a broken cpu

The part is in the mail and will hopefully arrive on Monday.

Until then please follow the linked blogs below and to the right. 

It hurts me more than it does you.

Looking toward the Hariri Indictments

Well it seems like we have been waiting a long time and we are still waiting for the Hariri Report and the indictments which will follow.  The latest idea seems to be that the final report will come December 10-20 with indictments to follow.

In short, the concern is that Hezbollah will use the indictment of its members and leadership as a cause de bello and attempt to seize de facto control of the state.  Hezbollah is adequately armed for just this possibility in addition to new capabilities to threaten Israeli population centers.

Hezbollah will not act without the consent of its primary patron, Iran.  The problem, however, is that if we believe what the Iranian leadership says, they may have very good strategic and rhetorical reasons to want to see Hezbollah gain even greater autonomy within Lebanon.

Syria is already acting like an Iranian vassal, serving the diplomatic and military aims of Iran in its dealings with the West, being a conduit for shipping banned items into Iran, as well as serving as a conduit for arms to Lebanon.  Iran's threats toward Israel are well publicized and its use of proxies to lash out physically at rhetorical enemies well practiced.  Anything which gives Hezbollah greater freedom of movement serves the interests of the leadership in Tehran. 

The future is open.  We do not know what it holds.  The next step in the Eastern Mediterranean, however, should start to make itself known in the relatively near future.

In other news, demonology seems to be making a sort of a comeback, though perhaps not in the way one would first think.

SCIENTISTS are not, in their own imaginations anyway, much given to myths. There is one mythical beast, though, that has haunted physics for almost 150 years. In 1867 James Clerk Maxwell, a British researcher, wondered if you could extract useful energy from thin air, in apparent contradiction to the second law of thermodynamics. He posited the existence of an all-seeing homunculus that might do so—a homunculus that was almost instantly dubbed “Maxwell’s demon”.

Demons of another sort continue to haunt the dreams of security planners around the world.  While the Mumbai attacks are recent enough to still resonate in our minds, I always use the opportunity to remind the strong of stomach to remember a previous attack that was, in many ways, more disturbing.

It took the 10 terrorists just 10 minutes to overwhelm Mumbai's defenses when they struck in November 2008. They were organized in five two-man teams, and the first waded into the crowd at one of India's biggest railway stations, firing AK-47s and tossing grenades. Soon more than 50 people were dead, a hundred more wounded. While this was going on, three other teams got out of cabs in other parts of the city and walked into two luxury hotels and a swanky restaurant, letting loose with guns and grenades. A fifth team stormed a Jewish community center, killing people and taking hostages.

Closer in time and geography America continues to practice the Politics of Avoidance when it comes to the banal yet very real threat of our unsustainable fiscal path.  It is hard to see how this ends well.  It is hard to see how we become the kind of people able to face these problems like adults.

Our political culture prefers delusion to candor. Liberals would solve the budget problem by taxing the rich and cutting defense. Think again. The richest 5 percent already pay about 45 percent of federal taxes; they may pay more but not enough to balance the budget. Defense spending constitutes a fifth of federal spending; projected deficits over the next decade are similar. We won't shut the Pentagon. Republicans and tea partiers think that eliminating "wasteful spending" would allow more tax cuts. Dream on. The major spending programs, Social Security and Medicare, are wildly popular with roughly 50 million beneficiaries.

Case in point, Paul Krugman continues to be even more vocal than normal in his denunciation of any attempts to articulate let alone address the problem of our national and private debt.  I haven't read anything which denies the nuance which exists in the real world with greater self-assurance since George W. Bush left office.  I am sorry to say that I find the dear economist less helpful and more a political hack with every passing day.

Me, I'm busy "gettin' my share done."  Weeds may be part of the curse but good work is a blessing.  i have every intention of being that mule that has "work left in him yet."

The real lesson of the Euro's ill health

The new's cycle is filled with stories of describing the symptoms of the Euro's ills.
Who bails out the "bailer outers?"

Europe stumbles toward 1931

Ireland denies seeking a bailout

and this uncertainty is not without effect.  As we witnessed during the Greek crisis the dolloar is experiencing a bit of a rally on rumors of the Euro's ill health.  Money seeks the place where it will be treated best and in a time of uncertainty regarding the Euro the dollar looks like a safer bet.  What we need to keep in mind is that "safer" is a relative term and not an absolute.

The problem, as I see it, is that those of the political establishment who believe that deficiets, effectively, do not matter, take this development as evidence of the right-ness of their claims.  If we are in so much risk of rapid inflation, they ask, why is the value of the dollar increasing?

Many of the world's investors are treating the dollar like the least bad currency bet.  Like the young woman who marries the least-bad young man in her small town, the marriage can fall apart rather suddenly once circumstances change.  The dollar is increasing in value not because it is healthy but because the Euro is more sick.

Buoyed by the midguided belief that defecits do not matter, policy leaders are likely to carry forward mis-guided policies even farther.  The problem is that sooner or later our abuse of the dollar will need to be addressed.  The more damage done to the currency in the meantime will result in a larger mess to pick up when the Day of Recking finally arrives. 

The Dollar might experience a bit of a rally but do not mistake it for a recovery.  The price of commodites might decrease but that is not necessarily a new trend.

Feeling Snarky

I'm doing a lot of pay work and not sleeping that much so I'm reading through the news feeling a little snarky.  Please excuse my the poor behavior I am about to demonstrate.

EU Energy Chief: "Yeah, oil availability is probably down hill from here."

The availability of oil worldwide has already peaked, the European Union's energy chief Guenther Oettinger said on Wednesday.
"My fear is that the global consumption of oil is going to increase, but European oil consumption has already reached its peak. The amount of oil available globally, I think, has already peaked," Oettinger told a news briefing in Brussels.

So back when I was talkin' to ya'all regarding the science of oil field depletion and how this was in our future and I got the response, "The people who do that for a living say supplies will keep on growing for 40 more years."  We'll the appeal to authority isn't working any more.  If you want to talk about peak oil what the authority figures might be telling you in another 5 years, drop, bring some good coffee and donuts (Apple Fritters please) and we'll talk about it.

National Geographic

According to the 25-year forecast in the IEA's latest annual World Energy Outlook, the most likely scenario is for crude oil production to stay on a plateau at about 68 to 69 million barrels per day.

For this most likely scenario Iraq triples production and tar sands everywhere are scooped up and boiled in about every drop of fresh water there is.  So guess what?  The IEA is still only acknowldging what it has to and doing backflips to put lipstick on a pig.

60 Minutes seemed to go out of their way to make it sound like fracking shale for natural gas was going to save us all.  Last time I checked i couldn't buy Natural Gas at my local BP station (owned and operated by a nice local couple) and even if I could I could not buy a car to put it in.  Please, do not get me started on how long it takes to swap out the car fleet or adapt current vehicles to run on natural gas.  People who are defaulting on their home loans and collecting unemployment don't have cash for that.

Oh, and then there are the natural and financial realities beneath the spin.

What they miss is that production decline rates are so high that, without continuous drilling, overall production would plummet. There is no doubt that the shale gas resource is very large. The concern is that much of it is non-commercial even at price levels that are considerably higher than they are today.


Recent revisions to SEC rules have allowed producers to book undeveloped reserves that questionably justify development costs based on their own projections in public filings. New reserves are being booked at the same time that billions of dollars in existing shale gas development costs are being written down because the projects are not commercial. Concerns about the logic of ongoing gas-directed drilling while prices collapse have been partly diffused by a shift to liquids-rich plays like the Eagle Ford Shale in Texas. These new ventures, however, produce significant volumes of gas which is partly why gas prices continue to fall.

And lets not forget that in an age where we all burn oil to get to work and to get food to our tables, the financial lives of BILLIONS are held hostage by any small group with guns and the training to use them.

An armed attack and kidnapping on a Nigerian oil facility owned by Exxon Mobil Corp. disrupted production Monday, providing the latest sign of how a fraying government amnesty deal with militants has posed fresh risks for energy companies operating in the oil-rich nation.

Gunmen in five skiffs with powerful motors attacked Exxon Mobil's Oso platform late Sunday, according to a security executive who works in the area and had seen an internal report on the incident. They boarded the platform and "conducted a room-to-room search. Crew and staff were beaten and robbed, the power supply was cut and communications were damaged," according to the security executive.

Eight Nigerian crew members were kidnapped from the platform, according to a senior industry executive familiar with the situation. It wasn't clear if there were other crew members who weren't kidnapped.

Exxon declined to say how the attack would affect output at one of Nigeria's biggest oil fields. It suspended Oso's production as a "precautionary measure," the company said in a statement. The field can produce the equivalent of 100,000 barrels of oil a day—as much as 5% of the country's daily output.

Thank you, dear reader, for that chance to vent.  It is time that I return to some pay work and I feel better able to give it my full attention.

I'm going to talk about the current Euro Crisis in another post, probably tomorrow.  The short version, however, is that the dollar is likely to gain in value in the short-term.  Some among the establishment of both political parties will suggest that this proves that our own current account deficiets or the growing debt do not matter.  Setting aside our sense of exceptionalism, however, I think it will find that it demonstrates just the opposite.

But let me find at least one uplifting something to leave you with.  As Mama said and continues to say, "This too shall pass."

Other news to start your week

Another recognition that we are at the end of "Cheap Oil"

The “post-peak” world clearly does not imply the End of the World: but it implies an extremely volatile one, whose dynamics will be difficult to predict. It is a world not of easy abundance, but of declining – and increasingly expensive – carbon-based resources. If we are to develop sufficient resilience to the various price shocks and converging crises of the “post-peak” world, we will need to recognize that they are symptomatic of an inevitable civilizational transition toward an emerging post-carbon age. There is no time for denial. Governments and communities need to start adapting now.

The State Department seems to be ignoring the plight of Iraq's Christians.

A full-scale genocide is under way in Iraq: a well-planned, well-financed, deliberate plot to cleanse the country of its Christian citizens. And thus far, neither the Iraqi government nor the United States is doing anything to stop it.

In an opinion piece Rabbi Shmuley Boteach suggests that the small government sought by the Tea Party is, or at least could be, conducive to the promotion of human dignity.

The very premise of dignity is something acquired through personal effort. Dignity is the human aura that comes through self-reliance. Its underlying premise is independence. A dependent life is a fundamentally undignified life. Self-respect is earned through the sweat of one's brow. An heir to a great fortune may travel the high seas in a hundred-foot yacht and soar through the air in a Gulfstream V. But he will remain fundamentally bereft of dignity so long as he is living on someone else's dime.

The effort to recapture the dignity that springs from self-reliance is what the tea party, at its core, should be all about.

Navigating an uncertain path

The idea of the gold standard seems to be gaining some traction.  Earlier in the week the President of the World Bank suggested a new basket of currencies, including gold, be used as a new "standard" by which individual currencies could be weighed.  He quickly clarified, however, that he did not intend to suggest a return to the classical gold standard but something quite different.

But Zoellick said that was not a call to return to the gold standard.
Speaking in Singapore Wednesday, Zoellick clarified that he was referring to the need for gold to play a role in a new international monetary system, which would need to balance the values of the the dollar, the euro, the yen, the pound and eventually the Chinese yuan.
"Gold is now being used, being viewed, as an alternative monetary asset. This is not the same as a gold standard," he said in prepared remarks.

But there are plenty of voices, increasingly less marginal, calling just for such a return, even in the pages of the New York Times. 

 Let the economists gasp: The classical gold standard, the one that was in place from 1880 to 1914, is what the world needs now. In its utility, economy and elegance, there has never been a monetary system like it. 

Of course the opinion is far from uniform.  There are still many voices rising against any return to gold but circumstances are forcing them to make explicit rather than just depending that the idea would be discarded out of hand.

The subsequent 40 years have seen wild swings in currency values, prolonged periods of high inflation and several acute financial crises. So you can readily see why some people support resurrecting gold's monetary role.
But there are four powerful arguments against. First, while the Gold Standard helped to sustain long-term price stability, it did not achieve anything like price stability in the short run. In 1822, the UK experienced deflation of 14pc. Yet by 1825 this had given way to inflation of 17pc.

Second, the idea that gold offers a guarantee of stable money values in the long run, and therefore supports confidence and long-term decision-making, is a delusion. In the past, countries were committed to the Gold Standard, which was widely expected to last forever. But we now know that gold can easily be replaced by a paper-based system. Once the genie is out of the bottle, it cannot be put back in. This means that there is no reassurance from relying on gold in the first place.

 My own view that we may very well, before it is all said and done, end up with a retreat into some form of gold or silver standard for our financial system.  The systemic problems are that bad.  The distance between here and there, however, could be a long walk and the terrain is unknown.

A return to a fixed standard could only be accomplished with a devaluation of the dollar either leading up to or at the moment of conversion.  If the danger of a fiat currency is in the direction of inflation, a standardized currency is always at risk of deflation.  If we entered it at the current cost of gold with our current level of household debt, the results would be disastrous.  If, however, through a period of high inflation or the setting of the worth of the dollar at 1/3, 1/4, 1/5 or much more of the current value our nation's and household debt would be reduced by roughly the same percentage.  The change would still be traumatic and would require a vast retooling of the economy.

Allowing the dollar to inflate before a return makes more sense the a sudden change anytime in the near future for numerous reasons.  First among them is the fear we have of change.  The gold standard was abandoned in stages.  It remained in some degree of distress from 1917 until it was finally completely abandoned in 1971, 54 years. 

Rather than a sudden change it seems more likely that we would return to a standardized currency in fits and starts, being dragged kicking and screaming all the way.  If that is the case we should expect to remain in a degree of economic uncertainty until the nation is frustrated enough to under go so great a change, and the disruption the change would cause will appear preferable to the status quo.  The market can stay irrational longer than anyone reading these words can stay solvent.  I think we will return to a gold standard.  I believe it will be in my lifetime.  I am not buying gold and only own what is on my left ring finger.

While it might be a good idea to invest in gold with your disposable income for the long run,  such a stategy is beset with risks.  For forty years it was illegal to own or sell gold bullion in the United States, are you willing to risk being locked in for that long?  The price of gold could very well go down before it goes up, if you are stuck with debt or a need to purchase goods prior to the new stability are you willing to be forced to buying low and selling lower, if not in absolute terms but in the value of the dollars you are able to retain.

In my view, a better investment would address a period of ongoing financial crisis prior to the ultimate re-organization.  Little or no debt and the ability to live cheaply are worth more than there equivalent in any precious metal.  As we roll through the uncertainty necessary to change a nation's habits away from the borrow and spend which has typified two generations, a strong community of support is more valuable to a family or individual than a roll of Krugerrands.  

Enjoying the Snow

Winter has arrived and we are all making our peace with the fact.

Working Dogs

What can I say, I'm a sucker for a dog story:

The Belgian sheepherder's name is Pepin. He's no hunting dog or sporting breed out for fun. He's a working dog, one of a few dozen highly trained, toy-crazed canines that are changing the way wildlife biologists such as Parker figure out what's lurking in the woods.

These dogs of various breeds don't rely on their eyes, the way puny-nosed humans do, to try to make sense of the world. They are trained to use their pronounced noses and superior sense of smell to canvass the landscape for animals, animal scat, rare plants and invasive weeds that too easily elude human discovery.

These elite detection dogs have sniffed out invasive, predatory snails in Hawaii and tree snakes in the jungles of Guam. They've climbed the mountains of Central Asia for telltale signs of snow leopards, hunted for nearly extinct rhinos in Vietnam, padded through Kenya in pursuit of cheetahs, and tracked moon bears in China.

More News of the Day

Europe's bond markets in a tizzy

IN 2008 a strike by French and Spanish lorry drivers cut off the supply of components from Germany to Volkswagen’s Auto Europa plant, south of Lisbon, forcing the factory to close for a day. Two years on there is a more serious threat to the supply lines of countries on the fringes of the euro zone. The yield on Ireland’s ten-year government bond vaulted towards 9% on November 10th, 6.2 percentage points above the yield on safe German Bunds (see chart); Portugal’s topped 7%.

  Bernanke's worse nightmare: Ron Paul to become subcomittee chairman

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Ben Bernanke has had his hands full since his first day on the job as Federal Reserve chairman nearly five years ago. It's about to get even tougher.
His harshest critic on Capitol Hill, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, is about to become one of his overseers.

With the Republicans coming to power, Paul, who would like to abolish the Fed and the nation's current monetary system, will become the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy.
If you've never heard of the committee before, you're not alone. But Paul promises you'll be hearing a lot more from it.

Facebook shrinks the soul?

We know the consequences of this instinctively; we feel them. We know that having two thousand Facebook friends is not what it looks like. We know that we are using the software to behave in a certain, superficial way toward others. We know what we are doing “in” the software. But do we know, are we alert to, what the software is doing to us? Is it possible that what is communicated between people online “eventually becomes their truth”? What Lanier, a software expert, reveals to me, a software idiot, is what must be obvious (to software experts): software is not neutral. Different software embeds different philosophies, and these philosophies, as they become ubiquitous, become invisible.

First News of the Day

Christians falling to persecution in Iraq

Iraqi Christians might not be able to boast such a heritage – though even if there is no way of proving their belief that the apostle Thomas brought the faith to Iraq in the first century AD, theirs is still one of the oldest Christian communities on earth. Yet after a series of attacks in the past month by Islamist extremists – whose creed is the parvenu of the monotheistic religions in the country – fears are mounting that Christianity in Iraq is doomed to follow Judaism into oblivion.

The Blue State Budget Crisis

While massive state budget shortfalls are not limited to predominantly Democratic states, they are concentrated in them. "In California and New York," says John Hood of the John Locke Foundation, "the fiscal crisis flirts with bankruptcy." Explanations include rising Medicaid costs, increased spending on higher education, and the long-term challenge of funding public pensions. At the same time, says Hood, "All the major sources of revenue have cratered." The states doing worst are the ones, such as California and New York, that had irresponsible budgets going into the recession. States that were fiscally responsible during good economic times, such as Indiana, have had a softer landing.

Oil Headed to $100 on a weak dollar?

Oil prices have hovered around $78 a barrel most of the year, providing little excitement as other commodities, including copper, gold, and cotton, have enjoyed record runups. Global economic growth has not been brisk enough to drive up oil demand substantially, U.S. inventories have been ample, and the Saudis have been pumping enough to guarantee a plentiful supply.

A change in the oil markets may now be upon us. Crude may climb past $100 next year as central banks pump cash into their economies to revive growth, predict JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BC). The Federal Reserve's decision to buy $600 billion of Treasuries from commercial banks should lower U.S. interest rates and weaken the dollar further. Investors may turn increasingly to oil and other commodities to get a decent return.

QE2

A number of elections will not be decided until sometime later today, if not much later.  The most significant in my part of the world would be the Minnesota Govenor's race.  It looks as if the Republicans will seize both houses of the State Legislature for the first time since 1972. 

If they gain the executive mansion as well, the road will be paved for whatever program they come up with to deal with the state's budget shorfall.  Personally, I would prefer a real solution that is negotiated by both the parties, if that is possible.  Either way, much drama awaits in the months to come.

There is a lot of other news.  The Federal Reserve will announce more details about QE2.  That announcement should come out around 11am CDT.  Every aspect of the financial system is waiting for this announcement and will respond.  How?  Unknown.  There are some noises being made, however:

Libyia believes decline of dollar and food prices warrent $100 oil.
QE2 risks a currency war and the end of the reserve currency status for the dollar.
Will China use QE2 to sell our debt back to us?
Copper prices on the rise due to QE2.

and the list goes on...

State Legislatures

Driving through two media markets it looks as if both the Wisconsin and Minnesota Legislatures are going Red.  This makes the govenor's race in Minnesota even more important and magnifies the signifigance of Scott Walker's win in Wisconsin. 

This paves the way for re-districting but a lot of issues controled at the state house.  Conceal Carry in Wisconsin, addressing the budget deficiet in both states, Medicaid eligibility and so much more.  I, like everyone else, may have focused too much on the federal elections and not on what is going on in the states.

Minnesota State Legislature Maps

Mental Health is a Social Construct

so maybe they are not insane?

Exit polls suggest wider appeal of Tea Party

The Tea Party victories by Rand Paul of Kentucky and Marco Rubio of Florida underscored the extent to which Republicans and Democrats alike may have underestimated the power of the Tea Party, a loosely-affiliated, at times ill-defined, coalition of grass-roots libertarians and disaffected Republicans.

In exit polls, four in 10 voters expressed support for the Tea Party Movement.In the case of Mr. Rubio and Mr. Paul, both of the new Senators-elect challenged far more established Republicans to win their primaries. Mr. Paul beat a Republican who was supported by Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, and Mr. Rubio’s spirited run forced Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida, a moderate Republican who was initially favored to win the Senate seat, to bolt from the Republican Party and run as an independent. And Democrats initially considered both so conservative — some Democrats called them “extreme” — as to be unelectable.

or

Grayson Gone

Daniel Webser (what a great name) replaces Alan Grayson who set a new low in baseless fear-mongering in comparing his opponent (an Evangelical) to the Taliban among many other foot-in-mouth moments.

Don't worry, dear reader, I am sure in this flock of Republican newbs we'll have some loud mouths (in addition to the one's the Republicans already have) for us to roll our eyes in response too and wish the defeat of.  Tonight is just our night to get rid of a few on the left side of the aisle.  Tomorrow is another day.

early results/turnout

(Nearly) Every politician will use (nearly) any tool to get elected.  It seems as if Democrats have successfully used fear to spur their base into showing up at the polls.

I was wrong in my prediction.

As a result the Republican tide will not wash as high as it might have.  If fear of the evil, insane, Republicans was instilled deep enough than we could even see Reid hold on to NV (not that Angle was that great of a candidate) and I might have to listen to Barbara Boxer's voice for another 6 years.  Luckily, she is such a poor legislator that she will probably not sponsor any more signature legislation than she has these first 18 years.

The night begins.  Perhaps there will be surprises.  I am watching the House races most closely because of the lack of polling in many of these elections.  Also the Governors' races since we will be redistricting before 2012 and those lines will have a large impact for a decade to come.  Each state (as I recall) has its own rules for how the lines are to be drawn but most states allow the state legislator and Governor to have their hand in the pie.

Enthusiasm Gap

Despite long odds I still stand by the predictions I made earlier in the month despite the fact that some of the final and most reliable polls have Boxer and some other Democrats winning their tight races.

The reason why is voter turnout.  It is always difficult to model who is going to turn out on any given election but it is this modeling on which all reliable polls are based.  I am thinking that the enthusiasm gap will give Republicans 3-5 percentage points over what most of the current polls suggest.  Who am I to doubt the professional pollsters?

Just a guy on the Internet which means that I do not have to conform my expectations to the industry in order to protect my backside and keep my job come November third.  ;)

Have a good Sunday!

Science Saturday

Science should teach children to detect BS

The reason we do science in the first place is so that “our own atomized experiences and prejudices” don’t mislead us, as Ben Goldacre of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine puts it in his new book, Bad Science: Quacks, Hacks, and Big Pharma Flacks. Understanding what counts as evidence should therefore trump memorizing the structural formulas for alkanes.

Feds Reverse: Genes should not be Eligible for Patent Protection

Reversing a longstanding policy, the federal government said on Friday that human and other genes should not be eligible for patents because they are part of nature. The new position could have a huge impact on medicine and on the biotechnology industry.

The new position was declared in a friend-of-the-court brief filed by the Department of Justice late Friday in a case involving two human genes linked to breast and ovarian cancer.

“We acknowledge that this conclusion is contrary to the longstanding practice of the Patent and Trademark Office, as well as the practice of the National Institutes of Health and other government agencies that have in the past sought and obtained patents for isolated genomic DNA,” the brief said.

It is not clear if the position in the legal brief, which appears to have been the result of discussions among various government agencies, will be put into effect by the Patent Office.

Attempt to eradicate Malaria might backfire

Efforts to eradicate malaria in some countries may be counter-productive, an international team of researchers suggest.

In the Lancet, they suggest some countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, may be better pursuing a policy of controlling the disease.
They also criticise the World Health Organization (WHO) for not providing adequate direction.

The Rare Earth Trainwreck

Rare earths are important because they have special features at the quantum mechanics level that allow them to have unique magnetic interactions with other elements. A myriad of “green” technologies --  from electric and hybrid-electric cars to wind turbines and compact fluorescent light bulbs – depend on rare earths. And there are no cost-effective substitutes for them.

 The Upside of a Weak Immune System

A weak immune system makes an animal vulnerable to disease and parasites, but strangely, natural selection does not always weed out creatures that have what appear to be severe disadvantages, according to a new study.

That may be because the weaknesses confer some advantages. The study, in the journal Science, reports that while a strong immune system helps female sheep live longer, it is also associated with reduced reproductive success.

Out of Asia?

a new study in the journal Nature reports.

There has long been debate about the matter, but a recent discovery of anthropoid fossils including two previously unidentified species and one known species provides new clues.
The fossils are about 38 million years old and were uncovered in a rock formation in southern Libya. The anthropoids were small, rodent-size creatures that looked similar to larger, modern-day primates, but weighed just 4 to 17 ounces.

Friday Reading

Lots of good stuff caught in the net this morning:

Gold is not just for bugs anymore as the chorus grows of those who see a monetary crisis on our hands.

Bloomberg Opinion:

The prospects for an orderly unwinding of the extreme posture of global monetary policy are zero. Bernanke, Jean- Claude Trichet and Mervyn King, his counterparts in Europe and the U.K. respectively, are huddling en masse upon the most precarious perch in the history of monetary affairs. These alleged guardians of monetary stability, in their attempts to shore up the system, have simply created the incinerator for paper money. We are past the point of no return. Quantitative easing may well become a way of life.

 Washington Post:

Trichet offered this startling but seemingly well-founded estimate: Bailouts for the world's banks, corporate entities and bankrupted governments mounted by the U.S. Treasury, the European Union, the International Monetary Fund and other institutions since 2008 amount to 25 percent of the global production of all goods and services. One dollar in every four earned by all the world's workers and businesses this year has been committed, if not already paid out, essentially to keep the world from spiraling into a depression.

"I emphasize to every banker I meet that this will not be done twice," Trichet said. When I asked him if he had evidence that the bankers understand this, he quickly responded that what they thought was beside the point: "I am saying democratic governments cannot do this again." They lack the resources as well as the will.

 In defense of marriage (and the poor) from the reductionist heights this author helps us understand the uncriticized assumptions of those who think they know better.

His interpretation of the “facts” assumes an impoverished anthropology that treats man as little more than a self-interested animal who vigilantly performs a cost/benefit analysis for every decision in life, including when and whom he should marry. In his view, the only reason for marriage is economic. His reductionist anthropology cannot imagine marriage as a genuine gift of self that is oriented toward the procreation of new life.

And for that reason, he fails to imagine children.

Science has finally gotten around to affirming what has been observable for some time now but is going to be met with shock by our youth oriented culture: getting older ain't all that bad.  At least not when it is met with a level of acceptance.

The concerns are valid, but a new Stanford study shows there's a silver lining to the graying of our nation. As we grow older, we tend to become more emotionally stable. And that translates into longer, more productive lives that offer more benefits than problems, said Laura Carstensen, the study's lead author.

 Finally, it is always fun to see the sword of deconstruction turned in new and interesting ways, like at John Stewart. 

This is the essential communication form for Jon Stewart.  He sends messages that contain both authentic and artificial interpretations.  He then plays against the receiver's selection to create tension and humor.  Since he always controls the floor in all interactions, Stewart is free to commit Double Binds to his advantage, comedic or persuasive.

He employs the strongest double bind communication against receivers who will not cooperate with the process (i.e. deny the double bind as a norm of conduct and try to be authentic) or the content (i.e. defend an unattractive position and try to be persuasive).  Since Stewart's work appears within an entertainment context any attempts to call him on the game indict the receiver as overly serious, dogmatic, or foolish while permitting Stewart to appear merely doing his job.

Of course the double-bind is, as advertising has become, a key propaganda technique.

Such a double bind is frequently found in contemporary advertising, advertising which this essay argues is more accurately defined as propaganda than as classical rhetoric, for it exhibits many of the characteristics of propaganda; chief among these characteristics is a speaker’s reliance on self-interest (rather than the good of the audience), anonymity (or the suppression of ethos), the use of saturation or repetition of messages (rather than the delivery of formal speeches), and the employment of emotional appeals (rather than logical ones). Advertising meets these criteria insofar as it is, in the words of Twitchell, “ubiquitous, anonymous, syncretic, symbiotic, profane, and, especially, magical”

With minor tweaking, I can see no difference between this description of advertising and the left-of-center ethos Stewart represents.  Glenn Beck (to pick on the other side of the political spectrum) is different only in that one is acceptable in polite society and the other is not, thus indicating which side of the spectrum is involved in propaganda and which is engaged in counter-propaganda, to what ever extent such a distinction matters..

Looking to November 2nd and 3rd: Elections and QE2

Through early next week I will mostly just be following those two stories as they develop.  I have a number of essays in mind for later in the month of November and December.  

The Fed's Impending Blunder:

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard expresses a view that I share but expresses it so much better than I ever could.

Now, I put my hand up and confess to having supported QE when the financial system was imploding in late 2008 and early 2009, and I continued to do so as the M3 money supply collapsed at 1930s rates earlier this year. I persist stubbornly in thinking that it was the right thing to do, AT THAT TIME.

But we are no longer in a systemic financial crisis, and the Fed’s motives have become subtly corrupted. Having argued during the boom that it was not the business of central banks to stop asset bubbles – and specifically that any fall-out could “safely” be cleaned up later – Bernanke now seems to determined to validate this absurd doctrine, bending all the sinews of the US economic and financial system to this end. One error leads to the next.

 Nouriel Roubini is a little more positive but sees a fiscal train wreck on the horizon:

What has been the fiscal performance of President Barack Obama? He inherited the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, as well as a budget deficit that – after much needed bail-outs and a series of reckless tax cuts – was already close to $1,000bn. His stimulus package, together with a backstop of the financial system, low rates and quantitative easing from the Federal Reserve, prevented another depression. Mr Obama also deserves credit that the US, alone among advanced economies, currently supports a “growth now”, rather than an “austerity now” path.

But this is but one half of the picture; we must also judge his first two years on his ability to anticipate what the economy will need tomorrow.

I continue to watch a number of races that should not be competitive but are.  As I mentioned a few days ago, even Barney Frank (Chairman of House Financial Services Committee) seems to be in trouble.

Challenging the Massachusetts liberal is Republican Sean Bielat, an Iraq war veteran, and opinion polls suggest Frank has an uncomfortably narrow lead over a political unknown. 

In the run-up to Tuesday's congressional elections, Frank has faced a torrent of negative ads and mailings, much of it from groups outside the state who support candidates from the conservative Tea Party movement.

And to cleanse the palate, something lighter:

Sometimes oil reserves go down

Alaska's Untapped Reserves lowered by 90%.

The U.S. Geological Survey says a revised estimate for the amount of conventional, undiscovered oil in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska is a fraction of a previous estimate.
The group estimates about 896 million barrels of such oil are in the reserve, about 90 percent less than a 2002 estimate of 10.6 billion barrels.

The new estimate is mainly due to the incorporation of new data from recent exploration drilling revealing gas occurrence rather than oil in much of the area, the geological survey said.

OPEC reserves were revised upwards through out the 1980's not because more oil was found but because the allotment system which dictates how much each member can pump is based on official reserves.  If you increase your reserves, you can pump more.  Once one member country starts increasing their stated reserves, then so must everyone else if they are to continue to pump just as much oil as before.

Each OPEC nation is on its honor regarding their reserve number, they do not have to show the science to anyone, and they didn't.

The net effect is that those of us who attempt to follow the news but can not be an expert on everything became accustomed to hearing about the reserve numbers going up, and always going up.  We hear about a new find in Brazil or Canada and the number sounds large so we assume that it is a significant find.  The talking heads are not very good at giving us context and we are acculturated to trusting them.  They would not report it, we intuit, unless it were important.

But when science is used, sometimes reserve numbers go down.  And, since the 1970's those "large finds" are a pittance when we consider the rate at which those large finds will ever produce compared to a) the rate of (growing) world consumption and b) the impact of a 5% depletion rate on most of the world's largest and longest producing oil fields.

Yes, I tell my optimistic friends, we do not know the future and maybe human ingenuity will pull our collective dairy airs out of the fire, but only the most desperate of people depend upon such magical thinking when there is no sign of it yet.  We must also be prepared, I add, for being surprised to the down side.  Mother Nature is a capricious old woman and she is just as likely to throw gas on the fire as try to pull us out.

Cornbread Jukebox

I am trying to make some hay while the (proverbial) sun is shining.  Perhaps I will file a brief news update later but for now I am turning on some tunes and focusing the mind on a thing or two.

A taste, sure I'll share:

The Cultural Phenomonon: In Food and Finance

A great comparison of our food system and our finance system from James over at Baseline Scenario. 

I just read Michael Pollan’s book, In Defense of Food, and what struck me was the parallels between the evolution of food and the evolution of finance since the 1970s. This will only confirm my critics’ belief that I see the same thing everywhere, but bear with me for a minute.

Pollan’s account, grossly simplified, goes something like this. The dominant ideology of food in the United States is nutritionism: the idea that food should be thought of in terms of its component nutrients. Food science is devoted to identifying the nutrients in food that make us healthy or unhealthy, and encouraging us to consume more of the former and less of the latter. This is good for nutritional “science,” since you can write papers about omega-3 fatty acids, while it’s very hard to write papers about broccoli.

 The only thing I might add is that I think you can protect yourself from BOTH systems if you have the appropriate wealth, skill and desire.  Of course, it is a lot easier to change even a lifetime of food habits than it is a lifetime of financial habits since the latter is tied up in any debt and career decisions that you have made (and are difficult to change mid-course.  It is possible, of course, but as one who is trying to change his relationship to both systems, I would rather coach someone in changing their food milieu than their financial relationships.

The best (read most effective) stump speech 2010

Yes, it has gotten a lot of play, but that is because it is a good stump speech with a good central analogy. 

Again, you may not like it or agree with it or think it is overplayed but it gets mention here because I think it is effective in what the Democrats need to do; excite their base enough to show up.

No, you can't have the keys back

Wikileaks: America does not look that bad

In comparison to...


From Slate

Judging from the excerpts and analyses in the English-language papers, the documents contain a few new and interesting things, some of which may not please the war critics who tend to be among WikiLeaks' biggest fans.

The best (read most effective) political ad of 2010

Whether you agree or disagree with the message, whether you think it is fear-mongering or prophetic warning (every prophet is after all a fear-monger though not all fear-mongers are prophets), I think as far as the cinema and nailing the zeitgeist, this has to be the political ad of the season.

The ongoing housing mess

Housing down and going lower:

Gary Schilling wrote the book on housing and having listened to him over a number of years, my ears perk up when I hear his name.  I seem unable to embed the video but you can watch an interview with CNBC here:

The additional complication this scenerio adds is that housing equivilent rent (the way the economic powers follow the price of houseing in America) comprises ~70% of the official formula for calculating the inflation or deflation rate in the United States.  As a result a fall in housing to or below the historical mean could result in numbers (and headlines) which scream of deflation even while the prices of things that you and I buy everyday were going up due either to world-wide monetary concerns about the dollar, growing trade barriers, resource depletion or any combination thereof. 
 
As a result we would have what I have, for a time now, seen as the problem on the horizon: a great re-pricing of pretty much everything which could be felt as inflation, deflation or over all stability based upon your personal situation.  If you are a saver, it could feel like inflation (low real interest rates which lead to loss of capital), if you are in too much debt it could feel like deflation (less disposable income with which to pay back debt). 
 
It is an age of hurt where one is less concerned about making progress in their economic lives but rather limiting the amount of hurt.  The best place to be would be someplace in the middle ("neither a seller nor a buyer be").  I'm not there yet but I am running; but not fast enough.

Related:
Account Balances, the Dollar and American Power 
Robo-signing: the Tip of the Iceberg
Time for a New Stress Test?
Huffpost: Foreclose on Bank of America

Cholera Outbreak in Haiti

I have to confess, after we got through the first 3 to 4 months post-earthquake I thought the risk of Cholera was behind us.  The international community took this for granted and now we are stuck in the position of needing to respond.

Link to Story

ST. MARC, Haiti (AP) — A cholera epidemic spread in central Haiti on Friday as aid groups rushed doctors and supplies to fight the country's worst health crisis since January's earthquake. Nearly 200 deaths had been confirmed and more than 2,000 people were ill.

The first two cases of the disease outside the rural Artibonite region were confirmed in Arcahaie, a town that is closer to the quake-devastated capital, Port-au-Prince.

Officials are concerned the outbreak could reach the squalid tarp camps where hundreds of thousands of quake survivors live in the capital.

"It will be very, very dangerous," said Claude Surena, president of the Haitian Medical Association. "Port-au-Prince already has more than 2.4 million people, and the way they are living is dangerous enough already."

Meet the newest Islamophobe:

It would seem that even Juan Williams is not immune to prosecution if, in a weak moment, he confesses to a thought crime against the tenants of political correctness.

NPR News has terminated the contract of longtime news analyst Juan Williams after remarks he made on the Fox News Channel about Muslims.

...

Williams responded: "Look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."


Williams also warned O'Reilly against blaming all Muslims for "extremists," saying Christians shouldn't be blamed for Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.

Virtue and the Value Added Tax

Consumption, if you listen to the mainstream economic press, has become a necessity. 

Consumption is around 70% of the economy of the United States so any reduction of that consumption results in the loss of jobs.  Most of the criticisms of Quantitative Easing 2 has revolved around the fact that it will not get money into the hands of consumers who would then spend the money on goods and services which would then create, we are told, jobs.  Such is the contemporary paradigm anyway.

Yet I do not know a single person who, having thought about the issue, does not mourn the amount of waste and garbage in our society.  Right, Left, Republican, Democrat, environmentalist or Tea-Bagger; they all mourn our throw-away society where items are often shoddily made and unable to be fixed, even if there is a desire to do so.  Planned obsolescence has seized our economic models from IPods to washing machines.  We have developed a culture that disdains the old and values the new.  We have even been trained to rejoice when a thing breaks for we have been given the opportunity to replace it with a newer model.  At some level we are all guilty but I have yet to meet a person who thinks of this cultural development as a virtue; even if not all think it a vice.

Practical minded men and women will tell us this is the way that it has to be, because this is the way that it is now.  I cannot help but wonder, however, there might be the opportunity for something better in the future.

At this moment in history the federal government is funded by the taxing of income.  While some states and municipalities have a sales tax there is no national sales tax.  The result is that the tax system creates an obstacle to the creation of personal wealth, by taxing it but studiously avoids creating any obstacle to spending.  It is, perhaps, a trick of the brain that after working hard to earn money it is made easy to spend.

A Value Added Tax (VAT), in lieu of our current income tax system, would encourage work (since it would no longer be taxed) and discourage spending (since it would become more expensive).  I am under no illusions that cultural trends can be changed abruptly but this would have the effect of encouraging people to fix items that otherwise might be thrown away, creating a market incentive for companies to produce products which are capable of being repaired.  As a case in point, I am notorious for loosing things, especially small things.  Yet I notice even I am able to keep track of a pen if I both like it but, more importantly, have also spent more for it than a cheap disposable plastic pen which I picked up cheaply. 

In discouraging spending we would also expect to see an impact in the cultural attitude toward the issue of saving for the future.  Again, it would take some time but in disincentivizing spending Americans would be more prone to first use their new found wealth to pay down debt (which would not incur a tax since the item had been purchased in the past) which could later become a propensity to save.

There are some obstacles to this proposal.  It may very well be necessary to repeal the 16th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States in order to convince those of us who do not trust the Federal Government to truly replace rather than augment the income tax with a new VAT.  There is also the unfair effect such a change would have on the retired and other savers who have already paid an income tax on the money they have saved and will, effectively, have it taxed a second time when ever they are ready to spend it.  We will also need to see changes in the organization of our economy.  We will need fewer retailers sand more fix-it-men, fewer Marketing Majors and more mechanics.

There is no quick solution to the problems of the vice we mourn or an easy way to build virtue we would like to claim.  Neither can be had without a cost.  The conversation we need to be having is if we are willing to embrace the change necessary to make our children and grandchildren better people, living in a stronger culture, taking for granted skills that we do not yet have and confused by a historical reports of our present, a present in which we too well understand and are embarrassed by.  They will benefit if we demonstrate the freedom of mind necessary to resist those who are stuck in what is and envision what is not yet.

Talking About Bullies

My six-year-old and I had a long conversation the other morning about bullying. The conversation arose from events I heard from my bed as a conflict between the six-year-old and his little brother escalated. The older brother was telling the younger how a game was going to be played and what he was expected to do. The elder's voice got loud and then, as I was about to intervene, the unmistakable hollow thud of the fist of one striking the chest of other. Now fully awake and involved the six-year-old quickly attempted to hug his brother and say that he was sorry. That, I explained, was not enough.


As we processed what had happened I introduced him to the concept of bully. "A bully," I explained, "is a big kid who is mean to little kids in order to control them." To bring the idea home I leaned on his current fascination with Spider Man. "Peter Parker," I continued, "uses his powers to help those without powers. He does not use them to get his own way. That is why he sometimes says, 'with great power comes great responsibility.'"

I was a little surprised at the impact the conversation had on him. "Bully" has become a new word in his vocabulary. It is a good thing that it has. They, and those who would be, will always be with him.

I have long taken issue with the stream of liberal thought which in the process of favoring some victims over others legitimizes the violence of preferred movements while denouncing that of incorrect movements. Chang-Kai-Shek is vilified while Mao is justified. Castro is hero of resistance. Batista was an oppressor. The crimes of the Shah must be publicized. The tendency of the mullahs to execute rape victims for adultery or homosexuals for existing is overlooked or, at worse, construed as justifiable response to the excess of the Shah (and the CIA).

Stepping aside from the ideological ax sharpening of the right or left we should acknowledge that bullies come from all walks of life, from all nations and movements, and from all political inclinations. The temptation to tyranny is present in the human soul, as evidenced in the tyrannical attempt of my oldest son that morning. If we are to be moral, we must guard ourselves. If we are to be free, we must resist it in others.

Aristotle taught us that we become brave people by acting bravely. Likewise we become the kind of people who stand up to bullies by standing up to bullies. Only if we are individually practiced in this virtue in the challenges we face in the microcosm of our everyday lives can we hope to become a people who practice such resistance when faced with societal challenges whether they be foreign or domestic or come from the right or the left of the political spectrum.

Bullies will call us un-American for being imminently American. Bullies will accuse you of being racist for seeking accountability. Bullies will threaten to withhold economic cooperation for speaking out against human-rights abuses. Bullies will threaten to kill unless we prioritize their piety over our right to be profane. If the key philosophical problem facing the race is the problem of suffering, the most important pragmatic concern is the resistance of the tyrannical.

Contemporary pedagogy has focused on the inherent righteousness of the individual (if only we protect and nurture them properly) to such an extent that it must deny the inherent flaws within us all. Instead of training men and women to resist the school yard bully we equate the assertiveness of resistance with the aggression of tyranny. Young women are not taught to stand up to the "mean girls" and young men are not instilled with the self-confidence to emotionally resist the taunts of the strong boy or click.

I am not advocating a return to the schoolyard scuffle (though I do not fear it) but am attempting to emphasize the importance of its internal corollary: the willingness and the ability to say "No" in the face of physical or emotional blackmail or threat. In dictating a "zero tolerance" disapproval of violence that makes no distinction between victim and bully, between tyrant and freedom fighter, we are undermining the training ground for the virtues upon which the best of Western Civilization stands or falls.

The presence of children committing suicide in response to bullying is a personal tragedy but should also serve as a social warning. We are not building young people with the resilience to face-down their tormentors. We do not need to teach them to kick their opponents in the knee. We do need to train them in the confidence to say "No" without fear of the consequences because they will then grow into adults able to say "No" to the oppressors that will come later in life. To say “No” to those who would enslave the populace to anything other than our national covenant to respect the rights of one another. That training begins in our homes and families. We need to foster it in our schools. We need to honor it in our public space. We need to confess when it is we who are guilty of acting the tyrant in our home, nation or world.

Rare Earth Export Ban Expanded?

China expands the ban on rare earth exports?

HONG KONG — China, which has been blocking shipments of crucial minerals to Japan for the last month, has now quietly halted shipments of those materials to the United States and Europe, three industry officials said on Tuesday.

The Chinese action, involving rare earth minerals that are crucial to manufacturing many advanced products, seems certain to further intensify already rising trade and currency tensions.

Around the World Monday (Evening)

French riot police clash with students as petrol stations run dry 

Despite claims that it had petrol provision “under control”, the government said it had activated an emergency crisis cell charged with maintaining fuel supplies.

The opposition Socialists criticised François Fillon, the prime minister, for failing to speak to the unions over proposed pension reforms, which would raise minimum and full retirement ages to 62 and 67.

Sorry folks, I think at some point you're going to have to do the math and accept that somethings just don't add up they way we want the to.

Osama bin Laden is alive and well and living comfortably in a house in the north-west of Pakistan protected by local people and elements of the country's intelligence services, according to a senior NATO official.

The latest assessment contradicts the belief that the al-Qaeda leader is roughing it in underground bunkers as he dodged CIA drones hunting him from the air.

"Nobody in al-Qaeda is living in a cave," according to an unnamed Nato official quoted by CNN.

I would love to know how we both know this and have not um... visited, those houses.

On the lighter side, mysterious lights over El Paso that are similar to those seen in NYC a few days ago.  UFO's?  Military Maneuvers?  The truth is out there but I think the use of the X-Files theme is becoming a bit passe.

All it needs is a coat of paint

The boys discovered the earth worms that had been living under the old pile of wood as the two dogs watched on attentively.  Hopefully the weather will hold out that I will be able to get a coat of paint on it this week or next.  But even If I don't, it is good to have the job done.

Time to sell?

I don't own any gold.  I would be slow to buy at these prices yet I still see enough room for inflation that I would NOT pity the fool who did buy.  Yet when I see stuff like this, I can not help but think it would be time to sell (again, if I had any to sell).

Around the World Monday

->Paul Krugman recognizes the right-wing warnings about China:

Last month a Chinese trawler operating in Japanese-controlled waters collided with two vessels of Japan’s Coast Guard. Japan detained the trawler’s captain; China responded by cutting off Japan’s access to crucial raw materials.

And there was nowhere else to turn: China accounts for 97 percent of the world’s supply of rare earths, minerals that play an essential role in many high-technology products, including military equipment. Sure enough, Japan soon let the captain go.

I don’t know about you, but I find this story deeply disturbing, both for what it says about China and what it says about us.

->Ever wonder what normal Palestinians say when they are on-line?  Ever consider what that means for the prospects for peace?

->Though it occasionally makes the headlines the violence of Central Africa is largely overlooked in the press (warning: not for the easily traumatized).

->There is a Presidential election in process in Brazil. 

Dilma Rousseff, the former Marxist guerrilla who fell just short of an overall majority in the first round of voting in the presidential election in Brazil, is increasingly confident of victory in the second round to be held at the end of this month.

Ms Rousseff, a former chief of staff for the hugely popular outgoing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and the Workers’ Party candidate, won 47 per cent of the popular vote on Sunday October 3 while her main opponent, José Serra, a former Mayor of Sao Paulo and the candidate for the Party of Brazilian Social Democracy, won 33 per cent while Marina Silva, the Green Party candidate, got 19 per cent.

Angela Merckel, the mainstream Chancellor of Germany proclaims that multiculturalism has failed.

Attempts to build a multicultural society in Germany have "utterly failed", Chancellor Angela Merkel says.

She said the so-called "multikulti" concept - where people would "live side-by-side" happily - did not work, and immigrants needed to do more to integrate - including learning German.

In 2012/2013 China (in a process no one seems to understand) will choose its next generation of leaders.  The Kremlinology has begun.

China's Vice-President Xi Jinping has been named vice-chair of the powerful Central Military Commission, in a move widely seen as a boost to his likely succession of President Hu Jintao.

It comes on the last day of the ruling Communist Party's annual meeting.

• The New York Times reports that the new generation of Chinese military officers are more hostile to the United States.
• The budding political leadership came of age during the more insular period of the Cultural Revolution, while their predecessors at least had the opportunity to study in the Soviet Union and the later generations in the West.
• Stratfor has a free analysis of the next generation of Chinese Leadership, but they want your email address.

It is time to say "Enough!" to the cheap shots.

Bishop Gene Robinson, in the Huffington Post claims that religion, and by that he means traditional Christianity, is driving young homosexuals and those who are perceived by their peers as homosexuals, to suicide. 

You have to dig deep into this essay to find the connection but we seem to hit at the idea here,

You don't have to grow up in a religious household, though, to absorb these religious messages. Not long ago I had a conversation with six gay teens, not one of whom had ever had any formal religious training or influence. Every one of them knew the word "abomination," and every one of them thought that was what God thought of them. They couldn't have located the Book of Leviticus in the Bible if their lives depended on it yet they had absorbed this message from the antigay air they breathe every day.

The Bishop has no argument or facts but rather an ax to grind.  Was the Rutgers roommate who filmed and publisized the gay encounter which led a young man to kill himself acting out of religious conviction?   If so I haven't heard that fact (and I think we would have heard about it by now).   In the tragedies of the last few weeks, has the Bible Belt or other religious communities been over-represented?  The Bishop knows they have not,

With the exception of Brown in Texas these suicides are not happening in Bible Belt regions of the country, where we might predict a greater-than-usual regard for religious thought. Instead, they are occurring in states perceived to be more liberal on LGBT issues: California, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Rhode Island.

Yet this does not need him to question his premise but rather speaks to the supposed pervasiveness of traditional religious thought in America.  We were not at the scene of the crimes, we have a good alibi but like all good scapegoats we remain responsible due to are secret and pervasive hold on the mind of America's youth.  Dear Bishop Robinson, we are not that powerful.  We can't stop our own kids from having premarital hetrosexual or homosexual intercourse.  I assure you we can not compel non-churched youth to bully gays in the secular schools, public Internet and private text messages. 

If Bishop Robinson were attacking any other group with such imaginations of subliminal power, he would be roundly (and properly) criticized by the political left he represents.  If he painted Muslims in such broad strokes with such a corrosive power to drive teens to suicide, he would be branded an Islam-ophobe.  Despite having and stronger conservative monotheistic perspective on homosexual issues, he is, however suspiciously silent on Islam.  He thinks we have some deep cultural power.  I'm sorry sir but we have tried to outlaw abortion for nearly forty years without success.  I think the weapons of mass destruction you think we possess are a mirage.


What is likely at work is that Bishop Robinson, like all of us, is a product of his biography; a biography which has taught him that the enemy of gay and lesbian youth is traditional readings of Scripture.  I would observe that while the Bishop and traditional Christians may have very different readings of Scripture it does not mean that traditional Christians are the only "enemies" (I do not think Bishop Robinson is my enemy, let alone gay youth, but he seems to treat me like one) gay youth have. 

It will not help young gay men and women struggling with their identity to attack the straw man of traditional Christianity and Judaism.  We do not run the world anymore (if we ever did), and we are, I would wager, just as or even more appalled by the youth culture from which bullying and taunting sprouts.  It is in identifying this youth culture as the threat to gay youth, a culture which has nothing to do with religion, conservative or otherwise, that we begin to address the real problem.

If we are to help these young people (and I think we should) than we need to get beyond the easy digs of the culture war.  I think one place to start, a place that I think serious liberals and conservatives can agree is to resist the extended and indulgent adolescence which has come to characterize the youth culture which ostracizes and attacks young people who are different.  By dumbing down the expectations of responsibility and civility we have of young people we actively contribute to the acceptance of the culture of the bully and the silence which pervades those young people who would speak up to support their bullied peers.  We have extended Jr. High antics into High School and Sophomoric behavior into College.   

When we do not expect them to act like adults; they do not.  When we tell them that it is expected that they will act with youthful disinterest in the consequences of their actions on others, they will.   We should not be too surprised that youth who are the victims of that behavior become convinced that it will never end; it gets longer with every passing year, not because a person or group is advocating it but because the culture has drifted into extending adolescent behavior.  We have me the enemy, and he is us. 

Like all generals, Bishop Robinson is fighting the last war.  Traditional Christians or their cultural mores is not killing young gay men.  A youth culture which could only with great imagination be more hedonistic is killing them.  He could find in Traditional Christians a great ally in the resisting of this youth culture, if only he could take the time to stop the cheap and flimsy shots at them.      

Two Steps forward...

one step back.

Somewhere in my brain I knew I needed to place nailers on the 2x10 rafters, but I couldn't access it when I needed it.  So today, instead of painting, I took the metal roof back off, put some 1X rough sawn hardwood lumber that I had collecting dust up on the 2x10's and then put the metal roof back on.

In the process I learned that metal roofing is a good conductor of electricity from an electric fence.

Some friends also came by to borrow the billy goat for a few months.  He is always a fan of car trips, especially when they are opportunities to go a courtin' at the end of them.

Enjoy the day

Sometimes you just have to sit down and enjoy a warm October Day.

Have a good weekend!

Building the Woodshed (Day Two)

The first thing Kristi said this morning when I started sawing down the extra lengths of 4x4s was, "Your parents are not going to approve."  "Sorry Dear," was my reply, "where do you think I learned how to do it this way?"

Yes, that is a chainsaw in my hands.

 Haul the metal roofing out.

Slide it into place (harder than it sounds when you are bulldogging a 16 foot long piece of sharp metal).

Then you "just" screw it into place!

Tomorrow, painting and moving the wood pile into its new home.

Are Goats Stealing American Jobs?

 OK, I can be pretty critical of Steve Colbert from time to time, but sometimes he is funny:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
People Destroying America- Goats Steal Landscaping Jobs
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes 2010 Election March to Keep Fear Alive