... - comments(21)

Sunday February 8, 2009 - 1:36AM EDT
I'm crying again. Its getting worse, where is the bottom going to be this time?

Been a while - comments(33)

Friday February 6, 2009 - 4:39AM EDT
Since I wrote a post. Got the job and I have moved. Didn't actually get the original job but another one, a better one I think.

It has been a few weeks but from the first day I moved it felt as if I always lived here. Maybe I just never felt at home where I was living before. I already feel like I have been living here for a while. It doesn't feel strange or different. Maybe because I am still alone and depressed so that didn't change.

I am over my head in work right now. So many things to do. Ever since I started doing freelance something on the side since the start of college I've always had something extra on the side to manage and in those 10 years of doing stuff like that I still haven't figured out how to handle it. There are things that I want to do and things that I have to do and at times they are not one in the same. I suppose I can't complain too much at least I have something to do.

My new situation is very stressful though. It seems as if all my work crashed on me at the same time. And it could disappear just as fast too. For once though I enjoy an office job though. That is a plus. If I hated my office job I think I would have to kill myself or something drastic like start playing ice hockey. If I hated my office job and had all this freelance work it would not be a good situation. I barely drink so that wouldn't be my vice. I don't know what I would do to cope. I couldn't it would be bad.

I'm in love too, did I mention that. I don't know how or why it happened now. I am sick with it. It is disgusting. What is even worse is that I am alone in it. There is nothing more wearing than being in love alone. It eats away at yourself until there is nothing left. What is even worse is that this person loved me before and I was too stupid to reciprocate what she needed. I don't know if I can survive another period of alone in love. This could be it for me, I'll just curl up into myself and withdrawl. Be one of those dudes you whisper about when you see you don't even feel sorry for, you just look at because they are weird and don't participate in life.

She is so wonderful and although we have our differences it doesn't matter I still love every part of her.

I love her so much and there is nothing I can do about it except let it eat away at me. I am going to go cry in the corner now.

Garbage - comments(62)

Tuesday November 18, 2008 - 6:20AM EDT
I'm pretty sure I have already used that title before, but ah well. I forget exactly what I was going to write about. Something about how my life is empty and meaningless, but what else is new, ha. No but seriously damn I am bored. I feel like my life after college has been a complete waste in every aspect. The only reason I am counting after college is because it is not worth talking about anything before that at the moment. Crappy jobs, crappy living situation, crappy relationships, crappy weather.

Waiting on a possible job right now. This one is different though. Different from the places I normally work at. I'd think I'd be excited and happy working there. Casual dress, mainly young people and what seems like interesting and challenging work. Also I get to move, which is a big plus. I never really liked much where I am living now.

stimulus part 2 - comments(21)

Monday November 10, 2008 - 8:31AM EDT
The more I think about the new stimulus package China announced the more I think about the one the US passed a while back. It seems as if the majority of China's stimulus will go into projects to build infrastructure and address problems with the populace. While the US one involves (so far the plan seems to be) to buy insolvent companies assets in the hope they will eventually be valuable again. There are important differences between the two that shouldn't be overlooked and it is not a simple comparison. But it does server as a good thinking exercise in ideas of what economic stimulus can be defined as. In all the talk about it in the United States there has been almost no talk of economic stimulus taking the form of infrastructure improvements or investment in the populace. Recently it has taken two forms, tax rebates and loans to badly run companies or the purchasing of their low value assets.

Maybe this is the perfect opportunity for a paradigm shift in economic policy and or structure. No one would argue that vast infrastructure improvements are needed but little has been said of action on them. Why continue to fuel the companies that have ultimately failed not only themselves but everyone connected to it. The talk of credit system collapse is not a false alarm, but it effects are still strangely predominantly psychological. What I mean to say is that based on a traditional standard of economics it is a disaster. So maybe we can take this time to introduce a new better standard. I guess no one really has a better one, or no one is willing to make that jump, or in the third case some ass clowns still think this current one works it just needs more money, ha.

Lets look at what is happening in some simple terms. At a basic level companies cannot raise capital for investment because they can't get credit. The usually free flowing credit markets have slowed down tremendously. When large entities can get extra capital for investment then the effects cascade down until it hits even the individual, can't get a car or house loan. Large purchases that require loans are halted, revenues go down for those selling large things and they need to cut back or go under.

Money is an concept, there may be corporeal representations of it, but it is still an abstract concept that can be said on some levels to be loosely tied to a perceived contribution to society, more precisely it is tied to representations of resources both natural and human (work).

Lets just think about the housing forclosure situation. Banks take in money to lend it out. By some formula that varies, banks need to have a certain amount of liquidity to stay solvent. Basically they need enough money to be able to give back the money that we as consumers gave them to hold whenever we ask. Not every single cent but an amount to where they feel comfortable they can serve the need.  So the money you deposit into the bank, the bank uses to loan out to that new neighbor moving in. It's a bit more detailed than that but that is the general idea. That not everyone is going to be using their money at the same time.

So continuing with the foreclosure people suddenly couldn't pay back the loans because they never really couldn't the first place. Terrible risk assement was done by the banks. So when they can't pay back the banks the banks suddenly have lots of property but reduced liquidity and eventually get to a point where they say we don't think we can serve people who want their money that they deposited into us.

My question is this measure to decide when they are in trouble. Something about it needs to change. It is an arbitrary measure that they come up with themselves. So instead of giving them money to continue their arbitrary measure lets reasses how they are making that measurement and switch their made up standards. Ok I'll admit the measurements aren't some fluky arbitrary measurement they are arrived at based on generations of data and many other factors. But still though, the aim should be the same. To revaluate the system of measurement. Damn I am tired.

Stimulus - comments(277)

Sunday November 9, 2008 - 7:09PM EDT
Just read an article on China implementing an economic stimulus package. While the United States has done this in the form of a pittance of rebates and is considering doing something similar again. I find it interesting what China considers economic stimulus package. It includes spending on healthcare, building railroads, disaster relief, low cost housing and environmental protection and technology. That is not an all inclusive list. Also some unspecified tax reform and freeing up of credit. It just sounds like a sick joke to me because somehow someone in the United States came up with the idea of tossing some bread to the peasants as some kind of solution or bridge to a solution, while this sounds like a comprehensive start to a larger plan to progress. The economics of the two countries are very different for sure but I still wonder where these kinds of ideas have been in the United States.

Transition - comments(298)

Sunday November 9, 2008 - 5:24PM EDT
I've only been alive to see 4 united states presidents and only really alive to remember 3 of them. The last two presidents I certainly do not remember the level of planning or enthusiasm that seems to be associated with the 44th. Dare I say I am somewhat impressed at least with the attempt to enact detailed plans. Well I am impressed with the will but will wait to see what actually happens. Could this be the most productive first 100 days in office ever?  Well maybe in my recent memory at least. Some of the planning highlights the horrific job that the exiting president and his administration has done. Most hilariously terrible is the rules on emissions related to cars. The Bush administration fought like grim death to not enact legislation or even recommendations to force car manufacturers to improve emissions and gas mileage based on a strict time table.The reasoning was that it would hurt the manufacturers too much to force them to improve their product so fast.  Well as of today the big three US auto manufacturers are very close to bankruptcy and bleeding tons of money. A situations in part caused by reduced sales due to their reliance on SUV's and large ineffecient vehichles as the base of their profits. There were other factors too, such as bad union contracts and the collapse of credit system. But they built this problem based on their thought that they could sell SUV and get fat profits from expensive ineffecient vehichles for too long. What is even more painful to them is the fact that the Japanese car companies have overtaken them with creating more effecient cars. So the previous administration's idea that forcing manufacturers to make more effecient cars would hurt them has been completely blown to pieces. There may have been short term pain in transition but I'd think those companies would probably be slightly better off if their reveneue base hadn't dissappeared.

Funniest part about it, is that legislation or not the car companies are going to have to start making more effecient vehichles or go under. No one is going to buy ineffecient vehcicles like they did in the past.

Egal - comments(33)

Sunday November 9, 2008 - 6:49AM EDT
This is an aside. But we really need to ban the advertisment, especially on tv, of various perscription medications. Even suggesting putting the decision of what medication to take into the hands of the average person with little or no medical education or knowledge is ludicrous. The most disturbing part is that companies are trying to sell directly to the patient. That kind of advertising stinks of the old time snake oil salesman. Promising cures to an uninformed populace. At the end where they spew a bunch of side effects and disclosures usually belies the whole feel of the commercial itself that seems to make this the best cure for what's ailing you. Those side effects and caveats become an afterthought and aren't given the weight they should be. And the #1 most disturbing thing about the commercials is how they suggest self diagnosis of problems. They give the most generic list of symptoms for ailments that basically anyone at some point in their lives have had some of the symptons and by extension are afflicated with whatever this medicine will cure.

Ok now to what I wanted to say first. Egalitarian society.  I keep thinking about it. What I am mainly referring to is gender equality. I feel like that will be the hardest to ever achieve, if there is even a will to achieve it. Various societies seem ok with rigidly defined definitions of each gender when it comes to contribution to society. I try to think what the world would be like if all genders were allowed to contribute equally to society. I honestly can't imagine a United States where women are still treated like they were prior to the advances of the womens movement. But what is more interesting is what our society would be like if there was gender equality. I have to think it would be infinitely better than it is today. Even a couuntry like Saudi Arabia, notoriously known for women occupying a low place. How is it that you exclude half of your population from full participation? You are artificially restricting the potential of your society.  I just wonder how far such societies can advance or if they can even survive.

Most baffling and dissapointing to me is the tacit acceptance of the status quo of gender inequality by the ones most disadvantages or looked down upon. For reasons of tradition, of not knowing anything else or imposed philisophical ideals which have eliminated or reasoned the desire to attain equality out of themselves.

There was an article I read a little bit ago about how the relationship between Barack Obama and his wife Michelle was a bit different from the traditional first lady and president relationship. More of a equal partnership than where the first lady takes a peripheral or background role of supporter of the husband and not much more. I suspect the article was referring more to the public image of the relationship than the actual inner workings of it but still an important observation. It may be of great impact the view that they are equal partners in moving forward with greater gender equality in this country and maybe to a lesser extent around the world. I am curious to see if this "equal partnership" thing will really be at the forefront or will it give way to the more background support roles. The last president's wife was scantly even talked about and you never heard much from her. Whether by design or just the nature of the situation I am not sure. But there was certainly no overt projection of equal partnership, whether there was internally or not. The president before last own indiscretions completely lampooned any kind of equality image even though she projected a much stronger personal image herself than the succeeding first lady.

I might not make it back - comments(23)

Saturday October 25, 2008 - 11:35PM EDT
Tomorrow, the Phillies play a game in the world series and the Eagles take on the Falcons. I will wake up around 9am and be tailgating by 11. At 1pm I will attend the Eagles game. After that I will wander around Philadelphia until the Phillies game start. I will be drinking and it will be until all sports games end. The success of the sports teams I watch will have a direct effect on me. I might not make it back.

Prices - comments(1348)

Tuesday October 21, 2008 - 10:27PM EDT
I just saw a headline about Russia, Qatar and Iran thinking about forming a cartel, OPEC like. Anyway it made me think about 19th century US antitrust legislation and the monopoly breaking days. It is kind of fucked up that internally we have rules specifically against companies working together to control market prices yet internationally it is perfectly ok to pull that garbage. And it is not like they work together for some kind of humanitarian cause or effeciency of world energy use. They work together to specifically control prices so they make sure they can extract and horde as many monetary resources as possible.  Anyway that is my rant for the day.

I hate you - comments(73)

Wednesday October 15, 2008 - 7:26AM EDT
I hate you and the horse you rode in on.

Good Move - comments(44)

Sunday October 12, 2008 - 6:15AM EDT
I recently moved my website to a different server to consolidate. Everything went smoother and faster than I thought it would. GREAT!

French Roast Cafe Blend - comments(26)

Friday September 5, 2008 - 9:34PM EDT
So I see this stand up to cancer telethon on tv while working out at the gym.  Then I get home and read a little tidbit of a story about it on yahoo.com.  Telethons, fundraiser running, concerts for charity etc... It makes me think about how many fucking resources go into creating these events in order to gather more resources to fund something else. Most of the time the something else is usuallly something more noble than the event itself. Some of the times with such things it just seems as if we should ever have to waste resources on an event to raise money and promote awarness of a problem. I think these things are an endemic sign of the the exact opposite of what they are trying to stand for. In other words these things are meant to show come kind of caring stance for a certain cause, but to me they highlight the utter lack of attention to the causes themselves. It is like if you need a telethon or something to raise money for blind little kids because they can't get help there is a serious problem and the affects of a telethon will not address root causes.  Sure it may make some assclowns feel good about themselves but it ignores the real problems or exactly why these blind little kids can't get help.

China - comments(31)

Sunday August 3, 2008 - 1:47PM EDT
I think about what is always said about China's human rights record currently. It is terrible but hardly any country of comparable size has a clean one. That is maybe part of the trouble of trying to push them to resolve their problems. Sure individuals and organizations can criticize but countries aren't going to give them much weight. It has to be other countries pushing but even those other countries have just as bad a record so they really don't push to hard I guess.

Ralph - comments(35)

Thursday June 26, 2008 - 12:21AM EDT
I love what Ralpha Nader has done over his career. Always fighting for the little guy and making the world a better place for all peoples. He most recent comments about Barrack Obama ring so very true although based on the headlines of most media outlets you think he was taking some kind of racial low-blow on him. But if you read the article and see what Nader says then you see that it isn't and what Nader is saying is true. First of Ralph Nader has supported the interested of minorities and done more for the interests of the poor and those stepped on by the more powerful than Obama has by a huge margin.  I'd vote for Nader over Obama any day of the week if elections were fair, but their not and somehow the loopholes in so called fairness rules make it so that whoever has the most money usually has the best chance. More precisely without money you can't compete. Which is why our two party system continues unchecked. Anyway, this is about Nader. He is saying that an african american presidential nominee should run on the platform of correcting poverty and fixing the problems that face minorities and poor in both urban and rural areas. This is the platform that Jesse Jackson tried to run on. He was unsuccesful but it wasn't neccessarily because his platform was uunpopular. Quite the contrary in fact.

Nader is saying that Obama is simply running with the same ideas that always dominate the democratic party. Can you say Nader is wrong on that point? I don't think so. Obama has talked about general change as a platform but specifics are hard to pinpoint. More precisely strong positions are hard to identify. There is certainly no focus on poverty and issues related to that. John Edwards I would say had stronger views on such issues. I suppose there is still time for Obama to bring these things up but I don't know if it will happen. But no candidate has ever run on platforms to assist the poor. I suppose the New Deal politics of FDR was the only time it was done. But nothing really since that.

Two things - comments(32)

Thursday June 19, 2008 - 1:45AM EDT
Two recent things got me thinking. One was Tiger Woods of course, his mug is plastered everywhere after the US Open win. But what is becoming more impressive is that people don't talk about him with any kind of racial tones much anymore. It has been that way for a while but when he started out that was a fairly common overtone. Each of these people chip away at that idea of "race" that plagues the human pysche. The other thing is Barrack Obama presidential run and just as importantly his wife possibly being the first lady. I have to think that having an African American woman in such a position of reverence will do so much for the image of minority women in the minds of all people. If Obama get elected and Michelle becomes first lady I really think that something like people looking to hire a person for an excutive postion or something along those lines might take a much fairer look at the minority women who have applied or interviewed and that as direct result of an African American woman being first lady someone might get a job or an opportunity that otherwise wouldn't have been there.

Also there was a refence in a story about how Obama and Michelle relationship is one more of equals. That could also be important too.

Dems - comments(297)

Friday March 28, 2008 - 3:11PM EDT
You know what is disgusting. All the bullplop that bubbles up about Al Gore being involved in the presidential race. First off he didn't even run this time and has repeatedly said he won't but for some reason some people I guess people still can't get over the fact that a white male won't be in the running for president for the democrats so they need to through a white guy in there just to make it seem normal. I've even heard the ludicrous idea of putting Al Gore at the top of the ticket with Obama or Clinton as VP. If that bullshit happens they should just give the presidency to the Republicans because I've never heard of anything so freaking stupid. It is like some people can't accept a race without a white male at the top so in their head the come up with this scenario where it is ok not only to screw over a bunch of voters but the candidates themselves by taking them down a notch, disgusting. They called it "compromise" or some shit. That might Al Gore will be the leader to resolve it all. Al Gore needs to stick to his environmental message because that is the only thing he ever did well. He was a pathetic VP doing a whole lot of nothing after running on a platform of environmental and technological change then this ass clown was such a good leader that he managed  to lose to george bush. Bush has proven to be one of the more pathetic presidents in recent history and during his first election the country was still riding the high of that last democratic president and that clown Al Gore manage to lose to him by a quirk in the electoral weighting system that has only occurred two other times.  Gore is just not a good leader and never had been. His one saving grace is that he is in good company when it comes to pathetic leaders and everyone else around him is just as bad so it covers his flaws. Sitck to the environment stuff that is the only arena you ever found a voice in.

Benefits all people - comments(30)

Thursday March 27, 2008 - 11:39AM EDT
So I read a headline about the federal government cracking down on shady lending practices because of the recent credit crisis. Well shit this is a problem that never needed to happen. Those damn shady lending practice have been going on for the better part of a century or more twisted in the clutches of institutionalized racism. But it was pretty much ignored so the banks got away with such things and it just become standard fare to screw over black people. Now that they have been doing it for so long it was second nature to extend such practices to anyone in those lower socioeconomic rungs that blacks have such disproportionate representation in. However this time the capture not only blacks but a whole bunch of other people and suddenly those people added up to a significant economic effect. Where in the past such consequences would be localized within black neighborhoods. So now that not only black people got hosed but everyone else it is suddenly a problem to be fixed. If the government and banks themselves hadn't allowed the practices to go on in the first place with blacks and others the discriminated against then the practice wouldn't exist as such a normal thing and would have been a matter of policy not to do such things.

This is what some people mean  when they say that improving the situation of blacks doesn't just benefit them it benefits all people.

Sex Cauldron - comments(1628)

Tuesday March 11, 2008 - 2:13PM EDT
Grandpa simpson said that in an episode of The Simpsons.  So I've been hearing about this Elliot Spitzer thing. Haven't actually read too much but a few article to get the gist of it. It seems all to familiar when the government official or some prominent man bangs some other chick and we watch their smug pathetic mugs hold some press conference to apologize while their wives or legitimate significant other sit there all reserved, maybe a little stunned looking supporting their man. BULLSHIT! 

I am sick of these little women sitting down next to these clowns taking such trash. Do they have no spine. Not only were they embarassed by the act itself but then they got to act all forgiving in public. It is about time one of them came out and just ripped into the dude. It doesn't have to be all ghetto with cursing and yelling, but I just hate to watch them just site there saying nothing with that blank look on their face. What kind of message does that send to other women or little girls. Stand up for yourself and don't let some sort of made up rules of what is proper to do dictate your response. Have your girlfriends come to your press conference to support you, if you need to break down and start crying. Leave his ass out in the cold, alone in his press conferences and hold your own to let the world know what kind of slimeball thing he did. That will be in addition to whatever private misery he will have to endure. Stand the fuck up. Egalitarian society will never be reached at this rate. When I talk about egalitarian society and us not really knowing exactly what it would look like, maybe something like this can help us flesh it out.

Genes - comments(1)

Friday February 29, 2008 - 4:16PM EDT
I just read an article. Here.

Crap like that makes me sick. Someone the assclown pirate hooker that wrote it seemed to equate race with legitimate scientific classification. They mischaracterized the study. The article purports that there is a link between genetic variation in different races because they tested some caucasions from Utah and Yorubans from Nigeria.  Notice how the quotes from the people who actually conducted the study use the proper terms such as populations and ethnic groups. Yet the writer of the article assumes that those terms are congruent with race and that is an adequate term to summarize the study findings. Pathetic what a loser, whoever wrote that thing.

Talk - comments(27)

Tuesday January 29, 2008 - 2:17AM EDT
This stuff is pathetic. What stuff?  The way our assclown of a president keeps ordering congress and anyone else who will listen to do it his and his administrations way when they have no record of making much of anything work or being successful in anything. It is one thing to bring such ordering around to the public stage sometimes. But anytime that assclown doesn't get something done exactly the way he wants he just whines to the public that it should be done this way. Its getting pathetic.  Only another year and we can file the last 8 years to history. And history won't be kind to the abysmal last 8 years either. There have been some bad presidents in our history. In fact I'd say pretty much all the assclowns who were presidents were bad but I think the most recent is going to take the crown for the modern era.