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"If you don’t read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed." –- Mark Twain My Stuff Safe in the Fire Swamp Amazon Profile Old Silver Articles Blogger Profile Send Me Hate Mail 
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The quarterback is toast Labels: Meat doesn't grow on trees you know  At least when it comes to Africans:Ahead of a visit to Ghana at the weekend, he said: "Ultimately, I'm a big believer that Africans are responsible for Africa.Obama makes a lot of sense here, at least as much sense as John Edwards did here, when he said, basically, that unless you hold people responsible for their own actions, they are never going to be able to take care of themselves. Besides being absolutely correct, there is one thing the President and former Senator Edwards have in common: they are talking about foreigners. They are not talking about American voters. Think about it for a moment. If Africans are responsible for Africa, its corruption, its violence, its poor governance, even given the accepted realities of the late colonial era, then does it not follow that African Americans likewise responsible for the state of African Americans? Yes, slavery sucked. Yes, Jim Crow sucked. Yes, segregation sucked and was unfair and evil and hurtful and harmful. And yet many blacks find themselves today in a culture and a sub-society that is far worse for the average black resident than was the case 40 years ago. If Africans are respponsible for post-colonial Africa, then African-Americans are responsible for post-segregation Baltimore, Detroit, New Orleans, Mobile, and DC. They are going to have to take responsibility for fixing it themselves or it will never, ever, be fixed. Yet what politician would say that? To say such a thing would bring howls of outrage from the press, professional race warriors, and every member of the political party to which the speaker does not belong. Unless he were an old white Democrat, that would be the end of his career*. It's the same thing with Edwards. He was talking about the people of Iraq when he said that "people are more likely to take care of themselves when no one is helping them or propping them up." He would never say such a thing about Americans. Liberals seem to have have a perfectly clear understanding of the harm that their programs do, at least when applied to non-Americans. But they are in a bind, because it is ultimately the voters, who will simply not stand for hearing that they are the people primarily** responsible for their own condition, who demand that liberals implement programs to allow people to do stupid things and not be punished for it. Then again, if America was the kind of place that was run under just rules, where people received the just rewards of their talents and hard work, or the just rewards of their folly, where they were expected to be responsible for their children and their parents, to pay for what they consumed, if America was the kind of place where people got what they deserved - and if everyone wanted it that way - not only would there be no liberals, there would be no need for them. (hat tip: Magic Negro Watch) * If he were an old white Democrat, he might lose a choice committee assignment. ** not wholly, but primarily. There is a difference and it makes all the difference in the world. Labels: racism  it's fun to read just the comments. Labels: to protect and swerve  Yes, the Washington Times invites you to view an even larger picture of the Screamer of the House. I didn't realize the the Times was a paper designed for masochists. UPDATE: I don't know why, but for some reason I was imagining this conversation, going on in, say, London*: A hanging bell above the door rings as a man steps off a crowded London street into a small, cluttered shop. Though the day is unusually sunny and warm for this time of year, he is wearing a raincoat. His eyes furtively scan the stacks of books and old vinyl records lining the walls, locking briefly on a poster of Peter Sellers dressed as a certain French detective, which inexplicably appears to be upside down, on the wall directly across from the door. A tattered, bored salesman glances up from behind the counter. Salesman: Hello, can I help you? Customer, in an embarrassed whisper: I think so. I'm looking for a large poster of Nancy Pelosi. Salesman, momentarily stunned: Sir? Customer: You know, Nancy Pelosi. From America. I'm looking for a huge poster of her. Really, really, big. Enormous. Salesman: Nancy Pelosi... Customer: Yes, you know, those gentle eyes, those soft, pouting lips. Preferably something in a string bikini, with her slender, nimble fingers sensuously toying with the knot in front... Salesman: I'm sorry, sir. We're closed. * So you're going to have to read this with a British accent. God knows I can't type it with one.  The G8 is just playing games:L'AQUILA, Italy -- The Group of Eight leading nations agreed Wednesday to cut their emissions of heat-trapping gases 80% by 2050, but failed to reach an accord on shorter-term targets -- a setback that could have repercussions for a major meeting on climate change in Copenhagen later this year.Any agreement that will take effect after all the signers will likely be dead is not a serious agreement, even if every nation in the world signs it in blood. It's very easy to make promises that others will have to keep, but that does not make them worth believing or even working toward. But what would be worthwhile is requiring that the nations that are pushing agreements like this go ahead and cut their own emissions by 80%, over say, five years, well within the nation's election cycle*. We'll watch, not only to see if it can be done but to gauge the economic and social effects of such a move. If Denmark or some other green nation manages to pull it off, great, the rest of us can decide then whether it's a step worth taking. If they cannot, well, then that will prove there was little sense in making such a promise in the first place. * the election cycle is important, not only because it makes the current round or promisers accept responsibility for the results, but because future electees, especially those elected four decades in the freaking future, are under no obligation to implement what the current generation of promisers promises on their behalf.  Is probably not the one Obama wants:WASHINGTON — Reacting to the violent swings in oil prices in recent months, federal regulators announced on Tuesday that they were considering new restrictions on “speculative” traders in markets for oil, natural gas and other energy products...You might be surprised to find that I actually approve of placing limits on speculative traders in the commodity markets. I know, I know, libertarian and all that. But I think there is a method to my madness*. From my perspective, the purpose of commodities markets is to match buyers and sellers of physical commodities. They exist so the gold miner can sell his gold to a gold buyer, so the farmer can sell his corn to a popcorn maker, so the oil pumper can sell his oil to a refiner, who can then sell his product to a gas station. They do not exist so individuals, hedge funds, and big New York banks can gamble on what way the price will move, especially since their gambling is often as not a larger mover of the price in markets than supply of and demand for the actual product. So in my mind, there is much simpler way than the Obama way, which will involve nothing but filing paperwork and employing lawyers, both to write the new "rules" and to find ways business as usual can go on. All that is needed is to require that the purchaser of a contract take physical delivery of the commodity at the contract delivery date, or to provide physical delivery - in short, it would ban the "rolling over" of commodity contracts into future months. For companies that want to purchase oil or gold or corn, that's no problem at all: that's the reason they bought a contract in the first place. For actual sellers, that's no problem, they sell contracts because they have actual product they wish to move. For "financial traders," whether Goldman Sachs or Monex or any other corporation that buys commodities they do not want or sells commodities they do not have in a leveraged bet on price movements, they could still speculate all they wanted. But it would probably require that they add to their glass-and-steel downtown headquarters silos and freezers for all the soy beans and pork bellies they accumulate. If they want to store them and re-sell them on a new contract, great, but I'm betting they really don't. I'm all in favor of free markets; anyone should be able to buy or sell anything they want**, anywhere they wish to buy or sell it. So long as they really want to buy or sell it. Financial organizations leveraging made-from-nothing money in bets on the future movements of the prices of commodities that other people actually produce or use, however, they are not a part of those markets at all: they are its destroyers and its enemies. * at least this particular madness. I have spent nearly every waking hour over the last three days on Price's 1864 Raid. For that particular madness, I'm afraid there is no cure. At least none that I want to take. ** Why yes, I do think California could and should ease its current budget crisis by letting drug users and hookers out of jail and leaving them alone in their pursuits.   With the lovely and gracious Rogue off to California for the next 6 days, El B is officially "batchin' it." Well, with 5 foster kids and 2 of my own here with me. But I'm taking vacation the whole time, so I ought to get a good nap in there somewhere.I'm amazed* at how every time I get ready to write a paper, exactly the facts I need fall into my lap. My paper on the Kansas Fifteenth will now be called "Tarnished Glory," and will contrast the gallant actions of the regiment during Price's Raid with their disgusting actions following it. The research I found was a transcript of the 1865 court martial of Major Laing of that regiment, which details not only the looting that occurred on the trip home, but the drumhead executions of wounded Confederate soldiers as well. It should be a much better paper than the one I'd planned. I have to disagree with Mish, who writes concerning the California IOU fiasco that: Every one of those blood sucking banks was bailed out by taxpayers (California taxpayers too) and now will not take an IOU from the State of California for the citizens of California. This is disgusting.No, it's simply good business**. Why should any bank lend a contractor or private company cash on the soundness of California's credit? If the company is worth lending to on its own, then it ought to get a loan to tide it over. But if the only collateral is an IOU issued by a profligate and bankrupt state, no bank should be forced to make such a loan, whether it's been bailed out by taxpayers or not***. Yes, California's problems may be bad for businesses who rely on state government to meet their payrolls, but the poor business plans of private companies are not the responsibility of banks. The minimum wage is slated to rise this month by something like 10%. Since the Democrats assure us that price controls on wages do not cause unemployment, I again propose the Living Large Wage: $500 an hour for everyone. Who doesn't want to be a millionaire? * and eternally thankful. It may sound cheesy and unlikely, but I'm not a good enough researcher to be convinced that all of this happens by chance. ** the kind of business that, had they engaged in it over the last 5 years, they might not have needed to be bailed out in the first place. *** If a bank must take California IOUs, then what about those coming in the next months and years from other states, counties, and cities? Sewer commissions? Community colleges? Force that precedent now and you allow - nay encourage - all sort of government and quasi government entities to monetize as much debt as they want. You might as well criticize a Revolution-era grocer for not taking Continentals.  well, follow the money anyway:July 7 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. should consider drafting a second stimulus package focusing on infrastructure projects because the $787 billion approved in February was “a bit too small,” said Laura Tyson, an adviser to President Barack Obama...The economic logic used by Ms. Tyson here is impeccable - and she's not the only one using it - proving once and for all that economics is not "the dismal science" after all. It may be dismal, but it's not science. If you treat the last stimulus like a simple scientific experiment, it resulted in something like this: If we do X, then Y will occur, where X= spend a bunch of money just to see it spent, and Y=millions of jobs "created or saved."Now, proponents of spending will justify the conclusion by claiming that things are far worse than they thought when they did the experiment*, therefore Y would be far worse than it is now had it not been done. But that's a hypothetical argument, it's not remotely based on the experiment. People who admit they were ignorant of the situation when they started the experiment are in no position to declare authoritatively what would have happened had they not performed it. Of course, there are others whose hypothesis** goes something like this: If we do X, then Y will not occur."Cynic" is Obamaspeak for "correct but in the way of what we want to do." * And it's George Bush's fault. ** Known loosely as the "Government Wastes Resources" Hypothesis. 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