Suspicion

One of the great things about being from southern Wisconsin (other than access to quality dairy and cheap liquor) is that the six degrees of separation don't leave much of a gap between a southern Wisconsin resident and Gary Gygax. My in-laws were involved with the early days of TSR. My father in law even claims to have developed a new printing technique to allow the production of the map included with the original Dungeons and Dragons box. This connection has also led to a number of games finding rest in the closets of my in-laws, games that never found their niche like D&D did.

This Christmas, these facts led to my having the fortune and displeasure of playing an old TSR game called "Suspicion." That's Gary Gygax on the cover in center frame being accused of the murder. My father in law took that picture.



The game is a murder mystery where one of the players is the murderer and everyone else is trying to figure out who the murderer is. It adds a note of complexity by giving points to innocent players for being wrongly accused of being the murderer.



Its not hard to see why the game never caught on. It has a 13 step set up process that took over an hour and requires all the players to be present. This process also involves lots of sorting and stuffing cards into envelopes. So it combines all the excitement of sending Christmas cards with all the excitement of setting up a board game. In comparison, the game itself is very short. It probably only lasted an hour at most. The rules have many suggestions about strategy to determine who the murderer is but the added complexity of false clues doesn't add any length to the game. Adding extra players doesn't seem to add length either because with the full six players the game could end in one round and really shouldn't take more than four. The players actions are relatively quick and each roll of the dice just pushes the game toward its inevitable conclusion. The game even boils the clues down to numbered cards so that very simple logic can determine the murderer. Repeat plays reduce set up time but there is still the issue of having to sort all 160 clue cards and stuff them into envelopes. Its basically a more labor intensive version of Clue.



Still I am glad to have played it because of the tenuous connection it represents between me and a great man I never got the chance to meet.

The Friday Bacon

The Friday Bacon

Cleveland Ohio: Terrible American City or the Worst American City?

It has been such a long time since a Cleveland article that the city must have thought it had to do better. Yesterday a 42 inch, 111 year old, water main ruptured in an industrial neighborhood of downtown Cleveland cutting off water to half the city. Schools and commercial buildings were closed due to unsanitary conditions and the risk of fire. This being Cleveland the Federal building promptly caught fire. Today there was a boil water alert because of the microbes and toxic industrial chemicals that contaminated the cities water supply as a result of the breach. This happened on a day where the low temperature was 23F in a City that gets as cold as -10F yearly. Tonight there is a massive ice storm bearing down on the Mistake by the Lake and attempts to flee the flaming wreckage of the city by air have been eliminated as the barely operational airports in the region cancel flights. Sure there is a lot about Cleveland to cause a resident to complain, but apparently Clevelanders even do a good job of exporting reasons for people in other regions of the country to take note of Cleveland when they leave the city. What a wondrous place.

Cleveland Ohio: Terrible American City or the Worst American City?

A dead body was discovered in the Cleveland impound lot on Monday. This was two days after the car was impounded. A little background; there was an ice storm last Friday night in the area causing a large multi-car accident. One of the cars towed away from the scene contained the person who was not discovered. The question I have not heard any local media raise is whether the person was already dead at the time the car was towed. And if not, whether it was the negligence of the police in leaving him in the car for two days that caused his death

The Friday Bacon

Don't You All Fell Better Now That Racism Is Over?

I don't know if my own experience over the past month has been unique but I have noticed an increase in little incidents of racism and they seem to be connected to Obama being elected. Here is what I mean, I will be with a group of people and the topic will turn to the recent election and while the subject of the first black president is in the air someone will then tell a joke so racist that you would think Carlos Mencia had just walked in the room. It's like some kind of weird cognitive dissonance is trying to work itself out of the population. In many cases, the people I hear doing this are not what I would call racist but I don't know how else to quantify what I am experiencing. Its somewhere on the racism scale between being uncomfortable with interracial dating and using the word "colored" when drunk.

Spying On The Innocent

This article details some of the absurdity of the Maryland terrorism list wherein peaceful people who never committed any crime and never planed to do so were labeled as terrorists. Remember, people still claim that the president has the power to indefinitely detain a U.S. citizen living in the United States after merely labeling them an enemy combatant. A term the government was unable to define even at the Supreme Court. Also remember that the people detained as enemy combatants are tortured prior to determination of guilt or complicity in any criminal act.

We don't have any examples yet of someone being detained and tortured merely for exercising their First Amendment rights by expressing a liberal opinion and hopefully we will never see any. This is still the danger we have to be aware of when a government takes these kinds of powers for itself. The above article details how intelligence that repeatedly says these people were not dangerous leads to them being labeled as terrorists and in many cases misidentifies what these people were involved with and where they were. If these cops really thought these people were terrorists and a danger to the country I would hope that they would be more careful with the information they gather so as to actually know where someone was on a certain day rather then place them on the opposite side of the continent. Here we are seven years after 9/11 and we still haven't learned the lessons about putting quality people between us and the enemy and not wasting time and taxpayer dollars on witch hunts.

Extinction Delayed

Some good news on the primate conservation front. Scientists have discovered a previously unrecorded group of Tonkin snub-nosed monkeys. This is a bit like the previous story where scientists were able to access a previously inaccessible part of jungle and discovered more Gorillas than previously estimated. It's not like these things weren't there before, we just didn't know about them. Still it means that from our perspective the species is slightly better off even if it is still tetering on the brink of extinction. I guess thats good news.

Like the beetle who's larva burrow into the human brain, Bush's political appointees are burrowing into their respective departments. As the president's term comes to an end, people who occupy positions that are appointed by the executive take up new jobs within their departments, preserving their high status within influential government agency's and moving beyond the reach of the incoming president of the opposing party. It is something that always accompanys a change in the guard but with the Bush administration's appointees it takes on a more sinister effect. We have recounted many times here that President Bush's picks for department heads have not been based on quality of the individual but on their loyalty to his narrow ideology and the individual of the president. One need only look to the energy department the EPA or to the Justice department to see scandals arising from industry insiders acting as regulators or "holy hires" who were picked because of the ultra right wing religious fundamentalist colleges they attended. The damage done to policy and the public interest done by this administration will take decades to undo.

Another example of cementing of Bush policy long into an Obama presidency is the midnight passage of executive orders. Like the burrowing of political hacks, these last minute orders cement extremest right wing policy and weaken government oversite and cannot be easily overturned by a new administration partly because of the time consuming process of determining all the changes and waiting through the public commentary period but also because of a lack of political will. Somehow there is the perception in Washington that turning back all these executive orders will cause some kind of liberal shock to the populace at large resulting in a backlash against the president. As if setting things back to the way they were is somehow more shocking than a lame duck president without a mandate of the people sneakily instituting his personal preference for policy at the last minute.

The LHC And the United States Committment to Science Education

The Large Hadron Collider is the biggest and most powerful super collider in the world and humanity hopes to discover new fundamental truths about reality through its use. It was built in France and Belgum but there was once the possibility that an even bigger, more powerful collider would have been built in the U.S. except congress lost the nerve to fund the project after already dumping millions into partial construction. This was not just a loss to the local community and the University system of Texas but to U.S. education. Now the best and brightest minds in physics will be compelled to go to France instead of being drawn to America. New discoverys will be made that will lead to marketable technologies that could have been discovered within U.S. jurisdiction. The loss of talent and potential discovery and the immesurable loss to the U.S. economy is particularly irksome in the current economic crisis. This shortsitedness reflects a general U.S. failure to focus on quality of science education in order to maintain our technological and intellictual superiority in the world.

Property Rights = Civil Rights

Some months ago I discovered that my wife keeps a large supply of cash in a secret location. She does this to be prepared for emergency's. One of those emergency's is the possibility of leaving me and having to leave immediately. I was not particularly threatened by this revelation and jokingly acted hurt that she might abandon me in some tragedy or that she thought I would transform into some raging monster after we have been together for almost 10 years. I also was not threatened because it is a sensible plan and I wholly endorse this for all women. Not that I need to, because as I look around and ask women I know and my female relatives they all have an escape fund. It seems like most modern western women have the good sense to be financially independent from their men or to preserve the ability to sever the financial connection on short notice.

It seems related to some of the conclusions reached by the UN Commission on the Status of Women. I paraphrase; they found that due to the vast imbalance in earning power and property ownership of women relative to their percentage of the world population and the percentage of the worlds labor performed by women that efforts should be taken to improve the equality of women's property rights worldwide as that inequality tends to multiply the terrible consequences of tragedy's like war and natural disaster, leading to increase in HIV infection among other things.

To spell out what that means, after a mudslide or tornado or flood damages a village some of the women might be left without their husbands due to deaths in the tragedy. Because they cannot earn as much from their labor or perhaps because they cannot claim ownership of their dead husband's property they are forced into prostitution in order to make enough money to survive or to keep their children alive. This would be bad enough if it didn't also obviously increase the spread of STDs and increase violence against these women, amplifying the personal tragedy set in motion by a natural disaster.

If the personal tragedy of each individual were not enough there is the social cost. With property rights or equal earning potential, these women could continue to be productive members of society, producing value through their labor through farming, or producing other tangible goods. Instead they end their lives destitute, in medical care funded by charity, government spending, and privately subsidized medicine. This cost is shifted to some degree on to western persons through government aid and pharmaceutical companies selling novelty lifestyle drugs for erections and sleep aids at overinflated prices to recoup the costs of the discount AIDS medication they sell to African countries and charities.

In this way, the very real costs of human tragedies on the other side of the world financially impact the life of every American such that even the most cynical and selfish should care for real equality. Even if just out of concern for the cost of their next 4 hour erection.

Depression Era Tactics

We have really hit the shit now people. Labor is dusting off tactics that they haven't used since the bad old days of company towns and anarchists. Laid off workers have occupied a factory in Chicago. They were given short notice of the closing of the plant and are attempting to get the severance and vacation pay due to them. This is actually connected to the $700,000,000,000.00 bailout because one of the banks that got assistance from the Treasury is the bank that finances this company that employees these workers and said bank refuses to loan the company the money it needs to keep up with its payroll, forcing it to close its factory doors. Which is exactly why there needed to be better controls put on this massive act of corporate welfare so that Paulson wasn't left with the sole option of begging the banks to not horde the cash but deploy it. Because if they won't spend the money then the bailout can't serve the purpose it was authorized for.

The Friday Bacon

Pizza with Bacon, peperoni, ham, sausage, and banana peppers. Served frequently at my work.

The Friday Bacon

The Friday Bacon

The Friday Bacon

The Real Cost of the Bailout

As I've written here on this blog before, our public policy has come closer and closer to engendering moral hazards. Now, this statement has come to a sick and twisted fruition. The cause of this putried flowering is the confluence of two individual factors. The first, is President-elect Barack Obama's pledge to help the ailinig auto industry. Already bleeding money like it needs a tournequet and considering passing another series of economic stimulus packages, the deficit is already such a theoretical number that adding to it won't make much of a difference. The second is another set of behaviors that, besides the aforementioned moral hazard, are morally questionable in other ways. General Motors is burning cash like it's needed to power plant machinery lost $7.35 per share in its latest report. Furthermore, this cash crunch is putting the company in the position where it will no longer be able to fund regular operations. However, instead of consider options like marginal spending decreases, or bankruptcy, the consequences of which CEO Rick Wagoner says would be "dire", he is waiting for President Obama to pull out the checkbook and write a check to the auto industry. After all, the financial industry is in the process of receiving checks without any strings attached, so why shouldn't the Big Three, also? I'm sure Rick is also already beginning to plan how he is going to spend the bonus that he no doubt will feel he earned because he drove the company into the ground so hard and fast that the government needed to bail it out or face political consequences.  Herein lies the moral hazard and the real cost of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act. Instead of engaging in normal business practices that would help shore up the bottom line, such as closing additional plants and laying off hourly workers, or even declaring bankruptcy and arresting the further deterioration in its credit rating, a company that is potentially too big to fail, is probably going to be able to get a handout from the federal government. So, instead of receiving the punishment of the markets for not balancing its liabilities and assets properly, and for not developing products that the public is willing to purchase, a company is instead able to receive the public's money in the form of a handout, probably without any strings attached.  

The Friday Bacon

We have previously featured a picture of the Bacon Strips bandages on the Friday Bacon. A relative must have seen that post and decided to go out and buy some as a joke gift for me. The images for this installment of the Friday Bacon include images of the bandages on my toe, the tin they came in, and a tiny plastic pig toy that comes with them.

The Burning Questions

Whether you supported John McCain, Ron Paul, or even Brian Moore, the real Socialist candidate, congratulations are certainly in order for the winner of the 2008 Presidential Election, Barack Obama, there are more than a few questions he needs to answer almost immediately. Sure, he can have a few days to bask in the glory of the acceptance of an entire nation-state, if not the entire world, but try to keep it short. Some of these questions may have already been answered in campaign promises, but as the last few presidential campaigns have demonstrated, promises can be forgotten so easily, and so these need to be asked. So without further avail, in no particular order, are the list of questions we here at the Fringe Element would like to see Barack Obama answer. 

• Will you promise not to lie to the American people, even if the truth will hurt your political aspirations?
• Will you move the U.S.A.'s foreign policy away from the Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive strikes into foreign countries?
• Will you free the West Memphis Three and Mumia Abu-Jamal?
• Do you plan to amend the FISA Act and discontinue the NSA's domestic surveillance programs?
• Will you use neutral experts to evaluate science and policy before committing tax money to any specific plans and regulations?
• Your running mate is famous for having been the reason for the creation of PGP encryption. Will you enunciate a series of principles governing your administration's relationship to the internet, and will you continue to support net neutrality? Furthermore, will you enforce net neutrality regulations with civil and criminal penalties?
• Do you realize and acknowledge that infrastructure, the environment, the economy, taxes, energy, crime, prisons, and drugs are all interrelated facets of one national domestic problem that must be solved with a cohesive effort and a comprehensive policy?
• How do you plan to address the ongoing global economic crisis? Do you want to convene a Bretton Woods II, or try to create a novel set of policies?
• How will you direct your appointed Treasurer to manage the funds under the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act? Will you direct these funds to help homeowners or businesses?
• Will the focus of whatever economic plan you craft be to create jobs, like Franklin Delano Roosevelt with his New Deal, or to help corporations?
• How do you plan to regulate big business? That is to say, how do you plan to regulate corporations so that no corporation is "too big to fail"?
• How do you plan to encourage the creation and growth of small businesses while protecting the public interest?
• Do you plan to trim down the budget of the Department of Defense? Or, if not, at least demand better accountability of funds that are spent?
• How will you encourage private, self-interested companies to develop alternatives to fossil fuels and solutions for our energy crisis?
• How do you plan to address the shortage in funds in the Social Security trust that were promised to the now-retiring baby boomer generation?
• Do you plan to continue the War on Drugs?
• To what extent, if any, are you going to restructure the military-industrial complex?
• To what extent, if any, are you going to restructure the prison-industrial complex?
• What measures do you plan to take in fostering a so-called green economy?
• What is your plan for addressing America's crumbling infrastructure?
• Do you plan on re-tasking the FBI from its current counter-terrorism mission to being more focused on domestic crime, such as white collar crime and political corruption?
• Do you promise not to politicize the Justice Department and the various U.S. Attorneys?
• What type of Judge will you appoint to the Supreme Court if given the chance?
• How do you plan to address the Bush Administration's last minute changes to federal regulations governing such matters as consumer safety and the management of federal lands, and such bureaucracies as the Environmental Protection Agency?
• Do you plan to drill for oil and natural gas offshore and in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge?
• How do you plan to address the growing shortage of lending for college students and their families?
• Do you have any plan to provide health care for all American citizens?
• Are you going to follow-up on Vice President-elect Joe Biden's promise to prosecute former members of the Bush Administration for their various allegend misdemeanors and felonies?
• Do you plan to continue to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons?
• Would you be interested in negotiating a multilateral treaty governing Space, the Internet, and other facets of information warfare?
• Will you continue to address terrorism as a national security issue, or view it as a problem of criminal justice?
• Do you plan to rehabilitate ties with Russia?
• Are you going to continue with the installation of the missile defense shield, especially in the Czeck Republic and Poland?
• Do you plan to change America's foreign policy in regards to the Republic of Georgia?
• Do you plan to change government policy as it relates to selling weapons to foreign nations?
• What will be your administration's policy towards Israel? Are you going to take meaningful steps in creating a Palestinian state or otherwise realizing peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians?
• Will you denounce Israeli settlements in the West Bank that have been recognized as illegal under international law?
• You have already expressed a willingness to negotiate with the government of the Republic of Iran directly, but will you continue to enforce unilateral sanctions placed upon that country by the Bush Administration?
• How long is your timeline for pulling American troops out of Iraq?
• What is your plan for Afghanistan? Will you follow-up on your promise of deploying additional troops to the region? How will you address the concerns of the Afghani government about civilian casualties? 
• You have also addressed a willingness to address the various problems in Pakistan, such as the Taliban haven along its shared border with Afghanistan, but will you direct the Department of Defense to continue using Predator drone missile strikes into Pakistani territory to kill militants? Will you continue to support the Pakistani government's campaign to fight the aforementioned militants in the form of cash payments and limited training, or will you try a different approach? Do you have any plan for addressing Pakistan's foreign exchange problem?
• Do you plan to convene peace talks between Pakistan, India, and the People's Republic of China over the disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir?
• Do you have any plan to address the ongoing civil war in Sri Lanka?
• Do you plan to engage in talks with the military government of Myanmar?
• At the risk of asking too large of a question, what will be your administration's policy towards the People's Republic of China? Will you continue to sell armaments to Taiwan?
• Do you have any plan to address the ongoing violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo?
• How do you plan to address piracy in the Gulf of Aden based in Somalia?
• Do you have any plan to engage in talks with Robert Mugabe's government and alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe?
• Do you plan to continue the DEA's coca eradication program in South America?
• Do you plan to lift the embargo on Cuba?
• How do you plan to mend ties between the U.S.A. and Latin America?
• Do you have any ideas for combating the rise in drug-related violence in Mexico?

The Afterglow

I have made the analogy before that the campaign was like being hit on by a drunken sociopath. In the aftermath of the election it seems even more so with various special interest groups and media outlets remembering various promises made by Obama while on the road to the White House. They seem like an expectant lover on the morning after, hopeful that this impulsive decision to get in bed with this beautiful person who said all the right things will turn into a healthy relationship. All the while the recipient of the lover's attention hurriedly prepares to move on with his agenda while assuring the lover that, "that was all pillow talk baby." We can at least hope that Obama doesn't spurn the voters like a one night stand. But he is a politician and I won't hold my breath.

John Stewart made the observation to Obama that the country isn't what it was when he started this race. Truly Obama is inheriting a sloppy shit sandwich from one of the most hated presidents in history. Unfortunately for the discontent, Bush is scheduled to leave office and they will loose a symbol of everything they dislike about U.S. policy. But the problems he created will remain. What happens if Obama fails? Do we loose the meager gains we have made in race relations? Does the country swing wildly back to the politically extreme right? Will there be much left of the country after four years if he can't get a hold on these various crises?

Parts of the country started to reflect Bush's low approval ratings by going blue this election. My question is whether these states who were red in 2004 have an indelible sin on them for causing the last 4 years of unnecessary downward spiraling of the nation. Ohio and Pennsylvania, I am looking at you.

As usual, I have nothing positive to say.

In a Time of Ennui, Laugh at Wall Street's Expense

I'm usually not one to post a list of stupid jokes, but this is a golden exception. Here is a list (in the comments) of some pretty funny jokes at Wall Street's expense. Enjoy!

The Ben Franklin Report: Strains in the Economy

With the latest manufacturing data from the United States showing even more signs of contraction, one of the few thigns that can be said for certain about the overall situation, is that what might have been limited to the financial sector is clearly affecting the very basic sectors of the economy. Also, those were predicting that this affair was going to be a minor correction that would pass in a quarter or at most two, have been revealed as having played a guessing game, as the crisis is instead shaping up to be the worst economic crisis in almost a century. 

Manifestations of the problems are appearing in sales reports of the auto industry, where all of the manufacturers were hit with double-digit drops in sales, especially trucks. On Wall Street, too, there are signs as Circuit City has received a delisting notification from the New York Stock Exchange, and plans to close 155 stores as its death spiral continues to get tighter and tighter. 

Part of the misdirection that was at the heart of the financial crisis is coming unwound, as investors who bought notes from the now defunct Lehman Brothers that were promised to be sound investments worth of inclusion in retirement investment portfolios are now revealed to be worth only pennies on the dollar. Regulators are going to investgiate, but unfortunately, due to the counter-terrorism priorities of the Bush Administration, the FBI has been left critically short-handed as they try to investigate the myriad economic crimes and financial fraud. School districts in Wisconsin were caught up in their own form of financial mismanagement. Buying supposedly safe investments, the now infamous C.D.O.s, school boards all over the state are facing the prospect of cutting services in order to meet financial obligations from the defaults of various corporations.

Strains are also being seen on the macro scale, as the primary contributor to American GDP, the Federal Government, has announced plans to finance the largest budget deficit in history. The government itself won't put a number on how much the deficit will be exactly, but estimated that the total amount of bonds issued would be approximately $550 Billion for the October-December period, including $300 Billion for Federal Reserve liquidity operations. Analysts in the field estimate that the government's borrowing needs for the next fiscal year, which began in August, will total up to $2.1 Trillion. This number stems from funding the $850 Billion deficit projected in the Federal Budget, and approximately $500 Billion to further reinforce the Fed's liquidity operations of the amalgram soup, and the remainder going to roll over securities from state and local governments which are expected to see a significant drop in demand over the next year. The budget deficit is so large partly in thanks to deteriorating economic conditions and the $700 Billion bailout package passed by Congress against almost every economist's better judgment, but doesn't factor in whatever additional stimulus proposal will be passed by the Congress during the lame duck period following the election. 

On the micro scale, individual homeowners and families are also showing severe signs of strain. Throughout the country, but particularly in areas that are hardest hit by the mortgage crisis, more nad more homes are going 'underwater' to use the industry phrase. That is to say, about 1 in 5 of all homes in American are worth less than the balance of the mortgage the homeowner is paying. Families are also having a harder time making ends meet with their utility bills, also. As further evidence, about 44% of families are living paycheck to paycheck, and about 48% have less than $5,000 in liquid assets. So, in the event of a family emergency, medical or otherwise, very few would have any options, especially with bank lending still not an option, despite the Treasury's and Federal Reserve's efforts.

There is no shortage of people who are ready to criticize the Treasury and the Federal Reserve for their management of this crisis and their willingness to bail out institutions that were threatening to go bankrupt. A Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert J. Aumann predicts that more banks and insurance companies will go under because of moral hazard and the lack of consequence. Others say that deflation is the order of the day, also brought about by the various interventions in the free market. My question has been, since this crisis started, where were those in the position to do something about this problem when it started becoming apparent? Why weren't more authorities, for lack of a better word, willing to stand up and make warnings? Unfortunately, someone who is such a position is also at a loss for why pronouncements against the general consensus come in whispers, rather than shouts. 

I'll leave off with the latest scary charts from the Federal Resreve of St. Louis. Good night and good luck.

Click on the charts to see them at full size.

The Dragon is Out of Breath

As such a key part of the processes of globalization which have developed our global economy in the past few decades, the manufacturers of China could not hope to escape the deletrious effects of the global economic crisis. As demand falls all over the world for finished manufactured products, Chinese factories have been hard-hit. Although most economic data coming out of China is stir-fried and seasoned by government officials, the monthly manufacturer's survey is one number that is seen as reliable, and in the past couple of months, worrisome. What could once have been explained away as the slowing down of manufacturing during the Olympic Games is now something far worse. After two back to back contractions of this Chinese Manufacturers Purchasing Managers Index (or PM Index), it is clear that this is no longer simply a statistical abberation or short-term correction. 

The problems are becoming apparent in very embarrassing ways. For instance, in the fourth-largest city, Chongqing, taxi cab drivers went on strike to protest the depreciation of what amounts to their standards of living.  Increased competition, fuel shortages, and inflation have driven down the value of their fares, which have not kept up with inflation. Showing the critical nature of cab drivers in the PRC, the strikers demands were met after only one day. 

More embarrassing to the ruling party are cases of party officials fleeing the country with embezzled funds, which according to reports total at least $100 billion. One official by the name of Yang Xianghong left a delegation in Paris under the pretense of visiting his daughter. A similar phenomenon is also rearing its ugly head in the private sector, as factory owners who find themselves unable to pay off obligations sell off everything they can't take with them and disappear, literally overnight, of course taking time to destroy all records on the way out. Behavior like this is perfectly expectable when considering information asymmetry. For instance, the factory owner who realizes how bankrupt his company is before anyone else finds out, will probably take whatever he can get out of his investment of time and money and leave before accountability catches up. party officials likewise have a particular interest. In times of economic distress, it is easy to imagine why enforcement of laws governing economic crimes, such as embezzlement and other forms of corruption, would become much more strict. As China doesn't have very many extradition treaties with other countries due to its continued use of the death penalty,  officials can live very well for a while, if not for the rest of their lives, off of ill-gotten gains, and of course, the more the amount of gains, the longer the official is able to pay legal fees and perhaps bribes to lengthen the extradition process or remove it as a possibility altogether.

In China's third-largest city where I live, Tianjin, the economic problems are slow to be revealed. Although this city depends on manufacturing for a great deal of its economic activity, development here was a key point in the latest 5-year economic development plan. So while the rest of China may be wilting from the lack of fresh orders from overseas and paltry domestic consumption, Tianjin is still booming. For instance, even though China is entering the downward cycle in the property sector as evidenced by the proliferation of empty buildings for sale and ret, just as occured in the United States in the past two years, I can see five separate large-scale construction projects just from my apartment windows. Clearly, in a nation as large as China, economic slowdowns are uneven at best. 

The Friday Bacon

A special Halloween offering of Friday Bacon.

The Friday Bacon: Bacon Grease Makes the Best Patina

There is a cup in the refrigerator. It sits in the back. Nobody knows it's there, and that's how I like it. The cup is filled with bacon grease. When I make eggs and pancakes I like to use the best thing possible: a cast iron skillet. When I bought the skillet I thought it was a miserable thing. Everything stuck to it. They sell patina oil in the camping stores. I tried it, and I don't think it is very good. I also have a cast iron dutch oven. Every year Dave and I make a corned beef brisket in it on St. Patrick's day. The dutch oven has a beautiful gloss on it. I can make stews, potatoes, cheese sandwiches, and nothing ever sticks. So why was the dutch oven so much better than my skillet? BEEF FAT. I realized you need to melt REAL fat on your skillet to give it a patina (not some oil in a boutique store). Now whenever I make my bacon I render the grease into my cup. When I make eggs and grilled sandwiches I start with a little bit on bacon grease to help the thirsty pan keep its lovely patina. And when cooking eggs and such it tasted better than butter or oil, too! When I am done cooking, a paper towel usually does the trick to clean it up. This is why bacon grease makes the superior choice!

The Urban Shaman

In days long past and in parts of the world untouched by the corporate monoculture there are psychopomps and shamen who know the spiritual secrets of the Earth and can walk between the worlds. These men and women gain access to a spiritual dimension through chanting, ritual, drugs, or raw spiritual power. They walk in a dangerous world in between life and death where they are alive, yet not. Where they walk among the dead and the not-yet born. They are able to pass through this liminal state of not-being without loosing their soul because of their wisdom and spiritual power.

It occurs to me that airline travel has become one such a dangerous liminal state in this post 9/11 world. In a world where one can be apprehended and shipped off to a foreign country or secret prison to be tortured based on faulty intelligence, mistaken identity, or no evidence at all, airline travelers face a very real danger. When one enters an airport they pass within a barrier that the public cannot penetrate. The traveler only enters into this parallel land by performing arcane rituals and by passing the arbitrary and ever changing tests of the gate keepers. They pass into a world where names and shapes are familiar but strange. The worst part is that no one knows whether you will come out on the other side.

The difference is that air travel isn't like this because of the immutable laws of nature and of the spirit but because of the actions of wicked men.

Prop. 8

I am not a citizen of California, so I have not been following the news surrounding Prop. 8. I don't even know the technical wording of what it does. I recently read this article, and it reminded me of something I have tried to address in previous postings. The idea that there can be a status equivalent to marriage for homosexuals that simply uses a different word. I have explained before that separate is not equal and that there are technical differences in the law that would be difficult to account for in creating a parallel civil institution.

I would like to try to address the underlying argument that if homosexuals are allowed to marry it somehow damages the sacred unions of heterosexual marriage. To me this seems like saying that every time I have a bacon cheeseburger, it harms every Jew that keeps kosher. Sure they might feel left out at a BBQ, but bacon is still delicious. OK, so the analogy needs work. I have yet to hear any reasoned argument behind the bare assertion, other than a veiled suggestion that the purpose of marriage is to produce future taxpayers. That upsets me as a Libertarian, but as a moral human being this concept throws me into a foaming rage that a human child is being valued only as a walking wallet. I think it shows that these people who claim to be for morality and the family are really the most cynical and selfish, if you only press them beyond their memorized talking points.

Personally I find it hard to argue with Mormons on the issue of family because they have such a strong family ethos and make it a central tenant of their religion. My bone of contention with them is that their conception of "family" is so narrow, it excludes and even rejects some of the diversity on Earth and in society that must be a part of God's plan. A faith that has a de facto exclusion of the childless and infertile, and an outright hostility to homosexual families seems to me to be directly rejecting the spark of divinity inherent in every part of God's Creation.

The Walk of Shame: A Shameful Roundup

Saving the best for last.

First, a new study shows that half of all American doctors prescribe a placebo to their patients, and most of them that do, do not inform the patient that the medication will not do anything for their condition. The study goes on to say that doctors usually use pain medication, vitamins, or stress medications rather than the sugar pill one usually associates with placebo.

This throws into question medical ethics and the doctrine of informed consent. It would be possible to meet the standard of informed consent and still get the beneficial effects of a placebo. It also raises questions of further wasting money in the already inefficient American medical system.

This strikes me as similar to the use of tazers since in both cases a professional with a fiduciary duty to the people is using a device as a shortcut around dealing with the psychological difficulty's of the individual they are faced with at the time. It's lazy. It's laziness that has harmful consequences.


Second, the McCain campaign volunteer who claimed to have been attacked and beaten by a black man who carved a "B" into her face to signify Barrac Obama, admitted to lying about the attack. Apparently the woman is mentally unstable and probably did it to herself.


Lastly, we have the Maryland police spying scandal. The state police went to public meetings of politically left protest organizations and entered the names of participants in a database of persons suspected for involvement in terrorism. So essentially what we have is a law enforcement body labeling as terrorists, U.S. citizens who are exercising their constitutionally guaranteed first amendment rights without any evidence that any crime had or would be committed.

The ACLU were the ones credited with this story seeing the light of day because of an information request. This week the state started sending out letters to people who's names are on the list. There are varying accounts of what the letters say or what their purpose is. Questions need to be answered like; why were these people targeted, was it because they were politically liberal, why not investigate groups like the KKK which is already listed as a terrorist group, what prompted this spying, will the victims be able to see what is in their file, what criteria are used to determine someone is a terrorist, how does someone get their name off the list, is it possible to remove someones name?

This again gives an answer the question, "if you aren't doing anything wrong, what do you have to fear?" These people were not doing anything wrong. One officers reports even showed that these people were not planning on doing anything wrong. Yet they were labeled as terrorists. At this point we still do not know why. Again, most people don't concern themselves with the draconian methods of dealing with suspected terrorists since 9/11. Except we have been repeatedly shown that one does not need to do anything wrong to be labeled a terrorist and be subjected to torture. But then again, this woman seems to think that protesters, or anyone that is vocal about their political opinions deserves to be given the third degree.

The Friday Bacon: Bacon Rage

I have a friend that has Bacon Rage.
All night diners like Denny's, Perkins, and Bob Evans are the kind of place that suburban teenagers begin to flex their growing independence by staying out late and paying for their own food and hanging out with their friends. (they serve breakfast all day long!) During this adolescent period my friend, with some others, went to one of these restaurants and ordered some breakfast combo. It did not come with bacon. Like most sane people my friend wanted some bacon so he ordered a side of bacon.

The bacon came on a separate plate. There were two pieces. Two overcooked pieces. Two small overcooked pieces of bacon on a separate plate. Sitting there, alone. Stark in their presentation and insignificance. This alone is an insult to the god of bacon if there was such a thing. Surely anyone craving bacon would only have their appetite increased rather than satisfied by this paltry offering. He ate the bacon and by all accounts it was a pleasant meal.

Then the bill came.

$6.00. The cost of the paltry serving of bacon was six fucking dollars. And this was in 1995, before people would mortgage their house to buy a TV. Some words were exchanged and things escalated. By the end of the night half of the town was engulfed in flames. If you think that is a bit extreme, you must not like bacon. Or justice. What's wrong with you?

Tasings Lead to Collateral Damage, Like Careers

It's been a while since we've covered the controversies surrounding Tasers and their use. However, these two stories seemed fitting. 

In the first case, brought to you from Eustis, Florida, a police officer was hosting a birthday party with alcohol for himself and 50 other partiers, 20 of whom were underage. Apparently, 15 year old Tyler Davis said he wanted to know what being tased felt like, and the former officer Dan Nesmith complied, and even issued a brief safety warning. Thankfully, the Taser used was equipped with a computer chip that allowed authorities to know when it was discharged. For the incident, Mr. Nesmith has been fired from his position. 

In another case from Georgia, Deputy Sheriff Tonya Gross allegedly discharged her Taser inside the Fulton County Courthouse. Apparently the former deputy was surrounded by two women who were aggressive when going through the security checkpoint that is now ubiquitous in our post-9/11 world. Ms. Gross feared for her safety and aimed her taser, allegedly at the head of one of the suspects, but failed to hit either. The Fulton County Sheriff, disregarding the opinion of a retired sheriff's supervisor, fired the deputy for violating policy. 

It's good to know that when a Taser is deployed for fun or irrational fear, that some people in positions of authority won't tolerate such behavior. 

The Friday Bacon: Endorcement

As someone who enjoys bacon and has tried many kinds, I have to say I am not that particular about my bacon. I have tried smoked, cured, unsalted, low sodium, pickled, "all natural," and a dozen or so different brands and some from a couple of family farms. Because I am from Madison, Wisconsin where Oscar Mayer has a plant, for my stand-by bacon I always have on hand I have to go with Oscar Mayer, the one that says "Americas Favorite Bacon" on the package. It cooks consistently regardless of the method you use unless you are a klutz with a stove. Non stick skillet over an electric range, or over gas, in cast iron on the camp fire, or in the George Foreman grill, this stuff outperforms other brands when faced with heat.

The Walk Of Shame: Paulson

It looks like Paulson's greatest career attribute is the ability to beg. Perhaps that is how he got installed as the ineffectual treasury secretary. He got down on one knee to beg Nancy Pelosi to support the $700,000,000,000.00 BBBBBBBBBBillion Bailout, and on Monday he begged the banks not to horde the cash he is handing them. He is doing this while expressly stating that there are no strings attached. Paulson said,

At a time when events naturally make even the most daring investors more risk-averse, the needs of our economy require that our financial institutions not take this new capital to hoard it, but to deploy it.

The free market has been dead since FDR, but the Bush administration has found a way to revive the same trickle down economics that got us into this recession, distract everyone by saying you are resorting to socialism. The awful truth behind that scary buzz word is that they are socializing the financial industry's losses in order to insulate their profits from market forces.

The Walk Of Shame

Apparently the House seat for Florida's 16th congressional district is like Spanish fly. It must be the holding of this office. Why else would the man that ran against Mark Foley then become embroiled in his own sex scandal?For those of you who don't remember, Mark Foley lost his reelection bid when it was revealed that he had traded explicitly sexual text messages with male teenaged congressional pages. Now Tim Mahoney, who campaigned on a platform of returning morality to the capitol has been exposed as having hired and then fired his mistress to his staff.

You could say that this is ironic. I am more cynical. I am inclined to believe that most people who run for national office have a pathological need to be loved that causes them to engage in self destructive behavior when they are given power. But I am no psychologist.

The Ben Franklin Report: Pessimism Abounds

With renowned economist Nouriel Roubini of NYU predicting the worst economic contraction in more than 40 years, author Bill Bonner predicting the Dow Jones will fall to 5,000, and some very interesting analysis about the role of credit default swaps in creating some of the worst excesses of the real estate market, it's easy to understand why investors would want to avoid assets in the United States. What's particularly important about the aforementioned analysis, is that it reports that there is a provision in the recently approved $700 billion bailout that allows the Federal Reserve to pay interest on collateral held in exchange for loans. Under this scenario, the financial institutions can give take a loan out at the Fed, offering equity or some of the worst financial derivatives that mathematicians can imagine supported by some of the worst lending since the 1920's as collateral. Then, with the Treasuries or cash that the institution has borrowed, earn profit, and also earn more in interest than the derivative might be worth, thanks to the end of mark-to-market accounting. Which, in summation, amounts to one of the subtlest giveaways in an era of high-priced socialization. 

However, one doesn't need to be an investor to feel worried about the economy. Simply talk to state and local employees and the citizens who rely on their services, in places such as Chicago; King County, WA; Iowa; Maryland; and Massachusetts. In other news, the federal government announced a $455 billion budget deficit for Fiscal Year '08, which doesn't count Treasurer Hank Paulson's commitments to the financial industry, which will push the deficit in '09 even higher, in addition to whatever additional economic stimulus is passed in the coming months. 

There's even more pessimism in whether the announced $250 billion equity binge on nine of the largest financial institutions in America will have any effect on their behavior whatsoever. Despite the investments, up to $25 billion in some cases, the Treasury didn't receive the right to make policy decisions, such as board appointments. So other than hold more meetings and perhaps more begging on one knee, the Treasury's hands are tied.

Update on the RNC Arrests

Max Specktor, a cultural studies student, will have a hearing, along with the other RNC 8 in November. Mr. Specktor, a self-described community activist, has said that he plans to plead not guilty to conspiracy to commit riot in furtherance of terrorism, among the first times that Minnesota's version of the Patriot Act has been used in criminal prosecution. 

What is particularly loathesome about the entire affair is that the group had been infiltrated by paid informants for the FBI for over a year. Regardless of the difficulties of obtaining inside information on an allegedly terrorist group, this practice of buying information from those who might serve as agent provacateurs should end as a matter of policy. When there is money involved in a transaction of information, the seller has less and less reason to be truthful in the information transmitted, if the perceived value will result in a higher price. One must ask, at what point does such an infiltration become a frame up of otherwise innocent Americans?

The Ben Franklin Report: Leave the Spigot Open

While workers in GM's Janesville, Wisconsin SUV plant are getting a lesson in freemarket economics, Ron Paul is trying to spread the word about an economic malady of a slightly different nature: the ballooning and out of control federal debt that we've been covering here on the Fringe Element. As if the near vertical climb that is growth in the monetary base weren't already enough, the Federal Reserve is going to go ahead and provide unlimited amounts of funding in return for collateral to central banks from around the world. One could say that this is a very selfless act of a benevolent and intelligent Chairman, but more likely, this is an effort to return monetize US Government debt as Dr. Paul points out in the above article. This move by the Federal Reserve will have, perhaps, unintended consequences, as Central Banks return bonds originating in the United States, such as those issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to our shores. After all, in a liquidity crisis, why would an institution choose to hold onto assets that are, at best, potentially troublesome?

The rest of the world is also responding to the crisis in ways similar to the United States. After weekend meetings of the IMF and World Bank in Washington, D.C., financial leaders from around the world agreed to initiate a coordinated response, and the markets seem to be enjoying the show. In Japan, the Central Bank is ready to assist any effort negotiated by the IMF, but has so far not announced any support of particular amount of money to domestic banks and financial institutions. In Europe, markets surged amid a flurry of announcements from various national governments laying out plans to guarantee their financial sectors in various degrees, ranging from total guarantees of interbank lending and capital infusions in Germany to bond lending programs in Portugal. In China, the weather is a little less rough, with currency reserves recently surpassing $1.9 trillion in value, the People's Bank's chief Yi Gong, while promising cooperation with the other members of the IMF,  has expressed full confidence that China will weather the financial turmoil. Perhaps not coincidentally, the central government in the same weekend announced plans to double rural disposable income by 2020 to create a domestic consumption base as a way to offset falling exports to the U.S.

While some lament the appearance that Capitalism has become the newest whipping boy in the arena of economic philosophies, Treasurer Henry Paulson took bold steps in ushering in a whole new era of American socialism, essentially seizing portions of the nine largest lending houses in the United States.

The Walk of Shame: Palin

This is a pretty detailed article on the whole affair. The bottom line is that the legislative investigation found that Sarah Palin violated the public trust in her office as Governor when she allegedly pressured for the firing of a State Trooper that had been married to her sister. In these cynical times it is hard for me to explain how serious a violation of the public trust is other than to say that even lawyers are required to be more ethical than this.

Once again this raises the question of how well Palin was vetted before she was picked as the VP nominee. Her ability wink and to segue into memorized talking points during the VP debate does not reassure me that she is more intelligent than the Couric interviews have shown her to be. Now there is this report detailing how she wasted no time in becoming corrupt after being elected as Governor of Alaska. Its probably a testament to her Orwellian campaigning that she was originally billed as a reformer.

The most telling part of this story is the reaction of the Republican party and the Republican presidential campaign. When the eye of justice was turned on them they immidiately and vigorously began attacking the integrity and nature of the investigation. What they were doing was analogous to if one was a murder suspect, arguing that the police did not have the authority to look for the murder weapon.

It makes me wonder if any other Alaska Republicans will be found guilty of corruption in the final weeks before the election.

Gay Marriage In Connecticut

It should be obvious that anyone that is against gay marriage holds such an opinion because they don't like the idea of gay sex. Although we joke in popular culture that sex and marriage have nothing to do with each other, you won't see any significant principled division between the people who object to homosexuality and those who wish to deprive homosexuals of their civil rights.

Today Connecticut's supreme court ruled that denying same-sex couples the right to marry violated that state's constitution. Effectively becoming the third state to allow homosexual marriage.

Something that is often glossed over in discussions of gay marriage is the issue of civil unions. These are often touted as being the same as marriage but with a different name. Gay rights groups often do a good job of pointing out that "separate is not equal," but it gets a bit more technical than that. There is a certain deference that is given to the status of marriage in American law that would not transfer over to any artificial legislative construction. You can make a statute that gives persons in a civil union the same tax benefits(penalties), the same visitation rights, and same property ownership as marriage and these are the rights typically cited by people discussing the issue, but there are a number of other rights that most people don't know come from marriage. You can have joint ownership of property but what about inheritance? What about the "Marital Privilege" where your spouse can not be forced to testify against you in court? There are a number of others but the point is that the status of marriage is so ingrained in our culture that a legislature would have to rewrite its entire civil code to create a substantially similar civil status to marriage.

Which still leaves the question of motive. Why would you go to all the effort to create something exactly like marriage just for the gays if not to keep them separate? I have yet to have heard a coherent explanation of why conservatives believe that it somehow harms their marriage if homosexuals are allowed to marry. My wife and I may have had less sex, or poor communication on the week California first allowed gay marriage, but I guarantee you it was not the cause.

The Friday Bacon

xkcd has a commonly posted comic about bacon.

The Friday Bacon: A Bonus Bacon!

If we can't send bacon to our congressmen as an insult, then the terrorists have won.

The video is less hilarious than it should be.

The office of House Minority Leader and Ohio Representative John Boehner was evacuated on Monday because of a box of bacon. Apparently an angry constituent sent this as a commentary on the pork laden Wall Street Bailout. I wonder how many more taxpayer dollars will be wasted on overreactions to imaginary threats.

America Keeps Inching Back Toward Justice

There have been some gains for freedom and for the American people lately that have been overshadowed by the free fall in the stock market. The important thing is that these small steps show that our system still works, even if it draws its inspiration from molasses.

The Justice Department has completed its investigation into the firings of the nine U.S. attorneys and decided that since the Bush administration refused to cooperate with its investigation, Justice would appoint a special investigator. Whether this new investigator will have the power to get the information required to get to the bottom of this remains to be seen, and whether any power given will be effective is a whole other question.

Yesterday, U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina ordered the release of the Uighers into the United States. What is significant about this ruling is that last part about being released into the U.S. These are Chinese Muslims that were captured in Pakistan during the early days of the war in Afghanistan. The U.S. government has not considered them "enemy combatants" for some time now but will not release them into the United States and will not send them back to China. So the Government has been looking for, and failing to find, any country that will take them in. As with any promising ruling, there are still many appeals to go through.

Surveillance

I just thought I would try to document all the cameras I pass in a normal day. There were twenty three that I noticed but was unable to get pictures of. I could use this series of images to try to make a point about how we have become so desensitized to constant surveillance that it should not have been surprising that few people were outraged by the warrentless wiretapping. One thing I would like to point out is that these images were taken in Ohio during "golden week" where voters could register and vote in the same place at the same time a month early, and that some of the cameras that I noticed but was unable to get pictures of were in areas where people were exercising this right.