Moving

     At least for the nonce, I'm going to pare it back to this blog.  I'll probably move again later since "brilliant-blue" is a color but also sounds, yeah.

    

Ultra-Serious Post, Watch Now!

    

Lots of Republicans Want the Current Administration to Fail

     Adullamites:

Wikipedia definition: "[I]t has come to mean someone who is plotting against the established leadership of a political party or other group, a group of such plotters being called a Cave of Adullam."

Cornford definition: "The Adullamites are dangerous, because they know what they want; and that is, all the money there is going. They inhabit a series of caves near Downing Street. The say to one another, 'If you will scratch my back, I will scratch yours; and if you won't, I will scratch your face.' It will be seen that these cave-dwellers are not refined, like classical men. That is why they succeed in getting all the money there is going."

Parliamentary Government, Unasked For Advice

     The Czech Republic won't have a government till sometime this Summer, the Likud Party in Israel joined in a coalition with Labor (traditional rivals) in order to form a government, and Belgium lacked a government for more than three months just last year. What's going on?

     In modern Parliamentary democracies, the majority party doesn't get to become Prime Minister automatically, instead they need to form a coalition of parties that forms at least half the Parliament.  This is daft, and "not having a government for months on end" is just one of the problems.

     The vote of "no confidence" is how these types of governments usually end.  It is a way of saying "No" to the current leadership without saying "yes" to any new leadership.  A better way exists.  Instead of "no confidence" votes, the Parliament should hold a new election for the PM job. Now, of course, you might ask "But if every party votes for their own leader, and no party has more than half the seats, don't you have the same problem?"  Not if you use NOT BRAINDEAD STUPID voting systems like we have here in the "Greatest Country On Earth". 

     Real voting is Cloneproof, Monotonic, and Condorcet, although the absolutely best voting system I haven't had time to prove, I have presented other people's work which shows that Schulze and Tideman are really good.

     Come to think of it, in a body as small as the Israeli Parliament (in any body small enough that the members know each other and will have to continue to work together) the Borda system can be even better, and maybe even the Borda-variant known as "Range Voting."

     Either way you get continuity of operations in the Parliament.

WTF, Obama

     Obama's first appointment to the Federal Bench has an UNQUALIFIED rating from the ABA?  Thanks, Obama. Way to set the bar low.

One of my Favorite Speeches of All Time

     American Interests in the Cuban Revolution, Stephen Grover Cleveland's State of the Union for 1896.

Cuba and Israel: Get Them To Fight?

     El Salvador and Costa Rica have ended their economic embargo/sanctions against Cuba.  That means America is the only country left on Earth to have such a position.

     In the United Nations, only one country on Earth stands up for Israel, and that is America.

     For over a century Cubans in America have been agitating for America to take an active interest in that country (see Grover Cleveland's 1896(?) State of the Union address for an example).  This interest, at all times, comes with a cost.  Much the same can be said for Israelis in America, except the timeframe is only half as long. 

     Cubans and Israelis are fighting over scarce resources.  If we get them to fight it out, they can become each other's worst enemies, saving rational people the effort of having to point out how stupid America is being in both instances.

     Cubans Against Israel is a real group that I just made up that thinks U.S. Foreign Policy towards Israel is shameful, and Israelis Against the Cuban Embargo is another radical fringe element (which I just made up) who thinks economic sanctions against the Castro regime are getting America nowhere, and so the effort shouldn't be wasted.

My post on Credit Default Swaps (the stuff that continues to sink AIG)

     From April of 2008...

    
Are any of you homeowners?
Even if you aren't, you all know about fire insurance.
If your house burns down,
  and you didn't do it,
  a fire insurance policy is worth money.

What jumps to your mind
  when you hear
  about someone selling their fire insurance policy?
Only one things jumps to my mind,
  maybe I've just listened to too many 1940s and 50s radio dramas,
  insurance fraud.

That's exactly what the credit default swap market is all about,
  a stock market for insurance policies.
It's a little more sophisticated,
  as if you could divide up your fire insurance policy
  and sell little bits to different people.
But what's more amazing than that,
  this has to take the cake,
  you can sell as many copies of your fire insurance policy as you want!

Instead of being about a house burning down,
  it's about the value of a bond going down,
  something the banks call a "credit event,"
  like a rating agency downgrade,
  or outright default.

The banks who sell these policies,
  like I said,
  can sell as many copies as they want.

I don't think it takes a supra-genius
  to figure out what will happen
  if everyone in town
  stands to profit
  if your house burns down.

Extra Fact: 13% of all the people buying this excess "insurance" are unknown, their names are simply unreported.

New Wars, New Lies

     Just how immoral is CNN? Kitty Pilgrim just did a segment for the Lou Dobbs show on Obama not answering "threats" to America. 

     The first issue was Iran.  The simple fact is that there are enough processed uranium molecules in Iran to build a nuclear bomb.  Let's put aside that America is violating its NNPT obligations.  The simple facts that Dobbs/Pilgrim avoid, showing their lack of morals, are

• All the uranium is under IAEA watch, none of uranium Mullen was talking about is a secret to the IAEA.
• All the uranium in question is enriched below the 5% level.  It takes more than 95% enriched uranium to use in a bomb, and there is not ONE IOTA of evidence that Iran has ONE ATOM of uranium enriched to that level.  Nor could they enrich it to 95% without the IAEA knowing about it, or throwing the IAEA out.

Are Lou Dobbs and Kitty Pilgrim enemies of humankind?  This is patently clear.  The other two stories include the US warship searching for Chinese subs in being "harassed."  The military claims the Chinese were boating recklessly, "forcing" the US Navy ship to maneuver to avoid collision.  What exactly happened?  If the military doesn't have satellite footage of the incident, they aren't doing their jobs.  Until then, PICS OR IT DIDN'T HAPPEN.  Pilgrim/Dobbs had the word "AGGRESSIVE" in huge letters plastered across the screen.  What's a dumb person to think?  The third of three was about a North Korean missile test and a provocative statement made by the North Koreans.  Holy Crap!  Read the North Korean newswire (www.kcna.co.jp/index-e.htm) for a while, folks, they never STOP saying batshit crazy stuff.  I dare you.  Go to any random day in their news archive, and there will be a story about uniting to defeat America and reuniting Korea.

     Remember, the whole point of this piece was to claim that Obama was being a weakling, and to bully the American government into getting more aggressive. 

QUIZ TIME

     This blog will close unless I get any answer.

     What do David Mamet and Bob Dylan have in common?

Concerning the Assassination of President Veiera of Guinea-Bissau

     The way I remember it, I was happy reading about the coup against him in 1998.

     I was especially pleased with the way the Chief of the Army, who ran the coup, set up elections within a year, maybe within 9 months.

     I was especially sad to read how, back then, forces aligned with the newly elected President killed the General in his home.

     The last line of the AP story is like magic for me, the CPSC being the only group that talked sense after the '98 coup. 

Portugal said it would call an emergency meeting of the Community of Portuguese- Speaking Countries, an eight-member organization based in Lisbon.

    Guinea-Bissau is Lusophone.

Winning Hearts and Minds

     This fucker should be yanked from Iraq: fuck you, fucker.  He should be called out.  He should get what he threatens the Iraqi police with.

    

I Promise To Turn the Moon Green by 2423!

     Obama has promised to cut the deficit in half by 2013.  Bush used to pull this kind of nonsense all the time.  Every year it seemed he'd promise he'd cut his record-setting deficits in half... if we only gave him five years.  What's so special about 2013?  By then Obama will be past the 2012 election, and so whether or not he's fulfilled his promise, whether or not anyone remembers he ever made the promise, is entirely irrelevant.

     I wish the media wouldn't bother reporting such fluff.

Bleg

Seems like
Thursday night
Unless I hide in the corner
Some people might learn about my LanguageAndPeace.com website.

Would you mind looking at it and sending suggestions other than "Hey, there's no graphic design at all, you could sure use that!"
Merci beaucoup

Colors/Graphics

     The first graphic is very physics-nerdy... all the energy there is, the next is political, showing an overlay of Imperial Germany on modern Poland, the next is about religiosity in America (by State) as compared to other countries entitled "What Alabamanians and Iranians Have in Common" and the last is an article about red and blue.

    

VICTORY IS MINE!

     So, for a thousand years, with some pretty stunning reversals, the Turko-Hunno-Mongol steppe-people (Turkey, the Soviet Stans, Mongolia) and the Persians fought it out. 

     Yes, for about four hundred years, it seems as though the Mongols had the utmost power, after all, didn't the Chingis-Khanites reach past Iraq, wasn't Tamerlane ruling Persia, his capital their capital? 

     Certainly the Timurids (after Tamerlane) ruled Persia, but only after making Persian their language.  The same was true with the Mongols in China, who ruled, but could not impose the Mongolian language, or even rule with it, but spoke Chinese (a little more research required on that one, I'm sure of the rest).

     Say, about 1600, we want to say the major waves of war in this area came to an end.  Where was the final, sustainable boundary?  Here is Grousset describing it: "At the moment the empires were crystallizing, Persia was destined to remain to the Persians, as was ethnically fitting, and Turkestan to the Turks." (Grousset, 2005 9th printing, Rutgers U. Press, p. 468).  By "Turkestan" here Grousset is refering to the countries which are now Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kirghiz and Kazakhstans. 

     The large scale brutality of the millenia of Turco-Hunno-Mongol wars seems to pretty much outdo any other in the history of the world.  Memorably, Tamerlane was quite fond of huge pyramids of skulls, sometimes tens of thousands of heads from a city he had just taken.  But when the pushing and shoving came to an end, the line in the sand was the one demarcated by language.

Why Montesquieu?

In 1760 a youthful John Adams noted in his diary that he had begin to read The Spirit of Laws and planned to compile comprehensive marginal notes to insure his proper attention to the work.  Roughly a decade and a half later, Thomas Jefferson, who was to suceed Adams to the Presidency, devoted no less than twenty-eight pages of his Commonplace Book to extracts from this same work, and in 1792, in an essay on "Spirit of Governments," James Madison compared Montesquieu's role in the science of government to that of Francis Bacon in natural philosophy. According to Madison, Montesquieu "had lifted the veil from the venerable errors which enslaved opinion and pointed the way to those luminous truths of which he had but a glimpse himself." --quote without permission from the Preface to 1977 University of California Press edition of the Spirit of Laws (DO NOT BUY! Horribly Abridged!)

As I mentioned earlier, George Washington studied Montesquieu and Blackstone for the Second Constitutional Convention. In addition, I've read John Jay and Alexander Hamilton also regarded the work quite highly.

     So, when people who know too little point to the conservative John Locke (a lot of whose work was involved in the admirable task of refuting the Divine Right of Kings(1st Treatise on Government) and then setting up monarchical governments (Carolinian Constitutions)) point to Montesquieu.

     It is the best way to shove the facts up the ass of the so-called originalists who fob off de Tocqueville and Locke and rose-colored glasses history on us until their eyes bleed.

If one should see George Walker Bush

     One is encourage to say, in a loud voice so he can overhear, "Hey, it's President Shit-for-Brains, who single handedly did more damage to America than anyone in the history of the world."

     One is also encouraged to title him as such in print, for example, "During the era of President Shit-for-Brains..." or "George Walker Bush, who single-handedly did more damage to America than anyone else in the history of the world."

     Compliance in these matters is mandatory and appreciated.

Language & Peace: Post-Conflict Courts

     Ellen Emilie Stensrud of Norway writes in the latest issue of the Journal of Conflict Research (Vol 46(1), Jan 2009) on the Cambodian and Sierra Leonean Special Courts set up under the auspices of the United Nations to try people for the Pol Pot era and Civil War years, respectively.  The general conclusion of the article is that the Sierra Leonean trials were not doing much for the local judiciary, because most of the court were foreigners, while in Cambodia, most of the Judges were locals, and beholden to the new Government of Cambodia (which contains some people who were, at some points, members of the Khmer Rouge) and thus illegitimate.

     In private communication, Ms. Stensrud tells me that the Courts have been greatly hampered in Cambodia because all court proceedings are published in English, French and Khmer, a large cost and cause of delay, as qualified translators are rare.  Although Sierra Leone courts are mostly in English, there are many witnesses who do not speak English.

     Thanks to the Journal of Conflict Research and Ms. Stensrud!

LOL at the Ancients

     Do Reason and Logic lead to Atheism, Immorality and Anarchy?  Well, undoubtedly the enlightment DID threaten the double frauds of Monarch and Church, and hence there were reasons(for some) to reject Reason and the Enlightenment.

     But there is a Science and Reason of Morality and Ethics, and it was simply because the Scientists of yore didn't want to step on the toes of religion and the rulers that they avoided studying it.

     It would be funnier if it weren't also a bit sad (considering those who have died and been suppressed by the Kings and Relidgiots for not rigidly adhering to the cockamamie theories of the long dead.

Steve Forbes, Deceiving Fucking Idiot

     THROW THIS ASSHAT OFF THE BUS!

     Steve Forbes said that America suffers from high business taxes. Idiot actually says that American corporations face the "second highest corporate taxes in the industrialized world WHAT A DECEPTIVE BUNCH OF BULLCRAP, WHY DON'T INTERVIEWERS CALL THIS TARD ON IT?

     While technically accurate, this means nothing at all, because the EFFECTIVE CORPORATE TAX RATE IN AMERICA IS SECOND LOWEST IN THE INDUSTRIALIZED WORLD.  Not the top line number that people are supposed to pay, but the actual amount the corporations pay is lower than most anywhere, and FUCKWIT, TOTALLY INSANE STEVE FORBES, rich-guy, thinks they should be lower (fair) and tries to deceive you to get you to believe it, too (EVIL, EVIL, EVIL!).

Fuck Buckley V Valeo

     If money is speech, how come lawyers can't submit, in lieu of a closing argument, checks for 10s of thousands of dollars to the Jurors and a cool million for the Judge?

     BECAUSE MONEY ISN'T SPEECH!

Wow, those Tamil Tigers (LTTE) are HUGE!

     I mean, the Sri Lankan Defense Department says 700 Tamil Tigers are holding 100,000+ Tamils and using them as human shields.  I guess each Tiger is just stapling 1000 Tamils to himself.

     Lots of foreign governments are saying 'Hey, Sri Lanka, ease up a bit, you are killing lots of innocent people' (they also said this many times about the U.S. in Iraq?) but Sri Lanka is like 'No way, Jos&eacut;, we aren't stopping till we have Papa tried and hung.'  Papa, to the Tamil, is Velupillai Prabhakaran, the rebel leader for many years.

     I have to admit, with the relative success of the campaign (99%(?!?) of rebel held territory captured, according to the article) I'd be disinclined to stop, myself.  After all, that's a Sinhala country now, and the Tamil can just learn to live with being a permanent minority, or get killed if they aren't so inclined.  Sounds peachy, no?

BULLSHIT ALERT: Stories are saying the LTTE is reduced to 300 sq. km, and this story says they Sri Lankans have captured 99% of rebel territory, which, roughly, means the rebels had 30,000 sq. km, but Sri Lanka is only 65,525 sq. km, but the LTTE never held even nearly half of the land of Sri Lanka.

Jim DeMint (R-SC)

     This guy just said that his substitute economic stimulus bill is important because it "stops the planned tax increases in 2011."

     WHO PLANNED THOSE TAX INCREASES, A**HAT?  IT WAS THE REPUBLICANS, YOU FLAMING TURD!

Mary Fallin (OK-5)

     May this deceiving Congresscritter be defeated in 2010.

GO GO GADGET GARBERVILLE!

     I spent a summer in Garberville (Mene Mene Thx, Michael), and then another year and a half or so in Arcata (also in Humboldt County, California).

Reality Sets In

     I have known since college that, in many ways, America is a brutal power, mostly overseas.

     I started paying attention to day-to-day political matters in November 2000, quite flummoxed when I learned that Gore had not won.

     Now we have a Democratic administration, and some of the haughtiness I hated from the Bush administration is coming from the Obama administration.

     Are we at a "real risk" of deflation, as Lawrence Summers said? Is deflation so bad? It is bad for non-rich people, which especially includes people in debt (most Americans). Deflation means prices fall. Are prices too high? Lawrence Summers apparently doesn't think so.

     But let's assume that Summers goal is just and noble and good, and that a deflation risk is A Bad Thing. Listen to this presumptious ninny: "I’ve got great confidence that in our country we do the right thing. So I expect a bill to be signed into law.”

     I expect a bill signed into law? Has this guy been mainlining ex-President Hubris? How about, instead of the previous way, he had said:

     "The Treasury Department of the United States believes that the most important legislation the Congress could pass to ensure the economic vitality of the United States is the fiscal stimulus package."

Rep. Collin Peterson (MN-7) Pretty Good Idea

     Credit Defaults Swaps are insurance for bonds.  Rep. Peterson wants to limit ownership of said insurance to people who actually own the bonds.  This is the right direction.

     Of course, if you wanted to buy some CDSs for 10 million dollars, you wouldn't mind buying one bond in with the mix.  In fact, the total value insured by the CDSs should not be allowed to exceed the values of the bonds, and the total amount of insurance held by anyone should not be allowed to exceed the value of their bond-holdings.

     In New York State we already have a law, says the husband of a Tax Attorney I know, that prevents anyone from buying insurance on something they don't have a material interest in.  This, in small part, prevents people from buying life insurance policies on people they don't know (and, since the profit motive exists, trying to get said people killed).

     The Somalis have elected a new President, the guy who lead the Islamic Courts Union government. Ethiopia, with US backing, did their best to kill him and his forces and drive them out. Maybe the U.S. won't do that again. The ICU is not entirely compatible with custom Somali laws, which don't, for example, include cutting off of hands. However, they are anti-pirate, and I understand that when the ICU was in power before, things were somewhat more stable (lack of stability is the status quo in Somalia since 1991, the last time the country was unified under one government.)

     2054 is the 1000th anniversary of the official Catholic-Orthodox split in Christianity. It was a language issue, in any event not a debate about whether the Holy Spirit comes from the father, or the father and the son. The Russians have a new Patriarch today, and he has no plans to heal the rift.

     Gaddafi has been elected Chair of the African Union, a body which has been making some really bone-headed moves in the last year (e.g. initial reactions to Guinean and Mauritanian coups). His idea? To create a United States of Africa. Another, imho, bone-headed move. I'm much more inclined to have a United States of Arabia (Morocco to Syria to Saudi Arabia) and a state over all Bantu African states. However, since governments usually trump people, it might make even _more_ sense to have two great blocks, of Francophone and Anglophone Africa. That would be a bummer, but, there isn't a Standart Bantu language.

     Shoe hurled at Prime Minister of China during speech. Do any shoes come with pie attachments?

Michael Phelps pictured Hitting Bong!

     This is a travesty!  Michael, what are you doing?  You are an athlete, and your body, including your lungs is your primary asset. 

     Don't you know you should be using a vaporizer?

Furthering My Thoughts on Health Care in a Republic

     Democrats tend to be for federal government health care, I am not.  I am not because I have a step-brother (Hi!) who likes Motocross.  I'm sure I'd like flying through the air on a motorbike, but he's broken 11 bones doing this, including a couple that kept him in the hospital for weeks.  Why should you or I pay for those hospital visits?  If everyone was covered, wouldn't they take even more risks?

     Republicans tend to be against illegal immigrants, I am not for limiting federal health care to citizens, and, where it should exist (rather, where I think it should exist) it should be extended to illegal immigrants.

     If an illegal immigrant works at a restaurant you visit, and happens to have Typhus, Ebola or any other communicable disease, you would rather have them go to the doctor and get fixed up rather than infect you.  The insight that came to me a few minutes ago is that the home government should pick up a share of the cost, and vice versa.  What about sexually transmitted diseases, which are communicable?  I believe we all hope an illegal immigrant who falls in love with our daughter (and vice-versa) would not be afraid of seeing a doctor to have themselves treated, or at least made aware of, sexually transmitted diseases they might have. 

Am I Even Supposed to Believe This?

    The Sri Lankan government, having surrounded a 120 sq. mi. region in the northeast of that country, has had its President say that the LTTE, the Liberation Tamil Tigers of Elam, should *not* prevent the 250,000 civilians from fleeing the area.

     Just days earlier this SAME Sri Lankan government claimed there were only 1,000 LTTE fighters left.

     I think we all know that each LTTE fighter is not in charge of guarding 250 Sri Lankans and preventing them from leaving the region.

     Of course not.  The Sri Lankan government is Covering Its Globally Visible A** by saying this, so it can later say "We wouldn't have killed all those civilians if it the LTTE hadn't prevented them from leaving."

     What's even worse, in my humble opinion, than the words of the Sri Lankan President is that the NY Times-owned International Herald Tribune runs this AP story with the headline that re-inforces the governments claims.  Are the AP and NY Times secretly in the thralls of the power of Sri Lanka?  No, it is simply that they are against anyone, including the American Revolutionaries (see: Boston Tea Party, where uniforms were not worn), who would use violence to achieve a political end regardless of the merit of that end.

     In addition, the Sri Lankan military, PERFECT IN ITS ABILITY TO DISTINGUISH LTTE FROM TAMIL CIVILIANS, has decided not to declare any sort of ceasefire while encouraging the Tamil-speaking community to charge them and attempt to push through their battle lines (i.e. leave).

Obama's Huge Blind Spot: Iran

     While I am not unpleased with what's going on with the Obama administration in the Levant, I am constantly displeased with Obama's fact-free rhetoric concerning Iran's nuclear ambitions (ambitions which, when the Shah ruled Iran, America promoted).

     There is no evidence of any current nuclear weapons program, and, in fact, the Iraq war haters (of which I count myself) have to deal with the NIE that says Iran stopped what little they had that qualified as a nuclear weapons program in 2003 as a result of the Iraq War.

     So, predictably, this is bad news

     "While Obama is taking the lead on policy towards Iran, the administration will soon announce that Dennis Ross will become a special envoy to the country[.]"

     Putting Dennis Ross in charge of Iran policy feels like declaring war on Iran. Let's all hope Dennis Ross suffers a career-ending (and severly painful) case of hemorrhoids, and let's hope Obama wakes up on Iran before we get in another war.

The Bush Legacy and "His Fraudulency"

     I suppose one of the best ways to look at the Bush administration is Southern vengeance over what the Northerners did in 1876.  The night of the election, Rutherford B. Hayes, soon to be known as "His Fraudulency," went to sleep thinking he'd lost.  The Chair of the DNC was poring over the numbers, and realized Hayes was down by only one electoral vote.  At this time there were still three Reconstruction governments in the South.  (Northern) Federal Troops, numbering in the thousands, controlled a few square blocks around the capitols of South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana and kept a Northern-installed government in power.  The Chair of the DNC called these occupation Governors and told them to prevent their States from being called, and then worked to disenfranchise as many Southern-sympathetic voters as they could.  The tactic worked, and eventually all three Reconstruction States were counted for Hayes, although, it should be noted, this process took nearly four months.

     Not that Illinois Democrats were blameless!  The only atheist ever appointed to the Supreme Court, Davis, had been selected as the "non-partisan" member of the Electoral Commission to decide what to do.  The Illinois State Congress appointed Davis, a Republican appointee to the Court, as Democratic Senator from Illinois to curry favor for their side.  Instead, Davis used this as an opportunity to recuse himself from the "non-partisan" slot, which was later filled by a Republican. The votes, the votes by the Commission on whether the three states would go to the North or the South split along party lines in all three cases.

     There has not been, nor likely should there be, an "Electoral Commission" again. 

Backsliding

     So, Rwanda arrests Laurent Nkunda, a Tutsi wreaking havoc among the Congolese Hutus and anyone foolish enough to be standing near them, but days later the Tutsi militia operating in Congo, a group that broke away from the Congolese Army, announce their re-integration into the military will take some time yet. These are the forces who, for some years, alongside the Rwanda Tutsi militias, have been roaming the Congo hunting the 1994 genocidaires and anyone who tries to stop their murderous rampage.  This has been the deadliest conflict of the last decade, and one which America (Bush and Clinton) have made worse.

     What I was thinking was that Obama stepped into the President a bit more Africa-Aware than the average bear, contacted Kagame (through an intermediary) and told them to pull back, but that forces (the relatively independent-of-Kagame ex-Congolese Army Tutsis) are still on the warpath.  Please don't get me wrong, they didn't *actually* say "And we won't stop till every Hutu this side of the border is dead" but it is certainly clear that they don't want to take anyone's orders, and they live by the gun, so it is hard to imagine anything _but_ further pillaging/expropriation-of-natural-resources-by-force.

     COULD SOMEONE ASK WHERE THESE TRAINED KILLERS ARE ACQUIRING THEIR BREAKFASTS, LUNCHES, DINNERS AND DESSERTS?

Jeb [...] wins the Presidency in 2016, easily defeating Caroline Kennedy and her "My father was shot in office--what else do you want?" campaign

     Some funny stuff here. 

The Secret Truth About Sarah Palin, the Second Coming

     Palin actually means "again," so that Palingenesis would be to be born again, a clear reference to the arrival of Jesus Christ again.

     I hope Governor Palin goes ahead and writes a children's book entitled "How Godless, Criminal Democrats Stopped Me From Being Mommy to All America."

Sanity Makes Me A Bit Teary-Eyed

     I watched President Obama speak about Energy today.  I know, I know, all the Conservatives are saying this recent economic downtown is really the result of Bill Clinton's economic policies, and if it wasn't for the Bush tax cuts of 2001, 2002 and 2003 (widely trumpeted as being good for the economy) this would be worse than the Great Depression.  Personally, however, I am glad that we have a sane President.

I never got to post this...

    

Bush Buddy Busted

Narco-Nabob, Not to be Named, Nipped Napping

Coke Connection for Connected Kids Collared

President Dude Ranch's School Daze Dealer Dropped

I Have Never Had A Credit Card

     This is a graph, copied from Megan McCardle at the Atlantic, who copied it from someone else, of the ratio of Debt to GDP.  If I had to guess at the circa 1980 action which led to the current explosion, it would be Fed Chairman Volcker's decision to radically(?) change the main tool by which the Fed attempts to manipulate the economy.  Previously, the government would print more, or less, money, in order to to grease or slow the wheels of industry.  Since then, effectively, money supply has remained fixed, while the Fed has adjusted interest rates (the cost of debt) to achieve the same ends.

     One (unintended?) consequence of this is that bond(debt) trading went from the sleepy backwater of "5%" to a market where millions could be made or lost quickly.  Some of my understanding of this issue comes from the very readable "Liar's Poker," by Michael Lewis, which, although a bit naive at times, is a firsthand account.

Department of Fatherland Security, Joe Lieberman and Janet Napolitano?

     As punishment for endorsing John "I picked Palin, but can't remember whether al-Qaeda is a Sunni or Shia group" McCain, Joe Lieberman gets to Chair the Senate's Fatherland Security Department Committee. Obama nominated Janet Napolitano to succeed Tom "Plausible" Ridge and Michael "I hunt Whitewater criminals!" Chertoff as Secretary.

     Chertoff was an abomination.  No sane Senate should have confirmed the highly partisan Chertoff, unless they though Osama was doing questionable land deals through political connections in Arkansas.  May Chertoff's name be ever associated with the Bush administration, and may the Obama administration's success be even greater, so that an appropriate amount of soil and shame falls on the 2001-2008 years.

     But does someone think Janet Napolitano is a security expert?  She did work on part of the Oklahoma City Bombing case, but her first big political law case was Anita Hill.  She should be appointed to the cabinet, as a successful politician from Arizona who is term-limited from running in 2010, but Fatherland Security?  How about Interior?

I have been sorely remiss, the LTTE

     The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam.  The world's most prolific suicide bombers (Hindus killing Buddhists).  This, like so much conflict today, has some roots in Colonialism.  The British wanted to weaken the Sinhala-speaking, Buddhist (~75%) majority, so they gave all the powerful positions to the Tamil minority, who were a tad bit more sophisticated before the Brits arrived.  After the Brits left, and Democracy was adopted, things went ever downward for the Tamil.  The Sinhala bastards even tried to effectively outlaw their language, which led to mass riots. 

     Now the Sri Lankan government, dominated by the Sinhala, is on a tear, blowing up women and children and men and militants, asserting that they might be on the verge of destroying a terrorist group by force for the first time in history.  Could someone talk to them?  They are making sure the media is not allowed to witness their actions, atrocity or liberation, but, per usual, if it were just liberation, what would they have to hide?

The News is Abominable: UPDATE 1

     UPDATE 1: Add third paragraph
     I watched some Fox and CNN last night. Even NY1 news was pretty bad.  NY1 ran a segment on Gillibrand, who, instead of the entirely and wholly unqualified Caroline Kennedy, will be appointed Senator for New York by the Governor.  Instead of teaching us anything but a sentence about Gillibrand, NY1 took time out of New Yorker's lives to ask them if they knew anything.  Naturally, like myself, they didn't.  One person said she was very smart and knew her stuff.  I know some people don't think that matters, but for me, this is essential!  If she is smart, and knows her stuff, THREE CHEERS FOR GOVERNOR PATTERSON.

     Except, of course, that he felt constrained to pick someone based on which reproductive organs they were born with.

     NY1 calls Gillibrand a "conservative" Democrat.  She is, according to VoteView, a centrist, the most centrist of all NY Congresscritters, a member of the Blue Dog Coalition, and to the right of all but about 20 House Democrats.

The International Fugitive Gazan Law

     Whereas it is unlawful for any Gazan to leave the Gaza Strip, and

     Whereas it is possible, even likely, that some perfidious Gazans have escaped,

     Be It Therefore Resolved that any Federal Officer, of any of the Nations of Earth, who does not arrest and return a Fugitive Gazan shall be fined $1,000, and that the testimony of a single Israeli shall be proof that someone is Gazan and needs to be returned,

     Furthermore, Officers that do return Gazans to their just bombing shall be rewarded.

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The 1850 Fugitive Slave Law in America fined federal officers $1,000, and were obliged to arrest and return any person to the South, to slavery, on the affadavit of a single slaveholder.

Economic Wisdom You Can Trust

     The Bush Boom.

     Lawrence Kudlow needs another television show, after writing the foreword to this book.

Bad Cop, NO DONUT!

     Why is it when cops take time out of my life to hassle me, they always call me a gentleman? Do these idiots get training to do so? Is it just a coincidence?

     Today, within five minutes of 3:3Opm, at 78th and 3rd avenue, a cop van, in the intersection, decided to turn on his siren to get a moving truck, a couple cars east of the intersection, to get out of its way. Then the cop raised his hand as if to say "What the F?" and I raised my hand back at him (after all, I moved in, myself, less than a month ago) and the cop asks me, in a manner I am 100% positive he considered intimidating "Do you have a problem?"

     Our conversation went on for a couple minutes, proof, if anything, that his blaring of his siren had nothing to, whatsoever, with any police emergency. After that, he dropped off a woman, likely a date, out of the truck.  Who watches the watchers?

Bush Trying to Usher In Rapture

     Legacy to include unqualified support for one more war, this time in the Holy Land.

     which really sucks, because I have just moved into this apartment and am cleaning it up sweetly.

What do Military Planners Call This?

     The Israelis, who control most of the borders around Gaza, are not letting any Palestinians leave during the aerial bombing and artillery shelling.

     Is there a word for this? America did something similar in Fallujah in 2004, although America let women and children leave before the seige that cut off water and electricity.

     Is it called a Turkey Shoot? Shooting Fish in a Barrel? Inscribe and Conquer? I have to say, it doesn't seem very sportsmanlike.

What do Military Planners Call This?

     The Israelis, who control most of the borders around Gaza, are not letting any Palestinians leave during the aerial bombing and artillery shelling.

     Is there a word for this? America did something similar in Fallujah in 2004, although America let women and children leave before the seige that cut off water and electricity.

     Is it called a Turkey Shoot? Shooting Fish in a Barrel? Inscribe and Conquer? I have to say, it doesn't seem very sportsmanlike.