Accounting Bum

I would never do this to anyone I cared about. No really. I wouldn’t.

If you care to see them.

Dave Harris
June 10, 1939 - September 10, 2008

David Harris died this month. I only knew him by reputation. He apparantly was hard to find, and only taught a select group. But he will be missed.

More here.

Via Campaign Spot:

The facts in the ad are so indisputable that, if more widely known, the ad would almost be boring.

William Ayers in 2001

Ayers did bomb the Pentagon. He did help found a terrorist group. He was famously quoted in the New York Times on 9/11 that they didn’t “do enough”. His group did kill Americans. Ayers, though not currently violent, is still pushing a radical agenda. Obama’s ties to Ayers goes back at least a decade (1995), and probably two.

And in my opinion, its safe to say that Obama shares Ayers radical agenda. Which is why he doesn’t want you to hear about it.

American Issues Project:

The Barack Obama campaign has now sent a second letter to the Department of Justice calling for the prosecution of one of American Issues Project’s donors for his role in funding a political advertisement in full compliance with all election laws. “Having failed in its attempts to get our legal, factual and fully-supported ad off the air, Barack Obama’s campaign now wants to put our donors in prison for exercising their right to free speech,” said Ed Martin, American Issues Project’s president. “These over-the-top bullying tactics are reminiscent of the kind of censorship one would see in a Stalinist dictatorship, with the only difference being that those guys generally had to wait until they were in power to throw people who disagreed with them into jail.”

In addition to two letters sent to the Department of Justice asking the government to investigate American Issues Project, its officers, board of directors, and donors, the Obama campaign has been contacting stations running American Issues Project’s ad in an unsuccessful attempt to compel them to pull the spot.

Stupid.

But its all about honor.

I think Fannie and Freddie over the years have done a incredibly good job and are an intrinsic part of making America the best housed people in the world. . . if you look over the last 20 or whatever years, they’ve done a very, very good job.

Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY)
Senate Banking Committee Hearing
April 6, 2005

And the video shows a clip of Barney Frank responding to the Bush Administration’s attempt to increase regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac in 2003. If it was me saying that back then, as one of the enablers I would be ashamed to have an opinion on the crisis today. But that’s not how Congress works.

And it’s not like they didn’t have warning.

Enabling these institutions (Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac) to increase in size - and they will once the crisis in their judgment passes - we are placing the total financial system of the future at a substantial risk.

Alan Greenspan/Federal Reserve Chairman
House Financial Services Committee Hearing
February 17, 2005

That’s just 2005. There was 2003 when Bush was pushing for reform, 2006 when McCain was pushing for reform, and I heard that Clinton wanted to reform Freddie and Fannie when he was President.

Anyway, my nightmare scenario. The fate of the nation, more importantly, the fate of my family may depend on decisive action by wise leaders this month, this week, maybe today. And instead, what we have is bunch of sanctimonious out of touch Senators and Congressman who have their image, poll ratings, and the November elections on their minds.

Update: Jerry Pournelle expresses some thoughts similar to my own.

As I surmised, the bailout — good idea or poor — can’t be made to happen until Barney Frank and Senator Dodd are allowed to wet their beaks. The Democrats want part of that pie. Obama’s leadership abilities were put to the test, and apparently found wanting: even in the White House, with what all of them concede to be the financial health of the Republic at stake, no agreement is possible. I note that the Democrats have a majority in both houses, and if the two Presidential candidates can come to some agreement then there is nothing that can stop a bill other than a veto by Bush; and given the assent of the two candidates, no veto could be sustained.

If there were some genuine disagreements on principle — and perhaps there are but but if so they are not apparent — then there is nothing but partisan politics to prevent a bill.

As to what needs to be done, I confess I do not know. On principle I don’t like government meddling in the economy. The end of that game is easily foreseen. On the other hand, the economic system runs on confidence, and that confidence is vanishing. What’s at stake are pensions and pension funds; if the financial institutions collapse, the holdings that generate pension income will crash, pension payments will stop; government bailouts will be absolutely necessary, and very likely cost a hell of a lot more than what’s needed now.

Read the whole thing.

Thirty years ago someone told me that abortion advocates were also promoting infanticide. I didn’t believe it then. I do now.

Via Confederate Yankee:

I’m clearly not a fervent pro-lifer. It doesn’t rate in my top five issues. Even if Roe v. Wade was overturned, I doubt it would change availability of abortions for the vast majority of women. Too many women want it. And most men are willing to let women decide on this issue.

But the idea that someone would consider morally neutral the termination of a third term fetus, let alone a live birth infant survivor of an abortion shocks me. The idea that someone doesn’t consider it morally neutral, but still justified, shocks me even more.

Update: But here he is.

Mocha died today.

He was a West Highland Terrier that we inherited when my daughter went to college. He was ill tempered, badly trained, not quite house broken, and surprisingly butch for a little lap dog. He clearly thought he should be alpha male, and when that didn’t pan out, he thought he should at least be the alpha dog, which didn’t pan out either.

For the first year or so we would wake up to pee on our kitchen counters because he would jump up there to pee. If anything important was left up there it would frequently be the target. I’m not entirely sure he completely quit, because at some point my wife would quietly clean up in the morning so I wouldn’t get upset.

About a month or two after getting him he bit me as I was pulling him out from under a couch. His teeth don’t look that sharp, but didn’t have any problem slicing up my hand. I washed it out, and wrapped it up, and then ended up going to the doctor because the puncture wounds became infected. Ever after that I was more careful to go slow enough in pulling him out from under things that he didn’t bite.

Because our oldest son had made our first dog, Buddy, “his”, Mocha became our youngest son’s dog. When the three of us would walk the dogs, David would walk Buddy. I would walk Rusty. You can see them here.

Christmas Doggies

Rusty on the left, Buddy in the middle, and Mocha on the right. We would down the street, Buddy intensely either heeling or sniffing, Rusty always in danger of falling behind, and Aaron tugging on Mocha’s leash yelling at him to heel. And we got home, treats for all the dogs, which Mocha would turn his nose up if it didn’t meet his satisfaction.

What made up for all his failings is that though Mocha was originally my daughters dog, while she was gone, he was definitely Aaron’s. Aaron has never liked going to sleep by himself. Once David was old enough to not want to share a room with his brother, he had to resign himself to a bed overflowing with stuffed animals, which aren’t nearly as good as living animals.

Which changed when Mocha started going to bed with him. Aaron would decide on which direction he would sleep on the bed only after Mocha had chosen an end to sleep on. It was sometimes a little touchy when Aaron wrapped Mocha up next to him in his blanket. But by then he had become more tolerant of handling.

This morning my wife fed the dogs as usual. Mocha went out back, and the other two started barking.
Mocha came back all bloody. We washed him up, and he was still bleeding. We live next to a field. The best guess we have is that he was attacked by either a raccoon, or a coyote. He had puncture wounds on both sides of his hindquarters and his head, as if the animal had tried to drag him off, and then had to readjust his hold. Fortunately he escaped.

Stacey holds Mocha after he was bit by the coyote/raccoon/unknown animal.

Aaron went with me to take Mocha to the vet, holding him in the car, and later in the animal hospital while I was dealing with paper work.

At the animal hospital I ended up holding him against my body so he wouldn’t move while the vet was shaving his back. But it wasn’t sufficient when she went to shave his head. Mocha would jump every time she approached his front. so I asked for some scissors to cut his hair away from his wounds. She then used warm cloths to clean the wounds, put a staple into the worst, checked his eye for damage, and gave him some antibiotics.

Afterwords I called my daughters veterinarian for his shot information. They had already informed me that he would need to be quarantined for one month if his shots were up to date, and six months if they weren’t. They weren’t.

The nurses called the city and county’s animal shelters, and repeatedly warned me that I had to take him in. They could tell by looking in my eyes that I was desperately trying to figure a way out.

How do I put it. I couldn’t afford to pay somebody to keep him six months. Four to five thousand dollars would break our finances. I’m sorry dog, but my childrens’ needs comes before yours.

So I took Aaron to school, then took Mocha home and cried.

Then I went to see my wife at work and talked it over with her. We decided that I would get the two boys out of schood to go with me to take Mocha to the animal shelter. Then I called my daughter.

When I picked up David he was the stoic fourteen-year-old. Aaron though, at nine, wasn’t quite understanding when I told him that we were going to take Mocha to be put to sleep. “Will he sleep for six months?”, he asked.

How do you tell your child that you are going to kill his pet. No not pet, faux brother. I still don’t know, other than to lay all euphemisms aside and say the simple truth. Then came a series of questions every few minutes about rabies and why he had to die.

This time my oldest son held him in the car, and while I was doing the paperwork. It would have been too much for Aaron.

We left him at the animal shelter as a kindly lady put a leash on Mocha, and led him behind some solid wood doors. Aaron cried as I hugged him.

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