Service to America Award Video

Priorities

President Obama routinely spends five hours to play a round of golf. But he's only going to spend three hours in Louisiana when he goes down there tomorrow to get a look at the oil spill. The one that he's been in charge of from day one.

Way to show concern, big guy. Guess which party is going to carry Louisiana in the 2012 election?

Obama's National Security Advisor Tells Anti-Semitic Joke

If anyone in the Bush administration had told this joke, he would have been forced to resign. I'm just sayin'...

American are watching less TV?

A new report from The Yankee Group says that television viewing declined by an hour per day in 2009.

On the other hand, the latest Three Screen Report from Nielsen says that TV viewing increased in 2009, and that Americans are watching more TV than ever.

The Yankee Group report says that "Consumers spend a total of 3 hours and 17 minutes watching TV, DVDs, videos and pre-recorded programs." But the Nielsen report says the average American watches almost 35 hours of TV per week, nearly 5 hours per day.

That's a huge discrepancy. How can two surveys get such hugely different results? I suspect the answer is in the methodology. Unfortunately, the Yankee Group doesn't provide a lot of information about their methodology on their website. They do indicate that they rely primarily on web-based tools for gathering their data. I would guess that might skew the data a bit.

The Yankee Group also bills themselves as "the global connectivity experts," which suggests they may have a vested interest in promoting "New Media" while downplaying the strength of traditional media outlets.

Carl Howe, the author of the "more internet, less TV" study, said "As consumers have become worried about the economy, they've reduced the amount of time they spend on media..." This statement, in itself, seems to suggest a problem with their survey. Surely, as unemployment increases, more people must have more time to spend on media. As consumers reduce spending in a recession, wouldn't they spend more time with free media and less time on paid entertainment?

Maybe they would even spend more time with both free and paid entertainment. There's a reason why the Great Depression ushered in the Golden Age of Radio, and the Golden Age of Hollywood.

I'll admit to being biased, but I think the Nielsen data has more authority than the Yankee Group data.

Diversity and the Supreme Court

“It is essential President Obama consider gender and ethnic diversity on the high court in an increasingly diverse America,” Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said in a statement Friday.

For once, I agree with Rep. Lee: Obama should carefully choose his nominee to ensure that the makeup of the Supreme Court reflects the diversity of our great country. And this diversity should not be limited to ethnicity and gender. Let's make sure the court is truly diverse.

Justice Stevens, who is retiring, is actually the poster child for diversity in the current court. Sure, he's a white male. He's also the only Protestant on the court, and the only member of the court who did not graduate from an Ivy League law school.

Let's look at the current make-up of the court, compared to the make-up of the USA:

SEX: This is the one of two areas where the court is far from matching the diversity of the country. Seven of the current nine justices are men, or 80%. The population of the US is 50.7% female.

RELIGION: Justice Stevens is the sole Protestant on the court. That means the current bench is 11% Protestant, while Protestants make up over 51% of the US Population. Two members, Breyer and Ginsburg, are Jewish. That makes the court 22% Jewish while Jews are less than 2% of the population. More surprising: the remaining six members of the court are all Roman Catholic. Catholics are 66.7% of the court, but only 23.9% of the US Population.

RACE/ETHNICITY: This is probably the area that most people think of when they hear the word "diversity," but the court already fairly reflects the population. According to the Census Bureau's 2008 population estimates, 66% of the US population is non-Hispanic whites, 15% is Hispanic, and 13% is black. The current court is 78% non-Hispanic whites, 11% Hispanic, and 11% Black. That's about as close as you can get with a nine-member court. One less non-Hispanic white would lower their percentage to 66.7%, which is actually a better match; but one more black or Hispanic would be a much higher percentage on the court than in the population.

So to maintain a court that reflects the diversity of the country, Obama's nominee should be a non-Ivy League educated, Protestant, white, female!

Obama orders assasination of American citizen

If this doesn't scare you, I don't know what will:

 The Obama administration has taken the extraordinary step of authorizing the targeted killing of an American citizen, the radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is believed to have shifted from encouraging attacks on the United States to directly participating in them, intelligence and counterterrorism officials said Tuesday. 

Source: New York Times

 So our government has now ordered the execution of an American citizen without a trial. Does the Constitution mean nothing to these people?

WSJ: What's Not Happening to American Muslims

Dorothy Rabinowitz, in the Wall Street Journal, has some things to say about America's habit of looking for racists everywhere. But I like this part, where a Muslim cab driver tells her about his neighbors, and what they told him shortly after 9/11:

What was not painful, he added, was the memory of certain people in his neighborhood—a mixed but mostly white area of Queens, with many Italian-Americans, some Jews, and he thought some Irish. After the attacks, some of the men had come to him.

"My wife doesn't go out without a head cover," he explained. The men had come to tell him that if anyone bothered her, or his family, he must come to them.

"I must tell them and must not be afraid. Do you know," he said, in a voice suddenly sharp, "what would have happened if Americans had done this kind of attack in my country? Every American—every Christian, every non-Muslim—would have been slaughtered, blood would have run in the streets. I know the kind of country this is. Thanks be to God I can give this to my children."

Wow, that was fast!

The health care bill was just signed into law two days ago, and we already have this:

Caterpillar Takes Hit On Health Care

Caterpillar Inc. said Wednesday it will take a $100 million charge to earnings this quarter to reflect additional taxes stemming from newly enacted U.S. health-care legislation.

The world's largest construction equipment manufacturer by sales, warned last week that provisions in the legislation would subject the company to federal income taxes on the subsidies it receives for providing prescription drug benefits for its retirees and their spouses.

I wonder how many more of these stories we'll be seeing in the near future?

Why I love my job

Our station produced this video as an entry to the National Association of Broadcasters Service to America awards. Next week we'll find out who won. Even if we don't win, it sums up why I love my job. I work with a great group of people, we have a lot of fun, and we make the world a better place. And they pay me to do it!

A Fiscal Train Wreck

A couple days ago, Bloomberg reported:

The bond market is saying that it’s safer to lend to Warren Buffett than Barack Obama.

Two-year notes sold by the billionaire’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. in February yield 3.5 basis points less than Treasuries of similar maturity, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Procter & Gamble Co., Johnson & Johnson and Lowe’s Cos. debt also traded at lower yields in recent weeks, a situation former Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. chief fixed-income strategist Jack Malvey calls an “exceedingly rare” event in the history of the bond market.

We have a crisis looming. It seems likely that the politicians will react to the crisis the way irresponsible governments usually do, by printing money. Interest rates will soar. The alternative will be to raise taxes substantially, until the tax rate as a percentage of GDP will reach levels that are common in Europe but have never been seen in the U.S.

Was he lying then, or is he lying now?

"Every year, the problem gets worse. Every year, insurance companies deny more people coverage because they've got pre-existing conditions." -- Barack Obama, March 8, 2010

"You can't demand insurance companies... take somebody who's sick, who's got a pre-existing condition, if you don't have everybody covered, or at least almost everybody covered. And the reason, if you think about it, is simple. If you had a situation where not everybody was covered but an insurance company had to take you because you were sick, what everybody would do is they'd just wait till they get sick and then they'd go buy insurance. Right? And so the potential would be there to game the system." -- Barack Obama, Feb. 3, 2010

Obama clearly understands why insurance companies cannot afford to take on customers with pre-existing conditions, yet he still uses it to paint them as villains.

Is the health care bill a plot to destroy the insurance companies?

When I hear questions like the one above, I think someone has their tin-foil beanie screwed on too tight. But on the other hand, if one wanted to create a law that would destroy the insurance companies, he could hardly have done a better job.

It's a basic concept in economics that people act rationally in ways that serve their own best interest. Let's look at some of the incentives in the health care bill, and the rational response to them.

First, there is the individual mandate that requires everyone to have a minimum level of insurance, or pay a penalty. In the Senate bill, this penalty starts at $95 per year and increases to $750 per year by 2016. Since no one can buy health insurance for $95 per year, or even $750 per year, the incentive is actually to NOT buy insurance. Especially combined with:

Mandatory coverage for pre-existing conditions. Both the House and Senate bill prevent insurance companies from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions.

Imagine a young couple, just out of college. Money is tight. Both are healthy. They can pay a $750 penalty at tax time, or they can spend $1,000 per month for insurance. It's pretty easy to see what the rational choice is. Even if they are planning to start a family, why buy insurance now? They can wait until the wife is pregnant and then get insurance that will cover the pregnancy. If one of them becomes ill, they can buy insurance then, so why bother with it now?

And what about employers? They will face essentially the same choice: provide medical insurance for all employees, or pay a $750 per employee penalty. Guess which choice is cheaper? Guess which choice they are going to make?

The insurance companies will have a huge adverse selection problem. The only people who buy insurance will be those who are going to use a lot of expensive medical services, and the healthy will just pay the penalty.

Pass the bill to find out what's in it?

When I saw the headline on the Drudge Report, I thought he must be misquoting her. Or taking her remarks out of context. "PELOSI HEALTHCARE: 'We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it'..."

Excuse me? The only way to find out what's in the bill is to pass it? Surely Nanci Pelosi is too smart to make such an asinine comment.

But no, there it is, right on her own website. As part of her remarks to the 2010 Legislative Conference of the National Association of Counties, Pelosi actually said "But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it. . ."

Or maybe we could just read the bill and decide if we want it passed or not? Hey, it's just an idea.

Al Gore says global warming causes snowstorms

Al Gore has published an op-ed in the New York Times claiming that the record-setting snowstorms in February were caused by global warming. "...scientists have long pointed out that warmer global temperatures have been increasing the rate of evaporation from the oceans, putting significantly more moisture into the atmosphere — thus causing heavier downfalls of both rain and snow..."

So global warming causes increased rainfall. Got it.

But wait... what happened to the prediction that global warming would cause less rainfall?

Global warming to cause massive drought

"Global warming is predicted to be the cause of a massive drought that will threaten the lives of millions and take over half the land surface on our planet in the next 100 years, according to Britain's leading climatologists."

So if we have a massive drought, then that's what the theory predicted; but if we have increased precipitation, that's also what the theory predicted. No matter what happens, the proponents of the theory claim they predicted it.

That's not how science works. Science is based on the idea of theories that are falsifiable. A theory that cannot be proven wrong under any circumstances is, by definition, not a scientific theory. It's a religion.

Why a health summit?

The general consensus seems to be that the health care bill is dead. So why is the president holding a "summit" with congressional Republicans today? I think there are a couple of reasons.

It gives him another opportunity to paint Republicans as "the party of 'No'" and blame them for the failings of the health care bill. Never mind that angry town hall meetings all over the country have shown that the people don't want the president's vision for health care. Never mind that the current bill passed a Democratic Senate. Never mind that the House has 255 Democrats and only 178 Republicans, so the GOP couldn't stop the Democrats from passing it, if they wanted to. In the president's mind (and in his reelection campaign) it is the Republicans who are being obstructionists.

It is an opportunity to possibly gain a couple of Democrat seats in the 2010 elections. With the public mood being what it is, any Republican who gets behind Obama's new health care bill is putting his job at risk. Obama will be glad to help him do it.

What should the Republicans do? They should stand resolute in stopping the current proposals. But they should also bring a couple of their own to the table. Here are two immediate steps that would vastly improve access to health care in America while bringing down costs:

1) Tort reform. Put a cap on malpractice awards, a cap on lawyer's fees, and enact a "loser pays" to stop frivolous lawsuits. If doctors don't have to practice "defensive medicine," that will eliminate a lot of unnecessary tests. We all pay for those huge malpractice awards, in the form of more expensive medical care -- the doctors and hospitals pay higher fees for malpractice insurance, that cost is passed on in higher fees for their services, and we pay for them in the form of higher medical insurance premiums.

2) Unleash the free market. End expensive mandates for insurers, and allow purchase of medical insurance across state lines. The same free market that gave us cheap cell phones and big-screen televisions can give us cheap insurance.

Hand-writing

So the Obama administration is attacking Sarah Palin. That's not surprising. What is surprising is that they are attacking her for having crib notes written on her palm during a speech at the Tea Party convention.

Seriously? From a guy (or his lackeys) who never opens his mouth without a Teleprompter?

At least we can be pretty sure that Palin actually wrote those notes herself. We don't know who is programming Obama's words.

Victory for 1st Amendment.

Supreme Court Drop-Kicks McCain/Feingold, Scores Victory for 1st Amendment. Obama preparing "Forceful Response"

So there it is: the President and members of the Mandarin Class are preparing a “forceful response” to the First Amendment.

Had enough yet?

Ann Coulter accurately describes Christianity

I'm not Ann Coulter's biggest fan, but I have to point out this column:

If you can find a better deal, take it!

You should read the whole article, but I'm going to quote a few lines of it here to give you the gist of it. She starts of by quoting Britt Hume on FOX News, talking about Tiger Woods. Hume mentions that Tiger is a Buddhists, and he suggests that Buddhism doesn't offer the kind of "forgiveness and redemption" that Christianity does.

Quoting Ann now:

Most perplexing was columnist Dan Savage's indignant accusation that Hume was claiming that Christianity "offers the best deal -- it gives you the get-out-of-adultery-free card that other religions just can't."
   
In fact, that's exactly what Christianity does. It's the best deal in the universe.

God sent his only son to get the crap beaten out of him, die for our sins and rise from the dead. If you believe that, you're in. Your sins are washed away from you -- sins even worse than adultery! -- because of the cross.

 "Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." Romans 10:9.
   
If you do that, every rotten, sinful thing you've ever done is gone from you. You're every bit as much a Christian as the pope or Billy Graham.
   
No fine print, no "your mileage may vary," no blackout dates. God ought to do a TV spot: "I'm God Almighty, and if you can find a better deal than the one I'm offering, take it."

With Christianity, your sins are forgiven, the slate is wiped clean and your eternal life is guaranteed through nothing you did yourself, even though you don't deserve it. It's the best deal in the universe.

King Cakes!

If you're from North Carolina, you may not know what a king cake is. My Louisiana friends sure know about them! They appear in bakeries along the Gulf Coast every year, starting on January 6. They vanish from the shelves after Mardi Gras.

A king cake isn't actually a cake, it's a ring of bread. A traditional king cake is a brioche dough filled with a butter/cinammon/brown sugar mixture, although more modern ones tend to have cream cheese or pie filling in them. The top is sprinkled with granulated sugar that has been dyed in the Mardi Gras Colors of purple, green and gold. A small plastic baby doll is inserted into the cake after it's baked.

In offices all along the Gulf Coast, someone will bring a king cake to work tomorrow. The tradition is that whoever gets the piece with the baby in it has to buy the next one. This goes on until Ash Wednesday, when we all repent our fattening sins and diet until next year.

I've discovered two bakeries in the area that make king cakes: La Farm in Cary and Great Harvest Bread Company in Chapel Hill. La Farm has a counter at all of the Triangle area Whole Foods stores, so you might even find a King Cake there (or have the bakery manager order one for you). I haven't tried either of them yet, so I can't tell you how they compare to Randazzo's or Gambino's. But those require a trip to New Orleans, or about $40 to have one shipped here. I'll bake my own before I spend that kind of money.

Quote of the Day

"The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable."
John Kenneth Galbraith

NC Economic Forecast

Yesterday in Raleigh, Bank of America's new CEO Brian Moynihan delivered the keynote address at the North Carolina Economic Forecast Forum. Here's the video, courtesy of WRAL:

New BofA CEO, economists look to future

New Year's Day - Stew!

Angela and her friend Steph decided we'd do something different for New Year's: make a Brunswick Stew at Steph's house.



First the girls cut up the beef and pork, while I was outside setting up the cooker. This big cast-iron kettle (also known as a "Number Ten Washpot") is nearly 100 years old, and originally belonged to Angela's great-grandfather. It's 20 inches across and 18 inches deep.

The stew recipe came from Angela's daddy, who is said to have spent 10 years perfecting it.



First the beef and pork go into the big stewpot, while the chicken is boiling in a separate stock pot.




This picture is one of my favorites... but then, I'm a pyro from way back.


Then the onions and potatoes go in. As the potatoes cook, Angela breaks them up with a pair of tongs.



After the chicken has been boiled, we pulled it off the bones (and removed the skin) and put it in the stewpot. Then we added corn, baby lima beans, and tomatoes.



See, I did more than just take pictures:


Starting to look like stew:


When the paddle stands up by itself, the stew is ready to serve!


I, personally, am from Louisiana. I never tasted Brunswick Stew until I came to North Carolina in 1999. So my opinion of this stew isn't really relevant. (But for the record, let me say that I really love it!) There were a number of people at the party who were born in North Carolina, and they all said that this is the best they've ever tasted. I guess over the years Angela's daddy got his recipe perfected.

Before we made this batch of stew, Angela believed that the pot has a 10-gallon capacity. It does have a big "10" stamped on the side. But it holds more than 10 gallons. We had about 12 adults at dinner, and after we all ate as much as we could hold, we packed another 42 quarts of stew for the freezer. Someday I'm going to measure how many gallons of water it takes to fill it. 

Just to keep my Mama from rolling over in her grave, let me mention that we also had some cabbage and blackeye peas, too. So I won't have to be poor and friendless in 2010.

Stephanie, like me, is originally from Baton Rouge. As we were setting up the pot, she said, "I bet we could make a great jambalaya in this thing." We talked about that some more after dinner, and Angela mentioned she has a birthday coming up next month. So we'll be making jambalaya for Angela's birthday! Stay tuned...

New Year's Day

Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual. Yesterday, everybody smoked his last cigar, took his last drink, and swore his last oath. To-day, we are a pious and exemplary community. Thirty days from now, we shall have cast our reformation to the winds and gone to cutting our ancient short comings considerably shorter than ever. We shall also reflect pleasantly upon how we did the same old thing last year about this time. However, go in, community. New Year's is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls, and humbug resolutions, and we wish you to enjoy it with a looseness suited to the greatness of the occasion.

-- Mark Twain, Territorial Enterprise, January 1, 1863