A misplacement of credit due

You paid attention during 100% of high school!

85-100% You must be an autodidact, because American high schools don't get scores that high! Good show, old chap!

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Stop! In the name of the Science!

Christ Tackett gets a little fired up:

Wow. The Grand Canyon was caused by Noah's flood. Incredible. It's not that I'm that upset this book is available for sale - I mean, that certainly does suck since the book's presence in the National Park gift shop implies gov't approval - but what gets me fired up is the fact that Park Rangers/Guides aren't allowed to comment on the Age of the Grand Canyon and little kids are going to leave the park with at best, unanswered questions and at worst, a horribly false understanding of the world.

At issue is a new report by something called Public Employees for Environmental Reponsibility, who claim that (in the words of AlterNet): "Grand Canyon National Park is not permitted to give an official estimate of the geologic age of its principal feature, due to pressure from Bush administration appointees."

Which I find a little odd, since on the National Parks Service's website I found a couple of interesting quotes. The first, discussing the Grand Canyon's natural features and ecosystems, states that "Geologic formations such as gneiss and schist found at the bottom of the Canyon date back 1,800 million years." The second, under "Plateau Plumbing," states that, "ancient faults and displacements created by the earth's movement over millions of years form conduits and pockets that collect, and barriers that impede, the movement of water." I didn't find any pictures of Noah, however.

But I don't particularly care what the government says about the Grand Canyon, and I guess that makes me unique, for it seems that the modern-day heresy hunters demand nothing less than official "government approval" for their views and the simultaneous quashing of dissent - more than one outraged commenter at AlterNet started a sentence with, "I believe in the first amendment, but..." which ranks right up there with "Some of my best friends are black, but..." in meaning the opposite of what is stated. Thus the cries over a single book (segregated into its own category, "Inspirational") that doesn't toe the approved line, and thus the wails (even after multiple commenters pointed out that the USGS gives them precisely what they are asking for) about burkhas and arks and 40 days.

All that said, I'll confess that I'm agnostic on the canyon itself. And the reason for that is that it's one mighty big hole. And there is almost no rain* in the area: less than 8 inches annually on the canyon floor, 15 inches on the South Rim. For that little bitty river (you can see it in the picture, meandering along the bottom, if you look closely) to have worked out all that rock, it must have been a lot bigger for a very long time. So where did the water come from? And where did it go? And why is there a canyon like this on only one section of one river in the entire world?

It seems to me that unique formations demand unique circumstances to create them. The flood story is too unique and could explain anything - and not having read the book, I don't even know how they would attempt to explain it. The natural erosion story is too bland and explains nothing. That the canyon was created long after the rocks were laid down is not in doubt (some even put it "only in the past five to six million years"). But until someone can explain how after 1.8 billion years of buildup, something happened that dug it all back down in 1/300th of that time, I'll just have to remain firmly skeptical.

* And no dinosaurs. There are brachiopods in plenty (and even a few fossilized footprints) but no animals. What does that mean? Heck if I know.

The Dead as Propaganda

The Toledo Blade notes the obvious concerning the US Mint's plan to put los Presidentes on new dollar coins:

Putting all the presidents on a classroom calendar or on a metal ruler is one thing. Calendars last a year and metal rulers are lost in a month. Putting all the presidents on coins is another thing altogether. It’s a very bad idea.

Because the truth of the matter is that all of our presidents do not deserve to be honored. James Buchanan was the worst president, unless of course you consider Warren G. Harding, and the temptation is strong to say that they are both worth forgetting, except as examples of blunderers and fools. Messrs. Buchanan and Harding do not deserve coins of their own, and no amount of historical revisionism will likely change the verdict on their presidencies. William Henry Harrison was president for a month. He doesn’t deserve a coin. William Howard Taft was a good man and a good chief justice but as a president he left few marks. No coin for him, either.

Tracking the progression of a nation's coinage provides perspective not only to its changing economics, but to its ideology as well.

The other night, as I was finishing up Fiat Money Inflation in France for the second time, I did so with a couple of old French 20-franc gold coins lying on the book, which I fingered absentmindely as I read. The coins, each of which would have been worth 1200 paper assignat francs if the latter were worth anything at all, reveal an interesting progression. On one, Napoleon III was pictured in bust with the word Empereur around his bare head. On the other, issued a few years later, the face of the coin was identical except that Napoleon III was festooned with a garland wreath, reminiscent of the caesars of old. The change was not accidental, of course, but powerfully symbolic: as the man gathered more authority and power, he was increasingly adulated by his nation (and probably by himself). In his case, as in the case of the defunct franc itself, glory didn't last: he was but a man and his body crumbled to dust as all of ours will. Today only numismatists and historians remember Napoleon III. But the inherent symbolism of the face on the coin remains, and not only in France.

In America, we do it a little differently, at least for now: we don't put our leaders on coins until they are safely dead. The principle, however, is the same, because as our nation has grown more powerful, we have begun to diefy our own leaders as Napoleon, Louis XIV, and Ceasar diefied themselves. It started with Lincoln in 1909, followed by Washington in 1932, Jefferson in 1938, FDR in 1946, Ben Franklin in 1948 (to be replaced by JFK in 1964). Ike made an appearance on a dollar coin in the 70s, followed in quick succession by Susan B. Anthony and Sacagawea. And now Franklin Pierce is going to take his place in the pantheon.

But he shouldn't. In fact, none of them should.

Today we do not have a coin or a bill that lacks the face of a dead person. And there has been an interesting change in our national culture that is both an effect and a cause of putting our little gods on our coinage, and that is that our principles, Liberty being the foremost, have been pushed aside. We have changed from a nation of ideals to one of personalities.

In fact, the first draft of the Mint Act of 1792 called for an image of the current President (there had only been one* at the time) on the obverse, the final version required a symbol of Liberty, which requirement lasted 120 years. And the reason for that requirement was the same reason Napolean III put his own image on the coin: the coin is, by its very nature, a piece of propaganda. It serves as a powerful and sometimes beautiful symbol of value^, and what appears on the coin is subconsciously connected to that value by all who use it. The founding fathers purposely rejected attaching that value to the images of mere men because they understood the dangers inherent in doing so. They did not want kings or empereurs or gods, not even symbolic ones.

Instead, they chose to symbolize America's most valuable asset: the liberty, the freedom that America had represented for nearly two centuries. It was not perfect liberty, of course, and any slave - should he be so lucky to even handle a coin - must have cried at the very hypocrisy. But it was an ideal that while never perfectly implemented was worth striving for and worth preserving. And worth promoting on the powerful symbol of value known as the coin.

Instead, we get Franklin Pierce.

* And while I do not know this for sure, I strongly suspect Washington was appalled at the idea that he should take such a place alongside kings and tyrants.

^ It is perhaps fitting that our modern coins are nearly as valueless as they are ugly.

Dances with Bees

What do you do when a swarm of honey bees takes over the swingset? Initiate Redneck war games, that's what!

No animals were injured during the making of this documentary. OK, so maybe there were a few.

(language warning)

The Littlest Drummer Boy

Dusky: the Third Dwarf of the Apocalypse

Dusky (real name Barak Hussien Obama) is the junior senator from Illinois, rounding out a trifecta of senators who are fighting history (in addition to each other) to become President. Known primarily for his unique coppery skin and the fact that he is articulate (actually, for the combination of the two), Dusky is the only current presidential candidate who speaks fluent Indonesian, though that fact hardly gets mentioned for some reason. Racism, probably.

Before being elected to the Senate over the currently insane Alan Keyes*, Dusky lost a 2000 Congressional Primary to former Black Panther Bobby Rush. He has also been a crossing guard, a cub scout patrol leader, and was voted Most Likely to Move to Hawaii by his first grade class in Jakarta, Indonesia. He later moved to Hawaii, where he lived with his grandparents.

Since his election, Dusky has shown himself a quick learner, taking after Current House Speaker Dennis Hastert and incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in using shady real estate deals to personally enrich himself with the help of campaign contributors.

However, cognizant of the fact that if elected to the Presidency he would be the second black president, Dusky has already taken steps to differentiate himself from former president Clinton. For example, where Mr. Clinton denied getting any benefit from his marijuana use, Dusky insists that "I did inhale - that was the point." He has also one-upped Mr. Clinton by admitting to cocaine use, leading to rumors that supermodel Kate Moss is on his short list for vice-presidents.

In between his Senate duties, Dusky is currently completing the seventh grade at Chicago Middle School, and hopes to be a fireman when he grows up.

* for whom I voted twice in 1996 - once riding the Dole bus from Kansas to Iowa like some California claimjumper in order to vote in the Iowa Straw Poll. Keyes tied for seventh, and Pete Wilson showed himself to be an ass. Nobody cared that Arlen Specter was even in the race. 

Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber

While I tried to answer this on Snoop's blog (twice) his comments section is apparently hosed, so I'll just have to do it here:

Ankle Biting Pundits look for the differences between identical twins:

Next time some libertarian friend of yours tells you that there isn’t a dime’s worth of different between liberal Democrats and “big government conservative” Republicans, slap him upside the head.

Irwin M. Stelzer has a rundown in the Daily Standard of some of the delightful things the new Democratic Congress will treat them (and us) to. They include: a minimum wage hike; pharmaceutical price controls; tax increases, protectionism, and lots and lots of frivolous investigations into corporate “price gouging.”

But hey, those damned Republicans tried to keep that girl in Florida alive, so screw them, too, right?

Apparently the Ankle-biters are not paying very close attention to those they wish to slap, because the areas they point the finger at the Dems for are precisely the areas the libertarians are pointing the fingers at them:

First, a minimum wage hike. Of course it's stupid economics, as are all price controls, and yet I note that it is an this area where the current GOP President has already signed on with the Dems. True, Bush is not "all Republicans" or even most of them, yet the lack of distinction lies not in how high each party wants to set it but the fact they wish to set one at all. I note the complete absence (despite 6 years of GOP rule) of a move to eliminate government mandated wages, so while the GOP may think raising the current arbitrary level is bad - depending upon how high and how fast it's raised - they are perfectly willing to live with the current badness. It's like the old joke that if the Dems wanted to burn down the Library of Congress, the GOP would insist that it be phased in over three years.

Second, pharmaceutical price controls. Yes, the Dems want to do that, yet I remind the ankle-biters that the GOP is the party that last implemented price controls. And is not the socialization of pharmaceuticals via Medicare Part D, wherein the government contracts with the company to provide medicines free of charge to the user, any different in result than direct price controls? If it is, the distinction is very minor. Under the Democratic plan, the shareholders get screwed, under the GOP one, it's the taxpayers.

Third, tax increases. The Ankle Biters studiously ignore the fact that there is no such thing as a free lunch. So the Dems want to pay for their spending binges via taxation (theft) while the GOP pays for theirs via inflation (theft). The real problem is the spending, not how it's paid for.

Fourth, protectionism: Yes, the Dems are protectionist and that ultimately hurts consumers to the benefit of government and politically-connected companies. Yet the GOP does the same thing when they need votes. I hope the move backfires on the Dems as it did on Bush, but let's not pretend the Republicans are paragons of free trade. If one wants free trade, all one has to do - all one can truly do - is remove one's own tariffs. I note that we have yet to do so.

And last but not least, frivolous investigations. Like this one, I suppose.

In each case, the Democrats are wrong, but the GOP is a party that does the same things, just to a lesser extent. If the argument is an argument over extent - as it appears to be for the ankle biters - then the GOP is quite distinct from the Dems. But if the argument is over whether we ought to have price controls, investigations, protectionism, wages mandated by law, or trillions in government spending in the first place, then there is no significant difference between the parties, all the yapping of the ankle-biters notwithstanding.

The GPS for Discriminating Drivers

The Wrong Ex-Presidents Keep Dying

CNN notes the passing of a true gentleman:

RANCHO MIRAGE, California (CNN) -- Former President Gerald R. Ford, who sought to heal the nation after the tumultuous years of the Watergate scandal, died Tuesday at age 93, his widow, Betty Ford said...

After leaving the White House, Ford kept a generally low profile, limiting his appearances largely to golf tournaments and splitting his time between homes in Rancho Mirage and Beaver Creek, Colorado. He built a presidential library and museum in Michigan.

While the policies of the Republicans are not all that different from their Democratic twins, their ex-presidents sure have a lot more class. If Gerald Ford had not gone away years ago, he would be dearly missed. Unlike another that I can think of who simply won't leave.

Intelligent and friendly

on rye bread with some mayonaise:

A 27-year-old woman was seriously injured after she was hit by a leaping dolphin near Slipper Island in the western reaches of the Bay of Plenty this afternoon.

A spokesman for the Auckland rescue helicopter said the woman was sitting in the bow of a small pleasure craft around 2.30pm today when it appeared a dolphin miscalculated its leap out of the water.

"It jumped up out of the water and hit the woman, giving her a number of injuries," the spokesman said.

No further information on the woman's injuries was available, but she is Auckland Hospital's intensive care unit in a serious condition.

The dolphin swam off unharmed.

Hey, I've read Douglas Adams, so I know there's no excuse for this kind of violence on the part of these evil creatures. No person could get away with "accidentally" injuring a dolphin while clowning around, so I certainly am not about to give these flippered menaces a free pass.

I remember a few years ago when I was in New Orleans and one of the shops on Bourbon Street was serving dolphin. "Really?" I asked. "Sweet." Turns out it was just a fish.

Man, was I disappointed. But that didn't keep me from pretending.

Bitchy, the Second Dwarf of the Apocalypse

Saint Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton (aka "Bitchy") is a famous commodities trader and junior Senator from NewYork. Well, not actually from New York, as she had not actually lived in New York until she decided it was her destiny to replace the last good liberal. New Yorkers, being the forgiving race they are, did not hold her alienism against her, giving her a resounding victory over a Republican whose name has unfortunately been lost to history*. St. Hillary was originally believed (because she said so) to have been named after famed explorer Sir Edmund Hilary. However it was later revealed that he was actually named after her. Upon this revelation Bitchy officially assumed her official Dwarf Name(tm). Sir Edmund died.

A former Young Republican (she was both young and Republican for much of her early life), Bitchy married William Jefferson Blythe Clinton, who later became the governor of Arkansas and in 1992, the first black president of the United States. However, it was as First Lady of the Ozarks (Saint Hillary of Ark.) that she developed her reputation as a miraculous market mover, commencing her first successful trade (a gamble that required $12,000 in hand) though she only had $1000 in her account. Taking her cue from Jesus' miracle of dividing a few loaves and fishes to feed a multitude, Bitchy divided the ten benjamins repeatedly until they fed her family to the tune of $100,000. Satisfied at her own prowess, she never traded again. It has long been alleged that the trades were directed by James B. Blair, an outside counsel for Arkansas' largest employer, Tyson Foods, but as is often the case when miracles are performed by strong, independent women, that's just a case of a man trying to grab credit for a woman's hard work. Her trader, "Red" Bone, was suspended from the exchange for three years and his company, Refco, was fined $250,000 for witnessing the miracle.

Almost as legendary as her miraculous commodities trading is the fiery temper that gave St. Hillary her very own Dwarf Name(tm). A mistress of both the racial and ethnic slur (language warning), Bitchy has been known to throw lamps at Presidents in raging fits of anger, and is generally believed to have thrown part of a London street light at Aslan on the day Narnia was founded, resulting in the miraculous growth of the very lamppost under which Lucy Pevensie later met Faun Tumnus after entering a magic wardrobe.

When Bitchy ascends the Cherry Blossom Throne (as Vox Day has long predicted) , her two terms will extend the Bush/Clinton/Bush/Clinton** administration to two decades. Because her daughter Chelsea will still be constitutionally ineligible to be President, Florida Governor Jeb Bush may be called on to wield the scepter for eight years. His son Jebby is then expected to marry Chelsea, and as in the case of Ferdinand and Isabella (or as my history professor insisted, "Isabella and Ferdinand") the nation will be united and we can be rid of these pesky elections once and for all.

* It was expected at the time that she would face another Dwarf of the Apocalypse, Hizzoner. However, he quit the race when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. It is widely believed that he contracted the disease purposely to avoid electoral embarrassment, as he denied several offers from St. Hillary to heal his malady. He instead became mayor of New York, and it remains to be seen if he will contract cancer again should he and Bitchy square off in the general election.

** By "Clinton" here of course I mean "Rodham"

I'm betting he doesn't like Trans-Siberian Orchestra, either

Fair and Balanced

The Center for Media and Public Affairs calls out The Daily Show:

Nary Is Heard a Favorable Word: In its pre-election coverage, "Daily Show" correspondents evaluated candidates and policies negatively 97 percent of the time.

This is probably the reason that The Daily Show is the only TV news I watch (2-3 times a week, but only the first 15 minutes. It would be hard for me to care less about what Stewart's guests think). A good, hardened cynicism about government not only protects the citizen from its blandishments, but expectations set by cynicism are often more predictive of actual performance than those set by a politician's words or party affiliation. Just ask Kansas treehuggers who rallied to convince our Democratic Governess to quash three proposed coal-burning, Gaya-destroying, power plants in western Kansas. Oops.

GOP vs. Dems, Flotsam Versus Jetsam? If not necessarily fair, the "Daily Show" was balanced in its depiction of the two political parties. 98% of the evaluations of Republicans prior to the election were negative, while 96% of the ‘reporting’ on Democrats was negative.

Although I think the proper numbers for a news show (based on an unscientific poll of my own blog) should be a negative 98% Democrat and 96% Republican, those who complain that Stewart is part of some liberal media juggernaut simply don't watch the show. After the treatment John Kerry received night after night, I can't believe he had the juevos to appear on it in person. The guy deserves another fake purple heart for that kind of bravery.

Top Targets: The politician who was most frequently mocked during the run-up to the election wasn’t a GOP lawmaker, but former Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry.

And that is as it should be.

Negativity Begetting Cynicism? An East Carolina University academic paper from earlier this year suggested that "Daily Show" viewing had "detrimental effects, driving down support for political institutions and leaders among those already inclined toward nonparticipation." This report’s findings – showing 97 percent negative coverage towards political leaders and political issues – reinforce this concern.

It's only a concern for those who hold the faith that politics and government are responsible for human happiness. But in a world saturated with both politics and unhappiness, it's difficult not to imagine that there is some sort of correlation there.

So since Stewart is a Democrat, I've fulfilled my 2% positive quota for the year, and it's just about time to start ripping into the coming crop of presidential contenders of both parties. Let me be the first to dub them the "Seven Dwarves of the Apocalypse."

How's that for negativity?

Have a drink on me

MSNBC claims there's more than one way to eternal life:

Moderate drinking may lengthen your life, while too much may shorten it, researchers from Italy report. Their conclusion is based on pooled data from 34 large studies involving more than 1 million people and 94,000 deaths.

According to the data, drinking a moderate amount of alcohol — up to four drinks per day in men and two drinks per day in women — reduces the risk of death from any cause by roughly 18 percent, the team reports in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

BOTW quips that even drinking up to 4 drinks a day only promises 18% of the population immortality and that the other 82% of us will still die someday.

Luckily for those of us whose promise of eternal life will be fulfilled after the end of this one, Amos 9:13 says we can still enjoy a nightcap:

Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt.

Those who claim "in heaven there ain't no beer, that's why we drink it here" will just have to develop a more distinguishing palate on the other side, I guess.

You know, I learned something today

One of the cheesier parts of every episode of South Park (right behind Kenny's creative weekly demise) is when Stan tells us what he's learned. Whether or not he ever puts these lessons into action I don't know, but I do know the benefit of actually doing things and having them done to you is mostly lost if nothing is ever learned from them.

I just finished "Fiat Money Inflation in France," and I learned something today: there's going to come a time when I'm just going to shut up. It's not here yet (obviously) but the day will come. And there's a reason for it, spelled out by Professor White:

All this vast chapter in financial folly is sometimes referred to as if it resulted from the direct action of men utterly unskilled in finance. This is a grave error... [T]he men who had charge of French finance during the Reign of Terror...were universally recognized as among the most skillful and honest financiers in Europe.

Cambon, especially, ranked then and ranks now as among the most expert in any period. The disastrous results of all his courage and ability in the attempt to stand against the deluge of paper money show how powerless are the most skillful masters of finance to stem the tide of fiat money calamity when once it is fairly under headway; and how useless are all enactments which they can devise against the underlying laws of nature.

Once an inflation gets underway in earnest, and once the majority of people are convinced that the solution to their problems is more unbacked money issued by government, there is simply nothing more to be done. There is no stopping it; it must be ridden to the end, at which time - as it did in France and as it has in Germany and twice in America - the solution that is politically impossible to impose on a nation will be rediscovered by the citizenry naturally.

I do not seriously believe that any amount of argumentation or political agitation will cause the US to voluntarily give up its engine of inflation, the Federal Reserve. Though America has given up national banks voluntarily twice before (in 1811 and 1841) the current financial system is too ingrained not only in our economy but our habits, and there is no way a nation will accept voluntarily the pain that will arise as the scheme plays itself out. I only hope that enough people will understand the situation and act accordingly before it's too late.

So once the cries go up that there is simply not enough money in circulation for the economy to run, and once the government purposely decides to flood the nation with currency - and I certainly hope that day is a long way off - it will be time to start writing about gardening and canning, because there's another thing I learned:

The question will naturally be asked, "On whom did this vast depreciation mainly fall at last?" When this currency had sunk to about one three-hundredth part of its nominal value and, after that, to nothing, in whose hands was the bulk of it? The answer is simple. I shall give it in the exact words of that thoughtful historian from whom I have already quoted: “Before the end of the year 1795 the paper money was almost exclusively in the hands of the working classes, employees and men of small means, whose property was not large enough to invest in stores of goods or national lands. Financiers and men of large means were shrewd enough to put as much of their property as possible into objects of permanent value. The working classes had no such foresight or skill or means. On them finally came the great crushing weight of the loss."

When that happens the working classes, employees, and "men of small means" will of course be in no mood to banter intellectually about the virtues of honest money; they will be interested mostly in food. And when that's what they need, perhaps that's where my noise can be of some small utility.

But the big question that always comes up once one starts comparing our current inflation (going on 40 years in earnest but 80 total) is, "Why hasn't all this bad stuff already happened here? Our financial experts must be smarter than those of France and Germany and the American colonies, or the hyperinflation you squawk about would be well in our past."

And it's a good question, one I would answer in two parts:

The first part is that in each case where hyperinflation destroyed the livelihoods of a nation, it was government debt - and the desire to pay that government debt off in cheap money - that provided the driving force for hyperinflation. In America, we have reneged on out debt slowly by inflating our currency just a few percentage points a year. M3, the broadest measure of money, is increasing at an increasing rate (at 11% annually up from 4% 4 years ago) but has not yet reached the level of France or Germany's paper increase. Someday it might - especially when the government needs trillions to pay SocSec and Medicare promises - but as of today we are not there. Thank God.

The second part is based on a unique circumstance in history. The US emerged from WWII as the only real power in the free world, not only holding the most of the world's gold but its strongest currency, which was convertible into gold by other nations. This quasi-gold standard was not reneged upon until 1973, but in the meantime most of the world's other nations used the "good as gold" dollar to underpin their own fiat currencies and to trade. For reasons I've explained before they had an interest in keeping the dollar stronger than their own currencies which, combined with simple financial inertia, has resulted in the dollar remaining stronger than it would be if we were Mexico or Bulgaria. There has truly been a different set of rules for Americans and we have been beneficiaries of that double standard for 2 generations.

The reason I'm so concerned now is that both reasons appear to be ending simultaneously. First, our money supply is increasing exponentially and our debt burden may be reaching terminal levels. But secondly, as is apparent from the financial press over the past 5 years or so (a period in which the dollar has dropped 30% in value) other nations have developed sufficient wealth to be able to stand up against our abuse of the trust that arises from our position as the world's reserve currency.

That abuse, and the inevitable reaction, has never been more blatant than under the current administration and shows every sign of accellerating. So like the French we must eventually reach a tipping point. We will have to decide whether we will go broke honestly or whether we will simply print our way out of the mess. The day that decision is made - and I have no doubt the latter will be our answer because it is the politically expedient solution - is the day the discussion is over and it's time to start talking about the advantages of pressure canning versus open-boiler canning.

The Last Christmas Party

thus my great fear of being romantic in public

Whatcha looking for, Dr. Cornbeef? Buried Treasure?

Senator Sam shows once again why he's unworthy to be President:

WASHINGTON, Dec. 18 — Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, who blocked the confirmation of a woman to the federal bench because she attended a same-sex commitment ceremony for the daughter of her long-time neighbors, says he will now allow a vote on the nomination...

Mr. Brownback said that he believed Judge Neff’s attendance at the 2002 ceremony merited further investigation, but that he had not meant to set any precedent with his proposal. “It was the last day of the session and I was just trying to provide some accommodation to see if we could make this thing go forward,” he said.

He said that “this is a big hot-button issue” and that Judge Neff had not made it clear that her presence at the ceremony did not mean she could not rule without bias in deciding cases involving same-sex unions. “I’d like to know more factually about what took place,” he said.

So Senator Sam, after holding up a federal judge's nomination because she attended an extra-legal civil ceremony, in a private capacity, as a guest, has decided that such an attendance merits "further investigation" and that the fact that she apparently knows and loves some o' them homos means that she could not be an impartial judge in any case involving issues related to that.

Now normally, such inquisitions are the province of Democrats, who are more than willing to invade the private lives of judges in search of dirt with which to smear them (I remember something about a guy named Clarence Thomas one time, and one named Robert Bork), and Sam has clearly ridden his high horse into that that unholy country in this case. Questions about what a judge does in her private time, so long as it is not unlawful or harmful to her official capacity, deserve only one answer, if not from his colleages then from the judge herself: with all due respect, Senator, it's none of your damned business what went on there.

Somehow I doubt Congress will read to page 152

There's a report issued every year by the Treasury Department and the OMB known as the Fiscal Report of the United States Government, which lays out precisely what you would expect based on that title. The press covered it a bit - in between twitters about Britney Spears' missing underwear and Mary Cheney's pregnancy - affably noting that:

"WASHINGTON, Dec 15 (Reuters) - The U.S. government's net operating deficit for fiscal 2006 was nearly twice its cash deficit when certain owed but unpaid social obligations were taken into account, the Treasury said on Friday."

It's not really news that Bush's budget numbers are fake, just like nearly every other number issued by the administration, yet the press dutifully reported that this year's fake numbers are better than last year's fake numbers. However, the press uniformly missed the important number, which omission is not all that surprising I suppose.

For the next 2 years, el Presidente will be going in search of a legacy, some grand gift he can leave behind for the American people to remember him by. I suppose he hopes for a democratic Iraq, a peaceful Middle East, or some other goal that is as worthy as it is unattainable. But I suggest that this president's legacy is already written. It's on page 152, in the letter from the government's internal auditor, David Walker:

Despite improvement in both the fiscal year 2006 reported net operating cost and the cash-based budget deficit, the U.S. government’s total reported liabilities, net social insurance commitments, and other fiscal exposures continue to grow and now total approximately $50 trillion, representing approximately four times the Nation’s total output (GDP) in fiscal year 2006, up from about $20 trillion, or two times GDP in fiscal year 2000.

As this long-term fiscal imbalance continues to grow, the retirement of the “baby boom” generation is closer to becoming a reality with the first wave of boomers eligible for early retirement under Social Security in 2008. Given these and other factors, it seems clear that the nation’s current fiscal path is unsustainable and that tough choices by the President and the Congress are necessary in order to address the nation’s large and growing long-term fiscal imbalance.

The nation's "fiscal exposures," which is auditor-speak for the promises government has made, has increased $30 trillion dollars in Bush's 6 years. These are current-dollar figures, meaning that in order to fund the total promises outstanding, we would need $168,000 for every person in the country sitting in the bank earning interest TODAY in order to meet these promises, and 60% of that has been accrued under el Presidente's brand of Republican conservatism. That fiscal imbalance continues to grow at a rate of about $4 trillion a year, making it apparent that the dollar, and possibly the government with it, is doomed.

In 2 weeks, the retirement of the baby boomers will begin "next year," and from there, the horror of the full import of these numbers, these unkeepable promises that most of the nation is relying on to put food on the table and a roof over their heads, will only accelerate toward "today".

Now that's what I call a legacy.

Feminist Economics

I think it pretty funny that while the skit mocks the idea that women should have no input into serious issues, the woman's "educated position" (that a weak pound will keep exports competitive) is the very one that eventually results in destruction of the currency and universal poverty...

So you tell me, is it irony or not?

A preview in mirrorvision

Thailand illustrates a problem with no solution:

Dec. 19 (Bloomberg) -- The baht had the biggest two-day decline since April 2005 after Thailand yesterday required banks to lock up 30 percent of new currency deposits for a year to curb speculation. The stock index slumped the most in sixteen years.

The currency's 14 percent surge this year has elicited calls from exporters, including Thai Union Frozen Products Pcl, who say it's hurting their competitiveness. Thailand is seeking to deter short-term investors in stocks and bonds that are speculating on baht gains, the central bank said, as the economy accelerates after a Sept. 19 military coup...

It is instructive that a tiny, third-world nation in the midst of a military coup is instituting currency controls to keep its money from *rising* in value any further against the dollar at the same time we are instituting slow-motion currency controls to keep people from exporting our money as scrap metal.

The real reason Thailand wants to weaken its own currency is that it is an exporting nation and wants a weak currency to get a short-term trade advantage against other nations. Their currency naturally strengthens because exporing nations tend to grow wealthy over time.

The US is an importing nation, and importing nations tend to grow poor over time. Because we produce and save so little, the dollar naturally weakens on world markets. Even though we pretend to have a strong dollar policy, Paulson and Bernanke were sent to China this week to convince the Chinese to stop supporting the dollar and let it drop. They failed.

And that sets up in insoluble dilemma. Exporting nations like Singapore, Japan, and China do what they can to weaken their own currencies relative to ours so they can export to us. The US is trying to weaken our currency relative to theirs, because we think that is the only* way to manage our unsustainable trade and current account deficits. In short, all nations are trying to acheive a short-term trade advantage by gutting their own currencies, trying to see who can become worth the least, albeit in a controlled manner and in the short term.

But if something's value is constantly diluted in the short term it can't help but become worthless in the long term. The way global trade is "managed" by currency manipulation and short-sighted market distortion all but guarantees that most world currencies will eventually be worth nothing. For the average person, who may know nothing about trade or currencies, that's what's known as 'very very bad.'

* There is serious doubt as to whether a falling dollar will even solve the US's trade problems, due to the fact that we can't compete in manufacturing because we have no more manufacturing base. In short, it doesn't matter how expensive Thai electronics become compared to ours because we don't create any. Personally, I think the only solution is to crank domestic interest rates up to about 15%, making further borrowing impossible and making savings worthwhile. But as that would probably cause a depression (it would certainly create lower standards of living across the board, but those are coming anyway) we'll just have to see if the dollar drop solves the problem in the meantime.

You won't hear this on Dr. Phil

Wave goodbye to subprime mortgages

There will come a day unlike any other day,
an event unlike any other event and a crisis unlike any other crisis.
It will emerge out of nowhere at a time no one expects.
It will be an event that no one anticipates—a crisis that experts didn’t foresee.
It will be an exogenous event—a rogue wave.
-- Jim Puplava

The Mortgage Bankers Association keeps using that word. But I do not think it means what they think it means:

NEW YORK, Dec 13 (Reuters) - Late payments and new foreclosures on U.S. homes rose in the third quarter and are likely to grow as a massive wave of adjustable-rate mortgages reset at higher interest rates, the Mortgage Bankers Association said on Wednesday.

Delinquencies rose for all home loans, but most notably for adjustable loans to subprime borrowers who were already stretched before mortgage rates climbed, the industry trade group said in its quarterly National Delinquency Survey.

Still, the share of late payments and foreclosures will stay relatively low as the housing market regains its footing in the middle of next year and have a limited impact on the overall economy, the MBA said.

"Only 7 percent of all loans out there are subprime adjustable loans. We're talking about a 12 percent delinquency rate on 7 percent of all home mortgages and the foreclosure rate is much lower than that," said MBA Chief Economist Doug Duncan.

Rule number one when reading economic commentary: understand who signs the paychecks. While the mortgage bankers' raw numbers about mortgages are likely to be better than anyone else's, predictions by their shills about the future of the housing market or the economy overall are to be understood as the wishes of the organization, and not necessarily as objective conclusions.

But be that as it may, the 12%-of-7% delinquency rate is not dangerous because it's high presently (though it is increasing at a dangerous rate). It's dangerous because that 7% represents a specific market (subprime mortgages) with a very specific class of debt assets (subprime MBSs) upon which are built a buttload of derivatives. And it's dangerous because due to the specific nature of the group, the other 88% of that 7% are likely to have the same problems as we move forward. And even the mortgage bankers understand the wave is still coming.

We had a discussion about subprime loans a few years ago on one of the Lawrence.com boards (I'd link it but I can't find it). As was often the case, one side thought it was just wonderful that the government was making it possible for the poor to own their own homes. That side was not just liberals - conservatives also believe that getting someone a house magically turns them into Ward and June Cleaver - but it was the liberals who were adamant that anyone who was not willing to bend reality to give the poor something they had not earned was motivated solely by hatred of poor people.

My side argued that putting someone into a home on a no-down, adjustable-rate mortgage in a market where prices are as high as they've ever been is not just stupid, it's wicked, because there can be no other result other than that the person will lose the home. Rates must eventually go up, because they were at unsustainable 40-year lows, and ARMs will follow that rise mercilessly. That person's credit will likely be destroyed by a foreclosure. They will likely walk away with an additional debt burden because very little principal is paid at the beginning of the loan period and selling homes costs 6-7% even when you can get back the price you originally paid. In short, artificially lowering the standards just sets up marginal buyers for future failure, because if they could truly afford to buy and keep a home, they would have already done so.

But I missed the paramount danger, which was not that someone who's today in a home owned by the bank will live tomorrow in a home owned by a landlord. It's what happens when lots and lots of similarly-classed people are forced from their mortgaged homes in a very short period. In other words, the true danger in the housing market is not that 1% or 2% of people can't pay their bills, it's that an entire class of assets, upon which trillions of dollars in other assets is suspended, has created a massive and potentially disasterous undercurrent that all manner of do-gooders did not foresee.

And that, my friends, is where rogue waves come from.

I'm pretty sure I've just witnessed a conspiracy

My daughter sang a solo tonight with a country band called the Locash Cowboys (you might guess that's them on the right). And as far as country bands go, they were very country. I suppose that's good...the crowd seemed to like it quite a bit and I must admit that as entertainers they were above average, even amusing. They seemed the kind of guys I'd like to have a beer with so long as I kept them away from the jukebox. And they sure seemed to be having more fun on stage than Roberto Alagna.

But here's the deal. When I found out Jaley had a "performance" tonight, I hurried into town, took Nick to Chinese (Jaley had already eaten), and then got Jaley to the theatre. Tickets are $20. What? My kid's singing! Fine, here's $20, I hope this is a pretty good show, whatever it is. Curtain comes up, bells are ringing, children singing. Jaley goes into her solo, "Santa Claus is coming to town." Not the song, the sentence. Then after 4 songs all the kids leave and it's a regular country music concert. I hate country. Hate it.

So I'm pretty convinced that Jaley was invited to sing not because she's good (she's bloody fantastic) but because country music people know I hate it and not only want to torment me with it, but they want me to pay for it as well. Nashville was bad enough, but right here in Fort Scott? Is there no escape?

History is depressing

I'm working my way through a little book that I never knew existed before today, "Fiat Money Inflation in France" by Andrew Dickson White, a well-respected history professor and former president of Princeton to boot. The tract (it's a little over 50 pages once I transferred the Gutenberg version to Word and cleaned it up) was completed in 1912 from materials the author collected following the Civil War and used in his history classes for decades. It tells the story of how paper money was introduced into France following the French Revolution and the way in which that paper currency caused the most wretched effects across all levels of society, with the middle class and the poor being completely destroyed, and the nation descending into terror and virtual barbarism until Napoleon arose.

What's more than a little depressing is reading helplessly as the French national assembly, which was composed immediately after the revolution of many very intelligent and able men (this is before the Jacobin hijacking and purges) take steps toward a paper currency, knowing full well the dangers, composing reasonable measures to alleviate those dangers, and then convincing themselves that the laws of nature and economics did not apply to them when the temptation came around to print just a little more, then a little more. The French, who took 70 years to recover from their first experiment with unbacked paper money, convinced themselves that they knew better this time. It turns out they didn't.

But what I find most depressing is not the author's understanding of the economic consequences, but the moral ones. And as I'm thinking about Senator Sam's bluenosed voyeurism or GWB's incessant calls for government to save the family, marriage, and the poor, I see from history that the government is absolutely powerless to fix those things because it is the government that is ultimately causing the problems to flourish in society. Not by national legislation or programs, but by the inexorable workings of moral law, as noted by Madison* at the end of the 18th century and by Keynes at the start of the 20th^. Because honest money is a moral issue, ignoring it - cheating as it were - will have moral consequences no matter what else the government does to suppress the forces they have loosed.

White notes the moral problems that arose in the French economy thus:

Out of the inflation of prices grew a speculating class; and, in the complete uncertainty as to the future, all business became a game of chance, and all business men, gamblers. In city centers came a quick growth of stock-jobbers and speculators; and these set a debasing fashion in business which spread to the remotest parts of the country.

Dd we not see this today in America where a significant part of our economy (known as financial services) is dedicated solely to the manipulation of pieces of paper? We have built a pyramid of derivatives larger than all the good created in the entire world. Half of all new mortgages are on properties the owner is buying only to sell to a greater fool. Americans bet their life savings - what little they have - on margined stocks and bonds and yet cannot distinguish between the two.

Instead of satisfaction with legitimate profits, came a passion for inordinate gains. Then, too, as values became more and more uncertain, there was no longer any motive for care or economy, but every motive for immediate expenditure and present enjoyment. So came upon the nation the obliteration of thrift.

Our companies are as short-sighted as they are profligate, manipulating both financial statements and markets for immediate gain regardless of long-term damage. So is our government, lying about budgets, and manipulating and "seasonally adjusting" unpleasant numbers to the point that no person can rely on them for anything. And as individuals we are no better: "the obliteration of thrift" might as well be our national motto.

In this mania for yielding to present enjoyment rather than providing for future comfort were the seeds of new growths of wretchedness: luxury, senseless and extravagant, set in: this, too, spread as a fashion. To feed it, there came cheatery in the nation at large and corruption among officials and persons holding trusts.

Like I even need a comment on this one. (cough...Congress...cough)

While men set such fashions in private and official business, women set fashions of extravagance in dress and living that added to the incentives to corruption. Faith in moral considerations, or even in good impulses, yielded to general distrust. National honor was thought a fiction cherished only by hypocrites. Patriotism was eaten out by cynicism.

When money has no value, the value of everything else is eaten away eventually, especially those things that the Republican conservatives want so badly to use the government to shore up..

Thus was the history of France logically developed in obedience to natural laws; such has, to a greater or less degree, always been the result of irredeemable paper...

Such, we may fairly expect, will always be the result of them...

It's no coincidence that the things conservatives are most outraged about today are those things which came about in France with the proliferation of unbacked paper money and the heady years that followed.

They have occurred slowly in America, but as the pace of debt and manipulation and speculation arises with the volume of our money, so are the very problems conservatives are trying to fight. And yet is never occurs to them to attack the root cause of those problems in society: the government's own over-issuance of unbacked paper money and credit.

Ironically, consevatives are themselves the worst abusers, and GWB's fiscal policies are creating and exascerbating many of the same problems his myriad programs are designed to alleviate. Like a race pimp 'fights' racism while aggravating racial tensions, so the conservatives 'fight' social decay.

That might be the most depressing lesson of all.

* The loss which America has sustained since the peace, from the pestilent effects of paper money on the necessary confidence between man and man, on the necessary confidence in the public councils, on the industry and morals of the people, and on the character of republican government, constitutes an enormous debt against the States...which can be expiated no otherwise than by a voluntary sacrifice on the altar of justice, of the power which has been the instrument of it.. - Federalist 44, 1789

^ "Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer way to overturn existing society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the economic forces on the side of destruction which not one man in a million is able to diagnose." - John Maynard Keynes, "Economic Consequences of the Peace," 1919

Like a Martian invasion, only funnier

A Belgian Orson Welles presents news from the near future:

Belgians reacted with widespread alarm to news that their country had been split in two - before finding out they had been spoofed.

The Belgian public television station RTBF ran a bogus report saying the Dutch-speaking half of the nation had declared independence...

The broadcast came amid an apparent growth of separatist sentiment in Flanders...

"Our intention was to show Belgian viewers the intensity of the issue of the future of Belgium and the real possibility of Belgium no longer being a country in a few months," Yves Thiran, head of news at RTBF, told the BBC.

Devolution continues apace, and I wonder if the arising of new, monocultural nations to replace another multicultural one will even make the news in the States. After all, how could that possibly affect us?

And I'd bet fewer Americans can find Belgium on a map than have seen Britney Spears' c-section scar. Not that it matters, since Belgium probably won't be on there much longer anyway.

Another mile marker on the road to economic hell

Long-term readers will understand why I have expected this sign to go rushing by for a long time:

Given rising metal prices, the pennies and nickels in your pocket are worth more melted down than their face value -- and that has the government worried.

U.S. Mint officials said Wednesday they were putting into place rules prohibiting the melting down of 1-cent and 5-cent coins. The rules also limit the number of coins that can be shipped out of the country.

"We are taking this action because the nation needs its coinage for commerce. We don't want to see our pennies and nickels melted down so a few individuals can take advantage* of the American taxpayer," Mint Director Edmund Moy said in a statement.

The US Mint is either feeling some heat or feeling its oats lately and I'm really not sure which. It's only been a month or two since they declared possession of the Liberty Dollar illegal, and today they are asserting that your money is really their money, and if you do anything to their money they don't approve of, they'll throw you in jail for 5 years.

It's not quite that simple of course, because these royal-sounding proclamations are interim rules (not laws) that have to go through a public comment period, then they may be modified before they can be codified, and finally the Mint must try to enforce them on someone worth prosecuting (not always an easy thing to find). And what often happens is that these things are announced so everyone "knows" it's against the law but the law never really goes into effect anyway.

But it will wait "out there" until it becomes a necessary part of some President's program to deal with monetary crisis, that is. We already have rules in place about exporting (or even just carrying) cash, and now we'll have rules about exporting coins. When the crisis gets going in earnest, wire transfers in or out will be banned and companies and people will have to convert currency at a government-established rate at a government-run kiosk at the airport. In short, the dollar will eventually be cut off from currency markets so it can keep some semblance of value, much like the old Soviet ruble. This is not pessimism speaking, it's simply what happens when a nation creates too much unbacked money and credit. Eventually the government must create laws to keep people from reacting rationally to the government's short-sighted idiocy, but it doesn't keep the idiocy from ending badly. Ever.

The rational reaction to government monetary malfeasance is simply to refuse to spend money with a higher actual value than its face value; Gresham's Law and all that. And as millions of Americans proved with contraband gold coins, there is no way for government to keep people from simply hoarding these tokens that accidentally became real money - they disappear from circulation and we get even-more-worthless aluminum coins to take their place like they have in Vietnam and eastern Europe, and for the same reason.

* And he's right, of course. If "a few individuals" want to take advantage of the American taxpayer, they should have to buy a Congressman like everyone else.

UPDATE: Mish asks a great question: "Right now, a nickel is the closest thing to "Honest Money" we have. We are in the ironic situation where the value of the dollar is falling but the value of a nickel is rising. In what time frame will the current (and probably soon to be confiscated) nickel be worth more than a dollar?"

That's not how I remember it being taught

The True Test

The Guardian gets its randomly-mutated and naturally-selected knickers in a bundle over a little-known theory:

Proponents of ID claim that it is a viable scientific alternative to Darwinism. As such, they say, it deserves a place alongside Darwin in science lessons.

Who could argue with that? Darwin's theory has been around for nearly 150 years and has survived many challenges. Why not throw in ID too? Isn't education all about exposing children to ideas and letting them make up their own minds, not force-feeding them dogma?

...By framing the debate in this way, the creationists - and, yes, they are creationists - have pulled off an impressive rhetorical coup. They have cast the scientists as dogmatic, reactionary and even fundamentalist aggressors who would deny school pupils the chance to hear all sides of the debate.

Let me interrupt just a moment to point out an obvious (and as obviously ignored) truth: the public and political reaction to ID is so visceral and over-the-top because Darwin's mouthpieces are dogmatic*, reactionary and even fundamentalist aggressors who would deny school pupils the chance to hear all sides of the debate. One only need listen to the shrillness and overwhelming force (especially among high school teachers, education bureaucrats, religious liberals, and similar non-scientists) with which any ID proposal is met to realize we are dealing with a subject of the heart rather than the brain. I can't think of another area of science which even comes close to the emotional fervor with which Darwin is shielded from even the slightest public criticism, and in the area of politics only MLK2 comes close. What? Oh, sorry, carry on:

In reality, ID is not a new idea at all, but one that goes back to Descartes and beyond. The Christian philosopher William Paley, in 1802, asked his readers to imagine finding a watch while walking on a heath...

In reality, this debate is not centuries old, but millennia, and Paley's argument was not original, but was stolen wholesale from Cicero's On the Nature of the Gods. Marcus Tullius Cicero was of course a very famous Christian fundamentalist, so perhaps he ought to be ignored (he certainly has not been answered). The Guardian's science editor should know better, unless he's purposely trying to make the argument from design uniquely Christian rather than the pagan one it originated as. Then he's just being dishonest.

It is true that complex things in nature look as if they have been designed.

Well, there is that, yes, but here's the real point:

(U)nlike Darwinism, the pseudo-science of ID can never be disproved. Show the creationists how the bacterial tail evolved and they will shift their argument to another complex structure which supposedly shows the hand of the creator. There is no evidence that could in principle disprove ID, so by definition it is not science.

Let me be the first to say that I agree that ID is not science and that creationism is not science. It's not even an argument, they are simply not. However, I would like just once for a person who defends Darwin to explain to me (and type slowly, because I'm not very bright) a single way to disprove Darwinism. Seriously. If Darwinism is science, is there evidence that could disprove it? What is it and where should we look for it? Can we fashion a test that would show the theory to be false? What would such a test entail? Can we hold Darwinism to precisely the same standard of science that is explained above?

I have never seen such; in fact, I've never even seen an attempt. And the reason I have never seen it is that Darwinism is not science, either. Darwinism, like Creationism and ID, is a paradigm of history within which evidence is interpreted. It is a story about unique events that happened in the past, and a story that begins "Millions of years ago..." is no different in principle than one that begins "Fourscore and seven years ago...". They are both history undergirding philosophy; neither is science. When a 'scientist' talks about the unique events that formed the universe, he is not doing anything different than the historian who talks about the unique events that formed the United States, with one exception: the evidence is orders of magnitudes better for the latter.

The great evolutionist political advantage, of course, is the ease with which evolution can be confused with real science - sometimes evolutionists even dress in lab coats to get the point across - and evolutionists loudly proclaim that if we don't teach our kids evolution (and only evolution) they'll rely on newspaper horoscopes to know the future and no one will remember how to design digital watches. The fatal flaw in their uber-plan is that they insist on teaching evolution in the public schools, which pretty much explains why relatively few people believe in it, and even those who do neither understand it nor can explain it, even though they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.

* [E]volutionists are obsessed by Christianity and Creationism, with which they imagine themselves to be in mortal combat. This is peculiar to them. Note that other sciences, such as astronomy and geology, even archaeology, are equally threatened by the notion that the world was created in 4004 BC. Astronomers pay not the slightest attention to creationist ideas. Nobody does—except evolutionists. We are dealing with competing religions—overarching explanations of origin and destiny. Thus the fury of their response to skepticism.
-- Fred Reed

If you don't post this quiz, the terrorists win

Your 'Do You Want the Terrorists to Win' Score: 66%

You, sir or ma'am, are more than half terrorist sympathizer. Your ill-will toward America can barely be concealed, and has now been uncovered by this quiz. Your love of America and of her dear leader, President Bush, is clearly approaching treasonously low levels. But it's not too late for you. Shut yourself out from all liberal influence, listen only to Sean Hannity, read only Ann Coulter, and above all stop questioning! Questioning only gets our troops killed in their noble battle against the forces of evil that besiege our great land!

Do You Want the Terrorists to Win?
Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

It makes them feel incredible

England gets serious about job training for teens:

A Northumberland fitness instructor has defended plans to teach children as young as 12 how to pole dance.

Laraine Riddell will start classes in the New Year at a gym in Choppington, in which boys and girls will be taught to spin up and down on a pole.

Ms Riddell insists the classes are nothing but good exercise for children who are at risk of obesity...

Chris Rock once joked that since fathers don't get report cards, the measurement of whether he did his job is if he kept his daughters off the pole. I'm not sure I agree, since I've always been a believer that adult children are responsible for themselves, but the point is well-taken. Even though there's usually economic necessity involved, it's certainly not the kind of thing fathers aspire to for our children. Even if they're fat.

As Spengler points out in a far more serious piece, the selling of women is indicative of a society on the verge of collapse, usually geopolitically, nearly always demographically, and there's no doubt in my mind that how a society treats its women is a bellweather of the health of that society. When women are valued and protected, society thrives. When they are cut loose to fend for themselves, that political liberation is usually accompanied by the proliferation of poles and the collapse of demographics. America has been pursuing the latter course in earnest since the middle of the last century, but we're still decades behind Europe. Even so, it'll eventually be American high school seniors who aspire to be hard-currency prostitutes* for all the rich Chinese, just like today's Ukranian and Russian beauties who want to be that for rich Americans.

Vox noted an article today in the Telegraph that revealed a familiar statistic. Like Mexico, nearly one in 10 citizens of the UK is now an expat. While Britain has undergone incredible immigration from the Middle East and Africa, it has at the same time been shelling out its own citizens to North America and Asia at an astounding rate.

I can't help but think that all these seemingly unrelated stories share a common pole, er, thread. But since I'm naturally an optimist about the future of Western Culture, I can't talk about what it is.

* "In the economic chaos after the fall of communism, one poll found that the most sought-after career choice among Russian female students was that of hard currency prostitute...The London-based Poppy Project - which provides a refuge for trafficked women - estimates that 80 per cent of female prostitutes now working in London flats, massage parlours and saunas are foreign. A high proportion are from Eastern Europe..." - Telegraph

Don't know Shiite

The gavel falls into the hands of America's stupidest children:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Rep. Silvestre Reyes of Texas, who incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has tapped to head the Intelligence Committee when the Democrats take over in January, failed a quiz of basic questions about al Qaeda and Hezbollah, two of the key terrorist organizations the intelligence community has focused on since the September 11, 2001 attacks.

When asked by CQ National Security Editor Jeff Stein whether al Qaeda is one or the other of the two major branches of Islam -- Sunni or Shiite -- Reyes answered "they are probably both," then ventured "Predominantly -- probably Shiite."

That is wrong. Al Qaeda was founded by Osama bin Laden as a Sunni organization and views Shiites as heretics.

Reyes could also not answer questions put by Stein about Hezbollah, a Shiite group on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations that is based in Southern Lebanon.

Not that this will really surprise anyone. Since we've got members of the House Banking Committee who think the dollar is still backed by gold, and since we pass legislation that a majority of the body doing the passing has not even read, why shouldn't we have a Chairman of the committee overseeing intelligence agencies that doesn't know the basics about the threats those agencies are focusing on?

It's maddening, but at the same time strangely comforting. I mean look at it this way: the only thing more frightening than an expensive and incompetent government is an expensive and effective one that insists on giving you every dollar's worth.

Better hope it bounces again

Hide your Children

Suffer the Children

Amanda Marcotte once again proves that math is so hard, it's best to just ignore it and move on:

What about all those kids in foster care that nobody wants?

...The callousness of anti-choicers towards abandoned children is legendary and gives lie to their whole notion that they are in this because they love babies. (Serrin Foster of Feminists for Life), as you can imagine, dodges the question:

• Many of the children waiting to be adopted are waiting because of legal processes, not a lack of loving homes. There are two million pre-approved American couples awaiting adoption. Two million women want to be mothers right now, and many of them want more than one child, as well as wanting children with special needs.

According to people who aren’t lying to you for sleazy anti-woman reasons, this isn’t true at all. It’s true that there are a lot of couples out there looking to adopt, but the idea that it’s strictly a numbers game is easily disproven. Turns out that quite a few of those two million couples go wanting because they have very exacting standards about what their child must be like—and the biggies are healthy and white.

Rather than "isn't true at all," both of Serrin Foster's points are right on. The number of couples waiting to adopt is generally estimated in the 1-2 million ballpark - even Amanda doesn't argue with that, she just writes it off - and many kids (especially foster kids) are tied up in the court system.

But let's say Amanda's correct that these 2 million couples want only white kids. According to her own numbers there are some 50,000 white foster kids waiting to be adopted, one for every 40 couples. So why haven't at least those kids been adopted?

Well, I'll tell you, and by way of introduction let me just say this: I'm a foster dad (4 foster kids presently in addition to three of my own who are still at home) who has adopted one child and is in the process of adopting a second, one of the 4. A close relative is a foster mom who has adopted two (and is working on a third). So I do know a little bit about the legal process foster kids go through to get adopted. And that process, while ostensibly for the good of the kids, is brutal to them.

My soon-to-be daughter (let's call her Kimberly) is 5 years old and has been in foster care since she was 2 because of neglect issues. Though she has not had a parental visit with her mother in three years or with her father in two, she is still not eligible to be adopted because her parents' rights have not been terminated by the courts. There's no hangup with her case, they simply have not gotten around to it. There's a hearing in February and maybe it'll happen then, if the Cherokee (did I mention she's part Indian?) courts do not intervene. Then once the state courts are finished, we'll go through the tribal courts, then we have to wait a legally-mandated 6 months (she's already been with us for more than a year) then we go back to the state courts and maybe adopt. So a toddler who was taken into custody in 2003 may get adopted by 2008, even though her parents have failed to make even token attempts to re-gain her.

Kimberly has 7 siblings in foster care or who have been adopted. One, a half-sister who is 17 and has been in foster care for 8 years, will never be adopted because the courts insisted that she could not be unless the prospective couple simultaneously adopted a brother (now 14) in order to "preserve the family." Sister and brother don't live together - in fact they don't live within 200 miles of each other. But the court has buggered them around for nearly a decade, denying each a family in the name of preserving a family that they have simultaneously removed 3 more children from. The sister will age out of the system before any adoption, even if started today, could legally go through. And who wants to adopt an adult, anyway?

My close relative had a sibling group of 5 that she was planning to adopt. However, rather suddenly the state courts took the kids out of her home and sent them home to (unmarried drug-using) mom. 6 months later they are back in foster care - no surprise there - and my sister won't adopt them now because in the meantime she adopted the others I mention above, had one more of her own, and has another foster infant already. Maybe the state can find another couple looking to become 5-time parents all at once. Good luck.

My three other foster kids recently had a hearing (after being in my care more than 6 months - the time which by law they should have had a permanent re-integrate/adopt decision) and they were last on the docket. The judge got a headache from trying to figure out the paternity of a semi-related case (4 cousins taken into custody at the same time) so he continued the case 4 months. No resolution, no change, just 4 more months that a 5, 3, and 2-year-old were going to be denied permanent placement, either at home or with an adoptive couple. Apparently the court system has never heard of Tylenol.

Every one of those kids (with the exception of the one mixed-Cherokee we're adopting) is as white as Pat Boone. And every one of them is healthy. Every one of them is a prime candidate (according to Amanda's gossamer diatribe) for adoption by millions of fussy couples. So why are they still in foster care? There is no reason other than that the snail's pace the courts set make it nearly impossible for them to be placed quickly, before family arrangements change or before the kids are too old to fit into families that want young kids - and young kids are *precisely* the kind of kids Feminists for Life is talking about - but aren't looking to adopt multiple teenagers.

Rather than being the "callousness of the anti-choicers toward abandoned children" (which rather than being "legendary" is probably better described as "mythical") the major impediment to getting kids adopted is the court system (and I include state agencies that feed the cases to the courts) that can't find the time to move them out before they reach a point that adopting them becomes impossible.

Of course, since Amanda puts herself in that noble group that "actually doesn't want children to suffer," and excludes us nasty multiple-adopting pro-lifers from it, let me ask this: how many children who are already suffering do you suppose she herself has suffered a little to help?

Pardon my rant, and let me offer a bit of advice: when there appears to be nothing in the world to blog about, never, ever, go looking for material in a place that features weekly pictures of cats that serve as the children the author claims to be an expert about.