Musings from Brian J. Noggle
Monday, September 07, 2009
 
What Does The Federal Government Manufacture?
President Obama to Appoint Ron Bloom Manufacturing Czar:
    In Cincinnati tomorrow, President Obama will announce that he's appointing Ron Bloom his Senior Counselor for Manufacturing Policy, White House sources tell ABC News.

    Bloom is currently Senior Advisor to Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner as a member of the President’s Task Force on the Automotive Industry, named to that position in February. He will remain in that position even while he takes on his new task.
Now, if only it would take over some industries to counsel. More, I mean.

I know what T.V. means when he says that there are too many kooks on the right spouting off zany theories of despotism and whatnot. Hey, I'm right up there with them. But it would be nice if the Federal government would not do so many things that look like foreshadowing.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:02 AM   0 comments
 
It Might Be About Race
Obama’s approval rating drops among whites:
    After a summer of health care battles and sliding approval ratings for President Barack Obama, the White House is facing a troubling new trend: The voters losing faith in the president are the ones he had worked hardest to attract.

    New surveys show steep declines in Obama's approval ratings among whites, including Democrats and independents, who were crucial elements of the diverse coalition that helped elect the country’s first black president.
The article poses its own push-poll style point, that whites are abandoning Obama--because of race? However, it would be just as sound to ask, "Are blacks sticking with Obama because he's black?"

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:50 AM   0 comments
Friday, September 04, 2009
 
Default or Hyperinflation
This author argues that the United States will default on its debt:
    Almost everyone is aware that federal government spending in the United States is scheduled to skyrocket, primarily because of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Recent "stimulus" packages have accelerated the process. Only the naively optimistic actually believe that politicians will fully resolve this looming fiscal crisis with some judicious combination of tax hikes and program cuts. Many predict that, instead, the government will inflate its way out of this future bind, using Federal Reserve monetary expansion to fill the shortfall between outlays and receipts. But I believe, in contrast, that it is far more likely that the United States will be driven to an outright default on Treasury securities, openly reneging on the interest due on its formal debt and probably repudiating part of the principal.
A national health care program wouldn't be able to kill the sick and elderly quick enough to save us.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:39 AM   0 comments
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
 
Book Report: Selected Works by Cicero (1948)
Look, Ma! I'm actually reading the Classics Club books I bought.

This book collects a number of Cicero's works, including his law defenses or prosecutions, some of his letters, and some of his philosophical essays. I found it to be an interesting sampler plate, as it captures many different modes of Cicero. The attorney, with eloquent courtroom or Forum arguments for or against someone. In some cases, these were slow reads, as he goes on about people I don't know. The politician and consul emerges through the letters, wherein he talks about how different people feel about him and how he's going to persuade them, and so on and so forth. Finally, the philosopher emerges through the essays (and in spots in the letter or the courtroom things).

It's also, frankly, a good piece of historical reading, too, as it open's one's eyes to the fall of the Roman Republic and the length and breadth of the Roman Empire+Roman Republic era. For example, Cicero writes in the first century BC and talks about the monuments that are already hundreds of years old. Marcus Aurelius will write his Meditations several hundred years hence.

Good reading, and I'm looking forward to reading other Cicero works in the future.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:59 AM   0 comments
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
 
I Don't Know Whether To Be Reassured Or Not
An e-mail from Sarah Conner


On the one hand, Sarah assures me help is on the way. On the other, SkyNet is after me.


- posted by Brian J. @ 1:10 PM   0 comments
 
Book Report: Long Time No See by Ed McBain (1977)
This is a shorter 87th Precinct novel from the 1970s, before hardback bloat demanded every book be 300 pages. A blind man is murdered, and then his blind wife is murdered and the apartment tossed. Is someone murdering blind people, or were they targeted specifically? That's the question for Carella and the gang.

Funny, the book deals with veterans back from the War (Vietnam) and shenanigans in the military, but in 1977, McBain didn't feel the need to foam about LBJ, Nixon, or Carter. Was George W. Bush just that evil that McBain couldn't refrain in later books? It's fortunate he did, otherwise he would not have sold so well nor built a legacy which makes his later political rhapsody tolerable.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:48 AM   0 comments
To say Noggle, one first must be able to say the "Nah."