A Better Showing
Before I was caught doing Billy Joel’s “Scenes From An Italian Restaurant,” and it wasn’t pretty. In fact, I am not even going to link to it.
But in the below it sounds much better. Even here, though, I swear the iPhone (or whatever) is not doing it justice. I had people who weren’t even in our group coming up and saying I did a good job. Now (a) maybe everyone in the bar had beer headphones on, and (b) maybe I did sound really good, but only because it was relative to the standard karaoke person. But now in the calm of my office, maybe I can hear myself with fresh ears and so I’m comparing myself to Jimmy Buffet.
Anyway, here ya go. It’s a shame that Jason Osborne, fellow Hillsdale grad and no fan of Big Government, didn’t get into this clip. He did the best “Sweet Caroline” I have ever heard at a karaoke bar.
Commodity Traders Understand Economics 101
Gold jumped up about $50/oz. because of the Fed’s announcement to buy $300 billion in long-term U.S. government debt.
I’m glad to see the gold traders get it. We are dangerously close to the situation where the Fed creates money out of thin air and then “loans” it directly to the Treasury to finance the $2 trillion deficit. But don’t worry, kids, Bernanke’s on the job.
Great Depression II
OK I am comfortable now predicting that this will be the Great Depression II. I am not claiming that the standard stats will rival those of the 1930s. But folks, this is insane. This is not, “Oh we gotta just wait for the market to find its bottom. And yeah, there might be a few years of high inflation while we slog through this.”
Tom Pyle vs. Carbon Tax
Tom Pyle, president of IER (and note: my boss there), has a good op ed on NRO today. I liked it because he acknowledged the pros of a carbon tax (versus cap-and-trade), but still says:
Economists rarely agree on the past, and never on the future. But in the present debate over carbon taxes, a strange consensus is starting to form around the idea that a national tax on carbon is better than installing an economy-wide cap on it.
Maybe so. But being “better” than cap-and-trade doesn’t make a carbon tax a worthwhile public investment. Black bears are less dangerous than grizzly bears; neither should be let loose in the subway. Just as we shouldn’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good, we shouldn’t let the horrendous serve as a justification for the horrible.
Ron Paul vs. Borat
Well not really, but it sounds the same (HT2LRC). What’s funny is that if this had come out during the primaries, I think a lot more Republicans would’ve voted for Paul. I’m not saying that with pride, but I think a lot of older Republicans would say, “Heh this guy is old school” to hear Paul’s judgmental but yet quaint use of “queer” instead of a much harsher term that a younger person would have used if searching for a pejorative statement.*
* And yes it occurs to me that I sound just like the people defending Bill Clinton for not using the n-word when he thought his mic was off and he ripped into Jesse Jackson. I am aware of my weakness for Ron Paul.
Chuck Grassley Apparently Doesn’t Take Columbine Seriously
I don’t know all that much about him, so maybe usually he’s a really cool guy. But I find it very disturbing that Senator Chuck Grassley would hop on the anti-Wall Street bandwagon by recommending that AIG execs either resign or commit suicide. Yeah yeah, I know, he’s “just kidding.” But he doesn’t say he’s kidding, at least not in the CNBC story.
I’m Huge
Incidentally, the grunting is mostly for show. My manager told me I would get more sponsors that way.
Why Does God Let Bad Things Happen?, Part 17
I think I’ve hit another aspect of it. (Note that I’m not sure if any of the mysteries of God can ever be fully explained while you still have a human body. Rather, I think what happens is that they gradually make more and more sense to you if you continue meditating on them. But you very rarely can say, “Aha! I figured it out guys!”)
Part of why God is so funny/bold/shocking is that He is omnipotent and yet chose to entrust the propagation of His will to a bunch of humans, and in particular humans who overwhelmingly were poor, uneducated, and social rejects. Moreover, rather than arming His servants with a supergun or magical shielding, instead He gives them a bunch of ideas written down into a book that tells stories.
Just think about that. Let it sink in. God is not refraining from intervention out of stupidity or malice or indifference, He’s doing it out of braggadocio. We tremble and say, “But Satan isn’t afraid to lie and hurt little babies!!! Do something!!”
And the LORD says,
I AM doing something. I exist, and that is enough. But I also directly told some of you the Truth. Trust me, I designed the world–the ‘real world’ as you like to call it in your cute and redundant way–so that Truth and Love are stronger than lies and hate. Just watch. And in the meantime, since you have no idea what is going on, do what I tell you, OK? I love you.
—Daddy
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