I was 3/4's of the way through today’s post when some one scrapped it checking their email (Elsie). But just so you know, it was hilarious and enlightening and all sorts of good things that you can't prove it wasn't :) I may wind up writing one later but right now I think I’ll sulk for a little while.

Moody

This morning I'm going to take a moment and talk to the ladies in my life. I am of the opinion that I have been particularly lucky in terms of the females that have come to be permanently ensconced in this string of days I call a Life. As two of them are members of this blogging community I will be forced to refer to my loved ones by their screen names. You're thinking, "How sincere", I know, but it can't be helped.

First to my dearest LCK, (or around here Elsie Kay). Only those that are our close friends and family know how tolerant and supportive you have been throughout the years and even they don't know the half of it. I am a complete mess and you have taken it upon yourself to tidy me up for my ventures out into the great wide world. For some one like me who used to spend every free moment at a friends house or in a bar you have made those activities seem unfulfilling compared to a whole weekend spent in p.j.'s watching bad TV avoiding outside contact like we're in some kind of far eastern quarantine. I have never been more comfortable with another person in my entire life, and I hope you understand what that feeling of warmth and safety mean to me. For everything you have meant to me and everything you will mean to me in the future, I LOVE YOU.

To my little sister Lauralanthalasa, Lornybell, even (at a much younger age) Dink, and around here "Blue with Envy"; I don't have the words to tell you how proud I am of the way you have grown into a young woman. You've matured to be, as hard as it is for me to admit this, smarter than I am and perhaps even funnier than me as well. To have you in my life as you aptly scale the hurdles placed in your path has been a privilege that I have no way of repaying you for. I LOVE YOU.

And last, but most definitely not least, Mom; I have no one else to thank for the person I have come to be nearly as much as You. You kept me open minded in a house that could have easily turned that switch in me off. You gave me the courage and the opportunity to speak my mind on all things. What my life would be like with out having had you to turn to during those more than occasional dark patches of my childhood I don't even want to think about. You gave me the foundation for almost all of the qualities in me that I hold dear. I LOVE YOU.

Thank all three of you, for all of the happiness in my life you have been responsible for. I can't imagine my life with out the three of you in it and I hope that you all know how appreciative I am to have you.

Incidentally, my afore mentioned little sister (Blue with Envy) has started her own blog here at the "stream" and I encourage all of you that are interested in the political views of a young lady with more intelligence than most women her age (as I look directly at Seeing Red), to check her blog out. It is called "Our Confederacy of Dunces", and looks like it will be known for the same insight and sharp wit that I have come to recognize as my sister's calling card. There is a link to it in my "Blogs I like" list.

Once again, LCK, Blue, Mom, thank you all for keeping me propped up in a way that the world doesn't cringe to look at me :) HAPPY VALENTINES DAY TO ALL THREE OF YOU.

Lovingly yours,

Moody

Okay Neo Cons, when are you going to give up the fort? Really, what is it going to take before you get as sick as the rest of us at the endless stream of mistakes coming out of this Bozo's White House? A Government report will be issued this Wednesday on the failures of government officials surrounding hurricane Katrina.

Before I get going I will say that there was plenty of blame to go around, so Bush wasn't the only hand involved with this massive dropping of the ball. Now that I've gotten that short disclaimer out of the way I'll start by telling you that a House committee made up of 11 Republicans appointed to investigate the Governments reaction to Hurricane Katrina will release their findings which, in part, state in no uncertain terms that the White House knew about the breach of the levies a day before Bush officials previously claimed. I have been slow to believe that the President is a liar (I kind of just thought he was dumb) but it is getting to the point where I am left with nothing else to believe.

No Democrats accepted an appointment to this committee due to their belief that an independent investigation was more appropriate. I can't help but feel more comfortable knowing that circumstances ended up as they did. Though committee members did complain about the White Houses' refusal to hand over E-mails pertaining to Katrina, which an independent investigation may have pursued more thoroughly, this report will have to be seen as more credible having been done by members of Bush's own party.

The committee’s findings also discredit the White House’s claims that any delay that may have occurred was of little consequence. Their failure to act was directly responsible for delays in evacuations and because of this, who knows how many people lost their lives. This committee also determined that the White House discounted damage reports that later proved to be true. Yep, while New Orleans was flooding G-Dub was on vacation thinking "It can't be that bad. I gotta have time for one more cock fight". I'm sorry but this whole thing just pisses me off. The icing on the cake is the President’s response to these serious allegations. Allen Abney, a White House spokesman has said, "The president is less interested in yesterday and more interested with today and tomorrow so that we can be better prepared for next time." What? Did he just say that the President just doesn't want to think about it? I BET he doesn't. And just so everybody knows how prepared our President has us in case of another major disaster the draft says this about the potential for a terror attack. "If this is what happens when we have advance warning, we shudder to imagine the consequences when we do not. Four and a half years after 9/11, America is still not ready for prime time."

The Homeland Security Department was seen to be lacking as well but as that isn't keeping with the spirit of this post I’m going to leave it to you to read about their shortcomings on your own. I'll just say that as a piece of the executive branch of the government the President is ultimately responsible for their inability to do their job as well.

Now the President was not alone in failing the people of New Orleans. The Democratic Governor of Louisiana and the infamous Mayor Nagin were both found to play their own part in this debacle, but they don't effect us as a Nation so I'll leave them out if this post. I'm not attempting to trivialize the roles they played in this disaster; I just don't care as much about government officials that don't affect my life directly.

After this report comes out on Wednesday we will have proof positive that: A) the White House lied about when they were informed of the levy breaks. B) their delay had a serious effect on the effort to evacuate the city. and C)they had been told of the damage being done in New Orleans and they chose not to believe it. When are you Republicans going to wake up? It's about time you guys swallow your pride and admit that voting for this dumb ass was a mistake. It's just a matter of time before this ass clown does something else to put peoples lives in jeopardy. Enough is enough; Republicans need to put their man in check. I will promise you this, if you all get together and agree to admit that you were wrong we liberals wouldn’t say I told you so to your face.If this doesn’t show you the true idiocy of the President and his team of Keystone Cops then nothing will. This man we let lead our country is going to go down in history as the bumbling buffoon that he is and you will have to tell your children and grandchildren that you supported him every step of the way.

This new phone is great. I know exactly who is calling when the flashing red light blinks and the siren goes off. There are enough Neo Cons around that our favorite store must have made a pretty penny over the past several years. Hey Bush fanatics, the jerk store called. They ran out of you.

Moody

This post is meant for those of you that, as the title suggests, support our current war AND claim to follow the teachings of your Lord Jesus Christ.

There are so many things to say that I hardly know where to begin. How about this, what ever happened to turn the other cheek? That's Biblical isn't it? Did Jesus ever strike back at anyone that ever wronged him? (I suppose you can split hairs with the whole moneychangers in the temple thing, but come on) No he did not, and he definitely never attacked anyone because he thought they might attack him in the future. How do you jive this with your beliefs?

If George Bush is a Christian as he claims, and it was his decision to go to war, is he going to hell? If you say no, and that this is a war of necessity, then does that means God supports this war? If God supports this war then we might just be engaging in a little jihad of our own. For all of the talk today about Islam being a violent religion Christians have killed more people since the beginning of the war than all of the Muslims in the world combined.

You can't possibly be of the opinion that this war and Christianity are two separate things. If God exists, as you believe, then he would most certainly have an opinion on all wars going on in the world. Operating under the theory that God is infinitely good, how could he support any war when they lead to so much death? I think I'll stop here. There are enough questions there to give any religious philosopher pause.

I just got a call on my new “Bat Phone” and it was for all of the hypocritical "God is Love" / "Bomb the hell out of ‘em" Christians out there. The jerk store called. They ran out of you.

Moody

There were some interesting statistics in a New York Times article today that indirectly relate to a small post I compiled a couple of days ago ("Already researched it"). I hope to use this article (you can read it all for free at nytimes.com) to illustrate that we are not only selling off our country to foreign investors little by little, but aren't making the ground level changes that need to be made to correct this downward spiral.

The most important fact, though hardly a surprising one, is that we once again had a trade deficit last year. Meaning that we have bought more foreign goods into the country than we have sold goods of our own to foreign nations. Though that news is nothing new, what might not be so commonly known is that we had our last trade surplus in the year of your lord nineteen hundred and seventy five.... Let that sink in. For those of us that don't understand what that implies, it means that we have not brought more money in trade goods into our country than paid out for goods we "need" in THIRTY YEARS. Good thing our nation is not a business because we'd have gone belly up long ago.

Not only do we have a trade deficit, but the deficit we do have is huuuuge. Over the last 4 years it has sky rocketed to 725.8 billion dollars, which is a fifty percent increase since 2001. For a sense of perspective I'll tell you that our last trade surplus was of 12.4 billion dollars and that the entire GNP (Gross National Product) of the nation of Iraq is 89 billion dollars. It’s startling, I know. What this does is make us/America more reliant on foreign investments in American bonds and stocks. Did you make the connection? Because we like the goods other countries produce more than they like ours we are dependent on money made by selling of pieces of our corporations and even our country (in the form of bonds) to keep our economy afloat. Scary huh? Coming back to the numbers, that is 725.8 billion dollars we are not getting back until our nation's leaders figure out how to get the world at large to, for lack of a better way of putting it, buy our shit. How do we do this you ask? I'll do my best to explain my opinion how.

In my eyes, the solution to this problem is two fold; first we need a reform of American business strategy and secondly there needs to be a reemphasis on technological education. They can almost be seen as one solution because the former begets the latter. I'll give a couple of examples of where my solution can help the most then outline what it is I propose we do.

We have gone from the number one seller of technology based products in the world to something like the thirteenth. We were the masters of the computer age, and, through the lethargy of our tech corporations, have pissed it all away. The second example of our fall from dominance is the train wreck that is the American automotive industry. People all over the world used to covet the cars coming out of Detroit. How did we lose these markets that we once held as our own? We stopped innovating, and in terms of the automotive industry, just stopped making good cars. This lack of innovation is due in part to American companies ideas on what makes a business successful. American corporations have become addicted to the Wal-Mart style of business, which stresses moving lower priced units en masse as opposed to selling higher quality goods at a premium price. While this may help sell goods in the U.S. it keeps other countries from viewing the products we sell as worth importing (especially since they can get most of them from the same countries we have them made in for much cheaper). This is where I come in :)

I propose government subsidies (don’t forget, I AM a liberal) for companies that invest a larger portion of their budget into research and development, hopefully, giving companies the incentive to look towards making products that will earn them money in the future as opposed to mass marketing cheap products that will generate profits now. This will then create a larger job market for tech based jobs and in turn will drive more of America's youth into technology and engineering based degrees. The more people being educated along these lines the more likely it is that we will start to produce the kinds of innovators that spurred, no, invented the markets that we are now losing out to foreign companies in. We are getting pushed around on our own turf because we stopped being the best in the world at developing these types of products. Until we can start to produce more of the kinds of scientists and engineers that made us the leaders in these fields in the first place we will continue to be beaten' at the games we ourselves created.

I have to get at least one partisan remark in, so I'll go ahead and say that the types of student aid cuts that are outlined in the president’s next budget proposal are only going to make matters worse.

I just had a red phone with a big light up button installed for instances exactly like these and I’ll be damn if it's not ringing. Hey America's business leaders, for watching our grip on markets that we once controlled slip away, the jerk store called, they ran out of you.

P.S. This is my most ambitious post so far and as I have no real education in business or international economics I am sure there are holes throughout this theory, so bring it on. I want to hear your suggestions on turning our trade deficit into a surplus again.

Moody