Category: Uncategorized

Maxim or your lying eyes:

For the first time the US First Lady has made Maxim magazine’s annual top 100 list of “hottest women in the world,” with Michelle Obama making the grade at number 93.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, of course, but I tend to doubt that Michelle Obama would make the top 100 list of “hottest primates in the world” if she was the only human in the contest. I think it’s probably going a bit too far to describe her as King Kong’s baby sister, but let’s face it, if one were to choose an animal analogy for her features, “gorilla-like” would spring to mind a lot faster than “aquiline”, “doe-eyed”, “vulpine”, or even “porcine”. When people write rapturously about the supposed beauty of the Obamas, it only makes me wonder where they live. Do they dwell in some sort of dank cave or abandoned mine inhabited solely by orcs, trolls, and goblins?

If Maxim feels the need to kiss the posterior of a national leader’s wife, they’d do a lot better to begin with these two.

How would you like your Depression served?

Bilderberg is divided on whether to put into motion, “Either a prolonged, agonizing depression that dooms the world to decades of stagnation, decline and poverty … or an intense-but-shorter depression that paves the way for a new sustainable economic world order, with less sovereignty but more efficiency.”

The information takes on added weight when one considers the fact that Estulin’s previous economic forecasts, which were based on leaks from the same sources, have proven deadly accurate. Estulin correctly predicted the housing crash and the 2008 financial meltdown as a result of what his sources inside Bilderberg told him the elite were planning based on what was said at their 2006 meeting in Canada and the 2007 conference in Turkey. Details of the economic agenda were contained in a pre-meeting booklet being handed out to Bilderberg members. On a more specific note, Estulin warns that Bilderberg are fostering a false picture of economic recovery, suckering investors into ploughing their money back into the stock market again only to later unleash another massive downturn which will create “massive losses and searing financial pain in the months ahead,” according to a Canada Free Press report.

According to Estulin, Bilderberg is assuming that U.S. unemployment figures will reach around 14% by the end of the year, almost doubling the current official figure of 8.1 per cent.

I vote for short and intense, myself. It’s what the Austrians recommend, albeit without the new world order component. Obama and company are clearly pushing hard for prolonged and agonizing, though, with their mad Japanese scientist efforts to create zombie banks and corporations. But at least we’ve got an interesting prediction from Mr. Estulin regarding 14 percent official unemployment by December. That’s a bit less than I was expecting actually. I can’t say that predicting a push for enactment of the EU ConstitutionLisbon Treaty is exactly stunning, as it’s been obvious that the Irish would be forced to vote again since the day they voted no.

GM plans to use its $27 billion in loansbailouts to import Chinese cars:

On Wednesday, Shanghai Securities News and other Chinese media reported that GM plans to begin exporting vehicles from China to the U.S. within two years, ramping up sales to more than 50,000 by 2014.

Corporations are soulless whores. That’s not a criticism, it’s just an observation. So, it makes no sense whatsoever for the Federal government to hand them money, as their only interest is funneling as much of it as possible to their executives. The important thing is corporatism is NOT capitalism and propping up dying corporate giants is an expressly anticapitalist action that can only harm the economy.

Macroeconomists are capable of calculating what some of the harmful effects of a bankruptcy will be, but what they’re not capable of calculating is what the harmful effects of propping one up will be, or the opportunity cost involved in redirecting the resources required to do so away from where the market forces would otherwise guide them.

So concluded Spacebunny, rightly, in considering the proposed Parental Rights Amendment, the text of which runs thusly:

H.J. Res. 42 Parents’ Rights Constitutional Amendment as introduced by Rep. Pete Hoekstra (MI-02)

Section 1: The liberty of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children is a fundamental right.

Section 2: Neither the United States nor any state shall infringe upon this right without demonstrating that its governmental interest as applied to the person is of the highest order and not otherwise served.

Section 3: No treaty may be adopted nor shall any source of international law be employed to supersede, modify interpret, or apply to the rights guaranteed by this article.

I think Rep. Hoekstra’s heart is probably in the right place, but has he learned nothing from the abuses of the Interstate Commerce Clause? Trying to pass an amendment like this is nothing but a waste of time, as any time a federal or state agency felt like infringing upon parental rights, they would simply declare that its interest was “of the highest order”. Considering that the courts permitted the Federal government to use Interstate Commerce as an excuse to regulate marijuana grown in California and sold in California, it’s simply not intelligent to leave a loophole large enough to drive an infinite number of state and federal agents through.

As I have previously written, there is no ideology so self-defeating as the feminist ideology which underlies so-called “women’s rights”. Sweden is now putting into practice what I have long expected would be the logically dictated consequence of a right to abortion:

Sweden, which legalized abortion in 1938, has taken its abortion extremism one step further by legalizing “gender based” abortion which allows a mother to decide to abort her baby solely due to his or her sex.

Don’t be surprised when most of the lives being terminated by their mothers on the sole basis of their sex turn out to be female. Only the truly short-sighted could attempt to rationally defend women’s rights, which in addition to systematically lowering the wage rate and making it harder for women to bear and raise children, now expressly include the right to murder a child for the crime of being female.

The West can no longer pretend that its populace has not faced a choice between its secular values and its demographic survival over the last two generations. Its people have had the option of choosing societal survival or the slow and ongoing suicide of women’s rights and equalitarianism. To date, the evidence suggests that the greater part of the populace has opted for the latter. So, don’t be surprised when in the interest of the survival of Western society, the ability to choose between the two is taken away from at least a portion of the population. Indeed, significant progress towards a political structure capable of removing this option from the citizenry has already been made courtesy of the European Union.

Stratfor explains why Europe is struggling despite its limited exposure to U.S. subprime securities:

The euro’s adoption spread German-style, ultra-low interest rates to places like Finland and Spain, and the credit explosions that followed have been devastatingly powerful. Europe has found itself perfectly capable of getting embroiled in its own “subprime” messes, which in places like the United Kingdom, Ireland and Spain are much worse than anything seen in California. Every loan that was unwisely taken by a Central European was unwisely granted by a Western European, with Austrians and Swedes the worst offenders.

As usual, and as per the Austrians, excessively low interest rates were the primary culprit in bringing about the crisis. It’s nothing more complicated than the Iron Law of Supply and Demand applied to money. And, needless to say, making money cheaper and more ubiquitous isn’t going to solve a problem that was caused by making money less expensive in the first place.

I am discussing the question with Dr. Katherine Albrecht on her show at 5 PM Eastern. To listen, do the following:

(1) Go to GCN Live
(2) Click: “Listen Live” in the upper right
(3) Go to “Channel 2”

Call-in Numbers: (800) 259-9231 (651) 695-7777

On an unrelated note, I’m now ready to take the names of anyone who is interested in proof-reading chapters for my forthcoming book. I’d prefer it if only those reasonably conversant with economic theory would contact me, as what I’m looking for is readers capable of identifing any mistakes or explanatory gaps in the text. Later, I’ll want a few economic neophytes to read through it in order to ascertain if the book is sufficiently intelligible, but we’re not there yet. So, if you know the difference between marginal utility and a margin call and you are interested in offering constructive criticism, please shoot me an email.

Perhaps those who believe I do not understand science could inform me which of these textbook definitions – helpfully provided by NS – is the correct one. Because after reading all of these competing definitions, I have to admit, maybe I don’t understand it. It’s rather strange, isn’t it, that the very method science fetishists inform us is the only means of precisely determining the truth should be so… nebulous. It’s no wonder biologists are so hopelessly imprecise about everything, considering their textbooks.*

Living Enviroment by Ratzh and Colvert: Scientific inquiry includes questions, observations and inference, experimentation, collecting and organizing data, repeating experiments, and peer review.

Biology, The Study of Life by Sachraer and Stolzte: The scientific method consists of defining the problem, formulating a hypothesis, testing the hypothesis, observing and measuring, analyzing and drawing conclusions, and reporting observations.

Biology” by Mills and Levine: Science involves evidence based on observation, interpreting the evidence, and explaining the evidence. Scientists work by studying the evidence, forming a hypothesis, setting up a controlled experiment, recoding and analyzing the results, drawing conclusions, publishing and repeating the investigation. If a controlled experiment isn’t possible, then they substitute field work.

Evironmental Science by Karen Arms: There is more then one scientific method. These can include observing, hypothesizing and predicting, experimenting, organizing and interpreting information, using graphs, sharing information, and communicating results. [I hope it’s this one… I totally drew a graph yesterday! – VD]

Modern Earth Science by Sager, Rancey, Phillips and Watenpaugh: Scientific methods include stating the problem, gathering information, forming a hypothesis, testing the hypothesis by experiment, and stating a conclusion.

Earth Science by Spaulding and Namowitz: Scientific thinking includes observations, gathering evidence, formulating a hypothesis, skeptical questioning, analyzing what is known, and using math and technology. The scientific methods of inquiry involve collecting data, analyzing the data, testing the hypothesis, and peer review in scientific journals.

Holt Science and Technology: Earth Science: Scientific methods do not have a set procedure, but they can include some or all of the following, asking a question, forming a hypothesis, testing by controlled experiment, making observations, keeping records, analyzing results, drawing conclusions, and communicating results.

Nature Physics by David Goodstein: Science is whatever scientists do.

*In fairness, after reading the original 1948 text of Paul Samuelson’s seminal Economics, it’s not hard to discern why the nation is over its ears in debt. Because, you see, for sixty years, economists have been taught that debt doesn’t count so long as it’s INTERNAL.

I’d heard that there were factors compromising the temperature data before, but I had no idea that it was this badly compromised:

During the past few years I recruited a team of more than 650 volunteers to visually inspect and photographically document more than 860 of these temperature stations. We were shocked by what we found. We found stations located next to the exhaust fans of air conditioning units, surrounded by asphalt parking lots and roads, on blistering-hot rooftops, and near sidewalks and buildings that absorb and radiate heat. We found 68 stations located at wastewater treatment plants, where the process of waste digestion causes temperatures to be higher than in surrounding areas.

In fact, we found that 89 percent of the stations – nearly 9 of every 10 – fail to meet the National Weather Service’s own siting requirements that stations must be 30 meters (about 100 feet) or more away from an artificial heating or radiating/reflecting heat source. In other words, 9 of every 10 stations are likely reporting higher or rising temperatures because they are badly sited.

It will be interesting to see how the AGW/CC cult attempts to discredit this information. Most likely, they’ll just ignore it, as they’ve ignored the climate science, and keep shrieking their mantra in an attempt to browbeat the ignorant. Because these days, “science” appears to be as much media propaganda as anything that even remotely resembles scientody.

This makes me wonder that if temperatures are falling despite these heat-biased factors, is it possible that excessive cooling might be in the cards?