Say Anything Blog

Rush was talking about this political ad on his show today.  It’s hilarious.

According to Rush the Democrats are trying to claim that this ad is racist.  Can you guess why?

Good enough for you but not for me.

George Clooney

On the ground: George favors a Tango, an electric car that gets a whopping 135 miles to the charge.

In the air: Los Angeles/Tokyo, 5500 miles in a private jet.

Gas guzzled: 7,000 gallons of jet fuel.

Electric shocker: Even with his super-saver Tango, he’ll have to drive over 57 oceans—Pacific Oceans to break even.

So George says: Clooney’s rep, publicist Stan Rosenfield, tells TMZ, “You clearly have no understanding of certain people’s need for private transport,” and points out that Clooney often has “no control” over his travel schedule.

Read the link to get more jet-setting celebs including one that stiffed the guys flying the airplane.

Kentucky.Com

Two environmentalists spent about four hours Monday perched on a ledge over an entrance to a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration building to protest what they said is the agency’s suppression of information on global warming.

The pair, which climbed a ladder to reach the ledge, unfurled a banner that read “Bush: Let NOAA Tell the Truth,” while a small group of demonstrators handed out fliers on a nearby sidewalk.

Police eventually used a cherry picker from a nearby construction site to reach the demonstrators and lower them to the ground.

I would have left them up there whining until they got hungry enough to get down. Hopefully it’d rain or snow or something.

By the way this was interesting from the same story:

A report in the scientific journal Nature last month claimed NOAA administrators blocked the release of a report that linked hurricane strength and frequency to global warming. In February, a NASA climate scientist said NOAA prevents researchers working on climate change from speaking freely about their work.

So since this was a light hurricane season we can assume that global warming fears are a thing of the past.

When Harold Ford loses the Tennessee Senate race he can look back on this moment as when he lost it.

It’s just hilarious how quick he goes from the offensive to realizing that he just blew it.



What’s he going to do now? The Tennessee Ford family don’t do anything but run for office.

Thanks to Powerline.

Sorry that wasn't the clip I was thinking. Click on the second video in the little box on the left. This is the clip that shows him when Ford realizes he just stepped in the kaka.

Well, it seems a bit late since you torpedoed a successful, legal and secret program.  I’m sure that the Terrorists networks changed their procedures know that the Terrorist Times did their research for them.
Michelle Malkin (Blogger-Babe)

Since the job of public editor requires me to probe and question the published work and wisdom of Times journalists, there’s a special responsibility for me to acknowledge my own flawed assessments.

My July 2 column strongly supported The Times’s decision to publish its June 23 article on a once-secret banking-data surveillance program. After pondering for several months, I have decided I was off base. There were reasons to publish the controversial article, but they were slightly outweighed by two factors to which I gave too little emphasis. While it’s a close call now, as it was then, I don’t think the article should have been published.

I’m on record that although the Times ran with this story for treasonous reason I don’t think we should challenge their First Amendment protection.  (Or mine as a citizen and Blogger.)  However that protection does not apply to the Times source who should be punished for Treason!  Anyone know what the Constitution provides for that crime?

Yes that is his gun in his ear.  Doesn’t look like he’s following rules two or three either.

Sit in the Corner:

According to Winston’s analysis, there is a material discrepancy between the party identification listed by people in exit polls (people who actually voted) between 1992 and 2004, and those used over the last few weeks.

In short, between 1992 and 2004, only once did one party enjoy an advantage as large as 4 points over the other in party ID. But in recent polling samples used by eight different polling organizations (USA Today/Gallup, CBS/NYTimes, ABC/Washington Post, CNN/Opinion Research, Newsweek, AP/Ipsos, Pew, and Time), the Democratic advantage in the sample surveyed was never less than 5 points. All these organizations conducted surveys in early October. According to Winston, the Democrats held the following party ID advantages in these early-October surveys:

*    USAToday/Gallup: 9 points.
*    CBS/NYT: 5 points
*    ABC/WP: 8 points
*    CNN: did not provide sample party ID details.
*    Newsweek: 11 points.
*    AP/Ipsos: 8 points.
*    Pew: 7 points.
*    Time: 8 points.

So maybe the Republicans will lose.  I don’t think so but my record on predictions is pretty poor.  Given the history of midterm elections it wouldn’t be surprising for the majority party to lose.

On the other hand I have learned not to trust the polls.  When the Republicans took the House by storm in 1994 the media didn’t give them much chance. Another example is the “close” elections that Ronald Reagan had to win the Presidency. 

It seems pretty clear right now that the media polls have stacked the deck against Republicans.  I think they’re trying to depress GOP turnout. 

On the other hand, not everyone is pessimistic.

While some predict Republicans could lose up to 25 seats in the House, Rove predicts the GOP will lose eight to 10—fewer than the 15 seats the Democrats need to gain control, the Washington Post said Sunday.

Rove predicted Democrats wouldn’t be able to capture the six seats needed to retake the Senate, either, the Post said.

But only because he’s dead:

A federal judge Tuesday vacated the conviction of Enron’s late founder Kenneth Lay, wiping out a jury’s verdict that he committed fraud and conspiracy in one of the biggest corporate frauds in U.S. history.

Lay was convicted of 10 counts of fraud, conspiracy and lying to banks in two separate cases on May 25.

Lay died of heart disease July 5 while vacationing with his wife, Linda, in Aspen, Colo.

U.S. District Judge Sim Lake, in a ruling Tuesday, agreed with Lay’s lawyers that his death required erasing his convictions. They cited a 2004 ruling from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that found that a defendant’s death pending appeal extinguished his entire case because he hadn’t had a full opportunity to challenge the conviction and the government shouldn’t be able to punish a dead defendant or his estate.

Well things certainly turned out well for Mr. Lay. He got to die on vacation in Aspen rather than rot in prison. All in all I think that God was merciful.

We haven’t heard from Frank Sinatra lately:

Hear him sing it here:

Strangers on my flight,
turbans they’re packin’.
Wonderin’ if they might,
plan a hijacking.
They could pull a stunt,
before this flight is through.

Something’s on their minds.
I saw them mutter.
What that in their hands?
Looks like box cutters,
I’m gonna kick some ass,
if they make a move.

Strangers on my flight.
Two smelly people,
and they’re not talking right;
and in a moment,
I will grab base ball bat;
and that will be that.
Swing like Joe DiMaggio,
and rip them both a new a-hole.

And if they pick a fight,
and try to screw us,
I’ll punch out their lights,
just like Joe Louis.
It would feel so right,
for strangers on my flight.

Ratta Tat Tat Tat,
Budda Bing Bang Boom,
Zooma Zooma Zoom.

Send those bastards to the moon….

There’s some airport security I can respect.

I found this chart at the OMB.

“Mandatory” spending consists of entitlement spending.  By the time my kids are retired spending on entitlements will amount to 20% of the economy.  The money spent on entitlements will lead to massive deficits and massive interest costs.  Discretionary spending (defense, law enforcement, etc) is projected to remain about the same percentage of our economy.

Of course the leftists will say we should raise taxes so we don’t have the deficits.  Raising taxes will not raise more money.  It would instead diminish economic growth (a huge factor over this time period) and result in less taxes and more need.

Need proof, even though our tax rates our lower than Europe our per capita tax paid is much higher.

The thing to do is cut the strings to the nanny state now.  Expect people that are able to to take care of themselves.  Let us keep our money to save for our retirement. 

Let’s keep the government lean and mean and we’ll leave a much better world for our grandchildren!

The Orange County Weekly:

A fellow who knows depravity well, said he was traumatized by his Nov. 11, 2003, experience at the Anaheim West Car Wash. Gunther, who is wheelchair-bound, found a bathroom mirror mounted a few inches too high for him to “preen” himself. In a legal complaint, he insisted the experience caused him “anguish, anxiety, humiliation, anger, frustration, distress, embarrassment, apprehension and disgust.” He demanded that the owner of the business pay him $4,000. Would you believe that Gunther has the law on his side?

Since 2003, Gunther has filed more than 200 lawsuits against small businesses he claims have violated the accessibility provisions of the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) and California’s tougher version, the Unruh Act.

Lawyers familiar with Gunther’s activities estimate he’s taken more than $400,000 in the last 36 months, mostly from mom-and-pop shops.

On just three days in July and August 2004, for example, he claimed in lawsuits that he’d needed to shop and use the bathrooms at nine different Ralphs supermarkets in Anaheim, Fountain Valley, Huntington Beach and Los Angeles. At some of the stores, he complained that he was “humiliated” because he couldn’t “preen” himself. The bathroom mirrors were inches too high…Based on the number of alleged violations contained in the nine lawsuits against Ralphs, he demanded more than $75,000.

So what did he do with his life before he came up with this legal scam?

I was able to obtain official documents detailing his admission to having a $100-a-day heroin addiction and to being a major narcotics trafficker in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In 1989, he was arrested and jailed for savagely beating girlfriend Belinda K. Callahan in front of their six-year-old daughter, according to records. He broke her arm and her nose.

If you read the link you’ll find a long list of crimes this poor disabled person has committed.

Well you have to feel sorry for those that are handicapped, don’t you?

Dewit and his office manager had another observation: Gunther was “able to get up from his wheelchair without great difficulty or discomfort,” according to a court record. But also this: during the three previous meetings from June 2002 to April 2004 they had watched Gunther walk into their office.

The problem isn’t that there’s people willing to abuse the law like this.  The problem is that there is a law (The ADA) that is there to be abused.

That law came in with the best of intentions.  But it was clear from the start that is was wide open to abuse.  But the Washington elites (including George HW Bush) wouldn’t listen.  You see if you live in Washington you don’t have to worry about the laws you pass onto the little people.  That’s their problem.

Businesses have every reason to make their businesses accessible to their customers.  Businesses have every reason to hire the most qualified to work for them.  Congress shouldn’t meddle in what they can’t understand which as it turns out is most things.

Study: Traffic Tickets Rise as City Income Falls

The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis did this study.  You can read the entire study available on the link if you wish.

A Federal Reserve Bank of Saint Louis working paper concludes that municipalities use traffic tickets as a means of supplanting falling local revenue. Economist Thomas A. Garrett and University of Arkansas at Little Rock Professor Gary A. Wagner explain that although there is ample anecdotal evidence to show that this is the case, no empirical studies have ever examined the question in detail.

Using county-level data from North Carolina between 1989 and 2003, the working paper analysis takes into account demographic factors such as population and traffic growth that could influence the number of tickets written for offenses such as speeding, failure to yield and following too closely. Some counties issued as many as one ticket for every resident, while the average was closer to one ticket for every ten residents.

Garrett and Wagner found that for each one-percent drop in local government revenue there followed a .38 percent increase in the number of tickets written, each worth between $5 and $250. When local revenue increased, however, there was no corresponding decrease in the number of citations issued.

“The fact that local governments increase traffic tickets during periods of revenue decreases but do not decrease traffic tickets in response to revenue increases reveals some degree of revenue maximization on the part of local governments,” the authors concluded.

Traffic tickets should be about safety and not about raising money.  Pressure should not be put on the cops to go out and earn your salary or else.

My town of Grand Forks did this some time ago.  They jacked up fines in order to meet a budget shortfall.

My wife was just complaining that our new vacuum cleaner “sucked.”

Yeah….?

Finally some progress:

With America facing a surge of 80,000 violent criminals on its streets, the U.S. House of Representatives has approved a plan that would enlist as many as 700,000 state and local law enforcement officers in the battle.

The 277-140 vote, according to plan sponsor U.S. Rep. Charlie Norwood, R-Ga., affirmed the authority of state and local law enforcement officers to enforce federal immigration laws while in the course of their regular duties such as traffic stops and drug arrests.

“The margin by which this bill passed sends an unmistakable message to the Senate from the people’s House that the nation demands action on this issue,” Norwood said. “All across America, people have witnessed horrific crimes committed by criminal illegal aliens, who were released on our communities because we failed to enforce immigration laws.”

“We currently have roughly 5,000 federal agents trying to apprehend 500,000 illegal aliens with court orders against them. Eighty-thousand of them are serious felons, such as murderers, drug dealers, child molesters, and rapists,” Norwood said on the floor of the House. “Those odds are impossible. But if we allow our 700,000 state and local police to volunteer to help, the odds get a lot better.”

I can’t begin to imagine why local law enforcement hasn’t been able to detain illegals to be picked up by INS. Even with strong border security some illegals are going to get in. It’s those illegals that have run-ins with the cops that are the first ones that should be deported.

I also find it shocking that we have 80,000 illegals who have committed felonies out on the street. Every crime committed by an illegal immigrant is a crime that never should have happened.