By not playing it yesterday I managed to get my laundry and grocery shopping done. I have a therapy appointment this afternoon and haven't showered since Tuesday; since I haven't really done much of anything that's not really a big deal, but every other day is the bare minimum of bathing for me solely because I feel unendurably crummy if I don't.
Come to think of it, I didn't shower on Tuesday. O Jesus. Monday was the last time I had a shower. I need to bathe, damn it.
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Speaking of mud-slinging, let's get on to GOP primary 2012 stuff:
Perry drops out and endorses Newt.
Santorum won in Iowa, not Romney. Iowa royally stuffed the caucus, though, since there are 8 precints whose votes are lost and "cannot be recovered". The entire result of the caucus is thus tainted. Thanks, Iowa! WTF.
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Michelle Malkin on Obama's rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline project.
Telling quote: "I’m disappointed that Republicans in Congress forced this decision, but it does not change my Administration’s commitment to American-made energy that creates jobs and reduces our dependence on oil."
Your administration has no commitment to "American-made energy". No administration since Reagan's has. (Check my math: that's 24 years, right?) In fact, every administration since Reagan's has done NOTHING to increase our domestic supply of energy. None has tried to rein in the EPA or to make it easier to produce, sell, or distribute energy.
But Boss Tweek said, "...reduces our dependence on oil." What word is commonly in that phrase? Oh, "foreign", right! Without that word it sounds as if MC Sleepy wants to choke the shit out of our economy, because without oil our entire infrastructure grinds to a halt. If our government takes steps that "reduces our dependence on oil" it means our economy will be running slower. It means higher unemployment and higher prices.
("Oh, he just misspoke!" I thought a person who misspeaks isn't fit to be President. That's what we were told when Bush was in the White House. "That's different!" Sure it is. Shut the fuck up, you communist hypocrite.)
I'm tired of gasoline costing $3.70 a gallon when it doesn't have to. I'm tired of electricity and heating gas being so expensive. Especially when there is absolutely NO FREAKING REASON it has to be.
Except, of course, the meddling of politicians.
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Vox Day on another teenage gay documentarian killing himself.
...[I]t is entirely possible that the endless propaganda is actually more to blame for what Ellen Degeneres has described as a "gay teen suicide epidemic" than the anti-gay bullying itself. If the propaganda is encouraging more borderline young men to experiment with a deviant lifestyle that has long been known to correspond with various health-related disorders, including mental health, then it is contributing to an increasing suicide rate rather than decreasing it.Sorry, but the statistics back him up on this.
Actually, I'm not sorry. I get so f-ing tired of people saying that if you notice the truth it makes you a bigot. You're supposed to ignore the disease and mental illness and-and-and because it's not all pie-in-the-sky, unicorn flatus, and rainbows; it doesn't fit the image of what they want it to be like, so when you notice and discuss the facts and reality it makes you a bigot.
Yeah.
Vox says it best:
While I'm sure it must feel very satisfying to blame everything on "homophobes" and insufficient societal admiration, the weight of observable evidence doesn't presently tend to indicate that they have much, if anything, to do with the actual problem.But it doesn't support the narrative if you point out that there is a higher incidence of disease, of mental health issues, of pedophilia, and a host of other really bad things.
Since I refuse to live in a fantasy world, though, these hard facts raise issues that I need answers for before I can uncritically support the agenda of these people. So far these answers have been nonexistent, and as long as they continually try to sweep the problems under the rug and demand unconditional love we're going to be at loggerheads.
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DOOM!
Investors in Greek bonds don't want to take a huge haircut. That 70% figure being bandied about last week--that's not a haircut; that's a trip to the guillotine.
But the market rallied yesterday! Yeah:
...it'll fall again soon enough.
This article gives us a hard date after which the inevitable collapse cannot be further postponed:
Even members of the committee concede the process is unlikely to succeed in time for the crunch date: a €14.5bn bond repayment falling due on March 20.There you are: March 20. If Greece cannot find some wiggle room before 3/20/12, then the shit will hit the fan.
At mach 9.
...Greece was considering passing legislation to force all private bondholders to take losses, while exempting the European Central Bank, which is the largest institutional holder of Greek bonds with 50 billion euros or so.One rule for the bank, another for the individual--I don't believe the government of Greece has quite the foundation in "rule of law" as our own Constitution does, but it doesn't matter; that's a raw deal for the private investors and if that goes ahead there will be riots.
Legal experts suggest that the investors may have a case because if Greece changes the terms of its bonds so that investors receive less than they are owed, that could be viewed as a property rights violation — and in Europe, property rights are human rights.
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And remember: even in the unlikely event that Europe manages to avoid the shitstorm that Greece represents--even if--there are still Italy and Spain to worry about.
Greece is going to default and Portugal will soon follow. The ECB is attempting to fence off Italy and Spain, but the only way it can do so is by buying massive quantities of Italian and Spanish debt (and doing so puts Germany and France at risk when the setup blows up).And when that happens? "Look out! Here comes the ceiling!"
How long the ECB can get away with this policy before the bond market focuses on France and Germany remains to be seen, but it sure will not be forever.
That says "the only way it can do so" but I would insert the phrase "in a perfect world" after "can do so". Europe is shooting its wad with Greece, because everyone there knows they cannot afford to let even one EU member nation default. When the Greek default happens anyway it's going to take whatever capacity the EU has for bailing out Spain and Italy with it. (IMHO. I am more pessimistic about this than the learned economists are.)
And what do you think that means? It means ol' Barry H. 'Bammer is going to bail out his Euro-pals, that's what! That's how the US will get sucked into this bullshit, over and above the exposure that comes naturally from a globalized world economy. It's all connected and we can't avoid some fallout; but BH'B is going to go all in to help his Euro-butt-buddies.
*flush*
...and I'm hard-pressed to explain why "President Romney" would do anything different than I expect the Obamarator to do. There's no perceptible policy differences between Romney and Obama, after all. So in the unlikely event that Europe somehow staves off the collapse of European socialism until a bit more than a year from now, the US will still be boned by the actions of its President.
Unless it's Ron Paul. And as Tam observed, when Ron Paul looks good, you know you're in deep shit.
*sigh*
What Denninger suggests here is more pie-in-the-sky. Denninger has his head screwed on straight but the problem is, the Greek people won't stand for it.
They won't stand for it when the whole ball of wax goes to the crapper and plugs it so bad both Mario and Luigi couldn't possibly unstop it, even if they get Wario and that big-ass gorilla to help. Of course not: it means an end to the bread and circuses of socialism. People don't care if there's no money. "It's not fair you promised YOU PROMISED YOU PROMISED!"
Denninger's solution would provide for an orderly default, sure; but the people would still riot. Besides, the politicians running Greece don't want to lose control over all that money; spending money is power. So anything that keeps Greece from borrowing money after the current crisis is solved is a non-starter even though they will have no one from whom to borrow even if they get out of this relatively unscathed.
Look: Greece cannot repay the money they owe. That's why there's all this talk of "haircuts"; the "haircuts" are meant to avoid full default, allowing them to reduce their debt load while avoiding a credit default swap, which would be bad for other reasons.
But even if Greece can avoid catatstrophe right now it is not going to fix the basic problem: the government of Greece simply spends too much money, much more than it has. If everything goes perfectly right and Greece avoids defualt and the investors accept their "haircut" ("ass-reaming" is the phrase I would use--how fitting, considering it's Greece) then we will simply end up right back where we are now in a handful of years. (Maybe a decade, under ideal circumstances.)
But I doubt that the catastrophe can be postponed. If it could, the Europeans would not be scrambling the way they are.
...and again: even if Greece avoids catastrophe, what can be done about Portugal, Spain, and Italy? (Ireland seems to have dropped off the "disaster map"; is it really fixed?)
The ideal outcome for Greece doesn't fix Italy, Portugal, or Spain. It may, in fact, make those crises even more dire than they already are, since solving Greece means depleting the resources Europe has for dealing with crises. Again, if everything goes exactly right I could see them holding off Italy or Portugal or Spain...but not all three and probably not more than one of them.
In the best of all possible worlds, then, the collapse still takes place. It merely takes longer to happen.
Yeah: we're boned.
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Talking with Sailor V last night I was reminded that I haven't linked to many of the manga series that I read. Here are the titles in my regular checklist:
Hayate the Combat ButlerThese update more-or-less monthly. (I just put Family Compo in the "stagnant" bin last night; it hasn't updated since October.)
Kiss X Sis
Fujimura-kun Mates
Sketchbook
Yandere Kanojo
Umi no Misaki
K-ON
Kodomo no Jikan
Working
Minami-ke
Switch Girl
Yankee-kun to Megane-chan
Here's where you go to find those titles: Mangareader.net.
...I am not going to make individual links to all those titles. If you're too lazy to peruse an index of titles to find a specific one, that's your problem, not mine.
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ETA on the Kindle is still tomorrow. No idea when my book order from B&N will get here, but that doesn't really matter; I've waited this long to read 'em, so I can wait another week or so.
Just getting the Kindle set up will take me some time, anyway, because I've got to transfer a bunch of stuff from the Aluratek anyway.
I had been thinking about going to CompUSA today to get a new heat sink and fan combo for Cephiro. I'm getting tired of the loud-ass case fan. But it snowed this morning and it's supposed to snow more tonight and tomorrow, so I don't really think I'm going to make the trip before the weekend.
*sigh*
I can play Katawa Shoujo on El-Hazard, though, and that system is nice and quiet.
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In any case, it's been three f-ing days since I had a shower. WTF!!! I'm going to remedy that RIGHT THE HELL NOW.