Radioactivity 150 Miles From Vermont's Troubled, Aging Yankee Nuclear Plant Blamed on Atmospheric Testing in 1940s and 1950s, and on Chernobyl

Strontium-90 has been found in bass far from Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, according to this story:

Now, new tests of bass caught 150 miles away in northwestern Vermont and outside the area affected by the plant's groundwater show similar levels of Strontium-90, said William Irwin, chief of the Vermont Health Department's radiological division.

The likely source, rather than Vermont Yankee, is residue from above-ground nuclear testing in the 1940s and 1950s and the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown in the Soviet Union in 1986, he said.


This report puts it as follows:

Irwin said Lake Carmine, in Enosburg Falls, is about as far away from Yankee as you can get and still be in the Green Mountain State.

"The results are that cesium-137 and strontium-90 in Lake Carmi fish is in the same range as Connecticut River fish," said Irwin. "We take this as some evidence that all fish in Vermont are likely to have radioactive cesium and strontium at these levels and that, as we've hypothesized, it is from nuclear weapons fallout and the releases of Chernobyl. All of us are glad to have proof and not just conjecture."


The similar levels of radioactive contamination suggest that the reasons for shutting down an aging plant like Vermont's Yankee Nuclear are distinct in this case, not the least of which is that the design is identical to the Fukushima, Japan, nuclear power plants which melted down after the earthquakes and tsunami in March 2011.

Obama: Pesky Constitution Gets In Way of Getting Things Done

Quoted here:

"What's frustrated people is that I've not been able to implement every aspect of what I said in 2008. Well, it turns out our Founders designed a system that makes it more difficult to bring about change than I would like sometimes. But what we have been able to do is move in the right direction," Obama said.

Obama Knows His Base Is Women, And ObamaCare Was Designed For It

Romney would lose in November because he's competing for a voting block which Obama already owns. While 48 percent of Romney's voters said they were Republican, 41 percent self-identified as Independent.

Once again, from the Florida exit polling here, Romney's biggest support came from women (52 percent), Hispanic/Latino (54 percent), moderate/liberal (59 percent), oppose Tea Party (57 percent), Roman Catholic (56 percent), and the abortion should be legal crowd (54 percent).

Compare that with this from CNN (here):

Catholic teaching opposes abortion and the use of contraceptives, though a 2011 study by the Guttmacher Institute showed 98% of sexually active Catholic women had used contraception.

The Democrat strategy, as always, is to divide and conquer, but when it comes to the Catholic church, there isn't a lot of dividing work to do. Obama has known for a long time that the loyalty of Catholic women to the church is divided over reproductive issues, as is the loyalty of Christian women generally.

Women in this country want the freedom to kill their unborn children. Otherwise Roe v. Wade would not continue to stand.

Obama knows his base. ObamaCare was designed for it. Catholic women in Florida went for Romney like they'll be going for Obama in November. The better to eat you with, my dear.



"Those domestick traitors, bosom-thieves,
Whom custom hath call'd wives; the readiest helps
To betray the heady husbands, rob the easy."

-- Ben Jonson

Thomas Sowell Says Mitt Romney's Minimum Wage Views Prove He's No Conservative

Here:

When you set minimum wage levels higher than many inexperienced young people are worth, they don't get hired. It is not rocket science.

Milton Friedman explained all this, half a century ago, in his popular little book for non-economists, "Capitalism and Freedom." So have many other people. If a presidential candidate who calls himself "conservative" has still not heard of these facts, that simply shows that you can call yourself anything you want to. 

The Difference Between Us and Them, Well Stated

Here:

For conservatives, answering the essential question of what our political goals are is not difficult. We do not believe in the perfectibility of the world. Those of us who are Christian conservatives believe that the government can fight wars, as well as provide protection from discrimination and a safety net for the poor. Capitalism and the free market are not perfect systems, but they are the best systems for providing human flourishing. We believe in progress that reenforces timeless truths.

Yet if you do believe in the perfectibility of the world -- or "fundamental transformation" in the president's phrase -- then nothing, not even the human conscience, can be allowed to get in the way.

F. Fukuyama: Our World is Devoid of Monstrous Projects of Social Transformation

The Big Lie, softly told.

In The New York Times, here:

"The undergraduate students I teach . . . are fortunate not to live in a world where ideas could be translated into monstrous projects for the transformation of society, and where being an intellectual could often mean complicity in enormous crimes."

He's never heard of Barack Obama, I guess, nor the enormous crime of abortion in which all our intellectuals are complicit, nor the compulsion of ObamaCare, targeted drone killings, the TSA's war on the fourth amendment, the illegal war in Libya, TARP and the fascist bank bailouts, the zero interest rate policy war against elderly savers, the war on carbon, the war on the rich and the middle class, gays in the military . . ..

Obama's Attack on Roman Catholicism Evokes Charges of Tyranny, Fascism, Totalitarianism

From one Mark Judge, here:

The New Comstockery is a metastasizing liberal cancer not just of intolerance, but of hatred for those who disagree. ...

The New Comstockery is fascist. ...

[L]iberal tyranny ... has become evident recently in both the Obama administration[']s violation of the First Amendment in forcing Catholic institutions to sell birth control, and the reaction to the Susan Komen Foundation's attempt to cut off funding to Planned Parenthood. ...

[S]omething ... in our time has become a terrible reality: the totalitarian impulse of liberalism, particularly when it comes to sexual matters.

Pace Mark Judge, the consequences of the relaxation of morals in the West produced a horrific 20th century on both sides of the Atlantic. It makes no difference that the tens of millions killed here in America have been faceless. Their blood cries out no less than the millions of Stalin's and Hitler's victims.

Nor has the impulse to liberal tyranny been only just recently evident.

It was evident to many of us much earlier, especially in ObamaCare in 2010 and in the fascist bailouts of 2009, which gave rise to the Tea Party. George Bush's liberalism which ended with TARP at home was just the kinder, gentler Republican version of it, trampling out the vintage for the most part in foreign fields.

But Obama has brought the grapes of wrath back home.

Few have been the voices decrying the expansion of the national security state in 2011. The Department of Homeland Security and the TSA have been hard at work implementing nationwide checkpoint programs, using scanners and military surveillance technology, particularly drones (unmanned aerial vehicles) to "patrol the borders," hunt down cattle rustlers and execute without trial (admittedly noxious) American citizens in foreign lands.

In 2012 the Republican House is actually cooperating by passing legislation which routinizes the domestic integration of UAVs under the control of the FAA. And Republicans think Mitt Romney is going to make a difference?

The revolution has been measured, taking off one obstacle at a time so as not to cause widespread alarm, but its objectives are indeed totalist.  Dismissing religious freedom now in 2012 almost comes as an afterthought, a mere by-product of ObamaCare.

The spider weaves its web, and soon we will all be caught it in, if we aren't already.

It's good that Mark Judge is finally paying attention.

Is anyone else?

"There is no contradiction between economic Liberalism and Socialism."

                               -- Oswald Spengler, 1933 

Women Are The Ruin Of Many Tyrants

The Tax Man Stands In The Way Of The Deleveraging Crisis

Household net worth in Q3 2011 has fallen to $57.4 trillion, and relative to GDP this is still well above historical peaks in the post-war period in the 20th century.

If total household net worth relative to GDP fell to the post-war historical peak before the recent silliness, at present levels of GDP this implies a further pull-back in total household net worth of roughly 7 percent, or $4 trillion, to $53.4 trillion.

It is interesting to note that mortgage debt relative to current GDP also as shown here should correct down about 33 percent to match the post-war historical peak of that metric. With about $10 trillion in mortgage debt currently outstanding, a 33 percent adjustment down comes to $3.3 trillion, a figure very similarly sized to the outsized net worth noted above.

In other words, we could come a long way toward rectifying both metrics almost instantly by taking from net worth and paying down mortgage debt, if only the tax man didn't stand in the way.

It should be emphasized that roughly $5 trillion of $18 trillion in retirement funds stands ready in IRA accounts alone to address this problem, if only government gave people the freedom to do so.

Another interesting point suggests itself.

The post-war average GDP of 3.5 percent per annum has utterly failed to materialize in the first decade of the 21st century, as GDP has averaged instead in the neighborhood of 1.7 percent per annum.

Both net worth and debt measured against an economy pumping out 50 percent more GDP would mean I wouldn't be writing about this right now.

I'd be too busy relaxing and getting ready to make lots of money tomorrow.

There's more than one way to skin a cat: less meddlesome tax policy, or growth-oriented economic policy.

Preferably both.

Does The Fed Help Precipitate Recessions By Raising Rates, Or Lowering Them?

Yes!

Alan Greenspan was confirmed as Federal Reserve Chairman in August 1987, Ben Bernanke in 2006.

Two Episodes of Nearly Vertical Exuberance in Net Worth

Two recent episodes of nearly vertical exuberance are shown by dramatic spurts in total net worth of households over 5 year periods: beginning from the mid-1990s and from about early 2003, coincident with stock market and housing bubbles.

A correction to trend implies a net worth decline to around $45 trillion, or 21 percent from the present $57 trillion.

Irrational Exuberance In Credit Creation Has Stalled

Yet one more metric showing how a new trend line began in the mid-1990s coincident with dramatic new housing and banking legislation of the time. A reversion to the status quo ante implies an overall reduction in asset values of at least 33 percent to 42 percent, and perhaps more in a crash which over-corrects below the more modest trendline set by bank credit of approximately $5.5 trillion.

Democrats and College-less Least Likely To Vote For A Mormon

Well, there goes the crossover vote.

Gallup has the data here:

The New Republic's Tim Noah Is A Crapy Spellur, For The Sure

Seen here:

Unemployment Falls to 8.3 Percent: Obama's Average 9.3 %, 36 Straight Months Above 8 Percent

See the graph of historical US unemployment at The Wall Street Journal here:

Ratio of Employed to Population Remains Mired at 58.5 through 1/12

Ads For Democrats Assault Readers of Conservative Websites

This wouldn't have happened in the good old days of print:

Depth and Breadth of Current Employment Recession Still Far and Away Worst in Post WW2 Period

So says calculatedriskblog here:

Manufacturing Payrolls Under 12 Million, Down 30 Percent 2000-2012

Jesus' Message About Rich And Poor Is Meaningless To Us In Obama's Hands

President Obama (here) has invoked a saying in the Gospel of Luke to buttress his argument that the rich should give up some tax breaks they enjoy:

"Every one to whom much is given, of him will much be required" (Luke 12:48b).

From this easy misappropriation of a text, which is set in an apocalyptic future where a final reckoning between God and man occurs, one might conclude that President Obama has become a fundamentalist who thinks the teaching of Jesus speaks directly to marginal tax rate policy of the federal government of the United States in the year 2012.

Somehow I don't believe that's what they taught him in Rev. Wright's church.

It is left to us liberals of a certain sort to point out to the president that the teaching of Jesus is not exactly a guide book for conducting our happy lives here in the 21st century, and that this text is instead a witness to the meaning of the true cost of discipleship which Jesus taught, its true cost not just to the wealthy but also to those "to whom little is given".

To his own disciples, his own little flock, Jesus says in the very same chapter the president quotes, "Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth" (Luke 12:33).

Sell that ye have and give alms.

From this we learn that Jesus expected his followers, whether poor or rich, to turn their backs on their former way of life in every detail, goods, fame, child and wife, liquidate that way of life, and help the needy and prepare for God's kingdom which he said was "at hand".

Accordingly much is required of those who have much, because what they have is much. Little is required of those who have little, because what they have is little. By definition a rich man who repents turns his back on much, and by definition a poor man who repents turns his back on little. The teaching is cast tautologically to emphasize the point.

But it is all required of the disciple nonetheless, whether the much or the little: "So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:33).

Do you know anyone like that? I know I do not. And I know that I am not one of them.

I am not a disciple of Jesus.

Now, if we were to apply this teaching evenly, unlike the president, to the contemporary tax debate, it would naturally mean that rich and poor alike owe everything which they have to the government, which is of course absurd, except under a Marxist interpretation of the text, which is exactly what many in America suspect underlies President Obama's rhetoric.

That Jesus' teaching is so one-sidedly represented by our leftist president in the public sphere shouldn't really surprise us, however. He is not the first trimmer to address the American people.

That we owe everything to God according to Jesus' teaching is not even acknowledged in the one place where you should expect to hear it: the church.

The most you will hear you owe is 10 percent, the tithe.

So-called disciples of Christ everywhere trim and hedge around these texts because these texts are simply too difficult to square with the reality of a mundane existence which quietly whimpers, decade upon decade, century upon century, that Jesus' predicted in-breaking of the kingdom of God, final judgment and establishment of God's justice never happened. We continue to live in a broken world where good and evil grow up side by side, within us and without, while Christian utopians everywhere deny this reality and proclaim not just that God's kingdom is here, but that they are it.

After long experience of them, however, many of us beg to differ.

They have more in common with Barack Obama than they care to admit: a delusional version of reality, often accompanied by a healthy helping of contempt for the non-believers.

It is a unique experience to be hated by the Democrats and the Republicans alike.

What we manifestly should not do today is apply the teaching of Jesus to the tax debate . . . because Jesus did not. As far as he was concerned, taxes were beside the point. The world was coming to an end, so let the dead bury their own dead. They would not remain unburied for long.

Inevitably we would fall short of Jesus' teaching, and we do, as any honest observer will admit. Jesus' teaching had its historical opportunity, and we live in our own unique moment. He is not here to speak to us in ours. His voice reaches us from his past, spoken to us, let us at least say, as true man. As true men like him we should listen to it. And therefore inasmuch as his moment was everyman's moment, it is not without significance in our own time.

For example, if (leftist) Americans who import one half of the teaching of this failed utopian preacher for their own utopian schemes stopped doing so, would this not instantly become a much better country?

If the teaching of Jesus about rich and poor means anything in the present debate about taxes, isn't it that  our expectations of each other should mean that we treat all human beings as human beings? But I highly doubt very many on the left want to talk about the poor paying their fair share of taxes, especially when nearly half of us scandalously pay nothing. The poor are too good to be talked to like that, they tell us.

The rich by virtue of being rich thus receive their opprobrium, while the poor receive an exaltation they do not deserve.

To make the contribution of the poor fair, should it not be proportional, a percentage, so that in that way they are made equal to the rich, who would also pay proportionally even though in sum their contribution will make them superior to the poor?

It is wrong to inflame the poor to hate the rich, to awaken the greed, envy and covetousness to which all are susceptible by nature, and of which all are guilty, poor and rich alike.

But it would also be helpful if more so-called Christian Americans came to terms with their proclivity to view "success" from such a paltry, materialist perspective which insists that not having a job makes one nothing more than a depreciating asset. This is but the flipside of the Marxist coin which treats everyone as chattel, as productive assets of the mere material variety. We are richer in things than failed Marxist regimes, but no less dead inside for de-humanizing the unemployed, the elderly and the unborn, some of whom we have now killed in the millions for almost four decades.

How long can that injustice tempt fate?

Jesus clearly understood the dangers of wealth to the individual soul, the responsibility wealth imposes, and how the sheer size and weight of it can keep one from entering the kingdom of God. But American Christians no less than others press on in pursuit of a secure retirement and the paid off mortgage which has replaced the BMW as the status symbol of choice, gathering up in barns and building bigger ones to hold the increase.

Their recourse to measures which now threaten their own freedoms show that they fear this night their soul shall be required of them and that they will be found wanting.

Wealth exerts a powerful magnetic pull which sucks people inward like a black hole sucks in light. The darkness of it blinds us to the reality of suffering and injustice swirling all around us. Turned by it inward in this way, wealth finds opportunity in in-dwelling evil where it concentrates pride in ourselves to such an extent that it becomes incapable even of the honest human feeling of sympathy, with the result that charity becomes the opportunity only for the praise of other men instead of the relief of suffering which God rewards when done in secret.

Our poorest American brothers and sisters, it should be remembered, are better off than 2/3 of the rest of the whole world.

"Inasmuch as ye have done [it] unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done [it] unto me."

In truth God calls to the American Empire, but not through the spokesmen du jour.

This is why Jesus is worshipped.