MisterE’s whereIstand Blog

Everytime I see a dollar bill in my wallet, I get excited, especially if its profit, not change for using a 5. That is because money is very tight for me, mostly because I worked as a freelancer for 6 months, and owed the government a crap load of money in April.

I don’t like paying taxes to support nuclear missiles, pentagon budgets, the war in Iraq…

I’m sick of the budget cuts to the social programs we actually need so desperately. I mean, you would almost think that they are keeping education poor so that political dissent isn’t a problem in the future. Who knows why, but we know what. We need more money for our social programs, and that obvious.

This is from truemajority:

They’re doing it again. Last night the leadership of the House of Representatives decided to suspend their usual rules, so they can pass more cuts in critical social programs the minute they arm-twist enough votes out of our legislators. The vote could be called as soon as this evening, so we’re calling NOW.

Call Representative Charles Rangel at (202) 225-4365 and ask them to oppose a budget deal that forces cuts in health care, education, nutrition, child care, and many other services.

I do like how they gave his phone number, a nice little touch. I called earlier this morning, got a recording naturally. I don’t know if that sort of thing would sway his mind, but at least it might plant a little seed of doubt in his mind, a little splinter that reminds him that he is doing something against the will of the people. And he knows he is being controlled, and maybe someday, it will make him snap and join the right team.

 The House budget proposal leaves out funds needed next year for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) and for Medicaid for low-income families who’ve left welfare for work. Both the President and the Senate continued these vital commitments, without which hundreds of thousands of children and parents will lose health coverage.

 The House plan would cause deeper and deeper cuts over 5 years. By 2011, the House Budget Committee’s proposal would fall more than 12 percent below what’s needed to maintain the current (already struggling) services. This is dramatically worse than either the President’s budget or the Senate’s plans.

 At the same time, the House plan would siphon off $228 Billion in revenue to give even more tax cuts to the wealthy.

I like the idea of poor families losing their health coverage, watching little Timmy die or become permanently disfigured from a car accident because his parents can’t take him to a hospital. Oopes, channeling Bush again, I gotta stop doing that, I just end up confusing people.

I hardly see any benefit in this. Even for the rich people, who’s maids will lose their health insurance and have to quit for a month because their son is dying… oh well, looks like someone else will have to clean the 8 story mansion.

For once, can’t the house, the senate, the president, can’t somebody give a shit about America as whole? What do these politicians think this will help? Nobody here feels threatened by a full scale invasion from another country. Everyone knows we have the strongest military in the field, and we haven’t had a terrorist attack in a long time. I don’t think little Timmy’s mom is willing to give up her son’s life so that she could possibly feel a tad bit safer knowing more money is being spent in a war in Iraq?! It absurd to me that these budgets keep getting dolled out like they were cigars at a millionaires party, leaving someone else to suffer from the consequences.

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I read Donovan’s post about oil prices, and the fishy nature of the increase in price, and the Bush administration. Not a coincidence, but perhaps a clever racketeering scheme. Who knows, but I thought this article was relevant.

President Bush on Tuesday ordered a tempory halt to deposits to the nation’s strategic petroleum reserve to make more oil available for consumer needs and relieve pressure on pump prices.

Bush also announced steps to ease environmental standards governing fuel grades.

The article takes a slightly favorable tone of Bush’s politics, but obviously the author didn’t read Donovan’s post. The change is going to be minimal, but it will have the "remove the olive from all cocktails drinks and save 30 million dollars" effect on his pocket.

This sort of thing would most assuredly fly under the radar, and we’d be all the more foolish to ignore it. He can manipulate these little things here and there, and just add more zeros to his bank account.

He urged Congress to take back some of the billions of dollars in tax incentives it gave energy companies, saying that with record profits, they don’t need the breaks. He urged lawmakers to expand tax breaks for the purchase of fuel-efficient hybrid automobiles.

I have an extremely hard time buying this. Bush gives tax incentives to the rich, and to republican big businesses, and then turns around and asks congress (primarily republican) to do the opposite? This guy is a piece of shit. Congress I’m sure laughed all the way to the slaughter house when Bush said that one. Who knows, it could all be a part of their collective plan initiated by the Illuminati.

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• Donovan
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Man, everyday I read a new story about why Bush is ruining this country. First it was his social conservative, back-stepping, back to the middle ages routine with his anti-gay sentiments and anti-choice tyranny. I mean, the man wants to control us like an evil warlord… exactly like an evil warlord.

I’ve never been a fan for tax cuts for the rich or the republican’s "let poor people stay poor" ideology. Thats one of the reasons why the era of Clinton was so wonderful. Its a shame the democrats are such a mess right now, because their ideology is superior to conservatives and republicans with their wanting everyone to be free and have choice doctrine. Not to mention Clinton’s excellent economic policy.

When Mr Bush took office he inherited a $236 billion budget surplus. Bill Clinton, his predecessor, had used budget surpluses to pay down some of the national debt in his last two years in office.

Sure, blame it on September 11th you monkey! Even though you knew september 11th would give you canon fodder to invade Iraq for money. A clever money making conservative scheme that just fell into his lap on morning? No Bush, fuck you, it was your runaway spending you idiot.

The vote to increase the debt limit, requested by the White House, is the fourth since Mr Bush took office. In 2001 the national debt was $5.7 trillion. Today it has ballooned to $8.2 trillion, figures rarely talked about in Washington.

First of all, a trillion dollars is incomprehensible to me. It is really hard to imagine that kind of dough. Second… fourth time the debt limit was increased since Bush invaded office? Damn those republicans. When are they going to get it, their money saving tactics are garbage! Anyway, read my posts on the common sense budget acts. If we’re going to be spending this money we don’t have, lets spend it on kids, education, health care and tolerance, rather than war, violence, hate, and everything republican.

And to end it all, my favorite, money facts:

$9 TRILLION

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So all of you I’m sure remember my post on the state of pentagon spending, and how desperately we need that money. Well it would seem my prayers are being answered.

Yesterday, a group of courageous U.S. Representatives introduced the “Common Sense Budget Act, ” which would take $60 Billion in wasted Pentagon funding and spend it instead on schools, doctors, and stuff we care about.1

This money could save 6 million kids who die of starvation each year in impoverished countries. It could rebuild our public schools and provide health insurance for our kids who don’t have it. It could do all this and a lot more, every year.

This bill, called the Common Sense Budget Act of 2006 could really start to solve some of our most serious issues. And the best part is, there are some military generals behind it… not just the enlightened left. Here are some current facts… the state of the union if you will… I want you all to support this.

(A) the United States now ranks 25th in the world in infant mortality, behind most of the nations of Western Europe and the industrialized Far East, while $60,000,000,000 of the United States defense budget is expended annually on weapons designed to thwart Soviet Union aggression during the Cold War and other wasteful programs;

(B) Federal spending on elementary and secondary education has fallen to less than 10 percent of the proposed 2006 outlays for the Department of Defense, while schools through- out the Nation are eliminating programs in music, foreign language, and physical education;

(C) 61,000,000 individuals in the United States lack health insurance during some period of any given year, and half that number of individuals (over 10,000,000 of whom are children) lack such insurance for the entire year;

Well the list goes on, I’m not going to sit here and quote the entire bill for you. I just want you to support the re-appropriation of spending. I mean, check out my earlier post… its pretty incredible how much money we spend on defense, especially when checked against how much everyone else spends. Check my blog for the exact figures. Lets put the money in the right place people.

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There is a crap load of room for improvement in the NYC subway system. It is nice to be able to get places, but its a shame we have to rely on it. If NYC weren’t the way it was, I could have a car here, and drive where I needed to be like in San Francisco. But I can’t have a car here, so I have no choice but to rely on their public transportation systems. As such, when the goddamn train takes 30 minutes to show up, its tough shit. And boy does that make me mad.

I’ve sat at the 72nd street waiting for 20 minutes for a 1,2,or a 3, meanwhile, my practice MCAT is starting and if I don’t get there soon i’ll have wasted thousands of dollars. (The MCAT class was very expensive, not to mention the expense of moving to New York for the class, the cost of tuition for me to be able to take the MCAT and so on). Should I sue the MTA? No, obviously not, but I do want a better system.

They have a budget surplus, and a lot of reasons to update the system. An intern that works for me was 45 minutes late today because the damn train wouldn’t show up at his station. Another intern that works for me had to walk 20 blocks because the 1 train decided to randomly go express.

We all have your subway horror stories, all of us, so why not do something about it. If they needed to raise the fare to $2.01 to make the subway reliable and pay the workers more, so be it, $2.02… they don’t need that much money.

Further more, the MTA workers are the most jaded, unhappy, and apathetic people i’ve ever seen. Try asking one a question, you’ll see what I mean. Now, I’m sure they have every reason to be so, so I think they should get paid more! Maybe brighten their mood, because their mood effects riders mood.

I have ridden the Underground, and likewise the Metro in Paris, and they are far superior. They are cleaner, safer, and way more reliable. In Paris, 3 years ago when I was there, one of their newest lines was completely automated, and I know they were working on having more be so.

The L train goes down every weekend so that everyone in Williamsburg is fucked. There is no way to get from the west side to the east side from the park north or vice versa without taking a bus, which is annoying. And honestly, when the trains get crowded during rush hour, things are almost unbearable. People are jammed up against each other and start pushing each other and being rude and terrible things happen. Nothing is worse when they try and close the door before everyone is on the train, why do they do that? Those doors hurt when the slam on you, not to mention they leave nasty stains. Sometimes I just want to punch the MTA in an impossible way.

Anyway, I’m done complaining about the subway. One day, I won’t have to live in this city and life will be that much better.

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• Clark
• Whom do you support?
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First of all, I need you to all watch this animation, and this video. This should give you a frightening look into the administration’s crap. Thanks to my girlfriend for sending me the links.

Now that you have watched it… aren’t you scared? Doesn’t this frighten you? Are you scared? Why is this is happening? First of all, reread my amazing post on how much a billion dollars is. Then put it into context.

The answer is that money does solve our problems. Schools are underfunded, and that is why they are failing. Money goes to supporting more programs to get kids more involved in their schools. It hires more teachers, more equipment to help kids learn, and better salary for teachers. Now I know no one is going to argue with me that are schools need more money. But the issue comes into the responsibility of our government in all of this.

Republicanism fails many ways when it comes to the three branches of our government, and really this is just one of them. Its really more the reason to get these jokers out of ‘power’ and into mental facilities were they can pee in cups and play chess all day. (I bet Bush sucks at chess… one thing we probably have in common).

So what is the point of spending all the money defending a nation of uneducated people? Why are we so into this defense thing? Why do we spend so much energy, attention, and obviously money in wars? Why can’t we all just get a long?

I honestly think if Bush wasn’t president, we would have not been attacked on 9/11, and need to have money spent on national defense in the first place. I’m sure investment companies that have investors like the Bush family and in turn invest in defense companies might have something to do with it… no?

Well… think about it.

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I’ve never been much to buy into commercials or brand names, for example, I just recently bought a 15 inch LCD flat screen monitor for my computer. How much do they go for normally? 300 bucks, how much did I spend? 150 bucks. Why? Cause I bought one from a company called Balance. Have you ever heard of Balance? Me neither.

There is some risk in buying a brand name you’ve never heard of. I bought a 20 inch flat tube television for 100 dollars which I thought was a deal, and when it arrived, it didn’t work. The company? HiSense. Ever hear of them? Me neither. The TV broke in transit, easily. SO I don’t have high hopes for it. I got a replacement, and it works fine, but the moment it gets jarred, I know its going to break. Thats okay, for the type of TV it is, its very cheap.

One brand name I’ve always stuck to is Apple. EVer since the 80s I tell ya. They’ve always produced superior machines. A macintosh computer has integrated components, unlike a PC, so it rarely breaks down. In 16 years of using Apples, i’ve had one hard drive meltdown, once, and that was because of a design flaw in the heating array of the laptop. Fortunately I was able to get my data off of it in time. But thats remarkable. I can’t tell you how many PCs I’ve had or known of that crashed regularly, erasing all data.

Well, I’m not going to get into which is better because thats a very length discussion I’d be happy to have anywhere but this post. The one thing I am bothered by however, is how Apple cornered the market on professional grade equipment, and jacked up the prices. You know, if you don’t get a protection plan, they charge you 50 bucks to ask a question over the technical service hotline? I’m sorry, but thats fucked up. Fortunately, I’m somewhat of a Mac genius, and have never had to call to ask a question. It is also fortunate that Macs rarely break, or have a problem that can’t be fixed easily by the user. My brother’s Dell laptop? That thing might as well been built as a door stop, it breaks so often that its unusable.

Sorry, wrong tangent again. What I’m upset about it how Apple drives the price up. It used to be, that you could buy from a huge selection of different computers. Now, they only offer 3 models at a time. As soon as one is replaced by another, you cannot buy it from apple anymore. Same with the ipods, I had mine for 3 years until one day it died. Apple wanted 270 dollars to fix it, which is 30 dollars less than the price of a new one. I said NOOOOO. But I HAD to chose from an ipod shuffle (don’t want that, no screen, holds like 4 songs) an ipod nano (don’t want that either, too small, would break it) or a super duper full screen, high density ipod video (which I don’t want either, too many bells and whistles). But, I didn’t have a choice. No regular ipod thats a good size, with no bells and whistles, and plays songs.

It is just a shame. I want to stay loyal to Apple because their products are truly superior to the alternatives, but man, I have to sell a left nut anytime I want to upgrade.

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