Tis the Season

This is my favorite time of the year.
Hot Chocolate.
Wool Hats.
Sweaters.
Christmas trees, and the smell of pine.
Shopping.
Wrapping presents.
Family and of course the alcohol required to be inbided in their presence.
And of course Lists.
Best of the Year Lists make this my favorite time of the year.

• Amazon.com
• Rollingstone.com
• ew.com

Quick Hits

Mumbai (Bombay)

Young radicals, trained to kill unarmed people. How is it you can justify the killing of innocents for you cuase with the shedding of blood? How does that get you anywhere other than heighten the cost of the fight?

The idea I guess is to terrorize. To break the spirit of the people.

But this is India.

Mighty England couldn't beat India. Piddly ass Pakistan, or some shit ass splinter group that doesn't even have support of the government? Are you kidding me? You guys are just setting yourself up for a world of hurt.

India is about to open a can of whup ass on y'all before long.

You should not have pulled this tigers tail.

Denial

Sometimes the truth stares you in the face, but it is too painful, too powerful to accept. So we shove it away, we hold it at arms length. We make up lies to ourselves and to others. Until we have the strength to accept.

Blagojevich

Can you beleive this guy? What a moron. He knew he was under investigation yet he still said these things, granted he thought they were over a secure line, but come on, have some brains.

The guy is a lawyer, so that means that at sometime in his life he had some kind of wits about him, what went wrong?

Senator Richard Shelby

Is out to scare you. His giant slicl delivery and southern accent do nothing to hide the fact that the man is a snake in the grass for the great state of Alabama. That forward looking state that fought against civil rights and currently is one of the fattest states in the country second only to Mississippi. Richard Shelby would have you believe that foriegn car companies are the way to go. He would tell you that American car companies should all fail, did I mention that he has vested interest in seeing Detroit fail?

The Japanese car companies set up in the south along with the Germans, and they don't have the problem of the UAW. This in turn has kept costs down. As a result the Republican party is now siding against the union once again. But stupidly it is also siding against America in the process in an economic downturn, and Shelby is leading the charge. Oh and one last thing, those foriegn automakers with plants in the south, all are heavily subsidized on our dime. We had to lure them here.

So don't let Shelby sell you a line about American car companies. Yes they suck right now. But they are worth saving.

History will be his Judge

Here we are coming to the end of the one the worst Presidencies ever, and history be the judge when all is said and done. When all of the documents are collected and all of the bodies are buried, it will be said that Geoege W. Bush did this country a great disservice.

After 8 yearsof his presidency what has happened to our country?

We're broke.

Our Alliances were on the ropes.

We're borrowing money from the Chinese at an alraming rate

We're in two wars, one for no reason, the other worsening by the day & we're still no closer to catching Bin Laden.

Now he is sitting on his hands as Rome burns. Obama is Chomping at the bit to get in there. He is like the amped up tag team partner from wrestling fame. He's pulling at the ropes stomping his feet and pacing back and forth thowing his hands in the air to get the crowd involved. Why? Because that's all he can do.

Bush Was handed a golden oppertunity to transform not only America but the World. During the days after 9/11 the people of this fair nation cried out for leadership, we wanted to be told the hard truths, hell during those days we were willing to accept them. Bush could've sold us on sacrifice he could have sold us on service. He did none of these.

He sold a war without sacrifice.

He hid the coffins as they came home.

He sanctioned turture and rendition in foreign prisons.

He destroyed the hope that was America, Obama restored that with his election.

Bush was given a defing moment by 9/11. Obama now has his thanks in large part to President Bush. History in the end will be very unkind to Bush.

As it should be.

The Double Standard

Let me get this straight.

You work hard, you make cars for a company that just so happens to be run by morons, but work hard nonetheless, and have done so for a long time.

But your work isn't worth as much the bastard from citibank.

You have to sweat it out for a few more weeks. Hell your entire business may head into the sewer. Our economy may go with it.

Like it isn't there already BA.

While the employee from citibank makes a couple of calls on the weekend up in the Hamptons and his ass is secure in the knowledge that the Governement will be there to bail him out.

Why is that?

The color of their collar.

One is white. One is blue.

Is that right?

No.

Was AIG held up to any standard before they were given their bailout?

No?

Yet the Auto industry is being dragged over the coals.

Im not defending the auto industry, I think as it stands now the business models that they have need to be abolished. But, and this is a huge but, there are a hell of lot more people involved and effected on an everyday basis by the auto industry than there are by AIG. Yet AIG has been bailed out twice.

So the next time you complain about the auto companies, complain about all of the bailouts, remember, in the end we are on the hook for all of em in the end.

So the Big 3 are run by morons. Is this a shock to anyone?

Song to listen to when reading this post: Another Way to Die Jack White & Alicia Keys

So you have go and beg for your company's financial life, the situation is dire, you know that your company will be bankrupt soon without help from the federal government. It is in this situation due in some part to your own shoddy leadership.
And what do you do?
Do you show up before congress in your shabbiest oldest suit, fly coach and then show up by cab just for appearances sake? Or do you say fuck it, thats for the common worker.
Are you kidding? I'm the goddamn CEO! Lets fly to DC in the Corporate jet.
But what about who much it costs?
Who cares that each trip in the damn thing costs more than a single Caddillac? This is what the corporate jet is for, corporate business, besides which I'm the Goddamd CEO!
To quote Yoda for a second "that is why you fail."
If the common man to come the rescue of the big three they need to send better messengers than the three Morons that appeared in several hundred dollar suits with their grubby hands outstretched.
Maybe next time they need to send their research and development team. That would give a far better view of the health of the company not the idiots who have been running these running these once proud American brands into the ground.
The Japanese copied America, and in the end beat us at our own game.
It's time Detroit copied Japans business model.
And those CEO's?
They should be left out with last years models. Nobody wants you guys around anymore.

Should We Save Detroit?

That is the question that is being bandied about these last few days.

Not the city but, the Automakers you say.

Thats just it.

The automakers are that city. The people who live and work and breath and make up it's lifeblood come from the big three.

If you let just one of the big three die, I've seen numbers that say that up to 2.5 million could lose their jobs, the results would be catostrophic.

The unemployment rate in this country would jump above 10% not long afterward.

Can we tolerate that at this moment?

No.

So we can't let them fail at the moment.

But do we let them stay on their current courses, I say hell no.

Their upper management should be gutted. The cheif executives should be given their walking papers.

This is America.

We are the home of innovation not stagnation.

This may mean that this sacred of sacreds in America the American Auto Worker Union is going to loose it's shirt for American cars to become profitible again.

Too bad.

For too long the union has grown fat on large contracts. It has done well for its members but it has never looked to the longer term. It has never looked as what may be lurking over the horizon. Now that shortsightedness is bearing bitter fruit.

I fear in the end we are all going to have to pay a price for Detroits myopia

Why Policy of Truth?

It's a simple title really, and a simple motto, and a great song, but it's very hard to live by it.
So how do you do it?
One step at a time.
You start with being truthful with yourself.
Sometimes that is the hardest part of all.
You can tell the truth to everyone else in the world but if you lie to yourself it will all go for naught, and it wil poison everything else.
The truth it is said wil set you free.
But it will also bind you.
Some people do not like the truth they will hide from it, they will shun it, they will lie.
That is why the Policy of Truth is so important.
Truth for Truth's sake should be a goal.
Why?
Because reality dear friends is something we must all confront.

Post One In the Age of Obama

So we have elected a new President.

A black man.

Wow.

That is awesome. Let us hope we as a nation can move forward and heal. Because healing is what we will need to do, if you don't think so you are just fooling yourself. Sure you saw lots of people crying for happiness and jumping for joy, but there were a lot of other people who were wringing their hands and grinding their teeth. There are a lot of people out there who really do believe that Obama is a Socialist, and are scared stupid that he's gonna replace the stars and stripes with a big old red star.

Give them time.

Obama is not a Socialist. The whole claim of Socialism was a desparate ploy on part of the GOP, they were playing to fear, not to reality. Asking the extremely wealthy to return to the taxes they paid under the Clinton administration, is not all of the sudden socialism, that is a rollback of a taxcut. If you want to call anyone a Socialist look no farther than President Bush(R) and the nationalization of the countries banks.

Reality will assert itself over the next few months.

You will see that he is not a socialist. How? Not by his words but by his actions.

Obama will have to lead from the center not from the far left, because it is the center where a majority of Americans still reside.

We are not a nation of "Joe the Plumber's." (Who wasn't even a plumber)

We are a nation of middle class, and the middle class has been getting squeezed pretty hard the last 8 years. Lets hope we can all come together and put this country back on the right track and get all of our messes sorted.

If this election taught us anything, it's that Americans want to be involved again.

So lets get started.