Bowing

It certainly does look like Obama is bowing to the King of Saudi Arabia. My question is, Has he been there before? If he met the king before he was president, he may just have been doing what it did before. The president does not bow to anyone.

Terms of Use

Does anyone ever read the terms of use? I know I don't. I just assume that the terms of use of anything are whatever you say they are. I assume that if I am doing something I'm not supposed to be doing, someone who gives a shit will tell me, and I will say, "Oops. OK. I won't do that any more." I no longer have space in my brain for lawyer talk.

The terms of use for Netflix are
a. I pay you money at regular intervals.
b. You send me dvds one at a time
c. I send them back when I get around to it.
d. Whereon you send me another one.
e. I am authorized to look at them, not copy and sell them.

Why does it have to be more complicated than that?

Bonuses

Bonuses are given in February so a company will know how much profit was made in the previous year. A bonus reflects a distribution of portions of these profits. Get it, dim bulbs? No profit--no bonus. This is a handy rule of thumb. Especially when the bonus comes out of public bail out money, which I am withholding judgment on. For the time being.

If you go hugely into debt over the course of a year, and I, Uncle Sam, give you money to tide you over, under absolutely no circumstances whatsoever may you regard this as a profit. You have to earn the profit yourself. Why is this so hard to grasp?

Understanding Capitalism

It is the duty of capitalists to spend all their waking moments thinking about how to make as much money as possible. To work properly this must be a completely unfettered activity. Worrying about bad effects isn't really part of the process.

It is the duty of government regulators to examine the activities of capitalists and make judgments about which are in the public interest and which are not. Nothing should be omitted from this examination process. Some activities should be forbidden and others strictly controlled, depending on how they are seen to affect the overall economy through up and down cycles. Particular attention must be paid to down cycles.

As a young person I read Theory of Countervailing Power by Galbraith. If you haven't read it, you should. Thinking you don't need both pieces is just plain dumb.

Simple path to nuclear disarmament

Step one. I don't really intend to go past step one, but why not take step one and get it over with.

Calculate exactly how many megatons are required to completely destroy all life on earth, and then reduce our own stockpile to that level. Doesn't require negotiating or farting around with other countries. Doesn't require acting all superior and self righteous.

Just do it and get it over with. I understand this would save a ton of money.

Why it has to be called marriage

I was listening to the radio today and it was reported that a gay marriage advocate and a leader of the opposition were reported to have reached a compromise. Everyone would be happy with a form of civil unions which they then described. Christians would be protected from having to recognize these "unions" as marriage.

The fundamental and in my opinion primary reason for promoting gay marriage GAY MARRIAGE is respect. Repeat respect. Yes the legal benefits are nice, but what one wants is that ones relationships are treated with respect. This is only achieved by calling it marriage.

Why American Cars Don't Sell

In my youth in the fifties American cars were the sexiest things on the planet, and each year the car companies fought to make them even sexier.

Nowadays the only sex appeal the car makers can think of is to make huge ugly trucks and SUVs. Macho is the only kind of sexy. If the car is intended to be small, efficient and economical, they hate this and go into a kind of furious suicide wish. They make them as boring and ugly as possible. Remember Emma Peel's cars? Small cars can still be sexy. All that's required is for you to believe.