Weaver95

I haven’t tuned into the show in a while, mostly due to lack of interest.  I’ve had plenty of other things to occupy my time and I just couldn’t dedicate myself to turning on the radio and listening in on the show.

But today I decided to bite the bullet and see what Rush has been up to lately.  And I gotta tell you - Rush is angry.  No, not the usual faux angry white guy thing he usually has going on, but he’s angry enough to almost cursing on the air.  He had to hit the ‘oh shit’ button on his broadcaster delay console more than once today already.  So what has him angry?

Cash for clunkers.

Oh yes, that’s what’s got him upset.  Apparently, the Federal government run program has Rush up in arms.  It’s the epitome of all things evil, it’s bloated, it’s corrupt, the point of the program is contrary to the US Constitution.  It’s all together ooky!   Thing is - i’m not really sure WHY it’s wrong.  Rush never stopped long enough to explain his point.  He just fired up the rhetoric and hit the sound clips.  I think we’re supposed to just wait for the Limbaugh group mind to tell us the reasons why we’re all supposed to hate this program.

Granted, the whole idea is a poster child of good intentions gone wrong.  But why Rush has decided to dedicate his first hour of a friday show to telling us that it’s a bad program is entirely beyond me.  If Rush really wanted to rant and rave about the evils of government spending, there’s the whole ‘government bailout’ of wall street to cover.  But then he’d have to admit that Bush was wrong and Rush simply will not do that.

Oh, and of course Rush is talking about tax cuts.  We’re not going to talk about SPENDING cuts to go along with those tax cuts but hey - math has never been Rush’s strong point.  And of course he’s calling Democrats ‘idiots’.  Ok, some of them ARE idiots but so are most of the Republicans currently inside the D.C. beltway.  So I don’t know how effective Rush is on that particular issue.  However, he’s soldiering on regardless.

Poor Rush.  He’s got at least several issues out there that he could cover, but he can’t touch them without contradicting himself and losing his fan base.  He can’t point out that it was the Republicans that screwed up on the wall street bailout issue.  He can’t really talk about health care reform, because he’d have to explain how the Republicans can take money from people who drop coverage for cancer patients just because they could.  He can’t really talk about energy reform, because half the Republican party sold their souls to Big Oil, so advocating a switch to nuclear power would lose him the support of all that oil money.  Rock meet hard place.

I really don’t have anything to link to either - Rush is just ranting and raving with conspiracy theories galore today (did you know that ‘cash for clunkers’ is a plot by greenpeace to steal our cars?).  Nothing is up on his site yet either, at least nothing I can find that’s probative.  Good word, that - probative.  vaguely offensive, in a sexually suggestive way.  Heard it on law and order once, and I’ve been trying to work it into a sentence ever since.

I’ll listen in on the show for a bit more, but then i’m done for the day.  He’s not saying anything of substance today.

I know, it’s quite a shocker - but it’s true, the economy ain’t doing all that great.

The updated statistics also showed that Americans earned more over the last 10 years and socked away a larger share of that cash in savings. The report signals the process of repairing tattered balance sheets following the biggest drop in household wealth on record may be further along than anticipated.

Now, the rest of us might think that right there is good news.  But you’d be wrong - the US economy is built on CREDIT, not on savings.  Absolutely nothing in our economy (from the tax code to business planning) is designed around the concept of a large bulk of consumer saving what they earn.  Everything on wall street is based on making us spend more money than we earn, and then making a profit on the resulting debt load.

The economic data is suggesting a shift in the economic habits of this country.  And along with a shift in economic views, it is inevitable that a shift in politics will follow.  As the old saying goes, follow the money.  What this will mean for the long term is anyone’s guess…but when people realize that they get taxed more for behaving in an economically responsible manner than they do if they just spend like mad, that might force our leaders to change how they do things.

I have no idea if that will be the case.  I merely hope that we rewrite the tax laws to encourage more fiscally responsible habits from ‘we the people’.  But the beltway insiders have their own views on things.  So….hang tight, I guess is the message.  Just keep your head above water by any means necessary and let’s hope it all works out.

Oh yes, it’s true -quite a number of banks who got TARP bailout funds recorded the money as ‘profit’.  And since that money is a profit, then the senior executives (who ran the banks into the ground in the first place) will get huge bonus checks this year.

Once more, for those of you in the cheap seats:

1. Incompetent bank CEO screws up and needs a Federal bailout to stay afloat.

2. Government bails out the bank, saves the CEO’s bacon.

3. Asshole CEO records bailout as a profit, collects a bonus check for his efforts.

If you aren’t outraged by any of this then you haven’t been paying any attention at all.  Why are we rewarding these people!?  They ran their business into the ground at Mach 5.  Without a taxpayer bailout they’d be on a street corner begging for quarters.

We need to stop with the Federal bailouts.  No more money to incompetent businessmen who’s only real talent is stealing money from investors and/or the Federal government.  If they can’t figure out a way to stand on their own than too bad - let them fail.  Reading stories like this one only serve to anger investors and undermine confidence in our long term recovery prospects.

Look at this picture:

I can almost see him trying to fire Dark Side force bolts at the Legislature.

*sigh*

So Fast Eddie isn’t happy about the budget. He’s real concerned, you see, that this whole mess is making him look bad.  Not that he cares though, as he is often quick to point out.  But it’s starting to crimp his style.  plus all the janitors keep pelting him with ho-hos every time he walks down the hallway.  Not to mention the fact that this budget mess has interrupted Ed’s ability to dash down to Philly, get a cheese steak and then pencil whip the speeding ticket through the system.  Do you know what’d happen if the people here in Harrisburg ever figured out just how many speeding tickets he’s gotten just in the past 6 weeks!?  Good thing we’ve all been distracted though, otherwise people might start to think Ed is a corrupt asshole.

All kidding aside though, Ed does have a lot of problems.  The longer this budget mess goes on the bigger the backlash will be against the Democrats.  The next Democratic candidate is going to have to deal with the toxic waste of Ed’s failed policies as part of their campaign and that’s just not something anyone in their right minds wants to have to handle.  And it’s complicating Ed’s ability to find a solution to Sestak and his push to run against Arlen Specter in a knock down/drag out DNC primary race.  So Ed’s getting it from all sides - the national party leaders are pushing him to bury Sestak in a coal mine somewhere, the local Democrats want a chance to kick Arlen out of the party AND the Republicans in Harrisburg are being insolent.  Not just insolent but Ed can’t just have them removed from the building and shot.

To be fair, most of Ed’s problems are self imposed.  Nothing in his career ever prepared him for dealing with an opposition party.  It’s not like there are any Republicans in Philadelphia.  So having to negotiate a budget with someone you can’t just bitch slap in a closed door meeting really cramps Ed’s style.  And believe me, he really WANTS to punch the lights out of the Republicans.  You can see it in his eyes - he wants to rip his shirt off and start beating the shit outta everyone in Harrisburg who doesn’t do exactly what he wants done.  Ed’s not a real big fan of the whole democracy thing, and he’s always been rather abusive.  As this budget mess continues and pressures mount, Ed’s getting squeezed and he really doesn’t know how to handle it.  I can’t say I feel sorry for the guy - I mean he’s managed to screw up every budget he’s ever been required to write.  That’s incompetence on a massive scale..I’m just sorry that the state workers are the ones who have to pay for Fast Eddie screwing up yet again.

Maybe this is a good thing though.  Maybe if enough people in the rest of the state feel as if they cannot trust anyone from philly, then maybe next election cycle we’ll get someone into office who isn’t a corrupt jackhole.  It could happen!  After all, Ed has cost people a lot of money.  And if there’s one thing people pay attention to, it’s someone who costs them money.  They might forget incompetent leadership, but take their money away from them and they sit up and pay attention to what you’re doing.  Here’s hoping someone finds a way to drive that point home next election cycle!

I’m a technophile.  I need to get that out in the open right at the start.  I like technology.  It’s great stuff - everything from the latest way to make toast up to and including the newest USB gadget, I love it all.  From pointless officer frippery to rugged electronics equipment designed to be used in the wilds of Alaska, it’s all good.

So my interest in how we’re going to power all our technology is self explanatory….and it’s why articles like this one are so disturbing.

A day after the news that the Dept. of Energy was not going to give USEC a $2 billion loan guarantee for its new uranium-enrichment plant under construction in Ohio, the DOE announced that it was planning to provide up to $30 billion in loan guarantees for renewable energy projects.

Think about that for a moment.  The DoE apparently does NOT believe that nuclear power counts as a ‘renewable energy’ source.  Which is either sheer insanity or plain old government stupidity.  France has managed to put together a comprehensive nuclear plant design that meets the energy needs of their country and works very well indeed.  They recycle their uranium too, because something like that doesn’t wear out, it just needs to be reprocessed from time to time.  it’s got a half life of something like 10,000 years.  that’s 10,000 years of nuclear power!  How is that not renewable!?

Bah.  It looks like Obama has bought into the standard issue ec0-nut view that all nukes are bad nukes.  The fact of the matter is that we can build safe, effective nuclear power plants that replace our aging coal plants and would greatly cut our carbon footprint.  But because the environmentalist lobby in this country is comprised of a bunch of ignorant superstitious cave dwelling neo-luddite idiots, we’re going not going to build a network of nuclear power stations that this country desperately needs.   No, we’re going to build solar panels and wind mills, which cannot sustain our current power needs let alone provide enough power to pull us out of our current economic doldrums.

If this country was run by smart people who really wanted to do the right thing for this nation, rather than lining their own pockets with campaign donations or pushing a radical political agenda, we’d do two things:

1. build safe nuclear plants all over the country

2. legalize cannabis.

But we’re not going to do either one.  We’re going to keep doing the same old things that we’ve always done and expecting that THIS time everything will turn out differently.  Which, according to Einstein, is the very definition of insanity.  Reading stories like this one are enormously frustrating.  Not only because the solution to our energy problems is so clear, but because it’s tiresome to see our ‘leaders’ make the wrong decisions time and time again.  All for reasons of political ideology, NOT based on scientific evidence or practical realities needed to plan for future development.  If Obama keeps ignoring the benefits of nuclear power, then he is guilty of being just as anti-scientific as the Bush administration was back in the day.

so it looks like its solar power for us no matter what.  stock up on batteries and candles, we’re going to need them.

Full disclosure - I’m a big fan of limewire.  Ok, to be more accurate i’m a big fan of Frostwire, which is like limewire, only without the slow speeds and massive virus laden bogus files.  Plus it’s free!  gotta like free.  free is good.

Sorry, it’s getting late and I need to stay focused.  Anywho, turns out that someone accidentially released details of all kinds of things on limewire.  Safe house locations, some plans on what to do if/when Obama was in trouble, where to put the First Family.  Things that the general public probably doesn’t need to know.   All of which lead Edolphus Towns, (D-N.Y.) to call for a crackdown on limewire, and all P2P file trading.  Nice guy, that Rep. Towns - AT&T really seems to like him a lot, they gave him $5,000 and chatted him up about how evil those file trading terrorist wannabes are over at limewire.

Now granted - those files should never have  turned up on the internet.  But I have to wonder just how pure the motives are from members of Congress when they take money from AT&T, then go and push the corporate agenda with zeal and religious fervor.  Would the Honorable Mr. Towns be so dead set against P2P file trading software had not someone paid him off first?  We’ll probably never know the answer to that question but I think it’s still a question worth asking.

Tiversa Inc (the guys who found these files) are kind of an interesting angle in all this.  They’ve got a slick website, and a lot of corporate doublespeak about how they ‘do things’ for ‘various people’.  I don’t know who’s behind that organization but I get that weird ‘hey, i’m a front organization’ vibe from ‘em.  They’re based in Pittsburgh, Pa. which automatically makes me think they’re corrupt.  According to google, they’re located in one of those rinky little office buildings you seem to only find in Pennsylvania.  The ones that warehouse small businesses and crunch them all together in three different floors, have poor lighting and never seem to stay occupied for very long.  If Tiversa was any sort of big time consulting organization like they say on their website, then why are they sharing space with 4 other businesses in a building right off the Pa Turnpike?  Call me cynical, but I think they’re fronting for someone else.

Anywho, file trading is probably going to be the next ‘big issue’, right after we outlaw fat people.  So look for more stories like this one.  I think we’ll see more and more outrageous stories about how file trading is terrorism and that all file trading has to carry huge jail terms.

yep, it’s true -someone done broke it already.  It’s not even out for general release yet, and someone hacked it but good.

The folks over at Ars Technica have a good write up, but for those of you who don’t want to wade through the technical details basically what happened was that someone found the super duper magic key buried in the spiffy new anti-piracy code of the newest windows OS.  This crack allows people not JUST to steal the operating system but it was cracked before the product has hit the marketplace.

So right out of the gate, people can steal themeselves a new OS.  Which does not bode well for Microsoft’s boast that this next generation version of Windows will be pirate proof and secure.

Pirates - 1

Microsoft - 0

Yep, it’s true - min wage workers are getting a raise. Which of course means there’s going to be a debate about the minimum wage in the first place.

personally, I can see both sides of the issue - it’s…well, not ‘bad’ really but it makes life more difficult for small and medium businesses.  In this economy, profits are tight all over and now they have to shell out more money ’cause the government said so.  Since life in as a small business owner is a zero sum game that means they’ll have to cut expenses somewhere else to make up the difference…and altering spending patterns on a large scale always has unexpected side effects and unintended consequences.

But on the other hand, CEO pay has continued to far outstrip pay raises for the bulk of US workers.  I don’t have exact figures close at hand but when your CEO makes 10,000% more than the lowest paid person in the company you have to wonder just what it is their doing to earn those big paychecks.  Adding fuel to the fire is the very poor performance of so many companies over the past 3 years - how can such a small group of elite individuals justify their astronomical paychecks when they have failed so horribly?

There is no easy answer to the questions of pay inequities we currently face.  However…there can be no debate about one thing - executive compensation is very much out of control.  For years we’ve been told that executives earn those high number paychecks because of the burden they bear is greater than that of the ‘average’ worker.  The unspoken addendum to that was if/when they failed that they would lose their compensation.  But now that they HAVE failed and the market HAS tanked…executives continue to get pay raises and bonus checks.  As many already suspected - executive compensation isn’t tied to performance.  They take that money simply because they can, not out of some capitalist notion of ‘greater responsibility/greater pay’.

All of which is going to lead us down some scary roads come winter.  people out of work, unemployment running out and their (now former) bosses getting public money to bail them out after they run the company into the ground.  Bills are mounting, houses getting forclosed and…then some ’smart people’ show up and say that increasing minimum wage is somehow the worst thing to ever happen to the universe.  Suffice it to say, now is not the time to push the envelop with the whole ‘oppress the masses’ thing!