nickrichter.com [THOUGHTS BY THE DROP]

So who the hell am I supposed to vote for?
Tuesday, May 27th, 2008

I'm in a tough position here. I just don't know what I should do about the upcoming presidential election. One thing I do know is that John McCain is a fucking mistake. As Bill Maher put it John McCain is "... more wrong track ..." and I am inclined to agree with that.

However, I'm not particularly impressed with Hillary Clinton, she is about as corporate a democrat as you can get, but I suppose that doesn't really matter since, barring some kind of miracle, she is mathematically out of the running for the nomination.

I'm also not really impressed with Barrack Obama. Sure he's very "inspirational" and he has an enthusiastic following, but I've not heard anything from ANY of the candidates that sounds like a real plan. Just sound bites along the lines of "I have a comprehensive plan." Okay, so what is it?

I will tell you someone that I was very impressed with. Dennis Kucinich. Saying that I am impressed by a politician? That's a big deal to me. He is the one I want to vote for. Several times over, I saw him on television programs and during the course of the discussion his approach was, here's the problem and this is how we go about fixing it. He didn't speak in vagaries or simply spout platitudes. These kinds of things are why he was denied an opportunity to participate in the televised debates. Not because he would have "muddied the water" or any bullshit like that. He was denied because he would have made fools of both Clinton and Obama on national television. Unfortunately, since they are the ones with hundreds of millions of dollars to throw around, they got a free pass on those.

So what do I do?

Do I just write in Kucinich? Do I sit this one out? Or do I have to choose, again, between the lesser of two evils? Do I move to another country?

Fuck.

Submitted by: richter

My fucking bike
Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008

Finally! This past Sunday I bought my new bike. A 2008 Cannondale Bad Boy Ultra. I've wanted one of these for a number of years now, and after so much waiting, it is mine.

It is an urban assault vehicle, and a gorgeous piece of work. I chose this bike because I was attracted to how they implemented the "hybrid" aspect of it. The geometry of the frame is similar to a mountain bike, but slightly tilted up so the riding stance is not as aggressive as a full on street bike, but it is lighter in stature and weight than a mountain bike. It also comes with road tires, not the fat road tires, but the low profile, fast street tires. Overall an attractive balance of comfort, speed, and durability. Strong, yet graceful. Like a ninja.

It's also flat black all around. Like a fucking ninja.

Behold:
2008 Cannondale Bad Boy Ultra

Now, she is not likely to win many speed competitions. You can get moving sure, but acceleration is not the strong suit of this ride. And that is fine by me, I don't need to win any races, I just need to cruise around town and dart in and out of traffic. Something that I think this bike is well suited for.

It is a responsive ride, and the head shok fork helps smooth out some of the bumps. However, it has a lock-out if you are so inclined.

I have a couple ideas for it to make her a bit leaner and add to the "assault" factor and whatnot. For starters I'm going to look into getting slightly narrower handlebars. The stance right now is fine but I would like it just a bit tighter, this not only suits my riding style but will also make it that much better for squeezing between cars stuck in rush hour traffic.

It really sucks that the forecast all week says rain. Oh well. Plenty of time left.

So, who wants to go for a ride?

Submitted by: richter

Fuck you Barack Obama
Wednesday, July 9th, 2008

Gee thanks. As it was I was not that impressed with you. As I mentioned in a previous post I was hoping for another candidate to get the democratic nomination but that didn't happen. So I was toying with simply voting for the "lesser of two evils" and giving you a crack at the job of President of the United States. I've been hearing some things though Barack. I've been hearing that you are starting to "shift to the center" on some things. That you are moving away from the reasons why people were so vigorously and enthusiastically supporting you. Are you starting to kowtow? And I mean that in the modern English sense, not the traditional Chinese sense. A specific example is the recent vote for bill H.R. 6304. What is that business? Asshole.

I am no politician but here is a suggestion. Do not fucking do that. Now, it is one thing to change your mind on an issue because you have new information or you have grown in some respect or whatever, it is entirely something else to just roll over when you think it will better your position in the mind of the "general public."

Here is a news flash, those are not the kinds of people you want to cater to, at least not on those terms. If you simply back off a position to gain a few people over there, then you are risking alienation of the folks here that already genuinely supported you. In addition, any people you win over by those means are not truly won over, they are fickle and are just as likely to then go for the "other guy" if that person says something "better."

So if you want to broaden your base of support, here is what you must do. Educate. You need to be an educator and here is how you do it.

First, believe in something (Whatever it is should not be an abstraction or vague ideal. For example, "I love America" is not good enough). Next, tell people why you believe in that thing and give them a reason as to why they should trust you know what you are talking about. Then, when you talk to them about that issue, do not just speak in platitudes. Give real-world examples, let them know you have REAL ideas, REAL goals, REAL belief. If you do that you will not just gain a vote in the short term, you will gain a supporter in the long term.

I suppose that is much too difficult for politics. Cannot be having that long term thinking in politics, especially during an election season.

All I am trying to say is that you do not need to be doing this, you had HUGE numbers of people behind you during your campaign for the nomination, and they were behind you more vehemently than any other candidate I have seen. There was so much energy and love for you during that time, would you risk that? I would not. I think you would be well advised not to do so either.

U.S. Senate backs wiretap bill to shield phone companies
Obama voters protest his switch on telecom immunity

Submitted by: richter

Let's get drilling!
Monday, August 4th, 2008

Things are getting worse all the time for Barack Obama. Check out his reversal of opinion on new offshore oil drilling. Not a long-term solution.

Okay, so let me get this straight, you are the candidate for change right? So what does that mean exactly? You will change to become more like the assholes that are causing the problems you are railing against when the times get tough? That sounds like a great idea. Try to win over some people that probably wouldn't have voted for you anyway by moving closer to "their" candidate and in the process alienate the folks that were genuinely behind you. Good thinking.

So, now Obama is supporting some new drilling and also dipping into the nation's emergency reserve. He said that past release from the reserve lowered gas prices within two weeks. My question is this. How long do you think that will last? It might drop the prices a little, then what? Are they going to stay there? I think that unlikely. Prices will start to crawl back up. What it will do however is give the big oil lobby ammunition to use. They, and the politicians they own, will argue that we need to start drilling the shit out of everything for the sake of gas prices. And each time they open a new well or plant the prices will drop a little bit for a short period of time.

What people will not realize is that the price of gas will drop not because the market suddenly has that fresh influx of oil, but because the people controlling the oil will lower the prices of their own accord to present the illusion, thus giving them further leverage for expansion.

Obama says himself that his plan "has merit in terms of just a short-term effect on prices." He continues, "I offer no suggestion it will make a long-term impact on the fact that demand worldwide is going up while supply is flatlined,"

Okay then, I think we all knew that. So why not grow a pair and work on ways to come up with long-term solutions?

That is a major problem with politicians. They only think in 2, 4, or 8 year intervals. They can't see beyond the next voting season so legislation is comprised largely of a patchwork of short-term bandages to cover ever growing wounds. Meanwhile, the country is hemorrhaging because of this myopic "treat the symptom, not the disease" mode of thinking.

Later in the article Obama is quoted as sounding off against a president in the pocket of big oil and that the country can't afford another. He is right about that, but why does his answer involve going down to their level? Even if it is a watered down version of what John McCain would like, it's still the same game. The problem is, that this game is run by the oil companies. They own the playing field, the referees, and they make the rules up as they go along. The only player in a position to lose is us.

Submitted by: richter

Equitable taxation?
Wednesday, October 8th, 2008

Just a quick thought if you'll indulge me. I read this article on Slate in which the author writes of complacency regarding the election. At the end he listed a bunch of things that "democrats can't say" without fear of serious repercussions. Many of them were in jest but still made you think. Amongst those items listed was this one.

"It's not enough that the top 5 percent pays 55 percent of our taxes. Why not 75 percent? Believe me, they can afford it!"

This made me think. I'm not sure what current statistics are like but I've heard over the last couple years a few different ranges of wealth distribution in the United States. Generally they figure to be that the top 8-10% of the population has between 70-80% of the wealth. Now that's not just annual income, that is home ownership, assets, income, etc. Just in terms of income it skews even further. But that does not really matter, what I am getting at is that a very small percentage of people control a large majority of the wealth.

So if some group of people are taking 75% of the pie on the backs of the rest, who are getting shafted on a day-to-day basis, why shouldn't they have to pay for their share?

It seems to me that the folks getting the 75% chunk and only paying 55% of the tax are getting a pretty good deal compared to everyone else (25% of the pie and 45% of the tax).

Am I grossly misunderstanding something here? If I am, please help me understand.

Submitted by: richter

ACORN Voter Fraud
Friday, October 31st, 2008

There's been a huge stink being raised by right-wing bloggers and news media types about the community organization ACORN over allegations of voter fraud. If you do a Google search you will get plenty of hits from blogs and message boards about it. They all are pointing at the testimony of Anita Montcrief and saying that it is damning.

However, there are a few problems with the whole situation. Firstly is actually calling it "voter fraud." That alone is an extremely disingenuous tactic. Here is a quick breakdown of the process. ACORN hires people to go out into the neighborhood and register voters. These people, for better or worse, get a little bonus cash for each registration form they turn in. ACORN looks them over, flags the forms they think are fraudulent. The registration forms are then turned into the state or county election commission.

As it turns out, more than a few of the people supposedly out getting registrations were filing out bogus forms, a lot of them at times. So the problem here is not with ACORN trying to rig the election, it is with the people on the street doing the registration. If anyone is getting shafted here, it is ACORN. ACORN is paying these people to do a job and they are not doing it, they are trying to line their pockets at ACORN's expense. After the people caught turning in bogus forms are fired, I'm not sure if ACORN gets their money back. I have not seen any mention of that.

Suffice to say, that is not "voter fraud" as the faulty registrations end up going nowhere except into the rubbish bin. Real voter fraud is an intentional tampering of actual votes cast during the election. Thus far there is no evidence whatsoever that such a thing has been, or is being, attempted by ACORN or Project Vote.

The next problem we run into is that ACORN turned in thousands of fraudulent registration forms. This certainly could be true in some cases. What the right-wing bloggers (and their readers) fail to take into consideration is that in many states ACORN is required by law to turn them in. That is the whole reason for the flagging process, it is a first-level whittling down of the workload, which is then continued by the election commission.

The next problem we hear brought up is that the Obama donor list and the Project Vote donor list match almost exactly, suggesting collusion between the Obama campaign and Project Vote. Ms. Montcrief stated that a supervisor told her that the list came from the Obama campaign. Project Vote spokesman Michael McDunnah denies that the list came from the Obama campaign. I can buy that since it is simply not necessary. Election campaign donor lists are required to be public record. You can download them in their entirety from the FEC website, or look them up at OpenSecrets.org. Now you too have a complete list of Obama's donors, or McCain's, or Ron Paul's, or Rudy Guiliani's, or Ralph Nader's, or any of the other's.

So far, what I have read about the whole affair is less than damning. In fact I would say it is most damning to the GOP lawyers as it shows that they are really stretching. I will say that if something is brought to light that is damaging to ACORN and/or the Obama campaign I will be amongst the first to acknowledge it. What I will not do however is just blindly follow the word given to me by some blogger providing a one sentence "conviction."

The last problem I will mention is by far the most serious. That problem is the tendency of the far right-wing to act as if allegation is synonymous with guilt. Allegation and guilt are two entirely different things. The former is quite easy and takes practically no effort, hence the virulent spread of this subject across internet message boards and blogs. The later is, at times, extremely difficult as it requires actual effort through investigation and even old-fashioned legwork.

This whole affair has just been yet another desperate attempt by the GOP to win at any cost. The real trouble is that there are so many people willing to buy it. Willing to just accept one cherry picked sentence as "proof" and thus ---> allegation = guilt. There are many reasons for people thinking that way, which I will not get into here. But I ask you this — Which is really a greater threat to democracy? An Obama presidency, or a presidency won by such duplicitous means?

Submitted by: richter

What the hell is going on?
Wednesday, April 1st, 2009

I was looking over my student loan info this evening, seeing how much I still owe, how each loan breaks down and so forth, and I noticed something unsettling.

These are the original amounts borrowed for the five separate loans I took out to get through school:

$6,664
$10,000
$19,623
$9,000
$17,290
Total:$62,567

Yikes huh? It gets better.

I have been making payments toward these loans since about July of 2007. During this time I have been paying MORE than my scheduled payment amount, much of the time quite a bit more.

In fact in 2008 I paid $7,071.75 in interest. JUST INTEREST. I am not sure what the full amount is because it is not on the little form they send you for taxes but I would guess it is a bit north of $10,000 for the year.

With that information what would you estimate my current balance to be?

If you guessed $65,177.37 you would be correct.

As you can see I have not yet even made a dent, in fact I have lost ground. That is with paying considerably MORE than what I have been "supposed" to pay. No wonder so many people in this country do not go to college.

I am left wondering how this is going to play out during the next 10 years or so. If I keep throwing money at this at the same rate I have been, where will I be in a decade? Broke? With a balance of about $70k staring me down?

Fuck.

Submitted by: richter