I'm sure you are probably wondering why it has taken me so long to update the page. Rather than lack of time to write, it is because of the fast moving situation we find ourselves in.

First up is the election. It amazes me that the US public has chosen the path that leads to the downward spiral and eventual end of the United States as we know it. The election of Barack Hussein Obama is nothing more than the death knell of the USA. Oh there will be 'Change' for all you true believers of The One, but it will certainly not be the change you believed in. False hopes lead to bitter futures, and all of you are going to have a very, very bitter future coming. In the short time since the election, Obama has already backpedeled, tried to downplay expectations, and even removed his agenda from his website. Not exactly reaching for the stars now, is he?

All of you that voted for Obama have put not just a democrat into the office of the President, but a socialist. You can hear Obama, in his own words, admit going to socialist meetings, picking those friends wisely, seeing Marxist books for sale. It's sickening. He will raise taxes. On you, me, and businesses big and small. He will erode personal rights. He will make bad foreign policy decisions. He will, to put it mildly, facilitate the downfall of the United States. If you wake up some day in the near future, seeing Red, and a voice tells you Good Morning Comrade... well, you won't be dreaming, you'll have just woken up inside the United Socialist States Of America.

That is, of course, if there's any America left after the economic apocalypse.

I've done mass amounts of research into what is going on with the economy. So far, no one has done anything to fix the root causes of this problem. Not one thing. Now, I may not like or agree with these people that are in the group that is allegedly trying to fix things, but I know that at least some of them are smart enough to know what the real problems are, and yet, they are ignoring them. Or at the very least, not letting the public know what is going on. It is certainly a complicated issue and perhaps that is why I haven't heard one thing on the news about the base problem until yesterday when I noticed a story about the feds setting up a Credit Default Swap clearing house. That is the FIRST thing at all that has been put forward that will help. It's not enough, and it might even be too late now to save things, but at least it's something.

To be perfectly honest with all of you, the outlook is grim. Between this absolutely out of control economy and the coming onset of Obamunism, we are about to be hit by a double whammy of epic proportions. If we make it through, and that's a big if, the United States we will have, will not be the same Unitied States we grew up in.

Always remember: Society is like an overfilled balloon, and any little pinprick can make it pop in an instant...

So now that we've had a few days since Congress passed the "SAVE THE CORPORATE GREED AND LINE OUR OWN POCKETS" bill, let's see if it's had any effect. Hmmm. Damn... looks like the markets have dropped about 1300 points (at the time of this post) since passage of the bill. There's putting confidence into people for you.

Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson ( ex CEO of Goldman Sachs ) just appointed a buddy of his from ... you guessed it ... Goldman Sachs, to run the bail out. Everybody needs to tear out the page of the encyclopedia where they define "CONFLICT OF INTEREST" and send it to Mr. Paulson.

And hey! Guess what? Remember that 80 some odd billion dollars you and I gave to AIG to bail them out? Well, they went and had themselves a huge party out west and we paid for it! Yeah... booze, massages, spa visits. I'm certain they tried to keep the costs to a minimum... Oh, that's right, they spent FOUR HUNDRED AND FORTY THOUSAND dollars. If we were living in the old west, those people would be hanging from a tree on main street right about now.

All of you out there need to wake up, and wake up damn quick! We are at a huge turning point in history. The US is in immediate and grave danger of not only having a total financial collapse with a side order of chaos in the streets, but of also turning into a socialist society! WAKE UP DAMMIT!

When Congress passed that bill, they did NOT act in accordance with the will of the people. Phone calls to congressional offices ranged from 100 to 1 against to 300 to 1 against passage of the bill. I think anybody can see that those numbers were a near unanimous call on Congress to not pass that bill, yet they did anyway.

What does this mean? Why it means that the government is no longer 'for the people'. It shows that they think they know better than you and are treating you like a little kid that has been bad and that they wish would just shut up and go away so they tell you to go to your room or you won't get any supper. They all seem to have forgotten that they were elected to 'serve the people'.

There is an election coming up. I think it's time the American People sent Congress a real message that they won't ignore. One that will get them where it counts. It might be tough, but vote them out of office. If enough of them get voted out, maybe they'll get the message. You want 'Real Change'? Well let's vote in ALL new people. How could things get any worse?

So, why are we in such a financial mess? After all the signs that this would happen have been around for a few years, yet nothing ever got done. I suppose to really understand we have to go to the root cause of this problem, which is the housing bubble created by the mass use of sub-prime loans. Sub-prime loans go to people with low income and/or bad credit. This all began back in the Carter administration when Congress passed and Carter signed the Community Reinvestment Act. The idea behind this act was to keep banks from targeting only higher income families with loans. If banks did not give enough loans to lower income people, they would suffer penalties from the federal government. Time passed. We move all the way to 1995 and the Clinton Administration. Clinton expanded the Community Reinvestment Act greatly. Banks were now required to give loans to lower income, inner city, and high risk credit history people or those banks would suffer even greater penalties. In addition, the new parts of the act encouraged 'community action groups' ( wasn't Obama in one of those? ) to market loans to low income people and to collect fees from the banks for loans given out. Therefore, a new industry was born! Blackmailing banks into giving out high risk loans. Wait, the Government was already doing that! But! On we go! Banks give out the loans. And here we find Fannie Mae who guarantees these loans for the banks. Upwards of 90 percent of these loans were variable rate loans. This is fine as long as the rate doesn't go up, and with things going great it doesn't go up right? The people in charge of Fannie Mae get bonuses based on how many loans are given out. VERY BIG FREAKIN BONUSES. Well over 20 million dollars a year for some of them. TWENTY MILLION. What would you do in their position? Why you'd give out more loans! Then something happened. The interest rate ( which the variable rate loans are tied to ) went up. Uh oh. So in 2003 the Bush administration tried to overhaul the regulatory system for the sub-prime loans. They were blocked by the democrats... Barney Frank (Democrat) specifically. The interest rate continued to climb. More and more people stopped paying the loans back because they couldn't. Then gas prices went up. Uh oh. Housing prices went up. Uh oh. More people stopped paying. Banks stopped lending. In 2005 John McCain tried to get the Housing Enterprise Regulatory Act passed. It would have changed the way the sub-prime system worked, perhaps fixing the whole mess. Once again, it was blocked by the democrats. Things got worse as the housing bubble burst. Housing prices collapsed. Since people now owed more than their homes were worth, even more of them stopped paying. Big Trouble. In 2007 McCain again tried to get the bill passed. AGAIN...blocked by the Democrats. By Christopher Dodd (D) who got more money than any other Congressman from Fannie Mae. By Barack Obama, who got 126 thousand dollars from Fannie Mae. Does any one see a pattern here? BOOM. The sub-prime market collapsed. Banks begin to fail. The Fed dumps billions into the market to stablize things. And we hear Nancy Pelosi say "It's not the democrats fault"...? Check your facts Nancy. Tell me how that crow tastes. So now, we find ourselves screwed. I imagine the cost will be very, very, VERY much over the 700 billion dollar figure that is being thrown out there. Of course the bill that is now likely to pass is full of so much pork and so many earmarks that it will probably double whatever the cost of the real problem is. So all of you tell me... is our government broken? The answer is obvious.

Rothrin was listening to: REM - It's The End Of The World (As We Know It).mp3 : while making this post.

It looks as if Obama has at last shown his true colors. You can see the video on youtube here, or here is a direct download link with a high quality mp4 of the McCain ad. :-)

I checked my inbox the other day and saw an email from someone I haven't heard from in ages, Gaia. Thought I'd put it up for all of you to read.

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Hi Rothrin,

It's Gaia. You remember me right? We met in a green field of cut grass? I hope this doesn't go into your spam box. lol I just thought I'd touch base. I've been a little down lately. Depressed I suppose. It just doesn't seem like anyone cares anymore. Nobody stops to look at flowers, or just take a walk in a quiet forest. And when was the last time you saw anybody look up at the sky? They're always too busy rushing to and from work or picking up their kids from daycare. I feel like nobody has time for me anymore, that all of my children have abandoned poor Mother Earth.

I realize things change, but I miss the old days. All of you were so cute growing gardens and tilling the fields. I fear those times have come and gone. These days I end up wearing trash thrown from cars like it was cheap jewelry.

I keep wondering how things got this way, if somehow it was my fault. Maybe I should've spoken up sooner, before things got so bad, but I always had faith in humanity. I only hope that faith was not misplaced.

Some days I get so angry. I know I shouldn't, but it is hard not to. Even then, everyone seems not to realize that I am even upset. They only put down my anger as natural events, a hurricane here, an earthquake there. Maybe I'm truly forgotten.

I haven't been feeling too well either. I think I have a bit of a fever, or maybe I'm allergic to something. I've certainly felt warmer lately. At least some of you seem to have caught on to that.

Well, I have things to do. I hope I haven't bent your ear too much, but we hadn't talked in a while and I thought I should start reconnecting with some of Earth's children again.

Take care,
Gaia

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Maybe all of you should check your spam boxes...

Rothrin was listening to: Ennio Morricone - The Good The Bad And The Ugly OST - 02 - The Sundown.mp3 : while creating this post.

Wings of darkness throw up dust
Sitting high on ruins rust
Pecking dice of knuckles bone
Crow King sits on lonely throne

Eyes so black of piercing gaze
Look upon the end of days
Caw! He cries, no echoes here
None to listen, none to fear

Crow King hops to weathered stone
Sheds empty tears for man’s lost home
Flies up to meet the storm filled skies
And knows within that all things die

Rothrin was listening to: Akira Yamaoka - Silent Hill 2 OST - Main Theme.mp3: while making this post

The Spore Creature Creator is out. Let me tell ya, it's amazingly addictive. You can create almost anything in it as you can see from my Spore gallery, and from the huge amount of youtube videos already uploaded. A very cool feature of the SCC is the ability to create videos and upload them to youtube from within the SCC. You can also email pictures that you've captured of your creations. When the full retail game is out in September, any creatures that have been uploaded to the Sporepedia (including yours), will randomly and automagically populate your gameworld. By using the Creator, you are, in effect, creating in game content for the retail game. Very cool. So what are you waiting for? The demo is free, and the full Creator is only 10 bucks. Definitely worth the money.

Rothrin was listening to: Wumpscut - Schaedling 2CD Limited Edition - Rifki (Cerebral Apoplexy Remix).mp3 : while creating this post.

Something out of my notebooks from ages and ages ago. Sometimes it is good to search the past, for there are lessons to be learned there. All things change. Without change there is no growth, only stagnation of the soul.
-----
Feathered Tears

Into the night
I fly upon wings of darkness.
Obsidian eyes shed charcoal tears.
Such sadness and pain
Echoed upon a coarse cry.
A warm ominous wind,
Rustling leaves in the silent dark.
Rain falls,
Or am I crying?
It does not matter.
My bitter claws reach for a trusted perch,
A tombstone.
It guards this sacred place,
This grave.
The grave of my love,
Long dead, but not forgotten.
I watch,
And remember,
And cry.
The pain fills me.
I welcome it with a lovers embrace,
For that is all I have left,
The suffering.
I watch,
And remember,
And cry in the rain,
So no one can see.
I am nothing,
Just a crow in the rain.

-----
Even on the darkest of nights, the sun always rises...

Rothrin was listening to: Blutengel - Labyrinth - 06 - Sunrise.mp3 : while writing these words.

Every once in a while I get asked what software I use every day, so I thought I'd put up a list of most of the best utilities and applications that I pretty much can't live without. Some are free, some are not free, but they're all worth having.

• Kaspersky Internet Security: KIS is far and away the best firewall and anti-virus software out there. It catches everything, protects your registry, doesn't bog your machine down at all, and automagically updates in the background.
• Ad Muncher: You don't like web ads do you? Neither do I, and using this, I never see any. On the rare occasion something gets through, you can instantly put it on the block list. Highly recommended.
• Ultra Recall: The quest for an information/notes manager is a long one indeed, but I think finally UR fits the profile. You can save full or partial web pages perfectly, manage notes, data, store any kind of file inside the database, have saved searches, custom forms, custom tags, use internal and external links, use encryption, and more, all in an extremely stable application. I use it for almost everything.
• Linkman: I've got about 1500 or so favorites/bookmarks, so it's not always easy finding the right one when I need it. That's where Linkman excels. Instant searches on keywords will find any link in your database ready for you to pop up. Linkman works with virtually every browser out there and it exports to other formats if you need it.
• Pop Peeper: Everybody has more than one email account these days, and it's a pain to check them all. Pop Peeper sits in the system tray next to your clock and checks all your email accounts for you. It works with webmail services too like Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, and all your normal pop3 and imap accounts. Very cool little utility.
• Trillian: As with email, if you're like me, you've got an account on virtually every instant messenger out there. Trillian supports them all in one client. ICQ, Yahoo, MSN, Google, IRC, Myspace, AIM, Jabber, and Trillians own Astra ( only in the new beta ). I really couldn't live without Trillian these days. :-)
• WinRAR: This works with virtually every archive type out there, and does it fast. Not much else to say except that I wouldn't use anything else.
• EditPad Pro: There are a million text editors out there, but only a few good ones, and a very few great ones. EditPad Pro is at the top of the heap. It does pretty much everything. :-) Text/binary editing, regular expression searching, multiple files, fully configurable, and portable to boot. Get it. You won't be sorry.

That's it for now. I have a few specialized tools that I use for various things but I'll leave those for another post. :-)

Rothrin was listening to: Bryan Ferry - Legend Soundtrack - Is Your Love Strong Enough :while making this post.

Quite a long while ago, back when I was still in high school, I used to get together with the guys, and head out to a small theater that had an attraction every weekend called 'The Midnight Movie'. One time, they were showing something called 'Winds Of Weird'. I've never been able to find it since, and I can't seem to find any info on the net about it, but it was the precursor of today's video mixtapes and mashups. I remember segments including Blue Oyster Cult's Joan Crawford Has Risen From The Grave, and Salvador Dali's Un Chien Andalou. I started thinking how tame it was compared to all the video sites on the net currently and that maybe I'd put up a list of those places.

Warning: These sites are NSFW. They may contain blood, gore, politically incorrect speech, naked people having sex, explosions, car crashes, people recieving beatings, death, destruction, and general mayhem of all sorts, more sex, and also, sometimes some pretty hilarious stuff. It amazes me the things people do, sometimes to each other, sometimes to themselves.

Extra Warning: Do not view these sites if you are easily offended, have a heart condition, are pregnant, have a weak stomach, are prone to seizures, cannot walk and chew gum at the same time, are attracted to stuffed animals, believe that 'Dukes Of Hazzard' is a documentary series, had impure thoughts about Dorothy and her little dog Toto too, or cannot take a leak with anyone watching, then you should not view these sites.

For all the rest of you sick bastards, enjoy:

liveleak.com
evilchili.com
nothingtoxic.com
inhumanity.com
extremefuse.com
m90.org
uselessjunk.com
goregasm.com

And yes, these two deserve special mention. They are just beyond the pale. I haven't come across anything worse than these two. Seriously, don't watch these. I couldn't sit through the whole things.

The infamous 2 girls 1 cup. If you decide to watch ( or not ) at least watch Kermit's reaction.

And this, bmevideo.com, a place where people practice sexual self mutilation. Unfreakinbelievable.

Rothrin was listening to: Blue Oyster Cult - Don't Fear The Reaper while making this post.