Saturday, December 29, 2012

Happy New Year.........2013

Thanks for making 2012 a great blogging year.
See you after January 1.

JIM

Sunday, December 23, 2012

MERRY CHRISTMAS, HAPPY HOLIDAYS


Another year, another Christmas.  They seem to come quicker as we get older!

Thanks to everyone for making this blog a success.  Although I have been writing it since 2005, the five year period between December 2006 and December 2011 was the AZ Central era where I met most of you loyal readers.

Unfortunately, AZ Central decided to be edited by Facebook at the end of 2011 and that essentially ended the blogs as we knew them.

As most of you know, I have continued doing blogs the same way I did them before AZ Central got involved.   To my delight, the blog has grown in popularity more than I believed it could.

By writing about several subjects over the years, I have received hits from around the world.  There aren't many key words that go into Google that won't send people my way.  If I had to name the blog that gets the most hits, it would have to be the one I did in November, 2008 about kids growing up too fast.  Number two would probably be the one about Alfred Hitchcock and the making of Psycho in 1959.

I now average well over 100 comments per blog. I thank everyone for their participation and wish Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all as we head into 2013.

Saturday, December 15, 2012

PERUSING DRUDGE, 12-15-2012


A good enough response by Obama to the Newtown killings but he blew it with the fake tears.  C’mon, BO, you can do better than that.  You should have had stooge Carney wave an onion in front of you to get some real tears.  Your face was as dry as the AZ desert in July. 

Maybe since BO accepted border guard Brian Terry’s death without tears a couple years ago and thousands of abortions do not bother him, his PR guys felt he better try to look a bit more emotional this time even if it meant imaginary tears.

The founder of Domino's Pizza is suing the federal government over mandatory contraception coverage in the new health care law:

FROM THE AP:  Tom Monaghan, a devout Roman Catholic, says contraception is not health care and instead is a "gravely immoral" practice. He's a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed Friday in federal court, along with his Domino's Farms, which runs an office park near Ann Arbor.

Monaghan offers health insurance that excludes contraception and abortion for employees. The new law requires employers to offer insurance that includes contraception coverage or risk fines. The government says the contraception mandate benefits women and their role in society. There are similar lawsuits pending across the country.

This is really stupid.  Is the cost of contraception so expensive that it has to be covered by insurance?  How much can birth control pills and rubbers cost?  Also, “the contraception mandate benefits women and their role in society.”  What kind of phony liberal nonsense thought that up?  Women will be better citizens if insurance money pays for their sexual adventures?  Please tell me this foolishness is not happening in what used to be the greatest country on earth.  Good luck to Mr. Monaghan.

This has to be the quote of the week:  Tiny Mission College in California (where else?) has added a 50 year old, 6 foot 6 inch, 220 pound transsexual to its woman's basketball team comprised of girls 18, 19, and 20.  

Gabrielle Ludwig wants to be the first person to play college basketball as a man and a woman.
Needless to say, there has been a lot of controversy over this as one would expect except maybe Gabrielle who commented:  “I don’t want to be a distraction to the team.”  What?  Do you mean that this is not an every day event in basketball?  Well, maybe in California.

The Washington Redskins of the NFL have a great black quarterback in Robert Griffin III.  I watched him against the NY Giants a couple weeks ago and the guy can run like Emmett Smith and throw like Aaron Rodgers.  He also is not interested in being referred to by the color of his skin.  He wants to be defined by his work ethic.

That sounds like a real stand up guy to me.  Unfortunately some second string  columnist named Rob Parker does not agree with Griffin’s ideology.  Parker, who is black, wants to know if Griffin is a “brother” or just a “cornball brother”, whatever that means.

Parker teeters back and forth evaluating how “black” Griffin is and whether he is “not really down with the cause” or “not one of us”.   He says “We all know he has a white fiancĂ© and there was this talk that he is a Republican.”

Oh, my God!  Griffin might be a Republican and have a white fiancĂ©?  Mr. Parker  is clueless and is an embarrassment.      
                                Finally, a well dressed shopper in an Alaska Walmart!
                                (photo courtesy Ed Brown)

Saturday, December 08, 2012

COLLEGE BOWL GAMES HAVE BECOME A SHAM


We live in a soft society where kids are taught that everyone is a winner.  Kid’s soccer teams don’t keep score because it might be “hurtful” to be on the losing team.  Everybody gets a trophy just for participating and everyone goes home feeling special.
Unfortunately, that type of thinking is not reality.  There are always going to be winners and losers.  Someone will always be better than the others regardless of how kids are coddled into thinking otherwise.  My advice is to deal with it.
A good example of receiving undeserved rewards is the college football bowl lineup for this year.  It used to be that a team had to have a good record of wins over losses to earn a coveted spot in a bowl.  Today? Not so much.
In the case of college sports it is more a case of greed than worrying about feelings.  The players are old enough to realize that all the coddling nonsense they got as kids about everyone being equal is silly.  Now, it’s a case of putting on a bloated show for someone to make a buck.
I remember when if a team lost more than two games they could forget about being bowl bound. But, in those days there were  not 34 bowls like there are now. 
The A-list bowls were the Orange, Cotton, Sugar, and Rose.  There were a few secondary bowls:  The Tangerine Bowl in Orlando, the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, and the Sun bowl in El Paso.   Even those bowls usually required schools to have no more than three losses.
This year’s bowl lineup shows that teams can be actually awarded for ineptitude.  There is some justice though that some of these schools are being sent to bowls with names like The Belk Bowl, whatever that is.
Zurlon Tipton scores for Central Michigan as 
fans disguised as seats look on.
The Belk Bowl will match my old alma mater, Cincinnati (9-3) vs. the mighty Duke Blue Devils who boast a 6-6 record that includes losses by scores of 50-13, 41-20, 48-7, 56-20, 42-24, and 52-45.  It seems like the toilet bowl would be more suitable for Duke.
There are ten other teams with 6-6 records that will be going to bowls with names like the Little Caesar’s Pizza Bowl in Detroit, the Russell Athletic Bowl, the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl in Tempe, and the Heart of Dallas Bowl.

I wonder if I can still get tickets to that Little Caesar’s Bowl.  I have always wanted to see Central Michigan (6-6) play Western Kentucky (7-5) on the day after Christmas in a garden spot like Detroit in winter.   Let’s see; where did I put my .38?
ASU and U of A are both 7-5 and going to insignificant bowls.  With their records they certainly have as much right to a bowl as the 6-6 guys but when I watched Oregon beat ASU 43-21 in a game that could have been 100-0, I wonder how good these guys are.  It was men against boys that night.
The same goes for U of A:  They lost to Oregon 49-0 and UCLA 66-10.  Are those the kind of games that earn a bowl trip?  It will be interesting to see how many trudge to Albuquerque on December 19 to watch them play the mighty Nevada Wolf Pack.
What is my favorite bowl game?  It has to be the BBVA Compass Bowl in Birmingham, Alabama where Pittsburgh (6-6) plays Mississippi (6-6).   The only appropriate score of that one should be 0-0.

Sunday, December 02, 2012

OBAMA DOESN'T WANT TO BARGAIN? REPUBS SHOULD CALL HIS BLUFF!

So, now the left and the right are slugging it out over the “fiscal cliff”.

President Obama and a good chunk of Democrats want to raise taxes on the nation’s highest earners even though the increase wouldn't amount to a hill of beans. Though the president says he also wants to have a conversation about reforming entitlements, he hasn’t put any type of proposal on paper. Nor is the president or his party interested in serious spending cuts, aside from cuts to the Department of Defense, something Republicans argue would hurt our national security muscle in a time when we need it the most.  Charles Krauthammer says it all with “Robert E. Lee was offered easier terms at Appomattox, and he lost the Civil War.” 

At the same time, Republicans have put forth plans to tackle the biggest driver of our debt—entitlements—and even had a presidential ticket that ran on those reforms. The House of Representatives has passed some version of these plans and Speaker John Boehner has adopted a Mitt Romney idea to eliminate certain deductions in order to raise revenue to pay down our debt. Raising taxes, however—on anyone—is not an option, they say. Unless one side caves, we’re slated to dive off the so-called "cliff" in December.

So why don’t Republicans just get out of the way and let it happen? It sounds crazy, but there is a case to be made.

Let Democrats bring a bill to increase spending on what Obama calls a second stimulus, raise taxes on high earners (including many small businesses) without doing a thing to fix Medicare and Social Security for current and future generations. Republicans can take a page of Obama’s playbook and vote present as he did when he was a senator. When the nation falls off the fiscal cliff, he can own it.

The tax increases that happen will be the Obama tax increases. When spending spikes, it can be the Obama tax and spend plan. And if we slide into recession with 9% unemployment and millions more out of work, as the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicts will happen, it will be the Obama recession. In other words, it's time for the right to call Obama's bluff.  Is he so hard headed as to risk his legacy because of his bloated ego?

Many who voted for Obama, especially low income people, would be hit the hardest.  A single unemployed person making $10,000 per year would see a tax hike of 55.2%.  An average married couple making $20,000 to $30,000 per year would see their taxes go from a $15 refund to paying $1,408.

If a majority of the country elected Obama to four more years in the White House, then let them have it their way without GOP support.  Perhaps our nation needs to dive off the cliff in order to realize how dire our debt problem really is.  Then maybe they'll support real change.

Plus, Republicans will get blamed anyway and probably get swept in 2014. The president’s current public relations tour across country on the fiscal cliff is designed for that exact purpose. It’s much easier than leading.

So, when January 2 arrives bringing whatever changes it may bring, Obama has plans to be in Hawaii vacationing for three weeks at a cost to taxpayers of $4 million.  This will be interesting.

Portions of the above courtesy of Andrea Tantaros