The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.
Harvey Korman died this evening, reportedly of heart failure.
At the risk of sounding like my father, we’re losing the greats a day at a time. The older I get, the more I appreciate the comedic abilities of people like Korman and Tim Conway.
In tribute, a couple of Korman’s classic roles:
Hedley Lamarr in Blazing Saddles:
And Count de Monet from “History of the World, Part 1”
What kid, having played baseball or seen a major league game, hasn’t dreamed of being a member of the Cubs, Yankees, Cardinals or even the Twins or Royals?
As this article from 2004 describes, little league baseball has been losing popularity for some time. The ironic thing for MLB is that if people don’t play or follow the sport as kids, they don’t tend to pay attention to it as PAYING ADULTS!
I understand the value of a brand, copyright and all the legal stuff that goes with it, but wouldn’t you think MLB would be better served if they viewed this as “imitation being the sincerest form of flattery?” I’ve got to believe that the value in goodwill and awareness is worth far more than the few bucks the league gets from their licensing agreement with the “official” uniform provider.
McCain: GOP base needs to get energized
Senator McCain,
If you really believe that it is up to the GOP base to get energized, then this election is already lost.
Senator McCain,
Energized bases come from leaders or movements that speak to the hearts of their adherents. Energized bases come from people who see the leader’s vision and see how that vision helps them accomplish the goals achieve the values that they all believe in.
Senator McCain,
I certainly agree that indiscriminate spending is a significant issue and did hurt the Republicans in 2006 and will continue to hurt them in this election. However, if you believe that that is the ONLY issue that is out there, you are either naive, willfully ignorant or worse.
Senator McCain,
In case you fall into the naive/uniformed category, let me give you a short list of why many parts of the base are not energized by your candidacy:
Senator McCain,
The above list is not exhaustive. there are other issues where you have left many of us scratching our heads about where you are on the political spectrum. At least for myself, the above list will not keep me from voting for you. But, to suggest that I should be energized, when you support key policies that would negatively impact my family for years to come, well that’s not likely to happen.
WASHINGTON (AP) – Another week, another rumbling train of tornadoes that obliterates entire city blocks, smashing homes to their foundations and killing people even as they cower in their basements.
With the year not even half done, 2008 is already the deadliest tornado year in the United States since 1998 and seems on track to break the U.S. record for the number of twisters in a year, according to the National Weather Service. Also, this year’s storms seem to be unusually powerful.But like someone who has lost all his worldly possessions to a whirlwind, meteorologists cannot explain exactly why this is happening.
“There are active years and we don’t particularly understand why,” said research meteorologist Harold Brooks at the National Severe Storms Lab in Norman, Okla.
There’s something happening in weather that the experts don’t understand? You’re kidding me right! Isn’t everything caused by gorebal warming? Apparently not!
Global warming cannot really explain what is happening, Carbin said. While higher temperatures could increase the number of thunderstorms, which are needed to trigger tornadoes, they also would tend to push the storm systems too far north to form some twisters, he said.
La Nina, the cooling of parts of the Central Pacific that is the flip side El Nino, was a factor in the increased activity earlier this year"”especially in February, a record month for tornado activity"”but it can’t explain what is happening now, according to Carbin.
Carbin explained the most recent tornadoes with just one word: “May.” May is typically the busiest tornado month of the year.
That sounds like scientific lingo for “Shit happens!”
Gee, that’s pretty much what I’ve thought about gorebal warming all along; the most likely and accurate explanation for weather changes is “Shit happens!”
And I didn’t even stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night!
This is the Emergency Blogging System. It has been activated because the head Moron is somewhere north of the border hung over catching a harvest of walleye (or is it both?).
For those of you who can navigate Waukesha’s maze of streets, tonight is Blog N Grog night, at Neighbors’ Social Club, 260 W Main St in Waukesha, starting at 7 pm. Since steveegg is out of the country, it will be safe to go :-) Just make sure to hoist a cold one for him; he’ll return the favor with Labatt Maximum Ice.
We now return you to your regularily-scheduled co-blogger and guest bloggers.
So says Sharon Stone as she explains why China was struck with an earthquake that has claimed over 60,000 lives. In Sharon’s mind, the earthquake was evening up the way China has been treating Tibet.
I wonder if there will be any condemnation for Sharon for her claim, the way there was after Jerry Falwell and John Hagge made comments about homosexual issues being responsible for the 9/11 attacks and Katrina respectively? Will the MSM and the moonbats be consistent and cry for an apology from Sharon saying that this is a great human tradegy and to politicize it is in poor taste? Or, because Tibet is an issue that they are fond of, will they look the other way?
What’s your bet? I know where I have my money!
I spent a few hours at the Wisconsin Memorial park this morning. I watched the VFW members, color guards, a band and 1,600 beautiful American Flags blowing in the morning breeze. I heard the 21 gun salute, the National Anthem and of course… Taps. I watched the remembrance ceremony and a reading from an American combat veteran, he calls it, A Comrade. I would like to share some of the sounds and sights with you.
Note: Since I can’t seem to embed this video here, please view it here.
If anyone was there and caught the full name of Sgt. Pepper, I would like to hear from you. The poem he wrote and shared with us was very good.
Update: Think we got the video working. Thanks for sharing!
Boy George!
“
Has Steve left yet?
Steve’s gone and it’s time to party! Let’s see what’s in uncle Steve’s refridgerator.
[youtube]FemlmOPdkRE[/youtube]
Anyone have any bright ideas on how we can vandalize the place?
I say we go all Liza, all the time.
The price of a barrel of oil has increased nearly 50% since the first of the year. There has been much speculation as to what is driving the increase. The drop in the value of the dollar, increased usage from developing countries, tension in the Middle East, speculators and numerous factors have been pointed to as causing the run up. Certainly, each of these have impact on the price increase but I think one factor has been missed entirely.
Let me start with some background, in poker playing. When playing poker it’s important to not tell your opponent what you have in your hand. That seems pretty obvious. What’s not obvious to most folks is that telling another player what you have in your hand doesn’t typically involve spoken words. Good poker players can tell what their opponents think of their hands based on “tells.” “Tells” are unconscious body gestures, stroking your chin, pulling an ear, scratching your nose or a host of other things that the player may do each time they have a good, or a poor hand. A good poker player will identify and use those “tells” to determine what kind of hand their opponent has. Based on that information, they know how to bet.
So why has oil been increasing? The world oil market has been reading the “tell” of the US political system.
Look at this chart that shows the price of Light Sweet Oklahoma Crude (it tracks pretty close to the NY traded crude) by day of 2008.
oil-prices
OK, this would be a lot easier if I could draw arrows on graphs but….
Let me give you the events of a few dates:
So what happened to oil prices along those same dates?
I’m not saying that there is a direct cause and effect between the outlined activities and the move of oil. I am saying that the world oil market is getting consistent and repetitive “tells” that the US government, at all levels, is unwilling to do anything to increase the world’s oil supply. As examples, all of the remaining Presidential candidates have refused to drill for oil in ANWR and the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee recently caved to environmentalists and refused to expedited leasing for oil shale in Colorado.
Worse yet, the governement is giving “tells” that indicate that along with not increasing supplies, they will increase the costs of doing business for US oil companies. Examples of this are the Cap and Trade systems being proposed by the leading Presidential Candidates and demanding excess profits taxes on oil companies. Markets know that the impact of these items is that impacted companies will either reduce the availability of their products or increase their costs to the consumer.
The worse thing a beginning poker player can do is let their emotions get the better of them and bet irrationally hoping that that will improve the situation. The US has shown that trait with their multiple demands to Saudi Arabia for increased oil production as well as Congress’s passage of a bill that would allow it to sue OPEC for price setting and limiting supplies. Both of these are clearly actions of a frustrated player who sees no good options in their current hand.
Until the US starts a new hand and resets the odds by increasing the world oil supply by exploration and development within US territories, the world oil market will continue to hold a royal flush. If they hold a royal flush and know that we hold 5 unmatched cards, they will continue to bet into the pot and we will see continued increases in the price of oil.
since late last year, the MSM has been gleefully reporting that the US economy was in a recession. Never mind that the threshold has yet to be crossed, we were in a recession because they said so. But are we?
NEW YORK (Reuters) – An imminent recession could cost New York City 59,400 jobs between now and the middle of next year, with the profit-stricken financial sector the “epicenter” of the downturn, a new report said on Tuesday.
An “Imminent” recession? Even Reuters put it in quotes. I thought we were already in a recession? The real fun though is that this recession, which hasn’t happened yet, might, if it does happen cost jobs in NYC.
Let’s see if I can play the “create a catastrophe” game as well as the MSM…
An Imminent recession may cost NYC LOTS of jobs. If LOTS of jobs are not created or perhaps lost in NYC, taxes will possibly DRAMATICALLY decrease for the city. This DRAMATIC decrease in taxes might be enough to cause NYC to be unable to satisfy its general obligations and you may find that NYC DELCARES BANKRUPTCY. If something that dramatic were to occur, well, who knows what the effect on the overall US economy could be. In fact, if bad enough and if it rippled across the US we could find that in the extreme it’s possible that THE US DOLLAR BECOMES WORTHLESS.
But I may be a bit a head of the game:
Although the data are still too ambiguous to determine whether New York City is already in a recession, the report said the “Independent Budget Office is forecasting that a local recession is imminent, if it has not begun already.” No recovery is seen until the second half of 2009
Huh? The data is too ambiguous to know if they are in a recession but obviously clear enough to show that they will be and, that when they are, it won’t get better until late 2009!
Wait, this sounds vaguely familiar….
I guess when you already know how the story will end, the interim plot points are just so many superfluous words.
On Thursday, the California Supreme Court ruled that domestic partnerships were not an acceptable alternative to marriage and that California would need to allow gay marriages. The decision overturned a previous voter approved ban on gay marriage.
Groups opposed to gay marriage indicated that they had enough votes to put the issue of a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage on the November ballot.
In a poll done immediately following the announcement, SurveyUSA found some interesting perspectives amongst California Voters.
When asked the question:
The California Supreme Court has struck down the ban on gay marriage in California. Do you agree? Or disagree with the court’s ruling?
the response was nearly evenly split between those who agreed with the decision and those who disagreed.
However, when asked:
Do you support? Or do you oppose amending the state constitution to define marriage as being between one man and one woman?
a majority, 52% said that they supported the amendment. 36% said they opposed the amendment and 12% were still unsure.
What I found particularly interesting was the response split on age. Looking at a split of over or under 50 years old, those supporting, opposing and unsure, nearly mirrored the overall population. Another split that took 18-34 year olds found that even this age group’s response looked similar to the overall population. In fact, the only split that looked different, and slightly so with an error margin of 4.5%, were those 65+ where 62% approved of the amendment, 25% opposed and 13% were undecided.
Each generation is concerned that the one following them doesn’t share their values and will somehow dismantle what was held dear. At least on this issue, it looks like the generations are pretty well aligned. It will be interesting to watch how this plays out in California.
Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty speaks to the county chairs
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Fannie Mae, the nation’s largest source of home financing, said on Friday it is lowering the amount of down payments required on mortgages it purchases, even in areas where home prices are falling.
Starting on June 1, the new requirements of 3 percent or 5 percent, which replace rules set in December, will apply nationally to loans on single-family primary residences, it said.
But wait, it gets better….
Fannie Mae also said it will continue to allow loans with Community Seconds, one of various assistance programs, for up to 105 percent combined loan-to-value ratio.
With Community Seconds, a borrower has a second-lien mortgage to help cover down payment and closing costs, with funding usually provided by a state or local housing agency, employer or a nonprofit organization.
“We recognize that down payment assistance programs remain a viable tool for borrowers who can afford a mortgage long-term, but might need a little help getting started,” Sullivan said.
Are you flippin’ kidding me? The only piece they’re missing is giving loans to folks who can’t afford to pay them! Oh wait…
On May 6, when Fannie Mae reported first-quarter results, it announced other initiatives, including a plan to provide up to $10 billion to help Housing Finance Authorities (HFA) serve first-time homebuyers “of modest means.” In some cases, Fannie Mae said, it will buy HFA mortgages that have greater than 97 percent loan-to-value ratios.
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”
It’s time to start buying gold and burying it in the back yard.
Why do we have people like Ben Bernanke, people who study economics, trade and monetary policy, handling the Nation’s economic affairs when we could have someone like the latest Governor of New York, David Paterson.
Paterson has come out against the gas tax holiday. A position which I agree with him on. My disagreement with the holiday is based on a fear that any reduction in the price will allow Congress to think they’ve actually accomplished something to solve a long term issue. Governor Paterson’s issue is that he things the gas companies are greedy. For his evidence he points to what happened following Hurricane Katrina:
At a press conference about a personnel matter in his midtown office, Paterson told reporters to go to the oil companies and "ask them why, the week after Katrina"”the Katrina Hurricane"”August 29, 2005, ask them why the gas prices went up in that week.
“It couldn’t have had anything to do with the gas,” Paterson charged. “Because gas delivery took place three weeks before then. They sold you the same gas that was in their tank the week before at"”at some points"”10 to 15 percent higher."
Paterson thinks that because the gas was put into tanks at one price, that should dictate what price the gas should come out of the tanks.
David, have you ever been in an area prior to a hurricane hitting? If you have, you would know that plywood has this nasty habit of increasing in price right before a hurricane. That plywood didn’t cost more coming in just because the hurricane was coming but it did cost more going out. Another thing David, plywood is also rationed when a hurricane is coming. Yup, the day before a hurricane you could have bought every single piece from your local home building supply company but the day the hurricane is announced, rationing starts.
How about another example David? After a hurricane generators get more expensive. Those generators were all sitting there prior to the hurricane at the same cost but lower price than after the hurricane where the cost stayed the same but the purchase price goes up.
The point David, is that increasing prices are the mechanism that free markets use to help manage demand for products that are, or are expected to be, in short supply.
I think we should test all political candidates for their knowledge of Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations.” If they fail the part about supply and demand, they don’t get to run, pure and simple.
Instituting the test may not get us any better politicians but we would at least know that they do know better and not have to wonder whether they were lying to us or just flat out ignorant.
Typical elections, especially Presidential elections, are usually focused on how to get the largest portion of the populations to vote for you. Yes there are nuances due to the electoral system that makes a Presidential election a bit more like a bunch of individual state elections, but at a macro level, it’s still about getting more votes than your opponent.
The 2008 election, one that now appears likely to be between John McCain and Barack Obama, is shaping up to be nearly the opposite of traditional focus. Rather than getting the most people to vote for you, the McCain/Obama contest looks to be more about getting the fewest number of people to not not vote at all or to not vote aganist you.
On the Democrat side we’ve been seeing stories for a few weeks about one camp’s voters not voting for the other candidate if they should win the nomination. The exit polls from Tuesday’s West Virginia primary continued the trend as the AP reported:
Barely a third of Clinton supporters say they’d vote for Obama over John McCain in a November matchup. As many claim they’d vote for Republican John McCain and a quarter said they would not vote for president. If that horse race were Clinton vs. McCain, half of Obama backers say they’d vote for Clinton, about three in 10 say they’d back McCain and the rest would stay home.
On the Republican side while initially rejected, there had been a gradual acceptance of McCain as the nominee. As various blog sites still had animated discussions about whether McCain was a conservative or if his various cross party endeavors had eliminated him from the use of the “True Conservative” moniker, most who did not originally support McCain had come to a point that they believed the greater good was served by supporting McCain. But then McCain made his environment speech in Oregon. Subsequent to that speech, the conservative blogs have become littered with comments such as:
His speech was the last straw. I am a conservative and John McCain WILL NOT get my vote. His global warming position is down right scary. I’ve tried really hard to get in the he’s “my guy” mindset and it’s just not going to happen. Every time I get close he opens his mouth.
So who will win? Well, it looks like it will be the candidate who gets the fewest of the folks who can’t stand them not to not vote for them.
Ain’t politics great!
On Wednesday, the Chicago City Council reversed its ruling of two years ago and again allowed foie gras to be served in the city.
The ban two years ago was argued for by animal rights advocates who said the process of creating the foie gras was inhumane. The vote to ban foie gras was passed 48-1.
Leaving the animal rights folk infuriated, the Council voted this time 37-6 to overturn the ban.
OK, truth be told, I’ve never eaten foie gras, at least that I know, so it’s not like I’m rushing to Chicago or dropping my boycott of Chicago restaurants. No, the reason I see hope in this story is based on the Alderman’s reason for bringing the vote,
“Supporters of this legislation have accomplished their goal by raising awareness of this issue,” Tunney said in a statement. “And while I respect their viewpoint, this is clearly a matter the council should stay out of and let the educated consumer and chefs make their own menu choices.”
Most elected officials are happy to opine and weigh in on any issue presented to them. It doesn’t seem to matter anymore whether the issue is even within their constitutional purview. In fact, Congress is known for taking on nearly any topic they want by simply swiping it with the “interstate commerce” pen.
When was the last time you heard an elected official say that an issue was none of their business?
How refreshing! There may be hope after all!
If Barack Obama wants to run as a populist he needs to get a better pulse of the people or maybe start reading some polls.
I wrote here about Barack’s confusion about what he wants to do with Capital Gains taxes and that a majority of Americans are against any increase in those taxes. In fact they go so far as to say that they believed that a President who raised Capital Gains taxes would raise other taxes as well.
It appears the American folks can still see how 2+2=4.
In a Rasmussen Report poll released Tuesday, 60% of Americans believe that tax increases will hurt the economy. As you might expect, 74% of Republicans agreed with that statement. What Barack needs to pay attention to is that 49% of Democrats and 60% of unaffiliated voters believe the same. Contrary to his primary results, this is an issue that truly crosses racial lines as 61% of White voters and 57% of African-American voters agree with the statement. In the “Can you hear me now,” observation of the poll, a significant majority of 70% of those under 30 believe that increasing taxes will hurt the economy.
With the economy now the number one issue in the Presidential campaign and McCain being more trusted to handle economic issues, Barack needs to figure out whether to lead, follow or get out of the way. Continuing to provide confusing, non specific tax and economic proposals are not going to help Barack reach his goal.
As oil and in turn gas, prices continue to increase and no action or plans in sight that suggest any near term reduction, I’m seeing articles and comments along the lines of, “It’s not uncommon in Europe to pay $7 for a gallon of gas. If they can stomach it, so can we.”
An example of this logic is in this opinion piece by Paul Krugman. Krugman takes what is otherwise a thoughtful argument i.e. all the talk about speculation driving an “oil bubble” may not be based on well reasoned economics but rather on wishful thinking, and destroyed his credibility with:
The consequences of that (oil) scarcity probably won’t be apocalyptic: France consumes only half as much oil per capita as America, yet the last time I looked, Paris wasn’t a howling wasteland. But the odds are that we’re looking at a future in which energy conservation becomes increasingly important, in which many people may even "” gasp "” take public transit to work.
Why is this kind of logic silly? How about a quick geography lesson.
France has an area of approximately 250,000 square miles, about the size of Texas which is approximately 269,000 square miles. France has a population of 64M people which means they have a density of approximately 256 people/Sq. Mi. Texas has a population of 24M people which means they have a density of approximately 164 people/Sq. Mi. Beginning to see an issue? Let’s extrapolate that to the entire United States. To be generous, I’ll exclude Alaska and Hawaii. The continental US has an area of 3.2 Million Sq. Mi. The continental US population is approximately 302 million people. That translates to a density of only 94 people/sq. mi. I won’t even drag you through the densities that exist west of the Mississippi and east of the Pacific coastal states. To suggest that a European country that is a fraction of the size of the US with a population density nearly 3X the US is comparable in energy use is naive at best and dishonest at worst.
OK, let’s try a different tact. Let’s assume we could get rid of all those nasty, hydrocarbon burning, carbon dioxide spewing personal vehicles. If tomorrow we banned the use of all personal vehicles we would at most, reduce our oil per capita consumption by 40% (it would be less than 40% because of course, we’d have to provide transit solutions for those people and many of those solutions involve petroleum as the fuel). Even with a 40% reduction, we’d still be using 10% more per capita than France.
My point in all of this is that trying to compare the US to a European country, especially one that is a fraction of the size of the US with a population density nearly 3X the US, as comparable in energy use is naive at best and dishonest at worst.
The only way that we are close to being comparable to Europe is in the taxes and other costs waiting to be imposed to “solve” our energy “problem” by forcibly removing our need for oil. Oh, and another way that we’ll be like Europe, we’ll be heading for our own “Dark Ages.”
I’m not feeling particularily-witty, so it’s just a general announcement. The May edition of Drinking Right will be tomorrow, May 13, at 7 pm at Papa’s Social Club, 7718 W. Burleigh St. in Milwaukee.
I don’t feel like drinking alone.
I missed “America’s Favorite Mom”, but Kat didn’t, and she delivers the good news, and the better news. The $250,000 that Patti Bader-Patton won for being America’s Favorite Mom is going to Soldiers’ Angels.
Sorry I’m late on this…..
What do the following have in common?
Answer: They all began or are from the state celebrating its 150th birthday today, Minnesota!
I’m going on vacation at the end of the month, but first I’ve got some wanderlust to take care of :-)
– Tuesday, 5/13: Drinking Right, Papa’s Social Club, 7718 W Burleigh in Milwaukee, 7 pm
– Thursday, 5/15: Day trip to St. Louis for a ballgame at New Busch Stadium and dinner at Favazza’s (see, I’m combining my trips)
– Friday, 5/16 – Saturday, 5/17 (tentative) – Wisconsin GOP convention in Stevens Point for a liveblog
Oh, that question on the sidebar is for the national GOP convention. Stevens Point is close enough for me to drive back home Friday night.
Documented here, the Democrats have instituted yet another social program to garner votes for the upcoming election. In an unprecedented move, party leadership has taken to the streets in the area of targeted voting blocks, to personally hand government assistance to the desiring population. While the assistance was actually acquired by fleecing “Rich” citizens, the party leadership, while delivering it, was heard telling the assistance recipients how they personally felt their pain and were personally doing something to assist. Not only did they not point out that the assistance actually came from other concerned citizens but, during the distribution, the leaders denigrated the actual providers as uncaring, cold hearted and Conservative.
YANGON, Myanmar – Myanmar’s military regime distributed international aid Saturday but plastered the boxes with the names of top generals in an apparent effort to turn the relief effort for last week’s devastating cyclone into a propaganda exercise.
We have already seen regional commanders putting their names on the side of aid shipments from Asia, saying this was a gift from them and then distributing it in their region,
What? Huh?
I’ve just been told that this wasn’t the US Democrats handing out more government relief. It looks like this is an international franchise that has purchased and applied the Democrats patented “Voter Management Module.”
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