Urban Hicks

John Ziegler is an excellent commentator and KFI in Los Angeles did themselves a great disservice by letting him go.

Fortunately, he’s still busy fighting the good fight for truth and has recently released the beginnings of an upcoming documentary on “How Obama Got Elected.” Here’s the site and some video.

Here’s a transcript from his appearance on “Hannity & Colmes.”

Notice how Alan Colmes tried to twist it to make it look like John Ziegler is saying that Obama voters were stupid when in reality, Ziegler is stating something many of us find quite obvious: a biased media ran stories biased against the Republican ticket while mostly if not completely ignoring the “negative stories” about the Democrat ticket.

Much has been made in the past week or so about a “government bailout” of the Big 3 automakers. Some want to throw money at the problem, some want to take a different approach.

Frankly, I’m a bit conflicted. While I hate to think of massive layoff contributing to larger unemployment, the free-market libertarian in me says “Screw ‘em.”

Let’s face it - it’s pretty much been bad business practice that’s driven them (no pun intended) to this point. Whether it’s bending over for the UAW or merely not keeping up with the innovation of the foreign car manufacturers, they’ve really got nobody to blame but themselves.

And the workers? Well, they’ve drunk the Union Kool-Aid that’s contributing to the company’s problems. They also have nobody to blame but themselves.

My advice: run your business smarter.

You had to know that this one was coming. California traffic is almost a joke by itself. And it doesn’t really matter when or where you’re going - if it’s around the major cities, you’re going to be stuck, so plan ahead.

And it’s not just the volume of people although that’s a large part of it. It’s the “idiot” factor. Teenagers, immigrants (both legal and illegal), people talking on cell phones (even though they’re required to use them hands free) - many, many people that shouldn’t be driving for myriad reasons. Now, my brother lives in the Midwest and he’s certain that the drivers back there are worse. But they’re not as concentrated either. And that’s what it boils down to really. Too many stupid people that don’t know how to drive.

The weather you ask? What’s wrong with California weather? I realize that many, many people that freeze their tails off in the winter would appreciate our generally mild winters. And let’s face it, compared to someplace like Phoenix, our summers aren’t too bad either. But that comes at a price. In California, we’ve pretty much have just two seasons - hot and wet. We don’t have a fall season. We have some sort of unholy extension of summer. 2 weeks before Thanksgiving and it’s 90 degrees out right now. We don’t really have a spring either - our summer just starts early.

Which at this point in time, leads to a sort of corollary to the main point - fires. It seems that every fall, we in Southern California are beset with fires. Right now, there are about 3 major fires burning…oh…within about a 25 mile radius of where I live. Where do these fires come from? Dry summers, hot winds (during what should be the fall season), and usually some jackass intent on causing damage. But even if it’s started by some low-life criminal firebug, the spread of the fire is pretty much because of our wonderful weather.

I for one, would like to have all 4 seasons. Or at least do without the fires.

I alluded to this prior to the most recent election, anticipating a possible defeat of California’s Proposition 8, which would define marriage as being between a man and a woman. And while Prop 8 did in fact pass by a 52% to 48% margin, I’m still pretty much done here.

I was born and raised in California - haven’t moved outside of a 5 mile square area in 34 years. At one point in time, this was “The Golden State.” We were “Reagan Country.” We were a fairly sensible state. Then something happened that I can’t put my finger on, and we devolved into this quasi-socialistic state run by some of the biggest lunatics you can find. From local mayors and councils (I’m looking at you Berkeley), to the State legislature, to our elected Federal representative (Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer), the list goes on. What happened? Again, I don’t know. But reasons aside, the outcome has devolved into this laundry list of reasons that I hate California, which follow in no particular order.

Congratulations I suppose, to the #48 team - winning a record-tying 3 straight championships. And this year, without the specter of cheating.But as this season closes, a couple of thoughts on the season.

What happened to the #18 team the last 10 races? Killing the competition through the regular season, and the - BOOM - seems like the blew up, figuratively and sometimes literally.

What happened to Earnhardt Jr.? This was going to be his year. He switched over to a proven winning team with Hendrick and started out good enough. Ended up last of the chasers. He had some shining moments but overall, I didn’t particularly see a whole heck of a lot of improvement over what he was doing at DEI.

Matt Kenseth didn’t win one race this year. Perhaps he’s still adjusting to a new chief. Jeff Gordon didn’t win a race either, but who really cares?

And what does the future hold for 2009? Tony Stewart going to his own start-up team. Can he compete out of the gate or will he struggle as an owner/racer? Will NASCAR yet again change The Chase format? Will Kyle Busch shrug off this year’s Chase and stage another outstanding season? These questions - and many more - will be answered in February 2009. Eh - maybe sooner. (sigh) 3 more months to go…

Leave it to the markets to prove me wrong, while I’m on vacation, with no way to respond. This past Thursday, the DJIA was up…what…500+? Only to drop another 300+ the following day. And with the pending “bad news” expect more of the same this week.

I’ve pointed this out, and I’ll say it again. The Dems have been in control of the both houses of Congress for the past 2 years. During that time, they killed oversight of Freddie Mac & Fannie Mae, the two worst offenders of the sub-prime mortgage mess that’s largely responsible for our economy tanking. If Obama continues those policies of the Democrat congress of the last 2 years, get ready for a protracted downturn. Here’s a good post on the entire matter.

Have the U..S financial markets been up even marginally Obama was elected? Hopefully not a harbinger of things to come.

Some time back, a side wall at my church was tagged. You couldn’t really see it from the front of the church and we covered it up within a couple of weeks. But this wasn’t necessarily an easy deal. We have about a 5′ wrought iron fence with the ornamental spiky thingies on top, so it took a bit of effort to get in to do that.

As bad as that was, this one is much worse. Over the weekend, some people (it had to have been more than one person) stole the electrical/motor unit from the automatic gate at church. Again, this was no small feat. And this was no amatuer either - they knew what they were doing and how to do it.  They had to hop the fence, break the lock on the casing, unbolt everything without damaging it, and load it into whatever truck they had. A $6,000 piece of hardware.

Perhaps I’m a tad naive, but I always thought that churches were sort of “immune” to the rest of the crappy world. I mean even if you’re not a regular church goer or a believer,  isn’t there at least a modicum of respect? Wouldn’t you think “I don’t believe in God, but I’d better not piss Him off, just in case?”

When something like this happens, it’s easy to say “Oh, they’re totally going to rot in hell,” but I’m 100% sure that’s not what God wants to see. So, I hope whoever took it is convicted by the Holy Spirit and finds that relationship with God.

As I’ve said before, to lose the 2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup, Jimmie Johnson essentially needs to finish 43rd. According to this article, he only needs to finish 35th to win the Cup. The article also mentions that Johnson has “made a mockery of the Chase format.” I won’t root for the dude, but I can’t disagree. Save for 2 years, it’s been all Johnson. And hey - this year he’s doing it without the specter of cheating.

But it brings me back to my question a couple of weeks back - why the “Chase” format. While it hasn’t been a for sure deal, the past few weeks, it’s been a pretty solid certainty. NASCAR either needs to change the Chase format (yet again) or just go back to the old way. One wonders what the standings would be right now if the Chase format didn’t exist. Closer? Farther? Perhaps some number gnome out there has the answer.