recent pickups

Had some time to visit Zingg Records in Warren and got these two sealed LP's. The No Doubt LP Return to Saturn ($10 cost, $20+ value) and Death Cab for Cutie LP ($20 cost, $60 value) made the trip well worth it.

I then headed over to Sunset Records in Somerset and got a cheap David + David LP ($4, no value) and a OOP LP from the now defunct V2 label featuring Whirlwind Heat ($4, unknown ebay value) it was produced by Jack White. I've been trying to plan a trip back because there is a $100 LP sitting in the bin that is on sale for $18. I also picked up the Beulah original Elephant 6 cd for $8 on ebay (value $25).

Rember longboxes? The 12" x 6" cardboard/plastic packaging that cd's came with during the 80's and early 90's. Well they are now hot, hot, hot. These things are so cool and I smile every time I get another sealed one. Below are 3 deals I just got. The Lemonheads ($10), Springsteen ($16) and Genesis ($16) are not my music but they are fun to collect. My collection includes about 20 sealed, original boxes and hoping to get lots more. The Nirvana boxes have always been on my want list and over the summer I was able to grab a sealed Bleach cd for $110. It was a steal.

A recent trip to the local consignment shop produced this great item for $17. A sealed, new Out Of Print KISS chip and dip set for $17 (ebay value $80+). It measures 16" x 16" x 6".

A new house with hangar on The Cape.

a new beginning

marxisant

you are marxisant you wear a black turtleneck, you shave only every few days, you discuss Sartre at great length in bistros, and you kiss the feet of every decrepit soixante-huitard whom you encounter. It’s a social posture, designed to indicate that you are a member of an upscale elite.

they might work in the social services, or with an environmental group, or for Legal Aid, or in a vegetarian food-cooperative. These are the people who get righteously indignant over global warming, George Bush, racism, and whatever else is on National Public Radio’s current hate list. The fakery and the phoniness are palpable.

A population with living imaginations isn’t dependably predictable in its reactions. It can actually think for itself, which is profoundly terrifying to bureaucrats, politicians, and the business community. For all their stupid blather about entrepreneurial initiative and innovation, businessmen are the least imaginative people on earth.

The rest of this definition is here. http://thepennsylvaniareview.com/2008/08/marxisant/

where are my damn tickets?

socialism is the opiate of the intelligentsia

As we pick up the pieces from a Congress that let us down again, but we allow them to fix it with taxpayer money. Get it thru your partisan head, every member is owned by Wall Street (a.k.a. they receive money from companies they oversee). On the media: It's too funny how every foriegn-policy talking head is now an economic analayst. No one has any solutions, just more whining and partisan cheap shots to keep you watching.

From what I've gathered so far, the backbone of this collapse was brought on by the Fed allowing people to borrow money they couldn't pay back, then allowing companies to buy/sell them for paper profit they could cash in, no regulation (but encouragement) at the Congressional level and lastly, Alan Greenspan.

Got any solutions? Here are actual solutions that I've found interesting:

By Gretzel: A better plan to fix liquidity for less than $700 Billion :
1)Moratorium all mortgage payments on all residential real estate for 5 years or until the houses are sold. This is cheaper and guaranteed to jump start the economy. This will give the market time to sort out real estate prices and stop the foreclosures that are bringing down prices in a spiral.
2) raise the FDIC insurance to $1 million on bank accounts; this will get money out of treasuries and into bank deposits: liquidity.
3) Means test all new home loans on 29% and 33% debt ratios and minimum down payments from 10% to 33% depending on the home cost.
4) Home equity loans should be for home improvements only.
5) Credit cards should be on net 30 basis only; if you can not afford it do not buy it. 6) special finance arrangements should be available for longer term purchases like cars, but not toasters and certainly not soap.

Solution by Congress:
Proposal Number Five was to bring about the “centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.” If Karl Marx were to rise from the dead today, he might be delighted to discover that most economists and financial commentators, including many who claim to favour the free market, agree with him.

head spinner

Wow. The pick of Gov. Palin as VP came as a shock but I immediately smiled because I knew how tough she is with Big Oil and corruption. Over the last year I had been breezing thru some articles highlighting the good things she did back in Alaska. What a bold choice. The only thing that has surprised me so far is that she is the 3rd of 4 children and not the oldest sibling. Are we in bizzaro world? Go get 'em Sarah, the anti-shillary.

With the media in a frenzy, the best comment I have read so far was on Anchor Rising posted by Mike C:

The left wing hate machine is exposing themselves for just what they are - a bunch of bigoted, sexist hypocrites. It's so easy to see just what they despise about Sarah Palin - she is the typical, normal, sacrificing American woman that has gotten ahead through hard work, determinaton and perseverance.

And they hate her for it. She hasn't been brought up looking for handouts, and sucking off the public, showing that, yes, you can make it through life if you are so determined. She understands clearly that people have responsibilities, not rights. And she lives by it, unlike the "Do as I say, not as I do" left wing trash.

If she was a divorced lesbian on welfare, who pushed her daughter to have an abortion, the left-wing hate machine would be so enamored with her. But no, she is your normal everyday American hero that the "tolerant and progressive liberals" want to tear down, because she understandably exposes their disgusting agenda for the big fat lie that it is, and [she] makes them feel so inferior and [like] such a failure. They should feel that way.