Whatsthatsmell?

Why does this seem so current?

I've been going through my MP3 collection making playlists for syncing to my brand new MP3 player...Came across this old gem from Camper Van Beethoven which kind of seemed to strike a chord about the current politico-economical scene, it reminded me of  Barack Obama for some reason:

The Ambiguity Song

Everything seems to be up in the air at this time
Everything seems to be up in the air at this time
One day soon, it'll all settle down
Everything seems to be up in the air at this time
All across the nation, people are gettin' together
From many ideas they form a single goal
Some people are gonna benefit
And others gotta sacrifice
But everything seems to seems to be up in the air at this time

Sorry it's been quiet...

Not felt like blogging of late.  Lots of stuff to observe and comment on, but no will...

I think it may have a lot to do with the fact that we are watching the end of the world as we know it, and I'm just getting my head around it (and building up my grab-and-go box, just in case.)

I think there are a few things that will affect me directly, and perhaps get exacerbated by the potential nationalisation of everything and the potential presidency of Obama.  Kind of scary.

For one, my anticipated return to the US may be put off for a while, as this whole mess sorts itself out.  It may take longer to get sorted if the wrong policies are pursued (such as a tax hike on "rich" people.)  This is a very real possibility; as one commentator pointed out, there are far-left Democrats in Congress who have been waiting decades for a like-minded POTUS to help them re-engineer America.  Even if Obama is a "moderate", which seems unlikely given his past associations and self-admitted dabblings in Marxism, he is not strong enough to stand up to the apparatchiks in his party.

I really hope I'm wrong, because this could potentially be very problematic, because they are not going to be Fabian in their approach, like almost all good idealogues who finally get their way, they are going to overplay their hand.  And I don't think the American people are the sorts to take things sitting down.  A recent survey, for instance, put American opposition to the redistribution of wealth at about 85%.  85% of the US population is to the right of the Democrat Party platform.  And a lot of them are armed.

And, outside of the government, there isn't going to be a lot of job creation in the US with a Reid-Pelosi-Obama leadership.

The Republicans were dip-sh**s when they were running Congress.  And now we are all going to pay.

 

 

And this economic thing...A lot of Europeans are patting themselves on the back because they avoided this nasty subprime business that's happened in the US.  But as we are seeing the beginning of the end to the problems in the US, we are seeing the end of the beginning for Europe.  Where do you think all that bad debt ended up?  European institutional investors have always preferred debt over equity as investment vehicles.  Those lovely subprime loans looked really tasty a couple of years ago.

Plus the European banks have their own sub-prime messes to muddle through in the Baltics and the Balkans.  The European banking system is teetering completely on the edge.

Why do you think they are dictating to Bush that the US has to come along?  So that when their own systems go tits-up, the US's will too.  Unlike Britain and the US, the European systems have already been nationalized or at least collectivized (as in Germany) to the extent that the banks and private industry are so intertwined that they cannot be considered separate sectors.

So I haven't been of cheery mien of late.  But as with everything, this too, shall soon pass.  But what will take its place?

Democracy in action...

Well, It's that time of the election cycle again.  I have just finished filling out my U.S. absentee ballot, and I just wanted to show my British friends how much of a dearth of local accountability there is in the Democratic Socialist Republic of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.  

Here is a breakdown of the roles and laws I voted for, in a state with 9.5 Million people (less than the population of Greater London) and a county with a population of c. 800,000 (less than that of Birmingham):

1   US President 
1   US Senator
2   State Public Service Commissioners
1   US Representative
1   State Senator
1   State Representative
1   District Attorney
1   Probate Court Judge
1   Superior Court Clerk
1   Sheriff
1   Tax Commissioner
1   Chief Magistrate
1   County Commission Chairman
1   County Commissioner
1   County Board of Education
2   State Supreme Court Justices
3   State Court of Appeals Judges
5   County Superior Court Judges
4   County State Court Judges
2   County Soil and Water Conservation Supervisor
3   State Constitutional Amendments
1   County Sales Tax to fund development

36  Total Positions and Laws

What did I vote on at the last British General Election?

1   Member of Parliament
1   Member of European Parliament
1   County Councillor
1   Town Councillor

And one wonders why the British electorate are, mostly, apathetic.

What a butthead...Delayed reaction...

I watched the Daily Show last Friday on More4.  They usually show it here in the UK a couple of days after showing it in the States. 

Most of the time, I completely disagree with the editorial slant taken by the Daily Show, but I still find it extremely funny.  Jon Stewart, the host, is a funny guy, and his delivery is tops, and most of the stuff he pokes fun at is fair game, and can often have me laughing hysterically, despite his mostly ripping into "my side".

Since the announcement of Sarah Palin as Vice Presidential candidate, however, it just hasn't been funny.  I am open-minded enough to appreciate good comedy even when it "offends" one's beliefs and sensibilities.  But most of the shows since the day after the Democratic Convention have been nothing but angry, ugly, sneering, elitist ranting.  The Manhattan bien pensants ripping into someone from Middle America because she isn't like one of them, is the impression I get.  The underlying implication being that as she is from outside their rarefied world then she must be ignorant and not as worldly as the clever clogs that are writing the material on the show.

Well, Friday night's interview with Tony Blair showed just how knowledgeable and worldly Jon Stewart is when no one is writing his lines.  Within the space of five minutes, he made, in my eyes, two of the stupidest "ignorant" American mistakes about geography and history.

First, when Tony Blair explained that he was now teaching at Yale, Stewart asks, "So, do you prefer getting paid in Dollars or Euros?"  Blair politely informed him he prefers British Pounds.

Later, when Blair explained that no two democracies had ever gone to war, Stewart, with a clever smarmy tone, asked "Aren't Britain and Argentina democracies?"

Blair pretended not to hear it, yet Stewart pressed on.  Blair had to inform Stewart that at the time of the Falklands War, Argentina was a dictatorship.

You know, I don't mind people being slightly ignorant of these things, in the grand scheme of American life and culture, these things don't matter.  What I do take issue with is people like Stewart pretending they are more clever than they actually are and making unfounded assumptions about other people's levels of ignorance on the basis of ideology and calling it comedy.

What a tosser.

Actually, that is the problem with many on the Left (I should know, too, I used to be one).  They assume that they are smarter than EVERYONE on the other side of the aisle.  They use smarmy tones to talk down to people they don't agree with, and then they can't figure out why they lose elections.  We're in store for another four years of liberal bleating about stolen elections.

The economy's tanking, George Bush is low in approval ratings, the Republicans are on the backfoot in Congress, the Iraq War is not particularly popular as a political issue, and 80% of the population think the country is going in the wrong direction.

And Obama is only leading by a few percentage points in the polls?  At this point, he should be 15-20 points ahead of McCain.  Who's clever now?

Just thinking out loud...

I'm wondering how instructive it would be for some regulatory body to look into recent stock market transactions by employees of a particular bank that's about to get taken over...

Just saying...

Is it possible for Libertarians not to be Utopian?

It was Ronald Reagan that said: "The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally"

How about when that person agrees with you more than 90%?

I was waiting to see what this lot would come up with in regard to Defence, Immigration and other issues...Their Manifesto is now available and contains wording which floats my boat.

On Immigration:

Totally free movement of people into the UK is not practical whilst we have a large welfare state and other countries are themselves not broadly Libertarian in nature. In line with the Rule of Law, a transparent, consistent points based system is one of our key proposed measures to humanely manage migration.

I was expecting to see them embrace the wholesale opening of our borders in fundamentalist Libertarian form.

On Defence:

Our aim is to ensure a strong, independent, sovereign nation. This requires a well funded, trained and equipped professional Armed Forces (both full time and Reservist), geared for the defence of our nation and shipping.

I wasn't expecting much here, either, but this is a stronger plank than the Tories.

And on the Constitution:

The Libertarian Party is committed to reassert the primacy of our Bill of Rights and Common Law system over the Napoleonic system that has encroached from the continent in recent years.

There is actually some very patriotic aspects to this brand of Libertarianism.

Maybe worth a further look.

Genuinely excited...

What a perfect pick for a Vice Presidential candidate: Sarah Palin.

Hugh Hewitt summed it up beautifully:

When the Dems come after Palin for inexperience in foreign affairs, the reply will be obvious --the GOP vice-presidential nominee is as experienced as the Democratic presidential nominee but also has executive decision-making that Obama lacks.  

Palin's  tough stance on reform of long corrupt practices is going to give her a very clear advantage over practiced cronyists Obama and Biden.

And she knows the crucial energy issue very, very well, as well as a variety of land-use and property rights issues dear to many in the crucial mountain west.

I have to say, I am genuinely excited about this.  A real coup for McCain.

Sent to the Newsnight Editorial staff...

I am writing regarding the Jerome Corsi interview the other night. 

I was extremely disappointed by the refutations of Corsi's assertions.  Your only source for the refutations seemed to be the Obama campaign's own poorly constructed 50-page tome which was economical (to say the least) with the truth in many places.

When that didn't seem to refute Corsi's assertions effectively, Ms. Wark reverted to ad hominem attacks on Corsi.  I am not a fan of Corsi's at all; in fact I understand him to be a conspiracy nut and an anti-Catholic bigot. 

However, there is a very good reason the mainstream American press is going nowhere near his book or the book by David Freddoso: they are afraid of what they will find under those rocks when they do something as simple as a Lexis-Nexis search on local Chicago newspapers -   something that anyone who claims the mantle of journalist should know how to do.  A secondary school teacher would have failed an expository essay which used only the candidate's word as a refutation.

If serious allegations of corruption were levelled against a British politician, I am certain that you would have done more research than taking the politician's word for it.  Your interview and treatment of Corsi betrayed nothing but shear partisanship and a lack of journalistic integrity in covering the American elections.  I've come to expect this from the rest of the "serious" British press (with the notable exception of the Times' editorial page), but for some reason, I was expecting more from Newsnight.

Obama is not an agent of change and, instead, comes from two of the most unpalatable persuasions of American political life: Chicago machine politics and '60s radical chic.  And a cursory inspection of those people with whom he associated on his rise would throw up some serious questions about his integrity, particularly when he claims to be a uniter.

I am warning you now, please do not be upset, like the rest of the press pack was in 2000 and 2004, when those rednecks in America vote for the "wrong" person in November.  There has been very little scrutiny of Obama, his past, and his record, and the next couple of weeks will throw up a lot of mud that will probably stick to him.

Regards,
James G-

Paris Hilton Responds to the Presidential Race

I might begin to reconsider who I'm voting for in November (just kiddin...) (h/t to the uncle)

See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die

Media Bias? Naaaaahhh....

Sorry bout the sparseness of posting...Schoolwork has been relentless this past couple of months (three more quarters left till graduation!!!!)

Anyway...I was listening to PM last night on Radio 4 when the reporter who is covering the US elections said something like this (not an exact quote but this is what he more or less said):

Bill Clinton accused the media of being biased in favour of Obama at Hilary Clinton's expense, which is entirely laughable...Now we just hope she does the right thing and gets out of his way.

The way the media has behaved has me doing the unthinkable: defending Hilary Clinton...Amazing.  I really do think she was robbed by Obama and the media.  It reminds me of the stitchup that David Cameron pulled on David Davis during the last Tory leadership elections.