when the going gets tough, the tough go shopping
"Acquisitions that we have been looking at for some time may now be more attractive," Mr. Ellison said Friday at the software giant's annual meeting of stockholders. He added that he expects to target small-but-growing companies rather than large publicly traded ones.
I'm going to say this in the most heterosexual way I can possibly say it but I'm going to say it anyway. So here it goes:
I absolutely love this man.
You can whine and cry and talk about the "end of capitalism" if you want, Larry is going shopping while you sit around feeling sorry for yourself.
Posted @ October 10, 2008 12:04 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Say, about that autobiography....
An interesting thought on the authorship of "Dreams of my father".
You of course, do know there is software that you can use to determine authorship, right? Anyone out there want to be the "buckhead" of this election?
Posted @ October 09, 2008 08:33 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
The Fremen have awakened!
Sarah Palin - Carson City Nevada, October 4th 2008.
"And how can this be? For (s)he is the Kwisatz Haderach!" From Frank Herberts' Dune.
Posted @ October 04, 2008 08:14 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (8) | TrackBack (0)
Ready to be President on day one?
Joe Biden went for a walk down memory lane last night, walking down to "Kaites Restaurant in Wilmington".
You know, that nice place right next to the Home Depot that Joe hangs out in.
Only its been closed for 20 years. Apparently he used to stop by when it was open, but again, that was 20 years ago.
Now, I'm absolutely sure that had McCain made such an error, it would be immediately overlooked as quaint(insert smirk here). Sadly, I think its my duty at this point to say that Joe is only a few years younger than McCain and you know what that means dont you? Sure you do...
Headline:
"Biden gaffes prove that McCain not capable of being President"
Ah. That is so easy!
Posted @ October 03, 2008 08:45 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
This Just In...
Tina Fey is doomed to play Sarah Palin for the next 4 years.
Posted @ October 02, 2008 08:32 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Fossett
Steve Fossetts plane has been found.
Reasonable Rational Questions that outstanding:
1. Was the engine running at the time of the crash?
2. Why was he traveling south from Barron Hilton's place? On his way to Mojave? Why didn't anyone know that was his plan, including anyone at Mojave?
3. ELT's are triggered when aircraft undergo G-loads. I know, I've set off my fair share of ELT's back when I was a student pilot( Let's just say that if Cessnas came with tailhooks, I would have perfected the 20ft. short field landing. I had a hell of a time with the concept of "flair" in landing. I just slammed the thing down on the numbers. My instructor cured me of this by making me fly along the runway at 10 feet, and then doing about 10 hours on short grass fields, so I got over my 'carrier landings'. ). So where was the ELT on this aircraft and what is its state? It's not impossible that it didn't go off, but why exactly?
4. Where is the body? My guess is its 6 feet buried into the mountainside or has been ingested by the wildlife in the area over the past year. The fact that the first thing detected of the crash site was his personal clothing items, seems to back up that hypothesis.
5. Why didn't they find the wreck at the time of the accident? Well, you have to know where to look. Without a flight plan and some idea where you were going, your search area is 360 degrees in every direction as far as the aircraft in question can fly. In rough numbers, lets say the Citabria can fly for about 5 hours at 100 mph. If you don't know what direction the pilot was flying and you are flying over the empty and untraveled terrain of the Owens valley, the High Sierra and western Nevada topography then there are literally thousands of square miles to search and in that area, you have to find something about the size of a king-size bedsheet, only the bed sheet has been ripped to shreds and buried partially by rocks and dirt. Remember, Aircraft that crash don't always look like aircraft when the crash, they end up looking like trash and theres a tremendous amount of trash and debris in that part of the world. Aircraft that hit the sides of mountains are usually covered with dirt and rocks as well, which helps to hide them from the eyes of search pilots. Oh, and Search pilots don't go flying up next to mountain tops in the eastern sierra unless they have a good reason to go look there, because, as you can see, its dangerous.
It's entirely likely that:
- Mr. Fossett died prior to the crash. This may shock non-pilots, but aircraft that are correctly trimmed by the pilot will fly without input from the pilot until something changes, like they run out of gas or, as it appears to be in this case, hit something hard. The most famous examples are the Payne Stewart accident, or the B-24 "Lady Be Good", both examples flew on for hundreds of miles without a pilot in command.
- Oxygen deprivation. He was at high altitude, I don't know if he was using any supplemental oxygen. If he was, there is a fair chance it didn't work. If he wasn't, then his physical state at the time is a prime suspect.
- He was caught in a phenomenon known as a mountain wave, or "rotor' which he was fighting at the time of the accident. I was in one of these off of Catalina Island once, it was the most frightening thing I've ever been in. For 15 minutes after we departed Catalina Airport, we were not so much an aircraft as we were simply a 'leaf in the wind'. We had absolutely no control over the aircraft. If we tried to go towards the ocean, the aircraft plummeted towards the sea, if we tried to turn towards the island, (Catalina is just is a big mountain sticking out of the ocean) it would climb like a banshee but not in a good way, it was climbing directly for the island, which being hard, was something we wanted to avoid. We just went flinging around the air like a swimmer inside the tube of a big wave in the ocean. The best we could do was to try to stay in the middle of the 'tube' which was not good, but it was better than the other two options. Once we crossed the south end of the island, it stopped as suddenly as it started. My friend, whom I was flying with that day( he was a 'Raven' in Vietnam ), said it was the most frightened he had ever been in a small plane. We actually watched the wings on the little Cessna 140 we were in - flex. When we departed Catalina Airport, There was no sign, no clouds, there was nothing to tell us that the wave was there.
- The most likely cause of the accident is that he simply flew into the side of the mountain. Its easier to do than you think, especially if you are a high time IFR pilot who is flying VFR. Overconfidence is a constant killer of pilots.
I'm not willing to entertain any crazy "Fossetts Still Alive" theories. Did he run away and is living his life on Tahiti? I honestly would love to think so, but I think Mr. Fossett met his end in the air over California and is buried on a mountainside.
I only hope that now that the wreck has been found that his family can find the peace they have been looking for.
Update: Steve has been found at the site, as expected. Rest In Peace, my friend.
Posted @ October 02, 2008 11:31 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Genius
Posted @ October 02, 2008 09:45 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Im having second thoughts
Not about Palin, but I am having second thoughts about this election. I used to think it was just important, but now I think its more like:
"Vote for McCain, before its too late"
In regards to Palin, I want you all to remember that they aren't laughing at her, they are laughing at you. McCain and Palin are nothing but proxies for the left to take out their rage at you for all that you have done to them( specifically not letting them have the power they so richly deserve). They really don't understand you, so what makes you think they are going to understand McCain or Palin?
How dare you even consider the idea that you can rule yourself, peasant...
These people don't just want to run the government, they want to run your life(ed: yeah, right inta da ground too...)
Posted @ October 01, 2008 12:35 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Infamy
September 30,1938. British Prime Minister Chamberlain signs agreement with Hitler proclaiming "Peace in our time".
In the desire to stop a war, Chamberlains actions ensured its eventuality. This action, based on the hope for peace, instead resulted in the deaths of 52 million people world wide in what came to be known as World War II. It would take until 1992 for Czechoslovakia, the main object of the Munich agreement, to return to the freedom they knew before Chamberlain stepped in to help.
History records that Prime Minister Chamberlain was considered to be "a nice man".
Posted @ September 30, 2008 08:14 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Im going down a real bad path here, but bear with me
I'm not much for conspiracy theories, but I'm increasingly finding myself thinking that Democrats are capable of anything and I do mean anything to win.
Is it too hard to believe that they would stoop to sabotaging the market to win the election? Its revolting, but the more I think about it, the more evidence I see. And trust me, its not something I want to see. I've spent the afternoon trying to figure out why Nancy Pelosi acted the way she did with this vote. Things are kind of convoluted in congress but sometimes the best way to kill a bill is to make it so distasteful that even its supporters wont vote for it. If you have the President come out and say that something is necessary and needs to be done right away, but you spend all your time 'poisoning the well', all you have done is insure in a very backhanded wsay that nothing will be done. You can flap your arms and say you tried real hard, but what the President said he wanted to do is going down in flames. It's going down in flames not because it isn't actually necessary but because some people want to see Bush lose.
Here's the sad thing. Bush didn't lose 1.1 TRILLION dollars today, you did.
But heres the thing that bothers me. Since 2006, Democrat leadership in the legislature have demonstrably:
1. Tried sabotage the American Military so that it would be seen to lose
in Iraq.
2. Deny Americans access to their own oil.
3. Destroy the American Financial System. They spent three months
telling us we were dead certain in a recession earlier this year. We
weren't. What they seem to have learned is that they needed to go
further in the effort to scare the living bejeebus out of you.
4. Do we all remember Senator Chuck Schumer and his role the Indymac bank failure? I'm wondering how many bank failures have started because of "whispering campaigns". How many banks were shorted because of an engineered effort to cause the bank to crash?
To what benefit? None of this to benefits America or the American People. Its not as part of an idealogical dispute, but purely to benefit the Democrats. This is just wrong. You "don't like Bush" in fact you hate him, ok, I get that, but you don't burn down the house just to get rid of the sofa.
I cannot get past the idea that the Democrats have engineered this whole scene and that is a very bad thing to believe.
In this election with this track history, are we really ready to give
them the legislature AND the Executive Branch as a reward?
Posted @ September 29, 2008 04:22 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (9) | TrackBack (0)
John Galt Lives!
Shocking Poli-sci students the around the world -- American taxpayers refuse to continue fund banks that give out bad loans!
The question of the day - Why Nancy Cant Count?
Second question of the day - "Hey, if this is such bad news, why do I feel so good"?
UPDATE: Ok, Post lunch paranoia strikes deep. Remember last years run on rice? Remember when everyone was concerned that there wouldnt be enough food? Remember March, April, May when every news report insisted that we were in a recession and the end was nigh, only we weren't? It did seem that someone out there was desperate to create the sort of things that are actually under way now. What bothers me is that 90% of what is going on now was created by the very people who tell us they are interested in fixing it. Henhouse - Fox, guarding of, something like that.
One thing that has been bothering me is why would Nancy Pelosi allow a vote she knows wouldnt work? Why would she step out and insult the Republicans and then try to get their votes, knowing that they would be inflamed by what she said? Is she so stupid and has no idea what shes doing, or does she know exactly what she is doing and has actually achieved her goals? Now she can craft another really bad bill, and get all the Democrats to sign on, and Wall St. will actually be helping them do it. The President wasn't going to sign anything until Friday anyway because the Senate wouldnt be voting until Wednesday, so she still has time to get a second, far worse bill out there and voted on.
Does it occur to anyone else that the Democrats, by destroying any remaining faith in the government, are actually in the process of taking over the government, lock, stock and barrel?
Are we really so stupid as to reward this sort of behavior?
Posted @ September 29, 2008 11:28 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
One Last Saturday Night
All around the world, the financial world sits on the edge of a disaster. If the American liquidity crisis is allowed to sink the our banking system, there will be a stock market crash the size of which will make the 1929 crash pale by comparison. This crash will bring on an economic depression that will spread world wide in a matter of days.
We all know this, its been in the back of all of our minds for a couple of weeks now. Tonight I found myself thinking that the fate of 8 billion people around the world rests in the hands of 100 people in the Senate and 440 in the House and there probably isnt 10 of them that any of us would not find ourselves not immediately repulsed from and in dire need of a shower afterwards, if we simply shook their hands.
Worse, its in these law school rejects, half-wit pseudointellectuals and failed businessmen which comprise the whole of the body of the federal legislature, each of whom hates the other more than the man next to them; that the world is hoping that they will all work together to create a solution to hold off a disaster of truly biblical proportions.
I honestly have more anxiety tonight than I have had at any point since September 11th 2001. I have to sit here quietly and hope that congress essentially nationalizes the banking industry, this is supposed to be the upside. This is supposed to be the good news. The alternative is we go into another depression. Gee, thats some sort of choice we got there, slow death by strangulation or all at once with poison.
Given that the last depression lasted from 1930 till 1980 at a time when the world wasnt nearly as global as it is today, who knows how deep this hole could go.
And it all happened because someone said that it should be as easy to buy a house as it was to rent an apartment and then set about passing legislation to see that the entire banking system of the world could be made worthless because people with no basic economic common sense or credit rating were given more money than they even begin to handle. Then they passed legislation to make sure that no one was penalized for foreclosure or bankruptcy. Did they do it on purpose? Did they set about to wreck the joint when they went down this route? Or was it all just an accident?
Who knows, but here we are, all the same. Purpose or accident the damange is the same. The entire earth is all in the same boat, its not like this will just hit the US economy with everyone else swimming right by, the US goes down, everything else goes down with it. Communist, Capitalist, Socialist or barter-trade, it all depends on capital and capital is built on trust and the entire US economy has just gone NSF at the favor bank.
You know, its funny to me to think that the last time the entire world all sat and hoped for the same thing was when Apollo 11 was on its way to the moon...
Posted @ September 27, 2008 08:54 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
The Other Hitchens: Chinas Slave Empire
Peter Hitchens, author of the highly recommended "The Abolition of Britan" and brother of Christopher Hitchens writes a horrifying post where in it, he is nearly killed by a Communist Chinese directed mob in Africa.
Why?
Snip:
"After the murderous disaster of Mao, and the long chaos that went before, China longs above all for stable prosperity. And, as one genial and open-minded Chinese businessman said to me in Congo as we sat over a beer in the decayed colonial majesty of Lubumbashi's Belgian-built Park Hotel: 'Africa is China's last hope."
End Snip.
China, it appears, has rediscovered Imperialism.
Pour your self a stiff drink and read the whole thing.
I find myself living in a time that is as if all of the adrenaline fueled nightmares of our grandfathers have returned and become real.
Posted @ September 27, 2008 08:26 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
All elections come down to one question
All Presidential elections boil down to one essential question, and the nation votes on that question.
It's taken until tonight for us to get a clear distillate from the fermentation tank of American Politics on this election. The question of this election comes down to one clear thing that you have to answer when you go into the voting booth:
"Is this really a good time for risk?"
Face it kids, Obama is a nice guy and has the ability to tell us all about his vision of the future of America, and his future is a future with surprsingly little Soylent Green in it, but theres just no way you can say hes not a risk.
John McCain is a lot of things, both good and bad, but he is not a risk. John McCain is the dean of students at the school of "Been there- Done that", He's been there, got the T-Shirt and mailed home a box of the locally grown, organic "kissmyass" for the folks at home to enjoy and he repeated this fact over and over again tonight.
It's clear that John knows that the threat of Russia towards Georgia is aimed squarely at Ukraine. I have no doubt that John McCain knows the situation with Ukraine, because he was able to clearly say what the issues were in under a minute. Obama, mentioned lots of states out of the area of contention with Russia, but he skipped right over Ukraine. Does he understand the situation there? Maybe, and then maybe not. Its a risk for us to assume one way or the other. It's a risk that if it turns out well, then good for everyone, but if the risk fails, then its could be very bad for everyone.
A misstep on something like the Russian stance on Ukriane is not insignificant.
Those of us who have a memory of the days when another Russian president decided to take advantage of a young unproven President remember just how close it came to not working out well. The people of Cuba remember, because they have had no hope of gaining their freedom since that event. Yes, we didnt all go up in a flash and thats good, but Cuba became a prison for its people. They paid the price for John F. Kennedys youth and inexperience.
Everyone talks about change like its a good thing, but you know what, cancer is change, so saying "we want change" to me is not exactly going to help you close the sale with that line. To me the word "Change" is a lot like "Community Organizer", it has no definite meaning, I cant find that title in the HR manual at work, I cant find the test you take to get the job and I cant really tell how to tell if you did the job, good or bad. Do you mean "Cub Scout Den Mother"? Thats a community, and its usually needs organizing. Do you mean "button man" for Don Corelone in the process of "getting out the vote" for the Barzini and Tataglia families on the east side? What?
Community Organizer means nothing to me and niether does "Change". To me, "Change" is what happened when I got divorced. It was the change I was looking for, but if I had the choice, I would have rather skipped the whole awful marriage process first and not had the need for the divorce in the first place. To be fair, Change is what also happened when I graduated from college. Again, change often depends on where you stand and what exactly you are standing in at the time.
For me, this election is not about "change", its really all about "Risk". One of the things I have a hard time with for a very long time is explaining this idea that all of what we have here in our lives today, is not in any way, guaranteed or permanent. It can, with just a few twists and turns, all fall away. Your rights, your property, your very lives all twist like leaves at the end of a very long branch from a very old tree.
Modern humans, and Americans in particular have so rarely experienced any privation that they simply dont know what it looks like or what to watch out for to avoid it. Its a situation that reminds me very much of those dangerously deluded people who wont vaccinate their kids because they "heard a guy, who knows a guy" who said that "vaccinations give kids autism". People who do this have almost never seen what happens when there is a major disease outbreak like polio, where just the word "polio" made my grandmother audibly gasp and cross herself.
Unlike my grandmother and her generation, these people today who wont vaccinate, havent seen death or the wages of disease, they simply dont know what it is so they make up a fake fear to take its place. Polio, which they have never seen, has become a rather sick fairy tale, while autism, which they have seen, becomes the thing to be feared and avoided.
The problem is that if you get enough people who dont immunize their children, it makes the entire populace at risk for an outbreak of a disease that can kill and disfigure.
There's a tipping point where once enough people decide that polio is not a risk, but autism is, that the entire population becomes at risk for an outbreak of polio. But if no one in the population has ever seen polio, they simply dont know how to evaluate that risk so they ignore it as something that is not worth bothering with.
Did I just say that Senator Obama is the same as Polio or that people that vote for him are as irresponsible as people who dont vaccinate their children?
No.
What I did say is that the human mind has a problem with collective memory and the assesment of risk. Our current generation has never experienced an actual economic "Depression". The current generation has hardly even seen a recession, they have no idea what those words mean or what the real impact is to their lives. They read about it books, but they dont know what it is. They see bank closings in the news and wonder if they still have to pay their credit cards.
In their experience, Washington is a never ending fountain of money and source of help for all things bad, and all you have to do is ask for it and someone up there will get it to you. They cant imagine a day when someone stands up and says "Sorry oliver, you cant have any more". They only know Americans as the winners in war, they dont know what military defeat looks like or how it changes everything at home. They have no knowledge of being deprived of anything. Most people in the United States think that having only two cars, a TV in every room but no plasma screens and sadly no "cable", is the definition of "poor".
Americans and specifically this particular generation of Americans, have no idea what a thing like conscription is, or what it means to give up two years of your life for the "good of the country". When the country is a war, and we have decided collectively to do that, sure, but when its used to suppress the population? no. Americans cant imagine that happening because they have no experience with it at all, but ask any immigrant from south or Central America and they will tell you what it means.
This is a country that thinks that a "month to month" pay as you go phone plan is an burden and a hardship. This is a country that has lost its collective memory of true hardship. I fear that having lost this memory it may very well have lost its ability to see a risk for what its is and evaluate it accurately in the correct context.
I'm not much for putting risk into the Office of the President. I've read too much history to know just how badly things can go if the wrong person is in the wrong place at the wrong time. If the President of the United States answers the phone at 3:00 am, he aught to be asking "where" are the carriers?, not "what" is a carrier?
I just dont need that sort of stress in my life.
Posted @ September 26, 2008 08:46 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)
I dont care about the debate and frankly I never did
Who are we kidding? Is anyone going to watch this debate and change their minds about who they are going to vote for? Is Obama going to close the sale? Is McCain going to pull off a mask and reveal his inner Nixon to the world?
No.
Stop kidding yourselves into thinking that you are going to see something here, because there is nothing to see tonight, because its already happened, the "press-**" has seen to it that the message they want to send will be the only message that gets out.
Let me be "Kreskin" here and predict whats going to happen.
10 seconds after the debate is over, the left will hit "enter" on their progressive-apple-laptops-that-look-just-like-girls-makeup-cases-from-back-when-girls-actually-carried-such-things and publish their already written posts, saying that McCain looked tired and worn out, stammered around stage, while Obama looks "statesmanlike" with a firm grip of the facts, even though the word most often repeated tonight by Barack Obama will be "ahh, ummmm, errr". The first 6 paragraphs will also breathlessly point out the relationship between "Ole Miss", deeply entrenched American racism and the shock (to some) of a black man running for President,all while quietly whispering the little known fact that McCain appears to be a "white man".
I'll repeat it again. This is an exercise in pointless twaddle with as much to do with actual politics as the WWF has to do with actual sports.
I dont care if McCain walks out begins to channel the ghost of Jim Morrison, drops his pants and takes a big whizz on stage shouts "I AM THE LIZARD KING!!!,because even if he did do that, I'm still voting for him. Quite frankly, if he does do that, I will probably send his campaign money. If he also turns around smacks Jim Lerher to the ground and calls him "a commie punk", I'll fly to Manahttan and wear a "MCCAIN FOR PRESIDENT" sandwich board in Times Square and ring a bell and hand out campaign literature to the New Yorkers like those "end is nigh" folks.
I suggest to you that rather than sit in front of the TeeVee, a better use of you time would be for you all take the opportunity to go for a walk in the autumn air and enjoy the company of good friends.
** - "Press" used to be a word that invoked the use of a "printing press " in the creation of distibutable information. This is not to say that in those days the information was any better, but in those days you could always reuse the paper for other purposes, such as bird cage liners, training your puppy or what is called when camping "Mountain money". Now the word "press" has come to mean the feeling my head gets either when I place my skull between a C-Clamp and tighten the screws and its the exact same feeling I get if I watch MSNBC for more than 10 minutes, or if Alan Colmes starts to talk or if someone decides this would be the perfect time to talk to Rosie O'Donnell and get her feelings on the election.
Posted @ September 26, 2008 01:46 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Well after all, he is a fighter pilot
Sure its Zogby, The "Haaretz of polls" ,but there you go.
So, McCain suddenly suspends his campaign, which immediately causes his opposition (who is underestimating and overconfident) to overshoot. This is a maneuver to which to my aviation geared mind sounds like "McCain slams down the airbrakes and rolls over the top of the overshooting aircraft and suddenly finds himself with a shooting solution".
Where did he come up with that idea? Its an air combat maneuver called a "Rolling Scissors". Note to the Obama campaign, if you are wondering where McCain went, check your six.
Posted @ September 25, 2008 01:39 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
ipso facto
NBC's Luke Russert says "The smartest kids in the state go there so it is leaning a little bit toward Obama."
He said in a blog later Wednesday that he misspoke and "made what is without a doubt, quite simply a dumb comment..."
So - By saying something so dumb, is Luke Russert telegraphing the fact that he's actually for McCain?
Posted @ September 24, 2008 04:37 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Priorities on Display
I'll say this about John McCain, he may be 72 years old, but he's not boring.
John McCain seems to have this weird out of date old fashioned idea idea that there is something out there that is more important than politics and your daily poll numbers. He actually thinks that this thing called "the country" is more important than politics. He actually thinks that making a sacrifice for the good of the country is a good idea! The poor deluded old fool...
Barack Obama seems to think that a debate on Foreign Policy is the most important thing that he can possibly do for the country right now, that people crave politics and hang on his every word.
What A Narcissist...
We stand on the edge, not of a recession but an outright depression. If companies cannot borrow capital to stay in business, they will go out of business. Once a certain number of companies go out of business, then there is simply no business to be had. Unless you are some sort of "frontier trapper" living out where you can catch your own food, you need capital to survive because "It takes money to make money". If you dont make money, then you are an expense and when things go bad, expenses get cut and that means you daddy-o. The only reason you got that cushy office job at "Consolidated Sprockets Unlimited" isnt because youre a "great guy", its because theres a market for sprockets and there is enough capital out there for other companies to buy sprockets from your company. If people want your sprockets but can't buy them, then your company doesnt sell sprockets. If it doesn sell sprockets, theres no money to pay for you and your cushy job and before you know it, you're out on your ass and "Consolidated Sprockets Unlimited" is out of business. See how that works? WALL STREET IS MAIN STREET! YOU HAMMERHEADED MORON SENATOR SCHUMER! I dont care how much money you have in the bank, it doesnt mean a thing if its not flowing around the economy. A pile of dollar bills is not money, its insulation. A pile of dollar bills that is invested in the economy is MONEY, or in other words, its CAPITAL! Money doesnt mean anything if there is nothing to buy. The flow of capital is the cornerstone of American economics and frankly, its the cornerstone of your freedom. Remember varifranks universal law of economics, "if you cant own property, then you are property. If there is no economic freedom to allow you to buy property, then you are only the property of the stete."
If you want someone to take care of all your economic decisions then move back home with your parents. I'm sure they kept your room just like you left it. If you dont like capitalism, then stop borrowing money for cars and houses and go live in a field with all the other hippies( And I'm talking right to you Senator Charles "I Hate mortgates" Schumer). Most people think it would be great to get back to nature, but a week of camping will usually break them of the habit. Take it from me kids, Poverty is not "fun". There is nothing good or noble about living in poverty. It sucks, if at all possible, avoid it.
I like capitalism, I like owning a house a car and having a job and having disposable income to do what I see fit with as I see fit. I kinda think that its a good thing to NOT BE STARVING TO DEATH BECAUSE I CAN ACTUALLY AFFORD TO EAT AND I CAN EAT WHATEVER THE HELL I WANT WHEN I WANT TO. Socialist economies are the ONLY places where famines occur. Period. You just think of that the next time you think " Golly, socialism would be great!"
How anyone over the age of 12 can vote for a leftist socialist with zero economic experience or so much as a drab of common street sense to be President of the United States is completely beyond my ability to comprehend. You would get more economic common sense if you talked about the 1980's "laffer curve" with a three legged tincan chomping billygoat with a lapshade on its head. The only thing socialists know about markets and economics is how to wreck them and make everyone equally poor.
We need to recapitalize this country, not nationalize the banks and take away your economic freedom. We need to cut the capital gains tax to ZERO and we need to do it NOW.
Oh, and while we are at it, we need to STOP GIVING MORTGAGES TO PEOPLE WHO CANT MEET THE CREDIT QUALIFICATIONS TO RENT AN APARTMENT!!!!
Posted @ September 24, 2008 02:00 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
I question the timing
Is it at all reasonable to consider that the Democrats are willing to sink the economy for their own benefit?
I mean, wheres the downside for them? They get to nationalize everything, they get to return to the happy days of the Great Depression, its perfect. So why solve it? why not net it burn? Nancy "Nero" Pelosi, its not that far removed if you think about it.
Because of course, Im the only one who is looking at the Democrats askance on how they are handling the whole banking crisis and natually all problems benefit the Democrats at the polls. Is it really wrong of me to be this politcally paranoid?
Posted @ September 23, 2008 03:24 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)
Doc Browns Time Machine
I just had a flash of a future, a future where President Palin is running for re-election against Senator Hillary Clinton in 2012. Oh what fun that debate would be!
Then I read this Hitchens post and realized that there must have been some shift in time-space that resulted in the two of us thinking the same thing.
Posted @ September 22, 2008 04:19 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Question of the day
Q: How many crises situations has President Bush faced during his Presidency? Military, Foreign Policy, Natural Disasters, Economic, Political, if you stop and think about what this President and this country has faced in the last eight years, its pretty staggering.
"Ah but Frank, does matter to you that he caused most of them?"
Well, I think that blaming the President for Hurricaines is like blaming the fire department for house fires. You might complain about how slow there were in getting there, but the fire itself is not the fault of the guys who come to put it out. Military? I see a military that has been transformed from a post cold war machine that was still addicted to big weapons systems like the Crusader artillery system into one where Air Force systems like UAV's and GPS guided weapons have transformed the battlefield. Economic? We went into the Bush years with the meltdown from the "Dot Com" years, and we are going out with a meltdown of housing, both are more alike than we care to realize. Ken Lay and Franklin Raines are more alike than folks on the left will ever admit. Political? Bush took office in 2001 with what can only be called a near insurrection and except for occasional periods of quiet which can only be described as the political oppostion in the act of re-arming, he's managed the office of the executive branch. Managing when you have a majority is hard but managing when you have a revolt on your hands is damned difficult. President Bush has faced a crises after crises since the first day of his Presidency without any sizeable let up.
So the question of the day is based on this. President Bush going away will not lower the amount of activity in the world. The next President will face at least the same amount if not more than President Bush has faced. Having lived through the last eight years and knowing what we know about this most recent period of time, what do you want your next President to take into office with him? Remember, Presidents are simply the leader of the executive branch of Government. In that position, they fill a large amount of the executive branch with people that, in their experience, will do a good job.
I'm trying to figure out a way to graph those situations along with how President Bush responded to them. I have to say that there are a lot of situations that happened over the last eight years that I had simply forgotten about. Remember the Crisis with the Chinese when they shot down one of our aircraft and held the crew? I had forgotten about that and I had forgotten about the whole ENRON show with Ken Lay as well. The number of Hurricaines and wildfires that have happened over the past eight years. Its also amazing the things you forget about. One thing I've noticed is that President Bush has been through a lot of things over the past eight years but there is no way that he has been bored in office, even for a minute.
Posted @ September 21, 2008 10:28 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
If youre Barack Obama, would you hold a fundraiser at an oil mansion?
Get outta my house, you interloper!
You've all heard about the fundraiser in "Hollywood" that generated 9 million dollars. What you didn't hear is that it was held at Greystone Mansion. You folks who are not from LA will think that it has something to do with Tarzan, but the mansion does have something to do with another Hollywood connection; Edward Doheny, one of the nations early oil magnates owned the mansion. He was made famous in the Upton Sinclair Novel "Oil" Which is what the film "There will be blood" was based on.
I grow tired of pointing out the hypocracy of the press these days, but I feel I must do my duty, so here it goes:
Ahem.... Oh, how they would have howled if a Republican had held a fundraiser A) in a Mansion B) in an MANSION MADE FROM OIL PROFITS!!!!
So There. And yes as always, "I Drink Your Milkshake", but you knew that or you wouldnt be here, would you?
Posted @ September 17, 2008 07:44 PM | Current Affairs | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
As a taxpayer Im just asking, as a capitalist Im appaled as a shareholder Im furious
Now, I say this as a complete capitalist, but if a business gets so large that its failure would collapse the market( Like AIG is purported to be), then is it fair to say that the business should be broken up by the government to keep that from happening?
"Too big to fail" should not be "Taxpayers pick up the tab". If you are too big to fail, maybe we need to make you a little smaller.
That goes for you too GM...
Posted @ September 17, 2008 07:49 AM | Current Affairs | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)
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