Well, another summer has come and just about gone. Fall is upon us, which can only mean one thing for us Floridians: it is still holy-hell hot outside every damn day. Every. Damn. Day. We get three seasons of summer and one season of "catch your breath buddy, because summer is right around the corner". At least Sam Adams Oktoberfest is out. That's a plus.
I suppose it wouldn't be right to NOT to start by recognizing the 800 pound gorilla in the room: our government is so mad at itself that it decided to shut down in a glorious blaze of self-defeatist and blinded-by-partisan-ideologies glory. Take THAT you hard working and completely not at all to blame government workers who are likely going to have their paychecks delayed at best or ended indefinitely at worst. That'll teach you to... pay your taxes and consequently employ jack-offs who end funding to your paychecks.
Now you go home and think about what you've done.
On the bright side, the federal government has concurrently not tried to stop the state-by-state legalization of marijuana. So, soon we'll all be too high to notice our craptastic and dysfunctional government chopping off our collective nose to spite our face. That's fun. In related news, I'm going to invest heavily in the Taco Bell and blacklight-poster-related stocks. The frightening fact is that this circus sideshow represents only a pale prelude to the Defcon 5 conflict expected concerning the debt ceiling.
The Federal Reserve's most recent open market committee meeting was the one widely expected to herald the onset of the much anticipated taper of Quantitative Easing's monthly 85 billion dollar bond purchase. Talking heads were firmly convinced that it wasn't an issue of if, it was purely and issue of how much. And in fine Big Ben Bernanke style, the Fed came out and announced no taper whatsoever. The reason? Well, they said it much more eloquently, but essentially the feeling was that Congress can't get their heads out of their own tailpipes long enough to put together a stable tax policy to ensure this fledging recovery continues. Hence, the Fed can't afford the risk of tightening monetary policy and exacerbating the possible aftermath of dumb political gridlock.
Home prices continue to powerfully rebound nationally as home sales show choppy but resilient gains. Bond prices have suffered extensive volatility, with the 10 year spiking above 3% before settling down after the Fed's remarks. The long-term upward trend of rates implies that home price appreciation may slow or take a pause in early 2014. While job growth remains consistent it also remains sub-par, strengthening the argument for continued easing measures. This is the boring and informative paragraph to remind you that I do in fact know what the hell I am talking about. I hope you enjoyed it.
Syria decided that it'd be super cool to use chemical weapons on its own citizenry, which is probably not a thrillingly reasonable course of action. This put our fearless leader Obama in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. On the one hand America doesn't want to appear remotely tolerant of such a flagrant human rights violation. On the other hand, starting another money-pit war probably wouldn't go over so well with anyone. Of course our good friend Vladimir Putin swooped in to save the day by getting Syrian leaders to agree to a dismantling of all their chemical weapons in order to avert chaos. So yaaaaaaay Vladimir. Thanks for making us look like we're incapable of solving our own problems. ...again ...after the whole Snowden thing ...which now we're evidently making a movie about.
And this brings to light a very peculiar parallel: Why is it that we were so eager to wage a military strike against Syria when we have a boatload of evidence surrounding North Korean human rights violations on their own citizenry and yet do nothing? Is it due to the chemical nature of the Syrian attacks? The powerful diplomatic link between China and North Korea? The fact that North Korea wields at least one nuclear weapon? The comparable instability and strategic value of the nations surrounding Syria?
Much like the coveted number of licks that it takes to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop, the world may never know.
Senator Ted Cruz recently went on a marathon filibuster against ObamaCare in a shockingly similar fashion as Wendy Davis' Texas filibuster over access to abortion. I find the parallel between blocking women's denial to abortion rights and the umpteenth attempt at blocking the Affordable Care Act to be, well, kinda silly. Maybe I'm alone on that one.
George Zimmerman (aka the gift that keeps on giving to the news) has reared his ugly head once again, this time threatening his wife Shellie and her father with a gun. Shellie called the police, stating "I don't know what he is capable of" which I find hilarious because literally everyone else in this country knows exactly what that man can do with a gun. And she isn't pressing charges because, well, he seems to be pretty good at beating gun-related charges.
Water has just been discovered on Mars. Any of you want to take bets on which company will be bottling and selling it first? My money's on Zephyrhills (purely because I'm a sucker for a hometown favorite).
Iowa has made the sound decision to issue gun permits to blind people because to do otherwise would be "discrimination". This is absolutely true. You can't make this stuff up.
The Peabody, our very own iconic duck-centric Orlando hotel has been bought by Hyatt and the ducks have just been "retired". Across their throats. With a meat cleaver. And then they've been stuffed with a chicken before themselves being stuffed into a turkey. Because there is no better way to have Hyatt celebrate the end of an Orlando icon than with fresh turducken.
Seriously though. No more ducks. In memoriam, I hope you'll enjoy this link to the duck song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtN1YnoL46Q I promise it's wholesome. Except the duck is kind of a jerk. But in a wholesome way.
