Sunday, May 22, 2011

Trains for Transportation? Try Painful Transformation.

Patrick McIlheran for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, here, describes a transportation policy being shoved down our throats as surely as was Obamacare, just saying No to which isn't going to stop them:

"Obama promised change, but it is you who will undergo it. In 2008, you were electing a whole new you."

Louis Woodhill Thinks Gold at $218 the Ounce is About Right

Here, based in large measure on what it can buy, in relative terms.

Here's a similar way to look at it from measuringworth.com, using the 1913 price of gold in dollars:










Either way you cut it, gold is presently overvalued.

Some Call This a Buying Opportunity

Friday, May 20, 2011

The Res Gestae Divi Obama: Chooser, Declarer, Charger, Believer, Promiser, Director, Memorializer, Giver of Thanks, Uniter, Interpreter of Events, Perserverer

Naw, we don't spike the football:

When I chose Leon Panetta as Director of the CIA, I said he was going to be a strong advocate for this agency and would strengthen your capabilities to meet the threats of our time.

And when I chose Jim Clapper as Director of National Intelligence, I charged him with making sure that our intelligence community works as one integrated team.

On my first visit, just months after taking office, I stood here and I said that this agency and our entire intelligence community is fundamental to America’s national security. I said that I believed that your best days were still to come and I pledged that you would have my full support to carry out your critical work. 

Soon after that visit, I called Leon into the Oval Office and I directed him to make the killing or capture of Osama bin Laden the top priority in our war to defeat al Qaeda.

My second visit, a year later, came under more somber circumstances. We gathered to pay tribute to seven American patriots who gave their lives in this fight at a remote post in Afghanistan. As has already been mentioned, their stars now grace this memorial wall. And through our grief and our tears, we resolved that their sacrifice would be our summons to carry on their work, to complete this mission, to win this war.

Today I’ve returned just to say thank you, on behalf of all Americans and people around the world, because you carried on. You stayed focused on your mission. You honored the memory of your fallen colleagues. And in helping to locate and take down Osama bin Laden, you made it possible for us to achieve the most significant victory yet in our war to defeat al Qaeda. 

I just met with some of the outstanding leaders and teams from across the community who worked so long and so hard to make that raid a success. And I’m pleased today that we’re joined by representatives from all of our intelligence agencies, and that folks are watching this live back at all of those agencies, because this truly was a team effort.

This is one of the few times when all these leaders and organizations have the occasion to appear together publicly. And so I thank all of you for coming -- because I think it’s so important for the American people to see all of you here today.

That’s why I came here.  I wanted every single one of you to know, whether you work at the CIA or across the community, at every step of our effort to take out bin Laden, the work you did and the quality of the intelligence that you provided made the critical difference -- to me, to our team on those helicopters, to our nation.   

After I directed that getting bin Laden be the priority, you hunkered down even more, building on years of painstaking work; pulling together, in some cases, the slenderest of intelligence streams, running those threads to ground until you found that courier and you tracked him to that compound.

In the months that followed, including all those meetings in the Situation Room, we did what sound intelligence demands:  We pushed for more collection.  We pushed for more evidence.  We questioned our assumptions.  You strengthened your analysis.  You didn’t bite your tongue and try to spin the ball, but you gave it to me straight each and every time.

And we did something really remarkable in Washington -- we kept it a secret.  (Laughter and applause.)  That’s how it should be. 

Of course, when the time came to actually make the decision, we didn’t know for sure that bin Laden was there.  The evidence was circumstantial and the risks, especially to the lives of our special operations forces, were huge.  And I knew that the consequences of failure could be enormous.  But I made the decision that I did because I had absolute confidence in the skill of our military personnel and I had confidence in you.  I put my bet on you.  And now the whole world knows that that faith in you was justified. 

That’s why I still believe in what I said my first visit here two years ago:  Your greatest days are still to come.  And if any of you doubt what this means, I wish I could have taken some of you on the trip I made to New York City, where we laid a wreath at Ground Zero, and I had a chance to meet firefighters who had lost an entire shift; police officers who had lost their comrades; a young woman, 14 years old, who had written to me because her last memory of her father was talking to him on the phone while her mother wept beside her, right before they watched the tower go down. 

And she and other members of families of 9/11 victims talked about what this meant.  It meant that their suffering had not been forgotten, and that the American community stands with them, that we stand with each other. 

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Liberal Senate Republicans Stand in the Way on Passage of Ryan Budget

As reported here.

They might as well switch parties:

Mitch McConnell
Susan Collins
Scott Brown
Olympia Snowe
Kay Bailey Hutchison
Dick Lugar
Chuck Grassley.

Free Ticket

"Have we eliminated Social Injustice or Poverty? Or, has the unintended consequence been to create a Welfare State which has become a tool to destroy many American families? Have we not created an opportunity for millions to behave irresponsibly without personal accountability while taxpayers pick up 'the tab'?"

Growth in 2000s 38 Percent Lower Than 1930s

Louis Woodhill doesn't much like the Paul Ryan plan because of "static analysis," here, but fails to note that Ryan's is an intellectual and political concession to the status quo. This has been the GOP's problem for decades, and why we perceive the party to be "moderate" and a paler reflection of liberalism. Why vote for that when you can get the real thing from Democrats?

Unsurpisingly, support for the Ryan plan is overwhelming in the over-55 set, for whom the plan changes nothing. Those who stand to lose under it, however, and lose votes, understandably don't like it. America's problem has been and remains addiction to socialism. That Ryan is trying to chip away at this is really what drives liberals crazy, but America simply cannot afford to continue spending $30,000 per year subsidizing every retiree in the country.

Woodhill unintentionally provides support for this point in his brief history of economic growth, which should be a wake-up call for conservatives who need to re-assess their past support for Bush era Republicanism. 

Average real annual rates of growth by decade:

1930s: 2.71 percent
1940s: 5.57 percent
1950s: 3.50 percent
1960s: 4.20 percent
1970s: 3.18 percent
1980s: 3.24 percent
1990s: 3.40 percent

2000s: 1.67 percent

"This last number is shocking. Our real growth rate in the 2000s was less than half of the average (3.5 percent) from 1930 to 2000, and it was 38 percent lower than that of the 'Great Depression' decade of the 1930s."

Yes, the 2000s, when George W. Bush out-liberaled the liberals and expanded government more than at any time since the Great Society programs of the 1960s, with his massive "drugs for seniors" program. Why, he even got liberals to vote for two wars at the same time. Talk about guns and butter.

No wonder Democrat liberals hate him. No wonder growth went nowhere.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Rare Sighting of the Equally Rare "Plum Whale"


Obamacare Waivers Now Total 1372

Waivers have increased 332 since early March. The data may be found here.

TheHill.com has a story about it here.

The Daily Caller has another one here, quite delicious: it seems Nancy Pelosi's district has gotten 20 percent of the latest waivers, with lots of them going to up-scale eateries and the like in San Franfreako.

Equality under the law?

Fuhgeddaboutit.

Monday, May 16, 2011

Here's Some Novel Healthcare Accountability For Ya: Pay or Die!

“I think we have to find a way to hold people accountable for paying for their health care."

-- Newt Gingrich, quoted here

No Newts in 2012

Everybody's piling on today. ThinkProgress.org on the left is one, with links to some of the righties joining on the pile, here. George Will notably on Sunday called his an unserious candidacy. Indeed.

Does Newt really expect us to believe that his different version of a healthcare mandate is any less radical than Obama's, or than Rep. Paul Ryan's proposed entitlement reforms for that matter?

Newt evidently also thinks that his long history of flip-flops, detailed by The Weekly Standard, doesn't matter in the new world of Obama's promises with expiration dates.


Sunday, May 15, 2011

Need for Cooling Water at Fukushima Reactors Due to Leaks, Not Boil-Off

Leaks in the pressure vessels themselves, where the fuel is. In other words, perhaps three of the reactors are technically in a state of meltdown and breached containment.

This appears to be the conclusion this week, ever since repair of a water gauge has resulted in data showing that the water is disappearing at a faster rate than otherwise expected, and apparently accumulating in the lower levels of the plant, in the turbine buildings. Radiation levels where the water is pooling are said in a Wall Street Journal story to be in the range of 1 to 2 Sieverts per hour. A two hour exposure at such levels would kill you in 30 days.

Scientific American has these details via Reuters:

"There must be a large leak," Junichi Matsumoto, a general manager at the utility [TEPCO] told a news conference.

"The fuel pellets likely melted and fell, and in the process may have damaged...the pressure vessel itself and created a hole," he added.

Since the surface temperature of the pressure vessel has been holding steady between 100 and 120 degrees Celsius, Matsumoto said the effort to cool the melted uranium fuel by pumping in water was working and would continue.

VESSEL HAS A HOLE

Based on the amount of water that is remaining around the partially melted and collapsed fuel, Matsumoto estimated that the pressure vessel had developed a hole of several centimeters in diameter.

Read the full story, here.



Fukushima Reactor 1 Melting Fuel Rods Put Small Holes in Pressure Vessel by 3/12

According to a report at NHK World here, and The Wall Street Journal here.

Without quick action to pour on water and keep it on, it would have been much worse. But as it was, it was and is far worse than some realized.

Newt Thinks Paul Ryan is a Right Wing Radical


If Jack Kemp were alive to hear that, he'd have died of a heart attack on the spot after the laugh heard round the world. PAUL RYAN REPRESENTS THE MIDDLE.

I suppose declaring independence from Great Britain would have been too radical for Newt, too.

Is this what happens to conservatives when they become Catholics?

Tsunami, Thy Name is Debt


TSA Blog Has a "Delete-O-Meter"!

Feeling you up and spiking your opinion at the same time!





















Bank Failures By Year

2000: 002
2001: 004
2002: 011
2003: 003
2004: 004

2007: 003
2008: 025
2009: 140
2010: 157

Year to Date 2011: 40

Saturday, May 14, 2011

The Line of the Day from Real Clear Politics

"I heard the line was too long so Osama gave up."

-- kegan05, comment in response to:

George Bush: The Smug Head Speaks

Just recently, here:

Bush said US foreign policy needs to continue to promote the ideas of democracy and freedom as a way to combat global terrorism.

"The long-term solution is to promote a better ideology, which is freedom. Freedom is universal," Bush said.

The problem is that 1.57 billion people around the world, who value submission as a way of life over freedom, would not agree.

Fighting ideology with ideology is not the solution.


Friday, May 13, 2011

Fukushima Reactor 1: Damage to Pressure and Containment Vessels Now Official

Radiation in the Environment Around Fukushima Daiichi Nuke Plant

Manufacturing Jobs Have Tanked to Levels Last Seen in the 1940s

The declines under W and under Obama have been precipitous, after three decades of relative continuity.

The jobs all went to China. I love my fancy stainless steel All-Clad cookware made there. Unfortunately I can't afford the steak I'd like to cook in it.

"And they shall beat their cookware into swords, and their patio furniture into spears, and nation shall lift up the sword against nation, and they shall learn to make warfare evermore."

Allegations Planned Parenthood Complicit in Covering Up Child Rape in Kansas

As reported here:

During 18 months in 2002 and 2003, Planned Parenthood and Tiller performed 166 abortions on girls aged 14 or younger, yet state agencies had only one report of statutory child rape from each. Why weren't they reporting clear cases of child rape, as required by law?

Pompous Senators Rake in 18.4 Cents For Every Gallon of Gas Sold . . .

. . . while states take in 20.6 cents!

And they begrudge Exxon 7 cents a gallon in profits?

Jerks! Government is the biggest gasoline profiteer!


If Healthcare is a Right, a Doctor Becomes a Slave

A point we have made in the past:

"With regard to the idea of whether you have a right to health care, you have realize what that implies. It's not an abstraction. I’m a physician. That means you have a right to come to my house and conscript me. It means you believe in slavery."

-- Senator Rand Paul, quoted here

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Obama Sent Planes to Mexico to Fight Fires, But Wouldn't Help Texas

Military C-130s were sent to stop Mexico's fires in April, as reported here, but Texans didn't get a federal declaration of disaster for their recent fires, as reported here

Obviously, Mexico provides Obama with more votes than Texas.

Showing no favor to worthy people: one of the marks of a tyranny. And another is like it, from Aristotle: "The guards of a tyrant are foreigners."

Leftist FDL Slams Obama for Kicking Housing Can Down the Road

And rightly so:

The design of HAMP simply kicked the can down the road. It was never designed to be a durable solution for the housing market. And we’re seeing the results: four years after the housing crash, prices keep dropping, distressed properties keep popping up on the market, and people keep losing their homes.

It also shows how the homebuyer’s tax credit was a useless giveaway to people wealthy enough to buy homes, which did nothing to alter the fundamentals of the housing market.

The rest is worth reading, too, here.

Deb Saunders Thinks Obama and Maureen Dowd Sound Just Like W

Phonies all.

Column here.

Help Arizona Build The Fence! Donate At The Link!












The link (here) will take you to the page above.

AP Files FOIA for Bin Laden Photos from Most Transparent Administration in History

Hahahahaha.

Story here.

Monday, May 9, 2011

Five Radiation Monitoring Posts in Fukushima Prefecture Still Above 10 MicroSv/hr

Post #32: 20.1 microsieverts/hour
Post #33: 15.3
Post #79: 10.2/10.7
Post #81: 18.4
Post #83: 43.8/43.4
















Radiation at Iitate, Japan, Down to 3.22 MicroSieverts/Hour

As reported here.

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Lou Costello's Been a Baaaaaaaaaaaaad Boy!



















See it here.

Radiation Conditions at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant Still 154-3700 Times Normal

On May 7th, 2100 hours, Japan time:

408 microSv/h at the south side of the office building; 

45 microSv/h at the Main gate; 

17 microSv/h at the West gate.

More here.

These numbers are down slightly from a week ago. See here.

Two months out from the accident, conditions are in no wise close to normal, which would be roughly 0.11 microSv/hour.


Saturday, May 7, 2011

How We Punish Determines Who We Are

A concept I have not found discussed anywhere in the wake of the "bin Laden" execution, except here at Salon by Glenn Greenwald.

The reason? Only about 14 percent of you give a damn.

If the US Navy Seals were sent to take no prisoners, how are we any different than bin Laden?

"Narrow is the gate and difficult the way that leads to life, and few there be that find it."

Friday, May 6, 2011

Is SITE Monitoring Service Credible in Report of Al Qaeda Confirming Death of Osama?

There's at least one person who doesn't think so:

SITE is a US military-industrial complex front and has been caught red-handed releasing fake Al-Qaeda tapes on numerous occasions.

The SITE organization is nothing more than a contractor for the US government, receiving some $500,000 a year annually from Uncle Sam, the majority of which is paid for by US taxpayers. The group was founded by Rita Katz, the daughter of an executed Israeli spy. Katz has worked closely with the Department of Justice, Department of the Treasury, and the Department of Homeland Security.

Bin Laden Waited Until The Very Last Moment To Lunge For a Weapon?

That's what you have to believe if you accept your government's explanation, which seems even more incredible now that we have this from a morally challenged US Senator:

US commandos missed with their first shot a[s] the world’s most wanted man poked his head out of a third-floor room in his fortress, according to US Sen. Saxby Chambliss, the ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Bin Laden ducked back in, and the Navy SEALS quickly followed and finished the job, Chambliss said in a telephone interview this afternoon.

The job? Try execution.

Much more here.

"A murder committed by uninvited American troops on foreign soil, illegally"

Bob Ellis rips us a new one:

"And Osama Bin Laden was buried at sea. Full fathom five thy father lies. Of his bones are coral made. Those are pearls that were his eyes. Imagine Hitler, buried at sea. Or Trotsky. How stupid can they be?"

"Al Qaeda Confirms bin Laden Death." Unless, of course, That's an NSA Operation.

One lie is as good as the next one.

"Al Qaeda confirmed the death of Osama bin Laden Friday in an Internet message that vowed revenge on the United States and its allies, including Pakistan, according to the SITE monitoring service."

As reported here via Reuters.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

My Favorite Made Up Story About the Abbottabad Assault


As soon as they realised what was happening, Bin Laden’s guards opened fire from the rooftop with rocket-propelled grenades and apparently managed to shoot down one of the Black Hawks.

New UK Daily Mail Kill Operation Graphic Replaces Earlier Fantasy

Here's the new one, hoping we'll forget the old one:

Univ. of Michigan Ph.D. Doesn't Know His Principles From The Principal

Honestly, I don't go looking for these mistakes, I just happen to find them somehow! That I find them so broadly distributed and at the supposedly highest levels is a bad sign of an accelerating cultural decline.

". . . Bell’s principle concern in the chapter is to correct some popular misconceptions . . .." 

It is a popular misconception that there is mastery of knowledge apart from mastery of the language with which one expresses it.

Go to the principal's office at once!

A Lovely Grammatical Error, By a So-Called Associate Professor

". . . including one recently convened by my colleagues and I from Baylor University's Institute for Studies of Religion . . .."

Seen here, by I.

Savage Asks: Why Now? Why Get "bin Laden" on Sunday?

To wipe the royal wedding off the news cycle, because Obama wasn't invited. The I-Me-My-Narcissist excuse.

Sorry, nice dig, but too short-sighted, and it underestimates the size of that narcissistic ego, whose fortunes all hinge on race. If Obama suddenly appeared white, it would all be over in an instant.

Re-election is the goal. Ending the war in Afghanistan is the one obstacle he can still affect. The end of "bin Laden," who may well have died long ago, leads easily to closure of that debacle. Alexander the Great might have concluded as much, who got bogged down and fought until he was tired, and needed to move on.

So find a victory, declare it, and get the hell out.

The original plan had called for the first withdrawals, after the ramp-up, "the surge," to begin this summer. The "bin Laden" victory in May provides the necessary praeparatio to start them. Ending America's longest war "successfully" will make Obama popular with the troops and with the people, who all are weary.

"Bin Laden" Had Plenty of Time to Arm Himself as Others Were "Eliminated"

The "lunge" for a weapon when faced with a US Navy Seal in the doorway is pure fantasy. He had plenty of time to prepare with a weapon as the systematic assault unfolded.

How about a lunge for cover instead, and a bullet in the back of the head as he went?

And in a revelation which appears to lend weight to the claims in Pakistan, a senior US defence official told reporters that only one of the five people killed in the raid that took down Osama Bin Laden was armed and ever fired a shot.

And the official said the shooter was killed in the early minutes of the commando assault, in an account that differs greatly from the original reports which  portrayed a chaotic, prolonged firefight amid stiff resistance.

The new details emerged after officials debriefed the Navy Seals who pulled off the raid in Pakistan.

He said the operation was a precision, floor-by-floor mission through Bin Laden's compound where all of the others encountered were not carrying weapons and were quickly eliminated.

This was a kill mission, pure and simple.

More here.

. . . Especially if the US Navy Seal Shot "bin Laden" in the Back of the Head

"It is important for us to make sure that very graphic photos of somebody who was shot in the head are not floating around as an incitement to additional violence or as a propaganda tool."

-- Obama, quoted here

A caller to Rush Limbaugh today suggested, on the analogy of the headshot to JFK, that the exit wound is the problem here, not the entry wound.

News Organizations Tip-Toe Up to Fact of White House Incompetence and Lies

Even the gullible UK Daily Mail has noticed:

The raid on Bin Laden's lair has been the focus of a constantly changing stream of information from the White House.

So has the normally compliant Reuters:

US accounts of what happened have changed throughout the week, and initial characterizations of a 40-minute gun battle have given way to officials being quoted as saying only one of the five people who were killed had been armed.





AP Report Shows Obama Intended to Kill, Not Capture: Only One Was Armed

This was a state sanctioned murder of unarmed combatants, which Obama and his attorney general have insisted in the past be treated as civilian criminals. So not only were his actions illegal and contrary to the American values he has claimed to defend, his actions were contrary to his own definition of those values:

Only one of the five people killed in the raid that got Osama bin Laden was armed and fired a shot . . ..

As the Navy SEALs moved into bin Laden's compound, they were fired on by bin Laden's courier, who was in the guesthouse, the official said. The SEALs returned fire, and the courier was killed, along with a woman with him. ...

The Americans were never fired on again as they encountered and killed a man on the first floor and then bin Laden's son on a staircase, before arriving at bin Laden's room. Officials have said bin Laden was killed after he appeared to be lunging for a weapon.

The complete story is here.


Obama Would Tax You By The Mile If He Could

Obama is trying to figure out yet another way to tax Americans:

The Obama administration has floated a transportation authorization bill that would require the study and implementation of a plan to tax automobile drivers based on how many miles they drive.

Read the rest here.

"It is necessary [in a tyranny] also to multiply taxes, as at Syracuse; where Dionysius in the space of five years collected all the private property of his subjects into his own coffers."

-- Aristotle, Politics

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Leon Panetta to the Rescue: Implicates Live Feed Breakdown for Ignorant Statements

See the video here:

"[T]here was a time period of almost 20 or 25 minutes where we - you know, we really didn't know just exactly what was going on . . .."