Economy, Budget, Spying - Fuck it - Surf

Yes, each day brings a whole new pile of shit, and my rant-o-meter is off scale. So I say - surf. I thought the swell was gone last Tuesday, and it would be flat until the weekend swell - but I was stoked to catch the one day swell that showed Wednesday. Got some fun waves at Second Bowl and was moving enough not to get bone-chilled. Goose Brown was there to catch the action, and given the talent, in-coming tide, and great afternoon sun, I'm sure he spliced some nice frames. The swell was significantly smaller the next day - I eeked out some lines at Sharks, but nothing to write about. Friday was smaller, but the weekend swell showed - along with a vigorous storm and victory at sea. Capitola was brown - and the brown streak extended all along the point. Remember - brown equals high turbidity equals high concentrations of pathogens. Sunday saw continued rage and an ever enlarging brown envelope. Today, the storm was behind us, but the ocean continued to heave and brown continued to flow. Nevertheless, some braved it. Late in the afternoon I saw a good crowd out at the Hook - basking in the pathogenic soup. Now - The Economy, Budget, and Spying. The spinsters are touting the great robust economy created by His Worship's tax breaks to the wealthy and large corporations. Jobs are up apparently. Unfortunately, the public doesn't feel so economically graced. Maybe it's the jobs, lack of benefits, or uncertainty regarding retirement compensation - forgotten once you are retired and ready to use the promised compensation (they, corporatepoliticians, call what you worked for a perk). Well, I'm not convinced tax cuts are what is steaming the economy - what about government spending on the war. Yes - fuel, ammo, uniforms, equipment, food, water, advertising, greasing the wheels, no-bid contracts, Halliburton, security, private contractors, planes, ships, nuclear weapons - the list goes on. I read that in the long term economic growth cannot occur via war because: 1) taxes must increase to pay for the war, 2) spending must be decreased in other areas to pay for the war, and 3) increasing the debt will stunt growth. Fascinating. Apparently these factors hold no meaning for the current Fed Crew. Taxes went down - no pressure here to slow the war economy. Spending is up, and the debt is growing without a care. So - the war is not stunting growth - just adding to it. Ronald did the same thing to grow the economy during his stint; however, he also cut spending. One out of three plus star wars and the communist threat did the trick - until it all caught up - war spending + tax cuts + increasing debt. The figures above show the Ronny/GW game -defense spending mixed with gov spending. The budget - how do you get those not in favor of drilling in ANWR to back down? Throw drilling in the same budget that funds the troops. Are you going to deny the troops just to protect some caribou. Please go to www.beingcaribou.com to get more information on what drilling ANWR means. Fund the troops and leave the caribou alone. I've seen the natural gas boom destruction in western Colorado. There is no way drilling can happen without destruction. The problem is, there is no room for error when it comes to life in ANWR. It's all connected and very fragile. Spying - I hear the argument - If you're not doing anything wrong, why worry about it. Here's the deal - the spying is like trying to find a needle in a hay stack - and number one, the gov shouldn't be fucking with my stack. That being said, the more spy intel the gov gets, the more hay is thrown on the stack. The harder it is to find the needle and the easier it is to make a mistake. Next thing - the gov is hassling you by mistake. Maybe you lose your job, maybe you're just harassed. Maybe it blows over until someone finds the mistaken information that was not purged as it should have been, maybe you can't get credit-who the fuck knows! It ends up just like in the water - sorry. What does sorry get you? Bottom line - don't give up your right to privacy.  ¶ 12:29 AM