All I have to say is HAHAHAHAHAHA!

I just happened to get this in the mail today. I am not sure if this is real of just something to hang on the wall. I am both very excited and stunned.

I have been looking at the trends and it seems to be a great time to buy. Here is a great blog that talks about the real estate trends in SF:
http://www.socketsite.com/

I have also been very impressed with 30 year fixed rate mortgage for conforming loans. In SF a conforming loan (a loan that Fannie Mae will purchase from a bank) is a mortgage that does not exceed $625,500 with 10% down on a house or 15% down on a condo. Unfortunately the rates change daily and it seems that the Fed is sitting on their hands and not buying mortgage securities as promised and thus the rates are not as good as they were in December. I am hoping that it will get back to the 5.125% for a 30 year fixed again.

Mortgage Rates

It is the 80’s teen movie experience in one DVD collection! OMG, I feel a pajama party coming together! ;)

High School Flashback Collection (The Breakfast Club / Sixteen Candles / Weird Science)

To be honest, Weird Science was one of my most favorite movies growing up and The Breakfast Club… I mean who didn’t find something to like about it.

As many Americans, I see Christmas as a time of tolerance, charity and great generosity (and consumerism). One of the greatest gifts a person can give to their fellow man is respect. I do believe respect should be earned but some level of respect should be charitably given just because. I believe a fundamental way to show respect to someone is to try to understand their side of an issue.

The passing of Proposition 8 was a very sad day for me and my loved ones. In many ways it took the joy out of the election of Barack Obama. Now it is clear that many people I know and love are upset with the choice to have Rick Warren speak at the inauguration of Obama. And I think it is absolutely fantastic that he will participate.

Obama promised change but made it clear that change will come because of our effort. That just can’t happen when only likeminded people discuss issues. If the other side is not invited to the table to talk, why do you think they will listen? Tolerance and understanding only can come from inclusion. We need Obama to invite the religious right to be part of the dialog. The left needs to be more inclusive or we will end up dividing this nation like the political right had so deftly done for the last 8 years. We are in this together, for better or for worst.

I watched this talk by psychologist Jonathan Haidt about the five moral values that form the basis of our political choices, whether we’re left, right or center. In this eye-opening talk, he pinpoints the moral values that liberals and conservatives tend to honor most. The most dramatic point I got from this talk is that we need each other and that if we don’t include the other side into our debates and decisions, we will fail as a nation.

Newly released is the G.E.C.K. (or Garden of Eden Creation Kit). The G.E.C.K. allows the community at large to create, modify, and edit any data for use with Fallout 3.
Download at: http://fallout.bethsoft.com/eng/downloads/geck.html

Visit the G.E.C.K. Wiki for help and tutorials:
http://geck.bethsoft.com

For those who have never played Fallout, it is basic premise that World War 3 happens. The depth and richness of the post apocalyptic world of Fallout 3 is immersive and completely addictive. All throughout the world there are bits and pieces of pre-war world which was a throw back to modernized 1950’s America. The whole pre-war world is very tongue and cheek and the violence in the game is just as over the top. Through the use of giant bomb shelters call vaults, sold by the Vault-Tec company, your character’s ancestors survive. And as the game starts, a hundred or so years later, you have to help save the people of the wasteland.

Beyond the main plot there are many story lines and lots of side adventures. You can ultimately explore the whole world as you advance in skill (level). While adventuring you talk to various people and your deeds give (or take away) Karma, depending on your Karma rating, good or bad, the world treats you very differently. Fallout 3 still keeps the interactive aspects and character building of previous versions with the addition of a first person option for more real time action. The old turn based combat is still available functions well.

Fallout is a throwback to a game I used to play called Wasteland. If you want to see some old screen shots check this out:
http://classicgaming.gamespy.com/View.php?view=GameMuseum.Detail&id=209

Maya Angelou, writer, poet, historian, does an interview to discuss the election of Barack Obama

She recites a bit from her poem And Still I Rise.

“Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.”

From And Still I Rise by Maya Angelou. Copyright © 1978 by Maya Angelou.

Prop 8 was funded by a Mormon church of Latter-day Saints.  Tax exempt status is a precious reward for non-political charity organizations.  In this time of financial trials, no political organization should be given the ability to pay no taxes and influence elections though direct funding.  Please don’t let this offense slide.

Sign the petition to have their actions reviewed by the IRS:

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/review-the-501c3-status-of-the-church-of-latter-day-saints-the-mormons

I decided that I need to get back into shape and live healthier.  So part of that plan is exercise and nutrition.  I am moving to a minimum 3 day workout schedule.  I hope that I can keep to it.  I have gone twice this week and schedule to go again on Friday.

MY GOALS - (next 2 months)
Reduce of Body Fat %
Metric: Loose 10 – 15 lbs of fat.

Core Strength and Balance
Metric: Improve strength of abs, hamstrings, adductors, abductors, gluts and lower back.
Metric: Ability to perform single leg (balance) exercises.

Flexibility
Metric: Improved flexibility.

Body Symmetry
Metric: Visual definition of muscles.

Endurance
Metric: Run 3 miles after workout without dying.

Strength Gain
Metric: Steady increase in lifting capacity and reps

Form
Metric: execution of exercise is consist form even at point of fatigue

Home work:
Nutrition – eating 5 – 6 meals a day.
Taking proper supplements.
Reducing late night snacks.

My Stats:
Weight 185 lb
Height 6’

My Measurements (inches)
Bicep 20.75
Waist 36.5
Hip    40.5
Thigh 20.75
Chest 41

Body Fat %
Tricep  11
Bicep    9
Chest   14
Thigh   10

MI (calcuated): 25.1
BMI (Electronic): 16.7

Michael Crichton’s work is a guilty pleasure of mine. I will miss reading his new creative musings.

http://www.crichton-official.com/

Maybe ‘too big to fail’ is just too big… Doesn’t that seem a little odd that the government bails out banks that are too big to fail to just have them buy up more banks that then makes the company that was in trouble even more dangerous to our economy if they fail? Hmm.

“Maybe ‘too big to fail’ is just too big” by Robert Reich from Marketplace an American Public Media show.

Audio Podcast:
http://download.publicradio.org/podcast/marketplace/pm/2008/10/22/marketplace_cast1_20081022_64.mp3

TEXT OF COMMENTARY:

Kai Ryssdal: Congress is in full oversight mode this week. There are hearings on everything from financial reforms to how this whole thing happened in the first place to what’s going on with the bailout package.

Some banks are thinking about using their share of the bailout money to buy other banks. Bigger’s usually better in the financial world. Except, says commentator Robert Reich, for what that means to the rest of us.

Robert Reich: According to Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, the biggest Wall Street banks now getting money from the government are just “too big to fail.”

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke uses a different euphemism — he calls them “systemically critical.” The point is that if any one of them goes down, it could take the whole financial system with it. So we taxpayers have to keep them up.

We’re hearing the same argument elsewhere in Washington for saving General Motors. It’s just “too big to fail.” So Congress is considering a bailout that would keep GM afloat and sweeten a merger between GM and Chrysler.

Pardon me for asking, but if a company is too big to fail, maybe — just maybe — it’s too big, period.

We used to have public policies to prevent companies from getting too big. Does anyone remember antitrust laws? Somewhere along the line policymakers decided that antitrust would only be used where there was evidence a company had so much market power it could keep prices higher than otherwise.

We seem to have forgotten that the original purpose of antitrust law was also to prevent companies from becoming too powerful. Too powerful in that so many other companies depended on them, so many jobs turned on them and so many consumers or investors or depositors needed them, that the economy as a whole would be endangered if they failed. Too powerful in that they could wield inordinate political influence of a sort that might gain them extra favors from Washington.

Maybe the biggest irony today is that Washington policymakers who are funneling taxpayer dollars to these too-big-to-fail companies are simultaneously pushing them to consolidate into even bigger companies. They’ve prodded Bank of America to take over Merrill Lynch and Countrywide. JPMorgan to acquire Washington Mutual and Bear Stearns. And now they’re urging General Motors to absorb Chrysler.

So we’re ending up with even bigger giants, with even more power over the economy and politics, subsidized by taxpayers and guaranteed never to fail because they’re just — too big!

Fiscal conservatism used to mean that you actually worked to reduce the size of the government and reign in government spending. Although the Republican party still claims that they are the party of fiscal conservatism, they actually are just as bad as the democrats, if not worse. When Clinton left office we had a surplus, the last 8 years the US has spent in such huge deficit that it is hard to see our way out of it… but is now the time to reduce spending? I don’t believe so.

“There’s such a thing as a smart deficit” by Thomas Frank from Marketplace an American Public Media show.
Audio Podcast:

Transcript of Thomas Frank: This is one of history’s great paradoxes: Again and again we elect deficit-denouncing conservatives to office, and again and again they proceed to run up gigantic federal deficits.

Why do they do it? Well, for one thing, deficits allow them to reward their constituents; They can cut taxes for the very rich while sluicing money to politically-connected contractors.

For another thing, deficits allow the conservatives who piled them up to demand that social programs be cut, that government operations be outsourced, that Social Security be privatized.

And now we have a conservative Republican running for president who is outraged by the deficits run up by another conservative Republican. That candidate, John McCain, promises — and you guessed it — a balanced budget in his first term in office. After all, his campaign tells us that individual families don’t get to run deficits — they have to pay their bills on time, and therefore so should the federal government. So what we need to do is slam on the brakes.

McCain’s approach would be calamitous. The federal government isn’t a family; it’s allowed to run deficits when they’re called for, and believe me, they’re called for right now when we’re in recession and everything is contracting.

Maybe there’s another way of looking at the problem. Suppose we understand the current deficits that benefited the rich and the well-connected as stupid deficits that didn’t stimulate much more than the market for yachts and lobbyists. Smart deficits, on the other hand, would come from federal spending that gets the economy going again. Spending money on infrastructure, on stabilizing the housing market and on a massive energy independence program — that’s the kind of energetic and intelligent governing we so urgently need today.

Look, the alternative is to deliberately bring on some economic day of judgment. But the right answer to our problem is not to steer for an iceberg while shouting ‘every man for himself!’

Here is what I am thinking about for November 4 on a state level. The propositions can be found at the Secretary of State web site http://www.voterguide.sos.ca.gov/.

Download a calendar reminder to vote: vote.vcs.ics

What is your opinion?

John C. Reilly explains that a vote for Obama is actually voting 3/4 for a white man.

This was sent to me from Cassie…

Karen and I did this a while back but just posted it on all the new video sites…

Halloween is around the corner, do you know what your pumpkins are doing?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8CNvgo-LZk

I thought this was really cool.

You can click here to see the full image. Note it is 6000 x 3375 and 2.35 MB.

I understand that situations change and people have a right to change their mind but he knew the risks a decade prior, the risks did not change and still he endorsed the invasion of Iraq.
In 1994 Dick Cheney sums up the issue surrounding an invasion of Iraq in 1 minute:

footage captured from C-SPAN

We need people in office with better judgment. Vote for change.

It is ironic that the first presidential candidate who is African American has such parallels with one of our nations greatest leaders, Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln fought to keep our great nation together. I believe Barack Obama have the ability to unite us too. This is one of the reasons why he has my support.