JayB

one man's sum-total is evidently quite different than another's; selectivity is often the hallmark of theories of conspiracy. But, since we were talking about mortgages....won't Hadrian's wall protect me from danger? ARMs aren't practical for my needs. 30 yr fixed works best with what we are doing. now if I was to plan a quick re-sell, then an interest-only would be the only logical option. You see, it's really about your needs, jayb. were you calling for federal intervention in the mortgage market, btw? things are really heating up it seems, with Goldman Sachs' quote "The direct macroeconomic effects of subprime stress are likely to be small" seemingly becoming dated rather quickly. Do you think that the "market" should have been more tightly regulated by the feds inre to the lending practices seen in the last decade? Selectivity may is a minor element in relation to the conviction that events cannot be explained satisfactorily without recourse to a particular intelligence or agency that orchestrated a particular set of events. Conspiracy theories are to history what intelligent design is to evolution. Did I specify a particular actor that orchestrated global affairs over the course of the past thirty years with the specific intention of cultivating paranoid tendencies in the political left? "Do you think that the "market" should have been more tightly regulated by the feds inre to the lending practices seen in the last decade?" In short, yes.

Agreed. Much easier to understand how folks came to hold such perspectives, and to a certain extent absolve them of responsibility for them when they are shaped under such circumstances. Much tougher to extent the same sentiments towards anyone who lives in a free society.

The folks burning the effigy were Anarchists. Again, not sure that will change the analysis, but...

wow, a conspiracy theory about a conspiracy theory. Interesting. If the conspirator in question is the sum-total of all of the political realities that have characterized the last 30 odd years, then perhaps. And - shouldn't you be feverishly compiling the documents necessary to refinance out of the option-ARMS before the incipient credit-tightening precludes your ability to do so?

" dunno. I expect that if my city and country were occupied under similar conditions, I would come to hate/fear the combat troops on the ground, who are responsible for going door-to-door to secure the area, the people who daily make decisions about who lives, who dies, because they carry the weapons. I'm not sure which would be more rational, but I think focusing a fair amount of your hatred on the physical, local representatives of the occupying power would be a natural response. And I expect that I also would partake in subversive measures to take back my country." You do realize that the folks burning the effigy in question were Americans, not Iraqis. Not sure this will alter your analysis of this matter in any way, but thought that it would be worth pointing out.

The Islamic man on the street and the left-wing commentariat here at cc.com evidently have quite a bit in common when it comes to their perception of those events. Might make for a good game show: Theory Espoused at Moveon.org or...Madrasah in Waziristan? I thought his damnation of the MSM quite rightwing. C'est verdad. If he had only used the term "corporate media" instead the overlap would have been seamless. What's interesting is the prevalence and persistence of this kind of paranoid conspiracy mongering in an open society. I used to see think this kind of thinking was symptomatic of the limits on the distribution and exchange of information that were only possible in politically repressive states, but I've had to reconsider that point as of late. Despite the proliferation of information sources available to the average citizen over the course of the past 15 years or so, these tendencies, if anything, have increased, especially on the Left. In light of this phenomenon, I've become convinced that paranoia has less to do with poor access to information than a kind of persistent political frustration that results when it appears as though your side is either marginalized and powerless, or has lost the argument has seen the tides of culture and popular opinion turn decisively away from the values, politics, and beliefs that you would like to see prevail. Not only that, but things are so far gone that attempts to redress the problem through conventional political or intellectual means seem completely hopeless. One can see how certain elements of the Right must have felt this way in the period that ran from roughly 1932-1980, and this may explain why - whatever the faults of the political Left during this period - feverish conspiracy mongering was almost completely confined to various elements on the Right. This seemed to be true even during the broad reverses that occurred during the broad reverses that the Left sustained during the Reagan administration, and right through the Clinton Era - although his moderate third-wayism may have have left the true believers who had been holding out for the Anti-Reagan feeling even more marginalized and embittered. The arrival and persistence of GWB in the oval office, coming on top of the failure of any of the various 60's utopia's to materialize, the collapse of the Soviet Block, the broad retreat of Socialism in nearly every venue around the world, the ascendance of the religious Right, etc, etc seems to have been to much for certain elements in the Left to accept as a consequence of anything that could be understood or explained outside of the paradigm of a monumental conspiracy that's far too intricate and subtle for the average person on the street to notice or comprehend, much less resist. Hence, among certain elements of the political Left, we have witnessed the emergence and popular appeal of paranoid delusions that rival anything dreamed up by the black-helicopter crowd in their intensity and scope. Once a virtual monopoly owned and operated by the Right, now a shared franchise.

Spell it out for us, comrade.

The Islamic man on the street and the left-wing commentariat here at cc.com evidently have quite a bit in common when it comes to their perception of those events. Might make for a good game show: Theory Espoused at Moveon.org or...Madrasah in Waziristan?

Now compare and contrast the crew in the above video with their black-clad counterparts shown in the footage here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXQ9KHEC7FY

ecp8ZCC3tB8

The best part of Vancouver is the flat concrete deal that bypasses the town and leads to the greater Squistler area. Be there in eight days....

"Unctuous, Oleaginous, Saponacious"

The tele-gear doesn't seem to hold the Hummel bros back too much. Just imagine what they could do with AT gear!

BTW - sorry to hear about your back, Matt. That sucks.

"CODEPINK members were crying outside Pelosi’s office. When asked why, Rae Abileah, 24, said she was crying out of “outrage that this is all we can get from the Democrats,” referring to the Iraq supplemental funding bill, scheduled for a vote Friday. “We’re just heartbroken that Nancy Pelosi has decided to keep funding George Bush’s war, and now the war belongs to the Democrats as well as the Republicans,” said CODEPINK co-founder Medea Benjamin. “We thought we were going to get a change when they came into power.” Such innocence.

There's a challenge to riding your heel side edge in a straight line down the entire run? Sadly enough, that's normally how it gets done, and is almost certainly the manner in which the "snowboarding is too easy so I have to tele for a challenge" crew would descend any such line. Now that I can ski again, and haven't been on my board more than once or twice a season for the past four years or so, that's probably what I'd have to resort to at this point as well.

Have to agree with Ken here. It'd be interesting to watch anyone who dismisses snowboarding as easy hit a steep bumpline on a board.

As one more familiar with the craft, perhaps you could explain the twin-tip tele phenomenon to the rest of us. I have seen dozens of dudes with the TTT thing going on out here in the east, and have yet to see any of them ski, much less land, switch, and of course if you're doing 99% of your skiing on icy-ass East Coast terrain, nothing performs like an undampened park-ski. Anxiously awaiting the magical bro-bra/sensitive-alterno-hipster synergy that the free-heel snowboard binding will bring to the slopes.

Uh, not that I need to point out Seahawk's ignorance to anyone here, but Nazi Germany did not have a viable nuclear weapons development program. Which we only determined after they had been defeated. When the survival of the free world was literally at stake, it would have made much more sense to cross our fingers and trust Hitler, who surely would have disclosed both the specific location of their research facilities and the progress that they'd made along these lines to his enemies in the middle of a war to destroy them. Is there a single sane historian who contends that anything other than fear of Germany acquiring the weapons first that impelled the Allies to undertake the Manhattan project? Nothing stated so far successfully refutes my original statement. Neener. This statement is meaningless outside of the context in which the decision to proceed with the Manhattan project was made - reminder, they did not have perfect knowledge of what Nazi intentions/capabilities/etc were with regard to nuclear weapons - so why you think this is a meaningful insight is beyond me. If Roosevelt et al had been able to magically see the future, exclaim "Hey - It looks like Adolf and Co didn't have an operational nuke and actually weren't even close to developing one. Gosh" And then went ahead with the Manhattan project anyway, then your point would be salient. It would be more salient if you bothered to read the thread. If you can't refute the argument, pretend it doesn't exist. Excellent.

For the folks sticking to the ChimpyMcHileroBurtonatGloboCabalOsamaisamythand911wasaninsidejob ItsAboutOilforChenyetetcetcetc crew: Was the world reeling from an oil embargo/shortage before the war? We seemed to be getting all of the oil that we needed just fine before the war began, via the miracle of the world oil market, in which the oil - once inside the tankers - invariably goes to the buyer willing to pay the highest price for it. Did the OPEC embargo in the 1970s trigger any invasions of oil rich countries with weak defenses? Why not? If our only goal was to get our hands on Iraqi oil, and we had no concerns about what ends the proceeds from the sale would be turned to, wouldn't it have been much more logical to make a deal with Saddam and pass the strategic about-face off as pragmatism? If our only end in Iraq was to secure with force what we could already easily obtain on the open market - why did we leave the oil fields in Saddam's hands after '91? Why not occupy Kuwait under some pretext related to the '91 war and secure geographic control over their resources as well? Did oil suddenly become a strategic consideration between '91 and 02/03? Is there any factual evidence that the war was the result of a conspiracy undertaken to enrich oil companies? Were Tony Blair, Aznar, Major, etc, etc, etc, etc, in on the conspiracy or were they unwilling dupes? How is it that masterminds behind such a conspiracy weren't able to pull off lesser conspiracy to plant WMD in Iraq, or that the same masterminds failed to comprehend the political damage that the failure to find any would cast on the entire enterprise? How do the oil reserves in Afghanistan account for our continued presence there? And finally: Is uncritical rejection of every claim put forth by a given government logically superior to uncritical acceptance of the same?

Uh, not that I need to point out Seahawk's ignorance to anyone here, but Nazi Germany did not have a viable nuclear weapons development program. Which we only determined after they had been defeated. When the survival of the free world was literally at stake, it would have made much more sense to cross our fingers and trust Hitler, who surely would have disclosed both the specific location of their research facilities and the progress that they'd made along these lines to his enemies in the middle of a war to destroy them. Is there a single sane historian who contends that anything other than fear of Germany acquiring the weapons first that impelled the Allies to undertake the Manhattan project? Nothing stated so far successfully refutes my original statement. Neener. This statement is meaningless outside of the context in which the decision to proceed with the Manhattan project was made - reminder, they did not have perfect knowledge of what Nazi intentions/capabilities/etc were with regard to nuclear weapons - so why you think this is a meaningful insight is beyond me. If Roosevelt et al had been able to magically see the future, exclaim "Hey - It looks like Adolf and Co didn't have an operational nuke and actually weren't even close to developing one. Gosh" And then went ahead with the Manhattan project anyway, then your point would be salient.

Uh, not that I need to point out Seahawk's ignorance to anyone here, but Nazi Germany did not have a viable nuclear weapons development program. Which we only determined after they had been defeated. When the survival of the free world was literally at stake, it would have made much more sense to cross our fingers and trust Hitler, who surely would have disclosed both the specific location of their research facilities and the progress that they'd made along these lines to his enemies in the middle of a war to destroy them. Is there a single sane historian who contends that anything other than fear of Germany acquiring the weapons first that impelled the Allies to undertake the Manhattan project?

Bone - these were questions that you can answer as an individual. Whether the US or any other other country could ever be perceived by everyone in the world as the ideal arbiter of the decisions concerning who should have nukes is another matter. But back to your statements. Why is it that Islamic groups who want nuclear weapons should not have them? If you can come up with criteria that apply to various Islamic groups, is it not conceivable that the arguments that you bring forward against the Islamic groups might also be applicable to certain nations as well?

'Bone, have you put as much thought into this particular issue as you have into...refusing to vaccinate your child? Let's explore the sentiments that you've put forward here a bit. Is this an argument against any restrictions on the production or distribution of nuclear weapons? Are you proposing that it should be restricted to nation states, or should group with the means and the will to acquire them be able to, no matter what their intentions? If you'd restrict membership to nation states, what criteria would you use to limit access? The ability to safeguard them? The political stability of the said nation state, and the likelihood that the whomever is currently in control will be overthrown by actors whose ideology and behavior cannot be predicted with any certainty? The probability that they will transfer the weapons to those who would use them against others? Even if you are convinced that the principle of "fairness" supercedes rationality and that any group that wants nukes should have them, regardless of their character or intent, do you think that this is an ethically sound position? As an example, assume that country B wants nuclear weapons so that they can anihiliate country A, and tens of millions of people in country A will be killed if country A makes good on its threats. Is it ethical for the rest of the world to support country B's nuclear aspirations because it's not fair to deny country B access to the technology that other countries already have access to. If you resided in country A, would this change your thinking at all?

Ironic, but true. Altruism is more a fantasy than a reality. I don't agree here. Pride in delivering excellence to others and care for one's community is a proven formula for making the most successful butcher, baker, or candlestick maker. Sure, rapacious businesses can and do thrive, particularly if they are so large that they can manipulate governments, but there are far more businesses who are not rapacious, do not willfully abuse their employees, and produce excellence products, which are thriving. Altruism, and the cooperative spirit it requires, is a fundamental component of self actualization; a need which evolution has implanted in humans just as surely as the need for food, sex, and a warm place to take a dump. This is the fundamental principle that trumps the pro business/anti government simpletons who continuously try to force fit their robotic formulas to explain and predict human behavior. In the end, humans are always better and more creative than the sea monkeys they've base their models on. If altruism were not a fundamental component of the human psyche, why would we have the groundswell of local, municipal, and statewide actions to reduce carbon emissions in the face of complete inaction at the federal level? Why are businesses and households 'going green' and becoming carbon neutral? The jury is still way out on whether or not this makes financial sense from an individual's standpoint, yet the tide is defininitely flowing in the green direction. In nature, as resources become more scarce, cooperation (always present in any biosphere) becomes more important than competition. So called 'socialist' policies, or those that require society wide cooperation, will increasingly become more important to human survival as a warming earth reduces what humans have evolved to consume if violent competition is to be avoided. Self-interest and selfishness are two different things, and there are many times in which its in a given individual's self-interest to behave in a non-selfish manner. As far as altruism is concerned, the debate isn't about whether it exists or not, but whether it is reliable enough to serve as the sole basis for ordering social interactions - be they legal, economic, or what have you. To throw in another quote from Smith's era, (Madison) "If all men were Angels, there would be no need of government." Even if naked, unadulterated altruism could be relied upon to govern 99.9% of all behavior in 99.9% of the population, society would still have to develop mechanisms to deal with the sub-fraction of all persons or behaviors that was motivated by any of the baser motivations that actuate human behavior from time to time. The point of the rules in a market economy isn't to force people to like each other, or to compel them to make sacrifices on behalf of people that they may or may not like, or may or may not ever know - but to permit them to engage in those voluntary interactions which they wish to engage in because each side perceives the said interaction to be in his or her own-interest. One of the strengths of a market economy based on voluntary exchange is that unlike altruism - it permits socially beneficial cooperation amongst people who not only have no affinity for one another, but actively despise one another, or have no idea that the other even exists. I may hate the guy who offers the best deal on whatever it is that I want to buy, but if I buy whatever it is he has to sell and saved money in the process, we've engaged in a mutually beneficial interaction despite the absence of any warm-feelings between us. The same goes for the guy working half-way around the globe who works at Bayer AG that's developing a drug that may save my life. The guy doesn't even know I exist, could care less about my health, and he may not even like his job, but by dragging himself to work in the morning to put food on his own table, he's engaged in efforts that are profoundly beneficial to me. The scientist who developed the drug he's working for may be a selfish misanthrope who's sole motivation to develop the drug is to generate a fortune for himself, but what matters to me is not his motivation but the concrete benefits of whatever it is that he has created have for me or anyone else that may need it. What happens to any scheme for organizing society that requires universal altruism be exercised on behalf of not only those that you know and care for, but those that you know and dislike, let alone those that you'll never have any personal interaction with whatsoever? Of the manifold faults within socialist philosophy, this point is a minor one, but it alone is enough to render the entire enterprise untenable. When altruism fails, what mechanism does the society organized around the principle of universal altruism have to motivate people? Take a look at any state that tried to impose real, as opposed to adjectival, socialism and you'll find your answer. With regards to your last point - I would have to disagree with the assertion that resource scarcity can be counted on to inspire greater social harmony and solidarity, especially if you are talking about a scenario in which multiple ethnocultural groups find themselves dependent upon the same pool of diminishing resources.