As usual, your reporter is attending the Sunrise Services this Sabbath, and he continues to favor the the Great One-World, One-Word, Congregation of the Wire Services (Just GOWOW, for reasons of euphony).
I just happen to like Revealed Knowledge. It reserves mental effort for more important things, like snickering at some cops and trying to figure out how the heck to reassemble the Old Remington double. And how to invest meager resources in a world where Wall Street is -- or should be -- jumping from high windows.
GOWOW reveals that our elected leaders will sire a financial bailout, and its long-hidden Coptic Gospels sheds new light on the reason:
"Yea, as the prophets foretold, there isn't a pair of elected shorts in Washington without a brown stain aft."
The newly browns have known for ages that they've been screwing up with their fiat-money disaster. They're surprised only that they got caught, and worse were outed without a well-crafted plan to divert the blame.
So we've come to a pass where our best and brightest are splashing a lot of household bleach on the stains because the three branches of government failed on of their prime duties -- to identify and prosecute fraud.
Personally, I wrote my congressman when IndyBank kept telling me I could have a zillion-dollar second mortgage for a hundred sixty-nine bucks a month and what's more, that I could afford it. I told my rep that if that wasn't fraud nothing was. Never heard back from him.
Also personally, I wrote Ben Bernanke to open a discussion of zero-cost money courtesy of his printing presses and of our evangelical fervor about the need for and virtue of universal home "ownership."
I was especially interested in discussing the term "ownership" with him, since he's an important fellow and has joined the political chorus of bemoaning Americans losing "their" homes.
I just wondered about the use of the possessives. If I float a $500 loan for the down payment on a $500,000 house, is that house "mine?" When the mortgage holder says says "ooops" and gets testy just bacause I miss a few payments, are his foreclosure rats really depriving me of "my" home, of "ownership?"
I'm still waiting to hear from Ben, too, but I hear he's busy buying Clorox in job lots.
So now from Wall Street to the Capitol-White House gullet on Pennsylvania Avenue, the stained set is at work (a) making things all nice again and (b) considering 30-second spot drafts to the effect that the other guy's boxers stink worse.
The timing is important. They want to announce something rosy before the markets open and must do so before Nov. 4.
But I'm drifting away from the implicit promise up in the lede. There isn't another original word to be said about this Keystone Kops three-reeler, so let's go live to Outlier Country.
---
Hum the old Marlboro tune. Dum DUM Dee Dum Dum as I take you to a very rural, very small town in a very small state where, one week ago today there was a very large auction. Two old duffers had shuffled off to the nursing home, and their possessions went under the hammer. Some fine tools enticed me, and so did a half-dozen lethal weapons.
They were attraction enough. I didn't count on the bonus entertainment courtesy of the new town cop.
Blue uniform shirt, sagging a little at the bustline due to an uninspired tailor and an overweight badge, and if the label said "wrinkle-free" we have another case of fraud to consider.
The duty belt was unremarkable, if scuffed and a little loose in the Barney Fife tradition. It held the customary high-cap 9mm, a Glock, I think, which should be spelled Glok in order to be a four-letter word -- de facto as well as de jure.
It was the trousers that got me. Full NYPD SWAT issue, sagging blackly down to the jump boots where they were, and I swear to God this is true, bloused in approved 82nd Airborne fashion. Above the blousing the sags swayed as Officer Friendly walked, due a lot of something in each of the dozen pockets. Magazines for his M16? Rappeling gear? Flash-bangs and a spare Taser or two?
The population of this town is 973. It sits on a vast sea of corn and soybeans. The latest public excitement creating a police emergency there happened about a decade ago when a kid got lost in a corn field.
(In fairness, this young Delta-Force wannabee didn't have a face looking particularly evil or dangerous. If one had to pick an adjective, I suppose "confused" would be appropriate.)
As a matter of public policy, should we really permit impressionable young police officers to watch teevee shows about SWAT raids?
---
A long life has taught me to refrain from public giggling, so I was able to concentrate on the dangerous weapons.
The mint Winchester 9422 went for three prices, and the shotguns, though shiny, were uninteresting. But here at the Outlier compound, a fine old Browning BL22 and and nicely done 1903 Springfield conversion to .257 Roberts are new rack mates in an arsenal becoming more veritable by the month.
Since I am an avid gun control proponent, I have further controlled access with a much bigger padlock and a resolution to visit the range for some serious sighting in. You control guns your way, I'll do it mine.
---
Sometimes people ask me why I've always bought firearms when I can. Because I couldn't afford CDOs.
This cockamamie emergency scheme will happen, and destruction of our currency -- which is the medium allowing us to buy real things, such as Clorox and firearms -- will accelerate to a speed the CERN particle hunters can only imagine.
Tangibles, My Son, are a defense agains personal penury. That's why.
Also, I believe in nice clean shorts.
##
_
©2008 Random Outlier, all rights reserved. You must have written permission from the author in order to republish this work.
Published: Sunday, September 28, 2008
Last modified: Sunday, September 28, 2008
The views expressed in this article are those of Random Outlier only and do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. Random Outlier is solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
Report violation by Random Outlier of Nolan Chart LLC's terms of use policy.
| More Articles By Random Outlier |
Reader Comments: