Political Commentary

Bloviation From Pyongyang

If you’re interested in a view from an alternate universe, you may be interested in news from the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea (DPRK). When a country has to include both “democratic” and “republic” in its name, it’s a safe bet that it’s neither…

Anyway, there are several amusing articles there, with titles like, U.S. use of biological and chemical weapons assailed, KCNA on U.S. futile attempts, Bush’s projected trip to S. Korea opposed, and Full play to advantages of Korean socialist economic management called for.

Some of the articles are en espanol. Don’t ask why.

They also have an enlightening article about the Dear Leader, called Anecdotes about President Kim Il Sung. It’s a real hoot:

…when the president gave field guidance to Kaesong area on September 14, Juche 61 (1972). He asked officials there what was the special food of the area.

None of them could give a correct answer to the questions repeatedly put by him in the course of the on-the-spot guidance.

While visiting factories in the city he met old men who had lived there for years and found out that loach soup was a special food of the city.

And he made sure that a new restaurant was built there to serve only loach soup to the customers.

Markets? We don’t need no stinkin’ markets! We’ve got a leader.

Humor

Another Monopoly Breakup

You’ll never find things like this reported anywhere except at The Onion.

“The evidence introduced in this trial has convinced me that the deity known as God has willfully and actively thwarted competition from other deities and demigods, promoting His worship with such unfair scare tactics as threatening non-believers with eternal damnation,” wrote District Judge Charles Elliot Schofield in his decision. “In the process, He has carved out for Himself an illegal monotheopoly.”

Also, there’s a great discussion over at Free Republic on this topic, e.g.:

Q: So re-incarnation is like those long return lines at Fry’s Electronics?

Actually, reincarnation is nothing more than instantiating a new instance of a Soul Object. It’s transparent. Most afterlives automatically handle Soul collection and recreation if that feature is enabled. You shouldn’t have to programmatically call a delete(Soul mySoul) through incantation or sorcery in afterlives employing modern architectures.

and

I believe one of the main criticisms was God’s strategy of “bundling” Salvation with the Dogma package. This definitely stifles competition. For instance, suppose I want an open-source Salvation solution — I can’t get that if I also want Dogma because most all vendors (Catholic and Protestant) have very strict licensing agreements that require them to only ship the standard Salvation product.

This makes it very difficult on third-party Paradise vendors. I applaud the ruling.

Uncategorized

Yet Another Conflict Of Interest?

The Government Accounting Office is suing Dick Cheney for Enron-related documents. But David Walker, the Comptroller General (head of the GAO since 1998), has an interesting resume himself.

Immediately prior to his appointment as Comptroller General, Mr. Walker was a partner and global managing director of Arthur Andersen LLP’s human capital services practice and a member of the board of Arthur Andersen Financial Advisors, a registered investment advisor. He also served as a Public Trustee for Social Security and Medicare from 1990 to 1995 while he was a partner with Arthur Andersen.

Should he recuse himself from the suit? We report, you decide…

Political Commentary

SOU

Politically, it was a home run.

And from a war standpoint, I could have asked for no more.

From a policy standpoint, I found it disappointing on the domestic front.

While it was general and thematic, the themes were definitely not federalist or classically liberal ones–we, the federal government, are responsible for security, local and national; we, the federal government, are responsible for your health care; we, the federal government, are responsible to see that you have a job, or get prescription drugs, or don’t get screwed if the company you work for goes under. We, the federal government, are responsible for your lives–not you.

On the other hand, it’s good political strategy. It looks to me like Rove & Co. have made a political judgment that they want to put the Dems in a box, and take back the Senate, and build their strength in the House. We didn’t get into this socialist mess overnight, and we won’t get out of it quickly either. I’m willing to wait until 2005 to start to roll back this crap–I just wish that I had some sense that this was really what they’re planning…

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!