Bill State Journal of Crap

700 billion dollars in non-revenue deficit spending…  I’m pretty sure the government hate us.  In 1979, adjusted to today’s dollars, the total US debt was 1.5 billion dollars.  When congress passes, and the President signs the 700 billion dollar Wall Street bailout, the debt the US government will have generated so far in 2008 will be 1.7 billion dollars.

This single payout will have a bigger impact on inflation than any factor in the last 50 years.  As currently written, the bill also doesn’t generate revenue.  It is practically free money for struggling banks.  Even if fiscal conservatives, anti-foreclosure democrats and new banking regulation proponents get all of the amendments added to this legislation that they want, the 700 billion dollars will still big the biggest financial blunder in the history of the United States.

There is no amount of amendments that can be made to this bill that make it anything less than stupid.  If it were structured like the AIG buyout, which was high-interest and an ownership stake (meaning the Government may actually profit from the deal) there would be some benefit to it.  I have little faith that there will be any revenue generating potential in this bill because there are too many sheep in the US that believe the doom and gloom predictions from the administration.

We’ll be paying for this for the rest of our lives.  Our children will be paying for this for the rest of their lives.  A lot was made a few years ago about the collapse of the Roman empire, the longest standing in the world (why it generated 4 or 5 high profile books in 2006 and 2007 I do not know).  Unless the US realizes that we can’t put our problems off tomorrow and spend until we’re burried in debt, our nation won’t last another 50 years.

700 billion may save us from a recession in 2009, but it is going to cause a depression in 2020.  I’ll bet you 700 billion on it.

I’ve mulled this over many times over the years, even 1/2 attempted it in the past.  Suzanne and I have a lot of computers that cost a lot of money.  We’ve got the Gaming PC (for games, duh), the non-Laptop (a nice laptop where the screen died so now it is a desktop), the Vistacularvistsperience (windows vista ultimate) and the web server (ubuntu server, for doing at-home web dev testing).

Other than the gaming PC there is no reason that any of these computers need Windows on them.  Open-source software has gotten sophisticated enough that I could throw Ubuntu or Fedora on any of these computers, slap in Firefox, Thunderbird and Open Office and it would do the exact same work that it does with Windows, except that it would be more stable and… free.

Well that is almost true.  I’ve tried out a lot of open-source web development IDE’s over the last few weeks and compared to Dreamweaver, they all suck nads.  No, I’m not going to develop in a txt editor because this isn’t 1993 and I’m not afraid of girls or the sun. I also don’t roll 20-sided dice and call it “role playing,” I save that for the bedroom.  Do any of my nerdy friends have any ideas?

Suzanne’s friends, feel free to ignore this.

My dog has learned a new trick and I believe that it will ultimately lead to my demise.  If you’ve ever played the Splinter Cell game series, you know there is a particular move you can perform on foes facing away from you.  You can kick them in the back of the knee, usually with crippling consequences. You can see a demonstration here.

Cody has decided that if wants to go out and I’m standing up that the best course of action would be to hurl his 10 pound body at the back of my left knee.  While I’ve held my balance so far, this dog is a sneaky one, and I’m quite certain that before the end of the month I will be dead.

You can’t have my stuff.

In the double act which is my life, Bill is the Comic and I am the Straight Man.  We could say Straight Person, but you could also say rube.  So I prefer Straight Man. In any case, all of this ends with comedy gold.

When: September 6, 2008, Approximately 10:50 P. M.

Where: Office/Basement/Rumpus Room

Suzanne: Bill, I have something very important to tell you.  In fact, you should write it down and date it.  So you can give it to my Mom in a few months.

Bill: So this is not about sex?

AND SCENE