I am stunned, truly. Until it happened and I realized that he was gone, I never thought of a world with without him. In my life, one in which the movies are an important aspect being the way that my grandfather an I explored the world, I have never known a time where Paul Newman was not a part. His roles and personality were greatly admired my myself and my grandfather. I am truly stunned.

Joanne, my thought and condolences are with you and all the fans that have lost a friend today, even if we were never blessed to meet him in person.

I am warning anyone reading this right now, this could be a long post. I am watching MSNBC (I know, that’s a mistake right there) and I am watching all the political spin amidst the Wall Street Meltdown reports, and there are things and people and all sorts of crap getting under my skin… time to scratch it.

Spin Doctors
I want to see the spin mavens come on and talk about their candidates, and only their candidates. I would love to hear them extol the virtues of their guys and ignore the crap about the other guy. How refreshing it would be if you could go even one conversation without hearing “but that son of a bitch other guy,” add whatever topic you want in the most horrid light you can think of. I will say that the Obama people seem to not be playing the game as much as the McCain surrogates, but they both play this game and it is annoying.

Worst of all is when the moderator locks in on a Spin Man (or Woman) and they simply do not know the answer to a question and just go on to spew talking points and vitriol at their appointed opponent. It can get humorous when, say, Chris Mathews is the interviewer and he gets into bulldog mode and refuses to continue on till the campaign rep answers his questions. I love that. I just wish more moderators would grow a couple and not allow the negative spin on their shows.

On the other hand, I am not at all upset about when a candidate rep lies about their own candidate. These fun gaffs make the elections fun in a sort of “what kind of stupid are you?” sort of way. I think it is great that John McCain invented the Blackberry. At least now Al Gore can die knowing someone said a bigger boner than him.

Lies, More Lies, and Damned Lies
Is it possible to have an interview or such without someone saying a lie about something? I mean really, how stupid do these people think the viewers of these continuous talk shows are? If the lies were subtle, if they were based on some sort of reality, or if they only had a shred of truth embedded in them maybe I could buy it… sort of. Really, you all insult my intelligence and the intelligence of most of the people watching you. And you how that make you look? STUPID.

Exaggerations are lies. Sure, they are lies like the last fish I caught was a 120 pound guppy, but they are lies. Want an example? McCain saying Obama is going to raise taxes on the middle class. How often are we hearing that one? I don’t know, but yesterday I hear it a grand total of 17 times. I know because every time I heard it I put a hash mark in a little note book I carry. And since when is the middle class 250k a year? I though it was like $20k to about $100k. Maybe I am wrong, maybe the numbers are EXAGERATED.

The worst of the lot (this is like the third worst or something, but truly the baddest of the bad) are the outright lies. For the last time… Obama was born in Hawaii, he is Christian, and yes he did father two black children, by his wife and your point is???, and NO he is not coming after white women except in wanting their vote. This scurrilous type of reporting and spin is disgusting. Everyone, leave it alone.

On the other hand, ok, so McCain was a soldier, so he was a POW, but he never commanded troops, so really why does this make him more ready to be President? And why is that fact that he was a POW make him better at anything? Why is this an excuse for anything, other than maybe he was a screw up and got caught? Personally, if I were a POW and I were give the opportunity to leave because daddy was someone important, I would. Why? Simply because who the hell knows what will happen in the future and that may be my last chance of escape. There is nothing honorable about dying for a principle, contrary to popular belief; certainly the one who died will not know any better. Besides, better to assure you live to fight another day.

On the third hand, there is stuff about Obama we still do not know. We are still sketchy about his finances, we know almost nothing about his medical history, and to be honest, we know only about his family what he has let become public. Not that any of this has much if any bearing on the race for President, it is just curiosity about the man we are about to appoint to the most powerful position in the country (if not the world.)

“Do the DC Filp”
This one is mostly the purview of McCain… If you don’t get support from the public on your current point of view, flip flop on the issue and tell the big lie that you were for it the whole time. Hilary Clinton showed us the way on this tactic, and it almost worked against Obama, but in the end, the public has a memory. Also, THE PUBLIC IS NOT STUPID! Lie to us if you want, but we remember what you were in favor of or not in favor of, flip flop (or Floip) at your own risk.

McCain, Mr, Deregulator; Now FLOIP!
Obama, No Surge; FLOIP!

You get the point? I am sure you can name another 20 FLOIPs but it is 6am for me right now and my memory is not running right now for lack of coffee. Reminds me of some lyrics…

Undecided

You say it’s yes, and then it’s no;
You say you’ll stay, and then you go -
You’re undecided now, so what are you gonna do?

(Song repeats…)

So here we are in the land of the undecided candidates and we are all just waiting to figure out where everyone will really stand. The thing is, even after we elect and put into office one of these guys, we still will not know where they stand until they actually do something. I wonder how many of their promises they will live up to? I wonder if it really matters at all who we elect and if the Washington machine will just keep chugging along “same as it ever was, same as it ever was.”

Golden Parachutes
OK guys… here is a truism for you… Government cannot control the upper limits of salaries for any company. People are free to negotiate any deal they can make with a company and it is all kosher as long as that is the normal practice for that company. That is the American way, the dream of all Americans. If the government could regulate salaries in this way it would not be a Democracy, if would be a Fascist State. Now don’t get me wrong, I am all for a good Fascist Dictator as long as it doesn’t go to his head, but hey, what are the chances of that? (That last line was sarcasm folks, I use a lot of it.)

Got Cash?
With Wall Street getting ready to collapse and in need of a transfusion, there are a few things that we can do immediately to help out. In no particular order:

• Pull our troop from Iraq and free up Billions and Billions of dollars for use in other sectors of the U.S. economy.

• Time for a little isolationism. Up all import tariffs to historic high levels, especially cars, appliances and other durable goods. Eliminate most export tariffs.

• Forget drilling for oil. Create jobs and business in high tech, especially green tech. Shoot for 4 years to have 10% of all cars on the road be either electric, CNG or hydrogen fuel cell. This will start the trend to better and cleaner cars and we get to keep the cash we are sending to the Arabs who are terrorizing us anyway.

• Raise Taxes: (Personal taxes x1 earnings, Corporate taxes x10 earnings)
  
  • $0 - $11,999 up 1%
  • $12,000 - $47,999 up 2%
  • $48,000 – $119,999 up 3%
  • $120,000 - $249,999 up 4%
  • $250,000 - $999,999 up 5%
  • $1,000,000 + up 7%

• We got to bite the bullet and do it. This may not be the best solution nor the only one, and it may not be permanent, just until the book look balanced. I know inflation will be a problem, but we can cross that road when we get to it.

• Socialized Medical Insurance: This will cost to start up, but in the long run after the initial cost and restructuring fall into place, the costs will be lower and the cost to business will be lower and productivity will rise. Good all the way around.

• Cap foreign investment in our country. I know we may loose some income, but we are loosing our identity by selling it off a bit at a time. Create ways to re-buy our holdings at a discount. In short, invest in US.

So I am going to wrap this up now, I have gotten several pet peeves off my chest and feel better, especially since the coffee is good this morning.

Today the market lost 500 point and half a TRILLION dollars. Who ya gonna vote for?

The McCain spin doctors say that you can’t vote for Obama because you can’t put a community organizer in charge of an economy like this. Oh yeah? Who ya gonna vote for?

Then again McCain has admitted that he doesn’t know much about the economy. So, who ya gonna vote for?

The price of gas was $1.50 a gallon 8 years ago; unemployment was below 4%. Today you are lucky to get a gallon of petrol for under $3.90 and unemployment is over 6%. Bush didn’t know much about the economy either, so he listened to a lot of experts and relied on Greenspan to hold it all together. Greenspan went and the economy sort of drifted… so who ya gonna vote for?

If McCain wins, who do you think he is going to listen to for his admittedly lack of knowledge of the economy? Why, the same people who are giving Bush his advice on the economy, of course. So, who ya gonna vote for?

If it comes down to a choice between McCain and more of the same advice on the economy, I think I got to vote for Obama, if for only to change the people supplying the bad economic advice. Maybe, just maybe someone else at the helm of the economy will implement enough change to correct the economy before it really does go into a free fall.

So, who ya gonna vote for?

OK, I registered as an Independent, but I used to identify as a Republican. Why, the philosophy really.

For me Democrats are all about giving a man a fish, whereas Republican are all for providing a fishing rod. I know it is hat, that old saying “give a man a fish and feed him for a day, but teach him to fish and he is fed for life”, but notice my view here. Republican provide a “rod” in this analogy, but it is the man himself that must have the motivation to learn how to use it. Of course providing a man with a fish does not provide motivation to learn nor does it equip him to be successful.

I really use the above analogy to help guide me in the world of political attribution, but to be honest I am having a hard time applying this to anyone. I am a pretty sharp guy, but from all the rhetoric from both sides I cannot say who is a Republican or who is a Democrat. Therefore, I am forced to look at who is making sense or at least who is being the less vile choice of the two main candidates.

So what do I see? I see a Democratic team that is currently bewildered by a curve ball candidate for Republican VP. On the other side I see a pair of Republicans who can not form any coherent strategy better than “So’s your mother!” At least on the Democratic side the attack ads are substantive and really do attack issues, whereas the republican ads are all personal smears which I have a hard time stomaching.

It’s this lack of a real message and the personal attacks that are making me regretting ever identifying as a Republican. McCain seems unable to stay on topic for anything nor explain any actions he would take if he were to become President. The worst statement he makes is that he knows how to get Bin Ladin and when he is President he will go get him. Does anyone else have a problem with that statement other than me? If he knows how to get him, he should tell everyone, NOW! In fact he should have told everyone years ago if he knew. In fact, as a senator, he has an obligation to tell us how to get him. If he knew years ago, maybe we would not have the problems overseas we are having (Iraq) and our troops could have come home. He is now playing with the lives of our soldiers, our fighting men and women for his own good. THIS IS CRIMINAL.

His VP nominee is a no one from Alaska that they have to shield from the media. She goes stumping with the same speech over and over again filled with the same lies. It’s like no one wants to write her new material. When she did do an interview, the answers were canned (obviously) and she was reaching for answers to questions that for her should have been dead bang simple. You would expect a Republican Nominee would have no problem at all with the question “Do you agree with the Bush Doctrine?” She did not know what the Bush Doctrine was. Sad. When the republican spin doctors got to it though it was if she did great, in fact she was incredibly eloquent. Were we watching the same interview? They (the spin doctors) then went on to extol her for knowing who Putin was and where Georgia sorta was. To her credit she knew it was not the Georgia State of the US. But then again, she did kinda commit our troops to go fight Russia. Ouch, I hope not.

How sad is it that in order for McCain to draw any crowds a all he has to have Palin with him. The Republican are in for a hard road and the former Beauty Queen VP Nominee is going to have to walk a lot of runways to rally the votes.

You will know the republican are really desperate when they start releasing the Bikini photos of Palin or if she shows up at a rally in a Bikini. I guess she really is the lipstick McCain needs to wear.

I must say, being a blogger I like the comments I get on some of my posts. Particularly if the comments are relevant and not just “Me Too” posts. But over the last week or so I am seeing more activity on my blog by a very few people out there who write like five comments at a time, but they all seem to be of the “Me Too” type. This is not really helpful and it looks like it is time for me to crack down on this simply because THIS BLOG IS NOT FOR YOU TO ADVERTIZE ON.

I do not mind legitimate comments, really I do, and in fact I respond to them. But with each comment is the ability to add a link for the poster and they are supposed to be email addresses, instead people are using the link to add a URL to a site. I really do not mind this either if it were not for the fact that it is coming blatantly clear that the posts are just to get the links to the sites.

What kinda get me is that the times of the posts are so consistent. First off, you can’t read my posts in about a minute, I write long posts and not at a first grade level. Second, the titles are sometimes not related to the post in the ways that may be obvious. Someone responding to the title will not post a comment that is correct. Case in point… my last post was “Anti-Condom”, which was only about condoms in so far as it referred to Sarah Palins’ seeming lack of ability to inform her daughter of contraception usage. It was a political post, yet people are posting about condom use and such. They did not read the post.

So here it: I have the ability to massively delete comments… I know how to do this because I wrote the module and database query that will do it. So, first you are going to see most of the posts of that last week disappear except those that are on topic. Next, if I find you coming back and trying it again, you will find your access via IP blocked. If that does not work I will mark the blog to “Comment Approval Mode” and not allow any posts to be viewed until I have reviewed them.

Please, I like reading actual comments and interacting with people, but if you are posting just to get your link on my site, why not write me and ask me to include you in my blog roll. I post these links for friends of the site or sites that I like.

Be kind; don’t make me be a tyrant on my own blog.

So here I was, watching the morning political returns on Obama’s speech on last Thursday when McCain announces that he had picked Sarah Palin, a literal no one from Alaska to be his VP pick. Talk about shooting Craps, McCain has rolled the dice looking for a hard double 4’s on a center bet.

Now, McCain has pandered in the past, but here is the mother of all panders… he is pandering to women, pro life, pro gun, religious right, fiscal conservatives, and the confused all at once. Now mind you the pro life and pro gun stance always kind of struck me as a funny combo, but what the hey. But the stance that I find interesting is that even her being pro life, can’t she also be pro condom?

OK, in today’s world having five kids is out of the norm. According to the 2000 census, the US averages 1.86 kids per family. Alaska averages 1.97 kids per family. Now, I know she is pro life, but does she have to populate the state herself? Five kids is not family planning, it is wishful thinking and bad timing. What is she teaching the female children of Alaska anyway… go have sex and pray you don’t get pregnant? That seems to be her method. She falls into the old joke… what you call a girl on the rhythm method? A mother.

Worst of all she is imprinting this on her eldest daughter who is 5 months along and unmarried. I don’t have a problem with the unmarried part, it is rather that I am for contraception for people too young and too stupid to realize that results of fornicating before being in a steady and stable relationship. Again, I do not care if they get married, that is for then to deal with, but if this girl is going to get married just because she got pregnant, we got a morals problem and to be honest, an intelligence issue.

So, Sarah, future grandmother… did you never talk to your daughter about condoms? Did you never talk to your daughter about contraception of any type? Did you trust the schools to teach your daughter what she needed to know about pregnancy? Or did you just leave it all in God’s hands and close your mind to the upbringing of your daughter Bristol? Really, I think you got to answer this one because it shows your level of responsibility, because let’s face it, Alaska is not that difficult to govern.

As for the tragic rumor about your youngest son Trig, if it is true that he is your daughters child, you have some issues to deal with and where to you get off trying to be VP? If they are false, maybe you need to learn more about pregnancy and change your stance on abortion a bit. If you knew in advance that your child was to be born with Downs Syndrome, don’t you think it is unkind to bring a life into this world that will know little joy and too much grief? There are times abortion is worth considering.