The following is the lead-in to an article that appeared USAToday, this week:

DILLON, South Carolina (AP) — Hillary Rodham Clinton downplayed recent acrimony between her campaign and that of Barack Obama as her husband, former President Bill Clinton, suggested she may lose Saturday’s Democratic presidential primary because many black voters will side with Obama.

I find it curious that this argument of people voting along racial lines is only being raised as it relates to Obama’s campaign. If black people are going to vote along racial lines (and I am not saying this is NOT the case), then aren’t white people and mexican people (especially mexicans) doing it too. And hasn’t this really been the case all along? I am not surprised by this, only by the fact that, until now, white people, have come to realize and take exception to the fact that RACE COLORS EVERYTHING (NO PUN INTENDED)! (Bill and Hillary represent the views of all white people, right? Just as a single black person is oftentimes characterized as representing the views of the black race).

I know that they are part of the elite class but it is not possible that anyone who happily accepts the title of the “first black president” who is married to a white woman who claims to have been committed to blacks and their problems throughout her life (these are my words and not hers; I am simply trying to paraphrase a bucket load of bull shit into a couple of sentences, could not have been aware of the enormous racial divide in this country. In reality they are rednecks who have for years been pandering to black folks and the have-nots, in order to maintain elected positions.

Let’s not just limit this assumption that people make decisions in favor of their race to the President Obama/Hillary battle. In essence, what Bill is insinuating is that people favor those who are of the same racial make-up as themselves and disfavor those who are racially dissimilar to themselves. Hmmmm, definitely sounds like intellectual aptitude deserving of a Rhodes Scholarship.

So, let’s theorize about what the impact is likely to be due to this supposed tendency of people to let their decisions be overwhelmingly influenced by their race? Let’s look at the employment market? What about law enforcement? How about sentencing for criminal convictions? Then there is educational opportunities or a lack thereof. Oh, let’s not forget to consider access to healthcare and treatment and diagnosis of disease. And what about the media coverage of people of color versus others? Oops, did I imply that the very media that run these fucked up stories are biased against people of color?

Anyway, I yell “BULLSHIT” to all of these shenanigans. Bill and Hillary put a new layer of stench on an already funky pile of mile high shit!

I was resisting the urge to write about this nonsense but the media’s insistence on denying the obvious is, well, annoying me. For whatever reason, the media continues to romanticize yet another so-called movie star who is so angst filled that they can’t cope with their own success, yeah, RIGHT! Give me a break. I make sure to tell my kids on an ongoing basis that no amount of fame or fortune is worth putting their life at risk and living dangerously. Behavior, good and bad, has consequences. When the BAD consequences are romanticized, then it is difficult for children and young adults to understand that careless, fatal mistakes are, well, fatal.

It is certainly a tragedy that a young adult with so much talent and promise, and a daughter, is dead at the age of 28 years. What I can’t get over is all of the attention being paid to this tragedy, from the perspective of idolizing a man who had everything to live for and still chose to exhibit reckless, self-destructive behavior, which appearantly killed him. Of course, there is the ever present sugar coating of the drugs all being “prescription” versus crack or meth. But in the end, it appears to me that Heath is as dead as a doornail and no different than a any other crack head or heroin addict who takes one too many trips on the escape road to nowhere.

Just as with Brittany, Amy Whinehouse and others, the media is doing all of us a disservice by giving so much positive attention to life threatening, illegal and disgusting behavior. Rich drug addicts don’t have more fun, they just have fancier funerals. The Grammy nominations forAmy Whinehouse should be retracted, period. How can we overlook her drug addicted behavior and praise her artistry; there simply can be no separation of the two.

Just do us all a favor, Amy. Either get your act together or bring this to a swift end. Even Anna Nicole has faded into obscurity and you, Amy, are nowhere near as appealing to the masses as she was. In the end, we common folks, frankly, don’t give a damn!

The SocGen trader was familiar with the bank’s internal controls

A Paris-based trader working for Societe Generale has cheated the French bank out of 4.9bn euros ($7.1bn), in what appears to be the biggest fraud by a single trader in banking history. Societe Generale said it discovered last week that a trader concealed massive trading positions built up over 2007 and 2008 through “a scheme of elaborate fictitious transactions”.

You can find the rest of the story here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7206798.stm

The bank alleges he used in-depth knowledge of the control procedures gained while working in the bank’s middle office in his former job.

He joins a long line of “rogue traders”, whose dodgy dealings have cost their employers dearly.

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