The Written Peace:
Open Forum of April 1, 2005
On one matter of current interest, visitors should be aware that any Catholic male in good standing may become Pope. In practical terms, that means there are several people who frequent this blog who could be the next person to ascend to the throne of St. Peter. As such, we should probably keep the discussions contemplative and high minded.
And on the subject of high-mindedness, some odd problems were encountered on Big Brass Blog today. If you haven't stopped by there since yesterday, you might want to have a look for yourselves. The problems should all be cleared up by tomorrow morning; but as of right now, that blog is a case study in malicious code having been inserted by parties unknown.
This Sunday, the second installment in The 21st Century will be published. Work is still on-going with the third installment of The Valerie Plame Scandal, the closure of that project proving to be far more daunting than expected. More on that matter will be discussed later.
Finally, for the market watchers out there, stocks went down hard today. Even though the unemployment rate was reported by the Labor Department to have fallen from 5.4% to 5.2%, the economy added only 110,000 new jobs in March, just half as many as analysts had predicted. The possibility of a scenario like this occurring was noted in yesterday's post here on The Dark Wraith: the unemployment rate falls, but the jobs outlook becomes at the same time bleaker, this quantitative disconnect occurring, among other reasons, because of workers exiting the workforce as jobs and the hopes of finding jobs wither.
And no, there is no such thing as a "jobless recovery" or a "jobless economic expansion." Without a robust and continuously expanding demand for labor, no economy can for very long continue to put on even the façade of health and prosperity. The big question, however, remains one of whether or not the economy will slip into a recession; and the answer to that question is surprisingly simple: Until the Bush Administration tells the mainstream news media otherwise, there won't be a recession.
The Dark Wraith encourages you all to thank the neo-conservatives for this era of prosperity, peace, and boundless hope for the future.
Published 4/02/2005 12:48:00 AM
<< 32 Comments Total
Good evening Dark Wraith,
I was shocked to learn that I might be the next pope, although I would defer to Me4President since he has already stated his desire to spew the papal bull.
What are your thoughts on the recent rumblings that oil could top $100 a barrel?
That should be fun!
Good Morning Dark Wraith,
As you know, I'm certainly not in good standing, so there is no use worrying that the sacramental bottle of wine will end up pointing at me.
On another note, I'll be of very, very low visibility for a number of days. It doesn't mean that the black helicopters are going to actually land this time, rather that I will be off to enjoy some well deserved vices.
Mr. Goat puts on his shades and goes looking for the horse barn.
You know that I too could become Pope.... but having stopped going to mass and becoming Unitarian could put a kink in that... lol
Just imagine a UU becoming Pope. I would have to be John XXIV. So that I could make even more changes than the Pope with the name previous.
Then we could make DW the official Blogger of the Catholic Church ;)
Well enough of my crazy ramblings.
-Gary A
Good morning, John.
First, with respect to the new Pope, I wholeheartedly concur that it would be best for you to step aside in favor of Me4President: he was talking about offing his contenders with deuterium-laced water. Now, in my judgment, that shows a whole lot of initiative; but more importantly, it shows a whole lot of access to heavy water. My concern is that, once he has used the necessary amount to clear his path to the papacy, he'll use the remaining deuterium to pursue nuclear-state status for the Vatican. I needn't go into the arms race that would result from that kind of aggressive posture, but I should caution people to consider the efforts that would inevitably follow with such rivals as the Southern Baptist Convention attempting to achieve parity.
Not pretty. Not pretty, at all.
Now, concerning oil, I have seen some articles in the past couple of days warning of a "super-spike" in oil prices. From my vantage point, the prospect of this is difficult to assess because oil prices are going to rise, and there will be hard-up jumps during this process. What constitutes a "spike" is open to interpretation; but oil could very well reach the $90 per barrel range late in the Spring or in the Summer, with only a smattering of forces stopping it, although some market forces will tend to temper the upside of it.
The U.S. dollar is still incredibly weak by historical standards, and this makes for very expensive oil when the crude is denominated in those greenbacks. Given that the Federal Reserve is not about to back off its fight against the inflationary pressures that Alan Greenspan continues to claim are "under control," the rising domestic interest rates will eventually firm up the dollar and possibly reverse its exchange rate slide of recent months. This strengthening of the U.S. dollar will, in and of itself, begin to make oil cheaper. However, that exchange rate component of dollar-denominated oil pricing will not make oil go back to its old, let-the-SUVs-roll levels; all that will do is slow to a greater or lesser extent the upward trend, which is being propelled by more fundamental processes, some of which are market related, some of which are beyond the scope of what market pricing theory can explain, although you'll see just about every reputable economist in his or her right mind doing backflips to avoid making anything close to a statement that "conspiratorial forces" are at work, even though just about everyone knows that something doesn't smell right.
There is nothing inappropriate, however, about avoiding a wide-ranging discussion of what might be going on besides plain old supply and demand dynamics: even if some smoking gun of price-fixing collusion among both domestic and foreign interests were to be revealed, the revelation would have no actionable prescription. What are we to do?
Invade another country? throw Cheney and his energy task force co-conspirators in prison? throw open every remaining tract of pristine land that might have a few drops of oil under it?
Oh, that's right. I guess we are doing that last one.
Anyway, oil at $100 per barrel is quite possible, and the Bush Administration and its Republican allies will finally be called to task for the damage that price shock will do to the domestic economy. However, because the significant component of the price run-up to $3.75 per gallon gasoline will happen long before the national elections in 2006, most voters will get used to the big gas price surge before they have their chance to throw the rascals out. The lingering effects of recession might, of course, cause a government-changing re-thinking by voters of how reliable Republicans are, but that prospect hinges on two matters: first, given that the majority just re-elected the most mendaciously incompetent President in modern history, do voters actually ever think to begin with; and second, to what extent can Democrats—who have demonstrated rampant cowardice is standing up to call Bush a mendaciously incompetent idiot—ever develop one of those evolutionarily advantageous anatomical features called a spine?
Only time will tell.
The Dark Wraith is not optimistic... but then again, the Dark Wraith is never optimistic.
Good morning, Mr. Goat.
Yeah, well, if you're not back within a couple of days, we're going to send out a search-and-rescue team. You don't want to be the subject of some future, made-for-TV movie entitled, The Goat Files, now do you?
The Dark Wraith prepares the night-vision cameras.
Ok, Gary, whether you like it or not, if God calls you to ascend to the throne of Saint Peter, you'll be hard-pressed to decline.
Look at the bright side: good wine in endless supply, millions of adoring fans, and a work schedule that includes lots of travel to exotic, foreign places like Bulgaria and East St. Louis.
Besides, the wardrobe is pretty cool, too: in what other profession would you be able to get by with wearing what amounts to a long evening gown and an over-stated hat? It's almost like being in Hollywood.
The Dark Wraith puts Gary's name into the competition.
in what other profession would you be able to get by with wearing what amounts to a long evening gown and an over-stated hat? It's almost like being in Hollywood.
You forgot to mention the detail about how you also have to repeatedly announce your disapproval of men who don't act like men......(because they aren't attracted to women, but also for other reasons)
- oddjob
I feel obligated to bring this post of Green Knight's to another audience besides his own. It's just exasperating/infuriating (& funny in a disgustingly pathetic way)!
- oddjob
I have an HTML request for you, DW. How does one create a "degree" symbol when one wants to discuss the temperature?
Also, something odd has happened to the "Home Blog" prompt on the screen that arises immediately after I post a comment. I get a series of letters in white type that have no meaning to me, and that I can't use to go back to the home page as I used to be able to do.
- oddjob
(Never mind about the problem. It's ok now.)
- oddjob
Good evening, OddJob. The special character code for the degree symbol is
°
So, to get "It is 55° outside," you would type "It is 55° outside."
The Dark Wraith is always ready to answer the quick HTML questions.
Good evening, once again, OddJob. Apparently, the Blogger editor has developed a really bad little habit: in any normal HTML environment, there's a way to write an HTML character code without the character string being interpreted as the character, itself. You can see that I do that extensively in the document HTML for Bloggers, but Blogger is cutting right throught the "escape" to take the string as meaning that I want the character, which I didn't in my last post.
Anyway, to get the degree symbol, type the ampersand character, followed without spaces by
deg;
and the character will occur as if you had typed the degree symbol instead of those five characters in a row.
The Dark Wraith has found something new about Blogger now that the comments interface is working just fine.
A test:
°
- oddjob
Thanks!
- oddjob
Good evening, once again, OddJob. I couldn't stand it: I had to make a comment over on the Green Knight's blog about this insanity. Plus, as an added bonus, I revealed for the first time my discovery of a new species of hominid previously thought to be nothing but Republicans with minimal brain activity. In fact, these aren't human beings, at all; they are Homo imbecilicus robustus, our distant cousins, who are anatomically quite similar except that the brain within the brain casing lacks vital features like... well, like a brain!
Amazing. They walk among us, and only now we discover that they have replaced intelligence arising from brain function with a combination of stupidity and ignorance.
Nature: the wonders of evolution never cease.
The Dark Wraith goes out to tag a breeding pair to see how they figure that part out.
[OOOO! Nice try, but I don't think that Bible is part of the reproduction mechanics... not unless it's rolled up.]
The NeoCons will get what's coming to them in due time.....
Give them a little slack and eventually they will hang themselves.
Good morning, NeoConCrusher.
I do firmly believe that the neo-conservatives will, indeed, be hanged by the thin rope of their own policies.
The problem is that they have managed to securely bind us all within the confines of that same rope; and even if we manage to escape before they meet their much-deserved fate, we will come out with a permanent rope burn and a rather raspy voice for the remainder of this century.
And what is even more annoying about it is that, once they have been disgraced, they will return to their fetid think-tanks, where they will plot their resurrection in another couple of decades, when people have forgotten what a bunch of incompetent imbeciles they are every time they pop their heads above the level of the dirt.
But that last concern of mine is for another generation of bloggers to handle.
The Dark Wraith wonders if the bloggers of 2050 will even remember the bloggers of 2005.
Dark Wraith...
We must CRUSH the NeoCons with propaganda.....
You have to fight propaganda with propaganda.
Keep up the good work
-NeoConCrusher
Another goody from Toles.
- oddjob
Of course, blogging helps to take the mind off debt and lack of sleep.
The Dark Wraith blogs onward.
Shakespeare's Sister has just linked to this article. I've read it before, and have just finished skimming it again. It's long, but I strongly feel this should be required reading of all Americans. As a former fundamentalist who was involved with a church very, very distantly connected to this stuff, I can attest that as weird as it may sound, it is indeed very real!
Read it!
- oddjob
Good evening, OddJob.
I had read several other articles outlining this new phase of psuedo-Christianity infecting American pulpits, but this one is about as scholarly and thorough as it gets. I, too, was tangentially involved in some of this nonsense: I briefly attended a church that was an early adherent to the dominionist agenda; and in the gospel ministry, these sorts would pop out of the woodwork every now and then to "test" a ministry's "faith" according to their script. We were pretty good at keeping to the expected answers when we wanted to, but we also and progressively enjoyed toying with them, going so far eventually as to openly deride and mock their heresy.
That was a mistake.
Anyway, I must say that I could have done without that genuinely disturbing picture at the top of the Website.
The Dark Wraith is officially creeped out.
One miracle I may never fully understand this side of heaven is how I survived my childhood in the 80s.
The church I went to was saturated with dominionist thinking.
I didn't leave the church right away when things were first starting to get hairy because, I was uh, looking for a --challenge! That's it. I couldn't escape it at home, anyway, my mother being all infatuated with Chuck Colson's Prison Fellowship Ministeries and stuff. Might as well infiltrate the -- I mean -- make good use of my time.
My understanding was, If I could be vaccinated so heavily with the stuff and the poison didn't kill me, it would immunize me for life.
Besides, I did have enough lemons to make lemonade from time to time. Every once in a while I'd even have access to oranges.
wiseguy
Excuse my profanity, but what the FUCK is this???!!! (From WaPo, via today's Boston Globe)
- oddjob
Good afternoon, OddJob. Forgive what might look like a faint echo of, "See, I told you guys," but re-read the first sentence of The 21st Century: Opus Two, above.
Space—from near Earth orbit clear out to Mars—is a platform for military operations.
It is certainly not a place of wonder, discovery, and expansion of the human consciousness.
Sometimes, the Dark Wraith cannot bear the thought of what these freaks of nature are planning for the future of humankind.
Raw Story has an interesting exclusive posted regarding the split among Congressional Dems. regarding the new bankruptcy legislation, and what that means regarding Dems. generally.
- oddjob
I was not unmindful of what you had posted, trust me. In fact just the opposite occurred to me, for it put the Mars stuff in an entirely different light for me. (His daddy never would have done something so reckless.) Even so, it's beyond ridiculous to decide that one of the single most spectacularly successful scientific endeavors engaged in by this country must now be shut down when it costs so little to maintain!
This isn't frugality or wisdom. It's stupidity of the worst kind!
- oddjob
This is completely off topic, so forgive me: is there a narrower version of the BlogScream ticker? The current version won't fit on my sidebar.
If I'm completely stupid and just need HTML code instructions, please email me.... labkatblog@yahoo.com
Thanks!
Good morning, Lab Kat.
Thank you for reminding me about that. I was working on a mini version, but I got plowed under with other projects.
I had run into some problems with font visibility at smaller scale, but I have a solution (I think), and I'll get some coding done this weekend. Give me about a week-and-a-half to have something ready: once I write the code, I have to test and re-test it until I'm absolutely certain that it renders well. Even to this day, the standard blogScream screen has a slight annoyance to my eye in Firefox; but fortunately, no one notices it because people who use one browser are entirely at ease with that browser's particular quirks. Nevertheless, I go back every now and then and bang my head on the code to try to shake it out.
I want to make sure a mini version is as good as the original, although I might have to abandon the graphics in the mini version. I'll try not to, though.
Anyway, thanks for getting that issue back into my line of sight.
The Dark Wraith gets to work.
For those of you who give a damn about the environment, I give you ShrubCo.'s latest outrage (hat tip, livejournal.com):
Interior Sec. Gail Norton nominates one serious fox to oversee the henhouse, one Matthew Hogan, a lobbyist for extremist trophy hunters, to over see the US Fish & Wildlife Service, the agency responsible for making sure such trophy hunters don't traphic in endangered species.....
Sigh.......... :( :( :(
- oddjob
(Apologies for all the typos.....)
Raw Story reporting Plame development (possibly a disappointing one) in WaPo tomorrow.
- oddjob