The Pete's blog/

You knew they were going to do it.

If you read this blog you know I knew they were going to do it.

Forget that the Federal Reserve already sunk $630 billion into our economy. I was shocked when I saw a Twitter post from thePuck Tuesday that the Fed had decided to move on its own. Earlier in the day, I saw another socnetizen in my circle microblog something like "what difference does $70 billion make? Apparently a lot."

He was referring to the $70 billion less the Fed was borrowing from other central banks.

While I was shocked, it wasn't shocked because the Fed went ahead and did it. I was shocked because the Federal Reserve is usually pretty low key. They speak in riddles and hide in the shadows. Don't believe me? Check out FederalReserveEducation.org and see how long it takes for your ADD to kick in. These guys do not want us to know what they're up to, or else we already would.

So, the idea that these guys would make a move like this and draw all sorts of attention to them, is very surprising. Why should they not want to draw attention to themselves?

Simple, they're the real power in our country. But I'm digressing. This post is about the USG passing a bailout bill anyway.

This is what baffles me. How can the media not cover this in any serious way? Did a single person on TV or in print ask the question of anyone in congress: "WHY do we need the bailout now??"

Yet, yesterday, a bailout bill passed the Senate.

The good news is that now the House needs to vote on it. Hopefully, they will say no.

The idea of bailing the water out of the sinking ship that is the American economy pisses me off.

A bailout is stealing money from our future pockets and putting it in the hands of the rich. Hell, it's stealing from our pockets now, too. All that money ($630 + $700 billion= $1.33 TRILLION) will drive the value of the dollar straight down. Of course, if you're disgustingly rich, you'll hardly feel it.

That's what this ultimately comes down to. The fucking rich and their rich pals in government.

This is no democracy. Its a corporatocracy. It's the feudal system all over again.

We all work for corporations/feuds that kiss the ass of the king/George. The king/George keeps the military working for the good of the corporations/feuds keep the peasants (us) in line.

Man, it sounds so extreme, but with the shrinking middle class and the ever-present corporation, I feel like the metaphor fits.

ThePete's 12 Second Japanese Lesson #9 Apple on 12seconds.tv

The hiragana for this lesson is:

りいんご

The romaji is:

ri i n go (reeng go)

The only note I have here is that the "n" sound here is the "ん" which is more of an "ng" sound, than an English "N" sound.

OK, so in just under three hours, the VP debates will begin. I'll be liveTweeting the event and you can follow along on Twitter: twitter.com/thepete

...Or on my blog by keeping an eye on that TheLifestream.

But regarding tonight's debate, I have mixed feelings.

On the one hand, it's going to be a wonderful train wreck to watch. Joe Biden, king of foot-in-mouth syndrome will have to fight nice with Sarah Palin, the queen of sentence-mashups. It's going to be a wonderful blood-bath whether Palin comes off like a moron (yay!) or Biden looks like a crotchety old man beating up on a little girl (boo!).

So, from a strictly observational standpoint, I'm excited.

However, there's also a part of me that feels like the process is being damaged thanks to each campaign understanding their VP candi's weaknesses. I heard this morning that each one will have just 90 seconds to answer questions and 2 minutes to rebut. This will give them fewer chances to screw up just because it won't let them talk very long. The thing is, We The People should want them to talk longer than 3.5 minutes for each question! We need to get to know these people better. If they're going to screw up, we want to know about it. If they're going to be cut off before they can, we'll never know they're morons until after they've been elected.

An informed electorate is a strong electorate, right?

I guess both parties want us to be weak.

Then there's the part of me that is worried that the worst will happen. Huge damage can be done to the process by both of these candidates performing poorly. Sure, we'll be watching and laughing at the stupidity we're witnessing, but really, that's not why we should be enjoying ourselves or even tuning in.

Imagine, if Obama had picked Hillary. Oh, that would have made me feel much better about tonight.

If things go as badly as they could, Palin would lose a lot of people, but Biden could lose more. We know Biden is a smart guy and by his advanced age, it's easy to assume he should know better than to gang up on this little girl from Alaska (let's be honest, that's exactly what she is).

Remember, I'm an independent. I'd prefer neither McCain nor Obama win. But there's no practical expectation I can have to see a third party candidate even appear in the debates, let alone end up winning the White House, so for people like me, this all becomes a question of who to vote against.

Yay, democracy.

By the way, the reason we'll never see a third party candidate in the debates is because the debates are controlled by the two major parties.

Yay, democ--oh, I said that already...

#VPDebate UGH! More talk of the economy! BORING! Let's talk about something IMPORTANT like Palin's MOOSE.

#VPDebate Did she just call Joe "Senator Obiden"?

@SisterSafetyPin yeah, me too--I was worried the format would suck, but it was a blast. The whole thing flew by.

r/t @quantumparticle I need a smoke after listening to AssHat3 and AssHat4 for the past 90 minutes. ugh #vpdebate

@alysonenglish np--yeah, my fingers are crossed so much it hurts. I've been following politics since the 80s I've never been this concerned.

OK, so there went the first and only vice presidential debate.

I've taken some time to try to mull things over and attempt to absorb things for a couple hours before really deciding on what to blog.

I definitely feel like Biden won the debate but only on points. Just like Obama did at the first presidential debate. Joe didn't trounce her and Palin sure as hell didn't pummel him.

Biden was as confident and casual as I'd expect a white man in a suit of his age and experience to be. As I mentioned earlier today, I was concerned he would put his foot in his mouth. Luckily, he did fine--better than expected even.

Likewise, Palin did better than expected, too. The frustrating thing is that she didn't do that well--on numerous occasions she failed entirely to answer the moderator's questions and often times twisted her "answer" around so that she could talk about something completely unrelated. I think a "storm of words" was how reporter Charlie Gibson described the tactic Palin used tonight during his interview with her. Also, and I'm admitting a personal bias here, she had this smile that came across as infinitely condescending.

And she smiled a lot--all debate long.

Why do I not like that she didn't do well? Simple, because she still did way better than she's done in the two lousy interviews she's given in the last month. She basically tanked both of them so everyone was expecting her to bomb this one like Dresden, but she didn't. So, now everyone will be claiming she's the come-back kid on the news. Even the Dems will acquiesce and admit she did better than expected.

Ultimately, I doubt anyone will accurately gauge how poorly she did because she performed so much better than anyone thought. It's another disturbing example of "sucking less" equating to being a good thing. Our culture is so very backward these days.

So, yeah, I think Biden did better and probably "won" on a technical level, but I'm an anti-McCain guy, so naturally, I'm going to probably be biased against Palin regardless of how un-mind-numbingly stupid she was.

One person I'm also biased against was the moderator. PBS' Gwen Ifill actually had some respect from me before tonight and, to be sure, she still does. However, she lost some tonight. I found her questions to be a bit soft and really not that important.

She didn't hold either candidate to the questions in almost all instances where either dodged said questions (yes, Biden did this a couple of times, though not as often as Palin). Sure, she was, in some ways, and improvement over her fellow PBS-er Jim Lehrer who, himself, was like a grampa trying to get his grand kids to play nice. However, Ifill felt like a baby sitter in the next room. I felt like her questions were almost as vague and non-specific as Palin's answers were.

OK, that's an exaggeration, but you get my point. I think there was one question where she actually called them both on an issue they had previously flipped flopped on. That was nice.

In conclusion? It's not quite as big a "meh" as the first presidential debate, but it's nothing to cheer for either. The debate format was incredibly breezy--it flew by so quickly, though I'm concerned that maybe it shouldn't have--we want to better know these candidates, right? Shuffling them from topic-to-topic might not be the best way to allow us to do that.

It was kind of a relief to see them both not totally screw the pooch. I hate to feel like any candidate is completely incompetent. I'd like to be proud of all of our leaders.

Of course, these days, that bar is set pretty low, as well.

What are ya gonna do? Move to another country?

Don't tempt me...

Oh, I'll do it!

Special thanks to the folks at C-SPAN for doing a bang-up job!! Check out C-SPAN's bitchingly unbiased coverage of the debates at debatehub.c-span.org or on Twitter at twitter.com/cspan

For other unbiased sources of debate coverage, check out factcheck.org and the political blogs over at NPR.org here: npr.org/blogs/politics

If you found this post through a search or some other link, you can follow me at Twitter here: twitter.com/thepete and a few other socnets under the name "thepete". Always look for the baby head. If you don't see it try "thepetecom".

Thanks for reading!!

OK, so there went the first and only vice presidential debate.

I've taken some time to try to mull things over and attempt to absorb things for a couple hours before really deciding on what to blog.

I definitely feel like Biden won the debate but only on points. Just like Obama did at the first presidential debate. Joe didn't trounce her and Palin sure as hell didn't pummel him.

Biden was as confident and casual as I'd expect a white man in a suit of his age and experience to be. As I mentioned earlier today, I was concerned he would put his foot in his mouth. Luckily, he did fine--better than expected even.

Likewise, Palin did better than expected, too. The frustrating thing is that she didn't do that well--on numerous occasions she failed entirely to answer the moderator's questions and often times twisted her "answer" around so that she could talk about something completely unrelated. I think a "storm of words" was how reporter Charlie Gibson described the tactic Palin used tonight during his interview with her. Also, and I'm admitting a personal bias here, she had this smile that came across as infinitely condescending.

And she smiled a lot--all debate long.

Why do I not like that she didn't do well? Simple, because she still did way better than she's done in the two lousy interviews she's given in the last month. She basically tanked both of them so everyone was expecting her to bomb this one like Dresden, but she didn't. So, now everyone will be claiming she's the come-back kid on the news. Even the Dems will acquiesce and admit she did better than expected.

Ultimately, I doubt anyone will accurately gauge how poorly she did because she performed so much better than anyone thought. It's another disturbing example of "sucking less" equating to being a good thing. Our culture is so very backward these days.

So, yeah, I think Biden did better and probably "won" on a technical level, but I'm an anti-McCain guy, so naturally, I'm going to probably be biased against Palin regardless of how un-mind-numbingly stupid she was.

One person I'm also biased against was the moderator. PBS' Gwen Ifill actually had some respect from me before tonight and, to be sure, she still does. However, she lost some tonight. I found her questions to be a bit soft and really not that important.

She didn't hold either candidate to the questions in almost all instances where either dodged said questions (yes, Biden did this a couple of times, though not as often as Palin). Sure, she was, in some ways, and improvement over her fellow PBS-er Jim Lehrer who, himself, was like a grampa trying to get his grand kids to play nice. However, Ifill felt like a baby sitter in the next room. I felt like her questions were almost as vague and non-specific as Palin's answers were.

OK, that's an exaggeration, but you get my point. I think there was one question where she actually called them both on an issue they had previously flipped flopped on. That was nice.

In conclusion? It's not quite as big a "meh" as the first presidential debate, but it's nothing to cheer for either. The debate format was incredibly breezy--it flew by so quickly, though I'm concerned that maybe it shouldn't have--we want to better know these candidates, right? Shuffling them from topic-to-topic might not be the best way to allow us to do that.

It was kind of a relief to see them both not totally screw the pooch. I hate to feel like any candidate is completely incompetent. I'd like to be proud of all of our leaders.

Of course, these days, that bar is set pretty low, as well.

What are ya gonna do? Move to another country?

Don't tempt me...

Oh, I'll do it!

Special thanks to the folks at C-SPAN for doing a bang-up job!! Check out C-SPAN's bitchingly unbiased coverage of the debates at debatehub.c-span.org or on Twitter at twitter.com/cspan

For other unbiased sources of debate coverage, check out factcheck.org and the political blogs over at NPR.org here: npr.org/blogs/politics

If you found this post through a search or some other link, you can follow me at Twitter here: twitter.com/thepete and a few other socnets under the name "thepete". Always look for the baby head. If you don't see it try "thepetecom".

Thanks for reading!!

ThePete's 12 Second Japanese Lesson #10 Please on 12seconds.tv

Here's the hiragana for this lesson:

おねがい

Here's the romaji:

onegai (oh-neh-ga-ee)

The "shimas" on the end is to be a little less informal. That looks like this in hiragana:

します

and in romaji:

shimasu

Lots of times in Japanese you drop the final vowel sound from the end of words. Like that last "す" or "su".

Actually, lots of times throughout a word in Japanese you'll drop vowels. The word you say when you love someone is "daisuki" but sounds more like the English words: "die" and "ski" shoved together.

So, the full phrase to be generally polite when asking for something is:

おねがいします

or in romaji:

onegaishimasu (oh-neh-ga-ee-shee-mah-su)

But you can probably get away with just the "onegai" with friends and maybe even strangers. I've always heard they let gaijin (foreigners) get away with stuff. :)

That's it for Lesson 10!

To learn more Japanese online, I recommend checking out Alex Brooke's LearnJapanesePod.com (also visit his site AlexBrooke.com to check out what else he's up to). You might also check out JapanesePod101.com or pick up the book Japanese from Zero: Volume 1 if you want to learn offline.

Did I get something wrong? Tell me! I've got a LOT to learn still, so please help me and others by commenting. ありがとうございます！ (arigatou gozaimasu - thank you very much!)

It'll take five seconds to call and let them know what you're thinking.

Go to House.gov in the upper left corner of the site, there is a field where you can enter your zip. Click the "Go" button and you'll see the name of your House Rep. Click on that person's name and you'll be sent to their website. Then find the contact link, click on it, get their number in Washington DC (odds are they're in DC to vote on the bailout bill) and then CALL IT.

Emails are fine, faxes are fine, too, but calling will make the difference. They need to here a voice and be inconvenienced by calls to really feel the pressure. Please do it, it takes literally seconds to say "Hi, I'd like to register my lack of support for the bailout bill." When I called, they then asked me my name and zip and once I told them, they thanked me. That was it. PLEASE DO IT NOW. No bailout bill is a good bailout bill. We're helping the rich when they won't help the poor (us!). Watch the video if you need convincing.

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Watching the Bailout Bill Pass :( on 12seconds.tv

Well, I wish I could say it was unbelievable, but sadly, it's completely believable.

So, the US Congress passes a bill that will borrow hundreds of billions from the Fed so the USG can buy up all the bad debt clogging the US banking system. Somehow, we're supposed to make money off of this bad debt and pay the billion borrowed back. I'm not sure I follow this logic at all.

I'll be looking for and posting a list of House reps who voted today and which way they voted. I thought I heard the guy on C-SPAN say that only Republicans voted against. If true, this means both my new rep (Rangel) and my old rep (Waxman) both let me down.

I'll post that list as soon as I can find it so you can know who NOT to vote for in November.

Screw all those guys.

OK, so thanks to Michael van Poppel over at BreakingToday.com (or on Twitter as BreakingNewsOn we have a list of every House rep who voted for and against the bailout bill. You can find the whole thing here: breakingtoday.com/34.html

I've also found a list of Senators who voted no on Wednesday from Politico.com. You can find that list here: www.politico.com/blogs/thecrypt/1008/Senators_who_voted_No.html

I'm going to post the nays below because the list is shorter, sadly.

These are not the people who chose fear over thoughtfulness. These are not the people who felt doing something was better than doing something right. These are the people who, for whatever reason, felt America needed more time to consider what to do.

Personally, I don't think you should vote for anyone in November--except Obama so we can at least keep the mad, fear/war monger John McCain out of the White House. Granted, after hearing about Obama personally calling black representatives in the House and asking them to vote for the bailout, I don't feel Senator Obama has got the best interests of America at heart. But then again, it's not about voting for Barack Obama--it's about voting for the closest thing we have to an alternative.

If only we could have an actual alternative.

All right, here's the list of House Representatives and US Senators that voted against the bailout bill. Please use this list to vote your conscience or use it to not vote for anyone in Congress:

Aderholt Akin Altmire Bachmann Barrow Bartlett (MD) Barton (TX) Becerra Bilbray Bilirakis Bishop (UT) Blackburn Blumenauer Boyda (KS) Broun (GA) Brown-Waite, Ginny Burgess Burton (IN) Butterfield Buyer Capito Carney Carter Castor Cazayoux Chabot Chandler Childers Clay Conyers Costello Courtney Culberson Davis (KY) Davis, David Davis, Lincoln Deal (GA) DeFazio Delahunt Diaz-Balart, L. Diaz-Balart, M. Doggett Doolittle Drake Duncan English (PA) Feeney Filner Flake Forbes Fortenberry Foxx Franks (AZ) Gallegly Garrett (NJ) Gillibrand Gingrey

Gohmert Goode Goodlatte Graves Green, Gene Grijalva Hall (TX) Hastings (WA) Hayes Heller Hensarling Herseth Sandlin Hill Hinchey Hodes Holden Hulshof Hunter Inslee Issa Jefferson Johnson (GA) Johnson (IL) Johnson, Sam Jones (NC) Jordan Kagen Kaptur Keller King (IA) Kingston Kucinich Lamborn Lampson Latham LaTourette Latta Linder Lipinski LoBiondo Lucas Lynch Mack Manzullo Marchant Matheson McCarthy (CA) McCaul (TX) McCotter McDermott McHenry McIntyre McMorris Rodgers Mica Michaud Miller (FL) Miller (MI)

Moran (KS) Murphy, Tim Musgrave Napolitano Neugebauer Nunes Paul Payne Pearce Pence Peterson (MN) Petri Pitts Platts Poe Price (GA) Rehberg Reichert Renzi Rodriguez Rogers (MI) Rohrabacher Roskam Rothman Roybal-Allard Royce Salazar Sali Sánchez, Linda T. Sanchez, Loretta Scalise Scott (VA) Sensenbrenner Serrano Shea-Porter Sherman Shimkus Shuler Smith (NE) Smith (NJ) Stark Stearns Stupak Taylor Thompson (MS) Tiahrt Turner Udall (CO) Udall (NM) Visclosky Walberg Walz (MN) Westmoreland Whitfield (KY) Wittman (VA) Young (AK) Young (FL)

Here are the senators who voted no on Wednesday: Allard (R) Barasso (R) Brownback (R) Bunning (R) Cantwell (D) Cochran (R) Crapo (R) DeMint (R) Dole (R) Dorgan (D) Enzi (R) Feingold (D) Inhofe (R) Johnson (D) Landrieu (D) Nelson (FL) (D) Roberts (R) Sanders (I) Sessions (R) Shelby (R) Stabenow (D) Tester (D) Vitter (R) Wicker (R) Wyden (D)

Of course, George Bush could veto this bill.

Yeah, like he's done anything right since January 20, 2000.

Tired of reading about the economy? Me, too! It's the weekend so I'm going to spend it posting about fun stuff. In fact, I'm going to be posting about a wider array of things starting next week.

My blog, my passions, I say.

It's just that things have been so crazy with politics and the economy that it's been impossible to blog about much else. However, the weekend hasn't fully started yet, so here's a bit more politics (sorry).

FactCheck.org came out with their report on the VP debate last night. Read it in full (including an in-depth analysis) here: is.gd/3sYr

In a nutshell, candidates fudged the facts--almost an equal number of times, too. I just wish the folks at FactCheck would point out where no facts were presented at all in answers given. Palin, along with most politicians (but her in particular), has the uncanny ability to make completely empty statements sound substantive. It's scary as hell, frankly. Her "Word Storms" really do shock and awe. If you're too polite, you won't call her on it and she'll get away with effectively lying (assuming you notice she said nothing at all).

If you missed FactCheck.org's analysis on the first Presidential debate, you can check it out here: is.gd/3sYr

You might also check out the politics blog at NPR.org for pretty high quality fact-checking, too. Just go here: www.npr.org/blogs/politics

All right, what a week!

Next week we have the next Prez debate on Tuesday. I'm sure some other crap will happen to keep us busy, too--more banks caving, the dollar dropping, oil climbing.

Who knows? Maybe oil will drop and the dollar will climb?

Nah, I don't really think so, either.