Mailvox: Seething hatred

MW is close to tears:

I do not agree with your editorial regarding Bill O Reilly. I can see your hatred for him is so visible, if what you say has the slightest bit of true to it, it would be discounted because of your seething hatred.

Maybe if she knew that I was crying on the inside, thanks to the massive jealousy that another O'Reilly fan asserted I have for Brave Sir Bill, she'd feel differently.

JS, meanwhile, only managed to confuse me:

I understand what you mean by OReilly setting up straw men, and not standing solidly on the principles he espouses. I have been frustrated with his stand on many issues that seem to contradict his values. I however disagree with your assessment of his selling himself and having a hazy grip of political reality. I think he does stretch his views in an attempt to seem fair and moderate which comes across to me as weak and wishy-washy, but I think his grip is relatively solid and he aims his guns at real and important enemies. Three examples are France, the ACLU, and Rap Music.

JS had me at hello, but he lost me with that last bit. But who could disagree that without Brave Sir William standing in between us and the raw all-devouring lethality that is Rap Music, our civilization would have already collapsed into chaos, carnage and cannibalism. Someone please, please tell me that Mr. O'Reilly has uttered the words "Rap is crap!" No, that would just be too perfect, it's probably too much to wish for.

So, Brave Sir William is all for the Patriot Act, abortion and homogamy, but he stands firmly against Foxy Brown and Public Enemy. Hoo-raa! The phrase "fiddling while Rome burns" springs to mind.

I got a letter from the Factor
The other day
I opened and read it
It said they were suckers.
They wanted me for their show or whatever
Picture me giving a damn
I said never.

Mailvox: It's the ONSVRWC

RK muses cynically:

So why is Day attacking him? Could it be to draw a reaction and publicity
for himself? Akin to one Mr. Franken? Perhaps O'Reilly suspects just this. Shame on you Vox for sinking to Franken's level.

Actually, I'm just following the Libertarian talking points laid out for me by the Other, Not-So-Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. Somehow, I suspect RK missed the discussion here last week when I explained my lack of interest in playing the talking head game.

What would I do with the publicity anyhow? The irony of being accused of being secretive one week and self-promoting is rather acute.

The Ballad of Brave Sir William

Bravely bold Sir William strode forth from Studio B.
He did not fear to debate, O brave Sir William!
He was not at all afraid to be humbled in nasty ways,
Brave, brave, brave, brave O'Reilly!

He was not in the least bit scared to be mashed into a pulp,
Or to have his lies exposed and his logic broken;
To have his infinitives split, and his assertions blown away;
And his facts all hacked and mangled, brave Sir William!

His case smashed in and its heart cut out
And his proofs disproved, his polemic unplugged
And his talking points raped, and his claims disembowled
And his [what one can only assume is a very small] penis....

Brave Sir William ran away.
He bravely ran away, away!
When danger reared its ugly head,
He bravely turned his tail and fled.
Yes, brave Sir Bill, he turned about
And gallantly he chickened out.
Bravely taking to his feet
He beat a very brave retreat,
Bravest of the brave, O'Reilly!

Mailvox: I don't think he reads this blog

BM writes:

I am still rankled over that episode with the GOA owner, who I have forgotten his name. Bill O'Reilly just ramrodded him. Mr. O'Reilly just popped off on some standard stuff. I don't think he had any knowledge on the subject. Then in an episode the next day he claimed to be acting facetiously when he referred to bazookas. I think what happened is the next day he did a little "after the fact" research and discovered that the AWB has nothing to do with machine guns. As for me, if the AWB expires I'm going to buy an AK-47! I got my eye on that!

P.S. - I enjoy your articles. You make your point but you never resort to nihilism or vulgarity.

Apparently he missed The Ballad of Sir William. In my defense - as I've already pointed out to one emailer - the reference to male genitalia is in the original. Not that I ever considered passing up the chance to add what Dark Window cheerfully describes as "a few quick kicks in the groin" for a second.

Mailvox: Yeah, that'll happen

DS waxes enthusiastic:

I just recently read your article on Mr. O'Reilly's "Fraud Factor," and happen to be in total agreement with you...so, I forwarded a copy of your article to him and requested that he invite you. P.S. I also sent a note along with it telling him that I happen to agree with every word you said! Now let's wait by the phone.

I wouldn't hold your breath. If O'Reilly is afraid to have Badnarik on his show, he'd have to be completely insane to throw down with me. He doesn't have the principles, the education, the ideological knowledge or the intelligence to survive, and he's smart enough to know it.

Look, the guy's no dummy. He's sharp enough to position himself as a conservative, which beautifully differentiates him from all his competitors even though he isn't one. If nothing else, he has a solid handle on the iron Law of Supply and Demand. I don't despise the man; I rather think his astute salesmanship deserves respect and I have no doubt that he'll continue to be successful as long as conservatives buy into his act. But I doubt he'll take the risk of allowing anyone on who is likely to puncture the illusion.

Mailvox: Defending brave Sir Bill

RC writes:

I believe the Factor is doing much more good than harm by being on the air. Sure, you may be able to find some isolated cases when Bill should have zigged instead of zagged. However, we are living in a dangerous world at the moment. And please do not quote the founders regarding choosing between security and freedom. Everyone knows why the 2nd amendment exists. I do not believe it will ever be lost to us.

Precisely how is The Factor doing more good? How will boycotting France prove the answer to the continued loss of American liberties? O'Reilly is at best totally irrelevant, at worst, he is yet another cheerleader for the expansion of strong central government, the advocation of which a true conservative, PJ O'Rourke, once described as "treason to the human race".

And if Mr. O'Reilly knows why the Second Amendment exists, then why did he suggest that one must be a nut to believe that private citizens should be able to own bazookas and machine guns? Is he aware that the Founders not only owned, but used, private artillery historically equivalent to modern large-bore howitzers and rockets? Is it ever better for the government to hold a monopoly on the use of lethal force? To again quote the immortal O'Rourke, this country was founded by religious nuts with guns. As the First Amendment has clearly been lost with McCain-Feingold, I think RC's stated belief as to the positive prospects of the Second are naive. And of course he would rather I did not quote Ben Franklin, who might otherwise remind him that those who trade freedom for security will have neither.

I believe Bill's point regarding harm caused by the Patriot Act has more to do with large numbers. In other words, is the Patriot Act a reasonable piece of legislation for our current national security situation? My view is that, on balance, it is reasonable--but you may find singular or isolated cases where the Act falls short at the expense of the citizen. Given the present climate, what else can reasonably be done?

Defenders of the Patriot Act invariably ask to know how it has been abused already. That is to miss the point. As the legal gymnastics of the Supreme Court and the Executive branch have proved with work-arounds such as Echelon - where the British listen to US phone calls and send the transcripts to the NSA so that the US government can honestly claim that it is not eavesdropping - and outright fictions such as the emanations and penumbras in which the right to abortion was discovered, the correct question is: can this Act be used by future US governments to abuse its citizens. And there, the answer is clearly affirmative.

What else can be done? There are many possibilities. The government can stop interfering with private airline security measures. It can stop granting visas to dead terrorists and their live cousins. The US government is part of the problem, not the solution, and giving it more power via stinking excretions like the Patriot Act will only create more problems in the future.

Freedom, Iraqi style

BAGHDAD - It was 10.30 in the morning, almost four months ago, and the children were getting ready for church.

Aziz Raad Azzo, five, was drinking his milk; his 14-year-old sister Raneen was putting on her new clothes. When they heard a car pull up, Raneen, thinking her father was home, ran to the window and flung open the shutters. Four men shot her and her little brother in the head, scattering their blood and bones across the family's living room.

The children's crime: Their father, a Christian storekeeper, had sold alcohol.

Before the murders, the family had received a photocopied death threat. 'We are warning you, the enemies of God and Islam, from selling alcohol again, and unless you stop we will kill you and send you to hell where a worse fate awaits you,' read the warning signed by Harakat Ansar al-Islam, the Partisans of Islam Movement.

These murders made possible in part by the freedom-fighting, nation-building forces of the Coalition against the Axis of Evil. I can't wait until free elections are held, I'm sure the Iraqi people, with their centuries of tolerant and democratic culture, couldn't possibly elect anyone like the Algerian Islamic Salvation Front.

Societal lifespans

Athenian Democracy
185 years (507-322)

Roman Republic
402 years (509-107)

Royal England (Common Law)
427 years (1215-1642)

Imperial Parliamentary United Kingdom
259 years (1688-1947)

First French Republic
7 years (1792-1799)

Second French Republic
4 years (1848-1852)

Weimar Republic
14 years (1919-1933)

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
72 years (1917-1989)

United States of America (voluntary)
73 years (1789-1861)

United States of America (involuntary)
139+ years (1865-2004)

I'm not saying that the world will come to an end when the US system of government changes and/or collapses. My best guess is that it will become an integral part of an North-Central American superstate in the mode of the European Union, which will eventually be a state in the federal world government. And, as in many of these previous cases, most people may not even notice the change; indeed, future historians may well decide that the Constitutional USA ended long before 2004, perhaps as early as 1865 when the Union ceased to be voluntary. (I don't want another Civil War discussion; causes aside, the result is not debatable.)

Modern England is a decent place to live, after all, but it's not the center of world power it once was under the Imperial Parliament. And one could even argue that for the average sybarite, Imperial Rome was a more entertaining place to live than its Republican predecessor. But then, there's always a few crazy Old Republicans who have no desire to live under the rule of Augustus Caesar.

Copyright run amok

Mass-market publishers are not certain the used-book phenomenon is a problem worth addressing, but others in the industry have already made up their minds. "We think it's not good for the industry and it has an effect, but we can't measure it," said Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild, a trade group. "There has always been used-book sales, but it's always been a background noise sort of thing. Now it's right there next to the new book on Amazon."

Lorraine Shanley, a principal at Market Partners International, a publishing consultant, said that the industry was just starting to appreciate the dimensions of the problem. "Used books are to consumer books as Napster was to the music industry," she said. "The question becomes, 'How does the book industry address its used-book problem?' There aren't any easy answers, especially as no one is breaking any laws here."

Anyone else doubt that if someone invents a technology that will allow someone to read a book once before it sets itself on fire and burns to ashes, the publishers of the world will beat a path to their door? William Gibson was just ahead of his time with Agrippa.

While I have a very amicable relationship with my publisher, in general I have little sympathy for them. Copyright was originally conceived as a way to protect authors from publishers, now it's devolved into de facto protection for the publishers.

Could Kerry be the first Gay President?

Bob Novak writes of John Kerry:

After disappointing organized labor by picking Sen. John Edwards as his running mate, Sen. Kerry has pleased union leaders in coming out in opposition to secret ballots by workers in deciding whether to accept union representation. Organized labor wants to do away with secret balloting and instead use the "card check," in which a union gains accreditation as a company's bargaining agent by soliciting union cards from members. Critics say that method results in coercion of workers by union organizers.

Both Kerry and Edwards have joined Sen. Edward M. Kennedy in urging the National Labor Relations Board to adopt card check instead of secret ballots.

I wonder if America's First Gay Couple will also call for a card check instead of secret ballots in the national elections. Let's face it, John Kerry is every bit as gay as Bill Clinton was black.

The party of national extinction

In the national survey of more than 75 percent of the Democratic delegates, two out of three of those expressing a position on gay marriages said they favored them. But among the delegates from a dozen Southeastern states, a slight majority was opposed.

No other issue reveals that wide of a regional divide among the party's delegates. On another major social issue - abortion, 92 percent of the Southern delegates said they supported abortion rights, identical to the national average.

"They're reflecting the views of Southern Democrats," said Emory University political scientist Merle Black. "Most Southern Democrats would be in favor of choice on the abortion issue but most would be against gay marriage, especially in the rural and small-town South." Most Southern Democrats opposed to abortion rights have already left the party, but there's a "different distribution" when it comes to gay marriage, he said.

Edwards delegate Robert Sanders, an attorney from Covington, Ky., says he "couldn't care if you marry a fireplug." Others, such as Mary Brown, an environmental administrator from Vicksburg, Miss., used strong language to express their opposition to the concept of abortion but said they still favor the right. "I am for a woman's right to murder her child if she wants to," Brown said.

When Massachusetts' Supreme Court first dictated homogamy, I thought the election was in Bush's bag. Unfortunately for the Republicans, Bush proved himself to be as inept at political strategery as he is at military strategy. When your opponent hands you a club, BEAT HIM OVER THE HEAD WITH IT! This is rocket science?

I think the primary difference between Democrats and Republicans now is that Democrats want to actively depopulate the nation, while Republicans would prefer to see it collapse into chaos. Perhaps that's not what they ideally want, but it sure appears to be the logical extension of their policies.

It's not that I'm pessimistic, it's just that it's amazing to look at the historical lifespan of societies and then watch as the same pattern of decline plays out in your own society. It's truly astounding, especially listening to others explain why these changes are positive developments. Nothing lasts forever, and we've already witnessed the collapse of one global superpower. I don't understand how it's possible for anyone to deny at least the possibility of the USA's following suit.

Internet flyover country

Eight years after Microsoft launched an online magazine in a groundbreaking attempt at cyber-hipness, Slate may be sold. More than half a dozen media companies have expressed interest in buying the Internet publication, and the leading contenders are the New York Times and The Washington Post, a source familiar with the discussions said today....

Slate drew 4.6 million unique visitors last month, in part because it is part of the Microsoft Network, and the computer company would like to keep it there, even under a new owner, as a draw.

WorldNetDaily reportedly has something like 5 million unique visitors a month, without the benefit of being pushed by Microsoft on MSN and MSNBC, yet doesn't get anywhere near the media attention that Slate normally does. I suppose this is the Internet equivalent of how Chicago, Dallas and Houston rate merely a modicum of the attention given to New York, Los Angeles and Miami.

Gold don't look so good

As with the equity markets, gold is looking unhealthy. The difference being that gold's downdraft should be countertrend, while I have little doubt that the long term trend for the equity markets is down. Fundamentals are always deceiving, as the dollarr will ultimately go the way of all paper, but markets never move in straight lines.

Using the same logic as before, if Wave 1 was 433 down to 370 in 86 trading days, Wave 2 looks to have peaked at 411, a 65 percent retracement in 46 days. The next buying opportunity should be somewhere in the vicinity of 348, perhaps somewhat lower, if Wave 3 is bigger than Wave 1, presumably sometime in November if the pattern holds. (These waves are an order of magnitude lower than the equity market waves I previously discussed, hence the shorter time frames.)

This is of no concern at all if you're holding long-term bullion, but last week probably would have been a good time to move out of your trading positions preparatory to picking it up. You still might want to consider doing so if the price drops below 389 next week, as chances are that you'll be able to buy at a 12 percent discount in the near future.

I'm still not completely sold on Elliott Waves, especially on the timing calls, but if they're correct on the dollar hitting the high 90's, well, that will be truly impressive indeed. I can't think of one economist or financial analyst who thinks the fundamentals call for anything but a dropping dollar. But markets never move in a straight line, and if you think about it, plunging equity markets would move a lot of people into cash....

More on government and murder

One thing that was bothering me about my previous democide/homicide calculation is that it didn't account for the changing world population over the century, which went from 1.65 billion in 1900 to 6 billion in 2000. Also, one or two people objected to my assertion that the USA has one of the highest homicide rates in the world - it seldom leaps to the very top, as South Africa has replaced Colombia, but it is always in the top 5-10.

First, I used a spreadsheet to work out that the average world population over the course of the 20th century was 3.82 billion. This is an estimate, of course, but much closer than assuming it was always 6 billion. As to the global homicide rate, what worked out to 1.6/100k did seem too low, so I decided on a different method.

Taking the most four populous "countries" - China, India, the USA and the EU - (using France, Germany, the UK, Spain and Italy for the EU) - provided homicide rates of 1.3, 3.74, 5.64, and 1.79 respectively, resulting in an average 3.12 murders per 100,000. 3.82 billion divided by 100,000 and multiplied by 3.12 gives 119,184 annual homicides. (This means that with 4.83 percent of the global population, the US accounts for 7.84 percent of the global murders, which sounds about right.)

Over the course of the century, that's 11.9 million murders by individual criminals, which is horrific, but still only 6.43 percent of the 185 million bodycount racked up by governments the world over from 1900 to 2000. This method of calculation thus concludes that government is 15.55 times more lethal than crime.

Bane is beautiful

Just when you think he can't possibly top himself - after the combination of his comments on Miss Spears and the vengeance story - he produces this:

Feh...you people. When it's inevitable, just lay back and enjoy it. You don't hear the frog whining, now do ya?

Perfect. If I was going to rename this blog, I think I'd call it Whining Frog.

Make it smaller by making it bigger?

The assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services responds to Jonah Goldberg:

All good conservatives want smaller government. To achieve that end, we need a plan. Merely wishing it were so is not a plan. The fact is that children (and adults) living in healthy and stable marriages are less in need of government services. By offering marriage-education services — on a purely voluntary basis — to interested couples whereby they can develop the knowledge and skills necessary to form and sustain healthy marriages, we will help reduce the need for more intrusive government interventions later on.

Granted, this is new work. Nobody knows for sure whether it will succeed. But one thing is certain: Unless we can reverse the decline of marriage, demand for an ever-expanding welfare state will continue. The president's Healthy Marriage Initiative is no panacea, but it's a step in the right direction.

Here's a safe prediction: no matter how much money is spent on the Healthy Marriage Initiative, marriage will continue to decline and the welfare state will continue to expand. This initiative is rampant idiocy. Rampant, I tell you! Rampant! You can't cure cancer with cancer, you don't treat a patient with a bullet wound by shooting him in the head, and you can't solve government-created problems with more government!

Drums, drums, in the deep

Charles Krauthammer begins the martial drumbeat... again:

Did we invade the wrong country? One of the lessons now being drawn from the 9/11 report is that Iran was the real threat. It had links to al Qaeda, allowed some of the 9/11 hijackers to transit through, and is today harboring al Qaeda leaders. The Iraq War critics have a new line of attack: We should have done Iran instead of Iraq.

There may be no deus ex machina. If nothing is done, a fanatical terrorist regime openly dedicated to the destruction of the ``Great Satan'' will have both nuclear weapons and the terrorists and missiles to deliver them. All that stands between us and that is either revolution or pre-emptive strike.

Both of which, by the way, are far more likely to succeed with 146,000 American troops and highly sophisticated aircraft standing by just a few miles away -- in Iraq.

Charade. The common wisdom is always a charade. Never forget that. It is looking more and more likely that total war in the region was the plan all along, and that an important part of that plan was to drag the American people into it step by unwilling step. I imagine we will not bother to declare this war, either.

I'm not saying that one can't make a reasonable case for war with Iran, not at all. But the way in which the administration has gone about manipulating the situation from the start makes it clear that these neoconservative Wilsonian imperialists are the very last people who can be trusted to wage it.

Third of a third. (shakes head)

The cure is worse than the disease

Some of you might wonder how I obtained the number indicating that governments kill 22 times more people than individual criminals. First, to obtain a maximum murder bodycount for the world, let's trace the following train of logic.

1. The USA is one of the most violent countries in the world.
2. There were 17,298 murders in the USA in 2000.
3. The USA has 5 percent of the world's population.
4. 20 times 17,298 is 345,960 murders per year.
5. 100 times 345,960 is 34.6 million, our maximum bodycount.

Remember, this assumes that criminals in populous countries such as France, China and Japan, where the murder rates are as low as 8.8 percent of the USA's, are as murderous as in the USA. The 20th century government body count, on the other hand, is estimated to be 185 million. So, governments the world over are at least 5.3 times as likely to commit murder as private individuals.

However, this 34.6 million number is far too high. If we substituted the relatively peaceful Japan for the USA as a stand-in for the world average, we'd have a grand total of 3 million murders for the century, which would make governments 56.4 times more lethal. I haven't spent a lot of time investigating international homicide statistics, but a Google search provides an estimate of 8.4 million global murders for the 20th century, which amounts to a global homicide rate of approximately 1.6 per 100,000 for the century. This is higher than China's 1.3, much less the United Kingdom's 0.9 or Japan's 0.6. Dividing 185 million by 8.4 gives the aforementioned 22/1 ratio.

These are crude approximations, of course, as the number of people on the planet has changed dramatically from 1900 to 2000, Rummel's numbers for the century only go to 1987, and most countries do not have reliable statistics for most of the period in question. But regardless of whether the correct multiple is 22 or 5.3, it should not be hard to see that strong government is worse than crime.

Execute the agents

There is one death penalty I could support. Allowing the government to execute government employees who use the color of the law to commit murder and escape the consequences of their actions. I despise the militarized police, the DEA and the FBI. They are predators far worse than those they claim to be defending Americans against. Law-and-order government cheerleaders tend to be ignorant of the fact that an individual living in the 20th century was 22 times more likely to be murdered by a government employee than by a private criminal. No democidist ever obtained power by promising chaos; they always promise Recht und Ordnung to the foolish and short-sighted.

As soon as DEA agents realized they had killed an innocent Hispanic girl, they began a vigorous damage control effort. They closed the crime scene neighborhood and sent a team of agents to Nelly Villarreal's house....

With the little girl lost and the community in an uproar, the DEA's spin machine kicked into high gear. DEA spin doctors alleged Ashley had driven a darkened car without its headlights on, had accelerated toward agents, then backed up to try to hit them, and that agents shot at the car only in self-defense. Other sources floated ludicrous stories implying that Ashley, Danny, and Nelly were fronts for Joey's alleged coke sales. Pro-DEA sources said Ashley "caused her own death" because she was "driving a car without a driver's license."

The San Antonio Police Department (SAPD) Homicide Unit, Bexar County District Attorney's office, and a team of DEA investigators from Washington, DC, began looking into the incident, but lawyers for the Villarreal family, along with journalists and civil liberties groups, say the investigation is being mishandled and carried out with an unreasonable degree of secrecy.

The DEA refuses to comment on the case, other than to disparage Ashley and her family while staunchly defending its agents' actions.

All in the unholy name of the Drug War. As with Waco, they have to murder the children in order to save them. Since the government always protects its own, however heinous the the crime, it seems that there's no alternative but private vengeance in matters such as these. I certainly won't shed a tear if those DEA agents are hunted down, one by one, and exterminated like the insects they are.

And spare me the forgiveness lectures. Forgiveness is for those who repent, not those who insist that they were justified in their crimes and slur the murdered dead.

A Vox flip-flop

I have been outspoken in the past about my opposition to women in the military. I have, however, decided that my position was completely incorrect due to new details regarding the facts of women's service in the military of which I was previously unaware. I apologize for my inappropriate male insensitivity, and furthermore, would also like to declare my support for a women's draft.

Courtesy of Jonah Goldberg:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. Army has long lured recruits with the slogan "Be All You Can Be," but now soldiers and their families can receive plastic surgery, including breast enlargements, on the taxpayers' dime.

The New Yorker magazine reports in its July 26th edition that members of all four branches of the U.S. military can get face-lifts, breast enlargements, liposuction and nose jobs for free -- something the military says helps surgeons practice their skills.

Mailvox: Spinning science

Ellis writes:

"Besides, the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics completely negates the Anthropic Principle and is currently more accepted by physicists than the Copenhagen Interpretation."

Ah yes, those many worlds, for which there is absolutely no scientific evidence. I love how "scientists" so quickly resort to fantasy in order to escape the logical conclusions of science. Oh, but it's more accepted by physicists, is it? I always understood science to be driven by replicable experiments, not opinion polls.

The significant word, of course, is "currently". The same was true of the once-current state of archeology, which "proved" the Bible wasn't true thanks to the historical absence of the Hittites and Assyrians - both peoples have since been found - and with the advent of Intelligent Design the secular faithful are now desperately cooking up untested theories, (otherwise known as hypotheses, first steps not to be confused with the whole of the method), which are then, ironically, blindly cited by the ignorant as proof of their non-belief. When a physicist demonstrates the existence of another world and his demonstration is replicated by others, I'll take these arguments seriously. Otherwise, it's not science, it's just science fiction.

And here I thought it was the religious nuts who were supposed to be into baseless superstition. As of today, there is more evidence for God than there is for "many worlds". And as for me, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that both exist outside our space-time continuum.

Remember how "scientists" such as Freud once convinced several generations that religion was unhealthy? Decades later, actual scientific studies demonstrated that quite the opposite was true. Christianity has nothing to fear from science, only those addicted to their dogma need worry. And that holds true for the atheist as well the Christian.

The innocence of Mr. Joseph Farah

Mr. Farah writes:

In a way I would never have imagined possible, the news media have allowed themselves to be led by the Democrats' disinformation campaign to the point where they have forgotten the story.

Pardon me, but the story remains Sandy Berger's inexplicable actions. Why did he do it? Which papers did he pilfer? What was he trying to conceal? Whom was he trying to protect?

I hope the Justice Department is focused on these questions like a laser beam, but I sincerely doubt it. It's been nine months and no FBI agent has even interviewed Berger yet. What's that about? He should have been indicted, tried and convicted by now.

Sandy Berger is a lowly member of the bi-factional ruling party. Nothing will come of this, any more than one of the king's courtiers would be punished for raping a peasant lass back in the day. There is no Law, there are only legal weapons wielded against the masses to keep them in their place.

I don't know how anyone who pays any attention to the political process can think that there's a genuine conflict between the heavy hitters of the Democratic-Republican Party. The Michigan-Ohio State rivalry is far more convincing. Of course, it has the advantage of being genuine.

Next week's column

Okay, I just turned it in and I'm still laughing. I have the feeling that I'm going to be receiving some seriously irate emails on Monday. Any big fans of The Factor here?

I'm just curious... no reason....

What needs to be done

Flight crews and air marshals say Middle Eastern men are staking out airports, probing security measures and conducting test runs aboard airplanes for a terrorist attack. At least two midflight incidents have involved numerous men of Middle Eastern descent behaving in what one pilot called "stereotypical" behavior of an organized attempt to attack a plane. "No doubt these are dry runs for a terrorist attack," an air marshal said. Pilots and air marshals who asked to remain anonymous told The Washington Times that surveillance by terrorists is rampant, using different probing methods.

"It's happening, and it's a sad state of affairs," a pilot said. A June 29 incident aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 327 from Detroit to Los Angeles is similar to a Feb. 15 incident on American Airlines Flight 1732 from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to New York's John F. Kennedy Airport.

Not that I'll be flying anytime soon, but here's what I would recommend. If a group of Middle Eastern men start playing the bathroom game, round up a few weightlifters, ex-jocks and any other guys who look as if they can handle themselves. Then simply block off the bathrooms in precisely the same manner that the Arabs were. If a flight attendant complains, tell her that you understand that she may not be able to discriminate, but not being an employee, you and the boys are not bound by airline policy, and since she's already demonstrated that the crew obviously has no intention of enforcing a no-loitering rules, you're not going to pay attention to it either.

Better to get a lecture at your destination than never make it there. Is that discrimination? Sure it is. Deal with it. When blue-eyed Swedish blondes start committing terrorist acts around the world, we'll hassle them too.

Strategy vs Tactics

When it comes to investing, I've learned that I'm a strategist, not a tactician. My inability to pull the trigger and cut my losses when a trade loses 20 percent in the first two days means that even though some 75 percent of my short-term trades are positive, I lose overall.

Strategically, on the other hand, I've done quite well. I just sold off a two-year position in an equity that, in combination with currency appreciation, turned in a very nice 236 percent return. Its sister position, despite a nominal decline, still managed a 22.4 percent return. Not bad at all. And going into gold at 270 didn't hurt either. So, let's talk strategy.

The conventional wisdom has it that this is just another summer swoon, and that the markets will rise into the election. That's possible, to be sure, as I am no prognosticator. My errant predictions of 15 months ago should suffice to prove otherwise. But, as there seems to be a certain amount of interest, I thought I'd share some of my thoughts on the current situation.

What I got wrong, I think, was partially due to my failure to think the Elliott Wave concept all the way through. The people at EWI tend to look closer at the charts than at the calendar, and I never stopped to consider the following basic point: If Intermediate Wave (1) took 640 trading days from March 2000 to October 2002, how could anyone expect Wave (2) to be complete in March 2003. That's six months, about 125 trading days, far too short to be a reasonable countertrend to a 640-day wave. It is, in fact, close to the MINIMUM possible time-relationship at 19 percent. Based on the historical averages, projecting a 1280-day countertrend wave would have been as reasonable.

Is it possible that we have now seen the top of Wave (2)? The March 5th high for the S&P 500 this year marks 402 trading days from the end of Wave (1), or 62.8 percent of the time. In those 402 days, it rebounded back up to 75 percent of its peak. The QQQ hit its high earlier, on January 20th, marking 322 days of rally, which means that it rebounded to 32 percent (from 16 percent) in half of Wave (1)'s time.

We are told that Wave (3) is usually the big one, but for the sake of conservative argument, let's assume that it is identical in length and performance to Wave (1). This would bring us to expect a bottom at the end of July 2006, with the S&P 500 at 580, the Dow at 6800 and the QQQ at 6.50. Sound impossible? I don't think anyone expected to see the Cubes under twenty only two-and-a-half years after it hit 120 either.

If we did see the crest of Wave (2) a few months back, then we can compare how the decline so far compares to our expected down wave. In the case of the S&P 500, it's declined 9.4 percent in 14.5 percent of our projected 640 days. The QQQ has declined 13.3 percent in 20 percent of the time. This could indicate a) nothing if I'm off-base, or, if I'm strategically correct, b) the speed of the decline is going to pick up pace at some point in the relatively near future.

The SPX/VIX ratio tends to support the latter theory. Small crashes of 20 percent in a month have tended to take place when this ratio is in excess of 80. Yesterday, when the morning rally peaked, that ratio hit 80.24 for the third time since June 23rd. Technicians will have no doubt noted that the three major equity markets have all now broken through the support of their 200-day moving averages for the first time since April 14, 2003.

In any case, time will tell.

Bad news for the anti-anthropic crowd

"I want to report that I think I have solved a major problem in theoretical physics," announced [Stephen] Hawking as he described his solution to the black hole information paradox.

This paradox, ironically, stems from Hawking’s own work. In the 1970s he proved that black holes lose mass by emitting radiation and eventually evaporate altogether. But this conflicted with the laws of quantum physics, which state that information about what fell into the black hole can never be completely wiped out. Hawking previously argued that the intense gravitational fields inside the black hole were unravelling the laws of quantum mechanics, possibly sending the information shooting off into other universes. Now he thinks the information simply leaks out back into our own Universe.

Hawking explains the implications. "I’m sorry to disappoint science fiction fans, but if information is preserved, there is no possibility of using black holes to travel to other universes.

And, incidentally, there's no reason to believe those other universes exist, as much as those made uncomfortable by the Anthropic Principle might wish them to. This isn't to say that they don't, only that there's less scientific evidence for other universes than there is for intelligent design.

Speaking of science fiction, here's one of my reader's peeves. A new principle is no sooner discovered/conceived when the intrepid hero can suddenly use it to leap around all space and time, or create a weapon from it. When has the move from the conceptual to the practical ever taken place in time measured in months, much less minutes?

Release the video

Hey, if we can rent Pam and Tommy's wedding night nuptials at Blockbuster, why shouldn't we be able to watch the hidden video of Mr. Sandy Berger "sloppily" sneaking out documents from the National Archives. It's a publicly owned camera and public property, after all. That video should immediately settle the question of whether Mr. Berger was actually stuffing papers down his pants or not.

Of course, being a protege of Bill Clinton, Berger will probably insist that he was doinig nothing more than innocently trying to impress a secretary at the front desk with the bulge of his oversized genitalia.

Joe Lockhart, Clinton's former spokesman, says Berger "categorically denies that he ever took documents and stuffed them in his socks," according to CNN.

"That is absurd," said Lockhart, who is now advising Berger. "And anyone who says that is interested in something other than the truth."

Former Clinton aide Lanny Davis wants the official who leveled the sock-stuffing allegation to come forward and make the claim publicly.

"I suggest that person is lying," the news channel quotes him as saying. "And if that person has the guts, let's see who it is who made the comment that Sandy Berger stuffed something into his socks."

These old Clinton lieutenants obviously still think we're suckers. If they're getting huffy about how the papers weren't in his socks, we'll probably find out that they were in his shoes and his underwear.


UPDATE: Jonah Goldberg writes: Byron York has an excellent piece on Berger. He says that the documents Berger took were said to be 15-30 pages. So, if the Post is right, Berger took somewhere between a minimum of 75 and a maximum of 180 pages worth of the same document, in five to six drafts, over two separate occasions... inadvertantly. That is, he took them from a secure room, in a leather portfolio, all the while sneaking notes out "knowingly."

Sadly, York's piece states that there were no cameras, it was a sting setup by the National Archives people. I guess we're stuck with Pam, Tommy and Paris.

Anybody got some rope?

From WND:

Undaunted by Kofi Annan's rejection of a plan for United Nations monitoring of the U.S. presidential elections this fall, Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-TX, is taking her case to Secretary of State Colin Powell. Johnson has urgently asked Powell to make an official request that the U.N. provide observers for the Nov. 2 elections in the United States to "ensure free and fair elections."

Thirteen Democratic congressmen, led by Johnson, sent a letter July 8 to the U.N. general secretary requesting the presence of U.N. representatives in every county of the country during the voting process and any vote recount afterwards.

The U.N. immediately responded that such a request could not be accepted unless if came from the U.S. government. Otherwise, a spokesman said, it could be considered "intervention in a country’s sovereignty."

The U.N. response confirms that Rep. Johnson and her treasonous compatriots are actively working to subvert US national sovereignty. I'm no Republican, but I'd certainly support giving these Democrats a fair trial, then hanging them. Well, I would, if I didn't think it was a horrible idea to give the State the power of life and death, I should probably say.

Fine, in this case, we can make do with exiling them. I don't think they'll enjoy it quite as much as the immortal expatriate, Fred.

Don't look, don't think

From WND

The New York Times, which yesterday buried the story about a former national security adviser caught shoving highly classified documents in his pants, today suggested in a news story the scandal of the missing documents might hurt his chances of becoming secretary of state.

Sandy Berger, national security adviser during the Clinton administration, is facing a Justice Department investigation for rifling through files in the National Archives in preparation for the 911 Commission hearings.

He admits taking papers home and now has no explanation as to where several are.

I'm just curious to know why anyone believes what the government was saying about Waco, OK City and TWA 800 considering that we now have proof that a top administration official of that era is manifestly willing to destroy documentary evidence. Furthermore, what reason do we have to believe that the current administration's officials are any different with regards to the events that happened on its watch?

As Bob Schultz has discovered, all the documents related to the discussion of the 1913 income tax, and, I would guess, the Federal Reserve as well, are now missing from the National Archives. But missing documents and officials sticking papers down their pants is all innocent, I'm sure. Nothing to hide, don't look, don't think, just believe what they say and do as you're told....

So sprach Mogambo

So how severe will the bust be? Worse than anything you can imagine, as the degree of monetary laxity under the horrid Alan Greenspan is worse than anything anyone could possibly have imagined, sort of like when you were young and you were wondering what it will be like to be married, and never once did you interrupt the carnal daydreams and idyllic visions of staying up as late as you wanted and eating cake for dinner to consider that it would end up being an unending hell, where you spend your waking moments praying for death to deliver your from getting any more of what you so richly deserve for being such a moron and having such a loose grip on reality.

The Aden sisters, who have also been around this economic biz long enough to see the writing on the wall, write that "Inflation is headed higher," although they qualify their assessment with the soothing qualifier, "It may not become as extreme as it did in the 1970s." Well, they have their opinion and I have mine, which that it will be worse, much, much worse, than it was in the 1970's, only because the outrageous level of money created and the sheer size and expense of the government makes the 1970's look like a day at the beach in comparison.

They then give a little snapshot of how prices are acting lately. "Last month import prices soared at an annual rate of 19.2%. Consumer prices had their biggest jump in 14 years this year with the latest rise at 7.2% annualized. This included a 55% surge in energy prices and a nearly 11% gain in food prices (both annualized). Excluding these, the popular core rate was obviously less. But since we all eat and drive, the core rate is actually meaningless."

"Producer prices reinforced the other inflation figures. They too have soared the most in 14 years over the past year with the latest up at an annual rate of nearly 10%. Energy and food prices surged over 19% and 18% annualized, respectively. So who says there's no inflation? There is, and it's soaring."

Richard Russell "The fact (which few seem to realize) is that the Fed is still fighting the dragon of deflation. For the year-to-date (the last 25 weeks), M-3, the broad money supply, is up $430 billion or an annualized rate of 10.1%. This is double last year's rate, so it seems clear that Alan Greenspan still believes it's necessary to fight deflation."

And what is this deflation that Greenspan is so worried about? The prices of stocks and bonds and houses.

Austrian theory is calling it. Elliott Wave is calling it. The debt levels, trade deficits and conventional history is all ominous. But Alan Greenspan says it's okay, so I'm sure it's fine.

Mailvox: context, volk

Rhone is irked:

" Even though I understand that people read for confirmation, not information...". You consistently underestimate your readership: Franken, Alterman, Iran post,Syrian TImes, Al Quiada websites [translated] as well as the usual: WND [damn i'm as tired of hearing their crap about how terrible the Dems are as i am the other side-verbage is almost interchangable] and the rest of the 'conservative'[sic] stuff: even read the stock guys, to see what they're saying about metals and to hear them lie about the market. If you only read what you agree with, how can you ever know your enemy, or how he/she thinks, plans, reacts? Besides, one actually 'learns' from these disparate views...just like listening to Keynsians, contrasted with Austrian School. Your arrogance in these regards is unbecoming and unwarrented. No one's got a 'corner' on the truth: not ann coulter, al franken, or vox day.

Methinks you took the statement too far. I would be a massive hypocrite were I to advocate not reading viewpoints opposed to one's own. I not only read the American Left, I also read the European Left as well as the original source material. I was speaking only of the mass preference to read for confirmation, as any analysis of non-fiction bestsellers will show. A woman who buys the Lizard Queen's book is not reading for information, she is reading it to confirm her opinion of Hillary's sainthood. A conservative who buys Ben Shapiro's book is not reading for information, he is reading it to confirm what he already knows from his own experience: that academics are liberal.

I would submit that while I do not have a corner on the truth, I do have hold of a much larger portion of it than darling Alice.

Mailvox: When the short answer isn't enough

Craig is alarmed:

What drives you? If you are "just doing this for fun" I kind of feel betrayed. I first heard about this site from a friend who told me some guy is challenging AL Franken to a fight which to me was freaking awesome. There is nothing better than a bright fearless Christian that is tuned in to pop culture. The mainstream media could really use someone like you. Too bad "that is not what you want" There is a battle going on between good and evil and it has many fronts, media being a huge front. Sometimes it sounds like you want in on this battle, other times you seem to just want to thumb your nose at the battle and talk about how amusing it all is to you.

Two things. First, "for fun" was simply shorthand for explaining that I am not a journalist, have no interest in being a journalist and have no serious desire to pursue a media career. I've twice been asked to apply for the editorship of magazines, once a magazine that I truly love, and both times turned it down. I don't have any burning desire to see myself on TV, to listen to my sibilant "s" on the radio or to see my name on a masthead. I just don't. In running my own business, I've earned more money in a year than any ego-driven camera-hungry media whore except the biggest of the big dogs, the Limbaughs, O'Reillys and Coulters.

I'm a libertarian. While I see little difference between the sale of principle required to be embraced by the mainstream media and the sale of one's body, I fully support an individual's legal (not moral) right to do either. But I have known call girls for whom I have more respect and regard than many a talking head.

The media battle does call to me at times, Craig, but the problem is that the battle, for the most part, is a fraud. For example, the studio will feature two talking heads, one "conservative" and one "liberal" arguing about the administration's proper policy response to an unexpectedly high CPI number. Meanwhile, I know: a) the CPI number is completely fake, since it is manipulated to exclude inflationary elements and overcount deflationary elements, b) the cause of the real, higher inflation, and c) that inflation is necessarily an inherent part of the current system. This is only one of dozens of possible examples.

Most people don't know that I could have been writing columns for WND three years before I started. Mr. Farah and I discussed it, but I didn't feel as if I had enough to say to write two columns a week. Now, of course, I'm blogging daily, so in retrospect that wasn't a problem. It's possible to think that things might have been different if I had established myself sooner. But any student of economics understands opportunity cost, and now the cost of throwing myself into what I know to be a largely superficial conflict is much too high.

Potentially more significant is the apparent fact that the media does not appear to want much to do with me. My column is out there, every single week, and this blog is updated every single day. I can't force the newspapers to run my column any more than I can force people to read my blog. 1,600 daily hits here compared to 61,000 at Wonkette would seem to indicte that people have a strong preference for snappy one-liners about anal sex over what I have on offer. Does it annoy me when so much column space goes to inferior thinkers who repeatedly demonstrate their cluelessness? Of course! But it doesn't surprise me at all; the market for mediocrity has always been a large one. Money and fame is not the only measure of quality, if they are, Britney Spears and Jenna Jameson rate more highly than Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin.

I am always open-minded with regards to the future. But unlike most, I have seen up close the costs of both fame and great fortune, and so I am considerably more ambivalent about such things than most. And I think, Craig, that perhaps you failed to consider one possibility. Sometimes one laughs because the only alternative is to scream.

Be a good little serf

U.S. Citizen, Elena Sassower, respectfully waited through two hours of speeches in favor of the nominee until Chairman Senator Saxby Chambliss adjourned the May 22, 2003 U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Judicial Confirmation, a Public Hearing without asking if anyone else present wished to be heard.

Elena Sassower, then said: “Mr. Chairman, there’s citizen opposition to Judge Wesley based on his documented corruption as a New York Court of Appeals judge. May I testify?”

Elena Sassower, within seconds, was removed by the D.C. Capitol Police from the Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing Room, hands cuffed behind her back, arrested and incarcerated for 21 hours.

Elena Sassower, was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorneys’ Office and on April 20, 2004 was found ‘guilty of Disruption of Congress’ after a week-long trial before Superior Court Judge Brian F. Holeman at 500 Indiana Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C.

I know nothing about the particulars of this case, but somehow, it doesn't lead me to think that our elected officials are likely to pay much legitimate attention to We The People's exercise of their Constitutional right to petition. I suspect the only thing that keeps the Federal staatspolizei from locking them up is that the arrest of 14,592 people who've done nothing but sign a formal Petition of Redress would explode the matrix construct once and for all.

In tangential news, I doubt anyone will be surprised to hear this:

After several hours of legal wrestling related to findings and recommendations included in [Dick] Simkanin's pre-sentencing report, USDC Judge John McBryde imposed the sentence that is approximately double what was indicated by the “point system” criteria utilized in the federal sentencing guidelines. During the day, McBryde also sentenced two other individuals on federal charges including a bank robber and a wife-beating firearms dealer. Their combined sentences were less than half that [84 months] received by Simkanin....

The most telling proofs of judicial manipulation were McBryde's improper directed findings of critical facts to the jury, ruling that Simkanin could not enter a single piece of paper as defense evidence and McBryde's repeated quashing of testimony when he (Simkanin) attempted to put on a defense by explaining the content of the Constitution’s taxing clauses and the content of federal tax law and how he relied on the words of the law to determine his actions.

Seven years. I imagine that it won't be long before businessmen who are interested in operating under a government that actually obeys its own laws will begin to want their businesses headquartered and staffed outside the United States. Not all outsourcing and offshore moves are to countries with low-cost labor, after all. Once a government ceases to respond to its citizens and begins to hold show trials meant to intimidate its productive classes, it's all downhill from there.

A viral meme

White Lightning Axiom: Redux is mesmerized:

Vox is evil, but an odd, seductive evil that is irrefutable.

Very flattering, to be sure, but the interesting thing was the single comment inspired by this post. "Hi. Hope I'm doing this correctly, am unfamiliar with this blog site. Just wanted to say thanks for being a reader. I took your advice and manually pollenated my pumpkin and zuchini. Keeping my fingers crossed. Growing my own Jack-o-lantern would be amazingly cool."

Though my sins be many, manually pollinating vegetables is not numbered among them. So, just who is in league with darkness here, Mr. Republican National Convention?

Mailvox: I care, but not that much

William is, he tells us, in a quandary:

I am in a quandry - I read both you and Michelle and when I read your original post it had the tone of sour grapes to me wrapped in a "this doesn't make sense to me" wrapper. Then I read your latest with its "That's obviously not the case, as if I had the desire to be a media whore and maximize my exposure by running back and forth between CNN and Fox" where sour grapes in disguise are so obvious despite all your protestations--not to mention a few cheap shots under the guise of satirical irony.

I have read you for some time and was happy to see your blog (though your website is unreadable - literally, the text is too small and not adjustable) but I must say I was disappointed by the original post on this topic and the follow-up only reinforces my concerns. I have just come to expect more from you. Maybe if I didn't like Michelle I wouldn't have reacted this way, but that says more about me than you...

William, as hard as it may be to believe, there are actually some people who have lives outside of Media World and no desire for a career in it. I happen to be one f them. I have no media career, this is something I do... "for fun" is the short answer.

It might help you to understand that I once started a band that had record and publishing contracts with TVT Records, singles hitting the charts, music in soundtracks of movies like Mortal Kombat, was beating out Prince for local music awards, and we refused to play live or go on tour. It was an absolute must if we wanted to make it big - it took TVT three years of touring NIN to break Trent - but we absolutely refused. Were we stupid? No, because that wasn't what we wanted. The other founder is happily married, doing exactly what he wants at Microsoft, and I'm doing... other things. I can't even imagine going the other route now.

I will be the first to admit that the success of others occasionally boggles my mind. After turning down two of my proposals - which they'd requested - a publisher published what turned out to be a successful book based on the shocking premise that professors are left-liberal. (Insert advertisement for my forthcoming work "Oxygen" here.) Even though I understand that people read for confirmation, not information, I still found this remarkable. But I'm not envious of this success, because I don't want to do what they do. Do you honestly think I can't write an article expressing outrage about airline security?

Of course I can! But why should I, when twenty other columnists inevitably will? I am quite aware that I'm limiting my audience by writing about Tolstoy instead of terror, and Elliott Waves instead of Wilson. I can run neck and neck with Queen Ann for top WND readership anytime I choose; all I have to do is lambast Kerry and the Clintons every week, taking one week off every month to take the obligatory shot at the liberal coverage of the issue du jour. How entertaining - I think I'd rather write bad fiction imitating Mercedes Lackey instead.

I have nothing at all against Michelle Malkin. She's cute. She writes well. But she clearly wants a media career whereas I don't. Seriously. Now, I'm glad that you, William, and a few others happen to enjoy my columns and whatnot. But I was writing before anyone was reading my stuff, and even now, with five novels and almost three years of columns under my belt, a good part of what I write goes unread. This isn't my career, in fact, this isn't even my primary hobby. If I ever get tired of it, I'll walk away as cheerfully as I walked away from the record company.

Life is too precious to worry about a career. No one ever lay on their deathbed and said: "thank God I was on CNN!"

My low, low standards

Puzzled thinks we're looking for perfection:

maybe it is the ability to count, and an understanding of the electoral system, which the ideologues don't seem to begin to understand.... Mrs. Schaeffer used to tell us in studies when she was still here that one of her late husband's favorite phrases was "In a Fallen world, if you demand perfection or nothing, you will always get nothing."

I'm afraid it's you who repeatedly fail to understand. Yes, we understand how to count. Yes, I understand the electoral system. I simply don't believe it makes one bloody bit of difference if Faction A (international socialists) or Faction B (corporatist socialists) is in power. And the facts of the matter are clearly on my side, as I've previously illustrated the many, many similarities between Bush and Kerry.

Puzzled, like all Republican cheerleaders, can't think past tomorrow. Like every conservative Republican since Barry Goldwater was the Promised Land, he's hoping for a miracle as the country further rots. Since the serious putrification began so long ago, the speed with which it proceeds is totally unimportant except in the shortest term.

I am not demanding perfection. Not even close. I simply hope and pray for a government that will somehow manage to avoid killing its own citizens. If my standards for women were as low as my standards for government, I'd be cheerfully dating a 65 year-old crack addict with no teeth and a bad case of syphilis.

Vengeance!

The Sports Guy has come up with a Vengeance Scale:

8.0 -- Justin Timberlake's "Cry Me A River" video.

(Note: The most underrated example of vengeance on this list. After Britney cheated on him, not only did he dump her, he put out a best-selling album fueled by a song about their breakup in which he basically destroys her with the lyrics. Just an unbelievable piece of work. It's devastating. I can't even imagine what she did when she first heard it. And if that wasn't enough, he made a well-received video about the song, starring a Britney look-alike. And if THAT wasn't enough, he immediately started going out with Cameron Diaz. By the time he was done, Britney's career was in the tank -- she was chain-smoking and hanging out with backup dancers and white trash guys from her hometown. Now that, my friends, is vengeance. Bravo, Justin. Bravo.)

Well said. But uncharacteristically, The Sports Guy fails to note the added bonus that the girl in the video, (not the Britney stand-in, the brunette), is approximately 4.75 times hotter than Justin's dumpee.

Also, given that VENGEANCE is the theme of every martial arts movie ever filmed, I felt that the genre was not adequately represented by Daniel-san, Steven Seagal and Jean-Claude van Damme.

OO bleg

Anyone know if there's an invert macro for OpenOffice Calc and where it can be found? I know there's a Transpose function, but that only turns a vertical column into a horizontal row. I want to take the cells in a single column and reverse the order so that:

A
B
C

becomes

C
B
A

I have the macro running in Excel, of course, but I don't want to reboot into Windows just to flip a column.

Arrivederci, baby

J is bereft:

Whatever happened to Cox & Forkum? I was a fan of their work since back in the old school, and I was hella stoked when you put them on your faves list. Now they've disappeared. What gives?

What happened? I got bored. They're talented and amusing, to be sure, but after a few weeks it got to the point that I knew what the cartoon would be before I clicked on the page. And so, the axe fell. Hello Cthulhu is more my style anyhow.

Nothing bores me more than predictability. If you notice, I don't tend to write a lot of "Isn't America Great" columns on July 4th, and it actually causes me physical discomfort when I write about a dead horse which I know every other columnist will be enthusiastically flogging. There's no need for me to write about Joe Wilson's lies; NRO has been writing about little else. I usually make an exception to this rule on Christmas and Easter, when I do like to write about matters spiritual,

Meanwhile, the stock market takes a dive, which if it is the onset of Wave 3 will probably do far more to threaten the re-election of the president than Abu Ghraib, "Bush Lied" and [fill in your conservative cause-of-the-week here] combined, and not a one of those Townhall and NRO columnists championing the president even notices except for Larry Kudlow, who, as is his custom, can't see a dip without shouting BUY, BUY, BUY!

Back to a previous subject - success isn't terribly difficult if you're willing to trash your principles. I know how to make ridiculous sums of money - an acquaintance of mine is a major European porn king - but what price the world? On a smaller scale, I have no doubt that UPS would have more success selling my column if I would toe the line and champion the Republican Party, but if I ever decide to sacrifice my principles and sell out, I'll do so in a manner far more cynical, lucrative and spectacular than that. This is not to say that most of the Republican cheerleaders are trashing their principles, because it's painfully clear that most of them very much believe what they are saying.

Their constant bewilderment at the actions of their so-called leaders testifies to this. Of course, they also have plenty of incentive to stay within the Pale, as the conservative establishment's treatment of former stalwarts such as Joseph Sobran, Paul Craig Roberts and even, to a certain extent, Ann Coulter shows.

Pattern blindness

I was reading some of the emails to WND this morning, and I was struck by the short-sighted consistency of the conventional Republican position. Everything is always about the next election, upon which the fate of the nation is always hanging.

The fact that the election of a Democrat does not significantly worsen things and that the election of a Republican does not significantly improve them as the nation continues its slow death-spiral never seems to enter into this short-term equation.

If, on the contrary, one steps back and sees precisely how the seeds of the future destruction were planted in 1861, in 1913 and in 1933, long before either of the present bi-factional candidates were born, one realizes that it makes no difference whatsoever if Bush or Kerry are elected, as neither of them have any intention in chopping down what have grown into trees towering over the rights and liberties of Americans, killing the national birthright in their oppressive shade.

Who is wiser? I have seldom heard that it is best to listen to the advice of those who look no further than tomorrow.

Weird grumblings?

Michelle Malkin writes:

In response to some weird grumblings that a reader alerted me to, I note for the record that I took Sitemeter off my site about three weeks ago because it was publishing traffic numbers phonier than Enron's. I think it wiped out about a week's worth of visits for some reason. I e-mailed Sitemeter for help and they never wrote me back. So I took it off the blog.

Ms Malkin seems to be under the vague impression that I begrudge her her links or her readership. That's obviously not the case, as if I had the desire to be a media whore and maximize my exposure by running back and forth between CNN and Fox I would have long ago moved to NYC or Los Angeles instead of living in what the Original Cyberpunk describes as my cave in the snow-covered Andes.

As all the regulars know, I don't take the SiteMeter statistics seriously. Some of you were even openly disappointed when I explained that the number of people visiting here had to be rather lower than reported as SiteMeter tends to overcount hits. But, since that's what the Truth Laid Bear uses for the TLB Ecosphere, that's what we use here. If everyone overcounts using the same method, it may be useful for comparative purposes, after all.

The point was not to slam Ms Malkin - although her apparent inability to grasp the point is amusing - but instead to highlight the human tendency to butter up those we regard as our superiors in some way. (Wonkette, another relatively new and much-linked blog would have served as well, I simply happened to have more data on Ms Malkin thanks to her WND connection.) Many people who link to me are readers and regulars here, and I'm pleased to link to them in return. However, it's clear from visiting some other blogs that link here and subsequently request addition to the blogroll that they are only interested in what is rather distastefully known as "link-love" in order to widen their own exposure.

Is there anything wrong with that? No more than there is anything wrong with butt-kissing in general. I despise it, some people, on the other hand, clearly crave it. Your mileage may vary. To me, the purpose of a blogroll is not to demonstrate how well-connected one is, but to offer new and perhaps unexpected alternatives wherein people may find something of interest. For example, I frequently visit Yahoo! Finance, but you'll never see it on my Faves. I want people to visit Mogambo and Charles Stross, I want visitors to know where the regulars' blogs can be found. But I see no point whatsoever in trying to present an inflated image of me or my blog.

The truth is what it is.

Mailvox: caveat emptor

DS has reasonable doubts:

Having subscribed to Elliot in the past I find that it may be useful for investing (not trading) but only in the largest view one can take. They have been so wrong so many times on even what I would call the year view, much less month, week, day or intraday. They were wrong throughout the 90's waiting for the top of V that to have followed them meant financial disaster if you shorted and very low returns if you sat on the sidelines. I lost alot shorting on their advice last year when they called over and over and over for the start to wave III down. My feeling is that like most of us they are way too soon in their calls but have to say something to their subscribers. They will eventually be right but in the mean time I learned the hard way not to trade in any time frame on their advice.

There's no question that the current state of Elliott Wave understanding leaves much to be desired. I, too, was anticipating a decline last spring at the start of the war for other reasons thanks to a flawed system of my own development, so I'm hardly one to cast stones on this subject. But timeframes are clearly a major weakness in the current level of analysis, although I don't think there's any nefarious need to feed the subscribers that's involved - accuracy is far more saleable than action here - instead, I suspect it's simply the age-old problem of human impatience coloring the wavecounts.

For example, the idea that Intermediate Wave 3 was about to begin in early 2003 appears almost absurd in retrospect. Why? Because Wave 1 took about 640 trading days from March 27, 2000, to October 10, 2002. (The precise figure depends on the specific market, of course.) Now, if it's true that we saw the peak of Wave 2 in March 2004, that's only 319 days, pretty close to 50 percent of the time-length of Wave 1. So, far from this countertrend wave being exceptionally long, as many would have it, it's pretty close to the minimum that one would reasonably expect even if one knew nothing of Elliott Waves. A counterwave may be longer or shorter, but it's not reasonable to EXPECT it to be one-tenth the time of the preceding wave.

As the S&P 500 is the largest of the three indexes, it is the least easily manipulated. Assuming the Intermediate wavecounts are correct, the countertrend response of Wave 2 was a 50.83 percent retracement of the Wave 1 decline over almost precisely 50 percent of the trading days. The Nasdaq-100 featured only a 19.54 percent retracement, while the Dow did best in reclaiming 85 percent of its losses. As 50 percent is a reasonable amount of time, the Dow is unlikely to re-establish new highs and there are a plethora of other factors indicating near-term continued decline (after the expected mini-rally over the next week), I don't expect a need to redo the Intermediate wave counts.

Time decay is fatal. I think products like RYVNX are probably much better for those with a bearish outlook, as it significantly reduces the danger of impatience. In any case, I don't believe that Elliott Waves are definitive, I only think that they may prove to be the tip of the iceberg that is our understanding of the way in which mass forces operate over time.

Mailvox: Rip away

I wonder if anyone will review one of VD's novels. I'm not certain if that would qualify as brave, or foolish.

I daresay that I am probably more inclined to rip apart my novels than the average fiction reader here. Some writers are very defensive; I seem to be of the sort that loathes their past work and sees only its shortcomings. To be honest, I'm of the opinion that my fiction has, to date, fallen markedly short of what the average person here probably believes my potential to be. It certainly hasn't lived up to my expectations thus far. I'm not being humble - perish the thought - that's just a fact. The vision is there, but the articulation is not. Not yet, anyhow.

Still, the last book was not embarrassing and the one I just turned in may be a little better, (certainly it is stranger), but I'm starting to feel somewhat handicapped by my subject matter and my protagonists. On the one hand, I want to cut loose and reveal the depth of my vision, on the other hand, the tamest of my books has already proven to be "too intense" [their words, not mine] for at least one Christian chain.

Also, I'm not a natural writer; I don't have that gift for beautiful words that some writers have by instinct. Fortunately, I have enough firepower to fake it, to an extent, but compared to the real thing it always falls pathetically short. In summary, I'm a Salieri who must envy the Mozarts and trod along the pedestrian paths as they effortlessly soar the heights. Bastards.

My hope, and I'm perfectly aware that I may be kidding myself, is that I have sufficient upstairs wattage to create something great by sheer force, in which case it is only a matter of discipline which has hitherto been lacking. But as I am told my books continue to improve - at least I know I'm no Johnny One-book, or perhaps I should say, Jay, I remain optimistic.

Mailvox: the sarahcentric universe

Sarah is overcome with the vision in the mirror:

everything *is* about me!! After all, how can anybody not love me? It would be a travesty! So, you know, if I do write a review - and my review is at least half about me, well, you can't begrudge me that! I am doing it for all of you. To behold my magnificence and splendour: it is a gift! That I would deign to do so in your presence should be deemed a privilege! It is all of course for your benefits.

How on Earth did you miss becoming a stripper?

Anyhow, as to book reviews, if people would like to start emailing me fiction reviews in the following format: http://voxday.blogspot.com/2004_07_01_voxday_archive.html#108948029239882361, I will post one of them here each week and save the others for when the web site is ready. Try to stick to the format and be sure to include what you feel to be a representative text sample.

Don't feel any need to stick to the classics or the intellectually impressive, but feel free to review them if you like. This isn't a contest, just something that might make for interesting discussions from time to time.

Tolstoy, Elliott and Iraq

Debka reports on the Iraqi situation

A. Baathist guerrillas have instructed cell leaders to continue their insurrection but hold back from a death blow against the new government - which is why their planned mega-operation did not materialize on sovereignty day. Guerrilla leaders have come to accept that toppling the government could lead to the exit of US forces from the country and create a vacuum that would invite its oldest enemy, Iran, to step into the breach.

B. The same insurgent underground while keeping up its attacks on Iraqi and US targets is keeping a weather eye open for chances to forge local truces on the lines of the Fallujah ceasefire that ended the month-long US Marine siege by handing security over to former Baathist generals.

C. The insurgents would exploit such local truces to seize one Iraqi town after another, pushing the Americans aside and restoring Baathist dominance to most urban areas of Iraq. Government and American forces would keep control only of intercity regions and connecting routes. This carve-up would suit the insurgent movements because they do not have enough manpower to take over every inch of the country.

D. The Baath leadership is making a point of stressing to its fighting elements that the Allawi government in Baghdad is the target of a political, but certainly not a religious, war. This guideline makes it clear that the Baathists do not share the war objectives of al Qaeda and the foreign Arab fighters fighting alongside them.

E. The Baath have called off guerilla attacks in the Shiite regions of Iraq including Baghdad’s Sadr City hoping to bring back the Shiite Baath cadres who deserted after Saddam Hussein’s downfall.

What's intriguing to me is how little this has to do with US goals or pre-war US expectations for post-war Iraq. And how is the situation significantly different than if American forces had toppled Hussein and then left? It's clear that US troops are increasingly starting to be seen as irrelevant, as the Baathist/Jihadist coalition appears to be splitting apart preparatory to the coming four-way fight over the spoils. Five, actually, if one counts the Kurdish irredentists.

It's interesting, too, to see how the equations have changed. Having been hurled out of power by American troops, the Baathists now fear them leaving too soon, before they can adequately prepare an alliance strong enough to fend off Iran. Oh, I'd love to see the look on the various neocons' faces as they begin to realize the folly of their arrogance in attempting to not only control, but dictate events of this magnitude. A huge boulder thrown into a stream will make a big splash and may even redirect the stream's course, but it will not stop the water, which in time will simply flow over, around and through the obstacle.

If we accept Tolstoy's view for the nonce, then the USA appears to have simply been the tool required by history's ineffable forces to smash the dam of Hussein's power. Having done so, it is no longer needed and will be returned to its toolbox as the situation sorts itself out. I reached the somewhat the same conclusion as Debka - the most likely outcome is an alliance between Allawi and the Baathists focused against the non-Iraqi jihadists, who would then be expected to either align themselves with Iran in an attempt to take power in Iraq, or, as is more likely, focus their attentions on the richer and easier target that is Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia has no US troops, no Baathist-Allawi alliance and is extremely disliked by the jihadists for the same reason that the heretic is more despised than the pagan. Furthermore, it fits with the Law of Unintended Consequences which states that for every major government action, there is an unforseen and disastrous reaction. If the third of a third is just getting rolling, we haven't even begun to see anything yet.

Mailvox: Hollywood posers

BG has a legitimate gripe:

What is it with mass media moguls needing to revamp beloved stories, thinking that they'll sell? The makers of Troy urinated all over Homer's epics, Bruckhiemer felt the King Arthur story needed a rehash so Lady Guenevere could throw down for a few rounds, but neither is as horrifying as what the makers of the next Superman plan to do.

The script calls for: A gay Jimmy Olsen(cause everybody's got to be gay these days, right?);"Player" Superman deciding not to save some people so he can hook up with Lois; Superman's powers come from his suit (ala The Greatest American Hero television show) and many other less serious abominations. Why can't Hollywood mentally defecate on the masses with some miserable offering of its own conception and leave our classic stories alone?

Why not? Because Hollywood has no genuinely creative minds. Even its most original products, such as Star Wars - totally revolutionary for its time - was primarily a synthesis of Flash Gordon space opera and the Kurasawa movie Hidden Fortress. There's nothing wrong with creativity via synthesis, as it is the best that all but the most truly creative can do, but Hollywood can't even manage X*Y=Z most of the time, settling instead for 1/2(X) + (cliches galore) = pure drek.

The two archetypical directors can be considered Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings) and Paul Verhoeven (Starship Troopers). The former was scrupulously accurate in his attempts to hold to Tolkein's book as much as reasonably possible, whereas the latter famously claimed never to have even read Heinlein's classic. Jackson's success might lead one to hope that directors will learn that the author's vision must always trump their egotistic urge to stamp their own identity on the story; the massive ego required to become a director in Hollywood does not bode well for the wide acceptance of this lesson.

I find it telling, too, how Hollywood repeatedly returns to the old standbys - do we really need yet another Superman movie? - instead of drawing on the wealth of storytelling that has been created over the last 50 years. If I could select five books that I'd like to see on the big screen, they would be:

1. The Dark is Rising, Susan Cooper
2. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
3. Dragonsong, Ann McCaffrey
4. The Fencing Master, Arturo Perez-Reverte
5. Goblin Moon, Theresa Edgerton

I've never understood why Dick is so popular among the movie-making set, while Heinlein goes almost ignored. He has so many short, juvenile books that would be so easily translated into movies that it amazes me they aren't a filmic franchise of sorts. I suspect it's because Dick, like other sloppy novelists for whom I have even less regard, such as Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Robbins and Philip Roth, is considered very clever by the intellectually dense.

Mailvox: help for a would-be homeschooler

SK has a request:

Our eldest daughter is the mother of our beloved X who is four-years-old. Her mother is certain that she cannot do an adequate job teaching her daughter, her husband has resented that she has stayed home with her so far by working as both a housekeeper and a home day care mother. She is a capable business manager and able to earn a substantial salary, but does NOT want to raise her daughter in childcare. It is clear that her husband is insistent on public school ASAP. My daughter did not attend public school past the fifth grade, and was unable to read when we took her out.

I recently talked to my daughter about K-12 sex ed, which indoctrinates children into the belief that homosexuality is acceptable. She was absolutely certain that it couldn't be so. I need the "low-down" on California Public Schools... I need information that will be persuasive with her parents, especially when her dad did not finish the eighth grade, and believes that public school is just great, that private school is elitist and that the idea of home school is outrageous....

Please feel free to pass my request on: creative52x@earthlink.net

As I have no more information on the particulars of the California public school system than I have on ritual human sacrifice - actually less, come to think of it - I thought I'd pass this on to you all. If anyone has specific information, (no generalities or theoretical arguments), please email it to the above address.

As an aside, it's always interesting to me how people can be certain of this or that when they freely admit that they have no information on the matter. And speaking of human sacrifice, I suspect that many parents couldn't care less what is or isn't going on with their children's "education" and won't give up their cherished free K-12 day care until the so-called teachers of the NEA actually start sacrificing children to whatever dark god is is they worship.

Let the waves come

Rod Dreher writes:

...a personal essay from today's NYT Magazine about a Manhattan woman living with her boyfriend, who got pregnant with triplets. Stricken by the possibility that having three children at once would force her to move to Staten Island and start shopping at Costco, she decides to have a doctor pierce the beating hearts -- she and her lover saw the hearts throbbing on the ultrasound -- of two of the babies in her womb, and kill them. All so she could maintain her Manhattan lifestyle. The mind reels...

Tell me that equine excrement again about how the USA is uniquely blessed. As Flavor Flav would say: "You're blind from the facts on who ya are cos ya watching that garbage."

Alexis de Tocqueville once famously wrote that: "America is great because America is good. When America ceases to be good she will no longer be great." America is no longer great nor is it good, it is, as I wrote last week, entirely dead. What is left is a corpse, and one that reeks of blood and evil at that.

We're not only on the cusp a third of a third down, as a nation we deserve to plunge into the Abyss. I don't know about you, but I suspect I'll be watching the next 9/11 with dry eyes. "All so she could maintain her Manhattan lifestyle." Reading that makes me wish they'd sunk the whole damned island.

Fear is the mind-killer

Sarah ruminates:

I like the idea of writing reviews. I changed my mind about it, though. How can I possibly write a decent review in the face of everyone else who goes to Vox Popoli. I can't compete with that. I won't even try. It'll probably suck. And what if I give a positive review on something, somebody reads it, and then they say that the book sucked! What if it's not just one person but a whole bunch of people. I can't deal with that sense of failure.

First, it will be a little while before Digital Cowboy and I get the CGI forms going and work out the HTML design for people to contribute book reviews to voxday.net. But what Sarah needs to understand is that one cannot improve without doing. Sure, her first reviews might well be unintentionally amusing - if they weren't at least half about her instead of the book, I'd be shocked - but she will learn from both the rightful and the unreasonable scorn.

Sarah, consider how your ability to articulate an argument has been refined since you first started posting here. Now, it's not important for you to write book reviews - it's certainly not a way to make a living - but it's important for you to learn how to face down your fear. Fear of failure is not only unreasonable, it's pernicious since it guarantees failure without learning. It's much better to try and fail 100 times than to never try and always fail, because each failure provides information that may increase the odds of success the next time around.

So, write a review or two on your blog. If you use the model I used in reviewing The Atrocity Archive, you'll at least have a structure and ensure that you address all the significant points, which will put you ahead of 85 percent of all book reviews ever written right there.

Frank Herbert was right. Fear is a mind-killer. So, instead of seeing fear as something to be avoided, look at it as a test. Do it precisely because you're afraid of it.

A testament to human nature

Inbound Links: 786
Inbound Unique: 709
Current Rank: #38
Current Status: Playful Primate

This is interesting. A reasonably major syndicated columnist, who shall remain nameless, is often on TV. Everyone in Blogworld knows who they are, and so when he/she/it began a blog, everyone jumped on the bandwagon in a hurry to link to it. Presumably because they just love reading it, right? Just to put everything in perspective, Vox Popoli's rank is as follows:

Inbound Links: 238
Inbound Unique: 189
Current Rank: #322
Current Status: Large Mammal

I think that's respectable in an Blogosphere of some 3800 blogs. I'm happy with it, anyhow. Now, as this nameless columnist also appears on WND, I happen to know that my WND readership is, on average over a three-month period, about 25 percent larger. However, this is perhaps not a fair comparison as the other individual's column is much more widely syndicated than mine, so it's quite po many WND readers skip it on WND since they've already read it elsewhere.

This discrepancy, however, is a little more difficult to explain:

Average Daily Visits: 182
(data from SiteMeter)
Average Daily Visits: 1,669
(data from SiteMeter)

In other words, 709 bloggers are linking to what they think is a big name blog, but it's obvious that most of them aren't even bothering to check it out on a regular basis. Now, perhaps this will change over time or perhaps the SiteMeter data is bad, but if it is correct then it would appear to reveal both: a) the embarrassing limits of human reason, and b) the unattractive human tendency to kiss tush.

Mailvox: virgins and volcanoes

jr considers the fate of Miss Spears:

The whole thing resembles nothing so much as the pagan virgin sacrifices of old, where the admittedly (at least on the surface) willing victim is showered and adorned with the riches of the village on her way to being consumed in the belly of Moloch. And the crowd cheers.

Magumba hey
Magumba ho... ungowa

Magumba hey
Magumba ho... ungowa

Magumba hey
Magumba ho... UNGOWA!

Still the young man sits there on the beach.
He's staring misty-eyed out into space.
He's thinking about his girlfriend, (the late deceased).
At least her death had purpose,
His life is a waste!

Let's face it, songs about tribal virgin sacrifice rule. Leilani don't go to the volcano....

Mailvox: contradictions... or not

Char gets pensive:

Interesting -- the construct "free will" here and in the Tolstoy story above, the opposite or lack of free will. The contrast makes some food for thought. I enjoy your web site and thanks for allowing visitors.

I don't see that Tolstoy is NECESSARILY anti-free will in the quotidian details of life - shall I have yogurt or cereal for breakfast - so much as he is intent on puncturing the illusion of free will with regards to the individuals who stand at the cusp of great events. True, if one had to pin him down to one camp or the other, I suspect he would likely side with the omniderigents, but that's largely irrelevant with regards to the matter with which he is concerned. Tolstoy is clearly wrestling with the What, not the How much less the Why.

Tomorrow's column

J did well, although it shouldn't have been very difficult to ascertain where I am going tomorrow as both Tolstoy and Elliott Waves were both mentioned recently on the sidebar of the blog.

There is appearently some connection between EWT which holds that markets are not moved by individual events but mass psychology, and Tolstoy who believed that history/sociology is not moved by individual actions but by the sum of countless forces acting upon mass society.

There is indeed such a connection, although I'll leave the matter for tomorrow's discussion. But I was quite surprised by Gary's comment, as he picked up on an insight that I, too, had reached.

"War and Peace", for example, is not a novel. It's an arguement presented in the guise of a novel. It was the only way Tolstoy could present characters thoughts prior to actions and show how they often contradict, thus how no one is in ultimate control of himself but move through "unconscience action".

The lesson of Britney Spears

The depths of truth can be illustrated at times by the most unlikely sources. Consider the case of the recently divorced and currently affianced Miss Spears. Here is a young woman more attractive than the norm - not significantly so, but that is part of her appeal to the masses - who has amassed a remarkable amount of fame and fortune in her short time on the planet. Even what would, to the casual observer such as myself, appear to be a complete lack of talent beyond the choreographed rump-shaking that your average pole dancer could approximate with ease, has not prevented her from becoming a top-tier star.

A few weeks ago, Matt Drudge brought our attention to the sad story of Miss Spears' first husband, a childhood friend, who, despite being handicapped by an apparent intelligence barely on the north side of a rock, appears to be a genuinely decent human being. According to his telling - and we have no reason to disbelieve him - it was not his wife who wished to end the marriage but her parents, advisors, employees and assorted hangers-on, all of whom are financially dependent upon the Britney Spears industry. Obviously, they felt that at 22, the industry would be more profitable were it not distracted by the blessed state of matrimony.

There is a saying: be careful what you wish for, you just might get it. The Spears' profiteers succeeded in breaking up the marriage, as the humble Mr. Alexander was not about to stand in the way of his old friend's business. But Miss Spears has that sort of youthfully lush figure which not only indicates today a woman who will likely endure a long battle against caloric intake, but in days of yore was seen as a woman ready to breed.

As Miss Spears was no sooner wrested from the large, but harmless clutches of her ex-husband than she managed to fall "in love" with a useless male specimen of the sort known as a "dancer", it would seem that the industry was indeed more interested in her natural instinct to find a mate and propagate the species than maximizing her future profit potential. The biological imperative trumps the financial mandate, it seems. One imagines that Britney Spears Incorporated is not only ruefully wishing that it had been wise enough to leave the industry to its own devices in matters romantic, but is collectively wincing as it calculates what it will eventually cost to remove this parasitical gigolo. If the parasite is as ruthlessly self-seeking as it appears to be - it takes a stone cold squid to abandon not one, but two children, and their mother - it will require some expensive financial surgery indeed.

I found it amusing that on the very same day that Britney Spears Inc. was threatening to sue the New York Post for claiming that she had been drinking whiskey in a picture it published a few weeks ago, (for the same reason that CourtneyLove is not often used to endorse teen products), the U.K. Sun published several photos of her publicly groping the aforementioned useless specimen in an R-rated manner. One wonders if B.S.I. will soon release a press release explaining that Miss Spears was only attempting to determine what brand of underwear her fiance was wearing, and that in her innocence of male intimates, she did not realize that the tag generally goes in the back.

Let me assure the gentle reader, there is indeed a point to this vaguely salacious pop cultural gossip. For if a young woman cannot be controlled by her parents and those closest to her, even when her financial best interest manifestly depends on her accession to such control, no human can be reliably controlled by anyone, much less the decrees of a distant government. Humans cannot be controlled! Not in their best interest, not in their long-term interests, and certainly not in the interests of their self-anointed masters. Not for long, anyhow.

This is the great tragedy of the Platonists. Regardless of what current ideological excuse is currently justifying their mastery, the Platonist will always end up betraying it, as, in frustration, he turns lethal force on those he once thought only to guide and help. For all the empty-eyed, gum-chewing, udder-engorged resemblance that the average teen mall rat bears to domesticated ungulates, she cannot be herded! What God has given to even the least of those created in His image - free will - no mere mortal may hope to take away.