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It finally happened. The spirit of giving and wonder which is supposed to accompany the “Holiday” season has finally given way to the actual seasonal sentiment of unrequited greed. A worker at a Wal-Mart was trampled to death by consumers who wanted to bum rush a store for toy greed, and two people were shot at a Toys-R-Us.

Look, this isn’t my holiday. I didn’t tell everyone to gussy up a bunch of chopped down trees, hang dangerous glass bulbs on them and blow money you probably don’t have on gifts that people probably don’t need. But if you’re going to promote a “holiday season”, you might want to consider actually living up to it. Try donating that toy money to a soup kitchen or relief fund of some sort. Volunteer somewhere, try actually making a difference in someone else’s life for a chance. That’s about the closest you’ll get to that vaunted “Christmas Spirit”. Gifts are cool and all that, but you can probably do more to show that this whole thing isn’t a bunch of co-opted pagan ritual hot air. The Golden Rule is *not* “he who has the gold makes the rules”, after all.

In case anyone has been living under a rock for the last few months, the economy is pretty well in the drink, and most respectible economists are predicting at least two to three years of recession.

Where to start? We’ve fed massive amounts of cash into buoying institutions where I wouldn’t invest in as much as a taco which have made killings screwing the crap out of our economy. The latest institution to receive sweet, sweet bailout green is Citigroup, which received a shocking 306 *billion* dollars of borrowed money. As of mid day on Monday the 24th of November, this amazing injection of capital has doubled Citigroup’s stock, and sent the dow spinning upwards, again. I’m not particularly fond of rich fuck bailouts (for references, see AIG, Goldman Sachs, etc), and honestly could care less if this particular investment and banking group went down in flames. They shouldn’t have been allowed to be one group, after all, if not for the foresight of such incredible assholes as Phil Gramm and John McCain. At the same time, lawmakers are scratching their asses and refusing to make *any* bailout offers to the automobile industry. As I’ve said in past, I’d rather they go down in flames, but to throw the monies to the wolves who caused this entire epic clusterfuck in the first place instead? Not that we have been promised that it will be paid back, which smells like a manure farm to me. If only they would consider dropping their sports sponsorship deals, or maybe consider not going on expensive junkets.

Or how about the increasing militarization of the United States? At last report, we’ve spent almost 5% of our GDP trying to bomb and/or blow up dark people. And now, they want to tie defense spending intrinsically to our GDP, while we grossly outspend every other nation on the planet? I mean, not that the United States isn’t now following the same folly that those loathed cheese eating surrender monkeys, the French, found out in World War II? You can’t exactly continue an outdated type of warfare in new scenarios — In the French’s case, it was continuing trench warfare against Germany’s tanks and blitzkrieg technique, in the case of the United States, it’s assuming that war is a game, with rules. Not that pointing penis-shaped objects at other people isn’t inherently childish to begin with, but our generals want their toys, even when a missile defense program is kinda pointless these days against shoe bombers and insurgents … What ever happened to domestic civic service? How is it that the only way young people are asked to be of service is by being a blood filled barrier between other people and bullets? The best the “conservative movement” was able to put forward was “Americorps”, which even Bush could give a crap about funding. yet the military gets carte blanche to spend however much they want on whatever they want. Amazing after Ronnie “Tear Down This Wall” Reagan more or less removed the military from the adjustable part of the budget, since we couldn’t have *accountability* messing with our ability to control that awful red menace. Yeah, that one, the one that collapsed on itself. All those missile defense shields? Put some fuckers on yachts, they did. I don’t think “defense” spending has been spent on “defense” in a very, very long time.

Then there’s George W Bush and his habit of trying to prove conservative ideology in the most idiotic ways possible. Apparently according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), Bush flubbed numbers to attempt to prove that privatizing jobs is more efficient than having a government official perform the same duties. Of course, privatizing is *never* cheaper or more efficient due to profit overhead, so a bit of straight up lying is required to make the public *think* that big bad ol’ gov’t is a horrible idea. It’s probably a lousy idea to leave government in the charge of people who think that not only is it a lousy idea, but that that government is incompetent. Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy …

By even the most conservative accounts, the “Christmas Season”, otherwise known as the season of greed and overindulgence, where the majority of retail sales are supposed to occur, seems to have been foisted onto us a bit early this year.

The strategy being employed by retail outlets, from rolling out the tinsel and sale items to playing every bad Christmas song ever written on their public address systems, seems to be an effort to push severely slacking sales by bringing the orgy of spending which supposedly accompanies the birth of some Jewish guy 2000 years ago (but actually just a co-opting of an old pagan seasonal ritual), a bit earlier than it is supposed to show up.

I think they’re forgetting something very vital in the attempt to buoy their sinking bottom lines … If the glut of spending for the Christmas season occurs earlier … it won’t happen later. It’s pretty basic, since there isn’t any extra money in the economy due to other horrendous, almost unthinkable greed which tanked our global economic institutions. It’ll spread the limited spending this year even thinner, but increase the costs to the stores, some of which will be open 24 hours a day.

In the midst of all of this news, the bastion of horrific worker treatment, Wal-Mart, is coming to the federal government with their hands stretched out, begging for federal bailout funds (as reported by MSNBC). Not that they aren’t already sucking funds out of the government in the form of subsidies, but that awesome example of capitalism can’t seem to keep its beak out of the warm embrace of corporate welfare. Let’s just say that Paulson is fucking us and our grandkids with our pants on.

And the Wal-Mart is also bringing back the concept of layaway, which they had previously abandoned, as they hadn’t required it to push through additional sales. Squeeze ‘em anyway you can, I guess.

The fat guy in the red and white suit, though an amalgum, would be rolling his eyes. My guess is that his haul of cookies and milk would be pretty piss-poor this year. I think homeowners are going to be more worried about rising foreclosures and soaring jobless rates. Maybe the words should be “all I want for Christmas is a federal bailout.”

Amid news of the overcompensated fatcat of General Motors heading over to Capitol Hill to prostrate himself at the feet of House Speaker Pelosi to beg for some of that sweet, sweet bailout money, without admitting that the pure capitalism he pimped to support his outrageous salary is now effectively dead, I see that Chief Financial Rape Artist Hank Paulson has just thrown another 140 billion dollars into the rabbit hole of non-accountability. This GM thing caught my attention for a reason; after a bit of “persuasion”, Speaker Pelosi is now on the floor of the House begging for her fellow legislators to throw the fuckers a bone.

This is the same GM that has been dumping SUVs on the market in a time when people aren’t buying them. The downturn in demand was reported in *2004*. I can’t honestly believe that there’s an issue with the idiots at GM understanding that, but more that they believe that they don’t have anything to change. They want to keep doing what they’re doing, and probably lay off a load of people who, as taxpayers, would be financing their operation. In case 2004 seems a bit familiar to some people, it was the year that same company unveiled a multi fuel car. Why, you ask, was I unaware of this? Because they did it in *Brazil*. Not here, but *Brazil*.

Much as horse and buggy whip companies fell under the wheels of progress as the automobile came to prominence, so must GM go under. They’re a dinosaur, which needs to be replaced with smaller lither companies which are interested in doing things other than churning out gas-guzzling monsters.

If a company the size of GM moved to electric vehicles, I would think that they would storm the industry and revolutionize American transportation. But that’s not the kind of forward thinking we’re seeing from one of the best paid CEOs in the industry. No, it’s all “stay the course.” I can swear I remember another chief executive saying that, and I don’t think it went too well.

I know Pelosi hasn’t been getting great press, what with Congress’s horrific approval ratings, but feeding money to these guys is just plain *retarded*. I mean, if we’re going to find a company worth saving, I don’t think it would be these guys, especially with their record of CEO Wagoner flaunting his huge salary as being “well earned” while his company lost billions of dollars.

I guess the legacy of the W presidency will be one of giving as much money as possible on the way out. I’m being witness to possibly the largest heist in *history*. These guys are walking off with money after having made horrific decisions, just because Americans can’t live with the idea of a (gasp) Recession, or even (horrors) Depression after we’ve been living off bubbles since Ronnie “Iron Curtain Smashing Cock” Reagan was in office.

It’s kind of funny to watch the fuckers on Bloomberg TV talk about how this is all “in our heads”, and that everything is the fault of skittish investors, as though the actual state of the market has nothing to do with the actual *money* that people have in there. The majority of Americans don’t have money to kick around like that.

Fuck GM. They’ve fucked up in a horrible, horrible way, and are now coming crying to the same people they have been laughing at for years, asking with tears in their eyes and outstretched hands for some of that sweet, sweet money from your unborn grandchildren. Die, GM. It’s about time.

Postscript: For the math…. GM wants 25,000,000,000 USD (25 billion dollars). Estimates range to about 150,000 jobs which would probably be lost if GM went belly up. Assuming that not a single GM car would be sold, they could continue to make payroll for over 3 years if the average pay of an actual GM worker was 50,000 USD a year. I’m sure they’re not getting paid that much, but assuming that … If the Feds mandated a complete changing of the guard in their useless management caste and also forced a new direction towards more fuel efficient vehicles and/or electric vehicles which are affordable for average Americans, there would be a serious chance of real change instead of the status quo. I’m not going to be holding my breath for it, though.

Well, that’s it. At around 11pm EST, Senator John McCain conceded the presidency to Senator Barack Obama. All of my fears of stolen elections and bigotry prevailing were unfounded. And I owe someone a lunch, but gladly so.

After listening to a few pundits on TV and McCain’s concession speech, I have noticed that everyone keeps harping on Senator Obama’s race. I just find it difficult to believe that we’re so proud of our ability to not trip over our bigotry enough to elect someone who isn’t white. Get over yourselves. We’re supposed to be an *adult* nation, so try to act like one. Don’t boo the winner when you’ve been supporting the loser, even six year olds know better. I’m also amazed that every major news channel made this thing out to be a contest, when it was pretty much decided in the Democratic primary. I mean, I think the Republican brand is dogfood at this point… Strauss should be appropriately spinning in his grave.

On to energy independence and the end of warmongering, perhaps? Perhaps even some universal healthcare. But as Bill Cosby pointed out, it’s not enough for Senator Obama to be a decent president, he’s going to have to be far better and far greater, otherwise it would doom any other non-caucasian presidential hopefuls.

Now, if only I could get one of those sweet “O”-bama hats. I really want one, and now I can’t find one on his store …

I’ve been watching all available polling today after I hit the polls around 8:30 AM EST to cast my vote. I’m a little nervous watching the polling numbers, and everything is just a little too close for my comfort.

Please, America, not the dud.

I pulled the mipsel toolkit for the WRT54G from the 180+ MB kit from Linksys for easy access.

hndtools-mipsel-linux-3.2.3.tar.bz2
hndtools-mipsel-uclibc-0.9.19.tar.bz2