don’t panic

I was really looking forward to the Presidential debates.  Really.  So much crap has been spewed on both sides that a forum in which the candidates are actually held responsible for what they say would have been incredibly wonderful.  I was looking forward to finally understanding the deep differences between Obama and McCain, without party influence.

Well, it is not to be… at least for now.

We are facing a financial crisis that could literally sink the national, if not global economy, and frankly, the boys and girls in Washington are being stupid.  Stupid and stubborn.

For a while I watched the news and tried to understand where the different parties were standing on the whole bailout thing…  And I gave up.  It isn’t that I don’t care, it’s just that my understanding of economics pretty much stops with my own bank account.  We’re talking about so much money, that NO ONE, even the very best economists and business entrepreneurs in the world can agree on what is really going to happen, let alone the correct course of action.  Who the hell am I to say we should or shouldn’t dump 700 billion to fix things?  You put two dozen economists in a room together and tell them to solve a problem like this and what you end up with is two dozen “right” ideas that each one of them is religiously adamant about.

The real problem comes when they THINK they have a consensus when they don’t, and what the group thought would pass, falls flat on it’s face… and the DOW suffers it’s worst drop in recorded history.

DO IT ALREADY! OR NOT, BUT MAKE IT HAPPEN!  DON’T GUESS – KNOW THAT IT WILL PASS!

…okay, I feel better now.

So then I hear that John McCain has “suspended” his campaign so he can return to Washington to focus on the bailout package.  He, of course, is urging Obama to do the same.  AND, he is also canceling the debate.

Frak.

I see.  So, somehow, his presence in the Senate is going to help things?  The place is fraught with partisan lockup and the top representative of each party coming to join the fun is going to HELP?  If he has ideas that no one else has put forth, couldn’t he pick up a phone and let someone else bring them to the table?  Just because this is a huge mess, doesn’t make it any more important than any of the other millions of things that the congress and senate deal with on a daily basis.  Why didn’t he drop everything and rush back to Washington to fix any of that?  If he wasn’t needed there before, then he CERTAINLY isn’t needed there now.

But how convenient is it to have some excuse to bail on the debates!  I mean, it’s a really tough soapbox to stand on when the country is literally on the brink of falling apart and your party is currently “running” things.  It would be SO much better if he just waited a few weeks until the headlines have shifted to some other crisis… like another major hurricane or something.

I’m sorry, but that just stinks, Senator. 

The American people are desperate to hear something other than “my opponent is bad because…” and this just seems like yet another political ploy to make the Republicans look like they care.  The idea that you just want to get back there and do some good is comforting… and if your job was construction or brain surgery, I would agree with you.  But there is almost nothing that your job entails that can’t be done over a phone or passed on to someone else.  Stop stalling and TALK to us.  NOW, not when the lime-light has cooled off.  That IS your job right now, and has been from the moment you agreed to represent the Republicans in the White House.

Oop… it’s back on again?  What?  Someone in your polling center noticed that your ratings were dropping through the floor?  What changed?  Has the crisis been averted yet?  No?

Dodging bullets must be tiring.

So here we are, after having just dumped 85 billion to save AIG, and now the government is about to pump “hundreds of billions” into the banking system that will “allow banks to get soured mortgage-related assets off their balance sheets”, says CNN.

Now, I understand why this has to be done in order to stem-off global financial Armageddon, but I have to ask myself if it’s really such a good idea to just start writing checks, REALLY, REALLY BIG checks, to the very people that got us into this mess in the first place. Basically, greedy banks took insanely risky, but radically cheap loans and bought them up as investments. Unfortunately, when the market tanked, they were left with a product that they literally couldn’t give away, let alone sell. Now, suckers that we are, we are going to say, “Hey, that’s okay. Let us take those worthless mortgages off your hands so that everybody can feel good about our ‘strong’ economy and go out and invest even more money they don’t have.”

But who is going to monitor those greedy banks? When someone hands you the brass ring and says, give us anything mortgage-related, wouldn’t it make sense that the banks might just try to unload every bit of dirty laundry they have accumulated over the last oh, hundred years or so, all on the taxpayer’s nickel? I mean, how often is it that the government tosses you a check for several billion dollars to “restore health to the financial system”?

And one other thing… What part of the country are we selling to Canada? I mean, that money is going to have to come from some place, and last time I checked, we didn’t exactly have a surplus.

Most doctors will tell you that it is always better to watch for, and pre-emptively deal with possible health problems before they become major, very serious health problems. You brush and floss with the idea that if you don’t, your teeth will rot and you’ll be wearing dentures by the time you’re exiting college.

This is a really simple concept. Preventative medicine… Or at least it’s simple to us. The current administration in the White House seems to be clueless when it comes to heading off major problems however. Instead, they would rather blow sunshine up our collective asses and tell us that the state of our fair union is “strong!” Right. Whatever. Tell that to Wallstreet, who’s just had two days in a row of DOW drops over 400 points. Our happy-go-lucky government is tossing hundreds of billions (in TAXPAYER MONEY) to banks and financial institutions in order to stave off a national and global economic collapse, and we, as citizens are supposed to feel that everything is rosy?

In this CNN Article, bush speaks about how, “his administration is ready to act to prevent severe market disruptions.” Really? Well, Mr. President, why the hell wasn’t your administration ready to act two years ago, even six months ago, when we could have diverted the disruptions altogether? That $85 billion isn’t going to just appear out of nowhere (and if it does, we should be VERY concerned). To put it in perspective, $85 billion, paid to a SINGLE, PRIVATE institution in order to put out that ONE financial fire is equivalent to:

1.2x The entire 2008 yearly budget of the U.S. Department of Education. That includes the No Child Left Behind program.

A check for $278 dollars for every single man, woman, and child in America.

A check for $2,931 dollars for every man, woman, and child in Iraq. That’s about the same as the average YEARLY wage in Iraq in 2007.

77.6 Gallons of gasoline for every man, woman, child in America, and well, most kids don’t drive, so…

8x The entire 2008 budget for the Department of the Interior. EIGHT FREAKING TIMES! The whole thing. Fish and wildlife, the USGS, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, EVERYTHING.

14 Large Hadron Colliders, with money left over.

2.6 really nice, brand new, retractable-roof sports stadiums for every team in the NFL and MLB combined. Think Safeco Field.

Roughly $850,000 to every single public school in America.

$1,785 to every single public school student in America. That’s like buying them ALL brand new laptop computers.

OR

17 Aircraft carriers.

639 F-22 Raptors. Minus research and development of course… The entire F-15 replacement fleet only calls for 183.

The entire yearly salary for over 5,000,000 troops (E2).

Seems like somebody hasn’t been flossing… For about eight years. And now we get to pay the dentist.

Wow. After reading the commentaries and reader comments regarding Sarah Palin’s RNC speech last night, I really have to wonder what it’s all about. By “it” I mean the Presidency.

From the way that Palin spoke, one would think that if the Republicans win in November, their first act will be to gather up all the Democrats and have them shot… or at least locked up so that we can’t do any more harm with our “lack of experience.”

Obama actually goes out and publicly congratulates Palin and supports her calls to have the media back off on her daughter (who they technically should have EVERY right to question her about), and as thanks, Palin rips out his heart at a one-sided convention, reading a pre-written manifesto of hatred to a nearly all-white crowd. Nice.

The Republicans are screaming about being tough, comparing themselves to pit bulls and the like, so I’m asking myself, is this really what I want representing me in the White House? I mean, a pit bull? Let’s think about that- Unpredictable. Often uncontrollable. Violent beyond compare, and known to attack defenseless innocents without compassion or remorse to the point of killing them. Oh yeah, sounds like a great leader…. Just the kind of person the rest of the world needs to see as the defender of “freedom” and the “oppressed.” And what do we do to pit bull’s that attack humans? We shoot them in the head.

What is the President’s job? And don’t give me, “But she’s the VP…” McCain is over 70. He might go another twenty years, or he could fall down dead tomorrow leaving Palin in command.

It’s not to make laws. We have a Congress and Senate for that, as well as individual state governments.

It’s not to interpret laws. That’s the role of the Supreme Court (which Bush did a nice job of corrupting while in office, but that’s another post).

It’s not to lead our military, at least not directly. He has generals and commanders to say what he wants them to to guide him there.

Officially they are to “uphold and to protect the Constitution of the United States.”

They have the power to pardon criminal offenses, even those of their own staff.

They have the power of appointment of judges, ambassadors and other officers, with the “advice and consent’’ of the Senate.

And, they have the power to make treaties with other nations.

I seem to remember there being something in that Constitution thing about “The People”… That would be ALL the people, not just the minority few rich, white, republican, Christians who want to drill the hell out of ANWAR. The President needs to be able to represent the entire population of the United States. They need to be able to speak for and motivate to action the entire populous. Otherwise, you are nothing more than a fascist dictator who is destined to split the nation and throw the world into chaos… Kinda like we have now.

So…. it turns out that GOP VP candidate Sarah Palin’s daughter, Bristol, 17, is preggers… oh, and not married.

Ordinarily, I couldn’t care less. Ordinarily, a teenage girl getting pregnant in high-school and deciding to keep it wouldn’t make national news. Ordinarily, I would give the kid credit for taking responsibility for her actions… and to be fair, I do. Of course, I really have to wonder just how much choice she had in the matter, I mean, her decision could pretty much sink the entire Republican party’s chances to get to the White House and effect the political climate of the entire world… No pressure or anything.

But girl aside for a moment, it brings up a position in the Christian church that has always really bugged the crap out of me – responsibility. As early Christians, we are beaten over the head with SIN and the results thereof. We are force-fed that SEX is EVIL and that LUST and IMMORALITY are the paths to hell. We must not have sex (before we are happily married to the God-given partner of opposite gender), we must not talk about sex, we must not THINK about sex, because SEX IS EVIL. EVIL! EVIL! EEEEEVIIIIIIL!

And then we wonder what possibly could have gone wrong with our son or daughter that caused them to go out and have sex. WEREN’T THEY LISTENING??! Yeah, they were. They were listening to YOU being a complete mutton-head and ignoring something, that for them, is possibly the most frightening and mysteriously wonderful event in their entire lives.

YOU had sex. It’s a given, adoption aside. So it can’t be THAT evil, right? Chances are, YOU probably had sex out of marriage. Most have, even the conservative evangelicals. So how hypocritical does it look to your 17 year-old daughter, who has no real concept of what marriage is, or why sex is suddenly WHOLESOME and GODLY as soon as we say the words, “I do,” that YOU are having sex, but if THEY even think about it they need immediate counseling?

We treat our children as if they should KNOW better. But they don’t know squat! That’s the whole problem! Christians force-feed abstinence as the answer in school, when all around them, their friends and classmates are all comparing notes, trying to figure out what it all is and how “doing it” or being known as one of those girls who’s “saving themselves” is going to play into their standing… Because standing is EVERYTHING in high-school. Don’t believe me, just watch the latest show on FOX or CW (or are they the same thing now?) depicting rich, beautiful people fighting for power and placement… and having lots and lots of carefree SEX without any sort of consequence at all. THEY certainly are.

But hey, it’s all good, because we FORGIVE them. We will help RESTORE them, or so sayeth the good Dr. Dobson. I mean, what’s REALLY important is that we remember those pro-life values and living them out “even in the midst of trying circumstances.” Ya snagged another crown there, James.

We are constantly treating our offspring as little innocent children, and not as the individual human being, who, in less than 365 days will legally be able to walk out of your house and do WHATEVER THE HELL THEY WANT. Man… “forgive” them?? We should be down on our knees begging THEIR forgiveness for not properly preparing them for the life they are going to choose with or without our help. And then, they only get that forgiveness when they confess THEIR “imperfections”?

Are you kidding me?!?

We shield them from the reality of life, and sex, and lust, and all the completely radical things that are happening inside their bodies that make them want to do something that is naturally programmed into their very DNA, telling them that it’s sin and unholy and wrong and should be avoided at ALL COSTS until they somehow manage to bump into that one human being who was meant for them and they will somehow KNOW that this is the one and then they will WAIT another two or three or ten years until they are financially secure and married and THEN and ONLY THEN is it suddenly a HOLY UNION and right with God and they should be fruitful and multiply.

Did I miss something?

Typical American?

Typical stupid Christian viewpoint on an issue that is SO much more complicated than any parent wants to believe.

And my God, poor Bristol. Seriously. Imagine her situation. It was bad enough getting caught with her mom the freaking governor of Alaska. Now the whole damn country knows about her “sin” and her “imperfection”, and the choices she makes regarding her previously simple enough life could very well change history on a global scale. Nice bit of social pressure to hand to her as a graduation present there mom.

Typical American? Not anymore. You passed that over when you gave your nod for the position, Gov. Pallin. You, and your whole family are suddenly as atypical as you can possibly get. Everyone is saying it’s a “private matter”, but do you REALLY believe that the media is going to treat it that way? This is drama, baby! Just another episode of 90210 with a moral message and lots of hot sex.

Being the physical representation of the Republican party and calling yourself an ultra-conservative carries a mammoth weight. You are standing up for certain principles that you couldn’t even make work in your own child, let alone a nation. Don’t blame the girl. She did what any “normal” seventeen year-old girl might have done when their parents failed to prepare them emotionally for life as a mature human female. But if I am voting for someone who is a heartbeat away from leading the entire free world, the LAST thing I want them to be is “typical.”