When Bush took office in 2001, the government had a projected $5.6 trillion, 10-year surplus, which would translate into at least $560 billion per year. By the end of 2002, the government had a deficit of $158 billion. This, in just about one year of being in office. At the end of his term in office, Bush leaves with a record $1.2 trillion budget deficit, most of it based on needless tax cuts for the rich, and starting two wars, one with maybe a real purpose, one completely for no reason.

Even as the last months are playing out, the Bush government came up with a $700 billion giveaway to more rich people, bailing out Wall Street, banks, lending institutions and the like, with absolutely no oversight (despite the pretend show of congress "mandating" oversight, but getting none). Let's try to keep into perspective the fact that when the banks that received some of this money were asked to identify how it was used, they declined to give any information. Taking taxpayer money, and refusing to account for it, all the while giving their CEO's large pay and other performance packages (despite said performance being of the kind that put this economy into the shitter in the first place) is just the tip of level of incompetence of the Bush Admnistration's financial policies.

Tax rebates don't help the economy. Tax cuts have not helped the economy. Giving out free taxpayer money to rich people/corporations has not helped the economy.

Today is my third year anniversary of my first blog post, which you can re-read here. Not only was it a featured post on MyDD, which I cross-blogged it at, MyDD nominated it for a Koufax award as best post of the year. Although I most certainly didn't win, it was nonetheless, extremely gratifying to me.

I find it funny that three years later, my still Republican ex best friend is clueless. Here is an email he sent me on November 16, 2007, via a Yahoo email address that I give/gave out when I was using AOL as my blogosphere.

Yeah, I actually thought people on AOL actually had the ability to use their brains, but I have been proven wrong (with the exception of DJ Rix!)

My first year's worth of posts have been fun for me to read over, as I was very much fired up. However, the second year that I started blogging was about the third year for Dkos., MyDD, Firedoglake, etc., and as we all know, these blogs became huge group blogs. As a result, I was not able to compete with their ability to break stories, as most worked on ads, fund raising, and pretty much became full time activities on their own. I still read them daily, but because I hold a full time job, it is patently impossible for me to be on the web scouring for stories to beat these guys, and as a result, my political posts were more redundant than original. I still like the blogging format, have a loyal following, and have enjoyed expanding my topics to music and other areas of interest to me.

Cross-posted at Carrie's Bar & Grill.

I ended up attending the rally today, not necessarily by choice, but because I live at the epicenter of the end of the march, La Brea and Wilshire Blvds., and couldn't get into work this morning.

I've blogged at the Bar & Grill, so go give it a look, and check out the pictures.

It has been one year now since my first entry into the blogosphere. What prompted me, it's hard to say. An overall dissatisfaction with politics, in general, and with the Bushites, in particular would rank in the top three. Mostly, it was wanting simply to keep a few friends of mine politically informed without inundating their email boxes with countless links to stories I felt had relevance.

Once I had decided to blog, I concentrated on what would be my very first post. After Bush was installed in the White House in 2000, my relationship with my best friend started to sour. He became more and more openly bigoted and extreme, and it alienated me. When I had the audacity to feel hope that the 2004 election would vindicate those of us who believed Bush was in the White House illegally, he mocked me, and took personal pot shots at me. It was sort of like being swift-boated by my own friend. So, I had to end the friendship, and I did my first post (as well as my first diary at MyDD) about the ending of that friendship over political partisanship.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank whomever nominated my post, An Ode To My Republican Ex Best Friend for Best Posts in the Lefty Blogosphere.

It was my very first post on my blog, Carrie's Bar & Grill, and was cross-posted here at MyDD as my very first diary.

I am honored that it was considered worthy of a nomination from MyDD.  

I live across the street from a gasoline station, and from the kitchen sink window you can view the entire station, including the gas price sign.  As a result, I have unwittingly become aware of how often, and by how much, gas prices go up and down regularly.

I first noticed a significant drop in the price around the period just before the 4th of July weekend this year, from about $2.63 a gallon, to $2.47 a gallon.  Then, for the next sixty days, up until September 4, 2005, gasoline prices rose an average of one cent a day, or 60 cents for that period, from $2.47 to $3.07.  I have been keeping track of the price shifts on my recurring post entitled Take A Bus, It's Cheaper.

In late September, I read a headline entitled U.S. Retail Gas Prices Drop 20 Cents which caught my eye.  According to the article, the claim was that price had dropped an average of 20 cents, to $2.84 a gallon.  I didn't pay much attention to the article at the time, but bookmarked it for future reference.  The price drop did not reflect what I was seeing in my area, but I was not going to conclude that it did not apply elsewhere.

And then I read today, under the headline entitled Average U.S. Gas Prices Drop 25 Cents, that the price had dropped an average of 25 cents in the past two weeks, to $2.69 a gallon.  That would indicate that the price of gasoline has dropped around 45 cents over the past two months, and that simply is just not true.  On its face, if you simply subtract $2.69 from $2.84, that's only 15 cents, and the article does not specify that the price of gasoline increased by 10 cents a gallon first, in order for it to have dropped 25 cents.

Well, now the truth comes out, about the Superdome and the Convention Center in New Orleans. It seems that all those reports of roving gangs, murders and rapes of children were simply rumors. Wow, how could that be? Oh, I know, it was a town full of black people, and we all know that black people, in that type of situation, just can't control themselves.

I was sickened by all the allegations of rapes and murders and such, especially when it became obvious to THIS astute viewer that the reporters could find NO ONE to corroborate these findings from personal experience. And now, when the workers finally come in to clean up the mess at the Superdome and the Convention Center, what do they find? Six dead bodies at the Superdome, but no dead babies and no rape victims. And how many bodies at the Convention Center? Just four.

No Shit, Sherlock! The media just tried like the dickens to portray New Orleans as an angry, uncontrollable black peoples mob, where every white person should fear for their lives. And they say race had nothing to do with the slow response in New Orleans. My ass.