Tag: politics

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Beauty Contests

In the 1930s, financial markets, for obvious reasons, didn’t get much respect. Keynes compared them to “those newspaper competitions in which the competitors have to pick out the six prettiest faces from a hundred photographs, the prize being awarded to the competitor whose choice most nearly corresponds to the average preferences of the competitors as a whole; so that each competitor has to pick, not those faces which he himself finds prettiest, but those that he thinks likeliest to catch the fancy of the other competitors.” – from the NY Times.

sounds like an apt description to me

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Past affecting Future

From the NY Times 2009/07/15

“Repeatedly, Judge Sotomayor sought to persuade the panel that her past, rather than determining how she rules on cases, makes her more perceptive in sorting out the issues.”

But if her past is making her more perceptive about the issues, then won’t it affect how she rules?

“No, the judge said. She pledged that “at no point nor time” would she let her background affect how she rules.”

But then doesn’t this mean that she cannot let her past make her more perceptive in sorting out the issues?

‘ “I think the system is strengthened when judges don’t assume they’re impartial,” she said.” ‘

“This statement seems to contradict that she will “at no point nor time” affect how she rules. Why can’t we all admit that everyone is biased? Some are more biased more than others but that is only when their bias does not jive with your bias.

I say let her on the Court. She has enough experience. And there are enough old white male biases on the court. Time for another bias.

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Don’t Put Bernie in Jail

I think it is a terrible idea to put Bernie Madoff in jail. I am not saying that I think he is innocent and I am not saying that I think he should not be punished. I think he should be punished and severely.

But if he is put in jail, he will once again be living off other people. He will continue his parasitic lifestyle. He will be sucking his livelihood from the taxpayer. We will be paying for his food and shelter and his health insurance.

Instead of putting him in jail we should make him live in a suburb of Pheonix or Cleveland or Fresno. Make him live in a nondescript badly struccoed apartment complex with meth addicts and hookers. In a small one bedroom with broken air-conditioning and dark wood paneling. With the only view being the back of an equalling depressing building and the dumpsters between them.

Make Madoff work at a minimum wage job that does not provide health insurance. Make it so that he can never be promoted and always has to clean the bathrooms. Make him stay there till he croaks with no retirement and terrible health insurance.

Yes, this might fall under “cruel and unusual”, but shouldn’t the punishment fit the crime?

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New Method of Terrorist Attack?

A man stole a plane from a Canadian flight school and flew into the United States.

Will this be the new paradigm of attack? 9/11 caused the first shift. And then the Shoe Bomber, Richard Reid caused another shift. Thanks to him we have to take our shoes off now when going through security. Found out after looking at Wikipedia that I am 6 days older than the Shoe Bomber.

from Wikipedia – “He was sentenced by Judge Young to life imprisonment on each of the three charges, 20 years imprisonment on four other charges, and 30 years on four other counts, to be served consecutively, followed by five years of supervised release.”

So after the Shoe Bomber serves his life imprisonment term he will have 5 years of supervised release. Who is going to supervise that? And then once the supervision is done, will he be able to freely roam the after-life?

But back to the topic at hand – Are Cessnas from Canada the new dirty bomb? What about Mexico? Well, those from Mexico are probably too full of cocaine or weed to put any bombs in them. But then again, I heard that Canada grows some fine buds also…

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Insanity

“Hamas had it coming” read a sign I saw at a protest near the Oakland Farmer’s Market last Saturday. Did these children in Palestine have it coming?

Did Hamas think Israel would respond in any other way?

How can Israel not think that killing more wives, husbands, daughters and sons will make even more “terrorists”?

How can Hamas not think that Israel is going to pound the #^@% out of Gaza once they start firing rockets?


Insanity – doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.

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Shouldn’t the punishment fit the crime?

“Israel is in “all-out war” with Hamas, the nation’s defense minister said Monday as Israeli jets continued to hammer targets in Gaza and the Palestinian death toll reportedly topped 300.“

“The attacks also have wounded about 650 people, the sources said.”

“One of the strikes killed an Israeli at a construction site in Ashkelon, 6 miles (10 kilometers) north of Gaza, and wounded eight others, a hospital spokeswoman said. The Israeli fatality is the second since the airstrikes began Saturday.“

“An Israeli strike early Monday hit the Jabalya refugee camp, leaving five children dead in a home that was damaged when a nearby mosque was hit, said Dr. Mu’awiya Hassanein. The Israeli military had no immediate comment.“

excerpts from an article by CNN

Hamas, in its idiocy, shoots rockets at Israel and kills one person. Israel, in its over-adrenalized fedupness (if that is a word), bombs the piss out of Gaza killing hundreds, children included.

Going by the numbers, Palestine kills 2 and Israel kills 300. Overkill, no?

But why did Hamas think that shooting rockets at Israel was a good idea? Did they expect this time to be different?

Idiots, the lot of them.

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fool me once, shame on…shame on you. Fool me…you can’t get fooled again

Dec 3, 2008

(CNN) — A Florida congresswoman – convinced she was being prank-called by a Barack Obama sound-alike – hung up on the actual president-elect Wednesday.

Florida Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen was told by an aide that Obama wanted to speak with her. According to a statement released by her office, the Republican congresswoman cut off the caller, telling him she thought “this is a joke from one of the South Florida radio stations known for these pranks.” She then hung up.

Obama’s future White House chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel – a fellow congressman – then called her to let her know she’d actually been speaking with the future commander-in-chief. Ros-Lehtinen, convinced the call was another hoax, hung up on him, too.

Finally, an aide told Ros-Lehtinen she had an urgent call from Chairman Howard Berman, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Still suspicious, Ros-Lehtinen urged the California Democrat to recount a story only both of them would know.

Berman passed the test — and told her she had, in fact, hung up on President-elect Obama.

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Thai protesters shut down airport

How come we couldn’t/didn’t do this in protest to Bush and his terrible administration? to the war in Iraq?

Excerpts-
“Flights from Thailand’s international airport have been suspended after hundreds of anti-government protesters stormed the building outside Bangkok.”

“We will stay until the government steps down. This government is not legitimate,” retired university lecturer Sunthorn Kaewlai told the Reuters news agency.”

We certainly have changed, as a people, since the founding days of our country –
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure. – Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

Where was I in the run up to the war? Well, I attended one protest. Maybe I should ask how come I couldn’t/didn’t do that?