More Doom, More Gloom

Here is yet another interview with Nouriel Roubini with his gloomy predictions. You can read the interview from a Barron's article with the scary headline "Yes, That's $2 Trillion of Debt-Related Losses". Think about that. He says that up to now banks have written off only $300 billion, but the size of the problem is $2 trillion. So, he says that, using a baseball analogy, the US is only in the 2nd inning of this game.

If you want to skip reading and hear the frightening predictions from -- so the speak -- the horse's mouth, watch this two part interview:

Part 1:


Part 2:

Political Debate

This is what passes for "political debate" in the U.S. It is mind boggling to listen to the "argument" in the face of no facts and the unwillingness to listen to fact and the determination to never admit that you are uninformed, or heaven forbid, even wrong in your opinion...





And this is what passes for political advertising. This 30 second spot from the McCain camp is supposed to inform you on the key issues of the campaign...

Finding Morality between the Covers

No... not the covers of a bed... the covers of a book.

Here's a good video that takes on the argument made by Christians that morality is "only possible" if you believe in the Bible...



I always wonder how many Christians actually read their own Bible. The Old Testament is filled with horribly outrageous immorality. Even the New Testament has bizarre edicts to punish actions that modern society see as morally neutral or even correct: women who act as deacons in a church, women who don't cover their heads in a church, divorce, homosexuality, slaves not obeying their masters, etc. How does this book "teach" morality?

And the Academy Award for Hypocrisy Goes to...

Brad Delong points out the hypocrisy of right wing former Supreme Court appointee Robert H. Bork, a long time advocate for reform, who just won a tort action for $1 million against the Yale Club for a fall he took climbing up to the podium:

There were always two modes of tort reformers. There were people who said relying on tort lawsuits to assess liability a lousy system because it (a) provides screwy incentives and (b) gives out semi-random lottery wins to a few. And there were people who said that filing a tort lawsuit was an act of theft and piracy. Bork was always in the second camp.

If somebody in the first camp wants to file a slip-and-fall lawsuit, I say fine: the fact that they think the system is bad from a utilitarian perspective doesn't make it in any sense immoral for them to exercise their rights under it. People in the second camp--like Robert Bork--are a different kettle of fish entirely. If they truly believe tort lawsuits are bad because they are acts of piracy and theft, then Robert Bork is a self-confessed pirate and thief...

A Treasure Trove of Humour

Here's a mock Republican commercial that is spot on. It takes the actual Republican slogan and uses it in the appropriate context of the registered trademark holder...



I'm rolling on the floor. This is perfect! This nails the idiot Republicans and their idiot propaganda. This shows exactly the "change" you deserve if you vote for the right wing nutcase Republicans.

I'm Voting for Paris!

Love this political announcement. It is a perfect riposte to the idiot McCain and his "use" of Paris Hilton in an attack ad on Obama.

What's really, really funny... as a goof she does a better job of coming up with an energy policy than either of them! Incredible!



Too bad I can't vote in that election. She'd get my vote! (OK, just kidding.) But it sure does burn me that the idiot Obama can't fend off political attack as well as Paris Hilton did as a joke. It has been sad watching rabid right wing nut cases winning the US presidency year after year because the Democratic candidate comes off as a stiff dork unable to fend off an outrageous attack. If this "dumb blonde" can come up with a wonderful response -- and even a decent policy statement on energy -- without the hundreds of millions in campaign donations and the staff of hundreds, why can't Obama. I'm seriously disappointed with Obama. He let Hillary Clinton emasculate him during the primaries, and now McCain is turning him into an effete late-drinking, arugla-eating elitist! A kid raised in near poverty by a single mom! This is like Kerry being Swift Boated as a phony by the draft-dodging Bush when in fact Kerry did a tour in Vietnam and got the medals to prove it.

Maybe Obama needs to hire Paris Hilton as a "media consultant" to put steel in his spine and give him some ideas about how to respond to the Republican attack machine!

The Fame Game

Some people find fame through feats of courage, feats of genius, feats of economic accumulation. Others garner fame by going onto the Web and showing off their inner compulsion to achieve fame through foolish acts.