It's been nearly a year, so where do I begin

I'll first begin by saying that I have thought about the Rat often over the year but I just can't seem to get my act together. Where do I start this rant? I'll begin by listing a few of my favorite things: the Mac, the state of US politics, the markets, the US economy, the Helsinki protocol, and female ejaculations.

I love the Mac. I finally bought one this winter after only really using a PC. The Mac is pure elegance and intuitive design. The OS is completely superior and one has to love and appreciate the design and attention to detail on the hardware. Also the big complaint with Mac is that there aren't enough programs. While I would concede that on a few points, for the most part there is everything that one needs. I'll expound on the virtues of the Mac in a later Mac-only blog.

The republican party is getting worser and worser over the last 11 months. They won the Nov election and many a person has considered fleeing to Canada, Australian, and NZ. Maybe a little over- reacting but maybe not. The pres. thinks he has this great mandate and all these pundits have piled on the mandate and political capital bandwagon but really, where's the mandate? I mean the guy won by about 20 electoral votes and just a couple percentage points on the popular vote. By the way, I don't believe or trust the new electronic voting methods. I used one in FL but who knows what monkey business can go on. Speaking of elections, this year's FL was OH. This time the repubs didn't want to wait for the courts so they just prevented a bunch of urban voters from making it to the booths. The smugness of victory of these repubs is enough to make me vomit. Anyway I won't hash out the rants of my pre election thoughts, except suffice to say that the Pres is an idiot and bankrupting every aspect of country and most of the people deserve what they are getting because they reelected the moron.

Since then: we have the Republican Congress and President getting involved in the Schiavo case, which is clearly a state matter; a quest to overhaul Soc Sec, which I think is overall a good thing except that of course with Bush you can't trust anything he does. All private accounts will do is expand the deficit and allow the money management industry a new revenue track. If the president and congress really wanted to fix the solvency problem, they would do the following: set up the accounting of the "fund" separately - this would make the currents budgets honest because currently the quoted budget deficit includes FICA receipts as revenue so the deficit is understated, and then utilize a mix of stock's and bonds and alternative investments to increase the investment performance. 50 states do this and most countries, but for some reason we have chosen not to. Now that said, the private account idea is not a bad one, it's just that given our current deficits and what this admin has done in Iraq and with Medicare, I don't trust anything about it.

BTW Iraq is a never ending mess that we will not be getting out if anytime soon. There may or may not be a democracy there in 10 years, but there was never any WMD and that was the excuse given for war. Our troops our seriously under trained (I was in the Nasty Guard and if we are using the troops that I worked with, it's no wonder the insurgents are doing so well).

The markets: I don't know so I won't comment. I think in general a safer mix is incorporating global securities into the mix. Those of you who know me will conclude the following: this is more an indictment of what I think of the future state of the US economy rather than any new found belief in other countries' economies.

I think our economy is not doing well. The weak dollar is not a good thing; the deficit and the debt are not good things; our schools blow; we are debating whether evolution is a fact or creationism (intelligent design is the euphemism du jour), we have the pres basically dismissing science in favor of religious cockamamie; and in our quest for "homeland security" we have taken our eye of the global competitiveness ball. It's all in the quest for Bush and Cheney and their friends to amass more lucre.

Before I forget, I love Bush's comments about frustration w/ high gas prices: "I have asked Congress for an Energy Bill" Well his idea of a bill is one in which more oil pumped out of the ground and nothing is done about consumption. But the thing with Bush is, he may speak the words but that absolutely means the actions won't follow, and in fact the opposite will happen. Cynicism at its highest point. Western civilization in general and our country in particular is completely dependent on oil and we need to eliminate it completely. Using oil is enriching and empowering the most corrupt and dangerous parts of the world: the Middle East, Nigeria, Venezuela, Russia, Texas, etc.

Okay I'll quickly get to the last two points: first Helsinki Protocol. This is a protocol I have established to govern dropped cellphone calls. If a call is dropped, whoever made the original call should redial. This solves the uncertainty around calling back and repeatedly going into voicemail. Why Helsinki? Because I wanted to name if after a city to sound legit, and since Helsinki or Finland is closely associated with cellphones in general (and Nokia in particular) I chose Helsinki. My idea, my protocol, my choice.

Next female ejaculation. I really don't want to go into it here because I don't have any video exhibits, but you just got to see it to believe it! A 10.