Yet ANOTHER story coming out now exposes MORE arrogance, hubris, and greed:

Auto Executives flew in PRIVATE JETS to Washington to ask US to give them money!

From CNN:

Big Three auto CEOs flew private jets to ask for taxpayer money

(CNN) -- Some lawmakers lashed out at the CEOs of the Big Three auto companies Wednesday for flying private jets to Washington to request taxpayer bailout money.

Chrysler CEO Robert Nardelli, left, and Ford CEO Alan Mulally testify on Capitol Hill on Wednesday.

"There is a delicious irony in seeing private luxury jets flying into Washington, D.C., and people coming off of them with tin cups in their hand, saying that they're going to be trimming down and streamlining their businesses," Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-New York, told the chief executive officers of Ford, Chrysler and General Motors at a hearing of the House Financial Services Committee.

"It's almost like seeing a guy show up at the soup kitchen in high hat and tuxedo. It kind of makes you a little bit suspicious."

He added, "couldn't you all have downgraded to first class or jet-pooled or something to get here? It would have at least sent a message that you do get it."

The executives -- Alan Mulally of Ford, Robert Nardelli of Chrysler and Richard Wagoner of GM -- were seeking support for a $25 billion loan package. Later Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid reversed plans to hold a test vote on the measure.

An aide told CNN that Reid decided to cancel the test vote when it became clear the measure would fall well short of the 60 votes needed. Reid did, however, make a procedural move that could allow a vote on a compromise, which several senators from auto-producing states were feverishly trying to craft.

At Wednesday's hearing, Rep. Brad Sherman, D-California, pressed the private-jet issue, asking the three CEOs to "raise their hand if they flew here commercial."

Don't Miss

• CNNMoney: More trouble for auto bailout
• GM plant's closing like death knell in Dayton
• Blog: Motor bosses arrive for bailout talks on private jets
• Commentary: Fixing the Big Three

"Let the record show, no hands went up," Sherman said. "Second, I'm going to ask you to raise your hand if you are planning to sell your jet in place now and fly back commercial. Let the record show, no hands went up."

The executives did not specifically respond to those remarks. In their testimony, they said they are streamlining business operations in general. Watch Nardelli ask for help »

When contacted by CNN, the three auto companies defended the CEOs' travel as standard procedure.

Like many other major corporations, all three have policies requiring their CEOs to travel in private jets for safety reasons.

"Making a big to-do about this when issues vital to the jobs of millions of Americans are being discussed in Washington is diverting attention away from a critical debate that will determine the future health of the auto industry and the American economy," GM spokesman Tom Wilkinson said in a statement.

Chrysler spokeswoman Lori McTavish said in a statement, "while always being mindful of company costs, all business travel requires the highest standard of safety for all employees."

Ford spokeswoman Kelli Felker pointed to the company's travel policy and did not provide a statement elaborating.

But those statements did little to mollify the critics.

"If it is simply the company's money at stake, then only the shareholders can be upset or feel as it might be excessive," said Thomas Schatz, president of the watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste.

But in this case, he said, "it's outrageous."

"They're coming to Washington to beg the taxpayers to help them. It's unseemly to be running around on a $20,000 flight versus a $500 round trip," Schatz added.

The companies did not disclose how much the flights cost.

Analysts contacted by CNN noted that the prices vary with the size of the plane and the crew, and whether the aircraft is leased or owned by the company.

Analyst Richard Aboulafia of the Teal Group said that $20,000 is a legitimate ballpark figure for a round trip corporate jet flight between Detroit, Michigan, and Washington. When asked whether they plan to change their travel policies as part of the restructuring needed to shore up their finances, none of the companies answered directly. But they said they have cut back on travel in general as revenues have fallen.

BMX memories, 20 some odd years later

The other day I was looking at a website called BMX Museum, where this guy collects and restores BMX bikes from the 80's, and also allows other people to post pictures of old-school bikes that they have.

It was a nice trip down memory lane for me. As I tell my wife, anyone who knew me back then will tell you I was ALWAYS on my bike...

Well, except for when I was either:

1) Flirting with girls at Packer Park
2) Out drinking somewhere

Anyhow, my family was pretty poor, and although I'd walk into Bike City and dream about getting one of the many cool bikes I wanted (GT, Hutch, Redline, Kuwahara), we couldn't afford it.

My friends felt badly for me, so they threw togther a bike out of spare parts they had. It wasn't pretty, and nothing matched, but I didn't care. I could finally ride with them. And we rode ALL over town. We were OBNOXIOUS!

At one point we had this jump over by the Acme grocery store, it was this big pile of dirt that they had built up to put a gas station in (I think it was called the Downtown TimeSaver). We'd line up in the parking lot, pedal our asses off, and hit that jump.

I remember that different kids had different style. Some of us were really smooth, like Jamie Sherman, "Gunner" Chris Gundersen, Jon Keck -- and others had a lot of talent doing 'trick" jumps (Bill Rawson was a freak). I think Twit (Greg Hoke) even fell into the creek there with his bike and got hurt. I don't remember that too well.

Then there was me. I had NO style. I just always went fast and hit it hard. One time we were jumping up by Bill Rawson's house and I TOTALLY hit a jump too fast and LAUNCHED, like, 20 feet past the landing! On my ASS! It was embarrassing.

So, back to the Acme parking lot. On one fine day, there was a group of us hitting the jump, showing off, busting each others' balls. A couple of us (I think it may have been Ronnie Arthur or Brian Losinger) just decided to see how FAR we could jump, and I was DEFINITELY into that.

So I started pretty much over by Main Street, and starting booking across the parking lot. My bike was mostly steel parts, so it was HEAVY, which was a disadvantage if you wanted to fly. Man, I hit that jump as fast as I could, and FLEW! Like almost to the OTHER SIDE of this big pile of dirt, around 20-30 feet maybe.

Then my bike snapped. LOUDLY. Broke the frame. That was it for me. You can't ride a bike with a broken frame.

It sucked.

Some time later, my mom's boyfriend at the time (now my stepfather) went down to see Gary at Bike City and bought me this beautiful lavender GT he had hanging on the wall. I had been LUSTING after that GT because it was DIFFERENT that what everyone else was riding — Jamie had his Patterson, Jon Keck his Reach, Vern had a Kuwahara, Rawdog had a beautiful Redline, Jamie Morral and Rip White both had Hutch bikes — all nice bikes. And it wasn't like no one had GT's, but this one was PURPLE. Fucking purple! And I wanted it for THAT REASON.

To me, having a purple bike, when I knew how kids would talk shit about it (and me), was like a big "FUCK YOU!" And I was an angry kid.
BMX Plus! magazine, June 1985
23Mag.com, memories of BMX

To say I lived to be on that bike was an understatement. Probably one of the most important things to happen to me in my teenage years. That bike gave me pride and self-worth. To some people that may sound silly, because it was just a bike, but for me it was the nicest thing that anyone had ever bought for me. It wasn't a piece of shit. I could finally ride and not feel like the poor kid with the crappy bike. That purple GT was my LIFE.

Over the years I helped build Wellsboro's BMX track. I joined Price Pharmacy's BMX team (thank you John & Sandy). I raced to a 2nd place at the State Championships. I never could do many tricks, although I did learn how to coast backwards (once rolling down the entire length of Main Street).

And I went FAST.

- - -

Fast forward 20-plus years, and I still get nostalgic about that bike. I STILL wonder what happened to it — what asshole stole it, where it is now.

So, I was looking on BMX Museum, hoping to see some bike that even looked CLOSE to my old bike. Sadly, I haven't seen one yet. I've seen a lot of beautiful bikes on there, and once or twice I've seen purple GT's, but they're usually a Mach One, which was more of cheaper, entry-level GT (which the wanna-be's rode, ha ha).

The thing that's pretty amazing now is that for guys like me in our late 30's, those bikes now are worth a FORTUNE. I kid you not. There was a rare bike I once owned (which ALSO was stolen), a Hutch Judge Series, that recently sold for a rumored $5000. Yes, five-THOUSAND.I guess if you're nostalgic enough, there's a price that can be paid for a memory.

I wish I still had my bikes, any of them. Just to be able to see them again, sit on them, take a spin around the block (and like like a fool - some old guy on a kid's bike)... try to recapture that FEELING I always had on my bike...

FREEDOM.

EXHILERATION.

Going f***ing FAST.

Store all your songs online and access them anywhere

I've been a fan of a site called LALA.COM for quite a while now, initially using it as a place to trade cds (you'd create "have" and "want" lists and LaLa would help you set up trades with other users, even providing you the postage-paid envelopes). Then Lala became a music site not unlike Rhapsody or others: you can listen to music, or pay 89 or 99 cents to download. I began using it as my one-stop site for new music, listening to whole albums and downloading the songs I really liked. In many cases I would also list that cd as a "want", and see if I could trade on of my cd's for it.

Recently LaLa added another cool feature to their site: a music locker. This lets you store songs from your personal library on Lala's Web servers, and then access them from any computer later. Instead of having a Windows Media Player library at home, and then a second library at work, and then a third library on our laptop, I can now just log into my account at Lala and listen to any song I own. Granted, it's not top-notch sound quality, and the interface is sometimes a little awkward, but it's all there: every single song I have had on any computer I own.


Here's a recent article about it:
Lala's awesome music locker service | Digital Noise: Music and Tech - CNET News

Welcome to the Recession

"Migrant Mother," 1936 Dorothea Lange (read more)

What is making me laugh lately is all this speculation of "Are we heading into a recession?"

It seems to me we ARE in a recession. People are decidedly NOT spending their money. And why should they? The threat of losing a job or a home, and suddenly NEEDING that money, is keeping most of us from taking any cash out from under the mattress.

I also think that the media and the financial prognosticators are LOATHE to actually say we're in a recession now, because with human nature, to say it's true is to make it true. You only have to look at the run-on-the-bank days of the Great Depression. Financially, we are like lemmings. Panic is VERY contagious.

Here's an article I saw on AOL:

Stocks plunge anew as data points to recession

Investors agonizing over a faltering economy sent the stock market plunging all over again Wednesday after a stream of disheartening data convinced Wall Street that a recession, if not already here, is inevitable.

The market's despair propelled the Dow Jones industrials down 733 points to their second-largest point loss ever, and the major indexes all lost at least 7 percent.The slide meant that the Dow, which fell 76 points on Tuesday, has given back all but 127 points of its record 936-point gain of Monday, which came on optimism about the banking system in response to the government's plans to invest up to $250 billion in financial institutions.

Wednesday's sell-off began after the government's report that retail sales plunged in September by 1.2 percent — almost double the 0.7 percent analysts expected — made it clear that consumers are reluctant to spend amid a shaky economy and a punishing stock market.

The Commerce Department report was sobering because consumer spending accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity.

The reading came as Wall Street was refocusing its attention on the faltering economy following stepped up government efforts to revive the stagnant lending markets.Then, during the afternoon, the release of the Beige Book, the assessment of business conditions from the Federal Reserve, added to investors' angst. The report found that the economy continued to slow in the early fall as financial and credit market problems took a turn for the worse. The central bank's report supported the market's belief that difficulties in obtaining loans have choked growth in wide swaths of the economy.

"Even though the banking sector may be returning to normal, the economy still isn't. The economy continues to face a host of other problems," said Doug Roberts, chief investment strategist at ChannelCapitalResearch.com. "We're in for a tough ride."

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke offered a similar opinion, warning in a speech Wednesday that patching up the credit markets won't provide an instantaneous jolt to the economy. "Stabilization of the financial markets is a critical first step, but even if they stabilize as we hope they will, broader economic recovery will not happen right away," he told the Economic Club of New York.

Analysts have warned that the market will see continued volatility as it tries to recover from the devastating losses of the last month, including the nearly 2,400-point plunge in the Dow over the eight sessions that ended Friday. Such turbulence is typical after a huge decline, but the market's anxiety about the economy was also expected to cause gyrations in the weeks and months ahead.

See the rest of the article here: Stocks plunge anew as data points to recession - AOL Money & Finance

Happiness

I'm at a weird place right now, and even deciding where to start to explain it is tough.

I'm just not happy.

Even in saying that, I feel I have to take stock in what I DO have:

I love my wife, she's wonderful. She's everything I always wanted in a partner.

I have a job that pays well for the work that I do -- I'm essentially paid for what I am able to do when the situation arises, not what I'm physically doing all day.

I have a pretty new house, it's only a few years old and in great shape (no need for major repairs). It's not as big as it could be, but it's cheap.

I drive a decent car, a 2001 Honda Accord, and my wife drives an '05 Accord. They're both safe, relatively fuel-efficient, and the car payment for the '01 is only $200 a month.

We're healthy (as far as we know).

We're not poor.

We have stuff (3 computers, 50" plasma TV, high definition channels, a washer and dryer, a dishwasher, etc...)

I guess what I'm saying here is that I have no clear reason to not be happy. I have all I need.

But it doesn't seem to be enough.

There's an emptiness. There's want.

I'm finding myself constantly wondering what it is that I need, what I am looking for, what it is that I'm missing.

I wonder if I'm unfulfilled somehow.

I wonder if I'm just self-absorbed.

I wonder if I've just been conditioned to believe I need more (wouldn't you LOVE to have a bigger house, a nicer car, better clothes, a bluetooth/MP3/GPS phone, hardwood floors, a well-stocked liquor cabinet, cool shoes, expensive toys? We're BOMBARDED every day by ads telling us we should HAVE IT ALL).

I'm frustrated. I know I should be happy, content. But I'm not.

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Band Alert

Lately I've been digging this band Throw the Fight, with their catchy blend of rock/emo/alternative rock/hard rock — not unlike Bullet For My Valentine, but maybe not as heavy.

• Their Blogspot page
• Their Myspace page
• Their website
• Their Purevolume page
• On Google
  

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Recession-Plagued Nation Demands New Bubble To Invest In

The Onion cracks me up sometimes. Generally when I go to their site, there are a few posts that strike me as BRILLIANT satire.

The post below is one of them:

Recession-Plagued Nation Demands New Bubble To Invest In

July 14, 2008 | Issue 44•29

WASHINGTON—A panel of top business leaders testified before Congress about the worsening recession Monday, demanding the government provide Americans with a new irresponsible and largely illusory economic bubble in which to invest.

"What America needs right now is not more talk and long-term strategy, but a concrete way to create more imaginary wealth in the very immediate future," said Thomas Jenkins, CFO of the Boston-area Jenkins Financial Group, a bubble-based investment firm. "We are in a crisis, and that crisis demands an unviable short-term solution."

Enlarge Image

A prominent finance expert asks Congress to help Americans rebuild their ficticious dreams.

The current economic woes, brought on by the collapse of the so-called "housing bubble," are considered the worst to hit investors since the equally untenable dot-com bubble burst in 2001. According to investment experts, now that the option of making millions of dollars in a short time with imaginary profits from bad real-estate deals has disappeared, the need for another spontaneous make-believe source of wealth has never been more urgent.

"Perhaps the new bubble could have something to do with watching movies on cell phones," said investment banker Greg Carlisle of the New York firm Carlisle, Shaloe & Graves. "Or, say, medicine, or shipping. Or clouds. The manner of bubble isn't important—just as long as it creates a hugely overvalued market based on nothing more than whimsical fantasy and saddled with the potential for a long-term accrual of debts that will never be paid back, thereby unleashing a ripple effect that will take nearly a decade to correct."

Enlarge Image

"The U.S. economy cannot survive on sound investments alone," Carlisle added.

Congress is currently considering an emergency economic-stimulus measure, tentatively called the Bubble Act, which would order the Federal Reserve to† begin encouraging massive private investment in some fantastical financial scheme in order to get the nation's false economy back on track.

Current bubbles being considered include the handheld electronics bubble, the undersea-mining-rights bubble, and the decorative office-plant bubble. Additional options include speculative trading in fairy dust—which lobbyists point out has the advantage of being an entirely imaginary commodity to begin with—and a bubble based around a hypothetical, to-be-determined product called "widgets."

The most support thus far has gone toward the so-called paper bubble. In this appealing scenario, various privately issued pieces of paper, backed by government tax incentives but entirely worthless, would temporarily be given grossly inflated artificial values and sold to unsuspecting stockholders by greedy and unscrupulous entrepreneurs.

"Little pieces of paper are the next big thing," speculator Joanna Nadir, of Falls Church, VA said. "Just keep telling yourself that. If enough people can be talked into thinking it's legitimate, it will become temporarily true."

Demand for a new investment bubble began months ago, when the subprime mortgage bubble burst and left the business world without a suitable source of pretend income. But as more and more time has passed with no substitute bubble forthcoming, investors have begun to fear that the worst-case scenario—an outcome known among economists as "real-world repercussions"—may be inevitable.

"Every American family deserves a false sense of security," said Chris Reppto, a risk analyst for Citigroup in New York. "Once we have a bubble to provide a fragile foundation, we can begin building pyramid scheme on top of pyramid scheme, and before we know it, the financial situation will return to normal."

Despite the overwhelming support for a new bubble among investors, some in Washington are critical of the idea, calling continued reliance on bubble-based economics a mistake. Regardless of the outcome of this week's congressional hearings, however, one thing will remain certain: The calls for a new bubble are only going to get louder.

"America needs another bubble," said Chicago investor Bob Taiken. "At this point, bubbles are the only thing keeping us afloat."

- Suspicious Package Industry Falls On Hard Times April 9, 2008

The War on Drugs

I ran across a news article just now stating that 2 guys were arrested in the Tucson area with nearly 2 million dollars worth of pot.

Here's the info:

TUCSON- Two men have been arrested in connection with the seizure of nearly 2 tons of marijuana, authorities said.

Arnulfo Vega MontaIno and Guillermo Carrillo Garcia were taken into custody in connection with the seizure, according to Sgt. Mark Morlock of the Counter Narcotics Alliance - a multi agency task force.

Morlock said the marijuana, which weighed approximately 4,000 pounds, was seized from a vehicle during a traffic stop and from a home Tuesday.

MontaIno was arrested on a charge of transportation of marijuana for sale while Garcia was arrested on conspiracy to transport marijuana for sale.

Detectives then went to Garcia's home where they found 2,200 pounds of marijuana in the laundry room and another 1,000 pounds in the back of another truck that hadn't been unloaded.

Authorities said the marijuana had street value of about $2 million.

This immediately made me think to myself:

1) Damn, that's a LOT of f**king pot!

2) Why is marijuana still even illegal?

I haven't smoked pot since I was in my twenties, but I know a lot of people who do, and they don't cause any trouble (and if they do, certainly not as much trouble as they do when they're drunk.

They aren't robbing people/stores for drug money. They aren't panhandling for quick money so they can go get a fix. They aren't getting baked and then going out and crashing their cars. They aren't jumping off of buildings or stripping down naked in drug-induced hallucinations and dementia.

Think about these common arguments against it:

Pot's a gateway drug. C'mon! If anything, ALCOHOL's THE gateway drug. I bet that statistically, people who have tried any drug - any drug period - started with alcohol first.

Intoxication is the same, regardless of the drug. Again, c'mon! I have seen more people get in their cars drunk and drive like stupid idiots, then those who are high. If you could magically turn every person who's driving drunk, into someone who's driving high, I'd feel a certainly feel a lot safer on the highway. Have you ever seen anyone drive high? They are the slowest, most paranoid "Am I keeping it between the lines" driver on the road. I'd even go so far as to suggest a high-school girl with a cell hone to her ear is the BIGGER threat!

My point here is this: I think that keeping pot illegal is stupid. Make it legal, tax it and control it like alcohol, keep people under control by keeping the DUI and public intoxication laws, and take the MONEY out of the hands of people smuggling and dealing.

Look, I know this is an INCREDIBLY oversimplified argument towards decriminalization. There are a lot of valid arguments against this thinking.

All I'm saying is this: we've seen that PROHIBITION doesn't work — isn't it time to take a long hard look at the WAR ON DRUGS, and take marijuana off the list?

Metalcore

Just like with hardcore, I'm not as big into Metalcore as I once was. At one point, I was fully into Hatebreed, played their cd "Satisfaction is the Death of Desire" constantly - simply an AMAZING release, and considered by many to be a classic - probably one that brought metalcore further into the mainstream than it's ever been.

Flash forward ten years, and I'm married now, and have a good-paying job that helps bring the creature comforts when I want them. Simply put, I'm just not as ANGRY now. Sure, I have my moments, but as a whole, there's not a lot of heavy music lately that WOWS me like it used to... except maybe Lamb of God's "Ashes of the Wake" or Thowdown's "Vendetta".

Thinking about it now, the thing that has always made a heavy album stand out for me has been if the band can write good hooks, and create songs that are memorable for more than just being heavy.

A recent cd that caught my attention has been Sworn Enemy's "Maniacal."

"Maniacal" has hooks. Period. I was never really into Sworn Enemy all that much. I couldn't really tell you why - maybe it was the vocals, maybe it was simply I didn't find the songs all that memorable.

With "Maniacal", it seems that Sworn Enemy has learned how to turn up the HOOK quotient. Check out this review from AMG's Alex Henderson:

"Much has been written on metal and hardcore websites about the evolution of Sworn Enemy, who came out of New York City's hardcore scene in 1997 and became increasingly thrash metal-minded as time went on. This 2007 recording/2008 release definitely turns up the thrash factor, drawing on influences like Slayer, Exodus, Megadeth, and Anthrax. But Sworn Enemy haven't forgotten their hardcore roots; in fact, "thrashy metalcore" is probably the best way to describe Maniacal, which was produced by Tim Lambesis (of As I Lay Dying fame) and guitarist Joey Z. (Life of Agony).

Lead singer Sal LoCoco still sounds like a hardcore/metalcore vocalist; he screams and yells his way through this 34-minute CD, never failing to sound angry and rage-filled. And Sworn Enemy have no problem making metalcore and thrash sound like a perfectly logical combination because that is exactly what they are. It's true that hardcore and thrash had different beginnings; hardcore was a direct offshoot of punk, and thrash came about when headbangers were influenced by punk and starting playing a lot faster (Motörhead was arguably the first thrash metal/speed metal band, and the likes of Venom, Slayer, and Metallica weren't far behind).

Essentially, hardcore was punks acknowledging metal, while thrash was metalheads acknowledging punk -- and on Maniacal, punk and metal elements unite to create a loud, vicious, head-kicking sensory assault. There are, of course, numerous bands engaging in metalcore-related activities in the 21st century, but the thing that ultimately makes Maniacal worthwhile is the band's ability to come up with a fair amount of strong hooks.

Perhaps working with Hatebreed's Jamey Jasta taught them the value of hooks -- Hatebreed, after all, has had some of metalcore's best hooks -- and while Maniacal isn't quite as consistent as it could have been, it is still a generally decent example of Sworn Enemy's ability to thrash their way through metalcore."

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Hardcore

I've always been a quiet fan of hardcore. There are sooooo many bands I could name here that would give you an idea, but here's a couple:

• Quicksand
• Sick of It All
• Hatebreed
• CIV
• Snapcase
• Strife
• Agnostic Front
• Minor Threat

There are so many, some of them straight-edge, some post-hardcore. But no matter what the label was, the music's aggression and a sense of striving for unity, responsibility, respect -- it all spoke to me. I'm almost 40 now, and hardcore's come a long long way. It's no longer a common thing for me to get excited about a new hardcore band. But just the other day I got a sampler that had a song that grabbed me and made me want to check out the band.

Here's that song: Soul Control - "On Survival"

Check out their Myspace page too if you're interested. www.myspace.com/soulcontrolhc

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Pandora Internet Radio

Internet radio has been around for a long time, and I'm tried my share of sites / programs streaming music over the 'net. Remember MusicMatch? Spinner? Live365?Well, my favorite place for online radio as of late has been Pandora.com.

Pandora is based around something called the Music Genome Project® -- and essentially you tell it what you like -- a song, or an artist -- and it starts playing. You then tell it what you like and don't like by giving a "thumbs up" or a "thumbs down" to each song.

You really have to try it. Creating your own customized station is SO easy. I have 5 differents stations; two are based around the bands Anberlin and Hot Water Music, and the others are "genre" related: Alternative Rock, Hard Rock, and Adult Alternative.

I've turned so many people on to this site I should get spiffed. Hey Pandora, how about a referral program, huh?

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Mmmmmm... Eclipse

Mmmmmm... Eclipse, originally uploaded by 4Durt.

Wow, it's been a long, long time since I've blogged on here. Quite often it's on my MySpace page(s) where I post my crap.

Anyway, Flickr has become one of my favorite sites of the last few years, due to my second passion: photos. I absolutely LOVE looking at photos.

Since February is almost over, taking with it birthdays, lunar eclipses, dealing with the flu, Valentine's Day, and the Superbowl -- I thought this picture would serve as a nice way to tie it up.