Corporate profit before all else.

Certainly there will come a time when the "corporate profit before all else" mentality has to come to an end. The questions are: When and how are we going to get there?

As a younger, more idealistic version of myself, I used to think that I had a strong dislike for "corporate America" but didn't completely know what that meant. Now that I'm a little bit older, I realize that I still don't know what it means.

I remember standing in a corporate bookstore flipping through a copy of Adbusters magazine, but (of course) not buying it. (Aside: How can you justify buying something with the whole profit model based off of convincing you not to buy something else? Wait, isn't that how a large portion of our consumer culture works? "You'll certainly be happier if you buy this brand of dishwashing liquid instead of that cheap ass one that's sure to leave your dishes dirty and make you the laughing stock of the whole neighborhood!!!") I'm sure I stood there for a few minutes in my [brand name] sneakers also flipping through a stack of magazines about mountain bikes, cars, running and whatever else I was interested in at the time thinking about "culture jamming" and the destruction that corporations were causing the world.

I remember eventually coming to the conclusion that it's hard to walk the line between feeling like a socially conscious, responsible person and a complete hypocrite... and the days I feel like I'm more on the former side, it's just complete and total ignorance.

The fact is that it's close to impossible to opt out of the "system" and still survive. Even if you pick an area of focus and do something that you think is a better, more responsible choice like buying "organic" foods at the supermarket from smaller companies, chances are good those brands are now owned by giant corporate conglomerates that have snatched them up for the brand name and the increased profit that comes with them.

In this example, larger companies snatch up smaller companies with good ideas / market share / turf that they desire and then slowly kill them off internally, fold them into their massive corporate structure and then "downsize" or just grab the brand and/or patents and sit on them. There are hundreds of things that are done purely in the name of profit that are much more questionable or unethical than buying up your competition, but I don't want to turn this into a massive list / rant.

Now usually when people become outraged by something they clamor for "increased regulations" but that usually just makes things worse. Tying shit up in bureaucracy for years and trusting someone that somewhere up to half of the population didn't vote for based on the side they label themselves as or even just how familiar their name is. Then these "representatives" hopefully ignore their convictions, biases and contributors and do the right thing for the country and the majority of the people. Yeah. That sounds like *exactly* what happens. (/sarcasm.)

There have been some headlines in the past few years about "corporate personhood" here in the United States (in light of a recent Supreme Court decision regarding Hobby Lobby, contraception coverage by insurance and religious convictions) and how it's probably time that it's ended. Many of the comments about these type of articles tend to lead to the conclusion that if a corporation was actually a person it would be a heavy-handed, greedy, money-driven psychopath with no empathy, sympathy or conscience.

That's the whole game, though. If (corporate) profit drives all available choices, and every one of those choices is a bad choice for someone or something else, why not just pick the best choice for you and get on with your day? Why care at all?

Acknowledging this isn't me giving up. This is me realizing that just saying you don't like something isn't going to change it. It's time to break free of conspicuous consumption and unchecked corporate profit and power.

We need to find better ways of defining what it is that makes us happy and better ways to get there if we want to have any sort of a future.

• We need to figure out how to destroy the notion of corporate personhood.
• We need to take away incentives to destroy everything (the environment, people's rights and freedoms, etc.) in the ruthless pursuit of profit.
• We need to tweak the legal system to end frivolous lawsuits.
• We need to stop funding government organizations that don't have the best interests of the people they serve as their only reasons for existence.

Most of all, though, it starts with making better choices as individuals. Some things that will help:

• Stop coveting other people's stuff.
• Pick some concerns that you're passionate about to focus on (environment, local business, etc.) and try to work them into all purchasing decisions.
• Take a few extra minutes to consider whether you really need something when making purchasing decisions.
• Try to buy secondhand goods, when possible.
• Donate or sell things that you've accumulated that someone might make better use of.
• Look for more durable, locally made products as an alternative to the mass-produced junk at the local big-box store.
• Services aren't exempt, either. Find a local Credit Union to do your banking. Skip chain restaurants, haircuts, stores...

The more we can shift power (money) back into our local economies and businesses, the more quickly change will come.

Thoughts About a Shrinking World

I have just finished reading The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century by Thomas L. Friedman and SuperCorp: How Vanguard Companies Create Innovation, Profits, Growth, and Social Good by Rosabeth Moss Kantner and noticed some trends that I felt like writing about.

The biggest point that I took from The World is Flat 3.0 is that the overall scale of the world is seemingly shrinking mostly due to the major influences that technology has played in linking different parts of the world together. The bigger the improvements and the greater the advances we make, particularly in the areas of communications, work flow planning, software, information storage and retrieval processes the more the world will seem to shrink.

Friedman calls the shrinking "flattening" which seems to be his way of saying that the proverbial "playing field" is being leveled. Areas of the world that don't have great amounts of natural resources to sell to the rest of the world (particularly oil) are using this technology to start other industries that can leverage their workforce into a competitive force to enable them to become a part of the global supply chain of goods and services.

This shrinking or "flattening" of the world can be used for good or bad. Most technologies are the same way. You can use a delivery van to make deliveries or you can back it through the window of a bank and rob it. You can use the internet to do research for a book report or you can create a "hate site". This is a problem with human nature and not with technology.

Friedman mentioned that terror, war and protectionism are reasons that might be used to put the walls back up and "unflatten" the world but he seems to feel that in most cases everyone involved benefits from a flat world. The benefits aren't limited to improved standard of living, stronger economies and better educational opportunities for countries that are taking on new responsibilities. There are also the benefits of cost reductions, redundant around the clock supply chains and new, large, eager sources of the exact level of labor required for a task for the companies doing the outsourcing.

SuperCorp pointed out many "vanguard" companies that are using their size and global influence to do good things in the world and that as we progress this will become more necessary and almost expected of them.

I can't say that I completely disagree with a lot of the points raised in either book, most of it kind of seems like "common sense" but I was left with a lot of questions about religion, politics and war, "haves versus have nots" and the responsibility of business in the world.

Is outsourcing ultimately good, bad or a shade of gray? Does outsourcing for cost savings really free up money to reinvest in new jobs or does it just go to the bottom line?

Investors always want to see a company that is making more profit than the previous year. At what point does this "growth" become unsustainable?

Are large corporations too powerful? Are they using this power responsibly?

Does human nature ruin everything?

Want - Energy Star Certified Gasoline-Powered Alarm Clock

On Inhabitat today there was a story that was reported on NY Times [paywalled link] about the US Government Accountability Office looking into the Energy Star certification process and how easy it was to get an Energy Star label. They created a few fictitious products including a gasoline-powered alarm clock and put them through the system and received Energy Star certification.

The articles made a few good points, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's all well and good but now I want a gasoline-powered alarm clock. Make mine a supercharged LS9 from a Corvette C6 ZR1. I'd wake up to that!

On a serious note, though, it's kind of good that we have government organizations to keep an eye on stuff like this. I mean, Energy Star certification, that's super important! Wow... What's wrong with me? I just can't be serious today.

[02/13/2024: Removed broken inhabitat story link. Noted that NY Times link is now paywalled.]

FairTax, anyone?

I just finished reading The Fair Tax Book: Saying Goodbye to the Income Tax and the IRS by Neal Boortz and John Linder. My brother actually lent it to me months ago and I finally got around to reading it this morning.

At the time he lent me the book, we were in a heated discussion as to whether the Federal government or the State governments needed more (or less) power compared to each other and which should have more responsibility. Honestly, I can't remember how the discussion even started. I believe we were talking about Nationalized health care or something to that effect and we kind of trailed off...

Back to the book, though. I chewed through it pretty quickly. I did find that there was some repetition in the writing which kind of made it a little bit annoying to read in spots, but I understood the need to drive certain concepts home by repeating them.

The main purpose of the book was to explain the FairTax plan of taxation compared to the current web of taxes we're currently paying here in America. FairTax is a consumption tax on all goods and services in place of every other Federal tax that we currently pay. This would mean no more income tax or payroll deductions for Medicare/Medicaid or Social Security. Instead you pay tax when you purchase something new in a retail environment or you are buying a service.

The plan was created to provide the same level of revenue to the government but in a much more simple (but harder to evade) system.

A few of the benefits of this system are:

• the ability to take home your whole paycheck
• the end of the IRS and complicated tax code
• everyone who buys a good or service in America pays into the system (including tourists and people who, through usage of the current tax code, have managed to avoid paying taxes but still benefit from living in or visiting America)
• a "prebate" offsets the amount every individual would be taxed up to the poverty level of consumption (doesn't hurt the poor)
• should (if all of the theories pan out) help lower costs of products and services by eliminating all of the "hidden taxes" that are passed along from companies through products and services - which, even with the added FairTax, should allow the price of things to stay close to the same as they were before the tax
• doesn't tax ANYTHING used/pre-owned which would provide a slight incentive to purchase pre-owned products where possible (better for the environment?)

It sounds almost too good to be true... but I still haven't managed to put any big holes in it.

Anyone out there as interested in this as I am?

Obama's election triggers gun sales?

It seems that some people are saying that gun sales are up due to Obama's election. The gun-toting "Real Americans" are scared that Obama will "take our guns from us and create a socialist society policed by his own police force" as it was so eloquently put by Jim Pruett, the owner of Jim Pruett's Guns and Ammo in Houston, Texas.

WTF, people?

[02/13/2024: Removed broken link to Times Union article.]

Joe the Plumber isn't a plumber after all...

It turns out that "Joe the Plumber" is not actually a licensed plumber. He is also not a member of the United Association of Plumbers, Steamfitters and Service Mechanics union which has endorsed Senator Obama for President. I hope this pisses off the plumber's union into getting all of their voters out there in support of Obama.

I'm kind of glad that McCain focused a lot of his energy on "Joe the Plumber" in his last debate because I think it showed a lot of people that Barack Obama's tax/economic plans benefit the majority of low to middle-class income people much more directly. The theory of "trickle down" economics doesn't make a whole lot of sense to most real world, working-class people who make less than $250,000 a year. The story of "Joe the Plumber" was crafted in the form of the old tale of the "American Dream" in order to turn Obama into a villain for taking away a little more of the rich guy's money to benefit others so they could portray him as a socialist. However, I don't think a 3% increase on income over $250,000 a year will really kill anyone. There are many other complex things in these plans that I'm not going to pretend to know about... but all I know is that cutting taxes for wealthy people and large businesses doesn't benefit anyone but the wealthy.

As I'm sure most of the world knows, as well, Colin Powell has also endorsed Obama.

Hopefully McCain can't sleep at night because of his(?) pick for the VP position. It turns out Palin has been taking her children on trips with her, with Alaska picking up the tab for flights and hotels for them. This is on top of the report that recently came out about what they're calling Troopergate.

Maverick?

There's a great article on John McCain's background on Rolling Stone's website called "Make-Believe Maverick". After reading this article I'm even more frightened about the prospect of him becoming President.

The guy crashed 3 military planes, was involved in the "Keating Five" scandal, kicked his first wife to the curb for a richer, younger, non-disabled one and seems to throw temper tantrums pretty frequently.

If you're interested please do some more research on: Keating Five, Vicki Iseman and McCain's first wife, Carol Shepp.

There are a lot of other things out there but doing a little digging into these begins to paint a very bad picture of John Sidney McCain III.

If at first you don't succeed...

If at first you don't succeed, throw some pork in.

"Some of those additions have been assailed by spending watchdogs as "pork," like the $6 million for the makers of kids' wooden arrows, according to a summary of the bill released by the Senate Finance Committee.

Other goodies intended to attract the votes of individual members of Congress include $192 million for the rum producers of Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands, $128 million for car racing tracks, $33 million for corporations operating in American Samoa, and $10 million for small film and television productions."

WTF!?!?! We're not bailing out Puerto Rican rum producers right now. Focus!!!

Edit 10/02/08 - 09:35 PM: More on the matter on time.com and Taxpayers for Common Sense.

Bailout: Banks or Mortgage Holders?

I know I'm not any sort of authority on failing banks and government bailouts but it still doesn't make any sense to me for the government to bail out the multitude of financial institutions that are failing miserably right now.

There's an article that I just came across on time.com entitled
Let Risk-Taking Financial Institutions Fail that seems to say what I hear a lot of other people saying.

However, I think the writers of the article are being WAY too gentle when they say: "Much of the crisis has arisen from miscalculating the risks involved in a large book of positions in these derivatives."

I think that it had more to do with influential people within the banks ignoring the risks because (for the moment) they were making money hand over fist (for themselves and the shareholders of the banks). I believe that organizations that have been taking huge risks (by loaning money to people who couldn't afford it along with many other risky things) should reap the consequences of their actions.

Why can't the government work out a plan that helps more of the people that are paying for it (the taxpayers that are losing their homes or watching them plummet in value) instead of corporations built on the whole concept of using greed as a business model?

America's Energy Policy?

Remember that time I mentioned that we need to work on our energy policy?

Well all of the recent news headlines about the increasing cost of food, gasoline and, well, pretty much everything... lead to one thing. Yeah, we REALLY need to work on our energy policy.

The high price of cookies. Only you can end it.

I just came across the blog called Conditional recoil of a guy who I used to work with on a pretty much daily basis in my last job (through a link on facebook) and I think it's a great read. He doesn't have that many posts up there yet but the ones he does are the type of posts that make you think.

In particular, though, there was a post from last November titled "Where does it end?" that I felt I needed to respond to. If you know me, you'll know why. ;)

I agree with what he is trying to say which is basically that corporate America is hosing the consumers that buy it's products because in many cases they are. However in (slight) defense of the particular industry he picked as an example (and in turn, all other industries). There are many direct costs that people neglect to take into account when figuring out what things really cost. In this exact example:

* He didn't account for labor to bake, package, label and put out said package of cookies. (Plus don't forget the ever increasing cost of benefits for the workers.)

* Then there's the cost of the actual package. (Which due to energy and material costs, which you guessed it, are increasing.)

* Don't forget the energy to run the ovens and keep the lights, heat and a/c on. (Which also increases in cost from year to year. Are you seeing a trend?)

* Transportation costs to get the case of cookies from the warehouse(s) to the stores. (Fuel costs aren't going down, you know.)

* On top of all of that how much is your time worth? How much would you pay to not have to bake the cookies you'd like to eat? Your time and convenience are also worth money...

I'm not going to detail what it costs for the above things. Instead, I'm going to simplify the equation.

Companies ARE in the business of making money and that's exactly what successful companies do. The more money they make for their owners or investors the more successful they are and the longer they stay in business.

So the answer to the question "Where does it end?" is that it all comes back to the consumer. Things tend to cost what people are willing and able to pay. If there are people out there that are willing to pay $3.99 for a package of ready to eat cookies, that's exactly what they're going to cost.

[So now that we simplified everything down to the statement that things cost what people are willing and able to pay, I'm going to re-complicate it if you're willing to continue reading.]

All of the other cookie providers that are competing for your cookie purchase also know what people will pay. How the different businesses differentiate themselves is how they gain your business over the other competitors.

* They can charge slightly less on cookies and hope that you'll buy something else that they make more profit on while you're there. (How much profit is in a cup of coffee?)

* They can have a better location that makes it easier for them to get their cookies in front of you.

* They can advertise.

* They can play up the quality of their cookie and/or how they're freshly baked (and directly or indirectly that they're better than the other guy's cookies).

It goes on and on... but the end result is the same. You want the cookies, you don't want to bake them yourself and the companies that are selling cookies want as much of your money that you're willing to let them have.

The ONLY way to make the price of cookies come down is really just to stop buying them. If nobody is buying cookies the price will either go down to a price that the customer is willing to pay (at which point the customer will resume cookie buying) or the cookies will not be available any more if they cost more to produce than the customer is willing to pay. You'll have to buy the ingredients separately and make them yourself.

The things like the cost of the raw cookie dough or ingredients, packaging, energy, transportation, labor, benefits, etc. do factor back into the equation if you can lower the tangible costs of producing and supplying the cookies in order to get them back to a level where a lower price for finished cookies still leads to an acceptable profit for the company selling them. However, if we attempt to go down this path we'll see that there are many more deep "root causes" for why the cost of everything keeps increasing which makes lowering costs difficult.

* America's "energy policies" (if you can call them that) are a little bit frightening. I'm constantly reading stories about people fighting against wind turbines ("I don't want that eyesore in my backyard." and "What will happen to the birds that fly into them?") and stifling other promising energy production methods for other ridiculous reasons. On top of that there are the people who think we should take over the Middle East by force because we're entitled to drive gas-guzzling SUV's powered by imported oil. We need to find ways to lower the cost of energy and don't involve direct conflict (which costs a lot of money).

* The cost of health care and insurance really needs to be addressed. (That's enough about this one.)

* Property costs were rising at rates we're now beginning to see weren't sustainable. (Which leads to increases in cost for rents, leases and purchases of property which also leads everything to cost more.)

There are tons of issues... I really could go all day on this topic but I keep coming back to the fact that if you really don't like the price of something the only thing you can really do is stop buying it. That'll send a undeniable message that you're not willing to pay what the seller is charging. If others do the same then things start to change...

(Broken links removed March 24, 2010.)

If Jeremy Clarkson ruled the world...

I think that most people who know me in person know how much I LOVE the show Top Gear on BBC. A couple days ago I read a blog entry on autoblog about increasing public support for Jeremy Clarkson (one of the Top Gear presenters) to be Prime Minister of Britain. Today I came across some of his views on major issues... and I'm even more in support of Jeremy Clarkson for Prime Minister of Britain. (I wish he could run for President here...)

Who should you vote for to be President?

I stumbled on this website earlier called Glassbooth and I haven't had a chance to look at it too in depth but on the surface it looks like a nice tool.

First you assign 20 points according to how strongly you feel about 14 issues and then you take a quiz to measure how much you agree or disagree with certain points related to the issues you feel strongly about.

It then gives you the candidates who most strongly match your positions and allows you to compare others who weren't your top matches to see how closely they match your positions.

I don't think this would influence how I'd vote but it allows you to kind of see how the candidate you are interested in compares to you and gives you some things to think about and look into.

I FINALLY saw SiCKO

Over the weekend I finally saw the Michael Moore's movie SiCKO. I had wanted to see it when it came out but didn't make it to the theater when it was playing. and it had popped into my head again a week or two ago when it was available "On Demand" on our cable box. I was SHOCKED when my roommate came home from the movie rental store with it amongst her choices and asked if there were any of the movies that she brought home that I was interested in seeing...

Let me start this off by saying that I'm not attempting to "review" this movie and admitting that I am a fan of the other Michael Moore documentaries that I've seen including Roger & Me, Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11.

I like the satirical approach that Michael Moore takes to asking questions that I would have never thought to ask. I appreciate his incredibly sarcastic and dark style of wit and humor. I AM, however, the type of person who likes to attempt to do my own research when trying to formulate opinions on controversial issues. I don't like to just take someone else's opinion as fact. I tend to like his movies because they make me think. They make me wonder why things are the way they are instead of just ignoring what's going on.

SiCKO was another one of those movies that made me think. It seemed to bring up the questions:

* Why does America have a health care system that is focused on little more than profit?

* How do you hold organizations accountable that benefit financially from not paying for adequate care for the people that pay into them?

*Why do these organizations have departments that look to invalidate claims and claim "fraud" over "preexisting conditions" instead of having a trusted network of doctors that do what is medically necessary and are compensated fairly for their work?

* Why do Americans with health care insurance of some sort feel comfortable letting "for profit" corporations "take care" of them?

There are a MILLION more questions raised by the movie so I'm recommending that you go rent it and ask some questions.

I'm going to leave you with a a blog and a review of the movie that I found interesting.

* Frank Robbins: "Sicko"


* KPBS Movie Reviews: "Sicko"

It's just gloom and doom...

One of my favorite things to do when I get a free minute is to look at stories on somewhat "controversial" issues in the online media and then read the comments following the article.

I'm shocked that some people out there that think by calling a story "gloom and doom" and accusing the media of being "liberal" or "leftist" by publishing certain stories that the issues are just going to disappear or that they're not even real issues in the first place.

The article I was reading this morning on Wired "The End of Oil is Upon Us. We Must Move On - Quickly." was one of these articles that was the target of these type of ignorant comments. (Although there really weren't that many in this particular article, there were a few...)

One only needs to take a look at what we're currently surrounded by to see that there are real issues out there that we need to start dealing with including:

* Oil prices at record highs leading to high gasoline prices
* Current military actions and rising tension in the Middle East where there is a supply of oil (Operation Iraqi Liberation = O.I.L.)
* Large increases in home heating & electricity costs
* The falling value of the US Dollar
* The sub-prime lending problems that are hitting hard now

I'm bothered by certain comments because there are people out there taking the time to attempt to shoot down stories and issues that seem troubling by calling them names like "liberal" or "doom and gloom".

If they're so not concerned with the stories or the issues why are they even wasting their time reading and commenting on them?

Everyone else who responds to these comments with logical, reasonable and well thought out responses are also just wasting their time. The person making a comment that a story is "gloom and doom" isn't going to be convinced that there are real issues out there beyond what new gadget they need to buy. (I know I'm a bit of a hypocrite on some of these issues because I like new toys as much as the next guy...)

However with the way things are looking we really need to find a way to align en masse and attack the problems that we're facing. Why are we wasting our time dividing ourselves according to non-issues and labeling ourselves as being a "Democrat", "Republican", "conservative", "liberal", etc? Why are we wasting our time attacking each other?

Political Reform: Nonbinding Resolutions

Warning: Today's entry is another political rant...

What the fuck is the deal with politicians wasting time on "non-binding resolutions" and other meaningless things to that effect?

I touched on this in my last blog post when I wrote about how the Democrats passed "a resolution" on how the MoveOn.org ad in the NY Times about Gen. Petraeus pissed them off...

Thinking more about it the whole idea of wasting time putting together meaningless resolutions seems to me like something we really have to find a way to change.

I guess I understand the point of the act of coming together to propose and vote on a a resolution. (Which, as I see it, is to put on record the fact that a group of politicians dislike something that they seemingly can't do anything about.) The problem with that whole idea of a "non-binding resolution" is that it seems like a huge waste of time and energy to attack something that can't be changed by just saying: "We don't like what you're doing but feel free to do it anyway." It seems more like an exercise in saving face than a meaningful act.

Now I'm going to take a HUGE stretch and assume that there are at least some intelligent (and maybe even a couple honest) politicians out there... Why can't they get together and find a way to actually do some damage to things they don't agree with? We didn't elect them to pass non-binding resolutions because someone is making them feel sad/mad/powerless. In electing them, (speaking very loosely in some cases) we've basically said that the majority of people who voted agree with their views/platform/record and have given them the power go out and make their will happen. If they stray too far from what they lead us to believe were their intentions and ideals they won't be re-elected.

The main problem is that it's pretty obvious that the current system isn't working in this manner. People (if they bother voting at all) have a tendency to vote on name recognition, strict party lines, whether or not they feel the candidate represents them morally or even worse: whether they take the same stand on one issue such as war, gay marriage or immigration. So it seems to me that once elected a politician can do whatever they want as long as they don't change their name, change their party affiliation, piss off the people with the same morals or views on the half dozen or so "hot button" issues. Take that and throw a lot of money and pressure from lobbyists and "friends" into the mix and everything gets all the more complicated.

Once you take all of that into account I can see why it seems like the politicians are interested in saving face so that they don't piss off the people who voted for them based on one issue such as their stand on the Iraq war or the fact that all the other good Republicans are voting one way, why aren't they?

I really don't know if there is a solution to the mess we're in. It actually seems more and more hopeless the more I think about it. We're so far down a path of apathy and ignorance that most people feel that their vote doesn't matter and in many cases it doesn't. How do you change things that seem like they can't be changed? Wait, I've got it... I'm calling for a non-binding resolution for our government to not waste their time on anymore non-binding resolutions until they get some real shit accomplished... yeah... that makes me feel better... now you all know I'm on your side.

Let's pass a resolution...

I was reading the headlines that I have set up in my gmail (as I have a tendency do) and I came across this story about how everyone is still all pissy about that MoveOn.org full page ad asking "General Petraeus or General Betray Us?".

I also have a tendency to pick out one little part of a story to get really pissed off about. That little part in this article is where they mention that the Democrats "passed a resolution 72 to 25 expressing its own outrage" on the ad. It seems like a resolution to express their outrage about the MoveOn ad is the only thing that they could pass, though, because they failed in passing "a bill lengthening the home leaves of U.S. troops fighting in Iraq" which seems to me to be a much more worthwhile pursuit.

Why are they busy saying: "Hey guys, lets have a vote to say: You suck, MoveOn!" when they should be working harder on the fight to pass measures that help to end this pointless war?

Now I'm waiting for the next MoveOn ad... Hopefully the next one will be targeted at the worthless sacks of hypocritical shit in the House and Senate.

I thought I was in SERIOUS debt...

... but it doesn't seem so bad when you read about the fact that our "actual" national debt is currently reported to be over $9 trillion and the "official" debt number is projected to exceed our "debt ceiling" of $8.965 trillion by October 1st.

I was sick enough reading these stories... but I'm even more sick of the "partisan" spin that "news" outlets put on stories like this, though. From the article: "Democrats blame Bush's tax cuts and the war in Iraq for pushing the debt to record levels."

I think EVERYONE should at least partially blame Bush's tax cuts. I'm guessing that the approximately 64% of Americans who currently disapprove of Bush's job performance don't think the ill-conceived war in Iraq is a good idea...

We need to find a way out of war (and debt) now. Maybe Bush needs to find himself a second job... If I should, so should he.

(All joking aside... What can we do?)

Edit: Reading through the comments to the first article I linked to I'm seeing that some people actually have some ideas... but is it even possible to make all religious institutions pay property and income tax, revise the tax code to drastically limit the the amount of write-offs that big business take, etc.?

I'm sure it's possible... but how would we even go about something like redesigning all of the tax laws? I would love to see a simpler, more fair tax system...

National Cheese Pizza Day & politics!

I was checking out slashfood today and came across a day I can get behind. Today is National Cheese Pizza Day!!!

On a more serious (political) note: Is it just me or does it seem like politicians are dropping at an incredible rate from their posts?

Paul Gillmor (R-Ohio) was found dead today.

As I'm sure you all know: Larry Craig (R-Idaho) was deemed a liability to the Republican Party and was called to resign due to the fact that he allegedly did a gay little foot wiggle in a public restroom and was caught in a sting operation. The article linked above paints a picture of a "closeted" Republican who did nothing but vote the party line. I guess his forced exit from politics might hopefully prompt him to do something in the area of human rights for a change. Well, that is, if he doesn't un-resign first...

Tony Snow, Karl Rove, Alberto Gonzales, Donald Rumsfeld, "Scooter" Libby... The funny thing is that among all of these people who have seen their political careers come to an end, the ones who HAVEN'T been forced/asked/coerced to resign (or died or whatever the case may be) are really the ones who have been doing the most to fuck up America.

I mean, really, Larry Craig... Who the fuck cares if he's gay and wanted a little man-on-man-lovin'? (Well, I guess aside from the gay sex proposition that got him in trouble, he's a hypocrite, too, which REALLY sucks... but seriously... caught in a sting operation to rid an airport bathroom of the gays...) Why can't we find ways to get rid of some of the bigger bad guys instead? I'm sure there are ways to catch others doing things that are MUCH MUCH worse than Larry Craig's "sins".

Weigh in...

I know there are a couple people out there who look at my blog on occasion. If you have a moment please weigh in on what you think about this article:

Al Gore and Tom Friedman think we're paying attention to the wrong things. (slate.com)

Do you agree with Al Gore that the mainstream media is fixated on celebrities and their scandals and is wasting our energy on things that don't matter? Do you also agree with Tom Friedman who basically says that coverage of the war in Iraq is blocking out talk about education, health care, etc.?

Here's the way I see it. On numerous occasious I've thought about (and had conversations relating to) the idea that we as a culture put way too much effort into keeping up with the "celebrities" and sports heroes of the day. We spend time watching the Yankees play, engrossed in American Idol or scouring the internet for the blog with pictures of Britney's crotch after we hear about her getting out of her car without underwear on. Note this is a collective "we". I understand that some of us (myself included) don't get off on Britney's crotch shots.