Education Bubble: A Graphic Illustration

The picture above shows West Kidding County High (WKCH, not a radio station) after its recent expansion. It was kinda squished down and then stretched out like taffy. I thought that would be a good way to handle the space problem presented by the top of the page. But then I was listening to Sen. Obama and heard him talking about inflation -- of tires -- as a solution to our energy problems. Which got me wondering, could inflation be a solution to the space problem? Is there such a thing as inflated graphics to go along with inflated rhetoric? So using hot air graciously provided by the Obama campaign (they passed through town recently), I tried to inflate WKCH (not the radio station). Here is what I got:

Obviously, there is a weak spot in the intertube. I know they don't use inner tubes in tires anymore but they do use intertubes in schools. So what you got here is a classic educational bubble.

Or is it. Because as I considered what might be going on, I remembered the Great Seal of Kiddington. And sure enough:

Now, the great Seal is also the Great Big Seal, but he ain't that big. So what it is, is, the use of false perspective -- same like we are suppose to use to select our President. Arf, arf.

Regular readers of this sight -- such as, for instance, myself -- know that I've been playing around with Open Office. org's software suite (I call it OOf or OOps, depending on what happens) . Then I started with the Open Office Draw feature (which I'll call OODLE's of doodles) and it is as frustrating as I thought it would be. Out of desperation I started reading the directions -- from the beginning, where they suggest you start. After about an hour I was still at, like, Opening a file -- the twelfth way of doing it. Heedless to say, it was saving files that was screwing me up. (You see, you got to export it from the Open Office Universe if you want to actually use it. How silly of me not to know). So I went back to pushing buttons more or less randomly.

There seems to be an extreme bias in the program towards working on the printed page. It will even save your little photo with a whole lot of white space for the rest of a printed page. So I actually did a final crop using my old Graphics Program that I got for twenty bucks 12 years ago. That's why there ain't like, six inches of blank space below the photo. (If there is, let me know). Now to compare the two programs: Open Office was free. (OK, and all the various parts work together, at least in theory).

Unless, of course, you're a Terrorist transporting mad bombers in an Ambulance.

BBC NEWS | Americas

Betancourt rescuer wore Red Cross

Misuse of the symbol undermines Red Cross neutrality

Colombia's president has confimed (sic) that a Red Cross symbol was worn by a member of the military rescue mission that freed 15 hostages from Farc rebels.

Alvaro Uribe said he had apologised to the Red Cross for the error, made by a nervous soldier acting against orders.

Misuse of the Red Cross emblem is considered a violation of the Geneva Conventions and international law.

Well now. Here's a case for the International Criminal Court. Did Columbia make the mistake of signing on?

All you criminals out there: make sure you demand that anyone you meet wears a Red Cross symbol. That way you will know they are not with law enforcement.

Some thoughts on How Republicans can Win.

Instapundit.com

WORST CONGRESS EVER: "Remember when only 14% approved of the job Congress is doing? A year later, only 9% do." The Pelosi/Reid leadership team is taking Congress places it's never been before!

UPDATE: So why are the Republicans running scared, and why aren't they going after the "new Democratic Congress" hammer-and-tongs? Beats me. Because they're idiots, I guess.

The most obvious issue for the Republicans to exploit is Oil and energy. Paint the Democratic Congress as the most important member of OPEC, as I describe below. McCain should change "no drill in ANWR" to "keep the Alaskan Pipeline full." There is a lot of other oil up there we can use.

What the Democrats call Big Oil long ago became Big Government Oil. The Majors are now overwhelmingly controlled by Governments. Some are run as if the personal property of the Tyrant in charge. In the US, government regulation is constant and fierce. When the majors where private companies, fuel was cheap and plentiful. It is now Big Government — little oil. Big Government, shrinking production.

When we import oil we export jobs. So, Run on energy jobs: the jobs that come with exploration and building infrastructure (refineries and Nuclear power plants). It's the greatest job program we can have.

Stop talking about taxes as a burden on this or that individual (and whether he's rich) and talk about it as a burden on the entire economy. The economy can comfortably carry at a government that takes less than 30 percent of the GNP. At forty percent it gets out of breath. It's the difference between being fit and healthy and fat and fainting. Or perhaps a race horse carrying a weight. The heavier the weight, the more the "handicap." The Democrats as handicappers. The Democratic Congress as The DC Handicappers.

I'll have to give this more thought.

The World's Most Oily Politicians.

Pajamas Media » How Oil Prices Could Collapse

Do you think $140 a barrel is insane? Last week the president of OPEC Chakib Khelil predicted $170 a barrel by summer’s end. More sobering, this week the U.S. Energy Information Administration forecast world energy use to grow fifty percent by 2030.

If that pans out, it would mean the world will need to burn more than 120 million barrels of oil that day. We have it, but can we afford it? Nope, and that is why the oil domain is crumbling.

So writes Youssef M. Ibrahim.

If we are switching from oil over the next fifty years, we may as well use what we have now. At $60 bbl the world has plenty of oil (for the next few decades, at least). So $60 bbl is where the price should head.

Right now the most important members of OPEC are the Democrats in Congress. OPEC keeps the price of oil up by limiting supply. Some OPEC politicians do this through deliberate policy. Others through sheer incompetent management of state oil companies. But the Democrats keep more oil off the market than any other national group of politicians. Without the Democrats in Congress, OPEC would be in the pickle business.

Whether this is deliberate policy on the Democrats part or rank incompetence is hard to tell. They have all heard of the "Law of Supply and Demand" and most want to repeal it. Because, you see, suppliers should not make demands, and if they do they should be locked up! Unless, of course, they work for the government.

While they complain about BIG OIL, their mucking about in the markets (and muckraking up voter resentment) actually favors big oil -- foreign government big oil. Look at the price of oil when the "seven sisters" where private, and mainly US operated, firms. Now that the ladies are a government owned OPEC harem, look at the price.

When politicians start blaming speculators, you can be sure the politicians have screwed up. When you see George Soros blaming speculators, you can be sure he is morphing into a politician while doubling down on the other side of the bet.

Let Slip the Running Dogs of Metaphor

I like my mixed metaphors shaken, not stirred. So as I swim the Yangtze River of my thoughts until that mighty torrent meets the Mississippi of...of...reality? No, reality is really the Gulf Stream -- a warm current surrounded by an ocean of cold water. The cold water could easily short circuit that warm current, causing sparks to fly. That is the way of reality. For it is the Gulf Stream.

But enough about reality which is the Gulf Stream. The Mississippi River is actually my...my dream! Wait. Let's see. No, my dream: she is the fertile and curvaceous and mighty and fecund Amazon! Of course the Amazon is not really a "she" but more of an androgynous-ly, hermaphroditic-ly, not so easy to tell-ly exactly what-ly -- mm. Ah.

It comes to me. The dreamy, north flowing Nile meets my rising, east flowing Yangtze (with its source in the Himalayas). Strong and yet gentle my Yangtze is! The Amazon, she is obsession; she is not dream. I should never have brought h-er-im up. This has nothing to do with nearly naked Amazonian wild, ah, things -- no way, no shape, no form, no whips, no leather, wait! OK, depending on the shape and the form and the type of leather bikini there might be a whip -- no! No whips! That's an entirely different metaphor and not a good one. Uh. Mm. It's off topic, too.

Where was I before my thoughts got Shanghaied? Right. I was in China, a complex accumulation of metaphors for -- I forget. But I actually wasn't there. I was at the

Belmont Club » Thinking about China

Mark Helprin at the Claremont Institute points out two obvious things. The first is the rise of China, not only as an economic power but also as a technological and industrial power. The second is the apparent lack of any US strategy to come to terms with that fact. The combination of the two can lead to disastrous effects.

Good thing I've learned to stop worrying and love the Obama. I'm already busy planning my next vacation from history. I think I’ll watch “Seven Years in Tibet” seven times, with US being the Tibetans.

The future is as real to me as any movie. The entire Chinese army is on the march and the Democrats in Congress respond by all going “AUMMMM” at the same time, doing their best Buddhist Monk. They smile to say "ah," they pucker their lips for an open mouth "oo," and then they swallow the mmm! It's the new politics and it sure sounds different from the old.

You see, we have traded our big honkin' Hummers for the much smaller "Aumm-ers." We were told this would be good for the planet, though which planet was not specified. And the Aummer is a better vehicle for family oriented vacations from history. It is hands (and arms) down the best for a short ride on a smooth, straight road.

The Aummer don't have a huge, jack booted footprint like the Hummer. It don't go around kicking down doors. It issues polite invitations to teas with replies requested but not really expected (unless, of course, it is a subpoena to a Capitalist Running Dog Republican). In point of fact, the Aummer don't got no foot print at all: it got a "tiny little ballet slipper worn by an out of shape marine" print. And he's standing on his tip-toes in the mud, so call it a three toed slipper print -- that soon becomes the "neck deep in a quagmire that we should have avoided in the first place" print. Did I say it was a print? The tutus will arrive in the next budget cycle and are labeled "body amour." It is believed no one will shoot a Marine in a tutu. There is little evidence that it has ever happened and that is considered much evidence that it won't.

At first the sight of marines wearing slippers and walking around on their tip-toes while neck deep in a quagmire was a pleasing one. It was thought this would keep them out of trouble.

Until our new "Aummer National Subcompact," which by this time had completely replaced the Hummer, hit a really rough patch of road. In fact, it turned into no road at all: a wilderness where not even the GPS worked. It was major war -- sans metaphor, sans simile, sans reason! Sans iambic pentameter! Curiously, it did have rhyme. But you had to cheat, as in Britney Spears singing "the ho's a hoe." Which is a metaphor but it wasn't planned.

By going "Aummm" all together our Aummer Congress tries to create a Harmonic Convergence to keep away all the Harms (and Hellfires) that War brings. But being politicians instead of Monks, they are all Aumm-ing in different keys, while assuming they're in the same.

Some screech so loud and hit notes so high it is an "antiwar dog whistle" -- which will call all the dogs of war to the homeland. You see, they had heard in one of their speeches that the Republicans had let these dogs slip, and they think maybe the dogs hurt themselves when they slipped. "How callous," they told the Republicans, "You let slip the dogs of war and don't even know what they slipped on! Was it the icy White House steps?" So they want the dogs of war to visit our Vets. They think our Vets can take care of them, and it will give the vets, like, meaning. Of course every dog will have his day in court (and a tort lawyer).

'Cept the dogs of war don't want to visit our vets and won't get in the travel cages, the ones the lawyers warned them about (and the BBC, too). Instead, we all have to join them on the mid-winter wilderness trails where they will howl beyond the flicker of the campfire. We've all returned to a state of nature, which is good. Or is it? What if we cannot make it back to the climate controlled wilderness lodge? Or maybe it's been hit by hellfires (not the metaphor, the missile).

But I got ahead of myself. At the start of this "National Lampoon's Vacation from History," Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (now called The Hope and Unity Choir Director) does look lovely and ageless in her saffron robes. An artist and cyber Billionaire from her home district commissions a sculpture of her on the capital steps. It is known as "The Reclining Speaker who Hath already Spoke-eth." The marble woman is at peace with the world though the world wars with her. The work is inspired by the laid-back lady's direction of the Aumming Congress during the looming crisis. In that sculpture you can almost see her peaceful dream and the dream is the Blue Nile -- so deep in blue it is indigo. View this Sculpture from certain angles and the lady looks like she has just been run over by a tour bus.

So as Asia teeters and the Congress titters and we gets the jitters, we will find the answer to that ageless question: “What if they throw a war and only one side shows up?” True, we could ask the Tibetans, but who will believe that bunch of losers?

I'm using "Tibetans" here as a metaphor, of course. And that vacation from history? It ends at the apocalypse, the ultimate thrill ride.

Oh. And the Mississippi River? She is the imagination. I think. Wait...

Choose one from each group

Reagan, for better or worse — I’d say for worse, but that’s another discussion — brought a lot of change. He ran as an unabashed conservative, with a clear ideological agenda.

Thus writes Paul Krugman of the New York Times, as he wondered if Barack Obama is a Ronald Reagan. Now at what point in the campaign did we know Reagan was Reagan and what being Reagan meant? And here Sen. Obama has the nomination in hand and we don't even know if Obama is Obama. And we sure don't know what it means to be an Obama.

Mr. Krugman continues his clue search as he expands the comparison to Bill Clinton:

So whom does Mr. Obama resemble more? At this point, he’s definitely looking Clintonesque...Like Mr. Clinton, Mr. Obama portrays himself as transcending traditional divides. Near the end of last week’s “unity” event with Hillary Clinton, he declared that “the choice in this election is not between left or right, it’s not between liberal or conservative, it’s between the past and the future.” Oh-kay.

Decades ago I lived in North Beach in San Fransisco where a lot Italian restaurants ran lunch specials. For $2.50 you could choose what you liked from a group of appetizers; choose one from a group of main courses; choose from a group of side dishes and deserts and beverages. And actually put together quite an inexpensive feast.

What we have here is the "choose one from each group" candidate. For each issue he takes three positions. The position that most excites you is the one he holds. The other two are necessary political panders he has to make to get elected. He does this -- sacrifices his integrity -- so he can put your solutions into practice. Some might call him a politician. He will endure this for you. And he will work hard (never worked harder!) to do right by you. Wait. In fact, wait some more.

So he is neither Clinton nor is he Reagan. He is the man who, once elected, will have a mandate to do whatever he wants. Because the Media will tell us so. After all, the left has already made its choice. If their every choice is not yours, you did not choose wisely.

The Noble Much Obliged

This was a comment I left at the The Belmont Club.

In a feudal system, the military leaders that conquer a region become the new aristocracy. In Western Europe's recent wars, the conquering Military was not aristocratic or European. Nor was it interested in holding the reins of power, but did protect those who would pick the reins up. This has allowed a new aristocratic system to evolve.

Because after the last century's wars, it was the clerks of Europe (sometimes confused with intellectuals) who emerged triumphant. Their means of control are not martial but material in nature (basically, the disposition of taxes in a system of political "group" patronage). This allows women to acquire positions of great power without having to work through the male family line. In this system, power grows from an inked rubber stamp, flowery prose, poisoned logic, and a purple ribbon. In this (is it proper to say?) women are the equal of men.

Europe now develops into a "Clerical aristocracy" with de facto primogeniture at its center. In an emerging static system of hierarchy (National and European), the most prepared child of either sex will inherit a position of similar prestige to that of the parents. The guaranteed inheritance is not (yet) total and not (yet) explicit.

In a martial aristocracy the "militarists" control, with some difficulty, the clerks. It is more essential that the clerical aristocrats control the military. In both systems, the Aristocracy wants to control the "guns" and keep them out of the hands of the commoners (unless especially trusted and favored). But not so much out of the hands of the "healthy" criminal class (those uninterested in attacking the aristocracy). Aristocrats look at healthy criminals as competitors and, at times, allies in the exploitation of commoners.

The Noble clerks perpetuate their ruling class by properly designing the education and testing system so that the "class favorites" are from the favored class. Selection from this "merit pool" would be influenced by family connections -- with the candidates culled as they are promoted up the ranks.

In such an emergent system having more than two children would be considered suspect. You could argue the third was an accident. But the fourth would constitute a kind of rebellion, since the promotion of your brood will leave fewer choice positions for the "child" of others. This "gang of siblings" could become bandits grabbing control of bureaucratic turf. As a matter of "noble" self-defense, they would be held back.

A clerical aristocracy would not be wealth creators but wealth administrators. The multiplication of social programs would be accompanied by a multiplication of noble positions (with squires and yeoman attached) and a cohort of dependent clients. The nobles would be highly suspicious of freewheeling capitalism since it provides an independent route to status and prestige. Besides, who knows where those free wheels are going to go a-wheeling? The Noble clerks sell free lunches, and their little hot dog stand might get knocked over. The free lunch is a con, of course, but it is also a living for the proprietor and his Noble patron.

The (ideally unarmed) commoners would be dependent on this system even as they became cynical about it. They see that children, as a class, are an excuse for the multiplication of Noble positions -- and an excuse for higher taxes. This turns their own immediate descendants into a class enemy. Also, in a static society, it makes sense to concentrate your limited influence on preparing and marketing one child to achieve one low-level clerical position -- a position from which the child can climb the greased pole and establish a clerical line.

But the "Nobles" need a population that the domesticated commoners are not producing. One solution is to import them -- but in a manner where they will provide additional Noble positions (meaning additional expenditures to the "department" and, ideally, tax revenues to the government) while not competing for those positions. The Nobility does not need a second generation of honor students from their immigrant class -- quite the opposite. Keeping them separate from the native commoners and engendering mutual hostility between them is "Maintaining an Aristocracy 101." They put that "Marxist dialectic" they all studied to work -- in reverse.

What is the way forward?

1. Make the new Aristocracy explicit, along with a new Chivalric Code. Only one, or at most two, noble children continue the clerical line. Lesser children enter a class of lower clerical gentry. Or they can be married into the class of (properly regulated, constrained, and most of all administered) business people. This will strengthen a system of family alliances and make all dependent on the "new chivalry."

2. Recognize that the system is exploitive of future generations and cut the commoner parents into the deal. This can be done by selling new infants a reverse "savings bond" where the parents keep the money. Right now only the Nobles profit from the immediate entry of a new baby into "the system." With this bond, commoners will get a monthly stipend for each child they have. The children will begin paying the bond back when they reach 22. This will be a clear profit for the first generation of commoner parents. The second generation would have to perpetuate the system to get their money back. If they don't have children they will live in poverty even worse than what they are already experiencing (we are not designing a system that allows people to thrive -- only one that pretends to).

Perhaps the Swedes can lead the way here. US to follow.