Trust but verify 2008…

Here is something I wrote about a year ago in a post called Trust But Verify. 
“Gasoline at my little station around the corner $2.92 per gal
Milk at my local Wal-Mart $3.98 per gallon
The DOW at noon 13,409.36
Last quater’s economic growth 4.9%
Consumer spending for November, up 1.1%, the highest “jump” since May 2004
Inflation uo 2.2% for [...]

A night with Ike…

That was one wicked wind storm last night.  It sounded like Marine One was landing on our front yard, repeatedly, for several hours.  The power kept flickering.  Branches fell out of trees and blocked the roads.  I found a rather large tree branch on the hood of our car this morning.  No damage, thank G_d, [...]

Finally, some excitement…

I haven’t been thrilled with John McCain as my Republican nominee.  I pretty much planned to vote for him in November, unless he had done something like put Mike Huckabee on his ticket.  I haven’t been excited by most of the possible VP rumors, not that they were bad, just not exciting for me personally.
But [...]

Even more free Cleveland…

Last night we went to another free concert at the Wade Oval.  This particular concert I had been quite excited about.  The band is called Yiddishe Cup and the play klemzer music and do some pretty clever humor bits.  They would describe it as “borscht belt humor”, which they do on their website.
They were good.  [...]

Speaking truth to power…

A phrase that is overused and misused, I think.  But it truly applies to Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a Soviet era dissident/writer, who died today at the age of 89.
I do not know why Gulag Archipelago is not required reading in our schools.  Not to mention One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.
I recommend the Solzhenitsyn editorial [...]

Taxes…

We have DirecTV, which has been wonderful.  When we moved into the house last year we chose DirecTV over cable so that I would be able to have the NFL Sunday Ticket throughout the football season.  It is hard to live in Ohio and be a Steelers fan…  Anyway, it was a big bonus that [...]

Times of tumult…

I am a news junkie.  One of the 24 hour news networks is almost always on in our house.  And in the kitchen I have a little radio tuned to talk radio.  S is on summer vacation (teaching kicks ass) and so she is around the house more than usual.  Which means she is exposed [...]

Raising taxes on the rich…

So, it appears that Senator Obama has voted in the past for a Senate Democrats’ tax plan that would raise the 25 percent federal tax rate to 28 percent.
He has repeatedly pledged that as president he would raise taxes on the “rich”.
The thing is, the  25 percent bracket is between $32,550 and $78,850 for individuals and between [...]

Vice President guessing game…

And now it is finally time to start talking about the people on the list for Vice Presidentfor both McCain and Obama.
I have compiled a list of ten potential picks for each party based on looking at which names came up most on other people’s lists.  I’ll also try to link their names to information [...]

A look at the electoral map for McCain v. Obama…

Because it is never too early to project how people are going to vote on November 4th, let us take a look at the electoral map.  Remember, it takes 270 to win.
This comes from MSNBC’s First Read:
Base Obama: CA, CT, DE, DC, HI, IL, MD, MA, NY, RI, VT (153 electoral votes)
 
Lean Obama: ME, NJ, [...]