Government Extortion
I had asked what threat was brought to bear on the CEO's of Bank of America & Wells Fargo to get them to accept the TARP money. I linked to the NYT article that discussed the use of a threat, but the article did not discuss what the threat consisted of; Now I know.
In this clip, we learn what threat was used and why the CEO's took the money. Once again we have "our government" taking an action that if you or I took would land us in jail.
Keep your powder dry & learn how to purify water.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Thursday, April 9, 2009
At Least He Is Keeping Some Campain Promises.
Hope! Change! Brings us McCain-Kennedy Immigration Part II. It looks like we need to have a good supply of popcorn ready in May, as the fireworks should prove entertaining. I only wonder if McCain will try to get ahead of this by coming out against it. I suspect it's more likely that he'll support it.
From the New York Times article Obama to Push Immigration Bill Despite Risks
But with the economy seriously ailing, advocates on different sides of the debate said that immigration could become a polarizing issue for Mr. Obama in a year when he has many other major battles to fight.
Opponents, mainly Republicans, say they will seek to mobilize popular outrage against any effort to legalize unauthorized immigrant workers while so many Americans are out of jobs.
Vox said the Obama administration would be good for some entertainment. So far, so good.
From the New York Times article Obama to Push Immigration Bill Despite Risks
But with the economy seriously ailing, advocates on different sides of the debate said that immigration could become a polarizing issue for Mr. Obama in a year when he has many other major battles to fight.
Opponents, mainly Republicans, say they will seek to mobilize popular outrage against any effort to legalize unauthorized immigrant workers while so many Americans are out of jobs.
Vox said the Obama administration would be good for some entertainment. So far, so good.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Simple Sentiments Stated Simply
If you don't read the work of Ilana Mercer, you should. This is from her op-ed at World Net Daily on Friday. Gangsta Gifts.
George Will once wrote that "manners are the practice of a virtue. The virtue is called civility, a word related – as a foundation is related to a house – to the word civilization."
The ability to mind one's manners in dealing with others is a reflection of the mettle of a man. Or a woman.
That is a truism I wanted to stop and focus on for a while. Perhaps you too will find it worthy of some consideration.
George Will once wrote that "manners are the practice of a virtue. The virtue is called civility, a word related – as a foundation is related to a house – to the word civilization."
The ability to mind one's manners in dealing with others is a reflection of the mettle of a man. Or a woman.
That is a truism I wanted to stop and focus on for a while. Perhaps you too will find it worthy of some consideration.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
What? There are 2 sides to the story?
Ok, this is almost the funniest story I have seen about the NFL in a while. Just a few quotes that made me smile.
Astounding allegations: Bill Belichick did something friendly by MJD
2) The 'Oh, this trade is stinky' side. There's Belichick's reputation as a man who, shall we say, is willing to bend the occasional rule, The Belichick/Pioli relationship, the reports that the Bucs were willing to go as high as a first-and-a-third rounder and not only did Kansas City get Cassel cheap, but the Patriots threw in Mike Vrabel as well.”
“He'd cheat in a game of Connect Four against a poor orphan child.”Personally I’m with the writer about having a hard time believing that Belichick did something as a favor to someone he calls a friend. I’m willing to believe that blackmail is a much better possibility. If I was the kind to bet money, mine would be put down on the "blackmail behind trade to Kansas City" line.
Astounding allegations: Bill Belichick did something friendly by MJD
Tom Brady will be healthy.
“What's astounding is the notion that Bill Belichick would do anything out of friendship, or really, out of any motivation other than winning.”
“1) The 'This was an honest trade' side. Bill Belichick would never do anything to hurt his own cause, Cassel still had a lot to prove as a quarterback and the Patriots desperately didn't want to be on the hook to Cassel for $14 million this season, especially if they believe
2) The 'Oh, this trade is stinky' side. There's Belichick's reputation as a man who, shall we say, is willing to bend the occasional rule, The Belichick/Pioli relationship, the reports that the Bucs were willing to go as high as a first-and-a-third rounder and not only did Kansas City get Cassel cheap, but the Patriots threw in Mike Vrabel as well.”
“He'd cheat in a game of Connect Four against a poor orphan child.”Personally I’m with the writer about having a hard time believing that Belichick did something as a favor to someone he calls a friend. I’m willing to believe that blackmail is a much better possibility. If I was the kind to bet money, mine would be put down on the "blackmail behind trade to Kansas City" line.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Survivor & Other "Reality TV"
I have often wondered why Survivor was such a great show. The show’s logo should be, “Deceive, Manipulate, Sabotage” not “Outwit, Outlast, Outplay” (I think.) It always seemed kind of short sighted to me. Most of the time, the people you would want to have on the island – if you were really trapped & trying to survive – were often the very people voted off early. Now I think I am starting to understand. After reading this from the introduction of The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America by Charlotte Iserbyt:
In the fall of 1972 a small group of students in an introduction to education psychology class at a midwestern university saved every single soul in the lifeboat.
The professor became agitated. “No! Go back and do the exercise again. Follow the instructions.”
The students, products of the radical 1960s culture, expected this to be a small group assignment in creativity and ingenuity. They had worked out an intricate plan whereby everyone in the lifeboat could survive. When the professor persisted, the students resisted – and ultimately refused to do the exercise. Chalk up a victory to the human spirit.
However, it was a short-lived victory. This overloaded “lifeboat in crisis” represented a dramatic shift in education. The exercise – in which students were compelled to chose which humans were expendable and, therefore, should be cast off into the water – became a mainstay in classrooms across the country. Creative solutions? Not allowed. Instructions? Strictly adhered to. In truth, there is to be only one correct answer to the lifeboat drama: death. ( Iserbyt, intro XXV)
Now, the appeal of the show Survivor makes a perverted sort of sense to me. The viewer is to come to a conclusion where the only way to “win” is to manipulate, deceive and outright lie to the other players. It is “situational ethics” on steroids. I also understand why many of my friends do not like the show.
Perhaps you are like I was before I read about the “lifeboat in crisis” exercise. Perhaps you already knew why you didn’t like the show.
In the fall of 1972 a small group of students in an introduction to education psychology class at a midwestern university saved every single soul in the lifeboat.
The professor became agitated. “No! Go back and do the exercise again. Follow the instructions.”
The students, products of the radical 1960s culture, expected this to be a small group assignment in creativity and ingenuity. They had worked out an intricate plan whereby everyone in the lifeboat could survive. When the professor persisted, the students resisted – and ultimately refused to do the exercise. Chalk up a victory to the human spirit.
However, it was a short-lived victory. This overloaded “lifeboat in crisis” represented a dramatic shift in education. The exercise – in which students were compelled to chose which humans were expendable and, therefore, should be cast off into the water – became a mainstay in classrooms across the country. Creative solutions? Not allowed. Instructions? Strictly adhered to. In truth, there is to be only one correct answer to the lifeboat drama: death. ( Iserbyt, intro XXV)
Now, the appeal of the show Survivor makes a perverted sort of sense to me. The viewer is to come to a conclusion where the only way to “win” is to manipulate, deceive and outright lie to the other players. It is “situational ethics” on steroids. I also understand why many of my friends do not like the show.
Perhaps you are like I was before I read about the “lifeboat in crisis” exercise. Perhaps you already knew why you didn’t like the show.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Small Steps Toward Revolution: 1833 to 1835
"While Sam Houston watched and waited, Santa Anna tightened his grip on the Mexican government. One by one he dismantled the institutions of federalism, dissolving the state legislatures, disbanding the state militias, and finally doing away with the states altogether, demoting them to mere departments of the national government. Meanwhile he made the national government an instrument of his own authority. He repealed the liberal reforms of Gomez Farias and engineered elections that transformed the congress into his rubber stamp.
"The changes provoked resistance in various parts of the country. Federalists in Zacatecas, northwest of Mexico City, refused to comply with the order to disband the militia, insisting on retaining this last defense of states' rights. Santa Anna thereupon determined to teach the Zacatecans a lesson--the lesson he had learned from General Arredondo years earlier in Texas. He personally led an army against Zacatecas, crushing the militia before turning his men loose on the populace at large to make a brutal example of what insurgents could expect from him. The slaughter exceeded that of the Medina, and it included hundreds of women and children." (Brands, 236-7)
In September 1835, General Martin Perfecto de "Cos, speaking for Santa Anna, was demanding abject surrender. 'The people must unconditionally submit to whatever the government chooses to do for them; he lays down the principle that General Government have the right to force us to submit to any reform or amendments or alterations that congress may make in the constitution, &c.'" (252)
In reading about the history of Texas, and specifically the imprisonment of Stephen Austin for things which were written by him in letters to the ayuntamiento (town council) of San Antonio de Bexar - I am struck by similarities of the behavior of the government of the United States.
While I recognize that those who are designated "enemy combatants" in our current conflicts overseas have quite probably done more than simply write letters to the town council encouraging them to "coordinate with the other town councils of Texas in preparing to move unilaterally toward Texas statehood." (222) A statehood that Austin was seeking under the Mexican Government, not under the United States of America. (Sam Houston was one of the main movers in that direction.) The fact that "our government" has treated them in much the same way as the Mexican authorities treated Austin is undeniable.
Glancing back across recent history, it is easy to see certain patterns of behavior among people. Often those who seek to centralize power do so "for the good of the people." They are almost always wrapping themselves in the language of "the greater good." Admittedly, it is comforting to the historically uneducated. Most of us like to believe the best of people. We will bend over backwards to convince ourselves that some act is "necessary" to protect the public.
I wonder sometimes, are we as a society asking the wrong questions?
Perhaps instead of asking, "is torturing someone to find the 'alleged' bomb the right thing to do?"
Perhaps as Americans - or Texans - we should be asking, "When other nations have done these things to our ancestors, were they right?"
If the answer to the first question is easily, "yes." But the answer to the second question is easily, "no." I wonder, does that make you a hypocrite, or just a lazy thinker?
Bibliography :
Brands, H. W. Lone Star Nation: The Epic Story of the Battle for Texas Independence First Anchor Books Edition, 2005
"The changes provoked resistance in various parts of the country. Federalists in Zacatecas, northwest of Mexico City, refused to comply with the order to disband the militia, insisting on retaining this last defense of states' rights. Santa Anna thereupon determined to teach the Zacatecans a lesson--the lesson he had learned from General Arredondo years earlier in Texas. He personally led an army against Zacatecas, crushing the militia before turning his men loose on the populace at large to make a brutal example of what insurgents could expect from him. The slaughter exceeded that of the Medina, and it included hundreds of women and children." (Brands, 236-7)
In September 1835, General Martin Perfecto de "Cos, speaking for Santa Anna, was demanding abject surrender. 'The people must unconditionally submit to whatever the government chooses to do for them; he lays down the principle that General Government have the right to force us to submit to any reform or amendments or alterations that congress may make in the constitution, &c.'" (252)
In reading about the history of Texas, and specifically the imprisonment of Stephen Austin for things which were written by him in letters to the ayuntamiento (town council) of San Antonio de Bexar - I am struck by similarities of the behavior of the government of the United States.
While I recognize that those who are designated "enemy combatants" in our current conflicts overseas have quite probably done more than simply write letters to the town council encouraging them to "coordinate with the other town councils of Texas in preparing to move unilaterally toward Texas statehood." (222) A statehood that Austin was seeking under the Mexican Government, not under the United States of America. (Sam Houston was one of the main movers in that direction.) The fact that "our government" has treated them in much the same way as the Mexican authorities treated Austin is undeniable.
Glancing back across recent history, it is easy to see certain patterns of behavior among people. Often those who seek to centralize power do so "for the good of the people." They are almost always wrapping themselves in the language of "the greater good." Admittedly, it is comforting to the historically uneducated. Most of us like to believe the best of people. We will bend over backwards to convince ourselves that some act is "necessary" to protect the public.
I wonder sometimes, are we as a society asking the wrong questions?
Perhaps instead of asking, "is torturing someone to find the 'alleged' bomb the right thing to do?"
Perhaps as Americans - or Texans - we should be asking, "When other nations have done these things to our ancestors, were they right?"
If the answer to the first question is easily, "yes." But the answer to the second question is easily, "no." I wonder, does that make you a hypocrite, or just a lazy thinker?
Bibliography :
Brands, H. W. Lone Star Nation: The Epic Story of the Battle for Texas Independence First Anchor Books Edition, 2005
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
I Really Like These Guys
Over at Forbes.com, there seems to be an interresting mix of folks. Today I read an article where the author got his motto from J.M. Keynes. I didn't read any further than that quote. However, there was another article or op-ed which brought hope to my heart. The last sentences in the article were these:
"The underlying cause of a crisis is important to understand. If policy-makers are mistaken, then policy responses will be flawed."
I couldn't agree more.
Treasury's Paulson Gets It Wrong
by Brian S. Wesbury and Robert Stein
"The underlying cause of a crisis is important to understand. If policy-makers are mistaken, then policy responses will be flawed."
I couldn't agree more.
Treasury's Paulson Gets It Wrong
by Brian S. Wesbury and Robert Stein
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