Comments Posted By Bill Arnold
Displaying 1 To 10 Of 118 Comments
THE ETHICS OF 'WALKING AWAY' FROM YOUR MORTGAGE
Interesting piece. If non-human persons (corporations) are primarily motivated by greed, it's good for society, and if if human persons are primarily motivated by greed, it's bad for society? Different standards of behavior indeed. And where does one draw the line? (As KenGirard notes in passing.)
Personally I am in the "greed is useful, but definitely not good or optimal" camp.
Comment Posted By Bill Arnold On 5.02.2010 @ 22:52
Found your site on somebody's blogroll, long lost.
Comment Posted By Bill Arnold On 10.12.2009 @ 16:30
(This is one of the few conservative blogs I follow, mainly because you haven't gone full wingnut, and clearly express your thoughts.)
GET READY FOR 'HOUSING MELTDOWN: THE SEQUEL'
The latest # is 360000 through August 2009. The $235000 was from the July 2009 report. And I see no reason to believe that the $75 billion has been spent, though I haven't found an actual figure for expenditures to date. Still perhaps bloated, agreed, depending on how much has actually been spent so far. But *always* double check Hit & Run figures.
http://www.financialstability.gov/docs/MHA-Public_090909.pdf
Yeah - program is apparently ongoing. Still, it would be interesting to see how much they've spent to bail out 360,000. Might give us a clue about overhead and such.
ed.
Comment Posted By Bill Arnold On 24.09.2009 @ 13:44
STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS SATURDAY
Mike,
"Augustine, please clarify for me which congressman called which black man a boy."Not speaking for Augustine, that would probably be Rep. Geoff Davis, R-Ky. in 2008: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/04/gop-congressman.html
Comment Posted By Bill Arnold On 20.09.2009 @ 16:03
He was speaking of then-Senator B. Obama. Rep. Davis appears to be white in his bio picture on wikipedi. (and to answer your question completely, B. Obama is half-white, half-black but is generally considered black.) Rep. Davis subsequently apologized.
Rep Davis is about two years older than B. Obama.
THE GOOD AND THE BAD OF OBAMA'S EURO-MISSILE DEFENSE PLAN
Nice piece. A minor nit, the "secret memos" piece on ACW was by Geoffrey Forden. (The comments to that piece are sharp/edgy and appear (to this amateur) to be informed.)
As to peoples' comments that (paraphrased) "the point of the 'missile shield' in Poland/Czech Republic was to piss off the Russians", well, yes, duh. This was GWBush-style diplomacy. But exactly *why* do people want bad relations with the Russians? Russian cooperation in anti-proliferation and anti-terrorism efforts is important to our security, for starters.
Comment Posted By Bill Arnold On 18.09.2009 @ 15:46
DOES THE GOVERNMENT CARE IF YOU GET INTO TROUBLE OVERSEAS ANYMORE?
As Boot notes, North Korea has nuclear weapons. They have also been cultivating the appearance of sufficient craziness to use them. (That is, it is hard to be sure it is not genuine craziness.)
Comment Posted By Bill Arnold On 5.08.2009 @ 12:17
(rouge -> rogue, though rouge might apply to NK)
ANOTHER 'IRAN IS SIX MONTHS AWAY FROM HAVING THE BOMB' STORY
Once you have enough 95+% pure U235 (?10kg?)
According to Wikipedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun-type_fission_weapon
the minimum for a gun design is 20-25kg. Little boy at 80% enrichment was supposedly 39kg. An implosion design is more frugal.
I basically agree though on the timeline; my amateur reading is that sometime in 2010 (maybe earlier) the uncertainty in the amount of LEU produced would permit covert diversion to a hidden centrifuge line for final enrichment (months) to enough HEU to make a single bomb. i.e. they are a de-facto nuclear power right now or shortly for worst-case planning purposes. (armscontrolwonk (Rick linked one article) is as usual required reading, and comments are worth reading there.)You're making assumptions about motivations that are much less arguably plausible than they were two months ago - the recent coup in Iran suggests that power hunger is a strong motivation for the current leadership. They have to assume that Israel would retaliate massively against the entire Arab and Persian world if a nuclear explosion mysteriously destroyed Tel Aviv.
Comment Posted By Bill Arnold On 16.07.2009 @ 12:53
Rick, in the last several articles you've really found your post-RNC-implosion voice. More please.
I disagree (being to the left of you), but it takes some mental effort.I imagine, if Obama continues to go down quickly and surely, ...
Comment Posted By Bill Arnold On 1.07.2009 @ 15:49
Your imagination is strong. Reagan's approval rating (http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-presapp0605-31.html) slid to below 40 percent by mid 1983. Unemployment continued to increase through the end of 1982. http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/UNRATE
(Also click on view data).
So a comparison between Reagan and Obama might be more apt. :-)
(I'm somewhat hopeful that we'll see a noticeable recovery in a similar timeframe.)
Juan Cole (http://www.juancole.com/2009/06/stealing-iranian-election.html) isn't liking the look of this election, likening it to a "crime scene". There does seem to be a suspicious deficit of variation in the results. This election may play out in the streets.
Comment Posted By Bill Arnold On 13.06.2009 @ 18:47
THE LIGHTWORKER'S MAGIC WORDS BRING DEMOCRACY TO LEBANON
A little digging found this interview with the artist who made that painting. I was scared it was for real - the artist said it's a lighthearted parody in the style of a Harlequin Romance Novel cover.
http://www.writeslikeshetalks.com/2008/05/16/obama-editorial-portrait-artist-lukas-ketner-explains-wilmette-week-illustration/Pretty good news from Lebanon.
Comment Posted By Bill Arnold On 9.06.2009 @ 12:46
