Baby Ducks

clipped from geoff82.wordpress.com I tried to make this point yesterday at Innocent Bystanders, but I don’t think it came through very well. And I don’t think it’s been pointed out anywhere in the media, so it’s really worth making the point well. So, sans plus ado, here’s the point: For the past 5 1/2 months, the initial unemployment claims data have not really changed. Here’s what I mean: The data are oscillating about a slowly increasing value, indicating that, if anything, unemployment claims are increasing. That means that for the past 5 1/2 months, every time the administration has told us that the unemployment situation is slowly recovering, and that the data show “the right trend,” they have been absolutely mistaken. The media has been doing their typical baby duck analysis: every day is a brand new day, every unemployment claims report is the first one they’ve ever seen. So we get headlines like, “job situation improving” when the number of claims drops, and “unexpected increase” when the number rises.

Sound Vaguely Familiar?

clipped from en.wikipedia.org A collusion between the overweening state and certain favored monopolistic concerns, whereby the profits can be privatized and the debts socialized. Devalued paper currency in the international community. Kleptocracy -- those in positions of influence use their time in office to maximize their own gains, always ensuring that any shortfall is made up by those unfortunates whose daily life involves earning money rather than making it. There must be no principle of accountability within the government so that the political corruption by which the banana republic operates is left unchecked. The members of the national legislature will be (a) largely for sale and (b) consulted only for ceremonial and rubber-stamp purposes some time after all the truly important decisions have already been made elsewhere. ...a money class fleeces the banking system while the very trunk of the national tree is permitted to rot and crash... —Christopher Hitchens[8]

Collapse

clipped from www.shadowstats.com A Great Collapse. The U.S. economic and systemic solvency crises of the last two years are just precursors to a Great Collapse: a hyperinflationary great depression. Such will reflect a complete collapse in the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar, a collapse in the normal stream of U.S. commercial and economic activity, a collapse in the U.S. financial system as we know it, and a likely realignment of the U.S. political environment. The current U.S. financial markets, financial system and economy remain highly unstable and vulnerable to unexpected shocks. The Federal Reserve is dedicated to preventing deflation, to debasing the U.S. dollar. The results of those efforts are being seen in tentative selling pressures against the U.S. currency and in the rallying price of gold.

Yuri Redux: Unplug Your Bananas

clipped from www.moonbattery.com As explained in this interview (25 years old, in fact) with Yuri Bezmenov, a former KGB official, we are already well along the way toward socialist-marxist rule. He describes the four stages of a communist takeover and at least the first two sound chillingly similar to what our nation has been going through over the last 50 years or more: Demoralization, Crisis, Normalization, and Destabilization.

Welcome To Obama "Care"

clipped from www.moonbattery.com ObamaCare will expand considerably the demand for health care, that's a given. Already, consumers are confused, wondering where they can go sign up for their free doctor appointments. This increase in demand follows imposition of socialized medicine like night follows day and will have the effect of reducing the supply of doctors, as anyone with an elementary understanding of economics would understand.

Neil Armstrong, Patriot

clipped from www.politico.com Former astronaut Neil Armstrong has issued a strongly worded rebuke of President Barack Obama, criticizing the president for proposed revisions to the U.S.' space program. "The United States entered into the challenge of space exploration under President Eisenhower’s first term, however, it was the Soviet Union who excelled in those early years," the letter begins."Under the bold vision of Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, and with the overwhelming approval of the American people, we rapidly closed the gap in the final third of the 20th century, and became the world leader in space exploration. ... "Although some of these proposals have merit, the accompanying decision to cancel the Constellation program, its Ares 1 and Ares V rockets, and the Orion spacecraft, is devastating. It appears that we will have wasted our current ten plus billion dollar investment in Constellation Neil Armstrong Commander, Apollo 11 James Lovell Commander, Apollo 13 Eugene Cernan Commander, Apollo 17

Run For The Hills!

clipped from wattsupwiththat.com Figure 3. US decadal average temperatures by month, 1900-2009. Red line is the average for the decade 2000-2009. Photo is Half Dome, Yosemite. Most months of the year there is so little change in the decadal averages that the lines cannot be distinguished. The warming, what there is, occurred mostly in the months of November, December, January, and February. Slightly warmer temperatures in the winter … somehow, that doesn’t strike me as anything worth breathing hard about. My point in all of this is that the temperature changes that we are discussing (a global rise of a bit more than half a degree C in the last century) are trivially small. A half degree change cannot be sensed by the human body. In addition, the changes are generally occurring in the winter, outside of the tropics in the cooler parts of the planet, and at night. Perhaps you see this small warming, as has often been claimed, as a huge problem that “vastly eclipses that of terrorism” (the Guardian).

Eject Them!

clipped from hotair.com The new exchanges do not have to be in operation until 2014. But because of a possible “drafting error,” the report says, Congress did not specify an effective date for the section excluding lawmakers from the existing program. Under well-established canons of statutory interpretation, the report said, “a law takes effect on the date of its enactment” unless Congress clearly specifies otherwise. And Congress did not specify any other effective date for this part of the health care law. The law was enacted when President Obama signed it three weeks ago. In other words, theoretically the law kicks them out of the federal health plan now in order to force them to join insurance exchanges … that don’t exist yet. Looking forward to tomorrow, when we’re inevitably told that they meant to do that. Exit question for lawyers: Who would have standing to sue to force the federal health plan to drop Congress now? Any citizen, or is it more refined than that?

Name Them

clipped from pajamasmedia.com Elena Kagan would also bring notable educational diversity to the Court. Kagan would be the very first Justice ever to have attended Princeton and then Harvard Law. Obviously, that would be a major break after two consecutive nominees who had attended Princeton and then Yale Law (Justices Alito and Sotomayor). Whoever Obama picks, I think it’s clear that Obama faces a major choice and that his selection will be a historic occasion. Heh. UPDATE: Reader John Steakley emails with a question for enterprising reporters: “Mr. President, do you believe that ANY of America’s public university law schools are competent to educate the next Supreme Court Justice? And if so, please name them.”

Coincidences (Part 69,593)

clipped from pajamasmedia.com The Polish President and numerous top officials died aboard a TU-154 while trying to land at Smolensk airbase.He was on his way to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Katyn Massacre which took place in the woods near that city. Lech Kaczyński “was an activist in the pro-democratic anti-Communist movement in Poland … During the martial law introduced by the communists in December, 1981, he was interned as an anti-socialist element. After his release from internment, he returned to trade union activities, becoming a member of the underground Solidarity.” A BBC blog soliciting reader reactions said “Mr Kaczynski has been a controversial figure in Polish politics, advocating a right-wing Catholic agenda.” The New York Times described him as “a source of tension within the EU”. It described him as a firm believer in close military ties with the US, an arrangement which Kaczyński believed would keep his powerful neighbor at bay.

And Vlad will lead the investigation! Just Wow!

Please Let It Be So

clipped from www.telegraph.co.uk A vaccine being tested in the UK has helped been shown to help some patients fully recover from melanoma, even in its advanced stages. It attacks tumour cells, leaving healthy cells undamaged and carries agents that boost the body's response to skin cancer. Dr Howard Kaufman, of Chicago's Rush University Medical Centre, said: "Our study shows we may have a cure for some advanced melanoma patients and a drug which has real benefits for others. "This will save thousands of lives a year." Over the past 25 years, rates of melanoma in Britain have risen faster than any other common cancer and 2,000 die from the disease every year. A study of 50 patients with advanced melanoma who had been given no more than nine months to live found that 16 per cent of them recovered completely with the vaccine. They have been disease-free for more than four years. Another 28 per cent saw the size of their tumours more than halved.

Getting It (Good And Hard Edition)

clipped from pajamasmedia.com Put him in the classroom instead.  Because he’s the stereotypical American undergrad at a stereotypical Ivy League college in the age of political correctness. He doesn’t much like America or Americans, or the “former colonial powers” like Britain.  Like so many would-be intellectuals, he admires lefty writers and screenwriters and actors and actresses.  He likes the downtrodden, like the Palestinians, but he’s overcome with awe for the occasional cool (non-Western) monarch or emperor (whether Arab or Chinese).  He probably has a Che tee shirt tucked away in a drawer, don’t you think? He doesn’t know much history (he thinks Muslims invented printing), geography (his America has 57 states), or economics (he believes you can reduce health care costs by adding millions to the public rolls). That’s the sort we’ve been graduating for a generation or more, isn’t it?  Did you really think we’d never get one as president?

Here It Comes...

clipped from www.moonbattery.com

Kabuki Serfdom Theatre

clipped from www.moonbattery.com

Of course this is all kabuki theater. Meanwhile the campaign contributions for O Duce continue to pour in from the Wall Street scolded who frankly aren't even bright enough to have read Hayek's "Road To Serfdom" where the previous dress rehearsal for this farce was vivisected. (What, they didn't tell you that Wall Street contributed 4-1 in favor of Obama? Now why would that not be mentioned? Down the memory hole it goes.)

Even sadder, only the "one bomb state" Jews in Israel seem to now get it. Not in time I fear. Useless as I am, I continue to stand in solidarity with them.

And yes, W was probably at least a contender to the kabuki throne. So let's turn the amp up to 11 and march forward, shall we?

Oh, and BTW. Of course the big banks as well as many small ones should have been allowed to go "bankrupt". Somehow folks seem to have been so extensively "retrained" that they are unable to even recognize root words!

The fact that neither W nor Obama allowed it tells you exactly where their bread is buttered.

UPDATE: Did you know that there was a Reader's Digest version done of the Road To Serfdom back in the 40s? And that it sold over 5 MILLION copies back then? My how the world forgets. The IEA download I just linked even has a cartoon version of the Road To Serfdom.

O Soiled Pants

clipped from gatewaypundit.firstthings.com Foreign Policy interviewed Former Czech President, political prisoner and playwright Vaclav Havel on Barack Obama and the costs of moral compromise. I had a press conference with this minister of foreign affairs. And he said, “It was wonderful, meeting, because we were speaking openly. Mr. Havel gave me his opinion, and I explained the opinion of our government. I gave him this book, and he thanked me for it.” This was unbelievable! Why did they feel the need to explain their point of view to the leader of such a small nation? Because they respect it when someone is standing his ground, when someone is not afraid of them. When someone soils his pants prematurely, then they do not respect you more for it.

Impressions

clipped from minx.cc As Ajami points out, the real pros in the region, the ones whose lives literally depend on reading the tea leaves and navigating the competing power centers, aren't impressed with Obama's straddle. They see the writing on the wall and are acting accordingly...they can't count on the US so they will make deals with our enemies, nations that are in it for the long run. This is typical of Obama's 'above it all', passive-aggressive crap. By not fully committing to the effort, he forces others to walk away from us. He will then use that 'abandonment' or 'lack of progress' as his excuse to pull out. He'll pretend it was forced on him, nothing he could have done about it. The fact is by his actions and inaction, he will have set the stage and manipulated the outcome.

Band Aid

clipped from hotair.com Do massive donations of cash as aid to poor nations allow them to focus on structural improvements and increased spending on health?  “When an aid official thinks he is helping a low-income African patient avoid charges at a health clinic, in reality, he is paying for a shopping trip to Paris for a government minister and his wife,” said Philip Stevens, of the London-based think tank International Policy Network. He was not linked to the study. What can we learn from this study that we really should have already known? Money is fungible – Giving block grants to a state for one purpose doesn’t mean that the purpose gets more money.  It allows the state to divert its already-committed resources to other purposes.  We’ve learned that here in the US with Porkulus block grants to states.  Without accountability, that money can go anywhere and either directly or indirectly feed the corruption at the heart of Africa’s problems. Corruption is the root cause of nationwide poverty

4

clipped from www.nytimes.com The original theoretical work done by Mr. Chua was laid out in a 1971 paper titled “Memristor — The Missing Circuit Element.” The paper argued that basic electronic theory required that in addition to the three basic circuit elements — resistors, capacitors, and inductors — a fourth element should exist. The H.P. research team titled their paper, “The Missing Memristor Found.” The H.P. team has successfully created working circuits based on memristors that are as small as 15 nanometers (the diameter of an atom is roughly about a tenth of a nanometer.) Ultimately, it will be possible to make memristors as small as about four nanometers, Mr. Williams said. In contrast the smallest components in today’s semiconductors are 45 nanometers, and the industry currently does not see away to shrink those devices below about 20 nanometers.

Ah, But The Catholic Church Has Deep Pockets Now Doesn't It?

clipped from www.newsweek.com a Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll found that 64 percent of those queried thought Catholic priests "frequently'' abused children. Yet experts say there's simply no data to support the claim at all. No formal comparative study has ever broken down child sexual abuse by denomination, and only the Catholic Church has released detailed data about its own. But based on the surveys and studies conducted by different denominations over the past 30 years, experts who study child abuse say they see little reason to conclude that sexual abuse is mostly a Catholic issue. "We don't see the Catholic Church as a hotbed of this or a place that has a bigger problem than anyone else," said Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. "I can tell you without hesitation that we have seen cases in many religious settings, from traveling evangelists to mainstream ministers to rabbis and others."

Fun While We Lasted

clipped from www.moonbattery.com When America shows weakness, the rest of the world pounces, like sharks smelling blood in the water. Case in point: the price for flying to space with the Russians will soon double. NASA on Tuesday signed a contract to pay $55.8 million per astronaut for six Americans to fly into space on Russian Soyuz capsules in 2013 and 2014. NASA needs to get rides on Russian rockets to the International Space Station because it plans to retire the space shuttle fleet later this year. NASA now pays half as much, about $26.3 million per astronaut, when it uses Russian ships. NASA spokesman John Yembrick said the cost is going up because Russia has to build more capsules for the extra flights. NASA had already agreed to pay as much as $51 million a seat for flights in 2011 and 2012, before the latest increase. Good thing we're not using all of that saved NASA funding to do something productive, like investing in the next generation of spaceflight or even paying off our national debt.

Stopped Clock Watch

clipped from voices.washingtonpost.com CNN's decision to embed with the Tea Party Express as it traveled toward D.C. -- Fox News did the same thing last year, in the run-up to the Sept. 12 taxpayer march on Washington -- befuddled the right and left alike. Mediaite's Tommy Christopher speculated that the network was out for "nuggets of gold," video and photos of tea partyers waving racist signs. That's not how CNN's Shannon Travis describes his embed experience. [H]ere's what you don't often see in the coverage of Tea Party rallies: Patriotic signs professing a love for country; mothers and fathers with their children; African-Americans proudly participating; and senior citizens bopping to a hip-hop rapper. ... It is important to show the colorful anger Americans might have against elected leaders and Washington. But people should also see the orange-vested Tea Party hospitality handlers who welcome you with colorful smiles.

Commie Tunes

clipped from www.moonbattery.com

Lorraine Does Not Exist

clipped from wattsupwiththat.com The eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession of the Earth's orbit vary in several patterns, resulting in 100,000-year ice age cycles. Image: wikimedia (Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– In an analysis of the past 1.2 million years, UC Santa Barbara geologist Lorraine Lisiecki discovered a pattern that connects the regular changes of the Earth’s orbital cycle to changes in the Earth’s climate. The finding is reported in this week’s issue of the scientific journal Nature Geoscience. Besides finding a link between change in the shape of the orbit and the onset of glaciation, Lisiecki found a surprising correlation. She discovered that the largest glacial cycles occurred during the weakest changes in the eccentricity of Earth’s orbit –– and vice versa. She found that the stronger changes in the Earth’s orbit correlated to weaker changes in climate. “This may mean that the Earth’s climate has internal instability in addition to sensitivity to changes in the orbit,” said Lisiecki. Lorraine Lisiecki

Move along now...

Strike In Bubble Town

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com

Trust: The Facts

clipped from www.forbes.com In 1943 nearly half of those surveyed, 48%, told interviewers in a poll conducted by the National Opinion Research Center that it was almost impossible for a man to stay honest if he goes into politics. Has anything changed? Well the people's trust in politicians has deteriorated further. More than 50 years later, in a poll taken in 1997 by Fox News and Opinion Dynamics, 55% agreed that people who go into politics cannot remain honest. A 2006 ABC News/Washington Post poll found that a bare majority, 52%, said most members of Congress had about the same amount of honesty as most people, but 44% said they were more dishonest. In 2010 55% told Gallup interviewers that the honesty and ethical standards of members of Congress were low or very low, the only time a majority has given that response since the question was asked first in 1976. Only 9% described them as high.

Enron Lives

clipped from pajamasmedia.com Jefferson County is an example of what happens after the party’s over. Even government jobs proved to be no safe haven. When the bottle’s dry that feeling on the tip of your tongue isn’t the last drop of gin trickling down the neck. It’s the glass itself. Now what? Taibbi writes: As public services in and around Birmingham were stripped to the bone, Pack struggled to support her family on a weekly unemployment check of $260. Nearly a fourth of that went to pay for her health insurance, which the county no longer covered. She also fielded calls from laid-off co-workers who had it even tougher. “I’d be on the phone sometimes until two in the morning,” she says. “I had to talk more than one person out of suicide. For some of the men supporting families, it was so hard — foreclosure, bankruptcy. I’d go to bed at night, and I’d be in tears.” Well, at least the new sewer system saved the earth. The County probably won’t be hearing from environmentalists for a while. Or maybe not.

Suspicion

clipped from www.telegraph.co.uk The US Federal Reserve has completed its purchase of $1.7 trillion (£1.1bn) of mortgage securities, agency debt and US Treasuries, the conjuring trick of "credit easing" that allowed Ben Bernanke to create stimulus equal to 12pc of GDP. The Fed's money creation has been more or less the size of Washington's borrowing needs for the last year, as Beijing notes with suspicion.

I Want

clipped from ace.mu.nu

Exploding Talking Heads

clipped from yidwithlid.blogspot.com Gallup is reporting that more than half of Tea Party supporters are NOT Republican, but they tend to be much more conservative than the general population.  Also, compared with average Americans, supporters are slightly more male and less likely to be lower-income. Keep in mind, that the $50,000 bracket shown as the highest income bracket below is actually the average US Household income, so it cannot be discerned whether these people are upscale, or around average.