I questioned before if Obama was the real deal. If he's the candidate for change, why is his running mate Biden of all people? What a lame choice, talk about same-old politics.

"But he had to pick someone like Biden to help him get elected", I hear you saying. Please. Obama is just another politician, and getting elected and re-elected is all they are truly about. If Obama gets elected he will not be substantially different than any other president we've had in office for decades. If he really did try to shake up Washington, all his advisors - you know, the same ones that told him to pick Biden - would tell him he wouldn't get re-elected. So when push comes to shove, Obama won't make any real change if it endangers his re-election.

Still not convinced? Consider Obama's rhetoric before and after he had the nomination sewn up. He's moved to the right of his initial ideals by changing his mind on offshore drilling and the domestic spy bill just to name two examples.

Vote for whoever you like, it just doesn't really matter.

Wil Wheaton mentioned something in a recent blog entry that I thought was very interesting, something that makes me think about the movie The Karate Kid. What Wil said was this:

"... until I take time off and recover HP. Problem is, I always feel guilty, like I'm being a deadbeat while Anne does real work during these times."

He was referring to the need as a creative person to take time off for himself, to recharge - and that it makes him feel guilty because his wife still has to work at her "real" job. I think this is likely a common feeling with creatives, and I know my wife Melanie feels this way sometimes, too. But what you creative people out there have to realize is that we partners with "real" jobs most often do our own recharging through you.

I love it when Melanie has creative bursts. It's a joy to watch someone you care deeply about be so into their creativity - so into life. We do what we do because you can't, and you do what you do because we can't. It's all about balance, just like Miyagi says to Daniel. Two creatives can make a life together work, just like two non-creatives can. But to have one of each - that is beautiful balance.

About 6:30 this morning I could smell someone making breakfast. At my house, that was unusual. I figured Katie must be cooking, although that was far too early for her.

About 7:20 there was a knock on our bedroom door that it was time for us to get up. We opened the door to be greeted by Sydney and Marissa and a big breakfast waiting on the table! Pancakes, muffins, toast, eggs, bacon (real and veggie), and lemonaide. It was all quite delicious and the girls were just brimming with excitement over our reactions.

"What's your favorite part?", Marissa asked a couple of times. And of course we were regaled with the tale of it's preparation and how they set their alarm for 4:45 to start the planning process. Those crazy girls!

By 10:30 they were both soundly asleep in the family room, of course, for a well-deserved rest!

Sigh...what thoughtful girls I have.

I've been saying for years that government bailout of airlines makes no sense. Either the free market works or it doesn't - if an entire industry can't figure out what they have to charge for their services in order to at least break even, they simply should not be in business.

The full realization of this wholly misguided philosophy of government bailout of allegedly private corporations is now at hand with the problems in the mortgage and financial instutions. The audacity of these big corporations to seek - well, pay for really with large contributions to politcal campaigns - deregulation for their own industries only to come begging for handouts when they get caught in their own malfeasance made possible by that very deregulation.

Robert Scheer points this out in a recent Huffington Post editorial as well. The interconnectedness and corruption of "private" corporate America and government is nothing short of brazen. The fact that the average American doesn't care is truly saddening if not downright pathetic, but there it is.

"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably
the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute
Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such
Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security" - the Declaration of Independence

Revolution, people, revolution...

My brother's family recently went to the awesome Henry Doorly Zoo, and took Marissa along. And of course, there are lots of photos!

Ted Rall's latest editorial (included at the end of this post) is the absolute gospel, no heresy intended. People don't want to hear what he has to say in this piece, but it's right and it takes a certain faith to accept something so seemingly foreign to "the American way" as nationalized energy. Americans equate nationalization with socialism, and this country has a very long history of doing it's very best to give socialism a bad name. The problem is, we already have a number of socialized institutions that we all take for granted.

Public schools, police and fire department are just three obvious ones. These are all services that we assume to be necessities, a right of the people. Why are energy and natural resources any different? It just makes sense for these things to be nationalized for the public good, not the good of corporations to profit from.

But wait, isn't the free-market and captialism the answer to everything? Can't we just trust that corporations will always act in our best interest?

Consider the case of water in Bolivia in 1999. A US company bid to take over their water system then raised prices drastically and even worked to make rain water a sellable commodity that they owned.

US seed makers genetically engineer seed so that farmers can't save any for next year. Monsanto is even trying to patent the pig. Couple all these things with the never-ended war against Eurasia, er I mean terrorism, and suddenly 1984 doesn't seem so far fetched.

Trust big corporations or the goverment? Not if my life depended on it.

THE CURE FOR HIGH GAS AND FOOD PRICES

Vital Businesses Need Nationalization

The
gas station attendant came outside. Wow, I thought, full serve!
Ignoring me, she flung a magnetic price decal on top of the price per
gallon. Regular unleaded had gone up 20 cents in the time it took me to
drive from the curb to the pump.

"You're kidding me," I moaned.

"It's 3 o'clock," she shrugged. "Just got the new price."

There has to be a better way, I thought.

And there is.

It isn't drilling in the Alaskan wilderness. It sure isn't John
McCain's plan to offer $300 million to the first person to come up with
a longer-lasting car battery.

Gas prices could hit $7 a gallon
before long, Wall Street analysts say, but Americans--always
optimists!--take a little comfort in the fact that Europeans have paid
more than that for years. But a lot of foreigners are laughing at us
even harder than we're laughing at the Euros.

Did you know that
Venezuelans pay a mere 19 cents per gallon? It's 38 cents in Nigeria.
Turkmenistanis might not have electoral democracy, but they only shell
out $4.50 to fill a 15-gallon tank. Before we replaced Saddam Hussein
with…with whatever they have in Iraq now, Iraqis paid less than a dime
for a gallon of gas.

One of the things that these countries
have in common, of course, is that they're oil-producing states.
Countries that export oil and gas have trouble explaining to their
citizens why they should pay for their own natural resources--and most
are smart enough not to try. Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Burma,
Malaysia, Kuwait, China and South Korea are just a few of the countries
that keep fuel prices low in order to stimulate economic growth.

But
they also share something else: common sense. Strange it might sound to
Americans used to reading about big oil windfalls, they consider cheap
gas more of an economic necessity than lining the pockets of energy
company CEOs. So they don't consider energy a profit center. To the
contrary; government subsidies (Venezuela spends $2 billion a year on
fuel subsidies) and nationalized oil companies keep gas prices low.

Unlike corporations, governments don't care about turning a profit.
They care about remaining in power. Their reliance on political support
(or, if you're cynical, pandering) allows them to do things our
much-vaunted free market system can't, such as make sure that people
can afford to eat and buy enough gas to get to work.

Like the rest
of the world, Venezuelan consumers have been squeezed by rising prices,
and even shortages, of groceries. In 2007 Venezuela's socialist-leaning
government decided to do something about it. First they imposed price
controls on staple items. When suppliers began to hoard supplies to
drive up prices, President Hugo Chavez threatened to nationalize them.
"If they remain committed to violating the interests of the people, the
constitution, the laws, I'm going to take the food storage units,
corner stores, supermarkets and nationalize them," he said. Food
profiteers grumbled. Then they straightened up.

Not even
international corporations are immune from Chavez's determination to
put the needs of ordinary Venezuelans ahead of the for-profit food
industry. Faced with severe shortages of milk earlier this year, Chavez
threatened Nestle and Parmalat's Venezuelan operations with
nationalization unless they opened the spigot. "This government needs
to tighten the screws," he said in February 2008, promising to
"intervene and nationalize the plants" belonging to the two
transnational corporations.

Miraculously, milk is turning up on the shelves.

When it works, nothing is better at creating an endless variety of
reality TV shows than free market capitalism. But when it doesn't, it
isn't just that extra brand of clear dishwashing liquid that goes away.
Businesses fold. Banks foreclose. People starve. And no one can stop it.

The G8 nations met in Osaka last week to try to address soaring food
and energy prices--a double threat that could plunge the global economy
into a ruinous depression. But the summit ended in failure. "Any hope
that the G8 meeting would result in coordinated monetary action--or
concerted intervention in foreign exchange markets--to counter rises,
principally in commodity prices, was dispelled by their failure to
agree on the phenomenon's underlying causes," reported Forbes.

So the G8 ministers punted. "Due to the lack of consensus, they have stated the need for further study," wrote the magazine.

The problem isn't the weak dollar or the non-existent housing market.
It's capitalism. A sane government doesn't leave essential goods and
services--food, fuel, housing, healthcare, transportation,
education--to the vicissitudes of "magic" markets. Non-discretionary
economic sectors should be strictly controlled by--indeed, owned
by--the government.

Consider, on the one hand, snail mail and
public education. The Postal Service and public schools both have their
flaws. But what if they were privatized? It would cost a lot more than
42 cents to mail a letter from Tampa to Maui. And poor children
wouldn't get an education.

Privatization, particularly of
essential services, has always proven disastrous. From California's
Enron-driven rotating blackouts to for-profit healthcare that has left
47 million Americans uninsured to predatory lenders pimping the housing
bubble to Blackwater's atrocities in Iraq, market-based corporations'
fiduciary obligation to maximize profits that is inherently
incompatible with a stable economy whose goal is to provide people with
a decent quality of life.

No one should pressure industries that
produce things that people need in order to live to turn a quarterly
profit. No one should go hungry, or remain sick, because some
commodities trader in Zurich figured out some nifty way to take an
eighth of a point arbitrage spread between the price of a hospital
stock in New York and in Tokyo.

P.S. If you're reading this in Caracas, please mail me some gas.

COPYRIGHT 2008 TED RALL

As if the fact that we actually elected Bush in 2004 (no, not 2000, he didn't win that one) weren't enough, I just read that a recent poll indicates that American voters think McCain would handle Iraq better than Obama. Now McCain is basically just Bush 2.0 and has even said that he doesn't care if we have to keep troops there for a millennium. Couple that with the fact that other polls show that the vast majority of Americans don't think Bush is handling Iraq correctly - you know, by keeping troops there with no time line for withdrawal.So how is it that we think McCain would handle Iraq better?
Americans are so stupid. It's why we don't live in a democracy but a republic - we can't be entrusted with such important decisions, don't you know.

I just finished the audio book of Josh Waitzkin's The Art of Learning. I really enjoyed it, and while it seems more autobiographical than instructional, the way in which Josh ties the threads from the stories he tells with the lessons he learned from them is worth the price alone.

I found many reinforcements of some ideas and concepts that I've long held, and even some reminders of ones I used to think were so important when I was younger. I want to listen to it again soon and make specific notes of these items so I can include them in my own chess sessions with my students.

My next lesson with Pujaa is on Saturday, and I can hardly wait to work some of these ideas into our session!

A few days ago I got a call from a 13-year old who was hoping I could help train her to be ready for the Cornhusker State Games chess tournament . I've watched Pujaa grow up in chess playing halls for a few years now, and I was absolutely thrilled to be able to work with her. She's a great kid with a really wonderful attitude about the game so I'm looking forward to our sessions over the next 4 weeks before the tournament.

Our first session was yesterday, and I have to admit to loving first sessions more than any other. So many kids are taught the wrong things when studying chess, in my opinion. Pujaa had two chess books with her - one on the openings and one on tactics. I told her to read the tactics book as many times as she could and to leave the openings book on the shelf - for the next few years. She was taken aback by that comment, since openings are taught so universally as important. But for anyone at her level (about USCF 1000), and even at my level (about USCF 1600), chess games are not won, they are lost. They aren't won by knowing the latest in the Catalan- they're won because you didn't hang a bishop and your opponent did. Eliminating tactical mistakes over the board is the single most important consideration upon which all other chess training is built.

What I find particularly effective to be taught alongside building tactical awareness is what I call listening to the board. As I am fond of saying to my students, if you know how to read the board, how to listen and interpret what it tells you, you'll never be stumped trying to figure how what you should be doing - what your plan should be. I also refer to this as asking the board the right questions - to become a board whisperer.

Becoming a board whisperer involves asking yourself a few simple questions and then being able to examine the answers the board gives to you from a tactical perspective. Questions like: Which of your opponent's pieces are not defended? What are the strengths in your position, and how can you use them? Are there pieces of my opponent that are in my way, and how can I get rid of them? There are many, many questions to master - tactical questions like looking for undefended pieces should be asked every move, while other questions are more subtle and take time to learn when the position is begging you to ask them.

But it always comes back to the board - learning to listen to what it is trying to tell you. Become a board whisperer and you'll see your games in a whole new light.

Well our wonderful congress is rubber-stamping whatever Bush wants yet again, Constitution be damned. In this week's episode, it's providing immunity to telecom companies that have/will spy on American citizens at the whim of the government - no warrant required!

But of course how could we expect telecom companies to do anything else? After all, they were just following the fuhrer's orders, so why would we hold them - or anyone else with that excuse, including the fuhrer himself - responsible for anything?

That's a pretty hot topic. A lot of the Obama-crazed supporters I'm sure would jump up and down and scream YES, but as for me, I'm not so sure. The reason why is simple - he's a politician.

I don't trust politicians because no matter what they say or how well they say it, they answer first and foremost to money. There are some notable exceptions (Kucinich, Wellstone come to mind), but the vast majority are just plain corrupt. And those on the national stage don't get there by accident, they are quite adept and willing to play the political game, and that game includes scratching the backs of those that fund and support you.

Evidence that Obama is just another political player abounds. His denoucement of Reverend Wright is one example. It's shocking to me that so many people see Wright as some sort of nut-case, because if you listen to what he says, most of it is pretty undeniable. Yes he speaks with great, uhm, vigor and conviction, but he also largely speaks the truth very plainly about many issues.

For example:

"You
cannot do terrorism on other people and expect it never to come back on
you," Reverend Wright said in his appearance at the National Press Club.

Pronouncing
himself "offended" by such "ridiculous propositions" as "when [Wright]
equates the United States' wartime efforts with terrorism--there are no
excuses," Obama said the next day.

What is so wrong about what Wright said here? It's a simple statement of human nature, and it is undeniably true. Yet Obama responds as a politician first and foremost, playing the angles on the "United States' wartime efforts" in his response, while during his campaign stating that the Iraq war needs to be over and that the atrocities at Abu Ghraib and elsewhre were heinous. But what - he doesn't think that treating people like that at Abu Ghraib (only one such torture camp among many) doesn't have long-term consequences on the psyche of the compatriots of those tortured and killed, let alone the tens or hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis killed by our bombs? Please. Rev. Wright simply spoke the ugly truth, and that is not reason enough to hide from it for any decent person, but then again we are talking about a politician here.

Another more recent example is that at an event in Detroit this week, Obama's staff made sure that two Muslim women were not in a position to be in photos of Obama since they were in traditional dress. Of course the campaign has apologized, saying:

"This is of course not the policy of the campaign. It is offensive and
counter to Obama's commitment to bring Americans together and simply
not the kind of campaign we run." (Obama spokesman Bill Burton).

Uh-huh. And at the next event you'll do exactly the same thing, in order to downplay any perception of Obama as a Muslim. That's the political game.

I've heard the argument that the man is just trying to get elected, and once in office we'll really see what he's made of. But of course then he'll be worried about re-election, so I wouldn't exactly count on that. Besides, what is the point here - the ends justifies the means? That's the same reasoning Bush et al give for torture, and I'm not buying it. Wright is right - you go down that road and you encourage hatred of this country.

So that leaves me ambivalent about Obama. Would he be better than McCain? "Better" is a pretty subjective word, but then again I think a tree stump would do a better job as president than McCain or Bush, so I guess I'd have to say yes. But a candidate for change? Please. He's a politician first and foremost, and they have no motivation to change the game. They know it too well.

Ewwwwwww.....

I just read something on the local TV web site that actually got me to leave a comment to it, reproduced below:
Please...I find most of this "analysis" pretty shallow. For one, higher oil prices would equate to higher revenue, NOT higher PROFITS unless Big Oil is doing a bit of light GOUGING. This is because it's a percentage game - big companies are rated not on dollar figures but on percentage increase figures, that is why profits are at all time highs - it's all about the percentages and stock price. This is the truth behind our economic system, not that competition keeps prices down.

Secondly, why does everyone always think the stock market is the answer to everything? Buying stock in big corporations that spend more money than the average American will see in a lifetime on lobbying congress to get favorable treatment is just not a good answer. And how much stock could the average American afford to buy? Not enough to offset their struggling week-to-week.

Please, don't insult us, we've done enough to ourselves as a nation by being unwilling to demand a government independent of corporate America.

 

I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!

I don't want to sound like a broken record by bringing up Big Oil again, but I just read a piece on the ABC News website about Big Oil profits, and it ends with a pretty entertaining quote:
" ... The oil companies are "broadly owned by tens of millions of
middle-class Americans, anyone with a pension plan or 401(k) or IRA
account, a mutual fund," Dougher said. "They're really the owners. So,
when their stock portfolios go up, that's really who benefits." ..."

So it's not the execs that are worth scores of millions of dollars in their own company's stocks that really benefit from Big Oil profits, or who really own the companies. It's Average Joe America who can retire on his few thousand dollars of Exxon stock. It's Average Joe America who decides for Exxon which candidates to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars wooing and courting favors from.
Next time I'm filling up at the pump, I'll have the satisfaction of knowing that I'm just investing in my own future.
Give me a break, not billions of dollars in tax breaks to Big Oil.