Social Commentary Day - Woo Hoo!

I know how you all feel when I get on my soap box. Well, I really don't because you are a bunch of lurkers who won't comment unless I say something completely outrageous or confusing. Speaking of, did you hear it? I heard it for the first time this morning.

So back to soap box day and once again I am taking on the financial situation. I know it has been dubbed "the crisis" but I refuse to call it that. We all know that the economy has taken a serious hit. We all know that it was because of greed on a lot of people's part.

People who were eager to own a home even though they couldn't afford it took the plunge. Mortgage companies who knew they were taking a gamble decided that making what you can when you can was a great idea and they did the lending. Stock brokers and Wall Street execs who wanted to inflate their own stock prices and make more money decided to bundle these bad loans into investments. Guess who bought those stocks. The neighbor of the people who shouldn't have bought in the first place. Why? Because they thought they could make some money off of it.

So we all know that greed caused the problem. Can we stop covering it left and right on the news now? We know what happened. We don't need 2 Datelines in one week spelling it out for us. How does that help? We don't need everyone repeating the words "crisis, recession, Depression."

In case you didn't see the headlines this morning, February existing home sales were up 5.1%. Guess what happened on the market when they got that news? Oh look! The market went up. What can we learn? Stop being so pessimistic and dramatic about the whole thing. Focus on the good news and start teaching people to be responsible. Yes, I understand that it's serious and we can't paint it pink and call it healthy. But so far painting it black and calling it dead hasn't helped either.

But that's what happens when an optimist gets political.

In other news you should really pull up the odd news section of Yahoo today. I kid you not when I say that there are four toilet, bathroom or behind stories. Seriously! Brussels set a record for the longest line at a FAKE bathroom. Something is up with Bob Dylan's toilet and its smell. Clorox is taking on a Port-o-Potty arsonist. And an Australian kid got fined for accidentally flashing a female police officer.

Wait! Make that five if you count the lady whose dog ate $400 last week. Apparently she has recovered a lot of it. You don't really want to think about how.

I think the most fascinating story is the lady with the flaming water. I'm honestly a little scared for her. The most ridiculous part is that she has to wait until FRIDAY to talk to anyone about the problem. Sure. I'll live in a liquid bomb for a week while you take care of X, Y, and Z.

One more little brain junk bit for you. I came to a realization this weekend. You know who is REALLY responsible for the Nadya Suleman situation? TLC. Have you looked at their programming line up lately? We have Jon and Kate who started the whole thing. Add the Duggars and now the Hayes family with Table for 12. Is it any wonder Nadya (I refuse to call her the Octomom - that's just a horrible name) thought she was going to get all kinds of support and publicity for her family? Just one more railing against reality TV. Not everyone needs to be famous for being average.

From the Research Room this is T.B. Maid saying "May your water be blue and always go down."