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These People Are Deranged Idiots

Check out this video from a McCain rally on Thursday. These people are beyond delusional and are simply idiots. It makes my Bush Hatred look tame in comparison.

ITEOTWAWKIAIFF

Each day, you sort of think that it can't get any worse and then it does. Today brings more evidence that the global economy hasn't reached bottom. If there was any doubt that the party was over, it's gone now.

DOW TANKS- Wall Stree takes a beating as the Dow falls nearly 700 points and the Standards and Poor 500 is off 40% from it's peak last year.

US TREASURY WARNS OF MORE BANK FAILURES- And this surprises who?

ICELAND COLLAPSES- Iceland seized control of the last bank and stopped trading in a last ditch effort to keep the country from ceasing to exist. To give you an idea of how bad it is there, the banking system has $61 billion in liabilities or $200,000 per resident. Sounds nice, doesn't it?

JAPAN AND HONG KONG TANK- Asian stocks are opening to huge, huge losses.

PAKISTAN FACES BANKRUPTCY- If only they didn't have a rather large arsenal of nuclear bombs.

The list could go on and on forever but I think you get the picture. If there is any kind of silver lining, it's that the price of a barrel of oil continues to fall. As the global economy continues to contract, demand for oil will collapse and prices will continue to fall, thus delaying, ever so slightly, the real impacts of peak oil.

Undecided Voters?

As I sit here on my sofa watching the latest Presidential debate, I got to wondering about the undecided voters assembled there tonight. I guess the thing I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around the fact that some voters still don't know who they are voting for. If at this late point in the campaign, you can't make up your mind, well, you don't have any business voting. We could not have two more different candidates, each offering a very distinct platform for the next four years, and somehow it's still not enough to go on? I just don't get it and it pisses me off.

Losing My Religion

For most of my life, I avoided church like the plague. Very few things about religion ever made sense to me and throughout life, I've always questioned the existence of a Supreme Being. So much of what is wrong with the world is the result of religion, or more specifically, relgious nuts. Violence against women, wars, slavery and bigotry have all been justified by a Bible, Koran or other religious text. So imagine my surprise when I began attending church four or five years ago. I'm not sure what it was that brought me to those doors but for a long time, I really did enjoy it. The church I found was a lovely place that welcomed all and preached not about hate and hurt and bigotry but about love and peace and acceptance.

During those years, I officially got baptized, became a Deacon and for all intents and purposes was an integral part of the church. I enjoyed going, the people were and are wonderful and it just seemed very comfortable. But this year, something happened and as suddenly as I started going to church, I stopped. The last time I walked through those doors was early May and though I've thought about going back from time to time, the truth is, I just don't want to. I suppose part of it has to do with the fact that I was becoming increasingly bored with services. Each Sunday seemed to be the same and it got to the point where I just dreaded going the next. At the same time, I began to critically think about religion again and what I found troubled me. In short, I sort of quit believing.

Last night, I told myself that I was going to go back and see if maybe things had changed. I did set my alarm, laid out some clothes and felt convinced that this would be the Sunday that I returned. Alas, it didn''t happen. I did get up. I did think about it. In the end, I felt like a better use of my time would be to go back to bed and that is what I did. Oddly, I don't feel bad about that. I'm beginning to think that church and me just don't go together, sort of like oil and water. I do miss the people there, I really do, but so far, there just hasn't been anything to make me go back. Strange.

UPDATE: I guess I should have mentioned that a big part of my never going to church has to do with a lot of lingering anger over the gender I was born. As a small kid, I used to pray every night that I would wake up a girl and when that never happened, I found myself feeling nothing but anger. Of course that's not a logical thing to do but being a kid, things aren't always so logical.

Congratulations, You Now Own Big Shitpile

Congrats to everyone as we all now own a piece of Big Shitpile. In predictable fashion, the Dems caved to Mr. 27% and gave him everything that he wanted. $800 billion disappeared today, all for no reason at all. Of course it's all most likely nothing but fake money, the government being broke and all. The truth is, this bailout plan will be about as successful as the Iraq war has gone. A week from now, the markets will still be in the toilet, the credit market will still be frozen, the same banks will be on the verge of going under, more people will have lost their jobs and America will have sunk lower and lower. Of course, we won't be alone. Europe is on the verge of going under as well, Ireland, Iceland, Greece and Portugal being the first to go with Italy and Spain not far behind. The Brits are panicked, Germany now appears to have bought into Big Shitpile and eventually the Chinese are going to want to be paid back.

As bad as things are, they will probably get much worse. The dow at 10,000 is just arond the corner and we should drop below that in the next week or two. The Christmas shopping season is sure to be horrendous as most Americans struggle to just pay the bills they have now. Home prices will continue to free fall and more and more Americans will find themselves owing more than their homes are worth. Any homes on the market will just sit there as banks refuse to make loans. The same goes for Detroit as banks aren't about to lend money (i.e. car loans for buyers) to anyone but the most credit worthy. I still stand by my prediction that next year will see either General Motors or Ford fail and be bought out by Honda, Nissan or Toyota. The airlines continue to flirt with insolvency as high oil prices make profitablity impossible. The days of air travel are almost over.



Lest you think it's all bad news, well, it is. With Peak Oil upon us, we simply will not have enough energy to ever repay all of this debt. Our economy will continue to falter, falling more and more each year as the world comes to grips with a low energy world where growth is no longer possible. The governments of the world will do whatever it takes to some how prop up business as usual but much like this current crisis, they will fail. Oh, all the stops will be pulled out, the powers that be will try everything to keep things going but the truth is, it just won't happen. Hell, we'll be lucky to keep the lights on, much less make an economic recovery. As always, will the last person left turn out the lights, it's been one hell of a party.

First Taste of Fall

For the first time since April, I was able to turn my air conditioner off (save for the five days without power). A pretty strong cold front brought high temperatures in the low 60's with mid 40's forecast for tonight. Fall always seems to have a hard time taking hold around here and this year has been no different. After a couple of cool days, temps are expected back in the 80's this weekend with lows in the 60's. We've still got a month or so of warm weather, especially during the day and no doubt the air conditioner will be back on in a few days. Yes, summer isn't quite over yet but for a day or two, it feels a bit like fall around here.

Today Was A Good Day

I've long been on the record that things are going to hell in a handbasket. I've also been screaming that the proposed bailout plan, the one that went down to defeat today, for Wall Street was a complete croc. What i haven't been able to do is express the right way, why this bailout of Big Shitpile, was a bad idea. So, I'm going to let Kos tell you as he does it much better than I ever could:

1. I'm glad this thing failed. The right and left may have had different reasons for voting this bill down, but fact is, the "consensus center" rushed into this bill with little transparency or public input deserved to die. Was this the right bill? Maybe, maybe not. but we certainly didn't have a fair debate on it. Some of you may be quick to trust your representatives in DC. I'm not willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

2. On the merits, the bill fell short. The CEO compensation provision was a joke, the oversight provisions were a joke, Congress had no ability to block additional disbursement of the money without an affirmative vote (subject to filibusters), and not a dime was directed at average Americans. It was a reverse Robin Hood -- the largest transfer of wealth in our nation's history from the working class to the upper class. And transferring that wealth to healthy financial institutions and foreign ones was morally repugnant.

3. But there is a finance problem. Just because this solution sucked, doesn't mean that nothing should be done.
So now, with a little more time, perhaps we can have an honest appraisal of the alternatives. I've seen several options floated. I can't find and link to them since I have to soon rush back into the jury pool waiting room, and they don't have wi-fi in there (though they will soon! they promise unhelpfully), but I've linked to some in the past, and others have as well. Now we'll hopefully get a chance to look more closely at those alternatives.

4. And with those alternatives, hopefully we have options that offer solutions to the problem, but don't destroy an Obama's administration to invest in progressive priorities like health care, education, and alternate fuels. Hopefully we have a solution that places the burden of the bailout on those who most benefited from it. Hopefully we have a solution that provides tangible benefits to those most harmed by this crisis, not those who have benefited. And sure, the wingers may not like it (since what they seem to want is more regulation, which is what got us here in the first place!), but we have the majorities. And if the crisis is as bad as Bush claims, let him try to veto a more equitable solution to the crisis.

5. The polling is clear -- the American people, me included, aren't pretending there isn't a finance crisis. But they want a solution that doesn't reward the "evildoers". This one did. Next time, let's put the burden of the bailout on those who deserve to bear it, not on those of us who were never invited to that party to begin with.

Time reports that calls to Congressional offices were 100 to 1 against the bailout deal.

More of the Palin Interview With Curic

A Better Use For $1 Trillion

I have to admit, I'm a bit surprised that the Democrats haven't caved yet and given Bush everything that he wants plus some. I suppose there are a lot of people like me that are totally pissed about this Corporate Giveaway and also like me, they've flooded their Washington representatives with pleas not to support this Big Shitpile Auction. As I've said over and over these past few days, this is just the worst possible thing that Washington could ever do. If they seem so hellbent on spending our money, why not spend it on something that will actually do some good while simultaneously preparing us for a future without oil.

If we were to take that $1 trillion or so and invest it in the following, it would not just help us transition from a petroleum based economy to a low energy economy, provide badly needed jobs, promote economic spending and possibly save some part of our way of life:

1. Fully develop a high speed, electrical passenger rail system that takes the place of current short air trips, those less than 500 miles. In addition, we need to move most of our shipping business away from trucks and onto rails. Moving cargo by rail is the cheapest method available and will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

2. Fully fund mass transit projects in cities across the country. This should include subway expansions, light rail, commuter rail, trolley lines, streetcars and buses.

3. Nuclear power build up. If we want to have any hope of keeping the lights on, nuclear power will have to be the fuel that transitions us from oil, coal and natural gas.

4. Massive expansion of wind, solar and tidal power sources.

Now clearly, fully funding this will take much more than $1 trillion, but this is an investment in our future, one that will give us a chance to possibly weather the coming storm from Peak Energy and especially Peak Oil.

Finally, if we really want to solve a lot of problems, we need to have a serious discussion about population control. The fact is, there are way too many of us, about 5 billion too many. We are killing every other species on this planet and if we don't stop breeding like rabbits, we're all going to go extinct. Stop having babies people.