The 700 billion dollar bailout is going to the Senate. Tell your candidate, Obama, to stand up and be the President he claims he will be and the President we all need (badly).

Tweet Obama early and often with your protest: “@BarackObama say no to corporate bailouts”.

Bush tried to scare us all into thinking armageddon was coming if we didn’t push through and get behind a 700 billion dollar tax burden to save Wall Street. That should be your first red flag for everyone: Bush + the fear card. This tactic was used to get us into Iraq and the Democrats went for it hook line and sinker.

Why 700 billion dollars? According to a Treasury department spokeswoman, “It’s not based on any particular data point, we just wanted to choose a really large number.” Another red flag, and also reminds me of the Iraq war (no clear goals or plan).

What everyone should be frightened of, is that BOTH Presidential candidates are backing an ill conceived plan being promoted by fear and not fact.

Obama says he had the judgement to stand up to the Iraq war mongering, but he wasn’t in the Senate at the time of the Iraq vote so we have to assume he’d have stood up against the insanity. Now we have a chance to actually see him prove his ability to use good judgement in the face of pressure from the Bush White House and corporate interests. The 700 billion dollar bailout is insanity.

If you’re on Twitter, start tweeting Obama now. THERE ARE BETTER ALTERNATIVES:

It’s ironic that as someone who’s moved from Washington to Iowa, I’m discovering fresh Apples for the first time. Our friend down the street was out of town and invited us to go pick some. I don’t know if this is a bumper crop year for apples or what, but it was literally raining apples while we picked and picked up about 20-30 pounds.

We’ve been juicing them with carrots for the past couple days. They’ve got a great flavor and texture (the texture is still there even after juicing, which I guess is a testament to how firm and dense they are). We’re going to plant some apple trees of our own this Fall.

Who else is growing apple or peach trees? Any tips or recipes that would put several pounds or apples to good use?

A future “doctor” talks about why we should vote for McCain:

Great article over at Time.com about the current “crisis”.

Do not be fooled. The $700 billion (ultimately $1 trillion or more) bailout is not predominantly for mortgages and homeowners. Instead, the bailout is for mortgage-backed securities. In fact, some versions of these instruments are imaginary derivatives. These claims overlap on the same types of mortgages. Many financial institutions wrote claims over the same mortgages, and these are the majority of claims that have “gone bad.”

At this point, such claims have no bearing on the mortgage or housing crisis; they have bearing only on the holders of these securities themselves. These are ridiculously risky claims with little value for society.

Let financial institutions fail, merge or be bought out. The faltering institutions will see their shares devalued and will be likely to be taken over by stronger institutions — as has already started happening. This consolidation of the financial sector is both efficient and inevitable; government action can only delay the adjustment.

And to the point:

Rather than bailing out Wall Street, we propose that the government should buy up the actual mortgages in question and do nothing else. The government should not touch any derivatives; that is, claims that do not directly tie into the actual mortgages. If money becomes too tight, then the Fed can certainly increase its loans to financial institutions.

Let the poorly managed, overly risk-taking financial institutions fail! Always remember that Wall Street and the real economy are not the same thing.

Mondays I do yoga with Joetta Lashway.   I lost my breath and was shaky.  Of course, I have the perfect excuse to not be in shape.  No reason to start feeling not good enough or whatever.  Instead, I got to experience what it means to begin where you are at.  No judgments and no pressure.  I just did what I could and observed.   What a freeing feeling.

So the bailout didn’t pass (yeah).  The Democrats spent all day talking about how they acted in a bipartisan fashion and that all the blame rests on the Republicans.  I have no love for the Republican party, but does anyone else see the hypocrisy of the Democratic voice while navigating the current financial crisis?  You can’t claim you’re being bi-partisan while blaming the other party ;)

Besides, if my math is correct, 67% of Republicans and 40% of Democrats voted no.  The Democrats control the house and with the President’s support of this bill a simple majority was all that was needed.  Yet they come out in front of the cameras today and blame the Republicans?

It will be a really easy vote for me in the next couple congressional elections.  Vote the incumbents out, regardless of party.  What a sorry bunch.  No wonder this country is fucked.

My office is right on the square in downtown Fairfield where I have been witnessing what I would call a “Beautification Boondoggle“.

“Beautification”, as in the local government is trying to make the town prettier based on the aesthetic definitions of a few.  And “Boondoggle”, as in the project for beautifying the town is not being thoroughly thought out or re-evaluated (I assume), but continues on it’s course despite some obvious issues.

First there’s the aesthetic failure, which I admit is purely subjective, but here’s my take.  Trees and flowers are good.  I LOVE trees and flowers (and bees and chocolate btw).  But removing the funky things that give your town character, and replacing them with cookie cutter standards that don’t distinguish your town from say any suburb in Chicago, is not good.  I also met an art gallery owner who’s been told he cannot put up a custom made polished metallic sign above his art gallery because it doesn’t “fit the new beautification code”.  How ironic that a town that promotes an extensive and successful Art Walk every month, is now limiting the expression of an art gallery.  Yet right next door there’s a drug store with an ugly corporate logo awning.  Sigh (smacks head).

Next there’s the practical failure.  Last year they started this beautification project by paving the cross walk areas with bricks.  It looked ok, but it was obvious to everyone I spoke with that they wouldn’t last but a couple Iowa winters.  But none of us were brick experts and assumed these brick guys knew what they were doing.

One year later:

Oops! And there are lot’s more completely damaged bricks after only one winter.  What a waste of money to jackhammer so much of the road and sidewalks and replace them with a more expensive, less durable material.  And for what?  So our town can look like Naperville/Bollingbrook/Wheaton/Oakbrook Illinois?

The alleys are being paved and fitted with a much better drainage system, which is great given that I’ve literally had to wade into my office door (which is on the alley).  However instead of pouring concrete, they’re pouring concrete and then stamping and staining it to look like old rustic bricks.  They already messed up twice and had to tear out newly poured concrete in order to redo the brick stamp.  And the brick stamp pattern is completely different from the real brick pattern 10ft away (aesthetic failure).

It’s puzzling.  Why not just save the money and do nice smooth concrete?  Or, let’s assume for a moment that the fake brick stamping DOESN’T make you feel like you’re at Disney World: why not just apply the stamping model to the crosswalks too?  At least it would all match, last longer and save some money.

The whole office has watched this project pretty closely given that it’s right outside our window and has involved many many hours of jack-hammering.  A couple of us called the city to make sure that bike racks would be part of the improvements.  Our office alone produces as many as eight bikes parked in the alley on a nice day, in addition to the 3-6 bikes from the other office in our building.  The city said they were putting in bike racks and we eagerly awaited a “bike rack”.  You know one of those 6-10 feet long metal racks where you can fit a dozen bikes if needed.

What we got was this:

Um . . . that’s no good.  It’s a bummer that a town that I thought was interested in promoting green culture, spends untold dollars on replacing perfectly good sidewalk with the brickwork you see (in front of the bike rack) yet skimps on bike racks.  That bike rack will hold two bikes, which means that the new fancy light posts they put in along the street are now going to be the most common place you see a bike tied up - which I’m sure will annoy the beautification people.  Ah, the irony.

I wish someone could have stopped the project after last summer and focused on lighting, alley repairs (drainage and pavement), bike racks, benches and painting in crosswalks.  What attracted me to Fairfield were things like the hand painted benches in the square park, the old style merry go rounds in the playgrounds (since removed), the character of the store fronts around town and claims of a government backing green culture.  I hope what I am seeing here is not a pattern of some sort of rural gentrification.  And I certainly hope that the migration of families like mine to Fairfield isn’t being misread as “beautify it and more people will come”.  I didn’t move two thousand miles to trade one suburb for another.

Having said all that . . . I know first hand how projects can take a life of there own.  Managing something like this must have been a nightmare.  I sympathize with that, and appreciate the new lights and drainage.
Note: I decided to write this only after hearing unsolicited opinions from several other people who work on the square and all have the same view.  I’m curious to hear some alternate perceptions of the beautification project.

There’s this sign on Burlington Avenue flaming Iowa State Construction.  I was actually considering hiring them to do some work on our house but after seeing this sign I wouldn’t even consider it.  It’s pretty effective negative advertising.

I thought about the reaction I got on this blog when I posted a bad review of a local restaurant and imagine there’s some local drama going on behind this sign.  I’m tempted to call the number out of curiosity.

That it is a great time to invest!