Ahistorical Twaddle

clipped from www2.macleans.ca “Steyn would have us believe that words, however hateful, should be given free rein. History has shown us that hateful words sometimes lead to hurtful actions that undermine freedom and have led to unspeakable crimes. That is why Canada and most other democracies have enacted legislation to place reasonable limits on the expression of hatred.” an opposition MP mused on whether it wouldn’t have been better to prohibit the publication of Mein Kampf. “That analysis sounds as if it ought to be right,” I replied. “But the problem with it is that the Weimar Republic—Germany for the 12 years before the Nazi party came to power—had its own version of Section 13 and equivalent laws. It was very much a kind of proto-Canada in its hate speech laws. The Nazi party had 200 prosecutions brought against it for anti-Semitic speech. At one point the state of Bavaria issued an order banning Hitler from giving public speeches.” And a fat lot of good it all did.

Climaquiddick: It Won't Go Away

clipped from www.smalldeadanimals.com

The 12 Days Of Global Warming

clipped from www.moonbattery.com Since the Christmas music season is now officially underway, it's a perfect time to post this audio-visual gem.

LOL! M4GW nails it.

Zero Hour

clipped from wallstcheatsheet.com It goes like this…. “As soon as the Fed raises rates, it will pop the Gold bubble and the US$ will bottom” This is totally ridiculous. First, it is real interest rates that matter. Rates need to be 2-3% above the level of inflation. So right now, even if you say inflation is 0% or 1%, rates would need to go up to 2-3%. Secondly, rising rates usually follow the price of gold. It was true in the 1970s and is probably true when you look at the price of Gold in other countries. Rates rise because people don’t trust paper. Rates have to rise high enough for people to abandon hard assets and trust paper again. Based on this factual analysis, the Fed will have to hike rates aggressively. They have never raised rates when unemployment has been rising. Even by their own admission, they won’t raise rates anytime in 2010. And why would they begin to hike aggressively when the economy is approaching zero hour and maintains no real growth of any sort?

Mass Brain-Washing

clipped from www.gold-eagle.com Gold -- There's still loads of scepticism about the rising price of gold and the bull market in gold. It's been so long since the US public (since 1971) realized the gold was real, Constitutional money, that they don't know what to make of the gold action. They think gold near $1200 an ounce is expensive and they'd rather have dollar bills. I've coined the phrase, "dollar-bugs" for these ignorant Americans. I guess they'll have to get educated the hard way, which means holding on to their fading Federal Reserve Notes, no matter what. As far as I'm concerned, it's an amazing example of mass brain washing. "Hey, I'd rather have junk paper turned out by the Fed than the real thing -- gold." Pathetic. And the happy thought is that you can (legally) still swap your junk fiat paper for gold. the chart below shows the Dow in term of gold going back to the year 1999, Take your choice, you can call it the "stealth bear market" in the Dow," or the "stealth bull market" in gold.

Heretics

clipped from pajamasmedia.com A Harvard Crimson article from 2003 described what fate befell two Harvard scientists who dared to challenge Global Warming. The two scientists were subsequently excoriated in the strongest terms by Michael Mann and John Holdren, now Barack Obama’s science czar. The Crimson describes the reception they got. What was so blasphemous about their paper? A synopsis of Soon and Baliuna’s study describes what they did. Cambridge, MA – A review of more than 200 climate studies led by researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has determined that the 20th century is neither the warmest century nor the century with the most extreme weather of the past 1000 years. The review also confirmed that the Medieval Warm Period of 800 to 1300 A.D. and the Little Ice Age of 1300 to 1900 A.D. were worldwide phenomena not limited to the European and North American continents. Here’s another image from the past; the late Michael Crichton on environmentalism as religion.

Something Big

clipped from blogs.telegraph.co.uk Stephen Jen from the hedge fund Blue Gold Capital has a warning for those who think that gold has risen far too high, is necessarily in a speculative bubble, and must soon come clattering back down. After crunching the numbers, Mr Jen found that the share of gold in their reserves is just 2.2pc compared to 38pc for the Old World (perhaps we should just call them the deadbeats from now on). They would have to buy $115bn of gold at current prices to raise their bullion to just 5pc of total reserves, and $700bn to reach just half western levels. The killer-term here is at current prices since any such move in the tiny global market for gold would send prices into the stratosphere. Mr Jen said China alone accumulated $150bn in reserves in the third quarter, pushing the total to $2.3 trillion. These are colossal sums. China is amassing almost as much each month as the United States ($63bn) has built up in the entire history of the country. Something big is going on.

3 Phonies

clipped from www.redstate.com Michaele Salahi and husband (and partner-in-crime) Tareq join United States Vice President Joe Biden (D) in a photo-op.

Pointless

clipped from newledger.com This terrible conflation of form over substance elides the fact that Baron von Metternich developed the balance of power system he did to avoid a repeat of the devastation of Napoleon, and that ultimately, that very system of diplomatic communiqués, bows, negotiations, dinners, and playacting not only failed to avert the First World War, it positively accelerated and worsened the Second. In other words, the modern system is a shell of a remnant of a means of preventing a disaster that has long-since passed, and that failed miserably both times it was really well-tested. It is, in short, a system intended to devolve larger conflicts into smaller, more manageable ones, and is instead a method for preventing small conflicts by accumulating them into larger ones. Applauding what President Obama has delivered – is like wanting a faster car always stuck in the driveway: There’s no point if it’s not going anywhere.

The Mysterious Power

clipped from www.qando.net The reason your Thanksgiving turkey was waiting for you without an advance order? Because of “spontaneous order,” “self-interest,” and the “invisible hand” of the free market – “the mysterious power that leads innumerable people, each working for his own gain, to promote ends that benefit many.” And even if your turkey appeared in your local grocery stores only because of the “selfishness” or “corporate greed” of thousands of turkey farmers, truckers, and supermarket owners who are complete strangers to you and your family, it’s still part of the miracle of the marketplace where “individually selfish decisions lead to collectively efficient outcomes.” Thanksgiving is epitomized by the process Perry describes. Our holiday is indeed as much a miracle of the market as anything. It enables everyone who wants too to have what they need or desire for that day – and every day. It is truly something to celebrate. Free markets. Free people. Happy Thanksgiving.

Harmful

clipped from www.breitbart.tv

Of course he's wrong about the public option also but this one is still pretty amazing...

Vindication II: Trenberth Soon To Be Latest Bus Victim

clipped from pajamasmedia.com In an October 14 email to fellow alarmist Tom Wigley, Trenberth plaintively writes: How come you do not agree with a statement that says we are no where close to knowing where energy is going or whether clouds are changing to make the planet brighter. We are not close to balancing the energy budget. The fact that we can not account for what is happening in the climate system makes any consideration of geoengineering quite hopeless as we will never be able to tell if it is successful or not! It is a travesty! It’s a Perry Mason moment. First, by admitting that we “are nowhere close” to understanding atmospheric energy flows, the much-vaunted Trenberth has trashed all the climate models on which the gloom-and-doom IPCC forecasts are based. If energy flows in the climate system cannot be accounted for, then they cannot be modeled — and there can be no basis upon which to make predictions of future temperatures. That’s case closed, right there. But there’s more.

I wonder if he'll be bleeding badly enough to consider a walk on the vindicated side?

Vindication

clipped from pajamasmedia.com What’s the real smoking gun among the emails allegedly “hacked” from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit? We’ll get to that in a moment, but let’s first address the alarmists’ first line of defense — that the emails were stolen, and more than likely by some dastardly skeptic. Since news of embarrassing, if not incriminating emails broke last Friday, it has become clear that the CRU computer system was not “hacked” and the emails were not stolen. In fact, the file containing the emails had been assembled by CRU staff in preparation for compliance with a Freedom of Information request. The file was then stored in a publicly accessible portion of the CRU computer network — making it just a matter of time before someone discovered it. Why the file was so stored may never be known, but that’s not really what’s important. Nothing illegal or unethical was done to affect the file’s release. Moving on.

COTD: Unhinged And Uncalibrated

clipped from pajamasmedia.com All of our Instruments must be removed and re-Certified once per year and signed off by a Certified Professional Testing Laboratory. They must be installed by Certified Instrument Technicians, who know the possible geological variables caused by improper placement of the Instruments on location. The Data Acquiaition Computer must be Certified by a professional once per year. And on it goes. These Certificates must be maintained and corelated to the Data time periods. All Data that is acquired outside of the above requirements is discarded. I have taken teams of Scientific groups Offshore to install Instrumentation for Universities on several occasions, utilizing our Offshore property. I couldnt help but notice that, in reality, they use Non-Certified student/assistants as labor with no competent Professional supervision. Who performs due diligence on their equipment?

The Age Of The Porkulus

clipped from www.moonbattery.com Not a few folks out there are giving thanks to the Democrats and their "spend first, ask questions never" mentality. In this season of deep reflection, a golden oldie moonbat favorite deserves re-posting:

ROFLMAO!

Blooming Nuts (Just In Time For The Holidays)

clipped from pajamasmedia.com MAYOR BLOOMBERG ENSURES THAT HOMELESS PEOPLE DON’T GET FAT: When a small church comes to the Bowery Mission bearing fried chicken with trans fat, unwittingly breaking the law, they’re told “thank you.” Then workers quietly chuck the food, mission director Tom Bastile said. “It’s always hard for us to do,” Basile said. “We know we have to do it.” . . . Lines at soup kitchens are up by 21 percent this year, according to a NYC Coalition Against Hunger report released yesterday. The city’s law banishing trans fat took effect in July 2008 and touched everyone with Health Department food licenses — including emergency food providers. Good grief.

Snake Czar

clipped from canadafreepress.com Lift up a rock and another snake comes slithering out from the ongoing University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit (CRU) scandal, now riding as   “Climategate”. Obama Science Czar John Holdren is directly involved in CRU’s unfolding Climategate scandal.  In fact, according to files released by a CEU hacker or whistleblower, Holdren is involved in what Canada Free Press (CFP) columnist Canadian climatologist Dr. Tim Ball terms “a truculent and nasty manner that provides a brief demonstration of his lack of understanding, commitment on faith and willingness to ridicule and bully people”. “The files contain so much material that it is going to take some time t o put it all in context,” says Ball.  “However, enough is already known to underscore their explosive nature.  It is already clear the entire claims and positions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are based on falsified manipulated material and is therefore completely compromised.

Killing Machine

clipped from www.stephankinsella.com We libertarians recognize the state is nothing but a killing machine, an agent of destruction and death. You liberals are very inconsistent about this. As the great Ludwig von Mises said, “No socialist author ever gave a thought to the possibility that the abstract entity which he wants to vest with unlimited power—whether it is called humanity, society, nation, state, or government—could act in a way of which he himself disapproves.”

The Thanksgiving Present?

clipped from www.americanthinker.com The Obama administration, following Netanyahu's unilateral announcement of a temporary settlement freeze, has agreed on a quid-pro-quo that builds on a similar precedent set by Ariel Sharon and George W. Bush in 2004.  In exchange for Bibi's unprecedent move, the administration for the first time acknowledged specifically that Israel will be entiteled to retain lands captured in 1967 as part of any final peace agreement. This may not be word for word a word-for-word replica of the 2004 Bush letter to Sharon, but it's diplomatic plagiarism nonetheless.  Where Bush pointed to "new realities on the ground," Hillary points to "subsequent developments" since the 1967 war.  But the specificity of Hillary's new statement about Israel's security requirements and final borders will not bend easily to any White House attempts to dilute the clear message from its secretary of state binding the U.S. to Israel's retention of built-up population centers beyond the Green Line.

Climaquiddick: Tim Ball Fills In Some Background

clipped from fortcollinsteaparty.com And here’s retired climatologist Tim Ball — a man I’ve corresponded with and have long admired — discussing the significance of the recently leaked emails and documents from the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University. Watch this: A hacker — or possibly a disillusioned insider — has gathered thousands of e — mails and data from the CRU and made them available on the Web. Officials at the CRU have verified the breach of their system and acknowledged that the e-mails appear to be genuine…. Yes, this is a theft of data-but the purpose of the theft was to blow the whistle on a much bigger, more brazen crime. The CRU has already called in the police to investigate the hacker. But now someone needs to call in the cops to investigate the CRU. These e-mails show, among many other things, private admissions of doubt or scientific weakness in the global warming theory.

Debt Trap

clipped from www.telegraph.co.uk The key thing to watch out for is the rising burden of interest payments as a percentage of government revenues. Most major economies are still well below the danger point of 10pc, where without radical action debt begins to compound, but such is the accumulation of borrowing that some will be perilously close or even through it in four years' time. On present projections, some smaller countries will also breach the 12.5pc level which credit rating agencies judge to be the point of no return. What makes the position doubly worrying is that it only requires interest rates to rise a bit to put Britain and others in just such a debt trap. The flip side of economic recovery would be government bankruptcy. Yields are still tame. But, as the IMF has remarked, markets tend to react late and abruptly to changed fiscal circumstances.

COTD #N: Until Another Comes

clipped from www.warwickhughes.com Since government funding seems to turn scientists into whores, I suggest that it either be eliminated OR provided to opposing viewpoints as well. Truth will eventually prevail even against all odds but should it be severely handicapped? In the legal system, we have open ADVOCATES of both guilt and innocence, no pretense of objectivity is made. “The first to plead his case seems right, until another comes and examines him.” Proverbs 18:17 My thanks to Anthony, the moderators and all patient “examiners.”

COTD: Slave Hacks

clipped from www.warwickhughes.com The fact that these yo-yo’s have been “averaging” temperatures from divergent locations TELLS YOU THEY ARE NOT SCIENTISTS! Only political hacks. Aside from the other “weak kneed” aspect that finally dawned on me. The “big guns” don’t do their own programming. They have a “graduate student slave” do that. (Thus the “comments” on the impossibility of doing various data manipulations IN THE CODEs.) The “big guns are 45 to 65 years old. With probably a mean age (valid) of 54 or 55. A LOT of folks my age have NOT kept up with the rapid changes in computing technology. It’s a GREAT temptation to LET SOMEONE ELSE (i.e., younger, eager, needed a stipend, etc.) to do that work. Making the “big guns” all the more fraudulent. Sad, very sad..

Glitter

clipped from www.forbes.com Don't be frightened by talk of a gold bubble. There won't be a bubble unless the cost of money rises sharply, the dollar strengthens and the budget deficits are reduced--scenarios that seem remote. According to Frank Holmes, CEO of U.S. Global Investors, gold trades 80% of the time in an inverse relationship to the dollar. "I hate predicting gold prices attached to specific dates, but my gut tells me this current part of the gold bull market, which should last a few more years, is far from over," says my gold guru, Frank Giustra, a Canadian mining entrepreneur from Vancouver. "There is a growing realization that the U.S. dollar and other currencies are not going to offer the safe harbor feature that gold and other hard assets will." All that glitters may not be gold, but the metal sure is shining brightly. Put a little sparkle in your portfolio.

Expiration Watch: cOld shower edition

clipped from www.riehlworldview.com I often wondered if Craig and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, the other former Clinton official who helped undermine Hillary’s foreign policy record, would have done so if they had known that after turning on Hillary they would once more end up working beside her; if they had known that Obama can often be more interested in wooing opponents than tending to those who put themselves on the line for him. There were complaints that Craig was out of the loop, but couldn’t Obama have walked the single West Wing staircase up to his counsel’s office and looped him in? Craig was, after all, simply defending positions that Obama himself took during the campaign, from closing Gitmo to greater transparency. Bill Clinton may not have cared any more about contributors than Obama does, but he was such a talented politician that he made them feel as though they were in “a warm bath,” as one put it. Obama is more like a cold shower.

Happy Thanksgiving

clipped from onecosmos.blogspot.com Charles Johnson is right! This president doesn't even pretend to respect the wall of separation established for us by the modern Supreme Court: I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth. By the President: Abraham Lincoln

The First Socialist Republic

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com Professor Paul Rahe is one of the academy's foremost authorities on the history of republics. Although his recent work on soft despotism is not far from his Thanksgiving reflections this year, so also is his older work on republics: On Thanksgiving, it is customary that Americans recall to mind the experience of the Pilgrim Fathers This year, it is especially appropriate that we do so--as we pause, in the midst of an economic maelstrom, to count our remaining blessings and to reflect on the consequences of our election of a President and a Congress intent on "spread[ing] the wealth around." We have much to learn from the history of the Plymouth Plantation. For, in their first year in the New World, the Pilgrims conducted an experiment in social engineering akin to what is now contemplated; and, after an abortive attempt at cultivating the land in common, their leaders reflected on the results in a manner that Americans today should find instructive.

Forever

clipped from www.washingtonpost.com "Our patience is not going to last forever," German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, whose government drafted the resolution, told reporters on the eve of the IAEA session. But while diplomats and arms-control experts welcomed China's support of the IAEA resolution, some acknowledged that it is not clear whether Russia or China would go further and agree to new sanctions against Iran. Attempts to reach officials at the Chinese Embassy for comment were unsuccessful. "They're expressing displeasure with Iran, but whether that translates into a U.N. Security Council resolution is another matter," said David Albright, a former U.N. nuclear inspector and president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security.

Wouldn't It Be Great? II (Prison Edition)

clipped from www.realclearpolitics.com From the start, Obama has promised to pay for half the "reform" cost by cutting Medicare by half a trillion over 10 years. But, Tanner asks, "how likely is it that those cuts will take place? After all, this is an administration that will pay seniors $250 to make up for the fact that they didn't get a Social Security cost-of-living increase this year (because the cost of living didn't increase). And Congress is in the process of repealing a scheduled increase in Medicare premiums." Older people vote in great numbers. AARP is the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. Like the cut in doctor's pay, the other cuts will never happen. I will chew on razor blades when Congress cuts Medicare to keep the deficit from growing. Medicare is already $37 trillion in the hole. Yet the Democrats proudly cite Medicare when they demand support for the health care overhaul. If a business pulled the accounting tricks the politicians get away with, the owners would be in prison.

Wouldn't It Be Great?

clipped from www.realclearpolitics.com When you knowingly pay someone to lie to you, we call the deceiver an illusionist or a magician. When you unwittingly pay someone to do the same thing, I call him a politician. President Obama insists that health care "reform" not "add a dime" to the budget deficit, which daily grows to ever more frightening levels. So the House-passed bill and the one the Senate now deliberates both claim to cost less than $900 billion. Somehow "$900 billion over 10 years" has been decreed to be a magical figure that will not increase the deficit. The politicians have a hat full of tricks to make their schemes look cheaper than they are. The new revenues will pour in during Year One, but health care spending won't begin until Year Three or Four. To this the Cato Institute's Michael Tanner asks, "Wouldn't it be great if you could count a whole month's income, but only two weeks' expenditures in your household budget?"

Whoops, Dubai Edition

clipped from www.breitbart.com "We have two major factors weighing on equities and other risk markets: Dubai's call for a moratorium on its debt repayment to May and more stringent capital adequacy requirements for Chinese banks -- but Dubai is bigger," David Morrison, an analyst at financial betting firm GFT, told AFP. The government of Dubai shocked financial markets on Wednesday when it said it would ask creditors of its Dubai World conglomerate for a debt moratorium of at least six months. In addition, the partial default by Dubai "fed a climate of insecurity and crisis of confidence at a time when fears are mounting about excessive public debt." As equities sank heavily, investors sought safety in the bond market and gold, which struck yet another record high point. Meanwhile, ratings agency Standard & Poor's said the development could be considered a default and downgraded a raft of Dubai government entities including Dubai World.

Subtle Signals

clipped from justoneminute.typepad.com Inside the Pakistani Army and the intelligence service, which is known as the ISI, it is an article of faith among some officers that the United States is deceiving them, and that it will replay 1989. If that happens, some Pakistanis argue, India will fill the void in southern Afghanistan, leaving Pakistan surrounded by its longtime enemy. So any talk of exit strategies is bound to reaffirm the belief of some Pakistani officials that they have to maintain their contacts with the Taliban — their hedge against Indian encroachment. So the bright lights at the White House have Obama preview his Afghan strategy in a joint press conference with the Indian Prime Minister, prior to hosting the PM as the guest of honor at Obama's first state dinner.  Geez, those are pretty subtle signals; I wonder how they might affect Paki paranoia?

Melt Up-date

clipped from www.businessweek.com The U.S. economy is coping with alarmingly high double-digit unemployment, a widening commercial real estate bust, and over-indebted consumers. Few think the economic recovery now under way will be a spectacular one in 2010. So why has the stock market surprised skeptics by powering higher in recent weeks? One explanation being bandied about by equity strategists and portfolio managers is that the stock market may be in the midst of a momentum-driven trading phenomenon known as a "melt up" that has precious little to do with economic fundamentals. A handful of big institutional investors and hedge funds, rather than retail investors, have been responsible for the lion's share of buying this year. In fact, overall there is far greater investor enthusiasm for asset classes other than U.S. equities. Emerging markets, which have outperformed their American counterpart, are being deluged with fresh money.

North Dakota Is The Place To Be

clipped from www.breitbart.tv

Goals

clipped from pajamasmedia.com JOHN HINDERAKER WONDERS why SEIU thugs enjoy more freedom of action than Navy SEALS. Because the SEIU thugs are advancing the goals of people in power?

And The People Behind It

clipped from www.dailymail.co.uk Former Chancellor Lord Lawson has called for an inquiry into the scandal, warning the credibility of UK science is at stake. It comes amid pressure on the professor at the centre of the scandal to quit from his position at the CRU. In one damning email, he appears to call the death of a climate change sceptic 'cheering news!'. In other messages, researchers appear to be manipulating data and discussing how to dodge Freedom Of Information requests. Another shows a climatologist from the U.S. admitting it was a travesty that the lack of global warming in recent years could not be explained. When posted on the internet, the emails were accompanied by the anonymous statement: 'We feel that climate science is, in the current situation, too important to be kept under wraps. 'We hereby release a random selection of correspondence, code and documents. 'Hopefully it will give some insight into the science and the people behind it.'

Harry Comments

clipped from wattsupwiththat.com OH FUCK THIS. It's Sunday evening, I've worked all weekend, and just when I thought it was done I'm hitting yet another problem that's based on the hopeless state of our databases. There is no uniform data integrity, it's just a catalogue of issues that continues to grow as they're found.