Matt’s Blog

Obama has had considerable success in killing the bad guys. Osama, that Yemeni guy, and now Quaddafi have all fallen. Personally, I’m against the death penalty, but these guys are sufficiently bad that I’m OK with it.

So where exactly was President Obama when Osama was being shot? We have a picture in the Situation Room. But is that just deception? Was Obama really on the ground in Pakistan?
Wasn’t that Yemen killing during these debt ceiling talks? I can imagine Obama getting up in the morning, thinking, “Screw it. I could spend a day in a pissing match with Cantor, or I could go to Yemen and take out some bad guys.”
And how about the killing of Quaddafi? We have videotape of Obama giving jobs speeches around the country. But is he really in the big black bus? Or is that just a convenient cover story. Between Dayton and Daytona, was he helicoptered off the bus to Libya?

The CIA tells us that the drone is the new secret weapon. Is it really the drone? Or is Obama using his secret ninja skills? They say that the best managers take a hands-on approach. And maybe it is an unusual form of stress relief. I never underestimate him !

Not to mention the Whitey Bulger case. Obama has gone on several “fund-raising trips” to Los Angeles.

Of course we can be certain that the government will officially deny this.

Princeton headed to NCAA tournament !!!

I wear the same brand of pants every day (Dockers). I like black Rockport shoes. I like a blue button-down shirt. I like to eat a turkey sandwich or maybe a tuna sandwich or a slice of pizza for lunch. I watch Rachel Maddow 9PM and pet the kitty.
Basically I could be the most boring guy ever !!!

Football is a very dangerous game. Especially damage to brain. Every week people are harmed with concussion.
There are permanent long-term effects.
But what does anything do about it?
Pretty much nothing.
That’s because the players like the money, the people like the entertainment.
So who cares about the players health ? No one.

If we are spending $1 trillion can’t we afford a better dictator than Hamid Karzai? I myself would be happy to be a dictator for less than $1 million a year. I would work very well with the US.

What if a vendor had the ability to tell you what to buy? And the vendor could tell you to buy it on credit?
That’s kind of the way the Defense Department works. The contractors donate to Congressmen all over the country. Then the Congressmen force the DOD to buy expensive and unnecessary weapons systems. Look at the GE backup engine, built in Lynn. It’s a $1 billion engine for an airplane that we don’t need. And it’s a freakin’ backup engine. So what happened is there was a competition to build the engine, and GE lost. But their power was such that they could force the government to give a “second place” award.
It’s like everyone should get a first place medal! There is no second place here, we are all first place winners !
The problem is even worse because of this “jobs,jobs,jobs” thing. The Congressman can push for these useless systems because they want jobs. So it’s not even corruption to push for this crap. It’s considered quite normal !
Meanwhile the Secretary of Defense is actually trying to to buy the right products for the military. But no one listens to him !
And that’s why the Defense Budget has exploded. Not because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and not because we have a more capable military. It’s because we are buying all this expensive crap we don’t need.
People complain about healthcare and bank bailouts. But every year we are shoveling hundreds of billions to make defense contractors rich, and no one is looking.

Unemployment numbers are too high. I have great sympathy for people who are unemployed. I’ve been there myself, although I admit that I’ve never experienced real economic hardship. But I do appreciate how hard it is mentally & emotionally to be unemployed.
And politically, it is a big headache for Obama. The Republicans are delighted to see the high unemployment numbers because that means a political victory for them.

Anyways with that preamble-
Who says that the unemployment rate of 10% is not a reasonable number? I see all these articles about how we must create jobs. But I’m just not sure it can be done, or even that it should be done. There is a certain natural economic state that the government cannot necessarily change.
For example we could have another stimulus package. But is desirable for the government to just keep pumping money in to provide jobs? Or are we trying to reach an artificial and unsustainable condition?

It must be considered that we might have to reduce our standard of living. Instead of everyone having two incomes per family, we only have one.

Ultimately I don’t think that politicians create jobs. The government can only hire so many people. Otherwise the debt would grow huge and the economy would collapse.

The point of the first stimulus was partly to provide a “soft landing”. Well this is a soft landing. Not too comfortable, but maybe it is necessary to live with it.

Since 9-11 we have spent maybe $1 trillion for Iraq/ Afghanistan. And our defense budget has risen to around $600 billion a year meaning that we have spent about $6 trillion since 9-11. Much of that money has gone to defense against terrorism.
So 9-11 was terrible. But $7 trillion is a lot of dough.
Is it too much? Are we just going to cough up a zillion dollars here?
Or maybe there are corporations who derive a lot of money from defense. You think?

Comes a time in a war when you realize that you really do hate the enemy fighters. Maybe that time came this weekend, when Taliban brutally murdered 10 aid workers who had come to provide eye services for poor people. You just have to wonder what kind of person/society could do such a thing.

Maybe the Taliban already feel this way about the US. I imagine seeing drone fighters magically appear from the sky and blow them up is a rather unpleasant feeling.

It’s rather inconvenient…at the time when we are talking about ending the war and having a nice reconciliation with the Taliban…

In many states (PA, MA), the government licenses Casino gambling.
For example, in MA, companies are not allowed to have slot machines. then the pass bills where a few licenses are granted. These bills take years to pass and then it takes a few years while the legislature evaluates different proposals for casinos.
All of which is entirely ridiculous.
If the government allows casino gambling, simply allow anyone to have slot machine, as long as they pay the tax associated with gambling.
It’s simple, it’s not corrupt, and it could happen tomorrow.
Whoops- simple and not corrupt? Well that’s simply un-American !