Stewart, Barack, Trek Into Darkness

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-may-13-2013/barack-trek--into-darkness?xrs=playershare_fb

Jon is having a little trouble covering the BO these days. I wonder if since the administration has shown incompetence and malfeasance at this point, if Jon would admit that "those of the tin foil hats" might have a point??

Nah, he won't go that far, but occasionally he does take a minute out to pay attention tot he real world.

Mille Lacs Glaciation Preview

BBC News Ice sheet creeps ashore on Minnesota lake - YouTube:

I've always argued that "global warming" would be easier for humans to deal with that "global cooling". The planet was ice-free for much of it's 4-5B year life and did just fine. We actually live in a very cold period (not the coldest, see "Snowball Earth") relative to the warmer periods in planet history.

There are more extensive and better videos out on YouTube if you want to delve deeper, but I liked the fact that good old Mille Lacs made the BBC.

Try to imagine those ice sheets a mile deep, but flowing much slower, covering pretty much the entire Northern Hemisphere. Somehow I always find that picture scarier than the one of me sitting on my deck here in MN in January, but I guess to each their own.


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Gun Violence Drop Deniers

Gun Homicide Rate Down 49% Since 1993 Peak; Public Unaware | Pew Social & Demographic 
Trends:

Pew is a pretty respectable site for public opinion -- regularly used by NPR for one I know.

Gee, down 49% since '93, and in that time we had both extra gun control (Assault Weapons Ban), and the expiration of that ban. If one was interested in saving lives, it would seem that this information would be VERY good news and a tremendous opportunity to figure out what works and what doesn't relative to gun violence.

For starters, we have been a lot tougher on drug crime in that time, there are a lot more concealed carry states (and permit holders), and there have been a lot more guns purchased.

Wow, the public is unaware! Now there is something that I'm sure our media is embarrassed about and is going to work every bit as hard as they do on say "Global Warming / Climate Change" to INSURE that everyone is fully informed about "the real world.

Any "Gun Violence Drop Deniers" are no doubt going to be suitably chastised for not being "reality based".

Don't think any of this is going to happen? Seems absolutely clear that the impulse to "Gun Control" is really  about CONTROL doesn't it?


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Watergate to Benghazi

Eric Boehlert: Benghazi, Projection, and the Dark Obama Obsession:

I'd argue that this "dark obsession" has plagued alternative sides of any semi-successful (at least politically) presidency since Nixon.

Certainly EVERYTHING claimed in this article as applying to those who find Benghazi serious goes 10x for Watergate. Nobody died in Watergate. It's national or international import was absolutely zilch. The ENTIRE issue was the "coverup", and "did the president lie?". A new standard was established by the left in America  with Watergate -- at least REPUBLICAN president re-elected in an absolute landslide could be taken out of office if the proper game of "gotcha" could be executed against him.

So with Reagan we had Iran-Contra. Still no lives lost, but an opportunity for the Democrats to assert that "the will of Congress" had been usurped -- man, they love the Constitution when it seems to be on their side. Iran Contra was still brought up during the HW Bush election in '92.

Is it REALLY that surprising that Republicans eventually learned this tactic?? Slick Willie provided them with AMPLE opportunity, and I suppose that Whitewater was a "low standard" when a former governor of Arkansas and 5 or so of the Clinton's closest personal friends ended up in jail.

Does this columnist really think that there wasn't "war" on W for the whole 8 years???  Does nobody remember Dan Rather losing his job over fake documents?? Not to mention "Plamegate" ... Whitewater was a "low standard"?? Trying to make a "leak" that "outed" a CIA agent that drove to Langley every day and whose husband's "Who's Who" entry mentioned her by name? How many "secret agents" do you know whose husbands write controversial articles for magazines? BTW, "Plamegate" warranted a "special prosecutor" ... so Benghazi isn't even close until we get that far.

So we come to Obama. I happen to have read his first book, it isn't very hard to find A LOT of questions that would be asked of him if he had been coming from the "the other side" politically. His "borrowed dream" that he dedicated his life to is anti-colonialism. Righting the "injustice" of the expansion of Western civilization -- the return to tribalism and paganism. His "opposite" would be a "throwback", and "America First" sort that had no apologies for America, Christianity, Western civilization. Based on the treatment of W, I'd argue that the treatment of someone on the right that had a history that was as "anti-progressive" as Obama's is "anti-western civilization  would create an anger from the left to make the "dark obsession" with BO seem positively tame by comparison.

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Dying for Meaning

Suicide Rate Rises Sharply in U.S. - NYTimes.com:

Our nation has been the victim of "progress" driven by "progressives" for over a century now, and the verdicts have been coming in for some time. Financially, jobs wise, morality wise, happiness wise, and even just on the basic will to live.

Suicide rates have been high in Europe for a long time -- and birth rates low. In the cosmic picture, "what is life about"?

In 2010 there were 33,687 deaths from motor vehicle crashes and 38,364 suicides.

So we choose to die at a higher rate than we die even in our cars -- and let's be honest. How many of those car crashes are really just suicides better covered up, as well as a host of other "accidental deaths". 

"Progress" has destroyed the honor of sticking with a marriage that is far less than perfect -- for the kids, or whatever. It has destroyed religion for many, in the simplest sense because religion is no longer seen as a "standard way to live" in our culture -- and for the people in the middle to lower part of the "bell shaped curve" of existence, "doing what the crowd does" looms large. 

The "minimum wage" has been constantly increased as have the government benefits, so "work", SOME work, as having dignity over not working has  been largely removed as a measure of a worthy life. There is no stigma in "Taking a Living" any more, and in fact the government declares what a "Living Wage" is -- there is absolutely no honor in scraping by on that or even less. TAKE! Your labor isn't worth enough to survive in our society -- or you have been "oppressed", and clearly the "oppressors" have won. 

In fact, the very concept of some standard to a meaningful life are now "wrong". ... "he was honest, he went to church, he worked hard, he took care of his family, he was a good neighbor, etc" ... all those "value judgements", or "standards" are "judgmental", somehow small-town hicksville, not worthy to be considered. 

Why would there be any "standard"? Isn't it "better" to give all people "equal standing" for simply breathing? Well, maybe if they don't try to "judge anyone else" ... like if they impertinently stand up for some tired old Christian morality, or some old tired document like the Constitution. THOSE people are worthy of disdain. THOSE people MUST change their views to the way of moral relativity. Everyone else is "equally OK" ... at least. If they stand up for relativism, maybe even better than that!

So we die. Individually and alone by suicide. Culturally by low birth rate and murdering the unborn.  The article has a lot of excuses -- poor finances, drugs, etc, but does ANYONE really believe that?? 

This is very very old and sad news in the waning days of a corrupt and lost civilization.

 "Where there is no vision, the people perish". (Prov 29:18)


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Tax Enemies, One Party Rule

IRS admits targeting conservatives for tax scrutiny in 2012 election - The Washington Post:

I've always compared BO with Carter on the basis of policy, but it is definitely Nixon he is closest to in morality.

First, the practice is no surprise at all, just mildly surprising that the IRS would forget that it it isn't on the list of things to talk about openly.

The IRS, and in ALL agencies of the government save the military (although that is shifting too) are union organizations that vote over 90% Democrat. We currently have, and effectively have had for some time, one party rule. Why would they NOT target Republicans? They would have to care more for Rule of Law than how they feel -- and they are Democrats.

If they valued Rule of Law over temporary political advantage, they would be Republicans. They believe in their hearts, not their minds, and certainly not in som old tired Constitution.

So we OFFICIALLY and OPENLY (for today)  live in a country where you are targeted for your political allegiance. Expect that to be a big story? Not from this side it won't be -- the MSM is just fine with this, in fact, they no doubt feel it is good and proper. Embarrassing when IRS folks get lost enough so they talk about it openly, but that can be fixed and it can be buried again.

To some degree, they need to do this from time to time. It instills fear. If you don't agree with "The Party", then you can be targeted. Keep your head down, lie low, maybe nobody will rat you out!
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David Gelernter: Who is on trial for Benghazi? | Power Line

David Gelernter: Who is on trial for Benghazi? | Power Line:

Just read it. EXCELLENT!

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Ice Cancels Fishing Opener

Ice Likely Ruining The Fishing Opener On Mille Lacs « CBS Minnesota:

For the first time in quarter century, I'm not doing any fishing in MN this opener. For 45+ years I did an opener either here or in WI, where the opener was a week earlier. During that time there was never an issue with ice on any of the lakes that I opened on -- this year, there was, and would definitely have been had I gone to WI.

I listen to MPR pretty much every day, there has been VERY little discussion about all the records being broken this year, where last year, the early and warm spring was a CONSTANT discussion, often with a little quip thrown in of "how hard it must be to be a "denier".

Guess what. BOTH years were WEATHER, not CLIMATE ... as have been all the 10, 20, and even 100 year shifts in temps, rainfall, snow, etc.

The best that science can tell us is that the CLIMATE of the planet has shifted between periods of warm and cold for at least the last 2.6 million years, and we are in fact still in an "ice age" called the Pleistocene.

The chart shows evidence from antarctic ices cores over the past 450,000 years. If people like to think about the "big picture", this chart brings a few thoughts to mind:

1. Note the scale, 50,000 year increments. The whole of recorded human history is in that rightmost uptick in temps. 
2. Note the semi-regular 4 peaks pior to (I think) even the warmists belief in human effect. 
3. Five isn't a really good number for a persistent pattern over 2.5 million years, when what you have is on 1/5th of the data because the other 4/5ths melted. 
4. Look at the peak about 125,000 years ago. It got a lot warmer than now. The place at which this ice sheet was at was still ice covered, and guess what! The planet survived, and they didn't even have Al Gore to protect it. 
5. Note how "fast" (on this scale, still hundreds and thousands of years)  the temperature drops are after the peaks. We know that the planet has survived both the peaks and the valleys, along with all the life forms we see around us today. Polar bears for example, did NOT evolve in the last 125K years, after it previously got 4° C warmer than now. Folks that claim otherwise are either misinformed or lying. 
6. Note how much of the time it is VERY cold. A few min spent looking at the following http://mclean.ch/climate/Ice_cores.htm will point out that the last 3K years have THANKFULLY been fairly warm. There are mastodons from Siberia dated 7-8K years ago when it was WARMER STILL. My thinking is that was not due to humans driving around too much!! But then thoughts like that make me a stupid "denier". 

Anyway, enough on the bigger picture for today. This has been a cold spring in MN, but NOTHING like what we have seen here around 12K years ago with a mile thick sheet of ice, so we ought to be VERY thankful for just a little lake ice!



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The Gray Lady Spells Benghazi

Official Offers Account From Libya of Benghazi Attack - NYTimes.com:

I include this because one can never be sure how quickly the MSM will find a way to suppress this story again.

I think back to the inverse stories;

1. Watergate, a 3rd rate burglary that killed nobody and the the ONLY issue with the president was the cover-up. The MSM was RAVENOUS and we still regularly hear about it today. 
2. Iran-Contra, a president arming freedom fighters in Nicaragua that proved to be eventually successful in gaining free elections, and much to the chagrin of Bianca Jagger, Jimmy Carter and the rest of the American left, removing their poster child for revolution, Daniel Ortega. 
3. Plamegate -- The special prosecutor investigation into "the leak" of the identity of a "covert" CIA agent who drove in from her suburban DC home to Langley every day, and whose husband wrote a column in the New Yorker, and had her name listed in "Who's Who".

These 3 were all highly serious, and as a regular NPR listener, I often got to hear Daniel Schorr intone of the horrific threat to the republic that all involved. 

Over the same set of years, we had Jimmy Carter negotiating with the Iranians holding hostages, promising them ANYTHING if they could come through on an "October Surprise" that would get him elected. (They released the hostages inauguration day, much to Carter and the MSMs distaste). 

Slick Willie with Whitewater -- much ado about "nothing", 4 personal friends of the Clinton's and a former Governor of AK in prison, **BUT** the Clintons were "completely innocent" in much the same way as Slick "never had sex with that woman" ... but no matter, our entire MSM was anxious to "Move On" from these "distractions". 

So we come to this point. An actual, now clearly proven case where a US President fabricated a cover story to prevent embarrassment close to an election. Four Americans lost their lives ... quite likely because moving assets to deal with the known threat could have jeopardized the narrative that "BO has Al Qaeda on the run because he killed Osama". The guy that produced the film that was used for the fictional cover for this is STILL IN JAIL! (how is that for "1st amendment") 

As we saw during the Clinton years, these witnesses need to be very careful. Accidents, suicidal tendencies, and just good old fashioned massive character assassination are all things that somehow "crop up" when  the "Clintonistas" are on the prowl. 

There is going to be round two in the US MSM and Democrat party to BURY THIS SUCKER ASAP, as they did last fall. "Politicize"? This is the party that politicizes the daily weather report and how many gallons you use to flush your toilet. They have already answered the "have they no shame" question so many times it is laughable to ask it. 

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Leaving America

U.S. citizens ditch passports in record numbers - The Term Sheet: Fortune's deals blogTerm Sheet:

While our leadership wrestles with a large new Democrat voter increase program  (amnesty) -- converting undocumented Democrats to the documented kind, apparently a number of people on the "payment" side of the ledger are leaving.

Buried in this are some numbers:

More than 39,000 Americans have come forward in recent years to declare their secret accounts to the I.R.S. in exchange for reduced fines and penalties, but officials suspect that is a fraction of the total number of people either deliberately hiding or unwittingly not reporting their foreign accounts. I.R.S. data for 2012 shows just over two million tax returns filed in 2012 by overseas Americans, compared with an estimated six million Americans living or working abroad. Only a fraction of Americans with foreign bank accounts are also filing required disclosures known as Fbars, according to federal data.

"Fbars", love the name!

So 1% of 300M is 3M ... the raw numbers being reported here are in the range to give some idea of just how big a deal the attempts to "soak the rich" can be relative to destroying the tax revenue stream, and how rapidly it happens. It's amazing how many options -- legal, nearly legal, very nearly impossible to trace, etc someone who is worth merely $10M or so has. Health, money, intelligence, talent -- all those things provide options. The tendency of the financially successful is to use those options effectively. How surprising.

This is one where I think BO can claim a lot more credit than in killing Osama:

Expatriations first picked up pace in 2010, when more than 1,530 Americans dumped their passports. Sparking that uptick, tax lawyers say, was a deal by UBS

 the Swiss bank giant, the year before to disclose more than 4,000 American client names to the I.R.S. and pay a record $780 million for selling offshore services that violated U.S. tax laws. Liberty is a concept that "liberals" have a hard time understanding. As in many left countries, no doubt the first reaction from the left here is primarily one of the "how can we prevent them from doing this, or at least make sure their assets are held here, make it more painful for them to move assets offshore,  renounce their citizenship, etc". It is by no accident that the way of the left quickly becomes the way of walls around the country and the gulag to prevent the productive from escaping. First hold their assets, then hold them!

Left vs right is control vs chaos -- and the founders recognized that the primary danger was control, so they did their best to found a center-right nation where government was strongly limited so hold the control impulse in check. We largely destroyed that over the 20th century, but like all reactions, it is a "catalyst" that kicks off the final phase.

Even the first election of BO was a gigantic sign that the control impulse was running wild and thwarting, or  showing the door to the brightest and best that we needed to get back on track, while at the same timporting the least capable to insure the political power of the of the takers. At this point it is obvious, and to a great degree irreversible, at least in the next few decades.

Tax what you want less of, subsidize what you want more of. It always works, and usually in the very short run.

I had heard that BO had considered applying for Amnesty assuming they can get it through, once he left office, but in consultation with Al Gore, he has decided that the tax rates here are too high!


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Elite Jedi Mind Tricks

Opinion: If Clarence Thomas isn't 'elite,' who is? - CNN.com:

When I read a column like this I'm always tempted to break the "never assert malice when stupidity will do".

So LZ doesn't understand that what Thomas was saying was "the LIBERAL elite and the LIBERAL MSM"???

He was talking about BO being POTUS, **NOT** about BO trying to become a member of the SCOTUS!!!!

Supreme Court Justicies are APPOINTED and CONFIRMED by the US Senate. The SCOTUS and the Senate for that matter were created by our founders to explicitly be non-democratic and "elitist" ... in those days, that was called "the aristocracy". The aristocracy are the people that have a lot to lose if the country goes down ... land, money, family name, status, reputation, etc.

The "common folk" don't have a lot to lose in comparison -- so they might vote for policies that are destructive to the nation but they BELIEVE would move their state from "bad" to "a tiny bit less bad". or maybe would just hurt some "rich folk" that they don't like anyway, even if it made everyone worse off. It would negatively effect the rich folk more. A win! At least with the OWS movement kind of logic.

So I'm giving LZ the benefit of the doubt here and saying that he simply doesn't understand that Thomas was talking about THE LIBERAL elite, which DOESN'T include Clarence, and DOESN'T include FOX news ... or a host of others. There are plenty of "elite" only in bank account, business athletic or other success, education, accomplishment, etc that the LIBERAL elite are NOT going to approve as being part of the RECOGNIZED LIBERAL ELITE brand, which is truly the only "elite" that actually counts for POLITICAL power in this country.

Fail to be in that group as Thomas, Rush, Palin, W and a host of others are, and you are effectively "nothing" as you are portrayed to the masses via the MSM news and entertainment. You are always "stupid" ... like Thomas, Palin and W, and usually "hypocritical, out of touch, uncaring" and a host of other negative adjectives.

 John McCain is one that works to be "in with the in elite", but has suffered the pain that comes when the time comes for the elite to actually choose -- as in McCain / BO. Sure, the elite loved high-fiveing John when he was kicking  the uncool W, but as soon as he was actually running for president, they abandoned him like the "in-girls" to the dowdy neighbor girl that a couple may have actually played with and been nice to over the summer. Everyone has known of this behavior in humans since at least Jr High -- so I'm giving LZ the benefit of thinking he missed Jr High, forgot ... or something.

Jedi Mind Tricks indeed.




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Warming to Wealth

Gore Is Romney-Rich With $200 Million After Bush Defeat - Bloomberg:

Good article covering Gore's rise to being worth something like $200M.

The left elite's firm view of vast wealth seems to be "if you say the right stuff, support the right causes, you are off the hook". Fail to do this -- as in "CEOs", "The Koch Bros", or even much smaller income people of the "wrong political, or even religious persuasion", and you must be demonized, maligned, and ideally either figuratively or actually if possible, roasted on the spit of public attack.

It all seems oh so French Revolution -- once the passions of the "99%" are ignited, will they spare the elite who lit the fuse? Maybe that is why DHS has 1.5B rounds of recently purchased hollow point and a bunch of military attack vehicles stationed around the country. 330M people, 5 rounds each. Sounds about right -- after the single digit millions that shoot back have been dispatched, they can pretty much just execute the rest.

I suppose that once you decide you are prune the tree of liberty from the roots, you just naturally develop some "Plan B, C, etc".

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America’s Five Make or Break Tests

The Big Five: America’s Make or Break Challenges | Via Meadia:

I respect Walter Russel Meade a great deal, it is a good article. I think it is much simpler than her presents it though. Here are his big 5:

1. Jobs
2. Services Crunch
3. Demographic Transition 
4. Coherence Crisis 
5. Virtue 

 I'd order them like this:

1. Return to God - Religion - Constitution, eg Transcendence. MEANING! What he calls #4, "coherency". He argues that "we can't go back", I argue we have been "going back" to pre-Reformation, even pre-Enlightenment thinking with "progressivism" which I call "regressivism". Read the seminal works of these people -- Rosseau, etc. They want to return to "the noble savage", "the perfect state of nature". We are regressing -- to a PC totalitarianism. To a forced paganism because the cultural connection with the sacred is prohibited. Our suicide rates are skyrocketing, our birth rates are declining. Man cannot create his own meaning and dies individually and as a culture without a meaningful life.  
   
2. Jobs, his #1  -- Which I would state as "Vocation". Somewhere around the '60s America lost the idea of craftsmanship and pride in work. Welfare and ADC were rolled out and the dignity of work was destroyed for the poor -- the hard working far from perfect husband that stuck at a low paying job and was honored for his contribution was replaced by the state, and both the family and the dignity of work suffered mightily. Unions and corporatism replaced craftsmanship, excellence and innovation with profits and salaries. With hedonism highly linked to consumerism declared to be the new "god", lucre became the both the totem and the sacrement of the tribe, and "work" became an evil. We don't need "high paying jobs", we need vocations which are respected independent of salary. We need a life vocation, because there is no such thing as a "living wage".
   
3. Virtue, his #4 -- I'd argue that if 1 and 2 happen, 3 will certainly show up at the same time, but what he says about it is valid. I may have complicated my #1 too much.
   
4. The Service Crunch, his #2 -- I'd claim that this is very much "vocation". We need to return "services" especially "government services" to being quality, efficient, respected SERVICE. Not very highly paid, benefitted, unionized and political contributing "positions". He missed education, I'd put it here -- it is one of the most critical of services, traditionally a "calling".
   
5. Demographic Transition -- I believe if we dealt with 1-4, this would be no issue. Were America still America -- "Under God, Indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all", where "justice" means level opportunity, not result, then young, old, hispanics, etc would all operate just fine. Without at least 1-3, #5 is likely the catalyst that implodes the remaining husk of what America once was.
   

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Moscow on the Potomac

When Will America Burst D.C.'s Bubble? | RealClearPolitics:

All I could think about as I read this is the similarity of the current BO Beltway to Moscow during the heyday of the USSR. SIX of the TEN WEALTHIEST counties are DC suburbs!! How is that for "public service"!!!!

This article seems to think that America will "burst the DC bubble". Really? How? When that much power gets connected with that much wealth, I can't imagine any way to return to republican rule of law outside of armed conflict!

In fact, six of the 10 wealthiest American counties are Washington suburbs.
Washington once was the manifest of power. Now you can add “center of wealth” to its portfolio, crystallizing the elite institutional disconnect between it and the rest of the country.

Read more: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/05/05/thriving_dcs_bubble_will_burst_118261.html#ixzz2SZ0rt8Ny Follow us: @RCP_Articles on Twitter

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Q-Blood Let 3 (QB3)

RealClearMarkets - Why Friday's Jobs Report Was Ominous:

If you read this blog regularly, you know a lot of this, but it is a good summary. For the REALLY quick summary:

1. Taking blood out of people makes them sicker 
2. Deficit spending just makes an economy sicker. 

The following conclusion of the article is entertaining, the article itself is somewhere between sobering, ominous and sepulchral. Three bloodlettings for the father of the country, 3 "easings" for the country?

It took about 2500 years and countless deaths (including that of George Washington) before doctors figured out that bleeding patients was actually harmful. One has to wonder how much real-world data it will take to convince the likes of Paul Krugman and Jared Bernstein that Keynesian (spending) stimulus just makes the economy worse. 

Oh, and by the way. The recent five-month decline in the FTE jobs ratio coincides exactly with Ben Bernanke's QE3. And yet, the "market monetarists" keep calling on the Fed to "do more". 

It is a historical fact that George Washington's doctors performed three rounds of bleeding on him before he died. We can only wonder if they referred to the last one as "QB3".

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