Someone Has To Just Say It

Sarah Palin is an ignorant, hate mongering, dangerous racist.
That sentence could have been a lot longer.
She is obviously unfit to be Vice President of the United States.
The people of Alaska should be ashamed they elected her Governor.
I am ashamed that she is partly defining our national political debate.

"Our opponent though, is someone who sees America it seems as being so imperfect that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country?" - Governor Sarah Palin

It could really happen here.

Sarah's muse - Westbrook Pegler, who was kicked out of the John Birch Society for being too extreme and anti-Semitic, quoted by Palin in her Republican Convention acceptance speech:

"We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty, sincerity, and dignity." I know just the kind of people that writer had in mind when he praised Harry Truman.I grew up with those people. They are the ones who do some of the hardest work in America ... who grow our food, run our factories, and fight our wars.They love their country, in good times and bad, and they're always proud of America. I had the privilege of living most of my life in a small town.

Good Old Westie - No Jews for him

More Glimmers of Hope

Crude Oil prices as of this morning:

BRENT CRUDE FUTR (USD/bbl.) 78.800

WTI CRUDE FUTURE (USD/bbl.) 82.280

Side note - These are both prices for one barrel of crude oil on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX). Brent is from the North Sea, north of Scotland and WTI is from Texas. Both are considered "sweet crudes" meaning lower sulfer content, which makes refining cheaper and yields more gasoline per barrel. Generally, WTI (West Texas Intermediate) has been considered the "benchmark" price that you will hear newsies quote when they give a single price for oil in their reports.

This is good news for lots of reasons. First because there will be more money in your pocket after gassing the car, but also because the trend is declining, which means supply is exceeding demand and the price will continue downward.

So, I'd say it's too early to give up all hope.

Are We At Zero Yet?

Glimmer of Hope Alert:

Ben Bernanke's weekend (again with the weekends) coordination of world-wide central bankers all lowering interest rates for banks and providing a federal guarantee on commercial paper has unlocked the cp market. Of course, it wasn't really "locked" so much as rates just went up. With Bernanke's Backstop (I just made that up!) the risk and rate for cp are now down, so hopefully (ha ha) our companies will all be able to make payroll this month.

Banker Ben - Man with a thankless job

Am I the only one who hears the begging of the question as to why so many US companies need to be able to sell commercial paper to make payroll?

Oil Prediction Tracker - Almost to $80 well before November 1st.

What's a Copyright?

Meanwhile, mysterious Barack Hussein Castro Lenin "Benedict Arnold" Obama is scheduled to whip Johnny McCain's droopy white ass and become the 44th President of the United States. Let's hope so. At what point will our national stupidity be exceeded by our collective will to live?

But let's not count our chickens before they hatch. Republicans are a scrappy bunch, and continue to defy expectations. I don't think anybody in their wildest dreams thought they could possibly screw things up any more than they they had, but just look at us now! And it just keeps on coming! Looks like the "battleground states" will be Pennsylvania and Florida, the two oldest states by average age of their citizens. Those Florida contests are always fun to watch. And of course, the panhandle is Maverick Country.

We should be so lucky.

On to planning for next year . . .