Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
I sent my fifty predictions for 2010 off to Cassy Fiano on New Year’s Eve Day, as she requested. It would appear the last of those, #50,
California to become our first bankrupt state. To be followed by New York.
…may end up the first one to come true. If we are to go by the word of this Review & Outlook column in the Wall Street Journal.
Remember how $200 billion in federal stimulus cash was supposed to save the states from fiscal calamity? Well, hold on to your paychecks, because a big story of 2010 will be how all that free money has set the states up for an even bigger mess this year and into the future.
The combined deficits of the states for 2010 and 2011 could hit $260 billion, according to a survey by the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Ten states have a deficit, relative to the size of their expenditures, as bleak as that of near-bankrupt California. The Golden State starts the year another $6 billion in arrears despite a large income and sales tax hike last year. New York is literally down to its last dollar. Revenues are down, to be sure, but in several ways the stimulus has also made things worse.
This is so much bigger than Barack Obama. It is the peril of investing authority in those who are most fun to watch.
See, for the fun-to-watch to be actually electable, they have to have some idea about what they’re going to do when they got in. Even Obama had a little tiny bit of this going on during the campaign. Just enough. And their ideas have to be fun too.
What makes an idea fun? Well, it has to be theoretical. Which means it has to be untested. “Put water on that burning house” is not sufficiently theoretical because it is not sufficiently untested. Therefore it isn’t fun.
And, sadly, it has to have some irony involved too. It has to have an element of “you wouldn’t think this would work, but…” In this case, the irony is that we can get ourselves out of a fiscally unsound situation by spending lots of money on bullshit. You wouldn’t think that would work, but… And that’s the plan.
Well, more than half the time the initial impressions are correct. Bailing water into a sinking canoe is not an effective way to keep it from sinking…spraying gasoline instead of water on a house fire is not a good way to stop the fire…spending lavish sums of money on nonsense is not a good way to cure a financial headache.
The irony doesn’t serve us well. But it is fun, so we keep doing it. And we’ll do it some more, until Prediction #50 is fulfilled.
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