Yahoo! is my home page but it's ticking me off. You know about how United Air Lines got hammered becaue some insomniac looked at a year-old story about their bankruptcy, and Google's algorithms treated it as a "most-viewed story" because of the hour, leading to a "War of the Worlds"-like lemming panic.
I suspect the same thing is going on with Yahoo's "Most blogged" list on their home page. Almost all of the "most-blogged" stories are from a site called "hotair.com" which is a vile compendium of nastiness and libel thrown against anyone to the political left of Rush Limbaugh. Obviously, these guys have made it a point to spin out a bunch of self-serving blogs for the sole purpose of getting on lists like the Yahoo one.
Don' trust anything you read on the internet, including that advice.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Friday, October 17, 2008
Random Thoughts (in the Year of the Plague)
The Dow is all over the place, my modest stock portfolio has lost about a third of its value, and I'm down $3000 from what I put into it. The stocks that haven't lost me money are Borg Warner, Procter & Gamble, and Smucker's. We're putting new brakes on the old car, staying home to do laundry, and eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
I was actually hoping that the new austerity would bring some of the changes we dreamed about in the 70's but forgot about while raising kids, playing Mario, and refinancing mortgages. I voted early at a nearby library Monday, and was inspired to go to my own library and get a library card again for the first time in about 15 years. While the librarian was working on it I flipped through Mother Earth News and managed to recapture some of that 70's feeling. Maybe the whole country will go along... drive less, stay closer to home, grow or buy organic (melamine-free) food, play Scrabble and Parcheesi, play the banjo and fiddle, and put up a yurt instead of a double-wide filled with formaldehyde-laced fibreboard, when we can afford a vacation home. We'll rebuild some interurban railroads and bike more.
Then the stock market went up again the next day because oil prices were down and the governments of a lot of countries pumped a lot of manufactured cash into the economy. So nah, never mind about the organic life and living wisely (and maybe trying to forge a community). Get out the credit cards again, and gas up the Hummer for a trip to Disney World now that gas is heading back to three bucks a gallon.
Politics for a moment: Last night when I heard about the infamous "Joe the Plumber's" imperfections, all I (and probably a lot of other Chicagoans) could think of was the annoying commercial from a few years back, where a Chicagoese Regular Guy announcer (I think he sounded suspiciously like the mayor of Orland Park who managed to eliminate my department in 1995) warned us all:
"This man is not a licensed plumber!"
"It's your typical flamshooter. "
I love the term "flamshooter." Which is what I thought about McCain and the right-wing nutjobs like Newt Gingrich who pile on on his behalf. Telling us Obama is a socialist who wants to take your money so he can "spread your wealth" to other people. Probably minorities and those who want to push the "homosexual agenda," right? And who wants to waste breath on those tired old arguments about "partial birth abortion" these days, anyway?
Hey, Newt, I don't know about you, but I can think of a lot of CEO's whose wealth I want spread around, with a slice for me; since they ripped me off of my retirement investments. And you and Cheney owe me too, for letting it happen. That's not socialism, that's a small step toward righting the wrongs that have been done to us in the name of capitalism.
I just read a comment by one of the executives at Mesirow Financial who lamented the fact that (with Fannie and Freddie, most notably) we saw a pattern in the U.S economy of "privatizing profits and socializing losses." Which is obviously a very bad thing. So the arguments are not as simple as the McCain campaign would like the Average Joe to believe.
You know what I had a sudden chilling fear of today? I worry that some crazy person is going to try to take out one of the presidential candidates, and (given the tenor of the crowds lately, and things like the hate sign someone put up along a roadway in Illinois) I'm sure many, like me, would fear who that would more likely be. My daughter's boyfriend said he actually had a dream about the same thing. I'm sure other people are worried.
Anyway, I walked out of work and this sudden chill came over me that was reminiscent of 9/11/01, and of 1968. It felt surreal, because it was like a premonition. I sure hope nothing bad happens, and I hope the Secret Service is doing its job.
I was actually hoping that the new austerity would bring some of the changes we dreamed about in the 70's but forgot about while raising kids, playing Mario, and refinancing mortgages. I voted early at a nearby library Monday, and was inspired to go to my own library and get a library card again for the first time in about 15 years. While the librarian was working on it I flipped through Mother Earth News and managed to recapture some of that 70's feeling. Maybe the whole country will go along... drive less, stay closer to home, grow or buy organic (melamine-free) food, play Scrabble and Parcheesi, play the banjo and fiddle, and put up a yurt instead of a double-wide filled with formaldehyde-laced fibreboard, when we can afford a vacation home. We'll rebuild some interurban railroads and bike more.
Then the stock market went up again the next day because oil prices were down and the governments of a lot of countries pumped a lot of manufactured cash into the economy. So nah, never mind about the organic life and living wisely (and maybe trying to forge a community). Get out the credit cards again, and gas up the Hummer for a trip to Disney World now that gas is heading back to three bucks a gallon.
Politics for a moment: Last night when I heard about the infamous "Joe the Plumber's" imperfections, all I (and probably a lot of other Chicagoans) could think of was the annoying commercial from a few years back, where a Chicagoese Regular Guy announcer (I think he sounded suspiciously like the mayor of Orland Park who managed to eliminate my department in 1995) warned us all:
"This man is not a licensed plumber!"
"It's your typical flamshooter. "
I love the term "flamshooter." Which is what I thought about McCain and the right-wing nutjobs like Newt Gingrich who pile on on his behalf. Telling us Obama is a socialist who wants to take your money so he can "spread your wealth" to other people. Probably minorities and those who want to push the "homosexual agenda," right? And who wants to waste breath on those tired old arguments about "partial birth abortion" these days, anyway?
Hey, Newt, I don't know about you, but I can think of a lot of CEO's whose wealth I want spread around, with a slice for me; since they ripped me off of my retirement investments. And you and Cheney owe me too, for letting it happen. That's not socialism, that's a small step toward righting the wrongs that have been done to us in the name of capitalism.
I just read a comment by one of the executives at Mesirow Financial who lamented the fact that (with Fannie and Freddie, most notably) we saw a pattern in the U.S economy of "privatizing profits and socializing losses." Which is obviously a very bad thing. So the arguments are not as simple as the McCain campaign would like the Average Joe to believe.
You know what I had a sudden chilling fear of today? I worry that some crazy person is going to try to take out one of the presidential candidates, and (given the tenor of the crowds lately, and things like the hate sign someone put up along a roadway in Illinois) I'm sure many, like me, would fear who that would more likely be. My daughter's boyfriend said he actually had a dream about the same thing. I'm sure other people are worried.
Anyway, I walked out of work and this sudden chill came over me that was reminiscent of 9/11/01, and of 1968. It felt surreal, because it was like a premonition. I sure hope nothing bad happens, and I hope the Secret Service is doing its job.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)