Fear of Clowns

Gordon Bigelow challenges the dominant neoclassical school of economic thought in the May 2005 edition of Harper's. In "Let There Be Markets", he writes,

The problem is that the story told by economics simply does not conform to reality. This can be seen clearly enough in the recent, high-profile examples of the failure of free-market thinking - how media giants have continued to grow, or how loose accounting regulations have destroyed countless millions in personal wealth. But mainstream economics also fails at a more fundamental level, in the way it models basic human behavior. The core assumption of standard economics is that humans are fundamentally individual rather than social animals. The theory holds that all economic choices are in fact authentic, unmediated selfhood, rational statements reflecting who we are and what we want in life. But in reality, even our purely "economic" choices are not made on the basis of pure autonomous selfhood; all of our choices are born out of layers of experience in contact with other people. What is entirely missing from the economic view of modern life is an understanding of the social world.

Bigelow illustrates his point by offering an example in the extreme,

If you bought a Ginsu knife at 3:00 A.M., a neoclassical economist will tell you that, at that time, you calculated that this purchase would optimize your resources.

The article continues on to place the roots of modern economic theory in the early 1800's Christian fundamentalist belief that God created an orderly and rationally knowable universe and when the free-market failed the impoverished, it was a designed spiritual condition - part of God's orderly Creation - not a problem in need of fixing,

In the 1820s evangelicals were a dominant force in British economic policy ... their first major impact was in dismantling the old parish-based system of aiding the poor and aging, a policy battle that resulted in the Poor Law Amendment of 1834 ... The Poor Law nationalized and monopolized poverty administration. It forbade cash payments to any poor citizen and mandated that the only recourse be the local workhouse. Workhouses became orphanages, insane asylums, nursing homes, public hospitals, and factories for the able-bodied. Protests over the conditions in these prison-like facilities, particularly the conditions for children, mounted throughout the 1830s. But it did not surprise the evangelicals to learn that life in the workhouses was miserable. These early faith-based initiatives regarded poverty as a divinely sanctioned payment-plan for a sinful life.

The article concludes that economists ought to let go of thinking of markets as governed by scientific laws and standing as a perfect self-regulating system, divinely mandated or not,

The first evangelicals fought for free trade because they thought it would encourage virtuous behavior, but two centuries of capitalism have taught a different lesson, many times over. The wages of sin are often, and notoriously, a private jet and a wicked stock-option package. The wages of hard moral choice are often $5.15 an hour.

The whole issue of this Harper's is riveting, particularly if you're interested in the current influence of American fundamentalism in politics. The issue is also given enthusiastic props by I cite, Mahablog, MyDD, Consolation Champs, and Liberal Rapture.

Also, don't miss the brilliant 5 page adaptation from the English translation of the Czech Europeana: A Brief History Of The Twentieth Century by Patrik Ourednik, which begins and ends,

The Americans who fell at Normandy in 1944 were tall men measuring 68 inches on average, and if they were laid head to foot they would measure 24 miles. The Germans were tall, too, but the tallest of all were the Senegalese, who measured 69 inches, and so they were sent into battle on the front lines in order to scare the Germans ... And in 1989 an American political scientist invented a theory about the end of history, according to which history had actually come to an end because modern science and new means of communication allowed people to live in prosperity and universal prosperity was the guarantee of democracy and not the contrary, as the Enlightenment philosophers had once believed. And citizens were actually consumers and consumers were also citizens and all forms of society evolved toward liberal democracy and liberal democracy would in turn lead to the demise of all authoritarian forms of government and to political and economic freedom and equality and a new age in human history but it would no longer be historical. But lots of people did not know the theory and continued to make history as if nothing had happened.

// posted by Erik @ 4/30/2005 09:09:00 PM
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April 30, 2005 - Yesterday, the cool weather and mostly cloudy sky kept most people away from the lake. Same today.

Today's "lake" picture shows two American Coots and ripples left by a third that had just gone diving for a fish.

// posted by Erik @ 4/30/2005 09:05:00 PM
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// posted by Erik @ 4/29/2005 09:07:00 PM
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Yesterday, it was partly cloudy, as it was today. But today, I first noticed the absence of American Coots on the lake.

It's usually easier to notice the presence of things than their absence.

// posted by Erik @ 4/29/2005 05:05:00 PM
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Yesterday, it was spitting tiny raindrops. Today, there were swarms of tiny white bugs and the lake shimmered like warping glass.

Today's picture of Minneapolis across the lake was taken without the wide-angle and gives a better idea of what the city looks like from the far side of Lake Calhoun.

// posted by Erik @ 4/28/2005 08:28:00 PM
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// posted by Erik @ 4/28/2005 08:26:00 PM
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Captain Quack is still hoping to find Iraq's nonexistent WMD,

The data remains inconclusive, and that's all. ISG could not go into Syria, nor into the Bekaa Valley that until this week was controlled by Syria, to determine if any kind of transfers took place. The only conclusion they could reach is that official transfers never took place, meaning that Saddam's files contained no records of any such movement of materiel between Iraq and Syria.

The president's Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction leaves no room for such doubt,

The Intelligence Community fundamentally misjudged the status of Iraq's nuclear, biological, and chemical programs. While the Intelligence Community did accurately assess certain aspects of Iraq's programs, the Community's central pre-war assessments - that Iraq had biological and chemical weapons and was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program - were shown by the post-war findings to be wrong724.

The doubt is removed in footnote 724 (emphasis added),

724Some reporting indicated that Iraq may have moved biological and chemical weapons stockpiles to Syria just prior to the start of the war in March 2003. CIA, Title Classified (Dec. 13, 2004) (citing one classified intelligence report (March 2003) from a foreign service). The security situation along the border between Iraq and Syria prevented the ISG from conclusively ruling out the possibility that such weapons were transported across the border. Interview with Special Advisor to the Director of Central Intelligence Charles Duelfer (Oct. 13, 2004). It is important to note, however, that, given the overall findings of the ISG, there was nothing left to move by March 2003, save possibly some pre-1991 CW shells. Therefore, the conclusion that militarily significant stockpiles of CW or BW could not have been moved to Syria just before the war necessarily follows from the ISG's overall findings about the state of Iraq's WMD programs after 1991.

// posted by Erik @ 4/27/2005 06:02:00 PM
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Before, it was warm enough to go biking in shorts. Today, I wore jeans and everything was very colorful from the rain and the spring.

Keeping in the swing of things brings comfort to a troublesome existence.

// posted by Erik @ 4/27/2005 04:59:00 PM
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// posted by Erik @ 4/27/2005 01:06:00 PM
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A gem from From Our Man in the Dark, Mark Levin,

[The left-wing has] to lie, they cannot debate truthfully on the substance, nor will they. But what's the truth? The Republicans have never filibustered against any judicial nominee ever. Period.

From the Senate's historical minutes 1964-present: In 1968 Republicans filibustered Abe Fortas, President Johnson's nominee for Supreme Court Chief Justice. Levin can't debate truthfully on the substance. Nor will he. He's in the dark.

More Republican filibusters of judicial nominees ...

// posted by Erik @ 4/26/2005 08:41:00 PM
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I noted last September that major al Qaeda attacks increased after Bush launched his "war on terror". New data show the number of terrorist attacks tripled in 2004 from the record number in 2003.

// posted by Erik @ 4/26/2005 08:25:00 PM
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And President Bush called for democratic reform across the Middle East everywhere except in the autocratic Kingdom of the Crown Prince who called for the reforms along his side.

// posted by Erik @ 4/26/2005 08:12:00 PM
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I've been drawing lines. It relaxes my mind.

// posted by Erik @ 4/24/2005 06:49:00 PM
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Mid last week, I had not yet gone over the edge. This week, I'm on quetiapine, paroxetine and zolpidem to tame panic disorder.

Keeping track of day to day changes did not fix me on it's own: modern pharmacology helped too.

- Erik

// posted by Erik @ 4/23/2005 09:00:00 PM
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I've been in the hospital since Thursday. Back soon with great stories!

// posted by Erik @ 4/18/2005 04:37:00 PM
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So, this right-wing freakazoid Richard Miniter wrote a book popularizing the lie that Sudan offered the Clinton administration bin Laden's head on a plate but the administration repeatedly refused the offer. The lie is one concocted by the Sudanese government.

Yes, that Sudan - the same Sudan that's on our list of state sponsors of terror. Yes, the same government that recently murdered millions of it's own citizens in Darfur.

But Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, the Wall Street Journal and a bunch of other right-wingers think Sudan's outrageous claim makes pretty good material. One cannot take these people seriously. What the hell?

// posted by Erik @ 4/12/2005 10:35:00 PM
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I forgot to turn on the flash. Here is what I want to say: in America, most of us are conditioned to feel more lucky than compassionate.

Yes we are lucky to have been born here, but more people are less fortunate elsewhere. My meal was unusual in two ways: in it were an artichoke and chorizo sausage. First time in my 37 years I've cooked either. Yum.

// posted by Erik @ 4/12/2005 09:57:00 PM
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Yesterday, there were only a few people around the lake probably because it was raining. Today there were few people maybe because it was brisk. I thought the people I saw wearing both shorts and gloves were dressed oddly. Maybe they thought it was odd that I would dress the same as if was 90 degrees.

Keeping one's body in motion keeps it warm and doing so every day also makes one's mind work better.

// posted by Erik @ 4/12/2005 09:41:00 PM
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This is really great real-life theater from a phone number one digit away from a pizza delivery joint's. (via the Apostropher who also a decade ago forwarded me "Ways to order a pizza" which I expanded to "101 ways to order a pizza.") An example from the mp3s, if you're into it already maybe it's a better choice to go listen to them starting from the beginning,

Pizza guy: Pizza, can I help you?
Customer: I'm calling, I just called uh, uh your restaurant -
Pizza guy: Yes?
Customer: And I got some very inappropriate talk on the phone.
Pizza guy: Oh, is Ashley giving you a hard time?
Customer: Excuse me?
Pizza guy: Did you speak with a lady?
Customer: I don't know who I spoke to, but I, it was totally, I'm having the call traced.
Pizza guy: Oh.
Customer: Totally inappropriate.
Pizza guy: Oh ...
Customer: They told me they had pizza with nipples on it, cursed me out.
Pizza guy: Oh my gosh, I am so sorry. We've been having some problems, we just got a new employee and he does not know what the, what he's doing, he's just - I'm so sorry.
Customer: Well why are you, I don't understand if you know this, why is he there?
Pizza guy: Well, eh, unfortunately, he's handicapped and the law dictates we can't fire him. I mean he's got to do something that's really - you know, he's got to screw up big time before we can fire him.
Customer: Well I think that's totally sc-, messed up.
Pizza guy: Well that's just state law for you, I don't agree with it either, he's one of our worst employees, but, eh, is there anything I can do to rectify the situation 'mam, can I give you a free pizza?
Customer: No, I am, I am, I am totally disgusted?
Pizza guy: Is, is there anything at all I can do ...
Customer: Uh, there is, I'm a person that would be very reluctant to do business with you.
Pizza guy: Is there anything at all I can do for you 'mam?
Customer: Um, I wanted to order a pizza.
Pizza guy: Can, can I give you a pizza, like, on the house?
Customer: Um ...
Pizza guy: Or, or perhaps could I service you sexually?
Customer: Excuse me?
Pizza guy: I'm sorry, could I get you a pizza on the house or service you sexually?
(pause)
Customer: Excuse me?
Pizza guy: Could I get you a pizza on the house to make up for it or service you sexually?
Customer: Uh, I think that you need to go to jail.
Pizza guy: I'm sorry it seems that, you know, you need some hard c*ck.
Customer: OK.
Pizza guy: You seem kinda uppity.
Customer: Is the manager there?
Pizza guy: Yes he is, would you like to speak with him?
Customer: Uh, yes.
Pizza guy: OK.
Manager: This is Dave, can I help you? Hello, this is Dave, can I help you?
Customer: Uh, Dave, what kind of business are you running there?
Manager: It's a pizza business, we make pizzas and then we deliver them to different houses. People can call in and order the pizzas and then we'll drive them to their house. And then you pay us.
Customer: That's, I would never have you drive me anything to my house.
Manager: Then what the f*ck are you calling for?
Customer: You're talking, you're being recorded.
Manager: I know I'm being recorded!

These episodes reminded me of this weekend's edition of what is probably my favorite radio show, This American Life, Mind Games - the first installment of the episode is as or more fascinating than the wrong number pizza recordings.

// posted by Erik @ 4/11/2005 11:31:00 PM
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Yesterday, Minneapolis was the end of a rainbow. Today, it was drizzling.

I am glad there were loons other than I enjoying the lake in the rain!

// posted by Erik @ 4/11/2005 08:29:00 PM
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I find soup a delicious, nutritious, quick and easy meal to make - particularly when cooking for one. I used to nearly always start by using a can of chicken broth as base and adding vegetables and sometimes rice or rice noodles.

Several months ago, I saw a friend using instant ramen to prepare a dish with canned tuna and olives, cabbage, onions, garlic, carrots and maybe a couple other things. It hadn't occurred to me to buy instant ramen since college when I did so mainly because I was living on a shoestring budget. Yes, it's cheap, but cheap can also easy and good! So I've recently been using instant ramen instead of canned broth.

More instant ramen probably means I come closer to getting the recommended daily allowance of sodium.

I made what is pictured above by boiling a cubed yam for 10 minutes and setting it aside, bringing 2 cups of water to a boil with a cubed onion in it, then adding the ramen noodles, a cubed yellow squash, waiting for it to return to a boil and then throwing in a cubed tomato and the ramen flavoring pack and waiting for it to boil again - just 20-30 seconds. All over high heat. All in one pot.

// posted by Erik @ 4/10/2005 08:43:00 PM
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Prudence enumerates ideas she embraces as a "compassionate conservative",

expect personal responsibility of others

This point doesn't seem to mean anything. You can derive no goals or policy by "expecting personal responsibility" of people. One can't even inform one's own actions by "expecting personal responsibility of others."

we have a social responsibility to others

I understand this to mean that we ought to help others who need help. OK.

pro-life

Anti-abortionist. Check.

education so as to prevent unwanted pregnancies

I think I can assume this means education by government, in other words social engineering. Check.

How does a compassionate conservative believe government ought to help people avoid unwanted pregnancy? Have the school nurse teach kids how to use condoms? Believe in the abstinence-only fairy-tale?

being against the death penalty

Being against the death penalty. Check.

there are people in this world need our help, sometimes temporarily, sometimes permanently

Pro-welfare. Check.

In the Congo, for example, aid cannot even reach them because the of the fighting. They need military support to just get the basic needs to the people living under extremely dangerous conditions

Being an internationalist. Check.

shift from big government to more localize[d] government

Likes strong local government, dislikes big national government. Check.

I won't even mention the environment, for it is getting late

An environmentalist. Check.

So we have here a description of an ideology that includes being,

• Pro-life
• Pro-social engineering
• Anti-death penalty
• Pro-welfare
• An internationalist
• An environmentalist
• For strong local government, against big national government

Summary: being a compassionate conservative means being a pro-life liberal. What is wrong with saying one is a "pro-life liberal"?

// posted by Erik @ 4/10/2005 07:22:00 PM
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Here is an archive of all daily photos of Lake Calhoun.

Yesterday, the lake was turbulant. Today, it was rather still following the thunderstorm which must have sent a lot of people home. They may have missed the rainbow.

Riding my bike around the lake each day helps me focus and makes me happy.

// posted by Erik @ 4/10/2005 06:30:00 PM
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In the early hours of the day, I wrote about superstition, rebirth, togetherness and that the most consistent change I can observe is in the sky. Today on my bike ride, I saw a rainbow. It's tempting to feel that the rainbow was sent for me, but rational to understand that it's my mind giving the rainbow significant meaning - not the other way around.

// posted by Erik @ 4/10/2005 04:19:00 PM
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I believe in nothing superstitious nor anything supernatural, but I believe we can choose to make people who happen to cross our paths important. And we can also choose how wide we make our paths. It is hard, but I'm trying to make my path wider. Part of that is being more willing to say "Hi!" to a stranger.

Spring, everybody agrees, is a time of rebirth. This spring, I am choosing to do at least two things in this new life I've been granted.

I wish to do more for people who are in less fortunate circumstances than I. To this end, I've pledged to financially support humanitarian relief efforts in some proportion to the luxuries I afford myself. Right now, the people who I wish to help most are the hundreds of millions who do not have clean water, a luxury I take for granted.

I also wish to recognize the uniqueness and importance of each and every day of my own brief life. To this end, I am paying unique attention to each day by taking pictures which I share with others of changes near a lake near where I now live.

I realized yesterday that the most consistent change I can observe each day is in the nature of our sky. I'm now intensely watching it every day.

Yesterday,

Today,

Particular thank-yous to my friends and teachers who have helped me come to these realizations, too many to name. And extraordinary thank-yous to those who I have not yet crossed paths.

// posted by Erik @ 4/10/2005 01:15:00 AM
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From the NY Times,

Arthur J. Finkelstein, a prominent Republican consultant who has directed a series of hard-edged political campaigns to elect conservatives in the United States and Israel over the last 25 years, said Friday that he had married his male partner in a civil ceremony at his home in Massachusetts.

Mr. Finkelstein ... said in a brief interview that he had married his partner of 40 years to ensure that the couple had the same benefits available to married heterosexual couples.

I don't know anything about Finkelstein, but I see the facts related in the article as a good example of a flaw in our system of government: it's difficult to impossible for minority voices - like gay republicans - to have much of a say about their issues. When only two parties are vying for more votes than the other, it's not easy for any minority viewpoint to be heard without a splintering off from dominant parties - which has happened as a result of the abolitionist and temperance movements. And some say it may be happening now concerning the way the Texas GOP has been trampling hog-wild over the Republican party as a whole.

I think we'd be better off with a House of Representatives in which at least a portion of the seats were at-large and determined by proportional voting: if a party gets 5% of the vote, 5% of the seats go to that party, they get 25%, the party gets 25%. This is how most nations elect their legislative branch - including Iraq. I think it's a better system: it would give real representation to all sorts of views coming out of our melting pot - like those of conservative gays - as well as help to keep the Republicans and Democrats honest.

// posted by Erik @ 4/09/2005 08:20:00 PM
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In most places in the U.S., whoever gets the most votes in any given election wins. Period. This requires candidates only to be the least worst which encourages negative campaigning. It also results in elected candidates who less than half of voters want in office. In Minnesota's 1998 gubernatorial election: Jesse Ventura won with 37% of the vote. And in 2002, Tim Pawlenty won with 44%. Minnesota hasn't had a governor who was the choice of more than half for years.

Although the electoral college throws in an added layer of complexity, the recent presidential election resulted in the first time since 1988 that the White House has represented a majority of American voters. In 1998, George H.W. Bush won with 53% of the vote, but since then, Clinton won with 43% in 1992 and 49% in 1996 and Bush won with 48% in 2000. The spoiler in 1992 was Ross Perot who threw the election to the Democrat, the spoiler in 2000 was Ralph Nader who threw the election to the Republican. Both Democratic and Republican candidates have recently been literally minority party candidates even though they always win barring extraordinary exceptions such as when Jesse Ventura - an Independence Party governor and Bernie Sanders, the single member of the U.S. House of Representatives who isn't a Republican or Democrat.

Voting for minor party candidates can be a good - Instant-runoff voting is one solution: voters rank candidates in order of preference and the votes are counted like this,

The candidates are Mrs. Pink, Mr. Black, Mr. Green, and Mrs. Brown. First, voter's #1 choices are tallied - if any candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, they win, but in our illustration, the votes for #1 choice are,

• Mrs. Pink: 35%
• Mr. Black: 26%
• Mr. Green: 24%
• Mrs. Brown: 15%

Because nobody received a majority, the candidate with the least number of #1 ranked votes, Mrs. Brown, is eliminated and the #2 choices on those ballots are distributed to the remaining candidates. In our example, the #2 choice of voters ranking Mrs. Brown was their #1 choice are Mrs. Pink, 10%, Mr. Black, 3% and Mr. Green, 2%. The ranking now is,

• Mrs. Pink: 45%
• Mr. Black: 29%
• Mr. Green: 26%

Still no majority. So the last place candidate is eliminated again and the #2 choices on those ballots redistributed. In this case, the 26% of voters who ranked Mr. Green #1 consists of 24% of voters who ranked Mr. Black as their #2 choice, 1% to Mrs. Brown, and 1% to Mrs. Pink. The tally now is,

• Mr. Black: 53%
• Mrs. Pink: 46%

Mr. Black wins with 53% of the vote.

I like the idea - it results in elected officials who always have majority electoral support, encourages voters to vote for and not against candidates, and makes "spoiler" candidates inconsequential towards candidates who have broad support as people's #1 choice.

// posted by Erik @ 4/09/2005 08:14:00 PM
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Yesterday there was a red shoe in the waves gently breaking on the lake's western shore. I looked for the shoe today but didn't find it. There were sparcly scattered cumulous clouds in the sky.

Many people enjoied the lake today, just as I did.

// posted by Erik @ 4/09/2005 07:51:00 PM
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I have trouble understanding how Christianity is understood by many to be a monotheistic religion. I believe my trouble lies in the fact that many Christians aren't monotheists, but just claim to be.

Luke 12:10 quotes Jesus as describing the Holy Spirit and Son as separate and distinct entities - blaspheming one is forgivable, blaspheming the other is not,

And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.

I don't see how a belief in one god can rationally be squared with a belief that the Bible should be read while understanding the meaning in the simplest way possible - as Christian fundamentalists believe. A belief in a "three-in-one" trinity god is a theological cop-out in general and outright fraud if one also claims Luke 12:10 should be read literally. One can say that there are many names for or ways to refer to a singular god, but once one says there are distinct ways to understand separate gods, one is a polytheist and "but these three are one in a way human's can't understand" is childish prattle.

A second item which can be pointed to is the belief of many Christians that a jealous God said, "You shall have no other gods before me." What would use would that commandment be if there was only one god? And who would a singular omnipotent god be jealous of? I suggest such people cannot explain their belief in a singular god in a logical way.

A third point is that many Christians believe that there is an evil deity, Satan, independent from the good deity, the Lord, and who has all the powers of the good deity: that he can intervene in worldly events, know people's thoughts, etc - but to a lesser degree than the good deity or is constrained when the good deity wishes to restrain him. Right there, you have a belief in two deities. Choosing to worship one of two deities is not monotheism.

Most Christians are polytheists.

// posted by Erik @ 4/09/2005 01:44:00 PM
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I find the short descriptions of various forms of monotheism in this Wikipedia entry quite thought-provoking,

• Theism, a term that usually refers to the belief in a 'personal' god, that is, a single god with a distinctive personality, rather than just a divine force.
• Deism is a form of monotheism in which it is believed that one god exists, however, a Deist comes to his belief through reason, and rejects any religious revelations such as the Bible, the Tanakh, or the Qur'an.
• Monistic Theism is the type of monotheism found in Hindu culture. Such type of theism is different from the Semitic religions as it encompasses panentheism, monism, and at the same time includes the concept of a personal God as an universal, omnipotent Supreme Being.
• Pantheism holds that the Universe is God. Depending on how this is understood, such a view may be tantamount to atheism, deism or theism.
• Pandeism, which combines elements of deism and pantheism, suggests that a single, sentient God designed the universe, and then became the current, non-sentient universe.
• Panentheism is a form of theism that holds that God contains, but is not identical to, the Universe. This is also the view of Process theology and also Hinduism. According to Hinduism, the universe is part of God but God is not equal to the universe but in fact transcends it as well. However, unlike Process theology, God in Hinduism is omnipotent. Panentheism is thought of as "God is within the universe as the soul is within the body". By some accounts, panentheism is also called monistic theism in Hinduism. But since process theology is also included in the broad definition of panenetheism and does not accept an omnipotent supreme being, the Hindu view would be called monistic theism.
• Substance monotheism, found e.g. in some indigenous African religions, holds that the many gods are different forms of a single underlying substance, and that this underlying substance is God. This view has some similarities to the Christian trinitarian view of three persons sharing one nature.

I suppose there may be as many forms of monotheism as there are monotheists.

// posted by Erik @ 4/09/2005 01:28:00 PM
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Here is an ad parodying Da Vinci's Last Supper, linked to a larger version of the same,

Here is a reproduction, linked to a Sixteenth Century reproduction that is today in better condition that the original, linked to a larger version of a Sixteenth Century reproduction that has better weathered time,

I have previously noted the ad has been censored in France and Italy - now the French ban has been upheld by a higher court.

I suggest the ad is great art in itself. I promised in that previous post to later explain why I believe so; the reason I didn't note my observations about the ad immediately is that the art itself is in an individual's realizations of the differences between the original and the parody - along side the change in women's roles in society across several centuries,

• In addition to the obvious observation that the figures are female and not male, the three figures nearest the "John" figure are the only ones not posed as the figures in the original version: the "John" figure has recently been alleged to be originally intended to represent not John but Mary Magdalene. This "Mary" is the only male in the photos. This observation is the only one I've seen mentioned in media articles.
• The male figure is posed as the Roman archetypical female Venus - as depicted in the famous and now armless sculpture Venus di Milo - he is on a pedestal below the "table" and if you find a picture of the rear of the statue, you will see that her butt crack is exposed precisely the same amount as the male in the photo which at first seems to be a guy with contemporary "offensive" low riding pants. Picture below.
• The woman facing the camera with her arm around Venus is posed as the figure in Rembrandt's "Portrait of Nicolaas van Bambeecka"
• There is a hand with a dove under the right side of the table. The dove is one of the symbols associated with the Greek archetypical female, Aphrodite - as well as Christ.
• The legs under the table have little to do with the torsos above. They are random legs sticking out more or less underneath depicted torsos. I mean, look at it.

Here are a few more parodies of da Vinci's famous painting.

// posted by Erik @ 4/09/2005 04:36:00 AM
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In the wake of humiliating exposure and embarrassment over their wild speculation regarding the GOP Schiavo memo, the Powerline bliars have dropped their anti-hero identities of Hindrocket, The Big Trunk, and Deacon and adopted the identities of John H. Hinderaker, Scott W. Johnson, and Paul Mirengoff.

Powerline bloggers before exposure as fraudulent GOP tools

Powerline bloggers after indisputable exposure as fraudulent GOP tools

They can run, but they can't hiderocket. Here is the poetic ad showing now showing up next to Hinney's revised identity,

... blah blah blah.

// posted by Erik @ 4/09/2005 01:52:00 AM
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Yesterday, the lake was glassy and the sky clear. Today, I rode later than I intended as I forgot about a flat tire. There were cirrus clouds in the sky and the lake was a bit turbulent, but I felt no chill blowing off it as I had previous days.

Visiting the lake brings good fortune.

// posted by Erik @ 4/08/2005 07:04:00 PM
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A while ago, I had bookmarked a story with a quote in it by a Betty Simpson which illustrates fallacies far too often put forth by a small contingent of contemporary American Christians. I think that today amid the wall-to-wall coverage of the Pope's funeral is a good time to highlight her delusions,

"We as Christians are tired of sitting back and not having our voices heard. We're listening to the liberal media, who says that we can't mention Jesus, we can't mention Christ, and we can have nothing to do with the Ten Commandments. Yet, what are our laws based on if it's not right and wrong?"

Things to think about when evaluating such nonsense,

• Does Betty Simpson actually think the concepts of right and wrong were first introduced in the Bible?
• Over 80% of Americans are Christians. Is she actually suggesting over 80% of American's voices are being drowned out by society at large?
• Does Ms. Simpson realize she's a Christian stating in the media that Christians aren't heard in the media?
• Is she pretending to relive the glory days when Christians actually were persecuted: crucified upside down, boiled alive in vats of oil, and thrown to the lions in an arena for sport?
• Granted, Ms. Betty voiced her mistaken beliefs before the death of Pope John Paul II became the biggest news story since 9/11 with the possible exception of the initial invasion of Iraq. Even through the Pope's complete saturation, we find many un-pope-related positive articles about Christianity in today's secular papers. Among them,
  • Removing doubt about God's work,
  • Clowns for Christ spread the word,
  • New films offer animated stories of Jesus' life,
  • Teen artist's Christ inspires gallery show,
  • Marriage vows are binding before God by Billy Graham,
  • TV networks place faith in religion plots,
  • 'Revelations' Looks Ahead to World's End.
• Ought we actually persecute persons such as Betty Simpson on account of her fallacious claims, to politely characterize her quoted statement? Or is it the media's fault for giving a microphone to people whose incendiary claims do not stand up when examined?
• What are people like Betty Simpson trying to accomplish? I suggest they aim at establishing a Christian theocracy.

// posted by Erik @ 4/08/2005 12:16:00 PM
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Hinney is so dumb it's impossible to get angry about his ineptitude. After charging that the Republican Schiavo talking-points memo circulated by Sen. Martinez' office was a "democratic dirty trick", he blurts about aimlessly for a full 1600 words then blames his own stupidity on Sen. Harkin - the Democratic senator who leaked the memo to the press after Martinez distributed it, and also claims to have been misled my the media,

The disclosure of Senator Harkin’s role in the story raises further questions. Where has Harkin been for the last two and one-half weeks? ... To our knowledge, no one has asked Harkin to explain his weeks of silence.

While the creation of the "talking points memo" didn't turn out to be a Democratic dirty trick, the media’s treatment of the memo was misleading at best.

Heh, "further questions". He's a maschochist.

Mediamatters documents how widely saturated media was with unfounded claims that the memo was fake or produced by Democrats. Damn liberal media.

// posted by Erik @ 4/08/2005 10:44:00 AM
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Max has numbers quantifying the gigantitude of Bush's lie that flipped me out yesterday (my freak out),

$639 BILLION. That's how much in "worthless IOUs" our President has given to the Social Security Trust Fund (FY2002-2005), in exchange for your payroll taxes. Over the next five years, our President proposes to add another $1,061 billion to this crime spree. (President's Budget, Summary Table S-10)

// posted by Erik @ 4/08/2005 12:08:00 AM
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Rathergate didn't intimate me into being unreasonably hesitent concerning a Republican memo in which I saw convincing evidence of the GOP being danced like a marionette by radical "pro-life" special interests who claim that 10-20% of Americans constitute a majority. Maybe it intimidated others.

Sen. Mel Martinez' office is now "investigating how" a staffer, Brian Darling - who has has already been fired - circulated the memo. How does one normally circulate a memo? I think the answer lies therein: hand it out, email it, stuff like that. Martinez also says he "inadvertently" handed the memo to Tom Harkin on the Senate floor. This is the same Sen. Martinez who recently lied when claiming he'd never heard of the memo until reports of it surfaced in the media. Liars liars liars. If one were not used to Republicans lying, one would become angry. Here is a Republican documenting the dishonesty of his own party. Americablog has a rundown of the less wise rhetoricians with eggs on their faces - those who fabricated ludicrous conspiracy theories like "Democrats circulated the memo". The Politburo documents the subset of such eggy bloggers who seem not to have heard - or listened to - a Kenny Rogers #1 hit.

I wasn't the first to offer speculation that the "Schiavo is a great political issue" memo may have come from Mel Martinez' office. In fact, I didn't suggest it at all. I probably wasn't the first to recognize several of the talking-points were identical to those in a Traditional Values Coalition memo, although I discovered it independently by doing the obvious: googling for other sources that may have used the same incorrect punctuation contained in the memo. And I found several.

I still haven't seen anybody else notice the breadth of same punctuation and grammatical errors regarding "Terri's Law." Elementary mistakes are duplicated,

• in Martinez' memo
• in press releases issued by
  • the Traditional Values Coalition
  • Rep. Dave Weldon
  • Sen. Mel Marinez
• on Terri Schiavo's parent's website
• in the National Right to Life Committee's version of "Terri's Law"

The last item was posted to the web three days before Rep. Weldon or Sen. Martinez introduced a grammatically correct version of the bill to the House and Senate. Another fact I've not seen highlighted. Or mentioned. Web geeks, check out the last modified date.

I didn't before make explicit what I believed these observations obviously may imply; I'll do so now, noting it's just speculation based on the facts presented in my previous post,

The National Right to Life Committee - possibly in concert with the Traditional Values Coalition and maybe even Terri Schiavo's parent's lawyer - may have written the grammatically botched version of "Terri's Law", the press releases, and the alleged memo. These may have been given to Sen. Martinez and/or Rep. Wilson who's staff cleaned up the language of the proposed legislation but otherwise took their marching orders from NRLC and/or TVC. The other "may have" is less plausible: all these separate entities independently made the same elementary grammatical errors.

I sent my observations to the idiots at powerline and everyone on my "A-list" of bloggers. Nobody seemed to notice or care. Maybe all these grammatical mistakes originated from this one "rogue" staffer, Martinez passed them on, nobody else corrected them and it ends there, although I find that unlikely. I think the legislation was originally written by the same party who reproduced the same errors in the memos and talking points - probably the entity who posted the grammatically botched version of the law to their website days before it was introduced to Congress. Go look - it's still unmodified since March 4th. Three days before it was introduced to Congress.

// posted by Erik @ 4/07/2005 10:18:00 PM
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April 7, 2005 - Yesterday, there was still a bit of ice on the western shore and some floating near the southern shore. Today, I saw no ice and the lake was very still and the sky very clear.

Awesome!

// posted by Erik @ 4/07/2005 09:17:00 PM
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Beth from comments here made a post on her new blog objecting to the use of the term "right-winger." She writes,

The left constantly does not like to be labelled, like its a sin or something. Yet, my friend on the left has no problem throwing around the name "extreme right wing" all the time, obviously in a derogatory way. What's good for the goose is not good for the gander.

I'm very specific about what I mean my "right-winger": people who enthusiastically espouse a particular set of lies concocted by ultra-conservative think-tanks. On the other hand, right-wingers use the word "liberal" to mean "something I disagree with or someone who disagrees with me."

Right-wing views are largely homogenous. For instance, if one hears another say, "Clinton had bin Laden's head handed to him on a platter but refused it," that other is very likely to also disavow global warming, believe Reagan won the Cold War by outspending the Soviets, and believe Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet. There is, of course, not a 100% correspondence, but I'm sure I could devise a two or three question test and if a person's answers indicated "right winger", I could predict with near-perfect accuracy a few dozen more beliefs that person has.

I've delineated a few of these core right-wing beliefs in the posts, "What you must believe to be a right-winger" Part I and Part II.

Conversely, these same right-wingers use the term "liberal" to describe everything and everyone in opposition to their homogenous beliefs. As a specific example, Sean Hannity agreed that the Pope was a "wild-eyed liberal loon" when confronted with the fact Pope John Paul II opposed the invasion of Iraq. Hannity is a right-winger: he has a homogenous right-wing set of beliefs and labels everyone who disagrees with any of those beliefs "liberal". The Pope was not a "liberal" in any general sense: he was a guy who vocally opposed the invasion of Iraq. For that, Hannity labeled him a "liberal". The reality is that people who oppose fringe right-wing ideology are very diverse and can even be quite conservative.

Postscript. I may have to make a new term to refer to Mark Levin style right-wingership, as he adds a layer of gratingly psychotic non-logic to the mix. It would be unfair to lump the minority of Americans who just believe a particular set of lies into the same group as people who don't require those lies to be plausible nor make a lick of sense.

// posted by Erik @ 4/07/2005 12:30:00 PM
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Thanks to Beth for pointing to this Mark Levin press release in comments,

Levin, also author of the New York Times bestseller on the Supreme Court, Men in Black, sent a letter today to Kennedy with examples of irresponsible and reckless rhetoric that he and others in his party have used to attack the courts and judicial nominees.

Levin added, "Accusing judges or judicial nominees of supporting back alley abortions, being an embarrassment, subverting the popular vote, and being Frankenstein is hit-and-run rhetoric of the worse kind. Kennedy has done enormous and unjustifiable damage to the public's perception of the judiciary's role. I ask that he cease his irresponsible behavior."

Landmark is a public interest law firm founded in 1976, with offices in Kansas City, MO and Leesburg, VA.

Dear Senator Kennedy:

I am deeply concerned that your comments, and those of certain of your colleagues, have helped create an environment of disrespect and hostility for the federal judiciary ...

Teh. I would at this time like to acknowledge I am adopting for my own use a term, "gun nuts with skinny sideburns" from P.J. O'Rourke's essay, Redheaded Eskimo.

Here is my response to Levin's press release: not even gun nuts with skinny sideburns are going to take seriously a press release "Demand[ing] Kennedy Stop Assault on Judiciary" issued by a man who wrote a book titled Men in Black: How the Supreme Court is Destroying America.

// posted by Erik @ 4/07/2005 04:14:00 AM
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The following stuck out to me from Reagan's 1983 SOTU address, a speech which I also referred to in my immediately previous post,

I will adjust our program to restore America's defenses by proposing $55 billion in defense savings over the next 5 years. These are savings recommended to me by the Secretary of Defense, who has assured me they can be safely achieved and will not diminish our ability to negotiate arms reductions or endanger America's security.

Contemporary right-wingers would have you believe that Reagan "won the cold war" by forcing the Soviet Union to keep up with U.S. Defense spending. Even if Reagan hadn't suggested reducing defense spending, it would still be not so.

When Republicans suggest defense spending cuts, right-wingers say it's sound policy but when John Kerry votes for defense spending cuts it's wishing for the destruction of America. Go figure.

I'm absolutely certain that in two more decades, right-wingers - if they have not extinguished themselves by trying to prove that smog is good for you too little dioxin exposure is a health risk - they will be claiming liberals got us into the Iraq mess and tremendously increased national debt during the Bush administration.

// posted by Erik @ 4/07/2005 01:20:00 AM
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Isn't contradicting Saint Ronald treasonous?

There was a time when I suggested it was wrong to claim Bush lied about Iraq and WMD - as in knowingly misrepresented what he believed to be true. Well, I was wrong. Today, I can say Bush is a charlatan eager to trample all over laws and tell lies to terrorize America.

The other day, he stood for a photo-op holding up a U.S. Treasury Bond and claiming it was worthless - that it represented no value. Look and read,

THE PRESIDENT: See, what's interesting is a lot of people believe that the Social Security trust is -- the government takes a person's money, invests it, and then pays it back to them upon retirement. It doesn't work that way.

Now read Amendment XIV of the Constitution of the United States,

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions ... shall not be questioned.

Yup, our president stood there to get photod up questioningthe validity of the public debt. Not as an offhand comment, but as a staged opportunity designed to scare trusting Americans into thinking the U.S. government was fraudulently issuing Treasury Bonds. If one wishes to be hyper-literal about the Constitution as many conservative "textualists" are, Bush clearly violated the Constitution by questioning the public debt's validity. Bush later in the same day explained his photo-op was propaganda to get Americans to lose trust in their government,

I went there because I'm trying to make a point about the Social Security trust. You see, a lot of people in America think there's a trust, in this sense -- that we take your money through payroll taxes and then we hold it for you, and then when you retire, we give it back to you. But that's not the way it works. There is no "trust fund," just IOUs that I saw firsthand.

If that's not enough to make you sweaty with anger, it ought at least make you raise an amused eyebrow.

Bush went on to say the money to honor the bonds has to come from somewhere - future taxes, cuts in other government spending, whatever. No joke, George. That's how monetary value has