Proof of Beagle Supremacy

As any beagle owner knows, beagles are the world's greatest escape artists.

This is just really, really impressive.

Mitch Daniels Talks Common Sense

Excellent Op-Ed by Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels about the coming disaster for high tax and spend states like New York, New Jersey and everybody's favorite basket case California.

Daniels has said he is not interested in a Presidential run, but Democrats would be wise to keep an eye on him and stop spending so much time going after Palin and Gingrich.

Question of the Day

Does anybody really think Doonesbury is funny or clever?

Gary Trudeau gave a very funny, memorable speech at Class Day the year I graduated, but I can honestly say I haven't the faintest idea why Doonesbury is popular or famous.

Jeebus

Trying to organize music for the wedding reception. I am blown away by the rates some of these wedding bands are asking for 4 hours of work.

I'm tempted to go the DJ route, but there is certainly something about live music that is more energetic and fun.

Priceless Moments

Scottish Lass and her mum are out at the beach with me and the beagles. She's in New York for a week to help with wedding planning, but they are taking a break to relax out here for a couple of days.

So we began talking about the service and the music we will have at the church. Now, two types of music that completely rock me to my core are hymns and bagpipes. There are a few hymns (e.g., "Eternal Father") that I simply cannot get through without tears welling up. That's because some of my most powerful musical memories are sitting in the enormous sanctuary of St. Thomas Church (where the ceremony will be) and listening to the earth-shattering organ and the high-floating voices of the Choir. I am certain that my love of harmony and counterpoint comes from those experiences. When the great organ moves the harmony under the melody, I am rocked to my core. When the choir sings the descant, I am frozen with joy.

So I was playing my favorite hymn, "Ye Watchers and Ye Holy Ones," an old tune beautifully harmonized by Ralph Vaughn Williams, for Scottish Lass and she agreed that it was beautiful. I couldn't respond, because I already had tears in my eyes.

A few minutes later, SL's mum and I were looking at You Tube to go through potential tunes for our piper (a university friend of SL's dad) to pipe us out of the church. Even though it wasn't appropriate for our situation, she asked to look up "Highland Cathedral." Oddly, this is a tune that was written for bagpipes by two German musicians, but it has quickly become beloved in Scotland and has been proposed as a possible Scottish national anthem. That would be even more bizarre if it happened because it would mean that both the English and Scottish national anthems would have been composed by Germans. Then again, the Windsors are all Germans anyway, so maybe it makes sense.

Well, within about thirty seconds all three of us were looking at each other, unable to speak, with tears in our eyes. I can understand why mum was so choked up. Although they moved to Australia over twenty years ago, they are still deeply Scottish and the words to the tune must be heartbreaking:

There is a land far from this distant shore
Where heather grows and Highland eagles soar
There is a land that will live ever more
Deep in my Heart, my Bonnie Scotland

I don't think I will ever forget the moment.

Late Summer Humor

The Obama Administration is now blaming the GOP for the fact that their health care "plan" (if you can describe five separate and contradictory bills as a plan) is going down in flames. That's rich.

If you have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, a massive majority in the House and a President who, we are told, is massively popular, the idea that the minority party is blocking your bill is pretty hilarious.

The reason this has been a debacle is the same problem I have been pointing out here since Obama was elected (and before). He's never run anything. He has no plan and no strategy. He has outsourced bill writing and policy detail to Congress and, as a result, he doesn't even know what he is out on the trail selling. He has mistaken his personal popularity (which is pretty much gone now - he has the worst approval rating at this stage of any modern president) for political power. His single tactic, claiming he won and everybody should shut up, is not only ineffective, it makes him look small.

Despite the caricature of Reagan as some kind of idiotic oaf, Obama would do well to have a look at the way he organized his first year in office. You can disagree with his policies, but Reagan and his team showed up with a well-defined legislative plan and, more imptortanly, clear and concise points to make in the public debates. The White House was in control of both the message and the political process, presumably because Reagan had some actual executive experience as governor of California. Obama controls neither now.

What is depressing is that there are a number of steps that could be taken to improve our coverage and care that do not include creating an giant, expensive government health care program. Just try finding health insurance with high deductibles and limited or no coverage for regular office visits. For the young and healthy, this would be the most logical plan, but you can't get it due to our Byzantine insurance regulations. I know because I've tried to find it for me and my employees. The lack of such an option is a big reason why so many of the uninsured are uninsured by choice. I have several friends who would rather roll the dice than pay an absurd premium just to have $15 office visits when they don't need to see a doctor at all in most years.

If Obama were smart, he would go for the low-hanging fruit, claim (rightly) credit for reform and build to bigger things. But somehow he has conceived that everything he does must be massive, complete and executed in his first year. It's a strategy that is killing him and a primary reason why he is about to sink below 50% approval after having been in office for less than 8 months.

Thanks, Les

Les Paul has died.

Here's a big thank you from the Misanthrope.

Wedding Planning

SL has been a dynamo on the wedding planning. We are lucky to have a friend of SL's father who will be our piper.

All of which reminds me that bagpipes are pretty much the coolest instrument ever invented.

On a side note, planning the music for the ceremony reminds me to implement what I think should be a Constitutional amendment banning Pachelbel's Canon and Bach's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" from all weddings.

The Rumors Are True

The Misanthrope is marrying the Scottish Lass this November in NYC.

Silence of the Lambs - The Musical

The Lego musical of Silence of the Lambs.

Genius.

Getting It Right

So, last Wednesday the Misanthrope took his ES-175 and his Pod X3 Live and went off to Smoke & Mirrors to play on a track by House of Blondes.

I've really come to enjoy working as session guy on recordings for other people. A few weeks before, I was over with George Vitray working on the Via Skyway recording and it was one of those great nights where you just click into a groove with the work quickly and get a ton of ideas down. That night, we ended up laying down some cool guitar parts on 4 tracks in just over 5 hours as the stars aligned and George and I found agreement very fast. It was immensely satisfying.

The House of Blondes session was also very satisfying, but it was different kind of work altogether. Whereas with Via Skyway, George had left big blanks for a guitar-based sound to the tunes, the HoB was, in a certain sense, almost complete when I got there. The basics of the song, acoustic guitar, bass, voice, were all there already. There was no need for complicated guitar arrangements and certainly no place for soloing. The song was a delicate, longing, tragic song and John Blonde was already delivering it with the vocals.

When I got to the studio, I told John that the only thing I was hearing was some kind of atmospheric sound in the background, not any obvious guitar playing. He agreed and we thus launched into a four hour odyssey looking, first, for the right sound and, second, for the right way to fit that sound into the song.

Coincidentally, the last time I played on a House of Blondes tune, "Glow Brighter," I ended up suggesting a similar background atmospheric sound that I had stumbled upon because I had been paying a slide solo. (The sound is created by putting the slide on the 12th fret and then picking behind the slide, on the side of the fretboard. This creates a shimmering, floating harmonic that can be "wiggled" by gently moving the slide in a vibrato.)

Finding the sound was fairly easy. I used a mixture of Fuzz Pi, Phaser and Analog Delay with feedback turned all the way up to get a floating, grinding sound. The challenge was (a) getting that grinding sound to grind in rhythm with the track and (b) play the sound so that the chords just appeared, as opposed to bursting out and sounding like a guitar.

George was the key man on (a) as we used the tap function on the delay to get me into synch. That moved us forward quite a bit. I stumbled on the answer to (b) by accident during a take. I had been playing on the downbeat and the chord would ring out on the two. When I waited and played on the two, and the chord popped up on the three, the whole thing fell into place. It is funny to think how playing a part that is incredibly simple can turn into such a challenge because you need to learn to control a crazy new sound you have created with effects.

At any rate, we got there and I thought it was pretty cool. Chrispy, John and George all have excellent ears. More importantly, all of us were in agreement that the best way to try an idea is just to try it. I think we've all been in situation where an idea is suggested and then minutes are wasted debating it. With the four of us that night, we just tried everything that was suggested and it helped us get to the goal line.

It was a very cool night. I can't wait to hear the final result.

Yes!

A new hedge fund has named itself after "5:15," the song from Quadrophenia.

(Insert joke here about "Won't Get Fooled Again.")

Well, That Didn't Take Long

White House is now backing away from Obama's campaign pledge not to raise taxes on anybody making less than $250,000 a year. (BTW, just like I said they would.)

What makes it so fantastic is that Axelrod is talking about taxing health benefits, which is something that, you guessed it, Obama was berating McCain for suggesting during the campaign. He even produced commercials slamming McCain for this idea.

Really, it beggars belief that anybody believes a word that Obama says.

Losing the Germans

Germany. Scene of Obama's "citizens of the world" speech last summer. Land of Obama popularity.

Not so much anymore.

I was quite surprised by this article. Although I agree with the points it makes about Obama's fiscal insanity, I was shocked that the mood had turned so fast on him in Germany.

Heckuva Job, Barry - Part IV

Do I sound like a broken record?  Yes.

Is that because other countries keep acting rationally and diversifying away from Treasuries and dollar-denominated debt?

Yes.

Wow.

Update:  Here's the link that didn't publish.  Rasmussen poll showing that Republicans are now more trusted on the economy than Democrats.  Considering the disgusting spendfest that the Republicans engaged in until 2006, I'm shocked that they have been rehabilitated so fast.  Like I said, "Wow."

I was even more stunned when I saw that Republicans have pulled even with Democrats on the generic Congressional ballot poll.  Considering the hole the Republicans dug themselves, this is a remarkable development.  It also seems clear that Republicans are going to take back the statehouse in New Jersey and Virginia this year.

The cycles turn very fast.

Hecukva Job, Barry - Part III

Once again, the Chinese are showing that they are not fools when it comes to buying U.S. debt.  As I have been saying over and over and over, if our creditors stop allowing us to use our currency to borrow for the massive Obama deficits, we are in for a world of hurt.  The fact that this shot across our bow comes only a week after Geithner was laughed at in Beijing for suggesting that China's dollar-denominated assets were safe should give us all pause.

In related news, Obama is out talking about how he is going to ramp up the stimulus spending to create 600,000 jobs.  Let's leave aside the fact that those will necessarily be short-term jobs.  What I cannot understand is why this is only happening now when we were told in February that Congress needed to pass the stimulus package without reading it because action was needed then.  But Obama had to make some kind of announcement because unemployment is already rocketing past the worst case assumptions for his budget plan (and, incidentally, the bank stress tests), all of which makes even more massive deficits than projected more likely.  Remember that this is the Obama who was calling for a "net spending cut" in the campaign.  

Of course, this doesn't even include the trillion or so dollars we will need for the new healthcare plan.  How will that be financed?  Most likely through a VAT, which is nothing more than a stealth tax increase on the middle class.  And the concept of taxing health care benefits is now popping up, something that Obama categorically dismissed in the campaign.  But hey, why criticize the guy for doing the exact opposite of almost everything he said in the campaign?

It's going to be an interesting summer.

Heckuva Job, Barry: Part II

Congratulations!  $1.2T in "quantitative easing" from the Fed has bought us an exciting two months of cheap mortgages rates.

Sadly, that all ended today as the bond market woke up and smacked old "It's Not My Fault, Bush Made Me Do It, Did I Mention I Don't Look Like Other Presidents?" Obama in the face.

I cannot emphasize the recklessness of Obama's policies enough.  The Chinese are already stockpiling commodities because they don't want to keep buying U.S. Treasuries when Obama is borrowing $0.50 of every dollar he spends.  That's why Tiny Tim Geithner is on his way to China to smooth the waters.

People, this is madness and it is becoming clearer and clearer how it's going to end.

If you aren't outraged, you aren't paying attention.

Heckuva Job, Barry

Well, it looks like our friends in the international finance community are starting to wake up to the fact that Obama and Tiny Tim Geithner are planning to inflate their way out of the fiscal insanity they are planning.  Let me suggest that Obama is going to have a wee problem funding his insane budget deficits (which are already built on crazy assumptions for Q3 and Q4 growth) if we don't  have access to the printing press.

Obviously I have never been a fan of Obama, but the budgets he is proposing, the incredible amount of borrowing they will require and the very real chance the the U.S. will lose its AAA credit rating are beyond even my worst nightmares for him.  And that's just the normal Federal budget.  The endless string of guarantees he is issuing to all sectors of the economy are a recipe for disaster.

His nonsense about "inheriting" this mess can only go so far.  The financial crisis pre-dates him, but the decision to have the Federal government backstop everything in sight while spending like Eliot Spitzer at a whorehouse on Easter Sunday is all his and it is mind-boggling.

Heckuva job, Barry.

By Golly...

...it's almost as if the Chinese have figured out that he only way out of Obama's insane deficit spending is to completely devalue the dollar and crush the holders of Treasuries.

I still continue to be entertained by the Obama supporters who somehow see no problem with racking up record deficits and piling on a load of debt that will burden us for generations (or at least until we inflate ourselves out of it, which is what will likely be Obama's plan).  This country needs some fiscal sanity and Obama and the Congress have moved us so far from fiscal sanity that we should all be deeply concerned.  And, no, you cannot argue against this by pointing at Bush.  His spending plans angered many conservatives (including me), but they are nothing compared to what Obama is proposing.

It's truly scary.

UPDATE: Good Op-Ed on our inflationary future from yesterday's New York Times.