1000 ARIEL SHARONS...

...are better than 1 David Brooks. Simple reason is that Sharon was a fighter and Brooks is a pussy. Let's get back to that in a bit.

But a few things got real, real clear for Kelso this past weekend at the Spa. There is something very refreshing about people who move money for a living whether in gambling or capital markets and are essentially stateless. There is never any ideological bullshit thrown around. Or more to the point, all ideologies are equally tolerated and equally irrelevant. You even find the sentiment leans a little more to the left on most issues among true capitalists. One reckons that there are capitalists who need to dress their actions up in a flag or some kind of crap about freedom, but for those whose enemy is the last restriction, reporting requirement, KYC program, or other invasion of privacy. Kelso has nothing but admiration. As we discussed in an earlier posting, it is the firm belief here at The Nuts that a government has the obligation to feed, clothe, house, educate and employ its citizens to the best of its abilities. Once that is not Priority One, we are only arguing about the crumbs and that is a very silly argument. Pilot school voucher programs? Christ Almighty, all of them put together don't equal the notional value of one medium-sized interest rate swap between two banks. So, just back off with that school voucher shit, already. It's less than nothing and all does is make the political environment more toxic. Ironically, a good-sized teachers' union can put a few swaps on out of the pension fund and not even notice it. Public education is not going anywhere, so ENOUGH ALREADY.

Another topic of keen interest to Kelso came up frequently in discussion among his hosts and friends who may or may not be American but spend most of their time outside of the U.S. That was: what's going on with all of this paranoia about gambling here? What's it going to take to make it stop? About the best guess Kelso came up with is that if the Republicans don't get ass-fucked too badly in the mid-term elections, it may just go away.

Now, on to Iraq. The general -- but unspoken consensus -- is that the war has been a boon financially but it's kind of impolite to express that sentiment in public without wrapping it up in the most ironic of packages. A friend of Kelso's outside of both the gambling and financial worlds asked Kelso why he (Kelso) was and is against the war in Iraq when Kelso seems to present as anything but a liberal pacifist. K ran through the usual reasons: lots of death and maiming for not really a great reason, because the whole "bringing Democracy to Iraq" thing never passed the smell test, anyway, Kelso would not send his own son to fight, so it's hard to stomach the "back-door draft" aspect of the war, the true-believers all seem to be Jewish wimps and Kelso doesn't want that to be the (cowardly) public face of the American cohort of his tribe, etc., etc., etc. The person -- probably the only pure hawk around this particular gathering -- said "Kelso, you probably didn't like the idea of a war for control of Iraq's oil, either, right?" Thought about that one for awhile and replied "No, that's not really it. Had it been presented that way, it would have made some sense as opposed to the whole Democracy and 9/11 shit. You may not like it, but you can't really fault a superpower from taking all it can. That seems natural and perhaps even 'right' in a certain way."

So, the person said "Aha, I've got you. You're not really against the war, you're against having been treated like a sucker. And you really resent that the most." Kelso has to concede it was a pretty good analysis. The death and maiming is horrible, but as one who doesn't have to experience it first hand, Kelso DOES hate the lies worse. And worse still are all the Christians who love Israel but hate Jews. And worse than that are the Jews who play along. In Iraq at least it seems that the Defense Department always fight Iraq2 not to win but to run up a score, settle back and play a very casual "prevent defense" so as to keep it going. But if it's going to be the U.S.A. marching through the entire Middle-East with Israel as some kind of junior partner when the real decisons have to be made, there's really not much Kelso can do about it. So, have at it, folks, just leave Kelso out of it, don't claim Kelso's heritage for your own ends, and if it all goes tits-up, no fucking crying -- whatever shakes out, shakes out -- just live with the results. None of that will ever happen, of course, because (a) Saudi Arabia won't let it happen and (b) All Neo-Cons ever do is cry and preach, preach and cry. 1000 Ariel Sharons for PNAC and The American Enterprise Institute? In a heartbeat! Shit, 100,000 Meir Kahanes are better, at least in the balls department.

And Kelso's sticking with his claim that Condoleeza Rice would be an underdog at checkers to your average seven-year old. One would think that's kind of embarrassing, but good old Wet Willie set that particular bar extra low with the promotion of Madeline Albright, so Bush can really only claim half the credit. One reckons that henceforth position of U.S. Secretary Of State will be where two PC-birds are killed with one-stone: the most severely retarded of some non-White-Male-group.

And this is all with the full self-awareness that the blog sucks cock. The writing is unspeakably bad when it's not crashingly boring. The opinions are worse. And the market in any comment whatsoever is 0.00-0.25. The chances of ever getting linked to another blog by Thanksgiving are probably 500/1, conservatively. But, sometimes it just feels good. Tonight it did. Tomorrow maybe not so much.

Ahh, Little Jon Benet. Probably they got the right guy, but the parents had to have been accomplices before and after the fact. One child-pageant expert said that what had made Jon Benet so effective at them, was how sexualized she was at age five. Back in 1996, Kelso's first thought was "that's pretty twisted" and his second thought was "are there any places that take bets on these child-pageants?"

Kelso's Nuts Love You