Tom Holsinger wrote at 4.22.2007 7:04pm:

Safety has nothing to do with it. Dean Trachtenberg's only
objective is to make a political statement.

While I agree with your point, I think something more underlies these silly rituals. What makes these ritual bannings of depictions or imitations of real weapons politically effective (among those for whom they are effective) is a very primitive human thought process: belief in sympathetic magic.

The actual object, the weapon, is imbued with magical power. Its very presence magically causes harm. It causes people to behave in evil ways. The rationale commonly offered is that the mere presence of a weapon makes people more prone to violence.

Sympathetic magic is the belief that what one does with an imitation of the thing with magical power will affect the actual thing. For example, in a magical religious context we see the image of a deity addressed, or given gifts or sacrifices. The magical deity is affected through the treatment of its image, and so performs its magic for the one who gives the image a gift.

In the imitation weapon banning context we have first the belief that the object, the actual weapon, is magic and causes those in its presence to behave in an evil manner. The sympathetic magical belief is that by banning the image or the imitation weapon, the magical power of real weapons to cause people to be violent will be lessened, or the real weapons will stay away from the presence of the faithful.

Labels: guns, moonbats

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Reducing the carbon buttprint

Whole Lotta Rosie is horrified at the suggestion:

The answer, presumably, is no -- but Rosie made her point, pooh-poohing Sheryl Crow for suggesting that we all use just one square of toilet paper per trip to the loo.

Crow made her comments on her blog last week, and Rosie took a moment on this morning's "The View" to express her incredulity at the supposedly enviro-friendly suggestion. "Have you seen my ass?!" bellowed Rosie...

Funny, I hadn't realized it was missing.

Butt it's pretty much par for the course for a singer who hauls her entourage across the world several times a year to suggest that everyone else can save the planet by not wiping up their messes.

UPDATE: The Huffington Post inadvertently proves Karl Rove is concerned about his environment:

In his attempt to dismiss us, Mr. Rove turned to head toward his table, but as soon as he did so, Sheryl reached out to touch his arm. Karl swung around and spat, "Don't touch me." How hardened and removed from reality must a person be to refuse to be touched by Sheryl Crow?

Given Ms. Crow's publicly-stated restroom propensities, count me as one who doesn't want her touching me either.

Labels: environmentalism, moonbats

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The Lord is a Jealous God

Bible Study for Atheists takes on God's dislike of skyscrapers:

Ah, the Tower of Babel story.

I could see how this could be a reasonable message — if God had made it clear that there was a right way and a wrong way to get to Heaven, that you had to earn it through good deeds. But God doesn't seem to have provided any kind of guidance beyond don't kill each other, and he's been a piss-poor role model, with his barely justified and outrageously excessive punishments.

It seems that the people who built the tower were demonstrating a healthy desire for togetherness and an impressive aptitude for teamwork.

God, in what seems to be a continuing theme, is jealous of man's ascent, and he decides to fuck us up by making it harder for us to communicate with each other and by breaking up a happily tight-knit culture.

This holiday season, if you're shopping for a God, see if you can find one who wants man to aspire to the greatest heights possible, not an insecure one bent on cutting us down.

There seem to be three issues to be addressed here. The first is whether Babel was about "getting to heaven" at all. This, of course, is another area where the modern reading is going to mislead us unless we understand the history behind it.

In VL's defense, it does appear on first reading that such was the purpose of the tower, as Gen 11:4 states the builders' intentions thus: "And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth."

It's a two part motivation, to build a tower to Heaven and to make a name to avoid scattering. The first as I've noted before (though the post seems to have disappeared) is that the purpose of the tower was not to physically build a stairway to Heaven. As they had just left the mountains, we are asked to believe that the ancients could not have figured out that to be successful, their tower would have to be higher than mountains, at least. They were not so stupid (or if they were, one must wonder how they ever managed to make bricks, much less pile them up in a way that did not fall down on their own). Middle Eastern Ziggurats often held astronomical observatories on top, and this tower had literally (by which I mean excluding the italicized words added by the translators) a "top unto Heaven." In other words, it was made for the study of (or given the polytheistic proclivities of the ancient near easterners, the worship of) stars and planets.

But it is the second motivitaion that is truly the problem, to make a name for themselves to prevent their scattering. That was, of course, in direct defiance of God's prior command in Gen 9:1 to "fill the earth." By actively working to avoid the scattering that God commanded, they were defying what (admittedly little) guidance God had given*.

So the second question that must be addressed is, was this a "barely justified and outrageously excessive" punishment? If God said "fill" and they said "no," was it outrageously excessive to muck up their languages so they had to? I'll let the reader decide.

The third issue is whether it was because God was jealous of man's cooperation or for another reason that this specific judgment came? I'll mention only briefly that the ancients did not consider it a happily-knit culture at all, but that Nimrod, the organizer of the building, "also gradually changed the government into tyranny, seeing no other way of turning men from the fear of God, but to bring them into a constant dependence on his power." (Antiquities I/4/1). and the reason I'll only mention it briefly is that I can't vouch for Josephus here, I can only say that the ancients did not consider Babel a happy place. That's a modern assumption.

But is there another reason? I think so, and we can see it in our own nation. Here we call it "separation of powers," (and we worry about excessive executive power and totalitarianism and dictatorship) and it's one of the reasons most Americans get the willies when people talk about one-world government. If that government becomes corrupt, to where can the persecuted flee? Paul much later tells the Greeks of Athens that God "has made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined ... the boundaries of their habitation so they can seek the Lord." (Acts 17:26-7). In other words, division into nations is designed to protect people from tyranny and to preserve their religious freedom.

So in retrospect, it appears that rather than God acting in a fit of jealousy because he couldn't build a tower as cool as Babel, he acted to protect the long-term survival and freedom of mankind by dividing power on the earth among many nations. The confusion of languages, rather than being an excessive punishment, was the least painful way to accomplish that purpose.

* It appears that no matter how many or few commands God gives, men will still ignore them.

Labels: bible

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Tragedy or justice?

In the face of speciesist oppression, one group of reptiles dares to fight back:

BEIJING, China (AP) -- A crocodile shot to death in south China during a search for a missing 9-year-old student was found to contain the child's remains, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

The crocodile was shot Saturday in a park in Beihai, a city in the Guangxi region, by investigators looking for the missing child. Investigators confirmed that human remains found in the reptile were that of the student, the report said.

The child, surnamed Liu, disappeared Friday after Liu and three other children climbed over the fence around a pool in the park that had been used to stage crocodile shows, Xinhua said.

"The children shot the animals with catapults and beat them with wooden sticks," the agency said. "One of the irritated crocodiles bit Liu's clothes and dragged him into water, where he was eaten by a swarm of crocodiles."

I didn't shed any tears over the Croc Hunter's demise; "if you play with fire" and all that. Nor do I do anything but laugh at the demise of those who voluntarily swim with killer whales. I wouldn't even find it particularly tragic if the fellow in the picture above was turned upon and eaten.

But while there is a particular irony in 4th graders who attack crocodiles with catapults or beat them with sticks getting hauled off and eaten, I'm not sure if that qualifies as justice or tragedy.

Maybe I just have a soft heart?

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Oh-oh, it's a theocracy

I have to laugh at the hypocrisy of so-called "moderates" who act as if the separation of church and state only applies to white social conservatives who, for the protection of our fragile democracy, must not be allowed to address the issues of the day* from the pulpit. You'll hear from them nary a word about black preachers who endorse candidates from the pulpit, who engage in blatant politicking, who even run for President**.

I'm not sure if "moderate" reticence to apply the same standards to the left that they do to the right is due to the fact that they are merely partisans who don't find the religious left threatening*** or if they are simply afraid to criticize black preachers lest they be Imussed before an amused nation. Maybe it's a combination of both.

(hat tip: Snoop)

* "Religious groups, particularly the Catholic Church, are likely to be the bill’s most outspoken opponents. It should be clear that these religious institutions have the right to refuse to marry anyone within their own religious houses. But they should not be allowed to dictate who can and cannot be married by the state." - New York Times, 4/24/07

** Does anyone remember Rev. Jackson being accused of endangering the separation of church and state by running for President the way Rev. Robertson was?

*** More likely they find it useful.

UPDATE: Yes, I'll criticize this pastor. What he's doing is not a violation of church and state, it's an abuse of his authority as a man of the cloth which is immeasurably more serious. To spend time behind the pulpit telling his congregation how they should vote is an affront to the God that he's supposed to be representing there. It is trading spiritual authority for worldly power - a trade that Jesus never made and told us never to make - and undermining the very Gospel that Jesus taught. It's obvious this man is bought a paid for: a willing slave, if you will, to the Clinton political machine, who is begging his fellow Christians to join him in his servitude to fleeting worldly aspirations. I truly hope his reward is worth it: it is an honest politician who stays bought. That must be worth something.

And exactly the same goes for any other pastor, white or black, conservative or liberal, who makes the same tradeoff.

FYI, I'm on the road for the next few days, so posting may be light.

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Didn't we just have this post?

Oh, that was New Jersey. This is Texas:

April 19 (Bloomberg) -- Texas owes state workers $50 billion in future retirement benefits and refuses to acknowledge the obligation.

Texas Comptroller Susan Combs says she won't follow a new national accounting standard that requires states and cities to disclose the estimated costs of benefits promised to retired workers, such as health care and life insurance. The government would need to set aside $4 billion a year over the next decade to keep from falling short on what it owes, according to a report by the state's Legislative Budget Board...

"If they don't report it, they don't have to do anything about it,'' said Michael H. Granof, Ernst & Young professor of accounting at the University of Texas in Austin. "It's much easier to just push it off to the next generation.''

I hope for their sakes the next generation cares more about them than they appear to care about the next generation.

Labels: economy, politics

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Ancient knowledge can be yours

So long as you're not too fussy about whether it's true.

Ignatius Donnelly explains how we know the Irish came form Atlantis:

The Book of Genesis (chap. x.) gives us the descendants of Noah's three sons...The Irish annals take up the genealogy of Magog's family where the Bible leaves it. The Book of Invasions, the "Cin of Drom-Snechta," claims that these Scythians were the Phœnicians; and we are told that a branch of this family were driven out of Egypt in the time of Moses: "He wandered through Africa for forty-two years, and passed by the lake of Salivæ to the altars of the Philistines, and between Rusicada and the mountains Azure, and he came by the river Monlon, and by the sea to the Pillars of Hercules, and through the Tuscan sea, and he made for Spain, and dwelt there many years, and he increased and multiplied, and his people were multiplied."

From all these facts it appears that the population of Ireland came from the West, and not from Asia--that it was one of the many waves of population flowing out from the Island of Atlantis - and herein we find the explanation of that problem which has puzzled the Aryan scholars...

I didn't realize they spoke Gaelic in Atlantis, but who can argue with that proof? I suspect, however, the reason the above has puzzled the Aryan scholars has less to do with the Irish not sharing the double-secret location of Atlantis than with modern misidentification of the locations the Irish did leave us.

The itinerary above, from Egypt to Spain (and thence to Ireland) appears not in the Cin of Drom Snechta (which has been lost by all accounts), but in Nennius Chapter 15 and in modified form* in Geoffrey of Monmouth, Chapter 11. Looking at each of the locations in isolation will allow us to draw a pretty good map. Somehow Atlantis doesn't make the list:

The company leaves Egypt and reaches the lake of Salinae (latin: lacum salinarum, or lake of salt mines). These are the north African salt lagoons that still exist today - they run much of the length of the south Mediterranean shoreline - and would have been important to sailors who wanted to salt fish for the trip. So we are heading west along the north coast of Africa towards Cyrene.

Next up we reach the Altars of the Philistines (latin: Ares Filistinorum), which do not exist. Instead the correct identification is the Altars of the Philaeni, which were two sand dunes that marked the border of Cyrene and Carthage in the 2nd century bc (Sallust, in his Jugurthine Wars, explains their location and the mythology behind them). How do they become Altars of the Philistines? In late Roman times both Cyrene and Carthage were taken into the Roman empire and the border ceased to exist, therefore the name of the border marker was lost. Medieval British monks who copied the scrolls did not recognize either the word Philaeni (which had been transposed into Latin from Greek) or the geography, so they replaced it with a word that was familiar, Filistinorum, Philistines). But one looking for Philaeni is going west along the north coast of Africa, one looking for Philistines is going north toward Syria**.

Next up we go between Rusicada and the Mountains Azure (Latin: montes Azariea). Rusicada is the port attached to the old Numidian capital, Cirta (many major cities were not on the seashore, but - like Rome itself - had service ports a few miles away. This kept the damage wrought by pirates to a minimum.) Now, what mountains would be on the other side of Rusicada? The mountains of Sardinia, 120 miles away. In Sardinia was a tribe called the Aisaronesioi, whence the name of the mountains apparently derives. By sighting the mountains on the north (right-hand) one could continue west while staying well off the Numidian coast. Why would one want to do that? To avoid pirates.

Next we come by the river Monlon (Latin: malvam). Why this river of the dozens that flow into the Med? Then known as the Malva and called today the Moulouya, its only importance lies in the fact that it served as the border of Numidia on the east and Mauritania on the west. In fact, Nennius notes (though it's not in the quote above) that the crew then entered Mauritania (modern Morocco). We are still traveling west on the Med***.

Next we reach the Pillars of Hercules, leftovers from his seventh task (delivering sheep or somesuch). He bored straight through a mountain and inadvertently connected the Med with the Atlantic, and mountains north and south of the Strait of Gibraltar are still called his pillars. So we have reached the western end of the Med.

Then we skip through the Tuscan (Latin: Tyrrhenum) Sea to Spain. The Tyrrhennian Sea today is technically the area of the Med between Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia but in ancient days was applied to the entire Mediterranean. So we've just skipped over the Strait from Morocco to Spain.

The Irish did not come from the west at all, but to the West right across the north coast of Africa to Spain and from there**** to Ireland. Where then does that leave Atlantis? I guess Aryan scholars are just going to have to keep looking. The Irish don't appear to know; they were never there.

* Geoffrey applies it to the British, not the Irish.

**Which is why some English versions of Nennius call montes Azariea the "mounds of Syria;" they are traveling the wrong way.

*** And we're doing it before the middle of the First Century when Claudius renamed Numidia to Mauritinia Ceasariensis, giving us two Mauritanias. The Malva remained the border between them.

**** And as the Scotsman recently reports that DNA shows a significant genetic connection between the Spanish and the Irish, it appears science is finally catching up to history, at least in this case.

Labels: history

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Boomerang Effect

The Asian American Journalists Association invites you to do as they say:

SAN FRANCISCO (April 16, 2007) -- Like the rest of the nation, we at the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) are stunned at the news of today's shooting at Virginia Tech. Our thoughts are with the victims and their families and friends as they cope with this horrific incident.

As coverage of the Virginia Tech shooting continues to unfold, AAJA urges all media to avoid using racial identifiers unless there is a compelling or germane reason. There is no evidence at this early point that the race or ethnicity of the suspected gunman has anything to do with the incident, and to include such mention serves only to unfairly portray an entire people.

The effect of mentioning race can be powerfully harmful. It can subject people to unfair treatment based simply on skin color and heritage.

It's rather ironic to hear an organization that works to mold the public portrayal of and advance the careers of a specific racial group complain that "mentioning race can be powerfully harmful." I suppose it can be, but those who complain that race should not be considered publicly relevant will be taken a lot more seriously once they stop treating it as a primary organizing principle*.

But I suppose what they really mean is that when members of the group do good things, gratuitously mentioning their heritage does not "unfairly** portray an entire people." But when Asians do bad things they are to be identified as English Majors. Because we all know that English majors are psychos anyway, right?

(hat tip: BOTW)

* "AAJA is an alliance partner in UNITY Journalists of Color, along with the Native American Journalists Association, National Association of Hispanic Journalists, and National Association of Black Journalists."

** In the minds of the racially-organized, 'unfair' does not mean something is inaccurate or unjust; it means negative and politically inconvenient even if completely correct.

Labels: moonbats

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What the hell is wrong with you people?

If you ever had any doubts that feminists are completely unhinged, this ought to clear them up.

Labels: feminism

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It's official

and I was wrong:

WASHINGTON — The United States Mint today announced a final rule to limit the exportation, melting, or treatment of one-cent (penny) and 5-cent (nickel) United States coins, to safeguard against a potential shortage of these coins in circulation.

United States Mint Director Edmund C. Moy had approved an interim rule on December 12, 2006, to be in effect for 120 days. Enactment of the final rule was pending public comment, solicited during a 30-day period from the date of the interim rule’s publication in the Federal Register on December 20, 2006.

“The new rule safeguards the integrity of U.S. coinage and protects taxpayers from bearing the costs to replace coins withdrawn from circulation,” said Director Moy.

Actually, it doesn't "protect" anyone from coins being withdrawn from circulation for the simple reason that it doesn't keep coins from being withdrawn. Until the mint bans any containers that could be used to store pennies and nickels or forces you to use the smallest change you have available for all commercial transaction some people will continue to save pennies that are worth 2.5 cents and nickels worth 9.5 cents. Of course, I'm not recommending you do it (why would I want to get in the crosshairs of the Mint's next imperial ruling?) but I understand that plastic peanut butter jars might work pretty well for that purpose. Expect the Mint next to propose a ban on their manufacture lest enterprising people use them to undermine the integrity of US coinage*.

But I was wrong, as I fully expected they would allow the matter to drop rather than going through the comment period. What's next, of course, is that they actually have to attempt to enforce it on someone, at which time the courts will need to decide a simple question: to whom does the nickel in your pocket belong, you or the US Mint? And if it's yours, what right do they have to tell you what you can do with it?

FWIW, here are the current metal values of common US coinage:

	1909-1982 Cent (95% copper)	$0.01	$0.0244798	244.79%
	1946-2007 Nickel	$0.05	$0.0956562	191.31%
	1982-2007 Cent (97.5% zinc)	$0.01	$0.0094169	94.16%

So I see there a poor man's risk-free base metal call on copper, nickel, and zinc. Well, that's what I would see if I were the type more than happy to put aside half-priced base metals in the expectation that some enterprising entrepreneur will eventually invent an affordable household smelter that will make that whole "export" problem a thing of the past.

* as if Congress and the Fed need any help in that department.

(hat tip: CoinFlation)

Labels: economy

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Aren't they all?

And the nomination for "Bottom Story of the Day" goes to:

Butte blast blamed on leaking gas

BUTTE - Natural gas leaking from a supply line is what caused an explosion here Sunday that seriously injured a retired priest, fire marshal John Lasky said Monday.

Best headline ever. Of course, that's the opinion of someone who thinks the guys at MXC get ripped off every year when they don't win a spammy or whatever awards are given for best humorous writing based on bodily functions...

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Tax Simplification

(hat tip: Boortz)

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What boat would that be, Senator?

The dawning of comprehension illuminates a red sky of blame:

TRENTON, April 11 — State senators from both political parties said at a hearing on Wednesday that they had been shocked to learn that they had voted again and again in recent years for measures that had left the state pension in great distress, and they faulted the state treasury for failing to explain to them the risks of what they were doing.

“I had no idea we were in the company of some of the same corporations that I have condemned for not funding their pensions,” said Senator Shirley K. Turner, a Democrat from Mercer County. “And now, it seems, we’re in the same boat, and sinking.”

New Jersey is hardly the only state with pension problems, but it does make a fine illustration of not only political malfeasance but political ignorance: legislating against something is not the same as making it go away, and just because you don't understand something doesn't mean it's not important.

Politicians, like their counterparts in private enterprise, more often than not follow the path of least resistance. It's easier to put off than to act. It's easier to inflate than balance the budget. It's easier to promise than to deliver. And it's easier to use tricks and loopholes to spend money earmarked for pensions on things that are needed today than it is to tell voters 'No.' What business did, state and local governments did even while excoriating business for doing it. What those governments did, the federal government has done* an order of magnitude more.

But while waiting for the laws of mathematics to assert themselves, it sure is entertaining to watch the pot call the kettle nappy-headed.

* the primary difference being that Washington can just print money and give away as much as they want. They still cannot print food and clothing, however.

Labels: economy, politics

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Global Warming has its advantages

A bit of good news from the land O lakes:

DULUTH, Minnesota (AP) -- Lake Superior has been warming even faster than the climate around it since the late 1970s because of reduced ice cover, according to a study by professors at the University of Minnesota Duluth.

Summer surface temperatures on the famously cold lake have increased about 4.5 degrees since 1979, compared with about a 2.7-degree increase in the region's annual average air temperature, the researchers found. The lake's "summer season" is now beginning about two weeks earlier than it did 27 years ago.

It's about time. I grew up about 10 blocks from the lake shore, and in the winter there was so much ice that they used to hold an annual auto race on St. Louis Bay called the Minnesota Cup. I had a buddy who got married one May and we have a picture of us on the beach and there's frigging ice floating in the lake behind us. In May! And even in July, when we have our family picnic on Park Point in Duluth, the weather is often hot and the sand hotter but the lake is still so cold that your legs are numb after just a few minutes in it.

Global warming, er, climate change may have a lot of bad theoretical effects, but count me as one of those who thinks Lake Superior's water getting warmer is not going to be one of them.

Labels: environmentalism

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Simplified Tax Form

1040 EZ2DO TAX FORM

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1. How much money did you make?		$_________
2. Send it to us.	Total:	$_________

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U.S. Gov't. Form 8765309

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What a difference a day makes

Bloomberg illustrates why one shouldn't read the news every day:

Copper Prices Rise to Six-Month High on Surging Chinese Imports

April 10 (Bloomberg) -- Copper prices in New York rose to the highest in almost six months on signs of surging demand from China, the world's biggest consumer of the metal.


Copper Falls From Seven-Month High on Slowing Chinese Imports

April 12 (Bloomberg) -- Copper fell from a seven-month high in London on speculation imports of the metal into China, the world's biggest user, may slow.

Sorry the blogging has been so slow today. For reasons illustrated above, it's often wise to step away from the news, as the flashes one sees in any given day are too brief to illustrate anything that might pass for reality. It is far more important to take a long view, which is ironically made more difficult by this age of ubiquitous information.

As for me, I've been caught up in an intractible (thus far) historical conundrum. You see, Nennius has three separate Brut legends in the Historia Brittonum and Tysilio (and therefore Geoffrey of Monmouth) has but one. But the itinerary* of Brutus that Cooper and Flinders Petrie find conclusive of a first century source in Tysilio also appears in the earlier Nennius, except that there it is not tied to Brutus but to an unnamed Irish explorer who escapes Egypt and makes for Spain by boat.

The argument my nemeses** make is that such obscure landmarks, falling as they do in successive order, could only have come from a person who actually sailed the south Med before the geographical reforms of Claudius and not from the imagination of some medieval historiographer, no matter his sources. And I agree***. But they then claim this proves the Brut legend to be First Century. If that's the case, how then do exactly the same seven landmarks find their way into Nennius via "the most learned of the Scots" rather than through one of his three Bruts?

Oh, if only the taxpayers of this fine state knew they paid me all day to discover the legend of the Altars of Philaeni, the location of the lacum salinarum, and the relationship between the Malvam and ancient Mauritania.

There's a global warming rally tomorrow so there must be snow in the forecast. I think I'll stay home and read.

* a series of seven south-Mediterranean landmarks that would have been completely meaningless after the seventh century and mostly meaningless after the first.

** and it's not like they're just some schmoes, either. Sir W.M. Flinders Petrie was one of the finest Egyptologists of the last century. If anyone should know the geography of coastal north Africa, it's he. And Bill Cooper is probably the guy most responsible**** for my fascination with Medieval genealogies. These guys are my heroes, but I think they are incorrect in this instance. Well, more likely there's something I'm missing...

*** even though that sets the three of us against nearly all of the currently-accepted authorities. One will have to look damned hard to find a modern medievalist who will credit Nennius with anything even sixth century. But scholarly opinion, like the weather, changes often and for reasons just as unknowable. And historians, who are so good at noting fadism in others, often fail to see it in themselves.

**** Though Rebel Nun is certain another pair bears the blame for that.

Labels: economy, history

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Episode VII

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How to tell Easter is over

What? Never mind:

Several prominent scholars who were interviewed in a bitterly contested documentary that suggests that Jesus and his family members were buried in a nondescript ancient Jerusalem burial cave have now revised their conclusions, including the statistician who claimed that the odds were 600:1 in favor of the tomb being the family burial cave of Jesus of Nazareth, a new study on the fallout from the popular documentary shows.

The Easter Bunny has seen his shadow and departed. That means all those fantastic springtime claims - accompanied by so much fanfare 2 months ago - will soon quietly disappear from the Discovery Channel's website. Wishful thinking and bad math last only a season.

The most intriguing thing about Jesus' tomb is not that there's one in Jerusalem today that is thought by many to be the one* but that if one reads history the tomb of Jesus is conspicuous by its absence. There is not a single rumor from those early years that it's hither or thither; there are no pilgrimages to see the final resting place; there are no catacombs filled with early Christian scribbles like one finds for Peter or Paul. Following Easter morning the tomb of Jesus simply falls off the pages of history.

To the Christian the reason for that is obvious. For archaeologists and filmmakers, I guess the location of Jesus' bones will simply have to remain one of history's mysteries, at least for now**.

* far more likely is that it's not unlike the slivers of the True Cross and vials of "Virgin's milk" that circulated in the Middle Ages: an artifact with the magical power to separate the credulous from his money.

** Only 361 days until Easter. They'd better get looking.

Labels: christianity

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See, Bob, it's not that I'm lazy

It's that I just don't care.

I don't care about Don Imus or the whole kerfuffle about nappy-headed hos. I don't know who he was talking about, so I don't know if he was just being mean, I don't know if he was mean-but-correct, I don't know if he was simply noting the obvious. Nor does it matter, because the public flagellation is not about what he said. This farce is rerun every time someone famous* says something unacceptable and the least important element is what was said.

Once the game begins, Group A rushes out to condemn the speaker and the remarks under the strongest terms, extracts penance from the sinner, then looks around to make sure that their pet politicians are making the proper condemnations. Those politicians are judged (ahem, Barack Obama) thereby: what they say, when they say it, what they leave out, how far they go. The original statement pales in importance to assuring that Group A gets properly choreographed denunciations - and hordes of PR hacks argue over coffee and donuts about what their politician should comment on each specific act in the drama to send what signals to whom.

Group B, the opponents of Group A, trots out the Yeah, but denunciations. Yeah, he's a racist, but what about 50 Cent? The politicians on this side are required to denounce, of course, but not too loudly. They are not allowed by their handlers to treat it as a big deal or to bring it up themselves (it must be asked by a duly-anointed member of the press). They must project a cool detachment, as if this mention is the first they've heard of it, and they can only denounce up to the but. Their pundits, however, concentrate on what follows the but, denouncing political correctness and all manner of other evils in the manner their readers have come to expect. It is their job to use this completely irrelevant occurrence to show how bad Group A is.

You know, if the issue was one where an important person was actually causing harm or promoting harm, it might be important**. But it's not. What Imus said has simply been chosen to kick off this round of The Great (whatever) Hunt, in which we evaluate politicians by how they denounce or fail to denounce things that are none of their business and which they really couldn't care less about, either.

* See: Rush Limbaugh, Jimmy the Greek, Mel Gibson, Michael Irvin, Joe Biden, That old coach from Air Force Academy, Robert Byrd. The list is endless

** The most harm caused is some hurt feelings on the part of the basketball team. Fine, Imus might wish to call them up individually, apologize, and buy them flowers. He wouldn't unassholify himself, but maybe he'd learn something from the ordeal.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin illustrates the template perfectly: "I agree with the athletes that Imus’s misogynist mockery was 'deplorable, despicable and unconscionable.' ... But let’s take a breath now and look around. Is the Sharpton & Jackson Circus truly committed to cleaning up cultural pollution that demeans women and perpetuates racial epithets?" (hat tip: Vox Day)

Labels: politics

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Last Will and Temperament

Hey, I don't want no jackboot to the head:

To Germany, the friend I love to hate, I leave a fantastic gift with a poisonous sting. I entrust you with the American automotive industry, rich in history and monolithically vast.

But along with this bounty comes the entire workforce with their bloated pensions, to be paid out until the day they die.

Hey, maybe you can figure out an efficient way to kill off millions of people you view as money-grubbing interlopers.

To find out what your country gets when America finally signs off, click here.

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The problem with the blame game

I hope this will be my last post about the subprime mortgage fiasco. Frankly, now that it's front-page news and is liable to remain front page news for the foreseeable future, it is of less interest to me than the obscure things that no one else is talking about.

But the reason for this last post is to illustrate something that goes beyond just subprime mortgages, people tossed from their homes, and collapsing real estate markets. Now that it has become obvious that a lot of folks are going to suffer dearly, everyone is looking for someone to blame. CNN.com lists an unlucky half dozen entities that they dish proportional responsibility to:

• Mortgage brokers
• Appraisers
• Regulators
• Wall Street
• Agents
• Borrowers

And the hard part of talking about subprime is that every one of them is partly responsible. As a libertarian I have to believe (and I do so willingly) that most people who do stupid things and suffer bad results are not innocent victims but have earned their reward*. But the problem with the press' ignorance of things financial is that they exclude the one organization that bears the lion's share of the blame.

All people respond to incentives, but some people set those incentives. And the people that set interest rate-driven incentives are the people who set interest rates: the Federal Reserve.

Back in 2004, then-chairman Alan Greenspan had this to say about the mortgage market:

American homeowners clearly like the certainty of fixed mortgage payments. This preference is in striking contrast to the situation in some other countries, where adjustable-rate mortgages are far more common and where efforts to introduce American-type fixed-rate mortgages generally have not been successful. Fixed-rate mortgages seem unduly expensive to households in other countries. One possible reason is that these mortgages effectively charge homeowners high fees for protection against rising interest rates and for the right to refinance.

American consumers might benefit if lenders provided greater mortgage product alternatives to the traditional fixed-rate mortgage. To the degree that households are driven by fears of payment shocks but are willing to manage their own interest rate risks, the traditional fixed-rate mortgage may be an expensive method of financing a home.

There are two facts Greenspan brings up that are inarguable: Americans like fixed-rate mortgages and those mortgages are protected against rising rates.

But he also said something else: those Americans, safe in the fixed rates that could never have caused the current crisis, "might benefit if lenders provided greater mortgage product alternatives to the traditional fixed-rate mortgage." Well now we have the alternative, and what grand benefits it has brought!

How is it that within a few short years enough Americans were drawn away from what they naturally prefer into the unmanageable variable-rate mortgages that are creating a subprime disaster? The answer is that the Fed, led by Alan Greenspan, created the incentives to get them out of their desire for safety into the shark-infested waters that have resulted in potentially millions having their financial gonads bitten off. And they did it by dragging interest rates from 7.5% in 2000 to 1% in 2005, then back up to 5.5% today.

People react to incentives. Low interest rates caused Wall Street to fund higher-rate instruments (e.g. mortgages) in a quest for yield. Low interest rates caused borrowers to buy payments they could afford at those rates but could not afford when rates rose. The combination caused house prices to rise, which brought the appraisers in to reflect the new reality**. Agents and brokers provided the market what it seemed to desire, given the current incentives. In short, every one of the above (with the possible exception of the regulators, who like the Fed are government agents) created this market based on incentives created by the Fed.

But note what else Greenspan said: To the degree that households are driven by fears of payment shocks but are willing to manage their own interest rate risks, the traditional fixed-rate mortgage may be an expensive method of financing a home."

It's true, of course, but who manages interest rate risks? The same people who set interest rates: The Fed. Can the individual truly comprehend interest rate risks? They must, but no, they cannot, because interest rates are political more than they are financial. When the Fed dropped rates to almost nothing for three years and then raised them five-fold over a year and a half, the subprime mortgage fiasco HAD to occur. That's why I've been on it for months (and others for longer than I). Politiians and their captive regulators and bankers are today running around acting all surprised at what has happened, but it is the only possible result of what they have done. They have no right to be surprised. This is the baby that resulted from playing around under the bleachers.

The problem with the blame game is, of course, that the press and the politicians are deciding who it is appropriate to blame, and the ones who bear primary responsibility, the Fed, do not make the list. That means politicians are going to crucify a lot of the marginally-guilty, much to the amusement of the circus-watching plebs, while the guilty-but-politically-connected are going to get off scot-free. And the problem with that is not so much the injustice as the fact that such a result means that those who did it are free to do it again. And again. And again.

* Which is incidentally exactly what I tell my kids when they are disciplined. This is not me deciding to punish you. This is the reward you get for doing what you have done. If you want a different reward next time, do something different.

** not coincidentally creating more tax revenue for their employer.

Labels: economy

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No stereotypes

were harmed in the making of this film

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I did that years ago

You Are 24% Democrat

You're a bit Democrat, and probably more liberal than you realize. If you're still voting Republican, maybe it's time that you stop.

How Democrat Are You?

(hat tip: MikeT)

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Huck is correct: it won't be boring

bw asks for a gaze into the future:

"what'll happen if (when) the world dumps the USD and turns to the Euro?"

Of course, what follows is speculation. Informed, perhaps, but speculation nonetheless. The future is far too complicated to play if/then/else games with. However, realizing that something is a foolhardy endeavor has never stopped me from undertaking it.

First of all, we must understand what the question means, because that will affect the answer no little bit. Currently the world uses the dollar as a reserve currency, which means that the dollar underlies the value, such as it is, of their own currencies. A very simplified reason why is this: the world left the gold standard during WWI because war was too expensive to pay for with gold (a good argument for gold, but I digress) and by the end of WWII, the US had the lion's share of the world's gold. Gold, being banned by our government to Americans, was still exchangeable to other central banks at a fixed rate. But dollars are more convenient than gold (and US bonds pay interest) so the world was happy to use the dollars they held, which were backed by and exchangeable into gold as their reserves, that money they could use to repurchase their own currencies and thus manage them. Rather than shipping old all over the world, they used dollars.

By the 70s, nations like France that had accumulated a lot of dollars had the audacity to deliver them to the US for payment in gold. Since we had printed far more dollars than we had gold for (inflation) this caused a drain on US gold reserves and Nixon "shut the gold window," refusing to redeem those dollars. Therefore other nations which has undergirded their currencies with dollars exchangeable into gold suddenly found that they had currencies undergirded by just dollars. Through intertia, that's more of less the system that exists today. But nations, because of the continued inflation of the dollar, are starting to back their currencies with other things besides dollars.

That's a horribly boring intro (and I apologize for it) but it must be stated, for where we are is a function of where we were. The question does not exist in a vacuum.

There is an easy answer and a hard answer. The easy one is simple supply and demand. As nations cease to accumulate dollars, demand drops. As the US continues to run fiscal and trade deficits, supply increases. As a result, the value of the dollar must drop a) in relation to other currencies (that's why European vacations are so expensive today) and in relation to goods (that's "inflation," price increases due to increased dollar creation). Things get more expensive, with imported goods increasing faster than domestic goods. Think of the 70s on steriods: high interest rates, high unemployment, price increases every year. That's the easy answer, and it's mostly wrong because it's oversimplistic. Those things will happen, but they are not the whole story.

The hard answer must take into account that the question simply cannot come about, at least not in the short term.

The first reality is that the world cannot "dump the dollar," if that we mean that everyone outside the US sells their dollars for other currencies. To whom will they sell them, and for what? Because the dollar is so integrated into international markets and foreign central banks, only the smallest countries can dump their dollars in any meaningful way, and they are all susceptible to US military strongarming and/or economic warfare. Nations like Japan and China - which may be economically strong enough to stand up to the US - cannot do so without endangering the value of all the other dollars they hold. It's like Bill Gates' holdings of Microsoft: they are so huge that if he tried to sell them all he would swamp the market and drive his own wealth into the ground. So he is rich, but he is also stuck.

The second reality is that the potential replacements for the dollar, whether the Euro in Europe or the Yen in Asia, or any other regional currency, are in the same boat as the dollar. They are fiat instruments that represent only the power to tax. They are substitutes, but they have the same potential problem as the dollar: the central bank can at any time create as many as it wishes. There is right now no currency that does not have the potential to be destroyed by overissuance, and all of them are overissued to some extent*. The dollar, to be sure, is more guilty than most (empire is expensive) but give the Euro 20 years of Islamic immigration and an aging population and they will simulate the same problems. In short, one can flee the dollar, but fleeing into the Euro is no solution.

The third reality is that under modern economics (which is run by idiots trapped in an opium den) a weak currency is desireable because it stimulates domestic production. That means that other nations, even as the dollar drops, will be attempting to weaken their own currencies in order to keep their goods competitive in America. This will continue until Americans have no money left to spend**.

So all that said, I think we can expect that the world will not dump the dollar*** so much as it will move out of it in short steps, always attempting to maintain its value compared to theirs, both for the purpose of keeping value in their remaining holdings and in order to be able to export here. However, I also expect that the insane creation of dollars by our government will continue, and may very well overwhelm the rest of the world's efforts to save the dollar. Either way, so long as our government keeps creating dollars like they are going out of business, they will eventually go out of business, but it will be a slow process for those who check their stocks twice a day****.

What I think we are about to see is the effects of the simple answer: higher prices ($3 gas last summer, $4 gas this summer, $5 gas next summer), rising unemployment - or rather underemployment - and a drop in the value of the dollar compared to everything that is not a dollar. The economy may actually be "good," partially because inflation creates activity (which is all modern economists measure) and partly because government numbers are fake (being a creation of those same economists). But it will become harder and harder for the average person to make headway. This will eventually come to the attention of our Reptilesbian Overlordess who will have no choice but to impose government solutions on government-created problems. Those solutions are political control, domestic scarcity, and international warfare.

People don't realize that the end of the Roman Republic was not the end of Rome; it was in fact the beginning of Rome's greatest expansion, where it tried to sack the rest of the world in order to meet its voracious apetite for money. I don't think this model is out of date, and may actually occur a lot faster here than there because of technology.

In short, the whole world is going to pay for the fact that we have built modernity on promises to pay nothing, and switching from one currency buys time but not salvation. But what specific form that payment takes cannot be described from this side. It can only be feared and prepared for.

* Global money creation runs annually in double digits. Why do we need all that money when with stuff we are to buy with it increases a small percentage of that?

** which, unfortunately, may not be far off.

*** unless it becomes in their interest to completely destroy our economy over a long weekend. The problem with nations holding trillions of dollars is that they can do so. It will cost them dearly, but one might someday find it worthwhile.

**** It will be a heartbeat in history books, however.

Labels: economy

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Killed and Grilled

Mitt Romney confuses himself with someone else:

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is taking a second shot at describing his hunting experience.

The former Massachusetts governor has called himself a lifelong hunter, yet his campaign acknowledged that he has been on just two hunting trips—one when he was 15 and the other just last year...

"I'm not a big-game hunter. I've made that very clear," he said. "I've always been a rodent and rabbit hunter. Small varmints, if you will. I began when I was 15 or so and I have hunted those kinds of varmints since then. More than two times."

So he's not Ted Nugent*. You don't have to be a hunter to get the GOP nomination, and it probably doesn't even help. I mean, all Reagan did was wear flannel and chop wood.

But it's almost painful watching all these effete, overrefined, and well, blowdried men trying to connect with their own stereotype of pickup-driving America. You don't have to hunt, but you have to realize that if you don't and you say you do**, you're not going to fool those who do. And if you think you need to say you do when you don't, you don't understand them and they know that too. John Kerry could not do it any better than Romney can and for exactly the same reason.

I'm not sure the GOP could be trying any harder to ensure their own defeat next year. When even the most faithful are pining for a movie-star one-term senator to come in at the last minute and save their bacon, they realize in their heart of hearts how badly Bush erred in not leaving himself an heir.

Then again, I suspect that in the decades to come, Republicans are going to harbor worse feelings toward the current occupant of the White House than are the Dems anyway.

* It's probably a good thing there can be only one.

** And shooting tame birds is not hunting, either.

Labels: republicans

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They'll save us all from Bootus Maximus

I know I said there was nothing to worry about when politicians jumped into the subprime mortgage swamp, but we can super double relax now that "activists" are on the case:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Housing activists say most families with high-risk mortgages whose terms are questionable should not be kicked out of their homes when they are delinquent on payments. A coalition of groups Wednesday urged lenders to adopt a six-month moratorium on foreclosures to provide time to work something out.

"The debt is forcing people to take second jobs, sell family possessions, and rent out a second room," said Wade Henderson, the president of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights...

Members of the coalition, which also includes the NAACP, acknowledged in response to a question that no lenders have committed to a moratorium on foreclosures. But Henderson, with the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, vowed to pressure the industry to throw out questionable mortgages in favor of repayment terms that homeowners can sustain.

There are two colossal ironies at work here, the first of which is obviously the wading of politicians and activists into a problem that is as much their own creation as anyone else's. Groups like the LCCR have complained for years that the poor (who are disproportionately minority) did not have access to loans. But in the last 5 years, everyone with a pulse has been able to borrow literally as much as they wanted* because the lenders expected that whether the borrower could pay or not, the collateral would continue to grow in price. Oops. Now the LCCR gets to complain that the poor, who could never afford the houses they got under such a scheme, are feeling the brunt of the foreclosure wave, and they are blaming the same lenders for overlending that they earlier blamed for underlending.

But the bigger irony is that if there is one group that is going to do whatever it takes to keep people in their homes, it's not going to be the politicians and it's not going to be the activists. It's going to be the lenders, for the simple reason that a full house generates at least some income and an empty house does not. If someone gets kicked out, the lender must maintain the home and must sell it into the worst market in a generation**. That means a big loss and a big cash drain. It is far easier to work something out with the borrower, especially when the borrower is just one of a huge number of such***.

Lenders are over a barrel, which is why the Implode-O-Meter will hit 50 today or tomorrow, and the big question will be not whether lenders are willing to work with their delinquent borrowers, but whether they will survive long enough to do so. I'm betting not. But then again, I'm not an activist.

* No documentation loans are designed for that very thing.

** Plus they have to dig out all the plumbing that the disgruntled homeowner accidentally filled with cement on his way out.

*** If you own the bank a hundred dollars and can't pay, you have a problem. If you owe the bank a hundred million dollars and can't pay, the bank has a problem.

(hat tip: Misty)

Labels: economy

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MST3K meets Baby Moses

(language warning)

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But that was what they asked for...

Apparently Canadians can't read their invitations:

MONTREAL (CUP) - Concordia president Claude Lajeunesse was booed as he took the stage to give Al Gore an honorary doctorate from the university on March 22.

The brainchild of Concordia Student Union president Khaleed Juma, the doctorate was presented while the crowd, present to listen to speeches from Gore and David Suzuki, filed out the exits after the question and answer period with Gore was cancelled.

The talk took place in the cadre of Less Talk, More Action: A Youth Action Summit on Climate Change...

I mean, really, when your cadre is advertised as "Less Talk," how can you expect to get answers? The truth is, I'm amazed that a politician even showed up at such an inconveniently-titled event.

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Death awaits you all

with big, sharp, pointy teeth:

LOS ANGELES - New Century Financial Corp., once the nation's second-largest provider of home loans to high-risk borrowers, filed for [Chapter 11] bankruptcy protection on Monday, the victim of its own financial missteps as well as pressures felt by other subprime lenders.

New Century immediately fired 3,200 workers and said it intends to sell off its major assets.

New Century, as I noted last month, was the subprime lender that bragged about selling mortgages to itself because that way they could show higher gains than if they attempted to sell those (quickly putrifying) loans on the open market. Today, they closed up the briefcases and headed to court.

According to the Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter, 46 other lenders have imploded in a similar if less public fashion in about* the last 3 months, averaging one every other business day since the start of this year. To be honest, I have no idea how many of these lenders there are nationwide - it seems that nearly every mortgage company over the past two years discovered the faux wisdom of lending leveraged mortgage money to those who could not afford a house.

But now it appears that those seeking a financial Holy Grail in no-money-down, no-documentation, variable-rate mortgages or in stock in the companies that hold said mortgages are about to play the part of Sir Robin**. It's a good thing he was not afraid to die. There's no telling what that might have done to Arthur's consumer confidence numbers.

The near future is, to be sure, no ordinary rodent.

* I say "about" because the Implode-O-Meter starts really rolling in mid-December of last year.

** He was not in the least bit scared to be smashed into a pulp,
Or to have his eyes gouged out and his elbows broken,
To have his kneecaps split and his body burned away,
And his limbs all hacked and mangled, Brave Sir Robin...

Labels: economy

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An non-traditional upskirt

Maybe it's because I've spent the evening poring over Nennius, who talks a lot about the Scots*, but for some reason these lyrics have been stuck in my head all evening:

Well, a Scotsman clad in kilt left a bar one evening fair.
And one could tell by how he walked that he'd drunk more than his share.
He fumbled 'round until he could no longer keep his feet
Then he stumbled off into the grass to sleep beside the street.

About that time two young and lovely girls just happened by.
And one says to the other with a twinkle in her eye,
"See yon sleeping Scotsman so strong and handsome built?
I wonder if it's true what they don't wear beneath the kilt."

They crept up on that sleeping Scotsman quiet as could be
And lifted up his kilt about an inch so they could see.
And there, behold, for them to view beneath his Scottish skirt
Was nothing more than God had graced him with upon his birth.

They marveled for a moment then one said, "We must be gone.
Let's leave a present for our friend before we move along."
As a gift they left a blue silk ribbon tied into a bow
Around the bonnie star the Scot's kilt did lifted show.

Now the Scotsman woke to Nature's call and stumbled towards the trees.
Behind the bush he lifts his kilt and gawks at what he sees.
And in a startled voice he says to what's before his eyes,
"Ah, lad, I don't know where you've been but I see you've won first prize."

Lyrics by Mike Cross, as best I can remember.

* who are actually the Irish, but don't tell the Scotch that.

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And now for something completely different

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