Oops

Dear Dr. Bones,

Once again it has seemed better to the Holy Ghost and to ourselves not to dispatch in cold blood what was writ in exuberance. Moreover, in this particular case, there is at least a little doubt about exactly what the stimulator of it all was in fact up to when he scribbled

Still thinking that lack of public option is the undoing of this version of health care reform. If all un-enrolled persons were presumed to be covered at least by Medicare, and that in order to receive care at the point of service, an uninsured person had to claim an enrollment, in either a private or public (Medicare) plan, with a schedule of benefits (and penalties) for not having the coverage ahead of time, then I think a mandate would stand. Why? Because at the point of service they would have to elect an enrollment, this if they had procrastinated earlier against choosing, were incapable for one reason or another, were too cheap to buy, too poor, or too inclined to mumble `Fuck the man’ all the time. Try saying that when you can’t understand what that pain is in your gut, or when you break a leg on a sheet of ice in your driveway. This is not a lot different than the basic presumption that a person who shows up at a hospital must be cared for. It just structures it in terms of personal responsibility — the decision at the hospital to claim either a Medicare membership, private insurance membership — or I suppose the cash liability, would be a personal election. I don’t see how this would be a government intrusion at this point and I think a mandate would stand because it would rely, ultimately, on a choice by an individual. Merely caring for the uninsured and then floating those costs across an inefficient bureaucracy without structuring the delivery of that care, ie not allowing the uninsured the presumption to join Medicare as a last resort, is irresponsible. And it really is a status quo that is being preserved by the enormous business interests in health care that want to contain the bargaining power of the the biggest player at the table. I don’t agree with the reflexive business paranoia that opening up Medicare to elective enrollment would be a threat to private providers. Better care, better service and the cache of a premium plan as one’s employment climbs the economic ladder, or is negotiated, would keep plenty of insurers in business. That insurers were able to dismiss or reject claimants for `pre-existing conditions’ for so long should be a national embarrassment. I remain extremely disappointed that Obama abandoned the public option, really without a fight; and I think it might be the undoing of what he did get accomplished by being too-cute-by-half with the adoption of a pro-business, Republican model, which must have seemed like the perfect way to pass the bill. surfcaster @ Wed 28 Mar 8:37 PMStill thinking that lack of public option is the undoing Still thinking that lack of public option is the undoing of this version of health care reform. If all un-enrolled persons were presumed to be covered at least by Medicare, and that in order to receive care at the point of service, an uninsured person had to claim an enrollment, in either a private or public (Medicare) plan, with a schedule of benefits (and penalties) for not having the coverage ahead of time, then I think a mandate would stand. Why? Because at the point of service they would have to elect an enrollment, this if they had procrastinated earlier against choosing, were incapable for one reason or another, were too cheap to buy, too poor, or too inclined to mumble `Fuck the man’ all the time. Try saying that when you can’t understand what that pain is in your gut, or when you break a leg on a sheet of ice in your driveway. This is not a lot different than the basic presumption that a person who shows up at a hospital must be cared for. It just structures it in terms of personal responsibility — the decision at the hospital to claim either a Medicare membership, private insurance membership — or I suppose the cash liability, would be a personal election. I don’t see how this would be a government intrusion at this point and I think a mandate would stand because it would rely, ultimately, on a choice by an individual. Merely caring for the uninsured and then floating those costs across an inefficient bureaucracy without structuring the delivery of that care, ie not allowing the uninsured the presumption to join Medicare as a last resort, is irresponsible. And it really is a status quo that is being preserved by the enormous business interests in health care that want to contain the bargaining power of the the biggest player at the table. I don’t agree with the reflexive business paranoia that opening up Medicare to elective enrollment would be a threat to private providers. Better care, better service and the cache of a premium plan as one’s employment climbs the economic ladder, or is negotiated, would keep plenty of insurers in business. That insurers were able to dismiss or reject claimants for `pre-existing conditions’ for so long should be a national embarrassment. I remain extremely disappointed that Obama abandoned the public option, really without a fight; and I think it might be the undoing of what he did get accomplished by being too-cute-by-half with the adoption of a pro-business, Republican model, which must have seemed like the perfect way to pass the bill. surfcaster @ Wed 28 Mar 8:37 PM

To which Paddy McTammany was moved to reply

All the local Esq.’s seem to be busy not answering the fascinating legal questions (( fold here )) which Ernie-never-near-the-MTA about "Honest Graft in the Age of Ortiz," so you’ll have to put up with an ignorant lay sheep bleating that none of this has any bearing on whether the mandate was constitutional. Except maybe proleptically: once Five of Nine have struck the obamanation down and vindicated the True Freedumb of Trade and of the Individual, it would be logical, as sheep and philosophers rather than the shyster community think of ‘logic’, for Themselves to go on eventually to question whether it be not equally impermissible for the Fedguv to insist on, ‘mandate’, Joe Reckless (not to mention Don José Indocumentado) getting emergency-room treatment merely because he might perish without it. Somebooby or another on (I think) N.P.R. got close enough to this particular baloney the other day for Paddy McTammany to jump the rest of the way. It was presented as a point that might have been put to Neocomrade Associate Justice Á. G. Scalia, presumably as bein’ foremost amongst the Five, ‘intellectualfoundation’wise. Rather like certain goodvolks from Somerville, though, the baloney salesman assumed that his freelordship would not be willin’ "to be OPENLY such a skunk as that" [1]--as if Don Ántoninoe could be skunked into lettin’ Obamamcare by instead of egged on to tackle an outragously unwarranted interference with the conduct of secret-sector specuvestor-funded medical facilities. Both _quâ_ Republicanine an’ _quâ Juris Doctor_, Neocomrade Justice Scalia strikes me as eggable on. Faction shouts "¡No more Mr. Nice Guy!" at his freelordship, an’ Ms. Jurisprudentia whispers (by comparison) that She has no use for the bleeding-heart muddlehea equity of Somerville. True Freedumb of Commerce and of the Individual, as manifestly original-intented by Mr. Madison and the Gang of Eighty-Seven, is not to be delimited by the likes of Mr. Nice Guy an’ Freedame Nasty. _¡Fiat Constitutio, ruat cœlum!_ (( ... )) ___ [1] That’s St. George of Orwell on Mr. Saintsbury in Wigan Pier, the skunkery consisting in "As for the insane doctrine that being born in a country gives some right to the possession of the soil of that country, it hardly requires notice." Here in the holy Homeland™, of course, Psocialism has never yet advanced to the point of US not noticing a little thing like that. _¡Amerika, du hast es [anders]!_ (( Freelord Saintsbury’s soil-possession point may soon be topical. Correctly or not, ’tis easy to imagine the discovery or invention of "hydraulic fracturing" leading to the next Great American Landboom. Our Landbooms, by the way, ought to be numbered like our Awakenin’s, for the convenience of foreigners and/or students. ))

As you see, sir, I fell into the sandtrap of _prætermissio præcox_, first dismissing the topic of how attorneys think as opposed to how realvolks emote, but then talking more about it than about anything else.

Worse, Paddy undoubtedly confused E-comrade ‘surfcaster’with that junior WhightGuard birdgal, Freedame Seascrape, "Person #4034: 59 Posts." [1] Her freeladyship can have no more use for single-payer schemes of public medicine than Count Dracula for a garlic frappe.

Happy days.
--JHM

_____
]1] The Staff & Management of the Great Blue E-Hill ought to have a word with their nerds, for I fear ‘surfcaster’, despite four posts and three uplifted thumbs, before I added mine, somehow remains persona non numerata.

The earliest sign of him appears to be 6 January 2011, whereas her freeladyship was presentin’ the whightist perspective on the "Green Economy Boondoggle" as long ago as 17 March 2009. Despite that being The Big Day, her freeladyship did not mention Paddy McTammany’s beatific eponym, appealin’ to no higher authority than "Rebecca Lindland, auto analyst with IHS Global Insight [who barked in the _Los Angeles Times_] “¿But shouldn’t it be more about satisfying the needs of the American consumer?”

Definitely not the same person, then. Her freeladyship has very concisely outlined SeascrapeCare:

My $27B health plan seascraper | Wed, Aug 5, 2009 8:11 PM EST (Will there be a teabagger contingent? Will there be a pro-reform contingent? - promoted by Charley on the MTA) Just buy health insurance for all uninsured Americans. $27 billion.

A pity Don Ántoninoe an' the gang do not take hypothetical questions, for I have my doubts about the Fedguv constituionality of that one.

In any case, her freeladyship pretends to far more savin’s than there would actually be: our noble Corporate Citizennesses would no doubt manage to weasel out of a great many policy commitments, leavin’ poor Uncle Sam--¿who else?--to pay for lots and lots of quackery after the fact, over and above the premiums beforehand.

Though this brainwave does establish her freeladyship as a model Chambermaid of Commerce, I don't think it does much more than tell us which team ‘seascraper’ is rootin’ for.

Alms for the Prose-Challenged

Dear Dr. Bones,

The "gentlemen who dwell above the clouds"

(( unjô-bitu ))

on the up-market slopes of the

(( Great Blue Hill ))

hard by the

(( Palace of Public Television ))

showed an amazing amount of interest in

(( The Herald of Louisedayhicksville ))

yesterday. Can it be that the nobility and gentry are still devotees of traditional New Iceland frugality, and resolve to do without the _Globe_ of Gotham City as much as possible, now that the latter’s Proprietor Corporation has seen fit to conceal most of it behind the Yank equivalent

(( kichô ))

of a "screen of state?"

Whatever the causes, the effects were the following: (1) one of the Blue Blazers actually cheered for the frathouse babes an’ fruits of the J-school. This was, of course, a mistake, since the story came from the Statehose News Service. Fairembalance, the Fox Goddess, mandates me to note that at least the fruits an’ the babes did label their loot impeccably. It was not, in this case, their fault that Beautiful People sometimes can be hasty people too.

(2) More in line with expectation, another Blazer caught the babe H. X. Chabot switchin’ a scribble around after it had been published. In His Worship’s phrase, the neocomradess (or her organ) were "doing the bidding for Scott Brown." This, however, not in His Worship’s view, a problem per se, for "what is questionable is [only] that a run of the mill story is yanked and re-written under the same url to benefit a candidate."

His Worship does not make clear, to so mean an intellegence as is that of Paddy McTammany, whether what he wants to drop a flag on is that the same URL should point to different self-factionalisms at different points in time, which is an issue for nerds, chiefly, or some genuinely political point at which poor Paddy cannot even guess.

The "run-of-the-mill" song and dance presumably means that is OK with the ’GBH-ers if news stories are rewritten as they break. In that sense, evidently, I guess it cannot properly be said to "break" on a _Herald_ babe that the way she spun it the first time around did not do as much as it might have in the path of Party an’ AEIdeology. It thus looks as if His Worship wants to draw one of those hard-and-fast lines between ‘facts’ and opinion / analysis / twistification that the Muses and you and I have never been too enthusiastic about.

On the other hand, maybe there is something to it after all. I cannot divine the Blazerly opinion or analysis here, yet almost anybooby can see (the fact) that Their Worships have indeed been examining the _Herald_ a little lately. [1]

Probably they will not persevere, however, mornin’-glories that they are.

Happy days.


___
[1] Somewhere in between, maybe, falls Paddy’s guess that His Worship has been detected slumming journalistically only because he had G@@GLE set a watch on new scribbles about Faculty-Lounge Lizzie.

Forget John Galt, ask rather "¿Who is Anas al-Hajji?"

Dear Dr. Bones,

Hieronimo is mad againe. Not madde as H*lle, quight, _y non loco como Sevilla_, but still pretty vexed. As I think anybooby *would* be.

Understand, sir, that one of those blue sheeps that graze peacefully upon the Great and City-Crowned Hill, nigh unto the Shadow of the Palace of Public Television, has just discovered The Key to All Monetary Mythologies, which, in part, goes like this:

The relationship between the value of the dollar and oil prices is very complex. While they can feed on each other to produce a vicious cycle, their short-term relationship is distinct from their long-term relationship. IN THE SHORT-TERM, dollar depreciation does not affect supply and demand, but it does affect speculation and investment in oil futures markets. As the dollar declines, commodities – including oil – attract investors. Investing in futures becomes both a hedge against a weakening dollar and an investment vehicle that could yield substantial profit, particularly in a climate of vanishing excess oil production capacity, increasing demand, declining interest rates, a slumping real estate market, and crisis in the banking industry.

Now any deepthinker like unto yourself, O Bones, plus many shallower, is bound, after having spent maybe five minutes in rapt adoration of that deliverance, to wonder, "¿But what about the LONG term?"

At that point you (or they, or anybooby) will discover that Comrade Sheep has omitted to disclose who he is swiping from. "In part" is all that is on offer. _¡Quos ego . . . !_

¿How is one to fortify one’s portfolio for the day after that? [1] ¡Dollerica demands to know!

Paddy is mostly kidding, as usual, for in fact the pet g@@gle took the first sentence of that precious treasure and had no trouble apprehending its perp, one A. F. Alhajji, "Chief Economist at NGP Energy Capital Management." ("¿Who?")

As I was singing to the Muses and you just the other day, sir, "This is the dawning of the Age of Breitbartius, Breitbartius, ¡Bright BAAAAAAAAAR Tee Yus!" Supply-side attribution will soon become a lost art: the few residual pedants and troublemakers who care where our daily flotsam and jetsam come from can find out for ourselves so easily that it would be grossly cost-inefficient for the flot- and jetsam-monger community to bother to make easy what very few want to do at all. Oh, well, "It’s kind of fun to be extinct" is a Principle one finds oneself recurring to all the time lately.

Meanwhile, back at the portfolio,

In the long run, however, statistical analysis of various oil industry variables indicates that a weaker dollar affects supply by reducing production, regardless of whether oil is owned and produced by national or international oil companies. A weak dollar also affects demand by increasing consumption. The result of a decrease in supply and an increase in demand is higher prices. The lower dollar also reduces the purchasing power of oil exporters. If nominal oil prices remain constant while the dollar declines, the real income of the oil-producing countries declines, resulting in less investment in additional capacity and maintenance. The same is true of oil companies. Consequently, oil prices increase.

Hmmm. This may not be The Key after all. Without a great deal of glossing that Freelord Alhajji is evidently unwillin’ to bore the ignorant laity with, "statistical analysis of various oil industry variables" could mean almost anythin’. Probably, though, it includes that plumb ’rong "vanishing excess oil production capacity." Not encouraging.

It makes a remarkable amount of difference just to know whose Key it is. I hope that observation does not make me a respecter of the _ad homunculum_ [2] or a vulgar gossip, but there it is: his freelordship’s notions sound like the sort of product that should be marketable at ar-Riyád or al-Kuwayt without difficulty, but is less adapted to the harsher climate of New Iceland. ¿Who in Lovecraft Country cares very deeply about "the purchasing power of oil exporters"?

Indeed, I think Comrade Sheep might well ask for his money back, having pretty plainly violated Rule Zero -- _¡Caveat emptor!_ -- and purchased only the second cousin of the product he went shopping for. When his freelordship wonders How Does the Weak Dollar Affect Oil Prices? , these ‘prices’ are the ones Exxon-Mobil an’ _Messrs. les altesses royales du Ryad_ buy an’ sell raw petroleum at, not what the Mass. murderist

(( The John Kenneth Galbraith Memorial Filling Station ))

pays at the pump.

Still, one *could* sink one’s whole specuvestment portfolio in Exxon-Mobil [3], if not in the House of Sand, so perhaps there is some facsimile of a Key here after all. Let’s put on our thinking caps for a moment, and work through it again backwards, Seemightywise. The second half of "A weak dollar also affects demand by increasing consumption. The result of a decrease in supply and an increase in demand is higher prices" is harmless enough, one of the few propositions on which all mammonologists agree, even the Chicagolanders an’ the Viennasausagevolks. "Increasin’ consumption," though, is a little hard to square with his freelordship’s own "vanishin’ excess production" -- no matter how cheap the general run of goods we bring in from the Lesser Breeds Without, nobody can import what does not exist over there to be imported.

But the real hitch remains "a weaker dollar affects supply by reducing production, regardless of whether oil is owned and produced by national or international oil companies." I have already complained that his freelordship does not tell us how this affection works. From a stricty Riyádhocentric perspective, if _les altesses_ still purchase all their prospecting equipemnt and technology with dollars, as I assume (ignorantly) that they do, ¿Ought not the opposite to be the case?

Well, maybe not. Presumably Their Highnesses do not purchase such tackle at all when they feel that they are not gettin’ proper value for such rock oil as they currently make available to the heathen.

Over at Exxon-Mobil, the same applies, I guess, to refinin’ an’ so on. If the end-user prices are not adequate in their freelordships’ eyes, they would be mad to specuvest in more production capacity. That woul be like M. Elllul’s post-war Denmark: "¡Produce more butter, export more butter, and we will all starve together!" A safe distance from starvin’ are the Exxon-Mobilites, no doubt, but ’tis the thought that counts.

Happy days.
--JHM

___
[1] Rereading, I think maybe the Day After has already come and gone. "Vanishing excess oil production capacity" does not sound much like the present correlation of mammonomic farces, with the Titans of Industry poised to start ‘fracking’ under Boston Common any day now, to the immense enrichment of Father Zeus’s Owne Commonwealthe. Not to mention the extreme inconvenience of Red Line patients or victims.

Furthermore, "crisis in the banking industry" appears to have subsided. (¿Wanna guess who won that round?)

___
[2] Freelord Homunculus is a Perfesser Doctor an' registers 3.8 on the CliffsNotes™ Scale.


___
[3] [¡E] il naufragar m’è dolce in questo mare!

_Rasor Rasus_, the Scraper Scraped

Dear Dr. Bones,

Religionism always excepted,

there is no more fertile breeding-swamp for clowns and charlatans than economics:

True but irrelevant Obama will still be wiped out if he expects us to swallow gas prices 3-5 times what they were in the early 2000s. The [C]onstitution gives the [C]ongress the power “To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures”. Oil isn’t expensive, the dollar is cheap. Congress has the power to change that, they should use it. Right now neither Romney nor Obama are close to the solution, but Romney is closer. If prices are the problem, it’s unlikely that Romney will stumble into the right solution on his own, but at least a few of his advisers are familiar with the context and the Republican Congress could be much better than the Democrats who are hopeless on the issue. seascraper @ Sun 18 Mar 10:22 PM

"and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures" Say, I know – let’s redefine a quart as a gallon. Buck-a-gallon gas – problem solved! david @ Sun 18 Mar 10:26 PM

Like a couple of other honourable an’ neogallant reactionaries who occasionally drop by the Great Blue Hill, Freelord Seascraper makes it difficult to work out exactly what bushes he is shootin’ from behind. Instead of crystal-clear factional soundbarks like "¡Drill, baby, drill!" his freelordship quoted the Fedguv Constitution, which made it possible to suppose, in good faith, that his freelordship supposes (IGF) that Mr. Madison and the Gang of Eighty-Seven supposed (IGF) that the Wicked State can just "make up" the value of its money pretty much the same way Shakespeare made up _Hamlet_. That, of course, is what very properly got spoofed as makin’ a quart be a gallon by callin’ it one.

Snooping around

(( The WhightGuard Officers Mess ))

I discovered the following bit of seascraperiana that casts some light. His freelordship quotes from that grave an’ learnèd journal, The Sun of Gotham City:

[T]he [P]resident is "pushing back against election-year attacks from Republicans" who say his energy policies "are to blame for high gas prices that are eroding his popularity with voters." The problem with all this is that it’s not the energy policies that are driving up gasoline prices. It’s the MONETARY policies, and if the Republicans can’t manage to get that point into focus, it’s hard to see how they can put the rest of the MONETARY debate to their advantage

(( _Italics_ mark the freelordly emphasis; UPPER CASE, my own. ))

Now, ’tis news to Paddy McTammany that there exists any "monetary debate." Foxcuckooland, to be sure, is a foreign country an’ kiddiecons debate things differently there. On the other hand, I do waste quite a lot of time slumming out there, and have yet to run into this alleged controversy. The Sunsters, however, do seem to be cranks vendin’ a panacæa, even if they cannot find anybody grown-up to argue about phlogiston an’ ‘specie’ with:

We’ve been making this point for months now. The fact is that priced in specie — gold or silver — the value of gasoline has been plunging. We made this point in April last year, after Mr. Obama used his weekly radio address to declare that to rectify rising gasoline prices there was, as he put it, “no silver bullet.” Our point was that a gallon of gasoline was selling at the time for fewer grains of silver than it was selling for when Mr. Obama (or, for that matter, Mr. Bush) had acceded to the presidency. Gasoline at the pump was selling for a sixth of an ounce of silver when Mr. Obama was sworn in. Today, the value of the same gallon of gasoline has fallen to less than a 10th of an ounce of silver. Measured in gold, the value of gasoline has also been plunging. In other words, it’s not the gasoline that’s been going up. It’s the dollar that’s been going down. Americans, however, don’t hold their money in gold or silver. They generally hold their money in accounts denominated in dollars, and the dollar has been getting weaker....

With that background filled in, one can see that Freelord Seascraper is only another ‘goldbug’, which, however, would not be easy to guess from the brief communication with which we were honoured. The first time I read it, I was wondering what sort of Chicago-Viennasausage monetary fandango Congress or the Federal Reserve was expected to dance, but there was no need to speculate, for of course they certainly could make nothing but precious metals legal tender for the payment of debts. If they all go around the bend together in a handbasket, that is. It would be dotty, but it be constitutional.

It seems safe to agree that W. M. Romney is ‘unlikely’ to "stumble into" *that* "right solution," [*] one not only accounted more or less insane in TopPercenter economic circles, always "severely conservative," but also not held by enough wingnutettes an’ wingnuts of lesser stature to be worth the pander.

Happy days.

___
[*] I detect, perhaps mistakenly, a certain lack of respect on the part of his freelordship for the Governor’s bigmanagerial skills, as imparted to His Excellency by the H*rv*rd Victory School,

(The former Allston (Mass.) Academy of Chirurgy and Barber Science)

an’ certified with an M.B.A ’75, an’ then honed by years of remorseless baincappin’.

In fact, I could have written that depreciatory ‘stumble’ myself, though with a very different idea than his freelordship’s of what ‘Mittens’ on the unimpeded gallop would look like.

An Apparition of Fairembalance, the Fox Goddess

Dear Dr. Bones,

¡Lo!,

(( She Who Must Be Obeyed ))

came to humble Paddy in a vision last night, asking "¿How do the Democrats divide in Massachusetts?"

To which honesty could but reply, "On our fingers, ma’am. Except maybe a fewvolks in the immediate vicinity of MIT."

Herself then solemnly warned this coarse and illiterate keyboard that
]

[O]ut of stater (_sic_) conservatives... think Massachusetts is full of organic-eating, American-hating, gay-loving, chesse-eating surrender monkey, commies who can’t relate to . . .

(( ¿Surely somebooby entrepreneurial on Newbury St. or Tory Row makes edible (and of course ‘organic’) chesse pieces? If they do the rooks with elephants, I might order a few cases myself. ))

Cleanliness, G*dliness, Luckiness

Dear Dr. Bones,

The lottery is just as predatory as casinos, is just as regressive, and has all the same harmful effects. Exploiting the desperate and poor is what it is, whatever the plunderer does with the resulting proceeds. It’s like arguing that spouse-beating is [OK] so long as the abuser does good deeds in the community. It would be better for the Commonwealth to raise the taxes on everybody . . . .

Thus do some of the blue-nosed self-censorious [1] mornin’ glories of BMG deplore that "the small people" should specuvest so extensively in Mass. lottery paper, as opposed to in (say) credit-default instruments on the bonds of health-insurance and biotech corporations.






___
[1] I should explain that Paddy McTammany and I are experimenting with what you might call the middle-voice reflexive. Narcissus Sinister does not directly censor Narky S.-- I mean, "¿What’s to censure? ¡Don’t be ridiculous!" Rather, he censors othervolks "for his own benefit" as they say in Crosby & Schaefer [1.1]. Or "to make himself feel good," as Paddy wants it put.

"Mornin’ glories" is not, by the way, any form of the Republicanine mood of the verb. Probably you remember that that is is how Comrade G. W. Plunkett worded it originally:

College professors and philosophers who go up in a balloon to think are always discussin’ the question: “Why Reform Administrations Never Succeed Themselves!” The reason is plain to anybody who has learned the a, b, c of politics. I can’t tell just how many of these movements I’ve seen started in New York during my forty years in politics, but I can tell you how many have lasted more than a few years – none. There have been reform committees of fifty, of sixty, of seventy, of one hundred and all sorts of numbers that started out to do up the regular political Organizations. They were mornin’ glories – looked lovely in the mornin’ and withered up in a short time, while the regular machines went on flourishin’ forever, like fine old oaks. Say, that’s the first poetry I ever worked off. Ain’t it great?

The hokey-volksy poetry ain’t so great now that the general stylistic _shtyk_ has been expropriated by all those fine, up-standin’ Corporate Citizennesses who only want to friend (_sic_) us organic Lesser Breeds Without. Yet the Plunkettian analysis remains mostly valid, requiring modification only insofar as there are now all sorts of extrapolitical, strictly speaking, props for the Morning Glory Mentality. Nowadays, Narcissus Sinister need not "wither up," there are plenty of hothouses and Tanks of Thought and Palaces of Public Television and suchlike _refugia_ that can take Narky in out of the cold. Why, ¡The Commissariat for the New American Innovation alone must shelter thousands of specimens!

[1.1] I have quoted from memory. And abbreviated. The Urtext (§134 (b), p. 75) says "The subject may act on or with something that belongs to him, or in such a way as to benefit, injure or otherwise affect himself or his interests."

Bitter Betty

Dear Dr. Bones,

The following

LearJet Lizzie is the darling of the Hollywood elite. However in the real world, she has already exposed herself as just another "do as I say, not as I do" limousine liberal democrat. Bitter Betty Warren made an unrecoverable gaffe when she proudly claimed to be the founder of the universally loathed OWS Occupier movement. She will not be able to recover from this as US Senator Scott Brown (R-Massachusetts) will waltz to an easy victory over the Pampered Professor from Harvard in November.

was a big hit with the peanut-gallery peanuts over to Louisedayhicksville, with sixty-two thumbs up in nine hours. Probably that is not a record turn-out, but more thsan I recall ever having distinctly noticed. And fortunately for literary criticism, it scarcely matters what article Party Neocomrade (eleventh class) Hoo Fan Too (dba ‘whofan2’) is barkin’ ’bout. [1]

Amateur Tee Putty notions of "an unrecoverable gaffe" straight from the horse’s anatomy are bound to interest all neocomradologists, which is not to say that they are likely to be objectively valid. Hoo Fan Too does not get up off the potatoe couch an’ out of the shanty much, obviously, unless that "universally loathed" is a sneaky Jane Austen joke, than which few things are less probable. However, just lookin’ out the second-floor window at Louisedayhicksville or Rio Limbaugh would undoubtedly give that impression. There is no reason to doubt that pretty well everybooby Hoo Fan Too is on speakin’ terms with has nothin’ nice to say about Zucchini Plaza an’ the Deweyplatzbesetzer.

The problem for the Funders of Fratboy is that they had won the hearts an’ dittopans of the ULZ, Universal Loathin’ Zone, the instant they first filed election papers for Massa Scott. "However, in the real world," they needed to ’turf’bag a great deal more than the ULZ to buy their laddie the People’s Seat™ an’ doo down the fiendish Gen. Coakley. ‘Fishtown’ is not enough anymore, whightist populism needs to make at least a strong second-place showin’ in 02478 also. Around those parts, though there is probably lots of snobbery against the Occupoopers amongst such sections of the middLe class as know about them only from the MacL@@han tube, there is no loathing. [2]

What counts a "the real world," then, in the minds, or rather the dittopans, of the Tee Putty, if not Hollywood?

El dinero es muy católico, "Money is fungible." Comrade Cher can buy as much MacL@@han Tube time, dollar for dollar, for St. Elizabeth as can Baincappers, an’ Koch Siblin’s, an’ the _Herald_ angel Class generally, to defend the People’s Fratboy. Once the bucks are in hand, it does not matter whether the bush they grew on was ‘real’ or not.

Not that most T. P. wads are personally acquainted with either bold, baincappin’ Titans of Industry or pampered (_sic_) Élitists of the Silver Screen.

Even a Hù Phân Tú is, however, bound to have known a couple perfessers, which is why I suggest as a tentative hypothesis that the "hormonal foundation," to recoin a phrase [3], of all that loathin’ out there in the ULZ is chiefly a reaction by kiddie selfservatives against icky School. In terms of Volksontologie: Educationalism is the very model of unreality for Wally Wombschool an’ Cindy from Wasilla. (Also Hoo Fan Too from Chopstick Corners.)

Happy days.
--JHM

_____
[1] Party Neocomrade (sixth grade) J. X. Battenfeld, who seems a run-of-the-mill _Herald_ J-school fruit to this keyboard, surely cannot have been the first AstroTurf™bagger to pound it into Whoo Fan Too’s whight-haired little dittopan that Her Beatitude is not exactly just volks.

In fact, the PNC-6 JXB mechanism has already moved on to Lesson Two, which is not about Lizzy’s _élitisme_, thoroughly unmasked in Lesson the First, but about her out-of-commonwealth backers. You can see for yourself that Hoo Fan Too has nothin’ at all to say about that angle.

Nothing *yet*, that is: like the Roman Empire, or indeed the Chinee, Tee Putty is not compounded in a day. You might want to remind me a couple months hence to check whether the Funders of Fratboy have got through to him at last. The response of the rest of the pack to his stimulus suggests that the ’turf’baggin’ community ought to congratulate themselves on the success of their project up to 1 January 2012. It is simply too soon to judge subsequent agitproppin’.

___
[2] When they are actually one’s own kids, loathing is quite possible, see the late Eugene O’Neill passim. That, however, is entirely another story.


___
[3] Othervolks’ exact phraseology seems to elude Hú Phãn Tù. Her Beatitude never "claimed to be the founder of the universally loathed OWS Occupier movement," what she actually drooled went like this:

Elizabeth Warren is running for office in the most high-profile race in the country not involving Barack Obama. It’s a position that calls for some tact. So what does she think about the Occupy Wall Street protests that are roiling the country? “I created much of the intellectual foundation for what they do,” she says. “I support what they do.” Warren’s boast isn’t bluster: As a professor of commercial law at Harvard and the force behind Obama’s consumer-protection bureau, Warren has been one of the most articulate voices challenging the excesses of Wall Street. Still, she enjoys an outsize celebrity for an academic and bureaucrat.... (&c. &c.)

Quite bad enough to be getting on with, that is, without pretending she is Lenin Redux.

The Quest for the True Number

Wherein Wing-Admiral Eno gets cross-examined by some lowly ensign or J.G. [1] over to the WhightGuard Officers Mess

WHAT ABOUT THE CIVILIAN LABOR FORCE? In one of your previous posts you indicated that this is the real number that we should be worried about. Where do we rank against other states with that number? (...) by: Patrick @ Thu Mar 15, 2012 at 03:50:31 AM UTC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NOT SURE ON 2011 NUMBERS PATRICK But from November of 2008 to December of 2011 we were 39th in growth of the civilian labor force. I said it was A number, not THE number. I actually agree with [Comrade Housing Commissar G. P.] Bialecki [’82, J.D. ’85], the number of jobs is the true number we should all be looking at. by: Rob "EaBo Clipper" Eno @ Thu Mar 15, 2012 at 10:14:44 AM UTC

The comrade commisar’s remarks were addressed to WhightGuard GHQ directly, see over here. The following paragraph was then requoted by the good admiral:

We think the better measure of our success is the employment data: is our economy adding jobs? We think a lower unemployment rate is not necessarily the best measure of economic success. The unemployment rate may go down because people stop looking for work or retire or because people leave the state (this has been a problem for Massachusetts). We obviously do want the unemployment rate to go down (as it has been doing), but we believe that if our economy keeps adding jobs, then it will do so.

The last bit bears a distressing resemblence to that ever-immortal Bartlettism, "When more and more people are thrown out of work, unemployment results" [2]. Oh, well, ’tis not as if the comrade commissar possess an M.B.A. from the H*rv*rd Victory School to be unworthy of.

Happy days.

___
[1] Paddy McTammany finds it amusing to daydream that this ‘Patrick’ person *could* the Comrade Governor of us all, who has, unlike poor timorous Paddy, braved the barbed-wire entanglements thrown up around Forward Base Redstate:

By creating an account on Red Mass Group you agree to abide by the following rules. 1) You will not post libelous statements about any figure public or private. 2) You will not post links to any commercial services or goods without the express written permission of the management of Red Mass Group. Violation of these rules will result in a $1,000 per violation charge, each link will be treated as a seperate violation. An invoice will be sent to the email account you used to join. If this invoice is not paid within 15 days of the date, legal action will be taken.

(( One of my favorite passages, that one is, especially taken as affording insight into How THEY Think. ))

If it really is His Excellency, I trust he understands, in conjunction with "libelous statements," that They can say what They like about him, _quâ_ public figure, not necessarily vice versa.

But, no, that's silly: ¿how should His Excellency *not* know libel law, him being a ’78, J.D. ’82?

[2] Calvin XXX Coolidge, supposedly Of course this is the sort of sticks-in-your-craw soundbark that easily gets fobbed off at random on Prince Bismarck, or Dorothy Parker, or M. de Talleyrand-Périgord, or Comrade Will Rogers, or . . . .

_Conor Freiherr von Friedersdorf für Dummies_

‘... Großhaufen des sophistischen Mists’ —B.M.G.

(( _Mist_ is almost too good a _faux ami_, in this context, to be true. ))

Just for a lark, Paddy fed the above-depicted intellectual foundation to the pet g@@gle and hit the jackpot:

Das sind strittige Fragen, und sie können nicht völlig von Werturteilen oder politischer Philosophie getrennt werden. Aber sie sind überschaubar, in einer Gesellschaft, die über so viele Dinge wie unsere stimmt, wenn wir sie diskret, und vermeiden Sie erhebt sie in symbolischen Kämpfen um größere Dinge, wann immer es möglich ist. Herauszufinden, wie genau zu fühlen, zu besetzen Wall Street oder "Wir sind das 53 Prozent" ist für viele schwierig. Viel einfacher zu entscheiden, dass es falsch ist, um eine hypothekarisch besicherte Darlehen mit Sicherheit wissen Sie gefüllt schaffen wirst so scheitern, dass man es an einen Kunden verkaufen, die ist nicht bewusst, dass du es absichtlich sabotiert durch die Kommissionierung der irreführend bewertet Kredite am ehesten bis auf Verzug ["default"] geraten werden, oder dass es eigentlich keinen Sinn macht, um die Wall Street für die Inflation verantwortlich machen in der Schule Kosten, der Student Loan-Markt sie angespornt, und die Kultur, die eine Nachricht an zu viele junge Menschen geschickt, die Kreditaufnahme für Bildung ist immer ein gute Investition.

Happy days.

If anyone cares / ...

WHO'S HE FOR? I saw the “Scott Brown – he’s for Us” bumper sticker on a car – and my immediate reaction was to complete the sentence – “not for THEM“. I really think that’s what he’s going for with his campaign. nopolitician @ Sat 10 Mar 10:30 PM ALL I COULD THINK OF WHEN I SAW THE SLOGAN Was how much Brown had not been for us when he was a state senator… He was a holdout against marriage equality. I remember getting some lit that detailed 20+ anti-equality votes he had taken in the state senate. Any Republican in the US Senate from Massachusetts is undesirable for an old yellow dog Democrat like me, but Brown in particular is anathema. bean @ Sat 10 Mar 10:57 PM ITS BEEN ONE NAIL AFTER ANOTHER... Indeed, unemployment extensions and clean air balks are among the many reasons Brown does not deserve another term, but him seeking Koch support is what nails the coffin shut for me. damnthetorpedos @ Sun 11 Mar 7:25 AM YET THE POLLS KEEP SAYING SOMTHING ELSE, that he is comfortably ahead. When do they match the news of his actions? af @ Sun 11 Mar 2:03 PM

If anyone cares,
We stallions and mares
Know that Fratboy’s for US!
Refer this discussion:


 U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., is being honored by the Humane Society today for his work ... on the Marine Mammal Protection Amendment Act and the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act.

Let the seals and the orcas
An’ the Wall Street New Yorkers
Join us mustangs an’ jades
In plannin’ parades
To thank Massa Fratboy
For fightin’ our battles!

(What has SHE ever done

For a horse or a tunny?)

Be you walrus or steed,
Why, ’tis Fratboy you need!
To preserve what you got,
Cast a vote for our Scott!
You just gotta provide
For portfolio or hide,
So gallop (or swim)
To the hustin's for him,
When he's forced to compete
For the Animals’ Seat.

The Mystery of Deb T.

Dear Dr. Bones,

The Blue Blazers being what they are, socio-élitistically, naturally they could not go on long talking about anything as hopelessly prole and plebe as the MBTA. To their credit, they did eventually start a new thread to go on about matters of more importance to the breasts and portfolios of gentle folk.

The point where they ran off the commuter rails is interesting, since the gentlemen who dwell above the clouds, in the shadow of the Palace of Public Television atop the Great Blue Hill, happen to be largely mistaken about the "tax expenditures" abracadabra. And ¡to think most of ’em are, or talk like, H*rv*rds! Tusk, tusk.

It goes like this, starting just after the unwitting derailment:

The tax expenditure budget is huge and, unlike the general budget, once something gets penciled in the tax expenditure budget… it stays there, unless removed. There is no yearly tax expenditure budget made, it just rolls in from one year to the next. No wonder the itemizations within the tax expenditure budget have become a sacred cow on Beacon Hilll… So it keeps building and building and building, and as Deb keeps pointing out, there’s well over $20 billion in that budget each year now… with no checks and balances, and very little accounting done to see if what”s being spent makes sense. Now, a lot of the items in the tax expenditure budget are things that make sense or would be popular with residents. However, we could easily find a billion or more that isn’t, starting with the Film Tax Credit, which cost about $150 million last year. I simply don’t buy the notion that the state can’t buy back the MBTA debt, and then some. RyansTake @ Sat 10 Mar 5:16 AM

The Massachusetts Bay Transparency Authority (Paddy jested) has perspicuously explained--that is to say, squirreled away--the Big Swig of "tax expenditure" as follows:

3.503 Nontaxation of Certain Services Certain services are not subject to sales tax. This estimate includes a range of services to individuals and businesses which are excluded from taxation by their omission from the statutory definition of services. Origin: M.G.L. c. 64H S. 1 Estimate: $9519

Now everybooby who knows who or what a ‘Deb’ may be must know also about the "FY 2013 Consensus Tax Revenue Estimate of $21.950." Goes without saying, that does. At this particular juncture, call it "http://www.mass.gov/bb/h1/fy13h1/exec_13/hbuddevchall.htm," ‘transparency’ lapsed dismally. I mean, ¿Why could not the P-MA have made that $21.950[.000.000.00] as completely illegible as they made its breakdown on the pretty pie chart adjacent?

As things actually fall apart, any ten-year-old with a gadget can work out that those who like to spend the taxpayers’ money vicariously would have a bit over forty-three percent (43%) more of it to play with, if all those field-grade servicers could somehow be reduced to the other ranks. Minus, of course, a certain number who would move off in a huff to some other province where they are better appreciated. ("Governor Scott, Senator Rubio, Governor Christie, permit me to introduce Ebenezer Willardmitt Scrooge XI, another distinguished economic refugee from New Iceland.")

However, ‘transparency’ rallies strongly in the immediate vicinity of "tax expenditures." Not the faintest clue in sight [1] what these élite services are, nor by which élitists provided to whom. The only small chink in the ‘transparency’ is that a high-level breakdown of "tax expenditure" has also deviated into legibility, disproving the notion of one of the Blue Blazers that nontaxation of real estate sales is where the T-E inaction is:

3.501 Nontaxation of Transfers of Real Property Real estate is exempt from sales tax but is subject to a deeds excise at a rate of 0.456% of the taxable price of the property (0.342% in Barnstable County). The estimate represents revenues that would be collected under the sales tax if sales of real property were taxed at 6.25%. Comment: Revenues collected under the Deeds Excise Tax (including Secretary State Deeds) were $137.7 million in Fiscal Year 2010 and $140.2 million in Fiscal Year 2011. Origin: General exclusion of real property transactions Estimate: $1998

Hmmm. "There once was a salt from Cape Cod / Who complained of the tax on his sod / When he marched up to Boston / ’Bout what it was costin’ / . . . ." [2]

Be that as it may, once one has dredged up the $1998 and set it beside the $9519, poor unmasked Mlle. Transparence can only shriek and flee that neck of the woods, mostly likely to the stately _château_ of her elder sister, Mlle. de la Main Invisible.

Happy days.
--JHM

___
[1] Clues made available only in the special jargon of the shyster community do not count. Though Paddy would sure hate to have missed the following fun read

[ There is no paragraph (bb).] (( Exempt from sales tax are )) (cc) meals prepared by employees thereof and served in any hospital, sanatorium, convalescent or nursing home, or boarding home for the aged licensed under section seventy-one of chapter one hundred and eleven or in any institution or private house licensed under section twenty-nine of chapter nineteen; meals prepared by the members thereof and served on its premises by any church or synagogue or by any church or synagogue organization to any organization of such church or synagogue the proceeds of which are to be used for religious or charitable purposes; meals served to a resident in a facility providing continuing care to an individual which facility must provide a disclosure statement to a prospective resident as required by section seventy-six of chapter ninety-three; meals served on the premises of an organization which is located within the boundaries of a Massachusetts army or air national guard base that serves as social club for members of the Massachusetts army or air national guard; meals served in an assisted living residence certified pursuant to the provisions of chapter nineteen D; meals furnished by any person while transporting passengers for hire by air to or from any place within the commonwealth, meals furnished to any organization in which membership is limited to persons sixty years of age or over or to elderly or handicapped persons residing in a housing project qualifying under section thirty-eight to forty, inclusive, of chapter one hundred and twenty-one B and said organization has previously filed with the commissioner, on a form approved by the commissioner, satisfactory proof of its eligibility hereunder; and meals furnished to students by an educational institution which normally maintains a regular faculty and curriculum and normally has a regularly enrolled body of pupils or students in attendance at the place where its educational activities are regularly carried on; and meals served by summer camps for children eighteen years of age or under or developmentally disabled individuals; provided, however, that such summer camp which offers its facilities off-season to individuals sixty years of age or over for a period not to exceed thirty days in any calendar year shall not lose its exemption hereunder; and meals furnished through programs established under section one L of chapter fifteen.

But seriously, that mysterious "M.G.L. c. 64H S. 1" is but a fishy red herring. Section 1 of Chapter 64H of the General Laws is called ‘Definitions’ and lives up to its billing. ‘Transparency’ is impaired a little, I suppose, insofar as the inclusion of such _definienda_ as "Mobile telecommunications service" or "Motion picture" probably indicates that there is a corresponding rathole around somewhere. But the service-providing rats certainly do not collect their nine-billion-buck porkulus *here*. ’Tis hard not to think that with that wild-goose reference the P-MA transparency-mongers have passed over from _suggestio falsi_ to flat-out _suppressio veri_.

On the other hand, ¿Que sçay-je?

___
[2] I assume that Transparency for Dummies, or whatever the canonical textbook may be, recommends this ploy of throwing in a little essentially irrelevant detail to further flummox Televisionland and the electorate.

ABSOLUTELY The LAST Chance

to throw a little flak at the Torture Authority:

Meeting Date  March 12, 2012
Meeting Time  5:30 - 7:30 PM
Subject of Meeting Fare Proposal, Brighton
Location   Senior Center 20 Chestnut Hill Avenue, Brighton
MBTA Attendees All

Happy days

_Quod licet Jovi, non licet bovi_ (Part CCXIV)

Dear Dr. Bones,

McCeptionalism, so lightly undertaken, could easily grow to occupy thirty-nine hours a day. ¡So much backwoods self-wunnerfulness, so little time! ¡So many different parcels of rogues in one's own tiny little tea cup of a Province!

It would seem, antecedently, to be impossible to outdo WhightGuard Headquarters in the Selfwunnerfulness Sweepstakes--you'd never guess from the _plus-quam_-freelordly way that crew bark an’ bellow that they are but ’LevenPercenters [0].

The Little Blue Siblings of St. Elizabeth (of H*rv*rdy [1) are not daunted, however. When it comes to selfwunnerfulness, the maxim "It takes two to tango" can fail badly: collective-self-flattery artists are not required to all be tango-ing. Even if the judges of the feast liberally accept Dan Quayle™ brand tangoes an’ fantangoes, not all of these performers can be reckoned as dancing to the same drummer.

Danny Boy havin’ somehow splashed down into the stream of our discourse --kindly do NOT throw him a life preserver, sir: Massa Daniel is a ragged individualist who would take public assistance ill--allow me to say that I find the latest ploy from Her Effulgence more than a little Quaylesque. Or call it _vix dignum fundamenti intellectualis_:

Help Scott Brown Fulfill the People's Pledge

Elizabeth and Scott Brown made an agreement – called the People’s Pledge – to keep special interest groups’ ads out of our campaigns.

Scott Brown’s supporters just violated that pledge for the first time, and the Brown campaign has agreed to donate 50% of the value of the advertising spend to a charity of our choice, as outlined in the pledge.

Since this pledge is the People’s Pledge, we’d like your help picking the charity Scott Brown donates to. Please submit your charity suggestion using this form.

What type of charity should Scott Brown donate to?

Animal Rights & Shelters
Arts & Culture
Children/Family Services
Economic Justice
Education
Elderly Care
Environment
Food Banks & Pantries
Health
Homeless Services
Human Rights
Immigrant Rights
LGBT Rights
Women’s Rights
Other

The first thing to say, or rather, the zeroth, is that nobooby is going to find out about her benefaction opportunities from the ’LevenPercenters. Wing-Admiral Eno, aka "BoZo Skipper," is far too busy lecturin’ his crew on imaginary numbera, which lofty mathematical preoccupation may *sound* like it came whight out of The Huntin[’] of the Snark [2], but is there for all comers to click on if they like nevertheless.

Also clickable on is, _¡quelle surprise!_, is an Admiralty ukase headlined Why Won't Elizabeth Warren Hold Up Her End of the People's Pledge?

To this question the good wing-admiral returns no actual answer that I can detect, though perhaps we may guess that his freelordship supposes that Her Effulgence will just naturally cut every corner not actually containin' a barbed-wire entanglement. One of the BoZo deckhands refers us to Party Neocomrade (fifth grade) J. D. Jacoby [3] over to the Globe of Gotham City, who saw it all comin’:

Of course there is not the slightest chance the deal will actually keep independent ads off the airwaves or the internet between now and November's election. Yet Brown and Warren claim to be sincere in their determination to keep third parties from trying to influence this year's campaign. If so, shame on them.

Prescinding, for now, from his junior-freelordship's interestin' moral discovery (or, as the case may be, invention) that sincerity is especially reprehensible, I notice that HFL was graciously pleased to frame his prophecy in "a plague on both your houses" terms.

A little further on, Massa Jeff threw in the mask altogether, to reveal that its freelordship is yet another body-snatchin’ invader from Planet Dilbert:

... what they mean by "interference" is political free speech. Brown and Warren have a simple message for anyone with something to say about the Massachusetts Senate race: Shut up.

BoZo Skipper's deckhand seems not to pay much attention to what he reads. Oh, well. That must explain why his freelordship is a Skipper an' he is only a common wingnut.

Happy days.

___
[0] The Gotham City _Globe_ has a major scribble this morning called Bay State GOP chief taking some heat which mentions all sorts of curious numbers ("$20,000 to the state party, $5,000 to Brown, and $2,500 to Romney in recent months") but not a word about how many provincials are currently registed as Republicanines. Coming from an out-of-commonwealth Corporate Citizenness, that seems a little odd. I mean, ¿Surely there are not manyvolks on Manhattan Island who know such boondocks trivia without being reminded?

___
[1] Or, sometimes, "of Warrenbuffet."

Her Effulgence is not to be confused with the mother of Jack the Dipper, who was--or more likely was not--somebody else entirely, a long time ago and in enirely another country.

___
[2] The medial ‘D’ required by Pravadastyle is speculative; as often, Paddy cannot determine whether this neospecimen actually has a middLe-class name. However, instead of ‘X’ there will be ‘D’ for all Party neocomrades who johnhancock themselves ‘Jeff’. Until something different is established beyond all reasonable doubt, worst-case analysis and I will assume "Jefferson Davis Katz," an’ "Jefferson Davis Jacoby," an’ so on all down the long redstate line.

___
[3] "This the Banker suggested, and offered for hire / (On moderate terms), or for sale, / Two excellent Policies, one Against Fire, / And one Against Damage From Hail."

"one of the largest reasons is due to"

Dear Dr. Bones,

Over at WhightGuard Headquarters

"Much-Esteemed Party Neocomrades, I give you . . . ¡Destructive Creationism!"

Wing-Admiral Eno [1] is rallyin' the ever-victorious heroes an’ sheroes of Eleven Percenterdom [2] for Armageddon. And I'm not talking about Primary Day. sir. Not at all. The spring offensive of America’s Otherparty has opened in an utterly unexpected sector of the New Iceland front, as follows:

Yesterday in a blog post on Blue Mass Group yesterday, the Secretary of the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development, Greg Bialecki, cited a line from a blog post I wrote, as unsupported by the facts. The line was from this blog post on Scott Brown's so called crowdfunding legislation.

For all the talk about the so-called 99% vs 1%,
one of the largest reasons the disparities exist is due
to government regulation of private capital markets.

This line is completely true. Currently only accredited investors may make investments in start-up companies. Scott Brown's legislation will change that.

If Secretary Bialecki wants an engagement, he will have it. Over the next few weeks, I will endeavor to bring to light the true nature of the economic policies of the Patrick Administration, the crony-capitalism they practice, and the patronage politics they play.

Admiral the Freelord of Eno is the first whightist-- the first mammal, even--that Paddy ever heard of tryin’ to market that curious ‘line’ of Otherparty patter, which does, however, possess a certain charm. ¿Wouldn't it be pretty, Dr. Bones, in that "poetic justice" way, if John D. Gekkofeller I had not, as claimed by himself, been given his bucks by "the Good L*rd," but only by the Securities and Exchange Commission? [3]

Happy days.

--JHM

___
[1] For those of them at Rio Limbaugh, "Wing Admiral" rhymes, naturally, with "Rear Colonel". For those with a more presentable mailing address, it would not hurt if they thought, spontaneously and unprompted, of the late

(( M. le baron de Koltchaque ))

or alternatively of

(( Horthy Miklós, Regent of NeoHungary 1920-1944 ))

[2] The Deplorable Word was deferred until the extreme far end of that A.P. scribble, so allow Paddy McTammany to rub it in a little: "The bad news for Romney [about his poor MA] is that the number of registered GOP voters has continued to dwindle from nearly 13 percent in 2004 to JUST OVER 11 PERCENT this year."

Extinction looms, therefore, for the local outlet of the Party of Grant & Hoover by about the middle of Mittens’ second term as POTUS of us all, _Anno Religionismi_ 1439-2018-5778, should his freelordship ever manage to enjoy a second term of anythin’.

But that's a purely mechanical or mathematical ‘therefore’ and one which the present keyboard, at least, would hate to see become operative. Life in the boondocks of New Iceland would be much duller without a certin modicum of organized whightism to kick around.

[3] The SEC dates from A. R. 1353-1934-5694 and the FTC from 1332-1914-5674. Even the ICC (of 1304-1887-5647) was hatched so late in Gekkofeller's career that it cannot possibly have been his freelordship’s *primary* benefactor. Such points may not matter to the good wing-admiral much, though. I incline to betcha his freelordship is a pious devotee of Their Ford's "History is bunk" teachin’, an’ thus under no obligation whatever to account for any triflin’ ‘disparities’ that may have existed before about last Thursday afternoon.

"can’t imagine how the government can be an investor"

Dear Dr. Bones,

Worried a little about the usual problem of thin skins attached to blue noses, I think I had better leave the following tripartite caboodle

It's time for a new narrative about how to grow the American economy greg-bialecki | Sun, Mar 4, 2012 8:12 PM EST Greg Bialecki is the Secretary of the Department of Housing and Economic Development.... (...) Governor Patrick and I and others in the Patrick-Murray Administration have been working to develop such a strategy for Massachusetts over the last five years and we think that what has been working for Massachusetts has relevance for the US as a whole. (...)

The government is a terrible investor I’m sorry but the Massachusetts government has demonstrated that it is a terrible investor: 1. At its best it will be overly cautious and lose less than the market (your five-year recall) 2. In the middle it will put money into faddish industries (Evergreen) and then pass laws forcing the consumers to support these weak companies 3. At its worst it will miss new industries entirely or funnel money to golf buddies of government officials (Cognos) Massachusetts had the weakest growth during Romney’s term in the country, because you raised investment taxes and those who wanted to innovate left the state. Now you claim you can be a better substitute. If you guys were great investors, you wouldn’t be working for the government. It’s time for our government at all levels to get out of supporting a welfare/warfare economy and develop an innovation economy based on allowing the market to determine which products people want fastest and letting that happen, rather than stifling it at every turn, trying to take a cut for projects that by rights should be killed. You may say “oh we tried that before”. Yeah and lots of people got jobs, and created products. You can’t just say it’s time to stop innovating because I got mine, but that’s what too many people in Massachusetts do. Life is about growth, expansion and replacement of what is not useful any more with new growth. seascraper @ Mon 5 Mar 10:11 AM

The government invests by building infrastructure and safety nets I have no doubt that our other-winged friends can’t imagine how the government can be an investor. That’s because they apparently can’t imagine (a) how it is possible to invest in any capacity other than in exchange for ownership and (b) how any motivation besides individual self-interest can drive successful investment. The government invests in growth when it builds a sustainable transportation infrastructure — in Massachusetts, that demands investing in commuter rail and the MBTA. The government invests in growth when it builds (or at least stops dismantling) a world-class educational system. The government invests in growth when it funds basic scientific research in a variety of domains. The government invests in growth when it invests in providing affordable and accessible health care to every American. The government invests in growth when it invests in ensuring that our seniors can live comfortably, enabling younger generations to devote more of their energy making our economy strong and viable. The government invests in growth when it builds and strengthens (rather than dismantling) regulatory agencies that stop the handful of wealthy predators among us from plundering the prosperity of the rest of us. The government invests in growth when it punishes those who commit crimes against humanity (like kidnap, torture, rape, and murder) so that we aren’t forced to live in a nation that is a pariah in the civilized world. A populace that is frightened, hungry, ill, thirsty, cold, angry and depressed is much less able take the bold, creative, and innovative steps needed to thrive and prosper in the 21st century world. The GOP opposes every action that a first-world nation does to promote sustainable growth in the twenty-first century. somervilletom @ Mon 5 Mar 2:22 PM

here for you to hold while I poke a few holes. As follows:

On the contrary, Wall Street and lesser Hoovervillains can "imagine how the government can be an investor" with ease, and what they imagine terrorizes them. Let the evil Fedguv once start doing anything that might actually make a profit [*], and ¿What chance would ScroogeBank and the Warbucks Defense Widget (&c. &c.) have against a Supercompetitor that comes equipped with the power to levy taxes, not to mention with pepper spray and nukes? A Competitor so Super is Sam that--¡oh, the unfairness of Life!--He can borrow money cheaper than anybody else on the planet.

Of course it is humiliating to have to admit that one is scared, so instead of frankly sayin’ what Paddy just said for them, economic whight-wingers mostly shut their eyes, clap their hands, and recite piously from the same catechism that Freedame ‘Seascraper’ just gave us a fine specimen of: "... Government ... will be overly cautious ... [and] put money into faddish industries ... [and] miss new industries entirely ... [and] funnel money to golf buddies of government officials." For no reason at all (that ever gets properly) explained, that is, ‘government’ is bound to make every mistake in the Specuvestment for Dummies book. And then invent a couple of new ones.

I wouldn't know about umber-skied Planet Seascrape, but around here, we never got closer to the Abomination of Econmic Desolation than the Tennessee Valley Authority--certainly not very close. Had NSTAR and National Grid been around in 1933, well fortified with M.B.A. expertise from the H*rv*rd Victory School [**], I daresay there would have been no occasion for Uncle Sam to go into banausic Trade at all. Rather oddly, TVA was both the closest Sam ever got to specuvestment as the Secret Sector ordinarily understands it and one of the plainest Fedguv infringements ever on the sphere of the Red Cross.

(( "To be continued," he threatened, twirling his moustache. ))

Happy days.
--JHM


___
[*] That--money returned on money laid out, and returned in the form of money well before the heat death of the universe--is what Paddy and the Baincappers understand by the word ‘investment’. I like the MBTA too, and wish the card-carrying Blue Blazers were more concerned about it, yet if our hack masters up on the Hill decide to do something about its finances, to speak of ‘investment’ is only a way of amusing oneself. Or of trying to deceive somebody else.

Somerville seeems to be taking the lead in reducing the I-word from a notion that was maybe not so nice, but clear and definite, to mist and mush and "Crossing the Boston Common, Olive and Verena invested a total of $2.75 (€2.08) with three different stakehandlers."


[**] Reference is to the former

Allston (Mass.) Academy of Chirurgy and Barber Science

Saturday morning is HTML practice time

at the Mac- & O’ Corral

E-comrades of the Seventeenth (?)
International who mean
  Deliberately to do
  A funny, ¿Why can’t you

Ever just leave out your verbiage
To check out if what's left deserve
   The honoured name of Joke?
   The graphic pigless poke,

Such as was obtruded here above,
Though crafted craftily to provoke
   The risibility
   Of Inc. or L.L.C.,

Leaves us organic lesser breeds
With icky and unseemly needs.
 Unmoved.  We’d really dig
 Less poking and more Pig.

ADDENDUMB, tentatively intitulated "¡Look, MA, no words!

(( ... crickets ... [*] ))

Happy gaze.
--JHM


___
[*]









(( http://j.mp/xSa0CO ))

"New England moderate cover"--Regional Impact of "Fratboy v. Pill"

Before she suddenly swerved into Calvinism, the Rev. Dr. Cuteless observed sagely that "One good theory is that it [_sc._, the marketin’ of S. Philip Fratboy as

Fearless Champion of Private Judgment] will bring in national donations. He’s hoping to blunt (sorry) the impact on independents by telling a simple story about conscience exemptions being perfectly reasonable for everyone."

That sounds pretty plausible to Paddy [1], but at the same time amateur backoods political analysis need not leap directly from our own little parish to the _Heimatland G*ttes_ as a whole. There is also an intermediate level, a certain New Iceland or Down-East-of-Worcester angle to this fuss that includes a point one feels a little embarrassed not to have thought of independently:

And now, behold what the overreach has wrought. First, it helped lead to the likely loss of a GOP Senate seat. Olympia Snowe told the _New York Times_ that a final straw leading to her decision to retire was the Blunt-Rubio amendment—which would do exactly what the Church demands, prohibiting pretty much any health coverage mandates for any employer who registered an objection on conscience grounds. Snowe was under huge pressure to support it, partly to give New England-moderate cover to Scott Brown, who has come out for the amendment and is already under withering attack for that from Elizabeth Warren.

That is from Comrade A. X. MacGillis [2] over to The New Republicanine. As he mentions, the New York Times Company caused a hired hand to write, 29 February 2012,

The looming Senate vote on a Republican plan to give employers the right to withdraw health care coverage based on religious and moral convictions put Senator Olympia J. Snowe in a tough but familiar position: weighing her own views as a Republican centrist against pressure from fellow Republicans to support the party position.

A longtime advocate of increasing access to health care and one of a dwindling number of Republican backers of abortion rights, Ms. Snowe believed that the language was too broad and could have unintended consequences. At the same time, an embattled Republican colleague, Senator Scott P. Brown of Massachusetts, had publicly backed it, and a “no” vote from Ms. Snowe, of Maine, could isolate him as he sought to fend off anger in his heavily Democratic state.

(( ... Hmmm. So, ¿Where’s the "huge pressure"? ... ))

Mike Castle, a former moderate Republican House member from Delaware and a friend of Ms. Snowe and her husband, expressed a similar view. “All of a sudden we’re talking about abortion. We’re talking about contraception. We’re talking about social issues that were not that big a deal,” said Mr. Castle, who lost his 2010 Senate bid to a Tea Party insurgency during the primary.

“Senator Snowe wants to focus on bringing down the deficit and getting the economy on track, and that’s where the priorities should be,” said Gov. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, another moderate who served with Ms. Snowe in the Senate before leaving the Republican Party. (( &c. &c. ))

A bit of a disappointment, hugepressurewise, for one hoping to hear an improbable, but fun, account of the Freiherr von McConnell pullin’ out his Glock to try to get the little lady back in line.

Be that as it may, Paddy gets the impression that America’s Otherparty may indeed look forwards "to the likely loss of a GOP Senate seat" in ME. Plus another in MA, assuming the H*rv*rds and the Eleventh International types can manage not to

But no, let’s save that vain tirade for later on, ¿shall we?

Happy days.
--JHM

____
[1] Mais que sçay-je?

(( Paddy is suffering from "troll envy" after notiicing how Dr. Cuteless was nominated for, perhaps actually proclaimed as, winner of the Most-Absurd-Comment-Ever Sweepstakes: "This competition was very inadequately announced in advance," he pouted. "Why, ¡even the MBTA flak-catching sessions have been better publicized!" ))

___
[2] Just the sound of such a surname is lovely in the ear, of course, but Paddy wishes he were a little more sure who the bearer is, exactly. ’Tis but a guess, really, that

MacGillis, Alec

Alec MacGillis is a writer for the Baltimore Sun. His poetry has appeared in the _Berkshire Review_. He is a native of Pittsfield, Massachusetts and a 1996 graduate of Yale. (2004)

is pertinent. Paddy certainly hopes that’s a ¡bingo!, for Mass. Exceptionalist trivia is the new hobbyhorse out here at Shanty Hills.