Mephistos

Being the fiscal conservative that I am when it comes to government I have to wonder what the heck the powers that be have been thinking on some of their recent choices.   There are just to many wrong choices being made, but let me see if I can work trough them.

From my perspective I really can’t see how the government can justify the major bailout that it has recently made available to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.   Yeah, I get it, at one point they were government programs.  However, they had long since moved toward the private sector, having private investors and paying those private investors dividends as well as rewards on the stock market.  They assumed private risk in order to potentially (and did for some time) a private reward and the private sector backed them, putting their faith Read more…

Several weeks ago now there was an editorial of sorts in Ace Weekly that ran something like all culture and art in Lexington is basically unsupported and considered second string to art that featured our equine friends.  The article was written in particularly reference to the then current court dates and hearings that were happening in reference to the demolition certain downtown properties to make room for the new Center Point Hotel complex.  It seemed to suggest that there is a move by the elite upper echelons of Lexington to crush out all creativity and expression of culture if it did center around the horse.  Further, there was an overtone that seemed to suggest that if you like horse art, you were stuck on yourself and could not appreciate art forms and culture that were otherwise available in the town.

I have to admit at the time I was more then a little riled up about the notion Read more…

It is a legitimate question.  I know that a lot of folks think that I am a freaking nut case in some ways.  Anyway, I have this strong desire the last year or so to really have children.   I have had an opportunity or two that was going toward that direction, but alas those seem to have gotten messed up.  Anyway, a conversation I had with someone not to long led to this funny awkard point.  I pointed out to her, that if all else failed and she still wanted a child there were means open to her to fulfill that need that I do not have available to me.  For those of that are going huh?  Live a little and use your imagination, but think donor program, either live donor or from, ahem, a bank. As a single man at this point, now approaching Read more…

Earlier this week, I had another couple of days that had a lot of time occupied with meetings.  This one in particular was with this fellow from API hired to assist us jump start our strategic planning process that we are starting to put together for 2009 and apparently for 2009-2011.  What is relative to this blog though, is a discussion that was had in regards to generations.  The conversation itself was in regards to how that there some general characteristics from respective age groups that tend to influence how they view the news and community around them.

There was a book written not to long ago that talked about a cycle that is seen in generations.  The book is titled, Read more…

I am sure that her name has just started showing up in about 1G of places all across the network.  I just heard and have since read to verify that Sarah Palin is the presumptive nominee for Vice Presidential with John McCain.  I have to say this one shocked me a bit.  It is happy shock though, as I am more then sure I was not like the two front running possible selection very much and that was turning me further afield from McCain at all points.  Especially given his recent straying from the maverick positions he has held on issues in the past, I was actually hoping against all probability that McCain would choose Joe Liberman.

I do not think Liberman would have gone over well with the established republican Read more…

It has been to long and I have been lazy - enough said about that.  Anyway, I am on a bit of a roll with this going green thing today.  Just had a conversation with the new roommate a bit ago in regards to greenness.

It is amazing to me the things that can be recycled in some of the bigger towns and cities around.  It is amazing to me also just how much the recycling programs have grown and expanded over the years.  I can recall just a few years ago for instance, when here in Lexington you couldn’t recycle slick print paper, which meant by and large they could not take magazines, now then can.  It also used to be that there was nothing to do with electronics but to toss them.  These days however, there a drop offs for such things as even computers and monitors - which is a very good thing.  Granted, here in central Kentucky Lexington is the only place with such options, but it is growing.  Even tiny Wilmore has an aggressive recycle pickup program, of course many more smaller communities have yet to even make that step, but it is coming.

Even in those communities there are a lot of things that are turned over and hence recycled many times Read more…

I said the other day that, in regards to something from a long time ago, that “it really got in my crawl.”  I am not even sure what that means exactly and need to look it up, but it really ate at me over the years.  Well, here is one that is eating at me like crazy already and I just heard about at 1:00pm today.  I was actually in stunned disbelief at hearing it, but then as the number of callers on the talk radio went on and on I was just flabergasted and turning angry at the stupidity, particularly of men.

The story in short order is that a woman was at McDonald’s in Berea, Kentucky yesterday (an aside note, I was at the McDonald’s in question sometime last week briefly) for breakfast.  While there, with her two to three month old baby, the baby began to cry indicating that he was hungry.  She did what was natural Read more…

Fuel prices are coming back down.  This is a good thing.  Of course they are coming back down only because of the actual slacking of demand on oil right now.  That is largely coming from the decrease in demand from the United States, which has been in gasoline sticker shock from most of the spring and summer of this wonderful year so far.  It should also be noted, that a lot of the saber rattling that has been going on so far in the last few months over in the middle east has amounted to naught and that weather predictions have thus far proved to have little impact on production as well.

Are the the fuel prices we are paying at the pump likely to go back below $3.00 per gallon?  It could, but I doubt it will personally.  Certainly the days of $1 and change gas per gallon are long past us. Read more…

A couple of weeks back, Phil Gram made some comments about the recession  that we are in largely being a state of psychological recession.  He got a good deal of flack in the media about such comments but I think he may actually be right.  Now, keep in mind, I feel that psychologically, if you are are thinking something, it becomes or at least begins to reflect such in reality.

To begin with though, lets do some defining of the terminology we are using.  A pretty good set of definitions and a bit of depth in explaining what I am referring to can be found at the American Management Association’s website, in a review of the book One Foot out the Door, by Judith M. Bardwick.   The basic idea put forth in the book is that as a mass of folks start to feel a little bit uneasy Read more…

Yesterday there was a bit on the radio about what has typically been a hot button, voting block issue - abortion.  It is unfortunate that on this one issue, it seems like I will never be correctly aligned with with.  The more liberal the politician the more apt they are to fully support this women right’s issue.  The more conservative, the more apt they are to want to take this one by the horns and outlaw it with a Roe v. Wade overturn.  Of course, this should come as no surprise to me.  Conservatives are so about wanting to legislate morality these days, that, as I have point out before, they have fundamentally gotten away from the idea that conservative should be wanting little government - hence the very reason that I find myself leaning more toward the party of liberty all the time.

So, a quick review of the presidential candidates and their positions.  Obama pretty much supports an open right to a woman’s right to choose, tough he noted the choice should be made in conjunction with husbands, family, preacher, minister, doctor, or whoever else.  And he also made a point noting that a state should have the right to limit certain kinds of late term abortions.  McCain on the other hand, has firmly stated, despite his sometime renegade voting record (where I have usually agreed with him over just a straight republican block vote), he will, if elected make an effort to balance the Supreme Court with new appointees that will likely overturn Roe v. Wade.

Obviously one of these views is much more in tune with the government being hands off and not meddling in things that really are not any of there business. I don’t think I have to point out which one is which, and I do have to point that out your probably are not likely to be reading this blog anyway.  Point is though, I am not a one issue voter.  But when I see things like this, and start to look at a few other things I really am not liking either candidate that is running for president very much.  I really think our two party system as become too rigidly defined and unable to break out of any mold into new territory if you wish to be successful in the bigger game of national politics.

And for the record, while I am on this rant about abortion and such - one thing I have mentioned to more then a few people in my past and never really been able to explain very well is this.  A woman can’t have a child by herself, it takes a man and woman to start that seed.  I completely realize that woman’s body is hers and she needs to be able to make choices about what happens with it.  But how is that a man signs over all his rights in the decision making process when the deed is done.  Take for instance, a woman has an abortion with out telling the father - given my current desire to have children, if that happened with out it being discussed I would be devastated, crushed.  Hopefully, before I got in that situation I would feel like I knew the woman well enough to ensure that would never happen.  Turn it around though, and accident happens - woman, without consulting the father, can have the child - possibly without him even really knowing.  But then he could and would be responsible to his paternal duties of support if nothing else as soon as she pursued the issue.  No one seems to see my point that I think the man is getting a raw deal in this decision making process.

Of course, maybe the larger problem with my hang up is I have no real solution to offer - eventually I mostly come back to living with the fact that the man assumes the responsibility at the point engaging in the act of creation - the woman does have that extra window, largely due to it being her body and the right to do with her body as she will to do what she needs to do.  Of course,there are some that would argue it is all moot, that true liberty should be granted to the unborn child, whose rights would be infringed on if it is aborted and I can almost see that too - especially if it were mine.