Michael Vick

So are we meant to hate this guy or feel sorry for him? I mean, he came from the worst of the worst in terms of housing projects, the ghetto as it exists in Newport News, VA. Probably pretty gritty. He somehow showed enough athletic ability to get noticed and eventually spirited away from there. He went to two years of college, then entered the NFL draft -- probably before he was really ready for it.

Then, just as he entered the pros, his father told a local newspaper (at least non-national) that Michael had a thing for dog-fighting. This particular practice was a crime then as it is now. A felony. But, notwithstanding the publication of this fact, a fact that ALL of his future employers were thereby informed of, he continued to do "his thing." This comprised setting up a stud farm for predators, and woe betide the poor puppy deemed unworthy.

Then his buddies get busted and roll on him. All of a sudden, back to the wall for probably the first time in his life without the protection of the machine, he tried to lie his way out -- but it was a pretty lame try, given that it was his house and his buddies fingered him executing dogs. But, this was NOT news to the Falcons or the NFL. At no point was he ever told to cease and desist, except by his dad. The dog poop hits the fan and all of a sudden, their poster boy, their golden goose is laying poop-eggs. And they are horrified. Liars. Frikking stinkin' liars.

Bad Newz (local speak in Newport News for his home town ghetto) Kennels is a major operator and Vick is up to his eyeballs in gambling. Only this time, the Falcons and NFL can't fix the problem. It is national news and a federal prosecutor is going to take him down. No way are they going to get in the firing line, they cut Vick loose.

Make no mistake, Vick is beyond the pale in his practices and ideas of "fun." But up until this point in his life, he has never been forced to take responsibility for anything that he has ever done. His athletic prowess has always served to protect him from reality -- and before he stepped aboard the gravy train in high school, he was just another ghetto kid and largely beyond the reach of the application of the laws anyway. But once in high school his talents were really appreciated for what they were -- extraordinary. And with that came the American fondness for excusing their athletes almost any transgression. Heck, if we were talking about a little rape here, he'd still be starting the season as the first string quarterback for the Falcons, pending his hearing and eventual trial. Remember Kobe?

Vick has a interesting history of court tussles that have ended in settlement. Why not? This guy was worth boatloads of money to companies interested in endorsements and the NFL circus. But this time his little secret was executing dogs, not only fighting them. Raising dogs to become weapons against other dogs, vicious pitbulls, and America cannot forgive that. So he has been cast to the wolves of the press and public opinion, his endorsement contracts cancelled, the prospect of money gone. He is cast aside by the machine as worthless -- not that a scumbag like this should ever have been worth a damn in the first place. But consistent with a great deal of American sports. Ever see any statistics on felonies and the NFL roster? Or forbid, the NBA?

Structure

What we all need is structure. As the summer holidays draw to a close, many parents are silently waiting for the moment when the kids go back to school. Silently waiting for the imposition of structure in their daily lives again. Whether the parent is working or not, kids out of school get crazy for lack of structure.

OK, you may have read that in the Ladies Home Journal, but the lesson has wider applications.... Those detestable cretins in the West Bank elected Hamas -- and are whining and crying about how cruel the rest of the world is not to honor THEIR choice for leading their lives. Silly school kids also whine when they can't stay up late, watch "R" rated movies, IM their friends, and a host of other things -- their choices. Whining Hamas supporters forget that Hamas has as a central tenet the destruction of Israel and the death of its inhabitants. Sorry, but your choice is not acceptable. I heard some moron from the UN yesterday moaning about the embargo and border restrictions choking Gaza to death (she was a Palestinian-born UN official), but never did she point out the simple fact that the people KNEW that when voting for Hamas that the world would impose these sanctions. We told them so and that their ambitions to kill all the Jews was just not going to get a waiver.

I digress -- Hamas HAS imposed structure on the Gaza Strip. All of a sudden people can go outside again without fear of being caught in Fatah/Hamas cross fire. And in a stroke, their lives are easier and the sanctions not as crushing.

Saddam Hussein imposed ... structure. You do things my way or die. Crude, but effective. What is lacking in Iraq right now is precisely that sort of structure. An American soldier has to be nice and polite and inquire whether Ahmad might or might not be a terrorist. Imagine asking your teenager to comply in the same way. Ahmad tells the soldier to commit self-fornication and walks into the "safe base" of his mosque to work on his IED project. Your teen gives you the finger takes your car keys and goes down to the mall. In both cases structure is lacking. In both cases it will likely lead to unwanted results if not criminality.

Structure is the product of realistic thinking -- thorough thinking. And courage of conviction. We punish our children for violating the boundaries formed by the structure laid out for them. But we ignore the violations by our other charges (however unwilling), the Iraqis. Not good thinking. Not very realistic. Pretty stupid, actually. However, given the complete lack of courage of our political base, hardly surprising. Since the wet hand-wringers from the People's Republic of Cambridge can't get it together to impose our laws within the U.S., it is hardly likely that they will sanction the application of sensible policies abroad. If you have illegal aliens crawling around your own country and U.S. Senators supporting their illegal actions and those of their employers, it is not probable that this character will support U.S. troops from doing their job abroad, even though the lack of support can and does cost soldiers their lives.

Dr. Spock's teachings raised an entire generation (it is this generation that has raised the current crop of idiots trying to enter the workforce assuming that they can arrange a meeting with the company president to discuss policy -- even though they are still an intern) and the Spock generation(s) are responsible for the American failure to impose structure throughout our lives. Chaos. We should take care not to harm our kid's psyche. Uh-huh. We should not impose our structure on those hard-working, wild-eyed Islamic extremists. Can anyone see the similarity here? I'd think that our version of structure would be preferable to Saddam's or the likely form of structure from the victorious Shiite or Sunnis. But, if you are on the winning side -- and each group thinks that they will be, the structure for the losers is not really a worry at all.

Can anyone see how failure to impose our laws and structure at home leads to the same bad decisions in foreign policy? Oh, he's not a heroin addict, he's sick, poor thing, He's not an anti-semite, he just needs re-hab. Poor Li-Lo, she's just a confused proto-adult, a victim of our society's pressures. Poor gang-bangers in the ghetto, they are victims of our failure to educate them. IT IS ALL OUR FAULT.

Whose fault exactly? The people allocating fault here are the self-same people who are telling us that we are bad for trying to impose structure. Creepy sociologists telling us how to lead our lives without the benefit or burden of laws or structure and then blaming us when things inevitably spiral out of control. Their facilitators? The New York Times (news media), academics (remember the Harvard president kicked out for expressing a view?), and the vast unwashed hairies of the Blue State bloc. Peace. Live and let live. Tolerance. Harmony. Try to understand the Islamic radicals -- don't kill them or send them to Gitmo. Idiots: try and understand this -- they want you dead.

Remember when the whole neighborhood watched over each others' kids? Yes, kids got out of line, but not for very long. And when you found a persistent transgressor, the kid was labeled "a bad one." Recognition that some people are just unable to live according to our society's rules -- and maybe they are just evil. Today, we are terrified of even looking at our neighbors' kids, let alone trying to discipline them. A complete lack of structure. And we wonder how our world got so messed up....

School starts again soon ... yipee!!!

Ok, that sounds a bit churlish. I know. But it also means structure, and that is what all of our lives need, even those who are "free spirits" and hippie types. Structure in which to be ourselves. With three children, structure is more than optional, it is necessary.

So where am I going with this? Structure is what EVERYONE needs. Look at the people of Gaza ... while Hamas and Fatah are fighting, the whole place goes down the poop-chute and infrastructure disintegrates. Hamas then more or less wins through force of arms and through the ballot box and ... things start to resemble a functioning society again. Not one that I'd care to travel to or do business with, but functional all the same. I will avoid a rant on how Gazans are out of their minds and the necessity to stomp out Hamas because of their particular views.

Iraq. What is missing: structure. The trouble is, we do not have the POLITICAL will to impose it. You let terrorists hide in Mosques, defy troops -- essentially grant them more rights than our soldiers, then you will let them destroy any chance at the

Chavez for Life!

Here's another thing you leftist morons and apologists can chew on: Hugo Chavez presented his long-awaited plan to "revise" the Venezuelan constitution yesterday. Among other things, he proposed the elimination of term limits. Say what? Oh, yes, my friends and neighbors, coupled with a longer term, any Venezuelan president would be able to run for how ever many terms that he'd like.

Does that sound familiar? When questioned about that, Chavez said that this should come as no surprise in that any number of countries do this. Hmmm. Not any number of democracies. When asked about the concentration of power, Chavez stated that this was nonsense: this was a transfer of power to the people. Power to the people. Yah. And other leftist lies. The people he is thinking of consists largely of his family and cronies. Perhaps some paramilitaries too and of course, the Presidential Guard.

Chavez has some other tricks up his sleeve: he will create a "federal system" which has its power sourced by "communal councils" and cooperatives. This effectively by-passes the mayors and other locally elected officials and ensures that his supporters are in power. Sort of sounds like Soviet worker's councils and local party officials. Cooperatives. Uh-huh. Parse this and you see the formation of a classic "communist" state in the Soviet paradigm. As to the vote by the National Assembly and a possible referendum -- those are not votes, anymore than shows of hands on the shop floor of unions. Show hands for the "wrong" vote and you are lucky to keep those hands attached by the end of the day.

Time to meddle, folks. Time to plant a bullet into Chavez's cranium. We do not need a crazy loaded with petrodollars, a taste for violence and a distinct lack of respect for democracy -- in particular Anglo/U.S. style democracy -- right in our back yard. This is not Cuba ... bankrupt and without resources. This is a neighborhood Ahmedinejad (who is on spit-swapping terms with Chavez), and just about as psycho. I do not condone state-sponsored assinations: that puts us in the same league, generally, as the wankers in Iran and the Taliban. But there is a time and a place for everything. Do it already.

More gloom

I read lots of weird stuff every morning before starting my day. Maybe I'm a masochist. Maybe I should dye my hair black, wear black clothes and become a "Goth" -- don't they have a negative attitude about everything? Maybe they are right.

You see, lots of people of my middle age have spent more than a few years scrambling to try and assemble a modicum of financial security. And to do so, they have bought into the whole notion that "over the long term" the equity market is safe and stable ... suitable for growth of your nest egg. And statistically I guess that this is probably correct. But I cannot fathom how this is meant to make me feel secure right now.

In point of fact, the whole notion of investing in equities seems to be some sort of ponzi scheme propagated by the major financial institutions of the world. I have work for them before -- I was the head of the proprietary trading desk of a major money-center bank in Manhattan. I gambled with the bank's capital ... but really, I was gambling with your savings account. I always "made budget." I was very careful and looked for the forgotten wealth "in the seams." Large bets on small variances in the yield curves. Occaisonally, I'd gamble on volatility -- yes, you can bet on the level of market movement without any reference to direction. But I digress, I was a capital markets trader and not an equities trader. Any movement was good movement for me --and when short volatility, no movement could be just as good.

Where am I going with this? I was always very conscious of risk. I never took positions that I couldn't unwind, and if there was a market discontinuity, I could weather the inevitable "down day" until I could hedge. But this does not seem to be the case today. Banks -- your savings and investments -- have determined to chase the last crumb of yield at the expense of your financial safety. And this is not limited to banks in the United States: Rams Home Loan Group, an Australian financial institution, saw its shares drop 60% after it annouced that it failed to refinance $5 billion in debt due as a result of its exposure to the U.S. subprime market. Clearly, a mortgage company has business in the whole subprime mess, but how could an Aussie company let its risk get so out of hand?

The latest showing of Aussie contagion sparked a huge sell-off in the Far East (I used to hate the Far East market ... a bunch of panic merchants if there ever was one -- if ever I hit stop-losses, it was always in the Hong Kong market). This was followed by an European sell-off. The U.S. markets? Well, as I write at 9:30am, the Dow is down a remarkably moderate 70 points.

The Fed continues to hold the line, rates stable against the threat of inflation -- while Rome burns. Housing starts for July were at the lowest level in 10 years. That is, homebuilders (they are the real drivers in that market, not people hiring someone to build them a house) are looking to the future and saying, "no way, no how am I going to build houses that I can't sell." Hmmm. Does that mean that they have been selling to people that are affected by the tightening credit situation? It would seem to imply that, wouldn't it? A vigorous economy driven by cheap credit to those that can't really afford it -- people almost statistically certain to default. The pimps for this sordid trade? The people that bundled up the securities to make the fast buck and the institutions who bet on the greater fool theory -- there will always be some sucker willing to buy the junk I have loaded up on. The victims? The people who CAN afford their loans, people trying to secure a little financial independence.

But this is still rational behaviour given the labor market in the financial industry. Make high earnings now and forget about tomorrow. Bonus today and retire tomorrow. There are not many people older than 50 in the whole industry. Certain firms have shown more restraint, others were in it with both feet. No need to mention names, the same market "makes allowances" for each firm's relative exposure. Smaller firms with the need to make the loot given a smaller capital base (and product mix), tended to be more active in pimping these products. But still rational. If everyone else is doing it and making tons of money, sooner or later the Board of Directors will start to question the competency of the managers and heads will roll for failure to be part of the bonanza. One gets forced into the trade to keep the share price up, or else.

So we have the pimps and ... the SEC / OCC. Everyone knows about the SEC, and we have heard that they are into the major brokerage houses doing a spot of investigation. But banks are regulated and report to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. A vast and little-known organization, sort of similar in a weird way to the NSA. Everyone knows the CIA, but the NSA is much bigger and mysterious. Check out their website: www.occ.treas.gov, its a riot.

Where were these organizations when the pimps were out hawking their wares? Huh? Anything that is too good to be true usually is precisely that, but nobody seemed to want to look into it. The SEC was doing its usual thing protecting the markets, chasing traders for charging a night out at strip clubs, conducting auto-da-fes for investigating front running orders and who knows what ... while the trolls were out getting the bonfire ready for the grand Roman conflagration of our financial security. Was it perhaps political? Did the administration forbid anyone to check behind the curtain like in the Wizard of Oz? Or just another case of looking the other way when greed was involved. Remember, the regulators have to go somewhere after they leave the government to earn some bucks to retire on too.

Go to cash. You can always get back in if things settle down -- all you can lose is opportunity, but if you stay too long in the market, you lose real capital.

Let's talk about greed

A few years back an outfit called LTCM got involved in some serious spread trades. Actually, convergence trades. And along came a market discontinuity and all of a sudden, the fabulously wealthy Masters of the Universe (for these were the guys from Salomon) took one on the chin. The huge trades that they put on "went south." Funny, if they had been allowed to expire, the whole thing might have made money. But they had to come up with margin and people wanted out. So they unwound the fund and killed the goose that laid the golden eggs -- because the damn thing had bird flu and contagion could kill the rest.

So the Fed Chairman called a group of prominent New York Bankers (I heard that some took the "fast jet" over from London to attend) and told them exactly what was going to happen to save the day.

The trouble is, "we" didn't learn from LTCM. Instead bankers wet themselves to find young punk traders to set up "hedge funds" guys with a few years experience at Goldman, CSFB, Lazard, UBS ... fill in the blank. Why? Well, the fees earned by the same bankers on the transactions was stupendous. A money machine. So now we have everyone trying to make or create "value" by gearing themselves up to make risky trades that would have made the LTCM gang blush.

The big banks and financial institutions are only looking at the quarterlies -- and the traders pray that this all holds together so that they can collect a few more bonuses.... Instead of experience scaring us away from risky trades and the risks of market discontinuities the industry hires the best minds from MIT and similar places that they can find to cook up new products. They came up with a doozie: sub-prime debt. Really not very exotic at all.

So get this: we lend to a group of people whose credit is so bad that they shouldn't be buying houses in the first place, then packages the mortgages up, sanitize them through credit rating agencies and the addition of some better risks in the portfolio, and sell these off to people who want higher returns on their money. These folks then leverage themselves to the eyeballs to add to the kick to the returns -- and their bonuses. Adding cocaine to your heroin to produce a speedball. That killed Belushi and now it looks like killing us.

Consider that the US's growth over the past few years has been basically driven by housing, property development and the increase in wealth "enjoyed" by Americans (who promptly spend it on SUVs and plasma TVs) by virtue of the greatly increased values of their primary asset -- their house. My $250K shitbox is now worth $500K!! Let me re-finance at "those low-low rates" and spend some of that loot. Or heck, I can sell this one and buy one for $750K, take a nothing down mortgage and pocket the diff. And when the house is worth $1 million, I'll do it again. The American dream. Only this dream is predicated on cheap money and all of a sudden, people are looking at the risks of holding this garbage (debt) and want to get out. Or look at it this way, a lot of fat men all at once decided to exit via a very thin door.

So the US has been living on illusory wealth for at least 8 years (remember the dot.com stuff was just shifted into the real estate market). Someone, somewhere and sometime has to pay the piper. And that time may have just arrived, and you and I may be the ones to pay.

Incredible, really. And the greed is such that hedge funds around the globe are feeling the pinch. Everyone has those fancy mathematical models ( I am sure they are selling them at the cafeteria at MIT) and everyone suddenly feels the need to get out. And there is no Fed Chairman and single room in which orders can be given and followed. This time it is not a golden goose, but a bunch of punks selling duck turds.

Let's talk about greed

Yeah, let's talk about greed. For you see, it is greed that has put the United States -- and many other financial powers in the fine soup that they are in today. And not just any greed, mind you, but stuff that in retrospect seems more outlandish than most.

We all remember the crisis brought on by LTCM (Long Term Capital Management), that firm of wizards who made some rather stupendous bets on the bond market and certain spreads. They were invincible, remember? Masters of the Universe. Only for some reason -- chiefly a market discontinuity like a Russian debt crisis -- the mathematical models didn't work. So the huge leveraged bets "went south." Equity fell from $2.5 to $600 million in month. And the Fed Chairman called a few senior bankers into a room in lower Manhattan and told them what they were going to be doing to save the day. Just like that.

Today we have another problem: the huge leveraged bets are far more evenly spread around the world and the makers of the bets are punks who spent a few years at Goldman, CSFB, UBS ... fill in the blank ... and opened up shop as a "hedge fund." And bankers fell all over themselves to get them started, because you can't believe how much they made on the transactions made by the punks. Some of these punks are very smart. Some were just lucky. But the systemic risk that they pose as a group is incredible.

So why did "we" let things grow out of control when we knew the risks posed by discontinuities?

Eco-realistic: PASS THIS ON

And now, for an article guaranteed to get you thrown out of Cambridge....

Purloined from the Times of London:

August 4, 2007

Walking to the shops ‘damages planet more than going by car’

Dominic Kennedy

Walking does more than driving to cause global warming, a leading environmentalist has calculated.

Food production is now so energy-intensive that more carbon is emitted providing a person with enough calories to walk to the shops than a car would emit over the same distance. The climate could benefit if people avoided exercise, ate less and became couch potatoes. Provided, of course, they remembered to switch off the TV rather than leaving it on standby.

The sums were done by Chris Goodall, campaigning author of How to Live a Low-Carbon Life, based on the greenhouse gases created by intensive beef production. “Driving a typical UK car for 3 miles [4.8km] adds about 0.9 kg [2lb] of CO2 to the atmosphere,” he said, a calculation based on the Government’s official fuel emission figures. “If you walked instead, it would use about 180 calories. You’d need about 100g of beef to replace those calories, resulting in 3.6kg of emissions, or four times as much as driving.

“The troubling fact is that taking a lot of exercise and then eating a bit more food is not good for the global atmosphere. Eating less and driving to save energy would be better.”

Mr Goodall, Green Party parliamentary candidate for Oxford West & Abingdon, is the latest serious thinker to turn popular myths about the environment on their head.

Catching a diesel train is now twice as polluting as travelling by car for an average family, the Rail Safety and Standards Board admitted recently. Paper bags are worse for the environment than plastic because of the extra energy needed to manufacture and transport them, the Government says.

Fresh research published in New Scientistlast month suggested that 1kg of meat cost the Earth 36kg in global warming gases. The figure was based on Japanese methods of industrial beef production but Mr Goodall says that farming techniques are similar throughout the West.

What if, instead of beef, the walker drank a glass of milk? The average person would need to drink 420ml – three quarters of a pint – to recover the calories used in the walk. Modern dairy farming emits the equivalent of 1.2kg of CO2 to produce the milk, still more pollution than the car journey.

Cattle farming is notorious for its perceived damage to the environment, based on what scientists politely call “methane production” from cows. The gas, released during the digestive process, is 21 times more harmful than CO2 . Organic beef is the most damaging because organic cattle emit more methane.

Michael O’Leary, boss of the budget airline Ryanair, has been widely derided after he was reported to have said that global warming could be solved by massacring the world’s cattle. “The way he is running around telling people they should shoot cows,” Lawrence Hunt, head of Silverjet, another budget airline, told the Commons Environmental Audit Committee. “I do not think you can really have debates with somebody with that mentality.”

But according to Mr Goodall, Mr O’Leary may have a point. “Food is more important [to Britain’s greenhouse emissions] than aircraft but there is no publicity,” he said. “Associated British Foods isn’t being questioned by MPs about energy.

“We need to become accustomed to the idea that our food production systems are equally damaging. As the man from Ryanair says, cows generate more emissions than aircraft. Unfortunately, perhaps, he is right. Of course, this doesn’t mean we should always choose to use air or car travel instead of walking. It means we need urgently to work out how to reduce the greenhouse gas intensity of our foodstuffs.”

Simply cutting out beef, or even meat, however, would be too modest a change. The food industry is estimated to be responsible for a sixth of an individual’s carbon emissions, and Britain may be the worst culprit.

“This is not just about flying your beans from Kenya in the winter,” Mr Goodall said. “The whole system is stuffed with energy and nitrous oxide emissions. The UK is probably the worst country in the world for this.

“We have industrialised our food production. We use an enormous amount of processed food, like ready meals, compared to most countries. Three quarters of supermarkets’ energy is to refrigerate and freeze food prepared elsewhere.

A chilled ready meal is a perfect example of where the energy is wasted. You make the meal, then use an enormous amount of energy to chill it and keep it chilled through warehousing and storage.”

The ideal diet would consist of cereals and pulses. “This is a route which virtually nobody, apart from a vegan, is going to follow,” Mr Goodall said. But there are other ways to reduce the carbon footprint. “Don’t buy anything from the supermarket,” Mr Goodall said, “or anything that’s travelled too far.” dkennedy@thetimes.co.uk

Shattering the great green myths

— Traditional nappies are as bad as disposables, a study by the Environment Agency found. While throwaway nappies make up 0.1 per cent of landfill waste, the cloth variety are a waste of energy, clean water and detergent

— Paper bags cause more global warming than plastic. They need much more space to store so require extra energy to transport them from manufacturers to shops

— Diesel trains in rural Britain are more polluting than 4x4 vehicles. Douglas Alexander, when Transport Secretary, said: “If ten or fewer people travel in a Sprinter [train], it would be less environmentally damaging to give them each a Land Rover Freelander and tell them to drive”

— Burning wood for fuel is better for the environment than recycling it, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs discovered

— Organic dairy cows are worse for the climate. They produce less milk so their methane emissions per litre are higher

— Someone who installs a “green” lightbulb undoes a year’s worth of energy-saving by buying two bags of imported veg, as so much carbon is wasted flying the food to Britain

— Trees, regarded as shields against global warming because they absorb carbon, were found by German scientists to be major producers of methane, a much more harmful greenhouse gas

Sources: Defra; How to Live a Low-Carbon Life, by Chris Goodall; Absorbent Hygiene Products Manufacturers Association; The Times; BBC

The Boston Globe -- Dog Poop

Seriously, its just a left-wing political rag. Garbage. Too skanked to wipe my butt with. Which leads to the obvious question ... why? Why this particular rant?

Nicolas Sarkozy -- the sitting French President decided to take his annual holiday -- in New Hampshire!! Lake Winnipesaukee to be exact. And why not? But this action is causing near riots in political circles in France and throughout Europe. The Head of State of France, long the thorn in the side of the US, has chosen to take his precious (and in France, holidays are next to sacred) time off in the US of A. Not even in some lefty-haven like Martha's Vineyard, or California ... or scenic like Wyoming ... or even exotic like Hawaii, but in some lake area 2 hours North of Boston. And about 2 hours from Kennebunkport, Dubbya's summer retreat. This is starkly unbelievable -- remember that Chirac walked out of high level diplomatic meetings merely because one of his ministers decided to speak English so that everyone could understand him. Remember that France invariably votes against what ever initiative that the US proposes. That France sold exocet missiles to the Argentines when they were at war with Britain. Than France was involved to the tune of $20 billion in contracts with Saddam's government at the time of suposed sanctions. Force de Frappe. The European way. The center of the cultural universe.

Yet, Sarko decided that a nice lakefront house, with jet skis, clean water, decent restaurants (by non-NYC US standards), great weather was just the ticket. Lead by example: the Americans and America is not the Great Satan it cracked up to be. And don't forget, he can go shopping at the New Hampshire outlets in North Conway, or Tilton where his Euros will be able to fill his suitcases with Ralph Lauren, Tommy, Levis etc. for chump change. The jeans that cost north of $120 in France will set him back $30.

But the real point is this: our lefty news media has completely ignored this simple story that is shaking the political balance in Europe to its roots. It is not some simple holiday in their eyes. It something far, far more important. Sarko is telling France (and hence all the other lefties in Europe) that the American model of hard work, long hours, and flexibility is where he intends lead France -- and if he gets the chance, the EU. Does the Globe -- which is only interested in denigrating the US and by extension its Administration (and vice-versa) -- choose to cover this? Look at their website and hunt away. If Bill Clinton was taking his bride to Winni, there would be front page, non-stop coverage. Yet, when one of the three most powerful men in Europe visit, it is a footnote? Just because they fear that in some way his visit might reflect positively on Boosh? Have we totally lost our reason and perspective?

Start a trend: cancel your subscription to the Globe. Buy the English language Figaro of Paris instead.

London Bridge is Falling Down

The real deal fell so often because it had high traffic and low engineering. But that bridge was there for all intents and purposes from Roman times onwards, in various guises. People lived on the bridge, ate on the bridge and ... died there.

People also died on the bridge in Minneapolis.

"Only 4 percent of the United States' high-traffic bridges scored worse than the steel-deck truss bridge in Minneapolis that collapsed into the Mississippi River on Wednesday, according to an analysis of federal records by MSNBC.com." Given how many high-traffic bridges there are around the nation, I'd say that "only" is perhaps the wrong word. Sort of like, "you have a little bit of gangrene, sir, nothing to worry about." What is the magic number -- the 4%? 4227 bridges. That is 4227 bridges are worse that the one that fell. 4227 high-traffic bridges ripe for ... death.

More than 70,000 bridges across the country are rated structurally deficient like the span that collapsed in Minneapolis and engineers estimate repairing them all would take at least a generation and cost more than $188 billion, The Associated Press reports. The Federal Highway Administration 5 years ago quoted the backlog (in value) of bridge repair to be $55 billion. To keep the nations bridges and tunnels in good repair would cost $75 billion, whereas $60 billion is actually being spent ... $15 billion each year is added to the backlog? And that is JUST for the federally assisted roads and such. The bill for the states is WAY higher.

OK, so we have a problem. Where's the money to come from? Well, I have heard that the Iraq number over the next 10 years will exceed a trillion dollars. Another good reason to leave the Arabs to their own devices and instead just spend extra on keeping the terrorists out of the US. It is not as if we are going to be able to catch all those who are training in other (Iran, Pakistan, Philippines, Indonesia, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, a number of 'Stans, etc.) countries anyway. Can't invade them all, so let them have Iraq too. With some of the savings, I'd establish a Border Corps, dedicated to protection of the United States -- not the namby pamby Homeland Security effort out there now, but more like the way Marines are technically "Navy". Give them the Coast Guard and build some vessels, litoral subs, fleets of interdiction aircraft/helos. Draft 19-25 year olds to patrol our border. They need some frikkin discipline anyway. You'd still have change left over for the roads, etc.

Why stop there? Let's bite the bullet, put $2 per gallon tax on gas, stamp out gas guzzlers, end our dependence on Arab oil, snuff Hugo Chavez (and any other putz who would attempt to establish another communist society in our hemisphere) and flat out threaten who ever comes next. Fix our roads, re-establish our train system and squeeze air travel. You wanna fly? You pay. You wanna drive 50 miles each way to work, you pay. Let commercial usage get a tax break on fuel. Imagine how much gas would be saved if we all but eliminated the school run? And let's give tax breaks to all who use solar heating, wind power, private hydro-electricity generation, and no taxes on any insulation products.

Here's another weird idea: PAY people who commute with 4 or more persons in their car in the high occupancy vehicle lane in the mornings and evenings. Sure, they are going to have $5 dollar a gallon gas, but they get a rebate through car pooling. London has proved that congestion charges work, although inefficiently. How about mandatory transponders on cars using the interstate -- and between 7am and 10 am, if you use the interstate system, you get hit with a charge ... say $2 dollars. If you use the interstate without a transponder, it is a $100 on the spot fine for each offense. I'll bet you'd see more people taking the train and moving closer to work. Since all this involves "interstate commerce," the Federal Government could rightfully impose it.


Ughh. And to think that Hillary looks probable.

Cpl Tillman

Tillman was a NFL star playing with the Arizona Cardinals. He became an Army Ranger. He was killed in action in Afghanistan. It appears to all intents and purposes that he was killed by friendly fire. This was not disclosed to our media by Rumsfeld or anyone else, until much later -- and not to Tillman's family, either.

So why are we making a big deal of this? When you are an Army Ranger, you will be in dangerous places, doing dangerous things. It is likely even, that you run a very good risk of getting killed. Specialized troops lose a disturbingly high number of personnel in training exercises. It is the nature of the beast.

So killed by friendly fire -- it happens. Friendly fire incidents are and should be investigated so as to try and prevent it happening again. Sometimes, the supporting artillery was just too close, Sometimes suppressing fire drops onto the friendlies. Sometimes ordnance misfires and drops too early. Shit does happen, and in war more often that we would like.

But it looks as though the press are trying to make a Valerie Plame case here about a cover-up. The victims being more Tillman's family than Tillman himself. Ultimately, Tillman is dead. No amount of who discloses what when will change that. The Army was doing its investigation when they passed news that it might have been a friendly fire incident -- after Boosh awarded or announced an intention to award Tillman a posthumous medal. How he died does not matter with regards to the medal. He was a hero, as are all those in his calling doing what he did. Does his family feel better now that they know that an American killed Tillman? Is it going to change something to "blame" someone? You can be sure that whoever dropped Tillman feels worse about it than you and I can understand.

So what it this about? Simple: Democratic news media are trying to discredit the military and administration by developing some grand conspiracy. Just like Plame. Plame didn't die, and was never put at risk. She was "outed" driving a desk at Langley. Big deal. Tillman's case was far worse -- an American killed him. By accident -- not "outed." But a cover-up because he was some NFL star? Who cares either way -- except for his family who might have preferred that some rag-head killed him. It is a tragedy either way and the politicization of this is disgusting.

Bravo, Boston Globe, NY Times ... once again you guys (and the rest of the media) have managed to create a festival over an American tragedy.

My prayers go to the Tillman family.

Obama -- he's my man

Well, maybe not ... but he is sure talking like he means to step out from behind the now-traditional Democrat hand wringing non-interventionism. Bill just sent missiles that didn't hit anybody. He also sent troops to the Balkans -- after our aircraft shot up every moving thing (oh, wasn't that unilateral, without UN sanction?). But since 9/11, and the ensuing Iraq fiasco, Democrats have been afraid of their shadow. It plays well to their constituency -- orthodox liberals.

But Barack has taken an unsual step: he had threatened the two-faced hypocrites of Pakistan with direct military intervention. He has put the Euro-"allies" on notice that if elected, the White House will not stand by while the Taliban re-equip and recuperate behind Pakistani lines where we cannot touch them. Really, when you think about it, it is a stupid way to run a war -- childish even -- with the notion of "safe" on base. They want to kill us and restore a thuggish theocracy, and yet we have to smile and make nice to Pakistan, a country itself in fear of the same religious zealots?

The wild card being ... the bomb. Barack has not addressed the fact that we would be attacking yet another sovereign nation and one with a bomb. Hmmm. And they have to watch what they do internally to avoid a radical Islamic revolution which would then have ... the bomb. Inconvenient, that!