Not aspirant to public office should refuse to endorse:

'I want a Chief Executive whose public acts are responsible to all and obligated to none, who can attend any ceremony, service, or dinner his office may appropriately require of him to fulfill; and whose fulfillment of his Presidential office is not limited or conditioned by any religious oath, ritual, or obligation.' - Jack Kennedy

And there's little matter of the Founders:

“On the dogmas of religion, as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarreling, fighting, burning and torturing one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind.”

- Thomas Jefferson

This rot has spread so deeply that no one in any branch of this mal-administration has clean hands.

Forget Justice. No one's home.

I nominate John Dean. Man, wouldn't that be a trip?

I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only

temporary; the evil it does is permanent. -Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Been with ya every step of the way from the very first column.

Bravo!

(Still workin' on that 'Houston, we have a problem' issue. Gack!)

Wrong track is a euphemism. We are a people in clinical depression. Americans know that the ideals that once set our nation apart from the world have been vandalized, and no matter which party they belong to, they do not see a restoration anytime soon.

- Frank Rich, "The Coup at Home"

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/opinion/11rich.html?ref=opinion

Stat of the Week

Over 50 U.S. billionaires received federal farm aid subsidies in the two years before 2006, the most recent years with data, Scripps Howard reports. Among the beneficiaries: five heirs of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton and nine heirs to the Hyatt Hotel fortune. The biggest payout: $306,627 for Whitney MacMillan, a Cargill agribusiness heir worth $1.2 billion.

'We're ill prepared to deal with disasters, especially the natural and industrial disasters that present far greater threats to the nation than terrorism. Our declining public health and educational systems rank among the lowest in developed countries. Real wages are at a 59-year low and corporate profits at an all-time high. Extremes of wealth and poverty rival the Gilded Age of the robber barons, while the military economy is fast bankrupting our future.' - Kenny Ausubel, Bioneers

Or take it back to the 'once-in-a-lifetime and over 55 AND must be principle residence'.

The current structure just begs for abuse and is grossly inequitable. Being a home owner should not entitle one to special privileges nor to have one's housing subsidized my renters and the poor.

I'd also index the amount that could be taken tax free to a sliding percentage based on average income for the four or five years preceding. As income rises the tax free portion declines.

It's crazy to treat houses and only houses as this bizarre chimera - half home and half investment. Houses are domiciles, for crying out loud, NOT piggy banks or retirement accounts.

Housing is principally consumption. It produces nothing in the way of tradeable goods and services.

Your house was not appreciating. Your currency was depreciating. It's a forward indicator of a devaluing currency:

"In the United States, when house prices have generally tripled in less than a decade, it is evidence that the value of the dollar has declined by a factor of three in the same time period. Consumer prices have not risen by the same amount because of outsourcing of manufacturing to low-wage economies overseas which also acts as a depressant on domestic wages. Imbalance in the economy appears if wages and earnings have not risen proportional to prices. A homeowner whose house has increased 300% in market price while his income has risen only 30% has not become richer. He has become a victim of uneven inflation. He may enjoy a one-time joyride with cash-out financing with a new mortgage, but his income cannot sustain the new mortgage payments if interest rates rise, and he will lose his home. And interest rates will rise if his income increases, because that is how the Fed defines inflation. Thus when his income rises, the market price of his home will fall, giving him an incentive to walk away from a big mortgage in which he has little equity tie-up. This can become a systemic problem for the mortgage-backed security sector."

February 16, 2006

THE WIZARD OF BUBBLELAND

Part 4: The global money and currency markets

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/HB16Dj01.html

hahahahahaha

I have just subscribed to my first ever RSS feed (broken my maiden as it were) on your (I think you're way cool tech-wise - and I'm Mac from waaaaay back so I don't say that to just anyone) say so.

But....what do I do if I don't like the result?

“It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.” - Albert Einstein

...er..DO NOT understand why.

But said that is you must pursue this kind of indulgent fragile ego narcissism don't expect sympathy when the child arrives with serious long term health problems or developmental issues...we evolved to have children young not bear our own GRANDCHILDREN.

'Assisted fertility' is deeply obscene.

"Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell."

- Edward Abbey