Reason Magazine
- reason.com
- reason.tv
- reason.org
- Donate
- Site Search:
Reason on Facebook
Reason on Twitter
Reason on YouTube
Reason RSSGet Reason E-mail Updates!
Manage your Reason e-mail list subscriptionsadvertisements
Every Time the Poll Numbers Rise, a Kook Gets His Wings
Five
years ago blogger (and reason contributor) Megan McArdle formulated
"Jane's Law."
The devotees of the party in power are smug and arrogant. The devotees of the party out of power are insane.
After spending plenty of time dumpster-diving in the Obama conspiracyverse, I'd like to propose my own law.
The multiplication of conspiracy theories about a presidential candidate is a function of his/her success in the polls.
When McCain was surging two months ago, theories swirled about the veracity of his "cross in the sand" story. During that fortnight when Sarah Palin was popular and credible, people questioned whether her youngest son was really hers. Now McCain is fading, so: Back to the Obamaswamp! And the latest Obama conspiracy is... well, I wouldn't say the best (not while a wanted con man is driving around the country bullhorning about a two-day Obama drug binge that never happened), but it's pretty hilarious. It's Jack Cashill's theory that Bill Ayers wrote Obama's first book, Dreams from my Father.
Like all the great pieces of Obama conspiraciana, Cashill's piece is half throat-clearing and half assertion. The evidence:
- Obama hasn't released much of his pre-Dreams ouvre, and what we have seen doesn't read like Dreams. Cashill refers to poems written when Obama was 20 and legal work written before he was 30.
- Obama met Bill Ayers a few months before Dreams was published. Thus, "Ayers had the means, the motive, the time, the place and the literary ability to jumpstart Obama's career."
- Ayers and Obama were both community organizers, both struggled with their identity, and both gave their kids African names.
- Ayers' 2001 memoir gets similar numbers to Dreams on the Flesch Reading Ease Score.
- Dreams from My Father includes a number of naval metaphors, and Ayers was a merchant marine.
Seriously, that's it. This was enough for National Review's Andy McCarthy to link Cashill and send a boatload (naval metaphor! Is Bill Ayers writing this blog?) of traffic his way.
I don't want to feed into what sounds, at first blush, like Vince Fosteresque paranoia.
You know... if that thought crosses your mind while posting, it's probably time to step away from the Movable Type.
Cashill's article is kookery: Ayers hadn't met Obama when the book went to the publisher, Obama's naval metaphors can be explained by his childhood in Hawai'i and his reading of Moby Dick, etc, etc. But there are two telling nuggets in this conspiracy theory.
First: Why does Cashill rule out the possibility that Ayers—whose own memoir was released six years after Obama's—was influenced by the state senator, and not the other way around? As Cashill points out, in a 1997 book Ayers refers to Obama as a "writer" who lives in his neighborhood. Ayers has an epic case of white guilt and an obsession with African culture (African art decorates his Hyde Park home). Isn't the most likely explanation for Obama-esque passages in Ayers' own book that Ayers read his neighbor's book? (After all, the education book Ayers wrote in 1997 reads nothing like Dreams.)
Second: Why, in 1995, would Chicago's left-wing assume that the best way to send their agent, Barack Obama, into power politics, was with a warts-and-all literary memoir that discussed his drug use and thoughts on Black liberation?
I don't know what it is about Obama that inspires this stuff. How hard is it just to run against the man with the most liberal voting record in the Senate in the year 2007?
Lefiti|10.13.08 @ 11:09AM|#
How hard is it just to run against the man with the most liberal
voting record in the Senate in the year 2007?
Pretty hard when free-market fundamentalism is collapsing,
idiot.
Fluffy|10.13.08 @ 11:15AM|#
First of all, anyone who thinks that George Bush represents
"free market fundamentalism" is not only an idiot, but a moose cum
gargling douche.
Leaving that aside, I really don't see how questioning why John
McCain's recollections of his POW experience seem to shift over
time, in ways that mirror the anecdotes of others, is somehow on a
par with some nut's claims to have engaged in a drug-fueled orgy
with Obama. Are these really equivalent.
|10.13.08 @ 11:25AM|#
Dave, it's amusing that you are trying to apply logic, reasoning, and sense to this. Do you also enjoy hitting yourself in the head with a hammer, or giving yourself purple nurples?
tarran|10.13.08 @ 11:25AM|#
Yeah, nothing says free market fundamentalism like expanding the
resources consumed/redistributed by the Federal Government at
record rates.
The funny thing is, Edward/Leftiti should be happy; his man is
about to win the white house. For the first time in how many
decades, the Democrats will have the Whitehouse, an overwhelming
majority in the Congress, and a crisis giving them political cover
to massively intervene in the economy.
If Edward is right, it's going to be the dawn of a whole new age or
prosperity. People will look upon this month and say "here's when
the long national nightmare ended". I wonder why poor edward is
still pissing and moaning.
Hogan|10.13.08 @ 11:26AM|#
I haven't read either Obama book, but it seems like whatever similarities there are between Dreams and Audacity of Hope would be pretty relevant evidence here... evidence that Ayers wrote BOTH OF THEM!
tarran|10.13.08 @ 11:33AM|#
How hard is it just to run against the man with the most liberal voting record in the Senate in the year 2007?
Very hard if you've shot yourself in the foot and nobody believes
you anymore.
Think about it. The Republicans have lied. They said "humble
foreign policy" and turned around and picked fights with China,
Iraq, Iran and Russia. They said "free markets" and gave us
tarriffs on steel, massive agriculture bills, expansion of
medicare, social security "privatization", de facto nationalization
of the stock market, etc
People who genuinely believe that Republicans support the Free
Market are blaming the current economic crisis on free markets, and
are hardly going to support more of the same. People who recognize
that the Republicans pay lip service to being for free markets are
hardly going to vote to put the bozos back in charge for another
term.
So they have to pull this shit. They have to scare people to get
them to pull the lever for McCain, and on most issues if they scare
people away from Obama, they also scare the same people away from
McCain.
|10.13.08 @ 11:41AM|#
There's a fair amount of people on the right who think Obama is not very bright and has only enjoyed success due to the benefits of his skin color. I'm guessing if I were to draw a Venn diagram with one circle representing these folks and the other those apt to believe this sort of conspiracy theory, there's going to be a lot of overlap. For them, it would make much more sense for Ayers to ghostwrite Obama than the other way around.
|10.13.08 @ 11:42AM|#
Isn't the US the closest thing to a free market? If that is the case, then, you can't complain when people think that the current crisis is an indictment of the ideology. This is like complaining that socialism didn't really fail, it was just badly implemented.
lefiti|10.13.08 @ 11:51AM|#
As Soros has pointed pointed out, all human constructs are imperfect. Socialism's failure doesn't mean markets are perfect. Regulated markets work better than unregulated markets. All this means to you fucking market fundamentalists is that your little self-maturbatory cult will be even more marginal and irrelevant. Donate now!
|10.13.08 @ 11:53AM|#
In answer to your closing question, I don't think I can do
better than suggesting that you read and think deeply about the
illogic on full frontal display in anon's post of
10/13/08@11:42am.
If people paying attention don't grasp how this is most
definitively NOT a failure of free markets, I can do no better than
recommend this piece (via Pejman):
http://myslu.stlawu.edu/%7Eshorwitz/open_letter.htm
|10.13.08 @ 11:57AM|#
Considering John McCain is running ads blaming Democrats for not
enough regulation ( among other things), it seems the GOP has given
up any pretense of being "free market."
The GOP's strategies to win are:
1. Out-socialist the Democrats
2. race-baiting
How could that possibly not be a winning combination? I dont
know.
|10.13.08 @ 11:59AM|#
"the Democrats will have the Whitehouse, an overwhelming
majority in the Congress, and a crisis giving them political cover
to massively intervene in the economy."
I give you, presumptive Vice President Biden's
"Patriot Act 2, Poverty's Revenge"
Heinrick|10.13.08 @ 12:03PM|#
"How hard is it just to run against the man with the most
liberal voting record in the Senate in the year 2007?"
They said the same thing about Gore and Kerry. Im I the only one
that gets the feeling that every four years the test is re-writen
to match the record of the democratic nominee. I know I
know...republicans would never do anything dishonest like that.
|10.13.08 @ 12:03PM|#
You let Lefiti jack the thread.
Except Jason S. I think there's more than partisanship behind the
phenomenon of people who passionately defended the intelligence of
George W. Bush concluding that Barack H. Obama isn't very
bright.
|10.13.08 @ 12:06PM|#
I really don't know much about Ayers other than his, uh,
domestic terrorism from 40 years ago.
But if you believe anything being said,apparently he is like the
King of Chicago, a multi-billionaire political king maker who
funnels millions and millions of dollars through communist
organizations that run illinois, best selling author and in demand
ghostwriter, starting Quarterback for the Bears, inventor of the
Pet Rock, Nobel winning physicist, ghostwriter for jay Z and Lil
Wayne, and CEO of Viacom.
How does this guy accomplish so much while being so under the radar
( besides the bombing and everything)?
|10.13.08 @ 12:17PM|#
"I don't know what it is about Obama that inspires this
stuff."
OOH! OOH! I know. He's black and he will likely be president.
There are some white people who aren't exactly covering themselves
in glory this election.
|10.13.08 @ 12:23PM|#
I think writing an autobiography should be the first disqualification for POTUS.
Neu Mejican|10.13.08 @ 12:33PM|#
BakedPenguin | October 13, 2008, 11:54am | #
Isn't the US the closest thing to a free market?
No.
That list seems pretty flawed.
Singapore executes people for engaging in unapproved economic
activity, for instance. You don't have the right to chew gum
openly. That seems like a pretty heavy hit on claims of "property
rights."
Somalia's market is closer to a true free market, no?
Here is their list of factors:
Business Freedom | Trade Freedom | Fiscal Freedom | Government Size
| Monetary Freedom | Investment Freedom | Financial Freedom |
Property rights | Freedom from Corruption | Labor Freedom
Each is weighed equally.
Neu Mejican|10.13.08 @ 12:38PM|#
Somalia:
Business freedom: no regulations, 10 points
Trade Freedom: no tariffs, 10 points
Fiscal freedom: no taxes, 10 points
Government size: no government, 10 points
Monetary Freedom: difficult to assess
Investment freedom: no regulations, 10 points
Financial freedom: no regulations, 10 points
Freedom from corruption: no goverment, 10 points
Labor freedom: no regulations, 10 points.
Total score at least 90...our winner?
Neu Mejican|10.13.08 @ 12:40PM|#
Oops,
I skipped property rights: clear rules that are strictly
enforced.
Rule, if you have it and can keep me from taking it, it's yours.
Clear and strictly enforced.
10 points.
BakedPenguin|10.13.08 @ 12:55PM|#
Neu, that's funny. Usually, liberals have no problem segregating
economic from political and social freedom. Apparently, you're the
exception. Singapore has a free economy. It does not have a free
society.
As for Somalia, there a bunch of warlords fighting it out to gain
political power. I'm not an anarchist, so I don't think the lack of
a single, centralized government = liberty. The fact that no one
thug has been able to seize power across the entire country does
not mean it's a free country. Keep burning that straw if it keeps
you warm, though.
Ceteris parabus, more freedom will produce a wealthier society.
That you could question this after history has borne it out time
and time again is amazing to me.
Fluffy|10.13.08 @ 12:55PM|#
Isn't the US the closest thing to a free market? If that is
the case, then, you can't complain when people think that the
current crisis is an indictment of the ideology.
Yes, you can complain.
Because it isn't sufficient to show that the US is close to a free
market.
You'd have to show that the party in power during the creation of
the crisis was pursuing free market policies, and that those
policies took us closer to a free market than we were prior to the
crisis.
Was the US becoming more free market, or less free market, during
the period of time under examination? No reasonable analysis of the
economic history of the US during the Bush administration can
conclude that the US became more free-market oriented during that
time frame.
When Obama says, "...the failed free market policies of the last
eight years," he's either an idiot or deliberately lying.
Fluffy|10.13.08 @ 12:58PM|#
Rule, if you have it and can keep me from taking it, it's
yours. Clear and strictly enforced.
This may be the single most stupid thing that anyone has ever said
on this board, ever.
Eric Dondero never said anything this stupid.
Neu just defined the existence of property rights as the complete
lack of property rights.
BDB|10.13.08 @ 1:00PM|#
Singapore is essentially an ultra-conservative Republican's wet dream in a lot of ways.
Kolohe|10.13.08 @ 1:01PM|#
and send a boatload (naval metaphor! Is Bill Ayers writing
this blog?
fwiw, in the navy we generally measure by the 'shit-ton' not the
'boat-load'
Fluffy|10.13.08 @ 1:02PM|#
By the way, it's incorrect to state that Somalia does not have a
government.
Somalia has an interim government put into power by the US and
Ethiopia, and kept in power by the Ethiopian army.
That government has not been effective at stopping the war of all
against all, and is much less effective at that then the previous
Islamist government was, but it's still a government.
Maybe Somalia would have a more stable political economy if the US
hadn't smashed its previous government because it had scary Muslims
in it.
Atanarjuat|10.13.08 @ 1:03PM|#
I remember stumbling across a conspiracy website that tried to link Cindy McCain to the illuminati, Bilderberg Group, stonemasons, or some other secret ancient super-powerful group that controls everything. My only thought was, if McCain had not just won the Republican nomination, would they really be talking about her?
|10.13.08 @ 1:07PM|#
Kolohe,
I have a good friend that uses 'fuck-ton' as a unit of measure.
"We're gonna need a fuck ton of beer." He is recently out of the
air force. Is that an air force thing?
Orange Line Special|10.13.08 @ 1:13PM|#
I prefer to think of BHO as an experiment by the ChicagoMachine
that became much more successful than they imagined.
As for running against him, his campaign is very good, in both the
CommunityOrganizing sense and in the AlDavis sense.
But, the major thing BHO has going for him is the fact that, for
one reason or other, the MSM wants him to win. In fact, they're
willing to put their
reputations on the line to
get him elected.
And, the so-called "CitizenJournalists" and those who blog at major
sites (*cough*) aren't willing to do the job the MSM refuses to
do.
If anyone's interested, here's How to Defeat Barack
Obama.
Trust me on this: if BHO becomes president, every time he does
something incredibly dangerous or just stupid, I'm going to point
to my warnings about him and my highly effective plan to defeat him
in an attempt to discredit those who supporter him through action
or inaction.
Neu Mejican|10.13.08 @ 1:16PM|#
Not everything written on a comment board at H&R is a deeply
held belief.
I was mainly making fun of the way the ranking was conducted.
There list of factors is not valid in many, many ways. As a result,
Singapore ends up on top of their list.
Neu, that's funny. Usually, liberals have no problem
segregating economic from political and social freedom. Apparently,
you're the exception. Singapore has a free economy. It does not
have a free society.
When economic activity (dealing drugs) is a capital offense, you do
not have a free economy, whether or not you want to treat other
authoritarian policies as economic or not.
Neu just defined the existence of property rights as the
complete lack of property rights.
If I were asked to answer the following question: What is slavery? and I should answer in one word, It is murder, my meaning would be understood at once. No extended argument would be required to show that the power to take from a man his thought, his will, his personality, is a power of life and death; and that to enslave a man is to kill him. Why, then, to this other question: What is property! may I not likewise answer, It is robbery, without the certainty of being misunderstood; the second proposition being no other than a transformation of the first?
[...]
...we soon see that every argument which has been invented in behalf of property, whatever it may be, always and of necessity leads to equality; that is, to the negation of property.
Lighten up.
BDB|10.13.08 @ 1:18PM|#
OLS, why do you randomly capitalize words and eliminate the spaces between them LikeThis? If you explain, I'd appreciate it.
Neu Mejican|10.13.08 @ 1:23PM|#
By the way, it's incorrect to state that Somalia does not
have a government.
Somalia has an interim government put into power by the US and
Ethiopia, and kept in power by the Ethiopian army.
That government has not been effective at stopping the war of all
against all, and is much less effective at that then the previous
Islamist government was, but it's still a government.
Maybe Somalia would have a more stable political economy if the US
hadn't smashed its previous government because it had scary Muslims
in it.
There are some important facts in this comment.
There is also some misinformation.
Rather than getting into the details, I'll ask a side question: Is
the government of "tribal regions" of Pakistan the Pakistani
government? Does the fact that someone claims to govern an area
make it true that they govern that area?
Hogan|10.13.08 @ 1:28PM|#
OLS - I've wondered that to. I actually kinda like it. You've got a little style going for you there. It makes it like everything's a screenname. xXChicagoMachineXx.
Fluffy|10.13.08 @ 1:31PM|#
Rather than getting into the details, I'll ask a side
question: Is the government of "tribal regions" of Pakistan the
Pakistani government? Does the fact that someone claims to govern
an area make it true that they govern that area?
This is a fair point.
I would, however, say that if anarchistic conditions of mayhem in
Somalia are being held up an an example of the "free market", it's
fair of me to point out that those anarchistic conditions are
themselves the result of state actions by foreigners. Somalia had
an "organic" government that arose from domestic conditions, and
the US and Ethiopia decided to blow it up and put an ineffective
government in its place. Somalia is not really a "failed state",
but a strange kind of "ship in a bottle" where the ship is chaos
and we are the modelmakers.
BakedPenguin|10.13.08 @ 1:33PM|#
When economic activity (dealing drugs) is a capital offense,
you do not have a free economy, whether or not you want to treat
other authoritarian policies as economic or not.
Very true. Nevertheless, dealing drugs is legal nowhere.
That Singapore's laws are insanely draconian doesn't say much about
the vast majority of economic activity in the country.
Bingo|10.13.08 @ 1:33PM|#
BDB the reason why he types like that is because he's a socially stunted recluse with Asperger Syndrome and delusions of grandeur.
BakedPenguin|10.13.08 @ 1:34PM|#
Bingo - I thought it was because if he leaves spaces, IllegalMexicans will sneak in between them.
|10.13.08 @ 1:38PM|#
It's very simple, a Mexican spacebar stole LoneRetard's good, hardworking American spacebar's job. It being a lazy Mexican spacebar, it only works some of the time.
Fluffy|10.13.08 @ 1:39PM|#
Rather than getting into the details, I'll ask a side
question: Is the government of "tribal regions" of Pakistan the
Pakistani government? Does the fact that someone claims to govern
an area make it true that they govern that area?
Also, I would point out that if we consider the people actually
exercising power to be "the government", regardless of the claims
of some internationally recognized government, then the entire list
you did for Somalia has to be revised.
We'd have to re-examine each of those areas as if each individual
warlord was the government in his region.
And that would mean, for example, that areas under the control of
pirates and warlords have tax rates of 100%, 0% freedom to trade,
0% labor freedom, 0% freedom to invest, etc. Every act of thievery
by a pirate or warlord becomes a government act that we can fairly
call a tax, a takings, a regulation, etc.
Kolohe|10.13.08 @ 1:46PM|#
I have a good friend that uses 'fuck-ton' as a unit of
measure. "We're gonna need a fuck ton of beer." He is recently out
of the air force. Is that an air force thing?
It's a joint thing used by all the uniformed services since
goldwater-nichols. Including the Coast Guard and the Public Health
Service.
BDB|10.13.08 @ 1:50PM|#
No, really. I want to know why OLS does this.
If you tell me, OLS, I'll click on every link you post here instead
of ignoring them. I promise!
|10.13.08 @ 1:59PM|#
You'd have to show that the party in power during the
creation of the crisis was pursuing free market policies, and that
those policies took us closer to a free market than we were prior
to the crisis.
Does Venezuela pursue true socialism or are they just paying lip
service to socialism (just like Bush does with respect to the free
market). The theory doesn't work in practice as intended.
|10.13.08 @ 2:07PM|#
why do you randomly capitalize words and eliminate the
spaces between them LikeThis?
The Wiki creation software automatically creates a new page if you
eat the space between capitalized words. Not sure though if that is
the reason why OLS does it.
tarran|10.13.08 @ 2:10PM|#
Couple of points:
1) If you compare Somalia in its anarchic phase to the situation
where it had a marxist government, the anarchic phase was better in
terms of life expectancy, gdp per cpaita and the rest. Google for
the essay "Better off stateless" if interested in the
details.
2) Counterfactual to argument 1, most of the improvements happenned
in the North which had a government (called itself Puntland). Of
course this government wasn't recognized by other governments, but
it existed and exercised a small measure of sovereignty over the
territory.
3) Somalia wasn't anarchic. While it lacked a central state, the
clans performed a similar function. Technically Somalia was a
kritarchy.
Really?|10.13.08 @ 2:27PM|#
Bill Ayers was a merchant marine? A US merchant marine? He was a Z-Card holding union member? What tonnage class? Just from what I've gathered growing up with a now-retired MEBA first engineer for a father, I can only imagine a guy like Ayers would've made it (as a deckhand or galley hand) without getting his ass kicked numerous times or being stranded in a foreign port by treading pretty lightly. Did he go to sea when he was on the run or something? Wikipedia didn't say anything and I'm too lazy for real research.
|10.13.08 @ 2:27PM|#
During that fortnight when Sarah Palin was popular and
credible, people questioned whether her youngest son was really
hers.
To be fair, a lot of us still question that.
|10.13.08 @ 2:29PM|#
When McCain was surging two months ago, theories swirled
about the veracity of his "cross in the sand" story. During that
fortnight when Sarah Palin was popular and credible, people
questioned whether her youngest son was really hers. Now McCain is
fading, so: Back to the Obamaswamp!
Really? Cuz from reading articles here i would be under the
impression that only crazy rumors about Obama existed...
Can anyone remember Weigel writing any article about crazy McCain
rumors? Or how those rumors are the heart and soul of the
Democratic party?
Cuz I sure can remember a lot of Obama rumor articles and how those
rumors were the creation of the core republican party.
Hogan|10.13.08 @ 2:30PM|#
"Having tasted righteous indignation, Ayers began a radical
journey without clear route or model. He left the University of
Michigan searching first for a role in the Civil Rights Movement,
and then for adventure in the merchant marine, yet he discovered
very little. By 1965, we find Ayers sitting in a café in Rome
reading about a place he knew little about called Vietnam, and then
returning to Michigan to join the antiwar Movement."
from a Monthly
Review article.
|10.13.08 @ 2:38PM|#
I see today that the babydaddy of Bristol's current alledged
pregnancy is doing interviews. My assholier than thou theory is
this: they are trotting this out as a preamble to a near future
miscarriage. Said loss of baby being the only way to cover the lie
that Trig is the Governors baby.
The palin's are also shifting the focus back onto the keeping of
the child as evidence of her pro-lifey ness.
But the really latest controversy is that the Palin's house was
built at the same time as the sports complex by unnamed
contractors. The question is if the contractors given the arena job
built the house as payback. Sarah learned alot from Ted while they
where doin the horizontal bop.
BDB|10.13.08 @ 2:55PM|#
Nobody cares about Palin. She's on the verge of being the second woman to be on a Presidential ticket which suffers a landslide loss.
|10.13.08 @ 3:04PM|#
Ayers hadn't met Obama when the book went to the
publisher
And we know this because the Obama camp says so? It's very possible
that they met in the early '80s at Columbia. Also, Ayers' wife
Bernadine Dohrn also worked at Sidley Austin at about the same time
as Barack and Michelle, in the late '80s.
Neu Mejican|10.13.08 @ 3:09PM|#
Tarran,
Of course. It is nice to remind people of this occasionally.
Fluffy,
Also, I would point out that if we consider the people actually
exercising power to be "the government", regardless of the claims
of some internationally recognized government, then the entire list
you did for Somalia has to be revised.
We'd have to re-examine each of those areas as if each individual
warlord was the government in his region.
And that would mean, for example, that areas under the control of
pirates and warlords have tax rates of 100%, 0% freedom to trade,
0% labor freedom, 0% freedom to invest, etc. Every act of thievery
by a pirate or warlord becomes a government act that we can fairly
call a tax, a takings, a regulation, etc.
Highlighting the arbitrariness of the criteria that was used to
create the list?
I was, somewhat clumsily it seems, trying to point out the lack of
validity for the list that was posted.
Just because some guys somewhere that use the word "freedom" in the
name of their club think that Singapore is the closest to a free
market of any economy in the world. This does not make it true. The
fact that an authoritarian city-state tops their list invalidates
it on its face, imho.
Even if we stick to their 10 dimensional description of a market
and declare them valid, equating overall distance from an arbitrary
ideal point to any other point in that 10 dimensional space is a
pretty meaningless activity.
Really?|10.13.08 @ 5:00PM|#
" ...and then for adventure in the merchant marine, yet he
discovered very little..."
from a Monthly Review article.
Awesome. I love how some hippie dipshit's "adventure" was my old
man's "fuckin' job".
|10.13.08 @ 6:28PM|#
THANK YOU, Highnumber.
Sheesh. What's it take to get a larf around here?
Really?,
He was a hippie AFTER the Merchant Marine. He was just a spoiled
kid with a rich daddy when he joined.
Angry Sam|10.13.08 @ 10:24PM|#
Well, I'm convinced. It's not like a former editor of the Harvard Law Review would be able to write an inspirational memoir, anyway.
|10.14.08 @ 2:51PM|#
"As Soros has pointed pointed out, all human constructs are
imperfect", lefiti
Despite repeated warnings, you have invoked the name of the Mad
Hungarian on this blog. I hereby sentence you to 25 stabbings to
the 'taint with a rusty corn-on-the-cob holder.
|10.15.08 @ 9:49PM|#
Singapore won't let you sell anything there that says something about its government that its government doesn't like to hear. You won't get caned for that, but you will get sued. This pretty well guarantees that any official screwup in that place will go right down the old memory hole. Which in turn renders any assertions about what it's like to do ANYTHING under that regime, suspect.
|10.15.08 @ 10:02PM|#
"Joe the Plumber" replaces "Joe Six-Pack" in re: Wife's Busch fortune & "3-Tier" alcohol wholesaler racket. Look for it.
Site comments/questions:
Media Inquiries and Reprint Permissions:
(310) 367-6109
Editorial & Production Offices:
3415 S. Sepulveda Blvd.
Suite 400
Los Angeles, CA 90034
(310) 391-2245