Language Awards


Professor Polistra is back with a brief year-end collection of odd words and phrases.

(This is her third review ... the awards for 2007 are here, and from 2006 are here.)

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Worst word of the year is liquidity, which appears to have no meaning at all. It generates phrases like 'dislocation of liquidity' and 'flooding with liquidity', which also have no meaning at all. There is a normal and ordinary meaning of liquid asset, namely an asset that you can turn to cash easily, while an illiquid asset would be something like real estate or a CD that can't be cashed in before its maturity date. But liquidity from the mouth of Shotgun Paulson clearly has no connection to reality. It is criminal jargon, a verbal bullet that serves only to confuse the proletariat, to panic easily blackmailed legislators into complicity with Shotgun Paulson's gargantuan theft.

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Prof P also noticed some odd uses of recreational:

The Valley View fire was started by a "recreational fire", which seems to be a euphemism for a teenager exercising his firebug fetish.

A news item on chlorine-resistant bacteria tells people not to drink swimming pool water or other "recreational water".

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Coronate has replaced crown as a verb. This is a good and expectable back-formation from coronation.

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Reign in and take the reigns: An expectable change in spelling. Horses are no longer common, so very few people are familiar with reins; but we are still familiar with the idea that a king reigns (= controls).

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Defibulator: Almost universal. Prof P doesn't know why the amputation of fibulas has become such a common practice.

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MumbaiTheIndianCityFormerlyKnownAsBombay: If you're going to end up saying Bombay after all, why waste all the extra syllables? Just say Bombay. Most Indians call it Bombay, so Mumbai doesn't even qualify as the local name. It's just an affectation of American Elite Communists.

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The Prezlek: Professor Polistra has noted this in detail before. The form varies: sometimes it's Snr Obama Oh Excuse Me I Mean Prezlek Obama, and sometimes it's just The Prezlek. Yes, it is the technically proper title, but Prof P doesn't remember such an extreme and constant use of the term in previous transitions.

After Obama is inaugurated, we'll undoubtedly have to hear several months of adaptation again, as the Expert Idiots gradually switch from Prezlek to President. His title will then be The Prezlek Oh Ha Ha Sorry I Mean To Say The President. Dammit, why can't the Expert Idiots just use plain old names? Obama. McCain. Bush. No confusion, no wasted syllables.

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Finally, a strange sort of Cajun grammar is spreading through news broadcasts. As usual with peculiar grammatical formations, Fox News is the wellspring.

"Treasury Secretary Paulson, he will be making an announcement shortly."

"Las Vegas authorities, they have said OJ was caught on tape..."

"The Iraqi journalist who threw a shoe at President Bush, he goes on trial next week."

This form, it's not truly new; nearly everyone, they'll do it from time to time. But Professor Polistra, she has noticed it spreading like a (recreational) wildfire in the last few months.

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Sidenote: some words noted in earlier Language Awards have disappeared; turned out to be temporary trends. Squirmish for squeamish is gone, and the X's and O's vanished.

Labels: Language update

  ¶ 8:04 PM

  Nice to see.....
Polistra notes with pleasure that some published authors are starting to ask the critical question: "What good is Wall Street?"

She has been asking this question in various ways for several years. Nice to see someone else is catching on.
  ¶ 6:24 PM

  Wonderless Life
Watched 'Wonderful Life' a couple nights ago. Must be the 14,319th time I've seen it. Good every time.

Mr Potter and George Bailey are icons, and commentators use them in various ways ... Conservatives seem to enjoy associating themselves with Mr Potter, saying that raw feral capitalism is the source of riches for everyone. Rush has come to resemble Mr Potter remarkably, with his 10-foot-long Premium Premium Premium Corona Corona Corona Cigars and his contemptuous attitude toward everyone who is not Rush. "You miserable little losers only continue to exist because you aren't important enough for me to destroy you." And in 2008 as in 1930, raw feral capitalism has managed to destroy nearly everyone, even some of the rich. (Such as those exquisitely deserving Expert Idiots who fell for the Madoff scheme and lost their silk shirts!)

Watching the movie this year, I came to a new realization. We have skidded into a bizarre planet where the Potter/Bailey difference is no longer relevant. From this distance, Potter and Bailey appear nearly identical. Both were personal bankers, looking their customers in the eye and judging worthiness for loans based on actual knowledge of the customers. Of course they used different standards of judgment, which made them proper competitors serving different parts of the Bedford Falls community. But both of them had standards, and both were motivated to serve their own customers. Neither would have touched the modern Sushi Loan, the tossed salad of uncooked mortgage bits. Both would have recognized this 'financial instrument' as an absolute fraud.

We still have local bankers of the Potter/Bailey type, but they will be destroyed along with everyone else as Shotgun Paulson flies his fleet of private jets, laden with the treasures of a formerly great nation, to his own little Arab hideaway.
  ¶ 7:10 PM

  New toy


Once or twice a year I break frugality and buy myself a completely unnecessary toy. This year's choice, inspired by reviewing Polistra's previous musings on the history of bookkeeping, is an "Addometer". It's a beautifully made device, probably from 1927 or so. Made of solid steel, all numbers and instructions engraved and ink-filled. All the dials move smoothly and cleanly, and the carrying and borrowing mechanisms snap and click satisfyingly. The tool and its leatherette case have a wonderful smell, redolent of scientific instruments.

I'd guess this was a store display / demo unit, because the case contains directions and advertising literature, it's quite clean, and the dials show roughly equal signs of wear ... as you'd expect from people trying out random numbers. A machine used in a real office would have coffee and ash stains, and the top few dials would be nearly untouched.

And I'd also guess that the Addometer didn't sell well. The list price was $12.95, equivalent to $150 today, and there wasn't a real niche to justify that expense. If you were a full-time accountant, you'd buy or lease a full-sized adding machine or Comptometer; and if you only needed to run a few sums each day, you'd use pencil and paper. Perhaps the Addometer would be useful if you didn't trust your own figuring skills! Anyway, it's a fine American machine, Union Made, with materials, design and labor of a standard that no longer exists.

Labels: new toy

  ¶ 6:53 AM

  WPArmth
Spokane's county-level government has a way of getting good things done without much flash or drama. (The city is the opposite: lots of political theater, not much effective action.)

This year the county had an original, sensible and charitable idea: use jail inmates to chop and split wood for poor people who have wood-burning heaters. Gives the inmates something positive to do, gives the poor folks a warm winter.

Bravo!

Story here.
  ¶ 4:10 AM

  Polistra is not puzzled.


Polistra: GGGGHHHHRRRRAAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!

Author: Um, could you elucidate?

Polistra: BOB CORKER, YOU ARE A GODDAMNED JAP SPY AND SABOTEUR. MITCH McCONNELL, YOU ARE A GODDAMNED JAP SPY AND SABOTEUR. RICHARD SHELBY, YOU ARE A GODDAMNED JAP SPY AND SABOTEUR. YOUR HOME COUNTRY TRIED TO DESTROY AMERICAN INDUSTRY IN WW2, BUT COULDN'T DO IT. NOW YOU'RE FINISHING THE JOB. I HOPE YOUR GODDAMNED HOME COUNTRY REWARDS YOU WELL.

Author: Hold on, the news just said that Shotgun Paulson will probably come through with enough money to keep GM afloat for a while.


Polistra: Jesus Christ. Well, I guess that's a good thing. Still disgusting, when the Senate is so completely loyal to foreigners that even Shotgun Paulson looks patriotic by comparison. Jesus. What did all those soldiers fight and die for in WW2?
  ¶ 7:19 AM

  Polistra is puzzled


Polistra: Numbers, numbers, numbers!

Author: What?

Polistra: These DC idiots don't make any damn sense. In most cases they look only at raw numbers, neglecting all other phenomena. And in other cases they consider raw numbers to be a crime.

Author: Okay, I'll bite. I've been constantly discussing the first part, but I haven't seen any case where the Expert Idiots dislike the use of raw numbers. What is it?

Polistra: This Blagojevich thing. He's just using pure free-market capitalism. In what we might call the "Political Service Industry", the usual sales transaction is hidden, distributed and indirect, like a cross between a Mortgage-Backed Security and a Zen koan. Companies and unions distribute money in small chunks across a variety of political action committees, and the politician then "happens" by "coincidence" to give them what they want. Well, anyone with any sense knows that you'll get in trouble that way. You're not allowed to sell a car that way, because it destroys the natural relationships of liability and warranties. If something goes wrong, you won't know who to ask. So this Blagojevich is doing business the old fashioned way, straight cash and carry. No hidden fucking derivatives, no distributed fucking liability, no indirect fucking hints. You give me 500,000 fucking dollars, and I give you the fucking Senate seat. What the fuck is wrong with that? Not one fucking thing that I can fucking see.

Author: Now that you put it that way, I can't see anything wrong either. In fact, Blagojevich has returned to the original notion of the Senate. Before the 17th Amendment, each Senator was a direct delegate from the government of his State. They were appointed, I think, by the state legislature. The 17th turned the Senate into an expensive private club that represents nothing, because each Senator isn't really answerable to anyone. We were better off when Senators had to answer directly to the governor and legislature. If we did it the Blago way, each Senator would be directly owned by the governor ... so he would have, as you say, a warranty, a contract to fulfill. Yes, I really like the Blago method. Unfortunately, our DC traitors prefer to represent enemy nations, so they are naturally in a monstrous uproar over this attempt to have a Senator who represents a state.

Polistra: But wouldn't the money have to go the other way around? I mean, the governor would have to buy the senator. In this case the governor is selling the office to the senator.

Author: Hmm. In a strict commercial way, yes ... maybe the analogy doesn't work well. But I still think Blago would effectively own that senator, because the senator would know that Blago could sell the office to a higher bidder at any time.

Polistra: Yeah, that does make sense, even though the analogy fails.
  ¶ 8:55 AM

  Bravo Blagojevich
Up till now, the Chicago window factory sit-in was pretty much the usual crap ... workers with placards and slogans, Comrade Jessajackson jumping in and running his usual street-theater routine.

It has become truly dramatic and historic with the intervention of Illinois Gov Blagojevich. Because the company's shutdown resulted from Bank of America stopping its credit, the Gov has ordered his state agencies to stop doing business with BoA.

An excellent example of a growing phenomenon. Because Sultan Bush is using the Federal government solely to serve the interests of his Saudi and Chinese bosses, state governors have been forced to take over many functions that are traditionally or constitutionally Federal. In this case, bank regulation is definitely a Federal job, but Sultan Bush has chosen to shower criminal bankers with a monstrous Hanukkah gift instead of punishing or removing them. So the job of punishing bad banks must be done by states and localities if it's to be done at all.


Sidenote: Since Blagojevich has invented a new technique, perhaps we should name it the Blagojcott? No, probably not.....

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12/9: The plot thickens, as they say. Blagojevich was hauled off to jail today, ostensibly as a result of a three-year-long investigation of corruption.

Sorry, doesn't wash. The Feds don't arrest people for crimes, they arrest people for being wise guys. Any one of us, just by living and breathing, has violated enough Federal laws or "court" "decisions" to be worthy of jail. We're all in violation all the time; only a few of us get annoying enough to be worth the trouble of arresting, bombing or sniping.

And Blagojevich was terminally annoying. He tried to cancel out Shotgun Paulson's great Hannukah gift. Blagojevich had the gall to use his state government for the interests of Americans, when we all know that government exists solely to serve the interests of Bahrain and Shanghai billionaires.
  ¶ 12:05 PM

  Revising Pearl Harbor
Accidentally listened to Unhanged Traitor R F Kennedy Jr's radio program just now. Unhanged Traitor Kennedy Jr is sympathizing with the Japs, talking about their superior morality which made them hesitant to make war on America in 1941. Unhanged Traitor Kennedy Jr said that the Jap military didn't really consider kamikaze attacks until well after Pearl Harbor, as a measure of desperation.

Like everything else said by Dangerous Lunatic R F Kennedy Jr, this is wrong. Factually wrong, logically wrong, treasonously wrong.

In fact the Japs were not only CONSIDERING, they were RECRUITING kamikaze pilots in 1935, NINETEEN HUNDRED AND THIRTY-FIVE, SIX YEARS BEFORE PEARL HARBOR.

We knew this at the time, though we didn't know when or where the Japs were going to hit us. As Polistra mentioned before, NBC commentator Edwin Hill reported on this knowledge, quoting Congressional testimony from aviation pioneer Clyde Pangborn:

America is threatened by only one enemy, and that enemy is Japan. Japan has perfected man-operated aerial torpedoes in which the plane and the bomb are one, an instrument deadlier than any known weapon. Certain to bring death to the operator, yet thousands of Japanese have already volunteered for the honor of dying as pilots of these infernal modern weapons.

  ¶ 7:39 PM

  Refreshing
Listening to Obama's news conferences and TV appearances this week... Plain talk is extremely refreshing.

For the last twenty years we've had atrocious communication by our national leaders.

Bush Junior, of course, is brain-damaged and can't speak English at all; worse, he apparently told his spokesmen to avoid speaking English. We've heard nothing understandable from any of them, no evidence that anyone in DC grasps reality.

Bill Clinton is an excellent communicator when he chooses, but he chose instead to play cutesy word games. As a fan of grammar and semantics, I enjoyed his parsing exercises, enjoyed finding the seven hidden meanings under each phrase, but as a citizen I hated the lack of believable information.

Bush Senior could speak English but lacked basic teaching and selling talents. He treated us like children who couldn't be trusted to hear the truth; treated us as low-level subordinates who had no "need to know".

Polistra has been begging and pleading from the start: Just tell us what you're doing and why. We're smart enough and mature enough to understand, and to sacrifice when needed. But we are also mature enough to need a reason for the sacrifice. Treat us as adults, and we'll respond like adults.

Obama is finally doing what any good leader should do, and it's damned fine.
  ¶ 3:16 PM

  Semi?


The Author is working hard this month... two extra spreadsheet assignments along with finishing the latest revision of his courseware product. Going to be pretty well occupied for the next few weeks, but will end up with some nice unexpected money afterward. Can't complain.

Author likes to describe himself as "semi-retired". Most of the time the "semi" is a euphemism; most of the time he's just plain retired, living off the residuals of his earlier labor and frugality. But right now, the "semi" is meaningful!

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Though this isn't Labor Day, FDR's 1939 speech on Labor Day seems appropriate for our times. It shows a different view of economics in which the value of labor counts for something; an economics not based strictly on the ever-increasing flow of numbers.

In this country we insist, as an essential of the American way of life, that the employer-employee relationship should be one between free men and equals. We refuse to regard those who work with hand or brain as different from or inferior to those who live from their property. We insist that labor is entitled to as much respect as property. But our workers with hand and brain deserve more than respect for their labor. They deserve practical protection in the opportunity to use their labor at a return adequate to support them at a decent and constantly rising standard of living, and to accumulate a margin of security against the inevitable vicissitudes of life. The average man must have that twofold opportunity if we are to avoid the growth of a class conscious society in this country.

Zmirak's latest column expands on this theme. What is value? It's not merely the price you get at the moment when you sell something. Value is created or added by labor. If you haven't done some work to make or improve a real item, there isn't any value. In fact our current bubble isn't even based on "property" as in FDR's comparison; it's just plain numbers.

The media constantly jabber about a trillion dollars of "wealth" disappearing when the Wall Street Casino changes its odds, but that isn't "wealth" because it never represented any real value. The stocks didn't rise because of any worker's labor, and they don't fall because a worker stops working. In fact, a share price usually rises when a company lays off workers! So the stocks are just numbers, indexing the hormone level and cocaine dosage of the Wall Street Bettors at any particular microsecond.

When the ball on the roulette wheel moves from 00 to 13, it's not an increase of value. When it lands on 00, it's not a decrease. In each case, one smart bettor will grab his chips and leave the table, but everyone else loses. There is no increase or decrease of value, and the house always wins. This is not capitalism, it's just betting.
  ¶ 10:48 AM

  The soul-searchers
There's a lot of soul-searching within conservative ranks about the role of religion, with the usual Episcopalian suspects saying the movement has become too religious, and the usual Christian suspects saying it's not religious enough.

Both sides are missing the point.

Religious references are used by the Republican party to keep a certain voting bloc in line. Brand-R has never done one damn thing for those voters. Just as brand-D uses Comrade King's "moral mantle" to keep black voters in line while it never does one damn thing for them. Slogans, only slogans.

If a brand-R president were serious about abortion, he would declare a judicial emergency and delete Roe v Wade and all related case law. He would then call out the National Guard to close down all abortuaries.

Does that sound drastic? Unthinkable?

Oh, I don't know. We've called out the troops in recent years to bomb and kill a strange religious cult in Waco that wasn't harming anyone. We've called out the troops to kill a family in Idaho who wasn't harming anyone. Eisenhower called out the troops in 1957 to enforce integration, even though the evidence is clear (and was already clear in 1957) that integration gives no net benefit to black kids. And Lincoln made war on the entire country, killing 600,000 Americans and destroying the South, to stop a perfectly legal secession.

All of those warlike actions were aimed at practices which someone in DC disliked.

None of those disliked practices were deadly.

Abortion is deadly.

When the Feds seriously dislike something, they have never been stopped by teensy-weensy trivial details like laws and constitutions. When the Feds seriously dislike something, they call out the troops and bomb, smash, exterminate, exterminate, exterminate.

So. Do Republican presidents dislike abortion? Examine their actions. They appoint judges who may or may not be against it personally, and then they require the judges to guarantee that Roe v Wade will be untouchable, will be "settled law" forever.

That's not evidence of disliking abortion. That's indisputable evidence of loving abortion and guaranteeing its permanent continuation.

Well then, how about family values? Marriage? What has brand-R done for the family? They've spoken words about stopping "gay marriage". Is that evidence of favoring real marriage, improving the life of real families? No. It's a completely separate matter, which may be icky but has no correlation with marriage.

If a government actually wanted to strengthen families, it would take two steps. First and easiest, get rid of no-fault divorce. If the contract is harder to break, both partners will naturally work harder to maintain the marriage. Second and hardest, restore the economic conditions of the 1950s when it was possible for an ordinary man to support a family without working two jobs, without requiring the wife to work. Is that what brand-R has done? No, brand-R has done the exact opposite. Republicans have encouraged massive illegal immigration and massive outsourcing of factories and jobs. Result: an ordinary man can no longer support a family on his own. Children are deprived of maternal presence, deprived of paternal influence, just as they were in the sweatshops of the early Industrial Age.
  ¶ 9:30 AM

  Brain anti-trust
Maggie Gallagher at NRO notes:

A new study in the Archives of General Psychiatry, based on 5000 face to face interviews in 2000 and 2001, finds "Almost half of college-aged individuals had a psychiatric disorder in the past year."

If true, (and of course "diagnostic creep" may be the a major part of this when "binge drinking" and "nicotine dependence" are considered psychiatric disorders among young people), we're in more trouble than we think.

Sensible comment. After all, adolescence is a disorder by any rational standard. Kids are generally sane and cheerful until age 12, then turn weird and crazy for ten years, then (with luck) resume sanity again.

But I'm also inclined to ask about vested interests. First, what do psychiatrists do? They nominally "provide therapy", but it's been proved over and over that "providing therapy" yields no permanent improvement. For some clients it may have the same effect as a placebo or prayer cloth ... activating the brain's "healing receiver" ... but you can get those effects much more cheaply. The only way psychiatrists genuinely improve lives is by prescribing anti-psychotic drugs. The right drug can return an insane person to some degree of normality.

So in fact psychiatrists are in the business of selling drugs at a huge profit. And they have the legally defined ability to declare competing drugs such as tobacco and alcohol to be "disorders".

Isn't that a monopoly? We complain when Big Oil manages to get a legal advantage over other forms of energy. We complain when Big Media gains a legal advantage over bloggers or low-power FM. So why don't we complain when Big Shrink gains a legal advantage over competing anti-psychotic drugs?
  ¶ 8:56 AM

  Class envy
There's no point in telling people they shouldn't feel class envy, shouldn't hate the rich. It won't work.

Conservative commentators like to say that an economy isn't a zero-sum game; they say Bill Gates gets his money by being productive, not by stealing from you. This is true in a narrow numerical sense, but it misses the point.

In the old face-to-face capitalist system, the rich were still within the bounds of society, within the feedback loop. The doctor or banker responded naturally to his customers and vice versa. If you disliked or distrusted a banker, he lost money; if the banker had good reason to distrust you, no loans for you. The manufacturer paid attention to the well-being of his employees, because his products wouldn't sell if his employees had no disposable income; and the workers responded with diligence and loyalty.

We've broken the loop in several ways: by interposing insurance companies between the doctor and patients; by interposing "financial instruments" between saving and borrowing; by allowing the manufacturer to buy, build and hire overseas.



These disconnections are actual losses, actual thefts. You can't always quantify them, you can't punch them into a calculator, but they are real losses of quality, thefts of the basic necessities of life. And the people intuitively know they've been robbed, but our modern focus on quantity has weakened our ability to report a theft of quality.

When you can't trust a doctor or hospital, you've lost the most important part of medicine.** When a bank doesn't need to attract local savings in order to provide local mortgages, you've lost two things: a secure way to invest your cash, and a natural brake on irresponsible lending. When jobs move to India or Mexico, they are permanently lost, stolen, unrecoverable. The human capital of finely-honed skills and talents, painfully-gained knowledge and culture, is destroyed, discarded, tossed on the rubbish heap.

Yes, in today's situation, normal people have perfectly logical reasons to hate the rich. Granted, some of the rich are still productive in the old sense, and many of the rich are unwilling participants in these destructive trends. But it's mighty hard to separate the few good apples from the rotten barrel.


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**The role of trust in medicine has always been intuitively obvious, but some recent studies have pinned it down systematically. Even when you know you're getting a placebo, you feel better and recover faster than when you receive nothing. Our brains apparently have an instinctive slot for "healer", and our health is better when we know that the healer is feeding or applying a concrete item to our body. In pre-scientific cultures, the item might be a potion or a prayer cloth; in post-scientific, the item might be a pill or injection. As long as we trust the healer to select the right item, we heal.

Labels: the broken circle

  ¶ 12:27 AM

  Experimentation?
CNN's new Sunday morning show "After Party" is an interesting format, well done and solid. Instead of the usual cacophony of simultaneous talking-point-heads, they give half the show to an R group, half the show to a D group. Great idea, hope they can keep it running.

This morning on the R half of the show, someone said:

"Geithner and Summers will probably continue Paulson's experimentation... they will keep experimenting with various solutions to the economic problems."

Experimenting is wonderful when you really don't know what works. In this case we do know what works. FDR showed us. Close the banks long enough to check them out. Leave the dishonest banks closed, and re-open the honest ones with new strict regulations. Jail the seriously dishonest bankers.

What we have now is not actual experimentation, but a classic "dazzler act" full of smoke and mirrors. It's a continuation of the Credit Default Swap fraud: make the process complicated, keep things moving and changing, whipsaw the audience in five different directions. The net result of Shotgun Paulson's manipulations at the government level will be the same as the net result of Shotgun Paulson's manipulations within Goldman Sachs. His own buddies and his Chinese connections will gain vast riches before anyone else can figure out what's happening.
  ¶ 11:28 AM

  Random thought on 'Black Friday'


A few years ago** Polistra explored the history of bookkeeping, with an eye toward its cultural and religious connotations.

It's odd that the convention of using black ink and red ink for positive and negative numbers has carried on in everyday language, still forming phrases like 'Black Friday' or 'swimming in a sea of red ink'. Actual red ink was long gone when I worked in bookkeeping in the 1970's. At that time, in the sunset of the mechanical adding machine age, a negative result was indicated by brackets or parentheses.

Negative numbers (invented in China way back BC, like everything else of importance) weren't common in Europe and America until 1800. Thanks to calculators and computers we now use negative numbers fluently, but we tend to forget how new and strange this is!

In most of the practical uses of arithmetic, a negative number is still absurd and unusable. You can't mix -2 cups of sugar into a cake, you can't use a -3/4 inch wrench, you can't cut a board to -6 feet long.

If more of us mixed cakes, turned wrenches, and sawed boards, perhaps we wouldn't be quite so eager to adopt purely abstract falsehoods and frauds like Global Warming and Credit Default Swaps. Perhaps we'd be appropriately wary of computer models that are not firmly tied to physical reality.

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** Just realized the Mill is four years old. I began writing on LiveJournal in late November of '04, transferred to Blogspot in March of '05.
  ¶ 6:44 PM

  Thanksgiving


Polistra: Well, I'm thankful that we ended up with Obama as president. Despite my considerable misgivings, he has a real chance of being the Roosevelt of this generation. And by God we do need a Roosevelt.

Author: Yes. And I'm glad that I survived being hit by a car. I'm not quite back to normal yet, but I'm alive. And I'm thankful that I had the foresight or contrariness or whatever, to prepare well for a time of economic hardship. 'Independently poor' isn't always fun, but it's a hell of a lot better than starving.

Polistra: Amen.
  ¶ 1:20 PM

  Gaffney explains Shotgun Paulson
Frank Gaffney appeared briefly on a radio show (sorry, can't remember which) last night. According to Gaffney, Shotgun Paulson is not only enriching his own gangster accomplices, as it appears on the surface; in fact the grand thief is primarily serving China.

Here's a 2006 article by Gaffney, detailing Shotgun's close ties to China. The article is titled "Bears a Close Watch", which turned out to be exceedingly prophetic.

In the last century, the Soviet Union enlisted a relative handful of prominent Western capitalists to serve as financial advisers, engines of economic assistance, and agents of influence in Washington and other foreign capitals. Typically, these businessmen were rewarded with access to lucrative Soviet energy and other natural resources and exclusive arrangements for marketing their products inside the USSR.

Arguably, the most prominent of these Soviet fellow-travelers and enablers was Armand Hammer, who created a vast personal fortune and an oil and gas conglomerate in no small measure thanks to sweetheart deals he secured from the Kremlin. ...

Henry Paulson has been Communist China's Armand Hammer. In fact, he has been vastly more effective than Hammer ever was in promoting his clients' interests and enabling their access to Western economic assistance and high technology.

The article also answers other questions: Why was it important for China to have Paulson as Treasury Secretary? Because the Sec Treas is chairman of CFIUS, the committee that approves foreign ownership of American companies.

And best of all:

... The PRC seems simply to be dressing-up what were, until recently, insolvent banks in the hope that international capital markets will contribute to bailing them out. This process involves the off-loading of non-performing loans onto asset management companies in a fashion very reminiscent of the U.S. savings and loan crisis. Indeed, the PRC appears, in fact, to have modeled its strategy on the American experience.

Since Shotgun was part of this process, we now understand why this year's Wall Street criminals were so confident that their crimes would be rewarded. They were betting on a sure thing, a pre-tested procedure.

The only remaining question: How did Shotgun persuade more than half of Congress to grant his criminal authority? What sort of blackmail did he use? An investigative reporter might begin by comparing the brave Congressmen who resisted the crime with those who joined the crime. What made the brave ones immune to persuasion, and what made the accomplices susceptible?

Needless to say, this question will never be answered, because all of our "investigative reporters" are busy 24/7 on more urgent and important matters, such as the Holloway Case, the Peterson Case, and the Death-Smell-In-Tot-Mom-Trunk Case.
  ¶ 9:03 AM

  No pardon for these turkeys......
Shorpy.com is a wonderful museum of old archival photos, with instructive comments and well-informed discussion. This picture, along with its comments, shows an earlier Presidential turkey tradition. Local chambers of commerce sent two turkeys to the White House, and the turkeys were placed in a ring to fight. Both were eaten after spectators enjoyed the battle.

So Palin, accidentally or not, is closer to the real American tradition.
  ¶ 6:52 AM

  Mured with Mumbai


I suppose I should be concerned and sympathetic. Frankly, my dear, I don't give a flying fuck.

When the enemy burns France, I'm heartbroken. France is within our circle of friends and family. When the enemy burns India, I simply don't care. India is not a friend, it's a burglar that steals our jobs.

CNN says there may be American bank employees among the hostages.

Good. Maybe they will die before they get to appreciate their share of Shotgun Paulson's monstrous and evil Hanukkah gift.
  ¶ 6:35 AM

  Self-explanatory sentence
First a clarifying note on the title, because I'm getting a whole lot of links lately via the term "explanatory sentence". When Professor Polistra lists self-explanatory sentences, this is a special and distinct category that has nothing to do with the ordinary meanings of "explanatory sentence". A self-explanatory sentence sums up an entire life or worldview in a few words, usually without conscious intent. Thus the sentence is a "self-explainer".

With that out of the way, here's a new one from a CNN anchor:

"Very few people outside of Bill Gates or Warren Buffett can purchase anything without credit."

Obviously this doesn't say anything about Gates or Buffett, but it tells you everything you need to know about the incestuous closed circle of the media elite. They are incapable of understanding thrift or savings or frugality. They understand "living large", living far beyond your means, and they've never known anyone who "lives small".
  ¶ 11:06 AM

  Kar-ter-ma
International Terrorist James Earl Carter is complaining today about the Mugabe government in Zimbabwe. James Earl Carter tried to do one of his suck-up-to-tyrants tours in Zimbabwe, but Mugabe refused to admit him.

In response to the refused kiss, James Earl Carter says: "The entire basic structure... is broken down. These are all indications that the crisis in Zimbabwe is much greater, much worse than we ever could have imagined."

Yes, International Terrorist Jimmy my boy, it's bad. And you helped to make it that way. Rhodesia, one of the most prosperous and civilized countries in Africa, declared independence from Britain in 1965 under a white government. For several years it remained prosperous and civilized, but finally the pan-African Soviet push killed prosperity. Robert Mugabe, the most successful pro-Soviet proxy, took power in 1979, officially planted by the Lancaster Conference with significant help from the Carter administration.

So this is a sort of karma, but it's not a pleasant sort. I'm sure the starving people of Zimbabwe, as they pick out undigested kernels of corn from cow dung, would appreciate knowing that Jimmy understands their plight. The starving people of Zimbabwe would not be starving if Jimmy had not helped to install the government that starves them.
  ¶ 7:12 AM

  Peeve 2
A while back I peeved about the wasteful and constant use of titles, which seems to be much stronger this year. In earlier elections, announcers and commentators mainly referred to politicians by last name without title. This year, it's always Senator McCain, Senator Clinton, Senator Obama. (Pronounced Snrcain, Snrclinton, Snrbama.) But it was rarely Governor Palin; she was mainly called Sarah Palin.

This insistence on title is slightly unAmerican, because the original purpose of splitting these colonies from Britain was to get rid of the nobility and titles.

Now that Obama has been elected, it's getting even worse. Announcers now refer to him every single goddamn time as "Senator Obama oh ha ha I mean President Elect Obama" or "Senator Obama President Elect Obama". (Pronounced Snrbamaprezlekbama.)
  ¶ 11:59 AM

  At last a fatwa
Until today I've been highly suspicious of Obama's claim to be a Christian. Simple logic: Obama unquestionably began life as a Mohammedan, and the mullahs and imams don't allow important men to abandon Allah. If he had truly converted to Christianity, there would be loud fatwas calling on the faithful to destroy him.

Well, now we finally have a fatwa of sorts. In Zawahiri's message today:

The Muslim nation received with extreme bitterness your hypocritical...stance towards Israel. You were born to a Muslim father, but you chose to stand with the enemies of Muslims.

Now I'm finally convinced that Obama has given up Mohammedanism ... at least far enough to count as just another infidel in the eyes of Zawahiri.

Zawahiri (or rather Adam Pearlman-Gadahn speaking through Z) also tries to pry Obama away from Malcolm X and the Black Muslims. This is a closer connection, since Jeremiah Wright is a Black Muslim working within the radical leftist UCC (United Communist Church) denomination.

Pearlman-Gadahn is often transparently clumsy with his 1970's Weather Underground jargon, but this time he's set up a clever propaganda gambit. Obama will in fact carry forward the same general foreign policy as Clinton, which will disappoint many of his American leftist and Black Muslim followers. And when they are disappointed by his continuing support of Israel, they will remember that Pearlman-Gadahn warned them of this.

= = = = =

Needless to say, our insanely destructive, traitorous, treasonous and suicidal "media", who see the world through the same racist prism as Jeremiah Wright, are ignoring the meaningful parts of this propaganda message, focusing 100% on Pearlman-Gadahn's use of an Arabic term meaning "house nigger". Well, who knows, maybe this will finally turn our insanely destructive, traitorous, treasonous and suicidal "media" against the enemy. They didn't mind much when the enemy killed 3000 Americans. But now that the enemy has resorted to using a "racially insensitive term" ... well, that's serious!!!!!
  ¶ 8:37 AM

  Who's the ascetic?
A reminiscence triggered by the 'crunchies'....

Growing up in Manhattan, my best friend for many years was Warren. His family was strictly parallel to mine by most demographic measures. Both fathers were assistant profs at K-State, both mothers stayed at home, both families lived in identical houses in the same subdivision.



But there was an important difference, which I didn't understand until much later.

My parents were 'modern' and ambitious, devoted to keeping up with the Joneses. They bought new clothing every year, new furniture every few years, a newer and fancier car every two years. My father worked hard at his job, always studying and preparing in the evening; they mastered the art of making a Correct Martini and Playing Bridge, because those were the Necessary Tastes to impress the boss at the Mandatory Monthly Parties.

Warren's parents didn't bother with material advancement or making an impression. They bought one cheap plain car for cash and kept it. They bought their house for cash and kept it. Their furniture, clothing, and eyeglasses were bought in 1948 and repaired as needed. The father didn't spend any time on studying or advancement, and the mother didn't worry about martinis or parties. Their only luxury was golf. All spare time went into golfing. All spare money went into savings.

At the time I thought my parents were enjoying life and Warren's parents were dull and ascetic, avoiding fun for the sake of some abstract principle that I couldn't grasp.

I was wrong.

In fact my parents were the ascetics and Warren's folks were the hedonists.

My parents were not enjoying life. They were struggling uphill toward a nonexistent destination. They stayed in debt (though never excessive) and my father worked until age 70.

Warren's parents were having fun. Golf was the only thing they loved, and they arranged their life so they wouldn't need ever-increasing income, thus wouldn't need promotion and advancement and stress. They retired at age 50, moved to Arizona and played golf forever after.

This truth dawned on me around age 38, and I steered my life toward the Warren model. Though I started late, it still worked: I was able to semi-retire in 2002 at age 52.

= = = = =

[Literary note: I thought I had written this tale before, maybe even twice, but a search of the blog didn't find it. I must have written it in a brief earlier incarnation of the blog on LiveJournal.]
  ¶ 7:20 PM

  Changed mind
After listening to the House conference this afternoon on bailout for the auto industry ... especially the points made by Stabenow and by the head of Chrysler ... I've changed my mind. The auto industry needs and deserves Federal support. The Wall Street criminals need and deserve nothing but long jail terms.
  ¶ 1:51 PM

  GM again
Extending this post on bankruptcy vs bailout.

The union boys, who advocate bailing out GM without improving GM, are saying today that "Nobody will buy a car from a bankrupt company."

The Studebaker example disproves that point. Granted, Studie was always far below GM in overall sales, so the example may not apply to a true mass-market brand.

Here's a list of Studebaker annual sales numbers through the '30s:

1930 60k
1931 44k
1932 47k
1933 35k (bankruptcy)
1934 60k (new mgmt)
1935 43k
1936 56k
1937 101k
1938 47k
1939 85k (new low-priced Champion)

As you can see, the new management reassured customers.

= = = = =

Later: I've changed my mind.
  ¶ 8:40 AM

  Obama on 60 minutes


Obama on 60 minutes last night:

What you see in FDR that I hope my team can emulate, is not always getting it right, but projecting a sense of confidence, and a willingness to try things. And experiment in order to get people working again.

And I think that's what the American people expect. You know, they're not expecting miracles. I think if you talk to the average person right now that they would say, 'Well, look, you know well, we're having a tough time right now. We've had tough times before.' 'And you know, we don't expect a new president can snap his fingers and suddenly everything is gonna be okay. But what we do expect is that the guy is gonna be straight with us. We do expect that he's gonna be working really hard for us.'

'We do expect that he's gonna be thinking about ordinary Americans and not just the wealthy and the powerful. And we do expect that. if something doesn't work that they're gonna try something else until they find something that does.' And, you know, that's the kind of common sense approach that I want to take when I take office.

....

My interest is finding something that works.

And whether it's coming from FDR or it's coming from Ronald Reagan, if the idea is right for the times then we're gonna apply it. And things that don't work we're gonna get rid of.

Polistra says: Exactly what I've been hoping for. We'll see....
  ¶ 7:15 AM

  The "danger" of protectionism
Sultan Bush, continuing his scorched-earth policy of 100% destruction, said today: "One of the dangers during a crisis such as this is that people will start implementing protectionist policies."

This is, of course, standard autistic economics. As long as the flow of currency units continues to increase, everything's fine. If all the taxpaying units starve, that's an irrelevant variable. Trillions of currency units continue to move from New York to the Swiss bank accounts of the Sultan's Arab masters, so we can drop the taxpaying units out of the equation.

Just look at the tariff policies of the major countries. Who has strong import protection? Korea, Japan, China, India. Who's been succeeding in recent years? Korea, Japan, China, India.

The economoid notion that protectionism hurts a country is clearly untrue today, and I strongly suspect it's always been untrue. The groundwork for the 1930's Depression was laid in the '20s when our farmers overproduced for export, using up dry prairie land that shouldn't have been plowed. When drought hit, the farmers were in trouble, and the trouble spread through other businesses. If export had been less tempting, the farm boom wouldn't have happened. The economoids continue to squawk about the Smoot-Hawley tariff as the cause of the Depression, but the snowball of disaster was already rolling full speed by that time.

On a deeper level, we have Polistra's broken circle. When imports and exports are too easy, wages drop because manufacturing can be done elsewhere. When imports and exports are too easy, product quality drops because the business doesn't have to face its customers. (Can you spell Melamine?)

Open trade is fun for a while, but sooner or later you pay the price. And the hangover of the bust is far greater than the drunken revels of the boom.

Labels: the broken circle

  ¶ 8:30 AM

  GM
Polistra has written about Nash several times, at first in the context of Mitt Romney's background.

The story of Nash and its nearest competitors yields a useful example for today's discussion of welfare for GM.

I suspect Charles Nash is looking down ruefully from above. He started in the auto industry at age 12 after running away from involuntary servitude. He found a job working for Billy Durant's buggy works. When Billy bought up two small automobile companies and created GM, Charles was still there, and moved up through the ranks into management. In 1914 he quit GM and set up his own company, determined to manage things differently. Nash avoided all Wall Street practices, avoided all gambling and debt. His frugal management carried the company through the Depression with only one year of loss, and it lasted through various mergers until 1983.



As of 1930, Nash's closest competitors were Willys and Studebaker. All were middle-sized companies with middle-priced cars. All of their cars had excellent engineering and distinct qualities, which meant loyal customers. But Willys and Stude were managed by high-rolling money men who paid more attention to the stock market than to their customers. When the Depression hit, frugal Nash held steady while Willys and Stude floundered and quickly fell into a bankrupt condition.

Unlike Comrade Bush, Mr Roosevelt didn't believe in welfare for companies or welfare for poor men. Comrade Bush throws money at companies and men so they can continue to behave criminally. FDR provided government jobs for men who had no other choice, and simply ordered companies and banks to behave sensibly. So Willys and Studebaker had no bailout option; instead they passed into well-controlled bankruptcy. Courts picked new managers, who were car men instead of money men. Stude's new management cut out inefficiency and simplified the model line, leaving only the models known to be popular. The new Willys managers decided the company should abandon its existing models and switch over to a very small low-priced car that would fill a unique niche.



Both companies made it through the Depression; Studebaker held up considerably better because it continued to satisfy and expand its own family of customers, while Willys was trying to find a new breed of customers.

Bankruptcy for GM today could have the same benefit. Handing it over to new managers, after cleaning the slate of union contracts and debts, would let it serve American customers better. Even better would be a private equity buyout, if that could be arranged. A holding company wants to see actual profit, not increased share prices.

= = = = =

Later: I've changed my mind.
  ¶ 6:31 PM

  Secret voting, secret PAC?
A very interesting thought expressed by one of the commenters at Rod Dreher's blog. The main post was about blacklisting and intimidation, and most of the comments were predictable team-members.

This comment is original:

This incident reveals why I am opposed to campaign finance laws that require the disclosure of individual gifts over a certain amount. Making this information public does less to create accountability than it does to create a climate of fear and intimidation. In my industry--higher education--I know that many conservative professors avoid making gifts to any sort of political causes because they are afraid of a potential backlash. While there are rules in place that protect employees from employment discrimination, it is not uncommon for tenure to be denied to conservatives on the basis of a lack of collegiality, which is code for "We do not like your views and therefore think you are a deficient colleague." I think it would be far better if no one knew what individuals decide to do with their own money.

I hadn't thought about this. The usual libertarian idea, which I had followed until now, is that we don't need restrictions on PAC contributions, we just need transparency. If all contributions are known, we can tell who's working for what.

Fact is, a PAC contribution matters far more than a vote. Lobbying groups are the real 'first branch', and they work equally strongly on legislators of both parties. When you vote for one party or the other, you're just replacing the pawn, and the new pawn will be subject to the same lobbying. But when you contribute to a lobbying group, you're helping to exert real influence on a specific topic.

Since we allegedly put great value on secret ballots to prevent intimidation, why shouldn't we put even more value on secret contributions for the same reason?
  ¶ 2:12 PM

  Idiots
CNBC says that GM stock is roughly tied with its historical low. The current price is about $4.00, and the historical low is $3.13 just after WW2.

Nope, it's a hell of a lot worse than that. Inflation since 1946 is approximately 8, so the 1946 price would be equivalent to $24 in today's dollars. Thus today's price is not tied with the previous low; it's 1/6 of the previous low.

Or putting it the other way around: Today's price would be 35 cents per share in 1940's dollars.

Nobody learns anything. Using fraudulent measures like the cruel scam of "Core Inflation" is exactly how these dickheads got themselves, and the rest of us innocent bystanders, into this new Depression. If they still haven't figured out super-basic economic facts like adjusting for inflation, we must assume that everything they say is absolutely false and criminal.

= = = = =

And one more rant: I'm damn tired of hearing the dickheads say "We're all to blame for this, because all of us have lived beyond our means." No sir. No sir. Hell no and fuck no. Include me out. I may be a damned poor excuse for a human being, and I've been 'part of the problem' in many situations, but I am emphatically NOT 'part of the problem' in this situation. My house is completely paid up, I haven't used credit in at least 5 years, and I live within a net income of $10k per year. No sir, I'm not to blame for this one, and you are gravely insulting me when you tell me I am.
  ¶ 7:08 AM

  Pence
Continuing this theme:

"It's going to be a cheerful opposition," said Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind. "We're going to carry those timeless principles of limited government, a strong defense, traditional values, to the American people."

Hmm. Limited government. Yes indeed: Medicare Part D, No Child Left Behind, the Goldman Coup, largest increase in domestic spending since LBJ.

Hmm. Strong defense. Yes indeed: Stripping the equipment and bases of the military, and then wasting the time and lives of our soldiers in two chronic wars that are totally counterproductive, totally destructive to our national interest.

Hmm. Traditional values. Yes indeed: Larry Craig. Ted Stevens. Duke Cunningham. The Goldman Coup. Rewarding criminals, high-rollers and gamblers with the biggest Hanukkah present in history, punishing frugal citizens with hyperinflation.

Pence, if you really want to sell those values, you need to start a new party. But even aside from the ruined brand, those principles are not timeless. Those principles are unwanted or unimportant at this point in history. Now is a good time for strong and competent internal government, a good time for a 'Fortress America' foreign policy, and a bad time to be giving lip service to abortion while allowing court decisions to stand untouched.

If you and your fellow Republicans really meant any of those "principles", you had 6 years of total power in which you could have tried to implement at least one eentsy-weentsy micro-example of those principles. Instead, you used your power to directly and totally contradict all of those principles. You and your party are nothing but a batch of goddamn liars.

= = = = =

Later: I was unfair to Pence, based on one short statement. Listening to his longer speeches at today's Repub Governors Conference, he's saying the same things I'm saying. Others in the party leadership are still clueless.
  ¶ 5:34 AM

  Nouveaux CCC


Author: It's obvious that McCain replicates Hoover, right down to the "Sound Fundamentals Of Our Economy" crap. But does Obama replicate Roosevelt? What do you think?

Polistra: Well, I was only visiting in '39, so I can't really tell how Mr Roosevelt looked in '32 when he was first elected. But I think Obama has a lot of the same raw material. He speaks in plain terms, stays in contact with reality and seems to understand the needs of the people. And right now he's proposing something like CCC. I looked closely at the CCC, and liked what I saw.

Author: I've been scanning through conservative blogs, and they're all showing a mindless allergic reaction to the idea, saying things like this: "When President Obama and company advertise volunteer service as an option equally as patriotic as military service — and make the goodies comparable — who will be left to defend our nation?"

Pol: If young people don't feel that the nation is worth defending, they won't join the military anyway. CCC did three important things in the '30s. First, it kept families from starving. A starving country isn't a patriotic country. Second, it gave young men a sense of dignity and usefulness, which was directly tied to helping the country. They were thus invested in the country as a whole, felt like it was built by their own hands. Which it was. We're still using their parks, dams and buildings. And third, it gave those young men the same sort of discipline and training that they could have gotten from the military.

Author: Well, we're not starving in large numbers now ... yet ... but we certainly have a lot of disconnected young men.

Pol: And they could acquire the same things from a modern version of CCC. Since black youngsters are the most disconnected of all, Obama has a unique chance to connect them, to bring them back into the national fold.

Author: Makes sense. You know, these bloggers are really missing one of the basic points of the conservative mindset. Conservatives are supposed to be the ones who start with human nature as it stands, while lefties are supposed to be the ones who see humans as an infinitely moldable blob of plastic. These conservatives think people ought to be loyal, and anyone who isn't loyal must be some kind of weirdo loser. They can't begin to understand the motives of normal people.


Pol: Look, those aren't conservatives by any meaningful definition anyway. They're whiny rich metrosexual New Yorkers who don't want to pay taxes. They're only loyal to the world of stocks and bonds, not to the world of nuts and bolts. The world of nuts and bolts has been drowning for twenty years, but they didn't notice until it rose to the level of their hedge funds. Suddenly they have a reason to feel insecure and disloyal, but the rest of us have been insecure for a long time now.

Author: To make it worse, the Brand-R establishment is holding these grand soul-searching sessions where they try to figure out where to go next. Their biggest idea is: "The conservative movement will become the opposition to Obama."

Pol: Not much of an idea, is it? Alf Landon tried that in '36 and lost everything but Kansas. There's nothing magic about small government, and anyway small government isn't what Bush gave us. He gave us a monstrous government that devours our real economy and generously feeds it to China and Arabia. If you're patriotic at this point, you do whatever's needed to bring the people back into a sense of security. Show the people that their work and their taxes are serving a purpose here, dammit. Not making a handful of bloated cigar-sucking Jewish bankers even richer, not making filthy Arab sheiks even richer. And if Obama's charisma plus Clinton's economic advisors can start to close the circle, help keep our work and money at home, then patriotism means helping Obama. It definitely doesn't mean advancing a set of ideas that the people associate --- correctly or not --- with our current disastrous situation. Frankly, if the brand-R bathhouse wants to come back to life, they need to worry about character before they start thinking about ideas. They need to eject from the House and Senate all of the old filth, all the Wall Street slaves, all the blackmailable secret homosexuals, and replace them with clean people. Granted, that will leave only a handful of the existing members in place, but it's the only way to move forward. The people aren't going to listen to any ideas until they feel that the party isn't a San Francisco Treat.

Author: Yup. But if it turns out that Obama is only continuing to enrich the Wall Street criminals, then patriotism will mean opposing him.

Pol: Aahhmm, maybe. If the opposition amounts to nothing more than good old "Zip Zero Nada Taxes", then it's a complete waste. But if the opposition actually aims to restore the real economy, then it will be wise and necessary. For instance, the congressmen of both parties who bravely said Hell No to the Goldman Coup, if they can form a sort of shadow government to oppose the criminals who lead both parties, then the opposition would be meaningful.

Author: Something like secession?

Pol: Yes.
  ¶ 7:20 PM

  Chuck Norris
NRO notes that Chuck Norris endorsed Prop 8 in California.

It occurs to me: this belongs at the top of the list of Chuck Norris jokes, based on the idea of an impossibly powerful man.

Some existing examples:

When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night, he checks his closet for Chuck Norris.

Chuck Norris doesn't read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants.

There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of creatures Chuck Norris has allowed to live.

Outer space exists because it's afraid to be on the same planet with Chuck Norris.

[My nerdy favorite:]
Chuck Norris can divide by zero.

Now we can add:

Chuck Norris persuaded California to pass a law against gay marriage.

You really can't get more powerful than that.
  ¶ 10:38 AM

  Michael Crichton RIP
Michael Crichton, a great science writer, has died. Crichton was the only important literary figure who tried to spread the truth about the Global Warming hoax. A year ago he appeared on the Charlie Rose PBS show to argue the point; he challenged the Gaia scammers to debate him on the condition that both sides must be allowed to use graphics. Important condition, because it's entirely too easy for the Gaians to play the usual Leninist tricks when no visual proof is available. Nobody ever took him up on the challenge, and now he's gone.



Polistra mourns.



= = = = =

Artistic note: This was as close as I could get to a model of Jurassic Park. It's a 'Dino-Land' tourist trap that I built as part of a Route 66 set....
  ¶ 12:54 PM

  Stupidest statement of the evening
David Gergen, who is consistently the shittiest of all the shitty assholes who spew putrid fecal matter all over the television screen, just outshat himself, which I really didn't think possible.

Supreme Anus Gergen shat the following: "The Republicans lost tonight because they didn't keep up with the way America looks. Republicans still look the way America looked 40 years ago."

Obviously he was shitting about the matter of race. Obviously he means that America is more black now than it was 40 years ago, and that it's the job of a party to reflect the color palette of the population.

His first assumption is simply false. Actually the percent of blacks is slightly lower now than 40 years ago, because of the vast increase of illegal Mexican immigrants encouraged by Republicans.

The second part of Supreme Rectum Gergen's assumption is invalid in a more subtle and more vital way.

Race is the only thing that matters to left-wing media assholes* like Gergen, just as Zero Zip Nada Taxes is the only thing that matters to right-wing media assholes like Rush. To normal Americans, what matters most is the ability to raise a normal family. And when it comes to family, McCain is the modern one and Obama is the old-fashioned one.

McCain abandoned his first wife when she needed him most, and married a super-rich trophy. As far as I can tell, Obama is solidly and happily married and genuinely enjoys his wife and kids. On this important question, McCain looks like 2008 America, which is a picture most Americans would like to discard. Obama looks like 1958 America (e.g. Ozzie and Harriet) which is a picture most Americans would like to bring back.

= = = = =

* Footnote: One of the major left-wing assholes has actually departed from the pattern and spoken the truth. In the last few weeks, Chris Matthews has been emphasizing the importance of normal families. More amazingly, he's been stating the problem in an anti-feminist way: Men want and need to provide for their wives and children. If we want our country to advance, we must find ways to employ lower-educated and lower-intelligence men, so that they can have normal families. This is one of Polistra's main themes, and it's encouraging to hear it spoken in such a clear and unambiguous way.
  ¶ 6:58 PM

  Rain man
The headlines about a newly published study say "Autism linked to rainy areas." Looking a little closer, the study is considerably more interesting.

The headline part is easy: the study looked at Wash, Ore and Calif, separating out the more rainy areas from the dry areas. The rainy parts showed more autistic diagnoses. Unsurprising, because in these three states the coast is where the rain is, and the coast is where the Commies live. Commies like to saddle their kids with all sorts of diagnoses. Nothing can be part of the human condition, everything must be a medical disorder, everything must be treated with drugs.

Beneath the headlines was a more puzzling and interesting connection: time instead of geography. Within the same area, kids born during wetter years showed more diagnosed autism than kids born during dry years. This may actually point to a causal connection.

Low exposure to sunlight is already linked to multiple sclerosis, with vitamin D shortage being one possibility.

I'm wondering about a more direct connection. I've discussed the Svensmark theory, which explains climate change completely. Active sun shields us from cosmic rays, quiet sun lets cosmic rays in. Cosmic rays form clouds, so we get cloudier, rainier and cooler during the quiet-sun times.

What if the cosmic rays are directly affecting brain development? We know that the particles spun off from cosmic rays cause electrical discharges; those discharges are an important problem in computer memory chips. Could they also disrupt neural connections during the early stages of development? Rainy years would be times of high cosmic ray penetration, thus times with higher disruption by charged particles.
  ¶ 9:48 PM

  McCotter gets it.
Thaddeus McCotter, one of the few thinkers in either party in DC, said today:

We ran into the bailout. The bailout touched upon the larger discussion in the Republican Party. It's not the conservatives versus the moderates, that's the rather cliched way of looking at it. What you really have are globalists versus traditionalists. Globalists tend to view America as an economy, not a country. The traditionalists tend to view it as a country — a very delicate microcosm, a collection of individuals with different hopes, dreams, aspirations.

McCotter sometimes gets carried away with his vast vocabulary and literary allusions, but this is plain speaking and plain truth.

Will anyone else in DC catch on? Nope.
  ¶ 2:22 PM

  What's with Steve?
I'm puzzled by Steve Sailer's insistence that Obama could not be the son of Frank Marshall Davis. Sailer says that Barack Jr must be the son of Barack Sr, because Jr "looks East African", and because Sr was surely the only African visitor in Honolulu at that time. Well, maybe he looks East African, but he doesn't look anything like Sr. He does look a lot like Davis, and has the poetic and rhetorical talents of Davis. By most accounts, Sr was not especially talented; he appears to have been a dissipated alcoholic son of aristocracy.

One of the commenters on Sailer's blog quotes Davis's autobiography at length, including some contemptuous comments about African students visiting Honolulu at that time, disproving that part of Sailer's assumption.

As I pointed out before, the American Communists of that generation were strongly pro-family, even more than the average Americans at that time. The anti-family bias that we associate with modern Leftists is not part of Marxism, and certainly not part of the Soviet version of Communism. Russians were, and still are, intensely familial, intensely protective of their children, and intensely opposed to homosexuality. This anti-family crap was strictly for export, and didn't really hit until the late '60s. It has devastated the black community ... which would benefit from a return of Davis-era Marxism.

Davis was solidly married. If he was tomcatting around, it would have been carefully hidden, as with any other important man in that generation. Assigning the 'love-child' to an African visitor would have been a normal move.

So there are many facts, both genetic and cultural, on the side of Davis and very little on the side of Barack Sr. Methinks Sailer has become enamored of his own theory, which is natural but not good scientific thinking.

Semi-relevant sidenote: Looking at Davis's brief bio, I see that he was a Kansan, born in Ark City and educated at K-State in the 1920's. K-State was founded by Abolitionists and has always been proudly integrated, graduating black writers and poets as far back as the 1880's.

If Davis is the papa, it would make Obama unquestionably a natural-born citizen, and Kansan on both sides.

Of course the whole question is merely academic. If the Constitution were still in effect, this would be genuinely important, because we would need to check the qualifications of candidates before even considering them at the party level. Since the Constitution has been unread and unused for many decades, it doesn't matter.
  ¶ 3:24 PM

  1943


Polistra: Oh! It's just so sad. So beautiful! So inspiring!

Author: Good heavens! What?

Polistra: Now I see what Orlov is talking about. Look! Look! Look!



= = = = =

Addendum: A much newer Russian cartoon handles the same theme with less moral purity, less beauty, more plot and humor.
  ¶ 10:13 PM

  Darwin wins, "Darwinians" lose
The Spokane NPR station reports this morning [can't find it online yet]:

A long-term study by the federal Fish and Wildlife Service has found the Spotted Fucking Owls are fading out because Barred Owls, which are apparently more aggressive and more fertile, are replacing them.

It has nothing to do with humans.

Repeat, not one fucking thing to do with humans, no fucking connection with habitat.

It's just good old Darwin 101. The more fertile species crowds out the less fertile species.

Needless to say, the fucking EcoMurderers, viciously and illegitimately claiming the mantle of Darwin, want to undo evolution by adding even more habitat protection for the Spotted Fucking Owl. Even though this has nothing to do with habitat, the Spotted Fucking Owl (or maybe I should start calling it the Spotted Not-Fucking-Enough Owl!) has become a Sacrament for the EcoMurderers.

It will be interesting to see how this comes out. Inevitably the EcoMurderers will bring suit to add more protection, and inevitably the Ninth Circuit Black-Robed Saboteurs will end up handling the suit. The Black-Robed Saboteurs will be firmly on the side of the EcoMurderers, sharing their goal of destroying civilization and the human race, but they will have trouble finding a legal basis for their genocide. The Endangered Species Act was designed to favor all other species by killing all humans. It says nothing about favoring one species over another when humans aren't involved.
  ¶ 8:41 AM

  Resting


Polistra and the Author are enjoying a long spell of fine fall weather.

The Author isn't enjoying as much as he ordinarily would. He's recovering from an accident a couple of weeks ago. He was hit by a car, not seriously injured but scraped and bruised all over. Mostly healed by now, but still not up to par.

A near-death experience --- or at least a moderately-close-to-death experience --- tends to change your perspective a bit. Small annoyances lose their importance.

Polistra is watching with Schadenfreudisch pleasure, as the Great Gray Experts finally come around to her view of the Great Nation Robbery.


= = = = =

Sidenote: the Author's accident happened immediately after posting the last episode of the Dream, which was the first time the Author showed his face in these columns. Plenty of material for superstition.....
  ¶ 4:23 PM

  Who's the grownup?
Right now Obama is giving a quiet and deadly serious speech. He is going over all the important questions in an orderly way, showing clear thought and clear explanation. He tells us what he wants to do and why. Some of his answers may be wrong or counterproductive, but all are based firmly on reality and logic.

Yesterday Biden told us the plain truth, obvious to any rational observer, that new presidents are tested by our enemies.

And what do we hear from the other side?

From MC McCain: "My friends, I'm shocked! shocked! shocked! that my old friend Joe would say such a shocking and irresponsible thing!!!!!"

(Sidenote: I really wonder if MC McCain is capable of thinking anything besides "You can't say that!" All of his utterances, and most of his legislative contributions, reduce to variations on "Shut up.")

From Palin: "Nyah nyah nyah! You're a dirty socialist! Nyah nyah nyah!"

= = = = =

The distinction isn't usually so clear. Most of the time both parties emit similar mixes of logic and name-calling, but this week it's all one way. Brand-D is the adult, brand-R is the spoiled and retarded adolescent.
  ¶ 9:09 AM

  Taxation isn't socialism, dammit.
MC McCain is following the trail blazed by the conservative establishment (NRO, Rush, etc) in claiming that tax policy is socialism.

In the first place, both parties have been using tax policy to spread the wealth in various ways forever, so if it's socialism both parties are equally socialist.

MC McCain made a special point of helping to blackmail his own party into passing the Goldman Coup, which is unquestionably the largest one-time redistribution ever.

So he's in no position to criticize Obama (who also favored the Goldman Coup) when Obama wants to make a rather small increase in EITC, a more traditional wealth-spreading program first developed by Nixon.

In the second place, properly defined socialism ... government ownership of business ... sometimes leads to less taxation. Why? Because full ownership means the govt can run the enterprise responsibly and take its profits to displace the need for taxation. Consider the New Deal power utilities, TVA and Bonneville. Both have been operating competently for 70 years, offering low-cost electricity to consumers. These utilities followed a common practice in the '30s when towns ran their own power plants, bringing in enough money that they didn't need to charge any form of tax.

The Great Nation Robbery has all the worst aspects of socialism: waste, corruption, lack of accountability ... and none of the good aspects. Our govt now owns several big banks. When you own something, you can tell it what to do. We could order these banks to resume lending to good customers, order them to resume interbank lending. Nope, we still let them behave irresponsibly. We're paying the piper but we're not calling the tune; the piper is still free to drink and carouse in fancy casinos.

= = = = =

Much later update, Feb 2016: I took a closer look at Soviet taxation and found that it agreed with my assumptions here. Income tax in USSR was considerably lower than in US.
  ¶ 1:12 PM

  Speed of light
Emir Paulson's eunuchs are mincing around this morning, chirping "Speed of light! Speed of light! Trading moves at speed of light! Need new rules! Need new rules! Speed of light! Awk!"

Yes, trading does move at the speed of light, and it has since 1860.




So that's obviously not the current problem. The current problem is that too many banks were selling things that do not exist. That is fraud, not technology.

The solution, as Polistra said before, is to let Bankerosaurus Fraudulenti die off, so that the honest banks, which are still quite common, can expand to fill the available needs honestly.

And the best way to let B. Fraudulenti die off is to eliminate his habitat entirely. Eliminate the stock exchange. Eliminate price controls on interest, eliminate interbank trading. Let each bank take care of its own money: pay enough interest to attract and encourage savings, charge enough interest to discourage frivolous borrowing. Traditionally, banks pay 3% above inflation and charge 6% above inflation. Since inflation is about 12%, the traditional rates would be 15% for savings, 18% for loans. This would re-close the circle, make each bank responsible for its own success or failure.
  ¶ 8:12 AM

  Incoherent
Despite my better judgment, listening to tonight's debate.

Manchurian Candidate McCain took a completely incoherent position on Supreme judges.

He said, approximately:

"(1) As Senator, I didn't impose any litmus test on judges. I voted for Clinton's appointees because I think the President should be able to determine the ideology of the judges. Elections have consequences.

(2) As President I will not impose litmus tests on the judges I appoint."

Let's see if I can follow this. As President, you're going to continue being a Senator. You will continue to allow the President to decide the ideology of judges. Okay then, if you're going to be Senator when you're President, who's going to be President when you're President?

= = = = =

Aside from logic, the basic notion that we should appoint judges only for their "qualifications" is hopelessly naive. It's certainly a good rule for trial judges, and before the Communist takeover of our legal system it was also a good rule for appellate and Supreme judges. But under the current setup, where judges make the laws and Congress merely writes the checks, it's dangerously irresponsible to leave out the ideological aspect of a Supreme appointment.
  ¶ 7:12 PM

  Titular exception
The talking point heads and Experts always refer to Obama, McCain and Biden by their titles, as Senator Obama, Senator McCain, Senator Biden. (These are actually pronounced Snrbama, Snrcain, Snrbiden.)

But they very rarely include Palin's title. Nobody on either side calls her Governor Palin; it's always Sarah Palin.

Wonder why? I don't think it's a sexual double standard; other female politicians are typically named with their titles. Hillary is usually Snrclinton, for instance. Is it a class thing? Palin is unquestionably more like a normal American than a Dubai Cosmopolitan.

= = = = =

Similar peeve: Why can't the Experts simply say President? In any normal context, President by itself means the President of this unfortunate land. The single word would have a different meaning only within a corporate boardroom, where it would mean President of the company. Yet the Experts always say President Of The United States (pronounced Prez-nigh-sates) and Constitution Of The United States (pronounced Consoosh-nigh-sates).
  ¶ 8:38 AM

  Absolute censorship
This election is being run under total censorship, and the result either way will be total censorship.



What's the purpose of 'freedom of speech'? To insure that POLITICAL discussions, above all, can include truth. All of the important truths have been knocked out of this election, declared completely unspeakable and unthinkable.

Is Obama a Mohammedan? There's lots of circumstantial evidence in favor of this conclusion and very little evidence against it. Obama was unquestionably born into the Mohammedan faith. His grandfather and father were Mohammedan, so by the rules of that religion he belongs. He was raised in the religion for the first several years of his life. In the countries dominated by Allah, most people believe Obama is one of their own. Shouldn't we trust their understanding of their culture and religion more than our relatively ignorant judgment?

Obama claims to have converted to Christianity, but if he were truly a Christian we'd see fatwas against his life by prominent mullahs and imams. They don't allow important men to turn apostate. We have only his own word that he converted, and even his own words aren't always consistent. When he mentioned "my Muslim faith" quite naturally and unconsciously, the interviewer had to "correct" him. And the minister who taught him for twenty years was a Black Muslim before he allegedly became a Christian. Wright's preaching still resembles Malcolm X much more than, for instance, T.D. Jakes.

Similarly, is McCain the Manchurian Candidate? There's circumstantial evidence for this and not much against it. He gave many propaganda broadcasts for NV while he was in prison; he stayed when he had the chance to leave; he admitted during one debate "They broke me." Most importantly, NV has a memorial for him which still stands. Ho Chi-minh didn't build memorials for adversaries.

I have great sympathy for his plight; I would have broken much sooner. But sympathy and respect are not the same thing, and sympathy is not a good reason to elect a man who admits that his mind was broken by the enemy.

Since both of these questions are unthinkable, unspeakable and undebatable, there is absolutely no point in pretending that we have something called "freedom of speech".

We have two candidates who appear to represent enemy ideologies ... one of which is our current enemy, unless this whole war is a complete fake, which I'm really beginning to wonder about ... and we are officially forbidden to discuss it.

= = = = =

The most urgent question is being censored by a different method, a classic Soviet method. The people understand, instinctively or logically, that the Great Nation Robbery is evil in every possible way. It's simultaneously a reverse redistribution of wealth and a redistribution of good and evil. Wall Street gets all the money and escapes all the punishment. While the lowly Taxpaying Units starve in Weimar hyperinflation, Commissar Paulson and his Bathhouse Buddies will zoom off to Dubai and enjoy whatever nasty activities such unspeakably filthy creatures enjoy.

We are not forbidden to discuss this question, but we are forbidden to exercise any sort of influence on it. If we had a genuine parliamentary system, if we had a real two-party contest, we would get a choice. One party, presumably the party of Hoover, would defend the Great Nation Robbery; and the other party, presumably the party of Roosevelt, would promise to unravel the Robbery as soon as possible and immediately punish the malefactors instead of rewarding them.

We aren't allowed to make the choice. Instead we get the good old Soviet choice: we can vote for the Robbery or we can vote in favor of the Robbery.

Later thought: this could also be described under Polistra's corollary to Manweller's Rule: The questions that matter most to the elites are never allowed to reach a vote.
  ¶ 8:08 AM

  Apology to Soros
Although George Soros is a rather nasty character, I owe him an apology.

Polistra has been maligning Soros consistently without actually listening to him. After settling down and listening to a long interview (with Fareed Zakariah on CNN today) it's clear that Soros is making almost exactly the same points that Polistra has been making.

I can understand why nobody is listening to Polistra ... and to the thousands of other bloggers and columnists who have been pleading for ordinary reality-based economics ... but I really can't understand why nobody is listening to Soros. He owns most of our politicians, and they're still too stupid to follow his advice.
  ¶ 1:57 PM

  Polistra's dream, 8 and final.
Part 8 of Polistra's Dream.

(In which the author finally shows his mug.....)

Read Part 1 and Part 2 and Part 3 and Part 4 and Part 5 and Part 6 and Part 7 first.

October 2008, at the Mill.

The author is moping.


Author: Damn, I'm missing Polistra something fierce. I know she's having a better time in another decade, but it's drab and colorless without her around. All text and no pictures. I miss her smiling face and sharp mind.

Hmm. Worked for Alex Bell, maybe it'll work for me...


Author: Miss Polistra, come here! I need you! Miss Polistra, come here! I need you!


Author: Nothing. Oh well. It was worth a try.


Author: Huh?


Pol: Howdy. Had a feeling this would happen soon. I was listening to Calling All Cars and suddenly I heard your voice mixing in with Rosenquist... and then the radio started sucking me in. Barely had time to say Bye and Thanks For Everything to Fran!


Author: Fran?

Pol: I'll tell you the story later. Meanwhile, I suspect something big must be happening in this decade, otherwise you wouldn't have pulled me back into this miserable time.

Author: Yes. Watch the TV for a while and you'll catch on.

[Later]


Pol: Okay, I think I get it. For the last 40 years we've been in Phase 1 of the Leninist takeover. Redistribution of good and evil. Moral equivalence. No discrimination allowed except for the Approved And Enlightened Forms Of Discrimination, which are called Tolerance. You can't judge me because you don't know me. In other words, no thinking allowed.

Author: Right, right.

Pol: And now that reality is blurred, confused and forbidden, we're in Phase 2, where the New Certainties are imposed from above. Global Warming was the first of the New Certainties...

Author: Complete reversal of science. Take all the obvious facts and turn them upside down, then burn the witches who still cling to facts. Ptolemy gets his revenge on Galileo at last. Anyone who says the climate revolves around the sun is a heretic. Everyone knows that the climate revolves around the earth, no matter how many epicycles we have to pile on.

Pol: So then, what we're looking at here must be the complete reversal of economics. Take all the basic well-known mechanisms and turn them upside down. Anyone who clings to the old Unenlightened Ways is a Naysayer, a Denier, a Witch. Anyone who advises living within your means, anyone who says that an economy must depend on production, anyone who thinks a country should be self-sufficient, anyone who speaks against price control, is an Evil Protectionist.

Author: Yup. It didn't happen easily, though. What you aren't seeing on TV today is that the people actually tried to stop this coup d'etat, but it didn't work. As usual the authorities used blackmail on Congress to get enough votes. As usual Goldman Sachs wins and America loses.

Pol: I'm surprised, maybe just a tad bit encouraged, that there was some token resistance. But it had to go through in the end because the circle has been broken. Congress is so accustomed to taking its guidance from rich enemy agents that it no longer knows how to listen to its real constituents.

Author: Despite all that, a couple hundred members, of both brands, voted with reality, with true economics, and with the people.

Pol: God save those members. God have mercy on them. They will be burned at the TV stake. They will be given the Two Years Hate.

Author: So far it hasn't started, but you're rarely wrong. We'll have to watch for it.

= = = = =

Literary note: The Dream story ends here, now that I've pulled Polistra back into this unfortunate time. Episode 7 was left hanging. The Lodine character really deserved more time and attention, but the Goldman Coup came along and I found it necessary to write some plain facts instead of spinning a story. For now, Polistra and the Author will carry on in present tense, perhaps with some story-like episodes.
  ¶ 11:51 AM

  Paid to destroy?
Listening to C-Span, a fake 'interrogation' of the pres of Lehman Bros. Waxman asks a rational-sounding question: "You took Lehman into the ground, but you got paid $480 million in bonuses. Is that fair?"

Polistra likes to assume that apparent contradictions reveal a deeper consistency. Apparent contradiction: Corporate chiefs destroy their companies and receive huge pay. Sounds like a paradox for sure.

Let's say you work with Jim Walston. Jim has an office with the title "Executive Vice-President" on the door. But you've never seen Jim doing anything but sweeping the floors and replacing light bulbs. You've also seen the boss smiling at Jim and saying "Good job!" You assume Jim is getting paid, because he seems happy and well-fed. What's your conclusion? Jim is paid for custodial work, even though his title says something different.

Same here. You see a man with the title "Chief Executive Officer" on his door. Normally a man with this title would try to lead the company toward success. But you observe, in many different companies, that the men with this title lead the companies toward bankruptcy, while getting paid monstrously large bonuses. What's your conclusion? The CEOs were paid for what they did.
  ¶ 9:54 AM

  "Unprecedented"
Commissar Paulson's media are still using the word "unprecedented" for the current economic situation. New territory, nobody's been here before, we don't know how to handle it, etc, etc, etc.

Nonsense. Other banana republics have been through similar situations: wild unfounded spending leading to hyperinflation. The cure is well-known: Austerity.

Argentina, Brazil and Chile have been through this at various times, and were able to regain stability by cutting off credit and revaluing the currency. Often the austerity was forced on them by American investors, by Sultan Bush himself, or the International Monetary Fund, which is basically an American outfit.

So the American government and the American investor class know how to cure this situation. They refuse to apply it to themselves. Instead, they are applying the opposite of Austerity. Expand credit, keep house prices high, keep interest low, expand gov't spending. Guaranteed to make the disease worse.


In simple terms:

The problem is spending money that doesn't exist.

Pick a solution:

A. Stop spending money that doesn't exist.

B. Spend a hell of a lot more money that doesn't exist.

Other countries have picked A, and it worked for them.

When a government picks the suicidal answer EVERY GODDAMN TIME for EIGHT GODDAMN YEARS, you are not entitled to assume incompetence. An incompetent, a mere moron, would do the right thing more than half the time, because the right thing generally follows common sense.
  ¶ 2:38 PM

  Kudos to McMorris
Amid the shambles of what used to be America, I need to shout Bravo to Cathy McMorris, who represents Spokane and Eastern Washington. She proudly voted No both times on this monstrosity. Up till now, McMorris has been a fairly docile back-bencher, following the brand-R leadership on most important questions.

When you start from that baseline, voting with the people takes even more courage than when you've established a reputation for independence.

Of course the courage of a few crew members doesn't matter much when the captain has intentionally steered the ship into the iceberg.

Still, Bravo to McMorris and to the other Representatives (of both parties) who stuck with the people, stuck with sanity.
  ¶ 11:36 AM

  House ratifies new Constitution!!!!!!!

  ¶ 11:07 AM

  VP debate
In general, the questions that Biden and Palin agree on are purely false. The questions that they disagree on are trivial.

Purely false? Yes. They agree that Gaia is the One True Goddess, and All of our Future Decisions must be Holy Sacrifices to Mother Earth. They agree that Goldman Sachs is the Deserving Recipient of Our National Wealth, and that the Great Nation Robbery must be committed NOW to insure our instant collapse. Both of these Grand Statements are obvious and suicidal falsehoods.

Their loudest disagreement came on the question "Given the huge spending required to commit the Great Nation Robbery, what will you need to cut from your proposals?" Biden said that he would cut spending by not enacting McCain's programs, and Palin said that she would cut spending by not enacting Obama's programs. This is both trivial and bizarre.

I could only find one genuine and important disagreement. Biden appears to understand that Pakistan is our enemy, while Palin still maintains the Bush lie that Pakistan is our loyal ally.

The true status of Pakistan is a point that both Huckabee and Hillary were trying to make during the campaign, and both were hissed out of the game by their respective Party apparatus. I'm glad to see that the Obama campaign has picked up the point, even after destroying the messenger.
  ¶ 8:05 AM