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Showing posts from September, 2004

New York Mets vs George Bush

In a contest of what organization is run worse, who would win; the United States under George Bush or the New York Mets under Fred Wilpon. I think I have covered the case for Bush, now lets looks at the Mets. They are about to finish the season with the 3rd worse ratio of money spend on players to amount of total wins. They are in second to last place, only ahead of the pathetic, low budget Expos. Of course, the Mets just hired a new General Manager to run their team. You ask, did they get someone from a winning team or even a decent team? No, they got the guy from the Montreal Expos, the only team that finished behind the Mets. Do you know that Mo Vaughn is still on the Mets payroll (for $17 mil/year). That Mike Cameron is batting .233 and has more strikeouts than hits (only $4.3mil). Richard Hildalgo is batting .228, also with more strikeouts than hits ($12.5mil!). Jason Phillips, batting .220, Todd Ziele, .234; Cliff Floyd, .260. The Mets don't have a single player

Missed Opportunities and Compassionate Conservatives

The biggest missed opportunity is this election wasn't John Kerry's chance to say that he would have voted against the war, or Bush's inability to come up with a good plan for Iraq. The biggest missed opportunity was by Laura Bush. She could have won the election (and done the right thing) if only she has shown some genuine compassion. Remember last week, when a woman snuck into a speech by Laura. The woman's son was killed in Iraq and she wore a shirt that said, "George Bush killed my son". After she started to protest, she was thrown out by security and ended up being handcuffed and arrested. Now imagine if this would have happened... As the woman is being dragged out the building, Laura steps to the microphone, "Get your hands of her, let her go!" the first lady demands. Than she invites the woman onto the stage to tell her story. After the woman speaks of how her son died for no reason and it is the President's fault, Laura would respon

Stock Market Woes - Book Review

(Don't forget to Enter contest #4, Scroll down a few posts) I may have missed a book review in between this and the last one, but I'll eventually get to any I missed. The first is my book review of Reminiscences of a Stock Operator by Edwin Lefèvre . This was a book recommended by my father. It is a fictional first person account of a stock operator the first 20 years of the 20th century. Overall, the book was very well written and does an amazing job of only focusing on one part of his life without making you feel that you are missing all the context. Even though he talks about a time when there are only a few hundred publicly traded stocks and the regulations were much looser, there is still a tremendous corollary between his theories and encounters 100 years ago and what they would be now. To top things off, his life was very interesting, including going from millions to bankruptcy a few times. The writing is straightforward and well thought out and utilized and c

Kerry's Last Stand

John Kerry must have the first sentence of what I've been writing because he finally stood up for himself. However, he didn't read the rest of what I had to say and he stood up for the wrong thing. Note: He stood up for what he believed, which is honorable; however, he did not stand up for a winnable Presidential campaign. My take from his big speech yesterday is that 1) The war was wrong 2) Saddam was not a threat and 3) He will pull our soldiers out unless the UN helps. John Kerry is now officially an anti-war candidate. Politically, this is not good. Bush can attack him too easily by saying things like "Saddam would still be killing hundreds of thousands of women and children if it were up to you" and "Next time there is a threat, you will wait for the UN and by than it could be too late", and "John Kerry would pull out our soldiers before their job is done, thus making 1,000 US soldiers die for nothing." And all this would be accurat

Things Kerry should say every 5 minutes

1) "Bush let Osoma Bin Laden get away, I will catch him no matter what." 2) "[Insert name of American solder who died that day in Iraq] died today because the Bush/Cheney have the wrong plan and refused to change. Your son could be next." 3) "All women who respect autonomy over their own bodies should understand that if Bush/Cheney wins they will destroy a women's right to control her own body." 4) "In 2003, George Bush donated only $68,360 to charities. In 2003, Teresa donated over $45 million. Bush spends his money to buy baseball teams, we spend our money on the community." 5) "My plan for Iraq is [insert plan, any plan, please. My suggestion is "When I am President, I will implement an operation I designed with General Wesley Clark and other experienced Generals that will realign our soldiers so they can crush those who oppose us. One city at a time, we liberate Iraq once and for all." (I am so depressed when I think

Priorities

I know that space exploration is important and many wonderful things have come about from the work that NASA has done, but why can't Congress (as a representative of the people in this country) add a stipulation to the NASA budget that says "Unless NASA finds a cure or vaccine for HIV, though either self research or contracting, they will be receive only 25% funding for any new projects. If the cure is found within one year, NASA's original budget will triple, within three years it will double. However, if nothing is found in three years, their funding at 25% will continue indefinitely". The scientists at NASA are the most creative and brilliant that this country has to offer. The continually achieve goals that were considered impossible. If this country gives NASA the resources and motivation (similar to when we first went to moon, an event considered 30 years ahead of its time), that I believe that they can do more than launch satellites, invent Velcro, and l

Stairmaster to Heaven – Contest #4

You know those anti-smoking commercials that talk about the fact we live in “crazy land”, well I think they might be more accurate then we could have imagined. That commercial is paid for by a company who produces the product (cigarettes) in which the commercial is protesting. So this contest is to come up with the most ridiculous thing that has happened that makes you think that the world has just lost its concept of reality. For example, the fact the both Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura are (or were) Governors of major US states. Or just the idea of a treadmill. Next time you pass a gym, watch a person running as fast as they can and going nowhere. And this person paid good money for the privilege of using the run and get nowhere machine. So the contest is to come up with the most ridiculous thing that everyone just seems to think is acceptable. Entries are limited to 5 per person and each one can be no longer than 20 words. Note: Last time I held a contest,

Same old this and that

And thus my vacation was over. And when I came back to work everything was the same. Everything always seems to be the same. I know I have talked about the current administration that tries to run this country into the ground, but in truth my life is exactly the same as it was before. I wonder how often things change for people in general, moments when they say “wow, this is different.” I don’t think I’ve ever really endured a radical change in my whole life. Sure, I have made choices that affected which path my life headed towards, but they never have they changed the direction of my life. All I seem to be doing to cleaning up the details and growing up along the way. I don’t know if this bad or good, but I know that it is a choice I make everyday. Tomorrow I could jump on a plane and move to Tibet, or try to hitchhike to Peru, or stop speaking, or dedicate myself to creating a mechanical, mobile fishtank so that not-fluffy can control and move around a room. I think that if