Stocks, Tickets, and Being the Exception to the Rule

I'm going to link the national issue Congressional financial trading, with the very local issue of Baltimore political officials getting free concert tickets, but you'll have to be patient.

Last Thursday the House finally passed the long overdue STOCK ACT, or the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act.

Editors Note: Of course I wrote this right before last night's Daily Show focused on ripping apart this bill, so I will say this now for those who care, I did not do this to just run with their arguments, though a lot of what they poked fun at I will poke fun at as well.

The act simply spelled out what all crooks on the hill should have known was wrong in the first place. It prohibits federal employees (congressmen - I don't use PC terms like Congress People, just think of how stupid that sounds) from using "any nonpublic information derived from individual's positions as a Member[s] of Congress or employee[s] of Congress, or gained from performance of individual duties, for personal benefit."

In other words, if a congressman knew that some piece of impending legislation, or regulation, or budget allocation would either boost or hurt a company's stock holdings, he couldn't take that knowledge that is nonpublic and privy to him, and use it for his financial gain, by say quickly unloading a stock before a company takes a hit or benefits from said congressional action.

Howard Beale Leads the Republican Ticket

A quick test for my loyal readers (beat for laughs) -

You've got to say, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: "I'M MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"

Was that quote from:
A) The end of a famous monologue by Howard Beale (played by Peter Finch) in the classic 1976 Sidney Lumet film Network.
B) An utterance one would expect to hear at a GOP primary rally as a candidate tries to court the conservative base.
C) All of the above

Citizens United vs. Stephen Colbert

I am a big fan of Stephen Colbert. I find his show hilarious, often firing on many levels. I love watching one of his long satirical bits play out between two commercial breaks, ending with a biting conclusion underscored by Colbert's character's earnestness. So it is probably no surprise that I love what he is doing with his Jon Stewart’s his “Definitely Not Coordinating with Stephen Colbert Super PAC.”

It makes sense that the performer's quasi-political organization is making its way into a lot of news stories lately, particularly anything that discusses Super PACs, what they are, and the immediate way they are influencing the current political landscape, most easily seen in the squabbling for the Republican presidential nomination.

So in the many stories I perused in my Colbert-fandom (and aimless boredom), I was a little taken aback when I read freelancer E.D. Kain's piece in The Atlantic, “Stephen Colbert's Real Advantage: Free Speech.” In what has largely been anywhere from a love-fest to a shrug from many media outlets when discussing Americans for A Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Kain seems a bit skeptical, maybe even displeased. Of course, it is not necessarily Colbert's Super PAC itself that bothers Kain as much as how Colbert's Super PAC is a flashpoint for the populace distaste for the 2010 Supreme Court ruling in what is now referred to as the Citizens United case.

America Changes the Voting Age to Six

I'll try not to do this often, finding just one story and running with it, and I'm sure if I perused additional papers I could find a few articles to throw in the heap. But reading my Sunday Baltimore Sun, I came across a wire service article from Tribune that originally ran in the LA Times, and it made me bristle.

Alana Semuels did a great job painting the scene of a Rick Santorum rally in South Carolina, but I have to hope she was nearly choking on the undertones of hypocrisy in the room.

Routinely through the stump speech, Santorum lobs vague charges against Obama and the government about its lack of fiscal discipline, all to great cheers from his supporters.

But when you start to read more about these supporters, there seems an incongruency to what they say they want in a candidate and a government, and how they live and would like to keep living.

Semuels spoke to 54-year-old Nancy Garvin, who likes Santorum's small government message since she “wants to see expenditures cut 'in half.'”

But read just one paragraph farther, and Garvin seems to miss just what that might mean to her.

Over (heard) and Out (of context)

I have an odd ear sometimes.

I was sitting in a web development meeting a few days ago, discussing taxonomy, particularly as it structures archiving and identification for the inner workings of a website.

So being a meeting effectively about terms, language, and nomenclature, for whatever reason, small snippets of what my colleagues said seemed to hang in the air a little longer, or at least hang in my ear.

While trying to keep up with the web speak and not look too fidgety at the end of the table, I clung to such gems as:

“...shoes is shoes....”

“...it might be hypercategorizing...wait..that doesn't sound right...”

“...that would completely ruin us...” (laughter) “...that's not an exaggeration....”(dire tone)

“...have you seen the spreadsheet?” (incredulous tone)

“...if you have a lot of W's or M's, it's relative...”

So what's the point of this all, other than giving you the impression I kind of tune out in meetings?

All of those quotes don't make a hell of a lot of sense, and yet for the discussion they pertained to, they held resounding poignancy.

Fear the Five-Percenters

So the Christmas lights are down, the tree is but tinder, and now we finally enter that special time of year....Primary Season. Because if the American Democratic experiment doesn't seem eccentric enough, why not officially begin a campaigning season that has already gone on for a far too long 10 months before the ACTUAL ELECTION.

But I digress....obviously party primaries provide a litany of issues to discuss/dissect/poke fun at, so in order to avoid a sprawling, meandering tirade on how sick of the Republican field I am already (and it's not because I am right- or left-leaning; it is simply because I can't believe there is more than a year of coverage for multiple campaigns that say nothing, and of numerous candidates that are all “front-runners” at one time or another), I want to take a look at some numbers, and what they say about how distorted this whole process is.

Welcome to the Blogosphere

As is usual for me, here I am, joining part of the technological revolution, long after its considered revolutionary. I'm still not on the Facebook. I have a Youtube channel with a few goof videos I've made, mostly as pet projects or throwaways while I do video production for my day job. I entertained and then quickly ditched the idea of being on Google+. My LinkedIn profile collects more dust than contacts.

But I am on Twitter - I can prove it, just look for @ZachBabo...yup, that's me.

So after much prodding from my lovely girlfriend (who hears the majority of my diatribes), a few friends who haven't yet to tune me out, and a few others who have bothered to listen to me when I'm carrying on, I figured I would start a blog.