30 April 2010

The New Doctor, continued


First, it made me cry.

Second, what is Steven Moffatt's infatuation with ginger women?

Third, Amy Pond and River Song. Discuss.

24 April 2010

Too big to fail



This pretty much sums up why I think "too big to fail" is wrong. If the Chicago School had ever considered economic models analogous to ecology (in particular, population modeling) they would have seen that there are limits to growth -- rather spectacular ones, in fact. It seems to me that there was a whole lot of productive investment in the 1980's when Glass-Stegall was intact and a whole lot of investment banks did just that -- invest capital in business, and get a reasonable return. Alas, the profits just weren't big enough for some, hence the mania for mergers and acquisition, outsourcing, and when that dried up, the development of exotic financial instruments -- also know as "three card monte for the economic elite".

The resources required to support massive consolidation and centralization of capital, as demanded by the Chicago School and their "efficient model" simulations are always greater than the resources demanded by multiple small concentrations of capital, just as massive monoculture in agriculture is unsustainable for the same reasons. The inputs always exceed the outputs; but you get a concentration of resources in one location for a period of time. However, at the end of the model, when the input resources fail, the entire system collapses.

That's the end game of the Chicago School, and the direction we've been headed as a country for the last 30 years.

We're still headed in that direction, and frankly, it's probably too late to change.

But this is a great illustration, and fantastic satire.

03 April 2010

Pope Palpatine and his Evil Empire

It's not very sensitive or politically correct to describe the Catholic Church as a zombie that can only be destroyed by a chain saw -- on Holy Friday. But I'll stand by my analogy. I think the religious corollary to Godwin's Law is any comparison of anti-clerical action to Antisemitism.

Really? Did the Pope's PR folks think that would work to make us sympathetic? About the organization that brought us the Crusades, the Inquisition, and witch-hunts?

Don't get me wrong -- I love the ritual of Mass, and what individual clergy and Catholic communities --including the Catholic laity -- have done over the millenia include wonders and miracles. But the Church as a corporate body, at this moment in its history, is corrupt and festering beyond redemption. End it now.