Way to get in the spirit of the holiday guys.

Star Trek, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Spider Man. You've pretty much covered all of the media that ever gets talked about at my office. All that's missing is Dr. Who...


Disclaimer on the picture. My phone has a big crack _right_ over the camera lens.

Wordless Wednesday: It's coming...

I know, I know, enough already...

Look at me, 2 posts in 2 days. Don't get used to it, though, my mom tagged me and I knew if I didn't do it right now I'd forget. So here goes:

1. Where is your cell phone? pocket
2. Where is your significant other? 6'away
3. Your hair color? brown
4. Your mother? crazy
5. Your father? mellow
6. Your favorite thing? electrons
7. Your dream last night? non-existent
8. Your dream/goal? graduating
9. The room you're in? office
10. Your hobby? biking
11. Your fear? drowning
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Apple
13. Where were you last night? home
14. What you're not? graduated
15. One of your wish-list items? Challenger

16. Where you grew up? Orderville
17. The last thing you did? eat
18. What are you wearing? hat
19. Your TV? korean
20. Your pet? non-existent
21. Your computer? unending
22. Your mood? normal
23. Missing someone? nah
24. Your car? Yeti
25. Something you're not wearing? bra
26. Favorite store? amazon.com
27. Your summer? crazy
28. Love someone? much-ly
29. Your favorite color? orange
30. When is the last time you laughed? barely
31. Last time you cried? 2002

Guess what? Not tagging anybody. You're all off the hook. Look at me defying convention.

Where has all the accountability gone?

It's official. Our "Limited Government" government has signed into law the $700 billion bailout bill. Why? Because some clever people found a way to add around $1oo billion in pet project "pork" to the bill.

So who is going to be held accountable? Is it the sub-prime lenders who enabled the mess? Is it the idiots who bought homes well beyond what they could afford because the sub-prime lenders told them they could? What's going on? Allow me to illustrate with an example from Bob Cringely:

Take our current national economic mess, the so-called sub-prime mortgage crisis. I like to think that I'm not a subprime kind of guy, but pretending to work as I do (my kids think I TYPE for a living) the world may not always see me the way I would like to be seen. So last year, in what we didn't know were the waning and idyllic pre-subprime days, I tried to get a new mortgage. Of course I used the Internet to get the loan because, as we all know, when banks compete I win. And within a few days, without having to actually meet with or even speak to another human, I found myself offered a $336,000 mortgage.

It was SO easy. Fill out a few online forms, make some choices, and there I was, about to close that loan. But then I did an odd thing. I carefully read the papers I was about to sign (I'm one of THOSE people). And in that residential loan application, right on line something or other, was a number that didn't make any sense to me at all. It was labeled "total household income" and was almost twice the pitiful amount I actually earn.

From where did that number come? It certainly never came from me. Since my signature would be at the bottom of this application I wanted to make sure everything was correct, so I called the mortgage broker. For the first time we spoke. She was a very nice lady, too, and explained that number was the variable required for all the ratios to be correct so I could qualify for the loan.

"But it isn't true," I said.

"Do you want the loan or not?" she asked.

Not.

I wasn't so principled as cowardly, but maybe that doesn't matter: I did what I knew was the right thing for me, which was to walk away from the loan. But evidently a lot of other people took the other course and today are having trouble paying for their houses, which is a big part of the reason why we are in this current economic mess.

Now there is someone with a brain. "Oh, I don't think I can afford this house, I guess I won't buy it". Which brings me back to the main question: Who is going to be held accountable for this mess? Apparently not the people who made the poor choices, and apparently not the people who made it so easy for them to make that poor choice, but the everyday taxpayer, including those who were not even close to being in a position to make any choice on sub-prime lending, and including those who used their brains and chose wisely.

Oh, there's one more thing. Want to know two of the people leading the fight for the bailout to pass once the pork was added? Oh, a couple of guys named Bob Bennet and Orrin Hatch. Way to represent your constituents, guys.

Oh, and think that this pork that got added was all for the common good? Check this out: