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September 24, 2007

Pajamas Media vs. The Mainstream

Many in the blogosphere are buzzing over Edward Driscoll, Jr's article talking about the birth of the objective media. He writes about how the mass media, the mainstream media, lost touch with Americans. It outlines when, where, and how the mainstream media got lost, and how others worked against them -- culminating with the expansion of blogs and internet news. He makes guesses at the future and how even the word "blogs" will become useless, as information continues to move to the internet and allows all voices to be heard.

Of course, any discussion of this type would be incomplete without a mention of "Rathergate" -- and he mentions it as well. He also makes mention of the "pajamas blogger" that got much of this movement moving.

However, at the same time, one of the largest organizations that might be considered "anti-mainstream," Pajamas Media, has made a move in the opposite direction. Pajamas media has recently announced that they apparently don't like that various candidates that they apparently don't agree with are winning their online polls (and not just Ron Paul, either). Therefore, Pajamas Media has decided to only include candidates that have been "approved" by the mainstream media -- they will no longer allow so-called "second tier" candidates in their poll.

I have run this poll on my blog. However, it is no longer there. I realize that I generated just a few votes a week for their poll, but they've joined with the mainstream media in shutting out Republican voices with which I agree. Pajamas Media claims that they're doing this because people "lost interest" in voting in their poll. Well now that their poll is exactly like every other mainstream media poll, I'm not sure how that's going to increase anyone's interest.

Congratulations, Pajamas Media. You have become so big and so successful that it appears that you have now joined the mainstream media that was the reason for your creation.

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NC Train Thugs

More harassment from the train system in North Carolina. The news report is about how the NC Railroad Company is bullying small businesses (taxpayers) -- showing up and demanding that the business owners give them cash or else. At one time, it was a crime to show up at a person's place of business and demand cash. Apparently in North Carolina, that's no longer a crime.

The Railroad company is claiming they own property that they haven't owned for over a hundred years. But now they're claiming it and want cash. And no, they don't care who they uproot or upset, including threatening business owners in front of their children.

So, why does the Railroad company -- oh wait, who is this company? It's the state government. Officially, it's a "private company," but it's 100% owned by the state government. Therefore it IS the state demanding these cash payments and making threats if they're not paid. By why now? Because rail travel is a losing business! Trains are a 19th century invention -- they're not feasible now! I don't care how much you like them, they're simply NOT part of the 21st century economy. The ONLY way these things can continue to run is because people are forced at gunpoint to pay for them, even when they don't want them.

Want to see how bad it really is? The North Carolina Railroad company last year spend $8.37 million in operating expenses. They brought in less than $1.67 million from operations. ANY business that had expenses FIVE TIMES income would collapse -- only a state-sponsored, worthless, useless business could continue to exist under such circumstances.

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September 22, 2007

Cart Crash

This is what "free range carts" are capable of:

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MORE NC Cash for "Arts"

Remember the Democrats in the General Assembly who simply cannot find enough cash to repair the sorry roads in North Carolina? Remember the ones who claim there's not enough money to widen roads that are full of traffic? Remember the ones who just have cut the budget to the bone? They're the same ones giving away $10,000 to anyone who wants to take pictures.

Oh, but you can rest assured that it doesn't just cost the working man $10,000. An "arts council" will oversee the applicants -- and gee, they're not going to do that for free. So what's the money for? Whatever you want. Seriously. If you win this cash (and heck, I might apply just to see if I can get it), you can spend it on whatever you want related to film. I could buy a new camera, buy studio equipment, market myself, whatever -- it's free cash.

Aren't you glad you worked hard to earn money so that the Democrats in the North Carolina General Assembly could take it and give it to people who want to take pictures?

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September 21, 2007

Dry Forests

It really is that dry here in Western North Carolina.

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Underwear Ad

So, doesn't this just make you want to run out and buy a pair of these?

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And The Cat Came Back

For those who are new visitors to Ogre's Politics and Views, welcome to Friday! The schedule here is pretty standard -- in the mornings there's posts about North Carolina State government. In the late mornings and early afternoons, commentary about national politics or other issues. In the later afternoons, something a little lighter.

Then, on Fridays, we start with the silliness a bit earlier. If you've had a bad week, hopefully I can make you smile. So without further delay, The Cat Came Back (with more general sillines coming later this afternoon):

A man absolutely hated his wife's cat and decided to get rid of him one day by driving him 20 blocks from his home and leaving him at the park.

As he was getting home, the cat was walking up the driveway.

The next day he decided to drive the cat 40 blocks away. He put the beast out and headed home.

Driving back up his driveway, there was the cat!

He kept taking the cat further and further and the cat would always beat him home. At last he decided to drive a few miles away, turn right, then left, past the bridge, then right again and another right until he reached what he thought was a safe distance from his home and left the cat there.

Hours later the man calls home to his wife: "Jen, is the cat there?"

"Yes," the wife answers, "why do you ask?"

Frustrated, the man answered, "Put that bum on the phone, I'm lost! and need directions!"

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Republican Congressman from MA?

I got this note from some folks that are trying to do the impossible -- get a Republican elected to Congress in Massachusetts. I honestly don't think it's possible, even when you consider Republicans like Romney got elected there. But is a moderate Republican better than a moderate Democrat? Some would say yes. I'm not sure. So check this fellow out -- you might want to support him:

Meet Lt. Col. Jim Ogonowski (Ret.), the Republican candidate running in the October 16th special election in Massachusetts' 5th district. Jim is a 28-year veteran of the Air Force and Air National Guard. On September 11th, 2001, Jim's brother John was the pilot of hijacked American Airlines Flight 11, the second plane to hit the World Trade Center. Ever since, Jim has dedicated himself to helping John's family, and no w works his brother's farm.
A SurveyUSA/WBZ-TV poll out last week shows Jim behind by just 10 points -- 51-41 percent. That's remarkable in a state that hasn't elected a Republican to Congress in over a decade! What makes this even more incredible is the fact that Jim's Democrat opponent is the well-known wife of a late U.S. Senator.
You need to watch Jim's TV ads to understand the tremendous appeal he has in this race. And once you have, will you chip in $25, $50, or $100 through Rightroots to keep Jim going all the way through Election Day?
http://www.RightRoots.com/Ogonowski
This race is winnable if Jim gets the resources he needs to stay competitive. This is a district that only went for John Kerry by 7 points in the last Presidential election and where Democratic governor Deval Patrick was held to 50% in 2006 despite winning the state overwhelmingly. Polls show Jim winning with independent voters 46-39% -- and that's 51% of all the district's voters. All the ingredients are in place for a stunning upset -- and now Jim needs our generous support to carry him across the finish line.
Taking back a Congressional seat in the bluest of blue states would simply stun the liberal media and show that the GOP is alive and well heading into to 2008.

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The Jenna Six?

Okay, after watching the reports of yesterday in Jenna, LA, here's what apparently was going on according to the people who attended:

It was a great day

Great!

it was also a lot of fun. I met great people and made some good friends.

Sounds like a good time.

It was a big event for us

That's good.

We got matching T-shirts and drove all night. It's exciting

Can't be fun without a T-shirt!

We want to make sure everyone has a good time and is safe.

A safe, good time, was had by all.

It's been a very peaceful and happy crowd. Really these are very, very nice people

Excellent. Happy people is good.

So, does anyone else think this sounded like a calm Woodstock celebration? Sounds like everyone gathered together and hung out for a day. Everyone had a good time. Great.

Once again, I ask, what in the world is all this about? Oh, this was supposed to be a "protest?" Wow.

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Charlotte Baggy Pants Ban

Yes, Charlotte, the city that wants to be a "big city" wants to join the "big boys" -- and is considering the baggy pants ban. As of the time I'm writing this, the internet poll is showing people support this type of ban by a 2:1 margin.

Oh, please, let them ban these things. However, as soon as the ban goes into place, I'm going to need to get one of you to come with me to Charlotte and man the camera. I'm going to hang out on the steps of various police departments and city hall with my underwear pulled up to my chest. I really want them to attempt to give me a ticket for that. Oh, and I won't be carrying ID. And you can bet I'll exercise my right to remain silent. I really want to see how far they'll go to enforce this sort of ban. I bet if they pass it that I go to jail for wearing improper undergarments. Hey, Oddy, need a new client?

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September 20, 2007

SUV Sign

I just found out from an insider that when you buy a big SUV, they give you special glasses. Those glasses enable only SUV drivers to see special signs like this one:

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The Jenna Six

Can anyone explain what the heck is going on in Jena today? Here's the facts as I have been able to find them:

1. Some kids put up a few tiny nooses on a tree.

No crime was committed, according to the law, and the students who put up the nooses were punished and suspended for two days.

2. "Racial" tensions flared and there were fights and burnings (wait, was Mohammed offended?).

One student punched another student and was charged with battery and was suspended.

3. In apparent "retaliation," a group of 6 kids ganged up on, beat up, and stomped on another kid. Those 6 were charged with battery. One of those 6 had a prior criminal record and was charged as an adult.

I'm really not quite sure what everyone's complaining about.

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Charlotte School Depopulation

Liberals in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School system are trumpeting their needs -- for your cash. Despite their wild guess of projected enrollments, the increase in school enrollment was much, much less than they had anticipated. Of course, that doesn't mean they don't "need" more of your money. They're very upset that they might have to return millions of dollars to state (so they need more of your tax money locally). I expect that a "recount" of enrollment numbers will net some more students (guess they forgot to count all of 'em).

What's even more interesting is how the educrats who live off taxpayers' backs continue to explain that despite having 40% less students than they thought, they continue to claim that there's more so they need more -- and all "projections" into the future continue to be based on wild guesses -- all with high estimates, of course (because they need your money).

Even more interesting is that those who support massive schools, expansive government, socialist systems, light rail, smart growth, and other left liberal ideas for Charlotte, love to compare themselves to Portland, OR as their utopia. Making Charlotte exactly like Portland is an open, stated goal of these socialists. Of course, any problems in Portland won't be duplicated because the "right" people haven't been in charge.

But compare the reality of Portland vs. Charlotte and schools:

The Coming Depopulation of Charlotte's Schools
By Warren Smith
COMMENTARY--Timothy Egan caused a stir with his recent profile of Portland in the "New York Times." Portland, you may know, is a city that Charlotte's leaders have visited and sometimes say they want to imitate - especially when it comes to urban planning, "smart growth," and rapid transit. It's a city that has been successful at attracting what the cognoscenti are now calling the "creative class." Supposedly, these are the folk Charlotte needs to attract if we are to remain a vibrant, economically thriving city.
Egan's article highlighted Portland's attractions for the beautiful people. "The Pearl District in the heart of this perpetually self-improving city," Egan wrote, "seems to have everything in new urban design and comfort, from the Whole Foods store where fresh-buffed bell peppers are displayed like runway models to the converted lofts that face sidewalk gardens."
Everything, Egan concedes, "except children."
"Crime is down. New homes and businesses are sprouting everywhere. But in what may be Portland's trendiest and fastest-growing neighborhood, the number of school-age children grew by only three between the census counts in 1990 and 2000, according to demographers at Portland State University," he wrote.
Egan then comes to a conclusion that Charlotte should heed: "Portland is one of the nation's top draws for the kind of educated, self-starting urbanites that midsize cities are competing to attract. But as these cities are remodeled to match the tastes of people living well in neighborhoods that were nearly abandoned a generation ago, they are struggling to hold on to enough children to keep schools running and parks alive with young voices."
One of the main reasons for this childless Utopia is the price of housing. According to Egan, San Francisco, with its Silicon Valley chic, is the very poster child of the New Economy to which Charlotte aspires. But it has a median house price of about $700,000 - and the lowest percentage of people under 18 of any large city in the nation, 14.5 percent. That compares to 25.7 percent nationwide, according to the 2000 census.
Could this happen to Charlotte? Not only could it happen, it probably will. Nationally, the birthrate has dropped to the point that our current birth rate is barely above what demographers call the "replacement rate." America's population has shown modest growth over the past few decades, but almost all of that growth has been because of longer life spans, not more children. In fact, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of school-aged children in America is expected to fall significantly over the next 10 years, and possibly precipitously over the next 30 years.
And now, our leaders want us to spend more than $400-million on new schools, claiming that Charlotte's school population will grow by 50,000 over the next decade. Of course, it's possible that the population of Charlotte's school-aged children could grow while the rest of the nation's population goes down, but only in the dreams of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools officials could growth be this much. Indeed, even if the Charlotte region does grow, it is much more likely that most of the families with children will be moving to Cabarrus, Union, York, Iredell, and Gaston counties - where both land prices and taxes are significantly lower.
In Portland, not only are they not building schools, they're shutting them down. Egan closed his article with the story of Kenton Elementary School, which for 91 years had been an integral part of the city's north side. Egan penned a poignant requiem for this school. "But now the school will be shuttered," he wrote, "and improvements from Portland's beloved light rail line have contributed to rising real estate prices, defeating the broad goals of the mayor's effort to bring and keep young families in the city."
Could it happen here? It is happening here. Indeed, the next time you hear a proponent of light rail, the "creative class," or "smart growth" say we should look at Portland, don't argue with them. Just make sure that when they tell the story of Portland, they tell the whole story.
Warren Smith is the publisher of The Charlotte World. He can be reached at warren.smith@thecharlotteworld.com

Me, I love "shrinking" schools -- because if they cost less, then I have to pay less taxes, right? I know, I'm dreaming. If socialists/Democrats would even consider reality for a minute, they'd see they're headed down a path to destruction. Socialism fails every single time it's tried. Why can't they understand?

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Observer: Taxes are Good

As the day gets closer for voters to decide in Mecklenburg County if they like giving piles of cash to rich people so they can buy toys, the Charlotte Observer lines up with those rich people to demand MORE cash from people who work. Keep in mind: government has zero cash and produces nothing. ANYTHING government does, they do with money they take from people who actually produce and earn it.

Mary Schulken writes today about how wonderful it is for government to spend money. She tries to take the position that the issue is just too confusing because there's hard things (numbers) involved. So instead, in her "editorial," she strongly, strongly supports higher taxes (more is better) -- and isn't beyond lying to promote those higher taxes.

Miss Schulken claims:

Should Charlotte-Mecklenburg repeal the tax voters approved eight years ago as the primary funding source for a long-range plan of comprehensive mass transportation?

Know what? That's not true. It's simply not true at all. When the tax was passed, it was a limited tax that was supposed to raise a little bit of cash to build a train. That's it. Since that time, the cost of the train system has increased by somewhere in the range of 600%. Oh, and the money that was supposed to be used for trains? It's not -- it's being spent on buses and, well, whatever else uptown rich people want but don't want to pay for.

She does notice that 65% of that tax is now being spent on buses -- although it was never supposed to be spent on buses. Of course, as with most socialists, she claims that the problems of the past (the south corridor line with overruns) are in the past and shouldn't be used to judge, well, anything. And to continue the repeated socialist lines she says:

The thing is, we'll never know whether the transit plan will work if we don't give it time. We're still at the beginning.

So all they need is MORE money and MORE time, and the right people in charge, and we will have utopia here on earth. And then, to really top off the lovely leftist logic, after complaining at the start of the article about how she's getting too many numbers and facts, she actually says:

we don't have enough information to decide it ought to halt in its tracks.

Mary, you've got TONS of information if you'd just take a look around! You're getting bombarded with information -- she just apparently doesn't like the information and facts because they don't agree with her vision of more spending, more government, and less freedom.

This editorial is nothing more than a puff piece designed as part of the overall strategy of the socialists and elitists who rule Charlotte to get suckers (that's you, the taxpayer) to voluntarily give lots and lots more cash to them so they can spend it. They've got things they want to buy, and they don't want to pay for them -- so they're willing to use the power of government to take the money from you.

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September 19, 2007

Pirate Keyboard

I wonder if Teach has one of these for today?

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New Cell Phone Design

How about a new cell phone?

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Victory in Iraq

Various presidential candidates are campaigning, telling the people that they will not support leaving Iraq until we achieve victory. Others are talking about leaving "with honor." The question I don't hear asked is, "What will that look like?"

How will we know when we've "won?" Will there be total peace in Iraq? Heck, we can't get that in any city in America. Will there be no terrorists? How would we know? Would there be a police force that has total control over it's citizens? Isn't that where we started?

Seriously, I'm wondering -- have you seen any candidate, anywhere, outline exactly what victory in Iraq will look like? Or do you have any ideas, personally, of what that might be?

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Hillary Care II, Part B: Enforcement

Well, it seems that Hillary won't arrest me for refusing her demand to buy health insurance. At least, not yet. Instead, at least right now, she's planning on making it a requirement for work to show proof of insurance. Keep in mind, however, her words were:

At this point, we don't have anything punitive that we have proposed

In other words, she can't sell throwing people in jail and killing them for refusing to buy insurance yet, but she's not ruling out doing that in the future. I still look forward to the day I get arrested and shot for refusing to spend my money as President Hillary Clinton dictates.

But with her requirement for employment, can you see the total chaos coming? Isn't it a "requirement" to have a social security number for employment? How many people are employed without one today? By recent estimates, as many as 30 million! And how many companies are punished for breaking this law today? None! So since companies already get no punishment for breaking one law, what makes anyone think they'll obey another, similar law?

Hillary Clinton, barring some unseen circumstances, is going to be the next president of the United States. And she IS going to bring it to it's knees with her health care plans. Perhaps by that time I'll be in New Hampshire, joining many others in civil disobedience.

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NC Legislature Incompetent

In case you hadn't noticed by the various posts on this blog, the Democrat-led North Carolina legislature is just utterly fiscally incompetent. They're clearly not capable of doing their job. And they can't be voted out because they draw legislative districts to ensure that no matter what people want, they will be re-elected. And if the people don't vote for them, they just change the rules.

And now, they've admitted that they're utterly incapable of doing one of the very few things they should be doing. While they're spending money on massive, massive corporate welfare, competing with one another to see who can give away MORE to huge corporations, they're showing that they cannot do something simple, like build roads.

The legislature collects millions of dollars in taxes and fees to use for roads. Each year the Democrats vote to take money out of that fund and to throw it in the general fund, where they can pay off their corporate donors. Now they're admitting that they cannot build the roads -- they've given permission to counties to build roads. Of course, they're not giving the counties $1 to help them build the roads -- they're just giving permission to counties to do their job for them because they're just not capable of doing their own job.

Keep electing those Democrats in NC -- if they raise taxes enough your car might get to drive on a road that doesn't knock your front end out of alignment within a day of getting it aligned. But that's not going to happen any time soon.

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September 18, 2007

Patreaus Truth

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