PRESIDENT BUSH SIGNS
700 BILLION BAIL-OUT BILL INTO LAW

The house voted mid day yesterday and the bill passed by 260 to 150 or something like that, and not an hour passed before President Bush had signed the thing. It's the most heavily laden with pork boondoggle Congress has ever passed with an additional 150 Billion in added pork from the original bloated bill. Of course everyone on both sides of the aisle is happy that it passed. But now even people like Governor Swartzenegger are getting in line for hand-outs. They say that the state of California is going to run out of money at the end of the month. We usually borrow from the "private sector" to tide us over till January when income tax payments begin to roll in.

Winter has come to California, with the Sierra Nevada getting its first snow fall of the year and a cold front has moved on into Southern California rather suddenly and rain is expected later in the day. In other news proposition two is on the ballot here to prevent crowded caging conditions for livestock. The animals have to be allowed to move around and extend their limbs and at least have their feet touching the ground rather than be piled on top of each other. Of course even though 72 % of the people are for this measures, the nay sayers say that it will drive up meat and egg prices. Of course people who talk about "small business" have a certain dogma they live by. If they raise the minimum wage they claim it will drive up unemployment because people will be fired. Larry Elder talks about this. And yet when they hiked wages to $1.65 an hour in 1968 by the next year unemployment was down to 3.5% Some people say that raising taxes on incomes of over $250,000 will impact small business. Larry Elder likes to talk about these people working fourteen and fifteen hours a day only to have their money taxed away. Some will even say "businesses don't pay tax; they just pass on costs in the form of raised prices". I guess my response to all of this is market forces are pretty good at dictating success or failure and you hear stories all the time of people getting into business on the internet or something and making a killing and gettiong really rich, and they don't mind paying taxes. I guess where the logic of conservatives escapes me is that they say "Small businesses don't make any money with high tax rates". Well, if they don't make any money then they won't be paying any taxes, will they? Do you see how easily that all works out?

Now they are saying this home spun speech of Sarah Palin is all just an act for this campaign, and that she was never quite as "stupid" or country hick as we were led to believe and that in all her other debates she didn't have this folksy demeanor. On the "Frangela" show they were lamenting how education is distained today. Since when did ignorance become so fashionable? We hear the same lies from these people over and over on how Obama didn't vote to fund the Iraq War or that Obama wants to raise taxes on anyone earning over $42,000. The right wing lives by the three by five card spouting the same tag slogan lines over and over. To these people the American people are like a gullible mother getting sugar sweetened cerial for her kids because it's advertized and supposedly fortified with vitamines or something.

OJ Simpson is behind bars today. This is a red letter day for social justice. O J Simpson finally is getting what has been coming to him. A jury found Simpson and his friend guilty on all twelve counts on which they were tried, and how faces possible life in prison. And guess what? He isn't getting bail. This is truely a comeuppance where Simpson will have an "attitude adjustment".

THE FOLLOWING WAS TYPED YESTERDAY

Last night I was watching videos and such on computer right up to six o clock. The debate lasted just over an hour and a half. What immediately struck me was that Joe Biden was talking too fast to make his points successfully and he appeared much more nervous than did Palin who was smiley and radient throughout the debate. She made frequent eye contact, winking at the audience and such and unlike Biden, addressed her remarks right to the camera. They were limited to a minute and a half responses. But it seemed as though Palin got more time than did Biden. While his responses were rushed, hers were perfectly timed out. Biden did not go on the attack till twords the end of the debate saying that Mc Cain is not a Mavoric and enumerated the reasons why. Palin was at times short on the facts and once even said “I’m not going to answer the questions the way the moderator or Biden wants me to answer”. Palin set the tone making it a home spun debate with a lot of anic-dotes. Some topics were not discussed at all. For all the times Palin used the word “Energy” that topic never was discussed in a serious manner and nobody talked about research & development or carbon footprints. Other areas not discussed were health care and what to do about Social Security. Other areas not touched were the trade deficit, NAFTA, and immigration. Neither in general was overall border security from terrorists creeping into our ports and airports, ect. The big elephant in the room that Biden didn’t mention was that this tax bail out bill is loaded with pork, and that Mc Cain and Palin are both pretentious frauds on this issue. When it came to foreign affairs I was impressed that Palin knew names like Akmadinijab and walked about Afghanistan as if she were an old hand. Biden scored points talking about his interventionist mind set and human bondage and genocide, and intervening in Bosnia and Kosevo. Palin relied on these buzz fraises sure to score points with my brother and his wife. They are likely to describe her performance as “perfect”. There were only a few times when I felt Joe Biden was really “scoring” and connecting with the audience.

I listened to the commentary afterwards. Neither candidate was guilty of any significant distortions of the facts. Palin accused Biden of “living in the past” when he pointed out how Mc Cain voted with Bush 90% of the time. At eight I watched Superman. Not having coffee in the evenings means I go to bed a little earlier. If Joe had gone on the attack earlier I think he would have “won” the debate. None of the cute, witty remarks of Palin swayed me, but a lot of people are a lot more shallow.

They are still predicting rain for tomorrow. I guess I’ll check out WDRV now. And this is later. Drive radio was doing 1971 and two songs of note were “Burn Down the Mission” by Elton John I heard on a KLOS album play and also the stellar “Get it on in the Morning” by Bill Chase, which I have always admired for being immaculately executed. It seems that it’s always the good ones who die young.