pensive lioness

I'm writing this mostly for myself, but certainly anyone who still reads my ever-so-rare posts on livejournal can feel free to either comment or point to this post.

Saying that you've just read accounts of a historical moment without, in fact, history having being made, is a fool's game. But I'm about to do just that. Remember this post on November 5th, because I believe that what I'm about to write about is what allowed Barack Obama to become the first Black president of the United States. To make it more juicy, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, John McCain and ever-lovin-blue-eyed George W. Bush were all in the same room when and where it happened.

And most Americans will never know about it.

But some background is needed.

The Presidential Campaign

Senators McCain and Obama have been campaigning against one another since Obama clinched the Democratic nomination in June. McCain had never really been able to get a good media narrative going against Obama, and his campaign handlers have even conceded that if they were to run on issues, the Dems would win. This meant character smears against the Senator from Illinois. Words such as "Arrogant", "Elite", "Celebrity", and most importantly "Inexperienced" all came out of the mouth of Republicans.

The Elite tage never worked when it was found that McCain couldn't even recall how many homes he had.

Arrogant never really stuck, because once people saw Obama either in person or over the television, he doesn't come across as such.

That left the Celebrity and Inexperienced memes. While they never really did take hold in the media narrative, it seemed that's all the Repubs had, and we heard them repeatedly. The effectiveness of these slights could only manage McCain to get within 5-3 points of Obama's lead.

And then the conventions occurred. Obama took well seasoned and well reasoned Senator Biden, which everyone saw as a practical yet uninspired pick. Most young voters didn't get the pick, but it did add both experience and foreign policy expertise to the ticket.

The Dem Convention was by all accounts, a success. They stamped out the "Hillary Insurrection" meme fairly well, and Obama gave a stellar acceptance speech that even had Pat Buchanan(!!!) giving kudos. The Dems were on an upswing, and Obama even topped 50% in national polling.

Things weren't going as well in the McCain camp, mostly due to his process in choosing a Vice President to add to the ticket. McCain wanted Joe Lieberman, an ex-Dem from Connecticut, to be his running mate, but his inner circle said no-frickin way. He then decided upon Mitt Romney, a R governor from Massachusetts, even going so far as to invite the governor to Akron for the announcement. Last minute, the R inner circle nixes the idea.

So McCain settles on Sarah Palin, a governor from Alaska who only has had 18 months of experience in State politics, and two years as a mayor of a town of 6000 people, give or take.

Pundits on both side of the political spectrum responded with a "bwah?" Her inexperience takes away the only argument that the Repubs had against Obama they said. They were right, and soon the inexperience meme goes away.

But the Christian-Coalition side of the Repub base loves her, and ignites Sarah-Mania in the days after the convention. McCain's polling numbers go up, and he takes the lead both nationally, and more importantly, amongst the states that will give him the electoral #'s to win. Life is good.

Lost amongst this is the fact that Sarah-mania brings about larger crowds, sometimes to the tune of 50,000 at some events. She becomes a celebrity.

And the final arrow in the Repub quiver is lost.

The Financial Collapse

Trying to explain the credit crisis would take far more space and time than I want to take here. Suffice to say that a Senate Repub by the name of Phil Gramm, helped deregulate the futures industry in the year 2000. A 262 page measure called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, written by Gramm (with the help of some financial lobbyists). This act prevented regulation on most futures market, including that of Energy (from which Enron profited), Credit and Insurance futures.

This lack of oversight allowed for many abuses of the system, abuses that both mortgage lenders and mortgage applicants took advantage of. Key abuses surrounded the Adjustable Rate Mortgages, which said, in essence :"You pay very little on your monthly mortgage when interest rates are low". This was all well and good in 2000 when the rates were low, but after the posts 9/11 recession, rates started to escalate, and soon a few people couldn't afford to pay for their house. Later that few turned into a lot, and suddenly the banks who were stuck with the loans that could not be paid found themselves scrambling for assets to offset the red ink.

The loans, on the deregulated futures markets were bought and sold like a hot potato, with each holder hoping that they wouldn't be the ones to have the loans on their books when the true lenders came calling. And calling they finally did in 2007.

Banks and mortgage companies started to fail.Sometimes they simply lost their stock value, other times they caused the companies to fail completely. These failures lowered the portfolios of many investment banks, who had invested heavily in the unregulated markets. Their portfolios soon became more difficult to manage, until suddenly they found themselves with more debt than assets. Bear Stearns first took a hit in March, in the midst of primary season, and found themselves sold to JPMorgan Chase. They were no more.

Then on September 13, Lehman Brothers, an investment bank who had been struggling all summer to save themselves, had to give up. While the Fed government had helped in the Bear Stearns deal with JP Morgan, the stayed out of the Lehman dissolution.

The failure of Lehman brothers set off a domino effect. Merril Lynch, another investment bank having difficulties with their balance sheet, was sold to Bank of America. AIG the insurance group that the investment banks (and many others) used to help mitigate some of their risk found themselves floundering, and the Fed did step in to help them.

The failures of these three companies, as well as the questions surrounding other financial institutions who couldn't (and didn't have to, thanks to GRamm's deregulation) say who had the bad loands on their books, helped evolve the mortgage crisis into a full fledged credit crisis. This wasn't a bank denying credit to individuals. This was banks denying credit to other banks. And if a bank can't have credit...bad things tend to happen.

Back in the Presidential Race

McCain was likely in a good mood on September 14th. His poll numbers were high, and Palin was bringing in the crowds, even if she was overshadowing her boss. There were some questions as to when she would have a press conference, or be subjected to further interviews, but her popularity insulated her from too much scrutiny. When asked that day about the events surrounding the collapse of Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch, as well as the risk surrounding the failure of AIG, he responded with "The foundations of our economy are strong". The 14th was the last good day for McCain.

The questions surrounding Sarah Palin started to grow, and she wasn't helping pull in the independent female voters that McCain needed to get a victory. The more people found out about her, the less they seemed to like her. She went to five different colleges in six years before she graduated. She had tried to fire a librarian who had questioned Palins request to ban a book in her city's library system. And she kept repeating the lie that she had not supported the Bridge to Nowhere, a project that seemed to best example the earmark abuse of Alaskan politicians. Then there was that strange interview with Charlie Gibson of ABC news, where she didn't know what the Bush Doctrine was. Her popularity began to sink to the point where she started being a liability to the campaign and not an asset. She gave a horrible interview to Katie Couric of CBS news that had one conservative pundit suggest that she was simply not ready for the world stage, and should resign herself from the campaign.

Then their were the lies coming from the McCain camp that the media simply didn't buy into anymore. Where as before their arguments against Obama had at least a shred of half truth to them, they had burned them when they offered Sarah Palin the VP slot. The lies were so brazen, that many outlets could refute them with less than a five second google search, and many media outlets did exactly that. The McCain camp called foul, but it made them look even more amateurish.

And the solid foundation of the economy? Yeah, not so much. And when the economy gets bad, conventional wisdom is that the Democrats are the ones best suited to fix it.

These three things soon helped erode McCain's lead into an Obama one, and McCain found himself in no better place than he was before the Democratic convention. He needed a miracle.

The Bailout

That miracle came in the form of one Henry Paulson, who on Sept 19th, asked for 700 billion dollars to protect and support our economic foundation.

With no oversight.

The general populace went nuts. 700 billion dollars to save the hind ends of those who wallowed in the deregulated trough that Phil Gramm helped create? (This being the same Phil Gramm who was now working as a financial adviser to the McCain Campaign).

Congress needed to get to work in order to figure out what the heck to do with this proposal. McCain and Obama said that what Paulson offered was not feasible, but agreed that something needed to be done. The Obama camp called the McCain camp and said "Since we agree that something needs to be done, we could offer a joint statement, done in the name of bi-partisanship, that spells out our common points of agreement." The McCain camp agreed...

...and proceeded to hold a press conference in which McCain stated he would directly head to Washington to help forge out a deal, and that he would suspend his campaign. He then suggested that the debate be postponed or canceled in order to get on with the work. He called on Obama to do the same.

With falling polling numbers it was an interesting ploy. It didn't matter that McCain had no say in the negotiations. He wasn't a member of the banking committee, and he had barely even been in Washington at all during the year, so he had little influence or insight into what was going on. If only Obama would take the bait and call off the debate.

The Obama campaign, clearly pissed by McCain's grandstanding, said essentially "Piss off. We'll be at the Debate, whether you're there or not. If you're not there, Obama would be more than happy to take Q&A from the crowd".

This is the backstory for the events that took place on September 25.

The White Knight Gambit

The idea was this: If McCain could appear as if it was he that helped forge the agreement between the White House (who wanted 700 billion dollars) and the Congress (who wanted oversight of that money, and a lot of it, and wanted to give out less of it), then he could head into the debate as the savior of our economy and appear as if he would be willing to sacrifice his campaign for the sake of the country. The country would in turn see McCain as the selfless Hero, and vote for him en masse. It was a Hail Mary pass, but if it worked, the rewards would be great. And the last Hail Mary, the Sarah Palin pick, worked for a while, even if she was now a bit of a millstone. McCain's staff called up the White House, asking for a Photo op. The White House, eager to keep the Presidency in the hands of a Republican, agreed. They'd invite Obama too, if only to appear even handed.

One problem: There was a deal already nearly done, and McCain had nothing to do with it. The plan requested only 250 billion dollars, and asked for oversight and equity, and Paulson said he could deal with that. Polling had suggested that Paulson had overplayed his own hand, and reports were coming out of various news organizations that they couldn't justify the 700 billion dollar number, especially without oversight.

Word leaked out to the street that the deal was done, and this was before the Photo op that McCain's group helped set up at the White House. In fact, the meeting now included representatives from House Dems and Repubs (including Nancy Pelosi), Senate Dems and Repubs (including Harry Reid). With so many people at the photo op, it would look less and less like it was McCain to the rescue.

McCain needed help to buy some time in order to make it look like he was the one who saved the day. He went to the House Repubs and held a meeting.

No one knows for certain what was said at that meeting. But the facts are as follows. Before the meeting, there was a deal with the Dems and the White House. After the meeting, there wasn't. Instead was a counter proposal that had essentially even less regulation than there is now over the financial organizations, and more tax breaks.

Cue the photo op at the White House.

From the Politco:

Both McCain and his Democratic rival, Sen. Barack Obama, would leave the White House without comment, and the meeting was described as among the wildest in memory. A beleaguered President Bush had to struggle to maintain order and reassert himself. And when Democrats left to caucus in the Roosevelt Room, Paulson pursued them, begging that they not “blow up” the legislation.

The former Goldman Sachs CEO even went down on one knee as if genuflecting, to which Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal.) is said to have joked, “I didn’t know you were Catholic.”

It was McCain who had urged Bush to call the White House meeting but Democrats made sure Obama had a prominent part. And much as they complained later of being blindsided, the whole event turned out to be something of an ambush on their part—aimed at McCain and House Republicans.

“Speaking professionally,” said one Republican aide, “They did a very good job.”

When Bush yielded early to Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D- Nev.) to speak, they yielded to Obama to speak for the assembled Democrats. And it was Obama who raised the subject of the conservative alternative and pressed Paulson on what he thought of the idea.

Paulson's response?

"It's unworkable."

Those two words may have sunk the McCain campaign. He politicized these highly charged and very important meetings for his own gain, questionably asked the House Repubs to help him buy him time, and then Obama, with an assist from Reid and Pelosi, called out the Treasury Secretary to add his two cents on the House Repubs plan.

As a political move, it was perfect. It was well played, and by all accounts, the Dems out played McCain. It had high drama, and no one on the Dem side of the coin should be disappointed by these events.

The next day, McCain, who vowed not to debate until an agreement had been reached, agreed instead to the debate. He torpedoed the meetings in DC, and ended up looking the fool. No agreement between Congress and the White House in regard to the financial crisis has yet been received as of this draft, but McCain has gone to the debate anyhow.

The episode is not likely to come up at the debate, but the economy sure will. Perhaps the name of Phil Gramm will come up. After all, he's now working for the McCain camp, a fact that McCain surely doesn't want the public to know.

If Obama wins the election, that meeting at the White House could well be the one that got him into it.

So...So Awesome.

tickticktickticktickticktick....

I turned forty one today. Forty one. And for the first time in quite sometime, I essentially spent it alone. Tara has been sick of late, and I had spent the better part of the past week taking care of her. Today she was well enough to be on her own without any follow up from me.

But, as she's been sick, my birthday sort of snuck up on her. She forgot, but understandably so.

I spent the day either playing video games, or writing, and not doing much more than that. I've a few days off from work in the upcoming week, so most of my weekend chores were pushed back to either Tuesday or Wednesday. I want to veg. I want to disengage. I don't want to be in charge of anything other than things that require my utmost attention.

So, for the most part, my day went precisely as planned.

Why do I feel so morose, so sullen?

Part of it is the depression hitting its apex before free falling back into it's valley. Of this there is little doubt. Things are good. Not great, but not bad.

The other part of this is my relationship status, something to which most of you are already aware. Things there are less good. Not bad, mind you, but certainly not as good as everything else going on. But I've sort of come to my own conclusion of "Better the devil you know, than the one you don't". In other words, any company, even during the days and weeks where we fight, are better than being alone. And I've simply too much stuff going on in other aspects of my life to put forth any effort to look for anyone else. I've compromised myself on my relationship. I suppose that realization is enough to make anyone a little grumpy.

Then there's the whole "Where's my life?" perspective. I'm forty one and still have a room mate for crying out loud. In the grand scheme of my life, I fully believed that when I reached this age, I would no longer have to discuss with folks why flushing the toilet always a good idea, and that taking turns doing chores around the house is simply good etiquette. I truly believed that, at forty one, I would be living with people I liked, and that I would no longer have to deal with petty little aspects of life that I think all people should have mastered by middle age. Truth be told, having to tell people to do the dishes is not fun, less so when telling it to someone who spends most of their life watching episodes of Stargate:Atlantis whilst in the nude. This is not the homelife I imagined when I moved out here five years ago.

So, I don't like being at home. Period.

The simple answer is to move out, but again, the simple logistics to do so require much time, money, and emotional energy, all of which are resources currently in low supply.

This is where my life currently is. No nest egg, no support structure, no one close by that I fully trust.

There are good things going on in my life, to be sure. I've got my debt down to a manageable level, I'm writing, and I'm somewhat respected by my peers at work. This is all good stuff. I know all of the good things, and thank whatever skills or fate have put them into my life.

The problem here is that none of these are tangible. I can't touch respect, or hope, or opportunity. They exist in their own right, and I can only explore aspects of them in my mind. They cannot, by their virtue, keep me warm at night. To demonstrate how important this aspect is to me, I cannot wait to have a copy of a book with my name on it's jacket so that I can touch it. It's a little thing, but an important one.

What does forty one mean? It is just another day after all. People reach this age all of the time, so there's little poignancy to the milestone.

There's a line from the West Wing, which I loved when I first heard it. I'm paraphrasing here, so bear with me, but I believe I'm getting the jist of it.

Life should be hard. It should be difficult, even if only a little, so that when the victories come, they taste that much sweeter. But it shouldn't be a continual struggle. When you struggle, that's when life becomes less than bearable.

Over the past few years, I've been doing the hard work. I've been putting in the time, making the sacrifices and compromises to get to the point in my life where I can say "I like what's going on and where I'm going".

But I'm not there yet, and in many aspects of my life, I've actually taken several steps back from where I was two or five years ago. I'm getting older and more prone to exhaustion.

And the hard work is now starting to feel like a struggle.

That's why my forty first birthday was less than bearable.

http://view.break.com/527579 - Watch more free videos

Oh...oh...oh!!! The Human Pain! The HUMAN PAIN!

from here

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

For inspiration, from here:

So you want to be more creative, in art, in business, whatever. Here are some tips that have worked for me over the years:

1. Ignore everybody.

2. The idea doesn't have to be big. It just has to be yours.

3. Put the hours in.

4. If your biz plan depends on you suddenly being "discovered" by some big shot, your plan will probably fail.

5. You are responsible for your own experience.

6. Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten.

7. Keep your day job.

8. Companies that squelch creativity can no longer compete with companies that champion creativity.

9. Everybody has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb.

10. The more talented somebody is, the less they need the props.

11. Don't try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds altogether.

12. If you accept the pain, it cannot hurt you.

13. Never compare your inside with somebody else's outside.

14. Dying young is overrated.

15. The most important thing a creative person can learn professionally is where to draw the red line that separates what you are willing to do, and what you are not.

16. The world is changing.

17. Merit can be bought. Passion can't.

18. Avoid the Watercooler Gang.

19. Sing in your own voice.

20. The choice of media is irrelevant.

21. Selling out is harder than it looks.

22. Nobody cares. Do it for yourself.

23. Worrying about "Commercial vs. Artistic" is a complete waste of time.

24. Don�t worry about finding inspiration. It comes eventually.

25. You have to find your own schtick.

26. Write from the heart.

27. The best way to get approval is not to need it.

28. Power is never given. Power is taken.

29. Whatever choice you make, The Devil gets his due eventually.

30. The hardest part of being creative is getting used to it.

31. Remain frugal.

32. Allow your work to age with you.

33. Being Poor Sucks.

34. Beware of turning hobbies into jobs.

35. Savor obscurity while it lasts.

36. Start blogging.

Can I say how much I hate some members of my family? Hate, hate, hate, hate.


Backstory - My Grandmother passed away on Friday. It was an expected death, as she has been dealing with everything from foot infections to Alzheimer's. In my mind, she had ceased to be quite a while ago. And while I'm sad she has passed, I am not upset. I would like to mourn.

However, as every TS knows or will know, funerals bring out the worst. After the debacle of my father's death, I realized that any family gathering, whether in joy or in sorrow, my presence would not be required, nor even desired, by most.

And while I thought I had come to terms with this over the past four years, what my grandmother represents, at least to me, makes me realize just how shitty, shitty, shitty this whole situation has become.

My memories of my grandmother are that of family. Every time I say her it was a celebration of some sort. Whether it was a Memorial day cook out or a Christmas feast. All members of my mom's side of the family were there with aunts and uncles, and various cousins of all ages. There was no dysfunction at these events, at least none that I can recall. And now? Now dysfunction is the norm. And I hate it.

I know there are only two answers here - go or don't go. Going means that the funeral ceases to be entirely about my grandmother, and I don't want that. Not going means that I'm miserable.

Is this a martyr-complex that I'm carrying? *shrug* It's possible. But damnit, this frackin' pisses me off.

And it gets to happen again relatively soon, because my grandfather, after having three strokes in the past year (only one of which I've been aware of until told of the other two this weekend) is expected to pass away in the near future.

The Space Shuttle Challenger went up into space, and exploded 2 minutes into its journey...


...22 years ago today.

For those of you curious as to what I've been up to of late. In addition to everything else on my agenda, I've now started writing restaurant reviews for "The Stranger", Seattle's best Alt-weekly.

If you're so inclined, you can see said review here.

This makes me an official food journalist. Woo hoo!

Where before I was able to read the exploits of my friends whilst I was "toiling" at work, the evil IT ninjas have now started monitoring internet usage.

I am so doomed.

What this means is that I am now on LJ less than before. Where once I was a comfortable lurker, now I feel absent from my friends lives.

I'm jumping on when I can, but now that I'm responsible for two posts on the Hedonist, as well as herding various writers and editors on Well Fed, let's just say that when I get home, there's little time for "me time" on the internet. Which sucks in so many ways...

There's a period of time when you take an aspirin to lessen the pain of a headache from when you swallow the tablets to when your headache is gone. My professional life feels as if I'm in that zone. QA job equates to the headache, AH equals the aspirin, food writer job equals to life without headache.

I've worked so hard over the past two years on the site, and it has paid of in some amazing ways (I'll have to tell you about the tour of the gourmet ice cream factory some day), but I feel as if I need to push it even further. The problem is that I'm not sure if I should wait to see who's been noticing me or if I need to initiate contact...

I'm in the midst of writing my second book proposal, just in case.

Are you fuckin' kidding me?

When the stress of the war in Iraq becomes too severe, the Pentagon has a suggestion for military families: Learn how to laugh.

With help from the Pentagon's chief laughter instructor, families of National Guard members are learning to walk like a penguin, laugh like a lion and blurt "ha, ha, hee, hee and ho, ho."

No joke.

The Pentagon has a Chief Laugh Instructor? I feel as if we're been transported into a world that's a cross between a George Orwell novel and a Leonard Wibberley novel.

As much as I hate the current President, I've always been willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

That they play vicious politics has never been in question, but neither was it a reason to protest them. Politics is a vicious sport, and if you play it well, then by all means use it to secure your party into power. Typically when the republicans have resorted to this sort of behavior, as long as it didn't violate law, then more power to them. Typically when it happened, I bemoaned the fact that the democrats never had (and still don't have) a similar strategy.

When the Bush Administration has shown lack of intelligence in the implementing of their various projects and plans, I cringed, but I did not speak up. Last I checked, ignorance and incompetance was still legal, regardless on whether they are characteristics one would want their leaders to avoid having. There's no law against being stupid.

As the Administration flopped through the summer months, and it became clear that some members of the Bush Team were going to be indicted, I still didn't flinch. The Reagan administration had a helluva bad record with corruption and illegalities, so this too, was nothing new.

Then Friday the New York Times reported on the President's plan regarding wiretapping citizens within the US and his subversion of the judicial process that was in place. This was the process so lenient that warrants could be had after the wrire tapping took place, up to 72 hours retroactively.

I've hesitated to use the word "Impeach" for a variety of reasons, including the fact that those who had been shouting it over the past 5 years have come across as a bit wacko, and oftentimes didn't have enough evidence outside the fact that Bush was a republican.

Plus, thanks in large part to the over-enthusiastic Republicans of the late 90's, I grew a bit tired of the concept. Most people used it as a political tool of vengeance, rather than one of justice. Bill Clinton broke the law, yes...over a blow-job.

On Saturday, Bush gave a radio speech in which he not only admitted to breaking the law, but he defended his right to do so.

Sorry Mr. President. As your Republican cronies showed us with the impeachment trial of Bill Clinton , no president is above the law. This includes you.

You broke the law. You need to be impeached. I've made my phone call to my Representative.

You scored as Albert Camus. You are Albert Camus, so you are one sweet existentialist. He built largely upon the framework of existentialists before him, but introduced the concept that life is absurd, but that we should continue living anyway. You have strong liberal leanings, although you annoy the Communists. You are susceptible to driving fast, and possibly crashing into a tree. </td> Albert Camus 68% Jean-Paul Sartre 64% Friedrich Nietzsche 43% Martin Heidegger 43% Soren Kierkegaard 25% Not An Existentialist 7% Which Existentialist Philosopher Are You? created with QuizFarm.com

I've posted nothing of substance on LJ for quite some time. My apologies for that, but I do have a reason:

I own my own company.

It's not much, as we have no product or service delivered of yet. This also means we have no value, and have nothing of value... but we are currently working on releasing said product/service within the next few weeks (New Year's day, to be honest).

The company name? Digital Mavens LLC

The product? A food blog network, one that encompasses many topics as well as food sites for major cities.

Pretty cool, huh?

I'm actually partnered with two other folks, Tara being one of them, and we've been spending the past few months creating Business Agreements, filling out paperwork, and making sure Uncle Sam knows we exist.

To say that this makes me a bit anxious is an understatement, but I'm working through it. I have no idea on where this endeavor will take me, but it does promise to be a bit exciting.

Here's a list of pets that I have had in my lifetime. I was thinking about this last night and was amazed at how many animals have been a part of my life. Feel free to do the same on your own journal.

Cats

Archie - Siamese
Mahitabel - Siamese
Pete - White Persian
Tillie - White Persian
Popcorn - Siamese
Frampton - American Longhair
Fleetwood - Tabby
Sheba - Siamese
Delilah - Siamese
Patches - Tuxedo
Sam - Burmese
Toto - Tabby
Guinevere - Longhair
Chessie - American Shorthair
Emily - White shorthair
Tiny - White Shorthair
T.C. - Black Shorthair
Reba - Siamese
Katie - Tuxedo
Jake - Tabby
Fenwick -
Audrey - Tabby
Roxanne - Tabby
Mouse- Tuxedo

Dogs
Riley - Irish Setter
Sam - Basset Hound
Lady - Collie
Shadow - Wiemeramer
Kelly - Golden Retriever
Heidi - Black Retriever
Sniffles - Pug
Frick - Tiny Dauchsand (red)
Frack - Tiny Dauchsand (black)

I know I'm missing a few.

You scored as The Operative. You are dedicated to your job and very good at what you do. You've done some very bad things, but they had to be done. You don't expect to go to heaven, but that is a sacrifice you've made for a better future for all. </td> The Operative 88% Simon Tam 69% River Tam 63% Inara Serra 56% Shepherd Derrial Book 56% Hoban 'Wash' Washburne 56% Jayne Cobb 44% Zoe Alleyne Washburne 44% Capt. Mal Reynolds 38% Kaylee Frye 25% Which Serenity character are you? created with QuizFarm.com

Bill Maher, talking about George W. Bush

Seriously Mr. President, this job can't be fun for you anymore.

There's no more money to spend, you've used up all of that.

You can't start another war because you've also used up the army.

And now, darn the luck, the rest of your term has become the Bush family nightmare: helping poor people.

Listen to your Mom; The cupboard's bare, the credit card's maxed out and no one is speaking to you.

Mission Accomplished!!!

Now it's time for you to do what you've always done best...

...lose interest and walk away.

Like you did with your military service, and the oil company, and the baseball team.

It's time. Time to move on and try the next fantasy job: How 'bout cowboy or spaceman?

Now I know what you're saying. You're saying there's so many things that you, as president, could involve yourself in.

Please don't.

I know there's a lot left to do: The war with Venezuala and eliminating the sales tax on yachts; turning the space program over to the church and Social Security to Fannie Mae; Giving embryos the vote.

But Sir, none of that is going to happen now.

Why?

Because you govern like Billy Joel drives.

You've performed so poorly that I'm surprised you haven't given yourself a medal.

You're a catastrophe that walks like a man.

Herbert Hoover was a shitty president, but even he never conceeded an entire metropolis to rising water and snakes.

On your watch we've lost...

...almost all of our allies.
...the surplus.
...4 airliners.
...2 Trade Centers.
...a piece of the pentagon.
...and the City of New Orleans.

Maybe you're just not lucky.

I'm not saying you don't love this country, I'm just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side.

So yes, God does speak to you. And what He's saying is...

Take a hint.

Feel Free to post this anywhere and everywhere on the net.

Us and them - Pink Floyd. You need Quick time for it to work.

Oh the things people do to cats. This made me gasp and laugh out loud.

You scored as Postmodernist. Postmodernism is the belief in complete open interpretation. You see the universe as a collection of information with varying ways of putting it together. There is no absolute truth for you; even the most hardened facts are open to interpretation. Meaning relies on context and even the language you use to describe things should be subject to analysis. </td> Postmodernist 81% Existentialist 75% Cultural Creative 69% Materialist 69% Idealist 50% Modernist 50% Romanticist 44% Fundamentalist 13% What is Your World View? (updated) created with QuizFarm.com