Icewind's Ramblings

How is the fall of western civilization going for you? Just as we were collectively getting over the fear of terrorism in this country it has now been replaced with the fear of being fired. Stores are closing all over the country, the Big 3 automakers are begging for loans to keep their high priced car companies afloat all the while many unemployment websites are crashing under the heavy demand from those out of working looking to get back into the workforce. And the banks seem to be getting away with the biggest theft in history. I guess sadly we are watching those (balloon) payments come due for our way of life folks. Money has been the ‘scorecard’ here for a while. Do you remember the ending of the movie Fight Club? It was not my cup of tea but they blew up the buildings that housed the computers for the credit industry and banks. The idea was simple. Destroy everyone’s financial records and we all start over from scratch. Well . . . Stores . ...

Friday saw the failure in the Senate of agreeing to bailout the auto industry’s Big 3. The world won’t end, nor will the US auto industry disappear without this bailout to GM and Chrysler. The Democrats and the UAW would like us to believe just the opposite. There is the rumor that Bush will fork over some of the 700 Billion for the banking industry to keep this from happening as a ‘Not on my watch’ last ditch effort. Hopefully he won’t do that either and let Free Enterprise run its course. The raping of taxpayers has been delayed for at least 3 weeks. The Senate was very close with this ‘loan to nowhere’ for GM and Chrysler & the UAW. You know what brought down the deal? This shouldn’t surprise anyone - it was the United Auto Workers (UAW). UAW is really more concerned with lining their own pockets vs. saving a company and thus their member’s jobs. Now I do hate to see people going into the ranks of unemployment having been through that m...

It was a long drawn out campaign for both sides and to be honest I’m kinda tired of all of this now. But I know I will keep watching, reading all I can to learn and stay informed of the issues. Because I know, that despite the divides that politics can create, despite the unrest from all sides, the strained tensions that develop . . . politics ultimately DO bring out the good in people if we let it. Politics allows everyone to put our heart on our sleeve, to illustrate what we believe matters. It allows us to talk of subjects we have views on but may not know how to bring up . . . topics of abortion, of gun control, government size, wars and the environment. It provides the perfect opportunity to believe with every ounce of you in something outside yourself. Politics sometimes brings out great people . . . it’s given us Churchill and Trudeau, FDR, Mandela and the Kennedy’s. Politics has provided a platform to address social injustices . . . to highlight inequaliti...

It has been a long grueling week here in Alaska . It ran the gamut from being pretty cold for this time of year with it in single digits or just below zero in the mornings while I looked at the weather map on the Today Show showing that Alaska was “Above Normal” so I have no idea where they were getting their information. Driving to work in the darkness was somewhat deceiving with the ‘black ice’ covering the ground several mornings that we had ice fog around the city. The clear nights with the cold temperatures, no wind, and the inlet close-by made for some tough driving conditions for many people. We had a couple small snow flurries which most hoped that it would warm up a bit and have the heavens cut loose with a nice fresh snowfall before the Holiday . Fresh snow cleans everything up for a bit and makes things have that ‘wintry’ look. Work tried to beat me down this week as I tried to keep up with everything going on. Multiple projects, several ...