Diner Review: La Tienda Ranchito, Fairmont City Illinois

Sooooo seriously, it would appear that my FFL Franchise is on it’s way to a really, REALLY unprecedented 2nd year championship. If that happens I plan to quit practicing law and just bask in being a GOD AMONG MEN for a year or so. Fantasy Football might easily be one of the stupidest things that i do but it does keep you focused week to week on the NFL which I guess is a good thing if you are 50, like me, your children have abandoned you, like me and your wife is happiest when you are parked in front of the TV (where you can be found, observed and or quaranteened) and not pressuring her for sex on the weekend. The league is made up primarily of plaintiff’s attorneys and as near as I can tell they take great risks and generally make butt loads of money. There are some losers in the league who are not like that, like me and an investigator and an “Investment advisor”. It is NOT an exlectic group but it is an interesting one.

Three of us are pretty much locked at our desks all day emailing inanities and annoying the others by filling their boxes. The rest occasionally wade in. One of the only benefits I have seen from the league other than the millions in prizes I won last year is that it gives me a network of people who really like food and eat out almost every day and several of them eat out every night. This has lef to the following discovery in Fairmont City Illinois. It is Tienda El Ranchito, located at 2565 N 32nd St. in Fairmont City, IL 62201. Their phone is (618) 875-1521.

This place is....unstoppable. I have been to all the places on Cherokee and have a great respect for them. the same can be said for Durango on Page and a couple of the places in Overland. They are all literally shovelling out high quality food every day at a very reasonable price but Tienda is to be much lauded and glorified. Every time I go (and I have been there 5 times now) I drive by it. Take 55/70 East and get off at the fairmont City Exit that has the place that was formerly an old Venture. take a right on Collinsville Road. If you go left you see the burial mounds and eventually get to Fairmont Park, but if you go right it will sneak up on your left. On your right you will see the looming landfill by the highway. It sits back from the road and has one sign. When you park go to the left to find the door.

When you go in it is just a Mexican grocery with all the beauty that entails including tons of pepper and peppers and masa and Mexican sugar cane coke and little Mexican chotchkes and a full meat counter with all nature of chicken, pork and other treats, If you bear to your left as you go in and follow the wall it leads to to the restaraunt and bar in back and you have arrived in heaven. The TV’s during the week carry a steady stream of some Mexican MTV and another one will have on the Telemundo soap opera and if at all possible soccer will also be on. That is VERY important. On Saturdays there is also football (as opposed to Futbol) and Sundays they shgow the pro games. They have a full bar. they have a Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tienda-El-Ranchito/120919354588146

The place is normally chocked full of the nicest people in the world. the staff tends to be helpful and patient although they can get busy. they will bring you out home made chips along with verde and a little red sauce and some of the best salsa your going to get. really simple with onions, tomato and cilantro and with the chips, heaven. They have a decent selection of cerveza and all the Mexican beers are of course served with lime because without the lime they have almost no flavor at all. Still, they are refreshing.

I must admit that I have been relatively narrow in my review of their offerings. As with breakfast I play in a certain wheelhouse and have a fairly telescopic view of the oferings. That having been said they are making the BEST tacos in a town that now has a LOT of good places to get good tacos. Recently I went for a Saturday lunch because I had heard (therough the FFL grapevine) that they make fresh corn tortillas on Saturday. This was not a lie. I ordered the carnitas and the pollo. They are served with onion, cilantro and lime and with the fresh buttery corn tortilla it was more than a small slice of heaven. My date had a chalupa which although i was incredulous about, looked good and he said was outstanding. The meat in both my tacos was floavorful without being overly seasoned and the heavy cilantro, fresh onions and a squeeze of lime made them absolutely perfect.

It is not often i can write about a place as nothing but a fan but that is the case with Tienda El Ranchito. I did a little more fact finding in another taquiria over there in what we will now dub :The Fairmont City Project”. I will report more on that later. For now, Tienda El Ranchito. 9 Slingers on the 10 scale. Quoting the old Milwaukee’ss Best commercial, “It don’t get no better!”

A Boston Surprise

“I have come to know the wish list of my father.
I have come to see the shipwrecks where he wished.
I have come to wish out loud, from the overdressed crowd,
Come to witness now the sinking of the ship...”

-Joe Pug

So. Boston. October 10th. My borthday. Time to take stock or perhaps after a little more vodka to stake tock. It has been an awesome birthday and perhaps I will recount the trip later. I am still in Boston as I peck away but there seems a gravity that needs to be addressed. Of course I know it does not or at least it does not by me but... here goes.

Boston is awesome. We have never been here before and we are renting the second floor of a brownstone in the South end of the Back Bay. Evidently it is a historically gay area and history has stayed true and it is charming. We have done a lof fun stuff but yeaterday Sandy and I visited the Kennedy Museum out at U-Mass. I was vaguely interested and Sandy was really interested so we took the T out and took another shuttle and there we were.

It sits on the bay. A big glass and concrete facade with a giant (6 story) flag hanging inside of it. We had to wait about 20 minutes between tours and then were ushered to a little theater where they basically told us about the world leading up to his election and gave us a little Kennedy family history. The world is in turmoil, the Russians are about to blow us up, the 3rd world is heaving with early growing pains and everyone hates America as the leader of the former western colonial governments.

In walks the good looking, bornwell, Havahd boy who has a congressional seat and then a Senate seat purchased for him. He walks into office with a beautiful, horsey-set, monied wife and presides over this short, nightmarish Presidency. At every step he faces unbelievable challenges of a bad economy, and Russian pressure and plays hard with everyone he fights with. His speech from his inaugural was a tour de force of everything a leader should bring complete with the call for action, the rallying cry for a country which has been lost. Everyone recalls this fabulous, brilliant line which lunched a thousand programs for the assitance of others:
“And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.”

But equally impressive was this line or observation:
“If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. “

Is anyone listening those words of wisdom now? Are any Christians paying attention?

These were not the blatherings of a guy out huckstering and posturing for votes. These were the words of an American, who had fought for his country and had a vision of us being a greater country than anyone, even he had imagined. A leader by example. And by words. Although in our 24 hour news cycle and lack of civility his personal life would have brought him down hard.

The most striking thing about the entire tour, the entire exhibit to me was the headline from a Des Miones newspaper saying “Republicans and Democrats Applaud Presidents Speech”. In what world could that happen in 2011? Obama gave some really good speeches but he was not brave enough to call on us a Kennedy did. That was a bridge too far for him and he, and we will suffer for his weakness and his fear. He had an opportunity to grab us and call us out to be a greater country, to redefine the discussion, to redefine greatness as not being a half million dollar house, a Mercedes and children who want for nothing, but to be a country that leads by example, focused on its religious heritage (not to preach to others, but) to lead and serve as Christ had served and through our example save our country, ourselves and the world.

Instead we labor in acountry where the rich keep getting richer on an accelerated basis. People who do nothing but make bets make tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars a year while job creators and the working people scramble for the rest. Which is fine. The rest is fine and we are lucky to have it, but what about those below us? How can they live with the people at the top insisting that they must make more? If they don’t make more they will leave. If they are taxed more, they won’t want to work anymore! I have never met a millionaire who would not keep working because he was taxed. I am not saying taxes are the answer, they are not! Not even close, but when we do not tax, when we stop regulating because it kills jobs, we lose site of the fact that human nature is selfish and those at the top, the very top, will take the want and change the rules through their money and power to keep what they want.

I am so frustrated right now by the same people who declare “American Exceptionalism” and extol our entrepenurial spirit, who run our largest countries but are telling us that “situations are too uncertain to invest their huge piles of cash”. There is nothing exceptional about fear. There is nothing exceptional about hoarding. Lets invest in ourselves and our values again so that there will be no doubt who leads the world. We are a city on a hill and that will not go away unless we allow our leaders, in politics and business to lead us through fear to make selfish, short sited choices.

We need another leader to call on us to be better. All of us. Together. One Country. One Nation. One People. I am ready for that man or woman to step forward. In the meantime we had best work with what we got.

Later this week I am going to explain why we need to consider rounding up and shooting all of our State Senators and State House Members. Should be a hoot.

The Charge Of The Lightweight Brigade

Earlier this week I had a slight nervous breakdown and posted this on Facebook:

““OK...R.E.M. disbands ten years too late and now the U.S. Government is threatened with shutdown again. REALLY? REALLY? Again? We seriously cannot do any better than this? This is leadership? From anywhere on either side of the aisle? People pay taxes to support this type of leadership? People die on the battle field to support your current way of governing our great country? Our economy is in decline, people are not working and you squabble like petulant children. Every member of congress, Senator or House Member should be hanging in their head in shame. Real shame.
"It's the end of the world as we know it..." R.E.M.””

Slightly over wrought? Way over wrought? Probably the latter but really guys, this is embarrassing. I had overblown expectations for our President to use his HUGE popular support to be transformative. It retrospect that was very childish but we had come from a Presidency that was so stage managed and tone deaf that I needed change and certainly John Mc Cain was not the change I needed. I can still shudder to think about how his Presidency would look and we would all be beating on an old man. At least with Barrack we are beating on a young man in the prime of his life. But even though he was dealt an unplayable hand, he has played through every attempt to unite our country under a banner of real, PROUD change. Congress failed him totally, first the Democratically run congress and then the democratic minority dealing with a Republican majority in the House of Representatives who was elected with a mandate from the people, God and the Constitution to thwart anything else he tried. But the original fault is with the Democratic congress originally which played the same liberal, entitlement program that has been pretty thoroughly debunked by our countries history. Nancy Pelosi sucked...and she looked really, really scary, especially when she was worked up. The President, upon getting to his office should have asked she and Reed to resign their leadership posts because it was not what this country needed. He didn’t. Now we are here.

My brother, whom I love, is a Tea Party Conservative. God Bless him and them and their cause because they have changed the argument. I don’t believe they have changed it for the better but they have changed it and that is indeed what makes our country the greatest country in the world...still...no matter what the nay sayer’s say. They have successfully thwarted anything being done by government. Seriously, anything. Now I don’t pretend to know what the proper role of government is but I will tell you that it has to have a role and it is our largest employer and that tearing it down quickly, threatening to shut it down every time there is a spending bill, is reckless and stupid. Obama will be a one term President unless they run a crazy man like Perry or a crazy woman like Bachman. You cannot say stupid things frequently in public, and then stand by them and double down. Both of these candidates confuse this for courage and fortitude. What worked on their small stage (and Texas no matter what they tell you is an intellectually small stage) will be a disaster on Broadway (likely because of the pointy headed New York Intellectual Elite). So that is going to take care of itself. Run whomever you want and they should win and they too will likely be a one term President because we are in a deep trough with no easy way out.
But back to my brother. In regard to politics we agree on nothing. Ever. This might almost be a point of pride for both of us. But we have found a common desire and we need another one term President. We need someone who is brave enough to say the following:
1. We are in a deep, bad economy.
2. Government cannot spend or save us out of it
3. The American People are going to have to get us out of it.
4. We are going to have less government services and our churches and not for profits have got to start really stepping up because there will be needs that the government simply cannot meet for the needy and for those without a voice. This is a tragedy but this is reality.
5. We are going to pay more in taxes.
6. Our standard of living as we knew it was the creation of a bubble and is not sustainable. We can argue about this but time and economics have proven it.
7. Our standard of living will still be the highest in the world and we can lead like America should lead, by example.
8. Social security retirement age needs to be rolled back.
9. Means testing for benefits needs to take place. (I don’t know if my brother would agree with that one but my point is that we should not pay out the “safety net” of social security to people like Warren Buffet, or maybe even to people like me who have managed to put some monies away for retirement.)
10. Having troop fight wars overseas (even with radio controlled airplanes) is expensive AND we are going to have to figure out how to employ and equip all these troops we are bringing home for civilian life and it will be VERY expensive for a while but we have to invest in our best.
11. Something has to be done about health care. Here my brother and I would totally disagree so I will stop but that is the third rail of debt. Social security, War and Health care. Something has to be done about health care. Stopping frivelous lawsuits, stopping waste will not even cover next years % growth of the costs. So...something has to be done about health care costs and we will leave it at that for now.

So we need another one term President after Obama or even better we need Obama to embrace for his last year and a half, the role of being a one term President. Lead us to what is next. Dignity. Real Christian values that question our materialistic and militaristic culture and speaking the truth with love, rather than speaking the truth, when convenient, for votes and campaign dollars. But if not Barrack, and not the next Republican President, than it has to be the next guy or we are in some deep shit and the country will be so angry that we will elect a madman. So watch, pray and expect more of these guys. Congress? We cant shoot them. So lets vote them out and see if we can get some people who put America before their party and who can think for themselves without an agenda of talking points to get people to clap and sing God Bless America. What we need as President and in Congress are real people. Smart people. Creative people who are willing to take risks to do what is right and what this country needs. It didn’t have to be this hard. God already has blessed America, and he still is.


*cue the large eagle flying down with American flag in it’s beak...cue the country song about God and Country...fade to black*

ELECTION 2012

Sooooo.... I have been gone but have not been missed. It is Saturday night. I am sober. I just cooked a pot roast. My wife is out of town. My kids have moved out. No one really gives a shit about me. I am sober. Thinking about drinking makes my body hurt. I have neglected to send bills out for my law practice for two months and when my wife does return...she will kill me. did I mention I am sober? One of my dogs got into the bacon grease jar under the sink and has been puking up bacon smelling dog food all evening which slightly (but not profoundly) diminished my enjoyment of the pot roast. I say the movie “Drive” tonight. Women love Ryan Gosling. I don’t know why but my talent at judging man flesh is...”limited”. Gosling had to say less than 100 words in the whole film. He did kill at least 4 people however. Silent, handsome...psychotic. What is not to love. The movie was well films but just too slow for an action film. I am still sober.

So it is politics today. We are well over a year from the election and I am exhausted. I do not understand anything. Why, oh why would the Republicans embrace Rick Perry? Why will the country elect another Texan? It is very early and we have no ideas about what skeletons he has but one has to believe if he is a graduate of Texas politics that they would have crucified him early and often. It is clear he is a classic pork barrel Republican who really knows how to help his friends who are now all OK because they are “job creators”. Which is another thing. How did everyone who makes over 200k a year become a “job creator”? Why do they believe that we are so stupid? Why do we keep proving them right. The idiot buzzwords of the season:

1. The “Elite”
2. The “top 1%”
3. Taxing the jets
4. Romneycare
5. Obamacare (recycling from 2010 election)
6. HPV vaccinations causing mental retardation, “Government Injections!”
7. Do nothing congress
8. Leading from behind
9. No tax pledge
10. Ponzi Scheme
11. Corporations are people...like soylent green....IT’S PEOPLE!!!!
12. PASS THIS JOBS BILL!

There are a hundred more. I mean, really...seriously... I am not going to make it this time. Last election I was excited about Obama. Now I want to be clear, I do not blame him AT ALL for the lack of recovery from the recession. I am not even going to blame him when it double dips and i will not even blame him if it turns into the next great depression. Who you have as President does matter but we are reaping the seeds that were sewn for the last 80 years. But seriously... he has shown himself to be a really typical left wing politician. So boy would I be ready to get rid of him, but for the fact that the Republican candidates are THE WORST.

The Tea Party has totally skewed the Republican party. Everything is an absolute, no compromise eternal truth. Do not concern yourself with facts. Do not concern yourself that there are people who disagree with you. NO NEW TAXES. CUT ALL SPENDING. MAKE GOVERNMENT SMALLER. PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. ONE NATION UNDER GOD! The sad thing is that on one level or another I agree with all these platitudes. I just also see that government does have a purpose. The free market and capitalism do not naturally solve all the worlds problems and that there really are no simple answers to the problems our country faces. So I will not be able to vote for any of the Republicans I have seen so far. I also have to admit, I really would have a hard time voting for a Mormon. I really feel bad about that but I really don’t think I can. And I like John Huntsman. He sounds like a totally reasonable guy to me. But he is a Mormon.

So here is what I want and what the country deserves. We deserve a candidate who is going to say the following:
“This is how it is, our country is in deep financial trouble. The world “including China” is in deep financial trouble as well. We don’t make a lot of things here anymore and the things we do make are military stuff (which makes a lot of jobs) and hi tech stuff and software (which does not). But it will take some time to figure this out but it is unlikely that we are going to bring a lot of high paying manufacturing jobs back here to restore the middle class. If someone tells you we are, they are lying and telling you they think you are stupid. Along those same lines, the housing industry, ain’t coming back. That was a bubble. Houses will need to be built, as population expands. Also, while we should not embrace illegal immigration we need to keep in mind that there are roughly ten million illegal immigrants here, we cannot to find them and send them back and... by the way by 2050, with or without illegal immigrants, we are likely to be a Hispanic nation. Embrace it! Change is good. Don’t be afraid. We are the greatest country in the world. The new economy might not be the consumption economy of the past. We might have a lower standard of living. We might have to live inter-generationally. We need to redefine what it means to be a GREAT country. People are going to have less government services. people are going to pay more taxes. Don’t let simpletons on the right tell you that it can all be done by cutting services and don’t let the Democrats tell you that we can make it up by “taxing the rich”. We need to demand that they treat us as adults, but in order to do that we have to hold them to a higher stadard and demand candor, even if it alienates the base.

Enui, Or The New Laziness?

Sooooo.... it has been an interesting year. They all seem to be that way now. Taking stock as summer bangs down hard with some sweet weather. It is a morning in the office to be introspective and to avoid work...and the fucking phone. I think you all know I am a reasonably (or unreasonably) religious person but i have it on excellent authority (Beetle Bob) that in heaven there are no phones. No smart phones, dumb phones, fax machines, computers, iPads, think pads, game boys, X-Boxes, Play Stations or anything else that would allow (force) you to be interrupted from whatever we are supposed to be doing there (praising God eternally is, I believe the party line). I will not miss them. I hate them. When mine rings I flinch. This is most certainly true.

Yesterday I had a root canal. I am an incredible sissy as far as pain goes. This on a pain scale was not so bad (once you get the shots) but I did have my mouth wedged open for 1 ½ hours and I do not recommend that. Still, I was in pretty severe pain and now I am not. Still, there is something awful about being in that chair, having your mouth propped open and not feeling like you can close it, or pause, and hearing the whine of the drill. If heaven is a world without cell phones, that is probably hell. If it is not perhaps God could rethink it.

So yes, I digressed. A weird year. I cannot seem to read this year. Normally I would be about 15 books into the year but now when I go to bed I am good for about a page before I go to sleep. My discretionary (non-work related) reading is pretty limited to the Wall Street Journal and the New Yorker. I dislike the Murdoch paper’s hyper conservative agenda but their coverage world wide is better than the Times as far as hard news and catching up as to the arts. They have clearly surpassed USA Today (Highlights Magazine) as the daily of people who can actually read. The New Yorker is of course the opposite of the Journal with a bitter liberal bent that is whiningly become just as difficult to swallow. But the articles and in depth reporting is awesome. When they do a piece, you learn if you read it. Of course I cannot retain anything but that is neither here nor there. Bottom line is that I have not read any books this year that have really stuck with me. I also have stopped reading about 5 books because they did not ever grab me but it is hard to be grabbed when going about it at a page a day. I am taking my final mini-vacation and am thinking about buying 10-20 comic books (not graphic novels but actual comic books) to see if I can kick start an interest in fiction again.


I have seen a lot more live music lately and have not been blogging about it. Frank Black, the Old 97’s, the Decemberists, Joe Pug, Alejandro Escovedo, David Lowery, a couple of house concerts, Hayes Carll, Elizabeth Cook, James Mc Murtry, Chuck Berry (checking him off bucket list) and I am sure some others who have been lost already in the haze of middle aged memory. But, I seem to be losing touch for new music as it takes too much work, and time. Where did I find the time to listen to all that new music. Sift through the drech. Let the cream rise to the top through repeated listening. I am not even going to Lou Fest this year I do not think. I might change my mind at the last minute but while last year was chock full of bands I needed to see I can only recognize the names of a few and those that I do recognize, they are non-essential to see. The Roots? Surfer Bood? Really? I mean Cat Power might be interesting but only on an intellectual level. Her best songs are all someone else's, but I guess the point is that I am becoming intellectually lazy regarding my pursuit of pleasure.
This is troubling. This requires greater thought. This requires an expansion pack. I think the theory is that as i am ageing, I have less energy for frivolous stuff and the meat of life (which is sometimes hard, often annoying, rarely inspiring (with some exceptions for friends and family) is taking up more and more of my seemingly decreasing band width. Troubling times indeed my friends. More later but in the meantime, have a beer, go see some live music, or a movie or (gasp) even a play (though not a musical).

Friends Ruin My Life

Soooooo....I believe we discussed in these pages before the Facebook idea of “Friends”. The word has taken a beating over the last 20 years beginning with the ubiquitous TV show but really now has been victimized. Facebook says I have 512 friends. Any of you who know me know how unlikely it is that I have 5 friends much less 512. I think I have 4-5 close friends including my wife. I might have another 20 or lets be really generous to me, 50 people who enjoy my company and perhaps another 100 who tolerate my bloviating, preaching, adolescent (once again being charitable) sense of humor and extremely poor personal hygiene. So that puts me at around 150 people (including family) who might be considered “friends”. But I come here not to discuss Facebook....

Instead we need to think on my iPhone. I have been very, very careful while establishing my solo law practice over the last 8 months to NOT DOWNLOAD GAMES on my iPhone. There is something so tempting about annoying all of the people and “Friends” around you so that you can lose yourself in your little hand held device. One need only to look around any crowd of people to see... well...everyone under 27...thumbing away on their iPhone or other hand held device. I ask what is going on and I am told, “Angry Birds”. I still don’t know what that means. Why are the birds angry? What was done to them? I have never found out.

But one day I saw my son was playing something that looks like “Scrabble”. I ask and he tells me he is playing “words”. He shows me. I like word games. it does not seem dangerous. On night I have to chaperon my daughters Senior Prom and I know I am going to be bored and so I download it for free from the App Store. It took approximately ½ hour for my wife to start to yell at me. I was obviously obsessed. I was horrible at it to start with because I did not reckon the importance of your double and triple word and letter scores but was more impressed by my own ability to make long words... setting up my competitor. My first game was against a gal I went to law school with 25 years ago. You find your opponents through Facebook or Twitter or just get a random opponent. She killed me. For the record i did better in law school. It became relatively clear to me that with my obsessive compulsive personality that i was doomed. I find I am using my phone more to keep up my game than to keep in touch. That is one of the insidious things about these games.... they wait for you. You get notified when the other guy plays but you can play anytime in like the next...week. But it would be rude to make them wait so you ignore your family, ignore your clients...Friends indeed.

From there I tried Chess With Friends. Slightly disappointing due to not many “Friends” who play but then Hanging With Friends came out and now I had another word game. These are all pretty good games but I am focusing today on what becomes of these “Friends” relationships? If they are used socially on Facebook and now used for gaming, where does it go next. Gambling with Friends? Strippers with Friends? Church with Friends? These people can do anything with me.... by virtue of my iPhone. It is starting to get frightening and I wonder if I am going to need to get another name for the people who I used to call my friends. My real friends, in real life I mean. What do I call them?

My peeps?
My posse?
My...pals?

All of these options seem a little sickening but someone needs to formally protest or perhaps file an injunctive suit to stop them from doing further damage to the concept of being “friends”.
The one thing competing with people by games confirms is... these people are NOT my Friends.

I Am BACK!

Soooooo... it has been a while. I have had a lot to say but the bottom line is in regard to writing there has been no time...no energy. Lethargy and rushing around for work and figuring how to get out of town and then recovering at work and catching up from being out of town have made blogging a luxury that time will not afford. As you can see from this pic, I have not been wasting my time in Michigan with Polka-Fest and what not. So lets do a potpourri .

The Economy: Everything I see is bad but it is bad not from a perspective of things getting worse worse (other than housing prices which will have to continue to drop) but from the perspective of bouncing along the bottom, perhaps for a long time. Republicans are “restoring fiscal sanity” but there will be a huge 2-3 year price for this in the form of unemployed Federal workers and construction people in the private sector who will NOT be working on infrastructure jobs. This is a fact. Obama looks like a one termer but joining in on budget cutting and his own lackluster performance warrant it. The economy will still suck for the 2012 elections. He is toast. He cannot even start a war to jolt the economy because that card has been overplayed. Poor bastard.

Unemployment: I believe that our current unemployment rate and lack of growth are systemic. The Republicans will un-regulate us enough that perhaps we can find another bubble like the tech and housing bubbles that caused us all to learn to like unsustainable life styles but the bubbles will be shorter and shorter lived. We do not mass produce anything here anymore on a cost effective basis. We cannot do it because we believe people who work all day would make a living wage. At least we used to. In a global economy where grunt jobs can be done for dollars a day only an idiot would make anything here. The tech jobs that will be created simply do not need that many people. That is one of the hallmarks of tech. 9-10% unemployment is here till the next bubble. Some politician should be brave enough to say it out loud.

Obama: He has been a disappointment to me. Not because he has not gotten us out of the current economy. I believe and still believe our country needs to be pulled to the left. free market capitalism (unregulated) is a recipe for the top 1% to pack it in even more. It is never enough. Obama had the chance originally to ask us make sacrifices and redefine the conversation. Instead he played politics as usual and even worse, played it badly. In dealing with the Tea Party and their elected minions and every other republican scared by a possible primary challenge if he does not tow the line he negotiated with terrorists. They only understand one thing and that is force. They are willing to shoot the hostages. he should have let the house of representatives not lift the debt ceiling. But it was a total lack of leadership and judgment that he did not get this done during the last budget negotiations. Unforgivable really, embarrassing and it certainly added to our debt downgrade.

The Debt Downgrade: Who gives a shit? Our currency and treasury Bonds are still the benchmark and they will continue to be if slash programs and raise taxes. Be clear though that both these things are a no growth plan for the near future. The debt grading companies will be gone soon because S&P overplayed their hand. As I tweeted the day it happened, “The S&P downgraded Bob Dylans record catalogue for 5 stars to 4 ½ stars.... Asian markets are reeling.

Our Politics: Somehow we have elected and empowered the deck chair reorganizers to run our country. This is not a recent thing but has happened in my life time. The don’t think. They only want to get re-elected. If they do think it is with a zealotry that ill befits a democracy. I remember my 8th grade teacher asking the question about whether you want your elected official to do as the population wants him to do or to do what he believes to be the right thing based on the situation? Everyone said that a politician should do what his constituents (we did not use that word) told him to do (the majority). He said we were idiots. He was right. Ultimately, God have mercy on our souls, we have gotten the government we deserve.

The Republican Candidates: The only way barrack gets elected again is because there is a good chance the Republicans cannot find a credible candidate.

Romney: Paper tiger. leading candidate only because he has been running for 8 years now. If Iowa straw poll does not kill him now, South Carolina Primary will. When he comes to town I hear a prison guard yelling “dead man walking”. he even looks scared. He said “corporations are people” which is enough of a film clip to cost him any election against Obama. Also, and I know this is an awful thing to say in a post racial, politically correct, open minded America (hah, hah and OMG HAH!) I don’t think when push comes to shove we elect a Mormon President. Too much baggage, too new of a religion and I could scare people off him in a paragraph. If you are the Christian right how do you do it? When people start reading The Book of Mormon... this will go poorly for him.

Huntsman: I thought he would be good and run hard. He has been non existent. He is also a Mormon, albeit a good looking one. See above.

Michelle Bachman? Really? I mean REALLY? I know a lot of people think she is “just what this country needs” but she is a fallen Lutheran and she fell the wrong way. She has crazy eyes, is a zealot and when she says hate filled things and gets applauded it reinforces her desire to talk more. She is telegenic but every time says stupid things and not because she is being asked “gotcha” questions. She also loses because we have seen how our most recent short term legislator turned President worked out. Too easy to beat on too many levels.

Gingrich? Already shot himself. Not in the foot but in the head.

Pawlenty” Looks good on paper. Dies early. He brings nothing to the show.

Herman Cain? Herman Cain? I can get angry without watching him explode every time he is in front of the camera. Does anyone really want to give this guy a nuclear football? he lloks like a Commerce Secretary or something to me.

Ron Paul: I love him. he has the courage of his convictions and takes the heat for them. he is consistent to a fault. Small government means SMALL government. Small military, slash entitlements and let people do what they want as long as they do not hurt anyone else. He is unelectable in every sense of the word and he has one crazy, amoral son.

Rick Perry: Pre-annointed, he announced today. he has said a lot of crazy things. he wins elections by narrow margins and in a divided country he gets the nod. He seems to have the nod from the Taliban in the party and they vote 100% in the primaries. It will make an interesting race as we get more into his crony government supported buddies in Texas. If Texas continues to dry up it will hard for him to campaign because there will be more and more suffering in his state. Stupid on immigration. Runs hard to his faith which creates a lot of opportunities to paint as a demagogue. Will do or say anything to get elected. He looks like the candidate.

I am sure I have forgotten a couple of their candidates. I hope it is none of them. Ihope they can raise up a leader which can unite us in the middle. Someone who can claim the majority rather than a coalition carved from a base on the fringe. America needs better than it is being offered but as I said earlier... we are indeed getting what we deserve.