Taxpayers vote with their feet. They’re hoofin’ it to Texas…and from California; two diametrically opposed microcosms of political ideology:

What is surprising is the growing evidence that the low-benefit, low-tax alternative succeeds not only on its own terms but also according to the criteria used by defenders of high benefits and high taxes. Whatever theoretical claims are made for imposing high taxes to provide generous government benefits, the practical reality is that these public goods are, increasingly, neither public nor good: their beneficiaries are mostly the service providers themselves, and their quality is poor.

while California and Texas are comparable in terms of sheer numbers, their demographic paths are diverging. Before 1990, both states grew much faster than the rest of the country. Since then, only Texas has continued to do so. While its share of the nation’s population has steadily increased, from 6.8 percent in 1990 to 7.9 percent in 2007, California’s has barely budged, from 12 percent to 12.1 percent.

Unpacking the numbers is even more revealing—and, for California, disturbing.

What’s so special about California?

California and it’s economy are faced with the fallout of massive over-spending, immigration, health care and arbitrary and burdensome emissions regulations – which have failed by the way. Sound familiar?

What’s so special about Texas?

between 1998 and 2007, the states without an individual income tax “created 89 percent more jobs and had 32 percent faster personal income growth” than the states with the highest individual income-tax rates. California’s tax and regulatory policies, the report predicts, “will continue to sap its economic vitality,” while Texas’s “pro-growth” policies will help it “maintain its superior economic performance well into the future.” The clear implication is that California should become more like Texas.

…and so should the US. With Texans hinting at secession, is the Lone Star state the lifeboat for the other 49? Might it be time to jump in?

Nawwww. Let’s see how the Vikings finish the season first.

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama greeted Hamid Karzai’s election victory with as much admonishment as praise on Monday, pointedly advising America’s partner in war he must make more serious efforts to end corruption in Afghanistan’s government and prepare his nation to ultimately defend itself.

Shot In The Dark exclusively obtained the transcript from US President Barack Obama’s telephone call to Afghan President Hamid Karzai today:

[sound of technician pushing start button on teleprompter]

Obama: I want to emphasize that this has to be a point in time in which we begin to write a new chapter.

Karzai: Let me offer you assurances that a new chapter that we will begin at this point in time will be one like which you have emphasized.

Obama: The proof is not going to be in words. It’s going to be in deeds.

[sound of Karzai’s hand covering mouthpiece of reciever and muffled sounds of snickering and then laughing audibly; mockingly]

Obama: Karzai! What are you doing?!!

Karzai: [chuckles] I’m sorry…uh…Mr. Obama, did you…Barack Obama…say….[chuckles] words [chuckles]…not deeds?!

Obama: Yes, make no mistake. The proof –

Karzai: [chuckles] I’m sorry. Are you serious? “Click”

[sound of dial tone]

Obama: [pretends to still be in conversation for the benefit of adjacent staff members]

[sound of technician pushing stop button on teleprompter, snickering]

Bill Clinton: See? I toldja Barry. Let me call ‘m next time.

Hillary Clinton: Guys! I’m still on the speakerphone…I heard that!

[sound of former President Clinton hanging up on former first lady and current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton]

[sound of Vice President Joseph Biden awakening from catnap on Oval Office couch]

–end of transcript–

…in other words, (again) “You Lie!”.

The White House is about to start singing the praises of the accelerated socialist government expansion stimulus program citing the “saving” or “creation” of 1 million US jobs.

The network news media have let the administration get away with using such a fictional metric for months now.

Basically it is a number pulled out of their butts via extrapolation, as if all the slated stimulus “dollars” had already been spent.

More reliable sources have pegged the jobs impact of the stimulus thus far at between zero and 30,000 jobs saved or created.

Predictions for 2010, widely calling for another tough year for unemployment throughout, have left the Obama Administration preemptively scrambling to find justification for their already lengthy record of failed policies.

Their plan is not surprising.

Smile, deflect and lie.

…but Arnold Schwarzenegger says…

Title courtesy Jon Bon Jovi

I couldn’t wait until Friday for “Hot Gear Friday.”

Police Auctioning Off Motorized La-Z-Boy Used in DWI

If you’ve ever had the urge to cruise your neighborhood in a self-propelled La-Z-Boy, your opportunity has arrived. Minnesota resident Dennis Anderson (no relation to the Gravedigger monster truck franchise – we think) has forfeited his notorious motorized, and over-the-top modified, recliner chair involved in his DWI incident and crash recently is going on the eBay auction block later this week.

The damn thing has headlights (and nitrous)!

120,000 calls in four hours…and we’re done.

Park Nicollet Clinic shut down its flu-shot appointment line today after it was flooded with 120,000 calls in a four-hour period this morning.

They need to get that soup Nazi guy to handle this.

“Not pregnant? No shot for you!

Older than four? No shot for you!

Healthy immune system? No shot for you!

Move along!”

That would work.

The Obama administration continues to drag its feet, exposing their utter incompetence on yet another front; the war in Afghanistan – ironically the one Obama wanted.

Now he has it. Predictably, his administration is once again resorting to the tiresome practice of blaming the previous administration for their own inability to manage the war Obama campaigned on as the one we should have been fighting.

Now’s his chance…

…to blame Bush.

…again.

On October 18, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel appeared on the Sunday morning talk shows and, in the process of answering questions about Barack Obama’s strategy on Afghanistan, accused the Bush administration of failing to ask the most basic questions about that country and our war there.

Gibbs went on…claiming that a request for troops from General David McKiernan during the final year of the Bush administration “sat on desks in this White House, including the vice president’s, for more than eight months.”

Obama lies. Emanuel lies. Gibbs lies.

In fact, the Bush administration did ask those questions. From mid-September to mid-November 2008, a National Security Council team, under the direction of General Doug Lute, conducted an exhaustive review of Afghanistan policy. The interagency group included high-ranking officials from the State Department, the National Security Council, the CIA, the office of the director of national intelligence, the office of the vice president, the Pentagon, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Its objective was to assess U.S. -policy on Afghanistan, integrating a simultaneous military review being conducted by CENTCOM, so as to present President Bush with a series of recommendations on how best to turn around the deteriorating situation there.

…and the troop requests?

McKiernan wanted more troops–he asked for three additional brigades in the summer of 2008–but he understood that he could have them only when they became available. “McKiernan was making requests down the line,” says a Pentagon official, “and late in 2008 we did have the ability to commit more forces. So we did.” Indeed, Bush sent nearly 7,000 additional troops to Afghanistan before he left office, including one brigade that had been repurposed from Iraq.

Barack Obama is the President of Broken Promises. When he can’t or chooses not to keep his word, he waffles; he lies.

…and is so arrogant so as to think no one notices.

HT Chris F.

To: Our Loyal Readers

From: Me

Re: The Crash of Shot In The Dark

Sincere apologies for the recent lack of continuity our site has experienced of late. As I learned from my time in radio, dead air (and inside jokes by the way, but I digress) is a mortal sin as much in this medium as it is in radio.

We have made great progress in restoring the site to its retro look however the “post author” function is still busted.

I would like to take this opportunity to confess a couple things under cover of this period of anonymity.

First off, there have been many rumors that our high readership and decidedly conservative stance put Shot In The Dark on par with Fox News. As it were, Blogga Non Grata. The buzz was that our site was taken down by operatives of the Obama administration. This is only partially true.

Truth is, I was watching Robert Gibbs lie through his teeth on YouTube and as I reacted with my signature “up in arms” gesture, I spilled coffee on my keyboard. As I was cleaning up after myself, I pushed “Ctrl Alt Del” which took the whole damn site down. My bad. Sorry about that.

Secondly, I want to confess that I wear women’s clothing. A lot. Mostly in the privacy of my home. Sometimes not. I like the feel of silk as it tickles my hairy legs. I am really excited about Nicole Ritchie’s new “Winter Kate” line.

And lastly, I spend much of my spare time watching Mary Tyler More and Rhoda reruns on Hulu. Cloris Leachman was so hot back then – but even moreso: Ed Asner.

There. I feel better.

Sincerely,

Me.

By now everyone has heard the sound bite from Flight 188’s First Officer Cole:

The first officer of the Northwest Airlines jet that missed its destination by 150 miles says there was no fight in the cockpit, neither he nor the captain had fallen asleep and the passengers were never in any danger.

But in an interview with The Associated Press two days after he and a colleague blew past their destination as air traffic controlled tried frantically to reach them, pilot Richard Cole would not say just what it was that led to them to forget to land Flight 188.

So just what was it?

There are few icons of La Vida Americana that represent America’s free enterprise system and the freedoms it affords all of us like the automobile.

And so it follows that with a growing number of liberal American apologists, there would be a growing number of “Americans” ditching their wheels.

The recession and a growing awareness of the environment are causing many people to reassess their automobile ownership. After more than a century in which an automobile represented the American dream, car enthusiasm may no longer be a part of Americans’ DNA.

Leave it to The New York Times to count a marginal few as a weighty majority and mark the death of automotive enthusiasm in the name of the environment and a deep but temporary recession – then again, look at their leader – acting on the whims of an ever-more-marginal minority.

Go ahead, ditch the Prius. Better for the rest of us. More road for me; less Obama ’08 stickers to look at.

A Northwest Airbus A320 flying from San Diego overshot its Twin Cities destination by about 150 miles on Wednesday, apparently when the crew became distracted, the National Transportation Safety Board said today.

(Passengers aboard the airliner were unaware – having grown accustomed to flight delays.-JR)

Hey, I’ve missed an exit before…what’s the big deal?

Apparently they were not texting:

The Federal Administration (FAA) said the FBI and airport police interviewed the crew, who said they “were in a heated discussion over airline policy and they lost situational awareness.” The NTSB is scheduling an interview with the crew.

…you think they will pull that cockpit audio tape?

The cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder are being sent to the NTSB laboratory in Washington, D.C.

Oh yeah.

This past week Keith Ellison issued a breathless, well-worn and blatantly specious (if not utterly ignorant) monologue to justify the further distension of the bowels of the federal government via yet another bloated agency. As I read his drivel, in my ears rang the sultry voice of classic SNL fixture Jane Curtain, warbling on and on and on; aptly blunted by Dan Ackroyd’s signature catchphrase.

the American dream of home ownership, and borrowing generally, washed up on the shores of a financial disaster — the most serious since the Great Depression.

One cause (there were many) was the failure of our system of consumer financial protection. No one was there to review transactions or protect consumers. The proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency provides the lifeline that consumers need.

Oh, someone was there. Federal regulators were there, telling banks they couldn’t borrow funds at the best rates unless they met certain ratios of mandated risky sub-prime transactions to the prudent and secure deals banks would normally seek.

A free market cannot be held culpable if it is not free.

These so-called predatory lenders Keith, were not only incented to push unqualified home buyers into loans they couldn’t afford, they were strong-armed to do so via quotas and measures put in place during the Carter administration and given teeth during the Clinton administration. Sadly, G.W. Bush failed to preemptively unwind the brewing disaster despite the behest of Senator John McCain, among others.

The government-inflated and guaranteed demand for housing and all the furnishings that go inside created a bubble with all the periphery that usually comes with one. It ended as they usually do – otherwise we’d not know it was a bubble, now would we?

If anyone needed regulatin’ it was the regulators.

The American Dream is just that, Keith. Home ownership, while beneficial to all of us, is not a Government-Given right. With rare exception, when liberals act with politically motivated and self-serving mandates under the auspice of a “lifeline”, disaster follows close behind.

…and that disaster, our Great Recession, is the direct result of exactly the same type of programs Mr. Ellison and his ilk offer as it’s “solution.”

Rejoice, because you are alive: An asteroid named 2009TM8 just passed only 216,000 miles from Earth, racing at 18,163mph. That’s closer than the moon.

I traveled to The Badlands in South Dakota this past week where you can literally see millions of years of earth’s history locked in a lava parfait; most of which took place without our existence, let alone our negligible impact

…and UK PM Gordon Brown, who has no scientific basis and of course no political agenda to further, says we have had 50 days to save Mother Earth.

Gordon Brown said negotiators had 50 days to save the world from global warming and break the “impasse”.

Mr Brown warned that negotiators were not reaching agreement quickly enough and said it was a “profound moment” for the world involving “momentous choice”.

“So we should never allow ourselves to lose sight of the catastrophe we face if present warming trends continue.”

Sorry, Sir. You mean cooling trends, right?

See, if I were Brown, I’d use even more syllables that that…to underscore the behemothic endangerment; the precariousness of our posterity.

What an amateur.

Meanwhile venues from Australia to here in the Twin Cities have experienced the coldest first two weeks in October on record.

HT John H

Does being an Ivy-Leaguer endow one with an intellectual reach that exceeds one’s grasp?

Case in point, the storied chaps at Harvard bet their billions that they were smarter than the market: Wrong

Harvard University’s failed bet that interest rates would rise cost the world’s richest school at least $500 million in payments to escape derivatives that backfired.

Further, Barack Obama bet that his Harvard-acquired education and billions in taxpayer dollars “invested” under the guise of economic stimulus would be enough to lead a nation and create millions of new jobs: Unsurprisingly, wrong.

Data published Thursday showed contracts from the $787 billion economic stimulus created or saved 30,083 jobs…

And finally the highly respected Harvard graduate Matt Birk, who many thought would finish his NFL career with the Minnesota Vikings, left in favor of a substantially similar offer from the Baltimore Ravens earlier this year. Birk ostensibly bet his chances of winning the Super Bowl would be greater in Baltimore: Surprisingly, wrong.

MINNEAPOLIS – As Steve Hauschka’s potential game-winning kick sailed wide left, nearly all of the Ravens on the sideline dropped their heads in unison, feeling another last-minute punch in the gut in a season that continues to veer off course.

It just goes to show a Harvard education is no guarantee of success. In the now legendary words of Forest Gump’s momma: “stupid is as stupid does.”

Pigs from the Minnesota state fair are being tested by the government for what may be the first U.S. cases of swine flu among domestic livestock.

That’s why I never go to The Fair.

No one around here shall be surprised by the Star Tribune’s confusion of a deliberate expansion of government with the genesis of a sustainable economic recovery.

From new dishwashers for the Albert Lea School District to a new counterterrorism police force to patrol buses and trains, federal stimulus money is pouring in to Minnesota and has directly preserved or created 11,800 jobs so far, state officials reported Monday.

I am sure the dishes at Albert Lea need to be washed and there is no doubt buses and trains need to be kept safe but federal stimulus dollars might just as well be called what they are; broad-based spending of future taxpayer dollars.

Normally called pork but in the heat of a crisis caused by liberal meddling during the watch of another Nobel Prize-winner, the very same wasteful practices that used to give liberals a bad name are now lauded for their “stimulation.”

But of what?

Management and Budget Commissioner Tom Hanson said statistics showed that the stimulus money “puts people to work,” and was having a “snowball effect” by indirectly sparking more job growth. As an example, he said, a highway construction job in Minnesota made possible with federal stimulus money might cause a company to buy a bulldozer from Tennessee that also meant jobs for workers at an out-of-state factory.

…or they might not buy that bulldozer because they might not be stupid enough to think that this economy is coming back any time soon. One project awarded by and funded with government dollars does not a recovery make.

Smart business owners and consumers alike are now finding ways to make the old bulldozer do the work instead of buying a new one simply because the bank will lend them the capital. Easy credit is long gone for the foreseeable future and even if it wasn’t, businesses and consumers will not soon be lured again into the tender trap of “buy today, pay tomorrow.”

The American consumer can no longer drive two thirds of our economy and like their banks, will spend the next several years rebuilding balance sheets by paying off debt, shoring up diminished retirement accounts and accumulating cash reserves to replace buffers formerly consisting of home equity credit lines and credit cards.

As for “Stimulus” spending and it’s true impact, any relief, dubious as it is, will continue only as long as the stimulus dollars keep flowing. Don’t believe that? Just ask your local car dealer how they’re doing now that the Clunkers Cash has dried up.

Government dollars are probably well spent on temporarily extending unemployment and health care benefits until workers claw their way back into the workforce, but continuing to borrow, tax and spend to create temporary relief will cause potentially permanent and devastating damage to our economy, leaving us worse off in the long run.

It is this very prospect, the fallout of our continued fiscal irresponsibility, that is sparking interest in stripping the US dollar of it’s current de facto status as the world’s currency. A national disaster that at best would force us to quickly revert to a low-wage manufacturer nation and at worse result in a catastrophic collapse of the dollar and our economy.

In either case, a catastrophic collapse of the Democratic Party’s reign looms inevitably as the inexorably slow recovery and sustained unemployment will surely outlast the diminishing effects of empty rhetoric, impotent stimulus packages and the patience of unemployed workers.

In the mean time, President Obama and his misguided policies serve only to distract and delay the healing that only the forces of capitalism can effect; the painstaking process of reorienting, realigning, innovating and ultimately forging true and sustainable models for America’s next economic era.

Hey boys and girls! Sometimes comedians can say the funniest things!

Please read the following quote; another example of an entertainer confusing his or her entertainment value with political relevance; Garrison Keilor:

“Thirty-two percent of the population identifies with the GOP, and if we cut off health care to them, we could probably pay off the deficit in short order.”

Now, tell us what’s wrong with that quote (economics majors: shhhhh.)

…is a jilted, pissed off President, with a bent for Socialism, who can now refocus on bringing our nation to the brink of insolvency.

South America gets its first games: The 2016 Olympics are going to Rio de Janeiro

Chicago was knocked out in the first round — in one of the most shocking defeats ever [emphasis happily mine-JR] in International Olympic Committee voting. Even Tokyo, which had trailed throughout the race, did better — eliminated after Chicago in the second round.

I feel bad for Chicago. Nonetheless, Mr. President, and with all due respect:  In your face!

You will have to find other less public forms of payback to your cronies in Illinois…and you would be well advised to brace for impact as more “shocking defeats” are almost certainly in the offing for you, sir.

Because I’d probably be pretty dangerous in the White House…to our most conspicuous enemies.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s continued overt threats to wipe Israel (or any other country for that matter) off the planet coupled with recent intelligence revealing a new nuclear facility would be met with a different tact than our Hippy-Wimp-in-Chief has chosen.

President Barack Obama is offering Iran “a serious, meaningful dialogue” over its disputed nuclear program, while warning Tehran of grave consequences from a united global front.

“Iran’s leaders must now choose – they can live up to their responsibilities and achieve integration with the community of nations. Or they will face increased pressure and isolation, and deny opportunity to their own people,” Obama said in his radio and Internet address Saturday.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is like a young unmedicated schoolchild.

Continued rhetoric without consequences, without punishment, has emboldened him. Just like a young child, repeatedly told “No” but without limits and punishment will turn into a spoiled maladjusted kid, Iran has given the rest of the world the bird.

The fact that the same party that let Osama Bin Laden slip through their fingers occupies Congress and the White House no doubt further stokes the fires of insanity; an opportunity to bully the other school kids while the Principal is on sabbatical.

Jimmy II recently informed Ahmadinejad he’s “breaking the rules” and later this week ratcheted up his teleprompter which in turn threatened Iran’s President with the dark storm clouds of “serious dialogue.”

Chilling.

Does that mean Michelle’s husband will have his publicist produce words with more syllables? That he’ll enlist multiple teleprompters? Employ a laser pointer or a PowerPoint presentation?

Iran’s current leadership has been directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths of many of our young men and women in Iraq, extending already excruciatingly long tours of duty for our brave young soldiers. Ahmadinejad represents a faction that resents Western freedoms and prosperity and will stop at nothing to destroy us to level the playing field and will not be bargained with or swayed by chit chat.

They have threatened peaceful nations and have shown time and again that they are not to be trusted and at the same time hold their ostensibly peaceful citizens hostage while exposing them to future military retaliation. Every week that goes by they grow in their ability to wreak havoc across much of Europe – and that’s based on what we know.

If I were President, that nuclear facility would be gone today. By lunch. On a Saturday. I’d make a call on the Batline and warn the weekend Janitor. The smoke would be clear by Monday morning.

It’s called a cruise missile, Mr. President, and his ass, up put, should be one.

So it’s a good thing, for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, that I’m not President, and am armed only with a laptop whose battery has 19% charge left.

Sweden, often held up by “progressives” as a model of socialism’s efficiency has collectively come to realize the error of it’s ways and is employing a radical tact to stimulate job growth.

Sweden’s centre-right government on Saturday announced income tax cuts…to stimulate the job market, its primary objective.

[needle scratching on Abba record]

Income tax cuts! To stimulate the job market?!!!

Back here in the U.S.S.A, Obama would be focused on bolstering the job market too if it weren’t for his Magical Mystery Tour promoting health care reform that most of America doesn’t want or need, and the government can’t afford.

The proposal, to be presented to parliament on Monday as part of the 2010 budget bill, is the fourth leg of a tax cut programme introduced in January 2007 to stimulate employment.

Tax cuts stimulate employment? Really? I wonder why Obama and his stooges uber-czars haven’t thought of that (you know, cutting taxes for those that are in a position to hire employees, versus cutting taxes for those that don’t pay them)?

“The coalition government has agreed on reforms for jobs and entrepreneurialism that will increase employment in the long-term. It has to be more profitable to work and more companies should be able to hire employees,” the government said.

Companies hire employees in Sweden? Naw, really? Here in America, under the Obama administration, the government hires employees. Are we missing something?

Since coming to power in late 2006, the government has launched a series of measures aimed at inciting Swedes to return to the job market instead of living off of state subsidies.

But that would require effort. Here in America we are sustained by Hope^® and Change^®.

The government said it would also propose a series of measures in the budget bill aimed at boosting incentives to start companies and improve the business climate.

Seriously, somebody should text TheOneWhoWon this innovative idea.

*from Winner Takes It All (Abba)

“…they are workin’ the umps all the time, I think it works with the [other media outlets], it doesn’t work with me.”

…says Michael Moore on Leno, promoting his next documentary “Capitalism: A Love Story.”

Um, Michael, greed actually is legal. I’m sure you’re donating all the revenue from your film to charity then, right?

[crickets]

I can’t wait to go see his latest film because what with the economy and all, I’m a little short on cash and I’m sure a film extolling the evils of greed is…free…right?

[crickets]

Moore explained that his vision of democracy is redistributionist, and he gave no voice to the idea that self-reliance and hard work can propel one to great wealth.

“…we live in a democracy,”

“We’re supposed to have like fairness and equality.

Exactly. One citizen, one vote; and the American dream is *like* still widely available to *like* anyone willing to like do the work, at least *like* for now.

“And you know when you have a pie on the table … there’s 10 slices and one guy at the table says nine of those slices are mine…”

Gee Michael, I wonder who that guy is?

“…and the other nine of you, you can fight over the last slice. I mean that’s essentially the kind of economy we have now.”

Well, not everyone can be Michael Moore, can they?

What Michael doesn’t seem to understand is that the reason the one guy gets the nine pieces is that the other nine people don’t “go” for them, and in fact the one guy actually bakes the pie and gives the one back to the other nine.

It’s called a salary.

In America however, the recipe for the pie is public information. Anyone can bake themselves their own pie, and Moore has been doing it for a long time.

Typical liberal: A prescription for thee but not for me:

“Many people find it tough to swallow Moore’s jokes about the wealthy and then watch him fly first class at his publisher’s or film distributor’s expense to his posh home in New York City’s Central Park West, where he also sends his teenage daughter to an elite private school.”

Michael Moore is a talented filmmaker who like many in Hollywood have confused their success in the entertainment industry with an almighty ordination to entreat and admonish the minions at their feet with the gravity of their omniscient wisdom.

“Hey look everybody, it’s Madonna, arriving via private jet and limousine convoy to teach us how to ‘Go Green!'”

Moore’s hypocrisy is legendary, from investments he has made, people he has hired and then stiffed, to his own conspicuous enjoyment of the larger, juicier fruits of capitalism.

One can only imagine the sacrifices a 500-pound man has imposed on himself.

But the Hungry Hippocrit doesn’t care who knows all of this as there is always an ample supply of sycophants, unconscious objectors and serial protesters to stand in line and pay full price to see his drivel.

Which is to say, his hypocrisy hasn’t cost him a penny, so he doesn’t even bother to lift a hammy finger to conceal it.

…which pretty much makes him…a capitalist…pig.