Yes sir, the place is the same cantankerous, insubordinating, paradigm-challenging place as always.
One of the points of our travels this week has to be that neither Colorado nor Washington state have fallen under some pall of purple haze since the legalization of recreational marijuana in either place.
Traffic still moves in the same up-tight way, and I have yet (in either state) to catch so much as a whiff of the dread reefer madness.
Contrary to what some provincials may argue, there hasn’t been any sign of a major uptick in drug use in either state that we’ve been able to find. Life goes on.
Any Seattleite, worth their Grande split-shot tall, double shake and hazelnut., knows these signs which are popping up around Snoqualmie Summit and the downtown Seattle Freeway is all part of another grand social experiment called “variable speed limits.”
The idea is that the state can dictate what it thinks the speed ought to be and thus make driving around here even more of a challenge than it is. In fact in downtown Seattle where these variable-speed lab rat tests are more advanced, there are different speeds depending on which lane you’re in. I have to wonder is this is just a new and improved way to picking out the impaired drivers?
“Ok sonny, do you know what your speed was and why I pulled you over?”
“Gosh, officer, let me look this up: I was in lane #3, northbound at Spokane Street, it’s Tuesday, Sagittarius is in Neptune, incoming tide, 25-50% cloud cover, 59-degrees… dry roadway… I think that’s supposed to be 37.28 miles per hour, isn’t it? I mean unless I was indicating a lane change into lane #2 which would be…uh…27.63 miles per hour…”
“Close, sonny boy. But you forgot the dew point. That makes it 31.68 miles per hour so I’m going to have to write you for 5.6 over. Unless you’ve already upgraded to Windows 8.1 in which case you get a special 7.3% discount IF you voted for release candidate 2…”
“Damn…No, officer….I voted for release candidate 1…”
“You did???!!! $%^& Son, step out of the car…. (squelch noise) Officer needs assistance and run an update trace on Washington plate…(muffled) . and send back up…I’ve got a release candidate 1 supporter –Tell the Fusion Center, too. He may be a domestic programmer.. And notify DHS, too, as he looks like he may be part of a Silicon Valley click gang…”
And in terms of entertainment, we also couldn’t help but notice in The Stranger that a joint called The Pine Box recently had an event called “Chicken Shit Bingo” with the subheading “Pick where he poops” which, even by Texas standards, is one of the more novel integrations of big city urban madness and rural serenity that we’ve come across yet.
All of which has me scurrying this morning to invent “Chicken Shit Speed Limits” which I’m hoping to make the Next Big thing up here. It might not be as much fun as HOV and Reversible Lane Roulette, but any revenue stream in a storm, I figure.
Moon over Tacoma’s Commencement Bay as we rolled into el hotel last night.
You’re So Vain Dept..
If you think women take more mirror time getting ready than men, Madison Avenue Mike’s catch of the day over at the HufPo is that no, they take about the same amount of time.
More Yellen
If you think Don up (down this week, I guess) in Odessa, Texas and I don’t see eye to eye on Janet Yellen, we may not be so far apart as it may sound:
HI George,
Not to get into a long discussion/argument about it, you are certainly more knowledgeable about such matters than me; However, to answer your question “Would you rather we get a strict monetarist, put the nation back on the gold standard,” The gold standard would be more honest, but the answer is no. I know enough to know that there has to be some creation out of nothing to finance growth. But I also know that debt as a way of life in the end is no life at all.
I know enough to know that we can not let this system of enslavement continue. I know enough to know that current system is way off track. I know enough to know that I am not OK with the system we have built. We are using Bandaids for cancer.
You said, ” inflation is a grand social conveyor belt and more people have come out ahead than behind”. So goes any Ponzi scheme, there is a reason they are illegal. Eventually there is not enough people to pay the ones that came before. The pyramid topples from the top down. The longer it takes the bigger the pile of rubble.
To continue as we are is the definition of insanity. We need to reboot and I don’t mean a soft reboot like the Fed is doing now. They are nourishing gangrene. Time to cut it out. The PTB need to be honest with the public, help us to prepare for the reboot and do it. What ever that means. And ever how long it takes. Everyone knows what’s coming. Time to come out of the closet and deal with it face on and involve the whole country in it.
Don_in_Odessa
Mind if I borrow that BandAids for cancer line? Well said. I think the only real difference may be in how you want the change to come along. While I admit the point about the need for a hard restart, there is another need here, as well. That’s to make life as rational as possible for folk along the path of radical change.
As I see it, there is still a chance that the existing system can be saved, and so Yellen to me still makes the most sense as someone who can see the big picture. If, in fact, the math models eventually conclude “this puppy is gonna crash no matter what” I would still opt for a Yellen-like Fed boss in order to keep the (gross term here, but it fits) keep the wreckage field as small as possible.
The smaller the wreckage field, the less likely a complete breakup of a great country is although as my client friend was saying last night, it sure does have a kind of a useless eaters as lab rats in a psych lab feel to it, doesn’t it?
Speaking of Lab Rats
One more note on our theme of the US/USSR flip as being a psych experiment (we lost) came up as we were having breakfast with one of Elaine’s brood who has a recent addition to the family in the from of a now one year old daughter.
First words out of the baby’s mouth? The dog’s name. And since Elaine’s working on her book about the grand psych-game played on the animal lovers by those social psychologists, she asked me a good question:
“Do you remember when kid’s first words were dahdah or mahmah?” Yes, when did the pet names coming in first come in?
Of course that was before the half trillion dollar pet animal industry mind-twist with the objective of depopulating the world of bright people came along. Animals are human substitutes which is why people dress them up and goo-goo them like children.I can hardly wait for the pet-dependent tax credit for those who “adopt” and other humanizing terms, pets.
I was going to offer that saying the dog’s name shouldn’t count as first words but then I thought better of it. It’s taken me 64 years to learn when to STFU.
Which I’m sure those experimental psychologists who pull our strings appreciate.
We Robots
Reader Bill up in the KC area had something to say about our push to begin taxing job replacing robotics:
George,
Several months ago, during our Lincoln day Republican dinner, I suggested to our U.S. Representative, she should investigate FICA taxing robots used in manufacturing , her response:
“You have got to be kidding”.
I know this is a great idea and probably the only way S.S. etc. can be saved.
Best Regards, Bill
And that, in a nutshell is why America’s way forward progress is so irregular. It’s hard to drive forward by looking for answers in the review mirror all the time.
Write when you break even, observe some wujo, or win the lotto…
George george@ure.net