Pope Francis reminds everyone that freedom of speech is not absolute

Quoted here:

"If my good friend Dr. Gasparri says a curse word against my mother, he can expect a punch," Francis said, throwing a pretend punch his way. "It's normal. You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith of others."

"There are so many people who speak badly about religions or other religions, who make fun of them, who make a game out of the religions of others," he said. "They are provocateurs. And what happens to them is what would happen to Dr. Gasparri if he says a curse word against my mother. There is a limit."

Uh oh: Today's jobless claims soar well above 500k to within 1.2% of last year's level at this time

Best reason yet to vote for Romney in 2016: The enemy of my enemy is my friend

"Retail and Food Services Sales" falls 0.94% in December, which is cautionary for GDP

The drop is not that odd for a December.

In December 2007 we had a drop of 0.6%, in December 2008 a drop of 2.5% (part of the big whopper decline of 12.25% between summer 2008 and March 2009), and in December of 2011 a drop of 0.3%.

The drop in January 2014 when GDP went severely negative was 1.26%, so the 0.94% magnitude this time does not augur well for 4Q2014 GDP.

Glenn Greenwald eviscerates the Solidarity with Charlie Hebdo hypocrisy of the left and right

Excerpts from his excellent analysis, here:

[T]his week’s defense of free speech rights was so spirited that it gave rise to a brand new principle: to defend free speech, one not only defends the right to disseminate the speech, but embraces the content of the speech itself. Numerous writers thus demanded: to show “solidarity” with the murdered cartoonists, one should not merely condemn the attacks and defend the right of the cartoonists to publish, but should publish and even celebrate those cartoons. “The best response to Charlie Hebdo attack,” announced Slate’s editor Jacob Weisberg, “is to escalate blasphemous satire.”

...

Anti-Islam and anti-Muslim commentary (and cartoons) are a dime a dozen in western media outlets; the taboo that is at least as strong, if not more so, are anti-Jewish images and words. Why aren’t Douthat, Chait, Yglesias and their like-minded free speech crusaders calling for publication of anti-Semitic material in solidarity, or as a means of standing up to this repression? Yes, it’s true that outlets like The New York Times will in rare instances publish such depictions, but only to document hateful bigotry and condemn it – not to publish it in “solidarity” or because it deserves a serious and respectful airing.

...

[T]he journalist Chris Hedges was just disinvited to speak at the University of Pennsylvania for the Thought Crime of drawing similarities between Israel and ISIS.

That is a real taboo – a repressed idea – as powerful and absolute as any in the United States, so much so that Brooks won’t even acknowledge its existence. It’s certainly more of a taboo in the U.S. than criticizing Muslims and Islam, criticism which is so frequently heard in mainstream circles – including the U.S. Congress – that one barely notices it any more. ...  When those demanding publication of these anti-Islam cartoons start demanding the affirmative publication of those ideas as well, I’ll believe the sincerity of their very selective application of free speech principles. One can defend free speech without having to publish, let alone embrace, the offensive ideas being targeted. But if that’s not the case, let’s have equal application of this new principle.

Communist journalist with Sine Hebdo explains Charlie Hebdo's work protecting Israel under Philippe Val

From the story by Michel Warschawski here:

Nevertheless, broadly speaking, Charlie was part of my political environment. That is, until Philippe Val, the chief editor, expelled one of the founders of the weekly and it's most popular caricaturist, Bob Sine, falsely accused of being an anti-Semite. The expulsion of Sine was clearly a signal of kneeling to the dominant ideology that was using "anti-Semitism" in order to shut the mouth of journalists critical to Israel. A couple of years later, Philippe Val was appointed by Nicolas Sarkozy [sic] as general director of one of the national radio channels. No comment…

As an act of solidarity with Sine, I joined the editorial staff of "Sine Hebdo", a new satirical weekly he opened together with other former journalists of Charlie Hebdo who left, as a protest of Val's decision.

"I learned a thing or two from ol' Charlie don'tcha know . . .

. . . you better stay away from Copperhead Road."

Freedom of speech in France: Comic says he's Charlie Coulibaly, gets investigated by police

"I am Charlie Coulibaly"

Reported here in WaPo:

'Almost 4 million people across France turned out Sunday in support of free speech. Yet, on Monday, for instance, a 31-year-old Tunisian-born man was sentenced to 10 months in jail after verbally threatening police and saying an officer shot in last week’s attack “deserved it.” Also on Monday, a Paris prosecutor opened an investigation against an anti-Semitic French comedian, Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, for a post on his Facebook page calling himself “Charlie Coulibaly” — a reference to Amedy Coulibaly, the gunmen who killed four people Friday inside a Paris kosher market. The comedian — whose comedy show, which featured an explicit skit mocking the Holocaust, was banned last year for inciting hate — suggested that he was a victim of a double standard.

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France has anti-Semitism laws on its books, but many of its Muslims wonder why there aren't any laws protecting Muslims from anti-Islamic speech, such as Charlie Hebdo routinely practices against the prophet Muhammad.

The UK's Jeremy Warner joins the cognoscenti: high asset prices are going bye-bye

Here:

"It is as if all the inflation that used to go into consumer prices has been diverted into financial assets and real estate instead. ... Static or falling prices, on the other hand, are always extremely bad for corporate profits in the long term. ... In a deflationary environment, equities and property will inevitably perform badly: only fixed-interest sovereign bonds, the least risky form of investment, do well."

Charlie Hebdo's editor Charb was raised by communists

CNN reports here:

[Daniel] Leconte gave The New York Times some insight into Charbonnier's upbringing. He was raised by communists, the filmmaker said, and grew up to be a left-wing activist. "He has this education, and this culture, which was one part of his personality," Leconte told the newspaper, "but at the same time he was totally radical."

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And conservatives in America, like Roger Kimball and Ralph Peters, want to be in solidarity with a communist.

Update: By the way, Ralph Peters is all for the murder of American citizens when necessary, just in case you were wondering (here).

Why New York City is a sitting duck for the next terrorist attack

Because the communist mayor of New York, de Blasio, yanked all the undercover cops from the mosques, that's why.

Story here.

Say what you want about Rudy Giuliani. He put 'em there in the first place and kept us safe, and Bloomberg then ramped up the spies. But under de Blasio . . . it's all over.

"Piss Christ" still prominent on CNN, but Muhammad cartoons won't be

Brian Stelter states the CNN policy here about displaying images of the Muslim prophet:

"Many major news organizations, including CNN, generally refrain from showing images that purport to show the prophet. In recent days, executives at CNN have cited concerns about the safety of staff members and sensitivity towards Muslim audiences, but they have also indicated that the network's decision is subject to change."

"Piss Christ" is shown here at CNN as one of 10 controversial works of art, along with an obscene "The Holy Virgin Mary".

Sensitivity towards Christian audiences obviously counts for little at CNN.

Commentary's Jonathan Tobin must be kidding about "the rising tide of hate"

Here is Tobin:

"By choosing to stay away from the march, the United States expressed not only its public disdain for the effort to respond to the rising tide of hate, but the president also demonstrated that he doesn’t understand that being the leader of the free world occasionally requires him to show up even when he’d rather stay home."

Rising tide of hate?

Charlie Hebdo has had the hate turned up to full-throttle for most of its reincarnated existence, deliberately trying to incite the followers of Moses, Jesus and Muhammad in every Wednesday's 60,000 print run since 1992 when its pro-Israel owner Philippe Val resurrected it from the dustbin of history.

The only hatred rising today, in fact, is at Charlie Hebdo, with Muhammad again on the cover, but on a print run of 3 million, not 60,000.

Tobin is only angry that President Obama didn't join in the chorus attacking faith in Paris on Sunday. We all know that New York intellectuals have a vested interest, just as Charlie Hebdo does, in keeping the flames of enmity burning between the Jews and the Muslims. The calling card of victimhood in Washington insures that the cash and military assistance to Tel Aviv never stops.

We also know why Obama didn't go to Paris. It surely wasn't out of principle . . . he's just too damn lazy. But in this case the sin of omission landed Obama on the correct side of the issue, just as Corinne "Coco" Rey made the fateful conservative choice to save the life of her toddler and let the terrorists into the building to kill her colleagues.

When people make the right choice for the wrong reasons we can still say so in this country, at least until the likes of Commentary decide it's time to circulate a petition to have us outlawed. President Obama may be many things, but the most important of those now is that he's lame.

The surest way to make France safer for everyone, including Jews, would be for the self-appointed elites of liberalism to restrain themselves and stop goading the masses which they claim the right to govern. That they can't bring themselves to do this is the best proof that they are not superior to the rest of us, and that there is nothing to their faith but loathing, for God and for themselves.

American manufacturing still in depression

Reported here:

"American manufacturing has still not recovered to 2007 output or employment levels," the study [by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation] says. ... The foundation ... says the recent job gains barely make a dent in what it calls the "unprecedented" decline in U.S. manufacturing since 2000. The result is a sector still hobbled by high effective corporate tax rates and limited public investment in research, development and job training. Even with the recent improvement, the study says the U.S. has lost roughly 1 million manufacturing jobs and 15,000 manufacturing establishments since 2000. Trouble in the sector goes even deeper than that, the study says. ... Without computer production, durable goods manufacturing actually declined by nearly 10 percent between 2000 and 2009, according to the foundation. Even non-long-term goods, which include most of the manufacturing related to the nation's energy boom, have underperformed overall economic growth, the study says.

Charlie Hebdo to exploit mockery of Muhammad in an attempt to escape bankruptcy

Yahoo News reports here:

This week's three million copies of Charlie Hebdo, the first post-attack issue of the French satirical weekly, will defiantly feature caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, its lawyer said Monday. ... The paper's distributors, MLP, had initially planned to print one million copies of the issue currently being put together by survivors of the shooting. But MLP said demand from France and abroad has been huge and that three million copies would now be released. The original paper printed at 60,000 copies a week, selling 30,000. ... Charlie Hebdo had been sliding towards bankruptcy before the attack against it. ... Wednesday's edition aims to raise fresh cash to ensure the survival of the weekly, with all revenue from the sales, at three euros ($3.5) a copy, going to Charlie Hebdo once the cost of the paper has been deducted.

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Israeli-American Rahm Emanuel once said "never let a good crisis go to waste".

I predict they'll fail.

Average hourly earnings went up almost 29% under Bush, almost 12% under Obama to date

Up $4.12/hour under Bush after 8 years

Up $2.18/hour under Obama after almost 6 years

Bill Donohue of the Catholic League is right: Charlie Hebdo went way over the top of acceptable

Here in "Muslims are right to be angry":

[W]hat happened in Paris cannot be tolerated. But neither should we tolerate the kind of intolerance that provoked this violent reaction. Those who work at [Charlie Hebdo] have a long and disgusting record of going way beyond the mere lampooning of public figures, and this is especially true of their depictions of religious figures. ... In 2012, when asked why he insults Muslims, [Charb] said, “Muhammad isn’t sacred to me.” Had he not been so narcissistic, he may still be alive. Muhammad isn’t sacred to me, either, but it would never occur to me to deliberately insult Muslims by trashing him.

Hugh Hewitt here can't believe there's an important Catholic alive who shares Donohue's opinion.

I can't believe it either, but at least we've got Bill Donohue.

Philippe Val, pro-Israeli refounder of Charlie Hebdo, says slaughtered cartoonists "were not bad people"

Cabu's "Gay Lobby in Conclave" in ridicule of the Roman Catholic Church electing a new pope in early 2013.

Excuse me.

Traditional Catholics will agree that an image of a daisy chain of sodomizing/sodomized cardinals from the pen of Cabu is precisely the mark of a bad person, meant to provoke and not to unite.

Go ahead. Tell us this isn't the face of contemporary liberalism everywhere in the West, and that the Jewish left isn't behind this.

Philippe Val, quoted here in the UK Independent:

“I am practically alone, all my friends are gone,” he said in the statement broadcast by France Inter radio and transcribed by Libération. “They were not bad people, they just wanted to make us laugh. They just wanted humour to have a place in our lives, that's all." ...

He individually paid tribute to his murdered colleagues, including the “genius” cartoonist Cabu, full name Jean Cabut, who was murdered alongside the magazine’s editor Stéphane Charbonnier or “Charb” during their morning editorial meeting. ...

“Today is hard but it is the ultimate weapon,” Mr Val continued. “It is the weapon of solidarity. Let people laugh, let them ridicule the bastards…we cannot live in fear.”

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We know who the bastards are.

We are NOT Charlie

Real Clear Markets tonight recycles John Tamny's nonsense about gold and the dollar being related

Hey, if it wasn't convincing six days ago at Forbes, give it another try at Real Clear Markets. That's the meaning of libertarian ideology, as with all ideologies: Repeat until it becomes the truth.

Occasionally gold and the dollar do seem to track each other. This has been so recently under elevated gold prices and repressed dollar prices. Perhaps that's what one should expect when conditions are being manipulated and price discovery is difficult because it is being deliberately obscured. But the so-called correlation between gold and the dollar doesn't hold up over the longer term.

For example, tonight the dollar is trading near its recent closing high, at 91.86. The last time the dollar was near this level was on 11 November 2005, closing at 91.98.

The gold price then in 2005 was not quite $467 an ounce, but tonight gold is nearly $1,218, over 2.5x higher even though the dollar price is nearly identical to what it was almost 10 years ago.

The dollar and gold are not correlated, sorry.