Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Finally Good News from Wall Street
The FDIC reported today that for the first quarter of 2009, the banks made a profit of 7.6 Billion dollars. Not too shabby, eh? And that?s profit not income which gets the cost of salaries, rents, and the little chains for the pens taken out of it but profit which shareholders get to take home and roll around naked in. 7.6 Billion dollars of the stuff. Sounds like a lot of money, doesn?t it? Madonna doesn?t have 7.6 Billion dollars and she used to live in a castle! But when you put it into context, all of the sudden it doesn?t seem like all that much money.
For one thing, in 2008 the banks made 19.3 Billion dollars. So if you have a bad attitude about these things you could look at the meager 7.6 Billion dollar profits as a loss of 11.7 dollars. Can you imagine losing 11.7 Billion dollars? I lost two dollars this week because I left some spare change on my desk at work over the long weekend and I?ve been kicking myself ever since. If I had to multiply that loss by five billion or so, I don?t know what I?d do. But even that is candy coating things.
The American Tax Payer was kind enough to loan/give the banks 700 Billion dollars between that 19.3 Billion respectable first quarter of 20008 and the measly 7.6 Billion dollars of 2009?s first quarter. So if you add that in, the banks really made no profit at all and had a net loss of 692.4 Billion dollars. Fortunately, we?re all agreeing to forget about that 700 Billion dollars for now. Because if the FDIC came out and said, ?Good news! The banks have only lost 692.4 Billion Dollars this quarter.? It might hurt consumer confidence.
Good thing nobody?s putting things into perspective on the business pages.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Open Letter to Congresswoman Marcia Fudge
Dear Rep. Fudge,
I am disheartened to hear of congresses blocking of the $80 Million to close Guantanamo Bay's Prison.
It appears that the Democratic Party is cowering in fear from the roar of a mouse named GOP.
Why should democrats, or America as a whole, have to buy into the Republican's cowardice. I'm sorry that they are so terribly afraid to have detainees in domestic prisons but these are not times for fearful leaders. If our prisons can hold serial killers, drug-addicts, rapists, and arsonists, they surely can handle a handful of accused terrorists as well.
I think that it would help the Democratic party to shun Right Wing timidity and instead embrace the bold and brave spirit that has made this country great.
On the whole, you're doing a great job as a rep. Thank you very much
Caleb Bullen
I am disheartened to hear of congresses blocking of the $80 Million to close Guantanamo Bay's Prison.
It appears that the Democratic Party is cowering in fear from the roar of a mouse named GOP.
Why should democrats, or America as a whole, have to buy into the Republican's cowardice. I'm sorry that they are so terribly afraid to have detainees in domestic prisons but these are not times for fearful leaders. If our prisons can hold serial killers, drug-addicts, rapists, and arsonists, they surely can handle a handful of accused terrorists as well.
I think that it would help the Democratic party to shun Right Wing timidity and instead embrace the bold and brave spirit that has made this country great.
On the whole, you're doing a great job as a rep. Thank you very much
Caleb Bullen
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
thoughts on the torture controversy
I'm making an official prediction here. Let's see how it really pans out.
Very little will be done about torture until closer to the 2010 elections. That's not a weasel word, I don't mean closer like tomorrow would be closer than today, I mean when races heat up, Holder will move on this.
We won't find out much new about the investigation till the 2012 elections are coming up, again I mean once the GOP have drafted their candidate.
There might be some flak fired at underlings but mostly they will try to roll the investigation up to the top.
President Bush will claim he didn't realize all what was going on and the people at large will believe him. He will walk.
Cheney will get thrown under the bus as the torture scapegoat but will have yet another of his many cardiac incidents and will die of natural causes before he's brought to trial much less convicted.
Nobody important will do time. Nobody will feel things were set right from the whole thing. The best we can really hope for is that it will provide political fodder to force the GOP to run as the party of torture or as Christian Democrats for a couple elections.
Feel free to come back and heckle me if my cynicism proves incorrect.
Very little will be done about torture until closer to the 2010 elections. That's not a weasel word, I don't mean closer like tomorrow would be closer than today, I mean when races heat up, Holder will move on this.
We won't find out much new about the investigation till the 2012 elections are coming up, again I mean once the GOP have drafted their candidate.
There might be some flak fired at underlings but mostly they will try to roll the investigation up to the top.
President Bush will claim he didn't realize all what was going on and the people at large will believe him. He will walk.
Cheney will get thrown under the bus as the torture scapegoat but will have yet another of his many cardiac incidents and will die of natural causes before he's brought to trial much less convicted.
Nobody important will do time. Nobody will feel things were set right from the whole thing. The best we can really hope for is that it will provide political fodder to force the GOP to run as the party of torture or as Christian Democrats for a couple elections.
Feel free to come back and heckle me if my cynicism proves incorrect.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Christmas Special (recap)
Once again I’d like to thank the cast of our little Christmas Special
Ian Ralph as Razzap Snookums blakslee.com
Laurence Simon as Santa Claus isfullofcrap.com
Anima Zabaleta as the Cop zabbadabba.com
Arri Gaffer as the Guard
Justin Lowmaster as Sanjay the ‘elf’ thebeandom.com
Daphne Abernathy as the little girl daphneabernathy.com
Laeianna as the mom hodgepodgepoint.libsyn.com
And I’d like to reiterate the slightly hamfisted point I was trying to make throughout the program and that is that slavery is still alive and well in the world today. In fact according to the CIA over 50,000 slaves go through the country or are still here every year. Most of those are sex slaves but they also wind up as domestic slaves, in agriculture and the garment business. That’s just in the USA.
Worldwide there are about 27 Million slaves right now. That’s the highest number there’s ever been in the world. Fortunately, the percentage of people in slavery is the lowest it’s been in history.
I wish I could tell you a surefire way to combat this but there isn’t. Theoretically, you shouldn’t be able to buy anything in the states that was made by slaves but when you buy products made overseas that are super cheap, there’s always a chance. Wal-Mart officially does not deal with providers who use slave labor, for example, but has been caught more than once breaking its own rules on this.
There are a number of organizations who will take your money to support people who actively try to liberate enslaved people but I don’t have any statistics on the legitimacy of any particular group. If you do, please share. I do know that buying things that are locally grown and made or bear a Union or Fair Trade label on them are probably safe.
I’m not trying to ruin Christmas for you and I’m sorry I don’t have better answers for you but I do think the first step to ending slavery is to be aware that it is still going on and trying to shop accordingly. Hopefully, I was able to throw in enough jokes to make it palatable for you. And lastly don’t forget that instead of gifts, if it’s not too late, a donation to Oxfam probably does more good than getting the newest thingamabob or whatsit for the kids. Or at last including some level of charitable giving along with other gifts, is an excellent way to show compassion and teach the real meaning of the holiday season to young people. Personally, I’ve found those gifts to be much more memorable than the gift of stuff in a life full of stuff.
Merry Whatever
Ian Ralph as Razzap Snookums blakslee.com
Laurence Simon as Santa Claus isfullofcrap.com
Anima Zabaleta as the Cop zabbadabba.com
Arri Gaffer as the Guard
Justin Lowmaster as Sanjay the ‘elf’ thebeandom.com
Daphne Abernathy as the little girl daphneabernathy.com
Laeianna as the mom hodgepodgepoint.libsyn.com
And I’d like to reiterate the slightly hamfisted point I was trying to make throughout the program and that is that slavery is still alive and well in the world today. In fact according to the CIA over 50,000 slaves go through the country or are still here every year. Most of those are sex slaves but they also wind up as domestic slaves, in agriculture and the garment business. That’s just in the USA.
Worldwide there are about 27 Million slaves right now. That’s the highest number there’s ever been in the world. Fortunately, the percentage of people in slavery is the lowest it’s been in history.
I wish I could tell you a surefire way to combat this but there isn’t. Theoretically, you shouldn’t be able to buy anything in the states that was made by slaves but when you buy products made overseas that are super cheap, there’s always a chance. Wal-Mart officially does not deal with providers who use slave labor, for example, but has been caught more than once breaking its own rules on this.
There are a number of organizations who will take your money to support people who actively try to liberate enslaved people but I don’t have any statistics on the legitimacy of any particular group. If you do, please share. I do know that buying things that are locally grown and made or bear a Union or Fair Trade label on them are probably safe.
I’m not trying to ruin Christmas for you and I’m sorry I don’t have better answers for you but I do think the first step to ending slavery is to be aware that it is still going on and trying to shop accordingly. Hopefully, I was able to throw in enough jokes to make it palatable for you. And lastly don’t forget that instead of gifts, if it’s not too late, a donation to Oxfam probably does more good than getting the newest thingamabob or whatsit for the kids. Or at last including some level of charitable giving along with other gifts, is an excellent way to show compassion and teach the real meaning of the holiday season to young people. Personally, I’ve found those gifts to be much more memorable than the gift of stuff in a life full of stuff.
Merry Whatever
Friday, December 19, 2008
Focus, people!
I know it’s the holidays and everyone’s got their mind on Bailouts, Nazis, and Jennifer Aniston (like we do every year) but I think, “we” and when I say, “we”, I mean you really need to focus here.
Every other liberal/leftie/progressive has his or her non gender-specific under clothings in a bunch over President-Elect Obama’s decision to have Rick Warren do the invocation at the super-historic-superlative laden-inauguration to end all inaugurations on Jan, 20th because it turns out Rick Warren is not the guy from Yes, like I thought he was but he’s actually some mega-church Christian Conservative guy who is against abortion and marriage equality. They feel it’s a slap in the face adding insult to injury after California’s Prop 8 vote (and the similar votes in Arizona and Georgia) and I can see their point.
However, moving past the divisive past 8+ years of politics means that we all need to move out of our little insular comfort zones. This means sometimes talking to people we don’t actually agree with on everything. Maybe it even minds finding common ground with these people to meet common goals. Remember how McCain and Clinton before him attacked Obama because he said he would meet with people he didn’t agree with? Yeah, this is kind of like that. And honestly 1/3d to 2/5ths of the people Obama will be president of have similarly fuckwitted morals as this Warren guy. Don’t we want to give the fuckwits some representation too? I mean at least we took the presidency away from them.
Also, it’s an invocation; religious voodoo that really shouldn’t be involved in federal politics at all anyway. If you’re going to criticize anything how about criticizing the invisible man in the sky part of this? Having a deluded man do this part of the thing, doesn’t seem that crazy to me. Rick Warren isn’t getting a cabinet post, he’s not minister of homosexual persecution, he’s not opening up the internment camps, he’s there to say nice stuff to Jesus.
Now let’s compare this high media stakes ballyhoo about the inauguration to something the actual president has done. Bush has enacted a policy that allows medical professionals to become conscience objectors to any particular medical procedure they don’t feel like doing or supporting. That’s right supporting. The janitor or cashier can stop you from getting your valve replacement or your anti-biotics. The big fear in this is that it will essentially make it legal for medical care providers to ban abortions or birth control; especially where they are the only health care provider in a geographical region. But hey, it could actually be way worse than that. Why should they stop at reproductive health once they’ve banned that. They could use such a ruling to refuse to perform expensive procedures or ones that don’t have a high enough success-rate to be malpractice-proof. They could decide not to perform treatment for particular illnesses that affect certain ethnic groups more than others.
Admittedly, they’ll probably not get around to persecuting everyone and just persecute those who have sex and aren’t rich enough to go to the next hospital over or the next state over… etc but this is something that actually has real and immediate impact on people’s lives and is an infringement on American constitutional values.
You see the difference here? One issue involves not shunning someone because of what their religious beliefs; the other involves restricting medical care based on religious beliefs. One is inclusive the other exclusive. One is reaching out with an open hand, the other is reaching out with a fist. I know at first glance we sometimes can mistake the open hand with the fist but like I said before. We really need to focus, people.
Every other liberal/leftie/progressive has his or her non gender-specific under clothings in a bunch over President-Elect Obama’s decision to have Rick Warren do the invocation at the super-historic-superlative laden-inauguration to end all inaugurations on Jan, 20th because it turns out Rick Warren is not the guy from Yes, like I thought he was but he’s actually some mega-church Christian Conservative guy who is against abortion and marriage equality. They feel it’s a slap in the face adding insult to injury after California’s Prop 8 vote (and the similar votes in Arizona and Georgia) and I can see their point.
However, moving past the divisive past 8+ years of politics means that we all need to move out of our little insular comfort zones. This means sometimes talking to people we don’t actually agree with on everything. Maybe it even minds finding common ground with these people to meet common goals. Remember how McCain and Clinton before him attacked Obama because he said he would meet with people he didn’t agree with? Yeah, this is kind of like that. And honestly 1/3d to 2/5ths of the people Obama will be president of have similarly fuckwitted morals as this Warren guy. Don’t we want to give the fuckwits some representation too? I mean at least we took the presidency away from them.
Also, it’s an invocation; religious voodoo that really shouldn’t be involved in federal politics at all anyway. If you’re going to criticize anything how about criticizing the invisible man in the sky part of this? Having a deluded man do this part of the thing, doesn’t seem that crazy to me. Rick Warren isn’t getting a cabinet post, he’s not minister of homosexual persecution, he’s not opening up the internment camps, he’s there to say nice stuff to Jesus.
Now let’s compare this high media stakes ballyhoo about the inauguration to something the actual president has done. Bush has enacted a policy that allows medical professionals to become conscience objectors to any particular medical procedure they don’t feel like doing or supporting. That’s right supporting. The janitor or cashier can stop you from getting your valve replacement or your anti-biotics. The big fear in this is that it will essentially make it legal for medical care providers to ban abortions or birth control; especially where they are the only health care provider in a geographical region. But hey, it could actually be way worse than that. Why should they stop at reproductive health once they’ve banned that. They could use such a ruling to refuse to perform expensive procedures or ones that don’t have a high enough success-rate to be malpractice-proof. They could decide not to perform treatment for particular illnesses that affect certain ethnic groups more than others.
Admittedly, they’ll probably not get around to persecuting everyone and just persecute those who have sex and aren’t rich enough to go to the next hospital over or the next state over… etc but this is something that actually has real and immediate impact on people’s lives and is an infringement on American constitutional values.
You see the difference here? One issue involves not shunning someone because of what their religious beliefs; the other involves restricting medical care based on religious beliefs. One is inclusive the other exclusive. One is reaching out with an open hand, the other is reaching out with a fist. I know at first glance we sometimes can mistake the open hand with the fist but like I said before. We really need to focus, people.
Focus!
I know it’s the holidays and everyone’s got their mind on Bailouts, Nazis, and Jennifer Aniston (like we do every year) but I think, “we” and when I say, “we”, I mean you really need to focus here.
Every other liberal/leftie/progressive has his or her non gender-specific under clothings in a bunch over President-Elect Obama’s decision to have Rick Warren do the invocation at the super-historic-superlative laden-inauguration to end all inaugurations on Jan, 20th because it turns out Rick Warren is not the guy from Yes, like I thought he was but he’s actually some mega-church Christian Conservative guy who is against abortion and marriage equality. They feel it’s a slap in the face adding insult to injury after California’s Prop 8 vote (and the similar votes in Arizona and Georgia) and I can see their point.
However, moving past the divisive past 8+ years of politics means that we all need to move out of our little insular comfort zones. This means sometimes talking to people we don’t actually agree with on everything. Maybe it even minds finding common ground with these people to meet common goals. Remember how McCain and Clinton before him attacked Obama because he said he would meet with people he didn’t agree with? Yeah, this is kind of like that. And honestly 1/3d to 2/5ths of the people Obama will be president of have similarly fuckwitted morals as this Warren guy. Don’t we want to give the fuckwits some representation too? I mean at least we took the presidency away from them.
Also, it’s an invocation; religious voodoo that really shouldn’t be involved in federal politics at all anyway. If you’re going to criticize anything how about criticizing the invisible man in the sky part of this? Having a deluded man do this part of the thing, doesn’t seem that crazy to me. Rick Warren isn’t getting a cabinet post, he’s not minister of homosexual persecution, he’s not opening up the internment camps, he’s there to say nice stuff to Jesus.
Now let’s compare this high media stakes ballyhoo about the inauguration to something the actual president has done. Bush has enacted a policy that allows medical professionals to become conscience objectors to any particular medical procedure they don’t feel like doing or supporting. That’s right supporting. The janitor or cashier can stop you from getting your valve replacement or your anti-biotics. The big fear in this is that it will essentially make it legal for medical care providers to ban abortions or birth control; especially where they are the only health care provider in a geographical region. But hey, it could actually be way worse than that. Why should they stop at reproductive health once they’ve banned that. They could use such a ruling to refuse to perform expensive procedures or ones that don’t have a high enough success-rate to be malpractice-proof. They could decide not to perform treatment for particular illnesses that affect certain ethnic groups more than others.
Admittedly, they’ll probably not get around to persecuting everyone and just persecute those who have sex and aren’t rich enough to go to the next hospital over or the next state over… etc but this is something that actually has real and immediate impact on people’s lives and is an infringement on American constitutional values.
You see the difference here? One issue involves not shunning someone because of what their religious beliefs; the other involves restricting medical care based on religious beliefs. One is inclusive the other exclusive. One is reaching out with an open hand, the other is reaching out with a fist. I know at first glance we sometimes can mistake the open hand with the fist but like I said before. We really need to focus, people.
Every other liberal/leftie/progressive has his or her non gender-specific under clothings in a bunch over President-Elect Obama’s decision to have Rick Warren do the invocation at the super-historic-superlative laden-inauguration to end all inaugurations on Jan, 20th because it turns out Rick Warren is not the guy from Yes, like I thought he was but he’s actually some mega-church Christian Conservative guy who is against abortion and marriage equality. They feel it’s a slap in the face adding insult to injury after California’s Prop 8 vote (and the similar votes in Arizona and Georgia) and I can see their point.
However, moving past the divisive past 8+ years of politics means that we all need to move out of our little insular comfort zones. This means sometimes talking to people we don’t actually agree with on everything. Maybe it even minds finding common ground with these people to meet common goals. Remember how McCain and Clinton before him attacked Obama because he said he would meet with people he didn’t agree with? Yeah, this is kind of like that. And honestly 1/3d to 2/5ths of the people Obama will be president of have similarly fuckwitted morals as this Warren guy. Don’t we want to give the fuckwits some representation too? I mean at least we took the presidency away from them.
Also, it’s an invocation; religious voodoo that really shouldn’t be involved in federal politics at all anyway. If you’re going to criticize anything how about criticizing the invisible man in the sky part of this? Having a deluded man do this part of the thing, doesn’t seem that crazy to me. Rick Warren isn’t getting a cabinet post, he’s not minister of homosexual persecution, he’s not opening up the internment camps, he’s there to say nice stuff to Jesus.
Now let’s compare this high media stakes ballyhoo about the inauguration to something the actual president has done. Bush has enacted a policy that allows medical professionals to become conscience objectors to any particular medical procedure they don’t feel like doing or supporting. That’s right supporting. The janitor or cashier can stop you from getting your valve replacement or your anti-biotics. The big fear in this is that it will essentially make it legal for medical care providers to ban abortions or birth control; especially where they are the only health care provider in a geographical region. But hey, it could actually be way worse than that. Why should they stop at reproductive health once they’ve banned that. They could use such a ruling to refuse to perform expensive procedures or ones that don’t have a high enough success-rate to be malpractice-proof. They could decide not to perform treatment for particular illnesses that affect certain ethnic groups more than others.
Admittedly, they’ll probably not get around to persecuting everyone and just persecute those who have sex and aren’t rich enough to go to the next hospital over or the next state over… etc but this is something that actually has real and immediate impact on people’s lives and is an infringement on American constitutional values.
You see the difference here? One issue involves not shunning someone because of what their religious beliefs; the other involves restricting medical care based on religious beliefs. One is inclusive the other exclusive. One is reaching out with an open hand, the other is reaching out with a fist. I know at first glance we sometimes can mistake the open hand with the fist but like I said before. We really need to focus, people.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Ho Ho No
I'm not known for being a big fan of the holidays. I encourage people to not give gifts for the holidays but instead give to charity. When someone tells me to have a Merry Christmas I bark back with, “Happy Hannukah” in a tone that probably qualifies as assault. So I will admit that there is a chance that I might be missing the obvious Christmas tie in that others see in it but I absolutely cannot understand why they are releasing the new Tom Cruise movie, Valkyrie, on Christmas day.
Valkyrie is a movie about a failed attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler; which doesn't seem like a traditional subject for holiday fare to me. Although if this is the new thing that's going to take off, let me recommend it on a double feature with Downfall, the movie about the last few days in the bunker for next year. Or if you want to make fun of this strange new tradition, you might want to throw on a saved copy of The Diary of Ann Frankenstein.
The only way it makes any sense, to me, as a holiday movie is if they gave it a hollywood ending and let Tom Cruise win. I could see going to see a movie where Hitler is thwarted on Christmas day and I'm sure there might be a few other Jews who might feel the same.
However, the actual plot to kill Hitler failed. So it's not just a movie about Nazis on Christmas day but it's also a movie about somebody not actually doing something. I wonder what they'll do next if this is a hit; a movie about the Dickstein Brothers, Gene and Alice (don't ask) who almost invented the aeroplane and would have if the Wright Brothers hadn't done it first. Maybe they'll make a movie about all the people who haven't discovered a cure for cancer, that would be riveting, I'm sure.
The thing I really don't understand about this movie and it coming out on Christmas is what kind of a message does it send? If they tell a story anything like the real story it will be about a clever plot to kill Hitler that isn't so much as thwarted as it is avoided by dumb luck. Could there be a more atheistic message? They come up with a plan to kill one of the most evil men ever to live, they execute it as planned, and then Hitler accidentally isn't there when the bomb goes off. If there is a God, it would be a God that actually protected Hitler. Again, I really hope this doesn't become a new holiday tradition. Christmas is bad enough as it is, that would be even worse.
Valkyrie is a movie about a failed attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler; which doesn't seem like a traditional subject for holiday fare to me. Although if this is the new thing that's going to take off, let me recommend it on a double feature with Downfall, the movie about the last few days in the bunker for next year. Or if you want to make fun of this strange new tradition, you might want to throw on a saved copy of The Diary of Ann Frankenstein.
The only way it makes any sense, to me, as a holiday movie is if they gave it a hollywood ending and let Tom Cruise win. I could see going to see a movie where Hitler is thwarted on Christmas day and I'm sure there might be a few other Jews who might feel the same.
However, the actual plot to kill Hitler failed. So it's not just a movie about Nazis on Christmas day but it's also a movie about somebody not actually doing something. I wonder what they'll do next if this is a hit; a movie about the Dickstein Brothers, Gene and Alice (don't ask) who almost invented the aeroplane and would have if the Wright Brothers hadn't done it first. Maybe they'll make a movie about all the people who haven't discovered a cure for cancer, that would be riveting, I'm sure.
The thing I really don't understand about this movie and it coming out on Christmas is what kind of a message does it send? If they tell a story anything like the real story it will be about a clever plot to kill Hitler that isn't so much as thwarted as it is avoided by dumb luck. Could there be a more atheistic message? They come up with a plan to kill one of the most evil men ever to live, they execute it as planned, and then Hitler accidentally isn't there when the bomb goes off. If there is a God, it would be a God that actually protected Hitler. Again, I really hope this doesn't become a new holiday tradition. Christmas is bad enough as it is, that would be even worse.
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