Or is it? If you’ve been following the financial news of the past two weeks, you’re probably feeling all doomy and gloomy right now wondering what in the hell you’re going to retire on. Every where you turn people from President Bush to the guy who mows your yard is going on and on about how this is the WORST economic disaster of the past 75 years. Well, I hate to tell you this, but it really isn’t. Lets take a look at the numbers, shall we?

Unemployement is up to about 6.1% as of August. We can expect it to be a little higher, but its still low compared to other countries and indeed when compared to the Depression following the 1929 stockmarket crash. The Foreclosure rate is still under 5% and so far, everyone still seems to have enough cash to buy gas if you can find it (at least in Atlanta). Not to mention that the US’ GDP has risen steadily this year. Things are not as bad as everyone has been portraying them to be.

What has become clear over the last seven days is that the American Public was being sold a bill of goods that it did not want or really need. Yes. There is some uncertantity in the markets right now, but giving Wall St. a free pass with this “700 billion” dollar bailout is not the answer. Its like giving more candy to your kid after they threw up from eating too much candy. Its not the way to teach them a lesson. You hand them 700b this time, who’s to say that in 50 years, they don’t come back asking for double or triple?

Dave Ramsey has developed a good plan for fixing what ails the economy and surprisingly it doesn’t involve a government handout that would put the country deeper in debt. The biggest and best part of his plan is calling for the removal of Capital Gains taxes. This would make the profits investors earn theirs free and clear prompting more people to invest in the market so many hold so dear.

Take a look at Dave’s 3 Simple Steps and let your congressman and senator know about them. Push them out to your pick for president. lets see someone take some real action for a change.

There’s been a lot of Blame laying lately over the current financial status in this country. Most of it is coming from the Dem’s claiming they had little to do with it.

Well, if you do *ANY* research on the subject you’ll know this started back in the late 70’s under the carter administration and was exacerbated during the 90’s and Clinton’s turn in office. Twice this decade (once in 2003 and once in 2005) efforts were made to prevent this kind of disaster and they were blocked both times by the Left.

Take a look at the following video and ask yourself if you really are supporting the right person this election. If you don’t believe the video, do some research of your own.

• BFD, who cares if McCain has voted with the GOP 90% of the time. Obama is at 97% for voting with the Democrats…. when he votes that is… #
• Finally, it looks like we’re getting to the Foreign Policy debate…. #
• FTW! Obama just said McCain and Bush were right with the surge! #
• @83GoldWinger look to france. They’re using more Nuclear Power than almost anyone in the world… #
• Are you crazy? Look at canada and the uk. It hardly works! #
• Its interesting to see the polarizing affects of this debate.
  Unfortunately, I think the only people watching already picked their horse… #
• Good thing this debate is 2 hours long… they’re both long winded… #
• Obama didn’t know the name on his bracelet? #
• Wtf I think we crashed twitter!! #
• no commercials? #
• This just in! Democrats say Obama Winning Debate!
  GOP claims McCain is Winning!
  Clear looser: United States of America! #
• @tlucky thats because Obama hasn’t done anything…. #
• they both seem to get that same smug look on their face when they think the other is wrong… #
• Ouch. Take that! McCain doesn’t have a presidential seal yet! #
• Teddy Roosevelt for president in 08! #
• Obama sure agrees with McCain a lot. A lot. #
• They need to hurry up. Dagmar is supposed to be on in 35 minutes!! #
• @BDatson thats because Obama has no content behind his speaking points…. #
• @jeffsolomon its more like McCain says Obama Doesn’t under stand, Obama says he agrees with McCain…. #
• More credit to McCain by Obama… If Obama thinks McCain is so great why doesn’t he just vote for him? #
• The parents are at fault. If parents would take more responsibility in their childs education things would improve drastically! #
• There it is… “when I came home from prision” #
• @shaunking but palin isn’t running for president…. besides, Bill Clinton was a Gov with little experience… so was carter…. #
• @benkunz what has Obama ever led? #
• I think it was a draw. Those voting McCain will vote mccain, those obama will vote obama and those who haven’t decided… haven’t decided #
• @gruntled Thats what I’m good at. Of course, from where I sit…. it appears that Obama is lacking with out a prepared speech or teleprompt #
• CBS just shared some of their instant poll and they asked if the opinion of obama had gotten better or worse. Didn’t ask about McCain. Bias? #
• YAY!!! DAGMAR!!! #
• http://tinyurl.com/43n74w #
• and newt.org has McCain at 92% as the winner and I’m sure Fox News has McCain as the winner as well. Online polls are pointless #

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With two rugrats at home already and a third on the way (yes, thats right, apparently Amy and I missed the classes on contraception…) a certain genera of movies is constantly in the DVD player at home. Fortunately, I like most of the ones that the girls tend to watch over and over again. Sure, we have the Baby Einstein DVD’s and a Veggie Tale or two, but the Disney classics are movies we tend to watch over and over and over and over… you get the point. Some of them like Lion King 1 ^1/2 I absolutely love. Others (Lion King 2) I watch only because the little ones put them on. Here are my top 15 Disney Movies (surprisingly, none of them have Mickey in them…)

1. Lion King 1 ^1/2 – If you haven’t seen it, I recommend finding it. It gives back story on Timone and Pumba. An absolute riot!!
2. Alladin – Who doesn’t love a story about a street rat making good with a princess??
3. Beauty and the Beast – This was Grace’s first love. I have to say though, I think I like the Broadway Musical more than the movie.
4. Little Mermaid – Its got mermaids, boats and a dog. Whats not to love??
5. Lady and the Tramp (the original) – We named our first dog Lady and our first cat Tramp. That movie is such a classic Dog Lover’s movie. Grace and Emma like the scene where Lady and Tramp are eating spaghetti….
6. Fantasia – This has always been a fav because of the music. Whoops! This one has mickey in it as the Sorcerers Apprentice. Guess I was wrong.
7. Peter Pan – What boy has ever dreamt of never growing up?? And fighting Pirates?? Can you say AWESOME?!?
8. Finding Nemo – This is a good one for parents. It proves that parents will do whatever necessary for their kids. So TRUE!
9. Lion King – A good movie on so many levels (the Broadway Play is worth it as well) it really speaks about finding yourself and being true to who YOU are.
10. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea – This was the FIRST novel I read growing up (it took a year when I was in the first grade) and the story of Captain Nemo and his amazing underwater ship was wonderful. Disney (with Kirk Douglas) did an excellent job of making this tale come true.
11. Chicken Little – This was on TV recently and I have to say, I love watching it. Maybe its the underdog position of Chicken, or the way that “hollywood” portrays him in the movie after the fact but the story is another good lesson for parents.
12. Herbie The Lovebug – We loved all the Herbie movies growing up and outside of the fact that Lohan was in the latest one it was decent as well.
13. Flubber – (The original one) the original Flubber was a fun movie as well. My brothers and I would rent that one over and over again.
14. Mary Poppins – This is another one of the girls favorites, but I like singing the songs as well. Dick VanDyke’s Character of Burt the Chimney Sweep is hilarious!
15. National Treasure – Rounding out the list for now is National Treasure. I liked both NT movies, but the original was a “little” more believable than the second one…
    Now, don’t get me wrong, there are a ton of other disney movies that rock as well, these just happen to be some of my favorites. Fortunately, there’s a cool Disney Bingo game that the WHOLE family can play (and believe me, when it comes to the princesses, Grace can wipe the floor with most of us!!)

    The cool thing about the game is that it seems to cover everything in the Disney Family so no one is left out in the dark. What a great way to bring the family together for an evening of fun. If you want to check it out or pick up your own copy head over to amazon.

    I want to know which Disney Films are in your Fave Five. Maybe we can match!

    

In case you missed it, I wanted to let you know there was a debate on TV last night. If you want to watch it in its full glory, RealClearPolitics.com has the video as do a number of news outlets but let me give you some high lights. They spent the first half hour or so of this First debate talking about the Economy and the current situation. Both candidates seem to be where they were at the beginning of the week… which is almost nowhere, on this issue and the bail out. Obama wants to cover more people then necessary with the plan and McCain hopes he can sign something. Personally, I think its a bunch of poo either way you look at it. I shouldn’t be paying for someone else’s mistakes. Its not right.

After that the discourse moved to Foreign Policy and while McCain did pretty good (it is after all his forte) Obama wasn’t too bad at reciting the lines that had been prepared for him. McCain actually seemed to be more off the cuff than Professor Obama did at times and he appeared calmer than one would expect while the Great One appeared to be on the defensive most of the time and was seemingly flustered for most of the debate.

Of course, I don’t think that agreeing with Sen. McCain so often during a debate where you need to show your differences was a good plan of attack. There wasn’t even a hint of sarcasm in his agreement. Someone needs to revisit the chapter on proper debating.

In all, I wasn’t too impressed with either candidate, its a shame that Bob Barr or Ralph Nader weren’t invited, I think they could have livened things up (especially with the way Barr refers to himself in the third person). It was fun watching the feeds on Twitter (a remarkably liberal community) though and I think this weeks Upcoming VEEp debate is going to be more fun.

Who ever said that double standards do not exist in politics was not talking about American Politics. Sure, each side seems to have their fair share of “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” however, none seem to be as obvious as the double standards this years democratic field wields. In part, this blatantly obvious in the media’s coverage of the Obama/Biden ticket in comparison to the McCain/Palin ticket. The disdain the media displays towards anything non-obama is absolutely mind numbing. However, even the candidate’s own spin on issues seems to be a huge double standard.

For instance, the current claims by Obama paint McCain to be against government reform and regulation of the financial industry when in fact The EXACT OPPOSITE is true. In 2005, McCain authored a bill calling for the Reform and oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (what fun names!). A bill that the Democrats called ridiculous. In fact, had the congress acted on McCain’s bill three years ago, then a large part of this down turn may have been prevented (or at least it wouldn’t be as bad as it appears to be today). Instead they did the opposite. The Democratically controlled House called for less regulation and urged lenders to make loans to people they knew could not afford to pay them off.

In large part, this current economic downturn is due to the Democrats in congress who think its a RIGHT for a person with less then adequate means to own a house. Now they’re trying to blame this on McCain and the GOP when its a largely liberal problem. Rep Barney Frank tried passing the blame to the GOP when its clearly not the GOP’s fault at all. Talk about double standards.

Another nice double standard took place at the end of last week when Rep Charles Rangle from NY called Gov. Palin disabled. Of course, the Honorable(?) Rep from NY is claiming thats not really what he meant, but come on. Really?? He’s also facing heat from the right side of the aisle for owing back taxes (whats the point in being a congressman if you have to pay taxes right??) and some other minor infringements that would have had a republican crucified by this point.

Given all the double talk and standards that the Democratic leadership like to play with, its no wonder that they’ve managed to screw the pooch on their control of the house in the two years they’ve been there and have garnered an approval rating lower than the current President’s. Something that should have been pretty hard to do…

edit: I came across two good articles today I wanted to share, one about Palin and Obama—What Really is Wisdom? @ Realclearpolitics and the other is about Is Obama Another Dukakis? at the Slate. Both are good reads!

There are two nights left in the Brave’s Friday Night Firework plan (one is a make up on the 20th) and I can’t wait for it to be over for the season. Fourteen games isn’t really a lot when its spread out over the course of 6 months, but it does get tiring after a while. Especially working in the heat of the summer. The show on Sept. 5th was done to RUSH songs. Wouldn’t have been my first choice, but I didn’t pick the music.

The photo on this post is an actual photo from that shoot. I had a friend, (Joey Redmond) Joey does some amazing things with his camera. If you have a chance, take a look at some of the other photos he’s done.

The nice thing is that even though the Baseball season is winding down, there’s going to be a ton of other things going on (Atlanta Football Classic, Peach Bowl, Crawford Long tree lighting) so we won’t be totally dead in the water.

On another note, I was at the Georgia International Horse Park for the Celebrate Freedom fest that the Fish was throwing on Saturday, August 30th. We got out there at about 11am and didn’t roll home until 5am that sunday. Talk about a hard day. Here’s video from that shoot.

For those of you following my facebook feeds yesterday and today, let me clarify a few things. I started going to the current Dentist we see now about 5 years ago. They did a Pan Xray and told me I should have my Wisdom Teeth removed. Every time I would go back in (you know, twice a year) they bugged me about the wisdom teeth and every time my response was the same, they aren’t causing problems so I didn’t want them removed. Until the last visit I made in June.

The dentist visit was actually easier than normal (no sonic scraper), however, while digging around in the way back part of my mouth, they saw the beginnings of a cavity between one of the wisdom teeth and one of my rear molars. So I needed to have it removed.

I can honestly say I wasn’t looking forward to it. I’m not afraid of pain, I just don’t like the idea of someone ripping teeth out of my mouth when there isn’t a problem.

Apparently things went well, though, the last thing I remember was the doctor putting the IV line in for the knock-out juice and then I was being woken up about a hour later. That was one of the nice things. Now I have an array of meds to take and procedures to follow (I wasn’t supposed to, but I had a Chick-Fli-A sandwich for dinner, the was a little hard to eat, but I did it).

Anyway, thats over now and I’m down four teeth. The tooth fairy better make good on this… I didn’t do it for nothing…

Its always sad when a friend dies, although in this case, the friend isn’t so much dead as on limited life support. I’ve had my monstrous laptop for about two and a half (almost three) years now. Its been good. It has a killer 17″ monitor on it and a full keyboard with a 10 digit keypad. When I bought it, it was the best one on the market. Still is. Except that the power jack (the one attached to the Motherboard) has decided to come loose from its connections and will no longer accept power. As I said, its sad when a friend dies.

That machine was doing double duty as both a personal and a work laptop. It was large. It took a lot of power and I could expect max maybe an hour of battery life on it. Almost anywhere I took it I had to plug it in for any kind of work. Well, its replacement is quite a bit smaller. Almost half the size (its screen is 12.1″) and a third of the weight. Not to mention that I can get about 3 hours out of a fully charged battery (depending on the applications).

The old Laptop (serenity) is an HP Pavilion DV8000. It was a multimedia machine. The new one (Firefly) is an HP Compaq 2230s. I was interested in it for several reasons (the 1280×800 screen res, the dual core processors, the 160gb HD and the 2gb of ram are starters) and so far I haven’t been disappointed. Granted, I’ve finally gotten about two thirds of the stuff installed on it I need, but there’s time for that. It boots fast. It runs fast (for now) and it’s really light weight.

We’ll see how it does in the coming days as I work to get the BB Curve hooking to it via Bluetooth. I’ll add some screenshots shortly.

To switch gears for a minute, today was the 7th anniversary of September 11, 2001. I hope everyone took a moment to think of those who lost their lives in the horrendous events of that day and who have bravely served our country keeping us safe since then.

How cool would it be if a pirate really stole someone’s soul?? This ballad by Kate Tucker and the Sons of Sweden is a sweeping song. Long on melody and sound. Not so much a choice for a nice sunny day, but a nice moving song all the same.

Kate Tucker & the Sons of Sweden hail from the Northwest corner of Seattle, Washington, amidst the fisherman and sailors of Ballard. They play lush indie pop with shimmering melodies, sparkling soundscapes, and beats like a train on a track.

Formed in 2006, their self-titled debut was produced by Ryan Hadlock (Blonde Redhead, Metric, The Gossip), and features Nic Danielson of the Kindness Kind and Seattle folk luminary Damien Jurado.

The new album has been featured on Itunes Singer-Songwriter page and is currently on the playlists of Starbucks stores nationwide. Starbucks included “Faster Than Cars Drive” on their recent “Have You Heard” compilation and the band is also contributing a song for an upcoming Starbucks compilation.

Named a CMJ Spotlight Artist and one of 10 bands to watch in 2008 by Sound Magazine, the Sons of Sweden are taking the show on the road. The band played showcases at SXSW and Bumbershoot and continue to tour. They will be at the CMJ Music Marathon in NY this October.

Thats right!! Last months contest was such a hit I’ve decided to do it again! However, this time, I’m using a cool new site to help me do it. ContestMachine is an online contest site that will host your contests for you. They offer free and paid accounts with the obvious benefits for paid accounts (more contests per month).

This month, all you have to do is register for the contest through the widget. Thats it. One lucky winner will receive a Pound of Carolina Morning Blend Coffee (whole bean or ground, your choice) and 1000 Entrecard Credits! A second winner will receive 500 EC Credits. How freaking cool is that??

Oh yea, here’s the widget!

• Its 10 to 2 atlanta in the 6th. The braves may just win this one!! #

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• Ok, McCain’s speech isn’t the shot out of the park that Palin delivered last night, but its a good solid double off the wall… #

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• Holy crap did palin come out fighting or what?!?!?! #

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• Mark is battling back against failing email. Yet again!! Maybe we should bring an exchange server in house… #

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There was a lot of chatter yesterday on the web about a new browser from Google hitting the tubes. Well, Chrome was officially unleashed today for Windows XP and Vista sufferers users and it seems to be a VAST improvement over the current three leading browsers (IE, FireFox and Opera).

I have to say, I wasn’t too fond of reading the whole Comic Book on chrome to get to the end and not have a link. Not that I actually read it, but still. You get the point. I did manage to point my browser at the chrome home (ET!) and get the download link. Unfortunately, at the moment, its for Windows Only, they do plan on releasing a Linux and a Mac version shortly though.

I won’t bore you with the whole history behind chrome or the code beneth it, plenty has already been written about that. What I do want to do is let you see some of the cool features. First is the top screenshot. Chrome displays DoG alright, there are some alignment problems, but that can probably be corrected by actually fixing the website code itself.

The browser does render quicker than either Firefox or IE (which is a plus) and it incorporates the tabs to the top bar (where the minimize and close buttons are) which is taking a little time to get used to, but its cool all the same. There isn’t too much to the “settings” so far (take a look at the screenshots) but that is bound to change as they continue to add more features. After all, this is a beta.

I do like the “recent pages” that display when you open a new tab. Outside of the speed and some minor differences though, it appears to be “just another browser” upon first inspection. If anyone else out there is using Chrome (or trying) I’d like to hear what you think about it. Maybe I’m missing something.

At the beginning of the month, I decided to have a Give Away of a ton of entrecard credits. All you had to do to enter was drop a card or make some comments. Surprisingly few people actually entered but here’s the outcome anyway!

• 1,000 EC Credits for Commenting – The Hawg
• 750 EC Credits for Dropping – Kuerdas
• 250 EC for the Hell of it – Gruntled

Congrats to the winner. Stay tuned, by Friday, I’ll be announcing another contest!