Archive for September, 2008
Son of Why the World Is Not About to End
So, it’s Tuesday afternoon and the birds are singing outside my window as a chill September breeze slides over my arms. Cars on Springfield Avenue drive by full of gasoline that’s down to $3.50 per gallon and readily available. People all over town go to work as they do every day, the Dow was up 250 points, and no citizens on the sidewalks seem in the least bit panicked. Pissed, perhaps, but not a bit panicked.
For over seven years, I’ve been talking about the coming crisis in the financial markets. In the last year, Prescott joined me in this publicly, although he says (and I have no reason to discount him) that he had realized that there was going to be a problem around 2004 or so. The purpose of this article is to explain why this happened, why more government interference is going to be a disaster, and why this is a golden opportunity to not only make America stronger, but also freer as a nation and more equal as far as its citizens’ compensation goes.
"Valerie Plame"
New song from the Decemberists:
Good stuff.
A better bailout
A friend of mine spent a semester interning at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, an economic think tank in Washington, DC. She was convinced that Dean Baker is a brilliant economist, and because of my respect for her judgment, I often read his columns. Take a look at his latest, posted at Huff Po. Here’s a key element that may become part of the bailout plan:
How do we go about getting the banks in order? Almost every economist I know rejects the Paulson approach and argues instead for directly injecting capital into the banks. The taxpayers give them the money and then we own some, or all, of the bank. (That’s what Warren Buffet did with Goldman Sachs.)
Palin’s Interview With Couric on Saturday Night
Do They Still Play the Blues in Chicago?
Here is the NLDS Breakdown:
Game 1: Derek Lowe (14-11, 3.24 ERA) vs. Ryan Dempster (17-6, 2.96 ERA)
Derek Lowe has a 4.42 ERA on the Road, and opposing batting averages is .251 vs. lefties and .240 against righties. So look for Fukudome and Edmonds to start, especially with DeRosa having a sore leg. Lowe has 45 BB to 147 SO, so it looks like he will tend to throw a lot of pitches. This is a guy who can be worked to knock him out of the game early to get to the Dodger bullpen, and set up the next game.
Ryan Dempster has defended his house. .243 against lefties, .213 against righties. The Dodgers have have decent lefties in Eithier and Loney. Dempster has a 2.86 at home, so he is pretty consistent. Uncle Lou is putting up his best home pitcher to start the series so look for them to start strong.
Should I Vote for McCain or Obama?
As I have aged, I have become better at keeping an open mind about politics. Instead of approaching elections with voting Republican as my default position, I have tried to enter elections with no default voting position. Because I am a conservative, having no default voting position will still lead to me voting Republican most of the time, but I have on occasion voted for Democrats. The most notable instance probably occurred in 2004 when I voted for current Presidential candidate Barack Obama over Alan Keyes for Senate (admittedly, not that tough of a choice).
I like smart people. Obama is smart. I like the world. The world likes Obama. For me the decision comes down to whether I would prefer to have a President who will repair our international image (though it would likely be just a mirage) or a President who will be better for cutting Federal spending, reducing the size of government, and kicking the asses of the D.C. scumbags. As I have had the opportunity to gain the wonderful perspectives of some brilliant international grad student friends of mine, the international perception issue is important to me. McCain will be seen as just an extension of Bush. He’s just another old white man. Obama’s image is a proxy for progress and a rejection of the Bush model, even though I predict no real change would occur. It would dissolve the international sins of Bush.
Something holds me back from voting Obama. It’s always on my mind. I can’t get over the fact that when McCain was purely a Senator and not running for President, he was a genuine statesman. We own few statesmen these days. Most of them are dead or never existed. McCain the Senator worked for bipartisan bills, he slaughtered pork spending, broke from G.O.P. groupthink, tried to get people to wake up about global warming, and rejected the anachronistic views of the Religious Right. He’s a badass.
So who has refined and buttressed this view of mine? There can be only one answer: David Brooks. As always, he plucks a rough and unarticulated view from the back of my brain and crisply expresses it in a column. If not for him, the New York Times would be thoroughly insane.
The Grand Unified Unified Theory of Palin
Ever since McCain “suspended” his campaign Wednesday, I’ve been struggling to figure out what’s going on. Is this one of the greatest unforced errors in presidential campaign history, or a brilliant masterstroke that turns things around just as Mcain’s poll numbers are beginning to slip?
Well, if you’ll forgive a little conspiracy theory, here’s a chronology I came up with. The bold headers are essentially factual, followed by my interpretation.
Japanese Comedy and the American Viewer
There’s something about Japanese comedy that really cracks me up and I don’t think that I’m alone:
It’s almost 4 a.m. and I am watching this stuff and writing songs.
Jon Monteith takes on the world!!
Check out Urbanagora contributor Jon Monteith’s latest work on Equally Speaking with HRC. Good job Jon! Congrats!
Free Sarah Palin
Okay, the media isn’t all bad: