Andilinks Blog

You just never know.

2011-01-02T23:18:00.000-08:00

Some years ago a friend requested that I visit someone in the hospital who had contracted hepatitis from injecting drugs with a dirty needle. I didn't know Frank, had only met him once or twice in passing but we never spoke. I was told that he was a good person who had just made some serious mistakes with his life and needed a cheering up.

When I arrived at his hospital room he was in good spirits and while weakened from his disease he did not appear very ill. It was a time when I had just rediscovered my Christian faith and I told Frank about Jesus and told him he should pray. He received this message well and then we went on to have a good conversation about many odd things, laughing, joking and having a good time. He promised to be in touch when he was feeling better and I said I would visit him again if he were in the hospital next week.

A few days later I received word that Frank had died that evening, I was stunned and remain stunned to this day. I've never told this story to anyone before. Rest in peace Frank.

American exceptionalism - it's not just a song

2010-12-27T05:48:00.000-08:00

American exceptionalism - Over the past few generations it has not been politically correct to take note of this but it is still true. Americans are literally a breed apart. Whether arriving on foot or by boat, for the first 350 years the fearful and the weak did not set out for America, once here the foolhardy and the the lame did not survive. Only those who could work together and were very tough set out for the interior and only those who could work as a team survived. It is this cohesion that gave us the tradition of overthrowing tyrants and becoming the land of the free—it's not just a song—and the home of the brave.

SHTF, Collapse, Hyperinflation…

2010-12-18T08:31:00.000-08:00

When I Googled the title of this post I found the video linked here, the Watching the World Blog. An interesting video, I agree with what is said but I want to know more…

There are more questions than answers and there are more wrong answers than right answers so I am going to begin collecting links, questions and answers about how the collapse is going to happen, how will it unfold, what should we do, who we should listen to and who we shouldn't…

Watch this space. I will begin a page on my website soon where I will publish a summary of what I've found.

For now, I'll be studying and commenting on these two links:

Brooke Hoerr

Hyperinflation of the Weimar Republic in 1923 Germany

Beyond This Horizon, Robert A. Heinlein

2010-12-10T01:23:00.000-08:00

I just finished reading Beyond This Horizon for the first time as an adult. I read it as a young teen and now realize that much of it went over my head then. It is Robert A. Heinlein's first successful novel, a rewrite of 'For Us, the Living,' (1938) which was first published posthumously in 2003. I have downloaded that to my Kindle and will begin reading it next.

The theme of this novel is eugenics. Written in the late 1930's and early 40s this was a favored topic on the left before it was discredited by the Nazi experiments revealed after WWII. The treatment of the topic is interesting and exposes considerable insight into Heinlein's thinking on the subject and his politics in general. While definitely a socialist during this period he was very anti-communist, even during the '30s.

As a 'novel of the future' written in the late '30s there are many small 'anachronisms.' Set far into the future there are flying cars which have phones and faxes but there are no personal phones, the protagonist must look for a phone booth. Data is stored on punch cards though handling of data seems more sophisticated than would be possible with that medium.

Something akin to the internet seems to exist and Heinlein's handling of video images is quite good considering how rare they were at the time. The treatment of genetics is also good when you take into account that it was written more than a decade before the discovery of DNA.

The vernacular and social conventions of the 1930's are of course present but as an educated "armed, and polite" society of the distant future I think Heinlein's dialog is way ahead of it's time. His skill as a storyteller is unmatched for any time in my opinion, even in this earliest novel.

Filth as art.

2010-12-02T06:55:00.000-08:00

Art intended to shock your sensibility is art in service to victimhood, the artist is not a success unless victimized by your outrage. Their place in history would be secured if only we killed them. It is art too stupid to recognize its own stupidity, it is a celebration of our failure to suppress filth.

But more than anything else it is consistent with the Marxist design to corrupt and destroy our civilization—perpetrated by useful idiots who have been taught that this will win them recognition from the Marxist academy (who claim as part of this design not to be Marxists).

From Twitter to Facebook…

2010-11-28T04:55:00.000-08:00

I have been living on Twitter for almost two years now and had found it to be a satisfying means of expression. Some introspection is due if I consider what I say important enough to record for all time because these two years of tweets are all but gone (to me at least). In most cases that is fine but often I wish I had recorded some of these thoughts more permanently for my own reference; something like the difference between one's unrecorded actual life and one's personal diary. If you don't put it in your diary it is only a memory, and my memory fades and distorts.

New Twitter, the recent upgrade, is much less satisfying to me than the old Twitter. Refining one's input with lists is better but as a means of expression I find it worse, mostly because I get less feed back—but also because of the so-called "hourly usage limit" which only occasionally works and when it does often it is totally unfair. So I've decided that when that happens I will switch to Facebook.

On Facebook I've begun a few longer dialogs, commenting on various things. I'm still a beginner and am slow to add new friends, afraid I will be overwhelmed. I've realized that some of these longer comments are worth saving and rewriting on this blog. So I'm going to rewrite some comments that I made on my quest for the nature of God and post them here next.

FAQs, Protocols, Presentations for Converts

2010-04-12T13:01:00.000-07:00

This has developed out of my effort to recruit and encourage minority participation in the Tea Party. That, I think is still a brilliant idea and I am going to continue in earnest. Most of the responses I've been getting have been snarky Obot trolls attacking me, but I have gotten a few sincere inquiries about the advantages of being on the right. I'm reasonably good at handling such inquiries but it occurred to me that there will be a flood of such requests as Obama's appeal wanes.

Having FAQs, especially for minorities or other special cases, would be very valuable. If one is actually soliciting participation as I am it will be most efficient to have these materials handy or committed to memory .

I will be adding to this post on a regular basis, so if you too are trying to cope with many new converts it will pay to stop back or subscribe to the feed.

I will be collecting and collating these FAQs, Protocols, Presentations and will post or link them here. — Contact Andi

The Survival of Western Civilization

2010-03-09T19:42:00.000-08:00

The title of this post is the title of Robert Ringer's essay sent to me by my Twitter friend @SteveBayrd today. He asked me to comment and no comment worthy of this piece would fit in a tweet or three. As a libertarian I agree with Ringer completely, we may differ only in prioritizing the various threats but are in total agreement that these threats could bring down our civilization. I am also in agreement with his conclusion that practical conservatism must partner with libertarianism though I do need some elaboration on practical conservatism. He makes many important points that I have not listed here, please read the whole thing.

Ringer's arguments:

1. For political systems reality trumps theory.
2. Real communism, enforced by dictatorship, never becomes what theory predicts.
3. Theoretical libertarianism cannot exist in reality.
4. Libertarianism by its nature cannot be enforced.
5. Our civilization is under attack from within and without.
6. Libertarianism alone cannot stand against these attacks.
7. Practical conservatism must partner with libertarianism as junior partner.

Political Correctness

2009-12-20T19:53:00.000-08:00

Progressives are engaged in a deliberate war upon our culture strategized by Marxists of the Frankfurt school. Political correctness is a weapon they use against us and to show any weakness here is to lose the game they have intentionally set up for us.

It would blow their minds if we were to lose the guilt they have laid upon us and march forward with our heads held high. Any nod to Political Correctness should be done with full irony, not with a sheepish guilt. A rhetoric of anti-political correctness is the tactic I want to embrace, not anything that gives them any traction toward making us feel guilty for the sins of people long dead.

American Tribes, Race and the US Constitution

2009-12-10T06:40:00.000-08:00

There is a piece in the American Thinker this morning titled Look Who's Clubbing Tiger Woods Now. In it the author Claude Sandroff comments that Juan Williams, Jesse Washington and Eugene Robinson are not really upset with Tiger because he cheated on his wife, or because he took a drugged snooze on a lawn after crashing his car, but because his wife and all his mistresses are white. Sandroff goes on to describe Tiger Woods' racial heritage and his attitudes about race as well as comparing him to Barack Obama and Obama's claim to authenticity by having married into the African-American Tribe. You should read that article, he goes into important things that I'm not going to address here.

Here I am simply going off on the tangent about "tribes" because I think it is the most important subject that Sandroff touched upon. These overlap of course and can be divided into loyalties and interests of varying degrees. But when push comes to shove and we must pick one we know which tribe is our own. This subject is much too rich for me to address in a single blog post and I'm only going to be able to define a few characteristics of some tribes here. But identifying loyalties is more important when people of differing loyalties are at odds in a serious way.

My own original heritage is that of a liberal hippie tribe, but I gradually realized that my greatest loyalty should be to the US Constitution and not to the tribe that hates it the way the hippies do. The constitution is not a perfect document and I'm not going to go into its flaws now but I am going to assert that its greatest strength is that it created a wealthy America that could feed the world, literally leave the earth and could populate the universe if only it is allowed to survive. My argument here is that it must survive and that those of us who believe in it must fight for it with every fiber of our beings.

The most vicious lie told about the constitution is that it reflects the slaveholder's sensibility. It does not. It contains a clause that acknowledges that slavery existed at the time it was written but the inclusion of the ⅔ clause was in fact an anti-slavery move and not one that demeaned the personhood of the slaves.

I think that the most racially oriented tribe is the one that is most responsible for promoting the lie about slaveholders and the constitution. But even if there were some concession to slaveholders in the body of the document it was corrected in the amendments adopted after the Civil War.

I am going to explore and expand on this subject in the coming weeks, but it is something that has been bothering me for some time. The Global Warming religion defines a tribe I once belonged to and it now is trying to take over the world with an environmental dictatorship. Environmental concerns are real but this movement is criminal. Other tribes are more or less benign and there is much overlap.

Defining tribes and loyalties is a subject I am going to remain most devoted to for the foreseeable future. I'm not sure if "tribes" is necessarily the best term to describe all the divisions but for now and for this post it was most useful.

Searchable now

2009-11-11T14:32:00.000-08:00

Today my Twitter account became searchable again after following instructions here: It was easy, first submit a help request here. Then:

Send a polite tweet to @delbius by tweeting this text (with YOUR ticket number where indicated): @delbius I'm being filtered out of search. @andilinks says you can help? My ticket number is #____. Thanks! Info @ http://bit.ly/3TIWEE

Best of luck

Twitter Irregularities, Unsearchable, Censored

2009-11-07T01:57:00.000-08:00

For quite some time, months, my tweets have not appeared in Twitter Search. Additionally it has seemed that at some time my tweets began to get far too few responses for the number of followers that are recorded for my account. I would occasionally meet other users with similar experiences. Since most of my tweets are of a conservative nature I began to worry that the Twitter management being mostly liberal had begun censoring users that were more effective. Certainly there have been many stories that Google scrubs its archive and cache of items damaging to the Obama Administration and so it is entirely plausible that Twitter may also do the same.

So I have begun collecting emails from people who seem to have similar experiences by occasionally soliciting them with a tweet. It has been slower going than I had hoped but at some point I will have collected enough to have a statistically significant sample. In the mean time I will begin analyzing the emails that I do get to determine how widespread the problem is and to sort out the few mails that describe other problems not related to the one I'm having.

I am compiling and saving all these emails. I back up the list regularly and will be sharing a tabulation as we approach Twitter management with our complaints and develop a media strategy should Twitter be unresponsive.

I will add to or edit this post as I make progress but will not begin a new post on this subject until I have reached some conclusion, though not necessarily a final conclusion.

Return to email form

They’re ALL Communists

2009-10-23T06:00:00.000-07:00

I've been saying it for a long time but not as well as Laura Hollis. Read her entire post.

Connect the dots, people. It’s not that Jones, Dunn, Sunstein et al were not properly vetted; it’s that they were. It’s not that Obama wasn’t familiar enough with their viewpoints; it’s that he was. These people were not chosen despite their views; they were chosen precisely because their views coincide with Obama’s own. If it walks like a communist, talks like a communist, and espouses state control in the name of “the people” like a communist, it’s a communist.

OK, I was wrong on the Polanski extradition

2009-10-03T03:30:00.000-07:00

But forgiveness is still divine. As Jonah Goldberg points out in his column, even if Polanski were totally innocent of the charges against him there would still be the necessity of bringing him back to the US because he fled a charge of which he was convicted and bringing him back preserves the integrity of the rule of law.

I am still disturbed though about the ferocity with which I was attacked when I suggested that his 30+ year-old crime(s) be forgiven. I was particularly disturbed that so many assaulted me with the horrendous details of sexual perversion that attended the crimes. If this behavior were recent or shown to be a pattern with him I would feel differently but I contend that the concept of forgiveness, especially when the danger to the community has passed, is absolute. Christ did not say forgive unless you can't. He said forgive.

And I will be attacked again for this. I don't want to hear the sordid details again, those of you that have committed these to memory have a profound sickness of your own.

Twitter Emergent Behavior

2009-06-25T05:38:00.000-07:00

I am beginning work on twitter & self-organizing systems/emergent behavior. My first document is a list of relevant definitions compiled from Wikipedia and other sources. A work in progress it is the kernal of my working glossary.

I think that in the end emergent behavior and consciousness will be a function of brute force computing power. Once there is enough working RAM and there are enough nodes with content a gradual awakening will occur.

The Collective Consciousness of Twitter

2009-06-24T22:27:00.000-07:00

The term "collective consciousness" has a long history in social theory and has gained some common usage but I am particularly interested in its use pertaining to Twitter. When I was in high school around 1990 I read a book by Marvin Minsky titled The Society of Mind which describes a theory of human intelligence. About that same time there was talk of an "information superhighway" that would be built upon something called the Internet. I put these concepts together along with some other ideas from science fiction and projected that this new thing would become a giant thinking "brain" that would eventually develop its own behaviors and come up with ideas on its own. In other words I thought the internet would develop its own consciuosness. Well back in 1990 I figured that by the year 2000 this would surely have already come about. Now I think I may be lucky if I ever see it happen within my own lifetime. But make no mistake, I think it is happening and I think Twitter is currently the leading edge. I'm still very excited about this, in fact I'm probably more excited than ever. I am going to continue to blog about this concept and I am going to promote it on Twitter. This is one reason I have decided to take a break from my Twitter habit to further develop this idea. When I do finally get back to Twittering on a regular basis I will have an additional focus.

Twitter, AOL & Me Online

2009-06-24T08:42:00.000-07:00

Since quitting Twitter I have been thinking and reflecting about what it meant to me and how I am going to replace it as an expressive outlet. I have concluded that I will resume Twitter at sometime in the future but it will be different. Defining my political positions in great detail and building a polemic framework are important and Twitter has been very useful for that. If I approach it more methodically and have my arguments better organized it may be more satisfying on the second go round.

I am tempted to tell my entire online life's story here on this blog and I may eventually get to that. I do now have enough history to identify patterns and how one medium like Twitter can at first intrigue, enthrall, and obsess me for a while only to turn frustrating and unsatisfying. The four month Twitter experience is so much like a compressed version of my six year experience on AOL that I absolutely must explore the parallels. My early AOL experience was as a naïve and curious teenager in 1993. Among other experiments I engaged in some blatantly sexual and exhibitionist behavior and while I managed to quickly supress that aspect outwardly I think there is such a subliminal thread occasionally running through my online presence to this day.

I am going to make an outline and index of all my andilinks tweets and begin a plan for my next Twitter round. It probably won't begin until I'm well settled in my new home, I'd guess around September 1. I will record many of my musings about this here on this blog.

Finished with Twitter

2009-06-23T12:42:00.000-07:00

I will not be deleting my account because a situation may arise where I will want to make posts but the mode I had been following over the past several months is finished. I was spending too much time for too little return.

I do appreciate my followers and I want you to know that I will miss those of you who interacted with me from time to time. I will likely be visiting the financial blogs posted on the andilinks home page and will be posting comments on those blogs.

Five Dollar foot-long

2009-03-28T16:29:00.000-07:00

1) The grocery bill was way higher than $5.*
2) It's not even a foot long.
3) Prep and clean-up took way longer than a trip to the Subway.
4) It wasn't as good as a Subway.*

*if I prepared such a sandwich everyday I could bring down the unit cost and improve quality. But that would be such a boring diet for every day.

Next time I'll just buy one.

The Firestorm has just begun (h/t Paul Kedrosky)

2009-03-21T05:12:00.000-07:00

The importance of this Rolling Stone piece is not so much what it says (thought it says a lot), and not how breathlessly it's said, but the fact that it exists at all where it does and the traction it will get among its readership. This will in turn will inspire more pieces like it and re-awaken the msm to the fact that their only salvation is to draw blood.

Every dying magazine out there will heave a hail Mary pass like this one, but they will get ever-more desperate for a kill and each in its turn will scatter the body-parts further onto the landscape. These pieces will then awaken recriminations and backbiting in Congress whose angry constituencies will be waving a Rolling Stone in one hand and a pitchfork in the other. The appetite for this kind of journalism on this subject is insatiable, people want to know where their money went. This firestorm has only just begun--and THAT's the story here.

Who stole my lunch?

2009-03-20T20:42:00.001-07:00

Until very recently the counterparties to the AIG CDS's that were settled with the bailout money were kept a secret. The first person to call attention to this publicly was Paul Krugman and shortly after he did so we learned who those counter parties were. Or did we? The AIG bonus thing was not a secret before this week, it simply came to our attention recently. Complexity and jargon pick up where secrecy leaves off.

This thing in its fullness has not yet hit that famous fan. How will our government behave when at least two of the three branches are completely covered with the digested waste of Goldman Sachs et al and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act?

They will try to protect each other for as long as they can, but the truth will prevail and it won't be pretty. This is a LOT bigger than Watergate.

Pollyanna's Puzzle

2009-03-14T08:18:00.000-07:00

This post is a rewrite and expansion of a comment I left on Paul Kedrosky's Blog.

CNBC faces a conundrum and an impossible task; bearish news drives away advertisers. No where on the front page of their website is there the slightest indication that there may be another shock and another leg down in the market. So are they grasping at straws or is luck with them this time? I'm sure that buried somewhere in the articles they've hedged their bets and have warned that this may not be over.

I myself have been decrying the lack of confidence in the messages from the White House and Treasury, a bearish message from there is a self-fulfilling prophesy... So what's a cheerleader to do?

The Stewart-Cramer Thing

2009-03-13T17:57:00.000-07:00

This post is a compilation/digest of several comments I left on Paul Kedrosky's Blog.

I watched Cramer's Mad Money Show daily for over a year around 2006 and have read two of his books. I have had mixed results with his picks but I also did learn much. Jon Stewart needs to continue throwing pies at CNBC. They are less culpable than many but did not do enough to expose sleazy Wall St. practices and were indeed occasionally (isolated, and by individuals) in bed with the enemies of "truth, justice and the American way". Cramer in particular I think plays both sides of the street and knows more dirt than he will admit. I do think he is honest and will do the right thing in the end.

CNBC bills itself as financial news and opinion and sometimes they do that very well. And occasionally they are a forum for the worst kind of hucksters, they probably would have booked Bernie Madoff as a talking head before his arrest if he were available.

Just because others were guilty doesn't mean that CNBC shouldn't be held to high journalistic standards. Yes, I think it was their job to get to the bottom of this scandal before the others, that's their duty and if they didn't do it they need to be held to account.

I have watched a *lot* of CNBC at all hours and have read books by the personalities that appear there and I do like them. I have affection for them because I spend a lot of time with them and most are likable people. And so I have a responsibility to them to offer my constructive criticism when that opportunity arrives.

I also want to thank the people at CNBC for the fine work that they do, I know that just like the rest of us they strive to improve.

(later) I just watched a segment on PBS's News Hour about the Stewart/Cramer thing, and the point was rightly made there that many stories about the coming disaster were published or broadcast by many media outlets and they were dismissed and ridiculed. Cramer himself very famously ranted and later advised people to get out of the market. Unfortunately journalists were as conflicted as the rest of us about this and mixed messages were sent. Those who doggedly pursued a bearish line were dismissed as cranks.

Journalism's mission is to tell us what has happened, not to predict the future. But most people seek investment advice specifically because they are concerned about the future and so investment shows that are not just infomercials should take a greater responsibility.

Cramer, I think is honest but is also a charming scamp, and that is much of his appeal as host of his show. All of us are chastened by our experiences of the past year but those who give advice certainly have greater reason for introspection.

Where is Twitter Going?

2009-03-10T09:01:00.000-07:00

Twitter's versatility is amazing and that's why so many people are using it and why it has reached a tipping point where everyone will have to at least have tried it and have an account. Where it really shines is during a national or global event when you really want to connect with all those people you've come to know on Twitter.

Different users use Twitter differently, yet it seems to work for most. Sometimes I feel like I'm evesdropping on an IM comversation, other times I feel like it's a chatroom and then it becomes a newsfeed or a series of blog posts. And there are many functions I haven't touched upon...

The search feature will certainly develop more capabilities so once the index becomes large enough it will be a powerful search engine that can rival Google in many (but not all) circumstances. I've just tried to elaborate on that and have realized that it's an area of prognostication too complex to even begin.

The Cobwebs of Academia

2009-03-08T22:26:00.000-07:00

Ivory Tower Unswayed by Crashing Economy

“before we’re certain of what the answer is, we’re unlikely to think in terms of changing the curriculum,” Mr. Reny added. “That’s very serious. The responsible thing to do is wait until we have some understanding of what went on here. ”

This is very interesting. I'm curious to know what the first day's lecture will be. "ummm... we'll be teaching last year's curriculum, but as I'm sure you know everything is different now."

Cramer responds to the White House

2009-03-05T14:46:00.000-08:00

I am not a Cramer fan but I absolutly must be on his side in his fight with the White House. I voted for Obama and Cramer says he did too. I did have some fears that Obama's economic policies would be bad for us, and I was sure right about that.

We had a banking crisis coming into this regime, but now every area is in crisis. Each day is worse than the previous one for this miserable economy and while Obama's champions cite the stimulus plan, it's really just a hodgepodge of old Democratic pork and will not create nearly as many manufacturing or service jobs as we hoped. China's stimulus plan is the model; ours is the parody.

The whole article is here.

I voted for Obama knowing full well that his policies would create a lot of poor people for him to help and I positioned myself accordingly. Cramer on the other hand voted for Obama trusting that the Mad Money audience would be helped. What a gigantic bait and switch, ya think?

Trouble with Economic Models.

2009-03-01T19:57:00.000-08:00

This was a problem first recorded by Aristotle: A category becoming a member of itself. In this case the category is a model of the economy or some part of the economy.

To what extent do economists climb inside their own models and contaminate their results? A social science equivalent of the uncertainty principle, examining the model changes it. But more prosaic since the disturbance may consist of some human being trying to use the model to game the system. The thought can't be original with me and my formal training consists of the three typical undergrad courses--macro, micro, and stats--so I'm definitely in way over my head but I do find this fascinating.

As soon as a functioning economic model escapes the laboratory it affects behavior in the real world and once a model is within itself it needs modification beyond the capabilities of its maker.

Twitter Reconsidered

2009-02-28T07:56:00.000-08:00

Right now I feel a lot like I did in late 1992 after I had witnessed some dialog on Compuserve and The Well and became enthused about the potential. I promoted this thing among everyone I knew and even the polite responses were little more than blank stares. Even in 1993 when AOL was using a Mac-like GUI people still couldn't see the potential...

I ignored Twitter for a long time, I didn't get it, I even blogged recently that I didn't "get it." People on Facebook more or less "get it" but largely still don't understand the potential. It does take some work to figure out the potential, and you may well not realize it for a while. But this is the first time I've been excited about a new development on the web since Compuserve was DOS and AOL was Macintosh.

Ev Williams was on Charlie Rose last night, the interviews take a few days to be posted so it's not on the site yet.So, if you haven't put a little effort into "getting it," you should or you risk having to play catch-up somewhere in the future.

The Burning Platform by James Quinn

2009-02-21T07:02:00.000-08:00

As a political and economic medium this blog has fallen into disuse because I am not regular enough with it to gain regular readers so I simply have been commenting on other blogs, mostly Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed though I have been maintaining a blogroll and other links at andilinks.

Yesterday Paul listed this in his "Readings" section: "Deliriously good and though-provoking rant on where we are, where we’re going, and what we should be doing (James Quinn)" and after reading just the few paragraphs I realised this was a very important post that deserved even what little attention it may get here and what meager link juice it may provide. Below are the lines that I found so compelling though you should read the whole thing.

”Delay is preferable to error.” – Jefferson

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” – Lincoln

The $787 billion 1,074 page stimulus bill has been passed. President Obama has signed it. The market immediately dropped 500 points. It will have no impact on the economy in 2009. The bill will stimulate nothing but the National Debt. Within months, plans for another stimulus plan will be demanded by the Democratic led Congress because speed and the appearance of action are how politicians get reelected.

Morgan Stanley Now Warns of Hyperinflation

2009-01-30T05:12:00.000-08:00

I have only just begun my deflation-inflation comparison and read in Alphaville this morning that:

Morgan Stanley’s Jocahcim Fels and Spyros Andreopoulos... [are saying] While such an outcome is clearly not our main case, the risk of hyperinflation cannot be dismissed very easily any longer, in our view.

I should say that I've increased the percentage of my portfolio in gold and silver to over 60% and thinking seriously about going for more, in spite of the recent spike which may be sustained and not return to old levels ever if we are going to see hyperinflation. Just the MS statement is probably responsible for a good part of today's rise.

Inflation or deflation?

2009-01-28T12:17:00.000-08:00

I am going to begin commenting on the post titled Inflation v. Deflation and Part II on the Cassandra Does Tokyo blog via Infectious Greed.

The issues on both sides are relatively easy to understand but what is crucial is the timing so I will try to lay out the arguments as clearly as possible but I will keep those that affect the timing as a separate list. I happen to think that the amount of US debt that China acquires going forward is an important bellwether both for US inflation and for stability in Asia which is why I used that link for the title of this post.

I find this to be the most important of all topics and will be working on this for the next week or so. I also just received my copy of The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century by George Friedman and will be commenting on the provocative topics covered in this book

Geithner’s taxes and the $700 billion bailout

2009-01-25T09:16:00.000-08:00

This post is a rewrite of several comments I posted on a thread on Paul Kedrosky's Blog.

He cheats and he lies but he's the only one who knows where all the bodies are buried so he's got to be confirmed.

When lawbreakers must be confirmed, who's really in power? Corruption is now the stated norm, it's out in the open. Yeah, it was always part of the game on Wall Street, now it's the norm on Main St. too. Geithner's confirmation has turned a lot of honest people into cynics, you think they're going to report all income now? Other cynics will say everybody cheats, well that's much closer to the truth now.

What we are seeing suggests that some of Geithner's skeletons are not in his closet but in Congress. If a clean outsider begins auditing treasury and the whole stinking mess we may have a lot more blood on the floor.

I’m not asserting that Geithner has dirt on major players but if there are dirty major players Tim's their guy. In other words, Geithner's record at the NY Fed establishes him as a non-dirt-disturber. If he's rejected by Congress they may get a dirt disturber. I don't doubt his reputation as a financial wiz (except of course on his own taxes) but, a new broom sweeps clean and while someone else may take more time to get up to speed on the bailout questions many people are just as qualified.

I don't doubt the ''financial wiz" attribute because everyone trying to rush him into the Treasury position (and these are some impressive names) is touting him as the best man for the job in spite of his little tax cheating episode. But maybe it's just that they can't say "we want him because he's not a dirt disturber."

The "wiz" attribution appears in a recent AP story (third paragraph): quoting Ross Baker, a Rutgers University political scientist:
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2009/01/24/america...

Geithner is sliding into Treasury on the same greased rail that gave us the 700 billion dollar bailout, and for the same reason

Agnotology

2009-01-22T07:51:00.000-08:00

Agnotology, formerly agnatology, is a neologism for the study of culturally-induced ignorance or doubt, particularly the publication of inaccurate or misleading scientific data. Wikipedia article
...Proctor argues, when society doesn't know something, it's often because special interests work hard to create confusion. from the Wired article

I think that intentionally publishing false data for personal gain should be regarded as a serious criminal offense with harsh penalties. Especially harsh penalties if the data makes appeals to human survival or itself can endanger survival.

That is fraud, fraud is illegal in every jurisdiction and is not protected free speech.

Clive Thompson via Paul Kedrosky via Barry Ritholtz

Godspeed, President Obama

2009-01-20T08:12:00.000-08:00

I voted for Barak Obama with some trepidation 77 days ago but in those days I have become a believer. There is no one--living or from history--that I would rather see taking that oath.

I do worry that he will make errors with the economy, in particular emulating and repeating the errors of FDR and creating updated versions of depression era policy. The crisis we are facing is worse than most people realize. Credit default swaps on U.S. Treasury securities have risen from $8 to $60 in the past few months--that is default insurance on $10k for 5 years. Many sovereigns are on the verge of default, Argentina, Venezuela and Iceland especially. And one big default would begin a cascade.

Drug violence in Mexican border towns is approaching civil war intensity and I fear that the Obama administration will be too focused on the economy and the Middle East conundrum to pay proper attention to the borderland.

But he's my President and I haven't felt this good about America's prospects since January 1993, in spite of all the problems we face.

Food Data

2009-01-18T10:02:00.000-08:00

A comment thread on Paul Kedrosky's blog Infectious Greed has inspired me to gather food data. The point of Paul's post is a pie graph from the National Restaurant Association showing how restaurant spending has gone from 25% of the total food dollar in 1955 to 48% at present.

In the course of my comments it occurred to me that data on changing food habits is extremely valuable. I will be posting my work on the andilinks site but at the moment I don't know how I will format this. My first inclination is to list information sources as I do on the andifashion site, but this is an entirely different type of data set so I will leave the format open for now. I do have a few apparel projects in progress so I have no idea when I will have something worthwhile about food habits to post.

Inflation during the recession?

2009-01-16T04:51:00.000-08:00

If TIPS (Treasury Inflation Protected Securities) are a sufficiently large proportion of M3 they are a dangerous feedback loop as are COLA and tinkering with the CPI is the only remedy short of paying down the debt with real money. The US has already spent itself into a quicksand bog and additional spending, especially if too little too late, will only make the situation worse.

Gold would be not such a great hedge against inflation if it were not for its "safe haven" attribute. Inflation worries plus crisis equal a gold spike. I am not suggesting armageddon, I don't expect to see in my lifetime. But a global crisis or the perception of one seems a possibility to me, at least enough to increase the amount of physical gold in my portfolio.

I suspect there are others like myself which would in itself increase the demand for gold over its market in normal times. There will be less demand for industrial and decorative gold but with the huge creation of stimulus and bailout in the news every day the safe haven market will grow.

Governments are trying to offset the collapse of velocity by injecting more liquidity but their increasing the money supply will be seen for what it is and will not instill the confidence needed for a true recovery. They will not dare decrease the money supply if the recovery appears fragile and so we may well see inflation as all these facors work themselves through the economy, and public consciousness is a huge component of "the economy."

Gold or dollars?

2009-01-14T07:08:00.000-08:00

I am certainly no expert, but I am concerned about navigating the coming months financially. What follows is my strategy for the immediate future.

Confidence that a new administration will be more effective at turning the US economy around is keeping people and governments from dumping dollars. Official dollar/US security dumping by governments would chafe at relations with the US so we won't see much of that in the coming few months. But if confidence in the Obama administration wavers fear will take over and there will be a run on the dollar. I'm betting 60% with the dollar and a 40% hedge against. The value of no asset, income or currency is exempt from this bet--everyone is betting 100% on something or another. In my humble opinion the risk of a dollar panic is greatest now through the spring, if the Obama administration or their remedies look weak in the first three to six months I'll dump dollars for gold right down to my current month's living expenses. Absent external shocks or a big Obama stumble I expect the value of my gold and silver holdings to drift downward for a while. The rather large possibility of external shocks or the smaller likelihood of a serious Obama stumble keep me from selling/shorting silver and gold. A very difficult 2009 looms in any case.

Iceberg, dead ahead

2009-01-09T09:15:00.000-08:00

The more I add up these numbers on the back of an old grubby envelope the more I become convinced that we are headed for a catastrophe.

The total of all the U.S. treasury securities in foreign hands is three trillion dollars and has grown 30% in just the past year. The total of all the bailouts including the upcoming municipal and state handouts may exceed ten trillion dollars. The outstanding national debt is over 10 trillion dollars. The total of all U.S. money (M2) is almost eight trillion dollars.

Foreign governments are reeling and have slowed their purchase of U.S. debt in order to bolster their own currency. When they begin redeeming their treasury securities will people begin dumping dollars? Will that be a signal?

Extra Size Directory, Plus-Tall-Petite

2009-01-04T08:23:00.000-08:00

I have decided to develop an extra-size directory, which will be an integral part of the Andifashion Directory as the twelve existing extra-size pages are now, but the coverage will be expanded, given in greater detail and there will be a separate extra-size index page.

Some coverage will begin to improve right away. Editing the individual entries is among the most rewarding and fun aspects of this directory but it is also the most time-consuming. The extra-size section is already the best edited and most up-to-date part of the entire site and because it is drawing significant traffic it will continue to be the main focus of my attention. I plan eventually to have a plus, tall, and petite page to compliment every existing category but have not yet projected a target date for this.

Twelve existing extra-size pages:

http://www.andilinks.com/plus.shtm A-C
http://www.andilinks.com/plus-size-2.shtm D-K
http://www.andilinks.com/plus-size-3.shtm L-R
http://www.andilinks.com/plus-size-4.shtm S-Z
http://www.andilinks.com/tall.shtm A-K
http://www.andilinks.com/tall-2.shtm L-Z
http://www.andilinks.com/petite.shtm A-K
http://www.andilinks.com/petite-2.shtm L-Z

http://www.andilinks.com/plus-size-formal-wear.shtm
http://www.andilinks.com/large-shoes.shtm
http://www.andilinks.com/small-shoes.shtm
http://www.andilinks.com/custom-tailored-clothing.shtm

Whipsaw, Recovery and Panic

2009-01-02T06:31:00.000-08:00

Many are reporting that the current bailout total stands near 8.5 trillion, that is three quarters of GDP or more than 100% of M2. What is keeping runaway inflation at bay besides fear and a reluctance to lend on the part of those bailed out? Why are so many buying treasury bonds while Warren Buffet and others are buying equities? Is the value of the dollar balanced on a knife's edge here? It seems so...

The mysterious sensatious computer

2008-12-28T11:13:00.000-08:00

For the past several months every time I got up from my computer and walked away it would play the Windows sound "Device Disconnect," sometimes called the "XP Hardware Remove.wav." I found it disconcerting that the computer sensed my departure and that it considered me "hardware."

This didn't happen 100% of the time, but it happened a lot--maybe 80% of the time. So much so and over so long a period of time that coincidence is out of the question. This was both spooky and reassuring in an odd way, like my computer was actually tracking my presence. I never mentioned this to anyone, too many people already consider me crazy--this was just over the top.

But I'm posting about it today because I finally figured out the connection. Probably capacitance, but more simply put the sound was triggered by a static electricity charge--my body and my keyboard represented a different electromagnetic potential.

This was confirmed this morning when I noticed a tiny spark jump from my finger to the keyboard when I sat down, which triggered the sound.
__________________

Bloggingheads.tv

2008-12-26T13:05:00.000-08:00

Maybe cancelling DirecTV was the best thing that has happened to me. I've rediscovered Bloggingheads.tv and have decided that even with some annoying verbal quirks (y'know) the diavlogs have a higher signal to noise ratio than the shoutfests on Cable. And it's possible to just listen and do other tasks on the compter while the video is running.

And again I'm devoting more time to my Start Page. It is getting more traffic since I began tweaking it earlier this month so this is creating positive feedback for me and a happy endless loop. I'm still making it for myself though and there is still some cryptic anchor text. This does make it possible to cram more links onto one screen and once you've figured out my abbreviations the page gets ever more valuable.

Fake Websites

2008-12-15T18:49:00.000-08:00

I've been finding a lot of parked domains registered to New Ventures Services, Corp. which may have a special relationship to Network Solutions and is an offshore corporation registered in the British Virgin Islands. Their ad server, at least on those I checked, is Yahoo.

I find this disturbing because the parked domain page is not trying to sell the domain but is strictly a vehicle for ads yet has the appearance of a real website. And that's only a problem because it makes the Internet a labyrinthine puzzle for newbies and children. Perhaps it does make my own straightforward directory presentation more valuable but I hate to be made more valuable because the internet itself is degraded.

Jeans, Casual, Lingerie, Sleepwear

2008-12-06T07:26:00.000-08:00

This is why microblogging is not for me. I'll be spending the entire weekend updating these pages and won't have any time to twitter.

Twitter? That was quick

2008-12-06T06:54:00.000-08:00

My investigation of microblogging is over and I won't be twittering. I don't particularly need to let anyone know what I'm doing since I'm always working on my web site. Except when I'm out buying stuff and that needs no reportage in real time. There are already too many shopping blogs.

So maybe I'll be left behind as the world twitters on, we can't all be on all the time. I think I can be happy here just adding stuff to my web site, how 1990's...

iList, social classifieds.

2008-12-06T05:57:00.000-08:00

iList sends social classifieds across Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed, and Pownce as reported by TechCrunch. That's great if you're a flea-market kind of person who is constantly selling and buying second-hand stuff. I once was, and it was fun. I have considered getting into the second-hand and liquidation business but rejected it finally as a part of my self-definition process over the last decade or so. I'm more of a wholesale person, I don't like retail. I do like Vintage Clothing and Vintage Jewelry though. Time consuming hobbies again.

Commerce over social networks intrigues me more than the social networks themselves do but just like eBay, I think the scammers and the crooks may have a field-day with this. My experience with eBay was unfortunate, if everyone had my experience there would be no eBay.

Streaming Social

2008-12-06T05:02:00.000-08:00

I am going to spend a little time familiarizing myself with this new phenomenon. Yes, I know that in Internet time it isn't exactly new, but OTOH as someone who first sent an IM and first entered a chatroom in 1993 and spent a good part of the '90's in chatrooms and sending IMs I think I am capable of seeing Twitter, Friendfeed, Seesmic, and the other streams as more of the same, just better and faster. I have resisted this trend for the same reason that I abandoned chatrooms around the turn of the century. I began feeling that although chatrooms and IMs were very exciting and occasionally tuned me into things much sooner than I otherwise might have learned, they were also highly time consuming and sometimes obligated me to friends and strangers in ways that I would have preferred to avoid.

Now I don't want to begin psychoanalyzing myself and my social connections here on my blog, let's just say I'm not close enough to anyone using these services to make it worthwhile getting involved with them. But the phenomenon is getting big and while I don't want to make this my entire life the way IM's and chatrooms almost became, I don't want to be left behind not knowing what's going on either. So I'm going to research this some more and grab ahold of some of the vision that I left behind when I largely abandoned this type of communications eight years ago.

No, I don't think I'll begin Twittering and tweeting. Call me old fashioned if you like, I don't think I like that pace. I have complete control of my own life and answer to no one, and though some might find that lonely I call the open options empowering. I'm fine, just curious. :)

The Start Page

2008-12-05T09:24:00.000-08:00

Once again I am working on the Start Page. I added some text at the bottom suggesting that others copy the source code and create their own version, building from scratch will always be better than using the one-size-fits-all templates given by the big portals. Yes, mine is just another template if you will, I know that and no I don't fancy myself another Google or Yahoo...

I'm going to be spending a lot more time on the Start Page and on the site in general because of DirecTV. They began billing me for things I hadn't ordered so I called to complain. Their automated voice-jail got me so frustrated and angry that instead of complaining and asking for a refund I just cancelled. I was very abrupt with the customer service rep and began by telling him that if he started into a sales pitch trying to persuade me not to cancel that I would scream obscenities at him until he got back to the cancellation process. I wouldn't be surprised if the tape of that call got played at their next sales meeting.

So all I'm left with is the free basic cable that comes with Comcast's broadband which is extremely basic. There are 22 channels, but half are Spanish language, three are shopping channels so all there is left are the local broadcast channels plus C-SPAN. I'll probably order a premium Comcast package eventually but until then I'll get a lot more done on the Andilinks site.

Britney Spears

2008-12-03T13:15:00.000-08:00

Many years ago I made a series of pages on pop stars, there were about thirty. Britney was the first, and while the pages did get a lot of traffic they were a lot of work to maintain and this was cutting into the time I could devote to the rest of the site. So I removed those pages but about a year later I accidentally uploaded the Britney page. It began getting traffic again so I left it.

Now that Brit is back in the news in a good way (mostly) the page began getting traffic again so I revamped it.

I like Britney, I enjoy her work and I wish her well.

Green-eco-organic-vegan-etc

2008-12-02T04:58:00.000-08:00

I've collected two or four pages of Green-Eco Apparel retailers and these will be on the site in a few days. They range from the mildly green, having just added a new line of organic fabrics, to the stridently vegan. I'm not trying to grade them, I'll just throw them all together.

I've also found that there are a huge number of green directories and I may add a page or two just for those. Either they all list nearly the same sites or I could expand the Green Apparel section to six pages. But I don't think these will draw much traffic so I'll settle for two and see how that goes. I just can't predict which pages Google will like but anything having to do with shoes or size seems to go over big. So maybe I'll expand shoes again soon.

Men's Shoes

2008-11-30T21:04:00.000-08:00

I have added two pages of Men's Shoes (89 listings) and a page of "About Shoes (36 listings)," which are blogs, information sites and videos about shoes. Since the shoe section is doing extremely well I'll be adding to it and refining it more than any other section. I expect that not only will I be adding to the "About Shoes" page I will be using it a lot too.

Just like last year, the Sunday after Black Friday is the best day of November and may well be the best day of the year. I am hoping that more people are shopping online this year.

The case for reparation payments to descendants of slaves.

2008-11-30T06:40:00.000-08:00

Under most economic situations large cash payments to huge segments of lower income people would be highly disruptive and extremely inflationary, but our current and unique situation is not likely to repeat during our lifetimes and would be ideal for such payments.

Paying reparations to the descendants of former slaves would be a good way to effect an economic stimulus and get the reparations issue off the table. President-elect Obama did say he wanted to do something very big quickly as a stimulus and likely he and his team will.

I'd have some trouble seeing Michael Jordan and Oprah collecting reparations, but if there were a means test, say a net worth under 300,000, I'm all for reparations to slave descendants but it would have to be done quickly to be a stimulus package. It would also bailout the big three automakers and a lot better than just dumping $25B on them. Just throw a Chevy Ford or Chrysler into each reparations package.

Reparations payments unfortunately would precipitate the "mother of all inflationary spikes" and some recipients would claim the inflation was a conspiracy to rob them of their money. So I think including a new Big Three car as part of the deal would soften the blow of the inevitable inflation and incidentally bail out the big three. The inflation would also solve the mortgage crisis because all the homes now underwater would emerge, wet but above water.

The inflation spike wouldn't begin when payments are made though, it would begin much sooner. The moment they looked likely people and governments worldwide would immediately start dumping dollars so it would have to be sprung as a surprise so those getting the payments would get the greatest benefits. Double reparations should be offered to those who commit to three years in the military or Peace Corps.

However, springing a full-blown reparations plan on the nation without selling the idea first would be a very bad first move for Obama, he would immediately be perceived as governing as a black man and not a President of all the people. The reaction from the public would be worse than the initial reaction to Treasury Secretary Paulson’s $700 bln bailout for the banks. So it probably won’t happen, even though it would solve many problems, it would create others and perhaps bring out the worst in some people.

On a related subject that would be thrown into the reparations debate I have heard it said that blacks are not capable of racism or its corollary group-think because they do not control the means of production. This is nonsense and nothing but a carefully crafted fraud designed to keep blacks in the status of a perpetually victimized class. By establishing that various concepts like group-think and racism can only be practiced by one race and not the other it is possible to perpetuate a race-based privilege. That is unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment ironically designed to protect blacks from such discrimination, but by establishing that there can be race based concepts even the election of an African American President cannot shake the idea that this group is oppressed.

Reparations would blow that argument off the table, but that is not likely a motivation Barak Obama would consider for the payments so that could not be used as an argument to sell the idea to the American public. Probably a hard sell even as an economic stimulus package, and selling the idea would raise awareness around the world that the value of the dollar would be diluted. Dilution would occur with any stimulus, and a Paul Volker type of clamping down on the money supply will occur rather quickly after a recovery begins in any case so reparations as a stimulus package would cause more problems for a new Obama Administration that their likely to want.

So, even though this may be a perfect moment for reparations in some respects it would cause huge political problems for the new President. Probably worse than the gays-in-the-military thing was for Clinton.

Honesty, Racial Politics, and the "About Shoes" Page

2008-11-29T06:33:00.000-08:00

I recently engaged in a discussion on the forum linked in this post's title. I want to archive my thoughts here and not there so I will synopsize and paraphrase the other participant's posts so as not to violate any copyrights or moral rights, but I am including their thoughts only in as much as they are needed to give credit where credit is due and provide coherence to my own words which I will also rewrite, but for the purpose of improvement, not copyright.

I have been editing and rewiting this material between running personal errands and doing my daily exercise and workout and it is turning into a larger task than I had anticipated . But I do plan to work more on this today as well as finishing up a new directory category, "About Shoes"

Housing bubbles

2008-11-25T08:01:00.000-08:00

The failures that have occurred are partly the fault of those responsible for teaching history. Housing bubbles collapse with disastrous results often, this has been happening for a very long time. It happened in Southern California in 1990, I was there.

The current crisis is the most massive that has ever occurred but it is a well worn and familiar pattern to anyone who takes the trouble to read the history of land speculation and speculative bubbles in general. No one person or group of people engineered the crisis. Certainly many saw it occurring and allowed it to happen but most who were benefiting did not realize they were climbing out on a very dangerous limb.

Executives in the failed firms who made many millions over the past several years have strong ties to both political parties and will get away with their crimes with the possible exception of an unlucky scapegoat or two. Indeed they will not even be villified and in some cases will be called upon to perform heroic deeds to save us from our "plight." Which they knowingly caused. Trying to blame one person, party, or group is futile because so many were involved.

The accounting structures used to hide toxic assets before this crisis were very similar to those used in the Enron scandal so if you need to spill someone's blood (a metaphor) over this I suggest following the money. Where did it go?

If any crime in recent history deserves harsh punishment destroying the world economy should qualify.

Handcrafted Jewelry

2008-11-25T07:08:00.000-08:00

I have found a large number of new (to me) Handcrafted Jewelry sites and will be incorporating these into my listings very soon. It's sad that I didn't find these sooner because so many are independant artists depending on Christmas sales.

Obama again

2008-11-24T21:36:00.000-08:00

It was not an intellectual decision, if we had only their resumes before us and couldn't take the measure of the two men while they were before us thinking on their feet, McCain would have won. The strong desire for the more articulate and bright candidate is certainly a lingering effect of the embarrassment we have suffered with GWB for the last eight years.

If executive experience were the criterion guiding our decisions we'd have gone with Sarah Palin because she has more executive experience than all three others combined. Bill Clinton was right Obama was a roll of the dice, we rolled and won.

It was a decision from the heart, not the head. Risk taking is in our DNA, we're Americans. We or our ancestors risked everything to come here. Yes, even that strong wandering stock that walked here from Asia 10,000 years ago--it's the same American risk taking heritage. We shouldn't count our chickens before they hatch though, no matter how well Obama does we'll never know what "might have been..."

There is an interesting argument to be made comparing the acheivements of the descendents of slaves vs. African Americans who are not. e.g. Barak Obama and Colin Powell vs. Condoleezza Rice and Clarence Thomas. Some say that the slave lineage carries a resentment that cannot be shaken on the left, only on the political right. Certainly immigrants from the Carribean and Africa seem to follow a different path from those descended from slaves. Who may say that I have no right to even discuss such things, it's a black thing, I just can't understand. Well no, I'm sorry. It's an American thing and I don't just have a right to discuss this I have a duty and responsibility to try to understand it.

About Shoes

2008-11-24T03:23:00.000-08:00

After all those political posts I have to report on the progress I'm making with the site. I'm working on shoes again and the new progress won't be visible for a few days but I've found a lot of new listings. I'm thinking about three new pages, Mens Shoes, Boots and About Shoes. I need to have a separate page for shoe blogs and shoe information sites because these are crowding the regular listings.

I did create a job listings directory which is helpful for the times we're in but I thought of it because the Sample Cover Letter page is now getting a lot of traffic. No one has yet clicked through to Jobs from the Cover Letter Page but the Jobs pages have just entered the Google index yesterday and have begun getting traffic from there.

President-Elect Obama

2008-11-24T02:37:00.000-08:00

Even though I voted for him I remained a bit apprehensive about what direction he might take once he was elected. I am much less fearful now having observed his earliest moves and having concluded that he appears vastly smarter than most of the people who voted for him. That's a refreshing change already. :) Had he persuaded me of that earlier I may have even campaigned for him.

The economic crisis will cause him to be more cautious than he would have to be if times were booming, but I suppose that's true for everyone. I'm still fearful of how deep the downturn may be and how long it may last. My own income is holding up well considering the circumstance but the poorest people in the world now face starvation and the ramifications of that concern me.

A bleeding heart concern for the suffering itself is in order but I'm even more concerned about how it affects geopolitics. The last depression caused a lot of people to follow iron-fisted dictators and we certainly have eager candidates for that role today. With Russian warships approaching the Carribean the Bidenian "test" may be at hand. Russia has much less to lose than China as a provocateur and I have no doubt that al qaida and their friends would love to have a role on the world stage to greet our incoming president. OTOH I've been wrong about these kinds of things before.

We do live in interesting times.

Unread TOS dooms earth.

2008-11-19T09:22:00.000-08:00

As I was reading the Google Checkout refund policy it occurred to me that it is unread or poorly understood credit agreements that have recently collapsed our economy and could eventually unravel our entire civilization because instability seems rampant.

I have always felt uneasy entering agreements that I have not fully understood and virtually all service agreements are too much for the average person to read or understand. The larger the company the more insidious this problem seems. I am very worried about our future.

Click here if you agree to these terms.

Moral Hazard and our Great Depression

2008-11-14T06:30:00.000-08:00

During the 1997 Asian crisis no banks or companies were bailed out and the economic recession there cleared up in about two years.

That is a huge difference and the bailouts create what is known as a moral hazard. The people who actually caused the problem will not suffer and will have no reason to consider their bad acts a mistake.

There is profound corruption throughout the system in both political parties which is why none of the scoundrels are being punished or even singled out as culprits. In fact they are being rewarded with billions of dollars.

Those who caused the crisis are in the best position to profit from it. Only those who knew how bad the banks were in trouble had the nerve to short them (Goldman Sachs et al) and make billions more from the suffering of others.

So it's unlikely this will clear up in a mere two years as in Asia, the new US administration has many ties to the scandal and will thus not pursue the actual guilty parties but will try to blame others (guess who) and act the savior.

Blue skies Smiling at me, Nothing but blue skies Do I see... Irving Berlin 1927

Very angry about the sub-prime crisis.

2008-11-13T17:40:00.000-08:00

Frankly I am very angry that no one is being held to account for the sub-prime crisis. It has destroyed more wealth than all the Al qaida attacks combined, even if you include the future earnings of those killed.

McCain could have won the Presidency if he had made good use of his famous anger and promised to get to the bottom of this and put the scoundrels in jail.

Unfortunately that won't happen because the perpetrators are lawmakers and their contributors. The criminality runs deep through both parties and everyone just throws up their hands and leaves solving the problem to those who created it.

I don't know if you caught the full moon rise tonight but it was stunning here in the mountain desert.

I made this page for me.

2008-11-10T06:42:00.000-08:00

"I made this page for me. If you can use it, cool. It's free, no ads, no bs." I added this line to the very bottom of the start page after making some improvements. It is getting a lot better since I've begun using it very regularly.

A new methodology

2008-11-01T14:52:00.000-07:00

I have been working on this directory for almost seven years now and I have been slowly improving my methods and collecting and writing software that helps me do this. But the other day I had an epiphany and figured out how to use my existing applications to double my efficiency. Now it is still a lot of work categorizing and editing all these listings but I am thrilled that the directory will be getting significantly better soon.

I think Barak Obama should be President. The downside is that his economic policies will make us all a lot poorer, especially those who are already poor. But we really must get on with this national redemption from our history as slave holders and racists even if it is painful economically.

Mass starvation in the less developed areas of the world is inevitable anyway and a world-wide depression will speed this along sadly. Better to be done with it before there are many more people born into poverty, exponential population growth is unsustainable. Malthus was right, just had the timing wrong not seeing technology's role in deferring the inevitable. I do my part, but the coming disaster is beyond anyone's capacity to avert. Pollution and global warming may make things even worse.

That's why I'll be voting for Barak on Tuesday. Well that and then I can share in the good feelings that will sweep around the world for a while.

Update update

2008-10-02T21:00:00.000-07:00

So the fifty pages in forty categories from the Andistars site are now very neatly integrated into the Andilinks site. But most of these pages haven't been checked for bad links or updated with new links in months. So I will set a goal of getting these up-to-date in 30 days which is a little more than a category per day.

andistars.com is no more

2008-10-02T06:52:00.000-07:00

Actually the domain and the website will continue on but will redirect to directory"k" on andilinks.com. I do worry that there was something there that caused the Google penalty and if the penalty returns I'll just give up. I can't live with the madness that is Google, I'll just quit.

I'm hoping that tonight during the debate Gov. Palin will have lots of information on the Democratic Party connections to Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, it is really disgusting me how they are trying to pin this crisis on McCain.

The Great Bailout of 2008

2008-09-27T09:51:00.000-07:00

I thought it would be democrats that would block the Paulson plan, I sure was wrong about that. I find it exciting that some discipline is being brought to bear but am concerned that the people actually responsible for packaging the toxic paper will not be the ones to feel the sting of the discipline.

Resources for Tall People

2008-09-27T08:10:00.000-07:00

I am beginning a resource page for tall people, and starting by updating the tall size page. If this goes well I'll go with petite and plus size resources. I hope to have the new page online by Wednesday, possibly a pilot page by the end of the weekend.

The panic of '08

2008-09-25T08:29:00.000-07:00

In Feb. 2005 Greenspan did speak out against the lack of regulation at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, so he knew this corruption would eventually boil over. But if he dialed back the corruption there by raising interest rates he'd be remembered as the guy who kept poor people oppressed and not as the hero who averted the panic of '08. Nobody remembers the panic/recession that never happens.

Save your pennies, if the Paulson plan doesn't pass cash will be king. If it does pass throw your pennies away, inflation will make them worthless...

Fashion Blogs

2008-09-25T06:58:00.000-07:00

I removed all the blogs that hadn't been updated in 45 days and I regret there were many of them. That section has been neglected because it doesn't get a lot of traffic which is a vicious circle. Ironically this section is a lot of fun to update and yields a lot of good links so I'll have to set a goal to keep it more up to date. As soon as I finish the tall-size updates. :)

Google penalty lifted

2008-09-24T11:13:00.000-07:00

On June 22, 2008 the traffic to the site increased fivefold and I began updating the content. The updates were not completed until the end of August and I then began adding pages and making other improvements.

Decline, Google penalty

2008-06-18T07:12:00.000-07:00

I regret to report that I have been unable to shake this latest Google penalty and prospects do not look good.

Lots of Progress

2007-02-12T16:43:00.000-08:00

I should post more often with so much going on with the AndiFashion site. I added the dozen or so Fashion Week designers that weren't already listed.

The Shoe Section has doubled, I added about 250 new designers/brands and the whole section has doubled from three pages to six.

I have updated the Fashion Blog section and now for the next week or so I'll be reading these blogs and scouring them for the new and the hot... I've already found dozens of new retailers but these won't be integrated into the site for a week or so.

Fashion Week Designers

2007-02-06T03:45:00.000-08:00

I have updated sixteen Andifashion categories since the last post and will now be adding any omitted fashion week designers who have web sites. It's not exactly a trip to New York but I will indulge myself with a complete viewing of the web site. Finding designer's web sites can sometimes be tedious because even though there may be lengthy runway videos the designer's link is not given. And designers, when they even have sites, seldom rank well in search engines even for their own names. Often the designer's site is a work of flash art with little or no actual text that a search engine can index.

On the bright side of this my work in finding their sites can be appreciated by others who are also looking.

Google 'Metaverse'

2007-01-29T09:36:00.000-08:00

This would be exciting because...

...the speculation being that Google will use real-world data gathered from their existing enterprises to craft an alternate reality platform online.

People (me included) will check in just to see how their own data is showing up, seems like a winner to me.

On the AndiFashion front I've updated Formal Wear, Shoes, and Size (Petite, Tall, Plus, Maternity, Children's) and will be doing the general shopping pages next.

Slow menus...

2007-01-23T08:17:00.000-08:00

I had the new menus on my home page for one day and the traffic was down 30%, I can only assume that a lot of people bailed before the menus loaded. I can't afford to take that kind of a hit on the rest of the pages so the menu idea was just a waste of a few days time. Live and learn. Fortunately I hadn't purchased the license for the menus yet, it was just a trial. The menus worked beautifully though.

So now I'll finish updating the cosmetics pages, Bath and Body is complete, I'm very pleased with how these turned out.

Beauty Products

2007-01-22T06:50:00.000-08:00

The new menus are ready but only installed on the Andilinks Home Page so far, they need a little tweaking. I'm going to install them on the rest of the pages as I do updates.

As indicated in the headline I'm updating the Beauty Products section now. There is a new category, Body and Bath, which will take two pages and should be uploaded in a day or two.

Wedding Pages, new menus

2007-01-20T09:31:00.000-08:00

A wedding section that goes beyond dresses and formal wear is a bigger task than I'm willing to take on at the moment so I'm just updating Checklists and Gift Registries for now.

I would begin this larger Wedding project right away but I've decided to provide new javascript menus for the apparel pages first. The new Wedding section will be up and running in part I hope before February first because the wedding planning season has already begun.

Spring Weddings

2007-01-19T09:01:00.000-08:00

This wedding section, along with formal wear will be getting a lot of my attention this coming week. I finished the Men's Clothing page by adding twelve new links and deleting one dead one. Not as ambitious as my first thoughts, I'll get this next time.

I do want to maintain the six to eight week updating schedule and with every update there is improvement beyond just removing dead links.

Coldwater Creek has me upset today, fortunately I have other positions doing well...

Men's Clothing

2007-01-18T14:14:00.000-08:00

I finished the Jewelry pages without integrating them with the Vintage Jewelry database tables, I'll do that when I update the Vintage clothing pages...

Now the Men's clothing page is undergoing an update and I do think I should be able to find enough new entries to expand this page into several categories. If I can have fifty pages of women's clothing I think I can have four or five pages of men's clothing. Likewise I will be trying to expand the children's clothing pages as well.

Jewelry pages continued...

2007-01-15T05:07:00.000-08:00

The heavy lifting is done on the jewelry pages, that is all the thumbnails have been updated and the dead links (surprisingly few) have been removed. I have created two new pages Handcrafted Jewelry and Costume Jewelry. Today I will be adding locations and phone numbers to the new pages and updating internal menus to include links to these pages.

The Fine Jewelry pages are still too large and I haven't yet separated out "Fine Art Jewelry." This will be a difficult task because although there are a few sites that specifically label themselves "fine art," most fine jewelry is fine art or very close at least.

I have yet to include the database tables for Vintage Jewelry with these and this too will be a difficult task.

As difficult as making all these decisions is, I do really enjoy working in the jewelry section and may stay here all week. :)

Jewelry Pages

2007-01-11T20:52:00.001-08:00

After a short distraction with a dozen new fashion blogs I am finally revamping the jewelry pages. Several changes and new pages are coming since the Fine Jewelry pages are already too large and some classifications need to be broken out. There will probably be Fine Art Jewelry and Handcrafted Jewelry pages.

The Vintage Jewelry pages are currently grouped with Vintage Clothing in my database and this linkage works well but I also need to group Vintage Jewelry with Fine Jewelry so I will be doing some database designing this week too...

That will keep me busy this week, along with my regular tasks defining the nature of reality and controlling the weather.

The iPhone name fight.

2007-01-11T20:52:00.000-08:00

The value of the free publicity generated by this fight, measured according to what the equivalent ad time/space would cost will exceed the amount paid by both companies in the legal fight.

And "iPhone" will be much more of a household mega-name no matter the outcome. They should begin acting like Rosie and the Donald to get a free segment on every celebnewsfotainment show. A food fight in the company cafeteria would work, rig up the security cameras just right for the opposing lawyer/actors.

More fashion, more apparel.

2007-01-10T09:34:00.000-08:00

I have just added a link to this blog on all of the AndiFashion pages and I plan to use this blog to report news about the progress of the fashion directory. There has been a spurt of new traffic which seems to be just an artifact of internal changes in the Google algorithm but whatever the cause it is very welcome and certainly a reminder of what is my primary job. I am glad that I spent the last several months researching the stock market. It hasn't yeilded much but it has taught me a great deal about business and I can use that knowledge to improve this directory.

I have subscribed to several financial services which all report on companies in the apparel sector and I will be using these analyses to improve the fashion directory.

I have instituted a system which makes it easy for me to review every link in every fashion category every six to eight weeks. I had hoped to do it every thirty days and maybe will get it down to that interval over the next year.

I want to add more categories but all the main apparel categories are covered so I will be looking to add greater detail in the coverage.

These next few days I will be working on the Jewelry categories and hope to post a few gems about that.

Socialists on the Verizon

2007-01-10T08:41:00.000-08:00

So the price of C.A. Nac. Telefonos de Venezuela rose a bit this morning on the news that Hugo Chavez will compensate stockholders when he nationalizes the company. One has to wonder who is buying this stock on such a promise. Is he nationalizing the phone service so he may more easily spy on his enemies? Does he really think he can provide better phone service after alienating those outside Venezuela who are on the cutting edge of the technology?

Chavez is hurting all of Latin America with this. I have heard several commentators, notably among them Jim Cramer, say that any Latin American exposure is riskier now. I know I just sold stock in one company that has Latin American holdings--why risk it when there are so many other options? And so wealth flees all of Latin America, poverty deepens there and of course America is blamed. The cycle then continues, with poverty deepening other dictators are more inclined to grab their phone companies.

My happiest Apple day since 1985.

2007-01-09T13:58:00.000-08:00

I think the inflection point has finally arrived, Apple is a triple threat, music, phone and computer. I never thought it would take 22 years... I havn't been this excited since I first saw it on a 9" B&W screen.

With Leopard getting better reviews than Vista, Zune not even in the running and RIM stock dropping on news of the iPhone the planets have never been lined up like this before.

The all-time high stock price is just an indication that the world agrees. As it happens I got out at 88, should I wait for a lull to get back in or is this it?

Yahoo buys MyBlogLog

2007-01-09T07:00:00.000-08:00

Could be good, maybe not. I'm not convinced that Yahoo is competent enough to exploit this powerful thing... I don't think del.icio.us has done much since being acquired, that has really disappointed me.

Could the tail wag the dog? Could Eric and Scott turn Yahoo around? That seems a stretch. I'd have much prefered they had waited for an offer from Google or toughed it out alone for a while longer. :: sigh ::

About Blogging

2007-01-07T08:36:00.000-08:00

In the day since I decided to begin blogging again I have run up against all the reasons that I stopped blogging in the past. Mostly it is the pressure. If I post on a regular basis and develop a following for my random thoughts there will be a lot of pressure to post every day and I don't want the blog to become a ball and chain.

I have been directing my creative energies toward andilinks.com the site and posting to Andilinks the blog will draw off some of that energy. On the other hand if I post mostly about the directory my thoughts will necessarily be more organized and the effect will be positive. That will be a dull blog and certainly won't develop the kind of following that will put any pressure on me.

But I have a lot of opinions about other topics that I need to express, so I will just try to ignore any pressure (or perceived pressure) and just post my ideas when they occur. People who return here for that will just have to accept that I will not post anything at all if I am not moved by some story, posting or site that I've found interesting.

I don't think I want to talk much about my personal life though that may happen from time to time. Mostly my topics will be politics, world events, media, technology, and technology business. I don't want this to be a fashion blog but I probably will occasionally blog about art, pop culture and fashion too.

Blogging again, switching to Mac now...

2007-01-06T09:47:00.000-08:00

It may stick this time, I'm more motivated to blog. The Andilinks directory is doing very well and I'm visiting more blogs myself because of the MyBlogLog network. I have always been enthusiastic about journaling and writing but somewhat reticent while blogging. Perhaps I can turn that around.

My current big project is a switch to Macintosh, something I've been longing to do since I began using Windows in 1996. I began using a Mac in 1985 after struggling with DOS... I did get proficient with DOS and dbase but Macintosh was like sweeping a curtain away and seeing the world anew. My first glimpse of cyberspace was through the 9" B&W screen of a Mac SE...

I expect the reconversion to take some time, I won't buy a Mac until Leopard is released and I have just massively upgraded my PC system so I will have absolute redundancy during the switch.

Andistars and a Difficult week...

2006-03-04T07:56:00.000-08:00

My difficult week had nothing to do with the website(s) except that it kept me away from my computer. Well, partly I was doing my taxes which was difficult but happy because I owe less than I had expected and do have a little spare cash because of that. I think I'll save most of it for a trip next month. :)

Other than adding graphics to many of the pop music pages and starting a new domain (andistars.com) not much has happened. I am testing the andifashion.com domain and it seems to still be in the sandbox (or doldrums) because the one page I moved lost all of its Google traffic, so I won't be moving any others until it recovers.

New Andi sites.

2006-02-18T10:05:00.000-08:00

I purchased the andifashion.com domain last August and began it as a new site when andilinks.com was banned by Google. But the sandbox kicked in and when andilinks.com was reincluded by Google in September I moved all the fashion/apparel pages back to their original URLs and they once again recovered their traffic.

But now it's February and I'm thinking that I may try moving some pages to andifashion.com. I've also purchased a new domain for pop music and it's generic enough that I could expand it to celebrities in general. Mostly these are insurance against andilinks being banned by Google again, I'd be perfectly happy to have everything on one site.

Anyone who's followed my postings at WebmasterWorld, WebProWorld, or Matt Cutt's blog know how strongly I feel about this.

It will be another week before the Pop Music site is live, I'll still keep the current pages where they are and simply post informative articles at the new site until the sandbox period has passed. The apparel pages are doing so well with Google I'm afraid to move them all at once.

Trimming the fat

2006-02-11T09:03:00.000-08:00

After running the MyBlogLog software for 45 days I have compiled a list of the 35 most popular links on the home page and I will begin re ordering the categories and links based on this list:

1 Drudge Report
2 Slashdot
3 Red Ferret
4 Google Search
5 digg
6 del.icio.us
7 TV Listings (excite)
8 Google Video of the Day
9 the ONION
10 180 degree News
11 Daypop
12 AlwaysOn
13 Bandwidth Meter
14 techdirt
15 SciTechDaily
16 Back in Pajamas
17 BetaNews
18 Wired
19 Progress report, this blog
20 O'Reilly Radar
21 CNN
22 Blog Networks
23 FOX
24 GoogleNews
25 GGuide Cheat Sheet
26 Newsbrew
27 Google Blogoscoped
28 Mondo Times
29 Topix.net
30 traceroute
31 Flickr
32 details (link checking)
33 Disposable Email Addys
34 MySpace
35 FeedMeLinks

These are not the ONLY links I will retain but this list will guide me in my choices. There will be more apparel and pop music links replacing the deleted items. I'd like to keep the file size down to about 40KB, it is currently pushing 46KB.

Slow but sure progress...

2006-02-03T06:21:00.000-08:00

I've been going over the stats from MyBlogLog for the past 36 days and I can see that the home page is going to lose many links because they were clicked just a few times or not at all. I may keep a small number that were not clicked simply because I like them or because they anchor a category, but mostly this will be a "people's choice" winnowing... After these changes are made I will add the MyBlogLog stats to some other pages...

I am also redesigning the apparel database and there will be more clothing links on the home page. I'm not sure how long this will take or when the changes will be reflected on the site, but there is definite progress behind the scenes. The apparel section will be getting a LOT bigger and better.

Andilinks will become a directory mostly for people who wear and buy clothing, though I will also expand the pop music section somewhat as well. My point here is that apparel industry people may visit and use the site from time to time for their own purposes but this will not become another Apparel Search site.

New Home Page

2006-01-31T05:30:00.000-08:00

As much fun as I've had compiling the current home page I'm afraid that it is not going to survive in its current form. It simply is not pulling its weight as compared to the rest of the site, especially considering that it competes for the position of most trafficked page.

Many have said it is ugly and many are frightened or put off by the clutter. But I find it very useful and well organized and many others do as well, so I will probably continue it at another URL, but it can no longer remain the default page.

I have made a lot of progress--though it's probably not immediately visible--with women's wear and pop music. That will continue to be the direction that Andilinks takes...

I may begin a fine art site, but it will be entirely separate from Andilinks.

Redesigning Andilinks

2006-01-25T19:32:00.000-08:00

So it's time to do an overhaul, not just a facelift. I'd really like to add some snazzy new technology but just redoing the appearance is my main goal at the moment.

I will be converting the layout from tables to css and that will be taking some time since I plan to continue updating the site and adding new pages while doing the redesign. Though the "look" of the site should remain uniform I cannot change everything at once, I've got to consider how Google reacts to the new design. I have heard about and experienced problems with the indexing just because of design changes. So I'll begin with just one or two pages and see how that goes. I have always begun new designs on the home page and I'll continue that practice.

I'll probably try some experiments there but nothing so jarring that you won't recognize the place.

I would really like suggestions but I don't expect much, I seldom get comments of any kind from people who don't want a link or have something to sell. I do get a lot of traffic though, I must be doing something right.

Regrouping (if one person can regroup)

2005-10-16T09:40:00.000-07:00

I have yet to fully recover from the 54 day ban from Google (7/28 - 9/22) even though I have made some significant improvements to the site. Prior to the ban I was filled with enthusiasm about an almost unbroken three-year run of escalating traffic and income. During the ban, and even now to some extent I am disheartened. I am not now as despairing now as I had been during the ban but I have come realize that while Google may not be evil at its core, it is not very good either.

This is a post about my progress since the ban, but I do want to take one swipe at G. When there is a consistency over a period of years, and it is known, or should be known, that people are depending upon this consistency, there is a responsibility to at least acknowledge an act that can potentially destroy lives. I find Google in this regard to be reckless, heartless and irresponsible. I still don't know why my site was banned, I don't know why it was unbanned, I don't know whether the changes I made during the ban helped or hurt.

I have now completed my first purge of dead links from the big link table since July, and during this coming week will be updating the pages on the site that are fed by this table. This is a good time to think about a dynamic database which automatically updates the site. I'm not ready for that yet and am thinking that it may be better to shrink the site than to take that next step. But since the old pages still produce income I won't remove them. I will simply post a notice on them that they are not being updated as often as the Fashion directory...

There is still a lot that remains to be done, I think I have the spirit remaining to do it.

Maybe this blogging thing will catch on.

2005-09-30T19:25:00.000-07:00

What’s up with Bloglines? Russell Beattie
I've been wondering this myself, I'm glad Russell has done some work on it...

Consumer Spending, Personal Income Gloom from Barry Ritholtz, The Big Picture.
Not a good picture if you've been hoping for more expansion, but as Jim Cramer says, "there's always a bull market somewhere."

I plan to check out Debra Messing's Style Shops in the example of
ROLLYO, a personal search with a social aspect.

Should I go back to posting New Items here?

2005-09-25T09:15:00.000-07:00

The main site is finally back in the Google index but is still suffering from some kind of penalty which has led me to this: maybe I should blog. This occurred to me as I began adding "New Items" and realized that I wanted to add blog-like commentary.

While figuring out how to get my Google traffic back I may as well try my hand at blogging, though I've tried before with some limited success.

PC vs. Mac: Why I might Switch Back... Russell Beattie
Russell is very smart but we disagree a lot. Once he banned my IP from his blog and I haven't left many comments since even though I left that IP behind long ago.

Notes and Comment on the Launch of TimesSelect PressThink
Goodbye NYT

More TiVo treachery and betrayal boing boing
Goodbye TiVo, again.

FireANT Not TV
I haven't downloaded this but it looks intriguing and is gaining popularity.

Google scraper ban

2005-08-19T11:10:00.000-07:00

I posted something similar to this on the WMW forum and then decided it belogs here on my blog. This was a thread about collateral damage from the 7-29 Google scraper ban.

Andilinks has a lot of original content, both on pages full of text written entirely by me and as commentary about various listed links. I was however also using exerpts and meta descriptions from the linked sites to describe them and must have passed some threshold for that. I was seeding with these descriptions and re-editing later. I certainly will admit that the AdSense revenue was very good and that did provide an incentive to produce more pages, especially high-traffic pages.

There are far too many pages on my site like this for me to change them legitimately in a timely fashion and using text-scrambling software would degrade the descriptions and make my site more like the scrapers themselves. But I may write a script to swap out certain synonyms wholesale.

I am disallowing googlebot from those pages for now (they still do well with Y and M but I fear these may have their own scraper crack-down soon as well). I am keeping my fingers crossed.

In this recent recovery process I accidentally used too many 301 redirects for the server load and probably confused slurp and msnbot too...

But I have almost four years work invested in the database and am working day and night to recover this. If you stop hearing from me you'll know I 'died trying.'

andiFASHION

2005-08-18T18:33:00.000-07:00

I am just heartbroken that Google dropped Andilinks from its index on July 28. I am finally recovering but I doubt I'll ever get back to where I was with it...

I have started a new site with just the Women's Wear pages. I have gotten two pages into Google but I'm blocking the googlebot from the directory until I figure out why Andilinks was banned.

I was probably swept up in the scraper spam ban, but I don't know how to keet the robot from mistaking me for a scraper. Well, I'll have more to say on this later. I'm finally getting my spirits back with having a new website.

New Items, Thursday

2005-03-03T21:48:00.000-08:00

Victor Davis Hanson Interview Chrenkoff
wists yet another social bookmark tagger
Peeking Into Google internetnews.com