Securitized credit card debt!?!??
This is where credit card companies who gave 18% credit cards with a credit limit of thousands of dollars to gomers who barely have jobs. Then they urged these yahoos to use the cards to buy everything from groceries to their gas bills on the things using the faint hope a free trip to Tahiti.
Then some Wall Street guys figured out how the credit card companies could slice and this debt up into unrecognizable parts and sell them as blended securities with promised high returns. Guess what many of the knuckle-heads with $10,000 balances can't or won't pay their credit card debts. Now the folks who bought the securities would like to sneak their way into the proposed federal bailout package. Give me a break!

Forget all of the other noise going on in the world right now, here's the big question. What is it in raccoon's DNA that makes them chew up plastic swimming pools?
Early this morning the raccoon came back and again chewed up our duck's pool. He bent the edge over and put teeth holes through the bottom so it probably won't hold water. What do we do? Go out and buy a stack of plastic kids swimming pools?
Put Ben Bernanke to work on that one!

I hate to obsess about the GOP vice presidential candidate, but can you visualize Sarah Palin in charge during an economic meltdown like we are now going through?

The economic news has been very dire lately. But I don't know who is scarier: the goofs on Wall Street who invented a series of financial monsters which caused the system to implode or the mass number of idiots who are gaining traction in the political sphere. For the past couple of decades it has been cool to be stupid. I fear we are now paying the price. Happy early Halloween!

Okay, I have been trying to be objective. I have been sitting on the sofa with my laptop reading the leading opinion makers of America and browsing news stories about Sarah Palin. Granted these are all members of the "liberal media elite," but everyone seems to be apoplectic about the GOP's vice presidential nominee. Everyone seems to be as cranky about it as I am.
While the American public seems to be approaching the presidential election with the same consideration they gave the election of the senior class president, (Popular? Check. Cute smile? Check. Enthusiastic? Check. Not a geek? Double check!), they are caught up in the mania of a fresh face. I guess everyone has seen to many Alicia Silverstone movies and don't think competence matters.
Meanwhile, Bob Herbert of the New York Times frets that not only is dimwittedness taking over, it may now actually prevail. My favorite comment came from James Fallows who writes for The Atlantic. It's his opinion that while Palin is now boning up on economic issues and international relations, these are things she has really never ever cared about. Someone who has followed a subject such as government or sports or rock music their whole life has a complex depth of knowledge, unlike those of us who have ignored fashion, opera or home decorating. She may knock our socks off on the nomenclature of a snow machine engine, but the world economic system?

To steal a phrase from Tom Friedman, America's best newspaper columnist, the presidential campaign is starting to make us all stupid.
As the candidates are starting to look for votes among the general electorate who are just starting to wake that there is an election this year, the campaigns have take a turn to the insipid.
John McCain has his crowds chanting 'Drill, Baby, Drill.' Never mind that even if we started drilling off our coast it will take 8 to 10 years to see the gasoline in our tanks and never mind it will only maybe knock 20 cents off the price of a gallon of gas, Republicans have successfully been able to launch themselves into the lead in the polls. And we won't even mention more drilling just continues our dependence on a polluting energy resource.

More politics: Despite all the sneering from the liberal media elite, the presidential election has gotten very close. Obama, at the this point, still has a bit of an edge in the electoral vote, but McCain has seen his poll numbers rise.
In his own wacky way, McCain has managed to separate himself from the Bush crowd and is now running well with the majority of voters who have just figured out there is an election coming up. Should be a wild ride.

Now that the political conventions are history, the presidential election moves to a new phase, one in which many new voters will enter into the discussion. From here on out the candidates will not be judged by their views on issues, but on very basic aspects of their personalities.
John F Kennedy edged Richard Nixon, not on his views, but JFK's hair beat Nixon's 4 0'clock shadow. Eisenhower's plain-spokeness beat Adlai Stevenson's pedantic lectures. Ronald Reagan's folksy ease beat Michael Dukakis' wonkiness and Bill Clintons goofy laugh beat Bob Dole's sneers.
Also the Republicans have the one argument that will alway win for them. They just have to say: 'The Democrats are coming to take your money and they are going to spend it on their friends.' I am betting that's what the election this year will come down to this. Watch out for the Wal-Mart moms.

The hard-core Dems and the news media are in a feeding frenzy about John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as his vice presidential pick. Yeah, I did that too. However, liberal NY Times columnist Bob Hebert has a warning for all of us. Don't be too quick to bash Palin and her typically Alaskan family. It could be a trap.
Don't the Palins seem like a family right out of the off-beat '70s comedy 'Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman?' (Today there is a news report that Bristol's boyfriend Levi Johnson is headed to St. Paul to appear with the Palin family.) There is a slim possibility that this family may strike a chord with broad centrist electorate. Yeah most liberals and Democratic activist think that goverment should be run like a 'West Wing' episode, but a lot of Americans realize real life is a lot messier.
Yeah, McCain is probably an impulsive lunatic and Palin would scare the hell out of your PTA much less the whole country. But the GOP is uniting and you never know. One would hope the yapping class will stop for a moment and rethink its humanity.

Someone whack me on the side of the head. Please. I don't get it. Does this sound like a bad movie script. A elderly presidential nominee, for reasons known only to himself, dissatisfied with his choices, almost on a whim picks an obscure young politician few have heard of from an isolated state to be his vice presidential pick. She has held statewide office for just less than two years, and before that was mayor of a very village. In fact she just recently got her first passport.
In the next scene, we see the obsequious political operatives falling all over themselves to explain 'her narrative' and the major press sopping up details about how the new candidate likes to hunt moose and totes a gun. They also hint about how the young mother is five is a major babe, er make that former beauty queen.
Now we see the bad old liberal media raising questions about how she was picked, spreading scurrilous rumors about her pregnant teenage daughter and wanting to know about what she really thinks about 'the bridge to nowhere.' Could Mary-Louise Parker be picked to play the part? Who would play her husband, John Cusack?
Sarah Pallin may be a wonderful person and would make a perfect neighbor. But vice president? Everyone thought they wanted a veep very different than Dick Cheney, but this is ridiculous.

This year's presidential campaign, which so far has been very unusual, has now taken a turn toward the absurd. By picking an obscure Alaskan politician to run as his vice president, John McCain has shown he can be unpredictable and unconventional. But at some point, you have to think he is just plain reckless.
Because McCain would be the oldest president at 72, one would think that his vice presidential pick would be much more seriously considered than a younger man. At a certain level I am relieved he didn't pick Mitt Romney, and at another level I am relieved he didn't pick another Dick Cheney-like character. There is a school of though that when you pick a vice president you want someone who won't burn you with a past, but this choice is ridiculous.
Super-conservatives are doing handsprings over the choice of Sarah Pallin, but Republicans have to consider that picking someone from the weird and wacky world of Alaska politics (and Sand Point, Idaho) may have a risk.

Bushies in the Bureaucracy

    As the cover is being peeled back on the Bush era in the last days of the administration, we are learning more about enclaves of very conservative Bushies trying to turn the government into a permanent Rebublican bastion. While they couldn't win issues in an open debate, the administration, as we now read, tried to quietly manipulate the supposed non-partisan operations of the bureaucracy. 

    Employees at the Justice Department, from entry level lawyers to high ranking judges, were picked for political views over qualifications in violation of federal law, a new inspector general's reported this week.  The head of the Environmental Protection Agency  as it turned out overrulled his staff and vetoed California's attempt to curb greenhouse gases on direction from political operatives at the White House. The sad truth, however, is that really few people other than governmental insiders and consumers of public broadcasting  are paying much attention. Everybody else know that this will all soon be over.

Twenty-nine years ago on July 15, 1979, President Jimmy Carter gave a famous speech to the nation warning of the country's dependence on foreign oil and an impending energy crisis. The speech made serious proposals that included mileage restrictions for cars, an excess profits tax for oil companies and restrictions on the use of foreign oil. Due to some of the rhetoric in the speech Carter was held up to ridicule as weak. He scolded the country for a 'crisis of confidence' and a 'national malaise.' His suggestions were blown off as the economy improved, setting up the election of Ronald Reagan. Subsequently the US was able to buy its way out of the energy crisis of the '70s.
But the questions arises: how much would gasoline cost today if the nation had followed some of Carter's advice?

I know this is a harsh. You see those guys who walk around with a bluetooth wireless device in their ears. I'm sorry. They look stupid!
I can see wearing one in a car when they are useful has a hands-free device and you can pretend you are jet-fighter pilot. But if you are just walking around, just pull that thing out of your ear and put your cell phone in your pocket. No one's going to call you with that think stuck on your head.
And please, if you are in a public place, never, ever talk into the thing. You look like an idiot!

History

    History will not treat the past few years well. Lyndon Johnson knew that the President of the United States had very little power over the economy and admitted it. But when faced with an economic slowdown and inflation in the early 1960s, LBJ grabbed his telephone and called up leaders of business and finance to harangue them about rising prices. He called this 'jawboning.'

    The current group running the country fervently believe not only that the government shouldn't be involved in the economy, but believe it is their responsibility stand by and watch the train wreck. Look at their absence in the development of the housing credit collapse, the erosion of the dollar and the spector of speculation in the US oil market. It's turning into the Hurricane Katrina, this time only in the economy.

    What the neo-conservatives don't recognize is that most Americans want their government to do something even if its just having the President call up the head of a corrupt, massive hedge-fund and telling him to knock it off. What George Bush has failed to recognized is that he is President of the United States, not just President of the government

The Demise of Newspapers Part 1

    Deep in his book The Fifties, David Halberstam refers to mass cultural trends that journalm totally missed at the time. Along the way he admonishes his readers to look for things that seem to be moving the news and moving history that might not be superficially apparent. In this case, Halberstam is refering to the massive migration of African-Americans from the rural south to the northern cities.

    Regarding the demise of newspapers:  There are obviously quiet social trends at work concerning how people use information. Since newspapers journalists are very uncomfortable with not having an immediate answer to almost everything, everyone has their own theory, and most are probably wrong.

    More later.

Patriotism

    Somewhere a long the line Democrats conceded the concept of patriotism to the Republicans and have been paying for it dearly ever since.

    Maybe Republicans just stole to beat Democrats over the head with it or maybe most Democratic leaders are 'just too cool for the room.' It will be interesting to see if the new Democratic nominee Barack Obama can reach beyond his African-American and Volvo-driving liberal constituencies to middle-of-the road Democrats. He seems to be showing signs of taking back the flag.

New era in politics?

    I could be wrong, again, but it appears that the 'dead-brain' era in politics that be have been enduring for the past six to eight years is coming to an end, at least for a little while.

    Now that it's obvious that the President and his Bushistas have squandered their political relevance, many strong political currents are swirling. Some are obvious, such as Barack Obama's change message. And some are deeper, American's reaction to the economy or their need for security. Eventually the Presidential race will float like a cork in a storm on top of this national soul-searching.

    Heck there are even signs that the national media, except for cable TV, is going to participate at times. But you have to look very closely.

It turns out that ducks and chickens aren’t as crazy about eating slugs as you might thing. I dumped a bunch of the slimly little things in the backyard and the poultry just walked away.

Anyone need a dozen spare slugs?

The truly devout conservatives have been stumbling over themselves the last couple of weeks blasting John McCain as 'not a true conservative.' Today, James Dobson said there was no way he would vote for McCain. Perhaps, since old-guard conservatives and their radio talk show yackocracy are left without a candidate for President, their days of real influence are over. Yes, they have a lot of money and use it effectively to get quoted in the national media, but after the debacle of George W. Bush, they aren't able to demonstrate any real political power of their own.