Saturday, January 1, 2011

New Year's Jabberwocky


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"Deficits don't matter" -Dick Cheney

"I'm not worried about the deficit. It is big enough to take care of itself." - Ronald Reagan

"I know that you think you know what I said. But I'm not sure whether you understood that what you heard is what I meant." - Alan Greenspan

"Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth." - Gold and Economic Freedom - Alan Greenspan, 1966.

"I guess I should warn you, if I turn out to be particularly clear, you've probably misunderstood what I said." - Alan Greenspan

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Who is right? Does anyone know what impacts are actually caused by deficits?

Can they explain, simply and in layman's terms, what these impacts are?

If so, the explanations are overdue, and necessary to have an honest, objective public discussion on this subject!

[That is, if real objectivity and/or honesty are now possible]

At some level, I knew that that waiting [and surviving] long enough would enable me to somewhat describe what the year 2011 may mean.
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’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.



“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!

”

He took his vorpal sword in hand:

Long time the manxome foe he sought—

So rested he by the Tumtum tree,

And stood awhile in thought.



And as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

And burbled as it came!



One, two! One, two! and through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

He went galumphing back.



“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
”
He chortled in his joy.



’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.


Lewis Carroll -Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1872).

When Alice has finished reading the poem she gives her impressions:
'It seems very pretty,' she said when she had finished it,
'but it's rather hard to understand!'
(You see she didn't like to confess, even to herself, that she couldn't make it out at all.)
'Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas— only I don't exactly know what they are!
However, somebody killed something: that's clear, at any rate'
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Actually, I could not have described our current situation better than that!

What does that say about our current status?

Does it mean, as H. L. Mencken said; "Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule - and both commonly succeed, and are right.
" ?

Or, does it mean "Politics is the most concentrated expression of economics."
 - V. I. Lenin

Or, possibly, "Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day."? - Theodore Roosevelt, April 19, 1906

Or, “So they [the Government] go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful for impotence.” - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965

Or, "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." - Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

Or, maybe "You got to be careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there."- Yogi Berra

Or, "Sometimes it is not enough to do our best; we must do what is required." - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
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Who really knows what 2001 will bring?

My hope is that it brings more good than some [maybe most] people expect!

Happy New Year!
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"Write drunk; edit sober." - Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)
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