Thursday, October 30, 2008

Mutual Mental Masturbation Among Marxists

According to Wikipedia, my Jew-bro, Jon Stewart, "describes his political affiliation as independent." It used to say something different. I know this because I remember having read it. The citation points to this transcript from CNN. Go ahead and search for the word "independent" in that transcript and you will find this:

KING: I think you're a Democrat, Jon.

STEWART: I think that's probably correct. I think I would say I'm more of a socialist or an independent

Ok, yes, the categorical assumption that being a socialist is comparable to being independent is insane. He says he's more of a socialist than a Democrat, fine, and someone at Wikipedia doesn't want people to know he said that... corruption at Wikipedia!!! SHOCKING!!!

So, Obama was on The Daily Show tonight...
Quotes from the show:

"Everything that needs to be said has probably been heard by a lot of voters" ~Obama (HAHAHAHAHA!!)

***

"So much of this has been about fear of you: an elistist, a celebrity, muslim, terrorist sympathizer, a socialist, marxist, a witch. That's right, they've been calling you a witch. The whole socialism/marxism thing, if you do win is that a mandate for socialism in this country? Has any of this fear stuff, do you think it's stuck with the electorate? Are you finding that on the trail? " ~Stewart

"You know it just hasn't. I mean I think there is a certain segment of hardcore Sean Hannity fans that probably wouldn't want to go have a beer with me.... [talking points]... The whole socialism argument, that doesn't fly too well. The evidence of this seems pretty thin. I said today that I think they found proof that when I was in kindergarten I shared some toys with my friends and that clearly a sign of subversive activity. [oo aa] I will tell you Jon, that being on your program is further evidence of these activities." ~Obama

***


What a couple of fucking douchebags...

Terrorism and Socialism are moral equivalents now? You said it, not me...

"The evididence of this seems pretty thin" Can you fucking IMAGINE if anyone else said that about ANYTHING, in ANY situation!?!? If you can't see through that, you are a self-deluded drone, end of story. Is that like speaking in the 5th person or what was that? This whole thing is just hard to watch, the show and the state of the country.

"being on your program is further evidence of these activities." *wink*wink* Look at us Leibowitz! We're tricking everyone! I'll suck you off later! Haha! We will rule soon!

Fliuck That House

Ok, so this article slightly changes my view on the financial crisis, if anyone cares. Instead of the being directly influenced by the affirmative action aspect of the CRA, it was more more of an unintended consequence, I think.

This is the same guy from City Journal I had read before. He says it wasn't really a subprime crisis at all, but a adjustable-rate (ARM loans) crisis.

In a nutshell, the Flip That House mentality made possible by the CRA caused the problem, not massive job loss.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Thoughts on "The Gap"

Ya know, if you look at what is happening on Wall Street, the gap between the rich and poor is as low as it's been in a long time.This happens every time you have a big downturn in the stock market and the economy. Hmm...the rich get poorer...which means they don't have anymore jobs for the poor and middle class...but the poor don't get any poorer because of entitlement programs...but the middle class is knocked down to poor now because they don't qualify for the programs. (not yet at least) So basically redistribution of wealth just means everybody is brought down to the level of poor? Help me out here am I making any sense?

Monday, October 27, 2008

A Hundred and Fifty Second Nature

This is news???

No, it isn't... Can you be blinder than blind? What's the opposite of being unable to see? Seeing too much? Too much light? Like looking at the sun? Blinded by the light?

Wait, am I being racist?

UPDATE: "It's not redistribution of wealth, it's tax cuts for the middle class." Unreal.

Friday, October 24, 2008

There Is No Capitalism

"Capitalism" was invented by socialists/anarchists: Proudhon (don't know much about him) may be the first, but mostly Marx. Before them, it was known as "how shit works". There is no "free-market ideology". Marx popularized the word "ideology" too, btw. Before him it was called "right and wrong". All this talk of "The Death of Capitalism" makes my eyes glaze. There are no "market forces" or "invisible hands". As soon as you mention capitalism, invisible hands, self-interest, or the like, you've already conceded the "argument".

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need," should have been the 11th commandment: big fuck up there, "God". He would (naturally) know everyone's needs and abilities, but why on Earth would I trust another fallible soul to decide what people can do and what they need? The hubris of Socialism is to think everyone would, could, and should agree. To think it possible to decide everyone's abilities and desires is the "fatal conceit" of Socialism, as they say.

So anyhow, you ask if I think Obama is a Socialist. Sure, fine, we can call him whatever we want. I just prefer "promoter of innefectual, pernicious policies, and of self". Palin said "pallin' agound with terrorists" but she could have said any number of different things. The truth is so unbelievably damning to Obama as to not be believed, and so it goes. If Palin was going to bring up the issue, it shouldn't have been sound-bite worthy. The fact that Ayers is teaching anything, anywhere, to anyone is a disgrace to anyone ever "associated" with him. He should obviously be somewhere turning big rocks into smaller rocks for the rest of his days. I'd settle for him locked up, ghostwriting more of Obama's memoirs, I suppose.

I don't even know how to respond to whether I'm worried about "a connection to terrorism". What does that even mean? Do I think Obama ever tried to kill people? No. But Ayers stopped doing that a long time ago. He found something that worked better: "education". Obama and Ayers have the same educational "theory" as far as I can tell. The media code-word for this is "educational reform" btw, as if were undoubtably swell.

I do have to say though, it is an easier talking point when someone looks the other way about the always hot-button issue of terrorism. I can't argue with that.

So, I had actually read that Reason article before you linked it, Reason being my 3rd bookmarked site (non-blog) behind New Criterion and City Journal. I agree with about two-thirds of everything they say, and when I don't, I usually have a pretty good idea why, meaning they present their arguments well. I think that article is an attempt to further weaken the Republian base in order to make room for some Libertarian policies in the future. I think that would be a VERY good thing to have happen, but a little dangerous: the DailyKos guy also calls himself a Libertarian. So anyhow, I think the article is a little translucent, if not transparently self-interested, but they are Libertarians, what else would you expect. You can see this from the title "Must Lose", what is that supposed to mean? Years of being ignored (by both sides) strangely effects one's rhetoric methinks. Mealsothinks it's a little naive to believe that defeat would "put the GOP back on its limited government track" and not just make it even worse.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

BPB is All Growns Up

Whoa! I'm away from BPB for a while and look what I missed: a redesign, Conrad wants to punch Ayers in the balls and the Great Crusade Against McClatchy. Sic semper tyrannis!

I'll swallow my pride regarding the McClatchy piece on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I was much too reactionary to claims made that Democrats forcing these agencies to offer affordable housing to low-income buyers was the sole (or at least prime) reason of the financial crisis. A quick search for something to debunk those claims led me to the McClatchy article. I read the first paragraph, saw that David Goldstein wrote it (he was formerly the KC Star's Washington correspondent, so I was familiar with his writing and had invited him on the show I produced in school a few times) and fired it off as another "view." I'm certainly not conceding to Heritage (I'll explain later), but I'll admit that it was a flippant, lame way to counter. And, in all seriousness, I'm embarrassed: I have a hard time digesting this complex topic and it was horribly lazy of me. But that's no excuse. I've done this before and no matter how many times I do it, it never restores any dignity lost. Go figure. Now to several asides:

- Take it or leave it, but I don't see McClatchy as some subversive, longarm-of-the-Left news organization. Columnists like Lewis D. are a different subject: All publications have columnists from all over the political spectrum. And for the Heritage Foundation to cast aspersions on something as a tool of a party is laughable. Come on, the Heritage Foundation would call my grandmother a communist for making sure everyone got a piece of pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving.
(Special secondary Heritage Foundation aside: I was a pizza place not far from my house, eating a late lunch on their patio the other day. The restaurant is right next to Heritage's headquarters, a stone's throw from the Capitol. So I'm sitting there and a pack of young Heritage cronies walk out their front door. It was like a Skull and Bones 5-year reunion: pink shirts a-blazin', the glare off their cufflinks and $500 shoes burning a hole in the ozone, their $100 haircuts slightly tussled by the wind. Seemed like a charming group ... there I go again, judging. I apologize.)

- My point in finding something to counter in the first place was that despite my lack of in-depth knowledge on the intricacies of our financial situation, I think it's ridiculous to blame one party or ideology. I agree the Clintons and Dodds of the Democratic party had a hand. But let's not forget who had both executive and legislative branches for most of Bush's two terms. The Bushes and Phil Gramms of the Repubican party are to blame as well. And just today, Greenspan, SEC chair Chris Cox and former Treasury Sec. Snow, all conservatives, admitted that Fannie and Freddie aren't at all solely to blame. Greenspan even publicly questioned the validity of his own market ideology and failure to properly address regulation. That looks like a fresh pile of guilt lying in the middle of the floor if you ask me. Both parties are to blame in their own ways. While, as I mentioned, I'm embarrassed by my laziness, I want to say that I'm no Dem. party apologist ... again, take it or leave it. But it wreaks when someone pins this on Democrats alone when Republicans had a stranglehold on the federal government for most of this decade.

- Socialism? Really? Ayers? Really? Are you guys really calling Obama a socialist? If you didn't, set me straight. And you're really worried about his association with Ayers as some kind of connection to terrorism? Really? I mean, "palling around with terrorists" is a fear tactic. I know no one explicitly said that here, but you know who did.

If you don't agree with his policies or ideas, fair enough. But can you make these two claims about him with a straight face? I agree that it was blatant opportunism to go along with the liberal status quo in Chicago at a time when he was trying to work his way up in a tough political climate. Ayers was accepted in Chicago, so Obama looked the other way. At least that's how I interpret it. He's a politician. This is what they do. Unfortunately, Obama happened to "look the other way" with someone associated with the ever-hot button issue of terrorism, so it's an easier talking point. I'm not condoning Ayers' actions or Obama's corner cutting. But I don't think it speaks to larger concerns of his character at this point.

- As conservatives, I'm curious as to your respective thoughts on this article from Reason, a Libertarian publication as you probably know. This runs along the same thread as the many conservatives like Will, Noonan, Buckley, Powell etc. that have wavered on McCain/Palin. I'm just wondering what you think of the Obamacon movement, as well as Reason's logic in this instance.

Finally, I sincerely hope nothing I've said or posted has been taken personally. We disagree on things. It's human nature. I look forward to discussing this election with you post-Nov. 4, maybe around Thanksgiving ... I should be around. It's been fun and certainly exciting (i.e. Palin), but I for one am ready for a shift in focus of my favorite sport, politics. But make no mistake, these next 12 days, and maybe more, should be icing on the cake.

Au Revoir. (Too socialist?)

More McClatchy Mongerism

When did Socialist become "an old code word for black"? Is there any term a race baitor cannot turn in to a deragoatory term for black people? Shame on you Lewis Diuguid! Shame on you Kansas City Star, of course a McClatchy enterprise...big suprise!

"J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI from 1924 to 1972, used the term liberally to describe African Americans who spent their lives fighting for equality."

Of course when using the word socialist you are more interested with skin color than ideas. Isn't that kind of crap what the civil rights movement was fighting so hard against? Falsly judging something based on skin color. Once again I'm so confused!

The Love Song Of 'O'

I guess it should come as no suprise that our first rock star president would appoint fellow celebs to public office. So I think this is how it would really go; Obama appoints Oprah to ambassador as a thanks for all the support. Oprah gets to go live in this beautiful mansion and hobnob with the brits. Service? I think not, although she will probably convince herself that having "tea and cakes and ices" is actaully doing some great service for the country. Even if a situation did arise where she could truly do some good, does anyone think she will "have the strength to force the moment to it's crisis" Again I think not.

Bonus points for anyone who can point to the quoted allusion. Maybe even an ambassadorship!

Asessing Idiots: Usuability

After I got out of college and dried out a little, a began reading. Things I had always wondered about began to find their appropriate context in the world of ideas. As it went, I continued running up against this thing called "Socialism" that I had never heard anyone discuss. After I exhausted Wikipedia on the subject, I faced up to the horse and read The Communist Manifesto. It was the second serious book I ever read on my own. It was the most enlightening thing I could have hoped to do; I understood.

Everything it said was the logical conclusion of so many thoughts I had had before. Why hadn't it worked? More reading... I had heard about a man named Willie Munzenberg who was the Comintern's chief propagandist (the Communist version of Goebbels). That's how I came across The New Criterion: an article titled Lying For Turth: Willi Munzenburg and the Comintern (It used to be available on their website but I can't find the link now). It showed how deep the Communist propoganda machine had been embedded in world affairs to a level I had only imagined. It was an actual conspiracy. I had imagined something of the sort before: what would need to happen for the world to be perfect? I had my ideas, but here was there actual implementation. Marvelous. My ideas weren't original; I was just getting the hint.

From TNC I learned of the ideological connection between Socialism and things I have hated my entire life: (post)modern art, modern architecture, anything with with "social" as a prefix or "studies" as a suffix, etc, etc. I came to understand contradictions of such worldviews; contradictions so conspicuous as to become innocuous. I became furious that there was an entire well-defined "ideology" that people use to justify intentionally creating the things that were a catalyst for so much of the anxiety and nihilism of my younger years. That no one in any position of authority over me had ever bothered to mention the things I saw as immensely important rubbed me incredibly raw. Not jsut that, but apparently I was part of the problem...

Which brings me to the point of this post. Everyone knows about Obama's (alleged, HA!) kick-off party in Billy Ayers living room. Yah, he bombed stuff and wishes he did more. But what was his rationale? Misguided SDS member? Well, yah... but is that it? NO. Ayers stands for everything I hate in the world, EVERY-THING. If I was ever made aware of the fact I was in the same room with such an individual, I'd get a chance to fulfill all the fantasies of violence which "occasionally" hijack my mind; those which I've been told are probably "an issue".

Forget how close they were or how well Obama knew him, even though the evidence points to very well. Ayers is a Communist (or is it communist? Does it matter? No) plain and simple. I'll leave it to the reader to learn of the connections between the two, they are too extensive to mention here. Obama is either an active subversionary or the most useful idiot in the history of the world, beyond the use of those "idiots" by the Comitern all those years ago. Ayers plan to stop bombing and work on "organizing" communities has worked better than they could have ever imagined. So, which is it? I'm pretty confident it is the latter, but again, does it matter?

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Yes We Candid!

Not sure what this site is,
Probably not very important.

I think they said one time that they didn't just want the Republicans to lose, but to be humiliated. Perogovative, indeed.

The Right's Unibrow

So, Mr. Roger Kimball (my co-chief aesthetic "inspirator," along with The Scrut) has just referenced The Zombie in his latest blog piece. The content doesn't really matter for my purpose here, but there might be something strange happening on the righty blogosphere.

Zombie's website, which he runs anonymously, is a favorite link for the (us) righties. Check it out for yourself if you have a burning desire to see some pictures of Mohammed (so THAT's what he looks like!! I'd seen half of them before and didn't realize what they "were") or undercover photo-essays of some fucking creepy ass St. Fransisco happenings and other lefty rallies.

My point is that there seems to be some strange coallescence up and down the right side of the cultural divide, as opposed to accross it. I wonder if this is just an election-cycle event or something more substantial. I guess the former, but we shall see.

I have always kept my New Criterion/City Journal/Foundry writers separate from my Ace of Spades/LGF and the rest. (For a visual representation of the blogosphere check this and this out. I love abstractions like these, the second is fascinating to me) So what to make of the comingling? Temporary alliance before an election or the beginning of a virtual conservative-action-conglomerate? Again, I guess the former, but we shall see...

The Burden Of The Thirty-First Day

Stephen Baldwin 'treats' us to some thoughts for the upcoming holliday.

For my part, I'm passing out sugar free gum this year along with a copy of the South Beach Diet. Anyone have any costume ideas?

Monday, October 20, 2008

In Related News: "Koolaide" Stock Up Another Point

The Washington Post endorses Obama and what is the first reason listed...

"Mr. Obama is a man of supple intelligence, with a nuanced grasp of complex issues and evident skill at conciliation and consensus-building."

- Yes his intelligence is supple, supple in that it floats with the wind of the latest polls. This of course leads to a "nuanced grasp of complex issues"...or...never taking a stand on anything, well maybe perhaps a nuanced stand. "evident skill at conciliation"...conciliation with who? Anyone and everyone regardless of past or present actions or aggressions?

"At home, we believe, he would respond to the economic crisis with a healthy respect for markets tempered by justified dismay over rising inequality ..."

- I guess we can just turn off the 'inequality' switch on the 'free market machine'? Or we could just buy the 'Marxist machine'...but I hear that doesn't come with a 'Quality' switch.

"Abroad, the best evidence suggests that he would seek to maintain U.S. leadership and engagement, continue the fight against terrorists, and wage vigorous diplomacy on behalf of U.S. values and interests."

- Pullout of Iraq = fighting terrorists? Can someone ask him where he would like to fight them.

"Mr. Obama also understands that the most important single counter to inequality, and the best way to maintain American competitiveness, is improved education..."

- Why don't we actually talk about how Obama wants to improve education? The only thing I know to be true of his possible education philosophy is that he helped raise money to promote the educational philosophy of Bill Ayers. I want to hear something different from just throwing more money at it.

All right I won't pick the whole thing apart. Pretty good read overall. I have much more respect for the Wasington Post than for quite a few others. But even they are not immune to 'Obamatization.'

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Heritage on McClatchy

So remember when I said it would take me forever to pick out all the problems with that McClatchy article? Well someone else did it for me!! They call the article, "a masterpiece in half-truths and opinion journalism disguised as hard news." and that "There are few better outlets through which one can propagate leftist lies," than McClatchy's, in general.

Just another "view" on the subject..... Which happens to articulate my point much better.

Friday, October 17, 2008

Speaking Spoof to Plumber

Is this real journalism or a spoof? Hard to tell these days... Onion could not have written a better story.

"...he [Joe the Plumber] and her sister never met Gov. Sarah Palin, who is now Sen. John McCain’s running mate."

"...bloggers discovered the Wurzelbacher name in sled-dog race results online — and that the musher was from Palin’s part of Alaska — and questions began flying about a a possible Doug-and-Joe connection and whether Joe, who confronted Obama in front of television cameras in Ohio, was a plant."

Hmmm, sounds fishy. Stay on the case McClatchy!

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Question

Since there are only a handful of people with comprehensive knowledge of our economy who would know what to do right now, with the two presidential candidates not being in that category. Why would you vote for president based on the economy?

Just a thought...and a dumb one I'm sure.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Common Ground? You bet'cha!

I feel like I've been divisive. Should I go to church or an O'rally and bask in atonement? I doubt it, but here's another article from (conservative) City Journal about Palin. Maybe we can agree on her detestable philistinism.

I still think she'd be good in the white house, no thanks her cutesy, intellectual vapidity.

And If They Hit 'Ignore,' They'd Be Accused Of Racism

From WSJ Best of the Web Today...Again


Thanks to several readers, we think we've figured out how officials in Rensselaer County, N.Y., rendered Barack Obama's last name as "Osama." It's the same thing that tripped up Dan Rather: Microsoft Word. Some versions of this software--including the one we use, Word 2002--do not recognize "Obama" when doing a spell-check, and suggest "Osama" as a correction.
This almost certainly means the person responsible was a Democrat. After all, who else would see "Obama" and reflexively respond by clicking "Change"?

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

The Clinton Administration's Robinhoodism: A Clarion Call

"Back in the day when I was young I'm not a kid anymore but some days I sit and wish I was a kid again"..." I remember way back when"...

Sorry for the musical interlude but I remember way back when in 1995 when the Clinton Administration passed the new CRA regulations effectivley sending out a clarion call to community organizer groups across the country to come and get their piece. I'll quote City Journal's Howard Husock speaking on the matter in a 2000 article;

"Crucially, the new CRA regulations also instructed bank examiners to take into account how well banks responded to complaints. The old CRA evaluation process had allowed advocacy groups a chance to express their views on individual banks, and publicly available data on the lending patterns of individual banks allowed activist groups to target institutions considered vulnerable to protest. But for advocacy groups that were in the complaint business, the Clinton administration regulations offered a formal invitation. The National Community Reinvestment Coalition—a foundation-funded umbrella group for community activist groups that profit from the CRA—issued a clarion call to its members in a leaflet entitled "The New CRA Regulations: How Community Groups Can Get Involved." "Timely comments," the NCRC observed with a certain understatement, "can have a strong influence on a bank's CRA rating."

The Clinton administration's get-tough regulatory regime mattered so crucially because bank deregulation had set off a wave of mega-mergers, including the acquisition of the Bank of America by NationsBank, BankBoston by Fleet Financial, and Bankers Trust by Deutsche Bank. Regulatory approval of such mergers depended, in part, on positive CRA ratings. "To avoid the possibility of a denied or delayed application," advises the NCRC in its deadpan tone, "lending institutions have an incentive to make formal agreements with community organizations." By intervening—even just threatening to intervene—in the CRA review process, left-wing nonprofit groups have been able to gain control over eye-popping pools of bank capital, which they in turn parcel out to individual low-income mortgage seekers. A radical group called ACORN Housing has a $760 million commitment from the Bank of New York; the Boston-based Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America has a $3-billion agreement with the Bank of America; a coalition of groups headed by New Jersey Citizen Action has a five-year, $13-billion agreement with First Union Corporation. Similar deals operate in almost every major U.S. city. Observes Tom Callahan, executive director of the Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance, which has $220 million in bank mortgage money to parcel out, "CRA is the backbone of everything we do." In addition to providing the nonprofits with mortgage money to disburse, CRA allows those organizations to collect a fee from the banks for their services in marketing the loans. The Senate Banking Committee has estimated that, as a result of CRA, $9.5 billion so far has gone to pay for services and salaries of the nonprofit groups involved. To deal with such groups and to produce CRA compliance data for regulators, banks routinely establish separate CRA departments. A CRA consultant industry has sprung up to assist them. New financial-services firms offer to help banks that think they have a CRA problem make quick "investments" in packaged portfolios of CRA loans to get into compliance.

The result of all this activity, argues the CEO of one midsize bank, is that "banks are promising to make loans they would have made anyway, with some extra aggressiveness on risky mortgages thrown in." Many bankers—and even some CRA advocates—share his view. As one Fed economist puts it, the assertion that CRA was needed to force banks to see profitable lending opportunities is "like saying you need the rooster to tell the sun to come up. It was going to happen anyway." And indeed, a survey of the lending policies of Chicago-area mortgage companies by a CRA-connected community group, the Woodstock Institute, found "a tendency to lend in a wide variety of neighborhoods"—even though the CRA doesn't apply to such lenders.

If loans that win banks good CRA ratings were going to be made anyway, and if most of those loans are profitable, should CRA, even if redundant, bother anyone? Yes: because the CRA funnels billions of investment dollars through groups that understand protest and political advocacy but not marketing or finance. This amateur delivery system for investment capital already shows signs that it may be going about its business unwisely. And a quiet change in CRA's mission—so that it no longer directs credit only to specific places, as Congress mandated, but also to low- and moderate-income home buyers, wherever they buy their property—greatly extends the area where these groups can cause damage."

Look, I'll never assume to know anything about the economy. I do think it is clear there are many reasons for what has happened. The fact that the Clinton Adminstration all but forced banks to funnel their money through left wing activist groups is completely disgusting.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Race, Energy, and Bubble Blowing

Given that it's impossible to know anything about anything having to do with the economy, I have a long term vision (don't stop reading) on the whole bailout/financial crisis fiasco. I just read Hayek's Prophetic Skepticism in The New Criterion and I'm starting The Road to Serfdom after I get done with this post.

So, the government created the bubble by forcing banks to finance houses (the American dream apparently) for low-income (black) people; lending went awry faster than you could say, "I want prime to be me too." -> "Can't make a ho a housewife" -> yada, yada, yada -> a bunch of houses sit around with no one paying for them -> banks have huge debts -> can't lend anything to anyone anymore..... Enter: tax-collector.

First, the fraud of considering owning a home the quintessential American Dream. COMAWN! Ok, having your own place to live is a worthy accomplishment (void when awarded), but most of the houses we're talking about are suburban crap-houses for the gullible inner-city folk, and the ridiculous spec/vacation houses built after non-subprime or 'prime' borrowers got involved in the racket.

Second, how silly it is to use home ownership as a basis for a life well-fulfilled. I don't think THAT even exists in Black Liberation Theology, but I'm probably wrong. The people responsible HAD to know they were providing a mirage --double wamey.

Finally, the establishment of this idea of home-ownership being the fruition of the American dream comes at an amazingly bad time. From here on out the suburbs will be on the decline. Energy prices will put an end to suburbs the way we know them as Gary and I know from Kunstler.

Which all brings me back to the financial crisis. They are pumping a gabazoolian dollars into the housing market that is destined for failure for multiple reasons. The free market didn't cause the crisis, the artificially created housing market did. Bailout = Bubble Blowing.

Down-Home American Politics

This is the side I'm rooting for :-( *sigh*

Gotta love American politics....

Friday, October 10, 2008

I Love Southwest Missouri or Head North Fast

Article from the news leader down here. I don't even know what to say anymore just check out the sign.

Hey There's An Idea

From the Wall Street Journal's 'Best of the Web Today'

More Fact-Check Follies During Tuesday's debate, John McCain repeated an assertion he had made before:
In Lebanon, I stood up to President Reagan, my hero, and said, if we send Marines in there, how can we possibly beneficially affect this situation? And said we shouldn't. Unfortunately, almost 300 brave young Marines were killed.
The finest minds in American journalism set out to check McCain's claim and discovered it to be true.
The finest minds in American journalism set out to check McCain's claim and discovered it to be false.
Seriously! Here is CNN explaining why McCain's statement was true:
The U.S. Multinational Force operated in Beirut, Lebanon, from August 24, 1982, to March 30, 1984, as part of an international peacekeeping operation in the war-torn country.
McCain was a freshman member of the House of Representatives in September 1983 when it approved legislation "that would invoke the War Powers Act in Lebanon and authorize the deployment of American Marines in the Beirut area for an additional 18 months," the New York Times reported.
The resolution had the backing of House leaders of both parties and President Reagan, and it passed by a vote of 270 to 161, the Times report said. But McCain "argued that his military training led him to oppose the continued deployment of troops in Lebanon," the Times reported.
But here is how ABC concluded it was false:
This is an issue that came up in the first presidential debate, as well. And in both cases, McCain exaggerates his position. Marines were already in Lebanon when McCain arrived on Capitol Hill in 1983, and his vote was to prevent invoking the War Powers Act to extend the Marines already deployed. McCain did vote against that, but as he did in the first debate, McCain is wrong to imply that he opposed sending the Marines to Lebanon.
Note that these two "fact checks," despite reaching opposite conclusions, agree on the underlying fact, namely that McCain voted against what CNN calls the "continued deployment" in Lebanon.
ABC has a niggle--that the vote was not on the initial deployment, which occurred before McCain took his seat in the House. ABC does not mention that when Reagan deployed the Marines in August 1982, he did so on his own authority. Congress's 1983 vote on "continued deployment" was the first time lawmakers weighed in on the subject.
It is fine, indeed quite useful, for reporters to present relevant facts that voters can use in evaluating candidates' campaign claims. In this "fact check" form, however, journalists play prosecutor, judge and jury, deciding what evidence to present, what evidence to admit, and what it all means (CNN actually calls the conclusion a "verdict"). Why not just report and let the reader decide? (emphasis added)

The Dow is down? I'm screwed ... maybe.

I understand the dire circumstances of the economy right now, but isn't it funny how concerned or interested everyone is on how the market's doing or where the Dow Jones is? They ask with a look of consternation, then when they hear it's worse (which they fully expected), they walk away shaking their heads like they completely know what it means. I don't know what it means myself, but I also don't act like I do either. Maybe I'm speaking out of insecurity....

And what's with the complete lack of originality in the "bad stock market" pictures in every newspaper? The trader with his head in his hands or whatever. We get it, it's bad and visuals are few. But come on, it's a cliche by now. I'm waiting for The Onion to parody this ASAP.

Agonizing pain, humiliation, embarrassment and possible loss of dignity and a job. Hilarious.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

My Team Sucks

I went to see An American Carol the other night... [please... stop, don't think that about me] I'm not the greatest with words but -it's the worst movie I've ever seen. Utterly unfunny. I read that some theaters were giving people tickets to other shows so the creators would get as much revenue. Jes and I were the only people in the theater. I wish we had been duped into not seeing it, they can have my money, I guess....

Poll-ution

Yes, I'm a poll-rat... Not proud of it. It's an addiction. Anyhow, the polls are doing some crazy things coming down the backstretch. John, you got any info on polling methodology? One thing I know is that Gallup shows an 11% lead for The O, Rasmussen 6%, and Zogby's at 2%. They have been pretty strongly correlated throughout the race (I watch them constantly) until now. What I do know is that Gallup polls "registered" voters and Rasmussen "likely" voters. I wonder if the polls are being influenced by The O's huge registration drives. I wouldn't care at all, but that I heard Begala, Carville, et al talking about how an Obama loss, given a big lead in the polls pre-election, would besmirch and befuddle the Obamatons so much as to precipitate non-post-racial trauma in the streets (race riots).

Anyhow, this is going to get REALLY ugly...