One fascinating phenomenon I’ve noticed as a lifelong Southerner is the amount of Northerners moving South. One big reason for this trend is because of Air Conditioning. The South can be a sticky place to be in the Summer, but with the advent of AC it’s not so bad. Plus, the South is generally more conservative which means less taxes and less government intervention into our daily lives. Less government intervention means businesses flourish, there’s more investment, and the economies grow faster. Contrast that to the Northeast and parts of the Midwest where the population is taxed higher, there are more unions, and the population votes Democrat. Unfortunately people bring their voting patterns when they move.
North Carolina is one of the most corrupt states in the United States. It’s been run by Democrats since the Civil War and for some reason the state always elects a Democrat for Governor. It’s perplexing because generally the Tar Heel State is conservative; however, it starting to turn Blue. My family moved to NC in 1992 and the number of Northerners moving to the state is amazing. For a short time Republicans in the State House made up ground, but the more liberal people immigrating to the state have turned the tide. I love North Carolina, but I’m not sure I would move back to the state with the highest taxes in the South and a Department of Transportation that is inept. Here’s an article about how Right to Work states are winning the migration war.
It’s really no surprise that Florida is number 1. There’s no state income tax, the weather is beautiful, and it’s governed pretty well.
The inauguration is a week away and there’s a lot of anticipation for the next administration. Obviously there are always going to be detractors, but Obama is the most popular incoming president since Bush in 1988. Plus, he’s enjoying the least hostile press in modern history. When Clinton won the election in 1992 he failed to win more than 45% of the vote and the conservatives never really gave him a chance. The only political capital Clinton had was used raising taxes. After the Health Care debacle Clinton had to work with Republicans to get anything done.
In 2000 after the bitterly contested election liberals never gave Bush a chance. Most of this was due to the election but there were a lot of hostile feeling about the previous eight years and the treatment of Clinton. Despite being a Senator, Obama is viewed as a relative outsider to Washington. He never had a defining moment on the Hill and was best known for his speech at the 2004 Democrat convention before this past election. Most Americans want the new president to succeed. Obama is faced with two choices. Politics as usual or to do something different. Given his immense political skills Obama can stick with the status quo and get reelected; however, his massive ego might mean he takes the road less traveled. The Left’s almost religious devotion to the man might mean he has some flexibility. The country is on the road to bankruptcy which could mean economic hardship that the average American cannot even imagine. Will the incoming president get us off this road or just put his foot on the gas. I guess we’re about to find out.
A little fuel for the fire… quite literally
One thing for certain is that many parts of the world still hate us. They hated us before President Bush and they’ll continue hating us because of the things we believe.
It’s been an extremely busy week for me so that accounts for the light posting. Me and Club Soda wrote, filmed, and edited the video below. It probably won’t make sense to anyone outside the company, but it’s still pretty cool.
Al Gore predicted the Arctic would melt in five years and the WWF is running ads of Polar Bears swimming aimlessly as their habitat melts. I’ve seen this commercial a couple of times and it’s ridiculous. Just watch this sob story…
There’s only one problem with this commercial, it’s not true. This is flat out lie propagated by people who are completely clueless. These people should be embarrassed by this fabrication. This year Arctic sea ice ended at the same level as 1979. The ice isn’t melting, the Polar Bears aren’t endangered. Let’s face it, the only reason the WWF is using the cuddly Polar Bear in this commercial is to influence the ignorant masses. The propaganda is so strong the led U.S. officially listed the polar bear a threatened species. Even though experts have claimed the animal’s numbers were increasing. What about the Antarctic you might ask? The ice has been growing there for awhile, but I guess that’s not alarming.
What did I say? As soon as Franken pulled ahead in the botched Minnesota recount he’d be declared the winner and that would be the end of it. The press doesn’t care that there’s a legal process to go through. They have their winner. The Democrats are much savvier politicians than Republicans. Just look at the House. After changing leadership in 1994 then Speaker Gingrich changed the rules to make it easier for the minority party to participate. Now the Democrats are going to change the rules back to the dark ages. Will their be any outrage? Not from anyone that matters. This is why Democrat bureaucrats are smarter. The average American doesn’t notice this stuff. The Press is so invested into Camelot II (either Kennedy or Obama) that they’ll never expose this stuff. We’re about to get a crash course in divisive leadership. Ah, bipartisanship never looked so partisan.
The news has been pretty bad for the past eight years. The press is never kind during a Republican administration and the never ending stream of bad news has definitely fed the American appetite for hyperbole. How many ridiculous comparisons have we heard comparing the current economy to the Great Depression? The current slowdown doesn’t even compare to the Carter years, but that’s another story. Here’s a bit of good news.
1. Crime rates are falling.2. Sex crimes are down.
3. The divorce rate is at its lowest point in four decades.
4. Life expectancy is up.
5. Mortality rates for eight of the 10 leading causes of death in America are dropping. Deaths from the two biggest killers–cancer and heart disease–have been in decline for a decade. Deaths from the third leading cause of death, stroke, are also down.
6. For six years, both incidence of and deaths from cancer have been in decline.
7. Since 1991, fewer teens are having sex, fewer are having sex with multiple partners, and more are using condoms when they do engage in intercourse.
8. The abortion rate is also at its lowest point in 30 years.
9. Juvenile violent crime is still 40% lower than it was in 1994. The juvenile murder rate is a whopping 73% below its high in 1993.
10. We have more leisure time. Americans work on average eight fewer hours per week than we did in the 1960s.
I expect the media’s doom and gloom mantra will start to dissipate once Obama takes the oath of office in a couple of weeks. Stories about the homeless will disappear. Look how the corruption in Congress has been covered since the Democrats has taken over. Isn’t it the height of hypocrisy what’s going on in Washington? The party that sought to defeat the “culture of corruption” hasn’t changed a thing and the press has largely ignored it. Ah, good news is just around the corner.
Congress had a wonderful time lecturing the Big Three’s CEO’s for flying in private jets to Washington. That’s all well and good, but what about the union bosses? Is there going to be outrage over these two worthless people?
One of the bosses, Ron Seroka, a union job security officer, takes off half a day nearly everyday to go home to lounge around the house while he is on the clock. Seroka punches in at the plant at 6 a.m. every single day and is home by 11:30 a.m. for some nice leisure time at home. Yet he gets a steady 10 hours pay every single day despite the fact that he is rarely at work.Seroka’s union boss is even worse. Union chairman Jim Modzelewski buys beer on a daily basis while on the clock and clocks himself in for overtime pay hours before he even wakes up to go into the plant. TV 4 found that after he punches in, he typically leaves for a beer run mere hours later. Again, all this is on a daily basis. He is also paid overtime pay on a daily basis as he sits home drinking his daily beer. With over 2,500 hours of overtime, Modzelewski made a six-figure salary last year. TV 4 also discovered that Modzelewski even played in a bowling tournament while on the clock — at overtime pay, too!
I guess you can’t fault these guys. It’s good work if you can find it. Unfortunately as the American automakers are learning you can’t pay people a six figure salary to sit around a drink all day.
Back in September I wrote about the record low amount of sunspot activity. 2008 ended up being the least active sunspot year since 1913.
The total number of spotless days this spolar minimum is now at around 510 days since the last maximum. The earliest the minimum of the sunspot cycles can be is July 2008, which would make the cycle length 12 years 3 months, longest since cycle 9 in 1848. If the sun stays quiet for a few more months we will rival the early 1800s, the Dalton Minimum which fits with the 213 year cycle which begin with the solar minimum in the late 1790s.
What does it all mean? The climate alarmists have dismissed solar activity as a main contributing cause for climate change even though there’s strong evidence that suggests otherwise. I guess the most powerful energy in the universe pales in comparison to the evil of mankind and the combustion engine. There’s no argument that the climate has taken a colder turn the past two years. Will it continue?
With the Wigley suggested lag of sun to temperatures of 5 years and Landscheidt suggested 8 years, a leveling of should have been favored around 2000-2003 and cooling should be showing up now. Looking ahead, put that together with the flip of the PDO in the Pacific to cold and you have alarming signals that this cooling of the last 7 years will continue and accelerate.
Posting has been light over the Christmas period. Me and my girlfriend went up to North Carolina for a few days and vegged out on food and movies. I finally watched the Godfather Trilogy in its entirety and we also caught the Curious Case of Benjamin Button. We spent New Year’s Eve in Sarasota with friends and yesterday we drove up to Orlando for the Capital One Bowl. It was cool to see the Dawgs play even if the season has been a disappointment. Now that the holidays are out of the way I’ll get back to posting more often.
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