i’ll give it to myself 27 of July.   first time i’ve looked up since december.

Arizona passed this bill that, as best I can figure, sez this: treat any situation where you think a person maybe here illegally like…you are seeing a robbery. The only glitch being a bank robbery usually involves guns, scared people, loud alarms, and the Screen Actors Guild. An illegal could be pretty much anyone in Arizona. Drive a shitty small car – possible illegal. Working outside – possible illegal. Enjoy tacos – possible illegal. Anyone carrying money could be the bank robber; anyone who is brown now has a big target on their back.

Governor Brewer promises all police will be trained in illegal recognition. I’m sure that’s very very conforting to anyone who is not very white and blond, pigmenting in their probable cause. I have heard that no 4th Amendment rights, per se, are violated by this since being here illegally is illegal. At least we did not dip into our depleted state budget for 6-pointed gold stars.   Governore Brewer is an idiot, and thinks this will all blow over.   Really, Beckie attended the conference she spoke at the day after this colossal act of stupidity became law.

Is she playing chicken with the federal government to try to get immigration reform?   I think she is not that smart.   I think she is just cow-towing to the peckerheads on the right like Russel Pearce, who now are somberly rejoicing in church that Janel Napolitano is gone (another idiot, but at least a Democrat to balance).   The hatred is amazing.   How can you bury your head in the sand and hate 30% of your population?   How can you try to stop a simple market force? I don’t like the negative externalities and criminal enterprises that our country’s backward guest work policies engender, but I’m not willing to give up protection from unreasonable search and seizure over it.

There are calls to boycott AZ.   Boycott conventions, boycott spring training.   MLB has been notably silent on moving the 2011 All Star game, which is understandable.   They selectively pay attention to issues, and keep their brown men down too. Wouldn’t it be ironic if the financial backlash further damages our broken state economy?   Wouldn’t it be ironic if the need for funding helped pass the medical marijuana law?   I predicted that AZ was moving towards a day of political reckoning – maybe extinction, maybe evolution.

Seriously!!??!?

Are you fucking shittin me?

Apparently not:   http://salsachallenge.com/

Why not a breadmaking challenge?   A toffee challenge? A sticky rice challenge?

Seriously…are you fucking shitting me?

I see this at work all the time – the “Idea” people just love to talk. Most of them are the first ones to get fired when times get tight. The best companies I have worked for have balanced the talkers with the geeks, marketing in tandem with engineering.   The failures did not.   You know politicians are lying if they are talking, yet somehow we felt 25% of our GDP could be master-planned by politicians?

The health care bill is a terrible idea, for no other reason than the debate has ceased to be about economics and has become about philosophy.     Our country combining the ideals of freedom and welfare\charity\opportunity\fairness are what makes it unique and wonderful.   But i dont think dwelling on it, as all the pundits are doing, will be all that revealing or all that interesting after a few days – the issue is as old as philosophy itself, and at least to this grad-school dropout, irresolvable.   I think the only rational thing to do in that situation is stand back and let individuals make decisions.     Several facts are undeniable:   economies are more efficient when they are primarily driven by individual choices and incentives at a micro level, and correspondingly, master planning an economy will always fail in the long run.   I just can’t believe that everyone has gotten so wrapped up in the ideology that they’ve lost sight of the economics.

I think a health care system can work in several different models, the articles and studies paraded around 6 months and a year ago convinced me of that.   But no analysis or plan has been able to fully operate with the consistency that either a free market model or a social justice model requires to not be broken, including our current one.   I personally do not find the current system broken as much as bent, and am furious that its been destroyed for an unproven plan. I won’t even paint the exterior of my house because its too big a job for someone with no experience, yet we want to master plan 25% of our GDP?   Its complete political conceit to think we are capable of that.   I thought Obama was more moderate and more grounded, and I am regretting trusting him with my vote; I always knew Pelosi was an evil political backroomer.   At least the Republicans who represent me in Scottsdale all seem more centrist than the far-righters in Mesa, cause I guess I will be voting for them again. I’m sure I’m not alone. Once again the Democrats have handed the Republican fringes the ammunition they need to become empowered, by acting like the crazy pinko fringe everyone dreads.

The Roman empire collapsed because it was built on slavery and expansion, and when there was no one left to conquer and fuel the machine, upward mobility became equated with comforts and lavish non-essentials rather than actually moving up.   Citizens became content to let 3rd parties do their fighting.   The country was no longer hungry, it did not defend itself, and it collapsed.   I don’t know if that is a fair parallel – its certainly a great goal to provide everyone health care, but 25% of your GDP managed by politicians?!?!?   Its unprecedented in history that we have the technology and means to invest that much in our health, that a life can cost so much, and is worth so much.   If you view that as a lavish non-essential, we are en route to being another tired European economy.

Why did the system need to be overhauled, and not just fixed?   My approach would have been cost standardization within each provider, greater cost bearing by the patient to remove the obscurity of a 3rd party payer and incentivize different choices, and a designation of a “welfare” level of universal service but not even attempting to make it the same as a private level.   Less cost shifting, better incentives, more transparency, but no re-architecting.   Its easy to say a family should not have its savings wiped out because of 1 illness, but what costs does that impose on every other family?   If you make $30k a year, and have 5 kids and the last one has some half-million dollar condition…how can you impose your need on your neighbors?   If we didn’t have such amazing technology developed in the past few decades, this would not even be an option for the 30k family…how did it get to be an entitlement?     Inexpensive and vastly effective prenatal care or immunizations for everyone makes sense as we are a wealthy nation, but the 1% and the corner cases and all the money invested in the last 6 months of life is the giant SUV or 60 inch TV that no one needs.   Its hubris to think we can address these catastrophes, its hubris to think we can scheme around a way to pay for them.   People die, resources are finite, why did this issue become about philosophy and not about economics?   We make these tradeoffs with everything else in the world.   Will the person who does not buy insurance or the 19 illegal immigrant crammed into a van be denied service now in the ER?   If they are not, then all arguments about fairness in the new system go out the door, and it proves itself to be just another bullshit Democrat big government powergrab.

One democratic pundit suggested that we are heading for a consumption tax to make up for the revenue gap this plan will cause.     Oddly, opponents of consumption taxes are often the same people who champion the poor, since the poor often have the least choice in using discretionary income.

Time to starting hiding my income in Switzerland.

I have nothing to say.

No open drafts on the blog, no burning thoughts, no radical gnarness.   I am completely and totally burned.   I do not want to talk about the house, or write details down, since they have all burned themselves into my memory like vitally important useless trivia that i can now recite off the top of my head and don’t know or care why.   Its not true; i care very very very much, but very soon i won’t cause it will be what it is.   Task list of items for the A/C guy, the GC, the roofer, the dimensions of each room in the house and which wall will fit the dog door and how the treadmill will be aligned in the 3rd bedroom — got it, top of my head, put me on Jeopardy!!   Its just like work.   When things get heavy, i retreat into complete dynamic knowledge of exactly what is in front of me and the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, nth permutation after it.

The house details are really not hard, considering my cross-training.   So it hasn’t been all that scary, once we thought through things.   It may cost us $20k in the end, which will suck – big fat giant scabby seeping cocks of sucking.   But how many years can you wait for a good enough deal, when you’ve learned all the neighborhoods and the floorplans and the tradeoffs?   It was nut up or shut up, and face 2-3 more years in Mesa which might possibly have meant forever.   I have begun to look forward to a shakeup.   And if Hayworth gets elected, i will be able to close my eyes with my neighbors and pretend we live in Colorado, if   i just drop some ice cubes in my shorts.

I am kinda looking forward to Arizona having a knock-down drag-out for its identity.   I think the good people of Tempe and Tucson and Scottsdale and Flagstaff will rally together for intelligent moderate empowerment.   Or burn together.   I turned down a chance to hear McCain speak and get a free dinner with drinks.   I was not at all opposed to the experience despite him having cursed us with Palin, but putting on a suit, hiring a sitter, and missing my ride seemed like a bad tradeoff – he’s got my vote in the primary, even if i have to declare Repubnican.

And what a great ride! 1:15 loop out the door, up Mudflaps->Upper Mudflaps->Tower cw and I dabbed only once, super sketchy down, the trials, the DH. Then i took Kila w. the Burley to get the girls, and saw 10 javalina right in front of the fire station eating their shrubbery.   I did not have my camera, and trying to get a shot would have ruined the experience.

I have been trying hard to enjoy the little thing.   Watching Zombieland helped, this site definitely helped.   Reading my blog stats and seeing how people find it…kinda helped.   Creepy search engine winner of the week:   “what did genevieve wear to the pink ball“.     Reading the comments in an AZ Central article about what all the ignorant, racist potential-renters feel about Rocky Point these days most definitely did not help.   I listened to Zeppelin.   Watching It Might Get Loud reignited my bromance with Jimmy Page, gave me a whole new level of love for U2, and turned me onto the White Stripes.   3 songs into Icky Thump and I was in luv.

I still have nothing to say.

Is libertarianism nothing more than a candy-coated political justification for being close to the top of the socio-economic foodchain?   As I have gotten older and harder and softer, the ability to rationalize evolving political beliefs that have been naturally, holistically, influenced by the events of my life has called into question if any of my bullshit has ever been real. This such-and-such is ok, except in such-and-such case because blah blah blah blah *i* really don’t like it, and i speak cleverly and can convince myself of many things.

Relativism says no view is truer than another, perspectivism says no view is true but mine is my own truth, nihilism rejects any truth…I thought I never had a problem with nihilism when it stuck strictly to metaethics, and i could toddle about a happy perspectivalist living by my own libertarian beliefs.   Unfortunately, if you deny any truth, you eventually can’t even live in your own fantasy land, especially when you’re pretty sure you are convincing yourselves of the convenience of your own situational morality. 20 yrs later I am not certain of anything all over again.   Must be a mid-life crisis.

Libertarianism as a policy is far and away better than anything else because of its efficacy, the rational economic side of me and libraries full of data will never get away from that.   But as a morality, it is only given passion by growing up in the privileged class, and privileged really only means a modest 2-parent stable home in a stable country with access to a good education.   Or at least a desire for a good education, or at least 1 parent, or at least living in a camp where carbombs don’t go off in your front yard and you watch your sister get gang-raped while your parents are stood up against a wall and shot.   The kids in Slumdog Millionaire did pretty good for themselves right?

Right?

Its a slippery slope when you try to define what is privileged-enough to buy into the economy of the post-Hobbesian world.   Only in the last few generations has technology and knowledge trickled down enough to make there be plenty enough that its feasible enough for enough of us to want free markets enough of the time to be sustainable.   Given that fact, no, I will not feel guilty for having had a nice-enough silver spoon and blankey to make me, intellectually, passionately support all that prevents gang raping my sister.

Recently I sold a TV in perfect cosmetic and working condition, $800 8 years ago, for $100, cause it was very heavy, and we are moving, and I can buy a 36inch flat screen for $350. The buyer was thrilled, he worked a crappy restaurant job at a chain, like i did about 15 years ago.   $100 is a nice find to me,   not my nicest tv. It is not my fault. i made an honest deal at a fair price, the buyer was happy.   He could be doing a lot worse; he could be jumping trains in Guatemala coming north. He validates my current socio-economic morality.

I think the best way to show your gratitude for having good opportunities and good circumstances is by working hard and passing that ethic on to your kids.   Treating others with respect, encouraging good exchanges by rational free agents, having a kind heart, but a realistic approach.   Craigs List with a conscience.

Me and the TV guy are both cool with that.   However, he is not so far from me, inside of the US.   We’re a society that is so wealthy people willingly turn down bacon, while others figure out how to make bacon flavored jam.   He just spent his bejamin on leisure goods and not calorie-rich hog fat, he is not so poorly off.   The people who are so primitive or crazy they haven’t even nodded at the system — the clan warriors, the culture zealots — i have no means to talk to them.   But fortunately i’ve never met them, even in Mexico they want to work, even in Mesa they want to vote.   I think within my lifetime i will see the end of the people who have simplistic excuses for genocide, either by evolution or execution.

My real angst, my daily doubt, comes when there are not individual tangible items at stake, or systematic choices, but rather when there are preferences i or others want, and we work in congress with many others like-minded.   When does it go from free-trade to oppression by the masses?   When is it worth the risk of lawlessness?   When do the Indians suing Snowbowl for making snow go from being free speech to just stupid and counterproductive, based simply on 99% of us feeling one way in an irresolvable argument?   Not wrong, just dumbassed, all things considered, especially cause I like to snowboard, and they are paying for legal fees instead of college educations.

There is a flip side to being on the winning side: sometimes you get voted off the island.   Its hard on the Native Americans being the fringe minority,   I get it.   Its hard on me living in Mesa, which wants to become a Kingdom of Heaven.   I cant blame these people.   I am an agnostic libertarian living among them. I am 1%. If a bunch of areligious libertarians migrated to DagnyTaggartDesperateHousewivville, the 1% religious people would think we’re all crazy oppressors too.     As long as we understand that we can leave a city council hearing and move, rather than grab our machetes, the discomfort and feeling of cultural nimbyism is worth not running from the neighbors wielding machetes.

I am moving to Scottsdale.   I am sure i will find things that piss me off, but not to the detriment of schools and firemen and libraries and parks and quality of life.   I am choosing to spend my money on choices.   Not a single one of the people i’ve met in Mexico would do differently.

A factoid floating through the tubes:   Hemingway once wrote a story in just six words (“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”)

I won’t even try.   Competition is good, so is   humility.

I have embraced the bourgeois. I have tasted the forbidden fruit. i have felched from the Giant-Ass TV.

And I got totally donkey-punched by it.   There was no gradual ramp up, no transitional levels between level 1 and fighting the Boss Monster. I flashed from my typical Zero-Point-Zero-TV-Cuz-G-Bogarts-It-With-Wow-Wow-Wubzy to a close encounter with bloodshot eyes, missing teeth, and 3 vivacious chins. Of all the shows Beckie could have been watching, it had to be Intervention. I hate all realty shows but Last Comic Standing, and this one epecially after they forced it on us in Shame Training. Wathcing a 40-yr old meth mom cry about her 17 yr old meth daughter in 52 inches of H-fucking-D!

Bike 1, Giant-Ass TV 0

The holidays were so fabulously low-key that the next day we had time for a movie.   I picked The Watchmen, figuring itd be all cool and eye-candy and f/xy.   In the regard that the TV showed every big-budget detail and like the trailer promised totally put me in the scene, it was a riveting success.   Unfortunately, The Watchmen features a ginormous naked blue man with ginormous blue man junk.   And he — or, it — was in practically every scene, all shiny and rippling and pointing his ginormous blue man junk at the camera.   I can’t even say, actually, if the full monty was onscreen.   It could have been a codpiece.   What difference does it make?   The banana hammock was so lambskin smooth i might as well have been staring at blue man junk.

My distress on this point is purely aesthetic and not the least bit political; its not like I never see dudes in lycra or don’t wear it myself.   But this took it to a level we did not need CG to go to.   Even the amazingly awesome fantasy porn scene with the amazingly awesome fantasy superheroine could not make things right.   That scene lasted 2.4 minutes, but for 2 hrs 40 minuts I kept getting whacked in the face with HD blue man junk.

Bike 2, Giant-Ass TV 0

The giant-ass TV’s next and ultimately triumphant opportunity for redemption came on Sunday.   Football redeems us all.   The players were bigger, the hits were harder, the game was faster, the colors were more colorful, the cheerleaders smelled like stripper dust, and the grass smelled like cut grass and left stains. I can’t believe i knew there was such a thing as football before HD on a giant-ass TV.

I’m going to move the trainer in front of it for games, it will be like Indigo Joe’s now that they have wireless, only the beer will be cheaper.

Report: Most College Males Admit To Regularly Getting Stoked