Just a few odds and ends tonight...
At work, we're well on our way (hopefully) to making a donation to the relief effort. My co-worker George gets the fastest finger award, he had an e-mail regarding this to us before 8:00 this morning. So I made a donation, and apparently Keith (the owner) is going to match what we put in. It's the least we can do.
Katrina's Wrath is a blog you should check out. The writer is Mike Bayham, whose columns are regularly on the www.gopusa.com page. He's from the New Orleans area, but fortunately he got out in time. Possibly less fortunate are in-laws of a friend of mine, who live in Biloxi. My friend's not heard from them since this came down.
Sadly, I think I'm going to be right on the thousands figure of killed that I came up with. Also sounds like the Big Easy has become the Big Mean Streets, as looting is rampant. Check out the video.
But people are already pitching in, there's a figure cited of over $45 million in private aid so far, and I'm still convinced we'll have $1 billion in this before it's all over. Not sure if this counts "in-kind" aid.
Well, I went back and actually signed up for the Fired Up! Maryland blog. Basically just want to tweak them a bit and ask the tough questions. They're in cackle mode because they think Gov. Ehrlich's going to be busted on his firing practices. But my simple question, and I really want to know this: what law did he break? Methinks this is a "seriousness of the charge" investigation. Maybe I'll drop an e-mail to Sen. Stoltzfus, who's on this investigating committee (one of 4 R's vs. 8 D's) and see if I get an answer. I doubt I'll get anything of use from the FU! Maryland folks. (Hey I like that acronym, it's perfect!)
Wonder how the bloggers relief effort will go tomorrow. I'm interested both in how they do moneywise and how much coverage the partisan media gives them.
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Katrina relief efforts
Unless you've been under a rock for the last couple days, you know that Hurricane Katrina simply laid waste to the Gulf Coast in an area from New Orleans on the west to Mobile, Alabama on the east. If not, this should tell the tale. I think when it's all told in weeks (not days) we're going to find out about hundreds, if not thousands, dead. (And how much do you want to bet that if the number is remotely close, someone will compare it to the number of dead in the War on Terror?)
I actually sent a resume to a company in Mobile when I was looking for a job, so I was interested in the storm. On top of that, one of the nicest couples I've met here was a traveling nurse and her househusband, natives of New Orleans. Hopefully her assignment kept her away from their home on this occasion.
Very sad, and the impact isn't through yet as heavy rains spread over the Ohio Valley up into the Great Lakes region...even tornadoes this evening across the bay in eastern Virginia. Delmarva is given a slight risk of that activity tomorrow as the remnants of Katrina pass to our north.
People are already stepping up, including favorite leftist whipping boy Wal-Mart, who's already announced a million dollar donation to the Salvation Army. They're also collecting at their stores for additional funds.
It's been suggested that Thursday be a blogger's relief day (thank Hugh Hewitt for the idea.) I think it's a good idea, and I'm sure the idea will spread. I'm getting out in front a little bit since I'm not always the best poster.
Two organizations I know will be down there helping out:
American Red Cross: www.redcross.org or 1-800-HELP-NOW
Salvation Army: www.salvationarmyusa.org or 1-800-SAL-ARMY
Plus like I said, Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores will be accepting donations, as I'm sure other entities will be too. Basically they'll put out the tsunami relief jugs with "Katrina" relief instead. It was noted that right now the best things to donate are money and time (if you can get there to help out through these organizations,) at the moment household goods and clothes are secondary in need.
Remember, the dollar you give to an efficient private charity is one less dollar an inefficient government needs to spend. And somehow I know America will dig deep in its pockets and come up with billions.
I actually sent a resume to a company in Mobile when I was looking for a job, so I was interested in the storm. On top of that, one of the nicest couples I've met here was a traveling nurse and her househusband, natives of New Orleans. Hopefully her assignment kept her away from their home on this occasion.
Very sad, and the impact isn't through yet as heavy rains spread over the Ohio Valley up into the Great Lakes region...even tornadoes this evening across the bay in eastern Virginia. Delmarva is given a slight risk of that activity tomorrow as the remnants of Katrina pass to our north.
People are already stepping up, including favorite leftist whipping boy Wal-Mart, who's already announced a million dollar donation to the Salvation Army. They're also collecting at their stores for additional funds.
It's been suggested that Thursday be a blogger's relief day (thank Hugh Hewitt for the idea.) I think it's a good idea, and I'm sure the idea will spread. I'm getting out in front a little bit since I'm not always the best poster.
Two organizations I know will be down there helping out:
American Red Cross: www.redcross.org or 1-800-HELP-NOW
Salvation Army: www.salvationarmyusa.org or 1-800-SAL-ARMY
Plus like I said, Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores will be accepting donations, as I'm sure other entities will be too. Basically they'll put out the tsunami relief jugs with "Katrina" relief instead. It was noted that right now the best things to donate are money and time (if you can get there to help out through these organizations,) at the moment household goods and clothes are secondary in need.
Remember, the dollar you give to an efficient private charity is one less dollar an inefficient government needs to spend. And somehow I know America will dig deep in its pockets and come up with billions.
Monday, August 29, 2005
Bet you thought I forgot!
Sorry about the long break between posts. Going to ballgames the last four nights (as Delmarva closed out its home regular season schedule) will play havoc with regular posting.
Was reading another blog tonight called Fired Up! Maryland. Seems to me all they are fired up about is how bad Governor Ehrlich supposedly is. Their latest rant is about how Ehrlich is supposedly putting politics into the electoral process. Seems the way it was always run when the Democrats were in the governor's chair suddenly isn't fair when the GOP has a crack at it.
Now, I'm no expert on this because, hey, I'm just a dumb Buckeye who moved to the so-called Free State, but the way I read it is that Ehrlich appointed a Democrat who supported his election to one of the Democrat seats. (Then the law was changed by the General Assembly so they could make the pick.) Well, given that Maryland is probably a 55-45 Democrat state and also given Ehrlich won the governor's race by getting a majority vote, it stands to reason that SOME Democrats liked him enough to vote for him. Hell, I've crossed party lines a few times in my life, why not 10-15% of the Maryland electorate?
Another rant is about Ehrlich spending his time on WBAL rather than with other media. Let me see, anything he says will get a negative spin from the Baltimore Sun...so go someplace where he can get his words out in an unvarnished way? Makes sense to me.
But, the lefties can write their blogs too I suppose. I just know mine's right.
Then I followed some of their links and came across this beauty. I really liked this line:
The Republicans will most likely not gain a majority in the General Assembly, but that is not their goal. If Ehrlich is reelected, the Republicans only need to gain enough seats in the Senate and the House to keep the Democrats from overriding Ehrlich's vetoes. If this is the case, we can kiss goodbye to all improvement in our state.
Let's see, improvement being legislatively targeting Wal-Mart, a successful business and major employer, for not spending a certain arbitrary percentage of revenue on health care? That would improve the business at the unemployment office when they cut jobs out, including hundreds in Somerset County.
Improvement like special rights for gays/lesbians? It's very simple - I don't care what you do in the bedroom, love whoever you want. But don't expect me to roll out the red carpet (or should it be lavender?) and pretend you're married. One man, one woman. It's worked for thousands of years.
Voting reform? First you whine because we don't have touch-screen voting. Then you whine because there's no "paper trail." Ever hear of counterfeiters? Who's to say that in some close statewide election, a "paper trail" is found in Baltimore City and it magically puts the Democrat over the top in a close race? Seems to me that happened in Seattle. Gee, a majority Democrat area and they "find" a "missing" box of votes.
Tell you what - I may grant a "paper trail" if you grant showing photo ID at the polling place with the ability to cross-check. Absentee ballots can be handled in a similar manner to registration, with photo ID. Paper trail has a unique identifier number that matches up with the number on the presented ID. Any duplicates or numbers linked to those ineligible to vote (felons) can be thrown out.
Right now it's the Democrats who are working on destroying a state, a nation-state called Iraq, by encouraging the terrorists (with some help from RINOs sucking up to the press. Yes, you, Senator Hagel.) I think Maryland can be prosperous for years to come by putting good conservative Republicans (and Zell Miller Democrats) in the General Assembly and the governor's chair.
I'm sort of an impartial observer in a way; not being from here, I'm not clued in on history. But it's obvious that after 30 years of Democrats in the governor's chair, they did something to piss off the voters. Seems to me the GOP is making positive steps to attract business and maintain a solid revenue stream, anti-business Democrats notwithstanding. The Eastern Shore is doing quite well.
All it would take is about a 10% shift in voting from the "blue" counties in Maryland and this state would be red. Same probably goes for New Castle County in Delaware...small shift to the right and suddenly Delaware's red as well.
If Reagan can win 49 states by being unabashedly conservative, it proves that America can be a conservative country now. It took 20 years for the country to go from a landslide victory for LBJ (and you wonder how many votes were for the Kennedy legacy in that race) to a conservative tide sweeping Reagan to re-election. Since that time, the D's have lost both the House and Senate, and their only president won with pluralities of the vote by running as a centrist.
Maybe Maryland is a little behind the curve statewide, but which party has the positive agenda for the state? And which party can only snipe at the sitting governor, get its way by only being negative, and blame all ills on an opposition President who they claim is illegitimate?
What are the Democrats for anyway? I can say without hesitation that they're not for the power of the individual.
Was reading another blog tonight called Fired Up! Maryland. Seems to me all they are fired up about is how bad Governor Ehrlich supposedly is. Their latest rant is about how Ehrlich is supposedly putting politics into the electoral process. Seems the way it was always run when the Democrats were in the governor's chair suddenly isn't fair when the GOP has a crack at it.
Now, I'm no expert on this because, hey, I'm just a dumb Buckeye who moved to the so-called Free State, but the way I read it is that Ehrlich appointed a Democrat who supported his election to one of the Democrat seats. (Then the law was changed by the General Assembly so they could make the pick.) Well, given that Maryland is probably a 55-45 Democrat state and also given Ehrlich won the governor's race by getting a majority vote, it stands to reason that SOME Democrats liked him enough to vote for him. Hell, I've crossed party lines a few times in my life, why not 10-15% of the Maryland electorate?
Another rant is about Ehrlich spending his time on WBAL rather than with other media. Let me see, anything he says will get a negative spin from the Baltimore Sun...so go someplace where he can get his words out in an unvarnished way? Makes sense to me.
But, the lefties can write their blogs too I suppose. I just know mine's right.
Then I followed some of their links and came across this beauty. I really liked this line:
The Republicans will most likely not gain a majority in the General Assembly, but that is not their goal. If Ehrlich is reelected, the Republicans only need to gain enough seats in the Senate and the House to keep the Democrats from overriding Ehrlich's vetoes. If this is the case, we can kiss goodbye to all improvement in our state.
Let's see, improvement being legislatively targeting Wal-Mart, a successful business and major employer, for not spending a certain arbitrary percentage of revenue on health care? That would improve the business at the unemployment office when they cut jobs out, including hundreds in Somerset County.
Improvement like special rights for gays/lesbians? It's very simple - I don't care what you do in the bedroom, love whoever you want. But don't expect me to roll out the red carpet (or should it be lavender?) and pretend you're married. One man, one woman. It's worked for thousands of years.
Voting reform? First you whine because we don't have touch-screen voting. Then you whine because there's no "paper trail." Ever hear of counterfeiters? Who's to say that in some close statewide election, a "paper trail" is found in Baltimore City and it magically puts the Democrat over the top in a close race? Seems to me that happened in Seattle. Gee, a majority Democrat area and they "find" a "missing" box of votes.
Tell you what - I may grant a "paper trail" if you grant showing photo ID at the polling place with the ability to cross-check. Absentee ballots can be handled in a similar manner to registration, with photo ID. Paper trail has a unique identifier number that matches up with the number on the presented ID. Any duplicates or numbers linked to those ineligible to vote (felons) can be thrown out.
Right now it's the Democrats who are working on destroying a state, a nation-state called Iraq, by encouraging the terrorists (with some help from RINOs sucking up to the press. Yes, you, Senator Hagel.) I think Maryland can be prosperous for years to come by putting good conservative Republicans (and Zell Miller Democrats) in the General Assembly and the governor's chair.
I'm sort of an impartial observer in a way; not being from here, I'm not clued in on history. But it's obvious that after 30 years of Democrats in the governor's chair, they did something to piss off the voters. Seems to me the GOP is making positive steps to attract business and maintain a solid revenue stream, anti-business Democrats notwithstanding. The Eastern Shore is doing quite well.
All it would take is about a 10% shift in voting from the "blue" counties in Maryland and this state would be red. Same probably goes for New Castle County in Delaware...small shift to the right and suddenly Delaware's red as well.
If Reagan can win 49 states by being unabashedly conservative, it proves that America can be a conservative country now. It took 20 years for the country to go from a landslide victory for LBJ (and you wonder how many votes were for the Kennedy legacy in that race) to a conservative tide sweeping Reagan to re-election. Since that time, the D's have lost both the House and Senate, and their only president won with pluralities of the vote by running as a centrist.
Maybe Maryland is a little behind the curve statewide, but which party has the positive agenda for the state? And which party can only snipe at the sitting governor, get its way by only being negative, and blame all ills on an opposition President who they claim is illegitimate?
What are the Democrats for anyway? I can say without hesitation that they're not for the power of the individual.
Sunday, August 21, 2005
I'm back from vacation. Now tell the GOP to end its vacation from its principles!
And not a moment too soon...
First off, I had a pretty good time on my vacation, save for a number of idiot drivers out there. For some reason, Kentuckians top the list. Love it when a guy changes his mind literally at the last second on an exit ramp and cuts in front of me. Happened twice - once in Indianapolis and once in Lexington, both Kentucky drivers.
Anyway, I did make it to 4 ballgames in 4 cities (here in Salisbury Monday night; Chillicothe, Ohio Tuesday night; St. Louis on Wednesday night; and Cincinnati on Friday night) in 5 days and got to see my aunt's branch of the family for a couple days, so it was good. Home teams even sent the fans home happy in all three of my travel games. Plus got to meet a couple nice folks from the baseball boards I partake of in Cincinnati. All in all a nice trip, just need a better car next time.
And, a short standings report: while I was gone, the Tigers helped themselves out a bit by winning 3 of 4 over Boston and Toronto, so they're going into today's game at 59-62, still 15 1/2 out in the AL Central, but sneaking back to 8 1/2 out in the wild card.
Meanwhile, Toledo has cut its magic number for the IL playoffs to 7 and the IL West division title magic number to 10. Their 78-49 record gives them a 6 game bulge in the division over Indianapolis. Should they hold on, it will give them a date for a series with Norfolk, who's already won the IL South.
Delmarva has cut its magic number to clinch the second half in the SAL North to 13 over Lexington as they lead with a SAL-best 33-19 record. Their margin over the Legends is now 5 games. If Delmarva does win it, they'll get one home game against Hagerstown (first half winner) then have to travel cross-state to face the Suns in games 2 and 3 for the North Division crown.
Now, on to more weighty stuff. While I was gone, it seems that Ohio's Governor Taft has found a lot more trouble - trouble that could lead him to resign in disgrace, or at the very least, cripple him for the remaining 16 months of his term. And it looks right now that the golden goose that has enabled the GOP to win an unprecedented 4 consecutive terms in the governor's chair has laid its last egg. That egg may end up on the face of Ken Blackwell, which is unfortunate because I think he'd be an excellent governor for Ohio (and I thought so in 1998 as well, but the GOP brass didn't want a contested primary so they convinced Blackwell to run downticket.)
Taft pled guilty to 4 counts of ethics violations stemming from unreported golf outings and gifts. I think he should plead guilty to screwing up what was once a great state with reasonable taxation and a good business climate. By playing moderate, he's combined the worst facets of the Democrats (tax and spend) with the public perception that all politicians are crooks and slapped the Ohio GOP with both monikers. While they're not blameless, the state GOP is still going to pay bigtime for all these transgressions.
In 2006, I think the next governor of Ohio will be a black man. But it won't be the right black man for the job. I don't see Michael Coleman doing anything but trying to grow the government and kowtowing further to Ohio's union thugs. The scary thing is that there's a chance at least one of Ohio's legislative bodies goes Democrat, more likely the House. It only takes a flip of 11 seats to erase the Ohio GOP's 60-39 edge in the House, with all 99 seats up for grabs and some House members term-limited out. It's a lot less likely in the Ohio Senate, where the GOP has a 22-11 edge, but 8 of the 11 Democrats have to defend seats in 2006...so the D's would have to go 13-4 in 2006 to get control (keep their 8 seats and flip 5 of 9 Republican ones.)
This leads me to a gripe I've been having for awhile. It was echoed in this commentary by Jeff Crouere. Simply put, I'm getting tired of the party that stood for less government as recently as the Contract with America now simply going along to get along.
Whatever happened to eliminating the Department of Education? Now we've federalized education with "No Child Left Behind." While federal standards may be a good thing, whatever happened to state's rights? For contributing less than 10% of the education money in America, the feds sure have a lot of say! As far as I'm concerned, the more kids that are homeschooled, the better - it's where tomorrow's leaders are going to come from. The public schools are simply becoming madrasas in manner - teaching the secular religion of politically correct left-leaning bilge that's given the government stamp of approval as long as they meet some artificial standard of rote memorization. Kids need to learn how to think for themselves, but instead they're force-fed the latest NEA/AFT propaganda (like these AFT "hot topics".)
If we had the cajones we'd started with in 1995, federal support for the arts and public broadcasting would be eliminated, helping to let the market decide what's good art and good television. If the state of Maryland wants to sponsor public TV and "art" like "Piss Christ" then that's their proper perogative (although I'd still object to state funding as well.)
Reagan was blamed for massive deficits that happened during the 1980's even though federal revenues actually came close to doubling during his tenure. But Tip O'Neill would annually declare his budget "D.O.A." and throw on as much pork as he could. Reagan would get his military spending, but the guns came with a lot of butter and a ton of deficit. The opposite happened in the 1990's when Clinton's big-spending ways were tempered by the Gingrich Republican Congress, a body that made a big deal of deficit spending and worked to slow its growth. Meanwhile, unfettered growth in certain segments of the economy managed to increase federal revenues despite all the steps the Clintonistas took to screw it up by raising taxes. Once that bubble burst at the decade's turn, the deficits came again and the economic dip enhanced by 9/11 didn't help.
But now we have GOP control of both Houses and the Oval Office. Yet we can't turn a surplus, in fact, our last four budgets have been the nation's four largest. I'll grant Homeland Security has been a budget-buster, but no one has the guts to cut spending in nonessential areas (like public broadcasting and the arts!) And, if we dropped a copy of the highway bill on a Islamic jihadist, not only would it kill him, but he wouldn't see his 72 virgins because he was unclean - all the pork in the bill would ensure that!
Sometime this war on terror will end, stupid comments like this one by Senator Hagel notwithstanding. At that point, it's my hope that we've taken care of some of these monetary issues. There is a place for federal spending, but a lot of it we have now is so unnecessary, and no one seems to take a stand and scream, "Enough!" Or if they do, they're savaged by the partisan media as a "bomb-thrower", and, "women and minorities will be hardest hit."
I know I'd never win a political office because I'd have the meat-cleaver ready to cut spending. My opponent would simply tell the people the pork would keep coming under him and they could continue to suck at the government nipple. For now, the job is just to stem the tide as best we can and try to work on the next generation. The liberals know this too, which is why they spend so much time and resources trying to brainwash the next generation through the public schools and through the mass media.
Bush needs to be a leader in this fight to cut government, but unfortunately he's not always in the right camp. While he does create somewhat of a legacy for the GOP candidate in 2008 to follow, it's sometimes surprising that he's got as high of a job rating as he does with the beating he takes from the partisan media.
Lots of work needs to be done between now and...well, perpetually. As Benjamin Franklin noted, we have a republic, if we can keep it. The trick is keeping this a republic and not a democracy, which in history has always turned to tyranny.
First off, I had a pretty good time on my vacation, save for a number of idiot drivers out there. For some reason, Kentuckians top the list. Love it when a guy changes his mind literally at the last second on an exit ramp and cuts in front of me. Happened twice - once in Indianapolis and once in Lexington, both Kentucky drivers.
Anyway, I did make it to 4 ballgames in 4 cities (here in Salisbury Monday night; Chillicothe, Ohio Tuesday night; St. Louis on Wednesday night; and Cincinnati on Friday night) in 5 days and got to see my aunt's branch of the family for a couple days, so it was good. Home teams even sent the fans home happy in all three of my travel games. Plus got to meet a couple nice folks from the baseball boards I partake of in Cincinnati. All in all a nice trip, just need a better car next time.
And, a short standings report: while I was gone, the Tigers helped themselves out a bit by winning 3 of 4 over Boston and Toronto, so they're going into today's game at 59-62, still 15 1/2 out in the AL Central, but sneaking back to 8 1/2 out in the wild card.
Meanwhile, Toledo has cut its magic number for the IL playoffs to 7 and the IL West division title magic number to 10. Their 78-49 record gives them a 6 game bulge in the division over Indianapolis. Should they hold on, it will give them a date for a series with Norfolk, who's already won the IL South.
Delmarva has cut its magic number to clinch the second half in the SAL North to 13 over Lexington as they lead with a SAL-best 33-19 record. Their margin over the Legends is now 5 games. If Delmarva does win it, they'll get one home game against Hagerstown (first half winner) then have to travel cross-state to face the Suns in games 2 and 3 for the North Division crown.
Now, on to more weighty stuff. While I was gone, it seems that Ohio's Governor Taft has found a lot more trouble - trouble that could lead him to resign in disgrace, or at the very least, cripple him for the remaining 16 months of his term. And it looks right now that the golden goose that has enabled the GOP to win an unprecedented 4 consecutive terms in the governor's chair has laid its last egg. That egg may end up on the face of Ken Blackwell, which is unfortunate because I think he'd be an excellent governor for Ohio (and I thought so in 1998 as well, but the GOP brass didn't want a contested primary so they convinced Blackwell to run downticket.)
Taft pled guilty to 4 counts of ethics violations stemming from unreported golf outings and gifts. I think he should plead guilty to screwing up what was once a great state with reasonable taxation and a good business climate. By playing moderate, he's combined the worst facets of the Democrats (tax and spend) with the public perception that all politicians are crooks and slapped the Ohio GOP with both monikers. While they're not blameless, the state GOP is still going to pay bigtime for all these transgressions.
In 2006, I think the next governor of Ohio will be a black man. But it won't be the right black man for the job. I don't see Michael Coleman doing anything but trying to grow the government and kowtowing further to Ohio's union thugs. The scary thing is that there's a chance at least one of Ohio's legislative bodies goes Democrat, more likely the House. It only takes a flip of 11 seats to erase the Ohio GOP's 60-39 edge in the House, with all 99 seats up for grabs and some House members term-limited out. It's a lot less likely in the Ohio Senate, where the GOP has a 22-11 edge, but 8 of the 11 Democrats have to defend seats in 2006...so the D's would have to go 13-4 in 2006 to get control (keep their 8 seats and flip 5 of 9 Republican ones.)
This leads me to a gripe I've been having for awhile. It was echoed in this commentary by Jeff Crouere. Simply put, I'm getting tired of the party that stood for less government as recently as the Contract with America now simply going along to get along.
Whatever happened to eliminating the Department of Education? Now we've federalized education with "No Child Left Behind." While federal standards may be a good thing, whatever happened to state's rights? For contributing less than 10% of the education money in America, the feds sure have a lot of say! As far as I'm concerned, the more kids that are homeschooled, the better - it's where tomorrow's leaders are going to come from. The public schools are simply becoming madrasas in manner - teaching the secular religion of politically correct left-leaning bilge that's given the government stamp of approval as long as they meet some artificial standard of rote memorization. Kids need to learn how to think for themselves, but instead they're force-fed the latest NEA/AFT propaganda (like these AFT "hot topics".)
If we had the cajones we'd started with in 1995, federal support for the arts and public broadcasting would be eliminated, helping to let the market decide what's good art and good television. If the state of Maryland wants to sponsor public TV and "art" like "Piss Christ" then that's their proper perogative (although I'd still object to state funding as well.)
Reagan was blamed for massive deficits that happened during the 1980's even though federal revenues actually came close to doubling during his tenure. But Tip O'Neill would annually declare his budget "D.O.A." and throw on as much pork as he could. Reagan would get his military spending, but the guns came with a lot of butter and a ton of deficit. The opposite happened in the 1990's when Clinton's big-spending ways were tempered by the Gingrich Republican Congress, a body that made a big deal of deficit spending and worked to slow its growth. Meanwhile, unfettered growth in certain segments of the economy managed to increase federal revenues despite all the steps the Clintonistas took to screw it up by raising taxes. Once that bubble burst at the decade's turn, the deficits came again and the economic dip enhanced by 9/11 didn't help.
But now we have GOP control of both Houses and the Oval Office. Yet we can't turn a surplus, in fact, our last four budgets have been the nation's four largest. I'll grant Homeland Security has been a budget-buster, but no one has the guts to cut spending in nonessential areas (like public broadcasting and the arts!) And, if we dropped a copy of the highway bill on a Islamic jihadist, not only would it kill him, but he wouldn't see his 72 virgins because he was unclean - all the pork in the bill would ensure that!
Sometime this war on terror will end, stupid comments like this one by Senator Hagel notwithstanding. At that point, it's my hope that we've taken care of some of these monetary issues. There is a place for federal spending, but a lot of it we have now is so unnecessary, and no one seems to take a stand and scream, "Enough!" Or if they do, they're savaged by the partisan media as a "bomb-thrower", and, "women and minorities will be hardest hit."
I know I'd never win a political office because I'd have the meat-cleaver ready to cut spending. My opponent would simply tell the people the pork would keep coming under him and they could continue to suck at the government nipple. For now, the job is just to stem the tide as best we can and try to work on the next generation. The liberals know this too, which is why they spend so much time and resources trying to brainwash the next generation through the public schools and through the mass media.
Bush needs to be a leader in this fight to cut government, but unfortunately he's not always in the right camp. While he does create somewhat of a legacy for the GOP candidate in 2008 to follow, it's sometimes surprising that he's got as high of a job rating as he does with the beating he takes from the partisan media.
Lots of work needs to be done between now and...well, perpetually. As Benjamin Franklin noted, we have a republic, if we can keep it. The trick is keeping this a republic and not a democracy, which in history has always turned to tyranny.
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Westward ho!
One last post for the week until I get back here from the great Midwest.
Had a great night tonight at the ballgame (except for us losing.) Two things stick out as you'll see by the pix. The top picture is the ball I purchased to help out the Ripken Foundation. For $10 I had a chance to get a ball autographed by a member of the Shorebirds, by Billy Ripken (who was at the game signing), or Cal Ripken, Jr. There were 360 balls and I know Junior only signed a few. Just happened to pick right, then had Billy sign the ball as well.
What I didn't get signed was anything by Governor Ehrlich, who had some words for the crowd (bottom picture) then threw out the first pitch (along with Billy Ripken.) A very popular guy, he had a good ovation when he was introduced. Probably could have gotten an autograph from him if I wanted it since he walked up my aisle to get to his seat but chose not to. I wasn't really there to talk politics, I was there to enjoy the game!
I save the politics for this space, which means for the next few days that the only people who will be privy to my political leanings will be my relatives, who should be interesting since they lean the same as me, maybe even more libertarian.
But when I get back, I'll catch up on reading and be ready for the routine again.
Sunday, August 14, 2005
Coming to Dawn's defense
My research is causing trouble with left-wingers. Oh well.
But the Bloggers News Network (of which WriteWingNut is a part) seems to have a lot of readers of that persuasion - and they didn't like her allegations. So I had to defend her honor, even though we've not met:
I guess I stirred up a bit of trouble here. I'm the guy who did the research into Google ads in the first place, and Dawn was kind enough to help me with my theory.
I don't doubt Dawn's sincerity in believing it was a sign from above that Google contacted her and terminated her service.
Furthermore, it seems to me that many of the ads sponsored by Google may be of questionable taste to the blogger who spends time and effort in sharing a piece of their world with others. I know Google has a filter to shut out ads the blogger would not want but at times the header could be misleading or questionable - therefore it may have to be clicked to find out what it's all about.
In the interest of full disclosure, my blog only has one (non-paying) ad on it so all I know about Google ads is what I've gleaned from research. But this research did find that over 98% of the money donated by Google employees went to liberal and/or Democrat causes and candidates.
This, in turn, is fairly close to the proportion that the Beltway media voted for John Kerry vs. George W. Bush. And we see what kind of bias and worldview they have in coverage and story selection.
We all have our preferences and prejudices, press included. There's no way one can convince me that having a particular worldview doesn't cloud one's actions. Thus, a Bush hater in the press would have some incentive to paint things done by the Bush administration in a bad light, much like the few conservatives in the media did to a number of Bill Clinton's failings.
Carrying that further, would the employees of Google not have some sort of bias against a conservative blogger because they don't agree with them? Is it possible an offense like Dawn's would have slid just a wee bit more if she were a pro-choice blogger? Yes, there may be a computer that noted the self-clicking, but somebody in Google's sales department has to have the final say in such matters. Computers are useful tools but the end decision in the matter is certainly human.
I don't doubt that Google attempts to run their company in an ethical matter, but this is kind of a gray area where gut instinct and feelings do play a part. And if Google's employees choose to be diligent contributors to left-wing causes, we on the right can in turn decide to take our business elsewhere. That's what my original post encouraged as a reaction.
Now another subject. I was actually going to save this for next week when I came back since it's not particularly time-sensitive, but since I already have the post going, why not?
There's an article in the Daily Times today regarding business opportunities filled, it's great. Actually, it was something I could find useful in the future.
About a year or so ago, US Air (who is the sole carrier out of Salisbury's airport) decided to stop flying over to BWI Airport, deciding instead to fly daily flights to Philadelphia and Charlotte. Great if you have deep pockets and don't mind the stop and plane change.
But many people here opt to fly out of BWI on Southwest or other carriers to take advantage of the low fares. To fill this market, two separate shuttle services were born - one ground-based and one airline (flying out of Ocean City, great for the weekenders!)
Surprisingly, it's been found that some folks just like to simply save the hassle of driving up to Baltimore, opting instead to use the express shuttle service. It's a great idea - competition and entrepreneurship at its best. I applaud it! Hopefully it remains in business when I decide to head out west to the Left Coast someday, it certainly makes the idea of flying out of BWI more doable. I can already see it possibly saving me a two-day drive back and forth to Florida come the holidays (assuming my parents are settled in there.) So a definite thanks to them for sticking their neck out and I'm betting they succeed.
But the Bloggers News Network (of which WriteWingNut is a part) seems to have a lot of readers of that persuasion - and they didn't like her allegations. So I had to defend her honor, even though we've not met:
I guess I stirred up a bit of trouble here. I'm the guy who did the research into Google ads in the first place, and Dawn was kind enough to help me with my theory.
I don't doubt Dawn's sincerity in believing it was a sign from above that Google contacted her and terminated her service.
Furthermore, it seems to me that many of the ads sponsored by Google may be of questionable taste to the blogger who spends time and effort in sharing a piece of their world with others. I know Google has a filter to shut out ads the blogger would not want but at times the header could be misleading or questionable - therefore it may have to be clicked to find out what it's all about.
In the interest of full disclosure, my blog only has one (non-paying) ad on it so all I know about Google ads is what I've gleaned from research. But this research did find that over 98% of the money donated by Google employees went to liberal and/or Democrat causes and candidates.
This, in turn, is fairly close to the proportion that the Beltway media voted for John Kerry vs. George W. Bush. And we see what kind of bias and worldview they have in coverage and story selection.
We all have our preferences and prejudices, press included. There's no way one can convince me that having a particular worldview doesn't cloud one's actions. Thus, a Bush hater in the press would have some incentive to paint things done by the Bush administration in a bad light, much like the few conservatives in the media did to a number of Bill Clinton's failings.
Carrying that further, would the employees of Google not have some sort of bias against a conservative blogger because they don't agree with them? Is it possible an offense like Dawn's would have slid just a wee bit more if she were a pro-choice blogger? Yes, there may be a computer that noted the self-clicking, but somebody in Google's sales department has to have the final say in such matters. Computers are useful tools but the end decision in the matter is certainly human.
I don't doubt that Google attempts to run their company in an ethical matter, but this is kind of a gray area where gut instinct and feelings do play a part. And if Google's employees choose to be diligent contributors to left-wing causes, we on the right can in turn decide to take our business elsewhere. That's what my original post encouraged as a reaction.
Now another subject. I was actually going to save this for next week when I came back since it's not particularly time-sensitive, but since I already have the post going, why not?
There's an article in the Daily Times today regarding business opportunities filled, it's great. Actually, it was something I could find useful in the future.
About a year or so ago, US Air (who is the sole carrier out of Salisbury's airport) decided to stop flying over to BWI Airport, deciding instead to fly daily flights to Philadelphia and Charlotte. Great if you have deep pockets and don't mind the stop and plane change.
But many people here opt to fly out of BWI on Southwest or other carriers to take advantage of the low fares. To fill this market, two separate shuttle services were born - one ground-based and one airline (flying out of Ocean City, great for the weekenders!)
Surprisingly, it's been found that some folks just like to simply save the hassle of driving up to Baltimore, opting instead to use the express shuttle service. It's a great idea - competition and entrepreneurship at its best. I applaud it! Hopefully it remains in business when I decide to head out west to the Left Coast someday, it certainly makes the idea of flying out of BWI more doable. I can already see it possibly saving me a two-day drive back and forth to Florida come the holidays (assuming my parents are settled in there.) So a definite thanks to them for sticking their neck out and I'm betting they succeed.
A quick hat tip
Just wanted to put out a shout to Dawn at WriteWingBlog...she cited my research into Google that I did back in July. (Look in the archives for the post of mine in question, the post is called "For a few dollars more...") She was kind enough to help me in my research.
And an entertainment tip for those of you on the Eastern Shore...went to Delaware International Speedway tonight and enjoyed the racing. It's a good way to spend a Saturday night - if you don't mind loud (!) cars. Just bring a cushion for the bleachers. Makes me smile to think how the environmentalist wackos would absolutely hate the needless fuel consumption and the thousands of gallons of water "wasted" on the track (since it's a 1/2 mile clay oval, the watering keeps the dust down.) One of those things I'd always wanted to do, and it's done.
Last week was a good week for me in the Patriot, got a quote from the SEIU head in there and they also used my short article on Karl Rove's fundraiser here in Maryland. Maybe more this coming week; however, I may not find out until next weekend, because...
...after Monday night, I'm going on vacation for the rest of the week. Going out to Missouri to see family I haven't seen in about 3 years and haven't been to their homes since 1994. So I'm looking forward to the trip and catching the Cards at the soon-to-be-replaced Busch Stadium.
Thus, most likely a post Monday night and a week or so off. Then I'm making some exciting changes, I spoke to someone last week about doing this and it sounds doable. But it'll wait until after I come back.
And an entertainment tip for those of you on the Eastern Shore...went to Delaware International Speedway tonight and enjoyed the racing. It's a good way to spend a Saturday night - if you don't mind loud (!) cars. Just bring a cushion for the bleachers. Makes me smile to think how the environmentalist wackos would absolutely hate the needless fuel consumption and the thousands of gallons of water "wasted" on the track (since it's a 1/2 mile clay oval, the watering keeps the dust down.) One of those things I'd always wanted to do, and it's done.
Last week was a good week for me in the Patriot, got a quote from the SEIU head in there and they also used my short article on Karl Rove's fundraiser here in Maryland. Maybe more this coming week; however, I may not find out until next weekend, because...
...after Monday night, I'm going on vacation for the rest of the week. Going out to Missouri to see family I haven't seen in about 3 years and haven't been to their homes since 1994. So I'm looking forward to the trip and catching the Cards at the soon-to-be-replaced Busch Stadium.
Thus, most likely a post Monday night and a week or so off. Then I'm making some exciting changes, I spoke to someone last week about doing this and it sounds doable. But it'll wait until after I come back.
Thursday, August 11, 2005
Err America/Go home Cindy!
Much like trying to decide whether I want pumpkin pie or apple pie, I'll just take a slice of both!
Lots of pixels lately about the Air America scandal (mostly from blogs like Radio Equalizer and Michelle Malkin's blog.) On the other hand, Cindy Sheehan's Crawford vigil has gotten a huge amount of ink and airtime from the partisan media. To carry the food analogy a little farther, the Air America troubles appear to the partisan media like that heartburn-inducing half-eaten container of chili that's sat in the fridge for two months and has now gotten fur, while Cindy Sheehan's protest is like freshly cooked filet mignon.
Wonder if the wheels of justice are going to turn on Al Franken's so-called employer. (Thought he was working for free.) I look at it this way - much like trying to steal elections, the libs are trying to steal listeners and revenue. As always, liberalism loses in a free exchange of ideas and in this case, they're losing in people who are willing to listen. (Of course, I can't even do that if I really wanted to, there's no AA affiliates nearby. Compare that list to, say, Rush Limbaugh's.)
Sleazy seems to be the word for Air America. And sleaze is what you get with the fawning coverage of Cindy Sheehan. Ok, the woman lost her son in the War on Terror. I'll grant that.
But let's look at a few hard facts here. Number one, Casey Sheehan volunteered for military duty and knew the risks.
Number two, there's about 1800 other parental units out there that feel the loss of their loved on on the battlefield. Last week, 14 Marines were killed from a unit from Brook Park, Ohio. Their loved ones feel pain, too.
Number three, President Bush has already spoken to her, as well as 900 other relatives of 272 troops who died in the War on Terror. She just didn't get the answers she thought she wanted, and her quest for another turn has been glommed upon by every wacko lefty group out there.
Remember, the partisan media only deigns to highlight those who are bitter and turn into doves once their son or daughter is tragically lost in Iraq, Afghanistan, or the fall of the Twin Towers (remember that?) Never mind the heroes who rarely see the ink they deserve. A creative spin was put on this by an August 7th New York Times editorial:
"...the military, the White House and the culture at large have not publicized (the War on Terror troops') actions with the zeal that was lavished on the heroes of World War I and World War II."
Hey, New York Times, maybe if you spend a minute or two less trashing Bush, glamourizing Hillary, and tying crooked lobbyists to Tom DeLay, then you could talk a bit about the schools and infrastructure we're building in Iraq. Instead, they're trying for Viet Nam redux. But just try and spit on a returning soldier in MY presence.
Cindy Sheehan, your time as a "useful idiot" to the kooky left is just about over. When Bush goes back to Washington, the moonbats will find another spokesperson to mouth their anti-America sentiment (they're working on Hollywood now with a bunch of antiwar movies in production.) So, please go home and try to get on with your post-Casey life.
Lots of pixels lately about the Air America scandal (mostly from blogs like Radio Equalizer and Michelle Malkin's blog.) On the other hand, Cindy Sheehan's Crawford vigil has gotten a huge amount of ink and airtime from the partisan media. To carry the food analogy a little farther, the Air America troubles appear to the partisan media like that heartburn-inducing half-eaten container of chili that's sat in the fridge for two months and has now gotten fur, while Cindy Sheehan's protest is like freshly cooked filet mignon.
Wonder if the wheels of justice are going to turn on Al Franken's so-called employer. (Thought he was working for free.) I look at it this way - much like trying to steal elections, the libs are trying to steal listeners and revenue. As always, liberalism loses in a free exchange of ideas and in this case, they're losing in people who are willing to listen. (Of course, I can't even do that if I really wanted to, there's no AA affiliates nearby. Compare that list to, say, Rush Limbaugh's.)
Sleazy seems to be the word for Air America. And sleaze is what you get with the fawning coverage of Cindy Sheehan. Ok, the woman lost her son in the War on Terror. I'll grant that.
But let's look at a few hard facts here. Number one, Casey Sheehan volunteered for military duty and knew the risks.
Number two, there's about 1800 other parental units out there that feel the loss of their loved on on the battlefield. Last week, 14 Marines were killed from a unit from Brook Park, Ohio. Their loved ones feel pain, too.
Number three, President Bush has already spoken to her, as well as 900 other relatives of 272 troops who died in the War on Terror. She just didn't get the answers she thought she wanted, and her quest for another turn has been glommed upon by every wacko lefty group out there.
Remember, the partisan media only deigns to highlight those who are bitter and turn into doves once their son or daughter is tragically lost in Iraq, Afghanistan, or the fall of the Twin Towers (remember that?) Never mind the heroes who rarely see the ink they deserve. A creative spin was put on this by an August 7th New York Times editorial:
"...the military, the White House and the culture at large have not publicized (the War on Terror troops') actions with the zeal that was lavished on the heroes of World War I and World War II."
Hey, New York Times, maybe if you spend a minute or two less trashing Bush, glamourizing Hillary, and tying crooked lobbyists to Tom DeLay, then you could talk a bit about the schools and infrastructure we're building in Iraq. Instead, they're trying for Viet Nam redux. But just try and spit on a returning soldier in MY presence.
Cindy Sheehan, your time as a "useful idiot" to the kooky left is just about over. When Bush goes back to Washington, the moonbats will find another spokesperson to mouth their anti-America sentiment (they're working on Hollywood now with a bunch of antiwar movies in production.) So, please go home and try to get on with your post-Casey life.
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Here we go again!
And we continue to pick on America's most successful retailer. Today I read a CNSNews article about the NEA and AFT urging back-to-school shoppers not to patronize Wal-Mart. (The NEA's stand is here, and the AFT whines here.)
Interestingly enough, I saw a lot of people in Wal-Mart Sunday. And a good number of them were shopping for school supplies. And I'd love to see somebody "adopt" a local Wal-Mart and protest - they'd get a face full of me.
In local Wal-Mart news, the company is buying a small portion of the 200 acres they were slated to buy for their Somerset County distribution center. In a move to enhance development in the area, the land will be turned over to the Somerset County Sanitary District for building a new water tower and drilling new water wells. Currently, development in the Princess Anne area is on hold due to lack of a good water supply, so these new wells will allow a 90-home development to commence, for starters.
But there's no guarantee that the remainder of the 200 acres will be purchased as the decision has been put off until January - just in time to see if the Maryland General Assembly overrides Governor Ehrlich's veto of the Fair Share bill that targets Wal-Mart for insufficient employee health insurance coverage.
Speaking of private property, I noted in a post right after the Kelo decision that I had put my name on the Castle Coalition mailing list. Well, today in my mailbox there laid a copy of Liberty & Law, the newsletter of their parent organization, the Institute for Justice. Some interesting reading on school choice, freeing hair braiders from state cosmetology licensing, and other privacy rights topics. But I think the majority of it can be found on their website...my suggestion is to have an snail mail opt-out clause like I do for my credit statements. They can send me the magazine as an e-mail much more cheaply than sending me the paper copy that I'll read and most likely toss out. (No offense to them, I'm a recovering pack rat.)
At the end of the post, a standings report of sorts:
As of tonight, my Tigers are 53-60, a season low 7 games under the .500 mark. Their "tragic number" for division elimination is 29 and for playoff elimination is 39.
The Toledo Mud Hens are a bearer of much happier news, they're 71-46. The magic number for them to clinch a playoff spot is 21, and 20 to clinch their 2nd International League West Division title in 4 years.
Delmarva's hanging on to first in the South Atlantic League's North Division at 29-15. They have a magic number of 24 to win their first division half since 2002. They had a 5 1/2 game lead a week ago, now it's down to 3 games as they are on their final southern swing of the season (barring playoffs.) We're trying to set up an all-Maryland battle for the SAL North title as Hagerstown won the first half.
Interestingly enough, I saw a lot of people in Wal-Mart Sunday. And a good number of them were shopping for school supplies. And I'd love to see somebody "adopt" a local Wal-Mart and protest - they'd get a face full of me.
In local Wal-Mart news, the company is buying a small portion of the 200 acres they were slated to buy for their Somerset County distribution center. In a move to enhance development in the area, the land will be turned over to the Somerset County Sanitary District for building a new water tower and drilling new water wells. Currently, development in the Princess Anne area is on hold due to lack of a good water supply, so these new wells will allow a 90-home development to commence, for starters.
But there's no guarantee that the remainder of the 200 acres will be purchased as the decision has been put off until January - just in time to see if the Maryland General Assembly overrides Governor Ehrlich's veto of the Fair Share bill that targets Wal-Mart for insufficient employee health insurance coverage.
Speaking of private property, I noted in a post right after the Kelo decision that I had put my name on the Castle Coalition mailing list. Well, today in my mailbox there laid a copy of Liberty & Law, the newsletter of their parent organization, the Institute for Justice. Some interesting reading on school choice, freeing hair braiders from state cosmetology licensing, and other privacy rights topics. But I think the majority of it can be found on their website...my suggestion is to have an snail mail opt-out clause like I do for my credit statements. They can send me the magazine as an e-mail much more cheaply than sending me the paper copy that I'll read and most likely toss out. (No offense to them, I'm a recovering pack rat.)
At the end of the post, a standings report of sorts:
As of tonight, my Tigers are 53-60, a season low 7 games under the .500 mark. Their "tragic number" for division elimination is 29 and for playoff elimination is 39.
The Toledo Mud Hens are a bearer of much happier news, they're 71-46. The magic number for them to clinch a playoff spot is 21, and 20 to clinch their 2nd International League West Division title in 4 years.
Delmarva's hanging on to first in the South Atlantic League's North Division at 29-15. They have a magic number of 24 to win their first division half since 2002. They had a 5 1/2 game lead a week ago, now it's down to 3 games as they are on their final southern swing of the season (barring playoffs.) We're trying to set up an all-Maryland battle for the SAL North title as Hagerstown won the first half.
Monday, August 08, 2005
Stolen stuff
Had to laugh about the civil rights march in Atlanta Saturday. The moonbats (I like that word, wonder who coined the term?) had some of their best out:
Judge Greg Mathis: "They (meaning Bush, et. al.) all need to be locked up because they are all criminals and they are all thieves." And you face a lot of those on your TV show. I'll give him props for actually having been a judge in Detroit, but I think this lefty culture thing and hanging out with Jesse and "San Fran Nan" Pelosi has really gotten to him.
Harry Belafonte, entertainer, called black conservatives "black tyrants." Obviously, racial preference stops when it's against the liberal orthodoxy.
My favorite, from Rep. Barbara Lee (also known as the only House member voting against fighting back after 9-11:) "The last two elections were stolen. They were stolen and so we will not rest until we reclaim our democracy and this is what today is all about."
And you know what? She's absolutely right!
Yes, the 2004 race for governor in the state of Washington (Rossi vs. Gregoire) was stolen by "found" votes after the fact in heavily Democrat King County.
And the 2000 Missouri Senate vote (Carnahan vs. Ashcroft) was stolen when polls in St. Louis were ordered held open for extra time in that heavily Democrat city. Thus, a dead man won a Senate seat (Carnahan and his son were among those killed in an October plane crash.)
So, those last two elections were stolen. Now I think she's incorrectly referring to Bush vs. Gore (no Florida recount, even those press-sponsored, went for Gore; and the Constitution provides that electors, not voters, elect the President) and Bush vs. Kerry (because of rigged exit polling.)
But we know how those turned out. And no word from her about New Jersey illegally substituting Frank Lautenberg for Bob Torricelli when the scandal-ridden Torricelli was tanking in the polls. Guess that was ok since it was after the primary election.
Anyway, nothing like a civil rights meeting for having a pot call the kettle black. Bet none of those elected officials there have ever gotten under 70% of the vote in the districts they call home, and it's all because of "us vs. them" rhetoric like this rather than a tangible result of doing positive things for their respective districts.
Judge Greg Mathis: "They (meaning Bush, et. al.) all need to be locked up because they are all criminals and they are all thieves." And you face a lot of those on your TV show. I'll give him props for actually having been a judge in Detroit, but I think this lefty culture thing and hanging out with Jesse and "San Fran Nan" Pelosi has really gotten to him.
Harry Belafonte, entertainer, called black conservatives "black tyrants." Obviously, racial preference stops when it's against the liberal orthodoxy.
My favorite, from Rep. Barbara Lee (also known as the only House member voting against fighting back after 9-11:) "The last two elections were stolen. They were stolen and so we will not rest until we reclaim our democracy and this is what today is all about."
And you know what? She's absolutely right!
Yes, the 2004 race for governor in the state of Washington (Rossi vs. Gregoire) was stolen by "found" votes after the fact in heavily Democrat King County.
And the 2000 Missouri Senate vote (Carnahan vs. Ashcroft) was stolen when polls in St. Louis were ordered held open for extra time in that heavily Democrat city. Thus, a dead man won a Senate seat (Carnahan and his son were among those killed in an October plane crash.)
So, those last two elections were stolen. Now I think she's incorrectly referring to Bush vs. Gore (no Florida recount, even those press-sponsored, went for Gore; and the Constitution provides that electors, not voters, elect the President) and Bush vs. Kerry (because of rigged exit polling.)
But we know how those turned out. And no word from her about New Jersey illegally substituting Frank Lautenberg for Bob Torricelli when the scandal-ridden Torricelli was tanking in the polls. Guess that was ok since it was after the primary election.
Anyway, nothing like a civil rights meeting for having a pot call the kettle black. Bet none of those elected officials there have ever gotten under 70% of the vote in the districts they call home, and it's all because of "us vs. them" rhetoric like this rather than a tangible result of doing positive things for their respective districts.
Sunday, August 07, 2005
More random thoughts on my part
Thomas Sowell occasionally starts a column with the phrase, "Random thoughts on the passing scene." One I particularly liked the other day: "As a result of "evolving standards" and "nuanced" judicial decisions, we no longer have clear-cut rights. We have a ticket to a crapshoot in a courtroom. That ticket is worth a lot more to those with slick lawyers than to ordinary citizens."
Some of mine for tonight, since I caught up on my gopusa.com news roundups:
Here's a shocker headline - Report: More Democrat than Republican Operatives Involved in Voter Fraud. This story details electoral fraud in a number of states and cited the five worst cities: Philadelphia, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Seattle, and Cleveland.
Just from my memory, Philadelphia had some irregularities in its last mayoral election based on an FBI investigation of the incumbent mayor John Street (some claimed it was a smear by the Bush administration,) Milwaukee was the home of the Democrat operatives that slashed the tires on GOP-hired vans Election Day eve, St. Louis (polls held open for extra time in 2000, perhaps costing John Ashcroft a Senate seat and placing in his place a dead guy,) Seattle was the epicenter of the Rossi v. Gregoire "found votes" snafu, and Cleveland is in Ohio. Enough said.
Notice all of these counties are "blue"? If they can't steal it at the ballot box, they get judges who will let them I guess.
Speaking of blue voting, there was a statement by Robert Novak where he claimed the GOP is in trouble, shown by the close vote in Ohio's 2nd Congressional District. Novak's clain was that the struggles we're having in the War on Terror will come back to hurt the GOP in 2006. My beef with that opinion is twofold. Number one, Novak is known to be against our Iraqi involvement, whereas I'm a supporter of the mission; and secondly, the Ohio GOP is in a world of hurt right now because of the Coingate scandal and the horrid approval numbers of the three main Republicans: Gov. Bob Taft and Sens. Mike DeWine and George Voinovich.
The problem in Ohio, then, has nothing to do with the War on Terror, but more to do with the moderate state government. They have no problem with giving us back money when there's a surplus (a good idea) but the problem is that they don't know how not to spend money. So, when the economy got tough, they had to raise taxes to cover the spending they thought was affordable a couple years before. They even raised the sales tax for a couple years - surprisingly it wasn't made permanent, like my old hometown Toledo's "temporary" 3/4% income tax that has been in effect since 1982.
There's a full blog post someplace in my brain regarding how the GOP has lost its way on fiscal conservatism, so I'd rather do that as a full post and not go into it now.
Well, we don't have to worry about Chinese controlling one of our oil companies, the CNOOC bid to take over Unocal was rejected. There's a free-trader argument that can be made that objections to the takeover based on national security were outweighed by the true capitalism of highest bidder wins, but I'm not into letting a company unencumbered by competition at home and propped up by a totalitarian government have a piece of our free industrial society.
Finally, this article last Wednesday regarding our border security. I can't say I'm surprised, heaven knows I disagree with President Bush on his handling of the borders. But I'm more disappointed that this was withheld as secret. I suppose the excuse would be that it would be used in the election against Bush, but Kerry was already the master of the flip-flop. I'm doubtful Kerry's border solution would have been any better.
It does beg the question whether the border problem will hurt the GOP in 2006. While I can still argue for now that there's a big difference between the parties, it's unfortunate that the powers-that-be in the GOP sometimes seem to want to drift the party leftward when the mood of the electorate is moving right. It's almost like that once they got power in D.C. (or Columbus) they saw that providing goodies was the key to staying in power, rather than following the principles that enticed voters to put them there in the first place.
So the electorate becomes more frustrated and loses interest in voting. This gives the extremists a disproportionate hold on power, and there's more extremists who want government to have a bigger role (after all, they know voting for larger government keeps their bread buttered) than there are extremists who want government to be checked back to the Founders' intent.
Hopefully we will learn from the history that shows that governments tend to become more totalitarian as they go on.
Some of mine for tonight, since I caught up on my gopusa.com news roundups:
Here's a shocker headline - Report: More Democrat than Republican Operatives Involved in Voter Fraud. This story details electoral fraud in a number of states and cited the five worst cities: Philadelphia, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Seattle, and Cleveland.
Just from my memory, Philadelphia had some irregularities in its last mayoral election based on an FBI investigation of the incumbent mayor John Street (some claimed it was a smear by the Bush administration,) Milwaukee was the home of the Democrat operatives that slashed the tires on GOP-hired vans Election Day eve, St. Louis (polls held open for extra time in 2000, perhaps costing John Ashcroft a Senate seat and placing in his place a dead guy,) Seattle was the epicenter of the Rossi v. Gregoire "found votes" snafu, and Cleveland is in Ohio. Enough said.
Notice all of these counties are "blue"? If they can't steal it at the ballot box, they get judges who will let them I guess.
Speaking of blue voting, there was a statement by Robert Novak where he claimed the GOP is in trouble, shown by the close vote in Ohio's 2nd Congressional District. Novak's clain was that the struggles we're having in the War on Terror will come back to hurt the GOP in 2006. My beef with that opinion is twofold. Number one, Novak is known to be against our Iraqi involvement, whereas I'm a supporter of the mission; and secondly, the Ohio GOP is in a world of hurt right now because of the Coingate scandal and the horrid approval numbers of the three main Republicans: Gov. Bob Taft and Sens. Mike DeWine and George Voinovich.
The problem in Ohio, then, has nothing to do with the War on Terror, but more to do with the moderate state government. They have no problem with giving us back money when there's a surplus (a good idea) but the problem is that they don't know how not to spend money. So, when the economy got tough, they had to raise taxes to cover the spending they thought was affordable a couple years before. They even raised the sales tax for a couple years - surprisingly it wasn't made permanent, like my old hometown Toledo's "temporary" 3/4% income tax that has been in effect since 1982.
There's a full blog post someplace in my brain regarding how the GOP has lost its way on fiscal conservatism, so I'd rather do that as a full post and not go into it now.
Well, we don't have to worry about Chinese controlling one of our oil companies, the CNOOC bid to take over Unocal was rejected. There's a free-trader argument that can be made that objections to the takeover based on national security were outweighed by the true capitalism of highest bidder wins, but I'm not into letting a company unencumbered by competition at home and propped up by a totalitarian government have a piece of our free industrial society.
Finally, this article last Wednesday regarding our border security. I can't say I'm surprised, heaven knows I disagree with President Bush on his handling of the borders. But I'm more disappointed that this was withheld as secret. I suppose the excuse would be that it would be used in the election against Bush, but Kerry was already the master of the flip-flop. I'm doubtful Kerry's border solution would have been any better.
It does beg the question whether the border problem will hurt the GOP in 2006. While I can still argue for now that there's a big difference between the parties, it's unfortunate that the powers-that-be in the GOP sometimes seem to want to drift the party leftward when the mood of the electorate is moving right. It's almost like that once they got power in D.C. (or Columbus) they saw that providing goodies was the key to staying in power, rather than following the principles that enticed voters to put them there in the first place.
So the electorate becomes more frustrated and loses interest in voting. This gives the extremists a disproportionate hold on power, and there's more extremists who want government to have a bigger role (after all, they know voting for larger government keeps their bread buttered) than there are extremists who want government to be checked back to the Founders' intent.
Hopefully we will learn from the history that shows that governments tend to become more totalitarian as they go on.
Sunday, July 31, 2005
Feeling lonely
I feel pretty lonely tonight. If you look to the right on the blog, I attached the little blog map from feedmap.net. Cute idea. But apparently I'm the ONLY blogger here?
Actually, I know that there's another one around that I read regularly called Duvafiles. It's kind of the flip side to our paper, the Daily Times. But I suppose he doesn't want to map his out. I just figured it shows the bonafides, yes I do live on the Eastern Shore. (The Crossroads of Delmarva.)
Did start looking into a couple changes for the site, hopefully the Feedmap will carry over when I do make them.
I have a quick take on something I read on the Daily Times website. Actually it goes with a companion article as well. I have no problems with people coming to this country to work if it's done in a legal fashion.
Apparently, immigrants are victims of crime out of proportion to their numbers. And I can vouch for them carrying a lot of cash - many's the time I'm behind them in line at Wal-Mart and they'll roll out a large wad of bills to pay. And they shop in groups, so there's generally a large order in front of me.
Guess the problem is that the police will neither crack down on the criminals who steal from these folks or the fact that the victims may also be here illegally. We need a little of both. If someone wants to come here and work, let them do it the right way. Might make employment a little tight around here for a short time, but a free market will make the necessary corrections.
Actually, I know that there's another one around that I read regularly called Duvafiles. It's kind of the flip side to our paper, the Daily Times. But I suppose he doesn't want to map his out. I just figured it shows the bonafides, yes I do live on the Eastern Shore. (The Crossroads of Delmarva.)
Did start looking into a couple changes for the site, hopefully the Feedmap will carry over when I do make them.
I have a quick take on something I read on the Daily Times website. Actually it goes with a companion article as well. I have no problems with people coming to this country to work if it's done in a legal fashion.
Apparently, immigrants are victims of crime out of proportion to their numbers. And I can vouch for them carrying a lot of cash - many's the time I'm behind them in line at Wal-Mart and they'll roll out a large wad of bills to pay. And they shop in groups, so there's generally a large order in front of me.
Guess the problem is that the police will neither crack down on the criminals who steal from these folks or the fact that the victims may also be here illegally. We need a little of both. If someone wants to come here and work, let them do it the right way. Might make employment a little tight around here for a short time, but a free market will make the necessary corrections.
Saturday, July 30, 2005
Caveat emptor
Being a person who owned a home and owns a few credit cards, I get a bunch of junk mail on a weekly basis. Most of it gets shredded. But I kept a piece of one out to serve as a reminder for this post. Warning: my memory will have to serve on some of the details. That's not always a reliable source.
A few days ago, I got a credit card solicitation from an outfit called "Upfront Rewards." In this case, the reward was a Dell desktop computer. Not top of the line, but upgrades were available for an additional price. When I get all these offers, I like to look at the fine print. Here's how this particular offer works.
Let's say you want this computer as a reward. What you have to do is transfer a balance of at least $3,500 to their credit card account. That seems like a reasonable request. But here's where it gets interesting. In the next year, you cannot let the balance on your account fall below a certain threshold (which I seem to recall was $2,500.) Otherwise, they will place a $600 charge on your account!
So you get the computer, but this bank will either stick it to you on interest or stick you with a fee - either of which is sufficient to pay for the "free" computer. I think through Dell a comparable computer would run you about $500. Obviously this bank gets a volume discount, so their price is likely closer to $350. Seem to recall the lowest interest rate (it was variable based on creditworthiness) was 13.9%. So 13.9% of $2,500 = $347.50.
Ain't that just a ripoff? Ok, it's an innovative way to make a profit. This bank has got to be laughing all the way to the...oh, you know.
Needless to say, my 4 month old Dell (actually similar to the one they're "giving away") isn't going to be replaced. I actually got mad reading that, thus the germ of a blog post was born and I put it in my back pocket for future use (I'm sure there's still people getting that mailing.)
I find junk mail rather funny. Most of them still think I own my own home, but that was the last state. I get credit card solicitations and I laugh at either a) the annual fee they want me to pay or b) the interest rate they want to charge me. Or both.
Guess everyone wants to make money. I know I do, although I'd be happy with enough to retire on before I become a drooling idiot. (I'm sure some readers swear I'm already there.) But the key to me has always been to try and live within your means.
Wish the feds would figure that out! Then I could have an easier time keeping MY money.
Late edits and updates: In last Sunday's post, "Vive le Lance", I talked about the smoking hulk the baseball card industry has become. Well, last night at the Toledo-Norfolk game, my seat was front row, just past the Toledo dugout. When I went to my seat, there were no fewer than four men waiting with multiple cards to sign. At least they don't send the kids out anymore. As soon as they players retreated to their dugouts, *poof* they were gone. But I got some good pics, and there were a few kids, like this:
The signer is Mud Hen pitcher Rob Henkel. Somehow I don't think the kids will sell their gloves on E-Bay.
In "Growing into a RINO" from July 21, I noted that I thought the abortive London bombings, part 2, were possibly the work of copycats. Hey, how was I to know that al-Qaeda can mess up too? (Of course, shoe bomber Richard Reid was a Brit too.) But I am glad that it appears they are catching the scum that made this attempt at mayhem. Ship them to Club Gitmo!
A few days ago, I got a credit card solicitation from an outfit called "Upfront Rewards." In this case, the reward was a Dell desktop computer. Not top of the line, but upgrades were available for an additional price. When I get all these offers, I like to look at the fine print. Here's how this particular offer works.
Let's say you want this computer as a reward. What you have to do is transfer a balance of at least $3,500 to their credit card account. That seems like a reasonable request. But here's where it gets interesting. In the next year, you cannot let the balance on your account fall below a certain threshold (which I seem to recall was $2,500.) Otherwise, they will place a $600 charge on your account!
So you get the computer, but this bank will either stick it to you on interest or stick you with a fee - either of which is sufficient to pay for the "free" computer. I think through Dell a comparable computer would run you about $500. Obviously this bank gets a volume discount, so their price is likely closer to $350. Seem to recall the lowest interest rate (it was variable based on creditworthiness) was 13.9%. So 13.9% of $2,500 = $347.50.
Ain't that just a ripoff? Ok, it's an innovative way to make a profit. This bank has got to be laughing all the way to the...oh, you know.
Needless to say, my 4 month old Dell (actually similar to the one they're "giving away") isn't going to be replaced. I actually got mad reading that, thus the germ of a blog post was born and I put it in my back pocket for future use (I'm sure there's still people getting that mailing.)
I find junk mail rather funny. Most of them still think I own my own home, but that was the last state. I get credit card solicitations and I laugh at either a) the annual fee they want me to pay or b) the interest rate they want to charge me. Or both.
Guess everyone wants to make money. I know I do, although I'd be happy with enough to retire on before I become a drooling idiot. (I'm sure some readers swear I'm already there.) But the key to me has always been to try and live within your means.
Wish the feds would figure that out! Then I could have an easier time keeping MY money.
Late edits and updates: In last Sunday's post, "Vive le Lance", I talked about the smoking hulk the baseball card industry has become. Well, last night at the Toledo-Norfolk game, my seat was front row, just past the Toledo dugout. When I went to my seat, there were no fewer than four men waiting with multiple cards to sign. At least they don't send the kids out anymore. As soon as they players retreated to their dugouts, *poof* they were gone. But I got some good pics, and there were a few kids, like this:
The signer is Mud Hen pitcher Rob Henkel. Somehow I don't think the kids will sell their gloves on E-Bay.
In "Growing into a RINO" from July 21, I noted that I thought the abortive London bombings, part 2, were possibly the work of copycats. Hey, how was I to know that al-Qaeda can mess up too? (Of course, shoe bomber Richard Reid was a Brit too.) But I am glad that it appears they are catching the scum that made this attempt at mayhem. Ship them to Club Gitmo!
Friday, July 29, 2005
Fallout
Doing some cleanup this morning...finish the week strong. Took the day off work today and I'm going down to Norfolk tonight to see my Mud Hens there (hope the weather holds!)
First of all, I've gotten good comments on my last post so far (from those who've said stuff.) Made them think, that's the idea. This one may not have quite the same effect, but I'm likely taking the weekend off. Supposed to be a rainy weekend here and I do have to catch up on some reading (not to mention mundane stuff like cleaning my place.)
One thing I follow fairly closely is the union movement. My dad was a Teamster for almost 40 years and his comment (or parting shot, if you will) was that "unions are for the lazy man." To an extent it's true. I negotiate my own wage or at least accept a job where I think the pay and benefits are fair, rather than let someone else dictate my wage.
So the split of the AFL-CIO piqued my interest. I'm a bit confused though. On the Change to Win Coalition website they list 7 member unions, but so far I've only seen confirmation of a couple (Teamsters and SEIU) dropping out of the AFL-CIO. All in good time, I guess. I don't see the United Food and Commercial Workers in there yet, but they've threatened to join. They're my favorites, since I saw their propaganda for several years when my first ex worked at a grocery store.
A few days ago I commented on a fundraiser by Karl Rove for Lt. Gov. Michael Steele's possible Senate campaign. (He needs a campaign website!) Here's a story from the Baltimore Sun. I did see that the number of protestors changed from 40 to 30. Maybe the National Park Service did the count.
I did notice the Sun reporter spent a few words describing Rove's car, "a blue-gray Jaguar," and noting Steele arrived in a state vehicle. A state vehicle? Fodder for later controversy? For Rove's car - code message for "someone please run Rove off the road, he's killing us"? Naaaah. Wouldn't do them much good anyway, I'm sure the number of blue-gray Jaguars per capita is pretty high in D.C.
Finally, nice to see some ink on the Captain's Cove project on Virginia's Eastern Shore, a little history included. Actually, I do have a vested interest in that one, as my employer worked on the clubhouse project, including a few details by yours truly. It should be a cool thing for the area once they finish.
Speaking of Virginia, a drive south awaits, so enough for now.
First of all, I've gotten good comments on my last post so far (from those who've said stuff.) Made them think, that's the idea. This one may not have quite the same effect, but I'm likely taking the weekend off. Supposed to be a rainy weekend here and I do have to catch up on some reading (not to mention mundane stuff like cleaning my place.)
One thing I follow fairly closely is the union movement. My dad was a Teamster for almost 40 years and his comment (or parting shot, if you will) was that "unions are for the lazy man." To an extent it's true. I negotiate my own wage or at least accept a job where I think the pay and benefits are fair, rather than let someone else dictate my wage.
So the split of the AFL-CIO piqued my interest. I'm a bit confused though. On the Change to Win Coalition website they list 7 member unions, but so far I've only seen confirmation of a couple (Teamsters and SEIU) dropping out of the AFL-CIO. All in good time, I guess. I don't see the United Food and Commercial Workers in there yet, but they've threatened to join. They're my favorites, since I saw their propaganda for several years when my first ex worked at a grocery store.
A few days ago I commented on a fundraiser by Karl Rove for Lt. Gov. Michael Steele's possible Senate campaign. (He needs a campaign website!) Here's a story from the Baltimore Sun. I did see that the number of protestors changed from 40 to 30. Maybe the National Park Service did the count.
I did notice the Sun reporter spent a few words describing Rove's car, "a blue-gray Jaguar," and noting Steele arrived in a state vehicle. A state vehicle? Fodder for later controversy? For Rove's car - code message for "someone please run Rove off the road, he's killing us"? Naaaah. Wouldn't do them much good anyway, I'm sure the number of blue-gray Jaguars per capita is pretty high in D.C.
Finally, nice to see some ink on the Captain's Cove project on Virginia's Eastern Shore, a little history included. Actually, I do have a vested interest in that one, as my employer worked on the clubhouse project, including a few details by yours truly. It should be a cool thing for the area once they finish.
Speaking of Virginia, a drive south awaits, so enough for now.
Thursday, July 28, 2005
For a few dollars more...
After a lot of research and sitting at my computer for hours, this is the post I promised. Actually, I enjoyed looking into this and I think my point will be proven correct.
But first, I have quite a few people to thank. Part of my research was contacting over 40 blogs affiliated with mine via GOPBloggers.org. I ended up getting responses from almost half, and it provided me a good sample to work from as well as some quotable tidbits.
For those of you who didn’t get contacted by me and are reading this, I looked into blog advertising, in particular the "Ads by Goooogle" that reside on a lot of blogsites. What I did was track down affiliated bloggers that use this advertising tool and ask them three simple questions, as follows:
1. On a monthly basis, do you earn any revenue form Google ads?
2. How long have you carried these ads?
3. Are you aware that some of these advertisements may be for products you may not endorse or agree with?
I learned a lot about this portion of the blogging business from the replies I received. I’ll admit, I was pretty ignorant about how the blogging business worked (as far as a business. I know how to write.) I had idle thoughts that someday this could be a minor income producer but making money sounds like tough sledding. Luckily, it’s also fun for me because I just plain like getting my point of view out and the papers here won’t print my letters to the editor daily!
So some of the reason for questions #1 and #2 was curiosity, but also I needed some kind of baseline to start from and see if my assumptions were correct. I suspected people weren’t making a ton off their blog ads, but I was surprised it was so little.
Question #3 occurred to me as I was going through a lot of the blogs and seeing a plethora of anti-Bush items for sale. It occurred to me that, like happens when you use Google the search engine, the keywords in the blog trigger what items are advertised. This was borne out in a response sent to me by Barry at Palmetto Pundit:
"A good example (of triggering keywords) is that around the middle of June I had one post that dealt with a faulty washing machine. I was trying to write something funny...They posted washing machine service and parts ads for about two weeks afterward. It was completely absurd. I had been posting about politics for 3 months prior and one post about washing machines caused them to think I had a washing machine blog. Go figure!"
So what did I find out? That if we took all the money that was being made from Google ads in a month from my subjects, maybe after a year we can buy one share of Google. Or, in the words of J.E. Park at the JEP Report, "I would expect that crack addiction would probably be more profitable." Most of my subjects haven’t made the threshold for getting a check from Google, even if they’ve carried the ads for awhile (the average time was 6-12 months as participants.)
The other question, number 3, was more varied in its response. Some people took the view that having liberal ads wasn’t such a bad thing. As Timmer White of Righting America wrote: "...I try to maintain a venue that attracts political discourse from all sides (so) I don’t mind that some ads are not in keeping with my own conservatism...(I)t fits my blogging philosophy to include them, as I have also included links to some other blogs that I definitely do not agree with."
On the other hand, Dawn at WriteWingBlog commented, "I am aware that some of the ads (in her instance, pro-abortion) I may not endorse or agree with...I always immediately go into my account and put those ads I dislike into the filter."
As I said, I had a lot of responses, and in truth, it was pretty much as I figured. But the reason I titled this post, "For A Few Dollars More..." was because the pittance we receive is nothing compared to what Google makes. Anyone familiar with their $290 a share (after being under $100 in its IPO) stock price knows this. (On $3.40 earnings per share, that’s one hell of a P/E ratio! Waiting for that bubble to burst.) And bless their heart, they’re exploiting capitalism in all its glory, by having a product that they can sell.
So what do Google employees do with their newly created wealth? This is where the other part of my research comes in. Opensecrets.org (aka The Center for Responsive Politics) is one wonderful website. I’ll try not to make your eyes glaze over with numbers, but here goes:
There are 207 records of people listing their employer as "Google". Of these 207, a total of $296,694 was given. Here are some of the top recipients:
1. DNC Services $106,625
2. Sen. John Kerry (D- MA) $41,000
2. DCCC (House Democrats) $41,000
4. Various state/local Democrat parties $23,750
5. Various state/local Democrat candidates $14,150
6. Moveon.org $13,665
7. Various PAC’s $8,929
8. Americans Coming Together (PAC) $8,050
9. Emily’s List (PAC) $6,525
10. Rep. Anna Eshoo (D - CA 14) $6,000
11. Act Blue (PAC) $5,000
12. Citizen Soldier Fund (PAC) $5,000
13. Howard Dean $4,200
14. Rep. Edward J. Markey (D - MA 7) $4,000
15. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D- WA) $3,100
Green Party and independents got $450 as well.
Let me point out there were three brave souls at Google who donated to President Bush, for a total of $3,250, plus one donation (by a member of this trio) for $2,000 to Rep. Dennis Hastert. But a staggering 98.2% of donations went to Democrats - that’s approaching the AFSCME union’s partisan territory.
While I am aware that Google plays host to some of these fine blogsites and has services that they use (for example, many of my blogger subjects have Gmail addresses), I wonder if we as conservatives really want to play in what is likely unfriendly territory. I even looked up Yahoo! as a donator, and their small corporate donations were strictly divided 50/50 between Republicans and Democrats. Another heavy advertiser, Amazon.com, had no recorded corporate donations.
Personally, I rarely use Google as a search engine, I prefer Yahoo’s partially because I already have a Yahoo Messenger account I use at times and their toolbar is on my screen. But in the back of my mind I was aware that their founder was quite the donor to liberal causes (borne out by the research.) It’s the same reason I would never insure myself through Progressive Insurance, since Peter Lewis is a huge liberal 527 donor.
Obviously, sometimes one has to make a deal with the devil, and in this case some of my fellow bloggers do. While Google allows you to filter out ads you don’t like, you can’t filter where their individual employees send their money; nor should we, it’s still a free country despite their best efforts.
As conservatives and bloggers who are at the forefront of this "new media" - or ones who just want to make their opinion heard, like me - isn’t it time we put our collective heads together and figure out a way to both make our blogs more profitable and support those who support our beliefs? In the near future, I’ll be looking for a website host (yes, I’m making the leap off Blogspot sometime soon), and I can guarantee you that despite their services, it won’t be hosted by Google. Not to be a shill for the company, but Amazon.com’s Associate program has some interest to me as a revenue supplier because I can select the items I advertise. It may be a further outlet for those so inclined to have money makers for their blog. As noted by Matt Lewis (Matt Lewis and the News) in his response, "A lot of people don’t like ads. Ironically, I put them up because it made my site (which is new) look more full and professional."
I know having a professional feel is one of my goals in blogging. Part of achieving that aim is maintaining a blog that is relatively serious and well-researched (but with its share of fun.)
As my tagline says, "I’m just a guy trying to push this country in the ‘right’ direction." To me, using Ads by Google pulls us the wrong way.
Postscript: there were some bloggers out there who also allowed me to quote them but they just didn’t happen to fit into today's post. So here’s the hat tips to Darnell at Hidden Nook, Adam at Government Cheese, Brian at Radio Equalizer, J. at Americans for Freedom, Aaron at Pardon My English, and the person at Slant Point whose name I didn’t get. Fine folks all!
But first, I have quite a few people to thank. Part of my research was contacting over 40 blogs affiliated with mine via GOPBloggers.org. I ended up getting responses from almost half, and it provided me a good sample to work from as well as some quotable tidbits.
For those of you who didn’t get contacted by me and are reading this, I looked into blog advertising, in particular the "Ads by Goooogle" that reside on a lot of blogsites. What I did was track down affiliated bloggers that use this advertising tool and ask them three simple questions, as follows:
1. On a monthly basis, do you earn any revenue form Google ads?
2. How long have you carried these ads?
3. Are you aware that some of these advertisements may be for products you may not endorse or agree with?
I learned a lot about this portion of the blogging business from the replies I received. I’ll admit, I was pretty ignorant about how the blogging business worked (as far as a business. I know how to write.) I had idle thoughts that someday this could be a minor income producer but making money sounds like tough sledding. Luckily, it’s also fun for me because I just plain like getting my point of view out and the papers here won’t print my letters to the editor daily!
So some of the reason for questions #1 and #2 was curiosity, but also I needed some kind of baseline to start from and see if my assumptions were correct. I suspected people weren’t making a ton off their blog ads, but I was surprised it was so little.
Question #3 occurred to me as I was going through a lot of the blogs and seeing a plethora of anti-Bush items for sale. It occurred to me that, like happens when you use Google the search engine, the keywords in the blog trigger what items are advertised. This was borne out in a response sent to me by Barry at Palmetto Pundit:
"A good example (of triggering keywords) is that around the middle of June I had one post that dealt with a faulty washing machine. I was trying to write something funny...They posted washing machine service and parts ads for about two weeks afterward. It was completely absurd. I had been posting about politics for 3 months prior and one post about washing machines caused them to think I had a washing machine blog. Go figure!"
So what did I find out? That if we took all the money that was being made from Google ads in a month from my subjects, maybe after a year we can buy one share of Google. Or, in the words of J.E. Park at the JEP Report, "I would expect that crack addiction would probably be more profitable." Most of my subjects haven’t made the threshold for getting a check from Google, even if they’ve carried the ads for awhile (the average time was 6-12 months as participants.)
The other question, number 3, was more varied in its response. Some people took the view that having liberal ads wasn’t such a bad thing. As Timmer White of Righting America wrote: "...I try to maintain a venue that attracts political discourse from all sides (so) I don’t mind that some ads are not in keeping with my own conservatism...(I)t fits my blogging philosophy to include them, as I have also included links to some other blogs that I definitely do not agree with."
On the other hand, Dawn at WriteWingBlog commented, "I am aware that some of the ads (in her instance, pro-abortion) I may not endorse or agree with...I always immediately go into my account and put those ads I dislike into the filter."
As I said, I had a lot of responses, and in truth, it was pretty much as I figured. But the reason I titled this post, "For A Few Dollars More..." was because the pittance we receive is nothing compared to what Google makes. Anyone familiar with their $290 a share (after being under $100 in its IPO) stock price knows this. (On $3.40 earnings per share, that’s one hell of a P/E ratio! Waiting for that bubble to burst.) And bless their heart, they’re exploiting capitalism in all its glory, by having a product that they can sell.
So what do Google employees do with their newly created wealth? This is where the other part of my research comes in. Opensecrets.org (aka The Center for Responsive Politics) is one wonderful website. I’ll try not to make your eyes glaze over with numbers, but here goes:
There are 207 records of people listing their employer as "Google". Of these 207, a total of $296,694 was given. Here are some of the top recipients:
1. DNC Services $106,625
2. Sen. John Kerry (D- MA) $41,000
2. DCCC (House Democrats) $41,000
4. Various state/local Democrat parties $23,750
5. Various state/local Democrat candidates $14,150
6. Moveon.org $13,665
7. Various PAC’s $8,929
8. Americans Coming Together (PAC) $8,050
9. Emily’s List (PAC) $6,525
10. Rep. Anna Eshoo (D - CA 14) $6,000
11. Act Blue (PAC) $5,000
12. Citizen Soldier Fund (PAC) $5,000
13. Howard Dean $4,200
14. Rep. Edward J. Markey (D - MA 7) $4,000
15. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D- WA) $3,100
Green Party and independents got $450 as well.
Let me point out there were three brave souls at Google who donated to President Bush, for a total of $3,250, plus one donation (by a member of this trio) for $2,000 to Rep. Dennis Hastert. But a staggering 98.2% of donations went to Democrats - that’s approaching the AFSCME union’s partisan territory.
While I am aware that Google plays host to some of these fine blogsites and has services that they use (for example, many of my blogger subjects have Gmail addresses), I wonder if we as conservatives really want to play in what is likely unfriendly territory. I even looked up Yahoo! as a donator, and their small corporate donations were strictly divided 50/50 between Republicans and Democrats. Another heavy advertiser, Amazon.com, had no recorded corporate donations.
Personally, I rarely use Google as a search engine, I prefer Yahoo’s partially because I already have a Yahoo Messenger account I use at times and their toolbar is on my screen. But in the back of my mind I was aware that their founder was quite the donor to liberal causes (borne out by the research.) It’s the same reason I would never insure myself through Progressive Insurance, since Peter Lewis is a huge liberal 527 donor.
Obviously, sometimes one has to make a deal with the devil, and in this case some of my fellow bloggers do. While Google allows you to filter out ads you don’t like, you can’t filter where their individual employees send their money; nor should we, it’s still a free country despite their best efforts.
As conservatives and bloggers who are at the forefront of this "new media" - or ones who just want to make their opinion heard, like me - isn’t it time we put our collective heads together and figure out a way to both make our blogs more profitable and support those who support our beliefs? In the near future, I’ll be looking for a website host (yes, I’m making the leap off Blogspot sometime soon), and I can guarantee you that despite their services, it won’t be hosted by Google. Not to be a shill for the company, but Amazon.com’s Associate program has some interest to me as a revenue supplier because I can select the items I advertise. It may be a further outlet for those so inclined to have money makers for their blog. As noted by Matt Lewis (Matt Lewis and the News) in his response, "A lot of people don’t like ads. Ironically, I put them up because it made my site (which is new) look more full and professional."
I know having a professional feel is one of my goals in blogging. Part of achieving that aim is maintaining a blog that is relatively serious and well-researched (but with its share of fun.)
As my tagline says, "I’m just a guy trying to push this country in the ‘right’ direction." To me, using Ads by Google pulls us the wrong way.
Postscript: there were some bloggers out there who also allowed me to quote them but they just didn’t happen to fit into today's post. So here’s the hat tips to Darnell at Hidden Nook, Adam at Government Cheese, Brian at Radio Equalizer, J. at Americans for Freedom, Aaron at Pardon My English, and the person at Slant Point whose name I didn’t get. Fine folks all!
Sunday, July 24, 2005
Vive le Lance
Lance Armstrong makes it seven straight. Great job! And the best part is that now the Tour de France can go back to its rightful place in obscurity.
I won't argue that Lance Armstrong isn't a superb athlete and a role model as a cancer survivor. And he has decided to retire on top, which should be an example for pro athletes (are you listening, Jerry Rice?)
But really, it's a bike race. Talk about not spectator-friendly. You see them go by and that's it for the most part. At least with NASCAR, yeah, they go fast, but they go by 100 to 200 times.
Doing some reading while I was looking for a link to Lance, and found this article on the woeful state of the baseball card industry. It's not surprising to me, that "industry" saw its day 15 years ago. I know I sold my cards about 2 or 3 years too late and the value tanked in the interim. Anymore you can find all the baseball stats you'd ever want on the Internet.
But I recall the first packs of baseball cards I ever bought, back in 1973 (think the top cards in the packs were Phillies pitcher Dick Selma and White Sox pitcher Jim Geddes.) I want to say they were 15 cents for 12, not $3 for 6 like they are now. That's what killed the industry.
I used to buy the sets in the late 1980's and take those cards of players who were in the IL to Mud Hen games to get the cards signed. But I got tired of kids getting 2 and 3 cards of each player signed so they could give them to dad for him to sell. Now I just go to the Shorebirds games with my digital camera and take my own action shots.
And, as for my topic of last night, I continue to get responses and I appreciate the insight. The information is really helpful and I think it's going to prove my point. Think I'll sit down Thursday night and write the blog post in question.
Also thinking about some changes to the blog, but that's more medium-term. Things will remain as they are at least until my vacation in August.
I won't argue that Lance Armstrong isn't a superb athlete and a role model as a cancer survivor. And he has decided to retire on top, which should be an example for pro athletes (are you listening, Jerry Rice?)
But really, it's a bike race. Talk about not spectator-friendly. You see them go by and that's it for the most part. At least with NASCAR, yeah, they go fast, but they go by 100 to 200 times.
Doing some reading while I was looking for a link to Lance, and found this article on the woeful state of the baseball card industry. It's not surprising to me, that "industry" saw its day 15 years ago. I know I sold my cards about 2 or 3 years too late and the value tanked in the interim. Anymore you can find all the baseball stats you'd ever want on the Internet.
But I recall the first packs of baseball cards I ever bought, back in 1973 (think the top cards in the packs were Phillies pitcher Dick Selma and White Sox pitcher Jim Geddes.) I want to say they were 15 cents for 12, not $3 for 6 like they are now. That's what killed the industry.
I used to buy the sets in the late 1980's and take those cards of players who were in the IL to Mud Hen games to get the cards signed. But I got tired of kids getting 2 and 3 cards of each player signed so they could give them to dad for him to sell. Now I just go to the Shorebirds games with my digital camera and take my own action shots.
And, as for my topic of last night, I continue to get responses and I appreciate the insight. The information is really helpful and I think it's going to prove my point. Think I'll sit down Thursday night and write the blog post in question.
Also thinking about some changes to the blog, but that's more medium-term. Things will remain as they are at least until my vacation in August.
Saturday, July 23, 2005
Researchees please note!
If I were you I'd be checking out my site too.
A couple things I didn't post in my short note. One is that I apologize for making it sound like a form letter - but I wrote to 46 bloggers and I'm not writing each note individually. I do like sleeping occasionally! Hopefully most will be cooperative in answering my questions. Unless you specifically give me permission, you're all anonymous.
Secondly, I did actually read some of the blogs as I was there but couldn't peruse them all. One thing I'll have to do on my site is sign up for Blogroll. I've been doing links the old-fashioned way, but with hundreds of good blogs out there, we have one heckuva conservative community going!
So if you are new and checking me out because you heard from me, welcome aboard!
I do have an item of import tonight. As always on Saturdays, I got my e-mail update from the Maryland GOP. Now, since I've only been here a short time, I'm not familiar with the Glendening administration, but the claim in this e-mail was that Governor Ehrlich turned a $4 billion shortfall when he took office to a $1 billion surplus. Me, I think a lot of it had to do with a great economy in general. Hard to push through a lot of spending cuts with Dems controlling the General Assembly. But we'll take the surplus. In fact - $1 billion divided by 5 million is $200 a person. I've been here 9 months, I'll just take $150.
This also from the GOP e-mail:
The Maryland Business Climate Survey, prepared quarterly by the University’s Jacob France Institute, reported that 65 percent of the 250 Maryland businesses surveyed view the State as business-friendly, compared to 53 percent of businesses surveyed in the first quarter of 2005. “The Ehrlich Administration has made it a top priority to improve Maryland’s business climate. This survey is further validation that we are accomplishing our mission of listening to businesses and giving them the tools and resources they need to grow and succeed,” said Secretary Aris Melissaratos. “Maryland has tremendous strengths – our world-class workforce, our diverse knowledge economy and our low unemployment – and we will continue to build on those and other strengths to make Maryland the most business friendly state to locate a business.” In spite of anti-business, anti-job creation measures proposed by liberal Democrats (read: the Fair Share Health Care Act), the Ehrlich/Steele Administration continues to give the business community confidence in the state.
In all seriousness, the reason I'm in Maryland is because it's ran a whole lot better than Ohio is right now (at least the Eastern Shore is.) Imagine what it would be like if the GOP controlled the General Assembly too. The Eastern Shore would be Florida north.
Oh, as far as the "enemy" (that being the Maryland Democrats,) they're just so happy that they've raised over $700,000 in the first six months of 2005. They better lock and load up, because the national GOP's going to be gunning for the Sarbanes seat. I'm ready to kick ass and take names.
A couple things I didn't post in my short note. One is that I apologize for making it sound like a form letter - but I wrote to 46 bloggers and I'm not writing each note individually. I do like sleeping occasionally! Hopefully most will be cooperative in answering my questions. Unless you specifically give me permission, you're all anonymous.
Secondly, I did actually read some of the blogs as I was there but couldn't peruse them all. One thing I'll have to do on my site is sign up for Blogroll. I've been doing links the old-fashioned way, but with hundreds of good blogs out there, we have one heckuva conservative community going!
So if you are new and checking me out because you heard from me, welcome aboard!
I do have an item of import tonight. As always on Saturdays, I got my e-mail update from the Maryland GOP. Now, since I've only been here a short time, I'm not familiar with the Glendening administration, but the claim in this e-mail was that Governor Ehrlich turned a $4 billion shortfall when he took office to a $1 billion surplus. Me, I think a lot of it had to do with a great economy in general. Hard to push through a lot of spending cuts with Dems controlling the General Assembly. But we'll take the surplus. In fact - $1 billion divided by 5 million is $200 a person. I've been here 9 months, I'll just take $150.
This also from the GOP e-mail:
The Maryland Business Climate Survey, prepared quarterly by the University’s Jacob France Institute, reported that 65 percent of the 250 Maryland businesses surveyed view the State as business-friendly, compared to 53 percent of businesses surveyed in the first quarter of 2005. “The Ehrlich Administration has made it a top priority to improve Maryland’s business climate. This survey is further validation that we are accomplishing our mission of listening to businesses and giving them the tools and resources they need to grow and succeed,” said Secretary Aris Melissaratos. “Maryland has tremendous strengths – our world-class workforce, our diverse knowledge economy and our low unemployment – and we will continue to build on those and other strengths to make Maryland the most business friendly state to locate a business.” In spite of anti-business, anti-job creation measures proposed by liberal Democrats (read: the Fair Share Health Care Act), the Ehrlich/Steele Administration continues to give the business community confidence in the state.
In all seriousness, the reason I'm in Maryland is because it's ran a whole lot better than Ohio is right now (at least the Eastern Shore is.) Imagine what it would be like if the GOP controlled the General Assembly too. The Eastern Shore would be Florida north.
Oh, as far as the "enemy" (that being the Maryland Democrats,) they're just so happy that they've raised over $700,000 in the first six months of 2005. They better lock and load up, because the national GOP's going to be gunning for the Sarbanes seat. I'm ready to kick ass and take names.
Thursday, July 21, 2005
"Growing" into a RINO
Saw an interesting article in the Daily Times today regarding Congressman Gilchrest's growth. No, nothing medical, but I'm sure in the liberal punditry opinion, he's "grown" because he's become a "maverick" against his party by supporting the joint resolution (H. J. Res. 55) for pulling our troops out of Iraq on a date certain. Now he's in with the likes of Rep. Dennis Kucinich (he of the "Department of Peace") and Rep. Barbara Lee of California (lone vote against defending ourselves after 9-11 - more on her here.)
While he's been re-elected pretty easily here, I haven't seen much to recommend Gilchrest to the rank-and-file GOP member on the Eastern Shore. This announcement comes right after his support for repealing "don't ask, don't tell" in the military. Two controversies in two months, not good for a guy from what probably isn't the safest GOP district.
Also noticed that the big Crisfield Crab and Clam Bake drew politicians like flies, with two large omissions: Governor Ehrlich and Lt. Governor Steele. I hope that this is just because it's an off-year and they don't want to burn their people out arranging a trip.
One thing I find interesting about some events down here: they do a lot of these events on weekday afternoons. Logically, if Crisfield wanted to draw a crowd, to me this would be a Saturday event. But, if you want it to not be as "touristy" I suppose a Wednesday makes sense. Guess it's my background being from an area not as tourist-dependent (good or bad.)
Now, to toss my two cents in about John Roberts (the judge, not the CBS News anchor.) He sounds like a good choice - must be because the Dems are already trying to fry him. The pollitorial is already out - Americans "say" he should answer on whether he'd overturn Roe v. Wade. (Ok, the poll question was "state his position on abortion", but we know that code word.) This will be fun, because the same poll had a plurality of 36% strongly agreeing the Senate should confirm him, basically sight unseen.
And yet another attempted bombing in London. No major injuries, but a shaken city gets more nervous. Wouldn't be surprised if this were a copycat myself, but one has to wonder about how much Londoners can take. It's going to have an impact on tourism if these bus bombings continue. Not that I'll be doing it in the near future, but London always seemed like it would be a cool city to visit for me...I'm sure millions of Americans feel the same. But why take a chance?
While he's been re-elected pretty easily here, I haven't seen much to recommend Gilchrest to the rank-and-file GOP member on the Eastern Shore. This announcement comes right after his support for repealing "don't ask, don't tell" in the military. Two controversies in two months, not good for a guy from what probably isn't the safest GOP district.
Also noticed that the big Crisfield Crab and Clam Bake drew politicians like flies, with two large omissions: Governor Ehrlich and Lt. Governor Steele. I hope that this is just because it's an off-year and they don't want to burn their people out arranging a trip.
One thing I find interesting about some events down here: they do a lot of these events on weekday afternoons. Logically, if Crisfield wanted to draw a crowd, to me this would be a Saturday event. But, if you want it to not be as "touristy" I suppose a Wednesday makes sense. Guess it's my background being from an area not as tourist-dependent (good or bad.)
Now, to toss my two cents in about John Roberts (the judge, not the CBS News anchor.) He sounds like a good choice - must be because the Dems are already trying to fry him. The pollitorial is already out - Americans "say" he should answer on whether he'd overturn Roe v. Wade. (Ok, the poll question was "state his position on abortion", but we know that code word.) This will be fun, because the same poll had a plurality of 36% strongly agreeing the Senate should confirm him, basically sight unseen.
And yet another attempted bombing in London. No major injuries, but a shaken city gets more nervous. Wouldn't be surprised if this were a copycat myself, but one has to wonder about how much Londoners can take. It's going to have an impact on tourism if these bus bombings continue. Not that I'll be doing it in the near future, but London always seemed like it would be a cool city to visit for me...I'm sure millions of Americans feel the same. But why take a chance?
Thursday, July 14, 2005
I needed a good laugh, here it is
Out trolling the Web tonight, and checked in on what the "enemy" (the Maryland Democrats) was up to. I liked this letter regarding suspending Karl Rove's security clearance, particularly the part about, "The American people must not tolerate anyone who plays politics with vital national security secrets." Have you heard of a guy named Sandy Berger, aka "Sandy Burglar"?
This case has had three stages:
1. "Karl Rove should be sent to jail". But he's done nothing illegal.
2. "Ok, Karl Rove should be fired." On what cause? The grand jury has not indicted him on anything.
3. "Well, then, get rid of his security clearance!" If anyone should lose a security clearance, it would be Joe Wilson.
I'm waiting on stage 4. "Well, Karl Rove deserves a stern lecture. And don't you dare send him to fundraise for Michael Steele." All right, the Stage 4 has already started.
Wonder how much extra they'll raise now? Thanks for the publicity guys, if you hadn't said anything about it, I would have never known. Not that I'll go, it's probably far too rich for my blood, but it's good to see Steele getting an early start on the millions needed to win the 2006 Senate race.
Honestly, the Democrats are making the leftmost 5% of the country ecstatic with all this, but I see them losing the middle 50% where elections are won. That demographic just sees Bush doing what he's said he would (on the rare occasions he gets help from Congress) and slowly drifts rightward. But that's ok, the farther right the "center" goes, the easier it is to make some of the drastic changes necessary to restore freedom to America.
This case has had three stages:
1. "Karl Rove should be sent to jail". But he's done nothing illegal.
2. "Ok, Karl Rove should be fired." On what cause? The grand jury has not indicted him on anything.
3. "Well, then, get rid of his security clearance!" If anyone should lose a security clearance, it would be Joe Wilson.
I'm waiting on stage 4. "Well, Karl Rove deserves a stern lecture. And don't you dare send him to fundraise for Michael Steele." All right, the Stage 4 has already started.
Wonder how much extra they'll raise now? Thanks for the publicity guys, if you hadn't said anything about it, I would have never known. Not that I'll go, it's probably far too rich for my blood, but it's good to see Steele getting an early start on the millions needed to win the 2006 Senate race.
Honestly, the Democrats are making the leftmost 5% of the country ecstatic with all this, but I see them losing the middle 50% where elections are won. That demographic just sees Bush doing what he's said he would (on the rare occasions he gets help from Congress) and slowly drifts rightward. But that's ok, the farther right the "center" goes, the easier it is to make some of the drastic changes necessary to restore freedom to America.
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Standings report, part 2
I know, it ain't politics. But like I said before, baseball is my other passion.
In the second half South Atlantic League North Division standings, Delmarva is in the lead with a 13-6 record, up by 1 1/2 games over Hickory. Their 8 game overall and home winning streaks came to an end tonight when they lost a 1-0 pitchers duel to Lexington. It was a good game, met some nice folks. Just couldn't put together hits...still we've given up just one run in the series - although having Eric Bedard down from the Orioles on a rehab start really helped.
In the International League's West division, my old hometown Toledo Mud Hens are tearing it up with the best record in the IL. At their All-Star break, Toledo is 57-32 and leads the West by 4 1/2 over Indianapolis. They have the best record by the same margin, because Indianapolis would be leading either of the other divisions. Hopefully they avoid the August meltdown (5-24) that killed their 2004 playoff hopes.
And my All-Star host Detroit Tigers are 42-44 at the break, 15 back of Chicago in 4th place in the AL Central. But a 5-3 roadtrip before the break helped. They were one bad Troy Percival pitch from 6-2 on the trip and a .500 mark.
I did an analysis on the Detroit Tigers forum of AL schedules for the second half...who's easiest and who's got the toughest. Here's what I wrote.
This is an analysis of remaining schedules for the AL teams - who has an easy path to the playoffs and who’s really going to have to work. Teams are listed in standings order, as of Sunday night. That’s the order I list opponents as well.
A plus number (like +100) indicates aggregate games better than even .500, a minus indicates games under .500. Schedule rank is 1st place hardest, 14th place easiest.)
1. Chicago (57-29), 1st in AL Central by 9 over Minnesota.
Remaining games: 76 (40 away, 36 home.)
Opponents: Los Angeles 3, Boston 7, Minnesota 13, Baltimore 4, New York 6, Texas 4, Cleveland 10, Toronto 3, Detroit 11, Seattle 6, Kansas City 9.
Finished with: Oakland, Tampa Bay.
Strength of schedule, all opponents: +84 (8th)
September opponents: -24 (10th)
Final two weeks (Cle, Min, at Det, at Cle): +68 (5th)
Critical stretch: The White Sox finish with 13 games on the road with all other ALC opponents sandwiched around 7 home games with closest pursuers Cleveland and Minnesota.
2. Los Angeles (52-36), 1st in AL West by 5 over Texas.
Remaining games: 74 (38 away, 36 home.)
Opponents: Chicago 3, Boston 7, Minnesota 4, Baltimore 6, New York 7, Texas 6, Oakland 13, Toronto 6, Detroit 4, Seattle 9, Tampa Bay 9.
Finished with: Cleveland, Kansas City.
Strength of schedule, all opponents: -52 (11th)
September opponents: -4 (8th)
Final two weeks (Tex, TB, at Oak, at Tex): -59 (13th)
Critical stretch: September roadtrip to Boston, Chicago, and Seattle can win them the West with a successful run and give them a look at two possible postseason opponents.
3. Boston (49-38), 1st in AL East by 2 over Baltimore.
Remaining games: 75 (32 away, 43 home.)
Opponents: Chicago 7, Los Angeles 7, Minnesota 6, Baltimore 6, New York 10, Texas 3, Oakland 4, Toronto 7, Detroit 6, Kansas City 6, Tampa Bay 13.
Finished with: Cleveland, Seattle.
Strength of schedule, all opponents: -111 (12th)
September opponents: +31 (7th)
Final two weeks (at TB, at Bal, Tor, NY): -60 (14th)
Critical stretch: They can bury the rest of the East with a successful long August/September homestand featuring Detroit, Tampa Bay, Baltimore, and Los Angeles.
4. Minnesota (48-38), 2nd in AL Central by 2 over Cleveland, leads wild card by 1 ½ over Baltimore.
Remaining games: 76 (39 away, 37 home.)
Opponents: Chicago 13, Los Angeles 4, Boston 6, Baltimore 3, New York 3, Texas 6, Cleveland 6, Oakland 10, Detroit 11, Seattle 7, Kansas City 7.
Finished with: Toronto, Tampa Bay.
Strength of schedule, all opponents: +341 (3rd)
September opponents: +133 (6th)
Final two weeks (at Oak, at Chi, KC, Det): +1 (9th)
Critical stretch: If they are to challenge Chicago, they need to do well on a late July roadtrip to Detroit, New York, and Boston. Detroit’s series is a 5 game series due to an early snowout.
5. Baltimore (47-40), 2nd in AL East by ½ over New York.
Remaining games: 75 (41 away, 34 home.)
Opponents: Chicago 4, Los Angeles 6, Boston 6, Minnesota 3, New York 8, Texas 10, Cleveland 3, Oakland 7, Toronto 9, Seattle 7, Tampa Bay 12.
Finished with: Detroit, Kansas City.
Strength of schedule, all opponents: -22 (10th)
September opponents: -93 (13th)
Final two weeks (at NY, Bos, NY, at TB): -18 (10th)
Critical stretch: The Orioles have been in a freefall since June. They must do well on a post-All Star game cross-country trip to Seattle, Minnesota, and Tampa Bay. They have three other west coast trips in this half (LA/Tex, Oak/Cle, Sea/Tex). Less than .500 on these and Baltimore’s hopes are about done.
6. New York (46-40), 3rd in AL East by 3 over Toronto.
Remaining games: 76 (43 away, 33 home.)
Opponents: Chicago 6, Los Angeles 7, Boston 10, Minnesota 3, Baltimore 8, Texas 7, Cleveland 3, Oakland 3, Toronto 13, Seattle 4, Kansas City 3, Tampa Bay 9.
Finished with: Detroit.
Strength of schedule, all opponents: +125 (7th)
September opponents: -73 (12th)
Final two weeks (Bal, Tor, at Bal, at Bos): +89 (2nd)
Critical stretch: The Yankees play their last 26 games within their division. They also have a big trip west (to Texas and LA) after the Boston series at Fenway coming out of the All-Star break.
7. Texas (46-40), 2nd in AL West by 2 ½ over Oakland.
Remaining games: 76 (40 away, 36 home.)
Opponents: Chicago 4, Los Angeles 6, Boston 3, Minnesota 6, Baltimore 10, New York 7, Cleveland 3, Oakland 14, Toronto 3, Seattle 10, Kansas City 4, Tampa Bay 6.
Finished with: Detroit.
Strength of schedule, all opponents: +49 (9th)
September opponents: -18 (9th)
Final two weeks (at LA, at Oak, at Sea, LA): +72 (4th)
Critical stretch: Two - roadtrip in August to Boston, New York, Cleveland, and Tampa Bay; and the final roadtrip facing their other 3 AL West opponents. The August roadtrip is against several wild card competitors.
8. Cleveland (47-41), 3rd in AL Central by 4 over Detroit.
Remaining games: 74 (33 away, 41 home.)
Opponents: Chicago 10, Minnesota 6, Baltimore 3, New York 3, Texas 3, Oakland 6, Toronto 3, Detroit 9, Seattle 7, Kansas City 14, Tampa Bay 10.
Finished with: Los Angeles, Boston.
Strength of schedule, all opponents: -386 (14th)
September opponents: -63 (11th)
Final two weeks (at Chi, at KC, TB, Chi): -39 (11th)
Critical stretch: With 43 games remaining (of the 74) against the 5 teams with records .500 or below, the only critical thing is avoiding injuries.
9. Oakland (44-43), 3rd in AL West by 5 over Seattle.
Remaining games: 75 (37 away, 38 home.)
Opponents: Los Angeles 13, Boston 4, Minnesota 10, Baltimore 7, New York 3, Texas 14, Cleveland 6, Detroit 6, Seattle 6, Kansas City 6.
Finished with: Chicago, Toronto, Tampa Bay.
Strength of schedule, all opponents: +311 (5th)
September opponents: +156 (5th)
Final two weeks (Min, Tex, LA, at Sea): +85 (3rd)
Critical stretch: 33 games against division opponents and two long eastern swings (Detroit, Baltimore, and Los Angeles in August; and Texas, Cleveland, and Boston in September.)
10. Toronto (44-44), 4th in AL East by 16 ½ over Tampa Bay.
Remaining games: 74 (32 away, 42 home.)
Opponents: Chicago 3, Los Angeles 6, Boston 7, Baltimore 9, New York 13, Texas 3, Cleveland 3, Detroit 7, Seattle 7, Kansas City 6, Tampa Bay 10.
Finished with: Minnesota, Oakland.
Strength of schedule, all opponents: -135 (13th)
September opponents: -181 (14th)
Final two weeks (Sea, at NY, at Bos, KC): -55 (12th)
Critical stretch: They need to put the hammer down with 20 of 26 games coming out of the All-Star break at home. If not, they have to survive a fearsome travel trip in August to Baltimore, Los Angeles, back east to Detroit, then New York. But they get cake in September.
11. DETROIT (41-44), 4th in AL Central by 12 ½ over Kansas City.
Remaining games: 76 (36 away, 40 home.)
Opponents: Chicago 11, Los Angeles 4, Boston 6, Minnesota 11, Cleveland 9, Oakland 6, Toronto 7, Seattle 9, Kansas City 13.
Finished with: Baltimore, New York, Texas, Tampa Bay.
Strength of schedule, all opponents: +186 (6th)
September opponents: +177 (T - 2nd)
Final two weeks (at KC, Sea, Chi, at Min): +34 (7th)
Critical stretch: I dunno, seems like we’re chugging uphill the whole way. No chances to make up ground directly with Baltimore, New York, or Texas anymore.
12. Seattle (39-48), 4th in AL West.
Remaining games: 75 (36 away, 39 home.)
Opponents: Chicago 6, Los Angeles 9, Minnesota 7, Baltimore 7, New York 4, Texas 10, Cleveland 7, Oakland 6, Toronto 7, Detroit 9, Kansas City 3.
Finished with: Boston, Tampa Bay.
Strength of schedule, all opponents: +464 (1st)
September opponents: +159 (4th)
Final two weeks (at Tor, at Det, Tex, Oak): +15 (8th)
Critical stretch: All but the last 2 ½ weeks, when they finally get some mediocre teams to play.
13. Kansas City (30-57), 5th in AL Central.
Remaining games: 75 (40 away, 35 home.)
Opponents: Chicago 9, Boston 6, Minnesota 7, New York 3, Texas 4, Cleveland 14, Oakland 6, Toronto 6, Detroit 13, Seattle 3, Tampa Bay 4.
Finished with: Los Angeles, Baltimore.
Strength of schedule, all opponents: +335 (4th)
September opponents: +262 (1st)
Final two weeks (Det, Cle, at Min, at Tor) +58 (6th)
Critical stretch: To avoid 100 losses, being close to .500 in the 21 games after the All-Star break would be a help. 2-4 against Chicago and Boston is acceptable, the other opponents being Cleveland, Detroit, Toronto, and Tampa Bay.
14. Tampa Bay (28-61), 5th in AL East. Worst record in baseball, 3 games behind Kansas City.
Remaining games: 73 (38 away, 35 home.)
Opponents: Los Angeles 9, Boston 13, Baltimore 12, New York 9, Texas 6, Cleveland 10, Toronto 10, Kansas City 4.
Finished with: Chicago, Minnesota, Oakland, Detroit, Seattle.
Strength of schedule, all opponents: +440 (2nd)
September opponents: +177 (T- 2nd)
Final two weeks: (Bos, at LA, at Cle, Bal) +120 (1st)
Critical stretch: Pity the poor Devil Rays. After August 1, when Kansas City leaves town, they don’t see another team currently under .500 the rest of the season. In fact, that 4 game series with Kansas City is all they see of bottom-feeders. An 11-62 finish isn’t so unlikely.
To be fair to the NL readers, I also did a quick run on their reamining games. In order from most difficult to easiest NL schedules:
1. Florida: 76 games, +149 (aggregate games from .500)
2. New York: 74 games, +94
3. Houston: 75 games, +61
4. Philadelphia: 73 games, +10
5. Washington: 74 games, -22
6. Cincinnati: 74 games, -32
7. Milwaukee: 74 games, -49
8. Atlanta: 73 games, -88
9. Chicago: 75 games, -91
10. Colorado: 75 games, -150
11. San Francisco: 75 games, -159
12. St. Louis: 74 games, -176
13. Pittsburgh: 75 games, -199
14. Arizona: 72 games, -234
15. Los Angeles: 74 games, -298
16. San Diego: 73 games, -310
Easy to see that playing a lot of games against the pitiful NL West buries your schedule ranking. One would have to say that the schedule favors Atlanta to reel in Washington in the NL East, St. Louis in an NL Central cakewalk, and San Diego maintaining the NL West lead. And the wild card may come from out there if a second team can manhandle that division - it appears the NL East and Central will beat each other up quite a bit.
Now, next time, it's back to the right-wing conspiracy. Needed a break but there's issues out there to address. It was my little All-Star break, now it'll be back to "work."
In the second half South Atlantic League North Division standings, Delmarva is in the lead with a 13-6 record, up by 1 1/2 games over Hickory. Their 8 game overall and home winning streaks came to an end tonight when they lost a 1-0 pitchers duel to Lexington. It was a good game, met some nice folks. Just couldn't put together hits...still we've given up just one run in the series - although having Eric Bedard down from the Orioles on a rehab start really helped.
In the International League's West division, my old hometown Toledo Mud Hens are tearing it up with the best record in the IL. At their All-Star break, Toledo is 57-32 and leads the West by 4 1/2 over Indianapolis. They have the best record by the same margin, because Indianapolis would be leading either of the other divisions. Hopefully they avoid the August meltdown (5-24) that killed their 2004 playoff hopes.
And my All-Star host Detroit Tigers are 42-44 at the break, 15 back of Chicago in 4th place in the AL Central. But a 5-3 roadtrip before the break helped. They were one bad Troy Percival pitch from 6-2 on the trip and a .500 mark.
I did an analysis on the Detroit Tigers forum of AL schedules for the second half...who's easiest and who's got the toughest. Here's what I wrote.
This is an analysis of remaining schedules for the AL teams - who has an easy path to the playoffs and who’s really going to have to work. Teams are listed in standings order, as of Sunday night. That’s the order I list opponents as well.
A plus number (like +100) indicates aggregate games better than even .500, a minus indicates games under .500. Schedule rank is 1st place hardest, 14th place easiest.)
1. Chicago (57-29), 1st in AL Central by 9 over Minnesota.
Remaining games: 76 (40 away, 36 home.)
Opponents: Los Angeles 3, Boston 7, Minnesota 13, Baltimore 4, New York 6, Texas 4, Cleveland 10, Toronto 3, Detroit 11, Seattle 6, Kansas City 9.
Finished with: Oakland, Tampa Bay.
Strength of schedule, all opponents: +84 (8th)
September opponents: -24 (10th)
Final two weeks (Cle, Min, at Det, at Cle): +68 (5th)
Critical stretch: The White Sox finish with 13 games on the road with all other ALC opponents sandwiched around 7 home games with closest pursuers Cleveland and Minnesota.
2. Los Angeles (52-36), 1st in AL West by 5 over Texas.
Remaining games: 74 (38 away, 36 home.)
Opponents: Chicago 3, Boston 7, Minnesota 4, Baltimore 6, New York 7, Texas 6, Oakland 13, Toronto 6, Detroit 4, Seattle 9, Tampa Bay 9.
Finished with: Cleveland, Kansas City.
Strength of schedule, all opponents: -52 (11th)
September opponents: -4 (8th)
Final two weeks (Tex, TB, at Oak, at Tex): -59 (13th)
Critical stretch: September roadtrip to Boston, Chicago, and Seattle can win them the West with a successful run and give them a look at two possible postseason opponents.
3. Boston (49-38), 1st in AL East by 2 over Baltimore.
Remaining games: 75 (32 away, 43 home.)
Opponents: Chicago 7, Los Angeles 7, Minnesota 6, Baltimore 6, New York 10, Texas 3, Oakland 4, Toronto 7, Detroit 6, Kansas City 6, Tampa Bay 13.
Finished with: Cleveland, Seattle.
Strength of schedule, all opponents: -111 (12th)
September opponents: +31 (7th)
Final two weeks (at TB, at Bal, Tor, NY): -60 (14th)
Critical stretch: They can bury the rest of the East with a successful long August/September homestand featuring Detroit, Tampa Bay, Baltimore, and Los Angeles.
4. Minnesota (48-38), 2nd in AL Central by 2 over Cleveland, leads wild card by 1 ½ over Baltimore.
Remaining games: 76 (39 away, 37 home.)
Opponents: Chicago 13, Los Angeles 4, Boston 6, Baltimore 3, New York 3, Texas 6, Cleveland 6, Oakland 10, Detroit 11, Seattle 7, Kansas City 7.
Finished with: Toronto, Tampa Bay.
Strength of schedule, all opponents: +341 (3rd)
September opponents: +133 (6th)
Final two weeks (at Oak, at Chi, KC, Det): +1 (9th)
Critical stretch: If they are to challenge Chicago, they need to do well on a late July roadtrip to Detroit, New York, and Boston. Detroit’s series is a 5 game series due to an early snowout.
5. Baltimore (47-40), 2nd in AL East by ½ over New York.
Remaining games: 75 (41 away, 34 home.)
Opponents: Chicago 4, Los Angeles 6, Boston 6, Minnesota 3, New York 8, Texas 10, Cleveland 3, Oakland 7, Toronto 9, Seattle 7, Tampa Bay 12.
Finished with: Detroit, Kansas City.
Strength of schedule, all opponents: -22 (10th)
September opponents: -93 (13th)
Final two weeks (at NY, Bos, NY, at TB): -18 (10th)
Critical stretch: The Orioles have been in a freefall since June. They must do well on a post-All Star game cross-country trip to Seattle, Minnesota, and Tampa Bay. They have three other west coast trips in this half (LA/Tex, Oak/Cle, Sea/Tex). Less than .500 on these and Baltimore’s hopes are about done.
6. New York (46-40), 3rd in AL East by 3 over Toronto.
Remaining games: 76 (43 away, 33 home.)
Opponents: Chicago 6, Los Angeles 7, Boston 10, Minnesota 3, Baltimore 8, Texas 7, Cleveland 3, Oakland 3, Toronto 13, Seattle 4, Kansas City 3, Tampa Bay 9.
Finished with: Detroit.
Strength of schedule, all opponents: +125 (7th)
September opponents: -73 (12th)
Final two weeks (Bal, Tor, at Bal, at Bos): +89 (2nd)
Critical stretch: The Yankees play their last 26 games within their division. They also have a big trip west (to Texas and LA) after the Boston series at Fenway coming out of the All-Star break.
7. Texas (46-40), 2nd in AL West by 2 ½ over Oakland.
Remaining games: 76 (40 away, 36 home.)
Opponents: Chicago 4, Los Angeles 6, Boston 3, Minnesota 6, Baltimore 10, New York 7, Cleveland 3, Oakland 14, Toronto 3, Seattle 10, Kansas City 4, Tampa Bay 6.
Finished with: Detroit.
Strength of schedule, all opponents: +49 (9th)
September opponents: -18 (9th)
Final two weeks (at LA, at Oak, at Sea, LA): +72 (4th)
Critical stretch: Two - roadtrip in August to Boston, New York, Cleveland, and Tampa Bay; and the final roadtrip facing their other 3 AL West opponents. The August roadtrip is against several wild card competitors.
8. Cleveland (47-41), 3rd in AL Central by 4 over Detroit.
Remaining games: 74 (33 away, 41 home.)
Opponents: Chicago 10, Minnesota 6, Baltimore 3, New York 3, Texas 3, Oakland 6, Toronto 3, Detroit 9, Seattle 7, Kansas City 14, Tampa Bay 10.
Finished with: Los Angeles, Boston.
Strength of schedule, all opponents: -386 (14th)
September opponents: -63 (11th)
Final two weeks (at Chi, at KC, TB, Chi): -39 (11th)
Critical stretch: With 43 games remaining (of the 74) against the 5 teams with records .500 or below, the only critical thing is avoiding injuries.
9. Oakland (44-43), 3rd in AL West by 5 over Seattle.
Remaining games: 75 (37 away, 38 home.)
Opponents: Los Angeles 13, Boston 4, Minnesota 10, Baltimore 7, New York 3, Texas 14, Cleveland 6, Detroit 6, Seattle 6, Kansas City 6.
Finished with: Chicago, Toronto, Tampa Bay.
Strength of schedule, all opponents: +311 (5th)
September opponents: +156 (5th)
Final two weeks (Min, Tex, LA, at Sea): +85 (3rd)
Critical stretch: 33 games against division opponents and two long eastern swings (Detroit, Baltimore, and Los Angeles in August; and Texas, Cleveland, and Boston in September.)
10. Toronto (44-44), 4th in AL East by 16 ½ over Tampa Bay.
Remaining games: 74 (32 away, 42 home.)
Opponents: Chicago 3, Los Angeles 6, Boston 7, Baltimore 9, New York 13, Texas 3, Cleveland 3, Detroit 7, Seattle 7, Kansas City 6, Tampa Bay 10.
Finished with: Minnesota, Oakland.
Strength of schedule, all opponents: -135 (13th)
September opponents: -181 (14th)
Final two weeks (Sea, at NY, at Bos, KC): -55 (12th)
Critical stretch: They need to put the hammer down with 20 of 26 games coming out of the All-Star break at home. If not, they have to survive a fearsome travel trip in August to Baltimore, Los Angeles, back east to Detroit, then New York. But they get cake in September.
11. DETROIT (41-44), 4th in AL Central by 12 ½ over Kansas City.
Remaining games: 76 (36 away, 40 home.)
Opponents: Chicago 11, Los Angeles 4, Boston 6, Minnesota 11, Cleveland 9, Oakland 6, Toronto 7, Seattle 9, Kansas City 13.
Finished with: Baltimore, New York, Texas, Tampa Bay.
Strength of schedule, all opponents: +186 (6th)
September opponents: +177 (T - 2nd)
Final two weeks (at KC, Sea, Chi, at Min): +34 (7th)
Critical stretch: I dunno, seems like we’re chugging uphill the whole way. No chances to make up ground directly with Baltimore, New York, or Texas anymore.
12. Seattle (39-48), 4th in AL West.
Remaining games: 75 (36 away, 39 home.)
Opponents: Chicago 6, Los Angeles 9, Minnesota 7, Baltimore 7, New York 4, Texas 10, Cleveland 7, Oakland 6, Toronto 7, Detroit 9, Kansas City 3.
Finished with: Boston, Tampa Bay.
Strength of schedule, all opponents: +464 (1st)
September opponents: +159 (4th)
Final two weeks (at Tor, at Det, Tex, Oak): +15 (8th)
Critical stretch: All but the last 2 ½ weeks, when they finally get some mediocre teams to play.
13. Kansas City (30-57), 5th in AL Central.
Remaining games: 75 (40 away, 35 home.)
Opponents: Chicago 9, Boston 6, Minnesota 7, New York 3, Texas 4, Cleveland 14, Oakland 6, Toronto 6, Detroit 13, Seattle 3, Tampa Bay 4.
Finished with: Los Angeles, Baltimore.
Strength of schedule, all opponents: +335 (4th)
September opponents: +262 (1st)
Final two weeks (Det, Cle, at Min, at Tor) +58 (6th)
Critical stretch: To avoid 100 losses, being close to .500 in the 21 games after the All-Star break would be a help. 2-4 against Chicago and Boston is acceptable, the other opponents being Cleveland, Detroit, Toronto, and Tampa Bay.
14. Tampa Bay (28-61), 5th in AL East. Worst record in baseball, 3 games behind Kansas City.
Remaining games: 73 (38 away, 35 home.)
Opponents: Los Angeles 9, Boston 13, Baltimore 12, New York 9, Texas 6, Cleveland 10, Toronto 10, Kansas City 4.
Finished with: Chicago, Minnesota, Oakland, Detroit, Seattle.
Strength of schedule, all opponents: +440 (2nd)
September opponents: +177 (T- 2nd)
Final two weeks: (Bos, at LA, at Cle, Bal) +120 (1st)
Critical stretch: Pity the poor Devil Rays. After August 1, when Kansas City leaves town, they don’t see another team currently under .500 the rest of the season. In fact, that 4 game series with Kansas City is all they see of bottom-feeders. An 11-62 finish isn’t so unlikely.
To be fair to the NL readers, I also did a quick run on their reamining games. In order from most difficult to easiest NL schedules:
1. Florida: 76 games, +149 (aggregate games from .500)
2. New York: 74 games, +94
3. Houston: 75 games, +61
4. Philadelphia: 73 games, +10
5. Washington: 74 games, -22
6. Cincinnati: 74 games, -32
7. Milwaukee: 74 games, -49
8. Atlanta: 73 games, -88
9. Chicago: 75 games, -91
10. Colorado: 75 games, -150
11. San Francisco: 75 games, -159
12. St. Louis: 74 games, -176
13. Pittsburgh: 75 games, -199
14. Arizona: 72 games, -234
15. Los Angeles: 74 games, -298
16. San Diego: 73 games, -310
Easy to see that playing a lot of games against the pitiful NL West buries your schedule ranking. One would have to say that the schedule favors Atlanta to reel in Washington in the NL East, St. Louis in an NL Central cakewalk, and San Diego maintaining the NL West lead. And the wild card may come from out there if a second team can manhandle that division - it appears the NL East and Central will beat each other up quite a bit.
Now, next time, it's back to the right-wing conspiracy. Needed a break but there's issues out there to address. It was my little All-Star break, now it'll be back to "work."
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