70 Executions In 10 Days, Mexico Is Not A Violent Place…

Ignore the drug cartels and their wars. Mexico is not a violent place at all, and those Mexican tourism ads that paint a pretty picture are more like the real Mexico.

Unfortunately, the 70 gruesome executions over the past 10 days in Tijuana make lies out of the ads.

Mexico really can’t come up with a convincing slogan unless, perhaps, they try: “Come to Mexico. It’s not like the government has collapsed. Yet.”

Cleanliness Is Next To Godliness So Here Is A Glimpse Of Heaven

What red-blooded American male wouldn’t want to get his deification on among these beauties?

[Well, besides me, because there's only one woman on my mind, and she knows who she is...]

COED Magazine’s Bikini Car Wash Girls

Fed Buys Short Term Debt, Cost Of American Ass Goes Up

Now the Fed is buying short term debt in the form of commercial paper. Just like everyone knew in the first place, the $700 billion bailout wouldn’t work and wouldn’t be enough to change anything. But politicians and CEO’s and financial analysts (whose jobs depend on investors and speculators…so it’s not like you couldn’t see that one coming) convinced Congress and a lot of citizens through fear tactics that it was necessary to save us.

Now Congress and the Federal Reserve have saddled us with an incredible amount of debt to bail out those that started this mess in the first place.

While refusing to give an actual number on how much they would buy, $1.3 trillion worth of short term credit would qualify. Let’s use that to figure out how fucked We the People just got by Congress and the Federal Reserve.

How much will America be in debt now thanks to Congress and the Fed?

$700 billion bailout plan
$600 billion in cash loans to financial institutions
$1.3 trillion in commercial paper/short term debt
———————————————-
$2.6 trillion dollars in one week!
$300 billion in already outstanding cash loans to financial institutions
———————————————-
$2.9 trillion in Federal debt!

[Update: And analysts are saying that retirement accounts have lost $2 trillion in worth in the past 15 months.]

We the People just got fucked to the tune of $2.6 trillion dollars in less than a week. Congratulations America, you are the world’s most expensive piece of ass. How’s it feel?

And that on top of our preexisting deficit of $10,198,103,073,856.34 as of Oct. 7, 2008. [Note: I have seen claims it was actually five times higher, at $50 trillion...but I went with the lowest figure I could find. See? I'm not all gloom and doom and just out to make things look or sound worse than they are!]

Our national debt has been increasing about $3.18 billion every day since September 2007. Which means every 314.4 days we go another trillion dollars in debt.

Oh yes, don’t forget that the trade deficit back in April of this year was $62.3 billion. It shows no signs of shrinking and has been growing steadily over the years.

And all the while, our government wants to approve free trade agreements with Columbia, South Korea, and Panama—giving everyone else a break and robbing American taxpayers and workers of billions of dollars in revenue.

Did you catch that? Your Congress is seeking to reduce the burden on the people and businesses of those in other countries while increasing your tax burden and the amount of debt you and your children will be responsible for.

How much representation did YOU have in all of that? Did you want that debt? Did you get to vote on that debt? Or did someone elected by an electoral college that subverted your vote create an incompetent administration and do it? Did some Congressman/Congresswoman do it even though their constituents warned them not to and asked them not to?

And CEO’s and executives at all these institutions going under that caused this are making off with billions in severance packages, spitting in the eyes of the American people now suffering because of these executives’ greed, lack of competence, mismanagement, criminal conduct, and lack of ethics and concern for their countrymen.

It is as if our own government is waging an economic war of repression against the American people. No wonder the minimum wage is kept low (in keeping with The Iron Law of Wages) and debt is heaped upon us, and the number living below the poverty line (as established by our own government) keeps growing every year. In little over a year, that number has jumped from 35 million to more than 39 million.

Maybe it’s time We the People come up with our own solution to this crisis, like ridding ourselves of those that got us into it in the first place and those politicians and judges who made it all possible through their collusion and failures? That will fix our economy quicker than anything the Congress and the Federal Reserve can come up with.

No taxation without representation. It was enough for our founding fathers. And having politicians who represent their own interests or those of corporations instead of those of the American people is the same as having no representation at all. Semantics do not substitute for ethics and principles.

I can only imagine the founders of our nation are ashamed of the weaklings and cowards we Americans have turned out to be.

Recession Repercussions Growing Worse By The Day

On top of the $700 billion bailout plan to save the people that got our economy in trouble in the first place, now the Federal Reserve is going to add to that insanity $600 billion in cash loans so that by years end, there will be possibly more than $900 billion in loans outstanding.

Oh joy. Let’s sing a song to celebrate the Fed’s actions. How about…oh, I know, “America the broke, land that I love…”

Here’s a novel concept. How about businesses do business within their means and operate on profit instead of lines of credit? That right there would eliminate half the economic woes our nation faces.

I mean, if you have profit, expand. If you can afford another employee, expand based on what your profits allow. Oh, I hear people complaining that it would take forever to grow and blah, blah, blahbidy blah blah….

I could give less than a damn if your business goes under. Why should everyone pay for the poor business practices of others, have their taxes increased, the national debt increased, suffer higher costs of living, inflation, and suffer generally because some people want to live and operate a business outside their means? This government meddling in the markets is nothing short of socialism, and it makes me want to puke. Maybe we ought to just hire Hugo Chavez as a consultant to the Federal Reserve—if we’re going down the road of government meddling in the marketplace, he’s the man that knows the most, might as well make use of the best while we can afford to hire them.

What needs to change is the way things have always been done, which means trying to bite off more than you can chew financially. Sure, credit is fine if you need to make small business related acquisitions, but if you need credit just to float your day to day operations, maybe you need to rethink your business model so the rest of us don’t suffer for it?

I know, that’s asking too much in the selfish country we live in, where everyone feels entitled to everything from credit to damages for an engagement broken off. Isn’t anyone else tired of paying for the risks others are taking? If you need credit to do business and your business fails without it, or the institution that lent you money fails because you can’t pay it back, it ought to end right there. And even that’s gone too far, because it’s likely people who weren’t making foolhardy choices will lose money in those institutions.

Our system is incredibly broke, and people are starting to see that Ron Paul has been right all along. The best thing that can be done for America is for everyone to write his name in on the ballot come November.

Personally I could care less if money is created far more slowly. I would rather have slow economic growth than rampant inflation and debt creation at the speed of light any day.

No one cares that they bring children into this world in debt. All that matters is that they are always entitled to something.

Speculators, Investors, Wall Street Screw Over American Taxpayers

The insane financial bailout passed by Congress to the tune of $700 billion did absolutely nothing to shore up the economy as the DOW dipped below 10,000, and may not unfold in time to make a difference for many years, if at all. To show their appreciation to Congress and the American taxpayers who are footing the bill for fixing the problems they have created, speculators and investors on Wall Street decided to sell like crazy.

Love the vote of confidence, you selfish jerks.

Bailout Turns Out To Be Feel-Good Measure That Makes No One Feel Good

Today, markets around the globe are dropping fast. Stock market closures have been seen around the globe the past week. On a global scale, governments are hemorrhaging money as the economic wounds continue flowing. The rest of the world is not stupid—they know how the American government works and how the odds are that probably 20-25% of that $700 billion will never actually do what it was intended to do, and the rest will happen too slowly. Not to mention its mostly funded by worthless money created out of thin air by the Federal Reserve that has absolutely no real value.

Inflation and the cost of living are rising quickly in some countries (such as Chile), and those countries that thought they were immune to the crisis are discovering the contrary is true. Mexico in particular is being hard hit. Looking at the Frankfurt exchange this morning, I noticed that Deutsch Bank AG was down 14% from the previous day, but metals are are pretty much all rising in value. However, the EU shot down its own proposed financial rescue fund for banks.

Bank Failures Predicted To Continue

Bank failures here in America are expected to continue for the next year at least. I am seriously weighing and considering that my PayPal account might be better suited for holding my money rather than my bank. The greater the impact of this economic downturn, the more likely people will stay at home and shop online rather than spend money on gas and trips, which will lend strength to a good eBusiness. However, they can’t do that if their institution collapses. PayPal has the size and backing to weather the storm and come out on top as competitors fall under the pressures of this downturn, due to its very specific focus. PayPal, after all, isn’t holding a lot of bad mortgage debt.

But no financial institution is guaranteed immune from the crisis. Still, you might want to consider your financial institution and if your bank is at risk, consider relocating your funds to an institution less at risk.

Congress heard today from Lehman Brothers CEO, Richard S. Fuld Jr., and others describing how billions of dollars were steered to executives even as the company was seeking financial rescue from the government. These sorry sorts are the ones ruining the quality of life for millions of Americans, but they don’t really care since they walked away with fortunes.

Recession Or Beginning Of New Depression Of Global Scope?

This recession has been in full swing for at least a year now, folks. Companies have been folding, tens of thousands of jobs lost, the housing industry glutted and much more. Just because the Bush administration refused to admit a recession existed until the DOW took a nosedive off a cliff and huge institutions collapsed in such a public way that the government had to seize control and couldn’t lie and hide anything any longer does not mean we weren’t in the midst of one already. What we’re seeing now is the beginning of a major economic depression on the verge of becoming the same kind of monster that the Great Depression became.

In the past few years we have experienced droughts in various parts of the country, and the possibility remains that another will come along, and the prospect of still more devastating hurricanes lies ahead. Hoarding of food and fuels here at home and abroad is on the rise, and the UN is trying to get our attention about a global food crisis. We’re engaged in two wars and with other threats rising in Latin America and the Caucasus and Eastern Europe, history is about to complete another lap I fear.

Look for the markets to continue sinking for quite some time. Look for the demagogues and ideologues to come crawling out of the woodwork. We’ve learned so much from history—and completely ignored it. Or rather, leaders of all sorts in the political, economic, military and other realms have.

Economic Woes Give Rise To Nightmare Scenarios

The world, once again, has become a tinder box. How long will it be before someone’s dropped a match in it?

America in particular is quite vulnerable. It wouldn’t take much to create an even more chaotic fear reaction in global markets if there were trouble here at home. Secessionist movements or militias declaring a revolution or some group deciding it was time for the Confederacy to fire up again and push the occupiers out would literally be disastrous. Sounds silly, but only to those who aren’t aware just how many such groups are out there, and how many people would love nothing more than something like that to happen so they could join in. There are a lot of angry, upset Americans who are not happy about the direction of our country just waiting for someone else to fire the next shot heard round the world.

With the bulk of America’s military overseas engaged in two wars, a global economic crisis, a resurgent Russia, Iran on the brink of nuclear capability, North Korea threatening the same, Hugo Chavez and other Latin America leaders creating an anti-American coalition and with the troubles at home in many European nations…there could be no better time for such people to act.

America’s Most Hated: Speculators, Day Traders, Investors, Bankers

Those speculators and investors who led us to this point have not demonstrated the least bit of courage and no inclination to help undo what they have caused by showing a willingness to hold or buy, instead selfishly selling off in spite of the generosity of millions of hard-working Americans—including more than 39 million living below the poverty line—all trying to save our economy from even worse disaster.

Personally, if someone drops a match in the tinderbox, I’m not the least bit inclined to do anything but dig out some marshmallows and enjoy the bonfire. If I were an investor, speculator or banker right now, I might be weighing the implications of my actions today more closely when considering that I would be one of the most hated class of people in a post-collapse America—for destroying everything that everyone else had at one time and bringing it all crashing down.

Note to self: pick up some marshmallows on the next trip to the store and research PayPal viability.

Bailout In Crisis, But There Is A Simple Solution

The latest news, which is sure to send markets spiraling down tomorrow, is that the proposed economic bailout package is in jeopardy. I’m glad to hear it. We shouldn’t be spending $700 billion - $1 trillion (depends on who you ask and what costs you count) bailing out any companies.

Whatever course of action should be taken, the damage gets worse every passing day because self-serving politicians who work in Washington can’t get their act together.

There is simple solution, however. The government ought to secure and insure retirement funds and offer some sort of small compensation package to employees that are affected by this—excepting all executive level employees. Forget anything else and everything else.

Let the industry, companies, and individuals and special interest groups and the myriad speculators and greedy bastards who have caused all of this suffer in the bed they made. Secure retirement funds and to hell with everything else. Spend it on national health care, paying off some our debt or something worthwhile.

Taxpayers shouldn’t be bailing out companies and speculators who through their own negligent, inept, unethical, criminal, or greedy devices ran themselves to ruin.

I Agree With Ron Paul: Do Not Bail Out Wall Street And Mortgage Lenders

Ron Paul is indeed the only politician with any common sense, I truly believe that. In an article published today, Congressman Paul offers his take on the economic crisis. His understanding of economics just shames other politicians.

Neither Obama or McCain will be getting my vote this year—both of them have failed miserably to offer even the least bit of insightful commentary on the situation much less come up with any kind of solution.

Ron Paul has been warning about this very thing for a long time. Investors take their chances, they know the risks. I don’t think the government ought to be bailing anyone out. Especially not those who make their money speculating and then cry about it when they lose their ass due to their own stupidity and panic which contributes to the economic crisis.

Let them all go down. Why should the American taxpayers spend $1 trillion dollars to bail out banks, lenders, corporations, speculators, investors and people living above and beyond their means? We shouldn’t. Let them all go down, and in the long run we’ll be better off.

The Federal Reserve needs to be eliminated once and for all. Its constant tinkering and malpractice in the realm of finance and economics has helped lead to this ruinous situation. It’s time to pay the piper—not write him another IOU.

Meanwhile, Fed chairman Bernake said we risk a recession without a bailout. Hello…where the hell have you had your head for the last two years that we’ve actually been in one? Get rid of the Fed, the idiots who run it, and the idiots who support it—it is far past time to do so.

Besides if there are lots of foreclosures, investors and home shoppers who weren’t/aren’t living above their means will be able to buy them cheap on eBay.

FromSunlight.com Up For Auction On eBay

I’m curious to see how putting FromSunlight.com up for sale on eBay will do. There were well over 1000 views of the listing when the domain was on Sedo.com, so I want to compare how eBay will work.

Better, I am throwing in four other versions of the domain (.net, .org, .info, .biz) for free if the reserve price of the auction is met or a Buy It Now is used to purchase it. Not only is the reserve really low, but I lowered the overall price compared to the Sedo listing.

Interestingly enough, some people don’t want to go through Sedo for some reason. I am curious to see how the eBay experience will compare.

New MySpace Classifieds And The Sinking Social Ship

It appears MySpace’s lucky redirect recently, where they suggested a layoff was actually a shakeup aimed at bringing in new blood, apparently didn’t do the company much good. The new classified system that MySpace implemented will be detrimental to the social networking giant’s popularity I predict.

What used to make MySpace classifieds unique was the member-driven flavor, with relevant ads. Now, it’s like they tapped into some major job search and real estate search engines—and threw in a few singles/romance classifieds search engines for good measure and then pulled as many corporate ads as they could into the index on MySpace. What’s worse is the horrible Web 2.0 interface of the classified system.

Things resizing and reloading automatically interrupting the ad browsing experience just plain sucks. Worse is the annoying highlighting. Still worse yet—showing four goddamned ads per page just so you can create more ad views. I was browsing the musician wanted ads and there were 30 pages of results according to the information showing on the page. With only 4 ads per page. What the hell?

More gimmicks. Less substance. More irritation. Less intuitive. More irrelevant advertising. And most importantly, it does not look like there are any member classifieds at all. Oh there are some in there…but you have to really, really look and they are hard to find (there’s a little link that lets you select just member ads, but you might not even notice it). But it is no longer a classifieds for, of, and by the members. It’s now a commercial endeavor full of corporate spam that no one really gives a shit about.

You aren’t going to discover ads by members and become their friend browsing through real estate listings, especially when every other ad requires you to sign up for some site subscription just to view the friggin ad.

The social part of social networking just took a cannonball below decks…fired from poorly trained crew on the good ship MySpace. Poor executive decisions and poorer business planning are going to kill MySpace. What next? Will MySpace find a way to screw up the MySpace Groups next and make it the latest victim in a long string of snafu-ridden attempts to squeeze ad revenue out at the expense of what makes a social network site a social network site in the first place?

What did they do over there? Replace the employees they let go with a bunch of high school kids, or 80 year old ad execs? Either way, there’s another hole in the hull, and MySpace is taking on water.

I wonder if Tom can swim?

It’s like that what-if scenario with Shakespeare and monkeys with typewriters. What would happen if you let 10,000 monkeys run your classified ad system for you? Eventually, even Shakespeare would delete you from his friends list—and the monkeys throwing shit at your customers would run them off.

You know what I mean?

Google’s Knol A Flop

Google’s Knol is the most underwhelming thing you’re likely to hear about among the major IT players this year. If you can even find the site (what a dropped ball, Google, sorry…), you aren’t going to be impressed when you get there.

Touted as a direct competitor to Wikipedia, it fails miserably. Don’t lose any sleep tonight Wikipedia, you have nothing to worry about.

As with most Google projects, this one creates a lot of hype but doesn’t really do anything. Should have kept this one hidden away with the rest of the projects your PhD’s love playing with.

There’s nothing really on the site for general users. The articles are of lower quality than what you find on Wikipedia. In fact, it looks like a platform for beginning authors who can’t get published elsewhere more than a direct competitor for Wikipedia.

I’m not going to bother considering it for SEO concerns or any other concerns…except to monitor it for content theft since Google gives their site special consideration and gives higher rankings to duplicate content on its own site. That’s an incentive for theft right there.

How boring is it? You probably didn’t hear about the site until now. Even so, I’m not even bothering to link to it. Trust me, you would only hate me for wasting your time.

Wikipedia works because it is a social site, and not another platform for stirring up AdSense revenue by encouraging so-called SEO experts to gobble up the algorithmic crap you throw on the floor after dinner each night.

Taking It To Yet Another Content Thief

I hate scrapers. I hate people who steal original work from others and try to pass it off as their own. Here is one more on the list of many I have dealt with. My original post: Comparing Tactics Of WTO Negotiations To Nazis

Check out how the loser who has the blog Cumulatelove.com stole an article of mine and tried to pass it off as original work, and my response.

Here’s a screenshot…

My blog posts being stolen...

Here’s what I posted as a comment:

You have reproduced my original content without my express permission and without attribution, which constitutes a violation of copyright under the Digital Millennium Act, and is therefore a crime.

If you do not remove my content from your site immediately, I will contact your hosting company, ISP, and domain registrars and inform them of your criminal activity. This means Vivid Media GmbH all the way through PublicDomainRegistry.com and proper law enforcement authorities in Germany and the USA will be notified.

You have 48 hours to comply before I will pursue legal action. Content theft is a serious crime.

Sincerely,

Sean Wilson
My Errant Mind
http://errantmind.wordpress.com/
(original author of this stolen content)

This is another example of the crap and spam and scraping that goes on through the company Vivid Media GmbH and other such companies that provide convenient cover for spammers and hackers alike. It’s time for governments to crack down on who can and cannot become a domain registrar, and perhaps licensing webhosts or something that makes them more accountable.

Rackspace IPO Almost Here

On August 4, Rackspace will go public.

I have mixed thoughts on this particular IPO for a variety of reasons. On the one hand, I like it because if there is a solid webhosting company that can go public and thrive, it’s Rackspace. On the other hand, what will answering to finicky demands of more shareholders and the markets do to a company whose model has been based around Fanatical Support ® in the long run?

I suppose any company reaches a point where it has to weigh decisions about whether or not a particular risk is worth the potential payoff. Hopefully, the company has a good plan in place to ensure that it has nowhere to go but up and on towards bigger and better things. Otherwise, stockholder driven corner-cutting is the thing most likely to destroy Fanatical Support ® when you get right down to it.

Do I like the idea of putting the very heart of one’s business model on the line for increased funding when that business is already making healthy profits and has no pressing need for the risk? Not particularly. I would consider improving hiring quality and better ideas and practices and strategic thinking avenues—and pursue them until there was absolutely no gain left to be had in those areas.

And maybe they have.

Of course, I have a lot of high hopes for them on this one. A friend of mine is a one of the guys who helped get the company up and running after he left the Army, and I would love to see the company he’s been part of for so long do even better. So, of course, I’m going to be wishing them all the luck in the world.

Not so sure about the auction for buying shares though…seems like that could hurt them more than help. We’ll see. Good luck, Rackspace!

Yahoo! Has Opportunities And Something Other Brands Only Wish They Had

Pundits have been decrying Yahoo! for fighting off Microsoft’s takeover bid. Now, Carl Icahn, the self-righteous “I know what’s best for the Internet and investors” guy is trying his own version. I say hats off to Yahoo! for doing what is best for the end user of their product and stockholders.

While short-term stock holders might be unhappy, long-term stockholders will benefit. How? Yahoo! has earned itself the kind of credibility in some circles that no PR firm can generate for you. All they have to do now is find the right angle to work it. What exactly am I talking about? Let me explain…

Microsoft has been dropping the ball lately with several products. Not the least of which is Vista. How many times have you seen an operating system hit the market where customers ended up looking for downgrade licenses?

My point exactly…

Semi Nude Moms From Spain Need Your Help

If you haven’t heard about the group of women from the small Spanish village of Serradilla del Arroyo in the northern province of Salamanca, Spain, who posed semi-nude for a calendar in order to raise money for their tiny rural school and its children, you have now. They ran into financial trouble after not selling many of the calendars and found themselves in debt.

Not knowing much about marketing or publishing, they missed the Christmas rush (extremely important in Calendar marketing it seems) and were left with about 5,000 unsold calendars. The printer has pressed the issue of their being behind on payments and media attention has put the spotlight on their efforts.

Their tiny village of around 400 has one teacher for its one room elementary school spanning four grade levels. The mothers decided to try and do something that would raise money for their children to have a recreation center. I certainly have to give them credit for trying. However, it wasn’t as easy as it was for the British women who did so—and whose story inspired these Spanish ladies. These concerned moms owe $16,000 to the printer.

You can help out by purchasing one of the calendars. Better yet, buy one for yourself and as many of your friends as you can. How often do you get to honestly say you bought a semi-nude calendar to help out children in a remote Spanish village?

Calendars can be purchased here: La Casa de Medico (Calendar is towards the bottom of the home page, Calendarios Madres de Serradilla)