Posts from — October 2008

Yes, it is that time again…   no, not Presidential Election Day!   World Zombie Day, when hordes of shambling, bloody-mouthed fiends stagger through the streets to find you and eat your brain.   What is it about the living dead motif?   Perhaps when our lives are being decimated by sinister madmen in the White House and on Wall Street, the zombie captures the zeitgeist, and has crowned itself as the mascot of our times.   Zombies have long since conquered pop culture, infiltrated sfnal space, and are battering the gates of academe.   There is no stopping them.   So when you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, as the saying goes, since they will be suddenly manifesting on October 26th in a town near you!

Adelaide [Australia], Ann Arbor [Michigan], Asheville [North Carolina], Atlanta [Georgia], Blackpool [England (UK)], Burlington [Vermont], Christchurch [New Zealand], Copenhagen [Denmark], Dallas [Texas], Ferndale (Detroit) [Michigan], Fairbanks [Alaska], Flint [Michigan], Fort Myers [Florida], Fort Wayne [Indiana], Hong Kong], Hudson [New York], Indianapolis [Indiana], Jacksonville [Florida], Kansas City [Missouri], Las Vegas [Nevada], Lawrence [Kansas], London [Ontario [Canada], London [England (UK)], Los Angeles [California], Louisville [Kentucky], Lyon [France], Mobile [Alabama], Nashville [Tennessee], New York [NY], Omaha [Nebraska], Orlando [Florida], Paris [France], Philadelphia [Pennsylvania], Pittsburgh [Pennsylvania (Monroeville Mall)], Portland [Oregon], Roanoke [Virginia], Roaring River [North Carolina], San Diego [California], San Francisco [California], San Jose [Costa Rica], Santa Rosa [California], Seattle [Washington], Shreveport [Louisiana], Sioux Falls [South Dakota], Sydney [Australia], Tampa [Florida], Tucson [Arizona], Worcester [England (UK)]

As Americans shudder beneath the shadow of their inter-galactic debts, the India Space Research Organization (ISRO) has successfully launched their lunar orbiter, the Chandrayaan-1.    The two-year mission of the Chandrayaan orbiter will capture high-resolution imagery of the lunar surface on multiple bandwidths, enabling the compilation of a super-accurate 3D-model of the moon.   Way to go ISRO!

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Interesting article in today’s SFGATE, looks at the similarities and differences between today’s financial meltdown and the crash that led to the Great Depression.   Many points are made to show that it really isn’t TEOTWAWKI.

If you asked me, I would say that the reality of the financial chaos spawned by decades of plunder by the self-proclaimed uber-finance moguls and their hordes of compliant quants is much much worse than anyone can possibly imagine.   However, that being said, I think that the majority of people are so utterly self-absorbed that they will stream forward like lemmings into whatever the next ponzi scheme of immediate gratification is offered to them.  And who knows, it may be the ignorant hubris of the stampede — totally unaware of the cognitive dissonance between their worthless currency and their geometrically increasing demands — that saves the rest of us who actually know better.

Go figure.   In the meantime, we have Paulson, Bernanke, and the experts to plan the bailout of our financial institutions.  So you can go back to your crossword puzzle and relax…

Does anyone seriously think the current economic collapse is surprising? There is a reason that Reagan’s first term in office spawned the “me” generation, and a reason that the wipeout of the Savings and Loan industry happened almost overnight. It all began with Reagan’s strict deconstructionism of the regulatory systems that protected us from predatory Wall Street sharks. Just to keep our facts straight, vicious greed is nothing new to U.S. financial circles. Read Mathew Josephson’s The Robber Barons, if you have a strong stomach for exploitation and naked avarice. Of course, if you prefer you can just stick your head in the rubbish bin and pretend that our leaders are all beneficent “industrial statesmen.” Nonetheless, after the misery of the Great Depression years, some reasonable barriers were raised to prevent excessively over-leveraged cash-to-debt ratios, which causes banks to collapse. Reagan, of course, would have none of that!  According to Reaganomics, aka trickle-down economics, aka voodoo economics, the only thing we ever need to worry about is how fast the rich become richer.  Remember Michael Milken, anyone?  Or Gordon Gekko?

When the dot-com meltdown finally occurred, after the decade long run-up of irrational exuberance, did it take anything more than a micron of brain-matter to see that the frenzied flight of assets from stocks into real estate was not a good idea? Apparently, as long as the brokers and other sharks can make their dime, it is a trifling matter if the entire economy is banked on fantasy, zero-collateralized debt based on hyper-inflated prices. Brilliant! You see that broken down flea-bag dump, with flapping chunks of old asbestos siding falling off the termite-ridden particle boards? It can be yours for only $879,999, today! No money down! Sign here! [Read more →]

Long ago I dreamed of taking a slow boat to China…  To get away from this caterwauling madhouse that we call the United States.   I even went so far as to buy a boat, which at the time was a half-sunken wreck full of bilgewater, then I hauled it up onto a drydock at Seal Beach, California and proceded to slave away on the encrusted hull.   It took me weeks to shave off the giant beard of seaweed, barnacles, and dreck that had accumulated.  Eventually, with the help of a curious shipwright from Belize, Wally Flowers, I re-caulked the seams of those hardwood planks, pitched and varnished the hull, and painted it with shiny lead-saturated marine white.   What a beauty that boat was, the Lady L!   But that’s a different story…   The point is that I always dreamed of sailing away across the ocean and making it to China.  A mad dream perhaps.  A sordid capitulation from my dream of being a Tea Baron, you might say.  But nonetheless, a vision of the great sea, of towering slow rolling waves, of flying fish hitting the deck, and of being gazed upon by the weird eye of a Leviathan as it floated up from the deeps.   Thor Heyerdal put one hell of a monkey on my back, it’s true!    And today, it turns out, that similar mad fools have been dreaming of their own slow boat journey from China!    In a reconstructed Chinese junk, no less!  Welcome, sailors, to the Golden Mountain!   Don’t let go of your wallets!