Not really a joke exactly...

...but still funny. This is an actual animal. The scientists who caught it nicknamed it Mr. Blobby. I like his nose thing.

A Fathead (genus Psychrolutes) trawled during the NORFANZ expedition at a depth between 1013 m and 1340 m, on the Norfolk Ridge, north-west of New Zealand, June 2003 (AMS I.42771-001). Photo: K. Parkinson © Australian Museum. The scientists and crew on board the RV Tangaroa affectionately called this fish 'Mr Blobby'. Note the parasitic copepod on Mr Blobby's mouth.

(Hat tip:Boing-Boing)

On Jokes

Now that my readership has dwindled to zero in response to my sudden and long-term departure from the blogosphere, it seems appropriate to rekindle the raging fire of joe-mania with some simple observations about making jokes.

Organized religion has more or less failed to provide me with enough emotional energy to sustain my lust for life in the face of all the crap that life entails. Other things, thankfully, have done better, but I'm sure many other things will let me down too before I die. Throughout my life, and in my life still, though, laughter has provided me with light in dark times. It, more than anything else, is my religion now. I like to make jokes. I like to make people laugh, I like to make myself laugh, and I like for other people to make me laugh. As other sources of sustenance fade, laughter loses more and more of its constraints for me. There is almost nothing in my personal life that I would not subject to the gentle renderings of comedic analysis.

Now, much has been said lately about the ethical desirability of certain types of humor, thanks in large part to the popularity of Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat movie. When it comes to understanding the rationale behind tasteless, offensive, iconoclastic, politically incorrect, and infantile humor, I hazard to assume that I am able to speak with some authority. For this is precisely that type of thing that has most appealed to my funny bone over the better part of my life. I will now attempt to explain why this type of humor appeals to me and why I think it's ok.
I am not a particularly dumb person. I am relatively well-read, informed, and engaged with wider world. Nor am I particularly callous. I consider myself pretty sensitive to the plights of other human beings. Nevertheless, from the time I first laughed at the sound and smell of flatulence, I was hooked on low-brow humor. Here's why, I think.

Humor is about truth. Things are funny because they cut through all the layers of bullshit and express what everybody knows, or thinks, deep down. Humor is the opposite of political correctness.

First, farts are funny because they smell bad, sound funny, and come out of people's butts...everybody's butt. They are the great equalizer. Plato farted. Angelina Jolie farts. George Bush farts. The body and its functions are funny because they point out a simple, overwhelming truth that we try our damndest to obfuscate...that we are mortal beings doomed to die (yes, that's a line from lord of the rings). Sex is funny for the same reason. We are stupid little creatures trying to eat, sleep, shit, and fuck. Next time you watch the Oscars, or a french art movie, or a poltical speech, or go to a museum, or engage in a long and emotional kiss with your lover...remember and laugh.

Second, shock humor is funny because it can let us explore the dark aspects of life without having to endure them or see other people endure them. Shock humor is a lot like horror movies in that way (no wonder that I like horror movies). In this way, we can acclamate ourselves to the darkness that we will inevitably have to face in this life. We can be ready for it, having stripped it of some of its power.

This is probably the most delicate and controversial of the opinions I'll express here. Third, shock humor often occurs in the context of the comedian adopting a persona. If I say something offensive as a joke, particularly something that deals with race or sex or sexual orientation, then I'm trying to point out the ridiculousness, the laughability, of having those opinions. Borat is funny because the stereotypes of jews as mystical monsters who love money, and the stereotypes of eastern europeans/central asians as anti-semitic and backwards, etc, etc, ....these notions are ridiculous! A racist joke is not funny...the stereotypes that underlie the joke ARE funny, because they are so irrational and ridiculous.

Fourth, shock humor is way to channel creativity. Why? Because it's hard to shock people these days. It really becomes an art form. Poets are constrained by their forms. Offensive comedians are constrained by the number of dirty words they can think of. Coming up with a really visceral, innovative, emotionally potent insult, or sexual act, or something like that, is really a form of art...the one that appeals most to me, for better or worse.

The real questions is this: do ethics and comedy have any business being discussed together? Is there anything that we "shouldn't" laugh at, or is comedy simply a factual phenomenon...either it's funny or it's not. There certainly seem to be things that just aren't funny to me...mostly anything that involves real people getting really hurt (by real people I mean concrete individuals who actually lived here on earth). But that isn't really normative. It's factual. I don't find that funny. Borat, on the other hand, is fucking hilarious TO ME.

I would like to close by saying that I understand that not everyone gets the joke, and not everyone knows that I'm not an idiot, and not everyone automatically sees my secretly sensitive heart. Not everyone will make the distinction between persona and racist. Not all who get the joke will find it funny. I also realize that these kinds of jokes certainly could be offensive, depending on a person's background, because people have a variety of experiences. Therefore, it's good to be careful about these things and to cultivate more "genteel" types of humor for the general public....because the worst thing of all if for people not to laugh. That's just awkward and embarassing.
(also on my personal blog)

Welcome Madame Speaker

There comes a time for every sports fan of a once great team inescapably trending towards mediocrity to begin looking towards rebuilding rather than suffering season after season of not-too-bad/not-too-good seasons. The hope is that you will be eventually rewarded for accepting one or two crappy seasons by a new resurgent team with the potential to do things that are fun to watch and that your opposition isn’t in a position to capitalize at your expense. After watching the GOP pretty much piss away complete control of govt. (Honestly, when will this happen again?) on basically nothing of merit it clear the Republican party needs to cut loose the underperforming veterans and rebuild(Hastert, the Oswego Bob Evans misses you). If there was some smart, charismatic southern, yellow dog democrat representative in line for speaker I’d seriously be concerned about the GOP being in the minority for a long, long time. Buuuuttttt….the democrats are actually going to select someone who represents San Francisco and who's intense but simultaniously vacant stare seems to confirm the myth that blinking equals thinking.

So I say welcome Madame Speaker and thanks in advance for your help rebuilding.

more election media frustration...

If got forbid Republicans somehow manage to hold onto congress (I now believe the GOP needs a re-org and what better time than now?) you can count on there being weeks, even months, of MSM amplified outrage over Republicans seemingly magical powers to suppress the vote and steal elections undetectably – now aided with their new sinister ally….the com-pute-err.

Likewise when Democrats likely take at least the house you can count on there continuing to be next to zero reporting on actual democratic voter fraud despite recent convictions in two states and indictments and ongoing investigations that exist in at least 3 more.

I truly do believe that the democrats should come out ahead in this election simply based on merit – or the GOP’s lack there of. However, as with the last 3 elections I find myself extremely frustrated with the brazenness of the national media to not call things with the dispassionate eye they so frequently represent themselves as having.

UPDATE: Thank goodness. Based on current election reporting it appears everyone’s fears of unprecedented voter fraud were unfounded. How do we know this? Well it’s clear the once corrupted natural order of things has been restored by a Democratic sweep of the house and senate silly. No prolonged, result delegitimizing investigations into phantom GOP bullying are needed like in the previous three elections because it’s clear they didn’t. Democrats were finally allowed to fairly win. Everyone should just be satisfied with this result and enjoy all the news reports of people being happy with their new democratic leadership rather than the spiked stories of widespread election fraud we’d surely see if things had worked out differently.

the gaffe

Michael Kinsley once observed that in US politics "a gaffe is when a politician tells the truth".

So when I heard of Kerry’s gaffe...I mean botched joke, I really didn’t find it that surprising. No one should be shocked that, like most on the left, he views those in the armed forces as largely unjust victims of our unjust society's unjust degree of socioeconomic injustices.

What I did find surprising was how under whelmed the MSM was by Kerry's statement. It's obvious that the US military is no sacred cow to the MSM, and I don't think it should be, however when viewed in the context of constituencies that very clearly are sacred cows to the MSM the controversial nature the botched joke becomes apparent.

Lets try a thought experiment that may reveal just how lacking in self-awareness the media is of their own biases.

Kerry said:

You know, education, if you make the most of it,
if you study hard and you
do your homework, and
you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can
do well. If you dont, you get stuck in Iraq.

Now imagine the MSM reaction if a Republican said:

You know, education, if you make the most of it,
if you study hard and you
do your homework, and
you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can
do well. If you dont, you _________________.

will be a journalist.
will be a public school teacher.
will be a social worker.
will be a union worker.
will be like a (insert minority name) person.

If a Republican said any of these things the hoodoo would be so deep the RNC would be digging out until next summer but apparently calling the military dummies? Well that’s just some strait shootin. Give him another silver star.....

Sappy Human Interest Story

Usually, when confronted with the "Human Interest" story I tune out. But on Friday I was supremely bored at work and scoured the internet for anything that might be considered entertaining. So, in poking around I came across Boing-Boing, a site I've checked out a handful of times and have always been led in interesting directions. Anyway, there I found a link to a post on Scott (creator of Dilbert) Adams's blog that was human-interest-y but of a cool sort.

Apparently he has a very unusual medical problem, and about 18 months ago he lost his voice after a bout of allergies and with the odd exception of public speaking can't get it back. It's something called Spasmodic Dysphonia and basically has no cure. All treatments seem to be extremely unpleasant and not terribly effective...

Just because no one has ever gotten better from Spasmodic Dysphonia before doesn’t mean I can’t be the first. So every day for months and months I tried new tricks to regain my voice. I visualized speaking correctly and repeatedly told myself I could (affirmations). I used self hypnosis. I used voice therapy exercises. I spoke in higher pitches, or changing pitches. I observed when my voice worked best and when it was worst and looked for patterns. I tried speaking in foreign accents. I tried “singing” some words that were especially hard.

My theory was that the part of my brain responsible for normal speech was still intact, but for some reason had become disconnected from the neural pathways to my vocal cords. (That’s consistent with any expert’s best guess of what’s happening with Spasmodic Dysphonia. It’s somewhat mysterious.) And so I reasoned that there was some way to remap that connection. All I needed to do was find the type of speaking or context most similar – but still different enough – from normal speech that still worked. Once I could speak in that slightly different context, I would continue to close the gap between the different-context speech and normal speech until my neural pathways remapped. Well, that was my theory. But I’m no brain surgeon.

The day before yesterday, while helping on a homework assignment, I noticed I could speak perfectly in rhyme. Rhyme was a context I hadnÂ’t considered. A poem isn’t singing and it isn’t regular talking. But for some reason the context is just different enough from normal speech that my brain handled it fine.

Jack be nimble, Jack be quick.
Jack jumped over the candlestick.

I repeated it dozens of times, partly because I could. It was effortless, even though it was similar to regular speech. I enjoyed repeating it, hearing the sound of my own voice working almost flawlessly. I longed for that sound, and the memory of normal speech. Perhaps the rhyme took me back to my own childhood too. Or maybe itÂ’s just plain catchy. I enjoyed repeating it more than I should have. Then something happened.

My brain remapped.

My speech returned.

Pretty cool... Go Dilbert guy.

Oh, and if you check out his post, browse some of the 1300-odd responces this post of his garnered, they're also rather interesting/uplifting.

Say it ain’t so!

BBC discovers it's biased:

It was the day that a host of BBC executives and star presenters admitted what critics have been telling them for years: the BBC is dominated by trendy, Left-leaning liberals who are biased against Christianity and in favour of multiculturalism.

A leaked account of an 'impartiality summit' called by BBC chairman Michael Grade, is certain to lead to a new row about the BBC and its reporting on key issues, especially concerning Muslims and the war on terror.

It reveals that executives would let the Bible be thrown into a dustbin on a TV comedy show, but not the Koran, and that they would broadcast an interview with Osama Bin Laden if given the opportunity. Further, it discloses that the BBC's 'diversity tsar', wants Muslim women newsreaders to be allowed to wear veils when on air.

At the secret meeting in London last month, which was hosted by veteran broadcaster Sue Lawley, BBC executives admitted the corporation is dominated by homosexuals and people from ethnic minorities, deliberately promotes multiculturalism, is anti-American, anti-countryside and more sensitive to the feelings of Muslims than Christians.

One veteran BBC executive said: 'There was widespread acknowledgement that we may have gone too far in the direction of political correctness.

Quoting a George Orwell observation, Randall said that the BBC was full of intellectuals who 'would rather steal from a poor box than stand to attention during God Save The King'.

Thank goodness PBS is waaay different.

Baron Hill vs. EFF

I just came across this article on FactCheck.org regarding some rather dubious methods used by a group called the Economic Freedom Fund in the campaign against former Rep. Baron Hill as he seeks to regain Indiana's 9th district.

Here's the summary that appears on the site:

An automated attack call claims Indiana House candidate Baron Hill "voted to allow the sale of a broad range of violent and sexually explicit materials to minors." That's an apparent reference to a vote Hill cast in 1999 against a Republican-sponsored measure to bar the sale of certain items to kids. It's also misleading. Hill, along with a majority of Democrats and a significant number of House Republicans, voted to stick with existing law. Almost twice as many lawmakers opposed the bill as voted for it, with many making the argument that it was overly broad and a possible violation of the First Amendment.

The calls were sponsored by the conservative Economic Freedom Fund – an outside group wholly funded by Texas millionaire homebuilder Bob Perry. Perry was the main backer of the 2004 campaign by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth against John Kerry and he has already funded EFF, which was formed last month, at an even higher level - $5 million so far - than he funded the Swiftboaters. This indicates that the group could become a big player this fall. But it may have to alter its strategy in Indiana; the attorney general there has sued EFF, alleging the calls violate state law.

Check it out here.

Big Shocker

Oil companies see the world rationally; NPR does not.

In my first post on this subject on May 1 I contrasted the competing perspectives of NPR’s self-rightious chicken littleing everyone’s gotta conserve right now or we’re gonna die! regurgitation of Matthew Simmons to oil company analyst’s somewhat less exiting forecasts on oil prices.

Today the Seattle Times reveals that the Oil companies read on the situation was exactly right. Nearly the entire recent rise in oil prices was due to temporary factors that had little to do with available oil in the ground. The floor has fallen out of the oil market and it could be quite sometime before it stabilizes.

I know I-told-you-so’s are always annoying but someone needs to identify the endless streams of BS that media organizations with editorial proclivities like NPR pump out with what seems like impunity. Grasping at any novel idea that reinforces a desired policy (environmen…I mean sustainability in this case) like a fat kid plowing through a happy-meal isn’t anything close to responsible journalism.

L-A-M-E

My 3G ipod and cell phone are getting a little long in the tooth so I eagerly awaited today’s announcement from Steve Jobs to hear about what new revolutionary consumer electronics his flip-flop wearing elves would build next. I read numerous articles on digg and Slashdot that speculated that a widescreen IPOD with touchscreen interface and/or an apple cellphone would be announced. Instead he revealed that they shiney’d up the nano with some metallic appliqué, converted the stupid chewing gum form factor of the shuffle into a stupid matchbook form factor and somehow managed to figure out a way to make downloads of Disney movies available in sub VHS quality for $15. Where ever do they find the time?

Unfortunately Apple doesn’t seem to learn from its past mistakes. Until at least 1993 Apple had a superior product that dominated the market. For years they justifiably ridiculed the competition for even attempting to equal them. The problem is that eventually the competition succeeded and they never recovered. Now in the portable media player market they are similarly vulnerable. Already Toshiba has produced a media player that’s widely considered to be superior to anything apple has and Microsoft is on the verge of releasing a wide format media player and an increasing number of cellphones contain impressive media playback capabilities.

Steve, your serve has again been broken. Can we look forward to you flaking out, getting fired by the board and trying to start a company that makes ridiculously expensive and underperforming cube shaped cell phones that virtually no one but Earlham will purchase* only to come back in 2020 to save the day? That would be insanely great.

*Yeah, for some inexplicable reason someone at Earlham decided to buy NeXT workstations in the 90’s instead of the cheaper and much more powerful Suns like everyone else.

Pants Stuffer and Pals Grumpy

I think the uproar over the last week involving aspects of the upcoming ABC historical dramatization “Path to 9/11”, like the previous hullabaloo regarding CBS’ “The Reagans”, is completely absurd. In both cases critics latched onto less than flattering portrayals of events that transpired behind closed doors offering instead versions of events that reek of the best possible spin while remaining silent about all the potentially embarrassing situations that still are known only to those involved. Did Reagan sound like a bigoted codger in the Oval office when Nancy pleaded with him to fund AIDS research? Maybe not, but we do know that he dragged his feet in signing a bill authorizing funding to a degree that could be fairly interpreted as animus. It shouldn’t be a reasonable expectation that public officials, particularly those whose actions have the far reaching implications of say a president can have things both ways. While I’m certain the portrayals of Clinton officials are far from accurate their decisions, policies and their ultimate outcomes are very much a matter of public record. To claim that the Clinton administration took the threat of Muslim extremism with the seriousness it warranted just isn’t borne out by the clear increase in frequency and severity of attacks and the comparable inaction by the administration. If bad things happened during and because of a president’s term unflattering dramatizations should be the least of their concerns.

* January 25, 1993: Mir Aimal Kansi, a Pakistani, fired an AK-47 into cars waiting at a stoplight in front of the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Virginia, killing two CIA employees.
* February 26, 1993: Islamic terrorists try to bring down the World Trade Center with car bombs. They failed to destroy the buildings, but killed 6 and injured over 1000 people.
* March 12, 1993: Car bombings in Mumbai, India leave 257 dead and 1,400 others injured.
* July 18, 1994: Bombing of Jewish Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, kills 86 and wounds 300. The bombing is generally attributed to Hezbollah acting on behalf of Iran.
* July 19, 1994: Alas Chiricanas Flight 00901 is bombed, killing 21. Generally attributed to Hezbollah.
* July 26, 1994: The Israeli Embassy is attacked in London, and a Jewish charity is also car-bombed, wounding 20. The attacks are attributed to Hezbollah.
* December 11, 1994: A bomb explodes on board Philippine Airlines Flight 434, killing a Japanese businessman. It develops that Ramzi Yousef planted the bomb to test it for the larger terrorist attack he is planning.
* December 24, 1994: In a preview of September 11, Air France Flight 8969 is hijacked by Islamic terrorists who planned to crash the plane in Paris.
* January 6, 1995: Operation Bojinka, an Islamist plot to bomb 11 U.S. airliners over the Pacific Ocean, is discovered on a laptop computer in a Manila, Philippines apartment by authorities after a fire occurred in the apartment. Noted terrorists including Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed are involved in the plot.
* June 14—June 19, 1995: The Budyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis, in which 105 civilians and 25 Russian troops were killed following an attack by Chechan Islamists.
* July—October, 1995: Bombings in France by Islamic terrorists led by Khaled Kelkal kill eight and injure more than 100.
* November 13, 1995: Bombing of OPM-SANG building in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia kills 7
* November 19, 1995: Bombing of Egyptian Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan kills 19.
* January 1996: In Kizlyar, 350 Chechen Islamists took 3,000 hostages in a hospital. The attempt to free them killed 65 civilians and soldiers.
* February 25 - March 4, 1996: A series of four suicide bombings in Israel leave 60 dead and 284 wounded within 10 days.
* June 11, 1996: A bomb explodes on a train traveling on the Serpukhovsko-Timiryazevskaya Line of the Moscow Metro, killing four and unjuring at least 12.
* June 25, 1996: The Khobar Towers bombing, carried out by Hezbollah with Iranian support. Nineteen U.S. servicemen were killed and 372 wounded.
* February 24, 1997: An armed man opens fire on tourists at an observation deck atop the Empire State Building in New York City, United States, killing a Danish national and wounding visitors from several countries. A handwritten note carried by the gunman claims this was a punishment attack against the "enemies of Palestine".
* November 17, 1997: Massacre in Luxor, Egypt, in which Islamist gunmen attack tourists, killing 62 people.
* January 1998: Wandhama Massacre - 24 Kashmiri Pandits are massacred by Pakistan-backed Islamists in the city of Wandhama in Indian-controlled Kashmir.
* February 14, 1998: Bombings by Islamic Jihadi groups at an election rally in the Indian city of Coimbatore kill about 60 people.
* August 7, 1998: Al Qaeda bombs U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya, killing 225 people and injuring more than 4,000.
* August 31 – September 22, 1998: Russian apartment bombings kill about 300 people, leading Russia into Second Chechen War.
* December 1998: Jordanian authorities foil a plot to bomb American and Israeli tourists in Jordan, and arrest 28 suspects as part of the 2000 millennium attack plots.
* December 14, 1998: Ahmed Ressam is arrested on the United States–Canada border in Port Angeles, Washington; he confessed to planning to bomb the Los Angeles International Airport as part of the 2000 millennium attack plots.
* December 24, 1998: Indian Airlines Flight 814 from Kathmandu, Nepal to Delhi, India is hijacked by Islamic terrorists. One passenger is killed and some hostages are released. After negotiations between the Taliban and the Indian government, the last of the remaining hostages on board Flight 814 are released in exchange for release of 4 terrorists.
* January 2000: The last of the 2000 millennium attack plots fails, as the boat meant to bomb USS The Sullivans sinks.
* August 8, 2000: A bomb exploded at an underpass in Pushkin Square in Moscow, killing 11 people and wounding more than 90.
* August 17, 2000: Two bombs exploded in a shopping center in Riga, Latvia, injuring 35 people.
* October 12, 2000: AL Qaeda bombs USS Cole with explosive-laden speedboat, killing 17 USAden, Yemen. sailors and wounding 40, off the port coast of

government authority

I'm starting school again, this semester just going half time, and I'm taking two law classes. One is a general administrative law class (law and public affairs) and one is about election law.

The general law class has been fascinating so far, because I've already learned more about how government operates than I did in my entire public management class. Part of the reason for that, I think, is that government is essentially about authority...who has it, and where does it come from, which means that government is essentially about law. In other words, there isn't really a strict line between law and policy, or between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government.

I find this question of authority fascinating for some reason. I'm not sure why. I guess because I always find myself asking, "do they really have the power to do that?" This is particularly relevant these days in light of the push for greater executive branch authority by W and other Presidents. So, I always find myself asking, what exactly does the President do? And what can he (or she) do? It turns out to be a pretty complex set of questions.

Higher Prices = More Supply

The first of what I expect will be many similar announcements:

The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that the region where the well is
located could become the nation's biggest new domestic source of oil since the
discovery of Alaska's North Slope more than a generation ago.
The Journal
said Chevron and Devon officials estimate that recent discoveries in the Gulf of
Mexico's lower-tertiary formations hold up to 15 billion barrels' worth of oil
and gas reserves, a total that would boost the nation's current reserves by 50
percent.

But by all means, windfall taxes must be what’s best for consumers since peak oil is surely upon us.

Goodbye Joe Wilson

This Editorial from the Washington Post sufficiently brings to an end any curiosity I may have had about the whole "outing" of Valerie Plame. Actually, I've not been able to care for some time now, but obviously some people do, so to that end read on:

WE'RE RELUCTANT to return to the subject of former CIA employee Valerie Plame because of our oft-stated belief that far too much attention and debate in Washington has been devoted to her story and that of her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, over the past three years. But all those who have opined on this affair ought to take note of the not-so-surprising disclosure that the primary source of the newspaper column in which Ms. Plame's cover as an agent was purportedly blown in 2003 was former deputy secretary of state Richard L. Armitage.
...
Nevertheless, it now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame's CIA career is Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming -- falsely, as it turned out -- that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials. He ought to have expected that both those officials and journalists such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to his wife. He diverted responsibility from himself and his false charges by claiming that President Bush's closest aides had engaged in an illegal conspiracy. It's unfortunate that so many people took him seriously.

If you're still interested, Christopher Hitchens has a similarly themed roundup of the absurdity that is/was the Wilson/Plame business.

Broken Promises

Alright I know I promised that I would stop complaining about news coverage in the NYTimes but I stumbled onto this piece in slate that so devastatingly exposes the editorial biases of the paper I couldn’t help myself. I particularly liked how the author mentioned the intital “cultivation of a meretricious appearance of balance” to start off stories only to then stack the deck in favor of their ideological agenda. This also happens to be my primary gripe about the largely editorially identical NPR. Don’t agree? Look at the front page of the NYTimes sometime right as Morning Edition comes on (particularly after the Bush administration does something it finds particularly egregious) and marvel at their synchronicity – both in emphasis and tone.

YAY!!!

Hopefully Fidel will soon be paying Arafat a visit in the tyrant wing of Hades. I wonder if Che will be his poolboy…

I used to Blog

My boss has banned me from blogging, at least about my job. And I don't really want to blog about my love-life. Can't do too much politics till the campaign's over. What does that leave me? Oh, here's something to say!

I read Red Harvest by Daschel Hammet, the old noir detective writer. It was incredibly violent, but snappy. I reccomend it.

Good to see y'all back on the blogging. Andrew, thanks for not turning any of my posts over to the the republicans down here...if that just gave you an idea, please ignore it.

UNION LABOR

IT'S FAAAANTASTIC!!!!!

UPDATE: OH GOD GIVE ME THE CONCRETE SLAB INSTEAD!!!

UPDATE: Nappy Time!

Oh those irresponsible Bush tax cuts…

The NYTimes of all places:

An unexpectedly steep rise in tax revenues from corporations and the wealthy is
driving down the projected budget deficit this year, even though spending has
climbed sharply because of the war in Iraq and the cost of hurricane
relief.
On Tuesday, White House officials are expected to announce that the
tax receipts will be about $250 billion above last year's levels and that the
deficit will be about $100 billion less than what they projected six months ago.
The rising tide in tax payments has been building for months, but the increased
scale is surprising even seasoned budget analysts and making it easier for both
the administration and Congress to finesse the big run-up in spending over the
past year.
Tax revenues are climbing twice as fast as the administration
predicted in February, so fast that the budget deficit could actually decline
this year.
The main reason is a big spike in corporate tax receipts, which
have nearly tripled since 2003, as well as what appears to be a big rise in
individual taxes on stock market profits and executive bonuses.

Despite this revelation, I’m quite certain we’ll be hearing flawed analysis from Krugman wannabes like this in the NYTimes and NPR all through the 2006 election.

If we cut taxes for the rich, either A) we raise other taxes or B) we increase
debt or C) we cut spending. A), B) and C) have incentive effects too; we must
consider net incentives.
A tax cut for the rich has minimal incentive effect.
That's because much income at the top is "passive." Corporate shareowners can't
increase their capital gains if tax rates fall--though they may change their tax
accounting.

More Hasselhoff

All I have to say is that KITT is not a right hand driver.