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Labels: health care, immigration Labels: humor, immigration Labels: house project Rukhsana Kausar, 21, was with her parents and brother in Jammu and Kashmir when three gunmen, believed to be Pakistani militants, forced their way in and demanded food and beds for the night. Their house in Shahdra Sharief, Rajouri district, is about 20 miles from the ceasefire line between Indian and Pakistani forces. It is close to dense forests known as hiding places for fighters from the Lashkar-e-Taiba group, which carried out the Mumbai terrorist attack last November. Militants often demand food and lodging in nearby villages. When they forced their way into Miss Kausar’s home, her father Noor Mohammad refused their demands and was attacked. His daughter was hiding under a bed when she heard him crying as the gunmen thrashed him with sticks. According to police, she ran towards her father’s attacker and struck him with an axe. As he collapsed, she snatched his AK47 and shot him dead. She also shot and wounded another militant as he made his escape. Labels: terrorism Labels: overprivileged liberals Labels: history The 17-year-old, whose name has not yet been released by Vermilion County sheriff's authorities, was the getaway driver for two other men, another 17-year-old whose name has not been released, and a 22-year-old identified as T.L Moore by Sheriff Pat Hartshorn. The two men forced their way into the home of Max Taylor, 307 S. Vermilion St. in Indianola, at about 11 p.m. Monday. All new buildings in Los Angeles -- including homes -- must have anti-graffiti coating under an ordinance approved unanimously by the City Council on Tuesday. There is an exception if the owners promise to remove any graffiti on their property soon after it appears. The ordinance will take effect 30 days after being signed by the mayor. The anti-graffiti coating must cover the walls and doors from the ground to a height of at least nine feet. The coating is mandated on all buildings, unless owners sign a "Covenant and Agreement Regarding Maintenance of Building (Graffiti Removal)" with the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety. Thomas Edsall, a correspondent for the New Republic, has written a provocative piece on just how different Mr. Obama's majority was last year when compared with previous Democratic victories. In 1976, Jimmy Carter won the White House while carrying voters making less than $30,000 (in today's dollars) by 18 points. Fueled by support from young and minority voters, Mr. Obama carried that demographic by a whopping 31 points. But he also carried voters earning over $200,000 by six points, a first for a Democrat. Where Mr. Obama failed to gain much traction was with middle-income voters, which he split with John McCain. In previous elections, Democrats had won by carrying a majority of moderate-income voters. Mr. Edsall calls the Obama coalition "a successful alliance of the upscale and the downscale -- wealthy and needy marching hand in hand, sharing animosity to George W. Bush and the war in Iraq" But he also calls the Obama coalition a fragile one when it comes to economic issues. The Gallup Poll reports that voters earning under $30,000 a year wanted health care reform by a 13-point margin. But those earning over $75,000 a year opposed reform by 16 points. The splits in the Democratic majorities in Congress reflect this tension. Health-care reform often pits members whose districts and states contain many uninsured people against fellow Democrats from wealthy districts who fear reform will squeeze research hospitals and generous health insurance plans. Labels: gun history, gun rights Labels: enviromental lunacy Labels: overprivileged liberals Labels: book reviews
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No Requirement For Legal Status For Health Care
If the Republicans decided that they wanted to win the 2010 elections--and were prepared to offend the corporate interests that like a supply of cheap labor--they would run with this next year. From the September 30, 2009 The Hill:Senate Finance Committee Democrats rejected a proposed requirement that immigrants prove their identity with photo identification when signing up for federal healthcare programs.
Illegal aliens with fake IDs are rare? That's absurd.
Finance Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said that current law and the healthcare bill under consideration are too lax and leave the door open to illegal immigrants defrauding the government using false or stolen identities to obtain benefits.
Grassley's amendment was beaten back 10-13 on a party-line vote.
...
But Democratic Sen. Jeff Bingaman, who represents the border state of New Mexico, said that the type of fraud Grassley said he wants to prevent is highly uncommon. "The way I see the amendment, it's a solution without a problem," Bingaman said.
Or illegal aliens signing up for federal health insurance are uncommon? Then what's the objection?
Ways To Shorten Emergency Room Visits
This arrived in my email, and I got a good laugh out of it. (Not particularly applicable here in Idaho, but when I lived in California--this might work!)The other day, I needed to go to the emergency room.
Not wanting to sit there for 4 hours, I put on my old Army fatigues and stuck a patch onto the front of my shirt that I had downloaded off the Internet.
When I went into the E.R., I noticed that 3/4 of the people got up and left. I guess they decided that they weren't that sick after all. Cut at least 3 hours off my waiting time.
Here's the patch. Feel free to use it the next time you're in need of quicker emergency service.
I Hate Wasps
We finally had a freezing night, and I was hoping that all the wasps were now dead. I'm working my way around the outside of the house, using the warehouse/telescope ladder to seal all of the openings in which wasps might be secreting themselves. (I am quite confident on this ladder, unlike a conventional ladder, where I don't think I would feel stable enough to do this without someone standing by to call 911 if needed.)
I pulled an ornamental piece of art off the wall, to seal the siding edges behind it--and there was about 15 of the little darlings, huddled together for warmth. I wasn't sure if they were still alive or not, but by the time I returned with the wasp spray, they were beginning to move their drowsy little bodies. Splat! Got 'em all in one burst!
One area where the old house was better than this house is the question of sealing. Anytime you build from wood, you are going to have expansion, contraction, and warping. When that happens, it opens up gaps. The old house, either because it was in a less extreme climate, or because the wood had aged longer, didn't have so many gaps--and all of the places where gaps could have developed had been sealed before painting. They probably used a very flexible sealant, because I never saw any of those gaps open up.
This house was not consistently sealed, and some of the gaps that have opened up over the last several years are large enough to let the little critters get inside. One place that I just found yesterday was up high enough that until I was on the ladder, I didn't see it. When I looked inside, it was like the hangar deck of an aircraft carrier, with more little wasp bodies than I could count. I've sealed that up. They won't be landing there in the future.
Advantages of Bonds
I bought some Fannie Mae bonds this morning with a 5.5% coupon at a bit below par (meaning that they will actually return more than 5.5% per year, because they pay par value when they mature or are called). But bad news from unemployment figures suggests the economy is still falling, which reduces the inflation risk--and interest rates therefore fell. That means the bonds are now worth $116.80 more than what I paid for them at 9:30.
The manner in which bonds and stocks usually move opposite each other in value means that they can be a useful counterweight. A rising stock market usually means falling bond prices, and vice versa. Serious investors (the sort who are managing portfolios of tens of millions of dollars) sell bonds when the economy has just started to turn around, and buy stocks. When all the "experts" start talking about how the Dow is going to keep rising without limit, you sell stocks, and buy bonds. Of course, this means that you have sufficient income to pay all your bills, keep your Gulfstream V maintained, the pilot paid, and the child support payments to the previous three wives current, without having to rely on the bond coupons or stock dividends.
The One About The Farmer's Daughter
No, no, not one of those dirty jokes. From the September 29, 2009 Daily Telegraph:
And that should always be the punchline to terrorists and the farmer's daughter jokes.
Roman Polanski Meets Industry Standards
There are writers who are outraged that the entertainment industry seems to be coming together to defend why director Roman Polanski should not be extradited to the United States to be sent to prison for drugging, raping, and sodomizing a 13 year old girl. (And contrary to Whoopi Goldberg’s claim that it wasn’t “rape-rape”—-read the transcript of the victim’s testimony. She kept saying “No,” in between going in and out of consciousness from the drugs Polanski gave her.)
And why not? Polanski simply meets industry standards—which regards rape—-and even rape of children, as no big deal. Polanski, unfortunately, is not just one weird example. Victor Salva, the director of Powder, is a convicted child molester, who once filmed himself having oral sex with a 12 year old boy—an actor who Salva directed in a “low-budget horror film about three boys terrorized by circus clowns.” (In the interests of realism, they should have been terrorized by Hollywood directors.) Salva served 15 months in prison (it is California), and so of course, he ended up making a film for who else? Walt Disney Studios. I suspect that Walt Disney, the guy who wanted Disneyland to be the happiest place on Earth for children, would be horrified.
A CBS producer gets caught in a sting, offering to swap football tickets for someone’s 11 year old daughter. “I will be very gentle with her.” I’m guessing that once he gets inside a prison cell, his fellow inmates will find out why he’s there—and they won’t be gentle with him.
Three weird examples? John Doe v. Capital Cities, etc. (1996) is another of those charming examples of the sort of people that infest the entertainment industry. (“Capital Cities” is the owner of ABC.)An aspiring actor is first drugged and then gang-raped by a casting director and four other men one Sunday at the casting director’s home. Can the actor successfully allege causes of action for sexual harassment and negligent hiring against the casting director’s employers?
The question that the courts had to answer was whether gang-raping an actor was within the job duties of a casting director. Now, those who have long worked in Hollywood would probably answer, “Yes. At least, it’s one of the perqs of the job.” I’ve known people that got out of the business because the path to employment often led through the casting couch.
I’ve tried to identify what happened to the rapists in John Doe v. Capital Cities. They are identified in that suit as Jerry Marshall, Barry Parker, Michael Sullivan, Ken Dickson, and Fred Goss. Unfortunately, these are all very common names, so it’s hard to tell whether the people working in the entertainment industry today by those names are the guys who drugged and raped John Doe. (There are two different people in the entertainment industry or related fields named Fred Goss who are old enough, and live in Los Angeles: one is an actor and comedian, the other writes opera reviews for The Advocate, a gay newspaper.) The tragedy is that when an industry mobilizes to defend someone like Roman Polanski, it becomes very easy to believe that this minor little misbehavior would not have been obstacle to future employment.
UPDATE: Michelle Malkin linked to this September 29, 2009 Daily Telegraph article, which quotes from an interview with Polanski back in 1979. It's too vulgar to quote (even with various words dashed out), but essentially: Polanski is convinced that what he did to that little girl is what everyone wants to do. Classic projection problem.
Over The Threshold
Christine Daniels and Michael V. Kennedy, eds., Over the Threshold: Intimate Violence in Early America (New York: Routledge, 1999). If all you have been exposed to are feminist critiques of American society as a brutal land of thugs where every man beats his wife (and more than a few continue on to murder) to the backslapping approval of the rest of the patriarchy--you may find this book worth reading.
It's a collection of essays, some more readable than others. Christine Daniels' overview is written in a style that must make her very popular in academic circles, awash in discussions of class, violence, and race. But she makes some points that those of you who have sat through classes on gender studies probably never heard: that wife-beating was not generally legal, and the often cited state supreme court decision to the contrary, Bradley v. State (Miss. 1824) was very much the exception.
In reading the two out of three pages that I can actually find of Bradley, it appears that the Mississippi Supreme Court indicated that while the common law allowed "moderate chastisement" of a spouse "in cases of great emergency" they upheld the judgment of the lower court that allowed prosecution of the husband for assault and battery to go forward. They also indicated their disapproval of domestic violence:However abhorent to the feelings of every member of the bench, must be the exercise of this remnant of feudal authority, to inflict pain and suffering, when all the finer feelings of the heart should be warmed into devotion, by our most affectionate regards, yet every principle of public policy and expediency, in reference to the domestic relations, would seem to require the establishment of the rule we have laid down, in order to prevent the deplorable spectacle of the exhibition of similar cases in our courts of justice.
Some of the chapters are so awash in PC-speak as to be hard to take seriously. Edward E. Baptist's "'My Mind Is to Drown You and Leave You Behind': 'Omie Wise,' Intimate Violence, and Masculinity" keeps harping on the role that the emerging market economy of the nineteenth century played. The claim is that as the poorest white men in the backcountry South became less and less able to own land of their own, they were reduced to demonstrating mastery over the only victims below them: their wives. Yet as others have pointed out, the Scots-Irish tradition of patriarchal dominance of their women well predates the market revolution of the nineteenth century. Baptist also seems to have missed that such abuse could be found across multiple socioeconomic layers, and in societies where there is no market economy at all. The need to reduce all of history to economic forces--reducing individuals to mere pawns on the chessboard--is not a healthy method of understanding history. A bit more use of statistical data would correct such oversimplifications.
Randolph A. Roth's essay "Spousal Murder in Northern New England, 1776-1865" is the reason that I borrowed this book from the library. Professor Roth has been gathering data on violent crime throughout American history for a number of years now, and when he found out about the project on which I am now working, he told me that this chapter mentions that the opening of state mental asylums in New Hampshire and Vermont had caused a decline in domestic murders. This isn't surprising, really. While much domestic violence and murder has nothing to do with mental illness, some of it quite clearly does. Early identification and institutionalization of both men and women with violent mental illness, not surprisingly, should reduce domestic murders. Roth's chapter, unlike some of the others, is full of statistics from which he draws conclusions--a noticeable improvement over Baptist's chapter.
G.S. Rowe and Jack D. Marietta's "Personal Violence in a 'Peaceable Kingdom': Pennsylvania, 1682-1801" is an early version of the research that went into Troubled Experiment, which I have previously discussed. It is unfortunate that when Michael Bellesiles' Arming America came out, gushing about how there was almost no violence in America until Samuel Colt unleashed his six-cylindered serpent into the Garden, that none of those gushing about its brilliance bothered to check work like that by Rowe and Marietta. This chapter compares Pennsylvania murder rates of the Colonial period to other colonies, and to modern Pennsylvania. Had they done so, perhaps some of these reviewers would have asked how Bellesiles missed the existing work on violence rates to come to his conclusions.
Jacquelyn C. Miller's "Governing the Passions: The Eighteenth Century Quest for Domestic Harmony in Philadelphia's Middle-Class Households" is one of those chapters that is very informative--but shows the manner in which bourgeois values have been so demeaned in the academic community that Miller seems unable to recognize that the middle-class aspirational goal of self-discipline was not simply a scheme for separating themselves from the lower classes, but one of the methods by which one became, and stayed middle-class. Self-restraint with respect to alcohol, sexual desire, anger--all of these methods of "governing the passions" play a major part in preventing one from ending up poor or in jail.
People Not Fit To Live
Incidents like this make me very angry. The victim in this case was a retired police chief, which is why it isn' on the Civilian Gun Self-Defense Blog. From the September 23, 2009 Illinois News-Gazette:INDIANOLA – A teenager arrested in connection with an Indianola home invasion that turned fatal late Monday night is expected to be arraigned today on formal charges in Vermilion County Circuit Court.
This is a town of 350 residents that doesn't even have full-time police officers.
Armed with a shotgun, wearing masks over their faces and carrying rope, the two men knocked on the door of the Taylor home. When Taylor, 58, a former part-time police officer, answered the door, the two men shoved their way inside.
The men had Taylor on the floor, strangling him, and were demanding money and the location of a safe when Taylor's wife, hearing the commotion, came downstairs and told the men she had expensive jewelry upstairs. While they were focused on the jewelry box, Taylor got his handgun. The man with the shotgun pointed it at Taylor, who opened fire, shooting the man several times.
Wrong Place, Wrong Action
I just blogged this over at the Civilian Gun Self-Defense Blog, but this is too good to not share. I don't normally like the expression "think of it as evolution in action," because it is so mean, and sometimes even pretty bright people have a temporary lapse of judgment, but some people sound too stupid to live. Wrong place, wrong action, wrong bystanders.
From September 30, 2009 Jacksonville channel 4:JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Police said one of two men who tried to steal a pickup truck from a group of people gathered outside a Murray Hill home was shot several times by a homeowner and his friend.
How unlucky can you get? You don't just try to steal a truck--you kidnap the owner--who has a gun inside--while a friend runs into the house to get another gun. Why do I think of the scene in Tremors where the giant earthworm smashes into Burt Gummer's rec room--the only example that I can immediately think of where I would envy the gun collection!
Jacksonville Sheriff's Office Lt. Larry Schmitt said when police arrived at the 3000 block of College Street, they found a man shot multiple times.
According to the police report, Keith Loftin was outside the home with some friends shortly after 2 a.m. when two men asked for a ride in Loftin's truck. Loftin said one of the men pulled a gun on them and forced Loftin into his truck. Loftin told officers that his friend, Barry Smith, ran into the house and returned with a gun and Loftin pulled his own gun from inside the truck.
Police said both Loftin and Smith fired at one of the men, striking him multiple times.
The man shot, identified as Jamel Mobley, 21, of St. Marys, Ga., was taken to Shands-Jacksonville Medical Center and was in stable condition. Police said the second man took off. Police were still looking for him, but they have only a vague description.
The shooting was still under investigation and no charges have been filed. Schmitt said it appeared both the citizens had the guns legally and that it appeared the shooting was in self-defense.
What Next? Mandatory Chastity Belts To Prevent Rape?
You can tell how stupid Los Angeles city government has become when you read that the victims are now being told what to do under threat of punishment. From September 30, 2009 channel 4:
What next? Mandatory chastity belts for women? Mandatory body armor if you walk outside? Why is it that when liberals run things, the one response to a crime problem is never serious punishment for the criminals?
Who Elected Obama?
I pointed out repeatedly during the campaign that Obama, like most Democrats, was highly dependent on the rich for his campaign contributions--and for many of the votes. Here's an article from the September 30, 2009 Wall Street Journal pointing this out:
No surprise on this. People above $200,000 a year are guilt-ridden about their comfort, and are anxious to do something about the poor (as long as it doesn't require them to reach too deeply into their own pockets). Voting for a progressive candidate lets them feel warm and cozy, without having to suffer too much. (And yes, even in California, $200,000 a year is well beyond middle class.) When we get past the symbolism--and start worrying about actual policies--it's amazing how fast that coalition of the desperately poor (some of whom are there through no fault of their own) and the coalition of the desperately guilt-ridden falls apart.
Now, if only there were a functioning Republican Party....
Cert Granted in McDonald v. Chicago
NRA's lawsuit against Chicago, which seeks to get the Second Amendment incorporated against the states, has been granted a writ of certiorari by the Supreme Court. This is a big case, not just because of the Second Amendment, but because it raises the question of whether the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates protections of the Bill of Rights through the privileges or immunities clause ("full incorporation") or through the due process clause (which has led to the intellectually bankrupt selective incorporation principle).
Assuming we win (and I think we have a stronger historical case on this than we did with D.C. v. Heller), the most outrageous state gun control laws are going to be swept away. I think it is even likely that the various assault weapon laws around the country will either be struck down or require substantial liberalization to survive. Discretionary concealed weapon permit laws? Dead. Real dead.
I've been asked to help write the Academics for the Second Amendment amicus brief (of course), and I expect that I will be contributing to others. I'm already hip-deep in writing a couple of law reviews related to this issue already. If you want to help fund Academics for the Second Amendment amicus brief, click over to here and hit the PayPal button in the upper right.
UPDATE: Minor correction: NRA v. Chicago is the case that NRA filed; McDonald v. Chicago is the case filed by Alan Gura. The Court often consolidates several different suits together to resolve an important issue. If you look at Roe v. Wade, you will see that there are at least two different suits, from different states, that were part of that decision.
Market Opportunity?
The mark of how environmentally responsible these days seems to be how little goes into a landfill--and this item about recycling batteries from San Francisco suggests a market opportunity:According to Toxco Inc., they are the only company in North America that can recover zinc and manganese from alkaline batteries; they are one of two in North America that can recycle nickel-cadmium and nickel-metal-hydride batteries; and they are the only company in the world that can recover lithium from any size or type of lithium battery.
Only? Something tells me that they are taking full advantage of that opportunity in what they charge for recycling batteries. And from a carbon standpoint, does it really make sense to ship batteries this far for recycling?What Happens to Alkaline Batteries?
We ship alkaline batteries to AERC in Hayward. AERC is a licensed facility that recycles universal waste (electronics, fluorescent lamps, batteries).
AERC ships the batteries to Kinsbursky Brothers Inc., a transfer storage and disposal facility. Kinsbursky Brothers Inc. is a co-owner of Toxco Inc.
Kinsbursky consolidates the batteries into full truckloads and sends the batteries to Toxco Inc in Trail, British Columbia, Canada, where they are recycled.
The Hinge of Fate
This is the title of the fourth book in Winston Churchill's astonishing history of the Second World War. But it also describes a very real event in history--when momentous events swing on individuals or small groups making decisions, either good or bad. One expression of this is Churchill's speech in which he described how the really tiny number of pilots of the Royal Air Force, during the Battle of Britain, held off the Luftwaffe--and made it possible for Britain to avoid defeat. "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few." The film The Battle of Britain (1969) really captures the enormous human courage and loss required to hold back the Luftwaffe. If you've never seen it--you should.
I'm reading Derek Wood and Derek Dempster's The Narrow Margin: The Battle of Britain and the Rise of Air Power: 1930-1940 right now. This is the book upon which the film is somewhat based. The Narrow Margin is written in a style that I have come to expect from British academics--a bit stilted. Nonetheless, it's an important book, and worth reading.
The book points to one of those "hinge of fate" decisions in 1934, when the British government announced that it was going to expand the RAF's home defenses from fifty-two to seventy-five squadrons--by the spring of 1939. There was an uproar in Parliament, because many members were still convinced that this was pointless.
1. "The bomber will always get through" was still a dominant belief--that there was no simply no point in trying to prevent bombing raids. The parallel to the current liberal insistence that there should be no defense against incoming missiles is pretty obvious.
2. The vigorous pacifism left over the from pointless bloodshed of World War I was still dominant among intellectuals and other forms of sheep.
3. It was going to be expensive, and there were many prepared to argue that Mr. Hitler was simply trying to save Germany. (Remember that National Socialism had many admirers in Britain--including some members of the royal family.)
Still, Winston Churchill pointed out that Germany had already violated the Treaty of Versailles, and it was best to be prepared for war. (Much like those who think that Iran's violation of previous U.N. resolutions means that it is time for more resolutions.)
Imagine if Parliament had prevented the building up of the RAF! Even a year or two delay on this building program would have wiped out the narrow margin by which the RAF won the Battle of Britain. I would like to think that Britain would have still fought as Winston Churchill's June 4, 1940 speech put it:We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France,
But I also know that without air cover, a German invasion of Britain might well have succeeded--and the costs of World War II might have been far higher than we can imagine. Occupied Britain, instead of being America's unsinkable aircraft carrier, might have been Germany's unsinkable aircraft carrier to attack Iceland, and from there, Greenland. From Greenland, easy bombing raids on Canada and the U.S.
we shall fight on the seas and oceans,
we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be,
we shall fight on the beaches,
we shall fight on the landing grounds,
we shall fight in the fields and in the streets,
we shall fight in the hills;
we shall never surrender....
This Really Hits The Nail on the Head
Concerning Roman Polanski's extradition to the U.S. to serve time for a crime that he was convicted of long ago, this is a remarkably crisp statement of the problem by John Nolte at Big Hollywood:Pleading guilty to unlawful sex with an underage girl — the drugging, raping and sodomizing of a 13 year-old — isn’t stopping Hollywood from ginning up an indignation campaign over the possibility of fugitive director Roman Polanski being held accountable for his crimes. Yes, these are the values of those who control the most powerful propaganda device ever created. Which begs a question: If his unspeakable deed doesn’t meet the standard, what exactly would Roman Polanski have to do in order to become a pariah in this town … I mean, besides vote for Sarah Palin?
Whenever I say to myself, "Could the entertainment industry really be such evil people as much of their product suggests?" I get examples like this to remind me, "Yes."
The trial transcripts of the victim's testimony are here. It's rough and it's unpleasant. Pretty clearly, this 13 year old made some very, very poor decisions along the way--but that's part of why our laws treat children as children, and require adults to not pursue children for sex. And since I expect that feminists will be joining the clamor of defending Roman Polanski next, "No means no." And this 13 year old said "No" on multiple occasions when this sleazeball was having sex with her.
What I'm Reading
Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon (1929). The movie follows the book very closely--and is a pleasure to read. There are a lot of people that love to parody Hammett's hard boiled detective style, but until you actually read this book, you don't realize how clever a piece of work it is. Okay, I admit, when I first read the description of Joel Cairo, I had no problem visualizing Peter Lorre in all his greasy and creepy mannerisms in the film.
I've finished the seventh book in the Harry Potter series--and enjoyed it immensely. Those who insisted on seeing it as some dark, demonic, anti-Christian work will be startled by how it ends--when Harry must sacrifice himself to save others. While Rowling was clearly trying to end it in a way that would discourage anyone from demanding more books in the series, it wasn't completely foreclosing the possibility--unlike killing off Sherlock Holmes. Can Harry Potter, Junior Auror be out of the question? I don't think so!
Robert L. Mack, ed., Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Oxford University Press, 2007) is something that you might not expect--a critical edition of The String of Pearls: A Romance, first published in 1846-7 in The People's Periodical and Family Library, a British serial. (The ironic combination of Family Library and this truly gruesome work is a reminder that popular tastes being somewhat degraded isn't new.) This is where Sweeney Todd first makes his appearance--and yes, he is completely fiction--there is no real incident behind this gruesome story.
A number of different authors are reputed to have written various parts of this serial--and it shows. The People's Periodical was one of the aptly named "penny dreadfuls" of the time, purveying various lurid tales for the emerging market of lowbrow tastes. The early chapters are really not very well written--but by about chapter five or six, the writing has actually improved quite substantially. It is more readable than some of its Victorian counterparts, and not quite as hopelessly self-conscious in its moralizing as say, Vanity Fair.
I didn't see the movie. The notion of making a musical around murder and... inappropriate cooking ingredients is about as appealing to me as a musical like Springtime for Hitler. I ended up reading this book partly because my wife wouldn't let me have Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and partly because I like to understand the Victorian period. Now, you may be thinking that this book must have been pretty shocking when it appeared--but the Victorian period confronted the problem of cannibalism surprisingly often, because of the problems of shipwrecks. Nathaniel Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex discusses how often this problem came up in the nineteenth century. That there wasn't much need for cannibalism in London did nothing to reduce the public fascination with how people deal with the discovery that lunch isn't FDA approved.
Bonds
I spent some time talking to one of my readers who is an institutional bond salesman, and the more I look at the situation, the more sense it makes to buy government agency bonds. Yes, buying a 30 year bond when the prospect of substantial inflation to pay for the enormous deficits that Obama is running up isn't spectacularly wise--but the bonds that are financing houses will be called well before maturity. That's part of why these agency bonds (such as Fannie Mae) pay pretty decent interest rates--because they are likely to be called well before maturity.
Why? Because when Fannie Mae, or one of the other housing agencies issue 30 year bonds, it is to finance a collection of mortgages. If interest rates fall, borrowers refinance their houses, and pay off their mortgages. The agency then calls the bond--which means that they pay you the face value of the bond to get it back. If interest rates rise (as will certainly happen in response to rising inflation), there's less chance that borrowers will refinance their houses--but people still sell their houses, to sell up (because inflation is making their homes worth more), to relocate, or because the primary breadwinner dies, loses his job, or it's time to downsize after the kids have left home. That will also cause the bonds to be called.
There's no question that rising inflation might well cause one to get stuck with bonds that are now worth less than you paid for them. Worst comes to worst, you hold the bonds until maturity or they get called. Neither of these is optimal, but to completely get away from risk usually means a dismal rate of return. There are some Fannie Mae bonds due in 2038 that are available right now with an annualized yield to maturity of 5.510%. If they get called, the annualized yield to worst is still 5.510%. For something with the full faith and credit of the U.S. government behind it (now), that's not too bad!
I suppose that the federal government could indeed go belly-up--but if that happens, money in banks won't even be particularly safe. At that point, MREs and NATO standard caliber ammo will be the only safe investments.
In-Flight Entertainment
PajamasMedia published a piece by me titled: "In-Flight Entertainment: Not Always Suitable for Children." It seems to have brought out the child haters in the comments.
