Category: Uncategorized

Arab Spring in Libya

Once again, the neocons have supported the expansion of popular and democratic Islam:

Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, the chairman of the National Transitional Council and de fact president, had already declared that Libyan laws in future would have Sharia, the Islamic code, as its “basic source”….

Mr Abdul-Jalil went further, specifically lifting immediately, by decree, one law from Col. Gaddafi’s era that he said was in conflict with Sharia – that banning polygamy. In a blow to those who hoped to see Libya’s economy integrate further into the western world, he announced that in future bank regulations would ban the charging of interest, in line with Sharia. “Interest creates disease and hatred among people,” he said.

So, how is this in the American national interest, exactly? And actually, if you think about it, what is the real difference between formally banning interest, as Abdul-Jalil has directed, and reducing the interest rate to zero, as Bernanke, King and Trichet have done.

WND column

Herman Cain: Pro-Choice Republican

Herman Cain on abortion, Take 1: “It’s not the government’s role or anybody else’s role to make that decision. Secondly, if you look at the statistical incidents, you’re not talking about that big a number. So what I’m saying is, it ultimately gets down to a choice that that family or that mother has to make. Not me as president. Not some politician, not a bureaucrat. It gets down to that family, and whatever they decide, they decide. I shouldn’t have to tell them what decision to make for such a sensitive issue.”

Herman Cain on abortion, Take 2: “As to my political policy view on abortion, I am 100 percent pro-life. End of story.”

End of story? I think not.

VPFL Week 6

74 Moundsview Meerkats (4-2-0)
61 Green Reverends (3-2-1)

79 Bailout Banksters (3-2-1)
54 Greenfield Grizzlies (4-2-0)

60 Bane Sidhe (2-4-0)
40 RR Redbeards (2-3-1)

74 Macau Marauders (3-2-1)
58 MS Swamp Spartans (3-3-0)

58 Cranberry Rhyneauxs (2-4-0)
34 GroverBeach Quixotes (2-4-0)

This is your weekly open NFL thread. And yes, I laughed upon reading this at ProFootballTalk. I laughed helplessly.

clavinusps says: Oct 23, 2011 10:40 AM
Just reading that article about Tebow made me a better person.

No limits on self-defense

This McDonald’s cashier is a hero, not a criminal:

A McDonald’s cashier jailed for beating two irate customers with a metal rod says he was only trying to defend himself. Rayon McIntosh was arrested Oct. 13 after a wild fight inside a McDonald’s in the Greenwich Village neighborhood in Manhattan. Video recorded by a customer showed two furious women vaulting a counter to attack McIntosh after some sort of dispute.

McIntosh grabbed a metal bar and fought back with savage force, continuing to deliver crushing blows even after the women were incapacitated on the floor.

Good for him. I wouldn’t have any problem with his actions if he had killed both women after they were “incapacitated”. Police commit “justifiable homicide” in far less dangerous circumstances all the time and are infamous for firing dozens of shots after their target is already down. It’s simply not always possible to turn off the adrenaline-fueled aggression, particularly if you aren’t sufficiently accustomed to experiencing it.

And more importantly, once you attack someone unprovoked, all bets are off and you merit no protection from the law. The fact that the attackers were women is irrelevant, a two-on-one attack absolutely merited such a vigorous response. How on Earth could the cashier have known neither of the two hair-trigger lunatics didn’t have a weapon and wouldn’t use it once they were knocked down?

Rayon McIntosh shouldn’t be found innocent, he shouldn’t even be charged. And McDonald’s should be paying his legal fees.

Obama gets it done

Give credit where credit is due. Obama is pulling the troops out of Iraq and leaving no US bases there:

President Obama announced Friday that the United States will withdraw nearly all troops from Iraq by the end of the year, effectively bringing the long and polarizing war in Iraq to an end.

“After nearly 9 years, America’s war in Iraq will be over,” said Mr. Obama. He said the last American troops will depart the country by January 1 “with their heads held high, proud of their success, and knowing that the American people stand united in our support for our troops.”

It would seem there is a silver lining in every failed presidency. And notice how the “Tea Party” candidate, Michele Bachmann, actually opposes the pullout. Because foreign occupations are so eminently consistent with small and frugal government.

Admitting the obvious

Inside the NFL concludes that the Tebow hate is nothing more than anti-Christian bigotry:

”Inside the NFL” analyst and former Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Cris Collinsworth concluded that much of the hatred against Tebow was based on his religious beliefs. Responding to a question from fellow host James ‘JB’ Brown, Collinsworth showed his disgust for Tebow’s treatment: ”It’s unbelievable, though, JB, that one of the best kids – just pure kids that’s ever come into the NFL – is hated because of his faith, because of his mission work, because of the fact that he wears it on his sleeve, because of the fact that he lives his life that he talks about….”

Brown and Collinsworth concluded that much of the hatred against Tebow was based on faith. Brown pointed out: ”There’s a number of guys who come into the league with a big marquee, fat paychecks, a lot of attention, and folks don’t seem to hate them with the same intensity that they hate Tim Tebow.” Collinsworth concurred with Brown: ”I couldn’t agree with you more. And it’s kind of a sad commentary, that, you know, if someone is out carousing every night, the Joe Namath thing, or whatever, they’re American heroes, and Tim Tebow, who’s working in missions in Asia somewhere, is a guy that we’re going to vilify.”

Now, I don’t think much of Tebow’s chances to be a star quarterback in the NFL. I wouldn’t completely count him out because I wouldn’t completely count any quarterback prospect out. I do think he was probably drafted too highly, the “mechanics” metric is overrated, and that if the coaches and analysts had the position down to a science as they would like to pretend, we wouldn’t see first round draft busts every single year.

Maybe he does have an odd throwing motion. So does Philip Rivers. Perhaps he’s not a proper pocket passer. Neither is Michael Vick. The thing is, it is readily apparent that Tebow is a better quarterback when leading his team on the field in an actual game than Kyle Orton. The fact that his head coach has serious reservations about him is almost entirely meaningless considering how long Fox kept starting Jake Delhomme once he had turned into an interception machine.

At 1-5, it would be absurd for Denver to refuse to accede to the Denver fans wishes, start Tebow, and see what he’s got. They are finally doing so two games later than the fans would like to see, but then, the same thing is happening in Minnesota with Christian Ponder. Most Vikings fans wanted McNabb benched at least two weeks ago; I wanted to sit the wormburner down in favor of Joe Webb after Week Two although I thought it was reasonable to give him one more shot in Week Three just to be certain he was done.

But it is absolutely bizarre how many people in the media are actively cheering against Tebow. This, of course, just strengthens his support, not only among those who have cheered the man since his days at Florida, but among people like me who otherwise couldn’t possibly care less about the Broncos or the fate of their second-string quarterback.

The week in alpha

This week’s round-up of posts at Alpha Game

Stalking the Virgin: Yohami’s amusing glossary of approaches plus the Sigma approach.

It’s not her fault. It’s not her fault: In which we are informed that 80% of women involved in car crashes are not responsible. At least, if you ask them.

The Orbital Leapfrog: A tactic to enable gamma orbiters to land on the planet. It will usually involve crashing and burning, of course, but even that’s better than remaining in perma-orbit.

Don’t talk to single women: An explanation of why volunteering conversation is usually counterproductive for the interested man and why a refusal to submit to qualification is intrinsically attractive to women.

Given that we increasingly appear to be living in interesting times, there is no shortage of topics that merit discussion here, so I’m intending to keep my Game-related posts over at Alpha Game. In unrelated news, I hope to wrap up my part of Round 4 and send it off to Dominic by the end of the weekend. We’ve both been traveling, hence the delay.

Explaining the banking bailout

Karl Denninger walks skeptics through the application of TARP and explains in detail why TARP did not represent Washington imposing its will on Wall Street, but rather elite Wall Street bankers rescuing the big banks by utilizing the federal government as a tool:

You realize that what you feared – a call to announce that the regulators were seizing all of your firms as they all had no mathematical way to survive isn’t what was going to happen at all! Instead, you were going to be given some $250 billion between you and the FDIC was going to take all credit risk on your new bond issues for the next year. In addition you were briefed on the TLGP which will guarantee your customers won’t run your bank as it provides their demand accounts with unlimited FDIC insurance protection. This is to be “free” for the first 30 days, and after that there’d be a fee, but compared to trying to keep your deposits and issue cheap debt it was for all intents and purposes zero cost. Finally, Ben was going to let you have basically unlimited Fed credit at near-zero interest rates for the next year, meaning there would be no issue as to whether you could fund routine operations or not.

Your firm was being saved and the taxpayer was going to cover the risk – whether he liked it or not.

You were going to be asked to do a few things, however. The public would never sit for being looted like this unless it looked like it was going to hurt a lot and there was simply “no alternative.” As it was Treasury and Bernanke were not sure that the public would buy it. Congress already had bought off on it, effectively; after all, Ben and Hank had corralled them into a room and threatened them with martial law if they didn’t pass TARP to begin with. But it was important to make it look stringent, so there’d be no big bonuses until you paid the TARP money back and dividends would have to be cut to effectively zero.

All in you were getting a screaming deal. Not only are you getting cheap capital, all things considered (the 5% preferred coupon with that FDIC backstop when your CDS spreads are being quoted in points up front literally saves your firm!) but the FDIC insurance on both senior debt issues and deposits – that is a pure windfall of unbelievable size.

You roll the numbers around in your head. There is roughly $850 billion in deposits throughout the system that would be covered by the FDIC “unlimited” deposit insurance, and the majority of it was in your bank and that of your TBTF friends. You figure that you and your buddies in the room could issue some $300 billion in “super insured” debt through the FDIC program and the surcharge from the FDIC is only 50 to 100 basis points; with the credit condition oncoming long rates will be headed southbound fast, so the odds are you’d see a 10 year in the 2.5% or so area soon. That makes the deal damned attractive; you figure between you in the room this will easily save you $15 billion a year in the first-year financing costs (about 500 basis points on that $300 billion) or more than the coupon on the preferred stock!

It doesn’t take long before the light comes on – this is a zero-cost option for you. The capital costs a coupon on the preferred but the savings on the bond issues more than make up for it and the FDIC deposit insurance makes sure nobody runs your bank.

For all intents and purposes you’re being paid to take the taxpayer’s money!

When you walked in the room you were sure you were going to be nationalized – or at least expropriated in some fashion, as you were dead flat broke. Now, well, let’s just say that it’s good to have friends in high places.

You wonder how the press is going to spin this one. This finance stuff is pretty tough for mainstream reporters; so long as nobody noodles on the numbers they probably won’t figure it out. Never mind that the bonds won’t all issue at once and most people will simply applaud the unlimited deposit insurance without thinking about the fact that it’s essentially a gift – the 10 basis point fee (0.1%) is a bad joke. $8 billion across the entirety of the system to provide unlimited coverage on $800 billion in deposits? This much is certain: Nobody’s going to be allowed to fail as that’s wildly lower than the actual risk premium on that transaction.

What’s not to like?

TARP was one of the most egregious breaches of capitalism in the history of the United States and no one who defends it, for any reason, can be considered even remotely pro-capitalist. Corporatism is not capitalism and Wall Street banksterism of the sort we have endured for the last three years has far more in common with royal mercantilism than it does with capitalism.

Do read the whole thing. The chances are very high that you will not only learn something, but you will be able to understand what actually happened in the fall of 2008.

Thus spake Yohami

On intelligence:

If intelligence makes you win, its fine.

But if intelligence makes you isolated, a freak, awkward, unadapted, if intelligence makes you score high in IQ tests but low in social life and low in the world, then your intelligence is a pile of crap. In other words, intelligence on its own means nothing. Its how you use it in your own advantage, and in advantage of the people around you, what makes it valuable.

Or, as I would put it, intelligence is merely firepower. More specifically, it is your mental caliber. To effectively utilize intelligence, you still require the ammunition that is information, whether acquired via formal education or autodidacticism, as well as the wisdom to know where to direct it. A well-placed .22 round is more effective than a 152mm artillery barrage that is miles off target.

This is why the possession of high intelligence is little more meaningful than the possession of academic credentials. It’s all just potential, and potential should never be confused with actual accomplishment. This is why even a moderate amount of wisdom merits far more respect than very high intelligence.

Of course, this doesn’t change the fact that it is as foolish for the average individual to challenge the highly intelligent in an intellectual arena as it is for the average individual to challenge the extraordinarily strong in physical competition.

He bravely ran away, away

Richard Dawkins is still running as fast as he can away from William Lane Craig:

Don’t feel embarrassed if you’ve never heard of William Lane Craig. He parades himself as a philosopher, but none of the professors of philosophy whom I consulted had heard his name either. Perhaps he is a “theologian”. For some years now, Craig has been increasingly importunate in his efforts to cajole, harass or defame me into a debate with him. I have consistently refused, in the spirit, if not the letter, of a famous retort by the then president of the Royal Society: “That would look great on your CV, not so good on mine”.

What a disgusting coward! As I have repeatedly noted, Dawkins is simply not very intelligent. He clearly doesn’t understand how contemptible this makes him look to those who are not disposed to mindlessly cheer his every action. His paltry original contributions to the catalog of atheist arguments are both trivial and defective; of all the various atheist apologists currently extant, only Sam Harris is more easily refuted. He is only comfortable “debating” elderly English churchmen, who are too genteel and polite to directly engage his flawed arguments; one need not be a believer to expose their copious logical and factual flaws.

And his rationale for ducking the debate is just intellectually appalling. Given that I am much more famous around the world than nearly everyone who comments here, should I similarly decline to address anyone’s arguments who does not look good on my resume? If I followed his example, I would be rightly castigated my cowardly pomposity. Dawkins, it is now eminently clear, is more a propagandist and a social climber than a genuine intellectual. He has sold quite a few books, to be sure, but then, so did Bertha Runkle.

Who is Bertha Runkle, you ask? Precisely.

UPDATE: The Fowl Atheist comments: “So Richard Dawkins has taken the time to explain why he refuses to debate William Lane Craig. It’s a terrific put-down. I’m going to have to steal from it next time that importuning dweeb Vox Day starts pestering me to debate him.”

I find it amusing that you’re still desperately trying to justify your cowardice, my chubby little atheist friend. And there is one small problem with your attempt to utilize what shall henceforth be known as “the Dawkins Defense”. I am more famous and successful than you are. You’re a professor at a community college. I’ve assisted Sam Harris on his most significant neuroscience project, interviewed John Julius Norwich and Umberto Eco, worked with most of the top entertainment companies, written four Billboard-charting singles, and published seven more books than you. My readership is bigger. One can even reasonably argue that my contribution to science exceeds anything you have done now that my hypothesis concerning atheism being a form of autism has been supported by the research being performed at Boston University, to say nothing of my modification of the core mechanism underlying the operation of the Austrian business cycle.

So, how on Earth is debating you going to help my resume?