Presidential Debates

Remember those college drinking games? Every time I hear a Democratic candidate say, “In the last 8 years” I chug a beer. I haven’t been sober for a month.

I should have bought a keg for tonight’s debate.

Best line: “I’m not George Bush. If you want to run against George Bush, you should have done it 4 years ago.”

CBS Television

Did anyone try to watch Jeopardy tonight? Did it seem like a bad LSD flashback to you?

The first half of the program was ok, then they broke for dead airspace and came back where Alex is interviewing the contestants – deja vu all over again. Recognizing their mistake, CBS immediately went to broadcasting dead air again.  Somebody must have pointed this out to them as they grabbed a Harrah’s tape and put it on continuous play for 5 minutes.

We jumped to final Jeopardy, but only long enugh to flash up the question and then launched into a psychodelic mix of commercials, promos for the 11 O’Clock news, and dead air. Somewhere in this mix, the Clue Crew came up with their end-of-program factoid. All this was finally punctuated by a test pattern just before we cut back to the game – already well in progress: the contestants were filling out their cards for final Jeopardy.

But all that pales in comparison to what I experienced on CBS a couple of weeks ago: I was watching a football game. It’s 3rd and 4 on the 30, the ball is snapped, the quarterback fades back, ”Hello I’m Barak Obama…” (if it were only a voiceover it would have been bad enough) we cut back to the game to see yellow flags being thrown. I didn’t know Barak did play-by-play for CBS.

The Stock Market’s Wild Ride

Let’s face it. There is no group more paranoid than stock traders. Stocks, like money, have on intrinsic value. Their only value is what people think they are worth.

There is a mathematical formula that can be used to predict the value of stock or price of oil or whatever. It is: Value = A * GREED- B * FEAR. Now all we have to do is figure out a way to measure GREED and FEAR and we can compute the coeficients A and B.

What this formula tells us is that when GREED exceeds FEAR, value goes up. Such was the case when oil prices recently spiked. It had nothing to do with supply and demand and everything with trying to make a buck on speculation. However once the market was perceived to “top out”, people started selling off their shares and profit taking took over. FEAR got the upper hand, and people couldn’t dump thier oil futures fast enough before they were worthless. Oil prices went into a power dive back to their previous levels.

My prediction. People will get used to the economic crisis. All other things being equal, FEAR will become less of a factor. GREED will again become the dominating force in the market, and it will go up again. However, having been burned, GREED will me restrained by caution; at least for a while.

The Great Gas Panic of 2008

On October 31st, 1938, people turned on their radios and heard that Martians landed in New Jersey. They believed what they heard and paniced.

On September 12th, 2008, people turned on their radios and heard that the gasoline would run out that very day. They believed what they heard and paniced.

The highest gas price gouge I saw was a 70 cent increase by BP. The lowest was 20 cents by Wilco/Hess. On my way back from lunch today, stations were already lowering their prices.

I hope that the tens of thousands of fools who paid over premium price for regular gas learned their lesson. As it is the damage already has been done. These gullible wusses spoke in actions louder than words to the big oil companies, “Go ahead rasie gas prices to whatever level you want. WE WILL PAY ANY PRICE TO GET OUR GASOLINE FIX.” If there is any argument against more oil dependancey this is it.

The stampede of the stupid clarified my position on off-shore drilling. I used to support it only if accompanied with a tax on gasoline to be used for alternative fuel research. Now I still hold the same position, but the new rigs must now be capable of continuing operations in a Category 5 hurricane.

John Kavenaugh Construction (Homes)

The Hardie Plank siding is falling off my house. Two years ago, we noticed a couple of loose boards. The Kavenaugh representative came out, look at the siding from a distance and said, “When you have the house painted, have them put a couple of nails in.”

In the last two years, we went from a couple of boards to about 100. The house looks like it’s 75 years old. When I contacted John Kavenaugh, the response was that I should have been “caulking and painting the siding every year.”

I did research on Hardie Plank and just about every site says, “It’s a bear to put up, but if installed properly, it lasts forever.” I could not find any negative comments about the product.

I called the James Hardie company about their 50-year guarantee, and they sent someone out to look at it. Their response is that the warranty is null and void since the product was not installed properly. This assessment is confirmed by an independent contractor.

We contacted John Kavenaugh again sending them the Hardie company letter and their response was that the massive failures on the house was due to lack of maintenance. They even admitted (in writing) that they never primed the paint before painting. They say that they will take no further action on this request. All this was done from the comfort of their office.

In their letter they stated that they contacted the Hardie Company and the Hardie Company said that the fault was due to lack of maintenance. We contacted the Hardie Company and not only did they NOT say that, they said that John Kavenaugh’s representative told them that “We don’t understand how it got this far. We offered to fix it.” Of course neither my wife nor I have any recollection of this generous offer, and I doubt that Kavenaugh could come up with any paperwork that vaugely alludes to this alledged offer.

So it now comes to legal action. I have to pay a lawyer to get John Kavenaugh’s attention. I doubt that Mr. Kavenaugh is even aware of our compaint personally.

Airline Industry in General

American Airlines – $15 to check the first bag. I guess that’s to make up for all the revenue they lost when the FAA grounded thousands of their flights for failure to comply with safety regulations.

US Airways. Want an aisle seat? Only $10 more!

It seems that the airlines are learning how to nickle and dime us (or $5  and $10 us) from the phone company?

Waht next? Pay toilets? How about replacing the in-flight movie with end-to-end advertizing played over the loudspeakers? Emergency oxygen mask rental fee.

Northwest Airlines

I received a mailer for discount tickets if I booked travel between 2/27/08 and 5/28/08. I expected some blackout dates. There are two – I mean in the entire 3 month period there are only two days NOT blacked out.

So you can fly on May 7 and return on May 7th or you can return on May 28 or fly out and back on the 28th. Why bother? I’ll toss the next flyer into the recycle bin as soon as I get it.

Got a much better deal on Continental with straight booking

American Federation of Police and Concerned Citizens

Same kind of scam. I couldn’t find significant information on them other than:

They refuse to answer Better Business Bureau routine questions about thier operations. You have to register with them to see their Form 990.  CharityNavigator.org gives them a one out of four stars for a rating. There are other police related charities with 4-star ratings.

Also if you donate, you must contact them to opt-out of having your name sold to advertisers.

The seem to be active in supporting the death penalty, gun ownership and other conservative causes. (It doesn’t matter what I think of these issues, but doing it under the guise of charity is nothing short of deceipt).

FEATURE/WORTH Magazine list the top 100 charities and the 12 to avoid. AFPCC is in the latter group.

ARKANSAS A group known as the American Federation of Police and Concerned Citizens Inc. agreed on Oct. 17 to repay a total of $21,500 and more accurately describe its solicitation efforts. Attorney General Winston Bryant said the group, which solicited money by mail, had led consumers to believe their donations were going to aid widows and orphans of slain police officers in their local area. (http://www.lib.jjay.cuny.edu/len/96/15dec/html/nation.html)

For more info see http://weblog.ceicher.com/archives/2002/10/police_charities_fraud.html

Police Protective Fund

A friend of mine got a call from the Police Protective Fund. This is a non-profit organization that allegedy raises money to pay death benefits for police officers killed in the line of duty. This they do. They raised almost $5,000,000 and paid out $13,000 in benefits. I’ll spell that out. Raised 5 MILLION paid 13 THOUSAND.

This information is from thier form 990 at http://www.policeprotectivefund.org/ppf_990.pdf.

American Oil Companies

Benazir Bhutto is assasinated on Thursday.  Since this sets off turmoil in oil-rich Pakistan, the price of a 55-gallon barrel of oil rose $0.55. According to my calculator $0.55 / 55 gallons is an increase of 1 penny a gallon. According to the calculators used by the oil companies it’s 10 pennies a gallon. Except for the good folks at Exxon/Mobile where it calculates out to 19 pennies.

I think I need to go back to school and learn math. I also need to go back to school to learn economics. According to what I learned about the law of supply and demand, the only logical explanation is that someone pulled the plug on Saudi Arabia and all the oil ran out.

But we have not seen anything yet. A one cent increase in the price of a barrel of oil from $99.99 to $100.00 will be reflected with an immediate increase of 25 cents or more at the pump.