If Everyone Gives One Thread, the Poor Person Will Have a Shirt

by Eric Martin (inspired by the work of Gary Farber)

A place to collect threads for the weekend. 

Have a good one all. 

I'm off to drop kick my liver into a wood chipper.  He had it comin'... 

Comments

[ral]

ACK! Gary, you're too fast for me.

[gwangung]

By the way, for Seattle denizens, my group is is having a show this week.

Not as exciting as beating off Nordic homeless, but the hours are about the same....

[MeDrewNotYou]

I'm shocked! I certainly did read the link! I have to admit I'm not a big fan of the original series, though, so now I know to take Chekov with a grain of salt.

I think you guys should just call me dumb on this one, though. I feel I somehow deserve it. ^.^:

[xanax]

gwangung: "Not as exciting as beating off Nordic homeless...."

But more exciting than watching them do it themselves?

Do you wear rubber gloves?

[gwangung]

Do you wear rubber gloves?

But of course. This IS sketch comedy, after all (it's a dirty job, but someone has to do it....)....

[xanax]

Under the circumstances...
I'm glad it's you.
(Break a leg!)

[Jesurgislac]

Being angry at the fact that your nephew didn't get into med school

Let us not also forget that ken's anger wasn't just that his white nephew didn't get into med school, but that students belonging to ethnic minorities did. And he's convinced they were inferior prospects for med school compared to his white nephew. ("But we also know that when somone like him does not get accepted it is because they made room for a minority applicant with lower GPA. Skin color made all the difference." kencite)

Ken's a racist bigot. Of course he's going to complain, viciously and vigorously, about a black man who is a party nominee for President: and of course he won't admit that it's because Obama is black: it is the nature of bigotry that bigots are convinced their objects of bigoted belief really are inferior, and therefore they are not bigots: they merely know that a black man shouldn't be President when the party is full of white men who are obviously more capable, just as they know ken's white nephew must have been a better prospect for med school than any of the students with more melanin in their skin who were actually accepted.

[Gary Farber]

"I have to admit I'm not a big fan of the original series, though, so now I know to take Chekov with a grain of salt."

"Meanwhile the Enterprise receives a distress call from the S.S. Deirdre. Mr. Scott takes the Enterprise out of orbit to find the ship, but when it arrives at the coordinates, he finds nothing. He notes the call strangely asked for the Enterprise by name, and no civilian ship would have direct knowledge of the Enterprise's whereabouts. Realizing he had been duped he races back to Capella IV, but receives another distress signal along the way, this time from the U.S.S. Carolina. Scotty ignores it saying 'fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me', which Chekov reports is an old Russian saying."

Chekov's habit:

[...] A running joke involves Chekov's tendency to credit things to "Mother Russia". They include:

* "The Russian Epic of Cinderella" (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country)
* Scotch being invented by "a little old lady from Leningrad" ("The Trouble With Tribbles")
* The Garden of Eden being "just outside" Moscow. ("The Apple")
* The grain quadrotriticale being a Russian "inwention" ("The Trouble With Tribbles")
* Various star systems being charted by Russians ("The Trouble With Tribbles")
* The old saying quoted by Scotty: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me!" (Friday's Child)
* Alexander the Great (Starfleet Academy Chekov's missions module)
* Homework being a Russian "Inwention" (The Novel "Doctor's Orders")
* The claim that the story of the Cheshire Cat from Lewis Carroll's novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was a Russian story about a disappearing cat from Minsk ("Who Mourns for Adonais?")

But he loves to visit nuclear wessels.

[Gary Farber]

"they merely know that a black man shouldn't be President when the party is full of white men who are obviously more capable,"

Ken maintained that he was for Hillary Clinton, to be sure.

[liberal japonicus]

I believe ken is from Crete...

[Jesurgislac]

lj: I believe ken is from Crete...

Ah, the Epimenides paradox?

[Hartmut]

Hillary is not a white man?
---
Cynic that I am I could believe that there are some influential people that see the looming financial catastrophe as a multiple opportunity for the Republicans and their moneyed backers.
1. A licence to loot the treasury, thus limiting the (sane) options for any following administrations (=bankrupting the state to keep it from doing its job because "State bad, business good")
2. All that money will go to the "deserving" (=the haves and have-mores) leaving as little as possible for everyone else
3. It will hopefully keep the system from collapsing until after the election and so the damage can be blamed on someone else (either the heretic Son of Cain* or the uppity [n-word] Demon-rat).

*so next time the candidate will be orthodox again. To burn Palin that way may be seen as a bonus by some because that way the religious nuts are pleased by the choice but without her being able to do the wrong kind of damage to America.

[Jesurgislac]

Hartmut: Hillary is not a white man?

Eh. Ken now claims "Clinton won me over" but judging by the tenor of his comments, I think what won ken over to supporting Clinton (assuming he ever did!) was that he just could not get over his racist bigotry against Obama. Easy to claim you supported Clinton now Hillary Clinton is no longer a possible candidate for President.

[liberal japonicus]

Jes, I think the paradox involved is believing anything that ken says. Any argument constructed from taking a statement made by ken falls prey to paradox. That's why he's a troll.

[russell]

We are not out the woods yet but so far Paulson, under Bush, and Bernanke, one of Bushes better appointments, are are creating the governmental programs, the foundation, for the next president to work off of.

Are you referring to this?

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

Oops, the market blew up. Give me $700 billion and ask no questions and I'll make the problem go away. Trust me.

George W Bush: the Mr. Wolfe of fiscal policy.

Thanks but no thanks.

Thanks -

[Hartmut]

Hillary was attacked for not being feminine enough (often by the same people that claim that women are not intended to lead by the intelligent designer in the first place*), therefore the fake question about her not actually being male.

*unlike of course Palin, who will not lead but just be the tool of the intelligent designer (and his earthly maintenance technicians and interpreters). Btw, when will tapes be unearthed with Palin or her first dude doing a minstel show? ;-)

[Phil]

Boy, this just says it all:

Paulson resists calls for added help in bailout By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer 20 minutes ago WASHINGTON - Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is resisting a Democratic push to add additional help for households to the $700 billion bailout bill.

Paulson said Sunday that because financial markets remain under severe stress there is an urgent need for Congress to act quickly without adding other measures that could slow down passage.

"We need this to be clean and to be quick," Paulson said in an interview on ABC's "This Week."

[Gary Farber]

Actual libertarian.

[Gary Farber]

Forgot this.

[MeDrewNotYou]

I have great respect for anyone that can claim with a straight face that Scotch was invented in Russia. Chekov is one crazy Ruskie!

[ral]

I think that running joke by Chekov was a cold war reference -- of course the U.S.S.R. launched the first satellite but later on in the 1960's it became a joke about Russians inventing things first.

[rdldot]

hello everyone! Just wanted to pop in and check what was going on the last week. I finally have enough electricity after Hurricane Ike to get signed on. I've missed everyone...even if you hardly ever hear from me...I'm usually here...

[Jesurgislac]

Glad you made it through OK, rdldot.

[Gary Farber]

"of course the U.S.S.R. launched the first satellite"

And the first man in space, the first woman in space, the first person to orbit the earth, the first animal to orbit Earth (Laika the dog), the first probe to hit the moon, the first pictures of the dark side of the moon, the first probe to Mars, the first probe to Venus, the first two-person crew in space, the first three-person crew in space, the first EVA, the first docking in space, the first... well, the list goes on and on.

The Soviets earned their bragging rights with their space program. And invented quite a lot of other stuff, as well. And their hydrogen bomb was only a few months after hours. Plus four Nobel prizes in Physics and Chemistry in the late Fifties and early Sixties.

[now_what]

now_what, don't pay much attention to Barry. He is simply talking his book. The ban on short selling may have cost him all the profit he made so far this year.

It is apparent from your comment that you know nothing about what his company actually does, and that you are just "poisoning the well".

But even a stopped clock is right once a day. He certainly is "talking his book". Here's his "book", he runs a company that provides market research and analysis. The blog is, in part, an ad for his company. If his predictions bear out over time, it is an indicator of the value of his company's product. To me, that is one reason to pay attention to his arguments. He has a stake in them. Why should we pay attention to yours?

Interestingly, today he quotes at length a 1930 NY Times smackdown of those who would ban short selling:

With trade depression continuing in spite of recent assurances that it would surely end with arrival of Autumn, and with the stock market also falling below the prices reached in last Summer's drastic downward readjustment, it was not perhaps surprising that search for something peculiar and abnormal in the way of cause should have begun. The average man does not apply severe logic in his reasoning on such matters...

All too true.

[ral]

Maybe someday I'll learn not to try to explain a joke.

[Hartmut]

I read the Paulson plan also includes worthless paper from foreign companies that have invested in the US.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Sunday that foreign banks will be able to unload bad financial assets under a $700 billion U.S. proposal aimed at restoring order during a devastating financial crisis.

"Yes, and they should. Because ... if a financial institution has business operations in the United States, hires people in the United States, if they are clogged with illiquid assets, they have the same impact on the American people as any other institution," Paulson said on ABC television's "This Week with George Stephanopolous."

Quiddity's comment on that:

That last highlighted part "if they are clogged with illiquid assets", presumably means illiquid assets of any kind from any part of the globe. It could be mortgage-backed securities based on real estate in Portugal.

So now Paulson is proposing to vacuum up all the crap paper in the world. You can be damn sure that foreign banks will adjust their books so that they can shovel as much junk as possible into the "business operations in the United States" tent. Who's going to check their books if they are headquartered abroad?

[now_what]

From the always reliable ABC news:

"A lot of those people will have to sell their homes, they're going to cut back on the private jets and the vacations. They may even have to take their kids out of private school," said Frank. "It's a total reworking of their lifestyle."

He added that it's going to be no easy task.

"It's going to be very hard psychologically for these people," Frank said. "I talked to one guy who had to give up his private jet recently. And he said of all the trials in his life, giving that up was the hardest thing he's ever done."

But don't worry. They're working on a solution.

[Gary Farber]

So, we got a letter yesterday from the neighborhood association saying that political lawn signs were forbidden, and today we found that the sign, which I paid for, had disappeared. I plan to call the police tomorrow to report a theft.

Anyone know anything about precedents as regards neigherhood associations and political lawn signs?

[Gary Farber]

Race and the compaign.

[ThatLeftTurnInABQ]

and today we found that the sign, which I paid for, had disappeared. I plan to call the police tomorrow to report a theft.

It was probably stolen by another Obama partisan desperate to get their hands on a much coveted yard sign, because the campaign is suffering from a terrible, tragic, critical yard sign shortage.

So you might want to hold off on making that call to the police, you may be turning in a fellow Democrat.

Personally, I'm gonna start selling Yardsign Backed Securities (YBS). I've got about $700 billion or so worth to sell - who wants to buy?

[Gary Farber]

"I plan to call the police tomorrow to report a theft."

Cancel that; there was a more local explanation, it turns out.

[Donald Johnson]

In case ken shows up, and given his alleged admiration for Hillary Clinton, I thought he'd be interested in her view of the crisis--

Clinton

I'm not sure how to reconcile this with ken's own view--it's almost as though his heroine doesn't trust Paulson or Bush quite as much as ken does. Perhaps she's another anklebiter like DeLong.

[Gary Farber]

Jed Bartlet speaks.

[KCinDC]

Donald, the true Hillaryites have adjusted long ago to the fact that the Hillary we're observing now doesn't reflect the real Hillary but is acting under coercion from Obama and the Democratic boys' club, who are probably holding Chelsea hostage or something. If Hillary had won, as the scrappy insurgent outsider, she would be quite different.

[wonkie]

Gary, neighborhood associations can forbid yard signs. I'd be surprised, however, if they can confiscate yard signs. My dad dealt with this problem by taping his yardsign to the back window of his van which was parked in the driveway.

I dealt with it by tacking my sign tot he wall of my house. My neighbors have their sign in their upstairs window.

Go ahead and call the police. maybe you can embarass your neighborhood associatin into returning your sign.

[Gary Farber]

"Gary, neighborhood associations can forbid yard signs."

That's somewhat true as a generality, but as it happens, a fair number of states have passed laws limiting their ability to do it in various ways, including on flagas, and including on political signs. So one has to go state-by-state to find out one's own situation, because in a bunch of state's that's not true. See, for instance, here and particularly here.

Anyway, it turns out that my sweetie's 15-year-old son had knocked the sign over while mowing the lawn, and then tossed it in the bushes temporarily, and then his friend came along and helpfully threw it in the garbage, without thinking this was worth mentioning to anyone. I'm still looking for the second metal pole, but ordered another one from the Obama store anyway, since they're only $8,a nd it's a donation. I also got some of the new Obama/Biden stickers and buttons while I was at it. As for the neighborhood association, we'll wait for them to cause more trouble than just a letter. Meanwhile I'd already decided to put my rally sign in one of the windows, anyway.

I'm glad that my sweetie and her 18-year-old (essentially non-political) daughter decided to firmly support Obama, once Paulin was picked; they'd been extremely strong Clinton supporters, and were talking about sitting on their hands until Paulin.

[Gary Farber]

"because in a bunch of state's"

Away, invading and unwanted apostrophe!

[Gary Farber]

"once Paulin was picked; they'd been extremely strong Clinton supporters, and were talking about sitting on their hands until Paulin."

Palin. I mean "Palin." Sheesh.

[hairshirthedonist]

Don't forget "flagas."

[bedtimeforbonzo]

Drew: I read the link about the boyfriend who killed his girlfriend's cat because she paid more attention to Norman than she did to him. Truly horrifying. Other than that, it left me speechless.

I had one or two other comments but . . .

Don't you hate it when you get to the end of a thread and your mind goes blank? (Glad your safe, rdldot.)