A news article indicates that the Bush administration very well might try to get its hands on the second half of the $700 billion Congress designated for financial bailouts. I’ll admit, I’m less certain that the bailouts are the wrong thing to do than I was certain that invading Iraq was the wrong thing to do, but the dynamics were fairly similar: “CRISIS! DO THIS NOW NOW NOW NOW!” And Congress stampedes mostly in a bipartisan fashion in whatever direction the Bush administration pushes them. Then, predictably, there is little to no transparency about where the money is going.

I suspect without knowing that the Bush administration approach to this financial crisis has some “starve the beast” impulses. “Starve the beast” is the notion that, if the government spends enough and goes broke enough, it will have to retract out of financial necessity. Nevermind that it’s a little like trying to lose weight by first getting morbidly obese.

Near as we can figure, the bailout money is going only to the financial service industry and not to parts of the economy where middle class citizens actually build stuff. Maybe there are legitimate reasons for this, but there has been at least a whiff of class warfare. When manufacturers come to Congress asking for money, there is a lot of talk about union workers making too much money and questions about executives travel arrangements. When banks come asking, there is little discussion about the income packages of its employees or of the bank CEO’s travel arrangements. (Perhaps because they were coming from the east coast instead of the midwest.)

I also suspect that there is some last minute plundering going on, some smash and grab before Obama takes office which may have the additional benefit of hindering him from going all FDR on the country. There are some families in this country who were deeply scarred by FDR and the changes he made in this country. I wouldn’t be surprised if George H.W. and Barbara scared a young George Bush with bedtime stories about That Man in the White House coming to get him if he didn’t behave. No doubt, variations of progressive horror stories passed down from the Rockefellers and Harrimans to Samuel Bush and then to Senator Prescott Bush and thence to President George I.

Just speculation on my part, of course.

Balloon-Juice has a nice explanation of the auto industry’s current situation in play form. The gist is this:

Big 3: I need Labor to build cars.
Labor: I would like to work for you but need $40/hour to save for my inevitable retirement and health needs.

Big 3: We will not pay you $40, but will pay you $30 and promise to pay for retirement and health costs.
Labor: Deal.

Big 3: Here are some car designs folks may or may not want to buy. Please build them.
Labor: Roger that.

The auto companies do not save to pay for their health and retirement obligations. The cars don’t sell as well as they had hoped. Mitt Romney blames labor.

The Internet is really changing the flow of information in some respects. That’s kind of a “duh” statement, I realize. But sometimes it just crashes down on you fresh. Today’s example is that I went to the Journal & Courier website and saw a breaking news story reporting that a body had been found at Purdue. The information provided was fairly cursory. Presumably the police don’t want to give too much information to the news media while the investigation is ongoing and, if they have, the Journal and Courier wants to confirm information before it goes publishing an official news story. The basic information is that a body was found outside of Hawkins Grad House near the loading dock by a service worker at 5:30 a.m.

Then I wandered over to Twitter where one of the people I follow is former Boilermaker Girlinblack. She clearly ties into the Purdue information stream more closely than I do and therefore had noticed comprehensive updates on the situation being posted by Tameraclark. One of the posts was a link to a picture with captions indicating someone’s observations that LED flashlights and camera flashes have been observed at a certain window and flashlights from the loading dock area have been pointed up at that particular window.

It puts me in mind of one of the themes from Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon. In that book, the Allies have cracked one of the main encryption schemes of the Axis. They want to act on the information from the cracked code, but they want to do it in such a way that they do not in turn provide information to the Axis revealing that the code has been cracked. They have to put up decoys; they have to gin up alternate explanations for how they came about the information that the Germans can “discover.” They have to refrain from acting on some of the decoded messages.

Information flows in a lot of ways that aren’t immediately obvious. This Purdue situation is just a reminder that new technology makes it flow in even more ways.

Every darn year, I forget to clear out before the snow flies. This year was no exception. And, of course, it seems like every year, a non-trivial percentage of the Hoosier population forgets how to drive in the ice and snow. As it turns out, most years, ice and snow on the ground reduce the friction available to slow or stop your vehicle. As a result, you have to allow more time to do these things. Now, don’t be fooled — the friction isn’t reduced to zero or anywhere close to it, so you don’t need to keep a city block between you and the next person and you can generally go faster than 5 mph.

Also, milk and toilet paper haven’t become completely unavailable at any time I can remember. So, you probably don’t need to get a 6 month supply in anticipation of the year’s first dusting.

At the moment, I’m in the blogospheric equivalent of The Doldrums. The election is over, the legislation has yet to begin, the holidays are upon us, and, to top it off, the laptop from which I do a good bit of blogging has blown a hard drive.

In other words, feel free to talk amongst yourselves.

Digestion Friday seems like an even slower news day than Thanksgiving Thursday. So I’ll just pepper you with randomness from my randomly firing neurons:

#I wonder if the economic downturn will result in a spike of suicides and, if so, how much. I wonder if this is something hardwired into our DNA so that, in times of scarcity, there are fewer members of the tribe to consume scarce resources.

#I don’t really buy into the “class warfare” arguments that conservatives routinely put forth when the topic turns to raising taxes on the wealthy. However, I wonder if there is a sort of class warfare that is going on when people gripe about union wages on the basis that they are more educated than the union workers but are making less.

#Edna Parker, who was a Hoosier and the oldest woman in the world passed away at the age of 115. Born April 20, 1893, she became a widow in 1939 when she was about 45 years old. She is the 14th longest living human in history — at least in terms of ages that have been validated. By all accounts she was a wonderful woman. Rest in Peace Ms. Parker.

#A significant attack on U.S. military computers came from Russian sources.

#Eight year old boy snaps after 1,000 spankings, murders dad. Family not surprised: “they were too hard on that boy;” “if any eight year old could do it, it was him.”

So, Happy Thanksgiving everybody. To me, this seems like the holiday that has remained “purest” in some ways. Everybody gets the idea of celebrating things they have to be thankful about by stuffing themselves silly. Commercialization hasn’t really taken over – probably because Thanksgiving is in a sort of consumer rain shadow of Christmas. When the nagging details of day-to-day life get to be a hassle, it’s easy to forget how good I really have it. I have a beautiful, smart, loving wife and two healthy kids who, by initial indications, are sharp as a pair of whips and who still seem to think I’m pretty awesome. I have a roof over my head, and plenty to eat every day. It’s easy to forget that health, food, and shelter aren’t something everybody can take for granted.

On the other hand, Thanksgiving isn’t all happy-happy-joy-joy. I’m a history buff and there is always a Clash of Civilization element in my mind when I think about the holiday. From my Thanksgiving entry last year:

In 1620 a band of religious separatists who weren’t happy with their situation in England (Church of England) or Amsterdam or Leiden (cultural influences) departed for the New World. For some reason, they planned their trip such that they arrived in Massachusetts in December. They found land that had been cleared by a prior Indian settlement and subsequently decimated by disease — most likely smallpox — and were able to settle there during the winter.

Fortunately, a native Patuxet named Squanto who had twice been kidnapped and enslaved by Englishmen was able and willing to translate for the Pilgrims and teach them how to raise corn and catch eel. Having survived their first year by the skin of their teeth and brought in their first harvest, the Pilgrims celebrated their first Thanksgiving 386 years ago.

Considering the fate of the Patuxet really drives home how much we have to be thankful about given the relative lack of plague, famine, and waves of foreigners from across the sea. Squanto, as it turns out, was to be the last of the Patuxet tribe which died out entirely when Squanto died of smallpox in November 1622, about a year after the first Thanksgiving.

So, if you think you have it bad, it could probably be worse. Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

McSweeney’s has a nice parody of Atlas Shrugs for modern times which does a good job of pointing out how silly Ayn Rand seems these days when the financial masters of the universe don’t seem quite so masterful and the idea of government regulation doesn’t seem quite so pernicious compared to the alternative. Also, Rand’s ideas were always tarnished as being part of the age old quest to turn selfishness and greed into virtues. I don’t suppose writers and other thinkers ever went broke telling rich people that their money was a sign of righteousness and that God loved them; all that camel passing through the eye of a needle business notwithstanding.

These anti-sex crusaders confuse me. They target pornography, but you get the idea they think sex is a dirty, nasty awful thing you should do only to the person you love best, and then only to procreate. In this installment, a group calling itself ROCK is targeting a 40 year old business in Clarksville. It has put up a billboard basically encouraging people to call and complain about an adult theater called Theatair-X which has been in business for 40 years with the only complaints against it being those ginned up by ROCK. The billboard calls go to a number which is then transferred to the Clarksville town hall.

These people are a “solution” in search of a problem. I get some of the anti-pornography sentiment. The hypersexualization in our media, particularly advertising, creates some unrealistic perceptions. But, frankly, I’m more irritated by trashy looking Bratz dolls being sold to little girls than I am about porn. And, in any event, the reactionary anti-sex position of zealots like ROCK are more damaging to kids than the porn industry.

Somewhere in between (probably closer to the porn side than the ROCK side), there is a realistic attitude about sexuality that says that it’s something that can add some real joy to our lives without being used to control us or to sell us stuff.