Author: VD

BC writes:

I am a 60 year old female who enjoyed (and agreed with) your column. When I was growing up in the 50’s, women were women and men were men. The feminist movement did more damage than good. Have you noticed that every single TV commercial makes the woman look smart, smug, superior, and sarcastic. Males are portrayed as dumb nitwits that are dependent on woman to make even the simplest decision. Why are men putting up with this? Where’s the outrage? Women in movies and TV shows are portrayed the same way. It’s sickening. Are women taking their queue from this propaganda? I have been disappointed to observe little girls as young as 5 acting the same way. Even the cartoons give little girls the stronger role and the poor helpless little boys are at their mercy.

Who said men are putting up with this? They’re not, and the television industry is panicking because the all-important 18-34 segment refuses to watch anything but sports anymore. And why should they, considering the choices are between playing Doom 3 and committing mass virtual mayhem or watching supercilious actresses spouting off unwitty dialogue written by self-loathing homosexuals to mock the poor helpless male characters.

Television is a weird little universe where a man will always lose a sports competition to a woman, where a woman always gets the last word and where she will always be loved for herself no matter what an unpleasant, unbalanced lunatic she is. The bizarre problem is that a young boy reading a Conan novel generally recognizes that it is not real, but a woman watching Allie McBeal, Sex in the City or whatever shows have replaced them in the female pantheon is all too prone to not only take it seriously, but to actually identify herself with and model her behavior on one of these fictional, fantastic characters.

If you ever hear a woman saying “I am SOOO [fill in the blank with fictional TV character here]”, run. I mean, it’s not like women take men who attempt to act like James Bond seriously either.

Okay, not at this down wave, no way. But I do admire Google for their willingness to take on the Wamphyri of Wall Street and their monopoly on access to the markets.

Why Wall Street wants Google to fail…. If Google’s offering works for the company — that is, if it raises money at a good price and at a low commission to boot — then this IPO would legitimize an alternative to the traditional IPO that will diminish the power of Wall Street investment banks. Other companies, companies with lower profiles than Google, will have a new alternative for raising money. Wall Street doesn’t even like to think about that possibility.

If, on the other hand, Google’s IPO fails — if not enough investors bid, or if the price is too low, or if the IPO sinks, leaving hordes of angry individual investors and the company with egg on its face — then the auction model will go back on the shelf and Wall Street investment banking will go back to business as usual.

That’s why I don’t think you can trust anything Wall Street says about the Google IPO: The investment banking establishment has too much at stake and too many institutional conflicts of interest to make them credible on this offering.

It’s the wrong time, an incredibly bad time for this. Google would have had a very successful launch if they’d done it nine months ago, now, it’s probably too late. But if it fails, it won’t be because the concept was faulty, only the timing. It’s a pity, but then, the return of the roaring bear will do more to put Wall Street back in its place than a newfangled IPO possibly could.

Don’t ever make the mistake of confusing Wall Street with capitalism. Wall Street is designed specifically to limit capitalism as per government regulations; it contradicts the activities of a genuinely free market.

“Another vote for Kerry” was one reaction to an ex-Republican writing to say that he’s voting for Badnarik this November. Let’s analyze this from a mathematical perspective.

Bush has zero votes. Kerry has zero votes. Badnarik has zero votes. Voter X votes for Badnarik. How many votes does Kerry have? A) one vote, B) ten votes, C) zero votes?

Let’s try it using some different numbers. Bush has 39,999,999 votes. Kerry has 39,999,999 votes. Voter X votes for Badnarik. How many votes does Kerry have? A) 40,000,000, B) 39,999,999, C) Five.

Alternatively, we can look at it from an ideological perspective. Kerry favors bigger government. Bush favors bigger government. Badnarik favors smaller government. Voter X, who favors smaller government, votes for Badnarik. This is a vote for A) bigger government, or B) smaller government?

There’s simply no reasonable way that you can claim a vote for a third party candidate is a vote for anyone but that third party candidate. To assume that any such votes would have gone to one of the two bifactional candidates is to make the same fallacy that the RIAA makes when people copy a CD – a willingness to copy a CD is not equivalent to a willingness to purchase a CD. If I didn’t vote for Badnarik, (or Peroutka), I simply wouldn’t vote. I would NEVER vote for either Bush or Kerry. If there’s no one to whom you can consent, then withdrawing your consent is the only option.

If you simply want to vote for a winner, then vote for whoever is leading in the polls the day before the election. That’s essentially what the Republican cheerleaders are urging others to do. But don’t pretend you have any principles beyond bandwagon-jumping. And for the love of all that’s good and holy, stop embarrassing yourself with your apparent inability to fathom basic addition.

Michelle Malkin advocates Newspeak:

As for the term “concentration camps,” it is very misleading. It is true that many politicians and public officials, including President Roosevelt himself, used this term to describe the relocation centers. But it wasn’t until the liberation of the Nazi death camps beginning in 1945 that the phrase took on the popular meaning that it retains today–that is, places of barbaric cruelty and torture on the order of what the Jews and others suffered under Hitler. To compare American’s internment and relocation centers to the Third Reich’s extermination camps is to recklessly distort history and to trivialize the experience of Holocaust victims. Even the Commission acknowledged that, “the phrase ‘concentration camps’ summons up images and ideas which are inaccurate and unfair.”

Please, the term not only isn’t misleading at all, it is entirely accurate! No one has ever claimed that the US WWII-era concentration camps – camps designed to concentrate a group of individuals ill-favored by the federal government – were labor and death camps such as Auschwitz. But since Ms Malkin wants to convince us that these concentration camps were good, right and proper, it doesn’t serve her purpose to call these camps by their linguistically precise and historically accurate name. It’s fitting that she should be so indifferent as to history, considering her inability to learn from it.

Historically, civil rights have often yielded to security in times of crisis. During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, which enabled him to detain thousands of rebels and subversives without access to judges. In defying a Supreme Court order to restore habeas corpus, Lincoln refused to let “the government itself go to pieces” for the sake of a single law.

Order out of chaos. There’s a new one. Malkin is tearing down her own case here by appealing to the example of Lincoln. Malkin may still be under the illusion that she values freedom, but she is simply attempting to rationalize the female instinct of Sicherheit uber alles. This is why the Fascist Party made the women’s right to vote a priority in its manifesto. Scare a woman enough, and she’ll enthusiastically embrace disarming the populace, martial law and death camps.

It’s always interesting to see a media whore transform into a big government whore. The camera lovers just can’t seem to keep themselves from “growing”, as they call it in Washington. Rush Limbaugh’s done it, but it took him years to devolve from a conservative into a Republican. I don’t know if anyone keeps track of these things, but Ms Malkin may now hold the speed record.

RT laments:

I am very feminine. I never have any luck with guys. I wear pink a lot. I wear skirts a lot. I wear heels a lot. I never say I don’t like fishing or camping, but I actually have guys say I’m “high-maintenance” and they are sure I would never go fishing or camping or something. Well, they never asked me. I don’t have a problem with either. They are always going out with women who ask them out or asking out women who put out so much they could make a fortune if they charged. I am always careful never to say ANYTHING negative around a guy now ABOUT ANYTHING, especially about him. I never hardly even get asked out. And I’m definitely not ugly or fat. Definitely not. However, I am told I don’t talk enough. I talk to my friends. I just don’t go up to guys and ask them out. I was told by one guy I’m not confident enough to date him. Well, I never spend any time thinking about what other people think about me anymore, and I’m confident enought that I’ve delivered Shakespeare on stage and gotten after show compliments. Men ought to work on keeping their pants zipped and being interested in quiet, nice women. Because they’re not. They’re just not. They act like jackasses, like Scott Peterson.

Let’s see. In the course of a single paragraph – okay, in fairness it really should be two – RT manages to expose that she’s a high-maintenance women and thinks that men act like jackasses, are unfaithful and probably murderers to boot. Men may not be complex, but neither are we stupid, and we’re surprisingly good at picking up on this sort of hatred bubbling under the surface.

It is true that many young men without much experience of women think that they want a confident, independent woman who doesn’t need them, but these are mostly younger guys who just want to make sure a girlfriend won’t interfere with playing Doom 3 for six hours a night. That sort of guy usually isn’t looking for a long-term relationship, he’s looking for someone to provide friendship with favors and will otherwise stay out of his life.

One thing women who don’t get asked out might want to consider is to try to be more responsive. If a man looks at you, then don’t immediately look away if you want him to approach you. You don’t have to ask him out or run up to him and start humping his leg like a dog – although I’ve seen that work with a guy who’s got a sense of humor – but the usual routine is this:

1. Man looks.

2. Woman looks back.

3. Man smiles.

4. Woman smiles back.

This informs the man that he has the woman’s approval to approach her. Non-verbal communication is often more important than verbal communication at this stage. And whatever you do, don’t pull your friends into the conversation, as men know that women use their friends as a shield against those they aren’t interested in. If you start doing that, a man might easily conclude you’ve got no interest and that he might as well look elsewhere.

A very good friend of mine had a philosophy to go out once with everyone who asked her out. She doesn’t do that anymore, now being married with child – but some of her good male friends are men that she knew from the beginning weren’t terribly interesting to her from a romantic point of view, but that she took the time to get to know anyhow. She met some real losers too, but that’s the risk you take, because no one can always tell the difference between a winner and a loser at first glance.

This is for the early birds to hop in and start making comments, as per Res’s request.

When 13 Democratic members of the U.S. Congress asked United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan to send election monitors to the U.S. this fall, the move outraged many Republicans and other proponents of national sovereignty.

When those same 13 Democratic members of Congress were turned down by Annan, they took their request to Secretary of State Colin Powell – again to the shock of many Republicans and those who warn about foreign entanglements.

Yesterday, those 13 Democratic House members got their surprising answer from the State Department – the administration will indeed invite foreign election monitors to observe the U.S. elections in November.

It always amazes me how those who warn about how awful John Kerry might be pay no attention to how awful George Bush actually is. He is every bit the traitorous sell-out of national sovereignty that Bill Clinton was. The fact that he can’t speak without mangling his words doesn’t make him a good man any more than Bill Clinton’s quick wit made him a wise one.

Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, Ms Theresa Heinz Kerry:

You cannot solve problems by throwing stones, and you cannot solve problems by telling lies, and you cannot solve problems by wishing ill to other people,” she said. “The only way you solve problems is by holding hands and talking about it….

Oh sweet Moses! There are times when I think it’s possible to be an adult and a Democrat. This isn’t one of them.

Michelle Malkin thinks she can simultaneously play and referee:

Taken in totality, rather than in selective slivers, my defense of Roosevelt’s homeland security measures remains unrefuted.

Next, please.

Malkin skips over the point that her entire thesis is utterly absurd! The totality of all the minor dangers Malkin cites doesn’t come close to that posed by the British Army in the War of 1812 – when British troops actually invaded the American homeland, burned the White House, etc. and yet the Commander-in-Chief did not then feel the need to completely shred the Constitution as did FDR with his executive order to intern and relocate American citizens of Japanese descent.

There was never any serious danger to the West Coast. Even if a factory or two was sabotaged, even if a military base or two was spied upon, even if a submarine lobbed a few shells at Los Angeles, it was not going to have any effect on the war effort whatsoever, as US industrial capacity absolutely dwarfed that of Germany and Japan combined. Since Malkin apparently knows nothing about military history, she rests her case on posterior-covering reports which consist of little more than what-ifs and just-maybes. Not having read the book, I don’t know if she’s actually foolish enough to claim that the West Coast was under the threat of invasion, but from the sound of her defense, I don’t think she was quite that detached from the history of this space-time continuum.

As for the protective aspects of the interment, if Malkin’s book causes her to become insufficiently popular with enough people, shall we lock her up against her will? For her own protection of course.

With Michelle’s support for the Patriot Act and now this boot-licking justification of State muscle-flexing, it seems she is as naive as she is lovely. Would-be dictators always promise protection from incipient danger, if only they can set themselves above the law. That hoary old trick was ancient when Marius was pulling it on the Conscript Fathers.

UPDATE: Here’s some information on the man that Ms Malkin is defending. It’s particularly interesting to hear that he bragged he had “committed enough illegal acts to be impeached and jailed for 999 years” even before he was seizing the nation’s gold and forcing American citizens out of their homes.

A week or two ago, I mentioned that if Wave 3 began in Feb-March, that it could be expected to run downhill until July 2006. One thing interesting about yesterday’s swoon was that in addition to breaking the important supports at 1080 and 1074, the SPX actually managed to get ahead of the schedule I proposed for it.

With 16.56 percent of the estimated 640 days to the next major bottom, the SPX has fallen 17.06 percent. The NDX, on the other hand, has only fallen 18.63 percent since its top, in 21.25 percent of the time. (The NDX usually tops differently than the SPX and DOW, although they bottom together at the big turns. In this case, it came 30 trading days earlier.)

Since the market never moves in straight lines, we’ll probably see a mini-rally soon, but I wouldn’t start looking for a multi-day one until the NDX falls another 5 percent or so. The last two short term moves were (i) down 10.86 percent and (ii) up 3.89 percent, so 6.87 percent in five trading days would seem too little movement in too short a time to mark the end of (iii).

All of this assumes, of course, that the wave patterns are meaningful. Always take it with a grain of salt.