A list of really random things on my mind.

• Saudi is going to keep pumping as much oil as they want, OPEC be damned. Will the price of oil go down further?

• Biden thinks Obama should have picked Hillary. Of course you say that now, after your opponent picked a running mate that you can't deal with. If the Dems lose this year, they are going to have to do some serious rethinking. I maintain that they have not done the soul-searching and clarification of vision that they needed to do after 9/11, although one could argue that the charisma of Bill Clinton held the Democrats through a longer period of ideological stagnancy. Neither party has satisfied my desire for a rethinking of our place in the world. I know it's cliched, but we live in a radically different world than we did seven years and one day ago. No one's come up with a good framework, and certainly this political season isn't helping.

• Here's what I think: I think the Republicans make a better party out of power, because then they can align the supposed "smaller government" value against their opposition rather than themselves. As we can see from, say 2000 on, that hasn't really worked for them. I also think the party needs to be punished for its legislative record in the last terms. At the same time, I think the Democrats want to solve our financial solvency issues by making us a higher tax country, closer to a European level. I don't want that, and I think there are ways to solve our problems without going down that road. At the same time, the right not only has a terrible recent track record on keeping spending down, they also have a terrible social issues track record as well. Hello Medicare prescription supplement. Hello any politically viable candidate's opinions on abortion. I don't think that my politics are that radical, so why do I feel so alienated from both candidates?

My two thoughts of the day on the anniversary of Sept. 11:

1. None of the political blogs I read have made mention of it, while 90% of the more personal/off-topic blogs that I read have.
2. Someone on my generation is going to come up with a framework to explain the post-9/11 world, like George Kennan did for containment.
   

• Top three recipients of Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac campaign contributions? Let's hear it for the boys:

1. Chris Dodd (chair of the Senate Finance Committee)
2. Barack Obama
   
3. Hillary Clinton

Yes, there were Republicans on that list. But THANKS GUYS for not attending to this problem sooner. Were there more signs that we should have been able to read? In hindsight, yes. At the time, arguably yes. I don't want the baby boomers in power anymore. I think they screwed it up royally. (Yes, Bill Clinton is a baby boomer, but he is not solely or even significantly responsble for the booms we saw in the 90s. And... we are paying for that boom now. It's called a Keynesian business cycle, welcome to it. Thanks, macro!)

K, more reading about Arabs to do. HIYA.