Posts from — June 2008

Who says the Swedish don’t have a sense of humor?  “After much deliberating, port officials remained stumped as to the precise set of rules governing the temporary import of two asses to Sweden from another EU member state.”

You have to wonder how much money and time was spent trying to figure out this travelers paperwork. Beaucracy rules!

Obama’s stance on “unconditional” negotiations with Iran is not making the democratic nominee any friends in Europe.  Obama has already backed off his initial statements early in the campaign cycle when he accounced, “that he’d seek unconditional talks with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Later, he changed that to talks with “appropriate Iranian leaders” and tried to skirt the “unconditional” bit of his pledge by saying that some “preparatory work” might be needed before he’d sit with an Iranian interlocutor.”

Obama’s impulsive foreign policy stance with Iran is having the effect of pulling the proverbial rug out from under the feet of the European leaders who have been working with the current administration to put up a unified front against Iran’s goals enriching uranium.  Obama’s bold stance of “dropping a unanimous Security Council condition would simply be interpreted by Iran and America’s allies as unconditional surrender and America’s friends would view this as confirmation of America’s basic unreliability,” Heisbourg, one of Europe’s leading strategic analysts, told The Washington Post - “a hell of a way to start a presidential term.”

So is this another issue that Obama will flip flop on or will he stay the course?  Going it alone has obviously proven disasterous for the Bush Administration which is why after several years of failing in foreign policy arena, with “rogue” nations, they decided to work with our allies and achieve a consesus before moving forward.  If Obama becomes President I hope he does the same.

Is going out on our own, alone, the kind of “Change” we’d “Hoped” for? 

OPEC President and Algerian Oil Minister Chakib Khelilpredicted that the price of oil will climb to $170 a barrel before the end of the year, citing the dollar’s decline and political conflicts.  WTF are “political conflicts.” Maybe we should be making more of a “political conflict” with Algeria.  I mean we’ve done so well with that foreign policy in Iraq why not?

“Oil prices are expected to reach $170 as demand for fuel is growing in the U.S. during the summer period and the dollar continues to weaken against the euro,” Khelil said today in a telephone interview. The leader of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries also serves as Algeria’s oil minister.”

Maybe we should look at alternatives to fuel rather than $2.99 gas guarantee or pumping new oil reserves off our coasts.  I’m all for exploring and mining new oil in a environmentally conscious manner but let’s say we start drilling off our coasts tomorrow it will take years before we see even a negligible difference in price at the pump.

I mean how cool does this look?

According to Variety the median age for TV viewers is now 50 plus, just falling out of the 18-49 year old range.  This figures TV sucks.  I feel like I am the only one DVR’ing Seinfeld, Family Guy, Daily Show, South Park and the occasional Office and 30 Rock.

The major networks are littered with crap shows like: Battlestar Galactica, CSI Miami, Cold Case, SwingTown, America’s Got Talent, Nashville Star, Law & Order for every major metropolitan area, and just about anything on ABC reeks of suck. 

Fox takes sort of a different marketing approach with their shows.  I like to call it questions: “Are You Smarter Then a 5th Grader?” or “So You Think You Can Dance?” FOX also likes to keep it simple and familiar for the older generation with one word shows like “House” or “Bones;” two words the older crowd is very familiar with as they spend all day in their “Houses” worrying about their brittle “Bones” over a glass of Ensure.

I’m sorry Two and Half Men is about half a dude and a few women short of being decent and the only thing The Bill Engvalwhatever Show has going for it is the wife from So I Married An Axe Murder. 

We need new shows.  This is MADNESS!

The International Monetary Fund said Tuesday that financial losses stemming from the U.S. mortgage crisis might approach $1 trillion, citing a “collective failure” to predict the breadth of the crisis.  In other words the US economy is still in big trouble. IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn noted that, “total losses, including the securities tied to commercial real estate and loans to consumers and companies, may reach $945 billion.”  That kind of sucks.

This is a rather alarming financial report about the alleged and impending US financial “crisis.”  It’s no secret that so goes the US economy so goes the worlds.  It’s within the best interest of all, well mostly all, nations that the US economy does well and continues a predictable steady growth.  Following that point the IMF said that, ”further downward pressure on the dollar, particularly if it comes from sub prime or similar shocks, could boost liquidity and lead to an intensification of inflationary pressures in some emerging markets.” 

Add this to the skyrocketing price of commodities and the outlook is gloomy.

The IMF concluded their report saying that, “there was a collective failure to appreciate the extent of leverage taken on by a wide range of institutions - banks, monoline insurers, government-sponsored entities, hedge funds - and the associated risks of a disorderly unwinding,” we’re in bigger trouble than we think.