THIS GAMBLING CRAZINESS IN THE USA HAS DRIVEN KELSO CRAZY, TOO

This will be, by far, the weirdest posting any of you have read here. Kelso tried to find some reporting on a particularly egregious enforcement of the UIGEA yesterday in the Western United States. Thank you very much by the way, Senator Kyl. There is no possible way that his absurd "question" of Alberto Gonzales last week did not play a role in yesterday's madness. During a search for reporting on said federal enforcement, Kelso came across some reviews of (disclaimer: his friend) James Surowiecki's fine book The Wisdom Of Crowds. The essence of Surowiecki's work is that if you put a whole bunch of people together and make them bet money on some random variable, the "crowd's" pricing of that random variable will be better than any poll or pundit's opinion. Full stop. 100% of the time. This, of course, leads us to the work of the man who did more to attack capitalism than Karl Marx or Vladimir Ilych Ulianov did. We refer of course to Finance Professor Eugene Fama of "The Efficient Markets Hypothesis" fama (geddit?). Too big a topic to tackle here but to encapsulate his idea into something pithy, Warren Buffet was lucky and Peter Lynch was lucky once. We're getting there. Bear with us we're not the most professional blog in the world (T.Y. and R.I.P. Johnny Thunders).

This led to a reconsideration of George W. Bush now that his fate as the stone-cold worst President Of The United States in it's short history has been sealed up in a Christmas package. What did Bush ever do or say that wasn't foul? We can think of two things. Number one, which relates to the above was John Poindexter's brief tenure in charge of whatever the fuck that agency was called. Poindexter's idea to have live, real-money futures markets in foreign affairs so as to add more information, anonymously, to national security with no spying whatsoever was one of the truly great ideas Kelso has heard. Why Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) who's far from the worst was so quick to ridcule the idea was silly. It made and makes a tremendous amount of sense if Mr. Surowiecki and Dr. Fama are to be believed. They fucking well are. Poindexter deserved to be canned for the intrusive T.I.P.S. program which Bush went ahead and did in a manner far beyond anything Poindexter had conceived with Bush's domestic warrantless wire-tapping scheme. A split decision but Poindexter was onto something good.

Now what was the other good thing Bush said or did? It was something he said during the 2000 campaign that was pickled in brine and vinegar by the non-Fox portion of the mainstream press. When asked who was his favorite philosopher, Bush responded "Jesus." Kelso thought at the time it sounded not only canned but pretty fucking stupid, too. After listening to Johnny Cash's "Man In Black" for the 1000th time, however, Kelso thinks Bush's response made some sense. Jesus was a great philosopher. Go back and read the shit. It's not bad at all. Kelso hates all organized religion and doesn't believe for a second that there was anything other-worldly about Jesus whatsoever and surely doesn't believe Jesus looked Norwegian, and Kelso well understands that the Jesus Bush had in mind had nothing whatsoever to do with The Golden Rule but rather everything to do with the Reconquest, The Spanish Inquisition, the slaughter of the Saracens, whatever vague notions Franklin Graham told him about the sword, etc. Jesus's teachings, however, ought not to be taken lightly by anyone from the Center-Right leftward. Jesus wouldn't bomb Iraq, or root for any particular team or athlete in a sporting event, but probably would be considered a fucking Communist if anyone bothered to think it through.

OK, Kelso's ready. Get the butterfly net and the strait-jacket and let's get this over with.

Oh, and please won't somebody even write in to tell Kelso he's full of shit? Or that he's the pure shit? It's wearying baying at the moon like this.

South Africa in big trouble against Australia as we type.

Kelso's Nuts love you.