At the end of December...

...Kanani gave me the honor of the Honest Scrap Award, but in order to get it, I have to write a few honest facts about myself or what I really think. So here goes...

1. I am a procrastinator of the worst sort, and that can be a problem when you're in a profession that lives and dies by filing deadlines and statutes of limitations.

2. I'm a great believer in free speech, but I have a difficult time being respectful of the views of conservative Republicans at the national level, especially after what their party has done to this country over the last eight years. It pisses me off that the Reagan, Bush Sr., and Bush Jr. adminstrations have all spent this country into colossal debt, and yet it is the Democrats who are tagged as financially irresponsible, when they're trying to clean up the messes that Republicans leave.

3. I loathe the bailout for the banks. Loathe it. I have tons more sympathy for the car manufacturers than the investment banks. The carmakers sold great big cars and trucks, because people wanted great big cars and trucks. The bigger, the better, in fact. The mistake the carmakers made was in not planning well for when the market would turn on a dime, as it has. Quite frankly, no manufacturing industry of any size can efficiently weather that kind of catastrophic change. There's simply too much momentum behind the methods of production. The banks, OTOH, created a defective product, knowing that it was defective, sold it to people on a false premise, made a freakin' truck load of money, and then had the nerve to whine when the house of cards collapsed, and the market handed them their asses on a platter.

4. I will not voluntarily shop at Wal-Mart. And if forced to do so by circumstances beyond my control, I bitch about it the entire time.

5. I haven't missed a general election--local, state, or federal--in the 30 years that I have been a registered voter. And I have only missed one primary, and that was when I was still in college.