I do not know about anyone else, but I am sickened to the point of porcelain worship by the stock, commodities, and futures markets! What really get me is that all these exchanges are nothing more than glorified casinos. The brokers are gamblers betting on how close to their predictions of a companies profit, growth, etc the company actually gets. So one of if not the most controlling factors of our economy is high profit, high loss, high risk organized gambling plain and simple. And just like in Vegas only the house (in this case the brokers, brokerage houses, investment groups, and hedge funds) wins in the long run; like now with the economy tanking, unemployment growing by leaps and bounds, home loss through the roof, families and children without food, shelter, or health insurance, the brokers et al who have made the bad and/or criminal bets are getting millions running into billions in bonuses, some of the money is tax payer money, as reward for sending the economy down the toilet. These people do not in any sense make anything, other than profit for themselves; they artificially generate profit by buying and selling artificial products among themselves, like little bundles of toxic mortgage debt whose value they set by gambling. And thanks in large part to Republicans (although they are not quite alone in this, they are the major players) like Phil Graham and his wife Wendy Lee,(Wendy is a real piece of something: she headed Regan's Commodity Futures Trading Commission from 1988-93 and when Enron lobbying efforts got it exempt from CFTC regulation in the trading of energy derivatives (and we all know how well that turned out) she left the CFTC to take a seat on the Enron board of directors, as part of the Audit committee, all the while recieving 'donations' to the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, where at present she chairs the Regulatory Studies Program, based I am sure on her sterling performance with the other Enron directors in paying 168 million in a suit by the University of California, 13 million paid by her and the others for insider trading and the other 155 million paid by insurance, Wendy also sat on the boards of Iowa Beef Producers, INVESCO Funds, The Chicago Mercantile Exchange, but for me her greatest hit was in 2002 when her anti-regulatory zeal in her involvement in the Bush administration OMB hit list of federal environmental regulations targeted to be changed or rescinded to the benifit of polluting oil, coal and other energy corporation, like the EPA's 'new source reviews and the clean air roll back, 'nice lady'. Phil Graham wrote/sponsored laws and pushed hard to further the deregulation of the stocks, commodities, and banking industries (later becoming John McCain's chief economic advisor), letting them become less and less stable and more and more profitable to a very small minority (continually concentrating 95+% of Americas wealth into the coffers of less than 2% of the population.) Then you get a Republican mouthpiece like Rick Santelli, some sort of CNBC commentator/expert, who is something of a cross between a race handicapper/odd maker and a horse race announcer for the markets and a proud supporter of loser McCain and a 21st century preacher of the old original protestant work ethic (where how much money you have is a direct indicator of how good a christian you are and how much god loves/favors you, regardless of how you make the money such as the slave trade, slavery, indentured servitude, they have never been concerned with the ethics of how the money was made) playing at 'let's undermine the economic recovery and President Obama', because a chosen few are profiting and the people who are in trouble and need the recovery to work are losers and slackers ( and a very few maybe) deserving of this man made disaster because they are just bad people, that his god does not like, andthe rest of America is just acceptable collateral damage. He like many others particularly the 'Just say No' Republicans seem to like to ignore(Oh boy more intentional selsctive stupidity) the unregulated greed and potentially criminal practices of greedy, rich banks, bankers, brokers, brokerage houses, and hedge funds who were given 350 billion with no oversight, no restiction, and no accountability by a Republican President and his administration and that they seem to think is just fine.
And then there was the UBS, a Swiss bank, toadie wailing about unsubstantiated rumored plans to nationalize the banks. This is the same UBS when all of this started to break and the causes were coming to light, was telling its people Not to travel to the U.S. as there was a very good chance of them being arrested and charged with crimes related to the meltdown. Also the same UBS now making history for not only getting slapped wit ha huge fine for knowingly helping its American customers avoid paying U.S. taxes by illegally hiding their wealth in secret anonimous UBS accounts but UBS is being forced to break the Swiss banking code of secrecy and anonymity and release all the relevant documentation and information for those illegal accounts. I wonder, with anticipatory glee, if the other Swiss banks or the Swiss goverment will force UBS to close its Swiss operations and leave the country, because UBS has damaged the much valued and vaunted secret and anonymous banking system. One can only hope, but not for much considering the Swiss banking history with the Nazis and the lenghts to which they went and are still going to retain contol/owenership of the monies of those killed by thr Nazis.

PHAN!

Pull Head from Ass Now!

Warning! This is where I rant my personal opinions and outrage at things I see or hear that just plain piss me off.

Parents may find much or all of what I have to say contrary to their preferred religious or political indoctrination goals for their children. And I am very sure that Republicans, in general, and the members of The Christian Taliban of America, the only term I find fitting for the 'Christian Right', its leaders, their herds of lemmings, political operatives, and legal sycophants, will really not like anything I have to say.

As an obstreperous curmudgeonly gay cancer survivor, not the treatment that damage is permanent, I have zero tolerance for Stupid; particularly the intentional variety, such as ignoring or denying reality and scientific facts to bolster religious or political agendas. Or even worse to selectively pich and choose from their own religious tenets to further some social, political, or economic goal; to quote a recently posted photo of the sign on an English bus, "SCIENCE FLIES YOU TO THE MOON, RELIGION FLES YOU INTO BUILDINGS,". And please do not be so arrogant or intentionally stupid as to assume that this only applies to a single religion or fall for the selective stupidity of the GOP mouth piece for the Christian Taliban, Rick Santorum, who has just said basically that 'Islam is fundamentally incompatible with democracy because it takes its scripture literally'; which would, and does to me, mean that the Christian Taliban of America (the christian right) is also fundamentally incompatible with democracy because they take their scripture literally, at least the parts they find useful at the time, such as the biblical creation myth, a woman's right to choose, contrception, or gay rights. I do not advocate eliminating stupid just removing all warning labels and letting nature take its course.

I consider Political Correctness to be nothing more that the adaptation of religious sin (it is wrong because we say so) for non-religious use in social control, political manipulation, or economic gain.

If there is a divine; the one thing I am sure of it would have absolutely no need or use for religion! Religion is at its best a feeble attempt by people to control the divine. And at its worst is a human connivance for the social, political, andeconomic control of a society to benifit a particular group and/or that group's leaders for their own personal social, economic, and political power; almost always involving a 'god given' right or duty to control, convert or kill those who differ.

I hav and believe in ethics, doing what is right - trearing everyone as you expect and deserve to be treated, and opposing as best one can those who work to deny ethical treatment to any. I abhor moralsmorality for what they are ethics corrupted to further the agenda of a particular religios group always to the detriment and persicution of those who are or believe different.

Politically I am an extreme liberal with common sence. First, the United States of America is not now nor ever has been a democracy; on better days it is a generally benign aristocratic repulic, and on the worst a corporate controled fascit semi-republic (consider the two terms of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney who may soon have the distinction of being the first American President and Vice-president to be unable to leave the U.S. for fear of being arrested and tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity) a thought that warms the bottom of my heart. And you can kiss thelie about one citizen one vote good-by until the Electoral College is abolished and the shadowy select group of 538 cna no longer overrule a majority vote of the American people.

I hope for freedom of and from religion, you can not have freedom of religion so long as any religious group can influence/control the legislation of laws and the legal interpretation of those laws.

I am pro-choice; the only objections I am aware of are based only on religion and violate not only a woman's freedom of religion but her right to be a free human in control of her own body and destiny.

I am pro-military; they do a dangerous dirty underappreciated jod that insures us, seldom getting either the respect they deserve or the help and assistance they have earned. I am very oppsed to wars of aggression and pre-emptive wars of fear.

I am for legal immigration, all of my great grandparents were legal immegrant; but foreign criminals, illegal aliens what ever you choose to call them need to be sent back. Like most Americans, I believe no one should profit from the commission of a crime; children born to illegals should be illegal. And no person here illegally should benifit from free education, medical, or any other of our social safty net services.

I am for the rule of law, no one being above or beyond the law. Remember, now that all the media hype, the huckster's speil, the pomp and circuses are done; all the people from President Obama to the most junios Congressperson to the Mayor or Dog catcher ofthe smallest town, all of them are "Elected Public Servants", not the servant of corporate lobbies, special interests, political parties, or religious groups. Given their positions by our work, our monies, and our votes to serve our public good; we are due their full accountability and best service for our common-weal, not partisan peal, nor corporate greed, nor lobbyist's need, nor religions creed. Therefore: We the people of the United States of American in order to protedt and defend our Constitution, our rule of law, our civil rights snd liberties, our ethics, and our self-respect and dignity must demand of our "Elected Public Servant full criminal investigations and prosecutions of all members of both George W. Bush's administrations. including but not limited to President George W. Bush, Vice-president Dick Cheney, Cabinet members, staff and advisors for suboning their oaths of office and the Costitution of the United States of America, criminal violations of the laws of the United States of America, war crimes, crimes against humanity, gross criminal negligence, abuse of power, criminal violations of Treaties and Accords to which the United States was both author and signatory: particularly crimes for which the United States of America has already prosecuted it's own citizens and the citizens of other nations. For without this our Constitution means nothing, our laws mean nothing, our Treaties an Accords mean nothing and our 'Democracy', our self-respect and human dignity are LIES.

I realize this is a political swarm of angry killer bees. But either we are a nation with the rule of law, with no criminal left behind or we are a nation where those of political, social, or economic power are above and beyond the law. And not only was 'just following orders' not a 'get out of jail free card' the German lawers and judges who legitimized those crimes were tried and convicted. Beware of setting dangerous legal precedent preferring to look forwar not back, lest our future give rise to more of the same or worse. Although considering that the Obama Justice Department has already used the exact ame blanket of 'National Security' to cover the same criminal 'renditions' ( funny how the next word in my dictionary is 'renegade') to get ACLU lawsuits dissmissed; it may already be to late. Does a crime become a non-crime if you can never get it into court, and just what is the statute of limitations on kidnapping for the pourpose of torture?