December 2010
29 posts
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“That was a great relief, because ‘three days after sight of this First of...”
– Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
The First Black President? →
Presidential historians are a uniformly idiotic lot. Asking a bunch of “experts” to rank the presidents is like asking toddlers to do calculus. Somehow the worst presidents are always named the best, and many of the best are considered the worst.
Warren G. Harding was actually a pretty decent president, not great, but definitely a step in the right direction after the horrible mess of...
Uncle Milty, The Revenge →
Uncle Milty Strikes Back →
Uncle Milty Part Three →
More With Uncle Milty →
The True Story Of X-mas
I hate Christmas. Why? Well I’ll tell you why.
Christmas was invented in Munich Germany in 1937 by Adolf Hitler, that’s why! Don’t believe me? Well lets look at the facts.
Where does the tradition of Christmas Trees come from? From the Germanic Yule log. What songs do we sing during Christmas time? Silent Night, Oh Christmas Tree? Try “Stille Nacht” and “O...
Doggerel
Many years ago, when I still had the enthusiasm of youth (and the lack of common sense) I considered myself something of a wordsmith and I wrote a bit of poetry from time to time. Of course, being something resembling an adult now, just about anything creative or evocative I might have inside me, seeking to find expression, has shrivelled up like an un-watered fern.
That said, I offer this...
Uncle Milty On Uncommon Knowledge →
Over at NRO they have posted up a classic Uncommon Knowledge segment with Milton Friedman. I can’t wait for the next installment.
This Story May Not Be True
Today I was reminded of a story I heard a long time ago. I can’t remember the source of the story, or even if it’s true or not but I thought it was interesting, so I now share it.
Once upon a time at some college some place there was a philosophy course. It was the penultimate class of the term and the professor had scheduled that day for the final (he reserved the last class to go...
Unemployment Insurance Rant
How in the world did unemployment insurance ever become a government responsibility? I mean, really, who the hell thought that up? I imagine it must have gone something like this:
Bureaucrat #1: Gee, it’s awful that people who lose their jobs have no money and can’t pay their bills or feed their families.
Bureaucrat #2 I know!
Bureaucrat #1 Wouldn’t it make sense to have some...
More Definitions (this could get to be a...
Neocon
-Noun
Definition
1: A person who’s favourite film is “Red Dawn”.
“Man, I was watching Red Dawn last night again and we should totally kill those Iranian sonsofbitches.”
See also: “Platonic Guardian”
2: (Leftist usage) Warmonger, war criminal; often Jewish.
See also: “Jewish Capitalist” and “Nazi” (Leftist usage)
...
14 tags
Achtung Military History Nerds
So Christmas time is coming up, and being the weirdo that I am, that puts me in a mood to discuss famous (and not so famous) battles of the Eastern Front, a topic near and dear to my heart. What? That’s normal, right?
So if you aren’t a military history nerd the following will probably make no sense to you, but if you are, I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on what a...
Posted Without Comment →
New-Dealer Rexford Tugwell’s proposed Constitution.
Definitions
Keynesian
-Noun
a person who understands the world through the prism of a High School Economics Class.
Man, economics is easy when you’re a Keynesian.
-Adjective
drunk or irrational.
Dude, I was so Keynesian last night after that bottle of cheap vodka that I started talking to this girl about the Phillips Curve.
- Etymology
From English; Keynes- “crazy British...
WTF Mate!
So having gotten home from our demeaning, minimum wage job a little after midnight and settling in for two hours of pointless web surfing, we were horrified to find that we had somehow slipped into some kind of crazy time warp because all of the sudden Bill Clinton was giving a presser in the White House. And as nostalgic as that made us feel, we have no desire to re-fight the Clinton Wars. I...
ptbruiser asked: Have you seen the statue of Laocoön in person? Or read the Aeneid? Or are you just that kind of culturally astute fellow in general?
A Last Word On Assange
Giving a bit more thought to the points raised by CNJ I think I can sum up my position on Assange with this:
Timeo Australem et documenta ferens.
Reportedly, the Wikileaks crew has already begun attacks on private individuals and corporations. Now, perhaps, it can be argued that Visa and Mastercard et al desserve those attacks for severing their business ties with Wikileaks under pressure from...
WatchI am so glad I became facebook friends with the VMI. I know everyone’s probably already seen this and/or posted it but in-case someone hasn’t….
“Personally, I think Weiner is a, well, a Dick. But I agree 100% with your...”
– Libertarian corner
Yes, the Honourable Gentleman is, in fact, aptly named. Perhaps his testiness can be attributed to grade school teasing? But if I hated people for being dicks then self loathing would prevent me from getting out of bed every morning (instead of my usual excuse of laziness).
WatchI kinda like Anthony Weiner for some reason. Sure he’s wrong about everything. And yeah he’s a hot headed loud-mouth jerk (which may be why I like him). But really he just needs too shut up. Tax cuts, can never add to the deficit. Tax cuts subtract from government revenue. Spending adds to the deficit. It’s very simple and why some people can’t grasp that I have no idea....
crazynutjob asked: Your point of charging foreigners for espionage is a bit of a non-sequitur, since ethics, sadly, seems to have little to do with criminal charges. This is particularly true in the international arena. We don't habitually turn over our own spies for espionage prosecution in foreign governments. Further, it appears that Manning, not Assange, fits the analogous role of the spy. We don't...
More on wikileaks
crazynutjob said:
As Assange is not a US citizen, he has no real ethical responsibility to keep US state secrets, does he? I mean, if you found secret Iranian plans to attack a US base, would you keep it secret?
Well if that’s the case no foreign agent would ever be prosecuted for espionage. All those German spies we executed during WWII would be mighty annoyed to learn that. If I made...
Wikileaks
I really haven’t been following the whole wikileaks mess with much interest. I’ve had other matters to attend to. I’m not really sure where to weigh in on Juliane Assange. Yes it’s good for the public to be informed on the activities of the government, in general. But yes it’s bad to be divulging state secrets willy-nilly and a lot of things many in the public would...
I blame George Bush for the tumblr blackout.
anothersillyfloridian:
^
Surely Bush is far too inept to bring down tumblr on his own. To paraphrase Don Corleone: but I didn’t know, until this day, that it was Dick Cheney all along.
Bilateral Monopoly
So I came across an interesting concept the other day: the idea of a bilateral monopoly. A Bilateral monopoly is a situation in which there is only one seller (the monopolist) and only one buyer (the monopsonist) in a market. If there are gains tyo be had by the market transaction how is one to predict to whom the gains will accrue? Both buyer and seller have unlimited market power and, I gather...
“Plan B.
…
That is where diplomacy kicks in. US diplomats should inform China...”
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I’ve selected the quote above to denote the lunacy of solutions to the Korean problem, I understand that this is a delusional proposal at best by someone of considerable youth. To be frank, this is a gross caricature of the situation, perhaps one that George Will would gladly nod his head at if...
Not Your Granddaddy's Korean War
I’ve been trying for several days to organize a coherent post on the Korean situation. This has not been an easy task because the entire situation is so bloody screwed up I keep finding myself typing pages and pages trying to explain it but never really saying anything. So I’ll give this one last try:
Warning! Long, Boring, Nerdy Military/Diplomatic Strategy Post with Partial...