The Dichotomy

America's political scene is an exercise in contradiction. On one hand we have a party of Creationists who espouse a "survival of the fittest" agenda. On the other hand, we have a party of Evolutionists who espouse an agenda of "intelligent design".

No wonder things are a mess.

VABO: you know, that's not a bad idea

A friend of mine just hit me with a new term: VABO (Vote Against Barack Obama). I'm not really a big fan of voting against people, but this year I'm all over this mantra.

Back in 2008, I voted the straight Libertarian party ticket. Why? Because I wanted to vote for people instead of against others. In the ensuing 23 months, I have lost my job, endured the national debt exploding at an unparalleled rate, and watched the "do-gooders" try to legislate "the right thing".

This year, I'm going to vote the straight Republican ticket for two reasons. The first is because, finally, the fiscal conservative elements in the party (a.k.a., the Tea Partiers) have had enough and finally ousted the stranglehold that the bible-thumping, crypto-fascists have had on the party since 2002. The second is because its time that we made it clear to the Democrats (the aforementioned "do-gooders") that their socialist, "we are the ruling class, you are the unwashed, proletarian masses" agenda is unacceptable.

Still, the country is going to remain up Shit's Creek until we can get a major 3rd party into the mix, one that combines fiscal responsibility with social freedoms. The problem is that ideals like that really only appeal to a very small set of the population -- the ones who want to take care of themselves and don't want to be told what to do. Unfortunately, an overwhelming majority of the people in this country want (or need) to be kept, like pets, or they want to be able to tell other people how to live their lives.

Economists, part of the problem

I'm going to interrupt my rant on climate change to tell a great joke I heard years ago.

After shipwreck, three world-renowned academics find themselves marooned on an island with a case of canned food. As they start to get hungry, they brainstorm on problem of opening the cans.

The first academic, a chemist, says, "If we leave a can in the sun, Boyle's Law tells me that the contents will increase in pressure and the can will burst."

The second, a mathematician, says, "We'll need to know about the how the can is made so that we can determine how best to locate it so that it will burst in the shortest period of time while spilling the least amount of contents."

The third, an economist, says "Let's just assume that we have a can opener..."

The point here is to illustrate that economists, especially academic ones, make a lot of horribly flawed assumptions about the state of things, specifically considering variables as constants for the purposes of evaluation.

Now, consider the impact that economists have on government.

Congratulations, Joe!

He did it! My friend Joe Kennedy got his name on the ballot for the US Senate special election to replace Ted Kennedy.

Joe is a Libertarian running as an independent candidate in this election. If you live in Massachusetts, I urge you to go to his web site (http://joekennedyforsenate.com/) and review his platform. Help take back government from the special interests and make it accountable to the people.

Are we really that stupid?

It's a simple question and one I ask because I never cease to be amazed at how dumb people can be.

But, more importantly, I ask it because there are times when I am absolutely appalled when the actions of our so-called leaders (or those who would seek to become one) do nothing but mock our intelligence.

Case in point, in 2006, the Democratic National Committee ran on a one-issue platform: Stop the War! That was it. Almost no focus was given to things like the economy, health care, energy costs, or education; it was all about "the War". As such, every Democratic candidate in an election for a federal office ran on that platform. This made sense, as Congress are the ones who control the budget.

Unfortunately, just about every Democratic candidate for a state office here in New Hampshire made that part of their platform as well. Ask them about their platform and they'd eventually mention the war (in Iraq, they couldn't have cared less about Afghanistan). This stunned me. The New Hampshire state legislature has no control over the United States Military. None, zero, zip, zilch, nada. Why were these candidates making this an issue?

Well, I guess I overestimated the general public because the Democrats won a historic victory, taking the control of both houses of the New Hampshire state legislature.

This brings me to something I saw today. It was an ad for Steve Pagliuca. Pagliuca is a candidate in the Massachusetts special election for US Senate. In his ad, Pagliuca explains that "Massachusetts is hurting" and he talks about how his plan will help turn around the economy in the state.

Again, I'm confused. Can someone please tell me how electing this clown to a federal office is going to directly help the economy in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts? The short answer is that it can't. It's meaningless grandstanding. If he really wanted to help redevelop the Bay State's economy, he'd be better served running for a state-wide office in Massachusetts and not running for US Senate.

But there I go again, overestimating the intelligence of the general public.

Why I don't trust the government

or

A funny thing happened trying to learn about something completely different

Back in 2007, I was working at Fidelity and I was trying to get in touch with a co-worker who I had a worked with on a project several years before. The co-worker was Steve Ganis, the Vice President in charge of Fidelity's Anti-Money Laundering Office. There was only 1 problem, I couldn't find him. He wasn't answering voicemails or emails and he wasn't at his desk. Then, I overheard a conversation in the next cubicle about him so, I asked "what going on with Steve?"

The reaction I got could only be likened to the one the emperor must given the small child when asked why he was naked. The response I got back was veiled to say the least. But the short answer was that Fidelity was being sued by a former employee and that Steve had been named in the suit. I also learned that there had been a "big article in the paper" and, as such, Steve had been reassigned (a lovely bit of corporate double-speak) until the matter was resolved.

So, I did a Google search to try and find the article using "Steve Ganis investigation". I didn't find the article I was looking for, but I did find something else. What I came up at the top of my search was the following link: The Mystery of the "lost" Mena Report, Gray Money: the Continued Cover-up.

Being someone who likes hearing conspiracy theories, I printed out the story and it promptly sat on my desk for about 3 months before I got tired of looking at it and decided to bring it home to read it. Once I started, it was hard to put it down. Written in 2001, the article's purpose was to publish the results of an independent investigation by the Arkansas Commission into the activities going on in Mena, Arkansas in the early to mid-1980's and expose their findings. It also documented their attempts at having Congress and other "trusted authorities" investigate the matter.

As far as my interest lay, the bottom line was that Steve Ganis was working for the House Banking Committee (HBC), the Congressional authority that was investigating the matter, and had been leading their investigation. However, the report that he produced was never published, even years after the investigation had concluded. It also said that Steve Ganis had left the HBC, whereabouts unknown.

I didn't think much of it at the time. However, a couple of months later I heard that someone else had been assigned take over Steve's position and I decided to look into it further. This time, I printed out a new copy of the report and printed out articles under the related stories. The first one in particular, Gray Money, drew me in like a moth to a flame. The article drew a very clear line between Bill Clinton and AIG with the Arkansas Development Finance Authority the middle man.

Putting the information provided, or alluded to in the articles, together, one could see that George Bush (Bush I as I like to call him) and Bill Clinton had been working together for some time. Basically, Clinton allowed Bush and the CIA to use Mena as the focal point for a CIA-sponsored drug smuggling operation and in return they would launder the money through Clinton's vehicle of choice. Furthermore, they would direct the federal investigators to turn a blind eye to Clinton's other endeavors which required money laundering.

As for Steve Ganis, it turns out that the events that precipitated the lawsuit were much ado about nothing, boilerplate disgruntled former employee who decided to sue instead of find another job.