To Infinity! And Beyond!

Oh yeah, baby. Now we're really talking.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says he believes the U.S. debt ceiling should be eliminated in a new interview with Bloomberg’s Al Hunt.

“Do you agree with Alan Greenspan that we ought to just eliminate the debt ceiling?” Hunt asks Geitner.

“Oh, absolutely,” he replies.

Print money endlessly. There's no reason not to! Just hand out money to the poor morning, noon and night! That's what real compassion is.

Restraints are only OK if you're talking about sadomasochism. And in that case, they should be Federally funded!

A Statistic

While noodling a post looking back on 2012 as a year of ignorance and denial, I Googled "single mother poverty" and found this site wherein was this statistic.

Income: Half of single mother families have an annual income less than $25,000. Median income for single mother families ($24,487) is only one third the median for married couple families ($77,749).

Under the hypothesis that we theocratic prudes don't have enemies, just future converts who need to be educated, that might be a decent stat to throw around the next time someone brings up the issue of income inequality. It's simple and to the point.

Cheezburger of the Day

Looking at this one, I can't recall the last time I gave our Maximum Leader a bath. That's probably a good thing all around.

Five Things You Can Do To Help Resolve The Hamas - Israeli Conflict In Gaza

Well, the missiles are flying again and bombs are being dropped. That's icky! It needs to stop because war is not the answer. After the success of the social media revolution in Egypt and Leading from Behind in Libya, we thought we'd make some suggestions for things you can do to bring peace to Gaza.

1. "Like" both sides on Facebook.
2. Create some funny captioned images and share them with people from both sides online.
3. Eat less red meat.
4. March and chant while carrying signs.
5. Listen to Pete Seeger songs while reading what Bono has to say about the conflict and nodding your head.

Feel free to add your own ideas in the comments. If we all work together, there's nothing we can't do!

Some Thoughts On Texas Secession

So Texans are getting semi-serious about secession. I've started wondering what would happen if they got really serious and began voting on it. How far would the Federals go this time to prevent a breakup of the Union?

In Chechnya, they wanted to secede, but the Russians didn't want to let that happen. The Russians went in and flattened the place. Can you imagine Barack Obama ordering that under any circumstances? Can you imagine any president ordering it? Wouldn't it be more likely that the rest of us would want to get back to our bongs and gay pride parades and let them leave?

I'm guessing we wouldn't be willing to go this far.

Second, if things got out of hand and there were some accidental massacres of innocents, imagine what Texan secessionists might be able to do to Federal infrastructure outside of Texas. Aqueducts, train tracks, SAM attacks on jetliners, freeway bridges over canyons, there's a lot of indefensible stuff out there and weapons favor insurgencies now much more than they did in the 1860s.

Third, how would you move your troops and how many of them would fight? The states surrounding Texas are pretty sympathetic to the cause and the military is disproportionately Southern in demographics. There aren't many Berkeley socialists' kids picking up rifles and shovels these days.

The red-blue county map from the election. That's a lot of hostile red territory right there. Supply lines would be threatened at all points.

Finally, what would be the Federals' rallying cry? Here are some options:

• Save Dodd-Frank!
• Gay marriage or death!
• Make them pay their fair share!
• Keep Church and State perfectly separate everywhere!

Therein lies the biggest problem for the Federals. When the rebellion is against shapeless, all-enveloping statism, there's not much to rally public opinion behind what would be a very nasty war. There would be no simplifying cause like slavery this time. It would just be an attempt to save a ginormous, sightless, all-consuming grub of Federal regulations and taxes.

Would you be willing to let your child die for that?

For Dean

In reference to this.

That's It?

Not surprisingly, the math doesn't work.

President Barack Obama will begin budget negotiations with congressional leaders Friday by calling for $1.6 trillion in additional tax revenue over the next decade, far more than Republicans are likely to accept and double the $800 billion discussed in talks with GOP leaders during the summer of 2011.

$1.6T over 10 years is $160B per year or about 15% of our current deficit. So much for coming even close to a balanced budget by soaking the rich. $160B will be absorbed instantly by even the most modest increase in interest rates.

Time to print more money. Lots more.

Politics Uber Alles

Harold Meyerson, writing in the LA Times, has a take on the Democrats becoming a super majority in California. It's all the standard race and gender stuff, with plenty of hard numbers to prove the point. For me, this is the payoff paragraph.

More sentient Republicans now say the party needs to modify its position on immigration. But a deeper look into the politics of the increasingly young and multicolored electorate suggests that the GOP is estranged from this new America on more issues than just immigration. The exit polling on Proposition 30, the tax hike on the wealthy promoted by Gov. Jerry Brown to keep the state's schools and universities from further disastrous budget cuts, shows key elements of the Democrats' new majority consigning the old Howard-Jarvis-no-tax-hike California to history's dustbin. Voters under 30 supported Proposition 30 at a 67% rate, and Asian Americans gave it 61% support.

The entire article is about politics. Winning, losing, success, failure, it's all about the politics. There's no connection at all to real life where California is at the bottom of most non-political statistics - education performance, debt loads, credit ratings, shrinking tax base, etc. Reality doesn't enter into the equation at all. "More sentient Republicans" would focus on winning elections and stop worrying about all of this performance nonsense.

In the near future, probably before the next election, reality will have its say.

Warm And Happy

What Is The Most Dangerous High School Sport?

I would argue that the sport that results in the most injuries is cross country. My daughter tried it this season and didn't run more than 30% of the time, what with knee problems and shin splints. Most of her teammates ended up with similar injuries. She's played club soccer for five years and while we've seen some injuries, it's been nothing like the total carnage of cross country.

A typical cross country meet

When You're Less Attractive Than Somalia, You've Got Big Problems

In answer to my rhetorical question in a previous post, yes indeed, Greeks are leaving Greece. And where are they going? Well, anywhere but Greece. Dig this.

Ryssdal: Why are you leaving Greece?

Oikonomides: I'm leaving Greece because I've been unemployed for a year and a half and I haven't had paid employment for two years. So I don't really have a choice, I need to have a job.

Ryssdal: And where are you going to go?

Oikonomides: I work in education and emergencies, so I will be going back to my old job, which is education programs for refugees and displaced people. That's going to be in Kenya and the three areas of Somalia.

Well OK then. Somalia it is!

I spent a little time clicking around the Interweb Tubes, reading stories like this. The theme is that if they just spend a little time away from Greece, things will sort themselves out and they'll be able to move back home.

Why?

If skilled and ambitious people leave, how are Greece's problems going to get solved?

Who is John Galt?

If You Were Greek

... and you saw the rioting over the latest round of budget cuts, wouldn't you leave the country?

Watching this, you would think that anyone with marketable skills and the ability to pack up and go is leaving the country to get to somewhere more hospitable. That would leave Greece with government employees, the rich in guarded compounds and the dependent class.

The financial flight is just the beginning. It's the flight of human capital that really dooms you. Even if the country manages to get itself under control, is there going to be anyone left who can make a go of it?

Someone should write a book about this.

Does Compassion Require Sacrifice?

The day before the election, a dear friend of mine posted how she was a proud liberal, full of compassion for the less fortunate. But was she? She was voting to have the Federal Reserve print trillions of dollars that her favored politicians would then hand out to the poor. She didn't have to do anything. Nothing was expected of her - no fasting, no sacrifices, nothing. The goodies all appeared magically so the government could give them away.

Is that compassion or is that self-delusion? Is she just being compassionate within the rules of the game? After all, since we have a fiat monetary system - our money is not tied to any commodity - is compassion handing out money no matter where it comes from?

In the end, she felt compassionate today. Tomorrow she'll feel the stagflation and respond to it with either a fiscal awakening or more "compassion."

Blue On Blue Fighting

In Athens, pro-government forces are rioting against other pro-government forces as one side attempts to force its will on the other through political violence.

Oddly enough, that sentence works equally well no matter which side you're on.

The Greek government voted to cut more money from the its budget so it could get its hands on another bailout. That triggered a lower level of beggars to fight a higher level of beggars. That's nested awesomeness right there, boys and girls!

Party on, dudes!

It's The iPad Mini!

Seen On Facebook

Holy Toledo.

Sorry progressives, but if you're going to embrace fascist economics, fascist regulatory strictures and now fascist iconography, you might as well change your name to fit. A new slogan might be a good idea, too.

Patria Socialista, baby.

A Prediction For The 2014 and 2016 Elections

In 2 years and 4 years, the world will be wildly different than it is today. The issues more dramatic, the choices starker. Conclusions drawn from last night will be almost meaningless. Talking politics for the time being will be a waste of time.

This is happening all over the world and when it stops, everything is going to change.

Elsewhere: WC Varones has the best post-election analysis I've seen yet.

That Was One Of The Worst Nights Of My Life

Instead of watching the election returns, I decided to watch some English Premier League soccer on foxsoccer.tv. Hoping to enjoy some schadenfreude at the expense of Queens Park Rangers, I chose the Reading-QPR game. Horrible. Just horrible.

The moral of the story: If you have a chance to watch two terrible teams play soccer, DON'T!

Why I'm Voting For Mitt Romney Today

... because when Sister Clare and her fellow nuns minister to the poor, the sick and the needy they do so regardless of the faith of the people they're helping. They do it in imitation of Jesus. They have chosen a difficult life, a life of service and self-denial for the sake of their faith. To say that they are not a religious organization or that their actions are not that of a religious organization because they, like Christ, serve all, is an injustice. Worse than that, it marks a watershed moment in American governance where we turn away from a free, constitutional republic to fascism. There is no practical societal value in redefining them and their work, it is only to enforce the government's moral orthodoxy upon independent people.

I have no desire to live under fascist tyranny.

For the protection of the Sisters and other religious organizations from governmental intrusions and attacks, I'm voting for religious freedom. I'm voting for Mitt Romney.

Zebrafish Larva Heartbeat

I was clicking around, looking at sample Drupal sites for a project at work when I came across this video. I thought it was pretty cool. Enjoy.