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Yahoo!News: Greenspan Denies Blame for Crisis, Admits “Flaw”

I am so pissed off at Alan Greenspan. This guy was hailed as freakin’ God when he was Fed Chairman for nearly twenty years and basically when he talked, everyone listened. During his tenure, the economy boomed, everything was great and wonderful and deregulation was the talk of the town. Being a believer in the free market, Greenspan resisted calls for more regulation (specifically cracking down on sub-prime mortgages and such), his belief being that the market takes care of itself. He held firm to the idea that banks and investment firms wouldn’t take such risks that would jeopardize their institutions and stockholder’s interests and equity.

WTF rock was Mr. Greenspan hiding under? Was he really and truly THAT blind during his tenure as head of the Federal Reserve, to think that some banks and investments firms, when not held back by the chains of regulation, would exercise caution when given the opportunity to get filthy stinking rich? Who the hell was he kidding?

The deregulation that occurred through the late 80′s and 90′s was like giving the keys for a Ferrari to a 17-year-old and expecting that, since they passed driver’s ed, they’d be able to handle the automobile respectfully.

Balls.

The market may very well take care of itself, if it didn’t have humans involved in it. Greed is a powerful temptress. Where there’s risk, there’s great reward. But where there are no rules, who cares about the risk? Especially when it can be packaged up and sold to somebody else…

Random miscellaneous items that I’ve been meaning to touch upon:

1. This One’s For the Economy and the Stock Market:

AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I dunno about y’all but I swear I got motion sickness this week watching the Dow go up, down, up, down, down, waaaaay down, up, waaaaaaay up, break even, gain, loose, blaugh…

This market’s so bad that Economic Wildman and Mad Money host Jim Cramer can’t even find an even kiel. Poor guy. His head hasn’t exploded yet but I think everyone eles’s has.

2. This One’s For Jax:

I found this news item about three weeks ago and just haven’t had time to post it until now.

For years, I believed MacGyver could have built a computer with nothing more than a pocket calculator, spit and bailing wire. But apparently, he wouldn’t know how to use it…

MacGyver: I Can’t Even Log On to a Computer Without Getting Hurt.

But ya know what? That’s okay because he still looks pretty damn good after all these years. =)

3. This One’s For Fashion Designers: 

Will somebody please design and make clothes that don’t look like they belong on a hooker? I really prefer to NOT have my boobs hanging out of my blouse, thankyouverymuch. I would also prefer to notsee everybody else’s boobs hanging out of their blouses as well.

Also the tight tops (where the assets are not on public display) are great if you have the upper body to show off and nice flat stomach. I have neither and would prefer not to be asked if I’m pregnant.

Chiffon is nice but does it have to be the only fabric used anymore? What the hell ever happened to just plain ol’ cotton? Sheesh!

Can we make a standard cotton blouse that doesn’t have six miles between the top button on the collar and the next button down? Like I stated above, I prefer NOT to show off my boobs!

4. This One’s For Stephen Colbert:

Thumbs up for mentioning Glenn Miller on a show a couple of weeks ago! I nearly died laughing.

Here’s a link if the embedded thingy doesn’t work:
Sept 24, 2008, Alpha Dog of the Week: Bill Bennett

Of course, what I’d like to know is how many of his younger audience members know who Glenn Miller was…

By the way, I’m really excited about the new ColbertNation.com site as I can now easily find and embed favorite clips from shows to share with ya.

5. This One’s For Negative Political Campaign Ads:

I’m Maryanne Coltrane and I approve this message: PLEASE SHUT THE *&%#!& UP!! “The other guy is Satan! But I’m only Judas, vote for me!” Sheesh!

Well, I’m slacking in the blog posts here again. But I think I have a good excuse! (Well, at least a reasonable explanation. No, I can’t blame Jack or Bill or any of the muses per se for my slacking this time). I was on vacation for a couple of weeks in September and was busy with some non-writing projects during that time (although I did get a little writing done) and would’ve had time to post to the blog but I couldn’t think up any topics. I think it was safe to say that my brain had finally exploded. Heh!

And now since I’ve been back to work, I’ve been busy with the post vacation work related stuff, but I have thought of blog topics I just haven’t found the time to write ‘em up. Figures eh?

Anyway, I think things are settling enough that I can get back to posting regularly again. So, in honor of that, and with a topic having to do with writing in particular, I present the following piece of wisdom:

“Whoever loves instruction loves knowledge. But he who hates correction is stupid.” – Proverb 12:1

Back in September, a friend of mine was talking about fanfiction for a particular fandom and about reading some stories that were posted at Fanfiction.net. One author in particular had posted a few stories in this particular fandom but they weren’t exactly of the greatest caliber.

When I say not of the greatest caliber, I mean that the stories were severely lacking in proper English mechanics. Punctuation, capitilaztion, paragraph structure, proper use of quotation marks for dialogue, spelling, whathaveyou. A few reviewers attempted to kindly point out to the writer that, although their idea seemed good, it was difficult to read the story in the format it was in. Seeking out a Beta reader or finding someone to help with the mechanics was suggested.

This author, turns out, is living proof of Proverb 12:1. She got all defensive, basically told her readers to f— off and that once she finished her story she was going to remove it from FF.net. Well, good riddance! (The stories have, in fact, been removed.) Now, I’ve been around writing fanfiction long enough that I’ve seen my fair share of really crappy writing. And it never ceases to amaze me how some writers just plain have a blatant disregard for learning the proper mechanics. Or for even wanting to learn the proper mechanics. They either don’t acknowledge that they don’t know proper mechanics or they get all defensive about it and basically tell everybody to go to hell.

Look, it’s okay that you don’t know. We’ve all had to learn and some of us, such as myself, are still learning. Writing is a constant learning process and if you really want to write, you’ve got to want to learn. Plain and simple. And one of the best ways to learn, believe it or not, is to read.

So don’t go telling your readers off. That’s like biting the hand that feeds you! Writers want readers to read their stuff, to give input and feedback. And when it’s tough or critical feedback, you have to be ready to either take it as a learning tool or put it in the trash. Don’t take it personally and proceed to lash out at all of your readers.

Man, I’ll take critical feedback over no feedback any day.