September 2008 Archives

I've been keeping quiet about the whole financial melt-down and trillion dollar bailout thing. I just wanted to wait until I felt I had a decent amount of information before spouting off and saying something stupid.

Now the time has come. I will say something marginally informed, yet still stupid.

I don't believe these failing corporations should be bailed out at all. It's not the duty of each and every American taxpayer to reach into his or her back pocket and shell out several thousand dollars to save a business just because that business happens to be huge. Taxpayers should not have to pay for the collective stupidity of a few hundred (or maybe even thousand) greedy idiots who made bad decisions while trying to turn their billions of dollars worth of assets into even more billions of dollars worth of assets.

By "bailing out" corporations that made bad business decisions, the government provides positive re-enforcement for making bad business decisions! That is, the government will only be encouraging risky corporate behavior and general irresponsibility. Why should any company make anything other than high risk decisions, knowing full well that in the event of failure the government will reward them with billions of dollars?

Here is my counter proposal:

Let these companies fail. And fail completely. Liquidate their assets and pay off their creditors as best as possible. Let every single employee from the mightiest CEO to the poor schmuck who cleans the toilets find themselves out of work.

There is already several mechanisms in place to protect those who could be harmed. The aforementioned employees, for example, can file for unemployment compensation. That is what unemployment compensation is for! In this scenario the CEOs who made the bad decisions will be more adversely affected than the honest workers down the chain. ("Oh, you were a bank teller until your company failed ... " will not look bad on a resume. "Oh, you drove one of the five largest corporations in America into the ground ..." on the other hand, will. Or at least should.)

If there is going to be any kind of bail out, it should be for people, not for companies. The government can go ahead and create a fund that individuals (human beings, not corporate entities) who feel that they've been harmed by this financial disaster can apply for aid. Let the government do what it can to help taxpayers keep their homes, and not lose their savings. Their needs to be a review process in place so that no one is taking advantage of government hand outs. And then cap any such assistance at a reasonable amount -- say $250,000 per person. A quarter of a million dollars should be enough assistance to get anyone through rough times until they can get back on their feet again.

In short I think the government shouldn't be helping businesses, but should be helping individual people. Let the corporations fail. Help the people affected get their lives back together.

How can this woman be a candidate for ... anything? Seriously.

Watch CBS Videos Online

What I find most frightening is that some people are actually enthusiastic about this woman. There are religious wackos praying that McCain will not only win the election, but DIE SHORTLY AFTERWARD so that Palin will be President.

I suppose I'll just stick to I've been saying since the last election: America get's what it deserves by electing these boobs.

I recently received a mysterious DVD in the mail called Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West. I have yet to actually view the DVD (and might not ever), but I found it's arrival rather suspect. Just exactly who would spend all the money it would take to send thousands (possibly millions) of DVDs around the country? And why do they want me to hate (or fear) Islam? And why did they send it now? (Does it have anything to do with the election?)

The DVD comes from a self proclaimed non-profit organization called the Clarion Fund. (Link goes to wikipedia). According to wikipedia:

According to the Clarion Fund's website, "Clarion Fund, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) organization. We are independent and do not accept funding from the U.S. Government, political institutions, or foreign organizations."[6] The Tampa Tribune, however, reports that "Clarion has yet to file a 990 tax return with the Internal Revenue Service, which is required of all tax-exempt entities.[4] Also, The Palm Beach Post points out that the Fund "is not listed with Charity Navigator, which rates nonprofits based on efficient use of donors' money" and that Clarion has provided "No names of directors. No sources of money. Just the mission statement" on its website.

No shit? This does sound mysterious.

According to this wikinews article:

The video was produced and distributed by Clarion Fund, a non-profit organization connected with Zionist and pro-Israeli organizations. The DVDs were delivered with leading newspapers mostly in swing states such as Ohio, Florida, and Michigan.

Note that Pennsylvania (the CD was sent to my PA address and forwarded) is a swing state.

Furthermore:

An investigation by IPS in 2007 revealed that Obsession's production was... closely tied to right-wing Zionists both in America and Israel. Rabbi Ephram Shore, brother of Clarion Fund's founder Raphael Shore, is the head of an Israeli group which was involved in the film. Various weblinks on the group's website focus on anti-Semitism and Israel.

The funds for the production of the movie were reported as having been borrowed, but there is no word on where the funds for the distribution came from. A spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Ibrahim Hooper, commented that he "can't imagine that you can produce, package, distribute and advertise this product for less than 50 million dollars".

I find this whole thing to be a little fishy. My Bullshit Detector is registering pretty high right now.

It's clear to me that Clarion Fund - whatever they are - is not to be trusted. Whoever they are, they cloak themselves in secrecy, which suggests that they are "up to something." They are also clearly pushing an agenda, probably a political agenda. They have some pretty strong accusations against which they need to defend themselves before they can earn any degree of trust.

Unfortunately, it's also clear that the writer of the wikinews article is biased as well. That article cannot be trusted as completely accurate either.

(I should confess that I know the identity of the author of the wikinews article from the atheist blogosphere; I know a priori that her writings lean dramatically to the left.)

At the moment I must conclude not to trust anyone.

That is probably good advice in a large number of situations. :-)

This morning when I started my car, the thermometer on the dashboard said it was 33 degrees out.

And today is the first day of autumn.

The temperature in the apartment is a chilly 58, so my wife and I decide it's time to turn the heater on. The dog almost immediately discovers this source of heat and camps out in front of it.

Gah! Winter is going to suck.

Summer was a paradise though.... absolute paradise.

(Winter is SO going to suck).

An article over on ScienceNow provides a somewhat more digestible version of a study which ...

suggests that people with radically different social attitudes also differ in certain automatic fear responses.

In particular ...

individuals with measurably lower physical sensitivities to sudden noises and threatening visual images were more likely to support foreign aid, liberal immigration policies, pacifism, and gun control, whereas individuals displaying measurably higher physiological reactions to those same stimuli were more likely to favor defense spending, capital punishment, patriotism, and the Iraq War.

To summarize, the politically conservatives tend to be more susceptible to fear; they are more easily startled.

Or, if you like, "change freaks them out", which in some sense is the definition of conservative. Perhaps this study shows us nothing new.

Razib over at Gene Expression has a wonderful analysis, including the necessary statement:

Does this mean that there are genes for conservatism and liberalism? NO!!! That's just plain retarded.

Although I do find the idea intriguing that conservatives may have their world view governed by their fears, I'm not wholly ready to embrace it as fact. A sample size of 46 is probably big enough to provide hints and clues, but still to small to say anything definitive.

It's very easy to poke a few holes in the study. For example, the sample seems to have come entirely from Nebraska. Do conservatives (and liberals) in Nebraska adequately reflect conservatives (receptively liberals) around the nation? A good scientist wouldn't be willing to make that extrapolation without some evidence. (A good scientist should be reluctant to answer with anything other than "I'm not sure" or "good question" or other non-answer when posed with such question - assuming no evidence exists to support any more definitive answer).

Aside from large scale testing, to see if such behavior correlates to liberals and conservatives around the country, I'd like to see this kind of study done on people with strong religious beliefs. For one, I suspect that different religions have different correlations (which I would like to see verified or disproved). It seems that certain religions thrive on the fears of their followers, while other might not do so.

Additionally, there is already a strong correlation between religious beliefs and political parties in this country. Perhaps we are seeing another portion of the same beast.

My new favorite blog is http://wordsplosion.com/. Just go check it out and have a laugh.

My ex-wife has e-mailed me to tell me that she's going to have to put down her dog.

While we were married, we had two black mixed-breed Labradors, which we got about one year after the other. The youngest absolutely adored the oldest. They grew up together, played together, and would snuggle up against each other on cold nights. They could spend hours playing tug-of-war with old socks, and fighting over tennis balls. They were best friends - pack mates.

And it really broke our hearts to separate them in the divorce, but deep down we knew that's what we had to do. Without a doubt the oldest was "my dog", and the youngest "her dog".

Both of them skirted terribly close to death at approximately the same time. Somehow, my dog is the lucky one who will hopefully live on for several more years.

Tomorrow, my ex-wife will have to put "her dog" down.

It is a very sad day.

So I've been called for Jury Duty ... in Pennsylvania ... where I haven't lived in 6 months.

I suppose I shouldn't be too critical of the local government there, since it's only been 6 months. It's not like I've been living in Vermont for 6 years.

The thing is, however, a few months ago I received notice that my PA voter registration was being canceled because I had moved. Imagine that! They only needed 90 days to take me off the voter registration books, but were somehow unable to figure out that I shouldn't be selected for jury duty.

The problem here is that the republican party actively tries to remove people from the voter registry. It's a very strange strategy, really. The republicans aggressively try to get people not to vote, especially in demographics that will likely vote against them. It's like they're admitting that they have a bad product that no one wants, so they remove their competitors customers to increase their own "market share".

Like I said, strange. One would think they would ... oh... change their platform to something more people would vote for.

In the mean time, I'm just not going to vote in Vermont - at least not this cycle. I can't really say anything intelligent about the local political scene, so I will just keep my mouth shut. On the national level, Vermont is not a battleground state by any stretch. My vote really wouldn't matter much.

For now I have 30 days to convince the folks back in Pennsylvania that I can't be called for Jury duty from 3 states away. The task shouldn't be hard, but who knows? Maybe I should serve just to argue that I deserve my voting rights back.

My dog is sleeping quietly on her new bed - spoiling her is a bit of a priority after her ordeal. She seems to be fine, but I will need to take her in later in the week for a followup. Still, she looks wonderful. Modern medicine has saved my dog.

Meanwhile, I'm determined not to panic about my living situation. It could very well be that we'll all be homeless in a few weeks, but that is unlikely. Even if the township decides to come down hard on our illegal apartment, it will take months before the legal machinery can get its act together.

Tomorrow I return to work after several days of rest. I needed a bit of a mini-vacation from work, even if it was an incredibly stressful few days. Hopefully things will be looking up for a little while.

My day started by taking my dog to a specialist for more tests. Unfortunately, just as she was prepped and on the table and "emergency" came in. My poor, drugged dog needed to be dragged out of the scanner and put on hold for a couple hours while the other animal was dealt with.

So I waited... and waited some more while the tests were actually being done. Finally the vet delivered the results. Long story short, they needed to act right then and there. Today. Immediately.

I tried to be rational. I collected all the information I could, and asked all the questions I could think of to make sure I understand both the short term and long term options. It broke my heart, but I even started asking about the monetary costs.

I know that someday keeping my dog alive might not be financially feasible. It destroys me having to include that in my decisions, but I know that there's no other choice. it's a hard choice, but I know how to deal with it.

Not too long ago a friend of mine was faced with a similar situation; his cat had feline HIV. The animal's fate was set. The only questions was "when" and under what circumstance. Back then I was the compassionate voice of reason, balancing the rational and the emotional to help my friend make the best choice for his pet.

And luckily I still have my own advice to fall back on - even though today it seems more like mantra than anything else.

I will know when it's my dog's time. She will let me know. If you're a pet owner, you probably understand without me having to explain it further. If you don't understand ... well, I'm sorry. I just don't have it in me to explain right now. Current circumstances are leaving me far too emotionally taxed.

While my dog was going through the procedure to repair her heart, my wife called. Another disaster has struck.

My landlord, who has struck me as a bit a douche nozzle since day 1, apparently didn't check the local laws regarding habitations. The short story here is that the apartment is illegal. It was illegal to convert this basement into a living unit to begin with, let alone rent it out.

This *might* mean that I'm totally out of a place to live. I'm hoping it can be resolved in some mutually beneficial fashion - like he can petition the zone bone for some kind a variance. For now I'm going to be cautiously optimistic and hope for some pleasant resolution. If not, well, today will go down as a strong candidate for the worst day of my life.

Depending on how the fates weave, I might lose my dog and my home.

But wait, there's more.

In my first marriage, I had two dogs. When we got divorced we made the difficult but practical decision to split the animals apart. Each of us took one.

Since my first wife was the co-owner of my dog at one point, I felt it appropriate to let her know about what's happening. I sent my ex and e-mail giving as many details as I could. And the reply was devastating.

The other dog has cancer and is also battling for her life.

Will we lose both our dog's at the same time?

I don't want to imagine how things could be any worse. In fact, I just want to crawl into bed and hide under the covers for 100 years.

Everything happened today.

My dog has been behaving odd lately - not eating her food among other things - so I took her to the vet. The vet performed all kinds of test, got the animal's records from the old vet, and decided to hold on to my pet for a couple of hours for more tests.

At the end of it all I found myself staring at a bunch of X-Rays of my dog's interior thinking, "shit, I can't read X-Rays; I wish my wife were here." She's no vet, obviously, but her medical background exceeds mine by at least an order of magnitude. I really needed help following what the doctor was saying.

In fact, I still don't really know. My dog seems to have a heart condition, and her liver is swollen for some mysterious reason. The vet's instructions: get this dog to a specialist ... before the weekend.

That doesn't sound good. Or it certainly sounds urgent.

I only have today off, so maybe my wife could take the dog to the specialist if I pleaded and begged and maybe slept on the couch so my snoring wouldn't bother her.

Except today my wife got the call ... she now has a job and will start tomorrow. Her new job title: Interventionist. She travels from school to school intervening with problem children. Or maybe that's children with problems. I have to admit, I don't really understand what her job is. That might be because she really doesn't know what her job is. Sometimes it's hard to tell until what a job is until you've been doing it for a while.

And then to make everything complicated ... somebody's mother has died. I *should* know who somebody is, but I really don't. I really have trouble keeping track of people. I barely know the people I work with!

Still, this death throws another wrench into the gears. My in-laws are going out of town to attend the funeral, leaving a gaping hole in baby-sitting coverage for my nephew. That means my wife has to step in ... except now she has a job ... so ... gah!

I really don't know what's going on anymore.

Shit is going on all around me and I just can't see to keep track of it.

Tomorrow I have to take my dog to a specialist. Can he mend her broken heart? If not, who will mend mine?

Canned food. From now on she get's nothing but canned food. No more nasty dry kibble.