Supermoon

In NYC, the EYM took us to visit "Supermoon."  It's....well, it's this.

After we ordered (the pastries were, I grudgingly admit, fantastic, really something special) and while we were waiting for our order. There was a commotion.

A 40 year old woman and an extremely overdressed and overly made-up young woman (looked 15, could have been 22) came in and started demanding to speak to the manager. They wanted "...a box, for photographs. She's a blogger!" pointing to the younger woman.  I had never heard "S/he's a blogger!" used as an argument for "give me free stuff!" before, so I felt I was missing out.

They kept loudly demanding a free box of pastries and the chance to do some photos, because (and I'm totally serious) "She's a blogger!" This was said at least ten times, in an increasingly loud voice.

Eventually the manager came out, made the crazed women give back all the display items they had decided to just steal, and gave them a box with some pastries. The older woman took a bunch of photos of the young woman pretending to take bites, affecting surprise and / or delight, and so on. Then they finally left, after throwing away all the untouched pastries and the box they came in.

I got the EYM to take my picture, in front of the Supermoon boxes. And, I want the whole world to know:  "I'm a blogger! Give me free stuff!"

DSK part Deux

DSK offers a defense of his latest...um... adventure.

A lawyer for Mr. Strauss-Kahn appeared to confirm that he had attended the events [orgies], saying that his client would not have been aware if the women who entertained him were prostitutes.

“He could easily not have known, because as you can imagine, at these kinds of parties you’re not always dressed, and I challenge you to distinguish a naked prostitute from any other naked woman,” the lawyer, Henri Leclerc, told a French radio station, Europe 1, in December.

Research! DSK was doing research! "Hmmm....prostitute? Non, no cigarette stains on her fingers. It must be a woman who is so overcome by my beautiful pasty white 70 year old body that she just wants me! She didn't need to be paid!"

I have a dispositive test, to answer the lawyer's challenge: any woman under 60 who willingly gets naked and gets in the same room with a naked DSK, MIGHT JUST be a prostitute. 'Cause ain't no woman gonna do that for free.

Question: why is that socialists are so convinced that they deserve such special treatment? Rich capitalists expect special treatment, but they pay for it. DSK wants other people to pay some poor woman to touch his winkie, and then he denies that she was paid, because he is so attractive that women WANT to touch his winkie, out of admiration.

It's not the bombs, but where they're hidden

Apparently Hamid Karzai doesn't have any problems with suicide bombers, he just wants them to not hide the bombs in their turbans:

"Afghan President Hamid Karzai met recently with members of the country’s clerical councils to get their assistance in persuading insurgents not to hide explosives in suicide bombers' turbans or in other religious or cultural symbols.

In the last five weeks, suicide bombers have killed the mayor of Kandahar and a senior cleric in the city with small amounts of explosives hidden in their turbans. In both cases, the bombers grabbed their victims before triggering the explosives.

It is believed to be the first time turbans have been used in suicide attacks.

A man’s turban has important religious and cultural significance and it is considered dishonourable to touch it.

Karzai met with clerics this week and pleaded with them to use their influence on the Taliban and other insurgents to dissuade them from using cultural or religious garments to hide explosives."

I certainly hope the president succeeds in this noble quest to get the bombers to go back to strapping explosives to their chests or putting them on women or in camel humps or whatever, and to convince them that they must always, always honor the turban!

Debt ceiling blues

Ok people, we are now, what, like 2 weeks away from Armageddon? Pretty impressive.

I thought I'd offer some thoughts.

First off, there shouldn't be a debt ceiling. Looking at US debt experience in WWI and WWII should be enough to convince one of that. Maybe some kind of conditional ceiling, like 70% of GDP with a suspension for declared wars and a provision to get back to 70% within 5 years of the cessation of hostilities.

Second, I am actually with the Republicans here on the no taxes part of the negotiations. Look, we already have substantial tax increases baked into the next few years. Expiration of the Bush tax cuts and a host of new taxes and fees to finance Obamacare. Absent a Republican sweep in 2012, taxes are already going up a lot in the near future. If anything, I would cut taxes now.

Third, I believe that we need to cut spending soon. I am not a fan of Federal spending being at 25% of GDP and rising, but there are better places to start than social security. How about starting with the ridiculous subsidies we give farmers and big business that distort and cause harm around the world. Stop the Ethanol madness, the sugar subsidies, the cotton subsidies, the "green jobs" subsidies. Then turn to the Pentagon. People, defense is a public good. My consumption of it does not reduce the quantity available for your consumption. Thus, there is no reason for defense spending to rise continually with population/GDP. Get the hell out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Get out of Germany and Japan. WWII ended more that 50 years ago. Oh, and get out of Greece too (yes we have soldiers in Greece!). Cut defense spending by 25% at a minimum. Oh and let's eliminate NASA too while we are at it.

Fourth, I really admire Obama's spin job on the negotiations. First he wants a "clean" raising of the debt ceiling, then he demands that taxes have to rise in order to raise the debt ceiling, and he is getting a lot of buying that it's the Republicans who are recklessly killing the debt ceiling increase

Better than having a shoe thrown at you....

N. Sarkozy gets grabbed by some random idiot.


There is a silly myth, in the U.S. at least, that French troops / police are cowards. The fact is that the French upper level officer corps was corrupt and cowardly, for a few decades of the previous century. But if you try to mess with any enlisted level French troops, or elite police unit, this will be a cause of considerable regret to you. They are fearless and brutal. The grab-man may be in for a difficult hour or so.

Nod to Anonyman

No Sh*t, Sherlock

Hey. Do you know what is the favorite food of people that live in India?

Well it's INDIAN food!

How 'bout Mexico?

You guessed it, MEXICAN!

Now, do you know the moronic NGO that paid $$ to find this out?

Well, it's OXFAM (scroll down to the "top 3 foods by country" table).

Nice job guys, really good use of $$ and really fascinating findings. Don't know what we'd do without you.

Some things never change

Lars Von Trier:

"What can I say? I understand Hitler, but I think he did some wrong things, yes, absolutely. But I can see him sitting in his bunker in the end," von Trier said. "He's not what you would call a good guy, but I understand much about him, and I sympathize with him a little bit. But come on, I'm not for the Second World War, and I'm not against Jews. ...

"I am very much for Jews. No, not too much, because Israel is a pain in the ass."

Von Trier went on to say he also admired Hitler aide Albert Speer.

Lars now says he was "joking".

Photo of the day

Will the meeting of the DSK fan club please come to order?

I guess Paul Krugman shops at the Gap...

....because he doesn't know much about Banana Republic!

Paul says trying to link spending cuts to raising the debt ceiling makes America more likely to be seen as a Banana Republic, because it will show that "crazy extremists" have so much "blocking power" that we can't "get our house in order".

I would venture the view that the opposite is more likely to be true. Unconditionally raising the debt ceiling (again) without changes to path of future spending is likely to re-confirm the view that America is well on the road to becoming the mother of all Banana Republics.

Historically, Banana Republics were not run by "crazy extremists", they were run by corrupt plutocrats who governed in favor of foreign companies that controlled the export of the country's primary product (Wow, is Goldman Sachs the USA's United Fruit??).

In the land of the blind, the one eyed pundit is still a dope

The tax wars are at least entertaining. On the right, pundits often point out that many Americans pay no federal income taxes and even more pay very little.

On the left, pundits counter by saying there are more taxes than federal income taxes. For example, everyone with a job pays federal payroll taxes.

For example, here is Jon Chait, citing and debunking the rights point's about who pays taxes.

Are right leaning pundits deliberately trying to pull a fast one, hoping that people will gloss over the modifiers "federal" and "income" and think the stats apply to total taxes?

Maybe. Couldn't put it past them, though Chait (and his source, Emmy winner Leonhardt) do a poor job making their case.

But who pays federal income taxes is an important issue because we are debating raising them! If everyone votes and the median voter doesn't pay federal income taxes, then there is little direct cost to the majority in voting higher tax rates.

That, I think, is the important public choice issue here, and it makes question of who pays federal income taxes is important in it's own right, irrespective what other taxes exist, given that it's the federal income tax we are proposing changing.

Lies, damn lies, & business journalism

So S&P's attempt to avoid indictment by threatening Uncle Sam's credit rating caused the stock market to fall yesterday. At least that's the near universal narrative of the business press.

There's just one problem; it's horses*%t!

First, stock markets were down in Asia and Europe before the US market opened and before S&P announced.

Second, prices of US government debt, the very thing S&P was attacking, ROSE yesterday as did the Dollar vs. the Euro.

I think it's far more likely that the increased prospects of imminent default in Europe was driving events, than was S&Ps posturing, but the plain fact of the matter is that WE DON'T KNOW what drives short run movements in markets, and the last time I checked, post hoc ergo propter hoc was still an egregious logical fallacy, no matter how often the business press uses it.

And so it begins

A Chicago public elementary school has banned children from bringing lunches from home.

This is not from the Onion, this is real.

Let's hear from the principal:

Principal Elsa Carmona said her intention is to protect students from their own unhealthful food choices.

"Nutrition wise, it is better for the children to eat at the school," Carmona said. "It's about the nutrition and the excellent quality food that they are able to serve (in the lunchroom). It's milk versus a Coke. But with allergies and any medical issue, of course, we would make an exception."

Now let's take a look at an actual lunch from this school:

That, gentle reader, is "an enchilada dish", according to the school.

Yikes!!!

Sweet Home Mississippi?

All hail to the State, with Patriotism so great, that less than 20% of its residents even have passports!

I was very proud to see that roughly 1/3 of my fellow Okies have passports.

Represent!!

Hat tip to LeBron, who grew up in New Jersey, that cesspool of disloyalty!

The Washington Monthly loves its readers

It loves them so so much:

"Strange as it may sound, to get a grip on costs, we should in many cases be hiring many more bureaucrats—and paying more to get better ones—not cutting their numbers and freezing their pay. Because in many parts of government, the bureaucracy has already crossed that dangerous threshold beyond which further cuts can only mean greater risk of a breakdown. Indeed, much of the runaway spending we’ve seen over the past decade is the result of our having crossed that line years ago—the last time there was a Democrat in the White House, a divided government, and calls for slashing the federal workforce in the air."

Yes, people, they really said that "much of the runaway spending" is a result of having too few Federal bureaucrats! Talk about pandering to your audience.

This is just so far out there that no one can really take it seriously right?

Wrong!!!!

Fubarak's new Cabinet: A Photo Essay