Pssst......Can You Guys Keep A Secret......Hillary Is Running For President

You can bet the ranch on it or whatever else you feel like wagering. The triangulation has begun in earnest. Just look at her statements the last few weeks, they leave no doubt about what her intentions are. She is trying to position herself to the middle on abortion/values and immigration policy. She will coast to re-election in 2006 unless someone(Rudy Guliani) steps up to the plate in NY to challenge her. I think I am going to incorporate a "Hillary Presidential Announcement Clock" here on the Powder Blue Report. My prediction for her announcement is roughly two months after the next midterm elections in 2006. The Dem nomination is hers for the taking if she wants it and she certainly is already acting like a candidate. I expect more speeches from her in the coming months about how she understands red state America and how she prays every day, etc, etc, etc. I just find it facinating that anyone would actually believe her when she starts this listening tour. We know the real Hillary. The one that is a bleeding heart liberal. It will be fun to watch her in the coming campaign.

Epic Day of Squid Fishing Off Newport Beach

Most people probably read about all the large squid that were washing up on OC beaches this past week. Me and my friend Kyle went to see if we could actually find them out there yesterday and we weren't disappointed. We found wide open action only a mile off the Newport Beach jetty. They were biting any jig thrown in the water. Here is a picture of one the beasts.

Bush's 2nd Inaugural Address

I thought it was a great sounding speech. I am a little worried about all the "New World Order" talk even though he didn't use those words. I fall into the Peggy Noonan, Peter Robinson, and Pat Buchanan wing as far as what they thought about the speech. I'm at work now and have to split, but those are my initial thoughts. I'll have more to say on the speech when I get home today from work.

Newsflash....CBS Is Biased

I would have never guessed that CBS made "myopic judgements" about the Bush Guard story. After four long painful months, the independent review of CBS News is in and it does not paint a pretty picture. In fact four people were Donald Trumped(new adjective for "your fired") for their incompetence. I can't believe DAn Rather is still there, but I guess this is as good as we could have expected with this report. Anyone who wants an inside look at CBS should go out and read Bernard Goldberg's books about CBS and the mainstream media bias with "Bias" and "Arrogance".

Congrats To Michael Moore...

How many cheeseburgers do you think he will feast on tonight in his bacchanalian celebration of winning the best picture at the People's Choice Awards. The workers at Krispy Kreme will be pulling some OT tomorrow to keep with the demand from Mike.

Apology to the Nation From California

I want to personally apologize to the nation for Barbara Boxer's grandstanding yesterday during the certification of electoral votes. She is an embarassment for us out here in California.

Congrats to Matt Leinhart,Matt Grootegood and USC

It's nice to see a socal team succeed the way USC did this year. They sure opened a can of whup ass on the Sooners last night. That was embarassing for Oklahoma. They might want to try mixing in some heart because they played with no emotion last night. The game was over by halftime. They are looking good for next year also because most of the starters are returning. It remains to be seen whether my boy Matt Leinhart turns pro or whether he comes back for his senior season. I hope he turns pro for the sake of my lowly UCLA Bruins. SC will be hard to beat again next year.

New Year Socal Sports Outlook

I'm looking forward to a very mediocre 2005 from all my favorite socal sports teams. I've lost a lot of faith in the Lakers lately. I knew going into this season that there would be challenges, but damn! Kobe is singlehandedly ruining this proud franchise. He has been doing most of the damage off the court which is the most frustrating thing. The whole incident with Karl Malone and Kobe's wife was embarassing. The team has enough challenges on the court to deal with right now. They really miss the "big fella" in the middle. Shaq seems to be giving Miami a huge lift down in Miami. The Dodgers are in the middle of their swap meet. Just today they traded away local hero Shawn Green to the Arizona Diamondbacks. Great. They've already lost Adrian Beltre too to Seattle. They didn't resign playoff hero Jose "believe it" Lima. They also added insult to injury and fired longtime play by play man, the great Ross Porter who I grew up to listening and watching. I'm waiting for the last shoe to drop, the firing of Vin Sculley. If they get rid of Vin, what reason is there to even patronize such a team? Good job Frank McCourt. You knew letting a guy from Boston buy the Dodgers wouldn't work out well and it hasn't. Onto the Rams, yes that's the St. Louis Rams. I still bleed yellow and blue for this team even though they haven't been here now for ten years. They managed to back into the playoffs quite nicely. Their season is going to come to an end this weekend in Seattle I'm afraid. Someone tell Mike Martz that he's not the "smart guy" that everyone thought he was. Next we have the one team playing well, the USC Trojans. I give them a lot of credit even though I absolutely hate the team and always will. I'm a UCLA fan period. I expect the Trojans to beat the Sooners tomorrow night in Miami and win the National Championship. Did I leave any team out? Oh yeah that's right the Clippers. Enough said. They will always be the Lakers JV team.

Mexico At It Again

This time Mexico has outdone itself. The Government has just published a book for their citizens on how to cross our border illegally. Huh? I know, your saying to yourself that there is no way another country would write a book teaching its citizens how to break other countries laws. Well I'm here to tell you that such a book has been written and it just doesn't surprise me anymore. Credit to Michelle Malkin for tipping me off on this one. Among the juicy tidbits in the book is a recommendation to not cross the desert when it is hot out, duh. I'm just waiting for when our government is coming out with a guide on how US citizens can break Mexican laws.

David Dreier Update

As most of you know who have followed my blog and the John & Ken Show, Con. David Dreier has all of the sudden "gotten religion" on the issue of illegal immigration. In a letter to constituents a few days ago, he stresses how important the intelligence reform bill was and how he is so looking forward to making sure illegal immigration is addressed in the next congress. Well it turns out that Dave's good buddy, the Governator, is going to be calling a special session of the Ca. legislature to deal with fairer redistricting. This has raised a huge red flag in Dave's mind because with him winning with only 53% of the vote this last go around, there is no more margin of error for him if his current district gets carved up to include more democrats. He most likely will be toast. So Dave put in a call to his good friend Arnold to express his displeasure with this idea. I have to give Arnold credit for this move. By calling a special session, he is putting pressure on the democratic legislature to either go along with his redistricting plan or face an inititive to give the power of redrawing the district lines to a retired three judge non partisan panel(non partisan judge is an oxymoron, there is no such thing). I guess siding with illegal immigrants was not such a great move Congressman.

Orange County Real Estate Market

I am by no means an expert on real estate. I just play one on the internet. The growth in value of southern California real estate and particularly Orange County real estate has been nothing short of amazing. Again we ended 2004 up another 24% in the median value price of an Orange County home. That value stands at $545,000 now. My prediction/projections for this year are for the market to steadily keep increasing in value. Demand is still so high for this precious commodity. There simply is not enough of it to go around and fill the demand. Even if interest rates rise this year, I still think the values are going higher. It's going to take a lot of factors to turn this market around. On the other hand, if it does turn around, I would look for a 20 to 30% retracement. It is badly needed. This market reminds me a lot of the NASDAQ bubble of the late 90's. Interestingly, The Chicago Mercantile Exchange is developing a real estate based trading contract(like S&P futures), for investors/speculators to hedge and or bet on price swings in the market. This would be a neat tool for homeowners who are worried that the value of their house might go down, to hedge their real estate holdings by selling/shorting futures contracts. Stay tuned here to my blog for further developments in this area. For everyone else out there, my advice when it comes to real estate now is go ahead and buy that house you've been dreaming of. As long as you are going to be living in it for at least the next five years, I don't think you can go wrong. Real estate is still one of the best investments out there.

Los Angeles Times Stripped Bare

Bravo to Patterico's Pontifications. He gets my "heavy lifting" award for completely emasculating the LA Times in his yearend review of Southern California's and maybe the nation's worst fishwrap. Thank you Mr Patterico for doing yeoman work. I stopped my subscription to the paper over a year ago, but I still read the online free version of the paper. It's a wonder they still have any subscribers left in Orange County.