07-25-05 The NWSYARF

I'd like to intrduce a new concept to the study of the field of economcs. It's called the Non-Working Sit on You Ass Return Capital (NWSYARC). Here's how the NWSYARC works. Use the following equation:

NWSYARC = Salary / NWSYARF

Where "Salary" is your current base salary, before taxes, and "NWSYARF" is the Non-Working Sit on Your Ass Return Factor. This factor is a decent intrest rate from a money market account, take this one, for exapmle. As of this writing, it is at 3.25%.

Let's say you earn $40,000 a year. Take $40,000 and divide by 0.0325, and you get $1230769.00. That is your NWSYARC. If you had $1,230,769.00 sitting in the bank in a crappy money market account right now, you could not work, sit on your ass all day, browsing the internet, watching , and make your same salary!

But, you don't, so you work instead. That's the lesson of the NWSYARC. You don't have it! Na Na Na Na Na Na.

7-21-05 Snape killed Dumbledore

Ok. Actually, I'm not writing about Snape killing Dumbledore. I haven't read that book. I do think it's hilarious that a wildly best selling book can come out in the middle of the information era with a surprise ending and expect the secret to be held. My wife is reading it. She's on about page 300 out of 600-and-something, and there are so many spoilers out there that she just didn't stand a chance. My brother sent her an email of the scanned page, with the line "Snape killed Dumbledore" underlined in red.

Actually, here's a buried page 3 story that I think is fascinating.
The new Iraqi prime minister, Ibrahim Jaafari, took a diplomatic trip this last week. Guess where? Iran. That's right, the first major foyer into international diplomacy that our sparkling new Iraqi government undertook was to buddy up to our longtime enemy, Iran.

Not only did the Iraqi prime minister visit Iran, but also made quick moves to open friendly relations.

The two countries worked on a trade deal for Iraqui crude oil in exchange for refined products from Iran. In case you haven't been watching, the oil prices in Iraq right now, in a nearly ironic twist, are horrendous. Their refining ability is badly crippled, so there is a scarcity of usable oil. Iran can refine it for them. Far from being a temporary trade situation, Iran and Iraq are talking about building pipelines between the two countries.

I can't imagine that this was what GW and the boys had in mind, but the response from Washington has been muffled so far as I can tell. In a press briefing on Monday a state department spokesman said "Well, we've always said that we encourage Iraq to have good relations with all of its neighbors, including Iran. And we have encouraged, likewise, Iraq's neighbors to play a positive role in Iraq's development as it moves towards a more peaceful, prosperous, stable and democratic future."

Does this mean an Iran friendly Islamic state in the new Iraq democracy? Will the new constitution include sharia law? If it does, and the Iraqi people actually vote for it, will the US stand by and allow it? Or will they try to control it like the elections?

Boy, ain't this fun?

It was actually amazing to me that, in response to Hersh's story in the New Yorker acusing the administration of rigging the iraq elections, congress admitted that it had reviewed CIA plans to rig the Iraq elections, but that the idea never passed. OK, so the idea never passed, but congress admitted that they were thinkin' about it.

Hersh, of course, claims that the plan went forward, sans public finds, but he offers little real backup. Read the story in the link above if you want to. But, it's not all that cool.

07-01-05 Defending the Minutemen (the real ones)

Recently, a group of anti-immigration (or, as they would call it "anti ILLIGAL ALIEN") advocates have taken the name "The Minutemen Project".

I resent this. Not in the least because their rhetoric are so blatantly racist. ("Historians will write about how a lax America let its unique and coveted form of government and society sink into a quagmire of mutual acrimony among the various sub-nations that will comprise the new self-destructing America.")

The parallel to apartheid is worth mentioning. I have to recommend this article, which is a very good primer on how South Africans locked out the black workforce, with the intent of protecting white jobs, but with the result of an historical scale of economic oppression. Coincidently, under the "colour bar", blacks were not legally allowed to live within a reasonable distance from the minim operations, thus the crime of illegal residency was used to keep the black worker out. It should also be noted that the mining capitalists in South Africa, much like modern US employers, were eager to hire the less costly labor.

But, that isn't what I wanted to write about this morning. No. The real reason that I resent the Minutemen project is that they have stolen their name from a much more important contemporary social factor - namely, the Minutemen, a 1980s punk band from San Pedro featuring the talents of D.Boone, George Hurley, and the greatest bass player of all time, Mike Watt.

Recently, my brother turned me on to corndogs.org, a site devoted to the Minutemen (as well as some sprinklings of Mike Watt's other bands). So, I've been watching Minutemen videos and listening to concerts. I found some old Minutemen tapes and was playing them in my car this morning, and got one stuck in my head.

I believe when they found the body of general George A. Custer
quilled like a porcupine with indian arrows,
he didn't die with any honor, any dignity, nor any valor.

I wouldn't doubt when they found George A. Custer
an american general patriot and indian fighter,
he died with shit in his pants.

Now, those are the minutemen I like.

(Lyrics from "The Punch Line" By D.Boon)