Thursday, June 30, 2011

Dayton Construction

In August 2009, I documented numerous, longterm construction projects going on near my house that took forever to complete because they appeared to be poorly planned and organized, and people rarely worked on them.

A couple of days ago, the government starting tearing up trees in the park nearby, right along the stretch of I-75 they completed in 2009 after a couple years of work. When I asked what was going on, a worker told me they were putting a road through. They didn't put the road through when they had all the equipment here, but now two years later, they're tearing up a bunch of the same land to put a road through. I decided I'd document this project in an ongoing fashion.

This picture shows the destruction looking from the park toward I-75. That was a solid line of nice trees Monday.

This is looking north along I-75.

This is looking south along I-75.

I figured since I was doing this, I'd also show the construction around Main and I-75. I have pictures of this construction in that August 2009 blog post. It's been continuously under construction ever since, and it's still going.

This is looking north up Main at I-75.

This is looking south down Main at I-75.

They're also clearing trees next another building along I-75 toward Main. I assume the road is going through there too.

In typical government fashion, after knocking down all the trees and blighting the park, nobody is working there today. A month ago or so they removed all the toys at the playscape, leaving behind only the supports. I figured they were going to upgrade it. I should have known better. Yesterday they fenced it off so nobody could get to the supports and climb on them either. I guess that's their way of making sure no kids come around the construction area.

They didn't talk to anybody around here to get input on the plan. Everybody on the street was surprised and unhappy. That's probably why nobody talked to us. It'll be interesting to see what they're really doing. I'll bet dollars to donuts (maybe that's a bad bet, donuts are probably worth more than dollars by now) it won't improve our neighborhood.

Free kibbles

TAX AND SPEND:

California won't get it right. Pretending that taxes have zero consequences, California Democrats taxed internet businesses, and Amazon immediately cuts ties with 25,000 of them. This tax made everybody in California and everybody in the world poorer because we no longer have access to those products at our fingertips.
"California Retailers Association stated:  "We thank Governor Jerry Brown and the leaders in the California State Legislature who have demonstrated their leadership and commitment to California businesses by passing and signing e-fairness into law. Small and large businesses across the state have been held at a major disadvantage by the current law that out-of-state online companies like Amazon.com and Overstock.com have exploited for years. This has cost us jobs and revenues.""
Note the protectionist attitude behind the law. This shows that California is isolating itself from the rest of the country, supporting my prediction that California will split from the US as the country continues to decline.

Regarding the consequences of Obama's proposed private jet tax, George Will examines the cost of the luxury yacht tax from the 90s. Hint: it cost the government money and so would a tax on private jets.

Everybody is talking about cutting $2 trillion over ten years, but these aren't cuts at all. It's barely slowing the rate of spending growth. It's a scam.

Greek government passes austerity package, kicks can down the road, making its financial problems worse.

REGULATION:

In a grotesque example of how government corrupts everything and everybody it touches to point of making them indifferent to life and death, the body of a woman who drowned in a government pool wasn't noticed for two days by lifeguards or government inspectors despite the child she was watching telling lifeguards she went under and never came up. Events like this aren't isolated incidents. They're institutionalized because of the nature of government.

EDUCATION:

Government unhappy about college tuition increases, and they want colleges to explain. I'll explain. Government gives everybody student loans so more people are going to college. Colleges increased prices because government made the demand rise.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Thousands of global warming frauds being funded by billions of politically corrupted government dollars every year is not news, but one skeptic earning a million over ten years from oil companies is news.

WAR ON DRUGS:

One of those supposed small-government Republicans blocks marijuana decriminalization bill from vote because the FDA hasn't approved it for use. With supposed small government friends like that, who needs enemies?

POLICE STATE:

Federal and state wiretaps on the rise. On the one hand, this makes sense in the national security uber alles world we live in, but on the other hand, given how easy it is for government agents to implement wiretaps without court approval, I'm kind of surprised the official number hasn't dropped.

WAR:

Report claims real US casualties in the Gulf are 73,846, more than in Vietnam. The reason the claimed number is so low is an accounting gimmick. I'm skeptical of this explanation. If somebody dies while scuba-diving while on leave, it shouldn't be counted. I don't know if something like that was counted in Vietnam or not.

POLITICS:

Michele Bachmann criticized as hypocrite for taking public funds for her businesses. I don't agree. The government steals from us, so it's OK for us to take back whatever we can. The criticism I have of Bachmann is that she takes no principled stand against government theft. She theft is fine for some things but not for others. I think having been a lawyer for the IRS should be way more detrimental to her campaign.

Have you noticed how government goons are always giving other government goons medals?

Ron Paul has raised over $4 million this quarter. That's pretty good.

I often here about public debates. To the best of my recollection, I don't believe anybody has asked my input on any legislative or public debate. I hear about such things in the press all the time, but oddly enough, they never involve me. Don't get me wrong, I've had a couple phone calls asking if I approved or disapproved of something. They tend to hang up when I laugh. But debate about policy? Caring about my opinion? Policy debate seems to be just among ruling class members with the press providing the illusion that the people at large are involved.


Prosecutors and defense attorneys for DSK both have questions about his accuser:
"Strauss-Kahn may be freed from house arrest Friday after attorneys for both sides requested an unexpected late-morning hearing in State Supreme Court. Prosecutors are expected to tell the court that they have found information that raises questions about the chambermaid’s credibility, the person said.""Prosecutors, who had expressed confidence in their case and said they had physical evidence proving that Strauss-Kahn had sexual contact with the woman, now have serious doubts about what the chambermaid told them, according to the person familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity to speak freely about the confidential matter."
Wow. I said all along that this was either a battle between ruling class actors or an attack by a non-ruling class loser. If she was acting alone, she's going to be buried.


Texas voters would vote for any other Republican over Obama except Rick Perry. These are the kind of polls that have kept Perry out of the race.

Is Palin running? Contrary to what this guy predicts, no.

One more prediction: can politics become any more stupid? Yes. No matter how bad things are, they can always become worse. And in this environment, they will. Let's suppose you hired two workers to improve your health every couple of years. But instead of improving your health each year, the two workers beat you about the head and shoulders with clubs, robbed you and berated you for being stupid, all the while pointing fingers at each other over their bad behavior. Do you think there's any reason to believe you will reject both this coming electing? Not a chance.


MISC:

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Free kibbles

ECONOMY:

Economists are pulling out the old argument that the US economy has reached a natural plateau and won't grow any more, the same argument they made in the 1970s, in order to apologize for the government. The only thing standing between us and a robust, growing economy is the burden of government.
"The arguments weren't credible then nor are they now because they fail to recognize that an economy is not some living, breathing entity, rather it is a collection of individuals acting in their own self-interest. Ideas and energy matched with capital are what drive economic advancement, and while the present may seem bleak, to suggest we've hit a plateau is to presume that individuals in the U.S. have run out of ideas. That notion is hard to countenance."
Hard? Impossible.

TAX AND SPEND:

The deficit projections the government are telling us about are not realistic. As bad as things are reported to be, they're much worse in reality.

Good for Cisco for keeping all that money out of the government's claws.

Ohio government repeals the estate tax, taking $18 million away from local governments and leaving it in the hands of the people. Wonderful.
"Repeal of Ohio’s estate tax is virtually certain today, leaving local government officials wondering how to replace the money, while critics of the tax are elated."
Don't let them replace the money. Force them to cut spending.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Inflation is here.
"Since the inception of QE II, the money supply has grown at a 12.5% annual clip."
This is in the pipeline, and it's going to hurt.

HEALTH CARE:

The Sixth Circuit Court in Cincinnati upholds Obamacare mandate as constitutional. You got to be kidding me. Killing people affects interstate commerce. I guess the government can just kill people if it wants to too.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

If I had a nickel for every time I read a story about some breakthrough that would make solar panels cheap enough to play a significant role in energy production, I'd be rich. Yet they're still prohibitively expensive.

POLICE STATE:

More on the FBI corruption and ties to Whitey Bulger.
"Bulger had inducted several top FBI agents in the Boston office into his gang, and used the FBI as his enforcement arm to eliminate his rivals within his own Winter Hill Gang and in the Italian La Cosa Nostra (Mafia). According to his indictment, Bulger's gang committed at least 19 murders in a spree that lasted from 1965-1994. He spent 16 years evading federal officials, some of whom may never have wanted him to have been captured alive. Two FBI agents were eventually convicted of crimes related to helping Bulger commit murder, H. Paul Rico (who died in prison in 2004) and John Connolly (who will soon be transferred from a federal prison where he's serving time for a RICO conviction to Florida to serve 40 years for a murder charge).The two FBI agents convicted of crimes may have been only the tip of the iceberg. Howie Carr toldMSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell after Bulger's arrest that "Whitey altogether gave 'gratuities' to at least 14 agents in the Boston office. You know, he had a saying at Christmas, when he'd be sitting in the back of his liquor store putting all the cash in envelopes. He'd say 'Christmas is for cops and kids.' And the FBI gave him good value in return." In addition, Bulger had reportedly kept more than a dozen Boston police officers on his payroll. Carr is the author of two  books on the Bulger gang, including the best-selling The Brothers Bulger."
This is a good reminder that government creates crime and violence. It makes us less safe, not more safe.

US government claims the power through the Patriot Act to access data stored online in Europe.

WAR:

French forces are dropping arms to Libyan rebels. This is a good reminder that government makes laws for us peons to follow, not the ruling class.

The US government has already lost the Afghan war.
"The objective of war is to achieve political objectives, not to kill enemies.Politically, the US has achieved nothing in Afghanistan after ten years of desultory, destruction, and titanic expenditure.So in this sense, the United States has already lost the Afghan conflict, its longest war. Militarily its forces have been stalemated, meaning that it has lost the all-important military initiative and is now on the strategic defensive."
As I've often said, we won the Afghan war in 2002 after we ousted al Qaeda. That was the mission the American people supported. The rest has been about establishing a government in Afghanistan that would give America's ruling class access to Afghan mineral wealth at below market prices.
"The US has failed to install an obedient regime in Kabul that controls Afghanistan. It has made bitter foes of the nation’s Pashtun majority, and, in pursuing this war, gravely undermined Pakistan."
Because of this war and the Iraq war, we're more at risk now than we were before the government invaded.

POLITICS:

Obama scolds Republicans and gay activists. Shame on both sides for not realizing how wonderful he is.

I never understood people's passion for soccer, but viewing it as today's surrogate for tribal conflict, it makes sense.
"According to Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times, when the U.S. team took the field it was "smothered in boos. ... Its goalkeeper was bathed in a chanted obscenity. Even its national anthem was filled with the blowing of air horns and bouncing of beach balls."How did U.S. coach Bob Bradley respond to the reception his team received in America's largest county? "Obviously ... the support that Mexico has on a night like this makes it a home game for them.""A home game" for Mexico – in Pasadena?"It's part of something we had to deal with," said the coach."
More evidence supporting my fear that California may return to Mexico as the US decline accelerates.

A liberal sees the light. The government is the tool the ruling class uses to loot us. It can never be any other way. The only way to stop the ruling class from using the government to loot us is to take the power to loot away from the government. A lot of libertarians are on this don't vote kick, but I'm not. I think of the vote as a tool. Most voters use that tool as a weapon against others by voting for Republicans or Democrats. I use mine in self-defense by voting for libertarians.

MEDIA:

Lindsay Lohan got the tweet right, but I don't think I'd be jumping on her bandwagon any more than Charlie Sheen's.

MISC:

I'm not surprised some Amazon reviews are corrupt, but I don't think it's a big deal.

Samsung tries to get the government to ban the import of Apple devices into the US because it claims they violate some Samsung patents.

Putting the decline of western civilization into perspective:
"Odds bodkins, zounds and strike me pinke. Chinese premier Wen Jiabao has just been to Stratford-upon-Avon and paid this little old country of ours the most terrific compliment.Our economic growth may be only a tenth of Chinese growth rates; our tax rates may now – absurdly – be higher. We may have spent the past three years scratching our heads about how to replace the third runway at Heathrow while the Chinese have built literally 45 airports over the same period. The Chinese may be set fair to be the economic and political powerhouse of the 21st century, and I wouldn't be surprised if they again mop up more gold medals than anyone else at the Olympic Games; and yet Mr Wen has been to watch Hamlet and declared that we can still claim to be the birthplace of "the greatest writer who ever lived".Isn't that grand? It is, of course, a huge tribute to Mr Wen that he can follow Hamlet as Shakespeare wrote it, picking it all up off the bat in a way that most GCSE English students would struggle to imitate. It is worth asking how many UK politicians could go to China and say anything remotely convincing about, say, Ming poetry. The only one I can think of is the great George Walden, father of this page's Celia, and until George is recalled to the front bench I am afraid Parliament will always look pathetically ignorant."
Ouch. The truth hurts.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Free kibbles

SOCIALISM:

New rules would label any activity businesses take regarding their employees as union busting.

TAX AND SPEND:

President Obama retreats on tax hikes on the wealthy.
"“This is about subsidies for oil and gas companies — $40 billion — a loophole that allows for the owners of private corporate jets to benefit enormously in the billions, compared to, say, Delta or American Airlines, and other measures that benefit millionaires and billionaires, or in some way, you know, complicate our tax code in a way that it isn’t helpful,” Carney said."
So people who work in the private jet industry don't matter to Obama. He doesn't care if those people lose their jobs in symbolic attack on the ultra-rich. It's also about raising gas prices. Obama won't give up his goal of collapsing the US economy under the burden of government.

Here's a good reminder that government is not interested in charity.
"Illinois has borrowed more than $1 million this year to help cover its own expenses from money taxpayers give to charity.The state government has borrowed about $1.17 million this fiscal year from money that Illinois taxpayers designate on their tax returns for charitable use, The News-Gazette inChampaign reported."
Borrowed usually means it will be paid back. A better term would be stolen. Twice.

The relative benefits of a consumption tax. All taxes are theft, but some schemes are worse than others, and the income tax is arguably the worst of all, the Root of All Evil.

Michelle Obama's African excursion cost taxpayers over $500,000.
"In a conversation last week with a South African online newspaper, U.S. Embassy Spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau made clear that the trip was partially a personal pilgrimage for the first lady."
I hope she and her mother and her daughters and her nieces and nephews had fun on our money.

Yesterday I predicted the Greek government wouldn't last. Today protests against austerity measures turn violent. These are people protesting for the government steal other people's money and give it to them. They're protesting for more government, not less as in the Middle East. But if the government starts implementing draconian tax collection, the protesters will flip-flop, and it will become similar to the Middle East protests. Hopefully they'll be peaceful unlike these communists.
"But unions in Greece are furious at the new measures that would slap taxes on minimum wage earners and struggling workers.The plans come on top of other spending cuts and tax hikes — which have contributed to the rise in the unemployment rate to more than 16 per cent."
The government is angering both sides. That's why it won't last.

REGULATION:

Study shows the tremendous damage regulations do to our economy.

Contrasting the largely unregulated tech world (the Jetsons) to other heavily regulated industries (the Flintstones).

San Francisco considers banning pet sales. I wonder what a black market in pets would look like.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Bernanke's money is flowing into luxuries for the ultra-rich like Prada.
"Vikram Mansharamani, in his book Boombustology, provides an interesting sidebar with a chart of auctioneer Sotheby's common stock going back to mid-1988, just before the final run-up of the Japanese stock market. The Yale lecturer and global equity investor tracks the ups and downs of Sotheby's common stock as a proxy for booms and busts in the art market.The stock price for the auction house peaked as the Nikkei was peaking at the end of 1989. It ran to higher highs as the Internet bubble was cresting. Sotheby's ran to an all-time high of $61.40 with US house prices in 2007. The shares have run up again since the '08 crash busted the stock down to $6.05 with the China boom and the Federal Reserve's QEs 1 and 2. Earning $2.34 a share in 2010, the stock traded smartly in the $50 range in April, but it has since slumped to $40. "Even the most optimistic among us would not have predicted such results just one year ago," Sotheby's chairman Michael Sovern told Grant's."
Interesting.
"While the view exists that the Chinese economic mousetrap is a better one, Carl Walter and Fraser Howie don't see it that way. "We do not believe in Chinese exceptionalism," write Walter and Howie in Red Capitalism: The Fragile Financial Foundation of China's Extraordinary Rise. "If there are such things as economic laws, they work just as well in China and for Chinese businesses as they do in other markets."The authors cast a skeptical eye toward China's government-controlled and propped-up banking system. Chinese bankers worry more about pushing the money out the door than the prospects of getting it back. As Jim Grant writes, "In China, the big banks don't formally go broke. Rather, every 10 years or so, the state recapitalizes them." Bad loans are shifted from bad bank balance sheets to worse bank balance sheets, Grant explains. The Ministry of Finance provides its guarantee to the bad loans at par, banking life goes on, and the economic miracle remains alive, backstopped by the lender of last resort, the People's Bank of China, levered at 1,233 to 1."
But the Chinese have a tremendous amount of real savings, and that has to have an impact.

The luxury index graph isn't going to make anybody outside the ruling class happy.

POLICE STATE:

Government uses the law as a weapon against the people, but even rich enemies of the ruling class are often targeted. I think the liberals are right in this case. If the hotel maid was working alone to set up DSK, and the ruling class was on his side, it would never have worked. Supposing DSK is being set up, either this guy is disliked by the American ruling class and the maid was fortunate enough to pick the right victim, which is highly unlikely, or he's being set up by allies of Sarkozy.

POLITICS:

Not content to be a Bilderberger, Rick Perry shows up at Koch event. If this guy gets in the race, he ought to be able to raise money from the ruling class like Romney.

Michelle Bachmann's former chief of staff attacks her in Iowa.

USA Today, the government's paper, reports that the government has been covering up bus accidents and fatalities for a decade or more. You'd be hard pressed to find anybody more cynical about government than me, but even I'm surprised by this. Having an agenda to loot people is one thing, but lying about things that people will obviously discover is another. This shows that the corrupting power of government overwhelms all reason.
"NHTSA's failure to track all the accidents has given Congress and the public a false impression that buses are safer than they are and has thwarted efforts to promote tougher regulation, safety advocates say."
I told you so.

MISC:

As soon as Microsoft buys Skype, the US Congress decides to use it. The two must be related.

Breaking the link between clocks and earth's rotation. At first, this may sound silly because it doesn't make sense for the sun to rise at noon. But the difference is so tiny that it only amounts to a minute or so every century. The change would be imperceptible over a human lifetime.

Praise for Thomas the Tank Engine. At a model train show this weekend, I was looked at as a barbarian because I never heard of Thomas.

Despite Apple CEO Jobs preemptively sucking up to local government officials by designing his white elephant to meet their every political desire, government officials still tried to shake him down for more.

Monday, June 27, 2011

Free kibbles

SOCIALISM:

Socialists abandon socialism because it's failing. This isn't new. Lenin did the same thing with his New Economic Policy.

How Obama is using the Labor Relations Board to promote unions against the will of workers like those at Delta who have repeated voted against unionizing.

It's funny how this diagram which obviously shows socialism in action is attributed to capitalism.

ECONOMY:

Democrats blame the economic crash on Wall Street. Republicans blame Fannie and Freddie. These arguments are partisan clap-trap intended to distract Americans from the real problem: the Fed coupled with massive interventions in our economy supported by both parties.

TAX AND SPEND:

The supposed huge spending cuts in Britain are really minuscule.

Cato guy estimates the US federal debt at $120 trillion.

Investigation into the culture of corruption in the Greek government that has produced widespread corruption throughout society. What about every other government?
"Along street after street of opulent mansions and villas, surrounded by high walls and with their own pools, most of the millionaires living here are, officially, virtually paupers.
How so? Simple: they are allowed to state their own earnings for tax purposes, figures which are rarely challenged. And rich Greeks take full advantage.Astonishingly, only 5,000 people in a country of 12 million admit to earning more than £90,000 a year — a salary that would not be enough to buy a garden shed in Kifissia.Yet studies have shown that more than 60,000 Greek homes each have investments worth more than £1m, let alone unknown quantities in overseas banks, prompting one economist to describe Greece as a ‘poor country full of rich people’.
Manipulating a corrupt tax system, many of the residents simply say that they earn below the basic tax threshold of around £10,000 a year, even though they own boats, second homes on Greek islands and properties overseas."
This shows what the Greeks are willing to voluntarily pay for their government. Spending should be reduced to that level.
This shows what the Greeks are willing to voluntarily pay for their government. Forcing tax compliance, effectively dramatically increasing taxes, is not the solution. Spending should be reduced to that level.
"With Greek President George Papandreou calling for a crackdown on these tax dodgers — who are believed to cost the economy as much as £40bn a year — he is now resorting to bizarre means to identify the cheats."
This is backwards. The people not paying taxes are boosting the economy by keeping that money in the private sector. With an estimated GDP of $310 billion, if the government suddenly stole $40 billion from taxpayers, the Greek economy would implode. It would be devastating.
"But faced with the threat of a crackdown, money is now pouring out of the country into overseas tax havens such as Liechtenstein, the Bahamas and Cyprus."
Even the threat is harming the economy. The Greek government's days are numbered. Public sector employees are already staging massive strikes. When they piss off private sector employees to the same extent, the country will finally collapse. They spent themselves into a hole they can't get out of. They may be able to stay in power a while longer by pulling out of the euro and starting their own currency, but that won't save them in the longer run.
"As a result, for example, the Greek school system is now an over-staffed shambles, employing four times more teachers per pupil than Finland, the country with the highest-rated education system in Europe. ‘But we still have to pay for tutors for our two children,’ says Helena, an Athens mother. ‘The teachers are hopeless — they seem to spend their time off sick.’"
So much for money solving the education problem.

REGULATION:

Because of government's interference in the credit card fee market, banks will raise debit card fees.

European overreaction to the E. coli scare.
"It is remarkable how an outbreak limited geographically to an area surrounding the city of Hamburg, which led to an initial ban on organic Spanish cucumbers, could end in the complete cessation of all vegetable trade between hundreds of millions of people!"
Protectionism was one of the big burdens that extended the Great Depression.
"Ultimately, as it turned out, Spanish organic cucumbers were cleared of all charges. The E. colibacteria found on Spanish cucumbers were in fact of a nonvirulent strain and thus harmless. Given that organic cucumbers are nourished by fertilizer derived from manure, or cow feces, is it really surprising to discover some bacteria upon them? Are we not all well-aware that vegetables should be washed? Who doesn't already know this?"
Government action isn't based on what normal people consider rational.
"What we are really witnessing is the "new protectionism" — that of food-safety standards. The European Union has already been using "health and safety standards" to punish third-world producers for decades. Farming lobbyists have guided protectionism into an increasingly sophisticated and hard-to-measure form. "Quality standards" have become the new trade barriers. For example, EU standards to protect consumers against aflatoxin cost African exporters of nuts, cereals, and dried fruits $650 million a year and reduced their exports by 64 percent. The World Bank estimates that the policy, which is exceedingly costly for many Africans, may prevent one death per billion people in Europe per year.[3]"
That's the kind of reason used by government.
"The first thing to be thrown out the window in this fiasco was of course the law itself."
Governments make laws for us peons. It doesn't obey them itself.
"As mentioned above, there already exist numerous international food-safety agreements, none of which were adhered to during this crisis."
Government regulations are worse than worthless. - they cause and exacerbate problems - but naturally the call is for more regulation.
"As Saint Thomas Aquinas explained, "A small error in the beginning leads to a great error in the conclusion."[8] If you begin with the assumption that the government is needed to regulate food safety, soon social forces and special interests inexorably propel the world into establishing a global food-regulation agency. One must strike at the root of the problem, however, by debunking this initial assumption. It is time for governments to get out of food safety, because, if not for their meddling, the ancient honor of the Spanish cucumber would never have been called into question."
Well said.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Fed paper notes:
"Policymakers are aware of the possibility that a persistent policy of exceptionally low interest rates could result in a misallocation of credit and inflate asset prices."
As I keep saying Keynesians don't believe their own dogma. More evidence that Bernanke and other politicians are evil, not stupid.

HEALTH CARE:

This study claiming cutting calories,whether they be protein or carbs, is key to weight loss, is a bunch of baloney.
"Curbing calories is the key ingredient for diabetics seeking to lose weight, and low-fat diets that are either high in protein or high in carbs are equally effective, researchers say."
"The researchers randomly assigned the participants to one of two groups: a low-fat/high-protein group or a low-fat/high-carb group."
The experiment starts with a low-fat bias. So much for objectivity. Both groups were crippled because of the low fat aspect of the diet. The claim that diets have to be low fat is just wrong. People need healthy fat. Had the study included a group fed healthy fat and protein and reduced carbohydrates, that group would have been vastly more successful than the two in the study. In addition, people can't adhere to diets that cut out proteins or fat because the fat, proteins and the nutrients that come with them are necessary for life. The researchers set up conditions that doom dieters to failure. This is another politically motivated, pseudo-scientific study meant to provide support for the SAD that is making Americans and everybody else who adopt it fat and sick.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Bad economy in Europe wipes out governments' green programs. Another bubble bursting.

Al Gore busted for lying about western snow pack.

Since Katrina, global hurricane activity is near historical lows, just as Joe Bastardi predicted.

The last thing I want is new technology that makes it easy for the government to control the electricity in my house. Take your smart grid and shove it. Americans should be working to get off the grid, not give government even more control over it.

Winter weather advisory in California.

POLICE STATE:

Cops arrest woman for filming them from her own property making another arrest, then later they come by and ticket all the cars outside her house.

Whitey Bulger's FBI connections.

WAR:

International court issues warrant against Qaddafi for crimes against humanity. I thought foreigners and rebels started this war.

It turns out Republicans did the right thing voting against at bill billed as cutting off funding for the Libyan war.
"The first bill that Republicans voted on would have authorized the Libyan military adventure to continue for a year. Most Republicans voted against it. The second bill would have prohibited funding "except for: (1) search and rescue; (2) intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; (3) aerial refueling; and (4) operational planning." This time, 89 Republicans voted against it, 81 of whom also voted against the previous bill."
The second bill was in fact an authorization of Obama's illegal war, not a vote to defund it as advertised. Orwell would be proud.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Obama brokers deal between Israel and Turkey to face down Syria. It's disturbing to see Lew Rockwell defend Syria while Assad murders people in the streets. But this seems like bad foreign policy. It looks like the Syrian people are going to take Assad down without our interference. If Israel or the US get involved, this would make matter worse, not better, because it would lend credence to Assad's claims that the protests are being fomented by foreign conspirators.

The ruling class fears the public's desire to end our foreign policy of aggression.

POLITICS:

This observation is dead on.
"Ron Paul: Of all the candidates not named Romney, the Texas congressman has the most proven record of raising a lot of cash for a presidential race. In 2007 alone, he collected more than $27 million for his bid — including nearly $20 million in the final three months of the year. A sign of Paul’s fundraising confidence? He spent $31,000 — the most of any candidate — on a prime spot at Iowa’s Ames Straw Poll in August. Still, no matter how much money Paul has, he has not proved that he can reach outside his ardent — but tiny — electoral base."
Let's hope he gets a lot more votes this primary. This poll showing Paul tied for second in double digits is promising.

A corrupt court (they're all corrupt) found a corrupt governor (they're all corrupt) guilty of corruption. You can bet since the court is still part of the government and the governor is not, the people are losers here. The Blago conviction along with others illustrates the Illinois Democrat Party is the most corrupt in the nation, and they're now in power in Washington.

LOCAL:

Thanks to the SAD, local kids are getting fatter.

I'm skeptical of this report that big banks could give away homes to local government. There's something going on here that isn't being reported. The banks are getting something in return or government is shaking them down. I don't know which. But can you imagine local government becoming a player in the home market? This is going to be trouble. The good news is this might help housing prices reach their floor faster, something government has been fighting since the housing bubble popped. Any way you look at it, people are going to be burned and angry.

MISC:

Not too long ago I claimed Microsoft would ruin Skype after purchasing it. Now we get news that Microsoft has patented technology for eavesdropping on VoIP.

In an article lamenting that the Supreme Court dismissed the class action suit against Walmart, the New York Times explains why women tend to make less money than men.
"True, Wal-Mart is hardly alone in demanding that rising managers sacrifice family life, but few companies make relocation such a fixed policy, and few have employment rolls even a third the size."
Women are less likely to relocate, that so that reduces their value to the company and their opportunities for work, both of which lead to reduced salaries.
"The workweek for salaried managers is around 50 hours or more, which can surge to 80 or 90 hours a week during holiday seasons. Not unexpectedly, some managers think women with family responsibilities would balk at such demands, and it is hardly to the discredit of thousands of Wal-Mart women that they may be right."
Women in general are less likely to work the long hours required of a management position, therefore they are less likely to be promoted to a management position. That leads to reduced salaries. This is economic reality, not discrimination and not unfairness.

Praise for entrepreneurship at McDonalds.
"So certain is the company that these [internal renovations] are going to make a difference, it is spending a minimum of $1 billion on the renovations in all 14,000 US restaurants. The first 800 will be complete in 2011, costing some $250,000 per store. Our own local restaurant started renovations in early June and completed them in a mere two weeks time — all the while keeping the drive-through window open and doing a vigorous business."
Government has been working on improving I-75 through here for about 15 years and plans to work another decade more before it finishes.
"Let's be clear here. It's not the case that the management of this company has an unusually high devotion to the well-being of humanity. The management is following the pricing signals and making entrepreneurial judgments all in the service of the consuming public. It is a great competitor, relentlessly reinventing itself in an effort to win the affections of the eating-out public."
"The managers here might be the greatest humanitarians in history or they might be the greediest and most selfish people on earth. It really doesn't matter. The market is the driving force and the profitability signals are the test of whether the company is or is not doing the right thing."
And therefore providing a service so valuable it makes billions.
"When the reinvention of this company began in 2009, it was not preceded by national campaigns and platforms. There were no public votes. Billions were not spent on lobbying for change. There were no public debates, advertising campaigns, frenzied conventions, or door-to-door campaigning. It was a decision made by the management — an entrepreneurial judgment that could be right or could be wrong — in an effort to please the stockholders who are the owners. And the final test is always the same: are people willing to buy?Meanwhile, in the world of politics, decade after decade goes by with endless rounds of "reinventing government," school reform, bureaucratic reform, rearrangement of spending priorities, and regulatory change to make stuff work better. In the end, it amounts to little or nothing. Crucially, there is no real test to determine whether these changes were worth the cost or whether they really accomplished the goal. In politics, it is not even clear what the goal is! And, of course, the result is predictable. There is no change, no reinvention, no real improvement."
Things get worse, not better. Great contrast.
"The crucial way to tell a predominantly market-based company from a state-based company is to investigate its primary institutional interest: does it serve the state or does it serve the consuming public? There can be no question where McDonald's is on this spectrum, and the result is not just a beautiful model for serving up food but a beautiful model for social service in general."
I agree. McDonald's passes this test. Where I disagree with Tucker and many other at Mises.org is I believe Apple fails this test. They love Apple. I think Apple's new temple to the ruling class, a gigantic white elephant with every politically correct tribute to government, is a perfect example of its failure to focus on creating the best product possible for the marketplace.

Possible source of the epithet against silver spoons: they kill germs so rich people had a survival advantage.

America is suffering from a glut of lawyers, so lawyers try to create more work for themselves. This is very bad for the rest of us.

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Free kibbles

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

FTC attacking Google in a bid to control the internet.

TAX AND SPEND:

Taxpayers pay for Obama's wife and kids to go on safari in Africa.

HEALTH CARE:

The myth of Swedish health care:
"It is a nasty image of advanced and high-tech health care that is unavailable when needed, strictly rationed, and where medical personnel dissuade dying people from seeking care."
That doesn't like the health care utopia we hear about.

Export of the Standard American Diet (SAD) is taking its toll around the world.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

How the environmental movement corrupted flood control on the Missouri River, leading to the current flooding. More analysis suggests the Corp may be forcing a retreat from the river.

Blast from the past exposes the real agenda of the climate frauds:
"“We’ve got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing, in terms of economic policy and environmental policy. ” – Timothy Wirth quoted in Science Under Siege by Michael Fumento, 1993"
I didn't realize this fraud had been exposed that long ago. As I've long said, these are pseudo-scientists, political activists posing as scientists, not scientists.

POLICE STATE:

TSA agents force 95 year old woman dying of leukemia to remove her adult diaper for groping.

LOCAL:

This sentence makes no sense.
"“It’s a tax issue, not an economic issue,” Hicks said, meaning the biggest boon will come from the tax revenues generated from the casino."
Since when are taxes a boon? I think the casino will have a negative impact on Butler County. Some of the entertainment spending that would have stayed in Butler County will go to the casino instead.

MISC:

I'm not surprised that city living affects the brain.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Free kibbles

ECONOMY:

We lost last decade, and we're likely to lose the next one too.

TAX AND SPEND:

California as America's Greece. This comparison may turn out to be more apt than the author knows. Caught between a rock and a hard place, Greece may have to pull out of the EU, set up its own central bank and print its own money to satisfy the demand for government spending that won't go away. With the US economy collapsing and the federal government broke, it can't bail out California, and the politicians will not cut spending enough to balance the budget. Like Greece, California is caught between a rock and hard place. I wouldn't be surprised to see oil-rich Mexico try and bribe California to return to Mexico with a promise to pay off its debt. If we don't rein in our government, the US as we know it will cease to exist.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Here's an interesting theory about QEII.
"In summary, instead of doing everything in its power to stimulate reserve, and thus cash, accumulation at domestic (US) banks which would in turn encourage lending to US borrowers, the Fed has been conducting yet another stealthy foreign bank rescue operation, which rerouted $600 billion in capital from potential borrowers to insolvent foreign financial institutions in the past 7 months. QE2 was nothing more (or less) than another European bank rescue operation!"
"He offered three graphs that show how the increase in QE2 was matched almost dollar for dollar by an increase in excess reserves at the FED held by foreign banks."
Very interesting.

On rising food prices.
"The reality is that tens of millions of American families have now essentially been priced out of a healthy diet."
Thanks to government. Some specifics.
"Some recent statistics compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics are absolutely staggering. According to a recent CNBC article, over the past year many of the most popular foods in America have absolutely soared in price....Coffee, for instance, is up 40 percent. Celery is 28 percent higher while butter prices rose 26.4 percent. Rounding out the top five are bacon, at 23.5 percent, and cabbage, at 23.3 percent.Unfortunately, it looks like the trend of rising food prices is accelerating. Just look at what the CNBC article says happened in the month of April alone....Just in April—the most recent month for which data is available—grapes went up nearly 30 percent, cabbage jumped about 17 percent and orange juice surged more than 5 percent.Meat is becoming more expensive as well. Since March 2009, livestock prices have risen by 138%.So when Ben Bernanke tells us that inflation is very low, that really is a lie. On the stuff that people spend money on every day (like food and gas), prices have gone up dramatically."
Inflation is here.

EDUCATION:

Government schools have outrageously failed at teaching history.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Al Gore, UN Agenda 21 and population control.
"Imagine going to sleep one night and waking up many years later in a totally different world.  In this futuristic world, literally everything you do is tightly monitored and controlled by control freak bureaucrats in the name of "sustainable development" and with the goal of promoting "the green agenda".  An international ruling body has centralized global control over all human activity.  What you eat, what you drink, where you live, how warm or cold your home can be and how much fuel you can use is determined by them.  Anyone that dissents or that tries to rebel against the system is sent off for "re-education".  The human population is 90 percent lower than it is today in this futuristic society, and all remaining humans have been herded into tightly constricted cities which are run much like prisons.  Does all of that sound good to you?  Well, this is what Agenda 21 is all about."
Al's not your typical looter. He's hates his fellow men so much he want to wipe many of them out. Socialized medicine dovetails nicely into this murderous scheme.
"Do you notice how whenever global leaders talk about "empowering" women these days it always ends up with them having less children?"
It's a new code word. These people act like they love nature, but in nature, women have babies. They're agenda is grotesquely unnatural and authoritarian.
"The number one commandment of the infamous Georgia Guidestones is this: "Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature."Unfortunately, a very high percentage of our global leaders actually believe in this stuff.Sadly, this philosophy is now regularly being reflected in official UN documents.  For example, the March 2009 U.N. Population Division policy brief begins with the following shocking statement....What would it take to accelerate fertility decline in the least developed countries?Apparently the poorest nations are the primary target for the population control freaks over at the UN."
Kinder, gentler Nazis. I've warned for years that the ultimate goal of the global warming frauds was to control our very breath, and here's new evidence:
"1) "Each birth results not only in the emissions attributable to that person in his or her lifetime, but also the emissions of all his or her descendants. Hence, the emissions savings from intended or planned births multiply with time."2) "No human is genuinely "carbon neutral," especially when all greenhouse gases are figured into the equation. Therefore, everyone is part of the problem, so everyone must be part of the solution in some way."3) "Strong family planning programmes are in the interests of all countries for greenhouse-gas concerns as well as for broader welfare concerns.""
If you thought you could appease these people by buying a few carbon offsets, you were dangerously mistaken. They hate us because we breath. We exhale CO2, and they won't be satisfied until we stop.
"John P. Holdren, Barack Obama's top science advisor, co-authored a textbook entitled "Ecoscience" back in 1977 in which he actually advocated mass sterilization, compulsory abortion, a one world government and a global police force to enforce population control."
Maybe they aren't kinder or gentler after all.

Claim that Fukushima is worse than Chernobyl.

The government is conducting another experiment on us.
"The group that oversees the U.S. power grid is proposing a change that has the potential to disrupt electric clocks in schools, hospitals and other institutions, according to a company presentation obtained by The Associated Press. It may also mess with the timing of traffic lights, security systems, sprinklers and some personal computer software and hardware."
We're little more than lab rats to them.
""A lot of people are going to have things break and they're not going to know why," said Demetrios Matsakis, head of the time service department at the U.S. Naval Observatory, one of two official timekeeping agencies in the federal government.
The changes, however, are out of the hands of timekeepers and in control of officials who supply the electrical power."
"This will be an interesting experiment to see how dependent our timekeeping is on the power grid, Matsakis said."
This is another example of how power corrupts.

WAR ON DRUGS:

The racist nature of the war on drugs.
"As the A.C.L.U. pointed out last week, "The racial disparities [in drug arrests and prosecution] are staggering: despite the fact that whites engage in drug offenses at a higher rate than African-Americans, African-Americans are incarcerated for drug offenses at a rate that is 10 times greater than that of whites."
Wow.

On the failure of the war on drugs:
"The War on People Who Use Drugs, colloquially known as the “drug war”, turns 40 next week.  Although the U. S. government has criminalized various substances used for medicinal or recreational purposes for nearly a century, the modern drug war began during the Nixon administration, with his announcement that the U. S. government would actively prosecute a “war on drugs”.   This followed the passage of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970; Nixon then established the Drug Enforcement Administration in 1973 to oversee all of the government’s interdiction efforts.  Since then, the drug war has consumed more money, and more lives, than any of the drugs which the state has aimed to eradicate, and has completely failed to achieve any of its intended goals.  Drugs are more available than ever before, and although usage has gone down for some drugs (and increased for others), it can be attributed as much to changing tastes in recreational drug usage as to the state’s interdiction efforts."
The war on drugs has only been a failure if you believe the stated goals. The real goal of the war on drugs, like all government programs, is too loot the American people, and it's been a fantastic success. Map of botched paramilitary police raids.

POLICE STATE:

Texas cops can extract your blood by force and use it against you.

The FBI gets new surveillance powers. This is a good reminder that no matter how bad things are, they can always get worse.

Nice breakdown on the US prison population.

WAR:

The war in Afghanistan is lost.
"Strategically, removal of 30,000 troops in 15 months means that Obama has given up all hope of victory over the Taliban."
There was never any hope of defeating the Taliban. Taking them out of power, yes. Wiping them out, no.

The CIA's role in the Libyan war. Rumor that US troops will invade Libya in the fall. I doubt this will happen. The American people would revolt.

POLITICS:

Praise for Turkey's democratic government. It might be doing a good job compared to the west because it's less than a decade old, but it won't last.

I'm excited about the coverage Ron Paul is getting, the money he's raising, how he's doing in straw polls and how other Republicans are paying lip service to the libertarian principles he champions. But he's polling in single digits. None of it matters if unless it translates to votes, and as hopeful as I am that he'll get double digits in votes, I'm skeptical.

MISC:

It looks like 99 cent novellas are the way to go.

Walter Williams says blacks are America's new racists.

I always thought Britons were of Germanic descent. They're called Anglo-Saxons for a reason.
""People from rural England are more closely related to the northern Germans than to their countrymen from Wales or Scotland," Härke explains."
Then those Germans decided to conquer the Welsh, the Scots and the Irish and colonized half the world.

New York government allows gays to marry. How ridiculous is it that anybody has to ask government's permission to marry? The whole gay marriage issue is another one of those divisive issues created by government.