Flinging Poo

The bailout may help some of these firms, but the alternative is far more unpalatable. Without the bailout, a tightening of credit will kill all these nice little loans you need to buy cars and houses and hospital bills and that nice big tv you've had your eye on. Sure, we can be angry at the Wall Street entities that put us here, or at the McCain and his cronies in 2000 that passed the financial services deregulation bill that put us in this mess, but being angry at how we got here won't fix the problem. The problem this bailout attempts to fix is the derestriction of the purse strings of financial institutions strapped for cash. When liquid assets are particularly low (as they are now), nobody wants to lend. If you don't lend, the economy constricts, and slows down. When it does so at the rate it is now, people start losing jobs and when you lose jobs you lose everything else. When enough people lose jobs, there's a net drain on the economy and you're hoping enoug...

Thomas Jefferson wrote those words on the Declaration of Independence. He wished an end to tyrannical monarchical rule. He favored small government by the people and for the people. He found the first political party; the Republican Party. The original ideals of the Republican Party were certainly laudable. Smaller government involvement meant less interference and more freedom to be innovative and discover accelerators to profit. For much of America's history it was okay embrace it's ideals blindly. However, somewhere along the line the Republican Party lost its way. Somewhere along the line it stopped being a party for the people and started being a party of selfishness. Part of that is not it's own fault. Our society has changed. Since 1776 our nation has become a powerhouse, partially due to isolation and our ability to pick and choose our fights, partially because the elements of pecuniary progress have allowed it to happen, and partially because of the luck we had tha...

It is a common adage that people tend to fall into patterns they're familiar with. When I was young, I evolved into a profoundly insecure boy who felt inadequate in most everything. It is to easy to say this was my parents fault. Certainly, some of it no doubt originated from seeing what my father did to my mother physically and I'm sure some of those scars colored how I saw the world, but at some point you have to move beyond that and be accountable only for yourself. I never used it as an excuse; it was just how it was. My sense of inadequacy came from something I felt I lacked and I can only blame myself. As I got older and started to be attracted to girls, my profound and pronounced desire for them as objects of deification and worship was matched with the sense of inadequacy I felt so that my admirations by necessity had to remain at a distance. I suppose in other times it would be easy to view this as a romantic notion, like the whole unrequited love and chivalric code an...

So, I'm listening to some classical music and a break comes on and the dj is speaking in German and for some reason it takes me back. I suppose this is part of personalizing the music. Anyway, it starts me to thinking about how common perception of Germans is of a rough people and I start thinking about classical music and the top composers and it's quickly evident that they make up the bulk of the best in classical composition. So, here I am, putting down some Composers and where they're from, and it'll quickly become evident that some of the loftiest names and the greatest number were German. Italy - Vivaldi, Rossini, Verdi Hungary - Liszt France - Debussy, Bizet Poland - Chopin Czech - Dvorak Russian - Tchaikovsky Norway - Grieg Austria - Mozart, Haydn Germany - Beethoven, Bach, Wagner, Strauss, Mendelssohn, Brahms. You could put a few others up there like (Rimsky-Korsakov, Russian?), but I thought I'd stick with who are widely recognized as the best and at some ...

There are 4 major crops in the world today. Two are from the 'Old World' (rice and wheat). Two are from the 'New World' (maize/corn and potatoes). Before about 1500 nobody in Europe or Asia or Africa knew anything about corn or potatoes. They also didn't know anything about chocolate or tobacco either. And, they didn't know anything about tomatoes. These all came from the 'New World'. What would Italian food be like before they embraced tomato-based sauces? They were cheese-based before they got tomatoes from the America's. So, what we think about as so typically Italian, is a more recent concoction. Think about the Potatoes in Ireland. They got them from the America's. How about the other way around? Think of all the thousands of miles of wheat grown in the midwest and west. These came from Europe. What else did Europe contribute? How about disease? When Christopher Columbus arrived in the Bahamas and discovered America, there were at least 35 m...

I purchased a recumbent bike (arrived and set up on May 8 th ). I've used it almost every day. A month ago my weight was 196.6. I decided enough was enough and started being smarter about my eating habits and to purchase exercise equipment. Below is a breakdown of my workouts so far. My goal is to cut my weight by dint of massing caloric effort. I'm finding I can't go much faster than 20mph (usually riding at 18.5 mph). So, my workouts should involve a combination of raising the resistance and/or increasing the time. Overall goal: Weight at 160-162 lbs. I'm medium-framed and have good-sized shoulders and arms, so don't want to lose them. BMI : 5-8, belt size: 32. I should have a belt size of about 33 when I hit around 170-172. -About April 8: Wt.: 196.6 belt size: 36 -About May 8: Wt.: 190.0 -About June 8: Wt.: 182.2 belt size: 34 - About July 8: Wt.: 174 ? belt size: 33 May-- -30 min. - 7.50 miles - 353.5 Calories (May 8 - First Day of Biking.) -30 min. - 7.28 m...

As if the vile machinationistic intentions of a certain right-wing party weren't enough to sink this country to the pit of despair, one of it's most conservative and staunchest groups is being spat in the face. As we know, those serving in Iraq were given extended duty and additional deployments. As we know, the government has failed to safeguard them by refusing home assistance in the form of extra armour and as we know they've dragged their feet on supplying armoured HumVee's. The VA hospitals are widely acknowledged outside Red circles as being woefully inadequate. All this we know. And, as a further sign of what should have already been painfully obvious to people but somehow isn't (that is, that the Republicans take advantage of the military and don't care for their needs while relying on their support for elections), we get word that a lawsuit from a group of veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are suing the government for inadequate mental care. ...