Doin’ the Cheney-Thing

R. B. Cheney and T. L. Friedman are undeniably two peas in the same onepercenterly pod, both located at the rich-out-of-sight end of the income and wealth distribution. Some speak of "the Herrnstein-Murray Curve," although they may be asking for litigation about patents and trademarks and the like when they do.

However the T. L. Friedman specimen, for purposes of this morning's fifteen-minute ideological zig--or, as the case may be, sentimental zag--sets up to be a traitor to its curve, as it were, a stance which is as curious as it is unimportant. By tomorrow morning, it (the TLF specimen) may be safely back inside Wingnut City with all that gated communitys many community gates securely bolted behind it. [1]

Anyhow, today it has chosen to stumble leftwards a little, possibly annoying Neocomrade Viceroy R. B. Cheney, though more probably not. His Omniexecutivity is far from bein’ Mr. Nice Guy, but he is also no dummy and has probably long since written the TLF thingee off as beneath adult attention. Or perhaps decided that it "knows in its heart", à la B. Goldwater, that neoreaction must necessarily be THE wave of the future.

In order to (even pretend to) be bratty, it has to work up some minimal sort of RBC/TLF compare-and-contrast exercise, some superficial distinction of icin’s externally laid onto the same basic cake-mix product. The specimen welcomes its opportunity, it seems to me, for it could well be sniggerin’ to itself about how elegantly its latest fifteen-minuteman shtyk about foreign and native-management policy fits into the rhetorical ploy du jour: the specimen quite agrees with Lord Undisclosure that relyin’ on one-percent probabilities can, on special occasions and under certain specific circumstances, be an admirable guide to speculation at the Grand Casino of Human Events.

It then goes on to rib His Omniexecutivity for not noticin’ that AGW, anthropogenic global warmin’, affords one of these occasions. It does not expressly mention that (for about the last thirteen-and-a-half minutes straight) it has considered that Viceroy Cheney and his Boy and his Dynasty and his Party and his AEIdeology were, after all, quite right to agress their way into the Brave New Afghanistan and the future former al-‘Iráq on the basis of onepercenterly speculations. [2] "Better safe than sorry," don't you see?

Herr Prof. Dr. C. von Sunstein--who, incidentally, looks very like a recent TLF lunchmate and plunderee--tarts that preowned old saw and trite apophthegm up as (ta-DAH!) a "Precautionary Principle." The grown-up reasons to have reservations about that up-tartin’ could probably be discussed with Prof. Sunnstein, who may not even endorse the Afghan and Iraqi neo-aggressions. Almost certainly, the distinguished shyster and tertiary educationaliser will be a serious environmentalist, and therefore not really on either the TLF or the RBC wavelength. TLF is utterly unserioius, and RBC utterly ungreen. Antigreen, even, is Lord Undisclosure.

Our Warholian jackdaw picks up the professor's gaudy bead and then . . . well, why be surprised that what happens then is far more jackadawsical than perfesserly? The TLF specimen is not actually gamblin’ about global temperatures and climatic disasters here. Close examination will reveal that it is chiefly bettin’ that maybe those overzealous subordinates at East Anglia U. were guilty much as Foxcuckooland and Rio Limbaugh charge: Master Friedman’s effective 99 percent probability is not that AGW will produce consequences not altogether intolerable, which must be what C. Sunnstein originally meant, but rather that AGW ain’t happenin’ at all -- just like Citizen Rush says!

And just like Neocomrade Viceroy R. B. Cheney can be very easily conjectured to agree!!

So the jackdaw is a sort of unexpected twofer or daily double for Lord Undisclosure: not only does the silly NYTC bird tacitly agree with Cheney (and with Cheney's Boy / Dynasty / Party / Ideology) about the good guys aggressin’, it tacitly agrees about the bad guys hoaxin’ as well!!!

Compared with these substantive Wonders of Wingnuttism, it must seem very small potatoes to Lord Undisclosure that little Tommy Wobble, and for that matter, Prof. Dr. Sunstein, agree with his lordship (and with B-D-P-I) about the soundness of selected one-precenterly speculations in lotteries and at casinos.

Croaks the jackdaw, on the formal side[3]:

When I see a problem that has even a 1 percent probability of occurring and is “irreversible” and potentially “catastrophic,” I buy insurance. That is what taking climate change seriously is all about.

It might be fun to look at Master Tommy Wobble’s real-life insurance portfolio: it has such an inflat such an exalted notion of its own self-wunnerfulness that it probably ought to have taken out several billion dollars of term life insurance with its Uncle Sam the beneficiary, "in case somethin’ happens." But I betcha it hasn't actually.

Healthy days.

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[1] The nifty Friedmanite wobbles and ficklenesses seem to depend on exactly whom it ate lunch with most recently, although perhaps its dinner companions matter sometimes as well.


[2] Did the specimen perhaps even call up His Omniexecutivity to assure him that it is all in fun, really, so don't get made and cancel that next lunch appointment? Father Zeus knows best!


[3] Big Management Party Neocomrade R. B. Cheney and jackdaw Th. L. Friedman are, of course, mistaken to superordinate Matter over Form, in this case or in any other. Not bein’ bright enough to be sound Aristotelians, naturally ‘formal’ and ‘formalism’ are perjoratives for them, as for all holy-Homelanders™ beneath a rather high plateau of semi-demi-education. And Father Zeus knows best.