Whats it all about?

Warren G. Harding?

2012-01-31T16:12:00.003-05:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/warren-harding-curing-a-depression-through-austerity/2012/01/19/gIQA5VEsEQ_story.html

Obama is a socialist, but Republicans are fools, we are the loosers!

2012-01-30T08:49:00.001-05:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/buffett-tax-and-truth-in-numbers/2012/01/29/gIQAikL5aQ_story.html

WWF - Amur (Siberian) tiger

2012-01-27T16:29:00.000-05:00

WWF - Amur (Siberian) tiger

CNN Tries To Whitewash Obama's Radical Past - Investors.com

2012-01-27T14:21:00.000-05:00

CNN Tries To Whitewash Obama's Radical Past - Investors.com

THE VOTE PUMP

2012-01-27T14:17:00.000-05:00

NBA Season Disappointments # Inside the Nba TNT 26.01.12

2012-01-27T13:59:00.000-05:00

As Obama demands rich Americans pay more in taxes, the IRS reveals 36 Obama aides are far behind in their taxes by Andrew Malcolm - Investors.com

2012-01-26T11:07:00.000-05:00

As Obama demands rich Americans pay more in taxes, the IRS reveals 36 Obama aides are far behind in their taxes by Andrew Malcolm - Investors.com

Wizards pull off a stunning upset over Thunder, 105-102 - Washington Times

2012-01-19T11:55:00.000-05:00

Well what do you know!

Wizards pull off a stunning upset over Thunder, 105-102 - Washington Times

An Ignored 'Disparity'

2012-01-18T09:22:00.000-05:00

Wisdom from a true American genius.

An Ignored 'Disparity'

Mark Levin's new book

2012-01-18T08:48:00.001-05:00

http://dailycaller.com/2012/01/17/mark-levin-us-no-longer-a-constitutional-republic-video/#ooid=o4bGlhMzrAxs-S-tTxX7J0QlajDKY7TD

LPGA adds 4 tournaments, including 3 in the US - Washington Times

2012-01-17T09:54:00.000-05:00

LPGA adds 4 tournaments, including 3 in the US - Washington Times

Fuel Flowing in Nome

2012-01-17T09:43:00.001-05:00

January 17, 2012

It is interesting that the state of Alaska sits on about as much oil reserves as Saudi Arabia, but has to import oil from 5,000 miles away to make it through the winter.

Fuel Flowing in Nome

Ex-W.Va. psychiatric hospital becoming tourist attraction - Washington Times

2012-01-03T10:39:00.000-05:00

Ex-W.Va. psychiatric hospital becoming tourist attraction - Washington Times

Media Myths

2011-12-31T11:39:00.001-05:00

http://mediamythalert.wordpress.com/2011/12/31/taking-stock-top-mythbusting-posts-of-2011/

Apologists For Communist Totalitarianism: I Hate Those Guys

2011-12-26T10:06:00.000-05:00

Apologists For Communist Totalitarianism: I Hate Those Guys

The 7 most illuminating economic charts of 2011

2011-12-26T09:59:00.000-05:00

The 7 most illuminating economic charts of 2011

The Real Ron Paul

2011-12-22T11:25:00.002-05:00

Ron Paul - who is he? Reallyhttp://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204552304577112761003972028.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

Tennis Channel Ruling Could Open Door for Future Challenges to Comcast - Hotline On Call

2011-12-22T09:06:00.000-05:00

Will this also apply to Direct TV and Verizon?

Tennis Channel Ruling Could Open Door for Future Challenges to Comcast - Hotline On Call

Port Authority toll collectors cash in - NYPOST.com

2011-12-14T10:41:00.000-05:00

Port Authority toll collectors cash in - NYPOST.com

I'm thinking about moving and taking a job as a toll taker.

2011-12-13T09:11:00.000-05:00

Its about time!Hurricane predictors admit they can’t predict hurricanesMonday, December 12, 2011By Tom Spears Two top U.S. hurricane forecasters, revered like rock stars in Deep South hurricane country, are quitting the practice because it doesn’t work.William Gray and Phil Klotzbach say a look back shows their past 20 years of forecasts had no value.The two scientists from Colorado State University will still discuss different probabilities as hurricane seasons approach — a much more cautious approach. But the shift signals how far humans are, even with supercomputers, from truly knowing what our weather will do next.Gray, recently joined by Klotzbach, has been known for decades for an annual forecast of how many hurricanes can be expected each official hurricane season (which runs from June to November.) Southerners hang on his words, as even a mid-sized hurricane can cause billions in damage.Last week, the pair dropped this announcement out of a clear, blue sky:“We are discontinuing our early December quantitative hurricane forecast for the next year ... Our early December Atlantic basin seasonal hurricane forecasts of the last 20 years have not shown real-time forecast skill even though the hindcast studies on which they were based had considerable skill.”© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

North Dakota Produced 488068 barrels of oil per day in October, 2011 for another record high

2011-12-10T10:12:00.000-05:00

Amazing! Who new? How have the msm missed this?

North Dakota Produced 488068 barrels of oil per day in October, 2011 for another record high

Bob Woodward says sitting next to Al Gore is 'taxing, unpleasant’ - TheHill.com

2011-12-06T16:14:00.001-05:00

Now, that's interesting, wouldn't you think an award winning investigative reporter would be dying to write a book about the 99% we don't know?

Bob Woodward says sitting next to Al Gore is 'taxing, unpleasant’ - TheHill.com

2011-12-04T10:36:00.001-05:00

Secrets of the bailout now told by Gretchen Moregenson in this New York Times article.http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/business/secrets-of-the-bailout-now-revealed.html

Bush and Gorbachev at Malta

2011-12-03T11:08:00.000-05:00

Bush and Gorbachev at Malta

The Failed Chevy Volt That Just Won't Go Away

2011-11-30T09:24:00.000-05:00

The Failed Chevy Volt That Just Won't Go Away

2011-11-01T23:25:00.003-04:00

Compare the current media frenzy over Herman Cain's sexual harassment case that occurred over a decade ago with the media's lack of interest in John Edwards ongoing sexual relations during the 2008 presidential election. I detect a slight difference, or am I just being overly critical, we all know the media is completely neutral in political matters.

2011-08-23T22:16:00.002-04:00

August 23, 2011

An earthquake of 5.9 or 5.8 magnitude occurred in central Virginia and was felt widely in the Mid-Atlantic area today. The epicenter was near Lake Anna and caused some damage in the Washington Metro area. The quake was felt as far south as North Carolina, as far north as Boston, and as far west as Ohio.

Cell phone service was impossible because the air waves were clogged by people calling to report the quake or checking on loved ones. In an incredible example of media stupidity radio and television stations were telling people to use their cell phones in real emergencies only and then proceeded to solicit eye witness accounts of the earthquake from people, you guessed it, using their cell phones.

2011-06-05T11:42:00.002-04:00

June 5, 2011

John or Johnny Edwards is surely one of the most despicable persons to have walked the political stage, but the most amazing non-story behind his demise is the fact that the leading lights of the Democratic Party could not see through him. Not once, but twice the Democrats considered nominating him to run for the presidency, and did in fact put him on the national ticket in the second spot in 2004. How could this have happened? Edwards said all the right things and therefore the national media gave him a pass, he was a true liberal. Compare the treatment of Edwards to the media attention paid to the Republican candidate for vice president in 2008. Edwards had at least one mistress and an out of wedlock baby while running for president and no one in the media, except the National Inquirer reported on it, but when Palin wrote her book "Going Rouge" the AP assigned 11 reporters to fact check it, think there is a disparity there.

2011-03-11T10:30:00.001-05:00

Here is a link to a piece by W. Joseph Campbell on the line “Follow the money” in the movie “All the President’s Men” http://mediamythalert.wordpress.com/2011/03/11/fact-checking-watergate-advice-that-worked/.

2011-01-26T11:38:00.002-05:00

January 26, 2011

The stock market is an amazing bunch of horse hockey. How can the stock of a company such as General Electric sell for under $20 a share while the stock of a company such as Netflix sell for $189 a share? And while on the subject of the stock market, how can President Obama, in his State of Union message, tout the rise of the stock market as evidence of economic recovery while at the same time saying that Social Security should not be tied to that very same marked? As I have said many times, "There is something going on here that we know nothing about".

2011-01-18T11:09:00.002-05:00

January 18, 2011

What is with "sort of"? It is not only slangy it is vague, and it is used a lot by people appearing on TV. I notice its usage most when I watch CNN, MSNBC, FOX News and ESPN. I think commentators use the phrase when they are afraid to comment to a concrete description of something. It is not only political in usage, I recently saw Dr. Gupta on CNN explaining the pump in Dick Chaney's heart and he must have said "sort of" fifteen times in five minutes.

2011-01-03T12:29:00.002-05:00

January 3, 2011

I begin my 66th year having just completed a year filled with joy, trepidation, and some health concerns. The joy was highlighted by Ali's graduation from James Madison University in May. The whole family was proud of her accomplishment and happy in the notion that she chose well in selecting a college and that she had a successful college experience. We were also proud that Erin successfully complete her freshman year at Susquehanna and that her 2nd year has started off with many positives. The trepidation surrounded Matt's health problems. He was diagnosed with Graves disease(hyper-thyroid)and went through a year of treatment that left him debilitated. He seems to have turned the corner and is feeling better so my hope is that 2011 will be a good year for him, he deserves one. My own health concerns, while troublesome for a time have so far not resulted in any noticeable deterioration in my overall health. I was diagnosed with monoclonal gomopathy a blood condition that can lead to multiple myeloma, which is bone marrow cancer. So far the levels of the abnormal protein in my blood are low but I will be monitored every three months for the next year to see if there is any change.

2010-11-18T16:58:00.002-05:00

November 18, 2010

Returned from Vegas on Friday night/Saturday morning worn out by the shear enormity of the place. It is truly one of the seven man made wonders of the world. We did some gambling and saw some shows and generally had a great time. Jon and Michelle are good people to hang out with and know a lot more about Vegas than either Sam of I. Now back to reality.

2010-11-10T09:26:00.002-05:00

November 10, 2010

Sam and I are off to Vegas for three days and two nights to meet up with the Parsonnets in celebration of Jon's 50th birthday. Staying at Planet Hollywood.

2010-08-31T09:24:00.002-04:00

August 31, 2010

The current economic downturn, recession if you like, is being compounded by the policies of the party currently in control of the government, Democrats. By that I mean that the Democrats who are indebted to the labor unions for helping to put them in power are using government money and programs to enhance labor's hold on the American economy, which has shifted dramatically in recent decades. Only about 7% of the private sector economy is unionized. This is because unions have destroyed virtually every industry where workers have been organized, just look at a partial list: automobiles, airlines, department and grocery stores, manufacturing, etc., the list goes on and on. So what have the unions done? They have gone into public sector where today 30% of that workforce is unionized, lead of course, by teacher's unions. The result is the same, state and local governments are bankrupt or are becoming bankrupt. In spite of this fact, the Democrats have continued to follow policies that perpetuate our economic problems: raising the minimum wage, bailing out the auto industry to prevent the collapse of the UAW, and creating a health care system that will alleviate the union's burden of having to provide health insurance to their members. The next step is pretty obvious, a bailout of state and local governments.

2010-06-09T09:06:00.000-04:00

June 9, 2010

DOROTHY RABINOWITZ: The Alien in the White House: The distance between the president and the people is beginning to be revealed. “A great part of America now understands that this president’s sense of identification lies elsewhere, and is in profound ways unlike theirs. He is hard put to sound convincingly like the leader of the nation, because he is, at heart and by instinct, the voice mainly of his ideological class. He is the alien in the White House, a matter having nothing to do with delusions about his birthplace cherished by the demented fringe.”

Can the Democratic Party be saved? In the short term I don’t think so. Republicans will win control or near control of the Congress in the November elections thwarting Obama’s agenda for the following two years. However, the Presidential election of 2012 is still a toss up because Republicans will be so divided over a nominee to challenge Obama. The “Tea Party” and ideological conservatives will want a pure candidate that espouses their beliefs, while pragmatic moderate Republicans will want some one who can win. A third party candidate is a possibility. As for the Democrats I think Obama will be challenged for the nomination, possibly by Hillary Clinton. Obama will have to move toward the center to be re-elected if he survives the challenge.

Thoughts on the Health Care Summit - Business - The Atlantic

2010-02-26T10:51:00.000-05:00

Thoughts on the Health Care Summit - Business - The Atlantic

The China Syndrome No More? - Political Punch

2010-02-23T10:28:00.000-05:00

The China Syndrome No More? - Political Punch

SnoWatch Blog: Blizzard Warning Along Bay | ABC 7 News

2010-02-05T16:01:00.000-05:00

SnoWatch Blog: Blizzard Warning Along Bay | ABC 7 News

FACT CHECK: Obama and a toothless commission

2010-01-28T10:22:00.001-05:00

FACT CHECK: Obama and a toothless commission

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Truths We Dare Not Speak

2010-01-14T10:46:00.001-05:00

Truths We Dare Not Speak

Very interesting take on things by Stanford professor Victor Davis.

American Thinker Blog: UAW to sell it's glitzy resort

2010-01-14T10:16:00.001-05:00

American Thinker Blog: UAW to sell it's glitzy resort

Link to this article if you have ever wondered why the American auto industry is in the toilet.

New York Post — December 3, 2009 - 9 - Tiger Woods Tabloid Headlines - Photos - Golf.com

2009-12-31T17:57:00.001-05:00

And on that note - happy new year.New York Post — December 3, 2009 - 9 - Tiger Woods Tabloid Headlines - Photos - Golf.com

2009-12-21T13:26:00.002-05:00

Are you of the opinion that the media is fair and balanced, or do you think as I do that the media manipulates the news to support its own agenda. Consider the following:

...the Associated Press assigned eleven writers to "fact-check" Sarah Palin's new book,
now we have this from the AP's article covering "ClimateGate":
The AP studied all the e-mails for context, with five reporters reading and rereading them, about 1 million words in total.
That's less than half the reporters they assigned to "fact-check" Sarah Palin's book.

Shhh! - The Hollywood Gossip

2009-12-08T10:29:00.001-05:00

Man does he have some secrets!

Shhh! - The Hollywood Gossip

Shocker polls: That Sarah Palin-Barack Obama gap melts to 1 point

2009-12-08T10:22:00.002-05:00

Check this out from the LA Times!

Shocker polls: That Sarah Palin-Barack Obama gap melts to 1 point

Posted using ShareThis

2009-08-17T11:43:00.003-04:00

August 17, 2009

What a huge surprise at the PGA on Sunday, Tiger Woods with a 2 stroke lead loosing to Y.E. Yang by 3 strokes! I have never seen Tiger miss so many puts, as he said he was hitting the ball well, but he could not make the puts he usually makes on Sunday to win majors.

This is a photo from Afghanistan. Why don’t we hear, read, or see much about the war in Afghanistan? Is it because this is no longer Bush’s war, but Obama’s war? More US troops died in Afghanistan in the last four months than died in Iraq during the same period, but I don’t see their pictures in the Washington Post. I am an advocate for fairness and I sure don’t see much of it in the American media.

2009-08-12T10:22:00.001-04:00

August 12, 2009
I am going to have to amend my prediction about Tiger Woods winning multiple majors this year. Obviously, I was wrong. I think that it took Tiger longer to comeback from the knee surgery that anyone thought, but based on his performance of late I would not bet against him this week in the PGA Championship.

2009-06-09T11:01:00.001-04:00

June 9,2009
Ali is working as a nanny for 3 neighborhood children this summer. The children are ages 2 to 8, Malory, Trinity and JoJo. Good luck!

2009-05-23T09:07:00.001-04:00

Erin was presented with the "Senior" award by the theater department at BCC High School's Theater Banquet last night. This is an award given to the outstanding senior in the theater department each year.

2009-05-17T15:19:00.000-04:00

Erin and John at their pre-prom May 9, 2009.

2009-05-09T11:44:00.000-04:00

Matt and Lucy April 2009.

2009-04-09T09:31:00.002-04:00

April 9, 2009

Erin is in Italy touring Florence and Venice. She will return Sunday. Ali is in a play at JMU entitled Columbinus about the school shootings in 1999. It is a very powerful and emotional play from the point of view of the students and parents involved. Robbie and Ali are terrific as are the other cast members. If you get the chance to see this play anywhere see it, you won't be disappointed.

2009-04-02T12:19:00.002-04:00

April 2,2009

Erin leaves for Italy today for a 10 day trip to Milan, Florence and Venice. Just three years ago Ali embarked on a similar trip to Rome. Judging from Ali's experience Erin will have a wonderful time and create many great memories.

2009-03-30T09:50:00.002-04:00

March 30, 2009

March madness has been really crazy this year. The final four is somewhat of a surprise with Michigan State, UCONN, Villanova and UNC. I picked UCONN and Villanova for the final four but had Louisville and Pittsburgh in the final. Obama still looks good, he has UNC winning it all, guess its his year. Tiger proved again why he is the greatest of all time by draining a 16 foot put on the final hole to win the Arnold Palmer Invitational, just like he did last year. If he doesn't win at least two majors this year it will be a real surprise, maybe all four.

2009-03-24T10:49:00.002-04:00

March 24, 2008

2008 was the coolest (temperature wise) year of the last 10 years. Another little known fact, centenarians (people over 100 yrs. in age) are the fastest growing demographic group worldwide. There are currently 84,000 of them in the US, 30,000 in Japan. Resveratrol is the component of red wine that activates a gene called SIRT-1, which is normally activated by starvation. SIRT-1extends life in part by reducing lipofuscin that accumulates in human cells. Some pharmaceutical companies are testing much more potent versions of SIRT-1. Drink up, all you wannabe centenarians. (Glen Harlan Reynolds, Forbes Magazine, March 30, 2009, check out his website Instapundit.com)

2009-02-24T20:45:00.001-05:00

February 24, 2009

It is very hard to predict what will happen in the future, whether that future is tomorrow or in ten years. Nevertheless, I will give prognostication a go regarding the Federal budget. Obama has been talking about “fiscal responsibility” and about balancing the Federal budget by the end of his first term in office. In view of the vast amounts of money in the “stimulus package” just signed into law, as well as the money spent or set to be spent in the bailouts of banks, the auto industry and default mortgagees how will the budget get balanced. One obvious way is to increase taxes, and this will be one of the corner stones of the Obama balanced budget effort. Income taxes will be raised on the top 5% of wage earners, taxes will also be raised on corporations after all it was those greedy bastards in big business that caused our economic difficulties. The Federal tax on gasoline will be raised from the current eighteen cents per gallon to probably a dollar. Other taxes will be invented say a value added tax on goods, or excise taxes on imports. Regardless, taxes on the American people will increase. Taxes alone, however, will not be enough to balance the Federal budget which is now so dreadfully out of balance. Some things in the Federal budget will need to be cut, but what? My prediction is defense. The U.S. military industrial complex will be gutted so that social programs like universal health care can be born. I don’t know if this is good or bad, only time will tell. For twenty-five years those on the left have been calling for exactly this scenario and now it will come to pass. Is should not come as a surprise to anyone for President Obama is a child of the left and he has not tried to hide this fact. As he has said “I won” and now he will do what he believes is in the best interests of the country. His path is completely different from the one we have been following for the past twenty-five years whether it will prove to be more or less successful will not be known for many years. I have no stake in right or left politics, so I hope he succeeds.

2009-02-23T12:45:00.000-05:00

February 23, 2009

The U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 3, provides the number of Representatives in the House of Representatives shall not exceed 1 for every 30,000 people. Public Law 62-5, passed on August 8, 1911, fixed the number of Representatives at 433, with 1 additional for Arizona and 1 for New Mexico. Thus the number 435 exists today which means that there is approximately 1 Representative for every 689,000 people (assuming a population of 300 million). If, as expected the Congress passes a law giving the District of Columbia 1 voting representative the number of Representatives will be 436.

Tax Fraud

2009-02-02T11:26:00.002-05:00

The latest disclosure of tax delinquency by a potential member of the Obama administration should be met head-on by the new President. He should issue an Executive Order requiring the IRS to conduct annual tax audits of all political appointees. The tax troubles of Daschel and Rangel should also make it clear to Congressional leaders that they need to follow suit and require annual audits of all members of both houses. Somewhere down the line the American taxpayers are going to be asked to pony up for all of the stimuli now being passed, it is only fair that the people who pass and implement these bills be above reproach when it comes to paying their share of the tax burdens.

2009-01-01T10:59:00.001-05:00

January 1, 2009

Happy New Year!

2008-11-18T09:36:00.002-05:00

November 18, 2008

Sam and I visited Harrisonburg, Virginia the first week in November and stayed at the Massanutten 4 Seasons Resort. We have become regulars at the Resort since Ali started college at James Madison University in 2006. Apparently it is very easy to get good deals on condos at Massanutten through RCI, we got a two bedroom complete with sauna for about $250, for the week. I played golf at one of Massanutten's two 18 hole golf courses, beautifully maintained, and we visited some Shenandoah Wineries. The wineries are just getting started save for Shenandoah Winery which has been going for about 10 years. We brought back a case of wine and all bottles have been good, however, they were not cheap.

The main purpose of the trip was to see Ali in another lead role in a JMU main stage production. This time "The Rover" an old English comedy written by a woman Aphra Behn and set in Naples in 1655. It is a battle of the sexes comedy and Ali played one of the two sisters at the center of the battle. As usual Ali was brilliant and beautiful even though the other sister, played by her friend Lauren Ramsey, had most of the funny lines. The costumes we elaborate and required several changes for the female leads. Ali's presence on stage continues to amaze me. She seems at home no matter the role, like she belongs right there at that time and place. She never misses a line, no wonder the keep casting her. I wonder where it will all lead? She longs for singing roles in musicals, but there is no question she is a natural born actor.

2008-10-30T10:55:00.000-04:00

October 30, 2008

Why I will vote for Obama.

Change is good. The Republicans have held sway in Washington since 1980. Clinton was president for 8 years but for six of those years the Republicans controlled Congress. It is time for a different view of government and its place in America. Ronald Reagan said that government is not the solution, it is the problem. This has been the mantra for nearly thirty years, even though the government has grown in size and power. But government power under Republicans has not always been used for the good of the all of the people. Senator Obama now says that the government can be our friend. That it can be used to better our lives, all of our lives. He says that the upper class in this country has a disproportion of the wealth and that trickle down economics has not worked. I think he is right. At the very least I think it is time to try another way of governing. The country is truly not better off now than it was four or even eight years ago, and while all of the problems cannot be blamed on Republicans it is clear that the country now needs to go in another direction with a new philosophy.

2008-10-20T14:02:00.003-04:00

October 20, 2008

In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. From time to time we've been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people.

Ronald Reagan January 20, 1981.

If this is not exactly what is happening now in Washington I must be crazy. The same people who caused the housing bubble and the following financial crisis are now going to bail us out of the mess. Even the Washington Post is now admitting that Congress, with the complicity of the Clinton adminstration, encouraged lenders to make unwise loans in furtherance of what they call the worthy cause of home ownership. The bubble burst and the whole house of cards came tumbling down. My fear is that in our haste to dig out of the rubble of this disaster our leaders will take us down the road to socialism. As Winston Churchill once said: " The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of socalism is the equal sharing of miseries."

2008-08-09T10:16:00.002-04:00

August 9 2008

I have read that Presidential Candidate Obama has proposed a "windfall profits tax" on oil companies as part of his energy plan. Two things strike me about this proposal: (1) it was tried in the 1970s by Jimmy Carter and the then democrats in Congress and it did nothing to alleviate the energy crisis of that time; and (2) if we tax excess profits of corporations, should we not provide some form of relief to corporations when they have excess losses, I am thinking here of the American automobile companies. It occurs to me that the best thing the Federal government can do for the American economy is to stay as far away from it as possible. The price of oil has begun to come down, and thanks to our Washington gridlock (and I am not talking about the traffic), the Federal government has had absolutely nothing to do with the decline.

2008-06-08T14:41:00.000-04:00

June 8, 2008

I went to see Sex in the City (the movie) last night with my wife and 19 year old daughter. I commented that it was the quintessential chick flick, however, upon reflection I must also admit that the movie’s message was one that needed to be stated for the sake of all women. I was never a fan of the TV series. I thought the four main characters were vacuous and totally lacking in any redeeming qualities. Their main purpose in life, it seemed to me, was the pursuit of males and the sexual conquest of same. Then they would get together, sip cosmopolitans, and talk about their conquests or failures and commiserate with one another on the inequities of life in general.

Sex in the City (the move) had a more positive message for women. While it is true that each of the gals suffered misfortune in their amorous affairs, in the end they all came to the realization that one size does not fit all, weather it be in shoes or the male anatomy. The main character, Carrie Bradshaw, had a 10 year relationship with a man, Big (aka John Preston), who she came to realize was the love of her life. They were together and happy until she fell into the common pitfall of a large number of upper middle class to wealthy couples. It is what I call the status trap or what used to be known as “Keeping up with the Joneses”. The wedding became the center piece of her life rather than her relationship with Big. He, being a man, felt he was playing second fiddle, and this caused him ask himself, “What am I getting myself into”. Everything collapsed sending him into exile and her into depression. It took a year, and a few clever plot twists, for her to come to the realization that Big was in fact the love of her life and being his wife was far more important that being in Vogue magazine. So they did what they should have done in the first place. They got married at city hall with no one in attendance and then they went out and celebrated with friends and whoever.

The other three women making up the ensemble also came to life altering realizations. Samantha, the nymphomaniac, realized that that indeed was her lot in life, so she left a handsome man who loved her and a dream house in Malibu for her old life in NYC. Miranda, the lawyer/mother/wife came to the realization that her number one priority in her life should have been her husband and her son. Instead of them taking a back seat to her legal career, it should have been the other way around. She finally got it right. Charlotte, pretty much had it right from the beginning of the movie, so she simply got rewarded with the baby girl she had always wanted.

The positive message of the movie, that everybody is different and no one answer is right for everybody, was for me, a refreshing change from the negative vibes of the TV series. I also liked the fact that Carrie waited until she and Big were in their forties to get married. Personally, as the father of two daughters this appealed to me, as did the idea of getting married at City Hall, a small church would have done, and then celebrating. All in all things turned out well for the girls, but I don’t know if sitting through almost three hours, of chick flickery was worth the effort for me.

2008-05-21T09:08:00.002-04:00

There is an interesting article in the Washington Post this morning by Walter Williams, an economics professor at George Mason University. Williams cites The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 as the, or one of the causes of the current "Sub-Prime Crisis". The Act encouraged banks and savings institutions to make the so called "no doc" and "Liar" loans that are now so frequently in default. His point being that most problems in America are caused by Government actions, which are often well intentioned. The Government adopted, in the 70s, a policy that every American should own his or her own home. In theory this is a wonderful idea, but in actuality it can't happen without Government subsidizing home purchases. Instead of providing the subsidy the Government simply mandated the dream and hoped that it would become a reality. It worked for a while, but markets and economies do not exist in a vacuum. Things change! And so it was with the housing market. The moral of the story, the Government should stay as far away as possible from mandating things it can't deliver on, like lowering gasoline prices.

2008-03-23T10:56:00.002-04:00

March 23, 2008

West Virginia University finally made the front page of the Washington Post Sports section. The WVU basketball team beat Duke 73-67 in the NCAA tournament to make it to the "Sweet 16" for the second time in three years. During that time Duke only made it to the "Sweet 16" once, yet Post columnist Mike Wise devoted almost his entire column to the loosing squad. WVU was mentioned, but the article was about the losers. This is typical of Post coverage, or I should say, non-coverage of Mountaineer athletics. The Post treats Virgina Tech like a local team, but seldom mentions WVU even though Morgantown is closer to DC than Blacksberg (161 miles to 215 miles). Virtually every VT basketball and football game is covered but WVU has to do something out of the ordinary to even get a mention.

2008-03-18T10:28:00.002-04:00

March 18, 2008

I filed our Federal Income Tax return today, electronically! It cost us $46, I used Turbo Tax, what the hell we can deduct it all on next year's return. What really amazed me was that when I printed it out the return was 62 pages. Unreal! We are not rich, we don't have complicated finances, so why does the Federal government need 62 pages of information about our income? How many pages does Bill Gates need? Or, Warren Buffet? We really need tax reform in this country, but, I don't hear any of the candidates for president talking about it, so I don't suppose it will happen.

2008-03-16T11:28:00.002-04:00

March 16, 2008

I read a brilliant article in the Village Voice, dated March 11, 2008 (http://www.villagevoice.com/generic/show_print.php?id=374064&p...), by the Pulitzer Prize winning play write David Mamet. He summed up pretty much what I have gone through in my political thinking. Like him, I am a child of the 60s, meaning that I grew up with negative feelings about government, business and positive feelings about human beings. I have learned that while the usual human vices hold sway throughout the world, in my life things are not always wrong, neither are they wrong in the community in which I live or in my country. Mamet's comparison of George W. Bush and JFK is pretty much right-on, except that JFK had charisma and Bush doesn’t. For me, the person occupying the White House, or the party controlling the Congress, makes little difference in the long run. What makes our country so great is the U.S. Constitution, which created a form of government so brilliant that no single person or party can fuck it up for very long. Sure, we have ups and downs (like right now is a down), but I am sure this will not last. I really don’t think the next presidential election is going fundamentally change anything in America. I like Obama because he is charismatic, like JFK, in form if not in substance.

I really liked the Mamet piece, especially, when he called Thomas Sowell “our greatest contemporary philosopher”. I have been reading Sowell’s columns for years and could not agree more. My only question is why he is never seen or heard of in the MSM? You want to know how smart Thomas Sowell is, just read this article. http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2008/03/12/non-judgmental_nonsense.

Sowell was born in North Carolina, where, he recounts, his encounters with white people were so limited that he didn't believe that "yellow" was a possible color for human hair (A Personal Odyssey). He later moved with his mother's sister (whom he thought to be his mother; his father died before he was born) and siblings to Harlem, New York City. He dropped out of high school when he moved out on his own at the age of 17 because of money problems and a deteriorating home environment.^[2] Soon after, he served in the US Marine Corps.

After his service, Sowell passed a GED and enrolled at Howard University. His top-notch grades enabled him to transfer and completed a B.A. in Economics from Harvard College, magna cum laude, an M.A. in Economics from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Chicago. He chose University of Chicago, he has said, because he wanted to study under George Stigler. Stigler's achievements were recognized when in 1982 he won the Nobel Prize in Economics.

Sowell has taught at prominent American universities including Howard University, Cornell University, Brandeis University, and UCLA. Since 1980 he has been a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where he holds the fellowship named after Rose and Milton Friedman.

2008-02-29T09:39:00.001-05:00

February 29, 2008

Leap year! I was born in a leap year, 1944, but not on February 29. Am still in the process of preparing my 2007 income tax returns, a process stalled while I wait for more forms. I was distressed to discover that we will owe the state of Maryland $616, and that we were assessed a penalty of $11 for not having enough withheld. What kind of bullshit is this.

Yea, that’s right Maryland sucks! With all the taxes assessed on its citizens this putrid state still has a budget deficit. We paid the state and the county $5000 in income taxes in 2007, not to mention the nearly $6000 we paid in real estate taxes. What the hell do the idiots in Annapolis spend this money on? The Inter-County Connector? The Purple Line? New schools? The only thing they can agree on is that nobody should smoke cigarettes, which is really ironic since the state of Maryland’s main product for 150 years was tobacco.

While we are talking about taxes, has anybody seen the assessed value of their house go down? All you hear about in the media is how the housing market is depressed and people are loosing their shirts because the value of the family home is in the tank. But not one word about property taxes going down to reflect the depressed market. I propose a moratorium on the payment of salaries to all elected officials in the state and county until the budget deficit is eliminated.

2008-02-21T11:24:00.004-05:00

Yesterday, February 20, 2008, I witnessed, on TV, the greatest putting performance I have ever seen. Tiger Woods was two strokes down with five holes to play in a match against J. P. Holmes in the World Golf Championships Match Play tournament. Two weeks earlier Holmes had defeated Phil Mickelson in a one hole playoff to win the FBR tournament by sinking a ten foot birdie putt after Mickelson missed a 25 footer for birdie. In the Match Play tournament Woods sank birdie putts on the 14th hole, the 15th hole and the 16th hole, then on 17 he sank a 35 foot eagle putt. No other golfer I have seen can putt like this man. The putts he made to win this match were not gimmies, they were 15ft, 18ft, 20ft and 35ft putts. In comparison Mickelson, a good player, could not make a single 25ft put in a playoff. Much is made of Tiger's strength and his short game prowess, but he wins tournaments with his putting. I wonder if this is the year he wins all four grand slam championships? The only thing standing in his way is himself.

2008-02-14T10:07:00.001-05:00

Jack Hoxie Selected films of this star available for viewing: Lightning Bryce (1919) Back Fire (1922) Riders of the Law (1922) Desert Rider (1923) The Back Trail (1924) Border Sheriff (1926)

Return to photos page

2008-02-14T09:53:00.000-05:00

I have been doing a little research lately on the Hoxie Family, and one of its most famous ancestors, Jack Hoxie, the 1920s silent film star. Jack appeared in literally hundreds of films from 1910 to 1933, but is best remembered for the thirty-six he made for Universal Studios between 1923 and 1927. These films were immensely popular with the public and made Jack one of the top cowboy box office attractions along with such other notables a Tom Mix, Ken Maynard and Hoot Gibson.

So far I have been able to find little information about Jack or his father Bart in the seminal book on the family, The Hoxie Family, Three Centuries in America, by Leslie R. Hoxie, published in 1950. This is not surprising since the family tree is extensive covering three-hundred years and scores of branches ranging from Massachusetts to California. There is little doubt, however, that Jack Hoxie is descended from the same common ancestor of all Hoxies (including the various spellings of the name, e.g. Hoxsey, Hoxsie) Lodowick Hoxie. Lodowick arrived, it is believed from Scotland, at the Plymouth Colony in what is now Massachusetts sometime around 1650. Leslie Hoxie traces all of his decedents through the various branches of the family from Lodowick’s nine children (seven males).

Jack Hoxie’s father Bart was a veterinarian originally from the east cost. He went west like many other Hoxies and settled in Oklahoma, where Jack was born. Jack’s father died when he was young, less than 12, and his mother remarried a man named Stone. The Stone family lived on a ranch in Idaho which Jack left, due to a dispute with his stepfather, when he was about 18 years old. He became a real cowboy working on ranches herding cattle and eventually went to Hollywood and became a stuntman. Jack’s real life reads like a movie as he apparently lived for a time with the Nez Perce Indians in Idaho and was known as Red Elk.

2008-02-10T11:03:00.000-05:00

This cartoon is from Politico.com one of my favorites, and it sums up my feeling about the Clinton campaign. I wonder what they have in store for Obama? I like him and will vote for him on Tuesday in the Maryland Primary, but if the Clinton's concoct some way of screwing him out of the nomination McCain will be the next president.

That makes sense

2008-02-08T09:39:00.000-05:00

According to a new poll, just out, the national approval rating for Congress is just 22%, equaling the all time record low rating. So, of course, we as a nation are about to elect a member of Congress as our next President. That makes sense. It makes one wonder, what hath God wrought?

"Mass Transit is a Pipe Dream"

2008-02-01T10:24:00.000-05:00

I read a lot about oil dependency, traffic congestion and air pollution and I wonder what if anything can be done about these issues.

I found a new blog by Brock Yates who used to write for Car and Driver and also race cars. In his first posting he talks about traffic congestion, oil dependency and America's love of cars. I saw another blog, On Day One, which talks about what the next president should do on his first day in office. Yates thinks that mass transit is a "Pipe Dream" which reminded me of an article I saw last year "Mass transit does not reduce congestion" by Wendell Cox, author of a book titled "War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life". He claims that congestion and mass transit are completely different subjects. He also claims that "No level of transit investment, anywhere in the world, has materially reduced traffic congestion." If you look at the DC area he would appear to be correct.

Yates' claim that "...Americans continue to lead the way into a dark future of more emissions, oil use and wasted time. And here comes the third world, as India, China and other Tiger nations of the Far East start producing millions of private cars for a wildly eager population." is scary when you think of a billion plus Chinese driving gasoline powered cars. I have no solutions since I admit I am not willing to give up my car. But I really think the On Day One people have a point, American can deal directly with at least one issue, oil dependency, if our leaders have the guts.

Giant Bluefin Tuna Fishing

2008-01-31T10:25:00.000-05:00

January is the month for Bluefin tuna fishing off the North Carolina coast. These giant fish can weigh up to 600 lbs. and measure 8 ft. and they are the mainstay of the sushi trade in the far east.
A single average Bluefin can bring as much as $2,500.00 on the wholesale market. No wonder fishermen flock to the NC coast in January. A Bluefin outing in the Atlantic in January can be quite a trip, literally.

Income Tax Time

2008-01-30T11:29:00.000-05:00

Its income tax time and two delinquent cases are in the news. One guy in Virgina, reportedly worth about 30 million was convicted of income tax evasion and sentenced to a year and a day in prison. His lawyers asked for home detention and the maximum was about 10 years. The other case involves Wesley Snipes, movie star, who is accused to not reporting 38 million in income over a period of about 5 years.

I wonder what would happen if an ordinary person with average income and a family failed to report income? Nothing much happened to Marion Berry or Elinor Holmes Norton for failing to even file tax returns. I file my tax return every year, on time, because I fear the IRS and going to jail. I think everyone should pay their fair share, but what is fair? Is it 10%, 25%, 28%, 30%, 35%, or even more? One thing is very clear to me, the income tax laws in the US are much too complicated, more complicated that they need to be. All political candidates ever talk about is raising or lower tax rates, very few talk about making the tax laws simpler.

My first blog.

2008-01-25T11:16:00.000-05:00

I wonder about a lot of things that go on in the world, so I decided to create a blog to start sharing some of my comments about what is happening, not that I am egotistical enough to think any one else cares, but during the winter months I have some time on my hands. My main interests are current events, sports (golf, tennis, etc.), food and wine, and my family and friends. I read a lot, well, not a lot, but enough to claim that I am semi-literate, and I know quite a bit about many very unimportant things, which I will share on this blog, again, not that anybody really cares, but maybe people who visit will have some time on their hands. I have really wanted to be a blogger for some time so now, I am one! Anyway welcome to my blog.