Now for some music, Gym Class Heroes

Check them out!

Gym Class Heroes, Clothes Off!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NUxMgzHdic&feature=related

GYM CLASS HEROES: Peace Sign / Index Down, with Busta Rhymes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuJiPsOEEKs

GYM CLASS HEROES: Cupid's Chokehold / Breakfast in America
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiiU-Fky18s

Gym Class Heroes - Guilty As Charged, with Estelle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DGPVMe7m40&feature=related

http://www.myspace.com/gymclassheroes

Senate Approves Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act Nov. 4th, 1999, Overturns Key Provision in Glass-Steagall Act

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
CONTACT: CHRISTI HARLAN
Thursday, November 4, 1999
202-224-0894
SENATE APPROVES GRAMM-LEACH-BLILEY ACT
VOTE PAVES WAY FOR FINANCIAL SERVICES MODERNIZATION
The U.S. Senate voted 90-8 today to approve S. 900, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which will repeal the Depression-era barriers that separate banking, insurance and securities. Sen. Phil Gramm, chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, issued the following statement:
"I believe we have passed what will prove to be the most important banking bill in 60 years. It overturns the key provision of the Glass-Steagall act that divided the American financial system.
"Over time, the market and the regulators have used a variety of innovations to try to undo this separation. As a result, we have substantial competition occurring, but it is competition that is largely inefficient and costly, it is unstable, and it is not in the public interest for this situation to continue.
"The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act strikes down these walls and opens up new competition. It will create wholly new financial services organizations in America. It will literally bring to every city and town in America the financial services supermarket.
"Americans today spend about $350 billion on financial services – on fees and charges and interest. Most people who have looked at the potential for providing financial services under a more rational system believe, as I believe, that there are tens of billions of dollars of savings for the American consumer that will be produced by the reforms of this bill."
http://banking.senate.gov/prel99/1104grm.htm

Want to Know More About What's Going on in Your U.S. Government?

Try C-Span ! It has a wealth of information and you can watch your Congressional Representatives or Senators LIVE! They also have many other government meetings on too. If you ever wondered how the political process works, or what actually happens in Congress or the Senate, C-Span's the place to be!

Are You Registered To Vote?

If you aren't you can use the League of Women Voters website to find out how to register, what's on your ballot, where you vote, and much, much more!

Voting is one of your most important duties as a citizen in a democracy, so make sure you are registered and ready to go!

Lose Your House, Lose Your Vote

Here's an article from Michigan talking about the GOP trying to block votes of folks who have had their houses foreclosed.

The chairman of the Republican Party in Macomb County, Michigan, a key swing county in a key swing state, is planning to use a list of foreclosed homes to block people from voting in the upcoming election as part of the state GOP’s effort to challenge some voters on Election Day.
“We will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren’t voting from those addresses,” party chairman James Carabelli told Michigan Messenger in a telephone interview earlier this week. He said the local party wanted to make sure that proper electoral procedures were followed.
State election rules allow parties to assign “election challengers” to polls to monitor the election. In addition to observing the poll workers, these volunteers can challenge the eligibility of any voter, provided they “have a good reason to believe” that the person is not eligible to vote. One allowable reason is that the person is not a “true resident of the city or township.”
The Michigan Republicans’ planned use of foreclosure lists is apparently an attempt to challenge ineligible voters as not being “true residents.”
One expert questioned the legality of the tactic.
“You can’t challenge people without a factual basis for doing so,” said J. Gerald Hebert, a former voting rights litigator for the U.S. Justice Department who now runs the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington D.C.-based public-interest law firm. “I don’t think a foreclosure notice is sufficient basis for a challenge, because people often remain in their homes after foreclosure begins and sometimes are able to negotiate and refinance.”

Obama campaign files suit over ‘voter-foreclosure’ plans

http://michiganmessenger.com/4463/obama-campaign-files-suit-over-foreclosure-lists

Take the Barack Obama Challenge

Here is a video of Barack Obama giving a speech and answering questions at a forum at Google November 14th, 2007. If you are wondering about what his vision is and where he thinks we need to go, I think this is a great representation, without the filters of talking heads and pundits.

Bailout 2008, Woohoo, We're buying Wall Street!

This is a collection of the information I have come across so far on the bailout. I will put together a more cohesive post later, but I want to get the links down so I have them.

Bailout: House Draft:
http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/images/09/28/ayo08c04_xml.pdf

Seven better uses for the bailout’s $700 billion
Double up on national health care, end greenhouse gases, fix bridges?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26876718

Rudy Guiliani's already trying to cash in on the bailout,
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2008/09/25/2008-09-25_rudy_giulianis_crass_opportunism_reflect.html

Could you explain what a derivative is and how this is part of the Wall Street problem?
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/businessdesk/2008/09/could-you-explain-what-a-deriv.html

Commercial Paper
http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/CP/about.htm

The Commercial Paper Squeeze: Why It Hurts
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/sep2008/db20080928_417591.htm

The Pressure is Too Much!

So here it is. My first blog post. I was waiting for something inspirational, something witty, something smart to say, and in all of that, day after day went by, and I still hadn't posted anything.

So here it is. In all it's glory and it's not much. Hah! Now that's witty 'eh?

What prompted this first post you might ask?

Oh just the crashing of our economic system. Or so the media tells us. It's all a big hairy mess, so I will post more later. Just had to get this first post over with. Let the fountain of wittiness and clarity begin. Hah! Don't wait too long, we'll see if that ever happens.

Watching Rome burn is proving to be quite entertaining, even if it is quite stressful.

More soon...