RIP(ped) ET

An email extract follows... best read from the bottom-up

Greetings

Yes, I've been running around so frantically, that I've neglected our little secret partnership. And then ET gets it in the neck, and then I'm like shiiiiiiiiiit... if only Name2 Withheld and I had done our doing, then surely the land would be all rainbow hugs instead of nazi rebirth, and then Name1 Withheld shared some thoughts with me.

When our theory was confirmed in the Saturday press, I had to drop the newspaper, and could only read it after a five-minute cool-off period. Then I was filled with regret that we didn't publish it (turning ourselves into instant rock stars), even though Name1 Withheld had off-handedly remarked about "Calling Deborah Patta." But given that, in spite off all the supervening nazism, the background story was still about some guy who gets discovered in the comfort of his own home with his face slashed, I think our near-silence was the write decision.

The reaction to this whole thing has been very revealing, and more grizzly than the murder itself. The way I see it (and partly argued last week) there are five candidate reasons why ET got it in the neck (or slightly north):

1. He was murdered on the orders of Julius Malema.
2. He was murdered as a consequence of his own brutal history.
3. He was murdered when an innocent burglary violently cascaded in typical Mzantsi fashion.
4. He was murdered in the heat of a mismanaged labour dispute.
5. He was murdered in the heat of a mismanaged sexual tryst.

In my view, I've arranged these options in increasing order of likelihood. But White South Africans latch onto the least likely explanation, largely because it melds into stereotypes of Black agency, and also because of intellectual sloth (the Malema theory is easy.)
If Juju himself were found face-down in a bowl of broth in his Sandton residence, and a pair of Afrikaans gentleman surrendered on account of it, my guess is that nobody would link it to the mobilisation of Steve Hofmeyer - even though he's been rather more pointed that JM.

tee hee
me

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Date: Sun, 11 Apr 2010 17:05:05 +0200
Subject: ET se bumhole
From: Address Withheld
To: Address Withheld

Hi Neil

I've been grooving for the last few days on the utter genius of Name1 Withheld's theory of Eugene the Paedophile, and now I discover that you are the co-creator of said theory, so I just wished to say..... high five!

Your colleague from the Group that So Secret that it Never Meets,
Name Withheld

The longest comment of my life

This is a reply to Lucretius's first response to my Birthday Wish. It was too long to make it into the 'comments' section.

Thanks for the comment Lu.

As for your a), I can't think of a single prediction that I've got to "update" (whatever that could mean.) In the interests of honesty, I leave my posts unedited, even at the risk of later face-egg. If you wanna know what I believed at the time, it's still there verbatim.

As for your b), regular Trucenteers will know that new remarks do arise in the foolness of time. Patience please.

I challenge you to pinpoint the shortcomings of my predictions. You haven't explicitly done this, so let's trawl through your hints:

1: "You... portrayed [Obama] as a useless sap".
Untrue. As far back as Jan 2009 I wrote "Obama won't be considered one of the worst." I presaged the triangulation we're now witnessing by writing that he'd pick his battles selectively, largely ditching his liberal base. You can read that on the blog post.

2: "Obama is now empowered by the biggest domestic policy coup of the past several decades". It's the biggest social security overhaul over that period, but I'm not sure that it's the biggest domestic policy coup. Bush's tax cuts and the domestic implications of his Iraq war probably are bigger (coup's don't always have happy consequences.) Nevertheless, in my inauguration special I wrote that "When Obama leaves office a remarkable number of Americans will have remarkably enhanced access to medical care. This will be the single biggest acheivement of his presidency." Following the Scott Brown coup I wrote that passage of the Senate Bill was the second likeliest path to healthcare reform. That happened. I gave failure only 5%. Failure didn't happen. I've nothing to revise. It's remarkable to see supposed progressives cheer at the federalisation of Mitt Romney's healthcare policy, but that's a good thing as it presages a move away from the contention that Republicans are inherently incapable of "progressive" reform.

3: "Obama is tough with Israel". Show me the tractor tracks. All the Israeli violations of international law that were in place in Jan 2009 still are. Settlement building (and the concomitant theft of land) continue apace. Obama's toughness (disregarding the finger wagging rhetoric) is measured by the fact that Israel still receives more US aid than the combined aid receipts to the rest of the world. Much of which finances the very settlement building that Obama supposedly is "getting tough" about. Meantime he continues to regard the despot Abbas (whose term of office expired years ago, and must therefor rank as a dictator.) The reason for that is that he's echoing Bush's view that a friendly and unaccountable despot is preferable to a democratically elected Hamas. Again, this is consistent with everything I've written before.


4: "Climate legislation in the mix". Dunno what you mean by that, but the legislation has been bogged down for a year now. I'd like to see it before I cheer it. Meanwhile, the arctic reserve is half-open for drilling. During the campaign this was a no-go area, but as has been pointed out before (not by me) it's okay for Barry to lie before elections.

5: "Nuclear weapons coup with Russia". Presumably the coup you refer to relates to the fact that he's renewed the expired SALT treaty four months after the expiry date. That's not some sort of revolutionary accomplishment. It's his job. As for the broader context, see my recent remarks about the posture.

6: "Financial legislation reform moving". You don't seem to care in what direction it's moving. Healthcare "reform" was really good for insurance companies. There's every indication that financial reform is gonna be great for Obama's Wall Street backers.

7: "Obama's an increasingly wily triangulator". Again, I predicted this not only after Scott Brown, but way back on inauguration day. It's funny how triangulation has now become a mark of progressive virtue.

It's also clear that there is (and always has been) a worrying conjunction between disregard for substance and outright double-standard. For the Obamaphiles, whatever the great man accomplishes is progress. If conservatives do the same things earlier (Romney on healthcare, Reagan on SALT, Bush/McCain on arctic drilling, Wall Street on Wall Street) it's regress.

A tale of two postures

One (and only one) of these gets a Nobel prize:

1: "We will develop nuclear capacity, but we'll use it only for energy generation. We'll develop neither offensive nor defensive military nuclear capacity, and (consequently) we won't engage either offensively or defensively with nuclear weapons, ever. And you have nothing but our word for that."

2: "We maintain and develop nuclear capacity, which we'll use partly for energy generation. We'll maintain both offensive and defensive military nuclear capacity, which we'll engage only defensively, and only in certain instances. And you have nothing but our word for that."

What would Alfred do?

Crappy Birthday, Barry!

On the surprisingly solemn anniversary of the second coming, it's time to take stock. Some observations:

1. Waxwingsworkwonders: The cries of failure, while warranted, are overdone. The cool thing about being Icarus is that your version of crashing corresponds with (many) other people's versions of soaring.

2. It's a Truecents World: Our skepticism (see the truecents Inauguration Special) has now become mainstream. It's very gratifying to start as a wet-blanket and morph into an oracle. Today the cheerleading Guardian asks "Where did it all go wrong?"

3. Collective responsibility: This is the first anniversary not of one person's journey, but of Clinton mark II. It should be judged accordingly.

It'd be premature to call the remaining three years on the basis of the shaky first. But thin-ice diving is the truecents way...

1. The ghost of Dick Morris: Obama now (immediately, this minute) starts triangulating. The proposed bank tax was the first sign of the teabagification of his regime. It's toodeloo to hopeandchange.

2. Rabid Blue: As everyone's observed, the Blue Dogs will enter this November's election with increased panic. Ironically though, purple state senators will go canine, running on conservative themes in order to avoid the perceived Republican wave.

3. The implosion: The inaugural dreamteam disintegrates forthwith. Geithner is a likely first candidate. Emmanuel is a natural next, but he may be saved by his tenacious refusal to be killed. Then (ironically) Clinton may follow.

4. The GOP curve: To their credit, the Republicans have carried out all four key tasks prescribed in the Inauguration Special (latino fence-mending, pragmatic economic populism, candidate selection, tech savvy). In order to maintain the momentum, they have to keep the Tea Party on board. It needs to function as a grassroots movement, not a political rival. They also need to manage the chair of the RNC.

5. The rest of us: The world will be even less tractable to American foreign policy this year, than last.

As far as healthcare "reform" goes, there are four scenarios [with probability]:

1. Pick off a Republican senator (or three) with concessions. [60%]
   
2. Adopt the Christmas-eve bill in the House. [20%]
   
3. Ram a merged bill through both houses in ten days. [15%]
   
4. Fail. [5%]
   

It's gonna be a long three years.

The death of healthcare "reform"

As I blog, the voters of Massachusetts are enacting a breathtaking irony. By voting in a Republican senator to replace Ted Kennedy, they're indicating that the hopes of healthcare reform have died along with their staunchest defender.

Shorn of their 60-seat supermajority, Democrats have little choice but to concede heavily to Blue Dogs and tractable Republicans (like Sen Snowe), producing a version of the bill that will, as several commentators have observed, be a boon to the insurance industry.

Tonight signals a slamming of the brakes on Obama's legislative agenda. This will lead to:

1. Early triangulation by a President who'll now calculate that his party's liberal faction is worth less than the cost of appeasing it.
2. Longer negotiation cycles on further reform.
3. More aggressive cost-sensitivity in the design phase of further legislation. This is a structural conservative concession, mandated by pragmatism.
4. A muted Democratic agenda for November.

The era of Change ends in Boston this evening.

3/3 isn't bad

I appreciate that it isn't New Years Eve anymore, but I've had even less interesting things to do with my time. As for the bubbles of which we spoke:

1. The US treasury. As I wrote BubbleWatch, the JP Morgan US government bond index had just notched an astonishing 14.3% annual return. A heroic response to the (momentary) implosion of international capitalism. The previous year's return was 9.2%, and the preceding years averaged in the neighbourhood of 3%. Sadly, my warning that "Americans will learn the meaning of the Afrikaans post New Year phenomenon bubble-las," was lost in translation (or perhaps the fact that not even my mother reads this blog.) As warned the bubbled popped with the JP Morgan index registering -3.8% - the first negative year in a decade, and the largest drawdown in the (short-assed) life of the index.

2. Barak Obama When we wrote a year ago, his Gallup rating cruised at 68%. I deferred specifics to the Inauguration Welcome, when I wrote that "Ratings are driven by public ennui, and his biggest worry is that the American public will tire of their gut-curdling ride on the credit-coaster. 50-something approval points signals a bursting of the Obama-bubble, and a retreat to normalcy." As I write, Obama has the second-lowest end-of-first-year rating at 49%. The only worse performer was Ronald Regan, who scraped to safety when an assassin's bullet punctured his lungs. I warned at the time that V-shapes don't occur in the Gallup curves (American voters don't fall back in love with their exes.) So unless something 911-esq happens, these are the doldrums for Barry O.

3. China. They're holding onto (and topping up) their T-bills for now, but all the noise about securitising drawing rights paints a picture. Growth has been positive, but well below the required 8% minimum. The country's been doing well politically, but it was an investment, not a strategic bubble. And this is looking terminal. I'm open to debate on this one, but my sincere reading is that we're over the euphoria stage.

When I feel a little less lazy, I may just write my ten for '10.

Are you sitting comfortably...

My ten best reads for the (past year). None of which were actually written in 2009. Anyway...

1. Guns Germs and Steel.


2. The selfish Gene.


3. The dragons of Eden.


4. Brain fiction.


5. Simulating Minds.


6. Naked and other plays.


7. How to build a great Screenplay.


8. Style Investing.


9. Breaking the Spell.


10. The Woman who walked into doors.

You can see my full shelf if you must.