This past weekend we were in Newport, Oregon and toured a wax museum. It sported this creepy realistic wax figure of Johnny Depp:

Johnny Depp weirds me out in real life but in wax he’s even more spooky. I had to do a double-take to make sure this was really wax and not some actor ready to lurch and cry: "boo!"

We also spotted DB Cooper’s parachute and Bigfoot next each other in the Ripley’s Believe it or Not exhibit.

Somebody get the SquatchDetective on this case. And even at the beach there’s no escape from politics. Check out the Newport, Oregon beach support for Obama by this homeowner:

Obama may need all the help he can get if faulty voting problems like this continue:

This morning on CNN two impressively mature Scholastic Kids Press Corps reporters were on. They aren’t old enough to vote, but that didn’t stop them from having a poll among the children of our future. How did the poll go?

Obama got 57% of the votes while McCain got 39% in the Election 2008 Kids Vote:

The poll was open to kids from grades 1 to 12 in Scholastic News and Junior Scholastic magazines. Almost 250,000 (a quarter of a million) kids voted by paper ballot or online at www.scholastic.com/news. The poll closed on October 10.

Wondering how accurate these kids have been? Since 1940 the kids poll results have only been wrong twice versus the popular results. In 1960 and in 2000. They also provide results from the swing states of: Colorado (McCain), Florida (Obama), Indiana (McCain), Iowa (Obama), Michigan (Obama), Missouri (McCain), Ohio (Obama) and Pennsylvania (Obama).

And for the Twitter fans, yes, the Scholastic Kids are twittering at http://twitter.com/scholasticnews. Don’t laugh, they are probably right more than most of the adult political pundits and bloggers.

The bulk of American people not listened to again, House passes bailout.

Here in Washington State I encourage other voters to remember who voted yes and no come election time. The details for how all reps voted are here, below are how WA State reps voted.

U.S House of Representatives (4 from WA state) Voted YES on bailout

Baird, Brian (D)
Larsen, Rick (D)
Smith, Adam (D)
Dicks, Norm (D)

U.S House of Representatives (5 from WA state) Voted NO on bailout
McMorris Rodgers, Cathy (R)
Hastings, Doc (R)
Inslee, Jay (D)
McDermott, Jim (D)
Reichert, Dave (R)

President Bush will not veto

President Bush just spoke to say he will sign the bill as soon at it reaches his desk. I remain perplexed what he has done that has been good for this country during his time in office. This bailout is a done deal.

He said: "I know some Americans have concerns about this deal." Some? Some! Bush remains clueless. Most people that I know are against this bailout/rescue/whatever. What about the people you know?

The DOW is down from its high of +300 to +110 -56, as of this writing. Cafepress has some creative anti-bailout hats, t-shirts, coffee mugs, bumper stickers and more.

If you happen to be in the minority in America that is for the bailout that the House contemplates, which they are now trying to sell as a "rescue" plan, then you might find it interesting that national debt clock has run out of digits, according to CNN reporting this morning.

The first screencap above shows the clock which has had to have three digits added since 1989. Three digits. Here are how the 14 digits stack up:

$00, … 000, … 000, … 000, … 000
trillion … billion … million … thousand

So in 1989 when it went up the thought was that 99 billion of debt would be enough space. Then a first digit was added to make it to 999 billion. Oops, not enough. Move to 9 trillion ceiling which they believe would make it until Spring 2009. Not any more.

National debt close to doubles during Bush presidency

When George Bush took over the presidency in 2000, the national debt was at 5.78 trillion dollars:

By the time Bush leaves office the national debt will be close to double, just look where it is now:

No matter what your feelings are on the Iraq war or the bailout/rescuse/whatever the truth is clear: we can’t afford it!

Go straight to sextillion, already

If the national debt sign modders are smart they’ll just skip the 99 trillion ceiling and go straight to sextillion. At the rate this is growing that might last awhile. Doing this would skip quadrillion and quintillion and go straight to something sexy. Americans love sexy things, after all. That’s 21 zereos and would look something like this as a ceiling:

000 (sextillion),000 (quintillion), 000 (quadrillion), 000 (trillion), 000 (billion), 000 (million), 000 (thousand)

Seriously, here’s a better idea: let’s do something about paying down the debt. It’s going to be even more difficult to do this if the bailout/rescue/whatever is approved. The bailout/rescue/whatever that has now grown by another $150 billion and gone from an original draft of 3 pages to 451 pages of fat.

This is so illogical that it would drive the entire Vulcan race into extinction.

Bailout.

One of the most inflammatory words in America at the moment. So inflammatory to some Americans that it has congress knotted trying to figure out how they are going to pass an unpopular bailout plan that their constituents adamantly don’t want to happen. Wall Street is floundering and our economic leaders who told us for the last year that everything was not that bad with the economy are singing a much more serious tune. Pundits are throwing around disaster words like armageddon. Welcome to the last year on Wall Street that has been roller coasterish but ‘armageddon’? Hang tight on that level of hyperbole.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is now making grim statements like this:

In his most stark assessment since the credit crisis exploded 13 months ago, Bernanke said Congress must move quickly "to address the grave threats to financial stability that we currently face."

Presidential candidates divided on whether or not to have debate this Friday

Senator John McCain is trying the unprecedented move of suspending his campaign and postponing this Friday night’s debate so he and Senator Obama can go back to Washington and try and help come up with a solution for fixing the bailout impasse.

My translation: see what souls can be sold to get the bailout plan to go through.

Obama wants to let the debate show go on. He feels, correctly, like a president will be expected to juggle many balls while running the country and why should the show stop? In McCain’s defense, it could be argued that the country hasn’t faced anything economically like this in some time and if I was in his shoes, I’d want to be knee deep trying to hammer out some viable solution not on the campaign trail.

But let’s return to the title of this post, are economic times as bad as they seem? Is this bailout the only good option as being presented?

The New York Times has an interesting article on how Sweden dealt with their economic problems in 1992:

Sweden did not just bail out its financial institutions by having the government take over the bad debts. It extracted pounds of flesh from bank shareholders before writing checks. Banks had to write down losses and issue warrants to the government.

President Bush is making a speech tonight at 6pm PST / 9pm EST with what appears to be the intention of selling this bailout plan to the American people. Having the nations most unpopular president in a long time speak trying to convince us how important this bailout would be for the economy is curious, but not sure it will do that much to make people feel any differently. History could find this to be one of the most important speeches George Bush makes over his time in office, maybe the most important speech of the last 20 or more years. Will he screw it up? I’ll update this post after watching the speech with my thoughts.

So I’m against the bailout, you?

Unfortunately I believe there will be one, whether we like it or not. One of my major concerns is what happens next? If the thought that we are in economic ruin if we don’t do this bailout now, what do they say next time when somebody else steps up to the money line with hands out? If the gun is to our head now if we don’t do this, will there be another gun next time? I hope there isn’t a next time like many others, but I’m skeptical. Very skeptical.

The market over the last year has been a series of it goes down, the Feds lower interest rates, it goes back up for a short time. Then there is some negative announcement or pundit prediction of gloom and doom and the market goes down again. Feds step in by making the interest rate lower.

Somebody somewhere needs to say enough is enough

Letting companies go out of business that make bad business decisions is the way it is supposed to work. I understand the government was partly to blame by forcing lenders to make loans to people who couldn’t afford the terms, but it’s time for everybody to come clean about the dirt on their hands and let the market correct itself.

I realize not doing a bailout will have economic consequences, perhaps even in my own backyard, but I’m more worried how far we have already fallen down the slippery slope by reacting to what the nameless, faceless mob of the market demands and pressures.

If the market is based in great part on speculation, then it’s time the government makes the speculation a little easier. Saying "no" to helping Wall Street banks, giant investment firms, insurance companies and the like doesn’t seem that challenging to me. Sort of like the whole "we don’t negotiate with terrorist" spiel that we see in Hollywood depictions of government.  You made a mess, now go out of business and let some other private business step in and service your customers. I bet some other business can do better.

The whole notion that a company — any company — becomes so large that the government (which in America boils back down to the people) must step in and help that company avoid financial ruin is absurd to most hard working American people. Helping people after hurricane Katrina who lost their homes seems a thousand times more important. And yet if you talk to people who have been to and/or know people who live in New Orleans they say that situation is still a mess. The government needs to stay out of this. I fear the worst the more Government becomes involved in anything financial. And you can go pretty much down the line on that one:

• the war in Iraq. Costing us billions per month. You can get the javascript code to show this war cost in real time. It’s eye opening.
• national debt management. What’s that under Bush’s regime? We continue to make more debt, not manage any significant amount of our existing debt. Do we not care at all for future generations?

No means no

If by standing firm and saying no that means it will be harder to get a car loan or home refinanced, so be it. Sometimes we have to spread the pain around. I can handle being a little more hassled over the next loan we might make in exchange for bankrupting our future. What about you?

Update 8:29pm PST (following President Bush speech): Bush looked tired delivering an all too familiar fear speech tonight. Just roll him out and have him scare everybody on any subject: terrorists, 9/11, weapons of mass destruction or the economy. He said nothing that moved me in any way on this issue. Another opportunity to do something meaningful in his presidency that turned out flat.

On an educational note, if you are trying to wrap your mind around the sequence of events that led to this mess, financial website Kiplinger shares an informative list.

Mixing Star Wars and politics in a video entitled The Empire Strikes Barack? Funny.

On a serious note, I would like to see the “battle” if you will between these two end, as it’s getting closer to November and will leave voters minds clouded if this goes on too long. This will give the advantage to McCain who has to want this to continue as long as possible.

I still believe these two are fused at the hip and it will be an Obama-Clinton ticket or Clinton-Obama ticket in November for the Dems, despite what Ted Kennedy said recently about Obama not going to pick Clinton as a running mate if he wins the nomination.

Other notable Star Wars mashups
Steampunk Star Wars - Like charcoal drawings? Creative.
Star Wars Last Supper - You’ve probably already seen this, but hey, it’s well done and worth another link.
Urban Star Wars - Storm Troopers in the city? Oh yeah.
Tie Fighter computer desk - better looking than my glass desk, but I’m not trading.
From Honda to Land Speeder - It’s car mod time.
Wedding cake - A slice of the good side of the Force. And R2D2 works good as a peppermill too.

Former first daughter Chelsea Clinton missed a way to turn a reporter’s question around:

a reporter for the student paper, The Butler Collegian, asked for her opinion "on the criticism of her mother that how she handled the Lewinsky scandal might be a sign of weakness and she might not be a strong enough candidate to be president".

Instead of showing indignance toward the reporter for asking Chelsea a good question she should have reinforced her mother’s strength in keeping a family together for not quitting in a time of personal crisis. Would it have been better for Hillary to divorce Bill Clinton over the incident? I’m sure some would be criticizing her now if she had. And would she be a serious candidate today if she had gotten a divorce?

Wrong or right, I don’t think so. Voters like me view divorce — except in rare circumstances — as a weakness, not a strength. When you go up there and agree to stand by your spouse in "sickness and health" and in "good times and bad times" that’s a contract to adhere. How do we know for a fact that Hillary didn’t already know about Lewinsky? Who knows, maybe she even approved privately. Whatever the case, if she decided to quit her marriage contract, how can we be sure she would stick by what she said in public office? Fair criticism.

Ask anybody who has ever been divorced if they should have gotten married and how many will answer yes? We all make mistakes, that’s not the point here (and not trying to make those who have been divorced feel like bigger failures either), but a contract of marriage needs to have some amount of importance in society again. Today all too many couples are getting divorced like they’re changing underwear. It’s one thing if no children are involved but quite another when there are.

Choosing the right partner
Thinking of getting married to someone? Make sure it’s the one. Ask yourself how you’ll feel when that person doesn’t look the way they do now? What if s/he becomes ill? Are you willing to stand by and take care of him/her? And are you best friends? Do you like to do a lot of non-sexual activities together? People who aren’t best friends shouldn’t get married. Look, you have very few true best friends in this world, so at least make sure before you marry someone that that person is a best friend.

I believe it’s possible to have more than one best friend and be compatible with more than one person in life, but the bar should be extremely high for your chosen life partner. Right now the bar seems to be way too low. If you’d like more guidance, read past post Does 17 Years Qualify for Giving Marital Advice?

Back to Chelsea
I wonder if Chelsea’s parents schooled her on how to answer this question next time. Staying together shows strength, dedication, resolve. I’m not saying what Bill did with Lewinsky was acceptable behavior in their marriage, but was it enough to break up their family?

Chelsea getting angry only shows a vulnerability and opens the door to future probing on the topic by any skilled reporter. I’d be surprised if she doesn’t receive this question again.

What does the camera eye have against Hillary Clinton?

Far be it to talk about something as superficial as looks with most professions, but the President of the United States needs charisma and polish. An important part of the President’s job — even more so after the mess made by our current Commander in Chief — will be cleaning up America’s reputation diplomatically. As human beings, wrong or right, we’re drawn to looks at least on a subconscious level. Even if you personally aren’t wired that way, a lot of other human beings are and good looks help grease the wheels.

Bill Clinton has plenty of charisma and George Bush has way too little. You’d think that the camera eye would be kinder to Hillary Clinton, but I repeatedly see photos taken of her with these bug-eyed, terrible expressions.

Are photographers trying to catch Hillary and paint her as an ugly duckling on purpose? I think Hillary is a pretty good looking woman. No she’s not hot, definitely not smoking hot, but a lot of the pictures I see on an almost daily basis make her look very dark and sinister. Conversely, Barack Obama seems to get shots that make him look a lot younger and dynamic and less freaked out.

On the Republican side, Mitt Romney is leading the pack in the photogenic department. I’m not going to vote for a candidate solely on looks and neither should anybody else but the last thing I want is our President to walk into a room and turn everybody to stone.

Note to the photogs of the world: start taking some better pictures of Hillary. She might not be leading in delegates as of this writing, but for awful photos it’s a landslide. Why?

Got an inside track to who’s going to win the Republican and/or Democrat caucus in New Hampshire today? At Predictify.com you can make a few pennies if you’re right, but hurry and get your votes in.

There is a star system based on user participation ranging from a bronze star at 100 points to a platinum star for 10,000 points. With roughly 30 minutes involvement at the site I’ve made 85 cents and have 62 community points. Being that the minimum payout is $20, talk to me in like, well, a long time to see if Predictify pays. The top earning person on the site has made $113.76 and 76 people have made over $20 as of this writing. In other words, this is not a moneymaking opportunity site.

Community points are received for activities at the site like:

- 10 points: submitting a premium question (this costs $1 per prediction)
- 5 points: referring a new user
- 5 points: submitting a free question (only 200 responses can be received)
- 3 points: send a friend invite that is accepted if you click the Predictify graphic above, that has my referrer code in it)
- 3 points: post a comment
- 1 point: submit a prediction.

It’s strange that the least amount of points is attributed to the most vital part of the site: the predictions. Yes, you need outcomes to predict, but are the questions worth five times the amount of the predictions themselves? I can understand submitting premium questions being more valuable because that’s one of the ways the site is being monetized, but I’d argue that the # of points for predictions, particularly predictions from those who have a higher percentage of predicting the outcome should receive more points.

Predictify does incent those who predict the outcomes more correctly by paying them a higher percentage of the premium questions. I’m at the Scholar level (50-74% accuracy) for Politics, which means if I answer a premium question correctly in this category I’ll receive 1.5 multiplier of the payout. The highest level one can achieve is Guru (90-99% accuracy) which receives 2.0 multiplier. Again, don’t get too excited about the money angle, because there is a small percentage (~5%) of premium questions available.

I didn’t see any banner or contextual ads at Predictify. It appears the only way the site is making money is from taking a cut of the premium questions but I’m guessing at least with the sports outcome questions they could turn around and be selling the Predictify outcomes on a sportsbetting site (outside the US where online gambling is legal, of course). They prevent others for using free questions in certain ways: “Predictify may not be used for securities replication, odds-making, betting, gambling, or wagering.”

The New York Times has a subdomain using Predictify for the NFL playoffs at nytimes.predictify.com.

Not sure the NY Times tie-in as I don’t see any API, but if/when they decide to release one (?) news of this will probably appear first at the official Predictify blog, which uses TypePad.

Summary and grade
There have been so many voting-type sites come and go over the years that the outlook for Predictify is not good. If the site keeps the current clean design and maintains enough interest, they’ll last longer than most. Definitely need a higher percentage of premium questions to help maintain interest and if an API isn’t available, they need one yesterday. Grade: C+

Hope everybody reading who celebrates is having a wonderful holiday week. We are here, despite having no snow.

One of my presents (pictured above) was brought to my attention by reader Ruth who left a comment on the post about the Billy Joel penned song “Christmas in Fallujah.” The first song written about the Iraq war from the soldier perspective wasn’t by Joel, but an artist named Jefferson Pepper who also named his entire CD that name. I wanted to hear the song next to the Joel version sung by Cass Dillon and this morning have been comparing the two songs.

Creative coincidences happen all the time. Sometimes they are a little too similar. I don’t believe other than the name of the song that’s the case here.

The Joel Fallujah is more acoustic rock than Pepper’s. Something Bon Jovi could have sung, while Pepper’s Christmas in Fallujah is more like The Eagles “Lyin Eyes.” Musically the two songs have nothing in common. The words to Pepper’s Fallujah are totally different with disturbing passages like this:

children snuggled in their beds
while the corpses of their parents
dance around in their heads
palaces and bridges
we burned them to the ground
someone got a contract
to rebuild the whole damn town
- Jefferson Pepper “Christmas in Fallujah”

You can buy Jefferson Pepper’s CD “Christmas in Fallujah” as I did from this website for $14.95 + shipping. Unlike the proceeds from the sale of Joel’s same titled song, no charities appear to be involved. The CD contains the following 12 tracks:

Christmas in Fallujah
M-16
Bethelehem, PA
Interstate Highway
Stranded
Back to 1999
Christmas Tree
Deceived
Soldier’s Joy
Why?
Armageddon for Sale
This Land is Your Land (Woody Guthrie cover)

+ one bonus untitled track (”American Woman” ? — and no, not the American Woman titled song, although ironic) that sounds a bit like something by Tom Petty.

“Christmas in Fallujah” is an alright CD if you’re into folk acoustic music. Not really a genre I’m hugely interested in, but Pepper’s lyrics and arrangements are solid. As far as Christmas music goes, if you’re tired of the classics, this is one worth a few listens. Also, it’s a useful reminder of the soldiers who are not home with their families during the holidays. Keep them in your thoughts.