Onerous Ohio Taxes On Everything

I just got a friendly reminder from the Ohio Department of Public Safety about the need for me to renew my license pkates.

Ohio now taxes every thing one does and taxes it at usuary rates.

Special plate fees $25.00
State license tax $31.00
Local/county tax $10.00
Service fee $ 3.50
Postage $ 0.37

TOTAL $69.87

Of the 50 states, Ohio now ranks as the 8th most taxed state, according to the Census Bureau, of all the United States of America. When I left for Washington, DC all those years ago, Ohio was, as I remember, the 42nd most taxed state in the United States.

In terms of state and local taxes, in 1977 Ohio ranked 45th in the country for the amount individual tax burdens. By 2008 Ohio had moved to 7th in the nation.

It's time for all this tax stuff to stop. We can't just blame Strickland because there was Taft Jr., Gilligan, Celeste, Voinovich and legislatures that bought votes and monuments to their dim status as legislators. Nothing puts gravitas to a career as much as having pretty much every building, bridge and pig pen named after you.

It is obvious that having one's name attached to great deeds is a good way to be remembered, but cutting the size, scope and impact of government probably won't have a building with a big bureaucracy in it to do such a deed, ergo, nobody gets to put their name on it by legislating huge sums of money to something to cut huge sums of money. Wait a minute, I think this has already been tried.

Anyway, I'll pay for the new tags, but I'm tired of it all.

Demos Say "It's A Fool's Errand" To Free 50+ Million People

The Democrats may have found a way to slice the Gordian Knot that is vexing their plans to control business, industry and health care here at home while furthering the erosion of confidence in America abroad. That 50 plus million people will feel the sting of betrayal and harsher new rulers matters little to the Demos.

War tax proponent Obey calls expected troop surge a 'fool's errand'

That some Democrats want to abandon Afghanistan is well known. What the Democrats don't want debated is that the 'cut and run' they want in Afghanistan will echo though out the Middle East, especially Iraq and terrorist camps world wide emboldening dictatorships, weakening hope for freedom and stability and make America into a country that cannot be trusted.

A win-win-win for Islamofascists, Democrats and other despots.

Best Banned Ad

Didn't VW have a Kennedy car ad about floating?

Climate Change Dissenter's Fraud

Here in East Anglia, where a simple look out the window shows that it is a blistering 70 degrees, we are contemplating our next move to save polar bear cubs from the wrath of capitalism and its scourge of man made global warming.

It must be stated clearly that our community should invite open debate concerning global warming, our models for projecting said destruction of our planet and, most importantly, just how stupid the deniers are and their inability to see that we are right and accurate in our ability to foresee the total destruction of civilization just so these losers can enjoy transportation and their smug and warm cozy little cottages.

Our esteemed colleague, Joe Goebblins, has placed before the Committee of Scientific Excellence a suggestion that we "prove" to thermometer companies that their measuring devices are at least .o6 degrees cooler than the actual temperature we have calculated. A second was made and furthered that a mechanism such as a COLA should be incorporated into their future models reflecting the warming of ambient temperatures worldwide. Said COLA would use our accurate modeling to indicate just how much the "real" temperature will rise in any given year based on the increased funding necessary to fend off the nearing Apocalypse Soon our earth is facing.

It is our belief that the above stated goals and our "open" and "honest" debate with dissenters will not only win them over with an added bonus that every time a dissenter is proven batshat crazy the media will spread the word, thus placing our "science" in the proper perspective for the world to see and feel awe that their scientific community has once again stepped up to the plate of saving human salvation.

Yours in brotherhood,

Wanker the Weatherman

PS Tell those clowns in Colorado that if they muck this up again that they WILL NOT be allowed to publish their rubbish in the next edition of "Can't See The Climate For The Weather". That should shut their yaps. Just make sure the emails are deleted this time, capiche?

Giving Thanks For Our Security

Yep, the Commander in Chief sets the tone, but it's his VP that is in charge of our national security.

Here he is checking out potential threats. Atta boy Joe.

Thanks Be To God For Our Country

General Thanksgiving
By the PRESIDENT of the United States Of America A PROCLAMATION

WHEREAS it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favour; and Whereas both Houfes of Congress have, by their joint committee, requefted me "to recommend to the people of the United States a DAY OF PUBLICK THANSGIVING and PRAYER, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to eftablifh a form of government for their safety and happiness:"

NOW THEREFORE, I do recommend and affign THURSDAY, the TWENTY-SIXTH DAY of NOVEMBER next, to be devoted by the people of thefe States to the fervice of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our fincere and humble thanksfor His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the fignal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpofitions of His providence in the courfe and conclufion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have fince enjoyed;-- for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to eftablish Conftitutions of government for our fafety and happinefs, and particularly the national one now lately instituted;-- for the civil and religious liberty with which we are bleffed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffufing useful knowledge;-- and, in general, for all the great and various favours which He has been pleafed to confer upon us.

And also, that we may then unite in moft humbly offering our prayers and fupplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and befeech Him to pardon our national and other tranfgreffions;-- to enable us all, whether in publick or private ftations, to perform our feveral and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a bleffing to all the people by conftantly being a Government of wife, juft, and conftitutional laws, difcreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all fovereigns and nations (especially fuch as have shewn kindnefs unto us); and to blefs them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increafe of fcience among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind fuch a degree of temporal profperity as he alone knows to be beft.

GIVEN under my hand, at the city of New-York, the third day of October, in the year of our Lord, one thousand feven hundred and eighty-nine.

(signed) G. Washington

Similarities

Taliban leader rules out talks with Karzai

Pelosi refuses to talk to Republicans

Mother, May I?

"Is your gown Armani?"
"Pelosi shot her a disapproving stare and rolled her eyes a bit," says the pool report. She also refused to answer Givhan's follow up question, "What was that look?!"

.

Mother, may I? "Are you serious?"

.

Stupid questions require stupid responses. It's the law!

Obama: Experience Not Relevant

Help Wanted, No Private Sector Experience Required

Okay, let's get this right. Those governing our daily experience are those that have only read about experience in books written largely by those that talked to others about experience who had researched experience having none themselves.

This is an experience I would not like to experience again. It hurts.

What Lying Science Has Wrought

Nopenhagen.

A strong operational agreement on climate change? Agreement? What are you agreeing with? That the earth is getting cooler and it is apparent that scientists around the world have been cooking their books? Are you agreeing to a deal that will bankrupt America? Save the trip because your doing fine without their help?

Are you going to agree to agree on an agreement that has no agreement?

Obama says 'step closer' to climate deal
US President Barack Obama said Tuesday the world has moved "one step closer" to a "strong operational agreement" on climate change at next month's Copenhagen summit after his talks with Indian and Chinese leaders.

This is classic. Just one more apology to the entire world that America is an evil place from which no good can come. Thanks, Bam Bam. I thank you, my children thank you and that's it, because my kids won't be able to afford or want to bring children into your world.

Obama Surrenders To The Taliban Their Win Strategy

via Another Black Conservative (go read a good blog)

I know that in the past, when going up against an opponent, I always do two things: let them know I won't involve the power necessary to win and the date at which I will give up and quit. It works every time. They fold their tent and stop fighting. Why should they fight against somebody that won't fight and plans to surrender anyway?

Obama plans to send 34,000 more troops to Afghanistan
President Barack Obama met Monday evening with his national security team to finalize a plan to dispatch some 34,000 additional U.S. troops over the next year to what he's called "a war of necessity" in Afghanistan, U.S. officials told McClatchy.
...

The administration's plan contains "off-ramps," points starting next June at which Obama could decide to continue the flow of troops, halt the deployments and adopt a more limited strategy or "begin looking very quickly at exiting" the country, depending on political and military progress, one defense official said.

So, in this deferential bow to terrorists looking for THE big victory, Obama sends the signal that those Americans who have died freeing Afghanistan and defeating a terror network trying to destroy us all died for nothing. What does Obama care? He's never fought for anything. He feels that mere soldiers are beneath him, thus inconsequential.

To Obama, our soldiers aren't nearly as important as a group of murdering rapists hiding behind a chimera of religion nor are they as important as his ridiculous agenda here in America. Let them and those that will die, die for nothing.

Our soldiers don't bring enough political capital. That they die, their families are destroyed and America is at greater risk means nothing to Obama. They are just political cover for surrender so Obama can get what he wants, what he feels is important,and let those soldiers be damned.

So, what are they dying for? Cap and Trade, Cash for Clunkers, Global Warning crap, Socialized Medicine? I have always believed that we have the best and smartest military in the world so I can only think that our soldiers are thinking that if they can hold on just long enough to get this Chicago rookie loser out of office, then maybe it is worth it. I hope that is what they are thinking.

For our soldiers to look for the missing man to the right or the left and to look at Afghanistan's people that now have real hope in their faces and not want to complete their mission is too terrible to think. The traumatic stress associated with combat is real, but so is the traumatic stress of knowing your commander in chief is inept and is willing to sully one's sacrifice, in fact, it can be more so.

I don't know Obama as a man, but I do know I'd laugh in his face before I'd ever think of following him through the gates of hell. I do know his policies and I wouldn't follow him to free food and booze. As a leader, I do know that Obama would leave me with a hangover, the tab and food poisoning.

Surrender? Why doesn't Obama surrender his office and hand it over to someone who understands America, what we can do and is proud of it.

If he makes Afghanistan our modern day Vietnam he will rue the day he ever got into politics because he will be remembered as a cheap imitation of Nero fiddling as he burns Rome.

Previous:
Obama, Instead of McChsrystal Light, Why Not McChrystal Heavy?

Hacked Email Graphed As Hockey Stick

Appears the whole "hockey stick" theory of climate change may represent something other than global warming.

ACORN Dumps Documents To Hide What?

Nuts, tree, etc.

BREAKING: San Diego ACORN Document Dump Scandal

How much would a bunch of acorns have to be afraid of Jerry Brown? I think it would be more of a reunion.

Why Are Liberals Afraid Of Palin?

That should be liberals, progressives, socialists, etc and not just Palin, but of what she stands for?

A local blog is using phrases like "Camp Stupid" and other derogatory phrases. They even brag about confronting the crowds waiting to see her in which they use vulgarities, that they use just to antagonize, to tell those waiting just how stupid they are and how stupid Palin is.

I guess a couple of questions to them might be:

• Why do you believe you are superior to Mrs. Palin and those wishing to see her?
• Do you ridicule Mrs. Palin because you truly have alternatives or are you just acting out for fun
• Are you acting in good faith with your questions or are you hoping to trick your opponents?
• If you need to belittle Mrs. Palin's accomplishments, what have you accomplished and how is what she has done less of an accomplishment than you?
• When lashing out at your opponents in such a hateful and personal manner, do you consider that actively working for your ideas? If so, how many people have you compelled to change their views to agree with your views?

I'd really like to know.

Climate Change Infects Individuals With Wussiness

Well, Climate Change seems to do all sort of things single-handedly.

So this is how Nevada came about:

'Climate change pushes poor women to prostitution'...

This predicts a health care reform that works faster than Obama's plan:

Climate change 'could kill 4.5 million children'

Mustn't forget the ladies:

Climate change is a feminist issue

What the article doesn't state are the other repercussions:

Climate Change prolongs diaper stench
Climate Change spreads STDs
Climate Changes fuels foreclosures
Climate Change heats economic meltdown
Climate Change sickens health care
Climate Change causes puppies to cry
Climate Change feeds obesity
Climate Change splits marriages
Climate Change sparks zombies to life
Climate Change makes babies cry

Gotta remember:

Prince Charles says we have '100 months left'

Washington Post
END NEAR; WOMEN AND CHILDREN HIT HARDEST

Harry Reid's Shell Game To Thwart The Will Of The People

NRO has a piece explaining how Harry Reid can screw the people and throw his personal ethics down a hole

Tomorrow night at 8 p.m., the Senate will vote on a “Motion to Proceed.” If Senator Reid succeeds in getting 60 votes allowing the debate to proceed, then that is a filibuster-proof majority. This could very well clear the way for Reid to employ other procedural moves that allow him to substitute his massive bill into another shell bill and call for a vote on final passage, which requires only 51 votes to succeed. In other words, success on the Motion to Proceed would open up the opportunity for Reid to force a vote on health-care reform before any pro-life amendments or substitute bills could be offered.

Reid knows his bill hasn't a chance of passing unless he uses backroom tactics such as described above and, as reported in the press, that Landrieu accepted an outright bribe to get her yes vote tonight.

Personally, I wonder how Reid can sleep at night knowing that he is ushering through the largest abortion bill ever. He states that he is pro-life, which flies in the face of what he is attempting. He must love power more than he loves his God. Just like Pelosi. Both, hypocrites.

Climate Change IS A Hoax - What Else?

It is a stunning turn. Hacked emails discussing that climate change is a hoax and how to keep the gravy train going by systematically destroying dissenters and those dissenters careers.

American Power has the best round up with great links.

Global Warming Hoax Breaks Wide Open as Hackers Target East Anglia Climate Research Unit!
The world is currently cooling; electorates are increasingly reluctant to support eco-policies leading to more oppressive regulation, higher taxes and higher utility bills; the tide is turning against Al Gore’s Anthropogenic Global Warming theory. The so-called “sceptical” view is now also the majority view.

Al Gore is a liar millionaire from climate change, but I believe that his transparently phony Inconvenient Truth actually helped upset the apple cart that is a concerted effort on the scientific community to keep the money flowing and to grab huge chunks power by governments around the world. This is a typical pattern for liberals, a definite tactic by progressives and a political necessity for socialists and communists.

The whole of the scientific community should now have to transparently prove their "theories" whether it is such obvious crap, as example, of the dangers of Alar or the "new" and dangerous ideas about child rearing or allowing dangerous criminals back on the street.

Global warming, climate change or whatever name they choose is, in my opinion, just the tip of the iceberg. Name a science being postulated today and there will be the twin goals of money and power. Those pushing and pursuing such science should be investigated fully. They have done enough damage and need to be stopped.

How Much Will Reid Bribe For Health Care?

There is the cost of the health care bill itself, which will be trillions, but what are the hidden costs within the the bill?

Example:

The $100 Million Health Care Vote?
The section spends two pages defining which “states” would qualify, saying, among other things, that it would be states that “during the preceding 7 fiscal years” have been declared a “major disaster area.”

I am told the section applies to exactly one state: Louisiana, the home of moderate Democrat Mary Landrieu, who has been playing hard to get on the health care bill.

In other words, the bill spends two pages describing would could be written with a single world: Louisiana. (This may also help explain why the bill is long.)

Senator Harry Reid, who drafted the bill, cannot pass it without the support of Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu.

Has the CBO gone through the bill to calculate how much the bribery legislation will really cost us?

The Democrat idea of health care reform is outrageously bad, but this type of bribery should be illegal. That it is just unethical denotes just how low this congress has sunk.

Motown's $800,000 Buys Nassau

This has always been a problem, buying anbassadorships, but some of these people don't have the quaifications to run the midnight to 6 AM shift at Bert's Bait and Gas. No experience. At all.

Barack Obama rewards big donors with plum jobs overseas
Nicole Avant, a member of a Motown family dynasty who is credited with bundling up to $800,000 for Obama, was granted the coveted and cushy ambassadorship in Nassau, Bahamas.

I hope she gave daddy a big hug.

Lartigue. One Of My Favorite Photographs

(Update below)

This is surely one of the most evocative photographs I have ever seen. In fact, to me this photograph symbolizes the essence of a pre-war car. Made by French photographer Jacques-Henri Lartigue in 1913, at a time when the word photoshop had not been invented. Early photographs were really “stills” without any sense of movement. Jacques-Henri Lartigue (1894-1986) was one of the first photographers who knew to create a distortion in his photos, thus suggesting movement, if not real speed. The original title of this photo is “Car Trip, Papa at 80 kilometers an hour”. It has long been thought that the car was a Delage and that the photo had been taken on June 26, 1912 during the Grand Prix de l’ACF, held at the Circuit de Dieppe. However, research has proved that no Delage with that starting number participated in that particular Grand Prix and that it is in fact a Theophilé Schneider, photographed in 1913 during the Grand Prix at Picardie (see sources). This amazing silver print, signed by Lartigue in ink, was auctioned at Sotheby’s in Amsterdam. Its estimate was 4000-6000 euros but the hammer fell at a staggering 7800 euros.

UPDATE: Good question Webutante;

Webutante: However, you didn't tell us when this photo was auctioned off for that staggering at Sotheby's. Assume it was recently?

From the dating of the original post, my math tells me that it was autioned off at Sotheby's Amsterdam on 3/15/07.

Additional info; Racing Database lists René Croquet with starting number 6. He finished tenth.

For photo buffs ( I have an old Graflex, not the same as Lartigue, and a bellowed 5X7 and have not been able to duplicate the same distortion):

UPDATE I by Carleton Hughes: "The distortion you mention was not deliberate but was the result of the downward travelling focal-plane shutter on the Graflex camera favoured by Lartigue and others circa 1905-1920. Thus the image will appear leaning forward from top to bottom giving the impression of speed and motion but is in reality due to the vertical shutter curtain slowly travelling from top to bottom." Editor JB: "Carleton is right be it only partly... As you can see the car is leaning forward, yet the onlookers backward. So in fact it is a combination of the shutter technique and a horizontal pan-movement from left to right in order to keep track with the car during exposure. Still, many have tried to copy the effect (especially in car advertising) but -as we understand - never had the result Lartigue had. So the effect of the lucky shot was added as a topping over the technical aspects. The more important question stays... is it a Delage or a Schneider...?”

UPDATE II: Marc Fellman confirms that four Th. Schneider cars participated in the ACF GP on the 12/13th July 1913. Car #16 driven by Henry Champoisseau and Louis Daclin (finished 7th), #20 driven by Rene Thomas & Brombant (finished 9th), #6 the subject of the Lartigue photo driven by Maurice Croquet & Didier (finished 10th) & #12 driven by Fernand Gabriel & Mongeot (did not finish). Cars were equipped with 5.5 litre 4 cylinder engines. History records that Georges Boillot won in a Peugeot but the Th. Schneiders acquitted themselves well among a field of the likes of Boillot & Goux in Peugeots, Chassagne in a Sunbeam and Bablot & Guyot in Delages.

UPDATE III: Per Bjurling suggests a slightly different explanation to the distortion of the photo. Presume that the car is moving forwards. At ground level the distance between the feet of the people and the car tyre touching the ground is relatively short. At head level the distance between the heads of the people and the upper part of the tyre is longer. It took a certain time for the slot to move over the film surface while the camera rotated and the car moved even faster than that. As I understand it the slot in the shutter must have travelled from below and upwards. Anyone with a modern system camera who hasn’t understood this will fail in trying to remake the shot. Editor JB: “I was not implying that people with a modern camera cannot remake the photo. I know from people who tried to remake the shot with a similar or identical old camera. Without being able to get this result....”

UPDATE AGAIN: Jacques-HenriLartigue was approximately 18 years of age when he took this photograph. His father had a camera and Lartigue was absolutely fascinated by it. When a young boy, his father bought him a large, indeed ponderous, 13 X 18 camera on a large tripod. Lartigue had to stand on a stool to focus.

Lartigue was fascinated with beauty, elegance, excitement and fun. He was especially interested in recording his family's exploits as exemplified in this photograph of his brother. "My brother Zissou," Lartigue recalls, "had a vivid intelligence and he invented so many things--wooden horses, crates on wheels, even a velodrome--but I was always the little boy, in a way, kept in the corner, dying to take part. This really grieved me, until one day I said to myself, 'Now I am going to catch all these beautiful things which they do.'...In a daily journal that little Jacques-Henri kept at the time, and has kept ever since, there is this joyful annotation for a day in 1901: "Papa is like God (as a matter of fact, he might even be God in disguise). He's just told me, 'I'm going to give you your own camera.' Now I can take pictures of everything... everything. I know very well that many, many things are going to ask me to have their pictures taken, and I will take them all!" (Aperture, Jacques-Henri Lartigue, p. 7.)

It is interesting that Lartigue never allowed his first photograph to be viewed by others, but below is the second photograph that Jacques-Henri Lartigue took. He was very young, aged eight, and it is an inspiring photograph, simply as a photograph, but it is breath taking in its chosen subject for Lartigue's first photograph to be viewed by others:

His parents at Pont-de-l'Arch, 1902

(poor quality scan by me)