Monkey from Hell Shot While Attempting to EAT a Police Officer: What Was Owner Thinking?

Monkeys are not pets.

And a monkey that is kept as one will eventually go NUTS. And someone will get HURT. It's only a matter of time, according to experts.

Such was the case with a 200 pound monkey that went nuts and attacked a friend of it's owner, partially EATING HER ALIVE before escaping and going after Connecticut police officers who came to put a stop to the carnage.

The enraged monkey pursued the police officers; one officer dove inside a patrol car and slammed the door shut. The monkey tried to open the passenger side door, broke off the mirror and then went around to the driver's side, which was unlocked and entered the vehicle. The officer drew his sidearm and opened fire, fatally wounding the monkey.

The victim remains in critical condition.

What on earth was this person thinking, having a wild animal like that outside of a zoo? This is sheer stupidity and a disaster waiting to happen, which DID.

I suppose PETA's going to protest the fact that the monkey didn't get to EAT the police officer too and got shot for his troubles. LUNACY!

Time to Repeal the $850 Billion Bailout Mistake: It Isn't Working

I wrote the following in the last couple of months:

September 24th: I think that $700 billion is just the start and they'll come back and ask for another $500-$750 billion in six months. We can't afford that!

September 28th: No $700 billion ever made can stop a crash of a financial system that people have lost their trust in and believe is unstable.

October 3rd: And we've only seen the beginning of this bailout. Now everyone will want one too.

October 5th: Two states--California and Massachusetts--want money as well. The floodgates are now open; where will this end? And how many states will try to climb on this gravy train?

October 6th: Welcome to the dark side of globalization....This has been the strangest bill in quite a while; the size of it is HUGE; Wall Street didn't want it, the politicians say they didn't want it but attached $150 billion in pork to buy off their colleagues to vote for it, Wall Street put it's reaction on public display by losing hundreds of points on the days that the House and Senate voted on this bill; then they said it probably wasn't the fix that was needed. Then Wall Street lost hundreds of points more over worry that the money won't come fast enough. And the taxpayer's on the hook for the entire $850 billion package with little to no hope for a return.

Then I took a hiatus to see if this $850 billion mistake was the miracle cure that would save us. What happened?

Since the signing of the bailout of Wall Street's Folly, the DJIA has lost another 1,950+ points. The federal government increased it's bailout of AIG from $85 billion to $150 billion. Now they're talking about bailing out the auto industry. And many companies that have been thrown a lifeline are sustaining HUGE quarterly losses.

And the U.S. government is up to about $5 trillion in additional debt, trying to solve this mess.

The bailout isn't working; the money's being eaten like candy, and the problems are continuing to cause mayhem in the American and global economies. I get the impression that this bailout money is being thrown away.

They need to repeal the entire mess. The bailout of Wall Street's Folly was ill-conceived, and we simply cannot afford to bail out industry after industry, as the politicians now seem to be hell-bent on doing.

Government Needs to Take Steps to Ensure That Current Wall Street Trouble Doesn't Happen Again

I've been holding off commenting on the current Wall Street crisis until I could understand what was happening and why. Here's how it breaks down:

1. People wanted to buy houses that were too expensive for them.
2. Mortgage companies wanted people to buy expensive houses too.
3. Banks lowered their standards to a point that people didn't even have to show that they had a job or could afford the monthly payments.
4. People got the loans and "bought" their houses with a mortgage.
   
5. Investment banks used a system referred to as "leveraging", which means that they borrowed money from other banks and countries to buy up the mortgages so that they would receive the income from the borrower. Since the interest rate on the mortgage was higher than the interest rate on the loan that the investment bank took out to purchase the mortgage, a profit would be made by the investment bank.
6. Some banks kept borrowing money to buy up more mortgages and make more money. Several of the big banks accumulated debt more than thirty times their TOTAL value.
7. Housing collapse began; people began to default on their mortgages.
8. So many people defaulted that the banks couldn't pay back their own debts that they had accumulated.
9. "Toxic debt" was the term coined to describe the debts that the investment banks accumulated to buy up mortgages.
10. On Friday, President Bush announced that the government would buy up the "toxic debt" to shore up the faltering financial sector. The U.S. taxpayer gets stuck with the trillion-dollar bailout. Some people need to go to JAIL.
    

That's it in a nutshell.

And I am not in favor of this move until we're told EXACTLY how much this is going to cost.

There's plenty of blame to go around:

• People shouldn't have taken out loans that were beyond their ability to pay back.
• The banks should NEVER have allowed these loans to be authorized.
• The government should NEVER have eased the leverage restrictions that were in place until the late 1990s. This was a total screw-up.
• Both parties are to blame as well. The party that SHOULD have seen this crisis coming DIDN'T, and the party that did didn't do ANYTHING about it.
  
• In addition, the Fed should have done much more to keep the dollar strong, which is their MANDATE.
• The government should have been cutting expenses at the same rate as their tax cuts. $1 of tax cuts should have translated into at least $1 of spending cuts. They should have been cutting our $10 trillion debt load up to a week ago, before committing the government to an additional $1.5 trillion (minimum) that they've taken up to save Fannie May, Freddie Mac, and all the banks that have failed in 2008. Put another way, this week has been the most expensive government spending surge in HISTORY.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has spent $600 billion in 2008. It has $30 to $45 billion left in reserves, which is approaching the minimum mandated by federal law. What happens if another 10-20 banks go under and they each have $3 billion in covered deposits?

Who's leveraging the GOVERNMENT??!

Some People Need to CHILL: They're Creating the Very Gas Shortage That They're Afraid Of

There's been a great deal of rumor-mongering going on today, and it's created a self-fulfilling prophecy.

People are afraid that gas will hit $5 or $6 a gallon overnight; what a bunch of BULLSHIT! That wouldn't have happened, but since so many people went out and panic-bought fuel today, they're creating the very shortage that they're afraid of. And now there's a possibility that gas will hit $5 in the coming days and weeks because of the panic buying AND the potential disruption, which probably wouldn't have been so bad on it's own.

According to WLNS, the police had to be called to at least one gas station in the Lansing area today, to break up fights between drivers. State officials are telling everyone to follow their normal routines when it comes to fill-ups as it will minimize any ACTUAL disruptions in the fuel supply from Hurricane Ike.

People need to remember that as demand exceeds supply, the price will increase. If the hurricane tears up oil production and disrupts the supply, that's one thing. But for us to panic-buy and reduce the available supply faster than it can be replenished, and the price skyrockets as a result--without the price gouging factor--then we've shot ourselves in the a$$.

Shame, shame.

Full-Circle: DNC Restores Votes Stolen From Michigan and Florida

The primary voting drama that happened between Florida, Michigan and the Democratic National Committee has come full-circle. As had been hoped, the DNC restored full-strength voting rights to Michigan and Florida at the request of Barack Obama.

They had stripped the two states of all their delegates to this week's Democratic National Convention in Denver as both states had primary elections prior to Super Tuesday. After much screaming, both states had half-strength votes restored to them in May, and full-strength votes restored as of today.

Finally, some common sense coming out of the DNC. Those voting rights should never have been taken away in the first place; their own rules say that those states who have pre-Super Tuesday elections will be penalized with a 50% loss of voting delegates, not 100%.

Is candidate "undecided" from Michigan going to be represented at the DNC too? That was one of the more ridiculous things to come out of the election in Michigan. They should have kept all the names on the ballot, like they did in Florida, instead of taking them off and putting "undecided" on there.

Well, we just completed sixteen days of Olympics on TV. Now we'll have eight full days of hot air coming from Denver and St. Paul over the next two weeks. THERE'S a global warming catastrophe! Everyone had better go out and buy carbon credits so that the temperature of the planet doesn't go through the roof during the conventions!

While everyone's out purchasing their carbon credits, I also have a bridge in Brooklyn that I'd like to sell you....

Taser Duel in Colorado over Parking Spot: At Least They're Both Still Alive

Two men got into an argument over an illegally parked vehicle and whipped out their Tasers, shocking one another stupid. The instigator was arrested.

Well, it's a better outcome than having these guys pull out handguns and start blasting away at one another, with the bullets hitting whoever or whatever is in the way. Both men are alive and none the worse for their experience.

Too bad it's not on video. It would help the authorities sort out the stories that both men are telling.

Lots of Videos of Chinese Flame Protection Unit in Action

And in the following video, which is entirely in French, it was not French officials who doused the flame and leaving the runners speechless--it was the Chinese. The broadcast is in French.



So much for unity. Sure looked like the Chinese vs. everyone else, including the London police and the French runners.

Two Judges Threaten to Have the Other Arrested Over Scheduling Dispute: Now THAT'S Courtroom Drama

Two court judges engaged in an argument over scheduling of the same courtroom threatened to issue contempt of court warrants against the other, which could have lead to both of them being arrested.

Now THAT would have been funny! They should proceed with their threats immediately. Some diabolical genius would probably be able to sell tickets for the public to come watch their tax dollars hard at work.

Someone ought to go down there with a couple of push-pins and let some of the hot air out of that courthouse.

Great Dane Shoots Owner: Don't Blame the Dog

It seems like there is a story such as this one in the media every so often; this one was a little different due to the comments of the "victim's" fiance.

A Great Dane bumped an end-table which had a loaded handgun on it. The gun fell off the table and went off with the impact. The round hit the owner, requiring him to be rushed to the hospital, where he's in critical condition with a gunshot wound to the back.

The fiance says she's afraid of what he will do to the dog when he gets out of the hospital.

Seems to me that he should leave the dog alone; it wasn't the dog's handgun; the dog didn't load the gun and leave it where it could be knocked off the table. I also wonder if the gun's safety was on or off. The dog's not responsible for that either.

Improper handling and storage of the gun is responsible. In other words, the owner is responsible. If what the fiance is saying is correct, a few anger management courses and firearm training classes might be in order here.