We got fun and games

He must be from New York

No one else would consider zombie nets before ammo.

No worries, mate

Obama has the situation well in hand:

Obama takes charge at hurricane command center

US President Barack Obama warned the US east coast was in for a "long 72 hours" as he led his government's response to Hurricane Irene at a disaster command center in Washington...

"Obviously a lot of families are going to be affected ... the biggest concern I'm having right now has to do with flooding and power," Obama said during the videoconference.

The dude is obviously in command, so why doesn't he just save us the drama and steer the damn thing out to sea?

Nothing to add

Talk about a week with nothing to talk about*. Maybe next week will be better**.

* Other than social workers, which I have long concluded is a euphemism for idiot. This weekend will be full of them, as we have our annual foster parent training conference in OP. I intend to use the class time to outline the last half of my thesis.

** Or worse. At least if the entire East Coast is destroyed, Biden and Krugman will get their stimulus.

A day which shall live in Internets

Tramp stamps remain forever

But CNN worries that our children won't be able to decipher them:

"Will a simple handwritten note look like hieroglyphics to the next generation?"

So wrote second-grade teacher Anthony McGrann on his Seattle-based education blog, Seconds. The post, which argued that cursive handwriting should continue to be taught in schools, garnered more than 500 comments. It's a touchy subject: Is there a reason schools should continue to teach cursive, and is it worth the time that must be spent?

I doubt it. I can't write anything in cursive other than my name and have not used it since the seventh grade.* As a southpaw, I never used it well - or at least it never looked good - as we lefties have a bad habit of dragging our hand through the wet ink as we write, smearing even the most perfectly-formed letter across the page. If I have to write (exams, notes, etc.) I print**. If it's something work-related or something I can type, I type.

So does everyone else. And that's the point, I suppose.  There is a "market" in writing whether one likes it or not, or admits it or not. And cursive is no longer a market favorite.  It's dying not because it's not taught, but because it is not needed. And because it's not needed, it need not be taught. Like shorthand or court reporting, there will always be a niche market for those who understand it***. But teaching it is no guarantee that anyone will use it; because it's unnecessary, it will die off anyway. I suspect we will miss it a lot less than second grade teachers insist.

Assuming we can find a fitting replacement for the personal signature, of course.

* Three college degrees and I'm functionally illiterate.
** and thank God every night for professors who can read it.
*** While I try, I confess that I still have a pile of undeciphered (and perhaps undecipherable) cursive letters from my July trip, sitting in a folder on my dresser. They are not being ignored because they are unimportant. They are being ignored because reading them gives me a headache. Columns and columns of numbers are easier to comprehend.

To serve man

Getting it backward

Vox draws the wrong conclusion from an old teaching:

VD: 12/28/09 12:37 PM:

wrf3: 12/28/09 12:21 PM:
Who is my neighbor?

Jesus answered that specific question in the parable of the Good Samaritan.

Luke 10:36-37: "Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?" The expert in the law replied,  "The one who had mercy on him." Jesus told him,  "Go and do likewise."

Jesus obviously did not tell him that all three of the men were his neighbors. In fact, two of the three were excluded. "Neighbor" is simply not synonymous with "everyone". There is no Biblical basis for establishing that equivalence.

It's an old post, which I hadn't seen until it popped up today in a discussion over there about anklebiters. But I was rather shocked at Vox's implication: your neighbor is the man who does good to you first, and no one else. I don't think that's Jesus' point at all.

For the biblically impaired, the backstory (Luke 10:30-7) is this: Jesus told a story about a man* who was attacked by robbers along a lonely road and left for dead. While he lay there bleeding, a priest and a Levite, his fellow Jews, walked past and ignored his plight. A little bit later a Samaritan, a member of a sect of "half-breed" Jews despised and hated by real Jews, happened upon him.  He got the man patched up, then hired an innkeeper to nurse him back to full health, even offering to pay that part of his expenses not covered under Medicare, Part D. Jesus then asked his inquisitor** which man was a neighbor to him? The lawyer rightly answered it was the Samaritan. Jesus then told him to go and do as that man had done.

According to traditional Jewish teaching, a neighbor was a fellow Jew (c.f. Strong's Concordance #4139), and it was only these neighbors, and not gentiles much less nasty Samaritans, that one had an obligation to love under Leviticus 19:18. Since non-Jews were considered outside God's love, they were considered unworthy of the love of godly men - pretty convenient if you find some group of people unlovely and unlovable. However, it is Jesus' choice of a Samaritan as the neighbor that blasts the traditional Jewish teaching (and I might add Vox's conclusion) to smithereens. For if Jews are not the 'neighbors' of Samaritans, then neither are Samaritans the neighbors of Jews, and yet not only was the Samaritan admittedly acting as a neighbor, Jesus told the Jew with whom he was speaking to go and do the same thing. "Cross the boundary of your comfort, your tradition, and your prejudice," Jesus was saying, "and show love to the stranger you happen across on the road." That would make neighbor synonymous with anyone, if not everyone.

If our neighbor was defined by who we are, then the actions of this Samaritan (and the inaction of the Jews) would never have brought about the lawyer's answer - his neighbor (fellow-citizen, companion, friend) was the Jew. But if neighbor is a concept larger than these boundaries allow, only then does the parable make sense***.

One can certainly force a hyper-literal interpretation and conclude that only the Samaritan who did the traveler good was his neighbor. In fact, one need only assume Jesus was answering the question and no more. It would follow then that the traveler had only the obligation to love the Samaritan.  But if that's the case, why tell the parable? For men naturally love those who do them well (Luke 7:42).  Yet Jesus did not say, "Go and do what you are naturally inclined to do;" that would hardly be worth saying, much less recording for posterity. Instead, Jesus answered "Who is my neighbor?" by insisting that his interlocutor go and do as the Samaritan did: love and care for the stranger. My take is that Jesus did not answer the question directly as was his habit with dishonest questions****. Rather he simply cut through the legalistic dust the lawyer was kicking up, exposed his hypocrisy, and told him how to truly keep the command that he already knew full well he should be keeping, but was not.

* Who from the context we will assume is a Jew.
** A lawyer. Insert joke here.
*** and only then does the OT teaching make sense. If some men are not your neighbors, does that make it ok to sleep with their wives (Lev 18:20) or defraud them (Lev 19:20)? I'm pretty sure that's not exactly what Moses is saying here.
**** since the man was only seeking to justify his present behavior (Luke 10:29) and not really looking for an answer.

A century of change

...has changed nothing, it seems.

UPDATE: The Onion is awesome:

SEWARD, NE—Claiming he wasn't afraid to let everyone in attendance know about "the real mess we're in," Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke reportedly got drunk Tuesday and told everyone at Elwood's Corner Tavern about how absolutely fucked the U.S. economy actually is...

Numerous bar patrons slowly nodded in agreement as Bernanke went on to suggest the United States could pass three or four more stimulus packages and "it wouldn't even matter."

"You think that's going to create long-term economic growth, let alone promote job creation?" Bernanke said. "We're way beyond that, my friend. There are no jobs, okay? There's nothing. I think that calls for another drink, don't you?"

While using beer bottles and pretzel sticks in an attempt to explain to the bartender the importance of infusing $650 billion into the bond market, the inebriated Fed chairman nearly fell off his stool and had to be held up by the patron sitting next to him...

"God, I'm so wasted," added Bernanke, resting his head on the bar...

Sure, but at least he told the truth.

It makes my deja vu hurt

A financial reporter misses the obvious joke:

When Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke takes the podium next week at the central bank's annual meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, his sense of deja vu may be overwhelming.

Stocks have been giving up gains won after last year's speech... Oil prices are higher and there's been little improvement in the job market. Bond yields are down...

It's almost as if QE2, the Fed's $600 billion bond-buying program first mentioned at last year's meeting and designed to boost the struggling economy, never happened.

Of course it happened. We have the debt* to prove it. QE2 occurred right on schedule and was carried out according to plan. It just didn't accomplish anything, least of all what was promised.  It did not get the economy out of its funk and it didn't make the housing market recover. Hell, it didn't even hold interest rates down**, as the current dip in rates intensified after the program was over, probably due to actions in Europe.  The truth of the matter is that QEII, like QEI, like the Bush and then Obama Stimulus packages, like the Fed buying a couple trillion in mortgages, might as well have never happened.

The title of the Reuters article, however, asks an unexpectedly rhetorical question: Fed May Have Bullets Left, but Are They Blanks? Well, they have all been so far, by the article's own reckoning. Is there any evidence that Bernanke has saved the best tools he has for last? But just to be clear let me answer this in the negative, as the very assertion that Deputy Fife Bernanke has a bullet or two in his uniform pocket at least implies that there is a probability, or at least a reasonable possibility, that he will be able to shoot something.

This possibility is highly unlikely, to say the least. To wit: the article notes, in all seriousness, that since QE2 was such a smashing failure, Bernanke's next "trick" (their word, his admission) will be "buying long-dated Treasuries to push down long-term rates."  It sounds like a reasonable and logical policy that just might work.  However, those with memories longer than 50 seconds might recall that was precisely the purpose, the method, and the very definition*** of QE2. And we all know how well that program worked. 

* technically, the Fed has the bloated balance sheet to prove it.
** Though Bernanke's actions surely saved or created an unprovable number of basis points.
*** "A week ago, the nation's central bank announced that it would buy $600 billion in long-term U.S. Treasury bonds, ostensibly to push down long-term interest rates."
-- Dallas Morning News, "What is Fed's QE2, and what will it do? Experts explain in everyday English " 11/10/10

Plus we pay off our debts by borrowing more

Questions and answers

A religion scholar from Boston University has the first. I'll make up the second:

1. “Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands” (Colossians 3:18). Should female presidents submit to their first husbands?

Prothero is correct that Bachmann did not answer the question. This is the same question (and the same dodge) that Huckabee made three years ago when he was running. The answer is "yes, but." Wives should submit to their husbands in the marriage. You cannot have a democracy with only two voters; someone simply must make the final call in those rare instances* when husband and wife cannot come to a unanimous decision. Christianity says that the husband gets the extra vote. It's as simple as that. However, this is not a blanket "order your wife around" command. If Bachmann is elected President, then that is her job, and her husband has no more say over the decisions that go with that than I have over my wife's real estate sales. If the Bachmanns can't work out the lines between those, she should not run until they do.

2. “But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you” (Matthew 6:6). When I watched Perry’s performance at “The Response,” this Bible quote came to mind. I would like to know what he thinks of it. Should Christians make a show of praying in public?

This is a fun quote for those people who are bothered by Christians coming out of the prayer closet and one of the most tempting to turn into an absolute (kind of like "Judge not"). But Jesus , Paul, Peter and John all prayed in public - Christians are to gather and pray, and it would be very difficult to do both in separate closets. It's not public prayer that is the issue, but as Prothero notes, making a show of it.  The church has wolves aplenty who love nothing more than to show how holy they are in exchange for power.  "He that has ears," and all that.

3. “Thou shalt not kill” (Exodus 20:13).  Part of the Ten Commandments, this passage has been used by many social conservatives to argue against Roe v. Wade and abortion rights. After all, if God said, “Thou shalt not kill” then why are we taking lives inside the womb? But if God said, “Thou shalt not kill” then why are we allowing capital punishment?

The word in Exodus is not 'kill' - that's a 17th century** translation.  The word in the 10 Commandments is 'murder.'  From that point forward, it is not difficult to work out the distinction between capital punishment (which is commanded a number of places in the OT) and abortion. Even a religion scholar ought to know that one.

4. “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s” (Luke 20:25)...Nonetheless, Jesus seems to be drawing a clear distinction here between religious and secular authority - a distinction that neither Perry nor Bachmann appears to see... does either see a line of demarcation of any sort - a picket fence, perhaps - between “what is Caesar’s” and “what is God’s”?

While I explained the entire passage here, the simple answer is that the government is to protect life, liberty, and property, while the Church is to be Christ's body on earth, to love God and love people, in that order. The 'separation' problem is twofold, it occurs first when conservatives seek to use the power of government to make better people by force, and the second occurs here:

5.  “Blessed are the poor" (Luke 6:20). In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus famously begins, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3). ..How do Perry and Bachmann read this passage? Did Luke mess up by leaving out "in spirit"? Or did Jesus really say "Blessed are the poor"? And if he did say that, what did he mean by it? Do his words carry any meaning for us today, and to the way we craft our federal budget?

See, here's the funny part - Liberals are all worried about the separation of Church and State, but only until it comes time to craft the Federal budget.  Did Jesus call on Caesar to help the poor? No, but he did mention to the priests that they could do good to the poor whenever they wished.  Paul and the early church collected money not for basketball courts but for the poor.  The Christian's obligation to the poor is a personal and church one, not a governmental one. Whether the poor (or the poor in spirit) are blessed is a religious question, not one for Congress or the courts. But the government that tries to eliminate their poverty has shown that it can remove all kinds of blessings in the attempt. Just ask a family that's been 'helped' for three or more generations and is still poor***.

* Let's hope that it is rare.  If it's not, it's going to be a difficult marriage no matter how the issues are decided.
** And earlier. Coverdale, the Bishop's Bible, and the Geneva Bible all translated the passage 'kill' in the century before King James. OTOH, 20th and 21st Century editions are pretty unanimous in saying 'murder.' It's not the Bible that has changed, but the language.
*** For example, as the great philosopher Charles Barkley once noted, "Poor people have been voting for Democrats for the last 50 years and they are still poor." Since the poor vote for Democrats because they are poor, what incentive does that give Democrats to actually relieve their poverty?

Monday is Stupid Day

It's gotta be, as there is just too much about to attribute to a full moon.  But speaking of lunatics, Mr. Buffett is out this morning with his semi-annual "Tax Me More" rant. But the best rebuttal comes from Warren Buffett, who when asked a couple years ago why he doesn't just give his money to the government, responded:

I think that on balance the Gates Foundation, my daughter's foundation, my two sons' foundations, will do a better job with lower administrative costs and better selection of beneficiaries than the government.

So do I, Mr. Buffett, which is why I don't think the government should be selecting 'beneficiaries' at all. But if you think you should pay more taxes, just pay them. There are few things sadder than a man with $40 billion dollars obsessing about every one else's money.

Greg Valliere, chief cook and bottle-washer at the Potomac Research Group, doesn't like the Tea Party very much. But after calling the partiers "stupid and reckless," "zealots," and "laughably naive," he manages to drop this turd in the punch bowl while explaining* why the government's budget is not like a household budget:

If Microsoft or IBM want to build a new corporate headquarters, they issue debt. They pay back their debt, with interest, just as the U.S. government pays back debt with interest – defying the petty demagogues who proclaim that there would be nothing wrong with default.

If the US government "pays back debt with interest," then why did the debt ceiling need to be raised in the first place?

When IBM pays back debt, it does so from its budget surplus if you will, as does Microsoft. Each payment results in the company carrying *less* debt. But the government following each payment carries *more* debt. Could it be that the government is not actually paying back debt at all, but is borrowing more money to pay interest on money previously borrowed? That its current policies have created a debt sink in which it will spin, faster and faster, until it is inevitably sucked under? Why, yes, Mr. Valliere, and that is what has the Tea Party so mad in the first place. Of course, no demagogue (petty or otherwise) said there would be nothing wrong with default, but that there was no need for default** at all. The necessity of default was always a figment of the Beltway's fevered imagination.

Peter Wehner of Commentary magazine apparently doesn't know what taxes are for:

Lower taxes are a very good idea, but it is not a talisman. And if we have reached a point where Republicans running for president cannot envision (or at least admit to) any scenario in which they would raise taxes, even if as a result they could roll back the modern welfare state, then it’s time to consider loosening the philosophical straightjacket they are in.

If Republicans had the power to roll back the modern welfare state, there would simply be no reason to raise taxes. What does he think these taxes are spent on? Talismans?

* he's typing slowly, so those who learned economics "in a cornfield outhouse" can understand.
** Default at this point is still purely optional.  At this point.

Shovel-Ready

A Bye-ku

Apologies to James Taranto:

Ten thousand lakes boil
But if we wanted a squish
Mitt has better hair

I just spent the weekend with a whole gaggle of Minnesotans* who didn't want to know how well Pawlenty did in the Iowa straw poll, but how poorly he did. That has to count for something.

* and not all Dems.  My brother, who is in Bachmann's district, really likes her, though he's convinced she has 'diarrhea of the mouth' and will eventually torpedo her own campaign in a fit of epic stupidity. Maybe that just reflects the fatalism pounded into all long-time Vikings** fans.
** Color me naive eternally hopeful, but Ponder already seemed to have that presence on the field that T-Jack will never master, even at $4m a year. If the rookie lined up behind an actual offensive line, I suspect he could really shine. But Joe Webb (and oh, how I love the guy); if you draft someone as a 'pure athlete,' why would you let him sit on the bench as your third-string QB? He should at least be returning punts and kickoffs. A whole bench full of talented guys who don't play, as Mr. Taggart was famous for saying, "ain't gonna do you no good no how."

Maybe 2000?

UPDATE: Dow down to Goblin Town, you go my lad. Ho! Ho! My lad!

It's odd how everyone is blaming the trouble today in the Dow on the S&P's downgrade of US credit. But that downgrade doesn't seem to be bothering the bond market, which is where it should show up*, and where yields are at record lows today.

I'm more of the opinion that the end of QE2 is to blame, which is a nice way of saying, a couple more down days and Washington will be screaming for QE3.  Then QE4. Then QE5.  I think pitchforks and straw torches are in there somewhere, too, but I can never be sure.

Laugh of the day: Dow Finishes Down 634 Points. Obama’s speech certainly did nothing to slow the drop, though I suppose the White House will argue that it would have been 734 without the speech, meaning that Obama saved or created 100 Dow points . . . .

* but things have a funny habit of doing what they want, not what I expect.

Why we fight

So American soldiers can upgrade their bulky kevlar helmets to stylish cloth hijabs.

But this was the funny part: "Lt. Col. Michael Lawhorn, a U.S. Central Command spokesman, stressed to TheDC that while commanders are encouraging American women to wear headscarves while engaging with civilians, they are not having them wear the headscarf in lieu of their kevlar helmets."

Right, which is why the male soldier in the background is wearing a fedora and why the women are carrying picnic baskets instead of automatic rifles.

No wonder they never accomplish anything

You just have to laugh at Moonbat 'solutions' to problems. Here we have a problem: 600 million cats that kill a billion birds a year. We can't have that. I mean, we don't know how many birds there are, nor what the bird population might look like if cats did not cull the flock, nor how many more mice and rats would there would be, but whatever. Birds are cute, so they are more important than rats anyway.  The implication is given that the biggest problem is feral cats*, and they are a real problem, not only in the wild but around airports for some reason.

For the problem of feral cats eating too many birds, Moonbat solution is TNR, a TLA** for "Trap, Neuter, Return." That's right, they trap the cat, rip out or cut off its reproductive organs, then release it back into the wild***. Obviously, the TNR 'solution' is only promoted because Moonbats would likely hide feral cats in their basements if they knew people were going to, you know, kill them. Besides, spaying cats that nobody wants provides lots of work for veterinarians, and that's good for the economy or something.

But I especially like the idea to 'stop feeding strays.' Because, you know, a hungry cat will eat far fewer birds than a sated one.  One could make the argument that not feeding cats goes a long way in not 'attracting' them. Fair enough, but it's not like cats don't exist if they are not in your yard. If one is not willing to put down feral cats, then it is hardly helping birds to not feed them, and hardly helping the cats themselves when they will likely starve to death. But it does make the Moonbat feel like she's helping, which is the actual goal of liberalism anyway.

The solution to the feral cat problem is simple.  Not easy, since feral cats will probably never be completely wiped out, but simple:

1. Trap and Shoot (TS). Rather than releasing bird-killing cats into the wild, they should be converted into egg rolls, winter gloves, or some other useful object. TS is not only cheaper and faster than TNR, it has a smaller acronym, which is prima facie evidence of its higher efficiency. It also does not demand any veterinarians.
2. Place feral cats on the 'unprotected species' list, so they can be hunted by anyone with a licence, without limit. Or even better, put them on the annoyance list with rats and leave them entirely unprotected.

Lots of people will scream that actually killing feral cats would endanger Aunt Bertha's favorite house kitty because suburban neighborhoods would suddenly be crawling with hordes of automatic rifle toting white supremacists shooting everything with whiskers. Needless to say, the likelihood of actual pet cats being killed is about the same as that of actual pet cats receiving accidental Moonbat hysterectomies.

Besides, if the idea is to save birds, Aunt Bertha needs to keep her cat indoors. Then we need to figure out what to do about all those pesky mice at the airport.

* they use the word 'stray,' which is not the same thing.
** Three Letter Acronym
*** This is in accordance with the Moonbat theory that a cat with no testicles is allergic to bird meat.

They probably have one for 'budget cuts' as well

Is that Nero's fiddle I hear?

Or will Rome burn in silence?

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The cost of insuring against an Italian default reached a new high of 360 basis points Wednesday after yields on the country's benchmark 10-year bonds hit euro-era highs of 6.1% Tuesday.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been forced to schedule a speech to parliament later today on how his government plans to deal with Italy's debt crisis in an attempt to reassure the markets and bring down the cost of borrowing for the eurozone's third-largest economy. The speech has now been delayed by two hours to 5.30pm CEST until after the market close in Milan, suggesting growing nervousness about Italy's creditworthiness.

It's perfectly obvious that neither Italy nor Greece nor Spain nor Ireland* is going to be able to get through our debt crisis until they either pay off or default on their massive debts.  Of course, Greece was up most recently; it defaulted on 20% and hung the rest on German taxpayers.  Italy is up to the plate now; the ECB is trying the old "we'll buy their debt to make the auctions look like a success" trick that worked so well** for Greece. But Italy's economy is several times larger than Greece's (it's even larger than Great Britain's), and with another heavy hitter named Spain on deck now, you have to wonder how many more homers the ECB will give up before the Germans yank them off the mound. 

But everyone knows that. What they might not have seen was this: Italy is falling apart because they are forced to pay a 10-year rate of 6%. That's not very high, but it is indicative of how badly governments are overly leveraged on low interest rates. What is negligible debt service in a 2% era becomes quickly unmanageable at 6%. And sclerotic government budgets simply cannot handle the rapid changed needed to deal with it.

The US's average 10-year rate for the 70s, 80s, and 90s was north of that number, and sometimes well north of it. Surely there's nothing magic about 6%, but there is something scary about it. Not only is it reachable surprisingly quickly once the market turns, but it would mean almost a tripling of our debt service costs were rates to again reach that average.

Someday they will - the idea that rates will remain low forever is as foolish as the idea that stocks remain high forever. They go up and down, like everything else, albeit in longer waves.  But for the leveraged player, the trend needs to go on forever or he will be quickly wiped out.  And there is no bigger leveraged player than the United States government. 

* Nor the US
** If the objective was to to make the default twice as big

Malcolm the Tenth addresses the Tea Party

About those cuts:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The deal reached by Congress to raise the debt ceiling and cut more than $2 trillion in public spending will probably have only a minor impact on the economy for the next two years.

Almost all the cuts would be made in 2014 or beyond...

Meaning that none of the cuts will be made at all. If this congress cannot bring itself to make cuts to a budget that is actually under its control*, what are the odds that a future Congress will make those cuts because of the promise of this Congress? About the same as me playing Mick in the sequel.

* Do we even have a budget?  I forget sometimes.

Recycling

At least they chose to steal from a movie no one has actually seen.