They’re not allowed to grow up…
A little lesson in Before & After….
If you wonder why he’s called “Chaos” maybe this will explain things a little…
Yes, he’s been drinking coffee since he was two… That’s my boy.
This is Chaos 4 short years later. Such a big kid, and I have no idea *WHERE* all the time went. He’s a little bruiser now… Of course being the youngest of three, he’s had his two older brothers to teach him every bad habit in the world. 
Lesson #2… This is Panic at 2 (On his second birthday actually.) Doing his favorite “Tah-Dah” pose.
And look at him now. So grown up, so mature. I remember every day of it, yet I feel like I’ve only blinked and it’s slipped by me.
And last, but certainly not least… My big monster at age 4…Feeding the ducks…. I remember so fondly the first time they scared the crap out of him and he scaled me like a ladder trying to get away from them…
Now I look UP at him… Literally.
So how the hell does this happen? Suddenly He’s 3 years from college.. Chaos is playing soccer, Panic is a year away from being a full fledged boy-scout…
I guess my point is this. Don’t screw around and miss the time with your kids. It’s golden, and once it’s gone it’s gone.
The needs of the many….
“The needs of the many, outweigh, the needs of the few, or the one. ”
–Spock
In this day and age, we find this lesson to be a poignant and oddly relevant one.
It’s become obvious over past years that in America, the needs of the few have come to outweigh the needs of the many. Namely, the needs of the top 1% wealthiest people in our economy.
They do. And everything they do they do for themselves.
This is where they’re stupid. Our economy only works when the bottom 99% are spending money.
Trickle-down economics is complete bullshit.. The idea that giving the top 1% massive tax cuts will somehow make it’s way down to you and I.
Tell me something. Do you think the billionaire who gets to keep an extra million runs right out and spends it? Does he say “I have all this extra money floating around, I think I’ll hire a couple of dozen people.”
No.
I run a business. Tax cuts are meaningless to me without increased income. If I get to keep an extra 2% of my income I’m still not hiring anyone. Now if BUSINESS improves by an extra 2% then I might find a reason to hire an admin. Do millionaires and billionaires buy my service? No. People do. People who (usually) make less than $40,000 a year.
And my situation is *NOT* unique.
So if you give a billionaire a tax break and you increase their bank balance. What motivation would they have to spend more?
You give a lowly working class person a tax break, that money gets spent. *WE* are the ones who take our check straight to Target.
There are three engines to our economy. People, Business, and Government. The economy works best when all three work together. But when we get into a situation like the one we’re in today, all hell breaks loose.
The people don’t have money to spend.
The businesses that have the money aren’t spending it. They’re sitting on TRILLIONS in off-shore cash reserves “Just In Case”
That leaves government. The government whose hands the tea-party want to tie.
Last point:
The “great depression” of 1929 was caused when the distribution of wealth became too lopsided. The rich had all the money, the poor had none. Commerce stops at that point and a reset is needed.
Years of economic depression are usually what follow. The republicans don’t really care about redistribution of wealth the way they whine and cry about… They only care when the wealth isn’t being redistributed in their direction.
And that’s all I have to say about that.
Getting old….
You know there comes a time when you realize you’re old.
When the “perfect” saturday night consists of a trip to Fry’s electronics for a power cable and shopping for pro-biotic yogurt.
When the joy of balancing your checkbook and having it come out correct (to the penny) carries all the joy of picking up the hot-chick at the bar.
When you take a dozen pills every day and not a single one of them came from a shady-looking guy on the street-corner.
When responsibility trumps fun any day of the week.
That’s pretty much where I am.
Now I just have to learn to be ok with that.
*MY* 9/11 post….
It amazes me that we choose to re-traumatize ourselves every year on the anniversary…complete with graphic visuals and droning, repetitive descriptions of what happened that day.
You don’t tell a rape victim to re-live the experience every year do you?
There is an inherent danger in repeatedly re-opening old wounds.
I think remembering is important – it’s just how we choose to remember. I like to think about the strength, courage and caring so many people displayed during a devistating crisis. I think no victim forgets but they can see the fact that they are a survivor.
Sadly, that’s not what our media is portraying. Gazing into the smoking wound again and again and again in high-definition video doesn’t help us heal, it only serves to inflame anger and keep hatred alive unnecessarily.
Again to use the analogy, it’s like a rape victim being forced to watch a video of the attack again and again in some misguided hope that it will somehow harden them to it. It doesn’t and it never will.
We were violated. It’s true. But there comes a point when you have to start moving towards the future, because nothing can be gained from constantly staring into the past.
I FEEL THE POWER!
…(or don’t, as the case may be)
Nicole over at redlotusmama.com got stuck in the big southwest outage yesterday.. and it inspired me to write this…
We live in Virginia, pretty near to but not TOO near the coast. We’ve learned through experience that A good blow will probably knock out power for some time.
Necesseties in our house include two refrigerators, blower for the furnace, lights for the autistic kid, and most importantly, a sump-pump that keeps the basement dry because some idiot decided to put an outside drain that drains INTO the basement sumpwell.
We went the extra step and bought a 5KVA generator. This gives us just enough power to keep the two refrigerators running along with a small number of lights in the house on. Since we live in a climate that hard-freezes, I have it set up so we can power the heater fan as well (The heater itself is gas, but without power to move the air through the house we’re dead in the water) This should keep us warm on even the coldest days.
Not a paid ad, but if you’re going to go the portable generator route, check out Generlink for easy EASY ways to connect a portable generator into a home electrical system, thus avoiding the need to run a cable through an open window. (Not comfortable when it’s pouring rain and/or 7 degrees outside.) This is an easy single-connection without the need to completely rewire the house and ad a automatic transfer switch…
Half the battle is being ready. We put all this together 5 years ago. We haven’t used it since, but it’s definitely feels good to know it’s there.
High Unemployment…
Of *COURSE* corporations aren’t doing anything about unemployment. They have no real reason to. They like it this way.
While it sucks for mainstream American, abnormally high unemployment is *GOOD* for corporate america. When unemployment is high workers can be worked harder for less money, treated with all manner of disrespect, and if someone doesn’t like it, that’s fine, there’s four people to take his/her place. Corporations say they want to see unemployment come down, but when the rubber meets the road, they are the ones that can, but aren’t, doing anything about it.
Corporations *SAY* they care about the American people. But what they *REALLY* care about is keeping the American people *JUST* solvent enough to buy the latest I-Phone.
Apple is currently sitting on about $76 billion dollars in assets. 100% of it’s manufacturing is done in China. While Apple publically complains about the economy and high unemployment, they have in their power the ability to do something significant about it themselves and won’t.
Actions speak louder than words. Apple’s actions state that they are perfectly happy to let the world go on like it is.
I think companies that employ overseas contractors or contracting firms should be taxed HEAVILY to pay for, among other things, US unemployment insurance extensions. If they want to ship jobs overseas that is their right, it is NOT however the governments obligation to enable that behiavor or make it easy. The government’s responsibility is to protect America, from all enemies, foreign and domestic.
And it’s not just Apple, call into *ANY* computer manufacturer’s technical support and you’ll inevitably end up talking to some idiot who will introduce himself as “Roger” when in fact his real name is “Raj” (How, seriously, do you expect me to trust you to fix my computer when you start of the conversation lying to me about something as simple as your fucking name?)
I’m talking to *YOU* Dell.
Scientific Agnostic…
Welcome to the new Shredderfood. Hope you like the new site that my wife has dubbed the “Home Depot” site due to the color scheme. <sigh> Everyone’s a critic.
In theoretical physics there is an understanding. There is no such thing as a “Proven” theory. There are only theories that have yet to be disproven. A theory is hailed a success when a plurality of scientists concede that it has an internal logical consistency.
No theory is fact. Theories are supported by facts, they’re bolstered by them, but they’re still theories. Global warming is a theory that seems to be supported by the facts. As is evolution.
Of course the term “fact” is up for interpretation. But I’m not going there, at least not in this post.
It’s kind of the way I view religion, or should I say spirituality. There is no proof whatsover of the existence of a god or any kind of spiritual existence in any form. There is however also no proof against either. The way I figure it that sooner or later, one way or another, we’re going to find out.
The question becomes then, what are you going to do with your life in the meantime. The religious cultists (and yes, Christians make up a large part of that group) are convinced that they are right, that god demands our loving adoration, etc, etc.
I’ve always believed that *IF* there was a god, that it’s probably a concept that not only we’ve missed in the course of the couple of thousand years or so we’ve been trying to, I suspect it’s a concept we CAN’T grasp. I don’t mean can’t as in aren’t allowed to, I mean can’t as in, our brains simply aren’t wired for it and any attempt we make to define “god” is as doomed to fall short as a dog’s attempts to recite Shakespeare.
We miss the whole concept. When / if we ever truly understand not only HOW the universe works, but WHY the universe works, only then will be we in a position to even start pondering the existence.
But by then, I suspect we’ll know.
The Diests have a similar belief.. though there’s has always been more along the lines of “God created the universe and washed his hands of it.”
I don’t know. I probably never will. I’m also not going to let not knowing ruin my life with worry. It’s up there with the rest of the mysteries I don’t spend a lot of time on. Like where do 1/2 of my socks go, and why do people insist on talking in the theater.
As far as mysteries go, it’s a minor one.
American Monarchy? I think NOT…
In response to a question on a message board, I felt my response was worthy of a cross-post. The question was to whether maybe America would function more smoothly as a Monarchy…
———
Monarchy, no. I’d rather the guillotine NOT be the only way we can get rid of a leader. That being said, I wish we could give parliamentary democracy a try.
I like the fact that in Britain parliament can call for a vote of no-confidence in the prime-minister, and that the prime minister can dissolve parliament. Of course there are rules and specifics and I’ve horribly oversimplified it… but the point is there.
A large part of us is divided because our governing bodies are still structured as they were when there were 13 colonies. That kind of rule simply doesn’t work when a society gets to this point, and the “strict constitutionalists’ fail to grasp the fact that the only way to get back to the purest form of that constitutional government is to kill off or exile 90% of our population. (Although the way they act I think this may be the end-goal, or at least to force people to emigrate out.)
Representative democracy is built around the concept that the people can’t make their voices heard without it. Well we all know that now-adays, that is no longer the case. (Which is, coincidentally why, IMHO, why representative democracy fails now – it’s hard for a congressman to go and vote that way when it’s obvious (s)he is going directly against at least half of their constituency.)
So what’s the alternative, direct democracy? Everyone called to a vote whenever an important issue comes up? Well we always see how well that works. On any given election only 20-30% of the electorate turns out. Only the ones who are passionate about their causes. This leads us to a 50/50 mix of passionate assholes in congress.
Then again, the other problem with direct democracy is that 2/3 of our population are undereducated morons, do you really want them making the decisions?
We (Americans) blinked, our government has become the corporatocracy. Money talks, bullshit walks. No-one knows this better than big business, who will almost always be about to out-yell the “people” that this government is supposed to represent. The corporations hijacked a few core religious principles to ensure they get the vote (believers in true LIBERTY don’t give a rats ASS about god, gay marriage or abortion, it goes against the belief that FREEDOM is absolute – but they pander to the religious right with it to get their votes, which they desperately need to maintain POWER.)
We’re all sheep. 100% of us. Left and right. And as long as we give them this power, we always will be.
Interest…
The debt ceiling deal that congress just passed ”saves” us an estimated $2 to $3 Trillion dollars over 10 years.
If Congress’ idiotic antics to get this bill passed causes a downgrade in the US’s credit rating, it will cost us between $1 and $2 Trillion dollars…PER YEAR in increased interest costs.
So good going teabaggers. You sure saved us money.
The best system? Not bloody likely…
In light of tonight’s historic and nauseating vote I have one thing to say…
Next time someone tells me “we may have an imperfect system but it’s still the best thing out there.” I have a quick and easy response:
You sir, are an idiot.
The american system is far from perfect, and at this point in the game, with the corruption, the internal terrorism by the tea-party, the blackmail on both sides, I think it’s as corrupt and ineffective as any system out there.
Osama Bin Laden said that one of his goals was to bring down the American economic system. Well Bush walked *RIGHT* into that trap, running a whopping 5.7 *TRILLION* dollars in debt over his (too long) 8 year presidency.
Now we have the tea-baggers out there doing Bin Laden’s job for him. Their budget “Deal” destroys what is left of America’s exceptionalism, hands unmitigated amounts of power and money to the top 2% of our population (that shockingly (or not) already has 90% of the power and money)
They won because they threatened the destruction of the American economy through default if they didn’t get their way. And in an economic game of chicken the people who actually give a shit about the country will *ALWAYS* blink.
It’s easy to run headlong into disaster if your either to malevolent or too stupid to realize that that’s what you’re doing. The question to ask is whether the tea-party is evil, misguided, or just plain stupid.
I’m going with “Yes”
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