Post-postmodernism

So the free-enterprise US government and Republican administration is borrowing (yet more) money from Communist China in order to (partially) nationalise the nation's formerly wholly privately-held (for-profit) banking industry.

Anyone else find just a trace of irony in that?

The 21st century is shaping up to be some very interesting times indeed.

Credit to the analyst

The McCain/Palin team post a weekly "fireside chat" to enthuse their supporters (as I doubt anyone not already voting for them listens).

It is no longer out of hyperbole when I say that the man (and the woman) is mentally ill. He wants to further reduce taxation (and "spending") but also wants to "build more nuclear power plants", "develop clean coal technology" and "increase use of wind, tide, solar and natural gas"? Where is the money going to come from?

You want to freeze all government spending, except the military? At this point, that's like saying I'm quitting drinking. except for beer. and wine. and spirits. The amount of money used in national "security" is mind-boggling. Even accounting for entirely pointless crap like US bases in Japan, Germany and until recently Iceland, where the hell does it all go? Especially considering the poor provisions our troops can face. How exactly do you freeze spending on things like education, the court and transportation, anyway?

Sorry, McCain, you can't type "imacheat" for a free $500,000 in funds with which build 5 new power plants à la SimCity 2000. This is real life. I really hope this is inane enough that no one actually believes the proposed "rationality" any more. You ever played Shadow President? If your answer is yes, you are probably more qualified to be president than McCain. Yes, you have to maintain your approval rating, but you also need to balance the stupid fucking budget... and if you can't, say goodbye to your rating anyway. Bread and Circuses only work so long as you can afford to keep giving it to them.


On a related note, I watched the Thursday Vice Presidential debate and Biden shows a firm grasp on the topics and formed intellectual responses to questions. Too intellectual, actually: I love how Biden is against redefining marriage, acknowledging that it is up to "the faiths" to "determine what constitutes" a marriage, while still stating support for extending civil protections of same-sex partnerships. When Palin is prompted to state her position, she simply blurts out that she does not support gay marriage. She always seems to talk a lot-- until she's needed to say something concrete.

I'm just afraid that Obama and Biden are way too smart. It's controversial because it's true.

The Very Last Notes from the Right-Wing

I'm Joeverkill, and I quit.

I have better things to do with my time than argue on the internet with a mental patient with poor grammar who can't do simple division.

Analyst, Minotauromachy, Rupert Murder: we've had some good back-and-forth on some important issues. For that I thank you guys. I also thank anyone who's read this blog.

It's been real, guys.

Random Retard, it brings me great pleasure to know that you will die, starving, unsatisfied, and alone.

Sowing Discontent with a Garnishing of Panic

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/23259

It's apocalyptic, but it doesn't sound implausible. The facts are true; why can't the conclusion be?

Beginner's Economics

I think in times like this we should all refresh ourselves of tried-and-true, uncontroversial economic principles which make the core of modern economic theory. I can't find good sources to cite, and don't want to delve into JSTOR or anything actually entailing a degree of effort, so someone point me out some good sources if it becomes apparent.

There exist (at least) three indisputable sectors:

The primary sector, comprising the procurement of "raw materials"-- mining, agriculture, oil drilling, etc. This is a sector generally highly-dependent on immediate location and environment, for obvious reasons.

The secondary sector, comprising general "production"-- heavy industry such as construction, oil refining, steelworks, etc and light industry such as manufacturing electronics, clothes and other consumer goods. This is less dependent on the environment in which it is based

The tertiary sector pretty much is everything else-- retail, services and information/knowledge. Some people split these up into further sectors, others lump them together. This is generally the end of the production line (unless you count recycling, reuse etc as part of a production-consumption cycle).

They're called primary, secondary and tertiary because the tertiary entails the secondary and the secondary entails the primary.

The largest sector of the US economy is retail. Granted, the US has lots of agriculture, lots of mining, lots of construction, but percentage-wise, retail is king. Wal-Mart is the fourth-largest employer in the world, beaten only by public institutions. Granted, Wal-Mart is integrated to a point, but its target product is retail sales.

When people haven't got money to buy things, the retail business suffers. When the retail business suffers, they cut costs. The #1 biggest expense of any business, any businessman will tell you, is personnel. People get laid off. Profits will not drop much if there are 2 people working the till at the supermarket as opposed to 6: If you really want your groceries, you'll wait in the queue like everyone else, or just go to another supermarket where you'll have to wait anyway.

Except that, when the average American most likely works in retail than any other sector, what if he got laid off? He's not going to be buying any retail products.

See the correlation?

Necessary products of primary and secondary industry such as paving roads, repairing bridges, replacing trains, do not suffer as much-- unless your country is as fucked as the US. There is NOT always a demand for plasma-screen TVs-- compared to tarmac or refined petroleum.

Chevrolets and Fords are made in Mexico. Most every consumer products is made in China. High-end products are made in Japan (Your Infiniti), Germany (VW-- though ones in America are made in Mexico now too), France, Korea etc.

Retail in the US is comprised of mainly selling products made in another country for a profit-- thus, a certain portion of the US's wealth nevertheless leaves the US. The amount of money in China at the moment (albeit not in the hands of the common man) is staggering.

Moving on to the non-material tertiary sector, your computer game was likely developed in India. Your graphics card was engineered in Japan. Your energy-efficient washing machine was tested in a German laboratory. Your anti-depressants were likely designed (and manufactured) in Taiwan.

Most of your products are NOT American. They are not necessarily purely foreign, but they are definitely not 100% corn-fed American. When I see something "Made in America" that statement is conspicuous for a reason-- because it's so strange to see.

The service-oriented parts of the tertiary sector which are more necessary like healthcare and education have been neglected. If you disagree that American schools could be vastly improved, you were a sheltered upper-class suburban winner of the class lottery. If you disagree that the healthcare system is inefficient, what about when the US spends more on healthcare both privately and publicly than any other nation? If a country like Finland spent that much on healthcare per capita there'd be more doctors and hospital beds than people to utilise them, and people would be getting radiotherapy for kicks.

On the other side, what about all the useless jobs that are going the way of the dinosaur because they're too expensive?-- the longer waits on hold for a telephone representative of Bank of America, no one to bag your groceries, no one paid to say "Good Morning" when you walk into your yuppie Whole Foods.

The only jobs uniquely American are in our much-loved financial sector. Yes, the shark who processed your second mortgage lives in the same Bushville as you do.

You say that globalisation means that American corporations own the industry in many of these "cheap" countries and so the wealth flows back into the American economy. Yeah, I can really see how the money from Mr Seven-Figure Income Executive's new Murcielago bought at Beverly Hills Lamborghini helps me prosper. Oh, and all that corporate wealth generated? It's likely stored in a low-tax haven like Barbados, Liechtenstein or the Isle of Man: Not a penny of it will ever come into contact with the US economy.

The US's current "high" unemployment rate of 5.7% pales in comparison to stereotypical France 7.5% (2007). But you know what? France has a higher-rate of multiple-income households than the USA, meaning more people register for unemployment: You're only "unemployed" if:

a) you're looking for work, and
b) you can claim unemployment benefits/status.

It's also impossible to buy a television at 2am in France from a 24-hour Wal-Mart/Costco/Cheapo Imperium hypermarket. You can't eat a three-course meal at 2am at Denny's/Fat Joe's/Cottaging Diner. There's no poor sod to bag your groceries for your fat ass for minimum wage. In fact, in the UK, for example, instead of your late-night Blockbuster, there are little ATM-like machines that dispense videos past regular business hours when the shop itself closes. In France in 2000, no one could force you to work over 35 hours per week, and any time after that was overtime. Virtually all shops close at 5-5:30pm.

If the USA adopted such strict labour laws and reduced its "luxury" services to the level of France, unemployment would explode FAR beyond France's 7.5%. What would happen if every single 24-hour Wal-Mart in the USA was forced to only operate from 9 to 5? It would lay off over half its workforce, which would be over a million people. That's one company out of legions.

For the US to have worker's protection approaching that of other first-world countries, the US would have imploded upon implementation as opposed to sinking (un)gracefully into world recession.

As more people lose their jobs, the economy continues to go down and the dollar weakens. The raw materials used from other foreign countries become more expensive, our China-made goods become more expensive, and Wal-Mart's sales continue to plummet, forcing them to lay off yet more people. The economy is on a one-way trip to Hell.

When you become unemployed and have a nervous breakdown, you won't be able to afford your fancy Ativan made in a foreign country because the USA hasn't even got any sort of state-funded universal healthcare. So Biovail Pharmecuticals and every other medical company will suffer too. Who knows? Maybe the US will regress into a bona fide undeveloped country, without things like sanitation and hospital treatment!

So many unemployed leaves a great workforce to be exploited! ...but, wait, where's the money for enterprise? Oh yeah that's right-- both we and our government are drowning in debt. Foreign investment? Why invest in unskilled American labour when you can do business in e.g. Turkey, Chile, China or India for 1/20 the cost? Skilled, high-end labour? That's too expensive for what it offers compared to e.g. Finland or Denmark where there are untapped legions of skilled workers doing jobs under their education level. Forget about places like Taiwan or South Korea which combine the best of both worlds. Would I rather pay a nanotech engineer $150,000/yr with private healthcare benefits and nominal corporate taxation in the US, or €36,000 (~$50,000)/yr without a bloated private benefits package albeit with slightly more taxation in Finland? You do the maths-- if your education was good enough to give it to you, that is. The US is the only developed third-world country-- too expensive for cheap work, too stupid for brilliant innovation. Too privatised too withstand recession, but already developed, precluding expansion.

The only way out of this hole is to either schmooze our way even deeper into the red or nationalise. Yep, it's time for the New New Deal, friends. Deficit spending and speculation really worked well. Cheers.

You know who else had low unemployment? The Soviet Union-- at a spectacular 0%. We'll forget that they didn't play by the rules of mainstream economics (of course the US follows economic principles-- what, are you crazy? [Quiet! don't scare off the investors])

However, unlike the USA, there was no inflation (as virtually all prices were regulated, of course). They also railroaded themselves into being a powerhouse of research and innovation without the benefits of a free market, nearly beating us to the moon with a fraction of the money we had. They also had universal healthcare, more hospital beds per capita than any other nation and free education at all levels. There were more doctorates per capita in the USSR than in the USA. The US has the biggest economy of the world and still can't accomplish that.

America's employment miracle is because America is full of shit, unnecessary jobs which are all going away anyway. In North Korea, people serve as traffic signals-- doesn't mean it's efficient. Of course, if Americans were used as traffic signals, they'd have been laid off by now.

If you still believe in trickle-down economics in 2008, you've got a hole in your head where your brain should be.

I'm Random Retard, and this has been notes from the anti-right.

Dear Columbia,

I am angry. Deal with it.

None of you believed me; well, sadly, now that you do, the pleasure I feel tastes of that stuff you burp up when you've eaten too much.

Some say that society's lowest members are its barometer. Well, I suppose I'm society's lowest member because I felt it long before you did.

The fact that a living wage in southern California for a young person was in the realm of $19,440 before taxes in 2004 wasn't an issue to you because you've never lived as a 19-year-old in 2004 California. The idea that the cost of living increases with youth and inexperience at the same time that wages decrease because no one gives a shit about teenage Target workers who've not got a degree was perfectly rational, because your experienced driving record and skilled job with health benefits meant that you did just fine. You try living in Chula Vista and getting to Linda Vista to work every day at 8am sharp by bus to earn $7.50/hr. You try finding a place to sleep for under $600 pcm that's not also got four wheels and fits nicely in a compact parking space.

The fact that it's impossible to live a life of modesty, with a small place near where you work without luxuries like a car never seemed a problem because you could always afford it. The fact that keeping up with the Joneses isn't an option but rather a requirement didn't cross your mind because you never had to try to do otherwise yourself.

You think that health insurance is an option you needn't take out if you can't afford it; well what about those who can't afford not to? Oh, hospital bills are scary. But you know what's even scarier?-- having a medical issue that goes on for months or even years that costs hundreds of dollars a month just to maintain your own life. How would that knowledge affect you? That if you couldn't pay the bills, you might die? Untold numbers of Americans live with that every day. It's not their fault they had health trouble. "...but it's they chose not to have health insurance". Well what if their health insurance refused to pay out? What if the cost of treatment is greater than the maximum covered? What if they're denied coverage due to actually trying to maintain their health by utilising medical services? What if they can't afford an individual plan, but they can't get company coverage because they're worthless... because they can't afford to get skills for a full-time job... because they're having to pay for healthcare in lieu of college? What about the claims of type-1 diabetics that "employers will do everything they [legally] can not to hire you if they find out you have diabetes"? Is that just paranoia?-- or is it company fiscal policy to hire the most cost-effective worker in a world of consumption-driven, deregulated privatised healthcare? How would you deal with being in that situation?

You think the crisis is now; the crisis will be here for a long time. This was 60+ years in the coming, and consequentially won't be finished a week after elections. I was eligible for full federal & state educational funding and it was still cheaper to study in a foreign fucking country that had national healthcare, public transportation, student housing and higher minimum wage and more relaxed hiring standards (probably due to no need to supply private health insurance to full-time workers). Nevertheless I am $100,000+ in debt immune to bankruptcy for a degree which is honestly fucking worthless in what it really taught me to do. I am no more skilled at planning a rota or balancing a budget or doing anything I will probably do than I was before finishing high school-- but oh yeah, everyone worth anything gets a degree so you should too. But I couldn't do a degree in something useful because I had to work during university instead of studying something intensive like radiography or architecture or computer science.

Everyone knows the education bubble: it's more lucrative to be a plumber than to get most degrees. Well it's not that easy to become a plumber either... probably more difficult, because just an equivalent of a degree to plumbing (i.e. a bullshit piece of paper you gave your life without debt away for) isn't enough.

I am in a lifetime of debt for a degree I don't really want which I have nevertheless worked relentlessly for for three years to the point of ill health, working a shit job instead of sleeping just to survive despite my surmounting debt, having virtually no hobbies or social life or anything which gosh might maintain one's well-being in a world where Americans have the worst record for mental health in the developed world and still being thrown into chaos by lending meltdown, the stress of which has made me lose the love of my life, the one thing I've ever had that made me truly happy. As of now I am waiting for my wondrous student loan cheques to be processed before Sallie Mae becomes bankrupt as well, hoping I can at least finish my final year instead of shooting myself in the head.

I'm the lowest rung, but everyone else has to go through the same system. If they're lucky, their parents paid for their education. They're the emancipated ones. The rest, well...

University is not the best time of your life. It is an indoctrination; pounding in that you can never escape the system, life is about work and not fun. Youth, vitality, optimism, ingenuity, confidence, security, adventure, entertainment-- those are all things to be sneered at because they don't mesh well with white picket fences and $2 million homes in La Jolla made of cardboard on the edge of a cliff with an H3 and a Boxter in the drive. I've got the most bleak outlook of the world of anyone on this island, and people on this blighted island have got the bleakest outlook of anyone on this continent. That is an impressive achievement. I've also probably got the highest inverted unsecured debt-to-age ratio of anyone on this continent. Because I'm American. Stereotypes exist for a reason.

Every man is not born equal; everyone does not have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The American Dream is just that. Why am I the luckiest person in the world to be born American? What has America given me? Oh, that's right-- a chance to become a slave just to survive. Give me one good reason why I should pay back my loans: Emancipated Russian serfs had to pay back "debts" for their freedom, but those Russians got angry and so the Tsar got a little afraid. Maybe Russians back then were maybe smarter than Americans are now.

Christians? You're not Christian: I know that America is an abomination to everything the Bible teaches. What about being meek and humble? What about if you've got two coats, you should give one to someone who's got none? What about forgiving unbearable debt? (keep in mind that Jewish law was divided over whether any debt for anything was ever cancellable or not). If America is the most Christian nation then God must be the Antichrist. You're certainly marching to the tune of some other "God".

I've been to the Statue of Liberty and was angered by the sight of it. Fuck you, America.

anyone here still a reagan republican?

if the answer to the above question is "yes", then YOU'RE A FUCKING RETARD.

in case you have been under a rock for the last few days, or too busy paying attention to that ignorant running mate that reminds you of every obnoxious hockey/soccer/abortion-clinic-bombing mother you've ever met, the american economy is finally falling the fuck apart. the house of cards, with cards given clever names such as 'credit default swap,' 'option-ARM,' and 'eviscerate the proletariat' is crumbling, and 2008 is becoming the new 1929. i hate to say we told you so, but

but WE TOLD YOU SO.

so here's the basics of what's up as far as i can ascertain. thanks to decades of deregulation (one of the modern gop's golden calves, along with bastardized christianity and closeted homosexuality), we've stripped away all the fancy rules that we passed post-great-depression to keep our money sound. among the nice little regulations that we stripped away: the glass-steagall act of 1933, which separated consumer banks from investment banks and so forth. i'm no economist, but those who apparently are economists are saying that was a really bad idea. go ahead and thank a republican majority in congress and business-friendly democrat (read: lobbyist crony) bill clinton, who passed the 1999 bill that replaced glass-steagall. if anyone can provide a little more insight, please let me know.

so yeah, a couple of major investment banks of collapsed. merrill lynch is owned by bofa, aig is supposedly owned by you and i, washington mutual is courting suitors, and best of all, morgan stanley wants to sell just under half of itself to CHINA. what's wrong with selling to a chinese business, you say? it's not "a chinese business". it's a sovereign wealth fund. the people's republic of china might buy morgan stanley.

apparently all the rest of this bailout goes to we the people, to the tune of $900b or so. too bad we're already fucking broke. we listened to all of you when you said stupid bullshit like GO SHOPPING OR THE TERRORISTS WIN LULZ and NO SRSLY THE RICH DON'T NEED TO PAY TAXES. guess we'll just put it on the national credit card, right? sure. it's only another NINE HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS OR SO, bringing our national debt to roughly $10 TRILLION or so. thank god you guys are all watching out for each other with our money, right?

minotauromachy has suggested i write some about how this relates to social security. that'll come later. if you can't tell, i'm a little too freaked out still to write rationally. instead, i'll leave you with this:

"We are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah," bin Laden said in the transcript.

He said the mujahedeen fighters did the same thing to the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s, "using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers."

"We, alongside the mujahedeen, bled Russia for 10 years until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat," bin Laden said.

He also said al Qaeda has found it "easy for us to provoke and bait this administration."

that's from an osama bin laden tape released FOUR YEARS AGO, to coincide with the last presidential election.

i think bin laden might be winning.

getting back into it

it's been a while since i've done this, so i might as well start slowly by sharing something amusing i spotted.



that is all.

Notes from the Other Camp

"That Palin-- I like her; she's smart as a whip".

To those who know me, this will not be surprising: My mother is voting for McCain & Co.

Left- vs Right-wing posturing aside, the interesting thing about this revelation is that Palin, while really making no changes to the Republican/McCain platform, is rallying support through her sheer... shall we say, "personality".

Keep in mind that white, middle-aged women (usually married ones) are oft-considered the most important demographic in this election, and considering how they went for Clinton, it is apparent and uncontroversial at least in some fashion that sex and race are huge factors in this election.

However, what is strange is that hearing Palin's oratory and realising she said a whole lot of (albeit slightly-witty) nothing (not surprising for a politican), I realise she is just what she is-- a small-town conservative Alaskan wife who also happens to be a politician.

We all thought that having a pregnant teenage daughter getting shacked up would be a negative-- wrong. This is a plus in the eyes of the likes of my mother (who are, as crazy as she is, not uncommon). The shacked-up part is what makes it redeeming-- as long as you get married, it's admirable. If not, it's an atrocity.

The point is that the McCain team was smart in picking a sharp-tongued, former beauty-queen religious poly-child country wife as a running mate, because the American public has proven itself to consistently vote for that which is most like their self-image, regardless of the candidate's qualification for office-- Kerry was eschewed for being not as "average-Joe" as Bush (despite Bush being heir to a lavish estate and personal trust). Apparently Kerry's fluency in French was a bad thing. Kerry was a douchebag, but his douchebaggery paled in comparison to the bloody whore of Babylon that is Bush. Nevertheless, Bush was often said to be someone you could "have a beer with" (or something to that effect).

I don't hire employees because I like them; I hire people because they can do the job well. I don't know about you, but I personally wouldn't vote for just any 24-year-old angry left-wing university student, just because he's that and so am I. Actually, being a 24-year-old angry university student would detract from a candidate's appeal to me. I am not qualified to be VP, and neither is Palin.

Sarah Palin is the image of the perfect conservative succer mom. She is what they all look up to, the equivalent of boy racers looking up to Kimi Raikkonen for inspiration. Obama and his cohorts have to battle an old, rich "straight-talking" war hero and his equally unabashed former sexpot churchgoing WASP homemaker. He has all the bases covered. The only way Obama can win now is with a home run.

Remember, folks, this is a woman who asked Alaskans to pray for God's will in building an oil pipeline. But my mother would say that's a good thing too.

Pray that soccer mums can be defeated.

Two encounters

Between Class, downtime, nothing to do, sitting outside Taper Hall. Tossing back some pages of a novel. Sitting by the self. Occasionally glancing up to track the movement of girls, putting my head down, putting it up again if a second look is warranted. Sometimes sniffing the smoke of a passing cigarette and wondering why feel no need for one anymore after 8 years of religious smoking. Not even a tinge of desire, just a curious sniffle. Then settle into rhythm of book, the post hour bustle dies down as the clock hits the ten minutes past the hour mark.

Two girls approach my periphery. I hear a bright 'Hello', look up startled. Who are these people? Survivors of the past, old acquaintances. Who else would have the gall to approach me cold like this?

"I am Janice and this is Marjorie(place holder names for I barely registered their names in the weird panic of encounter). We are from the Student Christian Association. " Right, its those kindly evangelists. Who else wants to talk to you, you fool? Who is always there for you? Who has a Conversion Manual handily available for quick readings of your true spiritual state.

"Hello" I say politely, unsure whether I should introduce myself to these lambs of God. I thought better of it. "We were just walking around campus talking to people about their relationship to the saviour." Yes, they just happened to be walking around checking spiritual meters in their spare time. This must be a form of relaxation therapy.

"Well what do you think, are you interested in the role of our saviour in your life?"(Or something to that effect, my memory is all sieve, no netting). Hmm, so kind of him to take a special interest in my particular case, especially during the lonely afternoon hours of youth. " So I said "Not really" Big "Oh" from the lead lamb "That's just like my father. He would walk past the scene of the nativity and was never aware of it or anything like that." Well maybe I hadn't convinced her properly the first time so I said - "Well I don't really believe in a God, or anything like that." At which she says -"Yes, yes, my father too." Guess I had something in common with her daddy. That is the great thing about humanity, our shared history and origins.

How aware are these girls, I thought to myself, of the baggage they are shouldering, proselytising their 'forgiving God' to the subject of an ex colonial outpost(I was born and brought up in India, where people in some parts like Goa were subjected to forced conversions and other missionary excesses). A lone student must be just a lone student to them. Hell, just weeks ago, a white Hare Krishna devotee had passed me by without proffering me a Bhagvad Gita. Wonder what he was thinking when he quickly adjusted his stride to walk past me.

The second lamb felt the need to quickly pry open her reality focusing device and read out a line from Isiah (I think) "If you ever feel the need for the presence of the living God then you may reach out and call for him to present himself"(paraphrase). I thanked them and told them I' d think about it. They walked on by.

A few minutes later I looked to my right to see a lumbering student walking toward me. As she approached me on huge, jogging rolls of her thighs a girl on a cycle cut off her colossal figure and suddenly screeched to a halt a few feet ahead of me. She padded back on her feet, balancing her bicycle between her thighs. The two passed each other and I plunged back into my book thinking the new arrival was going to park her bike. "Hey there" I heard. What the hell? Roving gangs of lambs out on the prowl today, I thought. "I have a question for you?" Doesn't everyone. "Sure" I replied.

"I am a student at the school of cinematic arts and I was going to do a shoot this Friday. Its a short and will only take me 45 minutes or so. Tell me, would you or anyone you know be interested in starring in my movie?" Would I?Hmm. "I don't think so" I said, "I am camera shy" Now the girl felt the need to unburden her difficulties to me - "You know, its so hard to find actors, in the school, there are 1 maybe 2 actors of Middle eastern or Indian descent. I have to shoot the film by the end of this weekend and then edit it and so I am just cycling around and stopping anyone I see who looks the part and asking them if they want to act." Right, right, here she is, making a singlehanded attempt to address the problems of minority representation in Hollywood.

She then asks me - "What about the people you know?" Sure, sure, I probably know a whole secret community of Indian/Middle eastern people. I hang out with them and we cook falafels and some sort of odd smelling curries together, very ambiguously. Shit, how authentic would my accent be? Would I have to emphasise it on screen? That vague, tongue rolling, lickety splickety, roll about of the vowels that Americans can't get enough of in comedic scenes. What if it was one of those days when my voice magically sounds completely unaccented?

"I am sorry I don't know anyone really." Then I sympathise with her about her film student woes. It is a rough business, I would not have the courage to do what she is trying to do. I tell her to try a bribe, 10 bucks or something, it is an hour's work after all.

My initial reaction

A former beauty queen almost half his age. Well, he certainly has a type, doesn't he?

American ingenuity rears its sleepy head

"You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else" Winston Churchill

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Larry Horsley loves that he doesn't buy much gas, even though he drives his '95 Chevy S-10 back and forth to work each day.

Horsley, a self-described do-it-yourselfer, simply plugs his truck into an electric wall outlet in his Douglasville, Georgia, garage and charges it overnight, instead of buying gasoline refined from mostly imported oil.

They're among a growing number of Americans who are refusing to wait for big-car manufacturers to deliver mainstream electric vehicles, called EVs. Not only have they rebelled against the status quo by ripping out their gas-guzzling engines and replacing them with zero-emission electric motors, they say just about anyone can do it.

Can't sell your hulk of an SUV to replace it with a factory-fresh hybrid? Why not retrofit it? Backwoods American do-it-yourself ingenuity has finally come back out in the face of hardship.

I am against consumption. Why build new vehicles when we've got millions going to the scrap heap every day? Start a vehicle retrofitting business and begin converting the masses to new technology. It takes one person ~$10,000 for one car, but it may take a large organisation much less. Hell, offer financing options less than the equivalent price of fuel and I'm sure people would bite. Or God forbid-- we might have a government-led grant programme towards energy independence.

it would certainly be better than all the other aftermarket shit people do like chrome wheels and shopping-cart spoilers.

Notes from the Right-Wing: City of Los Angeles Sucks

I'm Joeverkill, and this is Notes from the Right-Wing.

Anyone who's read this blog more than once knows how much I absolutely hate the local government of Los Angeles. Well, they just keep doing stupid crap and giving me fodder for my hatred.

On Wednesday the City Council approved something called "inclusionary zoning" regulations. From the L.A. Times:

New condominium and apartment projects in neighborhoods such as Brentwood, Studio City and other affluent parts of Los Angeles could be required to include units for very poor people under a plan approved by the City Council on Wednesday.

There is no better name for this type of crap than nanny state quasi-communism. That's what this is. Imagine you're a doctor or a lawyer or designer of integrated circuits or something, and you got a good education, worked hard, got a good job, and saved your money so you could live in, oh, let's say, Brentwood. You're pretty satisfied there, relatively insulated from the third-world cesspool that the rest of L.A. has become.

And then the City Council passes this thing, and next thing you know you're living next to poor people. Not just poor people: very poor people. The value of your home drops, crime increase, and your kids can't go to sleep at night because the neighbors play reggaeton at 110 decibels into the wee hours.

What would you do? Probably move outside of the bounds of the city. So you do, and your neighbors do, and their neighbors do, and pretty soon property values in Brentwood are the same as they are in Crenshaw, and the whole neighborhood is filled with poor people.

The City's digging its own grave here.

I currently live in a garbage neighborhood. I absolutely hate 90% of my neighbors. One day, god willing, I will move to an area with fewer poor people, at which time I hopefully will not have to deal with gang members, feral dogs, loud reggaeton at inappropriate hours, and old women who threaten to slash my tires if I park in a public parking space in front of their homes.

But the housing plan is not the only communist nanny-state issue that L.A. passed this week. There's also a more minor, but nonetheless irksome, ordinance on day laborers. From the L.A. Times:

The Los Angeles City Council unanimously approved an ordinance Wednesday requiring certain home improvement stores to develop plans for dealing with day laborers who congregate nearby in search of jobs.
The ordinance mandates that proposed big-box stores obtain conditional-use permits, which could then require them to build day-labor centers with shelter, drinking water, bathrooms and trash cans.

I'm sorry, but isn't loitering a crime? Also, don't these day laborers get paid under the table? Don't most of them avoid paying taxes on their earnings? The City is encouraging people to violate the law and duck taxes.

Beyond that, is this really the type of society we want to build for ourselves? A society where governments not only allow under-the-table, unregulated, undocumented labor, but publicly condone and foster it? Why even have minimum wage laws at all? Why have laws regarding workplace conditions?

By encouraging the use of day laborers, you're discouraging people from hiring labor via proper channels. This is harmful to businesses that actually obey labor laws. It also brings down the average real wage and harms the economy in general.

Man, I hate the City Council.

I'm Joeverkill, and this has been Notes from the Right-Wing.

The Magic Money Machine Goes Poof

According to Reuters, equities in markets with small financial sectors perform better than those with big financial sectors.

This means that someone up there is intelligent enough to realise that the making-money-by-making-money business isn't all it's cracked up to be. If I buy something (imaginary at that [equity]) with the intention of selling it again, the price will go up-- as long as I can sell it at that price. The feedback loop continues for as long as it takes for the players to fold and cash in their chips. Then everyone at the table realises there's not enough chips to go around.

Investment is all good and fine as long as there is some sort of grounding to keep the reaction from going out of control. We've learnt about this since the 1600s from the Netherlands and her lovely tulips, after all. Is this a failing of modern economics, or its design? Certainly many people have become rich-- but even more have lost everything.

The silver lining here is that there are economies out there which are even more volatile: 18% for the US, but 30% for China?

"The irony in that conclusion is that the U.S. equity market might be relatively attractive when compared to many other markets, even though the conventional wisdom is that the credit crisis is a U.S. problem," the analysts wrote.

(This is all coming from a guy who's got £300 tucked away in wind power)

John Edwards cheats on his expensive haircut, who cares?

The news story of the weekend is John Edwards' admitting to an affair he had back in 2006 with a documentary film maker. He cheated on his wife Elizabeth,who, at that time was battling cancer(which has since recurred). Among other revelations in this case was the fact that an Edwards political action committee paid 100 gs to the film maker Rielle Hunter's fledgling company to direct 4 shorts, one of them a mere 2&1/2 minutes in length. But heck, why should we care about this? Does this in any way reflect on Edwards' record of public service and his commitment to his constituents?

Now I realize that I am imitating the news media's worst traits in this entry. After reporting the tabloid friendly details of this case I am flipping it around and asking you why these things matters. It's just like the reporters, who, with a dead serious expression ask viewers if the media is over exposing the Obama campaign and thereby aid the very process they purport to question or critique. I am guilty as charged of aiding the sensationalistic process in this case. You gotta break an egg every now and then folks.

Every time one of these scandalous affairs starts getting press I always have to question the intentions of the public moralisers who self righteously claim the high ground and hurl rocks on the john(in this case the John). Doesn't splashing the details on the news only make it worse for the cuckolded spouse while the commentators play the role of ceremonial salt rubbers. That aside, my fundamental question is this - what relation does a man's private indiscretions have to his public life. Isn't it possible to be a jerk in your personal affairs and be an exemplary character in public life? Take a case from the movies - Rusell Crowe's horndog detective Richie Roberts from "American Gangster" (based on a real person) who pursues the drug dealer Frank Lucas with an almost religious zeal. Notwithstanding his marital infidelities and habitual inability to adhere to personal commitments, he is incorruptible when it comes to his work.

Lets look closely at the matter. Firstly, having an affair is not illegal. It is a private matter and I believe it should remain in that sphere. John lied about the affair several times, just like his infamous predecessor Bill Clinton. But shouldn't a public official have the right to lie about his private affairs like any other upstanding dirt bag boyfriend or slut girlfriend without any legal or professional consequences? It is certainly not perjury to do so. The only court that he is addressing in an interview is the court of self righteous public opinion, one that I personally don't care for and actively dislike. Don't get me wrong, I don't feel any pity for John Edwards but I just don't see the legitimacy's of comments like this one by David Bonior, Edwards' campaign manager for his 2008 presidential bid - "Thousands of friends of the senators and his supporters have put their faith and confidence in him and he's let them down," Have we, really? Did he walk down the aisle with us? I don't remember any politician making a commitment to stay faithful to his wife, to us. I guess to me, judging a public official's private morals comes too close to mixing church with state. There is too much of the sanctity of marriage, family values above all else, bourgie righteousness to it that is the very same stuff that is responsible for support for bans on gay marriage.

I do think that in a case like that of disgraced senator Larry Craig the press has a right to question him and the people have a right to call for his resignation. Firstly he broke the law; a minor one to be sure and one that I could overlook, even in a senator. You have to understand that I have pretty loose standards and think it best to suspend judgement for minor crimes. I would go as far as to support minor infringements of the law as a method of self expression and social protest.

What was more troubling about his case was his hypocritical voting record with regards to gay rights. In such a case there is a clear intersection between private and public realms and a divergence in the judgements shown in the two cases. In the public sphere he supported harsher legislation against the homosexual community and thus drew on the support of religious conservatives who railed against the immorality of unconventional lifestyles. In his private life he cruised an airport bathroom; something that is a crime regardless of one's sexual orientation. The gross contradictions between the two stances he took, the high moral one in public and the low one he adopted in private life made him fair game. As far as I am concerned there has been no such contradiction between Edwards' public commitments and his private indiscretions.

Joeoverkill likes to adress the issue of personal responsibility. I agree with his support of this concept at times. Sometimes I think he goes too far and seems unable to empathise with people, who, because of extenuating mental or physical circumstances, are unable to exercise restraint and adhere to the tenets of personal responsibility. Similarly, I disagree with him on guns which I believe are too dangerous to be left in the hands of all too human humans. I think this John Edwards scandal is yet another case of personal responsibility. This matter is Mr Edwards' private and personal responsibility, not something that we need to trouble our collective judgements over and punish.

McCain camp makes first interesting move of campaign, uses reverse ageism to its advantage

Have you seen the new McCain ad yet? Sure you have. Its gonna be on everywhere for a week because its the craftiest piece of politicking so far this campaign season. I daresay this ad marks the beginning of the real fall campaign; the gloves are off and its only gonna get more fun from here on. I won't deny it, I was salivating when I saw this video. It pulled me out of my recent spell of ennui and depressing, couch impressing wait for the fall semester to start. Nothing that has happened on the campaign trail since 'tha mighty Hillz' cleared out/ swept out, has managed to stir up the least upward movement of my eyebrows. Now, finally, thanks to Karl Rove's Rogues(TM) finding their rightful place in the McCain's campaign's hierarchy, I have something to talk about.

You see what the Old Dawg McCain is trying to pull here - its beautiful political sleight of hand. I call it reverse ageism. He attacks Obama by linking him to the most dissipated of the young elite illiterati, Brit and Paris, on the basis of his age and his popularity alone; never mind Obama's extensive accomplishments or qualifications . They invoke non existent connections between Obama's youthful star power and the incompetence and frivolousness that those two pop stars epitomise. What they are trying to do is put the fear of the young in the voter, the fear of a generational take over, led by a charismatic leader who(according to the GOP) may be adept only at mass media manipulation and attention gathering. Never mind that a whole generation lies between Obama's early 40s spunk and Brit and co's late 20s seediness.

Also by making the mass/pop media connections between Obama and the slut twins, they criticize Obama in a racist manner without it looking that way. These guys have obviously learnt from Hillary's mistakes on the trail. They dismiss Obama's qualifications on the basis of his age and surface similarities between his popularity and that of the pop tarts and neatly deflect criticism just outside the racism penalty box. But isn't it obvious to a viewer watching the ad that their comparison of a Harvard law review president to a pair of singing and posing vaginas is inherently racist.

Its interesting to observe the McCain camp try to turn their inability to draw crowds or generate enthusiasm into a virtue and characterise Obama's talent at those very things as a cardinal sin. It would be funny if it wasn't slightly effective. This ad has definitely put the Dems on the defensive for now. It didn't help that the world tour did not bring about the ten point bump that they had hoped for.

Notes from the Right-Wing: The Tobacco Witch Hunt Continues

I'm Joeverkill, and this is Notes from the Right-Wing.

Our federal government is continuing its war on anything fun or stimulating. From the AP:

The House on Wednesday overwhelmingly passed legislation that for the first time would subject the tobacco industry to regulation by federal health authorities charged with promoting public well-being...
The bill would further tighten restrictions on tobacco advertising and impose new federal penalties for selling to minors. But its most far-reaching provisions would give the Food and Drug Administration the power to regulate tobacco, from cigarettes to new kinds of smokeless products.

Okay. First let me say that I love smoking. I think tobacco is awesome. From a more objective standpoint, however, I defy anyone to look at the body of research on the psychoactive effects of nicotine and claim that it isn't a miracle drug. It can prevent Alzheimer's, ameliorate the effects of Tourette's, improve alertness, boost cognitive functioning, increase metabolism, and bolster both short-term and long-term memory (here's a link to a summary of studies). And let's just face it: smoking is fun, and it makes you look cool. It's a relaxing, low-cost thing to do.

Sure, tobacco can have ill effects. If you get addicted to it. As you know, I'm a conservative guy. I don't blame inanimate objects for human foibles. If you shoot someone, you can't blame the gun. If you rape somebody, you can't blame the skirt she's wearing. If you get obese, you can't blame the delicious BBQ bacon stackers you've been eating every day. Same goes with tobacco. Everyone knows the risks. If you think you might get addicted, don't smoke. And if you do get addicted, don't demonize tobacco because of it. Not everyone reacts to it the same way you do.

The article continues:

While the [FDA] could not outlaw tobacco or nicotine, it could demand the reduction or elimination of cancer-causing chemicals in cigarette smoke.

Unbelievable. There are cancer-causing chemicals in everything. Imagine what would happen if the government demanded the elimination of cancer-causing chemicals from charcoal briquettes. No more charcoal briquettes, no more delicious charcoal flame-broiled hamburgers. Or if the FDA demanded the elimination of cancer-causing chemicals from soft drinks. No more diet soda, Mountain Dew, Mellow Yellow, most flavors of Gatorade, or any other drink with Blue #1, Blue #2, Yellow #6, or Red #3. I could go on. Damn near everything has cancer-causing agents in it.

And:

The bill would prohibit candy flavored cigars and cigarettes, and would give the FDA authority to ban menthol — by far the most commonly added flavoring.

Okay, first of all, this is racist. Black people love menthol cigarettes. I know, some of you are saying, "Hey Joeverkill, you're a racist for assuming that." But don't take it from me, take it from the The National African American Tobacco Prevention Network, which "has withdrawn its support for the bill, saying an outright ban on menthol is needed to protect the health of black communities."

Secondly, banning flavoring in tobacco products is like banning frosting on donuts. This is not to say that I don't enjoy tobacco with no flavoring -- indeed, I love the unadulterated taste of artisinally-grown tobacco products. But I'm a proponent of variety, of diversity, and of freedom of choice. Attempting to ban flavorings in tobacco products is yet another step in our government's quest to demolish anything fun or stimulating from out culture. If you take the flavoring out of my cigars, cigarillos, snuff, snus, and dip, sir, the terrorists have already won.

I'm Joeverkill, and this has been Notes from the Right-Wing.

Notes from the Right-Wing: The Housing Bull... Wait, I Mean Bill... No, no, I Ras Right... Housing Bull

I'm Joeverkill, and this is Notes from the Right-Wing.

Shortsightedness and irresponsibility won another major victory today as President Bush signed a bill to bail out homeowners and mortgage lenders. From the AP:

President Bush signed a housing bill Wednesday intended to rescue about 15 percent of the cash-strapped homeowners in fear of foreclosure in the next year or so...
The measure includes $300 billion in new loan authority for the government to back cheaper mortgages for troubled homeowners; $3.9 billion for communities to fix up foreclosed properties causing blight in neighborhoods; and $15 billion in tax cuts, including an expanded low-income housing tax credit and a credit of up to $7,500, to be repaid, for some first-time home buyers.

...

Are you f--king kidding me?

Just to clear up the "vague" wording of the AP article, "$300 billion in new loan authority for the government to back cheaper mortgages for troubled homeowners" means "$300 billion in free money for people who took out loans they can't afford to pay." Yes, that's what it means.

Are you f--king kidding me?

Again, just to be clear, when the AP article say "an expanded low-income housing tax credit and a credit of up to $7,500, to be repaid, for some first-time home buyers," it means "taxpayer money spent to encourage people who can't afford homes to buy them anyway." Yes, that's what it f--king means.

When are we going to just let people take responsibility for their actions? Am I insane? Am I the only one who's pissed off here? Guess why I haven't bought a house yet: because I've done the math and I know I can't afford to buy one. It doesn't take a genius to crunch those numbers. But there are enough f--king idiots out there that didn't do that math that it's causing a significant problem for our economy, so the spendy-go-lucky federal government digs even deeper into our pockets (and the pockets of our grandchildren) to bail 'em out.

I can't say I'm surprised. There's a phrase that use to be common in America -- "Tough sh-t. You f--cked up." You don't hear that anymore, especially not from our liberal vote-pandering congress. Buying a house is an investment, and therefore there is risk involved. There is no such thing as a guaranteed payday on any investment you make. Common sense tells you that if you can't afford to lose, you shouldn't gamble. And yet here we are.

I am so pissed off right now I can barely express myself with any sort of coherence. I want to kick every Congressman and Senator (and George W. Bush) as hard as I can in their stupid little ass vaginas. I would say I'd like to kick them in the nuts, but that would assume that any of them have a pair.

I'm Joeverkill, and this has been Notes from the Right-Wing.

Right-Wing Rant: The Joeverkill Plan to End Inflation

I'm Joeverkill, and I haven't thrown down a Right-Wing Rant in some time. So here it is: the Joeverkill Plan to End Inflation.

Inflation is currently somewhere around 10-12%, contrary to the official numbers provided by the consumer price index (the Analyst posted on this a while back). These numbers are simply outrageous. A middle-class worker in the U.S. generally pays between 20% and 40% of his income in taxes every year. If you include sales tax, excise taxes, luxury taxes, and property taxes, that number is well over 60%. This in itself is ridiculous -- the pay you early from January to some time in July goes to the government. Add inflation to that and you realize that you only get to enjoy about 20 cent out of every dollar you make. Much less if you keep that dollar and don't invest it in our already overspeculated and oversaturated markets.

Readers of this blog have perhaps come to see that Joeverkill likes to propose plans. What's his plan for inflation? It's a tough nut to crack since any measure you can take against it poses a risk of de-stabilizing the economy.

We had the gold standard for a while. In my opinion, it wasn't all that bad of a thing. The Bretton-Woods system probably would have worked if there had been enough gold for every G-8 economy to tie its currency directly to it, rather than using the dollar as a proxy. The earlier U.S. silver standard faced a similar problem as the supply of silver was rapidly outpaced by economic growth, until the point where people realized that it was not mathematically possible for banks to issue that much silver.

We know from history that tying currency to a hard commodity can work for a while, but that it eventually causes problems. Metal standards end for one of two reasons: either A) because economic growth outstrips the supply of whatever commodity the currency is tied to, or B) because the government simply gives up and decides that it needs to print more money, eschewing its own currency standards.

I can't speak to the second issue -- governments are stupid and they have plenty of power to mess things up. But the first issue can be solved under the Joeverkill Currency Plan. Here's how.

Rather than tying the currency to a specific hard commodity, tie it to an index of hard commodities. The index -- let's call it the Joeverkill Commodities index -- would need to be robust and relatively stable. It would be tied directly to the most basic materials an economy requires to function. Here's a short list: corn, wheat, sugar, cotton, light sweet crude, iron, zinc, tin, gold, platinum, silver, copper, bauxite, aluminum, rubber, electrical wattage, (EPA approved safe-to-drink) tap water, natural gas, beef, pork, chicken, and soy.

The more economically-minded readers of this blog may be asking, "What about labor? Isn't labor a basic commodity whose value should remain stable relatively to the currency?" Sure. We already have minimum wage laws in the United States, so that value will remain stable in relation to the index.

So the formula for calculating the value of any given element within the index can be expressed as such, with "Y" referring to the amount of each given commodity one can purchase for one dollar:

[(corn x Y) + (wheat x Y) + (sugar x Y) + (cotton x Y) + (light sweet crude x Y) + (iron x Y) + (zinc x Y) + (tin x Y) + (gold x Y) + (platinum x Y) + (silver x Y) + (copper x Y) + (bauxite x Y) + (aluminum x Y) + (rubber x Y) + (tap water x Y) + (natural gas x Y) + (beef x Y) + (pork x Y) + (chicken x Y) + (soy x Y)] / 21 = $1.00

Values of individual commodities within the index can fluctuate against other commodities within the index, and even against the dollar, but by definition the other values adjust proportionally to compensate. For example, if the price of platinum doubles in a given year (an increase of 4.7 cents on the dollar for the index), the sum of the prices of the other commodities will decrease by an average of 0.22 cents.

As I already mentioned, gold and silver standards were phased out in the past because of shortages of gold and silver in relation to economic growth. It will therefore be necessary to back the currency with actual commodities. Since it would be impractical for the government to stock enough of these commodities to back every U.S. dollar, I would propose an enforced privatization of the currency backing system. Domestic companies dealing in these commodities would be required by law to abide by the index’s price points (not to say their value can’t increase; as I already discussed, that value can indeed fluctuate). And market forces will essentially guarantee that foreign companies will sell commodities at index value.

What do you guys think? Insane enough to work? Or not quite insane enough to make sense?

I'm Joeverkill, and this has been a Right-Wing Rant.

it's not a run, it's a very brisk walk.

from bloomberg, by way of my buddy nick:

July 24 (Bloomberg) -- Washington Mutual Inc. tumbled more than 20 percent for a second day as Gimme Credit LLC said unsecured creditors were ``pulling funds'' from the biggest U.S. savings and loan.

---

``We won't use the phrase `run on the bank,' but we would be remiss if we did not observe that many creditors have quietly been pulling funds,'' wrote [gimme credit analyst kathleen] Shanley, based in Chicago. Their actions are ``presenting an increasing funding challenge,'' she wrote. Gimme Credit is an independent research firm serving corporate bond investors.

yeah, and i bet she's still not calling it a 'recession' either. just sprinkle a little bit of your magic wish dust, close your eyes, and count to 10, kathleen, and all your financial demons will go away.

link.

she said it wasn't a breakup, just a 'break'.

according to a new poll from zogby international and the middlebury institute, an astonishing 22% of americans believe that a state has the right to "peaceably secede from the United States and become an independent republic". 18% would even support a secession movement in their own home state.

even more telling is the fact that "backing was strongest among younger adults, as 40% among those age 18 to 24 and 24% among those age 25 to 34 agreed states and regions have secession rights." i'm at the far end of the 18-24 demographic, and i'm a full supporter of california secession, if necessary.

older folks might be astonished at the idea, or the level of support, but it makes complete sense. i was 16 when the supreme court appointed bush as president. 18-year-olds were 10. for us young voters, most of our formative moments in american politics involved the reign of dubya. my dad got 'ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do from your country', the apollo program, and then nixon and stagflation. we've gotten blowjobs and the decider.

think to yourself: when was the last time the federal government did something good for you?

i doubt that it would come to that, but it's nice to know that states are asserting their states rights. vermont has a burgeoning secession movement. oklahoma recently attempt to assert its sovereignty via the tenth amendment ("The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.").

as for me, my take lately has been the following:
i pay to build alabama's freeways and infrastructure through my federal taxes.
alabama supports republicans and the wars, costing me even more money and reputation abroad.
alabama's full of religious zealots that i do not agree with in the slightest, and i couldn't even argue with properly since their education system is a shitty mess.
how am i benefiting from this relationship?

(for the record, alabama's just a placeholder. replace it with any number of states full of ignorant dipshits. the results are the same.)

it would be a nasty breakup, but i think i'd be willing to pledge allegiance to the california republic.

mccain's ass wiped by mainstream media

this is the genius military strategist that's going to save us in iraq? in one simple side-by-side comparison, this video points out some serious flaws in mccain's knowledge of foreign affairs (yet again). just remember boys and girls, military and foreign experience are his supposed strong point. this is why we're supposed to look the other way when he admits he doesn't know dick about the economy. this is why we're supposed to look the other way when he kisses the asses of right-wing zealots.

this video shows three things that are of note:
A) john mccain will fail in this election because he does not understand the way that information moves in 2008. he doesn't even know how the internet works, admitting that he's just now "becoming computer literate to the point where I can get the information that I need – including going to my daughter's blog first." somehow i doubt he's mastered the youtubes enough to realize that if something is recorded, it will be made public. period.
B) the mainstream media, especially television news, is guilty of the serious crime of covering up the ineptitude of our leadership. this is what i can only call a dangerous abuse of the rights guaranteed by the 1st amendment. the press is allowed to say whatever they like, but god dammit, this is offensive and irresponsible, and represents a triumph of capitalism and jingoism over legitimate journalism.
C) the ghost of edward r. murrow is likely working on haunting katie couric until she stops pretending to be a journalist and joins the cast of the view.

---

UPDATE: cbs is now trying to defend its bullshit. from politico: "As all news organizations do with extended interviews, last night’s Obama and McCain interviews were edited to fit the available time and to give viewers a fair expression of the candidates' major differences," CBS spokeswoman Jennifer Farley emailed. "The full transcript and video were and still are available at cbsnews.com."
apparently 'major differences' don't include whether or not a candidate has a fucking clue about the war.

Notes from the Right-Wing: City of Los Angeles Continues Attempt to Suck the Life Out of Citizens, Destroy All Things Enjoyable

I'm Joeverkill, and this is Notes from the Right-Wing.

I live in Los Angeles, and while I still love L.A., I have a lot of gripes about the way this city is run. Smoking bans, oppressive parking laws, an overwhelming plethora of homeless people, gang members, and illegal immigrants... All indicative of a city where the liberals have taken the reigns and are trying their damndest to destroy all things wholesome and American.

Now the municipal mommy state is trying to ban fast food. From the Wall Street Journal:

Despite its health-crazy reputation, parts of Los Angeles are plagued by obesity rates that rival any city in America. Now, the city may join a growing roster of local governments aiming to put their residents on diets by cracking down on the fast-food industry.Jan Perry, a Los Angeles city-council member, is spearheading legislation that would ban new fast-food restaurants like McDonald's and KFC from opening in a 32-square-mile chunk of the city, including her district.

I love how the liberal health Nazis demonize fast food. The same people that claim to be champions of the poor and underpriveleged want to take away the easiest, most readily available, and least expensive means of obtaining food. These fatcat politicians buy their fat sons and daughters happy meals after their soccer games and say to themselves, "Hey why is little Billy or Jenny so tubby? I bet it's the darned fast food." And then they try to impose their values on everyone else, and it makes me sick.

I can eat a full, filling meal at Burger King for about three dollars and fifty cents (two Whopper Juniors and small, refillable drink). For $4.99 at Taco Bell I can get a bean and cheese burrito, a crunchy taco, a queso crunchwrap, a bag of cinnamon twists, and a 32-ounce soft drink of my choice. In this day of the falling dollar, I call that simply amazing.

What no one seems to recognize about fast food is that it is the most cost-effective, time-effective, and efficient way to feed hundreds of millions of people. No, it's not the most nutritious food, but no one is telling you to eat it every day.

Jan Perry states concern that obesity rates in the area in which she plans to ban new fast food restaurants from opening are higher than expected:

The targeted area is already home to some 400 fast-food restaurants, she says, possibly contributing to high obesity rates there -- 30% of adults, compared with about 21% in the rest of the city. Nationally, 25.6% of adults are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Councilperson Perry is also ignoring the fact that obesity rates are higher among the poor, and the fact that they are much higher than the national average in blacks and latinos.
If you account for these issues, the difference between the national average and the area in question drops to almost zero.

Watch for a Right-Wing Rant on smoking bans in the near future. They piss me off too.

I'm Joeverkill, and this has been Notes from the Right-Wing.

Those Wacky Democrats!

I fucking hate Democrats.

Out of Sight, (shit) Out of Luck

I know the last eight years of tyrannical horror haven't completely robbed me of my humanity because I still find shit like this appalling.

Kudos to the Washington Post for having the balls to run this story about Gina Gray - the new Public Affairs Directors at Arlington Memorial Cometary - being run out of her job for trying to publicly honor our fallen soldiers.

Some choice cuts:

But in one area, Rummy's Rules still pertain: the attempt to hide from public view the returning war dead.

When Gina Gray took over as the public affairs director at Arlington National Cemetery about three months ago, she discovered that cemetery officials were attempting to impose new limits on media coverage of funerals of the Iraq war dead -- even after the fallen warriors' families granted permission for the coverage. She said that the new restrictions were wrong and that Army regulations didn't call for such limitations.

Six weeks after The Washington Post reported her efforts to restore media coverage of funerals, Gray was demoted. Twelve days ago, the Army fired her.

To break this down, just in case anyone who happens upon this post hasn't been keeping abreast of this situation (and there's a lot going on, so it's easy to miss this type of stuff), Donald Rumsfeld - known to all his close friends by his nickname, Satan - had this great idea for how to market the war in Iraq. They wouldn't allow for any real reporting of the horrors of war. In this way, they felt they could keep the people from turning against this war, a la Vietnam (a war in which the horrors were broadcast into every home in America).

This is pure genius. However, like much of the genius of the Bush administration, it has underlying insidious overtones, and it quickly tended toward the truly heartless. As troops began coming home in bodybags, they were not honored as many fallen soldiers have been in previous wars. Not only that, but the troops who have given their lives - given their lives to protect these freedoms that the men who run this country allegedly value so much - have been resoundingly ignored.

When Rummy left, there was a move to soften the image of the Defense Secretary. However, this apparently did not mean actually honoring American heroes. It simply meant a solid PR campaign for our new Defense Secretary, Robert Gates. People were fired, to be sure. But make no mistake. Nothing has actually changed.

Stories like this are the reason I refuse to talk shit on Obama for the next few months. Stories like this are the reason that I may stop speaking kindly to supporters of the opposition. Stories like this make me want to fucking vomit.

And if we don't do everything we can to make sure John McCain doesn't win the White House, we're just going to see more and more stories like this.

I'll leave you with this quote, my favorite from former Public Affairs Director, Gina Gray:

"Had I not put my foot down, had I just gone along with it and not said regulations were being violated, I'm sure I'd still be there," said the jobless Gray, who, over lunch yesterday in Crystal City, recounted what she is certain is her retaliatory dismissal. "It's about doing the right thing."

Indeed.

time magazine can has freedoms

nathan thornburgh over at time magazine (one of those news websites in paper form that old people like to read) has published a fairly lengthy article giving the rise of the ron paul revolution and bob barr's libertarian campaign their due. called libertarians: a (not so) lunatic fringe, it breaks the libertarian movement down in fairly good detail, and details the difficulty holding the disparate parts of the movement together:

It's tempting to think of Libertarianism as nothing more than old-school Republicanism, but it's always been partially left-wing, drawing from a long history of American anarchism. The modern challenge is to unite those two wings--or, as magician (and stalwart Libertarian) Penn Jillette told me, "Convince the dope guys that the gun guys are O.K., and vice versa." And many Libertarians believe the time is now. It helps that the U.S. has been throttled for a century by two parties whose core differences are narrowing. The current general election has seemed at times a contest about who can crib off the other party's platform more, from McCain's enthusiasm for using government to fight global warming to Obama's hedging on warrantless wiretapping. For an electorate having a harder time distinguishing Coke from Pepsi, there's a thirst for something--anything--new.

i've said it before and i'll say it again - now is the time for the two party system to start to fall apart. according to the article (and various polls, i'm sure), barr's current approval rating stands at 6%, which is just about the same amount as obama has over mccain in national polls.

while the libertarian party alone probably won't supplant or destroy either party, they will likely serve a role similar to the uk's liberal democrats. while their economic theories are further left than american libertarians, they are equally committed to the philosophies of classical liberalism as promoted in texts like john stuart mill's on liberty.

incidentally, on the strength of their anti-war platform, labour's increasing nanny-statism, and conservatives just generally being assholes, the liberal democrat share of parliament is now up to just under 10% as of the 2005 general election. voter support was even higher, at 22% of the total vote.

i know joeverkill has mentioned voting for barr in the face of obama's supposed civil rights compromises. what about the rest of you? anybody have any libertarian interest?

rove takes oddly-timed vacation

from think progress:

This [thursday] morning, Karl Rove refused to appear before the House Judiciary Committee to testify about the politicization of the Justice Department, despite a subpoena. During the hearing, Rep. Chris Cannon (R-UT) revealed that Rove had not only skipped out of the hearing, but had skipped out of the entire country.

apparently rove had never mentioned this to congress previously.

karl rove is now to the point of being amusingly criminal. now that he's off the bush staff (or at least, off the payroll) it's just fun to watch him squirm while congress tightens the noose.

think progress and their friends in the progressive nerdosphere are insisting this means karl rove has 'fled the country'. while normally if a public figure skipped town in these circumstances, i'd simply brush that off as some leftists trying too hard to read between the lines, and assume that the person subpoenaed would be back quickly to testify. but this is karl rove we're talking about.

this reminds me of a conclusion that rupert and i have come to, and relish in bringing up whenever one of these kooks does something wacky: the bush administration has long ago fallen into what espn blogger/resident-annoying-boston-sports-fan bill simmons refers to as "the tyson zone". named after mike tyson, it is a state of being for a public figure in which "if a friend said, "Did you hear that (fill in celebrity's name) just (fill in the insane behavior: urinated on a police officer, began breeding unicorns, etc.)?", I would have no problem believing it was true." i'm pretty sure that moment arrived when dick cheney shot a guy in the fucking face.

either way, i just can't wait until we actually get rove. the second he gets threatened by jail time, this disingenuous little piggy is going to squeal, and congress will have plenty of evidence to impeach and try everyone right up to emperor george. then we'll find out about all the really crazy stuff they've been doing.

link.

Fox & Friends need to go to a Kaplan comedy seminar

Okay, this may be the least important subject anyone has discussed on this blog since I’ve been here (and yes, I’m counting Rupert’s posts about wanting to doink Lara Logan), but I had to write something about those doctored photos on Fox & Friends. You know, the ones that make those New York Times writers look like puppets in the Land of Confusion music video:

Here are the pictures:
Okay, so even without the actual photos for comparison, it’s obvious the photos are doctored: Reddicliffe has smears running down his forehead and Steinberg’s chin is the size of a Coke can. Anyone with half a brain can see it, but then we are talking about people who watch Fox News so who knows how many thousands were fooled?
But did Fox & Friends set out to deceive people? I don’t think so. I don’t think Rupert Murdoch’s grand schemes for world domination hinge on convincing the public that New York Times writers look like characters from Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!

I think it’s something far scarier. I think they though they were being funny.
Is it just me, or since The Daily Show got big have there been a lot more people in the media and politics trying to be Jon Stewart and utterly, utterly, utterly failing. They tell jokes that you’re not even completely sure are supposed to be jokes, except there’s no other plausible explanation for why someone would say it, like McCain’s wife-beating rib-tickler that I posted about recently. Or Bernie Goldberg’s “I got some bad news before I came out; a guy from Newsweek called and said that Al Franken had flushed [my] book down the toilet.” Zing! Or Ann Coulter’s “We need somebody to put rat poisoning in Justice Stevens' crème brulee. That's just a joke, for you in the media.” Nice save with the clarification at the end, Ann. You wouldn’t want someone to take that out of context and make you look crass.
Actually, maybe I should lay off Ann. You see, I’m becoming increasingly convinced that she’s not really the horrible human being she appears to be, and is, in fact, a Sacha Baron Cohen character.

I think Cohen has a crack team of makeup wizards do him up in the morning, he does the cable news rounds, and a few years from now they’ll edit all of the footage together into a movie and it will be high-larious. I mean, what other plausible explanation is there for the shit she says? “If we took away women’s right to vote, we’d never have to worry about another Democrat president. It's kind of a pipe dream, it's a personal fantasy of mine. Very niiiice!” “My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times building. High five!”

I seem to notice the not-funny jokes more on the right, but they’re certainly there in the center and the left, too. Every clip of Beat the Press I’ve ever seen has been painful. Keith Olbermann: stop it with the silly voices. Just fuckin’ knock it off. And Jeremiah Wright? Dude, what the fuck?! With the “white” voice and the Kennedy voice and the Brittish voice? What was the fucking point of that, besides proving to America that you’re the poor man’s Robin Williams:

But at least there’s one media personality you can count on to be consistently hilarious, albeit unintentionally:

Here’s what Bill had to say about those doctored photos from Fox & Friends:

“And now for perhaps the most hypocritical situation we have ever seen…Fox & Friends poked a little fun at Steinberg for misrepreporting the situation, as he does all the time. And they used an unflattering characature of him. Well, some folks at The Times are outraged… Now this is rich, because here are the charicatures The New York Times used of me when they slashed my book, Culture Warrior… You notice the horn in there?!”

Here’s the image in question. You notice the horn in there?! Or, as most of us know it, the cartoon speech bubble?!

Okay, just off the top of your head, what’s the big difference between the two sets of charactitures that make them completely different animals. That’s right! The New York Times doctored Bill’s photos so heavily that the end product looks like a hand-drawn illustration! Those bastards!
Actually, I think Cartoon O’Reilly is a much more accurate likeness than Photoshop Steinberg. See?:

If The Times had run a picture of Bill looking like this, then he’d have something to crow “hypocrisy” about: