Round – Twilight Puppies

Line O’ the Day:

“Of course, someone always has to pee in the Cheerios: in this rambling Salon article, a writer needs SEVEN PARAGRAPHS of talking about herself before she can get to the point of criticizing the show. I’m so pissed at the terrible expository writing that I haven’t even gotten around to disagreeing with her assessment. Apparently Salon is where you take your contrarian BS when it’s not good enough for Slate.” – Matt Ufford, “What’s on Tonight: SAMCRO vs. Racists” [Warming Glow]

Best of the Best:

• Boxer’s Death Creates Life for Others [Deadspin]
• Ole Miss KKK Protest Goes Swimmingly [Deadspin]
• Obama Quietly Backs PATRIOT Act Provisions [Common Dreams]
• “No Right to Know”: A Wall Street Financial Site’s Attack on Congress and Ron Paul [Gary North]

Remains:

• Lacrosse Players Accused of Terrible Things, Media Braces for Impact [Deadspin]
• The Jimmy Clausen Fight: Alternative Histories [Deadspin]
• PA University Students Upset about Fitness Class [AP News]
• TV Puppet Satire Torments Kenyan Elite [The Guardian]
• The Steady Rise of Islamic Finance [BBC News]
• U.S. Fears Iraqi Projects Will Go to Waste [MSNBC]
• The Italian Job – for Life [The Guardian]
• Hot Shots: Basketball Team Photos Raise Questions of Homophobia [Jezebel]
• A-HOLE COACH DIGEST: The Coach Will Watch You Shower Now [Deadspin]
• Yale Football Coach Out-Crazies Bill Belichick [Deadspin]
• Showing the Human Side of Charlie Weis the Week Before He Most Likely Gets Canned [Deadspin]
• Last Night’s Winner: Guy’s Who Like Playing Time [Deadspin]
• Twilight Landed Records, Missed Connection [Gamma Squad]
• The Pot Calls the Kettle Black [Eric Margolis via LRC]
• 7 Sex Tips from Cosmo that Will Put You in the Hospital [Cracked]
• DEA Still Erroneously Citing AMA on Marijuana [Reason]
• 55.7 Million Reasons to Reject Public Funding for Sports Arenas [No Third Solution]
• Venezuela to Get 300 Tanks, Armored Vehicles [MSNBC]
• Wave of Debt Payments Facing U.S. Government [New York Times]
• Government Responds to Economic Woes by Making More Bad Mortgage Loans [The Independent]
• Kangaroo Slashes Man in Dog-Rescue Attempt [MSNBC]
• Sheriff Joe Arpaio Forces Woman to Give Birth While Shackled [Latina]
• Face Off: Peter Schiff Goes Toe-to-Toe with Alan Binder, Jim Bullard [Yahoo!]
• Lawmakers Slam Deceptive Web Marketers [InformationWeek]
• Price Wars Between Amazon and Wal-Mart [Yahoo!]
• What You Do in the Private Sector is Your Own Business [Reason]
• PETA and the Skynet Team Take On U of Georgia [Deadspin]
• Deadspin Readers are Watching You Bone [Deadspin]
• Six Gallons of Spray Tan Liquid [Warming Glow]
• Men Should Not Be Getting Breast Implants [Guyism]
• High Schooler Celebrates Meaningless Block with a Trip to the Gun Show [Deadspin]
• Kicking the Can While Riding the Tiger [Gary North via LRC]

Roundup – Hey Man

Line O’ the Day:

It’s practically a ritual these days to be skeptical about marriage if you’re a guy. You hear comedians and columnists and God knows who else bitching about being tied to one woman, yearning to be free to drink and ogle ass as they please. Almost all of that is an exaggeration. I may goof on being married from time to time, but I’d rather be chopped in half with a machete than NOT be married to my wife. That would be horrible and shitty.  But women. How many women do you know that rushed into getting married because all their friends were all getting married at the same time, only to later find out that their husband is actually kind of a dipshit? Because all guys are conditioned to be skeptical about marriage, because we’re trained to be reluctant about the whole enterprise, we’re 21% choosier about whom we end up marrying. I just made that stat up. It felt right. All of my wife’s friends are married. Only half of mine are. Sure, I only have two friends, but I’m not letting that stand in the way of my gross generalization. – Ten Questions to Ask a Man Before You Agree to Marry Him [Big Daddy Drew via Deadspin]

Best of the Best:

• IRS Gets Secret Account Data on 14,000 Americans [Bloomberg]
• Army Suicides to Top 2008 but Progress Seen [MSNBC]
• Ten Questions to Ask a Woman Before You Propose to Her [Big Daddy Drew via Deadspin]
• Iraqis Now Using Favre Based-Warfare [Deadspin]
• Japanese Gaming Cards with Photoshopped NBA Players are Disrespectful to Frowns [Deadspin]
• Why, Hello There, Aimee Mullins [With Leather]

Remains:

• Dodgeball Lawsuit Makes Me Fear for the Manliness of Our Youth [Deadspin]
• Nicotine, Valium, Vicodin, Marijuana, Ecstasy, and Alcohol. C-c-c-c-ocaine… [Big Daddy Drew Mailbag via Deadspin]
• The Best TV Series of the ’00s [The Onion A.V. Club]
• China’s Anti-Google Model Endangers 10% Growth [Bloomberg]
• Banking Fix Made Easy with Six Simple Steps [Bloomberg]
• Elizabeth Lambert Comes Full Circle [Deadspin]
• Mark Mangino Has a Bit of a Temper [Deadspin]
• I Will Not be the Team Switchboard [KSK]
• In Which We Interrupt Peter King to Make Fun of Dipshit Boston Fans [KSK]
• Antiracists and Far-Right Youths Battle in Moscow [Yahoo!]
• Katrina Negligence Could Cost Feds [MSNBC]
• Sarah Palin Floats Glenn Beck as Possible Running Mate in 2012 [Politicus USA]
• Amputee Peng Shuilin Opens Bargain Supermarket Called Half-Man Half-Price Store [Daily Telegraph]
• AFLAC Denies Benefits After Daughter was Murdered [Chicago Now]
• How Can You Call Federal Stimulus a Boondoggle? [Disloyal Opposition]
• Police Search New York Newspaper Circulation Offices [CNN Justice]
• Somalia Tops List of Most Corrupt Countries [CNN World]
• Paper Outs “Anonymous” Commenter, Job Loss Ensues [Ars Technica]
• Pre-Thanksgiving, Coke-Pinkies and Nazi Dinsaurs.  Jamboroo, Week 11 [Big Daddy Drew via Deadspin]
• Wrestling Still Real on One Misguided Continent [Deadspin]
• In Which Readers’ Lives Play Out Like Popular Movies: the KSK Sex/Fantasy Football Advice Mailbag [KSK]
• The Basement Tapes: A Compendium of Sportswriters’ Hacky Jokes about Bloggers [Deadspin]
• Ireland Joins the Screwed [Rumors and Rants]
• Gene Therapy Creates Superstrong Monkeys [i09]
• Cheesiest and Most Inappropriate Book Covers of All Time [io9]

Roundup – Nickelback Reinterpreted

Line O’ the Day:

There is an entire generation or two of people that are so anesthetized that they condone the invasion and destruction of sovereign third-world countries that couldn’t possibly pose a threat to our national security whatsoever and the killing of innocent men, women, children in the process: Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan and yet practically bring the country to a standstill for the death of 13 U.S. soldiers in Texas. When did we go to war with Pakistan?

We are a society of people who have gone down the rabbit hole with the Mad Hatter and March Hare and believe that somehow contrary to basic mathematical laws like one plus one equals two the economy can be improved by taking money from one person and giving it to another or by dropping it from a helicopter. Given their drunken social state, it makes perfect sense to them.

We live in a society where one’s celebrity equates to ability; where a pretty face, gender or ethnic background means more than character, integrity, ability and courage; where a political man, morally, professionally and personally disgraced, can lecture at Harvard’s school of ethics and a political woman known for lying during campaign trips and elsewhere can be appointed to one of our countries highest posts: secretary of state.

A society in which a man wins an international peace award, not for his peace efforts, but rather for a PowerPoint presentation about a theoretical and controversial environmental condition or by a man who, not only didn’t exhibit any of the required characteristics of the award, but in fact exhibited exactly the opposite by sending American men and women into war zones to do his dirty work. It will be a glorious day when “leaders” have to fight their own battles. I wonder how quick they would be to go to war then.

We live in a society of political figures who are so insecure with who they are that they use fake Las Vegas–type names in an attempt to seem more potent than they really are. Names like: John McCain the maverick, Ted Kennedy the Lion, Sarah Palin the rogue. The rogue? Can anyone think of a word that describes Palin any less? Well considering the “rogue” quit her elected position in order to promote her own celebrity I’d like to describe her with the word quitter. Now that’s a woman we want leading a nation; a woman who exhibits such loyalty and perseverance. What’s going to happen if she breaks a nail as president? Will she invade Thailand? Of course like everyone who is stoned, some might get emotional about my description of the Alaskan mutant, but that’s to be expected from those whose mental state is altered.

- Rabbit Hole, Don Cooper [LRC]

Best of the Best:

• Area Man Passionate Defender of What He Imagines the Constitution to Be [The Onion]
• U.S. Post Office Reports Loss, May Cut Saturday Service [CNN Money]
• Origins of the Federal Reserve [Murray Rothbard via LRC]
• 2009 Best of What’s New [Popular Science]
• Inflation is Worse than You Thought [Mike Rozeff via LRC]
• A-Hole Coach Digest: “Fifty Hot Ones, Comin at Ya!” [Deadspin]
• Fun with…Bill Simmons? [Big Daddy Drew via KSK]

Remains:

• Donating this Year?  Uncle Sam Needs Your Help [CNN Money]
• Aspiring Rabbi Wins Piece of 154 Title [Yahoo!]
• Gates Blocks Abuse Photos Release (Ed. – TRANSPARENCY! CHANGE!) [BBC]
• Adjusting to Life after Death Row [BBC]
• Govt: Medicare Paid $47 Billion in Suspect Claims [Yahoo!]
• Le Fric, C’est Moi: Does Islamic Banking Threaten the French National Identity? [Reason]
• Gun Sales Shoot Amid America’s Fear of Rising Crime and Terrorism [Times Online]
• A Morally Bankrupt Military: When Soldiers and Their Families Become Expendable [Truthout]
• 1o Tales of Pornstar and Celebrity Hookups [Gunaxin]
• Angelina Jolie Photo Gallery (Ed. – Yes, please) [Funtasticus]
• The Best of Disaster Porn: Historical Landmarks Blown to Bits for Our Viewing Pleasure [Moviefone]
• Camden Waterfront-and it’s Woes [Philly.com]
• Is a Bailout for the FHA in the Works? [Fox News Blogs]
• 7 Things “Good Parents” Do (That Screw Kids Up) [Cracked]
• Leviathan’s Orphans [ProLibertate]
• Isiah Thomas Can’t Even Lose Properly [Deadspin]
• Belichick was Right [Deadspin]
• Why Pirates Fans are the Luckiest Fans in the World [Deadspin]
• Some Sports Test for Steroids; Some Only Care if You’re Dealing [Deadspin]
• New York Times: More Douche on TV than Ever Before [Warming Glow]
• Maoist in the White House [Mises Institute]
• Space Hotel Says It’s on Schedule to Open in 2012 [Yahoo!]
• Supernatural Collective Nouns [Wondermark]
• The Unromantic Truth of Why We Kiss–to Spread Germs [Mail Online]
• Monsters from the Old Testament that Want to Eat Your Kishkes [io9]
• A Black Hole that Could Power a Spaceship [io9]
• The Real Psychic Behind the Men Who Stare at Goats [io9]
• The Darko Mythos [io9]
• How Everything Goes to Hell in a Zombie Apocalypse [Oatmeal]
• Money Well Spent [Warming Glow]
• GIANTS SACK!  GIANTS SACK!  GIANTS FACKING SACK! [Big Daddy Drew via KSK]
• I Work the Angles, Sharp and Precise: the KSK Fantasy Football/Sex Mailbag [KSK]
• The Ultimate Space Porn: a 648 Megapixel Image of Our Universe [io9]

Roundup – Stop, Stop! He’s Already Dead!

Line ‘O the Day:

“Further, as Rothbard has forcefully argued, free-market capitalism serves no more than a symbolic purpose for the Republican Party and for conservatives. Economic liberty is the utopia that they keep promising to bring us, pending the higher priority of blowing up foreign peoples, jailing political dissidents, crushing the left wing on campus, and routing the Democrats.  Once all of this is done, they say, then they will get to the instituting of a free-market economic system. Of course, that day never arrives, and it is not supposed to. Capitalism serves the Republicans the way Communism served Stalin: a symbolic distraction to keep you hoping, voting, and coughing up money.” The Triumph of Socialism [Mises Institute]

Best of the Best:

• The Man who Predicted the Depression [The Wall Street Journal]
• Keynes, Friedman Gave Way to Master of Gloom [Bloomberg]
• Krugman to the Rescue [The Big Questions]
• Coach Ryan Brings in the Jaguar [Big Daddy Drew via KSK]
• You are not the Cosmos: A Review of Bill Simmons’ Book of Basketball [Deadspin]
• Playing Offensive Line is Horrible: Jamboroo, Week 10 [Deadspin]
• “Mother of Carry Trades” Leading to “Asset Busts” Roubini [CNBC]
• Should We Believe the GDP? [Mises Institute]
• Bill Simmons, Establishment [Will Leitch via Deadspin]
• If Dan Synder Sees Bugs, You Better See Them Too [Big Daddy Drew via Deadspin]
• I Want this House [Warming Glow]
• The Motherfucking Pterodactyl [The Oatmeal]

The Remains:

• The U.S. Deports Lou Dobbs [The Onion]
• China Warns U.S. on Dalai Lama, Citing Lincoln on Slavery [Reuters]
• Why Don’t Children Like School? [Psychology Today]
• Why Caloric Restriction is not on my Menu [H Plus]
• Power for U.S. From Russia’s Old Nuclear Weapons [New York Times]
• Gang Rape Witnesses Kept Silent So They Wouldn’t be Called Snitches [ABC News]
• Uncle Sam Sitting on Gold Mine [CNN Money]
• Nuclear: the Corporate Killer in Our Midst? [The Telegraph]
• US Company ‘Set Up Bribes’ for Top Iraqis [The AGE]
• Joseph Schumpeter Spoke Out for Capitalism [Investor.com]
• 10 years…10 Long, Bad Years [Dead Dog]
• Scenes from Havana [Boston.com]
• Get Your Kids Fit for Slaughter! [Pro Libertate]
• Rupert Murdoch to Remove News Corp’s Content from Google “in Months” [The Telegraph]
• Zimbabwe: a Fresh Start [Kitco]
• Congress to the Market: Drop Dead [The American]
• Moon Strikes Found Significant Water [SF Gate]
• The KSK Sex/Fantasy Football Mailbag: Holy Hell, You Will Not Believe this F’d up S [KSK]
• Racing on Carbon Fiber Legs: How Abled Should We Be? [Gizmodo]
• Obama Claims America has No Taxes [Stefan Karlson]
• Doctors Sold Baby After Telling Mother It was Dead [Brisbane Times]
• Can a Boy Wear a Skirt to School? [New York Times]
• Feds Want to Know: Just Who are Your Readers? [Disloyal Opposition]
• The Hangwringing Over Jeremy Tyler’s Foreign Adventure has Begun [Deadspin]
• Peter King: Devil on a Red Dress [Big Daddy Drew via Deadspin]
• Preseason All Name Team [Storming the Floor]
• Jayhawk Superfan has Quite the Rap Sheet [Deadspin]
• Bobby Bowden Acts Age, Forgets Score [Deadspin]
• Arkansas Suspends Just About Everyone over Gang-Rape Allegations, Rape LOLs, Other Stuff [Deadspin]
• Framed for Child Porn – by a PC Virus [MSNBC]
• Confidence in Obama Slips More, Polls Show [MSNBC]
• Placebo Effect Behind Many Natural Cures [MSNBC]
• The Email Scandal that Shook Cornell’s Campus [Guest of a Guest]
• Recovery Looks like a “L” Without Job Growth [Bloomberg]
• The Day that Shook the World [Eric Margolis via LRC]
• January Jones Plays Beer Pong [Warming Glow]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/digital-media/6559694/Rupert-Murdoch-to-remove-News-Corps-content-from-Google-in-months.html

Roundup – Hungarian Ventrilochoir

Line O’ the Day:

“As a card-carrying member of the sweaty-palmed, I can assure you the shell DOES melt in your hands. Especially if I hold a handful of M&M’s for longer than five seconds. After that, it looks like I just smacked a clown.” Why are So Many Quarterbacks Kicking So Much Ass?  Jambaroo, Week 9 [Big Daddy Drew via Deadspin]

Best of the Best:

• The New York Fed’s Secret Choice to Pay for Swaps Hits Taxpayers [Bloomberg]
• Restoring the Right to Resist [Pro Libertate]
• Dutch Among Lowest Cannabis Users [The Australian]
• What Recovery?  Unemployment Shoots Past 10% [Associated Press]
• Elizabeth Lambert is Now America’s Greatest Villain [Deadspin]
• The China Bubble Debate: (Pro) There is No Bubble in China [Jeff Nielson via SeekingAlpha], (Con) More Bubble Talk from the Financial Times [Tim Iacono via SeekingAlpha]

The Remains:

• Four Reasons Hyperinflation Hasn’t Hit Yet [Minyanville]
• Forget Galleon: What About Goldman’s Ex-Boss? [Matt Taibbi via LRC]
• What is Money?  Part 12: Why Central Banking Exists [Gary North via LRC]
• Bank-Stock Outlook: Will First Half Gains Give Way to Second Half Pain? [Money Morning]
• Deep Thinkers: Dolphins [The Guardian]
• Fort Hood Gunman Major Nidal Hasan had been Trying to Leave “Anti-Muslim” Army [Times Online]
• Lee Harvey Oswald Photo is No Fake [Silber Studios]
• Cars are Approaching Auto-Pilot Mode [MSNBC]
• Dear Fed: the Problem is Solvency, not Liquidity [John M. Mason via SeekingAlpha]
• Fuck Your Parade [Big Daddy Drew via Deadspin]

Roundup – Walken

Line O’ the Day:

“Know what else butter is good on? Oatmeal. It’s great on oatmeal. And hookers. Hookers and oatmeal.” – Pothead Dads, Reebok Girl, Hookers and Oatmeal: Your Open Mailbag [Big Daddy Drew via Deadspin]

Best of the Best:

• The 15 Stupidest Products of All-Time [Huffington Post]
• The Bandwagon is Actually a Nissan Truck [Deadspin]
• California to Withold Bigger Chunk of Paychecks [LA Times]
• War is a Hate Crime [TruthDig]

The Remains:

• Estimate: Half of U.S. Kids will Get Food Stamps [MSNBC]
• “V” Aims at Obamamania [Chicago Tribune]
• Two Charges Dropped in Vigilante Grocer Case [Globe and Mail]
• Atlanta Named Most Toxic City, Las Vegas Least Toxic [GreenBiz]
• Tapes Show JFK Conflicted over Saigon Coup [MSNBC]
• Couple Wrote to BBC to Tell of Suicide Decision [The Guardian]
• Michigan Man can Sue the Store He Robbed [MSNBC]
• Italian Judge Convicts 23 in CIA Kidnap Case [MSNBC]
• Prosecutors: A Protected Criminal Class [Will Grigg via LRC]
• Clever Fools: Why a High IQ Doesn’t Mean You’re Smart [New Scientist]
• Man Says He was Arrested, Tasered After Saving Family [Recordpub]
• More on Secret Copyright Treaty [BoingBoing]
• Fear of a Blackface Planet: Cowboys Cheerleader, Meet Deron Williams [Deadspin]
• Darren Rovell Technically Sorry: Old Canard about African Runners Lives on [Deadspin]
• Places You Don’t Bring a Baby
• The Hangover Final Bill [Satin Movie]
• Seahawks Release Edgerrin James [Ed Note. Out with a Whimper] [Seattle Times]
• 5 Saddest Pickup Artist-isms [Guyisms]
• Will a Racial Divide Swallow Obama [The Nation]
• Rift in Africa Likely to Create New Ocean [AOL News]
• United Airlines Exploring Viability of Stacking Them Like Cordwood [The Onion]
• Merits of an Economic Slowdown [Tim Price via SeekingAlpha]
• GDP Turns Positive, Sort of [Kurt Brouwer via SeekingAlpha]
• Liberals and Conservatives Agree: Proposed Oversight Bill Makes Things Worse [Washington via SeekingAlpha]
• Too Big to Fail and the Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight [Aiki14 via SeekingAlpha]
• Banking Concerns and Chinese University Rankings [Michael Pettis via SeekingAlpha]
• China’s Private Investment is Picking Up [Frank Holmes via SeekingAlpha]
• Liberalization and Wealth Inequality in China [Mike Mezzadri via SeekingAlpha]

Roundup – Pulp Fiction Audio Mix

Line O’ the Day:

“There are gonna be fifty some odd men on that other sideline on Sunday who wanna take something from you. And three weeks ago, they did just that. DON’T FUCKING LET THEM DO IT AGAIN. DON’T LET THEM COME INTO THIS FUCKING CITY AND TAKE YOUR FUCKING GLORY. That shit is YOURS. It sure as fuck isn’t Tony Sparano’s. That fat fuck. YOU WILL FUCKING GO OUT THERE, AND YOU WILL KICK THOSE FUCKERS RIGHT IN THE BALLS. AND THEN YOU WILL EAT SLOPPY JOE’S OFF OF THEIR WIVES’ TITS!  EVERYONE GIVE ME A FUCK YEAH!” Coach Ryan Likes Hot Dogs [Big Daddy Drew via KSK]

Best of the Best:

• Foul-Mouthed Ticket Scalper Expounds on Life, Love and, the Sex-for-Phillies Tickets Scandal [Gawker]
• Excerpts from the Book the NBA Doesn’t Want You to Read [Deadspin]
• Federal Reserve Policy Audit Legislation “Gutted”, Paul Says [Bloomberg]
• Martin Scorsese Picks 11 Scariest Horror Movies of All Time [First Showing]
• Libelous Leftist Lynch Mobs [LRC]

News in November:

• Halloweenaroo [Big Daddy Drew via Deadspin]
• Congress Gets Involved in Concussion Debate, Fails to Solve Everything [Deadspin]
• Harvard to Offer Class on “The Wire” [Warming Glow]
• Not Everyone’s a Critic [Warming Glow]
• Best Night of the Week to Get Piss Drunk [Big Daddy Drew via Deadspin]
• Horror Movie Encyclopedia of Awful Ways to Die [Gawker]
• Soros to Vanquish Whatever Market Fundamentalists He Can Still Find [Reason]
• It’s Japan We Should be Worrying About, Not America [The Telegraph]
• Still Going After Them (Illegal Immigration) [The Economist]
• Hot Gaming [English Russia]
• This 11-Year Old Schoolgirl had a Baby on Her Wedding Day [News of the World]
• California to Withhold a Bigger Chunk of Paychecks [LA Times]
• Cole Hamels Reminds You that Grenades are for Pussies [Kotaku]
• A Conversation with Gore Vidal [The Atlantic]
• FOX Sports Sends a Message: “We Are Shameless Corporate Whores” [Deadspin]
• Starbury and Knicks, Together in Fail for Eternity [Deadspin]
• Peter King and the Throbbing Groin [Big Daddy Drew via KSK]

OBR – Fed Uber Alles

Yes, the Fed wants to do the right thing and raise rates preemptively to maintain price stability. Bernanke and Kohn are dedicated civil servants who made decisions under the worst of circumstances for the good of the nation, not for their personal aggrandizement. – Caroline Baum, Bloomberg News

It is somewhat unclear what the estimable Baum intended by this passage.  It came at the end of a article analyzing yet another conundrum of the Fed.  Was it meant to be a concession to head off arguments to the contrary?  Was it an honest portrayal of the Fed chair and his lieutenant?

The Fed has been, at times, on the defensive this past year, against Ron Paul’s Quixotic legislation among other criticisms.  From green shoots to inflation management, Chairman Bernanke has held his own against challenges from all corners.  But so unusual was Baum’s comment.  Bernanke is a civil servant, but he is not.  The Fed, its supporters and others have argued that the Fed should not be audited, should not be directly influenced by “political” concerns, lest its mission of full employment and controlling inflation (despite destroying almost all the value of the dollar since its inception) become compromised.  So did Bernanke and others counter the Audit the Fed legislation.  If the Federal Reserve’s august mission became subject to congressional whim, it would merely become another pork-barrel project.

But if the Fed is not subject to senatorial or representative oversight, these men are not truly civil servants, who should be subject to such oversight.  Indeed, professional economists, who are employed overwhelmingly by either state-supported academia or the government itself, no doubt see the chairmanship of the Federal Reserve as the summit of economeia.  Here we have a sole objective individual, surrounded by reams of data, all referring to the financial markets composed of rational automatons that can be adjusted by deftly adjusting repurchase agreements, reserve requirements, special lending facilities, interest paid on deposits and so forth.  Here is the ultimate control panel for the mathematical Keynesian through to the Monetarist: an imposition of government oversight or, daresay, free-market deregulation of the banking industry to remove its fundamentally necessary central bank, is not only unthinkable, but theoretically impossible, given of course certain assumptions.  For if a simple man’s best friend is a canine, an economist’s most trusted companion is the assumption.

And so becomes the position of Federal Reserve Chairman: a civil servant but accountable to one, lest that accountability compromise the mission of the very service the Fed was meant to conduct.  The Catch-22 of Economics: a Comrade Commissar of Money and Banking supported by the most laissez-faire of those deemed to be serious economists.  To paraphrase Dr. Friedman, where in the world will we find the angels to organize our monetary system as suggested by the models of mainstream economists?  Where will we find those economists who note and study out the fallibility of economic actors, affected by rational ignorance and public choice issues, but are strangely immune to such foibles absent?  Will we ask wherefrom the Fed sprang, whom it serves and just the extent of its powers?  Or will the curtain of the Emerald Palace remain drawn as the fraud persists until the edifice collapses upon the weakness of its internal merits–for there the Soviets have gone, the Fed will go but for the grace of God (who’s surname is not Friedman).

Roundup – The Number to Heaven

Happy Halloween, y’all

Line O’ the Day:

“I have no technical expertise or attention span, so it goes without saying that I could never create something like this.  What I can do is share it with you, and helicopter my wiener to the beat while holding my cat over my head.  I don’t like to brag, but it impresses the sh-t out of the neighbors.” [Filmdrunk]

Best of the Best:

• American Health Care Facialism [Mises Institute]
• The Case for Enrolling at Loyola University New Orleans [Walter Block via LRC]
• Two Puppets are Not Better than One [Eric Margolis via LRC]

NEWS OF THE LIVING DEAD:

• Don’t Forget Iraq [The Independent Institute]
• Peter King’s Championship Cake Recipe [Big Daddy Drew via KSK]
• I Can’t Believe this Actually Happened [Warming Glow]
• Paul Haggis Left Scientology [WWTDD]
• Steve Phillips Fired by ESPN [Deadspin]
• The Mark McGwire Rehabilitation Project Begins Now [Deadspin]
• Brooke Hundley Gets the Lewinsky Treatment [Deadspin]
• Malcolm Gladwell Demands Bill Simmons be an NBA GM [Big Daddy Drew via Deadspin]
• UFC 104: Zombies, Blind Men and the False Triumph of the Piss-Drinker [Deadspin]
• Army’s Robot-Man Walks Like the Real Thing [Wired]
• Food Will Never be So Cheap Again [The Telegraph]
• Stilleto Stoners [Marie Claire]
• Sean Salisbury’s Lawsuit [Deadspin]
• Danny Synder Doesn’t Like You Telling Him How Much He Blows [Deadspin]
• Improper Stitching Costs Cross-Country Team Title [Deadspin]
• Scuba Cat [Warming Glow]
• More Government Funding of the Press, Less Corruption Reporting [Techdirt]
• Your Race Affects Whether People Write You Back [Oktrends]
• Number of Women Buying Handguns [Chicago News]
• Boeing Expands Operation in South Carolina [Mish's Global Economic Analysis]
• The NCAA Won’t Be Lied (Or, Why to Avoid Deion Sanders) [Deadspin]
• Penn State Gear a Little Jesus-y for Some [Deadspin]
• Caron Butler is a Little Less Extreme [Deadspin]
• Comic Strip Mash-ups [Ryan Dunleavy]
• On Sacrificing for an Idea [Gary North via LRC]
• Fake Dutch “Moon Rock” Revealed [BBC News]
• How Old is Your Body? [Mail Online]

Roundup – Look at My Horse

Line O’ the Day:

“No, you can’t ride shotgun. That’s reserved for my A-Game. I take it EVERYWHERE.” [michael_bay]

Best of the Best:

• Small Change: Rethinking Microcredit [Boston Globe]
• Warren Harding and the Forgotten Depression of 1920 [Thomas Woods via LRC]
• A Free Market Guide to Fixing Health Care [Mises Institute]
• Geniuses Creating Jobs Get the New York Treatment [Amity Shlaes via Bloomberg]
• China’s Huge Property Bubble [Edward Harrison via SeekingAlpha]

NEWS STREETS OF FIRE:

• Mark to Make Believe Turns Junk Loans into Gold [Bloomberg]
• Bank Earnings Put Delay and Pray to the Test [Bloomberg]
• Mamas, Do Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Barbers [Mises Institute]
• Money in War-Ravaged Iraq [Mises Institute]
• A Great Shift: China Rising, U.S. Falling [Cynicus Economicus via SeekingAlpha]
• What Central Bankers Mean When They Say “Awful” [Bloomberg]
• Housing is Moving Toward Disaster [John Lounsbury via SeekingAlpha]
• Reserve Bank of Australia: Getting it Right on Asset Boom and the Recession [Gerard Jackson via SeekingAlpha]
• California: Leveraged to Gasoline Prices and Nearing a Breaking Point [Gregor Macdonald via SeekingAlpha]
• India Focuses on Poorer Consumers [TraderMark via SeekingAlpha]
• Dollar’s Doom Puts a Face on New $1 Million Bill [Bloomberg]
• The Socialist Calculation Problem and Regulation of Financial Markets [StreetWise Blog via SeekingAlpha]
• Chinese Citizens Significantly Increasing Gold and Silver Ownership [GoldCore via SeekingAlpha]
• Howard Buffet: A Man of the Old Right [Mises Institute]
• Are There Any Photos of Michael Beasley that Aren’t a Potential Crime Scene? [Deadspin]
• Coach Tries Knife Threats to Get Through to Players [Deadspin]