Well, it's Tuesday in America, and every bit of news we're hearing is good, good, good. Well, as long as the only news you read is that George Takai of Star Trek fame at 71 finally getting to marry to his long time boyfriend. Oh, and TRL is ending, effectively reducing the total time of actual music on MTV to two hours of rap between 2 and 4 AM. If you read any other stories however, it's gloom and doom.
Yes, the good old US of A is now in a financial crisis of epic proportions. They're even suggesting that we might go into a recession. Now I'm not an economist, and I'm not sure at what point we get to call something a recession, but I'm pretty sure that an all time high unemployment rate probably qualified us for the title a while ago.
What's heartbreaking is that this isn't the most frustrating thing going on right now for me. No, for me it's all about the presidential campaign, and the sad thing that it has become. See, I keep making the mistake that people are essentially good, and honest. I also try to think of the majority of people as somewhat intelligent. I know we're not a nation of Einsteins, but I like to think of us as reasonable anyway.
Unfortunately, as is often the case, politics has proven me wrong. The people running the presidential campaigns have once again resorted to stretching the truth so far it makes taffy seem like a solid base by comparison. What's really awful is that's the group that seems to be taking "the high road", like both campaigns promised they were going to do. The other campaign is outright lying about various topics. In just a handful of weeks, I have to go vote for one of these people, and while I still believe that one is clearly a better choice than the other, I can't say I'm as enthusiastic as I was before.
What really breaks my heart is that it works. Last night on CNN, there was in interview with an expert who was explaining how much you could lie before you got in trouble and it backfired. He explained it completely scientifically, with no judgment one way or another. See, I couldn't do that. I would have to wrap up the conversation with something like, "Of course, after they do win they'll have to wake up in the morning every day knowing that they only achieved this goal by deceiving the very people they've sworn to protect, a knowledge that will hopefully eat away at them from the inside until there's nothing left but an empty shell of a person wrapped around their crooked, black soul, a despicable creature who spends each day longing for the sweet release that death will bring". I'm not real scientific like that.
Anyway, I'm going to do my best to ignore all of this. It's the system, and for better or worse it's what we're stuck with. I'm going to assume that the market will eventually right itself, preferably before we end up in a post-apocalyptic, Mad Max style civilization (which I'm completely prepared for having played both Fallout and Fallout 2). I'm going to continue hovering around FactCheck.org and making sure that at least I know the truth behind the stupid advertisements and e-mail campaigns. Worst of all, I'm going to go on assuming that most people prefer to educate themselves on these things by doing their own research on not believing whatever their party or some douche bag pundit says on the television. This is especially true when it comes our loyal readers here at DLOG.
You better not let me down, dammit.
Yes, the good old US of A is now in a financial crisis of epic proportions. They're even suggesting that we might go into a recession. Now I'm not an economist, and I'm not sure at what point we get to call something a recession, but I'm pretty sure that an all time high unemployment rate probably qualified us for the title a while ago.
What's heartbreaking is that this isn't the most frustrating thing going on right now for me. No, for me it's all about the presidential campaign, and the sad thing that it has become. See, I keep making the mistake that people are essentially good, and honest. I also try to think of the majority of people as somewhat intelligent. I know we're not a nation of Einsteins, but I like to think of us as reasonable anyway.
Unfortunately, as is often the case, politics has proven me wrong. The people running the presidential campaigns have once again resorted to stretching the truth so far it makes taffy seem like a solid base by comparison. What's really awful is that's the group that seems to be taking "the high road", like both campaigns promised they were going to do. The other campaign is outright lying about various topics. In just a handful of weeks, I have to go vote for one of these people, and while I still believe that one is clearly a better choice than the other, I can't say I'm as enthusiastic as I was before.
What really breaks my heart is that it works. Last night on CNN, there was in interview with an expert who was explaining how much you could lie before you got in trouble and it backfired. He explained it completely scientifically, with no judgment one way or another. See, I couldn't do that. I would have to wrap up the conversation with something like, "Of course, after they do win they'll have to wake up in the morning every day knowing that they only achieved this goal by deceiving the very people they've sworn to protect, a knowledge that will hopefully eat away at them from the inside until there's nothing left but an empty shell of a person wrapped around their crooked, black soul, a despicable creature who spends each day longing for the sweet release that death will bring". I'm not real scientific like that.
Anyway, I'm going to do my best to ignore all of this. It's the system, and for better or worse it's what we're stuck with. I'm going to assume that the market will eventually right itself, preferably before we end up in a post-apocalyptic, Mad Max style civilization (which I'm completely prepared for having played both Fallout and Fallout 2). I'm going to continue hovering around FactCheck.org and making sure that at least I know the truth behind the stupid advertisements and e-mail campaigns. Worst of all, I'm going to go on assuming that most people prefer to educate themselves on these things by doing their own research on not believing whatever their party or some douche bag pundit says on the television. This is especially true when it comes our loyal readers here at DLOG.
You better not let me down, dammit.
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