Bitcoin - techno-libertarianism?

Digital currency with no fixed rate, no real value. One business in NYC is starting to accept Bitcoin payments. So maybe after your next night on the town you can scan your restaurant bill with your brand new RandPhone.

Maybe he had a fight with his wife

Cramps? or maybe Obama's strategy last night at the First Debate in Colorado was to keep his head down to make Romney look like he's picking on the black guy.  By universal acclamation Romney won the debate and even Chris Matthews said he was excellent.  Jeff Greenfield said Obama seemed clueless about the most basic political points and many feel Obama should have went after Romney on his 47% comments and Bain Capital.  Oh I know what it was he was depressed about that Samuel Jackson video.  The economy, taxes, job creation and education and Jim Lehrer as moderator, get the nachos out.  I don't get why Savage keeps calling Lehrer a baggy-eyed Bolshevik and other conservatives like Michelle Malkin hate the guy but at any rate Rom was up-tempo, controlled the direction of the debate and was aggressive this according to the Today Show which I popped on this morning because truth be told I deliberately surfed right past the debate on most channels but even here some new Chinese digital station was covering it from Beijing so I got some snippets in English.  OK so Romney didn't exactly speak as an arch-conservative and won't exactly win the hearts of the Ron Paulians, not even sure who they're voting for.  He denied Obama's $5 trillion in tax cuts assertion and said there's a place for government in health care, that's not exactly hardcore libertarianism.  Axelrod said Romney's was a strong performance but still a performance so that's one of them half-compliments.  Look Obama has very strong base support whereas Rom is going for the 7% swing, he's a swinger and Obama's a baseman.  O's weak performance won't affect his base of course, it was more embarrassment than abandonment.  Clearly though when Chris Matthews no longer gets The Tingle in his left nut something's wrong:)

Samuel Jackson should just STFU!

Rumor has it that if Obama loses he'll become the head of the European Union and when you stop to think about it it makes sense although Bill Clinton at one point was supposed to become the head of the UN.  Slash 'n' burn capitalism, Romneyism vs. Obamanomics.  All things considered I kinda prefer the free markets although not in a total Randian sense.  Hey did you hear about the October Surprise?  According to Alex Jones there's military intel out there that something is gonna happen next month to help Obama win the election.  I was talking to my friend about this yesterday and said I doubt this as things are not going well for him in the Middle East right now and I doubt Jones ever wakes up in the morning and has a normal day of thinking.  Don't believe the media and all the polls out there, alot of folks are saying don't be swayed and just Vote for Romney.  I'm wondering if soapie is a prepper for when the World Economy totally collapses like in the not too distant future.  I don't know if you've ever talked to a prepper or those who at least are considering prepping but they're pretty annoying.  You know folks who stock up on the canned goods and jugs of Poland Spring and go to Eastern Mountain Sports for those wonderful packages of freeze-dried beef stroganoff and lasagna.  Gotta build a cabin in the woods right now and take the family there even if they don't wanna go and think I'm nutz and while we're at it let's get some of those water purification tablets too.  Anyone watch The Hunger Games yet? didn't think so but if I could articulate a principle here it is that the more a government grows the less benevolent it becomes, think about that Mr. Miller, BB.  I think the nub of Liberalism can be defined as you can kill a fetus but can't have a Big Gulp, pro-choice in one narrow sexual zone or band and fascism spraying off in all the other directions.  There are 50 States in the Union so why does every election apparently hinge on what Ohioans want?  Look the rest of us won't vote we'll just let the State of Ohio decide things.  Obama as head of the EU, you heard it here first:) 

With Obama's reelection looming is this the best time to have a conservative crackup?

Re conservatives, conservative bloggers who won't vote for Romney, not getting the overall theory here.  Liberals must love our little internal debates it can only help their guy time and again.  I say pragmatism before idealism -- defeat Obama first then talk about purifying the Party.  Now the case is being made that we should reelect a president with unemployment still over 8%, it's a weak case to be sure, it's unusual in terms of how Americans typically vote on the overall economy in presidential elections but it is being made nonetheless by BB, Dave Miller and liberals in general.  The difference between us and them, deep down they must know that Obama leaves much to be desired, his first term has to be disappointing for them but in general you don't hear this being expressed by most liberals (I know you're gonna highlight and link to some of the dissidents, go right on ahead).  What are they gonna say the first African-American president kinda sucks?  In short they're all on the same page and have to make the most of it, the Mission is more important.  I'm sure they think the same way about us, it's far more important to get Obama reelected and work out the kinks later than to let a Republican win.  There's always a conservative crackup perking underneath the surface but never a liberal crackup it seems and I don't really count the liberal idiosyncratics club with members like Michael Moore and Cindy Sheehan.  A wise for his years young manager of mine a few years back once said you have to choose your battles by which he means you can't go with everything that agitates you, there be some things that are more important at least for the time being.  What I see some conservatives doing here is a kind of messy multitasking and they're doing it out loud.  They're all over the map, they want Obama the Marxist defeated of course but they also hate their own party and are complaining about it and that doesn't help the first cause...it's just such a muddled approach.  There are those for example who want Obama defeated and at the same time want to end the Federal Reserve today, one is definitely doable the other is a pipe dream for now.  I think though y'all should be invited to Obama's second Inaugural Ball, Michael Fumento will drive:)  

Failed business models

Seems like every now and then when I take a little vacation and come back there are some major upheavals and changes on the workfront and it got me to thinking during my walk today. Now I had a bad manager back in the day, may or may not have been a psycho but definitely an asshole and there was alot going on back then, had some health issues which seemed to start around then, blogged about some of them at the time yet Upper Management made a decision to bring him back. Dunno man but I say if somebody is at best a question mark let them be a memory, a part of Back in the Day but all this work stuff got me to thinking about bailouts and such. Now of course the bailouts didn't start with Obama, Bush really got them going but as a general statement I'm against bailouts philosophically and here's why. If you let the free market work as it's supposed to companies that deserve to go under are allowed to do so. It may sound harsh but there's a reason for everything, maybe they don't treat the workers right, maybe there's corruption, whatever but government throws these economic life rafts and blankets out constantly now and it interferes with the whole natural process, a kind of business Darwinism where the undeserving are allowed to fail. The usual rationale is but the people will be out of their jobs but they can always dust themselves off and find new employment with hopefully better companies but they tend to pigeonhole themselves (once a butcher always a butcher). Now let me ask you if a major company goes bankrupt and then has to file some austerity plan on orders of the Bankrupty Court and so then there's a wage reduction and then a wage freeze for years on end and other major gutting of certain bennies and perks hard fought by the Union over the years HOW is such a bailout beneficial to said workers as a whole? That's called Taking It Up The Ass, Thuganomics 101 and there's a certain loss of basic human dignity involved so what good are unions in the first place? Wouldn't it have been much better for the business to simply close up shop like in the old days because they were fiscally and even morally irresponsible throughout the years? That's the beautiful karma of the free-market system at work folks, the workers will dust themselves off and pick up better jobs if not now then down the road. So how is a massive bank or gov't bailout (really the same thing) gonna help change the Peter Principle? Back in the Day if a place went bankrupt there was a reason for it and there was no chance in hell of getting a bailout or recovery loan. Let me put it in more simple terms and we've all done this us men -- you screwed it up with a chick bigtime, that's all your fault and you have the rest of your life to think about it and chew it over but that's called learning from experience and starting over so when was the last time somebody came up to you and said I'm bailing you out with a new chick?

Obama's State of the Apocalypse

Though it was a rather brief speech Obamawise I was furiously scribbling down notes in my little pad. The Debt Crisis - A Special Address. The speech and the president were utterly predictable, I could've written it. He hates capitalism but through a polemical sleight-of-mind cast himself as a compromiser and a moderate. Basically he is holding a resolution to the debt crisis hostage so he can punish the Rich so unwavering is that principle for him. If no deal is reached he said America will lose its AAA credit rating. Another point - two wars (that he continued btw) and a prescription drug plan added greatly to our national debt. SS checks and Veteran's Bennies are now in jeopardy, interest rates will rise on car loans and mortgages and credit cards (what, they're not high already on the credit cards?) and we won't be able to pay for Medicaid and Medicare. The whole address was peppered with the classic key words and phrases of Class Warfare. 98& of Americans who make under 250G as a household would see no tax increases (250G being the threshold I guess for being considered a millionaire these days) and he had to get in about corporate jet owners and oil companies his favorite mantra of late. Boehner's approach to extend the debt ceiling for 6 more months won't solve the problem and basically there are two approaches he said. First drastically cut spending without any revenue (read: tax increases), the Republican plan and two Our Way which is to close all those tax breaks and loopholes for the rich (one of David Brooks' favorite talking points). It's not fair he said that the wealthiest Americans and Corporations not contribute anything at all here (what, they haven't paid Taxes up until now?) and what we need is a balanced approach to reducing the debt and deficit (i.e. those tax increases again which Republicans are deadset against). He invoked Ronald Reagan 2X saying Reagan himself raised the debt ceiling 18X (he likes the Gipper when it suits him and Abe Lincoln too). Kicking the can down the road, he likes that one. Congress has one week left to act and it's a dangerous game we're playing. Yeah we have the challenges of entitlements and tax reform to consider. "Compromise has become a dirty word." If only he practiced it. Let's put Politics aside for God's sake!!! Then House Speaker John Boehner spoke. He's all for cutting and capping government spending which will eventually lead to a balanced budget amendment. We got a health care bill nobody wanted and Obama wants the largest increase ever in the debt ceiling after the largest spending binge in History. The Boehner Plan would cut spending by $1 trilion. So stimulate my stimulus. We now return you to Masterchef already in progress:)

Bankruptcy

Some of the soapster's most recent comments about Big Government got me thinking and instead of directly responding to his previous remarks I thought I'd do a blog about how far back the problem really goes and today we're gonna focus on this thing called Bankruptcy. Now I always have First Impressions of everything, gut feelings, call it my Primeval Conservatism at work and if you provide a good or service for somebody and you don't get paid and that person or company or corporate entity does not have to pay you after hiding behind a bankrupty filing well that just seems immoral and unjust to me. Of course your initial reaction can me modified by other factors as I feel credit-card companies charge usurious (there's a word you don't hear anymore) interest rates and so the person legitimately trying to pay off his debt gets shafted. Now I'm no lawyer and don't know all the intricacies of bankruptcy law, there's this chapter and that chapter and a few subclauses but you take a large company that has gone into 3 billion dollars in debt let's say and then they get protected by the Bankruptcy Court and get a chance to reorganize their gangster outfit and even get a bailout or loan for their troubles. Well HOW exactly did they go 3 billion dollars into the hole in the first place? At what point in time did nobody notice what was going on? Where was the company auditor in all of this, asleep at the switch? Was there corruption, were honchos putting their hands in the till? The people who were responsible, have they been held to task and if need be prosecuted or at least told to look for other work? Well in our fictitious example (or maybe the better word is factitious) all these questions become moot as they in effect get rewarded for their past bad behavior. Now I have a few philosophical issues with Ayn Rand but at least in her vision if a company deserves to go out of business they deserve to go out of business and in a pure laissez-faire marketplace system businessmen would be forced to be more careful and then there's the question of how is a bankrupt company gonna pay off a government loan (well actually a bank loan but the government is somehow involved as always)? So a couple of immoral things have happened, the vendors who provided certain goods and services won't get paid and the company gets rewarded in effect for their past bad, irresponsible or even corrupt behavior by getting a loan because it's been deemed by Big Government they're too big to fail.

The Republicans "reformed" bankruptcy laws, the Dems want to swing back but I say we need to start at Square One again. IMO it's the bailouts that drive the Tea Party. I give you something, you don't pay me and the government protects you and even arranges to get you more money. If you don't see the dysfunction here then you're not a true conservative, maybe a neocon at best. President Obama in his speech at the AZ Memorial Service spoke briefly about what he called "the forces that divide us." Well no Mr. President it's the forces that disagree with you and your vision of what government should be but this old old polemical device seems to be a favorite of his. So in effect we are left with failing companies that have run their course, should be out of business by their own doing but are being propped up by the government. Remember when the Five & Dime (Woolworth's) went out of business? THAT'S the natural course of events or used to be and it may be Destiny's way of telling you you need to be doing something else with your life, accept it. The Question Before the Board today: should we get rid of ALL bankruptcy laws?:)

Specifically why is the Tea Party a bad thing?

Addressed mainly to Shaw and Saty and other like-minded folk. A few weeks back my conservative friend (see even he is confused) asked me what the Tea Party is and I gave him a kind of general answer but I was somewhat at a loss too. All I know is that it's supposed to be

a Bad Thing

and it reminds me of the whole deal with salt. By now it's a universally recognized truth that salt is bad for you but nobody explains why so we go into the store looking for low-salt items, low-sodium cold cuts but nobody really knows why. All I know is that the Tea Party has largely avoided the social issues, seems to have moved beyond the whole pro-life/pro-choice matrix whereas I think and I've always felt that conservatism without pro-life is an empty victory. So for me without this foundation the Tea Party leaves me more than a little spiritually unfulfilled. I'm not a tea partier myself but I don't have the same hostility to the movement the msm has and most liberals. It's definitely a counter-Obama movement but it really started before Obama, with those bank bailouts and folks being asked to mail in a tea bag to their representative's office. I'm also hearing about race alot but this is like an old TV Guide still hanging around the house, why not just chuck it? or maybe it's kept around for nostalgic purposes. This whole teabagging thing, that might have been mildly funny when it first came out but I was a little surprised liberals would make a popular gay sexual practice into a pejorative.

I don't want mental, emotional diarrhetic dribblings here. I want DETAILS.

Anthony Wiener's tirade on the House floor

It was shameful, not Wiener but the House vote dealing with health care coverage for all those 9/11 first responders. This shows the perverseness of our political system, corrupt beyond all hope that Bush bailed out the banks, then Obama bailed out some major financial firms and a large part of the auto industry and all these literally billions of dollars could have been used instead to cover first responders' health care needs which are considerable. In this day and age if you express emotion you're irrational but I do respect raw emotion when I see it if it is based on principle. The New York Post editorial today took some sarcastic jibes of course at this Brooklyn Democrat saying he needs some meds (haha) but that's what the invalidators do even if you're 120% right about something but make the mistake of showing passion - "he's crazy!!" The target of much of Wiener's ire was the Republican Congressman from Long Island, Peter King who retorted that it was the Democrats who changed the rules to require a 2/3 majority to pass. Now the Post's main gripe against the so-called Zadroga Bill is that you can have scamsters come in and take their piece of the pie (WELL DUH!) but the answer to this one is really quite simple, require medical proof that you were effected by 9/11 toxins. You see here's a basic fact about human nature as applied to our health and really Life in general -- if you're not experiencing something yourself, if you're not suffering in the same way then you have the leisure to talk about it in the abstract. Happened to me at work quite recently. Talked with the boss about some personal health issues mostly related to the psychedelic water I along with a few others drank and while it wasn't denied there are problems you and the others still have to work nights, don't leave early, here's the work you have to do. It's over their heads, it's not relateable and so I have more than a passing bias here about this important legislation in the Congress. Corruption is the natural order of things, it's human nature to first cover things up as it is alleged happened in the Yonkers Fire Department about ten years ago. It is alleged that a group of Yonkers firefighters dosed other Yonkers firefighters with LSD without their knowledge. The predictable health effects and it is alleged the YFD knew about the results of the bloodwork but the YFD chose the route of saying "so-and-so was a heavy drinker." As this relates to the concerns of the Post about scammers and 9/11 you can then turn that around and say those with bona-fide health problems relating to 9/11 will have their stories questioned too because government coffers are tight. After all we're dealing with human nature.

What a shameful chapter in our political history, that Goldman Sachs and General Motors got millions and millions of dollars in bailout money but our 9/11 first responders are still suffering from effects of 9/11 toxins while somebody in Congress who is justifiably outraged over this is told to take his meds. Of course it's all Abstract. It's a Dali thing, you wouldn't understand.

Obama's socialist ranking

"We are poised to pass the toughest financial reform since the ones we created in the aftermath of the Great Depression." - President Obama at the White House

"Never let a crisis go to waste." - Rahm Emanuel

CRISIS - SOLUTION

This new consumer protection bureau to monitor credit-card companies, mortgage brokers and banks will be housed in the Federal Reserve. Getting the willies yet?

OK, we had quite a discussion here back in the day whether or not Obama is a socialist. Daniel pointed out that based on the true technical definition of a socialist and a socialist system Obama is not one so let's posit that. BUT he goes right up to the edge of being one, always two or three steps removed. To put it in movie ratings terms you have your R, your NC-17 and your hardcore X. Obama is definitely in NC-17 territory, never quite the technical definition of a working socialist but, here read this from the Washington Post today:

Lawmakers guide Dodd-Frank bill for Wall Street reform into homestretch by David Cho, Jia Lynn Yang and Brady Dennis
(re Goldman Sachs)
"...In the coming year a regulatory council could force the bank to shed its sizeable hedge funds and private-equity activities. It also could be banned from making financial trades for its own profit instead of for clients, shaving roughly 10 percent from the firm's revenue."

So we're gonna have alot more regulators than we had in the past with vastly more powers. Risky activities, somehow I always thought they were the hallmark of capitalism, they could be limited in the future but derivatives haven't been banned outright under the proposed bill. Also if this passes and it will banks will have to have more money put in reserve for those bad times but the regulators will figure this out don't you worry. I know I know auto dealers have been exempt from your new consumer protections and most mutual fund and insurance companies made out ok, community banks are good but on the capitalist/socialist scale there's a sense out there that Obama's philosophy is closer to the socialist end than the capitalist end. Liberalism has gradations just like conservatism has and Obama certainly doesn't talk as if he's in love with our capitalist system. Ours as soapie is fond of pointing out is a mixed economy, not pure capitalism but I don't like where this is headed. It moves us further along on that scale even if it would be more important to plug that damn hole in the Gulf first. I've yet to hear Obama say anything positive about wealth and wealth creation which doesn't prove ipso facto that he's One of Them but he's definitely an NC-17 kind of guy pushing the envelope. Question is if he does get a 2nd Term will he go hardcore?

What if the Bilderbergers only talked about (......)?

So I'm watching Alex Jones' latest documentary last night, The Obama Deception and since my #1 Rule for anything is that it not be boring it passed the night very well. So if you don't already know the story of the Bilderbergers they're a group of about 125 people, not just millionaires but multibillionaires which seems to be the price of admission into this elite little club and they're among the most powerful and influential people in the world to put it mildly. So in the movie they're all driving up to have one of their infamous 2-day annual meetings at some Marriot or other and Alex Jones and a group of like-minded protestors are yelling and shouting at them using bullhorns and their hands, calling them a bunch of elitist criminals who want to enslave the entire planet under a dictatorial one-world government, who orchestrate and engineer entire socio/economic calamities to make their evil globalist agenda more palatable to the public-at-large but I had this thought. Let's say Alex Jones was able to infiltrate these ultra-secret meetings somehow, probably not him as he'd be recognized of course but let's say there was a way and the big confab was about to begin and ALL they talked about for two straight days was Sports...and Sex. The mouths on those gentlemen!!!

Alex Jones: "WTF!!!"

anyway there were some funny parts like legendary rapper KRS-One calling Obama "the New World Order with a black face" (a good one) and Professor Griff, founder of Public Enemy not buying into the whole thing either. The theme -- Our historic president Obama is just a puppet in the hands of the money-masters who really rule the world just like Bush was and before him just like Clinton was and before him...Now you probably won't be able to find it at your local Blockbuster but it's a good one, makes for an entertaining evening and what the hell else is on anyway?

The topic of faith has often come up here and the whole business of divine intervention (or lack thereof), where is God anyway? He hasn't been picking up His phone of late or answering His e-mail. So I had the day off today and decided to go on a nice long drive up the line to Brookfield, CT near New Milford. Destination: the Marian Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes where you write your prayer intentions down in a notebook. I'm spiritual anyway and it truly is a beautiful place with a lovely grotto and the Stations of the Cross so as a kind of test case I wrote a few intentions down private and personal to me (unless I was tailed by a Bilderberger), nothing earth-shattering or that dire but I wanna see if any or even a few of them come true (I realize the boss situation probably can't be helped). I'll keep you posted.

Food Review

A friend and I ate at a Red Lobster the other day and let's just say the place generally lives up to the commercials so my friend says later "Red Lobster is two notches above McDonald's but it's good." He'll often say things that make sense but you have to think about them a little. He came up with the phrase fear sleep as when you have a bad night sleeping, tossing and turning all night, maybe a little sweating, some urinary issues and weird dreams and you wake up and think there's a squirrel in your room and you go to work tired. Trouble is these days many people don't think before they speak. Went to the local library after work once and saw a guy I used to work with and he sees me and goes "what are you doing here?" What, I can't be here? I was in a laundromat once doing my clothes and one woman bumps into an old acquaintance and goes "what are you doing here?" and she goes "doing laundry?" This phrase "it's not the end of the world" as when someone goes off the deep end about something stupid, what do you say when it really is the End of the World As We Know It? & we'll leave it there for today. BTW just thought I'd let you know but Sean Hannity is the #1 trender right now, must've said something.

This rush into health-care "reform" reminds me of...

...the rush into the Iraqi war. We had no choice in the matter, it was a done deal, forces beyond our control, it was out of our hands. I feel like with Bush and now Obama no president represents me anymore, the independent conservative along with independents of other stripes who are supposed to swing elections. Bush was a polarizing president, Obama even more so and it's like all you can do is sit on the sidelines and watch the show go by. By signing that final version of the health-care bill yesterday Obama has also in one swipe of the pen federalized the whole student-loan industry. At what point in time will we stop saying this is not socialism? In both cases we paid dearly, the one in lives lost and the other a debt problem to hand down to future generations. To be as nonpartisan as I can about it Obama has none of the virtues I am looking for in a leader: deliberation, reflection, nonpartisanship and the rest of the statesmanlike qualities. Then again neither did Bush and that old old conspiracy theory that the money-masters are really in charge of the world well that's not so radical anymore. So fight on Tea-Partiers but you're really the flipside of the liberals who were against going into Iraq. If something's gonna happen it's gonna happen, there's a reason for it. Call it the Matrix of Politics, you don't even know you're in it.

WOW!! Nuclear power plants & offshore drilling

There was enough last night in President Obama's first State of the Union address to warm the cockles of any Republican heart but I wanted to hear more about his mysterious jobs bill that he wants on his desk without delay (are we allowed to ponder it or just accept the omniscient wisdom of Our Leader?). He rapped on about clean energy, climate change, even gays in the military but the thing was JOBS JOBS JOBS in 2010. He got into regulatory reform of the financial markets a little, said he doesn't want to punish the banks (codespeech - "I'm not a Marxist you know") and really touted all the tax cuts he's signed, small business, capital gains, the works and it was said a couple of Republicans got that Chris Matthews tingle in the leg area but won't admit it (oh is that a semen stain?). About 33 minutes (or was that 31?) into the speech as the ever-helpful pundits pointed out afterwards he finally brought up health-care and said part of the problem was he didn't explain it better - oh no buddy we heard you loud and clear. At this point about 60% through the 71-minute speech the Jim Beam Sour Mash was jerking me in and out of consciousness so I had to catch some recaps afterwards. I always skip the counterspeech from the Opposing Party later, what's the point? it's an anticlimax. The Speech? it was a'ight, he struck some of the right Reaganesque notes early on, despite our hardships he was hopeful about our country's future.

So there was Biden on the Today Show this morning, first thing he said was he expects unemployment to grow this spring until Meredith ever the helpful msm'er corrected him ("you mean employment") but if I were doing the interview I would have just let the guy rap for the sheer fun of it, the line would have gone down into our ever-growing list of Bidenisms. So the prez and Biden are heading down to Florida to give an $8 million federal grant for some light rail project, that'd be good.

My favorite State of the Union of all time? When Gerry Ford got up in front of the nation and said "the State of the Union is...not good." I'm sure the Malcontent will correct me on some of my points.

So it's all Mr. Magoo's fault

There he was, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan being grilled by Democratic Rep. from CA Henry Waxman. Greenspan as we all know was in charge during the Clinton economic boom of the 90's and was a big champion of deregulation and lower interest rates and so Waxman asked him "so you would say your view of the world, your ideology was wrong?" and Greenspan said "partially" although he said that during the last 40 years he saw growing evidence that his views were right so he came to his new position rather late. What Waxman really means is that the conservative view of the world, the conservative ideology is wrong and no sane person would be against regulation of the market and most importantly Wall Street. Never mind that scores of people took out mortgages they could never pay back, to paraphrase the Bard the fault lies not in our stars but in conservatism. So here is the true essence of liberalism, as Bernie Goldberg once noted about the media and I'll apply here liberals don't really see themselves as liberal at all, just reasonable, their truths are so self-evident and so of course we can't let market forces go unfettered (the Randian view, since outdated). It's all good though, it's not that common that the issues in a presidential election become so clear and focused, this can only help the voter make a truly informed decision. We'll know how most of the country feels after November the 4th but I can feel it in the wind, there's nothing like a good nipple to suck on. If we're weaned off government too early we'll be sucking on blankets like cats taken away too early from their mothers so blame it all on Mr. Magoo if it makes you feel any better.

The Government Checkbook

I know myself that I have very finite resources in my checking account, usually people have bigger savings accounts than their checking accounts but even combining the two finitude is the fiscal reality here. I can't write a check for a new speedboat if I don't have the money, in the days of yore you'd wind up in debtor's prison. These everyday rules for the rest of us don't seem to apply to the federal government though and maybe that should be the yardstick whereby we choose our next President. So right off the bat it can't be Obama or Hill and Mac we are reminded time and again ain't a true dyed-in-the-wool conservative so maybe the Constitutional Party is where it's at. The Federal Reserve, our nation's central banking system, can just print more money in a pinch but if we did that, had a printing press in our basement we'd be arrested for counterfeiting. The richest person in the world isn't Vladimir Putin or Adnan Kashogi, it's the U.S. Government, or at least they act that way.

The government is NOSY

If conservatives truly mean what they say then they should work for the repeal of the Bank Secrecy Act which states that any money transaction over $10,000 has to be reported to the appropriate governmental authorities, this from the same crowd that brought you Pro-Choice. What business is it of the government if Mom wants to loan her dire straits son more than 10G? I know this is all about money laundering but it fails my two yardsticks on whether a new law is good or not - is it of the utmost importance to pass said law and does it violate our fundamental and Constitutional privacies? I agree with the conventional political wisdom that holds that women want more laws on the books and men want less and that's why women vote heavily Democratic (aka the nanny state) and men vote Republican. Since I see very little difference between the two parties in power right now I don't vote in off-year elections anymore, the whole reason for the career of a Senator or Congressman is to constantly be passing new laws but the more laws you pass the less privacy you have. Why don't they get real jobs and leave the rest of us alone?

Hats off to independent thinker Bill O'Reilly for a great column today in the New York Post. He talks about those "hyper-partisans" (ideologues) in both parties. He says there are more of them on the Left but I say it's about even. The War in Iraq could go on for another 20 years and there would be Sean Hannity cheering on the Republican president. I am at heart a conservative but not an ideologue and I believe you can be a good liberal and not an ideologue as well. Let's do it!

Dennis Miller had a good point on Sean's radio show yesterday. Speaking about the CBS Evening News saying no to Bill Maher's diatribe against religion on their new freeSpeech segment Dennis said "once you open up the Pandora's box of free speech you have to adhere to it." I agree but maybe someone was trying to tell Bill that his spiel about faith is so yesterday, it's BORING already yada yada yada. If Bill really wants to go with it then Katie Couric should let him but I ain't watching and oh, btw, have a Hustler in the green room for Bill before he goes on (lol).On the Right