We've done it to ourselves

Retailers usher in post-Xmas business By ANNE D'INNOCENZIO, AP Business Writer NEW YORK - With the 2007 run-up to Christmas boosted by a last-minute sales surge, retailers are putting an extra emphasis on after-Christmas discounts, hoping bargain shoppers and gift-card splurgers can enrich stores' holidays. (YahooNews)

No, you will not find me among those who are out arm wrestling for bargains this time of year. I do not want the leftovers, the scratched and dented or the open box specials. I want to cut my spending, reduce my overhead and make sure I have money to put gas in my car and food on my table. I want to make sure my credit card debt does not resemble the federal deficit and I want to make sure I have money for real emergencies like trees falling, broken bones and other unavoidable things that tend to pop up.

This commercialism is really beginning to bug me. As a nation, the United States is in way over our head, from the federal government down to the last tax payer and eventually, someone is going to start collecting. The housing foreclosures are just the beginning of a very long, very steep slide. The local budgets are going to feel it first, which will result in fewer services (fire and police) but will eventually start impacting other sectors of the economy. Reports are already showing that businesses are starting to adopt a bunker mentality going into the first quarter, maintaining or lowering staffing levels, not raising them. Get ready, it is going to be a very bumpy ride.

Only in America

I work in a federal building a block from the White House in Washington, DC. Today we are in lockdown because the President himself is coming to do some official function or other, thus disrupting the normal workday (at least until sometime after lunch, or so we are told). I should also add that a large number of homeless people congregate outside this building. I am guessing it is because of its proximity to warm air coming up from the Metro system.

So, as I was leaving the building through the secondary entrance, I could not help but notice a female homeless person, urinating on the decorative plantings that surround the building. Somehow, it just all made sense.

Why do I need a passport, I was here first?

New travel rules leave Native Americans in limbo By Tim Gaynor Tue Dec 11, LUKEVILLE, Ariz (Reuters) - The U.S. border inspector at this lonely desert crossing with Mexico fingers the tribal enrollment card decorated with a wooden staff and eagle feathers, and glances at the holder's photograph.

Welcome to the United States. We do not care that you were here before the nation.

Am I the only one who finds it ironic that those citizens of North America, you know, the First Nations, the Inuit, those who were here long before the white man knew this piece of real estate existed are now subject to our rules, laws and procedures? The Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the equivalent Ministries in Canada and Mexico can very easily resolve this issue by recognizing the tribal rights of these citizens, issue them documents (or acknowledge the existing ones) and everyone can go about their merry way. But that would be too logical for the White Man.

$1 Million a minute!

National Debt Grows $1 Million a Minute December 3, 2007 By TOM RAUM Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Like a ticking time bomb, the national debt is an explosion waiting to happen. It's expanding by about $1.4 billion a day, or nearly $1 million a minute.

Is it time to stop talking nonsense about tax cuts? Can the United States start working towards reducing the deficit? With the political season more than in full swing, why is no candidate talking about this? Yes, it is the economy, and at the speed the deficit is climbing, the deficit is one of the more serious problems facing the economy.

What's Next? Saintood?

Washington, D.C. is a strange town. As the self-declared capital of the so-called free world, it is as political as you can get. It is also, locally a very violent town, despite having more police per capita than any other city in the world. And then there is the almost rabid fanaticism over the local football team, the Washington Redskins.

From June through the playoffs, every move, every play every event that even tangentially touches the team is "news." So it is not surprising that the death of a player on the team would dominate the news, but things are getting out of hand. I have previously discussed the new trend in the United States for mass mourning, but at the speed things are going in DC, it has been taken to a completely new level. Now, he might have been a good player. He might even have become a great player. He left behind a girlfriend and a daughter. And?

Exactly. And? There have been double digit murders in the District of Columbia. Each one of them has left loved ones behind. Most of them are unsolved. Every single day there is a murder in the United States, yet because these people are not "in the spotlight" they are forgotten, except by those left behind.