there are a lot of fears concerning Obama from Cyn apparently. Chicken little's "The sky is falling' type of attitude when we haven't even seen one hint that Obama is satan as she claims seems really irrational.  I voted against raising taxes and I voted for a cool, calm president who might be able to soothe all the messes Bush and his cronies have made.

First of all, there's something about Obama that rings true to me when he talks.  He surrounds himself with people across the board and really listens to opposing viewpoints.  I feel he is much less 'hot-headed' then McCain, and I think we need someone very cool and calm to erase all the issues Bush created with his 'wars'.  It's kind of like listening to someone and the spirit confirms they are genuine.  I get such a feeling and confirmation listening to Obama, not McCain.  McCain scares the hell out of me in what he'll do with my money.  There are two ways to vote:  Fear based - such as Cyn keeps on spouting, or hope based - such that I voted.  I'm voting on faith that calm heads will prevail and clean up the messes WE made.  I think Obama is a realist.  He told black fathers to stop being irresponsible, he sees that a lot of the issues of race is internal in the black community.  He pissed off the black leaders by saying it as it was.  I don't think he's going to be blinded by PC and lobbyists.

I never wanted to go into Iraq.  Saddam was a despot, but he was secular and kept Iran from growing it's religious army.  Iraq was NOT bin Ladan, and had no weapons. I never believed they had weapons. We should have targeted Afghanistan and the taliban with all our might.  Now the taliban is growing again because we were so focused on Bush's war in Iraq.  I think Obama recoqnizes how we completely messed everything up. I also feel Obama hates the taliban as much as McCain does, Obama will fight the taliban just as much as McCain.  In addition, I frankly don't care how much people in other countries want freedom.  If they want it bad enough they will fight for it themselves and have revolution (we did).  Just like the Berlin wall, which was not fought with our guns and airships, freedom only comes from internal sources.  I'm sick of the far right saying it's our duty to go into soveriegn countries and force them to change to democracies (which they aren't going to do anyway.)   

Environmentally, McCain used to be green, then he completely changed during the election (his change and pandering to the far right is what cost him the election.) I liked McCain before 6 months ago.  I think Obama will get us off oil and use all those old oil tax breaks and change them to renewable energy tax breaks.  Change in energy will only happen when there are enough encentives and it's financially viable for companies to go that way.  Bush and unfortunately McCain, were refusing to stop giving tax breaks to oil instead of solar.

Socialism:  in the last few months, McCain was sounding just like those pandering to the 'less forunate'.  In fact, he wants to give hundreds of millions of my tax dollars to irresponsible homeowners so they can keep their house (and not work for it.)  He's rewarding people who are forclosing.  Obama hasn't even gone that far.  In really reviewing Obama's ideas, the only one that feels socialistist is the healthcare and even that isn't mandatory.  People can still 'opt out' if they so choose.  Business will be affected as they either have to offer some type of plan or contribute to a government pool, but McCain's plan was just as bad, if not worse in that in five years his plan would cost so much more than Obama's of tax payers money.  In the end, I am completely against the healthcare policies of either candidate.

Guns: it may be true that Obama is going to scale back gun laws, but in no way can he remove them.  Montana, Wyoming and Idaho would leave the nation (since they signed on only on the condition people can bear arms.) the supreme court just ruled in gun law's favor and it will be years until Obama can put a new justice in, if ever.  We're going to stock up now just in case, but I'm just not thinking it's a rational fear.

Money: out of the wealthy (those who make 250K and up) 65% voted for Obama.  I think that says something.  We need to stop being the bully on the block in the world, we need to be more humble and calm, we need to clean up the environment and get off oil.  Once oil isn't a factor, then the middle east loses all their power.  We need to get back to focusing on invention and the future - not this bloody war that's stupid because no one (including the majority of the Iraqi people) want us there.

Well,

 I voted and my husband voted, so we can at least feel a part of a system we aren't really a part of.  I've been pondering the whole voting thing.  All throughout my neighborhood are signs to support Prop 2a, (a property tax increase of $200 per house) for public school.  I haven't seen one 'no' to prop 2a sign, yet a lot of people I've spoken with, including myself are voting against it.

There is such a fear out there that being 'politically incorrect' and having a 'anti-children' sign will ruin you.  The worst part is, those that would label one against a tax increase 'anti-children' are your neighbors all around you.  I just don't think the way we vote and the way things are phrased and pushed down our throats is very American.  I'd love to have a "NO to prop 2a" but I worry about all of our neighbors blackballing my children more than they do already.  Speaking of phrasing things... there's another ballot measure that starts with the phrase.  "The state shall not discrimate against any person based on race, gender etc. etc."  Well, my husband immediately assumed, just from that first line that he (being a good republican) should vote against it.  I laughed and told him that what he was actually doing was voting to keep affirmative action initiates where the state discriminates against white males. :)  He sheepishly whited out his vote and tried again.  I wonder how many white men voted against that initiative just because of the language.  How many blacks and women voted for it because it used the catch phrase "shall not discriminate"?

Either way, voting feels really manipulated and I'm sitting here wondering how many of my neighbors actually realize their little Yes on Prop2a will hit them with a huge tax increase that will probably not help the kids in the slightest.

Why is it I can't stand Alisha Rosenbaum?

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Has_A_Ponzi_Scheme_Detroyed_Capitalism_999.html

Her most famous and prestigious follower said yesterday in sworn testimony before Congress:

“I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms,” Mr. Greenspan said.

Referring to his free-market ideology, Mr. Greenspan added: “I have found a flaw. I don’t know how significant or permanent it is. But I have been very distressed by that fact.” Mr. Waxman pressed the former Fed chair to clarify his words. “In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology, was not right, it was not working,” Mr. Waxman said.

“Absolutely, precisely,” Mr. Greenspan replied. “You know, that’s precisely the reason I was shocked, because I have been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well.”

Near the end of the four-hour grilling, which he shared with John Snow, the former Treasury secretary, and Christopher Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Greenspan suffered a final indignity. The man dubbed "the Maestro" for orchestrating fiscal policy during 18 years as Fed chief found himself likened to one of the great goats of baseball. "I feel like I'm looking out there at three Bill Buckners," said Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Ky., referring to the Boston Red Sox first baseman who botched an easy grounder in the 1986 World Series. "All of you let the ball go through your legs."

Choosing the Lesser of Two Evils:

The Economic Bailout:

Our elected representatives decided that the best way to solve the current financial crisis is by throwing money at it.  $700,000,000,000, to be exact.  The fact that the economy just happened to need that exact round number to be rescued isn't the coincidence it seems - the Secretary of the Treasury's office just wanted a really big number that would convince investors and companies that it meant business.  How reassuring.  (Imagine Secretary Hank Paulson proclaiming the amount he wanted to the Senate with a Dr. Evil accent and pinky to his lips for added laughs.)

What isn't so readily noticed is that, rather than using the money to guarantee the deposits and assets of struggling banks and institutions as it has in the past, the government has decided to buy up the assets of those troubled institutions and manage them itself.

Did you guys get that?  Rather than just regulating the financial markets, the government is now an active participant therein.  Now Paulson will be managing $700b worth of profit-seeking assets.  How will he decide who to bail out?  Remember he used to work for Goldman Sachs.  Perhaps a bit more of that cash will go their way?  Who are his friends?  Who does he trust?  Fortunes will continue to be made or lost in the market, but now they depend on the whims of unelected government administrators.  We've seen crony capitalism before, and it's not pretty.  People freaked out about privatizing social security but I guess a gut-wrenching market dislocation was enough to get us over the hump.  Paulson initially required that the cash be strings-free and that he not be subject to review, investigation or prosecution if he screws it all up.  He later abandoned that ridiculous demand, but the mere fact that he made it frightens me.  That man doesn't deserve a job just for that.

But it gets worse.  One of the key reassurances that our elected office-seeking representatives have given about this bailout is that we (the taxpayers) will be getting that money back, and with a profit no less!

Our electorate is so insensible that it believes this is a good thing - oh boy, we'll get our money back!  And then some!  The government is saving the system!  We're all capitalists now, because our government now controls the means of production!

Grave-spinning is hardly sufficient for this state of affairs.  That groaning sound you hear is zombie Ayn Rand coming to eat your brain. 

But it gets worse.  The fact that "we're getting our money back and then some" is a flat-out lie does not make it any more palatable.  The government's position is that there's a crisis in the market - not a crisis of money, or capacity, or ability, but of confidence.  People don't believe in the markets as much as the markets deserve to be believed in.  Thus they're less willing to invest in it.  Thus values go down.  Thus we're all poor.  On the flip side, companies have money but they're scared of the future.  They hold onto their cash rather than lend and invest it, in case they need it to save themselves.  Then liquidity in the market goes down.  Then inventors with good ideas don't get financing.  Then productivity drops.  Thus we're all poor.  So the government will step in and take control of assets, buying them so the banks have more cash to give to inventors and homeowners, thus spurring the economy.  The gov't will hold the mortgage notes until such time as people are more confident, and more willing to invest.  Then they'll sell the assets back into the market, and for a profit!

You may ask - why not just seize those assets and manage them?  They're the government, they can do what they want! 

Well, the problem with that is that it would make the crisis even worse.  The value of the stock of thes investment banks, brokers, holding companies and so on are based on the perceived value of its assets (a mortgage, for example, being an "asset" that produces income according to the borrower paying on it).  Borrowers are fleeing their overvalued properties in droves, and banks are having to repossess those homes and buildings to resell and recoup the mortgage amount.  Except, because real estate prices have gone down those properties aren't worth anywhere near the mortgage amount anymore.  So the bank loses money.  And investors can see that those mortgages aren't very secure, and many of them will result in losses because the owner will walk.  Investors lose faith in the company's ability to get money from the mortgages, and the stock value goes down.

If the gov't merely seizes those mortgages, the banks and firms would take an enormous hit in their stock price, because then they aren't getting anything at all in return.  Then the banks go out of business and the economy continues to crumble.  So instead the government is going to buy those "toxic" assets.  They trade bad mortgages for good money.  But in order to actually help the bank, the government has to be willing to give way more to the bank than any other investor would be willing to right now (remember?  confidence).

How do "we" make a profit here?  The government is buying distressed assets for way more than market value.  Nobody in the world thinks these assets are worth having, probably at any price.  If there were any person or company in the economy who thought these bad mortgages were worth having, they'd buy them and the government wouldn't have to.  No, the market is telling us that our government is giving good money for products that won't be worth anything for a long time, probably ever.

But it gets worse.  Where is that big pile of money coming from?  Answer: not from taxpayers.  From China, from Saudia Arabia, from Russia.  We don't have a single penny to spare, the deficit will be rising by exactly $700 billion because of this, and it will be added to the rest of the deficit spending we'll be doing this year and next.

This also means a $700b loan's worth of interest, to be paid off by our children and grandchildren.  As we keep trying to spend our way out of this crisis, eventually the solvency of the US government will be called into question.  That will not be a pleasant day.

Very smart people agree that quick and overwhelming action is what gets the economy past these bumps without too much trouble.  But this blizzard of cash raises the stakes enormously.  The US's borrowing power and debt-servicing ability are finite.

But it gets worse.  We are socialists now, but the worst kind.  Our current system was capitalist until everyone started losing.  Then the hue and cry was for taxpayer money to solve everything.  Capitalism loses all meaning if only the profit is privatized.  This greatly reduces the risks that banks and firms are exposed to - why not take crazy and stupid risks if Washington extends its helping hand every time there's a problem?  The message we're sending to the market is that if they can get us over a barrel we'll give them whatever they ask for.  And we haven't yet demanded to be let off of that barrel. 

I don't know if this calls for tighter regulation or a complete refurbishment of our market system, or what.  But I do know that we're looking more like the Soviet Union every day.

Richard Wolff, a Professor of Economics at UMass Amherst, anaylizes our economic mess, succiently describes the problem, and recommends a solution that you might recognize and even approve of, but not by its old name...   Outstanding!  Wonderful!  Inspiring! Watch this lecture in his graduate classroom and I'll give each of you a Big Cuban Cigar!

So Fidel accused me of placing Stealing at the top of the list of sins.  I've often claimed that social policy simply steals from laborers to give to the non-Laborer.  In fact, I saw an awesome bumper sticker which said "WORK HARDER... Millions of Welfare Recipients are counting on you."   SWEET!  Fidel then went on to say that I was ignoring Charity and Love by focusing on the Social policies that "take" from one to give to another.  Anyway, I'd like to address the issues that he brought up and that I've been pondering.

Is Stealing the highest moral sin there is?

2)To present or use (someone else's words or ideas) as one's own.

Hmmm... would Murder not be the ultimate act of Stealing then?  My body is my property...  you can take it from my spirit in such an act and that is theft.  I also think of those pedaphiles who steal children and their innocence.  Again - a horrid form of Theft.

Taking another's property - body, money, ideas, things, - removes the agency of the owner of said property.  It is an invasive action and the opposite is to 'willingly give to another' or Charity/ Love.  So I would assert that if one willingly died to protect another - that is LOVE and Charity.  If one willingly gave away their possessions to help another - That is Love and Charity.   Theft and Charity are opposites.   Social systems which result in Theft have nothing to do with Charity and Love.  The only way Charity and Love can exist is within the confines of free agency and Theft removes free agency from the equation.

So from now on if I were to list what is the most evil thing on this Earth - I would say Theft.

I admit it.  I'm terrified of Islam and Sharia law.  To me, it's the epitome of what Satan tried to do.  It's all about Force, with no respect for an individual's (especially Women) rights.  It's coming to the western world.

How is it that one religion can take such control of things?  It is because we are so fearful to say no to them?  I believe Islam is an evil mirror of the Gospel.  It has similiar truths (word of wisdom) but removes the agency central to Heavenly Father's plan.  Both men and women have such restrictions on them (men have to pray 5 times a day or risk being beaten, women can be killed for anything - including being raped.)  It is mosiac law twisted.  Cutting off arms and stonings.  Well, welcome to it if you live in Britain now...    Are we so afraid of this religion that we are willing to lose our freedoms and submit to it?  I just can't understand how anyone thinks this is ok.

Islamic law has been officially adopted in Britain, with sharia courts given powers to rule on Muslim civil cases.

The government has quietly sanctioned the powers for sharia judges to rule on cases ranging from divorce and financial disputes to those involving domestic violence.

Rulings issued by a network of five sharia courts are enforceable with the full power of the judicial system, through county courts or the country's High Court, a part of its Supreme Court system.

Previously, the rulings of sharia courts in Britain could not be enforced, and depended on voluntary compliance among Muslims.

Politicians and church leaders expressed concerns that this could mark the beginnings of a “parallel legal system” based on sharia for some British Muslims.

Dominic Grieve, the shadow home secretary, said: “If it is true that these tribunals are passing binding decisions in the areas of family and criminal law, I would like to know which courts are enforcing them because I would consider such action unlawful. British law is absolute and must remain so."

 Can someone explain how it is that a free country that values human rights, democracy and equality could ever justify Islam and Sharia law in their courts?