Justification?

Now, I'm no fan of John McCain or the Republican party, despite the fact that I re-registered as a republican to try to get Ron Paul further in the election process. Still, a New York Times headline caught my eye today:

'Drawing a sharp distinction with the Democratic presidential candidates, Senator John McCain, warned Tuesday against hasty government action to solve the mortgage crisis, saying “it is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they are big banks or small borrowers.”'

So now I have a serious dilemma. I mean, I really don't like this guy's stance on gay rights, which I consider to be civil rights equal to race and gender. I hate this guy's stance on the war. I really dislike the fact that he used to state that the rich of this country need to pay their fair share but has stepped back from this perspective. But I love his economic principles.

What to do, what to do?

Throwing in my non-endorsement...

If she ever had a chance at winning my vote, Hilary Clinton just lost it.

She's proposing that the government spend $30 billion to shore up the home mortgage crisis.

The only thing she could possibly mean by throwing a figure like $30 billion out there is that the government would foot the bill for some of the consumers who bought mortgages that they can no longer afford. Now, I'm sure that she intends to only pay the difference, the amount that these people can't afford to pay, not the full amount.

Still. I can afford my mortgage. I made certain that I got a mortgage at terms that I could afford. When it looked like I was going to have trouble making ends meet, I changed my game plan so that I could definitely afford it.

Why should someone like me subsidize the rest of the folks who were irresponsible? The ones who got suckered into crappy mortgages (by not reading or understanding the terms)? The ones who knew they were biting off more than they could probably chew?

I shouldn't have to pay a penny to help these people out. I did things the honest way and for me to then have any of my tax money committed to getting people who weren't so observant regarding their own finances out of the mess they're in is wrong.

So, Hilary. You probably didn't lose a vote, today, because I probably wasn't going to vote for you anyway, however if it now comes down to you versus McCain, I'll write in Kucinich again.

And, for the record, if any public funds get directed toward bailing out the irresponsible borrowers without just compensation to me for being a responsible borrower, I will not pay taxes to this country again.


Now, there is a big, looming problem, here. A bunch of lenders screwed over a bunch of borrowers and then bundled the crappy loans together and sold them off to someone else. The purchasers of these loans (not the borrowers) also got screwed. But you know what? Caveat emptor, buddy! You don't know what you're buying when you pay out the cash for something, you get the burden you deserve.

The only intervention that our government should make is a retroactive stipulation that there can be no pre-payment penalties on mortgages. If people want to refinance their loans, they should be able to. If they bought their house when it was at its highest value and they've got a 20% gap, let them wait ten years for the gap to disappear before they sell. If they can't afford the mortgage in the meantime, let them refinance or declare bankruptcy.

But whatever you do, don't ask me for money.


Edit: It appears that Obama also committed money, $10 billion, to shoring up the mortgage crisis. Looks like I won't be voting Democratic this year.

4,000!!!

Half of me wants to write a post about how exciting it is to count up to a number so high... I mean, geez! 4,000! That's a big number for some things. Like career hits or RBIs. Or maybe the number of days since ... something ... happened in April 1997. Or maybe the final announced height of the Burj Dubai.

But no. 4,000 is nothing to be excited about. At least, not in that way.

There've been 4,000 recorded "coalition" fatalities in Iraq, now. In just over five years. That's basically two soldiers every day with an extra one thrown in each week. For five years.

So maybe this is something to get excited about, but not in a good way. Maybe we Americans really need to be irate with our government for the sheer stupidity of invading Iraq.


On September 11th, 2001, 19 men hijacked airplanes and flew them into U.S. landmarks. On that day, 3,017 people died as a direct result of the hijackings.


In the months following this tragic event, the executive branch of our government hijacked the entire country, manipulating the U.S. Constitution in ways that left everyone else powerless to stop it. During the five years that followed, 4,000 Americans died as a direct result of the hijacking.


And lord know how many Iraqis have died. It's not like the American deaths are any more tragic than the Iraqi deaths. It's just a matter of perspective. I talk about tragic American deaths because I'm an American and the military keeps count of such things. Who's counting Iraqi deaths?


Well, there are a few groups counting Iraqi deaths and the deaths of security forces and of contractors, etc. The estimate posted in Wikipedia is that as of August 2007, there were 1,033,000 deaths resulting from the U.S. invasion of Iraq.


So. 4,000 surely is nothing to be proud of, but it does get me excited. Especially when you realize that the 4,000 represents only a few tenths of a percent of the fatalities in Iraq.


We need to take this country back!

Crushes

I ponder whether anyone is actually reading this journal. Not that it matters to me, really; I'd post anyway even if no one really was reading it, because this journal is kept for me. It's a place to collect and record my thoughts and I plan to re-read every single entry one day when I'm old and gray and know that I'm nearing the end of my life.

Tonight, however, I'm writing one of those journal entires where I actually do wish people were reading and responding to my journal, because I'm posting about an observation I've made and I'd like to know if other people experience the same phenomenon.


Crushes. When I was growing up, I got crushes on people. Lots of people, actually. And when I met Heather, I had an instant crush. Things worked out, we're married, and we're happy together. Eight years on, and I have no desire to leave her, in fact I often think about just how wonderful she is and how glad I am that I found her.

But I still get crushes. I have a desire to spend time with certain people, to get to know them, to share my thoughts with them, to help them. The feeling is identical to the feeling I got when I was young. I had figured that these crushes were a psychological thing and that they'd either go away when I got married. Obviously, they haven't. My most recent crush, however, has left me puzzled...

She's so wrong for me. In almost every way she's wrong, and I know it. If I actually had a choice, I wouldn't pick this girl to have a crush on. And yet... there it is; I look to see if she's on-line when I am, and when she is I excitedly say hello. It's pretty much left at that; I'll never confess my crush nor will I act on it beyond having a casual conversation. I'm faithful to Heather. I'm faithful to Rozz.

So, knowing this, I wonder if perhaps my crush isn't psychological at all, but perhaps it's physiological. Perhaps it has to do with pheromones. Perhaps there is something physical which causes two people to be interested in each other, and even when those people have found their perfect partner they'll keep feeling that physical pull toward other people.

Taking it a step further, perhaps cheating happens only when that physical pull is felt and the individuals choose not to hold back and don't recognize that the feeling they have is something else.

So there we are. I have a crush. It's dumb. But I don't have control over having crushes, I just have control over how I act.

Temper and Temperance...

If you're new to my journal, you'll need to know, and you're soon to discover, that I'm very open and honest. I'm not ashamed of my flaws, per se. They're part of me, and they're things that I work on. This post is about my temper.

On two different occasions, today, I got upset with Heather and so I raised my voice. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I was yelling, but it was clear that I'd gotten angry and that I was using my anger to communicate something to Heather. In front of Raziel, my two-and-a-half year old son.

Raziel is an amazing child, though. He said, loudly enough for me to hear, "Daddy, daddy, daddy! Don't be angry!" each time. It's just what I need, just what I've begged Heather to do. To remind me that I don't need to communicate with anger (because I forget this when I get angry). Instantly, I began communicating normally again, telling Rozz that it was all okay and thanking him for reminding me. And then explaining to Heather what I was angry about.

I'm a very luck man. I've got a feeling that Rozz is going to grow up to truly be someone special. I know that all parents think this. We'll see; I've got a few years of teaching/training/providing him yet to go...