The Meltdown

So everybody has been affected by the meltdown, at least everybody with either a mortgage or investments in the stock market. And we all wonder, "what is the root cause?" I believe one gentleman from a financial forum I read pins it to the special interest lobby of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac:

Fannie [Mae] and Freddie [Mac] had such powerful lobbyists that no attempt to reform or regulate Fannie and Freddie could make it through Congress. In all fairness, there were a number of Republican Senators and Congressman who have been sounding the alarm for at least 15 years. They knew it was only a matter of time before the taxpayer would have to bail them out. They were voices crying in the wilderness. There was no way to stop such large special interests. Fannie and Freddie spent tens of millions of dollars lobbying congress. Is there something inherently wrong with that? Government sponsored enterprises spending millions to lobby the government?

So, who were the lamebrains obstructing reform?

Since 1989, 534 individual legislators recieved money from Fannie and Freddie. Who recieved the most? Chris Dodd, Democrat from Connecticut, Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee and the Senator who had a couple of special arrangements with Countrywide, Fannies biggest customer. Who was second in line? A newcomer, who had only been in congress for three years, the junior Senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, who now blames Bush for the problem, and says he's going to run a different kind if Washington, free of special interests. There's a sucker born every minute.

Change you can believe in? So long as you believe, "The more things change, the more they stay the same".

The Speech

I didn't see Sarah Palin speak last night, but many blogs and newspapers couldn't stop talking about it. So I did something I rarely do, I read the speech.

Read it.

She SHOULD be our next vice president in 2008.

She SHOULD be our president in 2012.

I won' t say I'm in love, but bloody hell, where have the Republicans been hiding her and are there any more principled people like her in the party who will lead it?

Stuff - mainly news

The NY Times must be wishing for a Ministry of Truth and the Memory Hole (see George Orwell's 1984)so we mere mortals wouldn't be able to see what they said in 2006 and 2007 and what they were forced to report in 2008.

Stories on Sarah Palin and why the Democrats are going nuts with her selection for VP.
Here
here
here and here.

Monday Roundup

Well the Olympics are over. My wife watched the closing ceremonies, said it was too long and carnival like, the opening was much better.

If someone wrote a book that was widely publicised and later turned out to be 100% false (ok maybe was only 99.9999999999997% false) and it was his area of specialty, one would think this person would not be considered an expert worth listening too. Especially if this person insists that the original premise is still valid. Well think again.

Liberal protesters in Denver try to recreate Chicago in 1968 (by provoking the police into responding to them). However, as much as they tried to goad the police into attacking the demonstrators (who did have a permit), they were not successful. I guess there were too many video cameras around so the protesters couldn't start a riot by throwing bottles or something and then blame the police.

Mother nature has a sense of humor.

Senator Obama says we should think of the community and not just ourselves in how we live our lives. Will he follow his own advice when it comes to HIS family?

Doofus

That's Cuba's Angel Matos, an Olympic Taekwondo athlete, kicking a referee in the head after being DQ'd. Nice. Said ref required stitches in his lip. The World Taekwondo Federation (WTF) is recommending a lifetime ban for Matos and his coach.

"We didn't expect anything like what you have witnessed to occur," said WTF secretary general Yang Jin-suk. "I am at a loss for words."

You got that right. I, too, would be at a loss for words right now if I was the secretary general of WTF.

This is a shameful act, disgracing yourself, your team, your country.

Olympic Burnout

Burnt out today. No commentary. Will be back tomorrow.

By the way, Nastia was robbed. ROBBED. Is there any more random way of breaking a tie than that? I could swear I was in Las Vegas at the Circus Circus coffee shop drinking a cup of Joe, sawing at the wafer-thin 1.99 Porterhouse and eggs special watching the keno numbers light up on the board with a grease pencil in hand.

"Oh, 8...15...32...there's 20...and 9.1! 9.0! 9.1! I win!"

It was like they just threw each athlete's scores into a hat, mixed them up, and let each athlete pick one at random. Better would have been rock-paper-scissors--at least that's a contest. Soccer has a shootout so maybe they could have done something gymnastic-y for 30 seconds to impress the judges. Heck, let them compete in one of the ancient Olympic competitions--Greco-Roman wrestling. Clinch, hold, lock, and pin their way to a gold.

But, no, they do what is in its essentials, the gymnatic equivalent of high spade in the hole splits the pot. No, thank you. The scoring in this Olympics has been confusing and almost counter-intuitive. How can you LAND ON YOUR KNEES AND STILL WIN SILVER?

And I still think the Chinese girls look like they belong in a Beverly Cleary novel.

So I guess I'm not so burned out that I'm still good for a bit of rantage.

Peace, out.

What Did You Expect?

Amid all the cheering for the athletes and the enjoyment of the games, we should never lose site of the reality that China is as driven home by an article on China's purported plan to allow protesters.

The applicants? 77 of them for various causes, not the obvious ones we might think of (Tibet, religious oppression), but things such as development projects displacing residents, homeless, welfare.

How many of these protests have been approved? Zero.

Rights groups and relatives have said some applicants were immediately taken away by security agents after applying to hold a rally...

Now that's sort of chilling with a I-can't-believe-this-happens-in-the-21st-Century sort of way. The Chinese government response? As Wang Wei, VP of China's Olympic organizing committee said,

"We think that you do not really understand China's reality. China has its own version and way of exercising our democracy."

Their own version apparently involves rubber hoses, black cars, and state run media. Democracy, freedom, or rights in China?

Not bloody likely in my lifetime.

PHELPS

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

CAN YOU BELIEVE IT???

CAN YOU BELIEVE IT???

*AIRPLANES AROUND ROOM*

*KERMIT THE FROG*

The Olympics and stuff

My wife has not been able to get to bed before 1:30 am since August 8. That is about when exhaustion takes over and she can't watch the Olympics anymore. On the other hand, I've watched a little bit but am not glued to the TV like she is.

As for the Chinese women gymnasts, they do look young, but as my wife said, our niece looked 12 last year and now looks 16. She grew a lot and got rid of her braces and if you saw her you would think she is 16/17 not 14. BTW, her father is a black belt in Brazilian Jujitsu if anyone tries to bother her.

So are the Chinese cheating in women's gymnastics? I don't know and at the end of the day, it just doesn't matter. Why? because the ideal of the Olympics is dead and has been dead for decades. The Olympics have been and always will be giving the host country a chance to show off their city. But what about fairness to the athletes from the countries that follow the rules? Well they will have to work harder to compete against underage competitors (who will have their own problems dealing with disappointment and stress of competition). It may not be fair, but then again, neither is life so deal with it and move on.

On to Georgia. Maybe we need to sell some of our cold war surplus M1 and M2's to Georgia for $1 each, load them on ships and send them to Georgia ports escorted by a carrier group and maybe lease a Los Angeles class sub to them as well for maybe $10 a week to open the sea lanes from Russia's blockade. What about Turkey and the Dardanelles and them not liking US warships passing through them? Well if the try to close the straights, well we have a lot of troops just south of them and their troops have/are invading Iraq to suppress the Kurds, we can make life hard for them too if they wish. Yes, this is wishful thinking of sending tanks and making sure the Georgians are properly supplied. Easy to say, hard and risky to do. But if we don't stop Russia here, where do we stop them? The Baltic states? Ukraine? Poland? Germany? why them and not Georgia? What makes them more valuable then Georgia?

On a personal note, work has been nuts and will continue to be so for another month or so with all the changes here, so the boss will be making most of the posts, thanks for making them.

Ranting and Raving...

...I watched the women's all-around this evening. At every turn, it seemed the world and its evil-minion-proxies were against Shawn and Nastia. Logic (and the announcers) could not explain the inexplicable scores even in the face of the Chinese mistakes and American triumphs.

"IT'S FIXED!" Shaking my yellow fist at the glowing blue screen, I uttered all manner of plots and conspiracies involving Nellie Kim, the Chinese, the Illumanati, an alien with velcro, and the grassy knoll.

Even remembrances of Michael Phelps' domination in the 200 IM, a race I judged to be his toughest remaining, and Lochte/Piersol going 1-2 in the 200 backstroke could not quell the seething anger I held within.

It wouldn't be. Hard work would not triumph over petty and parochial politics. We would be robbed yet again by jealous would-be superpowers. And I hadn't even thought about the IOC's yanking of softball and baseball from the 2012 games.

Having worked myself into a good froth, I was ready for the last two events.

And then...Nastia absolutely kills the beam and floor. She owns it. Dominates. She kicks sand in their 90-pound-weakling faces, steals their girls, and rips the back cover ad from their comic books. Charlie Atlas wouldn't be able to save them now.

And so, breathing a sigh of relief, I turned my attentions back to determining and proving China's gymnasts are not eligible to drive.

How was your night?

Makes You Go, "Hmmm"

Apparently, there is a case to be made for under-aged Chinese gymnasts, as ESPN is reporting the Chinese organ, Xinhua, itself reported He Kexin was 13. Thus, ESPN concludes, she would have been "ineligible to be on the team that won a gold medal".

Interestingly enough and predictably, mums-the-word:

The Associated Press found the Xinhua report on the site Thursday morning and saved a copy of the page. Later that afternoon, the Web site was still working but the page was no longer accessible.

The paper reported He's age to be 14 this past May, although that was quickly corrected. In a statement, He herself backs the party line,

"my real age is 16. I don't pay any attention to what everyone says."

Because, of course, her word and her Chinese-government-issued passport is proof enough (end sarcasm here). Granted, she won and won going away, even at whatever-age-she-is. There is no question about that.

The question is not just, "Are the Chinese playing by the same rules for age?" You should be able to guess what my answer is to that. The question really is, "Are the Chinese abiding by ALL the rules?"

How else might they be cheating? Frankly, without an open society or viable third-party verification, we will never know He's age as it has been lost in the misty and redacted past of state revisionism.

Ergh

Is it me or does the Chinese "women's" gymnastics team look like a slumber party of 10 year olds? There is no way they can be older than 12...13, maybe.

My wife tells me they do things in China where the girls are taken from their families at 3 and subjected to hormone treatments to delay their periods and things like that.

And this is the spirit of amateur sport?

Men's Gymnastics

Filed under the Olympic Patriotism Department.

We watched the men's gymnastics team went through the high bar last night (aside: why only one for them and not two like the women? Did somebody say, "No sissy two bars for us! Just one solitary, manly rod of steel to hang like an ape from."). I was on the edge of my seat as Spring was flying through the air, seriously, it just looked like the guy was borderline crazy and out-of-control. Then when Horton stuck his landing, I basically Kermit-the-Frogged-screamed.

Of course, for those of you scoring at home, it was disappointing to watch the team fold like napkins in the floor and horse. Still, they did well enough to secure a medal and even appeared for a moment to be in contention to pull off one of the biggest upsets in Olympic history for the silver.

Congrats.

Miracle on (Melted) Ice

4x100 swim relay team.

Excuse me, that should be the world-recording holding, Gold-medal winning, French-smacking, wave-drafting, chest-pounding American 4x100 swim relay team.

HOLY FREAKIN' COW.

How is it possible to out-swim the freestyle world-record holder over the last 25 meters? That was impressive, improbable, impossible, impressive, unforgettable, unreal, unbelievable, unimaginable. I cannot imagine how Lezak pulled it off because I thought at the turn he was a goner.

Oi.

That it was against the smack-talking French...yeah, well that's just extra icing (butter?) on the croissant. Prenez que vous claquez les Français parlants! (tanks Babblefish for the most-likely hacked up and mutilated translation)

This will rank #2 in my Olympic moments behind, of course, the Miracle on Ice.

Once Again, With Feeling

More on how the Chinese handle protesters, this time at the consulate in San Francisco. One of the protesters hung from the outside of the Chinese consulate--considered sovereign Chinese territory--hence, the protester was on Chinese soil. Apparently, Nyendak Wangden fell 15 feet, fracturing her wrist:

The Tibetan rights group says their members were confronted on the roof. They claim a man pushed away one female group member from the climbing anchors, while a woman cut Wangden's rope.

She cut it while Wangden was still hanging from it. Nice. I'm telling you, these Red Chinese don't mess around, do they? If this is how foreign trespassers are treated, imagine what they do to their own subjects.

Americans "Shocked" at Chinese Oppression

Several foreign visitors to China voiced their opinions in Tiananmen Square: the expected "Free Tibet", government-mandated abortion, religious oppression, and the Tiananmen massacre. I commend these souls on their bravery. The Chinese government, of course, moved in and in an understandable show of restraint (given the media scrutiny), only showed the unruly visitors the square's exit after the usual "show-me-your-papers" song and dance.

...plainclothes security agents and police officers tried to block the banner with umbrellas and started shoving the group when they tried to walk around the square. The agents eventually pushed them out of the area and made them sit nearby for almost an hour, checking their passports, before letting them go...

The protesters reaction? Bordering on naive.

"It's so shocking being an American ... to see the blatant oppression," [one of the protesters] said.

It bears saying again. What part of oppressive government did we not understand? The leopard does not change its spots, even if the leopard (or, if you prefer, dragon or panda) is dancing for your enjoyment at the moment.

Freedom to speak is a great thing, let us; however, NOT fall into an ethno-centric trap and assume everybody else in the world enjoys the same things. Shocking, yes. Surprising...not so much.

Hmmm

Going to Boston for a business trip in a few weeks and I just realized, my return flight from Boston-Logan will be 9/11.

Damn terrorists.

Newsflash: Sky is BLUE!

In an "unexpected" move, China has censored web access for the media during the Beijing Olympic games.

...International Olympic Committee (IOC) press chief Kevan Gosper told Reuters that both he and the international media had been taken by surprise that some politically sensitive websites had been blocked.

Note to the Olympic committee and media: What part of the term, repressive government, do you not understand? It is easy to see how a country willing to ruthlessly and bloodily suppress Tibet (not to mention commit the brutality of the Cultural Revolution) would be more than willing to inconvenience a few journalists.

Did nobody expect this? How naive.

Face it, the Olympics may be a propaganda opportunity for the PRC, but it will do nothing to substantively change the character of that nation.

Watchmen

I just read the Watchmen for the first time, since I didn't read it the first came out, I guess I just wasn't interested back then. I just finished reading it to see what all the hubbub was about and since my professor-friend from church was kind enough to loan it to me.

First thoughts: Dated. Paranoid. Leftist. Fantasy. (not necessarily in that order)

Second thoughts: *Excellent* characterizations. Excellent depth of back-story and a well-thought out plot, although dated--as I said, the plot of the story comes across as a paranoid fantasy, which is kind of fun. Interesting symbolism, the foreshadowing worked will. The whole idea of Mr. Manhattan and squid creatures I thought to be Moore’s nod to the marrow of comic books: supermen and weird aliens. It was executed well without being overdone. I also enjoyed the interweaving of the "historical" pulp comic within the storyline and the various epistolatory interludes--a great device to download large amounts of backstory with a minimum of storyline interruption or silly flashbacks. It really was a book that I had to think through as opposed to the story lines of other comics.

In all, I can understand why many consider this so great. On the other hand, I’m glad I read it now rather than twenty years ago—my tastes have changed and I enjoyed it much more today than I would have then.

Someone made fun of Obama

And it was a newspaper too, in Europe no less.

Of course by posting the link, this blog could be shut down like others that have yet to acknowledge Obama as the savior.

He ventured forth to bring light to the world
The anointed one's pilgrimage to the Holy Land is a miracle in action - and a blessing to all his faithful followers by Gerard Baker

And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness.