Monthly Archives: May 2016

Jokes

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Because it’s time.  Deal.

Refusing to go to the gym counts as resistance training, right?

Tell me again how I unloaded the dishwasher too loudly when you were watching golf. Detectives will want to know exactly how this went down.

Patient: How much to have this tooth pulled?
Dentist: Ninety dollars.
Patient: Ninety dollars for just a few minutes’ work?
Dentist: I can do it slower if you like.

A guy goes to a doctor’s office and the doctor says, “I haven’t seen you for a while.”
The guy says, “I know, I’ve been sick.”

Apparently taking a day off is not something you should do when you work for a calendar company.

Why is there music coming out of your printer?
That will be the paper jamming again!

Knock knock.
Who’s there?
An extraterrestrial.
Extraterrestrial who?
Wait—how many extra-terrestrials do you know?

Knock knock
Who’s there?
The door.

Why did the chicken cross the road?
To hunt somebody down.
Knock knock.
Who’s there?
The chicken.

Greece and Loans

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There is a kerfuffle going on just now among Greece, the IMF, Germany—mostly between Germany and the IMF.  The IMF wants to freeze interest rates on Greece’s loans for the next 30-40 years—so that Greece can pay up.  Germany is demurring from this, saying that’s not paying, that’s just delaying things.  Of course, the IMF is saying this about other nations’ loans; the IMF isn’t a current participant in them.

But there’s a misunderstanding at the center of the kerfuffle, and it has nothing to do with fixed interest rates or their duration.

[German Chancellor Angela Merkel] and many of her lawmakers believe that, without the IMF, the eurozone wouldn’t be able to enforce rigorous fiscal and economic overhauls in Greece in return for loans.

That might be difficult with the present round.  However, Germany, nor any of its fellow eurozone participants are obligated to loan to Greece, especially if the latter defaults on the current round.  The example of not lending further would be a valuable object lesson.

Of course, that also would take less timidity than Merkel, et al., are showing presently with their demand for IMF cover: on a default, Greece might leave the eurozone, and Europe is very much afraid of that.

Railroad Job

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…that the rest of us can look forward to under a Clinton administration?  That would certainly be a continuation of the last seven-plus years.

The Nevada State Democratic Convention Saturday night didn’t exactly fall apart so much as it was terminated by the Clinton Chair of the thing as that person simply ended the convention and walked out.  With a number of unresolved questions, except by her fiat adjournment.

Clinton now has 20 Nevada delegates to Sanders’s 15 when their new delegates are combined with those awarded after the caucuses.

But there was immediate backlash as the results were announced, with many Sanders supporters crying foul over their reported exclusion from the process.

And [emphasis added]

Leslie Sexton, a convention credentials committee co-chair, took the microphone just after the final results were read and said she had a minority report but was not allowed to give it.

The crowd started up loud chants of “Let her speak” and “Recount,” and after a few minutes a Democratic National Committee (DNC) member gave her the podium.

Sexton reported that nearly 64 Sanders delegates to the state convention were excluded from the convention process.  The Vermont senator only had 33 fewer delegates than Clinton in attendance.

Sexton added

The credentials minority report is based on the challenge of 64 Sanders delegates.  Contrary to the procedures and precedents set by the committee, nearly none of these 64 people were presented with the opportunity to be heard by the committee or to demonstrate that they are registered Democrats.

Without the opportunity to be heard, no delegate could be stricken.  The actions of the credentials committee violates the spirit of the Nevada state delegate plan, which encourages full participation in the democratic process, and it violates the spirit and values of our state and our nation.

Nevertheless, Convention Chair Roberta Lange simply gaveled the Convention to a close and left on the instant.

Sexton is, unfortunately, naïve.  This is democracy, Progressive style.

Yes, It Does

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The 9th Circuit is going to release, soon, its ruling on a lawsuit that involves California’s claim that it can mandate that firearm manufacturers incorporate safety devices into their firearms.

Anthony Hakl, a lawyer for the state, said the gun-rights groups sought to establish a constitutional right to purchase any handgun of one’s choice from whomever one chooses.

“No such right exists,” he wrote in a September brief.

It’s impressive that a highly trained lawyer should make such a statement with a straight face.  Alternatively, it’s depressing that our law schools do such a poor job of teaching our Constitution.

Here’s the 2nd Amendment on the matter:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Nothing in there about safety mechanisms, nor is there anything that addresses one way or the other the purchase of any handgun of one’s choice from whomever one chooses.

Here’s the 10th Amendment:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

There is no power to limit the sources of our Arms delegated to the United States by our Constitution.  Even the power to require us to license our Arms is a power merely to require us to know how to use—to be safe—with them.  Notice that, too: we have to be safe, not our Arms have to be safe in our stead.  Although it’s true enough that a safe weapon helps us be safe with them, it’s our responsibility to be safe, not the responsibility of an inanimate object.

Now, here’s the 9th Amendment:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

As noted above, there is no power to limit the sources of our Arms, either delegated or enumerated (a delegation by our ratification).  That’s a power retained by the people.  That’s a power retained by We the People.  The ability to purchase any handgun of one’s choice from whomever we might choose is already long established in our Constitution.

Only a Progressive lawyer would seek to rewrite the Constitution in so blatantly obvious a way.

A Good Reason to Leave

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The International Monetary Fund said a British vote to leave the European Union could have significant and negative effects on the UK economy, the latest contribution by an international institution to the fierce debate over Britain’s future in Europe.

If the IMF thinks it’s a bad idea, it’s probably a pretty good idea.

More seriously, the IMF is making its assessment on this basis:

…a vote in the June 23 referendum to leave the EU could “precipitate a protracted period of heightened uncertainty, leading to financial market volatility and a hit to output.”

The uncertainty and ensuing volatility and output hit are non sequiturs.  Of course there’ll be turmoil during the transition.  There’s turmoil in any major transition.  That’s not a reason to do or not to do anything.  The reason, the valid reason to do or not come solely from the new régime post-transition, when things have stabilized again.  For the IMF to obfuscate like this is for the IMF to show itself unserious.

Long-term costs could be substantial?  This is purely speculative, at least as much so as the other side’s claims that long-term gains could be substantial.  And, frankly, the gains are more likely than the costs.  For one thing, the decisions leading to gains or costs will be solely those of the Brits, and not anything imposed on them by an extranational body that is not focused exclusively on what’s good for Great Britain.  For another thing, the Brits will lose the costs of a bureaucracy that depends badly on not just consensus within a single Parliament, but on consensus across nations that don’t share the same values regarding social, political, or monetary philosophy.

And Great Britain will be able to go back to a free market economy of its own devising, and not be straitjacketed by the social democratic economies of the continent.