Oh yeah, obliterated by JRAE!!!
Lets see here, they take hostages and demand the release of taliban prisioners in exchange for the hostages.
…
Why don’t we just say ‘release the hostages or we will kill the prisoners.’ Or, perhaps you just start killing the prisoners untill the taliban start releasing their hostages. Better yet, since they were so cowardly as to take women, perhaps we should just kill two prisoners for each woman hostage. We could be-head our prisoners and send the heads along with the video, to the Taliban. If beheading isn’t your thing, I suppose that castration and/or genital amputation of a male prisoner in exchange for the death of a female hostage could be appropriate.
They want to be bad, why can’t we be badder?
muahaha!!
On the flip side, we might as well be taking hostages out in Guantanamo Bay. If you can’t charge them, let them go already! If you can charge them … then get it over with already! I don’t see the material difference between the Russian and German secret prisions and Guantanamo Bay. People go in … people don’t come out. Hmmm….
The financial markets were thrown into a panic this week, and last. Interestingly enough, the stock market hasn’t dropped like I was hoping. There might be a panic, but it hasn’t translated into a stock sell off.
The real effects of the panic this week will be felt in the housing market. A lot of California homeowners and would-like-to-be homeowners are going to be facing some hard times in the coming year. How would you like that mortgage at 7-8 percent? Wells Fargo set their rates at 8. Owning a home in California is not much more than rent from the bank. The landlord just raised rent in the Kalifornia rent complex. Better hope you don’t have to move or re-negiotate your lease with the bank.
I have to admit a certain amount of glee at the carnage. Prudence was shoved out the window in favor of greed. I’m rooting for Prudence and I like it when the fools get their due. Nothing worse than getting screwed by a fool, which is what it felt like watching morons buy houses and driving up the prices. I’m not shedding a tear for people who are going to loose their homes. They didn’t do due diligence ignored sound principles. If they HAD shown due diligence, then perhaps prices wouldn’t have skyrocketed like they did.
And again, on the immigration front. I read something about Bush cracking down on employers who hire illegal immigrants. Well my first thought was along the lines of how he could do that since Congress makes law. The second thought followed quickly … duh … the bastard decided that it was time to start some sort of meaningful enforcement of the EXISTING law. Normally I would be all for the enforcement of this type of law … but I also think that Bush is going off half cocked again without fully realizing the consequences of his actions. That seems to be the way he operates. So, for better or worse, thus go we.
Something to ponder. All those illegals who use fake social security numbers on their W-2’s pay taxes and, more importantly, social security and medicare taxes. They will not be able to recover those funds by virtue of not having a real social security number. I wonder how much money they contribute to the system. Just to be clear, I think it’s evil to take peoples money on one hand and attempt to deny them services and/or legal recognition on the other.
I don’t thing we are going to see a mass migration of out-of-work Mexicans back toward Mexico. It’s not too hard to find ways around the system and ways will be found.
In my few moments not at work, I have been listening to some throwback music that I had purchased and yet lost the original CD (and therefore didn’t make it back into my MP3 collection). Kutless and a forgotten Project 86 album.
Some people have said that things they see and ear can bring them back to past moments in their lives. And so it is.
This music was a staple during a very chaotic and dark period of my life. It was the best of times, and also the worst of times all at once. Yes, the year before and after graduating college was something else. It was during this time that my spirit was growing restless after nearly 6 years of college. To put it bluntly - I went balls out and I got a nice kick in the same. I am in a constant rochambeau match with life, and round one sucked big time.
Sadly, and despite my efforts, that time has continued to define my life since. It’s like innocence lost. Sometimes there is no ‘reset’ button. No saved game to go back to. No do overs.
If I seem angry, it’s because rochambeau hurts.
Did it …. I shoved the excuses aside and did the right thing. hmmm…. that wasn’t so hard…
Good thing I canceled my online dating subscription. Ever since I changed my address to Texas, I’ve been getting deluged by obese women seeking to contact me. Obese I say! I’m not un sympathetic to the efforts of the disgustingly overweight to get a date, after all … an argument could be made that I am disgustingly UNDER weight, among other things. Additionally, their struggle with too much weight is analgous to my struggle with too little weight.
I find it difficult to respond to somone and say ‘not interested’ without a reason. Gotta have a reason…. must say reason. Seriously, I have this huge mental inability to say something without also saying a reason. I just can’t bring myself to say ‘come back when you loose 50-100 pounds.’ I don’t want to be responsible for smashing someone’s sense of self-worth. And so …. I choose to ignore them instead. It’s much easier to do when you don’t have a subscription.
I need to be a bigger person. I need to leave out the commentary sometimes.
Last Friday was a rather interesting day, with yet another mortgage broker going bankrupt, and with many others ceasing to offer alternative loans. These alternative loans allowed first time buyers to get into some very expensive ’starter homes.’ A few years ago I wondered who was buying these homes, and the answer was ‘dumb and dumber.’ Dumb was the buyer, and dumber was the market which made the loans in the first place. From what I am hearing now, the days of interest only and 0 down payment loans are history or soon to be history. Now, you are going to need 25k for that 5 percent down payment on your 500k starter home. LOL. Wait, forgot about closing costs. Better make that 35k. That’s 35k in cold, hard, cash. In a lot of cases, that cash can’t even come from a gift.
A lot of people are shutting down those piggyback loans as well. Those used to be used to avoid paying loan insurance, and loan insurance is NOT cheap.
Houses will continue to sell in California, it just won’t be to first timers who don’t fit into the category of the dual income white collar couple. A great example of the baby boomers and Gen X’ers screwing their kids.
I often wonder if our elected officials have any sense of things that are important and things that are not. I wonder if they are just doing political things at random.
There was some dispute on the house floor regarding a vote. At first it looked like the republicans had been victorious, then the power went out, and then the democrats were victorious. FOUL cries the republicans. Everyone is all so very embarrased, so they create a committee with subpoena rights, which seems to me like overkill when you can just take a damn second vote. It’s not like this was a vote of supreme importance like the passage of a bill. This was a procedural vote over an unimportant matter.
I could think of a lot of things the house could investigate … and yet they don’t. While they waste their time on this, social security is still underfunded, medicare is still facing a crisis, healthcare is still in need of improvement, housing is on the verge of a depression, bridges are collapsing, the Bush Monkey is still in office, Gonzales still thinks he is part of the solution to the Justice Department, bond traders are panicing, and Texas is still an armpit.
They should really investigate wether Texas is an armpit, or a bunghole. The other day my co-worker regarded Houston as a bunghole and I just might take a trip down there to experience the difference.
A quote:
“Somebody should be charged with murder,” said Khaffak Ansari, ex-husband of Julia Blackhawk, who died in the bridge collapse. “We live in this superpower, and they tell us things are safe.”
So now, the governement is responsible for preventing the occasional engineering accident. This superpower is not based on anything nearly as solid as your average bridge. You shouldn’t be worrying about the damn bridge, worry about your damn government.
Right about the time the stock market started to tank, another blow up of its own was happening right outside my office.
Hee Hee
The stock market bubble was bursting, and after bursting the bubble of my boss, I decided to leave work early and go see the Simpsons movie.
Hee Hee
Now, I’m working the weekend drinking a Double Red Eye…
Hee Hee. It’s the caffine talking…