brainiac conspiracy

Farewell Address

I started up this dopey ol' blog seven years ago in response to what was the horrible political environment I worked in at the time. The company I worked for was grotesquely overstaffed with dittoheads and birthers, so I built out this site and started posting content as a form of catharsis. And for a good long while, it helped. Nowadays, however, the site has become sort of a burden. It hasn't made me any money---not that I cared much, but it would have been nice---and I've come to the conclusion that viewing our times through the sarcastic and sometimes cynical prism that's a staple of most posts here is exerting a corrosive effect on my emotional well-being, and that my energies would be better applied in other, more constructive pursuits. The myriad disappointments of the past few years have been bad enough without having to relive them every day. Besides, the very reason for this blog's existence---my former employer's political views---is receding further away from my rear view.

So with this post, we're putting the Conspiracy to bed. There are plenty of other great lefty political bloggers out there who can keep fighting the good fight, but as for yours truly, my calling is elsewhere. For anyone who ever posted a comment or corresponded with me through this blog, a heartfelt thanks. Who knows, perhaps I'll have a change of heart a few weeks or months from now, and we'll revive the site with the usual daily dose of vitriol and bile. For the near term, however, your humble blogger is going to leave the jeremiads to others, and go off in search of a little serenity. Selah.

---Baron V

Light Blogging Day

Because I'm in Goldwater Country for the rest of the day, and won't be back 'til late. Happy Rabbit Day.

---Baron V

Sunday Night Music Blogging

Because if reincarnation is really true, our future selves will have problems when the food runs out.

---Baron V

They Oughta Know

The Euros have a longer and more nuanced view of their own history than we do---mostly because their ancestors lived through it, and because the very nation-states they inhabit were, in great part, carved out of old empires that were broken up after the Great War. So while we rattle the sabers and talk tough and invoke Chamberlain at Munich because it's one of right-wing radio's favorite catchphrases, the people who are next door to the unrest are counseling patience and calm now. As we they should---they've seen this movie before, and they know what can happen when a bunch of people decide they're going to have a war because they want to have a war, and it doesn't usually end well.

---Baron V

Sunday Night Music Blogging

Because it's dinner downtown tonight, so, later.

---Baron V

Money for The Jobless, Leisure for the Jobbed

Due to advances in automation, computerization, robotics, etc., it's becoming obvious by now that our postmillennial Information Age will likely be characterized by chronic high unemployment coupled with an ever-shrinking labor force that's working too hard. This is a recipe for a very unhealthy and stressed-out nation, and it's another reason for a guaranteed income---er, income support---for people who who need it, and for paid time off for vacations, maternity leave, etc. Personally, if I ran the show, everyone would get five weeks' paid vacation a year, just like the Euros get. I know we can never even think about this because Marxism, but I imagine we'd have a much more humane and happy society than what we have in America right now.

---Baron V

Hump Night Music Blogging

Because it always kinda sucks when we lose talented people. Our species has so few of them!

---Baron V

Monday Night Music Blogging

Because birthdays are always happy occasions!

---Baron V

World's Greatest Health-Care System

Not counting, like, all the other health-care systems:

Last fall, my mother asked me to come and see their general practitioner in Paris so we could plan ahead for my father. My mom got an appointment for the next morning and we walked to the office, five minutes from my parents’ apartment. We waited for a half-hour on a comfortable couch, chuckling over the very French selection of magazines on the coffee table (Elle and Vogue) and admiring the lush garden view. The waiting room was quiet. I realized what was missing: There was no billing department.

We spoke with the doctor for about 45 minutes. My mom wanted to know what would happen when my dad was no longer able to walk. “Oh,” said the doctor, speaking in English. “I prescribe a wheelchair and it’s delivered to your house. Shall I do it now?”

When I asked the price, she looked surprised. No charge. She asked if we wanted someone to come to the house every day and it was my turn to look surprised. What would they do? For example, someone could come and give my dad a massage to alleviate his neck pain. Again, no charge.

At the end of the appointment, my mom pulled out her French insurance card. Total cost of the visit? 18 euros.

When my dad began to get worse, the home visits started. Nurses came three times a day to give him insulin and check his blood. The doctor made house calls several times a week until my father died on December 1.

The final days were harrowing. The grief was overwhelming. Not speaking French did make everything more difficult. But one good thing was that French healthcare was not just first rate---it was humane. We didn’t have to worry about navigating a complicated maze of insurance and co-payments and doing battle with billing departments.

Other than the fact that our health-care system is overpopulated by unproductive middlemen who provide no health care despite extracting billions of dollars out of the system, is there any reason why we can't manage to do what the cheese-eating surrender monkeys have done? Just wondering.

---Baron V

Light Blogging Afternoon

Out for the day doing family stuff. Try not to jump through any hoops today.

---Baron V

No One To Blame But Themselves

Southerners. They're beyond hope.

I mean, Volkswagen management had all but given the union its blessing, and the idiot workers still voted it down. How dumb-as-a-rock can you possibly be?

---Baron V

Good News

Occasionally, you find it:

Louis DiNatale didn't intend to enter Canada when he and his wife wound up on a bridge from New York state to Ontario province one day in September, misdirected by an unreliable GPS. What began as an American couple's getaway to Vermont quickly turned into a lesson on the stark difference between the U.S. and Canada when it comes to gun laws.

DiNatale, whose request to turn around and cross back into the U.S. was denied, then made another mistake. When a border official asked whether he had any weapons, he said no.

Then the questions started about guns. A border agent asked whether he owned any.

"Yes," DiNatale said.

"Why?" an agent asked.

"I told him I was retired military, I had respect for weapons, and I had a concealed carry license to do so," DiNatale said in a statement.

"He asked me when was the last time I had a weapon on me. I told him, 'Earlier that week.' He asked me again, 'Why?' I told him it was my right as an American citizen to do so."

But he was driving his wife's car, and had forgotten he had stowed his Bersa .380 handgun in the center console days earlier.

A search turned up the gun and DiNatale found himself handcuffed and under interrogation by Canadian border officers for allegedly trying to smuggle a loaded handgun into the country---and lying about it. He spent four days in a Canadian jail before he could post bail.

Too fucking bad. If you're so stupid that you can't remember where you store all your guns, perhaps you shouldn't be allowed to own any. This idiot should consider himself lucky. (This assumes, of course, that he's telling the truth, which I frankly rather doubt. "Unreliable GPS" took him to Canada instead of Vermont? Oh please. I can't speak to the particular border crossing here, but at most border crossings I'm familiar with---in California, Arizona, Texas and Michigan---there are signs on the highway for miles in advance of the border informing you that you're about to leave the country. But again, like I said, stupid is as stupid does, and stupid people really should not be trusted with firearms.)

---Baron V

No Reason Why It Couldn't Happen Here

Save the moral cowardice of our political leadership class:

Iceland is a living experiment in what can happen when a country forces its financial firms to go under, rather than bailing them out, as much of the rest of the world did during the global financial crisis.

In October 2008, all three of Iceland’s major banks collapsed. None failed more spectacularly than Kaupthing . . . At one point, it had a balance sheet four times as large as the annual economic output of the entire country. Last month, four former Kaupthing executives were sentenced to multiple-year prison terms.

Sure, it's a small country and apples-to-oranges, but for what it's worth, they allowed their banks to fail, and their world didn't go to hell in a handbasket. Yeah, they had high unemployment for a time---but so did we, and unlike them, we still do now.

---Baron V

Friday Night Music Blogging

Because if we got what we need, it would be a big improvement on the shitty status quo.

---Baron V

Tried to Warn Them About This

And while I hate to say "I told you so," well, that's only because I did!

Actually no, it's not at all complicated. Iraq was never ours to "lose" in the first place. What we really "lost" was a regional balance of power in the Middle East---strengthening Israel and the Saudis, and isolating Iran---that had largely worked in our government's favor for the past 40 years, and the reason we lost it is because some foreign-policy geniuses in the past administration thought it would be a great idea to send the bull into the china shop and upend the balance of power in the region because freedom. But this would not be fair and balanced reporting, so we must solicit the opinions of President McCain and Attorney General Graham and all of the other persons were utterly wrong about Iraq at the time their own constituents were being conned into war. But that's what happened all the same, and AQ in Iraq is their legacy. It's really that simple.

---Baron V

Monday Night Movie Blogging

Because the holidays are now officially over. Mangia bene, dude-bros!

---Baron V

Another Reason For That Truth & Reconciliation Commission

It's called "Getting out in front of the narrative before the narrative turns to shit." Because there's a very real chance, one day down the road, that the people who were supposed to greet us as liberators will end up being governed by a gang of radical Islamists. They didn't even exist in Iraq before we invaded, and now they control whole regions of the country. And if/when Iraq falls to the Islamists, there are going to be a lot of people asking how this could have happened, and the default explanation that many people in our foreign-policy establishment will offer---and we know this will happen because they do it every time---will be that Iraq was "lost" because of peaceniks and appeasers and Neville Chamberlain in the White House who pulled out all the troops. This argument could be pre-empted if we held hearings and required the persons who created this mess in the first place to testify, under oath, exactly what they were thinking when they gaslighted an entire nation into waging a needless war, and why they ignored the warnings of the people---who turned out to be right---that war could plunge the region into complete and utter chaos. In other words, it's not only smart policy, but smart politics to have done this. So why on earth haven't we done this?

---Baron V

Minimal Blogging Day

Gone to Goldwater Country for some Manson family fun. See y'll tomorrow, most likely.

---Baron V

New Year's Eve Music Blogging

Because 2013 was no great shakes. Maybe next year will be better . . . yeah, right.

---Baron V

Sunday Night Movie Blogging

Because I enrolled in health insurance at Covered California on the 7th, but didn't hear anything from my insurance company until the 27th, when I received a form letter explaining that my application was still "under review". That's a long time to wait, and for some reason, I suspect something's fishy:

In California, the last day to pay your first month's premium is Jan. 6, with coverage retroactive to Wednesday.

"If you miss the deadline to pay, some carriers are making you reapply," McLean said.

---Baron V