blunami

Alleged Fort Hood Shooter Frequented Local Strip Club

The Army psychiatrist authorities say killed 13 people and wounded 29 others at the Fort Hood Army Base Thursday was a recent and frequent customer at a local strip club, employees of the club told FoxNews.com exclusively.

It's still unclear to me--though a pattern seems to be emerging--if Major Hasan shot up Fort Hood out of a sense of Islamic Jihad.

On the other hand, we do know the 9/11 hijackers all visited strip clubs prior to committing their acts.

So I have a modest proposal: make strip clubs mandated reporters.

Andrei's daily twitter log is brought to you via LoudTwitter

• 16:21 I am now the only conscious person in the house. Well, if you don't count the furry little priestess of bast sitting in the puzzle box. #
• 21:29 Whee, low energy, dizzy, temperature sensors completely wonked, queasy... And really can't afford to take time off. #donttalktomeaboutlife #
• 22:29 Babies cry in their "Mother" tongue... Who knew? tr.im/EzQn #

P.S. Anyone notice the posting time? It's relevant.

State Worker Beat Up At SEIU Meeting

SEIU 1000, by the way, represents (amongst other people) the teachers who are teaching your children. Clearly they've decided to set an example for our children on dispute resolution.

I point out this video so we can have a friendly 3-minute reminder how a bill becomes a law. This is important since last night, Nancy Pelosi managed to get her version of the health care reform bill passed through the House of Representatives through a metric shitload of arm-twisting, and then only by the skin of her teeth: Sweeping Health Care Plan Passes House

The vote was 220 to 215 in the house. Remember that Democrats outnumber Republicans 258 to 177. And also remember that not a single Republican voted for the bill (Update: One did: Rep. Cao (R-LA), who broke ranks after arm twisting from Obama on Louisiana reconstruction funds)--which, if you are into reading constitutional tea leaves means this is purely a political vote by the Democrats to placate the base. There is no way a real bill actually intended to be passed into law would be passed through a straight party vote with DNC defectors. (The political reality is that there are Republican districts whose voters want health reform--so if the intent was to actually pass this bill, there would be a non-zero GOP vote.) Because politics is local and fuzzy and unpredictable, it's clear this straight-party vote was done as a fundraiser issue rather than as a real attempt to pass health care reform.

(Reminder: "fundraiser issues" are issues for which there is strong support by members of the party, but where there is no intent at the national level to change the status quo. So, for example, abortion is a "fundraiser issue": there is no way the abortion status quo or Roe v. Wade will ever change (beyond in very small, insignificant ways)--yet the threat of overthrowing Roe v. Wade fills both DNC and GOP coffers with tons of re-election cash.)


Further, the Senate is also considering it's own version of Health Care. So unless the Senate drops the Senate Bill and adopts the newly voted-on House Bill verbatim (requiring two separate motions, one to adopt and one to pass), it is inevitable that whatever bill eventually passes the Senate (if anything does) it must go to a joint House/Senate committee to reconcile the two separate bills into a single bill. And the reconciled bill then goes back to the House and Senate for another floor vote--and if either bill is modified in a way which doesn't match the other, we go back into the joint reconciliation committee, and around and around and around...

The Senate is of course a wild card in this: the DNC only has a 60-vote caucus that is theoretically filibuster proof because Senator Joe Lieberman (I-Conn) has chosen to caucus with the DNC. And guess who has threatened to filibuster health care reform if it contains a public option?


Naturally the one advantage of a House vote (even a straight line party vote) is that it brings us one step closer to a compromise bill. And theoretically in the reconciliation process we can move to a place where a better bill (rather than the crap being tossed around now) can be hammered out--or the shortcomings can be advertised sufficiently to allow health care reform to be stopped at little cost to the DNC, who has (thanks to Nancy Pelosi's arm twisting) has gone "all-in" with health care reform containing a public option.


If this bill ever passes it will be a marathon--and we're only passing the second mile marker.

Andrei's daily twitter log is brought to you via LoudTwitter

• 10:16 Utterly DOOMED. Wife suggested we go to the "Z--O--O--" Aiden looks up and says, "ZOO! Z--O--O--" Come on people... 3! And got the spelling! #
• 10:48 No, not broken. Just some fun number geekery that @livingartist and I both like watching for. twitpic.com/omk2y #
• 11:09 Indian summer in St. Louis. 73 and beautifully clear out. twitpic.com/omn8t #

P.S. Anyone notice the posting time? It's relevant.

Andrei's daily twitter log is brought to you via LoudTwitter

• 10:23 So hard to post something as my last update to Twitter was #2000. Looks like I'm in for at least another 999 after this one. #
• 10:48 How much trouble do I get in when I realise that I can categorise the following unit of measurement equation: 1 millimile = 1 courtney #
• 17:51 Pagan employee fired for being "A Devil Worshiper" after taking Samhain off. Manager to get federal foot up the ass: tr.im/EnPw #
• 01:53 Pushed thru meds haze. Stayed awake long enough to intercept boy's early wake up. Just need to wait him back down. Then try to sleep myself. #

P.S. Anyone notice the posting time? It's relevant.

Posts made before Obama was elected President, so you know my amazing powers of observation.

(2008)-- Basic principle of economics in an economic slowdown: Marginal Players, Efficient Players

In micro-economic terms, a "marginal player" is any economic entity (such as a company) who is barely hanging on. Maybe because its business caters to only a small subset of customers; perhaps it's because it sells a product for more than the guy down the street. But "marginal players"--that is, companies who are barely hanging on and barely making payroll are the first companies to be wiped out when the economy downturns. Likewise, "efficient players" are economic entities who, by virtue of their product or their customer base, are making such a good profit that when things go south, they not only keep doing well, but their business can even jump as people switch from the marginal players to the efficient players in a market.

In other words, when the economy is fucked, the rich (efficient players) get richer, the poor (marginal players) get poorer.

These recessions are sometimes necessary: (2006)-- Recessionary cycles

Because you cannot have perpetual growth, because inefficient players gum up the works, eventually you must have recessionary cycles where growth is curtailed, the economy is allowed to shrink, and the inefficient players are knocked out of the economy like barnacles which encrust an otherwise sleek and smooth sailing ship.

It's sad and painful when there is a recession, but occassional recessions cause the purging of the dross that has clung to the ship of the economy. And that is necessary for the ship of the economy to survive and ultimately thrive.

---

Why do I bring up a basic economic principle: simple--this recession (which was eagerly-awaited for) is doing what all recessions do: it puts the marginal players out of business while helping efficient players. And by "players" I mean "workers" as well as "companies." (And to a lesser extent, local and state governments as well.)

So in all of this doom and gloom, as you worry about if you have enough money to eat or are able to make this month's rent--don't worry: the rich are doing just fine: Cramer's Mad Money - Hey Big Spenders

A successful Sotheby's auction which sold $187 million in modern and impressionist art and strong numbers from high-end retail names indicate the rich are back and are buying. Sales were up at Whole Foods (WFMI), Williams-Sonoma (WSM), Tiffany (TIF), Coach (COH), Ralph Lauren (RL), even though customers can get similar products for less money at Safeway (SWY), TJX (TJX) and Ross Stores (ROST).

Thank goodness the rich are doing well. Aren't you glad you voted for a President whose progressive shifting of economic wealth is benefiting the rich and powerful?

Obama and the U.S. Strategy of Buying Time

It makes a number of extremely insightful observations:

American grand strategy, as we have argued, is essentially that of the British Empire, save at a global rather than a regional level. The British sought to protect their national security by encouraging Continental powers to engage in land-based conflict, thereby reducing resources available for building a navy. That guaranteed that Britain's core interest, the security of the homeland and sea-lane control, remained intact. Achieving this made the United Kingdom an economic power in the 19th century by sparing it the destruction of war and allowing it to control the patterns of international maritime trade.

The Soviet Union was also a similar successful Russian Empire--created out of Russia's grand strategy to protect the motherland. Great Britain's empire of the 18th century stemmed from the same thing--and America's current empire arose from the same thing: a domestic desire to protect the homeland while allowing the rest of the country to go it's own way.

The problem is, of course, that domestic prosperity and international isolationism are inherent contradictions for all countries, large and small.

There are Obama supporters and opponents who also dream of the perfect balance: security for the United States achieved by not interfering in the affairs of others. They see foreign entanglements not as providing homeland security, but as generating threats to it. They do not understand that what they want, American prosperity without international risks, is by definition impossible. The U.S. economy is roughly 25 percent of the world's economy. The American military controls the seas, not all at the same time, but anywhere it wishes at any given time. The United States also controls outer space. It is impossible for the United States not to intrude on the affairs of most countries in the world simply by virtue of its daily operations. The United States is an elephant that affects the world simply by being in the same room with it. The only way to not be an elephant is to shrink in size, and whether the United States would ever want this aside, decreasing power is harder to do than it might appear -- and much more painful.

The other observation that they make--a common thread through the essay--is that all successful empires are accidental empires: those leaders who sought to deliberately create an empire were either defeated, or had their empire collapse after they stepped down from power. And the other irony is that those accidental empires collapsed the moment the leaders of those empires realized they had an empire: The Roman Empire collapsed as soon as they became an empire, as did the British Empire.

And I suspect I know why: as soon as you realize you have an empire, you realize you have the power to dictate terms to the satellite states in your rule. And the moment you realize you have power and start directly exercising power is the moment the satellite states want you to drop dead and start rebelling against you.

Unemployment just hit 10.2%.

Update: In graph form:

I've watched Thelemites cheerfully badmouth Christianity with abandon.

But the idea that we could ever suggest something is wrong with Muslims--well, that is Racist, yessirree!

Um, Muslim is not a race--it is a follower of Islam, just as a Christian is a follower of Christianity.


On the one hand it puzzles me. On the other hand it doesn't: it just suggests the speakers are idiots, told what to think by the major media and pretending those thoughts are their own.

Now it could be that it's rude to speak ill of Muslims--but it's certainly not racist any more than speaking ill of Christians is racist. But to me, what's good for the goose is good for the gander: if you feel free to speak ill of followers of a dead guy on a stick, you should also feel free to speak ill of followers of a guy who thinks a 10 year old makes a perfectly fine wife.

Andrei's daily twitter log is brought to you via LoudTwitter

• 09:38 Remember, Remember the 5th of November! #
• 09:46 RT @eschaton: I wish votetheirreligion idiots'd stay home&pray election day instead of trying 2 enshrine their archaic superstitions in law. #
• 12:20 X hours in the SS office first thing in the morning. Rush to get to work for meeting. Which got cancelled 10 minutes before I got in. (Sigh) #
• 14:44 This is just hot: RT @grantimahara: twitpic.com/odqzk - Kari likes big guns. #fromset #Mythbusters #
• 15:02 Lest you fall to hell; remember: Shrimp is an abomination, too. www.godhatesshrimp.com #
• 15:56 This is absolutely beautiful: RT @stevier: Sunset post.ly/Bl2t #
• 23:27 Note to self (and now the world) 3 maybe 4 hrs after evening med... Body crashes hard. Must be more aware of that. :-/ #

P.S. Anyone notice the posting time? It's relevant.