Wednesday, April 27, 2011

world wrap.

welcome to the world wrap, a compact taste of smashkanistan. and holy world news! kinda too much to get to, so here's some snippets. (speaking of holy, i'm in lynchburg. it's funny here.)

quick tidbits: arab unrest, petraeus nominated to head the cia, palestinian reconciliation, bernanke holds a press conference, obama releases his birth certificate, and i'm getting kind of fat.

first stop, arab unrest. i heart the arab spring, but the end result is yet to be seen. number one threat? the thirst for reprisal. it disgusts me, and it does a disservice to all those still struggling for freedom by incentivising brutal suppression of the revolts. with the exception of the dictators who go out fighting, let the leaders step down and disappear. ponder policies, not punishments. focus on organizing viable liberal political parties, or before you know it, the islamists will be winning the elections won by the blood of brave liberals. (get it? like liberals won the elections being held, but the islamists won the election's votes. it's good writing, it's just way over your head.)

i hope the arab spring inspires iran to rise up; i hope it creates liberal forms of government in it's wake; and i hope it exposes the cheap myth that israel is anything but a joke of a gerrymandered ethnocracy by showing the world that zionism is just as (if not more) threatened by true liberalism than by islamism. new liberal democratic arab regimes will necessarily come into conflict with israel's apartheid, and if america wants to make up for years of pampering arab dictators that play nice with israel in spite of their arab populations and palestinians, it should do everything it can to support the uprisings while walking the fine line of acknowledging that this is an arab revolt, not an american war.

example: libya. kudos for intervening, keep it up. keep it up how? by nominating petraeus to head the cia, that's how.

next stop, palestinian reconciliation. if you must learn your lesson again, learn them again. you can't trust hamas and you can't trust islamism. if reconciliation lasts, then it lasts... but i don't think it will.

and now to uncle ben...



“I think every central banker understands that keeping inflation low and stable is absolutely essential to a successful economy and we will do what’s necessary to ensure that happens,” said Bernanke.

i took a little pause to watch the first fed chairman press conference in history, and here's what i learned: nothing new. because it wasn't meant for people who understand the fed. in fact, this stop is also the transfer station for obama's birth certificate, because the audience for both events was the mass hysteria of ignorant idiots. bernanke was simply reiterating in a more public and popular forum what the fed does for those that don't seem to get it. the fed uses open market operations (buying and selling securities) to fulfill the fine line of the fed's dual mandate: stable prices and full employment. stable prices means the fed will fight high inflation just as it fights the threat of deflation.

so now that we know obama isn't a foreign agent of a shadowy world government and bernanke doesn't lead a cabal of global bankers planning to enslave us all, all the birthers and tea partiers can go home and watch their last glenn beck show, right? of course they won't. they'll perpetuate the alternate reality in which they make some semblance of sense.



anddd that's a wrap. eat it and weep. (even if like me, you're getting kind of fat.)

Sunday, April 10, 2011