Battlestar Galactica

That was the most lame series finale ever.

Bailouts

Does anyone else feel like maybe the AIG bonus payout is a setup to encourage socialism? I can't help but wonder if the politicians expected such behavior and poised themselves for a coming, "See! Private companies can't operate on their own. We need to take control so that they don't give bonus money out."

Thought for today

President Obama has said (multiple times) that there is no time to waste in passing the economic stimulus package. That is paraphrasing, but I seem to recall something along the line of, "if we don't pass this now, we will go into an unrecoverable recession."

If that is truly what he believes then why did he wait to sign the package until today? Shouldn't it have been signed over the weekend just a few minutes after it was ready?

Windows 7

I’ve been using Windows 7 exclusively for the last couple of days. So far my favorite feature is that I can “dock” a window to the edge of the screen. For instance, you can double-click the top edge of a window (where you would normally grab a hold and drag the window out to make it taller) and it will “dock” to the exact height of the screen. This makes it super easy to maximize desktop space and get a couple of windows side-by-side. When you drag the window it stays “docked”. Pretty cool.

Time flies...

I guess it's true what they say. I almost didn't believe them until I looked at how long it has been since I blogged.

$700B financial bailout

Just watched the President's speech. I have some thoughts:

• I predict this bill will become a factor similar to "I didn't vote for war" (which may be one of the reasons Hillary isn't the dem's presidential candidate) for future political campaigns
• This may encourage other businesses and industries to continue on a downward spiral of poor decisions with the hope of a bailout.
• We may end up only delaying and worsening the fallout.
• I like the idea that our government could make money on this, but FICA makes me think otherwise. I wonder if we should force the profit to goto stabilizing FICA and ending it at the same time.
• I don't know if I can get past the fact that capitalism allows businesses to flourish at the risk of losing everything

The most positive point I can pull from this is to say "thank you" to Wall St, et al., for reminding me so harshly to be fiscally responsible. I have always had the luxury of having enough. I have not had a hardship with this economy, but it has really opened my eyes.

Jury Duty

That was the longest Jury Duty I have ever had. I was there from just before 8AM thru 10:15AM.

I spent 1/2 hour of that time trying to get a Sprint Wireless card working. I must be getting old b/c I could have sworn I used this device on the same notebook a couple of weeks ago.

Jury duty is also very expensive. Unpaid time off, no parking lot provided, opportunity cost... They did pay me. $6 for the day plus $2.52 for the 36 mile drive (as calculated from the center of my zip code). I netted $3.27 after paying $5.25 for parking.

It sounds like I'm complaining, but I don't mean to. I'm happy to serve & I hope karma will repay me for that if I'm ever falsely accused. I was almost disappointed that I wasn't selected as a juror.