Apologies On Breach Of Blogging Etiquette

I did something on this blog last night that I've never had to do in over 12 years of blogging:

I had to take down a blog post.

True: I have removed personal information from this blog when asked to before, but I have never had somebody tell me to take down an entire post simply because they were concerned what other readers might think of it (and me), and actually listened to them... especially when that post did not specifically mention the person asking me to take the post down... especially when I stood 100% behind the content and opinion expressed in that post.

But, you see, in mentioning the company I work for on this blog, I inadvertently tied the content of this blog to that company. Thus I inadvertently ceded some measure of editorial control of my blog over to my company in the process. So when my company "seriously recommended" I take a post down because of their concern that my opinion would be confused with their own, I really could not say no. It's my mistake and I have to live with it now.

So, to those people who will notice that a post that they had read previously is suddenly missing from the blog lineup, you have my apologies for breaking a cardinal rule of blogging. It was not voluntary, and it will not happen again...

But that is primarily because this blog is ending and a new one will be beginning. The new blog will not have my name on it, or Epril's name on it, or my company's name on it. It will not link to this blog, nor this blog to it. You'll probably find the new blog eventually... but you may not. Sorry, if you don't. But all good things must come to an end.

Sorry Ron Paul

I've liked Ron Paul forever... or at least since 2007 when I first mentioned him on my blog. He's the only libertarian conservative running for the Republican nomination for President this year, the only constitutional literalist running for the Republican nomination for President this year. He may have some crazy thoughts regarding fiscal policy, but he played all the right social issue chords and role-of-government melodies with me.

I wouldn't vote for him anymore (though I would have before), because his fiscal policy is too severe a bludgeon in a time that requires more tact and gentle approaches to a shaky economy, but at least he is consistent. He is an old-school fiscal and governmental conservative with liberal views on society and government's need to stay out of it... just like me.

Unfortunately, he was at one point in time, a virulent, unabashed, dyed-in-the-wool racist, anti-Semite, homophobe, and conspiracy theorist of the highest tin-foil-hat-wearing order, and published all of those facts repeatedly in a regular personal newsletter. I knew it was sort of bad 4 years ago, and I figured: The guy's a bit of a kooky old man, allow him a few peccadilloes that he can deny and we can ignore if anyone ever asks. (If I had been more seriously examining him as a candidate, instead of just "pondering", I may have been a little serious about looking into the content of those "newsletters", but I wasn't, so I waffled on the racism stuff.)

But of course, now the newsletters are front and center... and they are bad. And now Ron Paul's denials are front and center... and they are weak.

Sorry Ron Paul. I gave you a whole heaping plateful of spaghetti-a-la-benefit-de-la-doubt and it was not nearly enough.

You no longer appear to me as a rough-edged old coot with a heart cast from American Gold Eagles, the hand-me-down spirit of John Jay, Adam Smith's blood, and Oakshott's tongue. Now I see a sad old politician trying to dodge reasonable questions, avoid responsibility, deny culpability... while at the same time (as we all deep down knew would happen), more newsletters with your signature on them are being discovered filled with ever-nastier white-supremacist content.

I'm sorry we can't find a better person to put your ideas in, because those ideas of yours... and those ideas alone... are worth something to this country. And the country will be all the poorer as nobody will appreciate those ideas because they are coming from the person who is Ron Paul.

Daily Report: On Her Way

Epril finally (FINALLY) got her visa. No reason for the 1.5 month delay was given nor apology offered. I had actually called the office of my Congressmen, Mr. Buchanan, and they sent out an inquiry. Based on the timeframes of the visa's approval and delivery to my wife, I suspect that their inquiry was a day too late to have an effect — my terse e-mail demanding either action or explanation sent a week prior was more likely to have done it — but I must say Rep. Buchanan's staff... their instant involvement and knowledge of what to do and who to contact was exemplary, and I can say without hesitation that contacting your Congressman (something I had never done before) is a worthwhile undertaking when you have a problem such as I had.

That said, Epril will be here next Wednesday. Christmas is no longer in the cards, I am afraid. Epril got a whiff of 4 a.m. church services, lechon baboy, and candied spaghetti, and decided to stick around for "her last Christmas in The Philippines". (Actually it was her mother's request.)

Epril and her family really are approaching this as if it were the last time Epril would ever see The Philippines or her family again. Obviously that's not the case, and I'm sure that on some level, they realize it, but at the same time, there is some finality to the way they are all going about Epril's "final days".

(Seriously... she might even be there for Easter, guys.)

Anyway, Epril will be arriving next Wednesday afternoon in Florida. After that, we'll probably eat something really American and really fattening. Then we will probably just spend a quiet few weeks at home.

Oh... and driving lessons.

You Know The Republicans Have Lost It When...

... when the most conservative newspaper in the country, The Wall Street Journal, has to come out and say the Republicans are idiots. And it's not even gentle or qualifying, like you would expect: The subtitle of the piece is "How did Republicans manage to lose the tax issue to Obama?" (And it gets more scathing from there.)

GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell famously said a year ago that his main task in the 112th Congress was to make sure that President Obama would not be re-elected. Given how he and House Speaker John Boehner have handled the payroll tax debate, we wonder if they might end up re-electing the President before the 2012 campaign even begins in earnest.

The GOP leaders have somehow managed the remarkable feat of being blamed for opposing a one-year extension of a tax holiday that they are surely going to pass. This is no easy double play.

... But now Republicans are drowning out that victory in the sounds of their circular firing squad. Already four GOP Senators have rejected the House position, and the political rout will only get worse.

After a year of the tea party House, Mr. Obama and Senate Democrats have had to make no major policy concessions beyond extending the Bush tax rates for two years. Mr. Obama is in a stronger re-election position today than he was a year ago, and the chances of Mr. McConnell becoming Majority Leader in 2013 are declining.

See? That's harsh coming from The Wall Street Journal.

It's true though. The other day, I said that the candidates in the Republican Presidential primary were giving Obama everything he needed to win without his lifting a finger to help or hinder. I suppose it is fair to mention that the rest of the Republican party is doing their part as well.

Light Bulb Companies Pissed Off

My libertarian sensibilities were offended when I heard that the government was outlawing incandescent light bulbs. Turns out, I was just being suckered by Republican hyperbole. You see, "outlawing incandescent light bulbs" was actually President Bush signing a bill that required light bulbs to use 30% less electricity (for the same amount of lumens) by January 2012. The fact that most light bulb makers decided that this goal would best be met by switching over to the fluorescent light bulbs was simply a fact of expediency and simplicity. There are actually incandescent bulbs that use 30% less electricity for the same light, such as halogen bulbs, but they aren't as common in the market.

Of course, Republicans are still going on fighting the "outlawing of incandescent light bulbs" and are working hard to make sure that, come January 2012, not only is the light bulb requirement repealed, but ALL light bulb standards are repealed as well.

Which, of course, annoys the hell out of the people who make light bulbs, who have spent millions re-tooling all of their factories to meet the new standards and make the new format fluorescent bulbs. They not only see the Republican attempts to repeal the law as potentially undercutting them, causing them to have wasted all that money, but also opening up the market to any fly-by-night company who is able to coast in with cut-rate incandescent bulbs and make a killing. The light bulb manufacturers are imagining 25-cent light bulbs from China on shelves next to their 2-dollar bulbs that the government had insisted they develop.

(And of course, when the 25-cent light bulb burns your house down... well, that's another story entirely.)

Quick Thought

President Obama's chances of reelection are approximately 100%.

About 25% of that probability comes from the Republican primary in which every candidate had to claim "I'm crazy like you" to the people who are going to vote them in the primaries.

About 25% of that probability comes from attack adds from Republican candidates pointing at each other saying, "He's not crazy like us" to the people who are going to vote for them in the primaries.

About 25% of that probability comes from the rest of the American public looking at the Republican candidates and concluding, "You're crazy based on all the crazy shit I've heard you say in the Republican Primaries."

The remaining probability comes from the fact that President Obama has not even cleared his throat yet to start the actual campaign, and you know he's no slouch as a candidate.

Like it or not: Four more years. Those endless debates where all the candidates stood up and tried to out-tea-party each other was the best thing Obama could ever have hoped for. For every "I'll bring the jobs back" line, there was an "I'll arrest all the activist judges" line. Every candidate who said that they would repeal "Obamacare" also said they would start a war with Iran.

Republicans this year forgot the most important rule in politics: The more a politician talks (not makes speeches... but talks: as in debates, interviews, et cetera), the more likely he will say something that will make it impossible for people to vote for him. Think about it: If Rick Perry had never said a single word, he would still be the front runner in this race. But look at him now. If Mitt Romney hadn't attended a single debate, he would probably be polling better than he does. Bachmann and Santorum have done nothing in their lives except say jaw-dropping crazy shit since they graduated from high school. And let's not even get started on Gingrich.

Anyway, I put Obama winning the coming election 57% to 43% of the total vote... 14 points... against Romney. 60% to 40% against any other candidate.

Typhoon Hits CDO, Hundreds Dead

CDO has been pummeled by one of the first typhoons to make it over the mountains in decades, and the results are catastrophic.

Due to it's peculiar location, as you can see in the image below, which is a map of the eye of every typhoon to cross the Philippines in the last half century, CDO and Mindanao are rarely visited by big storms. Therefore when one does come through (even a small tropical storm, as this one named "Sendong" / "Washi" was), nobody is prepared, and the results can be hideous.

Anyway, I assume my wife is okay because I spoke with her yesterday afternoon after the worst had passed. I don't know about her family out in Jasaan though. The last time a big storm came through, their house was endangered. But I'll assume everything is alright since Epril made no mention of it.

However for hundreds (perhaps thousands) of people who lost their lives yesterday, and all of their family and friends, the small size of this storm, or the rare path that it took will be of little comfort. Keep those poor souls in your thoughts.

UPDATE: BBC is reporting now 652 confirmed dead and 808 additional still missing.

Daily Report: Delayed

Bad news: Epril won't be arriving on the 13th as hoped. Her visa has not yet been approved, and the soonest it could arrive in Epril's hands at this point is Monday morning... the time at which she was supposed to be getting on a plane to Manila. God damn. Now it is a day-by-day waiting situation, which is just ridiculous.

This whole visa application process has been one bullshit situation after another. First all of the paperwork that Epril mailed to me from The Philippines took almost 50 days to arrive. Next, the American government lost her entire visa package between the California Service Center and the New Hampshire National Visa Center for 2 months. Now, the American Embassy in Manila is taking over a month to approve her visa. All of these things should have taken days at most to accomplish... and instead my wife and I have been kept apart an additional 4 months total on what is essentially governmental idiocy. It would be a fucking joke if it wasn't so frustrating and upsetting: We've got rather important Christmas plans that might be spoiled.

So, I retain my long-term optimism... but in the short term, I really want to just climb into bed and wait for the "here and now" to go away.

I miss my wife.

The New Truth About Lying

When Mitt Romney's campaign put out an anti-Obama advertisement in which Obama was accused of saying something damaging/stupid, when it was clearly evident (when the Romney campaign's dishonest editing was redacted) that Obama was quoting somebody else's damaging/stupid statement, Mitt Romney's campaign responded with the following statement (and no, this is not a joke):

“First of all, ads are propaganda by definition. We are in the persuasion business, the propaganda business…. Ads are agitprop…. Ads are about hyperbole, they are about editing. It’s ludicrous for them to say that an ad is taking something out of context…. All ads do that. They are manipulative pieces of persuasive art.”

Think about that for a minute: Mitt Romney's campaign is saying that ALL political ads are trying to get people to think bad things about the other guy, so there is no need for them to be true.

That should be repellent to any sensible person. It is degraded. It is mercenary. It is the Romney campaign proudly and shamelessly admitting to being morally bankrupt and willing to lie to achieve power.

Yes, I have had it pointed out to me before that shit like this has been going on since America was founded. Go ahead and state then that Romney's campaign is in keeping with the finest tradition of Tammany Hall, and therefore is just engaging in "politics as usual". Yeah... Let's welcome back the days of Boss Tweed. Just remember: As of now, Mitt Romney is a guy who is apparently willing to blatantly lie to the American people about even the simplest crap, like the content of a campaign ad, and admit laughingly to moral turpitude when called on it, and who wants to run a government that already has serious problems with transparency, civil rights, and moral balance.

You know that 25 years ago, something like this would have sunk a presidential campaign in a heartbeat. Now a disturbingly large idiot segment of the American population just yawns and ignores, forgets, or even cheers for it.

Interesting Story On Police Usage Of Force

The Huffington Post has a very interesting (and disturbing) cover story today about the increased use of "SWAT" teams (with raids up from a few thousand per year nationwide 20 years ago, to well over 50,000 a year now) and the general use of unnecessary violence for all kinds of law enforcement activity. The author documents (with links) how SWAT teams were sent to all kinds of places where no potential for resistance would normally be considered... such as the house of a person who had defaulted on student loans, or the Gibson guitar factory (over suspicions of illegally imported wood), or even on a group of vacationing Tibetan monks who had overstayed their visas.

Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they're fighting a "war," and the consequences are predictable. ... [I]t has become routine to use force that is disproportionate to the laws the police are enforcing. Because it has happened gradually over the course of about 30 years, the public has become accustomed to it.

Today, SWAT teams are routinely deployed against people who pose little to no threat at all. It's hard to come up with a legitimate reason that the federal government needs to send heavily-armed, heavily-armored SWAT teams to raid medical marijuana clinics, for example. ... There's also little justification for sending SWAT teams to raid the offices of doctors accused of over-prescribing prescription painkillers, co-ops accused of selling unpasteurized milk, or for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to send paramilitary squads into businesses suspected of employing undocumented immigrants.

At the 2008 GOP Convention, police staged preemptive raids on the homes of possible protesters and rabble-rousers. There were mass arrests of protesters and journalists, few of which resulted in any actual charges. At the 2009 G20 summit in Pittsburgh, camouflage-clad cops deployed sound cannons and arrested protesters, students and even onlookers. This was not because they broke any actual laws, but on their potential to cause disruption.

In 2009, I wrote an article for the Daily Beast about the odd phenomenon of cops shooting dogs. In drug raids, killing the dogs in the targeted house is almost perfunctory. We also see stories about cops killing dogs while chasing suspects across the property of a third party, or killing a dog who growls at them after they were called to a house on an unrelated matter. ... The often cold reactions from police departments to these incidents also show a certain indifference to the people they are supposed to be serving -- again, more the way a soldier interacts with citizens in another country than as with a police officer serving his community.

The amount of force the government uses to uphold a given law is no longer determined only by the threat to public safety posed by the suspect. Now, it appears to give an indication of how serious the government is about the law being enforced. The DEA sends SWAT teams barreling into the offices of doctors accused of over-prescribing painkillers not because the doctors pose any real threat of violence, but because prescription drug abuse is a hot issue right now. The feds sent SWAT teams into marijuana dispensaries not because medicinal pot merchants are inherently dangerous people, but because officials believe the dispensaries are openly defying federal law. It is, to put it bluntly, a terror tactic. Sending a couple cops with a clipboard to hand out fines and shut down a dispensary doesn't convey a strong message. Sending a bunch of cops dressed like soldiers to point guns at dispensary owners and their customers certainly does. ... The amount force government authorities use, then, is no longer based not on what sort of threat a suspect poses to the government or those around him, but on the political implications of the laws being enforced. It isn't difficult to see how we get from here to pepper-spraying and beating peaceful protesters, particularly if the protesters are becoming a thorn in the side of politicians or are losing support from the public.

The author summarizes with a good point: Back in the 1990s, political conservatives were the ones decrying the excessive use of law enforcement firepower at Ruby Ridge, Waco Texas, and even in the Elian Gonzalez raid, while liberals were mainly silent. With the Occupy protesters now being targeted for excessive use of police violence, the Conservatives are nodding their heads in satisfaction and offering congratulations to the cops for a job well done. When the pendulum swings back again, and it becomes Tea Party activists being beaten by police for waving guns around at a political rally, or it is Christians protesting gay marriage who are pepper sprayed because they were "outside of a protest zone", or abortion protesters who are tasered for blocking a sidewalk... will those same congratulations offered before still be forthcoming? Somehow I doubt it.

Daily Report: Another Update

Yeah... sorry for waiting for more than a month for an update. Everything has been tossed up in the air and is spinning: a slow motion floating kaleidoscope of every detail of my life. All of us here are pretty certain that all of those things are going to land as a perfectly formed diamond-encrusted sculpture of joy and success, but watching and waiting for that to happen does not make it any easier.

Epril flew to Manila with her mother for a 3-day visit to get her health exam in the latter part of October. Then flew to Manila again with her mother for another 3-day visit for her embassy interview. That went great. She dropped off her passport on November 8th and was told that it would be shipped to her via a courier service. But that was almost 3 weeks ago, which seems like a long time to wait. I'm going to have to call the embassy in Manila tomorrow and see if I can find out what the problem is.

PeGreSol has been meeting with companies in Thailand and Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei, as well as talking with Ukraine, Uganda, a couple of middle eastern countries, one South American company, and one very large American oil company. Now, we are at the stage of shipping out samples of FloWell to various corporate laboratories so that they can test the product themselves to make sure that not only will it work as advertised, but won't damage any of their equipment in the process. In December and early January, we should start performing our first field tests for clients (which will result in PeGreSol's first small commissions). Then, once the wellhead tests are done, each client/country will hopefully be expanding the use of FloWell by a factor of a thousand(s) and taking monthly shipments of that vast amount. After that, sales should increase exponentially on pretty much a weekly basis as more and more oil companies become aware that FloWell is being adopted industry-wide and rush to jump on the bandwagon.

I just can't stomach the wait! The transcription job is all but finished, as the pay rate there was deeply slashed at the end of summer. A job that used to pay me $75,000 a year; now I couldn't survive on what I make if I worked 60 hours a week at it (which I can't — not allowed and not nearly enough mental/spiritual desire). I'm barely making minimum wage really, though that is more a function of just not giving a shit about a job that used to be so great rather than the shockingly low pay rate that I have to work with. But honestly: Who the hell could be serious about a job that pays only 30% of what it used to pay (and is only getting worse), while looking forward to what in a few months should be a weekly income that is equal to my current annual salary? It is literally the same as busting your ass at McDonald's while waiting for your lottery check to arrive. Well, I'm doing it.

Epril should be arriving in Tampa on December 13th. Then a week later we will be driving up the East Coast to my mother's house in New York for Christmas. After that, we hope to visit New York City and possibly Washington DC. After the New Year, hopefully the money will have finally arrived to fund a trip to Thailand (both business and pleasure). Then after that it will be back to Florida to work on setting up a place for Epril and I to live.

But, as I said: Every single detail of everything I have mentioned above is currently "up in the air"... and I haven't the foggiest idea when any of the details are going to finalize themselves. Quite literally, if you ask me where I'm going to be at any given point in the future, I could not make a single promise, assurance, or assertion based on the current circumstances of my life.

Alabama Immigration Law Applied To Wrong Alien

Apparently a police officer in Alabama didn't get the memo that the state's new immigration law is only to be applied to brown people with foreign accents: An executive of Mercedes Benz, visiting the local car factory his company operates there, was hauled off to jail after being unable to prove he was in the country legally at a roadside stop.

Obviously, the governor of Alabama was quite embarrassed and apologetic to the German auto company over the fact that the law actually was mistakenly applied to a respectable/white/desirable immigrant unable to immediately prove his legal status in Alabama on demand. (Fortunately, the Mercedes executive was released before the waterboarding was started, so no harm done.)

Happy Thanksgiving

William Shatner shows us why he has been, is, and will continue to be the coolest guy in Hollywood: Watch as he pours all his energy and creativity into a fun little PSA for State Farm Insurance warning about improper use of turkey fryers. Seriously: Can you imagine any other actor rising so high by stooping so low?



Happy Thanksgiving everybody. Don't set yourselves on fire.

Ghandi Knew All This

Throughout history, all around the world, if you ever needed to figure out which side of an issue the history books would eventually determine was the correct side of the issue to be on... it has always been on the side of the issue for which peacefully protesting, nonviolent people are pepper-sprayed, tasered, attack-dogged, fire-hosed, lynched, or murdered by law enforcement.

Seriously: Has there ever been a moment in modern history where state/official violence was unleased upon nonviolent protesters... and whatever it was that the protesters were protesting was eventually proven wrong? I can't think of any.

There should be a logical truism like Godwin's Law that states, "As soon as you can get the police to beat on you while you are engaging in nonviolent protest, you automatically win the protest."

A Republican-To-English Translation Aid

Heh.

• Liberal: A person who should be rounded up and shot but not really.
• Marxism: A political and economic philosophy developed by Karl Marx and promulgated by Paul Krugman.
• Media (Mainstream): Where you won't hear things.
• Medicare: A fraudulent, socialistic boondoggle that is sacrosanct.
• Mexicans: Brown people who have it coming.
• Mountaintops: Ancient rock formations that have it coming.
• Muslims: Brown people who have it coming.
• News: Fox News
• Obamacare: A Federally-mandated policy to address the national oversupply of grandparents through euthanasia.
• Organic: Eaten by lesbians.
• Party (Tea): A grass-roots movement of patriotic Americans fighting for the principle of "No Taxation With Representation."
• Poll: A survey used to determine, to within a margin of error, what percentage of Americans are right.
• Poverty: The condition of having inadequate financial or material resources due to not trying hard enough.
• Propaganda: The politically motivated dissemination of biased information, opinion, or data through its publication in the New York Times.
• Punishment (Capital): The legally authorized killing by the State of someone who is definitely guilty.
• Racism: A form of discrimination that typically happens in reverse.
• Regulation: Rules issued by a government agency for no reason.
• Ronald Reagan: A fictional character based loosely on President Ronald Reagan.
• Scientist: A person who employs a rigorous system of observation, experiment, measurement, and verification to perpetuate his Godless left-wing agenda.
• Social Security: A redistributionist Ponzi scheme that is sacrosanct.
• Socialism: An economic system invented by FDR.
• Taxes: Levies imposed by the government that raise more revenue the lower they are.
• Torture: A method of interrogation that does not rise to the level of torture.

More where that came from when you click on the link.

The 6 Lies About The Economy Republicans Tell

Kevin Drum at Mother Jones sums up 6 fundamental lies about the economy that are demonstrably false.

I'll force you to click on the link to see why and how they are false (mostly actual data, studies, and historical facts), but I will summarize them here:

LIE #1: The stimulus failed. SUMMARY: It was too little, too late, but the people's whose opinions actually matter all agree it stopped an economic disaster.  See "Mistake of 1937" for what not to do, and why we are repeating it.

LIE #2: The deficit is our biggest problem right now. SUMMARY: With T bond interest rates near 0%, trust in America's ability to pay debts has never been higher.  Long term, yes, it's a problem.  Short term, worry about the economy.

LIE #3: Lower taxes are the best way to grow the economy. SUMMARY: No historical correlation to prove that is the case.  Last time taxes were raised (under Clinton), economy surged ahead.  Last time taxes were cut (under Bush), economy stagnated.

LIE #4: Regulatory uncertainty is clogging the economy. SUMMARY: No business owner who was asked agreed with that fact.  And, current administration has not been active at all in ramping up regulations in the business sector anyway.

LIE #5: Obama is debasing the dollar. SUMMARY: "Printing money" had no effect on dollar value. Exchange rates prove that.  (And, we should wish the dollar value would collapse, because the value of American exports would increase.)

LIE #6: If you unshackle the rich, they'll rev up the economy. SUMMARY: Rich people are more rich now than ever before and corporate profits are at record levels, but they are waiting for economic improvement to invest in or expand their business ventures.

Self-Driving Cars Are Here... Quite Soon

Based on what I'm seeing in this video with Google's driverless car program, we should see the first self-driving cars in showrooms in 2 or 3 years. Their prototype cars have driven over 100,000 miles with not a single incident. (Okay, one human driver incident.)

It's a pretty geeky 15-minute video, but completely fascinating for anybody who has been waiting for a true self-driving car. (And, just because it needs to be said: This driving is done on today's roads... no special futuristic road construction to instruct the driverless cars or anything.)



What this means is that we are fast approaching the moment in time when you can get into your car, program the destination, and then sit back and relax (preferably with a foot near the brake pedal... just in case) with a good book, video, or conversation. (And, the moment in time will arrive shortly after that when the first ticket for "driving while sleeping" will be issued.)

What "The 99%" Is Trying To Say

Sometimes, you get an idea in your head that you cannot quite put into words. Then I read the "Open Letter To That 53% Guy", and it all suddenly became easy to explain.

The "53% Guy" is some otherwise-nameless young fellow who put up a picture of himself holding up a sign that said, "I am a former Marine. I work two jobs. I don’t have health insurance. I worked 60-70 hours a week for 8 years to pay my way through college. I haven’t had 4 consecutive days off in over 4 years. But I don’t blame Wall Street. Suck it up you whiners. I am the 53%. God bless the USA!"

In the open letter, the author finally stated what I had been trying to verbalize for a while:

Do you really want the bar set this high? Do you really want to live in a society where just getting by requires a person to hold down two jobs and work 60 to 70 hours a week? Is that your idea of the American Dream?

Look kid, I don’t want you to “get by” working two jobs and 60 to 70 hours a week. If you’re willing to put in that kind of effort, I want you to get rich. I want you to have a comprehensive healthcare plan. I want you vacationing in the Bahamas every couple of years, with your beautiful wife and healthy, happy kids. I want you rewarded for your hard work, and I want your exceptional effort to reap exceptional rewards. I want you to accumulate wealth and invest it in Wall Street. And I want you to make more money from those investments.

I understand that a prosperous America needs people with money to invest, and I’ve got no problem with that. All other things being equal, I want all the rich people to keep being rich. And clever financiers who find ways to get more money into the hands of promising entrepreneurs should be rewarded for their contributions as well.

I think Wall Street has an important job to do, I just don’t think they’ve been doing it. And I resent their sense of entitlement – their sense that they are special and deserve to be rewarded extravagantly even when they screw everything up.

Precisely.

The American middle class lifestyle is slowly being eroded away in order that our corporations become more profitable, more able to compete on the global stage. Look at my so-called "job" as a medical transcriptionist: I used to earn $40 an hour doing that work as recently as 5 years ago. Now, it pays less than half that. Why? For my company, it is because Indians can do my work more cheaply. Hospitals know this, and demand lower prices and force my company to slash wages, cut operating costs, and outsource work. In other areas of industry, skilled jobs and salaried positions are being replaced by semi-skilled or non-skilled hourly workers.  (Do you see an MD doctor when you for a health checkup these days, or a physician assistant... or a nurse practicioner?)   Other companies are streamlining production and improving efficiencies of workers without raising pay... or even paying them less (again, as with my company and its' "voice recognition" software).

Another quote from the "Open Letter":

Here’s how a liberal looks at it: a long time ago workers in this country realized that industrialization wasn’t making their lives better, but worse. The captains of industry were making a ton of money and living a merry life far away from the dirty, dangerous factories they owned, and far away from the even dirtier and more dangerous mines that fed raw materials to those factories.

The workers quickly decided that this arrangement didn’t work for them. If they were going to work as cogs in machines designed to build wealth for the Rockefellers, Vanderbilts and Carnegies, they wanted a cut. They wanted a share of the wealth that they were helping create. And that didn’t mean just more money; it meant a better quality of life. It meant reasonable hours and better working conditions.

We're going through something similar again: A new era of "improvements" in production whose benefits do not trickle down to the working class. It's generally unfair that this rising tide of technological know-how and improved production and management methods is decreasing prosperity, not increasing it.

And the question needs to be asked: Why make Wall Street the target of our anger? Did they cause this situation? Well, yes. They did. Another excellent thought regarding the anger directed at banks comes from a Washington Post opinion piece by Harold Meyerson:

Whence this fall — if not from grace (a state that few of us, and even fewer bankers, attain), then from the occasional decent opinion of humankind? At its root is the simple fact that the Wall Street banks over the past quarter-century have done none of the things that a financial sector should do. They have not helped preserve the thriving economy that America once enjoyed. They have not funded our boldest new companies. (That’s fallen to venture capitalists.) They haven’t provided the financing to maintain our infrastructure, nor ponied up the capital for manufacturing to modernize and grow here (as opposed to in China). Instead, they’ve grown fat on the credit they extended when Americans’ incomes stopped rising. They’ve grown plump on proprietary trading and by selling bad deals to suckers. (Citigroup, like Goldman before it, just agreed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to settle charges that it defrauded investors.)

The original J.P. Morgan was hardly a beloved figure. But in the course of attending to his business, he helped form the American economy. He consolidated railroads, cobbled together the companies that became U.S. Steel and General Electric. In pursuit of profit, he helped build the country. By no stretch of the imagination is that what today’s Wall Street is about. The country isn’t being built; no one’s been building it for the past 30 years. Wall Street’s interests are elsewhere, in realizing huge profits and bonuses for arbitrage and paper-swapping that has brought little but debt and ruin to the larger economy.

Again: Precisely. Remember back in the day when brokers and bankers invested in actual industries? Remember that other famous line from The Graduate? "One word: Plastics." Investors back then were all about emerging technologies and growing industries. Now everyone is involved in derivatives and futures and silly computer-generated everyone-wins investments that have no basis in the nuts-and-bolts reality of the business world. Now the only thing that attracts investors is proven and continued profit. Speculative investment in new areas has vanished. It's all just a game now among millionaires and billionaires — and politicians and CEOs — and the American middle class are disposable playing pieces.

And it was with that thought that I realized how to explain where we are at as a country:  The return of the industrial era, where 99% of the American population is nothing more than a factor of production that can be squeezed and manipulated and used with as little care and consideration as the law will allow.

To quote one more time from the above-mentioned Open Letter, the fellow writes, "[T]he commitment we’ve made to the working class since the 1940s is something that we should both support and be willing to fight for, whether we are liberal or conservative. We should both be willing to fight for the American Dream. And we should agree that anybody trying to steal that dream from us is to be resisted, not defended."

More Republican Hypocrisy From The Daily Show

John Stewart has some more fun, showing endless clips of Republican politicians urging Americans to "take to the streets", to "take our country back"... and then those same Republicans expressing concern about the Occupy Wall Street protests.

Deadly Indy Crash

It does not get any worse or impressive than this. Prayers to the family of British driver Dan Wheldon who died.