It's The Economy - and It's Not Stupid!

Remember the term, "vaporware"? Well, it doesn't just apply to software anymore!

Back in the Roaring '90's, for every straight-up software developer there were at least five who specialized in vaporware - "it's in the pipeline," "we launch v2.2 before Christmas," "our developers are just finishing the final testing phase." Ah, those were the days - IPO's fueled by pure rocket, uh, vapor. Looked fast, demoed hot, and always run by some man behind a curtain. Funny thing was, many of those demo's happened on Wall Street. What's funny about that, you ask?

Think about it for a second - if you were some hot-shot speculator, looking for software that would give you a leg up on the competition, you were attending as many demos as you could - and just as many software companies were featuring software products aimed right at that specific demographic. Hey - that was clearly where the money was. Remember what John Dillinger said about banks? Same deal here. So Speculator Dude sits through countless demos, eventually either figures out the vaporware angle on his own (remember, these Dudes are pretty smart - dangerous, but pretty smart), or he hears one of the sales demo folks drop the word when they think they are out of earshot - software sales folks are not as smart as the Spec Dudes, and have an even worse propensity to brag - trips 'em up every time! (Always remember to check to see if you really turned off that mike, right?)

So Spec Dude starts the wheels turning, spills the phrase over a ten-martini blowout after his latest Big Buy, and the word catapults across the Spec Dude Landscape faster than a bank failure, and Voila! - derivatives are born! Pretty soon, some other Spec Dude comes up with credit default swaps, and before the '90's are over, vaporware has taken over the Street, then the Big Banks, and pretty soon, everybody wants some. It's like rocket fuel laced with heroin - the entire world goes bat-shit crazy, hot and hooked, and P.T. Barnum is once again proven the most prescient human being since Nostradamus (who was hooked on mercury, apparently, which explains, no - that's another story.)

So, here we are, significantly poorer, up to our third-eye in debt, a real fight between the 99% and the Mitt Romney Special Olympic Relay Run for the Really Freakin' Rich for who gets to run the show, and all anyone seems interested in is how freakin' much money Facebook just sucked out of the Spec Dude's pockets. Which is just going to flow right back in again anyway, so what exactly was the point? Look, Zuck is getting richer, world debt crisis averted!! Er, nope, sorry. Just more vaporware, people, move along now, just another train wreck, move along. Twenty-plus years of this malarkey, and people still don't get it. No surprise, one supposes - nearly every state has a lottery, or poor houses, er, casinos, and they ALL have banks (John Dillinger was just on the wrong side of the ATM, that's all.) And the Far Wrong has been just as swift to capitalize on the vaporware trend - if you tell a lie long enough, and with endless spin to keep everyone spinning along with Mitt, pretty soon, "it must be the truth." George Orwell should be proud.

Zuckers!

Bullies Remain Bullies For Life

So now we know that Mitty-baby was a gay-bashing bully. And yet, I am not surprised. While it does suggest that Mitt, like all gay-bashers is a secret "guy" liker, and too afraid to admit he likes "guys," such behavior is in keeping with the entire Republican Far Wrong ethos. "We will tell you how to live your life, but we want the government off OUR backs - not yours." So, consistency upheld, one supposes.

The truly pathetic thing here is the rush to defend his past by others, with not even the slightest attempts to disguise their hatred for certain groups that offend their sensibilities. I am not arguing for political correctness here, mind you, but for some small degree of consistency of values. The so-called right to lifers have only contempt for those who are simply trying to live actual life with a modicum of dignity and equality, while insisting that every sperm is a life held in abeyance and thus needful of our saving. One supposes that every condom is thus a chance to save all of these potentialities, though the question of how to balance the inequality of numbers between viable sperm and available egg staggers the imagination. But in the meantime, let's bash gays.

But why stop there? Mitt and Company sees not merely the gays, but pretty much anyone who questions their loathing of all things liberal, and they've supported that contention with plenty of bashing for all who they disagree with, as the evil that separates them from their rightful place as rulers of both thought and country. Just look at the yahoo who just defeated Richard Lugar - he stated that his definition of compromise was to have the Democrats agree with everything the Republicans demand. Just throw the damn dictionary out the door, and slam it behind you already.

So bash away, boys! By their deeds ye shall know them, as the saying goes. And if knowledge is power, then I suspect there will be surprises aplenty in the months ahead as the power shifts into the hands of those who would rather bash injustice and pigotry (no, that is not a spelling error). As for Mitt, the truly sad thing is not what he did in high school - it's what he is doing right now when reminded of that moral failure: "Uh, sorry, but, I don't even remember it."

Maybe its the itchy underwear.

When War-Mongers Get Miffed About War

If it had happened on their watch, you bet yer booty they'd be crowing all over the place.

So Mitt and his Puppy Pac are in a snit, because That Guy in The White House is justifiably showing off his record to the Amurican Peeps as a part of this, what's it called again? Oh, right, an election campaign. For any who have conveniently forgotten, an election campaign is where you wallop the Other Dude/Dudette whilst simultaneously reminding everyone of what you have heretofore accomplished - at least those things you want everyone to remember, while at the same time trying to help everyone forget what you'd rather they never remember again. So when the Guy reminds everyone on how it was on His Watch that dastardly knave bin Laden got his comuppance, Mitt and his Pups go into overdrive trying to cry Foul! for doing exactly what he would have done had the situation room been reversed, so to speak.

It must really be sticking in the craw of every Far Wrong Republican right now that they can't exactly beat up the Prez on his foreign policy creds. I mean, he's been so bloody hawkish that the Neo-con-jobs have sh*t-fits every time The Prez sends troops around the world to kick some other nasty-astards buttocks in order to Do The Right Thing. That is SO un-Democrat, right? I mean, really!! That is only supposed to happen when the Repubs are In Da House!!

Tsk. Tsk. If The Mitt hopes to sway votes by crying "unfair" about what This Prez did that the Prior Prez failed to do, he is in for a rude shock. Not to mention a major Irony Attack. because it was the foreign policy freak-out of the Bush-ites after 9-11 that pushed us into Iraq, found us sunk to our eyebrows in the muck of Afghanistan, and slowly being sucked into other conflagrations that are a direct outfall of the nasty handiwork of bin Laden. So if This Prez wants to crow a bit about actually Getting The Job Done, I somehow think that Mitty-baby is going to get a first-hand reminder of that special child-hood rant we all remember so well - "I'm rubber, and you're glue, and what bounces off me, sticks to you."

But given the over-all tone-deafness we've seen from Mitty so far, I somehow think he wouldn't even notice all the feathers adhering to his super-polished hide.

Gay, Straight - Worry About Crooked!

Beware the usual distractions, America! Marriage isn't the issue, ya dig?

Well, here we are, and much earlier in the election season than one usually expects it. I am talking about the pointless distractions, of course. Everyone is getting their pantaloons in a snit over whether The Prez does or does not back gay marriage (and all this time, I'd been going on the assumption marriage was supposed to be a gay affair for all concerned. My bad!) But whether one believes that marriage is a right or a mere tradition is really of little concern. Whether we keep adding new jobs? Big concern. Whether we manage to get through the next year without new hostilities breaking out between, oh, Israel and Iran/China and the Phillipines/China and Japan/Syria and, uh, Syrian people, etc., big concern. Whether fracking is going to produce a whopper new earthquake somewhere in Pennsylvania, big concern. Whether we are even going to have anything resembling real healthcare/immigration/etc., reform in our lifetimes? Big concerns. Whether you will ever again be able to go through airport security with at least your underwear still attached to your body? HUGE concern right now. So, Jerry and Jeff want to get hitched? Puh-leeze! Get a life, people!

While all this froo-fraw about gay marriage distracts everyone from the real issues, the Euro-zone is melting faster than the Polar icecaps, and creates a very real danger for our very slowly recovering economy. The Retreads believe they can fix everything by just making sure their wealthy donors are made wealthier on the backs of the poor, because of course, the poor are miserly donors, fer sure. But the reality is, if those greedy little monkeys would spend the money they are pouring into the Super PACS to just launch more jobs, they would get the election on that basis alone. Who wouldn't vote for anyone backed by the Koch Brothers if the Koch brothers announced 100,000 new jobs? I mean, BINGO, baby, right?

But instead, they and their little monkey friends are spending gazillions to con you and yours into being afraid - very afraid - that the boys next door will have a wedding party. And shucks, but it looks like you won't get invited. So, this will teach those nasty boys - don't invite us, will you?

Ya know? It's really no wonder the rest of the world has pretty much given up on wanting to emulate us anymore. We've turned into all the things we used to say were so bad about the Soviet Union, but with all the really crappy stuff about capitalism floating around the outer edges like the Tidy Bowl man was on extended leave.