Wednesday, July 12, 2006

The Biden Code

By now, most people are hip to the affinity the global terrorists have for numerology. Nine-eleven is universal shorthand for the September 2001 attacks. The Madrid train bombings were three-eleven. London's attacks were seven-seven.

Democratic Senator Joe Biden, shown on a C-SPAN tape last week:
"I've had a great relationship. In Delaware, the largest growth in population is Indian-Americans moving from India. You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I'm not joking."
Hello? Bombay train attacks yesterday, July 11th? "7-Eleven," Senator Biden?

I can see the bumper stickers already: "Biden knew, Bombay blew." On the same bumpers as the "Coulter '08" stickers, methinks.

Coordinated attacks

Wow. Check out these headlines:
Train bombs in Mumbai kill 147
Explosions hit Bombay commuter trains
Pretty much simultaneous attacks in both Mumbai and Bombay! I haven't been this stunned at the daily news since Beijing won the 2008 Olympics (Peking seemed like a shoo-in at the time).

Why is it that during our generation the Anglicization of place names has to change decade by decade? And notice that we usually get beat over the head with the new forms by pseudo-intellectual elite wannabes, like the news correspondents that went to Qatar before Gulf War II and told us it wasn't Kay-tahr anymore, it was "Gutter". However metaphorically true that may have been, if you telephoned the Qatar embassy in Washington D.C. they still pronounced it "Kay-tahr". Who do you trust, the multilingual native Qatari or the cue-card reader with the authoritative hair?

I strongly suspect that the acceleration of English transliteration changes is a direct result of some forty years of worshipful obeisance to multicultural pieties and the corresponding reduction of confidence in Western conventions. By way of example, about as quickly as Saigon fell and Jimmy Carter was elected cringer-in-chief, my world atlas changed Cambodia to Kampuchea. Of course, the name change was driven partly by the fact that the Khmer Rouge had wiped out the military regime that had exiled the monarchy, but the diplomats and intelligentsia of a truly self-confident world power would've kept calling the place Cambodia anyway. If, on the other hand, you have no confidence in the importance of your own culture and find revolutionary, genocidal whack-jobs enchanting, you'll roll over and enthusiastically adopt the new appellation.

Unintentionally hilarious postscript: The USA Today headline above which was originally "Bombay" on the website was later changed to "Mumbai". Heaven forbid that USA Today's media peers would have noticed the "Bombay" gaffe and thought them unsophisticated!

You've got (stupid) mail

I've done it before and I'll do it again. A rainy day is a good day to rummage through the spam folder and marvel at the bottommost percentile of internet creativity, the van-in-the-alley of online commerce. The tragedy of course, is that when only a fraction of that bottom percentile of mouse-clicking meat sacks responds to each pitch, the efforts to continue the spam are assured.

Lest you think me too harsh, keep in mind that the following are actual spam "senders" who (apparently) are getting responses:
melting solid
Safety
piwowona
sport. gulag
Could haveDate:
youneed become
You Mngr. justine
Page. sprites
diskFrom to:
Pankow.
=?iso-2022-jp?B?GyRCOWI2NhsoQg==?=
Migrant plunges
xumo
Peseta E. Habituates
Monosyllables H. Camelot
Who other than someone near the extreme left-tail of the IQ bell curve would think (even momentarily) that he was expecting an email from "diskFrom to:", or that an unsolicited message from "Migrant plunges" would concern him at all?

And imagine my disappointment when "xumo" turned out not to be from the court of the galactic emperor, but instead was pumping traffic to an online gambling site. Heck, I would've at least smirked if xumo were doing the Nigerian banking scam:
We are top official of the former galactic government of Andromeda who are interested in export of goods to your planet using funds which are presently trapped in the Small Magellanic Cloud...
Come to think of it, has anybody ever tried spamming the Scientology domain with money-transfer pitches from Xenu's former ministers? Yes, it's probably a lawsuit minefield with the litigious Sea Org, but it's also comedy gold.

To further diminish your opinion of your fellow man, a sampling of the similarly un-compelling email subject lines:
pusegotefosag
Your cash, non-natty
{stk-sub}
$B$3$s$J;~4V$K$4$a$s$J$5$$(B(*^$B!#(B^*)
Success, weld metal
TEXTS RALLYING CRY SCHOOLS
Hi, nitro-cotton
nopiguz

Burn baby, burn

When the going gets old, the old talk about their health and money. The second quarter, April-through-June, was my worst money quarter since I started trying to track such things. Everything my wife and I were trying to squirrel away was escaping through one of a dozen holes the market was punching in the fiscal edifice.

In summary, every dollar contributed to the retirement plans was eroded by market declines. Every dollar adding to the balance sheet in savings or paying the mortgage was offset by reductions in the value of my employer's stock. Our net worth at the end of the three months was the same as it was at the start.

There just weren't many good places to hide during that market pullback either, particularly for the 401(k) dollars, which have to stay in one fund or another. Most equities (particularly overseas) were tanking, and bonds were doing the same in the rising interest rate environment. Our 401(k) management should have jokingly opened a mattress fund:
The John Hancock Mattress Fund operates exclusively by concealing shareholders' federal reserve notes in the mattress of fund manager (and retired rum-runner) Buford Davis "Butch" Tucker. The fund's objective is to achieve long-term capital protection and asset concealment by stuffing cash in a Stearns & Foster queen and brandishing a .50-cal smoothbore black-powder rifle against solicitors, trespassers, and government "revenuers". Mr. Tucker is in his eighth year of fund management.

Management fees for the John Hancock Mattress Fund are in the lowest decile for the mutual fund industry. Trailing returns for one, two, and five years are 0%, 0% and 0%, respectively, in every period meeting or exceeding the performance of the Buried Mason Jar investment class as a whole. Past results are indicative of future returns.
Fighting the good fight for planning and saving, and occasionally losing in this manner, does make me understand the appeal of just spending it all. It doesn't make me agree with it or actually do it, but I understand it. It doesn't help that there's such an enormous gulf between just spending your wages and saving to generate even a little new income. It can take a lot of forbearance to do the latter. For instance, to generate fifty dollars a month in new interest income at today's money market rates requires saving around $12,500 in the first place. That's 250 fifty-dollar increments that have to be saved instead of spent, just to secure a new fifty a month. Nevermind the added insult that the interest income on all those post-tax dollars will itself be taxed! Isn't it just easier to spend it, especially when your computer is nearly four years old, the car is making odd humming noises, and you haven't bought a DVD since you used your gift cards from last Christmas?