I ripped my only (wearable) pair of jeans right up the side. This was right after I whizzed by (e:james) and right in front of (e:lauren) and (e:fellyconnelly)'s place. My pant leg got stuck in my gear sprocket. Funny thing is just yesterday I got a pair of "work dungarees" from Carhart. I like them but they are so stiff and need to be broken in. Also I am worried they are going to shrink but I don't know if they will shrink because they are pre-washed. I think it is good that they are snug around the waste because it will keep me in shape if I want to wear them. I just don't get why sizes are not more universal and why when you order the same size waist they can vary by so much.

I just got two new pairs of kicks from zappos.com. I love that site because they never really seem to f it up and their service is so easy and fast. Maybe bad for my carbon footprint, but if the malls would sell what I want, than maybe I wouldn't have to order online. I have looked for jeans for quite a long time but can't find any at the malls that I am really happy with. I am prepared to spend up to $100 but preferably cheaper than that. Does anyone know of a good place online I can find quality, good fit, non ripped, no faded horizontal striped jeans?

So now things that I need/want for my bike:

Rack- Want
Tires-Need
U lock-Want
Helmet-Want
Camera bag for handle bars-Want

I could probably list other stuff but that is all good for now. I really want the rack and tires first for an upcoming bike trip. They are expensive and now I have to go and buy jeans...

So my friend Kathy came today to hypnotize me for smoking cessation. It was pretty awesome. I like the whole process really. I was totally conscious of everything. First she had me close my eyes and then she had me relax all of my muscles in my head one by one. Then I was going deeper and deeper down these stairs and once I got to the bottom she planted the suggestions. I think they had an effect on me but it is still too soon to tell. It did seem that there was an immediate aversion to ever filling my lungs with the cigarette smoke again. She is coming again next week to do another session. She said it doesn't work for long the first try, that it really should be done more than once. Since she is going to do all the sessions for free-- why not?

She also can teach me to do self-hypnosis. I did try hypnosis tapes (I think I was a teen) a while back and I did like doing them. It was weird because a lot of it was the same but I definitely liked it a lot better with Kathy. The next time is supposed to be a deeper hypnosis and generally work better.

I made dinner. Organic chicken thighs with homemade honey mustard dipping sauce. Also served tortellini salad, grilled veggies and salad. Finished with Stony Field Farms after dark chocolate ice cream (thanks S) along with vegan cookie.

I just hate everything about them. Their furniture looks cheap but it is not. They also send huge catalogs all the time to people that obviously don't want to order. My roommate ordered one thing from them a year ago and has kept on getting a catalog just about every other week. I finally just took the liberty of removing him from their mailing list.

F U POTTERY BARN. If I ever have money I certainly would not want my house to look like one of your wretched catalogs.

I wanted to be hypnotized over two years ago to help with my lingering cravings to smoke cigarettes. This is the journal I wrote about it in. Basically, I was having a really hard time not smoking but glad that I had quit nonetheless. So, now on Monday a woman that I work with is going to hypnotize me with the hopes that it will help with my lingering cravings. Clearly at this point it is all mental. At least I will be able to tell if it helps; whereas, if I were still smoking it would be harder to tell if it really works or if I just really wanted to quit.

Because hypnotism for smoking cessation is not evidence based, I can't really advocate it at work even if it does end up helping me. I'm really hoping it works because even now a good two years after that post I still struggle with not smoking. It still isn't an option for me to have a puff and so far that strategy has worked but I still have this basic tension from not smoking.

Today I talked to a woman who was completely addicted to the nicotine gum. It was kind of sad because she seemed a little desperate to get off of it. Of course that was touchy ground for me to give advice to get off of nicotine replacement. I think I did good. She wanted to know if she could use the patch to wean herself off. I told her it made sense logically but that she would have to consult a MD as it was off label use of the medicine. Anyways, I went off on this tangent about her because she really seemed OK off of the cigarettes but just couldn't really deal with not having nicotine in her blood. Actually she had a lot more nicotine in her blood using the gum than if she were still smoking what she had been when she quit. It seems that it really does have an effect on your body physiologically long after the physical addiction has stopped. I sometimes wonder what Chantix could do for me but quickly put that out of my mind each and every time I hear of it causing awful side effects. It seems to me that I would rather smoke than use that drug.

I'll let you guys know how the hypnotism works out. At this point I think I might need an exorcism. The woman who is going to do it does know what she is doing and also says that she doesn't want to smoke anymore. She hasn't said that was from the hypnotism or not. I have heard her tell people that it was hard to quit smoking so I would assume that hypnotism doesn't make it easy. Nothing makes it easy.

This dog in my neighborhood will not shut up. It is driving me crazy. The other night I was forced to shut my windows it was so bad. It makes me think of this Seinfeld clip.

• DON"T FORGET THE PARTY!" See last post for details.

I finally got my FICO score. It certainly is a lot better than I thought it would be. I did make my mistakes that I am paying for, but I am hoping that as the time goes by with me being responsible, I will improve my score so that I can get better rates when it comes down to buying a home or accessing other lines of credit. Here is some info about what kind of rates I would get right now based on my score.

Accurate as of June 10, 2009. Source: Informa Research Services.
30 year mortgage
    Score     Rate
    760- 850     5.234%
    700- 759     5.456%
    680- 699     5.633%
Your current range     660- 679     5.847%
    640- 659     6.277%
    620- 639     6.823%
    
15 year home equity loan
    Score     Rate
    740- 850     8.118%
    720- 739     8.418%
    700- 719     8.918%
Your current range     670- 699     9.693%
    640- 669     11.193%
    620- 639     12.443%
    
48 month auto loan
    Score     Rate
    720- 850     5.961%
    690- 719     7.425%
Your current range     660- 689     8.843%
    620- 659     11.626%
    590- 619     15.428%
    500- 589     16.231%
Home equity line of credit (under $50,000)     8.057%     Home equity line of credit (over $50,000)     8.174%
30 year jumbo mortgage     5.847%     10 year home equity loan     9.523%
15 year mortgage     5.389%     15 year jumbo mortgage     5.389%
1/1 ARM     3.721%     1/1 jumbo ARM     3.721%
3/1 ARM     4.271%     3/1 jumbo ARM     4.271%
5/1 ARM     4.513%     5/1 jumbo ARM     4.513%
7/1 ARM     4.755%     7/1 jumbo ARM     4.755%
10/1 ARM     5.251%     10/1 jumbo ARM     5.634%
36 month auto loan     8.843%     48 month used auto loan     9.647%
60 month auto loan     8.882%          

Using a 30 year fixed mortgage as an example, your FICO® score qualifies you for an interest rate of 5.847%. Someone with a FICO® score of 630 would receive a rate of 6.823%. On a $250,000 mortgage, you would save more than $160 a month compared to a person who has a relatively poor score. So it's vitally important that you keep your score high.

You can purchase your score for $15.95/ each. I say "each" because there are more than one to choose from. Go to myfico.com

It is definitely worth it to know your score and it does tell you how to improve it. It also gives you an opportunity to dispute things that are not accurate. For me it was that they did not have my employer listed and that they did not have a phone number for me on file.

It sucks that I have some bad marks against me. At least I rectified them and am moving forward with consistent on time payments. Those will affect me less as time goes by.

Your FICO score does matter. It is a probability that you will pay back what you borrowed. Your rates are going to be decided upon based largely on this score. A difference in just one percent point can make huge differences in your monthly payment.

My goal is to get to over 700 in the next five years.

I'm having a party on Saturday and everyone on estrip is invited! 9pm to ? That's right, until ?

I'll have some party food and a very limited supply of alcohol so you may want to bring something to drink for yourself.

Hope to see you there!

Source

Published on Monday, June 1, 2009 by CommonDreams.org
Goodbye, GM

by Michael Moore

I write this on the morning of the end of the once-mighty General Motors. By high noon, the President of the United States will have made it official: General Motors, as we know it, has been totaled.

As I sit here in GM's birthplace, Flint, Michigan, I am surrounded by friends and family who are filled with anxiety about what will happen to them and to the town. Forty percent of the homes and businesses in the city have been abandoned. Imagine what it would be like if you lived in a city where almost every other house is empty. What would be your state of mind?

It is with sad irony that the company which invented "planned obsolescence" -- the decision to build cars that would fall apart after a few years so that the customer would then have to buy a new one -- has now made itself obsolete. It refused to build automobiles that the public wanted, cars that got great gas mileage, were as safe as they could be, and were exceedingly comfortable to drive. Oh -- and that wouldn't start falling apart after two years. GM stubbornly fought environmental and safety regulations. Its executives arrogantly ignored the "inferior" Japanese and German cars, cars which would become the gold standard for automobile buyers. And it was hell-bent on punishing its unionized workforce, lopping off thousands of workers for no good reason other than to "improve" the short-term bottom line of the corporation. Beginning in the 1980s, when GM was posting record profits, it moved countless jobs to Mexico and elsewhere, thus destroying the lives of tens of thousands of hard-working Americans. The glaring stupidity of this policy was that, when they eliminated the income of so many middle class families, who did they think was going to be able to afford to buy their cars? History will record this blunder in the same way it now writes about the French building the Maginot Line or how the Romans cluelessly poisoned their own water system with lethal lead in its pipes.

So here we are at the deathbed of General Motors. The company's body not yet cold, and I find myself filled with -- dare I say it -- joy. It is not the joy of revenge against a corporation that ruined my hometown and brought misery, divorce, alcoholism, homelessness, physical and mental debilitation, and drug addiction to the people I grew up with. Nor do I, obviously, claim any joy in knowing that 21,000 more GM workers will be told that they, too, are without a job.

But you and I and the rest of America now own a car company! I know, I know -- who on earth wants to run a car company? Who among us wants $50 billion of our tax dollars thrown down the rat hole of still trying to save GM? Let's be clear about this: The only way to save GM is to kill GM. Saving our precious industrial infrastructure, though, is another matter and must be a top priority. If we allow the shutting down and tearing down of our auto plants, we will sorely wish we still had them when we realize that those factories could have built the alternative energy systems we now desperately need. And when we realize that the best way to transport ourselves is on light rail and bullet trains and cleaner buses, how will we do this if we've allowed our industrial capacity and its skilled workforce to disappear?

Thus, as GM is "reorganized" by the federal government and the bankruptcy court, here is the plan I am asking President Obama to implement for the good of the workers, the GM communities, and the nation as a whole. Twenty years ago when I made "Roger & Me," I tried to warn people about what was ahead for General Motors. Had the power structure and the punditocracy listened, maybe much of this could have been avoided. Based on my track record, I request an honest and sincere consideration of the following suggestions:

1. Just as President Roosevelt did after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the President must tell the nation that we are at war and we must immediately convert our auto factories to factories that build mass transit vehicles and alternative energy devices. Within months in Flint in 1942, GM halted all car production and immediately used the assembly lines to build planes, tanks and machine guns. The conversion took no time at all. Everyone pitched in. The fascists were defeated.

We are now in a different kind of war -- a war that we have conducted against the ecosystem and has been conducted by our very own corporate leaders. This current war has two fronts. One is headquartered in Detroit. The products built in the factories of GM, Ford and Chrysler are some of the greatest weapons of mass destruction responsible for global warming and the melting of our polar icecaps. The things we call "cars" may have been fun to drive, but they are like a million daggers into the heart of Mother Nature. To continue to build them would only lead to the ruin of our species and much of the planet.

The other front in this war is being waged by the oil companies against you and me. They are committed to fleecing us whenever they can, and they have been reckless stewards of the finite amount of oil that is located under the surface of the earth. They know they are sucking it bone dry. And like the lumber tycoons of the early 20th century who didn't give a damn about future generations as they tore down every forest they could get their hands on, these oil barons are not telling the public what they know to be true -- that there are only a few more decades of useable oil on this planet. And as the end days of oil approach us, get ready for some very desperate people willing to kill and be killed just to get their hands on a gallon can of gasoline.

President Obama, now that he has taken control of GM, needs to convert the factories to new and needed uses immediately.

2. Don't put another $30 billion into the coffers of GM to build cars. Instead, use that money to keep the current workforce -- and most of those who have been laid off -- employed so that they can build the new modes of 21st century transportation. Let them start the conversion work now.

3. Announce that we will have bullet trains criss-crossing this country in the next five years. Japan is celebrating the 45th anniversary of its first bullet train this year. Now they have dozens of them. Average speed: 165 mph. Average time a train is late: under 30 seconds. They have had these high speed trains for nearly five decades -- and we don't even have one! The fact that the technology already exists for us to go from New York to L.A. in 17 hours by train, and that we haven't used it, is criminal. Let's hire the unemployed to build the new high speed lines all over the country. Chicago to Detroit in less than two hours. Miami to DC in under 7 hours. Denver to Dallas in five and a half. This can be done and done now.

4. Initiate a program to put light rail mass transit lines in all our large and medium-sized cities. Build those trains in the GM factories. And hire local people everywhere to install and run this system.

5. For people in rural areas not served by the train lines, have the GM plants produce energy efficient clean buses.

6. For the time being, have some factories build hybrid or all-electric cars (and batteries). It will take a few years for people to get used to the new ways to transport ourselves, so if we're going to have automobiles, let's have kinder, gentler ones. We can be building these next month (do not believe anyone who tells you it will take years to retool the factories -- that simply isn't true).

7. Transform some of the empty GM factories to facilities that build windmills, solar panels and other means of alternate forms of energy. We need tens of millions of solar panels right now. And there is an eager and skilled workforce who can build them.

8. Provide tax incentives for those who travel by hybrid car or bus or train. Also, credits for those who convert their home to alternative energy.

9. To help pay for this, impose a two-dollar tax on every gallon of gasoline. This will get people to switch to more energy saving cars or to use the new rail lines and rail cars the former autoworkers have built for them.

Well, that's a start. Please, please, please don't save GM so that a smaller version of it will simply do nothing more than build Chevys or Cadillacs. This is not a long-term solution. Don't throw bad money into a company whose tailpipe is malfunctioning, causing a strange odor to fill the car.

100 years ago this year, the founders of General Motors convinced the world to give up their horses and saddles and buggy whips to try a new form of transportation. Now it is time for us to say goodbye to the internal combustion engine. It seemed to serve us well for so long. We enjoyed the car hops at the A&W. We made out in the front -- and the back -- seat. We watched movies on large outdoor screens, went to the races at NASCAR tracks across the country, and saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time through the window down Hwy. 1. And now it's over. It's a new day and a new century. The President -- and the UAW -- must seize this moment and create a big batch of lemonade from this very sour and sad lemon.

Yesterday, the last surviving person from the Titanic disaster passed away. She escaped certain death that night and went on to live another 97 years.

So can we survive our own Titanic in all the Flint Michigans of this country. 60% of GM is ours. I think we can do a better job.
Yours, Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com
Michael Moore is an activist, author, and filmmaker. See more of his work at his website MichaelMoore.com

I think his ideas are really good. Sorry, but GM is over. The factories need a complete overhaul. We certainly don't need anymore GM vehicles on the road. WNY obviously is very affected and can play a big role in the switch from individual to mass transport. This is the biggest opportunity we have to change the course of a nation and the world. When will it ever be better to make the switch?

This also kind of goes along with (e:paul)'s thoughts on workfare.

For the record, I am all for capable people of working to receive benefits if they are not already working or in school. In reality, if they are working for it, they shouldn't be considered as "benefits" at all. It seems that almost everyone can contribute in some way or another in society. There are so many things that can be done and created by government programs to improve neighborhoods and communities.

It seems that Medicaid is NYS biggest financial burden. See (e:jim)'s journal for more background on how this relates to GM