That’s John McCain this morning, after a weekend in which investment bank powerhouse Lehman Brothers was forced to declare bankruptcy, while Merrill Lynch was scooped up by Bank of America in a fire sale. Meanwhile, locals like me have gotta be wondering if we should pull our savings out of Washington Mutual, for fear of having our funds frozen in a collapse. But to the man with more houses than he can count, our economy is still strong.
And you can trust McCain on this because he really knows what he’s talking about. You know, unlike some unknown economist like Alan Greenspan:
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan offered a woeful outlook of America’s economic situation on Sunday, saying the crisis with the country’s financial institutions was as dire as he had ever seen in his long career, and predicting that one or more of those institutions would likely collapse in the near future.
“Oh, by far,” Greenspan said, when asked if the situation was the worst he had seen in his career. “There’s no question that this is in the process of outstripping anything I’ve seen and it still is not resolved and still has a way to go and, indeed, it will continue to be a corrosive force until the price of homes in the United States stabilizes.
Of course, the reason McCain refuses to acknowledge that our economy is in crisis is because to do so would acknowledge the need for government to do something about it… like increased regulatory oversight of the financial industry, something to which McCain is opposed on blind, ideological grounds. To a free marketeer like McCain, admitting that we fucked up, and allowed our financial industry to implode through lax oversight, would be tantamount to renouncing one’s belief in God.
And to think, McCain is actually trying to rebrand himself as an agent of change….
UPDATE:
But then, I suppose, the family featured in this ad… they just made poor choices, so they’ve got nobody to blame but themselves.
The Feds aren’t going to bail out Lehman Brothers.
The big three are going hat in hand to the Congress.
Everyone phone banking is reporting that the suffering out there is spreading.
The only way the Republicans are going to win this one is to steal it and they’ve got a lot of tools at their disposal.
Throw the bums out.
Obama/Biden 2008
I think we have a little too much regulation, especially in the financial markets.
Therefore, I am going to vote for Republicans who beat Republicans by voting 90% of the time with Republicans like Bush–then we can bring Republican-style reform to the Republicans and elect Republicans to undo what Republicans have done.
That’s the big question, Goldy; are bread and butter issues going to trump personality and charm? Are people going to ask themselves, “Am I better off than I was 8 years ago?”. I would think for many, many people, the answer is no.
I grew up in Arizona and really respected McCain. But the McCain I knew is not this guy. This guy is selling his soul and his integrity to be president. When you are a Republican candidate and you have Karl Rove criticizing you, it should give you pause. I don’t know if he thinks he’ll just do what needs to be done to win and then, once elected, go back to his usual self but I don’t think his handlers will let that happen.
But the Republicans are great at the Big Lie which is, if you say something in public over and over again, saying it many times will make it appear true. The Bridge to Nowhere. The economy is sound. We’re winning the war in Iraq. Less government is what works.
We’ve had 8 years of this kind of lying. Enough.
2 – You forgot that this was all Bill Clinton’s fault.
you have Karl Rove criticizing you, it should give you pause.
This Republican campaign was designed and produced by Karl Rove and his acolytes.
Karl Rove “criticizing” is just deflecting some of the heat.
Until I see evidence otherwise I assume that Rove is the man behind the curtain.
“The fundamentals of our economy is strong.”
Didn’t Peter Sellers character, Chance, say a similar thing in the movie Being There?
From the movie Being There …
President “Bobby”: Mr. Gardner, do you agree with Ben, or do you think that we can stimulate growth through temporary incentives?
[Long pause]
Chance the Gardener: As long as the roots are not severed, all is well. And all will be well in the garden.
President “Bobby”: In the garden.
Chance the Gardener: Yes. In the garden, growth has it seasons. First comes spring and summer, but then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again.
President “Bobby”: Spring and summer.
Chance the Gardener: Yes.
President “Bobby”: Then fall and winter.
Chance the Gardener: Yes.
Benjamin Rand: I think what our insightful young friend is saying is that we welcome the inevitable seasons of nature, but we’re upset by the seasons of our economy.
Chance the Gardener: Yes! There will be growth in the spring!
Benjamin Rand: Hmm!
Chance the Gardener: Hmm!
President “Bobby”: Hm. Well, Mr. Gardner, I must admit that is one of the most refreshing and optimistic statements I’ve heard in a very, very long time.
[Benjamin Rand applauds]
President “Bobby”: I admire your good, solid sense. That’s precisely what we lack on Capitol Hill.
The economy isn’t strong…he says that…but the fundamentals of our economy are. A company filling Chapter 11 is part of those fundamentals. That is troubling to the economy, but again that is how our financial markets and business is setup to work.
Government bailouts that have happened are not.
Anyone asking why there hasn’t been any congressional hearings on this mess? We had some on “big oil”, but not this. Seems strange.
I wonder if one day we will see the headline, “HorseAss is too big fail, Bailed out by Gregoire”. Or SP by Rossi, should he win. :-)
Goldy,
The people in that ad should have had a kid if the couldn’t afford it. Hell, they were probably so irresponsible that she got knocked up at 17…
(this is a joke, of course.)
Btw, the BIAW is up shit creek again.
olympian.com/southsound/story/584486.html
The reason McCain will not admit the problem is that his donors require him not to.
Oops the Olympian link got F’d.
http://www.theolympian.com/sou.....84486.html
The fundamental thing is that as long as people drink beer, all’s well with his world. This kind of economy might even be better for him in that sense.
Golly lefties such highly evolved thinking processes and Obama has Jason Furman as his top economic advisor.
So I’ll ask again: Google jason furman obama campaign
If the fundamentals of the economy are weak, how did I just read this headline: “Obama Campaign Reports Raising $66 Million in August” and determine who gave him all dat franklin?
So I guess only RICH DONKEY CONTRIBUTED?
Idea!
Goldy, maybe if you changed your name to David Obama, you’d rake in more money when you ask for contributions.
Just brainstorming.
Hey McCain/Palin: Thanks, but no thanks, for four more years of Bush polices.
13 Indeed, the more screwed up things become, the more highly appreciated (and, uh…utilized) will be the vital service provided by Cindy McCain’s family business.
@14,15
You don’t have anything to prop up McCain’s claim about the economy, so you post garbage. Come on support your righty buddy. Prove Alan Greenspan wrong.
In a previous post, I speculated that a DJIA 250 point loss may have hit the “floor”.
But just before lunchtime, the DJIA had lost 341 points(at about 11:40 a.m., at 11,080.92.
When Bush took office, the economy the DJIA was at 10,587.59. I’m expecting the market to re-bound a bit as the bargain-seekers step in sometime today. But if it doesn’t, Bush is in danger of seeing a negative DJIA over eight years of his Presidency, which would only highlight it’s failures.
But remember that the DJIA isn’t the sector which is most affected by the current economic turmoil. It is the most stable sector, by definition comprised of large industrials which are not supposed to swing widely from one day to the next – or from one hour to the next. If the DJIA goes south, the other aspects of the economy are in far worse shape.
This guy shouldn’t even be in the race. With the economy in the worst shape since the Reagan Depression of 1982, and with his party corroded by corruption and mismanagement, and with a joke of a running mate plucked from a roadside diner, he shouldn’t get a single vote beyond the dingbat element who will vote stupidly no matter what. This election should be a blowout of historic proportions. What the hell is the matter with America’s voters? Have they all become ignorant fucks? Is the whole nation brainwashed by dopers like Rush? America is doomed. And after you humans have self-destructed, we rabbits will be the dominant species, and we’re gonna run this place like it should be run — with cute fluffy baby bunnies filling every niche, and grazing in every lawn and garden, nothing but bunnies everywhere as far as the eye can see — and I’ll be the Rabbit King, with a royal harem of 10 trillion wives!!!
You think things are bad now? This is an election year. The Fed is priming the pump as hard as it can crank the handle. The oil companies are (temporarily) reducing gas prices to help elect another industry-friendly politician from the Gas and Oil Party. If you think it’s bad now, just wait until December after the election’s over. That’s when the shit is gonna hit the fan. What you’re seeing now, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
By the way, Wisconsin Democrats and Independents are receiving absentee ballots in the mail. The only problem with the ballots are (a) the address on the return envelope is wrong, and (b) they weren’t printed by the Elections officials.
This appears to be an effort targeted at Democrats to have them fill out the envelopes and mail them in – to the wrong address – thinking that they had voted correctly. Although there is bound to be confusion when they later get the official ballot, the strategy appears to be founded in the hopes that at least a percentage of Democrats and Independents will be fooled into mailing their ballots to the wrong address.
The Secty of State for Wisconsin has been asked to investigate. Problem is, he is also the Wisconsin co-chair of the Bush for President campaign. For some reason, he doesn’t think it’s a priority right now.
(Source: several radio news reports this morning).
Roger @ 21: I’m thinking the American public has become numb to stories of Republican corruption and incompetence. They have become so common, its hardly news anymore. They just expect things to continue to go badly, with each year a little worse than the year before it.
It’s like putting a frog in hot water. If you throw him into water which is areadly hot, he will jump out. But if you put him in cold water and bring up the heat gradually, he’ll stay in the pot until he’s boiled.
Obama needs to have TV ads running – by tomorrow – which show McCain toughting the soundness of the economy against a backdrop of headlines of the collapse of America’s fabled financial and industrial giants. Then have a voice-over pointing out that a person who thinks people earning 5 Mil a year are “middle class”, and can’t even remember how many homes he owns, is not qualified to lead the country in a financial crisis.
23 – Here we go again! Shades of Ohio 2004 and Florida 2000.
People are totally insane to elect Republicans as State SecStates.
Come to think of it. We have a Republican SecState who got off scott-free to trying to institutionalize suppressing 10 percent of all voter registrations. His recent purge of the voting rolls received no scrutiny either but I haven’t heard any bad things about it either.
If we only had a decent media in this State but we all know that’s going down the toilet with the rest of the economy.
Personally, 2008 has been a great year.
I bailed all out of the market last year when it hit 14,000.
Since then, I made a series of successful short-term plays on McDonalds, NOV, Wells Fargo, JRCC (thanks to GBS).
Currently I have very little in the market…4,000 shares of Wells Fargo bought @ $26.66 (after a series of short-term play when it hit below 21).
From my personal standpoint…I am better off than 8 years ago. But I am an investor/risk taker. I can see that non-risk takers or stupid investors like Rog Rabbit who falls in love with stocks riding them up and then way down like NOV & BOOM, are not better off.
The O-blah-blah Marxist agenda looks mighty appealing to folks who are lazy asses or struggling with employment. No Doubt
I think if you dressed O-blah-blah up like Santa Klaus, he might be able to win this election. People who are lazy or very tired are looking for free stuff.
Look, there are always potential “nuggets” in the investment world. You need some patience, some balls and common sense. Whether it’s real estate, precious metals, stocks or bonds.
I still have a lot of dry powder in a number of CD’s. They mature between 11/10 and 1/10/09. 5.2% Promotional rate 18 months ago.
Looks pretty good now. What will I do when they mature. Not sure. I think the market is very oversold today. I’m tempted to make a play on Rog’s beloved NOV. I have a call into my broker.
You KLOWNS seem to love doom & gloom. The more personal misery you can project or uncover, the happier you seem to be.
I think it comes down to your primary focus is to WORSHIP power and a Marxist agenda.
Even Atheists WORSHIP something…although they are in denial because all they are will to admit is they DO NOT WORSHIP a loving God.
I’d have a mighty hard time living your LEFTIST PINHEADED KLOWN idea of a tiny island of “enlightened, progresive (Marxist) Heaven” which is powered by daily heavy doses of doom & gloom. Depressing even thinking about your idea of Godless Utopia.
Wow – DJIA down 405 points at 12:20 p.m, to 11,016.36. And that’s with oil falling below $95 a barrell.
Sorry, no.
Cynical @ 26:
There are always bargain shoppers who may individually do well in a negative market. A friend of mine just made a killing on puts for Washington Mutual.
There are also people who make money in any disaster. Home Depot does pretty well immediatly before and after a hurricane hits a given area. Arms suppliers do well when there is a war. Even in the old days, a bucket-maker did well if there were lots of fires.
But that doesn’t mean that the country as a whole is better off when there are hurricanes, fires, or wars. The fact that a few disaster-profiteers do well in that environment is no excuse for continuing the same policies which led to the disaster.
But I am an investor/risk taker. I can see that non-risk takers or stupid investors like Rog Rabbit who falls in love with stocks riding them up and then way down like NOV & BOOM, are not better off.
Of course, if you risk and you lose, your Republican friends are quite willing to let you starve like a dog on the street.
For folks that believe in creationism, you certainly embrace cold, hard economic Darwinism. (But only for the poor, of course.)
michael–
no???
Could have fooled me. If not you, then certainly you can see the miserable Atheist KLOWNS you have surrounded yourself with.
You KLOWNS have no sense of humor.
Comeon michael, Karl Marx’s fingerprints are all over the Progressive agenda.
Washington State would not be in such a snarl,
If Marx had been Groucho instead of Karl!
30. demo kid spews:
“Of course, if you risk and you lose, your Republican friends are quite willing to let you starve like a dog on the street.”
How would you know??
Actually my Conservative & Liberal friends would help me…just like I would & have helped them.
demo kid…you live in a mighty depressing world filled with hopelessness & despair.
I don’t.
Your mistake is surrounding yourself with people who would let you starve and are always so negative.
Your other mistake is rejecting God and attacking believers. No wonder you are such a bummer.
@31: Sorry, but conservative “humor” just isn’t funny.
Karl Marx’s fingerprints are all over the Progressive agenda.
As it was all over Teddy Roosevelt’s another progressive way back in the day. No I didn’t care for his foreign policy.
Could you please peddle your crap somewhere else.
We’re not buying here.
@32: Actually my Conservative & Liberal friends would help me…just like I would & have helped them.
That’s great for you, although I have no understanding why an idiot like you would have friends. Still, should people need friends to keep from starving to death? To keep from losing their homes?
I’m amazed that someone that can claim to be not “rejecting God” is such a selfish bastard.
Your other mistake is rejecting God and attacking believers.
Buzzzzt. Wrong. DK could have been a bit more precise and stated “creation science”.
Which of course is not science – just a religious fanatic motivated scam to manipulate public schools.
And of course you’re free to believe any damn thing you please, just don’t invent your own facts and don’t try to impose your personal beliefs on others.
Am I personally better off than I was in 2000?
My salary hasn’t kept pace with inflation, even with promotions and greater responsibility.
My side business of rehabing & selling houses is on hold until the mortgage crisis finds a floor. I had used it to help put the kids through college.
My website business, which I started in early 2002, has been running at pretty much the same level for the past few years, making a modest return (a few hundred dollars a month). It’s a little behind in revenue this year.
My 401(K) plan has lost 10% of it’s value this year. Over the course of the past eight years, it’s growth is pretty much directly attributable to the contributions put into it. Except for the employer matching, I would have done just as good (perhaps better) if I had it in an insured savings account. But I only have limited investment options in my 401(k) plan, so I don’t have a lot of control over it. What hurts is the loss of time – out of the 23 years of work-life left to me before retirement as of the year 2000, the first eight of them have resulted in no real gain in investment. That could be good if I’m buying mutual fund shares cheaply which will later rise enough to more than make up the difference before I retire. But if the markets don’t re-capture that “lost growth time”, the assumptions upon which my retirement planning are based will be in the toilet, and I’ll have to work another eight years (after I turn 65) to make up the difference.
The value of my house has doubled over the past eight years, even with the recent retreat in housing values. But so has everyone else’s values, so unless I plan on selling and living in a tent somewhere, it doesn’t mean much to me.
The cost of living has more than doubled over the past ten years – food and gasoline have pretty much tripled.
So the upshot is: I’m generally worse off financially than I was eight years ago. But I’m still employed, I’m not losing my house, and I’m not in a great deal of debt. I’m better off than a lot of other people around me.
36. YLB spews:
“And of course you’re free to believe any damn thing you please, just don’t invent your own facts and don’t try to impose your personal beliefs on others.”
YLB you are hysterical.
The posterboy for HorsesAss “fact inventing” is YOU!! And you impose your personal beliefs on others every time you post.
Have you forgotten to take your Ridilin this AM?? Perhaps you need a stronger anti-hallucinigenic!
35. demo kid spews:
“That’s great for you, although I have no understanding why an idiot like you would have friends. Still, should people need friends to keep from starving to death?”
demo kid–
WHY DO YOU HAVE TO BE SO MEAN?
Oh and let me ask you…why should people need the government to keep them from starving to death???
The government should be providing defense, public safety & infrastructure. Period.
We have too many generations of folks in this Country looking for the handouts.
No one in this country needs to starve to death demo kid…I do not accept your premise that people are. Some people are too proud to accept handouts. But anyone looking for free food would merely have to contact a Church or two and their needs would be met.
demo kid–Did you know it is best to contribute CASH to Food Banks. They have very cost-effective access to surplus food..plus handling all the cans is extremely cost ineffective & cumbersome.
Rather than give any more money to will & Goldy…donate to the Food Bank! Goldy & will can go there so they don’t starve.
rhp–
At last, an honest assessment from the LEFT.
Good for you.
Had you made a couple market moves the past 8 years, you would have been better off.
Too many brokers & advisers are not educated enough to help small clients with market timing. They tell you to stay all in all the time. Bad advise.
I’ll bet you did well rehabing and flipping houses. Unrealistic to expect it to always go up…it’s risky. But having little debt means you have HOLDING POWER! You don’t have to fire sale anything. You worked hard and invested well to get to that point. You probably made a lot of personal sacrifices and didn’t blow your money on DEPRECIABLE assets like a lot of the under 50 crowd has done.
I have met a lot of folks in financial trouble know. When you get an honest assessment of their spending & investing…you find a series of bad choices in most cases.
Do you really need an $85,000 5th wheel trailer, a water ski boat, a fishing boat, 2 new cars, 3 kids in private school and a vacation house???????????
An acquaintence of ours has all of the above and more…courtesy of HOME EQUITY LOANS, CREDIT CARDS and CAR LOANS!! No savings. No 401(k).
Living for todays material buzz.
Are his decisions my problem???
But he almost seems to have convinced himself he is:
a) Entitled to all these LUXURIES
b) Cannot live without them.
And he is basically a Conservative!
There are a lot of irresponsible people on both the LEFT and the RIGHT rhp.
Glad to see someone on the LEFT taking risks and not moaning for more handouts.
Why are you voting for Obama??????????
That has to hurt!
Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI)
Change: Down 500.16 (4.38%)
but the economy is sound! McCain said so!
The posterboy for HorsesAss “fact inventing” is YOU!! And you impose your personal beliefs on others every time you post.
Nope. I’ve never said you should believe as I do. But IF you support teaching creation pseudo-science in the public schools that would be imposing your religious beliefs on others namely the creation account in the Old Testament of the Bible. Notice that I’m not saying you actually have done this nor have I ever claimed this in the past.
I’ll be a little obnoxious like pudge and state that you’ve been lying throughout this thread. You’ve made false statements about peoples positions on the issues and their political philosophy with the possible motivation to deceive any lurkers and to reinforce the beliefs of anyone on your side. Of course you could always be just entertaining yourself and if there’s any other side benefit that would be ok with you.
41 – McSame said the fundamentals of the economy are sound.
yeah right Johnny.
Does Obama believe the FUNDAMENTALS of our economy are NOT strong? If he does, he should say so … and be prepared to defend the proposition … and be prepared to abandon much of the policy framework he has enunciated to date (which depends – perhaps unrealistically – on strong fundamentals) … and speak to what he thinks the consequences are if we have a financial crisis ON TOP OF a fundamentally weak economy.
What should we do then? Head for the hills?
McCain is talking the kind of talk a President is supposed to talk during one of these episodes of instability.
And Obama … he’s not talking, except to take McCain to task, is he?
YLB–
Man, you ought to be a psychonalyst….starting with yourself as Patient/Victim #1.
BTW, how can we have Creation without a Creator?? Give me your very best argument.
Seems like when I have previously asked this question, it resulted in hollow attacks on believers rather than a very clear, concise argument proving their is no Creator.
I await your thoughtful, thought provoking response YLB.
Cynical @ 40: Well, yes, I am a fiscal conservative. I basically consider myself a “Southern Democrat”, as I grew up understanding that term. I also appreciate the comments of people like Warren Buffet regarding the financial future of the country. I do avoid debt as much as possible (although I did have to borrow to buy a new car after one of our other ones was totalled by a drunk driver).
If the Republicans really meant what they said about fiscal conservatism, I would probably be a Republican. But time and again, they have shown a huge disparity between what they say and what they do. When given an opportunity, they give immediate big tax cuts to the rich and leave it to the middle class to make up the difference – or their grandchildren.
By the way, did you catch Greenspan’s comments about the McCain tax plan? He say’s McCain’s assumptions don’t add up, and it would cause a big increase in the budget deficit and the national debt. The McCain camp is arguing that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Which is more likely – that McCain or Greenspan knows less about the effect of tax policy on the U.S. economy?
45 – That argument is virtually worthless. If you’re trying to argue back to the first cause then what caused the creator?
The ultimate truth is probably beyond humanity’s ability to ever know for sure in my opinion.
In fact I advise my kids to learn about religion in the context of history, literature and even science. You can’t separate the religious impulse from human endeavour.
At 1:27 p.m., the markets in New York are closed. DJIA down 504.48 points (to 10,917.51).
I wonder what the Tokyo exchange is going to do. Not sure what time they open, 4:00 p.m. our time is 8:00 a.m. in Tokyo. Yesterday was a holiday in Japan, so this will be their first opportunity to trade based on the U.S. news from over the weekend.
I guess I was wrong – I expected bargain-hunters to boost the stock market by the end of the day, taking back some of the losses.
Apparantly the traders don’t think the market has hit it’s floor yet. Or maybe the statement by the Bush White House that it’s not going to bail out any more firms had a negative affect on the market? Or maybe McCain’s insistance that things are fundamentally “hunky dory” (my paraphrase, not his).
46. rhp6033 spews:
“By the way, did you catch Greenspan’s comments about the McCain tax plan?”
Ummmmmmm, isn’t Greenspan MARRIED TO O-blah-blah’s head Cheerleader, Andrea Mitchell??
Andrea probably told Big Al to make the comment or his life at home would be a living hell!
Seeing Andrea Mitchell and NBC’s approach to this election…both to Clinton and now McCain/Palin is attrocious.
Sorry…no respect for Greenspan.
He obviously cares more about facelifted crack than the truth.
re 45: I gave you David Hume’s best argument against a creator and your response was the chirping of crickets.
It is a scientific truism that matter can neither be created nor destroyed — it can only be transposed into a different form of matter.
So, why do we need a creator for something that was never created?
This is all starting to seem like watching Trading Places, except we don’t get to see Jamie Lee Curtis nekkid.
24 There’s a third way to cook the frog, if one is short on patience: douse the critter with gasoline and light a match.
What we’re seeing at the moment is only foreplay, folks. The real screwin’s yet to come.
re 45: Chirp … chirp … chirp.
Why do you think it is necessary to impart intentionality to the physical universe? Do you think the wave has a ‘purpose’ as it strikes the shore?
re 45: Do you think at all –or do you just ‘receive’ your wisdom from a book that you faithfully believe is the word of god?
That’s why fundamentalist Christians make such good Republicans — because of your capability of believing the preposterous.
headless-
As an unabashed Atheist, you believe you have no future beyond this here Earth. How arrogant…and how hopeless. No wonder you are so cranky.
As for your musing “It is a scientific truism that matter can neither be created nor destroyed — it can only be transposed into a different form of matter”.
How was the original “matter” created???
The Atheist Agenda comes up with these self-described “truisms”.
And as for Atheist David Hume’s musings….please post for our entertainment.
I’ll bet you won’t.
Even though Hume considered himself to be more of an “Agnostic” (aka fencewalker…just in case) than an Atheist….I never heard him say there was proof there was NOT a God.
His musing back in the mid-1700’s were thought provoking….but he never had a huge following mainly because he was like an analyst with no definite conclusion.
The stuff I have read he basically says he rejects the arguments about the existence of God…but also he cannot prove God does not exist.
Mr. Cynical: maybe headless’ alter ego W Klingon Headless will post it.
Hey, let’s propose a tombstone to the Republican Party. We could have some of their best quotes engraved on it.
“You’r doing a heckofa job, Brownie”.
Pres. George W. Bush.
“We are just seeing the last vestiges of the ‘dead enders'”
Secty of Defense Rumsfield.
“The fundamentals of our economy are strong”.
Sen. John McCain.
Others?????
Wonderful stuff Mr Cynical. I had thought your species long extinct, yet here you surface in all your gory philosophy.
‘How was the original “matter” created???’
While you and your arrogant ilk are entitled to believe matter was created by some bearded flake riding upon a cloud, any thread of modern intellect would accept and enjoy the challenge of searching for the facts.
Oops, there’s that word again. Fact. You utter loon.