing “John Edwards 08” shirt
David Cercone – States he supports Barrack Obama on his Profile page
Lee Ann Anderson – Activist for the United Steelworkers Union, who support John Edwards
David McMillan – Asked why conservatives haven’t attracted more blacks. He created the YouTube group “NewsInColor” which has many pro-Edwards videos
Ted Faturos – Worked as an intern for Democrat Congresswoman Jane Harman

And people still trust CNN with their news?

Info about the plants;
Democrat Debate

Republican Debate - Plant 1-4, Plant 5, Plant 6

*UPDATE* Plant 7 and Plant 8 of the GOP debate have been ousted.

We Had Been Warned Before

2007-11-29T10:01:00.000-06:00

Thousands have been hurt by the recent collapse of the subprime mortgage industry, however the conception of this industry during the Carter Administration, and enforced during the Clinton Administration came with clear warnings like this one in 2000 entitled "The Trillion Dollar Bank Shakedown That Bodes Ill for Cities."

The Clinton administration has turned the Community Reinvestment Act, a once-obscure and lightly enforced banking regulation law, into one of the most powerful mandates shaping American cities—and, as Senate Banking Committee chairman Phil Gramm memorably put it, a vast extortion scheme against the nation's banks. Under its provisions, U.S. banks have committed nearly $1 trillion for inner-city and low-income mortgages and real estate development projects, most of it funneled through a nationwide network of left-wing community groups, intent, in some cases, on teaching their low-income clients that the financial system is their enemy and, implicitly, that government, rather than their own striving, is the key to their well-being.
The CRA's premise sounds unassailable: helping the poor buy and keep homes will stabilize and rebuild city neighborhoods. As enforced today, though, the law portends just the opposite, threatening to undermine the efforts of the upwardly mobile poor by saddling them with neighbors more than usually likely to depress property values by not maintaining their homes adequately or by losing them to foreclosure. The CRA's logic also helps to ensure that inner-city neighborhoods stay poor by discouraging the kinds of investment that might make them better off.

Those are some pretty strong words. African Americans were the most targeted for this act, and it was a valiant but flawed effort to help them off their feet. Fannie Mac did a study in 1999 looking at the credit reports of various groups of people. They found that a due to credit issues, African Americans making $65-70,000 per year had worse credit scores than whites making under $25,000 per year.

There was another article that came around as a warning in 2005, a mere 2 years before the subprime collapse.

After decades of redlining practices that starved many urban communities for credit and denied loans to racial minorities, today a growing number of financial institutions are flooding these same markets with exploitative loan products that drain residents of their wealth. Such “reverse redlining” may be as problematic for minority families and older urban neighborhoods as has been the withdrawal of conventional financial services. Instead of contributing to homeownership and community development, predatory lending practices strip the equity homeowners have struggled to build and deplete the wealth of those communities for the enrichment of distant financial services firms.

There are no precise quantitative estimates of the extent of predatory lending. But the growth of subprime lending (higher cost loans to borrowers with blemishes on their credit records) in recent years, coupled with growing law enforcement activity in this area, clearly indicates a surge in a range of exploitative practices. Not all subprime loans are predatory, but virtually all predatory loans are subprime. Some subprime loans certainly benefit high-risk borrowers who would not qualify for conventional, prime loans. Predatory loans, however, charge higher rates and fees than warranted by the risk, trapping homeowners in unaffordable debt and often costing them their homes and life savings.
...Here are some numbers to illustrate the extent of the problem: The Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University reported that mortgage companies specializing in subprime loans increased their share of home purchase mortgage loans from 1 to 13 percent between 1993 and 2000. Economists at the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight found that subprime loans are concentrated in neighborhoods with high unemployment rates and declining housing values. Almost 20 percent of refinance loans to borrowers earning less than 60 percent of area median income in 2002 were made by subprime lenders, compared to just over 7 percent for borrowers earning 120 percent of median income or higher, according to research by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). The Center for Community Change reported that African Americans are three times as likely as whites to finance their homes with subprime loans; this is true even between upper-income blacks and whites. The Joint Center for Housing Studies has also revealed that race continues to be a factor in the distribution of subprime loans after other individual and neighborhood factors are taken into consideration.

And mind you those are reports from Winter of 2000, and then in 2005. And now after the fact, people are actually realizing what was happening.

Banks have been placed in a Catch 22 situation by the CRA: If they comply, they know they will have to suffer from more loan defaults. If they don’t comply, they face financial penalties and, worse yet, their business plans for mergers, branch expansions, etc. can be blocked by CRA protesters, which can cost a large corporation like Bank of America billions of dollars. Like most businesses, they have largely buckled under and have surrendered to their bureaucratic masters.
It was a time bomb waiting to happen, and the clock finally reached zero.

A Great Disguise

2007-11-28T14:55:00.000-06:00

You've all seen this right?

It's "The Golden Compass," a look alike to "The Chronicles of Narnia" series. But here's some info I was unaware of. The series was written by Phillip Pullman, a devout Atheist who has stated very publicly that his series of books is about killing God.
From Snopes:

Pullman left little doubt about his books' intended meanings when he said in a 2003 interview that "My books are about killing God" and in a 2001 interview that he was "trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief." (In 2002 conservative British columnist Peter Hitchens labeled Pullman "The Most Dangerous Author in Britain" and described him as the writer "the atheists would have been praying for, if atheists prayed.")

The producing company, New Line Cinemas has removed many of the anti-religious parts of the movie in an attempt to avoid a PR nightmare, but that move has created just that from both sides now. The Christian community accuses them of a stealth campaign that is aimed at creating misguided interest in the books. The atheist community is upset now as well though for "caving to the religious community."

Either way, it looked like a movie worth seeing, but I think I'll pass.

I Can Haz Ballistic Missilez?

2007-11-27T08:51:00.001-06:00

First it was the calls for the destruction of Israel, not only by Iran's leader, but the people as a whole.

Then it was the desire to have uranium enrichment facilities.

Then it was Iran placing a dozen SAM sites around a nuclear reactor.

Now Iran has developed a missile that can reach 1,200 miles. Enough to reach into the heart if Israel and many US bases in the Middle East.

But that's not all. Iran is still developing a ballistic missile that can travel 1,900 miles to reach most of the European countries. Maybe when Europe finally is under Mad Mahmoud's Guns, they might rethink whether he's a dangerous leader.

Leave It To The Trolls

2007-11-26T15:42:00.000-06:00

In case you haven't heard, Dick Chaney is in the hospital for an irregular heartbeat. And here is the obligatory post on the inner workings of the mind of a Liberal Troll;

all i want for christmas is to see a blurb on tv saying cheney has died. - Fan of Man

We are praying for you Vice President Cheney…PRAYING THAT YOU DIE!!! - ProDem

DROP DEAD F66K HEAD !!!!!!!!!! - Give me back my country

On the other hand… can we impeach Bush now? - LibertyLover

Dick, we are all wishing you the best. The best funeral that one could hope for. Hope you suffer you POS - macd

a heart attack is too easy for dick. he needs a noose just like saddam. - Fan of Man (again)

Oh please, oh please, oh please, oh please…….could santa be real and give us all our christmas wish early?
Bush/Cheney
Hague Trials ‘09
Buck Fush - Buckie Boy

If I may add to all the heartfelt condolences - rot in hell - gumby

Satin. Hes waiting in the wings for you CHENEY ! Burn in hell… - Give me my country back (again)

At least one person speaks truth;

Congratulations, you guys! All these posts wishing Cheney dead will no doubt make Think Progress, already “one of the most dangerous organizations in America”, even more famous.

You people are making the Reich Wingers’ job much too easy!

Easy indeed. The DU forum about the incident isn't much better.

I can hear it already "But the views expressed by the commentators don't fully reflect the views of the creators of this page. We can't control what people post. We respect their first amendment right."

You are the creator of that page, and as such, you are liable for the things stated on that page. The first amendment states that yes, every person has the right to free expression/religion/assembly/etc...SO LONG AS IT DOES NOT INFRINGE UPON ANOTHER PERSON'S RIGHTS.

There is an easy way to minimize outbursts like this;
Require a website login to post comments, and if some one is doing things like this, revoke their right to comment.

*UPDATE* - TP is actively monitoring their comments. Many have disappeared since even starting to write this post.

As An Engineer...

2007-11-20T11:15:00.000-06:00

I can't help but see this as a huge waste of raw materials.

I just can't imagine how much money the scrap metal from the 888 foot long carrier could produce. The ship weighed over 60,000,000 lbs (full weight was 32,000 tons before gutting) I'm sure it would be a lot better than the $20 Million it cost to sink the ship in the first place.

Granted Florida State University estimates suggest it could create $92 Million in annual revenue for the artificial reef, but I really don't see it being that big of a cash cow.

As Conditions Continue To Improve...

2007-11-15T12:47:00.000-06:00

Democrats continue to ride the (D)efeatist train. The number of coalition casualties has continued to remain low, and the civilian casualties are set to be a new 2 1/2 year low.

A note for the Paulbots - Ron Paul voted AGAINST the withdrawl, but more than likely he was a vote against the $50 Billion that came with the bill.

Also, 15 Dems crossed the line and voted against the measure, while only 4 Reps crossed to vote for withdrawal.

John Boehner’s office e-mailed this to Michelle Malkin following the vote:

“By Christmas, some 3,000 American troops will return home from Iraq after achieving remarkable success in our fight against al Qaeda. And how is Congress welcoming them back? By passing yet another politically-motivated measure that cuts off funding for those continuing to serve our nation in Iraq and hamstrings the commanders who are leading them to victory. This measure will never be signed into law, and it represents yet another failure for Democratic leaders intent on putting politics before accomplishment.

“Congress would be better served by sending the President the long-overdue veterans and troops funding bill, which enjoys broad, bipartisan support in both the House and Senate. But the Majority leadership has played politics with this critical legislation, stalling its completion to take up today’s cynical proposal to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in Iraq. Consequently, returning troops and their families will face more hurdles and take more time to get the housing and health care benefits they deserve – all thanks to Congress.

“Under General Petraeus’ strategy, our troops are routing al Qaeda in Iraq, improving security for the Iraqi people, and laying the foundation for critical political reconciliation in that country. Congress should not undermine this success and risk having al Qaeda stand back up. Instead, Members of both parties should recognize that the Petraeus plan is working, continue to solidify our troops’ gains, and work to bring them home after victory, not defeat.”

H/T: Malkin

Heh, I Ain't No Yokel

2007-11-14T09:55:00.000-06:00

What American accent do you have?

Neutral

You're not Northern, Southern, or Western, you're just plain -American-. Your national identity is more important than your local identity, because you don't really have a local identity. You might be from the region in that map, which is defined by this kind of accent, but you could easily not be. Or maybe you just moved around a lot growing up.

Click Here to Take This Quiz
Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

Let's see if it holds to the second test;

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
The South
The West
The Inland North
Philadelphia
The Northeast
Boston
North Central
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

It had basically the same questions, but gives you the breakdown of how close to other accents I have. I get it from my mom, she was born and raised in Missouri, and although my dad grew up in East TN, his parents were from Indiana. Makes sense.

Ron Paul Had His Day...

2007-11-13T12:59:00.000-06:00

Ron Paul fans had their day of recognition when they celebrated an attempt to destroy Parliament with massive powder kegs in 1605 by raising $4.2 Million for the congressman.

But on November 21st, its time for the Fred Heads to fight back.

Members of the Facebook community have deemed the day to be "National Giving Day for Fred Thompson for President." (web page here)

You can use this link to donate anytime, but I know I'm going to try to break the current record set earlier this month.

46” Flat-Panel LCD HDTV - $2,300
2.2 GHz, 120 GB MacBook laptop - $1,300
Xbox 360 - $399
8 GB iPod Touch - $299
2 concert tickets - $150
Guitar Hero III - $100
Booze for the weekend - $75
Average monthly cell phone bill - $70
Trip to the mall - $50
Tank of gas - $35
Theater date - $25
Fast food lunch - $8
Coke - $1.50

Having Fred Thompson as the 44th President of the United States - PRICELESS

Fred on Facebook, Myspace, Youtube, and Flickr

Falcons Pull The Dreaded One Point Play

2007-11-11T13:16:00.000-06:00

Actually, it's a scoring mistake by Yahoo!, but it still looks funny. They fixed it shortly after.

Whoa...

2007-11-07T21:59:00.000-06:00

By John Coleman, founder of The Weather Channel;

It is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; It is a SCAM. Some dastardly scientists with environmental and political motives manipulated long term scientific data to create in allusion of rapid global warming. Other scientists of the same environmental whacko type jumped into the circle to support and broaden the “research” to further enhance the totally slanted, bogus global warming claims. Their friends in government steered huge research grants their way to keep the movement going. Soon they claimed to be a consensus.

Environmental extremists, notable politicians among them, then teamed up with movie, media and other liberal, environmentalist journalists to create this wild “scientific” scenario of the civilization threatening environmental consequences from Global Warming unless we adhere to their radical agenda. Now their ridiculous manipulated science has been accepted as fact and become a cornerstone issue for CNN, CBS, NBC, the Democratic Political Party, the Governor of California, school teachers and, in many cases, well informed but very gullible environmental conscientious citizens. Only one reporter at ABC has been allowed to counter the Global Warming frenzy with one 15 minutes documentary segment.

I do not oppose environmentalism. I do not oppose the political positions of either party. However, Global Warming, ie Climate Change, is not about environmentalism or politics. It is not a religion. It is not something you “believe in.” It is science; the science of meteorology. This is my field of life-long expertise. And I am telling you Global Warming is a non-event, a manufactured crisis and a total scam. I say this knowing you probably won’t believe a me, a mere TV weatherman, challenging a Nobel Prize, Academy Award and Emmy Award winning former Vice President of United States. So be it.

I have read dozens of scientific papers. I have talked with numerous scientists. I have studied. I have thought about it. I know I am correct. There is no run away climate change. The impact of humans on climate is not catastrophic. Our planet is not in peril. I am incensed by the incredible media glamour, the politically correct silliness and rude dismissal of counter arguments by the high priest of Global Warming.

In time, a decade or two, the outrageous scam will be obvious. As the temperature rises, polar ice cap melting, coastal flooding and super storm pattern all fail to occur as predicted everyone will come to realize we have been duped. The sky is not falling. And, natural cycles and drifts in climate are as much if not more responsible for any climate changes underway. I strongly believe that the next twenty years are equally as likely to see a cooling trend as they are to see a warming trend.

What about this consensus on Global warming you talk about?

Something Cool To Watch

2007-11-07T18:09:00.000-06:00

FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup!

I wasn't much of a soccer fan in my early years because playing rec soccer unfortunately left a bad taste in my mouth (Played 2 years on a team that was 0-11-1 during those 2 years. The tie came from a game where the opposing team was 3 men down) but recently I've gotten a renewed interest in it. And this stuff is just awesome!

The format is 5v5 (4 plus goalie) for 3, 12 minute periods. There's more info on the rules via Wiki, but check out this video as a preview for it.

Phelps Clan Member Arrested

2007-11-07T13:15:00.000-06:00

Shirley Phelps-Roper has been arrested for mutilation, negligent child abuse, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and disturbing the peace.

Child abuse? But why she asks? 2 words; Repetitive programming. Stop the ACLU has an amazing video about it. Be sure to check it out there or on YouTube.

It's some very sick stuff.

IT SAYS WHAT???!!!

2007-11-01T19:14:00.001-06:00

I'm sitting here reading this mandatory training given by the Residential Life at the University of Delaware. Seriously, go through and read this thing, it's CRAZY! (Excerpts here, if you can't read a .pdf)

And there is more to it. The President of the school was sent a letter by FIRE, a group which supports the free thought of students, about the program and some of the statements that are made, here's a section of the letter;

The approximately 7,000 students living in the university’s eight housing complexes (in which most freshmen, those not living with family nearby, are required by the university to live) are required[1] to attend training sessions, floor meetings, and one-on-one meetings with their RAs. At these training sessions, such as the mandatory diversity training session attended by students from the Rodney complex, students are introduced to the views the university believes they must hold on a wide range of issues such as internalized and institutionalized racism, diversity, environmentalism, and social justice. The diversity training provided to RAs—who then facilitate diversity training sessions for students—provides insight into some of the specific beliefs the university wishes to impose on its students. For example, RAs attended an August 2007 “diversity facilitation training” session at which they received a list of “definitions and descriptions of racism.” Those definitions included: “A RACIST: A racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system. The term applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture or sexuality”; “REVERSE RACISM: A term created and used by white people to deny their white privilege”; and “A NON-RACIST: A non term. The term was created by whites to deny responsibility for systemic racism….” (Emphases added.)

The president halted the program, and wrote an open letter about the program's ending, but it seems to have the tone of "I don't care." It says;

While I believe that recent press accounts misrepresent the purpose of the residential life program at the University of Delaware, there are questions about its practices that must be addressed and there are reasons for concern that the actual purpose is not being fulfilled. It is not feasible to evaluate these issues without a full and broad-based review.

FIRE has a more in depth report on the program from Tuesday.

World Net Daily has at least two articles about the issue, and it hit the AP wires as well. Hot Air was on it like a cheap suit.

I know the Honors Program here at Tech is run by Hard-Line Liberals who will call you out in class for being a Christian or a Conservative, but they won't make you say that you're a racist or a bigot.

Defense Of The Term "Illegal Alien"

2007-11-01T11:50:00.000-06:00

I was listening to Hannity on the radio and some one called and asked if he could stop saying "illegal aliens" and use "Undocumented Worker." Sean very calmly and easily made his point that illegal aliens are not following the legal process of migrating to the United States, therefore they are entering the country illegally. And since any person born outside of the US, legal or not, is called an alien, a person who illegally crosses the border to live in the United States is an "Illegal Alien."

Ask yourself this;
Would you call a person who steals merchandise from your store an "Unaccounted Customer?" No, you call them a thief.
Would you call someone who steals your car an "Unregistered Driver?" No, they're a car-jacker.

Capital G Geek adds that you don't call someone who sells illegal narcotics an "Unlicensed Pharmacist," you call them a drug dealer. Nice.

Hehe, as serious as this issue is, I can't go without making a joke here.

Would you call someone who takes your money without your consent an "Unregistered Banker?" No, they're the IRS.

Halloween Freaky Tale

2007-10-31T15:41:00.001-06:00

I can't go without posting this on Halloween. It's not political, but it is incredibly cool.

Check out this site, DRKRM, a site by John Matkowsky. Anyone who watched the show sightings should know that name. He was the owner of a house outside of LA that came across the most unusual pictures. Here's the (true) story...

John Matkowsky moved into his dream house in 1985. Almost from the beginning he remembers hearing strange sounds, but the house was old and John figured that the sounds were just the normal creaking and groaning of aging floorboards and lath walls. Sometimes, late at night, he would feel a strange tingling sensation along his arms and neck, but the house was drafty. It was easy to dismiss the feeling as part of the price you pay for living in a house built in 1906.

Then, in 1990, the sounds and sensations intensified. John began to feel a presence. He would catch the barest glimpse of a shadow out of the corner of his eye, but when he turned his head, the shadow would be gone. There were loud bangs coming from a back room, but when John went to investigate, there was never anything there. "I felt sort of a sunburn on my arms. It was tingly, like a sunburn. That's how I would know there was some kind of presence here," John recalls.

Friends felt the presence, too. The Mt. Washington cabin was a favorite spot for weekend barbecues, and on one lazy summer afternoon, the presence crashed the party. John felt the now-familiar sensation of a sunburn and then, for no apparent reason, a blue porcelain salad bowl exploded nearby. John contacted the bowl's manufacturer, but the company could offer no explanation for how the bowl could have shattered into a million pieces.

Soon after that barbecue, John Matkowsky rented out part of his house to his friend John Huckert. Almost immediately, Huckert began to hear the strange noises. He saw the free-floating shadows moving across the floor, his desk, and the living room wall. Then, he felt the presence reach out of its world and into his.

"I was reading something at the desk, and I felt someone come up and place a hand on my shoulder. Of course, I turned around to see who it was and nobody was there. I got a sort of jolt of adrenaline. It made me nervous. I wasn't exactly sure what it was, but when I tried to mask out all the possibilities for what could be causing it, there was nothing causing it."

...John Huckert was the first to see the ghost in its human form. "I've seen this older man standing over near the couch," he says. "I see him for hardly a tangible instant, and then when I blink, he's not there anymore."

These fleeting glances, strange sensations, and odd sounds were the only evidence of the ghost's presence until John Huckert received a Christmas present in 1991 that would change everything. His father gave him a Polaroid instant camera. That camera would produce some of the best evidence of a ghost ever photographed.

..."I suddenly felt a sense of anxiety," he remembers. "I'm not sure how to describe it, but I just felt this strange feeling and I got up and I took a picture of the room. Nothing happened, so I thought, that was really stupid. Then, the bathroom door opened by itself. I took a picture of the bathroom door and got this really strange-looking thing that was either scary or comical. John came home and he took one, then I took a couple more and we got four photos that day."

It seemed unlikely that the same camera that had taken pictures of the Huckert family's Christmas was now chronicling the appearance of a ghost. The two Johns suspected the film was defective. They bought a fresh cartridge of film and tried it, but the ghostly images continued to appear. It happened over and over, at all hours of the day and night, but only when the ghost wanted to appear.

...John Matkowsky showed several of the pictures to his friends at a professional photo lab in Los Angeles. They could not explain how the images had gotten on the film. They made negatives from the instant prints and examined them closely. It did not appear to be a malfunction within the camera. Still, many of the friends who visited the Mt. Washington house remained skeptical about the authenticity of the photographs.

When Ross Harpold came to the house for a party, he looked at the photos but remained unconvinced. Laughingly, Ross asked Huckert if the ghost was with them now. Huckert answered honestly that he did not know. Ross picked up the camera, asked "Are you here?" and snapped a picture. As the picture developed, the faint outlines of a word began to appear in the photograph. The word was "Yes."

John Matkowsky asked, "What is your name?" and snapped his own picture. Clearly and boldly across the face of the photograph the word "Wright" appeared. "He told us his name was Wright, but we still didn't believe it. We continued asking questions to the middle of the air in the living room. We asked him if he was a good ghost or a bad ghost, just really inane questions to begin with. Then he answered, 'Friend.'"

In the months that followed, John Matkowsky and John Huckert took nearly a hundred photographs on which ghost writing appeared. Usually, the response was in English, sometimes it appeared in Latin, but it was always a direct answer to a direct question. In response to the question "Where do you go when you're not here?" the answer was "Flux." When they asked who Wright was, he replied in Latin, "Et alia corpus delicti," meaning "Among other things, a murder victim."

In September of 1992, John Matkowsky wrote Sightings a letter describing the bizarre photographs. He asked for help in determining what was causing the inexplicable phenomena. Sightings assembled an investigative team led by Kerry Gaynor, the noted UCLA parapsychologist, and Edson Williams, a photo analyst from the prestigious Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara, California. Both researchers examined the photographs, interviewed Matkowsky and Huckert, and determined that the best way to study the Ghost Writer was to conduct a series of controlled experiments inside the Mt. Washington house.

The Sightings team brought four Polaroid instant cameras and several sealed film cartridges shipped directly from Polaroid to the house. Each camera and each cartridge was logged and monitored to try to eliminate the possibility that someone was perpetrating a hoax. John Matkowsky was concerned that the Ghost Writer would not appear in this kind of crowded, expectant atmosphere.

Several test shots were taken and no writing appeared. Kerry Gaynor was openly skeptical. After more than four hundred ghost investigations, Kerry was no stranger to wild-goose chases. "In my line of work we spend a great deal of time waiting and watching and wondering and hoping. We don't experience phenomena very often, but when something happens, it's exciting. It's a moment of connectedness with the unknown," says Gaynor.

That "moment of connectedness" came several hours into the investigation. Marty Elcan, a friend of John Matkowsky's who had had several successful communications with the Ghost Writer, posed a question. "Are most spirits good spirits or bad spirits?" Marty asked.

As the film developed in the presence of the entire Sightings team, a cryptic message appeared. "There are numerous remedial lemurs." A lemur is a long-tailed monkey found mostly in Madagascar. Was the Ghost Writer playing a practical joke? John Huckert found the answer in a Latin dictionary. In Roman mythology lemurs are the night-walking spirits of the dead.

The excitement in the room was palpable. Nervous laughter masked the tension. Kerry Gaynor was impressed, but wanted further controls. "You have to establish a chain of evidence. You have to be able to observe the phenomenon from the beginning to the end. So, we have to load the film from a sealed pack, show that it's our camera. We have to fire it. We have to control the film as it comes out."

Following Kerry's suggestions, Sightings trained one of its video cameras on a new Polaroid brought to the house by photographic expert Edson Williams. A sealed film package was opened and a new cartridge was inserted directly into the Polaroid. A member of the Sightings team posed the question "Are you here for John or for the house ?"

A picture was taken. It was placed on a table in full view. After thirty seconds, a message appeared. "Genius loci." Kerry Gaynor looked up the word in the Latin dictionary. The exact translation of genius loci is "the guardian spirit of a man or a place." More pictures were taken in the same manner. The messages alternated between English ("Time travel," "Anything is possible," "John relax and learn") and Latin ("Ad litteram").

Edson Williams had never seen anything like it in his twenty years as a photo analyst. "I actually watched them eject out of the Polaroid. There was a moment where I thought, Oh, my God, and I was in one of the Polaroids, which made it even spookier. It made me feel that there could be something in the house."

Near the conclusion of the night-long investigation, Marty Elcan asked, "Wright, will you be with them for a long time?" The Ghost Writer replied, "Sed haec prius fuere." Translated, the phrase means "All this is over now." It was the last message the Ghost Writer would send.

Now, I need to stress these two points;
1) The cameras were brought in BY the Sightings crew, and the film was factory sealed and had delivered DIRECTLY from Polaroid.
2) I saw that Sightings special and they showed a SINGLE TAKE of them opening a factory sealed box, then tearing open the factory sealed wrapping, placing the new cartridge into the empty camera, asking the question, then about a second later taking the picture. 30 seconds longer into the single take, the image appeared with the writing on it. There were no breaks in the filming, and it showed the entire process from start to finish.

Matkowsky has an exhibition going on right now in LA about the encounter entitled Seeing Things, and be sure to check out the videos.

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

2007-10-30T06:31:00.000-06:00

From the Facebook group, "Stay in Iraq until the Job Is Done"

Caption: "Does anything really need to be said...The picture shows that this 82nd Airborne Division soldier has been thru Survival School and learned his lessons well. He's giving the sign of "coercion" with his left hand. These hand signs are taught in survival school to be used by POW's as a method of posing messages back to our intelligence services who may view the photo or video. This guy was obviously being coerced into shaking hands with Hillary Clinton. It's ironic how little she knew that he would so inform us about the photo---perhaps because she's never understood the military to begin with."

Oh, and it's legit.

The "not really all that pleased" assessment is evidently accurate although the picture originally appeared without any accompanying text, and the "coercion" caption was only added later to make the humor of the photograph more explicit; as the soldier pictured with Senator Clinton (who asked that we not identify him by name) told us that he employed the gesture to indicate that he was not a fan of the senator's and was not as appreciative of having the opportunity to meet (and pose with) her as it might otherwise appear.

I Rock!

2007-10-26T11:30:00.001-06:00

My letter to the editor of Tennessee Tech's Paper, The Oracle, got printed!

The letter was in response to one of the editorialist's article about how a square pizza had a serving size of 1/5th the pizza, and he wanted an Engineering student to explain how to evenly slice the pizza. He then went on to talk about how it related to the Bush Administration and how there were no WMD's in Iraq.

Here's the letter.

Here’s how you slice a pizza into 5 pieces. Make 5 evenly spaced strips.

Or if you wanted to do it the hard way, take the length of one side and call that x. The perimeter is 4*x. Now divide that by 5 to find the length of crust for each piece. Make a point and then measure following the crust (4*x)/5 away to the next point. Keep repeating until you’ve made all 5 points.

Next starting from the center cut to each point. Math will prove that all the sections have the same area and the same crust length.

Also here’s a list of WMD’s either found in Iraq after the invasion in 2003 or were admitted to being produced by Iraqi officials in 2002, BEFORE we invaded;

Found:
At least 500 shells filled with mustard and sarin nerve agent

Admitted by officials in 2002;
3.9 tons of VX gas, but could have produced up to 200 tons 1/100 gram on the skin is fatal
Iraq admitted to manufacturing 790 tons of sarin nerve agent
Between 2,850 and 3,080 tons of mustard gas
Iraq admitted to making 2,200 gallons of Anthrax spores
520 Gallons of Aflatoxin, a chemical that causes liver cancer
5,300 gallons of BoTox placed in missile warheads. If inhaled in gas form, 1.42 x 10^ -11 of a gram is fatal

But I’m not holding my breath that either the list of WMD’s found, or this letter are going to be published.

Next.

-------
Sr. ME

YAF Interviews Left Wing Smear Artist

2007-10-26T10:52:00.000-06:00

Be sure to watch the video at Hot Air. Jason Mattera caught up with Adam Kokesh, the guy who organized this smear against the YAF at George Washington University. In there he readily uses the term for an Islamic radical as a "Fascist Extremist," but still denounces the use of the term Islamo-fascist by public speakers.

On top of that, Just off the presses, Mere Rhetoric has shown that he is at it again with his fliers. This one claiming that Japan was about to surrender before the dropping of the Hiroshima bomb (Japan rejected the US offer to surrender 10 days before the bombing), that there has been a mass round-up of Arab-Americans, and the "torture" at Abu-Ghraib, all of which were caused by racism in fliers he posted at David Horowitz's "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week"

And as HA explains, it's no surprise who Kokesh supports for president in 2008. And as of now, there is no word on what actions have been taken by the school for the smear against the YAF. The president wrote a letter about the incident, but did not mention that the Iraq Veterans Agianst The War were the organization who created the fliers.

The Best Scam So Far

2007-10-25T10:12:00.000-06:00

There's a new type of web scam coming out that I just got in my inbox. It's claiming to be a French company named "Financial Intelligence" offering a "regional agent" job in the states making $50,000/yr for just a few hours of work per week.

You click on the link and it takes you to a very fancy looking webpage that has all the appearance of a financial firm. Except I noticed one thing.

You know how this web address is gopandcollege.blogspot.com? Blogspot is the free hosting company, and the gopandcollege part is a free domain inside that main address. This site had the same appearance it was http://______.php0h.com.

So I decided to look into the web address before I even started to look at the main address, php0h.com. It was a free web hosting page. That made me suspicious.

So then I started to read the page.

For those interested, the following are the basic requirements:

US Citizens and/or residents of the state.
Should not be below 21 years of age
Can dedicate at least 2-3 work hours/week
With a working e-mail address and a telephone access

Then I read this last bit;
Should have a healthy checking account

Then I looked at the job description, and it just all went down hill.

Receive funds or either from our company or from our partners to his bank account as approved by the Manager
Make necessary processing of funds in accordance to our company needs.
Create records of transactions and report the details of the same to the Manager.

Mmmm. This has scam written all over it, so just be warned that it's the same old Nigerian money scam, but with a technological twist. And just for the record, here is the REAL company named Financial Intelligence, located in California.

Slight Disinformation At Snopes.com

2007-10-24T08:26:00.000-06:00

I recently got this e-mail, and decided to investigate it at Snopes, and was a bit confused. I looked at Snopes and they said that Canadians only pay 29% for federal income taxes, if they make over 120,000, compared to a total tax burden of 40-45% for Californians.

Note what I said there. JUST the Canadian Federal income tax is 29% for anything over $120,887. Well, JUST the United State's federal income tax rate is 28% if single, and 25% if you are married for the $120k range.

But let's look at the TOTAL tax burden for those living in Canada. I input 35 years old, making 119,999 (the max for the site) filing in Quebec as married with 1 kid, and here is what I got.

Notice that Alberta is the only province with a tax burden below $50,000. And in Quebec, you end up paying 51% of your income to the government.

If you file as a single male with no kids the taxes jump to $64,025 (53%)

But what about large families? I put in again, 35, making approx $120,000, and married, but this time with 4 kids. Tax burden in Quebec was still slightly over $60,000, and all of the provinces were still over $50,000.

*UPDATE* I sent an e-mail to snopes about the information, but rather than acknowledging on the site that Canadians pay over 50% of their wages in taxes this was the response I got;

The writer of the e-mail states that he is "in the 55% tax bracket." The
term "tax bracket" specifically refers to the rate at which an individual is
taxed due to a particular income level and therefore excludes other taxes
(such as sales tax) which are not based on income levels.

- B

Also, they changed their original post from stating that Californians payed 40-45% of their income to federal AND state (not just federal as in Canada) to stating that they pay an equivalent amount. Snopes, the additional 4% (Canadians pay 29%, Americans Pay 25%) of $120,000 that the Canadians earn is $4,800. That's hardly free.

One 9/11 Theory Killed

2007-10-22T10:32:00.000-06:00

Ever since Casino Royale put the idea out there as a line in hte movie, I've been searching for truth in the claims that people knew of 9/11 beforehand and short sold their airline stocks. I recently found this article on Newsmax explaining the short selling of Airline Stocks before 9/11.

It states that in fact there has been only one documented case where anyone has presumed prior knowledge of 9/11 in any form of legal action, and that was an "impromptu outburst" against an Egyptian broker who profited $300,000 from a sell when he predicted "the Dow would soon drop from 9,600 to 3,000."

Not only does the relatively modest action belie some daring market conspiracy by those in touch with terror plans, but the pre-Sept. 11 market history is also consistent, more or less, with business as usual. Adam Hamilton of Zeal LLC, a consulting company that does research on markets worldwide, has crunched the numbers and recently told Insight magazine:
"The market was in bad shape in the summer and early fall, and you know there were a lot of people who believed that there would be a sell-off in the market long before Sept. 11. For instance, American Airlines was at $40 in May and fell to $29 on Sept. 10; United was at $37 in May and fell to $31 on Sept. 10. These stocks were falling anyway, and it would have been a good time to short them.”
The downward trend in the airline stocks was backed up in the pre-Sept. 11 trading picture.
Insight reported that there were repeated spikes in put options on American Airlines during the year before Sept. 11 (June 19 with 2,951 puts, June 15 with 1,144 puts, April 16 with 1,019 and Jan. 8 with 1,315 puts). In the same period, United Airlines had slightly more action (Aug. 8 with 1,678 puts, July 20 with 2,995, April 6 with 8,212 and March 13 with 8,072).
With United and American stock transactions, and across the board, there is an automated system called the CBOE Market Surveillance System, which automatically records information trades. The existence of this sophisticated surveillance system, designed to ferret out inside-traders, would have given federal investigators a pretty quick look at what, if anything, was untoward in the market just prior to 9-11.
All the more reason to wonder what’s going on and taking so long, say the experts.
And it is not just the SEC and FBI that is still mired in the 9-11 profiteering probe. Japan, Germany, the U.K., France, Luxembourg, Hong Kong, Switzerland and Spain have their own investigations running.
Like their U.S. counterparts, nothing has been forthcoming.
So far, the only break in the silence has been the apparent impromptu courtroom outburst of assistant U.S. attorney Kenneth Breen, who recently accused Amr Ibrahim Elgindy, an Egyptian-born stockbroker on trial in San Diego, with knowing in advance about 9-11 and capitalizing on the insider information by attempting to unload $300,000 worth of shares on Sept. 10, 2001.
In court Breen charged that on the afternoon of Sept. 10, Elgindy contacted his broker at Salomon Smith Barney and asked him to sell the stock, confiding in the broker that the Dow Jones industrial average, which at the time stood at about 9,600, would soon dive to below 3,000.

But leave this information to be "forgotten" by truthers, and people who believe that 9/11 was a giant scheme by the Jews.

GOPAC Attracts The LA Times

2007-10-18T16:54:00.000-06:00

Hehehehehe!

"Blistering USC-bashing rant" I love it! Here's the original, but I do have better rants.

I must say though, I hate it when people make fun of the south's reputation for being a bunch of slack jawed idiots.

As a Sr. Mechanical Engineering student at Tennessee Tech, I personally take offense to it, and I think so should every Georgia Tech Graduate. Yes there are the stereotypical southerners, but I swear they're all in Tuscaloosa!

Bush's Reason For Vetoing SCHIP

2007-10-18T16:16:00.000-06:00

"But SCHIP helps the poor. Bush is hurting the poor."

Yes it does. But it can also be abused by people making over $100,000 per year. The National SCHIP cut off for earned income would be set at 300% of the poverty level. Only 10 states currently have percents that high, and Jersey has the highest at 350%. To get an idea of how much that is, there is a graphic of that level based on the number in a household over at the 2007 Federal Poverty Guidelines.

However, not included in that 300% are these;

Social Security
Capital Gains (ex. Mutual Fund Growth)
Ordinary Dividends (ex. Stock growth)

Nearly 1/2 of all American Adults, and nearly 60% of children live within the 300% range. That is far too many people to be considered a bill for the "poor." Reduce the cut off to 200%, then bring the bill back to the debate table. If individual states want to have higher cut offs, then let them do that on their own.

An Open Reply

2007-10-18T13:55:00.000-06:00

I recently got 2 comments from likely USC/Pac-10 fans pissing on my SEC.

Dave said that the SEC teams never play any hard out of conference teams, and James had this to say;

let's take a look at what 'SC has done when they've played the SEC in the past two years: pasted the SEC West Champion Arkansas 50-14, then 55-19 AT RAZORBACK STADIUM. Auburn in '03? Oklahoma (granted, not in the SEC) in '04? USC has consistently beaten the tar out of the best teams from the SEC, ACC, and the Big 12, and you can ask them to do no better.

OK, first Dave, here's a look at out of conference teams that the SEC is playing this year alone;

Alabama vs Florida State
Auburn vs #2 USF, AND #25 Kansas State
Florida Gators vs Florida State
Georgia vs Georgia Tech
Kentucky vs Louisville
LSU vs #11 Virginia Tech
Ole Miss vs #16 Missouri
Mississippi State vs #9 West Virginia
Tennessee vs #10 Cal

That is 2007 alone. Let's see 2006 shall we?

Arkansas vs. #4 Southern Cal
Auburn vs. Washington State
Florida vs. Florida State
Georgia vs. Georgia Tech
Kentucky vs. #6 Louisville
LSU vs. Arizona
Miss. State vs. #10 West Virginia
Ole Miss vs #18 Wake Forrest
Tennessee vs. #14 Cal
Vanderbilt vs. #8 Michigan

Wow! Another 10 of 12 SEC teams step up to play hard teams.

The SEC requires 8 conference games out of 12 regular season games, plus you want one easy game for homecoming, and theoretically you want an easy game for week 1. That leaves 2 weeks to play a non conference team, if you don't include in-state rivals. Out of 12 SEC teams, at least 9 teams are playing a team that is ranked in the top 25, or was ranked in the top 25 in 2006. The only exceptions to that are Florida State and Georgia Tech. Florida State just dropped from being ranked #21 last week, and GT is Georgia's in state rivalry.

Second James, USC beat the then 4-7, 10-4, and now 3-3 Arkansas Razorbacks. They have NEVER been the best SEC team. And yes they beat the then 8-5 Auburn Tigers in 2003. I'll give USC their title in 2004 but then again, as you said that was against Oklahoma, a non-SEC team who fell to 8-4 the following year.

Just for comparison, here is USC's regular season out of conference schedule for the past few years;

2007;
Idaho (1-6) WAC
Nebraska (4-3) Big 12
Notre Dame (1-6) IA

2006;
#12 Arkansas (10-4) SEC
Nebraska (9-5) Big 12
#11 Notre Dame (10-3) IA

2005;
Hawaii (5-7) WAC
Arkansas (4-7) SEC
#9 Notre Dame (9-3) IA
Fresno State (8-5) WAC

USC had one year where they played truly tough out of conference teams, but in the past 3 years they have NOT played the BEST of the ACC, the Big 12, or the SEC. The last conference champ they beat was Virginia Tech in 2004. Before that it was Colorado in 2002. The SEC played 3 conference champs in 2006 regular season; USC, (PAC 10), Louisville (Big East), and Georgia Tech (ACC)

And yes, I can ask USC to do better. How about not losing to UNRANKED teams in their own conference. USC has had 3 strait games against unranked teams be decided by 7 or less points. I'm predicting that USC will stomp Notre Dame (as has everyone else), get pounded by the Ducks, beat O State and Cal, then lose to Arizona State to finish 9-3.

News To See

2007-10-18T11:34:00.000-06:00

First off, the case that Rush is selling with the original papers of Harry Reid trying to get Rush Limbaugh fired are on sale for just under another 24 hours.

The last bid was at over $131,000!! Every penny of that money is going to the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation. On top of that, Rush is going to match that dollar amount himself. So already, the MC-LEF is going to get a check for $262,000.

PLUS, Rush has sent invites to each of the signers to also match the donations. Not surprisingly, none of the democrats have agreed to donate.

*UPDATE* The final bid was by a Betty Casey at $2,100,100. Rush is going to match every penny of that, giving a total of $4,200,200 to the MC-LEF. That is amazing.

Secondly, the New York Times had a massive sell off of 10.4 million (7.4% stake) shares which dropped the stock to a 20 year low. The AP credits the price drop to readers leaving the paper to go to internet sources. I've been watching the NYT steadily decline from over $50 per share in the 2002-2004, as numerous accounts of bias in the paper leaked out.

Illegal Immigration Red Flag

2007-10-17T16:36:00.000-06:00

From The Washington Times, via Drudge;

A Mexican national infected with a highly contagious form of Tuberculosis crossed the U.S. border 76 times and took multiple domestic flights in the last year, according to Customs and Border Protection interviews and documents obtained by THE WASHINGTON TIMES...

The Custom's and Border Protection (CBP) agency was warned by health officials on April 16 that the frequent traveller was infected, but it took Homeland Security officials seven weeks to issue a May 31 alert to warn its own border inspectors, according to Homeland Security sources who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution... DEVELOPING...

The crap is about to hit the fan...

Will Someone Please Ask This?

2007-10-17T10:36:00.000-06:00

Although savvy enough to work a blog, I am not tech savvy enough to create a video for youtube as a possible question to ask presidential candidates. Will some one please post one or both of these questions and send a link here?

"Some Republican, and most Democrat candidates believe that an immediate withdrawl from Iraq will cause a stop in the sectarian violence in certain regions of the country. My question is, if elected president, would you follow that ideology, and how would you react if we withdraw and the violence increases?"

Or this question;

"Non-interventionism is becoming a popular concept now because it is the concept of not involving ourselves in the rest of the world's business. As president what would you do to prevent the world from coming to us as it did on December 7th, 1941, and Sept 11, 2001?"

GOP & College Dilemma

2007-10-16T11:59:00.000-06:00

I've been pondering something since I realized that I am now a senior at Tennessee Tech;
What am I going to do with this blog after I graduate? After all I won't be in college anymore so there will be no need for me to be "GOP & College."

So what to do. I love blogging, and want to continue blogging after I graduate, but I want this page to continue to be run.

Therefore GOP & College is opening to current conservative college students who would like to post on a blog.

Send me an e-mail letting me know you're interested, and if you have a blog currently, send me a link to it as well. If I think you'd be a worthy candidate then I'll send you an invite to be a co-writer at the page, with the opportunity to become sole owner of the blog after I graduate.

I Just Cand't Get This Out Of My Mind

2007-10-11T07:45:00.000-06:00

I just can't get over the fact that Democrat candidates are pro partial-birth. It is a disgusting procedure that happens only after 28 weeks of gestation. Democrats claim that "It needs to be available in case the pregnancy threatens the mother's health."

First off, no case in medical history has ever been recorded where that was the case. And here's a little factoid for you Democrats;

Over 80% of premature babies born at week 28 SURVIVE!

Over 90% of premature babies born at week 32 SURVIVE!

NO EXCUSES!

Harry Reid And Senate Dems Dooped By Frost Parents

2007-10-10T13:09:00.000-06:00

Halsey Frost claims a combined income of for his family of $45,000 per year for his wife and 4 kids. I sympathize with his 2 young kids who were injured in a car accident.

What I don't sympathize with is the fact that they are drawing government assistance for their medical bills.

But they need it right?

Not so fast. The husband willingly declined getting medical coverage for his family and claims that health insurance would cost them over $1200 per month, which is higher than their mortgage payment.

However, insurance bloggers quickly countered that by stating that insurance plans could be found for roughly $425 per month to cover the whole family.

But that's not all. They live in a town home with over 3,000 square feet, and all 4 children are sent to private school at Park School for the price of $20,000 per year, EACH.

The address previously stated that the two children in the accident get a reduced tuition, but the math still doesn't add up.

You can't have $20,000 per year tuition for even just 2 kids, and pay a $1200 per month mortgage. That just don't add up.

In order to live at their standards of living, the Frosts need to earn at least $95,000 per year to live at the standard of living that they claim to have. Here's why I think that.

You have at least 2 kids attending the school where tuition is roughly $20,000 per year, plus I'll assume the other two's "discounted rate" is 1/2 of standard tuition. So for 4 kids, that's $60,000 in private school tuition alone. Plus you have a $1200 mortgage for each of the 12 months in a year.

So you have a total of I'd assume $74,400 in children's tuition and the house alone. That doesn't include the mortgage he is paying on the $160,000 warehouse he bought in 1999, or things like gas, groceries, and other yearly expenses. Has anyone found the tax returns for this family?

Everything about this family stinks of taking advantage of the government. What's even worse is that the SCHIPS program allows people to make up to $82,000 per year of combined income before losing eligibility for the program. Everything about this story just stinks to high heaven. I just wish the kids who genuinely were injured in the accident hadn't been brought into the spot light for all of this.

A Story Worth Noting

2007-10-09T20:34:00.000-06:00

Wyatt has a hot report coming from Philly that is bound to hurl even more mud at the Philly PD.

Wyatt points out that when police were called the mother stated that the 15 year old was attacking her with a knife in one hand and a hammer in the other. Upon arriving at the scene, the Philly police department also reported visual confirmation of him carrying the weapons.

After that he ran back inside and swapped out the knife and hammer for the iron.

Also noted in the story was this juicy bit of info buried at the bottom;

Timbers was a ninth-grader at the CEP Miller Alternative School, a school for students with discipline problems, according to the Philadelphia School District. Neighbors on Brill Street told CBS 3 they have previously seen the teen carrying knives on several past occasions.

On several occasions. You are talking about a possibly violent teenager who charged at police officers with a very heavy iron. Imagine the force of being hit by a 5-7 lb chunk of plastic and steel (WHICH COMES TO A POINT AT THE TOP I MIGHT ADD) at say 25-30 mph.

That's going to hurt, and will certainly break almost any bone in the body. I believe that the Philly officers had every right to shoot, and that it was a mere stroke of bad luck that the lone wound to the shoulder was fatal.

Slightly Weird...

2007-10-09T14:01:00.000-06:00

Check out this story from the AP (emphasis mine);

By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer
51 minutes ago
DEARBORN, Mich. - All eyes were on newcomer Fred
Thompson Tuesday as nine Republican presidential candidates
faced questions in their sixth major debate of the 2008 campaign.

The debate focused on economic issues, but most of the attention was on
Thompson, the veteran actor and former Tennessee senator who was making his
debut debate appearance a month after becoming a full-fledged candidate.

A late entry into the race, Thompson was looking to set himself apart
from the crowded field as well as to counter a perception that he's unprepared
to be president.

...The debate was set for 4 p.m. EDT in Dearborn, Mich.,
in a state that's home to the struggling auto industry and that has the highest
unemployment rate in the country. It was 7.4 percent in August; the nation's was
4.6 percent.

As of right now it IS Tuesday at 4 PM Eastern Time, and this story was written in the past tense almost an HOUR AGO. I know there was a rehearsal of the debate last night, but this is talking about the actual debate itself, and even continues the past tense language when describing the actual debate. Is it just me or is this a little more than slightly weird?

**UPDATE** The Yahoo! News site moved, but Forbes has the article verbatim, and their time stamp is even earlier. One full hour before the debate began.

Again, just kind of weird.

Will Franklin Gets The Tax Codes Just About Right

2007-10-08T21:42:00.000-06:00

He makes a lot of good points. Like the "Men at a bar" fable.

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, that's what they decided to do.
The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20." Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.
...The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

However, he ends it a different way. He ends it that the 9 other guys get mad that the wealthiest guy saves $10 (16% savings) and beat him up. In the story I heard the wealthiest 2 guys just up and left, leaving the $100 tab to the other 8 people.

Will also points out that in 2005 the top 1% of earners paid 39.4%, the top 5% paid 59.7%, the top 10% paid 70.3%, and the top 50% pay 96.9% of all income related taxes in the united states.

However what Will messes up is the statistic about the lower 50%.
He shows that although the lower 50% earns 12.8% of the wealth in America, and they pay only 3.1%

Will, you forgot that there is a percentage of people who pay $0 (or get money back) in federal income taxes;

41%

So the real statistic is that 9% of the US population pay 3.1% of the federal income taxes, with an average of only $2402.60 per household in net paid income taxes for the year.

The average amount of taxes paid by the top 1%? Over $756,000 EACH. That's 31,472% more than average for the lowest 9% of the country that actually pays a net income tax.

You know what's even more interesting? That since the Bush tax cuts in 2001, the number of "non-payers" has increased from 25% in 2001 to 41% in 2006. That means that means that an additional 21,760,000 households now pay $0 or get back money from the federal government.

Who says that the Bush tax cuts hurt the lower income earners?

THE WHOLE WORLD NOW KNOWS IT!

2007-10-06T20:47:00.000-06:00

THAT THE USC TROJANS

SUCK

The formerly 1-4 Stanford Cardinals beat the 4-0 USC Trojans with a corner fade into the endzone with 54 ticks on the clock left to tie the ball game and the extra point sealed the final score of 24-23.

USC had under a minute to attempt to get at least a field goal to limp away with the win, but after a sack for a 7 yard loss, a throw down, and finally an interception on 4th and 17, the USC Trojans finally got what they deserve.

When the announcement came at Tiger Stadium, the decibel level of the fans reached 115 dB, slightly lower than the dB of a rock concert/jet engine.

And to add insult to USC, Pete Carrol is such an arrogant ass-clown that he didn't even have the balls to shake the hand of the opposing coach. He immediately tucked tail and made a bee line for the locker room. What a pompus prick.

USC, you got your ass served back to you on a Redwood platter, and I can't wait to see you lose again later in the season when you actually face a decently RANKED opponent!

I can barely wait until tomorrow morning to hear the ESPN/ABC commentators reactions to their precious little baby getting beat.

GO SEC ALL THE WAY!

Phony Soldier Investigations

2007-10-06T09:55:00.000-06:00

Even after 30 people have been arrested in the last year for lying about their service record, or completely making one up, there are 60 more of these phonies that are being investigated at the moment.

The phony soldiers do exist, and it would not surprise me if those are the ones that end up on TV for interviews.

A recent example is Chester Stiles, a child rapist who the Florida DA said he claimed to be a Navy SEAL. This exaggeration is terribly false, but the news was quick to eat it up. Stiles actually joined the navy in 1988 as a standard enlisted grunt. He was discharged in 1989 at the same level as an engine serviceman in Florida.

You know how much research was needed to counter his claims? A simple 2 minute phone call. The press quickly ate up the lie that he was a former SEAL without thoroughly checking out whether the allegation was in fact based on truth. They merely asked if he was in the navy, and published the article, some stating it "in fact" without any proof of legitimacy.

USC; Over-Rated As Always

2007-10-04T18:43:00.000-06:00

That is all.