Eco-madness can be funny

My wife insists that I should pass on some of the great stuff I come across, so I'm going to try and bring this blog back to life.

It's not unusual to see people who subscribe to global warming nonsense but don't live up to it. But there are plenty of hard core environmentalists here, and given Seattle's love of dogs this is going to come across hard:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/national/2987821/Save-the-planet-eat-a-dog

I hope someone will read it so I don't have to.

We can still win the game

In reply to my last post Sabrina made a couple of points which merit front page attention and analysis. The argument was made that this is just about taking the short term fix over the principled solution. I don't think so. I do think this is the best for the short term, but I also think it's best for the medium and long terms.

Sabrina wrote: I, however, will never compromise principles for short-term fixes. If the government continues to inflate the dollar in order to make this bail-out happen our dollar will be worth nothing one day. What would you like, deflation or hyper-inflation?

So a couple of thoughts here:

1. I'm not sure which principle(s) she is concerned about violating.
I do know that some of the people complaining about this bailout have implicated a few principles like:

• People should get what they deserve
• People shouldn't be able to escape from their mistakes
• People should suffer for their sins

All three of which I don't think are principles but rather eternal truths; I personally have no problem with vicarious solutions to aid in their avoidance. I don't want to get what I deserve much less what President Clinton deserves. I'd be interested in discussing each and every principle in depth and individually that anyone thinks this bailout implicates. If you have one that you think applies please call it out in it's own paragraph in a comment.

2. Which is worse deflation or hyper-inflation?

I don't think that's a fair conundrum. To be fair, we'd need hyper-deflation to go against hyper-inflation.

But for comparisons sake let's look at the results of either disaster scenario.

In inflationary situations, savings are reduced in value and real commodities possessed are increased in value. Given sufficient hyper-inflation, only commodities possess value and all savings are destroyed. Investments are reduced to their real underlying worth. (Often nothing, for example Google has no real assets in a hyper inflationary economy.)

In deflationary situations, savings are magnified and real commodities possessed are decreased in value. Given sufficient hyper-deflation, commodities become worthless and investments become the only thing of value. This of course causes assets to be hoarded and commodities not to be produced. (For example, farmers can't take out operating loans to grow crops because those crops will be worth less than the seed by the time they are grown.)

I think either situation results in badness in the long term. My instinct says more people die from starvation in a deflationary depression than an inflationary one, but I have no evidence to back that up.

In any case, I think it to be irrelevant to this decision. The question is not whether to allow hyperinflation. M3 (a measure of the amount of US money in existence) is roughly 10 trillion dollars. That makes this buyout 7% inflation spread out over a minimum of one year. That's about 1.2% of the rate necessary to be discussing hyperinflation.

Sabrina also wrote: I am already up in arms that it costs me $3 a loaf, when I used to regularly find it for half that price only 4 years ago.

The important distinction here is the difference between inflation and other forms of government theft. The reason bread is more expensive is partly due to inflation. But that doesn't make it harder to buy a loaf of bread by itself. Inflation is matched by a change in nominal wages. The rates aren't always the same and the disparity is the change in real wages. This is a number that is much more important than the nominal inflation rate. Consider, if I was paid enough 3 years ago to buy 10,000 loaves of bread and doing the same job I'm now paid enough to buy 11,000 loaves of bread, then it doesn't matter how many nominal dollars I'm paid. Of course it's not quite that simple since man cannot live by bread alone, and that's why one can't figure the change in real wages using just one commodity.
Bread is getting more expensive in large part because of environmentalists. By favoring the use of ethanol over gasoline, they've created a government based drain on the supply of corn. They've also prevented all sorts of cheap power from coming on line. These things add up to a higher cost of food. It's still government theft, but it's not inflation.


There's talk of adding 700 Billion dollars to our debt with this buyout. This is a misunderstanding of basic accounting. When someone buys an asset they are not decreasing their net worth. If they borrow to do it they do increase their liabilities. But at the same time they increase assets. The effect of buying assets at 20 cents on the dollar is an increase in net worth.

Sabrina also wrote: Furthermore, and maybe I sound void of compassion when I say this, retirement, home ownership and employment are not human rights.

No, they aren't human rights. But that doesn't mean government has no business protecting them. In fact, that's was a major purpose of creating the government. For example, consider the constitutional references to a government that creates monetary policy to promote prosperity. There are two such references in the preamble. There are 8 clauses in the last sections of Article I which give powers necessary to that end. Article 6 was about ensuring that this could remain possible. A libertarianism so strict that government couldn't regulate banks is to my mind probably a recent addition to political thought. It certainly doesn't coincide with 19th century government policy.

Sabrina wrote: Our country needs to learn a lesson. We all need to learn that everything has a risk and everything has consequences. We may or may not get to retire. We may have to live in apartments for the rest of lives. We may have to take the street sweeper job because it's the only one available to us. So what? We can't ever have true prosperity until it's built upon a real solid foundation of production and individual risk-taking and responsibility to deal with the consequences. Our prosperity now is built on a bubble of credit, backed up by useless paper money. This kind of economy is doomed to fail from the very start. Now we are witnessing that failure.

But the very premise is wrong here. We have the most incredible amount of real prosperity imaginable underlying the highest standard of living the world has ever known. There may be a lot of falsity involved in the numbers we project; but in real worth this nation is very prosperous. The roads are paved and the people have cars to drive on them. We have sufficient for our military needs. We have plenty of food. We grow enough to feed the world. We develop amazing technologies. There's at least one TV in even the poorest households, often with a satellite dish.
I don't think that our generation really has a good grasp on how different life was in past generations. I don't fear a world where we have to live in apartments, can find jobs that are only distasteful, and have to work all our lives. I believe for about 6,000 years that's how most of the world dreamed of living.
Our economy is not doomed to fail. I'm not even sure it's doomed to have any serious corrections though I don't think they are unreasonable to expect. As long as everything stays sane, we'll produce enough for our needs next year, and then plenty will be left over for our wants. The biggest problem is poor decision making regarding energy and we can fix that.

Giving up on the theory that we need to punish ourselves doesn't make sense. If the whole system is going to collapse, I don't think I believe it's any more likely to collapse because we try and fix this than if we give up. And if we give up there's no chance of winning.

Here's what winning means to me: We stabilize the situation. We then solve the energy problem and make a tax cut. This results in a major economic boost. We reduce spending and grow ourselves out of debt. What does winning mean to you?

Why Government may be the solution to a Problem.

"Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem." January 20, 1981.

Words you'd be awfully safe betting on for any given problem. Gospel practically. And yet I've become mostly convinced it isn't right for this latest financial mess.

Oh, the second part is definitely still correct. Government is the problem. It's made a huge mess. And it's important to realize that when talking about this problem. It's becoming a common talking point that government is bailing out bad financial decisions. This simply isn't the case.

A bit of background will help us to frame everything properly. Let's start with microeconomics.

Let us begin with Mr. Jones who has a million dollars. Mr. Jones finds 4 indigent workers and arranges to finance 4 quarter million dollar houses for them with no real down payments. A year later, Mr. Jones now owns 4 homes valued at an aggregate of 200,000. He's lost 20% of his investment. But that's how investments go. He's not become insolvent.
If you balance out the accounting columns, you'll find that there's a negative in Mr. Jones assets column and the corresponding expense entry moves out to the depreciation in the housing market. Depreciation that someone had to bear if prices were falling.

Let us move on then to Mr. Brown who has a quarter million dollars. Mr. Brown borrows 750,000 and then arranges to finance 4 quarter million dollar houses for indigent workers. He uses the houses as collateral against his debt. A year later Mr. Brown owns 800,000 dollars worth of houses. He also has debts of 750,000 and he doesn't have any cash. In addition, he now has interest payments due of 3-4 thousand dollars per month. Since Mr. Brown has a total of 50,000 in net worth, he is forced to liquidate his position. This causes the houses to sell for even less than they are worth. Mr. Brown ends up with nothing. That's the power of leverage.

Mr. Jones net worth also declines by 50,000 dollars because his houses are valued at the prices Mr. Brown sold for. Mr. Jones would prefer to think more rationally but the government won't let him.

For Mr. Brown, the accounts break down like this.
Mr. Brown has obviously posted a 250,000 dollar loss to assets. 200,000 went to depreciation and 50,000 went to liquidation costs.

But in both of their cases it's hard to argue they didn't get what they deserve in terms of what happened to their investment. Mr. Jones does have a strong case for being able to claim that he's still worth 800,000 dollars and not 750,000 dollars. This inequity is referred to as the "mark to market" rule. It does make some sense as you wouldn't want him pretending he was worth a million dollars. But it seems a stretch to say that Jones should suffer for Browns liquidation costs.


Now, let's bring in a bank to the situation. Let us suppose that we're in a small out of the way town 100 years ago with only one bank, 3 people and 1 house. The bank loans all of its capital -- a sizable deposit from person 1 -- to person 2 who buys the house from person 0 who then leaves town. Person 2 then defaults. Now, the bank has a house. It owes the value of the house to person 1. And person 3 would like to buy the house at 80% of what the bank has in it. The bank now has a pair of problems. It owes person 1 more than it can get out of it's assets. So it declares bankruptcy. Person 1 now owns the house. Person 2 is back where he started. Person 3 still wants the house. Unfortunately, the only bank in town just went belly up. So in our small example, person 1 rents the house to person 3. (Or finances the mortgage himself.) In real scenarios, the bank might well have money but just refuse to lend it because of our crazy times.

Person 1 who did nothing wrong except put his money in a bank loses out. What Person 1 needed was an insurance company for Depositors. Obviously town level is too small to socialize the risk. So maybe a Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation could be created. It could be called the FDIC. The premiums could even be paid out of the interest due Person 1 and he'd never realize he was paying for insurance.[*] Now this FDIC should put some rules on banks who buy the insurance to minimize the risk of paying out. But if the government owned it, why then we'd call those laws and they'd be subject to political pressure. The laws might -- perish the thought -- be made not for sound fiscal reasons but to garner votes.

Now, let us leave hypothetical land and make this all apply. The federal government forces banks to loan to indigents. It forces Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to buy sub-prime mortgages. In our example above imagine that the bank had no choice but to give person 2 a house. It is interesting to note that the reasons the government did this all sounded good at the time. Who wouldn't want to help out the poor to reach the American dream. Remember that's the underlying message of It's a Wonderful Life. And it's not a bad message. But government is not the solution to that problem, it is the problem.

Further, government rules like "mark to market" are making the problem much worse. Now no one can afford to make loans. Well, housing prices are based on supply and demand. The harder it is to get a mortgage, the less demand. The more foreclosures, the more supply. That moves prices down. Downward price pressure makes the bank situation worse and it becomes harder to get a mortgage. This is the kind of cycle that can be very hard to break. Some people panic seeing the falling prices and sell their own homes at a loss. That would be an increase in supply.

Now, taking it from the megabank perspective. You have mortgage securities valued at 1 Trillion dollars. 20% of that debt is so b ad that no one will buy it from you. That makes it worthless. But if held to maturity, there are real houses underlying that debt. So you have a debt which isn't worth the paper it's printed on now but will be worth real houses in a few years. Unfortunately, you also have real current liabilities. And you can't cover them with bad debt. And you can't borrow any more money to pay the current liabilities because your balance sheet is a mess with the 20% bad debt floating around.

So, suppose you had a long term view and wanted to make some money. Suppose you also had 100 Billion dollars laying around. You might buy 200 Billion Dollars in debt with it. Of course the debt is bad so you'd probably only clear 50 or 60 Billion on the deal. And it'd probably take you 4 or 5 years to recover anything. But that's still not a bad rate of return. Of course there's plenty of risk which when weighed might scare you away from doing it.

Besides which, be honest now, how many of you can really afford to throw 100 Billion Dollars at a problem.

But, if you're the government, you have to look at an investment like that versus the costs of letting the system fail. Deflation is of course a potential big problem. In addition, you run into the problem of who owns these big banks. Principally you find it's those with money in the bank. There is after all only so much insurance. And after that it devolves back to person 1 in our example. Grandma and Grandpa who saved away all their lives are left with not a retirement living but instead with a house in a run down neighborhood of San Francisco. Mom and Dad who owe 15,000 dollars more on a house they bought 20 years ago for 100,000 see the price of the house go from 200,000 down to 15,000. Which wouldn't be so bad except that they can't make any money because the factory he works for can't sell parts to companies that can't finance their operations. Now that's worst case scenario and maybe the banks don't all cascade down, but the set up is so bad that they just might if this is mishandled.

JCPenney won't sell clothes in a world where people are trying to figure out where the next meal is coming from. There certainly won't be private engineering research. Financial analysts won't have much to do either with no finance happening.

So big downside to doing nothing and a potential to do a lot of good and keep the system stable. But there's a second hidden upside. You see, the government can print money. And that's how they may solve this problem. Normally that's not the greatest thing. As more dollars chase the same amount of goods, consumer prices rise. But, in this case, the problem is the potential for a deflationary depression.

Let's look at how inflation affects everyone in our scenarios. Mr. Jones has 800,000 dollars in houses. After 25% inflation he now has a million dollars in houses. But there worth intrinsically exactly what they were before so he has no change. Mr. Brown has the same million dollars in houses and he still has his 750,000 dollars in debt. He still has to liquidate them but he ends up with say 150,000 dollars. (He takes a 40% loss). Mr. Brown's creditors get their 750,000 dollars back. Unfortunately for them, this means they've lost money. Because the 750,000 they gave up isn't worth what they got back. But they made a foolish investment so we shouldn't feel too bad for them. Person 2 doesn't have anything change. Person 1 takes exactly the same loss.

Unfortunately, there is a forgotten man in this scenario. Person 3 had enough money to make a reasonable down payment on a house. Unfortunately, as the house inflated in value, his capital became insufficient to buy the house. The only way he can keep up with inflation is to invest his money somewhere. That's not real great for him because times are risky. But it is great for the economy to get more capital involved. Person 0 left town. Now he's in the same bucket as person 3 if he hasn't already invested that money in a way that he can be protected.

The biggest argument against this is almost becoming a mantra. Don't socialize the risk when the profits are privatized. There are a couple of problems with this logic though. First, the risk is already socialized. The reason everybody cares about this is that everyone is at risk. My job, yours, and the man next door, all rely on a functioning economy. Now, the farmer may have a job that can't go away. But his farm can go away from under him.

Claiming the profits are privatized is a stretch as well. Who really makes out well here? In the fix, no one does. When things were going well, who was profiting? I was. You were. Maybe not as much as some other people, but let's not get greedy. And if we let things break down, who makes out well? No one.

So, I favor this fix or one like it. There are details to be worked out and I'm not ready to take a position on any particular detail yet. But the basic idea of using inflationary tactics to gobble up cheap investments to stabilize our monetary system just doesn't seem so bad. It does have all the negatives of being the government taking my money and giving it to someone else; but if they're going to do that anyway at least they might do some good for once.

There are a couple of large risks. First, this is a government program. In a few months, a new resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue might decide that the money should be funneled to minority owned businesses first. Or he might take money from these organizations to resist necessary reforms. As I say this seems a necessary evil, I am very concerned that the next necessary evil be much more imaginary and much closer. Second, the economy must have some real growth. There are real losses involved here. We need to be able to absorb those. Our current high spend mentality has to be reigned in or we won't have a chance at that. Secondly, we need to get tax rates down to encourage the flow of capital through the system.

This is one reason why I've said that it's not a hard choice between the Presidential candidates. One has at least a 10% chance of doing something in that realm. The other has a negative chance. And there are only two viable candidates.

A political theory of relativity

On Friday morning John McCain picked his vice president. By Sunday morning the leftist rumor mills and scandal factories websites had gotten to work.

There seem to be two chief "scandals" in Governor Palin's history.

Let us deal with them briefly.

The first scandal centers on her firing a political appointee. (He was offered another job.) The publicly stated reason was inability to do his job and failure to cooperate in cutting spending. Apparently, this is not in dispute; but he says that he was also fired because he wouldn't fire her former brother in law.

There were a whole bunch of functional reasons for needing to fire the man but apparently the Governor's interest in it had to do with him threatening to kill her father.

The second scandal is rather more salacious but apparently much less backed in truth. DailyKos had a lengthy story calling on Governor Palin to admit that her last child was not her own but was in fact her granddaughter. [I'll spend a few words below explaining why this theory isn't quite fully baked.]

I was also recently reminded of the scandals used in the press to discredit Governor Romney. You'll remember how he made a dog ride on the roof of his car once. Then there was the way he hired a lawn care company that employed illegal immigrants.

On the reverse side, you've got Barack Obama's scandals. Among the more notable ones that come to my mind are the whole Rezko mess [if you don't know the details you should probably make yourself familiar with it] and the Ayers fundraiser.

These are of course minor compared to the shenanigans of the last Democrat in the oval office.

To me the interesting part of all of this is that there is no apparent sense of the disconnect to the people who accept the second group of scandals and harp upon the first.

I present for your consumption therefore, the following theory of scandal relativity.

The ridiculousness of ones political positions is directly proportional to the ridiculousness of what one thinks scandalous.

It has a close corollary that one's abhorrence to real scandal in those one supports is inversely proportional to the intrinsic evil which underlies the goals one politically seeks to achieve.

The theory stands on its own for clarity. The corollary deserves a brief example in application to clarify the point. In addition to the myriad other reasons why moral people everywhere were outraged by our last President, his horrific conduct was demeaning to women. Now, if only there were some kind of national organization of women that could have decried his conduct... oh wait, there is. I'd guess that NOW is just still working on their statement condemning him. Things like this take years to get right. Especially when statements condemning anti-abortion laws are gobbling up so much of the press release writers time.

I'm curious can anybody think of any counter examples? Sensible political positions paired with ridiculous inability to properly stack rank scandals or the converse.

[I promised above a few thoughts about the latest controversy out of Seward's folly. Here they are:]

So, let me first state that I am not suggesting that these allegations are impossible. Much as I could walk up to a person here in Seattle and say to that person, "Your shoes are brown therefore you must be from Augusta, Maine" and be right. These people could be right. The logic is just absurd either way and if they are right it's simply an absurdly lucky guess with no credit due them for being right.

There are two points in the incredibly creative scandal write up that caught my attention.

One is a picture that shows the oldest Palin daughter with a slightly distended stomach. It turns out the photo was taken in 2006 though which makes it a hard sell for a 2008 pregnancy. This of course means that they have to claim that the dating on the photo is fake. As evidence they point out that the local anti-Palin newspaper references her age as 16 in the picture which says 2006 on it. Then they say since she is 17 now that proves it must have been taken in 2008. [1/3 of 2008 remains as I write this.]

The second point of note is that apparently Governor Palin had some minor complications with her pregnancy in Dallas just before giving birth. The side spinning the scandal side of the equation would have you believe that since no one would fly to rural Alaska while having contractions, the baby must not be hers. Here's the thing and it goes directly to my equation above: let us suppose you weren't pregnant. (Probably not too hard to do for most of the readers at any given moment.) Now, if you were not pregnant and you needed to conceal the surreptitious trade of a baby which of these approaches would you take:

1. Claiming an urgent problem and hurrying back to Alaska in a way that would look very suspicious.
2. Flying back to Alaska and as the plane landed announcing that you thought you were going into labor and asking to be rushed to the hospital.

I'll wager that if you picked #1, you also think that government should be managing your health care.

Funny sounding names don't disqualify these people from being governor ... funny sounding ideas do

We have a couple of gubernatorial candidates who come to us from across the seas. In theory this is a wonderful thing as a diversity of ideas can lead us to better solutions. Unfortunately, neither candidate seems to understand our state system of government.

Mohammad Hasan Said is a medical doctor. Unfortunately even with the intelligence necessary to get a medical degree, Dr. Said has not managed to figure out that Governor is a State office. From his candidate statement we read:

If elected Governor I will do or promote the following with help from legal experts.

1. WITHDRAW WASHINGTON NATIONAL GUARD FROM IRAQ IMMEDIATELY. The unfair Iraqi occupation was engineered by New Conservative for Israel. Request for Freedom Of Information Act November 14, 2005 with their answer November 21, 2005 control number COPS2006004 is still pending to prove evidence. [Huh?]

2. AMEND CONSTITUTION, article 1, section 8, paragraph 11, so War Power Act be delegated to States Legislators not Congress. [That's right as Governor he'll amend the constitution so that state legislatures can declare war. Lay aside for a moment your incredulity about a governor pushing this... do we really want to give Massachusetts war powers?]

3. AMEND CONSTITUTION, article 1, section 8, paragraph 3, so individual States can compete for overseas businesses without interference from Federal Government. I will lead trade mission to Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, Syria etc. [The one he wants to get rid of reads: To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes. The question is why won't he be leading a trade mission to the Commanches after this is repealed. Perhaps he's not seen enough John Wayne movies to be a good candidate for Governor.]

4. PROMOTE ONE STATE SOLUTION FOR PALESTINIAN- ARAB ISRAELI CONFLICT, so Jews, Christians and Muslims can live in Secular State like ours. [This is a big issue in the Governor's race, and yet inexplicably, Dr. Said is the only candidate willing to state his position on how to solve the problems in the Middle East.]

Other issues are in my platform. [That's good because if it was just those four he'd be awfully bored when he got them all done.]

Finally I would like to sound the alarm, that AIPAC and other Jewish Zionist Lobbies who represent less than 2% of American People are using the United States through their mighty power in the News Media, Financial Institutions, Hollywood and Entertainment Industry, Both Political Parties, Congress and the White House as Proxy to wage war against any country perceived to be threat to Israel, like in Iraq. This will lead us into conflicts for generations with Arab and Muslim World. This has got to stop! [Yes, that's right. The Jewish power structure in Hollywood is promoting the Iraq War.]

This Movement Campaign to get back our country from being influenced by foreign governments. This way we honor our founding father, George Washington’s farewell speech 1796, “Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of the Republic Government.” [Now if that quote is a little hard to follow, I beg of you gentle reader not to hold it against the character of President Washington. It really wouldn't be fair if you did given that he said: Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. Which actually makes sense, as opposed to Dr. Said's version, which doesn't.]

Christian Pierre Joubert is also a student of medicine. He was raised in the wine country of France so perhaps he was drunk when he proposed his "FUNDAMENTAL FREEDOMS" PLAN OF ACTION.

FREEDOM FROM DISEASES: Thanks to public health (including comprehensive universal pro-active health care) and therapeutic freedoms legislation, billions of dollars could be saved while all would have meaningful access to physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing. [It is more scary than humorous that he thinks spiritual well being comes from government doctors.]

FREEDOM FROM POLLUTION, WASTE AND WARS: With a firm commitment to develop clean, renewable energies (solar, wind, hydrogen, tidal, geothermal), painful oil wars would be less justifiable. With the resources saved, peace and prosperity would be better constructed. [If only we had solar panels then Jihadists wouldn't want to kill us.]

FREEDOM FROM EXCESSIVE MORTGAGES, DEBTS AND HOMELESSNESS: Thanks to compassionate solidarity and eco-construction technology (strawbale, wood, clay), a sound family house can be built for under 45,000 dollars. [Freedom from debt through the use of strawbales is an interesting position to campaign on... especially if you live in the midwest. If you live in the middle of the Pacific Northwest forests, then proposing building with wood is probably the stronger position. Of course building houses out of wood is so novel that I think I shall be compelled to vote for the person who advocates it. Why aren't the other candidates taking a position on this new construction technique. Alas our own house and most of the people in Washington's houses are already built out of lumber and I'm not sure that it really makes sense to tear those lumber houses down just to put up wood houses.]

FREEDOM FROM IGNORANCE, ALIENATION AND RECESSION: With stronger schools and universities, a dynamic modern economy based on the internet revolution, science, business, corporate intelligence, tax reform, coupled with sustainable communities, the elderly, youth and working force would better fulfill their dreams and basic needs. [Freedom from alienation? That doesn't really make sense.]

FREEDOM FROM HUNGER, DESERTS AND WORLD MISERY: Thanks to ethical trade, the doubling of exports, tree planting, vineyards, organic agriculture, health restaurants and the distribution of “superfoods” (including but not limited to amazing dopamine-producing raw vegan chocolate mousses), we would find solutions to world hunger and deserts would flower. [So, I have a confession. I've always had trouble telling the word desserts from the word deserts. I have to stop and think for a moment. And reading over this, I read freedom from Desserts the first time. It doesn't make any more or less sense my way. Either way the use of raw vegan chocolate mousse to solve world hunger I can at least understand. To solve the Sahara and Gobi, I don't get it.]

FREEDOM FROM INJUSTICE AND TYRANNY. With massive restructuring and financing of our legal system; the building of human rights and duties “enlightenment” centers in each town; the enactment of public expense for modest-income parties who have non-frivolous civil and administrative cases, including for electoral candidates, Washingtonians would be empowered and this State would become a lighthouse for the International Community. [This is another scary one mixed in, he wants to build enlightenment centers in each town. That would be where you would go to learn how to end deserts. However, if you read it my way the end of desserts leads to weight loss.]

In addition to these two we have Republican Javier O. Lopez running for governor. Mr. Lopez wrote a perfectly good candidate statement so I won't reproduce that for you. I did want to pass along that gas prices would be falling soon because I read this in his Significant Career Experience:

As an artist and inventor I have come up with an invention that will solve all of the world’s problems. I have invented an air engine that has the power to operate an automobile while relying on air as its fuel source. Adoption of this technology would mean an end to reliance on fossil fuels, stopping carbon-monoxide emissions, pollution and global warming.

Let the celebrations begin.

It is better to let others think you are an idiot than to have your candidate statement published and remove all doubt

So we got our voter guide in the mail today. The sad part is that most people probably throw it away without reading it. (Well, in Seattle, they recycle it without reading, but why quibble over details.) And this is a shame... not because of any social concerns about informed voting. No, this is a shame because this pamphlet is worth more than you pay for it.

For those of you not blessed to be living where it's rainy right now, you can find this whole book at vote.wa.gov
And you'll want to, because you're going to think I'm making this stuff up. Even after you look up the first thing, you'll think I used that as a set up to make up the rest of it. I affirm that I am not and provide the link to corroborate that affirmation.

So without further ado, I present the candidate I will not be voting for to be my next Representative. Democrat Goodspaceguy Nelson favors more tall buildings and movies being made in Washington state. And that seems reasonable enough. If he'd just add apple pie I think we could find some common ground. Anyway, here is just part of his campaign statement:

Goodspaceguy believes that the number one problem on Spaceship Earth is the tripling of people during the last hundred years. We numerous, brainy humans are exterminating wilderness and wildlife. Instead of starvation, genocide, and war, we should use nicer methods (such as the head tax and birth fees and study and work and social security) to decrease the number of people boarding Spaceship Earth. Goodspaceguy is pro choice on almost everything.

Goodspaceguy wants Orbital Space Colonization to be one of the great tasks for our new 21st Century. [...] After profitable success in Earth orbit, we should then build additional profitable colonies in orbit around the Moon and Mars, where solar power is also plentiful.

Meanwhile on computerized Spaceship Earth, Goodspaceguy wants us to raise the quality-of-life by longevity research and by getting more people working, ... Goodspaceguy wants more people studying at our colleges during the underutilized evenings and weekends.

...

Computer children of the Airplane Age, you should now begin building the Age of Space Colonization.

But despite all of that, I'll not be voting for Goodspaceguy... no, because on the next page over we have Independent Mark A Goldman. I have to prefer Mark to the spaceman because I figure someone has to save us from Goodspaceguy. And Mark starts out with this:

I rise to defend the moon and stars, the air we breathe, the oceans and the rivers, the plants, and all living things upon this our Mother Earth… and you… and your children… and your sacred poem… before the salmon die, before the birds stop singing; before the bees forget how to fly.

But then he had to ruin it by saying this:

Go to my web site and read: www.gpln.com.

Spend an hour, a day, a month there… until you understand.

Now how is he going to make me spend a month on his website just to understand? Rounding out my district we get to Al Schaefer. Al's big on fixing injustice and short on attention span. We get several disjoint ideas mostly quoting other crazy people and then this:

I propose these actions to correct injustices. With your help our proposals flower. Combined, with God’s help, our union can become tranquil again.

But if only I lived in the 8th district instead of the 7th, I could vote for someone with more experience. Keith Arnold has a bunch of experience in Washington that ended 'when George Bush "entered" [sic] the White House.' I guess Mr. Arnold's theory is that President Bush didn't really enter the White House but that it was more a figure of speech.

The central tenet of Keith's platform seems to be the elimination of the Supreme Court because he hates George Bush.

I proposed the Judiciary Act of 1993 to stop judicial barriers to this enforcement. Congress failed to pass my proposal. My Act would have stopped the supreme court from legislating from the bench by taking away all its power which would neutralize it until it could be eliminated by Constitutional Amendment. The supreme court is another appellate court and unnecessary due to the appellate courts below it.

With my 1993 Judiciary Act and no supreme court, Bush wouldn’t have “gotten” the 2000 Election, wouldn’t have “gotten” the White House, wouldn’t have changed our nation’s budget surplus into a record bankruptcy, wouldn’t have sent our troops to Iraq, wouldn’t spy on Americans without a warrant, nor done anything else to America and the world.

I am "amused" by his persistent use of so called "quotation" marks.

Ironically, he spends another paragraph praising Washington's new primary system. This would be the system that was passed in 2004 and declared unconstitutional shortly thereafter. We have it back this year as the Supreme Court overruled that lower courts order a few months ago.

Then we get to start looking at who's running for Governor. This will take more than one post.
Fact: Will Baker is running for governor.
Fact: Will Baker is incapable of putting one page of Coherent thought on paper.

Here's the whole thing because it deserves to be seen. My comments are interspersed in brackets.

Significant Career Experience: [This is above a line at the top where most people but Family, Career, Education, etc. It's the Biographical Section not the Candidate Statement. But things like that don't stop Will Baker] As a direct result of Will’s activist career, Will believes the number one issue in the 2008 Governor election should be the illegal and unethical election practices used by former U.S. Attorney/current Seattle University Law School Professor John McKay, Washington State Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Even and Secretary of State of Washington Sam Reed. [Just for later I want you all to remember this is my number one issue.]

Fact: (Then) U.S. Attorney John McKay, Assistant State Attorney General Jeffrey Even and Secretary of State Sam Reed manipulated the 2004 statewide elections.

How?

Fact: McKay, Even and Reed cancelled the entire 2004 Washington State Primary Voters’ Pamphlet just to censor Will Baker. [That's right folks. These three Government officials have nothing better to with their time than censor Will Baker. And they'll stop at nothing. Dang, now that you all know that nobody is going to feel safe to come visit us.]

www.TheTruthRocks.com

Candidate Statement

I believe the number one issue in the 2008 Governor election should be the illegal and unethical election practices used by former Washington State Attorney General/current Washington State Governor Christine “The Cover-Up Queen” Gregoire. [I, personally believe that the number one issue is the McKay, Even, Reed controversy. And I'm going to vote for his other personality so that can be addressed.]

Fact: Former Washington State Attorney General/current Washington State Governor Christine “The Cover-Up Queen” Gregoire manipulates/rigs elections. [Not that anybody likes Christine Gregoire, nor doubts this but that title to refer to her is 14 words long.]

How?

Fact: One way is to illegally and/or unethically manipulate/rig the information that is supposed to be made available to the voters. [The more obvious way would be that if you don't have more votes you just count them again and again.]

How?
[The funny italics go on, but I'm getting tired of typing them in so we'll leave it at that.]
Fact: One way is to spend public dollars to pay state employees to keep quiet about scandals that could damage Christine “The Cover-Up Queen” Gregoire’s political machine. (Basically, brokering “whistle-blower silence for taxpayer cash” deals.) [Here he refers to her with only 5 words.]

The Brian Ebersole Story [I love the smooth transitions he uses.]

Fact: Brian Ebersole lived in Tacoma.

Fact: On November 2, 1982, Ebersole (Democrat) was elected to the Washington State legislature.

Fact: When Ebersole was in the legislature in the early 90’s, he was sued by state employees who stated Ebersole had coerced them into illegally campaigning for him on taxpayer time.

Fact: (Then) Washington State Attorney General Christine “The Cover-Up Queen” Gregoire (Democrat) “investigated” that scandal by paying the employees almost $1 million in taxpayer money to settle the cases and then Gregoire tried to keep the court records sealed from the public. [10 words. Keep in mind, she's the Governor, it's not like people don't know who he's talking about.]

[Brace yourselves, you are about to get sent to a website again. Not for a month, but just be warned.]
Visit www.TheTruthRocks.com and then please call “60 Minutes” at (212) 975-2006 and please press zero to speak with a live person
[The sad part is that once you call "60 Minutes", you won't know what to say because Will Baker didn't tell you.]

Well, that's enough for one night. I'll run through the rest of our gubernatorial candidates later.