Far East Cynic

It only seems that Americans and Australians or British speak the same language. In reality-the usages of common phrases in every day speech are often radically different. In a recent article the BBC took a look at the creeping “Americanization” of the Queen’s English:

The Americans imported English wholesale, forged it to meet their own needs, then exported their own words back across the Atlantic to be incorporated in the way we speak over here. Those seemingly innocuous words caused fury at the time.

The poet Coleridge denounced “talented” as a barbarous word in 1832, though a few years later it was being used by William Gladstone. A letter-writer to the Times, in 1857, described “reliable” as vile.

My grandfather came to London on the outbreak of World War I and never lost his mid-European accent. His descendants have blended into the landscape. That’s what happens with immigration. It’s the same with vocabulary migration.

The French have always hated this process with a very Gallic passion, and their most august body L’Academie Francaise issues regular rulings on the avoidance of imported words. English isn’t like that. It is a far more flexible language. Anarchic even.

The article lists the 50 worst offenders. A couple that I heartily agree with:

33. I hate the word “deliverable“. Used by management consultants for something that they will “deliver” instead of a report. Joseph Wall, Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire

“I could care less” instead of “I couldn’t care less” has to be the worst. Opposite meaning of what they’re trying to say. Jonathan, Birmingham

7. “It is what it is“. Pity us. Michael Knapp, Chicago, US

16. “I’m good” for “I’m well”. That’ll do for a start. Mike, Bridgend, Wales

It is what it is. What Britishisms do you hate?

Jeffery Goldberg makes some great observations about how lousy Americans are about trying to blend in while traveling, all lectures to do so to the contrary:

Ronald Reagan was a lot smarter than most of the current GOP Congressmen.

The single most important question facing us tonight is: Do we reduce deficits and interest rates by raising revenue from those who are not now paying their fair share—or do we accept bigger budget deficits, higher interest rates and higher unemployment…  We’re within sight of a safe port of economic recovery. Do we make port or go aground on the shoals of selfishness, partisanship and just plain bullheadedness?  (Televised speech, August 16, 1982.)

If you listen to Allen West,  well, you would know what side he falls on. That of the selfish children.

I am finally done with my Six Sigma Course. Thanks be to God!

Word to the wise-if you decided to pursue a Black Belt course-be sure to allocate a decent amount of time and do not let your self get behind. No Lie!

But now it is done. Beer was on the menu tonight. Whoo Hoo!

It seems the spoiled children just can’t get enough attention. 

A group of House GOP freshmen will appear at the White House tomorrow morning with a letter demanding the president present a written plan detailing his ideas for deficit reduction. 

 

 

  

 

 Sadly-my own douchebag of a Congressman, the not so honorable, Mo Brooks will be among them. I’ve already written to him three times instructing him to vote for a debt ceiling raise-it seems a letter is again in order. 

Bruce Bartlett goes in some detail to explain why a Balanced Budget Amendment-and the GOP’s whacked out plan to cry, cut, and fuck over is sheer political fraud. 

Historically, those supporting a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution were only interested in balance per se. That is, requiring that revenues and expenditures be as close to equal as possible. The view was that if the states – almost all of which are required to balance their budgets annually – could do it then so could the federal government.   One problem is that the states don’t really balance their budgets. All have separate operating and capital budgets and only the operating budget is required to be balanced. By contrast, the federal budget lumps together operating and capital expenses, such as roads and buildings that will last for decades. Moreover, the states are notorious for using gimmicks to give the appearance of budget balance even though they run deficits. 

Bartlett explains at length why the amendment is flawed if not down right dangerous: 

Needless to say, the problem of enforcement is even greater than with the simple sort of balanced budget amendment that was previously under discussion. Yet Republicans held exactly one day of hearings on their proposed amendment and routinely assert that further discussion is unnecessary because the idea of a balanced budget amendment has been kicking around for decades. But no previous amendment has ever contemplated limiting spending to a certain percentage of economic output–and no state or foreign country has ever attempted such a thing. 

If Republicans were really serious about putting a balanced budget amendment into the Constitution they would not have written an entirely new one that is radically and conceptually different from those debated in the past, with new language that constitutional scholars have not even begun to analyze. Republicans would have held weeks of hearings with such experts and planned many more weeks of floor debate. GOP think tanks would have been urged to hold conferences and publish studies of the proposed amendment. 

None of this was done, of course, leaving the inescapable conclusion that this is nothing but a political ploy designed solely to appeal to the GOP’s Tea Party wing. The time wasted debating a balanced budget amendment would be better spent taking care of the House’s long list of unfinished business, such as passing appropriations bills. 

But that is the spirit of today’s Teabillie. Lacking the basic understanding of the issue, which is usually boiled down to some simplisitc buzz words like “Cut Cap and Balance”-the details remain unimportant to them. 

The founding fathers never intended for it to be this way-because they presumed that one group would never be all insane at once. They also presumed that the need to compromise was well understood by all the players.  Our Tri Corner hat wearing brethern are proving that idea wrong every day. 

We are well and truly screwed.

Foxification-(adj) the process through which formerly respected news outlets are transformed into mediocre propaganda machines for Rupert Murdoch and his gang of  cronies.

Joe Nocera has a great dissection of how deep the reach of the evil Australian goes into the American news business. Fox News of course, has long been off the deep end-pretty much since it was stood up. But the Wall Street Journal was for decades a paper given to deep investigation, good research and reporting- and thoughtful inquiry-even if its editoral policies were slightly conservative. It was a good counter part to other major newspapers and was the paper of choice for insight into business matters.

As most of us suspected-that is no longer the case:

Along with the transformation of a great paper into a mediocre one came a change that was both more subtle and more insidious. The political articles grew more and more slanted toward the Republican party line. The Journal sometimes took to using the word “Democrat” as an adjective instead of a noun, a usage favored by the right wing. In her book, “War at The Wall Street Journal,” Sarah Ellison recounts how editors inserted the phrase “assault on business” in an article about corporate taxes under President Obama. The Journal was turned into a propaganda vehicle for its owner’s conservative views. That’s half the definition of Fox-ification.

The other half is that Murdoch’s media outlets must shill for his business interests. With the News of the World scandal, The Journal has now shown itself willing to do that, too.

As a business story, the News of the World scandal isn’t just about phone hacking and police bribery. It is about Murdoch’s media empire, the News Corporation, being at risk — along with his family’s once unshakable hold on it. The old Wall Street Journal would have been leading the pack in pursuit of that story.

Now? At first, The Journal ignored the scandal, even though, as the Murdoch biographer Michael Wolff pointed out in Adweek, it was front-page news all across Britain. Then, when the scandal was no longer avoidable, The Journal did just enough to avoid being accused of looking the other way. Blogging for Columbia Journalism Review, Dean Starkman, the media critic, described The Journal’s coverage as “obviously hamstrung, and far, far below the paper’s true capacity.”

Filthy Lucre. A newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier.-H. L. Mencken

The Nobel Prize winner every conservative loves to hate ( I mean besides the President of the United States) asks the question that should be on every reasonable person’s mind:

A number of commentators seem shocked at how unreasonable Republicans are being. “Has the G.O.P. gone insane?” they ask.

Why, yes, it has. But this isn’t something that just happened, it’s the culmination of a process that has been going on for decades. Anyone surprised by the extremism and irresponsibility now on display either hasn’t been paying attention, or has been deliberately turning a blind eye.

And may I say to those suddenly agonizing over the mental health of one of our two major parties: People like you bear some responsibility for that party’s current state.

Next time you are at a cook out with one of your tri-corner hat wearing friends-remind them of this:

President Obama has made it clear that he’s willing to sign on to a deficit-reduction deal that consists overwhelmingly of spending cuts, and includes draconian cuts in key social programs, up to and including a rise in the age of Medicare eligibility. These are extraordinary concessions. As The Times’s Nate Silver points out, the president has offered deals that are far to the right of what the average American voter prefers — in fact, if anything, they’re a bit to the right of what the average Republican voter prefers!

Yet Republicans are saying no. Indeed, they’re threatening to force a U.S. default, and create an economic crisis, unless they get a completely one-sided deal. And this was entirely predictable.

First of all, the modern G.O.P. fundamentally does not accept the legitimacy of a Democratic presidency — any Democratic presidency. We saw that under Bill Clinton, and we saw it again as soon as Mr. Obama took office.

As a result, Republicans are automatically against anything the president wants, even if they have supported similar proposals in the past. Mitt Romney’s health care plan became a tyrannical assault on American freedom when put in place by that man in the White House. And the same logic applies to the proposed debt deals.

Put it this way: If a Republican president had managed to extract the kind of concessions on Medicare and Social Security that Mr. Obama is offering, it would have been considered a conservative triumph. But when those concessions come attached to minor increases in revenue, and more important, when they come from a Democratic president, the proposals become unacceptable plans to tax the life out of the U.S. economy.

Beyond that, voodoo economics has taken over the G.O.P.

With each passing day this standoff drags on-I become more convinced that what the GOP wants is a re-run of 2008. Only this time Obama will be Bush and they beleive they will be seen as the white knight riding in to save the day.

And sadly-as Kthug points out, no one has called them on it. Not one die hard GOP supporter will acknowledge the ultimate truth:

So there has been no pressure on the G.O.P. to show any kind of responsibility, or even rationality — and sure enough, it has gone off the deep end. If you’re surprised, that means that you were part of the problem.

Go back to the previous two posts and you will see what he is talking about.

This post is for Phib’s chattering class.

One of the most bracing things about going to a blog where hard core wingnuttery prevails-is having to defend common sense. It’s hard-because unlike what they would have you believe-facts are not relevant, and they are more than willing to attack you personally.

Yet like Lex-they defend the high quality of their discussion.

But the facts, indeed, seem to have a liberal bias-at least when it comes to the debt ceiling negotiations.

And now they’ve lost Fox News host Bill O’Reilly. In his “Talking Points” monologue last night, the prominent conservative said “Republicans need to accept the need to raise more revenue,” suggesting a 1 percent national sales tax to help deal with the deficit.

Admit it Bill-I’ve been right all along.

Or witness this from Lindsey Graham-another member of a dying breed in the GOP:

“Our problem is we made a big deal about this for three months. How many Republicans have been on TV saying, ‘I’m not going to raise the debt limit.’ You know, Mitch [McConnell] says, ‘I’m not going to raise the debt limit unless we talk about Medicare.’ And I’ve said I’m not going to raise the debt limit until we do something about spending and entitlements.’ So we’ve got nobody to blame but ourselves,” Graham told reporters after a GOP caucus lunch.

“We shouldn’t have said that if we didn’t mean it.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now admittedly , to the truly retarded  devoted, Graham is not considered a “real Republican”-in spite of a lifetime of service to the Republican party. Because the generation leading the country down the path to econonmic failure does not really care about the debt, the budget, or anything else, but reinforcing their own selfishness and imposing it on others.

There is a reason that “true believers rail on and on” about socialism, and “taking money from others” and government confiscation-and I hit on it in the last post. They don’t think anything bad is going to happen to them. They believe their jobs are secure, they fancy themselves as more savvy investors than the rest of us, and they beleive that God sanctions their lack of charity towards their fellow human beings. No one, AND I DO MEAN NOONE, has real problems-there is always blame to lay somewhere else.

They even cite Jesus-”The poor will be always with us”.

Of course, that, like mosr biblical points is always taken out of context-especially since even Jesus acknowledged that the poor may always be here, it was our obligation to help them-and do the best we could to reduce their suffering. Even if it didn’t always succeed 100%. And even Jesus had a “war on poverty” spelled out in The Revelation. Speaking of charity, that whole idea of paying a bill on sins He hadn’t earned strikes me as pretty damn socialist, if you ask me.

And unlike most insurance companies-Jesus did not charge for his healings. But hey, why let the context get in the way of wrapping evil up in a Christian dressing?

But I’m the class warrior.

They cannot admit the truth-this fight is not about Obama. You want to have a fight about the federal budget? Do it when you pass the federal budget-but for God’s sake don’t screw over millions of people just to appease a bunch of   people schooled in ignorance:

What happens when you take the certainty of an ideologue, mix in an unhealthy dose of economic illiteracy, shameless demagoguery, and bring the combustible mix to a boil on the national stage? Quite possibly national default and a new recession.

The nature of this mix—and the corner into which GOP leaders have painted themselves—is neatly illustrated in the latest poll numbers from The Washington Post and the Pew Research Center.

As the Post’s Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake note today:

The data suggests that those who identify as Republicans who are supportive of the tea party not only view themselves as far more educated than the average person on the current debt debate, but are also far more worried about the impact if the debt limit is increased.

More than eight in 10 tea party supporters (81 percent) said they understand “what would happen if the government does not raise the federal debt limit” — far more than the 55 percent of all respondents who said the same thing.

Three quarters of tea party supporters said that they were more concerned that raising the debt ceiling would “lead to higher government spending and make the national debt bigger,” while just 19 percent said they were more worried that “not raising the debt limit would force the government into default and hurt the nation’s economy.”

…

The message from the numbers? Tea party backers simply don’t believe that not raising the debt limit by Aug. 2 is all that big a deal — and they feel that way because they believe they understand the issue inside and out.

…

If a significant chunk of his House members don’t fear the consequences of a default, it’s very difficult for Boehner to make the case for the fierce urgency of now in the debt debate.

While the overwhelming number of economists—and even prominent non-economists like John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, who have both stated that not raising the debt ceiling is unthinkable—say that failure to raise the debt ceiling could have a host of nasty consequences for the economy, like a global financial crisis, downgrading of the U.S. credit rating, and a second recession … the Tea Party crowd has anointed itself a group of experts who know better.

 

So then, as the economy fails they will simply cheer-because hating Obama is more important than anything else. Otherwise they would have passed the raise and concentrated on defeating Obama in 2012-and with not allowing them to be blamed for a 3000 point drop in the DOW. ( My personal prediction for how much it will drop in two weeks after default.

This is what I was talking about in the previous post. The will not to believe. You don’t like Obama-then fine-put him out of office through the Constitutional process.

But don’t hate your fellow citizens.

And URR-you of all people should know this.

Sorry, its been a while since posting. Its hard to type when you are curled up in the fetal position. Today was  the first day I felt semi-normal in four days. I’v either been working, working on my course, or trying to sleep. I still have not been able to get a decent nights sleep which probably contributed to my overall state of bad feeling.

One of the the things I have been doing though is watching the whole debt ceiling debate-and following the more inane commentary from people who ought to know better. Plenty of people out there with so called “facts” the problem is most of them are simply incorrect. Specifically:

1) The effect of the Bush Tax cuts on our deficit were minimal

2) Tax cuts grow the economy

3) Entitlement spending is killing us.

I have come to the conclusion that for many of these folks they are motivated by three things: 1) They think they are secure in their jobs so the effects of a default will not be noticed on them. 2) Which leads to why they think taxes are so bad-even without truly understanding that they themselves did not benefit so much from the Bush Taxes, unless they are making a lot more money than I think they are and 3) they hate Obama so much-that they don’t care if the country gets dragged through the financial mud, so long as he gets the blame for it.

The last bit is particularly troubling because for the most part-they tend to be underestimating the havoc a government default will cause on the markets and on their own lives. Many of these people making those types of comments truly think “it can’t happen to them”.

I have a news flash for them-it can and it will. Remember that when you get no retirment check on the 1st of September.

These people have been so inculcated by the noise of our talk radio based society-and the in general poor economic education the average American gets-that cannot comprhend what the facts truly are. And when you do point the facts out, they simply look at you like you are deluded.

Its all Obama faults-can’t you see that?

It does not matter whose fault it is sweetheart-it matters now about getting a vote to pass the debt ceiling raise.

My favorite metaphor for the stimulus, like many things, comes from sports. In baseball, the Recovery Act would be a seven-run seventh inning for a team losing by ten runs. It was a big inning, but not enough to pull ahead. The housing crisis was the ten-run deficit. Not only did it freeze the real estate industry, but also it stunned businesses and families who had spent the former decade powering the economy with debt and credit. Today we’re dealing with the big freeze.

Like the metaphor? Hate the metaphor? It doesn’t matter. In politics, where perception is reality, the perceived failure of the stimulus is indistinguishable from actual failure. Even before the 2010 election turned the House deep red, the case for more spending had been poisoned not only on the right, but among moderates of the Democratic Party, and across the country, as polls indicated. In an off-the-record Treasury event for reporters, one top official conceded to me that the economy was horrible but “nothing was possible,” because the case for more spending had been killed by the slow recovery.

The spending side argument has disappeared, replaced with a very McCain-ish sounding plea for government to live “within its means” today, even with unemployment stuck at 9 percent. The only acceptable stimulus left comes from taxes. For better or worse, we are witnessing a profound Republicanization of Washington economic policy.

Which brings us back to the debt ceiling vote. The deficit is a problem but it is not the problem. Unemployment and lack of revenue are.

And the chattering class of GOP supporters simply refuse to believe that-even though the facts proving it are plain in front of them.

Watching Bloomberg today has been a bit eye opening. First of all they are talking about the immediate sell-off that occurred when the jobs numbers are announced. Then they had a rash of politicans on, including Michelle Bachmann on telling me how this proves that  Obama’s approach to the economy failed. Ok-andwhat exactly would you and your fellow rattle-brain dead idiots do differently. Oh yea: No stimulus, no saving of American auto jobs, just let every thing and everyone,  but the filithiest of the filthy rich,  fail. Bread lines and 21% unemployment? Hey not Bachmann’s problem-just so long as women reduced to resorting to prostitution to feed themselves don’t have abortions.

I’m of the school of thought that Obama is a poor negotiator-and in the long run that is what has hurt him in his Presidency. I’m not the only one who believes that, a lot of both liberals and that dying breed of Republican agree with me.

As Marc Ambinder of the National Journal suggested at the time, the president could have included an increase in the debt ceiling in the December deal to extend the Bush tax cuts. The Republicans dearly wanted that extension. Obama did not use leverage when he had it — and so he became a victim of leverage when he lacked it.

Then, as Republicans discovered the power of their new tool, the president decided to assume they were bluffing, that they would never actually do anything so reckless. Waking up to the reality of the situation too late, he commenced bargaining by offering what he assumed would be an irresistible deal. Wrong again. The Republicans did resist. So Obama offered an even better deal — which predictably only whetted the GOP appetite for still more.

And then to aggravate the situation, Obama has done nothing about using the “bully pulpit” of the White House to educate the American people about the disaster that will ensue if the Republic defaults. It has allowed idiots like Bachmann and others allied with the douchebags Teabaggers to be able to go on TV and say with a straight face that a national default will actually “create jobs in this country”. (Go find it on Bloomberg if you don’t believe me). Nothing could be further from the truth. When the US defaults-and I am more convinced that it will any day- or even worse we will be stuck with draconian and stupid cuts in everything related to helping real people while still spending money on stupid wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Worse yet-and has direct impact for me personally, I could be stuck in a situation where the government does not pay my retirement and I lose my job because of a stupid three star’s decision to engage in a contracting strategy that is union busting without the unions. ( It is the same principle-cut contract costs and reward companies that fuck over their employees). In that case-I can guarantee you I will be out in the streets burning cars in front of Congressmen’s houses.

Make sure you understand what a default means-the government will still pay wealthy Chinese and other businessmen, while it doesn’t pay for Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, road repair or anything else. Knowing the GOP it will still pay for the wars-but little else. Only in the topsy turvy world of the <strike>douchebags</strike> Tea Party does that make sense .

Which gets to my main point-people like me have no one who speaks for my interests. Lets say for argument’s sake, that Obama was the wrong choice in 2008-what other choice did I have? Not vote and give consent to someone committed to maintain wars I personally and professionally find reprehensible-and as an extra added bonus would have placed a WORTHLESS WHORE a heart beat away from the White House. That’s no choice at all.

And now in the country you have a whole generation of people who are fundamentally ignorant. This reflects my own recent experience with “real Murkins.” They may not be bad people, but they are very much deluded. If I point out verifiable facts about the GOP, they look at you like you are from Mars, and politely tell You, that you are the one who’s deluded. (Thanks to Libby for the quote and for sizing up well how I feel). “ Real Murkins suck.”

The Republican Party is dependent, to an extent unprecedented in recent political history, on a single ideological group. That group, of course, is conservatives. It isn’t a bad thing to be in favor with conservatives: by some definitions they make up about 40 percent of voters. But the terms ‘Republican’ and ‘conservative’ are growing closer and closer to being synonyms; fewer and fewer nonconservatives vote Republican, and fewer and fewer Republican voters are not conservative. …  

The 2010 election was the first since exit polls began in 1976 in which a plurality of the voters said they were conservatives rather than moderates.

Quite simply-right now I am not sure Obama is up to this fight or the one that will happen next year. And the stakes will be huge because if douchebag central wins-and they begin imposing their completly corrupt and evil vision of government on the rest of us, Katy bar the door.  And make no mistake about it-I’m right on the Tea Party vision being fundamentally SELFISH AND EVIL. I don’t care anymore if you disgaree with about that-I know I am right on this. Government’s are supposed to advance human society,  not throw it to the wolves.

So I  will be left with no one to vote for. I will get to be an abject bystander on  the real road to ruin-because our Galtian overlords would rather burn down the house then get anything done.

Amazing what 10+hours of sleep will do for you. I woke up today feeling better-but still went to the Dr today. I was actually going with trepidation-especially if they decided to do some test. But he didn’t do any of that-talked a long time with me about my medical history, then did comprehnisve check of me and my body. He basically came to the conclusion that I must have gotten some sort of cold and the pain I experienced was due to my muscles hurting.

So went back to work-then back to my hotel. I think I’m still going to take it easy for a while-no booming for a while.

Here in Europe, the news has been full of how evil the spawn of Rupert Murdoch is:

Sorry for the lack of posting. For the last four days-if I haven’t been at work-dragging my ass around for eight hours-I’ve been in bed or forcing myself to eat. Finally ran up the white flag and found a doctor through my contacts at the Embassy. Appointment is tomorrow. It’ s is not that I feel that bad-its that I don’t feel right. Work generally goes OK-but when I get back to the room, the rack monster grabs me an holds me for dear life. And I am coughing like I did when I got pneumonia ten years ago. And it hurts when I do cough.  Since I did not enjoy that experience-I am trying not repeat it.

I don’t even feel like drinking-so I must be sick.

Greetings from sunny Bucharest! The city seems to have changed very little in a year.

Got in late due to Lufthansa leaving Frankfurt late. By the time I got to the hotel I was exhausted. Slept for a while-then realized I needed to eat. So back across the street to the same little pub I haunted last year. Food is the same-waitresses are not.

Slept a long time this morning not moving till around 11 AM. Jet lag seems to hit me worse the older I get.

Pictures to follow-once I get done with these damn XMR charts for my damn course. Six Sigma may have its place-but I sure don’t like it.