Author: VD

Strange Semantics wrote: I think Canada and Europe are great examples, as for the most part their economies are doing as well as the U.S.’s on a relative scale, and theirs are much more socialized societies than ours

Stephen Roach, on the other hand, wrote today: I can’t get Europe out of my mind. Most of my international travel in early 2004 has been spent hopping back and forth across The Pond to the UK and the Continent. In a series of four such visits in the first ten weeks of this year, I have met with a broad cross-section of European investors, corporate executives, and government officials. I’ve never seen Europe in such bad shape…. Europe was the exception to this otherwise synchronous outbreak of resurgent global growth, with real GDP growth falling slightly short of 1.5% in the second half of 2003. And that was before the full force of the lagged impacts of the strengthening euro kicked in. Europe’s failure to participate in the latest global upswing only adds insult to injury. Something is seriously wrong in Europe, and the Europeans know it.

I salute Strange Semantic’s willingness to take me on directly. But, as Stephen Roach is Chief Economist and Director of Global Economic Analysis at Morgan Stanley as well as a former Fed researcher, I submit that this is more evidence that SS has almost no idea what he is talking about when it comes to economics, and consequently, political philosophy.

The axiomatic Austrian approach is the only economic school that offers a solid diagnosis for what is happening in the economies of the world today. Even Keynes admitted that in the long run, his economic models disintegrated. Keynes may be dead now, but we are not and the long run, she is a-coming.

WFB writes: Looking back on Bush vs. Gore, Professor Joseph Olson of the Hamline University School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota, gives us a shrewd perspective. Adding up the counties in the U.S. won by the two candidates, it was Gore 677, Bush 2,434. Taking the population of those counties, it was 143 million for Bush, 127 million for Gore. In square miles of land won, Gore 580,000, Bush 2,427,000. The murder rate in Gore counties, 13.2 per 100,000 residents, contrasted with 2.1 in the Bush counties.

That sounds a lot like the bogus Macalester professor, (another St. Paul university, btw), who couldn’t remember that there are 48 states, not 50. Which is too bad, since I agreed with the conclusion of the immediately previous paragraph: Democracy just doesn’t work, much of the time.

So let me get this straight. According to a pillar of the Republican party, we’re killing people and sacrificing our young soldiers for something that doesn’t work most of the time? That sounds a lot like someone stumbling gradually towards my critique of our Commander-in-Chief’s martial performance.

UPDATE: The Original Cyberpunk adds: Professor Joseph Olson is real, I’ve met him many times, and yes, this story is completely bogus. Still, no matter how many times he denies it, it keeps coming back; sometimes saying he teaches law at Hamline (which he does), other times putting him on the faculty at Macalester, William Mitchell, or some other college he’s never taught at. Sometimes breaking it out by counties; sometimes by either 48 or 50 states. But it all cases this story is false, the stats are wrong, and you’d be well-advised not to repeat it because it is so easily, provably bogus.

Oh, how are the mighty fallen!

One of our friendly Sovereigntists mentioned a while back that he didn’t know of anyone who believed in an omniderigent deity. It struck my attention, therefore, when the young Christian girl who lost her arm in a shark attack mentioned in USA Today that she believed her injury was God’s plan, implying that God sent the shark to bite her. My point is not to again reopen the argument or to say that the Sovereignty theory suffers due to its adherents being young surfer girls, but merely to draw attention to the fact that omniderigence is indeed a common notion among non-theologians.

Transcendent Vision quotes Slashdot: “A senior Microsoft Corp. executive told a federal court last week that sharing information with competitors could damage national security and even threaten the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan. He later acknowledged that some Microsoft code was so flawed it could not be safely disclosed.” (Emphasis added.) The follow up from Microsoft is even better: As a result of the flaws, Microsoft has asked the court to allow a “national security” carve-out from the requirement that any code or API’s be made public. Microsoft has therefore taken the position that their code is so bad that it must kept secret to keep people from being killed by it.

That could be the next big Linux campaign: Use Linux and Live! I may have an interesting Linux-related announcement soon, within the next week or so. If you’ve been following Slashdot, you may even have some idea what it’s regarding.

Readers aren’t burning for “Burning Down My Masters’ House,” Jayson Blair’s memoir of his ill-fated New York Times career. Nielsen Bookscan reports the book sold just 1,386 copies through last Sunday, according to yesterday’s PW Newsline, an E-mail from Publishers Weekly. Bookscan tracks roughly 70% of the market, excluding Wal-Mart, so the total would be higher. But given Blair’s wide exposure on NBC, a variety of local affiliates and the cable news networks, the results look low indeed.

Well, who would want to buy this thing? Conservatives already know the NYT is full of merde. Left-leaning NYT lovers didn’t want to know anything about it in the first place. Blair’s book deal must have been offered by the same sort of geniuses who were certain the Passion was going to be a bomb.

UPDATE: And now USA Today! Of course, if newspaper editors understood the first thing about economics, and they don’t, they would have subjected that idiot Krugman to the same treatment long ago. Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich are morons, but they are at least as honest as their feeble understanding of the world will allow. Krugman, on the other hand, gets basic statistics wrong on a regular basis, uses them incorrectly to reach nonsensical conclusions, and then recommends ludicrous solutions – occasionally to imaginary problems. Yes, I’m sure MORE government intervention in the economy is always the answer. Obviously when someone is dying of arsenic poisoning, shooting them up with an arsenic-cyanide cocktail will sort them out in no time. His is a virtuoso demonstration that it is possible to be both evil AND stupid.

In the modern world, the terms “democracy” and “republic” — nomenclature native only to Western languages — are bandied about quite loosely, inasmuch as they lend a veneer of legitimacy to otherwise awful regimes. The Soviet Union was supposedly a conglomeration of “republics.” So were North Vietnam and East Germany. Indeed “democratic peoples” and “socialist republics” were usually code words for no voting and no liberty.

I still prefer my definition. “a government of mostly white people that holds elections of some sort and doesn’t make Americans feel uncomfortable”.

John Samples writes on NRO: George W. Bush is the best Democratic president of my lifetime. That might seem like an absurd proposition. It’s hard to imagine a politician that seems less like a Democrat. Bush’s quiet self-confidence, religious convictions, and common touch are a long way from the secular mandarins that Democrats seem to prefer in the White House. Besides, the Democrats hate the guy through and through. He couldn’t be one of them. In fact, George Bush the man is conservative and Republican beyond all doubt. Unfortunately he has governed like a Democrat — as I said, the best one in my lifetime.

I’m not the least bit surprised by what Samples is saying here. I very much agree with it. The surprise is that it appears the editors at National Review is starting to become disenchanted with George Delano. I’d thought the president would win re-election going away as long as the Fed could keep the moribund economy afloat on its sea of debt. Now, I’m not quite so sure. I still think he’ll win, but he may lose more of the right than he gathers of the left.

The Baseball Savant asks: We know you want a piece of Al in the worst way, but me and a buddy were debating the other night whether or not you could take Jean Claude Van Damme. I have to admit, I love ya bro, but I took Jean Claude. He whooped Tong Po in “Kickboxer” even after taking a tremendous beating because he couldn’t fight back at first. Not only that, but he also whooped Chung Lee in “Bloodsport” even though he was blinded with powder! Good night! He also whooped Atilla in “Lionheart” although he had a broken rib!! My buddy has Vox, the BASEBALL SAVANT has Jean Claude! So what is it!???

My money would be on Jean Claude, at least if we were both at our peak. These days, who knows. I’ve been playing soccer, not fighting competitively, for years, and my bench is down to around 285-295 from 325. Then again, I’d get back on protein and creatine if I had a match coming up, and it only takes about six weeks to get back in fighting shape, while Jean Claude’s been hanging around Hollywood. Oh, who am I kidding, I still wouldn’t want to trade kicks with Mr. Van Damme, still less Dolph Lundgren, who was a friendly acquaintance of mine a few years back. I once had to lug him, very much the worse for wear, back to his hotel room when we were out partying together. You don’t realize how big someone is until you’re propping up their dead weight. In addition to being huge, Dolph is also a very good martial artist.

Then again, I think I could take either of them if it came down to firearms. I shot a 96/100 at 21 feet when I went to the range with Space Bunny last week with a compact .40. My best round ever is 90/100 at 75 feet with a .357 long-barrel. I managed to outshoot a Marine Force Recon sniper that day, albeit with the .357. I’m not great with a rifle, although my brother and my father are both unbelievably good shots.

“I have always said the film may fuel anti-Semitism, but I never said it was anti-Semitic,” he [The national director of the Anti-Defamation League, Abraham Foxman] said. The nature of “The Passion” is, “when you walk out, you are angry at those who set [Christ] up.” However, according to a poll released Monday by the Institute for Jewish and Community Research in San Francisco, only 2 percent of the 1,003 adults polled said “The Passion” is more likely to make them hold all Jews responsible. Eighty-three percent said it did not make them blame contemporary Jews and 9 percent said the film made them less likely to do so. In a subgroup of 146 persons polled who had seen the film, 80 percent said it had no effect on their views, 5 percent said it made them hold Jews responsible and 12 percent said it made them less likely to do so.

Another recent poll of 2,500 people, 85 percent of whom are evangelical Christians, conducted by the Chicago-based International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, showed only 1.7 percent of respondents blamed all Jews for Christ’s death. Mr. Foxman called both polls “wishful thinking.”

I suppose he’s partly right. I still have no problem with Jews, but I can say that the movie has made me dislike sanctimonious Jews like Abe Foxman, who attempt to influence others through deception, dishonesty and wild accusations. Almost Pharasaic, you could say. If the guy had a brain, he’d publicly admit that he was wrong and apologize to Mel Gibson and the Christian community; I very much doubt that he’s smart enough to do that, though.

In looking up that old column on Sullivan and Kinsley, I noticed that I’d completely forgotten about a number of old columns. And since WND Books has little interest in substantive books dealing with theory of the sort I’m interested in writing – not to blame them, as apparently America really wants to read nothing more than the random jottings of radio show hosts – I was wondering how many people might be interested in a collection of the best ones, with perhaps a chapter or two devoted to selections from this blog.

I have a friend who has a book printing and binding business, and I was thinking that if enough people were interested, I might look into doing a small 250-unit print run. He did a book on Tuscan wines that was really nice – remembering that got me thinking about the possibility. I’m not thinking of it as something to try to bump Sean Hannity off the bestseller lists, but more as a historical record of sorts. It’s not a vanity project to get my name in print, I got over that thrill two books ago.

And then, there’s the inevitable question. Paperback or hardcover? Fancy leather-bound collector’s edition or simple political style book, with the de rigeur head-and-shoulders shot superimposed over the American flag? I suppose a mockery of that using the classic Gadsden flag would be more appropriate. There will, of course, be a special Rebel version for Nate, complete with an autographed .357 hollow point.

I think I’d call it Live Free or Else.