Greenfleece

GreenPeace is a backwards organization.

Like all backwards things (mirror images, cabooses, Democrats) GreenPeace does benefit the world in some ways. However, like some backwards things (Democrats), GreenPeace could be doing so much better.

Literally minutes ago, I spoke with the Boston City Coordinator for GreenPeace. I can't remember her name right now, but I will work on finding that.

I ran into her at Northeastern, where I go to school. I have also frequently run into GreenPeace volunteers at Porter Square in Cambridge as well as on Newbury Street. I worked near Porter Square for about six months and saw GreenPeace volunteers there at least five times. Yet, I have been living full-time in Jamaica Plain for over a year and have never seen a GreenPeace rep there. Not within five miles of my apartment. Not on Center Street, not near Jamaica Pond, not on Washington Street.

I will let you draw your own conclusions on that, but I will also draw for you the conclusions that were given to me by this young lady of whom I speak.

When I told her what I have just told you, she told me that she had just moved here from Iowa three months ago and didn't know the city and surrounding areas very well, so that was why she didn't have anybody posted in Jamaica Plain.

So I asked her why I had never seen GreenPeace volunteers in Jamaica Plain before she took charge three months ago. She told me that they have to place volunteers in places where they can interact with one person every thirty seconds, which is why they are most often found in popular places like Newbury Street, Northeastern, and Cambridge.

I informed her that both Centre Street and Washington Street are very busy during summers in Jamaica Plain.

"Well", she said, "GreenPeace has tried that before and they had some problems with that. So, unfortunately I just kind of have to go with what GreenPeace says. If I had more volunteers maybe I could put some in places like that."

Mhmm. Maybe.

By the way. Here is the qualification for being a GreenPeace city coordinator:

A minimum of 1-2 years of experience in face-to-face fundraising, direct marketing or customer service and a strong interest in environmental issues.
GreenPeace.org

What was that last thing? Strong interest in...huh?

GreenPeace is not interested in affecting social change. They are interested in getting your money, throwing it at things, and keeping some of it.

This lovely lady (who, admittedly, was very nice) talked to me about a campaign that GreenPeace is working on right now involving Kimberly Clark, the parent company of Kleenex.

GreenPeace Kimberly Clark campaign

This campaign is better than nothing, but it is backwards.

Rather than educating you about using less tissue (or conserving in general), GreenPeace simply asks you to sign up for their club, pay them monthly, and hope that they do things you think are good. This is why they don't volunteer in busy poor areas, only busy wealthy areas. Their main interest is money.

Instead, GreenPeace should focus on busy poor areas. Rather than collecting money, they should give out free handkercheifs. In case you are a GreenPeace member and don't know, a handkercheif can do the same things that those evil Kleenex things do, but they are washable and reusable. GreenPeace wouldn't even have to spend money on this! Don't you think there would be some company somewhere that would spend a couple million bucks if their logo was splattered all over everyone's handkercheifs??

But of course, GreenPeace is full of liberals. Liberals do not expect you to change and become better. They expect you to give them your money and hope they can solve your problem for you.

Doy!

Debate 1 Analysis

I just re-watched the debate on YouTube. While I watched, I kept tally scores on each candidate in several categories. Here are the results:

Mentioned George Bush:
Obama: 14
McCain: 2

Mentioned their own proposed policy:
Obama: 64
McCain: 70

Mentioned opponent's proposed policy:
Obama: 12
McCain: 21

Mentioned/alluded to their own record:
Obama: 20
McCain: 38

Mentioned/alluded to their opponent's record:
Obama: 23
McCain: 33

Mentioned a specific piece of legislation that they proposed:
Obama: 0
McCain: 2 (League of Democracies, 9/11 Commission)

Please note: These numbers are not intended to be exact. I watched the debate in real time and made tally marks along the way. These numbers do not represent exact statistics. However, I will maintain that they give a fair representation of what really happened in the debates. Each number is surely off by a few tallies, but no numbers are off by magnitudes and any mistakes towards one candidate were surely repeated against the other candidate equally.

Factual Generalizations

Whether or not my numbers are perfect, any count or re-count of the same statitics will reveal the following true generalizations:

• McCain and Obama both talked about their own proposed policy about equally.
  
  
• McCain talked about Obama's proposed policy about twice as much as Obama talked about McCain's proposed policy.
  
  
• McCain talked about his own record about twice as much as Obama talked about his own record.
  
  
• McCain talked about Obama's record more than Obama talked about McCain's record.
  
  
• McCain mentioned legislation that he proposed. Obama did not talk about legislation that he proposed.
  
  
• Obama mentioned George Bush seven times more than John McCain did.
  
  
• Obama mentioned George Bush's policy more than he mentioned John McCain's proposed policy.
  
  
• McCain talked more about his own record than he did Obama's record. Obama talked more about McCain's record than he did his own record.

The Conclusion

This debate turned out exactly the way that any reasonable person predicted. Obama talked more about nothing than John McCain. John McCain talked more about actual records more than Barack Obama. Barack Obama focused on Bush because he knows that John McCain is stronger and better than Bush. He knows John McCain is a maverick and he must hide that fact.

More notes

I counted George Bush references by making a tally every time a candidate mentioned Bush's administration directly and did not relate the actions of the Bush administration directly to their own actions (both candidates did this at least once). If I had counted the number of times a candidate referenced "the last eight years" or "the last four years", Barack Obama's score assuredly would have been over twenty and John McCain's would have remained the same.

I started out with also counting the number of praises and criticisms issued by each candidate. I stopped doing this when it became too difficult to keep track of. However, when I stopped (about midway) Obama and McCain had criticized each other equally. Obama had praised John McCain several times, and John McCain had praised Barack Obama zero times.

So, I'm making it up, right Sparky?

Ok. Go ahead and do it yourself. Produce your own numbers. I plan to do it again sometime soon and come up with a new set of numbers which will assuredly be different than these but will also assuredly produce the same patterns.

Great Video

Very good video from sixty minutes:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/28/60minutes/main4483612.shtml

The 60 minutes team stayed with Henry Paulson through the ongoing bailout negotiations. Fascinating!!

The most fascinating to me: Henry Paulson literally did get on one knee and ask Nancy Pelosy and the Democrats not to blow things up. Pelosy said, "It's not us, it's the Republicans." And he said, "I know, I know".

Just because I will most likely vote for one, doesn't mean I like 'em!!

Up next: Debate analysis.

Also, I will be going back (for the fifth time!!) to the economic crisis. A revealing debate with Sparky the other day as well as a few other things have brought me to the realization that I am definitely right about the economic crisis. Read on!!

And by the way, if you are new to my blog, read the post entitled "Please Please Me". It gives some good info.

I am not the only crazy one!

Regarding my theories on the economic crisis, Sparky told me yesterday that I was wrong because nobody else has the same idea. Housing post 1, Housing post 2, Housing post 3.

First of all, Sparky, we do not look to the news media for a fact-based, logical discussion of any issue or historical event. We wait until people with brains think about it and write about it in credible articles and books.

Second of all, I am not the only one! I just Googled Community Reinvestment Act, and I found a good editorial in the Boston Globe and a bad editorial in the National Review Online that both agree with me. The Community Reinvestment Act forced lending institutions to give loans to people they knew would default.

Boston Globe editorial
National review online editorial (this is junky...but mostly correct!!)

I might not be right, but I am certainly not crazy!!

...I am right, though.

Debate commentary coming next!!

Vexing Texting

Me: Hey do you know if the debate is on tonight?

Sparky: It is on but mccain aint going lol at 8pm

Me: Of course. Obama is at his best when He's unopposed

Sparky: Um im sry that obama stays 2 his word and doesnt pull out 2 days before

Me: In the midst of the largest crisis in years. Of course He's not really any help anyways i'm sure so he'd rather blab to himself for an hour

Still waiting on another response...

Yes, I am an instigator!! Sorry!

[CORRECTION: We were both wrong. As of two hours ago McCain is participating. And it's at 9PM. NYT]

Idiotic Republicans at it again

The Republicans are wrong, again.

The morning news indicates that Republicans in congress have proposed a new plan that wouldn't involve spending the $700 billion tax payer dollars.

New York Times link

I don't even have to explain the details of this plan for you to know it is wrong. For once (or for twice) George Bush is right. We need to bail these companies out to avoid a depression.

The Republicans have the right idea, in that they want to enact legislation that will not only stop the bleeding but also act preventatively. However, now is not the time for that. The time for that is a few weeks from now, when people aren't considering running the bank anymore.

John McCain was stupid to put himself in the same room as these people. Now he has an impossible choice. Should he support this silly legislation that is only causing trouble, or should he make the right choice and go with Bush? The only problem is that if he goes with Bush, the media will be all over it and it will fuel Barack Obama's silly anti-maverick ads. Just get outta there Johnny!

Why this is happening

No alliterations or puns today. I'm not in the mood.

Excessive use of credit is going to destroy this country.

Right now, the Bush administration and congress are rescuing us from Bill Clinton's mistakes. I just published a post full of facts on the economic crisis. In that post, I point out that George Bush and the Republicans have repeatedly tried to stop Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's bad practices in their tracks. They were thwarted by Democrats. I also pointed out that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were created by the government. They never should have been. The government has no business giving people houses. I also pointed out that Bill Clinton forced banks (large and small) to give loans in poor communities to people who would never be able to afford to pay them back.

Liberals in government have gotten America addicted to credit.

I hope that every American understands what has happened here.

Tutorial: What the hell just happened

For a long time, the prices of homes continued to rise. Starting around 2005/2006, their prices stopped increasing and started to fall. This is known as a bubble. Popping.

This would have been fine, if the people in those houses actually owned them.

But most people don't own their homes. They have mortgages.

Consider this. A family lives in a home and is paying a $300,000 mortgage on it. Their payments are too high to afford, so they want to refinance. However, their home is now worth only $280,000, so there is no equity on which to refinance. Therefore the family can't pay the mortgage and they default.

Of course, this means that the lender loses money. They could kick the person out of their home and try to sell it, but now that the house is worth less than it was before they will still lose money even if they do manage to sell it.

Since the housing bubble had popped nationwide (in fact, worldwide), this exact process recently occurred thousands of times over, which meant that thousands of mortgages became worth negative money.

Mortgages have long been traded by companies such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Now all the mortgages owned by companies like Fannie and Freddie are worth negative money, and unless someone helps these companies out they will be bankrupt.

Of course, that is what the government is doing as I type. They are giving these companies money so that the companies don't have negative money anymore.

This is necessary, because without companies like these the American way of life would abruptly halt and we would be in a depression.

In summary, the government (Clinton) forced banks to give loans out to people who could never pay them. Now, the people aren't paying the loans (duh) so the government is paying them instead. In effect, the government bought thousands of people their houses. Actually, I paid for their houses. We paid for their houses.

Stop Credit

Everyone on TV, the radio, in the White House, and on Capitol Hill are talking about "solving the root of the problem". The root of the problem is credit. It is evil.

Yes, it is unfortunate if a person cannot afford a house and has to live in a dingy apartment. However, those people should be encouraged to work hard, save, and buy a house with cash as I intend to do. They should not be given a house. If everyone in the country were given everything on a plate, everyone would stop working and we would all die.

Please, tell your government to stop encouraging credit. Tell Democrats to stop earning their votes by promising people free things. It doesn't work. It hurts us. It fails. It's bad. Why don't people get this?

My life is over

The debate scheduled for tomorrow has been canceled (postponed?). [CORRECTION on 9/26/08]: It appears the debate is ON! Although...McCain won't be there, so it will be Obama debating himself. NYT

Initially, Barack Obama was opposed to canceling the debate. John McCain offered the initial suggestion because he feels he can be of more help to Americans by returning to Washington and working on the economic rescue legislation. Democrats (including Obama) criticize McCain's move, calling it a "Hail Mary". “What, does McCain think the Senate will still be working at 9 p.m. Friday?”
New York Times article

That's disgusting. As always, the Democrats are trying to spin a good thing and make McCain look bad. The fact is that McCain obviously does want the congress to work past their bed time in an attempt to save the country from Bill Clinton's mistakes (more on that later). I guess if Barack Obama is elected president we can expect anarchy after 9PM, when he will be having his TV time.

Grow up!

Facts on the Economic Crisis

Before, I posted an editorial on the housing crisis. Now that the housing crisis has grown into an even larger problem, I will post again. This time, there will be no opinion. This is a factual post. Facts only.

Please note that I link to a few Wikipedia articles here. Although I do not believe Wikipedia is as reliable a source as newspapers and video, I do believe its articles can serve as a good overview of some issues as well as a place to find informative links. So, read the Wikipedia articles at your own discretion.


Facts about the housing crisis

In 2003, George Bush recognized a problem in the mortgage lending industry. In response, he proposed a plan that would have regulated Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and determined whether the two mortgage lenders were properly managing the risk of their investments. The Bush administration also wanted to eliminate the power of the president to appoint the two companies' directors, since this practice can produce ineffective leadership in the companies.

For the most part, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac both endorsed Bush's plan. The industry encouraged congress to pass this legislation in a timely manner.

Democrats strongly apposed Bush's plan. Barney Frank said, "These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis. The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing."

New Agency Proposed to Oversee Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, New York Times, September 11, 2003

Wikipedia explains Bush's proposed changes


In 1995, the Clinton administration enacted legislation that forced lending institutions to prove that they were lending to enough lower-income people. Under this legislation, the government limited the ability of financial institutions to grow if they did not give enough loans in poor communities.

As a compromise, the Republicans tried to reduce the extent to which small- and medium-sized banks were forced to make loans in poor communities. Democrats opposed their attempt.

1993 Clinton press conference

Republicans Seek a Cutback in Lending Rules for Banks, New York Times, March 31, 1995

Wikipedia explains Bill Clinton's changes


Fannie Mae was created by the government in 1938 as a part of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal.
Wikipedia explains about Fannie Mae


Freddie Mac was created by the government in 1970.
Wikipedia explains about Freddie Mac

Democrats against the environment

Saturday, the Boston Globe published an excellent editorial on leadership in environmentalism. Read it--really!
On climate, who will lead by example? Boston Globe

The editorial points out the shaky environmental leadership from John Kerry and Ted Kennedy, Massachusetts senators. Although both scored a 93% voting-record rating from the League of Conservation Voters, they are far from environmental role-models.

Kennedy has always opposed the first offshore wind farm in the United States.

Kerry refuses to take a stand on the first offshore wind farm in the United States.

Kerry and Kennedy supported paying $96,193,715 to General Electric for helicopter motors.

For decades, General Electric has resisted PCB cleanup projects for the rivers they pollute.

...and they still do.

GE is also an enthusiastic supporter of nuclear energy, since they stand to make millions from building nuclear power plants.

It's not surprising, though, that Kerry is a political supporter of GE. In 2006 alone he had over $3 million invested with them.

Speaking of investments, Nancy Pelosi, John Dingell, and James Oberstar also each have up to $100,000 invested in GE.

This Globe editorial is so spot-on, I won't continue to paraphrase it. Here is its conclusion:

Kerry also had investments totaling between $81,004 and $215,000 in ExxonMobil and BP. Jeff Bingaman, chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, has investments in ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips totaling between $66,003 and $168,000. The top congressional investor in ConocoPhillips, at $500,001 to $1 million, is Tom Harkin, chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee and self-proclaimed "leading advocate of farm conservation programs."

The Center for Environment and Population report asked, "What are we willing to change, or give up? . . . Is it the world's climate, as we know it? Plentiful water supplies? Land? Species? Or do we have to make different policy, lifestyle, business, or industry choices?"

From the private choices of our eco-warriors, we might as well give up.

I am a liar and a loser

A few posts ago I said I was going to focus on Iraq soon. I lied. I'm a loser.

The truth is, I know so little about Iraq that anything I post on it will just be blathering.

I know I overuse certain words, including "blather". There are two reasons for this. For one, I have a limited vocabulary (it happens when half the books you read contain the word "programming" in their title). The second reason is that I come across blathering so often, it is hard not to mention it.

Blather (v.): to talk or utter foolishly; blither; babble: The poor thing blathered for hours about the intricacies of his psyche.

Exactly.

After reading a horrible editorial in The Huntington Ruse and then a few excellent editorials in the Boston Globe and Wall Street Journal, I decided I should raise my own editorial standard. And that means not writing about things I don't know a damn about and can't seem to really learn a damn about.

Instead of blogging on Iraq, I will leave you with one sentence about it. Everyone is right and everyone is wrong about Iraq. Think about it.

In the news: Universal health care troubles?

(Opinion)

There was an excellent article in The Boston Globe yesterday. The article explains that Governor Deval Patrick (Massachusetts) is seeking "widespread emergency cuts in the state budget" because tax collections "plummeted by $200 million in the first two weeks of September". Here is my favorite quote:

The state also faces rising costs associated with its universal healthcare law, which has led to higher-than-expected enrollment in state-funded insurance programs. Patrick proposed a plan to raise an additional $130 million from employers and insurers to help fund the new law.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2008/09/20/patrick_ponders_big_cuts_as_state_revenue_tumbles/
(unfortunately, The Boston Globe requires you to sign up for a free account in order to view the second page of this article)

I won't blather on about this because I know very little about it. I just wanted to note the simple logic which has been clearly proven here: when the government offers an easy way out, people take it. Universal health care seems to bring "higher-than-expected" everything.

Also, I like how they call it "a plan to raise an additional $130 million from employers and insurers to help fund the new law". Again, I do not know this, but I bet that means TAX!

From the other side of the issue, the fact that higher-than-expected numbers of people have enrolled in state-funded insurance is a good thing. I can buy into the claim that more people with health insurance is good, but I won't claim that more people on state-run health care is. First of all, this means that more taxpayer money is supporting these people's health care (as the article mentions). This is communist. Ideally, I should not be paying a dime for my neighbor's health care. Second, this is sure to encourage more interaction on the government's part in the medical field. And we all know that when the government gets involved, things get ugly.