My buddy at Signal 94 found this tid-bit in which even the amazing Alec Baldwin (wasn’t he gonna leave the country? Frankly, I’m glad he didn’t since he kills me on 30 Rock…) recognizes that the Democrats are just as much if not more to blame for our current CF in the markets.

Michelle Malkin once again is railing against government intervention in markets created and overseen by the government who are in crisis due to …. you guessed it, the government control of interest rates, financial regulation, the mortgage market, the tax system, international relations, trade treaties, and everything else that allows the free market to operate.

Naturally, of course, the “bail out” package didn’t result in an instant bull market rising 3000 pts today.

Of course, this is a sure sign that they shouldn’t be doing anything regarding the current crisis.

Is it just me, or are people who should know better just bloviating to hear themselves bloviate? Course, at least I’m willing to admit it. Those who are paid to scream from the rooftops will most likely decline to make such admissions.

I think not.

Recent reports that the Taliban are hoping to sit down with the Afghan government and try to work out a peace agreement, while breaking their ties to Al-Qaeda, sound like a giant load of horse-hooey to me.

Cafe Press is hopeful, however, and no doubt there will be lots of new Peace t-shirts and thongs sold on this wondrous news.

and I realized that most people who don’t understand Sarah Palin (or her husband) just don’t get how life is in places like Alaska, Montana, the Dakotas, etc. Posted a reply to a post there:

The problem with all of this Palin-bashing is a fundamental misunderstanding of what it’s like to live in a state like Alaska, the Dakotas, Montana, and the like.

Thinly populated, and dependent either on pure self-preservation or Washington largesse, the populations are often polarized into two big camps: Rugged individualists who are self-reliant and resent authority, or State socialists who wouldn’t be able to stay if it weren’t for the support of the taxpayers both of the state and the US.

This means, in their little playgrounds, that often wide variations occur in their parochial politics that results in things like the Independence Party, or the Constitutionalists and the so-called Militia of Montana.

Applying left-coast or East Coast standards to such places just doesn’t work — and at the same time, doesn’t invalidate the fact that there are talented political minds in such places.

Try taking a trip to one of these places some time. You’ll find that the people, as a whole, are wonderful, down to earth, and want exactly what everyone else does — good education, reasonable taxation, liberty, and effective public services.

Yeah, they have different ways of getting there, but that’s what they all want, just the same, both Right and Left.

Until you do, please, STFU about things you just don’t understand. Kthx.

– Henry

That’s rich.

According to the AP’s Douglass Daniel,

WASHINGTON (AP) - By claiming that Democrat Barack Obama is “palling around with terrorists” and doesn’t see the U.S. like other Americans, vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin targeted key goals for a faltering campaign.

And though she may have score a political hit each time, her attack was unsubstantiated and carried a racially tinged subtext that John McCain himself may come to regret.

Since when is calling Obama’s links (which are extensive and proven) to an unrepentant domestic terrorist carry a racial tinge? Because Obama is black?

We all know that the standard for racism has become: Criticism of a black man is by default racism.

We might as well just call the election now. Anything short of an Obama landslide will prove that the United States is a totally racist company. Let’s save a lot of money, effort, and actual voting, and just crown him now — so he can get started on parting the seas, healing the earth, and bringing peace and prosperity to the solar system.

I give up.

Sort of. Details are still murky, but it looks like Paulson and the Fed now have the tools to unfudge the credit markets. We hope.

In the meantime, the stock market has declined rapidly. What does this mean for investors?

In my opinion, unless you think that the End of the World is nigh, you should sit tight. Although your stocks and mutual funds and ETFs may be lagging what you paid for them, the underlying companies should be just as healthy as they were the week before, by and large. The Hartford didn’t become worth 33% less in one day just because some idiot who runs the majority in the Senate flapped his gums out of turn. Or maybe it did — but you surely don’t have any more than say 1-2% of your portfolio in that stock, right?

If you DO think the world is coming to an end, it’s not going to do you a lot of good to sell and lock in your losses at THIS point, so don’t. If we’re doomed, it’s not going to matter whether you have less money than you did before; after all, we’re doomed, right?

The main problem now with the markets is that typical investors are panicking — in the face of hedge funds selling into any rally that comes along as they try to unwind their tortuous positions. Don’t help them. Breath deep, hang tight, and remember that this economy is so much more incredibly huge, interconnected, and creative by it’s nature than anything they could have imagined in 1929.

and with no Federal intervention (except what the Feds can do themselves without authorization from our absolutely do nothing Congress).

At least my Congresscritter, McKeon, voted correctly today. Hopefully there will be a revote tonight or something and they will get their shi’ite together.

It’s amazing to me that so many of our so-called representatives no so little about how our financial system works (or doesn’t work) that they would be still playing politics with the situation.

Meanwhile, Ron Paul is sitting there railing about how we need “sound money” — while a LOT of his personal wealth is tied up in the very companies that would gain from a return to some sort of idiotic gold standard.

Talk about a conflict of interest.

Bill Clinton has once again shown the kind of statesmanship and class that he has occasionally exhibited throughout his “legacy building” phase after leaving office. Of course, he’s had his slips, but nothing like the idiotic rantings of fellow former President Jimmy Carter:

...Clinton told CNN’s “Larry King Live” on Wednesday that he doesn’t think “dumping” on McCain or his running mate, Sarah Palin, is a winning strategy. He said undecided voters aren’t interested in attacks but solutions for the problems they face.

“I just don’t believe that getting up here and hyperventilating about Gov. Palin, or Sen. McCain for that matter, is a productive use of a former president’s time and is not a vote-getter,” he said, adding that he admires McCain even though he disagrees with several of his positions.

Although I rarely have ever said anything good about the former President, I’m happy he’s taking this approach this time around.

And was told that I was the ONLY person who had called who was in favor of the so-called “bail out” of the mortgage mess.

I was told a number of other things, as well, including that Buck McKeon (that’s my Congressman) wanted to make sure this, that, and the other was either in the bill or not in the bill; he wasn’t sure whether he was for it or agin’ it; hemming and hawing so fast that I actually started to feel sorry for the noob staffer who had the unfortunate job of fielding my call.

When I asked whether the Congressman had voted for or against the USA PATRIOT ACT, the staffer couldn’t tell me (he’d only been there for a couple of months). That Act was widely believed to be unreviewed, undebated, and not understood by virtually every member of Congress. It was introduced on October 23, 2001, and signed into law by the President on October 26, 2001. Talk about a whirlwind.

For the record, Congressman McKeon voted yes. I’m sure he read the bill, and suffered mightily over the details contained in this 342 page bill.

NOW, however, we need to spend all our time fiddle-farting around while Rome burns when some of the smartest minds in the country are insisting that time is of the essence and that this bill needs passage as soon as possible.

Okay.

Look, folks.

It’s time for the politicians to stop blaming each other. It’s time for them to stop blaming the executives on Wall Street. It’s time to look at who’s really to blame for the current credit mess we’re in: People who borrow.

Easy interest rates, and easy credit given out in a well-meaning effort to have more home-ownership in this country fueled a massive rise in home asset prices — which in turn funded home equity loans that a lot of people took out.

In other words, a LOT of people in the US, Europe and elsewhere took advantage of the boom — and now that asset prices are down, and a small number of people who shouldn’t have gotten the loans in the first place started to default, prices came down even more — causing a cascading effect.

So is it the taxpayers bailing out Wall Street? Or are we in effect, bailing OURSELVES out of this crisis?

Will this cost anywhere near what the pundits and politicians are telling us? Probably not. After all, the loans are liens against property. Properly managed over time, these assets will regain value, and the paper will be worth much more than the “taxpayers” are paying for them from the companies that hold them now.

So call your Congresscritter, tell him or her to put a sock in it, and vote for the plan. The sooner we restore some confidence in the markets, and stop this endless cycle of blaming everyone under the sun but doing nothing, the better.

NB: No, I’m not against modifying the bill — but loading it down with other stuff is just not right. Limit the amount of money to $200-300 bn; put limits on bailed-out-executives bonus/pay, put a co-consul in with Paulson to oversee this, that’s all fine. Just DO it already. — HJ

Yes, that’s right, we’re ramping up to get back in the game.

We’re going to be revamping our theme (you may catch us in the act of testing from time to time).

We’re revamping our subject matter –to a more pointed look at how truly diminished our capacity for rational thought, expression and behavior has become.

There you go.

Careful you don’t get a ticket in Italy:

ROME (Reuters) - An Italian court has ruled the government must pay 100,000 euros ($157,700) in damages to a man who was told to retake a driving test because he was homosexual.

When 26 year-old Danilo Giuffrida told doctors he was gay at his medical examination for military service, they passed the information to the transport ministry, who told him he must repeat his driving test or have his license withdrawn due to his “sexual identity disturbance.”

Giuffrida agreed to re-take his test, passed it for a second time, but the ministry renewed his license for just one year rather than the usual 10 years because of his homosexuality.

’nuff said.

Don’t go dying in Bordeaux, you WILL be punished.

BORDEAUX, France (Reuters) - The mayor of a village in southwest France has threatened residents with severe punishment if they die, because there is no room left in the overcrowded cemetery to bury them.

Don’t you just hate it when you find out that that multimillion dollar bank account doesn’t really belong to you, after all?

NEW YORK (AP) - A defense attorney in New York City says her client believed he was rightfully entitled to the $2 million he’s accused of stealing from a bank account managed by someone with the same name. Attorney Julie Fry says Benjamin Lovell “didn’t intend to steal from anyone.” She says he’ll explain in court what the bank told him that led him to believe the $5.8 million account was his.

The 48-year-old Brooklyn salesman has been arrested on grand larceny charges. A judge lowered his bail Friday from $1 million to $10,000 in cash.

Authorities say Lovell spent the misbegotten money on jewelry, cash gifts to friends and failed investments.

The account belonged to a trust, and a different Benjamin Lovell was a signatory on it.

This reporter recently received the following email:

Dear Henry:

I don’t know what to do with this information, but I think it’s very important that the people of America know the truth: I am Barack Obama’s secret love child. My mother had a “fling” with Barack in the early ’80’s, and came away pregnant. Unfortunately, my father refuses to acknowledge my existence as his child, even though I’m working for his campaign in New York. Dad even refused to take a paternity test, so there’s really nothing I can do.

What should I do? Do you think the New York Times would print my story, even though I have no proof of my allegation?

Your advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Barack “Baba” O’Reilly

Dear Baba,

I really don’t know what to tell you. There’s a good chance that the New York Times will print the story, you should at least give it a try.

Police in the western Czech border town of Cheb have launched an investigation into the theft of a four-tonne railway bridge. “We are not sure if it was taken for personal use or for its scrap value,” police spokeswoman Martina Hruskova told AFP. “It is the first time we have dealt with this type of theft.”

For this brilliant idea — I’m sure the American pleasure Nazis will be able to enhance and implement it in all aspects of our lives. Great.

Smokers could be forced to pay £10 for a permit to buy tobacco if a government health advisory body gets its way.

No one would be able to buy cigarettes without the permit, under the idea proposed by Health England.

In an effort to forstall harsh treatment of our citizens by other powers, including terrorist organizations accustomed to sawing people’s heads off with rusty kitchen knifes, the Senate today set a new standard for absolute idiocy:

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate voted Wednesdy to prohibit the CIA from using waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods on terror suspects despite President Bush’s threat to veto any measure that limits the agency’s interrogation techniques.

The prohibition was contained in a bill authorizing intelligence activities for the current year. The bill would restrict the CIA to the 19 interrogation techniques outlined in the Army field manual. That manual prohibits waterboarding, a method that makes an interrogation subject feel he is drowning. The bill passed on a 51-45 vote.

Apparently, the 19 interrogation techniques also don’t include speaking harshly, interrupting naps, or taking away prisoner’s cable TV. Human rights activists, and other liberal idiots, rejoice.

Awww shucks, this is terrible! An illegal alien advocating the annexation of California, Texas, Arizona and New Mexico back into Mexico (or worse, as it’s own independent Chicano state) was arrested by the immigration authorities.

I just hate it when the Feds actually do their jobs, don’t you?

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has arrested the President of MEChA at Palomar College in San Marcos, California. The 22 year old student, Paola Oropeza, was accused of being in the USA illegally. Also arrested was her father Guillermo Oropeza, her mother María de Jesus Oropeza, and her older sister Claudia Oropeza.

MEChA or Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan is a student group with chapters in many high schools, colleges and universities that promotes Mexican culture and history. MEChA also promotes higher education among Chicano youths. The organization has been under constant attack by USA xenophobes, racists and bigots because the student organization also promotes ethnic pride.

Lauren Mack, a spokeswoman for ICE in San Diego said that Paola, Guillermo and María de Jesus have been deported to Mexico but that Claudia is presently incarcerated at a federal facility.

The arrest of Paola Oropeza, an exemplary college student and pro-immigrant activist, signals that ICE may now be targeting MEChA and its leadership. This is a warning sign to other MEChA Chapters throughout Aztlan.

The San Diego area has seen a series of escalating and hostile actions by ICE and the US Border Patrol. Yesterday, the three major Mexican political parties strongly condemned the launching into Mexican territory of noxious chemical gas canisters by the US Border Patrol. The gas canisters have been launched across the border into Tijuana neighborhoods on several occasions and have injured Mexican civilians including school children.

Imagine the surprise one might have, sitting on the throne, reading the Economist, when suddenly…

FRANKENMUTH — Maintenance of city sewer lines is causing quick bursts of water to splash out of residents’ toilets. The problem has affected about 20 of Frankenmuth’s 1,200 households.

“It’s just real strange,” City Manager Charles Graham told The Saginaw News for a story Friday.

The maintenance usually causes only mild gurgling, Graham said. But in some homes, water has burst onto walls and floors in the city 70 miles north of Detroit.

WATER bursting onto walls? Just water? Ha.

a house to a prospective buyer. You never know what might pop out at you…

LONDON (Reuters) - An estate agent who took a prospective buyer to view a house in central England found the owner hanging dead in a closet, the agency said Thursday.

First, my man Thompson ends his “electoral vacation trip”, finally putting an end to the farce that was his non-campaign, and breaking my heart, just a little. Now, Mitt Romney has thrown in the towel, leaving the GOP race to McCain — a man who will probably bring back the “fairness doctrine” that his alleged ideological father did away with, who will probably grant amnesty to millions of lawbreaking folks, who will probably do away with the already-meager Bush tax cuts and bring back the death tax, and …. ack. OK, breathe. Oh, and then there’s Huckabee, a man who called the conservatives in HIS legislature “Shi’ite Republicans” because they stood up, a little, to his massive tax hikes and spending increases and in-state tuition for lawbreakers, etc., etc.

Against the backdrop of John McCain running for the GOP, we have the spectre of either the corrupt and insatiably ambitious Hillary Clinton, or the empty-suited Barack Obama — both of whom have insisted that we need to retreat inside our shell when it comes to protecting ourselves from global islamofascism; both insist on socialized health care, massive regulation of industry as well as our personal lives to fight some alleged “global warming crisis”, etc. etc.

After re-reading Barbara Olson’s Hell to Pay, I can’t even come close to voting for Hillary; Obama would be highly amusing as our President, at least for the first couple months, but it’s just too important a job to leave to either Larry OR Curly. Unfortunately, Moe is my only choice.

So I guess I’ll sign on as a McCainiac, and hope, as expressed earlier, that he’ll choose a real Republican as a running mate to placate those of us for whom RINO was not the idea when we signed up with the Grand Old Party.

Apparently, in her 35 years of non-stop public service, Bill and Hillary have accumulated a fortune! I never realized that “fighting for the children” paid so well!

Senator Hillary Clinton confirmed at a press conference in Virginia this afternoon that she’d loaned her campaign $5 million, and said, “The results last night proved the wisdom of my investment..”

Spokesman Howard Wolfson emailed with the news minutes earlier:

Late last month Senator Clinton loaned her campaign $5 million.The loan illustrates Sen. Clinton’s commitment to this effort and to ensuring that our campaign has the resources it needs to compete and win across this nation. We have had one of our best fundraising efforts ever on the web stoday and our Super Tuesday victories will only help in bringing more support for her candidacy.

As I reported earlier, she’s drawing on a pool of personal wealth estimated to be as much as $41 million, as well as a reported payout to Bill Clinton of $20 million from the Los Angeles billionaire manager Ron Burkle.

I feel a little better now, although I’m pretty sure that “my guy” won’t be the GOP nominee in the end. I can only hope that McCain has the good sense to forget his hot-headedness to realize that Romney would make the best VP candidate.

I’m thinking of renaming my blog. Not after a religious figure, but after a teddy bear. Watcha think?

I have to say, I’m sorely disappointed by the campaign so far of Fred Thompson — seems to me that he’s repeatedly allowed the media portray him as not really interested, engaged, or fired up about the prospect of becoming President. Is this the case, in fact, or is it just a hatchet job? I’d love to hear what you think about this.

So my question is, was there a peephole in the shower or what?

ROCHESTER — A man clad in swim trunks was arrested after riding a bicycle through a motel’s hallways and hitting two men. A woman showering after using the swimming pool at Best Western Soldiers Field Tower and Suites told police she heard a door open and saw a naked man at about 3:10 p.m. Sunday.

The man ran out of the room, pulled on swim trunks, hopped on a bike and road through the hallways, police said.

Police Lt. John Edwards said the man, 38, hit another man, 76, and his son, both of whom suffered minor injuries.

The son chased the bicyclist, tackled him and waited for police to arrive, Edwards said.

Charges against the man were pending Monday, police said.

… now, they’re making hair-bands out of used condoms…