dang B

It been pretty busy lately. And will continue to be for the next 3 weeks or so. But this was enough to get me back on the blogger for a minute.

Wow. It easy to say now, but I did think this story smelled funny the first day it was out before she fessed up to making the whole things up. But I was scared, because that kind of event could have been an election changer, which is of course what she thought and why she did it. It is interesting to think about how this kind of false accusation is not new to racism in this country, and it is encouraging how quickly it was sniffed out in this era.

I've got the ballot all filled out except for the President. Merkeley and yes on 60 and 63 I feel are the most important/interesting. I'll probably vote for Baldwin with the rest of the religious fundamentalists, I don't really feel good about it but I'm not going to write in this time or vote for a major party. Ron Paul endorsed him over Barr, and that's enough. Mostly I want to participate in the election without helping perpetuate the fraud that is the two party system. That will make the party line tally on offices with more than one candidate running look like this: Constitution -2, Democrat -2, Republican -1, "Working Families" -1. 3rd parties yes, incumbents no, incumbents who voted for the bailout HELL NO.

If I felt like Obama vs McCain was anywhere near as close in Oregon as Merkeley vs Smith, I would probably have to vote for BO. I'm only voting for the Merk to throw Smith out. The only thing that is left about Obama that is encouraging to me is his race, I do think that it will be a great thing for our country to have a black president. Unfortunately it's going to be pretty tough around here for at least the next four years, and I don't envy the tough decisions the next president will have to make. I hope that BO does not get turned on when all his talk of hope and change is overwhelmed by the looming recession, but it seems pretty likely.

I watched a pretty good movie when I went up to see my sister last weekend. Why We Fight, and it is on Youtube. It concerns the "military industrial complex" and the hidden costs of having a standing army. I absolutely agree. I had not seen the footage of Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam before, I would recommend it for that scene and one that is reminiscent of bad praise music on the hair channel, only it appears to be sung by officers. Just fantastic.

I concluded for the first time that we really should have impeached Bush for lying about WMD's and the Iraq war. But we didn't impeach Clinton for lying (trivial matter maybe, but he was under oath) so we couldn't well impeach Bush. (important matter, but only delivered in press conferences.)

All of that to say, I'm not very optimistic about the future of this country. I really don't want to live anywhere else, so I hope we can suck it up and push through without ridiculously high taxes or mass rioting. But again, not very optimistic.

But hey, the Blazers will at least be fun to watch in the meantime. If you havent been, try Blazersedge.com. Its a good pick me up.

... sigh

and in the beginning of the end, they passed it anyway.

Darryl emailed me this, and I think its about all I have in me to post tonight.



This article goes into some of the 'hidden gems' of the bailout: http://tinyurl.com/4xsona

'The Bill' can be found here: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h1424_eas.xml

To give some flavor I will provide a quote:

"Section 115 of the law says that the administration can, after notifying Congress and waiting 15 days, purchase and hold $700 billion of assets "at any one time." (It can buy and hold $350 billion without waiting.)

This, too, is a potential loophole. It permits the Treasury Department to buy up, say, $700 billion in 2008, sell those assets off gradually over the next year at a (probable) loss, and repeat the same process in 2009. Losses to taxpayers, in other words, could exceed $700 billion. Although the Treasury Department is instructed to try to avoid losses, the text of the law does not forbid that scenario."

We cannot sit idly, when it is time to stand.

I urge you to vote against incumbency in November.