March 28th, 2012: Tebow, The Supreme Court, Stossel, Ichiro and the Cleveland Waterfront

I love the way Tebow approaches his faith as a football player. For one, it’s clear his lifestyle is different than the non-Christian. He is not afraid to speak of his faith, but he understands the idea of time and place. On the other hand, he knows he has a platform and will use it when it makes sense. The chief example of this was the focus on the family ad a few years ago. The best example of him being a good Christian is how he is respected by his teammates. It’s something we all can learn from.
 

Drudge: Justices poised to strike down entire healthcare law (LA Times)
 

I think you do have to throw out the baby with the bathwater here. It is true there are good things in this bill. Still, it was created as a whole under a paradigm that if struck down, can’t stand. The congress can then go back and work under the framework as established by the court. This is going to be painful to some, but I think it’s the best way to do it. Otherwise, you have the court with basically a legislative power.
 

RCP: Job Killers by John Stossel
 

Stossel makes the classic case why big gov’t regulation stinks. He is right, it gets in the way of the job creators in most cases. Some of it is good, but most of it is bad. It’s a horrible thing when big business has to spend tons of money walking the minefield of regulations. Small business? Well usually they are just screwed.  The gov’t kills many more jobs than they create with regulations.
 

Y! Sports: Ichiro Suzuki a hit in Japan as Mariners beat A’s
 

Did you know the first regular season game was today? Yep, 6AM EST, in Tokyo, Japan. It was extra innings and the Mariners beat the A’s. Two bad lineups and one amazing pitcher lead to low scoring game. It’s great to have the best game ever back in swing. They play again tomorrow at 5AM and then the season starts for good next week.
 

Cleveland.com: The next big thing is Cleveland's waterfront

 

The Cleveland waterfront is a joke. For the most part, it’s a waste. Why the heck is a little used airport and a close aviation school down there!!! One of the biggest assets of Cleveland is that it is on lake Erie. It’s hard to imagine doing much worse. Look at Chicago with the Pier, now look at Cleveland. Hopefully this plan can get off the ground and it makes a lot of money for all the private companies willing to invest.

March 27th, 2012: Catholics, Soccer and more

 

NYT: Santorum Fails to Capture Catholic Vote

 

 

This is not surprising to me despite the fact that Santorum is Catholic. Santorum does best among those who attend church weekly. These people are more enthusiastic about a social conservative candidate.  Most who identify as “Catholic” aren’t active in the church. Most who identify as “Evangelical” are. Protestants who are not are not active are much more likely to use the term “Christian” or “Protestant” A Gallup survey asked found 84% of self identified born-again whites found religion important as opposed to only 50% of catholic whites.
 

 

Drudge: Gingrich Begins Charging $50 for Photos at Events (Nat'l Journal)

 

I read this and at first I was outraged. Charging people at campaign events? It’s done all the time at fundraisers and conventions, but at rallies its free if you can get the ear of the candidate. Upon more thought though, if Newt wants to charge, so what? The man is running on fumes because he has no chance to be president. I doubt Sheldon Adelson is dumb enough to burn any more money with Newt’s Super PAC.
 

 

RCP: Repeal the 'Stand Your Ground' Laws by Eugene Robinson

 

I don’t know if the stand your ground law should be removed. From what I understand, it was put in place because self-defense law was too narrow by many. If this Martin case is as it seems, no self-defense law should apply here. This man pursued the young boy. There may be a need for self-defense law to be made strong, but as Jeb Bush said, the law needs to be constantly looked at, if this law makes it so a man can pursue an unarmed man and kill him with a firearm, that is a HUGE problem. That isn’t standing your ground, that is murder.

 

Yahoo! Sports: Costly error in injury time ends USA’s Olympic hopes

 

 

This is hard to fathom. I am not even a soccer fan and it pains me that the USA will not be in the Olympics. It’s hard for me to believe that the US, the third largest population with over 300 million people is become more of a soccer nation, yet lost (they tied which is a loss in this case) to El Salvador, with just over 6 million people, the 108th largest nation. A huge step back for US Soccer and I will miss not following soccer like I do once every 2 years.
 

 

Cleveland.com: Cleveland house prices hit new low as S&P/Case-Shiller Indices show rocky start to 2012

 

 

The recovery is still slow to happen here in the rust best. A big problem I would think is still the HUGE number of foreclosures. I sure hope this neck of the woods is able to turn things around. I think it will happen, but it’s a slow hawl. Cleveland in particular I think will bounce back with healthcare, so what happens with Obamacare is very important locally. 

March 26th, 2012: My Take on 5 Stories in 100 words or less

This is a new idea I have. Take 5 stories on the front pages of news sites I follow. The most important newspaper in the world, the New York Times. The most important news aggregator, Drudge. The most important political news aggregator, RCP. Where I get my sports news, Yahoo! Sports. Lastly, local news, Cleveland.com. The Drudge and RCP links are from different sites, but I found them via Drudge and RCP. 
 

NYT: Justices Hear Argument That Health Case Is Premature

 

This is an issue that the court has every right to look at and ought to look at, just as they are going to do. Kicking the can on this debate until after its implemented is a dumb idea. It may make political sense, but this issue needs to be solved sooner rather than later. No matter where you stand on Obamacare and the individual mandate, this needs to be figured out soon because access to healthcare is clearly a problem and out not to be kicked down the road.

 

Drudge: ‘After My Election I Have More Flexibility’

 

Yet another example of a hot mic picking up something that is true, yet ought not be heard by the President in the media. To deny that a president makes decisions based upon re-election, even those on missile defense is native.  When push comes to shove one would hope the President would have the safety of the American Public first but within that framework there is going to be a lot of politics.

  

RCP: Santorum Ignores Pressure to Bow Out to Romney

 
Santorum ought not get out of this race until he lose a home game, that is a state he ought to win or when Mitt Romney gets 1,144 delegates. The next home game for Rick Santorum is Wisconsin. Why? It’s working class and evangelical. One could argue he already lost a state like this in Ohio, but Wisconsin is more rural and favors him more. If Santorum loses there, I believe its time for Santorum to pack up his bags.
 

Yahoo! Sports: Tim Tebow uncomfortable with getting forced front and center by Jets bosses

The idea that Tim Tebow is going to be a cancer in any way to the New York Jets is a joke. Tebow is going to say, and more importantly do all the right things. If the Jets are smart, they will use him in the way he ought to be used, as the ultimate wildcat sort of player. The man is not going to be a great quarterback, but he very well could be a great NFL player. Will be fun to see how he is used next season.

Cleveland.com: Consumer groups oppose Ohio bill to drop landline services

 

 This bill is a good idea. Why should the gov’t be forcing telcom companies to provide a service only a smaller and smaller slice of the population uses? If this law is passed, do you really think seniors won’t be able to have phone access anymore? If there is still a market for landlines, people will pay for them. I trust the free market, don’t you? 

August 6th, 2009: Rupert’s Big Bad Gamble

Betting against Rupert Murdoch is usually a bad bet. The media mogul, well known conservative and head of Newscorp, which owns, among many things the Wall Street Journal and the FOX News Channel , is making a huge bet on internet news. He wants to charge for it. The media industry is dying. Newspaper subscriptions are going down by the day. More and more people get their news online, and the ones who don’t are dying by the day. On a typical day I read 15 political articles, and several are from Newscorp owned papers.
 

The fact is, the horse is out of the barn. Newspapers should have never had their content online for free. Now that it is, we expect it to be that way. The old business model is broken. The idea of paying for news just seems archaic. I love newspapers more than most my age, and I love good reporting. That said, people won’t pay for a slightly better product in order to have slightly better reports. Sure, I will miss some of the great writing in the WSJ, but I can still sleep at night reading Bloomberg. If Bloomberg decides to start charging, I will read more off TheStreet.com and so on.
 

For online media to make money, it must figure out a different business model than in the past. Charging the reader just won’t work. Most people are trying some kind of online advertising model, and that seems to be the logical choice. Still, that may not be the right one. For sure though, it won’t be by paying for content in a free content world.

March 30th, 2009: In Defense of Detroit

General Motors makes some of the best cars in the world. That said, they are in a horrible position because of some major mistakes made. First off, they put all of their eggs into one basket, the SUV/Truck. I think SUVs are fine and it’s a great thing that America was leading the world in making those vehicles, but when the cost of gas rose to over $4 a gallon, it was a reminder to people of how stupid it is for most people to buy one.

 

On top of that, there was a bubble in commodities, so after the shock of people seeing how stupid they were, they had no money to buy any cars. Any cyclical industry is especially hit by recessions, because they sell things than people don’t need to buy. Still, the harsh bubble/bust world is not the end for Detroit. The Unions put the American car companies in an extra harsh position because the increase the labor cost and thus increase the labor cost. Add on top of that the legacy cost, and you got one huge mess. Lastly, I want to downplay this thing that Detroit is not making green cars, which is crap. The problem is not that Detroit was not making green cars, but simply that they were making cars that people did not want to buy.

 

What do we do now? As the Republicans said months ago, we need these companies to go through bankruptcy. We can not keep throwing money down this pit. Still, the Democrats noted that we could not do this because people are not going to buy a car if they don’t know if that car company is going to be around. Well, Obama struck the perfect chord today, as he favors bankruptcy, but he favors it while at the same time the government protecting the car warranty. He is taking the system designed for this system and fixing it up to work in this case. Here they can shed the legacy cost and lower the labors cost and streamline the product. We can’t lose General Motors.

 

While I love what Obama did with bankruptcy, I am pissed over what the administration did to Rick Wagoner. They used him as an offering to the American people. I find it sick that the US Government is firing the CEO of a great American company. Wagoner made his mistakes, but that give the Gov’t no right to ax him. Where do they get this power?

 

So, good plan with the bankruptcy, but bad getting rid of Wagoner, he was a good man doing his best during a hard time.

March 25th, 2009: Bloggers and Newspapers

A subject I don’t talk about often but follow closely is Newspapers. For those of you not following, Newspapers are dying. I personally find this a tragedy. Now I don’t think we ought to be bailing out the Newspapers like some in the Congress are suggesting. There is an idea going around Congress that we should allow Newspapers to operate as a non-profit for tax purposes and thus take out their ability to endorse political candidates. I do not favor this because Newspapers are not non-biased. I don’t like the idea of a newspaper saying they can’t endorse at all. The myth of newspapers is that they are un-biased.

 

I love the New York Times. It is one of the best papers in America today (yes, you read that right my fellow conservative friends). They gather news well and they are focused on their goal, getting the news first. They are also solidly biased to the left. I know this when I read it. If someone only read the NYT, they would be getting a distorted view on the world. The people who work their naturally have their biases seep in to what they choose to cover and how they write about it. Still, I want to make clear that they don’t try to slant the news to the left (not talking Op-ed page), it just comes through from their view of the world.

 

No matter what you think of newspapers, the truth is clear. Less and less people subscribe to them. I currently get one Newspaper which I will not be renewing, Investors Business Daily. (Which is a very Right leaning paper, like most Business papers) In a hard economy, I am looking for places to cut in my budget and this makes natural sense. The truth is though that Newspapers do something critical, which is they gather news. Many people say that bloggers will replace Newspapers. This is not the case. Bloggers can’t replace newspapers because bloggers have their own jobs. Even those bloggers who are successful enough to make it their job are not the same thing as a news organization.

 

Newspapers will have to change to an online outfit, which they are doing now. Again, the New York Times website is very, very well done. Another of my favorites is the LA Times, which is a good conservative paper, unlike the joke Washington Times. Newspaper medium will change, but their purpose will not.

 

So what about Bloggers? I think they are a very good thing. Remember this key line by Robert Di Nero in Casino:

 

 

The Bloggers are the eye in the sky. They call out when the media screws up. They can also make news themselves, as they watch us all. Still, there will always be a place for organizations who make a living following news. Now they just got that eye watching them. Remember Dan Rather?

March 16th, 2009: Jon Stewart is a Self-Righteous Hack

Jon Stewart is getting praised as this voice of reason. People are saying he took down Jim Cramer. We know that Gibbs, if no one else, enjoyed seeing Stewart use Cramer as his punching bag on CNBC last Thursday. The crux of Stewart’s argument is this: CNBC is a finance network, they ought to have been ahead of the game on this whole debacle in the stock market.

 

CNBC is a right leaning financial news network. Lets compare this to their left leaning political news network, MSNBC. From 6AM until 9AM, CNBC has on Squawk Box, a financial morning show. It is on this show that a lot of the leaders of business appear. At the same time on MSNBC, the show Morning Joe is on, which is a morning news/politics show. They are very comparable to one another.

 

From 9AM-11AM, CNBC has on Squawk on the Street, which follows the opening of the market at 9:30AM, then from 11AM-12PM is the call, which is more market coverage. After that is Power Lunch from 12PM-2PM, which is a more broad show market wise, more like a news at noon show. Following that is Street Signs from 2PM-3PM, which is Erin Burnett trying to dig deeper into some top stories. Then from 3PM-5PM is Closing Bell, which the name describes well. So you see, all day CNBC is covering market news.

 

From 9AM till 5PM, MSNBC has MSNBC News Live, which is news as it happens. During the 9-5 hours, both networks do the same thing. The report breaking news and then spend the rest of their time debating each other. Stewart says that the network does not poke and prod enough. Why is he such a harsh critic on the conservative CNBC yet he has no harsh words for the liberal MSNBC? Because he is a leftist who has a venue to vent and has been put up on this throne as a bystander.

 

It is sick that we allow Jon Stewart, a comedian who relies entirely on writers to look good to be this arbiter. He pulls Jim Cramer onto his show, a man who is a commentator and has a show at 6PM that is not a hard news show but rather a show of commentary. Cramer has a show with his own style, as he said himself “I am not Murrow.” Cramer’s first concern is getting good ratings and he does that by being considered intelligent and entertaining by his viewers.

 

We allowed this same man to take down one of the greatest shows, Crossfire. He went onto crossfire and lectured Paul Begaula and Tucker Carlson and the show was taken off the air a few weeks later. The show was classic cable, one from the left and one from the right battling it out. He came on the show and talked about how what they were doing was so bad for society.

 

My question, what is what Jon Stewart doing that is so good for society? He is on a network that has been a joke since Battlebots and Win Ben Stein’s Money left and he has this horrible routine as a comedian and then when he decides he gets to get on his ivory stool and talk about who is right and who is wrong. He wrong and he ought to be resigned to what he does best, that is read what his writers have written him. Get out of these logically false arguments you are making on Business and Political Commentary.

Also, stop trying to appear as an independent bystander who can make judgments freely. You attack CNBC became you don’t like that they are questioning Obama’s policies. You a partisan hack and a bad one at that. Get back to what you do best Jon, which is not being seen or heard except by those young people that worship you.

January 27th, 2009: Hey! You! Get off of My Cloud!

First off, sorry for not posting in a week, its been a hard week. So what do I want to talk about, technology. I read this article the other day from the UK Guardian on what Google is trying to do:

 

The whole idea is to move away from the PC model to this cloud computer model. Basically, instead of your computer being a box where all the data is stored, your computer is located out there in cyberspace. That is, when you turn the computer on, you automatically connect to the internet and everything that was done before on your machine is now done out there somewhere, out on the cloud. The days of your hard drive failing are over. You could just get something else to connect to your cloud.

 

Since your computer is not the physical thing, you could access your computer from anywhere that would give you access to the cloud. You can just think of the implications. Every hotel room could have a cloud machine, and when you check in you could load your computer. It would be no different than accessing your computer from your own home.

 

Still, the idea scares me. Google is setting up to be the lead runner on this whole cloud computing idea. Google is already taking over our lives (or at least mine). I wake up and I check my e-mail on G-mail. My school just transferred all its e-mail services onto google, just like many other universities do all across the world. This blog is hosted on bloghost, but it has embedded in it code which is sent to Google Analytics so it can compile statistics to help me run the website better. On the left column you see that ad over there? Well google “reads” my site and hooks me up with an advertiser. During the campaign, John McCain was a heavy buyer on my website, which naturally made sense.

 

I could go on and on. When I search anything, I use google search. When I need to go somewhere, I use my GPS, but I look at the route first using google maps. I used to use Google Desktop, but that creeped me out too much. Now they want to go hosting my entire computer? I hope not. Google has shown no backbone in terms of bowing down to the Chinese government. How do I know they won’t do the same thing with my information. Plus, what if someone trumps google? If someone could take my whole computer, its makes the virus of old days seem like a single cough.

 

I favor Net Neutrality, but I don’t favor google pushing for these clouds. I like my current cloud, the little old box within 2 feet of me right now. I don’t want that box on the google server. Sorry.

September 29th, 2008: Bailout Bill Falls

Today will go down in history as one of the worst days for America ever. This congress, with a low approval rating, will see a temporary spike in their Approval rating from killing this bill. In doing so, that have gave in to the populist American people who demanded Wall Streets heads on a stick. Well, they got it, with over 90 Democrats and 133 Republicans voting agonist this bill. Only with this crazy stuff do you get super conservative Mike Pence (very conservative R-IN) and Dennis Kucinich (very liberal D-OH) voting on the same side against while at the same time getting Tom Davis (R-VA, retiring) voting for.

 

Basically, looking at the list, you have the ideologues and the people who’s electoral fate rest in the vote going against the proposal. People who are retiring and people in safer seats were able to vote for. This is a horrible day as people put their own political futures over doing what is right. I know that Jefferson said the first order of a statesmen is to get elected, but this is sick.

 

I am still in shock. How did Pelosi bring this bill to the floor and it not have the votes. They must have had no clue, and did not check with their own party. All of the talk coming from the leadership was that the House Republicans were the only ones causing all this mess. The votes show that this is not the case. Somehow 94 Democrats opposed this bill. These 228 people may get re-elected now in 35 days, but wait two years and see what happens. I hope the vote themselves a big fat pension in Euros (wait that wont work either, try gold), because they are going to need it after getting kicked out of office in 2010.

 

A sad day for America. Pray that I am wrong in my assessment, but I don’t think that I am.

September 24th, 2008: Invest in America

We folks are at a fork in the road. The biggest financial decision since the Great Depression will be made this week. We can either decide to accept the Bush Administration plan, the plan that invest in America, or we can choose to oppose it, and hurt America over the long term. The problem here is what people are looking at this under the wrong lens. Bernanke is a genius, but he is not a PR man. He has been saying that this plan will “unfreeze the mortgage market” What does that mean?

 

Well people are taking it to mean that it is a bailout of the people who got us here. That folks is flatly false. Well, false is the wrong word, because that will be a result of what happens. That is not why we are doing this through. This is clearly a main street move. This plan will allow people to stay in their hones, allow kids who need loans to go to college and allow small business that runs this America to keep running. I am seriously worried that I will not be able to finish Graduate school if this plan does not go through.

 

Without this plan, there is an economic disaster. Period, end of story. Do you want unemployment to be 20%? I hope you are seeing the point. It is hard to explain, but without credit, this economy does not function. This is not about saving Wall Street. This is about saving Main Street. Did people make foolish moves? Yes, but in this revenge driven society, this is not time for revenge.

 

People don’t like that the people who screwed up are going to get away with it. They want to make them pay. Forget that my friends. I am sick of seeing republicans acting useless on this thing. They are the ones holding this up. This is not a time to worry about CEO pay and other crap like that. You want to risk the American economy on a couple of million to a CEO. I say, if you will sign odd, lets add these provisions now. We should have passed this thing yesterday, and it better be passed by Monday or else bad things could happen. When credit goes into a death spiral, no one wins, not Wall Street, not Main Street, not you and not me. Lets take 700 billion dollars and invest in America.