Radiation 3km WSW From Fukushima the Day After Christmas 65.10 Microsieverts Per Hour

That's still over 90 times what an American can expect on average from all sources, including natural environmental, medical and transportation-related exposures. Just from normal environmental conditions the level is nearly 600 times normal for Japan at the location measured.

(source)

Gasoline Consumption Down Every Week for Nine Months in 2011

We're having a little gas war in southeast Grand Rapids

Annual records for gasoline prices are taking their toll on the American economy, consuming as much as 0.5 percent of annual GDP.

As such, it's an example of a tax which only hurts, averaging over 5 percent of the typical household budget in the past but over 8 percent now.

The AP has the story here:

For this year, gas should average $3.53 per gallon. That's 76 cents more than last year. It's 29 cents per gallon more than 2008, when gas last set an annual record, $3.24. ... Compared with the year before, American gas consumption has been down every week for more than nine months, according to MasterCard SpendingPulse, a spending survey.

Ohio Repudiates ObamaCare Nov. 8th, Nov. 15th Obama Punishes Ohio by Stopping Gas Leases

'change we much'

As pointed out by an astute caller to Larry Kudlow's radio program today on WABC.

The Nov. 15 announcement by the USDA here means tens of thousands of jobs lost to Ohio and the loss of cheap natural gas for the country, according to this analysis by The Heritage Foundation.

On Nov. 8 Ohioans resoundingly rejected ObamaCare's mandate that Americans buy health insurance by a 2 to 1 margin, stating “In Ohio, no law or rule shall compel, directly or indirectly, any person, employer, or health care provider to participate in a health care system.”

The Collection is Eluded: Consumption Taxes Allow YOU to Control How Much Government Gets

And that's why the FAIR TAX has gone nowhere so far. Neither Democrats nor Republicans want YOU to kill the golden goose.

But now we have the very likeable Herman Cain, who advocates the consumption tax, the tax the Founders advocated. Even Alexander Hamilton, to whom we owe our strong central government, advocated for it in Federalist 21:

It is a signal advantage of taxes on articles of consumption, that they contain in their own nature a security against excess. They prescribe their own limit; which cannot be exceeded without defeating the end proposed, that is, an extension of the revenue. When applied to this object, the saying is as just as it is witty, that, "in political arithmetic, two and two do not always make four." If duties are too high, they lessen the consumption; the collection is eluded; and the product to the treasury is not so great as when they are confined within proper and moderate bounds. This forms a complete barrier against any material oppression of the citizens by taxes of this class, and is itself a natural limitation of the power of imposing them.

Two important commentators at Forbes are coalescing around the perfections associated with a consumption tax, Lawrence Hunter and John Tamny, but Hunter is clearly the constitutional originalist in this matter.

John Tamny, who has argued for a gross receipts tax on corporate business if there must be a corporate tax, however, has caught the spirit here:

As Larry Hunter, another fellow Forbes contributor has noted recently, the beauty of a consumption tax is its limiting nature. Quite unlike taxes on income that are paid no matter what, with a consumption tax individuals would be able to limit the amount of money handed to the government by virtue of spending less.

This is particularly important during times of economic hardship. While with income taxes we pay regardless, if a consumption tax were implemented Americans could put the federal government on a diet at the same time that economic uncertainty is forcing them to tighten their own belts.

At present, and as evidenced by the boomtown that Washington, D.C. currently is, the government industrial complex is gorging at the same time that most Americans are reducing expenditure. This is wrong on so many levels, and as it’s true that during downturns individuals tend to spend less (their savings once again an economic stimulant), so should Washington be forced to. 

Americans Today Pay An Average Gasoline Consumption Tax of 10.2 Percent to States

The current average state excise and tax per gallon of gasoline is 30.4 cents, according to the American Petroleum Institute, here.

The federal excise is 18.4 cents.

Today's national average price per gallon is $3.464, as shown here.

This means that today's national average base price per gallon is $2.976 per gallon.

That yields an average state excise of 10.2 percent at today's base price, and an average federal excise of 6.2 percent. 

Radiation Hotspots South of Iitate Japan in Namie Range from 11-20 Microsieverts/Hr

Measurements in Iitate, Japan, are much lower by comparison at 2.6 microsieverts per hour, but are still far above normal of 0.11 per hour.

Latest Fukushima Map Shows Four Radiation Hotspots NW of Nuke Plants

As shown on today's map from mext.go.jp/ here, air measurements continue to show values from 15 to 31 microsieverts per hour northwest of the crippled nuclear plants on the coast at four locations beyond the 20 km evacuation zone:

For comparison, note that Iitate, Japan, continues to post values quite a bit lower in the vicinity of 2.6 microsieverts per hour, but that normal values should be more like 0.11 in all areas.

James Altucher Talks Up Optimism, and Five Stocks He Doesn't Own!

Here.

Give me a break! Put your money where your mouth is, bro!

Apple, Exxon Mobil, Walmart, Amazon and Google: This year's dinosaurs are next year's tank of gas. It's happened before, and it will happen again. Maybe not right away, but Steve Jobs will die. The Arabs will try another embargo over Israel. Companies depending on relatively cheap transportation and distribution will experience tighter margins. And we can't predict the future, but a world where energy costs more is a world where electricity usage puts free operations like Google between a rock and a hard place.

On the macro side James Altucher really shows his colors: securitization without mark-to-market. You can't have the one without the other. He must be reading too much Steve Forbes.

Have fun stormin' the castle!

'Hubbert's Peak Is Still Not In Sight'

So says Daniel Yergin for The Wall Street Journal, here:

By 2010, U.S. oil production was 3.5 times higher than Hubbert had estimated: 5.5 million barrels per day versus Hubbert's 1971 estimate of no more than 1.5 million barrels per day.

Saudi Arabia Puts The Screws To The Muslim Sympathizer In Chief

Turki al-Faisal, here, in The New York Times:

Today, there is a chance for the United States and Saudi Arabia to contain Iran and prevent it from destabilizing the region. But this opportunity will be squandered if the Obama administration’s actions at the United Nations force a deepening split between our two countries. ...

American support for Palestinian statehood is therefore crucial, and a veto will have profound negative consequences.


Expect more bowing to Saudi Arabia from President Obama: "Palestinian" statehood based on the pre-1967 borders, despite Israel's right to Judea and Samaria as the spoils of the 1967 war, will not be vetoed by the US at the UN because Obama, well, you know, has a problem with Israel.

The tyrant is but the slave turned inside out.

The Pittsburgh Press, June 12, 1967

West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil Up 200 Percent Since 911

(source)

Arizona Power Company Employee at North Gila Substation Causes Massive Outage in San Diego

Oops:

"The outage was triggered after a 500-kilovolt (kV) high-voltage line from Arizona to California tripped out of service. The transmission outage cut the flow of imported power into the most southern portion of California, resulting in wide-spread outages in the region," according to Cal ISO. ...

The Arizona power company APS said the outage appears to be related to a procedure an employee was carrying out in the North Gila substation, located northeast of Yuma, Ariz. Operator error was determined to be the initiating event.

Operating and protection protocols typically would have isolated the resulting outage to the Yuma area. The reason that did not occur in this case will be the focal point of the investigation, which is underway.

More here.

Who needs terrorists when home grown incompetence will do?

Hurricane Irene Disappoints Alarmists and Catastrophists

As reported here:

From North Carolina to Pennsylvania, Hurricane Irene appeared to have fallen short of the doomsday predictions. But with rivers still rising, and roads impassable because of high water and fallen trees, it could be days before the full extent of the damage is known.

More than 4.5 million homes and businesses along the East Coast lost power, and at least nine deaths were blamed on the storm. But as day broke Sunday, light damage was reported in many places, with little more than downed trees and power lines.


At 0900 the National Hurricane center had Irene hit New York City as a tropical storm, not a hurricane, with wind speed at 65 mph:

At 1037 Stormpulse.com still had Irene as a hurricane at 75 mph:

Radiation in Iitate, Japan, Today Measures 2.53 Micro Sieverts Per Hour

As reported here.

That rate of exposure is 3.5 times higher than is typical in America from all sources on an annualized basis.

Imported Oil's Cost to Economy in 2009 Was About $190 Billion

Assuming an average price of $54 per barrel of crude in 2009, and net imports in excess of 9 million barrels per day.

US Oil Production 2009: 9.056 Million Barrels Per Day

CIA estimate here.

US Oil Consumption 2009: 18.69 Million Barrels Per Day

CIA estimate here.

Radiation of 10 Sieverts Per Hour Detected Between Reactors 1 and 2 at Fukushima

The measurements were made yesterday and reported here and here.

Just 2 sieverts in an hour can be fatal.

Sen. Tom Coburn is the Enemy of Every Traditional Family

With enemies like Coburn, who needs Democrats?

"I’ve argued that Republicans should be willing to consider increases in revenue -- not through higher tax rates but through eliminating tax earmarks, such as that for ethanol, and other expenditure that misallocates capital."

"Tax earmarks" and "other expenditure" which "misallocates capital"?

Read "tax loss expenditures." In other words, the tax deductions which every nuclear family in the country depends on for its survival: mortgage interest, donations to charity, property taxes, state income taxes and the like.

THE GUY VIEWS YOUR TAX PAYMENTS AS THE GOVERNMENT'S CAPITAL. AND EVERY PROVISION OF THE TAX CODE WHICH DIVERTS YOUR MONEY BACK TO YOU HE VIEWS AS A MISALLOCATION.

If it walks like a tax increase and talks like a tax increase, it's a tax increase.

Spending Trendlines: Obama Goes Vertical

Let's play "Find the Conservative Spending Trendline."

Is it the postwar trendline of the 1940s? Can you imagine such a small government today, spending just barely $400 billion by 2015?

Or how about The Great Society trendline of the 1960s, spending $800 billion by 2015? Unfortunately its little Vietnam-guns and Medicare-butter time bombs had time delay detonators.

They went off and set the trendline established in the wake of the mid-1970s recession, oil embargoes and Iranian hostage crisis which took us all the way through Carter, Reagan, Bush 41, and Clinton. Does $2.5 trillion by 2015 sound conservative to you? All assisted by a dollar finally unglued from gold in 1971.

It certainly couldn't be George W. Bush's trendline, could it? It was an even more radical departure from the past because of added spending on drugs for seniors and two more wars. And don't even think of calling that policy "tax and spend." It was all spend. 

For an encore to that sorry enterprise, Obama has taken it practically vertical, but it can't reach escape velocity and looks doomed to crash. Which is why the man who eight months ago signed the extension of the Bush tax rate regime now suddenly wants to raise taxes as part of a debt ceiling deal this summer.

Some people define conservatism as maintaining the status quo. Some as measured, gradual change. Cutting current spending back toward the 1970s trendline, which is where Rep. Paul Ryan is trying to go, is viewed as radical by the likes of Newt Gingrich and the left. In reality, though, it's just a return to a status quo ante which for its time was anything but conservative. What this means is that so-called conservatives today find themselves reduced to defending the liberalism of the still recent past.