In hindsight, if the 2004 election were indeed so important, what would things look like if the result had been different? More specifically, would the political fortunes of the Republican Party be better or worse today if John F. Kerry had defeated George W. Bush in 2004?
I don’t think there’s any question that the Republican Party would be much better off had Bush lost in 2004. Given this, it’s hard to argue that it wouldn’t also be better off losing in 2008 as well. McCain has already shown that he can’t handle the economic situation, so even from the pragmatic perspective, it would be better to let Obama and the Democrats take the blame for the Fed’s future failures.
Ben Bernanke, chairman of the US Federal Reserve, today admitted the Government may be forced to inject billions of extra dollars into the American economy after warning of a “protracted slowdown”. Speaking before the House of Representatives, Mr Bernanke suggested that the US required another “significant” fillip to help stimulate growth after Americans were granted $168 billion worth of tax rebates in May, to encourage spending and boost consumer confidence.
A new plan would come on top of the $700 billion bailout of the country’s ailing banking sector, which includes $250 billion in funding to buy shares in American lenders.
To steal an example someone here used previously, you can’t bail out a boat by drilling holes in the bottom. Well, I guess you can, the point is that you can’t do so successfully.
Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., on Sunday guaranteed that if elected, Sen. Barack Obama., D-Ill., will be tested by an international crisis within his first six months in power and he will need supporters to stand by him as he makes tough, and possibly unpopular, decisions.
It’s nice of old Joe to let us know that, yes, the HopeChange shouldn’t lead anyone to assume that the Obama administration won’t hesitate to run the old ordo ab chao game as did its predecessors in the Bush administration. Now, given that this was a warning given to a group of hardcore Democrats, what can we assume they will consider to be distasteful.
More government spending? No. Increased government power? No. Increased taxes? No. Is there a crisis that might involve reducing government spending or lowering taxes? Not that I can think of. This leads one to conclude that Biden is referring to either yet another invasion and occupation – unlikely, given the overstretched state of the military – or a much more probable suspension of civil liberties.
Too many feeble men give in to the supposed security of marriage. They see it as panacea to their problems (including, but by no means limited to, alienation, indecision, and lack of direction and motivation). “I don’t want to be the oldest father at the school gates,” lamented one friend recently, explaining why he was getting engaged to his girlfriend, who we all know will make his life a misery.
Marriage like this is for wimps….
Incidentally, dating younger girls draws a curiously bitter response from single women my own age. I remind them that there is nice symmetry in this: every schoolboy remembers the moment at 15 when all the best-looking girls in his year decided they didn’t fancy their spotty-faced contemporaries and began dating the sixth-former with a Vauxhall Astra. It’s not revenge, exactly, but they started it.
If a man’s goals in life are fundamentally hedonistic or if his character is narcissistic, there’s simply no reason to get married anymore. The limitations on one’s life, the financial risks of divorce and a court system that is structurally biased in favor of women, and simply having to put up with female idiosyncracies on a regular basis just aren’t worth the benefits of marriage. As David Spade’s character once told his married friends: “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go do whatever I feel like doing, all the time.”
If, however, one possesses moral restrictions on one’s behavior due to one’s religious faith or philosophical principles, or believes in the importance of continuing human society, then marriage is essential. This does not, however, mean that a man need accept life as a spineless, pussy-whipped omega male at his wife’s constant beck and call. Marital faithfulness is not equivalent to female dominance of the marital relationship; if that’s the case, it’s a diseased marriage of the very sort that the writer is rightly determined to avoid. A happy marriage is one that caters to the needs of both parties, which usually means adhering more or less to the traditional model.
John McCain wasted his last-chance debate Wednesday by trying to stir up faux class rage against Barack Obama with Joe the Unvetted Plumber instead of tapping into the real class rage the country feels over bailing out ungrateful financiers who gambled away the life savings of working people.
And you’ll note that the bailout is turning out to be far more about benefitting the bankers than saving the economy. Unless, of course, the plan is to save the economy by funding the conspicuous consumption of luxury items. Anyhow, if McCain had come out hard against the bailout, he’d be 10 points ahead in the polls now. Good thing he didn’t or we’d get exactly the same administration, in white, without all the high comedy I’ve been so anticipating.
Who to start, Peyton Manning or Aaron Rodgers? Obviously, I’m hoping for a shootout, but since I have two Packers WR in the lineup, I think I’ll hedge my bet with Manning. As for the Alumni League, it looks like the old Masonville brain trust was rather superior to the present one.
VP-AFL Week 6
124 Masonville Marauders (5-1-0) 85 COS McRays (1-5-0)
112 Supernaut’s Jihad (3-3-0) 106 AZ Hammeroids (5-1-0)
108 Village Valkyries (2-4-0) 102 Bukkakelypse Boyz (3-3-0)
69 Cranberry Bogs (3-3-0) 49 Carpe Oro (1-5-0)
98 The Thunder (4-2-0) 82 Alamo City Spartans (3-3-0)
Colin Powell, a Republican who once aspired to be the first black United States president and later became one of the faces of George W. Bush’s Iraq war, has endorsed Barack Obama for the White House.
For obvious reasons, blacks don’t fear being called racist. They even have a cadre of sympathetic white academics who will argue that they can’t possibly be racist by definition. Therefore, they can always be expected to engage in normal human tribal behavior without fear of retribution or even criticism. I didn’t blog about this before because it never even crossed my mind that Powell wouldn’t endorse Obama.
I’m very much hoping that if Obama wins, he’ll pull a Denny Green and go with an all-black Cabinet, except for one token white woman running HHS. “Black is back, all in, we’re gonna win!” That would simply be too funny for words. Did I mention how much I’m enjoying this election?
As America burned itself away into the ashes of history,at least the survivors could find consolation in knowing that no one would call them racist.
Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, has declared that the government will boost its spending in an attempt to help the economy weather the recession about to grip Britain…. He spoke approvingly of plans to prop up the economy by embarking on big government-spending projects, an interventionist policy in the style of John Maynard Keynes, the 20th century economist.
Increasing government spending to escape a recession? Now, there’s a new concept! Considering that Darling’s brilliant plan has literally been textbook macroeconomics for the past five decades, what are the chances that this is somehow going to fail? Infinity to one against or Infinity squared to one?
No, it’s not a competition involving women of free favors and extensive bacterial collections, merely the latest spin on his weekly literary challenge for aspiring writers:
What do I think? I think it’s a great idea! Not only that, I’ve discussed this with Vox, and he (lower case ‘h’) has given it his blessing. Ergo, this week’s Friday Challenge is: write a short story or pastiche set in one of the worlds of, and using the almost but not quite inimitable style of, the one and only Vox Day!
Please don’t post any such challenge entries here, because in order for an entry to be considered valid and judged by the OC’s elite panel of experts it must be posted at the OC’s Ranting Room. I have no vote in selecting the winner, however, I will post both the winning entry as well as my favorite entry here on VP. These may or may not be the same one. Also, if you’re a writer, it’s worth noting that OpenOffice 3.0 is now available for download. I’ve written my last three books using OpenOffice as well as all of my columns since 2002, so there’s really no justification for throwing away money on Microsoft anymore. Click the banner below to download the new 3.0.0 and don’t forget to add the extension for PDF importing. I’ll have a review of it once I have the chance to play with it for a while.
It may be helpful to keep in mind that since I do not happen to be an author of wereseal fiction myself, a torrid romance between a strong, independent, but lonely lighthouse keeper and a handsome, rugged, but respectful wereseal is unlikely to prove successful, however well-executed. This, on the other hand, is an actual example, albeit one tainted by the OC himself:
Aboard Assault Shuttle LST(N)-14 7 November 2069, 06:00 GMT
“No, you’re wrong!” Faroukh ibn Yusef exclaimed to Walid ibn Walid. “The Prophet prohibited images of people because we are made in the image of Allah, who is infinite. Images can be reduced to binary, to numbers, thus placing a finite limitation on the infinite, which is blasphemy!”
“That’s ridiculous, Faroukh. The very concept of digital information didn’t exist until a hundred years ago. You’re saying the Prophet foresaw the development of computers? Pfah!”
A third man, like the others wearing a UN blue battlesuit that concealed all but his head, spat onto the black plaz deck. “The Prophet prohibited nothing. He communicated the vision that was sent to him through the archangel, that is all. The law is of Allah!”
Faroukh smiled. “Hamal is right, Walid. Only in modern times are we able to understand the wisdom behind that particular law. But would you dare to argue that Allah did not understand the truth of binary, even in the Prophet’s early days in the desert? And is not the nature of man’s soul itself binary, forced to choose between good and evil?”
Captain Eileen “Devil Bunny” Mahoney decided enough was enough, and butted in. “Stow it, Sergeant!” She shook her head in exasperation. Five minutes to insertion in a hot LZ, and her boys were debating the nature of God. Again
Bunny was pissed. In her initial briefing on Operation Restore Justice, she’d been relieved to learn that she’d been assigned as cadre officer to a Palestinian unit. At least the Palestians could fight, she’d thought at the time, remembering the Intra-Arab war of the 2050’s, and they never tried to eat the enemy dead, like the New Guineans sometimes did.
That was before she’d actually met her troops, and discovered that she was stuck with a bunch of would-be Sufis. And the ones who aren’t mystics want to die in battle. It’s the express ticket to Paradise.
Uh oh. Faroukh was staring at her, for daring to interrupt again. She tried to shrug it off. “Well, binary or ASCII, Faroukh, right now I’m sure Allah wants you to make sure your weapon is charged up and set on full.” She tried a smile.
Oops. Wrong move. Faroukh turned to Walid, and the two of them began jabbering heatedly in Arabic, their sparsely-bearded chins working with great vigor, their dark eyes darting narrow glances toward her.
Enough of this, Bunny decided. If I can’t get them to like me, then they damn well better respect me. She bounced to her feet. “Speak English, troop!”
Walid looked at her, with casual disdain. “Ah, the woman of scarlet has made a sound.”
ENOUGH! It was bad enough that they had to argue incessantly over the Koran. It was bad enough that they’d spent the last five days arguing over whether the current Sharif of Iran was in fact the seventh incarnation of the second imam. But she’d be damned if she let Walid call her some kind of hooker again!
Bunny charged forward, simultaneously slapping the oversized button that took her battlesuit up to full power and slamming her helmet over her head. Before Walid could react, she’d grabbed him by the gap between his breastplate and abdominal webbing, and lifted him high over her head. Walid kicked once, then relaxed, quickly realizing that even a large and angry man could not overpower a woman in a powered battlesuit.
“Get this, private,” Bunny spat out. “My name is Captain Mahoney. You will call me captain or sir. If I hear you refer to me by any other name, or if I hear you imply even one more time that I am a woman of ill repute, I will rip your genitals off with my bare hands. Is that clear?”
Walid nodded, slightly. “Yes.”
“Yes what?”
“Yessir, Captain Mahoney, sir.”
“Very good.” For a moment Bunny considered dropping him, then decided against it. It was one thing to instill some healthy fear in the man, quite another to humiliate him, especially as he might soon be standing behind her, holding a loaded weapon.
Bunny gently lowered Walid to the floor. “As you can see,” she said through the suit comm system, “my face is now properly covered, so I won’t be tempting you to sin for at least the next six hours. Will this do?”
Ron Paul appeared on CNN’s “American Morning” on Friday, pushing the same apocalyptic message he served up during the Republican primaries, with one difference. His prediction of doom makes a heck of a lot more sense now than it did then.
“This system that we’ve had since 1971 is nonviable,” he said, “and it’s coming to an end.”
Hence the world political leadership is contemplating a new Bretton Woods under the aegis of British socialist and failed Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Financial crisis followed by massive left-wing government intervention… it seems to me that we’ve heard that song before.
