Akkam’s Razor

I was going to give a long diatribe into my endorsement for the Primaries.

Flickr photo from user damonabnormal.

I’ll keep it short. Obama.

To me, this primary (and election) is not about education, opportunity, age, gender, or race. It’s not about terrorism, the war, the economy, the environment, or health care. It’s not about blue versus red, godless versus pious, or coastal versus heartland. It’s not about bowling, or coffee, or liquor. It’s not about torture, lies, or corruption. It is not about God, gays, and guns. It’s not about Pastors, lapel pins, or affiliations.

Simply put, I believe that this country is at a crossroads. We are being tested.

All of the institutions created some 230-plus years ago are faltering, have been weakened or gamed out of existence. The civic fabric of our nation is coming apart.

The social contract of citizenship has been undermined as the middle-class has been squeezed financially, while being told that their problems are largely psychological, and that values are most important. We have been told we’re winning the war, the economy is fine, the worst of the economic downturn is behind us, there is no emergent food crisis, inflation is under control, and that unemployment is low. Our military is fine, thank you, you only need listen to the generals, and is not under threat of breaking.

I want to be inspired, not led. I want to vote for optimism and change, not pessimism, triangulation, and the maintenance of an un-viable status quo. I want a candidate not running on the fumes of the past, or who feels their Presidency is a foregone conclusion and birthright. I want a candidate that can be easily removed via primary challenge in four years if need be, not one entrenched by the party system.

I say I’m for Obama, and will also state that I don’t think he bests Hillary in Pennsylvania (I think she wins with a less than 10-point spread). I may be throwing away my vote, but it’s my vote to waste.

At the very bottom of recent stories announcing the need for expanded staffing at the FDIC by 60%, with an emphasis of recruiting S&L Crisis veterans (WSJ, subscription required), was a sentence stating the following:

There are 76 banks on the FDIC’s “problem institutions” list - which would equate to about 10 expected bank failures this year. About six banks fail per year on average, FDIC officials said.

Kids don’t like Caillou, they like Caillou’s parents.

This will be the first Presidential primary (Pennsylvania) I’ve ever voted in that might actually mean something.

Management types - it’s time to ditch the military metaphors - a significant portion of the workforce was born AFTER the last war where military service was compulsory.

Wingnut wet dreams not withstanding, I’m fairly certain that the multitude of cameras (over 600, circa 5/2005) surveying Times Square will quickly identify the alleged ‘bomber’ of the US Armed Forces Recruiting Station in NYC.

Received two interesting and presumably unrelated Comcast mailings today.

The first was my bill (I pay $60 per year for an unlisted number? WTF!), which included a revised “Agreement for Residential Services” (PDF here from Comcast). More on that in a minute.

Next was an awesome letter telling me that I’m such an awesome customer that my bill will be increasing an awesome $20 at the end of my promotion period, but no worries, like the hero in a Michael Bay movie, I will be receiving a totally awesome $10 credit on my bill (which is really a $10 surcharge). Brilliant. Also included were three coupons for three on-demand movie rentals valued at $4.99 each (sadly, not including Wrestlemania or Hot Tub Housewives 37). If this is how Comcast plans on staving off the exodus towards FIOS, they are in for a world of hurt.

An article from the Guardian…

And a video from Slate V sure to inspire talk of Hollywood Elitists running Hollywood and more fictitious accounts of plagiarism.

…like a $40 or $200 dollar bill, it better have George W. Bush on it.  And they better not be planning on naming an aircraft carrier after him.  Side note:  Gawd, is the new fiver UGLY.

So I decided on Glengarry Glenn Ross [IMDB, Wiki].  The film was originally a David Mamet play subsequently turned into a movie.  The title refers to two investment properties mentioned in the film - Glengarry Highlands and Glen Ross Farms.

Pretty rich film, when you get down to it.  Incredibly obscene, it was referred to by the cast as "Death of a F*cking Salesman". 

The clip is set in a Real Estate office with tired, gray men, on a miserably rainy evening.  Alec Baldwin's character, Blake (coincidentally, acting in a part that was originally written for fellow co-star Al Pacino) comes in to 'motivate' the sales staff. 

Although we often complain of absent or bad leadership, we do not pay enough (or any) attention to bad followership.

At some point in the near future, some industries will state that the giving away of product 'for free', as in the open source movement, is in fact a violation of Fair-Trade practices and might be a form of price-fixing. 

Globalization weakened local markets, strengthened export markets, and lowered both wages and prices.  A pending energy crisis will do the inverse. 

The political press in the United States is a creature not obligated to give the people what they want; The press assumes that the people are incapable of understanding the truth.

By examining my user stats in Statcounter, Feedburner, and Google Analytics, it appears that the vast majority of you prefer to get this site’s content via a feedreader.  As such, you most likey have NEVER actually seen the main page.

I’ve adopted a new theme, Cutline by Chris Pearson, and am currently tweaking the layout and transitionion the many custom elements from my prior K2 theme , mostly discovering that they were missing by accident.

Please feel free to click on through and let me know what you think via the contact page or below in the comments. 

Thank you for your frankness, Mr. Greenspan:

"I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil," Greenspan wrote in his soon-to-be-published memoir, The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World.

Of course, now you can blame your unfortunate quotation, sourced verbatim from your own book, on those darn lefty blogs.

Especially in light of yesterday's post.