The Collapse of Reality

Nothing is real anymore. Look at any photographs at any art show, and all one sees is photoshop. Spectacular occurrences of chance happen commonplace. Colors of a drug impaired visual cortex jump out in unnatural form. Read supposed news stories that contain an all too convenient narrative, taking on a surreal life of their own. Basic facts vanish into the mist of the Narrative. Memoirs have replaced the autobiography, with their made up narratives, impressive story arcs, and edited scenes. Sports has become a Soap Opera, its not about on the field. Its about off the field, the personalities, who said what, who did what. What happened to just play the game talk about the game. Politics is also Fake, with the Fake narrative, made up Fake stories, told and sold to infantile voters.

Where did Reality go? Was it ever here to begin with? Is the present always unreal, only sifted out in the future as an interpreted historical record of the past? Is that when reality is created? Modernists discovered Hermon Melville and remade his image in their own. In the real world things happen. Real things happen. Not everyone is privy to these things, but the tree falling makes a noise.  Guess that does not make a good narrative. Can't sell adds or get clicks with that. So Capitalism demands that reality capitulate?

In simpler freedom potential restricted times, reality was ever-present. If one was born to a farm family, one would become a farmer. Reality was plowing the field. Day after Day. But Religion was more popular back then as a release from, and subsistence to the daily grind. But Religion has not always been omnipresent everywhere across all the miserable centuries. More common was to live a short brutish life of reality. So the New Religion of Narrative as
 distraction is Unreal.

debasement of semantics
DEBT DEFAULT

This whole "default" deal is a debasement of simple semantics. All the Politicians, Washington Insiders, and the Media all use the word Default. The say that Default would be epically bad for the U.S. That is true. But also irrelevant and an intentionally distracting masquerade. There is ZERO chance the government will Default on debt if the debt ceiling is not raised Oct 17th. It a moot point. Its like saying that if the sun didn't rise in the morning it would be bad. Well no shiii...! That is completely inapplicable because the sun will rise in the morning.

Default is when you don't pay your credit card bill or home mortgage. A credit line increase denial is not Default. This congress should deny a credit line increase. Keep the debt ceiling at $16Trillion.

The Treasury brings in $250B a month in taxes and interest payments on debt are only $20B a month. How could we default? The reason everyone tows that line is they will use it as cover for when they will inevitably raise the debt ceiling. They will tell their constituents that they had to, there was no other choice, or else the world as we know it would promptly end.

winning the future

TAX POLICY

WTF is a tax expenditure? What is this new OrwellianObamaSpeak? First there was the kinetic military action - now, after the greatest speech ever of the week, we have the need to reduce "Tax Expenditures". A conception is now being reformed, to make this logically work conceptually.... OK all wealth and money belongs to the government in this construct. The amount the government pays to you is a tax expenditure. So basically you tax the government of its income.

I believe that we each own our own body. We own the output of our bodies. With our output, we can do things that other people value. Money is nothing more than a credit for serving our fellow man. (You don't beat someone over the head and force them to buy your product - transactions are through voluntary exchange) You exchange your accounting skills for money from someone who needs accounting skills. You use this money to buy bread. The bread maker is serving his fellow man and getting credits just like the accountant is serving her fellow man. Some people get more or less than their just share out of this arrangement. This is a normal earthly condition. Perfection is only achieved in heaven. Attempts to establish heaven on earth have failed and are even more unjust than the injustice they are trying to eliminate.

The real robber barons were criminals on the Rhine river during the middle ages who extracted safe passage fee's by force. Bill Gates is not a robber baron. He served his fellow mankind by developing Windows which others have found useful. They bought Windows with credits they got from serving their fellow man. How would it be morally right to take all of Bill Gates money to close the deficit on money spent mostly on transfer payments to other people? (Transfer payments are taxing working people FICA to pay for current retiree benefits) Why not take all of your money and give it to poor people world wide? No one needs a house to their selves. No one needs their own private transportation. No one needs more than two pairs of clothes. Everyone can survive on rice and beans. Anything above and beyond that is excess. So if wealth is to be redistributed, any and all wealth should be taken from everybody above this defined level of livability and given to those truly in need. A line drawn any where else is completely arbitrary.

Overall, my taxbill was not fair - all things considered. That is because the top 5% pay more than half of all personal income taxes. They are subsidizing me.

rock the vote 08

KEYNES

To the young voters in last years election (Addressed to no one in particular) Ok Cool-aid drinkers. I think the real symbolism here is the fact that many of you went to a theatre to experience the coronation event in a communal setting. (Oh we don't have a working TV antenna... blah blah blah) As many have already noted, and I'm only repeating, about herd of "independent" minds, and the need for collective Obama reveling - you know sermon on the mount - er capital hill. Think back in history - the mob is almost always wrong (a tenet of populism). What freedom loving independent minds congregate in mobs? Think French Revolution. Yeah they escorted out monarchy to bring in a dictator. Think post Wiemar Republic Germany and the National Socialist rallies (abbreviated Nazi or something to that effect). Think the May Day rallies on Red square in front of the Kremlin. Think present day Hugo Chavez promising all to hungry impoverished mobs, subsidizing fuel Oil in Massachusetts, making no real changes for the hungry impoverished mobs of Venezuela. Even Mob rousing greats like King and Gandhi, had overt Marxist (anti-individual) leanings. Yes they were pure in their ideological advocacy for nonviolence. In practice both were violent in a metaphorical sense. King with his extramarital affairs, Gandhi with his demeaning and sub human views of Native Africans while in South Africa. Well now we have Hope instead of Fear, yet Fear of consenting adults engaged in Capitalism is Fear No 1 of the day (Sodomy thats OK - but Capitalism - Surely no free person would choose that). Well now we have a president who "believes" (key word btw) in "science" - yet is dusting off the old Keynesian Bible long ago written off by these people who do real work in the economic sciences (people with unfamiliar names (to Krugman) like Hayek, Friedman, Von Mises, and of course Sowell). Change must mean forgoing common sense, and the very underpinnings of western civilization (Then again, the easiest way to make the world an egalitarian place, is to make all equally poor). Outlaw Farm machinery and we can return to full employment!!! Well its good to know at least someone is supporting an evil multi nation corporation - Kimberly Clarke (the maker of Kleenex). Thank you for your support. I'm sure when the house of cards inevitably comes down (Kennedy's accountability was transferred to Johnston - Camelots great escape) and Keyenes is discredited yet again (if only for one generation) Kimberly Clarke will be gainfully employed again by slightly wiser liberal mobsters, returning to reality, but with only the "vast right wing conspiracy" to blame - aka Providence (or for secular PC slaves to ill-liberalism - a loose concept to be called: the opposite of deconstructivism). PS you still have until 30 to use your brain in addition to your heart, as some drunken idiot (Churchill?) from England once said

UPDATE: The Tea Party is a mob of freedom loving individuals undercutting my main point.

panic now if you have not yet

STATE OF CONSERVATISM

Oh no - the GOP has lost two in a row, time to re-write the Party platform, re-brand. Yes conservatism has died yet again (see also 1964, 1976, 1992 ) Now they need to moderate their message, open up the borders, bring the troops home and start spreading the wealth. America is in a state of decline - we only need to manage the downfall and welcome the East to the new throne. This is beginning to read like a script for groundhog day.

It is groundhog day. Life will always repeat until it is gotten right - right? Alot of op/eders need to sit back, relax, read up on history and take in reality for a change. Perception is what drives the masses, but reality provides feedback loops to them as well. If the Dems positions are correct (rather than just hype/hope) then it will be evidenced in real world experience. Why meet them halfway if they are whole heartily wrong? Why should the objective of the Party be to be in power? If "progress" is going to be made would it not be better to be the Party out of power when it happens? A virtuous principled opposition is more noble than a moderate me-too Party. Unreformed entitlements, government forced sub-prime lending are/were bipartisan ticking time bombs with universal health and carbon taxes to be added to the list. Why join in our Nation's destruction? When reality comes around it will collect the false prophets into the dust bin. There were these other years 1980 and 1994. Yes we can 2010!

life liberty property decimation

STATES RIGHTS

The new slave masters, as opposed to their 19th century brethren, are opposed to states rights. The depths of these socialists thoughts are revealed in their actions. For universal single payer? Fine - do it on a state-by-state basis. Whats the hold up? Certainly many states are currently socialist run. Massachusetts, California and others have beginner health socialism plans, stunted only by reality. State budgets are lacking in the key ingredient for universal coverage to take off. States don't have a green tone printing press that can create small peaces of paper with dead white aristocrats and associated numbers on them. The U.S. congress does have one of these. And thus only ridiculous ponzi schemes can be inflationaly sustained at the federal level. The new slave masters know this, and if one is going to rob the rest of humanity of the ownership of their labor, best to do it incrementally, as has happened over the last century.

The next faze will be expanding S-Chip to cover the middle class. Then offering a government alternative to private health plans that will be subsidized by participants in private plans. Then after enough people join, government will set drug prices (in a process to be called negotiating). Why is their goal universal coverage rather than better health? For beginners in economic matters a brief aside: Only a committee of the smartest can completely ruin the life of the dumbest among us worse than they could have themselves. Humans are far from perfect but at least the individual directly experiences the results of their actions and can attempt to make corrections based on this feedback loop. The committee of the smartest is isolated from these feedback loops by the nature of their eliteness. So the same type of bureaucratic structures that underestimated Saddam's weapons programs in the first gulf war and then overestimated them in the second will be adept at making health decisions for all? The same mentality that started a pension scheme for the then 50:1 worker to retiree ratio should buckle in the near future 3:1. Evidently that's where that printing press comes in.

How about a states right to opt out of federal programs? How about making these things optional and give a lump sum of cash to residents of states that do not participate? If the heavenly benefits of socialism truly do accrue, would not people be free to move to that state to experience nirvana? The new slave masters know the answer and thus their national plan. Socialism is never free. Cubans defect from their free health care when their sports teams play in the free world. The new slave masters will not tolerate a free choice.

don't ask don't tell

ENDORSMENTS

The latest ex Busher to jump ship in hopes of avoiding the upcoming Nuremberg trials is Colin Powell. With everyone rushing to the port side, capsizing may occur - right now its just a list (lisp?) Don't ask don't tell military strategy was negotiated by Powell and seen as a setback for then President Clinton. Now with the already Anointed Barrack, who has pledged to allow openly gay people to serve in the military, one wonders what capacity and influence Powell will have or if his views have changed on the matter. Powell actually has asked and told quite a bit. He personally went to Langley before the UN Security Council presentation. He asked a lot of questions and personally prepared his report. Then he told the world what it largely already suspected. In hindsight, all of the worlds intelligence proved to be wrong. Now he is seeking rehabilitation - he will get it. The new global test of acceptability is Bush hatred. You can win Nobel Prizes for Peace and Economics if you're the anti-thesis of Bush these days.

~

When the Bulls or Lakers win championships their respective citizens celebrate - what civilized society calls rioting. One wonders with the impending Victory of the Anointed if similar will occur in the spirit of the Palestinians engaged in festivities after 9-11?

UPDATE: All was calm on the western front - the fears of chaos were wrong.

forever 1929

PROGRESSIVE DOGMA

For the want-a-be muckrakers such as Thomas Frank it is always the year 1929. One pictures him playing dress up in turn-of-the-century garb or soup line attire, bringing back old period words, writing away on an old style typewriter. Yes for sure he writes on an iMac, but for sure he hates it. You know capitalism brought about the computer revolution. Perhaps he sees the internet and all the new media as a necessary interludor until he can sway back the Nation into more sustainable times.

"Whats wrong with Kansas?" he asks. Well mr Frank, nothing. Whats wrong with you? This is a nation of values not class. Hard working poor people don't resent rich people if they earned what they've got and have similar values of work ethic, country, and faith. Something in the ten commandments about coveting neighborly things, has got him all hysterical that people don't vote for their "economic self interest" in his words. Ok mr Frank, the voters who voted for Regan and not stagflation are proles in your book. What an abstract concept and quite counter-intuitive for the progressive mind to comprehend. Coveting is the vise of the lazy, anti-american, and faithless.

So now that reality has been suspended from the muckrakers mind, its not hard to see how he thinks the whole so-called "worst economic crises sense 1929", gets up and running. It was not government implied backing of Fannie/Freddie, it was deregulation. It's not congressional pressure to offer home loans to poor credit people, it was the people on John McCain's campaign bus. Its not that Capitalism's laws were not practiced correctly, its that it is intellectually bankrupt. Ok mr Frank, how did that new deal work out? Oh, It made it worse? You mean that government intervention caused a small rise and then a second more prolonged collapse? How can that be?

Back to the present. If congress passes the bail-out, no doubt all the Washington and New York insiders will be high fiving each other. I plan to stay 100 miles from any David Broder articles. But one can be sure that with every bail out, markets will be distorted and risks will be improperly assigned yet again. How about a true populist stance Mr Frank, NO-BAIL-OUT!! But then of course the commanding heights won't be transferred to Government... i mean government acting for the little guy right? Freedom a zero sum game?

sex ed for vise presidents

SCHOOL ISSUES

Well it appears that Sarah Palin did not fake her pregnancy to cover for her 17 year old daughter. Unless her daughter is pregnant again. I don't know how the math works out, but the last baby was in April and now she is supposedly five months pregnant..... You know how those small town families are - clingy.

In regards over Palin's support for abstinence sex education - the pundits are missing two points.

A: Much is made of Palin's stance on sex education in the schools but I have not heard if her daughter actually attended an abstinence only school. If the argument is made that kids need sex education in school to counter their wacky religious parents, then can't it be said that a program is needed for former vise presidential candidates too? John Edwards should look into that.

B: This is yet another issue that should be decided by the family unit, not government. Parents should get to choose which school they send their kids to, and schools should compete for students by offering diverse curriculums. Almost all school controversies will go away if this were the case.

In regards to Palin's perfectly beautiful baby son Trek, lets hope, as seems to be the case, that Palin uses the issue to promote acceptance and not "science" funding for the "cure". Also she should make it a campaign issue, that most doctors recommend abortion to parents of prenatally detected health issues. That would contrast with Obama's present vote on infanticide - neglecting babies born alive after a failed abortion on Illinois legislative committee (but that type of decision is above his pay grade.) Say what you want about Bush, but a promotion of a Culture of Life will stand on the correct side of history. Similar from the Palin family: "Trig is beautiful and already adored by us. We knew through early testing he would face special challenges, and we feel privileged that God would entrust us with this gift and allow us unspeakable joy as he entered our lives.
We have faith that every baby is created for good purpose and has potential to make this world a better place. We are truly blessed"

obama endorsement

ELECTION 08

Me the editor(s) of this blog formerly endorse Illinois Senator Barrak Obama for President of the United States. As you may have heard: the war in Iraq is lost, transatlantic relations are in taters, the Bush economy is in the worst recession since the 1930's, and ocean levels are rising. Mr. Obama has a long established record for bringing about change, restoring hope in the future and transcending race, politics, and reason. Given the hyper-hyperventilation of the present times, only one candidate is uniquely qualified to quell, whats left of civilization and earth post-Bush. It is this editors view that McCain would be an unprecedented third term for the failed Bush/Rove policies. Senator Obama pledges to raise taxes on the Rich, "redeploy" from Iraq, and expand healthcare to all. Also, Global warming will be stopped in its tracks with no new oil drilling, and windfall profit taxes on oil companies will help bring down the cost of gasoline.

Amid the New Politics fad, brings Ross Douthart and Reihan Salam's excellent new book about how to re-brand the GOP. You see, what Sam's Club republicans really want is a New Deal government intervening in their lives so they don't screw it up (government has a near perfect track record). The secret to electoral success is to become Socialist Lite. It could have just as easily been written by the editors of The New Republic. Given the impending (dogmatic) trouncing of Conservatism (it dies forever every 15 years) this book should be read as a satire. Clearly it is not a serious roadmap relevant to reality - perception and emotion do not make it true.

Just as the current sky is falling crisis plays out in Humanities imagination, that common foe of utopia is lurking around the corner: REALITY. The Camelot/Great Society fizzled to stagflation reality. Humans are ultimately stupid, myself included. Somehow the scientific method has failed in the social sciences. Markets/evolution are anti- scientific method and therefore wise - transferring information. But that does not stop people with the Audacity of Hope to wish in the impossible. Time is always on the side of the Realists providing the feedback loops that reveal true Knowledge and correct ignorance. The present illusionary fantasy can be brought to its knees only by the election of the Obama messiah, and thus the world will learn how to breath again.

gold in ied

RULE OF LAW

Finally some sanity. The Supreme wisdom of 5 people but echoed by many with a D in front of their names, and implied D's in front of their names - as in the case of journalists, has been presented to the Benighted. Terrorists finally get their day in court - show the corpse - er wait (the people the terrorists blew up?) Strange is it not, how the Supremes bring foreign law into the US or extend Constitutional Law outside our Nations borders and citizens, whichever suits their fancy - almost like they are making it up as they go along. Now, Now, their vision is quite consistent, its just not consistent with the Declaration of Independence, or US Constitution, or the Founding Fathers, nor Natural Law theory. Its a unique elixir of Marxism, Fabianism, Progressivism, and Pacifism. It is definitely not the rule of law. 65 senators approved the law of military tribunals that Kennedy the swinger threw out. Presidents conduct wars with oversight from Congress - except in the US where apparently there are now black robed generals. Now the military should take no prisoners...

In the glory days of the cold war, the US and Soviets faced off every 4 years in the Olympic games - except the boycott years. The Long War - the popular moniker for the war on terror - does not have the pizazz that the cold war did. Where is the space race between us and Al-Qaeda? Why no missile gaps or missile crisis or sputniks? Al-Qaeda, newly liberated from Guantanamo, needs an Olympic Team - we know they have been training!

why is slate stupid

COMMENTARY

A reply to Jacob Leibenluft and this article in Slate Magazine on why Missouri gas is the lowest average price in the nation. Well Missouri gas supposedly is cheaper because of a State law requiring a 10% ethanol blend (E10) with regular gasoline. If this were true then why wouldn't more gas stations in other states sell this blend voluntarily to have a lower fuel price than the competition? Also we are informed in the article that Missouri does not have any oil refineries. But OIL Barges going up and down the Mississippi and Missouri rivers are also part of keeping GAS prices low. So how does just the presence of this OIL keep prices down without REFINERIES that convert OIL to GAS? The fact is Ethanol is highly subsidised - 50 cents a gallon in direct tax subsidies but also tax credits for new cars and business modifications. These are market distortions. Witness food prices increasing world wide partly blamed on corn-for-fuel instead of corn-for-food and livestock feed. Also ethanol has only 70% of the energy that gasoline has per gallon. So E10 would get 3% less miles per gallon. In the new Progressive Missouri at cheaper $3.90/gal E10 in a 30 mpg car you would pay $13.39 to go 100 miles. Compare this to $13.33 with gasoline at nationally higher $4/gal. That's a cost of 6 cents more for the cheaper priced ethanol blend. Evidently the self titled Slate "explainer: Answers to your questions about the news" needs to explain why they can't explain simple math and basic economics. Maybe Slant Magazine would be a more apt title.