Seasteading

Lurching towards the logical extreme, this is not unexpected:

PayPal-founder Peter Thiel was so inspired by Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand's novel about free-market capitalism - that he's trying to make its title a reality.

So we'll have a colony of wealthy residents living outside the territorial limits of the US. They're not subject to our laws and regulations, and they get to "live free" in this Randian paradise.

Makes me wonder about a few things - not the least of which is piracy.  I think if I were an enterprising individual who was already involved in something illegal like the drug trade, I might deem it worth the risk to raid one of these little settlements now and then, just to see what's available.  Better yet, some kind of protection racket might be quite profitable for me.

Just wonderin'.

Contradiction

A big chunk of "the right" loves to claim Ayn Rand as a patron saint while ignoring one of her main points, ie: contradictions exist, but cannot prevail.

By way of example:

Reconstruction

Yikes.  Got the main bill for the Hospital side of things for my Total Hip Replacement.  The bill from the surgeon should be following shortly.

Previously, I had an XRay for diagnosis, and then another XRay Study to measure for the device itself.  Those two totaled close to $1400.00.

Right now, I'm getting two visits per week from a nurse who checks me over and tests my Coumadin level, plus two visits per week from the Physical Therapist.  Once they turn me loose and I'm no longer considered "house-bound", I switch to Out-Patient status, and I go to a rehab center twice a week

Thank God for good insurance coverage. 

Fun Fact

This represents exactly one dollar more than what ExxonMobil paid in taxes last year.

Caption Contest

1) "Bachmann reveals truth about what it takes to get a Republican nomination."

2) "And now, my impression of my husband - the girls at the club love this one."

Super Congress

I've decided not to piss and moan about the ridiculous level of self aggrandizement and ego-petting when it comes to naming the gimmick these guys have come up with to try to deal with the petty politics of the Budget and the Debt.

I don't know about the legalities of the thing because I don't think it matters, because I think it's wired to fail anyway.  The Repubs have stacked their side with people who are dead set against any tax increases.  They're all on the record, or they've signed one of Grover Norquist's stupid pledges.  And the Dem Leadership (making what looks like a deliberate attempt to prop up the "both sides do it / they're all the same" meme), have appointed members who are party loyalists and apparatchiks - but Harry Reid made one pick that I think absolutely ensures an outcome favorable to the Repubs, and his name is Max Baucus.

First, of course, we have to ignore the irony of a government setting up a brand new piece of bureaucracy in an attempt to cut back the existing bureaucracy.  But no matter; I expect they'll make a nice show of it, and we'll be entertained (ie: distracted) long enough for the "automatic cuts" to kick in.

The real fight goes on backstage; the real fight is about whose fiefdom lives or dies.  Watch and listen.  I think this thing is all about re-organizing the power allotment of the existing structures of congressional committees; the relationships between federal, state and local governments; and practically all things "government".  This is nothing short of a full-on paradigm shift fueled by the big-time ambitions of small-time operators, and it's bound to be a wild ride.

Corporate Personage

Here's Willard employing a Debate Stopper as he tries to make the point for lowering Corporate Tax rates.
(A Debate Stopper is a meme; a statement of "political fact" - usually in simplistic terms - intended to require agreement on the speaker's basic premise, allowing the speaker to go on to make a conclusive statement of policy).



The problem, as always, is that if your basic premise is false, then your conclusion cannot be true.

And here's the fallacy: If a corporation is a person; and it is entitled to the same rights and privileges of all other people, then it must be subject to the same responsibilities and liabilities as any other person.

A corporation is allowed to own another corporation, but a person is not allowed to own another person.

A corporation is not - cannot be - a person.

Both Sides

The centrist meme starts with a perfectly reasonable assumption that there're at least two sides of the story; that we need to be sure we're addressing questions from as wide a perspective as possible. All well and good, but it starts to fall apart when you take that next step and assume that ALL issues MUST have at least two sides (they don't), and that both points of view are ALWAYS valid (they aren't).

While Centrism has its uses, as a political philosophy, it's just intellectually lazy. It's a product of our need not to feel embarrassed because we supported the wrong candidates and causes; or because we aren't willing to do the work required of every good citizen in a democracy; or that we were just following a fashionable trend; or whatever.

To take just a piece of the argument, here's Bill Maher exposing the lie of "both sides do it".

Go, Dylan

Some Not-So-Good Signs

There was once quite a buzz surrounding the recall attempts in Wisconsin, but somehow, because the Repubs held on to four out the six seats in question, the Press Poodles decided it was no longer much of a story - suddenly, it got kinda hard to find any in-depth coverage or analysis of the results. (see the numbers here)

By winning 2 seats and trimming the Repub majority to 17-16, the Dems are claiming they've changed the dynamics of Wisconsin's State Senate to some degree, but I'm betting the lesson the Repubs are taking away is that the combination of gerrymandering, advertising and dirty tricks is the key;  that as long as they can apply the Big Money Propaganda, then they can maintain the "50% plus 1", which means they can still just bull their way thru.

Put that election news together with this, and we've got an overall outlook that remains pretty bleak.

In fact, they said, America was composed of two distinct groups: the rich and the rest. And for the purposes of investment decisions, the second group didn’t matter; tracking its spending habits or worrying over its savings rate was a waste of time. All the action in the American economy was at the top: the richest 1 percent of households earned as much each year as the bottom 60 percent put together; they possessed as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent; and with each passing year, a greater share of the nation’s treasure was flowing through their hands and into their pockets. It was this segment of the population, almost exclusively, that held the key to future growth and future returns.

And finally (for today), there's this from a CNN Poll:

A lot of that anger seems directed toward the GOP. According to the survey, favorable views of the Republican party dropped eight points over the past month, to 33 percent. Fifty-nine percent say they have an unfavorable view of the Republican party, an all-time high dating back to 1992 when the question was first asked.

If Repubs are unpopular, and if a majority of voters are saying they don't deserve to be re-elected; and yet they keep winning elections, then what logical conclusion can we draw regarding our little experiment in self-governance?