Doug's Darkworld

I suppose there’s a chance that I’m losing my mind, any sane person always has to acknowledge that possibility, but I don’t think that’s the case. As a reader wrote: “what a great time to be a blogger- so much to write about!!!!!!” Yeah, thanks. And I’m sure if there were bloggers in 1945 Germany the same would have applied to them. However, it’s not 1945 Germany, maybe 1936 or 1939, but not 1945.  Yet. In other words, in the spirit of chronicling these interesting times, my observations on a few things. History is in the making folks.

Monday the House of Representatives voted down the bailout package. Shock, horror, screams of dismay. The stock market dropped some huge record amount. Bush and company vowed to try again. Some, like me, view this as a rare victory for democracy. Others view it as a delay of a desperately needed measure. There’s intelligent educated people on both sides. No one has a crystal ball. I think it’s just another example of Bush “crying wolf” to get a handout. Myself, I don’t care if there is a wolf or not, any solution to a problem proposed by Bush is going to create more problems than it solves. The man is nothing if not reliable that way.

The Sarah Palin thing. The debate is tomorrow. She has been kept under lock and key, in fact hasn’t even held a press conference. She is brave enough to shoot wolves from a helicopter, and promoted as this tough Alaskan “pit bull in lipstick”…but she can’t face a few reporters? Curiouser and curiouser. I’ll watch the debate and post what I think. Speaking of the election, anything could happen, check out this link: Tie vote Scary, eh?

Today the Senate is voting on a “sweetened” bailout plan. The sweeteners are all goddamn crap they hope will appeal to representatives who voted no on the first bailout. They include tax cuts and increasing the FDIC coverage to $250 thousand. The first is absurd beyond belief, the second is silly since if it gets to that point the dollar isn’t going to be worth the paper it’s printed on. None of the sweeteners has anything to do with fixing the problems that led to this mess, and none will take money out of the pockets of the people who made this mess. In other words, politics as usual in Washington. I can only hope that the groundswell of popular opposition continues and democracy prevails. I mean, the bailout is like some working schmo getting a call from their rich uncle, he’s in jail and wants them to drive down and post his bail. Why the fuck should some working person bail out a rich uncle who has more money than God? The greed and arrogance of these bastards is frightening.

In consumer news, more melamine contaminated milk has been discovered in China. Several children have died and an unknown number of people have suffered ill health because of this contamination. I mention it for a few reasons. The first is that most articles neglect to mention why this is happening. Basically melamine is a cheap substitute for protein, and is added to make a product seem like it has an adequate amount of protein in it. So, basically, greed and poor regulation is behind this. In other countries tests are sensitive enough to catch this kind of trickery, and presumably China is upgrading their testing procedures as I type. A number of people are likely going to end up with a judicial bullet in the back of their heads as a result of this, the Chinese have no qualms about executing people. The last point, for those who think this reveals something shoddy about the character of people in China…this sort of thing and even more horrible examples can be found in American history before the FDA. Greed and evil knows no boundaries.

Speaking of boundaries, the killing continues in our overseas wars. It amazes me how little attention this gets in the press and public consciousness these days. Billions of dollars a week, Americans dying almost daily, and after six years, no end in sight. Bush has given the USA perpetual war, and this huge expense is in no small way a part of the whole horrible financial mess our country is in, yet it’s been accepted as “normal” by the media benumbed population. Bush promised to defend America, and he has given us endless war? I guess if Americans swallowed that, Bush can be forgiven for thinking we’d fork out the bailout money, no questions asked.

Wars, wondering if my food contains poison, and the bailout mess is not helping with my general anxiety level. This whole financial mess is definitely making lots of people more anxious, this is more than a media flap. What an election campaign, what a year. And to top it all off, it’s snowing on Mars. That somehow seems significant to me, is this a sign it will be snowing in hell soon? Stay tuned.

(The above image of snow on Mars is being used in accordance with NASA’s very generous public use guidelines. It’s actually an image from the seventies Viking 2 lander. The snow on Mars today is being detected in the clouds above the Phoenix lander by a laser device, so there’s no images.)