Category: Uncategorized

Mailvox: this is “equality”

MP sends along this fascinating job posting:

Assistant Professor, Computer Science
Loyola University Maryland
Posted: 11/10/2010
Tenure Track Faculty

Loyola University Maryland invites applications for the position of Clare Boothe Luce Professor in the Department of Computer Science, with an expected start date of fall 2011 at the level of Assistant Professor. We are seeking an enthusiastic individual committed to excellent teaching and a continuing, productive research program. A Ph.D. in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a closely related field is required. Candidates in all areas of specialization will be considered. The position is restricted by the Clare Boothe Luce bequest to the Henry Luce Foundation to women who are U.S. citizens.

Loyola is an EEO employer that seeks applications from women and members of minority groups.

Did you seriously expect women to stop with genuine equality before the law once they achieved it? As Orwell observed, when equalitarians rule, some are always more equal than others.

There is no equality. It does not exist and has never existed in any material, legal, or spiritual reality.

The Republican Iago strikes

The elders of the GOP show their de Gaullesque gratitude for the Tea Party putting them back in the driver’s seat:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is maneuvering behind the scenes to defeat a conservative plan aimed at restricting earmarks, setting up a high-stakes showdown that pits the GOP leader and his “Old Bull” allies against Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and a new breed of conservative senators…. By keeping a low profile so far, McConnell is seeking to avoid an all-out public battle among his GOP colleagues over earmarks before the new Congress starts. He also wants to avoid alienating the tea party movement and conservative activists who helped win six Senate seats for Republicans on Election Day, victories that dramatically strengthened McConnell’s hand as he plans to battle the White House over repealing health care reform, retaining Bush-era tax cuts and reining in federal spending.

Right, that’s why Americans turned against Obama and the Democrats. It wasn’t due to all the excessive taxing, borrowing, and spending, but because they wanted Republicans to do the excessive taxing, borrowing, and spending. I can’t say it’s unexpected, but it is impressively shameless.

Welcome to Washington, Tea Partiers. How do you like the feel of that dagger in your back? Kind of stings, doesn’t it.

In which a match is struck

From the Market Ticker:

“JUDGE CURLEY THE HEAD BK JUDGE IN AZ JUST RULED MINUTES AGO THAT THE BANK OF NEW YORK MELLON MUST PRODUCE THE CUSTODIAL RECORDS IN THEIR VAULT IN A CASE AGAINST AN AZ HOMEOWNER, THEREBY PRODUCING THE NOTE AND ALL OTHER DOCS. THIS IS A TRANSFORMATIONAL DECISION.”

Now we’re cooking. This decision changes literally everything – at least for Arizona. If it spreads, and it probably will, it will change everything period.

If BONY doesn’t have the documentation in their custody, with proper endorsements, then there’s gonna be trouble. You can bet the banks will try to bury notice of this way off the front page, but they’re not going to get away with it.

The key issue here has always been whether the people buying these securities were really buying what they thought they were – and maybe whether they were buying anything at all. If BONY can’t produce the documents because they don’t have them, and cannot prove up ownership of the note with proper endorsements, the lid is going to come off this thing.

Between the insolvency, the fraud, and the mark-to-fantasy, it’s always just been a matter of time before Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo, and JP Morgan Chase go down in spectacular flames. TARP didn’t save them, Quantitative Easing I didn’t save them, Quantitative Easing II isn’t going to save them, and even if the new Republican House can be suckered into passing TARP II as their predecessors were, that wouldn’t save them either. I’ve calculated that at least $3 trillion of the $7 trillion they presently report as assets simply don’t exist. The damage has already been done and it’s time to start trying to staunch the bleeding rather than offering more pointless and costly transfusions.

One of the comments there sums up the entire problem with the US financial system in a nutshell: “Welcome to the failure of fiat wealth… where multiple exclusive claims to underlying real wealth will always become extinguished at some point in time.”

That is the key to understanding debt-deflation right there. Multiple competing claims to the underlying wealth.

Intellectual rigor mortis

Ann Althouse succinctly encapsulates why most women are so uninteresting:

Two divorced women went out walking, and what do you think they talked about? Philosophy?

I have to admit, that made me laugh. If there is anything less interesting than a divorcee, of either sex, going on and on about their former spouse more than 10 years post-divorce, it probably has something to do with organic chemistry. And yet I have no doubt that the new Divorce section of the Huffington Post and its aphoristic motto of “His happiness is a small price to pay for my freedom!” will find a large and appreciative female readership.

In reading Althouse’s post, another aphorism insensibly came to mind: “Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.” – Eleanor Roosevelt.

Unsurprisingly, Ms Ephron’s narcissistic motto is reflective of the fundamental female miscalculation that leads to so many divorces these days. First, “unhappily married adults who divorced were no more likely to report emotional and psychological improvements than those who stayed married” according to a study entitled “Does Divorce Make People Happy?” Second, even if men don’t become happier after divorce, they are materially better off, whereas the opposite is true for women according to the Institute for Social and Economic Research. “Divorce makes men – and particularly fathers – significantly richer. When a father separates from the mother of his children, according to new research, his available income increases by around one third. Women, in contrast, suffer severe financial penalties. Regardless of whether she has children, the average woman’s income falls by more than a fifth and remains low for many years.”

This is one reason why nearly three times more women are filing bankruptcy than men now. In times of investment booms and expanding wealth, everyone has an economic margin of error and can afford to do stupid things like get divorced for shallow, superficial, and ephemeral reasons. Contractionary times are considerably less forgiving and make it more important to not only have a partner upon whom you can rely, but be a reliable partner yourself as well.

On a tangential note, I suspect that many women would do well to learn from Spacebunny’s understanding that while the male mind is not wholly unconcerned with the lives of those around them, it does tend to be focused on other, more significant matters. By way of example, this morning I told her the extremely exciting news that one heroic lion of technology has ported WinApple to Android! You know what that means, that’s right, the entire Ultima series, starting with Akalabeth, on your phone. And Wizardry. And Swashbuckler. In fact, you might even be able to fit the entire Asimov achive on it! Strangely, she did not react with the celebratory glee and happy dance that one would naturally expect upon learning of such a grand leap forward in the human race’s mobile standard of living. Instead, she responded with little more than an amused smile and a complete non sequitor. “I am totally superfluous in your world.”

Now, what man could fail to love a woman who obviously knows that Call of Duty: Black Ops was released on Monday?

Debt downgrade, then mystery missiles

I don’t know about you, but I don’t find this combination of events to be particularly lifting of the animal spirits.

Acquaman notwithstanding, it seems unlikely that it was just a jet contrail… rising from the ocean. I have the impression that the Official Story tellers in Washington are having a rough time coming up with their usual fiction. I tend to think their best bet is to blame the private space consortium with which Richard Garriott is involved, give them a chewing-out for failing to properly alert the appropriate authorities, then quietly pay them to publicly support the story.

Stratfor concludes that “everything points to a missile launched by the United States”, but they find it inexplicable that no reason for launching the missile has been given yet.

A shot across the bow

And the much-expected monetary war begins… the Market Ticker reports that China has downgraded US debt:

Chinese rating agency Dagong Global Credit downgrades US credit rating due to QE program

– Cut long term US sovereign rating one notch to A+ from AA, with a negative outlook.

– “The serious defects in the U.S. economy will lead to long-term recession and fundamentally lower the national solvency. The credit crisis is far from over in the United States and the U.S. economy will be in a long-term recession. In essence, the U.S. government’s move to devalue the dollar indicates its solvency is on the brink of collapse”

The status of the U.S. dollar as the dominant international reserve currency determines that its depreciation gives an inevitable impact to the interests of all creditors. In addition to the shrinking of creditors’ assets, the utter chaos in the international currency system triggered by the depreciation of the U.S. dollar will definitely damage the interests of all the creditors in the world at various levels. Together with the possibility of inflation in the future, the wealth of creditors will be plundered once again by the malicious act of currency devaluation conducted by the U.S. government after it suffered the losses during the financial crisis since 2007.

The value fluctuation of the world’s major currencies caused by the continuous devaluation of the U.S. dollar will push the adjustment in world interest pattern through the value comparison of the monetary system. The essence is to transfer the interests of the creditors to the debtor free of charge, and that will fundamentally destroy the international credit system and global economic system comprised of the creditor system and debtor system, resulting in an overall crisis around the world.

Translation: you’re not going to rescue the big banks on our dime, Ben. By the way, notice that USD has been moving higher since the initial dive following the QE2 announcement. It’s not always as obvious as it looks. Anyhow, this could end up marking a historic moment in the struggle for 21st century supremacy. And if the pattern of history holds true, the real winner will be a third party that doesn’t get involved until throwing its weight in will close the deal.

In other words, bet on India.

Science commits suicide

This news strikes me as something that could lead to the exposure and eventual defunding of a great deal of the chicanery involved in the “climate science” scam. Only a group of intellectually isolated individuals who highly overrate their ability to influence the public would be so foolish as to transform themselves into political activists this way:

Faced with rising political attacks, hundreds of climate scientists are joining a broad campaign to push back against congressional conservatives who have threatened prominent researchers with investigations and vowed to kill regulations to rein in man-made greenhouse gas emissions.

The still-evolving efforts reveal a shift among climate scientists, many of whom have traditionally stayed out of politics and avoided the news media. Many now say they are willing to go toe-to-toe with their critics, some of whom gained new power after the Republicans won control of the House in Tuesday’s election.

The ineptness of their strategy is visible in their choice to not only abandon their home turf, but attack the very individuals who are presently providing them with most of their funding. I’m delighted to see it, of course, because it is obvous that their so-called science isn’t actually scientific and this attempt to is only going to lead to more scrutiny and less funding of the global warming gravy train.

Moreover, it will likely lead to a long-overdue diminishing of the public’s respect for science and scientists as the latter reveal their total ignorance of matters they consider to be insignificant such as economics, democracy, and human liberty. Scientists are technocratic totalitarians dependent upon government for the most part; note that both the National Socialists and the Soviet Communists historically enjoyed a good deal of support in the scientific community and few scientists had any qualms about working for such evil masters. [Science fetishists are encouraged to make their usual argument about Lysenko here.] Scientists have their uses, but only a madman or a fool would want to allow them any significant influence in government.

Speaking of climate change and economics, the market has spoken:

Global warming-inspired cap and trade has been one of the most stridently debated public policy controversies of the past 15 years. But it is dying a quiet death. In a little reported move, the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) announced on Oct. 21 that it will be ending carbon trading — the only purpose for which it was founded — this year.

Good riddance indeed. As if the global economy isn’t already facing a dauntingly high degree of difficulty.

Palin vs Bernanke

Now this is unexpected: the Wall Street Journal praises Sarah Palin’s economic acumen:

It would be hard to find two more unlikely intellectual comrades than Robert Zoellick, the World Bank technocrat, and Sarah Palin, the populist conservative politician. But in separate interventions yesterday, the pair roiled the global monetary debate in complementary and timely fashion.

The former Alaskan Governor showed sound political and economic instincts by inveighing forcefully against the Federal Reserve’s latest round of quantitative easing. According to the prepared text of remarks that she released to National Review online, Mrs. Palin also exhibited a more sophisticated knowledge of monetary policy than any major Republican this side of Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan.

Stressing the risks of Fed “pump priming,” Mrs. Palin zeroed in on the connection between a “weak dollar—a direct result of the Fed’s decision to dump more dollars onto the market”—and rising oil and food prices. She also noted the rising world alarm about the Fed’s actions, which by now includes blunt comments by Germany, Brazil, China and most of Asia, among many others.

“We don’t want temporary, artificial economic growth brought at the expense of permanently higher inflation which will erode the value of our incomes and our savings,” the former GOP Vice Presidential nominee said. “We want a stable dollar combined with real economic reform. It’s the only way we can get our economy back on the right track.”

Of course, the Wall Street Journal doesn’t consider Ron Paul a “major Republican”, but he’s the only national politician in either party, with the possible exception of his son, who fully groks what is at stake here. Still, it’s interesting to see that Palin clearly has some reasonably astute advisors on her staff. And it is downright astonishing to see a major player in global banking come right out and endorse “the barbarous relic”.

Bernanke must be sweating bullets these days. What people tend to forget to take into account when they imagine there are no limits to quantatitive easing is that in order for the Federal Reserve to monetize the debt, the Treasury has to issue it. So, it increasingly looks as if there may be an epic clash between the Fed and the Republican House majority in the works and it’s a little surprising to see Sarah Palin stake out a position against the bank.

More vibrancy in Minneapolis

Isn’t immigration wonderful! And think of all the wonderful Somali restaurants!

Twenty-nine people have been indicted in a sex trafficking ring spanning three states and allegedly run by Minneapolis-based Somali gangs. An indictment unsealed Monday in U.S. District Court in Nashville says one of the goals of the gangs was to recruit females under age 18, including some under age 14, and force them into prostitution in exchange for cash, drugs or other items. The indictment says the sex ring operated in Minneapolis, Nashville, and Columbus, Ohio.

If you are still clinging to the notion that a mere change of geographic location is sufficient to erase thousands of years of genetic and cultural influence, you are being willfully stupid. Immigration is a disaster for every country; it’s no better for the modern inhabitants of the USA than it was for the Indian tribes. It’s ridiculous to assert that the Irish, Swedish, or Italian immigrants “made America great”, as one has only to look at the historical homelands from whence they came as well as their voting records to realize that they destroyed the English concept of human liberty upon which the USA was originally founded.

The first great wave of 19th century immigration weakened America but wasn’t strong enough to kill it. The second great wave of the late 20th century finished what the first wave started, most people just haven’t realized it yet. It is ludicrous to talk of “taking America back”; the most anyone can reasonably hope for is some sort of heavily armed rump state set in Middle America that is surrounded by bankrupt, progressive, hellholes run on the Greco-Mexican model to the east, south, and west, and a progressive welfare state to the north.

The wisdom of Tucker Max

You wouldn’t imagine one could write that without irony, and yet there it is. I’ve always rather liked Tucker Max despite knowing that there is an element of, shall we say, inventive color to be found in all the satyrical shenanigans. As with Roissy, if you only pay attention to the sordid details of his controversial subject matter, you will completely miss the intelligent insights he has to offer:

Why do you think my writing is so popular? It’s honest. That’s what all the idiots who try to imitate me don’t get. It’s not about the drinking or the fucking or the crazy stories. It’s not even about the funny, as much as it’s about the honesty. No one is ever honest, but when you are, when you say the things everyone knows but won’t admit, it’s so shocking and amazing that the world can’t help but stop and look.

But here’s the thing about being honest: All the liars HATE you for it, and most of the people in the world are liars. They lie to their bosses, they lie to their families, they lie to themselves, they lie so much they don’t even know they’re lying anymore. If you have the courage to be honest–even a little bit–all those people will hate you, because your honesty reflects their lie back on them.

Oscar Wilde wasn’t kidding when he said, “If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they’ll kill you.”

I think the reason I like writers like Tucker, Roissy, and Jonah Goldberg, and why I tend to view them as something more or less akin to peers despite our varying levels of public visibility, is that we are all essentially doing the same thing in different areas. Of course, far fewer people are interested in economics and history than politics, much less sex and dating, but my approach to mainstream economics isn’t really all that different than Tucker’s approach to American sexual mores, Roissy’s approach to male mating rituals, or Goldberg’s approach to left-wing political ideology.