I know a lot of people do it, but that doesn't mean I agree with it. Don't steal comics, buy them, because now I have to deal with Batgirl being cancelled due to low sales, (and I KNOW a lot of you read her books!). I guess anyone who doesn't spend money on comics doesn't really have the right to complain, but I figure if you love something then you would support it. Particularly in the time we are living now. The industry is waning. I'm the only girl I know that reads Batman! People look at me like I'm crazy! Speaking of which, is there anything the industry can do to sell itself to a wider audience?

Is a free forum tool. How hard is it to go back and fix the words that are underlined  before you post something in the forums? AND it's free. There are no excuses.

Nuff said!

2 weeks ago the AIG and Lehman Brothers, 2 of the most reputable banks in the United States both fell to pieces. Lehman Brothers claimed bankruptcy and was bought out by BoA. So in the midst of a housing crisis and a bank crisis, what do these American banks do? They ask for a bail out. What's a bail out?
Many American banks could no longer afford to release loans to the American people who wanted to purchase homes because they simply did not have the backing of the FHA anymore. Previously, loans had been given to people who wanted to purchase homes but that realistically couldn't afford them because they were insured by the FHA. So, what's the FHA? The FHA is a government funded organization that backs loans that are given out by banks by up to 90 percent. This means that the banks are only responsible for less than 10% of the loans that they are approving. Anyway…
A few weeks ago Congress gave American banks a bail out. This cash was meant to go towards loans to be given out by the banks to people looking to purchase houses, that could not obtain a loan previously.  OKAY. Now that that's out of the way…This cash that was given to the banks was not specified by Congress, and therefore rather than using the money to disperse loans and boost the housing market; many of these banks paid back their shareholders that had lost money in stocks.  ALRIGHT. I understand that stocks are the essence of the American economy, however, when anyone purchases stocks they are inevitably taking a risk in LOSING THAT MONEY.  The people that had stocks and shares in Lehman and AIG really can't complain because they knew when they bought those shares that they were taking a risk and "banking" on the free market economy to work. The economy is bound to fluctuate, and there is no reason why rich people should be getting money from the bail out simply because they lost money in the economic crisis. When you buy stocks, you are taking a risk. If you don't like it, then don't invest in stocks! 
Contrary to popular belief, the economic crisis we are experiencing isn't simply a result of  George Bush and a Republican Congress. Rather, this is the malfunction of the American Economic system itself. We live in a Free Market economy. This is what we have learned to be proud of over the years; however, having an economy that is as unregulated like that of the United States, we are learning, isn't exactly a GOOD THING ALL THE TIME. If Congress wants to bail out these banks with tax dollars that we as Americans don't EVEN HAVE YET, then perhaps they should have been more specific with what our cash was going to be used for. Instead, Congress passed the bill, not specifying how that bail out money was going to be used. Thus allowing the banks to pay off share holders that lost money when the banks fell. This is, in my opinion, immoral. We need to boost the housing economy. We need to give the working class a reason to be consumers again. We need to stop allowing the free market to benefit the wealthy!

Should superhuman individuals be forced to register with the Superhuman registration act?  OF COURSE.

I'm speaking in realistic terms here. I don't care who you are, but in a state of crisis, citizens (and I mean all citizens) should understand that some of their civil rights and liberties will be revoked; and that means their identities. The fact of the matter is, you may not like the idea, but how else do you expect a government to hold out and maintain control over it's people during a time of crisis? Not to mention the fact that simply because the government knows of the real life identities of these superhumans does not necessarily mean that it will give up their secret identities and reveal them. Look at the CIA and FBI? What about the United States Witness Protection program? The government knows the identites of its secret service agents and they never (well rarely ever) get in a position where they disclose the identities of these individuals. Just because the government/military knows the identities of these superhumans in no way indicates that they will disclose their personal information. Those are two completely separate issues.

Yup.

The Dems: From a Moderately Liberal Republican Perspective:

Word on the street has been (rather consistently) that Obama has the upper hand in the face off for the democratic candidate considering he's up by more Superdelegates. I just want to clear something up. I have heard all too often that Hillary should drop out of the race because she won't manage to garner the support in representation. I'll beg to differ.

The most recent statistic from POLITICO (the same people who bring you the democratic debates,) is that Hillary is down by only 13 delegates at 270.5 compared to Obama's 293.5. That's nothing. Meanwhile there are still 187 superdelegates who are still uncommitted to any particular candidate, which means an additional 187 of them are up for grabs. The tables can turn at any point in time...

Now that we've cleared that up...

John McCain is the bottom feeder, lowest of the low in terms of prospective Republican Presidential candidates. Now, I'm a strict Constitutionalist, so to me, McCain is relatively unimpressive. The only good thing I have seen him do recently has been his attempt to disassociate himself from the current President. (I may be the only person laughing when I say that, but...)

I still support (wholeheartedly) Ron Paul who would, in my opinion continue to make the issue of economic stability of this country top priority, moving the focus away from Iraq. However, I don't think pulling out completely would be a good idea; (If you've seen "Charlie Wilson's War" or read my previous post, you already know why). Why Ron Paul? Because he's an economist and he would stop borrowing millions in CREDIT from communist countries like CHINA which may possibly be, the absolute best thing this country can do for itself. Will we eventually become the next U.S.S.R, with thousands of miles of land and no economic stability to show for it? I'm sorry, but I don't want to be standing in a line for three hours to buy one roll of toilet paper. (I know, it seems far fetched, but an ultimate fall from grace can virtually take no time at all).

I am here to beg you (if anyone gets to this point in reading my blog) to please think hard about who you are putting in office. Go beyond gender and racial divides and make a decision based on an understanding that the next four years can make or break this country for a long time. We are witnessing history, and it's scary as hell.

Next Time: Russia's New Fascist Regime: What happens when the "President" changes the constitution of his country to stay in office longer, and the people don't lift a finger or say a word to stop him...

It's funny. Whenever I turn on the news to watch coverage of the war on Iraq, (which is limited in comparison to any other war the United States has waged as of late,) I rarely hear about why we have American soldiers in Iraq.

If I begged the question "what is the purpose of the Iraq war" 4 years ago, my answer would have been "weapons of mass destruction," right? That is considerably different than the answer we get today.

So if you came up to me in the street and said, "hey Sara, why are we in Iraq?"

I would regurgitate some nonsense about maintaining democracy in Iraq; which you have probably heard countless times watching the O'Reilly Factor or Countdown with Keith Olberman.

But, why are we in Iraq?

I'm not going to go into the conspiracy theories behind the Iraq war because they are in my opinion, no matter how tempting, completely irrelevant; (we won't really know everything until Bush's files are disclosed years after his death, so looking into conspiracy theories now is a waste of time). Instead, lets take a look at the purpose of the Iraq war from the perspective of the American media, and lets just say that we really are in Iraq to maintain democracy.

First of all, I find it interesting that the "democratic government" in Iraq had been instilled by the American government. Now I'm no expert on Democracy, but why do I sense that this looks less like a democracy and more like imperialism?

Just because you set up voting machines in a country does not automatically make you a democracy.

Example:

The average person knows enough about Venezuela and President Hugo Chavez to make an assumption about whether or not Venezuela is a democracy. Well, if you take into account that Venezuela has held elections regularly (even recently,) then yeah, it's a democracy because the people are allowed to vote.

But it isn't really.

This past December, Chavez tried to completely topple whatever "democratic structure" he had in his government when he "marginally lost a December referendum" that would have virtually given him unlimited power as the head of the state. That sounds a lot like a dictatorship to me...

All over the world we are seeing democratic government's fail, and countless pseudo democracies put on a show on the world stage. However, what is really going on is that democracy is failing. Are we as individuals losing sight of what really makes a democracy?

Did we learn anything from the cold war? Thinking about it in these terms, and no matter how bad we may feel for our American soldiers overseas we have to recognize that Bush may not be doing the worst thing by keeping the troops there. Until Iraq has maintained a stable democracy, the threat of the government being overthrown lessens considerably. And let me tell you, governments get overthrown all of the time, and considering the region it is located, Iraq is highly susceptible to being overthrown.

Iraq is too unstable of a region to bring our troops home without first ensuring that the region has at least achieved some level of stability. However, keeping our soldiers there acting as a civil police force to the Iraqi people is getting us absolutely nowhere and the notion that our trained military is policing the city of Baghdad is completely ludicrous.

Why aren't we helping them help themselves so that we can just get the hell out of there? The longer we are there the more money we borrow to spend there and the deeper we fall into that bottomless pit of debt.