The story lead is a warm fuzzy for the libertarian soul.
"The classic democratic tension between liberty and security was tested once again Wednesday in a debate on legislation to ban traffic-enforcement cameras on Iowa roads..."
Even better, liberty won the first of the warmup bouts, 3-0, in subcommittee.
The report doesn't mention any great debate about raping the Constitution.* Irritated citizens sat on one side of the table and the usual authoritarians -- cops, city taxing authorities, etc. -- on the other. "It's for your own good, your safety," blatted the former. The citizens carried the day with a highly accurate response: "Boooll sheet, you greedy creeps."
It's early in the sausage-making process, but at least it's a hopeful development.
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*Amendments Five and Fourteen are clear enough in telling government it can not screw around with your "life, liberty, or property" without "due process of law." It seems damned doubtful the Founders would have deemed a dun from a company of IT geeks in Snottsdale to constitute due process of law. Even if they are part of that sacred public/private partnership congregation.
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(Does this argument get us thinking about the general concept of "administrative forfeiture?" Ought to.)
Jan 26, 2012
Oh you can (kiss?) me on a ...
I like Greeks well enough. Zorba was cool, and in my youth I thought it would be fun to meet Melina. I've even forgiven them for inventing the Olympics which, over a few thousand years, evolved into an unseemly marketing device that gave Mitt Romney cause to believe he is qualified to administer all the affairs of the United States of America.
(EDITOR'S NOTE: Everything below is boring economics and politics. So if you're in the mood for nothing but cheap thrills and light porn this morning, just click the Melina link. An alternative filthy picture is noted for the pleasure of female readers.)
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I don't think, though, that its a very good idea to lend money to Greek persons.
The report is just one of the latest in the Hanna-Barbera epic which narrates the comic effort of Greek politicians, unions, corrupt businesses, and public-sector idlers to pretend they know what the (eff) they're doing.
It makes the point that people -- including giant banks which should have known better -- loaned too much money to Athens politicians for the purpose of buying voting blocks across the land, from the Mediterranean Isles to the Albanian border.
The lenders knew the loans were somewhat risky, but, hey, it's a sovereign nation, right? So they charged a high interest rate and forked over.
A few years went by and, ooops, the Greeks finally admitted that they could not pay even the interest, not to mention the zero chance of ever retiring the actual loans.
So now the lending sharks are humping to renegotiate the loans as a lower interest rate -- about 4 per cent -- in hopes that, for a little while, they have something plausible to show their gullible share holders and bank examiners. Something other than the actual collateral -- a load of empty ouzo bottles and a first lien on next year's grape leaves.
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Now, this is an American blog, written from an American perspective, largely for Americans, so why does it give a rat's pubie about the elected and appointed thugs of Athens and the financiers they're trying to hornswaggle.
Why, for educational purposes, of course. Our own president and nearly all satraps in the Congress may read about it and lay down their golf clubs long enough to go, "hmmmmm, wonder how much lower our credit rating has to go before we have to ask the ECB and the IMF for permission to pay our guys in the 82nd Airborne?
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I probably wouldn't have bothered with Greece this morning if I hadn't noticed Ben's press release promising that American money would continue to be rent-free for at least three more years. And that he had his finger on the trigger to sell more gummint bonds, backed again by the solemn word of the gummint plus, this time, a load of empty ouzo bottles and a lien on next year's grape leaves.
(EDITOR'S NOTE: Everything below is boring economics and politics. So if you're in the mood for nothing but cheap thrills and light porn this morning, just click the Melina link. An alternative filthy picture is noted for the pleasure of female readers.)
---
I don't think, though, that its a very good idea to lend money to Greek persons.
The report is just one of the latest in the Hanna-Barbera epic which narrates the comic effort of Greek politicians, unions, corrupt businesses, and public-sector idlers to pretend they know what the (eff) they're doing.
It makes the point that people -- including giant banks which should have known better -- loaned too much money to Athens politicians for the purpose of buying voting blocks across the land, from the Mediterranean Isles to the Albanian border.
The lenders knew the loans were somewhat risky, but, hey, it's a sovereign nation, right? So they charged a high interest rate and forked over.
A few years went by and, ooops, the Greeks finally admitted that they could not pay even the interest, not to mention the zero chance of ever retiring the actual loans.
So now the lending sharks are humping to renegotiate the loans as a lower interest rate -- about 4 per cent -- in hopes that, for a little while, they have something plausible to show their gullible share holders and bank examiners. Something other than the actual collateral -- a load of empty ouzo bottles and a first lien on next year's grape leaves.
---
Now, this is an American blog, written from an American perspective, largely for Americans, so why does it give a rat's pubie about the elected and appointed thugs of Athens and the financiers they're trying to hornswaggle.
Why, for educational purposes, of course. Our own president and nearly all satraps in the Congress may read about it and lay down their golf clubs long enough to go, "hmmmmm, wonder how much lower our credit rating has to go before we have to ask the ECB and the IMF for permission to pay our guys in the 82nd Airborne?
---
I probably wouldn't have bothered with Greece this morning if I hadn't noticed Ben's press release promising that American money would continue to be rent-free for at least three more years. And that he had his finger on the trigger to sell more gummint bonds, backed again by the solemn word of the gummint plus, this time, a load of empty ouzo bottles and a lien on next year's grape leaves.
Jan 24, 2012
The magic mirror of Barack Obama
Spell-binding oratory is always pleasant to hear. Composed of thin air and monstrously questionable assumptions, it still creates a brief mountain top experience, visions of an entire world -- all seven billion of us -- composed of knights and their ladies, never in want, living in noble comradeship, destined by some political magic to live happily ever after as a matter of natural law
Which is to say I suspended disbelief and simply enjoyed the theater, much as I enjoyed a Travis McGee novel, until about the time he turned away from his teleprompter and shook Joe Biden's hand.
Then, the ancient concept of "ethos" crossed my mind, probably the residue of a dull graduate seminar on Greek rhetoric. It deals with the credibility of the orator by inquiring, "What has this man done in his personal life to give power to the pretty words he speaks?"
---
The President began as he ended. He praised our warriors at the open, and at his coda. Citing their unit coherence as a model for every citizen, invoking their heroism and associating himself with it -- President Obama as the spiritual brother of the men and women who brought down Osama Bin Laden. Some viewers may have been able to make the leap to the vision he sought to evoke, this president in battle dress, heroically charging up those stairs in the dark, weapon at the ready, anxious to confront Bin Laden, man to man.
Some of us, more attuned to this man's personal history, couldn't. We recall that the modern battles of the Middle East began in and continued through his young manhood. It was a time when Barack Obama had absolutely equal opportunity to demonstrate his devotion to country by putting on a uniform. Nothing barred him from displaying the personal valor he now claims to cherish but must borrow.
While other young citizens volunteered he found it more congenial to ally himself with a political machine and await political anointment, whiling away his meanwhile by organizing the streets of Chicago.
If you care to mark those portions of the president's State of the Union speech as dishonorable hypocrisy, I will not dispute your view.
Which is to say I suspended disbelief and simply enjoyed the theater, much as I enjoyed a Travis McGee novel, until about the time he turned away from his teleprompter and shook Joe Biden's hand.
Then, the ancient concept of "ethos" crossed my mind, probably the residue of a dull graduate seminar on Greek rhetoric. It deals with the credibility of the orator by inquiring, "What has this man done in his personal life to give power to the pretty words he speaks?"
---
The President began as he ended. He praised our warriors at the open, and at his coda. Citing their unit coherence as a model for every citizen, invoking their heroism and associating himself with it -- President Obama as the spiritual brother of the men and women who brought down Osama Bin Laden. Some viewers may have been able to make the leap to the vision he sought to evoke, this president in battle dress, heroically charging up those stairs in the dark, weapon at the ready, anxious to confront Bin Laden, man to man.
Some of us, more attuned to this man's personal history, couldn't. We recall that the modern battles of the Middle East began in and continued through his young manhood. It was a time when Barack Obama had absolutely equal opportunity to demonstrate his devotion to country by putting on a uniform. Nothing barred him from displaying the personal valor he now claims to cherish but must borrow.
While other young citizens volunteered he found it more congenial to ally himself with a political machine and await political anointment, whiling away his meanwhile by organizing the streets of Chicago.
If you care to mark those portions of the president's State of the Union speech as dishonorable hypocrisy, I will not dispute your view.
But the things you will learn from the Yellow an' Brown, they'll help you a lot with the white
Some folks in Bombay and Tehran are listening to Ron Paul. Those sneaky, oil-starved Indians of the sub-continent dislike our "sanctions" on Iran, so they've plotted with the ayatollahs. The sub-conts will get Iranian oil. The Iranians get gold.
It would be fun to turn this into a 21st Century Kipling tale. Gold-laden cargo elephants by the score lumber across the Khyber Pass to a rendezvous with Shiite camel trains at a fortified wadi in the high desert plateau of Taliban land. All is guarded with Khyber Pass Rifles, and security is further secured with golden-coin baksheesh to the Afghan war lords.
Alas, isn't that romantic, and personally I blame Obama, for whom Ben Bernanke works. His Ineptness's sanctions defy mortal understanding, but, highly simplified, they rap the knuckles of any bank looking to make a buck on Iranian oil deals. The trouble is, the sanctions work only with banks addicted to the funny money of Fed Boss Bernanke and his counterparts in the Eurosoc zone. (And of course EastAsia with whom we have always been at war.)
The maharajahs just happen to own their own bank which does quite nicely with a stiff middle finger presented to all the world's fiat money thugs of the "central banks" -- save their own, of course. It will handle the bullion transfers, and if it chooses to involve a SMLE or fake Remington rolling block, that will be just a nostalgic tip of the turban to its national history.
---
As the cited article notes, this gold/oil deal will chip another smidgen of value from what ever assets we peons have foolishly invested in the funny money of the West. Dollars, Euros, Pounds, etc.
Could be that Dr. Paul can digest this in time for the next debate. For years and years he has been expounding the logic of sound money -- at the very least as an alternative to to Federal Reserve Cartoons posing as actual wealth. It might occur to him to bring up the Indian-Iran transaction to illustrate that when the shit hits the fan, gold works wonders. And people smarter than our own political masters already know it.
It would be fun to turn this into a 21st Century Kipling tale. Gold-laden cargo elephants by the score lumber across the Khyber Pass to a rendezvous with Shiite camel trains at a fortified wadi in the high desert plateau of Taliban land. All is guarded with Khyber Pass Rifles, and security is further secured with golden-coin baksheesh to the Afghan war lords.
Alas, isn't that romantic, and personally I blame Obama, for whom Ben Bernanke works. His Ineptness's sanctions defy mortal understanding, but, highly simplified, they rap the knuckles of any bank looking to make a buck on Iranian oil deals. The trouble is, the sanctions work only with banks addicted to the funny money of Fed Boss Bernanke and his counterparts in the Eurosoc zone. (And of course EastAsia with whom we have always been at war.)
The maharajahs just happen to own their own bank which does quite nicely with a stiff middle finger presented to all the world's fiat money thugs of the "central banks" -- save their own, of course. It will handle the bullion transfers, and if it chooses to involve a SMLE or fake Remington rolling block, that will be just a nostalgic tip of the turban to its national history.
---
As the cited article notes, this gold/oil deal will chip another smidgen of value from what ever assets we peons have foolishly invested in the funny money of the West. Dollars, Euros, Pounds, etc.
Could be that Dr. Paul can digest this in time for the next debate. For years and years he has been expounding the logic of sound money -- at the very least as an alternative to to Federal Reserve Cartoons posing as actual wealth. It might occur to him to bring up the Indian-Iran transaction to illustrate that when the shit hits the fan, gold works wonders. And people smarter than our own political masters already know it.
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