5/31 Double dip housing woes. There looks to be no end to the downward spiral for our economy. Just when we decided to cut back on stimulus because things looked safe, it isn't safe. I have confirmed that I am a conservative by my strong reactions against change of all kinds. The problem for me is that the status quo was messed up long ago. The tax rate on the top 1 percent and the top .1 percent is so much lower than when I enjoyed the goodies of life during my childhood. "Flat Tax," "Tax Cuts" and all the other electioneering phrases were really a cover to reduce the tax rate for the rich. Now having bled the economy dry, there is no money left to pay the piper except in the hands of the ultra rich, those who are firmly in control of the leeching process. I'm guessing they will move on once it is their turn to pay. I'm guessing it will be like the flight of the people from the city to the suburbs. The city, however, will be the United States and the suburbs will be whatever countries the rich find is the best value. They now have the resources to hire some mighty good international real estate agents.
5/31 Paul Simon is as the same as Pink Floyd on the mp3 player of a man mowing his lawn.
The Bread of My Life (with Tomato, Salt, Pepper, and Mayo)
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
More Than I Can Chew
5/30 No topical political thoughts today or anytime soon, except to say: hyperinflation now rapidly looking more possible to the point that I feel it is no longer viable for me to hope it isn't likely to happen. Politically, this will once again spread blame while those who should really be blamed will walk around in oblivious ignorance. While musing today I wondered about how we could make this fair. Voting records. If our votes were not annonymous, the idiots who always voted against tax increases and for tax reductions for mainly the top 1% could be charged extra hyperinflation for their past idiocy and selfishness. Wikileaks theory again.
5/30 I did 4 blog entries on the cruise and enjoyed writing them so much I decided to continue my old blogs. So now I have to deal with organization which I have been putting off. With a bit of wisdom I gleaned from one of my dining companions on the cruise, I really need a facebook page "one ring to rule them all" :) So here is my idea so far but I'm not sure of the practicality's. Facebook page to tell about mowing the grass and stuff (like this entry itself.) Torpedo of Truth to tell short political, economic, and just plain treasonous talk. Aimless Blog for my longform aimless personal enjoyment with no regard for my audience. Amiable Blog for longform semiappropriate material. And finally, my photographic blog/botanical journal of life Thousand Words. Too much? Yes, and I'm fat too. :)
5/30 Back from cruise, life is so very good at home.
5/30 I did 4 blog entries on the cruise and enjoyed writing them so much I decided to continue my old blogs. So now I have to deal with organization which I have been putting off. With a bit of wisdom I gleaned from one of my dining companions on the cruise, I really need a facebook page "one ring to rule them all" :) So here is my idea so far but I'm not sure of the practicality's. Facebook page to tell about mowing the grass and stuff (like this entry itself.) Torpedo of Truth to tell short political, economic, and just plain treasonous talk. Aimless Blog for my longform aimless personal enjoyment with no regard for my audience. Amiable Blog for longform semiappropriate material. And finally, my photographic blog/botanical journal of life Thousand Words. Too much? Yes, and I'm fat too. :)
5/30 Back from cruise, life is so very good at home.
Thursday, May 12, 2011
No Baloney
5/11 My vacation is coming up so no more posts for a while. I was thinking of ending this blog because no matter what form I choose, my politics are clearly unpopular. Was a box of paper clips where I used to work worth a year of pure hell and all the health problems I now have from that? Was being a real librarian worth the stress that destroyed so much of me? I can't answer that. I've tried but I can't. As I get older I do have the ability now to not care, cultivated as self preservation instincts kicked in. As past mistakes now catch up with America with a vengeance, I can only know for sure that I told them so and have no guilt. But when I see the innocents affected and my hands are tied to help, I can only remember the toll it takes on my own situation to innocently care so much.
Come this Christmas I will focus on one innocent person I have picked to represent the others and the world will be just a little better. And I feel so much better in the present. Thank you, my God, for that answer to soothe my soul.
And I will eventually come up with a blog that has all the right elements. Meanwhile...
Next... Disney Magic, where I will be treated as an important member of a caring and civilized society, if only for a short while in my hopes and dreams. So long, see ya real soon.
5/11 http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20110511-715515.html More speculators take a hit. :) Energy stocks lead stocks down. Oil executives to face our elected representatives http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703730804576317610969225514.html?mod=googlenews_wsj Will we take away their subsidies? Stay tuned.
5/11 Because I feel the need to explain, the following chart, as hard as it is to believe, represents good news:
Come this Christmas I will focus on one innocent person I have picked to represent the others and the world will be just a little better. And I feel so much better in the present. Thank you, my God, for that answer to soothe my soul.
And I will eventually come up with a blog that has all the right elements. Meanwhile...
Next... Disney Magic, where I will be treated as an important member of a caring and civilized society, if only for a short while in my hopes and dreams. So long, see ya real soon.
5/11 http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20110511-715515.html More speculators take a hit. :) Energy stocks lead stocks down. Oil executives to face our elected representatives http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703730804576317610969225514.html?mod=googlenews_wsj Will we take away their subsidies? Stay tuned.
5/11 Because I feel the need to explain, the following chart, as hard as it is to believe, represents good news:
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
20% Fat Free
5/10 Dillard's sends me this email subject: , "we have IMPORTANT INFO regarding your Shopper ID" AGGHHH, another compromised account? Nope, just bad and inconsiderate marketing. They will be changing my user ID to allow me to sign in at multiple Dillard's sites. Do I need multiple Dillard's sites? I'm guessing not.
5/10 Fibromyalgia officially becomes the string theory of Michael. Unification!
5/10 " My one regret in life is that I am not someone else." - another Woody Allen quote.
5/10 "80 percent of life is just showing up." -Woody Allen. I think of this quote a lot when I need to go to something I would either rather not go to or am ambivalent towards.. I was thinking today, that I probably have spent 99 percent of my life trying to make sure Woody was accurate on this quote I read as a child. :)
5/10 Fibromyalgia officially becomes the string theory of Michael. Unification!
5/10 " My one regret in life is that I am not someone else." - another Woody Allen quote.
5/10 "80 percent of life is just showing up." -Woody Allen. I think of this quote a lot when I need to go to something I would either rather not go to or am ambivalent towards.. I was thinking today, that I probably have spent 99 percent of my life trying to make sure Woody was accurate on this quote I read as a child. :)
Monday, May 9, 2011
Healthy Ingredients
5/9 THE HAMMER! After this story and the resulting superspeculation http://www.cnbc.com/id/42961632 ....this story http://www.cnbc.com/id/42966436 confirming that the CME Group, the futures people, will put down the hammer when it wants to on commodities speculation. Just as was surmised after the silver margins were raised and silver plunged, the other commodities may be at risk. How easy was it to do to other commodities when they became a threatening bubble? Why, just that easy. Oh snap! :) Does this smack of socialism? Hot doggie, yes, it does!!! It's good for the whole society and all families therein while the only people screaming on CNBC are the speculators themselves Lower gas prices for all and without Nixon's price controls. I'll have a beer with that hot dog!! We may have a broad based economy yet!! Make that two beers, and make them American beers, not that foreign Budweiser.
5/9 Life has had many unhealthy ingredients for me. Now I have, or more accurately have had, fibromyalgia. I know I have had it for years because when the doctor tested me which involves poking the doughboy in specific points where it hurts, she performed the same test that I unwittingly underwent years ago. My wife had given me a coupon for a free massage. During and for a week after the massage, I thought the girl had about killed me. She was zooming in on those pressure points, the same ones the doctor probed to make her diagnoses. I was sick for a week after that massage, with pain all over my body. It was highly unusual to say the least. This time, after the doctor's tests, the pain is the same kind of pain. I've been feeling it all day. I doubt this will last for a week, though. The diagnosis is the final mysterious part of the problems I have been having. All the unexplained symptoms are now covered. I have no symptoms that don't fit into one of the things I have been told. The doctors have eventually done an awesome job of diagnoses. I have been given medication but I see no reason to take it if I can help it. It is only for the pain, it makes nothing better.. After all, I have been living with this pain for a while intentionally not paying attention to it. It comes and goes depending on a number of factors. Apparently, the best thing to help is a healthy lifestyle. Exercise, etc. While I didn't exercise for a while, the pain got worst. While recently I have been exercising, the pain got slowly better (the exercise is it's own pain.) Meanwhile, I follow the doc's orders and see what happens. Later I can strategize.
5/9 Life has had many unhealthy ingredients for me. Now I have, or more accurately have had, fibromyalgia. I know I have had it for years because when the doctor tested me which involves poking the doughboy in specific points where it hurts, she performed the same test that I unwittingly underwent years ago. My wife had given me a coupon for a free massage. During and for a week after the massage, I thought the girl had about killed me. She was zooming in on those pressure points, the same ones the doctor probed to make her diagnoses. I was sick for a week after that massage, with pain all over my body. It was highly unusual to say the least. This time, after the doctor's tests, the pain is the same kind of pain. I've been feeling it all day. I doubt this will last for a week, though. The diagnosis is the final mysterious part of the problems I have been having. All the unexplained symptoms are now covered. I have no symptoms that don't fit into one of the things I have been told. The doctors have eventually done an awesome job of diagnoses. I have been given medication but I see no reason to take it if I can help it. It is only for the pain, it makes nothing better.. After all, I have been living with this pain for a while intentionally not paying attention to it. It comes and goes depending on a number of factors. Apparently, the best thing to help is a healthy lifestyle. Exercise, etc. While I didn't exercise for a while, the pain got worst. While recently I have been exercising, the pain got slowly better (the exercise is it's own pain.) Meanwhile, I follow the doc's orders and see what happens. Later I can strategize.
Wanna Combo?
5/8 The reason the deathers are out there is their unwillingness to see the dramatic change in the landscape. It is kind of unbelievable that people are actually asking the right questions. I have heard at least two stories about how much Bin Laden has cost us in actual dollar terms. Even the most conservative estimates put it into trillions. The number of trillions can be calculated in many different ways. The implication is clear. There is a link with our present economy.
The catharsis of Bin Laden's death has created an artificial decade's end, in which we look back and see the trends. This is exactly the type of news reporting that the 24 hour news cycle just doesn't do. Analysis is always in the moment with a scope that at the most covers a week. The death of Bin Laden was a sort of end point of an almost ten year period of deterioration for America. It can go down from here but probably not. While the election of President Obama was a perceived end point for some of us, this event happened in the middle of a hellish period. There were no victories here, or in Iraq, or in Afghanistan. Now is exactly the appropriate time to discuss American values and torture or the cost to our economy and prestige, or the remembrance of the World Trade Center. The anniversary will prompt even more analysis. The deathers want nothing to do with this.
Bin Laden's stated and restated goal of bankrupting the U.S. (as he did the USSR) hasn't happened as of yet. But hold tight, it might be a close one yet. Even this shot in the foot might not be too big for the GOP.
The catharsis of Bin Laden's death has created an artificial decade's end, in which we look back and see the trends. This is exactly the type of news reporting that the 24 hour news cycle just doesn't do. Analysis is always in the moment with a scope that at the most covers a week. The death of Bin Laden was a sort of end point of an almost ten year period of deterioration for America. It can go down from here but probably not. While the election of President Obama was a perceived end point for some of us, this event happened in the middle of a hellish period. There were no victories here, or in Iraq, or in Afghanistan. Now is exactly the appropriate time to discuss American values and torture or the cost to our economy and prestige, or the remembrance of the World Trade Center. The anniversary will prompt even more analysis. The deathers want nothing to do with this.
Bin Laden's stated and restated goal of bankrupting the U.S. (as he did the USSR) hasn't happened as of yet. But hold tight, it might be a close one yet. Even this shot in the foot might not be too big for the GOP.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Extra Cheese Saturday
5/7 I want Saturday posts to be a bit more substantial, but I had to work all day. There have been so many positive things this week in politics. The Bin Laden story with all it's intrigue and bifurcations has pretty much left the Republicans with no news cycle at all. The last time most people heard of them, they were trying to cut Medicare, I would suspect. The first Republican debate went unnoticed. They tried to bury their recent retraction of Medicare warfare in the news glut, not that hard to do, but why bury it? Don't they want people to know their new found respect for the elderly? It was one of the most interesting weeks I can remember. However, I will be trying to pay less attention to politics as my vacation draws nigh. Expect posts about pretty sunsets.
Friday, May 6, 2011
All of Life's a Sandwich, Take a Bite but Not Too Much
5/6 The Republicans finally take my advice and leave my Medicare alone :) Backing off of the Medicare decimation bill, Republican leadership leaves pretty much every GOP representative free to dangle in the downdraft of the inevitable attack ads that will be swooping their way in like blackhawks in the moonless election night. :)
5/6 Meanwhile the commodity bubble continues a glorious burst. The fun here is the good news for the average American at the expense of the rich guys who speculate selfishly:
http://money.cnn.com/2011/05/06/markets/commodities_oil_silver/index.htm
5/6 Job report is good. Equity market reacts well so far today: http://money.cnn.com/2011/05/06/markets/Markets_newyork/index.htm
(even though the unemployment rate gets higher as more people seek jobs feeling like they might snag a few, the numbers of new jobs are higher than expected. And I think these are mostly private sector creations.)
5/6 Republicans to take down economy we have salvaged. The treasury is forced to make moves that will hurt the economy in stages to avoid the worst case scenario of the spector of bankruptcy the Republicans seem so fond of: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/04/debt-ceiling-treasury-slgs_n_857238.html?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=050411&utm_medium=email&utm_content=NewsEntry&utm_term=Daily%20Brief
5/6 Meanwhile the commodity bubble continues a glorious burst. The fun here is the good news for the average American at the expense of the rich guys who speculate selfishly:
http://money.cnn.com/2011/05/06/markets/commodities_oil_silver/index.htm
5/6 Job report is good. Equity market reacts well so far today: http://money.cnn.com/2011/05/06/markets/Markets_newyork/index.htm
(even though the unemployment rate gets higher as more people seek jobs feeling like they might snag a few, the numbers of new jobs are higher than expected. And I think these are mostly private sector creations.)
5/6 Republicans to take down economy we have salvaged. The treasury is forced to make moves that will hurt the economy in stages to avoid the worst case scenario of the spector of bankruptcy the Republicans seem so fond of: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/04/debt-ceiling-treasury-slgs_n_857238.html?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=050411&utm_medium=email&utm_content=NewsEntry&utm_term=Daily%20Brief
The Limited Biosphere of Michael's First Twog
Truth being a relative thing that changes less in my mind than it does on, say, Fox News, I feel confident in my blog title in a relative sort of way.
I'm not sure this is the world's first twog so we'll just limit it to a biosphere of indeterminate size. :)
Twog - (n) blog by someone who probably prefers tweeting because of a short attention span. Example: "If Charlie Sheen were to blog, wouldn't that be more of a tweet sized twog?"
Previous entries:
5/5 Commodities bubble finally bursts. Great news for consumers about inflation. Oil dips for a second below 100 dollars a barrel. All this from heightened margin requirements on silver. Awesome.
5/5 Geraldo breaks news of Bin Laden first, worries about his career while breaking the news (channeling the empty vault of years past) then proceeds to report incorrect accounts of Osama being killed by a bomb weeks ago, high fiving his guest. Happy days, good times. :) Meanwhile Fox News leaves an edited version of the hilarity up as proof they first broke the "news," I watched the edited version that night. But the more telling version is this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPrtA7e6pW4&feature=related that shows the great speculation about Libya long beforehand. Missed it by that much.... Fox edit: http://video.foxnews.com/v/4671809/geraldo-happy-days-everybody
I'm not sure this is the world's first twog so we'll just limit it to a biosphere of indeterminate size. :)
Twog - (n) blog by someone who probably prefers tweeting because of a short attention span. Example: "If Charlie Sheen were to blog, wouldn't that be more of a tweet sized twog?"
Previous entries:
5/5 Commodities bubble finally bursts. Great news for consumers about inflation. Oil dips for a second below 100 dollars a barrel. All this from heightened margin requirements on silver. Awesome.
5/5 Geraldo breaks news of Bin Laden first, worries about his career while breaking the news (channeling the empty vault of years past) then proceeds to report incorrect accounts of Osama being killed by a bomb weeks ago, high fiving his guest. Happy days, good times. :) Meanwhile Fox News leaves an edited version of the hilarity up as proof they first broke the "news," I watched the edited version that night. But the more telling version is this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPrtA7e6pW4&feature=related that shows the great speculation about Libya long beforehand. Missed it by that much.... Fox edit: http://video.foxnews.com/v/4671809/geraldo-happy-days-everybody
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