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Showing posts from November, 2008

Political Dream Team or Playing it Safe

Barack Obama says he wants to change the politics of this country, but now I hear that he is going to nominate Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State. I am not a Hillary Clinton supporter for many reasons, but most importantly I just don’t like the idea of family legacies in government. Although I believe Hillary is a good Senator and a very competent person, she represents the political ideology of the Bill Clinton Administration. There is nothing wrong with this and I believe Bill Clinton was an excellent President and his ideas were progressive, although still within the tight framework of the currently political structure. Bill Clinton did not bring significant positive change to the system, his impact was felt in particularly program areas. How can Barack Obama make fundamental change if he is represented by the more much conservative (conservative within the progressive genre) Hillary Clinton all around the world. Furthermore, the Clintons presence will detract fro

the LAST dragon

Nooooooooooooo! They are remaking Berry Gordy's the Last Dragon. The greatest action, adventure, love, kung-fu, coming of age, drama of the last 100 years. This movie is perfect in every way. Re-releasing the original is a great idea; expose a new generation to the awesome power of The Last Dragon. Samuel L. Jackson will be playing Sho'nuff, and although he is a huge Hollywood action star, you just can't replace the original. How can we stop this? Did they wait until Julius Carry III passed away before the starting production because they knew that he would never allow this to happen. How can we stop this? I call upon Taimak, Vanity, and all those from the real Last Dragon to join me in a crusade to stop this travesty. Together we will get to the final level, we will find the secrets to the golden glow, and our minds, body and souls shall become one. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081030/film_nm/us_jackson

Banking Bailout - How much is $700,000,000,000

Big numbers are hard for people to process. 700 billion can start to sound like 300 billion, or 900 million for that matter. It becomes like sand grains or moon strands, magically big, past the point of counting; an amount you sit with a nephew and contemplate in wonder. - It is one third of the total amount of money received by the federal government in 2007, including social security, income tax, corporate tax, and all other receipts. - It is nine times the amount spent on education in 2007. - It is 35 times the amount spent on all foreign aid in most years. - It is $140 billion more than has been spent on the Iraq war since the invasion. - It is $120 billion more than that spent on social security benefits. - It is 7,000 times bigger than the Sierra club’s yearly budget. - Its over twice the amount of all money given to all charitable organizations in the United States in any given year. - It is more than $100 for eve

Jets - This is their (other) year

The Jets are an amazing 7-3 and in first place in the AFC east. Over the past six years, the Jets have had a winning season (and made the playoffs) every other year. On some basic level this makes sense. All NFL teams have a salary cap and thus the talent level is pretty consistent. If a team has a good season, the following year their schedule with be tougher, likewise if they are horrible, they will play other bad teams the next season. So is it fair to say the Jets are just good against poor teams? Yes, but who cares. The Jets invested heavily in winning this year, signing a series of veteran stars, of which almost all of them have worked out. Farve, although past his prime, is still a significant upgrade over Pennington. Fanica and Woody, also over the hill, are still a huge upgrades and has steadied the offensive line. Calvin Pace has been excellent and Kris Jenkins is a dominant force on defense, actually helping to stop the run for the first time in my lifetime. 1st r

Got Any Change?

The ques tion for President Obama becomes, “is change possible?”. Sure he can modify the tax rate, but is he going to raise taxes enough to make them compare at least equally with other countries (as a percent of our GDP, the US taxes a tremendously small amount compared to almost every other first world country). Maybe than we could make health care, college, and employment training free for everyone. The US spends 50% of its discretionary money on the military, but only 6% on Health and Human Services, 5% on Education, 2% on the Department of Energy, 2% on the Department of Justice, and 1% on the EPA. We spend 10 times as much on the military (not even including the wars) than on education. We spend 10X more money on the military than China does. Is that going to change? Are we going to mandate environmental changes now? Can these types of changes ever be implemented, even with a democratic majority in both houses of Congress. We know Obama says he wants change, but is it even possib

Ohhhh-Bama

In early December of last year I officially endorsed Barack Obama. I don't want to take full credit (perhaps just 95%) for the fact that at that exact moment his campaign turned around and he started his earnest pursuit of the Presidency. For various reasons, my blog was shut down until this time (was it because I was secretly running Obama's campaign, or was I negotiating Brett Favre's path to Jets, or perhaps I was just job hunting.) Anyway, election night is upon us. Go Vote. I am driving all the back to Connecticut to vote (see upcoming posts for why I am no longer living in the Nutmeg State . Although it is a little late in the day, please comment with your predictions as to the final outcome. The person who is closest will win amazing prizes. My final tally: Obama - 330, McCain - 208. (fyi, when I restarted the blog, there were errors with my template and I had to change it now the fonts are all messed up, I will change this soon. Thanks.)