It Matters Not What The Road To Hell Is Paved With, Only That It Is Paved, As We Leave This Wretched Place

The destruction of our currency is well underway. It is not a process that can be undone or even halted. It may be for the best. Or debts, personal, corporate and societal are huge. We cannot realistically hope to ever pay them off in dollars that are worth anything. As for the dollars and instruments of indebtedness held now, by foreign hands, there is only one place that they may be redeemed for any value at all and that is right here in America.

The money and bonds that have gushed out of this country will now gush back in. They will be used to purchase our failing corporations, our broken financial institutions, the very land itself. They aren't good bargains and the prices will be horribly inflated but the money can't be used anywhere else, for anything else, except to wipe your ass. All this money will provide the liquidity we need to get the economy going again. It won't be our economy anymore but a job is a job. It's better than nothing.

It may be that Ben Bernanke will be venerated for saving the American Economy by deliberately destroying the value of the dollar. Did he do it on purpose or was he just lucky? I expect it was the former. It is maniacly brilliant. If it works, it will probably be worth every broken dream.

Fool Me Once

The VISA IPO is the same as if all the major mortgage originators, a couple of years ago, had separated the sub prime business out of their companies and offered investors a chance to take it over and participate directly in one of the greatest money making schemes of all time.

These guys don't let any grass grow under their feet.

Who's Next?

The markets have been open only a few minutes and already the DOW Industrials are up over 200 points. The scumbags are giddy in anticipation of further rate cuts by the Fed and sated from their cannibalistic gorging on Bear Stearns yesterday. They'll suck some money into the market this week, run the market up 4 or 5 percent, then sell short and leave the suckers with empty pockets.

Who wants to guess the next iconic American corporation to go toes up? A smart guess would be one of the big financials and it probably will be one of them. I'm going to go out on a limb and say General Motors. The cars they produce are total crap. They hardly sell any retail and they wouldn't make much money on them even if they did. Their employee and retiree obligations are astronomical and they are deeply indebted, with billions coming due yearly. GMAC took a flier on mortgage backed investment vehicles a few years ago and those chickens are coming home to roost. Most of their executives are the six toed, inbred grandchildren of the guys that ran the company in it's hayday. Ford is exactly the same way but occasionally they come out with a vehicle that isn't totally obsolete before it hits the showroom floor, although the build quality is only competitive if gauged against GM. Chrysler will continue on as a middleman selling rebranded Asian flivvers under their own name. Do they even have any factories any more? Probably but not in this country.

The Dollar is Down by the Zuider Zee

Amsterdam may be the most international city in the World. You can buy or sell anything there. Not the US Dollar. Not anymore.

The value of the dollar is plummeting so fast, that shops and stalls that routinely exchange money or accept dollars in payment for goods or services, have ceased to do so. Too often, by the time the proprietors get to the bank, the value of the dollar has decreased so much, that they have lost the profitability of the transaction.

We are well and truly fucked, my friend but you're not going to get fucked in Amsterdam, not paying in US dollars, not anymore!

Are those his ears, or handgrips?

Benny B. is going to lower interest rates later today. Big time.

Wall Street loves it and why not? Look how well it's worked so far.

Oh, Ba-by!

The sound of one Humpty cracking

The neocons were incorrect. Saddam didn't have weapons of mass destruction. He posed no threat to the United States. He didn't harbor, train or support terrorists.

The neocons were wrong. The Iraqis do not see us as liberators. The war did not pay for itself. It has not been short and easy.

The neocons do not believe in democracy, anywhere. Most Iraqis want America to leave Iraq, now. Most Americans want us to leave Iraq, now.

Better call Tel Aviv, ask what they want us to do.

Hey Joe, Where You Goin' with that Gun In Your Hand?

The Supreme Court will be hearing a District of Columbia gun control case. It is currently illegal to possess a functioning firearm within the District. You would think, that by this time, there would be a pretty firm interpretation laid down by the Courts, as to the rights of citizens to possess guns. You would be wrong. This issue has been left largely to State and local authority. The wording in the Bill of rights is ambiguous as to whether individuals even have the right to own firearms, outside of membership in a militia. It doesn't define whether the militia would or would not need to be government sanctioned or authorized.

Given the current make up of the Supreme Court and the stance of the Bush Administration on gun control, it is unlikely that the Federal District's current statute will stand. Unless the Court is very clear, on exactly what is allowed in relation to the possession of firearms, this will open the door to many gun regulation cases, to be decided in the future. The NRA and other gun enthusiast groups have been waiting seventy years for a case like this, to get their foot in the door. The fact that the Supremes agreed to hear a case like this tells you something about the caliber of it's current leadership. I thought John Roberts was a pretty smart guy, until now.

Eventually they will have to address the issue of carry, caliber, hand gun vs long gun and the ownership of ordinance currently available only to the military and law enforcement. A slippery slope indeed.

It's been at least twenty years since I've fired a gun. I was a terrible shot even then. I don't think I've magically improved. The gun control laws here in California are only marginally less strict than in D.C. I have no ideological opposition to the private ownership of firearms. I also believe that as long as they aren't concealed, you should be able to carry them on your person. I also believe you should be able to possess anything comparable to whatever law enforcement or the military possesses. It's only fair and equitable.

Saturday nights downtown could get pretty lively, in the future.

It's funny. I didn't even like Jimmy Hendrix in the Sixties. I didn't get him at all. I love his music now. More and more.

The Bush Administration has solved the Mortgage Crisis

JP Morgan agreed to buy Bear Sterns for 236 million dollars on Sunday. This is 2 dollars a share. Not long ago, it was worth 160 Dollars a share. When the market closed Friday it was at $30. It's a no brainer for JP Morgan because the US Government is essentially guaranteeing Sterns losses. They will redeem these losses in T-Bills. The Fed also lowered the cost of borrowing money another 25 basis points, to 3%. This tells foreign holders of US Treasuries, that they are worthless. It tells the American people, that their dollars, are worthless. Asian markets all lost a few percent of their value again on Monday. Dollars declined against foreign currencies this morning, as well. Bear Sterns owns some very valuable Real Estate. In the end, this will prove to be the best part of the deal for Morgan.

If you are upside down on your mortgage, this is good news. If you can hang on a little longer, your real property will be worth virtually any amount of money, as money becomes just so much paper.

Forget gold. Forget commodities. Buy small rental houses and multiple unit dwellings for as little down as possible. Relax, it's not the end of the World, just the end of the World as we know it. And I feel fine.

It's going to be fun watching the US Markets open in the morning. Many Corporations have extensive assets. These assets have intrinsic worth. This may make them attractive buys. The outlook for profitability may be poor for these same companies, which makes them a sell. The markets are not going to go up or down, as much as begin, very slowly and tortuously, to turn themselves, inside out.

This situation at Bear Stearns is really sad. Imagine how sad you would be if you owned a lot of Bear Stearns stock. Somebody owns it and I would guess some people own a lot of it.

No Two Men Could Be More Different

Cringing, bizroid freepies are whining that President Bush is being wrongly compared to Herbert Hoover. I've never heard anyone make that comparison. Herbert Hoover was a gentleman, intelligent and highly educated. He was sober, insightful and spent a life devoted to public service. He was a formal man, well mannered, reserved and admired around the World.

When he left office, he lived quietly on for several decades, devoting himself to scholarly pursuits.

High Times, Livin' Low-Weekend

I made hash with my loss leader corned beef tonight. Pretty damned good. I just rough chopped an onion, some potatoes and corned beef and dumped them into the big saute pan. I added some olive oil, basil, black pepper, garlic powder, a little salt and a generous splash of Noc mam, to give it some complexity of flavor, covered the pan and let it sit over low heat until the potatoes were cooked through. Then I uncovered it long enough to cook off all the moisture. To finish it, I turned up the heat, got it sizzling and flipped it a few times till every thing was brown. I like to put in some chopped bell pepper and peeled seeded tomato at the end but the old lady doesn't like that and I was already pushing it with her by putting in the black pepper and Noc mam. Should have put a fried egg on top. That corned beef is on sale 'til Wednesday morning. I may buy more.

I got some novelty bread items, off the day old rack, at Ralphs. I got cherry/chocolate bread, cranberry/walnut and raisin/walnut. In the morning, I'll make french toast for breakfast. It'll be better than anything you can get at IHOP. Little cinnamon. Little nutmeg. Maybe cardamon. We could even have bacon, all we want. Oh Ba-by! You make my coronary arteries spasm with desire! I never worry about buying too much cheap bread, my wife feeds it to the ducks at the park.

Then we'll read the newspaper.

It's cold. It's supposed to rain tonight.

Will the excitement never end?

We are now engaged in a great Civil Clusterfuck

The Neocons are intelligent, principled men. They love their country and are willing to do anything to preserve it. Unfortunately, that country is Israel. The fiscal conservatives just want to be allowed to make money as they see fit, with no interference from government. They are. They have. The rest of us are broke and deeply in debt. Those interested in a strong national defense have seen the military battered and broken in an inexplicable, unilateral war, won in a week, unfinished in five years. It will be a long time before the military is rebuilt. The money, the men and the honor necessary are gone. Those who think Jesus is the answer to our problems in this country, aren't listening to the questions the people are asking. The question is and has always been, how do we all live here together, with mutual respect, regardless of creed, color or religion?

People are saying a political sea change is coming in this country. That may be but it's not coming now and it's not the kind of change anyone is expecting. Now, the country is deeply divided. Each side convinced of the righteousness of it's cause. It's complicated. There are many sides, each with a cause. A sea change is coming but not until the enmity has resolved itself. It will resolve itself and the country will move on united. Unless the country tears itself apart.

A lot of people are going to be looking for their fifteen minutes of fame, at nine hundred rounds a minute. I'm just going to take a walk on the beach. Smile, wave and say hello to the people I meet.

Why Hillary is a Dumb Shit

Hillary can still be President but she only has one chance. She can't win enough votes to come out ahead in either the delegate count or popular vote. She can't sway enough super delegate support to win the nomination as long as Barack is ahead by both those measures. She has made it this far though. She's still raising donation money. There is no compelling reason to drop out.

Hillary is one of the most closely scrutinized figures in American political history. Barack is an almost completely unknown quantity. Something could come out between now and June and Barack could completely self destruct. Sex, money, ideology, religion, it could be anything and it doesn't have to be that major. Should this scenario play out, Hillary steps forward, accepts the nomination, saves the party and waltzes into the White House. Game over.

The beauty of this for Hillary is she doesn't have to do anything, in fact, the less the better. Couple a stump stops a day. Visit a few churches. Wave to the crowds and smile. Show a little noblesse oblige. The reticent but distinguished elder stateswoman. That's the ticket.

Instead, she's down on the killing floor, up to her unattractively thick ankles, in the mud, blood, shit and piss, going at it hammer and tongs with a guy thats got age, strength, speed and reach on her. It's absolutely the worst thing she could be doing. If Barack does get the nomination and the Presidency, he becomes the de facto leader of the Democratic Party. If his feelings are too hurt, Hillary can kiss any hope of ever achieving a Senate leadership position good bye. Why risk it if there is absolutely no point.

What a Dumb Shit.

As Cold as the Clay

The U S Army is taking recruits up to 42 years of age and has drastically reduced it's educational and aptitude test requirements for initial enlistment. If you actually have a skill they can use, they will give you a waiver regardless of age. Policies like this have not been in place since the darkest days of World War II. Even with these radically relaxed policies, the Government finds it necessary to employ hundreds of thousands of civilian contractors to supplement the Armed Forces personnel in the theater. Increasing numbers of non volunteer career Navy and Air Force personnel from both enlisted and officer ranks are being ordered to Iraq to serve in support roles, in rotations of ever increasing lengths. Davey Petreaus, a General more adept at killing off his competition than the enemy, says he may be unable to rotate the troops out of the theater as planned, when the "Surge" winds down next Summer. Though he adamantly denies it, the math suggests that the already extended combat tours of fifteen months duration will have to be extended once again and the twelve month out of theater rotation, will have to be shortened. In a very short while, the fifth year and four thousandth KIA of the Iraq War will be recorded as historical fact.

The bullet headed Neocon tools, over at Roger Simon's Politico, are slyly suggesting that the tide in Iraq has turned and that support for the War is increasing, as real progress is being made in Iraq. Let me be so bold as to ask, where is this support? What progress has been made?

The government in Iraq is not functional and cannot remain in power without the American presence. It exercises no authority over large areas of the country and larger segments of the population. The Iraqi civil defense forces and police are creatures of warring tribal strongmen. Only huge monthly monetary tribute to these tribal chieftains, keeps the situation from deteriorating into civil war and ethnic cleansing. No efforts are being made, at any level, to reconcile the antagonistic factions. No one in the Iraqi government or the American occupation even talks about it anymore.

On the home front, the voices of war are strangely silent. High ranking military leaders willing to speak positively of our efforts in Iraq have vanished. War news has disappeared from television news coverage and local newspapers. Where are the voices of support from the local bourgeoisie? Where are the returning veterans being honored at half time ceremonies, back at their local high schools? Where are the new crop of young men, clamoring to join the fray so bravely fought by their recent classmates? Where are the local politicians beating the drums of a pro war platform up on the band stand at the Forth of July picnic? Where are the war bond drives? Where are the young girls at the USO canteens?

Does the sniveling little coward, Roger Simon, stop at the local bus station, with his family, on the way home from Temple on Saturday afternoon and take a lonely soldier in rumpled pinks, duffel slung, newly awarded combat infantry badge glinting on his chest, home for dinner. Gee, I must have missed that mention in the archives of fucking Politico.

Apathy and resignation is not the same as support. A decrease in casualties is not the same as progress. Iraq is not Vietnam. At least with Vietnam, people cared. One way or another.

And Jesus drove the Timechangers from the Temple

I probably have a hundred clocks, or things with clocks in them. Twice a year I have to reset them all. It's weeks before I get to them all and even then, I've missed some. It doesn't really "Save" any daylight. It's just a pain in the ass.

Time zones and the international dateline are stupid too. Everybody should use military time and it should be the same time and same date everywhere in the World. Who cares whether you have lunch at 0600 or 1200, as long as it's the middle of the day and you're hungry.

Decoupling, I don't think so.

The value of the American dollar is in free fall. This is not a situation that is likely to be reversed, or even moderated any time soon. Because the Fed will continue to cut interest rates and the Treasury to print money, it will more likely accelerate.

All other things being equal, foreign stock markets should be skyrocketing in value, from our perspective, to reflect the increased valuation of the underlying assets, when expressed in American dollars. What's more, American stock markets should be increasing in value very rapidly, reflecting the worthlessness of our money, as opposed to the real worth of the asset base that stock certificates represent. Neither one of these things are true. Nearly all World markets are sinking in proportion to the decline in the dollar. American indexes are plunging in spite of the dollar's decline.

Foreign money may be holding up better than ours but the pessimism that is infecting investor confidence in this country is affecting the confidence of foreign investors as well.

The question you have to ask yourself, before investing in the hot commodities market is this. Since the price of commodities is driven directly by increased demand and since foreign investors are clearly worried about economic slowdowns abroad, as well as domestically and since commodity prices are historically the most volatile of investments, adversely affected by decreases in productivity, is an already hyper inflated commodities market where you want to park your money? Maybe not.

Jesus, I wish to God I knew what I was doing. My idea of a good investment has always been to bury my money in coffee cans in the backyard.

The Rules of this Blog-Commenting Policy

I have had comments left on other sites deleted. I have had comments edited to a completely different meaning. I have had comments garbled so that they seemed to be the ramblings of a drooling idiot. Usually this is accompanied by being banned from making further comments on that site. The people that do this are cowards. And scumbags. Freedom of expression on the internet is sacred. Like a shithouse wall.

I have the distinction of being banned from some of the most respected sites on the internet. They are not worthy of my attendance. If you have banned me, you are a coward. And scumbag.

I use my own blog to air my thoughts. I do not claim they are especially worthy, well thought out or profound. I do not claim they are free of profanity, personal attack, prejudice or stupidity. I do not claim anything I write to be the revealed truth or that even I believe it. I make no demand for such in regard to the comments left here.

Do not be offended if I don't respond to your comments. I appreciate them, whatever their tenor. It is just that I am often lazy, as well as profane, prejudiced and stupid.

I edit only spam of the most obvious, mass distributed sort. If it is in the least interesting, I leave even that. Other than this, have at it.

Thank you all for coming by.

I Paid $3.87 a Gallon

I use premium gas in my little motor scooter. It makes a big difference and it doesn't burn much. This is the most I've ever paid for gasoline. I know people that burn 8-10 gallons a day, just on their commute and another 20 gallons a week driving around for other purposes. These are not people with big incomes and gas prices have nowhere to go but up. Buying a smaller, more fuel efficient vehicle will help in the long run. In the meantime, you have to unload your old gas guzzler at a loss and incur the expense of a new, more economical vehicle. In multi income family units this may have to be done times two or three.

Two hundred dollars a week for gasoline, budgeted every week, must be a reality that many people are facing. unnecessary driving and additional cars for non working members of the family must surely be a thing of the past.

Say you have a family income of $60,000. That is supposed to be "middle class". If you have a good tax guy, in California, you might get your State and Federal income tax bill down to $12,000 a year. If you pay another $8,000 for gasoline, you are now down to $40,000 a year. There are no apartments anywhere in my area, of any kind, available for $1,000 a month but say you found one. Now you are down to $28,000 a year. Your car itself, is going to be a big expense. Almost nobody buys them for cash and you have to have collision and liability insurance. There are maintenance costs involved. If you can keep your car costs to $6,ooo a year you are a thrifty individual, very thrifty. You are going to have a cell phone, cable and internet access. Don't forget your light bill. Say another $4,000 a year in expenses. That's $18,000 left for you and all you've got so far is a place to live and a car to drive.

You have a lot of decisions to make concerning your $18,000 dollars. If you're older, you might want to consider health insurance. If you are younger, you might want to remember that you occasionally enjoy sex and mind altering substances and that these things involve monetary expenditure. You've been looking at that new laptop and a big screen TV would be nice. Everybody needs a vacation, even if it's just a long weekend skiing or at the beach. It's almost Easter, time for that new Spring wardrobe. Remember to put away some money for retirement every month, you're not getting any younger. Starbuck's really is a necessity, ya know. Don't forget to eat, MacDonalds has a great new selection of dollar menu items.

You've worked hard to get where you are. Welcome to the middle class. Next month gas will be $4 a gallon.

No. Just most of it.

You need to think back to late 2000. Before Bush was President. Before 9/11.

There were not the racial, economic and religious divides in the country that there are today. The stock market was going steadily up. Oil was below $25 a barrel. The price of consumer staples was stable. You could buy a cheap loaf of bread or a pound of hamburger for 89 cents. Housing prices were not jumping 20 or 30% a year. We were not at war.

Today we are at war. We are a deeply divided society. We have had two stock market crashes. Our currency is debased and the cost of commodities goods and services is skyrocketing. Millions are losing their jobs, their homes, their lives as they know them. America is becoming a different place and not a better place.

Is Bush responsible for all this? No. Just most of it.

Unrestricted Lifestyles

Wall Street hates Elliott Spitzer. He prosecuted a lot of corporate fat cats. Sometimes whoring was involved but usually it had to do with the abuse of corporate funds.

CNBC is all over Elliott today. They are whining that the rich and powerful live such unrestricted lifestyles and don't have to justify their behavior to anyone. I guess this is as opposed to the rest of us, who have to behave ourselves all the time or face the censure of our peers.

One thing for sure. None of these CNBC commentators ever hung out at the Horse and Cow in Vallejo during the mid to late 70s.

Geraldine and Hillary are so Right On

Every one knows Barack Obama wouldn't even be in this race if he wasn't a black male. Black men have it so easy in our society. Especially in that warm, fuzzy 18 to 44 demographic, when most of them are convicted felons and either on parole or in prison.

How can a person stop themselves from wanting him as the next President?

When will we stop discriminating against millionaire white women?

Sometimes the inequities in American society sicken me!

St Paddy's Day Commin' Up

At one time, I probably had every Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem album ever made. I used to like to go to Irish bars. Often they had live music. When I was at Sub School, in New London, there was an Inn out in the country that had sea shanty bands every Wednesday night. Me and a buddy would go there, he brought his guitar along. We would get right up on the stage and sing along. I'm not sure the band liked us doing that but they never kicked us out. I'm not that big a fan of Irish music anymore. I probably don't drink enough. I still listen to some girl Celtic singers. Cathy Ryan and Connie Dover, who are American and Kate Rusby an English woman are a few of them. Their music is pretty but not very rollicking.

I hear Irish Catholics are being cautioned not to celebrate St Patrick's Day this year because it's close to Easter and during Lent. I don't think that will stop anybody.

I bought a corned beef. It's a big seasonal sale item and pretty cheap. Most people boil them. I like to roast them low and slow, smothered in onions. That way the fat melts into the meat and not into the cooking liquid. Sometimes I make it with cabbage but mostly I like it for sandwiches and hash. One big corned beef a year, when it's cheap, is usually enough.

Corned beef is not a traditional Irish food. They learned to eat it from the Hebes in New York. It was cheaper and leaner than the salt pork they were used to. St Patrick wasn't really Irish. He was an English slave. I'm pretty sure there were never any serpents in Ireland. There were a fair number of amphibians but they're not too menacing.

Erin go bragh.

Compulsion

I've known guys with good incomes and great families, really nice guys, that gamble away every penny they get ahold of. I know guys that drink themselves into a coma at least a couple times a week. I know guys that eat until they look like Jabba the Hut. I expect it has to do with experiences early on that become compulsions later in life.

As a young adult, I was poor. I rarely had a good job. I developed the habit of spending only a small fraction of what I made, knowing things would likely be worse at some point in the future and I would need the money. It doesn't matter that I haven't had money problems for over twenty years. I'm still a miser. People recognize this trait in me and deem it inappropriate, they are probably right. It doesn't matter to me. Hoarding money brings me satisfaction. So I continue to do it.

Elliot Spitzer apparently likes to have sex with prostitutes. I've known guys like that too. He probably will never stop. He has the money to indulge himself. His wife is, at the very least, resigned to it. Otherwise they would not still be married.

Will this destroy his political career? Almost certainly. Does it make him a bad person? Man, we're all bad people.

Tough luck, Elliott.

Time to Move?

The value of my house is plummeting. Rents are still pretty high in my area. I could make money renting it out. Then, if I ever wanted to move back to SoCal, in my little beachy community, I could.

I have money I'm not doing anything with. There are many places that homes are cheap now. I can work anywhere and make good money by the standards of the community. Devils Lake, North Dakota is my wife's home town. It is a beautiful, rural county seat that hasn't changed since the 1920s. For $150,000 I can get the nicest house in town or something cozy on the lake shore. It's cold in the winter and 90 miles from a university town/cultural center. There is no crime what so ever. Tree lined streets, big lake, National wildlife preserve, everyone knows everyone. Wow!

I had a Navy buddy from Erie,PA. It's on the lake shore between Cleveland and Niagara Falls. Beautiful town. Transportation hub. Demographics mostly white. They're giving houses away.

Compared to most places, Nevada has very low taxes. They built a lot of houses in Las Vegas over the last 30 years. Many of them are now for sale cheap. You can get really cheap plane tickets from Vegas to almost anywhere in the World. Go down to the Strip. See a show. Gorge on cheap buffet.

Where would you consider moving to?

New Lamps for Old

The Fed is going to trade banks, government bonds for mortgage backed securities. Banks have been selling these mortgage backed securities at deep discounts to pay off their obligations. This would eventually lead to insolvency and bankruptcy for these banks. This will allow them to continue operations as their shareholders unload the stock. It doesn't save the bank in the end but it bales out the stockholders.

It is the government left holding the bag of losses. Ultimately, this means it is the taxpayers who bale out the shareholders of our major financial institutions. It is they who pay to keep the investor class solvent.

I feel something trickling down. It definitely isn't prosperity.

The Reddog Report.

The LA Times published an article this morning about a new study released by UCLA. This study makes the case that there will be no recession. Their thesis is, that the economy will drastically slow. Unemployment will double from current levels. Wages will remain stagnant. Current high rates of home foreclosures will continue. Retail sales, including durable goods, will remain flat. The construction and building materials industries will continue to suffer. They say that the total economy will continue to expand, albeit at very slow rates, through this year. An interesting aspect of their projection, is that they don't see any dramatic recovery, at the end of this non recession. The factors that are currently holding the economy down are likely to remain in place, indefinitely.

We have a capitalist society here. A no growth situation, for any length of time, is one of deterioration. Our model is based on expansion and growth. Increased unemployment puts an increased demand for social services on the government. Stagnant wages and home loss drastically decrease the ability of government to collect revenues. Any extended period of economic slowdown, especially if aggravated by a weak dollar and runaway inflation, is a recipe for disaster.

The American economy, in most sectors, has been increasingly non productive, for the last twenty years. We have been relying on bubble economics to buoy us up. I have been wondering where the next bubble is going to come from. The answer is here.

The government is going to be running up steep deficits to bail out the economy. They will print money and issue bonds to finance this. To do this, they will need rapidly increasing revenues in the future, to service the accumulating debt. There is no likelyhood that this will be the case, none. This is classic bubble economics.

Unbelieveable. Our government has become a ponzi scheme.

The Fundofascists Got This One Right

Here in Kalifornia, the State is making it more difficult for home schoolers. They are requiring that home schooling parents get licensed and prove that they are following required curriculum. This is a really bad idea.

Free public education is a good idea. Bad free public education is not. Unless you live in an Asian or Jewish neighborhood, academics at your local school are likely to be shitty. Unless you live in an upscale neighborhood, the public schools are likely to be dangerous. Wherever you live, there will be sex and drugs in the schools. Some districts offer magnet facilities, with stricter controls and better academics but the demand exceeds the supply and your child may not get in.

Schools shouldn't be babysitting services. Parents who let their kids run wild in school are the negligent ones. Schools should not be traumatizing war zones, for kids there to learn. For most kids, school is a joke.

If parents think they can do a better job than the schools and are willing to accept the responsibility, they probably can. The schools are upset because they only receive funding for the children that attend. Tough shit. You want more kids to attend, make the schools better.

Bad kids shouldn't be allowed to ruin good schools. Good kids shouldn't be forced to attend bad schools.

A New Stimulus Package

Davey P says he can "feel" al-Qaeda returning to Northern Iraq, even though the surge is working. The translation of this is that the money he has been using to bribe the Sunni tribal warriors that make up "al-Qaeda in Iraq" has run out and in any case, their price has gone up.

I feel another 60 billion dollar defense supplemental spending bill coming on. Bush can't have the war flaring up again before he exits the scene and certainly not before the November elections.

A better solution would be to bring all the Iraqis here and board them out with families having trouble paying their mortgages and paying off their credit cards. Then Haliburton and Blackwater could divide the country into oil leases for bidding out and permanent American military bases. This is the kind of stimulus package that the American people want and need.

Eenie, meenie, miney, moe

It should be an exciting Presidential race. Hillary and Barack will continue to duke it out for months to come. This will give the American people a chance to examine some of their most deeply held prejudices, which is always a good thing. Barack is a man of color. He has family ties both to a turbulent area of East Africa and Islamic South Asia. He has political ties to Chicago, the most politically corrupt city in America. Hillary, while a fairly mundane lefty machine politician, is a lesbian, not very deeply in the closet and is trailing a philandering, not quite ex-husband. The more we examine our knee jerk reaction to differences in race, sex and religion, the more enlightened we become.

John McCain has problems of his own. He has to sell his vision of a kinder, gentler Middle Eastern War. He has to reconcile the electorate to a deteriorating economy. He has to bring together a winning coalition, in a rapidly polarizing political environment. I just saw him accepting the endorsement of the President, with the boy himself, on the White House lawn. That's going to be a big problem, as well. The President's support is going to be a two edged sword. McCain shares many of President Bushes weaknesses. He is not intellectually gifted and has only a rudimentary understanding of most important issues. He is deeply enamored of the power and money elite in this country. To his credit, he truly seeks to do the right thing, no matter how flawed a vessel he may be. One hopes that age and ill health have caused him to cease the boozing and serial philandering that have been his life long predilections.

Your Road, My Road.

There are nearing seven billion of us sharing the planet now. All of us eating, drinking, shitting, pissing, copulating and carrying on with our lives. Living as large as our personal resources allow. Not as soon as those culture of life cocksuckers would like but soon enough, certainly within the lifespan of most of those alive today, there will be fourteen billion.

It would be nice to believe that all of us could live in balance with the natural world. Save the whales and the rain forests, icecaps, pristine oceans, giant redwoods and every little monarch butterfly. What do you suppose the chances are of that? I think we passed that tipping point a hundred and fifty years ago, maybe more. Sure, if we all scaled back to minimal lifestyles, shared everything out, only about half of us reproducing and then only one child, for five or six generations, then things might be salvageable. The entire world would have to get on board with the plan. No problem.

We're humans. That means we don't live in pastoral balance with nature. We build things. We change things. We kill things. We have a shit load of progeny. It's the way we are. It's what we do. Technology and exploitation may not be the solution to all our problems but that's the path we've chosen. There is no going back.

What does this mean for us? It means we do whatever we must. Open up the gates to cheap labor. Open up the mines and smelters. Divert the flow of rivers to generate power and irrigate the barren wastes. If we produce too much CO2, so be it. let's modify algae to convert it back to oxygen and carbon and burn the carbon again. We need a lot of stuff. We're only going to get it by plundering the earth. A nice balanced ecology would be nice but there's no free lunch.

Welcome aboard, shipmate! Get to work. You want babbling brooks and alpine meadows, buy the video.

Self Image

I rarely invite anyone into my house. Those that come in almost never return.

I almost never buy anything, including food, that doesn't come off a clearance rack.

Some of my clothes are still left over from the '70s. With the exception of underwear, I don't have any clothes newer than the late '80s. I am not the original owner of any of them.

I cut my own hair and beard with some dog clippers I bought at Pick n Save, for $8.99.

I ride around town on a shredded, 20 year old, 2stroke Honda scooter. I weigh three times as much as the scooter. It was never designed to carry anyone my size.

I'm at least 40 pounds overweight and was not considered to be even remotely handsome, at any time in my younger, thinner past.

When I am near, people tend to give me plenty of room. Small children stay close to their mothers. Policeman look at me, then turn away. I do not look prosperous enough to be involved in criminal activity.

Self actualization is a relative achievement.

Liberty time is cancelled, Mister Roberts!

For years, on the Internet, there has been a safe harbour for bloggers to put in and rest and recreate. A place to let your hair down. A place to have some fun and exchange ideas, without having to worry that a misstep will cause weapons to be drawn. That place has been Ed Morrissey's Captain's Quarters.

You can't not like Ed. He's not a great pundit but he writes voluminously about all of the issues of the day. People come to comment and all are welcome. For the most part things stay under control. The interplay of ideas among the commenters there, is unlike anything anywhere else on the web. It provides an unparalleled opportunity for insight. It is the greatest political omnibus website that there has ever been. Nobody else has come close. It is an achievement of which he can be proud.

Ed has announced he will be merging his blog into the Hot Air site, run by the evil sow, Michelle Malkin. Michelle strictly controls commenting access to her sites and immediately banns anyone who strays from the truth as revealed to her by the great Gods of the Right and by her to the masses below.

Michelle would like to tap into the traffic Ed gets, which is huge. She is not prepared to cater to the appetites that made Ed's blog such a huge success. This is exactly the same situation as if The Horse and Cow got remodeled and turned into another branch of Hooters.

They aren't going to let me in. I'm not going to want to go. Bummer.

Time to haul ass, Shipmate. See ya somewhere on across the Main.

The Troll Under The Bridge

I'm watching the debate on MSNBC right now. It's pretty clear what is happening. Barack doesn't really need or want this debate. Hillary is desperate for face time with the American people. NBC was able to extract concessions from Hillary concerning the type of questions they could ask, where as Barack was able to extract concessions from NBC. They are murdering Hillary.

This is not a debate. There is not really much interplay between the two candidates. This is an inquisition and it is aimed at Hillary Clinton. She is broken and bleeding, with no way to fight back. Tim Russert is like the troll under the bridge. The riddles he asks are unanswerable and the penalties exacted are taken in blood and bone.

Whether the people recognize her strength and courage or whether they will just be mesmerized by the blood and the suffering, only time will tell.

How is Barack coming off? Very Presidential.

Pssst! You want to meet my seeester, Meeester!

Hello Sailor! Welcome to the banana republic of Bushmerica.

Your money goes a long way here. 'Cuz our money ain't worth shit.

The inflation numbers are out and dollar's lost 1% of its value in January. February is almost gone, so you've probably lost at least another percent already. You can thank George Bush and his little econocatamite Benny Bernanke at the Federal Reserve Bank. They have been lowering interest rates and printing money like crazy to try and placate the Big money fat cats that have been looting America for decades. Their money is overseas now, safely denominated in Swiss francs. They figure if they pump enough worthless paper into the economy now, they might be able to suck the last bit of marrow out of your bones before they leave them to bleach in the Sun. Hey, at least it's worth a try.

For every hundred thousand dollars you have, you lost a thousand. If you are one of the lucky few who are millionaires, you lost ten thousand dollars for each million you have, just in the month of January. If your money is invested, there is a good chance you lost quite a bit of money in January. Just add another ten thousand on top of that. Since the government's calculation of inflation is notoriously understated, you probably lost an additional ten thousand of purchasing power as well.

You want my advice? Spend your money. All of it. As soon as you can. Buy liquor, cigarettes and candy bars. Fill up your house and garage with the stuff. It'll keep and it'll be better than cash in a year. Have your sister shave her pussy and rouge it up a little. It won't be worth as much as the chocolate or booze but it's a steady income and more importantly, a renewable resource. Those German and Japanese sex tourists are tired of South East Asia, you can bet they're on their way here. Better stock up on condoms too!

Hmmm! I wonder how much George wants for an all night with Jenna and Barb? I think maybe they love me long time.

UNPATRIOTIC

Charges are flying that Barack and Michelle are ungrateful citizens and do not love this country. The implication is that they are not "Like Us". Rascism in another guise.

The man screaming this the loudest, is NYT columnist William Kristol. Billy is the premier Neocon and booster of the Iraq War, in this country. He long ago sold out the country of his birth, to chase the shimmering wet dream of Zionism.

How very ironic.

Three Trillion Dollars

The Iraq War is nearly five years old. The cost is now projected to exceed three trillion dollars. This will make it the most expensive war, in inflation adjusted dollars, in US history, with the exception of the Second World War.

This was a unilateral war against countries that did us no harm and posed us no threat. It was perpetrated at the behest of Big Oil and the Israel Lobby. It gains us nothing and has caused irreparable damage.

The Democrats are determined not to impeach and not to hold War Crimes trials for the instigators of this war. This is a mistake.

Crock of Shit

Bob Lutz, the Golden Boy, over at General Motors, calls the concept of Global Warming, a "Crock of Shit".

Anybody stupid enough to actually purchase a GM product, is likely to be stupid enough to believe him. Unlike GMs business model, this seems like a mutually rewarding situation.

A Gathering Storm

California is a big State. It is a rich State. It is an expensive State to live in. The various governmental and public service organizations here are large and cost a lot to operate. This makes taxes very high. We have a very high State income tax. Sales taxes, gas taxes and property taxes are also high, as are the myriad of user fees that the State levees on hundreds of other things.

As the economy tanks, many people are going to be making less money. They will have less money to pay taxes. Lower incomes mean less income taxes. The foreclosure of a home means less property taxes. No job means a lot less driving and less gas taxes. Fewer purchases mean less sales taxes paid. Unless the current economic trends are a fleeting blip, the State of California is heading for a big revenue shortfall.

People are going to expect governmental services to remain constant. They are going to expect the infrastructure to be maintained. If we go into a period of stagflation, costs will increase as revenues decrease. Public employees and retirees are going to expect to be paid. They will want the benefits and pay raises that their unions have already negotiated.

California ran a huge deficit last year and will again this year. They do this by issuing bonds. Unlike the Federal government, they are not able to print money, so they have to pay the interest on these bonds with actual revenue. They are already past the limit of interest on bonds that they can afford to pay. The economy doesn't even have to get worse for the situation to deteriorate. Given present inflationary trends and the large percentage of public employees reaching retirement age, unless revenues increase dramatically, the State of California is pretty much fucked.

A lot of States are in the same boat. Many are in even worse shape.

The outlook isn't totally bleak. North Dakota and Utah should come out of this in good shape.

Who will be his Sancho Panza?

Few of the iconic figures of my youth remain on the World stage. Hugh Hefner comes to mind, still living the Playboy life, even if it now includes afternoon naps and soft foods. Just last week, Fidel announced his retirement. I hope it is long and sweet. Jane Fonda has a movie coming out soon and used the word cunt on the Today show while promoting it. Good for Jane. Helen Thomas still calls them like she sees them, from front and center, in the White house press room.

Today, Ralph Nader announced his candidacy for the Presidency of the United States of America, again. His eyes are dim. His speech is slurred. His jaw is slack. His back is bent. He walks with a shuffle. He looks like a poster boy for brain attack. I don't care. I love Ralph. I'd even vote for him, if I thought he had a chance to win. Ralph had as much to do with shaping the state of liberal politics in America today, as MLK, RFK and JFK combined.

A lot of Democrats will be unhappy that he's running, remembering how he split the vote in Florida in '82, costing Gore the Presidency. It doesn't bother me. Florida politics are crookeder than a dogs leg. No Democrat is going to win there, any time soon. If the Democratic nominee can't win this election by a landslide, the country deserves another Republican President.

God, I loved Corvairs!

Left in the Lurch

Supported by artillery and co-ordinated air strikes, 10,000 Turkish troops and attendant armor crossed the border into Northern Iraq. They have done this, to seek out and punish Kurdish freedom fighters, who have left Turkey, for the sanctuary that the newly semi-autonomous, Kurdish region of Iraq, provides. There are 40,000 more troops massed on the border to provide support and reinforcement if needed. The Northern Iraqi Kurdish authority, has a small self defense force and small arms.

The Turks say that the Kurds are using the semi-autonomous areas to launch terrorist attacks on them. The Kurds say there have been no attacks. I have no idea what is true.

I do know that the US has been providing military liaison and sensitive intelligence data to the Turks concerning the Kurds. We also have given the Turks countless billions of dollars in military aid, over the years. They have one of the strongest and best equipped armed forces in the World. We're not doing a damn thing while they slaughter the Kurds, with the overwhelming military superiority we have given them.

I thought that the main reason we were still in Iraq was because if we left, real bad things could happen to them.

This seems like a pretty bad thing. Would this be a good time to mention that I think Condolezza Rice is a craven, cowardly, dog? A real Secretary of State would have nipped this in the bud. It's true we need the Turks but they need us a whole lot more and we have a hundred and fifty thousand troops in Iraq who would like nothing better than to fight a real army in a real war. The bitch was so anxious to fight Iran but when Turkey sends an army to call, she just sits there with her fuckin' thumb in her butt. She can't blame this one on Bush, he's over in Tanzania, dancing, drinking corn beer, and gnawing on a goat hoof. I'm sure the coronary kid would let her go to war if she asked.

I hope the Kurds kick their ass.

The Bitch that Bore Him is in Heat Again

It's not even making the local news. A pitched gun battle broke out in North East Los Angeles, yesterday. Hundreds of shots were fired. Spent brass littered the streets. The police cordoned off a couple of square miles, from noon 'til well after dark but they had no control over what was going on. They don't even really know what was going on or who was doing it. The gang that controls this particular area of the city is called "The Avenues". It can be assumed that the gang was engaged in activities related to consolidating power within their Turf.

The Avenues gang isn't the oldest, biggest or most violent gang in the City, although they were probably the busiest, yesterday. It's true that the gangs in LA have been active in criminal activities for generations. Drugs, stolen goods, prostitution, smuggling, gambling, loan sharking, are all tied to the gangs. These guys have learned what all organized crime eventually learn. If you supplant the civil authority, then you become the civil authority. Taxation pays better and is less work, than crime.

The Angeleno police want big salaries and bigger benefits. The people don't want to pay high taxes, so they don't hire very many policemen. LA has the smallest police force, per ca pita, of any city in America. For decades, the police have been backing out of the poor areas of the city. They protect the affluent areas. When they had to deal with the gangs, they did so harshly but eventually a system of rules and boundaries were established. The problem is that the police are an institution. The feudal gang states are not. They ebb and flow and mutate along with the fortunes of the neighborhoods they dominate. Why should they be constrained by rules and boundaries, when the police no longer have the power to hurt them.

There will be no escalating war between the gangs of LA and the police, only continuing war between the gangs themselves, as the balance of power shifts around among them. The police are no longer players in this game.

Some mutant retard despoils a little blond girl and it's all over the cable channels for months. Spoiled Saudi boys with box cutters crash a few planes and we spend trillions crashing around through Mesopotamia. We lose control of our cities, Detroit, DC, Baltimore, Cleveland, Houston, Los Angeles, nobody says or does, a damned thing. Just pretend it didn't happen.

Are we doomed? Who knows. Perhaps in some subterranean culvert feeding into the San Gabriel River, a deranged coyote bitch suckles a pair of orphan boys. Drink up boys, empire awaits!

Then It's Done

The United States economy no longer produces new wealth. It has not for decades. A Capitalist system is predicated on the production of new wealth. If you look at what has been happening for the last twenty years in the US economy, you will see increasingly desperate attempts to tap the residual wealth and repackage it as new wealth. The Savings and Loan crisis, junk bonds, endless rounds of mergers and acquisitions and now the real estate bubble and sub prime loan fiasco, all have been tools to suck dry the wealth within the structure of our society and to use that wealth to fuel the engine of the economy.

You can only suck something dry until it's dry, then it's done.

Condo Report

For the last 6-8 months, the value of the condominiums where I live has been in flux. Nobody really knew for sure what the last ones sold for and since they had stopped selling, nobody knew what they currently were worth. It looks like the dust has settled a little, so let me enlighten you.

These are 3 and 4 bedroom, 2.5-3 bathroom, 1800 square foot, 2 car garage town homes about 3 1/2 miles from Huntington Beach State Park in Orange County, California. They are 30 years old and originally sold for $77,000-$78,000. The location is good. The grounds are spacious with generous green belts and open spaces. They were built poorly with cheap materials and have been maintained in a minimal fashion because of a desire by the homeowners association to keep fees down and poor, often corrupt management.

It turns out at least one person bought for $700,000 before the current economic episode began. Several bought at around $650,000 within the last 18 months and several more bought at around $600,000 in the year before that. It turns out three of these places have sold in the last 8 months. One for $600,000, probably early on. One sold for $485,000 and another for $450,000. This is at least a 30% drop, so far! I think these places still have a fair ways to go as far as bottoming out. Nothing is selling right now and the ones that do, have spent a long time on the market and had the asking price slashed. These places would have to go down to around $350,000 before you could rent them for a positive cash flow on the mortgage. To cover association fees, property taxes and an adequate cushion for maintenance and upkeep $250,000 is probably a better number. I don't see rents going down around here, so that's not a problem. The size of these places does put them at the very top of the rental market. Finding renters with high enough cash flow and the desire to spend it on such a large rental unit could be a problem in hard times without deeply discounting the rent. If they got down to $250,000, I'd certainly start thinking about buying another one, even if the rents weren't going to bring me in a lot of income. That's another big drop in price though, we'll see.

How much has your house decreased in value and how are houses selling in your neighborhood?

Open Wide

Emily Prigge, a 23 y/o, 1st year, 5th grade teacher, at the St Felix Catholic Elementary School, in Wabasha, Minnesota, became pregnant, out of wedlock. She decided not to have an abortion. She told her principle. The principle congratulated her for doing the right thing, then fired her. She was told, by the principle and the school priest, that she had violated a Catholic Christian witness statement, that she had signed prior to beginning her job, promising to be a good example to her students.

This same thing happens all the time, to parochial school teachers, around the country. It may seem like an unfortunate but still justifiable situation. It bothers me. They never fire the priests, when they sodomize the little children.

It seems unfair. As a child I would rather be confronted by the sinful nature of my school teacher, than have to give some old, Paddy priest a blow job. I know it may seem odd but it's just the way I am.

Nobody is Indispensible

As of today, before the results of the primary elections in Virginia, Delaware and Washington D.C. , Hillary Clinton has 1,145 pledged delegates. Barack Obama has 1,157 delegates and John Edwards has 26 pledged delegates. Over the next few weeks, Obama should win most, if not all, of the primary elections scheduled to be held. Clinton supporters are hoping for decisive victories in Texas and Ohio, early in March, to revitalize her campaign and renew momentum behind her. As Rudy's "Florida Strategy" teaches us, this is likely a forlorn hope. It is the only hope they have and nobody can blame them for clinging to it. It's too early to give up and too late to make Hillary over again.

The Demo demi-monde is all atwitter at the prospect, that even if Hillary comes up short in the delegate count, she might strong arm enough of the so called uncommitted super delegates, to win the nomination at the convention, leaving the winner of the popular vote, Obama, out in the cold.

Hogwash!

Any such action would cause an uprising at the convention and an enduring rift in the party. Hillary might be willing to risk such a stunt but the super delegates themselves never will. The super delegates are politicians and party functionaries one and all. They may be gutless, toadying, scum but their ultimate well being depends on Democratic party unity. If she isn't the clear victor in the primaries, they'll toss her out like a broken crack pipe and with as little remorse.

Democracy, in this country may not be about fair or equal representation but it sure as Hell is about votes.

TV Dinners By The Pool, I'm So Glad I finished Skewl

The Republican coalition may be strange bedfellows. The truth is though, that they are the least objectionable bedfellows available for these poor unfortunates and we can expect that they will continue to cling to each other. We are seeing a last ditch effort by those ousted from their comfortable and favored positions in society to band together and fight for what they believe is their birthright. It would be surprising if they did not.

Today, things are changing in America and changing fast but they are not changed. Those on the losing end of those changes still see the possibility that they could hold the line but the time in which they can do this is slipping away.

Brothers and sisters grow up in the same families. They eat at the same table. They attend the same schools but experience and interact with their environment in entirely different ways. As long as they had different societal roles to play, society was in balance. That is no longer the case. Women now make up the majority of college graduates. They also win the majority of available slots in post graduate professional programs.

Right now, women make up a growing minority, within the lower and middle ranks, of the leadership positions in American society. Within thirty years they will be the majority. That's going to make a difference, a big difference in how things get done.

American culture, like all cultures is an evolving one. At it's roots, though, it is a culture transplanted from Western Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. We did not absorb indigenous cultures already present. The only culture to significantly permeate into the mainstream until very recent times, was the West African one, of our former slave population.

Latin American culture is completely different. It is a culture of primarily indigenous peoples, radically changed by conquest and exploitation from Spain and in the case of Brazil, Portugal. Lots of Western Europeans settled all over Latin America but their impact was completely different than in the United States. Latin cultures have rigid caste systems. Wealth is concentrated entirely at the top. The oppression of the masses has been cruel, violent and unceasing. Oppression of this nature, carried out over centuries, breeds within the subject race, deep resentment and longing for something better.

Hispanics are flowing across our borders in unprecedented numbers. There are employment opportunities here that don't exist for them at home. Once they are here, they realize that there are opportunities for advancement, for themselves and their children, that would be impossible in their homelands. Our system is not a closed system. The more Hispanic Americans there are, the more opportunities for Hispanics are created. Life is good here. You can't keep something like this a secret. The stream of Hispanic diaspora has become a torrent and will no doubt increase to a flood. We can deny Hispanics citizenship, but not their children. Conditions in America are ripe for the influx of Hispanics. Nothing will stop it, not border guards, or fences, or punitive legislation. If you ship them home, they'll just come back. You can kill them but more will follow.

So, here's the bottom line on change in America. Women are on a fast track to leadership in this country. Hispanic population in this country will continue to rise exponentially. By the end of this century, the most numerous and influential single demographic group in this country will be educated second and third generation Hispanic women.

How's that for strange bedfellows, fundo-fascist reactionary scum?

Bush bets the farm-The Republican farm

When Bush won his second term in 2004, he abandoned all pretense that he was a uniter, not a divider. He ditched any cabinet members who even paid lip service to bipartisanship. He quit even pretending to listen to the opposition in Congress. The results have been self-evident.

His approval levels with the public have been lower, longer, than any other Chief Executive. Two years after winning re-election, the Democrats were given back control of both houses of Congress. More people than ever disapprove of the war even though his covert policy of re-baathification has quelled, to some extent, the insurgency in Iraq. A decrease in consumer confidence has brought the economy to a standstill. GDP is down. Unemployment is up. The dollar is inflating out of control, even as the administration lies about it. There is an explosion of home mortgage foreclosures as hundreds of billions in home equity continue to leak out of the pockets of American homeowners. Retail sales stagnate and the prospects for improvement don't look rosy as Americans contemplate their upcoming tax bills in April, despite promised stimulus checks.

Bush is betting that in November, nine months from now, when Americans go to the polls, everything will have straightened out. He's betting that the Federal Reserve Banks aggressive policy of rate cuts and unlimited infusions of freshly printed cash into the financial sector will have turned the economy around, inflation be damned. He's betting that the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan will have stabilized and that US casualty rates will have subsided to levels acceptable to the public. He's betting that nobody will look too closely at the trillion dollar plus cost of the war, financed entirely on the cuff, to be paid long after he has left office. This is a huge gamble. He's not only betting his legacy, which is worthless anyway, he's betting the political futures of every Republican politician in the nation.

If he is successful, he could win big. For all of our sakes, I hope he is right. I have no confidence that his wager will be rewarded. I think the situation has gone beyond a question of odds.

What is an eight ball and how much does it cost?

The average suburban couple, the kind that never miss a days work. The kind that actively participate in their children's upbringing. The kind who's own parents point to them with pride, can easily go through a gram of cocaine and a quarter of a once of marijuana a week. This would be considered to be very moderate usage.

How much money does that cost, I wonder, for good stuff. Four or five hundred dollars would be my guess. That would be twenty to twenty five thousand dollars a year. That's an interesting number, because that's how much a lot of people I know have been pulling out of their home equity each year, when they refinance. It makes sense. How many people, when they are figuring out their budget, add in eighteen hundred a month, for dope. It would be no great surprise then, if they come up short, real short, at the end of the year.

Nobody talks about drugs anymore. The war on drugs. Legalizing drugs. How much they cost. I have no idea which drugs are popular these days. I suspect they are all pretty popular and that different people have different preferences. I think drug use is pretty common, across the entire spectrum of our society, age, sex, political party, religion, socio-economic status, etc. They're pretty much every where. No one gets too concerned over it. Everybody knows George Bush uses a lot of drugs. A lot of people dislike his Presidency but not because of that. George has sent a lot of troops to Columbia. That seems more along the lines of supporting the right wing cartels against the left wing cartels, not really interdiction.

For whatever reason, drugs seem to be with us to stay. They are a significant factor in the economy. The government efforts to control their use, are no more than token. The prosecution and incarceration of drug offenders seems to have become entirely discriminatory in nature. It seems like we might want to start towards an acceptance of some of these facts and begin to deal with reality.

Many Days You Have Lingered, Outside My Cabin Door

We have listened to the old men. Our leaders. Men of experience. Men of wisdom.

They told us it would never happen. All we had to do was follow their lead, Keep a good thought and not succumb to the fear and doubt. Work hard. Live our lives. Raise our children. Nothing could hurt us.

A service economy is inherently more stable than one based on actual production. Production jobs are boring, uninteresting and don't pay good. The people that do them become malcontents and want collective bargaining, benefits and better pay. The market for goods and materials can fluctuate but people are always going to need their investments managed, their taxes done, their pools cleaned, their burgers flipped. The pay might not be good but if you're smart, you'll learn to do something that people will pay more for or become a manager of workers who do the same job you used to. In the meantime, get on with your life. Get married. Raise a family. Buy a house. Don't worry about the cost. You're credit is good.

Your credit wasn't good though, was it? Turns out, a service economy isn't inherently stable. Buying a house is not the same thing as owning one. A ponzi scheme is still a ponzi scheme, whether the guy that sucks you in is your next door neighbor or the President of the United States. Your money is still just as gone. Your life is still just as over.

What about those old men of experience, the leaders? The ones that told you there was nothing to fear. It turns out they own their houses, really own them and a lot more besides. What about their kids? They went to good schools. They're working. In Latin America, Europe, Asia. They are learning the language, making contacts. Things are happening over there. They need help over there. Help setting up service economies. Help developing a modern banking system and structured investment vehicles.

Hard Times Come Again No More.

Who's He Trying To Kid?

General Michal V. Hayden, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, who has a history of lying to Congress going back 20 years, to the Iran Contra hearings, swore to the Senate yesterday that waterboarding was only used three times. These would be the exact three times that we already know about and have documentation for. The same three times that he has admitted destroying the video tapes of. He swore that the CIA has never used this technique before or since.

He denies that waterboarding constitutes torture. He states that the CIA needs to be able to use waterboarding in interrogations when necessary. He promises he will get specific permission from the President before he does it, each and every time before it's use.

This guy could improve his image, a lot, if he had a bald cat in his lap and a little bald midget with an identical uniform by his side.

Heather Has Two Mommies

Late breaking news from the Bruderhofs of the Godless European Union.

When a sperm fertilizes an egg, everything the new person will become is encoded in the DNA inside the the nucleus of the newly created single cell organism. Well, not quite. Outside the nucleus are bodies called mitochondria. These little intracellular bodies perform the metabolic tasks that keep the cells healthy and happy. Inside of each mitochondria is a little snippet of DNA, which allows it to reproduce itself. Mitochondria exist intact within the egg at the time of conception and so mitochondrial DNA is passed directly from mother to child, unchanged by the sexual swap of genetic material that occurs in fertilization.

Like all genetic material, mitochondrial DNA is subject to breakage. When this happens the mitochondria produced are faulty and can malfunction. This interferes with intracellular metabolism, causing a host of catastrophic degenerative diseases.

In Europe, scientists have found these diseases can be avoided by transferring the nucleus of a fertilized egg that contains damaged mitochondrial DNA into a donor egg with healthy mitochondria from which the nucleus has been removed. This new "composite" gamete can be implanted into a uterus and the resulting child will have a healthy active intracellular metabolism.

The technology to do all this is off the shelf stuff, that research labs and fertility clinics have been doing routinely for a generation. Whole categories of diseases which affect millions worldwide could now be eliminated.

In this country, where the practice of reproductive medicine is controlled by Creationist, "Culture of Life", Dickwads, who believe the Universe was created whole cloth six thousand years ago, during a week long bender, by a Deity high on Sumerian beer, this procedure will never be performed. What is our World coming to?

Remember the almost words of George Orwell.

"Six toes good, five toes bad."

Record Turnout ?

I voted late this morning, me and five poll workers were the only ones there. I asked if it had been a busy morning.

They answered, "Not so much".

I live in a conservative stronghold. I guess they're not too interested today.

Let's see if they perk up by November.

Finger in the Dyke, No Reward

Why won't Hillary be the Democratic nominee for President?

At the beginning of the Bush 43 Presidency, it fell to the Clintons to be the keepers of the flame. This they have done, at great cost to themselves, at every level of their lives. They have been on record and in front of the cameras daily, for the last 8 years, responding to the ill fated actions of the Republican dominated government. They have been jeered at, belittled, compromised and demonized by the Republican establishment. That they have been largely right, makes no difference at this point. They are damaged goods.

People are now willing to admit that they want a change in government. They are not willing to say they have been wrong. Electing Hillary President is just that, an admission of guilt, in participation in the folly, that was and is, the Bush administration. The people won't do it.

Barak Obama is young, fresh and has no history in national politics. Electing him is not a self indictment for the electorate. It's an easy, feel good, way out. If you think the American people won't take the easy way out, you're wrong.

Thank you, Hillary and Bill. You stood up against a corrupt, tyrannical government through some of the worst days in the memory of our nation. There will be no honors or awards ceremonies. No thanks of a grateful nation. You know the service you have performed. It will have to be enough.

You get no absolution without confession and contrition. Ask any reformed drunk.

The American people are ready to dry out but they are not willing to throw away that bottle of rye, stashed, under the kitchen sink.

The Swiftboating of John McCain

There is an amazing and richly imaginative saga making it's way around the RightRoots sites this morning. It has John McCain spending his years in North Vietnamese captivity, as a happy traitor, holed up in a Hanoi hotel suite, with clean sheets, cold beer and a stable of courtesans at his beck and call. It features Bill Clinton as a steely eyed, cold war, CIA plant, in the international student peace movement, during his Oxford years. Hillary is exposed as the anchorwoman of a daisy chain of Saudi lesbian spies.

It's like Ian Fleming meets the Three Stooges. Who writes this stuff for them? Anyway, check it out. It's well worth the search.

A Little Parable For All You Global Warmers Out There

Nothing is more refreshing than a big glass of iced tea on a hot summer day, lying out by the pool. As long as the ice lasts, the tea stays frosty cold.

Think of the earth as a big glass of iced tea. As the ice caps melt, they keep the oceans cold. The oceans, in turn, Cool the atmosphere. The weather will remain balmy and beautiful, as long as the ice lasts. We should have 20 or 30 years of great weather.

I'm 56 years old, no children. What, me worry?

What Will You Do With Your Stimulus Check?

If President Bush has his way, you will soon be getting a check in the mail. For the average family it could be $1800, maybe even more. What will the people of this great nation do with this money? Surprisingly, there is already a consensus. Everybody I've talked to says the same thing.

"Flat screen TV, baby, biggest one I can get."

Where do they make these? China. Where will your economic stimulus money go? China.

George W. Bush. What a fuckin' genius.

Ben "Gutenberg" Bernanke

Ben has been hard at work lowering interest rates. He has been adding liquidity to the financial system in huge amounts now for months. What he has been doing, in fact, is printing money, in huge amounts and putting it into circulation. This has the effect of making every dollar you make, spend or save worth less. It has the effect of destroying the World market confidence in the dollar. The first prerequisite for a stable national economy is a sound currency. He is systematically destroying any hope we have, in this country, to achieve this. He has accelerated an inflationary cycle that was already in danger of spiraling out of control.

What can the average person do in a situation like this? With all that new money floating around, someone is likely to be willing to lend you some. Borrow as much as you can. Spend it, as soon as possible, before it loses any more value, preferably on sex and intoxicants. It will make you feel better, at least for a little while.

Douche Pipe Dreams

If the problems of the World and the nation could be addressed and solved by simply saying so, George Bush would be our greatest President. During the State of the Union Address, this evening, he claimed the country and it's citizens to be in the best shape ever. The economy is sound, the dollar strong. No child has been left behind. Great health care is available to all. Democracy is blooming and tyranny in retreat around the World. We have prevailed in the Middle Eastern War, peace is at hand. Genocide bad, liberation of the oppressed good. God is on our side, so we get to decide which is which. Taxes will be lowered. Spending will be cut. The check is in the mail. We will not allow weapons of mass destruction to grease the axle of evil.

Unfortunately, nothing he said was true. Very little of it had any relationship with reality. He could have mailed the fucker in. There's no point in doing an assignment on time and presenting it in class if you know you're going to get an F anyway. George, take the day off. Go to the beach. Catch some rays and waves. Smoke a doob. You're not going to disappoint anyone. Nobody.

I loved the speech. Afterward, I felt so fresh and the painful itching was gone!

The Season of Falling Trees

It's been raining here in SoCal. Sometimes we go years without real precipitation. It's a nice change. There's an interesting thing that happens here, a few weeks after the rain. The Devil Winds from the Eastern Desert kick up and blow out to sea. It makes the trees commit suicide. You drive out in the morning and see huge branches broken off from the trunks. Whole trees will be blown over, sometimes rows of them down across thoroughfares or crushing someones garage, roots now pointing to the sky, big hole where they used to be. Most people agree that this is caused by the rains softening the ground, allowing the wind to loosen and detach the root systems and no doubt this is a factor.

The primary reason this happens is something else, something people don't think about. When the rains come, the trees greedily suck up the water and nutrients. They pump these up to the top of the tree where all the foliage is and photosynthesis is going on. Water weighs a lot. The trees become top heavy. When the wind hits these poor unbalanced trees, there is no question what is going to happen.

Sometimes our lives can be like the trees in Southern California. Better ask yourself. Do you need to prune your life back a little, before the Devil Winds start to blow? The season of falling trees is coming, baby!

We Need More Mexicans!

Southern California has a lot more people than it did when I was a boy and even then most people here came from somewhere else. Then, most of the newcomers came from other States. Now it seems like more of them come from other countries. We have been getting people from the Middle East ever since the partition of Palestine in 1947. We got a lot more after the Shah was kicked out of Iran. They're not all Islamic. There's a lot of Iranian Jews, Baha'i and Zoroastrians. There are Armenian Orthodox, Maronites from Lebanon, Coptics from Egypt and East Africa. We get quite a few Orthodox Jews who like to come here from Israel. After the Iron Curtain came down, we got a lot of Eastern Europeans. After Yugoslavia fell apart, we got a lot of people from the Adriatic. After Saigon fell in '75, we got a shitload of South East Asians and they're still coming. We got a lot of Koreans. We have Chinese from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the Mainland. We have a lot of Indians and Pakistanis, they may be enemies at home but they don't mind living together here. We have whites forced out of Southern Africa and blacks forced out of West Africa. We have Cubans by way of Miami and Russians by way of Coney Island. You ask them, they'll tell you they're legal. Maybe they are. Maybe they aren't. The truth is that when most of them left their old homes there wasn't time to do the paperwork, there was only time to get out. I don't doubt that for a minute.

It's hard adapting to a new culture, learning a new language, a new way of life. It's easier here, where so many others have also recently come but it's still hard. People tend to stay clannish. They like to live in the same neighborhoods. They like to go to markets that have the foods from home. They like to talk their own language and hear it spoken. Can you really blame'em. In the end, it all works out. Their kids all end up going to UC, become doctors, lawyers and engineers, fall in love and marry each other. Good for them, good for us. Summertime picnics with the family end up having chapatis, kimchee and babaganuch, all on the same table, YUM!

So why is everybody always whining about Hispanics. Mexicans and Central Americans have been coming North for centuries. They want a little house. Plant a garden and a few fruit trees. Drink a little beer. Raise their families. They're willing to work about eighteen hours a day for the privilege, are you? They work in restaurants and stores. They do landscaping and gardening. They work on farms and ranches. They work in hospitals and nursing homes. They do masonry, electrical and plumbing. They do things that people need done at a price they can afford. That's not something you can say about all of our other new arrivals. Seems to me, what we need in this country today is more Mexicans and fewer people sitting around on their fat asses whining about them.

Tommy Tancredo, Bite Me!

Let the Games Begin!

You read around how this is the first election in a long time that we haven't had an incumbent or Vice President to choose from for President. That's true but also not true.

Incumbents campaign as name brands. People then have the advantage of choosing a known quantity. They like that. Trying new things is uncomfortable. Many people fear it. Hillary is running pretty much as an incumbent this time around. She isn't asking people to support her, so much, as a re-continuation of the Clinton administration, after a hiatus of eight years. This is much more true today than in 2000, when Al Gore separated himself from the President, in a spate of moral superiority. As we know, that didn't work. Mitt Romney has positioned himself in the incumbent category on the Republican side, kind of like a Mark II George Bush, this time with a normal IQ and the ability to speak. Probably the less said about that the better.

Will Hillary's bid for the Presidency succeed? Maybe not. The first time around, the Clintons were seen as young, pragmatic and willing to do what was necessary to make things work and indeed they were. When big health care proved unworkable, they were able to move on seamlessly, to other issues that were. They got as much mileage out of that as if it had been a success. Now Hillary is back pushing the very same packages that proved unworkable in the last Clinton administration, rather than emphasizing the flexibility that made them so successful. She and Bill aren't young anymore. They aren't hip. They are entrenched and condescending, exactly the opposite of what they were sixteen years ago. It isn't really working out for them.

I think people are going to go for the change candidate. McCain has been a maverick all his political life, willing to work across the aisle to get the things he feels are important done. He has gotten things done but they aren't often things the Republican hierarchy likes. Huckabee is a pure populist values voter play, with all the neocon and fiscal conservative platform planks stripped out. Obama is the handsome prince with a fairy story background, seemingly springing from nowhere to champion the cause of the young and disillusioned.

Dodging a Bullet?

The Federal Reserve Bank, in a surprise move, lowered interest on loans to it's most trusted borrowers, to an annual rate of 3.5%. This is even lower than the claimed inflation rate of 4%, touted by the lying sacks of shit running the current administration. So what we have, is "Free" money. These same scumfucks continue to tell us that the economy is expanding, that the stock market is under priced and that corporate profits are on the rise. Whistling past the graveyard, every one of them.

Here's the bottom line. Free money is no good if it's not worth anything. If you can't lend it to someone who has some possibility of paying it back, it's still a bad deal, no matter what the point spread is. The truth is, the Fed has been flooding the economy with cheap money for years. Making it cheaper will not change the equation. It only delays the final reckoning and digs the hole we are in deeper.

The markets are not near a bottom.

This is not a good buying opportunity.

Whatever money you have saved is nearly worthless and getting worthlesser.

The economy is not expanding, even slowly.

The government cannot help you. If they give you money, it's because they just printed up a fresh batch.

What Can He Possibly Have To Say For Himself?

With less than a week to go before George W. Bush gives his final State of the Union Address, what can he say to justify his many failures to the American people?

The economy is heading into what, at the very least, is the most serious recession in modern times. We are awash in a sea of bad debt. The Stock Market is falling. Unemployment is rising. The Real Estate Market is in free fall. His answer is to lower interest rates and lie about the resulting inflation of our monetary system. When he took over the Presidency, the government was running surpluses, the national debt was actually shrinking. His administration has run up more debt than was incurred in the entire previous history of the republic.

The state of our society verges on tyranny. Bush has suspended the right to be charged, confront your accuser and be tried by a jury. The US now maintains secret prisons in foreign countries. Agents of our government can torture detainees and hold them indefinitely with impunity. Anyone's communications, of any sort, may be monitored, without a warrant, at any time. He invalidates the law of the land by simply adding a note to the legislation as it is passed, stating he is not bound by it.

He has led us into a unilateral war of aggression against Iraq. It has drained us of trillions of dollars and maimed and killed a generation of our young. It has earned us nothing but the enduring enmity of the Islamic World and the disdain of most of the rest. Our foreign policy is a shambles. Our military is irreparably damaged, with no money to rebuild it.

He has forged deep divisions in our society along racial, religious and class lines. These are kinds of injuries which heal slowly and scar deeply. There is no rational reason to promote this kind of discord except to encourage the kind of fear, hatred and distrust necessary to hold his evil coalition together a little longer.

This is a man with no love or even sympathy for the American people. When he leaves office, he will walk away, into a life of wealth and privilege the like of which most of us can't even imagine. He will have so little contact with the common man that he will never see or understand the damage he has done.

Rig For Dive!

At the beginning of the Great Depression, the US stock market lost 80 percent of it's value. George Bush aims to ward off a repeat of this by giving the average American $800 in folding green and cutting the taxes of the rich.

Yup, that should do it.

Excuse me a moment, while I dog down this hatch.

Go-Down Mo-Town, Let My People Go!

At the Detroit Auto Show this year, American auto makers have shown us that they are morally, intellectually and technologically bankrupt. They offer us vehicles that are low quality, high MPG, at a cost not competitive on the World market.

Fuck 'em.

In ten years, there won't be a single American Auto company building cars in this country. In the mean time, Ta Ta motors, of India, is introducing a $2500 car that gets 60 MPG. In Japan, for the last 20 years, they have been selling cars with 600cc engines, keep the oil clean, they'll go half a million miles, pop in a rebuilt one piece engine/trans axle, they'll do it again.

Mamoud! Granny's strapping on her dynamite underware again !

Today, President Bush put on his little beanie and shawl and laid a wreath at the Israeli memorial to the Holocaust, even managing a comely quiver of voice and a tiny crockytear.

In doing so he reminded the Palestinian community that nobody cares about their 60 year exile and the entire Arab World, that nobody respects their rights or the sovereignty of their nations, as if they needed reminding.

Makin' Friends, Chimpy Style!

This Will Teach Them

The Culture of Life calls for the condemnation of Vogue Magazine and a boycott of its advertisers. Vogue ran a nonjudgmental story about a New York City woman who chose to have a late term abortion.

WHOO-EE! You know how much Vogue counts on the patronage of the inbred, six-toed Grand Dames of the Taggin' Wagon Aristocracy to maintain it's position as the arbiter of style and the avant-garde lifestyle.

They'll probably run a special issue to print a retraction. It will also be a good opportunity to run some spreads on open toed pumps and designer drool scarves.

Hillary is Baa-ack!

Barak knows all about having to pound the stake through her heart but she's just so fucking bea-u-ti-ful!

Buffalo Gal won't you come out tonight
Come out tonight, come out tonight
Buffalo Gal won't you come out tonight
And dance by the light of the Moon

John McCain Has Won the New Hampshire Primary

He has defeated Mitt Romney, a man whose wealth is only exceeded by the vacuousness of his intellect and the elasticity of his resolve.

John is not young. He is not smart. He is not strong. He is not well.

For all of that, he is a man. The only one in this race. He tells the truth, as he sees it. He never gives a inch. It's why the Republican hierarchy hates him.

You do yourself proud, New Hampshire. America salutes you!

They're All Dogs

The field of Republican Presidential candidates is like a pack of currs circling a dead rat in a dark alley in the middle of the night. Nobody is really making a grab for the dubious prise. They each know that what's available isn't worth much but it's the only action going. They also know that once the fighting starts, more meat will be available.

The Democratic Presidential candidates are like a big litter suckling a bitch with only enough milk for one.

They're all dogs.

The dynamic is different.

The end result will be the same.

Americans Want Affordable Healthcare.

It isn't going to happen.

Before World War II, healthcare was a lot less high tech. Hospitals were mostly public or charitable facilities. Doctors lived well, but usually in the same neighborhoods a their patients. Every druggist knew the real money was in the lunch and cosmetic counters.

Hospitals are all run by corporations now. Doctors live in mansions, out by the country club and do their banking in the Caymans. For many, prescription drugs are their single highest monthly expense.

The population of America is aging. Everybody would like to have affordable healthcare. Politicians like to offer it in return for votes.

There isn't enough money.

It isn't going to happen.

Ever.

After Many a Summer Dies the Swan

What happens when an empire succeeds beyond it's own wildest dreams?

America spends 10 times more on it's military than the rest of the World combined. We won the Cold War, which was, perhaps, the greatest geopolitical struggle in modern times, virtually unaided. Today, we cannot pacify a forthrate rate power in an Islamic backwater.

We are such a magnanimous society, that the biggest problem among our poor, is chronic obesity but after two generations of "Great Society" social welfare programs, we can't pull the poor into the mainstream, even as millions of illegal immigrants stream into the country and assimilate into a prosperous life, against all the barriers erected against just that prospect. We made jobs and people went to work but they didn't accumulate wealth, they overspent and now we are the greatest debtor nation the World has ever seen.

The magnificent infrastructure that we built up over the last century continues to serve us well but is outdated and wearing out. There are no plans to expand and renovate it. When one of our greatest cities was destroyed by storm and flood, the best our leaders can come up with, is abandon it, and move to higher ground.

Our water is filthy, you can't drink from the most pristine mountain stream with out boiling or filtering it. Our forests are cut down. Landfills full of toxic sludge and plastic fester the landscape. We pump green house gases into the atmosphere at ever increasing rates, knowing the damage it does. There is so much CO2 in the air that it has acidified the oceans. We make no efforts to clean up after ourselves because it might alter our standard of living.

Our streets are pretty safe in America. Many areas, including some of our largest cities, have lower levels of violent crime than ever before but we warehouse a larger percentage of our population, for most of their adult lives, in prison, than any other country. Still, after 50 years as the highest law enforcement priority, the traffic in and use of, illicit narcotics, is unchecked. For all of our efforts to create a safe society, our women and children fall victim to sexual predation and assault as never before.

We have been the strongest, richest, most developed, most free society in the World for a century. We influenced world culture, politics and trade as surely as did the Greeks and Romans in their time. The 20th century was truly, the American century. Fueled by an endless stream of aspiring immigrants and a land of incomparable riches, we came to power swiftly. Will our fall be also as swift?

Like a prizefighter that dominates the ring for a period of time and defeats all challengers, there is no graceful way to step down. The fighter takes for granted the respect, riches and adulation as his due, even when age and dissipation take their toll and the victories become fewer and harder won. Do we, as a nation, choose to step down, into a respectable, if less exalted, position in the family of nations or do we stay in the ring, until we succumb to the endless punishment? Bleeding. Broken. Insensate.

Larry Holmes or Cassius Clay? We know who was the better fighter but who is better off today?

Iowa Has Spoken

The primary season is begun. The stragglers are dropping away, many more will follow. Besides the fact that the next American President is going to be an even bigger loser than George W. Bush, what do we know?

We know that Americans are too embarrassed to vote for the candidate they really like. If the Republicans were voting true, they would go with someone like Tom Tancredo. That would say things about them they aren't ready to admit, maybe not even to themselves. Dems should be wild about Dennis Kucinich, samo-samo.

So what do the two clear winners in Iowa, Huckybuck and Obama, indicate. Are these two men really the embodiment of the skills, traits and intelligence we are seeking in the leader of the free World? Surprisingly enough, maybe.

Let's get the easy part out of the way first. These guys are both smart. The pre-primary debates have shown us they are poised public speakers. They are interactive with an audience and capable of thinking fast, on their feet. They watch what they say and say as little as possible in the most engaging way possible. In this respect, both are completely different than George W. Bush, who cannot speak or think at all well and is only comfortable on his feet with the hind legs of a sheep tucked into his boots. Huckybuck seems smarter and more charismatic. This could be because he is defending the traditional values high ground, always an easier thing to do.

Obama is better looking. So is his wife. So are his children. His message is vibrant, dynamic and appealing. He is The "New" man, multi-culti, inter-racial and intellectual. He offers a revision of the American dream. This entails change on our part. Americans like to think of themselves and their culture as dynamic but they distrust change. Their first concern is what have I got to lose, not what have I got to gain. Still, being the "New" man is better than being the "Black" man. Normally, someone like Obama wouldn't have a chance but the American people's disgust with the present situation is pronounced. It will be hard but he could win. The key for him, will be to play up the attractiveness of what it says about America, that we would elect a man like Obama, while promising not to change anything much at all. So far, so good

Huckybuck is a "kinder, gentler" redneck. He has lived all his life with integrated schools and the EEOC. He's not going to burn any crosses or string anybody up, or tolerate those who do. While the churches he goes to and the social organizations to which he belongs are racially and socially homogeneous, everybody agrees that this is by choice and everybody is more comfortable that way. He is not comfortable with homosexuals but accepts them grudgingly because it's the law and he believes in law and order. Similarly, he is anti-abortion. He doesn't approve of bombing abortion clinics or shooting the doctors who work in them but would address the issue from a legal standpoint. He walks a fine line between the views of the progressive and regressive segments of society hoping to get at least some support from one faction, while keeping most of the latter. Has he evolved far enough to be a successful candidate for President in today's America? Nothing makes me think otherwise. So far, so good.

Next week, the contest in New Hampshire looms. After that, South Carolina. We're going to know a lot more in the next few weeks. For the last year the smart money has been on a Hillary/Rudy race. It may happen, after all is said and done. I don't think so. I'm not sure either of them will make the cut. I'm not that sad about it.

Boxed In

A Republican coalition has allowed a plurality of wildly divergent individuals to control the government of the United States for much of the last forty years, ever since Nixon put together his "Silent Majority". During these last four decades, the population itself has undergone vast changes. Immigrants from all over the World, including huge numbers of Latinos and Asians have made the population a third again larger. Society has become immensely more tolerant of alternate lifestyles, non-traditional religious observance, the open use of illicit drugs and the public expression of civil dissent. Even as society became more loosey goosey, American government has continued on, controlled, for the most part, by leaders that speak and act as if the Nelsons, the Cleevers, the Andersons, and Gillis' are the constituency they represent, with no one more aberrant out there to contend with than Desi and Lucy. It's been a numbers game they play. As the numbers have gotten tighter, they learned to play better and lacking unified opposition, the American Right has reigned supreme.

With the election of George W. Bush in 2000, the hegemony of the Right took a new direction. Instead of merely trying to manage American society, they set out to control it. With the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government firmly in their grasp, there was no one to stop them. They have been able to make great strides in their endeavors. No real opposition has arisen against them but support that they previously had, has become disenchanted. The numbers game in the 2008 election will be more difficult than ever for them to win.

Many traditional Christians aren't comfortable revisiting the Scopes "Monkey" trial. Not every die hard Capitalist is comfortable with a totally "Free" market. Not every supporter of a strong national defense is comfortable with a blanket declaration of war against a religion of 1.25 billion people, world wide.

As we enter a watershed national election year, the American distrust of politicians has never been greater. There can be no greater proof of this than in the quality of those of us who have stepped forward to present ourselves for election to public office. Listing their deficiencies would be a Herculean task. As far as Presidential candidates are concerned, there is not a single one of them, that I am convinced, is going to be able to do a substantially better job than George W. Bush and he is a malignant, drunken retard.

Americans will have to realize that the function of government needs to first concentrate on dealing with things as they are and not as we wish they were. The goals we set for ourselves need to be achievable and not the wet dreams of some coke head retard. That time is not now. Maybe we need another four or eight or sixteen years of national decline to open our eyes.