That’s Right Nate

This LOLCatz is from Jon Swift whose blog is on the blog roll. If you like this blog, check his out.

Thank you for making this such  great 2008 for myself and this blog of mine.  One of the things that has made this blog so much fun for me is my regular core of readers.

Lola – You may be from a third world country like Brazil, but you are a first rate poster.
Steve – Thanks for reading.  May your beloved Cubs continue their regular season success of late.
Gina – Thank you for being such a wonderful missionary and spreading Natism around the web.
Fraser – I enjoy your posts, but I’m also feeling guilty that I keep forget adding you to my blogroll.
The Rotten Little Girls – Any women who still dig being called girls are OK with me.
Beccy Joe – Our only Australian commentator who is one of my few Youtube subscribers.
Zenyenta – Doesn’t post much now, but checks in from time to time and was the first to “discover” this blog.
Shannon – I haven’t seen her around much lately either, but I hope she’s still reading.

I was going to have a little poll to decide which of the regulars should be reader of the year, but the more I thought about it the more I wanted to avoid a popularity contest and the more I realized I had won you all over to my way of thinking anyway so it wasn’t a real contest.  Instead, tonight I would like to look at those posters who actually stood up to me and took me on.  They never won an argument, but they gave it their best shot.

Nominee number one comes from the earliest days of the blog.  Bryson Nitta was an impassioned reader concerned with the environment.  We butted heads over my article Big Cars Will Save Us. His main point was expressed, ” That’s the worst idea, ever. Creating more demand for oil doesn’t mean that we’re going to “take” oil from China and India; it simply means that we’re going to create more demand, and ratchet up prices in the process, making it more expensive and leading us further into recession.” I would say events of recent months have shown there is no relation between oil prices and the recession.

ChineseCanuck was also early on in the blog’s history.  We corresponded by email after the exchange we had in Chinese Diet Starving Rest of the World. She’s a Chinese Canadian and a bit of a foodie. She claimed that most Chinese food in the US isn’t authentic including my favorite restaurant, “There are no Panda Expresses/Panda Inns in Canada, but I’ve checked out their website and the menus don’t look all that authentic to me.”

I was trying to find the next two nominee’s posts to link to, but there are just too many of them. They were both posting many times for a short time (which is why they aren’t considered regulars) and then just as quickly they left. Ah you are both missed.

Brigid posted during the who flap over the Obama flag swearing like a sailor. Her most reasoned comment was, “Also I disagree with the statement that Obama should APOLOGIZE and it’s his fault for making this believable. The truth is, from the beginning you people have been willing to believe anything negative about Obama and anything that is said by the McCain campaign (such as Obama is a terrorist or that he is an Arab). You really think Obama should apologize for your gullibility, stupidity, and willingness to believe anything negative about him? Come on, get real.” The rest just wasn’t clean enough for family reading.

There have been individual posters who passed through with a good comment or two. I was very appreciative of the Indian poster who posted he was going off to skip dinner now after reading my article about India getting fat. A recent post by a Holden Caulfield who attacked me for spelling errors in my posts despite the fact that when I googled him I learned that he was not only a dropout, but proud of it.

We have also had celebrity readers like Mike Taylor and TJ Baker Holm who both ran for congress this year from Texas. Mike was our first endorsement and TJ who always showed a lot of class in our communications promised me a lunch if I was even in Houston. I think I’ll hold her to it.

However, the winner of the Natie for reader of the year is you. You don’t even know that I know you’ve been reading do you. You’re an attractive single Christian evangelical woman with an six figure income who is involved in Republican party politics. You may have seen my picture on my new dust jacket and found yourself strangely drawn to me, but didn’t know what to do. Well, it is New Years Eve and when you want to pick up your award drop me an email at Thatsrightnate@aol.com.

The Natie for music video goes to Maverick McCain. However, all of the nominees can be seen at our Thatsrightnate video channel.  As for the Viewer’s Choice Natie I was going to put up a poll, but that wouldn’t really work.  So use the comments section.  Out of the articles I created what was truly brilliant and what was merely insightful? Post your favorite from 2008 below.

When it comes to journalistic excellence, no award captures what blogging is all about as much as this one does.  This is the most prestigious Natie and it is only awarded to those articles that have lived up to the ideals set forth in Fox News and the Rush Limbaugh radio show as well as many of the columns of Robert Novack.  The winner of this prize can look among his peers and reallize that he has accomplished something that most of them could only dream of.  The field was very strong for this innaugural award.  I won’t minimize it by mentioning that each of these stories is great in its own way.   I will merely point out that the winner is the greatest post of all.

1.  How Obama and McCain Will Affect the Middle Class
2.  Obama’s Connection to the Weather Underground
3. Now Obama Has His Own Flag — I Bet the Colors Run
4.  Media Threatens Palin’s First Amendment Rights
5.  Is Obama’s Birth Certificate a Forgery
6.  Disguising the Constitution to Save It

It is interesting that in this award Obama articles dominate the way that McCain articles dominated last night’s award.  The winner is Now Obama Has His Own Flag — I Bet the Colors Run.  It is rather ironic that the winning article would be one that I later had to apologize for when it turned out that the Obama flag was really the Ohio flag and the Clinton flag was really the Colorado flag and the South Carolina flag wasn’t an Islamist conspiracy.  However, I think the flag article spurred something of a national discussion and that was very useful for the country at that time.  For example, many people like myself had no idea that each state had its own flag.

One of the tough things about putting the Natie’s together this year has been the categories.  I have divided the awards into Analysis, Investigative Reporting and Straight Reporting which in no ways implies that any of my other articles are in anyway less than straight.  I will also have a Reader of the Year, Reader’s Choice, and Video award to round out the competition.  Let’s look at the definitions of the first four categories:

Analysis: Helps people to understand important issues
Straight Reporting: This is all about reporting with no personal opinion
Investigative Reporting: The main ingredient here is shoe leather
Journalism: Straight reporting, but I filter it through my opinion kind of like Fox News does.

Tonight’s award is for straight reporting.  Frankly, it is the most boring award to me because there is just less of me in theses stories.  Still, I like to think of myself as Bill O’Reilly meets Geraldo Rivera meets Edward R. Murrow without the Communism and reporting is part of the job.

The nominees are:

1. Bush to India, “Stop Eating So Much.”
2. His Courage was Forged in Hannoi: The John McCain Story
3. You’ve Been Left Behind Sucker
4. McCain Calls for Lower Teacher Standards
5. McCain Gets Tough on Himself Over the Economy
6. Polls Show McCain Dominating Real America

The winner of the award is You’ve Been Left Behind Sucker–the story of a website that allows you to help your unsaved friends and family when the Rapture comes.

Other sources said there was a problem--we had answers.

One of the important jobs of any blog is not only reporting the news, but in giving analysis of what is happening in the world today.  Articles nominated in this category were selected because they had a healthy dose of my personal opinion mixed in with them.   This is a fine line as most of my articles contain some reporting and some opinion.  In this articles the majority was opinion.  I think the world is better education for the effort.

The articles attempt to educate the reader not only to what is happening in the world, but why it is happening.   Picking the very best articles for this one is tough and as you may notice we wound up with 7 nominees instead of 6 as a result.  Sadly, there was only one award.

The nominees are as follows:

• Obama Must Reach Out to Racists
  Chinese Diet Starving Rest of World
  Meeting the Needs of All Students
  We Must Believe All Neighborhoods Can Be Crime Free
  Look Out For The Double Reverse Bradley Effect
  Why We Lost
  The Myth of FDR and the New Deal

The winner goes to Obama Must Reach Out to Racists which explains how Obama could reach out to an important electoral vote. Other media outlets would suggest that Obama had a problem, but I am proud that only Thatsrightnate.com had a solution.

As the end of the year approaches, everybody wants to celebrate excellence. Whether it is Man of the Year contests or Top 10 Movie Lists, it seems that everybody is celebrating excellence in one thing or another.  I intend to do the same thing, except I will be celebrating excellence in me.  The Naties (pronounced Nate-tease) are a recognition of what makes this blog so truly special.  It will serve to highlight old articles and celebrate the truly great from the merely great. The technical Natie awards were given earlier today in a separate ceremony.

The first Natie is going to be the Investigative Natie.  To be eligible for this award, the article in question must be original content from me.  It can either be a report of something I am doing or an investigative piece with an actual interview.  The nominees are:

1. Is McCain Poised for an Illinois Upset?
2. The Obama Ad that the Networks Won’t Play
3. We Have a Book Deal
4. Tom the Bartender on Politics
5. A Tale of Two Employees
6. Obama Hates Puppies

This year’s Natie goes to The Obama Ad that the Networks Won’t Play for its gripping look at the attempts of the mainstream media to supress any voice that is critical of Barrack Obama.

First, allow me to wish everybody a Merry Christmas.  Regardless of your religious beliefs, there is no greater sign of God’s love than to send his only son down to Earth as a sort of trickle down grace.   God is the ultimate supply sider.  I had my traditional Christmas of a Taxi Driver marathon and I learned that you can actually fry pizza rolls though it doesn’t mention it on the box.  They are quite delicious I might add fried.

Today’s article is about the city of broad shoulders–my hometown of Chicago.  In the past Mayor Daley has been heralded as a green mayor because of his love for parks and flower baskets.  However, the man is singlehandedly going to save Detroit this year and he’s saving Chicago money at the same time.  Daley is a forward thinking man who knows that the key to saving Detroit’s economy is to sell the unwanted trucks in an inventory.  To do that, Daley has refused to plow Chicago side streets.  As a result, the constant melting and refreezing has Chicago’s streets looking like a third world country and rapidly moving into war zone territory.  I dare anybody to drive around here without a truck.  Broken axels and worse abound and stuck cars are as regular as Italian Beef places on Chicago’s streets.  I’m no big fan of the Detroit Red Wings, but I have to give it to our mayor.  Since he made driving the city streets of Chicago without a truck a dangerous idea, we’re going to see a lot of those Detroit’s trucks being sold to Chicagoans who need the 4 wheel drive and elevated cab just to get around.

With Christmas nearly approaching, I thought it was time to award some candy canes for those on Nate’s nice list and lumps of coals for those on Nate’s naughty list.

-A candy cane for President Bush for remembering the true meaning of the season by pardoning Isaac Toussie who was guilty of mortgage fraud. Is that even a crime anymore?

-A lump of coal for the UAW who this week added Toyota to the list of victims to their greed and excessive contracts this year.

-A candy cane to KBR for providing our troops with the things they need.

-A lump of coal to The Salvation Army. I still want my gold coins back.

-A candy cane for Saddleback Mountain Church founder Rick Warren for his love of gay people despite not wanting them to get married and for his extensive collection of original Broadway cast recordings.

-A lump of coal to the Global Warming alarmists. I’m freezing my butt off in Chicago and I can only assume its because we’ve cut carbon emissions too much.

-A candy cane for Martin Scorsese whose Taxi Driver is a Christmas tradition at my house.

-A lump of coal to Barrack Obama who announced he was going to use Abraham Lincoln’s Bible for his inauguration. OK, as a secret Muslim I know he doesn’t have his own, but couldn’t he pick a President who didn’t drive us into the only Civil War this country has had…yet?

-A candy cane to our non-terrorist Muslim readers. For those of you who renounce terrorism I wish to extend the olive branch by wishing you a very Merry Christmas.

-A candy cane to the readers of this blog. The boycotts, the political movement, and the return to Conservative values would not be possible without you all.

I know for a lot of you, I’m not only your first source of news and information, but I’m also something of a hero.  But, I bet you don’t know who my hero is.  It isn’t Ronald Reagan or Thomas Jefferson or even Bill O’Reilly–its you guys.  Why is that?  Because once again you have proven the power of this little tool of Democracy that I like to call www.thatsrightnate.com.

Last week, I wrote to explain about my troubles with the Salvation Army.  It seems that when I reached into my pocket for a quarter, I accidentally tossed in a Krugerrand worth over $900. When I called the Salvation Army I got no satisfaction. Not a big surprise there, but what that poor excuse for a military organization wasn’t counting on was the power of this blog to mold minds.

I was checking out the news today and it is full of stories about the effect of our little boycott. Reports are flooding in from Montana, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Michigan, and Ohio

Now I’m not stupid. I know I only have 150,000 readers to this blog and that’s not enough people to make a difference…by themselves, but with your strong word of mouth campaign you have made history. All it would have taken for the Salvation Army to avoid your wrath is to return my rightful property. Now try feeding the hungry or giving shelter to the homeless with that $900 or better yet maybe your army can invade a country that you didn’t piss off by stealing from me. The Salvation Army joins the films Dark Knight and Stop Loss as well as Alan Colmes and Magic Johnson in feeling your righteous wrath.

While the rest of the country is dealing with a huge recession, the United Auto Worker members continue to ride high on the gravy train oblivious to the harm that a luxurious lifestyle that includes health care and retirement pay causes others.  Word now is that Toyota is the latest victim of UAW greed posting their worst year since 1938 losing 1.7 billion dollars in the process.

The tough times are hitting us far faster, wider and deeper than expected,” Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe told a gloomy news conference at the company’s Nagoya headquarters. “This is an unprecedented crisis requiring urgent action.”  With even Toyota struggling to keep up with the union’s escalating demands what hope do Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors have.

The biggest thing killing the car companies are so called legacy costs.  These refer to things like health care and retirement plans.  Henry Ford had a great health care plan–you come into work or you don’t get paid.  You’d be amazed at how rarely his workers let a broken leg or other ailment keep him off the job.  Ford didn’t believe in retirement plans either.  If you were young enough to be out of a nursing home, you’re young enough to weld.  It is only when we return to these great American values that the car companies will have a chance to survive.

In all our trips to the ward, we never met Angela Lansbury like these lucky children

I have to admit that as we’re getting closer to Christmas, it is getting harder to find political things to right about and I find my thoughts turning back to the Christmases of my youth. The Christmases of my youth helped me to become the man that I am today and for that we can all be grateful. Many of our Christmas traditions were started by my father. I’ve written about him before, but John Peele was a great great man. You better believe it was “Merry Christmas Sir” with him. If you had wished him “Happy Holidays” he would have punched you in the mouth.

We grew up not far from a hospital with a huge children’s ward. Every Christmas some of these poor children would be stuck in the hospital over Christmas time while everybody else was celebrating the joy of the holiday season. My dad would give both my sister and me $20 each and we would go out to buy just that special Christmas present. Something that we really wanted for ourselves. Then we’d take that present home and we’d wrap it. Actually, to say we wrapped it is an understatement. We’d really go all out on the gift wrap and make these presents into works of art with ribbons, bows, and brightly colored paper.

My mom would bake a fresh batch of her famous Christmas cookies for the big day and my sister and I would head over Christmas Eve afternoon to the Children’s Ward. Sometimes we’d bring a friend with, but usually it was just us. We’d greet the children in the ward and we’d eat the cookies while the sick patients did tricks for us. If a trick was really good we’d give them a cookie too. If a kid couldn’t do a trick and they begged us hard enough we’d give them a nutball–I never cared for those much. Then we’d sit down with all the kids around us and we’d open our gifts. Even though we knew what we were getting ahead of time just seeing all those sick kids who were all jealous made it that much better. We’d play with our toys for awhile until my dad came back from the local tavern to pick us up.

Sometimes the kids would complain and the nurses would kick us out. My dad would come in and a lot of times he’d pretend to take another kid home by mistake as my sister and I would scream after him and one of the patients would be terrified wondering who this strange man was walking off with him. Those were simpler times then, but I’m glad that I got to spend my Christmases with those less fortunate than myself. Emily never wanted to do this and her mother absolutely forbid it. I also don’t know that a children’s hospital would put up with the stuff we pulled in today’s more cautious age.