Friday, February 27, 2009

 

Here's a photo of the lake house we might put a bid on today. Dreary day but its beautiful. Yard needs a little work but the view is worth it.



Thursday, February 26, 2009

 

Tax this

Obama's Budget: Almost $1 Trillion in New Taxes Over Next 10 yrs, Starting 2011

February 26, 2009 12:00 PM

President Obama's budget proposes $989 billion in new taxes over the course of the next 10 years, starting fiscal year 2011, most of which are tax increases on individuals.


 
Nothing much going on. We'll probably start getting ready for Florida tonight. We are leaving early Saturday morning and won't return until March 9. There will be tons of photos up then.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

 
My braces are off and it feels good. The whitening, on the other hand, was a pain in the butt. I didn't know it was so long and would be so uncomfortable. It was essentially 75 minutes (five 15 minute sessions) of sitting still with my mouth pried open. At least there was a tv I could watch. But the result is pretty good.

I could really live fine with the way my teeth are now but I still have a little more work to do.

Friday, February 20, 2009

 
With the news today about misreporting on Artic ice, everyone needs to take a close look at the three stories below. Because what we hear on the tv and read in the paper everyday is that global warming is caused by man and will soon flood the world. And NASA's James Hansen, probably the number 2 advocate in the world behind Gore, is in charge of the data. He can't seem to report it correctly though and his mistakes always show warming. This is the tip of the iceberg unfortunately, there are other cases out there.

GISS’ most recent data release originally reported last October as being extraordinarily warm– a full 0.78C above normal. This would have made it the warmest October on record; a huge increase over the previous month’s data.
Those results set off alarm bells with Steve McIntyre and his gang of Baker Street irregulars at Climateaudit.org. They noted that NASA’s data didn’t agree at all with the satellite temperature record, which showed October to be very mild, continuing the same trend of slight cooling that has persisted since 1998. So they dug a little deeper.
McIntyre, the same man who found errors last year in GISS’s US temperature record, quickly noted that most of the temperature increase was coming from Russia. A chart of world temperatures showed that in October, most of Russia, the largest nation on Earth, was not only registering hot, but literally off the scale. Yet anecdotal reports were suggesting that worldwide, October was actually slightly colder than normal. Could there be another error in GISS’s data?
An alert reader on McIntyre’s blog revealed that there was a very large problem. Looking at the actual readings from individual stations in Russia showed a curious anomaly. The locations had all been assigned the exact temperatures from a month earlier– the much warmer month of September. Russia cools very rapidly in the fall months, so recycling the data from the earlier month had led to a massive temperature increase.”

and

Arctic Sea Ice Underestimated for Weeks Due to Faulty Sensor
Email Print A A A
By Alex Morales
Feb. 20 (Bloomberg) -- A glitch in satellite sensors caused scientists to underestimate the extent of Arctic sea ice by 500,000 square kilometers (193,000 square miles), a California- size area, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center said.
The error, due to a problem called “sensor drift,” began in early January and caused a slowly growing underestimation of sea ice extent until mid-February. That’s when “puzzled readers” alerted the NSIDC about data showing ice-covered areas as stretches of open ocean, the Boulder, Colorado-based group said on its Web site.
“Sensor drift, although infrequent, does occasionally occur and it is one of the things that we account for during quality- control measures prior to archiving the data,” the center said. “Although we believe that data prior to early January are reliable, we will conduct a full quality check.’’
The extent of Arctic sea ice is seen as a key measure of how rising temperatures are affecting the Earth. The cap retreated in 2007 to its lowest extent ever and last year posted its second- lowest annual minimum at the end of the yearly melt season. The recent error doesn’t change findings that Arctic ice is retreating, the NSIDC said.
The center said real-time data on sea ice is always less reliable than archived numbers because full checks haven’t yet been carried out. Historical data is checked across other sources, it said.
The NSIDC uses Department of Defense satellites to obtain its Arctic sea ice data rather than more accurate National Aeronautics and Space Administration equipment. That’s because the defense satellites have a longer period of historical data, enabling scientists to draw conclusions about long-term ice melt, the center said.
“There is a balance between being as accurate as possible at any given moment and being as consistent as possible through long time-periods,” NSIDC said. “Our main scientific focus is on the long-term changes in Arctic sea ice.”

and if you are still with me (from a UK newspaper)

Claims of what we all suspected - that James Hansen is losing the plot - have been flooding in over the past week. (Unlike the water he imagines will shortly cover half the US if we don't go back to living like cavemen.) The leading climate change hysteric, called "an embarrassment to NASA", has "lost his mind", according to colleagues. Hansen was accused of "megalomania" and and "scientific authoritarianism" by Dr. Roger Pielke, Jr., former director of the University of Colorado's Center for Science and Technology Policy Research.
What do you mean, global temperatures are going down? (Photo: PA)
In Sunday's Guardian (natch), Hansen called coal-fired power plants "factories of death". Marc Sheppard responded eloquently today in American Thinker:
Even the realization of Al Gore's dream of "capping" carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants wouldn't satisfy NASA's James Hansen. He wants to shut them all down, despite the untold human misery such hysterical action would inevitably bring. And toward that preposterously unattainable end he is now pushing panic buttons with the alacrity of a man truly possessed.
In a wild rant in Sunday's Guardian responding to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's green-lighting of the controversial Kingsnorth power plant, the head of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies managed to outdo even his own sophomoric guilt trips and fear-mongering. [...]
So James, might you kindly explain - without mention of extinction or sea-level rise or ice sheet disintegration - just how you propose we close these "factories of death" without synchronously opening a global arena of human want, suffering and ultimate demise? [...] Even after last week's annual American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting, at which the Goracle likened his battle to stop global warming to that of 19th century abolitionists fighting to end slavery. Indeed - in gauging the measure of a movement, one need not delve far beyond its leadership.
As long ago as June 2008, Dr. Nicholas Drapela from Oregon State University Chemistry Department wrote this:
My dear colleague Professor Hansen, I believe, has finally gone off the deep end. When you have dedicated the bulk of your career to a cause, and it turns out the cause has been proven false, most people cannot bring themselves to admit the truth. [Hansen's recent claims] contain neither reason nor truth when compared to the volumes of daily literature being published in scientific journals today on climate change. It is not difficult to refute the words of Professor Hansen. On the contrary, one feels it is almost unfair. [...] The global warming 'time bomb', the 'present, dangerous situation', 'the perfect storm', 'global cataclysm', 'disastrous climate changes that spiral dynamically out of humanity's control.' These are the words of an apocalyptic prophet, not a rational scientist.
One by one, the most extreme scientific studies are being discredited and the most hysterical ringleaders are being exposed as scare-mongering rabble-rousers. Governments must surely now realise there are far greater priorities than the apocalyptic shrieking of the climate change industry.
Earlier this month, I predicted "open warfare between experts presenting serious, evidence-based research into the state of the planet and hysterical alarmists like James Hansen". Has it already begun?

Thursday, February 19, 2009

 
I'm back from IL, getting my braces off tomorrow, leaving for Florida a week from Saturday. Life is good.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

 






















I loved the second house we looked at. It's a log cabin built 4 years ago but is more than we want to spend on a vacation home. But it is beautiful and has just about everything I want in a house except for property. It's a lot bigger than it looks in this photo, it also has a walk out basement downstairs. You can see that in the photo with Sarah.

The biggest problem with this house is that the garage, which is incredible, is being marketed seperately from the house. It would give you an acre waterfront lot but the total price is way too high. But how can you buy one and not the other? It also comes with a storage shed. The whole package is nice but way way too much money for us to spend. Oh well, the search continues.









 



I haven't been keeping up with the blog very well but you already know that. There just hasn't been too much going on lately. Maybe this week will be more exciting, I get my braces off on Friday so that's a start. Today we drove down to the Hillsboro area, about an hour a half away to look at some houses on Rocky Fork State Park. We saw 3. The first one was a 80 year old Sears house right out of the catalog. It sits on 2 acres and was really nice and it has a water view. There is an additional 37 acres available but I think its a bit much for what the guy is asking for it. The problem is that if you don't buy the acreage, you risk a trailer park or other houses being built on it to block the view. The top photo I took off the back deck.







 
The welfare state is back again in full force...

RONALD REAGAN started it, Bill Clinton finished it and last week Barack Obama was accused of engineering its destruction. One of the few undisputed triumphs of American government of the past 20 years – the sweeping welfare reform programme that sent millions of dole claimants back to work – has been plunged into jeopardy by billions of dollars in state handouts included in the president’s controversial economic stimulus package.
As Obama celebrated Valentine’s Day yesterday with a return to his Chicago home for a private weekend with family and friends, his success in piloting a $785 billion (£546 billion) stimulus package through Congress was being overshadowed by warnings that an unprecedented increase in welfare spending would undermine two decades of bipartisan attempts to reduce dependency on government handouts.
Robert Rector, a prominent welfare researcher who was one of the architects of Clinton's 1996 reform bill, warned last week that Obama’s stimulus plan was a “welfare spendathon” that would amount to the largest one-year increase in government handouts in American history.
Douglas Besharov, author of a big study on welfare reform, said the stimulus bill passed by Congress and the Senate in separate votes on Friday would “unravel” most of the 1996 reforms that led to a 65% reduction in welfare caseloads and prompted the British and several other governments to consider similar measures.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

 

Question of the day?

Who is smarter, Dan Quayle or Joe Biden?  I'd have to go with Quayle at this point. 

Monday, February 09, 2009

 

props

I may give out too few props to democrats.  Here is a big one that I could go into a lot of detail about but will just say that suing companies which stopped producing lead paint decades ago (sometime in the 1950s or 60s I believe) never struck me as fair.

 

CORDRAY WITHDRAWS PENDING DANN LAWSUIT AGAINST PAINT MAKERS OVER LEAD

Attorney General Richard Cordray put the lid on a lawsuit against lead paint manufacturers on Friday that his predecessor Marc Dann initiated nearly two years earlier.

"I understand and strongly agree that exposure to lead paint is a very real problem," said Attorney General Cordray said in a statement. "But I also know that not every problem can be solved by a lawsuit."

Mr. Cordray decided to voluntarily withdraw the case against 10 paint manufacturers after assessing the law, facts, and adverse legal rulings in similar cases nationally, his office said.

Rather than litigation, improving public-private partnerships to address the problem would better serve Ohioans at risk of lead paint exposure, Mr. Cordray said.

Mr. Dann filed the lawsuit in the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas in April 2007 and sought damages against the paint companies for exposing Ohioans to lead.


Saturday, February 07, 2009

 

I was called a cynic but I was right

The Fierce Urgency of Pork
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, February 6, 2009; A17

"A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe."

-- President Obama, Feb. 4.

 

Catastrophe, mind you. So much for the president who in his inaugural address two weeks earlier declared "we have chosen hope over fear." Until, that is, you need fear to pass a bill.

And so much for the promise to banish the money changers and influence peddlers from the temple. An ostentatious executive order banning lobbyists was immediately followed by the nomination of at least a dozen current or former lobbyists to high position. Followed by a Treasury secretary who allegedly couldn't understand the payroll tax provisions in his 1040. Followed by Tom Daschle, who had to fall on his sword according to the new Washington rule that no Cabinet can have more than one tax delinquent.

The Daschle affair was more serious because his offense involved more than taxes. As Michael Kinsley once observed, in Washington the real scandal isn't what's illegal, but what's legal. Not paying taxes is one thing. But what made this case intolerable was the perfectly legal dealings that amassed Daschle $5.2 million in just two years.

He'd been getting $1 million per year from a law firm. But he's not a lawyer, nor a registered lobbyist. You don't get paid this kind of money to instruct partners on the Senate markup process. You get it for picking up the phone and peddling influence.

At least Tim Geithner, the tax-challenged Treasury secretary, had been working for years as a humble international civil servant earning non-stratospheric wages. Daschle, who had made another cool million a year (plus chauffeur and Caddy) for unspecified services to a pal's private equity firm, represented everything Obama said he'd come to Washington to upend.

And yet more damaging to Obama's image than all the hypocrisies in the appointment process is his signature bill: the stimulus package. He inexplicably delegated the writing to Nancy Pelosi and the barons of the House. The product, which inevitably carries Obama's name, was not just bad, not just flawed, but a legislative abomination.

It's not just pages and pages of special-interest tax breaks, giveaways and protections, one of which would set off a ruinous Smoot-Hawley trade war. It's not just the waste, such as the $88.6 million for new construction for Milwaukee Public Schools, which, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, have shrinking enrollment, 15 vacant schools and, quite logically, no plans for new construction.

It's the essential fraud of rushing through a bill in which the normal rules (committee hearings, finding revenue to pay for the programs) are suspended on the grounds that a national emergency requires an immediate job-creating stimulus -- and then throwing into it hundreds of billions that have nothing to do with stimulus, that Congress's own budget office says won't be spent until 2011 and beyond, and that are little more than the back-scratching, special-interest, lobby-driven parochialism that Obama came to Washington to abolish. He said.

Not just to abolish but to create something new -- a new politics where the moneyed pork-barreling and corrupt logrolling of the past would give way to a bottom-up, grass-roots participatory democracy. That is what made Obama so dazzling and new. Turns out the "fierce urgency of now" includes $150 million for livestock (and honeybee and farm-raised fish) insurance.

The Age of Obama begins with perhaps the greatest frenzy of old-politics influence peddling ever seen in Washington. By the time the stimulus bill reached the Senate, reports the Wall Street Journal, pharmaceutical and high-tech companies were lobbying furiously for a new plan to repatriate overseas profits that would yield major tax savings. California wine growers and Florida citrus producers were fighting to change a single phrase in one provision. Substituting "planted" for "ready to market" would mean a windfall garnered from a new "bonus depreciation" incentive.

After Obama's miraculous 2008 presidential campaign, it was clear that at some point the magical mystery tour would have to end. The nation would rub its eyes and begin to emerge from its reverie. The hallucinatory Obama would give way to the mere mortal. The great ethical transformations promised would be seen as a fairy tale that all presidents tell -- and that this president told better than anyone.

I thought the awakening would take six months. It took two and a half weeks.


Thursday, February 05, 2009

 

ouch!

Stimulus

Wednesday, February 04, 2009

 

Happy #2 Birthday Jack!

Tuesday, February 03, 2009

 
Here are 25 random things about me that I did for another web site:
  1. I was 22 when I flew on an airplane for the first time and I’ve flown hundreds of times since then, including 9/11 when I got stuck in Chicago.
  2. I have never done an illegal drug in my life (and I’ve never smoked a cigarette either).
  3. I’m still close with a number of guys from my grade school days, count them as my best friends and get together with them often.
  4. I know that stupid people is a subjective term but I have little patience for them.
  5. I worked in Congressman Ralph Regula’s Canton office for almost five years and loved going to work every day.
  6. The older I get the more pet peeves I have.
  7. I’m adopted and have never had the desire to find my natural birth parents. My sister is adopted too and I think she tried to find hers but I don’t think she was successful.
  8. I wish that everyone would take personal responsibility in their lives and not expect someone else to do everything for them.
  9. I don’t look good in a suit, whether it cost $2000 or $250 (I would never again spend $2000 on a suit).
  10. I love Massillon and the history of the city and our football team but I’m probably more obsessed with Ohio State football at this point in my life. But if given the choice I would take a Tiger state championship over a Buckeye national one.
  11. I haven’t missed a Massillon v. McKinley football game since 1980; that’s 33 straight games including the playoffs.
  12. I don’t know anyone who is a worse singer than me except maybe my wife.
  13. I collect ticket stubs from events that I attend and probably have over 300. The 1992 Olympics, a bullfight in 1988, and the Buckeyes national championship win are a few of my favorites.
  14. I don’t drink more than two alcoholic drinks a day but that sounds like I need to have two drinks every day. In reality, I probably have two drinks a week now.
  15. I was always the fastest kid in my grade until Craig Johnson transferred to Massillon during my junior year in high school and proceeded to set the state record in the 100 meter dash that year (he used to beat me by more than five yards which is a lot in a race that distance).
  16. I once walked away from a blackjack table in New Orleans with $3400 of winnings and took all of it home with me.
  17. My parents did a great job in raising me and I appreciate that more and more as I make decisions about how to raise Henry and Jack.
  18. I took my last college class in Madrid, Spain before returning home and passing the required foreign language test to receive my International Relations degree (I think there were only four other people who received it in 1988).
  19. I am genuinely afraid of where our President and Congress want to take our country. Say what you will about George Bush but he never wanted to fundamentally change the foundation of our nation.
  20. Sports allowed me to be in the cool group growing up but absent that I probably would have been a nerd.
  21. I feel blessed to be at my mom’s side when she passed away. I didn’t think that would happen since I live two hours away but I’m glad I was there.
  22. I’m still not sure what I want to do in life when I grow up. I’m pretty sure I’ll be a writer but I need to take the first step and start writing.
  23. I played football in college for a year at the University of Dayton.
  24. I formed a business with a friend to buy houses and rent them to mentally retarded adults in Stark County. We own two and are looking at a third.
  25. Some day I’m going to buy a large sailboat and sail the Caribbean Islands. I may have two drinks a day then…
  26. If I could take my family and friends and trade places with anyone in the world it would be Jimmy Buffett.
  27. I was an average student who was labeled with the famous moniker “he would do well if he applied himself”.
  28. My wife Sarah is a source of strength for me and I’m glad she is Mrs. Briggs. I’m proud of what she has accomplished in life and know that she will be much more successful in whatever she does than I ever will be.
  29. I never knew that having kids would be so much fun and wish I hadn’t waited until my late 30s. I’m not sure what was important in life before them.
  30. Was this supposed to be 25 or 30 random things?

 
I just found out I get my braces off on Feb. 20. It would be sooner except for some scheduling conflicts with my dentist and my orthodontist.  Regardless, I can live with it.

Monday, February 02, 2009

 

change it is coming

To All My Valued Employees,

There have been some rumblings around the office about the future of this company, and more specifically, your job. As you know, the economy has changed for the worse and presents many challenges. However, the good news is this: The economy doesn't pose a threat to your job. What does threaten your job however, is the changing political landscape in this country.

However, let me tell you some little tidbits of fact which might help you decide what is in your best interests.

 

First, while it is easy to spew rhetoric that casts employers against employees, you have to understand that for every business owner there is a Back Story. This back story is often neglected and overshadowed by what you see and hear. Sure, you see me park my Mercedes outside. You've seen my big home at last years Christmas party. I'm sure; all these flashy icons of luxury conjure up some idealized thoughts about my life.

 

However, what you don't see is the BACK STORY:

 

I started this company 28 years ago. At that time, I lived in a 300 square foot studio apartment for 3 years. My entire living apartment was converted into an office so I could put forth 100% effort into building a company, which by the way, would eventually employ you.

My diet consisted of Ramen Pride noodles because every dollar I spent went back into this company. I drove a rusty Toyota Corolla with a defective transmission. I didn't have time to date. Often times, I stayed home on weekends, while my friends went out drinking and partying. In fact, I was married to my business -- hard work, discipline, and sacrifice.

 

Meanwhile, my friends got jobs. They worked 40 hours a week and made a modest $50K a year and spent every dime they earned. They drove flashy cars and lived in expensive homes and wore fancy designer clothes. Instead of hitting the Nordstrom's for the latest hot fashion item, I was trolling through the discount store extracting any clothing item that didn't look like it was birthed in the 70's. My friends refinanced their mortgages and lived a life of luxury. I, however, did not. I put my time, my money, and my life into a business with a vision that eventually, some day, I too, will be able to afford these luxuries my friends supposedly had.

 

So, while you physically arrive at the office at 9am, mentally check in at about noon, and then leave at 5pm, I don't. There is no "off" button for me. When you leave the office, you are done and you have a weekend all to yourself. I unfortunately do not have the freedom. I eat, and breathe this company every minute of the day. There is no rest. There is no weekend. There is no happy hour. Every day this business is attached to my hip like a 1 year old special-needs child. You, of course, only see the fruits of that garden -- the nice house, the Mercedes, the vacations... you never realize the Back Story and the sacrifices I've made.

 

Now, the economy is falling apart and I, the guy that made all the right decisions and saved his money, have to bail-out all the people who didn't. The people that overspent their paychecks suddenly feel entitled to the same luxuries that I earned and sacrificed a decade of my life for.

Yes, business ownership has is benefits but the price I've paid is steep and notýwithout wounds.

Unfortunately, the cost of running this business, and employing you, is starting to eclipse the threshold of marginal benefit and let me tell you why:

 

I am being taxed to death and the government thinks I don't pay enough. I have state taxes. Federal taxes. Property taxes. Sales and use taxes. Payroll taxes. Workers compensation taxes. Unemployment taxes. Taxes on taxes. I have to hire a tax man to manage all these taxes and then guess what? I have to pay taxes for employing him. Government mandates and regulations and all the accounting that goes with it, now occupy most of my time. On Oct 15th, I wrote a check to the US Treasury for $288,000 for quarterly taxes. You know what my "stimulus" check was? Zero.. Nada. Zilch.

 

The question I have is this: Who is stimulating the economy? Me, the guy who has provided 14 people good paying jobs and serves over 2,200,000 people per year with a flourishing business? Or, the single mother sitting at home pregnant with her fourth child waiting for her next welfare check? Obviously, government feels the latter is the economic stimulus of this country.

The fact is, if I deducted (Read: Stole) 50% of your paycheck you'd quit and you wouldn't work here. I mean, why should you? That's nuts. Who wants to get rewarded only 50% of their hard work? Well, I agree which is why your job is in jeopardy.

 

Here is what many of you don't understand ... to stimulate the economy you need to stimulate what runs the economy. Had suddenly government mandated to me that I didn't need to pay taxes, guess what? Instead of depositing that $288,000 into the Washington black-hole, I would have spent it, hired more employees, and generated substantial economic growth. My employees would have enjoyed the wealth of that tax cut in the form of promotions and better salaries. But you can forget it now.

 

When you have a comatose man on the verge of death, you don't defibrillate and shock his thumb thinking that will bring him back to life, do you? Or, do you defibrillate his heart? Business is at the heart of America and always has been. To restart it, you must stimulate it, not kill it. Suddenly, the power brokers in Washington believe the poor of America are the essential drivers of the American economic engine. Nothing could be further from the truth and this is the type of change you can keep.

 

So where am I going with all this?

It's quite simple.

 

If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, my reaction will be swift and simple. I fire you. I fire your co-workers. You can then plead with the government to pay for your mortgage, your SUV, and your child's future. Frankly, it isn't my problem any more.

 

Then, I will close this company down, move to another country, and retire. You see, I'm done. I'm done with a country that penalizes the productive and gives to the unproductive. My motivation to work and to provide jobs will be destroyed, and with it, will be my citizenship.

 

So, if you lose your job, it won't be at the hands of the economy; it will be at the hands of a political hurricane that swept through this country, steamrolled the constitution, and will have changed its landscape forever. If that happens, you can find me sitting on a beach, retired, and with no employees to worry about....

 

Signed, THE BOSS


 

A Great Photo


Sunday, February 01, 2009

 
Henry at his Children First graduation last June.

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?