Experts to the left of us, experts to the right, but nary a correct thought among 'em . . . . . .

Overheard a conversation at a restaurant.  It was a guy I'm guessing is in his late fifties.  He and his companions were discussing the current political scene.  I heard him say,

"It's not their fault.  The trouble is, the people are politically uneducated.  They don't know it is against the law to criticise the President of the United States.  They don't teach the constitution in school.  People don't know that the job of a corporate president is not to maximize profits; it's the same as the job of the president of the United States.  They are both supposed to create jobs.  That's what they are for under the Constitution."

This is so wrong that it hurt my ears, but this guy conceives of himself as a cut or two above the general population when it comes to political information.  The helluvit is, it could be true.  In any event, his companions seemed to be impressed.

Gah.

Bumpersticker Scripture

I saw a bumper sticker today.  It asked, "Since when did compliance with Marxist idealogy become patriotism?"

Actually it didn't mention Marxism.  It used the expression, "corporate directives," so I fixed it for you.

What European elections tell us . . .

So Greeks said austerity sucks and they voted against it and Germans are getting a little more comfortable with the idea of currency inflation to "help" Greece, Italy, Portugal, et al.  But in France, the voters went all the way and dumped on their liberal president and voted for the  farther left anti-western socialist. 

Copy cats.

Portland does politics . . .

Here in Oregon, Portland has twenty-three candidates on the ballot for mayor.  Twenty-three!

With that number you can bet that at least one of them is a socialist.  At least one is clinically depressed.  At least one tears up when singing the National Anthem.  At least one has had an extramarital affair.  At least one bounces checks.  At least one collects pornography on a home computer.  At least one cares for a disabled adult relative.  Probably more than one are genuinely nice people for whom there is no place in politics.  One is a sociopath; one is a psychopath; one is an animal lover.  At least one should be locked up; hell, one has been locked up.  Probably one inherited money, and probably another one started from nothing and made money.  At least one is a religious fanatic, probably.  The problem is  -- who?  How can you tell?

So, look at the externalities.  Only a small number of them have spent a lot of money promoting themselves for the job.  All the signs and ads reveal that.  We know who has spent a lot of money.  Is that the one we vote for, on the ground that at least we know something about them?

I know this.  Few people who have a lot of money money will  spend it without expectation of return of value of some kind, even if it is just to get their vanity bump rubbed.  And I know that the job of mayor doesn't pay all that well, to justify the kind of money that is being spent.  And the prestige of the job isn't really all that great.  It's kind of like being voted Most Courteous for your high school year book.  I mean it's something, but not quite . . . as meaningful to others as it is to your mother.

So, as to the big spenders for the mayoral election, well, I have to wonder who do they really represent.  No.  Really.  Where is the money coming from?  Really, who do they represent?

Portland potholes triumphant . . .

There's a guy named Charlie who is running for Mayor of Portland.  Lots of people like Charlie, evidently, based on the appearance of yard signs.  Charlie is experienced in government and Portland affairs despite having not lived in Portland all that much of late.  One of his claimed reasons for why we should vote for him is his record on potholes.  He says he fixed 'em.

I say he missed a bunch.  Maybe somebody should put some signs up around the potholes, "Charlie missed this one."  Bet the pothole signs would exceed the number of yard signs.

. . .and little pink piggies can fly . . .

within living memory -- mine -- the Red Chinese were killing people for the crime of being landlords. They called it a cultural revolution to purify the culture for communism. Nowadays? There are country clubs in China where a Western car manufacturer is sponsoring a golf tournament for professional golfers and the event isq available for viewing on cable television here in the U.S. and Euurope.

A toxic culture . . .

Reuters reports the poisoning of Afgan schoolgirls.  Education of women is un-Islamic, you see.  Oh, it's "legal," now, for females to be educated, after having formerly been illegal, according to the Taliban.  Just a little, oh, let's say, risky.  These "people" also stand around and throw disfiguring acid into the faces of young girls walking to and from school.

I say, any  "multi-culturalist" and anybody else who holds that all cultures are morally equal, is himself a moral and intellectual moron, no matter how many academic degrees may have been earned.

Hollywood romantics . . .

So Brad and Angelina got engaged.  Just in the nick of time.

Intelligent dinosaurs on other worlds . . .

Oh, my.  We need to worry about meeting extra-terrestial life.  Scientists say that intelligent dinosaurs might rule other worlds, so it's just as well we not meet them. 

What's the worry?  Intelligent apes rule our world.

Trayvon be thy name . . .

Turns out that a news producer has been fired for manipulating, or editing, the transcript of the police report that Zimmerman was phoning in.  The report left the impression that young Trayvon was hunted down and shot merely for being black and out of place.  But the material "edited out" leaves a little different impression of Zimmerman's motivation.

Well now.

I don't know if Trayvon Martin was a victim or if he had it coming.  Neither does most anybody else, but that hasn't prevented people, great and small, from expressing their opinions or feelings on the subject, or somehow finding meaning in the reports of the event.

I won't do that.

Except to agree with an Australian commentator, that "Trayvon" is a ridiculous name. 

Notwithstanding that when you hear the name, "Zimmerman," you don't instantly imagine "Hispanic guy from Florida."  

And for that matter, if your first name in common usage is 'the reverend" you should be staying at home administering to some congregation, and not cashing in frequent flier miles in search of news cameras to jump in front of to preach your message -- which has damn little to do with salvation and a whole bunch to do with shaking down institutions for cash and concessions under threat of the next racial storm.

No vacation this year, with gasoline this dear . . .

Filled up my car with gas today.  On the one hand, I can remember when it was a good day when I could afford to say, "Two bucks of regular, please," when I got down to a quarter of a tank, and that would easily take the needle to over half a tank.  On the other hand, it's good that I can afford to have the tank filled without thinking about the cost.

But then, on the other, other hand, good great flaming fires of doom, have you seen gas prices recently!

I am typing this just after amending my will.  Don't want there to be any confusion about who gets the unused portion of my gasoline.

The pornification of America . . .

It seems to me, more and more, that everything around us is reducible to sex.  And if it isn't actually that warm little secret familiar tingle and rush, then matters can still be communicated sexually, in metaphors. 

For example:

Justice Breyer was dealing with the Obamacare matter during oral argument, and the question of whether the commerce clause has any limitations that would prevent the government from requiring citizens from buying insurance, or a Chevy Volt, or multiple use condoms for that matter.  (Just rinse, roll, and repeat!) 

Judge Breyer said,
. . . and I think if we look back in history we see sometimes Congress can create commerce out of nothing.  That's the national bank which was created out of nothing to create other commerce out of nothing.  I look back into history and I see it seems pretty clear that any substantial affects on interstate commerce, Congress can act.

That's the McCulloch v. Maryland case, which said that Congress could create a national bank.  But that case was a "necessary and proper" case, not a "commerce clause" case.  Lawyers will know that case.  Shoot, my high school history teacher, the football coach, told us about that case.  You'd think an Article III judge would know it's a "necessary and proper" case.  Why not?  ONly one possible explanation.  He spent every possible minute of his school years boinking till his ears sizzled.  Nothing else could explain it.  (Bet you wondered how I'd get back to the main topic, didn't you.)

Oh, and continuing the metaphor, it also means we are so screwed.

For Six Bucks a Gallon You should Expect to Get a Little Sarcasm with it . . . .

The White House has very recently learned that gasoline is getting too expensive for the voters. 

The reason it is too expensive is that oil companies are selling the stuff and charging voters more than they used to, just because it is costing them more to buy the oil in a politicized international market with various governments attempting to manipulate prices, and more to transport the oil from Canada and South America and the Mid-east, and more to refine the oil into gasoline, the greedy bastids. 

So the White House, mindful on the burden that high gas prices places on ninety-nine percent of us voters , has figured out that if the government will cancel "tax breaks" or raise taxes on the oil companies, that will necessarily deprive them of their greed-soaked profits, the greedy bastids. 

Of course, once deprived of profits, the oil companies will naturally want to charge voters lower prices at the pump . . . and  . . . .   and . . .    Hey!  Wait a minute.

What's the chances the oil companies would raise voters' gasoline prices even more to make up the difference? 

But it's okay.  Think of the satisfaction you'll feel, as you are walking to your job because you can't afford both to feed your car and feed your kids, knowing that the greedy bastid oil companies at least had been punished for their greed.

What?  You don't have a job anymore, since your employer's bankruptcy? 

Well, fortunately you still have your old 401K you can liquidate, right?  They can't take that away from you, can they?  Just pay the government the income taxes on what you withdraw, with the extra 10% penalty tax the government says you owe for using your own money before government planned for you to do, and you should be okay.  I bet you're glad you didn't put your retirement investment into oil company stocks, aren't you? 

Much safer to invest in wind energy companies and solar panels and electric cars,  right?  Nobody would ever accuse those sorts of businesses of being run at a profit, unlike the greedy bastid oil companies, seeing as how green companies all require government tax rebates, and outright loans of taxpayers money just to stay in business.

And how about this?  Maybe the government will be driven to nationalize the gasoline companies, and then us voters would own the greedy bastid oil companies!  Like with General Motors and Chrysler.  If that happens, the White House will be able to see to it that greedy corporations will supply voters with what government determines the voters need.  Instead of what we want.

Provided the wealthy will shut up and pay their fair share.

Is there life after death?

Evidently, the proposition that there is life after death has been proven correct, at least when it comes to 1.8 million dead people.  They can still vote according to Pew Center Research. 

Your car and natural gas . . .

Should we convert vehicles to run on natural gas?  Here's an article on the subject.  Cars will run on natural gas, just fine.  But there are some significant problems with conversion, much of which is not actually technical but is political.

Of course, natural gas is abundant, and is therefore cheaper than gasoline, right?  On the other hand, gasoline would be a lot cheaper but for government perversion of the market, and how much do you want to bet that if natural gas were the automotive fuel of choice, government would screw that up, too. 

Because it isn't actually about fuel.  It's about who is the boss of you.

Super Bowl excitement . . .

. . . can overtake any one of us.  Even me.  I'm normally pretty balanced about the whole Super Bowl experience although I know that for many it is the main religious event of their year.  But this year, right after halftime, I got carried away and put an extra seed in the parakeet's cup.  

FBI agent says . . . My bad!. . . . .

The premier investigative agency in the whole wide world investigated themselves right  into the wrong apartment.  With a chainsaw.  And guns drawn.

They have a defense if the resident wants to file a tort claim.  The defense is that they are the government and you can't sue them unless they damn well feel like being sued, oh, and they said they were the FBI after they got inside and then they said, "oopsies," right after learning they were in the wrong place about a half hour after getting in.  And okay, so we'll buy you a new damn door 'cause we feel kinda bad about this.

Let's see, so they had an arrest warrant.  Assume for a moment they were even in the right place -- which they weren't, dammit -- how long does it take to determine that the guy they are looking for isn't in the apartment, when the only people in there are a kid and a female? 

On the other hand, if only there had been some kind of a clue, I'm pretty sure the premier investigative agency in the whole wide world coulda figured it out by the time the panel on the door with the apartment number on it was cut out of the door.  But there evidently weren't any clues around anywhere. 

Sometimes these things just happen in the never ending war against chemical happiness.  In a world where some people refuse to accept unhappiness when they can afford to do something about it, it is up to the government to discourage unearned happiness at gunpoint and with chainsaws if necessary.

There's going to be hell to pay when it occurs to the government bozos how much enjoyment there is in chocolate.

Thinning the herd . . .

Here's a woman who, for purposes of personal growth, health and wellness, let herself be "cooked to death."  This was at a personal growth seminar.  Ah, let's all jump onto the new age movement and free ourselves of the old prejudices of the dead past -- things like hygiene, and a sense that events can have predictable consequences.  Wonder how much personal growth the other participants in the seminar experienced, the ones who abide with the knowledge that this procedure just killed somebody?  I'm sure it was worth the price.  Which I believe was $18,000.00.

When you read of things like this, how can you not mock these people?

The secret code of stubble . . .

I think I'm noticing an increasing amount of two or three day whisker stubble on the male "leads" in commercials.  You know.  Shiney movie star teeth, a sweeet, sincere smile, charm out the wazoo, and stubble.  We have a little advertising trend going on. 

And I know that I'm seeing it more frequently on European pro golfers. 

What's stubble?  It means you've been too careless about your appearance to shave. 

But what is stubble when you've shaved your neck?  It means you want to look stubbly without the irritation of neck stubble scraping against your collar.  In other words, this is stubble that is part of an intentionally selected message.

What's the message?  The message is that the stubblee knows that you know he's a little bit of an airy spirit, and he hopes a little stubble will throw some confusion on the topic.

Does the stubble work as planned?  No.  It confirms the fey.  Either grow a full on beard or mustache, or shave.

Oh, and cheek stubble with a shaved neck, plus a shaved head? 

Bingo!

Well, Congressman Blumenauer . . .

Congressman Earl Blumenauer sent me a little expensively printed flier under his franking privilege (free postage.)  He claims Washington in broken, Wall Street gets all the breaks and the middle class is broke.  I call B.S.  I have to ask, well, just who should we hold responsible for breaking Washington if not our elected officials, the people who broke the damn thing in the first place?

I agree that our government is broken.  I’m not so sure about the congressman’s other propositions.  If the middle class is broke, well --  how can that be, if at the very same time Wall Street gets all the breaks, as Congressman Blumenauer asserts?  Most of the investment in public corporations, dollar for dollar, comes from the middle class, which is invested in Wall Street, both directly and indirectly through retirement plans which have professional management to invest in stocks and bonds.  And the middle class relies heavily on mutual funds, that is, stock investment managed by expert investment counsel, so it’s not as if the pros have a particularly large advantage over the middle class investor.  The middle class investor buys into retirement plans and mutual funds managed by those self-same pros.

Nah, it’s not Wall Street getting all the breaks.  It’s some of the corporate cronies who heavily support politicians who get the breaks.  It’s not capitalism that’s the problem; it is insider Washington’s crony capitalists who are the problem.

And that leads in to another point Congressman Blumenauer made, that is, that Congress needs to be reformed, to prohibit Congressman from “trading stocks based on information obtained on the job.” 

Let’s call this what it really is.  Congressional investment “information obtained on the job” is of two kinds: either tips about what stock to buy and sell supplied by insiders who expect and get favors from Congress in return, or else the Congressmen know what the market must do in response to the laws that congress passes.  In other words, a trading tip is a just a bribe, and passing legislation affecting the market to the profit of the voting Congressmen is basically market manipulation.  Both of these practices are illegal, and I’m unaware of any principal, legal, ethical, or moral, that would argue that congressmen should be immune to prosecution for such conduct.

And I note that Congressman Blumenauer reports that “after recent news of lawmaker involved in insider trading, I feel passionate about Members of Congress . . . trading stocks based on information obtained on the job.”  Congressman Blumenauer didn’t know about it before the news reports?  If he did, how come he wants to do something about it only now, after news reports?  He could have ratted out the bad guys at any time.  On the other hand, if he didn’t know about it, well, where’s he been all this time?

Congressman Blumenauer also wants to end the “flood of unaccountable corporate campaign spending that threatens the integrity of our political system.”  I agree that this is a problem, where a very few individuals have an outsized impact on the political process;  corporate boards and officers have access to large funds that can be used to influence legislation and governance.

I suspect that this was a circumstance that could not have been anticipated by the writers of the U.S. Constitution, whose view of the world encompassed personal wealth which was largely in land, and therefore illiquid and unavailable to match anything like the impact of enormous cash campaign contributions currently feeding into our mass media information machine.  But it seems to me that if the problem is that a few individuals who control large funds have an outsized political impact as compared to an individual voting citizen, then, we should muzzle all institutional campaign spending.  Muzzle corporations, unions, non-profits, and all institutional campaigning and political activity.   In other words, if “big money” is a problem, get rid of all the “big money,” not just the money from the current target for scapegoating, Wall Street.  If large corporate political influence was not anticipated in the U. S. Constitution, neither was the political influence enjoyed by large employee unions, or large ‘non-profits” such as the A.A.R.P., which flat didn’t exist in 1786.

The constitution can be amended.  How about, instead of “One man, one vote,” we make it “One man, one vote, one campaign contribution?”

When I started voting, over forty years ago, the normal situation was for a family to be supported by the job of one spouse.  Now, couples are frequently hard pressed to maintain a family lifestyle using the earnings of both spouses, and are flat out desperate if one of those spouses becomes unemployed, which is currently frequently the case.  And unemployment insurance is insufficient to make a lasting difference.  The economy is simply no longer such that families can be supported by the earnings of one spouse, alone, without supplementation either by the other spouse or by government hand out.

Yet through these same forty years I’ve been voting, I’ve heard politicians saying that they are going to Washington to protect people like me, to fight for me, to represent me, to support me.  Guess what?  I think one could safely say that the evidence is largely to the contrary – that politicians are selfishly motivated, and nothing else explains the last forty years of politics and the economic mess the country has been caught in.  Things got worse, not better over the last forty years.
 
And for every single troublesome campaign contribution or stock tip or corporate favor, there was always and unfailingly a smarmy, eager politician’s hand out to grasp it.

What’s necessary?  First, our political masters need to acknowledge, to themselves at very least, that they have screwed up wonderfully in the last forty years, taking the country down a road which led to what we’ve got, now, massive debt and stagnation at best.  Our government has overwhelmed the ability of the private sector to replace the energy and assets that government increasingly has gobbled up in programs owned by politicians who neither know nor want to know about the foreseeable consequences of their decisions.  I wonder how many of ‘em are familiar with or could explain the tragedy of the commons?  Yup.  It was the political leadership.  Nothing else will explain the current mess.  Some of our most respected politicians have screwed up the mightiest, probably out of the best of motives and the emptiest of heads.  Let’s acknowledge it and get on with rebuilding America.

I think that the next politician who can truly be a leader, irrespective of party or creed,  is the politician who will first, trust that the American people can and will lead the way out of the current mess if provided a fair, stable, and predictable body of laws and legal outcomes to work with (and providing our government doesn’t screw it up with an overburden of clumsy management in the hands of civil service oafs, and worse) and second, will see to it that the people get such laws and outcomes.  Such a politician would be able to lead a discussion to define exactly what is the proper role of government, what can and can’t the government do, and what should and shouldn’t a government do.

What’s government for?  I can tell you what government is not for.  Government is not something for politicians to use cynically to do anything they think might buy them a few more votes so that they and their cronies and fellow travelers can continue living large.  If government tries to do things it can’t do, or shouldn’t do, the doing of those things constitutes either a failure of government or a misappropriation of the energies of the electorate, or both, simultaneously.

After all, it was the politicians who declared that certain industries and businesses were “too big to fail,” not the electorate.  And it was government that handed out enormous amounts of cash to ventures that were “too big to fail,” not the people.  But it wasn’t government that generated the cash to bail out those that were “too big to fail.” Government spent money made by the electorate, and worse, spent money that has yet to be made by the electorate.  It wasn’t the voters who put us all in debt to pass out cash to the cronies running the outfits that were “too big to fail.”

Congressman Blumenauer, you say we should “prosecute the crooks who brought the economy down,” right?  You’ll find a whole gaggle of ‘em in the congressional offices all around you.