Woah - When Did the Stock Market Get So High?

The market is up at 9310 at the end of the day. It was not long ago where it seemed like it would never reach 1,000 again, and there it is at the cusp. Very cool. I wish I had bothered investing. If I had invested in Starbucks when I planned on it I'd be at double my money right now, but stupid Sharebuilder isn't fun to use and I decided against it. Boo.

Ted Kennedy Passes

I'm happy he held on this long. Even those who hated Ted Kennedy had incredible respect for him - it was often their respect for him that led to their hatred. That says a lot about a person.

Take care, Senator.

Baseball Quote

As a Mariner fan, I appreciated this:

“Chicks who dig home runs aren’t the ones who appeal to me,” he said. “I think there’s sexiness in infield hits because they require technique. I’d rather impress the chicks with my technique than with my brute strength. Then, every now and then, just to show I can do that, too, I might flirt a little by hitting one out.”

h/t USSM

What? I Didn't Update???

What's wrong with me. I thought I did, twice. Weird. Maybe I need to get a team together to post on this website more often.

I want to take a moment to discuss how the economy has impacted the freelancing lifestyle. I have been able to support myself for well over a year by freelancing. Essentially, I make more money than most people do for less work, but unlike full time jobs, any day I could not have work and I make no money. So while I make more per hour, I also run the risk of having no work and not making a dime. All in all, it evens out in the end.

When the economy crashed, everyone worried about whether or not I'd have any work - if people can't afford to pay for the things they need, why would they dish out money to pay high priced freelancers what they can get for free from their employees that they are already paying. This turned out not to be the case. In fact, the work seemed to increase, as layoffs left people (and companies) needing to find people to do the work for them as it was needed.

But recently that work has stalled. Why? Because all of those people that got laid off decided they no longer want to look for work. Instead, they have flooded the freelance market and are willing to make almost no money just so they can afford their bills (and because they are not sure how much their work is really worth to companies). So now, even though the economy is improving, these underbidding freelancers are actually harming the freelance economy. Essentially now, to get work, I have to get paid far less than the work is usually worth, and I STILL run the risk of not having work on any given week.

It kinda blows. I make more than enough to get by, but in a way all of these forced freelancers are lowering wages in the freelancing economy the same way people complain about migrant workers and Indian outsourcing. Hopefully the economic swing will get these people employed and things can go back to the way they were, but I won't hold my breath,

Cool, But Not Enough

More than a dozen Central Area drug dealers voluntarily walked into an auditorium full of police and prosecutors Thursday night and were presented with an ultimatum: Stop selling dope or prepare for prison.

Confronted with photos, video clips and binders full of evidence gathered in a yearlong operation along Seattle's 23rd Avenue corridor, from Madison to Jackson streets, the dealers were promised they wouldn't be arrested, prosecuted or sent to jail for 20 months or more if they embraced the job training, educational opportunities and chemical-dependency treatment being offered them.

Hooray for Seattle - combining both good law enforcement with progressive punishments. But for a city that clearly understands that drugs are not the worst thing in the world, they need to be on the forefront of legalization of marijuana and the creation of better treatment centers. It is usually a lot to ask of a city to make such sweeping changes in a short period of time, but in Seattle these things are long overdue, and the fact that the laws and practices haven't caught up to liberal values of the city is disappointing.

Should Texas Unbecome a State?

Yes.

Should Puerto Rico Become a State?

Apparently this is coming up again in Congress. Congress is doing it the right way - they are voting in order to give the vote up to the Puerto Ricans, and then, since that vote is non-binding, they will re-vote in the future to meet their wishes.

Still, I do not see how it is necessarily a bad thing. I suppose it runs the risk of soaking up more government resources, and we do not get to have that nifty 50 number, which has served us well (though there are a few states I'm willing to drop to make room for Puerto Rico). Still, it has been part of the US for years, to the point where you do not even need to have a passport to visit it. I think it may be time to add it to the list.

No thoughts on anything.

Sometimes it is annoying to like your President. Trusting his judgment I stopped checking the news as often, get less upset when there is some type of argument or opposition, and really do not care when Obama does something I disagree with because, in general, he does enough things that I agree with that I am okay with a different opinion now and then.

So I don't know what to post about. I mentioned a while back that when posting was slim I'd try to waste some time using articles to market some of the side project websites I was working on. Then I generally scratched that idea because those articles are not only annoying to write, they are annoying to read. Most often they are filled with "keywords" to get them higher in search engines, and they don't really have much content. I doubt I'll ever go so far as to simply start using this blog to market something, especially so unrelated to politics. But to get a general idea what what kind of sites I am talking about, here is the link to one: Benefits of Unemployment. It's got affiliate links to some of those "make money from home" guides online. Basically, the goal is to make a little money by people who want to get the guides themselves.

Yeah, as you can see, there is not really a way to write an article about it that will help me market it. Now I don't really know what else to do with this site when political ideas are slim. Photos? I could do photos. Meh.

Hurrying the Health Care

We need this and we need it now. Anyone that wants to argue that insurance companies aren't boosting health care costs for no reason other than to make greater profit is out of their mind. In two years, with no health problems, doctors visits, etc., my insurance costs have doubled. Seriously - they were 150 (I am young and healthy) and they are now 300. With the exception of aging two years, nothing has changed. This is ridiculous. And this is in addition to the known actions of insurance companies to do what they can to block expensive claims.

Hurry and do something, because these companies are out of control and do not deserve to survive.

The Mauder Minimum and Global Warming

According to this article in the New York Times, there is some belief that the world may be involved in another "Little Ice Age" - a period of time that is very cold, but by no means unbearable, that occurred during the Medieval period.

For some reason or another, many believe this is due to global warming - even though the cause of it has to do with fewer ice spots or a so called "resting sun." So the idea that pollution on earth could play a role seems highly unlikely. However, I do wonder how a little ice age would affect global warming. While obviously the worry is "climate change" and not so much warming, colder weather seems like it would be to our benefit, even though it reflects a long time period of misery.

Am I wrong?

Rap Remix that Needs to Happen

Someone needs to make a rap song out of the beat of the original Reading Rainbow song. While they are at it, I wouldn't mind one made out of Beverly Hills Cop. But Reading Rainbow takes number 1 priority. Get on it, Kanye.

Further Proof that Republicans Are Generally Misguided

This makes little sense:

In the aftermath of her decision to drop out and cash in, Palin’s standing in the G.O.P. actually rose in the USA Today/Gallup poll. No less than 71 percent of Republicans said they would vote for her for president. That overwhelming majority isn’t just the “base” of the Republican Party that liberals and conservatives alike tend to ghettoize as a rump backwater minority. It is the party, or pretty much what remains of it in the Barack Obama era.

Often times the blind, irrational faith of Republicans in clearly inferior and inadequate leaders is mocked by the other side. There is a reason.

Why I Check the New York Times

Thinks like this:

Cheney Is Linked to Concealment of C.I.A. Project

The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency’s director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday.

No one should get their hopes it, because it is rare things come from this and chances are it has to do with something we had already assumed, but still - the intrigue is there.

Dow Ends Lower Due to Talks of Possible Stimulus

Reasons to not trust the stock market as a barrier of the state of the economy:

1) This.

Discussing something to stimulate the economy causes the stock market to crash further because the economy "might" be worse. That's stupid, since the crashing stock market makes the economy worse. A reactionary response that loses people millions simply because the government is talking about ways to make the economy better is at minimum counterproductive, and at maximum doomed to failure.

Sarah, We Hardly Knew Ye

Proving once again that she never gave a shit about Alaska, Sarah Palin is stepping down at the end of this term. Though no specific reason was stated, according to all sources - as well as Palin herself - she is stepping down for two reasons:

1) Some small scandals and book deals will get in the way of being a good governor.
2) She is probably planning to run for president in 2012.

Wait, what?

Apparently she is stepping down both because she has problems that make her a bad governor, AND because she thinks she can and will run for President in 2012.

This boggles my mind.