Why review a movie this old (an Australians movie, circal 1988)? Well, the fact is that most movies are available these days, whether on DVD, VHS, or Turner Classic Movies. I recently saw The Lighthorsemen (rating 96 out of 100) on VHS. I expect it is on DVD now. If not, it should be. The second reason to review older movies is that "modern" movies are generally so bad that most people should be taking advantage of modern technology to view primarily older movies. For example, The Lighthorsemen should have easily won Best Picture this year, if it were able to compete against the actual nominees. It is far superior to Slumdog Millionaire.
This movie is about the Australian "lighthorsemen" (mounted infantry) fighting in Palestine in 1917 (Palestine always having been a battleground). You will see somewhat jarring references to "Gaza", and other modern battlegrounds (including Jeruselum). The climax of the movie is the cavalry charge by 800 Australian horsemen, against cannon and machine guns, that captured the city of Beersheba--against all odds.
Yes, this was the "Charge of the Light Brigade" all over again, by mounted infantry yet, but successful. The movie shows the big picture but concentrates on individual stories of the individual soldiers, including a love story between a soldier and a nurse--as well as that soldier's too pat fight with his revulsion against killing.
These individual stories are not bad, by modern standards, but are not that different from every other war movie featuring stories of individual soldiers at war. The acting is adequate, but not outstanding.
What distinguishes his movie from any other ever made is the horses. This is the best movie of horses at warm, and the relationship of mounted soldiers and hostesses, ever made. The climactic charge is the best cavalry charge ever filmed. I can't even describe to you how impressive the filming of horses is in this movie. You have to see the movie to believe it.
In fact, the most unbelievable thing about this movie is the statement that appears on screen at the end: "No horses were killed or injured in the filming of this movie". Considering the mere number of horses filmed at full gallop in this movie--much less falling at a full gallop--you will wonder about this statement. It seems impossible. Yet love for horses screams from this movie. As I say, it is by far the best film ever made of horses at war.
If you have a chance to see this movie, you should--unless you just can't stand war movies.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Friday, February 27, 2009
Obama's One Trillion Dollar Tax Increase (Editorial Comment: Not Enough Revenue)
The heading is the Drudge main headline from yesterday (still linked as a lesser headline on Drudge). You gotta love Drudge, but this particular headline fails to impress me.
First, the headline assumes what is probably a lie: That people will actually pay the tax increase proposed by Obama, instead of figuring out ways to avoid the tax increase. It also assumes that the income of the "rich" will not drop--not only because of tax avoidance and losing the incentive to earn more money, but because Obama's policies are going to strangle the economy over a ten year period.
Yes. That is what is really wrong with the headline. It is talking about a trillion dollars over ten years. These Soviet style "Five Year Plans" and "Ten year Plans" are pure fiction.
Notice that 1 trillion dollars over 10 years is 100 billion dollars a year. Now that may sound like a lot of money, and it may be a lot of money to be taking out of a (hopefully) recovering economy, but it is insignificant in terms of the amount of money we (Obama and Congress) are now spending. Obama's GOAL (another fiction) is to cut the deficit in half by 2013. Since this year's deficit is likely to approach 2 trillion dollars, that means Obama's goal for 2013 (while increasing spending now--the future cuts being fiction until they occur) is to "reduce" the deficit to 1 trillion or so.
100 billion dollars does not even make a dent in that amount. Yes, that is a very sad and disturbing thing to say, but it is true. The fact is that the present spending spree is going to take much more than 100 billion dollars out of the future economy. That may not even be--probably is not--even enough to cover the interest on the debt we are creating. One way or another (taxes, borrowing, and/or inflation--probably all three), the trillions of dollars of money ("the same as cash": Yogi Berra) we are spending that the government does not have will come out of the future private economy.
Drudge's implication is right: We are going to strangle our future economyu. But it is not just the trillion dollar tax increase over ten years that will do it. That is just the beginning of the econmic catastrophe we are creating for ourselves, that there are not enou
First, the headline assumes what is probably a lie: That people will actually pay the tax increase proposed by Obama, instead of figuring out ways to avoid the tax increase. It also assumes that the income of the "rich" will not drop--not only because of tax avoidance and losing the incentive to earn more money, but because Obama's policies are going to strangle the economy over a ten year period.
Yes. That is what is really wrong with the headline. It is talking about a trillion dollars over ten years. These Soviet style "Five Year Plans" and "Ten year Plans" are pure fiction.
Notice that 1 trillion dollars over 10 years is 100 billion dollars a year. Now that may sound like a lot of money, and it may be a lot of money to be taking out of a (hopefully) recovering economy, but it is insignificant in terms of the amount of money we (Obama and Congress) are now spending. Obama's GOAL (another fiction) is to cut the deficit in half by 2013. Since this year's deficit is likely to approach 2 trillion dollars, that means Obama's goal for 2013 (while increasing spending now--the future cuts being fiction until they occur) is to "reduce" the deficit to 1 trillion or so.
100 billion dollars does not even make a dent in that amount. Yes, that is a very sad and disturbing thing to say, but it is true. The fact is that the present spending spree is going to take much more than 100 billion dollars out of the future economy. That may not even be--probably is not--even enough to cover the interest on the debt we are creating. One way or another (taxes, borrowing, and/or inflation--probably all three), the trillions of dollars of money ("the same as cash": Yogi Berra) we are spending that the government does not have will come out of the future private economy.
Drudge's implication is right: We are going to strangle our future economyu. But it is not just the trillion dollar tax increase over ten years that will do it. That is just the beginning of the econmic catastrophe we are creating for ourselves, that there are not enou
Jews: Deserving What They Get
No, the title does not refer to Jews "deserving" the Holocaust, which no one "deserves".
Conservatives have been the main source of support for Israel over the last several decades, despite aberrations like Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul. Leftists, including President Obama, have been the main people often excusing Islamic terrorists, and advocating "talking" to people who want Israel to cease to exist.
Has not mattered. Jewish "leaders", New York Jews (including thoses transplanted to Florida), and even American Jews generally have mostly supported leftists. They profess to be nervous about the influence of the Christian "right" in conservative circles.
Well, you deserve what you get when you are this stupid (a principle generally applied in this blog, including with regard tothe Stupidest People on Earth: Wall Street). Today's news (see Drudge headline) is about how Jewish "leaders" are blasting Hillary Clinton for her criticism of Israel.
I have no sympathy for Jews on this one (as I have little for the country as a whole in electing people who have led us down the road to leftist contol and socialism). Hillary Clinton is a leftist. President Obama is a leftist. Jews knew that they could not trust these people as to Mideast policy. If you are so dumb that you think what Hillary Clinton said to be elected Senator from New York is something upon which Jews can rely forever, then Jews really do deserve what they get.
I did not see too many prominent Jews out there campaigning hard against Barack "World" Obama. As with Republican politicians who supported bailouts and spending under President Bush (and even now are putting earmarks in Democratic spending bills), and who then say they are acting upon principle in opposing Democratic spending and bailouts, for Jews to whine now leaves me cold.
What you do has consequences. If Jewish leftism leads to the destruction of Israel, they have only themselves to blame.
Conservatives have been the main source of support for Israel over the last several decades, despite aberrations like Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul. Leftists, including President Obama, have been the main people often excusing Islamic terrorists, and advocating "talking" to people who want Israel to cease to exist.
Has not mattered. Jewish "leaders", New York Jews (including thoses transplanted to Florida), and even American Jews generally have mostly supported leftists. They profess to be nervous about the influence of the Christian "right" in conservative circles.
Well, you deserve what you get when you are this stupid (a principle generally applied in this blog, including with regard tothe Stupidest People on Earth: Wall Street). Today's news (see Drudge headline) is about how Jewish "leaders" are blasting Hillary Clinton for her criticism of Israel.
I have no sympathy for Jews on this one (as I have little for the country as a whole in electing people who have led us down the road to leftist contol and socialism). Hillary Clinton is a leftist. President Obama is a leftist. Jews knew that they could not trust these people as to Mideast policy. If you are so dumb that you think what Hillary Clinton said to be elected Senator from New York is something upon which Jews can rely forever, then Jews really do deserve what they get.
I did not see too many prominent Jews out there campaigning hard against Barack "World" Obama. As with Republican politicians who supported bailouts and spending under President Bush (and even now are putting earmarks in Democratic spending bills), and who then say they are acting upon principle in opposing Democratic spending and bailouts, for Jews to whine now leaves me cold.
What you do has consequences. If Jewish leftism leads to the destruction of Israel, they have only themselves to blame.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Deficit Math
Some of you may have doubted when I used an example of a 3 tirllion dollar 2009 deficit to expose the fraud in Obama's "promise" to "reduce" the deficit in half by the end of his first term. I told you that 3 trillion was probably too high, although illustrating the point, but that the budget deficit might well reach 2 trillion (where, not so long ago, it was big mainstream media "news" that the Bush Administration was proposing a 3 trillion dollar budget--the entire budget). Never doubt me.
One item of news today is that the Obama Administration is now projecting the 2009 deficit to be 1.75 trillion. 2 trillion is clearly "doable". Chalk up another correct prediction for this blog.
You will note that HALF of 2 trillion is one trillion dollars. Thus, this "promise" by Obama to cut the deficit half by 2013 means "reducing" the deficit to a mere one trillion dollars (IF the promise is kept, and it is only a future promise while present spending is still increasing--Obama unveiling a 634 billion dollar healthcare "reform" that he calls a "down payment").
What a guy!!!! (our new President)
One item of news today is that the Obama Administration is now projecting the 2009 deficit to be 1.75 trillion. 2 trillion is clearly "doable". Chalk up another correct prediction for this blog.
You will note that HALF of 2 trillion is one trillion dollars. Thus, this "promise" by Obama to cut the deficit half by 2013 means "reducing" the deficit to a mere one trillion dollars (IF the promise is kept, and it is only a future promise while present spending is still increasing--Obama unveiling a 634 billion dollar healthcare "reform" that he calls a "down payment").
What a guy!!!! (our new President)
Slumdog Millionaire (Review)
Slumdog Millionaire (best picture winner, rating 82 out of 100) is a pretty good movie--well woth seeing. On my 100 percentile rating system, where moviews rated 60 are above average and generally worth seeing, 82 is a solid rating. However, you would be right in concluding that it is not a "best picture" rating, In the "Golden Age" of Hollywood, the movie would not rank in the top 10 for the year--often not in the top 20. Thus, the movie has significant flaws, which I will get around to at the end of this review. You should remember, however, that I am rating the movie as a solidly good movie, despite its flaws, and you should not let my description of the flaws deter you from seeing a movie well woth seeing.
If you have not heard, Slumdog Millionaire is the story of a Muslim (at least by heritage) slum kid in India who ends up on the Indian version of "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire", going for the million dollars. He mainly does this not for the money, but to regain contact with the girl with whom he has been obsessed since childhood (the "love story" of the movie, which is really a "love story" mainly from his side).
The story is told in flashbacks through a "gimmick" (which my older daughter's boyfriend accurately called "contrived" rather than convincing) by which the flashbacks explain how this slum young man knows the answers to questions to which he seemingly should not know the answers ("Who is on a $100 bill"--the "Benjamins" in American slang). These "flashbacks" are also occurring as the young man explains to the Indian police, while being tortured, how he came to know the answers. Yes, he is arrested because no one believes he is not cheating somehow.
This is not a new story. It is basically the Biblical "Book of Job", as most of the movie describes the abuse that the hero has suffered in his life, including the torture while under arrest--while he is becoming a hero on Indian television. The boys mother is killed early in his life by an Indian mob evidently after Muslims. He has to live on the streets ruled by thugs and gangs who do things like blind children to be more effective beggars. Thus, the flashbacks of the early years are mainly falshbacks of the hero's abuse in the Indian slums. Dickens did it better (Oliver Twist). But Dickens is a standard too high for almost any book or movie.
The reason this movie moves audiences (as it did my two brothers with whom I saw the movie, who perhaps liked it better than I did) is not the "love story". It is not the acting. How could it be, when the male lead, as an adult, is on screen so little. The children playing the main characters during childhood are on screen as much as the adults. The female lead (the hero's obsession) is hardly ever on screen. How could she even be considered, for example, as "best actreess" when she does not have the screen time of even a "supporting actress". All she does, anyway, is look beautiful (and she is).
The young male lead actor has a limited range of expressions. I would go so far to say that he has almost no expression through most of the film, as he stoically bears up under abuse, and stoically answers questions on the game show. Seill, his performance grows on you. You like him, even if he is on screen a limited time. John Wayne did not much change expression, but was a very effective actor. Meryl Streep type facial expressions are perhaps not the best guage of an actor's performance.
That is the strength of this movie. It is, at its core, the story of an individual slum kid overcoming impossible odds to get the girl of his dreams (whether she deserves it or not). He has faith in this dream, rather than in God (like Job), but the principle is the same. This timeless story is told in visually arresting form, and the child actors are perhaps better actors than the adult leads. So it is a movie with a log going for it You should like it, although I think most will not be wildly enthusiastic about it.
I liked the movie, but not that much. WARNING: The rest of this review is going to trash the movie, with spoilers. If you really liked the movie (I can see where you might, as at least one of my brother did, and it did get "Best Picture"), or have not seen the movie, you might want to stop reading here. These criticisms are not meant to wipe away my endorsement of the movie as worth seeing, but meant to explain the major flaws in the movie that caused me to consider it unworthy of being "Best Picture". Here goes:
1. The movie absolutely trashes India. Does it do so unfairly? I would say "yes", although I am not that familiar with India. I am sure that there is violence against Muslims in India (with there being that constant tension between India and Pakistan). However, we know that Islam is probably the most intolerant religion in the world today, as practiced in the world today. India may have some legitimate grievances against Muslims. No, I am not saying that such grievances justify wanton killing and abuse--only that Muslims have shown themselves capable of as bad, or worse. More importantly, do Indian plice routinely torture people merely accused of fraud--in this case a person who is already a hero to a lot of people? Nope. I regard this as unbelievable. If true, it merely illustrates how off base leftists are to label this country (the U.S.A.) as "evil" for engaging in "waterborading". somehow, I think "waterboarding" is preferable to the electric shocks (to the genitals?) administered to a person merely accused of fraud. In short, I think the really terrible picture of India given in this movie is overdone. The movie even tries to take advantage (this movie tries to "push button", and is the main overall thing I dislike about it) of the antagonism toward these Indian "call centers. The hero ends up working for one of the "call centers", and we see him trying to deceive people (in Egnland, I think) by saying that they are talking to a local person, instead of to a person in India. Gratuitous and manipulative. As an aside, one of my nieces walked out of the movie because of the "violence". I don't regard that as a problem, except for the overly sensitive, because the extreme violence (blinding, extreme beatings, etc.) occurs off screen. We see the set up, and the results, but the movie does not glorify the actual violence in horror movie style. I do think the movie really portrays India as a violent place, run by thugs and gangs, like Mexico actually is now. I suspect this is an unfair picture of India.
2. The "love story" is not that great. The woman with whom the hero is obsessed is notthing more than a victim. Sure, she looks beautiful. But that is all the hero can possibly see in her. She does nothing to help herself, and almost voluntarily passes from gang thug to gang leader as nothing more than a gangster's moll. Riff-Raff, the 1930's movie with Jean Harlow and Spencer Tracy (rating 85), has a much better love story (a story with some similarities to the Book of Job, but with a woman who is not merely a victim). While You were Sleeping, with Sandra Bullock (rating 97), is a much superior love story (and should easily have won "Best Picture" in this year's field). And a movie like The African Queen (rating 100) is so far superior to this movie that this movie is not even in the same league. However, I am coparing apples and orages. This movie is not meant to be really a mutual love story. The girl makes little effort to make the "love story" come true. This movie is meant to be the story of a child, and young man, overcoming all odds to make his dream come true. It is that part of the movie, which is what the movie is really about, that is effective.
3. I saw the musical score of this movie complitmented as an effective blend of rock and traditional Indian music. I found the score obtrusive, and remiiscent of an MTV rock video. In fact, as with most modern movies, this movie is more MTV visual style, with MTV type music, than it is substance. Old fashioned storytelling is dying. Luckily, the story at the core of this movie is so universal (the story of overcoming all odds to realize a dream) that it is not completely overwhelmed by the "style", including the obtrusive score.
4. The movie pushes buttons. This is my basic criticism, and really explains the criticisms in the first three items. The violence against Muslims is a politically correct button. The "traditional" music is a button, including the traditional dance after the credits, in a movie that really has nothing to do with "traditional" music. The older "brother" (I am not sure whether he is an actual brother or merely a "soul" brother) makes arbitrary decisions. He turns against the hero, and his love, for no apparent reason. Then, at the end, he turns against the gang leader he had joined for no apparent reason--the gang leader to which he had evidently turned over the girl. If you think these things are adequately "foreshadowed" in the movie, I think you are wrong. The host of the game show inexplicably turns against the hero. I know it is supposed to be jealousy, and/or a desire not to have the hero win the money, but the show is making the host famous because of the hero. To me, this is another contrivance, and not convincing. The movie is very contrived, and pushes too many buttons. Yes, fiction has to be "contrived", and push buttons. But the idea is to not let the manipulatioin show. To me, the manipulation in Slumdog Millionaire is too obvious, and too cynical. The "Book of Job" stuff is overdone, and overall the movie is too contrived by more than half.
As stated, the above explains why I do not regard this as a great movie. It is merely a good movie--which, by today's standards, is not "merely", but a rare thing. The problem is that the success of this movie will encourage the same bad elements to be used in much worse moviews. The bad elements of this movie are already endemic in Hollywood movies, which are little more than MTV vidios--all "style" and no substance. We are, after all, in the Age of Obama.
P.S. Fully half of this movie is in a foreign language (not even sure which language), with English subtitles. The subtitles are well done, but this mad the movie frustrating for me. My eyesight is not good enough to pick up subtitles quickly enough. If they stayed on the screen, I could read them But I can't pick them up at the speed that subtitles have to be flashed on the screen. I have tried to make allowances for this in my review above, but you might want to take this into account in considering the review. It does affect my enjoyment of the film. It is unfortunate for me that so many films these days use subtitles, even if the film is supposedly in English. However, that is just life. I don't believe in acting like a victim, and whining over these things. There is no reason mor a film maker to make his movie for me. Yes, I have trouble with rapid fire quick cuts and fancy visuals as well, although my borthers assure me that they, with perfect eyesight, have trouble following these as well. The only reason I mention this is not for any kind of sympathy, but because it may be relevant in evaluating my reaction to this movie.
If you have not heard, Slumdog Millionaire is the story of a Muslim (at least by heritage) slum kid in India who ends up on the Indian version of "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire", going for the million dollars. He mainly does this not for the money, but to regain contact with the girl with whom he has been obsessed since childhood (the "love story" of the movie, which is really a "love story" mainly from his side).
The story is told in flashbacks through a "gimmick" (which my older daughter's boyfriend accurately called "contrived" rather than convincing) by which the flashbacks explain how this slum young man knows the answers to questions to which he seemingly should not know the answers ("Who is on a $100 bill"--the "Benjamins" in American slang). These "flashbacks" are also occurring as the young man explains to the Indian police, while being tortured, how he came to know the answers. Yes, he is arrested because no one believes he is not cheating somehow.
This is not a new story. It is basically the Biblical "Book of Job", as most of the movie describes the abuse that the hero has suffered in his life, including the torture while under arrest--while he is becoming a hero on Indian television. The boys mother is killed early in his life by an Indian mob evidently after Muslims. He has to live on the streets ruled by thugs and gangs who do things like blind children to be more effective beggars. Thus, the flashbacks of the early years are mainly falshbacks of the hero's abuse in the Indian slums. Dickens did it better (Oliver Twist). But Dickens is a standard too high for almost any book or movie.
The reason this movie moves audiences (as it did my two brothers with whom I saw the movie, who perhaps liked it better than I did) is not the "love story". It is not the acting. How could it be, when the male lead, as an adult, is on screen so little. The children playing the main characters during childhood are on screen as much as the adults. The female lead (the hero's obsession) is hardly ever on screen. How could she even be considered, for example, as "best actreess" when she does not have the screen time of even a "supporting actress". All she does, anyway, is look beautiful (and she is).
The young male lead actor has a limited range of expressions. I would go so far to say that he has almost no expression through most of the film, as he stoically bears up under abuse, and stoically answers questions on the game show. Seill, his performance grows on you. You like him, even if he is on screen a limited time. John Wayne did not much change expression, but was a very effective actor. Meryl Streep type facial expressions are perhaps not the best guage of an actor's performance.
That is the strength of this movie. It is, at its core, the story of an individual slum kid overcoming impossible odds to get the girl of his dreams (whether she deserves it or not). He has faith in this dream, rather than in God (like Job), but the principle is the same. This timeless story is told in visually arresting form, and the child actors are perhaps better actors than the adult leads. So it is a movie with a log going for it You should like it, although I think most will not be wildly enthusiastic about it.
I liked the movie, but not that much. WARNING: The rest of this review is going to trash the movie, with spoilers. If you really liked the movie (I can see where you might, as at least one of my brother did, and it did get "Best Picture"), or have not seen the movie, you might want to stop reading here. These criticisms are not meant to wipe away my endorsement of the movie as worth seeing, but meant to explain the major flaws in the movie that caused me to consider it unworthy of being "Best Picture". Here goes:
1. The movie absolutely trashes India. Does it do so unfairly? I would say "yes", although I am not that familiar with India. I am sure that there is violence against Muslims in India (with there being that constant tension between India and Pakistan). However, we know that Islam is probably the most intolerant religion in the world today, as practiced in the world today. India may have some legitimate grievances against Muslims. No, I am not saying that such grievances justify wanton killing and abuse--only that Muslims have shown themselves capable of as bad, or worse. More importantly, do Indian plice routinely torture people merely accused of fraud--in this case a person who is already a hero to a lot of people? Nope. I regard this as unbelievable. If true, it merely illustrates how off base leftists are to label this country (the U.S.A.) as "evil" for engaging in "waterborading". somehow, I think "waterboarding" is preferable to the electric shocks (to the genitals?) administered to a person merely accused of fraud. In short, I think the really terrible picture of India given in this movie is overdone. The movie even tries to take advantage (this movie tries to "push button", and is the main overall thing I dislike about it) of the antagonism toward these Indian "call centers. The hero ends up working for one of the "call centers", and we see him trying to deceive people (in Egnland, I think) by saying that they are talking to a local person, instead of to a person in India. Gratuitous and manipulative. As an aside, one of my nieces walked out of the movie because of the "violence". I don't regard that as a problem, except for the overly sensitive, because the extreme violence (blinding, extreme beatings, etc.) occurs off screen. We see the set up, and the results, but the movie does not glorify the actual violence in horror movie style. I do think the movie really portrays India as a violent place, run by thugs and gangs, like Mexico actually is now. I suspect this is an unfair picture of India.
2. The "love story" is not that great. The woman with whom the hero is obsessed is notthing more than a victim. Sure, she looks beautiful. But that is all the hero can possibly see in her. She does nothing to help herself, and almost voluntarily passes from gang thug to gang leader as nothing more than a gangster's moll. Riff-Raff, the 1930's movie with Jean Harlow and Spencer Tracy (rating 85), has a much better love story (a story with some similarities to the Book of Job, but with a woman who is not merely a victim). While You were Sleeping, with Sandra Bullock (rating 97), is a much superior love story (and should easily have won "Best Picture" in this year's field). And a movie like The African Queen (rating 100) is so far superior to this movie that this movie is not even in the same league. However, I am coparing apples and orages. This movie is not meant to be really a mutual love story. The girl makes little effort to make the "love story" come true. This movie is meant to be the story of a child, and young man, overcoming all odds to make his dream come true. It is that part of the movie, which is what the movie is really about, that is effective.
3. I saw the musical score of this movie complitmented as an effective blend of rock and traditional Indian music. I found the score obtrusive, and remiiscent of an MTV rock video. In fact, as with most modern movies, this movie is more MTV visual style, with MTV type music, than it is substance. Old fashioned storytelling is dying. Luckily, the story at the core of this movie is so universal (the story of overcoming all odds to realize a dream) that it is not completely overwhelmed by the "style", including the obtrusive score.
4. The movie pushes buttons. This is my basic criticism, and really explains the criticisms in the first three items. The violence against Muslims is a politically correct button. The "traditional" music is a button, including the traditional dance after the credits, in a movie that really has nothing to do with "traditional" music. The older "brother" (I am not sure whether he is an actual brother or merely a "soul" brother) makes arbitrary decisions. He turns against the hero, and his love, for no apparent reason. Then, at the end, he turns against the gang leader he had joined for no apparent reason--the gang leader to which he had evidently turned over the girl. If you think these things are adequately "foreshadowed" in the movie, I think you are wrong. The host of the game show inexplicably turns against the hero. I know it is supposed to be jealousy, and/or a desire not to have the hero win the money, but the show is making the host famous because of the hero. To me, this is another contrivance, and not convincing. The movie is very contrived, and pushes too many buttons. Yes, fiction has to be "contrived", and push buttons. But the idea is to not let the manipulatioin show. To me, the manipulation in Slumdog Millionaire is too obvious, and too cynical. The "Book of Job" stuff is overdone, and overall the movie is too contrived by more than half.
As stated, the above explains why I do not regard this as a great movie. It is merely a good movie--which, by today's standards, is not "merely", but a rare thing. The problem is that the success of this movie will encourage the same bad elements to be used in much worse moviews. The bad elements of this movie are already endemic in Hollywood movies, which are little more than MTV vidios--all "style" and no substance. We are, after all, in the Age of Obama.
P.S. Fully half of this movie is in a foreign language (not even sure which language), with English subtitles. The subtitles are well done, but this mad the movie frustrating for me. My eyesight is not good enough to pick up subtitles quickly enough. If they stayed on the screen, I could read them But I can't pick them up at the speed that subtitles have to be flashed on the screen. I have tried to make allowances for this in my review above, but you might want to take this into account in considering the review. It does affect my enjoyment of the film. It is unfortunate for me that so many films these days use subtitles, even if the film is supposedly in English. However, that is just life. I don't believe in acting like a victim, and whining over these things. There is no reason mor a film maker to make his movie for me. Yes, I have trouble with rapid fire quick cuts and fancy visuals as well, although my borthers assure me that they, with perfect eyesight, have trouble following these as well. The only reason I mention this is not for any kind of sympathy, but because it may be relevant in evaluating my reaction to this movie.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Mexico: A Failed Country
After the "establishment" (lefitist media, Democrats, and Republican establishment) has tried to ignore the fact that Mexico is a failed country for several years. I have been using the title of "Mexico: A Failed Country" for more than two years.
Everybody now admits that there is a "war" going on in Mexico, and that war is beginning to spill over into the United States. The FBI conducted a raid in the last day or so on Mexican drug cartels operating in the United States. However, the ugly fact is that this is a war the drug cartels are winning in Mexico.
The follow up news today (to the previous blog entry this week about the Juarez mayor and Chihuahua governor) was about this big summit with the Chihuahua governor and Juarez mayor. You will remember that the mayor and his whole family were thereatened with decapitation by the main Juarez drug cartel(s). That put the mayor and his family "on the run", after the drug cartel said that they would "get" him and his family even if they fled to their house here in El Paso (where I live). Meanwhile, armed men attacked the Chihuahua governor on the highway, killing a bodyguard. Thus, you can understand that the Mexican Army provided heavy security for this meeting between the governor, mayor, and a few other people. The meeting was supposedly about what to do about the drug cartels. Good luck, wheh the mayor has to flee his own city.
That is not all of the news from Juarez in the El Paso media today. More people were murdered. That brings the murder total for the unfinished month of February alone to 210 men, women, and children. Juarez may now be the most dangerous city in the entire world.
How much have you heard about this in the mainstream media, efore that FBI drug raid? Where are the daily casualty reports, like from Iraq (where the AP gave daily casualty reports on IRAQI deaths)?
It is obvious that this blog has been more accurate about the deteriorating situation in Mexico thatn almost anyone else--certainly than anyone in the mainstream media or political establishment.
P.S. It still annoys me that Google "spell check" knows how to spell "Juarez", but not "El Paso" (the "Paso" being highlighted).
Everybody now admits that there is a "war" going on in Mexico, and that war is beginning to spill over into the United States. The FBI conducted a raid in the last day or so on Mexican drug cartels operating in the United States. However, the ugly fact is that this is a war the drug cartels are winning in Mexico.
The follow up news today (to the previous blog entry this week about the Juarez mayor and Chihuahua governor) was about this big summit with the Chihuahua governor and Juarez mayor. You will remember that the mayor and his whole family were thereatened with decapitation by the main Juarez drug cartel(s). That put the mayor and his family "on the run", after the drug cartel said that they would "get" him and his family even if they fled to their house here in El Paso (where I live). Meanwhile, armed men attacked the Chihuahua governor on the highway, killing a bodyguard. Thus, you can understand that the Mexican Army provided heavy security for this meeting between the governor, mayor, and a few other people. The meeting was supposedly about what to do about the drug cartels. Good luck, wheh the mayor has to flee his own city.
That is not all of the news from Juarez in the El Paso media today. More people were murdered. That brings the murder total for the unfinished month of February alone to 210 men, women, and children. Juarez may now be the most dangerous city in the entire world.
How much have you heard about this in the mainstream media, efore that FBI drug raid? Where are the daily casualty reports, like from Iraq (where the AP gave daily casualty reports on IRAQI deaths)?
It is obvious that this blog has been more accurate about the deteriorating situation in Mexico thatn almost anyone else--certainly than anyone in the mainstream media or political establishment.
P.S. It still annoys me that Google "spell check" knows how to spell "Juarez", but not "El Paso" (the "Paso" being highlighted).
Wall Street: The Stupidest People on Earth
Do you really doubt me that Wall Street people, including traders, are the Stupidest People on Earth? Look at the stock market action today.
The Dow went down this morning until it was down almost 200 points (my earlier entry was written on the way down). After that, the market jumped, in a matter of almost minutes, from down 150 to down 80. It then fell back to down 150. This is what Sean Hannnity (who does not understand the stock market at all, or simply makes partisan assertions he things sound good) called "going straight down after Obama's speech last night". See my earlier entry today for a correct view of the insanity--computer casino gaming--that is going on here.
Then the Dow, in the last hour, managed to go UP (positive for the day) at least 50. Then, as if to prove me right that we are dealing with the Stupidest People on Earth, the Dow went down in a matter of minutes. The Dow finally cloesed at down 80--about the same level of my entry this morning. But that statement glosses over the IRRATIONAL moves today (250 points low to high).
Q.E.D/ Wall Street people are the Stupidest People on Earth. Further, Wall Street is now clearly runnig a computer gaming casino, instead of any stock market for real "investors".
The Dow went down this morning until it was down almost 200 points (my earlier entry was written on the way down). After that, the market jumped, in a matter of almost minutes, from down 150 to down 80. It then fell back to down 150. This is what Sean Hannnity (who does not understand the stock market at all, or simply makes partisan assertions he things sound good) called "going straight down after Obama's speech last night". See my earlier entry today for a correct view of the insanity--computer casino gaming--that is going on here.
Then the Dow, in the last hour, managed to go UP (positive for the day) at least 50. Then, as if to prove me right that we are dealing with the Stupidest People on Earth, the Dow went down in a matter of minutes. The Dow finally cloesed at down 80--about the same level of my entry this morning. But that statement glosses over the IRRATIONAL moves today (250 points low to high).
Q.E.D/ Wall Street people are the Stupidest People on Earth. Further, Wall Street is now clearly runnig a computer gaming casino, instead of any stock market for real "investors".
President Barack "Wrold" Obama and Deceptive Gall: Playing Games with Deficits
I don't know whether "admire" is the right word, but you have to admire (or whatever) the collosal gall of President Barack "World" Obama.
He is promising to "cut the deficit in half", after more than doubling the deficit--while at the same time criticizing President Bush for the size of his deficits..
This is an interesting tactic. Democrats (who are adding 8% to this year's main spending bill, on top of the "stimulus"/porkulus bill) are increasing this year's deficit so high that cutting that deficit in half will leave us with a deficit probably as high as the highest deficit of the Bush years.
For example, if Democrats manage to create a 3 trillion dollar defict this year (not likely to be quite that high, but two trillion might not be out of reach), then Obama would be aiming to "decrease the deficit in 4 years to 1.5 trillion.
This truly is gall. Not only do you engage in the standard deception of promising future spending limits, while increasing current spending and taxes, but you increase the current deficit to the point that it is easier to claim you actually have lowered the deficit later.
Then there is Obama's "plan" to reduce military spending--at the same time he is promising to increase our commitment in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, he promises to increase taxes on the "rich" and "business". Leaving aside what this will do to the economy, do you realize that Obama's increased taxes may raise NO increased revenue? Do you remember Obama's response to Joe the Plumber, indicating that he does not care so much about government revenue as he does about redistributing the wealth? Higher taxes just mean that people make more effort to avoid taxes, as well as reducing government revenue by depressing productive economic activity.
This is all the usual leftist approach: tax and spend, and make your cuts only in the military budget. It does not work. It cannot work. It has never worked. It will not work.
He is promising to "cut the deficit in half", after more than doubling the deficit--while at the same time criticizing President Bush for the size of his deficits..
This is an interesting tactic. Democrats (who are adding 8% to this year's main spending bill, on top of the "stimulus"/porkulus bill) are increasing this year's deficit so high that cutting that deficit in half will leave us with a deficit probably as high as the highest deficit of the Bush years.
For example, if Democrats manage to create a 3 trillion dollar defict this year (not likely to be quite that high, but two trillion might not be out of reach), then Obama would be aiming to "decrease the deficit in 4 years to 1.5 trillion.
This truly is gall. Not only do you engage in the standard deception of promising future spending limits, while increasing current spending and taxes, but you increase the current deficit to the point that it is easier to claim you actually have lowered the deficit later.
Then there is Obama's "plan" to reduce military spending--at the same time he is promising to increase our commitment in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, he promises to increase taxes on the "rich" and "business". Leaving aside what this will do to the economy, do you realize that Obama's increased taxes may raise NO increased revenue? Do you remember Obama's response to Joe the Plumber, indicating that he does not care so much about government revenue as he does about redistributing the wealth? Higher taxes just mean that people make more effort to avoid taxes, as well as reducing government revenue by depressing productive economic activity.
This is all the usual leftist approach: tax and spend, and make your cuts only in the military budget. It does not work. It cannot work. It has never worked. It will not work.
Bobby Jindal and Rush Limbaugh: Damning with Faint, Apologetic Defense
Rush Limbaugh did Bobby Jindal no favors today.
Let me make clear that I did not listen to either Jindal's rsponse to President Obama last night, or to President Obama's speech itself. Neither interested me. I knew what Obama was gong to say, and I agree with Limbaugh that how well Obama reads a teleprompter means nothing. As far as I am concerned, if ou have heard one Obama speech (and I have heard more than 1), you have heard them all. Obama's speeches have little to do with what he is doing, and nothing to do with whether what he is doing is the right thing. They are all style. What little "substance' is in an Obama speech is often an outright lie, contradicted int eh next speech (delivered with the same passion and conviction as the previous speech saying exactly the opposite).
Rish Limbaugh said basically the above about the contrast between Obama and Jindal: that we don't need "style", but real conservative substance. Limbaugh went so far as to say that it does not matter how "conservatism" is delivered, but only that the substance is right. Limbaugh asserted that Jindal is "brilliant" (with which I agree from what I know of the man), and that it does not matter that his style was not as impressive as that of Obama. Hogwash.
Oh, I agree with Limbaugh that Jindal was in a thankless position (responding to a major Presidential address). However, how bad did Jindal have to be to have Limbaugh say that he sounded like he was "talking to first graders", and that this kind of sylistic problem could be "fixed"? Nope. Limbaugh would have been better off not addressing the subject of Jindal at all, or merely condemning the overblown media criticism of Jindal's response. As it is, Limbaugh gave me the impression that Jindal gave one of the worst speeches in the history of mankind (reading between the lines). Remember, I was not encumbered with any preconceptions. I had not even paid any attention to the media reaction to Jindal's speech. My impression of Jindal's speech came totally from Limbaugh, and that impression was that the speech was really bad.
It is simply not true that communication does not matter. Reagan proved that. It is true that no major Republican politician since Reagan has had the substance right. But even when right on the substance, Republicans have not been able to communicate conservative ideas. We need BOTH a conservative right on substance, and able to communicatethe substance to the average person (like Reagan). John McCain was wrong on the substance, but he was also unable to communicate even when he was right on the substance.
I agree with Limbaugh that Obama's style wears thin. In fact, I think it has already worn thin. McCain got more votes than you would expect, considering the economy, McCain's mistakes, and the sheer inability of McCain to "sell" himself and his policies. I have said, and continue to say, that Obama ran a pretty BAD campaign, and that Hillary Clinton would have easily beat McCain with a double digit percentage.
Why, however, was McCain the nominee? Mitt Romney should have been the nominee. He said all of the right conservative things, and McCain was supposedly dead in the water (should have been dead in the wather) because of his immigration bill. Yes, Mitt Romney had a problem of a "liberal" "past". Yes, Mike Huckabee basically sand bagged Romeny with evangelical voters. That does not change that the main reason that Romney did not get the Republican nomination is that he failed to connect with voters.
Rush Limbaugh is wrong. It is not enought to be right. You have to be able to connect with voters, as Reagan did. You do not need the soaring, empty, teleprompter rhetoric of Barack "World" Obama. As I say above, I think that phony stuff soon wears thin. But you do need to connect. If you can't do that, it does not matter if you are right on substance. Mitt Romney was right on substance, and he did not even come that close to the nomination--with virtually a free path in front of him (only McCain and the previously unknown Huckabee in his way). Even with conservative talk radio's (belated, too late--as Limbaugh and the rest abandoned conservatives in their hour of need) supporting Romney, he could not "close the deal".
Nope. I am not "abandoning" Bobby Jindal because of one effort. But I do maintain strongly that Rush Limbaugh hurt him today--perhaps worse than the speech itself (the excerpt played favorably by Limbaugh was uninspiring, lathough not terrible--the problem being that if that were the best of the speech, the entire thing could not have been very good). Rush is going to have to be more careful. Acting this defensive about Bobby Jindal is going to do the guy in.
Are conservatives doomed to see Republicans nominate another John McCain, or Bob Dole, or Bush (41 or 43), in 2012? We are going to be so doomed unless a conservative rises who can connect with the voters. Sarah Palin showed an ability to do that, despite her inexperience and the media campaign against her. Bobby Jindal has to learn to connect at least as well as Sarah Palin, because the media is not going to treat him any more gently than it treated Sarah Palin. Conservatives must have a leader who can go over the head to the media, and connect with the people--like Ronald Reagan. If we don't find such a person, we will get the same kind of Republican politicians we have gotten lately--not believing in conservative ideas and unable to communicate such ideas
Let me make clear that I did not listen to either Jindal's rsponse to President Obama last night, or to President Obama's speech itself. Neither interested me. I knew what Obama was gong to say, and I agree with Limbaugh that how well Obama reads a teleprompter means nothing. As far as I am concerned, if ou have heard one Obama speech (and I have heard more than 1), you have heard them all. Obama's speeches have little to do with what he is doing, and nothing to do with whether what he is doing is the right thing. They are all style. What little "substance' is in an Obama speech is often an outright lie, contradicted int eh next speech (delivered with the same passion and conviction as the previous speech saying exactly the opposite).
Rish Limbaugh said basically the above about the contrast between Obama and Jindal: that we don't need "style", but real conservative substance. Limbaugh went so far as to say that it does not matter how "conservatism" is delivered, but only that the substance is right. Limbaugh asserted that Jindal is "brilliant" (with which I agree from what I know of the man), and that it does not matter that his style was not as impressive as that of Obama. Hogwash.
Oh, I agree with Limbaugh that Jindal was in a thankless position (responding to a major Presidential address). However, how bad did Jindal have to be to have Limbaugh say that he sounded like he was "talking to first graders", and that this kind of sylistic problem could be "fixed"? Nope. Limbaugh would have been better off not addressing the subject of Jindal at all, or merely condemning the overblown media criticism of Jindal's response. As it is, Limbaugh gave me the impression that Jindal gave one of the worst speeches in the history of mankind (reading between the lines). Remember, I was not encumbered with any preconceptions. I had not even paid any attention to the media reaction to Jindal's speech. My impression of Jindal's speech came totally from Limbaugh, and that impression was that the speech was really bad.
It is simply not true that communication does not matter. Reagan proved that. It is true that no major Republican politician since Reagan has had the substance right. But even when right on the substance, Republicans have not been able to communicate conservative ideas. We need BOTH a conservative right on substance, and able to communicatethe substance to the average person (like Reagan). John McCain was wrong on the substance, but he was also unable to communicate even when he was right on the substance.
I agree with Limbaugh that Obama's style wears thin. In fact, I think it has already worn thin. McCain got more votes than you would expect, considering the economy, McCain's mistakes, and the sheer inability of McCain to "sell" himself and his policies. I have said, and continue to say, that Obama ran a pretty BAD campaign, and that Hillary Clinton would have easily beat McCain with a double digit percentage.
Why, however, was McCain the nominee? Mitt Romney should have been the nominee. He said all of the right conservative things, and McCain was supposedly dead in the water (should have been dead in the wather) because of his immigration bill. Yes, Mitt Romney had a problem of a "liberal" "past". Yes, Mike Huckabee basically sand bagged Romeny with evangelical voters. That does not change that the main reason that Romney did not get the Republican nomination is that he failed to connect with voters.
Rush Limbaugh is wrong. It is not enought to be right. You have to be able to connect with voters, as Reagan did. You do not need the soaring, empty, teleprompter rhetoric of Barack "World" Obama. As I say above, I think that phony stuff soon wears thin. But you do need to connect. If you can't do that, it does not matter if you are right on substance. Mitt Romney was right on substance, and he did not even come that close to the nomination--with virtually a free path in front of him (only McCain and the previously unknown Huckabee in his way). Even with conservative talk radio's (belated, too late--as Limbaugh and the rest abandoned conservatives in their hour of need) supporting Romney, he could not "close the deal".
Nope. I am not "abandoning" Bobby Jindal because of one effort. But I do maintain strongly that Rush Limbaugh hurt him today--perhaps worse than the speech itself (the excerpt played favorably by Limbaugh was uninspiring, lathough not terrible--the problem being that if that were the best of the speech, the entire thing could not have been very good). Rush is going to have to be more careful. Acting this defensive about Bobby Jindal is going to do the guy in.
Are conservatives doomed to see Republicans nominate another John McCain, or Bob Dole, or Bush (41 or 43), in 2012? We are going to be so doomed unless a conservative rises who can connect with the voters. Sarah Palin showed an ability to do that, despite her inexperience and the media campaign against her. Bobby Jindal has to learn to connect at least as well as Sarah Palin, because the media is not going to treat him any more gently than it treated Sarah Palin. Conservatives must have a leader who can go over the head to the media, and connect with the people--like Ronald Reagan. If we don't find such a person, we will get the same kind of Republican politicians we have gotten lately--not believing in conservative ideas and unable to communicate such ideas
Wall Street: The Stupidest People on Earth
Wall Street (the Stupidest People on Earth) has now caused my audited accuracy rating to rise to 99.5%. See yesterday's entry where I TOLD you (I am not above saying " I told you so") that anyone who continued to buy stocks as the Dow rose 200 points is one of those Stupidest People on Earth. It is not like this does not happen over and over. Einstein's definition of insanity: "Doing something that has failed over and over, with the expectation of a different result."
Yep. The Dow is down 84 as this is being written, as stocks predictably back off from the fictional computer gaming excess of yesterday's up move. Again, I told you this in foresight, and not hindsight. Plus, the Marketwatch.com headline was so stupid (probably anticipating the reaction of Rush Limbaugh and the rest, who either do not understand the market or pretend not to for partisan reasons): "Obama fails to impress market". One of the reasons that the magnitude of yesterday's up move was so very stupid is that it was in ANTICIPATION of Obama's speech (outlines of which were known), as well as the computer trading programs being triggered by Ben Bernanke's statment that the recession should end by the end of this year (as if Bernanke has been right on the economy, and as if that is such a "good" prediction).
This is really the very same thing that happened (and that I again called at the time) when Obama was elected. The computer program trading drove the market up BEFORE the election, and then promptly drove it DOWN after the election. Present Wall Street mantra: Buy on the rumor (or "dip"), and sell on the "news" (or rise).
It is as if Wall Street traders, and commentators, do not understand this. It is why Wall Street people are the Stupidest People on Earth (refusing to learn).
P.S. Nope. It does not matter if the market turns around today, in one of those whipsaw moves, and goes back up. You could still have bought stocks this morning cheaper than you could have near the top of this fictional, excess up move yesterday afternoon. I am not telling you that I can predict the direction the market is going to go, or where it will end up. I am simply telling you that these exaggerated, fictional moves created by momentum, computer program trading are proof that Wall Street people are the Stupidest People on Earth. WHO is buying as the Dow rises more than 200 points in a single day? Selling should come into the market every time the market makes one of these fictional (in magnitude) up moves. That selling does not come in to moderate these excess gyrations (or buying on downside moves) is evidence of a SICK stock market dominated by the Stupidest People on Earth.
Yep. The Dow is down 84 as this is being written, as stocks predictably back off from the fictional computer gaming excess of yesterday's up move. Again, I told you this in foresight, and not hindsight. Plus, the Marketwatch.com headline was so stupid (probably anticipating the reaction of Rush Limbaugh and the rest, who either do not understand the market or pretend not to for partisan reasons): "Obama fails to impress market". One of the reasons that the magnitude of yesterday's up move was so very stupid is that it was in ANTICIPATION of Obama's speech (outlines of which were known), as well as the computer trading programs being triggered by Ben Bernanke's statment that the recession should end by the end of this year (as if Bernanke has been right on the economy, and as if that is such a "good" prediction).
This is really the very same thing that happened (and that I again called at the time) when Obama was elected. The computer program trading drove the market up BEFORE the election, and then promptly drove it DOWN after the election. Present Wall Street mantra: Buy on the rumor (or "dip"), and sell on the "news" (or rise).
It is as if Wall Street traders, and commentators, do not understand this. It is why Wall Street people are the Stupidest People on Earth (refusing to learn).
P.S. Nope. It does not matter if the market turns around today, in one of those whipsaw moves, and goes back up. You could still have bought stocks this morning cheaper than you could have near the top of this fictional, excess up move yesterday afternoon. I am not telling you that I can predict the direction the market is going to go, or where it will end up. I am simply telling you that these exaggerated, fictional moves created by momentum, computer program trading are proof that Wall Street people are the Stupidest People on Earth. WHO is buying as the Dow rises more than 200 points in a single day? Selling should come into the market every time the market makes one of these fictional (in magnitude) up moves. That selling does not come in to moderate these excess gyrations (or buying on downside moves) is evidence of a SICK stock market dominated by the Stupidest People on Earth.
P. G. Wodehouse and Dames
P. G. Wodehouse is one of the funniest writers who ever lived. While there are few of his books that I would rate 100 on an individual basis, the body of work rates a clear 100. While Wodehouse may never quite have reached the heights of Catch 22, or Triggerfish Lane (see yesterday's Tim Dorsey entry), he is funnier overall than Joseph Heller or Dorsey ever thought of being (besides coming darn close to those hieights).
As is true of the incomparable Georgette Heyer (novels of Regency England misleadingly labeled as "Regency Romances"), Wodehouse wrote of a world that never was. He wrote novels of the English upper class--as if the Egnlish upper class were ever quite as funny as a P.G. Wodehouse character. You will not find Dickens slum characters in P.G. Wodehouse, or Dickens "social reforming". Not for Wodehouse are the sordid underbelly of English life, or the unhappy ending. Wodehouse male characters have names like "Finknottle", and school nicknames like "Stinker" or "Catsmeat".
As stated, Wodehouse was not interested (in his novels) in the sordid side of life. He gives you iniversal truths about humanity (as did Georgette Heyer) in describing a fantasy world that never quite was (but should have been). Wodehouse's signature character is a "gentleman's gentleman" named Jeeves, who is not so much a real character as a device. Jeeves is the perfect servant of English folklore, with no real life of his own, who solves all of the problems of his employer, Bertie Wooster, and Bertie's friends. Meanwhile, Jeeves quotes Shakespeare and other high brow philosophy, or provides the accurate quote when Bertie has only a vague idea that someone once said something appplicable. Jeeeves is merely a deus ex machina plot device to work out the happy endings. For that reason, and because Jeeves is (deliberately) portrayed as insufferably smug, I prefer the Wodehouse novels without Jeeves. However, there is no doubting that the Jeeves novels are funny--very funny. Bertie Wooster is the Don Quixote "everyman" who has to be bailed out by Jeeves,, as he tilts with windmills (otherwise known as girls with matrimony in mind, and aunts so tough Captain Bligh would have been a pussycat in their hands--not to mention his loopy firends).
Yes, I am finally to the dames of P. G. Wodehouse. Wodehouse wrote about "delicately natured" girls of the upper class who were referred to as "squirt" or "gumboil" or any number of similar terms. Don't be fooled. They are all DAMES, including the aunts sometimes referred to by that title ("Dame" so and so).
Wodehouse dames may be "delicately nurtured", but they all have the willpower, and toughness. of Attila the Hun, or Jabba the Hutt (Darth Vader?). They are all Hell on wheels, and Bertie Wooster, or any Wodehouse male, is merely putty in their hands. The aunts, of course, are these "delicately nurtured" females after they fully grow up--much toughter than Attila the Hun, or rhan any male who ever lived.
Let Bertie Wooster tell you: "Scratch any delicately nurtured female, and you will find a ruthless Napoleon of crime, willing to do anything to get a man to do what she wants, includig blackmail." Women were always blackmailing, or manipultaing, poor Bertie into the most absurd situations. Further, since any woman had a will too strong for Bertie to withstand, if any of these women take it into their mind to marry Bertie Wooster, he is helpless to resist them. Feminism has lowered the status and natural talents of women to the pont that they are no longer as good at this as they used to be. If women really understood what has happened (a male conspiracy?), they would lynch ever feminist they can find. Sure, women are still just as tough and ruthless, but they have lost the ability to use the "velvet glove". Then they wonder why they are not "happy", and why they no longer can get ment to "commit", or otherwise do what they want!!!!
Bertie Wooster (again on dames): "Oh woman, woman. We need to suppress the sex for the good of all of us."
Then there is the philosophy, such as Jeeves quoting Marcus Aurelius (somewhat paraphrased, as all of these quotes in this entry are only appoximate quotes that accurately reflect the gis): "When we are born, our destiny is already determined, and whatever befalls us is only part of that great destiny--part of the Great Web of the universe."
Jeeves stated the above to Bertie Wooster, as Bertie was again in the soup facing actual marriage to one of the terrible (no matter how beautiful) females that crossed his path.
Bertie Wooster: "Marcus Aurelius is an ass!!!"
If you don't understand Bertie's reaction, because of your religious upbringing or something, imagine if Obma had got on TV last night (what he actually said is bad enough) and said: "You need to remember that whatever befalls us is part of the Great Web, and realize that if you have lost your job, or your money, it is only part of your destiny." Even if true (free will?), something lke that might get even Obama stoned--certainly get him called an "ass".
P.S. The above is meant to be farily light stuff. As I have previously told you, proofreading is a laborious chore for me. I do not find it worth the time to proofread the above, and I hope you will forgive the inevitable typos.
As is true of the incomparable Georgette Heyer (novels of Regency England misleadingly labeled as "Regency Romances"), Wodehouse wrote of a world that never was. He wrote novels of the English upper class--as if the Egnlish upper class were ever quite as funny as a P.G. Wodehouse character. You will not find Dickens slum characters in P.G. Wodehouse, or Dickens "social reforming". Not for Wodehouse are the sordid underbelly of English life, or the unhappy ending. Wodehouse male characters have names like "Finknottle", and school nicknames like "Stinker" or "Catsmeat".
As stated, Wodehouse was not interested (in his novels) in the sordid side of life. He gives you iniversal truths about humanity (as did Georgette Heyer) in describing a fantasy world that never quite was (but should have been). Wodehouse's signature character is a "gentleman's gentleman" named Jeeves, who is not so much a real character as a device. Jeeves is the perfect servant of English folklore, with no real life of his own, who solves all of the problems of his employer, Bertie Wooster, and Bertie's friends. Meanwhile, Jeeves quotes Shakespeare and other high brow philosophy, or provides the accurate quote when Bertie has only a vague idea that someone once said something appplicable. Jeeeves is merely a deus ex machina plot device to work out the happy endings. For that reason, and because Jeeves is (deliberately) portrayed as insufferably smug, I prefer the Wodehouse novels without Jeeves. However, there is no doubting that the Jeeves novels are funny--very funny. Bertie Wooster is the Don Quixote "everyman" who has to be bailed out by Jeeves,, as he tilts with windmills (otherwise known as girls with matrimony in mind, and aunts so tough Captain Bligh would have been a pussycat in their hands--not to mention his loopy firends).
Yes, I am finally to the dames of P. G. Wodehouse. Wodehouse wrote about "delicately natured" girls of the upper class who were referred to as "squirt" or "gumboil" or any number of similar terms. Don't be fooled. They are all DAMES, including the aunts sometimes referred to by that title ("Dame" so and so).
Wodehouse dames may be "delicately nurtured", but they all have the willpower, and toughness. of Attila the Hun, or Jabba the Hutt (Darth Vader?). They are all Hell on wheels, and Bertie Wooster, or any Wodehouse male, is merely putty in their hands. The aunts, of course, are these "delicately nurtured" females after they fully grow up--much toughter than Attila the Hun, or rhan any male who ever lived.
Let Bertie Wooster tell you: "Scratch any delicately nurtured female, and you will find a ruthless Napoleon of crime, willing to do anything to get a man to do what she wants, includig blackmail." Women were always blackmailing, or manipultaing, poor Bertie into the most absurd situations. Further, since any woman had a will too strong for Bertie to withstand, if any of these women take it into their mind to marry Bertie Wooster, he is helpless to resist them. Feminism has lowered the status and natural talents of women to the pont that they are no longer as good at this as they used to be. If women really understood what has happened (a male conspiracy?), they would lynch ever feminist they can find. Sure, women are still just as tough and ruthless, but they have lost the ability to use the "velvet glove". Then they wonder why they are not "happy", and why they no longer can get ment to "commit", or otherwise do what they want!!!!
Bertie Wooster (again on dames): "Oh woman, woman. We need to suppress the sex for the good of all of us."
Then there is the philosophy, such as Jeeves quoting Marcus Aurelius (somewhat paraphrased, as all of these quotes in this entry are only appoximate quotes that accurately reflect the gis): "When we are born, our destiny is already determined, and whatever befalls us is only part of that great destiny--part of the Great Web of the universe."
Jeeves stated the above to Bertie Wooster, as Bertie was again in the soup facing actual marriage to one of the terrible (no matter how beautiful) females that crossed his path.
Bertie Wooster: "Marcus Aurelius is an ass!!!"
If you don't understand Bertie's reaction, because of your religious upbringing or something, imagine if Obma had got on TV last night (what he actually said is bad enough) and said: "You need to remember that whatever befalls us is part of the Great Web, and realize that if you have lost your job, or your money, it is only part of your destiny." Even if true (free will?), something lke that might get even Obama stoned--certainly get him called an "ass".
P.S. The above is meant to be farily light stuff. As I have previously told you, proofreading is a laborious chore for me. I do not find it worth the time to proofread the above, and I hope you will forgive the inevitable typos.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Constitution: With D.C. Vote, Leftists Objectively Prove They Do NOT Believe in Our Constitution
This blog has previously established the following:
1. Leftists do not believe in free speech, except for themselves. Look at almost any leftist dominated university in this country (almost all of them).
2. Leftists do not believe in democracy. Look at abortion and the death penalty.
3. Leftists do not believe in either "truth" or "transparency". Look at the deception in this Obama "porkulus" bill, and the way it was rushed through without people even being given a chance to read it.
Mow a "new" item ha been added. Actually, it i snot "new", since it has been obvious for a very long time. But today proved it beyond any doubt.
4. Leftists do not believe in the Constitution. What leftists believe in is leftism, and what they think the Constitution should say. What it actually says is irrelevant to them. To leftist,s, it is a matter of authoritarian power, as they strive to have leftism imposed on the country by judicial fiat. They also adopt the "1984" tactic of the Big Lie, where they use their domination of the mainstream media to try to tell people that black is white, and that the Constitution does not mean what it says.
You doubt me? You really are a fool, aren't you? One item in today's news, which the mainstream media is pretty much ignoring (in terms of its blatant violation of the Constsitution), is that Congress is trying to vote to give the District of Columbia a vote in Congress. The District of Columbia now has a non-voting representative in the House. Problem: The Constitution clearly provides that ONLY states can be represented in Congress. The District of Columbia is not a state. Yet, leftists are not trying for a Constitutional Amendment, which they know will fail. They are simply trying to pass a law, and seem to be on the verge of passing it, that flagrangly violates the Constitution. Q.E.D Despite their bleating, when it suits their purpose, about the Constitution (such as about the supposed Constitutional "rights" of terrorists), leftists do not believe in the Constitution at all.
For those out there who say that it is "taxation without representation" for the District of Columbia to not be represented in Congress, go suck eggs. Our Constitution was formed by the states, and it is the states that for which the Constitution clearly provides representation in Congress. The District of Columbia is a Federal Government enclave, separate from the states, and that is the way the country was set up. For the District of Columbia to be represented in Congress would mean that the Federal Government itself would have representatives in Congress, and that violates the whole concept upon which our Federal Government was established. Whatever you think of the merits of this argument, it is what the Constitution SAYS. If you don't believe in the Constitution, as leftists do not, this is irrelevant to you.
P.S. Should leftist Democrats, and leftist Republicans, voting to violate the law--the Constitution being the supreme law of the land--in this flagrant manner be criminally prosecuted? Maybe. They should certainly all be voted out of office. It is another shame for the Repubican Party, which really has no honor left to stain, that Republicans are not raising more of a stink about this flagrant violation of the Constitution.
1. Leftists do not believe in free speech, except for themselves. Look at almost any leftist dominated university in this country (almost all of them).
2. Leftists do not believe in democracy. Look at abortion and the death penalty.
3. Leftists do not believe in either "truth" or "transparency". Look at the deception in this Obama "porkulus" bill, and the way it was rushed through without people even being given a chance to read it.
Mow a "new" item ha been added. Actually, it i snot "new", since it has been obvious for a very long time. But today proved it beyond any doubt.
4. Leftists do not believe in the Constitution. What leftists believe in is leftism, and what they think the Constitution should say. What it actually says is irrelevant to them. To leftist,s, it is a matter of authoritarian power, as they strive to have leftism imposed on the country by judicial fiat. They also adopt the "1984" tactic of the Big Lie, where they use their domination of the mainstream media to try to tell people that black is white, and that the Constitution does not mean what it says.
You doubt me? You really are a fool, aren't you? One item in today's news, which the mainstream media is pretty much ignoring (in terms of its blatant violation of the Constsitution), is that Congress is trying to vote to give the District of Columbia a vote in Congress. The District of Columbia now has a non-voting representative in the House. Problem: The Constitution clearly provides that ONLY states can be represented in Congress. The District of Columbia is not a state. Yet, leftists are not trying for a Constitutional Amendment, which they know will fail. They are simply trying to pass a law, and seem to be on the verge of passing it, that flagrangly violates the Constitution. Q.E.D Despite their bleating, when it suits their purpose, about the Constitution (such as about the supposed Constitutional "rights" of terrorists), leftists do not believe in the Constitution at all.
For those out there who say that it is "taxation without representation" for the District of Columbia to not be represented in Congress, go suck eggs. Our Constitution was formed by the states, and it is the states that for which the Constitution clearly provides representation in Congress. The District of Columbia is a Federal Government enclave, separate from the states, and that is the way the country was set up. For the District of Columbia to be represented in Congress would mean that the Federal Government itself would have representatives in Congress, and that violates the whole concept upon which our Federal Government was established. Whatever you think of the merits of this argument, it is what the Constitution SAYS. If you don't believe in the Constitution, as leftists do not, this is irrelevant to you.
P.S. Should leftist Democrats, and leftist Republicans, voting to violate the law--the Constitution being the supreme law of the land--in this flagrant manner be criminally prosecuted? Maybe. They should certainly all be voted out of office. It is another shame for the Repubican Party, which really has no honor left to stain, that Republicans are not raising more of a stink about this flagrant violation of the Constitution.
Mexico: A Failed Country
The news from Mexico gets worse and worse--at least here on the front lines (so to speak) in El Paso. The mainstream media pretty much ignores it, in my experience.
Today there were two dispatches from the front. First, the mayor of Juarez is "on the run". Is that because he has committed a crime? Depends on how you look at it. He has "offended" the people who are really running Juarez, and maybe allof Mexico. I am talking about the drug cartels, who said that they would "get" the mayor, even if he and his family fled to El Paso. Yes, it should not surprise you that the mayor and his family have a house in El Paso. It is well established that most people in Mexico, a failed country, would rather live in the United States.
El Paso police assured everyone that they would protect the mayor, even against the drug cartels. It is unclear whether it is true, or some kind of feint, but the latest reports were that the mayor and his family were "on the run" in Mexico, rather than to El Paso. The earlier reports this morning suggested that the mayor's family, at least, may have fled to El Paso.
Then came the news that the governor of Chihuahua, the Mexican state in which Juarez is located, was shot at today. He was not hit, but one of his bodyguards was killed. One of the gunment was also killed, and it turns out he was an ex-military man. The military, of course, is now the entity on which Mexico is relying in its war with the drug cartels, since the police are corrupt. Problem: Many in the military are also corrupt.
I have been telling you for more than two years that Mexico is a failed country. I am being proven more right, as usual, every single day.
P.S. Google, by the way, appears never to have heard of El Paso (maybe not surprisingly), even though Google is evidently familiar with Juarez. I say that because Google "spell check" shades the "Paso" in "El Paso" in that pale yellow which is so hard for me to see, indicating that it is speelled wrong. I hate to break it to the Google, but I have lived in El Paso for some 35 years. I know how to spell it. Google should be ashamed for dissing El Paso this way, while getting a Mexican city right.
Today there were two dispatches from the front. First, the mayor of Juarez is "on the run". Is that because he has committed a crime? Depends on how you look at it. He has "offended" the people who are really running Juarez, and maybe allof Mexico. I am talking about the drug cartels, who said that they would "get" the mayor, even if he and his family fled to El Paso. Yes, it should not surprise you that the mayor and his family have a house in El Paso. It is well established that most people in Mexico, a failed country, would rather live in the United States.
El Paso police assured everyone that they would protect the mayor, even against the drug cartels. It is unclear whether it is true, or some kind of feint, but the latest reports were that the mayor and his family were "on the run" in Mexico, rather than to El Paso. The earlier reports this morning suggested that the mayor's family, at least, may have fled to El Paso.
Then came the news that the governor of Chihuahua, the Mexican state in which Juarez is located, was shot at today. He was not hit, but one of his bodyguards was killed. One of the gunment was also killed, and it turns out he was an ex-military man. The military, of course, is now the entity on which Mexico is relying in its war with the drug cartels, since the police are corrupt. Problem: Many in the military are also corrupt.
I have been telling you for more than two years that Mexico is a failed country. I am being proven more right, as usual, every single day.
P.S. Google, by the way, appears never to have heard of El Paso (maybe not surprisingly), even though Google is evidently familiar with Juarez. I say that because Google "spell check" shades the "Paso" in "El Paso" in that pale yellow which is so hard for me to see, indicating that it is speelled wrong. I hate to break it to the Google, but I have lived in El Paso for some 35 years. I know how to spell it. Google should be ashamed for dissing El Paso this way, while getting a Mexican city right.
Wall Street: The Stupidest People on Earth
What would I do without Wall Street to show people how smart I am? Well, it is not only Wall Street where my analysis has been shown to be correct. However, since October, the Stupidest People on Earth (wall Street people) have done their very best to make me look like a genius.
Yes, todayis an example. The Dow jumped 200 points by noonish today. That was after dropping 250 ponts yesterday. Is this rational? Of course not. It merely shows that most of the drop yesterday was fictional momentum trading. The bounce today (which I suggested yesterday was due) is being fed by the same momentum trading. The "news" does not justify these wild gyrations, which merely show that Wall Street is sick.
I have told you that only the Stupidest People on Earth keep buying stocks when the Dow is up 200 in a single day, or keep selling stocks when the Dow is down 200 in a single day. I have recently dropped this number to 150, as the stock market level makes this a bigger percentage move now. Plus, there is almost never any reason fro the Dow to either go up or down more than 100 points in a single day.
Why should the Dow not go up 250 today, when it went down 250 yesterday? If you think that way, you are one of the Stupidest People on Earth, and should be on Wall Street. Two "wrongs" do not make a right (that truest of all "middle class" truths). These wild gyratiions merely show a sick market. It will not be healthy until this wild momentum trading is either suppressed, or stops by Wall Street actually learning. However, the very reason Wall Street people are the Stupidest People on Earth is that they do not learn. They did not "learn" from the bursting of the dot.com bubble. They did not learn from the bursting of the oil bubble (more than once). They did not learn from the bursting of the housing bubble. They are truly the Stupidest People on Earth--which is why I am not optimistic.
No, I don't know how the stock market will finish today. I do not know what direction it will go in tomorrrow. But I do know that Wall Street people have proven themselves to be the Stupidest People on Earth, and these are the very people now telling us how to run the country--in that fascist parthnership with Obama's/leftist/establishment Republican Big Government central planners.
Yes, todayis an example. The Dow jumped 200 points by noonish today. That was after dropping 250 ponts yesterday. Is this rational? Of course not. It merely shows that most of the drop yesterday was fictional momentum trading. The bounce today (which I suggested yesterday was due) is being fed by the same momentum trading. The "news" does not justify these wild gyrations, which merely show that Wall Street is sick.
I have told you that only the Stupidest People on Earth keep buying stocks when the Dow is up 200 in a single day, or keep selling stocks when the Dow is down 200 in a single day. I have recently dropped this number to 150, as the stock market level makes this a bigger percentage move now. Plus, there is almost never any reason fro the Dow to either go up or down more than 100 points in a single day.
Why should the Dow not go up 250 today, when it went down 250 yesterday? If you think that way, you are one of the Stupidest People on Earth, and should be on Wall Street. Two "wrongs" do not make a right (that truest of all "middle class" truths). These wild gyratiions merely show a sick market. It will not be healthy until this wild momentum trading is either suppressed, or stops by Wall Street actually learning. However, the very reason Wall Street people are the Stupidest People on Earth is that they do not learn. They did not "learn" from the bursting of the dot.com bubble. They did not learn from the bursting of the oil bubble (more than once). They did not learn from the bursting of the housing bubble. They are truly the Stupidest People on Earth--which is why I am not optimistic.
No, I don't know how the stock market will finish today. I do not know what direction it will go in tomorrrow. But I do know that Wall Street people have proven themselves to be the Stupidest People on Earth, and these are the very people now telling us how to run the country--in that fascist parthnership with Obama's/leftist/establishment Republican Big Government central planners.
Rick Santelli, Hero; Jim Cramer, CNBC, Wall Street and Socialism: Villains
Rick Santelli is now famous for his rant at--I think--the Chicago Board of Trade. That is where Santelli trashed bailing out people who bought houses they can't afford, and really trashed government bailouts of all kind. Since then, Santelli has given interviews that make clear he is on the side of the angels. "Government is the problem, and not the solution" prettymuch sums up what he has been saying, and what conservatives generally believe.
But Santelli has said it more forcefully and convincingly than almost any Republican out there, and than most conservatives out there. What is the problem with conservatives these days? Well, they seem to have turned back to Wall Street (the Stupidest People on Earth) as the source of their thinking. That means that they accept the idea that the Federal Government must DO SOMETHING to "solve" oour problems, and that if only the Federal Government will enact the right tax GIMMICK (which happens to benefit Wall Street), the stock market will rise 1000 points, and we will be fine. Give me a break. This is not good politics, and it is not good thinking. Rick Santelli seems to be much more clear thinking. He seems to agree with me (the gold standard of "clear thinking) that the first three options for government are to: Do nothing, do nothing, and do nothing. Oh, he understands that the government can do some things on the margin to lessen the pain, but trying to stop the pain with central planning is a MISTAKE. Rick Santelli and I are on the same page on this.
It gets better. We also seem to be on the same page as far as Wall Street is concerned. Rick Santelli seems to recognize, as I do, that the people on Wall Street are the Stupidest People on Earth--who then want to run the country their way, bailing themselves out, after proving they are the stupidest people on Earth. I say this because I listened to Santelli's interview on Hannity's radio program yesterday (a program to which I do not listen, but tuned in solely to listen to Santelli). In that interview, Santelli emphasized that he is NOT a "Wall Street" person, but based at the Chicago Broad of Trade. He made clear that the commodity traders had not asked for bailouts, or created these disastrous new financial instruments (derivatives, et. al.). Santelli made clear that he regards commodity traders, and the people arond them (the people cheering him were evidently mainly $30.000 a year staffers rather than rich traders) as true free market people, while he regards Wall Street people as the stupid, hypocritical fascists/Communists that they are. Santelli is exactly right. (Okay, I put my words in this mouth here that he did not exactly say, but my words--as I have previously defined them--fit what Santelli did say.)
I was aware that Rick Santelli ws the ONLY free market persona CNBC (the only one I have heard, anyway). The rest of CNBC is part of the Wall Street insider crowd--central planners all, for what they perceive to be their own personal benefit. Larry Kudlos, this still includes YOU (you fascist/Communist central planner you). CNBC is now trying to make mileage out of Santelli. Don't buy it. Santelli has been an outsider on CNBC, as he seems to recognize.
I have (accurately) trashed CNBC in this blog for the central planning, let Wall Street people run the country, peoople that they are. I have been previously tempted to say, in this thog, that Rick Santelli was the lone exception. Several times, I alomst inserted that comment in blog entries. I wish I had. There is a reason I did not, and that I lumped basically all of CNBC with the central planning, bailout, Wall Street villains.
That reason is that I have never really seen the program that Rick Santelli evidently hosts. I have only seen him as a panelist on other CNBC shows, such as several hosted by that fascist/Communist Larry Kudlow. Santelli would be brought in, for 30 seconds or so, in these shows to provide "balance" tot he idea that the government has to DO SOMETHING. CNBC, and the rest of these panels, sort of treated Santelli like a "crazy uncle". His comments were generally brushed aside--sometimes with the implication that Santellie really wanted the government to act, but just thought we should consider the free market alternative. Santelli has now made clear that he really meant what he said, and what the others at CNBC were refusing to acknowledge as an alternative. He really thinks that the free market solution is the right one. Further, he prettymuch appears to have contempt for these newly meinted, stupid central planners on Wall Street (and CNBC?). He is right on both counts.
Why have we re aced the point that a lone maverick (on his own network) is the most forceful advocate for the free market out there today (and I include Rush Limabugh here, because Limbaugh has gone too far into gimmicks and promises that the "right" government action will immediately save us for my taste--even though I recognizer Limbaugh as the primary leader of the conservative movement today)? Well, conservatives are so shell shocked that they have gotten away from the simple formulation of Reagan: "Government is the problem, and not the solution." Too many conservatives now seem to think that they need to explain how their government "solutions" are better than those of the leftists. Yes, I understand that their "solutions"--especially people like Limbaugh--try to lead us back to the free market. But once you accept the idea that the Federal Government must "save" us, you have pretty much lost the battle. In my view, too amny conservatives have accepted this idea, at least in the way they phrase their arguments. Rick Santelli avoids this trap. For that reason, at least today, he is my hero.
Santelli is even right on Jim Cramer. Cramer is the loud mouth Wall STreet insider with that unwatchable show on CNBC (unwatchable, because it is nothing but continuous screaming). Looking up Santelli on Google, I found an article correctly dismissing Cramer as a priest of the "Church of What Is Happening Now." I have never heard a more accurarate description of Cramer. Cramer has denied it (this kind of dishonesty being one of the many reasons you should ingore him), but Cramer is one of the gurus of the momentum trading that has ruined the stock market. Cramer believes in riding the present trend, and avoiding the presently "weak" areas. He tells you he relies on the "fundamentals". Do not believe him. He lies. He is, indeed, a priest of the Church of What Is Happening NOw. Santelli is exactly right again, and right again when he says that the problem with that approach is that it is right until it is wrong. Once the fad, momentum stocks get hit, there is no bottom. It is a terrible long term stra=tegy, especially when everone is playing it, aand as a short term strategy it ruins the stock market for everyone (once it takes over, as it now has).
P.S. Cramer's one saving grace, and the only thing I have praised him for, is that he recognizes that something has to be done about short selling. Short selling is the new way that momentum traders and hedge funds are using in their short term, computer trading methods. Unrestricted short selling is one of the factors that has pretty much ruined the stock market. The one area Santelli has not mentioned, although he has not said anything wrong either, is that commodity traders are not fully immune from the modern age of momentum trading. The ONLY explanation for the spike of oil prices to $147 dollars a barrel was momentum trading. The difference with coomodity traders is that they have not whined to be "bailed out", or tried to get the country to lef them rule the country for their own benefit. Santelli sees the corruption in Wall Street clearly, and for that alone he is a hero.
But Santelli has said it more forcefully and convincingly than almost any Republican out there, and than most conservatives out there. What is the problem with conservatives these days? Well, they seem to have turned back to Wall Street (the Stupidest People on Earth) as the source of their thinking. That means that they accept the idea that the Federal Government must DO SOMETHING to "solve" oour problems, and that if only the Federal Government will enact the right tax GIMMICK (which happens to benefit Wall Street), the stock market will rise 1000 points, and we will be fine. Give me a break. This is not good politics, and it is not good thinking. Rick Santelli seems to be much more clear thinking. He seems to agree with me (the gold standard of "clear thinking) that the first three options for government are to: Do nothing, do nothing, and do nothing. Oh, he understands that the government can do some things on the margin to lessen the pain, but trying to stop the pain with central planning is a MISTAKE. Rick Santelli and I are on the same page on this.
It gets better. We also seem to be on the same page as far as Wall Street is concerned. Rick Santelli seems to recognize, as I do, that the people on Wall Street are the Stupidest People on Earth--who then want to run the country their way, bailing themselves out, after proving they are the stupidest people on Earth. I say this because I listened to Santelli's interview on Hannity's radio program yesterday (a program to which I do not listen, but tuned in solely to listen to Santelli). In that interview, Santelli emphasized that he is NOT a "Wall Street" person, but based at the Chicago Broad of Trade. He made clear that the commodity traders had not asked for bailouts, or created these disastrous new financial instruments (derivatives, et. al.). Santelli made clear that he regards commodity traders, and the people arond them (the people cheering him were evidently mainly $30.000 a year staffers rather than rich traders) as true free market people, while he regards Wall Street people as the stupid, hypocritical fascists/Communists that they are. Santelli is exactly right. (Okay, I put my words in this mouth here that he did not exactly say, but my words--as I have previously defined them--fit what Santelli did say.)
I was aware that Rick Santelli ws the ONLY free market persona CNBC (the only one I have heard, anyway). The rest of CNBC is part of the Wall Street insider crowd--central planners all, for what they perceive to be their own personal benefit. Larry Kudlos, this still includes YOU (you fascist/Communist central planner you). CNBC is now trying to make mileage out of Santelli. Don't buy it. Santelli has been an outsider on CNBC, as he seems to recognize.
I have (accurately) trashed CNBC in this blog for the central planning, let Wall Street people run the country, peoople that they are. I have been previously tempted to say, in this thog, that Rick Santelli was the lone exception. Several times, I alomst inserted that comment in blog entries. I wish I had. There is a reason I did not, and that I lumped basically all of CNBC with the central planning, bailout, Wall Street villains.
That reason is that I have never really seen the program that Rick Santelli evidently hosts. I have only seen him as a panelist on other CNBC shows, such as several hosted by that fascist/Communist Larry Kudlow. Santelli would be brought in, for 30 seconds or so, in these shows to provide "balance" tot he idea that the government has to DO SOMETHING. CNBC, and the rest of these panels, sort of treated Santelli like a "crazy uncle". His comments were generally brushed aside--sometimes with the implication that Santellie really wanted the government to act, but just thought we should consider the free market alternative. Santelli has now made clear that he really meant what he said, and what the others at CNBC were refusing to acknowledge as an alternative. He really thinks that the free market solution is the right one. Further, he prettymuch appears to have contempt for these newly meinted, stupid central planners on Wall Street (and CNBC?). He is right on both counts.
Why have we re aced the point that a lone maverick (on his own network) is the most forceful advocate for the free market out there today (and I include Rush Limabugh here, because Limbaugh has gone too far into gimmicks and promises that the "right" government action will immediately save us for my taste--even though I recognizer Limbaugh as the primary leader of the conservative movement today)? Well, conservatives are so shell shocked that they have gotten away from the simple formulation of Reagan: "Government is the problem, and not the solution." Too many conservatives now seem to think that they need to explain how their government "solutions" are better than those of the leftists. Yes, I understand that their "solutions"--especially people like Limbaugh--try to lead us back to the free market. But once you accept the idea that the Federal Government must "save" us, you have pretty much lost the battle. In my view, too amny conservatives have accepted this idea, at least in the way they phrase their arguments. Rick Santelli avoids this trap. For that reason, at least today, he is my hero.
Santelli is even right on Jim Cramer. Cramer is the loud mouth Wall STreet insider with that unwatchable show on CNBC (unwatchable, because it is nothing but continuous screaming). Looking up Santelli on Google, I found an article correctly dismissing Cramer as a priest of the "Church of What Is Happening Now." I have never heard a more accurarate description of Cramer. Cramer has denied it (this kind of dishonesty being one of the many reasons you should ingore him), but Cramer is one of the gurus of the momentum trading that has ruined the stock market. Cramer believes in riding the present trend, and avoiding the presently "weak" areas. He tells you he relies on the "fundamentals". Do not believe him. He lies. He is, indeed, a priest of the Church of What Is Happening NOw. Santelli is exactly right again, and right again when he says that the problem with that approach is that it is right until it is wrong. Once the fad, momentum stocks get hit, there is no bottom. It is a terrible long term stra=tegy, especially when everone is playing it, aand as a short term strategy it ruins the stock market for everyone (once it takes over, as it now has).
P.S. Cramer's one saving grace, and the only thing I have praised him for, is that he recognizes that something has to be done about short selling. Short selling is the new way that momentum traders and hedge funds are using in their short term, computer trading methods. Unrestricted short selling is one of the factors that has pretty much ruined the stock market. The one area Santelli has not mentioned, although he has not said anything wrong either, is that commodity traders are not fully immune from the modern age of momentum trading. The ONLY explanation for the spike of oil prices to $147 dollars a barrel was momentum trading. The difference with coomodity traders is that they have not whined to be "bailed out", or tried to get the country to lef them rule the country for their own benefit. Santelli sees the corruption in Wall Street clearly, and for that alone he is a hero.
Florida (Dirtbag Central) and Tim Dorsey
As writers of the film noir films of the mid-Twientith Century wrote documentaries on the viciousness of women disguised as fiction, Tim Dorsey writes documentaries on Florida disguised as comic fiction.
Here is an example from the prologue to Dorsey's new book, Nuclear Jellyfish, from the blog of Serge Storms (Dorsey's serial killer anti-hero):
Question to blog: "Why are all of the dirtbags in Florida?"
Answer in blog: "Because if you lay down in the snow, you die."
Words to live (and die) by.
But Serge was incomplete. Why are the dirtbags not in Texas (which, for most of the state, does not get much snow)? I will fill in for Serge and answer:
Answer: Because in Texas, we execute them--those that the Texas Rangers and citizens let actually get to trial.
I always thought that George Bush's (Bush 43) (accurate) answer to the question of why he opposed further "hate crime" legislation in Texas, even though a black youth had been dragged to death in a "hate crime" (most murders are not?), was the best--almost the only good--response he ever made to a question:
"What do you expect me to do (if we had more "hate crime" legislation)? Execute them TWICE?"
I cannot yet review Nuclear Jellyfish, because I have not yet finished it. My preliminary impression is that it does not reach the heights of Triggerfish Lane (rating 100)--one of the great comic novels. Dorsey's mistake, I think, is that he has begun to concentrate totally on the raunchy stuff, and left behind the contrast between a "normal" family and Florida that made Triggerfish Lane such a great book. Since Dorsey is writing documentaries on Florida, this leaves open the question of whether there are any normal families left in Florida. We already know that there are none left in California (which rendered Dorsey's attempt at a "comic" novel set in Califonia as prettymuch a failed experiment--containing "jokes" so tame in comparison with the real California that they were not either fresh or funny). But Dorsey is screamingly funny, even when he is not at his very best.
P.S. This is a free idea for Tim Dorsey. Serge's next targets should be the on air "talent" of MSNBC and CNN. Serge kills people who deserve to die, but who are immune because we are "civilized" (even though the people who deserve to die are not). Heck, why stop with CNN and MSNBC. All of the mainstream media are worthy Serge targets. Maybe Serge could arrange something at a media convention in Florida.............. Nope. I do not care if Fox News is included in Serge's draconian remeday to the problem of present day "jouralism".
I know. There is a problem here. There indicatinos (including the leftist diatribes in Orange Crush (the only Dorsey novel I consider not worth reading), that Tim Dorsey has leftist leanings. Rush Limbaugh lives in Florida. If Serge goes after a media person, is it likely to be Limbaugh? I am afraid so. I may be creating a monster. However, the idea of Serge going after the me national media (local media people have appeared in Dorsey's previous documentaries) is so attractive that I had to mention it.
Here is an example from the prologue to Dorsey's new book, Nuclear Jellyfish, from the blog of Serge Storms (Dorsey's serial killer anti-hero):
Question to blog: "Why are all of the dirtbags in Florida?"
Answer in blog: "Because if you lay down in the snow, you die."
Words to live (and die) by.
But Serge was incomplete. Why are the dirtbags not in Texas (which, for most of the state, does not get much snow)? I will fill in for Serge and answer:
Answer: Because in Texas, we execute them--those that the Texas Rangers and citizens let actually get to trial.
I always thought that George Bush's (Bush 43) (accurate) answer to the question of why he opposed further "hate crime" legislation in Texas, even though a black youth had been dragged to death in a "hate crime" (most murders are not?), was the best--almost the only good--response he ever made to a question:
"What do you expect me to do (if we had more "hate crime" legislation)? Execute them TWICE?"
I cannot yet review Nuclear Jellyfish, because I have not yet finished it. My preliminary impression is that it does not reach the heights of Triggerfish Lane (rating 100)--one of the great comic novels. Dorsey's mistake, I think, is that he has begun to concentrate totally on the raunchy stuff, and left behind the contrast between a "normal" family and Florida that made Triggerfish Lane such a great book. Since Dorsey is writing documentaries on Florida, this leaves open the question of whether there are any normal families left in Florida. We already know that there are none left in California (which rendered Dorsey's attempt at a "comic" novel set in Califonia as prettymuch a failed experiment--containing "jokes" so tame in comparison with the real California that they were not either fresh or funny). But Dorsey is screamingly funny, even when he is not at his very best.
P.S. This is a free idea for Tim Dorsey. Serge's next targets should be the on air "talent" of MSNBC and CNN. Serge kills people who deserve to die, but who are immune because we are "civilized" (even though the people who deserve to die are not). Heck, why stop with CNN and MSNBC. All of the mainstream media are worthy Serge targets. Maybe Serge could arrange something at a media convention in Florida.............. Nope. I do not care if Fox News is included in Serge's draconian remeday to the problem of present day "jouralism".
I know. There is a problem here. There indicatinos (including the leftist diatribes in Orange Crush (the only Dorsey novel I consider not worth reading), that Tim Dorsey has leftist leanings. Rush Limbaugh lives in Florida. If Serge goes after a media person, is it likely to be Limbaugh? I am afraid so. I may be creating a monster. However, the idea of Serge going after the me national media (local media people have appeared in Dorsey's previous documentaries) is so attractive that I had to mention it.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Wall Street and Technical Analysis: Are We DOOMED, or Should the Stupidest People on Earth Be Ignored?
The stock market today "broke out" on the downside, as the S & P 500 closed well below 750. If "technical analysts know what they are doing (luckily, they really don't), this is BAD news for the stock market. If w have truly broken out of the trading range we have been in since October, there may be no bottom to the stock market. This probably has little significance for the economy as a whole, other than to indicatet hat the news is so very bad that those computer programs "bying on the dips" have FAILED. That MAY cause a new strategy of SELLING EVERYTHING until we hit a selling climax.
I still think we are due for a bounce upward. But, as I said, I do not predict day-to-day stock movements. I can say that now is a good time to invest for a long term investor, unless you have reationally concluded that that the absolute fools on Wall Street have made the "market" such a computer gaming casio that long term investing is a loser.
I can tell you that the selling today was overdone (for a single day). Those selling at the end were trading totally on momentum--irrationally. That does not mean that the selling will not continue, especially if enough people act on the "break out" to the downside (a self-fulfilling prophecy, as is ALL of "technical analysis").
As I said, my GUESS would be that we will still have a bounce upward--perhaps a big one--on any excuse. I would be more certain if this latest irrational move (because of magnitude) had been to the upside. The problem is that the stock market has NOT GONE DOWN ENOUGH from October, given how bad the economy has gotten. That makes a big downside move possible, as a "catch up" for those irrational up days when there was no good economic news to support them. Was there anything really new today to justify the magnitude of today's selloff? Nope. But neither is there any good news to support a real stock market rebound (beyond a "technical" bounce).
I still think we are due for a bounce upward. But, as I said, I do not predict day-to-day stock movements. I can say that now is a good time to invest for a long term investor, unless you have reationally concluded that that the absolute fools on Wall Street have made the "market" such a computer gaming casio that long term investing is a loser.
I can tell you that the selling today was overdone (for a single day). Those selling at the end were trading totally on momentum--irrationally. That does not mean that the selling will not continue, especially if enough people act on the "break out" to the downside (a self-fulfilling prophecy, as is ALL of "technical analysis").
As I said, my GUESS would be that we will still have a bounce upward--perhaps a big one--on any excuse. I would be more certain if this latest irrational move (because of magnitude) had been to the upside. The problem is that the stock market has NOT GONE DOWN ENOUGH from October, given how bad the economy has gotten. That makes a big downside move possible, as a "catch up" for those irrational up days when there was no good economic news to support them. Was there anything really new today to justify the magnitude of today's selloff? Nope. But neither is there any good news to support a real stock market rebound (beyond a "technical" bounce).
Wall Street and Technical Analysis: The Religion of the Stupidest People on Earth ("Fundamentals" Be Damned)
Let me clarify the previous entry about Wall Street stock traders (the Stupidest People on Earth, as I have proven to you in multiple entries since October).
I do not try to predict day-to-day movements in the stock market. And I am terrible at picking individual stocks these days (partially, I think, because I am not in tue with the new Age of Obama and new Age of Wall Street rule). That is another reason that my accuracy rating has gone up to 99.4%: I have stopped trying to recommend any individual stocks on this blog.
What I have highlighted since October is the absolutely irrational moves in stocks, as they have jumped up and down--with no real, rational reason for each jump and subesequent sickening drop. Okay, the drops are somewhat rational, because the rises were irrational. But the magnitude of daily or weekly moves, both up and down, has been irrational. I have asked the question: How dumb do you have to be to continue buying stocks on days when the Dow is already up 150 and keep selling stocks when the Dow is already down 150 (on a single day). Wall Street people know that these absurd daily moves are usually total fiction, and yet traders continue to tuy when they should be selling, and sell when they should be considering buying. As I have shown, the stock market has been in a RANGE since October, without any really substantial movement. Oh, you can correctly say that Obama has done nothing lately to trigger one of those irrational--much less rational--up moves. Optimists might believe that Wall Street traders are finally learning that it is insanity to engage in massive computer program buying when you KNOW selling will follow like day follows night. However, I am confident that these people on Wall Street do not learn, and therefore I fully expect irrational, momentum up moves to again occur on any excuse. The "news" has just been so very bad, on a daily basis, that there has not even been much of an excuse for one of those irrational up moves.
That Standard and Poors 500 at 750. Yes, this is where we get technical. 750 is the number built into the computers (as 800 was for awhile, although 800 was breached on November 20). I saw one Wall Street trader quoted as saying that there might be a market "crash" (further crash) if the S & P 500 goes below 750. Of course, if the market does go below 750, the "technical analysts" will immediately have a new "target" number for the "bottom". "Technical analysis" is nothing more lthan momentum trading--now on steroids with computer program trading. I just love--sarcasm--"technical analysis". It is like central planning. It does not matter how many times it fails. The technical analysts always have an explanation, and a new scenario. If you combine "technical analysis" (momentum, computer program trading) with hedge fund type "paired" trades (driving weak stocks down and strong stocks up), you have a recipe for a sick stock market--a stock market where every move is exaggerated out of all proportion.
You should now see why I say that the next "significant" (maybe only 3 to 5 hundred points up on the Dow, or maybe 1000 points in a single day) market move is likely to be UP. It is not because I am predicting the way the stock market will necessarily move. I am simply telling you that I--unlike the stupid people on Wall Street, at least in their stupid statements and irratinal trading--we have reached the level where the computers are likely to draw a "technical" "line in the sand". It is going to take a lot for the stock market to drop below 750 on the Standard and Poors 500.
Could it happen? Sure it could. The economic "news" may be so bad that there is not even an excuse for one of those irrational, computer trading up moves. As I have said, a healthy stock market should stop moving in these 500 and 1,000 point days--even 300 point days. The ordinary Dow move should be no more than 100 points. However, I don't think Wall Street traders are capable of learning. Therefore, if there is any excuse for the "market" to bounce off of 750 in a strong, short covering up move, then that is going to happen. If it does happen, it is likely that the market will go back down once the up move runs its course (as it has every time since the initial big drop in October.
As October proves, you cannot bet the children on this (unless you don't like them). It is possible for things to get so bad that we establish a new, lower trading range. I don't presently think things will get so good as to establish a new, HIGHER trading range (which would require the Dow to go to 10,000). Someday, that too might happen.
For now, up moves are likely to be limited. However, since October they have occurred--occurred in irrational jumps not justified by any reasonable view of our economic prospects. I believe the stock market needs to return to "investing" based on company fundamentals instead of computer gaming. I jsut don't see it happening (pessimist that I am).
I do not try to predict day-to-day movements in the stock market. And I am terrible at picking individual stocks these days (partially, I think, because I am not in tue with the new Age of Obama and new Age of Wall Street rule). That is another reason that my accuracy rating has gone up to 99.4%: I have stopped trying to recommend any individual stocks on this blog.
What I have highlighted since October is the absolutely irrational moves in stocks, as they have jumped up and down--with no real, rational reason for each jump and subesequent sickening drop. Okay, the drops are somewhat rational, because the rises were irrational. But the magnitude of daily or weekly moves, both up and down, has been irrational. I have asked the question: How dumb do you have to be to continue buying stocks on days when the Dow is already up 150 and keep selling stocks when the Dow is already down 150 (on a single day). Wall Street people know that these absurd daily moves are usually total fiction, and yet traders continue to tuy when they should be selling, and sell when they should be considering buying. As I have shown, the stock market has been in a RANGE since October, without any really substantial movement. Oh, you can correctly say that Obama has done nothing lately to trigger one of those irrational--much less rational--up moves. Optimists might believe that Wall Street traders are finally learning that it is insanity to engage in massive computer program buying when you KNOW selling will follow like day follows night. However, I am confident that these people on Wall Street do not learn, and therefore I fully expect irrational, momentum up moves to again occur on any excuse. The "news" has just been so very bad, on a daily basis, that there has not even been much of an excuse for one of those irrational up moves.
That Standard and Poors 500 at 750. Yes, this is where we get technical. 750 is the number built into the computers (as 800 was for awhile, although 800 was breached on November 20). I saw one Wall Street trader quoted as saying that there might be a market "crash" (further crash) if the S & P 500 goes below 750. Of course, if the market does go below 750, the "technical analysts" will immediately have a new "target" number for the "bottom". "Technical analysis" is nothing more lthan momentum trading--now on steroids with computer program trading. I just love--sarcasm--"technical analysis". It is like central planning. It does not matter how many times it fails. The technical analysts always have an explanation, and a new scenario. If you combine "technical analysis" (momentum, computer program trading) with hedge fund type "paired" trades (driving weak stocks down and strong stocks up), you have a recipe for a sick stock market--a stock market where every move is exaggerated out of all proportion.
You should now see why I say that the next "significant" (maybe only 3 to 5 hundred points up on the Dow, or maybe 1000 points in a single day) market move is likely to be UP. It is not because I am predicting the way the stock market will necessarily move. I am simply telling you that I--unlike the stupid people on Wall Street, at least in their stupid statements and irratinal trading--we have reached the level where the computers are likely to draw a "technical" "line in the sand". It is going to take a lot for the stock market to drop below 750 on the Standard and Poors 500.
Could it happen? Sure it could. The economic "news" may be so bad that there is not even an excuse for one of those irrational, computer trading up moves. As I have said, a healthy stock market should stop moving in these 500 and 1,000 point days--even 300 point days. The ordinary Dow move should be no more than 100 points. However, I don't think Wall Street traders are capable of learning. Therefore, if there is any excuse for the "market" to bounce off of 750 in a strong, short covering up move, then that is going to happen. If it does happen, it is likely that the market will go back down once the up move runs its course (as it has every time since the initial big drop in October.
As October proves, you cannot bet the children on this (unless you don't like them). It is possible for things to get so bad that we establish a new, lower trading range. I don't presently think things will get so good as to establish a new, HIGHER trading range (which would require the Dow to go to 10,000). Someday, that too might happen.
For now, up moves are likely to be limited. However, since October they have occurred--occurred in irrational jumps not justified by any reasonable view of our economic prospects. I believe the stock market needs to return to "investing" based on company fundamentals instead of computer gaming. I jsut don't see it happening (pessimist that I am).
Wall Street: Conservatives (irrationally, including Limbaugh) Embrace the Stupidest People on Earth
Have you noticed how conservatives have suddenly embraced the newly minted fascists/Communists on Wall Street as the ultiate authority on Obama's performance? Yes, Rush Limbuagh has now commonly quotes how far stocks are down each day. Yep. It hows how far conservatism has fallen that conservatives are now embracing the Stupidest People on Earth as the "experts" on the economy.
Whatever you may think, this blog is about ideas. It is not "partisan". By that, I mean that I do not engage in partisan posturing silmply because I think it will "sell". This blog, of course, has a definite conservative point of view, but does not simply regurgitate conservative "talking points".
I am saying that I think Rush, and the rest of the conservatives suddenly measuring Obama by the irrational stock market, are merely posturing for partisan reasons. No, I do not feel sorry for Obama on this score. Democrats (and the mainstream media) have made hay by trashing the economy for the entire 8 years of the bush Presidency--ultimately a self-fulfilling prophecy, along with the Bush/Paulson panic. Most of that time the economy was pretty good--sometimes really good. What goes around comes around, and I am not sorry for you poor leftists out there seeing what constant negativity can accomplish--the constant negativity including President "World" Obama himself, who can't seem to break himself from campaign mode.
Since October, this blog has absolutely proven to you that Wall Street has become a computer gaming casino rather than any kind of rational guage of the economy. Conservatives who are now acting otherwise are irrational themselves (eve if for a rationally partisan purpose).
Nor is it really good partisan tactics, despite "sounding good". What is the reputation of Republicans and conservatives that has killed them most over the years--a reputation that was only briefly countered in the Reagan years? It is the idea that Republicans are on the side of Wall Street and Big Business, and not on the side of the people That reputatioin has not been accurate since Barry Goldwater, but there is some residue, or "taint", of this attitude that just won't go away. Conservatives can't seem to cut themselves free of Wall Street and Big Business, even though modern conservative ideas have little relationship to either. Wall Street, as documented in this blog and as Rush Limbaugh points out when he is not suggesting Wall Street is an expert on economic policy, has beomce socialist--for the benefit of Wall Street. This is what I have called--somewhat accurately--"fascism/Communism.
You doubt me? Don't ever do that. Go back to the archives of this blog since October, in those blog entries entitled: "Wall Street: The Stupidest People on Earth" (along with other entries under different titles). Every single one of those entries has been proven correct.
Remember when this blog told you that the big 1000 point up moves at the time of the initial Paulson bailout were irrational, and the the huge up and down moves in stocks were merely computer momentum players exaggerating each move up and down? Was I not right?
Yes, the dirty little secret is that the stock market is now little changed from the Paulson/Bush lows of last October, and almost totally unchanged from the subsequent market lows on November 20. Oh, the Dow is slightly lower than November, but the overall market is about in the same place--only a little below the level to which the stock market sunk in October. All of the stock market volatility has been a lot of "sound and fury, signifying nothing". Oh, it has signified something. It has signified that Wall Street is totally irrational, and dominated by computer gaming rather than real investment.
For example, what is the recent HIGH of the market? Well, in a totally irrational move, the stock market went straight up right before Obama was elected. The Dow went above 9,000. Then the market, in an equally irrational move (except a rational reaction to the irrationality of the first move--the sock market went straight down to the low of November 20. Then, in another irrational move, the stock market ended the year with two "record" up days, and continued above 9,000 again. Now the stock market has declined (with blips u) back to the November low, and slightly below that on the Dow.
Look at the archives of this blog. I called each and every major fictional move in the stock market, WITH FORESIGHT (no hindsight here). Just where, in all of these fictional moves, has Wall Street shown accurate foresight about the economy? All Wall Street has shown is that it is sick--a place where investing has given way to computer gaming. Sure, eventually the direction of the economy will be clear enough so that the stock market moves out of its recent range--even, ultimately, perhaps back above Dow 9,000. But these dramatic moves, based on mere political developments magnified by computer momentum trading, is not a rational basis for evaluating economic policy.
This blog's accuracy rating (much better than the mythical "approval rating" beloved of the media, so long as it fits their agenda) has risen to 99.4% mainly because of my accuracy in predicting upward market moves. Right now, I would expect the next fairly big move to be UP--not because the economy is getting better but because of the computer range trading we are in. We are at the very bottom of the trading range the market has been in since October, and we are due for a bounce. What might derail that bounce would be news so bad that even the computer gamers on Wll Street cannot ignore it. Further, any such bounce will again be total fiction unless the fundamentals of the economy (not political posturing) actually appear to be turning around. Until either the economy obviously collapses, or there is actual evidence that a recovery is beginning to occur, the computer gamers on Wall Street are going to continue to move the stock market in a range determined by their computer programs.
Still doubt me, about the irrationality of both Wall Street--and Limbaugh and conservatives embracing Wall Street? Remember the crash of 1987 (I think, if my memory is correct). That was the first stock market crash since 1929. It occur ed during the Presidency of Ronald Reagan. Are conservatives saying that the economic policies of Ronald Reagan caused the ONLY stock market crash since 1929 (unless you count the slow motion crash in October/Novermber of last year)? See how irrational this reference to the "wisdom" of Wall Street is? That crash of 1987 happened to be, by the way, the best investment opportunity since the Great Depression, for the very reason that it was caused more by computer program selling than any fundamentals of the economy. Based on the foundation laid by Reagan, the country was about to enter into a time of great prosperity. You would not know it from the stock market--already at the beginning stages of becoming the kind of irrational computer gaming casino that is exceeding the excesses of the 1920's, but on steroids because we are now in the age of computer program trading.
Whatever you may think, this blog is about ideas. It is not "partisan". By that, I mean that I do not engage in partisan posturing silmply because I think it will "sell". This blog, of course, has a definite conservative point of view, but does not simply regurgitate conservative "talking points".
I am saying that I think Rush, and the rest of the conservatives suddenly measuring Obama by the irrational stock market, are merely posturing for partisan reasons. No, I do not feel sorry for Obama on this score. Democrats (and the mainstream media) have made hay by trashing the economy for the entire 8 years of the bush Presidency--ultimately a self-fulfilling prophecy, along with the Bush/Paulson panic. Most of that time the economy was pretty good--sometimes really good. What goes around comes around, and I am not sorry for you poor leftists out there seeing what constant negativity can accomplish--the constant negativity including President "World" Obama himself, who can't seem to break himself from campaign mode.
Since October, this blog has absolutely proven to you that Wall Street has become a computer gaming casino rather than any kind of rational guage of the economy. Conservatives who are now acting otherwise are irrational themselves (eve if for a rationally partisan purpose).
Nor is it really good partisan tactics, despite "sounding good". What is the reputation of Republicans and conservatives that has killed them most over the years--a reputation that was only briefly countered in the Reagan years? It is the idea that Republicans are on the side of Wall Street and Big Business, and not on the side of the people That reputatioin has not been accurate since Barry Goldwater, but there is some residue, or "taint", of this attitude that just won't go away. Conservatives can't seem to cut themselves free of Wall Street and Big Business, even though modern conservative ideas have little relationship to either. Wall Street, as documented in this blog and as Rush Limbaugh points out when he is not suggesting Wall Street is an expert on economic policy, has beomce socialist--for the benefit of Wall Street. This is what I have called--somewhat accurately--"fascism/Communism.
You doubt me? Don't ever do that. Go back to the archives of this blog since October, in those blog entries entitled: "Wall Street: The Stupidest People on Earth" (along with other entries under different titles). Every single one of those entries has been proven correct.
Remember when this blog told you that the big 1000 point up moves at the time of the initial Paulson bailout were irrational, and the the huge up and down moves in stocks were merely computer momentum players exaggerating each move up and down? Was I not right?
Yes, the dirty little secret is that the stock market is now little changed from the Paulson/Bush lows of last October, and almost totally unchanged from the subsequent market lows on November 20. Oh, the Dow is slightly lower than November, but the overall market is about in the same place--only a little below the level to which the stock market sunk in October. All of the stock market volatility has been a lot of "sound and fury, signifying nothing". Oh, it has signified something. It has signified that Wall Street is totally irrational, and dominated by computer gaming rather than real investment.
For example, what is the recent HIGH of the market? Well, in a totally irrational move, the stock market went straight up right before Obama was elected. The Dow went above 9,000. Then the market, in an equally irrational move (except a rational reaction to the irrationality of the first move--the sock market went straight down to the low of November 20. Then, in another irrational move, the stock market ended the year with two "record" up days, and continued above 9,000 again. Now the stock market has declined (with blips u) back to the November low, and slightly below that on the Dow.
Look at the archives of this blog. I called each and every major fictional move in the stock market, WITH FORESIGHT (no hindsight here). Just where, in all of these fictional moves, has Wall Street shown accurate foresight about the economy? All Wall Street has shown is that it is sick--a place where investing has given way to computer gaming. Sure, eventually the direction of the economy will be clear enough so that the stock market moves out of its recent range--even, ultimately, perhaps back above Dow 9,000. But these dramatic moves, based on mere political developments magnified by computer momentum trading, is not a rational basis for evaluating economic policy.
This blog's accuracy rating (much better than the mythical "approval rating" beloved of the media, so long as it fits their agenda) has risen to 99.4% mainly because of my accuracy in predicting upward market moves. Right now, I would expect the next fairly big move to be UP--not because the economy is getting better but because of the computer range trading we are in. We are at the very bottom of the trading range the market has been in since October, and we are due for a bounce. What might derail that bounce would be news so bad that even the computer gamers on Wll Street cannot ignore it. Further, any such bounce will again be total fiction unless the fundamentals of the economy (not political posturing) actually appear to be turning around. Until either the economy obviously collapses, or there is actual evidence that a recovery is beginning to occur, the computer gamers on Wall Street are going to continue to move the stock market in a range determined by their computer programs.
Still doubt me, about the irrationality of both Wall Street--and Limbaugh and conservatives embracing Wall Street? Remember the crash of 1987 (I think, if my memory is correct). That was the first stock market crash since 1929. It occur ed during the Presidency of Ronald Reagan. Are conservatives saying that the economic policies of Ronald Reagan caused the ONLY stock market crash since 1929 (unless you count the slow motion crash in October/Novermber of last year)? See how irrational this reference to the "wisdom" of Wall Street is? That crash of 1987 happened to be, by the way, the best investment opportunity since the Great Depression, for the very reason that it was caused more by computer program selling than any fundamentals of the economy. Based on the foundation laid by Reagan, the country was about to enter into a time of great prosperity. You would not know it from the stock market--already at the beginning stages of becoming the kind of irrational computer gaming casino that is exceeding the excesses of the 1920's, but on steroids because we are now in the age of computer program trading.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Race: Can the "Members" of a Race Be Defined?--An Eric Holder "Conversation" on Race!!!
Following Eric Holder's instructions, I am now going to continue my own personal "conversation" on race, as I prove that most leftists are racists when they want to discriminate ni favor of "people of color", and against "white Europeans". These are terms that cnnot be even defined, as skin color is a surface characteristic. It is not a fundamental characteristic of a human being. How can it be when we are all part of the same species, and when there is no blood test that can determine (with any confidence) what "race", or ethnic group, of which a person is a member.
If you treat people as individuals, it does not matter. Each individual gets the same treatment. However, if we base rights and privileges on the color of a person's skin, or ethnicity, as racist leftists want to do in "reverse discrimination", then it does matter whether we can even determine who "deserves" to be discriminated in favor of (by receiving a preference, such as extra test score points or in employment), and who "deserves" to be discriminated against.
To put it as bluntly as possible, there is no such thing as "black blood", or "Hispanic" blood, or Chinese "blood". The blood of all members of the species homo sapiens is red (in air). More importantly than that, all members of homo sapiens can interbreed with each other with fertile offspring, and do. That means that there is no such thing as a "pure" "person of color" or a "pure" white European. Who are the people who ignore this simple fact? Well, the members of teh Ku Klux Klan do. And so do most leftists, who are equally racist. When Reverend Wright talks about "people of color", there is no way for him to define his terms. We are all mongrels, of one degree or another.
Is Barack Obama "black", or African-American? Who says? We might presume he is 50% African-American, but even that is an assumption that cannot be made (much less the assumption that he is 50% "white European"). Was Oama's father "100%" black, with that Arab family name? If you are determining who deserves preferential treatment (in admission to a university , medical school, law school, or whatever), why does Obama (or someone else 50% "white European") deserve that special treatment? What percentage to you have to be to get the special treatment? 50%? 25%? 10%? 1%? Personally, I do not understand why every single person applying to medical school or law school in this country does not claim "minority" status. Who can say they are not? Who can say they are not "black" in their ancestry? This problem, of course, gets even more obvious when you get to Hispanics (who are mostly Caucasian in race).
Do we go back to the infamous "Black Codes", which "defined" a black person as being 1/8 "black blood" (the blood, again, is red)? "Murphy Brown" (yes the fictional TV show attacked by Dan Quayle on other grounds) exposed leftist hypocrisy on this "issue". There was one episode where a Congressman (or candidate) went on Murphy Brown's fictional TV show, and was given "talking points" by his racist backers. The main "joke" was that this guy had to talk about "rights" only for people who have at least 7/8 "white" blood. Do you need any more evidence that leftist are sanctimonious hypocrites of the industrial grade kind? How is it any more ludicrous to say that the extra "points" to get into law school (or be hired as a firefighter, or whatever) depend on whether you have 1/8 black or Hispanic "blood"? Murphy Brown was right. This is evil stuff, and the primary people asserting this absurdity in our society today are leftists.
You say that we must have to define this things somehow bo enforce discrimination laws? Ah, that is a very different thing, isn't it? It is not true that you have to define who is "black" to enforce discrimination laws. It is the motive of the discriminator that matters, and not whether he or she is right. These people are irrational anyway, and it does not matter whether they are rationally discriminating against a person for racial or ethnic reasons. All that matters is that the evidence shows that they are so discriminating. I am definitely not saying that there is no racial discrimination out there. What I am saying is that most of these irrational people out thre today, who insist on defining "rights" based on an irrational tining like "race" or "ethnic origin", are leftists. I dare any leftist out there (including Eric Holder) to define who he regards as "black". It can't be done, and it is evil to even try (in terms of assigning "benefits", especially by government action).
Say a person says he is "African-American". Well, if he is discriminated against on that basis, it is evil discrimination (whether the person is actually "African-American" or not). But say that same person says he is "African-American", and gets into medical school for that reason. It then matters a whole lot whether that person has a legitimate claim to that "status". However, it would not matter if we looked only at individuals, as we should, and did not insist on returning to the days of the "Black Codes".
Yes, one of the many problems here is that "reverse discrimination" (which is nothing more or less than discrimination on the basis of a person's skin color--sort of, since the peson may "look" white--or ethnic origin) is that it encourages dishonesty (sort of, since who can tell who is being dishonest)., I seriously recommend that everyone applying gt law school claim some sort of "minority" status. As I say, correctly, we are all mongrels. I don't see any reason that every single person applying to law school cannot claim to be some kind of "protected" minority (even "black", so long as you are not blonde with blue eyes). How can anyone "prove" you are a fraud? For that matter, it is not really "fraud", since the terms cannot be defined. I want to see the court case where a person is admitted to law school based on a representation of "minority" status, and then is told he cannot be admitted because he "lied".
Good luck on that one. The first problem is proving the person "lied". Under what standards? The second problem is that to even assert fraud, you have to admit evil discrimination. In other words, the school would have to admit that the person would have been discriminated against if he were "white European", because otherwise the "fraud" was irrelevant. The same applies to employment or "minority" contracting or whatever. The issue has actually arisen in minority contracting, which has often been a fraud.
Treat people as individuals, and you don't have these problems. Start giving people privileges based on race, and the problems become impossible to overcome. You are committing evil by discriminating on the basis of a surface characteristic, like "color", and there is no way around that evil.
That is why I call most leftists (all that favor privileges based on race) "racists". Whether they realize it or not, the assumptions on which they operate are the same assumptions that lay behind the "Black Codes". These assumptions are that people should be considered as members of a certain race, instead of individuals, and that you can define who is a member of each race (or "racial" group). Both assumptions are wrong. Both assumptions are evil.
To be continued, as I continue my "conversation" on race. The next entry will deal with myself, my daughters, and the strange and wonderful case of Hispanics. Are they really "people of color"? Who says? How can that possibly be defined? Stay tuned.
If you treat people as individuals, it does not matter. Each individual gets the same treatment. However, if we base rights and privileges on the color of a person's skin, or ethnicity, as racist leftists want to do in "reverse discrimination", then it does matter whether we can even determine who "deserves" to be discriminated in favor of (by receiving a preference, such as extra test score points or in employment), and who "deserves" to be discriminated against.
To put it as bluntly as possible, there is no such thing as "black blood", or "Hispanic" blood, or Chinese "blood". The blood of all members of the species homo sapiens is red (in air). More importantly than that, all members of homo sapiens can interbreed with each other with fertile offspring, and do. That means that there is no such thing as a "pure" "person of color" or a "pure" white European. Who are the people who ignore this simple fact? Well, the members of teh Ku Klux Klan do. And so do most leftists, who are equally racist. When Reverend Wright talks about "people of color", there is no way for him to define his terms. We are all mongrels, of one degree or another.
Is Barack Obama "black", or African-American? Who says? We might presume he is 50% African-American, but even that is an assumption that cannot be made (much less the assumption that he is 50% "white European"). Was Oama's father "100%" black, with that Arab family name? If you are determining who deserves preferential treatment (in admission to a university , medical school, law school, or whatever), why does Obama (or someone else 50% "white European") deserve that special treatment? What percentage to you have to be to get the special treatment? 50%? 25%? 10%? 1%? Personally, I do not understand why every single person applying to medical school or law school in this country does not claim "minority" status. Who can say they are not? Who can say they are not "black" in their ancestry? This problem, of course, gets even more obvious when you get to Hispanics (who are mostly Caucasian in race).
Do we go back to the infamous "Black Codes", which "defined" a black person as being 1/8 "black blood" (the blood, again, is red)? "Murphy Brown" (yes the fictional TV show attacked by Dan Quayle on other grounds) exposed leftist hypocrisy on this "issue". There was one episode where a Congressman (or candidate) went on Murphy Brown's fictional TV show, and was given "talking points" by his racist backers. The main "joke" was that this guy had to talk about "rights" only for people who have at least 7/8 "white" blood. Do you need any more evidence that leftist are sanctimonious hypocrites of the industrial grade kind? How is it any more ludicrous to say that the extra "points" to get into law school (or be hired as a firefighter, or whatever) depend on whether you have 1/8 black or Hispanic "blood"? Murphy Brown was right. This is evil stuff, and the primary people asserting this absurdity in our society today are leftists.
You say that we must have to define this things somehow bo enforce discrimination laws? Ah, that is a very different thing, isn't it? It is not true that you have to define who is "black" to enforce discrimination laws. It is the motive of the discriminator that matters, and not whether he or she is right. These people are irrational anyway, and it does not matter whether they are rationally discriminating against a person for racial or ethnic reasons. All that matters is that the evidence shows that they are so discriminating. I am definitely not saying that there is no racial discrimination out there. What I am saying is that most of these irrational people out thre today, who insist on defining "rights" based on an irrational tining like "race" or "ethnic origin", are leftists. I dare any leftist out there (including Eric Holder) to define who he regards as "black". It can't be done, and it is evil to even try (in terms of assigning "benefits", especially by government action).
Say a person says he is "African-American". Well, if he is discriminated against on that basis, it is evil discrimination (whether the person is actually "African-American" or not). But say that same person says he is "African-American", and gets into medical school for that reason. It then matters a whole lot whether that person has a legitimate claim to that "status". However, it would not matter if we looked only at individuals, as we should, and did not insist on returning to the days of the "Black Codes".
Yes, one of the many problems here is that "reverse discrimination" (which is nothing more or less than discrimination on the basis of a person's skin color--sort of, since the peson may "look" white--or ethnic origin) is that it encourages dishonesty (sort of, since who can tell who is being dishonest)., I seriously recommend that everyone applying gt law school claim some sort of "minority" status. As I say, correctly, we are all mongrels. I don't see any reason that every single person applying to law school cannot claim to be some kind of "protected" minority (even "black", so long as you are not blonde with blue eyes). How can anyone "prove" you are a fraud? For that matter, it is not really "fraud", since the terms cannot be defined. I want to see the court case where a person is admitted to law school based on a representation of "minority" status, and then is told he cannot be admitted because he "lied".
Good luck on that one. The first problem is proving the person "lied". Under what standards? The second problem is that to even assert fraud, you have to admit evil discrimination. In other words, the school would have to admit that the person would have been discriminated against if he were "white European", because otherwise the "fraud" was irrelevant. The same applies to employment or "minority" contracting or whatever. The issue has actually arisen in minority contracting, which has often been a fraud.
Treat people as individuals, and you don't have these problems. Start giving people privileges based on race, and the problems become impossible to overcome. You are committing evil by discriminating on the basis of a surface characteristic, like "color", and there is no way around that evil.
That is why I call most leftists (all that favor privileges based on race) "racists". Whether they realize it or not, the assumptions on which they operate are the same assumptions that lay behind the "Black Codes". These assumptions are that people should be considered as members of a certain race, instead of individuals, and that you can define who is a member of each race (or "racial" group). Both assumptions are wrong. Both assumptions are evil.
To be continued, as I continue my "conversation" on race. The next entry will deal with myself, my daughters, and the strange and wonderful case of Hispanics. Are they really "people of color"? Who says? How can that possibly be defined? Stay tuned.
Eric Holder and Soledad O'Brien: Flying, Fickle Finger of Fate Points at YOU!!!
Oh, there was never any doubt. Once Eric Holder called this country a "nation of cowards" (see the Thursday and Friday blog entries), the Flying, Fickle Finger of Fate never ceased pointing at him. Now if Eric Holder had said that the left has turned us into a "nation of cowards" by labeling everyone who opposes any leftist proposal a "racist", he might have had a point--that is, any leftist proposal that leftists are able to twist into a proposal to "help" minorities, which is almost every leftist proposal there is (not that the proposals actually "help" minorities--they generally hurt them--but that the left can always figure out a way to assert it).
What Eric Holder was really doing, of course, is to call us still a "nation of racists", even though it is he, and the rest of the leftists in this country, who are the true racists (see blog entries to come, as I conduct my own "conversation" on race). As I said in Friday's entry, the left has been trying to shut up people trying to have a "conversation" about race forever. I have personal experience with that as far back as 1972 (see Friday's entry).
The Finger (Flying, Fickle Finger of Fate, represented by a statuette of an INDEX finger) is this blog's reincarnation of the old Rowan and Martin's "Laugh In" award for conspicuous stupidity/evil in the previous week--an unauthorized reincarnation not involving anyone connected with "Laugh In".
Remember how Obama was supposed to institute a "post-racial" era in America, as we go beyond race? Well, not the least reason for Holder deserves the coveted/dreaded Finger is that Holder exposes an Obama Administration, and left in general, obsessed with race. As the election of Obama shows, most of the country is more than willing to go beyond race (even though Obama and the left ran a racially charged campaign). It is the racist left who keeps insiting on turning everythinng into an issue of "race", and insists on looking at people as members of racial or ethnic groups instead of individuals. That is the very definition of racist, which is why my first blog entry on the "nation of cowards" comment had this statement in the headline: "Soledad O'Brien is a racist."
Yes, the Finger never wavered from pointing at Eric Holder. However, the Finger begain to oscillate spastically once it noticed the comments of Soledad O'Brien on CNN (the liar network, which is also racist). Not only did Soledad O'Brien endorse the comments of Eric Holder, as she once did the racist statements of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, but she compounded the lying racism implied in the "nation of cowards" remark. What can you say about a woman who would even half (and only half) jokingly suggest that February is "Black History Month" because it is the month with the fewest number of days (a flat lie that would only occur to a bone deep racist like Soledad O'Brien). You can understand why Soledad O'Brien, and other racists on the left, did not see much wrong with Reverend Wright saying that white people had invented AIDS for purposes of genocide against "people of color" (following up, in Wright's twiested world view, on the atomic bomb attacks on "people of color" at Hiroshima and Nagasaki). You can see why Soledad O'Brien, and a good part of the left, could "understand" Reverend Wright's statement that the U.S. Government is providing illegal drugs to black men in order to put them in jail. This (Reverend Wright's statements) is the kind of "conversation" Soledad O'Brien and Eric Holder clearly want on race. It is the way Soledad O'Brien, Eric Holder, and so many other racists on the left think. They view the world as a place where "people of color" are in a war with "white Europeans", where the only proper reaction of "white Europeans" is guilt over the way they have treated "people of color", even if an individual "white European" had never done anything to a "person of color". The "conversation" is supposed to be limited to talking about this racial (yes, a racist attitude) "guilt".
No progress is enough for these people (Eric Holder, Soledad O'Brien, et. al.). They are obsessed with race, and with group "rights" (instead of individual rights). This is evil stuff, and I am willing to call it for what it is. Isn't it amazing that these people want to EXPAND discrimination on the basis of skin color (different skin color than in the times o fslavery) from the level it was 37 years ago (in 1972--see Friday's blog entry). It does not matter to these people that racial and ethnic discrimination is hardly a big problem in this country anymore. As I said, no amount of progress toward a color blind society satisfies these people. That is because they do not want a color blind society They want a society where people are defined by the racial/ethnic group to which they belong, and where people are not defined as individuals.
Nope. Eric Holder and Soledad O'Brien richly deserve the Finger, and this weekend they receive it. The distressing thing is that they may accurately represent the spirit of the Age of Obama, rather than the "post-racial" rhetoric that Obama sometimes used, and still uses.
Award ceremonty (taking place entirely in the imagination, without even any graphics, which is why I suggest using the image of Dick Martin presenting the old "Laugh In" award solely as a visual aid for your imagination, even though Mr. Martin has complained--from wherever he now is, as it is best not to even think about that question--about my words I put in his mouth):
Imagine Dick Martin thrusting the statuette of the Finger at the camera and saying: Eric Holder and Soledad O'Brien, this is for you. You racist idiots deserve it. Maybe you should try thinking of people as individuals sometimes, instead of defining them by their skin color. It would do you good."
Return next week to see if the Finger goes to another deserving leftist, or whether some deserving Wall Street/Big Business person or Establishment Republican with attract the attention of the Flying, Fickle Finger of Fate.
Did you ever wonder why so many leftists, including those in the mainstream media, were willing to defend even the most outrageous things that Reverend Wright said? Soledad O'Brien has shown you that you need not wonder any longer. These people are STUPID. How stupid do you have to be to even entertain the idea that black people are being dissed by the designation of the shortest month of the year as "Black History Month". Yep. Soledad O'Brien is not only a bone deep racist, but she is bone deep stupid. However, she is using this stupidity for true evil (a strange variation on Maxwell Smart: "If only he had used his brilliance for good, instead of evil"--if only Soledad O'Brien used her stupidity for good instead of evil). What do black people out there think when CNN is suggesting to them that those nasty "white Europeans" have given them the shaft once again by giving them the shortest month of the year as "Black History Month". Do they think "just kidding". Not likely. Reverend Wright was spreading racist evil with his version of stupid paranoia, and Soledad O'Brien is doing the same thing. "Just kidding" is not adequate to defuse this kind of evil.
What Eric Holder was really doing, of course, is to call us still a "nation of racists", even though it is he, and the rest of the leftists in this country, who are the true racists (see blog entries to come, as I conduct my own "conversation" on race). As I said in Friday's entry, the left has been trying to shut up people trying to have a "conversation" about race forever. I have personal experience with that as far back as 1972 (see Friday's entry).
The Finger (Flying, Fickle Finger of Fate, represented by a statuette of an INDEX finger) is this blog's reincarnation of the old Rowan and Martin's "Laugh In" award for conspicuous stupidity/evil in the previous week--an unauthorized reincarnation not involving anyone connected with "Laugh In".
Remember how Obama was supposed to institute a "post-racial" era in America, as we go beyond race? Well, not the least reason for Holder deserves the coveted/dreaded Finger is that Holder exposes an Obama Administration, and left in general, obsessed with race. As the election of Obama shows, most of the country is more than willing to go beyond race (even though Obama and the left ran a racially charged campaign). It is the racist left who keeps insiting on turning everythinng into an issue of "race", and insists on looking at people as members of racial or ethnic groups instead of individuals. That is the very definition of racist, which is why my first blog entry on the "nation of cowards" comment had this statement in the headline: "Soledad O'Brien is a racist."
Yes, the Finger never wavered from pointing at Eric Holder. However, the Finger begain to oscillate spastically once it noticed the comments of Soledad O'Brien on CNN (the liar network, which is also racist). Not only did Soledad O'Brien endorse the comments of Eric Holder, as she once did the racist statements of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, but she compounded the lying racism implied in the "nation of cowards" remark. What can you say about a woman who would even half (and only half) jokingly suggest that February is "Black History Month" because it is the month with the fewest number of days (a flat lie that would only occur to a bone deep racist like Soledad O'Brien). You can understand why Soledad O'Brien, and other racists on the left, did not see much wrong with Reverend Wright saying that white people had invented AIDS for purposes of genocide against "people of color" (following up, in Wright's twiested world view, on the atomic bomb attacks on "people of color" at Hiroshima and Nagasaki). You can see why Soledad O'Brien, and a good part of the left, could "understand" Reverend Wright's statement that the U.S. Government is providing illegal drugs to black men in order to put them in jail. This (Reverend Wright's statements) is the kind of "conversation" Soledad O'Brien and Eric Holder clearly want on race. It is the way Soledad O'Brien, Eric Holder, and so many other racists on the left think. They view the world as a place where "people of color" are in a war with "white Europeans", where the only proper reaction of "white Europeans" is guilt over the way they have treated "people of color", even if an individual "white European" had never done anything to a "person of color". The "conversation" is supposed to be limited to talking about this racial (yes, a racist attitude) "guilt".
No progress is enough for these people (Eric Holder, Soledad O'Brien, et. al.). They are obsessed with race, and with group "rights" (instead of individual rights). This is evil stuff, and I am willing to call it for what it is. Isn't it amazing that these people want to EXPAND discrimination on the basis of skin color (different skin color than in the times o fslavery) from the level it was 37 years ago (in 1972--see Friday's blog entry). It does not matter to these people that racial and ethnic discrimination is hardly a big problem in this country anymore. As I said, no amount of progress toward a color blind society satisfies these people. That is because they do not want a color blind society They want a society where people are defined by the racial/ethnic group to which they belong, and where people are not defined as individuals.
Nope. Eric Holder and Soledad O'Brien richly deserve the Finger, and this weekend they receive it. The distressing thing is that they may accurately represent the spirit of the Age of Obama, rather than the "post-racial" rhetoric that Obama sometimes used, and still uses.
Award ceremonty (taking place entirely in the imagination, without even any graphics, which is why I suggest using the image of Dick Martin presenting the old "Laugh In" award solely as a visual aid for your imagination, even though Mr. Martin has complained--from wherever he now is, as it is best not to even think about that question--about my words I put in his mouth):
Imagine Dick Martin thrusting the statuette of the Finger at the camera and saying: Eric Holder and Soledad O'Brien, this is for you. You racist idiots deserve it. Maybe you should try thinking of people as individuals sometimes, instead of defining them by their skin color. It would do you good."
Return next week to see if the Finger goes to another deserving leftist, or whether some deserving Wall Street/Big Business person or Establishment Republican with attract the attention of the Flying, Fickle Finger of Fate.
Did you ever wonder why so many leftists, including those in the mainstream media, were willing to defend even the most outrageous things that Reverend Wright said? Soledad O'Brien has shown you that you need not wonder any longer. These people are STUPID. How stupid do you have to be to even entertain the idea that black people are being dissed by the designation of the shortest month of the year as "Black History Month". Yep. Soledad O'Brien is not only a bone deep racist, but she is bone deep stupid. However, she is using this stupidity for true evil (a strange variation on Maxwell Smart: "If only he had used his brilliance for good, instead of evil"--if only Soledad O'Brien used her stupidity for good instead of evil). What do black people out there think when CNN is suggesting to them that those nasty "white Europeans" have given them the shaft once again by giving them the shortest month of the year as "Black History Month". Do they think "just kidding". Not likely. Reverend Wright was spreading racist evil with his version of stupid paranoia, and Soledad O'Brien is doing the same thing. "Just kidding" is not adequate to defuse this kind of evil.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Global Warming Fraud: Arctic Sea Ice Error the Size of California
"Feb. 20 (Bloomberg) -- A glitch in satellite sensors caused scientists to underestimate the extent of Arctic sea ice by 500,000 square kilometers (193,000 square miles), a California- size area, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center said.
The error, due to a problem called “sensor drift,” began in early January and caused a slowly growing underestimation of sea ice extent until mid-February. That’s when “puzzled readers” alerted the NSIDC about data showing ice-covered areas as stretches of open ocean, the Boulder, Colorado-based group said on its Web site.
“Sensor drift, although infrequent, does occasionally occur and it is one of the things that we account for during quality- control measures prior to archiving the data,” the center said. “Although we believe that data prior to early January are reliable, we will conduct a full quality check.’’
The extent of Arctic sea ice is seen as a key measure of how rising temperatures are affecting the Earth. The cap retreated in 2007 to its lowest extent ever and last year posted its second- lowest annual minimum at the end of the yearly melt season. The recent error doesn’t change findings that Arctic ice is retreating, the NSIDC said."
The above is from a Bloomberg story now linked on Drudge, hwere you can link to the whole story. There are any number of lessons in this story as to the total fraud (yep, I use that word and mean it) of mand-made "global warming".
First, this is far from the first time (more like abouta the hundredth time) that "global warming" data has proven to be wrong, or misleading. These errors never "affect" the theory, as no new data affects the theory, because the "theory" is a religion rather than a true scientific "theory> For that matter, as the blog has shown you time and time again, the "theory" of "global warming" has never been a fully developed scientific theory, but a vague hypothesis that the Earth is warming because of greenhouse gases. In real science, this kind of "theory" is tested by evaluation o its specific predictions in a skeptical manner. "Global warming" "theory" has never been successful in specifically predicting anything, including the climate for any particular section of the Earth or of the Earth as a whole. As a scientific "theory", it is a total fraud. Even an error in the size of the polar ice cap the size of California does not "affect" "global warming" theory, because the "theory" is not specific enough to predict a damn thing.
Buried in the above story, along with the fact that the arctic ice cap has always "retreated" in summer and re-frozen in winter, is the fact that 2008 was the "second" smallest polar ice cap (in summer--notice there is really nothing prominent in the story about the total size now, in winter). Is that "retreating"? Of coure not. The arctic ice cap is EXPANDING (from the evidence of 2007 and 2008). This would be consistent with the abundant evidence, including the last two winters and temperature data since 1998, that the Earth is now COOLING.
The fraud does not stop there. Note the "global warming" "theory" is based primarily on "estimates", and indirect data. We have little direct data on the amount of arctic sea ice or on sea levels around the world (see Michael Crichton's "State of Fear"), "Global warming "theory" is not really a theory of "climate" or atmospheric physics at all. It is nothing but a set of computer models into which incomplete data and self-proving assumptions have been inserted. The actual data is fallible, and the assumptions are outrageously biased. Further, the failure of each predictiion is simply "explained" away by new assumptions, and new data is prettty much ignored in terms of its "effect" on the "theory".
It gets worse. Notice how the above story calls the melting of arctic sea ice as a "key measure" of the effect of "global warming" on the Earth. Let us pass by the fact that the Earth has warmed more than this before, without man. It is an outright LIE to say that 2007 represented a "record" low for summer sea ice, unless you mean "record" to refer only to the time when we have accurate? estimates of the size of the polar ice cap. But the Earth has been heer a long time, and it is clear that the arctic ice has melted much more in times for which we do not have accurate? records. I digress (not really).
WHY is the melting of arctic sea ice a "key measure" of the effect "global warming" is having on the Earth No reason. It is simply the measure upon which that "global warming priests" have chosen to concentrate, as other "measures" have ceased to support their "theory". NASA, for example (at least one part of NASA) has described the increase in summer melting of arctic sea ice as mainly the result of a natural cycle of ocean currents--the same kind of cycle that many scienists say is now COOLING the Earth, or significant portions of it (cycle of other ocean currents).
Remember Antarctica? "Global warming" priests used to concentrate on that (where most of the world's ice is locked on land--arctic sea ice having no real effect on sea levels). Unfortunately for those priests, data from antarctica has been conflicting--even suggesting that the amount of ice is growing on most of the continent. Everyone has realize that our data on most of Antarctica is not sufficient to determine what is really going on there. All of those pictures of ice sheets breaking off the peninsula have little or nothing to do with what is happening to Antarctica as a whole, and that fact finally became impossible to ignore. See, again, "State of Fear". Exit Antarctica as a "key measure", and enter the less significant arctic (lesss significant, because less ice is there, and it is floating ice). Here, of course, the "global warming" priests have to ignore those ocean currents, but these priests are experienced at ignoring more serious things than that.
For example, the summer melting of the arctic ice is WEATHER. Remember how "global warming" priests used to cite warming WEATHER in the U.S. as a "key measure" of "global warming". Thus, 2006 essentially tied with 1936 as the warmest year in recorded American temperatures. As MIchael Crichton said, this leaves the unfortunate conclusion that there is no real warming TREND in the U.S. since 1880. How could there be, when temperatures have gone up and down, with NO warming between 1936 and 2006. You should see where this is going.
Since 2006, temperatures in the U.S. have COOLED--significantly. We are not longer having even "third" warmest years. We are having averate to COOL years. What is the "response" of "global warming" priests? You know it. Well there is the feeble response that all climate chnge--including cooling--is the result of man's activities. But this leaves the entire basis of the "theory" behind. It is totally based on "warming", and without the "warming" there is no theory. That attempt to adopt all "climate change" as evidence of "global warming" is an obvious, ridiculous fraud. But "scientists" have a fall back position from that fraudulent position. This fall back is that the U.S. is only 6% of the Earth's surface, and that U.S. data is just "weather". That, of course, did not stop the "global warming" priests from citing U.S. data when they thought they could use that data (before the U.S. data became so obviously embarrassing to them).
Why is arctic data not merely "weather"? Indeed, why is all "global warming" data not easier explained as a result of natural cycles, which have occurred before, instead of a result of the activities of man? And, by the way, why did "global warming" theory not PREDICT the climate of the U.S. the last two years? "Global warming" priests have no answers for questions like this, and count on the mainstream media (and scientists who know where their bread is buttered) to cover for them.
Melting of arctic sea ice IS merely the result of weather, and ocean currents. There is no reason to suppose it is a "key measure" of "global warming", except that the "global warming" priests suddenly assert it to be so. If this "key measure" suddently fails them (as it really did this last summer--"second" indeed!), they wil come up with a new "key measure" This is a religion, and not a very good one (Christianity, in which I do not believe as I believe in no religion, actually makes more sense).
I know. I have become verbose again. You should get the idea. "Global warming" priests continue to pay attention only to the data they think supports them, and to ignore data which does not support them "Record" snowfalls in New Orleans and Houston are unimportant, while similar weather in the arctic (in the opposite direction) is "key". Deliver me.
"Global warming" is a total fraud as a "scientific" "theory".
The error, due to a problem called “sensor drift,” began in early January and caused a slowly growing underestimation of sea ice extent until mid-February. That’s when “puzzled readers” alerted the NSIDC about data showing ice-covered areas as stretches of open ocean, the Boulder, Colorado-based group said on its Web site.
“Sensor drift, although infrequent, does occasionally occur and it is one of the things that we account for during quality- control measures prior to archiving the data,” the center said. “Although we believe that data prior to early January are reliable, we will conduct a full quality check.’’
The extent of Arctic sea ice is seen as a key measure of how rising temperatures are affecting the Earth. The cap retreated in 2007 to its lowest extent ever and last year posted its second- lowest annual minimum at the end of the yearly melt season. The recent error doesn’t change findings that Arctic ice is retreating, the NSIDC said."
The above is from a Bloomberg story now linked on Drudge, hwere you can link to the whole story. There are any number of lessons in this story as to the total fraud (yep, I use that word and mean it) of mand-made "global warming".
First, this is far from the first time (more like abouta the hundredth time) that "global warming" data has proven to be wrong, or misleading. These errors never "affect" the theory, as no new data affects the theory, because the "theory" is a religion rather than a true scientific "theory> For that matter, as the blog has shown you time and time again, the "theory" of "global warming" has never been a fully developed scientific theory, but a vague hypothesis that the Earth is warming because of greenhouse gases. In real science, this kind of "theory" is tested by evaluation o its specific predictions in a skeptical manner. "Global warming" "theory" has never been successful in specifically predicting anything, including the climate for any particular section of the Earth or of the Earth as a whole. As a scientific "theory", it is a total fraud. Even an error in the size of the polar ice cap the size of California does not "affect" "global warming" theory, because the "theory" is not specific enough to predict a damn thing.
Buried in the above story, along with the fact that the arctic ice cap has always "retreated" in summer and re-frozen in winter, is the fact that 2008 was the "second" smallest polar ice cap (in summer--notice there is really nothing prominent in the story about the total size now, in winter). Is that "retreating"? Of coure not. The arctic ice cap is EXPANDING (from the evidence of 2007 and 2008). This would be consistent with the abundant evidence, including the last two winters and temperature data since 1998, that the Earth is now COOLING.
The fraud does not stop there. Note the "global warming" "theory" is based primarily on "estimates", and indirect data. We have little direct data on the amount of arctic sea ice or on sea levels around the world (see Michael Crichton's "State of Fear"), "Global warming "theory" is not really a theory of "climate" or atmospheric physics at all. It is nothing but a set of computer models into which incomplete data and self-proving assumptions have been inserted. The actual data is fallible, and the assumptions are outrageously biased. Further, the failure of each predictiion is simply "explained" away by new assumptions, and new data is prettty much ignored in terms of its "effect" on the "theory".
It gets worse. Notice how the above story calls the melting of arctic sea ice as a "key measure" of the effect of "global warming" on the Earth. Let us pass by the fact that the Earth has warmed more than this before, without man. It is an outright LIE to say that 2007 represented a "record" low for summer sea ice, unless you mean "record" to refer only to the time when we have accurate? estimates of the size of the polar ice cap. But the Earth has been heer a long time, and it is clear that the arctic ice has melted much more in times for which we do not have accurate? records. I digress (not really).
WHY is the melting of arctic sea ice a "key measure" of the effect "global warming" is having on the Earth No reason. It is simply the measure upon which that "global warming priests" have chosen to concentrate, as other "measures" have ceased to support their "theory". NASA, for example (at least one part of NASA) has described the increase in summer melting of arctic sea ice as mainly the result of a natural cycle of ocean currents--the same kind of cycle that many scienists say is now COOLING the Earth, or significant portions of it (cycle of other ocean currents).
Remember Antarctica? "Global warming" priests used to concentrate on that (where most of the world's ice is locked on land--arctic sea ice having no real effect on sea levels). Unfortunately for those priests, data from antarctica has been conflicting--even suggesting that the amount of ice is growing on most of the continent. Everyone has realize that our data on most of Antarctica is not sufficient to determine what is really going on there. All of those pictures of ice sheets breaking off the peninsula have little or nothing to do with what is happening to Antarctica as a whole, and that fact finally became impossible to ignore. See, again, "State of Fear". Exit Antarctica as a "key measure", and enter the less significant arctic (lesss significant, because less ice is there, and it is floating ice). Here, of course, the "global warming" priests have to ignore those ocean currents, but these priests are experienced at ignoring more serious things than that.
For example, the summer melting of the arctic ice is WEATHER. Remember how "global warming" priests used to cite warming WEATHER in the U.S. as a "key measure" of "global warming". Thus, 2006 essentially tied with 1936 as the warmest year in recorded American temperatures. As MIchael Crichton said, this leaves the unfortunate conclusion that there is no real warming TREND in the U.S. since 1880. How could there be, when temperatures have gone up and down, with NO warming between 1936 and 2006. You should see where this is going.
Since 2006, temperatures in the U.S. have COOLED--significantly. We are not longer having even "third" warmest years. We are having averate to COOL years. What is the "response" of "global warming" priests? You know it. Well there is the feeble response that all climate chnge--including cooling--is the result of man's activities. But this leaves the entire basis of the "theory" behind. It is totally based on "warming", and without the "warming" there is no theory. That attempt to adopt all "climate change" as evidence of "global warming" is an obvious, ridiculous fraud. But "scientists" have a fall back position from that fraudulent position. This fall back is that the U.S. is only 6% of the Earth's surface, and that U.S. data is just "weather". That, of course, did not stop the "global warming" priests from citing U.S. data when they thought they could use that data (before the U.S. data became so obviously embarrassing to them).
Why is arctic data not merely "weather"? Indeed, why is all "global warming" data not easier explained as a result of natural cycles, which have occurred before, instead of a result of the activities of man? And, by the way, why did "global warming" theory not PREDICT the climate of the U.S. the last two years? "Global warming" priests have no answers for questions like this, and count on the mainstream media (and scientists who know where their bread is buttered) to cover for them.
Melting of arctic sea ice IS merely the result of weather, and ocean currents. There is no reason to suppose it is a "key measure" of "global warming", except that the "global warming" priests suddenly assert it to be so. If this "key measure" suddently fails them (as it really did this last summer--"second" indeed!), they wil come up with a new "key measure" This is a religion, and not a very good one (Christianity, in which I do not believe as I believe in no religion, actually makes more sense).
I know. I have become verbose again. You should get the idea. "Global warming" priests continue to pay attention only to the data they think supports them, and to ignore data which does not support them "Record" snowfalls in New Orleans and Houston are unimportant, while similar weather in the arctic (in the opposite direction) is "key". Deliver me.
"Global warming" is a total fraud as a "scientific" "theory".
Friday, February 20, 2009
Eric Holder and Me (1972-2009): Leftists Try To Make Us a Nation of Cowards
I have told you that people like Eric Holder Soledad O'Brien, CNN, the mainstream media and leftists in general are the primary racists in this country . They are also the real cowards in this country who are unwilling to have an honest, logical discussion about race. And I can prove it. You may find that hard to believe, but I can.
You have to come back with me to 1972, or so, in Austin, Texas. I was a law student at the University of Texas School of Law, where I was to graduate 3rd in my class. I even got a "Clue" board game from one of the most liberal professors in the law school (saying a lot, even then), as a reward for tying for high grade in his class. He was almost embarrassed, and commented: "I guess good thinking cam be independent of politics." I do not really regress here, because I am making the point that I was an outspoken conservative, even then, at a time and place where few dared to speak out as conservatives. That kindof courage has never been my problem. That same class is the class where we debated abortion, and two liberal laaw students came up afterward and said: "notice how no one could answer your arguments (and they couldn't). We still think you are wrong, but we don't have any answer to what you said, and did not see that anyone esle did either."
Well, at that time the Daily Texan (student newspaper) was as leftist as you can get--on the editorial pages. Perahps it is not surprising that the paper was more objective on its "news" pages than most modern mainstream media outlets, including the Associated Press itself. "Journalistic" standards had not yet totally died then. This was still the time of the Vietnam War, and George McGovern ran against Richard Nixon--losing 60% of the vote even after the Watergate break in had occurred. However, McGovern got about 97% of the vote in student precincts at the University of Texas. The outspoken people on campus were not only leftist, but radical leftist of the William Ayers type (Weather Underground). These far leftists are today's "journalists" who put their opinions on both the "news" and editorial pages, and comprise the majority of present university faculty members.
The Daily Texan had a policy of supposedly encouraging "guest columns" (the op-ed kind of stufff for input beyond the scope of a short letter). Even then, of course, leftists did not believe in real debate or free speech, especially about race (as Eric Holder and leftists today do not believe in real debate and free speech, and count on intimidating cowards out there into silence Yes, leftists were also already sanctimonious hypocrites of the most virulent kind.
This was also the time of the Bakke (sp.? whocares?) Supreme Court decision that first called into question "reverse discrimination": racial preferences discriminating in favor of "minorities" based on the color of their skin and against "white males" based on the color of their skin (and sometimes sex, although white females were often part of the discriminated against class). The Bakke decision was followed later by a 5th Circuit decision, affirmed by the Supreme Court, specifically preventing "reverse discrimination" in admission to the University of Texas School of Law (Hopwood? something like that was the case name--mermory fails me). As far as I know, this is still the case law that controls admissions at the University of Texas School of Law, and I personally think it is why my older daughter was denied admission at that law school, while accepted at Cornell University. As I have previously told you, my two daughters are 50% Hispanic, with a totally Mexican-American mother (my ex-wife). Yes, I told them to claim it on law school admission applications, and am not sure why every single applicant does not calim some such thing (see below). My daughters certainly have as much right to claim Latina status as President Obama has to claim African-American status. In 1972, that was still in the future. But the Bakke case was already being debated on campus--along with the issue of racial preferences for minorities. I say "debated", but the left then, as well as now, was uninterested in debate. They wanted to dictate what "enlightened" people should believe.
I don't know if it was before or after the Bakke decision of the Supreme Court, but I submitted a "guest column" to the Daily Texan explaining what was wrong with racial preferences--discriminating against "whites" (and maybe Jews, orientals, etc.--non-preferred minorities) on the basis of the color of their skin. The Daily Texan did not print the "guest column". As I said, I can prove that leftists are cowards, and did not believe in free speech, or debate on race, even 36 years ago. You might want to consider why leftists still favor racial preferences 36 years after I wrote that "guest column". There never was any excuse for government mandated racial preferences, which still continue today and are likely to get worse in the Age of Obama, even in 1972. 36 years later leftists should be ashamed to still be making the same arguments for evil.
Yes, I called it evil then, in effect, and accurrately labeled leftists who would then discriminate against people based on the color of their skin as "racists". That is what I call them today.
"But", you say, "you could be making this up. The column was never printed."
Oh, but you are wrong. It was printed. I see you are confused. I said that the Daily Texan, run by leftist students who had no belief in free speech and free debate, failed to print the "guest column", as they printed no conservative material on the editorial pages that entire year. But I did not let it go at that. Even then, I had it up to here with leftist hypocrites and intellectual dishonesty Yes, Eric Holder, I was tired of leftist cowards unwilling to have a "conversation" on race, and racial preferences.
I wrote the Texas Legislature. Yes, I mean I wrote the ENTIRE Texas Legislature. I objected to taxpayer money being spent to promote solely a leftist point of view, with no attempt to even allow "diversity" of opinion in the newspaper. Lloyd Dogget was one (student elected, leftist) state senator who received this letter. I think he is now a Congressman (leftist) from Austin.
Without any kind of apology or acknowledgement (to me, about my letter), the "guest column" was printed. If you can find the right back issue, you can look it up. It is there under the name "Gordon Stewart" (my name). Now I was not too happy with the subheadings, which seemed an attempt to sabotage the article (the cynic in me says). I still remember one subheading: "the fatal flow". That section of my article did not deal with the "fatal flow", but with the "fatal flaw" of racial preferences. I guess the yound people of the Daily Texan were no better at typos and proofreading than an aging, retired lawyer with macular degeneration (me today). Or you can believe it was an attempt at deliberate sabotage.
What was this "fatal flaw" I talked about 36-37 years ago, when the families of maybe half the Hispanics now residents of this country were still residents of Mexico (hardly being kept down by "discriminating" in THIS country!)? That "fatal flaw" is that all Americans are mongrels, and there is no definition of who is a member of a particular racial or ethnic minority. Oh, there is definitely no adequate definition But I mean what I said then, and say now. There is simply no definition at all of who is African-American and who is not; who is Native American and who is not; and who is Hispanic and who is not. The definition simply does not exist, and cannot exist. That makes no difference if we treat people as individuals, and do not assign benefits based on the color of a person's skin. In other words, it makes no difference if the government is "color blind". It makes a huge difference if we are giving preferences based on racial and ethnic identies we cannot define, and which would make no sense if we even tried to define them.
To be continued. The next part of my personal attempt at a "conversation" on race, and why leftsts are generally racists, will continue with a fuller explanation of why it is impossible to identify who is a member of a particular minority, and why it is an evil thing to even try to define people by their race or ethnic origin.
You have to come back with me to 1972, or so, in Austin, Texas. I was a law student at the University of Texas School of Law, where I was to graduate 3rd in my class. I even got a "Clue" board game from one of the most liberal professors in the law school (saying a lot, even then), as a reward for tying for high grade in his class. He was almost embarrassed, and commented: "I guess good thinking cam be independent of politics." I do not really regress here, because I am making the point that I was an outspoken conservative, even then, at a time and place where few dared to speak out as conservatives. That kindof courage has never been my problem. That same class is the class where we debated abortion, and two liberal laaw students came up afterward and said: "notice how no one could answer your arguments (and they couldn't). We still think you are wrong, but we don't have any answer to what you said, and did not see that anyone esle did either."
Well, at that time the Daily Texan (student newspaper) was as leftist as you can get--on the editorial pages. Perahps it is not surprising that the paper was more objective on its "news" pages than most modern mainstream media outlets, including the Associated Press itself. "Journalistic" standards had not yet totally died then. This was still the time of the Vietnam War, and George McGovern ran against Richard Nixon--losing 60% of the vote even after the Watergate break in had occurred. However, McGovern got about 97% of the vote in student precincts at the University of Texas. The outspoken people on campus were not only leftist, but radical leftist of the William Ayers type (Weather Underground). These far leftists are today's "journalists" who put their opinions on both the "news" and editorial pages, and comprise the majority of present university faculty members.
The Daily Texan had a policy of supposedly encouraging "guest columns" (the op-ed kind of stufff for input beyond the scope of a short letter). Even then, of course, leftists did not believe in real debate or free speech, especially about race (as Eric Holder and leftists today do not believe in real debate and free speech, and count on intimidating cowards out there into silence Yes, leftists were also already sanctimonious hypocrites of the most virulent kind.
This was also the time of the Bakke (sp.? whocares?) Supreme Court decision that first called into question "reverse discrimination": racial preferences discriminating in favor of "minorities" based on the color of their skin and against "white males" based on the color of their skin (and sometimes sex, although white females were often part of the discriminated against class). The Bakke decision was followed later by a 5th Circuit decision, affirmed by the Supreme Court, specifically preventing "reverse discrimination" in admission to the University of Texas School of Law (Hopwood? something like that was the case name--mermory fails me). As far as I know, this is still the case law that controls admissions at the University of Texas School of Law, and I personally think it is why my older daughter was denied admission at that law school, while accepted at Cornell University. As I have previously told you, my two daughters are 50% Hispanic, with a totally Mexican-American mother (my ex-wife). Yes, I told them to claim it on law school admission applications, and am not sure why every single applicant does not calim some such thing (see below). My daughters certainly have as much right to claim Latina status as President Obama has to claim African-American status. In 1972, that was still in the future. But the Bakke case was already being debated on campus--along with the issue of racial preferences for minorities. I say "debated", but the left then, as well as now, was uninterested in debate. They wanted to dictate what "enlightened" people should believe.
I don't know if it was before or after the Bakke decision of the Supreme Court, but I submitted a "guest column" to the Daily Texan explaining what was wrong with racial preferences--discriminating against "whites" (and maybe Jews, orientals, etc.--non-preferred minorities) on the basis of the color of their skin. The Daily Texan did not print the "guest column". As I said, I can prove that leftists are cowards, and did not believe in free speech, or debate on race, even 36 years ago. You might want to consider why leftists still favor racial preferences 36 years after I wrote that "guest column". There never was any excuse for government mandated racial preferences, which still continue today and are likely to get worse in the Age of Obama, even in 1972. 36 years later leftists should be ashamed to still be making the same arguments for evil.
Yes, I called it evil then, in effect, and accurrately labeled leftists who would then discriminate against people based on the color of their skin as "racists". That is what I call them today.
"But", you say, "you could be making this up. The column was never printed."
Oh, but you are wrong. It was printed. I see you are confused. I said that the Daily Texan, run by leftist students who had no belief in free speech and free debate, failed to print the "guest column", as they printed no conservative material on the editorial pages that entire year. But I did not let it go at that. Even then, I had it up to here with leftist hypocrites and intellectual dishonesty Yes, Eric Holder, I was tired of leftist cowards unwilling to have a "conversation" on race, and racial preferences.
I wrote the Texas Legislature. Yes, I mean I wrote the ENTIRE Texas Legislature. I objected to taxpayer money being spent to promote solely a leftist point of view, with no attempt to even allow "diversity" of opinion in the newspaper. Lloyd Dogget was one (student elected, leftist) state senator who received this letter. I think he is now a Congressman (leftist) from Austin.
Without any kind of apology or acknowledgement (to me, about my letter), the "guest column" was printed. If you can find the right back issue, you can look it up. It is there under the name "Gordon Stewart" (my name). Now I was not too happy with the subheadings, which seemed an attempt to sabotage the article (the cynic in me says). I still remember one subheading: "the fatal flow". That section of my article did not deal with the "fatal flow", but with the "fatal flaw" of racial preferences. I guess the yound people of the Daily Texan were no better at typos and proofreading than an aging, retired lawyer with macular degeneration (me today). Or you can believe it was an attempt at deliberate sabotage.
What was this "fatal flaw" I talked about 36-37 years ago, when the families of maybe half the Hispanics now residents of this country were still residents of Mexico (hardly being kept down by "discriminating" in THIS country!)? That "fatal flaw" is that all Americans are mongrels, and there is no definition of who is a member of a particular racial or ethnic minority. Oh, there is definitely no adequate definition But I mean what I said then, and say now. There is simply no definition at all of who is African-American and who is not; who is Native American and who is not; and who is Hispanic and who is not. The definition simply does not exist, and cannot exist. That makes no difference if we treat people as individuals, and do not assign benefits based on the color of a person's skin. In other words, it makes no difference if the government is "color blind". It makes a huge difference if we are giving preferences based on racial and ethnic identies we cannot define, and which would make no sense if we even tried to define them.
To be continued. The next part of my personal attempt at a "conversation" on race, and why leftsts are generally racists, will continue with a fuller explanation of why it is impossible to identify who is a member of a particular minority, and why it is an evil thing to even try to define people by their race or ethnic origin.
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