RSS

Category Archives: Socially Acceptable Vices

Wall Street Consulting Astrologers for Guidance. Do I Really Need a Punch Line?

When your hope is in astrology, your head is in Uranus.

Economics is generally considered a soft science, as opposed to physics or chemistry, which are hard scientists. Hard, not because difficult, although they are, but because they are

characterized as relying on quantifiable empirical data, relying on the scientific method, and focusing on accuracy and objectivity.

Whereas soft sciences, like psychology, sociology, anthropology and economics do not. They are characterized by superstitions, lies, circular reasoning, academic quackery, political correctness, and brain farts. (Although I may be mistaken about this.)

So it should come as no surprise that Wall Street traders, who are to economists what phrenologists are to really smart phrenologists, should turn to astrologers to help them earn a paycheck:

Financial astrologers like Karen Starich say traders know they’re up against a lot of rich, smart people.

“They want to have that edge,” she says. “They want to know what the future is.”

Starich chargest $237 annually for her newsletter, which 300 traders subscribe to for news of what will happen to the stock prices of companies, or even bigger, to the Federal Reserve. She sees dark times ahead in the Fed’s horoscope.

“They now have Saturn squared to Neptune, which is really bankruptcy,” Starich explains.

Neptune represents money. But when Saturn shows up in a chart, it indicates restriction. So for the Fed, that means the “fiscal cliff is here, and there’s no place to go except to print more money or unravel these financial institutions,” Starich says.

Of course, a lot of Wall Street traders, and others, don’t want it to be known that they’re relying on anything other than their own talent. Arch Crawford, a financial astrologer who actually got his start on Wall Street as a stock analyst at Merrill Lynch, recalls one subscriber asking for his newsletter in “brown paper wrappers.”

Crawford warns his 2,000 subscribers particularly against the dangers of Mercury in retrograde—

I’m sorry, I couldn’t even finish the quote…

Astrology plagued the church — both clergy and laity — for centuries. Philip Melanchthon’s obsession with it drove Luther batty:

No one will persuade me, neither Paul nor an angel from heaven, nor even Melanchthon, to believe in the predictions of astrology, which are mistaken so many times that nothing is more unreliable.

Is it worth expending even the electricity to express the contempt with which I hold astrology? That someone would pay even one thin drachma to consult one of these frauds is itself a sign of both Original Sin and Original Stupidity. Obviously, the fall from grace resulted in dented noggins.

The OT prohibition against consulting mediums was intended to warn against trafficking in dark forces. But some prohibitions I’m convinced were just to keep people from looking like total morons, as if God were saying, “Please stop making me look bad. Sin can be forgiven but stupid is forever.”

 

David Mamet on Mixed Martial Arts and the Road to Serfdom

So the man who expressed himself to a Pulitzer Prize for drama has weighed in on New York’s sanctions against MMA or Ultimate Fighting.

Opponents of Mixed Martial Arts in New York state have enacted a statute to ban the exhibition its proponents hold is protected under the First Amendment as “artistic expression.”

Now, as a longtime student and fan of mixed martial arts, I hope these opponents fail.

Is the practice of MMA an expression of free speech? Sure, if the beloved First Amendment protects not only the burning of the flag, but the government funding of “Piss Christ,” a crucifix immersed in the “artist’s” urine.

John Stuart Mill said Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seem good to themselves than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.

It might be argued that Andres Serrano’s “Piss Christ” did not abrade the neighbors’ bodies, it merely offended their sensibilities — but if that is the test, the comparison to the injury rate of skiing and the above-named sports would exonerate MMA from the label of egregiousness.

In our transformation into a country of maiden aunts, we have forgotten that phrase concurrent to The Greatest Generation, “Mind your own business.”

And the kicker:

To criminalize or otherwise sanction now this, now that, at the whim of a vocal minority is, retail, wearisome folly. Wholesale, it is the road to serfdom.

I believe it’s both the “Mixed” and the “Ultimate” in Mixed Martials Arts and Ultimate Fighting, respectively, that makes people nervous. People like their brawling straight, not mixed—either only punching or only kicking or only slapping. The three combined seems foreign, like it should be taking place in a back alley in Bhutan.

And if it were “Penultimate Fighting,” there would be the perception that there was still room for dialogue and cookies.

(Warning: This is a David Mamet film, so language is NSFW—Not Safe for Wesleyans.)

HT: Jillian Melchior

 
Comments Off

Posted by on October 19, 2011 in Please Don't Touch Me There, Socially Acceptable Vices

 

Breakfast Links

Tobacco companies knew their product contained polonium-120, which is radioactive and causes cancerous growths in the lungs, as early as 1959 but covered it up, insisting they thought it was a special vitamin that gave you superpowers, like the ability to hack phlegm with shotgun-like velocity.

Michael Moore joins those protesting the rich on Wall Street, who turn on celebrity and beat him senseless until police come and drag his carcass away to cheers. Sorry. I was just thinking out loud.

Jimmy Carter, your malaise is ready, aisle 8: The president says America has gone soft. Does he mean in the head? Because, I was thinking the same thing about three years ago.

Should we fear China’s first space station? Yes. I don’t know why. But I fear General Tso’s chicken to such an abnormal degree that I will build a fort made entirely of pork to protect me from its deleterious effects should someone at the same table order it.

Cantaloupes are killing people left and right. You never hear these kinds of gruesome stories about Kit-Kat bars.

The First Lady was caught shopping at Target. Never too early to economize.

Unpaid interns on the 2010 Natalia Portman film Black Swan are suing the studio because they were made to do things that their employers derived some “immediate advantage” from. Can’t have that. More likely they were made to do things, full stop, when they thought they were going to just hang out and ogle Natalie Portman.

Looks like the iPod Classic is headed for the dustbin of history. Keep an eye out for the new iCephalopod. It’s just like the iPod you know only it has a bladder-like renal sac and bilateral body symmetry. Starts at $99.

And finally, in Tennessee, teachers are forbidden to bow their heads in silent prayer, even if students come at them with a knife. The ACLU insists it will know when they’re praying and when they’re just looking at the blood pooling at their feet.

 

Izod Lacoste to Norway Shooter: Please Wear Kevlar Instead

This has been a week of high-end cloth merchants expressing outrage over who dared wear their wares.

First it was Abercrombie and Fitch, which puts out a catalog that is illegal to mail to known sex offenders, offering “The Situation,” front man for Jersey Shore, money, cash, gulden, geetus, to please, please stop sporting their sportswear:

This association is contrary to the aspirational nature of our brand, and may be distressing to many of our fans,” the company said in a news release.

Their fans? Who, pedophiles? Aspirational? And what exactly is it they are aspiring to, eight-to-ten in Indiana State Prison for statutory rape?

Not that I’d want anything I manufactured associated with someone called The Situation. Unless he was, like, Prince Situation of Abu Dhabi or something. Then, sure, we’ll talk.

Now comes Izod Lacoste and their precious pullovers. Seems Norway mass murderer Anders Breivik has been seen shuttling between court appearances draped in one of the clothier’s chi-chi Polo-type shirts.

Breivik was pictured wearing a red Lacoste jumper as he left a courthouse in Oslo on 25 July, and he has been seen wearing a black Lacoste sweater on at least one other occasion.

The mass killer, whose request for an open hearing and the opportunity to wear a uniform was denied, referred to Lacoste on a number of occasions in a rambling “manifesto” that emerged after the attacks.

In one section, he advised would-be followers to wear “Lacoste etc, conservative colours” in order not to arouse suspicion.

At another point, referring to his solitary existence while preparing for the attacks, he wrote of the “mostly unrefined/un-cultivated [sic]” people in the area where he was living.

“I wear mostly the best pieces from my former life, which consists of very expensive brand clothing, LaCoste [sic] sweaters,piques etc. People can see from a mile away that I’m not from around here.”

Yeah, don’t you hate it when people refuse to dress for a homocidal rampage? I mean, people, show a little class. You’re on the television. (And by the way, “jumper” is what the Brits call a pullover shirt; it is not a suicidal office worker, although you’d have to kill me before I’d be caught dead in that hideous Santa Clausey thing. Conservative? Yeah, for the Chinese Socialist Workers Dance Party maybe.)

Man, what I wouldn’t pay to have people pay me not to wear their stuff. The Italian duds, watches, and footswear alone would issue in a small fortune. Look, I promise never to wear Armani, Gucci, Pucci, Fiorucci, Versace, Dolce and Gabbani, Cavalli, Ferragamo, or Chef Boyardee (which tends to splatter). Let’s cut a deal.

I can hear it now from anti-Westerners: Do you see the condition of your culture? Its materialism, superficiality, crassness, brutality? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But what condition is our condition in exactly?

Yeah, I know. That was kinda forced. But I couldn’t help myself. I had that song in my head. And between it and the voices, I needed to do something.

Good morning. It’s Saturday. And I’m your host.

 

Strange Herring for Monday, February 14, AD 2011

Iran outlaws Valentine’s Day. Sucking face has also been declared a felony offense, with going all goo-goo eyed a misdemeanor. Doing the mad Chilean pelvis mambo is, of course, punishable by death, followed by a stern talking to.

Man dies in hospital parking lot at the behest of hospital staff. Which is, like, the best place to die, because it guarantees you won’t forget where you parked your car. And insurance has got to cover it, right, because, well, the doctor said, you know, “Die over there.”

Seems the revolt in Egypt is spreading to other countries in the Middle East. Soon every country formerly run by a dictator will now be under direct control of the military. SWEET!

Speaking of get the hell out already: hundreds of thousands protest Silvio Berlusconi all across Italy, insist the prime minister’s behavior demeans women. Oh for the days of emperors like Caligula, who had the good taste to demean both men AND women. And a horsie.

Borders about to declare bankruptcy, stunned to learn in court filing that it sold books. I mean, who reads books? It’s called borders. They thought they sold travel packages to, like, you know, the border or something.

The difference between apes and humans is greater than professional darwinists would have you think! That’s right: it has now been proved that apes cannot drive a stick.

Prepare for some neato Macbook Pro upgrades. And if you were stupid enough to buy a Macbook Air last fall, well, seems that’s getting a newfangled processor come June. You see: if never pays to buy an Apple product because you will always feel cheated that you did not wait six months longer.

Weightlifting is the best thing you can do to arrest the aging process short of never being born in the first place, which I know some pointyhead scientist is working on right now.

So recent visitors to the Playboy mansion have been hit with a “mystery illness.” Come on … is it really a mystery? Did no one take hygiene in high school?

Seems that Stuxnet virus that temporarily crippled the Iranian nuclear-enrichment plant took some side tours en route to its target. That must be why my cake.com log-in went all wackadoodle a few weeks back…

Brooklyn butcher called vile names, taunted, as he walks down street. Wow, that’s pretty — oh, wait. Brooklyn “butcher” called vile names… Okay. That makes sense. Punctuation is so important.

Mubarak is in a coma. (crickets…) Hello … Is this microphone on? …

More herring as it accumulates.

 

Topless Coffee Shop Draws Stares, ‘Room for Milk’ Jokes

3180292488_1dba3739e3_oIt’s in a rural part of Maine and garnered 150 applications for a mere 10 positions.

Safe to say that Vassalboro is in the bosom of the state.

Sorry.

 

Protestants Statistically the Most Promiscuous — Will Worship Anywhere

xti_8258pChurch-hopping comes as no great surprise, but only 16 percent of Protestant churchgoers are loyal to their denomination, whereas 22 percent would never consider changing their toothpaste brand.

Is that what the Faith has come down to, a commodity less substantial than a fluoride deliverer?

Either most Protestant denominations/congregations have reduced traditional doctrine to a mere short-listed Statement of Faith — the most fundamental of fundamentals that can be summed up neatly on the inside back page of the weekly bulletin — and folded those beliefs where there was traditional conflict under the rubric “adiaphora” …

Or most Protestant Christians don’t care much about doctrine to begin with and go to whatever church meets their personal/social needs.

Before Vatican II, Catholics couldn’t even choose the specific congregation they attended: they were more or less obliged to attend the church in their parish. Your creedal confirmation was joined officially not only to the Church but a church. (Catholics can now attend any parish church they choose, which was a relief to many who weren’t crazy about some of the 70s wackiness that infiltrated even the RCC.)

While Protestant denominations never had fixed rules about these things, denominational loyalty, certainly, was much, much stronger. Whether by tradition or commitment, you were Episcopalian, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, etc., etc.

Some would say the new maleability is a good thing, that it’s all about Jesus anyway, and that institutions are secondary.

But do all institutions teach the same thing about Jesus? Or about discipleship? Or about what the sacraments do or don’t do to strengthen faith and invigorate our union with Christ?

It should be noted that this new phenomenon is not the victory of ecumenism, which maintains doctrinal distinctives but pursues dialogue and a commitment to work together on common social goals. Rather it’s the victory of indifference. We can’t all be right about baptism, about the Real Presence, about the extent of the atonement, about church polity. But that doesn’t mean these things are of no consequence. It means we have to continue to dig deeper into Scripture, into church history, into the creeds, and see where we may have erred — and where we must stand firm.

When Protestants finally get tired of skipping from one church to the other, they either stop attending church altogether (see Julia Duin’s Quitting Church) or they cross the Tiber or Bosphorus in pursuit of coherence and tradition. This is why confessional Lutherans seek to preserve a distinctly Lutheran identity, so these wanderers will have a place to go within the Reformation fold itself. But we’re losing members too.

So now what?

 
 
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 283 other followers

%d bloggers like this: