Corruption? What Corruption?

Here is a great (and fairly balanced) article on where this race will boil down to.

Basically the author believes that for Romney to win he needs to have more Republican voters turn out in Hamilton County Ohio than Democrats turn out in Cuyahoga County Ohio. Some very interesting numbers in the article.

Such as 916,000 registered voters in Cuyahoga County. Out of a population of 1,270,294; 22.3% of which are below the age of 18, 283,276 residents. 1,270,294 minus 283,276 equals 987,018, more simply, over 92% of the eligible folks in Cuyahoga County are registered to vote. Amazing number ain't it?

Given the same rate for the entire state (population 11,544,951; Sal-ute!), there would be  8,217,419 voters in the State of Ohio as of October 2012, there were about 7.7 million registered voters. Quite a difference; about half a million voters. State wide only 87% of eligible residents are registered to vote.

But in primarily Democratic Cleveland, 5% more.

Hell, Cuyahoga County is so corrupt even the press had to finally take notice. And these are just the guys they caught.

So; it looks like the entire election between Romney and Obama will be determined by whether or not Cuyahoga County is still as corrupt as it was in 2008/2010.

I am being to see why the Dems are so confident of a victory, no matter what the polls say.

13 days and Counting

We are now less that 2 weeks away from the election that will decide the fate of the country. I hope.

I say I hope, because I am hoping Romney WILL change the course of the country, and not just be Obama Lite, and just send us down the road to a Socialist Hell more slowly. I have hopes, but I also have doubts.

I also believe Romney will win. If Obama didn't have his willing accomplices in the press and the lingering doubts that there will be massive voter fraud in every key state this election would not even be close.

If Obama had the press badgering him on high gas and energy costs, like they did Bush, and constantly dragging the issue of homelessness into the limelight, again, like they did with Bush, and fabricating a scandal out of every decision they didn't like, again, like Bush, this would be a landslide  of Reaganesque proportions.

But they're not, won't and it wont be.

With this administration they wouldn't have to manufacture a scandal; hell; they have any number to pick from. Fast and Furious; Benghazi; Acorn; Black Panthers. And those are just off the top of my head.

But not a word. I guess if CBS can't create some 'Fake , but Accurate" documents for the scandal, they're not interested.

Good News and Bad News

First; sorry for missing yesterday's post. My refrigerator broke and I had to work on fixing it. I was just putting it back together when the wife and I received a call we have been expecting: Grandson #3 was here, so we bailed to the hospital. Afterward I sat on the back porch with a cold beer and a cigar, enjoying the weather.



So, I had my very good reasons.


And now; last night's debate.


I'll be honest; after about a half hour I turned off the TV and just listened on the radio. After another 20 minutes I was asleep.


Who do I think won? Hell; I don't care who won. Romney whupped butt in the first debate, and won the second as well. Let Obama win this one; he'll need a consolation prize.


But I saw this quote a few minutes ago:


OBAMA: “You mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military’s changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines. And so the question is not a game of Battleship, where we’re counting ships. ”


How much less could Obama understand Naval Operations?


Admittedly, my understanding of Nav Ops is from reading Tom Clancy and playing Civilization, so I am not an expert by any means.



BUT...


Has anybody ever heard of a carrier Task Force? We may talk about sending a Carrier into the Persian Gulf, but we don't send just one ship, we send a couple of dozen. Some are for the defense of the carrier, and some are for the supplies the ships will need; fuel, armaments, food- anything that will be need to keep the group afloat and on the move.




Right now we have 11 Carrier Task Groups. Lets just assume 10 ships to each group; 110 ships all told. almost half of Obama's current Navy. Sure the Carriers are the most important ships in the Navy, but we also need troop and tank carriers, tankers and freighters and a dozen other styles of ships I know nothing about, plus the subs and their tenders.


How can some redneck in Kentucky have a better grasp of naval operations than the President?


Part of the issue with numbers of ships is we can't have just one of something. Ships are tools. Assume I have one 3/4 inch wrench in my tool box. It is a popular size, and almost constantly in use. When I lose that wrench I have nothing to replace it with, and all of the jobs I needed a 3/4 wrench for I am now unable to do.



What happens to our ability to perform when we have one guided missile cruiser, and we need that cruiser in both the China Sea and the Persian Gulf? or we need it in the China Sea, but it was sunk in the Persian Gulf?


I have said many times that the sole legitimate purpose of the Federal Government is the protection of our borders, and the United States Military is the sole tool we have for that purpose.


The weaker Obama makes our protection, the more threats we have to face, and the fewer resources we will have to address those threats.


I'm not saying we don't need to prepare for the changing threats we will face in the future.


But by the same token, don't ignore current threats while you do.


By the way, I love Romney's face in that image; he looks like Law Professor, letting a student who has no idea what he is talking about run off at the mouth while the rest of the class is gradually realizing that the student they thought was a genius has just exposed himself as an ass.

In Today' News

Yesterday I had to buy a new desk chair. I didn't want to buy a new chair, and thus help enable Obama's economic recovery, but I was forced to. See what happened is this.

There I was Friday night, typing assiduously away on my blog post, and I leaned back in my chair. That caused the air piston to break out the bottom of its seat, down in the wheeled base of the chair and push through to the floor. since my weight was 70% behind the piston, it had the force advantage, and pushed me over backwards. One minute I am typing away; the next I am laying on my back, in my chair with my feet caught up in the knee hole of my desk.

I had no idea what happened or why. None of the kids were around- that would have been my first choice, blaming them- and whats worse; none of the kids were around, so I was kinda caught. It took a minute to wiggle around enough to get my feet out of desk, and then roll over so I could stand up. That's when I saw the air cylinder rod poking 18 inches out of the bottom of the chair.

Just so we are all on the same page, most modern desk chairs have a gas pressurized cylinder, like the ones that hold open your trunk lid or hatchback on a mini van, inside the base. This is what makes then adjustable. Usually the piston is bolted to the bottom of the wheel assembly, and the seat rides on the bottom of the cylinder. pulling on the lever on the side of the chair allows some gas to escape from under the bottom  of the piston to above the piston, so the chair will lower. Pulling the same lever with the seat empty allows the gas to go below the piston, raising the seat. Okay; that's probably more that you really wanted to know about office chairs.

So yesterday I went shopping. Wal-mart had a good deal on a chair. Like I said; I didn't want to buy a new chair, but my other options were a metal folding chair or an old bentwood chair with a 10-inch round seat; neither were really viable for long term sitting, like the hour or so I need to create a post.

I'm still not comfortable in my new chair. I had the old one better than 10 years. We were old friends. Evey paper I wrote for college was done in that chair. Most of my blog posts were written there as well. I spend a lot of time at my desk when I'm home; working from home on some occasions, or just writing and reading from the internet. That chair is custom fit to me, after 10 years of use. The new one; eh, not so much. But it might fit better eventually. After 4 or 5 years of use.

But you see what finally motivated me to contribute to the Obama Economy; I literally had to be knocked to the floor before I would spend a dime.

Friday Night at The Movies IX

Skimming through Netflixs Friday night I ran across a movie I saw a couple of times a few years ago and kind of liked, Beer For My Horses. so I watched it again.

This is my kind of movie. Good music- all Country- some great action sequences, laugh out loud funny in parts, and some weird characters showing up from time to time. Cameo appearances by some old-timers, like Willie Nelson, Mel Tillis, David Alan Coe and Mac Davis also add a little something. Co-written by, and starring Toby Keith, it is exactly what a Friday night movie should be; FUN.

Needless to say, it fulfills my prime directive; a good story, competently told.

Toby Kieth plays an Oklahoma Sheriff's Deputy who busts a Mexican drug lord's little brother stealing fertilizer to make crystal meth. The drug lord kidnaps Toby's girlfriend to trade for his little brother. Toby and two of his deputy friends (Ted Nugent and Rodney Carrington, who also co-wrote the film) kidnap the brother from jail and take him south to make the trade.

Like any good road trip, they run into some crazy characters along the way. The scene with Rodney Carrington in the rest area men's room is an instant classic. Rodney does provide most of the films comic relief. Trying to train his dog to be a drug dog by having him sniff out aspirin is another example or his activities at the initial drug bust; classic humor.

Ted Nugent does a good job too, as Deputy Skunk Travers. He says two words in the entire film, and those are at the end. Skunk tends to let his weapons do the talking for him. From the pair of machine guns he lights up at one point to a sling and stone he uses with great effectiveness at another, Skunk is never at a loss for a weapon or the skill to use it.

The gunfight at the end in a Mexican saloon provides some twists and turns to the plot that I'm not going to reveal, but everything wraps up well. The drug dealers go to jail; the girl gets rescued and everybody enjoys a cold beer.

What better way to spend Friday night?

Yard Sign Balloting II

I was going through Ft. Thomas again the other day and did another sign count. This was a different route, so I saw different signs.

This time no Obama. A few Romney, but more of the down ticket signs. But do you know what sign outnumbered them all?

For Sale signs. If I saw one I saw a dozen. They were everywhere.

Most of these homes were in the $120,000 to $350,000 range; mostly older homes, in the 70-110 year range, but a couple newer.

But what do the signs mean?

Are these the signs of a recovering housing market, or are they the signs of desperation, folks finally giving in? That is a key question. The answer is, who knows?

Personally I don't think it is a recovery sign. The ones I looked at were all listed near their Tax appraised value, and all were privately owned; no foreclosure dumps. All had been owned by the current owners between 6-10 years, and all were listed for very near what they had been purchased for a few years previous. That may sound like good news, but this area never had the massive run-up in values that some other parts of the country had.

Here is what I think; I think that after 4 years of sitting on their hands and checkbooks, people are figuring this is the new normal, and its time to get on with their lives. They aren't scared anymore. I also think there is a little optimism showing. Folks are seeing a recovery coming, and are preparing for it.

It also depends on what you see as a 'Recovery'. Anyone expecting a return to the 1990's will be disappointed. Unless something drastically changes, a change I don't foresee,  housing is no longer a short-term investment.

There is a lot riding on November 6th. I sincerely hope we are on our way back. It won't be easy, and I see a lot of fiscal pain in our future. Reagan did it once, 30 years ago. Can Romney do it again?

Government Regulation is Getting Bad

Lets say you own a farm. Lets say there is a creek running through that farm. Lets say you need a wheelbarrow full of gravel to fill a pothole in your gravel driveway. Lets say you take your wheelbarrow down to the creek and fill it full of gravel, and dump that gravel on your driveway.

Did you know you have just broken Kentucky law?

I heard a blurb about this on the radio and had to look it up to be sure; yep. Its true.

The blurb had a few more details, such as the permit you need to 'mine' gravel from your creek will cost you $150, plus a $500 per acre bond, plus you will need a attorney to file for the permit.

Because you did not spend $150 on the permit, another $500 on the attorney, and yet another $500 plus for the bond before you 'mined' your wheelbarrow of gravel from your creek, you now face a $5,000 fine.

What has happened to the free country I was born in?

Milestone, Part II

I reached another milestone today; 10,000 page views for the blog, since my first post in November of 2006; almost 6 years ago.

I just had to share with you folks, after all, your the ones who have done these views, not me.

The STATS page on Blogger has some interesting features. Like it will tract what country the viewer is from. As of today I have 6496 visits from folks in the good old USA. I'll bet you will never guess what country is second?

Give up?

Its Russia! 784 views. Then the UK, Germany and Canada, each with about 250. And just this week I had 4 visitors from Qatar. Don't ask me why; What could I be writing that could interest someone, or 4 someones, in Qatar?

Another interesting point; Blogger also tracks what keyword was searched that brought the searcher to the site. Top Word?

Who Farted; 191 searches.

And no, it wasn't me.

Two Against One Isn't Fair, Is It?

Well, there's two hours of my life I'll never get back. Apparently Obama tore a page out of Biden's debate prep book.

What an angry mess Obama was last night. I lost track of how many times Obama called Romney a liar. And each time Obama was the liar. Well, Obama or the moderator, Candy Crowley.

The many injuries of Fortuano, sorry, I mean Crowley... But the worst was her agreeing with the President on his terrorism remark on the Benghazi attacks.

How much worse can you get? Because when he was talking about the attack on the Benghazi he used the word 'terrorism' that means he called the attack a terrorist attack? Even though he used it in a completely different context? And was not used as a descriptor of the attack itself?

I guess he got lucky. Other wise they would have had to create the same conclusion by saying something like this:

"In 2011Obama used the words "Terror" and "Libya" in the same speech, and then in March of 2012 he said "Benghazi, Libya", so its plain he called attack an act of terrorism."

This same statement would have been parroted on every network and cable news channel. Even now they will claim this one random reference will mean more than the next 14 days of calling the attack a 'riot gone bad'.

Come on November.

Debate; Part Deux

Well; time for some more self inflicted pain. Another round of Obama-Romney.

I have probably mentioned before that I always found the folks on the left who said they couldn't stand to hear George Bush's voice tiresome. He was the President; how could you hate a man you never met that much?

And then Obama was elected. I turned off his acceptance speech after less than 30 seconds; his voice irritated every nerve I had. In actual fact, I heard more of his voice two weeks ago in the first debate more than I have in his entire presidency. Combined.

And tonight I will force myself to listen to another 45 minutes of him, give or take 20 minutes, depending on when and if the moderator can shut him up.

Tomorrow's post will again be a review, but I expect Romney to again be the victor by a wide margin, even with two opponents; I fully expect the moderator to be Obama II, doing her best to keep Obama from looking like a complete moron again.

The talking head consensus is that Obama will do better because of the Town Hall format. I don't see why this format is any different than the more formal style, He still won't be able to use a teleprompter.

Yard Sign Balloting

I was just 'owt and abowt' as the saying goes, and did a Romney- Obama sign count. I went through a fairly affluent area so I expected a few Obama signs. I saw two.

A few houses were displaying signs for other, local races, Like Sheriff and other county offices, but I didn't see a single sign for the Congressional race that going on for either side. I saw about a dozen Romney signs, which was unexpected. I figured where I was at was a liberal Democrat stronghold. Based on the Democrat for Sheriff signs I saw, it most likely is. But they ain't proud of it.

I also noticed that the campaign signs aren't bunched, on either side of the aisle; almost like nobody wants the top of the ticket to contaminate those further down.

And I can't even use the excuse that its early; Election Day is 3 weeks tomorrow.

This is going to be an interesting election. I think we are starting to see some enthusiasm for Romney, as opposed to just the Anti-Obama vote. But I don't think we are seeing much Average Joe enthusiasm for Obama. He has his rabid support- Unions, Gays and the other Democratic coalition fringe groups. but I think I am seeing the Reagan Democrats becoming Romney Democrats.

They know the direction the country is heading in is wrong, and just can't bring themselves to vote for another 4 years like the last.

Right now they are leaning away form Obama, but not yet Romneyites. Green Party, or maybe Libertarian, but not yet Romney. Not so much because Romney isn't an appealing candidate, but because he is a....; a....

Republican

How can they face their freinds and neighbors, knowing they voted for a....; a.....

Republican 

Friends, and I am talking to those of you who can't bring yourselves to vote for a....; a....

Republican 

Remember this:

It's a secret ballot! No one will ever know but you, and when the country turns around in the next four years you can smile to yourself in the mirror, and take credit some of the credit.

Remodel, Finale

I should really say Finale; we still have a few small things to do, but yesterday was the end of the trim work. We hung the crown molding.

As a devoted fan of This Old House I have watched crown molding go up many times. I knew the tricks. or so I thought. My son was willing to try it on his own, until after he had cut and hung the first piece. Then he called me. I figured we would start about 10 and be done about 12. Its a small bathroom; just 5 feet by 8 feet; shouldn't take long.

Well; except we ran into a problem or two.

Crown molding didn't seem that difficult to hang, and the last few pieces weren't. But that first piece; WOW.

Maybe a few explanations are in order. Most molding on walls is hung flat; like baseboards and chair rail. Where two pieces meet a simple miter joint is used. I say simple, but they are not simple to cut, sometimes. But a simple miter basically divides the 90 degree angle into two 45 degree angles, one 45 degree cut on each piece to be joined, and when put together they fill the 90 degree corner.

A miter will work well on either an inside corner or and outside corner (an inside corner is like one in the corner of a room; an outside corner is one that protrudes into a room). But there is a second method of creating an inside corner called a cope joint. A cope joint is where one piece of molding is left at a 90 degree angle and the piece that joins it is cut on the end to match the profile of the molding it is meeting. It sounds hard, but in practice isn't, because of a few tricks.

Coping crown molding is very similar, but completely different. I worked at least an hour on the first cope cut; cutting, test fitting, cutting again; test fitting again. Cutting AGAIN, and test fitting AGAIN. I could never get the joint to match up. Then I tried matching my cope cut up with a piece of molding  not mounted on the wall. It matched perfectly. Then I moved my piece of molding around on the wall until I had a perfect match. I the realized the molding my son had hung wasn't at the right angle.

Crown isn't hung flat; it forms a 45 degree angle around the 90 degree angle of the wall and ceiling. The piece I was working off of wasn't at 45 degrees. By now I had a perfect left miter and a perfect right miter, so we pulled down the piece that was up and used our cut pieces to align it perfectly.

From then on it was smooth sailing. The first cut took over an hour; the last one took about 5 minutes. Because we put crown in the shower stall as well as the rest of the room we wound up with 6 cope joints and 2 outside miters. From first cut to final nail was about 4 and a half hours; twice what I originally thought. But from second piece of molding to final piece of molding was about an hour and a half. So I guess I have a 3 hour learning curve.

It was also made easier by my son having hung the first piece. If I would have hung it it would have taken a couple extra hours to convince me I had done the first one wrong.

All the while we worked my son kept telling me he could never be a carpenter; he didn't have the patience. Well; I didn't either at his age.