We're sorry. We won't do it again... until the next time.

I don't think I have ever hidden my disdain for the majority of the main stream media. They were granted a position of public trust in the founding of our country and they have forsaken it.
Although they abandoned any hope of redemption they are trying to convince us that they realize the error of their ways and promise they will be better reporters in the future.

Throughout the past 6 years and culminating in the media coronation of Barack Hussein Obama the MSM has become a cultural wasteland. With media empires such as the New York Times, Gannett, and the McClatchy Group forsaking any and all journalistic responsibility and smuggly continuing their rabid attacks on common sense while ignoring the facts surrounding the past of the man they chose to be President. All while KNOWING that their own polls, commissioned because they KNEW they were mortgaging their integrity to achieve their agenda, showed that even President Bush has stronger approval ratings that they do.

They commissioned the polls to gauge public opinion and trust in the media and saw the results were miserable because people knew they were in the tank for Obama... but they didn't care. They thumbed their noses at the wave of distrust, and by extension the American people, until they got what they wanted.

Now that the election is over the media is tripping over themselves, donning sack cloth and ashes, spewing mea culpas and rending their garments in anguish. They realize they have forsaken the public trust. And now they are sorry.

And that is horse crap.

The media had no great epiphany concerning their abandoning journalistic principles. (And I maintain abandoning their protection under the 1st Amendment.) Their rude awakening was caused when their accounting departments told them that they are going broke, there was not a wave of collective conscience that swept the industry. That is what they are sorry about... that we are not supporting them in their quest for a year end bonus.

They knew that people had little faith in them because of their unabashed bias, and they didn't care, they continued peddling lies and opinions as fact. Now they are going to try to regain people's trust, simply by saying they are sorry and won't repeat it.

The media used to be referred to as being the Fourth Estate. The protectors of liberty and freedom, that is the reason they are protected in the constitution, to protect the people from the government. But who is supposed to protect the people from the media?

So I hope people don't believe the editorials and articles that are certain to begin to flow from the editorial pages and broadcast journals saying they have realized the error of their ways. The proof of their contrition will be evident if they stop with their crazed bias and agenda pushing.
I expect to see journalists' round tables and blue ribbon panels gathering to ask how the media came so far off the mark. I'm sure there will be apologies, maybe even a token head will roll, but that is unlikely.

But I don't know why this surprises me so much. After all journalists all clamour for the Pulitzer Prize, an award named after a man who made his fortune in the days of Yellow Journalism. Ironically, the New York Times, perhaps the least credible and most biased of any print media source today, was founded as a credible alternative to Pulitzer's sensationalistic and often patently false brand of journalism.

Corporate Darwinism

Bailouts are bad for the economy. They foster a welfare mentality.

I am not just referring to the hundreds of thousands of people who stopped paying their mortgages voluntarily because they agreed to bad loans and believed the government would step in and pay their mortgage for them. I am referring to corporate welfare plans that Obama and other politicians are calling for. And while I plan to address mostly the corporate welfare angle I want to use the personal welfare mentality as that is easier to understand because it is easier to relate to, once you get that the idea of corporate welfare seems more comprehensible.

Now this is something I had intended on writing about this morning but got too busy, I don't intend for it to be a retread of what Jake and Tony have written about today. (Friday actually, it's been a busy few days.)

Months ago the media focused on Ed McMahon facing foreclosure because he had followed the path of instant gratification and kept refinancing his house and sucking the equity out of it while frittering away his life savings. Then the housing market in LA hit the crapper and Ed, like many others, found himself with a flipped mortgage, that is a mortgage where you owe more than the house is worth. However, CNN spun the interview a bit differently that the facts as I laid them out. But unlike Ed, who had literally pissed away his savings, there are people who when faced with the ugly reality that they refinanced their house one time too many and the mortgage was for more than the value of the house took the path of least resistance and mailed the key for their abandoned house to their mortgage holder.

"Now these people are not like the minority of foreclosure victims and were unable to comprehend the idea of adjustable rate mortgages, balloon payments, and the usual collection of financial jargon incomprehensible to many people buying their first homes. And they are different from the group of people who took out mortgages based on 125% of the value of the house, or 100% mortgages with $50K or greater lines of equity, and kept refinancing to have access to that equity in the home plus the projected equity and were caught when the housing market busted.

These people have stopped paying their mortgages because they believe they don't have to. They listened to the asshats running for office and abandoning any final vestiges of personal responsibility stop paying to live in their house, because they believe, honestly or otherwise, that the banks will not foreclose on them and the government will either force banks to renegotiate terms and principal or pay the mortgages for them. They abandoned personal responsibility and rather than work out a budget that impacts other aspects of their lives they are simply waiting for the government to help them.

We are seeing the same lack of responsibility in the auto industry. They were promised bailouts as concessions to the unions. The auto bailout proponents hide behind the reality that more than a million jobs and countless tax revenues are dependent upon the US auto industry. But these same people are hiding from the reality of Darwinism, survival of the fittest.

The US auto industry faced a crisis in the 1970s when gas shortages forced people to buy the far inferior Japanese imports for the sake of gas mileage. In 1979 the new chairman of Chrysler realized the company would fail unless if restructured itself and obtained loans to retool its factories and become competitive. Iacocca approached Congress and asked the federal government to guarantee loans so it would not go under. Congress approved these loan guarantees and banks came up with the money Chrysler needed to remake itself.

The only concession the US auto industry made to regain failing market share was to produce more cars so customers could walk into a dealership and pick up their new cars a few days later, as opposed to the wait of weeks or months that was customary. The Japanese auto makers were investing their profits into new plants and quality while the American motor companies were focusing on reducing the cost of their products so they could have large inventories.

Eventually the 90s came, Iacocca retired, and the auto industry played their incestuous game of musical chairs in which company executives changed companies eventually retuning to that homogenized look that the industry is famous for. Japan beat the US in quality and the US auto industry sunk, because once again every company needed to play catch up with the Japanese companies, first in gas mileage and then in quality. As that decade ended Ford and GM had caught up in quality but Chrysler still lagged behind.

Chrysler came out with a stable of great looking cars, the Dakota, Magnum, Charger, Avenger, 300, and the PT Cruiser. Chrysler souped up the engines offering the Hemi in the bigger vehicles but never figured out it needed a transmission for its cars, a fact that has haunted them since the introduction of automatic transmissions. And the cheesy plastic interiors don't help them either.

I didn't mean to go off on a Chrysler tangent but I felt it is relevant to explain the difference between Chrysler's loan guarantees of 1979 and the proposed bailout of 2008. Iacocca promised and laid out a plan for change for his company, in order to entice the government to guarantee the loans that Chrysler needed from banks and investors to pull out of it's nosedive, it had sought loans on the free market first and was denied based upon its history of inefficiency and the banking industry decided Chrysler would fall prey to corporate Darwinism and hence they were a bad risk.

This bailout does not ask the auto industry to change, it is just shoveling cash to, not stop, but augment the bleeding. If you have a patient hemorrhaging blood the first thing you do is address the injuries and stop the bleeding. In this case the government is offering to keep the auto industry afloat by injecting cash into it. Not by simply guaranteeing loans, but by directly making them. Not only is it a bad policy for the US to loan money to any industry it is a stupid strategy... you need to address why the patient is hemorrhaging money instead of just pumping more money into it. Just as running an IV into a bleeding patient will spill out on the floor unless you dress the staunch the flow first; pumping cash into these companies will be just as wasted.

The loans Iacocca asked the government to guarantee forced Chrysler to change their corporate strategy and be profitable. It allowed the major lenders to have a say in corporate affairs by having a say in the structure of the board to make sure they got their money from the company. It forced corporate responsibility prior to the loans being made.

The proposed government bailouts, for AIG, the banking industry, the auto industry, and every other corporation and eventually individuals are bad policy as they do not force the corporations or individuals to change and adopt a more responsible business model/lifestyle.

If the auto companies filed for bankruptcy protection and restructured it would allow them to rework their business model and either succeed as stand alone corporations or merge or find partners to continue existing. If they fail, as Chrysler may very well do, they will most likely merge or be purchased by a company like GM or Isuzu who wants their stable of cars and intellectual value, and in the case of Isuzu the dealerships. It would also mean that the manufacturing plants remain open so it is not like the manufacturing jobs will evaporate, but many white collar jobs will suffer.

The companies may emerge from restructuring stronger, or perhaps not at all. But it is a virtual guarantee that without forcing responsibility upon these companies they will return to this situation again. Sooner rather than later.

Essentially the US economy has been on a steady incline for the past quarter century. As the economy has prospered so has the poorest segments of society. That goes for businesses as well. Many inefficient companies, some small and others giant leviathans prospered in spite of themselves. A correction may be necessary to shake out the weaker companies and act as incentive for the stronger ones to adapt and thrive.

Let the auto companies declare bankruptcy, reorganize and restructure, refinance their debt, rework their union contracts. Only that way will they survive; if they are able to. Handouts and entitlements are addictive and will not act as incentive for the recipients to change their business plans, so all it will do is postpone the inevitable, not cure the problem.

And this is all without addressing the toxic subject of the government running the board room.

Buyer's Remorse

I have conducted an informal survey by driving to and from work. By Thursday afternoon the campaign signs for the state and local candidate and with one exception, Obama signs, had dissappeared from lawns and houses along the streets I take to and from work.
However, there are still seven McCain signs up.

The bumperstickers and home made signs (even a few pictures of Obama) are off, and out of , the cars. But again, McCain supporter still have their stickers adorning their cars.
Now this is a very unscienctific survey done on a roughly 10 mile stretch of roads in a heavily Republican county.

But one thing I realized over the years is that the losers' signs tend to disappear a lot faster than the winners'. People like to brag about having won and when they back a winner they leave the sign up a few extra days. Some real phoneys go and buy bumperstickers after the election so they to can be popular in their own mind.

Now I don't think anyone really has buyer's remorse yet. After all what has Obama done besides appoint a social retard as his Chief of Staff and two financial retards to his economic advisory board. Plus nominate an enviro-nazi who wants to shut off all sources of electricty as his EPA chief. And is considering the person who contributed most to 9-11 outside of Al-Qaeda as his Attorney General... she gets bonus points as she was the Vice Chair of Fannie Mae and, along with Franklin Raines, raided the company in a $10 billion accounting scandal.

In every other election the signs have remained up longer than a day or two. Why the conspicuous disappearance now?

Just asking.

I live in the most (openly) corrupt state in the union... and yet it could be worse

New Jersey is one of the country's most openly corrupt states. Not necessarily the most corrupt, but in New Jersey everyone complains about corruption and every election day sends every incumbent back to continue pillaging the tax coffers. Apparently people don't want to end corruption lest they find themselves in an elected position and have the opportunity to stuff their own pockets.

The US Attorney, Chris Christie, has made quite a reputation for himself cracking down on crooked politicians at the state and local levels. Neither Democrats, nor Republicans, have been safe from his team of investigators who have been rooting out corruption with a vengeance. I guarantee that he will be among the first US Attorneys replaced by Obama since he has sent quite a few powerful Democrats to the Gray Bar Hotel.

And yet... it could be worse.

Barely 10 days after having the city council of New York vote to change the term limit law allowing him to run for a third consecutive term as Mayor, Michael Bloomberg announced some radical, but "necessary" cost cutting measures.

New York City was devastated by the failure of the financial sector with millions in payroll taxes and sales taxes gone almost without warming. New York State is similarly screwed, as both the city and state are reliant upon the financial sector jobs to keep afloat.

So Bloomberg announced he was suspending the homestead rebate... so homeowners in the city should not expect their $400 payoff. Never fear, I predict they will manage to restore it with great fanfare next year, just in time for the election.

He also announced the cancellation of NYPD academy classes, ironically after spending millions this year on a recruitment blitz. It seems they don't anticipate street crime or burglaries to increase in this period of economic turmoil. Or perhaps he is jealous of all the attention that Chicago, St Louis, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, St Paul, and Phoenix get over out of control crime rates.

Another cost saving measure he is implementing is to reduce the training period for new fire fighters. The current training period is 23 weeks, but last summer it was extended from 13 weeks. Under the mayor's plan it will end at 11 weeks.

But here is one area where the city will not be cutting costs... bridges.

No. Not maintenance of the many bridges crossing the rivers that connect Manhattan to the other boroughs, that has already been cut to a bare minimum.

The State of New York has renamed the venerable Triborough Bridge in honor of Robert F Kennedy, who served as a US Senator from the state. The city and state have dutifully spent $4 Million dollars for new signage for the span that connects, Bronx, Manhattan and Queens boroughs.

The Empire State and The Big Apple are crying the financial blues... but at the same time they can spend $4M in tax dollars to rename a bridge and redo all of the signage for it.

Police? We don't need police.

Firefighters? Put the wet stuff on the hot stuff. What training do they need?

But signage for the renaming of an ugly bridge? That is a gosh darn priority!

(And for those who enjoy irony. There is a spur of the Triborough Bridge leading to Randall's Island; that is the site of the FDNY Training Academy.)

What to do?

A close friend of mine is confused.

On one hand, as a black woman, she feels obligated to vote for Obama. As a social worker she understands that hopes and dreams are important to children. And while white children know that one day they could grow up to be President black children do not harbor that hope. An Obama presidency could change that forever.

On the other hand, she also wants her children raised in a country that develops people such as John McCain. People of honor, service and integrity. She wants people to understand that there are real heros, not just in the movies.

Another friend is also confused, but for different reasons.

She, as a left leaning moderate wants to be able to be able to say "I voted for Obama" because she believes that there is something about this man that carries such promise and energy to bring a new day to Washington.

But she is also one of the smartest people I know and knows more about constitutional law than Obama could ever hope to. She has no problem with some of Obama's more radical plans for tax increases to help the poor, but she does admit it means that she would most likely have to stop donating as much as she does to charity. She gives away 10% of her salary to charities and non-profits on a monthly basis. As much as she dislikes that idea, it is the idea of legislating away our constitutional rights and the potential of stacking the Supreme Court with activist justices that alarms her.

As we were sitting around last night talking I told them that what they should do is try to overlook the emotional reasons behind wanting to vote for a candidiate and look at the facts. To vote with their head, not their hearts. To think of it as a serious decision, not a game with a "do-over" in 48 months.

(I have no doubt that before 8 pm tonight one will have voted for McCain... or not at all, and the other will have voted for Obama... or not at all.)

I am excited about the prospect of people voting who have never voted before in their lives. People who, like Michelle Obama said, for the first time in their adult lives feel proud to be Americans. People who prior to this election were not disenfranchised through the actions of others, but who chose to be disenfranchised through their own inaction. It always struck me as a shame that only 35% of registered voters actually vote... and only about 50% of eligible citizens are registered.

However, as excited as I am I feel equally saddened that so many people are voting without learning the facts, without understanding the issues. A full 80% of voters pull the lever for a particular party while knowing nothing about the candiate, in many cases not even their names.
I am angered that the media chose and propped up a marginal candiate like John McCain while ignoring other more vibrant candidates. I am perplexed that Obama, the least qualified man to run for a major party nomination, actually won it.

I voted for John McCain this morning not because particularly like him, but solely because many of Barack Obama's campaign positions run contrary to the ideals of the United States' founding fathers, our country's constitution, and my own principles.

And that is the saddest thing of all... that a country as great as this has two major parties who have a marginal candiate facing off against a man who is uniquely unqualified to run for the position of POTUS. We should have a real choice for the next person to hold the most important job in the world.

A final word before the 2008 election

OK, that is a lie, there is more to come. Whether Obama wins or loses there will be a lot of discussion about the death of journalism and the impartial media, about the overuse of the race card option, about one candidate who wants the Presidency so badly they will stop at nothing, no lie to big, no promises so outrageously impossible to fulfill, about the other candidate who ran a half hearted campaign, but most importantly (IMHO) was about how the media chosen the two Presidential candidates through baised and partial reporting.

And no matter which candidate wins it will not be over for conservatives. McCain is not our candidate and neither is Obama. The constitution will need defending and so will our civil liberties. McCain, despite his promises otherwise, is a big government Republican, a RINO. Obama is a socialist at heart and in practice.

So regardless of the outcome we will remain to fight for those dumb enough to have chosen McCain and Obama to slug it out in order to be POTUS.

But rather than point out that conservatives have no dog in this hunt let me remind each and every one of you to vote.

Don't listen to the polls. Don't listen to the pundits. And that is doubly true of people on the left coast... you have to vote tomorrow. McCain, Obama, the DNC and the RNC have armies of lawyers to argue the validity of votes and ballots. Barring an unexpected landslide one way or the other the election will not necessarily be decided on Tuesday. But don't trust the media to tell you that.

Get out and vote.

More savagery from the "religion of peace"

Rape victim, 13, stoned to death in Somalia
Chris McGrealAfrica correspondentguardian.co.uk

An Islamist rebel administration in Somalia had a 13-year-old girl stoned to death for adultery after the child's father reported that three men had raped her.

Amnesty International said the al-Shabab militia, which controls the southern port city of Kismayo, arranged for a group of 50 men to stone Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow in front of a crowd of about 1,000 spectators. A lorryload of stones was brought to the stadium for the killing.
Amnesty said that Duhulow struggled with her captors and had to be forcibly carried into the stadium.

"At one point during the stoning, Amnesty International has been told by numerous eyewitnesses that nurses were instructed to check whether Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow was still alive when buried in the ground. They removed her from the ground, declared that she was, and she was replaced in the hole where she had been buried for the stoning to continue," the human rights group said.

"Inside the stadium, militia members opened fire when some of the witnesses to the killing attempted to save her life, and shot dead a boy who was a bystander."

Amnesty said witnesses originally reported that Duhulow was 23-years-old, based on her appearance. But the human rights group found out from her father that she was a child.
Duhulow's father told Amnesty that when they tried to report her rape to the militia, the child was accused of adultery and detained. None of the men Duhulow accused was arrested.

"This was not justice, nor was it an execution," said Amnesty's Somalia campaigner, David Copeman. "This child suffered an horrendous death at the behest of the armed opposition groups who currently control Kismayo.

"This killing is yet another human rights abuse committed by the combatants to the conflict in Somalia, and again demonstrates the importance of international action to investigate and document such abuses, through an international commission of inquiry."Amnesty said al-Shabab had created a climate of fear in which government officials, journalists and human rights activists faced death threats and killing if they spoke against the militia.
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A 13 year old rape victim was stoned to death by these animals. This misogymistics pigs murdered her for committing adultry with her married attacker. They claim to be the religion of peace. What horseshit!

And they claim it is a small minority of people who really hold these extreme views. Yet in a city of less than 2,000,000 they were able to gather 1,000 witnesses and 50 willing participants to stone the struggling girl and checked to make sure she was still alve before tossing her into a hole to be buried alive.

And what was the point of having so many witnesses? So women and men alike know that if the tell anyone that they or a family member was raped the victim will be killed.

Islam is not a "Religion of Peace"... it is not a religion at all... it is a Cult of Hate. A cult for filthy psychopathic retards stuck in the 7th Century.