NOTE: this blog is no longer active as of 12/07. New one: http://blog.kirchhof.com
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
Thu, 30 Jun 2005
Do Not Vote In The Primaries Next Year
...but in the meantime, read this Dallas
Observer article... and then go visit Kinky's site.
Posted at 10:34 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Tue, 28 Jun 2005
Bubble Bubble, Toil And Trouble
The June 16th Economist
has some thoughts that you might find interesting:
NEVER before have real house prices risen so fast, for so long, in so
many countries. Property markets have been frothing from America,
Britain and Australia to France, Spain and China. Rising property
prices helped to prop up the world economy after the stockmarket
bubble burst in 2000. What if the housing boom now turns to bust?
According to estimates by The Economist, the total value of
residential property in developed economies rose by more than $30
trillion over the past five years, to over $70 trillion, an increase
equivalent to 100% of those countries' combined GDPs. Not only does
this dwarf any previous house-price boom, it is larger than the global
stockmarket bubble in the late 1990s (an increase over five years of
80% of GDP) or America's stockmarket bubble in the late 1920s (55% of
GDP). In other words, it looks like the biggest bubble in history.
[...]
Japan provides a nasty warning of what can happen when boom turns
to bust. Japanese property prices have dropped for 14 years in a row,
by 40% from their peak in 1991. Yet the rise in prices in Japan during
the decade before 1991 was less than the increase over the past ten
years in most of the countries that have experienced housing booms
(see chart 3). And it is surely no coincidence that Japan and Germany,
the two countries where house prices have fallen for most of the past
decade, have had the weakest growth in consumer spending of all
developed economies over that period. Americans who believe that house
prices can only go up and pose no risk to their economy would be well
advised to look overseas.
My take: If you're going to buy, wait. If you're going to sell, do it. If
you're going to refinance, now's the time.
Posted at 12:52 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Sat, 25 Jun 2005
Proposed Bumper Sticker
Posted at 14:34 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Mon, 20 Jun 2005
Humor
Support
our unborn troops.
Posted at 18:37 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Liars.
Think
Progress makes a good observation about the clothing of the Emperor:
This
morning on Fox News Sunday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was
asked if the Bush administration fairly [can] be criticized for
failing to level with the American people about how long and difficult
this commitment will be? Rice responded:
[T]he administration, I think, has said to the American
people that it is a generational commitment to Iraq.
Thats
not true. To build support for the war the administration told the
American people that the conflict in Iraq will be short and
affordable.
Vice President Dick Cheney, 3/16/03:
[M]y
belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators. . . . I think it
will go relatively quickly. . . (in) weeks rather than
months
Donald Rumsfeld, 2/7/03:
It is unknowable how long that conflict will last. It
could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.
Former Budget Director Mitch Daniels, 3/28/03:
The United States is committed to helping Iraq recover
from the conflict, but Iraq will not require sustained
aid
Posted at 10:19 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Wed, 15 Jun 2005
From Move On to... you... via me...
Dear friend,
Thank you. Your name has been added to the petition and your comments
will be delivered to your senators and representative.
Please take a moment to invite your friends and colleagues to sign.
You can just forward the sample letter below.
Spreading the word is critical, but please only pass this message
along to those who know you, of course -- spam hurts our campaign.
Thanks, for all you do.
Sincerely,
--The MoveOn.org Team
Here's a sample message to send to your friends:
Subject: This time, it's for real: Save NPR and PBS
Hi,
You know that email petition that keeps circulating about how Congress
is slashing funding for NPR and PBS? Well, now it's actually true.
(Really. Check at the bottom if you don't believe me.)
Sign the petition telling Congress to save NPR and PBS:
http://www.moveon.org/publicbroadcasting/
A House panel has voted to eliminate all public funding for NPR and
PBS, starting with "Sesame Street," "Reading Rainbow," and other
commercial-free children's shows. If approved, this would be the most
severe cut in the history of public broadcasting, threatening to pull
the plug on Big Bird, Cookie Monster, and Oscar the Grouch.
The cuts would slash 25% of the federal funding this year ($100
million) and end funding altogether within two years. The loss could
kill beloved children's shows like "Clifford the Big Red Dog,"
"Arthur," and "Postcards from Buster." Rural stations and those
serving low-income communities might not survive. Other stations would
have to increase corporate sponsorships.
Already, 400,000 people have signed the petition. Can you help us
reach 500,000 signatures today?
http://www.moveon.org/publicbroadcasting/
Thanks!
P.S. Read the Washington Post report on the threat to NPR and PBS at:
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=745
Posted at 16:06 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Taking The Revolving Door To New Heights
From Progress
Report:
Exxon Announces Merger With White House
Yesterday, it was announced that the former chief of staff of the
White House's Council on Environmental Quality, Philip Cooney, who
resigned five days ago after it was disclosed that he had doctored
government climate change reports in favor of the oil industry's
position, has been hired
by Exxon Mobil. While Cooney will now sit at the other side of the
table at the White House's energy meetings, his job will remain the
same -- to do the bidding of the oil industry.
COONEY'S MAGIC MARKER ALTERED SCIENTIFIC REALITY: Just last week, the
Government
Accountability Project, a public interest group that promotes
government accountability, disclosed documents to the New
York Times that showed Cooney " repeatedly edited government
climate reports in ways that play down links between [greenhouse gas]
emissions and global warming." One of the sentences that Cooney crossed out
stated the following: "[Global] warming also will cause reductions in
mountain glaciers and advance the timing of the melt of mountain snow
peaks in polar regions." Cooney, who has no scientific training, wrote a
note stating that the section "stray[ed] from research strategy into
speculative findings," a position which goes against the findings of
the scientific community that the greenhouse effect is accelerating changes in the climate.
Posted at 12:32 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Tue, 07 Jun 2005
Boy, Metafilter is on today...
This
is exceedingly cool... there are a lot of others, but this one... wow.
Posted at 09:58 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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In Their Own Words
Take a look at the American Taliban page.
For example, hear Pat Robertson:
"You say you're supposed to be
nice to the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and
this, that, and the other thing. Nonsense, I don't have to be nice to
the spirit of the Antichrist."
Or, Randall Terry:
"I want you to just let a wave of
intolerance wash over. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over
you. Yes, hate is good...Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a
biblical duty, we are called by God to conquer this country. We don't
want equal time. We don't want pluralism."
And, finally, George W. Bush talking to these people:
"God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he
instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am
determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I
will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus
on them."
Wake up, gang. These people are as real as a heart attack.
Posted at 09:42 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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The State Of The Iraqi Campaign
From Metafilter:
NEWSWEEK's
Baghdad bureau chief, departing after two years of war and American
occupation, has a few final thoughts. A short, yet refreshingly
honest, look at Iraq from a respected journalist on the way home.
What went wrong? A lot, but the biggest turning point was the Abu
Ghraib scandal. Since April 2004 the liberation of Iraq has become a
desperate exercise in damage control. The abuse of prisoners at Abu
Ghraib alienated a broad swath of the Iraqi public. On top of that, it
didn't work. . . . The four-square-mile Green Zone, the one place in
Baghdad where foreigners are reasonably safe, could be a showcase of
American values and abilities. Instead the American enclave is a
trash-strewn wasteland of Mad Max-style fortifications. The traffic
lights don't work because no one has bothered to fix them. The garbage
rarely gets collected. Some of the worst ambassadors in U.S. history
are the GIs at the Green Zone's checkpoints. They've repeatedly punched
Iraqi ministers, accidentally shot at visiting dignitaries and behave
(even on good days) with all the courtesy of nightclub bouncersto
Americans and Iraqis alike.
Posted at 08:05 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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