munky.org|v3.0

Bleeding heart liberals. That’s what we call ‘em. People who have extremely liberal ideas, barking out cries of brutality because they have nothing better to do with their time or lives. What a shame. People are starving and all they can do is sit on their hands and complain. When people are dying at the hands of ruthless murderers, intent on striking fear into the lives of others, they still sit on their hands and complain.

Just look at what is going on in Mexico. In the town on Juarez, just off the border in the Chihuahua state, drug cartels are running rampant. Last year 1,600 people died. Up until a couple of weeks ago, on average 6 people were dying a day. A DAY! The police chief quit because he was threatened, not of his own life, but the lives of his officers. The terrorists, err cartels, said they would kill a policeman a day until he quit. He quit. I can’t say I blame him either. 

This is a situation ripe for human rights activists. Human suffering, unsafe conditions. So what do they do?! They cry fowl that the government has sent 3,500 troops and 3,000 federal police to suppress the violence and the cartels. To restore law and order, to restore the basic rights of all of the residents who have been in fear of their lives. What a crock of $&%#.

“The increase in law enforcement brings elements that create an environment conducive to the violation of human rights,” said José Luis Armendáriz González, president of the Chihuahua State Commission of Human Rights. “What are the limits of their power? The risk for wrongful detentions, raids of homes increases when there’s no clear line.” (Read full story here on CNN)

What does he want them to do, send in a diplomat? This drug cartels run their own militias, worthy of being considered a military force. There is no clear line of right or wrong for them, limited rules. They are terrorists in their own right, and have made themselves the de facto authority in Juarez. 3,500 troops (plus another 1,500 on the way) is probably a good number, considered they are fighting a trained paramilitary force. These aren’t the hoodlum gangs roaming the streets.

Iranian Ameneh Bahrami poses in Barcelona holding a photograph of herself before she was blinded by acid

I’ve been getting tired of hearing these guys kick and scream over stuff, when all they do is continually contradict their own meaning. Human rights groups cried foul when a young Iranian had her face burned and eyes destroyed by acid from a dejected suitor. He claimed to do it out of love. They weren’t mad at him. They were mad the Iranian court followed her recommended sentence: to have his eyes burned out by acid, just as he had done to her. So fine, let’s have it the human rights way. We’ll put him in jail. A good 10 – 15 years, to ensure he learns his lesson. He gets out, falls in love with a girl who doesn’t want him, so then he rapes her and kills her. Oh my, he would never do such a thing! (read the full story here)

Human rights is a precious thing. I believe every human has basic rights that he or she deserves. Yet if you violate someone else’s, do you retain the right to keep yours? Sure, you steal from someone, get caught, pay your debt and go on. But when you violate the most sacred rights like this man did, the only way to repay your debt is to sacrifice your own rights.

Back to Juarez. Human rights activists are worried that people are going to be wrongfully detained and have their privacy violated. Unfortunately, that is a price to pay when the enemy lives among you. I don’t doubt that the authorities have considered this line already, developing methods to reduce the likelihood. Why? Not because of national and international politics. Because if they just lock down the entire city and search every home with disregard, they will create an insurrection. This soldiers and the police are amongst their own people who have suffered tremendously, and if they handle it correctly they will be hailed as heroes (ego goes a long way). Finally, a lot of the training for their military and federal police comes from the U.S., which although may have faults, has generally a good job and mitigating that danger.

Maybe the human rights activists and PETA should get into the sack and create a new organization. Less overhead for the same amount of respect.

AT&T Corporate Center

AT&T has got me wound up again. I’ve been a customer of theirs for quite sometime (since my Bellsouth Mobility DCS phone… who was acquired by Cingular, who was acquired through AT&T), and for the most part I haven’t had any complaints.

Now, between them and Wirefly, I’m hot. I upgraded my BB Pearl to a BB Curve through Wirefly a few months ago. First error was on Wirefly’s system. They signed me up for multiple services I did not request. I contacted them and they canceled them. Then when my order was canceled and reordered (my second line was not ready to be upgraded yet), they once again placed these services on my account.

I couldn’t get far with Wirefly, and finally got in touch with AT&T. They supposedly corrected it and credited me like $100 or so. Well, now my bill is all screwed up again. I think it’s Wirefly acting up, I don’t care. I don’t have the time or money to play their games.

When and if I get some resolution, I’ll let you know. But right now, I’m hotter than a $2 hooker on a Navy ship 9 months out to sea. The recession has been kicking my arse, and they want to keep playing games to collect extra money.

Those services? Free 7PM-7AM calls (don’t need em, basic free nights and weekends works for me), Push To Talk (I have no one to PTT with), TeleNav GPS (I have a Magellan GPS & Google Maps, I’m set), Roadside Assistance (AAA, check), Messaging Limited (when I am supposed to have Family unlimited, so an extra $48 on my bill).

If I don’t get any final resolution, they can keep their damn service. I’ll take my hard earned money elsewhere, to a company that’ll appreciate it.

If I had turned in yesterday's blogs as an assignment, this is what I would've gotten back

After reading some of the posts I wrote last night, I’m left scratching my head. Maybe it’s just me, knowing what I was trying to say. I guess writing should be treated as driving, if you are too tired then you need to stand clear.

I had a lot to blog about earlier today. The bank stocks made some good strides for the day, that was good news. A couple mixed the movie “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” with “Beverly Hillbillies” by moving from LA to the sticks of Oregon to work on a farm. A couple of nurses were fired for taking cellphone pics of an x-ray showing a “Sex toy” up someones rectum then posting it on Facebook. Some poor guy was released from jail after DNA evidence cleared him of a murder.

Yet when I get home, sit down, and get ready to put into words what these things mean to me, I’m just too tired. But I guess I’ll give it a shot.

First in bank news. Stocks for the major financial players were up for today, and although they took a dip for the final half of trading, most of them still ended up trading higher. Is this a sign of things to come? Maybe not I should presume. I think now that most people have had some time to digest the news and some of the more fearful traders have moved out, the stocks are moving back to a value that better represents their respective corporations. People are also buying into the news of the stress tests. With the governments plan somewhat in place, many are beginning to believe that the government A) won’t let these banks fail and B) won’t nationalize them. I’ll be curious to see what happens on the day the results are released; I’m sure that day will see some negative movement.

Namely, I’ll be interested in seeing which banks can back up their claims capitalization in comparison to the government tests. These banks all should have internal processes in place for running stress tests. That should be a part of their risk management systems. Some probably won’t work as well as others, so a standardization of it is key in giving a clear approach. Although I fear that any bank that significantly fails it will be dogged in the markets, hurting it from gaining the required private capital needed before government intervention.

Any bank that manages to pass it though should see significant forward momentum in the short term, until some of the gloomy guys return and bring it back down a little.

So who are my picks out of the top 10 banks for having enough capitlization? Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, US Bancorp. BofA is my wildcard spot, but it seems to be a in better position than many put it in.

Onto the farm: A couple moved from a 1400 sq ft apartment in Beverly Hills to a 300 sq ft Airstream travel trailer (the Silver Bullet!) on a farm. With this economy, desperate times call for desperate measures, and that is exactly what they did. I’m actually pretty proud of them. I’m a city rat myself, and after spending 6 months in the country life, I was ready to come back to the city. For those who didn’t grow up to the sounds of fire trucks and police sirens, traffic, police helicopter, etc., then you would never understand how loud silence is. Or how difficult it is to go from having a world of options for fun and leisure to, well, shoveling manure.

Apparently the husband, Ed Wright, lost his 6 figure income as a result of this crisis. Leah, his wife, still had her job, but things had gotten tight. Ed’s parents invited them to come live on their for a while to save money. So they packed up the stuff (and put it in storage), bought a trailer, and moved to the boone docks. Now they are shoveling manure, showering less than daily (there is no shower in the trailer), and learning to live off the land. I’m impress though. Leah, a city rat, is getting into the groove of things too, even talking about buying a cow and growing a vegetable garden. Wow, she dived in head first!

Maybe we need more people like them though. America has gotten soft and learned to depend on others to provide. With a cow and a garden, they can get their vegetables and milk, and not really have to really on much more (still gotta buy the meat though, don’t want to cut up bessie!). They’ve learned to roll up their sleeves and go with it, and they’ll be stronger for it when things turn around. It’s what they call building character.

Naughty nurses

Man oh man! First off, I’d probably would’ve done the same thing. A x-ray of a sex toy stuck in somebody’s ass would be too good to pass by. But seriously, are we THAT stupid to post the damn thing up on your FACEBOOK! Occupation: Nurse. Hrmmm, wonder where they got that from. Isn’t there supposed to be patients rights somewhere, the whole confidentiality of medical records. Yet they couldn’t press any state charges against them?! Get real, the DA’s office was just trying not to laugh when they said that. I hope the feds pin these nurses good for it. Not that I have anything against such a great picture, but it would be better to anonymously post it on some type of humor site. Not your facebook account.

But since I got to thinking about the topic of objects inserted into a bum, I had to google it. While I haven’t found the picture from that story – yet – I did find a rather humurous blog on the matter, including some interesting X-Rays. Check out What The Devil Is In Their Anus.

Wrongfully accused

Stories like this one really piss me off. You see, we have this whole concept of justice in America. Innocent until proven guilty. Unfortunately, far too often we are guilty until proven innocent. Take this poor schmoe in Colorado, Timothy Masters. He found a body of a girl who was dead in 1987. He ended up being convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison back in 1999. All of a sudden, DNA evidence shows it wasn’t him, but the victim’s ex-boyfriend.

Now he is sueing. Usually I don’t take too much time in such matters. If there was enough real evidence to convict someone, then you know, sometimes the luck isn’t with you (you’re a type II error according to statisticians). But as you read along, you start to question the original conviction. Convicted of circumstantial evidence, evidence that could clear him being withheld, refusing to listen to the facts. These men who put him behind bars sound like they really needed a conviction, and quick. Those same prosecutors are now judges. If it is shown they did in fact do these things, they should be disbarred. Period. They ruined a young man’s life. He’s in his 30′s now, trying to get by, trying to get beyond everything. Can you imagine going to a job interview? They look at your background record and see that you were cleared of 1st degree murder. But he was a suspect, and convicted, and spent 10 years behind bars. If they ask “where do you see yourself in 10 years,” all he can say is “not in that damned prison!”

Innocent until proven guilty is great. But when you have unscrupulous prosecutors looking for a conviction, not because he is guilty but because he is there, then we have a problem. It took me back to the Duke Lacrosse scandal. When the news first broke I thought it was terrible, but the more that I heard, the more I believed that those guys were the real victims. End the end I was right. If you listen for the bullshit you can find it, and that DA (Nifong) had a pile of it. Now he’s going to be paying for it. He’s already lost his job and been disbarred, embarassed in front of the national media for being that blatently cruel and irresponsible, thoughtless in his actions, for a selfish gain. Let’s send him to jail to get gangraped like that stripper claimed happened to her. Sloppy police work too on that matter. Durham Police and the District Attorney messed things up so bad, it was the only time I have ever felt bad for Duke University (go Tarheels!)

For more info on the Masters’ case, check out this article on Reuters. And if you have no clue about the Duke Lacrosse scandal, check out this interesting Wikipedia entry.

A True Pimp

If you’ve never heard “You Can’t Pimp Me” by hip hop artist Pastor Troy, you may need to get it off of iTunes before you read this. After doing my nightly news raids, I found this interesting story on CNN. All I could do was laugh, and think about the poor 16 year old pimps who were probably losing their hoes to a couple of girl pimps. Life ain’t easy for a pimp.

Ok, maybe I’m not that bad, but the story is, well, sad. These girls were running a brothel – a whore house – where they pimped out at least 5 other teenage girls. I mean seriously, what is the world coming too. One of the girls swooned them over because of the money they could make, and that since they weren’t male pimps, they wouldn’t get beat up.

These two girls, both 16, are being tried as adults (that is why their names have been released) and facing felonies. The list of charges are:

 

“Tye is charged with one count of child prostitution and three counts of pandering, or serving as a go-between or liaison for sexual purposes, prosecutors said.

Finley faces nine counts of child prostitution; two counts of receiving earnings of a prostitute; and one count of pandering. All the charges are felonies, prosecutors said.”

 

It’s truely a shame. Normally I would have a bookful of jokes for this one, but the more I think about it, it really isn’t that funny. Two 16 year old girls are facing being convicted felons by pimping out young girls. What has the world come to?

Microsoft Headquarters

This latest blunder at Microsoft – no matter how cruel it is to its recently unemployed workers – is fitting for the software giant. If you haven’t heard already, a glitch in the system gave laid off workers a larger severance than they were supposed to get. Now Microsoft is asking it back.

For years people have complained about glitches in Microsoft software. Their current mainstream operating system, Vista, may be the most notorious of recent history. Yet when a glitch in their software costs us money (lost productivity, lost information, etc), they point to the EULA and say “sorry.”

Yet Microsoft comes out and demand those former workers to return the extra money, cash, money orders, personal check. Can we rub anymore salt in the wound for these poor people! They’ve just lost their job (probably with a decent salary knowing Microsoft) in the middle of the worst recession in recent memory. Odds are they are going to have a really hard time finding work, and if they do, it may be for $7.75/hour at the local supermarket.

Microsoft does have a legitimate claim for wanting a refund, but of all companies, should Microsoft expect one?

Hoover's Remove from Reality

I was watching 60 minutes last night, and when Andy Rooney came on he talked about the past presidents. A group of 65 historians had come together to rank the former presidents from best to worst. The worst was James Buchanan, who was also a bachelor: I agree with Rooney that no lady would want to be associated with America’s worst president.

Then he went on about the Bushes. George H. was listed as 18th, while his son, our most recent G.W., was ranked 36th. What shocked me was that Herbert Hoover was ranked 34th. He was the man in charge when the Great Depression hit.

What’s surprising for all of his problems, at least Bush admitted things were getting worse, he even made sure we had those stimulus checks. While there is a great deal more he could have done, he still did a world more than Hoover.

While people in Kentucky were eating wild-grass, people in Chicago were living out of garbage piles, a million mean were living out of railway cars, Hoover had the audacity to so that nothing was wrong. Americans were living better than they ever had, even the hobos were better fed than ever.

Hoover was a man too far out of touch with not only the people, but with human spirit. He also didn’t believe that people should ask the government for money. He was known as the great humanitarian for a while, organizing and managing relief supplies to European victims in WW1 and to Americans that had suffered disasters before he became president. However, he didn’t think that the funds were from government aid; he believed they were private donations.

Hoover had too much a blind eye driven from his own instinct of making it on your own. Unfortunately, there comes a time when you need to relent such thoughts for the sake of the public good. Hoover was a let down of epic proportions. So although I don’t hold Bush in regards, I cannot agree with considering Hoover to be the better president.

Classic 1929 bank run at New York's American Union Bank

As with any type of disaster, the news become filled with so-called “experts,” dishing out advice on how to fix it. This recession is just the same. I heard people dole out every type of advice imaginable, from nationalization, capitalization,  leave them alone, blow them up, etc. etc. Everyone points out prior recession and fixes, including the Japanese “zombie” banks, the Savings & Loan crisis, the Great Depression, etc. etc. Although hindsight is 20/20, and can help provide a peek into the future, each crisis is different and requires a different method to bring things through.

Most noted lately was the lost decade in Japan. The government doled out ungodly amounts of yen into the banks to shore up their balance books, yet although they survived, they didn’t operate as banks really. Hence the term “zombie.” Japan eventually changed their tactics and took over these failing banks, which finally brought those years to rest.

But I ask, is this the best model we can go by. Sure, on their outside, their similarities are striking. Unfortunately, the financial world is drastically different since then. No two recessions are the same nowadays. Banking strategy is like technology, and many of the instruments behind the lost decade are somewhat obsolete. So while on their outside they appear alike, the gears are much different.

Want an analogy? Ask a Chevy mechanic to work on a Volkswagen, and he’ll probably tell you no. Why? A car is a car right? They both have four wheels, a motor, brakes, steering wheel, etc. etc. etc.? As much as they are alike, they are also just as different. Volkswagens require a different set of tools, systems are designed differently, layouts are different. Many things that a Chevy mechanic could do without a thought on an Impala, he would have to spend much more time and money to find out how to do the same thing on a Jetta.

Instead of looking at the last time a banking system collapsed and finding answers, we need to clear the page. This takes more time but can create a more effective and efficient result. The TARP funds were a decent idea to help prop up banks, now lets use this time to find an answer before they fall over.

First we should examine what is killing the banks. What is driving these things to hurt these institutions? Instead of asking why the banks didn’t catch them in the first place, we need to examine what did it. From there we can answer how they were missed. (more…)

NSDAP election poster in Vienna in 1930. Translation: "We demand freedom and bread".

Namely the 1930′s. The landscape, a defaulted Germany. After being defeated and economically devasted from this first World War, Germany is in dire straights. The thoughts come to mind of the woman taking a wheelbarrow full of money to the baker for a loaf of bread. As she goes outside to get her wheelbarrow, she finds the wheelbarrow gone, but all of the money still there. When a wheelbarrow full of money is worth less than the wheelbarrow, things are in bad shape. Then in 1934, with the death of Paul von Hindenburg, Hitler abolished the presidential office to become Führer. We should all know what happens next.

Although America may not be in the exact same position to have it’s democracy overthrown in favor of a dictatorship, we are suffering many of the symptoms. We are all in fear right now, and this is the real weapon of a tyrant. Who is this tyrant? I have no clue, even if he or she did exist. So before you start, leave the Obama hating out of this. You’ll miss the point.

Right now we are puppets. Just watch. One word from a politician will make sweeping changes within the people. Case in point. Christopher Dodd makes a remark about the need for nationalization. What happens? The banking sector crashes. They have us by the balls and they know it.

I am urging anyone with one iota of sense to begin thinking for yourself. I watch the news get more cloudy and murky daily. They completely miss the point more often than not. They make representations of the truth, most often comparing apples to oranges. Either too many of these reporters are clueless, or well too clued in. I applaud Meredith Whitney, formally of Oppenheimer Securities. She was the obscure analyst that rang alarm bells on October 31st, 2007 about Citigroup. The market listened. Even more importantly, Citigroup listened.

The difference between reacting from truth and reacting from a rumor is the company’s reaction. If the nationalization threat was immediately on Citi and BofA, changes would have occurred already. Instead, only the markets reacted out of fear. Imagine waking up sick this morning to find that Bank of America had dropped from $3.93 to $2.66 in just a couple of hours. Out of a rumor. The stock is back at $3.68 right now. Still below its real value but about 30% better than it’s intraday low. That should tell you something.

So people, please please please stop running around like mindless sheep. We say we don’t believe everything we hear on TV, yet the stock market proves otherwise. Maybe I need to go on and say Jesus told me he was coming back tomorrow, and that if you wanted to get into heaven you needed to give me all of your money and assets! I’d make Warren Buffett look like he needed food stamps.

(image from Wikipedia)

NY Post cartoon supposedly combining current news. Racist? You decide

Normal when Al Sharpton makes the news claiming something is racist, I just turn the page or change the channel. 99% of the time the man is a broken record, finding a way to place race in anything.

Yet the recent cartoon (to the left) that has brought him in the news may be a case for the man. Honestly, I find it to be at it’s best distasteful. Honestly, I’d like to see the cartoonist come into trouble over this. But even more than that, I think it’s time to let the editor go. If he is dumb enough to let something like this hit the press, you never know what he is going to do next.

But maybe we can pull something positive from this. Although the optimist in me wants to believe that this was not a cheap shot, the realist in me can’t agree. Yet maybe we need to dig deeper and face the real problem this cartoon stirs up – the fact that we are afraid to publicly confront the issue of race.

I’m not referring to crying out against racism. Sadly, it still exists. In all forms. But so does sexism, anti-semitism, etc. Hell, the Nazi’s are still around. Some people actually think they had good ideas. After watching Germany destroyed by World War II, they honestly believe in them. Beyond me.

Our new attorney general hit the head on the nail though. When it comes to matters of race, America is a coward. Most people get uncomfortable when they have to figure out what they should say in order to be politically correct. Is it black, african american, colored? Some lady at my job recently said colored, after some thought to try and figure out what would be the correct thing to say. And sadly, she’s 43 years old, so where she got that from is beyond me. As you can imagine, it stirred up some controversy, offending several blacks. And if me saying “blacks” offends you, tough. I’m white, so why not.

I hope one day America can move past the color of skin though. I’m thankfully not alone in being someone who doesn’t make decisions based upon skin color. My best friends are black, italian, arab, and white, and my close friends cover that and beyond. And that includes all forms of Christians, Jews, Moslems, Buddhists, Hindus, etc. I could care less about what they are on the outside. We’re people, I care about who you they are on the inside.

Yet too many people make decisions based on color. I’ve heard more cracks on Obama because of his skin and his name than I can stomach anymore. So let’s set the record straight. Barack Obama is OUR president, the 44th of this country. If he isn’t your president, then you need to leave the country. A couple of hundred years ago some really smart guys, who we refer to as our “founding fathers,” decided that if a majority of people voted for someone, he was the leader of them all. That is something that we should assume as Americans! And until our country has fallen into the hands of a tyranus leader and has committed more foul acts to his countrymen than our soul can tolerate, then and only then can we disown and overthrow that leadership. Read the Declaration of Independence sometime. They didn’t write out a short paragraph saying the King was a tyrant.

The color of Obama’s skin makes no difference. I respect and understand that he represents a culmination of years of civil rights struggles, a true success story. Yet what this shows even more is that the American dream may not be perfect, and even more, that it is not handed to us. Everything we consider great in this country was fought for, paid by blood and tears. Obama isn’t just a civil rights success story, he is an AMERICAN success story. But being black makes him no less our leader, but that much more, a human.

So while we can get all wrapped up in the racist hysteria because of one cartoonist of poor taste and an editor who makes poor editoral decisions, we miss the point. If we jump up and down and scream foul everytime something seemingly racist comes about, we don’t empower the fight against it, we empower it. Racism is like a rock star, even bad publicity is good publicity.

To make a good ending on this story, the New York Post should submit a retraction and an apology, along with disciplinary actions against the editor and a severe scolding of the cartoonist.

Wall Street

Ok, I’m just getting fed up. Seriously.

First off, I’m sick of those damn wall street analysts. They go on the shows, post their blogs, write in the papers. They are oh so smart and know everything. Well if these dueschebags knew what the hell the were talking about, then A) we shouldn’t have gotten into this mess anyways, and B) they’d be running their own company. Not a consulting firm. They be running their own banks skipping merrily along the way because all of their rivals are being handed to them on a silver platter by the FDIC.

Comprehending the news has always been an art of distinguishing the bull from the truth, but honestly, nowadays it’s blurred so much you don’t know if it’s a horror movie or the 1930′s revisited. These guys have gotten into everyone’s heads that the sky is falling, grade A Chicken Littles! Sure, the sky is broken, some pieces may be dropping, but the last time I checked, the sky is still up there. (more…)