Gentle Reader -- You are welcome to peruse my web-based journal. I assure you that my contributions to this medium will be both infrequent and inconsequential. Read on!

IOWA, NEW HAMPSHIRE AND OTHER CHOICE JANUARY VACATION SPOTS

These contests will be held soon, and everyone turns their eyes to Planet Carlton for the definitive prediction as to the outcomes of both races. Well, here you go: I have no idea.

. . . which is really exciting! Put aside the fact that this is by all accounts a rather important election, once-in-a-generation-opportunity, blah dee blah, and we have a really close race on both sides. Democrats are split on who's best and Republicans can't seem to figure out if they can tolerate any of their choices.

But if pressed [OW!], I will make some predictions:

On the Democratic side, I predict that whomever wins Iowa and New Hampshire, even if the same person wins them both (I kind of think Hillary will do that, but I don't really know), the margins of victory will be small enough that the battle will continue deep into the primary calendar. And it really could be any one of them. I like Hillary, as I've said, but I don't want that to influence what I think will actually happen. It really could be any one of them.

I predict: Edwards in Iowa, Clinton in New Hampshire. Clinton takes it all.

The Republican side is really tough. I think this race will be decided in New Hampshire, for two reasons.

One is that I don't think Huckabee is really a serious candidate, despite his recent surge -- and that surge has almost entirely been in Iowa. Even if he beats Romney in Iowa, I don't think he has the money and organization to follow it up in NH. If that's correct, then it will be Romney and McCain (back from the dead) duking it out there. McCain is resurgent, and he won NH in 2000, and the two big papers in that state have broadcast their "Stop Romney" message . . . but I still think it will be close between those two.

The second reason that New Hampshire will be decisive is that the Republican world is very uncomfortable with this level of confusion. Their normal modus is to anoint a front-runner very early and then destroy any who dare to challenge him, of whatever party. Bush was the party pick well before the New Hampshire primary in 2000; it was only after McCain had the audacity to Straight Talk his way to victory in that state did the good Republican voters of South Carolina learn about McCain's (fictional) mulatto love child.

The Republican party is, above all, authoritarian. They want to be told which banner to wave, which slogan to scream through a bullhorn. With a commander, they are bloodthirsty stormtroopers. Without one, they are as anxious as kindergarten children who don't know which teacher can let them go to the bathroom. They want it decided, like yesterday, before they wet their collective pants.

If my theory is correct, it's bad news for Giuliani, who was counting on winning the later states -- and if my theory is correct, that was always a very bad strategy.

I predict: Romney, who will lose to the Democrat. (I think McCain would be a better president, if I had to choose, but whatever.)

So there you have it. We'll see how wrong I am in the coming weeks. posted by Carlton at 8:35 PM

A CHART I FOUND FLOATING AROUND THE INTERWEB

For your perusal.

If anyone asks you about income disparity in this country over the past little while, you can refer them here.



posted by Carlton at 8:32 PM

Enjoy whatever you are doing over the next few days -- and even therafter if you can manage it!
posted by Carlton at 5:51 PM

EPISODE IV: A NEW BLOG

Not to replace this old one, but I have generated a new page on wordpress dedicated to a project I have set for myself this year: to read and blog about a new edition of War and Peace.


The book:



The blog: overestimated.wordpress.com. Soon to be a permalink.


We'll see how this goes. You are invited to share my journey by reading my blog -- and what the heck, maybe the book? posted by Carlton at 5:42 PM

YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST, FOLKS

. . . and if I'm wrong, you'll probably forget it.

Here it is: The next bubble asset class, due for a speculative spike followed by a crash, will be agricultural futures, specifically wheat futures, corn futures, soybean futures.

Even if I am right (unlikely), I have no idea how to make any money on this information. posted by Carlton at 10:03 PM

ORGANIC SAVINGS

Via Kevin Drum, I ran across a report from Merrill Lynch regarding the housing bust. In amongst the opinion (for which I do not vouch) regarding housing starts, prices, etc. is this little gem of a paragraph:

The need to save for retirement will have to increasingly come “organically” in
the form of setting aside an extra nickel or dime from every dollar earned in
after-tax wages and salaries as opposed to what we as a society have been doing
for the better part of the past decade, in essence, blurring the distinction
between real estate as a “consumption good” (place to live) and real estate as
part of the “portfolio” (investment) that was going to experience sustained
double-digit appreciation and emerge as a fountain of cash-flow in the
future.

Saving for retirement "organically" -- in other words, by actually hanging onto some of your income instead of spending it. In other words, saving, rather than sending the bucket down the well and trusting it to come up full. I guess we have been on a pretty wild ride if we have to reintroduce this concept.

And they conclude with this upbeat statement:

Here is what we really “do not get”. There are still economists out there
talking about how the housing recession is still local and not regionally broad
based. We have no idea who their data vendors are. In our view, this clearly
goes down as the most national real estate downturn since the 1930s.

The 1930s -- good times! posted by Carlton at 9:41 PM

NOW IT CAN BE TOLD, PART WHATEVER

As per the professional news that I referenced darkly a while back: I have a new job. It's still at the IRS, and the only people who would really understand all the acronyms of the various offices concerned in the move are the people who actually work there. It's not really worth explaining, and it probably won't make a difference to any of you, my loyal subjects . . . I mean readers. Same building, different floor. Same salary, more or less. I start on January 7.

I should say a couple of things in passing:

This new job comes along at a very good time for me. I was doing pretty well at my old office, but it's not a good place to be right now. People there are demoralized, directionless, leaderless, and about half of the lawyers there are not speaking to the other half (for good reason, all would agree). Some of my coworkers are really first class people. Some, too many, are batshit crazy. The term "poisonous atmosphere" is never far from my mind while I am there.

My job hunt was a big part of the reason that I stopped blogging for a long period. Some of the government jobs to which I applied require a security clearance, and I was pretty sure that posting regularly about how stupid ol' Dubya is wouldn't get me anywhere. I didn't want to take down my blog, really, but I didn't think posting was a good idea, so I just stopped for a while.

That is all. posted by Carlton at 10:46 PM

THE PRESS MACHINE

I haven't commented on this before, but the new-ish press secretary for the White House, Dana Perino, is really quite the hottie. There's something about a well-spoken, attractive woman who can look you in the eye and lie and lie and lie . . . (I was going to say she was "smart" but that's still up in the air.)

That's not really the point, however. The point is that Ms. Perino saw fit to take on the New York Times, specifically, from her podium at the White House, over an article that they published today. Not over an article, actually, but over the sub-head to an article -- the little recap below the headline but before the text. The article was about the CIA's destruction of some legally (ethically, morally) relevant torture investigation tapes, said destruction contra to policy, court order, etc. The subhead said:

The accounts indicate that the involvement of White House officials in the
discussions before the destruction of the tapes in November 2005 was more
extensive than Bush administration officials have acknowledged.

And Ms. Perino objected to that, saying that she must be the "officials" referenced in the sub-head, and she hasn't changed her story at all. The Times is accusing her of lying! So the Times needed to correct itself before it wrecked itself. And by golly, it did.

So what? You can go a couple of directions with this (and I'm stealing all of this from others): one is that Perino feels personally attacked by the editor who wrote the sub-head, and that she's trying to clear her own good name against charges of hypocrisy, disingenuousness, etc. (lying). The video of her response from the podium lends some credence to that. She's emphatic, perhaps a tad emotional, with a slight quaver in her voice, waving the newspaper around like a piece of evidence. ("That's not what THIS says!") It sure looks like that to me.

The second is that her attack on a insignificant detal of this piece allows the WH to discredit the whole piece ("They've already printed a retraction!") without having to attack the substance of it at all. Clever! That makes a great deal of sense to me, too.

So which is it? If it's just the former, it's just too convenient that Ms. Perino's personal outrage should provide a perfect weapon to discredit the substance of an unfriendly article. If it's just the latter, it's quite a performance on her part.

Most intriguing, however, is the combo meal: that Ms. Perino is able to gin up real personal outrage on cue to suit the hacks in the White House propaganda machine, that her opinions, emotions, and gut reactions -- the real ones -- are synthetic, made-to-order commodities at the disposal of her masters. That she's not lying; that she herself, her personality, is a lie.

Did I mention that she's smoking hot? posted by Carlton at 10:22 PM

AGORAPHOBIC OENOPHILE = A DRUNK SHUT-IN WITH AN ENGLISH DEGREE

It just came up in conversation. posted by Carlton at 8:22 PM

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

. . . to Greg, who no longer seems to blog. posted by Carlton at 6:27 PM

THIS IS WHY

Folks, this is why I didn't want to comment about the primary race on the Democratic side, and this is why I didn't want to comment on the Republican side. It's just too difficult to predict. The public was doing its best to tune out this race until now, especially in the supersaturated media markets like Iowa and New Hampshire. Only now, with Iowa less than a month away, are people waking up to the idea that they will have to vote for one of these jokers. And they are right to do this, I might add -- as important as this election is, you just can't watch all the commercials, debates, interviews, read all the articles, etc. I mean, it's not sports or anything.

I've said from the beginning -- maybe not here, but I've said it -- that I would cast a general election vote for any of the top three Dems without any problems. I like Hillary the best, for reasons unclear even to me -- maybe just recognition? maybe some deep psycho-sexual attraction? maybe her political journey has impressed me in some way? -- but Obama and Edwards seem like sober, rational people. Forget what they say about experience; I'm a believer that no job really prepares you for the presidency, and the best ones have learned it at the desk, quickly.

Now it's gotten really tight, for the very good reason that any of the three would be a legitimate candidate in the general, each with unique pluses and minuses. I've been reading about Hillary and Obama duking it out over African-American women, for example -- electorally speaking, are they black or are they women? For that matter, even AA males seem conflicted. Edwards is lagging, but the struggle between the top two could create an opening. I mean, who knows?

Overall, though, I don't think we have a bad choice, or at least not a very bad one.

On the Republican side, I don't see a good choice, and it doesn't seem like your average GOP voter sees one either. I attribute the Huckabee surge to the same phenomenon that gave us the Fred Thompson (Non) Experience -- Repubs en masse realising that they didn't have anyone acceptable to vote for. It's like throwing your letters back in Scrabble -- surely anything is better than what I have. With Thompson, however, they got a narcoleptic waste of space. With Huckabee, I believe they've gotten a stealth theocrat, with all the attendant lapses in ethics and judgment. I think that scrutiny may take the shine off of him, but will it be in time for the primaries? The worst result for the GOP would be to nominate the new flavor, only to have him self-destruct.

If that happens, I will cry for them.

If I had to vote for one of these Republican clowns, I'd probably pick Romney. He's an empty suit, but at least he isn't a crazy guy who wants to start more wars, like asap.

Your comments are welcome. posted by Carlton at 10:03 PM

I'VE HEARD THIS SONG BEFORE

Fred Kaplan in Slate:

Skeptics of war have rarely been so legitimized. Vice President Cheney has never
been so isolated. If Bush were to order an attack under these circumstances, he
would risk a major eruption in the chain of command, even a constitutional
crisis, among many other crises. It seems extremely unlikely that even he would
do that.

Me: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I smell a little "Peace in our time" on the wind here. Surely no one thinks that anything like a consensus of experts is going to stop this president from doing anything he wants to do? Or that the Vice President wants to do? posted by Carlton at 5:50 PM

HELLO LARRY

Some more dudes come forward to say how Larry Craig, also a dude, either had or tried to have dude-sex with them. It all sounds quite sordid.

And of course, the whole thing isn't that he's a dude who likes dudes, but that the dude lied about liking them. I mean, dude, like whoever you want, but you gotta be straight (heh) with us about it.

Yes, I am taking a perverse joy in watching this unfold. Why do you ask? posted by Carlton at 5:58 PM

OK, THAT'S SETTLED

No boom-boom in Hillary HQ. That's good. posted by Carlton at 3:36 PM