Thinking of you...

It's difficult to sit up here and watch my country fall into recession. I just wanted to say that I've got you all on my mind. Hold on tight down there and good luck. Hopefully we'll be through this before too long.

love you all,
mike

American business sense...

(from an Associated Press article)

"WASHINGTON - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke bluntly warned Congress on Tuesday it risks a recession, with higher unemployment and increased home foreclosures, if lawmakers fail to pass the Bush administration's $700 billion plan to bail out the financial industry.

Bernanke told the Senate Banking Committee that inaction could leave ordinary businesses unable to borrow the money they need to expand and hire additional employees, while consumers could find themselves unable to finance big-ticket purchases such as cars and homes."

[read the full article]

I'm not sure how to feel about the financial crisis in the States right now. On the one hand, I can't believe that, once again, there will be no accountability for the misdeed which brought us to the present situation. I'm not saying who should be held accountable, but between congressmen who write the laws, presidents who push the policy, and bank managers and CEOs who gambled with money that was not theirs, someone should be held accountable. Instead, they are actually arguing in congress as to whether or nor the outgoing CEOs of these bought out failures should be stripped of their "golden parachutes" or not. Golden parachute... another way of saying "more free money in one lump sum than you will make for the rest of your hard-working life." This is an arguable point? Wow. We have one royally screwed up country. What has happened to our world? Where did the accountability go? My father taught me that you should own up to your mistakes... no one else's parents taught them the same? I know I can't be alone here.

And should we be bailing these people out? I hear two tales as I scan the news every day. On the one hand, some say that without a bailout, people will make a run on banks and start a new recession. (Well what do you think we are in the middle of? A golden age? Hardly.) Some argue that if AIG is allowed to fail, banks all over America will fail and our economy will fail.

On the other hand, what is really at stake? The article above mentions specifically that we won't be able to "finance big-ticket purchases such as cars and homes." If this is all that is at stake, is it really such a big deal to let AIG fail? Who needs a new car? Must we all be able to buy a home at any time? What is really at stake is not the ability of a person to buy a home, it is a person's ability to finance a home. Is it unreasonable of me to think that we can live in a world without credit and without financing? Yes, I've lived off of student loans for the past 3 years... I'm not saying it's bad to live on credit. But is it worth paying $700 billion tax dollars to save a company from bankruptcy because that company made poor decisions?

Now that I see America's economy from the outside, it is evident that our economy runs on credit. That's why this is such a threatening situation. Too often, we don't have money... we have the promise of money. Even the US dollar, itself, is not real. Nor does it signify anything real like precious metal or any such collateral. If we bail this company out of trouble, what are we keeping secure? Our ability to take out more loans?

I'm not against the bailout, persay, I simply question it. And I am wholeheartedly against spending $700 billion tax dollars so that AIG's management can retire with full pensions, severance, and retirement packages. This isn't an issue of partisan politics, it's one of principles.

Ahhh Monday...

Morning all,

Hope you're all off to a vigorous start to your new week. I'm not. I have a crappy bed and I toss and turn all night. Sucks waking up feeling like you haven't really slept that long. We're hoping to get a new bed sometime after Christmas. Poor Katy doesn't have experience sleeping on the ground or in tanks and trucks, either. I really feel sorry for how bad our bed makes her feel.

Nonetheless, we both got up and out the door okay... usually do. She has her first crit at school today and I have to put together my first set of drawings for a building permit. Nothing major... just a garage. It will be a good exercise.

I received a well-written editorial this morning from my friend Bonnie. You can read it here. It deals with the current financial crisis in the States and how it ties to the presidential election. I think you may be as surprised as I was.

I went flipping through the news and uncovered a relatively mainstream story I was very unaware of. Any of you remember the savings and Loan scandal back in the late 1980's - early 1990's right around the time big daddy Bush took office? They dubbed it the S&L Scandal and at it's center was a man named Charles Keating and his infamous "Keating Five," a group of politicians and lawmakers who were essentially on Keating's payroll. Well, guess what? John McCain was one of those five. Yes, John McCain, the man running for president of the United States, the maverick, the reformer, was formerly implicated in a savings and loan scandal very similar to the one we are seeing now. I don't have time to summarize the articles because I have drawings to attend to, but you can read a November 1989 newspaper article from the Phoenix New Times and get the story for yourself. It's called, "McCain: The Most Reprehensible of the Keating Five."

This election just does not cease to surprise me.

Ok, off to earn my dime. Have a great day, everyone.

In John McCain's words...

McCain ad misrepresents Obama's tax plan. Again.

by Joe Miller

The McCain-Palin campaign has released a new ad that once again distorts Obama's tax plans.

• The ad claims Obama will raise taxes on electricity. He hasn't proposed any such tax. Obama does support a cap-and-trade policy that would raise the costs of electricity, but so does McCain.

• It falsely claims he would tax home heating oil. Actually, Obama proposed a rebate of up to $1,000 per family to defray increased heating oil costs, funded by what he calls a windfall profits tax on oil companies.
  

• The ad claims that Obama will tax "life savings." In fact, he would increase capital gains and dividends taxes only for couples earning more than $250,000 per year, or singles making $200,000. For the rest, taxes on investments would remain unchanged.
  

The McCain campaign argues in its documentation for this ad that, whatever Obama says he would do, he will eventually be forced to break his promise and raise taxes more broadly to pay for his promised spending programs. That's an opinion they are certainly entitled to express, and to argue for. But their ad doesn't do that. Instead, it simply presents the McCain camp's opinion as a fact, and it fails to alert viewers that its claims are based on what the campaign thinks might happen in the future.

Analysis

In what has become an ongoing theme, the McCain-Palin campaign has released yet another ad that makes false claims about Barack Obama's tax plan. The ad, which was released on Sept. 18 and which the campaign says will air nationally, claims that Obama will raise income taxes and will tax "life savings, electricity and home heating oil." As we keep saying, Obama says he'll raise income taxes and capital gains taxes only for couples earning more than $250,000 per year or singles making over $200,000. He has proposed no plans to raise taxes on either home heating oil or electricity.

[... read the rest of the article here on factcheck.org]

[read "More Tax Deceptions" on factcheck.org]

[read "A New Stitch in a Bad Pattern" on factcheck.org]

Evidence that Sarah Palin is a pathological liar?

Sarah Palin is not truthful. She is not unsure of her answers. She doesn't make "honest" mistakes or slips. She simply lies, knowing she will not be held accountable for it. This is noteworthy, I believe. This could be our future Vice President of the US and is one 72 year-old's health complication away from being President.

She's not trying to convince you of a point. She's not trying to push a platform through. She's not even championing a party r a cause. She's just trying to win. Does that scare anyone else?

Here are just a few examples I found...

"Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on Friday defended the nearly $200 million in federal pet projects she sought as Alaska governor this year even as John McCain told a television audience she had never requested them.

In the second part of her interview with ABC News, Palin was confronted with two claims that have been a staple of her reputation since joining the GOP ticket: that she was opposed to federal earmarks, even though her request for such special spending projects for 2009 was the highest per capita figure in the nation; and that she opposed the $398 million Bridge to Nowhere linking Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport.

Palin actually turned against the bridge project only after it became a national symbol of wasteful spending and Congress had pulled money for it.

(from PressDemocrat.com)

-----

"Palin initially denied that anyone in her administration or family had pressed for action against Wooten, whom she has branded a 'rogue trooper.' But in August, two weeks before her nomination as a vice presidential candidate, she acknowledged that members of her staff had contacted Monegan's office nearly two dozen times about the trooper. An aide was suspended after being taped telling a state trooper lieutenant that the Palins were concerned that there had been 'absolutely no action for a year on this issue.'"

(from CNN.com)

-------

Here's what she said to Sean Hannity today, in an interview with so many softballs it must have felt like a relaxing massage. This is from the Time magazine excerpt:

On her family’s reaction to be picked as the VP nominee:
“It was a time of asking the girls to vote on it, anyway. And they voted unanimously, yes. Didn’t bother asking my son because, you know, he’s going to be off doing his thing anyway, so he wouldn’t be so impacted by, at least, the campaign period here. So ask the girls what they thought and they’re like, absolutely. Let’s do this, mom.”

As Andrew Sullivan helpfully points out, this is a direct contradiction to her now-famous interview with Charlie Gibson:

PALIN: I didn't hesitate, no.
GIBSON: Didn't that take some hubris?
PALIN: I -- I answered him yes because I have the confidence in that readiness and knowing that you can't blink, you have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission, the mission that we're on, reform of this country and victory in the war, you can't blink. So I didn't blink then even when asked to run as his running mate.

"Here's the official tick-tock of the announcement from McCain communications director Jill Hazelbaker on August 29:"

"Later that morning, John McCain departed for Phoenix and Governor Palin departed with staff to Flagstaff, Arizona. Governor Palin, Kris Perry, Steve Schmidt and Mark Salter proceeded to the Manchester Inn and Conference Center in Middleton, Ohio. They were checked into the hotel as the Upton Family. While there, Governor Palin’s children, who had been told they were going to Ohio to celebrate their parents’ wedding anniversary, were told for the first time that their mother would be a nominee for Vice President of the United States of America."

(from DailyKos.com)

Pac-man chart:

Are we done with criminals in our White House?

The current regime running America has spent the past 8 years blatantly refusing to cooperate with courts, lawyers, Congress, investigations, and the like. When called to answer questions voluntarily about issues of national security, they refuse. When ordered to testify under oath in front of congressional inquiries, they refuse. They treat subponeas like most people treat telemarketers. Good thing they're on their way out the door, right? It'll be nice to be rid of criminals in the government that have no respect for the authority of law.

But wait... we may not be done with their kind yet.

The Associated Press reports that "Gov. Sarah Palin is unlikely to speak with an independent counsel hired by Alaska lawmakers to review the firing of her public safety commissioner." Likewise, her husband is refusing to cooperate with a subponea in the same case. Sarah Palin, the woman who is supposedly championing ethics reform, is refusing to cooperate with her own ethics probe.

Don't we deserve better than more of the same?

If you're not familiar with Sarah Palin, I offer these articles for your enjoyment (and am happy to receive any from you in return):

Once Elected, Palin Hired Friend and Lashed Foes
Palin Unlikely to Speak with Investigators
Active Role for Palin's Husband in Alaska Government

Whatever your views are, whoever you support... ask yourself if you could deal with four more years of the same kind of government that set the stage for financial giants like Merrill Lynch to fall... four more years of a government that thinks they are above the law... four more years of lies and half-truths.

...and a dash of politics to round out my Sunday morning.

I find it a bit sad that our presidential campaign has turned into a contest between Obama and Palin, but so be it. I found a really good article in the NY Times this morning that was very enlightening on Ms. Palin and I highly recommend it. It's entertaining, even if a bit frightening. Click here for the article.

And one last note, someone asked me why I am so against McCain and Palin and I thought it a fair question. It's not wholly an issue of the candidates' platforms...

1. ...it's the notable absence of a Republican platform that I oppose. John McCain and his camp were screaming "Experience! Experience! Experience!" for weeks until about 2 weeks ago... when it mysteriously witched to "Change! Change! Change!" ... which is what Obama has been saying all along. McCain's camp saw that they would not get elected based on "experience" and so they flipped their jargon switch and away they went. McCain doesn't want change... he wants to win, and therefore will say he wants change if that's what his polls show people would rather hear. Obama's platform has stayed relatively stable. He wants change.

2. Barack Obama selected a running mate based on leadership criteria. When asked, he responded that he picked Joe Biden to help him lead once in Washington DC. Good deductive reasoning skills show us that John McCain picked a running mate to help him win an election... not to help him lead. Sarah Palin is an election gimmick... not a leader. Again, we find that John McCain isn't focused on leading the nation... he's focused on winning an election .

3. While John McCain has, at times , gone against his party's decisions, he has supported the vast majority of them. He has been at the foundation of all of the decisions that have driven our country into the ground! Why am I against him? Because he continually gives reason to believe that he will drive this boat no differently than the man currently at his helm. He gets his money from the same people as Bush. He wines and dines the same crowds as Bush. He runs the same political circles as all the White House insiders. No, he is not George Bush, but as a president he will have the same backers as the current regime.

If you bought a car and for 8 years it leaked oil, spat nasty black soot out the exhaust pipe, guzzled gas, constantly broke down, and smelled like coolant every time you got in it would you buy another car from the same company? Then why would we accept another candidate from the same people who brought you G.W. Bush?

There are lots more reasons but I need to mop my floor so I'll leave it at that. Have a good day, everyone.

Vancouver sunset...

Hi all,

In the middle of a beautiful weekend here in Van city... we went out to Stanley Park yesterday so Katy could do some site work for school and I played harmonica and drew. On the way home we walked along the English Bay shoreline and got to see a really fantastic sunset. Thought I'd share some picture... mostly for Dad because he really likes the boat scene in Vancouver. Gonna do some grocery shopping today and go to jiu jitsu. Nothing exciting planned... perfect.

Correspondence from a friend...

My friend received this email and passed it along to me. It may be going around but I thought it was funny and had a ring of truth to it at the same time...

"I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight.....
If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're "exotic, different."
If you grow up in Alaska eating moose burgers, it's a quintessential American story.

If you graduate from Harvard law School you are unstable.
If you attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.

If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.

If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.

If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.
If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and then left your disfigured wife after a serious car accident and married the heiress the next month, you're an upstanding Christian.

If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.
If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.

If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America's values.

If you're husband is nicknamed "First Dude", with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.

OK, much clearer now."

The Beer Advertisement Strategy

You know, on the one hand I have to say that every time McCain's camp allows Sarah Palin to speak (by all reports, she's usually kept physically separated from press and the interactions you see are pre-screened and scripted) she proves what an unqualified, incapable leader she would make and I'm thankful that they allow her opportunities to show her lack of potential to the voting public. But on the other hand, I have to ask you this:

When was the last time you saw John McCain being paid any real attention?

Seems that no one is interested in him nearly as much now that he has a press decoy.

Wednesday quote...

"You can put lipstick on a pig ... it's still a pig. You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change. It's still going to stink after eight years."

-Barack Obama

...pants on fire.

Ah the Republicans...
Different team,
same game plan.
You can say anything you want
loud enough and long enough
and people will eventually believe it is true.
What did your parents do to you when you lied?
Did they put you in charge of things?
Or did they wash your mouth out with soap and beat your butt?


www.factcheck.org

Just making stuff up as they go...

By SARA KUGLER, Associated Press Writer
(edited for length. Full text can be found here.)

LEE'S SUMMIT, Mo. - John McCain and Sarah Palin criticized Democrat Barack Obama over the amount of money he has requested for his home state of Illinois, even though Alaska under Palin's leadership has asked Washington for 10 times more money per citizen for pet projects.

[...]

Obama hasn't asked for any earmarks this year. Last year, he asked for $311 million worth, about $25 for every Illinois resident. Alaska asked this year for earmarks totaling $198 million, about $295 for every Alaska citizen.

[...]

While speaking to voters in Indiana over the weekend, Obama ridiculed the idea of McCain and Palin presenting themselves as reformers, and suggested Palin was distorting her own record on earmarks.

"I know the governor of Alaska has been saying she's change, and that's great," Obama said Saturday. "She's a skillful politician. But, you know, when you've been taking all these earmarks when it's convenient, and then suddenly you're the champion anti-earmark person, that's not change. Come on! I mean, words mean something, you can't just make stuff up."

Sunday coffee...

Hi all,
It's a beautful morning here in Vancouver... not a cloud in the sky. The winter rains haven't started yet so we get some really nice days still. Katy and I got up this morning and went to breakfast before she had to go to work for the day. She took on a part time job working retail on the weekends but school has proven too demanding so this is her last day working (yay!). It will be really nice to have her around on the weekends. We see each other every night... but we're so busy we don't really get to spend quality time together. I'll be glad to have her home again on the weekends. Being apart and having seperate lives actually makes us like each other more. Who'd have thunk it?Not alot happened this week... short work week was really welcome. My work environment continues to prove itself an invaluable stress reliever. We continue to slowly settle our way into the new apartment... though there's only so much we can do until we get furniture. I'm really tired of sitting on blankets on the floor... but I am grateful that we at least have blankets to put down. One of these days we'll be able to tell the "when we started we had milk crates for a dresser and blankets for a couch" story. Guess I should consider this time invested in a future story. I think today I'm going to do some design work I brought home with me and probably some cleaning here and there.. Nothing terribly exciting. It's nice to have aimless weekends. In fact, I'm going to continue my aimless Sunday by petting this purring kitty begging at my feet. Hope you all enjoy your week.

In reply...

"It is very evident in the comments you write sometimes that you also speak like you know all about both sides 100%. I don't think that is the case. Be careful of the words you choose unless you know everything, (and I don't think you do) ."

If we were to remain silent until we knew everything about both sides 100%, we would never speak.

On the hottie mom and the pregnant daughter...

It makes me ashamed that politics in our country are being handled like a beer commercial on the one hand and like a tabloid on the other.

McCain's camp needed something to lure average voters to their side because John McCain comes across as an old curmudgeon segregated from the real world by money and politics. So what did they do? They went out and recruited an attractive woman who is a mother, an outdoors woman, and unheard of politically. Need to distract the American voting public because the other side is gaining too much celebrity status? Bring in a beautiful woman. It sells beer to the public, why wouldn't it sell a candidate? Is she qualified to lead a country? Hardly. Does that matter? Hardly.

Obama's camp took the natural course and began investigating this beautiful unqualified woman. What did they come up with? Ok, the solid part they came up with is that she is currently under investigation for ethics violations. She plays the same dirty games she preaches against. Big surprise. They came up with several viable attacks on Palin as a VP. What is sick, though, is the pregnant daughter angle. She has a 17 year old pregnant daughter. And this is relevant because...? The Democrats are making an effort to play the game like Republicans because the Republicans always get away with and win big with their dirty tricks. This is just too much. Sarah Palin is wholly unqualified to lead a country but the fact that her daughter is pregnant has nothing to do with that. Whose do you know that has a say over what their 17 year old does, anyway?

So in the end, remember that it is McCain's camp and not McCain, himself, who chose Palin as a running mate. Likewise, it is Obama's camp, and not Obama, himself, who made issue of Palin's daughter. Don't let the shenanigans of a misguided political campaign lead you to believe that it is the candidates calling the shots. I think you might be surprised how rarely that is the case.

Let the record speak...

I was doing some research for a family member I found a website this morning called ontheissues.org. While I haven't gone through it with a fine-toothed comb , it does seem to be a fantastic resource for getting to know a candidate's position based on his own words. Take a look at Barack Obama's page and John McCain's page to get a good idea of what these men have been saying over the past year or so. Still looking for their actual voting records, but this seems more useful. Ok, time to design a gate.