Explaining Gamma

Do you know the story of Snow White? Then surely you remember how the seven dwarves took her in when she was homeless, provided her with food and shelter, and cared so much about her that they shed tears for her and built her a spectacular crystal pedestalbier.

And of course, you will recall that she ran off with Prince Charming at the very first opportunity.

Dwarves are Gammas. Alphas are Prince Charmings. Most men, being Betas and Deltas, fall somewhere in between and therefore face a choice about how to comport themselves in their interactions with the opposite sex. But we can draw two important conclusions from the fairy tale. One, behaving like a dwarf won't get you the girl. Two, Prince Charming doesn't stick around to ask twice; if Snow White doesn't want to get on the horse right away, he rides on without her. It's a big forest and there are plenty of girls on the girl tree.

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VPFL Week 8

83 Blackmouth Banksters (6-2-0)
49 Winston Reverends (4-4-0)

54 Valders Quixotes (6-2-0)
43 Judean Rhyneauxs (4-4-0)

82 Meigs Marauders (4-4-0)
61 Bane Sidhe (5-3-0)

63 MS Swamp Spartans (3-4-1)
63 Moundsview Meerkats (1-6-1)

51 RR Redbeards (3-4-1)
51 Greenfield Grizzlies (2-5-1)

It was kiss your sister week in the VPFL. I'm frankly shocked that I managed to avoid losing with Aaron Rogers only contributing 3 points, although as it turns out I could have even won if I hadn't neglected to start Jacob Tamme for the injured Zach Miller at TE; I picked Tamme up with precisely that intention but somehow managed to forget to actually plug him into the lineup. And it's good to be a Bankster, as Blackmouth is starting to show signs of separating itself from the pack.

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The economics of polygamy

The Economicon explains why we can expect to see polygamy embraced by the state before too long:

Legalizing polygamy, economist David Friedman wrote in his book Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life, “allows some men who before wanted one wife to try to marry two instead — provided that they are willing to offer terms at which potential wives are willing to accept half a husband apiece. So the demand curve for wives shifts out. The supply curve stays the same, the demand curve shifts out, so the price must go up. Women are better off.”

It's very hard to argue with the economic law of supply and demand. And the flipside of that is the recognition that most men will be worse off, with the obvious exception of those sufficiently rich and powerful enough to both support and attract multiple wives. Given that the general trend of American society is already in motion towards the economic benefit of women in general and elite men in particular, the fact that legalized polygamy fits squarely upon this progressive trend line would appear to make it all but a done deal, especially if one takes into account the decline of traditionally monogamous Christian culture and its replacement by various pagan cultures that range from openly polygamous African and Arabic immigrant cultures to the practical polygamy of the secular divorce culture in which men financially support multiple wives and families while limiting their sexual involvement to the latest wife.

Keep in mind that from both practical and sociological perspectives, the legal status of a woman as an "ex-wife" rather than a "wife" is largely beside the point so long as the man is still responsible for being the primary provider for the familial unit. And please note that I'm not at all interested in the various arguments that can reasonably be made for Christian polygamy on a theological basis as they are an irrelevant tangent in this societal context.

Being eminently practical beneath their superficially romantic exteriors, women can usually be relied upon to politically press for that which leads to the material advantage of their sex. Notice how the historical commitment to "sexual equality" on the part of feminist activists was thrown entirely out the window once it was perceived that the pendulum had swung in the opposite direction. This isn't to say that millions of American women won't be continue to be content in a monogamous state-licensed relationship, only that enough of them will be convinced of the material benefits and potential security of not being limited to one that they will be willing to provide the political horses required to ride through the cracks in the traditionalist wall made by the judidical homogamy advocates.

Moreover, invoking supply and demand again indicates that this is an obvious way to counteract the so-called male marriage strike. As the supply of marriageable men dries up due to male inclination and/or male unemployment, the institution of legalized polygamy can not only make up for this shortage, but essentially render future supply deficiencies nonexistent. If Roissy is correct about female hypergamy and "five minutes of Alpha are better than a lifetime of Beta [Gamma]", then it can only be a matter of time before lower-status women begin to actively demand legal polygamy in order to expand their access to relationships with higher-status men capable of supporting them and their progeny.

The question ultimately boils down to whether women of the politically active sort would prefer half of Prince Charming's castle to the entirety of a woodcutter's cottage. The acquisition of male assets through divorce was never going to work for long, as it only took forty years - a little less than two generations - for growing male awareness to break the traditional marital model and reduce marriage rates among the 25-34 age group from 80% to 45% and the overall rate to 52%. In less than three generations from Ronald Reagan's signing of the California no-fault divorce law in 1969, conventional monogamous marriage will no longer be the statistical norm.

So, women will either have to become the primary familial providers or they will turn to a different wealth distribution model. Both history and economics strongly suggest the latter.

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Joel Rosenberg gets protected and served

As I have written on numerous occasions, the police are both lawless and unaccountable. One wonders how they can be considered to be "law enforcement officers" when they demonstrate so reliably that they have no idea what the relevant law is:

Sergeant William Palmer, the Minneapolis Police Department Spokesman, is under investigation for assaulting Joel Rosenberg, a local self-defense activist, in the waiting room of the office of Timothy Dolan, Minneapolis Police Chief. this afternoon, at approximately 130PM.

Rosenberg and his wife, Felicia Herman, had arrived at the office by previous arrangement with the suspect, Palmer, to examine the first of several Minnesota Government Data Practices Act responses that Rosenberg has submitted to the MPD and the City of Minneapolis. In addition to his responsibilities as police spokesman, Palmer is also the MPD's Data Practices Officer.

When Rosenberg removed his jacket, revealing one of the two lawfully-carried handguns on his person, Palmer leaped at him, laid hands on him without lawful authority or Rosenberg's consent, and removed one of Rosenberg's pistols, "sweeping", or momentarily pointing it, at Rosenberg as he moved to unload it.

"Palmer did not commit a further assault by patting me down," Rosenberg said. "If he did, he probably would have found the snubnose revolver in my right pocket, and threatened me with that, too." Rosenberg smiled. "He took one of my knives, too, but missed two others."

Palmer admitted, in front of Rosenberg, two witnesses, and a video camera, that he had done so out of a belief that it was somehow unlawful for Rosenberg, a permit holder, firearms instructor and the author of Everything You Need to Know About (Legally) Carrying a Handgun in Minnesota to carry in Minneapolis City Hall, and threatened Rosenberg with the loss of his carry permit -- something that Palmer has neither the authority to threaten nor to do -- and with arrest.

Rosenberg responded, "I will not resist arrest, sir," and attempted to advise Palmer that Minnesota Statute 624.714 not only permits Rosenberg to carry his firearm there, but that Subd. 23 of that statute says (emphasis added):

No sheriff, police chief, governmental unit, government official, government employee, or other person or body acting under color of law or governmental authority may change, modify, or supplement these criteria or procedures, or limit the exercise of a permit to carry.

"It's really very simple," Rosenberg explained. "Bill had no right to touch me at all, much less grab my gun, much less point it at me, even momentarily. I expect that the HennCo Sheriff's Office will investigate, and act according to both the facts and the law. And that's not the only crime Bill committed today, in that act. He really needs to obey the law that he is sworn to enforce and uphold. Whatever that was today, it was not 'To Protect' nor 'To Serve.' It's not for him to make up the law as he goes along."

Rosenberg immediately proceeded to the office of the Hennepin County Sheriff, where he filed a criminal complaint with Detective Bill Gottwaldt, who has promised Rosenberg a fair and impartial investigation.

And yes, it's THAT Joel Rosenberg, the science fiction author and straight shooter. I'm sure we all expect Officer Palmer to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law and punished accordingly.

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Yeah, that's convincing

It will take a lot more than suspending Keith Olbermann to convince anyone with more than one-quarter of a brain that MSNBC is an impartial media observer:

MSNBC TV host Keith Olbermann was suspended indefinitely on Friday for making campaign donations to three Democratic congressional candidates, apparently in violation of NBC News ethics policy. The announcement came in a one-sentence statement from msnbc TV President Phil Griffin: “I became aware of Keith’s political contributions late last night. Mindful of NBC News policy and standards, I have suspended him indefinitely without pay.”

So, Olbermann's evening contributions in kind to the Democratic Party worth millions of dollars are fine, but contributing a few actual dollars to a few Congressional candidates are not. Olbermann is an ass, and a much less intelligent ass than he thinks he is, but this attempt by MSNBC to pretend it is anything but a propaganda arm of the Democratic Party isn't likely to fool anyone.

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Verse of the Day

"As dead flies give perfume a bad smell, so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor. The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left. Even as fools walk along the road, they lack sense and show everyone how stupid they are."
- Ecclesiastes 10:1-3

Keep that in mind the next time you speak with one of your Christian friends who inclines to the left. And it is, of course, intriguing that the Bible should not only correctly anticipate post-18th century political ideologies, but correctly identify the sort of individual who belongs to them as well....

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One year later

I had meant to post something marking the one-year anniversary of RGD's publication last week, but got a little wrapped up in a) following the election, and b) finally finishing off Lord Bane in Puzzle Quest. Anyhow, there is something very satisfying in seeing that the book remains in such illustrious company on the Kindle's Economic History list; it is presently #4 in Economics proper as well. On the downside, the fact that general interest in RGD appears to be higher than it was when the book first came out tends to suggest that its thesis was more or less correct and we are one year further into the Great Depression 2.0 that it predicted. I won't deny that it gives me a sense of intellectual satisfaction to know that my conclusions appear to be on the right track, but that satisfaction is cold comfort when one proceeds to contemplate what those conclusions indicate for the economic course of the West.

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In which the loss is regretted

Gail Collins makes the post-election case for Christine O'Donnell:

There were awful speeches from all sides on Tuesday night, but I liked Christine O’Donnell’s adieu. (“We’ve got a lot of food. We’ve got the room all night. So God bless you. So let’s party!”) That girl is so on her way back to cable TV.

You certainly have to admire Miss O'Donnell's epicurean attitude towards defeat, if nothing else. On the other hand, some Kossacks are angry and bitter, counting down the days until America becomes a brown, third world country freed from the shackles of a constitution written by dead white sexist slave-owning men.

"We just have to be patient.

And wait for your hearts to stop beating.

And stop they will.

And for some of you, real damned soon, truth be told.

Do you hear it?

The sound of your empire dying? Your nation, as you knew it, ending, permanently?

Because I do, and the sound of its demise is beautiful."

It is interesting how many Americans, particularly white Americans, absolutely refuse to understand that immigrants do not want America to remain America. Mexican immigrants want America to be an improved version of Mexico. Turkish immigrants want it to be an improved version of Turkey. Even the descendants of involuntary immigrants want America to become an improved version of an imaginary Africa. None of them will get exactly what they want, of course, but the significant fact is that they will transform it by the mere fact of their presence and so whatever it eventually becomes, it will not be what it was before. It will not be America or even recognizably American. And it must be recognized that the end of America is not only something that the likes of the Kossack quoted are anticipating, but something they believe is directly connected to the objectives of Obama and the former Congressional majority.

Meanwhile, the NYT is spinning like a thirty-something married woman's rationalization hamster after being unexpectedly hit on by Brad Pitt/Justin Bieber/the Twilight guy:

"Tuesday’s election was indeed a “shellacking” for the Democrats, as President Obama admitted after a long night of bad news. It was hardly an order from the American people to discard the progress of the last two years and start over again. Mr. Obama was on target when he said voters howled in frustration at the slow pace of economic recovery and job creation. To borrow his running automotive metaphor, voters threw the keys at Republicans and told them to drive for a while, but gave almost no indication of what direction to drive in.

Right, the people voted for Republicans because they so enjoyed "the progress of the last two years". This isn't news or analysis, this is a feeble attempt at revising history as it's being written.

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You wanted it, you got it

If this woman's lament doesn't put an amused smile on your face today, well, you're probably not a man under the age of fifty:

Let me tell you, dear ladies: the age of chivalry is dead.

Yesterday, I drove out of a car park in ­Kensington, London, to find the power-steering on my BMW had gone. The car wouldn’t move. Thankfully, I was in a cul de sac, not a motorway. I stopped and tried to pull over. My car was one foot from the kerb. I put my hazard lights on. Next to me was a building site full of men in fluoro ­jackets standing doing ­nothing. They could see my distress when I began ­peering under the bonnet. I got back in the car, and on my mobile phone to call the BMW breakdown ­service to get the vehicle recovered. I was in tears. Still no one ­bothered to help....

I had thought it was just my ex-husband who used to allow me to put petrol in the car while he sat warm in the passenger seat, but if my ­experience yesterday ­morning is anything to go by, it’s a generational phenomenon. As Top Gear’s James May said this week, young men have lost their masculinity, in that they can no longer fix things. And this loss of manners is far worse. Young working British men: you should be ashamed.

Be ashamed of what? The "f****** cow" is totally in the wrong here. And I wonder, were those nearby men really "doing nothing" or did she simply neither realize nor care how they were occupying themselves thanks to her female solipsism?

Women demanded legal and political equality and our great-grandfathers were foolish enough to grant it to them. So they used that equality to force the last three generations of men to spend between 12 and 16 years being drenched in feminist propaganda about how women were strong, independent, and equal to us, except of course for their intrinsic emotional and moral superiority. Once they had achieved sufficient political power, they then set about redefining the concept of equality in a successful effort to strip men of their legal rights and render them legally inferior in an extra-Constitutional court system where men are guilty until pronounced innocent. And then, after all this, they're surprised when we don't treat them like our great-grandfathers treated their great-grandmothers.

I am confident that I speak for many, if not most of the men of my generation in my instinctive response to this woman's petulant demand that men be at her beck and call: F--- you and fix it yourself, Ms Strong Independent Woman. It's not my problem.

I suspect that these days, the average man is probably more likely to help a male stranger than to help women he doesn't know. At least a man is likely to have the decency to be grateful and not take your assistance as some sort of rightful homage. As for chivalry being dead, I think it is pertinent to quote Isaac Asimov on the historical conventions of the concept.

"This is Helen as viewed through the eyes of courtly love. By the convention of the troubadours, a woman need not deserve love, she need merely be a woman." And don't forget, a woman's chivalric champion was ideally supposed to be her adulterous lover. It is little wonder, then, that modern women lament chivalry's death.
(HT: SB)

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Killer police lying again

I wrote in the discussion that followed my previous post on the police shooting of the Pace University football player that we would be able to tell if the police were lying about committing murder or telling the truth about defending themselves on the basis of the eventual availability of the video evidence. Needless to say, I'm astonished that, in yet another amazing series of the sort of coincidences that somehow surround police shootings, all of the cameras in all of the squad cars tragically happened to malfunction at the very moment when Danroy Henry was shot and killed.

Video cameras in squad cars were "not operational" when police officers shot and killed a college football player during a disturbance outside a bar, prosecutors said in a document released Tuesday. The Westchester County District Attorney's Office filed the document in objecting to a request from a lawyer for the student's family to view audio and video recordings of the shooting. Danroy Henry, 20, a Pace University student from Easton, Mass., was killed Oct. 17 as he drove his Nissan near the bar in Thornwood near the university campus.

If you still believe that the police in the United States are subject to the law at this point, you are either not paying attention or you are willfully stupid. This is no longer a matter for debate. And since the politicians are unable to keep the police under control, the long-term solution is for the state constitutions to be amended ordering the complete disarming of all state and local police except for specially trained, non-militarized, non-SWAT teams who are answerable to scrutiny and prosecution by the state supreme court when police shootings take place. Armed Americans are not only capable of defending themselves from the criminally inclined, they can do so much more safely without the lawless "service and protection" of the armed police forces.

As long as the police refuse to be held accountable by the laws and conspire to protect the murderers and lawbreakers in their midst, they cannot be trusted with lethal weapons in public.

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Horatio spins in his grave

They might as well knock down the column in Trafalgar Square:

Britain and France will launch a broad defense partnership on Tuesday that includes setting up a joint force and sharing equipment and nuclear missile research centers, a French government source said. Treaties to be signed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister David Cameron at a meeting in London will pave the way for an unprecedented degree of military cooperation between the two neighbors.

Theoretically, this should be a great sign of peace and progress. Why, then, does it feel so... alarming?

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Hardly

Carrie Lukas thinks the election results prove that women don't favor security over freedom:

Women voters have also defied traditional stereotypes about skewing liberal. While it will take some time to get complete exit poll data, polls taken shortly before the election suggest a major shift in women’s voting habits. Early reports suggest women split nearly evenly in this election. As Mary Kate Cary reported in U.S. News, a recent New York Times poll showed undecided women breaking heavily for the GOP. In fact, women went from favoring Democrats by 7 points last month to giving the GOP the edge by 4 points in the New York Times’ latest polls. In other words, the famed gender gap — which somehow always refers to women’s tendency to vote disproportionately for Democrats rather than men’s tendency to vote Republican, has vanished.

Pundits will spend the next two years debating the meaning of the 2010 Election. But a few things are clear. The conventional wisdom that women all prefer government-provided safety over freedom has been put to rest, and female political leaders do not come in one mold. There are strong, unabashedly conservative women throughout the country who are prepared to fight for limited government and greater freedom. And they can win.

This is amusing. Remember, the "limited government" for which these supposedly freedom-loving women are fighting is one that is all of 2.8% smaller. They cling to their entitlements and "national security" spending as firmly as Linus clings to his blanket. And perhaps more to the point, it is possible that it is finally beginning to penetrate through many women's skulls that there is no reliable security in the government spending money it doesn't have in the first place.

Either way, I tend to see this as less reflective of a positive evolution towards liberty in women's political consciousness and more reflective of the larger societal trend towards matriarchy and grass huts. Insty notes in response that the Tea Party is majority female, which is one reason I believe it has been so easily coopted by the Republican establishment.

Don't get me wrong. I would very much like to believe that for the first time in human history, women have genuinely begun to value freedom over security. I just don't believe this is credible interpretation of the recent electoral events. (HT Dr. Helen.)

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Adios California

Not to belittle the historic electoral landslide, which despite the Republican inability to regain the Senate was an even bigger political event than 1994, I suspect the most significant result of last night's election occurred in California. It wasn't the failure of Proposition 19, which would have decriminalized marijuana and marked the first roll-back of the thirty-year Drug War, but rather the passage of Proposition 25 by a ten-point margin.

Why was this significant? Because California's Republican legislators can no longer prevent their Democratic counterparts from raising taxes and increasing spending now that the number of votes required to pass the state budget and spending bills related to the budget has been reduced from two-thirds to a simple majority. As Kevin Williamson noted on NRO: "This election means two things for California: 1. It is now more likely to end up needing a federal bailout, and 2. It is less likely to find Congress receptive to that idea."

California is already more or less insolvent, it's just shuffling its debts around to delay the inevitable. But the relaxed budgetary controls as a result of the change to the state constitution almost surely guarantee that the legislature's attempts to respond to the problem will be counterproductive and make what is already a disastrous situation even worse. It is remotely possible that the second re-election of Governor Moonbeam could somewhat meliorate this structural change, as despite being a Democrat he had a better record for fiscal conservatism than either Ronald Reagan or Arnold Schwarzenegger. But since the veto is much less reliable than simple math, I wouldn't count on it.

I would not be surprised if the eventual bankruptcies of California and Illinois become one of the more important issues of the 2012 election. If the bipartisan Republican-led bank bailouts were enough to inspire the Tea Party, who can imagine what effect a bipartisan, Democrat-led state bailout will have on the electorate? Rick Santelli asked us if we wanted to pay for our neighbor's mortgages, but most Americans would much rather do that than pay for California's teachers unions, prison guards, and imported Mexicans.

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Election 2010

This is an open post. Please feel free to comment with any breaking news about the various exit polls and election calls. I'm going to stay up for part of it, but not the entirety, so someone else will have to fill in with the color commentary. But if nothing else, it will be amusing to see a bigger mid-term bomb than the 1994 one.

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Let's you and him fight

An example of how failing to keep your woman's tongue under control can get you killed, even if you're a Marine:

A 23-year-old Marine who lived in Metairie was fatally stabbed following an argument with a man who defamed the Marine's wife. The suspect yelled derogatory comments at Ryan Lekosky's wife as the couple walked about 3:30 a.m. near the intersection of Dauphine and Iberville streets in the French Quarter, police said. Lekosky tried to intervene in the altercation between his wife and the suspect. The suspect turned on Lekosky, stabbing him several times. The suspect then returned to his vehicle and drove away on Dauphine Street, toward Canal Street. Lekosky died from his wounds.

The root problem is that men haven't really figured out what they can and cannot do in defense of women's honor anymore. In the days of yore, the Marine could have simply killed the guy out of hand and few would have thought twice about it; back then, defaming a man's wife was a killing offense. Now, most women would be horrified at a male companion who, at the first derogatory word directed her way, immediately pulled out a .357 and fired six shots into the offender's face. At the same time, not considering themselves proper targets for physical violence, most women won't hesitate to escalate a verbal situation and if a man shrugs off a verbal assault directed at a woman with him, he is often going to be attacked by her for not coming to her defense.

So, what to do? It's hard to say and it's somewhat of a catch-22. All we can really conclude from the limited amount of information here is that it is a very bad idea for the man to assume that because he is not party to the verbal altercation, he will not be attacked first in the escalation. Once the situation transforms into a violent altercation, an attacker can be expected to attack the potentially more dangerous opponent first, which means that interceding in a manner that leaves you open to the other guy is a bad idea. The two-fold challenge is a) how to prevent the situation from developing into a violent one without causing your wife or girlfriend to develop contempt for you simply because you're not foolish enough to fall for the old "let's you and him fight" game, and b) how to extricate the two of you from an escalating situation without either of you getting hurt.

All of this presumes, of course, that you're not dumb enough to escalate a verbal situation to a violent one on the basis of your own emotional reaction.

The first thing to do is to encourage her to blow it off. What do the words of some drunk idiot with an 85 IQ have to do with her? Of course, this is probably much easier to pull off if you're carrying; she's unlikely to accuse you of being a coward who won't stand up for her if you ask her how many times she would like you to shoot the guy in the skull with your .40. Faced with such an offer, she'll likely do an immediate 180 and start trying to encourage you to move along. Women are excited by male posturing and fisticuffs, not blowback and brain matter.

However, if a woman is feisty and responds by getting in the idiot's face, the best thing is probably to physically withdraw her while keeping her between you and the opponent and keeping your focus on him. You can explain later that you were concerned about the bad guy hurting her and so forth; it's better that she be angry with you for forcibly extricating her from a potentially dangerous situation than be contemptuous of you for failing to act at all. And if she does get hurt, well, she's an adult and she bears the responsibility for her decision to confront the idiot, not you. But the likelihood that she'll be attacked in a lethal manner is quite small since she won't be perceived as a serious threat so the worst that's likely to happen is that she'll get punched or slapped. Undesirable, but she'll live.

Of course, the biggest problem is that men in general, and white knights in particular, usually respond in a pompous and unprepared manner, paying more attention to the woman than they do to the potential opponent. That's understandable, since most of what they're doing is a chivalrous show for the woman's benefit anyhow, but it's not the best strategy in the event that the other guy isn't posturing.

Of course, it's perhaps worth recalling that chivalry was the show knights put on for other men's wives.

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On the record

For future reference, the final generic ballot polls from the major polling operations:

For his final pre-election prediction, Nate Silver projects it as follows as of November 1st:

Hse: Rep 233 Dem 202
Sen: Rep 48 Dem 52
Gov: Rep 30 Dem 19 Ind 1

I do not pretend to be an expert on this subject, nor do I pay sufficient attention to it to even know who is running for what office in the various states in most cases.  But based on the macro socionomic trends, I think Gallup and Rasmussen will prove to be the more reliable polls and Republicans will win 51+ Senate seats tonight.  We'll find out soon enough.

Now go out there and vote for libertarians who have no hope of winning because every vote matters and this is the mostest importantest election ever!  Unless you're in Delaware, Kentucky, or Nevada, of course, in which case you absolutely must vote for Christine O'Donnell, Rand Paul, or Sharon Angle just to upset the mainstream media poohbahs.

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Mailvox: the voice of optimism

RC contends that the Tea Party is here to stay:

You are reading this the situation incorrectly.

The TEA Party will (in 2 more years) oust more elected officials (even TEA Partiers) who have not supported the core conservative principles! We are in it for the long run. If you believe true TEA Partiers will be co-opted once in power, you are wrong. They know they will get the boot!

Good governance will not occur in one election cycle. It will take 3 cycles to fully purge the deadwood.

As you can see, powerful, lifetime politicians are struggling as never before to retain their seats. Do you REALLY believe they want that battle very often? No way! Do you REALLY believe the GOP believes it is in a position superior to the TEA Party? No way. No Money! Partiers give direct to candidates--no longer only RNC. Sure, they raise money. But, we can raise more. Say our numbers grow to a mere 40 million (from the about 20 million today). If each contributes $100 for targeted campaign contributions, that gives $4 billion to support 1/2 the Congress and the presidential race. Works out to about $15 million per candidate (if averaged). If more is needed, we kick in an extra $100.

My guess is that the GOP is happy that the TEA Party came along. Also, they realize that the Partiers are not stupid. There are TEA Party strategy sessions all the time. Even though from ground up, we all want the same core principles defended. Woe be to those that stray! Voting nationwide with our checkbooks or credit cards (and in massive numbers) is nothing to sneeze at.

Also, look at the increase in numbers of precinct delegates, poll watchers, candidates, etc. Training sessions, bill reviews, rallies, marches, e-mails, phone calls, etc.
Cannot agree with you. The synergy is great. We will prevail in restoring the republic.

Our greatest advantage? Passion for what is right. We have it.

It sounds good. It's not impossible. But it is nevertheless highly improbable. I don't hear any powerful Republicans showing much concern of the Tea Party turning on them, and more to the point, I see a lot of signs that the Tea Party has already been co-opted. When establishment Republicans are talking about gradual change and bipartisan consolidation while neocons like Sarah Palin and Dana Loesch are hailed as Tea Party "leaders", it doesn't take a genius to see that what has happened time and time again to rebellious conservative grass roots organizations is already happening to the Tea Party.

That being said, there is one X factor that could lead to the Tea Party growing up to become a viable third party and that is the next wave of the depression now taking shape. Historically, American parties have formed around the issue of the banks; the Democratic party was originally the anti-banking party of Andrew Jackson and William Jennings Bryan while the Whigs and Republicans were pro-bank. But both modern parties have been wholly owned by the banking interests since Democrat Woodrow Wilson and a Democratic Congress pushed through the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. (The Ilk will note the counterpush at work.)

So, there is a clear political vaccuum which the Tea Party could profitably fill. And indeed, it was the reaction to the bank bailouts that originally inspired the first Tea Party reactions although that has rapidly been transformed into an incoherent, anti-spending-except-for-the greater-part-of-the-spending movement. If, and only if, the Tea Party gravitates towards a genuine anti-banking, anti-immigration, anti-Republican party and forces the two factions of the ruling party to merge de jure as well as de facto, it can reasonably hope to succeed and effect change. But as yet, I see few, if any, signs of that.

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Whom the gods would destroy

Medea had nothing on the Minnesota Vikings. After that ludicrous collapse yesterday, they went and waived Randy Moss! Right, because he was the problem. Interestingly enough, Favre wasn't the problem last night, the one underthrown ball to Percy Harvin that led to a fantastic interception by the Patriot rookie cornerback notwithstanding.

1. Childress blew another challenge. A week late doesn't count, Chilly.
2. Going for it on fourth-and-goal was a reasonable call. Trying to run behind Loadholt instead of Hutchinson wasn't.
3. Apparently we have never heard of "play-action" passes. Especially not when everyone in the stadium knows the ball is going to AD.
4. Asher Allen.
5. And again, Asher Allen. Is there any way Antoine Winfield doesn't make that tackle on Wes Welker?
6. The Tarvaris Jackson Experiment still cannot play quarterback in the National Football League. I remember that signature, "lift up the ball high as the pocket collapses around you, then somehow manage to hold onto it as you get sacked" play. Nice to see he's still got it.

Naturally, the solution to all of this was getting rid of the Hall of Fame wide receiver who commanded double and triple-teams all game. Childress has to go and he has to go now. He's the only coach in the league capable of being outcoached by Mike Singletary. There's no need for an interim coach, just let Brett Favre do it. It's not like he could do any worse.

I kind of hope New England signs Moss. It would be a fitting conclusion to the madness.

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Republican irrelevance

In which it is proved by the Republican House Majority Leader-to-be, Rep. John Boehner:

Why You Should Vote For Republicans

Americans are speaking out and demanding a new way forward in Washington. Republicans have listened and outlined a new governing agenda in the form of a Pledge to America focused on creating jobs, cutting spending and changing the way Washington does business.

A smaller government

At the core of the Pledge is an idea Washington just hasn't tried before — that the path to recovery lies in making government smaller instead of making it bigger. To jump-start job creation, the economic uncertainty gripping small businesses has to be eliminated, and the spending binge in Washington has to be stopped.

The Pledge puts forth a clear plan to end the current uncertainty, starting with stopping all looming tax hikes so that small businesses can get back to creating jobs. This is followed by a blueprint for fiscal sanity that begins with cutting spending to pre-"stimulus," pre-bailout levels, a move that will save taxpayers $100 billion in the first year alone.

Very well. Smaller government sounds good. Saving $100 billion in the first year alone sounds like a lot. Now, what was the federal budget in 2010? According to "A New Era of Responsibility: Renewing America's Promise" which is the Orwellian title for The United States Federal Budget for Fiscal Year 2010, the 2010 budget is $3.552 trillion. And according to the most recent estimate in July, the deficit alone is going to be $1.47 trillion instead of the $1.171 trillion originally forecast.

So, Republicans are going to cut 2.8% of the federal budget, or if you prefer, 6.8% of the federal budget deficit. In other words, if the nation were a car speeding towards a canyon at 70 miles per hour, the Republicans master plan for saving the passengers would be to slow the car down to 65.2 MPH! And let's see if what Boehner's plans are for addressing the four pressing issues I mentioned in today's column:

1) The economy. He mentioned it. But repealing "the job-killing health care law and" replacing "it with common-sense reforms focused on lowering costs and protecting American jobs" is isn't even going to begin solving the debt-deflation problem of $52 trillion in public and private debt.

2) The massive mortgage fraud. Nothing. I suspect the Republicans will come out on the side of the banks and sacrifice the rule of law for nothing. But who knows? Boehner didn't mention it.

3) Immigration. Nothing, although there is just a hint of anti-Ricardian rhetoric detectable in the phrase "protecting American jobs". Again, Republicans are more likely to be part of the problem than the solution here; Ronald Reagan was signed Ted Kennedy's 1986 law.

4) The endless wars. Nothing. And they're for it.

In conclusion, I see no reason not to vote Republican if it amuses you. They're certainly not going to make things any worse than the Obama-Reid-Pelosi Democrats. So vote how thou wilt, because it will make no substantive difference in the material outcome of the nation's fate.

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IP is book burning

Jeffrey Tucker explains how IP reduces the store of human knowledge:

Last week, I had to haggle with an authors’ consortium in Britain concerning a 1946 text. The author had no children and he died before the copyright on the book expired. Someone swept in a renewed the thing, thereby taking it off the market. It hasn’t been in print for some 40 years. A paralegal helped me discover the owner, which turns out to be some scam operation that preys on people who want to reprint books. I asked to distribute the thing online. The consortium never seem to have heard of the internet. They wanted a fee for $1 per book with a contract that lasted 2 years and a limit on our sales. None of this works for us. So we said no. As a result, the book, which is not that mission critical, goes back to its eternal resting place, all because of “intellectual property” which is just so obviously a hoax and a violation of human rights.

This is only one of dozens of cases I’ve dealt with. And there are actually millions of books in this condition, effectively burned and destroyed by IP law.

The amount of human knowledge that is being lost to future generations thanks to IP law is really disturbing. Since scientage, or "the body of scientific knowledge" is one of the tripartite aspects of science, science fetishists who habitually fulminate about an incipient "new Dark Ages" should really spend a lot less time worrying that illiterate and innumerate children run the risk of not having TE(p)NS talked over their ignorant heads and a lot more about the disappearance of information that was published in the past. Lest you think there is nothing valuable to be learned from keeping the words of dead authors alive, consider the cost of this temporary loss of this insignificant tidbit of scientage.

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WND column

No Change after Nov. 2

There is nothing surprising about the Republican tsunami that will rock Congress on Election Day. It was obvious given the parody of governance demonstrated by the Obama-Pelosi-Reid triumvirate of incompetence. I first predicted that the Republicans would reclaim the House, and quite possibly the Senate as well, back on July 14, long before the conventional wisdom otherwise known as Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight began suggesting that they might have a shot.

Now here is another prediction: The tea party is about to learn that its efforts to transform the Republican Party by working through it are doomed to failure. In fact, there is a reasonable chance that as soon as 2012, the tea party will go from the Republican Party's most visible ally to its most vicious and implacable enemy.

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