As reported by the Toledo (Ohio) Blade,  "a Toledo police records clerk has been charged with 'gross misconduct' for allegedly making an improper inquiry for information regarding the man known as 'Joe the Plumber,' ...Authorities said this was done for non-law enforcement purposes and was a violation of department policy and state policy governing law regarding the use of the Law Enforcement Automated Data System database.
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My Dad didn’t want to join the union, so he was singled out for abuse by his pro-union co-workers. There were death threats from union members, so he would load his .45 and take it to work with him when he left at 5 a.m. each morning. It is not at all an exaggeration to say that we lived in fear.  Now, the Democrats want to do away with secret balloting, exposing anti-union employees to harassment and perhaps even violent attacks. (Full article and comments)

Every now and then we get a letter to the editor that thoroughly speaks for itself. This one came to us along with a photo from a cell phone which means that this person on public assistance has a posher phone than I do. 

(In response to “Who’s Going to Report on ‘President Obama’?” Stephanie Ramage, News & Views, Oct. 19) U cant stop us.ramage is on a rampage against Obama because he is black.GET OVER IT HONEY! HE WON!
     Somebody should slap the taste of evil out of Stephanie Ramage’s mouth. She is wicked. GOD hears and sees everything. She will get hers on judgment day. Anyhow, who can we trust to report on how people living on Georgia streets will survive? The same people who fought for our country, that are now homeless and mentally ill? Who will report the fact that thousands of women pile up at the local family and children services office for government assistance because the economy won’t grant them a job? 

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Russell Shorto, author of the brand new, mesmerizing non-fiction book, “Descartes' Bones” will be on hand for a book signing at the Georgia Center for the Book/Dekalb Library, 215 Sycamore Street, Decatur, Georgia, at 7:15pm on Tuesday, Oct. 21.

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If you're having trouble finding my column this week, here it is: (Full article and comments)

“Sorry about your guy,” my friend said as he walked me to my car after the third and final presidential debate between Democratic Sen. Barack Obama and Republican Sen. John McCain.

“Oh, it’s okay,” I said. “It could be worse—he could get elected.”

He laughed until he realized I was serious.

McCain lost the third and final debate fair and square. I felt strongly that he won the first one with a fine display of foreign policy knowledge. The second was a draw. But this one was most definitely Obama’s.

Obama won the debate, but he raised more troubling issues that other media seem unwilling to touch. How is it possible that he can cut taxes for 95 percent of Americans while providing health care for all of them while allowing those who want to stick with their company-purchased insurance to do so? He only says that introducing a government plan will drive down the cost of private insurance, but the thing that will decide that is what the government plan will actually cover. It would have to cover a lot to compete with most private packages, and it has to compete if it’s going to drive down cost. He says it will be basic. But, even if it covers only half as much, how will America, with its 320 million people, pay for it if taxes are cut?

“Are you worried about all the media you’ve criticized?” my friend asked, interrupting my thoughts.

“Nope, not at all, I stand behind every single word of every single story, blog or column, but I am worried about the media in one particularly troubling sense: who’s going to report on the malfunctions and misdeeds of the Obama Administration?”

For several months now I’ve watched aghast as media organizations I used to admire had one ethical lapse after another for the sake of promoting Obama. So, if they are all so in love with Obama that they are willing to sacrifice ethics and integrity for him, and they clearly are, then who will report honestly on Obama’s administration?

I’m not saying that I expect Obama himself to commit any scandalous infractions. I don’t think he will. I also don’t think Obama is a terrorist pal and I’ve never given this paper’s ink to that line of rubbish or to any insinuations about his non-existent relationship with Bill Ayers. But the media shamelessly and obviously dropped the ball this election year. They left it up to the candidates to set the agenda, when they should have been setting it. I say “they” because I did what I could—there was a lead as big as a broadsheet in Obama’s complicity in not passing a bill in 2005 to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, something that could have prevented the majority of our economic suffering today. He took money from Freddie and Fannie employees and related non-profits and looked the other way when the bill was killed. But those reporters who went after Obama busied themselves with the garbage leads about Ayers, seeking reactionary pay dirt rather than something that might be worthy of real concern. And there’s plenty to be concerned about besides his Fannie Mae connections or the weird math of less tax revenue and more spending. For one, his off-hand remark during the debate that clearly showed his soft-spot for labor leaders in Colombia also showed his insensitivity to the Colombian government, a government that carried out a daring rescue of 15 hostages of FARC last summer, and three of those hostages were Americans; a government that has supported us and been a stalwart thorn in the side of our South American arch-enemy Hugo Chavez, a thieving despot with whom Obama supporter Jesse Jackson exchanged hugs and reassurances of support in 2005.

Will you trust the media that has allowed these things to go unquestioned to cover Obama’s administration, an administration that will preside over a House and Senate controlled by Democrats? Where will you turn for truth and balance when all that will remain of a GOP counterweight in Washington is a few Supreme Court justices? (Full article and comments)

Why is Creative Loafing columnist Andisheh Nouraee writing as if France is only now warming up to us? "With an Obama presidency likely," he writes. "It looks like much of the animosity has passed." Excuse me? I’m not disputing that there’s been some boneheaded shlock regarding France coming from the right in recent years, but the hostilities ended in mid-2007 with the ascension of a French president who understands what’s at stake for the West in today’s geopolitical configuration. That was well before Obama became the Democrats’ candidate of choice and while Bush still had almost two years left in office. 
         In March 2007, I spent most of an afternoon with Christine Lagarde, France’s minister of trade. She was in town to give a speech at the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce. Lagarde, an avid supporter of pro-American president Nicolas Sarkozy, spoke of how France was adopting a much more free market system to get out of the way of French entrepreneurs. She also scolded the U.S. for not being globalized adequately (less than a quarter of our business community does business overseas), but lauded our close trade relations.

She said: “In 2006, France exported €26.4 billion worth of goods to America and imported €25.3 billion from the United States. The United States is France's 6th supplier and 6th buyer and its largest customer in Europe. France is America's 10th supplier. Every second, our two countries trade €1,640 or almost $2,000 worth of goods. But this is not all. The United States is the biggest foreign direct investor in France, in 2006 American companies created 9,500 jobs in France. Today, 600,000 French employees are working for American subsidiaries which contribute to 10% of all French exports. Conversely, France is the 4th-largest investor in the United States; 550,000 Americans are employed by 2,600 French companies in the USA.”

She continued: “In Georgia alone, more than 500 French enterprises employ several tens of thousands of people. French companies such as the tyre manufacturer Michelin, construction materials manufacturer Lafarge, and eyeglass-lens maker Essilor contribute to Georgia’s economic development. France is determined to remain an open country and to strengthen trade with all countries in the world, particularly the United States.” 

But she didn't just talk about our close trade relations, she also said:"France and the United States share a common destiny. France and the United States share many values that are often promoted together and exported to other countries. France's Declaration of the Rights of 1789 is closely tied to the American Declaration of Independence of 1776. We are bound by such values as an attachment to democracy and confidence in progress. We are heirs to the Age of Enlightenment. Today, France and the United States need to join hands to develop solutions to the challenges of our time in such areas as environmental protection, health, and the battle against counterfeiting. In June 7, 1777, the Marquis de la Fayette wrote the following in a letter to his wife: 'A defender of the freedom I worship, freer than anyone, I have come as a friend to offer my services to this fascinating republic (of the United States) without any personal interest. America's happiness is intimately linked to the happiness of humanity: it will become a worthy and safe asylum for virtue, honesty, tolerance, equality, and peaceful freedom.' May this be true!"
And over, and over and over again she reassured all those present of how much France relies upon and loves the United States. You know why? Sarkozy was about to win the election. Shortly after Lagarde's visit here, I went to Paris and observed the French presidential race coverage. Sarkozy was openly pro-American and he won the presidency quite soundly, and that was a year and a half ago. A mere two weeks ago, Republican presidential candidate John McCain told supporters that the U.S. should emulate France’s pro-nuclear-power approach to energy, adding “France has a pro-American president now, which just goes to show that if you live long enough you’ll see it all.”

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Just in case there was any doubt left after a Nobel Prize official told us last week that American literature as whole is not worthy of the Nobel Prize for literature, it is now abundantly clear that the Swedes and their co-horts intend to use the prize to reward anti-Bush liberals regardless of ability. The Nobel Prize for economics has been awarded to New York Times Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman who is also an economics professor at Princeton. His grand contribution to rigorous scholarly analysis of the world's markets large and small? As described by the International Herald Tribune: "In his model, many companies sell similar goods with slight variations. These companies get more efficient at producing their goods as they sell more, and so they grow. Consumers like variety, and pick and choose goods from among these producers in different countries, enabling countries to continue exchanging similar products. So some Americans buy Volkswagens and some Germans buy Fords.He developed this work further to explain the effect of transportation costs on why people live where they live. His model explained under what conditions trade would lead people or companies to move to a particular region or to move away."
Daniel Klein, a professor of economics at George Mason University who earlier this year wrote a comprehensive review of Krugman's body of Times columns, told the IHT: "Much of his popular work is disgraceful. He totally omits all these major issues where the economics conclusion goes against the feel-good Democratic Party ethos, which I think he's really tended to pander to especially since writing for The New York Times." (Full article and comments)

National Public Radio recently devoted a segment to the "Great Schlep," an idea put forth by comedienne Sarah Silverman, the entertainer who makes safely racist comments about Asians and puts a lite, fun spin on the Holocaust, that Jewish grandkids should bribe their retiree grandparents in Florida into voting for Obama by making an extra visit to see them. All good so far, except that when NPR did its segment, following one of these Jewish grandkids on his "Great Schlep," they failed to correct, via a simple comment after the piece, the misinformation the kid gave his grandparents. He implied that McCain had obstructed the bailout when, he said, there should have been no argument about the bailout. Well, in fact there was no argument about the bailout. McCain was there front and center begging his fellow Republicans to pass the bailout bill and he and Obama agreed completely that a bailout was needed. I am not accustomed to NPR allowing its interviewees to put out misinformation without bothering to note the problem. A basic cannon of good journalism is not to allow misinformation to stand. Yet, NPR ducked the rules of journalistic integrity for this warm and fuzzy piece on Obama. Their reporters are quite savvy. He had to know the kid was wrong. But he didn't say bubkes to correct the falacy. What gives? (Full article and comments)

Okay people, get a grip. According to the FDR Presidential Library and Museum, "At the height of the Depression in 1933, 24.9 percent of the total work force or 11,385,000 people, were unemployed." What's our unemployment rate right now? It's 6.1 percent. Yeah, big difference, right? But you wouldn't know it to read CNN which offers up a load of excrement today in the form of a panic-causing story about people during the Great Depression eating squirrel and having to "catch" their meals. Well, I'd like to clue you in on a couple of things: #1- I know some of the folks who work over at CNN.com and they're very young. I, on the other hand, was born in my parents' 40s and my mom and dad were born in 1924. At the height of the Great Depression, my parents were 9 years old--and my parents (god rest my Dad's soul) wouldn't know how to comment on a blog, they wouldn't even know what a blog was. So, I would suggest to the Honeycomb Hideout Team over at CNN that they check the ages of the people with whom they talk or chat or blog and do the math and see if in FACT that person could actually have parents who were alive during the Great Depression. #2--Hell, there are people in the south who still eat squirrel and they LOVE it. My dad ate it right up until the year he died, 2003. So, while I find the idea repulsive, I keep in mind two things: The folks at CNN very seldom fact check when they pop off with their dire predictions. And, the folks at CNN are fearmongerers of the worst sort. Their ratings rely on panic, as they have shown over and over again. Don't forget that it was the Persian Gulf War and its scud missile threat that actually made CNN a going concern. They know which side their bread is buttered on...or do they? Has it occurred to the ninnies over there that maybe, just maybe, they're also scaring off advertisers with this garbage? May they reap what they sow, and may the rest of us have the good sense not to buy it. (Full article and comments)