Category: Uncategorized

The Fraters Libertas leading the charge for subscribers to drop the Star and Sickle in my hometown. Good onya, gentlemen. Looking forward to congratulating them on their anti-paper drive – let’s expand the movement to include the ABCNNBCBS cabal. If you don’t read it/watch it, they can’t sell advertising.

In the words of the immortal Chuck D, SHUT ‘EM DOWN!

and I didn’t even hit him! You have to check these posts out, they’re hilarious! It’s amazing how fast they leap to the obvious conclusion: it’s the fascists!

Take the under….

Consumer prices – lifted by more expensive gasoline, airfares and clothing – rose by 0.5 percent in March, raising questions about whether the seeds of unwanted inflation are being sown.

Not that the CPI is the least bit accurate, but it’s interesting that despite every effort to hide inflation, it’s still running at a 6 percent annual rate. What’s also amusing to me is that when the monthly rate is low, the annual rate is reported. When it starts getting higher, the annualization mysteriously vanishes. It doesn’t make those money market rates look so good, now, does it.

John Derbyshire concludes, in his wisdom: Thus we are unwilling to take either the First Way or the Second, to play either the Angel of Vengeance or the Great White Father Over the Sea. There is nothing for it but to seek a Third Way. Will the Third Way work? Personally, I doubt it. Given what we are, though — what we have become — I don’t see that we have any choice.

It is profoundly stupid to knowingly continue down a path that won’t take you where you need to go, but it is intriguing to watch. I was always curious, when reading history, to know why intelligent men would do what, not only in hindsight but even at the time, were obviously stupid things. The answer is that they felt they had to, whether it was to save face, honor or political standing. Greatness requires surmounting at very least the latter, unfortunately neither George Bush nor John Kerry show the least little sign of being either interested or able to do so.

Many of the president’s defenders say: “he can’t do X because he’ll lose support.” Yes, because often doing the right thing means upsetting the idiots who have no idea what is going on. But you must do it, if it is the right thing. George Bush is trying to do the minimal thing, to fight a war on method that will somehow – he has no idea how – keep the enemy at arms length without destabilizing the economy or turning the conflict into full-scale war. I don’t think most people realize what a tightrope he is attempting to walk, nor how small his chances of success are.

Better to grasp the nettle and have done with it.

One of my favorite memories of being in a band, aside from the occasional Bacchanalia you’d imagine, was the evening we were visited by Wax Trax! Records. The VP of A&R, the owner and his boyfriend flew up to Minneapolis to check us out, speak with us and take us to dinner. Our music was a little on the light side for them, as Ministry and Thrill Kill had just left them for greener pastures and KMFDM was the main act they were pushing, along with a NIN wannabee called Sister Machine Gun. The first sign that things weren’t likely to be entirely synchronous between us was when we were sitting down at a nice Italian restaurant – an old favorite of mine called Pronto – and the lead singer started having a knowledgeable discussion about wine with the main keyboard programmer.

The owner looked at the VP and said: “geez, are we signing a band or a bunch of wine critics?” The best part, though, was when we heading back from the clubs later and we drove past the homosexuals gathered en masse outside the Gay 90’s, as was their wont at closing time. Fortunately, we were in two taxis, so only the VP was in the car with the drummer and I when our astoundingly clueless drummer said: “holy cow, look at all those faggots.”

The VP looked a little concerned, cleared his throat and said, “Mike, you should probably know that Jim and Danny are partners.” The drummer, who was quite young, perhaps 18, said “business partners?” The VP put his head in his hands and just about died laughing. Good times, good times.

Daniel Pipes writes: For Muslims, rule by non-Muslims is an abomination, a blasphemous inversion of God’s dispensation. This explains why one finds a consistently strong resistance to rule by non-Muslims through 14 centuries of Muslim history. Europeans recognized this resistance and in their post-crusades global expansion stayed largely away from majority-Muslim territories…. This history suggests that the coalition’s grand aspirations for Iraq will not succeed. However constructive its intentions to build democracy, the coalition cannot win the confidence of Muslim Iraq nor win acceptance as its overlord….. I therefore counsel the occupying forces quickly to leave Iraqi cities and then, when feasible, to leave Iraq as a whole.

In other words, the administration is not only ignoring sound military strategy, but the history of past occupations in the region as well. If the war on global jihad is not on – and from the President’s speech, it’s clear that he has no stomach for either declaring it or waging it – we must bring the troops home now.

From the London Telegraph: The New World has lost its superiority over the Old – at least in terms of physical stature – and John Komlos has the evidence to prove it. His records, including files on “runaway slaves”, “indentured servants” and “West Point graduates”, bear testament to the American decline. Prof Komlos’s research over more than 20 years has documented the heights of almost a quarter of a million people from the 1700s to today. The findings, he says, provide the most accurate gauge to date with which to measure the development of the human physique. “Americans have stopped growing while Europeans are increasing in height at quite a pace,” says Prof Komlos, 50, a leading “anthropometric historian” who studies such development.

Meanwhile, a study appearing in Pediatrics magazine states of children on Ritalin: “I don’t think this is necessarily a cause for great alarm in parents. The effect was rather modest, only about a centimeter less over a year.” Children on medication also grew slightly less than their non-medicated peers. Children on medication alone gained 4.85 centimeters, while those on combination therapy grew 4.25 centimeters. Kids receiving behavioral therapy grew an average of 6.19 centimeters, while a “control” group of children grew 5.68 centimeters.

I’m a pro-legalization libertarian. I have no intellectual problem with people deciding to spend their lives in search of the eternal buzz. That being said, ARE THESE PARENTS COMPLETELY FREAKING INSANE OR WHAT? You don’t inject your child with heroin, you don’t cut them a line or two before sending them off to school and you don’t have them popping speed like vitamins either! And anti-depressants? If your kid is depressed about school, then pull him out of the public schools, don’t turn him into a creepily smiling medi-zombie!

At least this puts the lie to the drug war. There’s absolutely no case for banning social pharmaceuticals when much stronger drugs are being prescribed by non-medical personnel to four year-olds. Maybe the realization they risk turning their children into physical midgets as well as mental ones might wake a few parents up, but I’m not optimistic.

From My Way News: Bush said the United States was demanding the arrest or capture of Muqtada al-Sadr, a radical Shiite cleric whose illegal militias have fought U.S. forces in southern Iraq. He said he had instructed the military to use decisive force if necessary to crush the insurgency. He compared insurgents taking hostages in Iraq to radical Islamic fanatics around the world, saying they are “serving the same ideology of murder” of those who blow up trains in Madrid, Spain, bomb buses in Israel – or inflicted the worst attack in American history.

“None of these acts is the work of a religion,” Bush said. “All are the work of a fanatical political ideology.” The legacy that our troops are going to leave behind is a legacy of lasting importance, as far as I’m concerned. It’s a legacy that really is based upon our deep belief that people want to be free and that free societies are peaceful societies.” “Some of the debate really centers around the fact that people don’t believe Iraq can be free; that if you’re Muslim, or perhaps brown-skinned, you can’t be self-governing or free. I’d strongly disagree with that,” the president said.

Color me unimpressed. Not only the expected stay-the-course speech, but he even managed to work in a suggestion that criticism is treasonous: “I think that analogy is false. I also happen to think that analogy sends the wrong message to our troops and sends the wrong message to the enemy.” Because, of course, the notion of a war by proxy fought against an external nation supplying an internal militia with men and munitions bears no similarity to Vietnam at all. After all, the one is in the desert, the other is in the jungle.

And what is that fanatical political ideology? Is it Communist? Is it Libertarian? Let’s see, their primary desire is to establish global Sharia. That sure sounds religious to me. Meanwhile, if a Christian shoots a doctor to stop abortion – a profoundly political goal – that’s an example of religious extremism. Furthermore, history ablsolutely suggests that Muslims cannot be self-governing or free. Indonesia and Turkey are the only two modern Islamic states. Both have committed terrible religious-based genocide, and Turkey’s constiution requires the military to act preemptively to prevent the major religious parties from taking control of the country. In Algeria, the first elections were canceled by the military when the jihadist one-vote one-time party was about to win.

Finally, I’ve heard numerous Republican commentators getting all over Clinton for wanting to capture or arrest bin Laden. I find it interesting that Bush is doing exactly the same thing with this Iranian puppet.

UPDATE: NRO manages to refrain from entirely sounding like Tiger Beat covering its favorite pop star in discussing the speech, but just barely. Unfortunately, Ramesh Ponnuru, who is normally one of the most reliably sane NROniks, writes: Like Vienam, except that we’ve captured Ho Chi Minh, we’ve taken Hanoi, there’s no draft, and the boat people have mostly come back.

This only goes to show that he missed the analogy. Let me make it simple. North Vietnam = Iran. South Vietnam = Iraq. Mahdi Militia = Viet Cong. Tehran = Hanoi. Baghdad = Saigon. Saudi Arabia = Soviet Union/China. And one might want to have a look at what Congress is up to before one speaks too soon on the absence of a future draft.

From Stateline.org:

State officials’ hackles are up over a new federal banking rule they say erodes consumer protections and favors the federal government in a turf war that’s been simmering for more than a century. A long list of opponents, including the National Governors Association, the National Conference of State Legislatures and the attorneys general and banking supervisors from all 50 states, is prepared to go to the mat to see the rule rescinded.

The new rule was issued in January by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the federal agency that charters, regulates, and supervises national banks. The rule allows national banks to ignore protective state banking laws related to false and deceptive advertising, predatory lending, customer privacy, general consumer credit issues and no-call lists. OCC representatives say they are simply clarifying power the federal government has had for 140 years. But opponents say the OCC has overstepped its bounds; they fear the rule is a bold attempt to shrink states’ role in passing and enforcing consumer-protection laws and a move by federal regulators to usurp state powers.

State officials now are pushing Congress to step in and re-assert states’ authority over all banks within their borders. The rule change means that of the nation’s approximately 9,000 banks, 2,000 institutions such as Bank of America, Citibank and Wachovia would not be subject to state regulation because they are nationally chartered. Seven of the country’s 10 largest banks hold national charters.

If you’re looking for the bad guys, you could do a lot worse than look where the money goes. And the federal government has had this power for 140 years? Let’s see, 2004-140 = 1864. That would be right around the end of Act I of the American Experiment.* I have a feeling that we might get the chance to see the end of Act II. The interesting question is this: will there even be an Act III.

* of course, everyone knows the war was about slavery. Not expanding federal power. Nope, not at all. No, don’t look at the power players… hey, look, Dred Scott!

Well, SKI sure nailed it this time. He forecast a likely 5 percent drop in USERX and the gold stocks by Tuesday’s close, and the HUI got hammered down 6.21 percent today alone. This triggers his triple-sell signal, which has some significant and worrisome implications.

He wrote yesterday: But if the triple sell pattern occurs, all I can say is that the prior three triple historical sells have yielded 60-90% declines in USERX over several years corresponding to disinflation or deflation. I find that hard to believe, but it has not happened yet (pending tomorrow).

Does this mean deflation? I find it hard to credit, as the central bank can easily go into hyperinflation mode any time it chooses, and has already indicated that it will. This supports the Elliott Wavers, who’ve been insisting on a deflationary scenario for the last eighteen months, and contradicts Hamilton’s RDMA bull notion, which has gold setting up for a buy soon at 1.02 – we’re at 1.04 now. Ackerman, too, called a big short-term decline, but he sees it turning around next week.

What are you seeing, Jamie?