Nov 05
John McCain concedes!
Republican John McCain concedes the U.S. election, saying people have spoken clearly.
Yay!
333 seats for Democrats. 155 for Republicans.
Republican John McCain concedes the U.S. election, saying people have spoken clearly.
Yay!
333 seats for Democrats. 155 for Republicans.
This is a brilliant ad by the Obama campaign. For those of you who ain’t familiar with what’s going on, American politics is really interesting. McCain-Palin (Republicans) brought in phrases into American newspapers such as “hockey moms”, “Joe Six Pack” and “Joe the plumber”. These phrases are used to stereotype the typical American.
The thing that got me interested in politics is not the results the politicians are going to deliver. After all, staying thousands of miles away from the USA makes little difference on who’s elected anyway. What made me look at politics is the speeches, or more precisely, the ingenious use of the English language to reach people emotionally.
Introducing characters is just one way of doing so. As stupid as these phrases sound, people actually remember them. You can laugh at time but as long as you talk about it (even in a negative way), you are spreading the point of the politicians indirectly.
I think of these characters as stock characters (in the theater arts way) as they’re recycled time and again for every election. And politicians would just rebrand them in some little ways to make them sound new again.
McCain-Palin campaign has numerous such characters. I’m sick of them but I still laugh at them (alone, since no one bothers about US in Singapore). Anyway, here’s one endorsed by the Obama campaign:
Find out your tax cut under Barack’s plan at http://taxcut.barackobama.com whether you’re single or married with children.
Previously John McCain repeated mentioned Joe the Plumber during his speeches, claiming he is a concern citizen who prefers the McCain tax plans.
For those people who knows the location of my other blog, it’s a tough decision if I want to put this post in this blog or that which is rather US. In the end I figured I should put it here since I want this blog to have more of my opinion. The other blog is visited by McCain supporters and they blast me even when I post a video that’s pro-Obama. That’s freedom of expression for me I guess.
And speaking of “plumber”, Uzyn corrected me on my pronunciation. I had always been pronouncing it as “plumb-ber”. Read it wrong for many years. “Plum-er,” he corrected me.
It’s funny that after Colin Powell endorses Barack Obama, Powell is less talked about as a war criminal. He played a key role in the invasion of Iraq after all. His endorsement of Barack Obama appeared to have gained him some karma points or something. The internet loves him again.
To the question whether Obama is a Muslim, Powell stressed that Obama is not, but highlighted the real answer to the question is - so what if he is. Powell then publically endorsing Obama and expresses discontent toward the Republican party, that is his Republican party.
It is courageous of him to be able to stand up for what he believes in (and that meant the opposition). Unfortunately much of these were not shown back then when he presented the case for the invasion of Iraq. Powell later claims he spent 2 hours convincing Bush not to invade Iraq but what’s done been done.
I’ll create a GUI interface using Visual Basic, see if I can track an IP address:
A GUI interface to track IP address? CSI, being CSI, of course have to program a software with visualization just to track IP addresses. And an awkward Visual Basic plug too. (more…)
Almost a month has passed since school reopen. I’ve been spending time on things that probably didn’t matter to me that much. It saddens me a little when I look back on how I allocated my time.
To claim that school is busy, work is busy, is perhaps just a lie. I’m obsessed with reading US election news lately and it got the better of my time. I spend about 1.5 hours a day reading on something that would affect me little. This sucked.
Also I have a stack of books I can’t complete. Books that were purchased, perhaps, 2 years ago even. I aim to complete it last year, half a year ago and a month ago. I’m still bookmarking (pretty much the same) the third quarter of the book.
I read four books at the same time. I just realized how horrible an idea that was.
Time seems to pass faster these days.
Haa! Just realized that Humuhumunukunukuāpua’a is the state fish of Hawaii. It’s reef triggerfish.
On April 17, 2006, bill HB1982 was presented to the Governor of Hawai’i which permanently reinstated the reef triggerfish (humuhumunukunukuapua’a) as the state fish of Hawai’i. The bill passed into law on May 2, 2006 and was effective upon its approval. (Source: Hawaii)
I wonder if this would set a chain reaction affecting finance related organizations in the US. If AIG really goes bankrupt, it would be the largest corporate bankruptcy in terms of assets. AIG has US$1 trillion worth of assets.
AIG struggles to survive financial tsunami
Insurer American International Group Inc struggled for survival a day after a financial tsunami swept away investment bank Lehman Brothers and forced the sale of rival Merrill Lynch in the biggest financial industry shake-up since the Great Depression.
The U.S. Federal Reserve has hired investment bank Morgan Stanley to review options for AIG — which has lost some 92 percent of its value so far this year — a person familiar with the situation said Monday.
Darkening one of the few bright spots from the weekend’s mayhem, Bank of America — which would surpass Citigroup Inc as the country’s largest bank by assets with the planned takeover of Merrill — saw its shares plunge. (Source: Reuters)
I have AIA policies. Regarding insurance policies, there likely be a takeover and the policy remains the same. If bankruptcy occurs for AIG, branches such as AIA (American International Assurance) probably be affected by value, but it doesn’t mean AIA would go bankrupt too.
I’ve been following the US finance thing a little, things don’t seem optimistic.