My Idea for 'The Bailout'

$700,000,000,000* is roughly 50% of the individual income tax collected by the U.S. in 2006. (I couldn't find 2007 numbers.)

So here's my alternative plan for bailing out the economy: Instead of giving the assholes that got us into this mess that $700,000,000,000, why doesn't the Govt cut refund checks equal to 50% of the individual income taxes each of us paid for 2007? I don't know about you guys, but for me, 50% of my individual income tax isn't small potatoes.

A large chunk of that would go to paying down debt. Another large chunk of that would go into my savings account - injecting my bank with the additional liquidity they claim they so badly need. Those homeowners having trouble paying for their mortgage would have a cash infusion that - if they actually are responsible - would go a long way to avoiding foreclosure. Less foreclosures = good for businesses with too many mortgage-backed securities and the housing market. Giving the money directly back to the people who sent it into the Govt in the first place strikes me as a better idea than throwing tons of cash at a crew of executives who made really stupid decisions and are now trying to avoid any consequences for it. And it's more fair, since it's not screwing over renters and people who lived within their budget rather than going out and buying a McMansion on a liar-loan - everyone gets money back, instead of giving money to just the people who couldn't resist doing dumb shit.

Even if a certain percentage of people in financial trouble turn around and blow the windfall on new rims, video games and weed, rather than avoiding foreclosure or paying their bills? They may end up losing their homes anyway, but they'd totally deserve it, and spending all that money still helps the economy.

I don't think my plan is any dumber than giving a bunch of failing companies a shit-ton of cash with no oversight. Instead of giving all of our money to people who have already demonstrated they're too stupid or too corrupt to use it wisely, and just hoping we see the benefits down the line, give the money to us, and we can decide which companies we want to save by investing in them through savings, purchases, and well, actual investing.

* Saying 'billion' just doesn't have the same impact that that insane line of zeroes does. Billion is only two syllables. Typing out enough zeroes to make a billion takes counting up to 11 while I hit the 0 key.

Across the Universe

I just finished watching Across the Universe. It's awesome. I loved it. I think everyone should watch it. It's a musical--utilizing only songs from the Beatles--about two people who fall in love during the 1960s Peace Movement, and how the events and aesthetics of that time mold and shape their relationship (but also the relationships of those around them). I figured it would be fantastic though because it stars Evan Rachel Wood, who I think is a spectacular actress. I can't think of a movie that I've seen her in that I didn't enjoy. Also, it's from director Julie Taymor, whom I also find very talented. She directed the 1999 film version of Shakespeare's play "Titus Andronicus"--probably one of his more twisted pieces--entitled Titus, which I also loved. So, everyone should go watch that too!

I thought Across the Universe not only did a wonderful job utilizing the Beatles' songs as a narrative device, but I felt that it also strongly captured the essence of their music. I think the only thing that irritated me while watching this film ***SPOILER ALERT*** was the fact that Direct TV summarized it as a story about two "star-crossed" lovers. This led me to believe that the ending would be one of those sad and pitiful ones where one, or both, of the main characters die. So, it kind of sucked when the two lovers had hit their low point, and then the direction of the film seemed to be getting more and more uplifting. I kept waiting for something terrible to happen, but it never did. This film had a perfectly happy ending and I kind of felt as if my anticipating their doom hindered the full effect the film could have had on me.

***BORING ANALYSIS*** One of the things I thought special though, was the cinematography of the film. I love artsy fartsy camera, sound, and lighting work because it makes you think. Example: I thought the ending of Across the Universe was at once both consistent AND contradictory with the narrative and cinematography of the film. Just as the Peace Movement frames the narrative, so does the cinematography; It plays around with the structure and shape of the narrative through movement and color. What I thought was most interesting about this though, was that the 1960's Peace Movement was all about freedom of expression and peace, which Taylor shows effectively through her fun use of camera work and narrative, but at the same time fails to express through these very modes. One: She is limited to the film medium, which is made all that more obvious with her manipulation of said medium. Two: The narrative is classic Hollywood. As I mentioned above, the film has the typically happy Hollywood ending, which to me says "conformity." It seems almost tongue in cheek. Perhaps it was, given the time in which the film was made ;).

Anyhow! It's a fun movie to watch :), but also moving. I cried a few times...

It's Official!!

Soooo. It's official :)! Nick has finally gotten promoted. He is now an Assistant Store Manager for Starbucks. He fills out his paperwork on the 3rd, but his title has already been changed. We are happy : )! It has been a very long time in coming!!

CONGRATULATIONS NICK!!!

Death of a Fox

I killed a fox last night with my automobile. It jumped in from of my car and I had no time at all to respond except to scream, "NO! Don't do that!" One second later, and it would have landed on my hood; that is how close it was :(. I started crying immediately and didn't stop for about 40 minutes. After it happened, I turned around to see if maybe I had imagined the whole horrible incident, but no such luck. In the middle of the road was a dead animal. Then--because it was dark and couldn't see exactly what it was I had hit--I started wondering if maybe I had killed someone's cat, which made me even more sad. So, this morning I drove by it again, to see what exactly I had hit--for peace of mind, but also so that I could mourn it properly--and it was not a cat, but definitely a fox.

So, I am so sorry that I killed you little fox. May your soul rest in peace.

Google Chrome - niftykeen

Of course I couldn't resist checking out google's new beta browser, 'Chrome'. I'm actually writing this post using it right now. Initial impression - this thing is nifty. Sure, there will be some getting used to the feel and I haven't gotten into many of the special features yet, but on Vista it's rendering the pages lightning-fast and has some built-in features that are ideal for QA - like the Inspector:

It shows page load graphs, element sizes, and has a full element inspector that will let you go through the source line by line, show dimensions, css, etc. All things I had to install Firebug to do in FF.

Even better is the Task Manager, which will break down memory, cpu and network usage for each of the apps/processes running within your browser. Now you can easily see if it's really your page or if it's the 20 gossip blogs you have open in the background that are killing your browser.

So far I'm liking it. I dunno if it'll replace my beloved Firefox, or even if I want it to, but right out of the box it includes some pretty nifty features that make it worth playing around with.