Central Scrutinizer

Does that mean Palin and Sally Fields are gonna get it on?

Yesterday I watched CNN's documentaries they put together on McCain and Obama yesterday. The latter definitely has a track record of some dirty political fighting. I'm thinking the front rows of the debates better prepare like they're at a Gallagher performance.

You're answering your own questions? Bob(2) you've resorted to talking to yourself rather than the wall?

These are all excellent points. I put it to you that the dot-com debacle fell upon the digital snake oil salesmen and well-intended souls who, like those who lost their homes in the subprime crisis, failed to account for the business side of their dreams. Money was lush -- not as much because of interest rates but because of venture capitalists -- and these funds chased gimmicks and rumor like the gold rush. Again this is oversimplification, but the interest rate issue is another case of the haves vs. have-nots. Those with enough clout and control (political as well as financial) can set t

I had a habernero plant that lasted 2 years in the ground down here in Fla. The second year it cross pollinated with a bell pepper plant, which grew these mushroom shaped peppers (they crew upside down. Once the peppers turned red they were bizarrely sweet-hot. I never tried to cook with them. The habeneros helped make about 60 quarters of salsa -- tomato- and mango-based -- hot sauce, and various other canned insanity.

That's not oversimplified, that's complete heifer dust. The housing crisis has to do with playing fast and loose with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and screwing around with ARM rates to people that couldn't afford them in order to pocket fees and move property. It was a shell game, a paramid scheme waiting on the right shills to get stuck. All of that happened under the Bush administration's nose.

The dot-com bust was speculation on technology that had nothing to do with the Clinton administration. That was people throwing money after pipe dreams and venture capitalists dumb enough to gamble on them.

You'll have to explain that one ... First you credit Congress and Greenspan for the success, but then you try to tie Clinton in when the economy went bust two years after he left office. Who, then is responsible for this "rampant speculation"? Isn't it the same ones who made out well enough to live high and well the last eight years and help bankroll Bush II, Bush III (and Bush IV coming to a polling place near you ...)?

Holmes/Palin '08

I think it ranks right down there with remakes of movies 20 years down the road, and remaking 20-40-year-old TV shows into movies. They're usually either cheap knock-offs to make money, misdirected nostalgia pieces that have no remnant to the original spark, or are new directions taken by someone completely unassociated with the original that rarely find the spark.

Well the entire government is based on balance -- the three branches, checks and balances. By that very nature, special interests don't fit, or they at least need to be tempered (of course the argument would be is that it's tempered with the right to vote -- pretty frickin' hollow). In our art and literature, our history the stories we embrace, our heroes both past and presence. The American dream is the start -- Horatio Alger, afterall is myth and fiction. But the classic themes have us delight in the comeuppance of those who succeed (or exceed), brought down. The loop of the story closes w

Plus they had better damned well give you a good show for all your trouble, right?

I think you'll need a mighty big mirror, because as manufacturing continues to look for these pockets of low-cost labor (remember low-cost labor = deprived culture, willing to do anything to feed (and maybe clothe) itself. Why do they have to continue to look? The more educated and structured the labor pool becomes, the more $ it wants, and once it has disposal income, it sees the opportunity to buy the same shit they're making for the "western" world. It's moved from Japan, to Korea, to Thailand, to China, India, over to Vietnam and throughout Asia, Latin America. Why are energy costs climb

I think this is key -- along with training, educating employees -- and I think the Dems are fully in favor of these types of credits. Incentives to invest in making your business better -- not building a bigger golden parachute for the 3rd CEO to be tossed out by a big company in as many years.

He's also more willing to set up his interviews, to let them swat out a few jokes. He gives them their space, and given the context, he does manage to get a good share of their message out along with the jokes.

I'm guessing technology, or light manufacturing where you're not dealing with large cube or weight issues to market? As far as the push for cost reductions, you can blame Wal-Mart for that as much as the government. They've put every entity in the supply chain's tit in a ringer to squeeze out every penny they can. That predator mindset has spread so much that you left trying to find places to pass off the loss of margin.

Hockey is the one sport that you have to watch in person -- or play -- to love. You can't capture it on the tube (remember Fox Sports' attempt?!?).

It can and will -- there can be a pragmatic, bipartisan solution. It will have to make the government the health care provider (business owner) who will negotiate with the health care providers. U.S. will have strength of negotiation through size of customer base, while providers will benefit because they will have predictable, scalable business that will help them control costs. Those who can pay will require a portional "co-pay." It would add a degree of bureaucracy, but a standardized system rather than the confusion of business switching from one plan to another every year. People would

On your last point, I don't think U.S. business can make that case anymore. I think all that could shift abroad has already done so. As I pointed out a few posts ago, manufacturing is winging its way back to the Americas due to energy costs for sourcing and delivery far outweighing employee costs. As a businessman, as with all other costs, don't you merely pass it onto your consumer in order to protect your profit margin?

I thought HRC had a brilliant proposal to Obama, that they have an ol' fashioned Lincoln-Douglas style debate, where the candidates ask each other questions without a moderator (maybe a bouncer). I think Obama-McCain would be debates we'd be reading about 100 years later (of course, as we'll be under Chinese rule, they would have a slightly different take).

There are a lot of viewpoints among CEOs that the world will get unflat due to energy prices. Ocean carriers, manufacturers, sourcing materials are reaching a point that transportation costs are the overriding cost of product, so they are already making plans to move sourcing materials back to regional markets -- boosting Latin America and Mexico within the Americas, intra-Asia sourcing among developing countries and the north-south bloc of Europe and Africa. And as both Rep. and Dem become more protectionist, we're steering backwards from a "free market"

11 a.m. NHC projection has it on west side of the peninsula but those projects, despite their best efforts, are a crapshoot.

That would be my take: batshit crazy with occasional genius visions. Blue Velvet is as unsettling as can be, but you can't turn away. He's had more misses than hits though. (EDIT: However, I'm counting down the days until Coen Bros.' "Burn After Reading."