Day: October 24, 2008

A Socialist Behind Every Door

Look!

It’s a bird!

It’s a plane!

No, it is a socialist!

She will not just shut the hell up!……Look! A bunny!

Obama wants to “spread the wealth around” is one of the latest criticisms.  He is a socialist, anti-American, Communists and an unreal American are other accusations thrown at Obama by the GOP smear machine.  Let’s talk about the socialist thing for a moment.

I would like to help Palin out just a bit, there are enough people wanting to destroy her.  In the past she has made some dumbass statements, either hers or scrpited, but it made her look like a mindless fool.  Maybe they should let her read a bit and stop her from trying to be this folksy little “hockey mom”.  Reading is essential!

Let me help out.  I offer a very simplistic definition of socialism.  It is a theory that states, basically, that the wealth of a state is held collectively by the people.  I know…I know…very simplistic, but bear with me.  Now think about Alaska, the natural wealth of the state–OIL.  AS it is today the people get a check from the state for their part of the oil and gas thing.  That means that the people of the state hold the wealth collectively.  The state acts as the go between –take from big oil companies and redistribute it to the people of the state.  Sarah…Sarah….I believe that is “spreading the wealth” and BTW…I hate to be the bearer of bad news but…..it is called SOCIALISM.  I am sure that there are those who can possibly spin this into something other than socialism…..but sorry…it would be lying.  You are doing what you condemn Obama for saying he would do.

Sorry about that,  Sarah…but it had to be said……stop using that analogy!  For it to work…you have to be squeeky clean…you are not…so please STOP!

“Fart Gas” Linked To Blood Pressure

Sorry guys, but I could not resist this story.  With that said, I knew there was a good reason for this body function.

The gas best known for being used in many stink bombs may also control blood pressure, say US researchers.

Small amounts of hydrogen sulphide – a toxic gas generated by bacteria living in the human gut – are responsible for the foul odour of flatulence.

But it seems the gas is also produced by an enzyme in blood vessels where it relaxes them and lowers blood pressure.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University, in Maryland, found that the gas is produced in the cells lining blood vessels by an enzyme called CSE.

In mice engineered to be deficient in this enzyme, levels of hydrogen sulphide were almost depleted compared with levels in normal mice.

The CSE-deficient mice also had blood pressure measurements about 20% higher than the normal mice, comparable to serious hypertension in humans.

When the engineered mice were given a drug which relaxes normal blood vessels – methacholine – there was no difference, indicating the gas is responsible for the relaxation.

Job Losses Accelerated

Unemployment claims, already well into recession territory, are rising even faster than expected, leading economists to warn Thursday that the worst is yet to come.

As the Labor Department released bleak new numbers on the job market, Goldman Sachs, Chrysler and Xerox all announced they were cutting workers by the thousands, adding to the woes of an economy beset by tighter credit and wobbly banks.

The government said new applications for unemployment insurance rose 15,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 478,000, above analysts’ estimates of 470,000. Jobless claims above 400,000 are considered a sign of recession.

The Commerce Department will release its first estimate of third-quarter economic performance Oct. 30, and Wall Street analysts project it will show the economy contracted by 0.5 percent, according to Thomson/IFR.

Many economists expect the decline to continue into the current quarter and the first three months of 2009, if not longer. The classic definition of a recession is at least two consecutive quarters of negative growth.

The impact of the job losses is rippling through the economy. As jobs disappear, foreclosures rise when out-of-work homeowners can no longer make mortgage payments.

Home foreclosure filings jumped by 70 percent in the third quarter, according to the listing service RealtyTrac Inc. Nationwide, nearly 766,000 homes received at least one foreclosure-related notice from July through September, the company said.

Spending is falling, too. Americans who still have jobs are worried about keeping them, and those who have lost jobs must watch every penny. Consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent of the economy, and economists estimate it fell by more than 3 percent last quarter in what would be the first quarterly drop in 17 years.

A dismal report at best, but the almost $1 trillion  should slow this from happening….if you buy that…then there is this bridge that is for sale.  I am afraid the worse is yet to come.

Will The Addict Return?

If you can remember back to the 70’s when there was an energy addiction that made for an energy crisis.  We all started to think of ways to kick our oil habit like alt energy, wind, solar and other energy saving measures and for awhile we were moving in the right direction and were kicking the monkey on our backs.  But unfortunately we fell off our wagon.  The pushers, the oil companies, in the 80’s made the price of gas and oil cheaper and we stated thinking that we were not all that bad for the addiction.  It was something that we could live with.  We wanted our 4 gallon to the mile Hummers.  We began feeding our need heavier than before.

Then one day we awoke from of addict induced haze toi find that our drug of choice was now $4+ a gallon.  Once again, we realized that we were sick and needed to find a way to eliminate the joneses.  We were once again JUNKIES.  We sat down and decided we were gonna do something about our addiction this time, that we would break our dependence on the drug.  Everyone one started thinking sbout alt energy, solar, wind, and energy saving measures.  Smaller cars, better gas mileage, even nukes.  we even got the two major parties thinking along those lines and were gonna be there to help us break our addiction.  Once again we were feeling good about our choice to end our addiction.

One morning the pushers awoke to find that they would be in deep financial trouble if they lost their Johns.  Their user base was shrinking, ever so slowly, but shrinking nonetheless.  The market manipulation started again, drop the price to ridiculous low price and the junkies would not be able to resist.  Slowly the price started down not to appear too eager, but enough for the addicts to get a whiff of the “good stuff”.

Looks like the addiction will build again.  The worsening economy will slow the roll of the addicts.  No money–No drug.  There is a bright spot for the pushers–the credit markets, but first they have to have help to ge tthem to loosen up so that the junkies can get the drug more readily.

The addict is returning.  How long will this drug induced haze last this time?  The saga goes full circle, never a lesson learned from the last bout of addiction.  An addict will always remain an addict.

Today In Labor History

24 October

Strike of Teamsters, Scalesmen and Packers in New Orleans. City trade is paralyzed; within a week the walkout becomes a general strike, involving more than 20,000 whites and blacks together, in support of demands for union recognition and a 10-hour work day – 1892

The first U.S. federal minimum wage – 25 cents an hour – takes effect, thanks to enactment of the Depression-era Fair Labor Standards Act. The law required an increase to 30 cents an hour one year from this date, and to 40 cents an hour on this date in 1945.  The FLSA also established the 40-hour work week and forbade child labor in factories – 1938

AFL-CIO readmits Teamsters union to the labor federation, ending a 30-year expulsion for corruption. In 2005 the Teamsters again parted company with the AFL-CIO – along with a half-dozen other unions – over differences of approach on organizing and politics – 1987.

Sowing The Seeds Of Stupid

The GOP apparently has no idea about the middle class.  The “maverick” thing is not working for John McCain so he went out and got a “hockey mom” to bolster that appeal.  At first she was a great side show and now she has become a drag on the campaign.  To the point that when McCain loses the election the autopsy will show that one of the main contributors to the demise will be that “hockey mom”.  Since the ploy of using a woman to woo the disenfranchised Clinton supporters did not work, McCain has trotted out another lame attempt to woe the middle class.  Yes I am talking about the now famous, Joe The Plumber.

It seems that Joe got in Obama’s face on the street about his tax plan and it was caught on tape and then the McCain camp decided that he, Joe, would be the perfect caraciture of the middle class. Something that would give McCain at least the illusion that he knew anything about what was happening on Main Street.

Oops!  They failed!  Seems Joe is not a licensed plumber, but a worker; he is not trying to buy a company and he has liens on him from the IRS.  Plus under Obama’s plan he would pay less in taxes.  He , Joe, almost smells like a plant.

At every turn, the handlers of the McCain campaign sow the seeds of stupid……

Bleed Them Into Bankruptcy

I believe that it was Ronnie Reagan who believed in this strategy in dealing with the USSR.  He believed that the way to cripple and eventually destroy the USSR was to make them spend billions upon billions trying to keep up with the US in its pushing of military and foreign policy spending.  And as predicted the Soviets tried to keep up and it finally bankrupted them and it slowly rolled over and died.  But wait!  That death gave birth to the ravenous Russian bear, that may be more dangerous than the USSR ever was.  But that will be a post for another day.

Now Ronnie’s technique is coming back to haunt the US.  How you ask?  Al Qaeda.  THey would like the US to continue spending billions upon billions to make the world safe.  They even endorsed McCain, in a half handed way, as president, because they know that he would continue the runaway spending on national security.  AQ has to keep the US engaged and spending uncontrolably.  AQ has to keep the US fighting on as many fronts as possible that way AQ can bleed dollars from the US until it eventually bankrupts itself.  Looks like someone in the AQ hierarchy is a student of history. The Ronnie Axiom.

The problem is, this could happen, the US economy is close to being bankrupt now and any further bleeding of funds from the economy could push it closer and closer to that threshold of bankruptcy.  It is reasible that AQ could win this battle.  I know not many want to hear this talk.  Just think about what is happening in the world and now think about our fragile economy.  What do you think?

The Boner Is At It Again

Oh sorry, that is Boehner.

House Republican leader John Boehner on Wednesday urged President Bush to block all federal funds to a grass-roots community group that has been accused of voter registration fraud.

“It is evident that ACORN is incapable of using federal funds in a manner that is consistent with the law,” Boehner, R-Ohio, wrote Bush, saying that funds should be blocked until all federal investigations into the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now are completed.

ACORN, a group that has led liberal causes since it was formed in 1970, this year hired more than 13,000 part-time workers to sign up voters in minority and poor neighborhoods in 21 states. Some of the 1.3 million registration cards submitted to local election officials, using the names of cartoon characters or pro football players, were obviously phony, spurring GOP charges of widespread misconduct.

ACORN has said it was its own quality-control workers who first noticed problem registration cards, flagged them and submitted them to local election officials in every state that is now investigating them.

A typical political tactic kinda like the hors for voting in South Florida.  Anything to block working people from voting or even registering.  Why?  Most of them register and vote Democratic.  Go figure.

She Is A Fiscal Conservative?

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin calls herself a fiscal conservative who wants to “rein in government spending.” She says she “reformed the abuses of earmarks in our state.” Republican John McCain said during the last debate that his running mate has “cut the size of government.”

But Palin didn’t cut the size of government as mayor of Wasilla, and she hasn’t done so as Alaska’s governor, city and state budget records show. Spending in fast-growing Wasilla increased by 55% during her tenure from 1996-2002, records show. In nearly two years as governor, she has presided over a 31% spending hike by a state government that sought earmarks from Washington even as it reaped billions from higher oil prices and Palin-backed tax increases on oil companies.

Alaska’s spending bills are split into a capital budget for infrastructure projects and an operating budget that funds salaries and other general government expenses. In Palin’s first two years, the state operating budget has increased 31%, and capital spending remained roughly at the same level as the last two years under her predecessor, Republican Frank Murkowski, state records show.

Alaska’s capital budget is full of local projects because many local governments rely on state funding to meet basic needs. Most of Alaska is owned by the federal government, and only 25 municipalities levy a property tax, according to the state tax assessor’s office. The capital budget, therefore, is a grab bag of projects requested by communities through their state lawmakers.

Because 90% of the state’s revenue comes from the oil and gas industry, Alaska has been flush with cash in recent years. State coffers grew fatter still when Palin, with help from Democrats in the Legislature, increased taxes this year by billions on the energy industry.