Done

I've now been doing this blog for a full year. Nobody reads it, and it seems pointless for me to continue posting my opinions of current events when I'm the only one who reads them. It also took a lot longer to find a news worthy event every day that was of real interest than I thought. Thus I'm finished with this blog for now and have no plans to write any more posts, but who knows what will happen.

The Party of No

The Republicans in Congress have rejected out of hand the latest White House proposals to solve the upcoming fiscal cliff. They claimed that there were not enough specifics. Needless to say their own offer to "put revenues on the table" also didn't include any details. They obviously haven't been paying attention to the latest election results in which President Obama was reelected and the Republicans lost seats in both the House and the Senate. Plus all the polls that show that the majority of Americans prefer the "balanced" approach of the President. Their priorities are still the same: ego over country and gridlock over solutions.

DWTS - All Stars Winner

Melissa and Tony won the mirror ball trophy last night. Her victory was well deserved as I thought she was the best female dancer in the competition, and for the last couple of weeks they have been virtually perfect. Now I wonder what the show will do for an encore.

Warren Buffett

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett was on the Today Show this morning and reiterated his position that higher taxes on the rich would not scare off critical investment for job creation. He also said that "I think it would have a great effect on the morale of the middle class. They've had to watch guys like me pay below the rate by that paid by the people in my office." So who do you believe: the Republicans in congress or the "Oracle of Omaha"? I think the answer to that is pretty obvious.

Cyber Monday

The shopping frenzy continues today, but moves from the stores to online. Productivity may drop at work, but it's all for the good of the economy. Plus we need to spend our money before we go over the fiscal cliff.

Powerball

The Powerball jackpot is estimated to be $325 million for tonight's drawing. Somebody could be getting really rich. Don't forget to buy your ticket. "You can't win if you don't play."

Black Friday

I'm not sure why people are so concerned about the economic recovery when I see hoards of people rushing into stores to shop. It was the lead story on the news. The US economy is consumer driven and Americans love to shop.

Happy Thanksgiving

I hope that everybody has a wonderful day spending time with family and friends. I'm sorry that some of the biggest retailers are opening tonight at 8 pm and making their employees work. There is still plenty of time for everybody to do their holiday shopping if the stores wait until 6 am on Friday to open. Plus people will spend more money shopping online, and some of the deals are not all that great anyway.

DWTS Semi-finals

This week was the semi-finals and a double elimination. All the dancers are good now, so the competition was very close. I was happy to see Melissa and Dawn make it. Kelly is not one of my favorites, but that's based more on her personality than her dancing. Still it was a surprise that both Apolo and Emmitt were eliminated, especially because Apolo's rumba was selected for the encore dance and that there won't be any men in the finals.

New England Patriots

The Pats both won and lost big on Sunday. They clobbered the Indianapolis Colts 59-24, but lost their star tight end, Rob Gronkowski. He broke his arm while blocking on an extra point in the fourth quarter. He had surgery to his arm this morning and is expected to be out 4-6 weeks.

Davis Cup

The Czech Republic won the Davis Cup last night with a 3-2 victory over Spain in the finals. It was their first title as an independent nation, and their first since 1980 when Czechoslovakia led by Ivan Lendl won. No doubt the result would have been different if Rafael Nadal hadn't been injured and could have played, but they still deserve a lot of credit and congratulations. The USA doesn't do that well in Davis Cup any more, so there was no coverage of the event, but it is a big deal to the rest of the world.

BCS

With Alabama's loss to Texas A&M last week, Kansas St. has taken over the top spot in the BCS rankings. Assuming that they win their last two games against Baylor and Texas, they should be in the BCS Championship game. I'm not a fan of the BCS and think it should be scrapped for a "real" national tournament like the NCAA has for every other sport. I must admit however that I find Kansas St, once one of the worst teams in America, ranked #1 to be a great story. Now let's see if they can stay on top. I wouldn't count out Alabama or another team from the SEC to make it to the championship game. Plus Notre Dame has a good shot.

War Looming over Gaza

With the Palestinians continuing to fire rockets at Tel Aviv and the Israelis amassing troops on the border, tension is getting really high and war could seemingly break out at any time. The Egyptian prime minister even went to the Gaza Strip to try to broker a truce, but it didn't hold. Right now both sides are saber rattling, but there is always hope that things will calm down and that the violence won't escalate.

Mike D'Atoni

Mike D'Antoni officially took over as the coach of the LA Lakers replacing Mike Brown who had been fired after only 5 games this season. (They were 1-4.) He formerly coached at Phoenix and NYC and wants the Lakers to be an up tempo high scoring team. They certainly have lots of talent, but we'll see how well the players adapt to (and accept) him.

DWTS Week 8

It was an exciting week with two couples being eliminated. Plus there was some controversy with Len and Carrie Ann going at it a bit. The good news was that there was lots of terrific dancing and Kirstie finally got the boot. The bad news was that Gilles, who was leading the competition, was also voted off. He was clearly the best male dancer, but just doesn't have the fan base of the other contestants. Too bad.

Best Inventions of the Year

Time magazine had their list of the best 25 inventions of the year in this weeks issue. All were great. Some of my favorites were:

1. The motion activated screwdriver - it has an internal gyroscope that senses which way you turn it. Tilt it just 1/4 inch to the right and it screws clockwise to tighten. That's really handy.
2. Flyknit racer - Nike has developed a way of knitting thread into a single layer for the entire sneaker. Thus it's lighter, gives a precision fit, and even reduces waste in the factory.
3. Self inflating tires - they have an internal pressure regulator that can open a valve to a pumping tube and, as the wheel turns, the flattened part squeezes air from the tube into the tire. When optimal tire pressure is reached it closes. All without the driver even knowing anything was wrong. Amazing!

Florida, Florida, Florida

In the 2000 presidential election, it was the US Supreme Court that decided George Bush had won after the fiasco in the voting process in Florida. Well they did it again. It took them four days to figure out that Barack Obama won this time. Fortunately he already had enough electoral votes to win the election, so it didn't go back to the court again. Meanwhile what is wrong with them. It's not that hard to count ballots.

David Patraeus

He was a four star general, the hero of the Iraq war, and the head of the CIA, but now he's out of a job. He resigned yesterday after admitting that he had an extramarital affair. This came as a major shock to everybody in Washington. He had a sterling reputation and the news was just unbelievable. The timing is also curious as it came just after the election and days before he was scheduled to testify about the attack in Benghazi.

Nor'easter

The storm moving up the eastern coast has been pounding the Cape for the past two days. We've had driving rain and gale force winds. It's been really nasty outside. In fact most people around here think that the weather was worse than during hurricane Sandy. Fortunately we only had one power outage yesterday morning for about 1 1/2 hours.

Fiscal Cliff

Both President Obama and Speaker Boehner have indicated that they are willing to compromise to avoid "going over the cliff", but they have also both "drawn lines in the sand" over issues that they won't change. Unfortunately they are basically the same ones that caused this mess. The biggest one being tax rates for the wealthy. Despite the election results (and the polls) that show that a majority of Americans think the rich should pay more, Boehner and the rest of the Republican in Congress will not consider it. So here we go again.

Obama Wins Second Term

President Obama won a hard fought race last night and will now serve another four years. I was very happy. Let's just hope that the Republicans in the House will work with him this time. I think the country is tired of them being the "party of no".

Election Day

Today is Election Day, so get out and vote. It's important.

The Last Day

Today is the last day of this campaign season. It's been going on forever. The candidates must be exhausted and the voters are certainly all tired of the ads, phone calls, and mail. Everybody will be glad when it's over.

NYC Marathon

Sunday's NYC Marathon was canceled yesterday for the first time in its history. Mayor Bloomberg had hoped that the race would bring the city together as well as bring in millions of tourist dollars. The backlash however changed his mind. It just wasn't appropriate at this time, and all the city's resources should be spent on recovering from the storm.

Sandy's Aftermath

The images of the storm damage keep rolling in and the devastation seems to be worse than anybody imagined. Entire homes have be moved off their foundations. Boats are sitting in people's front yard. Sand dunes are completely gone. Gas stations have 2 hour lines. NYC has major gridlock because the subway system is still not completely restored. There are still millions without power. It's going to be a long time before life gets back to normal. Meanwhile the only good news was that President Obama(D) and Governor Christie(R) were working together to try to help those affected by the storm.

DWTS Week 6

The voters continue to amaze me or the producers of the show are manipulating the results. I don't know how else to explain Sabrina being eliminated this week. Her dance routine earned a perfect score, 30 out of 30. Meanwhile old fat Kirstie is still there. There is definitely something wrong with this picture.