Year: 2010

While We are On the Subject of HP Lovecraft Quotes…

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Yesterday, I posted H.P. Lovecraft’s quote on Republicans, and I also forwarded it to my Lovecraft-reading family.

My brother, Stephen, aka “No I’m Not Wearing a Wookie Costume, I’m Just Hairy,” asked the question, “Given Lovecraft’s fondness for slimy spineless creatures, it is strange that he didn’t have anything to say about democrats…”

Well, according to the Donovan K. Loucks, the Webmaster at The H. P. Lovecraft Archive, who posted in the comments, the author did make his feelings known on both parties:

“Democrats invariably ape the grotesque crudities of the lower orders and make conspicuous clowns of themselves; jeering at civilised speech, manners, and standards of accuracy and beauty instead of respecting these things and urging their beloved masses to work up toward them. As long as they persist in this position, they will win nothing but the distrust and hostility of men well-disposed toward civilisation and the fullest realisation of the human personality.”

(H. P. Lovecraft to Woodburn Harris, 9 November 1929)

Given Lovecraft’s rather well documented nativist attitudes, though biographer L. Sprague de Camp implies that his attitudes moderated as he grew older, and that some of his statements were a way he taunted people that he did not like, this is an unsurprising statement from him.

Interestingly enough, he was a fan of FDR and an Ardent New Dealer according to the Wiki.

Truth be told, I am kind of torn as to whether, if I had a time machine, I would want to meet him or not.

I’m Not Sure if It Was the Elections……

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But after my morning election summary was posted, I got sick.

I ended up worshiping the porcelain alter, and that IPA that I bought by way of a condolence drink did not taste as good coming up as it did coming down.

Still went to work after everything settled down. I’ve had this reaction to stress since I was 7 years old.

It hits when I’m stressed, and then I relax.

And yes, it kind of sucks.

Crap.

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So the lost the house, ironically largely because of the actions of the Senate and a former Senator (Obama). Lots of good things made it through the House only to die in the Senate with an assist from the complete apathy of the White House.

If the Dems retake the House in 2012, and Obama is reelected, the lesson here is that taking the initiative without movement from the White House and the Senate, you will get gigged again, and again.

It looks like Murkowski won in Alaska, as “Write Ins” got a plurality, only they haven’t started counting the write-ins yet. That only happens after a full tally, and if the total number of write ins are enough to win under Alaska law.

As to the bad news:

  • Alan Grayson lost his bid for reelection. It’s a pity, we need Democrats with guts.
  • Rand Paul will be battling Tom Coburn for craziest muthaf%$#er in the Senate.
  • Heath Shuler won. Normally, I wouldn’t root for the other guy, even if they are the rankest of Blue Dogs, which Shuler is, but as a Washington Redskins fan, I have a bit of residual hostility about his expensive washout in the NFL.
  • It appears that Republicans are will not be relegated a minor party status in Colorado for the next 4 years, because Dan Maes barely cleared the 10% hurdle.

The good news:

  • The Blue Dogs and New Dems appeared to take the brunt of the losses.
    • This is more than simple churlishness on my part. While the economy is clearly the proximate cause of this debacle, the perception that both parties are in the thrall of the banks, a perception which is entirely true for the Blue Dogs/New Dems who worked tirelessly to castrate financial reform and foreclosure relief. It is appropriate that those Democrats who sold the party, and the country, down the road for fat-cat campaign donations bear the brunt of voter wrath.
  • Harry Reid defeats Sharron Angle. Now that he’s won, could we please elect someone else as Democratic leader? He is hapless and hopeless, and he is the luckiest person tonite for having to run against nut-job Angle, or perhaps 2nd luckiest after Chris Coons, who ran against Christine O’Donnell.
  • The Senate margin is large enough that Joe Lieberman won’t be able viably threaten the Democrats with crossing the aisle.

A random thought on the loss of Alexi Giannoulias: Choosing someone as the nominee, even though they spent years running a bank that was then on the edge of failure, (It has since failed) just because they are basketball buddies with Barack Obama, is a really stupid thing.

As a final note, that whole idea of using Google searches to estimate final votes? It does not appear to be validated by the results.

For a quick view of the races, I would suggest going to the Talking Points Memo Election Center.

I still have not gotten results on the Tapeworm Initiative.

So After Months of Evidence That Their Lawyers Were Corrupt Bastards…

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The GSEs, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, have finally fired the foreclosure mill and forged document factory that is the law offices of David J. Stern:

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac terminated their relationships with a top Florida foreclosure attorney on Tuesday, one day after the companies began taking back loan files from the firm that has processed thousands of evictions on behalf of the mortgage-finance giants.

Fannie and Freddie dispatched employees on Monday afternoon to begin removing loan files from the law offices of David J. Stern in Plantation, Fla. Those files are needed to process foreclosures, which must be done through courts in Florida.

………

The Stern law firm has been at the center of allegations by the Florida attorney general’s office of improper foreclosure practices and is one of four firms under state investigation. The office has released depositions of former law-firm employees who have alleged that the firm forged notarized documents and that employees signed files without reviewing them in an effort to speed through foreclosure filings.

In those depositions, former employees testified that the firms would go to great lengths to conceal improper practices during regular audits by Fannie and Freddie. A lawyer for Mr. Stern has dismissed the allegations as falsehoods made by disgruntled employees.

Well, it’s a start, though even the most tepid investigation of foreclosure fraud, which is all what Barack Obama would do, is sure to be sabotaged by the new Republican majority in the house, because:

  1. They will favor the banks even when they break the law because laws are for little people.
  2. They favor the Andrew Mellon school of dealing with the economy, foreclosure, and the financial crisis. As Hoover’s Treasury secretary, he suggested, “Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate farmers, liquidate real estate… it will purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. People will work harder, live a more moral life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up from less competent people.”

So all that Daniel J. Stern, Esq. will see is a few bucks less profit, as opposed to disciplinary action from the bar or a criminal investigation.

Nothing to see, move along.

Understanding Christine O’Donnell

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When one looks at the craziness out there, why is it that Christine O’Donnell appears to get the lion’s share of the attention?

Well Matthew Yglesias has a good explanation:

That’s true, but I think there’s more in play, namely logistics. The Alaska Senate race should be excellent copy. Joe Miller is nuts, Scott McAdams is fascinatingly amateurish, the Palin-Murkowski feud is interesting, everyone likes to talk about Sarah Palin, etc. But Alaska is also cold and remote. Sending a reporter there would be expensive and annoying. The time zones are inconvenient. By contrast, Wilmington is a 2 hour drive or 90 minute train ride from both Washington, DC and New York City. So if you want to get some “real reporting” done it’s convenient. And logistics count in life.

I would note that even some place less remote, like Angle in Nevada, or Paladino in New York, or McMahon in Connecticut, they were also much less willing to expose themselves to the press.

Basically, if you wanted to cover “the crazy,” it was easier, and cheaper, to cover Ms. O’Donnell.

Anecdotal Reports of High Turnout

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Hopefully, this is good news for Dems, but I am not making any predictions, as I stated this morning.

I am so glad that I voted early on October 22 though.

The reports are of a lot of people waiting in line to vote.

I’m not going to be following this stuff on the cable networks.

Basically, I’ll look at web based tickers, because I don’t want to listen to the damn pundits.

I Haven’t Followed Out of State Initiatives Much

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But this one in Washington State is prize:

Ballot Measure Summary
This measure would require the Seal of the State of Washington to be changed to depict a vignette of a tapeworm dressed in a three piece suit attached to the lower intestine of a taxpayer shown as the central figure. The seal would be required to be encircled with the following words: “Committed to sucking the life blood out of each and every tax payer.” The illustration would be selected from submissions submitted by taxpayers.

Just when you thought that the silly season could not get any sillier………

H/t DC at the by invitation only Stellar Parthenon BBS.

No Predictions from Me

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My record sucks, and I will take Abraham Lincoln’s advice, “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”

But I will leave you with a political quote on the horror that is Republicans the man who best understood horror in the 20th century,* Howard Phillips Lovecraft:

As for the Republicans—how can one regard seriously a frightened, greedy, nostalgic huddle of tradesmen and lucky idlers who shut their eyes to history and science, steel their emotions against decent human sympathy, cling to sordid and provincial ideals exalting sheer acquisitiveness and condoning artificial hardship for the non-materially-shrewd, dwell smugly and sentimentally in a distorted dream-cosmos of outmoded phrases and principles and attitudes based on the bygone agricultural-handicraft world, and revel in (consciously or unconsciously) mendacious assumptions (such as the notion that real liberty is synonymous with the single detail of unrestricted economic license or that a rational planning of resource-distribution would contravene some vague and mystical ‘American heritage’…) utterly contrary to fact and without the slightest foundation in human experience? Intellectually, the Republican idea deserves the tolerance and respect one gives to the dead.

H/t Fafblog for the quote, which is being circulated by movie director, and Lovecraft fan, Joe Dante.

*Or at least pre Holocaust, since I believe that it fundamentally redefined horror in the Western world by putting the lie to the myth of man’s moral progress..

Oh For F%$#’s Sake, Pick a F%$#ing Fight!

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In the face of what are likely to be very large legislative losses tomorrow, the Obama administration is busy trying to find more ways to capitulate to Republicans in the vain hope that they will be nice:

With Republicans poised to gain ground in Tuesday’s elections, the White House is losing hope that Congress will approve its plan to raise taxes on the nation’s wealthiest families and is increasingly focusing on a new strategy that would preserve tax breaks for both the wealthy and the middle class.

According to people familiar with talks at the White House and among senior Democrats on Capitol Hill, breaking apart the Bush administration tax cuts is now being discussed as a more realistic goal. That strategy calls for permanent extension of cuts that benefit families earning less than $250,000 a year, and temporary extension of cuts on income above that amount.

The move would “decouple” the two sets of provisions, Democrats said, and focus the debate when tax cuts for the rich expired next year or the year after. Republicans would be forced to defend carve-outs for a tiny minority populated by millionaires, an unpopular position that would be difficult to advance without the cover of a broad-based tax cut for everyone, aides in both parties said.

“The concept of ‘decoupling’ is a hot topic right now,” said one senior Democratic aide.

And the Republicans will demand permanent tax cuts for the rich pigs, including the near total elimination of the inheritance tax, unless I miss my guess.

How many f%$#ing times do you have to lead with a compromise, and get a “no” before you realize that you cannot negotiate with the barbarians at the gate?

You want to pick a fight because you can, and because raising taxes on people making more than $¼ million a year is both good politics and good policy.

It allows you to set the agenda, choose the time and place of conflict, and it mobilizes your base.

This, “Can’t we all just get along/Kumbayah” crap has ill served the Obama administration, the Democratic Party, and the whole country.

Prosecution Doing Back-Flips For Goldman Sachs in High Frequency Trading Trial

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If there was any doubt that the federal prosecutors in New York prosecuting Sergey Aleynikov for theft of trade secrets weren’t in Goldman Sach’s Pocket, those doubts have been allayed:

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has always closely guarded the secrets of its lucrative high-speed trading system. Now the securities firm is getting a help from an unusual source: federal prosecutors.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan this week asked a federal district judge to seal the courtroom at the forthcoming trial of a former Goldman computer programmer accused of stealing the firm’s computer code. The move was a formal request to empty the courtroom of the general public when details of Goldman’s trade secrets are being discussed. The trial is set to start to late November.

Prosecutors also asked that any documents related to Goldman’s trading strategies remain under seal.

Such requests are common when proprietary corporate information could be exposed in a trial, lawyers say. This case is unusual in that it involves secrets about a potentially lucrative trading system, rather than, say, ingredients in a soda formula.

What is also unusual is that this code is almost certainly obsolete, and almost certainly has no value to a competitor.

The software almost certainly has to be updated regularly, probably monthly, possibly weekly, which means that the algorithms and code are almost certainly obsolete, but still they want the court sealed.

This is not about protecting trade secrets, this is about concerns by the vampire squid* that if the details on how they conducted business came out, they would have people calling for their scalps for front-running the markets.

Basically, Goldman, and the prosecutors, are trying to conceal activity by Goldman that is either illegal, or would lead to changes in regulations that would make it so if the details came out.

My earlier posts on this are here.

*Alas, I cannot claim credit for the bon mot describing Goldman Sachs as a, “great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.” This was coined by the great Matt Taibbi, in his article on the massive criminal conspiracy investment firm, The Great American Bubble Machine.

Appeals Court Allows DADT Expulsions to Continue

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They have made their temporary injunction against the judge’s ruling permanent, so DADT, and separations from the military, continue until probably at least next June:

With one judge dissenting, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a stay of the injunction of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy issued by U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips, pending the outcome of the government’s appeal of Log Cabin Republicans v. United States.

The immediate impact of the ruling, which was not unexpected by legal observers, means that — absent congressional or executive action — DADT will remain in effect through at least Spring 2011. The practical timeline for the appeal, however, means it actually would remain law much longer.

Damn.

So they Torture a Little Boy, Admit the Testimony Thereby Extracted, Use it to Coerce a Confession, and Sentence Him to 40 Years in Prison

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Only he will actually be out in less than 3 years, since Omar Khadr will be transferred to Canada, and released for time served:

A United States military commission at Guantánamo Bay has sentenced a former child soldier for Al Qaeda to 40 years in prison for war crimes — but he might be released in less than three years, the Defense Department said.

A panel of seven military officers at the American military base in Cuba determined on Sunday that the child soldier, Omar Khadr, 24, should be imprisoned — for terrorism-related offenses he committed in Afghanistan when he was a teenager — until he nearly reaches retirement age.

But that sentence was theoretical. Under the terms of a plea agreement, Mr. Khadr will serve no more than eight years. Moreover, after one year, Mr. Khadr, a Canadian citizen, is likely to be transferred to a prison in Canada, where he would be eligible to apply for parole after serving two years and eight months.

Seriously.

The was a show trial, with a predetermined result specifically to allow face saving on the idea of military commissions.

The proceedings are a travesty of the law and basic decency, and every individual up the chain of command who allowed this case to proceed is guilty of conspiracy to violate both US anti-torture statutes and international treaties to which the United States is a signatory.

Not feeling hopey changey right now.

An Interesting Take of the Delphi Method

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The Delphi Method is that people in aggregate make better predictions than the experts.

This can apply to a group of experts, or it can apply to a large sampling of the general population.

Well, someone just applied this methodology by using Google searches:

Google has published details of the levels of search interest for political candidates as election day approaches. But there seems to be little clear connection between Google hits and the ballot box.

The main advantage the web has for tracking patterns is the sheer number of people using it. For example, it sounds insane that anyone wanting to find the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) website would do anything other than try ufc.com as their first tactic. Yet the number of people who search for “UFC” and related terms in the days leading up to a pay-per-view event is nearly always a good indication of how many people will buy the event. The reason is that even if only a tiny fraction of people actually have to search for the term, it still adds up to enough people that variations over time are measurable.

Does this work for politics? Well, here’s the current levels of Google search interest among web users from the relevant state in three notable Senate races, along with predictions for the winner from polling analysis site fivethirtyeight.com (source of the image above). The first figure shows each candidate’s current share of the total searches for the listed candidates, while the second is the predicted share of the vote.

Florida: Marco Rubio 45.4/44, Charlie Crist 32.9/32, Kendrick Meek 21.7/24

Nevada: Harry Reid 54.4/47, Sharron Angle 45.6/50

Pennsylvania: Joe Sestak 51.1/48, Pat Toomey 49.9/52

I have no clue as to whether or not this is a valid technique, but if it is, Reid will be reelected, and Sestak will beat Toomey.

I guess that we will find out tomorrow, but I am inclined not to believe that this is a valid predictive technique.

They Really Are Sociopaths……

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No, I don’t mean the Teabaggers, I mean the beltway pundits.

Case in point, David Broder, who is suggesting that Barack Obama start a war with Iran, because it might be good for the economy and his election prospects. (No direct link, we should not reward such behavior with eyeballs.)

As Scott Horton notes (link above), this clearly demonstrates the, “strongest evidence yet of the moral depravity and sheer nuttiness,” of the WaPo editorial page.

And I am sure that Broder was very proud of what he came up with, it seems so clever, and counter-intuitive, and it means that young men will die.

I bet that it gave the octogenarian psychopath his first stiffie in weeks.

Here is hoping that Keith Olbermann thinks to put him on his “worst” list tonight.

Trick or Treating

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Click for full size


The Rubikuitous Charlie


The most Sanguine Natalie


For that thoughtful look with: her glasses on

We went trick or treating tonight.

Natalie tried to go upscale on her fangs for her vampire costume, and go with ones that just fit on her eye-teeth, as opposed to the mouth guard type ones, and it didn’t work, so she improvised using some sugary blood syrup that she got at the SCA event on Saturday.

Charlie’s costume, a Rubik’s Cube, however worked out very well, and he got a lot of compliments, though he did experience, as I had warned him, issues with comfort and mobility.

Still, they had fun, and took in a decent haul of hysteria inducing sugar, so they both considered their outing a success.

We had to return home at one point, because they needed gloves.

Neither of their costumes were amenable to the use of pockets to warm one’s hands.

I remember trick or treating when I was a kid, with my Dad watching, and now I am watching as my kids trick or treat.

It’s the whole “circle of life” thing, I guess.

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So, ABC decided to have Andrew Breitbart as a contributor to their election night coverage, despite the fact that he has repeatedly punked the news media with deliberately false and deceptive “news” stories, and now they are trying to walk this clusterf%$# back:

Since conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart announced on his website that he was going to be a participant in ABC’s Town Hall meeting at Arizona State University, there has been considerable consternation and misinformation regarding my decision to ask him to participate in an election night Town Hall event for ABC News Digital. I want to explain what Mr. Breitbart’s role has always been as one of our guests at our digital town hall event:

Mr. Breitbart is not an ABC News analyst.

He is not an ABC News consultant.

He is not, in any way, affiliated with ABC News.

He is not being paid by ABC News.

He has not been asked to analyze the results of the election for ABC News.

Mr. Breitbart will not be a part of the ABC News broadcast coverage, anchored by Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos. For the broadcast coverage, David Muir and Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg will contribute reaction and response gathered from the students and faculty of Arizona State University at an ABC News/Facebook town hall.

He has been invited as one of several guests, from a variety of different political persuasions, to engage with a live, studio audience that will be closely following the election results and participating in an online-only discussion and debate to be moderated by David Muir and Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg on ABCNews.com and Facebook. We will have other guests, as well as a live studio audience and a large audience on ABCNews.com and Facebook, who can question the guests and the audience’s opinions.

I have no objection to ABC using conservatives as either news analysts or “guests” on their discussions.

That is a basic journalistic activity.

That being said, when you do so, you have an obligation to bring on someone who has is own opinions, not his own (made up) facts.

Andrew Breitbart is an individual who has deliberately, and maliciously created fake news stories to pursue his political agenda, and he continues to do so.

If you are a news organization, and you don’t use the words, “professional liar,” before any mention of him, you are a piss-poor news organization.

The Nobility Gets the Best Sh%$ to Smoke

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Instead of going to the Stewart/Colbert march for Sanity/Fear, Sharon*, the kids, and I went to TNT, an SCA event held by our local group (the Barony of Brighthills).

I got called up to receive a baronial award, the Order of Job, for selfless service to the Barony.

I’m a wee bit confused: I don’t recall doing much beyond cutting up some veggies, making the oldest recorded recipe for chocolate for an event, and washing a few dishes.

In any case, it was our 16th anniversary, and we enjoyed ourselves. We ate, we danced, we made glass beads using a torch.

I got my wife some books as an anniversary gift.

It’s so nice having a wife who doesn’t want to be surprised by such things: I just point her at the book seller, and she says, “Is this OK honey?”

This is much better than the expectation that I am a mind reader.

A good time was had by all.

*Love of my life, light of the cosmos, she who must be obeyed, my wife.

Not Gonna Happen……

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The real reason for the UK independent deterrent

With the draconian British budget cuts, and the conversion of their carrier aviation from the STOVL F-35B to the CTOL F-35C, there is now talk of the British engaging in some form of joint carrier operations with the French:

London’s decision to fit catapults on its planned second aircraft carrier opened up the prospect of French Rafale strike fighters flying off a British flattop, with reciprocal rights for British aircraft off the French carrier, French Defense Minister Hervé Morin said Oct. 26 at the Euronaval trade show.

Morin asked the French military staff to assess whether the installation of catapults would allow French aircraft, such as the Rafale, to operate off the Royal Navy vessel, and the answer was: “Yes, it’s technically feasible,” he told journalists.

That opened up potential opportunities of interoperability and mutual interdependence between the British and French fleets, he said. With such cross-deck operations came the possibility of a “permanent presence at sea,” he said.

I just don’t see it happening.

While the French and British have on occasion used common aircraft, most notably the SEPECAT Jaguar, given the nearly thousand-year history of animus between the two nations (see “Yes Prime Minister” vid), I just cannot see them operating jointly in this manner.