Arkady's Thoughts

After Barack Obama assumed the presidency of the United States there were some speculation that the young and charismatic Democratic leader was going to become the next Lincoln (Newsweek even ran a piece comparing the two men that at the time seemed a tad premature ).  Yet my view back then given Obama's inexperience and skewed perception of where America should go was such that Obama has a much better chance of becoming the next Jimmy Carter rather than some great emancipator. Fast forward to today and it would appear that the conjecture was correct.  One of Carter's notorious legacies was the Misery Index (MI), a very simple number denoting inflation and unemployment.  While some can dispute the accuracy of the index given the difficulty of relying on Government data for inflation, nobody can dispute that using the same formula the index has been steadily rising.  Although the MI numbers only go back to the Truman error, you can see here that Carter's accomplish...

In the upcoming Republican debate slated for June 13th in New Hampshire there will be a slight change of plans from the powers that be.  Gary Johnson who participated in the first debate and is polling neck and neck with Rick Santorum and Tim Pawlenty will be excluded from participation . According to some fuzzy math from the main stream media and a secret formula that is, well, secret, CNN determined that for your viewing and listening pleasure they will be performing you a service by inviting only those candidates that are best for you to hear and see.  Despite facing a backlash in the 2008 campaign by essentially pulling these same shenanigans with Ron Paul, the main stream media since then dubbed lame stream media continues to exert its choke hold on political messaging. With voters increasingly frustrated with the flavor of Republican candidates being served to them by the establishment the need for choice and variety has never been greater.  Instead of...

Rand Paul continues to put money where his mout h is , by planning to release a budget that will slash Federal spending to 18% of the GDP down from an existing 24% that is maintained by the current administration.   To avoid the popular and awfully contentious issues of entitlement effort Paul is achieving his balanced budget by removing entire departments! "Medicaid, children’s health insurance and food stamps are block-granted to the States and capped in the resolution.  Paul eliminates the departments of Commerce, Energy, Education, and Housing and Urban Development, all of which he says are unconstitutional." So while this is exciting and fascinating there is an inherent problem with Paul's proposal.  Even if America is somehow ready to accept that housing, education, commerce and energy are all things that have been made worse by the Federal government and belong to the States how are they going to accept the status quo on a taxation basis? Now in reality the...

Watch the Fox News first Republican Primary of 2012.  My opinion of the debate coming later. My reaction: I think it is safe to say that this particular debate offered us a glimpse into three distinct groups of politicians.  On one hand this particular breakdown is nothing new to Republican politics, but on the other hand we are fortunate enough that we are at least presented with options. The three categories in my mind can be broken down as follows: Status-quo Republican :  These particular folks tout the standard Republican line and even if they may on occasion criticize some particular policy they content with the direction of the GOP and generally believe that if the country were to adopt these policies then things would fall into place.   New Republican:   Although they are quite different from the status-quo by the nature of them being new, they still espouse the same Republican status-quo ideals and do not veer far from the t...

America was greeted with great news last night at the death of the most wanted man on earth.   However it took only took a few more minutes after that for partisan divide to seep through and people began bickering over who gets credit.  President Obama presented the news in an impromptu televised message and claimed credit by stating that he was approached and gave not only the go ahead to conduct further intelligence, but also the go ahead for the final operation. Obama's words were carefully chosen last night and it would seem pretty clear that the Pakistani government was not made aware that American special forces were landing deep inside their country to perform an assassination attempt, this makes the decision a difficult one.  Had anything gone wrong and I mean *anything* it could have created a nasty international incident with a country that is already seething with anti-American sentiment for the years of drone attacks, CIA operatives and other perceived Ameri...

In order to improve various aspects of my health I will start a 10 day fast beginning on April 22nd, 2011.  I will post my feelings and thoughts on a daily basis within this post with the hopes that this might be useful for people interested in fasting.  While this is primarily a political blog, anything called the 'Right Condition' can certainly be used for health reasons too!  Besides, with Ben Bernanke fully determined in destroying the value of our dollar not eating for 10 days is not only good for the belly, but good for the wallet.  Tomorrow begins 10 days of no food and just water! Update:  Had to break the fast early, details below. Health benefits of fasting Most people who first hear of my fast plans react  in the same way, that is to question my sanity.  However for those not aware I have been living with chronic pain for about 14 years now.  I have chronic pain in my neck from an old wrestling injury, pain in my shoulder from an...

Reason.TV shows a live and working example of a relatively new city in Georgia that has adopted an interesting approach in delivering services to their citizens.   This approach radically attacks the notion that certain services and functions must always belong in public hands.   Well not only is that not true, but Sandy Springs has also done two amazing things that most other American cities have not. First, they have provided better investments and more services while not raising taxes/costs. Secondly, they have no long term pension liabilities!   This of course is huge, because this is precisely what is threatening to dismantle so many municipalities, the promise to pay so many public workers. Too bad existing cities will never get past the union stranglehold to actually adopt a similar model, perhaps we can all move to Sandy Springs instead?