Proud Day for Democrats but not Democracy

The Bush administration was poorly involved in directing economic growth with the ideology that a small government would allow capitalism to drive economic growth. In the interim the dotcom and housing bubbles drove the economy but only as bubbles with a poorly developed infrastructure to withstand the popping of said bubbles. Obama has brought back democratic spending in this new bill which he signed today to support valuable aspects of our domestic infrastructure such as healthcare, education, agriculture, renewable energy, etc. which have gone by the wayside.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090218/ap_on_go_pr_wh/obama_stimulus

Only 3 of the 200+ republicans in congress and the senate voted for this bill following the Bush ideology of small government to prevent this from being wasteful, hasty spending bill driven by lobbiests. The fact of the matter is the government will increase spending so why not get a head start with a gargantuan bill. The bill is very fair with directed spending toward many important aspects of our nations infrastructure and economically conservative tax reductions.
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/STIMULUS_FINAL_0217.html

I don't believe this bill is designed for or should be expected to 'fix' the economy. The government has been reacting to the media's resounding overreaction to the economic situation. "Scaring hell out of the economy, begun by President Bush and continued by President Obama, has produced only the runaway crisis it was advertised to prevent" in the election year and this first year of Obama's presidency. There are many mechanisms that businesses and the economy can make to overcome this recession without the government's intervention. The government under Clinton forced the distribution of the subprime loans which led to the housing bubble and resulting painful pop of the bubble which may or may not have needed government bank intervention to fix by buying up these bad loans. Other businesses should not require a governmental fix, and the rest of this years decisions by the Obama administration, especially with the auto industry, may cause harmful effects on the economy. America needs to stop expecting the government to 'fix' this problem and begin to alter their lifestyles to accommodate the changing times.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123491508784704057.html

Killing Babies

Where is this man's soul: first embryonic stem-cell trial gets approved & obama removes restrictions on abortion funding

Windows 7?

I just recently decided to purchase a laptop with a wonderful government loan specifically for a personal computer. I had planned on taking out and spending all $2500 on the most state of the art, interactive, kick ass, star trek, talking, hand-held computer. To my dismay, I found nothing distinctively innovative in my pursuit to obtain such a device. These computers are only moderately faster versions of the previous models with neat built in cameras. HP, Gateway, Dell, Sony, etc. had no defining differences in features leaving me terribly disappointed, Macintosh being the one exception with it's own operating system. These computers should be more interactive (touch screen, voice activated, retinal scan, minority report, etc). Why have all these companies maintained credibility in this market when all the do is sell the same outdated product in newer packages? In the end I opted to, in lieu of compatibility issues, stay away from Macintosh and buy a $800 something with a camera and vista. Now, I come to find out that Windows is ditching Vista for a new operating system. MY NEW COMPUTER IS GOING TO BE OUTDATED BEFORE MY LOAN CHECK CLEARS!!! For Christ's sake aren't we past all this compatibility crap? We should be in an era where I can choose between a bunch of different operating systems which can handle all the software issues and are more personal and creative. Apparently modern pc technology has stopped short in the research and innovation department since the onset of the twenty first century.

just what the doctor ordered

Apparently a harvard study determined that happiness is contagious.

Happiness is contagious in social networks

So I thought I'd spread a little holiday cheer: merry christmas

Mmmmm.....beer

Oh man! These taps are screaming for drew's beer! For those of you who don't know, Drew has been featuring a new beer every Wednesday night at Mattingly on Jefferson. Looks like the fermentors are almost up and ready to go for all the drew brew we can drink(dont worry, drew said he'd bottle a couple of good ones for me). Drew, thanks for the shout out to Moolah 3H in the Suburban Journal! He's also led the creation of some seasonal beers you can only get at the Tap Room. If you stop by Mattingly and see drew, ask him for a tour of the brewery.

suburban journal
channel 5

holy shit, I'm glad I dont live in Pakistan

Pakistan is in a civil war with a bunch of fundamentalists, fighting our war against al queda and Afghanistan, fighting terrorists from India, its own country, and the Taliban, and now members of their own country are lashing out at India to piss off India's nuclear armed government. This might not be a surprise to anyone else, but this article put into perspective for me a lot of the dynamics going on.

WSJ

Your revolution is over, Mr. Lebowski.

This is something I was talking to Julia about on our trip to Chicago: I think our generation is going to produce a new era of hippies. Our generation has been brought up to think that we have the opportunity to accomplish anything we put our minds to if we work and study really hard. After 16 or more years of school putting us at the top 25% educated individuals in the United States, we are finding this to not be much of an accomplishment and finding it difficult to get a desirable job, or even less, a job that makes more than that of a waiter(save that of the members of UAW association). Our predecessors have not been opening up the job opportunities we had been led on to expect and fail to promote our advancement. I realize we are also the generation who received trophies whether we won or lost, which may have led us to think that we are more deserving for accomplishing less than we should be, and I also realize that other generations faced similar difficulties when facing realities in the job market. Now though, the rising unemployment rate, struggling economy, increasing cost of living, involvement in two distant wars, and the prolapsed age of retirement have made the transition to the working world quite difficult and quite discouraging for us. Those of us that had expected more out of life for less work will soon fall victim to apathy and pointlessness as we bum around and use up the resources available to us(parents and credit cards). Educated and angry at the system we may just take to the real world in a movement with new values and directions as our hippie parents did back in the sixties. The bums have not lost.