08:19 – Wow. The vote in the House on the debt limit proves that the politicians of both parties are mostly morons. The deal pretty much gives the Democrats everything they wanted and the Republicans nothing they wanted. And yet the Democrats split evenly on the vote, and the Republicans voted overwhelmingly in favor. This bill should have failed on a party-line vote, with all Democrats voting in favor and all Republicans opposed. Morons, and with the exception of half the Democrats and a minority of Republicans, they’ve voted in favor of simply more of the same. Of course, the Democrats who voted Nay did so for all the wrong reasons, so they’re morons as well.
I suppose there is one small bright spot. As George Will commented this morning, the electorate is rapidly shifting toward a libertarian perspective, not because they’ve suddenly taken up reading political philosophy but because they realize that the Democrats and the Republicans are all insane. Let’s hope this trend continues and accelerates. If so, the 2012 elections should be interesting.
11:13 – With kids like this, there’s hope for Australia. What’s interesting is that Charlie Fine, who is 11 years old, both reasons better and writes better than his adult opponent, Fred Nile.
12:23 – The US debt deal has driven the Euro crisis off the front page, but European problems continue and accelerate. Today’s 10-year bond yields for Spanish and Italian debt are about 6.46% and 6.25%, respectively, a level that is not sustainable, and those yields are quickly headed for the disastrous 7% level, which would make bailouts almost certainly necessary. Of course, there’s no money for bailing out Spain or Italy, let alone Spain and Italy, and no prospect for finding any. And now Belgium is being mentioned in the same breath as Spain and Italy, and France itself can be expected to come under severe bond yield pressures shortly. This is going downhill fast, and there’s simply no way to put the brakes on. We’re heading for a Euro crash sooner rather than later.