Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Obama TV Special


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Frankly I was a little worried about him buying 30 minutes of time on three networks. I was concerned. I don’t know why, but I was fretful.

I didn’t need to worry. Goodness. I can’t say enough good things about the TV special and about him as a human being.

This guy would be so much better at the job of president than John McCain. I sure hope Obama wins.
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General Motors

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For many years American automakers in Detroit have intentionally not followed the desires of the market or their customers. They were well aware of this, but the big SUVs and pickup trucks were just so profitable that their greed overcame their (somewhat limited) wisdom.

General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler all made a lot of money peddling gigantic, low fuel economy vehicles to the American consumer. They were indeed successful in convincing most people that it was cool and sexy to drive a big piece of crap that got 10 miles to the gallon on a good day.

The consumer was culpable too. No question about it. Many people took on more and more debt, even took the equity out of their houses through second mortgages and ran up massive amounts of credit card debt. Everyone knew that the good times couldn’t possibly last forever, but it was like there was a collective insanity going on. It was like everyone was drunk or stoned or both.

For forty years it has been obvious that the worldwide population is continuing to grow (especially in China and India) but that the supplies of easily recoverable fossil fuels are not. Comfortable, safe cars which get 40 miles per gallon were available back in the 1960’s. But the common person in America fell hook, line, and sinker for the lie that driving an SUV or a really big wasteful pickup truck somehow made one more desirable and attractive.

This was all going on while the people driving these wasteful vehicles were not getting any exercise at all and were eating like compulsive hogs. So now we have a country full of fat slobs with diabetes who can’t afford to drive their big pig American cars. Revolting. REALLY!

Now these same creeps who run the car companies in Detroit want the United States Government to bail them out for their years of bad decisions. These crooks want the government to give them billions of dollars to help them develop vehicles which get good fuel economy. Well just look around: Toyota, Honda, Nissan, VW, Fiat, and almost all the other car makers around the world already make high quality, safe, good fuel economy vehicles.

If the American government gives these jerks in Detroit one penny this is just another example of welfare for the rich and for corporations, while 50 million Americans do not have health insurance.
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Craig Ferguson

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I am reading Craig Ferguson's book called Between The Bridge And The River.
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The is an absolutely incredible book. I had no idea he was so intelligent!
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Here is a quote:
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He said business had been very bad since the whole jihad thing and that he thought that fundamentalism was the scourge of decent people who were trying to live a good life and make an honest living. Fraser was surprised to find that Davy saw no difference between Christian fundamentalism and Islamic fundamentalism except that the Christians seemed to be rather more effective at killing large groups of people.
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This book is incredibly wonderful. I agree with Mitch Albom who says that "Craig Ferguson is not a talk-show host moonlightling as an author - it might be the other way around."
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Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Old Passports

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I was putting some papers away in one of my filing cabinets a few days ago and came across my file of old expired passports.

Old passports are so wonderful. Currently American passports expire after ten years. The stamps in the passports reminds one of the various trips one has taken over the years. And the evolution of the passport portraits really tells a story of how one has changed over the course of a lifetime.

Going through the old passports I see that I got my first passport in 1972. This one was issued while I was in the Army and was living in Frankfurt Am Main, West Germany. It was only good for five years. This first passport has stamps in it from Egypt, Lebanon, Israel, Greece, Cyprus, Denmark, Germany, Mexico, Switzerland, and England. I was 22 when I got this passport.

I remember that trip to England in February 1974. We flew over “space available” for free on an Air Force cargo plane. It was the first time I had ever been to London. I was 25 years old at the time.

I got my next passport in 1989. I took my son to see London in June of 1989. We happened to be in London when the Chinese government killed all those folks in Tiananmen Square. My boy was 13 at the time. We took the tube over to the Chinese Embassy and participated in a demonstration supporting human rights. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1989

This passport shows our trip to Cozumel, Mexico in June 1990 to go scuba diving, and also when I moved to the Netherlands in March 1993 to become the General Manager of the European Division of the company I was working for. It did that job for more than a decade.

This passport shows many trips to the United Kingdom going through the channel tunnel, and ones arriving in Manchester, Stansted, Edinburgh, Gatwick, Birmingham, and Southampton.

My next passport was issued in December 1998 by the U.S. Consulate General in Amsterdam. This passport has a great many trips to the UK, some by air, and others through the channel tunnel. Included are entries in Newcastle, Bristol, Prestwick, Edinburgh, and a trip I took to Dublin, Ireland in April 2003.
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Altogether my old passports show 29 times that I have gone to the United Kingdom. I remember one trip very well right after the Schingen Treaty was signed. Supposedly one no longer needed a passport to travel within Europe. The UK soon dropped out of this provision, but just to try it out I used my Dutch alien identity card to enter the UK. It worked.
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So all together this comes out to 30 times I have visited the British Isles. Virtually all were as a tourist. I guess two or three times technically I went on business, but even then I took the time to see lots of eye candy. I could visit Great Britain two or three times per year for the rest of my life and never get tired of it. It is such an amazing place!
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Friday, October 24, 2008

Obama


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I have really enjoyed wearing a different Obama campaign button every day!

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Thursday, October 23, 2008

Deregulation

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Vindication. That is what it feels like.
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Alan Greenspan today said that he was wrong in thinking that the markets could self-regulate. In comments to congress he is now calling for more regulation. The radical ideas of brutal Market Fundamentalism and deregulation have been shown to be totally bankrupt.
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It is about time these dumbasses recognized it.
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LINK: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/23/AR2008102300193.html?nav=rss_email/components
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McCain - Not Who You Think He Is

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The McCain campaign is distributing a mail piece that says "Terrorists" on the front and opens to a big picture of Barack Obama saying "Not Who You Think He Is."

John McCain -- who promised to run a respectful campaign -- said that he was "absolutely" proud of it.

I used to like John McCain. I thought he was an honest, polite man. More recently my opinion of him evolved to thinking that he was impetuous, and frequently made “gut” decisions like Bush. But that basically down deep he was still an honest, polite man (of course one who has a long history of screwing around on his wives).

No more. Now he reminds me of Gollum lusting after the power of the ring in Tolkien’s Trilogy. I now see clearly that John McCain craves the power and the glory of being President of The United States. He will say or do anything to deceive the people of America into voting for him. This is disgusting and sick. Revolting.

Not to mention that he is 72 years old and currently in remission from cancer. And the bimbo he chose as his running mate clearly is unprepared to lead, much less lead “all the people.”
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Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Anti-Obama e-mails

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Several times per week I receive racist and degrading e-mails forwarded from friends claiming to tell things about Obama's past.
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Demagoguery of the most pernicious time. Many of these e-mails have come from college educated white friends who pretend to be liberal. Clearly they are carrying a heavy load of racist baggage. Poor sick bastards.
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Health Insurance In America

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The Los Angeles Times has an article today on the health care system in America.
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The way that health care is handled in the United States of America is a disgrace. 50 million people in America are uninsured, and those who do have health insurance often find that despite thinking that their insurance would cover certain expenses, in the final analysis they have to pay these expenses.
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Unfortunately this is just another example of how far America has fallen. No other advanced Western democracy in the entire world has such a shabby health care system which excludes so many people. The infant mortality rates and average age of death in the U.S.A. confirm that the American health care system has declined to what one would expect in a second rate country.
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Just like the problems with the financial markets, this decline in the American health care system can primarily be attributable to greed, lack of government regulation, and a breakdown of democracy.
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I am 59 years old, and for 20 years of my adult life I lived and worked first in Germany and later in the Netherlands. In both countries physicians do not live in gigantic palaces and drive Porsches. Honest. And the people living in both countries live longer than Americans. The death rate for young children is lower in both countries than in the U.S.A.
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It really makes me be kind of ashamed to be an American. Shocking.
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LINK: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fi-insure21-2008oct21,0,7460918.story
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Alternative Energy

The board of directors of the electric power utility providing electricity service to Austin, Texas (the state capitol) has approved a resolution saying that 30 percent of its power should come from renewable sources, such as wind and solar by 2020.
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El Paso Electric should follow their example. In fact, the new presidential administration, whether it is Obama or McCain should make this be a goal for all electric power utilities in America. Maybe more than a goal. There should be incentives (carrots or sticks) making this option be the most attractive one.


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LINK: http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/10/21/1021pec.html


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Monday, October 20, 2008

I Voted!


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Early voting is soooo nice! I voted today.

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It is a tradition to not have to tell who you voted for. But I will give you a hint: He is not old as the hills, he is in good health, and his running mate is intelligent and experienced.

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Sweden

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The Dutch press today reports that Sweden is in trouble financially:


* Sweden presents financial bailout plan

The Swedish government today presented a series of financial measures to help its banking sector if the country's banks come under more pressure from the global credit crisis. Sweden's finance minister says the measures provide the government with the means to solve liquidity shortages or potential solvency problems in the future. Stockholm's 152.2 billion euros plan allows banks and financial institutions with liquidity problems to apply from loans from the 'guarantee programme'. The loans are tied to specific conditions, including a restriction on management bonuses, raises and golden handshakes. In addition, Stockholm also set up a 1.5 billion euro stability fund to help banks facing insolvency. Sweden is the latest European country to unveil a financial bailout package.

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The Swedish are known among their Nordic neighbors as being extremely conceited and over confident. Having know many Swedes while I was living in Europe I would say that in general this is an accurate characterization.
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Couldn’t happen to nicer people. Arrogant bastards.
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Sunday, October 19, 2008

The Netherlands

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I lived in The Netherlands for 15 years. It is a nice, clean, well organized little country. It is a bit larger than some counties in West Texas. To Americans their policies seem a bit strange, but honestly it works.

Except for major high voltage cross country power lines, the entire electricity grid in the country is buried. This makes it substantially more reliable.

Drug abuse is much less of a problem than in America. Honest. This is counter intuitive because you can go down to your neighborhood coffee shop and the waiter will give you a menu of all the kinds of grass and hash that you can legally buy and smoke on the premises. And then when you are ready to leave it is like a Chinese take-out. You can buy some to take home too.

People who are addicted to hard drugs can get clean needles free from the government. The government even drives big vans like portable libraries around to the neighborhoods to make distribution of these needles easy for the drug addicts.

Prostitution is legal. In fact, the whores are unionized so that their employers (pimps) have to exercise fair workplace practices. The rate of AIDS and of teenage pregnancy is far lower in the Netherlands than in America.

For 25 years I was a top manager of companies producing foods for human consumption. Half was in America and ½ of the time was in the Netherlands. So I know the arrogant little Gestapo types who work for the FDA, IRS, and OSHA very well. In America their job advancement and promotions are actually based upon how many companies they bust!

In the Netherlands the Government regulatory officials know that for the country to prosper that people have to have good, stable jobs. This means that businesses have to do well. So the Dutch government regulators really work hard trying to get companies into compliance, rather than fining companies or punishing managers.

If you listen to Bush II and his fellow travellers the American government is pro-business. But this is just so much idle talk. The Dutch government really is pro-people at the same time that it is pro-business.

The Dutch government even recognizes that the tourists who come to the country to smoke marijuana bring in a lot of money. They think this is good for the country.

This article came out today from the Dutch Government sponsored news agency:

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* Dutch run booming soft drugs trade
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In an interview with Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad, police commissioner Max Daniel has said that the export of soft drugs from the Netherlands generates two billion euros a year. According to Mr Daniel, 80 percent or some 500 tons of the drugs grown in the Netherlands, is destined for the export market, particularly England, Germany, France and the Scandinavian countries. The demand for home grown cannabis has also increased substantially in the Baltic States. In the Netherlands, some 400,000 people use soft drugs like hashish, marijuana or cannabis on a regular basis.
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Friday, October 17, 2008

David Letterman


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From my DVR (like a Tivo but you don’t have to pay a monthly fee) I just watched the David Letterman interview of Senator John McCain last night.

It was a whole lot of fun. Moral Of The Story: Don’t screw with Dave!

The Craig Ferguson show followed it. It was also good. And I learned that Craig Ferguson has a book. So I just ordered it from Amazon.com
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Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Indiana Jones




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The new (and final) Indiana Jones movie is now out on DVD. I watched it today.

Back when the movie was in theaters I heard all sorts of criticism. Well, these people are just plain full of it.

I have watched the original three Indiana Jones movies recently, and The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull fits right in with the tone, the theme, and the mood of the others.

This movie is absolutely wonderful!
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Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Leukemia Journey

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Six years ago I was diagnosed with an incurable form of leukemia called CLL (chronic lymphocytic leukemia). At the time I was living in Europe, and I was extremely fortunate that Dr. Terry Hamblin was willing to take me on as a patient. He was one of the world's top researchers in the field of CLL. He lived and worked in the South of England.
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Now at age 59-3/4 I have decided to write down the symptoms and progression of the disease.
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HEALTH SYMPTOMS: ------------------------------------------------------------ October 2008

1. It is not uncommon to have to wake up 5 or 6 times during the night to pee. One would assume that this is a prostrate matter and is largely unrelated to the leukemia. Symptoms are advancing rapidly. Perhaps a secondary cancer? Since I am one of the 50 million uninsured in America no one will ever know.

2. Constant uncontrollable sweating day and night. One needs to drink large amounts of water to keep from getting dehydrated. One side effect of this constant sweating is uncontrollable fungus or mold in the groin area. Despite impeccable personal hygiene, the jock itch gets so bad that in appearance it resembles bed sores in old people. Baby powder, changing one’s underwear several times each day, standing in front of a fan to dry off the groin area several times each day. The body not being able to fight off these invaders and cure itself is due to the continued gradual reduction in the proper functioning of the body’s immune system. A side effect of being dehydrated is night time leg cramps. Drinking plenty of water stops these cramps.

3. The night sweats are getting difficult again. At the start of this leukemia journey six years ago the night sweats were extreme, they decreased for a while, and now they are getting quite noticeable again. Bed sheets and pillow drenched every night. In the morning using the ceiling fan for an hour or more before making the bed, so as to dry everything out.

4. Another result of the continued diminution in the effectiveness of the immune system is loss of the body’s ability to arrest tooth decay. Brushing several times each day, constant flossing. Several months ago I fully 100% stopped all consumption of refined sugars/corn syrup/honey, etc. This has helped somewhat, but has not fully resolved the continued problem with tooth decay.

5. The lymphomas or bumps are readily apparent on my neck and under my arms. I am getting more and more of these bumps. These surface-visible lymphomas are disconcerting, but the more worrying ones are those inside the body which press against various important organs, sometimes impeding their proper functioning.

6. When I first moved back to the dry climate of the Chihuahuan Desert the COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), i.e. lung problems, got better. A lot better. Running a HEPA air filter day and night in the bedroom also was helpful. But now once again I am aware of a continued and significant reduction in the proper functioning of the lungs. Laying in bed at night sometimes it is difficult to get enough oxygen. I lay there gasping to try and get enough air.

7. Diagnosis of the CLL took place coincidentally because I went to the hospital with an extreme infection inside of my lungs (pneumonia). These lung infections keep coming back. The antibiotic Avelox still manages to knock it back, but with each outbreak the antibiotics have to be continued for longer and longer times. Certainly this ongoing bacterial battle is related to the body’s improperly functioning immune system.
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Sunday, October 12, 2008

The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society

Yesterday evening I attended a fund raiser for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society called Light The Night Walk. A large group of people walked around Ascarate Lake in El Paso, Texas. It took us about 45 minutes to walk all the way around the lake.

Supporters carried red balloons which contained a small LED flashlight and cancer patients (they call them survivors) carried white balloons which also had a LED flashlight in them. For a donation of $25- you received a free T-shirt.

Ascarate Lake is most famous for a huge Navy P5M seaplane having landed in this small man made lake in the middle of the Chihuahuan desert in April 1960. Although the body of water was large enough to land in, it was not nearly big enough for a large seaplane to take off. So after many months the military finally attached JATO rockets to the airplane to give it added thrust. It then took off safely, never to return.

It is always interesting to hang out with other cancer patients. Some are full of self pity, while others show great dignity. There is sometimes a lot of forced frivolity and humor.

This evening I gained a bit of insight. If you do not have a spouse or close friend, try not to die inside your own house. If your rotting corpse remains in the house for a week or so it will severely damage the resale value of the house, thus financially harming one’s survivors. Really good advice!

The other insight I received regarding incurable malignant cancer was: If you finally reach the point where the suffering is intolerable and you make a conscious decision to end the suffering - go out into the desert or to the middle of the forest to do it. Let the animals and nature take the appropriate actions with your remains. Another piece of really good advice!

LINK: http://www.lightthenight.org/site/c.itJZJ7MOIwE/b.730971/

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Regarding the seaplane landing at Asacarte Lake 50 years ago, the El Paso Times had this to say about it on 8 May 2009:
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"On April 10, 1960, a U.S. Navy P5M Martin Marlin seaplane was made an emergency landing on the 3,000-foot long Ascarate Lake.

The pilot, Lt. M.T. Burke, said he made the decision to land in the "pond" when the starboard engine began cutting out every few minutes.

"The trouble started around Yuma," Burke told the El Paso Times at the time. "But it didn't get serious until we were 50 or 60 miles out of El Paso." The officer decided to come to El Paso rather than try for Elephant Butte Lake.

Before landing, much of the fuel was dumped from the seaplane, which the El Paso Times article also referred to as a "flying boat."

Burke and his crew had left San Diego en route to Baltimore, via Pensacola, Fla. The seven people on the flight were members of a ferrying group that transported planes across the nation.

The plane landed from south to north, then was towed with the assistance of a Sheriff's Department boat piloted by Deputy Charlie Barker, and a County Recreation Department boat, handled by Earl Thurston, to the north end of the lake.

Additional personnel, tools and spare parts were flown in to help get the flying boat ready for takeoff while Burke held an "open house" so that Mayor Raymond Telles, County Judge Woodrow Bean and other City and County officials could inspect the seaplane -- "a rarity in El Paso."

The landing, however, wasn't as complicated as the takeoff later.

Four rockets were added to the seaplane, it was stripped of all unnecessary equipment, and it carried a minimum load of fuel to make it as light as possible. The trees at the south end of the lake were soaked overnight and pushed over with bulldozers.

In the early morning of April 23, an Air Force helicopter hovered overhead and emergency crash trucks stood ready in case of trouble.

Capt. Ted Vogel of the El Paso Police Department and two members of the Sheriff's Department Boat Patrol were also on watch, and Mexican police had an ambulance and fire truck ready on the Mexican side.

At 6:13 a.m., the 77,000-pound flying boat, using its extra jets and aided by small motorboats kicking up waves, took off successfully from Ascarate Lake.

The pilot was Lieut. Commander William L. Schad, and his co-pilot was Lieut. Gordon R. Williams. They flew from El Paso to Corpus Christi and then on to Baltimore, Md."


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In Place Out Of Time


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About a year and a half ago I met an interesting old man up in Hillsboro, New Mexico. A guy by the name of Embree “Sonny” Hale.

In his early 70’s he lives dirt poor. His main focus in life is photographing Indian rock art. When I met him I heard that a documentary was being filmed of him.

It has now come out. Erin Hudson did an excellent job. The documentary is called In Place Out Of Time.
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Links:
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http://hpgarland.blogspot.com/2007/05/embree-hale.html
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http://www.lcsun-news.com/sunlife/ci_10623575
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Saturday, October 11, 2008

Tree Hugging Liberals

I received this today by e-mail from a friend:
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Joe Six Pack gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards.

With his first swallow of coffee, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to insure their safety and that they work as advertised.

All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer's medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance -- now Joe gets it, too.

He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.

Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air.

He walks to the subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.

Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards.

Joe's employer pays these standards because Joe's employer doesn't want his employees to call the union. If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he'll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn't think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.

Its noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FDIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.

Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime.

Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards.

He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers' Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans. The house didn't have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification.

He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, liberal idiot fought for these rights to provide for himself so Joe wouldn't have to.

Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn't mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day.

Joe Six Pack agrees: "We don't need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I'm a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have."
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Hurricane Norbert

------------------------------------- CLICK ON THE PICTURE AND IT WILL ENLARGE

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The American government's weather service, NOAA, says that Hurricane Norbert might reach El Paso by Sunday morning around 11 a.m.

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After travelling so far inland it will certainly not cause any damage due to high wind veolcity, but it might depsoit some badly needed rain in the Chihuahuan desert.

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Friday, October 10, 2008

Globalization

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I lived almost 20 years in Europe. For the last 15 years I was General Manager of the Dutch division of an American company. In another year and a half I will begin drawing my Dutch early retirement pension.

Only one kicker. Just like in America most of the pension assets are invested in the stock market. And I see from today’s Dutch news that since the beginning of the year the Dutch stock market has lost half of its value. --Good grief!





* Global stock markets continue free-fall

Turmoil on the world's stock markets is continuing unabated. Wall Street opened 2,4 percent down, with share prices swinging wildly amid fears of a global recession. European markets dropped sharply after Wall Street opened in the red and plummeted by nearly 10 percent.

Amsterdam's AEX Index, which was down 8 percent, has now lost half its value since the beginning of the year, with traders warning of massive panic sales.

European stock exchanges rejected calls to suspend trading. In Indonesia, the market remained closed for a third consecutive day in a bid to prevent further damage. Trading was also suspended in Moscow.

Finance ministers and central bankers of the G7 are meeting today in Washington to discuss the financial crisis. The gathering coincides with the annual joint meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank
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21st century Renaissance

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President George Bush II addressed the American people today on TV. Unfortunately this was not communication, where he also listened to his subjects and answered a few questions, but just his Bushy imitation of issuing a Dictatorial or Royal edict.

In referring to the current breakdown in the financial system and the impending worldwide recession/depression, one of the things he said was, “We know what is wrong.”

Almost everything else this guy has ever told the American people was wrong, and this is too. Bozo Bush still doesn’t get it. Neither do most of his greed-driven advisers.

Bush and his fellow travelers have broken down the system of checks and balances that held together the American democracy. They have cancelled or impeded a vast number of laws and regulations which protected the American people from fraud and greed driven abuse. They even turned the word “deregulation” into something positive.

Deregulating building codes which prevent buildings from falling down, or the regulations which make buildings and baby clothing more fire resistant, or the regulations requiring fire exits, or the regulations against rape, theft and murder, or the regulations which make sure that bridges are built so that they do not fall down would not be seen as particularly wise. So why is it wise to deregulate the regulations which were implemented to make sure that people’s savings were protected from bank collapses, and their old age pensions were protected by the full faith and credit of the federal government?

These right wing fanatics like to talk about the shared values Americans have. One of these values says that Greed is Evil. The rich should carry a larger burden of helping out the people in need than the poor - this is called progressive taxation.

Instead these criminals took from the poor and gave to the rich.

Looking on the bright side maybe this is the beginning of the end to this unsuccessful experiment in unregulated capitalism. Greed driven, screw the poor capitalism.

Marxism and Communism have been shown to be ineffective. Now we are realizing that wild-west, unregulated Capitalism is just as bad.

Maybe this situation can be turned around to change the tax structure to make it much more progressive. We need to accept that free health care is a basic human right. When you call the police to report a break-in in progress at your house, or when your house catches on fire and you call the fire department they do not demand proof of insurance before they respond.

Look not too far back in American history and you will find that in fact these fire and police services were not free. Only those who could afford to pay for them received these protections. Health care falls in the exact same category.

So does the right to retire with financial security and dignity once one reaches about 60 or 65 years old.

And the right to breathe clean air and drink clean water. The right to have confidence that the human food supply is not contaminated with industrial chemicals or polluted with pesticides.

Bush and his greed-driven types don’t get this, but maybe enough other people do that what we are seeing now is the beginning of the 21st century Renaissance.

A bit over optimistic? Maybe. But maybe not too.
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Mentally Unstable Fanatics



I just heard a rumor that at Palin rallies some people have been chanting “kill him” referring to the Democratic nominee for President.

Oh God. This would be as bad as (or maybe even worse) than the killings of JFK, Bobbie, and MLK.

I sure hope that the Secret Service is competent…..
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The Secret Serive is now part of the Department of Homeland Security. Lets hope that these Radical Right Winge lunatics haven't deregulated the Secret Service and reduced the funding of their agency to the point where they can't do their jobs competently.
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Another really horrifying thought: What if McCain gets elected and then promptly croakes?
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Thursday, October 09, 2008

Advice


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------------------------- Jump!

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Societal Breakdown


A close friend is convinced that this worldwide financial depression - recession might get so bad that society as we know it could completely break down. He feels that in part this will happen because American cities have been built so geographically spread out. The concept of the suburbs is fundamentally based upon cars and cheap gasoline. Since we are running out of oil the opportunity for everything to break down is real.

My friend has recommended that I read the book: The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century by James Howard Kunstler.

My buddy knows that I carry a concealed .38 special +P revolver (I have a government permit to do so), and that in both my car and my bedroom I keep loaded .44 magnum revolvers handy. He is convinced that unless you regularly go to a shooting range and practice (I do occasionally, but not what one would call regularly) one should buy a shotgun and several boxes of shells. The idea is that even when one is under when under extreme pressure one can hit the target with a shotgun, whereas this may not be true with a handgun.

After reading this book he is convinced that I may need this to protect myself and my house from the crazed masses facing extreme poverty and starvation. His exact phrase was, “The disenfranchised are going to go ape shit I fear.”

I have read several reviews of the book that he recommended (see below). After reading these reviews I think I will forego reading this book. I’m not a big fan of conspiracy theories, even though I still do wonder a bit about JFK.
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He may be right..he's a smart guy. Things may completely go to hell in a handbasket. But I think this view is a little overly pessimistic. I sure hope so.
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But his advice to go buy a shotgun seems sound. So as of today I am in the market for a reliable shotgun.
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Book Reviews:

From Publishers Weekly


The indictment of suburbia and the car culture that the author presented in The Geography of Nowhere turns apocalyptic in this vigorous, if overwrought, jeremiad. Kunstler notes signs that global oil production has peaked and will soon dwindle, and argues in an eye-opening, although not entirely convincing, analysis that alternative energy sources cannot fill the gap, especially in transportation. The result will be a Dark Age in which "the center does not hold" and "all bets are off about civilization's future." Absent cheap oil, auto-dependent suburbs and big cities will collapse, along with industry and mechanized agriculture; serfdom and horse-drawn carts will stage a comeback; hunger will cause massive "die-back"; otherwise "impotent" governments will engineer "designer viruses" to cull the surplus population; and Asian pirates will plunder California. Kunstler takes a grim satisfaction in this prospect, which promises to settle his many grudges against modernity. A "dazed and crippled America," he hopes, will regroup around walkable, human-scale towns; organic local economies of small farmers and tradesmen will replace an alienating corporate globalism; strong bonds of social solidarity will be reforged; and our heedless, childish culture of consumerism will be forced to grow up. Kunstler's critique of contemporary society is caustic and scintillating as usual, but his prognostications strain credibility.


(May) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.








Kunstler established a writing career criticizing American suburbia (e.g., The Geography of Nowhere, 1993), and his animosity against his bete noire does not abate here. It's a wide--casting, statistics-studded ramble through energy production and technologies, world economic and political history, and climatology that culminates in predictions that the suburbs are doomed. His assertions are always self--confident, sometimes immodestly so, as when he dismisses in toto any possibility that the market, or technologists, will rescue contemporary civilization from a world of declining oil production. Discerning an imminent future of protracted socioeconomic crisis, Kunstler foresees the progressive dilapidation of subdivisions and strip malls, the depopulation of the American Southwest, and, amid a world at war over oil, military invasions of the West Coast; when the convulsion subsides, Americans will live in smaller places and eat locally grown food. Credit Kunstler with an energetic argument, but whether he has achieved his stated goal--waking up an ostensibly somnolent public--via his relentless and alarmist pessimism remains to be seen.


Gilbert TaylorCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved




Peak Oil Is Real, But This Book is a Bigoted Rant, September 21, 2005
By
Anaxagoras (Austin, TX USA)
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I very much wanted to like this book. I greatly enjoyed Kunstler's earlier works (The Geography of Nowhere and Home from Nowhere), and I am deeply involved in local activism to make my local community less dependent on oil. I have read a great deal about Peak Oil and have no doubt that it is real and will soon be the greatest issue facing America and the world. That said, I hated this book. Hated it. Hated, hated, hated, HATED it.
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Kunstler displays a suffocating sense of superiority over everyone else (including the reader) and a total intolerance to any view other than his own. In his world, there is no god but the Long Emergency, and Kunstler is its prophet. He explains the basic of Peak Oil well enough (although a much more thorough presentation can be found in Richard Heinberg's books). He then goes off on a rant about geopolitics in the Middle East, a lot of which is simply wrong, and the rest being already well-known to anyone who reads the newspaper. He has no real idea what's he talking about here, but gives the impression that he believes his words to be true simply because they are HIS words. Kunstler then describes various forms of alternative energy which others say could help alleviate the problems Peak Oil will bring. He dismisses every single one of them, as if with the wave of a hand. Many of these proposed solutions are simply straw men that Kunstler sets up in order to shoot down. Many of the most innovative ideas to help deal with Peak Oil- the ones Kunstler would have a harder time debunking- are not even mentioned. Rather than rationally explore all the options, Kunstler begins with the assumption that nothing can possibly work and then seeks only the evidence to support his own point of view.
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The final chapter deals with "Living in the Long Emergency" and is simply a manifestation of Kunstler's dystopian dream world. He describes America degenerating into a self-made hell, and he seems to delight in describing how horrible every place will be. The Southwest will be overrun by Mexican invaders, Asian pirates will devastate the Pacific Coast, fundamentalist Christians will transform the South into a theocracy, and everywhere there will be starvation, disease and total societal collapse (with the single exception, oddly enough, his own neck of the woods in upstate New York, which apparently will be fine). In particular, he singles out NASCAR fans and people who listen to hip-hop music as being horrible human beings. The book has no index or list of sources. There are very few footnotes, and none of them refer to any reliable sources. One gets the impression that the few footnotes were tossed in to make the book appear to be a work based on research, but Kunstler is no researcher. Where do his facts come from? He doesn't bothering telling us- we're just supposed to trust him.
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Despite his protestations on the very first page, it is clear throughout the book that Kunstler WANTS society to collapse. His resentment towards modern America (and modern Americans) is obvious on every single page of this book. He wants Americans to suffer because he thinks that we deserve it. Ultimately, this book is based less on facts that it is on Kunstler's personal social prejudices. For a better understanding of Peak Oil and its implications, I would recommend Richard Heinberg's "The Party's Over" and Paul Roberts' "The End of Oil." In those books, you get the basic facts of the situation and suggestions for how to make the situation better, without the insulting, self-righteous, holier-than-thou ranting of this work.


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Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Wall Street-Las Vegas Gambling Casinos

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Back in the bad old days if an investor thought that a company had a good potential for future earnings and maybe even some growth, they bought a piece of the company. They purchased some common stock.

This was old time economics.

In these boom-bust times shares are now traded by computers, and an investor might buy and then resell stock in the same company within hours. It has become nothing more than largely unregulated gambling. Betting that the value of the stock/currency/commodity will go up or down. And worse than that - using borrowed money to do the gambling with.

A simple solution would be to apply a sales tax anytime stock in a company is purchased. Say a national sales tax of 7%. Then, just like in certificates of deposit, if one sold the stock too quickly, say within the first 12 months after buying it, one would have to pay a penalty. Just to pull a number out of the air (kind of like Hank Paulson did with the $700- billion), say a 10% penalty.

We should eliminate outright gambling in the financial markets. Financial instruments which gamble or bet that they value of a stock will go up or down should be prohibited. And anyone who markets insurance in any form should be required to have adequate reserves to pay off the potential claims too.

These concepts would certainly moderate the irrational swings in the markets and the Las Vegas boom-and-bust mentality.
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Adaptable Republicans

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The Republicans have really amazed me recently. I always thought of them as being conservative and somewhat reluctant to jump onto the latest fad. Slowly deliberating over the most reasonable and responsible solution to a problem.

In the span of just a few weeks they have thrown away their most deeply held beliefs about capitalism, Adam Smith’s invisible hand, and the trickle down effects of market economics. They have embraced socialism and government ownership of businesses. Nationalization of the big financial institutions.

Of course they still oppose any government relief at all for the poor or for working/middle class folks. Or any form of government regulation.

Maybe they are actually just greedy, horrible, hateful people who in private say things like, “Screw the poor. They are all just stupid and lazy. Mostly illegal immigrants, rag heads, and blacks.”

Yes, they like socialism for the wealthy. They are happy to hold their hands out. Tax cuts for the wealthy, tax increases for the middle class. Not a bad deal if you are one of them and don’t give a damn about your fellow man.

These people are disgusting.
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Tuesday, October 07, 2008

The Mother of All Crises

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The Economy is The Mother Of All Issues currently. At the moment not many people are giving much thought to civil rights, human rights, poverty, or hunger. The same goes for loss of habitat for primates, saving the whales, air and water pollution, or brutally killing baby seals.
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In fact for most people the economic crisis is far more important than the people dying in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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I would like to add one more important issue to the list: According to the Financial Times the government of Mexico is gradually losing the battle against the drug cartels. They report that “there have been 3,148 drug-related murders so far this year in Mexico - an increase of 38 per cent over the whole of last year.”
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This battle going on in Mexico is not trivial.
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Monday, October 06, 2008

Fraud

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Fraud is the creation of trust, and then destroying it.

Senator McCain intentionally aided a massive crook, Charles Keating. This video is amazing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDofbll86dY&feature=iv&annotation_id=event_922988
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Sunday, October 05, 2008

America Proposes Trailer Park Trash as Vice President

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Sarah Palin accusing Obama of being a terrorist or having ties with known terrorists is the lowest form of gutter politics. She is as dishonest as Cheney. Is it any surprise?

Lets turn it around: Palin’s 17-year-old slut of a daughter is pregnant and unmarried. Her son is heavily addicted to drugs including crystal meth.

And the ex-beauty queen Palin had to attend 5 colleges over 6 years to finally get a four year degree in journalism. Or was in 6 colleges over a 5 year period? -What a bimbo. And that hairdo of hers...she looks like Homer Simpson's wife.

When asked to name one single supreme court decision that she did not agree with she couldn’t. She also couldn’t name even one newspaper that she reads regularly. Maybe she is as dumb as Bush, and in fact she doesn't actually read any newpapers except the tabloids.
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And the Republicans are running her one heartbeat away from the oldest man ever to become president? And all the stuff about Palin is true. How frightening.
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Saturday, October 04, 2008

Old Dogs


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If you are a dog admirer you will really enjoy this article which is in praise of old dogs:
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Plan B

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Like many people who took more than a few economics courses back when they were in college, I opposed the bailout. Of course most of the members of the house of representatives and the senate did not take much economics in college at all. In fact the congressman who represents my home town (Silvestre Reyes) didn't even earn a four-year college degree. He graduated from a 2 year junior college.

I didn’t oppose the $700 billion Wall Street bailout because it revolted me that the people who serve in congress were helping out the super-rich, while they were ignoring homeowners who were undergoing foreclosure or the 50 million people in America who don’t have health insurance. I think that speaks very poorly for the Senators and Congressmen, but that is not why I opposed to Wall Street Bailout.

I opposed it because like lots of people who actually know a little about economics and “the market” I was absolutely certain that this enormous $700- billion bailout would not work. It would just be a great deal of money flushed down the toilet.

Maybe I was wrong, but I don’t think so. Time will tell, and I don’t think we will have to wait very long to find out that this is just the latest dumb move of the George W. Bush administration. Don’t forget, this is the same president and the same congress who took us to war in the wrong country.

Now that the bill has passed and has been signed into law by the President, Treasury Secretary Paulson is the most powerful man in America. Certainly at the moment he is vastly more powerful than George W. Bush.

Anyone who thought that this would “solve the problem” either hasn’t been doing their homework or has been smoking those funny little yellow, hand-rolled cigarettes again. My forecast was that the $700 billion Wall Street bailout would very briefly give a small boost to the stock market. But that it wouldn’t do anything at all to solve the root problems in the economy or the credit markets.

The problem is that we have now shot our wad. We have no more dry powder.

Of course the federal government has the ability to just let the printing presses rip and start furiously printing dollars. Figuratively. In economic vocabulary it is called “expanding the money supply.” But the concept is just as real as running the printing presses at top speed day and night.

My forecast is that if you think that the U.S. Dollar was devalued before this, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet baby. We are in the very early phases of the beginning of this crisis.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/03/AR2008100303616.html?wpisrc=newsletter
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Thursday, October 02, 2008

The Biden - Palin Debate

All the Republicans heaved a large sigh of relief that Governor Palin didn't screw up horribly.
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What struck me was the large number of times that she did not answer the question at all. Even when asked a second time very clearly, Palin gave the answer to another question. This lady has already learned how to avoid pesky concepts like Democracy and accountability.

After seeing Governor Palin debate Senator Biden one-on-one there is no doubt.

She is a nice, charming lady who is not at all ready to be President. And if her running mate is elected he will be the oldest guy ever to be elected President. And he has some genuine health issues.

The situation seems crystal clear to me.
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A Country Of Debtors

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David Ignatius has a good article in today’s Washington Post.

In the United States, and to a certain degree in Great Britain and other European countries the societal attitude towards being desperately, deeply in debt has gone from one of shame and humiliation, to an attitude that at these current low interest rates anyone who doesn’t heavily employ financial leverage (i.e. go very deeply in debt) is just plain foolish. So a great many people have stripped most of the equity out of their home through a second mortgage.
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The thought that they might one day actually pay off their house mortgage and have a mortgage burning party seems like just so much science fiction or fantasy. In real life this doesn’t actually happen, thank you very much.

Ignatius quotes Martin Wolf of the Financial times: “U.S. household indebtedness jumped from 50 percent of gross domestic product in 1980 to 100 percent in 2007, while financial sector debt increased from 21 percent of GDP to 116 percent over the same period.”

Need a new mp3 player, or a massive flat screen TV, or a Dolby 5.1 sound system, or a slicker lap top computer, or a sexy new poor-fuel-economy car? Well, just borrow some more money! How sick is it that many people are buying cars on 7 year no-down loans?

It used to be part of the conservative, Christian dogma that debt was evil. Not any more. Now even the highly religious President Bush advises people to go out and spend, spend, spend. And this spending is not coming from saved money, this is borrowed money from credit cards. The very most expensive type of debt.


LINK: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/01/AR2008100102648.html?wpisrc=newsletter

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Wednesday, October 01, 2008

The End Of Arrogance

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Der Spiegel, one of Germany’s most respected news magazines, has an article on their website at the moment called “The End Of Arrogance.”
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This is what deregulation, the Republicans, and the continual waste of large amounts of money on warfare has gotten America.
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Grapes of Wrath

The current version of the $700 billion bailout bill will allow the Treasury to buy some of the worthless assets from the banks and other financial institutions. This might provide a slight upwards bump in the stock markets, but it won’t last. Of course to help out the U.S. Government has to pay more for these worthless securities than they could be sold for on the open market. And if the government negotiates a really good price, say ten cents on the dollar, this will make banks even more precarious than they are now.

This is essentially money just flushed down the toilet.

Unfortunately housing prices are still much too high. Economists say that before this recession began, housing prices on average were 60% overvalued. Until the housing market declines a good bit more, there really is very little that the U.S. Congress can do to help out.

Probably housing prices will need to decline another 20% before things begin to stabilize. So if the value of your house has already declined by 15% to 20%, and you already owe more on your mortgage (plus second mortgage?) than your house is worth, this is going to get substantially worse in the next few years. And there isn’t anything that the Federal Reserve or the Treasury Department can do about it.

Of course the government does need to re-institute many of the laws and regulations that the Bush administration has invalidated. For example the percent of capital required for banks and other similar financial institutions versus borrowed money needs to be brought back into line with where it was before these out-of-control drunken sailors began eliminating all this pesky “government interference.”

These people have run the finances of the U.S. Government and regulation of the private banks like a teenager with his first credit card. No job to pay the money back with. Frequently drunk or high, with the consequent hangovers the next day. No financial discipline at all.

The sobering news is that this is not just another standard recession, where everything gets better in 18 to 24 months.
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The damage that the Deregulation Fanatics have done to the American economy is substantial. The current situation is FAR WORSE than anything we have seen in the last 50 years. Many sober economists now say it very likely will take five to ten years before this all settles out. And during that time many people are going to lose their jobs and lose their houses. Marriages will fall apart. Many people will have their cars repossessed. And unfortunately the drunken Bush fanatics have done everything they can to reduce any safety net that the government might have provided to these people.

Now is probably a good time to re-read the 1939 novel by John Steinbeck called The Grapes of Wrath.
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