At least your name isn’t Senator Crapo.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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It’s like the wheels have come off in so many ways. I feel overloaded with the problems the country is facing.
This is how spin works.
Judy Wallman, a professional genealogy researcher in southern California , was doing some personal work on her own family tree. She discovered that Harry Reid’s great-great uncle, Remus Reid, was hanged for horse stealing and train robbery in Montana in 1889. Both Judy and Harry Reid share this common ancestor.
The only known photograph of Remus shows him standing on the gallows inMontana territory.
On the back of the picture Judy obtained during her research is this inscription: ‘Remus Reid, horse thief, sent to Montana Territorial Prison 1885, escaped 1887, robbed the Montana Flyer six times. Caught by Pinkerton detectives, convicted and hanged in 1889.’
So Judy recently e-mailed Congressman Harry Reid for information about their great-great uncle.
Believe it or not, Harry Reid’s staff sent back the following biographical sketch for her genealogy research:
‘Remus Reid was a famous cowboy in the Montana Territory . His business empire grew to include acquisition of valuable equestrian assets and intimate dealings with the Montana railroad. Beginning in 1883, he devoted several years of his life to government service, finally taking leave to resume his dealings with the railroad .In 1887, he was a key player in a vital investigation run by the renowned Pinkerton Detective Agency. In 1889, Remus passed away during an important civic function held in his honor when the platform upon which he was standing collapsed.’
NOW THAT is how it’s done folks!
I’m sooo using this one.
I’d never wholely understood the Western turn of phrase ‘Lie like a Mormon’ until now.
Somehow I don’t buy that as coming from Harry Reid’s office. Very funny, but it doesn’t ring true. 😉
Funny, but definitely not true.
Perfect.
I`m going to use it with my real uncle as the great statesman.
Thanks, the stories behind the stories are just as funny.
Nice debunkle, ejmw
Things Are Bad.
christina, who sometimes has good hunches, believs a bank holiday is coming.
also, I’m glad my name isn’t dick trickle.
Or Dick Hole, who was a football coach at my high school.
l went to h.s w/ a guy named richard head…he preferred to be called “rich”.
How about the guy named Richard Hertz.
In court the bailiff was calling out for Richard Hertz, .. no answer.
He finally said , “OK who`s Dick Hertz?”
Things are bad.
They will get worse, but guess what? They’ve always been bad for 90% of the world and we are just joining them. The American downturn is an inevitable consequence of globalization – think water seeking a common level once the pumps are turned off. This has been known to be a real possibility ever since the term ‘Giant Sucking Sound’ was coined. But no one would deal with it.
Problem is that we tried to maintain our lifestyle using debt and stupid derivatives investors instead of sucking up the fact that our government chose to turn off the pumps of trade regulation (Thanks, Bill!).
This was a conscious choice, the ultimate example of short term thinking winning out despite known consequences, and a complete failure of even our most deliberative government bodies to act on what they knew would be best.
If we had taken this hit at the bursting of the internet bubble there is no telling what hardship could be avoided. In the years since then there has basically been no economic growth, net job losses and the incredible ballooning of debt because no one wanted to admit defeat. But that made things soooooo much worse.
If only we had taken the opportunity of 9/11 to get our own house in order (there was Chaos and Transition anyway and the sense of a ‘special’ circumstance that ENDs, unlike the unknowable psychological bottom of the current Bear), there is no telling what pain, suffering and expense could have been avoided.
And there were enough voices calling for it then that the use of the old chestnut ‘No one could have predicted the [fill in tragic event on your watch].’ should be used to identify perpetrators rather than forgive them.
I’m already over grieving for what’s lost. The faster we get past that loss, the better off we’ll be. We are now and will be manipulated easily as long as we are governed by this grief.
I for one am excited for the challenge. Folks used to say that American Capitalism is a terrible system, but it’s the best one in the world. I’d like to posit that is no longer true, or at least will not be soon. This destructive conceit finally imploded on itself and now we have a slim chance of improving things profoundly for the long term.
For the short term it’s about acquiring a taste for shoe leather soup.
We all just need to get to work making our local area more capable of sustaining the local population without government assistance, and likely with their resistance.
If you live in a place where water, food and energy are being shipped in from far away, you should move to a place that can sustain you. If you don’t have any skills that are valuable to an agrarian economy, I’d consider acquiring some. Consider that the floor of this Bear is at worst the disappearance of all fiat value from the world’s economy, then act to preserve yourself and loved ones. What will you do if not just your job disappears, but the whole industry.
Demand the best, but prepare for the worst.
Good luck, but Luck is for the person who makes her own.
Here’s a little something to help sell the ‘Big Rock Candy Stimulus’:
I just caught of shot of Lou Dobbs right now – behind him was a big screen showing Obama and the headline, “The Road to Socialism.”
Oh my. Hang onto your hats. The ignorance tsunami is still building.
If only it were true.