Just because I can!

Daily Kos: AIG responds to its bad press

Exhibit A for why taxpayer bailouts are a bad idea. Let me get this down to the very basics.

• Government’s biggest responsibility in a capitalist system is to ensure that there’s healthy competition
• Government capitulates in this responsibility due to a self-perpetuating and fundamentally corrupt system of campaign contributions, greed and ineffectual regulation.
• The result is companies like AIG that are Too Big To Fail (TBTF)
• Because these companies are TBTF taxpayers are forced to bail them out
• Weepy-eyed liberal bloggers feel justified in questioning every business decision said bailed-out TBTF company makes
• Alfredo gets annoyed enough about it to write a blog post

So, what’s the solution? It’s not to write self-indulgent claptrap about how terrible some conference is. If the system was working right and these sort of things were really bad for business the company would fail, which AIG should have. The solution is to make sure the system works right going forward. Companies like AIG should be broken up into smaller, more nimble non-TBTF companies. That way in the future when something like this happens again, and it will, mine eyes can happily watch the stupid companies die and not read whining drivel from infantile liberal bloggers.

Judges Cite Need for Reliable Evidence To Hold Detainees – washingtonpost.com

The best quote: “Lewis Carroll notwithstanding, the fact the government has ’said it thrice’ does not make an allegation true,”

So awhile back I talked about switching to Netnewswire for my RSS reading needs. I liked having a native Mac application and I liked the web interface for the iPhone better. Unfortunately I found out today that the shared feeds of articles from the application weren’t working. Since I depend on it for both work and sharing with friends it just had to go, so I’m back with Google Reader. Sigh.

Ok, Diablo III is the first game in a long time that I’m actually looking forward to. There’s just something about the Diablo franchise that makes me want to waste hundreds of hours pointing and clicking on stuff.

White House Refused to Open Pollutants E-Mail

I have three things to say:

1. It’s sad that this country has had to endure almost eight years of this idiocy.
2. It’s even sadder that we have to endure another six months of it.
3. The saddest thing of all is we voted FOR this idiocy… TWICE!

So I’ve decided its prediction time for the 2008 election. I went over to the very helpful 270towin site, played around with the map and came up with what I think will be the final tally of the election this year.

If you check out the map you’ll see that swing states are in yellow. I predicted them as follows:

McCain wins: Nevada, Missouri, Ohio, North Carolina, Florida

Obam wins: Colorado, New Mexico, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Virgina

This gives Obama a win with 286 electoral votes to McCain’s 252. You can see that I think big wins in the West, Midwest and South will help Obama win despite McCain taking the two most important swing states of the Bush victories, Florida and Ohio.

Do I think that Obama can do better? Yes, he can, he could conceivably win Ohio and Florida, although I think the former is more likely than the latter. He even has a shot at winning states like Georgia and South Carolina if enough Republicans stay home and new African American and young voters come out. If that happens this election will be a cake walk for Obama.

Later I’ll talk about why I think this is the way it’s going to work out, but I just wanted to get my dart up on the board first.

George Carlin passed away. I was never a huge fan of his, but I did appreciate his humor and the way he was willing to make fun of just about anything. For anyone who’s never seen it here’s his famous Seven Words You Can’t Say on TV bit.

Warning: lots of swearing and hilarity.

A great explanation of how a losing team can lead to a remarkable peace of mind.

And the other shoe drops, with the Mariners now firing their manager John McClaren. Not surprising given the total lack of success the Mariners have encountered this year. McClaren shares some significant responsibility for this. He was given a crappy roster, but he’s managed that roster in just about the worst way possible.

Via: USS Mariner