Category: Uncategorized

Give the man his flag

I like John Scalzi, I simply don’t happen to agree with him very often. But give him his due. Every now and then, he simply knocks one out of the park:

Dear homeowners association: When a Medal of Honor recipient wants to have a flagpole in his front yard, you say “Yes, sir. By all means. Thank you, sir.” Because you know what? Dude’s earned that damn flagpole, and you all look like officious pricks for telling him he can’t have it because it messes with your neighborhood’s feng shui.

I think Heinlein may have taken things a bit far with suggesting that only veterans should vote, although it increasingly appears that his idea would almost certainly work better than the current concept of the universal 18+ franchise sans felons. But Scalzi is right. A Medal of Honor winner’s opinion about the suitability of a flag display absolutely trumps those of the persnickety sort of individuals who invariably fill the ranks of the homeowners associations of America.

Forget his flagpole. If a 90 year-old Medal of Honor winner tells you to put up a flag on your own house, the correct response is: “Yes sir, right away sir.” Combat service doesn’t make a man right, but it means he merits proper respect even when he’s wrong.

Sander’s sensible move

This is one of the few times you will ever see me speak well of a socialist politician’s actions:

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders said on Wednesday that he was placing a hold on Ben Bernanke’s nomination for a second term as Federal Reserve chairman, a move that could slow the confirmation process. If the hold is not withdrawn, the move by Sanders, an independent from Vermont, means that Senate leaders will not be able to bring up the nomination for a vote by unanimous consent. Instead, they may need to garner 60 votes in order to consider the nomination.

There is no question that Bernanke should not be reconfirmed. He is a charlatan cut from precisely the same cloth as the fraudulent Climategate “scientists”, who are claiming to be saving the world from global warming in much the same way that Bernanke claims to have saved the USA from a second Great Depression. He didn’t, he hasn’t, he has only made the situation much worse through his bankers-first policies of extend and pretend.

Mike Shedlock presents a dialogue that is a great case against Bernanke:

Bernanke: For many Americans, the financial crisis, and the recession it spawned, have been devastating — jobs, homes, savings lost. Understandably, many people are calling for change.

Mish: Ben, the reason people are calling for a change is that you and the Fed wrecked the economy. You did not see a housing bubble, nor did you foresee a recession. I would also like to point out your selective memory loss about your role in bailouts.

Bernanke: Yet change needs to be about creating a system that works better, not just differently. As a nation, our challenge is to design a system of financial oversight that will embody the lessons of the past two years and provide a robust framework for preventing future crises and the economic damage they cause.

Mish: No Ben, we need a system that works differently. You have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that you and the Fed are incompetent and cannot be trusted. Ben, here is a compilation of your own statements made from 2005-2007 proving you have no idea what you are talking about.

Understand that the Federal Reserve system is going to collapse at some point regardless of what action is taken by the Congress. But Fed’s end will be much less catastrophic to the U.S. economy if it is intentionally and deliberately shut down as happened with each of the three previous American central banks than if it is left alone to collapse under the weight of its horrific economic contradictions. Denying a second term to Bernanke would be small first step towards winding down the current monetary system and replacing it with something more stable.

And when even something as flimsy and rife for abuse as a pure paper government currency is more stable, you know the present system can’t possibly survive.

Digging deeper

Malcolm Gladwell simply isn’t smart enough to know when it’s time to throw in the towel:

First, the editorial in question made a number of other arguments that, I think, most observers would agree fall on one end of the nature-nurture continuum: that all IQ tests measure the same thing, that heredity is more important that environment in determining it, that group differences are relatively unaffected by schooling or socioeconomic factors. It also said that the IQs of different races cluster at different points, with the average IQ of blacks falling about a standard deviation lower than that of whites, and that these differences show no sign of converging over time.

Actually, first should have been Gladwell admitting that his statement about there being “no connection” between NFL draft order and quarterback performance is completely, utterly and provably false. But let’s summarize the points Gladwell makes in his continuing attempt to steer the discussion away from his egregious blunder by attacking “Stephen” Pinker. (The man’s name is actually Steven Pinker – you’d think Gladwell could get it straight by his second letter addressing Pinker’s criticism.)

1. Something Gladwell thinks about what most people would agree about an article. Who cares what Gladwell thinks about what people would agree with or not? And what does this old editorial have to do with Gladwell’s hypothesis about NFL quarterbacks anyhow? Irrelevant.

2. Only one-third of the editorial board signed the statement. BFD, especially since Gladwell doesn’t know the others “declined” to sign it, he only knows they didn’t sign it. Conclusion unsupported by facts.

3. The editorial appeared in the Wall Street Journal! Well, then it must be false, right? Genetic fallacy. And still irrelevant.

4. 14 of 52 signatories had received funding from an organization that Gladwell doesn’t like. Genetic fallacy #2. And, yes, still irrelevant.

5. I don’t know enough about a 1996 APA report on intelligence to judge if Gladwell’s summary of it is correct or not. But regardless, what does what Gladwell describes as its oppposition to “IQ fundamentalism” have to do with NFL quarterbacks and draft position anyway? All Gladwell has managed to prove proves is how far he is willing to stray from the original subject in attempting to poison the well against Pinker’s correct criticism of his egregious blunder regarding NFL quarterbacks.

However, Steve Sailer insists that there is method to Gladwell’s seeming madness:

[Y]ou’ve got to admit that Gladwell has a point: if people can make more accurate than random predictions about which college quarterbacks will be better than other college quarterbacks, then they can make predictions about more politically incorrect things, too. Thus, Gladwell wages relentless war upon predictions, upon quantitative thinking, upon science, indeed, upon that ultimate evil: knowledge.

It is no surprise that Gladwell is predisposed to attack both knowledge and the scientific fact of inherited intelligence, given how it is eminently clear that the man doesn’t possess a great deal of either.

Climategate grows

Now that Jon Stewart has weighed in, all hopes for a media stonewall on Climategate have disappeared. Scientists Hide Global Warming Data. I won’t be surprised if we see some so-called scientists going to jail over this; they have certainly stolen enough taxpayer money under false pretenses to justify long sentences.

Also, Copenhagen should be all the more interesting now that it has been reported that Denmark is the center of a carbon-trading tax scam. Denmark is the centre of a comprehensive tax scam involving CO2 quotas, in which the cheats exploit a so-called ‘VAT carrousel’, reports Ekstra Bladet newspaper. Police and authorities in several European countries are investigating scams worth billions of kroner, which all originate in the Danish quota register. The CO2 quotas are traded in other EU countries. And the fraud may be of massive proportions.

That shouldn’t be a big surprise considering that it was apparently my old friends at Enron who originally came up with the idea of cap-and-trade. Of course, this scam is still several orders of magnitude smaller than the scam that is the AGW/CC/GG industry. The fact that Australia voted down a proposed carbon trading scheme is the first indication that the charlatans are on the defensive.

Betraying the betrayers

The City belatedly realizes that when they sold out the British people, they sold themselves too. Chancellor Darling’s desperate plea for Brussels to leave London’s financial sector alone has a distinct “please don’t hit me” tone to it and is certain to fall on stone-deaf Franco-German ears:

It is too simplistic to argue that financial centres in Europe are just competing among themselves. The reality is the real competition to Europe’s financial centres comes from outside our borders. And that London, whether others like it or not, is New York’s only rival as a truly global financial centre. No other centre in Europe offers the same range of services: banking, insurance, fund management, law and accountancy. It is in all of Europe’s interests that they prosper alongside their close European partners.

Oh, it is too simplistic? Yes, surely that sophisticated argument will convince the unelected EU ruling class, who are openly drooling at the thought of taking their cut of great river of money flowing through the City, to leave London’s financial firms untouched. Meanwhile, French President Nicolas Sarkozy lost no time in declaring what the end of British sovereignty yesterday would mean for the City: “Do you know what it means for me to see for the first time in 50 years a French European commissioner in charge of the internal market, including financial services, including the City [of London]? I want the world to see the victory of the European model, which has nothing to do with the excesses of financial capitalism.”

In every revolution and betrayal, there is that intriguing moment when the now-useless revolutionary or traitor suddenly realizes that he’s been used and is about to be discarded. I think there are more than a few staunchly Europhilic politicians and bankers who are astonished today at the realization that they are not to be included among the masters of Eutopia.

Addio Albion

The bankers and bureaucrats of Brussels have accomplished what Julius Caesar, Philip II, Napoleon, and Adolf Hitler could not do:

From today, as the Lisbon treaty comes into force, we are no longer masters in our own house. Our prime minister, as a member of the European Council, is obligated under this new treaty to promote the aims and objectives of the European Union, over and above those of the UK, and is bound by the rules of the Union.

Of course, this will make no immediate difference. It simply renders de jure what has been de facto for several decades, but the coming into force of the treaty marks an important symbolic turning point. We are no longer an independent country, de jure. Our prime minister and his government are now working for an alien government, based in Brussels.

Not only is the empire on which the sun never set long gone, Britain itself is no more than a conquered island and a subject people. This time, no Nelson, no Wellington, no Churchill arose to defend the British people. It is a tragic moment in history, and one that will cause more tragedy in the future. James Higham explains why even a belated version of the once-promised referendum is unlikely to accomplish anything.

The anti-Peanuts president

Obama doesn’t want to be president anymore. I don’t see how you can possibly interpret his decision to embark upon his own Vietnam any other way:

The address before the United States Military Academy at West Point on Tuesday night will not only be used to announce the immediate order to deploy roughly 30,000 more troops, but the administration will also use the occasion to convey how it intends to turn the fight over to the Kabul government, the New York Times reported.

And with their reliably impeccable judgment, his PR handlers actually scheduled the speech to preempt A Charlie Brown Christmas. Whether you see this as accidental or part of the Left’s ongoing War on Christmas, it’s just blatantly stupid. It’s bad enough to Vietnam your presidency, but allowing yourself to be identified as the anti-Peanuts president takes it to a whole new level. This guy is going to have non-black approval ratings in the single digits by the time 2012 rolls around.

If you’d like sophisticated military analysis of the decision to put an additional 30,000 troops in pointless peril, here it is in three words: never reinforce failure.

“Magnificent Failure”

Fred of Analytical Mind reviews Summa Elvetica on Amazon:

It is generally a good idea to read any Author’s Note one comes across, but in this case it is absolutely critical to understanding what you have just read, which turns out to be all that was salvaged from a planned epic philosophical trilogy that apparently couldn’t be made to work. Given such a genesis, it is amazing just how good it turns out to be!

Theodore Beale has arguably returned high fantasy to its origins, which was a medieval world dominated by a rich and powerful Roman Catholic Church. The utter separation of church from most modern fantasy has resulted in a number of idiocies that fail to withstand scrutiny: Divine Right of Kings without a Divine, priests without gods, etc. The result is one of the most fascinating fantasy worlds I’ve ever visited, and one I’d like to revisit again in future sequels. Mr. Beale has also given us a fascinating cast of characters that I’d like to hear more from: Marcus Valerius the still-wet-behind-the-ears scholar, Lodi the dwarf, Caitlys the Lady Shadowsong, Brother Grimfang the you-won’t-believe-it-until-you-read-it, and especially Bessarias the convert. One hopes that with time Mr. Beale will see his way to producing a sequel or two, perhaps with a bit less philosophy and a bit more adventure.

It has taken me a while and two false starts that will probably turn into short stories or novellas, but I finally have a handle on how the sequel to Summa Elvetica is going to go. I’m not going to rush it or commit to a publishing date before it’s complete, so I don’t know when it will be finished, but I have been scribbling away at it in a desultory manner. The main problem was figuring out who was going to be the protagonist and how that character would relate to Marcus’s continuing development.

But when I realized I was blithely following the model of the my previous books – something I tend to dislike in other authors – and that it would be pointless and unimaginative to repeat the Aquinas fireworks, the possibilities opened up and led to a concept that I think will work out better in the end.

Dubai cuts loose Dubai World

Since Dubai has announced it is going to blow off the Dubai World debt, it would seem rather obvious that Abu Dhabi isn’t about to volunteer to pay it either.

Dubai revealed last week that it would seek a standstill on debt repayments for Dubai World, a sprawling company that includes property developers, investment funds and a ports operation. Dubai had previously included Dubai World’s debts within its own total sovereign debt of $80 billion but it has said it has no obligation to the company’s lenders….

Abdulrahman al-Saleh, director-general of Dubai’s Department of Finance, said: “Creditors need to take part of the responsibility for their decision to lend to the companies. They think Dubai World is part of the Government, which is not true.”

That has sparked anger among some creditors, who believe that Dubai had given an implicit guarantee that its companies were state-backed.

But… but creditors are never supposed to take responsibility for anything! Don’t those backward sheikhs understand how a modern financial system works? It’s heads the banks win, tails the taxpayers lose! I imagine there are many people facing foreclosure that can recall promises and implicit guarantees they were made by their real estate agents and mortgage bankers too. Isn’t it interesting how banks always insist that it’s only the fine print on the contract that matters, right up until that fine print doesn’t serve their interests anymore. Dubai’s actions are particularly interesting in light of how the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury have repeatedly covered the non-guaranteed debt of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac at the expense of the U.S. taxpayer.

WND column

The Dire Sign of Dubai

In 2007, the international financial elite knew very well that there were serious problems with the world’s largest banks. Perfectly good loans were being called, long-standing corporate relationships were being cast aside for short-term benefit and there was a palpable perception of something wicked on its way. While news of the so-called credit crunch was duly reported by all the major newspapers, few outside the financial world had any idea that consequences such as the meltdown of 2008 were rapidly approaching.

But if you knew what to look for, it was fairly obvious that something big and ugly was developing, which was why I wrote that “the United States was fast approaching an interesting juncture” in my WND column published March 24, 2008. In a similar manner, what appears to be the minor matter of a Dubai-based corporation requesting a six-month moratorium on its debt payments looks very much like a warning that the next stage in the global financial crisis will be upon us soon.

UPDATE – Karl Denninger notes the irony of an Arab government being more free market-oriented than the USA:

Dubai’s government said it hasn’t guaranteed the debt of Dubai World, the state-controlled holding company struggling with $59 billion in liabilities, and that creditors must help it restructure.

“The company received financing based on its project schedule, not a government guarantee,” Abdulrahman Al Saleh, director general of the emirate’s Department of Finance, said in an interview with Dubai TV, when asked whether the government was backing the debt. “Lenders should bear part of the responsibility.”