The Ministry of Minor Perfidy

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I'm not the spare. No, really, guys!

Judge, Jury, Executioner, Avon Lady

IDDQD enabled, BFG 9000 at the ready

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Wild at heart - deadly serious about personal finance

Java programmer, contrarian, and resident lefty

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Windy City Mike
social democrat, ca. 1930 trade-unionist, and professor of alleged history

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Saturday, February 28, 2004

Look, I Just Don’t Like Him

Despite the Boston Globe’s ongoing love affair with John Kerry, I just can’t bring myself to like him.

A portion of those similarly displeased with Kerry take issue with his post-war shenanigans. His brief career as a hippy is enough to turn that portion off. Others are suspicious of the circumstances surrounding his decorations, earned under fire (so the stories go), yet thrown away in a fit of highly visible faux disgust a short time later. Except they weren’t his, as we know, and the real ones are now resting comfortably carefully framed and displayed in his office. I consider these parts of Kerry history as poor form, but they’re not enough not to vote for him, 30 years on.

There are many more substantive reasons that I would be reluctant to vote for the man.

More Perfidious Goodness...

Posted by on 02/28/04 at 06:29 PM
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Thursday, February 26, 2004

Toodles

I will not be posting until after the weekend (cue weepy violins; the wails of millions), as I am travelling South. Friday night is the Partial Perfidous Caucus on Evil, Malfeasance, and Spawn Admiration at the Buckethead residence: drinks provided. Then family stuff, and then an excruciating marathon drive from Richmond to Boston on Sunday. If I don’t make it back, remember me well.

Posted by Johno on 02/26/04 at 07:58 PM
Just So You Know • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Defending Marriage

From the comments section of this post from Jane Galt, we find this fascinating article from the July, 1926 issue of the Atlantic Monthly.

The chaos that ensued is a bit of a cautionary tale. (And yes, I am aware of the differences between the Soviet Union of the mid twenties and our current utopian paradise in America.) Read the whole thing, as they say. Some of the consequences of Communist efforts to make the New Soviet Man (and Woman) prefigure the results of the introduction of the Pill and the Sexual Revolution.

I also found interesting this bit from Jane’s post:

And people who were cheering the various court decisions, and are now screaming about this, need a consistency check. Yes, we all support gay marriage—but a majority of your fellow citizens don’t. You thought you’d found a way to end run the tedious process of cultural change by getting judges or officials who lean your way to read rights you’re in favor of into the constitution. You can hardly scream “foul” when they try to get legislators who don’t lean your way to write those rights right back out again.

This gets to some of what I was saying - that from the conservative point of view, liberal judicial activism leaves them no recourse but quixotic attempts to pass constitutional amendments because no matter how many legislative battles they win, liberals can always find an agreeable judge.

Posted by Buckethead on 02/26/04 at 06:58 PM
Crazy Foreigners • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

So Where Are Those Social Security Dollars?

Since nobody gets my quantum cat box gay marriage riff, I’ll explain something else.

Poor and middle class people in this country have been told that we need to give a large tax cut to the wealthiest 1% of people in this country. The reason, we are told, is that this will produce expansion in the economy. This, in turn, will create more jobs, raise the incomes of everyone, and just generally make everything turn out super.

Yesterday a one of my colleagues asked a question about taxes. We pulled out a spreadsheet and calculated roughly how much he’s paid in social security taxes over his career of seven years (he’s not yet thirty). We calculated that he has paid roughly $78,000 in social security taxes in that time. Seems like quite a lot, doesn’t it? We are including, of course, both sides of the social security puzzle—employer paid and employee paid taxes. If the employer was not paying these taxes, they could (and would) be given to the employee as wages.

At this point is is useful to note that the tax cuts for the wealthy are being financed by removing money from the social security surplus. Very large parts of my everyone’s social security payments are diverted into the general fund. The general fund is operating at a huge deficit.

Is my colleague better off holding a promise to pay social security from the federal government, approximately valued at $0 and a promise by the GOP that the improving economy will help him out? Or would he be better off with his $78,000?

Any potential benefit to the poor and middle class derived from ephemeral supply-side effects is dwarfed by the tax theft this country is currently engaged in.

The social security taxes apply massive pressure against poor and middle class income mobility. Without being able to save this money and develop some capital of their own, they are forever trapped in a paycheck to paycheck existence, and forced to be wage earners.

When we give massive tax cuts to the wealthy, we do tremendous damage to the hopes and dreams of the other 99% of Americans, who can’t save enough to make changes in their lives.

A corporation runs a pension plan for twenty years, and manages the assets in the trust fund. The workers have contributed 15% of their paychecks to this fund, on the understanding that it will be used for their retirements. The officers of the company “borrow” money from the trust and use it to finance general operations of the company and give themselves massive pay increases. They leave an IOU, signed and stamped and gold-starred.

In the private world, we would prosecute. We would call this theft. Or at least we would have, before the GOP congress of 1998 got its hands on the IRS, prevented them from investigating corporate fraud, and told them to go after earned income tax errors instead, so they can extract dozens of dollars from maids who make $6,000 a year.

Posted by Ross on 02/26/04 at 04:32 PM
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Wednesday, February 25, 2004

Comanche Scalped

Okay, it’s a cheesy headline. But I have been expecting a couple of the military oriented bloggers to jump in on this, and I haven’t really seen anything substantive. The RAH-66 Comanche is (or was) intended to be the next generation, double-plus lethal, stealthy/sneaky reconnaissance/attack helicopter for the Army. We have already spent $8 billion on the development, and will have to spend an additional $2 billion in contract termination fees if the project actually goes south. The rationale for canceling the project is that the money saved by not building the Comanche will be used to buy almost 800 more UH-60 Blackhawk utility transport helicopters, upgrade and modernize 1,400 helicopters already in the fleet, and invest more heavily in a variety of unmanned aircraft, such as the existing Hunter and the new Raven.

Unlike the earlier decision to cancel the Crusader artillery system (which also was very expensive) I have mixed feelings about this one. The Crusader was to be a highly advanced, highly mobile artillery system. It would have given the army a precision stand off artillery system that could keep up with the turbine powered M1 Abrams tank on the battlefield. Its computerized and networked fire control system would be integrated into the army’s battlefield tactical networks. It would be able to put massive firepower anywhere the army wanted, quickly, efficiently and accurately.

This system would have been perfect for destroying large armored opponents like the Red Army. Sadly, the Red Army no longer exists, and the Crusader was not exactly what a lighter, more deployable Army needed. So I could see the logic in canceling it. It didn’t fit the army’s new idiom of freewheeling, fast and decentralized, precision netcentric warfare.

But the Comanche does fit that idiom. It is fast, stealthy, and lethal. Our mobility is crucial to our new mode of warfare. And the Comanche is a highly mobile weapons and reconnaissance platform. Our current flock of attack helicopters is aging, and no matter how many weapons, sensor and avionics upgrades they receive, there are some capabilities they will never provide, and the Comanche was intended to address those shortfalls.

More Perfidious Goodness...

The Comanche’s stealth and noise suppression technology would have allowed it to penetrate enemy or contested airspace with much greater ease than the current models. Its greater range means easier logistical support and greater strike radius. And the fact that all the modern avionics are designed in from the start means easier maintenance and greater effectiveness. Even if we had not gone ahead with the initial plan to purchase thousands of Comanches, several hundred would increase the effectiveness of units equipped with both Comanches and older attack and reconnaissance helicopters.

To be sure, the Comanche is expensive – over $50 million each. But cost is not the only consideration when deciding whether to continue with a weapons program. These are expensive projects, whether we cancel them or not. Does the system increase the lethality of our forces? Will its presence on the battlefield reduce the likelihood of American casualties? What threat is the program meant to address? We have to think carefully about what we cancel. As the vastly increased operational tempo of our military eats into funding, we have to ensure that R&D, training and procurement budgets are not savaged as we fight the war on terror. I think, from what I have read, that the Comanche would be a worthwhile addition to our armamentarium. It will increase our ability to fight enemies on any battlefield, regardless of their technological sophistication. And that will save lives.

Other military projects are potentially on the block, waiting for the ax. The Air Force’s F-22 Raptor has narrowly averted execution several times, as has the Marine V-22 Osprey. We need to look at these and other programs in the same way.

The Crusader designed to deal with heavy armored forces, is no longer relevant, and it made sense to cancel it.
The F-22 is an incredible fighter – it is stealthy, agile, heavily armed and can cruise at supersonic speeds. There is no fighter in any Air Force that could defeat it. But that is also true of the fighters we already have. It would only be an incremental increase in our effectiveness against any likely opponent, who are unlikely to be any serious threat to our air superiority. Build a squadron for when it absolutely, positively has to be destroyed overnight, and spend the money on the much cheaper (but still better than anything except the F-22) F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Which also has a real ground attack capability.
The V-22 Osprey, the tilt-rotor troop transport, is a great idea. The Osprey takes off like a helicopter, and then its twin rotors rotate forward, allowing it to fly like an airplane. Thus, it combines the helicopter’s ability to land and takeoff anywhere, with the airplane’s speed, payload capacity and range. There have been four crashes in ten years, raising concerns about its safety, but many have argued that this is to be expected in a completely new type of aircraft. If accepted, the Osprey would allow the Marines to deploy faster and further than ever before, and ease logistical support as well. Adding this capability makes sense. Thumbs up.

Its all a matter of looking at where the project in question would fit into the battlefield, and determining whether its worth the money. (Including the opportunity cost - could we develop some other weapons system that is even more effective with the money?) Too Goddamn Much Perfidy...

Posted by Buckethead on 02/25/04 at 10:39 PM
War • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Schroedinger’s Gay Marriage Cat Box

A long time ago in a universe far, far away, a man named Erwin Schroedinger gave us the story of a cat. Schroedinger’s Cat is a haunting tale of death and loss and, in particular, the nature of uncertainty. It’s so sad, really. You see, there’s this cat, who’s alive and well. He’s happy and well-fed. Life isn’t too bad. Then he changes owners. The new owner is a bad man, and the bad man thinks he doesn’t really need food, or water, or anything of the things that regular cats need to live and love and do more than survive.

The bad man puts the cat in a box. It’s an iron box, heavy lid, no way to look inside. In fact, this box is never designed to be opened, ever...you can’t see what’s going on in there. Before the lid was shut, though, the bad man had a pang in his stomach. At first he thought it was a crappy egg, but it turned out to be his heart, maybe two sizes too small.

Still being a bad man, though, he gathered up another cat and threw it in the box with the first one, tightly shut the lid, and found the nasty pang departed. Then he welded the lid shut, put a padlock on it, wrapped the box in plastic, and bricked it into cubby hole behind a wall in his guest house, smoothing out the plaster in a pleasing manner. He centered a cross on the wall, and decided the cat’s name was Fortunato. The other cat could be Fortunato 2.

After some time went by, Fortunato asked Fortunato 2 to marry him.

In a fit of macabre quantum pique, the immoral collapsing probability wavefront reached out into the universe and....

Did nothing, because nobody saw it; it never existed.

Posted by Ross on 02/25/04 at 07:27 PM
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Fighting Gerrymandering in the home of Gerry

A panel of Federal judges have ruled that the Massachusetts legislature must redraw the tortuous and insane boundaries of certain Boston-area voting districts.

A panel of federal judges ordered Massachusetts House leaders yesterday to redraw the Boston legislative map, determining that the plan crafted by House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran and his lieutenants was designed to protect their own political futures at the expense of black voters’ constitutional rights. . . .

During the trial last fall, Finneran, a Mattapan Democrat, insisted that the redistricting plan did not unfairly divide minority neighborhoods, but he conceded that his aides tried to ensure that sitting representatives were not harmed by shifting demographics revealed by a new census.

When the lines were redrawn, [House leader Tom] Finneran’s district shed three overwhelmingly minority neighborhoods and took on three that were at least 95 percent white, including areas of Milton. Even as Boston for the first time emerged as a “majority-minority” city in the 2000 federal census, Finneran’s district went from 74 percent minority to 61 percent minority.

“The House was comfortable with manipulating district lines,” the court ruled. “This sad fact speaks to the totality of the circumstances.”

More of this, please!

Posted by Johno on 02/25/04 at 07:04 PM
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Will Needs A Vacation

The Left’s Anti-Semitic Chic?. Backed up by nothing in the article, of course. I wonder if Will actually wrote the headline. Onward:

Here the term intellectual is used loosely, to denote not only people who think about ideas—about thinking—but also people who think they do. The term anti-Semitism is used to denote people who dislike Jews. These people include those who say: We do not dislike Jews, we only dislike Zionists—although to live in Israel is to endorse the Zionist enterprise, and all Jews are implicated, as sympathizers, in the crime that is Israel.

Today’s release of Mel Gibson’s movie “The Passion of the Christ” has catalyzed fears of resurgent anti-Semitism. Some critics say the movie portrays the governor of Judea—Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect responsible for the crucifixion—as more benign and less in control than he actually was, and ascribes too much power and malignity to Jerusalem’s Jewish elite.

A few things come to mind. First, anti-semites are people who dislike Jews for being Jews. And yes, small-minded one, you can dislike Zionists without being an anti-semite. Unless you believe that all Jews are Zionists, which they’re not.

Will then raises Gibson’s “The Passion”. Why he provides this as bolstering material in an article accusing the entire left of being anti-semitic is beyond me. He might want to do a little exit polling at theaters, where he might rapidly discover that (shocker) religious Christian types are the main audience for this film. Say, which way do the religious Christian types in this country lean, anyway?

Oh...I forgot. It’s a movie, which means it is inherently part of the left wing conspiracy.

Posted by Ross on 02/25/04 at 06:54 PM
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Iron Chef America!

Via blogcritics, I see that Alton Brown, my favorite celebrity chef-type-person will be part of a series of “Iron Chef America” specials filming soon to air on the Food Network.

SWEET.

Do be aware that this new version of Iron Chef is the real deal, including Masaharu Morimoto and Hiroyuki Sakai from the original series versus such American high-profile chefs as Bobby Flay (winner of the infamous Spiny Lobster battle), Wolfgang Puck, and Mario Batali. As such, it has NOTHING to do with the disastrous UPN version of Iron Chef which featured second-rank celeb chefs like Todd English (nothing wrong with his food… he’s just no Chen Kenichi) and William Shatner as the Chairman.

Posted by Johno on 02/25/04 at 05:14 PM
Entertainment • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

A Third Great Awakening?

A jewish Rabbi writing in the National Review is making three predictions about Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ:

It will make a butload of money. [I’m paraphrasing]
The Passion will will be the most serious and substantive Biblical movie ever.
It will be a harbinger of a third Great Awakening.

Johno knows more about the first religious awakenings in this country than I do. But it seems to me that this is an interesting prediction, as we’re long overdue for one. The secular movement has been ascendent in American cultural life for decades now, and there is always a reaction to any culturally dominant movement. It would be interesting to speculate on what effect a great awakening would have on 21st Century American politics, foriegn policy and culture.

It’s also an interesting article in that it analyses the efforts of Jewish groups to attack Gibson and his movie:

“Those Jewish organizations that have squandered both time and money futilely protesting The Passion, ostensibly in order to prevent pogroms in Pittsburgh, can hardly be proud of their performance. They failed at everything they attempted. They were hoping to ruin Gibson rather than enrich him. They were hoping to suppress The Passion rather than promote it. Finally, they were hoping to help Jews rather than harm them.

In this, they have failed miserably. By selectively unleashing their fury only on wholesome entertainment that depicts Christianity in a positive light, these critics have triggered anger, hurt, and resentment.”

“Many Christians who, with good reason, have considered themselves to be Jews’ best (and perhaps only) friends also feel resentment toward Jews who believe that The Passion reveals startling new information about the Crucifixion. They are incredulous at Jews who think that exposure to the Gospels in visual form will instantly transform the most philo-Semitic gentiles in history into snarling, Jew-hating predators.

Christians are baffled by Jews who don’t understand that President George Washington, who knew and revered every word of the Gospels, was still able to write that oft-quoted, beautiful letter to the Touro Synagogue in Newport, offering friendship and full participation in America to the Jewish community.”

“It is strange that Jewish organizations, purporting to protect Jews, think that insulting allies is the preferred way to carry out that mandate.

Indeed. It seems that much of the opposition to this movie has been overwrought, and coming from people who have not seen the movie.

Posted by Buckethead on 02/25/04 at 04:24 PM
Holy Shit! • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Gimme a C, a Yeasty C

A recent article describes research that may allow doctors to literally hear disease.

Preliminary research indicates that living cells, with proper care and feeding, pulsate. That pulsation can be expressed as sound. Initial study of yeast cells reveals that they pulse “about a C-sharp to D above middle C in terms of music”. Dead or mutated cells actually sound different than healthy ones. Interestingly, sprinkling alcohol on yeast cells- the preferred method of killing them, apparently- raises the pitch of those cells. I don’t know if I sing higher after I’ve been sprinkled with alcohol, but I definitely sing LOUDER.

Nevertheless, with more research and refinement, this sort of nano-sonic listening could yield an entire new set of diagnostic tools. Like really, really sick headphones for starters.

Posted by on 02/25/04 at 02:54 PM
The Miracle of Science • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Claws and Bibles

Who inherits the FMA? The youth of this country. Overwhelmingly, younger citizens have indicated that they DO NOT CARE about sexual preference and gay marriage. What we have here is a last putrid outgassing from corpse of morality in this White House. The stench will linger over OUR generation, once these fools are gone.

The Rove Republicans will sell out the gay population and the youth of this country to retain power, by appealing to discrimination...by finding a way to redirect anger and frustration into an old, familiar pattern to blame and hatred…

Posted by Ross on 02/25/04 at 02:51 PM
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Tuesday, February 24, 2004

Can we invoke Godwin’s Law?

Of all the… SecEd Rod Paige referred to the kneecappers at the National Education Association as “terrorists” on Monday. Seriously.

Either the word has lost all meaning, or Mr. Paige has lost his mind. Alternatively, both conditions may apply.

I propose a new Law to complement Godwin’s Corollary and the Perfidy-coined “Judson’s Law”. What shall we call what happens when people refer to others as “terrorists” despite the absence of actual terrorist acts like suicide-bombing, planes in buildings, hijackings, etc.? Let’s make it real stupid-sounding!

Posted by Johno on 02/24/04 at 09:49 PM
Darwin Award Contender • (1) Trackbacks • Permalink

Ch-Ch-Ch-Chia

Green bears?

Two polar bears at the Singapore Zoo have turned into giant chia pets. A harmless algae has grown in the hollow shafts of the bear’s hair, leading to the jungle camouflage color scheme. Hydrogen peroxide has been used to bleach the fur of the mother bear back to its normal arctic white, and the son will get his dye job in a couple weeks.

Posted by Buckethead on 02/24/04 at 05:09 PM
Holy Shit! • Permalink

Black is White, Up is Down

Yes, it’s time for reality vs. Bush, Episode MXVCVIIIMCII.

Speaking on his tax cuts for the top bracket, El Bush pontificates thusly (if mangled words can be considered such):

“If you’re worried about job growth, it seems like it makes sense to give a little fuel to those who create jobs, the small-business sector,” Bush told a gathering of the nation’s governors at the White House. “So I’ll vigorously defend the permanency of the tax cuts, not only for the sake of the economy, but for the sake of the entrepreneurial spirit.”

Internal Revenue Service statistics cited by a Democratic senator this month show that the vast majority of small businesses do not earn nearly enough money to fall into the highest income tax bracket. According to IRS data from the 2001 tax year, 3.8 percent of the 18.2 million business tax returns filed that year reported taxable income of $200,000 or more. The top tax bracket last year kicked in at $311,950 of taxable income.

So—yeah, the estate tax helps farmers, except nobody can identify a single farm that’s been saved. And the top bracket tax cut helps small business, except according to the IRS data, it doesn’t.

Exactly how much more of this bullshit are the reasonable people in this country going to put up with?

If the man’s judgement is this badly impaired (either by lack of capacity or poor information delivery), why exactly do many “conservative” people in this country think he’s so damn qualified to prosecute the war against terrorism?

Bush is a walking misjudgement.

Damn, that better be a word. It’s frickin’ late, I’ve just put in a 15 hour day, and I’m wiped. I get a free one here. Little blinky lights everywhere are telling me to pay attention to the outside world. Maybe they’re floaty spots.

Oh yeah, almost forgot: Since the tax cut thing didn’t work out and all it did was make a bunch of GOP political donors even more ridiculously wealthy, can we have the money back?

Right. And when we put the tax rates back after November, they’ll bitch, bitch, bitch about the fact that the rich are being singled out for a tax hike.

Posted by Ross on 02/24/04 at 07:45 AM
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