Tag: politics

Newsflash: women can spend other people’s money

Forget the possibility of feigning offense, I don’t think this female Democrat understands the subtext of what she said:

A female Democratic lawmaker in footage released Sunday said Congress could pass healthcare if female lawmakers “sent the men home.”

Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (D-N.H.) said that both Republican and Democratic women members of Congress understand how to care for relatives and thus want the healthcare system to change.

“We go to the ladies room and the Republican women and the Democratic women and we just roll our eyes,” she said. “And the Republican women said when we were fighting over the healthcare bill, if we sent the men home…” at which point she was interrupted by loud applause.

I’m all for this idea. In fact, I think it should be significantly expanded. I think every male politician in America should resign his office and let the womenfolk run things for as long as they want to do so. Because that will be the fastest and easiest way to end the disastrous women’s suffrage experiment that I can imagine. There are two words that describe a matriarchal society and those two words are “grass huts”.

First, voting is not freedom. Second, voting is far from the defining aspect of a society. Would you rather have the right to vote between eating leeches and eating worms accompanied by dirty rainwater, or be served an excellent steak accompanied by an elegant red wine? The states are supposed to be the laboratory of democracy. So, let’s try a scientific experiment. In ten states, only women vote for women leaders. In ten states, only men vote for male leaders. In ten states, everyone votes everyone like it is now. In ten states, only women vote in a direct democracy. In ten states, only men vote in a direct democracy.

I would bet that the superior system would be apparent within 7 years and conclusive within two decades.

Explaining the situation

In which I explain some political realities to Mr. Scalzi:

From a purely strategic point of view, I’m not sure why they don’t just ram the thing through the House as is, fiddle with it a bit during reconciliation and get to Obama to sign it. To put it bluntly, the Democrats will look better by flipping the GOP the bird and then using the ten months until the 2010 election to get voters back on their side than showing to the voters that despite a large majority in both houses, they collapse like a flan in the cupboard at the first setback.

They don’t because they know they’ll get utterly slaughtered in the 2010 elections if they do that. Contrary to what many progressives believe, what passes for health care reform is just not massively popular in America. As it stands, Democrats should hang onto the House in the fall. If they are so foolish as to flip the GOP and the Tea Party movement the bird, they will lose it.

Of course, all either party has to do to become dominant in the near-term is run against the banks on a platform of financial and economic reform, but both are too in Wall Street’s pocket to do so.

BNP: the truth comes out

It took a while, but Daniel Hannan’s summary of the BNP’s ideology has finally percolated up to the front pages:

The trouble is that it is a national socialist party. Take a look at its 2005 election manifesto. You won’t find much about reducing the power of the state and increasing that of the individual. It has a curiously dated air of the 1960s and 1970s, with talk of controlling the commanding heights of the economy and building barriers to trade. To be kind to the BNP, one might call it a corporatist party. To put it more roughly, one might say that it is a fascist party, a Left-wing authoritarian party. One thing is certain. As a socialist party, the BNP can only be part of the problem, not part of the solution.

The important point to note is that the problem with the BNP is not that it’s a national party, but that it is a socialist one. That is why it takes votes from Labor, not the Conservatives, much less UKIP. Basically, if someone is talking about “commanding heights” in any non-military sense, there is approximately zero chance he is right-wing.

Mailvox: light up, it’s legal

Or it will be soon, anyhow. The media director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition sends the following email:

As you may know, just moments ago, the California Assembly Public Safety Committee approved a marijuana legalization bill, AB 390, by a vote of 4 – 3.

This is the first time that a state legislative committee has voted to legalize marijuana for non-medical purposes. Judge Jim Gray, who retired last year from the California Superior Court in Orange County and is a speaker for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, released this statement:

“The mere fact that there was a vote in the Assembly to regulate and control the sale and distribution of marijuana would have been unthinkable even one year ago. And if the bill isn’t fully enacted into law this year, it will be soon. Or, the bill will be irrelevant because the voters will have passed the measure to regulate and tax marijuana that will be on the ballot this November.”

This may be the first intelligent thing California has done in decades. It’s about time; now the rest of the country should legalize it too. Of course, a cynical economist might suggest that the only reason marijuana is being legalized now is that the PTBs are very eager to ensure that the citizenry is as mellow as possible before the next meltdown. Anyhow, I find it more than a little ironic that pot will probably end up being more socially acceptable than tobacco in another decade or three.

I don’t partake of the herb myself, but I am a strong supporter of drug legalization on libertarian grounds. So, this is good news even if it’s probably more driven by California’s desperate need to increase tax revenue and decrease prison spending than anything else.

Pederasts and their atheist enablers

I found it difficult to believe that Uganda was on the verge of passing a law that would require the death penalty for merely being homosexual as various atheist sites have been reporting, especially since by all reports it is an extremely popular law. Unsurprisingly, about thirty seconds of research revealed that the critics of the law have played a little fast and loose in their portrayal of it. While homosexuality is illegal in Uganda and has been for more than 100 years, the death penalty attached to the new law is primarily intended to stop the homosexual rape of children and the disabled and passing on the HIV virus.

Given that Uganda is one of the third-world countries presently targeted by sex tourists and the country also passed laws against cannibalism and sex tourism recently, it should be perfectly clear that the law involves more than societal hatred for homosexuals. Now, I don’t support capital punishment in criminal law because I believe giving the state the power of life or death over its citizens is an inherently dangerous idea. Nor do I understand how locking up homosexuals in same-sex prisons is supposed to be an effective deterrent. I would not support a law like the anti-homosexuality bill being enacted in the United States since legality is not morality and homosexuals should be free to choose Hell in their own way, just like everyone else is.

However, the more pressing question is not why some Western Christians would fail to denounce this law, but rather, why those who so vehemently oppose it are defending the right of gay pedophiles to rape children. Now, it’s perfectly reasonable to take a position opposing the long-term jailing of individuals for the crime – and in Uganda, it has long been a crime – of engaging in homosexual acts, although it’s not actually all that reasonable unless you are normally in the position of expressing your opinion regarding Ugandan law. But life sentences for practicing homosexuals is clearly not the only thing most of these sites are complaining about because they are specifically referencing the death penalty.

This reaction against what is clearly a very popular law in Uganda highlights the anti-democratic aspect of Western progressivism. If the great majority of people in Uganda don’t want to put up with homosexuality, why should they? It’s clearly the sacred Will of the People, after all. And more importantly, how is this of concern to anyone who doesn’t live in Uganda, barring those who will have to give up their pedophile safaris in the future? Given their opposition to such laws, you would think that banning the mass importation of Ugandans and other like-minded third-worlders who will support similar laws here in the United States would be a more urgent issue, but ironically, importing third-worlders is a policy favored by most progressives.

There is, of course, a perfectly rational solution to the situation. Since Uganda doesn’t want its gays, and American progressives insist that gays and immigrants are good for a community, why don’t progressive communities across America simply encourage gay immigration from Uganda? Everyone wins! And it’s eminently practical too, since Uganda’s estimated 500,000 gays would make up less than one-third of the 1.8 million foreigners who annually immigrate to America.

Adios 401k

The Market Ticker smells smoke coming out of the treasury market:

Now this is a guaranteed rape job. In a short conversation this noontime that CNBC apparently has omitted from their archives (Why’s that folks?) Rick Santelli was talking about a potential to effectively force money into the Treasury market. Where would they get this?

From your 401k and IRA accounts!

I find it very difficult to believe that the fiscal and monetary authorities would be that stupid. On the other hand, perhaps they’re just that desperate. California is on the verge of melting down again, house prices are looking ready to start collapsing soon, and the only reason that U3 unemployment isn’t worse is because the size of the labor force continues to shrink despite continued immigration.

Iceland defies the vampire squids

A few politicians are finally beginning to listen to the people rather than the banksters:

Iceland will hold a referendum on a depositor accord with the U.K. and Netherlands after President Olafur R. Grimsson blocked the bill in a move that threatens to undermine the island’s efforts to repair international relations.

“The constitution is very clear about the need for a referendum in this situation,” Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir told reporters in Reykjavik today.

Grimsson vetoed the so-called Icesave accord after more than 60,000 of Iceland’s 320,000 inhabitants signed a petition urging him to reject the legislation. The bill, which polls show about 70 percent of the population opposes, had obliged Iceland to use $5.5 billion in borrowed funds from the U.K. and Netherlands to cover depositor claims from the two countries after the failure of Landsbanki Islands hf in October 2008. The absence of clear cross-border regulatory rules on depositor insurance has allowed settlement of the claims to drag on and left Icelandic taxpayers disgruntled over having to pay for the failure of a private bank.

Why should all the people of Iceland be responsible for paying 40 percent of their annual GDP on behalf of the 22 people who owned the failed Icelandic bank? Why should they be held responsible for paying off the Dutch and UK governments just because the Dutch and UK politicians decided to prevent Dutch and UK investors from suffering the negative consequences of their bad investment decisions? The truth is that there is no reason whatsoever, and the Icelandic people should call the banking community’s bluff; the banks need borrowers more than the borrowers need banks. And even in the unlikely event that the financial isolation threat is carried out, in the long run the Icelandic people will be much better off without having the vampire squids constantly draining their economy of its profits. They will be even better off if they use this incident to stay out of the EU.

“Britain warned Iceland that it would be frozen out of the European Union after its President abruptly vetoed the repayment of a £3.6 billion loan.”

I seem to recall that 70% of the American public opposed TARP. And I imagine an even higher percentage will oppose SuperTARP once they realize that the White House just opened up the floodgates for a continuous banking bailout via Fannie and Freddie. So, it’s interesting to see this demonstration in real-time of which countries are genuinely democratic and which are not.

Wikipedia and the warming scammers

The latest editing scandal underlines the inherent problem with Wikipedia and why it is intrinsically unreliable:

Through his role as a Wikipedia administrator, Connolley is said to have created or rewritten 5,428 unique Wikipedia entries.

“When Connolley didn’t like the subject of a certain article, he removed it – more than 500 articles of various descriptions disappeared at his hand,” Solomon wrote. “When he disapproved of the arguments that others were making, he often had them barred – over 2,000 Wikipedia contributors who ran afoul of him found themselves blocked from making further contributions.”

….A Wikipedia arbitration committee has stated in the past: “William M. Connolley has, on a number of occasions, misused his administrator tools by acting while involved.”

If Wikipedia doesn’t immediately remove Connolley’s administrative privileges and ban him from ever editing Wikipedia again, this will conclusively prove that it is nothing more than a propaganda device, not an encyclopedia. When one dishonest ideologue is permitted to run roughshod over 2,000 other individuals, the pretense of democratic openness simply cannot be maintained. Any doubts about the fictional nature of global warming should not be difficult to see by this point, as is the left-wing nature of the charlatans. Those who are telling the truth are seldom interested in scrubbing the history books, and rewriting accurate history is the one of the Left’s signature characteristics.

UPDATE: The good news is that apparently Wikipedia hasn’t entirely given up on the idea of providing accurate information to the masses:

In September 2009, the Wikipedia Arbitration Committee revoked Mr. Connolley’s administrator status after finding that he misused his administrative privileges while involved in a dispute unrelated to climate warming.

A rational metric

Karl Denninger proposes one at the Market Ticker:

[T}his is where government and regulatory interests align to the detriment of economy stability: Governments want to see big GDP increases, and increasing leverage (amount of borrowing outstanding in the economy for a given GDP level) is one way to do this.

The best way to control this trend would be to mandate (by law) that GDP be adjusted to reflect leverage changes in the economy – that is, if debt goes up by 4% of GDP then the 4% has to come off the reported GDP numbers.

The reason this isn’t tenable, of course, is that it would make it clear that we’re well into the economic contraction of massive proportions that is beginning to become visible despite the best efforts of the governments and banks to statistically obfuscate.