Top 10 Stories You Missed in 2008

Foriegn Policy just ran a really interesting article: Top 10 Stories You Missed in 2008 [foreignpolicy.com].

The stories range from the next humanitarian catastrophe (similar to Darfur) which has begun in Sudan, to Sonic Blasters that were sold by US companies to China (which officially is a country that we have prohibited weapons sales to) in advance of the Olympics.

Other stories include assistance that the US is giving to India to develop a missile shield on the subcontinent, and moves that Russia is making to scoop up energy supplies worldwide.

It is a really interesting read, especially for news junkies like me who are pretty up on current events.

Image of refugees from Darfur from Hoisaeter's Flickr photostream [flickr.com].

Commercial Mortgage Meltdown

As if there weren't enough horrible economic news...

It is now apparent that a commercial mortgage meltdown has begun [washingtonpost.com], mirroring what has happened to residential mortgages. Here's a quote from the Washington Post article:

"Some investors were banking on the Treasury Department's financial industry bailout plan to keep the commercial-mortgage-backed securities market propped up. They hoped that cash-strapped banks would either be able to sell those assets to the federal government or get more breathing room to sit on their holdings by offloading other assets onto the government."

"But late last week, the Treasury Department announced that it wouldn't buy any assets from banks under its Troubled Asset Relief Program, and instead would use TARP funds to buy stock in banks."

Basically, we have the same situation as the residential mortgage meltdown -- mortgages were packed and sold as low-risk mortgage-backed securities. Now that the economy has fallen off a cliff, you have many retailers and commercial property owners in trouble. They can't sell the property because no one is buying anything and values have dropped so far below what they were bought for.

Looks like this will be a really rough Christmas for all. And this meltdown is just getting started.

Vote Today!

One of the most annoying things about US elections is that every time they come around, we are bombarded by people saying things like the following:

• "The country is screwed if Candidate X wins."
• "If Candidate Y wins, I'm moving to Canada.

Lots of Democrats and Republicans have been US president before, and the universe hasn't imploded.

How do people get so passionate about politicians? These millionaires don't give a rat's ass about you, your quality of life, doing the right thing, or making this country a better place unless it is expected to affect their ability to hold onto power. They're more interested in making you worried about abortion and gay marriage than in any real issues (and it would be the same this year if the economy weren't in such bad shape).

Speaking of which, the economy is a perfect example of how both parties are more interested in fooling voters than in any real solution. The responses range from:

• issuing more stimulus checks [businessweek.com] (which wasn't a good idea the first time around, but the second time's a charm?), to


• blaming Obama for trying to "spread the wealth around" (even though economists agree that there is little difference between the two tax plans [kansascity.com], and it was the Republicans who created the wealth-spreading in the first place [starbulletin.com]), to


• blaming the current administration for the current financial crisis [toledoblade.com] (which doesn't make any more sense than the previous items).

If politicians really, genuinely cared about growing the economy, they would be pursuing sound economic policies like reducing the federal budget deficit. But they clearly don't. Both parties want to increase spending while offering some sort of a tax cut. Meanwhile, the deficit will probably be a drag on our economy beyond my lifetime.

They don't really genuinely care, because they're assholes. They will commit any number of crimes, intimidate voters, lie, cheat, or steal in order to hold onto power. And you're helping them.

So, make sure you get out and vote today. Because if you don't, some asshole who won't even pretend to care about your hot button issue might win the US presidency. And then you'll have to move to Canada...

US Raid in Syria

Times Online: Questions raised over Syrian complicity in US raid

Last week, US soldiers conducted a raid on the Syrian side of the Iraqi border, which sparked condemnation from the Syrian government [bbc.co.uk] and led to government-backed protests in Damascus [reuters.com].


According to the Times Online article, things are not as simple as they look. The assumption has been that the raid took place without prior approval from the Syrian government. But what if Syrian intelligence had told the US where the high-level Al Qaeda commander was, and authorized the raid? From the article:

"Abu Ghadiya was feared by the Syrians as an agent of Islamic fundamentalism who was hostile to the secular regime in Damascus. It would be expedient for Syria if America would eliminate him..."

"The Washington source said the Americans regularly communicate with the Syrians through a back channel that runs through Syria’s air force intelligence, the Idarat al-Mukhabarat al-Jawiyya."

"In the time-honoured tradition of covert US operations in the Middle East, this one seems to have gone spectacularly wrong. The Syrians, who had agreed to turn a blind eye to a supposedly quiet 'snatch and grab' raid, could not keep the lid on a firefight in which so many people had died."

That is a really interesting article, and it's plausibility is frightening.

Image from labanex's Flickr photostream [flickr.com].

US Elections

I just want this election to be over.

It seems like it is impossible to read any news source without seeing some sort of poll projecting the results. In many of the news sources that I frequently read, links to articles about the latest poll results are listed ahead of "real" news like the War in Bajaur (Pakistan) [google.com], OPEC cutting output [nytimes.com], the global response to the credit crisis [deutsche welle], etc.

One of the things that is so irritating about polls is that not only are they ubiquitous, but they are also meaningless. They're meaningless because they're wrong, and the polls from this year's primaries prove so. Let's take the New Hampshire Democratic primary. 4 days before the primary, a USA/Gallup poll showed that Barak Obama had a massive 13 point lead [wikipedia.org] over Hillary Clinton. And according to this article [nytimes.com], in all of the polls leading up to the primary, including polls taken the day before, Barak Obama had an average lead of 8 percent.

He would eventually lose this primary by 3% [wikipedia.org].

Now, how does that happen? Is it that people lie to the pollsters? Is it that racist people (or even people who are subtly racist) refuse to participate in polls in larger numbers? I don't know if we're going to know the answer to that question for a long time. But what is clear is that this polls suck.

America is in for a giant racist wakeup call.

If there were any year for a Democrat to win the presidency, it would be this one. The main reason being that the economy is doing so badly, which somehow translates into the current administration being blamed (which has happened in several election years before, but never ceases to amaze me). People seem to be under the impression that racism is now confined to a very small segment of the population.

But I think what we're about to see is racist and xenophobic people coming out in droves (many of whom would not normally vote) to vote against a black candidate. Given the margins in the last two US presidential elections, it wouldn't take much to swing the vote one way or another. And if you don't think that racism plays a large role in our society, why do you think there are predominantly white neighborhoods and predominantly black neighborhoods? It is very unusual to find integrated areas. This isn't a coincidence.

US Presidential Debates

I have been pretty disappointed in this round of US Presidential Debates. At best, they have been really boring. I haven't been able to get through an entire debate yet -- most of the time, I am bailing out halfway through.


For me, most of the problem is that the moderators allow the candidates to recite their talking points instead of answering the actual questions. I don't want to hear the talking points. I've already heard those ad nausea. What I want is for them to answer the questions.

Back in the primaries, there were all of those CNN/YouTube debates. And one of the great things that I saw in those debates was that Anderson Cooper didn't allow the candidates to skate -- when he saw any of them try to weasel out of giving a straight-forward answer, he would stop them and make it clear that they weren't answering the question. For example, recall Sen. Clinton's weasel answer on the issue of American ground troops in Darfur:



If the embedded video doesn't work, use this link [youtube.com]. This is the kind of thing that I want to see more of in future debates. The moderators should stop allowing these bastards from weaseling out of answering the damned questions.

Early Voting in Ohio

Is this election season ever going to end? Like the Christmas shopping season, it seems to start earlier and earlier every time. It makes me wonder about whether we'll eventually get to the point where we are voting in next primaries in a president's first year in office.

Anyway, with the election less than a month away now, voting has already begun in Ohio [rte.ie].

Howard Stern recently created a funny bit to show just how ignorant the average voter is. He had someone go out on the street with a microphone and ask them about the election. Here is a typical exchange that was recorded:

"Are you voting for John McCain or Barak Obama?"
"Obama."
"Are you more for Obama's policies because he is pro-life or because he thinks our troops should stay in Iraq and finish this war?"
"I think our troops should stay in Iraq and finish this war. I'm really firm with that. Definitely."
"How how about as far as him being pro-life? Do you support Obama in that case?"
"Yeah. I do. I do. I support him in that case."
"And if he wins, would you have any problem with Sarah Palin being vice-president?"
"No, I wouldn't. Not at all."

It's funny, but at the same time, really sad. You can hear the original audio here:



If the embedded video doesn't work, use this link.

By the way, the guy holding the mic is one half of the comedy team in this CNN video [youtube.com] making a mockery of the coverage of the Lehman Brothers Bankruptcy report (which became a small internet sensation [postchronicle.com]).

Red Light Cameras

Like many other cities, Cleveland has deployed several red light cameras, that are designed to automate ticketing for people who run red lights at intersections.


It is readily apparent to everyone that these devices are there to generate revenue for the city, not encourage driver safety as most cities argue. But I had not seen actual data to back up this assertion until now. It turns out that there have been several studies that show that red light cameras actually increase the rate of crashes, instead of increasing public safety. For instance, an article on Science Daily [sciencedaily.com] cites a study performed by Florida researchers. Here is a quote from the article:

"'The rigorous studies clearly show red-light cameras don’t work... Instead, they increase crashes and injuries as drivers attempt to abruptly stop at camera intersections.'"

"Traffic fatalities caused by red-light running are not increasing in Florida and account for less than 4 percent of the state’s yearly traffic deaths. In contrast, more than 22 percent of the state’s traffic fatalities occur at intersections for reasons other than red-light running."

What's even more aggravating is that 6 cities have been found guilty of shortening yellow light durations [motorists.org], in order to increase revenue from red light cameras. The cities are Chattanooga, Tennessee; Dallas, Texas; Springfield, Missouri; Lubbock, Texas; Nashville, Tennessee; and Union City, California. And you can bet that they're not the only ones who are guilty of this practice.

Picture of accident at intersection from Scoobyfoo's Flickr photostream [flickr.com].

Presidential Election Polls

Ugh! It is almost impossible to read the news these days without having to read these asinine articles about the latest poll on the US presidential election. Exhibit A: Obama leads McCain by 15 points [google.com].

I do not understand why these polls continue to get widespread media attention, when the Democratic nomination process showed time and time again how flawed these polls are. They continually predicted one candidate or another would win by a large margin, which were proven incorrect. Take this article about the New Hampshire primary [nytimes.com]:

"All the published polls, including those that surveyed through [the day before the primary], had Senator Barack Obama comfortably ahead with an average margin of more than 8 percent."

He would ultimately lose this one. The author of that article speculates on the reason:

"Poorer, less well-educated white people refuse surveys more often than affluent, better-educated whites. Polls generally adjust their samples for this tendency. But here’s the problem: these whites who do not respond to surveys tend to have more unfavorable views of blacks than respondents who do the interviews."

Regardless of the reason for the polls being wrong, the fact is that they are so unreliable that they hardly merit any attention. You might as well just publish articles about what various people speculate which candidate is in the lead. And yet, we continue to be inundated with these articles covering the poll results.

I still hold the opinion (and I hope that I am proven wrong) that there is such a large percentage of racist people in this country that a black man has no chance to win this election. The last few presidential elections have been decided by such narrow margins that it would not take many racist voters (who don't normally vote) to tip the election in McCain's favor.

Ohio Primary Day

Today is the Ohio primary, so if you are an Ohio-an make sure you get out and vote today.

I am one of those people who think that both major political parties have their heads completely up their asses (as they almost always do). I am therefore registered as an independent and will be an issue-voter today (meaning that I won't actually be voting for any of the many elderly, out-of-touch morons that are currently trying to become the most beholden to special interests, and thereby become that party's nominee for the President of the United States).

So, I will be waiting for an hour or more in line today, just so that I can spend 5 seconds voting for the one issue that is actually on the ballot in my city.

All of you annoying, self-righteous assholes who will be standing outside of the polling locations, holding signs, and trying to convince me why your candidate's attention to special interests are more superior to any others can go shove it right up your asses. Just because I am exercising my right to participate in the democratic process doesn't mean that I have to listen to any of your crap.

To the rest of you, make sure you get out and vote!

Craptastic Presidential Election

I am pretty pessimistic about the crop of presidential candidates right now, but especially so with the main democratic hopefuls, Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton. I recently saw an article entitled, "Does Obama's Win Show US Is Colorblind?" [google.com]. From the article:

"Obama's convincing win in Thursday's caucuses in Iowa — a state with just a smattering of minority voters — demonstrated the Illinois senator's support crosses racial lines and bolstered the notion that America is receptive to electing its first black president."

Bullshit. In my opinion, it doesn't matter whether Democratic voters are ready to elect a black president or not. It would seem to me that the majority of the people who are going to be unwilling to vote for a black or female candidate are on the Republican side.

If Obama or Clinton win the nomination, I think that we are going to see a surprisingly large number of people coming out to vote (many of whom probably that do not vote regularly), just to make sure that a black or female candidate does not win. And if the election is decided upon another slim margin, that could easily make the difference.

Of course, the actual race may be overshadowed yet again by the electronic voting machines that appear to be designed with criminal negligence. The New York Times just ran an article called, "Can You Count on Voting Machines?" [nytimes.com]. From the article:

"For a while, it had looked as if things would go smoothly for the Board of Elections office in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. About 200,000 voters had trooped out on the first Tuesday in November for the lightly attended local elections, tapping their choices onto the county’s 5,729 touch-screen voting machines..."

"On Election Day, poll workers complained that 143 machines were broken; dozens of other machines had printer jams or mysteriously powered down. More than 200 voter-card encoders — which create the cards that let voters vote — went missing. When the machines weren't malfunctioning, they produced errors at a stunning rate: one audit of the election discovered that in 72.5 percent of the audited machines, the paper trail did not match the digital tally on the memory cards."

Chalker Arrested

Apparently you can be arrested for drawing on the sidewalk in chalk in New York [brooklynpaper.com]. That sounds completely ridiculous to me.

<sarcasm>I suppose that since there is no real crime in New York City anymore, the police have nothing better to do than to harass people with chalk.</sarcasm> Note that one of the charges was possession of graffiti-making materials.

I am sure that they are not arresting any children who are participating in the same activity. So, there is a bit of double-standard there.

This reminds me of a time when I was 18, and I was not allowed in a bar/restaurant WITH MY PARENTS, because I wasn't 21. Meanwhile, I noticed there were plenty of 12 and under children that had been allowed in.

Non-Partisan Primary Election Day

Today there are non-partisan primary elections, in my neck of the woods. The most important race on the ballot is the mayoral race between incumbent Mayor George, Councilman Ryan Patrick Demro, and Councilman Edward Fitzgerald.

The US Representative for my city (Lakewood) is Dennis Kucinich, so you might imagine what the political leanings are of the majority of the residents. The city is so urban that there are no school buses -- students either walk to school, or take public transportation.

The incumbent mayor is much maligned due to the frequent tax increases. The other candidates are stressing that the major issues that voters should be concerned about are with increased crime, neglect of foreclosed houses, urban planning, and the allocation of the city's budgets.

The most visible issues are the state of the city streets (which are in far worse shape than the mean in the Cleveland area), and all of the new schools. Several schools have been completely torn down, so that new ones can be built in their place.

That being said, I am having a really difficult time telling the difference between the two challengers (Fitzgerald and Demro). There are several articles about the candidates in the local paper (like this article in the Lakewood Observer).

Is it a positive that one of the candidates has profiles on MySpace and Facebook?

Some Provisions of Patriot Act Unconstitutional

This post originally was supposed to be posted last Friday, but I had a weird problem and couldn't post it then. So, it is being posted today, even though it is less timely...

--

I've started a new category of posts here: politics. Generally, I don't post about politics, because it just pisses people off. And while pissing people off is generally funny to me, writing about my crackpot ideas and beliefs does get old. I also think that there are plenty of political stories that I can post about that really are non-partisan.

Anyway, I saw an article about some of the provisions of the Patriot Act being ruled unconstitutional [washingtonpost.com]. Here are some quotes:

"A federal judge today struck down portions of the USA Patriot Act as unconstitutional, ordering the FBI to stop issuing 'national security letters' [NSLs] that secretly demand customer information from Internet service providers and other businesses...."

"But Marrero wrote that 'in light of the seriousness of the potential intrusion into the individual's personal affairs and the significant possibility of a chilling effect on speech and association--particularly of expression that is critical of the government or its policies--a compelling need exists to ensure that the use of NSLs is subject to the safeguards of public accountability, checks and balances, and separation of powers that our Constitution prescribes.'"

People who know me well probably will not be surprised that I think the right decision was made here. Crime and whatever else can be combated through good detective work (as it has been for decades). Removing judicial oversight does not make us safer -- it just puts us one step closer towards totalitarian governments.

I hope that this whole era eventually is seen in the same light as McCarthyism -- that people just went crazy and did a whole bunch of things half-cocked because we were making decisions using emotion instead of logic and facts.