I'm shocked that a doctor would lack the basic logic needed for good science, as well as the skeptical eye when reviewing information necessary to make good decisions.  Also, he left his footer in the email.  I'm exhausted by these emails, not sure how I got into his close circle of East Coast Convservative Elites, so I'm posting this jackass here and maybe somebody can find their surgeon elsewhere in the New Jersey area.


From: Dr. Charles W. Hewitt <chazhewitt@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: <no subject>
To: chazhewitt@comcast.net
Date: Sunday, October 19, 2008, 3:59 PM

Just FYI.  This is from my cousin Rod who was an inside Berkeley police
investigator (lieutenant) during the turbulent times of Berkeley during the
60's.  He worked with the CIA and FBI in primarily trying to define where
the funding was coming from for the dissident groups in Berkeley at the
time.  Surprisingly, it turned out to be mostly Maoist derived - not from
the Soviet Union at the time.  He left and became vice chairman of Ernst
Young, San Francisco primarily as a forensic accountant and has since
written two manuscripts on the subject that are now submitted for
publication.  I suspect they will be published.  I find this information
very disturbing and you may as well.

Chuck

Dr. Charles W. Hewitt,
Director, Surgical Research,
Professor of Surgery,
Robert Wood Johnson Medical School,
University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey,
Cooper Health System,
Three Cooper Plaza, Ste. 411,
Camden, NJ 08103
USA
Ph: 856-757-7854
E-Fx: 413-383-3390
-----Original Message-----
From: Roger Hewitt [mailto:roger@caconnections.com] 
Sent: Friday, October 17, 2008 9:36 PM
To: chewitt@biofx.com
Subject: <no subject>

Hi, Chuck:

Attached is my response to Thomas Frank's opinion piece in the WSJ (My
Friend Bill Ayers). I doubt that it wll ever see print, but I want young
kids like you to know what's at stake here. It's time to determine just
who
the guy behind the smiling teflon mask really is, who is behind him, and
what is in the Chicago Annenburg Challenge documents that are too scary to
see.

This is nothing other than my opinion, of course, but I don't think that Barack Obama's relationship with Bill Ayers, Mike Klonsky, Jeremiah Wright, and Saul Alinsky's radical community organizing tactics should be dismissed or taken lightly. I'm more inclined to conclude that all share the same economic and political objectives, which are essentially the tired progressive labor, socialist, communist and Black Muslim goals of restructuring of our social economic structure. It is not coincidence to me that all have relationships dating from some 15 to 40 years. 

One needs to look first at the Rev. Wright's ten point mission statement for the black liberation church which both he and Obama shared membership for twenty years or more. Note that it requires a non-negotiable commitment to Africa and commitment to bring about change in the social/economic structure of evil America, with the principal goal being to establish economic parity for blacks. As in previous Black Muslim preachings, Blacks are told that the time is short for choosing whether to join the liberation movement or remain with the evil white establishment. It's true that Obama has since denounced Wright and his teachings, but again, one should pay attention to what Wright told the Black Press Club on the evening before Obama denounced him. In essence, Wright told the audience not to worry about him and not to pay attention to what Obama would say, noting that Obama was now a politician and would say what he had to say in order to get elected--a scam on white folks. 

Ayers and his wife, Bernadine Dohrn, the Weather Underground Organization terrorists who declared war against the United States and its financial institutions are like peas in a pod with Wright and his goals to restructure America's evil economic system. It was no accident in 1995 that Ayers selected the socialist community organizer Obama as chairman of his Annenburg Challenge grant project to radicalize Chicago's school children. Moreover, I find it absurd to think the two did not work closely together in administering the grant programs and funds over the next six years, or to believe that Ayers and Dohrn hosting of Obama's State Senate campaign announcement in their Hyde Park house is not indicative of their close political relationship.  

Obama and Ayers also served together on the Woods Foundation, where they were able to funnel huge amounts to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) for use to bring pressure against local bank lending policies and 'living wage' demands against 'big box' merchants, typical radical community organizing programs against the existing economic structure. 

Both Ayers and Obama also share close ties with Michael Klonsky, the Maoist , former SDS national secretary, and long time Ayers friend. Ayers and Obama granted Klonsky, then a cab driver, a grant of $175,000 to radicalize school children under the Annenburg Challenge project. Klonsky went on to become a campaign blogger on Obama's presidential campaign staff. These people all know each other very well, share goals to bring down the existing social and economic structure, and when they speak of change, they are talking about complete change in our way of life.  
 
 
 
 
 

For anyone interested in more background on who these folks are and what they're about: 
 

Ayers/Dohrn/Klonsky Background

The 1969 Students for a Democartic Society (SDS) Convention held in Chicago had two factions fighting for control of its revolutionary Radical Youth Movement platform. RYM I (the 'moderate' faction) was led by a Maoist revolutionary, Michael Klonsky and the Progressive Labor faction, which favored overthrowing the U.S. government but essentially opposed outright violence against the government or people. The other faction, the Weathermen, led by Mark Rudd, Bernadine Dohrn, and Bill Ayers (son of a wealthy Chicago power company executive), offered a RYM II approach which called for bringing the Vietnam war home to the streets of America, i.e., war against America. 

The Weather group seized control of SDS and began a four-day war against the 'City of Pigs', Chicago. After their arrest and jumping bail following the riots, Ayers, Dohrn, and Rudd went underground, declaring themselves the Weather Underground, and issuing a declaration of war against the United States of America. 

The group remained underground for some ten years. During that time they organized underground support cells throughout the United States and manufactured and planted bombs in numerous federal buildings, banks and police stations across the country (Pentagon, Capitol, and Bank of America, San Francisco Police Station--the latter not being claimed because of the death of a police officer).  

May of 1970 WUO operatives Ted Gold, Terry Robbins and Diane Oughton blew themselves up in a Greenwich Village N.Y. townhouse while making a bomb they intended to plant at a Fort Dix weekend dance. Kathy Boudin and Cathy Wilkerson would escape and later participate with the Black Liberation Army in the armed robbery of a Brinks truck and in the murder of Brinks guards. In April 1971 fingerprints of Dohrn, Ayers, Rudd, Kathy Boudin, Cathy Wilkerson and a dozen or more other Weathermen were found in a S.F. bomb factory that had operated for more than a year.  

Ayers and Dohrn negotiated their surrender with the Justice Department at the end of the Carter Administration, at the height of his amnesty movement just before Reagan came into office. Justice allowed them to plead to riot charges from the Days of Rage riots; they received 3 years probation and a $1,500 fine. Both entered the field of education and would raise the imprisoned Kathy Boudin's child.  

Klonsky, never a WUO member to my knowledge, would go on to found a Maoist party in the Chicago area, as I recall, and make several trips to China to obtain approval and recognition of the party. 

So much for the history of the Ayers/Dohrn/Klonsky group. 

In the 1993, Bill Ayers, then head of the Chicago School Reform Collaborative and still a revolutionary youth proponent, applied for and received a $50 million educational grant to improve student outcomes, the Annenburg Challenge Project. He selected community organizer Barack Obama (trained by Mike Kruglik in the Saul Alinsky socialist school of confrontation politics as a means for achieving social and economic change) as his board chairman to administer selection and funding of educational grant applications. Obama and Ayears would spend six years working together on Annenburg.  

Those programs selected, of course, shared Ayers continuing radical youth social objectives. Traditional education programs (math, science) were not welcomed or awarded grant funds.  

Project ACORN--Ayers, Obama

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) is a radical left organization that grew out of 1960's National Welfare Rights Organization aimed at doing away with America's capitalist economy. ACORN focuses on local urban areas, targeting 'living wage' issues in 'big box' stores, attempting to roll back welfare reform, combating what it terms 'predatory lending practices' of banks, and pressuring banks for sub prime lending and for donations to finance voter turnout drives.  Its tactics are 'in your face' Alinsky-type intimidation disruptions of public and private meetings. The dedicated ACORN demonstrators reportedly were trained by community organizer Barack Obama early in his career at request of ACORN director, Madeline Talbot.  

Obama would later use his board position in Woods Foundation (Ayers also a member of the board and with long ties to ACORN) and Joyce Foundation to funnel large sums to ACORN. Later as an ACORN endorsed Illinois State Senator he would push ACORN friendly legislation on banking practices. Obama denies these relationships.

Proposition 8 looms over California, the "Protect Marriage" proposal created in the days following a Supreme Court ruling which allowed gays the right to marriage.  The measure did very poorly in early polling but appears to be gaining immense traction lately and looks as if it may pass by a large margin.  Perhaps my greatest point of frustration with this proposition is not so much its typical rhetoric indicative of what we've seen in other states, but the manner in which this whole thing played out.

Our Supreme Court made a clear ruling on this issue.  And ding-ding-ding, somebody ring the retard alarm because two states over, Mormons took the call to leave polygamy alley and go preach the gospel of true marriage in California.  Please Mormons, allow your stupid, dangerous and obtuse cult to educate us on how to run our affairs.  I know the vast beauty of dirt, rocks and great salt lakes was difficult to leave behind, but you are an elite whose obnoxious presumptuous nature never prevented you from knocking on my door at 8 in the morning on a Saturday to tell me just how awful my beliefs are.  I guess I was naive to believe you would stay in your cavernous hide-outs waiting for Joseph Smith to return on a sled made of naked child brides. (google: Mormon Dream Mine)

What impresses me is the blatant zeal with which these racketeers have conducted this raid, placing vast numbers of boots on the ground here, pouring in millions of dollars in ads, and then scheming with these evangelical shit-heels like villains sharing a Marvel Comics crossover.  The scare tactics, hate-mongering and total bigotry of their ads would be disgusting if not laughably underwritten by the fact that these pasty blue-eyed inbreds wear magic underwear and were the only religion in American history to have open war declared upon them for high treason.  In that regard I find it odd that they wouldn't at least muster up some of the humility of their great-grandparents, who were themselves outcast for following a crystal-gazing fraud who believed that blacks were devils from the Old Testament incarnate, and that revelations could be found by reading stones out of a hat.  You'd think that kind of humility would show a sense of open-mindedness toward creating legal mandates against other groups of people, but maybe those lessons were lost while cutting switch-back trails across the country while being chased by local militias.  These are the same people who openly-massacred travelling caravans and blamed it on the "red devils", so maybe not.

Conviction, it seems, only follows self-interest.  I can't imagine their having this kind of courage and self-sacrifice should the proposition reach the ballots forever banning any prospect of roping fifteen women like cattle and taking them in "celestial" marriage.  And I say "self-sacrifice" because I'm certain they already have those wedding dresses picked out and paid for.  I take solice in the fact that this is only California bearing the insufferable burden of bike-peddling armies dressed like Shaun of the Dead, and that this is only Mormon venting after their attempt to slither into the White House failed twice with Mitt Romney.  Why this deliberate tax-fraud is allowed exemption is incredible considering the very secretive, very deliberate and very political agenda this group operates within one large organizational structure.  We can always hope the angel "Moroni" appears once more and they're too busy sticking their faces in top hats for spiritual guidance to go out and influence the vote.

Hand it to McCain and Friends for very easily co-opting the population's anger towards the economy, it's fear of terrorism, and questions about "that one" and turning it into an angry mob.  I think it has less to do with racism than it does to do with bull-baiting, and one should take a good look at Rush Limbaugh's latest When Do We Get to To Riot segment to understand where this is going.  Should they lose the battle, they'll wage the war.

It's sad that while at the end of the Clinton era, people like me who were pissed at Clinton's policies took to protesting Clinton and not George W., the conservative crowd look at the situation they got themselves into are venting their rage onto some other tangible threat that deflects fault.  It's usually a "scary person" because in their world of pseudo-Christian values, it's just easier to think of people as bad, not concepts cleverly hidden in books.

I see the attack on ACORN as being the nexus between their anger at the economy and their coming anger at losing this election, and that fills me with fear.  This group just isn't going to go softly.  People forget that prior to 9/11, terrorists drove pickup trucks and had NRA cards.  They believed a Democratic government was fascism, and that it was God's will to have them fight at Waco, in Oklahoma City, at the Olympics, and at a number of other attacks which received less attention.  I thought the days of the "Creativity Movement" had passed.  The Reverend Matt Hale, who ran the Church of the Creator during its height of violence in the 1990's, was sentenced to 40 years in prison back in 2005, at a time when we were all focused on Osama Bin Laden.  But where did his followers go?

Across America, it would seem as though this same group of nutjobs are dusting off their copies of The Turner Diaries and Hunter and re-engaging in talk about defeating Socialism, Marxism, Arabs, Jews, and everyone else which "impure" the waters of their perceived American Exceptionalism.  I don't think I can stress enough how dangerous this ideology is.

I find it ironic that should anything happen as a result of this angry mob, it may possibly be the very anti-terrorism initiatives that Bush and his buddies enacted, which the neocon movement overwhelmingly supported which would be used against them.  It's a terrifying prospect because at a time when the door has been cracked open for this kind of intrusive government, a homegrown domestic act, even small and blown up out of context, would be all any government would need to take those external policies and make them internal.  And there are few leaders, of any party, who I believe could resist that temptation.

If this all sounds ridiculous I want you to imagine a scenario.  Somewhere in America, there is a guy who just lost his job, who just lost his house, who may be going through a divorce, who may have outstanding bills, who may be anry, who may be extremely desperate and unstable, who is deeply religious, and who is horrified at the prospect that the government just gave close to a trillion dollars to Wall Street while he's suffering.  And this man has been listening to radical talking points on the radio, on the television, and in print obsessively.  And the message that he keeps hearing is "He's a terrorist," "It was his fault", "He's going to take away your rights", and then "God doesn't want this man to win this election."  Now throw in the message this past week about waking up after election day to see this snooty, uppity black man winning the election, and that you'd wish you could have done something to stop him.  I want you to picture this guy because he exists, and there are thousands more like him.  Now give him a gun.

I don't think people are as afraid of this kind of negative rhetoric enough.  You have a right-wing talk show host like Rush Limbaugh, who commands a huge audience, baiting his audience with a fantasy about rioting should Obama win this election.  I'm not trying to overstate this, I don't believe that these people are Al-Qaeda, certainly not by means of structure or ability, but I do think there should be a level of caution because people could get hurt.

Consider this extremely infantile but incredibly pleasing.  It looks more and more like Obama is going to win on November 4th.  While I believe the fight is still on, I think we should all look to the future if Obama is going to win.  Namely, November 5th.

If you're like me, you've spent the past 8 years suffering the rhetoric of jackasses like Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh.  They've had their man in the White House, they've had their special access, they had public opinion that they used as a mandate, and they used this to gloat and bully and act like a bunch of disgusting pigs.  I put myself back into the day after the election in 2004, when Hannity could barely contain himself on that miserable show.  How I fantasized about a day of reckoning.

So here's what I propose.  And yes, this is extremely childish, but remember what you've been put through.  I propose a day of trolling on November 5th should Obama win the election by a large enough margin to warrant big celebration.  I propose rubbing as much salt in the wounds of the Right Wing talking heads as possible.  Calling their radio shows, trolling their message boards, just having an all around gloat-fest at their expense.  Remind them that their day is done, and that their era is over.  Really think about these pieces of trash.  Men like Limbaugh were absolutely complicit in creating a rhetoric that got us into this mess.  Shouldn't they at least spend one day with the proverbial pie in their face?

It's like in those movies where you're subjected to 90 minutes of the villain getting to indulge in every naughty little impulse in his brain, only to have 30 seconds of comeuppance.  Let's make sure that this is a sting that really lingers.  Or, if you're not into movies and like sports, picture it like when a player gets ejected from the game and the chorus of "Hit the Road Jack" echoes from the rafters.

I suspect many will do what Nancy Grace does when things don't go her way and just not show up, but there will be others like Sean Hannity whose career as a political talk-show host hinges upon him being there after a major election.  So let's get our animated gifs, our jpegs, and our ducks in a row.  C'mon guys, it's spanking season.  What does this accomplish?  Psh, it's satisfying and that's enough.

Remember, remember, the fifth of November, the gloating, the trolling and lulz.

I know that us Obama folks should just be giddy with excitement because, woo-hoo, Obama won another debate, but can we please call bullshit for what it is.  If this is what our debates have become, we're in some deep crap.  If you could even call this a debate, and certainly not a town hall.  This was an illusion of democracy.

I want you to imagine something, and just bare with me here.  If you read that a country like China had a debate where they went around casting people based upon their "average appearance" to read scripted cue cards that asked non-critical softball questions of their elected leaders, would you believe it was anything other than pure and utter bullshit?  Would you believe it was a debate or a farce?

I can't imagine a political legacy which has has raised as many questions as the past 8 years of George W. Bush, real fundamental questions about who we are, what we are, what we would like to be, and what ideals we still have in common.  The controversy surrounding issues like executive power, domestic spying, prisoners of war, when is war justified, our shared goals with questionable countries like Saudi Arabia (Port of Dubai, anyone?), not to mention the basic questions about issues like Supreme Court justices, abortion, gun control, stem cell research, gay rights, the right to imminent domain...there are more questions that have been raised in the past 8 years about the fundamental values of this country than at any time in our nation's history since the Civil War.  And not a single question raised over the past 8 years was asked tonight in any of those little cue cards.

Instead of a wide range of topics, we were given 90 minutes to trudge over the exact same talking points, the same questions, the same stump speeches, and the same pot shots that we saw two weeks ago.  And call me crazy, but I feel like we're spinning our wheels talking about change, hope, reform, and regulation when nobody even knows what the hell America is anymore.  There's a word for when leaders continue spinning rhetoric to drown out substantial criticism, it's called propaganda.

"Is Russia an evil empire?"  Brilliant question.  Please, let's finish up our discussions from the 1984 presidential debate and then maybe we can listen to Banarama and watch that new movie Teen Wolf.  And don't give me that "Shhhh... let's not rock the boat until Obama's in office" argument because it's indicative of the kind of weakness that put us here in the first place.  Obama is not magic.  Him winning this election doesn't make these questions vanish, nor does it pull a philosophical resolution from any hat.

I like Obama.  I believe that he has a capacity to connect to voters that is inspiring and it could be used for some great good.  But it's foolish to project onto any one person what you think their judgments might be based upon your assumptions and not their word.  And anybody who cares more about a single man winning an election than the answers to these basic fundamental questions deserves an administration as truly terrible as the one we're currently suffering.

I think that the moderators in these past two debates have been mediocre at best.  The McCain attack on tough questioning has turned what should be a tough interview into a series of interspersed stump speeches where both candidates have been allowed to dictate the discussion, to everybody's detriment.  If I went in to a job interview, and told the interviewer that I wasn't going to answer his question I would be immediately rejected for that job.

These tickets have become so studded with hero worship and cushy bipartisanship that the moderators seem to be sitting in admiration rather than providing the harsh scrutiny that's needed to dig deeper than the rhetoric.  This has allowed both candidates to stick strictly to their talking points and has not addressed anything but poise and ability to speak.  If a candidate doesn't answer a question you don't move on, you keep asking the question again and again until they answer it.  It lacks any good journalism.  Nothing has been revealed about these candidates that we didn't already know, it provides no incite but what the campaign wants us to believe.

I'm not suggesting that the moderator should be bullying the candidates into a corner, the candidates should be doing that to each other, but when they aren't it's the moderators job to keep picking at the truth until its revealed.

She's a freakin' squirrel when it comes to this debate.  She's so fast that she's debating questions from other debates.  It's like she split into three time-shifting Palin's.

My wife was watching the Obama video they used prior to his convention speech on YouTube, and I hadn't noticed this when it aired but they used the INTO THE WILD soundtrack at the end.  I thought that was pretty potent.  Just thought I'd share that for anyone who has the same soft spot for that movie/soundtrack that I do.

The giddy excitement of Democrats waiting for the Palin train wreck at tomorrow's debate has reached a pitch that we haven't seen since...well, since a month ago prior to the Republican Convention.  And we made the same mistake then.  We underestimated Palin's appeal.  If I were the Obama team I would be extremely worried about this event.

It's very easy to believe that the majority of the public sees things exactly your way.  I was sure after seeing previews for Meet the Spartans that there wasn't a chance in hell any rational person would subject themselves to that type of punishment.  But they did.  It made over 100 million.  Well over.  Perceptions vary greatly depending upon what you want to see in something.  For Palin supporter's, it's all about her.  They like her lack of experience, they like her hokie nature.  They like that she's this simple gal from Alaska with an accent a bunch of kids.  These are women who are sick of having been told that Hillary Clinton is the independent woman's archetype.  They see Palin as representing who they are.

Nobody expects much from Palin tomorrow.  In fact, they expect so little that nobody is even bothering to wonder what her strategy is.  That might be fine if she were debating somebody with the steady cool of Barrack Obama, but she's debating Joe Biden, and let's face it.  He isn't the brightest Crayon in the box when he speaks.  He's kind of a jabberwocky.  If I were coaching Palin I would tell her to give short answers, to allow Biden to dominate, and to pick one key social subject to wait for to strike a blow on.  And that's all it would take.

It doesn't matter if Palin answers in hums and josana's, if she gets one good shot in that's all it will take to rile her base up again.  They don't care about the economy, they care about her.  They don't care about Pakistan, they care about her.  In a way, it's kind of like the movie Rocky.  If she proves she can sustain until the end, even if she gets banged up, it will be considered a moral victory for her group.

The bailout is going to stop dominating the 24 News cycle very soon.  This leaves a huge gap in issues for Palin to squeeze through with a victory tomorrow night, and would create the exact same condition for the shift in polls that saw McCain on top for two weeks.  Seriously, stop underestimating Palin.

In mythology the "Harpy" was a winged death spirit which resembled an eagle with a human head.  Seen in 19th century wood carvings, this tusked beast was known to roam the countryside snatching food.  (check out the film Jason and the Argonauts, great example).  And the moment that Bush created this bailout scheme, Pelosi curled her little talons around it and carried it off to Congress.

I'm absolutely ashamed of this party right now.  Democrats.  Yes, you!  Here is a bill, another classic piece of George W. Bush garbage which the vast majority of Americans, Democrat and Republican, see as being Iraq in the form of a bailout bill, and she polishes it, adds a little spit-shine, and suddenly we're supposed to admire her support of it because Democrats spent a few days adding some basic common-sense provisions to it?

Progressives should not be supporting this bill.  They should be outraged that this party would even consider signing their names to it.  But because this is an election year, and because it gives this absolutely useless Democratic congress an opportunity to appear as if they got something accomplished, Democrats are supposed to suddenly support it because it will make Republicans look bad?

I'm glad the Republicans smacked this down.  I'm glad that most free-thinking Democrats still don't support it.  I'm proud that the American people are finally wise enough, after 8 years of being sheep-herded into hasty decisions with lies, have finally come together and told their leaders that they won't be scared into believing that 2+2=5.  We have back bone and we won't be intimidated by talking heads and economic terrorism.

I'm a voter first and a Democrat second.  And it's absolutely SHAMEFUL the amount of spin that the Democratic party has put on this bailout to better themselves.  It's shameful that at the end of this president's term, one of the worst in our history, that they would side with him against their own constituents, and it's shameful that the party would, after having failed on everything from Iraq to Children's Health Care, would ask us to co-sign this pack of lies with our support.

Any Democrat that follows the lead of this harpy as she attempts to help the President snatch this one does not have my support.

Stop War In Iraq: 0
Restrict Presidential Power: 0
Pass Children's Health Care: 0

Pass FISA: 1
Bailout Wall Steet: 1
Offshore Drilling: 1

Can we just abandon Pelosi out in the woods like a pet we don't want anymore?

Let me walk you through an idea I had for an advertisement for a financial institution, maybe a bank.  It starts with a young girl (NOT Sarah Palin, I'm done), it shows the young girl now a teenager graduating from high school.  Now she's a woman getting married.  Now her and her husband stand outside what we presume to be their first home.  Now she's pushing out a bunch of stupid kids (Maybe Palin, heh heh, okay I'm not done), and now her kids are growing up and moving into their first homes.  And years later, her and her husband sit in rocking chairs on the deck of their home.  Now a man steps forward.  Smiling.  Trusting.  And the message?  That on every step of your life's journey he was there with you.  This is followed by the aforementioned financial institution's logo across the screen.

If my idea sounds entirely unoriginal it's probably because you've seen it a thousand times in one form or another.  It's the message which reminds the viewer of the services that banks and lending insitutions provide:  Sound financial advice.  We'll work through this together and find what's right for you.  And in many ways the message is very similar to what one would like to believe of other trusted experts, namely doctors or attorneys.  They provide solutions.  If the individual knew as much as the specialist or expert he wouldn't need their advice.  This is not the same as getting a blowing credit on a television or purchasing a new car that you can't afford, a home is a major life decision and it requires sound advice from a person whose sole duty is to provide it.

What I'd like to know is why I constantly hear politicians and economists and other talking heads blaming people who took out loans they couldn't afford to buy houses that were far out of their price range.  While we live in an information age that allows everyone greater access to the same tools used by professionals, we are not all professionals in these areas.  If a person goes to a bank because they are looking to buy a home they place trust into that institution to use a degree of professional scrutiny and work out a solution that is right for them.  If it's out of their price range or they can't afford it or there's any risk, that's the exact point at which we expect the expert to speak up and provide a different solution.

Some have used the term "predatory lending", which is misleading.  It assumes that there was a small portion of Guy Smiley Trickster's out there who were going door-to-door in poor neighborhoods with promises of a better tomorrow if you just "signed here" (those would be the Army recruiters).  In truth I think that most of those who took out these bad loans were people who looked at the economic conditions around them and went to the bank to see if this was something they could be a part of.  They expected scrutiny.  They expected to be placed under a microscope.  But they expected that within their own financial circumstances the person they were speaking to would provide a solution that was right for them.  Blame them for not being skeptical enough, but don't blame them for being misinformed.

What I see are a number of politicians and leaders throwing the foreclosed under the bus to appease this deep sensibility we have in this country of hating anybody who has had an easier time acheiving something than they did  (just look at people discuss Affirmative Action).  I think this goes back to the Great Depression, and a lot of old hawks whose daddies had to live in boxcars and fight each other over pieces of string cheese.  And ironicallly enough, while these old bastards lived through an era where pensions and social security was granted without individual responsibilty, the rest of us live in an age of total insecurity where we have to make each decision for ourselves and hope that our decisions are well-informed. So is expecting that level of accountability from the homeowner fair?

We have a health care crisis.  Speaking from personal experience I constantly see people getting treatments, expensive treatments, that are completely inappropriate that would yield very little results.  But the doctors push for them anyways and the patients want to see every option exhausted regardless of whether they can afford it.  Surely we wouldn't begrudge the patient for that (not yet).  But should we apply the "it's all on you" philosophy of banking to the health care crisis?  Is the patient responsible for his own diagnosis, irregardless of what the doctor is pushing?  When will these leaders start blaming people who got themselves into medical debt for not having the foresight to look beyond what advice was being provided by their doctor?

This may be off topic, but I was listening to Air America today (I'm a sucker for pain, amirite?) and they kept talking about this Air America Cruise in the coming months.  I heard Rachel Maddow urging me to sign up to get a cabin aboard the ship.  There will be panels on important progressive issues.  There will be drinks.  You can sit on a deck and hear about important liberal beliefs.

I thought about it.  I think I would rather spend 7 days on the Titanic's maiden voyage being mouth-raped by Chewbacca than trapped on a boat hearing about global policy and gun control.

Not that I have anything against the progressive cause, but what kind of sick freak pays to get aboard a boat full of mouthy liberals?  I'm liberal and I can't stand them.

Did McCain really just say that this bailout is as a result of failures on Main Street?

It was a winter's day, and the frost stuck to the windshield of my old Ford truck like Winter rust as I pulled up the driveway to the Palin house. I had to ring the doorbell twice, and when the door opened, she was standing there. "Miss Palin?" I gulped. "Sorry, I was just in the shower. Are you here to fix the cable?" She asked. I became nervous. There was the luscious Sarah Palin, wrapped like a slippery banana in a white towel. Her hair still dripping wet. Beads of water on the nape of her neck. Steam fogging the lenses of her glasses. "Don't worry. My husband Todd is out fishing," she said, motioning me to come in. "I hope you brought your tool box," she said, in a suggestive manner. I stepped inside the house, wiping my feet off on their mat. "We're having all kinds of remodeling done this week," she said as she sat on the couch. "A boy just like you was here earlier this week laying carpet." "So where is the cable box?" I asked, feeling the temperature rise inside me. She motioned to a wall unit across from the couch where she was sitting. I stepped carefully across the new carpet and began turning her television to work on the cable. Fox News anchor Michelle Malkin was on the screen, talking about the Iraq War. "Do you follow politics?" She asked, as she dabbed her hair with her towel. "Not really." I answered, knowing what work needed to be done. "I've been following this surge," she said. "It's interesting the type of men who look at a rough situation and think that we need to pull out." She pulled her towel down. "Do YOU believe in pulling out?" She said, biting her lip...