Republics are created by ideals and preserved by process.--Aleric Phlogiston
Dr. Seuss was Theodor Seuss Geisel who took his pseudonym in his senior year at Dartmouth. He was a bit of a goofball and he continued his life with that purpose. When he was a student at Oxford, and banned by school regulations from driving a motorcycle, he tied dead ducks to his handlebars to pass his vehicle off as that of a poultry deliveryman. When living in New York City and finding himself with a telephone number one digit different from a local fish market, he would send his own cardboard fish to those who called him with their order. When trying to quit smoking in his fifties, he carried a corncob pipe empty of tobacco but full of dirt, in which he had planted radish seeds; he would suck on the pipe while riding the bus, stopping every now and then to take out an eyedropper of water and squeeze a few drops into the bowl. To anyone who took the bait he would explain that he was "Watering the radishes."
At the age of eighty, Geisel had his anti-nuclear war Butter Battle Book on the best-seller lists for months; at eighty-two, he published his last book with the wonderful title, You're Only Old Once. He told reporters that "Age has no effect on me. I surf as much as I ever have. I climb Mount Everest as much as I ever have...."
The Taliban said Wednesday that they captured Mullah Abdul Rauf Khadim, a renegade insurgent and ex-Guantanamo detainee who was in Afghanistan recruiting for the Islamic State, in this messy internecine conflict between violent Islamist regimes. You would think homicidal maniacs would all be on the same side.
Hating machines is embarrassing, but I have hated machines. I hated a car so deeply that I got rid of it before it was paid for, threatened the president of the company with legal action unless he let me out of the contract and refused to even look at a car from the company since. I'm beginning to feel that way about my iPhone. First, it seems to be a credit card with a phone attached. Second, it is so complex that it is very hard to work. There is a small button on it that you can inadvertently activate that turns the phone off. I am always finding one of these little quirks and have to seek help from a mildly indulgent twenty-year-old at the accursed Apple store who patiently guides me through the obvious. Now that I think of it, maybe I just hate twenty-year-olds.
Benedict Cumberbatch's ancestors owned Cleland Plantation, in Barbados, in the 18th and 19th centuries. This totally worthless bit of information is being dredged up because of his recent public use of the word "colored," currently on the Index of Forbidden Words. I am sure he will be gleefully punished for this most unfortunate (and evil) genetic association for which he is apparently responsible.
Scabrous: adjective: 1. Rough: having small raised dots or scales. 2. Salacious. 3. Difficult to deal with; knotty. From Latin scaber (rough). Earliest documented use: 1585.
Dr. Seuss was Theodor Seuss Geisel who took his pseudonym in his senior year at Dartmouth. He was a bit of a goofball and he continued his life with that purpose. When he was a student at Oxford, and banned by school regulations from driving a motorcycle, he tied dead ducks to his handlebars to pass his vehicle off as that of a poultry deliveryman. When living in New York City and finding himself with a telephone number one digit different from a local fish market, he would send his own cardboard fish to those who called him with their order. When trying to quit smoking in his fifties, he carried a corncob pipe empty of tobacco but full of dirt, in which he had planted radish seeds; he would suck on the pipe while riding the bus, stopping every now and then to take out an eyedropper of water and squeeze a few drops into the bowl. To anyone who took the bait he would explain that he was "Watering the radishes."
At the age of eighty, Geisel had his anti-nuclear war Butter Battle Book on the best-seller lists for months; at eighty-two, he published his last book with the wonderful title, You're Only Old Once. He told reporters that "Age has no effect on me. I surf as much as I ever have. I climb Mount Everest as much as I ever have...."
The Taliban said Wednesday that they captured Mullah Abdul Rauf Khadim, a renegade insurgent and ex-Guantanamo detainee who was in Afghanistan recruiting for the Islamic State, in this messy internecine conflict between violent Islamist regimes. You would think homicidal maniacs would all be on the same side.
Hating machines is embarrassing, but I have hated machines. I hated a car so deeply that I got rid of it before it was paid for, threatened the president of the company with legal action unless he let me out of the contract and refused to even look at a car from the company since. I'm beginning to feel that way about my iPhone. First, it seems to be a credit card with a phone attached. Second, it is so complex that it is very hard to work. There is a small button on it that you can inadvertently activate that turns the phone off. I am always finding one of these little quirks and have to seek help from a mildly indulgent twenty-year-old at the accursed Apple store who patiently guides me through the obvious. Now that I think of it, maybe I just hate twenty-year-olds.
Rod McKuen has died. I never had a lot of regard for him. He was fond of synesthesia, the mixing of senses--also a neurological quirk. "A loud yellow shirt" is synesthesia. His famous book title, "Listen to the Warm" is as well. I've always thought of it as sort of a linguistic trick and not very notable. When I looked it up I learned it was a technique favored by Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine. This is an example from Shakespeare: "To lie in cold obstruction and to rot; This sensible warm motion..." And a famous one from Dante on Inferno: “Back to the region where the sun is silent.” So....I'll just be quiet.
75% of German sailors in U-Boats in WWII were killed in action.
In each of the last 6 years, more businesses have closed in the United States than have opened. Prior to 2008, this had never happened before in all of U.S. history.
The Alaskan pipeline used to transport 2 million barrels of oil a day. It now sends one half million. Why? The area of drilling in Alaska has been shrinking by federal law and that has been dramatically impacted by Obama's recent executive order. Less and less oil available domestically requires more and more imported from the people who hate us. Why would anyone think that a good idea?
A theater group at Mount Holyoke College recently announced it would no longer put on The Vagina Monologues in part because the material excludes women without vaginas. Inclusion, I guess, has its negative side.
75% of German sailors in U-Boats in WWII were killed in action.
In each of the last 6 years, more businesses have closed in the United States than have opened. Prior to 2008, this had never happened before in all of U.S. history.
The Alaskan pipeline used to transport 2 million barrels of oil a day. It now sends one half million. Why? The area of drilling in Alaska has been shrinking by federal law and that has been dramatically impacted by Obama's recent executive order. Less and less oil available domestically requires more and more imported from the people who hate us. Why would anyone think that a good idea?
A theater group at Mount Holyoke College recently announced it would no longer put on The Vagina Monologues in part because the material excludes women without vaginas. Inclusion, I guess, has its negative side.
David Stockman talking about Obama's recent remarks about income inequality, mainly as a function of stock market growth: "...[Obama]... is talking about a symptom, but he's clueless as to the cause. The cause is not capitalism. The cause is not some entrepreneur out there trying to invent something and improve the performance of his business. The problem is in the Eccles building [home to the main office of the Fed] and in the 12 people sitting there and thinking that interest rates are some magic elixir that'll cause this very troubled and difficult economy to revive," Stockman said. "It's not true," he said. "These people are dangerous and destructive, and they're creating this massive income inequality that, sooner or later, is going to cause a huge political reaction."
He expects the market to decline--as it has a bubble-like artificiality--and believes then the credibility of all the central-bank-dominated policy will be totally repudiated. Scary stuff.
He expects the market to decline--as it has a bubble-like artificiality--and believes then the credibility of all the central-bank-dominated policy will be totally repudiated. Scary stuff.
Benedict Cumberbatch's ancestors owned Cleland Plantation, in Barbados, in the 18th and 19th centuries. This totally worthless bit of information is being dredged up because of his recent public use of the word "colored," currently on the Index of Forbidden Words. I am sure he will be gleefully punished for this most unfortunate (and evil) genetic association for which he is apparently responsible.
A report released Wednesday by the World Resources Institute, which the New York Times calls a "prominent environmental think tank," blasts bio-fuels as land hogs that will raise the price of food while doing little to meet the world's energy needs or fight global warming. Just amazing.
Scabrous: adjective: 1. Rough: having small raised dots or scales. 2. Salacious. 3. Difficult to deal with; knotty. From Latin scaber (rough). Earliest documented use: 1585.
Who is.....Eddie Slovik?
The Muslim Brotherhood called for “a long, uncompromising jihad” in Egypt just days after a delegation of the Islamist group’s key leaders and allies met with the State Department, according to an official statement released this week. “The fact that the Brotherhood issued its call to jihad two days after its meeting at the State Department will be grist for endless anti-American conspiracy theories about a supposed partnership between Washington and the Brotherhood,” said Eric Trager, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP). “The State Department should have foreseen what an embarrassment this would be.” I love when these guys are referred to in the news as the "Muslim Bros.," as if they were like Warner Bros. or the Super Smash Bros..
The Price of Inequality by Stiglitz is ostensibly about "income inequality" that results from crony capitalism, moneyed access to government power and other influence. But this is only distantly related to inequality; its major element is corruption. The inequality--which I would not deny--is a by-product of corruption and that is where the focus should be. So why the emphasis upon the side-effect? The problem is, if corruption is the cause, why would anyone expect the corrupt politicians to make it better?
One recent survey discovered that 55% of Americans believe that the American Dream either never existed or that it no longer exists.
If anyone believes in the insights of the Fed, then they should believe this from the Philadelphia Fed's Charles Plosser:
One recent survey discovered that 55% of Americans believe that the American Dream either never existed or that it no longer exists.
If anyone believes in the insights of the Fed, then they should believe this from the Philadelphia Fed's Charles Plosser:
".... if we believe that monetary policy is doing what we say it’s doing and depressing real interest rates and goosing the economy and we’re in some sense distorting what might be the normal market outcomes at some point, we’re going to have to stop doing it. At some point the pressure is going to be too great. The market forces are going to overwhelm us. We’re not going to be able to hold the line anymore. And then you get that rapid snapback in premiums as the market realizes that central banks can’t do this forever. And that’s going to cause volatility and disruption."
Sooooooo.........what does this mean? And, if it means that the Fed is beginning to see less and less of a result in monetary manipulation, what happens when everyone else either believes this guy or figures it out for himself?
After adjusting for inflation, median household income has fallen by nearly $5000 since 2007. More than 101 million U.S. adults do not have a job right now.
The plans of government management are always stymied by the realities of the work-a-day world. News out of Detroit is that what is selling as gas prices fall are..............big trucks, SUVs and high-performance luxury cars.
Sooooooo.........what does this mean? And, if it means that the Fed is beginning to see less and less of a result in monetary manipulation, what happens when everyone else either believes this guy or figures it out for himself?
After adjusting for inflation, median household income has fallen by nearly $5000 since 2007. More than 101 million U.S. adults do not have a job right now.
The plans of government management are always stymied by the realities of the work-a-day world. News out of Detroit is that what is selling as gas prices fall are..............big trucks, SUVs and high-performance luxury cars.
AAAAannnnnddddd......funny picture:
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