Who Is IOZ?: Chocolate in My Peanut Butter

Wednesday, June 06, 2012

Chocolate in My Peanut Butter

Deep holes and weak leaders are a bad combination.

-Friedman

Au motherfucking contraire.

83 comments:

Paul Alexander said...: If only the adults would tell us children what's really happened, how we squandered the dividends with our maxed out credit cards and equity loans, our selfish cries to leave other countries alone, our kooky 'un'real politics, our abetting vicious dictators and bureaucrats. We need to know that we were responsible, whether we like it or not. I know if won't be easy for the political elites of governments that matter around the world to tell us bratty children that we were the ones that broke the cookie jar, but what would Churchill do? He'd tell us, "no dessert for you!", send us to bed and unwind with some chocolate mousse.; 11:59 AM
Anonymous said...: is it going to turn into day of the bad pun in these here comments?; 12:05 PM
anne said...: anonymous,12,o5, paul's mastery/of complete knowledge and command of this instrumenting puns in some way is what makes him much funnier ,of something of a raw belly giggle cut short, than anyone else here ..; 12:21 PM
Paul Alexander said...: Why thank you Anne.; 12:36 PM
anne said...: see again , ..of putting the cap on the anne ,of time and place for .. mastery ..; 12:47 PM
Enron said...: Oh shit; 12:58 PM
Leonard said...: Friedman criticizes the democratic West for acting as democracy always does, which is to take from the politically weak yet productive and give to the politically strong to consume. Locusts, these voters! Disinvestors!

He praises China for investing. Then he turns around and criticizes China for being undemocratic.

So, A causes B, and B is bad while not-B is good; and China is to be praised doing not-B. But! China must have A.; 2:05 PM
IOZ said...: It's a Swiss fucking watch.; 2:26 PM
Gabe Ruth said...: Indeed. Bad for whom, amigo?; 3:12 PM
Gabe Ruth said...: Glad to see you back in action, Paul.; 3:12 PM
Paul Alexander said...: Thanks Gabe; 6:08 PM
LA Confidential Pantload said...: What about deep holes and weak bladders?; 10:45 PM
Anonymous said...: Friedman's house: http://wonkette.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/friedmanhouse.jpg

Nuff said.; 8:49 AM
Paul Sherrard said...: This is a great article, supplies the useful information for me, thanks in this
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outdoor ceramic tiles http://www.supply-stone.com/outdoor-ceramic-tiles-249.html
casual shoes http://www.casual-dresses-shoes.com/
oil paintings http://www.all-paintings.com/; 9:55 AM
Brian M said...: The poor, defenseless capitalists! Thank God for people like Leonard, who leap to the defense of their oh so feeble betters.; 10:53 AM
Eerily Lackadaisical said...: It's very puzzling that IOZ doesn't get it.

Anarchy has been achieved in the West, albeit a specific subtype of the genre.

Call it oligoanarchy, in which a few do exactly as they please, and buy everyone else off to preserve their right to do so.

What?

Does this mean that evaluation of the pros and cons of anarchy is merely a numbers game, some kind of Mills-ian linear programming routine which churns and churns and comes out with the claim that oliogoanarchy is bad but polyanarchy is good?; 11:54 AM
Eerily Lackadaisical said...: I meant, of course, "buy everyone off that they can and kill those thay they can't" ...; 11:56 AM
Karl Franz Ochstradt said...: EL trolling for Marxists?; 1:38 PM
Eerily Lackadaisical said...: You must have missed Bubba on TV a few nights ago, KFO. No one's seen a Communist in 10 years - might as well troll for a snail darter as one of them ...; 1:50 PM
Sorry said...: 12:05,
I can dig it.; 1:54 PM
anne said...: sorry, what do you dig .. from nony 12,05 ? .. . a hole; 2:02 PM
Paul Sherrard said...: The men that worked for England
They have their graves at home:
And birds and bees of England
About the cross can roam.

But they that fought for England,
Following a falling star,
Alas, alas for England
They have their graves afar.

And they that rule in England,
In stately conclave met,
Alas, alas for England
They have no graves as yet.

---Chesterton; 5:22 PM
Karl Franz Ochstradt said...: While the New Dealers were happy to ruin the snail darter's existence in order to bring First World Problems to The Hollers, and their gambit happily dispersed whatever whiff of revolutionary impulse existed at the time, I still encounter those who proselytize on the deity status of Marx and his Testaments. So they're less elusive than the snail darter!; 7:12 PM
High Arka said...: (Apologies in advance)

As far as economics goes, Friedman is an engaging, educated writer. He isn't some leader of men or inspiration for economic revolutionaries--moreover, having gotten a form letter from his agent once, I feel secure in judging him to be a decent individual whose stance toward the passing politicians, the FED, and other meddling sorts is one of jaded humor. He doesn't take himself terribly seriously, so it's no wonder why you can't figure out what to make of his work.

You ascribe all sorts of cryptic intent to his articles and policy points, and you insist on looking for some sort of totalitarian creed to which his supporters signed onto. You spout inanities about wicked bankers with top hats and long black mustaches stealing money from hard working people all across the world through crooked tax schemes, but you keep reading his articles anyway, which, again, suggests to me that you're not actually convinced that he's wrong.; 12:30 AM
Enron said...: "(Apologies in advance)"

What are they gonna say about him? What are they gonna say? That he was a kind man? That he was a wise man? That he had plans, man? That he had wisdom? Bullshit, man!; 3:08 AM
Rob Payne said...: Friedman is a warmonger albeit a kind and decent warmonger.; 3:48 AM
IOZ said...: Food:Terrible::Portions:Small; 8:08 AM
C. Nihilist said...: words, and thoughts, have meaning. The writers of the Bible could've been "just joking," though their substance later had a decided impact on people reading it--like leaving a gun on the front mat of a preschool.

just imagine what would happen if a bunch of mental preschoolers were to take Friedman seriously and decided to impose the absolute power of his ideas on a wide scale.; 9:20 AM
Eerily Lackadaisical said...: Re M'sieur's candidate (above)for the correct answer on the analogy section of the GREs he never deigned to take:

"Food:Terrible::Portions:Small"

how about:

Gourmet:Gourmand::OligoAnarchy:PolyAnarchy; 10:58 AM
Gabe Ruth said...: EL, I don't want to upset you, but your formulation sounds a little like Sam Francis' anarcho-tyranny, except for your false dichotomy of pay off or kill.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. He was one whose picture of the world was marred by a single error (a madman in the sense Chesterton liked), which necessarily distorted anything it touched on. But the things he did see are all the more remarkable for that limitation.

Incidentally, I was astounded to hear from la Wik that his writing was carried by the good old Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (exclusively!) until a kerfuffle in 2004. I knew they were racist reactionaries, but I had no idea they were extremists.; 11:29 AM
Paul Alexander said...: Great, Monsieur has time to dilly dally in the comment section but not enough time to actually post something? I'd love to talk to his boss.; 11:43 AM
Eerily Lackadaisical said...: Gabe -

I'm gonna go here with his explanation of anarcho-tyranny that I gleaned from wiki:

"What we have in this country today, then, is both anarchy (the failure of the state to enforce the laws) and, at the same time, tyranny—the enforcement of laws by the state for oppressive purposes; the criminalization of the law-abiding and innocent through exorbitant taxation, bureaucratic regulation, the invasion of privacy, and the engineering of social institutions, such as the family and local schools; the imposition of thought control through "sensitivity training" and multiculturalist curricula, "hate crime" laws, gun-control laws that punish or disarm otherwise law-abiding citizens but have no impact on violent criminals who get guns illegally, and a vast labyrinth of other measures. In a word, anarcho-tyranny.[36]"

I can see why, on the surface, oligoanarachy and anarcho-tyranny might be confused for one another, but here's the criticial difference.

In his formulation of anarcho-tyranny, there is a negative definition of the "anarcho" part (failure of the enforcement function of the statr), whereas in my formulation of oligoanarchy, there is a positive connotation to the "anarchy" - namely that the fortunate privileged 1% are doing exactly what they want to do, precisely as Marx wanted in the final stage of devolution of the state (a man can paint one day, write poetry the next, farm a field the next, etc.)

I can illustrate what I mean here by telling you a long story that will have the added attraction of irritating my detractors here (the 140 byte tweet/bumpersticker crowd.)

Back in 1967, my Mom made friends with a Czech sociologist who was part of the Prague Spring, i.e. a Dubczek communist. (She and her husband paid heavily when the tanks eventually rolled in.) In any event, when she visited my folks' home and saw the modest swimming pool that a scientist (my Dad) and pyschologist (my Mom) could afford, she exclaimed: "See, this is what we want for EVERYBODY".

And that anecdote precisely explains the relationship between olioganarchy and polyanarchy:

Polyanarchists like IOZ merely desire for the many what the few already have ... complete volition ....; 12:14 PM
almostinfamous said...: @anonymous : 8.49 - no wonder he thinks we need a strong ladder..; 1:00 PM
C. Nihilist said...: Pollyanna-archy. but yeah, that's the goal... on an High Arka-length timeline. our interstellar resource ships will operate with great voluntary cooperative efficiency. ;-); 1:33 PM
Eerily Lackadaisical said...: Nice, C.Nihilist, very very nice.

But of course, the polyanna-rchists presume that at least some of the overall population will agree with ol' Rabindrath Tagore's realization:

“I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”

That's why you see Southwest Airlines (or is it American) touting the "servants' hearts" of their employees in their on-line rags.

Corporate America is busy preparing appropriate segments of the population for their appropriate place in polyanna-rchy.; 1:48 PM
Gabe Ruth said...: I don't know. Absent some strong advances in pre-natal conditioning, I foresee an overabundance of poets on our interstellar resource ships.; 2:03 PM
Eerily Lackadaisical said...: but Gabe - that raises two interesting questions relative to Marx's "to each according..." principle.

What do poets need?

And what precisely are their abilities?; 2:07 PM
Gabe Ruth said...: Which raises another interesting question:

What is a poet?

I think I'm going to enjoy complete volition when it becomes reality.; 2:12 PM
Eerily Lackadaisical said...: What is a poet?

Shakespeare answered that one for us quite neatly - a conspirator.

http://shakespeare.mit.edu/julius_caesar/julius_caesar.3.3.html; 2:28 PM
Gabe Ruth said...: Quite eatly indeed. Now to return to your questions:

What do conspirators need?

And what precisely are their abilities?; 3:08 PM
Eerily Lackadaisical said...: I thought you were merely engaging in word play with that last post, Gabe, until I realized that you were really asking two profound questions.

To wit:

When the state has finally and completely devolved and pollyanna-rchy reigns, will there be a need for conspirators?

And if so, what abilities will be required of them?

A possible exploration of these two questions can be found here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Gods

If you haven't read it, I promose it's worth the investment of your time to do so ...; 3:18 PM
Anonymous said...: el,
marx said you could do all those things in the same day; 4:27 PM
Eerily Lackadaisical said...: non@4:27 -

yeah, but that was a 19th century man he had in mind, not the feeble debilitated 21st century version thereof.

I wonder what Karl thought the women would be doing ...

oh wait a sec ... I know ...

... MAKING THE SANDWICHES !!!!

(that was for Iso from the old Slate BotF board, in case she still reads here ...); 4:40 PM
Eerily Lackadaisical said...: KFO at 712pm - sorry - I missed your response ...

If you know why "testament" and "testes" both start with "test-", you'll know why it's appropriate to say that ol' Karl has got them proselytizers by the balls ...; 4:46 PM
Anonymous said...: Man, the comments are deteriorating too.; 5:35 PM
Anonymous said...: i thought we were writing friedman's obituary don't leave out the 'friedman unit' and also 'throw some miserable little country up against the wall'; 6:07 PM
Rob Payne said...: But you can bet Friedman meant throwing the miserable little country up against the wall in a kind and decent way. Afterwards he will send them a form letter to show this.; 10:48 PM
Karl Franz Ochstradt said...: EL, the Glossy One has a lot of self-impressed noggins by the curly short hairs. Quite a trickster, a veritable Loki, that one.

(references to pubic hairs in this metrosexual/dandy hangout probably is seen as reactionary); 11:41 AM
Eerily Lackadaisical said...: The Glossy One? Do you mean Karl Marx or M'sieur?

Reason I ask is that back on the old Slate BotF board, I used to address M'sieur as "O Lustrous One" whenever I really wanted a response.

He couldn't resist - he's always been a sucker for suck-ups ...; 2:39 PM
Justin said...: Can I get back on the blogroll?; 4:36 PM
Rob Payne said...: Some people brag too much and protest too loudly.; 2:01 AM
Karl Franz Ochstradt said...: It would be Marx, but I can see how the Head Cheese here would appreciate sycophants.; 1:09 PM
Eerily Lackadaisical said...: But it's too bad the Head Cheese has to make do with the toe-cheese generated by the runofthemill sycophants here ... those I have chosen to call the "140byte/tweet bumper-sticker crowd."; 1:59 PM
Karl Franz Ochstradt said...: If you can't look down your nose cartilage with a bragging pithy comment under 140 characters, you may as well be dead. tl;dr; where's the video?; 7:11 PM
Anonymous said...: ....said the most runofthemill sycophant of all.; 8:18 PM
anne said...: 8, 18 , .... ? said going from the bottom up through the comments here .. just in from away .. , but stuck on that .... ,said ..; 8:54 PM
Eerily Lackadaisical said...: KFO - I thought of you tonight while driving from DCA to Annapolis listening to C-Span radio's broadcast of the Monk Debate from last month in Canada, in which the resolution was:

"Be it resolved - the European Union is a failure"

Pro the resolution were Neil Ferguson and Joseph Joffe, against were no less than Danny "the Red" Cohn-Bendit and Lord Peter Hamenstashen (just kidding ... Lord Peter Mandelson).

Marvelous stuff, absolutely marvelous. Even better than the C-span segment preceding, which was a Q&A session from down under about some Independent Australian MP getting himself in trouble with "escorts" ...

Anyway, is there a single thing about present-day Europe that was not prefigured in Carol Reed's filming of Graham Greene's screenplay for "The Third Man"?; 10:22 PM
anne said...: had thoughts of a .. dogs do blawg .. now ,of taking my subtitle back from io z , as i was revisiting something of your mitt en 's past with a couple of my nephews and one of my nieces .. over the weekend , .. . and in that.. thoughts of justin now wading's dogs from his time in thailand as well .. of the dogs now blogging ..; 10:35 AM
Karl Franz Ochstradt said...: I have no time for radio or tv debate, I'm too busy constantly researching what word or phrase is popular on the InterWebToobz so I can look like one of the cool kids when I post. In some places Cool Factor revolves around some contest of being "FIRST!" in the comment thread. In other places it has to do with how many polysyllabics you can use (or mis-, usually) in that 140-char cough-up. In still others you have to be able to use metaphors from books only 0.005% of all readers (who are only 6% of the populace to begin) have read.

But my favorite are those places where the gender-focus of a person's sexual activity renders him/her approved or not. There's a lot of irony in those places' comment threads.; 12:09 PM
Eerily Lackadaisical said...: Karl -

You're sounding very much like a resentful straight white male.

Surely you don't believe that orientation is a factor chez IOZ?; 12:34 PM
Anonymous said...: 1- Munk Debates, not Monk.

2- Niall Ferguson- not Neil.

3- HERE, read and learn.; 1:08 PM
new farm dentist said...: Our leaders creates a deep hole to bury their lies, their bad intentions and their cruelties from us they govern. To face world like they are the picture of innocence. But the truth is they are wolves trying to eat us alive.; 1:09 PM
anne said...: 1,08, eer' had a miss on joffe's first name as well.. , showing too much of his colouring book ways there in his comment as always ..; 1:15 PM
Eerily Lackadaisical said...: nonny@108 - I'm surprised you didn't catch the excrescent s in hamenstashen ...

but thank you for the careful read and emendations - I am pleased as always to stand erected ...

and as Billie Joal once said ... it's still rock'n'roll to me ...; 1:21 PM
Karl Franz Ochstradt said...: I think requiring someone to think like X because written comments read/sound like X, that's a failure of imagination. It's also a source of irony. But I'm not commenting on the absentee landlord host's attitude as much as I am the regular commenters' snark, which often sounds like 13-year-old girls trying to one-up each other and reminds me of the movie Heathers. Your mileage may, and likely will, vary from these EPA estimates.; 2:20 PM
lucid said...: So who are you Karl, Christian Slater?; 2:30 PM
Eerily Lackadaisical said...: KFO -

I've read many of your encounters with those here whom I call the "lumpenproletariat", and I honestly think that they're not singling you out because of your orientation.

And if a little bitchiness is part and parcel of what I "homonoetically" call the "gay sensibility", well, I really don't see that that's anything to get one's knickers in a tangle about.

If you don't like the style of the repartee, why do you read here?

I can recommend a very paleoconservative site originally started by a very paleo gay named Alan Sullivan, now deceased:

http://rarereaders.seablogger.com/

I mean - these guys are seriously Stone Age neocons.

IOZ once linked to the blog because he kinda dug Alan's love of sailing etc, but then he dropped it from the blogroll because I think the paleo stuff got too much for him ...; 2:47 PM
Eerily Lackadaisical said...: sorry - "lumpencommentariat", not "lumpenproletariat", of course ...; 2:47 PM
Karl Franz Ochstradt said...: If I wanted to read dinosaur droppings, I'd have gone into archaeology and studied coprolites!

I am enjoying the constant guesses as to what I really think, though. As fun as riding a fixie, wearing girl jeans, and drinking a Peebs, it is.; 3:33 PM
Karl Franz Ochstradt said...: lucid, why would that make me Christian Slater? Is your choice of the handle "lucid" evidence that you work for the Bell Labs entity Lucent Technologies? Or perhaps you have a loose id that takes you from external gratification to external gratification? Or, is it possible that you have your own reasons for using "lucid" and it's not really my business as to why?; 3:37 PM
Karl Franz Ochstradt said...: EL, I missed a Q. I read here because Absentee Landlord Host is funny most of the time. I don't categorize a writer's skill at humor with reference to the writer's orientation in sexual activity, it doesn't matter at all. Funny is funny; good writing is good writing.

The cattiness is insular and I'm sure each read of a catty comment helps the in-crowd feel marginally better for the parsec it takes to read up to 140 characters. Isn't that what all insider-lingo is about? Tribalist affiliation; secret powers; knowing winks?

Besides, I'm derived from Caucasus stock and we pasty-skinned folks consider it a badge of honor to have LGBT acquaintances. I'm just being like other narrowminded pastywhites. In fact I'm going to the Toyota dealer right now to buy me a Prius.; 3:44 PM
anne said...: oH pen k is fairer like myself , pen k , could you help here.. with my trying to put this after 5mins in the sun afterlotion on my back before i get itchy .. . ,and then hold my hand so i don't scratch ,pastywht in sider's talk; 4:04 PM
Eerily Lackadaisical said...: And here I thought we might have a serious discussion of the Euro Zone ... more fool I !; 4:13 PM
lucid said...: No Karl, I was just wondering where you fit within your own metaphor... Also, I think 'Heathers' is far more appropriate moniker for blogs like Dkos where cliques & shallowness rule the day and navel gazing is brought to full flower as an art form.

The Ioz commentariat reminds me more of a neighborhood bar of malcontents... much more my style.; 4:40 PM
lucid said...: Oh - if you're wondering about my handle, it was the name of the recording studio I used to own. Because that is what I used to post in the left-blogosphere way back when, I've just kept it out of habit.; 4:44 PM
Anonymous said...: a serious discussion on the interwebzzzz? lol; 4:53 PM
Anonymous said...: Lumpenwhogivesafuckwhatyoucallpeople you tedious little toad.; 5:00 PM
Anonymous said...: short form cynical sarcasm is not conducive to reasoned discourse; 5:24 PM
Eerily Lackadaisical said...: Not so much a bar, lucid, as a neighborhood coffeehouse like they used to have in the Villasge back in the day - the Borgia, the Peacock, Rienzi's, etc.

An artist or writer at every table who just knew his or her next manuscript or abstract was going to sell ...; 5:33 PM
Karl Franz Ochstradt said...: lucid, shallow navelgazing happens here all the time -- by appearances, from where I sit.

"Oh wait. I can come up with a pithier putdown that's even more S&M-club-frequenter-insider than YOURS, and contains an even rarer phrase that nobody except us cool kids knows. Oh snap!"

The commenters who try so hard to emulate Absentee Landlord Host and thereby hope to get their _______ (insert secret wish here) from ALH, they are an endless source of strange chuckling laughter. Several tiers down in quality from ALH's main entries, yes, but a sufficient distraction from the day I suppose. Again, you may not experience the 34 City MPG estimate quoted by US EPA.; 6:11 PM
High Arka said...: It's like a really well made clock from a clockmaker who's so brilliant he doesn't even have to TELL you he's brilliant. I mean, that's BRILLIANT, man.

"Navel gazing" is to radicals of teh internet what "paradigm" is to untalented businessmen of the American boardroom, and "unpack" to the assistant professors of the American university.

Think before type. Think before type. Does this term really mean what I think it means? Is it appropriate to this particular discussion? Is it a metaphor that has been used so much that it has become devoid of all inherent meaning, and become instead a critique of the soulless establishment that produced it? Are there other ways to say the same thing? What would Jesus do?; 9:00 PM
Anonymous said...: "Run-of-the-Mill Sycophants" would be a great bowling team.; 3:11 AM
anne said...: of 3,11 , .. they already are , maybe that is something more to what lucid is trying to say, of malcontent above there with eerily not eerie and pen k the fairer , and i'm a pin that avoids something of all of this because those balls don't bounce , but ark', eer'..and penk are all down there at the end of the straighter as pins ,..they even bend over to get in the way of gutter balls .. .; 10:28 AM

Wednesday, June 06, 2012

Chocolate in My Peanut Butter

83 comments:

Axis Mundi

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