This kind of thing really pisses me off. Frist and his fellow Theocrats have not only accused anyone who opposes them of being anti-Christian, but they are now saying that any Senator who doesn’t just shut up and vote is now failing to do their job as Senators.

Who the hell is Frist to tell anyone how to do their job? How would he like it if Reid, a Democrat, were to tell him to shut up and enjoy a filibuster?

Answer? Frist would fight Reid and accuse him of being anti-Christian.

Why is a filibuster part of a Senator doing his or her job? This is simple. A filibuster exists to give the minority party a voice and the ability to force more debate and a larger amount of pro-votes in order for a nominee to be confirmed. This is not bad for America–this helps America have more effectively vetted people in control.

Here’s a quote from an article from AP.org:

No, Senator, allow senators to do their jobs and filibuster your ass.

Al Gore, winner of the popular presidential vote in 2000 was quoted in an article from AP.org available at CNN.com as saying:

In a discussion on this very topic at Drudge.com, one commenter calling herself Gal Tuesday said this:

As I said in a recent post, taking away the minority party’s voice (no matter which party it is) removes a major check and balance to stop the majority party from getting away with too much stuff.

This isn’t a partisan issue as so many Theocrats like to say. This is an issue of running government the way it is supposed to be run–with no single person or entity able to make easy, quick decisions that can change the lives of millions of Americans, or even a few. Look at the Terri Schiavo case. The Theocrats in Washington passed a law to save her life, alone. That’s not what a government is for. Government is supposed to be a slow, deliberate entity that takes its time and gets it right.

But who needs getting it right when you can get your way?

Oh and anyone who thinks Gore should just shut up since he “lost” the 2000 election or because he didn’t really create the Internet? Consider 2 things:

1) Gore won the popular vote in 2000 (much like Bush pointed out he had done in 2004)

2) Both Gore and Bush have said things that weren’t true. Cases in point:

Gore: “I invented the Internet.”

Bush: “There are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.”

‘Nuf said.

Anybody know anybody who needs to hire a copywriter who can project 35mm movies?

Or perhaps write science fiction for them?

Just thought I’d ask…

Whip inflation!

Remember that old saying from the 1970s? If you don’t, you might want to say it a few times just to get used to it. It turns out prices have gone up on just about everything from oil, to food, to clothes and more. Even hotel prices spiked. Inflation is rising, too. Read more about it in an article from AP.org available over at SignOnSanDiego.com. It’s a good article filled with all sorts of depressing facts. One thing it doesn’t provide, however, is a reasonable explanation of inflation. You know what inflation is, right? It’s so funny because everyone thinks they know what it is but they really don’t.

Inflation is what happens when you add more of a thing to a supply of that thing thus driving down the value of each individual thing. All right, that’s a little confusing. Let’s take Star Wars figures, for instance. I was talking to my friend Mark recently about the new Star Wars movies and he told me how General Grievous is going to be the new badass of the Star Wars universe. He’s got four lightsabers he stole from Jedi he has killed–like Mark said–the new badass. Mark goes on to tell me how Hasbro, the toy maker that produces Star Wars action figures, is limiting production of the General Grievous figures to just a few per case. This means the value of each Grievous figure (!!) will be high because of how rare each figure is.

Now, if they were to add to the production level and produce more Grievous figures, logically the value of each individual Grievous figure goes down. This is what happens to our money. Every time a bank loans money, it’s actually creating a goodly chunk of that money from nothing since banks (I think) can loan out $10 for every $1 they take as a deposit. That makes the value of all other dollars go down. Ironically, they call this “inflation.” I guess it’s because the amount of total dollars out there is inflating, but really, there’s no substance behind it, like inflating a balloon.

Isn’t it funny how no one ever talks about it in such simple terms?

When interest rates go up, it is supposed to discourage people from taking out loans–AKA, less money will be created by the bank, thus slowing the devalueing (is that a word?) of the USD.

There are two things that make matters worse.

First, Bush 43 keeps borrowing more money from the Fed. I’ve blogged on it a bit in the past–if memory serves, Bush has upped his credit no fewer than 3 times since he moved into the White House (it might be more) which puts America’s credit limit with the Fed at $8 trillion. That’s a lot of devaluing of the dollar going on.

Now to the second thing making matters worse. In theory, our wages should be rising in rough sync with inflation–at least, that’s what is always supposed to happen so we don’t end up a country of poor people. Guess what…

It hasn’t been–in fact, our wages as a nation have actually gone down.

Now we can’t blame all of this on Bush–some of it is the system’s fault. I mean, every time a loan is given out the value of the USD goes down. That’s just financial physics. Kinda makes you wonder why we go with this system at all, doesn’t it?

Well, the people who like the system say it has been what has allowed us to have unlimited growth. If we based everything on metals, like we did before 1913, we’d have caps on our wealth. There is only so much gold and silver in the world and that would mean we could only be so rich. Creating money from nothing means that we can grow and grow and grow.

Which makes sense, I suppose.

However, I do worry that eventually, the USD will be worth so little, we’ll be the poorest country on the planet. I mean, that’s the direction financial physics of inflation is invariably going in. Loans will continue to be given out (including those to the guy in the White House) and the USD will continue to drop in value–forever.

“What about all that gold in Ft. Knox?” says you?

If there’s any gold left in Ft. Knox, it’s owned by foreign investors.

Another thing that article I linked to at the top of this post fails to do is suggest how long these price/inflation hikes and wage drops will last. My guess is that it will last quite a while. Of course, I hope I’m wrong….

To me, it seems like an awful lot of the world’s problems would go away if corporations would start putting the betterment of humankind in front of profits. I know that will never happen unless they are forced, but hey, there’s no crime in dreaming about it.

Anyway, so here comes this site called WalmartWatch.com. It’s a site dedicated to exposing just how harmful the mega-chain is to humanity. Not just in how they underpay their employees or even how they buy products made with sweatshop labor, but also how they are directly taking money from Americans. One of the first things you’ll see on the WalmartWatch.com site is a counter counting up the dollars Wal-Mart costs American tax payers directly and indirectly through tax incentives and also forcing their underpaid employees to take advantage of food stamps, medicaid and other government programs.

It’s also a great way to follow Wal-Mart in the news–usually it’s the negative things that show up there, all of which help prove my point that big business does much more harm than it should. Some could even argue that they do more harm than good.

Personally, I think corporations are fine, in theory. The original corporations had death-dates they would dissolve by. However, they’ve long since given that up in favor of immortal lifespans that blow past their original creators. The point is that it is this “extreme corporation” mentality that allows corporations to ignore the cost of human life in favor of the cost of profits. This has got to stop–if only politicians would stop taking money from corporate interests we might actually have hope of at least slowing down big business. Alas, to pass laws stopping big biz abuse, you need the politicos.

Don’t forget to check out WalmartWatch.com…