The Debate and Other Random Thoughts...

Yea! I finally have consistent access to the internet! Of coarse along with access to the internet also comes constant phone calls, gggrrrr... There, that's much better...ringer...off :)

The first thing I want to say about the debate is that I honestly don't think I can sit through another one. I am proud of me though, considering these are the first debates I have ever watched and I managed to sit through three of them. I might be convinced to watch some more Palin "live entertainment" though. It is a great way to increase your metabolism without having to do any exercise.

For a complete transcript of the debate go here.

The first thing I noticed was that McCain came out and hurried up to his podium to, well...it seemed like he was jotting down notes before he forgot them. Shouldn't he have done that before he got up on national television. The second, I want to see the letters they both wrote and the dates when both were written.

(M) But you know, one of the real catalysts, really the match that lit this fire was Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I'll bet you, you may never even have heard of them before this crisis. (Me)(This is one of the most bigoted comments I have ever heard and also where he blames the "little people" for the problem, but wait, it gets worse...)

But you know, they're the ones that, with the encouragement of Sen. Obama and his cronies and his friends in Washington, that went out and made all these risky loans, gave them to people that could never afford to pay back...And you know, there were some of us that stood up two years ago and said we've got to enact legislation to fix this. We've got to stop this greed and excess....My friend, I'd like you to see the letter that a group of senators and I wrote warning exactly of this crisis. Sen. Obama's name was not on that letter." (See this is where he is saying that we should not be allowed to share in the "American Dream." That is only for the privileged few and that we are to blame for the economic meltdown)


(O) "I wrote to Secretary Paulson, I wrote to Federal Reserve Chairman [Ben] Bernanke, and told them this is something we have to deal with, and nobody did anything about it.

A year ago, I went to Wall Street and said we've got to reregulate, and nothing happened.

And Sen. McCain during that period said that we should keep on deregulating because that's how the free enterprise system works."

But without a doubt the crowning moment in the debate was when Obama outed AIG exec's for their $446,000 "vacation" a week after their 85 billion bailout.

Hell yeah, it's exhausting screwing the American taxpayers...I bet they did need all this:

"The Tuscan-style luxury resort sits atop a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean and features a private beach club with "surf butlers," three swimming pools and a championship golf course, according to its Web site.

Most of the attendees at the convention between Sept. 22 and Sept. 30 stayed in premium "pool view" rooms at the 400-room hotel, with 47-inch LCD TVs and marble bathrooms furnished with a "Deep Roman" bath and shower. The rate: $375 per night.

The group also booked 17 "ocean view" rooms, at $425 each, and one "presidential suite," discounted from its usual $3,200 a night to $1,600.

Another $9,982 was spent on food and drinks at the StoneHill Tavern, the Monarch Bayclub, in-room dining and the lobby lounge; $6,939 on golf; $1,488 at the Vogue Salon; and $1,450 on no-show and cancellation fees.

An invoice dated Oct. 3 said AIG still owed the resort $40,543 in charges after a $402,701 deposit.

The itemized bill does not show what executives specifically ordered at the spa and salon, but a look at the hotel's spa menu (PDF) shows 75-minute "intuitive massages" at $215 a pop (most of the executives spent $210 each for a spa treatment on Sept. 25) and men's and women's haircuts and styles starting at $50 and $75, respectively.

Executives also spent $147,302 on banquets at the hotel and $23,380 at the Spa Gaucin, which features three-story waterfalls and a "Well of Desires, where symbolically all your cares will be left behind."

It's unclear whether any of the AIG executives tossed a spare coin in the well."

They still owe the spa $40,543....hurry up now congress...go on and pay that for them too. Sometime down the road we will get the blame for a future recession because we didn't pick up their tab quick enough and they were just so f-ing stressed about it they couldn't do their job.

Now in all fairness this "conference" was supposedly taken by executives from a completely solvent part of AIG. My question is this...if AIG had a subsidiary that was completely solvent then why didn't they pull money out of it before expecting us to pay them out of debt?

One more thing and then I will stop rambling. From now on instead of posting what I am reading I will be clipping parts of the article and putting them in the "ClipIt" widget in the sidebar. It is a pretty cool tool and saves me time. So scroll down the widget to find out what I've deemed important enough to "clip" for the day :) Have a good one!