Can You Say Crash?

The stock market took a major dump today. It is amazing how investors respond when they do not get the news they want. There was a huge drop followed by a free fall after Congress decided not to pass a $700 Billion investment in Clinton backed junk mortgages. I say Clinton backed because it was the government enforced lending practices during his first 4 years that started this debacle. Forcing lenders to provide mortgages to people that had little or no ability to pay them back is just bad business. Huh, looks like the bubble got a little too big.

Now middle class America is once again forced to clean up a mess started by the Democrats trying to buy votes. Democrats are more than willing to throw tax payers money at enlarging their base. We have welfare, medicare, food stamps, and now a huge hole where our investment firms used to be. All due to having to compete with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. These government sponsored corporations (that is a loose term) made lending nearly impossible for banks to compete with by providing low cost mortgages to non-qualified borrowers. Try competing with free. What you get is a house of cards that is still falling. Hurricane Katrina looks like a tea party compared with this.

Now you have the carcasses of numerous banks and brokerage houses strewn everywhere and a government wanting to spend more of the tax payers money to bail them out. Where is the outcry at the utter mismanagement of Fannie and Freddie? The scope of their crime dwarfs the Enron failure. Why do we not see the presidents of those corporations being dragged though the mud like Kenneth Lay? Could it be that members of Congress are major supporters and that they are hiding behind the same of song and dance that politicians always use? Find a scapegoat and keep the spotlight on them. Avoid being dragged into the light. Like any good vampire, they will suck us dry and move onto livelier corpses. $700 Billion. That is a lot of green.

Icool

Cobb

Technology: Frankenstein or Paradise

I asked my son to give me a subject for a blog entry. His first response was whether technology was helping mankind or hurting our way of life. Since I know that he is a technophile, it is a slam dunk which direction he wants me to go but, being the equal opportunity basher that I am, I will at least attempt to look at the other side of the argument. At least as far as I see the implications of a life using flint and iron pyrite to make fires instead off the piezo-electric device on my stove. It will be about as level as how the media treats conservatives versus how they treat the communist elite currently running for office. Did I say communist? Sorry, I meant democrats.

Stalin was constantly chasing technology. The USSR was the first country to put both a dog and a person into space. It is easy to make technological advancements when you have a gun to your head or your family has been sent to Siberia. Unfortunately, you can only go so far. A communist system does not support long term technological advancement. You end up like the USSR, a bankrupt and empty shell that collapsed from within. There must be some reward for your efforts besides having the process named after you. Do you think that Bill Gates wanted the gated community named after him? No, he wanted to be the billionaire philanthropist that could direct how the United Nations spends their budget. That is how the reward system works.

So is technology a monster created by man or is it the way to utopia? The tree hugging, drill elsewhere liberals would like us all to move into caves or hogans and spend our time like the cast of Clan of the Cave Bear. Daryl Hannah really stunk up the screen in that movie. The technophiles would like us to live in isolated communities with fission generators and solar panels. Neither provides a future that I want to pursue. How about a community that is energy self sufficient and spends time developing the talents of those that want to further their abilities. The problem is that people like Billy Ray Cyrus will always have a daughter that he wants to work for Disney. I guess that could be a rodent control issue.

Icool

Cobb

Play Peek-A-Boo With Sarah

There has been a run on shovels in the great state of Alaska. The media has done nothing but dig up story after story about the exploits of Sarah Palin, the Vice Presidential candidate for the Republican ticket. Every day we see another convoluted attempt to create a scandal for the governor of the largest of our United States. One day she's smothering kittens with her mother's lace table cloth and the next day she's dumping toxic waste from the governor's mansion in the Yukon river. She has quite the talent for causing bizarre and interesting things to happen.

What amazes me is that they have not discovered any connection between Sarah Palin and global warming or Sarah Palin and Osama bin Laden. After all, Alaska is the land of the midnight sun and we all know that the sun is the major contributor to global warming (it is not fossil fuels or smoke stacks) or the fact that the Eskimos are a very clickish group that stay isolated from the mainstream like Al Qaida. They could this very minute be planning a terrorist attack using trained seals and killer whales that would disrupt the flow of caribou to the mating grounds, thus causing a shortage of antlers to make knife handles.

I am waiting for Sarah Palin to be involved with the historic events that have shaped our culture. I am almost certain that Ted Kennedy will say that she was actually driving the car when he murdered Mary Jo Kopechne or she was steadying the rifle for the JFK assassination. There must be a skeleton in her closet that will disqualify her as a viable candidate in this election. Despite the fact that Obama spent years following a minister that preached nothing but hate for white America or that he has less experience in a leadership role than a first term councilman in Dirt Clod, Montana. WTF!!! How can we be expected to take anything the media says as serious when they have done nothing to promote the 1st viable female candidate to the US executive branch. She's a lady, a mother, and has held the leadership role for one the 50 states. I'll take motherhood over a law degree from Harvard any day. One was earned through the school of hard knocks and one was paid for with tuition and a liberal dose of socialist indoctrination. Eh, comrade?

Icool

Cobb

What A Dope

"I think. I think I am, therefore I am, I think." The Moody Blues were always know for their poetry. This two sentence line is the mantra for all of those who have doubts about their existance. We all ponder whether we are really there at some time in our lives. Mostly it is the formative teenage years but some push the envelope and spend most of their adult life trying to grasp the meaning of life, the universe and everything. That question has been answered; its 42. If you want to know more read the Hitchhikers's Guide To the Galaxy. It explains it all.

I am well past 42 which means that I am in possession of the meaning of life. It is after all the age in which you should have been a parent for several years and come to the one true realization. It is no longer all about you. Youth is so wasted on the young. You can never go home. All you need is love. All right that is 4 but they all tie in together. They all deal with the feeling you have when you realize that you are mortal and will one day be nothing but the ashes that create the dust. Time to quit being morbid and get back to the half hearted attempt at creating a smile.

I have spent the last 20 years following the wisdom passed on to me by my mentor. When I started at Champion Spark Plug in 1988, my boss told me to stay in the automotive industry because that is where the money was. I followed his advise until this year. I realized that I have been spending too much time worrying about shutting an auto assembly plant down and not on what really matters. The mantra of Chico Escuela from SNL, "Baseball been berry, berry good to me." sort of fizzled out. There is life beyond automotive. Yes there are challenges with other manufacturing but there is no longer the phantom of Chrysler and GM lording over you with their Darth Vader attitudes. The Death Stars a do have a weakness. May the force be with you. And also with you.

Icool

Cobb

She's A Lady

I must say that I am stunned by the Vice Presidential pick of John McCain. I was listening to Rush last Friday and heard his introduction and her speech. It was one amazing listen. I must say that I am impressed with both McCain and Sarah Palin. McCain finally did something right and Sarah is just what he needed to bring the Conservatives back to the party. There was a mass revolt going on and it would have handed the experience challenged Democrat, Obama an easy victory in November.

I love the medias attempt to discredit her. It brings back the old Saturday Night Live skit where all of the candidates from both parties are debating and they attack Pat Robertson because he has done nothing with his life but televangelism. He retorts that he's babysat, mowed lawns and raked leaves. He is also the president of the 7th largest syndicated television show. Find something worth reporting or go home.

I am now energized about the election. McCain now has a chance to get into the oval office and he has set up for our nation to have the 1st female president. She is everything that a conservative wants and provides the Republicans with the opportunity to continue as the party of change. The Democrats provide only stagnation and decay. Unfortunately they control the media so they get the slant when it comes to coverage.

Icool

Cobb