Finally I think I understand

I think I've finally come to understand what I find so unsettling about Palin. "Richard Nixon with the redeeming features left out."

This whole Economic/Wall Street/Crisis thing

So I've seen a few opinions (summarized relatively well here and here) But the best actual discussion of the problems and what might be needed to fix them was by a gentleman by the name of Joeseph Stiglitz who had some pretty solid experience.  Anyway, so he was saying that actually the SEC wasn't lacking in regulatory power in most cases but, and this is the important part, when a regulator doesn't believe in regulation, it doesn't matter how much or what powers they do have, because they will not elect to use those powers.

Hmmm... Seems a little like some of the issues related to that recent little report about those folks who were supposed to be making sure the Oil Companies were paying their royalties, but were too coke'd out and sexed up to be particularly concerned about doing their job.

Yes, I'm editorializing and conflating moral "lapses" with economic world views. But I actually do think that there is a case to be made here about a bureaucratic (or political?) culture that is not too concerned with appointing people to positions where they actually believe in executing their job as described.

A certain "John Bolton and his Wacky UN Adventures" comes to mind as well.

Competence is a totally separate issue.

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Going to the ends of the earth.

You know...

As much as I hope that whomever wins this upcoming US election will be able to start fixing things... I still feel that heading for NZ is the best plan in the face of this sinking ship.

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Going to the ends of the earth.

Everybody is running against Bush!

Even the NDP in Quebec!

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Going to the ends of the earth.

And NZ makes 3

Not 3 posts, but 3 elections.

Yup, that's all three. Helen Clark has called an election in New Zealand for November 8th.

So that goes with Canada on October 18th and of course the US on November 4th, which I'm not even going to look for a link for.

I find this hilarious.

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Going to the ends of the earth.

And one more makes 2

As much as I tend to dislike the propaganda that so frequently saturates the Huffington Post, Bob Barr has a pretty good piece on there today about rethinking the "War on Drugs"

Update: yeah of course there is one more. This one has a Palin angle too (but also plenty of HuffPost bias as I read it).
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Going to the ends of the earth.

$#%*^%(&*^ Lipstick

The tone (and (lack of) content) of so-called political discourse in this country makes me so angry.
At least some people manage to make some rational points, but it's still sad that points like this need to be made at all.

I'm also pleased to see that Canada will have a new (same?) government in place before the US even votes. But even there, that Harper so quickly went back on his law to limit elections to every for years on a fixed date is rather sad. And of course we have yet to see what the tone of political discourse will be up there.

Bah. The temptation just to stick my head in the sand gets stronger and stronger all the time.

Update: This is a whole other and much much more terrifying issue.

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Going to the ends of the earth.

time for a post

Hmmmm..... I suppose it's been a while again.

New Zealand departure is in less than a month now. Which is probably why I've been finding US politics less important to write about!

I'm sure there are things that have been happening that are worth writing about, but I can't really think of any right now.
Work is frantic as I'm trying to finish up a month + worth of work in the next 2 weeks, but then that's kinda hardly unusual.

I'm trying to figure out my packing requirements for 2 years of back packing as well... not somethign I've done before, so thus far I'm taking the "Lay out all your things, then get rid of half of it and take twice as much money" maxim with the assumption that I don't actually know what I'm going to want/need and NZ should actually have perfectly appropriate gear if needed.

Disturbingly, right now the result is that I'll be taking about a weeks worth of clothing and a rather disproportionate amount of electronics. Weird.

But it is getting rather exciting. as long as I don't think about how much I need to resolve before I leave. :) Story of my life.

Back to "resolving" that work stuff...



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Going to the ends of the earth.