The bad news is that the wiring harness is shot and will need to be replaced. Boooooo!!!! And she won't run without it . Fuckity-fuck-fuck.

In the Life of Josie!

Annnnd I'm back in the hot seat. Anywho, quick update in the world of Josiah: I have finally taken so many pictures that my hard drive is full. (SONUVABITCH) >___< I tried uploading my last round of pictures from my last shoot for Rick and Randi's (Randi is a girl) pre-wedding, a little notice popped up on my screen and it had the haunting words of (paraphrasing) "Hard drive is full." I cried.

HARD.

So no new pictures...until I get my portable hard drive. (I hope it's the 1TB one! <3) And back to the dreary life of Josie: I have yet to see The Dark Knight, seeing as I am broke. BUT! It is just making me all the more excited to go. And I'm certainly glad that no one has ruined it for me. OH! TDK - BLOCKBUSTER HIT! Completely blew the previous box office records into the ground. And good! Makes me all the more excited. Quick reference!

The Dark Knight opened on July 16, 2008 in Australia and July 18, 2008 in the United States and Canada with midnight screenings in 3,040 theaters. From the first midnight screenings, the film has earned $18.5 million and has set a new midnight debut record beating Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith which earned $16.9 million.^[107] On its opening day, July 18, 2008, The Dark Knight set a single-day box office record of $67.85 million, breaking a record of $59.8 million previously held by Spider-Man 3.^[108] The film also surpassed the $151.1 million opening weekend record of Spider-Man 3 with an opening of $158.4 million, including a record breaking IMAX opening of $6.2 million, surpassing the $4.7 million of Spider-Man 3.^[109] The Dark Knight sold an estimated 22.37 million tickets with today's average admission of $7.08 meaning The Dark Knight sold more tickets than Spider-Man 3 which sold 21.96 million with the average price of $6.88 in 2007.

That was brought to you by Wikipedia. <333 Loooove Wikipedia. Back to post!

In the News!

I've always respected T. Boone Pickens for his great business sense and DIY attitude and his latest appearance on CNN has just added to my admiration of him - business-wise. Pickens is a big believer in the conversion of oil-burning engines into natural gas-burning engines. Currently there are roughly 8 million of these vehicles in the world, with 140,000 of these vehicles in the U.S. and from my current research, they seem to be pretty beneficial in the long run. Not only is natural gas cheaper, but it is less harmful. According to current figures and research, converting engines into NGB (Natural Gas Burning) engines could theoretically reduce the amount of money spent overseas importing oil by about $300 Billion a year. That is roughly 40% of our total money spent on oil. This is meant to be informative and I hope it did indeed inform you. In conclusion, it's time for a smoke. And here's a few links to continue your own research of Mr. Pickens' Plan to help with the energy crises in the U.S. Enjoy and much love! And a quick thumbs up for Mr. Pickens for paying for his own advertisements, and continuing to impress me at every turn.

http://www.pickensplan.com/

http://www.ngvc.org/resources_tools/index.html#a

http://www.cleanenergyfuels.com/main.html

More than 400 penguins, most of them young, have been found dead on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro state over the past two months, according to Eduardo Pimenta, superintendent for the state coastal protection and environment agency in the resort city of Cabo Frio.

While it is common here to find some penguins - both dead and alive - swept by strong ocean currents from the Strait of Magellan, Pimenta said there have been more this year than at any time in recent memory.

Poor little guys, as if sea lions and being really cold and having to eat regurgitated raw fish weren't enough.  I wish that on bad days I could set a "good news" filter on the RSS feed.  Spend the morning reading about neat scientific experiments and maybe a few stories on underprivileged kids getting college scholarships, then switch back to "full reality" after lunch.

On the upside, I have discovered how to take shorter showers, and I'm down to under five minutes in the morning.  This is big for me, since I used to average 10-12 minutes in there.  I'm a lingerer- plus, I had long hair, and that required at least five minutes of proper attention by itself.  Getting it all wet, shampoo, conditioner, leaving in the conditioner so it will really condition, getting it all out afterwards...

Had long hair, though.  I got a fairly drastic cut, like long-enough-to-donate drastic.  I'd been growing it out for a couple years to see what happened (it got longer and I just wore it in a bun all the time).  So yes, I'll be mailing someone my disembodied ponytail, which feels like a bad practical joke, but it does some good, so there we go.  And I realized that I need a small fraction of the shampoo and conditioner I used to, and that it takes me about a minute and a half to wash it all nicely.  Progress!  Plus, now I look adorable in hats.

]]> http://natatat.wordpress.com/?p=215 Sun, 20 Jul 2008 18:21:29 +0000 natatat http://natatat.wordpress.com/?p=215 Wednesday, Jul. 16, 2008

You would expect Americans, in a period of falling home prices, a wobbly stock market and an ongoing war, to be less than satisfied with the direction of the country. It's natural. But Americans are not simply dissatisfied. They are very unhappy. O.K., deeply, pessimistically unhappy. Un–American Dreamy unhappy: 85% of respondents in an exclusive TIME/Rockefeller Foundation poll believe that the country is on the wrong track.

It's an unprecedented downer from an optimistic nation, and depending on whom you talk to, the numbers simply get worse. Among blacks and Latinos, the dissatisfaction levels are 96% and 88%, respectively. And fewer than half of Generation Y believes that the country's best days are ahead.

The kids are not all right. Nearly half of those between ages 18 and 29 say America was a better place to live in the 1990s and will continue to decline. Some of them are living that decline already: 58% of Gen Yers said they have had to borrow money to make ends meet in the past year.

A majority of Americans still believe that their kids will live better lives than they did, which means the American Dream isn't exactly dead. (Although America's kids aren't so sure.) But most also believe that the social contract — the benefits corporations and government once guaranteed — is busted and needs to be rewritten to reflect the realities of economic life in a global marketplace. A majority (78%) say there is more risk to their and their family's financial future than in the past, and rely more on their friends and family for financial support. More than a fifth (22%) have had to borrow money from a friend or relative to meet their expenses.

Most intriguing, a majority of those surveyed believe in the power of Big Government to solve the biggest problems of our time. They support major government investments that create jobs — 82% favor public works projects — and they remain sympathetic to the economy's victims: 70% say more government programs should help those now struggling. It is a shocking shift in sentiment, a counterreformation of sorts in a Republican-led era that emphasizes deregulation and self-reliance. Do Americans really want more government? The answer to that question may be provided in the November election. But history has shown that when the going gets tough, even the tough expect their Uncle Sam to get going.

For more on the TIME/Rockefeller Foundation poll, go to http://www.rockfound.org/index_caw_bm.shtml

• http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1823668,00.html

who has never committed an act of self harm,

and has never had a boyfriend in their life be called "Emo?" *shrugs*

So, the little things make me annoyed and at the very worst, flat out pissed. Who doesn't hate having their plans derailed?

I hate when someone greets me and almost immediately the next sentence out of their mouths is bad news. I once walked into work all ready to have a good day and was greeted by a superior. who then asked me if I knew so-and-so and continued (ignoring my response outright) that his mother had passed away and asked if I wanted water in the same sentence.

I hate it when I come into work early and am asked to start early if a I loiter near my work area. This happens almost daily and I have to resort to hiding in the break room. Ugh.

I hate, but can understand, that I can't bring my cellphone or PSP to work, without it being approved (the PSP anyway). First of all, you can a brand new cellphone from a used one. Second of all, its not too hard to catch a thief.

I hate (being asked to work/) working in certain areas. I especially hate the way the company lacks triage. It just seem so inefficient at times.

I hate excessively negative people who bitch and moan and go off on others for no reason. Just evil. Yes, I realize I embody the first half of that statement, but I am self-aware. Are you?

At least I have the weekend to myself--but wait! I have a date on Sunday because I couldn't say "No." Dammit! [/Drew Carey]

- Hellrae

Sumpah. Sakit banget rasanya. Aku tau mungkin ini imbas dari yang dulu-dulu.

Tapi tetep aja aku ga bisa ngelewatin ini semua sendiri.

Aku butuh orang yang bisa ngedukung aku.

Aku butuh orang yang bisa nyemangatin aku.

God, please help me!

Berikan aku kekuatan dalam menghadapi semua ini.

Aku butuh waktu untuk menenangkan diri.

Mudah-mudahan apapun yang terjadi nanti, bisa jadi yang terbaik buat semua.

Yang jelas, apapun yang terjadi, gimanapun tanggapan orang-orang, AKU TETAP SAYANG KAMU SELAMANYA! DAN AKU PASTI AKAN SELALU BERUSAHA UNTUK JADI YANG TERBAIK BUAT KAMU, SEKALIPUN HAL ITU UDAH TERLAMBAT DI MATA ORANG ORANG.

Ammiinnn..

P.S. I LOVE YOU (ALWAYS!) ~ there's only one things left to say :)

“It’s not the blowing of the wind that determines your destination, but the set of the sail. The same wind blows on us all. ... It’s not what happens that determines your life’s future. It’s what you do about what happens.” -– Jim Rohn

Life is too short to get stressed out about every negative thing that happens. “Stuff happens” to everyone and only a relatively few number of people get a disproportionate share. Miserable people have just conditioned themselves to believe they get more stuff. And boy do they like to let us know about it.

Miserable people ...

• focus on bad things so much that they get really good at finding it;
• blow things totally out of proportion, making small stuff bigger than life;
• turn good news into bad news;
• use stuff to get attention.

Have you ever heard someone whine incessantly about something and thought to yourself, “What’s the big deal?” Here’s an example. I recently overheard someone complaining that the cost of gas this year was probably going to keep them from going on vacation. This type of response could be expected from a whiner. Suppose the vacation would require 800 miles of driving. Now, we can all agree that the price of gas by American standards is very high (probably about $1 higher than last summer.) Suppose also that the vehicle of choice gets 20 mpg meaning it will cost an extra $40 (in gas) to go on vacation than it did last year. My conclusion is that if a mere $40 is enough to keep someone at home, they have much bigger problems than the price of gas. How sad that someone would cancel a vacation, make him/her self unnecessarily miserable, and drag others through their quagmire instead of simply solving the problem.

• Choose a destination that is 200 miles closer to home.
• Stay in less expensive hotels or come home a half day earlier.
• Reduce dining out expenses by bringing food or skipping a meal.
• Bring a friend that will share some of the expenses.
• Go out and earn $40.

We choose our attitude in every situation. Enough of my words, here are some quotes on the subject.

“The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” -– Winston Churchill

“Pessimism is an excuse for not trying and a guarantee to a personal failure.” -– Bill Clinton

“Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it.” -– Russell Baker

“A misery is not to be measured from the nature of the evil, but from the temper of the sufferer.” -– Joseph Addison

“I am still determined to be cheerful and happy, in whatever situation I may be; for I have also learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.” -– Martha Washington

“The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work.” -– Robert Frost

“Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything good in the world.” -– Helen Keller

“Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff ... and It’s All Small Stuff” -– Richard Carlson

God bless,

-- CC

© Copyright July 2008, Clancy Cross. All rights reserved.
Read more “Clancy’s Quotes” at: ClancyCross.WordPress.com

Which I guess is a lot better than talking about pedophiles in the pulpit. Back in the USA Jesse Jackson responded with "No Comment, damn sure, No comment."

Astronomers analyzing the first images captured by the new Hubble Space Kaleidoscope, which went online Tuesday, announced that they've acquired the first concrete evidence that the universe is in a constant state of total weirdness.

The economic news yesterday was bad, bad, and more bad, and it is the lead story of all the newspapers. "A sense of economic gloom gripped Washington on Tuesday," the New York Times writes. The Washington Post goes with a near-banner headline, "An Economy Thrown Into Turmoil." USA Today's front page also features several big arrows; the ones for good things are going down and those for bad things are going up. "So this is what a day of reckoning feels like. ... If it wasn't clear before Tuesday, it is now: This is no ordinary economic crisis, and it won't be over anytime soon," the paper writes.

And they wonder why the American consumer confidence is down?

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke testified in front of Congress that economic growth was "on a sluggish pace," and that on top of that, inflation was a risk.  The Commerce Department reported that wholesale prices were up 1.8 percent, and retail sales rose just 0.1 percent in June over the previous month and were down 0.5 percent when gas-station sales were excluded. The stock market was down 93 points, and stocks in London, Paris, and Tokyo suffered as well.

The dollar fell to a new low against the Euro. Police in California had to be summoned to restore order at a run on a bank, where customers waited in line to withdraw their money. "It was a day of ugliness," said one analyst quoted in the L.A. Times ... "What else can you say?"

Exxon raised the price of a gallon of gas four cents, because they heard that Bob wasn't coming in on Friday to the refinery in Stickitinyourrear Parrish Louisana.  The lone (sort of) optimistic voice of the day belonged to President Bush, who held a snap press conference at which, in the words of the New York Times "he felt compelled to remind Americans that their deposits were insured up to $100,000."

Thatta boy Dubya, what a guy!  Off The Radar Again .... Houston we still have a problem.

If you act like a dick in Florida, you will be asked to pay for it.  A 19-year-old man must make an apology to the city of Saratoga Springs for dressing as an inflatable 6-foot penis and then parading across SPAC's stage at the high school's graduation last month.  While as an added touch, spraying the folks in the audience with silly string.

Who says you cannot get a quality education in this country anymore?

Calvin Morett of 337 Pyramid Pine Estates must also pay to have the open-apology letter published in the Saratogian newspaper as part of a City Court sentence that calls for him to pay $95 in court fees. He was also ordered to perform 24 hours of community service. Morett had previously pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct, a violation. Morett graduated from Saratoga Springs High School last year.

And they sent me to Mr. Moody's office for less than this, a whole lot less.

Well, that are about it for another one boys & girls, time to get back to work on my upcoming novel for the fall debut on the Oprah Book Club.

Still struggling for that catchy book cover that draws people in.  And I have not come up with a bold title for it, but the basic storyline is as follows:  "Aliens come to earth in a miniature spaceship, who are far more advanced than earthlings.  Apparently they are a important mission, they are in search of carbon based forms of fuel (of which earthlings are one) and they are undergoing a life or death undertaking for their society and/or planet.  Something like our National Elections."

Earth has something that they need, so they send a representative in the form of these little men (I have not decided on a color as of yet, just know it will not be green) to negotiate a better deal with the inhabitants, kind of like a Connie-do-Leesa type negotiator on a mission for more oil or whatever natural resource you happen to have.

It is kind of a "fish out of water" kind of read, some people are going to hate it and others are going to lap it up. Have not located a publisher at this time.  I am hoping for a let's all rip this page out, pin it on the wall, and stick in nails, needles, and staples, read it every day kind of thing. Perhaps Oprah will help me to find it a home and make it a must read, this could very well be the new work environment manifest for America.

Realistically speaking, it will probably end up pinned to a refrigerator somewhere with a magnet in the shape of a small piece of fruit, and that is the best I can hope for in the end.  (Hey?  It got my total word count up for the day, works for me)

000

Bruce Falconer"
May 02, 2008 Allegations of widespread mismanagement and corruption among private contractors in Iraq are nothing new; if anything, tales of cronyism, over-billing, and embezzlement have become so frequent that our national tolerance for them seems only to have increased as the Iraq War has drawn on. Even so, the testimony earlier this week of three whistleblowers before the Senate's Democratic Policy Committee (DPC) stands out for the sheer outrageousness of their accusations-namely that U.S. private contractors looted Iraqi palaces and ministries, stole military equipment, fenced supplies destined for U.S. troops, and even operated a prostitution ring that may have contributed to the death of fellow contractor. Yet despite its focus on such salacious matters as sex and corruption, the session earned little media attention.

The first to testify was Frank Cassaday, a former KBR employee who worked as an ice plant operator in Fallujah in 2004 and 2005. "Ice was a very valuable commodity in Iraq that was regularly stolen and bartered for other goods," he told the committee. He recalled how a convoy of U.S. Marines, in preparation for an operation that would take them outside the wire for several days, requested 28 bags of ice to keep their food fresh in the desert heat. They received only three. "The ice foreman was cheating the troops out of ice at the same time that he was trading the ice for DVDs, CDs, food, and other items at the Iraqi shops across the street," Cassaday said. "This foreman would change the ice tally sheets at the distribution area I worked in to make it seem as though we had handed out more ice to the Marines than we actually did."

Cassaday said he later observed his colleagues returning to KBR's camp with equipment they had stolen from the U.S. military, including refrigerators, artillery round detonators, two rocket launchers, and about 800 rounds of small arms ammunition. After he informed the KBR camp manager of the thefts, Marines searched the camp with dogs to recover the stolen property. For his trouble, Cassaday said, KBR security officers jailed him in his tent for two days. He then spent another four days in "protective custody" before being transferred, against his will, to work in a laundry.

The practice of stealing equipment and supplies destined for the U.S. military was so pervasive that KBR employees invented a slang term to describe it: "drug deals." But thefts were not limited to military supplies, said Linda Warren, another former KBR employee who testified at the hearing. Upon her arrival in Baghdad in 2004, she was shocked by the number of contractors involved in criminal activity. "KBR employees who were contracted to perform construction duties inside palaces and municipal buildings were looting," she said. "Not only were they looting, but they had a system in place to get contraband out of the country so it could be sold on eBay. They stole artwork, rugs, crystal, and even melted down gold to make spurs for cowboy boots." Like Cassaday, when she complained to her superiors about the thefts, she was punished. She said her vehicle was taken away, her movements were closely monitored, and her access to phones and the Internet were cut off. Eventually, she was transferred out of Baghdad.

Perhaps more shocking than any of this was the accusation from Barry Halley, a former project manager for Worldwide Network Services, a Washington, D.C.-based firm that was working on subcontract for DynCorp. According to Halley, his site manager in Iraq, who he said was employed by a "major defense contractor," moonlighted as the leader of a prostitution ring serving American contractors in Iraq that indirectly caused the death of a colleague. "A co-worker unrelated to the ring was killed when he was traveling in an unsecure car and shot performing a high-risk mission," he told the committee. "I believe that my co-worker could have survived if he had been riding in an armored car. At the time, the armored car that he would otherwise have been riding in was being used by a manager to transport prostitutes from Kuwait to Baghdad." The prostitution ring was shut down when the company's home office learned of it, but, Halley said, the manager who controlled it retained his job, moving on to work another contract in Haiti.

A theme running through all three witnesses' testimony, aside from the pervasiveness of corruption among private contractors in Iraq, was that blowing the whistle on abuses rarely did any good. As is often the case with whistleblowers, speaking out was a shortcut to getting fired or demoted. "There's a no-talk, no-speak policy in effect in Iraq about what goes on," Halley said.

According to Cassaday, although contractors for KBR are trained to report irregularities, the practice is generally frowned on by managers in the field. "In Houston at the training camp that I was at for two weeks before we went over to Iraq, they told us that, 'Our door is always open. If you have a problem, just come on in,'" he said. "But what they don't tell you is there's a back door to that office. If you come in and you complain about something, you're going to be going out that back door. You're going to either be transferred someplace you don't want to be, or you're going to be fired."

Arriving nearly two weeks after the military awarded a 10-year logistical contract worth up to $150 billion to DynCorp, KBR, and a third firm, the DPC hearing was the thirteenth in a series designed to look into contractor fraud and abuse in the reconstruction of Iraq. Although, as a partisan committee, it has no powers to pass legislation, DPC members do refer allegations to the Department of Justice and the Pentagon's Inspector General for further investigation, says Barry Piatt, the DPC's communications director. Committee chairman Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota has been advocating for the creation of a permanent, bipartisan Wartime Contracting Commission to look into the types of accusations raised this week, but so far, says Piatt, Senate Republicans have blocked the measure. Until he is able to obtain the necessary 60 votes, Dorgan will continue to negotiate with the opposition in hopes of peeling away enough support to establish the commission. In the meantime, "the hearings that need to be done will be done," says Piatt. "The Republicans won't able to block that, and by continuing to do them, [Senator Dorgan] is showing the work that a committee like that would do."

May 5 (Bloomberg) -- The number of suicides among veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may exceed the combat death toll because of inadequate mental health care, the U.S. government's top psychiatric researcher said.

Community mental health centers, hobbled by financial limits, haven't provided enough scientifically sound care, especially in rural areas, said Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland. He briefed reporters today at the American Psychiatric Association's annual meeting in Washington.

Insel echoed a Rand Corporation study published last month that found about 20 percent of returning U.S. soldiers have post- traumatic stress disorder or depression, and only half of them receive treatment. About 1.6 million U.S. troops have fought in the two wars since October 2001, the report said. About 4,560 soldiers had died in the conflicts as of today, the Defense Department reported on its Web site.

Based on those figures and established suicide rates for similar patients who commonly develop substance abuse and other complications of post-traumatic stress disorder, ``it's quite possible that the suicides and psychiatric mortality of this war could trump the combat deaths,'' Insel said.

Post-traumatic stress disorder, known as PTSD, is the failure to cope after a major shock, such as an auto accident, a rape or combat, Insel said. PTSD may remain dormant for months or years before it surfaces, and in about 10 percent of cases people never recover, he said.

Difficult to Predict

``We don't yet know how to predict who is going to be the person to be most concerned about,'' Insel said.

The Pentagon didn't dispute Insel's remark.

``The department takes the issue of suicide very seriously, and one suicide is too many,'' said spokeswoman Cynthia Smith in an e-mail.

The department has expanded efforts to encourage soldiers and veterans not to feel stigmatized if they seek mental health treatment, Smith said.

Soldiers who'd been exposed to combat trauma were the most likely to suffer from depression or PTSD, the Rand report said. About 53 percent of soldiers with those conditions sought treatment during the past year. Half of those who got care were judged by Rand researchers to have received inadequate treatment.

Failure to adequately treat the mental and neurological problems of returning soldiers can cause a chain of negative events in the lives of affected veterans, the researchers said. About 300,000 soldiers suffer from depression or PTSD, the report said.

Treatment Options

Researchers aren't sure whether it's appropriate to treat such patients with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, a class of medications that include Prozac, and other anti- depressants, Insel said. His institute is examining that question and novel treatments for PTSD, including using so-called virtual reality technology.

The psychiatric association reported last week that a survey of 191 military members and their spouses found 32 percent said their duty hurt their mental health, and six in 10 believed seeking treatment would damage their careers.

More than 15,000 psychiatrists are attending the professional group's meeting.

Further to that the Prime Minister defended the Home Secretary's policy statement vociferously, even going so far as to pound the dispatch box.  It strikes me that the Home Secretary could not cope with the prospect of yet another incredibly unpopular policy idea and so has decided that she can wave her hands and make it all go away again.  How long can the cabinet get away with it?  Surely I am not the only one who has noticed that the Labour party have gone beyond the spin so popular under Tony Blair and is now in full scale lie mode.  Maybe I am being unfair, maybe they are just all in denial and need some psychological counseling to sort them out.  Either way they must think very little of the Great British public.  Perhaps they are right to, no-one seems to want to do anything about it.

[dailymotion id=x44rwp]

Video Clip : Bad News

Singer : 50 Cent

This weekend the Home Secretary's wizard wheeze is that to cut knife crime (pardon the pun), teenagers caught in possession of a knife should be taken to visit the victims of knife crime in hospital and people convicted of knife crime in prison and that reformed former prisoners/knife carriers should visit schools to spread the "knives are bad" message.  Not surprisingly the opposition have spoken out against these ideas on the basis that they are half-baked and untested.  I would personally argue with the latter because certain elements, specifically the visits to schools have been tested in the case of reformed drug addicts visiting schools with the "drugs screw up your life" message.  I have been in schools, as both pupil and staff member where such a visit has taken place and certainly as pupil it made an impact on me but others in my social circle took it like water off a ducks back and it did not stop them from trying dugs and I don't suppose that such things have made any impact of the statistics of drug use etc.  Secondly I would go further than the Conservative party and say that these ideas are not only half-backed but half-cocked as well.  I do not see how visits to prisons to meet with convicted criminals, unless said criminals are incredibly carefully chosen, is going to make any difference.  just because someone has been caught and convicted does not make them suddenly a shining example of what not to do.  I cannot imagine that all convicted of knife crime suddenly become utterly repentant and earnest in their message "not to do what I done."  Similarly I really can't see any victims of knife crime consenting to being visited in hospital by someone just like their attackers.

My final gripe about this story (and I am sorry that it is all gripe this time) is about a specific element of the BBC's television coverage of it.  During every bulletin I saw yesterday, and I seem to have managed to see most of them yesterday, there was an extended shot of a hooded gang (blurred faces of course) waving meat cleavers which they seemed to be keeping down their trousers and quite openly brandishing them for the camera.  I don't for a moment believe that these are representative of every youngster who feels they need to carry a knife.  Indeed in many cases they are probably the reason some feel that they need to protect themselves.  However what this picture did prompt in my mind is the feeling that these wishy-washy Nanny state measures of showing the consequences of carrying a knife and relying on the core good nature of the teenager to have a damascus moment and suddenly become a shining paragon of virtue is incredibly naive while there are people like those youngsters in the film out there who simply do not care about anything but themselves and their status in their warped social circle.  Sorry to be so angry and, frankly, old mannish about this story, I am not normally like this I promise.

The darkest irony in all of this is that Kyle Payne is apparently one of those male crusaders against pornography as well.

You know, I've never met Kyle Payne, but I'm pretty sure I've met dudes like him: a little too earnest, a little too eager, a little too "the lady doth protest too much" going on behind those sparkling eyes of theirs. They scare me. As a survivor of sexual violence and abuse, and hell, as a human being, I get this whole spider-crawling-down-my-spine sensation from being around them, and even thinking about them. What do they want from people like me? What do they want from feminists? From women? I don't know if I want an answer to those questions either.

I don't think that Kyle Payne's crimes are an illustration of the fact that male feminists cannot exist. I've known many male feminists, though most of them don't call themselves feminists. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, it's just a thing. Sometimes I wish more men called themselves feminists. Sometimes I think otherwise.

I think we need guys on our side regardless of what they call themselves, ultimately.

As for Kyle Payne's specific case - what he did is a special kind of betrayal, terrible enough even for someone like me to feel the need to say something.

So here's my ultimate pronouncement on this particular bit of bad news:

This "let's examine our sexualities, fee-fees, and underwear choices until we are pure enough for a stockbroker to snort" feminism is something one must eventually grow out of. There, I said it. I'm tired of this "let's examine" feminism because it makes for a nice, warm nest for guys like Kyle Payne. The guy who told me to examine my short dress the other day? Same breed (doubt he's a criminal, but the skeeve factor's off the charts).

Hell, I can no longer take sweetly pious women who spout this stuff. Why? Because it takes away my agency. Because it places me in the same damn box that Kyle Payne placed his victim before he did what he did. It says that I cannot make choices, that choices must be made for me, for my own good.

Now, I think "let's examine" feminism can be an important stepping stone for people. But it's not a destination. It can be helpful to wonder why you shave your legs or watch porn. But once you've wondered, and made your decisions, you need to move on, soldier. Sail the high seas of adventure and doubt. Live a little.

I've said it before and I've said it again: human sexuality and desire in particular can be dangerous things. And you can't examine and unpackage them to the point of rendering them completely harmless. Doesn't mean we should give up the good fight against human trafficking, rape, harrassment, etc., but it does mean that laborious navel-gazing is just not going to get the job done in the long run.

This little tirade of mine isn't meant as a jibe at (most) anti-porn folks, some of whom have put up great posts reacting to the mess that is Kyle Payne. I may not agree with them, but I don't wish to discount their efforts of the last few days. Rather, it is meant toward a general, across-the-board trend that I am getting mighty tired of. Kyle Payne is but an element of it - but he was certainly the tipping point.

Finally, I am sorry to the people that Kyle Payne has hurt. I hope Kyle Payne himself can reflect on the damage he's done and maybe even truly regret it - not because he got caught, and not on the surface, but in his heart of hearts, in the dark place that's inside all of us.

I'm not going to lie to you, folks, the idea of coming across a guy like that during the years I spent trying to heal and set my life straight, in the places where I sought help, well, it's terrifying on an elemental level, like a giant spider, or cockroach. Maybe my words here will be twisted into a needy victim wank fantasy (guys like Kyle Payne do seem to have them), but I don't care about that. I do care about highlighting the need for all of us to be in contact with people we can genuinely trust, and how hard that can be, with the Kyle Paynes of the world on the loose and knowing all the right words and making all the right ideological gestures.

But ideology or not, I'd take my free-wheeling cousin, the guy who thinks feminism is an exotic disease, the guy who's busy teaching his son that he must never lay a finger on a woman against her will or tell a woman how to think, over Kyle Payne any day.

Seriously, screw you, asshole.

Within the past 48 hours the institution Indymac failed. It failed in large part because Charles Schumer, one of the Senators from New York came out in a public forum and said that something needed to be done before they collapsed. Now, I can see his possibly speaking with members of congress about this situation, perhaps even speaking with the FDIC or Indymac themselves. What I think is retarded is talking about it with the New York Times. In fact, since his doing so caused close to 1.5 billion dollars that various investors had with them to be pulled out rapidly, it's a very viable argument that he is largely to blame for the failure.

Of course, there is the fact that they gave money to sub prime lenders, there is also the fact that they made huge risky mortgages to high risk home buyers. Combine that fact with people ditching their mortgages because of the weak dollar, and you have a bank failure. It's a fairly simple prospect. Bad Dollar + Bad Investments + Bad Lending Practices + Charles Schumer = Bank Collapse.

Now that collapse didn't affect me in the least. It bothered me not one little bit that the bank closed down because I don't have a mortgage with them, nor anything else with them. However the fact that the FDIC has now been forced to cover a lot of the loss that the bank incurred bothers me. The FDIC isn't a private insurance company, it's part of the New Deal tripe that FDR instituted in an effort to salvage the economy during the depression. It's been a tax hole for large sums of money for decades, compared to very little actual use. Personally, I would have no problem with the FDIC going the way of the dodo. The problem is that the FDIC has something like a 50 billion dollar operating budget. Indymac had (depending on where you read it)6-12 billion dollars in debt beyond their 32 billion in assets. Once the assets have been liquidated, for signifigantly less than the 32 billion that they are "worth" the FDIC is going to be left covering the remainder. This remainder according to various economic experts can stretch to be as large as 18 billion dollars. This means that more than about 25%-40% of the FDIC budget will be used to bail out the bank. You hear that gigantic flushing sound? That's the dollar getting weaker again as more of our tax dollars get shit away.

Now, look at that budget the FDIC has. 50 billion, let's go ahead and dump more tax money on it and bump it up to 100 billion dollars.

Enter Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac.

Together these two organizations have a total mortgage debt of over 5 trillion dollars. Yes, that's TRILLION. These two companies, which both use the federal reserve as their bank account comprise about half of the mortgage debt in the USA. They are both publically traded despite being in effect government institutions.

Both of them are suffering from the mortgage industry sucking ass, and both of them will be feeling the loss of Indymac. Both of them have suffered over 50% stock price loss on the market. In essence, the federal reserve is going to have to take part of that hit and cover a large part of their bad loans.

That translates roughly, RIGHT NOW, at somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 billion dollars. That is ten times the FDIC insurance rate. And if they do have to be bailed out, it will simply cause more of the same to occur, rats always abandon a sinking ship and investors act the same way. Less investors = lower trading prices = more net loss.

Ladies and gentlemen, be prepared within the next two or three years to see one or both of these two companies collapse, wipe out the federal reserve, and plunge the USA into a domestic crisis the likes of which have not been seen before. When the depression occured last century, banks collapsed world wide, and in essence the government became the employer of last resort. (That's where we get welfare and various other government programs from by the way.) The problem this time is that it won't just be banks collapsing, it will be the federal reserve, and thusly the government itself going bankrupt.

When that happens, various countries who hold vast amounts of dollars have two options. Hold onto them and watch their own economies sink into that deep hole, or dump them for what they can get. Foreign dumping will devalue the currency even further based on there being more money floating around that cannot be covered by the government; thusly the dollar devalues even further.

I don't like to be the herald of bad news, but right now, there is NOTHING on the horizon that can be done to stop this from occuring. Drastic spending has been the hallmark of the government for over a decade, and now adding in the situation we find ourselves in with the housing market. I do not see a governmental solution on the horizon, nor do I see any large sweeping change that can be made immediatly that will resolve the problem.

I'm just glad that right now I have no mortgage and thusly am not going to suffer a potentially huge loss when and if this gets worse than it already is.

Bambi, we haz some bad newz

ur mama nawt comin bak...

picture: Leslie and Mike Cifelli at iron mountain jewelry. lol caption: seagreen17

» Recaption This

Got me thinking...I am the Product Manager for a web based financial information and decision support system. Would I dare to place a screen in the reception area that

1. Shows number of subscription cancels for the year
2. Shows cumulative system downtime for the quarter
3. Shows a count of bugs in the last release and cumulative to-date

Yes, this is terribly on-the-face and that too with bad-news. But bad news happen. Good product managers keep a tab on the negative as much as they do on the successes. The sales team are often given gross revenue targets but the product manager's concern is on the net numbers.

Even if you don't have the counters at the reception, you should (must) have it in your mail box every week.

Technorati Tags: Product Metrics, Bad News, Product Management