Buckle Up
Video – Daddy’s Home from Iraq
Mike Baker on Homeless Soccer, aka The Clip That Hooked Me on Red Eye
I discovered Red Eye, late night on Fox News and watched it now and then, but it was this clip that made Red Eye a daily watch for the wife and I. When you see it, you’ll understand why.
Multi-Camera Office Lip-Sync Brilliance
Contest for Google Wave Invite
I’ve had a few days to work with Google Wave, and it really is a fantastic new tool. Currently, it is in preview mode, so access is invite-only. Those who received their invites directly from Google have been granted invites that they can pass out to others. I’ve decided to offer one of mine up in a contest. The rules are simple.
- Follow @LockjawTheOgre on Twitter. It’s not just a good idea, it also allows me to DM the winner.
- Write a comment on this post saying why you think receiving an invite would be the coolest thing ever.
- Sent a tweet with the following text “From @LockjawTheOgre: I’m giving away one invite for Google Wave. http://bit.ly/44wK54 Please RT”
I will select a winner Tuesday night, sometime after 6pm Eastern Time. It will likely be while I’m watching Hell’s Kitchen or Shark Tank. That gives around five days for this contest to run. I will announce the winner, and DM for the email address to which I will send the invite. The invite will probably take at least a couple days to arrive, but that’s up to Google to decide.
We have a WINNER
Due to the overwhelming success of this contest, I had a grand total of six qualified entries. One failed to send the proper tweet, and one is a good friend and therefore disqualified from the contest (on the spot ruling) but qualified for an invite anyway. Hi Brad!
The winner is @SimpsonsParadox. Once I have your email address, the invite will go out. Previously invited folks have gotten the invite in a couple days, so I expect yours will take about the same amount of time.
Barack Obama’s Promises – Advice Taken
Back in November, I wrote a post advising then President-Elect Barack Obama how to make lots of promises, but not necessarily keep them. Whether he was aware of it or not, he has been following my advice perfectly. The man has made plenty of promises, but failed to follow through on very much at all.
Polifact analyzed Obama’s first 100 days in broken promises. Ideapalooza has a downloadable spreadsheet of Obama’s 895 campaign promises. Recently, he called for the repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, considered a paragon of Democrat wishy-washiness. Of course, this has been on the White House website for a while, and nothing has been done.
Way to go Mr. President. You’ve learned well. Your supporters really don’t pay close enough attention to what you do to realize the truth. Keep making promises. Don’t worry about keeping them. It’s the liberal way. After all, you can earn the Nobel Prize for just saying you’ll do something now. I’d say this plan has already been a success.
One Reason I Love Fox News “Red Eye” at 3am
This is making the rounds because “Attack of the Show” featured it. I’ve been wanting exactly this clip, plus the “Homeless soccer fat chicks” comment for some time. I’ll have to settle for just the one, for now.
Order for me. I’ll order for that guy.
Would you eat at a restaurant in which each person ordered the meal for the next person to order? Offsetting Behaviour tells of a japanese restaurant where each person orders, and pays for, the meal of the person to follow.Yes, when you visit, you eat what the person before you ordered, and the next person eats what you ordered. Something tells me, if you tried this in the US, somebody would try to sue.
Barack Obama – Miserable Failure
President Barack Obama is on track to be one of the worst presidents in history. Having been in office less than a year, he has built a track record in failure like no other president before him. As his stated goals have been to change the very ideals of America, Obama’s failures may be a great success for our country. Likewise, should Obama actually find some sort of success in the future, it is likely to be the cause of great trouble for the United States.
Straightaway as he took office, President Obama promoted the so-called “economic stimulus bill.” This three-quarter of a trillion dollar corporate-welfare swindle was pushed on America as the only way to stop the economic slowdown. By not addressing the true causes of the bad economy, congressional interference in the mortgage, automotive, and energy sectors, it was easier to blame President Bush, and bankers for situations both were forced to endure. The result? Massive erosion of freedom, as Congress used the stimulus as an excuse to control individual wages, a contiunuation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to exist in economically harmful ways, and an unemployment rate far above what Obama promised should the stimulus not be passed.
With the stimulus, Obama succeeded in legislation, but failed massively in result. America is in worse shape because of its passing.
Onward to the next major emergency legislation that must be passed RIGHT NOW. Obama supported the “cap and trade” legislation to “fight global warming” long before he took office. He actually said, “If somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them.” Obama’s goal wasn’t just to promote so-called “green technologies,” but to force the forms of energy we rely on every day out of the market. His stated intention was to run out of business an industry that many thousands of working men and women across many states relied on for a living.
The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives complied, passing one of the most egregious infringements on freedom known to America.
Luckily, word got out about what damage the bill would cause. The bill would cause increases in energy costs, resulting in increases in costs on everything else. After all, it takes energy to manufacture, warehouse, transport, display, and retail pretty much everything you buy. Since the end consumer pays all those costs in the final price, the end consumer would pay the bill. That would damage the economy further, likely resulting in an economic spiral when we need it least.
As it looks now, the Senate is unlikely to continue work on this piece of “emergency” legislation until at least next year. So much for the “if we don’t pass this now” horse manure Obama tried to foist on us so many weeks ago.
With one emergency bill not yet completed, another was brought up. Now it’s time, apparently, to completely upturn everything concerning the healthcare industry. Painting the insurance industry’s profit margin of 3.3% as exhorbitant, Obama and the Democrats maneuvered (manured?) to wrest control of healthcare from their hands. With deficits, and debt piling on daily, the trillion dollar “healthcare reform” bill had to be passed RIGHT NOW.
Then, people started actually reading the bill. By people, I mean actual citizens. I do not mean Obama or Congress. Obama, asked about a detail of the bill, replied, “You know, I have to say that I am not familiar with the provision you are talking about.” John Conyers said, “I love these members that get up and say, ‘Read the bill. What good is reading the bill if it’s a thousand pages and you don’t have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?”
You know what? I haven’t read the whole bill. I have read quite a bit of it, though. It is convoluted, and boring, but I took some time to actually research the issue. I don’t even have a vote in the matter. You might think, though, that Obama and Congress would bother reading a bill before insulting MY intelligence for opposing it on the issues.
Let me give you a hint, Mr President. You don’t gain the support of America by insulting your opponents, especially when dealing with an issue in which over half of America is in the opposition.
Obama even went on TV multiple times to push the health care bill. He continually referred to his plan, even though he has yet to actually propose a plan. He claimed he would veto a bill presented to him if it contained unpopular provisions, but many of those provisions are in the house bill. Unlike Congress, many citizens could find the time to research this information, which is why Obama’s televised appeals each resulted in a DROP in popularity for the bill.
Oh yeah, the Senate probably won’t get to this piece of emergency legislation until next year. They’re debating over which provisions Obama said he would veto they want to include (really!) and to what extent.
Obama says the economy is turning around, and jobless claims are levelling off. Almost immediately, new jobless reports show the opposite. Obama promotes the Olympics to Chicagoans, and Chicagoans demonstrate opposition.
The latest? Obama goes to the International Olympic Committee to promote Chicago for the Olympics, and the IOC completely snubs him, knocking Chicago out in the first round of voting.
He’s not the savior. He’s not bringing prosperity. He’s not bringing America together. He’s not leading an ethical government. He’s not, apparently, capable of speaking coherently without a teleprompter. Heck, he has yet to demonstrate he’s all that smart.
President Barack Hussein Obama has proven that he is really only good at one thing. He’s a miserable failure, on his way toward having arguably the worst presidency in the history of the United States.
One Tax-Cut to Rule Them All
We are in a serious economic situation right now. Not many people are aware of how dire things really are. While President Obama and the Democrat-run House and Senate are trying to work out how much more to spend on this and that, the available funds to pay for it have come and gone. Right now, the United States is out of cash, and must borrow to pay for anything Congress might decide is a good idea.
Did you know that it it costs over $300 billion just to service the debt of the US Federal government right now? Some readers may not know what that means. It means that the interest payments alone, on past loans given to the US Government add up to $300,000,000,000 every year. Let’s put that into perspective.
The top company on the Fortune 500 is Exxon Mobil with $45 billion in profits. The top four profitable companies on the list totaled profits of $100 million. You have to go down to #70 in the list before the profits add up to the interest on the US debt. If we taxed these companies at 100% of their profits for a year, we could pay the interest, but not the principal on the debt. If you think taxing these companies at 100% is a good idea, you’re an idiot that should have studied some basic economic theory, but nonetheless, I know you’re out there.
We are in an economic downturn, and even if some are saying we’re on the way out, we are going to continue to be in a dire economic situation unless something is done about government spending and debt. Congress, and President Obama should not be doing anything that would cost, well, pretty much anything. If they do, it adds to the debt, and offers no stimulus to the economy to offset the costs.
That’s right. As a blanket statement, I said that anything Congress and the President do that costs money will provide no stimulus to the economy. There may be some ancillary benefits, but all money spent by the government must be, sooner or later, paid for by the citizens of the United States. Personal income taxes are a direct tax, to be sure, but the rest of the taxes are paid by the citizens as well. Corporate taxes aren’t paid for with money pulled from trees. The taxes are a cost of doing business, and that cost is always passed along to the consumer. If Congress passes a new tax on oil companies, you pay more for gas at the pump. It’s a simple concept, and one that many cannot grasp.
What do we consider a recession? A recession is an economic downturn that lasts at least 3 fiscal quarters. Why do we care if there is a recession? It’s because of the worry that we, as citizens, will end up with less financial stability, or cash to purchase for our needs. How do we improve the economy? We increase the amount of money flowing between individuals, businesses, and corporations for goods and services.
Will the “Cap and Trade” bill, which is designed to put certain power companies out of business, increase the flow of money for goods and services? Of course not. It’s designed to do otherwise. Will the so-called “health care reform” bills in Congress increase this flow? No, like the cap and trade bill, the health care bill is designed to put a large portion of the health care industry out of business, leaving many thousands unemployed.
What if there was something we could do that would increase the flow of money for goods and services on a large scale? What if it would also result in a dramatic cut in the number of people able to get insurance? What if it would result in a turnaround in the home market? What if it would stimulate the automobile industry? What if it would mean more jobs, lower prices on many items, higher food production, and possibly even more people driving fuel-efficient cars?
I know what it would take to make this happen. It would work. The results would be dramatic, and immediate.
All we have to do is drop the federal personal income tax to zero.
Look at your last pay stub. How much of your income was taken out to pay the federal income tax? Are we talking $50, which would buy groceries for one for a week? Is it more like $100? For one month’s income taxes, could you buy an iPod? A new PC? Make a car payment? For some, it may even be a house payment.
What would be the cost to the US Government of a tax cut like this? It would remove approximately $1 trillion from the government’s coffers. Let’s not get stuck on that, though, because that number is false. It isn’t even worth considering without more information.
You see, the influx of cash that a personal income tax cut of this magnitude would cause would have other effects. With more money available, more will be spent. Sure, some will throw their money away on beer, but that means more sales for beer companies, and they’ll have to hire new employees to meet the demand. Some will buy cars, meaning automobile companies will have to produce and sell the cars. How many iPods and iPhones will be purchased? Apple will probably have to build new manufacturing facilities just to handle the demand. More production and purchasing of goods and services means more corporate income, and therefore more money going to corporate income taxes.
That $1 trillion cost for the tax cut would mean more purchasing, more manufacturing, more hiring, more income, and therefore more purchasing. It’s a wonderful circle that can be helped, or harmed, by government action. It is likely that, within a year or two, the $1 trillion hit the first year would result in more than $1 trillion in increased tax returns. The government would, if history is any guide, make more then it cost.
Of course, as brilliant as this idea is (it wasn’t mine originally, mind you) it won’t happen. You see, this idea is based in one concept that few in Washington DC understand.
Freedom.
-
Qik Stream Flickr Photos
