the defeatists!

We're all doing time...

"But we’ve all got a date with the hangman, and until then, a bunch of music to be listened to, a heap of dancing to do and a three-legged dog that wants you to scratch his ears. And only you..." The AXE is trying to stop buying books based on book reviews. I find myself with piles of basically unreadable stuff that I slog through...but, I gotta say that the review of Sing Me Back Home by Dana Jennings makes me want to fail at something else.

At it's best, Country Music, like blues and some rock is "three chords and truth." It gets lost at times behind the glitter and Shania Twains. But in a lot of ways it speaks to all of us. We're all going to die, we're all going to miss someone, we're all going to be alone. We all are. Maybe a little too existential for you?

I was listening to Dylan's Theme-Time Radio on XM this week and he played some George Jones, and mentioned that Sinatra called Jones "the second best male vocalist..." Well, I've never cared that much for Jones after about 1965, but I can understand the thought. I still prefer these guys, however...

Plum Island? How hard can it be...

Well, what's Plum Island? It is CDC operation seven miles off the coast of Long Island where they test for and develop countermeasures for infectious animal diseases. For some reason probably tied to patronage, Homeland Security has this really great idea about about moving the Plum Island facility to ...the KIng Ranch! Or, the Chicago Stockyards! Or Georgia, near the Hog farms...in order to "modernize" the facility. KBR will probably get the contract. Or, Guiliani Partners.

History is littered with the smoking wreckage of the impregnable, the indestructible and the unsinkable,” said Representative John Dingell in noting the homeland agency has been too secretive and arrogant for its own good.

Chastised officials responded with promises of thorough risk assessments before pursuing the idea further. And, yes, they sensibly are adding a sixth and most obvious alternative at lawmakers’ suggestion — to modernize the Plum Island lab and spare the mainland a fresh dose of unnecessary anxiety.

I really wish that someone had gotten these clowns way back when to change their heuristics, asking instead of "How hard can it be? Let's do it!" to something along the lines of "What could go wrong?"
For a bunch of religious nuts, they really ought to remember Alexander Pope and "Man proposes, God disposes!" These clowns bankrupt the nation, kill hundreds of thousands in Iraq, wait for the flowers and candy to come their way and continue to do this sort of thing. If you have to force bureaucrats to do a simple cost/benefit/risk analysis, you're not dealing with bureaucrats. You're dealing with idiots and gamblers. And, as the great cardsharp, bunko artist and wit Wilson Mizner pointed out 80 years ago, "Life is 60/40 against."

scramble scramble skip hop jump run pedal pedal. . .tumble

It is pretty simple, really.  Without it, I wouldn't be typing this right now.  I wouldn't have a job, or any tools to work with, or anyone to work with.  Or any food, or this miserable gum I'm chewing on.  Life as we know it is not possible, because of what it allows.   

When Ohio's Kent State University offered custodial staff the option of working four days a week instead of five to cut commuting costs, most jumped at the chance, part of a U.S. trend aimed at combating soaring gasoline prices.

Something tells me they still get to mow the beautiful campus lawns, however.  Oil, because there's nothing else quite like it! 

Really, there isn't. 

Another piece of incompetence

There was never any doubt in my mind during my visit to China that I was probably being "minded" by the people who had me there teaching. If they thought that I had information they needed stored on my laptop, I would probably expect them to copy it. When you visit Shanghai or any Chinese city, you notice the lack of privacy, and the lack of boundaries.

So, what the hell was the Secretary of Commerce doing in China, carrying and leaving his laptop unattended? At the risk of seeming cynical, and we certainly wouldn't want that, was he hoping to have the People's Liberation Army read his email? If he went to lunch at a conference, one would think he would have had low level staffers standing guard over his stuff...

I'm not sure what sort of brilliance the Chinese could loot from the US Department of Commerce. But, the lesbo porno shots of Mary Cheney probably would result in at least some amusement...

A FUTILE EXERCISE

We stand well behind and off in the shadows of the great Captain Capitulation as he attempts to bring about a Defeatist Utopia:

A Philosophical Challenge

My irritating yet astounding new book Against the State (SUNY Press) argues that all the arguments of the great philosophers (Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Hume, Hegel, Rawls, Nozick, and Habermas, among others), are, putting it kindly, unsound.

The state rests on violence: not the consent of the governed, not utility, not rational decision-making, not justice.
 
Not only are the existing arguments for the legitimacy of state power unsound; they are shockingly fallacious, a scandal, an embarrassment to the Western intellectual tradition.

So I issue a challenge: Give a decent argument for the moral legitimacy of state power, or reconstruct one of the traditional arguments in the face of the refutations in Against the State.

If you can't, you are rationally obliged to accept anarchism.

I'd offer a huge cash prize, but I'm broke.

Henceforward, if you continue to support or observe the authority of government, you are an evil, irrational cultist.

You're an anarchist now, baby, until further notice.

e-mail responses to c.sartwell@verizon.com

Yours in anarchy,

Crispin Sartwell

Our friends are over-optimistic...and I don't know if we'll be able to get them out of here!

Our friend The Cultureghost forwarded this bit of IOZian brilliance this morning, adding a "not worthy, not worthy..." caveat. As usual, our friend from Gethsemene  has an interesting take, and is considering supporting Batshit Crazy Mac for Prez. Partially historically ironic and partially "how much worse can it get," his point is worth considering....

Ask him to talk about anything other than ill-definited martial glory and he freezes up like a fifteen-year-old asked to give an oral report. Where George Bush would simply string together a series of non sequiturs like a glue-sniffer debating himself, McCain gathers his brow, and his eyes dart wildly. He appears genuinely to want to answer, but standing at the head of the class seizes something in his throat, and anyway, he didn't do the reading. The presently floating notion that he will take periodic questions from Congress is charming in its insincerity. "Mr. President, last quarter's numbers show core inflation below projections, but with food and fuel prices steadily rising, the economy is facing inflationary pressures. How have your economic policies addressed these issues, and can you prod the Fed to act more aggressively on the monetary side?" "Fuck you. At least I don't make myself up like a trollop, you cunt."

Considering, and rejecting. We've just had 8 years of a Tybalt presidency, where significant numbers of voters declared "a pox on both your houses!" and either stayed home or voted for "Other-Guy." While things are complex and the president is not embodied with mystical powers to waive wands and make thing better, there is some advantage in having a president who is willing to learn from experience and hasn't sold out all his values, beliefs and attitudes in the hope of becoming president...Now, Clinton got things done, some good, some neutral, some awful with a divided government where the Court was sorta/kinda/almost neutral and the Congress was pretty much against him. Bush and the current Congress are getting relatively few things done, due to the lack of a veto proof majority in the Congress and a closure proof majority in the Senate. In the hope of getting anything done at all, somethings have occurred because Pelosi and Reid have blinked. Still, the thought of Johnny "I love Jeeeesusss" McCain selecting judges and a cabinet really scares the piss out of me...as it should for IOZ.  I envision something different perhaps than more of the same...

Well, if McCain wins with some evangelical troglodyte as  running mate,  I envision him  choking on his  porridge within the year; they'll blame it on the terrorists and start hunting obvious terrorist sympathizers like, well, us in the streets from jeeps armed with the latest and greatest zero-recoil .50 machineguns. They'll pursue IOZ like a pack of rabid hyenas amped up on the latest energy drinks marketed and distributed world wide by Cindy's distributorship -- "Johnny Mac Juice -- gets your dick hard and gives you the energy to stick it to the terrorists! 5 grams of guarna, 5 grams of caffeine and 10 grams of epiphedra  per three ounce shot."  As Mad Stephen, The O'Neill says in  Braveheart,  "The almighty says that he can get me out of this mess...but you're fooked!" I'll be able to just wrap myself in the flag and sing the old Army  "Be All You Can Be" medley,  but  you guys are in trouble.  Your only salvation will be in large and increasingly gaudy Flag Lapel Pins. Now, a helluva long time ago, a bunch of us back at the Catholic West Point went to a multi-level marketing come-on based on the idea that the guy who convinced us to go was going to buy us cases of beer. The boobosie at this thing were all wearing huge American Flag Lapel Pins made out of mink...

Picture Cindy McCain in a Mink American Flag Pant Suit...we really don't need that as the end of the American aesthetic...

Oh, by the way...

Dunkin' Donuts is run by a horde of limp-dicked, slack-wristed, commie pinko appeasers! If Malkin started complaining that Seinfeld was a commie propaganda piece because George got that stupid fur hat and Peterman was hiding out in Myanmar (Elaine with Peterman in the jungle] ELAINE: This the Urban Sombrero, I put it on the last catalog cover. PETERMAN: The horror ... the horror.)  would Fox stop carrying the Reruns?

.

Michelle Malkin: Terrorist Sympathizer

Say it ain't so! 

Michelle Malkin, of the Terrorists Are Coming, the Terrorists Are Coming ilk, has spent part of her days recently, examining her navel.  First it was switching coffee brands, and now it's taking down fashion that offends her sensibilities - or sensitivities - but let's not split hairs!  Our culture will not be our culture until it is finally our culture.  Onward!  Christian Soldier! 

These are noble, worthwhile causes for Our Freedom, as everyone can agree with (and they'd better!), but Mr.Fundamental is left to wonder why Michelle has stopped the analysis where she has.  Her stopping point seems arbitrary.  It almost seems like she is culling information from a very dense and intractible world to hone a pretty picture she wishes us to view.  She is a true artist if you ask me.  Well, no worse than the graffiti artsists spraypainting concrete abutments across the country, and at least as effective.         

Like, I cannot believe that she hasn't changed her name yet: 

Michelle is a given name, originally the feminine form of Michel, the French form of Michael. It is now extensively used in English-speaking as well as French-speaking countries.

Michelle is derived from French, and you know what Cheese Eating Surrender Monkey's those people are!  If she were truly and deeply concerned for the People of Israel, she would change her name to Michael.  In fact, I am going to start calling her that from now on, because I believe she needs a helping hand in freeing herself from the vestiges of those horrible Islamofascism Enablers.  She's been so busy freeing herself from the various ravages of culture that she's missed entire areas of herself to dissect and correct!  This is why the entire internet is here: to help. 

Still though, Mr.Fundamental is left to wonder: where should the analysis stop?  I can dig pretty deep (well, when it comes to myofascial release).  I mean, Rachel Ray had on what looks to me to be a scarf.  But look:

The history of the scarf dates back at least as far as ancient Rome. A linen kerchief known as a sudarium (Latin term for “sweat cloth”) was used by the Romans to wipe their necks and faces. The ancient Romans developed the scarf into a diverse men's fashion accessory, whether knotted to a belt or worn around the neck. Of course this style was quickly adopted by women also, and the scarf has since become synonymous with women’s fashion.

Rachel Ray killed Jesus!  Unreal.  It's amazing what you can learn about your world if you dig just a picometer deeper.  I mean, where does this coffee come from that she is so worried about?  Oh:

The history of coffee has been recorded as far back as the eleventh century^[1]. During that time,coffee remained largely confined to Ethiopia where its native beans were first cultivated. Ethiopian highlanders first cultivated the coffee bean. However, the Arab world began expanding its trade horizons, and the beans moved into northern Africa and were mass-cultivated. From there, the beans entered the Indian and European markets, and the popularity of the beverage spread.

It comes from those people.  Damn. How does coffee even get to America?  Oh:

Wait until she realizes that we're all, in fact, human!  We're much harder to bomb when we view each other as the same as ourselves.  But that's ok, Michel . . . Michael has been doing the hard work for us.        

Totally batshit and bullshit...why you need to pay attention!

I spent most of my adult life getting hurt on the job. I was a soldier, and duh...it went with the turf. You have to be tough and work hurt because when it's real, you probably can't complain about nicks and cuts and sprains and aches and keep yourself and others alive. That said, except for professions like the military, police, firefighters, professional athletes and a few others, worker safety is a critical duty of employers. Now, employers are not soul-less bastards, for the most part. But, corporations are soul-less entities, which is one of the reasons Adam Smith opposed the goddamn things from the moral and ethical point of view. Corporations may do the right thing because the leadership is honorable, decent and concerned about their fellow man. They may do so because of fear of bad publicity. However, they are most likely to do so because if they don't, they'll lose horrendous amounts of money and some of the leadership will go to jail. That gets their attention.

So, when I saw this piece as an Op-ed in the Times, I got interested really quickly. Now, many of the states have stronger protections than the Feds, but others have almost none. And, OSHA is so underfunded that they have outsourced a lot of their stuff to the states. It works well in places like Massachusetts, Washington, New York and California. In places like Texas, Louisiana, Nevada not so much. So horrendous things happen and nobody knows about them...

My colleagues and I were shocked to learn that an employer who breaks the nation’s worker-safety laws can be charged with a crime only if a worker dies. Even then, the crime is a lowly Class B misdemeanor, with a maximum sentence of six months in prison. (About 6,000 workers are killed on the job each year, many in cases where the deaths could have been prevented if their employers followed the law.) Employers who maim their workers face, at worst, a maximum civil penalty of $70,000 for each violation.

The author goes on to point out that OSHA is somewhat toothless and then says that Congress should change the law. "In the 38 years since Congress enacted the Occupational Safety and Health Act, only 68 criminal cases have been prosecuted, or less than two per year, with defendants serving a total of just 42 months in jail. During that same time, approximately 341,000 people have died at work, according to data compiled from the National Safety Council and the Bureau of Labor Statistics by the A.F.L.-C.I.O."

Ok, AXE so what's the deal? Forget Congress. The Bush administration has made it clear that they have no concerns for the regulatory function of government. They obviously have no concern for the Bill of Rights, but they really don't get the body of the constitution either. Congress is explicitly given the authority to regulate interstate commerce. Under the narrowest construction, in todays world it is impossible to find a "real" business that is not engaged in some form of interstate commerce. Next, the preamble talks about "in order to establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare..." I don't believe that protecting corporations at the expense of their workers is promoting the general welfare or establishing justice. The domestic tranquility bit is something I find disturbing. We have become such sheep that we don't realize that John McCain is a Judas Goat...

Widening gyre and center falling in

 

Smart: The Gas Can Blues
Video sent by hourigan

 

I've been trying to figure out if the Chrysler pitch for the gas guarantee price is a come-on, a shill of some sort (I drive about 18K a year) or worth considering. However, the news that the auto industry is cratering due to tight credit is fascinating. I paid off part of an 8% loan with a line of credit a couple of years ago, but never thought seriously about just buying a car and using my house as down payment, let alone having it cover the whole piece. Obviously, I wasn't thinking like a lot of other people. The fact is that unless you buy used or cheap and drive it long, most people are upside down in their car loans at the far end of the process. That's one of the reasons why the financing companies are eager to let you finance over six or seven years. Of course, that's only one piece of bad economic news, although it's probably also tied to gasoline prices. I've been thinking about getting something other than my American Iron muscle car but anything I'm willing to drive has worse mileage than my Charger. This really indicates to me that I am a dinosaur and need to be put down soon -- the shock of the first $100 tank-up will probably do it for me.

Of course, the house situation is probably going to do it for a lot of people. With housing prices dropping almost 15% in a year,  things are really screwed up for those folks who either want to re-finance, or who loaded up with a trunkload of credit based on the estimated value of their home. I don't want to bolster the complaints about the "trillions of dollars in lost investment equity" nonsense; there is no intrinsic value to anything material, and it's worth what it's worth. But, like Twitsheet de la Dweeb and VP Lon Cheney doing their thing with the surplus, "giving people their money back" before it existed as anything like a projection, the lenders who went along with that nonsense and the folks who decided that they could take on that debt are feeling ill. With good reason, of course -- enough personal bankruptcies and next thing you know, more and more financial institutions go south. Unlike Twitsheet and Lonnie, it's not possible for individuals or financial institutions to print money. Legally.

Then of course there is the incredible rise in prices to just make you feel so much more positive. One aspect is the increased cost of diesel and fuel to get stuff places. Or, for that matter, to provide power when you get it there. One of my buddies has a Ford F250 diesel. He's crying, as he hits a $100 on the fuel pump and isn't close to filling the beast. One of the system things we have happening here is that people have longer and longer commutes, especially in urban areas. Or in places like the Crossroads of Opportunity, where the biggest employer is 40 miles away, across the desert. Low fuel prices made this possible; in much the same way, low prices for power made places like this hell-hole livable.

So, the gyre widens and the center weakens. While I still expect the OPEC countries to loosen up on supply after Twitsheet and Horrorshow leave office, it might be entirely too late for a lot of people. One way to mitigate the problem in the short term would be to nationalize the oil industry. Seriously; one thing that classical economics taught prior to the ascension of Friedman and Chicago economics was that when you have virtual monopolies or oligopolies, the market is an imperfect tool. Since one can't just go out and start a utility company or produce their own gasoline and diesel, no matter how much you want to, competition is really limited. So, why not? Pay the shareholders off in bonds and at the book rate of the stock, which is probably next to nothing. The stock price is a crap shoot; let the oil industry think that this is coming, and all of sudden the breathtaking profits will become less...obnoxious? A more likely solution and one that I'm frankly surprised that these assholes haven't embraced is to start releasing oil from the Strategic Reserve. It's great that Tweetie and Dickie stopped adding to it, but it's just sitting there in the salt domes of Louisiana. Pump the bastard out...or not. I'm sure Dickie has lots of oil stock in his trust; the Bush family likewise. They're all doing fine. We're not, but they have to fulfill their oaths to uphold the oil companies...