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.